Chapter 17
Professor Shackleford was passed through into Professor’s Willow’s office by his secretary, his very own Skippy. Skippy was attentive to Willow, looking for clues to anticipate his needs. Willow gave small motion with his fingers, assuring Skippy all was well and that he could find something else to attend to while he conversed with the good director. Skippy nodded and pulled the doors shut behind him as he left. Willow held a coffee mug of his favorite brew, looking out the window at the picturesque, cultivated gardens that surrounded the Agency’s surface level structure. The whole back of his office was a window, and before the window was a book shelf that came up to about his waist. On the top of that shelf was a variety of small, Pokémon, simply enjoying the morning in his office: there was a Foongus, several Floettes, a Wishiwashi in an aquarium, and a Dedenne in a Dedenne habitat trail. He finally allowed his eyes to come in, acknowledging the reflection of Shackleford, before turning to acknowledge her person.
“I take it they traveled,” Willow said.
“They did,” Shackleford said, placing the black rose on Willow’s desk.
“So, what bothers you?” Willow asked.
“You assume something bothers me,” Shackleford said.
“You’re in my office after having accomplished an extremely difficult, politically controversial, and yet top secret mission,” Willow said. “Your reservations are self-evident.”
“We should have told Jon everything,” Willow said.
“We told him what he needed to know to accomplish the mission,” Willow said. “And, he was informed that death was an extremely high probability. He volunteered.”
“It’s not extremely high probability, it is a certain outcome!” Shackleford snapped. “He pushes the blue button on that device anywhere near the event horizon of that portal, the resulting explosion will make the Crab Nebula seem as if was nothing more than the glowing end of a dying cigarette.”
Willow sorted the analogy. “Fairly accurate, if not a bit on the dramatic side,” he agreed.
“And you’re okay with that?!” Shackleford said.
“The UFP was very clear. Until Pokémon are better understood, they are to be quarantined to this planet,” Willow said. “That doesn’t just mean preventing them from colonizing other planets in this system, or this galaxy, or this universe, but all parallel universes.
No matter how far from origin one pushes, things always seem to come back.”
“And you know, preventing them from leaving this planet is an impossibility,” Shackleford said. “We’re barely maintaining our human presence on this world.”
“If UFP gets wind that even one Pokémon got off this planet, they will nuke this world from orbit,” Willow said.
“What about the evidence that suggests some Pokémon come from outer space?” Shackleford asked.
“Until verified, that is just popular rumors,” Willow said.
“Well, here’s something that’s not rumor,” Shackleford said. “This planet, everything on this planet, including the tech, is evolving at a faster rate than any planet in the known galaxy.
We’re not going to stop that.”
“That is my assessment, too,” Willow agreed. “But, as you know, the politicians don’t understand science, can’t do math, and they are the elected officials. If the public at large prefers their version of reality, then there is very little we can do to persuade the leaders otherwise.”
“Then we need to do something different,” Shackleford.
“Such as?” Willow asked. “No seriously, like what? Throw gas on the fire? Blow things up? I am a scientist. I study things. I educated where I can. That’s also what you do, as a Professor. Unfortunately, you’re also the director, charged with keeping this world safe, and you have been charged to do it with one hand tied behind your back, while the politicians slowly turn the public mindset against science, against facts, in favor of policies that maintain the status quo.”
“We now have absolute confirmation of humans living in parallel universe, which means it is safe to bet that there is already other universes with Pokémon in them,” Shackleford said.
“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” Willow said.
“We standing on that bridge, Sir!” Shackleford said. “If nature loves something, it will find a way to make it happen. It’s happened. Containment is broken. We lost.”
“You sound like team rocket,” Willow said.
“Did it ever occur to you, maybe they’re right?!” Shackelford asked.
He did not respond with words. He sat his cup of brew down on the shelf by Floette; she leaned over and took a sip as he went to his desk, and spit it out. He opened a drawer, pulled a piece of wood with a nail in it, set it on his desk, took out a hammer, and loudly hammered the nail all the way down. The Pokémon on the shelf behind him shook with fear, and retreated to their safe spaces. Even when the nail was down, he continued to beat the nail and the piece of wood causing items on his desk to jump. When he was finished, he tossed the hammer to his desk.
“Any questions?” Willow asked.
“No, Professor,” Shackleford said. “Just a statement.”
Willow nodded.
“We used to have architecture where entire buildings were constructed without a single nail, and these temples have lasted longer than any modern structure we have nailed together,” Shackelford said.
“You have been charged with maintaining the order of this world,” Willow said again.
“You have a terrific track record, and only a couple more years till retirement. Don’t mess it up.”
“Yes, Sir,” Shackleford said.
