Chapter 67 - Meeting
~~~ Chapter 67 - Meeting ~~~
Jacob never did like arguing with corporate representatives, and Graft Science representatives were no exception. One thing would come out of the rep's mouths and they'd do the opposite a year later. Then you'd call them and ask what in giratina's name they were doing, an extreme case of amnesia would occur. Every. Damn. Time. Unfortunately for him, he was there, stuck at the coffee shop with an asshole who'd gotten big enough for his britches. Graft had embedded and sponsored enough gyms at this point that he couldn't ignore them— and Elesa was too new and too young for him to feel comfortable letting her handle the politics.
"No. Absolutely not." Jacob said. He'd already known what the Graft Science representative was going to be asking for, and they'd wanted to act fast, after the so-called incident the night before, with Burgh getting stuck on the train. During the mass outbreak.
Unfortunately, that "absolutely" was said with no conviction. The media had been running an all-too-coordinated series of hit pieces on his favorite pokemon, and the caves where the largest populations lived were nearby, though the bat colonies did cover an easy fifty-mile radius through the region. And it wasn't his job to manage the wildlife, ostensibly-invasive or not.
Yet, he was still there, at the coffee shop anyway.
"The company is offering you an extremely lucrative deal here, Jacob. We double-checked standard rates and decided to offer an above-market rate. The company recognizes the hazard and stress of the request, so we baked it into our offering. Allow me to at least make the offer and present the numbers and the contract before you say no."
The man held out a contract. The money would help relieve a lot of the problems he and Macie had to deal with.
"All right, let's see it," Jacob said. The businessman looked good, but it was the suit and permanent grin that bothered him. You couldn't trust people who smiled too much. Especially not ones in business suits.
The man slid over a piece of paper after pulling it out from a briefcase.
"We already have the permits for it. And we are also already priming the public for taking the action. At this point, we just need someone that can execute. Coming here, to the gym, due to its proximity to the caves was mostly a gesture of goodwill. We'll manage any public fallout," the suit said.
Jacob smirked. The company was offering him the equivalent of three years' worth of his yearly income for the job. The job wouldn't be overnight one-and-done, and it really did include immense risks. The action would shoot down his reputation among at least thirty percent of Unova's population, and talk on radio and tv was bleeding into the way people treated others.
"This is a decent offer, but I know you can do better," Jacob said.
It went unsaid that getting off on the wrong foot of Elesa at the start of her career as a gym leader wouldn't do them any favors, long-term. And the fact that the rangers hated working with the company. They likely were, in fact, going to the last person in the area who had the will to do the action. No matter what they said, he'd still absorb the majority of the public shame when the action actually hit the news cycle.
And given that the old guard of the gym who didn't want to add electric types to their menagerie were on their way out? Gym members would be starting to move to other pastures soon. And that would include him.
Jacob wasn't stupid.
That the Unova's region was a powder keg ticking down certainly fed into the calculus. The amount being offered, in light of that, was pitiful. It wouldn't be enough cash for him and Macie to be safe when things went to shit. You didn't go on retainer for a corporate entity doing extermination orders without gaining a certain black mark on your social profile.
"Then cross out the money offer on the contract and give us a price, Jack," the rep said.
Jacob took his yearly gym income, doubled it, and then added a zero. "I will need at least half of the cash up front," he added.
The representative smirked. "I'll need to make a call, but stay here." The man pulled out a phone and left out the front of the coffee shop to make a call.
Jacob took a sip of the coffee he'd ordered, watching the various pokemon wandering around. It wouldn't be a surprise if one overheard what they'd been saying and understood. Unfortunately, sometimes you had to make tough decisions. Whether or not they understood, it didn't matter. Arn and Orn would, however.
Still. It was an absurd amount of cash for contracting out to a single trainer to carry out something like an extermination order. But he would need enough that even if his reputation in Unova tanked, He and Macie would need to be able to get out of dodge.
But Everyone had a price.
