Electric Sheep

As always, thanks to y'all for the delightful commentary~ ;D And sorry for the wait! Finally back in town for the time being, so no more pauses for the time being. SO HERE WE GO!

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Somewhere in Nimbasa City, in the early morning two days after Team Matrix attacked the abandoned amusement park, an alarm went off in Geist’s head, and he awoke at once. His eyes snapped open, his senses calibrated, and his body whirred to life. And as he reached up to pull a cord out of his neck, he looked about the room, processes whirring in confusion until his silicon brain settled on the notification that had pulled him out of sleep mode. Moments later, Geist stormed out of the pokémon center, ignoring the startled nursing Companion he nearly bowled over en route. In his head, he had already summoned a map of Nimbasa. He wasn’t at all surprised to see a number of tiny red dots flashing close to its edge. Tiny red dots that all matched the poké balls of novice trainer Door Hornbeam.

Door did not see any of this, even though she was the cause of her partner’s panic. To be fair, she was too busy watching Knives drive a liepard into the ground.

The liepard squealed both mechanically and with the recorded scream of its real, living counterpart before falling still on the pavement beneath Knives’s glowing, pink fist. As soon as her prey fell still, Knives stood tall and smiled at her trainer, and Door walked forward and inspected her audino’s work. As she stared down at the battered and broken fauxkémon, Door’s mouth circled the straw of a large iced coffee and sucked up another sip, rattling the ice at the bottom of her plastic up enough to break the silence. Once she swallowed down her drink, she pulled the straw away and licked her lips.

“Not bad,” she said. “Man, Knives. A fully evolved pokémon, and you took it out in, what, only a few hits? Not bad at all.”

She reached down to rub the spot between Knives’s ears. The rabbit squeaked and twisted, pressing her head into Door’s hand. Door pulled away and wandered a few steps down Route 16 with her lips around the straw again. She chewed the straw’s plastic tip in thought as she gazed out towards the field of grass. Already, trainers were starting into the prairie, jumping off the road and into the wild far behind Door. She, meanwhile, had left early, after only a few hours’ worth of sleep, and as far as she was concerned, it was worth it to avoid the rush. Door narrowed her eyes at the masses pulling away from Nimbasa’s entrance to flood the fields, and she wondered how many of them would be facing Elesa soon.

“Come on, Knives,” she said as she took her first steps forward. “Elesa told us to get as far as Lostlorn Forest. Might as well go see what’s over there.” Clamping down on her straw, she huffed and muttered, “Hopefully some peace and quiet.”

But just as she turned to leave and just as Knives trotted forward to catch up with her, Door heard a menacing, feline growl, and she stopped, her lips contracting around the straw in response to the low hiss. Slowly, she turned to look over her shoulder, then cried out and stumbled out of the way of a violet and cream blur as it flew past her. Knives shrieked as the liepard she had supposedly defeated leapt onto her and tackled her to the ground. Its muzzle twisted in a fang-filled snarl, and one of its paws rose and extended three-inch-long just a short distance from Knives’s face. Knives squealed and instantly swung one of her hands up to block the liepard’s attack, and for the next half a minute, the liepard could only yowl and push against its prey.

And then, without thinking twice, Door threw a poké ball. The ball smacked the liepard in the back of the head, sucked it inside, and dropped to the pavement beyond Knives’s shoulder, and she scrambled to her feet and swung her fist up in preparation for another Secret Power. Almost as soon as she had, the ball exploded, and the liepard dove at Knives with a howl and all of its claws extended and aimed at Knives’s face. But as the liepard came in, Knives ducked and swung, slamming her fist into the cat’s chest. The liepard shrieked and flew backwards, back into the pavement, crashing down harder than it had a moment ago. Shakily, it stood, its body sparking as it flashed its eyes at Knives.

But Door was there first. Taking a step forward, Door pitched a second poké ball. The cat howled and turned to run, but the ball hit it in the shoulder, cracked open, and sucked it in. This time, Door’s poké ball dropped to the ground, where it shook once … twice … and three times before falling still with a ping.

Door waited for a few seconds, her eyes glued to the ball for any sign of movement. But when nothing happened, she exhaled with relief., took a sip of her coffee, and snorted at Knives.

“Geez, talk about catty, am I right?” she asked with a wink.

As if in response, the ball flashed with a brilliant, white light and vanished. Door and Knives swiveled their heads back towards it, just in time to see it go, and for the next minute, they stared blankly at the empty space the ball had once occupied.

Finally, Door groaned.

“Oh. Right. I’m carrying six live pokémon,” she muttered. “Crap.”

Knives cocked her head and trilled inquisitively at her trainer, and Door gave her an almost apologetic look before starting down the road again.

“Uh, not that you’d get it because you’re a pokémon and all, but lemme see if I can explain it,” she said. “Long ago, old, probably white guys decided that trainers can’t carry more than six pokémon. I don’t know why. Grandma or Dad probably explained it, but frankly, I wasn’t listening. The point is, if a trainer caught more than six, those extra pokémon needed someplace to go, so an old, dead guy and my aunt, Lanette, invented a way to store them on the internet using forbidden black magicks or something. I might not have been paying attention to that either. Long story short, Liepard’s safe but uploaded to a computer. Understand?”

The noise Knives made in response indicated to Door that she did not.

“You know what? Never mind,” Door said with a shrug. “Come on, girl. Onward to Lostlorn Forest!”

And with that, she trudged on, leading her audino along the relatively short path to the entrance of the forest.

Or “forest,” as the case may have been. The field and copses of trees she had hiked through to chase down her new liepard were all artificially planted, not that anyone would be able to tell at first glance. The greenery had been placed just randomly enough to look natural, and the winding paths between them were covered with grass at just the right height to look wild. But all of it came up to the straight, paved road too neatly and stopped too short in the distance to be real, and that was what bothered Door. It was a nice gesture, now that she thought about it, to have something that at least looked wild, even though she knew there were Companions hiding among the trees, just waiting to plant new growths or water the ones already there.

But the point was that it was a nice alternative to Lostlorn Forest.

Which didn’t exist.

She had seen pictures of the aftermath. Way back when, Lostlorn Forest was the closest point to the Entralink: a small, wild scar that thrust up into the border between the rest of Unova and the dreamlike wilderness. And then, the Entralink collapsed in on itself, and Lostlorn Forest felt the shockwaves.

The last pictures Door had seen of the place depicted a wasteland framed neatly by a chain-link fence.

Truth be told, she wasn’t particularly looking forward to going there, especially with just her pokémon. Door would have liked some human or humanoid company as she traversed the wilderness … but she couldn’t take Geist. Not after the night she had just gone through. She needed time to herself to think, to take out all her aggression and frustration on whatever hapless wild pokémon crossed her path.

And besides, Lostlorn Forest was a wasteland. A tiny, gated one at that. What could possibly be inside that she would need his help on?

The trees and grass gave way abruptly to a sandy plain. Door pressed onward, through the tree line and onto a dusty road. She walked, trying her hardest not to be bothered by the heat or dirt, as she focused solely on the gate yards ahead.

In front of it was a small, wooden booth, barely large enough for any human to comfortably sit for hours on end. When she approached, the door on the side opened up, and a figure in a tan security guard’s uniform stepped out. It looked like a soldier at first, tall and heavily built, in a crisply pressed shirt and pants and recently shined boots. But as she got closer, she realized this was just a security guard—one built like a football player on steroids.

Literally built. The man was apparently a Companion, judging by his glowing, blue eyes.

Door hesitated barely a yard away from the gate. She swallowed hard as she looked at the Companion and the booth beside him. There was no sign of any human being there. Just the booth that, from her vantage point, she realized contained just a generator, a chair, and a recharge cable. Door mentally kicked herself at the sight of both the Companion and the contents of his station. Of course the gate would be unmanned. Having a Companion there meant no need for supplies, no need for monitoring, no need for waiting around for communication. So long as this Companion had very clear, very simple orders, he could operate without supervision for months on end, with no breaks or changing of the guard. Heck, she was sure he didn’t even use the rickety chair in the booth. He must have stood in front of his station twenty-four hours a day, just waiting for trainers who wanted to get past his gate.

So it was understandable that Door was both put off and intimidated, even just slightly. She took a deep breath to steady herself and thought her situation through again. Best case scenario was that Elesa had phoned ahead and told this Companion or his superiors that Door would be coming and that she should be let in. Worst case scenario was that Door would end up snapped in half by the Companion’s massive hands. She had to be careful. Diplomatic. Smooth.

Door walked up to the gate, planted her hands on her hips, and gave the guard as cool and calm a look as possible. She could do diplomatic and smooth.

“Yo, what’s up? Door Hornbeam. How ya doin’?” she said.

The Companion looked at her for a long moment, his eyes never dimming or wavering. And then, he held out his hands, palms out, holographic pads exposed.

“Present your trainer’s license for identification,” he intoned.

His voice was robotic. Even-toned. Expressionless. Door hesitated. She knew he was one of the Companions who didn’t have much in the way of a personality core, which meant she had no guarantees that the worst case scenario wouldn’t be happening.

With that in mind, she cracked a nervous smile. “Uh, yeah, don’t have it.”

The Companion’s palms snapped shut, and he lowered his arms. His hands balled into tight, massive fists that rested at his sides, in plain view of Door. She glanced down at one of the Companion’s fists and realized that his fist was literally half the size of her head.

“Only registered trainers are authorized beyond this point,” the guard told her. “No license, no entry.”

“Okay, but I was sent here by Elesa, the gym leader of Nimbasa City,” Door said. “She told me I could train here. Isn’t that good enough?”

The Companion frowned at her, but it wasn’t like a human’s shift in expression. It almost looked like something in his face dropped, as if he was a marionette puppet whose strings were released abruptly.

“No license, no entry,” he repeated.

Against her better judgment, Door took a deep breath and clasped her hands together. Leaning in, she mustered up everything she had within her to give the guard her best puppy dog eyes.

“C’mon!” she begged. “Can’t you just call Elesa and confirm that I’m allowed to be here? Please?”

The Companion stomped forward. Door flinched, startled by how quickly the machine had come to a decision. He picked her up by her shoulders, lifting her off her feet and holding her at arm’s length. Knives responded with a squeal, followed by latching onto the Companion and biting him in the knee. He didn’t seem affected by it as he carried Door several meters away from the gate. There, halfway between the gate and the trees, he set her down, then pulled Knives off his leg by the scruff of her neck and dropped her on the ground in front of her trainer.

“No license, no entry,” he repeated.

He turned and walked back to the gate, where he whirled around and stood, hands folded behind his back. Door blinked a few times, then grit her teeth and folded her arms.

“Can you believe musclehead over there?! What a prick!” she shouted. Then, lowering the volume of her voice, she glanced at Knives. “Don’t worry. That’s a chain link fence. You know what those are, right?”

Knives—who had, shortly after being deposited unceremoniously at Door’s feet, blinked away her rage—stared up at Door with a tilted head and an inquisitive trill. Smiling broadly, Door gave her the thumbs up.

“It’s a poor but fantastically climbable barrier between well-meaning youths like me and places that shady adults like gearhead over there say we shouldn’t go,” she explained. “Which means I’ve got a plan.”

She took no fewer than three steps before a hand grabbed her shoulder roughly. Stopping short, she looked up, directly into the face of her Companion. Geist glared down at her, stony and serious, before sliding his hand down to her wrist and jerking her forward.

Door’s voice caught in her throat. She wanted to say something—either to ask what Geist thought he was doing or to acknowledge his quiet rage and beg for his forgiveness—but she couldn’t. She could only follow him as he pulled her roughly towards the gate. Geist said nothing. He kept his eyes focused on the guard ahead, and whenever Door had a chance to glance at him, he kept his lips pressed together and his face tight. Even Knives, who was padding quietly behind them with soft hums, knew better than to stop the Companion. Geist was on the warpath for reasons Door couldn’t figure out, but she knew in every fiber of her being that she was the reason for it.

It was only when they were within feet of the guard that he spoke, after stopping and pulling Door to his side.

“I apologize for the actions of my assigned trainer, whatever that might have entailed. My name is Series Alpha Zero-One, unit name Geist. This is my partner Door Hornbeam of Nuvema City.” He lifted his hands and held them, palms out, pads exposed. “Here are my registration credentials and her trainer’s license. I hope this will be sufficient for entry.”

The guard lifted his own hands and leveled the exposed pads of his palms with Geist’s. Beams of light flashed between them briefly, and then, the guard snapped his panels shut and reached for his temple. Dropping his other arm, he stepped to the side while the gate banged and whirred open.

“Catch or battle whatever you wish. Do not interact with dream bubbles. Do not climb the back fence. You have one hour. If you do not return to the main gate within that time, a search party will be contacted, and you will be detained if they succeed in retrieving you,” the guard recited. “Understood?”

Door glanced at Geist. “If they succeed in retrieving us?”

“Understood,” Geist responded evenly, without bothering to acknowledge Door.

“Then you may proceed,” the guard replied. “Good luck, trainer.”

Geist reached down to grab Door by the wrist, then led her into Lostlorn Forest. Knives followed behind, and they continued up the path until the gate closed behind them.

The inside was worse than the dusty field between the trees and the gate outside. There was almost nothing there, save for an entire forest of twisted, naked trees that stretched their black branches to the sky. Between them, the only other thing of note was the ash. Even decades after the collapse of the Entralink, white ash covered the spaces between trees like fallen snow, blowing up in drifts to reveal pockmarks and craters where there once were clearings and brush.

“Whoa,” Door breathed. “It’s…”

She looked back at Geist. At the very least, he was no longer glaring at her. Instead, he was standing still, arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

And suddenly, Door felt guilty.

“Oh. Um.” She rubbed the back of her neck and tore her eyes away. “Look, I … you’re probably waiting for me to apologize.”

Geist tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows with a puzzled wince—as if Door had just said something incredibly stupid, and he was trying to figure out how it was possible for her to be that stupid.

And at that, she groaned in exasperation. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t leave you behind because I wanted to ditch you or anything! I just…” She lowered her hand. “I just needed some time by myself. That’s all.”

Her Companion raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

“Yeah, that’s so!” Door exhaled sharply. “Look, I know we keep clashing, but I know that I need you for this … whatever I’m on. It’s just … after last night, I just needed some time to think.”

“And you couldn’t think with me around?” Geist asked.

“No,” Door answered. “It’s … it’s a human thing. Sometimes, we just need some time by ourselves, okay? I know that sounds like an excuse, but it’s not. I swear.”

After a few seconds of silence, Door looked up to see Geist walking towards her, his eyebrows still furrowed. Pulling his arms apart, he extended one hand towards Door. She flinched, willing herself to stay still until she felt something come down with a pat on the top of her head. As soon as she felt that touch, she opened her eyes to see Geist standing inches from her, his hand on her head and his face leaning in close to hers.

“I know you’re being honest because you’re a terrible liar,” he said.

He flashed a grin at her and winked, then pulled himself away. Walking ahead, he folded his hands behind his back and lifted his chin, and in the shadows of the ash-covered forest, Door could see a blue light flicker from his eyes. Glancing back at Knives, Door shrugged, then signaled for her pokémon to follow, and the two of them trotted up to the Companion’s side.

“So, uh, about the whole … morning,” she said.

“You caught a liepard. Impressive,” Geist replied.

“I—how did you know?” Door asked.

He gave her a strange smile. “Door, I’ve got a direct connection to your storage system account. How did you think I found you in the first place?”

“Oh.” Door winced at her own stupidity. “Right.”

“In any case, yes, I forgive you,” Geist said. “Largely because I know it wouldn’t do much good to tell you yet again why you need to stop running off without me.”

Door snorted and crossed her own arms with a pout. “Come on. At least this time, I wasn’t doing it because I hate you or anything.”

“I believe you,” Geist replied. “But was it worth it?”

“Up until Big McLargehuge tried to kick me out of this place,” Door grumbled as she narrowed her eyes at the path behind her.

“Terpsichore units,” Geist replied. “Designed for security, military, and similar functions.” He flashed a grin at her. “Very obedient but … built to be large and strong, to put it as gently as possible.”

Door snickered at that. “Wow. You do have a sense of humor somewhere in there.”

Geist shrugged. “I never liked Terpsichore units myself—our mutual friend, Starr, included. They’re not particularly interesting. Urania units such as Opal, however, at least those can hold a conversation.” He eyed her. “But that’s not what I meant by asking you whether or not it was worth it. Did you have time to think?”

“You know that’s an expression, right?”

“Of course I know. I’m simply offering a listening ear, should you want one.” Geist shifted his gaze to the path ahead of him. “Last night was a long one for the both of us, after all.”

Door stumbled at the revelation of something important. In all that time, Oppenheimer had answered—or darted around—several different questions at once, but looking back on the conversation she had endured with him, she realized the man had outright ignored one particular issue. And now that Door thought about it, that issue should have been just as important as her purpose in their plan.

That issue was, of course, a simple one. Where was Geist’s place in all of this?

Or, more specifically, what they were looking for in his memories?

“H-hey, Geist?” Door asked.

He didn’t turn around, but his voice softened, as if he knew what she was about to ask. “Yes?”

“How much do you remember of last night?” Door said slowly.

Geist stopped. He studied her, his eyes still glowing eerily, but Door didn’t look away.

“I’m sorry, Door, but I was in sleep mode for most of that encounter. I don’t remember much at all,” he admitted.

She shook her head. “No, it’s-it’s not your fault. But, uh, does that mean you don’t know what Magdalene was digging into?”

Taking what sounded like a deep breath, Geist reached up to press his fingers to the side of his head. “No, not exactly. I was just as disturbed as you were when I realized what had happened. I have logs of her attempts to access my memories, but what’s strange is she didn’t spend much time at all in my memory core. It was as if the second she discovered my LFA core, nothing else mattered.” He removed his hand. “Not that her time was well spent after that point. The LFA core is under heavy encryption. Even I can’t access its contents. And according to my access logs, that record has yet to be broken by anyone other than Dr. Fennel.”

Door had gone silent during his explanation, and it wasn’t out of politeness. She stared at him blankly for a few seconds after he had finished, her mind struggling to grip one important detail.

“Your … LFA core?” she asked.

“Ah, very observant of you,” Geist said.

He extended a hand to her, palm up. Twitching his fingers, he let the panel slide open and his holographic projector flicker to life. Between them, a screen appeared, displaying what looked like the generic outline of a man. Door squinted, staring at the three spheres within it.

“I don’t know much about myself or what sort of data I contained prior to my time with Dr. Fennel, but I do know that the only file I could access on my local drives was a user’s manual—not the usual kind, either,” Geist explained. “For starters, this is an extremely simple blueprint of my core configuration. Notice anything odd?”

Door stared at it, but it didn’t take her long at all to figure out what he meant. Even though she took no interest in Companions before her journey, she knew the absolute basics. Including the minimum number of cores a Companion was supposed to have.

