Chapter 133: Interlude XXVIII – Null Reference

In Artem’s dream, the lab is being visited by some big names. It’s not quite clear who—Lance maybe, Professor Oak and Elm, probably, maybe even Wally? He’s rushing around, trying to get everything in order for their arrival, helping the rest of the team prepare to show off their research breakthrough… he’s not quite clear what the breakthrough is, but feels pretty strongly like it’s going to change everything—

—until the dream is shattered by the sound of his phone ringing. Not an alarm, not a message notification, but full-on ringing, and his immediate reaction, once he gets past the befuddlement of finding himself in bed rather than at the lab, is sleepy indignation…

…up until the implications catch up to his foggy brain and he scrambles to pull the phone toward him and open the call. “Hullo?” He clears his throat. “Hel—”

“Check your messages.”

Artem blinks. “Lian?”

“Check them. And, sorry, Tai asked me to poke everyone who’s not in yet.”

The call ends before Artem can respond, and he sits up fully as he rubs his eyes with one hand and swipes at his phone with the other until he sees it:

[everyone] Novel unown activity. Report in ASAP.

He stares at the message, then the time, then the message again, then pushes himself out of bed and lurches toward his closet, alarm and fear shifting closer to nervous excitement.

Novel activity. As in something that’s never been seen before… ever, or just at their lab?

New patterns in the unown clouds? New sounds that haven’t been recorded before?

Or pokegenesis, at long last, from one of the lab’s samples?

The sooner he gets to the lab the sooner he’ll know, and he tries to keep his expectations low as he pulls his coat on. They’d mention in the message if there were a new pokemon, surely…?

His stomach feels full of fizzy water as he rushes out the door, distantly wondering if he’s still dreaming, deposited from the middle of the events back to the beginning of a new loop. He’s been having dreams about some major breakthrough on and off for months, from even before he started working at the unown lab. Like his brain got a taste for notoriety at some point, and was looking forward to the next hit.

Not that it’s a mystery about what that point was. When his research took him to Lavender Town, meeting the Pallet Trio had felt surreal enough. Their fame was still relatively mild at the time, but he’d felt vaguely dissatisfied with his trainer journey that only grew in contrast to seeing from a distance what they’d accomplished during theirs.

That dissatisfaction, along with his desire to tackle bigger mysteries than the work that got him his researcher license, is what gave him the extra push upon seeing the message about investigating Lavender Tower to bid his journeymates a temporary goodbye and taxi halfway across Kanto to meet them.

It wasn’t until the battle in the tower, a far more dangerous and unique experience than anything else in his life until that point, that he realized how much that impulse that got him to Lavender, that dissatisfaction, had been looking for more than just some big achievement to list on his profiles and CV. Not the battle itself; that had been terrifying, and he’d barely kept his composure together afterward. It took two weeks before he wasn’t having nightmares every evening, and he gave up on his trainer journey altogether to focus on more research for a while.

But it all felt worth it, after, because he’d found what he really wanted all along as a result. Getting to meet Professor Oak, pursuing unown research with Red, getting increased attention and opportunities after his observational studies, that was all icing on the cake.

What made life feel more, well, alive after, was the memory of brushing up against something truly unknown. He’d been part of first contact with it, had helped defend against it and contributed to understanding it. It made him feel simultaneously like the world was too big for him to ever fully grasp, but also more empowered than ever to actually get up in the morning and try.

Everything he’s done since has been in pursuit of someday getting a text like he did this morning. Another moment where he’ll get to stand on the cusp of the truly unknown.

Or, once he’s outside and has a clear path toward the lab, get to bike toward it, practically standing as he pedals hard and fast.

Winter has finally come to Cinnabar, encroaching little by little through the early morning hours until a few snowflakes are melting in Artem’s hair as he finally steps through the lab doors, breathing in deep gulps. He lets out a grateful sigh as he feels the insulated warmth seeping through his jacket, shows his ID to the guards, then hurries for the lockers to swap his jacket for a lab coat, looking around all the while for any clues as to what’s happened. He lives close to the lab, it wouldn’t surprise him if he’s one of the few here who wasn’t already on shift…

“Nuri!” he calls out as he spots his coworker hurrying from one room to another. “What’s going on?”

“Have you seen them?”

“No, just walked in twenty seconds ago—”

“Go look, you’ll see!”

Then he’s gone, and Artem jogs the rest of the way to the central unown chamber where all the samples are laid out in their various biomes, heart pounding as he finally steps through the final soundproof doors to the central chamber, and is immersed in the sound of the cloud.