Even him.
The deal would still work if the company only went with a fourth of what he was asking for. But Jacob and Macie would be nearly set for the rest of his career, his options considerably opening up. He could go back to college. He could get her a private tutor to help with her difficulties at school. Help her learn the native Kalosian language once they moved. The possibilities really opened up. His daughter was incredibly smart and self-motivated, but the teachers didn't know what to do with her. Hell, he didn't know what to do with her. Even just having a tutor and being able to hire some cleaners who came in, tidied up after her once a week, and kept the house stocked with groceries until Macie was more independent? It would do wonders.
With that much money, possibly even her mother—no, he didn't hope for that much. He knew better than that.
The longer the suit took its dear, sweet time, Jacob's hopes slowly sank. The Gym members' incomes and stipends were not listed publicly, but it wasn't exactly difficult for the right people to find out the average wage of those employed by the league in similar positions as he was in. They might call his bluff and try to negotiate him down. How firm would he be if they turned it down? Leaving Unova with Macie and having enough to live comfortably on multiple years' worth of savings even after crossing the border taxes was the bare minimum.
Even if she had some legendary's favor, that didn't mean it would do the task.
The suit had seemed young, but with the state of biomods the way they were, you never could tell for sure. Still, its demeanor spoke of that unbounded smugness and ambition that came along with being boots on the ground of a billion-dollar corporation that acted as if its will was law. The suit/rep was likely older than it looked.
The man re-entered the cafe, and Jacob pretended not to stare, browsing his phone. None of his neighbors were reporting anything weird going on at home, at least. The suit sat down, the smug look still there. Were there biomods to make a person's facial muscles rest in specific positions? It wouldn't be surprising if the rep had gotten it as part of the job requirement. You did have to exude confidence to be a coordinating boot on the ground like this.
"And?" Jacob asked, staring the guy down, looking into its face and eyes. On the other hand, Jacob was just tired. The bags under his eyes showing his lack of sleep. Still, he stared the man down, watching the smug expression.
"We can do it, and you'll be paid up front," he said. "But under a few conditions. You're on retainer with us for at least a year. You clear out some of the smaller colonies when needed, and you're on the hook for setting up and managing your own team with the money."
Jacob's gut sunk.
He shook his head "I'm not dumb, you know just as well as I do, that any other trainer of my caliber would cut into this too much. If you want me setting up and managing the team, we'll need enough cash for everyone to manage the risks involved."
Graft wasn't exactly a poor company by any means either. And Jacob was sure the suit in front of him would be able to write a check like that from his own personal office supplies budget, and this was how they wanted to play. A single person could root out and prune the colonies, at great risk to themselves, sure. But you really needed a team of three or four high-powered trainers to manage it.
And if they were experienced enough, they weren't stupid, and would likely ask for similar cuts. The suit sat there in silence. No, Jacob was getting taken for a fool. But the company had all the cards. The people who did these jobs, unless they were gym leaders or elite four, tended to disappear, because the mark on their persona was permanent.
It was convenient that the "pest" the company blamed for their crops suddenly had a vaunted interest from the "public" in managing the population. Concerns about the stability of the environment and wildlife of Unova just so happened to focus on the Noibat population. No one talked about the muk or grimer or other pokemon that followed human pollution, or the dwindling and endangered species, in comparison either.
Jacob sighed, interrupting the artificial silence from whatever high-pressure tactic the suit was using. "How bad is the crop situation, anyway?"
Their steely expression slipped. "I'm not sure what you mean. The fruit bushes are our most popular product. Farmers love them."
It was Jacob's turn to smirk. "Yeah, I noticed. The berries seem to be in everything. But if you really want me to do this, you have to have a containment or follow-up plan. Noibat are fruit-eaters, and fly for miles. But Noibat aren't the only ones that participate in a little… unauthorized sampling of your company's most valuable product."
"Ah, well, I'm not at liberty to, ah, discuss our extended plans with the product."