“You’re dismissed,” Willow said.
Shackleford departed the office. He turned to retrieve his brew and decided to comfort his little Pokémon. Skippy entered, bringing a new piece of wood in with a partially inserted nail, put it in the drawer, along with the hammer, and collected the other piece of wood with the fully inserted nail to drop in the trash. He paused. “Do you need anything, sir?”
“Yeah,” Willow said. “Have that Terror girl come to my office. I want to talk to her.”
“Yes, Professor,” Skippy said.
“And Skippy,” Willow said. “In case I never told you, you’re the best secretary a person could ever have.”
“Thank you , sir,” Skippy said.
Terror arrived in Willow’s office, fairly lackadaisical in her stance. Willow waited till Skippy pulled the door shut before he addressed her.
“Is that how you stand in the presence of a superior?” Willow snapped at her.
Terror went directly to attention. He came around his desk to confront her, her eyes tracking him.
“Don’t eyeball me, cadet!” Willow snapped. “Who do you think you are?”
“Team Rocket, Sir!” Terror answered.
“Pff,” Will dismissed her report. “You’re hardly even a propeller. Rocket indeed. What’s your mission?”
“To prepare the world for trouble, even double,” Terror said. “To protect the world from devastation! To unite all peoples within our nation! To denounce the evils of truth and love! To extend our reach to the stars above!”
“And how to we do that?!” Willow said.
“We prepare to fight, or blast off at the speed of light,” Terror said.
“So,” Willow said, dropping out of command voice. “How would you like a second chance to accomplish your mission?”
“Eh?”
“I have access to a Starship. What I don’t have is a Captain, or a crew,” Willow said.
“Is this a trick, Sir?” Terror said.
“Team Rocket is a subdivision of our agency,” Willow said. “A secret back up plan to help save the world from devastation. Jon needs your help, I need yours to help him. You in? Captain?”
“Really?” Terror asked.
Willow pushed a button on his desk. “Skippy, send Aya in, please,” Willow said.
Aya entered and closed the door behind her.
“Did you not inform me, if we needed a new Team Rocket Captain, Terror was the best candidate?” Willow asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Aya said.
“I knew you were a double agent!” Terror said. “Fribourg never listened to me.”
“Aya, take Terror to where we’re holding the other Rockettes,” Willow said. “I need you to get them secretly ready. Timing is going to be extremely tight, and we’re going to need a lot of Pokémon luck to get away with it.”
“You can count on us, Sir!” Terror said.
Willow entered the guest quarters where Reese, Mentos, Joy, Jenny, and Nick were being held. They seemed to be moping, but on seeing him, Mentos showed his anger.
“You can’t hold us here against our wills like this!” Mentos said.
“Well, yeah, we can, and we are,” Willow said.
“Well, yeah, but I mean, you can’t keep us here!” Mentos said. “I will figure out a way to escape.”
“Umm,” Willow said, dropping his ID badge to the couch. “So, what you’re saying is, hypothetically speaking, if I accidentally left my multi-pass here on the couch, you’d make a run for it?”
“Absolutely,” Mentos said.
Willow turned to leave, but paused, to speculate further, out loud;“You know, you probably wouldn’t get too far, certainly not out the front door, or even the back door.”
“Umm, hypothetically,” Jenny said. “How might a person escape the agency’s facility?”
“No human or Pokémon or human Pokémon combination has ever escaped this facility,” Willow said.
“So, why are you teasing us?” Joy asked.
“Yeah,” Reese said. “Why raise our hopes only to dash them all on the windshield of life?”
“No one has ever escaped through the front door, or the back door, or the side door, or across the lawn, or under the lawn, or through the sky, but there is a door that until recently had never been opened,” Willow said. “There is a very small window of opportunity to make this happen, but it’s a game changer, and taking this option could be the most serious commitment you have ever considered.”
“We’re listening,” Reese said.
“What am I asking could save two worlds, could help your friend Jon, maybe even reunite all of you, and, well, save all the Pokémon,” Willow said.
“I am in,” Reese said without hearing more.
“So am I!” Joy said.
“Me and Chester!” Jenny said.
“Me, too,” Mentos said.
“I go where they go,” Nick said.
“Very well, then, how do you feel about becoming pirates?” Willow asked.
“Hell, yeah!” Nick shouted!
Mentos came around the corner and confronted a guard.
“Hey, what are you doing out here?” the guard said.
“You made eye contact! You’re obligated to battle,” Mentos said, throwing down a ball and releasing a Pidgey.
“Fine!” the guard said, throwing his ball into the ring.
While they battled, Joy, Reese, Nick, and Jenny slipped by him undetected.
“OMG, I can’t believe you beat with me a mere Pidgey!” the guard cried.