The first thing he registers is that the sound is off. The chaotic blend is usually so diverse and numerous that it’s almost impossible to pick out any particular noises in the static of the combined sounds, but now he almost immediately picks out distinct warbles, pops, clicks, murmurs…

He looks up at the dome above the terrariums, half expecting to see most of the unown cloud gone. Instead it looks as numerous as ever, but… almost organized? The diffuse cloud is no longer bouncing off each other on the individual level, but rather moving in strings and cluster, some moving in almost-patterns that his brain seems to insist it can predict until a minor change keeps the next iteration from being predictable.

Artem tries to focus his attention on a small subpart of the cloud, watching as an H, T, M, A, and Z fly in a curving orbit around an almost-diamond-shaped cluster of Hs and Ls, some of the Hs swapping between both as they pass each other. This continues for a few revolutions, the string altering its trajectory each time, the diamond rotating in new directions until a passing R, U, W, P, E, R string collides with it, and the whole triple assembly of unown disperse and reform into new shapes and strings.

And everywhere he looks, it’s similar. Order among the chaos, or chaos among order, but nothing like the cloud of the past few months, or any other large scale gathering of unown he’s seen.

Artem isn’t sure if he stares for just a few seconds or several minutes before he takes note of the various researchers rushing around, both on the walkway and below. Excitement pumps new adrenaline through him as he realizes some of the terrariums are broken, and he grabs Zhen’s arm as she rushes past. “Which ones?”

“Omanyte, kabuto, aerodactyl.”

Three! No new species, but it’s still more than he dared hope. “Aerodactyl? Did it cause the damage?”

“Most of it, also ate some of the unown cloud before it got caught. We’re still trying to catalog which ones we’ve lost.” Zhen gives him a pointed look.

“Right.” He releases her arm. “I’ll get on it, just gotta… this is huge!”

Zhen grins and winks before rushing away. Artem watches the cloud for another few moments, then jogs toward his office, breaking into a run when he reaches the long hall. He’s hoping he can identify what they lost from the cloud quickly so he can start looking over the logs and recordings of what happened around the genesis points. Or was there just the one…?

Two minutes to pull up the list of active tags in the building and double check which are still active, two more to write up a quick report to share on the lab’s intranet, and then he can finally open the logs and start reviewing the sensor data on one monitor while the raw video feeds plays at 5x speed on the other. He’s distantly aware of his phone ringing as his eyes dart from electromagnetic sensors to decibel ratings, and reaches for it without looking as he skips the footage ahead to match the time of a spike coming up—

He glances at the screen even as his thumb prepares to end the call—if it’s not someone from the lab it’s probably not important enough to answer right now—until he sees that it’s from Red.

They haven’t spoken in over a week. To get a call now, this early in the morning?

Not a coincidence.

He puts it on speaker so he can set the phone down and keep working. “Red, what—”

“Are you at the lab?”

A thrill runs up his spine as his suspicion is confirmed. “What’s happened?”

“Are you?”

“Yeah, I’m in my office—”

“One sec.”

The call ends, leaving Artem staring at the phone. It takes him just a moment to realize what’s about to happen, and he stands and looks around, tense and waiting…

…and waiting…

…until he realizes Red has never been to his office before, and relaxes, just in time to hear a knock at his door.

He strides over to open it, and there’s Red Verres, dressed in his black and red hunter uniform, complete with the abra-backpack combo and that (kinda scary, kinda cool) high tech helmet with the dark visor. “Red, what—”

“The unown did something?”

Artem is still staring, brain still trying to integrate all the things his friend’s call and arrival might mean with what’s happened today. “They revived some fossils, and if you passed by the central chamber you’d see, they’re incredibly active, we’ve never seen anything like—”

“Listen, who’s in charge of the lab? Are they here?”

It finally registers that Red being here likely means something is wrong, wrong in the way their trip to Lavender went wrong, and cold fear floods Artem’s stomach. “How bad is this?”

He can’t see his friend’s face through the helmet, but his voice sounds hard as he says, “Worse than you’re thinking. I need to talk to your director as soon as possible. Can you help?”

Much of Artem’s status has been well earned, not just from his participation at Lavender but for his research as well. But he got an additional, sizable share secondhand, just from being Red’s friend before he became… well, there isn’t really a label for it, but “one of the most famous young trainers in the world” is fair to say.