“How do you only have three cores?” she asked.

“Digital, memory, and the LFA,” Geist replied. “I don’t know exactly, but I’ve had time to develop theories in the few years I’ve been active. I think the LFA was a prototype core that combines the personality, morality, and emotion cores into a singular cognitive engine. It may be why I’m able to emote far more accurately than any other Companion; I don’t need to go through the same cross-checking other Companions face. It’s all done in a single core, rather than across three.”

He closed his hand, shutting the projector off abruptly. Door fixed her eyes on his closed fist as questions boiled in her brain.

“But … it works,” she said. “I-I think.”

Geist put his hand on his hip. “I think so too.”

She lifted her chin to stare into his eyes. “But then why use the five-core system? Wouldn’t it make sense to just use the LFA core with the digital and memory?”

“It would be more efficient, yes,” Geist said. “And it seems to work better than the five-core configuration.”

“But?”

“But I don’t know. Neither does Dr. Fennel. She knows I have three cores, and she’s tried to ask your grandmother why, believe me. But … no one has ever explained to her why Lanette didn’t implement this system in any other Companion.”

Door frowned. “And … that doesn’t bother you?”

Geist slumped his shoulders and threw his hands up in a resigned shrug. “Of course it bothers me. At the very least, not knowing how or why I work the way I do means not knowing whether or not I’m truly stable. I could catch fire for all I know, or I could be heading straight for a motherboard failure a few years earlier than the standard units. The less I know about myself, the more I have to worry about how long I have before everything that makes me who I am right now breaks.”

He paused to give her a steady look. Door froze, unable to tear her eyes away, as she waited for his next words. And when those words came, they were slow, low, and quiet.

“The truth is,” he said, “the only reason why I’m calm about it is that some things are inevitable. Even Companions aren’t meant to last forever. The whole point of existing is doing what you can with what time you have. And I intend on doing something good.”

As soon as her Companion finished, Door felt her expression shift. Her jaw opened slightly, and her face relaxed, right into a sympathetic frown. Then, a few seconds later, she pulled her gaze away and frowned at the base of a tree.

“Wow. Geist, um…” She trailed off with a hard swallow.

In return, he chuckled. “You know, this is the first time you’ve been this interested in what my thoughts were since we were in the Striaton City pokémon center.”

Door scowled now, her face burning with an embarrassed blush. “Well, it’s important, isn’t it? If Team Matrix is after you and all.”

“They’re after you as well,” Geist replied. “They need someone to summon Zekrom and Reshiram, remember? It’s true that Hilda and Rosa hold them both, but we can’t say for certain that Team Matrix knows that.”

At that, Door nodded weakly. “Um … yeah. That’s true.”

“Right. So it’s imperative that you be prepared for anything.” Geist turned his gaze back to the forest and brought a hand to his temple. The blue light in his eyes brightened as he scanned the spaces between the trees. “That said, Door, let’s start with finding something you can bat—”

“Do you remember anything about my great aunt?” she interrupted.

With a jolt, Geist whirled back around to face her. He raised his eyebrows at her in surprise, but the quickness and steadiness in his next words told her he was telling her the complete truth—that he wasn’t shocked by her question but rather caught off-guard by its very existence.

“No,” he said. “I was wiped clean before I came to live with Dr. Fennel, remember?”

Door frowned. “So … you don’t remember anything about my great aunt sinning or something?”

“What?”

“You know,” she said. “Did my aunt … do anything bad?”

Geist regarded her carefully. She watched as the blue light in his eyes flickered, as digital circles contracted and expanded within his iris—as he, quite literally, analyzed her. Yet somehow, that didn’t bother her as much as it had two days ago. She didn’t think of him as human—and she thought she might never get to that point—but something about him was different. Separate from other Companions. Relatable and alive.

She lingered on that in the silence. It was silly, but that was the best way she could think to describe it. Geist seemed too alive somehow, in ways she couldn’t put her finger on.

“Door,” Geist said at last. “I may be biased when I say this, but as far as I’m concerned, your family has never done anything wrong. Your great aunt strove to make this world a better place by filling it with wondrous inventions right up to her death, and your grandmother has done everything she could to keep Lanette’s dream alive.”

Taking a deep breath, Door let his words sink in. “But how do you know?”

Geist frowned. “I just know.” He tilted his head. “Is that what was bothering you?”

“Great detective work, Mr. Supercomputer.”

Smirking, Geist reached out to lay a heavy hand on his partner’s shoulder. “I see. I think I’m learning a lot about you, Door Hornbeam.”

“Yeah, I’m not gonna ask you what you mean by that,” Door said, narrowing her eyes at him. “Spot any pokémon?”

Finally returning to his usual, professional attitude, Geist dropped his smile and shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. Nothing except Knives, who is—”

He lifted his eyes towards a spot between the trees, and as soon as he did, horrified expression swept across his face. Without warning, he grabbed Door’s wrist and bolted, half dragging and half leading her along the forest path. She cried out and gave him an earful of choice curses, but when she realized he wasn’t about to stop, she focused completely on following him instead. Her feet slammed painfully into the ground, one after another, and her muscles burned with exertion not long after they had started running. Door was never one to consider herself in good shape, but this went beyond physical limitations due to poor health. Geist was full-tilt running in his panic. To Door, who had no choice but to stumble behind him, that run hurt, but she knew it meant something.

Namely, something was wrong. That much was obvious. But it took a second to register that the wrongness was directly associated with Knives, and Knives herself was nowhere to be seen—not by human eyes, at least. Where was Door’s audino? What was going on?

And then, Geist stopped at the edge of a clearing. Door plowed into his back, but with a twist of his waist, he reached up to catch her. Steadying her, he nodded towards the center of the clearing, and Door raised her head to follow his gaze.

In the center of the space was Knives, standing with her back towards Door. Her fuzzy, white tail was twitching in curiosity, and the rabbit stood on her toes, stretching up to reach an object above her.

That object was a glowing, pink bubble.

“Dream bubble,” Geist breathed.

Door swallowed. She didn’t need any further explanation. Everyone knew that Lostlorn Forest was practically the gateway to the Entralink; it was the last point before the outer ring separating the park from the rest of the region. And as such, it didn’t strike Door as surprising that Lostlorn Forest was devoid of either people or fauxkémon. No one came that far out. It was too dangerous, a place reserved only for ready trainers.

And she was staring at the reason why: an escaped fragment of the unstable Entralink. One that Knives was, at that very moment, reaching for with one paw.

“Knives!” Door screamed. “Get away from that thing!”

The rabbit turned, fixing wide eyes on her trainer, but as she did so, her claws scraped the bottom of the bubble. Behind her, the bubble rippled at her touch, pulsed, and floated higher. It expanded with a hum as a pink light ebbed from within it. Geist pushed away from Door and dashed forward, faster than she had ever seen him run. He hurtled across the ashy clearing and snatched Knives from the ground, then rushed back towards Door. With his free arm, he grabbed her too, and with both the human and the pokémon in his grasp, he ran for the trees.

Unfortunately, he wasn’t as quick as he needed to be, and just before he dove back into the forest, the bubble exploded.

To Door, the entire world shifted into a perfect ocean of rose-colored light. A booming hum, low and vibrating like an alphorn, filled the forest and made her ears ring. The sound permeated her body, shaking her bones until she could feel nothing at all. Before she knew it, she found herself swaying on her feet, with Geist standing in front of her. One of his arms was still holding Knives, and although Door could see the rabbit silently screaming and clawing at her ears, she couldn’t register it or its significance. Geist’s other hand was on Door’s shoulder, and his face filled the rest of her field of vision. His mouth was moving, but for the life of her, she couldn’t make out his words. Not until the light faded, anyway. After that, she realized Geist was shouting at her.

“Door? Door! Pull yourself together!”

She shook her head and blinked. The ringing in her ears finally subsided, and the world came back into focus.

“What … what happened?” she murmured.

The answer to her question came in the form of a choir of pops. Geist slowly turned around, and Door looked beyond him, in time to see a soft, pink fog of light shifting behind them. Bits of the fog pulled off with each of those pops, only to fall to the ground and form small lumps of pink. The lumps shook and scurried, climbing up trees or fanning out along the ground until they filled the clearing to the brim.

And then, all at once, they shook off the pink light that obscured them, and Door and Geist found themselves face-to-face with a swarm of venipede. A swarm of angry, chittering venipede.

Geist drew his arm in front of Door and reached into his pocket for his pansear’s poké ball. “Okay,” he said. “Stay calm and move slowly. If we take things easy, then perhaps—”

The venipede stretched their mouths open and emitted a deafening screech, shortly before rushing for the human and her Companion.

“Plan B!” Door said, whirling around. “Run away!”

She sprinted. It wasn’t her finest moment, but with a swarm of venipede chasing her, she figured no one would blame her if they knew. Behind her, she could hear the pop of a poké ball opening, followed by a monkey’s screech and the roar of fire. Insectoid squeals followed, peppered with bangs and pops, and out of the corner of her eye, Door could see orange light and pink smoke dancing off the trees.

Before she knew it, Geist was at her side, running just fast enough to keep up with her.

“Door, what are you doing?!” he demanded. “Send out your pokémon and fight!”

She stumbled and skidded to a stop, then whirled around to face the swarm. Antares was hanging upside-down from a branch a few feet away, and flames shot from his mouth into the venipede. Beneath him, Knives stood, ears twitching in anticipation.

“Are you kidding me?!” Door barked.

“Are you?!” Geist snapped. “You came here to train, did you not?!”

That statement hit her like a hammer. That was right. She had. And if Knives was ready to face off against countless venipede, then…

“Knives, Dig!” Door yelled.

As Knives obediently dove into the earth, Door plunged her hands into her pockets and drew out the first two poké balls she grasped. Tossing them into the air, she didn’t think twice about what they might have contained, but she prayed silently that one of them was Storm. She knew that her tranquill would make quick work of the venipede, just as she had made quick work of the Castelia Gym.

But, just as it had been with everything else those past few days, Door’s luck had other things to say on the matter. And as such, what appeared before her was not a bird but rather a squat, doll-like creature and a spirit clinging to a golden mask.

Door cursed. Loudly.

“It’s okay! You can still use them!” Geist shouted. “But first—Antares, Incinerate!”

A few venipede had, in the time that Door’s darumaka and yamask took to the field, approached Knives’s burrow. Antares stopped them from going any further by spewing fire onto them, then fanning out his attack to the swarm just a few steps away. And as she watched, Door clenched her jaw, took a deep breath, and nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Fine! You can do it, guys! Boomer, Incinerate! Red, use Night Shade!”

Without a word of acknowledgment, the darumaka, Boomer, instantly rolled past Knives’s burrow, into the swarm of venipede, and there, he twisted upward and sprang to his feet, startling several venipede into stopping. He turned, pirouetting on his claws as he exhaled a stream of brilliant flames. The fire engulfed the venipede closest to him, then branched out and swallowed one bug after another.

Above him, his yamask partner, Red, took a moment to nod back to Door before gliding through the air gracefully towards his opponents. A pink glow enveloped his body, and as he swooped up and out of reach of the insects, a rosy light burst from his form in pulsing, angry rings. Each ring slammed into a different venipede, drumming them into the ground before the fires of Antares and Boomer consumed them.

And then, Door felt Geist nudge her in the side.

“Be ready with a poké ball. Knives should complete her attack shortly,” he said. Then, turning back to the fight, he added, “Antares! Try your new technique! Flame Burst!”

Door blinked at her Companion, then fumbled in her pockets for an empty ball. She watched Antares swing backwards and cup his hands around his face. A brilliant, orange glow swirled between his palms, forming a ball that quickly grew to the size of his head.

And then, Door noticed that her pokémon were in the way.

“Red! Get some altitude and fire off another Night Shade!” she ordered. “Boomer, just get back!”

As new as they were, her pokémon understood and, luckily, were obedient. Without even a glance to his trainer, Boomer dove backwards, beyond Knives’s burrow, to a safe spot on Door’s side of Antares. Red gave her a short, uncertain glance, then glided up gracefully, trailing pink light as he moved. Just as Red fired off another round of vibrating, pink rings, Antares released his ball of flames, straight down into the crowd of venipede. The ball of flames sailed cleanly through the pink rings of energy and exploded into the ground, sending fire, white ash, and spiritual gusts into the undulating mass of bugs. Venipede screeched as the fire rolled over them from the center of the crater, as more and more of their brethren found themselves caught up in the raging inferno. Door flinched and turned away, and as she moved, she felt Geist wrap an arm around her and hold her steady. Opening her eyes, she saw him glare down at her, bucking his head towards the chaos.

The fire wiped out many of the venipede, but there were still many more, waiting in a wave for the snowy ash to fall and smother the flames. It took a few more moments for the blanket of soot to settle back down onto the field, and after that, the inferno died down to embers. Just as the flames subsided, the first of the venipede started forward, rushing quickly for Door and Geist.

It didn’t make it halfway across the field before Knives suddenly erupted from beneath its feet, and as soon as she did, Geist elbowed Door hard. But Door already knew what she had to do, and the second the venipede began to drop, she threw her poké ball as hard as she could. It struck the bug’s carapace with a crack, then swallowed the insect and dropped onto the ash. As it rolled across the field, the button on its face blinked—first with bright flashes, then dim, lazy ones, until it faded completely the second it came to a rest at Door’s feet. A moment later, just like the liepard’s poké ball, the venipede’s vanished into the storage system.

Door let out a triumphant whoop, but she was cut off quickly by another elbow to the ribs. Glaring up at Geist, she saw him shoot her a look before glancing at Knives. The audino kept her eyes fixed on the venipede, which hesitated in reaction to the capture of one of their own before charging forward again.

“Knives, get back!” he called. “Door, Knives is no good here! She can only use physical attacks; you need distance!”

“I know!” Door snapped back.

“Good,” he said. “Then follow my lead! Antares, use Yawn on as many venipede as you can!”

Knives scampered to Door’s side with a series of squeaks. As soon as she was out of the way, Antares cupped his mitten-like hands around his mouth and blew pink bubbles from his lips. The storm of bubbles flowed towards the reforming cluster of insects and popped one by one in the faces of the closest venipede. These venipede stopped in their tracks, causing the ones behind them to slam into one another. The ones that managed to stop themselves from crashing skittered onto the pile of venipede and emitted loud, piercing screams that made the air vibrate. Almost all of Door and Geist’s pokémon slapped their paws over their ears and cried out, only to have their voices quickly drowned by the venipede’s Screech. Only Red hung in the air, seemingly unharmed by the assault. More venipede swarmed around the pileup and lifted their back stingers, arcing them over their bodies as each took on a bright, violet glow. Then, a volley of purple needles shot from the sea of stingers, straight for the pokémon on the other side.

And then, Red swooped down, arms spread and hands unfurled, and a green barrier of light flashed to life before him. The rain of pins struck the barrier with a rush of pings and bangs, but the shield held firm, right up to the last strike. Red shifted, pulling one of his arms back to let the barrier drop.

As soon as it fell, his eyes took on a violently red glow, and he thrust himself forward, to the frontlines of the venipede. There, beneath him, the first several venipede struck by Antares’s Yawn trembled, their eyes fighting to stay open as the ghost approached them. Fixing his gaze on them, Red brought his arms in front of himself and swung his body back, and a black wave of energy pulled itself from his face and into his palms. He spread his hands, fingers splayed as the dark orb grew. When he could spread his arms no further, the ball between his palms shifted, and a crack laced across its equator. Both halves of pure, black energy parted, revealing a demonic, red eye in the center of the orb.

Finally, Red released. The ball, eye and all, rushed down at the horde, trailing black energy as it went. It slammed into the first few venipede, and these venipede instantly exploded into puffs of pink smoke. The rest of the attack washed over the surrounding venipede, blowing the stronger ones backwards and blasting the weaker ones back into the Dream World.

As soon as the remnants of Red’s Hex fizzled into nothingness, the remaining untouched venipede stopped in their tracks and twitched their antennae in the air. Each pair of insectoid eyes fixed onto Antares and Red—but mostly the latter—as they clicked at each other in confusion. Then, without warning or explanation, they turned and scrambled away from the battlefield, into the black and white of the dead forest.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but silence. And then, a slow clapping—but not from Geist or the pokémon. Door and Geist turned quickly to see Hilda, N, and Elesa standing behind them. Hilda kept on clapping as she strode forward.

“Now that was a battle,” she said. “Nice job, all of you. Especially you, Mr. Yamask and Mr. Pansear.”

Antares swung himself off the branch and landed neatly on Geist’s shoulder. With a hoot, the pansear perched and let his master pet him on the head. At the same time, Door could feel Red’s presence next to her, and she turned her head slightly to see him gazing at her with curiosity. She gave him an awkward smile and held up a hand, and in response, he pressed his own into her palm, sending a chill down her arm and into the rest of her body.

Shuddering, Door said, “Y-yeah, well, it was nothing. Kinda surprised it ended like that, though.”

As if to answer her question, the yamask hummed and blinked at her. N stiffened and started forward, his eyes fixed on the spirit. When he got close enough, he reached a hand towards the pokémon, but when his hand got within inches of Red’s mask, Red whirled towards him, smacked his hand away, and gave him a dangerous glare. Yet N didn’t seem bothered by this; rather, he smiled at Door for the first time ever, an act that sent another shiver down her spine.

“I can hear your pokémon’s voice clearly,” he said. “He grew curious of you when he first saw you in Relic Castle, but now, part of him feels as if he needs to do everything he can to see you succeed.” He glanced at Door. “He trusts you already. That’s impressive.”

Door shifted her gaze from Red to N and back to Red. The yamask responded to her confused expression with a hum while scrunching up his eyes in what Door thought might have been a smile. She shifted on her feet awkwardly.

“Uh, right,” she said. “Anyway, what’re you doing here?”

Hilda put her hands on her hips. “Bringing Zekrom up to speed. According to N, Zappy’s concerned but not entirely worried. Can’t be too surprised by that, though. That dragon’s been with me for fifty years now, and it’s had enough poképuffs to know what’s what when it comes to the two of us. It wouldn’t just leave me, and Team Matrix’s got another thing coming to them if they think they’ll overpower me and catch good ol’ Zappy!”

“Wait,” Door said, her eyebrows furrowing. “You mean to tell me you brought Zekrom out, and I missed it?!”

Geist frowned. “And you call the dragon of ideals Zappy?”

Hilda waved a hand in the air. “Don’t worry, kid! Zappy and I agree that you’re not quite ready to talk to it yet. That’s what we were talking about: whether or not the two of you should meet. Sad to say, nope, in Zekrom’s infinite wisdom, it’s decided not to do it unless the time’s exactly right. But who am I to talk about whether or not you’re worthy enough to meet a legendary pokémon?”