“By the all the rules of the game, you have to let me pass,” Mentos declared.
“I don’t know…”
“Rules are rules,” Mentos snapped.
“Just don’t tell anyone you beat me,” the guard said.
“We’ll keep it our secret,” Mentos said, and started to pass, but stopped. “I also want a third of all the money in your pocket.”
“A third?!”
“I kicked your ass, Sir, and you want me to keep it quiet, well, a third sounds very fair to me,” Mentos said.
The guard took out his coin and cash and after several attempts to cut out a third, just handed it all to Mentos. “You best leave before someone sees you with me and asks questions.”
Mentos passed the hall to go join his friend in the next corridor.
“What took so long?” Reese asked.
“Not only can he not count, but he didn’t count on meeting me,” Mentos said. “I think he just got paid!”
“You’re probably not going to be able to use that where we’re going,” Joy said.
“Prison?” Reese asked.
“Jon’s world. They’re probably socially advanced and don’t use money,” Joy said.
“Yeah, right,” Mentos chuckled.
They took a lift down to the designated floor.
“This feels a little too easy,” Reese said.
“Yeah, I think we’re being set up,” Joy said.
“It seems perfectly reasonable to me,” Jenny said. “No one would expect us to escape deeper into the facility.”
The door opened not onto another hall, but a large cafeteria. Some people looked up from their meals, pausing in their conversations.
“And this area,” Jenny said loudly. “Is where all the agents meet to relax, and share stories. Right this way, please. Hurry along, and don’t address the agents, or bother them with lots of questions. They have earned their break time. Come on, don't dawdle. It’s not every day we get to do a tour of such a prestigious facility.”
When the people nearest them accepted the plausibility of a tour group pushing through, the whole room accepted it. Jenny led her group through the crowded cafeteria to the other side, and once through the space into another corridor, she sighed with relief, looking back in through the door she held for her friends to make sure no one had bothered to pursue them to confirm the reality of it all. She closed the door.
“That was quick thinking,” Reese said.
“I was so scared we failed,” Joy said.
“I nearly peed myself,” Mentos said.
“I did,” Nick said, embarrassed.
“Oh, it’s okay, we all have accidents sometimes,” Joy assured him.
A guard stopped them.
“Hi,” Jenny said.
“Sir, where’s the bathroom?” Joy asked. “We’ve had a little accident, and well, we don’t really want make a big scene and draw a lot of attention to this, if you know what I mean?”
The guard seemed a little befuddled, but when Nick started crying, which was because Joy pinched him, he gave in to the situation. “Right down the hall, and to the left.”
“Oh, thank you,” Nick said. “And, sorry about the wet footprints.”
“Accidents happen, son,” the guard said. “I imagine if an intruder ever came to my floor, I might just do the same thing. But fortunately for me, nothing exciting ever happens on my floor.”
“See, nothing to be embarrassed about,” Joy said. “Thank you so much.”
“You bet, I don’t just protect stuff, I also serve,” he boasted.
“And very well,” Jenny said.
“And you’re very handsome,” Reese added.
“That’s my sister,” Mentos warned him.
The guard became very serious again. “Sorry, Sir.”
At the end of the corridor they came to the room number provided by Willow.
“This can’t be it,” Mentos said.
“It’s the right number,” Jenny said.
“You must have remembered wrong,” Mentos said. “This says simulator.”
“Well, maybe we have to pass through here to get to where we need to be,” Reese offered.
Using the multi-pass, they opened the door and stepped into the room. The door closed behind them. In the center of the room, floating in an empty space, was a starship. They could discern no pedestal or tethers holding it in place, and there was a single bridge leading from their balcony over to one of the main access point for the ship. The ship seemed to be an exact duplicate of the one that Team Rocket had occupied from orbit.
“That’s a simulator?” Nick asked.
“They must go for authenticity of experience,” Jenny said. “Come on.”
Once on the ship, they went straight way to the main teleporter room, where Jenny activated the system, and turned on the ‘receive’ station, which held five teleporters, in a hexagonal pattern. Shortly after it was activated, Captain Terror, first officer Aya, and three other Rockettes arrived on the pads.
“Well, well, well,” Terror said, hands going to her hips. “So, I guess I am not the only one in for a little swashbuckling.”
The five of them stepped down from the pad to address the group.
Five more Rockettes arrived.
“This is my ship, I was here first,” Nick said.
“As you wish, Admiral,” Terror said. “However, I am the Captain, and I need you to let me do my job.”
“Carry on, then,” Nick said, waving his sword at them. Five more arrive and he pointed his plastic sword at them. “All of you, get to work, or I will have you walking the plank!”