He never really felt the price of that, other than a few questions and comments that compelled him to defend Red from the suspicions of others. A favor now and then, asked for or not, assuaged his conscience. Pushing himself to help with extra wild battles now and then did too; Lavender was, among other things, a strong reminder not to let his trainer skills suffer for his research.

But it feels like he suspected, in a half-conscious way, that the true price would come due sooner or later, because he barely registers the question, doesn’t even consider the potential implications or fallout, before he says, “Follow me.”

Back to jogging through the hallway, this time to the director’s office. Dr. Tai is an older man, lean and as bald as Leader Blaine but with a gray beard lining his jaw instead of a mustache. Artem is half expecting him not to be in his office, but he can hear people talking inside, and when he knocks there’s a pause, followed by a “Come in.”

Artem steps inside to see his boss standing in front of one of the wall monitors. There’s no one else in the room, meaning they just interrupted a call. “Artem, what’s the ma—” He blinks and stares at Red. “Are you…?”

“Red Verres. I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but there’s no time for a full introduction; there’s been an incident at an unown lab, and I want to make sure it doesn’t happen here too. What’s the process for releasing the unown, and how long would it take to do it in an emergency?”

Tai stares at Red incredulously, which Artem only gets a glimpse of because he turns to do the same. Release the unown? “What happ—”

“Release them? Now? Do you have any idea what just—”

“I’ve been informed,” Red says, sounding calm in a way that feels at odds with how urgently he arrived here. “I didn’t know before I arrived, but I suspected, it’s why I’m here.”

“What happened at the other lab—” Artem starts to ask again, before his boss cuts him off with “It took us months just to—”

Red holds his hands up toward both of them. “Guys. I’m here because I can teleport anywhere I want, including directly indoors, but Agatha should already be in Cinnabar and is likely arriving soon, and I can have Director Tsunemori on the phone if you’d rather talk to her. Please treat this as seriously as if they were all already here in the room, and tell me how long?”

He didn’t raise his voice, but there’s a steel in the words that helps Artem feel, for the first time, the true weight of authority his young friend now has. Authority enough to teleport right through the lab’s security, walk into the director’s office, and demand compliance… maybe even get it, if it’s an important enough reason.

A flare of indignation rises up as Artem thinks of what this might mean. It was bad enough when the Champion forbade any unown research months ago, after all the effort he and everyone else put into trying to learn more about them. Labs like these were carefully designed compromises, attempts to show that they could be researched with safety in mind. To just give up on the research, now, when they’re so close?

The director is squeezing the edge of his desk, knuckles turning white… but he seems about equal parts worried as indignant, now. “Is Elite Agatha visiting in an official capacity?”

“Yes.”

“Red, how bad was it at the other lab?” Artem asks, finally getting the question out.

“We have word of multiple casualties.”

The words douse Artem’s frustration as his thoughts turn anxiously to friends and acquaintances at the other unown labs. Neither he nor Tai have an immediate response, other than to ask, “Which one?”

“Rustboro.” Red reaches up to remove his helmet before holding it under one arm. Without it he looks, well, less intimidating, and his age is contrasted even more with Dr. Tai’s… but the determination in his eyes wasn’t visible with the dark glass over his face, and seeing how calm he is despite his words lends even more authority to him. “I know how frustrating this must be, but I’m not here as your enemy. I would be on my way to Hoenn if not for the fact that I might start an interregional incident if I go and investigate it directly. But I believe that whatever you’ve had happen here is connected, and the start of something dangerous.”

The relief in hearing it happened in Hoenn is shallow. He never met anyone there in person, but there are forums and other online spaces where unown researchers have all chatted, now and then, both formally and informally… “And our lab has Indigo’s largest wild unown population,” Artem says, feeling the fear prickle through his stomach again, cold araquanid legs that skitter around and make his heart beat faster.

The director’s jaw works, lips twisted to one side. “With all due respect, it sounds as though you have a hunch, not evidence of danger. A lot of time and money has been poured into this research, and I’ve only been empowered to make a call such as you’re suggesting due to an imminent and obvious threat, which we’re nowhere near to seeing. Maybe the other lab wasn’t properly prepared, but so far we have been.”

“I’ll admit that I don’t know what happened here, so it would be stupid of me to make presumptions,” Red says after a moment. “But my assumption is any safety measures you have are not going to scale properly. Maybe I’m wrong, though. Can you explain what happened?”