At that, Hilda swung her eyes towards Elesa, who sauntered towards Door. When she was within feet of the young trainer, she turned her gaze towards her and crossed her arms.

“Well, young lady,” she said, “I’ve seen the way you battle, and I think it’s electrifying.”

Behind her, Hilda’s expression shifted into an apologetic smile. Elesa, however, didn’t seem to notice. She only tilted her head a little and gave Door the most dazzling grin the girl had ever seen.

“You still have quite some ways to go in terms of strength,” Elesa continued, “but I’m still interested in seeing what you can do. I accept your challenge. Not tomorrow, though. I want you to relax and prepare. Let’s make it the day after. 10 am. You know where the official gym is, right?”

Geist nodded. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I know the way.”

“Good,” she replied. “Can’t wait to see you there, Miss Hornbeam. I expect only your best.” Turning slightly, she lifted her chin to eye Hilda and N. “Hilda. N. Pleasure seeing you again. Let me know how this adventure of yours develops. I don’t look forward to fighting yet another criminal organization, but if that’s what it comes down to, I’ll be ready when you need me.”

With that, Elesa turned away completely and walked down the path, the tails of her faux fur coat trailing behind her. Even through the coat, Door could see just a hint of the woman’s figure and grace, and she couldn’t help but feel her heartbeat race in response to both, right up until Elesa disappeared through the trees.

Beside her, Hilda chuckled. “Elesa gets that response from everyone,” she said.

Door shook her head vigorously, then blushed upon realizing what Hilda meant. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about! This is just normal, garden-variety respect, you know?!”

Hilda hid her mouth behind the back of her hand and guffawed. “Anyway, N, I’m glad that out of all the gym leaders from way back when, she and Cheren are the ones who haven’t died or retired. I can’t imagine what someone like Clay would’ve done to you if he knew all this was happening again. Or that you were back in town, for that matter.”

“Indeed,” N said dryly. “Speaking of which, we should get going ourselves. We have other gym leaders to talk to if things keep going the way they are now.”

With a frown of her own, Hilda slid her hands back onto her hips and sighed. “Mood killer, but … can’t argue with you there.”

“Right,” he said. “Door. Continue treating your pokémon well. If they trust you this much, then that says quite a bit about you as a trainer, and you’ll be relying on them later.”

“Um, okay,” Door muttered.

N gave her one last, steady glance, then turned and started down the path in the same direction that Elesa had taken. Hilda lingered behind, giving Door another apologetic look.

“Don’t worry about him,” she said. “It’s nothing personal. He’s just a little on edge because all of this Team Matrix stuff is digging up bad memories for him. You understand, right?”

Door shook her head. “Not really.”

“Well, don’t worry about that, either,” Hilda said with a grin. “Hey, you’ve grown up a little since I last saw you, you know? I don’t know if it’s because your audino and your yamask are real or if you’re just getting used to being surrounded by machines, but the way you worked together with your Companion was something else. Nice touch, by the way, getting him set up so he can battle with you. Haven’t thought much about getting one myself, but if Companions work like that, maybe I should look into it. N’s gotta do his own thing after this is all over anyway, and I’m starting to get used to company.”

The trainer blinked at her. “Um.”

As if unaware of her discomfort, Hilda placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Point is, keep up the good work. And you…!” She turned her eyes towards Geist. “Keep an eye on her.”

Geist smirked. “Always, Miss King.”

“Hilda,” she groaned as she turned away. “Miss King’s way too formal for me. Anyway, gotta run! Door, Geist, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you both around.”

She strode away, quickly catching up with N. Her partner gave her a quick look, and together, the two marched onward and vanished between the trees.

Then, at last, the forest was quiet again. Door thought about what Hilda had said, turning each word over in her mind until she settled on a few in particular. Beside her, Geist coughed into his fist and waited, right up until he finally got the response he had been anticipating.

“Red is real?!” Door yelled.

The yamask bobbed beside her with an inquisitive glance, and Geist flashed her a soft smile.

“Of course he is,” Geist replied. “It would be rather tacky of Halcyon Labs to create a yamask fauxkémon, you know, what with its rumored connection to the dead.”

“And you knew?!” Door snapped.

“Yes.” He folded his hands behind his back and started down the path. “Now come along, Door. Our hour is almost up, and I doubt you’d like to have a search party sent out for you.”

Door growled and jogged to catch up with Geist. “Fine, but tonight, you and I are gonna have a long, long conversation about your tendency to be all coy or whatever.”

Geist grinned at her. “Coy? Is that what Dr. Fennel called me?”

As they continued down the path—Door bickering with Geist and all three of Door’s pokémon following closely behind—none of the group noticed another dream bubble floating lazily through the trees behind them. Slowly, it drifted, curling around trunks and under branches, until it came to a hovering stop where the first bubble had popped. There, it popped, and a rainbow of colored lights danced across the clearing.

Little by little, the colors faded, and beneath them, a tuft of bright, green grass burst through the ash.



> ERATO.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

LANETTE: Project Galatea, mass production notes, day 67. Well, on the negative side, my relationship with Devon Corporation has been terminated. On the positive side, Steven has convinced his father to settle with Halcyon Labs, rather than outright sue us before we really got off the ground. Also on the positive side, despite everything—particularly Jasper Stone’s admittedly justifiable outrage—Steven has given me his blessing to use the components I’d commissioned from his team on further experiments for the Companions series. Brigette is convinced this isn’t a good sign, and Zero-One warns me to be careful, but that’s what the legal team is for, right?

In any case, I can’t worry about that now. Now that I don’t have to keep consulting Devon, I’m free to develop Companions as I see fit. For one, I’ve decided to go back and revisit my Calliope designs in order to see if they can be improved upon. Calliope is sturdy, but I feel that if her skeletal system matched the density of a human’s as close as possible, that could increase maneuverability and dexterity, thus leading to a far more efficient Companion on the field. That and a lighter chassis could be less of a strain on the battery packs, which means, basically, that a lightweight Companion will be far better suited to long periods between pokémon centers.

Initial testing has not been positive, actually. While a Calliope core setup works in a lighter chassis, the heat output of such a configuration, well, melts the chassis. And the cores themselves. And while I’ve designed a better fan system that might be a bit more efficient at bringing down the cores’ output, the lighter units actually aren’t as energy-efficient as I had hoped they would be, and regardless, the chassis itself just isn’t durable enough for long-distance traveling, especially through the wilderness. In other words, I’m afraid that unless I can come up with a better material composition for the chassis, any unit that uses a lightweight skeleton will be strictly for domestic purposes.

But I’m not one to let a good subject go to waste. The result of these tests actually works fine when not put under a major amount of stress, and her core configuration makes her rather pleasant. With the right adjustments, she may be perfect for Halcyon’s marketing team, if not simply for households who prefer a more conversational Companion.

I’ve named her Erato, after the muse of love poetry.

[pause]

Don’t read too much into it.

[end recording]

That said, our first two-fer in a long while, thanks to extra + actual gym chapter! \o/ BUCKLE UP, YO.

---

Elesa could remember the first time she encountered Zekrom. She was there, with the other gym leaders of Unova, fighting back against the waves of Team Plasma when the first sign came down. Its roar sounded like thunder, deep and low and rumbling, and it shook the foundations of N’s castle and electrified her bones. She saw its lightning, brilliant and blue and white, burning against the black sky. And she saw Hilda, wreathed in light like an angel, like the wrath of God embodied, riding the dragon’s back as they charged the King of Team Plasma and the Dragon of Truth.

And now, here she was again, calmer and older, yes, but still in awe of the Dragon of Ideals.

She couldn’t entirely hear what Hilda was saying to it. Hilda kept her voice low as she pressed her forehead against Zekrom’s. The dragon’s massive, blue eyes fluttered shut, and it growled—low and rumbling, a sound laced with electricity. Elesa could feel her hair stand on end, could taste metal in the air, as Zekrom parted its lips and hissed. It pulled away from Hilda, placed its claws on either side of her, and snapped its jaws, clicking once, twice, and three times before N’s rough voice cut through the air.

“He agrees,” he said, more to Elesa than Hilda. “Whatever it takes to protect the region. He’ll do it.”

“Are you sure?” Hilda asked. She pressed a hand against Zekrom’s chest. “No doubt it’s gonna be a lot worse than our last fight against goons like these. They’re looking for Justice too, and who knows what they want with the both of you? But they sound desperate, Zappy.”

Zekrom huffed and sent an electrical charge down its body. Hilda didn’t seem bothered by it. Instead, she patted its snout with her other hand and leaned into its shoulder.

“Atta boy,” she said. Then, to Elesa, she added, “How about you, ‘lesa?”

Elesa crossed her arms and smirked. “I admit the story you, that girl, and Rosa have all told me sounds a little out-of-the-ordinary, but if you’ve got Zekrom and the Striaton trio onboard, how could I say no?”

Hilda whirled around and planted her hands on her hips. “And you thought this would be hard.”

N cleared his throat. “I see I’ve underestimated the both of you.”

Normally, Elesa would have laughed at that. She had missed Hilda, and though N had ties to Team Plasma, she couldn’t blame him for the past. After all, in a way, if it weren’t for him, she wouldn’t have seen Zekrom with her own eyes, and she wouldn’t have felt that surge of electricity and that moment of connection to her fellow gym leaders. Would she have been as close to Skyla or Clay or the others if she hadn’t fought alongside them? That was a question she often found herself asking—and one she realized she couldn’t answer.

But then, right then, right as Hilda and N expressed how pleased they were with her eagerness to join the fight against whatever this Team Matrix was, she felt her smile falter.

“Well,” she said, “I suppose there was one thing that made the decision a little easier for me. Do you know about the dream bubbles?”

Hilda and N fell quiet. Behind them, Zekrom nudged at Hilda’s shoulder, prompting her to face it. Now it looked at Elesa, its eyes burning blue as it studied her. Elesa stiffened under its ancient gaze.

“I think Zappy knows,” Elesa said. “Hilda, mind if it leads the way?”

Hilda had no time to respond. As soon as the words left Elesa’s mouth, Zekrom pushed off the ground and rushed through the trees, and after a beat of recovery on everyone’s part, N, Hilda, and Elesa followed suit.

Elesa wasn’t sure how Zekrom could fit, but somehow, the dragon flowed through the forest like oil. Its body twisted and curved, narrowly missing one dead trunk after another with grace she didn’t know something that large or bulky could have. Its tail glowed brightly, like a brilliant, blue beacon, so no matter how far behind N, Hilda, and Elesa trailed, they could see it, glowing like a forest fire between the trees.

It was so beautiful that Elesa nearly forgot herself: how long she had been running, whether or not she could keep up, how fast she was going. She felt like she was eighteen again, running through the corridors of N’s castle with her zebstrika—her real zebstrika—by her side.

How long ago was that now?

Before she could think about it, they stopped. Zekrom rested in the earth, head bowed, body pressed against the ashes. Its eyes were fixed on an object in the middle of a clearing, and as Hilda, N, and Elesa approached, they saw exactly what it was: low, drifting, and illuminated with a bubblegum-pink light.

Elesa could hear Hilda’s breath catch in her throat, and she could feel N hover a little closer to her. Even she pulled her coat around her shoulders as she watched it.

“The League is aware of certain … phenomena that have been popping up around the Entralink. Forgive the pun,” she said. “That is a dream bubble. Amanita Fennel has been studying them since we first took notice of them three years ago, but even with her expertise, the League still hasn’t been able to figure out where they’re coming from. That’s where the trainers come in. You see, if a person gets close to one—oh!”

As if on cue, an audino waddled into the clearing. It wandered forward, leaning towards the dream bubble as its ears twitched. It cooed as it crept closer and closer.

“Right on schedule,” Elesa murmured. “Just watch.”

N narrowed his eyes and leaned towards Hilda. “No. I think you should recall Zekrom. Right now. That audino—”

Abruptly, a figure burst onto the scene and sprinted across the clearing. Just as the audino reached up to touch the dream bubble, the man scooped it into his arms and jolted away. Behind him, the dream bubble exploded, and a wave of venipede burst into life and rushed after them.

Hilda recalled Zekrom at that point.

N, meanwhile, leapt to his feet so quickly Elesa could have sworn he had teleported there. His eyes were wide and startled, and it took a moment for him to find his voice.

“They’re confused! I-I can’t understand them beyond that! There are too many of them!” he cried.

Hilda was at his side in an instant. “That audino, though … you recognized it, didn’t you? It’s the kid’s, right?!” She ran her fingers through her hair. “Oh jeez—we’ve got to help her!”

“Now hold on a moment, Hilda,” Elesa replied calmly.

Hilda whipped herself around to face her. Elesa smiled and rose to her feet, then nodded in the direction of the venipede. She could hear two voices in the distance, just barely audible over the sound of screeching and pokémon cries. But even though their words were half-drowned by the sounds of the venipede, she knew it had to be the girl and her Companion. Door, was it? The one who reminded Elesa of Hilda when she was young?

“I know a person’s first instinct is to help out someone in danger,” she said, “but as a gym leader, it’s my duty to see what a potential challenger is made of. And besides…”

Her eyes flicked to the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. There, just barely visible, were more shadows, wreathed in green lights.

If she had to give Team Matrix one thing, it was the fact that their grunts dressed better than Team Plasma.

“Wouldn’t want to call attention to ourselves when we’re outnumbered too,” she finished.

I didn't come here to kinkshame an audino, but …

Okay, that's probably the best opening to a review I'm ever going to manage, I guess I'll just stop reading fic now because I'm never topping that.



Yeah, that's more or less what I thought; I usually replay White 2 because there are more pokémon to capture, but at this point I have so many pokémon hanging out in Bank that I feel like I could scrape together a fun thematically coherent team even in Black. Which, as it's been a while since I've actually completed a Gen V game (I have a lot of Unova playthroughs that fade away somewhere around halfway through), I feel like I'll probably do this time around.



It's fine! Any day I get to spout bug facts at a captive audience …

Anyway, on to the actual review: the extra is certainly fun! I like this one, especially since Elesa seems like generally a pleasant POV to inhabit – which is never guaranteed in the world of Electric Sheep. ( … her decision to let a horde of highly venomous and notoriously aggressive pokémon chase a fifteen-year-old notwithstanding.)

I think Nimbasa Gym's BW2 incarnation is definitely one of the more egregiously theatrical Gyms, even by Unovan standards; any time you have a giant captive audience, some of whom are probably cheap robots intended to fill seats when Elesa holds battles during the day and everyone's at work, you're definitely a little more interested in the performance than the fight. Which is fair, I guess. Door's battle style is sort of rough and ready, heavily supported by Geist, but with skill and experience comes the ability to make this stuff stylish. I'm sure there are at least some branches of pokémon battling in this world that follow a kind of professional wrestling pattern, where everything is a giant showy fraud that everyone knows is fake but everyone loves anyway because it's really shiny.

Actually, on the topic of battle styles, I like how everyone had the same experience in Elesa's Gym and now it's almost canonical that her battle style is based on rapid switching; I know I did the same thing in Go Home, where I gave her emolga U-turn because repeatedly hitting sandile with bug moves too fast for them to react seemed like a fun way to ruin kids' dreams. Another thing I like: how incredibly dorky all the Leaders (and Hilda, for that matter) are with their names. Coco, Chanel, Brioche, Zappy; these are names that only very mature people who have long since got over their residual teenage desire to seem cool could give their pokémon. (Except maybe Zappy, which I'm guessing has been Zekrom's name since Hilda was thirteen.) Anyway, that's not really a point worth making except insofar as it's another gap between Door and all the people she meets on her journey. She's such a child, in a way that nobody really matches except Blair (and maybe Belle, but we really haven't seen anything except her gonna annoy the shit out of a fifteen-year-old persona yet, so I'm not sure that we've seen her as she is). Which is part of why it's nice to see Blair again, of course. Door kind of needs someone on her own level every now and then.

The battle itself is not the best of the fic, I have to say; the repetition of the trick with Secret Power makes it clear that Knives is tough, sure, but we already knew that, so the impact is kind of lessened. The drift of the story so far also implies very strongly that she isn't going to end up dead in this fight, which takes away some more of the tension, too. I suppose we see Door being irresponsible in the way she pushes Knives into that manoeuvre, but again, we already knew that about her. So idk, I guess I feel like other fights have been a bit better choreographed. The hologram is pretty cool, though; either it's very sophisticated and somehow fools the nose as well as the eyes, or it's so realistic that it's activating buried sense-memories somewhere deep in Door's brain and making her smell brine.



This isn't a correction, I just like this description.



Androids have always seemed like a luxury product to me – like, trying to market them to students seems like a really hard sell – but I guess Lanette's the developer, rather than the marketer; someone else is going to figure out how to convince people they need to buy this thing. Anyway, that's not the point, the point is that I was going to say that Nimbasa Gym couldn't possibly use android seat-fillers because it would be prohibitively expensive, except then I was going to say that wait, no, based on the Gym designs the Unova League is staggeringly overfunded, except now I'm going to say that maybe they could use Companions like that anyway, if all they need to be able to do is whoop and clap, because apparently you can get these things staggeringly cheap.

Thanks again to all y’all for the reviews! And now, a preemptive apology. The following chapter is … probably not my favorite, but unfortunately, because I’m not really doing too much rewriting as I post these, I’mma just gonna post it and … let your comments roll in. D:

But! To compensate, I’m also posting the chapter after that, which actually isn’t just a glorified clip show! \o/ Enjoy!

---

There was no Route 5 by the time Door set off on her journey. Or, rather, there was, but now it was less a route and more an avenue in western Nimbasa, leading right up to the Clay River separating the city from its neighboring Driftveil. What once was forest fifty years ago was now a concrete jungle, and as Door looked up at the towering masses of glass and steel, she couldn’t help but feel a little of her old surprise and disappointment returning. Sure, she had known that Nimbasa had expanded in the fifty years since Rosa had been through there, but she didn’t think all of the forest was gone.

So that was the second thing that had surprised her the afternoon following her gym battle. The first, which had cropped up just as she and Blair arrived at the pokémon center, was the fact that Blair had lost to Elesa, and now Blair didn’t want to battle Door.

Which was fine by Door if she had to be perfectly honest, but that still didn’t explain why, on the morning after Door’s gym battle, just as Door set her sights on Driftveil City, Blair had decided to join her without saying a word.

“So, just so you know, Geist and I are going to Driftveil,” she said.

“I know,” Blair replied.