The rage he consistently felt about the bad information being spread about Noibats all across the news and media had Jacob angry enough that he almost said no. Jacob paused his next words, because these types of tactics were there to unsettle you. He knew that. No, the representative had full authorization to do what he needed to get Jacob's assistance. Yanking his chain around was part of the expectations of the gig.
If you weren't the hunter in the stag hunt of sales, you were the stag. Jacob's blood was cold, and it was no different here. It was a big risk to try and dispose of a huge flock of bats like that. The various gods tended not to look kindly on mass cullings. But sometimes you had to do what you had to do. He wasn't about to let the smug pricks yank him around like that.
"Look, we all know what's going to happen— the company doesn't lie on the marketing materials do they? More than five times as calorie-dense as normal wild berries? Accelerates pokemon's natural healing factors by more than 5 times. Also edible by humans? The company is not stupid. These berries will be a problem for everyone. Just tell me. There is a containment and retrieval plan for the crops in the forests right? Let's say, what if we find out someone from Johto in a year, managed to find a bush and plant it—"
The guy smiled, practically licking his lips. "They won't. We're responding as fast as we can, and will pursue every individual or company that attempts to profit off our research to the full extent of the law… And provide additional funding to the ranger corps for their assistance in returning our stolen product."
Jacob hated the man even more than before. Unfortunately, it probably was going to wind up being him or some other trainer that got saddled with the dirty work.
"Fine. You want me to do the job? I want six million. A quarter million in my bank before I even sign the paper, just for dealing with your bullshit, and the rest of it is delivered when I sign it." He'd taken how much he'd initially asked, and multiplied it by three.
The suit smiled, pulling out a briefcase as a paper slid out of it. "I knew we could work out an arrangement. Give me your account details"
Unfortunately, Jacob still felt like it hadn't been enough.
~~~
"All clean," Macie said, the terror yawning, then blinking. She looked over the glitter-covered kitchen and dining room floor. The only room not sparkling was the family room. It was only a matter of time.
I'd forgotten that part of being a kid— the word "Clean" had a certain definition. Generally, it was "I'm done now and I don't want to do it any more!" And I didn't blame her. The glitter strewn across the house wasn't going to come out for weeks.
Years, really.
You learn these things when your mom tells you she still found glitter from past escapades. The ones that totally weren't from an arts and crafts session between yourselves and the neighbor's kids she had volunteered you to "babysit" so you could have a chance of making friends, even if you were six years older than them and you decided that it would be a fun activity.
Definitely not maliciously complying because you didn't like the pity looks she gave you when you didn't really hang out with people.
I didn't really care. Wasn't my problem. I was a pokemon. Cleanup wasn't my problem. Her father, on the other hand, was in for a treat. And given how busy he'd been, and not-home he was, it probably would be months before he stopped getting glitter in his socks as he walked around the house.
What should I have expected?
From Macie, I meant. She was seven? Yeah, seven. I was ten when I learned how to use the vacuum. I mean, I knew how to use it, and I would, if I'd made a mess and I needed to hide it before mom was gone.
Macie yawned again. She'd gone from a million miles an hour to straight up zombie. Sure, she was still trying to talk after dumping for nearly an hour straight, but at this point, it was veering toward total incomprehensibility. She wasn't throwing herself at me, and made a comment about how sometimes even adults need naps. If she fell asleep it wouldn't be just a nap.
On the other hand, the world was slowing down around me, the delicious sugar I'd consumed during the tea party was doing work. Whatever sleep I'd wanted had fled.
That was the first time you'd thought about home.
Nothing quite like trying to keep a kid from charging neck-first into your blade-arms that were strong enough to chop clean through trees and sharp enough to fillet the most important humans in your life.
Not even falling through a portal back to earth. You don't—
I shook my head. I'd made friends, I had a bunch of swadloon all rapidly about to evolve, Lanky needed me, and there was a lot going on. It was all planned ahead, and the plan was working.