“We’ve only just begun investigating it ourselves, but the overview is that a few hours ago the unown began to shift their behavior. Most began flying in formations instead of staying an endlessly shifting cloud, and their sounds changed as well.”

“According to our instruments, some of the sub clouds or strings began canceling each other out, audibly,” Artem adds. Both Tai and Red are looking at him in fascination, and he smiles. “It’s really cool, actually.”

Red briefly smiles back. “And then they started reviving pokemon?”

“No, not for a few hours yet. I was in the middle of looking into what was happening around then when you arrived, but a few others are also looking over the data. Maybe one of them will pinpoint what it was.”

“Sorry.”

Artem thought he kept the disappointment from his expression and tone, but, well, Red’s a psychic. His sincerity at pulling Artem away from something so interesting reminds him why they’re friends. “That’s alright. This is important too.”

“Once the pokemon began appearing, our automated systems took care of them,” Tai says. “State of the art proximity tracking and capture systems—”

“Yes, I’m familiar with them.”

The director spreads his hands. “You mentioned scaling, but we’re equipped for every specimen in the central chamber to be captured even if all are turned into a pokemon at the same time, let alone in waves. I’m not sure what else would be expected of us.”

“Stop me if this is obvious,” Red says slowly. “But you know the unown might turn anything into pokemon, if they’re the ones doing it at all. What makes you think they won’t turn other things into one, besides the samples we’ve left so carefully for them? What if they turn the autocatchers into pokemon? Who catches them then?”

“We have trainers on staff and on standby every day as redundancy backup, despite the extra costs,” Tai says, and rubs his eyes. “We’ve had a recorded, controlled instance of pokegenesis. You were a scientist, once, you must know how vital it is to continue observing and testing our hypotheses.”

At the words you were a scientist, Artem winced at the same time Red’s jaw clenched, and he steps forward. “Sir, I’ve worked with Red on numerous occasions, and I’ve rarely met anyone as interested in discovering the origin of pokemon genesis, or learning new things about the world in general. But if he’s this worried… Rustboro lab was funded by Devon. They must have thought they were prepared too.”

“I understand the risk, but as I said, risk was anticipated. My authority only allows the drastic, costly action being suggested with something substantial.”

“I see.” Red closes his eyes and runs a hand through his hair. “You have no idea how much I’d love to just spend the next few days here helping learn whatever we can from what happened. But the unown can be recaptured if need be, and your staff are more important. Is there anything you can do?”

Tai taps his fingers against the desk in a rapid beat, three, four, five times, then shakes his head, but says, “I’ll alert everyone of the danger. Rescind the all-hands, make sure they know work shifts today are voluntary, for those willing to take on extra risk. But I won’t release the unown without a more obvious sign of danger, or a direct order from the League. If the Elite is coming to give that order, then we’ll do as much research as we can in that time.”

Artem thinks Red is going to argue more, but after a moment he just nods and says, “I’ll be investigating in the meanwhile.” He holds a hand up again as Tai opens his mouth. “I understand you’re concerned about trade secrets and publishing priority, but I swear to you I will keep anything I learn in this role confined to it.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Red pauses a beat before saying, voice a little stiff, “I can cite Article 7 and call Director Tsunemori if my word isn’t good enough.”

Director Tai is already flapping his hand and turning back toward the monitors on the wall. “Go, go. Please tell the Elite that I’m at her service when she arrives.”

Red nods and turns to leave, and Artem follows him. Once they’re a few steps away, he murmurs, “You kept your temper better than I would have.”

His friend glances at him, then… relaxes isn’t really the right word, it’s like his expression and posture collapse into a completely different form. One with about half as much “chill,” judging by the mix of anxious energy in his gait and how wide his eyes are. “Artem I have a really bad feeling about all this but I can’t explain it and I know it’s a shitty thing to do but I need your help—”

“Woah, hey.” He’s never really been the huggy type, but he puts a hand on Red’s shoulder because it definitely seems like the young teen could use it. Artem’s fear was starting to fade, before, but it’s back now in full. He looks around, then steers Red into a nearby storage room. “You saved a lot of lives in Lavender, including mine. I’m a bit anxious about the lab losing its cloud, especially now of all times, but I trust you. What do you need?”

“I’m not sure.” Red takes a breath, eyes closed as he rests the back of his head against the door. “I was hoping we could just release the unown first and figure things out later. But I get why your boss doesn’t want to do that, and I don’t actually have a good, legible reason for it, so… I think the best way to figure out what’s happening, if something is, is to merge with the cloud.”