Blair was looking at the LCD billboards flanking the trainer’s corridor that had been Route 5. Not that many trainers were on the corridor that morning. Evidently, the entire thing about Elesa going through a drought of challengers was both a truth and a lie. It was a truth because Elesa had indeed faced no trainers for a solid month before Blair. It was a lie because, as it turned out, the release of the newest model of Companions—an event that was apparently a big deal to everyone but the heiress to the company that made them—had just enough power to make scores of trainers wait a month. Even that morning, there was a third challenger going up against Elesa, and between billboards with smiling Companions either advertising themselves or a plethora of other products, Door could see screens broadcasting the battle. She didn’t recognize the new trainer at all, nor was she all that interested in watching a faux herdier go up against Elesa’s zebstrika.

What worried her the most was the way Blair was watching the battle. The girl looked as if she was seeing past the screen, into the distance, even though her eyes were trained on each building-sized display.

“Uh, so,” Door began, “don’t you … you know. Don’t you want to stay behind?”

“No,” Blair answered.

Door sighed and cast a glance towards Opal and Geist. Opal, oddly quiet but ever-smiling, was following behind her fellow Companion, but Geist was completely focused on the map he was projecting in front of his eyes from one hand.

“Don’t look at me,” Geist told Door. He flicked his fingers to zoom in on another bend in the road. “Just ask her.”

“Y-yeah,” she muttered. Then, swallowing, she glanced back at Blair. “Um. Are you all right? I mean, it’s okay if you lost. We all lose now and then.”

“I know,” Blair replied.

In response, Door stopped and sighed. She reached out for Blair’s wrist, forcing the girl to freeze. The Companions followed shortly afterwards, with Opal smiling at the road ahead and Geist giving both humans a mildly curious glance.

“Okay, look,” Door said. “I guess I’m fine with you traveling with us, but there’s a lot you need to know, and before I even get into the reasons why it’d be complicated hanging around me, I need you to really think about whether or not this is what you want to do. You get me?”

Blair stared at her with a nearly unreadable expression for a second. Then, with a deep breath, she lowered her eyes. “Door … I’ve been thinking a lot about that kid with the patrat.”

“What kid with the patrat?”

She looked up. “The patrat we saved in Wellspring Cave, remember? And I’ve been thinking about Wilbur too.”

“Oh.” Door shifted on her feet. “And?”

“And?” Blair frowned. “Door, don’t you think it’s weird? All these real pokémon running around, just out of the blue?”

“Of course I think it’s weird,” Door replied. “That’s … that’s sort of why I’m on this journey.”

Blair blinked. “What do you mean?”

Heaving her shoulders, Door threw a glance to Geist, who responded by ignoring her and starting forward again. He wasn’t about to help Door explain; that much was clear. So with that knowledge in mind, Door winced and began following him. Her hand motioned for Blair to start walking, and as the other girl and her Companion fell into step beside her, Door took a deep breath and spoke.

“Um. A lot happened you don’t know about. I mean, you know about Team Matrix, right?” Door asked.

“Yeah. Those two we battled in Wellspring Cave, right? And … that thing that happened in Accumula. I heard about that one on the news,” Blair replied.

“Heh. It’s a bigger deal to me, I guess,” Door said. “Blair, those people are all about Companion freedom or something like that. I guess they’re starting some kind of robot uprising, and to do that, they’re repeating a lot of what Team Plasma did fifty years ago.”

Blair raised an eyebrow. “So what does this have to do with real pokémon?”

Door gave her an awkward smile. “See, that’s the weird part about it. You know Amanita, right? She came up with a way to make real pokémon out of dream smoke. And there’s a fog of the stuff in the Dreamyard and bubbles of it in the old Entralink and Lostlorn Forest. I think real pokémon are coming through those, but no one’s controlling it. Clearly, it’s not happening all the time, or we’d be flooded with real pokémon right now.” She held up a hand. “And before you ask, that’s all relevant because I think Team Matrix is causing it. See, there’s this guy they call the Electric Messiah, and he’s dead, but they need him for their robot uprising somehow. So they’re trying to bring him back to life, and I think they want to do it with dream smoke. And to do that, they want us to find Reshiram or Zekrom.”

Blair stopped in her tracks and stared blankly at Door. The other trainer paused a second later, awkwardly shifting from one foot to another as she stared back.

“Wait, what?!” Blair exclaimed.

Door rolled her head towards Blair. “Oppenheimer, the Matrix leader? He cornered me in the old Nimbasa Amusement Park. He told me he’s trying to get one of us to find Reshiram or Zekrom so we can help him find something in the Entralink that will bring his Electric Messiah back from the dead.”

“Wha—one of us?” Blair murmured.

Exhaling, Door nodded grimly. “Yeah. Me or you. Preferably me, but if I absolutely refuse to do it, they’ll somehow involve you, I think. Either way, one of us is supposed to be the hero Hilda King was supposed to be fifty years ago. He thinks that’s how he’ll get his hands on one of the legendary dragons.” She paused. “By the way. Did I mention they’re planning on using us to resurrect the dead?”

Blair shook her head. “Door, wait. Start from the beginning. What does any of this have to do with a robot uprising specifically? Like … why do we need to help them resurrect this … what did you call it?”

“As Door said, Team Matrix’s goal is to spur on a Companion revolt,” Geist explained. He stopped just ahead of Blair and Door, with Opal by his side. “To do that, Companions need to be sentient. According to what they said in Accumula, the Electric Messiah may be the key to that, but I have a feeling there’s something more to it than that. Otherwise, I find it difficult to believe that a single person would have figured out how to give all Companions true AI and then simply kept that secret to themselves.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry, Door. Your explanations take a bit too long.”

Door reached over to punch him lightly in the arm. “My explanations, Mr. Exposition?”

For a long moment, Blair stared at the both of them. Door could see it in her eyes: the extreme alarm, the uncertainty, the slight revulsion. But what part of their explanation instilled that in her? The part where Door was chosen to summon one of the legendary dragons? The part where Team Matrix wanted to resurrect the dead in order to start a robot uprising? The part where they were willing to use Blair to make sure a dragon got summoned, one way or another?

Blair grabbed Door by the wrist and tugged her backwards. “Door, can I talk to you for a sec? Opal, stay right there. Um, you too, Geist, if you take orders from people who aren’t your primary user or something.”

“Certainly,” Geist replied. He clapped his hands together, dispelling the map.

At his side, Opal saluted. “You can count on me, Blair!”

“R-right,” Blair said. She didn’t say anything else until she pulled Door away, several feet from the Companions, and even then, she shielded her mouth from them and lowered her voice to a barely audible whisper. “Geist is a Companion, right?”

“What? Of course he is!” Door said.

“Lower your voice!” Blair hissed. “Okay, yeah. I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. What series is he?”

Door furrowed her eyebrows. “Series?”

“Come on, Door! This is important!” Blair hissed. “He literally doesn’t act like any Companion I’ve ever seen, so what is he? A souped-up Calliope? A Thalia?”

“I dunno,” Door replied with an indignant hiss and a shrug. “He says we should consider him a Calliope, but I kinda think the whole system thing doesn’t apply to him. I mean, he’s the prototype and all.”

There was a long silence after that. Blair’s expression blanked, and Door could practically see her processing that statement.

“What?” Blair asked.

“Oh. Crap.” Door rubbed the back of her neck. “Yeah. Long story. Amanita Fennel used to be his owner, but before that, he belonged to my great aunt. And by that I mean … I’m Brigette Hamilton’s granddaughter.” She fanned her hands out in front of her and forced a sheepish smile. “Surprise?”

“W-what?” Blair squeaked.

“Yeah.” Door grinned. “Crazy, right? That might be a little bit of why Team Matrix is—”

Blair pulled away and threw her hands into the air. “Nope! Nope! I’m done! Opal, we’re leaving.”

She started back towards downtown Nimbasa City with her arms wrapped around herself. Without protesting, Opal trotted after her, a wide, empty smile plastered across her face. Door hesitated, then looked at Geist, who gave her a concerned look. Then, much to Door’s surprise, Geist sighed and strode after Blair. As soon as he passed Door, he cupped a hand around his mouth.

“Miss Whitleigh! Wait!” he called.

“Nope!” she called. “Not gonna do it!”

“I didn’t want to do this, but…” Geist shook his head. “Opal. Grab her.”

And for the second time in five minutes, something Geist did surprised her: namely, getting Opal to follow his orders. With a smile and a salute to him, she swept an arm around her partner and whirled her around to face Geist. Geist stopped, hands on his hips, face contorted into a concerned frown, and as he looked Blair over, Door couldn’t help but keep her eyes on him.

On the one hand, it sort of made sense. Geist was a systems Companion, owned by a storage network administrator. He must have had tools he could use to connect to other Companions somewhere in his digital core. But on the other hand, Companions couldn’t control other Companions like Geist just did. Not with that much ease, anyway. After all, it was a blatant threat to security, so why would anyone design a Companion with that ability? That was the literal definition of hacking when it came to them. And if Geist could do that, then…

Door thought back to Join Avenue. The HVAC system. How had Geist known immediately that Starr had hacked into it?

“I know this all is unusual, Miss Whitleigh,” Geist began, “but you must understand that you are—or were, perhaps—as much a part of this as Door is. I’m not sure why; my guess is that Team Matrix is desperate enough to require a backup plan, should Door be unable to complete her duties as Hilda King’s replacement.”

“You … you shouldn’t be able to guess,” Blair murmured. She looked at Door. “You see this? This is too much, Door. I barely know you, and you … you…”

“I know,” Door said. She let her gaze drop to her feet. “I’m sorry, okay? When I agreed to bring Geist back to Amanita, I didn’t know any of this would happen! I didn’t know about Team Matrix, and I didn’t know my family had anything to do with this, and I certainly didn’t want Team Matrix to drag other people into it! I mean … you were going to go on a journey. You were going to be a trainer! That’s so cool on its own! You didn’t deserve any of this. You deserve to just go out there and have fun.”

The conversation lapsed into another silence. Door kept her eyes on her shoes until she heard a sigh from Blair. Looking up, she could see the girl frowning at her Companion.

“Opal. Put me down,” she said.

“You got it, Blair!” Opal replied cheerfully.

Once Blair’s feet met the ground, she shrugged Opal off and hugged herself again. “You know you had nothing to do with me not wanting to be a trainer, right?”

Door shook her head. “You didn’t have to get Wilbur, you know. You could’ve started off with a fake tepig, just like a lot of other trainers.”

“No, I couldn’t,” Blair snapped. “No one could have replaced Wilbur. But ever since I found out he’s real and that real pokémon are around the region, I … I just got curious.” She looked away, breaking eye contact with Door. “Also, I suck as a trainer. The simulations I went through at school weren’t too far off. I don’t know if it’s just because I keep holding back or what, but … my heart’s just not in it. I want to find out more about real pokémon and dream smoke and the way faukémon interact with dream pokémon. I want to study things and figure out what makes them tick, you know?”

“You want to be a researcher,” Geist said quietly.

Blair looked at Door and thumbed towards Geist. “Okay, I don’t hate Companions or anything, but that still freaks me out. How is he able to do that?”

Door folded her hands behind her head. “He’s weird.”

Geist gave Blair an awkward smile and a shrug, as if to confirm what Door had just said.

Blair exhaled. “I want to know about him too. And…” She glanced at him. “You’re right. I still want to train my pokémon because that’s what they want, but I don’t want to earn badges or anything. I just want to figure out what’s going on.”

“And you can,” Geist said. “The problem that Door had been getting at is that if you wish to figure out what’s going on, that path will be both dangerous and complicated. Door and I have only told you as much as we know, and I can tell that you wouldn’t have believed Door had I not spoken up. You can decide at any time to break away from us. Only Door has to move forward to ensure that Team Matrix will be stopped.” He extended a hand to her. “So with that in mind, what will you choose?”

Her eyes flicked to his hand, then to Door, then to Geist’s face.

“Hey, can you tell me something?” she began.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Door asked.

“Wilbur,” Blair said. “What will happen to him if he battles?”

Door snorted. “What’re you talking about? Real pokémon can battle fakemon. Here.”

She stepped back and produced two poké balls, one for each hand. Holding them out in front of her, she opened both at the same time and released Jack and Knives. Jack barked and brandished one of his scalchops, and Knives merely cooed and started grooming herself with a paw.

“Check these out,” Door said. “I mean, you’ve seen Jack battle, and Knives? Soloed a gym leader. Of course real pokémon can battle! You’ve met Red, too, and he’s real. He’s just not ready to battle, sorry to say. But give him enough time, and I know he’ll be just as cool as Jack and Knives. Point is, real pokémon? Can definitely hold their own. They might even be more badass than fauxkémon! Isn’t that right, guys?”

Jack barked again with pride, swinging his scalchop with fervor. Knives merely hummed and fluttered her ears.

And then a tornado of leaves smashed into the walkway right next to Jack. With a squeal, Knives swept Jack off his feet and bounded out of range, only to skid to a halt behind Geist. A moment later, something else crashed into the walkway, this time harder and louder, sending a network of cracks across the glass-top surface. Lights flickered out beneath the party’s feet, but the glow of the city still provided enough illumination for Door to see Starr rising from the walkway. On one shoulder was a servine—Monkshood, Door realized—and on the other, Belle sat and grinned.

“You all are so boring,” she said. Then, she tilted her head back, slapped the back of one hand against her forehead, and squeaked in falsetto, “Oh, Doreen! All of this is too much for me to handle! Can my sweet little tepig battle? Whatever will I do?” She placed her hands on her hips, tossed her head, and lowered her voice. “Don’t worry, babe. I’ll protect you. I am so cool. And single, by the way.”

Door gritted her teeth. A hot bubble of rage instantly filled her as she stepped forward. “Shut it, Belle.”

Belle let her voice drop to its normal range as she slid off Starr’s shoulder. “Ooh, did I hit too close to home? You’re way too much, Doreen. You know, if you want a girlfriend, all you’ve got to do is ask her out like a normal, well-adjusted person.”

“That’s it!”

Door jumped forward, only to be caught in mid-air by Geist. He put her back down and curled an arm around her front to hold her in place.

“Think rationally! She has pokémon that can take Jack out!” he snapped. Then, swiveling his head towards Belle, he added, “Just as pleasant as ever, I see, Miss Maybelle.”

“Only because I don’t have to take orders from you anymore,” Belle grinned. “Speaking of, nice to see you getting over your prejudices, Doreen. I’d kill to have a Companion as powerful as Zero-One, and I do mean that literally. But you? You get one handed to you in a fancy bow, and all you do is mouth off to its face.”

“Oh, I will bash your face in.” Door shoved against her Companion’s arms. “Just let me go, Geist! You know she’s asking for it!”

“All the more reason not to do anything rash,” Geist replied. Then, to Belle, he added, “Well? What is it this time?”

“Yeah, what’s your problem?!” Door barked. She settled down in Geist’s arms, not because she was finally agreeing with him but instead because she knew he wasn’t about to let her go. “Wasn’t it enough that I had to be dragged around by you and your creepy boss a few days ago?! What, do you have some other kind of crazy religious bull to shove at me?!”

“Oh please, honey. I’m an atheist,” Belle retorted, pressing her fingers to her chest. “No, Doreen. I was sent here by Lady Magdalene herself for follow-up questions!”

In one fluid motion, Belle whipped her hand away from her chest and tossed a poké ball before her. Where Belle had stored the ball, Door couldn’t tell, nor did she have much time to think about it, as a liepard—which must have been Pride—burst from the ball and landed on the cracked walkway. The moment he landed, he bound towards Jack and Knives, claws extended and lips curled back into a snarl. Before he could touch either of them, Jack stepped forward, whipping his scalchop to the side. Water swirled around it, but rather than sinking into his blade, he whirled it into an orb and smashed the sphere of water directly into Pride’s face. The water churned, engulfing the liepard and throwing him back, headfirst, into the ground where he had started. Shakily, he rose back to his paws and growled.

Water Pulse. Jack knew Water Pulse. Door blinked for a second, realizing she had forgotten to ask Geist if any of her pokémon had any new surprises up their sleeves, but as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she pushed it back out. She could work with this. With a deep breath, she gritted her teeth and pushed away from Geist.

“Sorry, Belle,” she snarled. “I don’t have any questions.”

Belle snorted. “Not you. I have questions for Motoko-senpai over there. See, Lady Magdalene didn’t quite get everything she needed … but Starr can!”

“Wait, what?!”

Starr barreled for Door and Geist. Door took a step back, instinctively throwing her arm out to protect her partner, but Geist brushed past her and swept his hand up between them with a poké ball already in his fingers.

“Antares! Flame Burst!” he called.

A blaze of light flared up in front of Door, and a small form spewed flames directly into Starr’s face, driving the Companion backwards. Geist swooped forward and down, catching his pansear on his shoulder before he glanced back at Door.

“Concentrate on Belle,” he said. “I can fend off Starr myself.”

As if to punctuate that thought, a yowl drew Door’s attention back to the battle. Pride had leapt at Jack and was now in the process of raking the claws on both of his front paws across the dewott’s face. At the final swipe, Pride shoved, sending Jack reeling back. Then, Jack’s movements slowed, and an angry, orange glow began to ebb from his skin. He swept his body towards Belle’s liepard while his voice grew from a low growl to a high-pitched shriek. Just as the scream escaped him, the orange light burst from his body, and he slammed all his weight into his opponent. Pride screamed and flew through the air, only to smash into the barrier between the edge of the walkway and the five-story drop on the other side.

Belle snorted and recalled her liepard, then leapt backwards into a run. Monkshood whirled around her and took to the field with a hiss, and Door sprinted after them both. As she neared Belle’s servine, she pulled out a poké ball and summoned her darumaka at her side.

“Boomer, Fire Punch!” she cried.

Just as she passed, she could feel the heat and see the bright glow of light coming from her pokémon. The thick thwap of a fist on flesh, followed by the roar of flames, told her that the punch had connected, and the rush of wind and leaves made it clear that Monkshood hadn’t gone down in one hit. But all of her attention now was focused on Belle, who had pulled out not one but two poké balls in response. Door narrowed her eyes at them, trying to determine if one looked familiar.

“You took Scout, didn’t you?!” Door snapped.

“Scout? Forgive me, Doreen, but I’m not up-to-date with whatever stupid nicknames your friends have,” Belle sneered.

There was another thwack and another rush of flames, and Belle lifted one of her hands to recall Monkshood with the first poké ball. The other hand tossed her second ball into the air, and with a burst of light, a panpour dropped onto Belle’s shoulder and leapt forward, claws exposed. Jack met the panpour head on, blocking the monkey’s Fury Swipes with his scalchops. Both of his blades took on an amber glow, just before he smashed one into the panpour’s shoulder.

“My watchog!” Door snapped. “You took him! Give him back!”

“What, the one with the broken face?” Belle grinned. “Why do you care? He’s dead.”

Her panpour spewed a jet of steaming water at Jack. Jack shrieked as it caught him in the shoulder, but a second later, he dipped and cut one of his scalchops deep across the panpour’s stomach.

“He’s mine,” Door barked. “What do you want with him anyway?!”