“You heard the admiral!” Terror snapped. “Female your stations!”
“Aya, go activate the other receive teleporters. Nurse Joy, I need you in Sick Bay”
“Oh, is someone hurt already?” Nurse Joy asked.
“No, but I need you to activate the computers, and transfer all of Jon’s Pokémon to this Starship’s system. We’re going to need access to them if we’re going to be successful.”
“You got it, Captain,” Joy said.
“Jenny, I need you to go and retract the bridge away from the starship,” Terror said.
“Once that is accomplished, destroy the mechanism that extends the bridge with this, and then I will send a Gardevoir to collect you and bring you back, assuming you want to join this mission.”
“I think I am committed,” Jenny said. “Probably not going back to law enforcement after piracy.”
“How can we help?” Mentos asked.
“You, your sister, and the admiral are absolutely crucial to my mission,” Terror said. “I insist that you accompany me to the Bridge.”
As they proceeded to the Bridge, systems were coming online all around them, lights coming up, computers bleeping in. They took a Pokémon lift to the bridge. Two Rockettes were already at their station. Every station had a Poké ball port, most of which had Poké balls already inserted. A Gardevoir was at the helm. A Kamex stood behind the security station. A Rockette approached the Captain.
“Captain,” she said. “As directed, there are multiple Gardevoirs on every deck and major station.”
“Just hope it’s enough,” Terror said.
“Enough for what?” Mentos asked.
Jenny arrived on the Bridge via a Gardevoir teleport. This new Gardevoir disappeared no sooner than dropping Jenny off. When it returned, she brought with her Mega Medicham, and professor Willow.
“Aww, excellent work, my friends,” Willow said. “And now, the hardest part, Reese, is going to be up to you.”
“Just tell me what to do,” Reese said.
“I am going to want you to hold hands with Mega Medicham, allow her to link with your mind, and hope that there is enough of Jon’s stardust in you for her to make the necessary telepathic connection,” Willow said. “And, if there is, she will send the coordinates telepathically to all our Gardevoirs, and with their combined powers, and a whole hell of a lot of luck, we might just push this entire ship and everyone on it into Jon’s universe.”
“Why her?” Mentos said. “I’ve spent just as much time with Jon as she has.”
“Well, maybe not quite as much,” Willow said.
“I absolutely spent more quality time with Jon than she,” Mentos insisted.
“Well, no, and I am quite certain of this, at least, I am fairly certain of this, well, I certainly hope you have not, because that would cause me to second guess whether we should save him or not, much less his world,” Willow said, thinking it through.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Jenny said.
“Someone clearly didn’t use Pokémon protection,” Willow said.
“Eh?” Reese asked. Her face went through a several configurations of confusion and enlighten and horror and joy and everything in between. “No way!”
“Yes, way,” Willow said.
“What way?” Mentos asked.
“The maternal way,” Willow said.
“I am going to be an uncle?!” Mentos asked.
“If we survive the journey,” Willow said. “Still want to risk the trip?”
“OMG! There’s so much to think about,” Reese said.
“We don’t have that much time,” Willow said. “It’s now or never.”
“Baby should know its dad,” Reese said. “Jon is a good man. We’re going to do this.”
“Very well,” Willow said. “Join hands with Mega Medicham. Mentos, Nick, you can help by holding thoughts of Jon and Loxy.”
“Captain,” one of the Rockettes said. “We’re being hailed. It’s the director.”
Willow motioned for Reese and Mega Medicham to do their thing, while he and Terror addressed the director.
“On screen, Uhura,” Terror said. (Yeah! Caught you! You’re totally looking back to confirm if that is the Uhura, or the reboot Uhura, or the manifestation of the ‘collective unconscious’ Uhura.)
“Madam Director,” Terror said.
“Terror!” Shackleford said. “And Willow? What is the meaning of this?”
“Prepare for trouble,” Willow said.
“And make it double!” Terror said, smiling.
“You’re a member Team Rocket?!” Shackleford exclaimed.
“I play for all teams,” Willow said. “Don’t try to stop us. I have thought of everything.”
“Seriously? You think you’re just going to fly that ship out of there?” Shackleford said.
“It’s a simulator!”
“It is, but it’s also space worthy,” Willow said. “I was very detailed in its construction, and everything is operational.”
“If you power up those engines in there, with or without the help of a Zapdos, you will kill everyone in this building!” Shackleford said.
“Quite probably,” Willow said.
“Stand down, and prepare to be boarded,” Shackleford said.
“Sorry, Director. But I have a world to save from devastation,” Willow said. “It’s been very nice working with you. Give my best to Ash. Captain, if you will, please.”
“Gardevoirs! Take us out of here, now!” Terror said.