Artem isn’t sure what to say, but Red must have read something in his expression when he opens his eyes because he quickly adds, “Not all of it! But if it’s possible to section some of them off…”

“Red, isn’t that the thing that may have driven that guy, Rowan, uh, crazy?”

“We’re not sure, but… listen, when I heard about what happened in Hoenn, I really wanted to go and see myself because I think… for some reason I believe it’s connected to Rowan, directly or not. Coming here, where I’m allowed, was the compromise. If I can find something more tangible that can justify Interpol sending me, or me going independently to Hoenn, then I have to try.”

The sense of surreality washes over him again as he realizes what the stakes are, here. Just like in Lavender, he feels swept up in something bigger than himself, something that he can either contribute to or step aside from, but not take lead on, not play the pivotal role.

But maybe still a deciding one. Red’s other friends aren’t here this time to help him this time, and while Elite Agatha may take point on the psychic stuff when she arrives the way Jason did at Lavender, there’s no one else to assist with the lab side of things.

“So long as we’re not releasing them, I should be able to isolate a few. Maybe a whole string if they’ll stay together?”

Some of Red’s rigidity seems to ease, though whether it’s because the suggestion is that good or because it’s a sign of some support, Artem can’t tell. “That would help a lot. Thank you.”

“Alright, come on. I’ll take you to one of the containment rooms, then let someone know to try and herd a few your way.”

“Not yet, I should wait for Agatha. In the meantime, I’m going to talk with your security guards and see if they’ll consent to being checked for signs of memory tampering. Can you get someone to herd them there first?”

“On it.”

They part ways, and as Artem walks his mind keeps turning to what Red said about being here because of what happened in Hoenn. If there’s a connection between that lab and this one, there’s reason to think this, or something, might be happening at the other labs too.

If so, there might be more he can do to help. He’s not sure if he should, but Red thinks this is important, and needs information… and Artem’s own curiosity wants answers too.

He starts sending messages as he walks, a simple Good morning to an older colleague, a hey, you up? to a friend. Six in all, to the people he’d consider closest and most trustworthy among his acquaintances and friends in other unown labs.

Simple messages, ones that wouldn’t mean much to him if he received them on any other early morning. Ones that he would probably ignore, if he was sleeping when he got them, since none are expressing any alarm or sign of danger.

But on a morning like this?

It only takes a few minutes before a response comes back, and it doesn’t beat around the bush:

hey. you guys too huh

Artem’s pulse kicks back into high gear, and he takes a few breaths to think of how he should respond. He can’t reveal lab secrets, particularly not to competitors… but he’s pretty sure he can keep the conversation such that a lawyer looking over the texts wouldn’t be able to find any obvious signs of revealing private information.

Exciting stuff, he replies. But also a bit freaked.

He reaches the control room and lets them know about Red’s request, and that the director has signaled cooperation for now. By the time he’s done, there’s another response:

freaky yeah. expected a one-off if something happened but doesn’t seem to be

Feels like something else is coming?

yep

Artem nods to himself and watches as a string of unown gets herded, with some difficulty, into a separate room. Before he can think of a response, a new message arrives from another person he texted: I’m up, yeah. Everything okay?

He considers a moment, then sends an emoji of a person looking dazed and overwhelmed. The response is almost immediate: a sweating laughing face, followed by a hug. Artem sends a hug back, then goes to look for Red to let him know about the “confirmation.”

When he finds him, he’s talking to one of the security guards, and he’s not alone. Artem recognizes the tall hunter with shades from the day Red, Leaf, and Blue came to see the lab and drop off their fossils.

“—reckless to not have someone else to do it.”

“If Agatha agrees, I’ll step aside, but I think I’m better equipped than anyone else to not be affected by it.”

“Even if that’s true, and if anything I’d say you’re at a higher risk, a ten percent risk to you has a much worse outcome than a thirty percent risk to someone else.”

Red shakes his head. “That’s your priority, and I get it, but if—hey, Artem. All set?”

“Yeah, ready when you are. Also, thought you should know…” He glances at Red’s guard, who stares impassively back from behind his shades, then returns his gaze to Red. “Plausible confirmation, from private chats, that at least two other Kanto labs have odd activity happening.”

“Shit,” Red mutters. “Shit. Okay, I need to figure this out then head to them next, or find a way to send someone else… they’re okay at those places, so far?”

“Yeah, though… I sent six messages out, no response from four of them. All at different labs, last I knew.”