Belle smiled as she recalled her panpour and released another pokémon. This time, the white glow took to the skies, and as it flapped its wings, the silvery light that had engulfed it burst, revealing a tranquill. It dove at Jack, who responded by swirling water around his scalchops and firing another Water Pulse.

“Your cute little Scout is going to be our first test,” Belle explained. “To create life out of nothing. To give organic form to the inorganic. That’s just one part of our ultimate goal, you know.”

“Organic form…” Door sneered at Belle. “You guys are crazy!”

“We wouldn’t be so crazy if you knew why we were doing it,” Belle retorted.

The tranquill sailed past the both of them. Belle stopped and let it clip past her, flicking her braids into the air. Door stumbled, however, pinwheeling around just as her dewott fired another Water Pulse at the bird and missed. Beyond them, Starr rushed at Geist again, but Geist dodged and extended an arm, allowing Antares to perch on his hand and fire another Flame Burst into Starr’s chest. The flames whipped around the other Companion, slowing him down but not stopping him completely. He extended a large hand at Geist, only to have his target step backwards, out of reach.

“Of course,” Belle said, pulling Door’s attention back to her, “you’d already know this if you just asked Astro Boy over there.”

“Astro…” Door furrowed her eyebrows. “Do you mean Geist?! What does he have to do with anything?!”

Belle rolled her eyes. “I told you. He has something important stored inside him.” She tapped her temple. “Some really important data that Lady Magdalene and Mr. Oppenheimer want to make sure is intact. It’s taken decades for Mr. Oppenheimer to find Robobutler again. It’d be a shame if all the stuff he’s been carrying around with him for that long is gone.”

Door stared. Behind her, she could hear a bird’s screech, cut off shortly by the roar of water. Shaking her head, she frowned.

“Geist can’t have decades’ worth of information stored in his cores,” she said. “He was wiped before he got to Amanita! If you really worked with him for months, you’d know that already!”

Belle snorted and smiled. “Oh, honey. And if you had been around him for as long as we have, you’d know you can’t wipe everything.”

And then, behind her, Door could hear the last thing she expected to detect on the battlefield.

Starr’s voice. Singing.

“Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…”

Door slowly moved her eyes back to the battle behind her. Even Belle’s tranquill and Jack stopped, as all heads turned towards Starr. He stepped forward, closer to Geist, hand outstretched. Door had expected Geist to step out of the way, for Antares to attack, for either of them to defend themselves, but instead, Geist lowered his arm, causing his monkey to skitter back onto his shoulder with a chatter.

“I’m half-crazy, all for the love of you.”

As Starr continued to sing, Geist’s face blanked. His features slackened, and his eyes lost their usual, all-too human shine. Instead, blue sparks flashed across his pupils—a sign that Door recognized from all the Companions that would be brought to her father. She remembered them, the older ones that struggled to process data. The ones whose cores were overloading because they were too old, too overworked, or too infected with a smattering of malware to boot properly. And here she was, watching it happen to Geist in an instant.

If she didn’t do something…

“It won’t be a stylish marriage. I can’t afford a carriage.”

“Knives!” Door cried.

Starr reached out, one of his hands nearing Geist’s arm. “But you’ll look sweet, upon the seat, of a bicycle built for—”

A pignite plowed his front hooves into Starr’s chest, and the Companion was launched off his feet and onto his back. In a flash, Blair was at Geist’s side, jamming her fingers into his wrist. He jerked his head back and gasped, his eyes flickering to life once more.

“Okay, Wilbur!” she ordered. “Rollout!”

With a grin, Door moved to stand behind Jack. “And Jack? One more Water Pulse!”

Wilbur squealed and dove into a roll, driving his bulky body straight into a recovering Starr. At the same time, Jack whipped a new orb around his scalchops and fired it into Belle’s tranquill, and with both attacks together, both Starr and the tranquill came crashing down at Belle’s feet. Belle recalled her tranquill, then stooped down to help Starr to his feet.

“Objective met,” Starr announced. “Analysis of LFA system complete. Status: fully operational. New objective: rendezvous.”

“Rendezvous, huh?” Belle chuckled and leapt into her Companion’s arms. “You’re lucky, Doreen. Seems like we’re done doing business here.” She paused. “Oh, hold on! You wanted your watchog! Well … maybe you’ll see us around Cold Storage. That’s where Hilda went next, isn’t it? Ta!”

Starr whipped around and bounded away, dashing first to the edge of the walkway and then leaping over. Blair and Door rushed to the edge themselves, but by the time they reached it and peered over, Starr had already vanished. In her frustration, Door pounded the barrier with her fist, then whirled around to see her pokémon scampering towards her. Exhaling, she strode forward and wrapped an arm around Jack.

“Nice job, you two,” she said. Then, cracking a grin, she added, “Jack, I didn’t know you could use Water Pulse and Revenge. Guess I have to get back to training you soon. And Boomer?”

She turned to see Knives hoisting Boomer above her head with a coo and a happy smile. Boomer, it seemed, was already fast asleep in her paws.

“Uh, nice work too, I guess,” Door muttered.

“Don’t forget to take some credit for yourself,” Geist told her quietly.

She jumped and faced him. He stood behind her, one hand on Antares and the other hanging at his side. Somehow, he looked tired, and that alone caused Door’s pride to evaporate.

“You okay?” she asked.

Geist chuckled. “I’m fine. I didn’t scare you, did I?”

“Yeah, you did. Remember, I’m gonna need you for the rest of our journey, and I sure as crap can’t drag something as heavy as a Companion to the nearest pokémon center.” She playfully punched his unoccupied shoulder again. “So don’t do it again.”

Gingerly, he rubbed his shoulder, right where she punched him. With a smile, he said, “Noted. Glad to hear my assistance in Nimbasa Gym didn’t change our relationship much.”

Door snorted. “Not if you go all dead-eyed doll on me. What happened, anyway?”

At once, Geist’s expression took on a distant look. He flicked his eyes from her to the side and back to her again. “I’m not sure, honestly. I only have records of a core reboot.”

“Which one?”

He locked eyes with her. “The LFA core.” Then, after a brief pause, he raised his hands. “But it’s fine, Door. It’s still locked, Starr didn’t access it remotely, and it’s running all right now.”

Door frowned. “You know that doesn’t answer any of the questions I have.”

“Yes.” Geist lowered his hands. “I know.”

“Hey.”

Both Door and Geist looked up to see Blair standing by the edge of the walkway. One of her palms rested on Wilbur’s head, and by her side, Opal stood with her own hands clasped over her heart. While Opal gazed at them with a faint smile, Blair and Wilbur regarded them with a hard frown.

“Listen. I don’t know what’s going on exactly,” Blair said, “but whatever it is … count me in.”



> THALIA.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Bebe Larson.

LANETTE: Project Galatea, mass production notes, day 70. There is one advantage to the lightweight chassis that I’d forgotten to mention: it’s cheaper to make. You can blame Brigette for this revelation. She had been working with the accounting and marketing departments for our fledgling little company ever since I’d announced that I wanted to mass-produce the Companions. She’s a natural at that sort of thing, you know? Of course she would be. She’s more charismatic than I am—or at least she’s the one who’s always confident around other people. Me? I just think of myself as a problem-solver of a different sort. I’m good at coming up with solutions in the lab, not among people. That was never my department, even back before any of this began. That was always…

[pause]

Anyway, as she figured out, it’s easy to market a Companion to the general public if you have a cheaper alternative. Giving people choices is a self-marketing strategy. Students, office workers, families, and the like will take a look at the price tag of Calliope and actively hunt for a cheaper alternative in Erato or Clio, and the wealthier families who want their children to set off on journeys equipped with top-of-the-line tech will look at Erato’s spec sheet and actively hunt for the more expensive and supposedly higher quality Calliope. All you would have to do is figure out a way to tell both groups that they need a Companion.

I don’t claim to understand marketing or even this sort of logic, but the fact of the matter is that you can produce far more lightweight Companions at a cheaper cost, which in turn means that no one will miss a chassis or few that I’ve decided to take for my experiments.

Today’s test was simple. Figure out how many cores a Companion can function on before the chassis gives out or before the cores’ balance is completely unworkable. Or, to put it a little more bluntly, I want to see how human I can make a Companion’s personality. Hence, my first step was to add more personality cores and balance them out with emotion cores and morality cores as needed.

Results? Well, first off, you can’t have a Companion with double the number of cores as a Calliope. Or at least you can’t do it with a lightweight chassis. Actually, the upper limit for a lightweight chassis is literally only five anyway, and any more than that causes the thoracic harness to collapse into the pelvic supports. So … technically a failure in that regard.

For that reason, I’ve decided to eliminate all lightweight testing beyond swapping out cores and focus exclusively on testing with the standard chassis—which, honestly, I probably should have done from the beginning, but we live and learn. And perhaps make excuses for why Calliopes disappear from the production line now and then.

In any case, transference of a six-core, dual-persona system from the lightweight to the standard chassis led to far better results. The end product was a far more personable Companion who was able to emulate human emotion far better than Erato. She’s also capable of storing a far higher number of commands in the extra space afforded to her by this sixth core, which means that she’s basically a performance bot. I’ve shown the preliminary results to Brigette, who surprisingly responded with a request for a refined model to replace our marketing team’s Erato unit. If all goes well, Brigette is even considering marketing her as a purely entertainment-based Companion—like a gaming computer, only … not.

I’ve named her Thalia, after the muse of comedy. Thank the gods I’d already used Erato.

[end recording]

This … might be my least cohesive review yet. I leave it to you to decide whether or not that's a good thing.

Anyway, given how you introduced this chapter, I feel like I don't actually have to tell you what feels off about it: it has a lot of stuff in it that I'm not sure needs to be there. Like okay, it does that thing where the person is like “I can't deal with this, I'm out!” and then danger strikes and they return suddenly and say “Okay, I'm in!”, and that's kind of satisfying, but we really don't need Door's summary of the story to date, for instance, which could be cut so that you'd just jump straight to Blair's reaction. As for the action itself, it feels like that structure I just described with Blair overcoming her initial shocked reluctance is mostly a thing because you were sticking really closely to what happens in-game, and this is (a) where Bianca has her finding-my-truth moment and (b) a route where a minor plot event happens involving a battle, many of which are represented by Matrix interventions.

I think your handling of what actually happens is pretty good – I like Blair's moment, I like the two strands of the battle against Belle and Starr, and I like Blair's intervention at the end – but overall, the chapter feels like it isn't as streamlined as it could be. I enjoyed it (I don't know, I just really like Blair for some reason, I think she's adorable, possibly the fact that she's built on the Bianca template has something to do with it, or maybe it's that she named her lillipup Toto and her tepig Wilbur, or maybe it's both), but yeah. As you pointed out, there's a bunch of stuff that feels clip-show-y.

The Lanette note is interesting, though. Like, making these things look human is clearly a huge deal for her, for whatever reason (or for one pretty specific reason anyway), because the technology she's created here clearly has potential beyond what she's employing it for. I don't think we've had an in-universe reason yet for why you couldn't just stuff a big box-shaped frame that's 75% supporting metalwork and 25% water-cooling systems full of cores and come closer and closer to true AI, but she doesn't want to create a giant sentient brick, she wants to create androids. Which speaks to her priorities – and to those of the subsequent owners of Halcyon, since as yet this doesn't seem to be a thing that people have been looking into. Unless they have and it's a secret, which, to be fair, making a giant sentient brick probably would be.

Anyway: Driftveil! Which means (a) that bloody excadrill (nuzlockes are fun, I tell myself, as I sink yet another hour into grinding so that Clay won't one-shot everything on the team with that thing) and (b) the one character who annoys me more than any other in the fic for some reason probably obvious reasons. Although revisiting this note after having finished the chapter, it looks like he hasn't showed up yet, so we are all spared my writing about how irritating Roland is (in a good way, like you have successfully written an asshole character) for a while yet. His reputation, however, precedes him, as Blair notes. I think I probably point this out every time a Gym comes up, but I really like how everyone apparently comes up against these fights in-game and leaves with the exact same opinions, and then those filter through into fic in fun ways.

Which doesn't segue at all into writing about Antares, but here we are. I'm glad he's still around. My Y nuzlocke left me with a soft spot for the elemental monkeys; they're not the strongest or fastest or toughest, but they're super flexible and have broad movesets, which I think is a really nice way of representing simian intelligence and adaptability (and which meant that my simipour soloed half the Elite Four), and they have a nice theme going on too, which always helps. For some reason I also love the image of a monkey hanging off someone's shoulder breathing fire at things. That's good too.

Another thing I like: this world's TMs, which are like breaking eggs over your pokémon. I don't know how they're meant to work, but I don't really know how TMs are meant to work anyway, so that's fine. It's just a fun image. Like a fire monkey.

I'd forgotten that Roland was Steven's son, but you know, I can totally see that; one of the things that ORAS added that I really liked were all those little hints that Steven, though very nice, is also completely unaware of his own massive privilege. Combine that attitude with Steven's overwhelming but entirely thoughtless skill, and you can kind of see how Roland ended up like he did.

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself again. Back to the chapter at hand: I think Door's little interior monologue about Driftveil and whether she likes Geist and Companions kind of shows us what we need to interpret the situation, then tells us what we just figured out, which is a little awkward. You can definitely have faith in your ability to convey a thing without having to say it twice, imo.

And on the subject of Door and Driftveil – oh my god, Door. Seriously. Like okay, she's fifteen, and hotheaded, but seriously? That's old enough to know not to run after a know member of a terrorist cult through a rough part of town all by yourself. It's totally in character, of course, but c'mon, Door. You've had a relatively sheltered life, but you're smarter than this. (… this is the moment at which I realise that I have unconsciously become someone's mother. I'm not angry, Door, I'm disappointed.)

It occurs to me, reading these two chapters, that we're dozens of thousands of words in and we still haven't seen anything of Belle beyond the image she projects at the teenagers she's trying to annoy. Like, there's that tiny hint of something when she interacts with the Heartbreakers, but even so, I feel like it might have been nice to have slightly more of a look at who she is by now. We have the measure of her persona, but if she keeps on just being that persona, and popping up in obvious-villain roles, I guess there's kind of a danger that she'll start to feel much flatter than the other characters. They've all been developed, while Belle is mostly still playing the role she did in the very first chapter. She'd be good fodder for an extra, perhaps, if there's a way to do that without being too spoilery.

Finally, as usual, here are some other little things I noted down as I read through:



League planner 1: this glass-topped walkway that will be walked over by a variety of superpowered animals is a PERFECT idea.

League planner 2: I mean, I guess we're so overfunded that it doesn't actually matter.



I feel like 'angry' might be modifying 'orange' here, rather than 'glow'; if so, the comma should go. Also, 'ebb' gives pretty much the opposite impression to the one you want, I think: when a glow is described as ebbing, that suggests to me that it's fading away rather than building up.



I guess what's meant here is that she twists around mid-jump and runs away? It reads sort of like she leaps backwards and starts moonwalking really fast. Possibly substituting 'back' for 'backwards' would help with that; it would suggest movement in a direction without also suggesting that the motion is backwards relative to Belle's facing.



Oh Door. Please, just ask her out already, this is getting painful.





These two sentences are pretty close to each other, which makes the repetition of that opening phrase awkwardly apparent.



The word she's using suggests incredulity, which is somewhat at odds with this adverb.



I'm not quite sure what Blair's supposed to be saying here, I'm afraid.



Driftveil is on the same latitude as Nimbasa; it's a western city, but in terms of longitude, it's definitely more central than northern.

Ch 24

Well, that's a lot Blair has to process through, from being roped to Team Matrix's plan, Door being heir to Halycon Labs, Geist, and real Pokemon roaming around. Cute though that Blair wants to be a reaseracher too.

Speaking of Geist, the part where he commands Opal to grab her, I can understand Door's shock there. If androids can command/hack other androids like that, does that mean they don't have agency? (insert Discord deepthink emojii icon here)



LOL oh my gosh even Belle can see it a thousand miles away.



Yeah, I feel like Team Matrix is skidding this issue a few times already. I mean I get why as you don't want to reveal everything, but then I'm like, "Okay I get it Team Matrix you probably have a plan for those dead androids ack."

The part with Staar singing and Geist looking uncomfortable there, I was like, "Oh no. Is he gonna be all right?" Looks like he's fine though, for now.

Ch 25

Amusing Blair is more prepared for Driftveil than Door. I can relate to her though getting in a bit of a cranky mood until I have something to eat haha.

Ah, and now we get to the Heartbreaker triple battle. Yikes over Boomer gone just like that. Then you have Belle saving their butts, and shooting one of them welp! I think she does have a point a gun would've been a more dangerous choice, but considering the games those guys aren't like that... Also I have a feeling I know where Door and Geist will end up next, hm.

Well, literally the chapter after my review saying I'd like to see more of Belle, we start seeing more of Belle, huh. Sure, a lot of this is filtered through the tiresome persona she's put on to annoy Door, but like, there are hints of a past there, and principles, and the kind of competency that leads me to wonder what kind of life this teenager (Belle's eighteen-ish, right? Or am I misremembering?) has had, exactly, in order for her to have done all the things she's ended up doing before she even turns twenty. Like don't get me wrong, lots of people her age would absolutely nick a Terpsichore unit from a military base if they thought they could get away with it, but it's the 'getting away with it' bit that interests me there. I'm guessing we can expect to learn more about her going forward, if your last review response is anything to go by.

Anyway, there's a bunch of Matrix stuff happens in this chapter, I should comment on that. Again, Matrix show their interest in the dead, and honestly I feel like unless I'm way off on what's going on here, the mystery is wearing a little thin; after Belle's hints earlier on, and their stated interest in giving organic form to the inorganic (with the concomitant question of why the organic is to be privileged by the android rights people, but like, that's something I don't expect to be answered until we're deeper into the plot) and all that, I'm not sure why this needs to be treated like a big secret. Unless of course this is all misdirection, and something else entirely is going to happen! That could be the case.

Actually, wait, before I get onto Matrix and all that, a brief sidebar inspired by my too-long reply tirade last night (which, uh, sorry about that, that was not the right format for those thoughts, I guess I have stronger and more defensive feelings about this fic than I realised): looking through the review responses, I noticed that in your response to Bay you said that we're all waiting for a robot uprising, but like … I don't think we necessarily are? Or not yet, anyway. And I should make very clear, I do not at all mean this as criticism; a story about androids doesn't have to just tread the same ground about cognition and personhood, you know? And this isn't just that one story, isn't just every novel since Dick. So, with the caveat that this is all true of the story I have been reading and not, perhaps, of the story as it will be when it's complete: Electric Sheep feels to me like a story about legacies, above all else. Bill's legacy, and Lanette's, are at the core of the plot, along with how people deal with them (Oppenheimer and Lanette appear to be dealing with Bill's; Door is dealing with Lanette's; Geist is dealing with both) – but of course there are very few characters who aren't defined by the weight of what went before and the necessity of dealing with it. Virginia, Roland, Hilda, N, all of the League members who were around for the garbage fire that was their response to the Plasma situation; it's a really powerful theme, and while as I've mentioned it doesn't always feel like it meshes with the android theme, I'd say that the person who's capable of sustaining a theme as all-pervasively as that is definitely capable of reunifying these diverging threads with a suitable twist. (In other words, this is the usual have-faith-in-your-ability-as-a-writer thing I say, but like, more so.)