Yep. There was the whole bit about everything in the games about to happen, but, Lanky wasn't even a gym leader yet. No civil war or coup or whatever the heck it was had happened in the games.
The "tea party" had gone well, actually.
No incident.
From me, anyway.
Macie was a human kid, though, and I was a pokemon. Yes, I knew. Yes, it was stupid. Stupid not to talk or think too hard about it, but that's okay. I'd gotten through Dawn and Lanky with only a few freakouts and other problems without having to deal with that whole mess.
Once Macie had stopped hugging me and grabbing me, I managed to get things under control. Instead of sitting on the floor or in a chair we had sat on the table while she chatted. And she HAD talked. About everything and nothing all at once.
Even when I was her age I would have been breathing hard, trying to talk like she had. When the few people who did would just sit to listen to you, even talk and add little jokes, those were golden. They'd inevitably get bored or go back to talking to adults. Eventually, after enough times, you'd learn not to say anything. Learn that they weren't really paying attention and not really responding to what you said.
Because their idea of you would eclipse what you actually were. How was a kid supposed to practice talking if no one listened to and taught them by example? Desperate to be treated seriously. You were a fully-formed human being, and understood and listened to what they said. But eventually, you'd become what they'd imagine you to be.
Macie, during the tea party as we sat on the table, talked like that. Leavanny like me (and probably most other pokemon) weren't exactly the best conversation partners by any means, but being a pokemon, it was incredibly easy to pretend to listen as she blabbered and blubbered all about her life. She'd never know when I stopped paying attention. I had nothing I wanted to say. It also helped that I had been crafting a little leaf-necklace as she chatted.
About everything. About how excited she was to have more than just Arn and Orn to talk to. She could tell they always listened to her, their ears would move when she talked, they never had to look at her to miss.
They were Noivern. Their ears were huge, and had to have absurd hearing. My vibration sense wasn't as nice. The twitching of my antennae had to do more with sensing chemicals and scents in the air than sound. I could change what direction they were, which had a bit of effect, but not much. Whatever it was that let me understand humans translated noise into sound that eventually had started making sense. I didn't have as much range as a human though. I was just happy the city sounds faded.
Eventually, I would probably stop panicking in pokecenters.
Still, the trick to being a leavanny with a seven year old conversation partner sitting on a table having "tea" was to insert semi random "leaa"s at various points, occasionally adding a "vanny," or a "lea leaa vaaa", when they would pause and turn their face to you, awaiting a response. Faces were still hard to read, so it took some guessing and extra math to manually check for tears or smiling, and there were some rough spots where we settled into a flow.
Then she would take another extended, drawn out breath, through her mouth of course, her cheeks puffing outward and slightly round.
At the peak of her breath, there would be a slight half-second pause. Whether that was because we were out of the sun or I just moved slightly faster than most humans or the sugar, or because she was thinking of the next thing to say, was unclear.
Then the pause would end, and another torrent of unfettered, unfiltered kidformation would break through the dam. If I was a human it would be way too much tmi. But as a pokemon? Spew forth, kid. I don't have anything but these leaves on the table to get to.
And she did.
Going on about her dad and how she thinks everyone is mean but her dad who's obviously the best dad ever and pokemon are also cool and the best and how she loves pokemon and she likes people and she likes to dance on her dad's dancing game and she asked me if I'd ever played dance dance stars but of course I hadn't, so I added a sad "nyyy" at that and then her eyes grew ten times as wide and and said we HAD to play it and then she'd talk about how she wasn't allowed to play games when dad wasn't home because her dad thinks games are bad for kids and then she'd get a twinkle in her eye… before abruptly shifting to an entirely different topic for no reason.
Then she'd pause.
Again.
To take another breath.
Which took a second.
And then, again, completely shifted topics. But then again she would complain about how we couldn't do anything because dad said no everything, no buts, not unless he was home because something something video games giratina something something.