Red is rubbing his face, and for a moment Artem feels bad about bringing it up, about burdening Red with extra issues he may not be able to do anything about. But after a moment Red just sighs and nods, then pulls his helmet on. “Poke them again in a few minutes, then send their names and what labs they’re at to me or Jensen and we’ll get people over there to check. Thanks, Artem.”

“No problem.” He holds his phone up and raises a brow at Jensen, who does indeed pull his phone out for a tap, looking fairly neutral about everything as he scans their surroundings, despite what he said. “Did our security agree to being examined?”

“No. Not unless it’s mandated, which goes back to convincing police of one kind or another.” Red sounds frustrated, and starts to pace, pulling out his notebook and scribbling some things down. “It’s fine, it’s a long shot anyway, but it leaves an uncrossed checklist that keeps us from being able to systematically determine we haven’t missed anything.”

The hunter puts two fingers to his ear, then says, “The Elite has arrived.”

It doesn’t take long for her to get through security, and they hear her cane clacking on the tiles before they see her. Soon the thin, gray haired woman is stumping over to Red and shaking her head. “You’re going to insist on doing this yourself?”

“It’s safer,” Red says. “I can’t help you the same way you helped me in Lavender, and I think I’ve got more defensive ability, with the partitions. Unless I’m wrong about that?”

“Hmph. No. But they may be counting on you doing this.”

“They?”

“Them. Whatever is behind the unown. Maybe even Rocket, somehow.”

Red smiles. “You sound nearly as paranoid as Looker.”

“Nearly? Ha! Must be my age tempering me with all this offsetting wisdom.” She smiles as she looks over the others for the first time, and takes a second look at Artem before nodding her head. “I remember you, though names escape me often these days. Doing well?”

“Artem, and yes, very.” He bows. “It’s good to see you again, Elite.”

“Too early in the morning to be seen, truth be told, but my beauty is behind me and duty is duty. Shall we?”

“I’m going to wait at the area where the unown have been prepared for me,” Red says. “You should talk to the director before you join me, then we’ll begin?”

“I still object strongly to this,” the hunter bodyguard says.

Elite Agatha reaches out to pat his arm as she passes. “He’ll be safe with me, don’t you worry. Show me the way so we can get down to it. I’ll admit to being curious, even if this all turns into an unholy mess.”

Artem quickly walks ahead of her to lead her to Dr. Tai’s office. Once she arrives, she walks in without waiting for announcement, and he and Red glance at each other. Red shrugs, and Artem smiles and leads the way to the holding chamber beside the main floor of the central hub, where a handful of unown were herded.

Word has clearly gotten around about what’s happening, both from people having spotted Red and from the Director’s message about the danger they may be facing. On any other day they’d probably have a small crowd following them around, but everyone’s so busy that by the time Red is ready to go into the room, there are only a few others who seem happy to take a short break to surreptitiously gawk.

If Red notices, he doesn’t comment, simply flashing Artem a smile before saying, “I’ll wait inside with Jensen. Send Agatha my way when you’re done?”

“Sure.” Part of him is disappointed he won’t be inside with them, but maybe he can join when Agatha does… “I’ll poke the other labs meanwhile.”

“Thanks, Artem.”

He nods, then closes the door behind the two…

…and within moments, all the unown in the lab stop moving or emitting sounds, suspended in midair like bugs in a massive invisible web.

Artem slowly looks around, blinking as a pit of dread forms just below his heart. He reaches back slowly to open the door, let Red know what’s happened…

…but a moment later the unown cloud is moving again, and Artem’s hands dart for his pokebelt by instinct despite knowing the unown aren’t violent.

He summons his magneton just as a cluster of spheres appear around a string of unown, whirling and shooting out in rings that smash and burn and freeze and and scorch everything around them indiscriminately.

Within moments the screams of people, panicked or hurt, fill the air to contend with the resumed sounds of the unown cloud, the chaotic mix once again sounding off from what he’s used to in a whole new way. “Thunderbolt!” he yells, and a handful of unown are zapped to the ground, which seems to break the paralysis for others who have summoned their pokemon to also start attacking.

About a dozen unown fall within moments. But a few are getting back up already, and their cloud has nearly a hundred. If they start attacking in concert instead of seemingly at random, they don’t stand a chance.

Artem hasn’t had much time to be afraid just yet, still running on instincts and adrenaline as he yells, “Protect Red!” and runs for the control room. He passes by rows of terrarium, all thankfully still but many damaged in a variety of ways. A cluster of unown swoop down toward him at the same time an omanyte pulls itself up out of the destroyed remains of a terrarium, and he yells “Thunderbolt” until everything coming at them stays down.