And it's also about the ways in which you can be chosen: there's a particular narrative that stories about children saving the world often fall into, and that is that someone is chosen for some reason. It's one that BW both buys into and problematises: Reshiram and Zekrom choose their champions – so far, so conventional – but N is chosen by Ghetsis in another, much worse way: he's very empathetic and suggestible and charismatic, and so he's a perfect cult figurehead. Electric Sheep picks up that idea and runs with it; Door is chosen (by Matrix) because she is in the right place at the right time to re-enact Hilda's journey, and again because of Lanette's legacy, but she is chosen in many other ways too – sure, wealth and class create an insulating factor, but in many ways she is the kind of person to whom things can be done. Race, youth, gender, sexuality, all make her an easily-chosen kind of target; I don't think it's an accident, aesthetically speaking, that the back-up in Matrix's plan, Blair, also has a history of being made a target for some of these things. (All this, uh, is something I probably should've said in my review of the Pride month special but I guess I didn't have my analytical hat on that day.) Anyway, one of the things that makes Electric Sheep strong is that it pulls themes like this one from the games and finishes the project that BW only ever really started.


And then, finally, Roland Stone. Okay. Next time I'm not going to leave it a week before I respond, because as I think we all know, I have opinions about this asshole and given that these reviews have degenerated into long-winded rants about my increasing exasperation with its cast, you can bet I'm going to end up sharing them.


Oh, come on, Door, you're like the last person to work this out.


As far as I know, the 'oh-so-X' structure is written with hyphens between 'so' and the adjective in question, too.


Matrix grunt: Hey, just stand still a moment, I'm trying to – do you even know how cute you're going to look when I've put you in a mini Matrix uniform?

Harassed-looking purrloin: *angry hissing*

Matrix grunt: That's right! Super cute!

Harassed-looking purrloin: *turns to stare directly into the camera*


I think I get what you're saying here, but the structure seems a bit tortured, mostly by the introduction of the 'I'; I feel like substituting 'her achievements' or something would be clearer, although you would then lose the subtlety of the thing that Magdalene's doing where she insinuates herself into this statement with a mixture of self-denigration and pride that probably goes straight over Door's head. Maybe there's a third way of doing this that lets you have both.


This feels like a fusion of 'if you would' and 'if you please', which leaves it sounding rather odd and unnatural.


Missing 'to' here between 'hardest' and 'create'.


Hey, I was right! These things that Companions feel are a kind of cool internal psychosomatic response thing! Neato. Also yeah, Terpsichore as the name of a type of military android is a very black kind of comedy that I rather enjoy, mostly because I don't live in a world with military androids.

Okay. Roland Stone. I have over five pages of notes on him (yes. seriously), so this is very much the highlights reel. But here are the two main things that come across in this scene: one, he has a theoretical understanding of what trainer journeys are meant to be, but is completely unfamiliar with the spirit; two, he's kind of pitiful. I mean seriously. He's here to interview two teenage girls, one of whom has just been kidnapped, and he not only brought two military androids but decided to bully his interlocutors into feeling the Right Way about their journey. I don't know how old he is, but he's old enough to be heading the Unovan branch of Devon, and that's definitely old enough to have learned that this is not how you treat other people. I mean, in order to have learned this he would have had to have not grown up being aware of the fact that he could literally just buy most of the people he meets, but you know.

Actually, let me just go on a quick tangent – one of the things that's most surprising about Roland to me is that he even exists. Like, who on earth was able to come between Steven Stone and his rock collection long enough to get a kid out of him? It's telling that whoever this person is, they're not mentioned at all; this is just about Roland and his dad, and the fact that I expect Steven was perfectly nice to Roland, but also completely uninterested in him. (Wait, tangent to the tangent: how on earth did Steven settle on Roland as a name? Who calls their kid Roland? I had a teacher called Roland once and that is literally the only Roland other than this one, real or fictional, who I can even think of. Was this the unnamed mother's idea? I guess Steven probably would have just agreed without really paying much attention.) Anyway, I guess Roland is probably the result of some kind of dynastic thing; after a certain point families like the Stones turn into a modern aristocracy, and then I guess their fondness for nepotism becomes like a lifestyle choice. So presumably Steven had to get married eventually, and have at least A Kid, even if he then went on to spend the rest of his life digging for shiny rocks in locations so remote that he can only be contacted by actual paper letter.

All right, that wasn't exactly a quick tangent, but anyway, back to Roland. I don't know if he's being serious when he says he'd jeopardise Door's mission just because he judges Door unworthy, and that's great. Like, he absolutely could be that much of an asshole, but I also think he would love the gesture of magnanimously allowing young Miss Hornbeam to challenge him, especially if he can tell himself he's doing it because he's a man of rare judgement who really understands what's important about a trainer journey and is uniquely positioned to educate people about this. There's a thin line between tough love, from which Door could arguably benefit, and being the kind of dick who bullies a child, and whatever it is that Roland Stone is, he is not a man who has a strong handle on nuances of this sort. Sure, he ends up pushing Door into a self-analysis that she's actually the better for, but he does it in pretty much the most asshole way possible, and I think the situation only really works out the way it does because Door's the only person in the room who his nonsense doesn't really work on. It's kind of refreshing to have her bullishness be a strength for once. Like I knew that was probably a thing, but still, it's come up a bit less than I might have expected.

It's telling that it does work on Blair, though. She respects adults, particularly people like gym leaders, and I don't think that's just because she's a year younger than Door; I think she's got a really different temperament, one that leaves her much less naturally inclined towards suspicion. It would be mean to judge her for that, though, given that she is only fourteen, and has clearly not had the broadest experiences so far. Besides, it's a good balance for the scene, having someone who's taken in by Roland's nonsense and someone who isn't, even if maybe Blair isn't quite as fully utilised here as she might be in order to capitalise on that balance.

Oh, one last thing about Roland Stone: that whole 'my city' thing is incredibly irritating, so you're doing a great job there. What is with all these high-powered corporate people and their possessive relationship to the cities in which they live? Do they not understand how uncomfortable it is to hear someone talk about 'my city' when their relationship to most of that city's inhabitants is essentially 'they work for minimum wage in my warehouses'? Because that particular kind of bourgeois possessiveness is really, really unflattering. I guess if you're rich then you don't need people to actually like you? I don't know, I only know one rich person, I'm no scientist but even I know that's not a good sample size.

Anyway, I've written like 750 words about Roland Stone, which is an improvement on the five pages I did in my notebook, sure, but still probably a bit too much. There are other things in this chapter, I think? Door's realisation is one: it's a pretty major step for her, as she admits for the first time that (a) Companions have a hold on her that she can't ignore and (b) that they have the potential to be more than she says they are, even if she isn't yet ready to admit that they already are more than she says they are. It's been a long time coming, and there's a hell of a lot further to go, but it happened! And you know what, after all the moments when Door's just been a frustrating teenager, to have this moment really kinda makes you feel proud, as if all your exasperated talking at this fictional character has finally got through to her. It's especially nice to see that this isn't just something she says for Roland, too – like, it bleeds through into her next interaction with Geist, which is great. It's definitely not perfect, because she's still privileging Geist's human-like characteristics as more evidence of personhood than his robotic ones, and I think it's going to take her a long time to even understand these patterns of thinking, let alone change them, but you know, it's progress. Progress is great!

Man, I had it in my head that Bill died a bit later than that. 25! I guess I often forget that most canon characters are meant to be really young – although I don't know why I'd forget that, given that it's a world where independence is encouraged from a very young age, with the whole trainer journey thing. I don't think I had enough material here for a full paragraph but that's fine.

Aaaand Lanette. She dealt with Bill's death in truly the most spectacularly overachieving unhealthy way that was humanly possible, huh. I do feel for her; I'm sure my reactions are similarly ridiculous at times. (Case in point: five pages of notes about this one minor threshold guardian character. I feel like this might say more about me than it does about Roland?) And like, this is the kind of thing you can do when you live all by yourself in the middle of nowhere without anyone to tell you that what you're doing is incredibly unhealthy, I suppose. Or if the only people you have to talk to are the kind of people who will let you do this thing because they can see profit at the end of it, even if it doesn't seem like something you should be doing.

Some other stuff:



Glad to hear it! I … tend to say a lot more than I feel like I need to or should about things, in formats that aren't easy to respond to, and I'm always uncertain about whether that's a good idea or not. I guess it is. That's good.



Anecdote: The Old Curiosity Shop starts as a first-person narrative because it was serialised in Master Humphrey's Clock, and so it was narrated by Humphrey, the conceit being that he'd run across these people on his evening walk and had got interested in their lives. But the story is pure Dickens, with a million characters bouncing around London and off one another like pinballs, and a first-person narrative from a POV who isn't even connected to the story didn't work. So after a few chapters Dickens wrote a bit where Humphrey's like 'I think this story is now bigger than I as one person can describe, I'm going to tell it in people's own voices', and from that point on it's a third-person narrative that jumps between the characters, as so many of his other books do. Humphrey never gets mentioned again.

Point is, the whole first part of that novel is completely broken, and yet Dickens turned it around and it became one of the biggest smash hits of its time, to the point where, when the ship carrying the final instalment finally arrived in New York, a crowd of eager readers stormed the wharf because they were just that desperate to know how it ended. And I think that's a big strength of serialised fiction. These things aren't structured like a regular novel; chapters are like TV episodes, they're at least partly self-contained, and you have that flexibility to change directions and retool what you're doing as you go – to discover what it is you're really writing about, and to rework your subject and form to better fit that thing. So this is a really roundabout way of saying that there's nothing inherently wrong with Electric Sheep flexing and shifting as it grows. Not all novels are singular monoliths tightly focused on one theme, you know? And that's especially true of serialised novels, particularly when they're written over a long period of time. They are allowed to grow and change, and they can still be really good, not just in spite of but because of this flexibility. (And sure, The Old Curiosity Shop hasn't exactly aged well, so maybe I could've found a better example, but I think the point still stands.)



Happy to have helped. :> Like, it often takes someone else's point of view to help reveal the structure of things you've spent too long working too closely on to glimpse in their entirety; that's kind of why editors exist, after all. And honestly, any excuse to go on at length about a story I enjoy.



Right! Like, sometimes androids are just part of the setting, and sometimes they're one of several themes that a story engages with. But just because they're in a story doesn't mean that that story has to be about them, in the same way that if there are ghosts in a story it doesn't have to be a ghost story. Honestly, it's probably more interesting to weave new elements in as you have done – because after all, what are we going to learn about personhood at this point, after the number of android stories we have? That people come in many forms? Okay, sure, there is value in being reminded of that, in different ways that perhaps make different political points, but I'd hope that a story about robots has more to offer than just that thing. (All of this, as you can probably guess, is coming out of my own thinking about the android novel I'm writing at the moment, so you've caught me at a pretty roboty time in my life, I suppose. Is that a good thing? I don't know, it means you get a whole bunch of thoughts about fiction that deals with androids, you could take that as a good or bad thing, or just as a thing.)



Given the story's present is always past tense, having this sentence in the present tense reads weirdly, even if technically you could get away with it.



This strikes me as one of those occasions where trying to avoid repetition gives you a more awkward sentence than just allowing it; I'd say 'Door's' would be fine here. You could probably even get away with 'her', given that it hasn't been established that Blair is challenging Roland.

Also, thanks to y’all for being so patient here. :’) To make up for the few weeks of zero updates and to prep for the two weeks where I absolutely can’t update, I’ve decided to dump the next few chapters (and one extra) in one go. This takes you up to Chargestone Cave, and then we’ll be skipping two weeks (thanks to my break) and resume with a double upload to finish off the month. This all means that brand-new, never-before-seen-anywhere content will start popping up in December, so that’s exciting.

In any case, please stand by for more Roland Goddamnit!

---

[TWENTY-EIGHT: DRIFTVEIL GYM]

Apparently, Driftveil Gym was set into the side of a mountain. Its sign was hung neatly—as Door would have expected from Roland Stone—on the rocky face of a cliff on the northern end of town. The surrounding neighborhood was even neat and orderly, consisting largely of clean, glass-walled apartment buildings for Devon employees and a handful of upscale shops and similar points of interest for trainers with money. That didn’t surprise Door either.

No, what surprised Door was the fact that the entrance was so small, humble, and for all intents and purposes, more like the entry to a bunker than a sleek and stylish Devon facility. Or, for that matter, more like the entry to a bomb shelter and less like the rest of the neighborhood.

“Um,” she said. “Geist, are you sure we’re in the right place?”

Geist—who was now dressed in a cleanly pressed shirt and a red vest, courtesy apparently of Amanita’s wallet—closed his hand and thus the map he had been projecting from his palm.

“Positive,” he replied.

“Driftveil Gym’s located in the old Clay Tunnel,” Blair added. She snorted. “C’mon, Door. Everyone knows that.”

“Y-yeah. Of course!” Door put her hands on her hips and did her best to not let Blair see her blush of embarrassment. She did not, in fact, know that the current Driftveil Gym was housed in the old Clay Tunnel. “I’m just surprised it’s not dressed up, yanno? I mean, c’mon. Devon’s known for sleekness and whatever, right? Shoving the gym in the old tunnel just seems … messy.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so,” Blair replied, her voice dropping to a low and defeated mumble.

“On the other hand, it’s a brilliant use of space, something Devon is also known for,” Geist said. “After all, once the safe zone system was established, no one went through Clay Tunnel anymore. Rather than let it simply rot or become a den for local gangs like our friend the Heartbreaker’s, Mr. Stone bought it upon his appointment as Driftveil’s gym leader and refurbished it for his purposes.”

“Along with the rest of the neighborhood,” Door muttered, glaring over her shoulder at the heavily gentrified street.

“Yes, actually. You could say that Roland—”

“Geist, if you say ‘left no stone unturned,’ I swear to God—”

“—is a thorough man,” Geist finished as he shot a wry grin towards his user. He pressed his hand to the door but paused, his face falling. “Door, there’s something important you need to know before we go in.”

“Yeah? What’s that?” Door asked.

“I can only give you advice when you ask me specific questions. I won’t be able to shout out whenever I feel like it as I had in previous matches. Understood?”

“Huh? Why not?”

“So far, you’ve only faced gym leaders who either knew about me or didn’t particularly mind,” he told her. “You know as well as I do that normal Companions can’t simply offer advice whenever we want. We are always analyzing our users’ battles, but our user needs to specifically consult us when they wish to know something. That’s why one of the standard rules is that we can’t interfere with the battle. It doesn’t mean we can’t interfere of our own free will; it means you can’t use anything but our help function.”

Door blinked. “Oh. So what are you saying?”

He pressed against the door—not enough to push it open but enough to make it click. “Roland Stone is with Devon Corporation, Halcyon’s main competitor, and he’s too new to the League to have had any direct dealings with Dr. Fennel, which means he doesn’t know about me or what I can do. I’d imagine you wouldn’t want to reveal a Companion as advanced as I am to someone who would be very interested in creating a successful knock-off.”

“I guess so,” Door said. “So what do I do if I need your help?”

“I got this, Geist,” Blair said. “Look, Door. It’s super-easy. You go like this.” She whirled around to face Opal. “Hey, Opal! I need to know what types palpitoad are weak and resistant to, STAT!”

Opal responded with a salute. “You got it, Blair!” Her head dropped, and her eyes lit up. “Scanning … scanning … got it!” She lifted her chin to level her gaze with Blair’s again. “Palpitoad is extremely weak against the grass type, but it resists fire, poison, rock, and steel. It takes no damage from electric, and all other types inflict normal damage.”

“Okay. Thanks, Opal!” Blair took a bow, swinging her arm towards Opal as she did. “See? It’s that simple.”

Door nodded slowly, then tilted her head towards Geist. “Yeah, um.”

“Yes, Door, I’ll make it sound more human than that.” He glared at her as he shoved open the door. “Although, honestly, you really should be a little nicer to Opal. She’s standing right there, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll work on that.” Door waved a hand in the air as she brushed past Geist.

He rolled his eyes and motioned for Blair to follow, and thus, the group entered the foyer of the Driftveil Gym.

Or, rather, what was a close approximation to a foyer.

It was a room, no larger than a bedroom, lined completely in steel. An uncomfortable-looking set of chairs, the only pieces of furniture the space had, were clustered in a corner, old and sad and covered in dust. At the far end of the room were two sets of doors: one marked “FIRE EXIT” and the other clearly a set of elevator doors. A thin, blond, long-faced Companion, dressed in a sleek, black suit, stood next to the elevator doors with his hands clasped behind his back. Geist grasped Door’s elbow and escorted her forward, approaching this Companion. The Companion’s violet eyes slid open, and he stared at the two with a long, judging expression.

“Please present your identification,” he intoned.

Geist lifted both of his hands, allowing his pads to snap open, and in return, the other Companion slid his hands into the open and lined his palms up with Geist’s. Door stood by, watching as she bit her lip in concern. This, she realized, was the first time Geist would be using his new left arm, and part of her felt a slight pang of worry that it wouldn’t work, combined with preemptive guilt on the off-chance that it didn’t.

But, much to her relief, the left pad glowed just as brightly as the right, and the beam that emitted from it was just as strong. The two Companions stood there for a moment until the Driftveil Gym’s lowered his hands. Geist snapped his pads shut but kept his hands in front of him.

“Record found,” the gym Companion said. He moved his head with jerking movements towards Door. “Are you Door Hornbeam of Nuvema City?”

“Yeah. And this is my Companion, Geist,” she said. Then, pointing behind her, she added, “Oh, and these are my guests. They can come too, right?”

“Up to three guests are permitted in the elevator, yes.” The Companion touched his temple, and the elevator doors behind him opened silently. “Please come with me. Gym Leader Roland has been waiting for you.”

“Right.” She glanced at Geist with uncertainty. “Well—oh wait. Hold on a sec.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a poké ball. As quickly as she could, she expanded it and cracked it open in her hand, releasing a blob of white light into the space before her. In seconds, Red materialized, humming quietly and curiously to his trainer.

“Red, this is Blair and Opal. You remember them, right?” she asked, motioning to the others.

The yamask shifted his eyes to the human and Companion next to him, then bobbed in as close an approximation to a nod as his species could get.

“Great,” Door said. “Stay close to them and watch, just like last time, okay?”