Then eventually, she paused, again, to take a breath, this time, it had a bit of a "yaaawwwww" to it. And slowly, the speed of speech slowed, but it would always start with gusto, as if she was trying to fight off darkrai's void all by herself.
"My favorite color is purple! I wish everything was purple!" She pronounced, as if she was letting off some huge secret that had weighed her down and saying it would stop her emotional ship from sinking. The girl had been up too early for her own good. It was still in the morning though, and a nap and some sugar would be all it would take for her to recharge her batteries. As tasty as it seemed, the smell of sugar in the air, I had my fill. She needed sleep and I wanted sun.
"Lee", I added, with my own pretend sympathy. As a bug, it was almost certain that whatever I was saying wasn't coming across. Finally getting more room to at least pretend to be a partner in the conversation was nice at least.
At the end of the "tea party" she had noticed it. But she wasn't going down without a fight. Then, she'd looked out over the mess of pots, cups, and pans.
"One day, my eyes and hair are going to be purple!" She declared, getting up "It's so dirty, Leah!" she shouted, not looking at me or the table, but the kitchen and the table.
If there could be Lookers that looked the exact same but smelled completely different, then why not? Alder's hair was flaming red. Either he dyed it, or there was more going on. Macie had gotten up from the table and began to fuss about. I stayed on the table, working on the pile of leaves I had gathered. I'd follow her out to make sure she actually made it to bed, and kept her in my sight. I wasn't about to find out what dish soap would do to me or my leaves.
While she was cleaning, she kept her chatter up, talking about her dad always being annoyed after coming home from working. I had gone to town on the cupcake-things. Poffins, maybe? Cherry poffins? They were actually pretty good, though I suspect being a bug and having an unending lust for sugar had more to do with it than the quality of a seven/eight year old's baking adventures.
Macie actually was pretty good about doing the dishes. They had to be though, right? Kids in this world left at ten years old.
She diverged into talking about the dragons, the noivern and how people were mean to her because her dad got them from her mom, who lived in Kalos. I managed to drink my last bit of Tea in one go. I held up the necklace. It was good. I was tempted to make something a bit bigger with the leaves, but I looked out the window to the back yard and there already were a large bunch of branches missing leaves.
She didn't need a dress or a coat made of leaves that badly. The trees and bushes would probably be fine, but I didn't want to spook her dad by taking all the leaves on the bush.
She'd stopped talking, instead staring at me. Looking out the window with me.
Then, with a particularly bad attempt at hiding the yawn again she moved, her voice getting quieter but by god she didn't stop talking. About her life, about how she always wanted a pokemon of her own, and to dance and to teach them to dance.
Macie continued to try to hide it, but yet a terrible job not yawning. She was basically asleep on her feet. I watched her, ready to catch her if she legitimately passed out. I had yawned a lot too, but that was more about not having enough air in my lungs, and always being short on it. Doctors had said I was lucky. You don't sit at a maximum of 90% of O2 in your blood on your good days without your parents fearing whether or not you'll wake up the next. Yawning during the day and at strange hours was something my parents watched for.
The moment the last vestiges of the sugar and caffeine rush died, she would pass out on her feet.
Who could tell, really.
The tea party pseudo-officially over, I cleaned up the scraps from my leaf-carving project and moved to sit under the window sill, under the sun— Macie sitting on a chair or couch, babbling in slow motion— when my mind stopped.
Virizion had been hurt pretty bad. It was supposed to be one of the legendary protectors of Unova but still looked like it might have died without some potions.
I had watched bugs get roasted in front of a pastry store, and had almost been part of the roast myself.
I had completely forgotten what had happened to the other swaddlies.
Cherry conditioner. Ghosts. Cherry conditioner. Oust. Brother's home neighborhood. It had felt so empty. Cherry conditioner. Cherries.
Why cherries? Why purple? Why was it so magnetic?
No.
That was silly. I was a bug, we don't work like humans do, obviously. It wasn't that complex.