It works somewhat, though more of those spheres hit his pokemon and the habitats around him, destroying glass and cardboard and even some fossils. Artem rushes past the destruction and toward a communal work desk set between inner and outer rings…

Wait, no. The desk and chairs are gone.

In their place is—

—he flinches, whole body drawing back in response to the spike of wrongness that hits his brain. He looks away, tries to shake the image out of his memory, and realizes after a moment how nonsensical that is. But it feels like a bit of the image is stuck in his eye, like a floater across his vision, and panic starts to claw at his chest and throat as he keeps backing away, rubbing at his eyes…

Calm.

It floods through him like potion against a burn, washing away the fear and replacing it with clear thinking. There’s confusion, and a distant sort of alarmed awareness that something is wrong, but he can prioritize his thoughts.

He opens his eyes, keeping them pointed down as he backs away from whatever-the-thing-was. There’s a sound like a high pressure stream of water hitting metal, and his magneton is sent spinning into his field of vision, causing him to skip a few more steps back, half-turned to make sure he doesn’t trip over anything. “Thunderbolt!” he yells, and hopes his pokemon will attack the right thing.

Artem knows the calm isn’t normal, but it’s helping, so he ignores it for now. He has to prioritize the thing in front of him, has to find a way to deal with it, but he doesn’t know what it is…

So start with what it’s not. It’s not any pokemon he’s ever heard of before. Artificial pokemon like the ones he favors have some sort of structure to the way they’re built. This thing looked a mashed together bunch of objects in a sim, clipping through each other and exposing bits that shouldn’t be visible, normally.

Another stream of water hits his pokemon, and a part of him is wondering how is that thing a Water Type but the rest of his thoughts are already flowing naturally to the next; there is at least one type of pokemon that he knows affects people like this, and he remembers Lavender Town enough to move automatically as soon as it occurs to him.

He unclips the container ball from his belt and points it to the side, summoning his supply box. As soon as it appears he rushes over and lifts the lid, resisting the urge to rub the floating weird blob from his vision again as he pulls out the Silph Goggles inside and straps them around his head.

When he finally looks back toward the new pokemon, it… doesn’t look much better.

It doesn’t hit his brain as painfully wrong as before, but he still can’t make any visual sense of it. It’s like someone just jammed a bunch of objects together to form a thin, rectangular tower, shaving off everything that wouldn’t fit at the edges and jamming them elsewhere to fill in the gaps.

It even moves unnaturally, jerking across his field of vision with no obvious contraction of its parts. As it passes some kabutops fossils, it seems to shatter apart, then draw itself back up together, and now it looks a bit like a skeletal kabutops, much of it still trapped in stone, sharp arms reaching forward with each step.

It suddenly becomes very important to Artem that this thing, whatever it is, doesn’t get in reach of him or anyone else.

Why aren’t the automatics working? he thinks as he enlarges an ultra ball, aims until he hears the ping, then throws.

To his surprise, it connects, and sucks in the skeletal “pokemon,” despite it being a collective of animated objects, as far as he could tell. Which implies that the reality the goggles are trying to show him is even more strange than it can manage.

He snatches up the ultra ball just as more unown swoop down, and he dives behind a terrarium wall as they attack indiscriminately all around him, ducking and covering his head as bits of wood and glass shatter around him. “Thunderbolt!” he yells, legs trembling and heart fluttering in his chest as the calm from before continues to slowly fade.

After a moment he looks up, noting the destruction around him and feeling mildly shocked he wasn’t hit. His magneton has taken a few too many hits, however, and he withdraws it, unsure if it’s even still alive before bringing out his claydol.

The small part of Artem’s mind still running analysis of what’s happening has been mostly drawing up blank in terms of theories, but as he forces himself to start moving again he looks around for some kind of pattern in what the unown are attacking, if anything in specific.

Nothing obvious pops out at him as he makes it to the control room at last. He barges through the door, shouting, “Open the roof! We have to release the—”

“I know!” Kiran yells back, looking halfway between panicked and infuriated as they type something on their computer. “It’s not working, the whole system is acting up!”

“Manual release?!”

“I need a second key, either from Shen or Tai!”

Artem curses, says, “I’ll get it,” and turns to rush toward the director’s office…

…only to see Tai run over himself, wide eyed and pale, key clutched in his hand.