With another bobbing nod, the yamask glided to Blair and circled around her head. Blair flinched, dodging the ghost’s movements as she gave Door a curious look.

“Um … why?” she asked, pointing a finger at the pokémon.

“Long story short,” Door replied as she folded her hands behind her head, “Red’s real too. But I got him long after Jack and Knives, so I haven’t really had time to train him. I’m hoping just watching will give him enough of an idea of how battling works.”

Blair’s expression of confusion only intensified as she shifted her glance from Red to Door. “Well … if you say so. But—”

Door waved her off and huffed. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get this over with.”

And with that, Door stepped into the elevator with a tense stride, followed by Geist, the gym Companion, and finally Blair, Red, and Opal. As the elevator shut and began its smooth descent, Door took a deep breath and wormed her way to the front. A hand clasped her shoulder, and she looked over to see Blair give her a small grin. The girl mouthed “don’t be nervous” to her, and all of a sudden, Door felt herself relax. It was strange; just a few days ago, Door had been arguing with this girl over the fact that she had stuck her nose into other people’s business. Now she was relieved Blair had done that. Sure, they didn’t have much time to chat since leaving Nimbasa, but having another human by her side—having someone who was calm and rational and stable but not in the aggravatingly unwavering way Geist was—made her feel a little less alone on this whole journey.

So, as she smirked right back, Door almost felt excited for her upcoming match with Roland Stone.

But then, the elevator reached its destination, the wall behind Door parted, and she turned around to face her doom.

Beyond elevator’s rear doors, there was a cavernous space lit with mine lighting. To call the place huge wouldn’t do it justice: it was far larger than any other gym Door had seen, including in video records of the past champions’ exploits. Colosseum-style rows sloped up the walls, forming an edge around a clean, dirt-covered gym floor. What was more jarring, however, was the fact that every row was packed. Seemingly everyone in Driftveil City had turned up to fill them, and their cheers formed a wave of noise that washed over Door. Taking up the back wall was a screen, much like the one in the Nimbasa gym, and on it, the image of a narrow, brown badge slowly rotated on a field of brilliant, gold sparks. As soon as Door stepped out of the elevator, the image on the screen dissolved into a close-up of Roland’s profile. Gazing down at the field, she could see the image’s source: a gym Companion identical to her escort, standing next to and facing Roland Stone. They were both waiting for her at the exact center of the field.

“Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Devon Corp’s Driftveil Gym, we thank you for your patience!” an announcer boomed. “Please welcome to the arena today’s challenger: hailing all the way from Nuvema City, the elusive heiress of Halcyon Labs, Door Hornbeam!”

As a spotlight banged on overhead, Door nearly choked on her spit.

“W-what the hell?!” she gasped. “They’re not supposed to … I mean, I’m not…”

The gym Companion placed a hand on Door’s back and guided her through an open gate to a metal platform lined with a railing. Geist followed, but the escort Companion held up a hand to stop Blair, Red, and Opal.

“Challengers’ guests must remain in the reserved seating at the edge of the battlefield. Please step onto the platform to your left to access guest seating,” he said.

Door whirled around and tried to step off the platform, but she was blocked by the closing of its gate.

“W-wait!” she stammered. “Hold on! Blair! I can’t—”

Blair rested her hand on Door’s shoulder and cocked her head. “Relax, Door. You’ll be fine. It’s just like any other battle, okay?”

She pulled her hand up, gave Door a small salute, and sauntered onto the platform. Opal and Red glided after her, and as soon as Blair closed the gate behind them, the platform began to descend. Blair waved to Door one last time before vanishing to the floor below.

Door groaned quietly and turned back to the field. Her eyes flicked from one side to the other, taking in the full extent of the crowd watching her. She swallowed hard and felt the bottom of her stomach drop out—and not just because the platform began to move. Her heart was beating quickly, and as she shoved her hands into her pockets, her fingers fidgeted with her poké balls nervously.

A hand grasped her elbow lightly, and she looked at Geist. His eyes weren’t on her—rather, they were locked ahead—but he still smiled and nudged her with his hand reassuringly. He didn’t have to say a word; Door knew what he was trying to say. And although it wasn’t as comforting as Blair’s general presence with its utter humanness, at least Geist was someone. So, she took a deep breath and tried her best not to think about the crowds.

The breath didn’t dissipate her fears completely, but at the very least, she didn’t feel quite as sick as the platform docked. And slowly, she made her way off the platform and started towards Roland.

When she was finally within arm’s reach of him, he eyed her critically.

“Hello, Miss Hornbeam,” he said. “Strange to see you so nervous. Have you lost that confidence you showed me yesterday evening?”

“N-no,” Door stammered as she reached back to rub her neck as usual. “It’s just … there’re a lot of people here. And did you really have to tell them I’m the heiress of Halcyon or something? I really don’t think of myself as that.”

Roland smirked. “Miss Hornbeam, while I could very well funnel money into my gym, I much prefer allowing it to generate its own revenue through ticket sales and recording subscriptions.” He pressed his hands together, pointing his fingertips downward. “Needless to say, advertising our bout as the match of the century between Devon Corp and Halcyon Labs, rather than as an ordinary gym leader versus an up-and-coming trainer, is far more … lucrative. Wouldn’t you say?”

“I’d say it makes you hella shady,” Door grumbled.

Roland narrowed his eyes at her, but his smirk didn’t disappear. “Quite. In any case, Miss Hornbeam, it makes things interesting for me. Now, if we’re done worrying about inconsequential things, Mica, the rules, please.”

Door’s escort stepped forward to line himself up with Roland. He turned on his heel—hands behind his back, steel-blue eyes on Door—and began.

“This will be a standard gym match,” he said. “Single battle, switch style, no time limit. Gym Leader Roland will be limiting himself to only three pokémon; however, you may use as many as you wish. Fauxkémon are permitted, as are items and guidance from Companions. Exiting the boundary of the arena will count as a TKO. Do you understand and accept these rules?”

For the umpteenth time that day, Door took a deep breath. “Y-yeah. Sounds good to me.”

“Good,” Mica responded. “Challenger Door. Gym Leader Roland. Please shake hands and take your places on the battlefield.”

Roland extended his hand, and after a moment’s hesitation, Door took it. They said nothing between them, not even a wish for good luck, as they gripped each other’s hands tightly. Then, just as quickly as the gesture happened, the two trainers turned away from each other and walked to opposite sides of the field. Geist followed Door closely, keeping his eyes steady on the end of the battlefield as he whispered to Door.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“The crowd’s a bit much,” she admitted.

“You’ll be fine,” he replied quickly. “Just remember that I’m here for you, and so are your pokémon. Drown everything else out and focus on the battlefield.”

“Easier said than done,” she muttered.

She stopped at the trainer’s box, but Geist continued onward, stepping onto the narrow margin between the far border of the field and the dock for the metal platform. Spinning on his heel—much like Mica had—he gave Door a quick, curt nod, silently urging her to face the battlefield.

And with a deep breath, she did. The gym Companions took their last steps off either side of the field, giving Door a clear view of her opponent.

“As per Driftveil Gym tradition, the challenger will be granted the first move,” Mica’s twin announced. “Door Hornbeam of Nuvema City, please send out your first pokémon.”

Finally, after spending the past several minutes fidgeting with it in her pocket, Door pulled out Jack’s poké ball and pointed it to the space before her. “Well. Let’s get this over with. Jack, scalchops out!”

Jack burst from the ball and hit the ground in front of his trainer, and the moment he did, he scanned the arena quickly. Rising to his hind paws, he strode forward to the middle of the field, with his head slightly bowed, his beady eyes fixed on Roland’s side, and his paws deftly unsheathing both scalchops in one fluid movement.

Across the way, Roland smirked and pulled a poké ball from the pocket of his blazer. “Playing it safe with a type advantage. I must admit, that’s rather disappointing, Miss Hornbeam. Tooth! Open with Crunch!”

It didn’t take long for the all-too familiar form of a sand-colored crocodile to appear on the field. Nor did it take long after that for said crocodile to shoot across the field, jaws wide open and fangs flashing with a deep, ominous, purple glow. Jack yelped and held his scalchops up, crossing them in front of him to block Roland’s krokorok, but the gym pokémon was faster, larger, and heavier than the one the Heartbreaker had trained. Because of that, Roland’s krokorok clamped its jaws down on Jack’s scalchops, lifted the dewott, and threw him across the field—sans scalchops. As soon as Jack landed with a bang, the krokorok spit his scalchops out, letting them land with a clatter at its own feet. Jack groaned and pushed himself to his knees, then whined as soon as he realized he was completely unarmed.

The crowd went wild for that single move. Door felt herself shake at the sound of all their voices. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they sounded angry—like they were begging Roland’s krokorok to rip Jack apart. Tooth moved slowly in response, shifting itself around until it faced Jack completely. Door could just barely hear its animalistic growl underneath the frenzied chanting of the crowd. Jack scrambled to his feet and inched backwards, his eyes darting from his fallen scalchops—now behind the krokorok—to his slowly advancing opponent to his silent and blanching trainer.

Door knew her pokémon was in trouble. She also knew it was her turn to execute an attack. But her head felt like it was freezing up. It wasn’t this bad in Nimbasa. She could ignore the crowds and focus completely on Elesa, even before her projections went up. Why, though? Why was this different?

The crowds. Were they larger this time around? Door’s eyes darted up to the spectators. She couldn’t count how many there were, but she was sure there were more than that. But that wasn’t just it, was it? No one knew who she was in the Nimbasa battle. The lights and heat concealed the spectators. And most importantly, Elesa, deep down, believed in her too.

But Roland? Roland was judging her, even now. His steel-cold eyes were fixed on her, watching her non-movement, analyzing not only what she was now but what she would be ten years from now, after she would inevitably take her place within the topmost ranks of his rival company. No, he was right. This wasn’t like the Nimbasa gym battle or any other battle before it. This wasn’t a gym leader versus a trainer. This was Devon versus Halcyon, the Stones versus the Hamiltons, expectation versus expectation. These crowds weren’t there to watch a battle. They were there to watch Door, the sheltered, privileged heiress of a multibillion-dollar company, get utterly crushed under the heel of someone far more competent and deserving of a title than she was.

This, she realized, was atrocity tourism.

Roland said something, but Door couldn’t make it out. His krokorok could, and so, it moved. It raised one of its clawed feet and slammed it back down into the earthy floor. Cracks laced across the field as the ground buckled. With a great bang, the earth itself first tossed Jack into the air, then swallowed his legs, all while the otter shrieked like nothing else Door had ever heard. And when the earth settled, Jack screamed and scrambled, his front paws clawing desperately at the floor in front of him. After a delay, one of his back paws joined them, but the other remained planted in the earth. With its prey helpless, the krokorok fell to all fours, hissed, and began crawling towards Jack.

And the crowd ate it up. They were deafening. Distracting. Disorienting. Door couldn’t think straight. She felt her head swim and saw her vision blur. Her heart pounded harder, and her stomach turned, and she was sure she would be sick all over the gym floor.

When she found it difficult to breathe, she finally turned to her Companion.

“Geist!” she cried out. “H-help! I-I need…” What did she even need? “I-I don’t know—type matchups—um…”

His eyes lit up, and he bowed his head for a split second. When he lifted it again, his voice spoke calmly and evenly, much like every other Calliope unit Door had ever encountered.

“Search complete,” he said. “Results for ‘relaxation techniques’—”

Door shook her head. “N-no, that’s not…”

“Top hit,” he continued. “Step one: close your eyes and clear your thoughts. Think of nothing else but this moment. Nothing else matters. Let your worries drift away.”

“Geist,” Door whimpered.

“Miss Hornbeam,” Roland called. “I do believe you’re engaged in a gym battle in the other direction. Your next move, please.”

As if he didn’t hear either of them, Geist cocked his head and continued. “Step two: take a deep breath. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.” His hand rose, up his chest and then down again in a steady, slow movement. Like water. “In … and out.”

Door almost felt herself cry. Why was he doing this? What was he trying to tell her?

“Nothing else matters,” he said. “There is no need to worry. There is no need to panic.”

Panic. Like some kind of trigger, Door felt a memory come back to her. On the streets of Driftveil, when she first realized she was lost. She couldn’t think straight. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. She even felt sick. And then, like magic, Geist was there, his calm voice cutting through her clouded head.

And now, just like magic, she realized what he was trying to say.

She closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Blocked out the crowds. Nothing else mattered. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Cool air rushing into her; hot out. And then, just like that, her heart slowed.

When she opened her eyes, Geist was smiling at her. He blinked, but she could swear one of his eyelids went down just a little before the other in as subtle a wink as she had ever seen.

“Miss Hornbeam?” Roland called again.

Door whirled around and pointed a finger at the floor. “Jack! Water Pulse on the ground!”

Jack’s ears pricked, and he stopped screaming long enough to look up at his trainer. She smiled back—devilishly, mischievously, mustering all the confidence she normally had. Instantly, Jack’s expression resolved into one of determination, and he lifted both his paws up to form one orb of water on each. The krokorok stopped a mere foot from him and croaked, as if it was just now realizing what was about to happen.

In Door’s frank opinion, it had every reason to be afraid—because in the next second, Jack slammed both of the orbs into the ground, and water exploded all around them. The force of the water blasted the krokorok backwards and Jack upwards and out of the ground. As Jack landed gracefully on his feet—closer to Roland and further from his scalchops but still free—the krokorok skittered and screeched, its claws scrabbling for purchase.

And between them, between her dewott and Roland’s krokorok, was a giant, utterly perfect field of mud, ringed with chunks of uplifted, unusable dirt.

Door couldn’t help but smile. She knew that Bulldoze would no longer be a problem. Not from this krokorok, anyway.

“Jack! Water Pulse one more time!” she cried.

The dewott barked and whipped his paws to the side, one hovering over the other. An orb of blue light appeared between them, swirling larger and larger until it grew to the size of his head. Across the field, the krokorok rose to its hind legs and hissed, flexing its claws at its sides. But Roland didn’t bother to give it an order. Whether it was because he knew it was over or because the krokorok only knew short-distance attacks, Door didn’t know. All she knew was at the exact second that Jack launched his Water Pulse, Roland merely folded his arms and watched.

A moment later, after Jack’s Water Pulse sailed across the field and engulfed the krokorok, Roland calmly drew his pokémon back into its poké ball.

The crowd ate it up, practically drowning out the sound of one of Roland’s Companions calling the match. Out of the corners of her eyes, Door could see some of them rising to their feet. Were they cheering for her or for a thirst for blood? She was almost tempted to turn her head, to look at them, but as soon as she thought about it, she took another deep breath to force a slight twinge of sickness back down. No. They didn’t matter. She’d worry about them later. She needed to focus.

“Jack, your scalchops!” she shouted.

The dewott barked and scampered across the field, to his fallen shells, but as he moved, Door couldn’t help but notice that one of his back legs—the one that had been jammed into the floor—was limping. She pressed her lips together as she watched Jack pick up his scalchops and slash them through the air. The cheers of the crowd around her weren’t letting up, and between the sight of her dewott limping and the sound of the spectators, Door needed another deep breath.

Hoping for a little reassurance, she glanced back at Geist to see him smiling at her. The completely rational part of her realized that he hadn’t changed his expression since she last consulted him; evidently, he was just as good at pretending to be an ordinary Calliope unit as he was pretending to be human. But even so, even as she looked at that expression, she could see something underneath it: a small glimmer of pride, hidden in the way his smirk curved and the way his eyes seemed to glow a little brighter. And upon seeing that, Door was able to push the crowds out of her mind once more.

She was fine. One down. Two to go. She could do this.

Lifting her head, she looked across the battlefield to Roland. He still hadn’t sent out his next pokémon, and it took a moment for her to realize why. Namely, he was waiting for the crowd to settle down. The screen above him displayed his face in close up, eyes flicking from one side to another until the volume dropped. When it did, he finally smirked.

“I must admit you did better than I thought you would,” he said. “But for the briefest of moments, I couldn’t help but notice you hesitate and consult your Companion. Twice, even. Don’t tell me you were nervous, Miss Hornbeam.”

Door snorted. “Just needed to hit my stride. I can take anything you throw at me! Come on!”

On the screen, Roland’s smile grew wider. “Confident now, are we? Very well.”

His hand dipped into his pocket to pull out his second poké ball. He didn’t toss this one out into the field, perhaps to avoid throwing his next pokémon into the mud pit. So, when the ball cracked open, its light swirled only a few feet in front of him, eventually resolving into a giant, mole-like creature with steel claws half the size of its body.

Door felt her blood run cold.

“Crap, the excadrill!” she gasped. “What did Blair say about this one?”

Roland extended his hand over the field. “Claw! Hone Claws!”

The excadrill reared back on its hind legs and howled, raising its front paws into the air. Then, with lightning-fast movements, it slammed its giant claws together, scraping them together over and over again. Sparks rained down from each strike as an ear-piercing choir of screeches drowned out all other sounds in the arena—even the screams from the crowd. Door and Jack covered their ears and gritted their teeth against the noise, but for Door, even that didn’t help as the sound lanced through her head and made her eardrums throb.

It only took a minute for Claw to finish, but it felt like an hour. When it was over, Door slowly looked back at the field to see the excadrill brandishing its claws—now brilliantly shining from its work—as it stared steadily at Jack.

Groaning, she looked over her shoulder. “Geist! What does Hone Claws do?”

His eyes flashed once again before he responded, “Hone Claws. A non-damaging move of the dark type. As the user trains its eyes on its opponent, it sharpens it claws on parts of its body. Thus, this attack will boost both accuracy and a pokémon’s close-range combat power. Distance attacks are strongly advised.”

“Distance, huh?” Door said. “Jack! I’d hate to sound like a broken record, but Water Pulse again!”

“You’re going to have to do better than that, Miss Hornbeam,” Roland responded. “Claw, Rock Slide!”

Jack swung himself back, taking on a stance similar to the one he had executed a moment ago, but this time, as he shifted, he winced as his weight momentarily rested on his injured paw. Unfortunately for him, at the exact same time, Claw rushed forward and slammed its paws into the ground beneath the chunks of dirt framing the mud hole. As the dewott recovered, Roland’s excadrill lifted, flinging chunks of the floor the size of Jack’s entire body straight up and over the patch of mud to the other side. Then, the second Jack finally hit the right posture and began swirling an orb of light between his paws, the chunk came down and slammed hard into the floor mere inches from his side. He cried out and stumbled, his paws spreading out and flinging what little energy he had gathered outward, into the mud hole, while Claw sent more and more stones his way. Somehow, Jack danced around the falling stones by stumbling backwards, closer to Door, but in doing so, he allowed a rock wall to quickly form between him and his opponent.