I was overthinking. I knew I was. Had to be overthinking it. But also, I had a feeling about how much damage I could dish out. To Leaf. No, that hadn't been right. I'd slammed him into a metal wall.
Macie was looking at me. She yawned again, repeating what she'd said earlier about sometimes even adults nap on the couch. She moved, and after depositing my excess leaf stuff on the back porch, I followed her into the living room, where she laid back down on the couch. The living room had a window to the front yard and the TV was on. She leaned back then rolled over, belly first, her feet on the arm rest, kicked her shoes off, and closed her eyes.
"I'm tired," she said, moving in slow-motion, reaching forward, her arm lazily extending out to a blanket on the floor that she had no hope of reaching. I held the blanket over my arms and laid it over her. I also fetched a pillow that wasn't far off either, but she was already asleep. Holding her head up extremely gently, I slid it under her head and let her be.
Still buzzing from my own sugar rush, unfortunately nothing to fight and not wanting to experiment on using my pokemon magic, I was left in my own thoughts.
Had I hurt Leaf as much as I hurt Lanky?
No, of course not. Clearly. How did I know? I didn't feel bad about hurting Leaf, but I did about Lanky, and I knew I was right. Never once had I ever caused actual critical damage to Leaf.
Leaf was a pokemon. He could take a hit. I knew that.
Lanky was not a pokemon.
But if I ever did critically injure Leaf—No, I wouldn't get him in one blow. That just wasn't how we worked. I knew that. Everybody knew that.
But what about when I was so angry I'd solar-beamed him? He had to know, didn't he? No, when you're full, you just fight. That's what you do. It was exercise.
Pokemon killed each other in one blow all the time. Right? Didn't they? I wasn't dropped into this world at the time of the games. That was obvious. Lanky was just a poor kid! He wasn't even a gym leader—
It was the—
Our little "playdate" was over, and I just wanted to—
The "tea party" had gone off without a hitch. Macie was lying there, still. So long as "glitter and a part of the tea packets melted on the stove and also the cupcake-things she had been trying to make burned and—
The scent of smoke wafted into my antennae, and I shot up. I was in my room—no, Macie's living room. She had fallen asleep.
A nearby house was on fire. Macie was asleep on the couch.
Visions of burning houses and nests floated in front of my mind's eye. No. It's not real. It wasn't real. Couldn't be real. I looked at her, then to the dining area and thus the porch. We had left the back door open. I wandered over to it. Softly. Quietly. The smoke wasn't nearby, which was good. No houses nearby were on fire that I could see. I eyed the pokeball, lying there in the grass. I used a piece of sticky silk and attached it to a spatula that was sitting on the side of the sink, and picked up my pokeball, with it, bringing it inside.
Just in case. I hid it and the spatula under a pair of pillows, doing my best not to set it off. Could I bust out of a pokeball if I needed to? Sure, if I could drum up the anxiety and force the pokeball to release me. But time and perception went weird in them.
Fighting fire in your dreams and nightmares was one thing, but rushing into a fire— especially when you had someone you needed to protect? I would hurt anything that went through the doors or windows of the house, but no, I would not be leaving the nest.
The visions and nightmares had returned—nests on fire. Not dreams made real, no. Not Cresselia by any means.
No.
Should something happen, I could wrap her up in a cocoon of silk and use it to carry her to safety. If I had enough warning that someone was attacking. Or I could cover the doors and windows in silk and leaves. It was strong enough it could hold adult humans as if it was rope. Digging was an option too.
No.
I had gone to the city originally—why?
Because it felt right. And danger followed wherever I went. A damn nightmare. But the only way out of a nightmare is through. Well, unless you had an adopted god-child who you weren't sure was actually attached to such trivial concepts as time and space.
No. Nothing was happening. It was a forest fire or something. It would be stupid to go out and explore. Leaving Macie was not an option. You don't leave the nest. Not being surrounded by trees, it was like being naked. At least my dress and outfit was in good shape.
~~~