Artem falls back against the wall in relief, and to get out of the director’s way as he stumbles to a halt inside and jams his key into the console. Kiran scrambles to pull another from his pocket, then does the same, and both turn together, followed by Kiran slamming their palm down on the big red button between.

There’s an immediate rumbling as the roof retracts, and even from in here, with just the doorway open, Artem feels the air turn colder. It’s also fresher, the smells of destruction fading as snow starts to fall into the central chamber.

“Is everyone… okay…?” Dr. Tai pants, but Artem is watching the unown, heart sinking. “Artem? What’s—”

“They’re not leaving,” Kiran murmurs, watching out through the glass as well.

The unown are acting exactly as they were before, randomly attacking everything around them (though not, so far as Artem can notice, each other) as they fly around together.

He tries to think of what else they can do, whether there’s some sound or widespread attack like Hurricane that might drive them out…

…and then he hears the clacking of a cane, and turns to see Elite Agatha walking from the direction of the director’s office.

With his Silph Goggles on, he can see the shapes around her clearly enough. A gengar, a haunter, a gastly, and a mismagius all out together, all facing the same way with her as she looks over the rampaging cloud of unown.

He watches her place both hands on her cane as she looks up at the open roof, then back down at the unown as they continue to battle with some of the researchers. A moment passes, and then she distinctly but quietly says, “Feast,” and her pokemon rush forward as one.

Artem’s knees nearly buckle in relief as he watches, equal parts fascination, relief, and fear. The ghosts move through the unown cloud like sharpedo in a school of fish, and within moments the cloud has been cut in half, small bodies floating gracefully down until the unown carpet the ground.

The sounds of battle quiet one by one, until finally the remaining dozen or so unown are back to wandering on their own in discordance. As the ghosts return to their mistress, Artem takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down, still amazed he got through that unscathed. After checking to make sure there’s no one around him that needs help, he hurries back toward Red to make sure he and everyone he left there are okay.

The entire chamber is a mess, broken glass and limp unown everywhere. It doesn’t feel like the danger is really past, yet, and in the distance he sees a couple people finish catching a few kabuto and kabutops that were put to sleep by one’s venusaur. He feels foolish for having run off and not accomplished anything…

…well, except the capture of the strange blocky “changing” pokemon. He looks down at the ultra ball still gripped tight in his hand, then takes out his pokedex to see what happens when he registers it, hoping to have at least some answers for the others when they talk…

---

“Sckkhh Alert.”

“Say again, Eva?” Bill shifts half of his concentration away from the microscope, frowning slightly. “I didn’t catch that first word.”

“Network Alert. A sckkk is spreading through Kanto Pokedex Network.”

Bill’s attention is now fully removed from the circuit board he was examining. “Isolate from all Pokedex Networks and run diagnostic on previous sentence.”

“Complete. Null pointer corruption.”

“In the database?”

“In referent.”

Bill frowns. Whatever the bug is, it’s messing specifically with Eva’s ability to articulate that she couldn’t articulate it? “Veto both token and referent, identify through description, then answer: what is the thing spreading through the network acting most like? Worm? Wiper? Mimikyu? Something else?” Please don’t say another AI…

“Higher priority detected.”

His heart sinks. “Speak.”

“Referent detected in Pallet lab intran—”

Bill is already running. “Isolate all Indigo networks!”

“Command code ne—”

“Code Usurper!” He passes out of Materials and reaches Computing, running straight to the central cluster and starts disabling the safeties to swap everything in the labs to manual control.

“Executing. Complete.”

Sentiment rises up, surprising him with an urge to say something. Words of gratitude, or congratulations for doing so well. This would be a pretty thorough reversion, and while he doesn’t believe Eva is sentient… that’s the rub of it all, isn’t it? How could they even know?

He pulls the final lever, shutting Eva down, followed by another lever to cut all power to his home and lab. Only afterward does he whisper, “Goodbye.”

Bill only stands still for a few moments in the dark before the emergency lights come on. He takes his phone out and messages a few people before they start freaking out too much, then navigates by the red glow to start removing all pieces of Eva so he can switch the lab over to the backup version from last week.

He works quickly, anger burning like hot coals in his stomach. It’s possible all this was an accident of epic proportions, but if not he’s eager to get some payback against whoever or whatever just derailed his morning… not to mention inconvenienced everyone in Indigo relying on the internet today.

He can only hope he caught and isolated it in time, and the others know what to do next.