As the dust settled, Jack and Door stared at the rocks before them. Neither of them could see the excadrill on the other side—not its position, not what it was doing … nothing. Glancing up at the screen, Door could only see Roland’s face with its snake-like smirk.

“Claw,” he said, “Hone Claws!”

The sound wasn’t as bad as it had been before, likely because the excadrill had already sharpened its claws, but the noise still set Door’s teeth on edge. She ground her feet into the floor and took another deep breath, bracing herself until it was over. Jack, meanwhile, dropped to all fours and barked incessantly at the wall. Door’s eyes fell on her panicked pokémon, then flicked to the wall again. Jack had a bad back leg; she couldn’t risk hurting him more by having him scale it. Besides, if she did, who was to say that Claw wouldn’t throw itself at him while he was trying to get down the other side? And given that the excadrill had used Hone Claws not once but twice already, Door knew a single strike could be deadly.

She needed another strategy.

“Geist!” she called. “Roland’s team is publicly known, right? What moves does his excadrill know?!”

He settled his eyes on her. “Search complete. Gym Leader Roland’s excadrill knows a wide variety of moves, but his most commonly used techniques are Hone Claws, Slash, Rock Slide, and Bulldoze. Warning: Excadrill’s physical power has been boosted twice. Hand-to-hand combat is strongly inadvisable. Suggestion: Increase defensive capabilities.”

Door grimaced and faced the battlefield again. Jack didn’t know moves that could “increase his defensive capabilities.” Door never taught him any. All he had were distance moves, physical moves…

…and the wall.

Door stared at it. The longer she did so, the more a plan began to form in her mind.

“Miss Hornbeam, we’re getting rather bored with your constant pauses,” Roland growled. “Claw, Bulldoze!”

“Perfect!” Door hissed. “Jack! Throw your shoulder against the nearest rock and cut down the ones around it with Razor Shell!”

Jack gave his trainer a curious glance, but she responded with a frantic wave.

“Hurry before the shockwaves hit!” she snapped.

With a growl, he whipped out his scalchops and rushed forward. He danced just in front of the wall, spinning on his good leg to slash his scalchops across the bottoms of two boulders before pressing himself against the third. That was when Claw’s Bulldoze hit.

The ground beneath Jack’s feet buckled and cracked, just like it had when Roland’s krokorok had used the same technique. However, this time, Jack braced himself against the boulder that remained stuck straight up in the air. The other two rolled with the movement of the earth, shifting off their foundations and downwards until they struck each other and formed a makeshift shelter over Jack. As they moved, the dewott pressed himself deeper beneath the third boulder, allowing himself to be buried under the pile of rocks.

Door looked up at the screen on the other end of the arena. A shot of the audience cheering panned across it before cutting directly to Roland’s face once more. He had lifted his chin and stared down his sharp nose at the camera, as if to analyze Door through the screen. For a second, she wondered where the camera actually was—if there literally was a Companion hovering around him throughout the match.

“Very cute, Miss Hornbeam,” he said. “But that won’t protect your dewott forever. Claw! Slash!”

Door’s smirk returned. She knew without a doubt that the only way Claw would be able to reach Jack was by crossing the mud pit—no doubt even larger now thanks to the second Bulldoze. That meant two things. First, that the pit would slow Claw down … and second, that Roland’s pokémon would wear itself out by struggling across the mud.

That, of course, was what she had convinced herself. What actually happened was that Claw howled. It leapt, and much to Door’s shock, it leapt high. She could see it as it flew through the air and directly into the main boulder Jack had used as shelter. And then, when it landed, it raised its claws above its head and hammered them into the rocky face over and over again in a wild attempt at breaking through to Jack.

Door blinked, then shook her head. She had to act fast. She couldn’t let Claw break through.

“Jack, use Water Pulse until you can drive it off!” Door ordered.

Almost immediately after she said those words, an explosion of glowing water burst through the cracks of Jack’s shelter and onto the excadrill. The excadrill reared back and howled, claws pinwheeling through the air until they struck rock once again. In response, another explosion of water burst through, striking Claw in the face and forcing it to stop long enough to shake its head dry. Yet despite that strike, it clawed once again at the earth.

“Warning!”

Door looked over her shoulder at the sound of Geist’s voice. Wasn’t he supposed to stay quiet?

“Type advantage detected,” he intoned. “Water is super effective against all ground elementals, including ground-based arenas.”

“Well, duh!” she snapped as she motioned to the battlefield. “Why do you think I—oh, you’re not talking about the excadrill, are you?”

She looked back at the field, at the “boulder” sheltering Jack. The boulder she couldn’t see the underside of. The one holding up a ninety-pound armored mole that was clawing at its topside. The one that wasn’t made of rock at all but rather of impacted dirt.

“Oh balls,” she groaned. Then, raising her voice to a shriek, she added, “Jack, Water Pulse straight up! Put everything you’ve got into it! That thing’s gonna cave in on you!”

A sharp whine pierced through the shelter first, one that was almost drowned out by the sound of Claw howling and slamming its claws into the earth again. This time, the excadrill’s claws sank, ripping the top half of the boulder apart. Right then, a giant bubble of water burst from beneath its claws, blowing the top half of the mountain and Claw itself towards the ceiling.

The excadrill didn’t make a sound this time. Instead, it limply sailed through the air backwards, back the way it came, until it came down hard into the mud pit. From that angle, even though Jack’s last Water Pulse ruined the mountain and cleared Door’s view, she couldn’t quite see what was happening on the other side. She had no idea whether or not the match was still on, and for that reason, she tensed, waiting to hear what Roland would order next, until she heard the gym Companion’s voice.

“Claw is unable to battle! This match goes to the challenger’s dewott!”

As the crowd burst into cheers around them, Jack slowly crawled out of the mountainous ruins and peered down, then gazed back at Door with a chirp. Door smiled back and gave her dewott a thumbs up. Then, she held up his poké ball and withdrew him from the field.

“Nice job, Jack,” she said. “You were awesome.”

“Not bad, Miss Hornbeam, but don’t think you’re done yet,” Roland said. “I still have one pokémon left, and it’s not one you should underestimate. Wave, go!”

Through the remaining boulders, Door could see a light flash onto Roland’s side of the field, one that quickly morphed into a small, blue creature sitting in the mud pit. It opened its mouth wide—too wide for something that small—and let out a bellow that caused the lumps on its head to jiggle. Door reeled back with an uncomfortable sneer before pulling out her next pokémon.

“Geez, I know. Gimme a break, would ya?” She tossed her poké ball straight into the air. “Knives, let’s go!”

With a pop and a flash of light, Knives materialized just beyond the line of rubble. Her ears twitched until she caught sight of her opponent, and once she noticed the palpitoad, she padded forward, into the mud pit. There, she stopped, lifted one of her feet, and squished it down into the mud again.

And then, she trilled and stomped her feet, squelching the mud beneath her paws. The audience burst into laughter around her, but she didn’t seem to notice in the slightest.

On the screen, Roland arched an eyebrow. “You have a fascinating audino, Miss Hornbeam.”

Door planted her hands on her hips. “Yeah, she’s … one of a kind.”

“Indeed,” Roland replied. “It’s a shame your success so far will end with her. Wave, Aqua Ring!”

The frog croaked loudly, its bulbous protrusions jiggling wildly. Wisps of liquid rushed up from the ground, from the mud itself, to twist around the palpitoad like a cage of water. Sparkling droplets rained down on its skin, and it shook and jiggled at their touch.

“Cautious this time around,” Door muttered. “Fine. Geist, what’s the gender of this thing?”

“As with all of Gym Leader Roland’s pokémon, this palpitoad is male,” Geist replied.

“Perfect. Knives, Attract!” Door shouted.

The audino hummed and kissed a paw. A tiny heart materialized in her paw, then grew to the size of her head as she snatched it with her claws. Her cry grew to a peak as she swung her hand back and then whipped it forward, sending the heart spinning into the palpitoad. It burst as soon as it struck his skin and washed him with a pink light, and as soon as the light vanished, the palpitoad sat in the mud, his throat sack expanding and deflating rapidly with excitement.

“Wave, shake it off and use Bulldoze!” Roland ordered.

He did not. To be specific, the palpitoad did nothing at all, except stare at Knives with wide, excited eyes. Knives cooed in response, flicking her ears and sticking a paw in her mouth.

“We’ve got this,” Door said. “Okay, Knives, use Grass Knot!”

Without removing the paw from her mouth, Knives lifted one of her feet and brought it down hard into the mud. Something splashed away from her, tracing a rapid trail from her foot to the palpitoad. Within inches from its target, it erupted from the ground, revealing itself to be a mass of vines and grass. The mass quickly snapped around palpitoad, swung him around, and slammed him back into mud. As soon as he struck the floor, he shrieked and flailed, scrambling to get away.

“Grass Knot? Hmph.” Roland narrowed his eyes. “While I give you my regards for doing an iota of research before coming here, I must express my disappointment that all you’ve done so far in this battle is play it safe. Wave, Muddy Water!”

The palpitoad stopped thrashing long enough to angle his head towards Knives. He inhaled deeply, opening his cavernous mouth wide, and as he exhaled, a sludgy, brown jet of liquid burst from his throat and blasted across the field and into Knives. Door’s rabbit cried out as she was tossed off her feet and into the pile of debris behind her, and when the jet died down, she squealed and scrambled to her feet again. For the first few moments, she staggered forward, pawing at her face while chattering frantically, but as soon as she cleared the mud from her eyes, she fell quiet and glared dangerously at her opponent.

Before her trainer could say a word, Knives lifted her leg high and slammed it onto the floor.

The next Grass Knot that erupted under the palpitoad was larger than the first one: a giant, writhing mess of vines and leaves that Door could swear was the size of a snorlax. It snapped closed around Roland’s palpitoad, pitched upwards, and then slammed full-force into the mud pit. Dirt and mud flew upwards in earthen tidal waves, creating the rim of a crater in the very center of the battlefield. And when the Grass Knot dissipated in a burst of green light, at the center of that crater lay Roland’s palpitoad, thoroughly beaten.

For a long, long while, everything was silent. The crowd. Knives. Roland. The Companions. Door. They only stared into the crater at first. Then, all eyes wandered towards the now calm audino. Knives, meanwhile, seemed perfectly content to completely ignore the crowd’s attention in favor of licking her paw, combing it across her face, and emitting a bright chirrup.

And then, one of Roland’s Companions appeared on the screen above the battlefield.

“Wave is unable to battle!” he cried. He raised one arm, then swept it down, towards Door. “Victory goes to the challenger!”

The crowd exploded into cheers. Door jumped at the sound, suddenly aware of them again, but somehow, their cheering didn’t sound bad anymore. She hesitantly looked at half of them, at the way they stood up. While she couldn’t make out what they were saying, she was certain some of them were chanting her last name. Others had their hands cupped around their mouths, fists pumping in the air. Still others clapped their hands together or gestured wildly to her. They were excited to see her performance. And she had, somehow, succeeded in entertaining them.

Sheepishly, she raised a hand and gave them a small wave, which only seemed to excite the crowd further. Then, she felt a tug at her pant leg, bringing her attention back to the battlefield—or, more specifically, Knives, who smiled up at her. With a smirk, she stooped and used her sleeve to wipe a patch of mud off her audino’s face. Then, she presented her fist to her pokémon.

“You did it again, Knives,” she said. “Second gym battle you nailed. Nice job.”

Knives tilted her head and hummed. She stared blankly at Door’s fist for a second before flopping a paw on top. Door snickered, pulled her fist out from under Knives’s paw, and bumped it against her claws.

“There ya go,” she said.

“Impressive, Miss Hornbeam.”

Door instantly shot up, straightening her back to face Roland. He was standing a mere foot from her now, arms crossed and both Mica and the other gym Companion at his sides. One of them—Door had lost track of which one was Mica and which one was not—held a small tray with a badge sitting neatly on its black velvet surface. The Quake Badge, Door realized.

“Impressive indeed,” Roland continued, “albeit a bit disappointing. I would have thought a Hamilton would have gone for something other than a type advantage in a battle like that.”

“Hey, what works works,” Door replied. “That and it’s not the move that counts; it’s how ya use it, right?”

Roland scoffed with a smile. “Quite. And I reluctantly admit your use of the arena with your dewott was rather ingenious. Your audino, on the other hand, was simply … terrifying.”

He glanced down at Knives briefly, who cooed and stuck a paw in her mouth again. Roland quirked an eyebrow at her, then reached for his badge. By the time he plucked the Quake Badge off the tray, his expression resolved into its usual stoniness.

“Miss Door Hornbeam,” he said. “Although I admit I wasn’t fully convinced during our initial interview that you had the maturity or passion to take on my gym, I see now that you have the potential to evolve into a formidable rival. Take this, the Quake Badge and continue to grow from here. I hope one day that we will meet again as heads of our respective companies. It would be most interesting to see which one of us would win that battle.”

Door smiled wide and accepted the badge. “Heh. I’ll do my best, Mr. Stone.”

With that, she turned and motioned for Geist to come forward. Obediently, he approached her and spread a holographic projection of her badge case above his open hands. Door pressed Roland’s badge in the next empty slot, right next to Elesa’s Bolt Badge, and watched it dissolve into a picture within her growing collection. Beyond it, she could see Geist flash her a proud smirk.

“Jasper, please escort the challenger out of the gym. And Door, thank you for a fascinating battle,” Roland said.

Door extended a hand to him. “Nah, Roland. Thank you for the battle.”

Giving her one last smirk, Roland shook her hand, which only made the audience go even wilder. Then, whirling back around, Door joined Geist, Knives, and one of Roland’s Companions on the metal platform. As it ascended, Door looked back at the ruined gym floor and the expansive crowds once again. Her entire body felt energized and electric, like she was ready to fight another gym battle. Taking a deep breath, Door leaned against the back railing.

“What a trip,” she whispered.

“Indeed,” Geist whispered back. “You did great out there, by the way. Excellent use of breathing techniques.”

“Hey, not in front of the normie,” Door responded with a nod towards the gym Companion.

Geist winked at her. “He’s not recording.”

She was about to ask what he meant by that—or even how he knew—but the platform stopped at the top of its ascent at that very moment. Jasper opened the gate and ushered his guests onto the floor in front of the elevator, and as soon as she stepped out, Door was practically tackled by Blair.

“That was amazing!” Blair exclaimed. She pulled back to look Door in the face. “I mean, I was a little worried because you looked like you were panicking at first, but then you so pulled through!” She looked at Geist. “You helped her, didn’t you? Ah, you two make an awesome team!”

Behind her, Red hummed and bobbed calmly, but Opal clapped with gusto.

“Actually, to be more accurate,” Opal said, her voice quick and excited, “Blair was more than a little worried. In fact, her heart rate was elevated twice during that gym match. Once was at the beginning, when you most certainly were panicking. The other time—”

Blair let go of Door and raised her hands in the air. “Okay! That’s about enough congratulations for the day!”

Door snickered. “I see why the two of you got along before catching up with us.”

Beside her, the elevator doors dinged open, and Jasper began ushering them into the cramped elevator car. With a raised eyebrow, Door recalled her pokémon and started to follow Jasper, only to be playfully shoved the rest of the way in by Blair. Geist and Opal brought up the rear, and the doors gently shut behind them.

As they rose, Door rested her arm on Blair’s shoulder and gave her another smirk, which in turn elicited a snort and an elbow in the ribs. She and Blair were about to continue shoving at each other like old friends before Jasper spoke.

“The next gym is in Mistralton City,” he said. “Mistralton City may be reached by continuing along Route 6 to the northwest of your current location.”

“Route 6 to Mistralton City,” Door said. “No prob. Got it, Geist?”

“Calculating route,” he intoned, mimicking a Calliope unit once more. “Done. Estimated walk time is two hours, thirty-nine minutes by safe route.”

“Not bad,” Door said with a grin. “Hey, think we can do a two-badges-in-one-day-er?”

“That would be inadvisable,” Opal chimed in. “It is customary for a trainer to give their team a minimum of twenty-four hours’ rest following a gym battle for optimal physical and mental health.”

“Buzzkill,” Door muttered.

At last, the elevator reached the top, and the doors before the party opened. Door and Blair trotted out first, followed by their Companions. Jasper lingered behind, in the exact center of the elevator car.

“One last thing, Miss Hornbeam,” he said.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder.

“My user has instructed me to give all successful challengers a warning,” he continued. “Whatever you do, remain on the safe route. Do not enter Chargestone Cave.”

Door blinked. “Huh? What’s wrong with Chargestone Cave?”

The elevator doors slid shut. Jasper didn’t even try to answer.



> MUSE8-15.txt
> Author: Lanette Hamilton
> Notes: From the audio research notes of Lanette Hamilton. Transcript only; sound file has been lost. File transcribed by Cassius Cassine.

[Cassius’s Note: While most of the recordings up until this point are missing seconds here and there, I’ve listened to this one at least three times and determined that, nah, there’s nothing at the start of this. It’s just silence for a full 2:33. Fucking gives me the creeps.]

LANETTE: You know, I…

[pause]

LANETTE: I didn’t mean for this to…

[pause—LANETTE breathes in]

[recording cuts out]

LANETTE: Project Galatea, mass production notes, day—fuck.

[recording cuts out]

LANETTE: █████ is right. I’d gotten too far off track. He’s just not right about how.

The whole point of Project Galatea was to create a Companion as close to human as possible. For almost a year now, I’ve been designing Companions that were anything but: Companions that filled market niches to satisfy the desires of buyers. That was incorrect. I know that now.

So I tried to refine the core system. I already knew that the lightweight chassis was too restrictive for my needs and the heavy-duty and standard chassis could only handle up to ten cores. That meant refining the programming of the personality core and figuring out the perfect balance between multiples of it and multiples of the emotion and morality cores.

This test was a failure. The end result was more emotive, not more human. Companions still cannot think for themselves, nor can they imagine. I have not, as I had hoped, recreated Zero-One. I’ve dismantled the subjects’ core systems and given them each a basic-five core layout. They’ll be shipped to Halcyon HQ in two days.

Thus, I’ve decided to move in the opposite direction: reduce the core number down to the digital, memory, and LFA cores. Refine the LFA system. Use it to create a new intelligence.

Zero-One stopped me. He wasn’t involved in the test, and, in fact, I thought I was using a copy of the system, on an isolated server. Yet … he knew. Because of course he did.

It doesn’t matter. With a partially complete LFA core, Zero-Eight was … unstable. It was not violent, of course. Simply…

It reminded me of a puppet on a set of strings, but the strings were being pulled by something … unthinking. I can’t quite describe it.

I’ve removed the LFA core and replaced it with a second digital and a morality core. It will be put to work somehow. There are more requests for Companions capable of doing menial labor.

Its name is Melpomene. Muse of tragedy.

I don’t think I’ll be experimenting on Companions for a while.

[END RECORDING.]