Destiny Village ~ Chip's Lab

[Namohysip]

"Oh, hello, Nate," Chip replied routinely. "Nothing much.. Taking a break from patching out some insecure code. We finished taking care of a hotfix that at least could detect faulty signals. Now we're trying to find ways to prevent them, or block them, you know, things like that... And take care of some false positives. How's Silver doing?"

Silver had been taken to the infirmary, though he hadn't stirred. He also seemed healthy, at least...

 

[Negrek]

"Dunno. Sleeping, I guess. Far as anybody can tell, that's how it's supposed to be with him." Nate moved a little closer to the porygon-Z and his screens, not that it really mattered if he could see them or not. Whatever computer bullshit the guy had going on, it wouldn't mean shit to Nate. "How's that badge stuff coming, then? You were trying to figure out where that one message got sent from, right?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Yeah, that's a bust. We just didn't get much data for where it was supposed to be. The only thing we can really confirm is that the first relay was a node in the Mist Continent." Chip sighed. "We sent that data over to Maple in a report, and she says that it's possibly evidence that GIovanni is hiding somewhere in the Mist Continent. But beyond that, we have no idea where to start searching. Bean and Buffet are leading that effort... They're still looking for Team Drumstick in the Air Continent. They're going to spread themselves thin at this rate..."

 

[Negrek]

"Mist Continent, huh?" Goddammit, he was going to have to sit down and try to figure out Cibus geography for real, wasn't he? Of all the fucking things. "It's a start, at least. While you were going through your records, did you find any other messages that were supposed to be from somebody but where they never actually sent it, or was the one Maple got the only one?"

 

[Namohysip]

"As far as we can tell," Chip said, "that was the only one where it didn't have that kind of issue. There were a few others kind of like that, but that was due to... some code issues on our end, and it didn't look to be any, um, didn't seem to be related to Giovanni stuff. Please don't tell Reshiram." Chip winced. "It's mostly fine. But they were careful to only do this trick once... No wonder we never noticed."

 

[Negrek]

"Hmmm." It sure sounded like they'd done a great job of securing their fucking military communications network. Nate wished he knew enough to be able to tell whether the porygon was just shit at his job or something worse than that. "So you can see where all these signals come from, go to, whatever. Can you read the messages people are sending, too?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, yes," Chip said, "but we aren't allowed to view that kind of data under most circumstances, and we can only do that on our military network with further logging. It's not as easy to do on the civilian networks... We haven't really found anything that I'm allowed to bring up." Chip winced. "But I do wish I could tell certain people to stop sending certain... images... through the military network."

 

[Negrek]

Jesus Christ. "So you ain't got the messages recorded, but you could if you wanted. They ain't encrypted or nothing?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Encrypted?" Chip asked. "The messages? Well, they are when being sent from one to the other, but... if you had the key, you could decrypt it. Or another badge that can send it the same way..." He hummed. "That might be a lead..."

 

[Negrek]

Well, that at least was good... probably? Nate rubbed his head. This was definitely a job for somebody who knew the first fucking thing about computers. "So if Giovanni can intercept messages sent through the network, he won't necessarily be able to read them. Right? Because they're... encrypted. But if he got his hands on Maple's badge, and that's how he was able to figure out her signal, he could read anything he snagged that was meant for her. At least her badge is compromised. That sound about right?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Possibly. But Reshiram already changed her badge out just in case, and that comes with changing any encryption keys that might have been stolen for her. So if it happens again, someone gained access to her badge for a second time, or replicated whatever they did before... assuming we didn't patch out that old exploit. Or there were multiple issues. Or I somehow made things worse with the old patch and there were new bugs added in and--" Chip buzzed loudly, his body twitching.

 

[Negrek]

"Uh... you okay over there?"

Rocky appeared to be working hard to contain a snicker. Apparently he thought the porygon was pretty entertaining when he was glitching out.

 

[Namohysip]

"Hnnnzzzzt... I will be fine. Defragmenting..." It looked like Chip had somehow overloaded himself with stress. Relatable. But for the time being, he may not be able to provide much more information--then again, it didn't look like he knew much more than he'd already reported. "Was... there anything else you wanted to ask about?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate barked a nervous laugh, watching the porygon shudder and buzz. "Uh, yeah. We ain't even got fucking started. But... maybe we can leave the badge shit on the back burner for now. A few weeks back I dragged a whole bunch of random shit from Giovanni's lab over here. You get a chance to look at that yet?"

 

[Namohysip]

"I did! For the most part, it's... nonfunctional, but we were able to deduce a lot of the way it should have worked." Chip buzzed again, possibly more defragmenting or whatever else he was doing. "Some of the technology is element-proof tech that we've never seen before at this level. It's impressive... It could probably dampen even Legendary strength! We also saw parts for those capture spheres, but we don't know how to replicate it... And lastly, what looks to be some kind of... containment parts for ethereal energies. Shadows, Radiance? That's what Maple said it might help with. Strange material, that."

 

[Negrek]

Hmm. Containers for shadows, or for radiance? That was new. And there was all this talk about distortions, or Eternatus--would Giovanni have made something that could "hold" that, too? "Too bad it's all broken," Nate said. "Or that you can't make more. Pokéballs might not do shit against Giovanni, but they'd be pretty handy for anybody else we didn't want him catching." Could Giovanni make more? Or could they, like, blow up his pokéball stash and make it so he wouldn't be able to go around ganking more mons? Was he trapped here, or could he pop home anytime and order more from a mart? Nate grimaced. "Can you tell if any of that shit was made here in Cibus? Or is all of it coming from another world? Like, can you tell if the metal and shit came from around here or if it's different somehow?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Couldn't tell you," Chip said. "I've never seen anything like this at all, and the sort of work you'd need to conjure something like this here... This looks like something several generations into the future! Advancements upon advancements... To have it simply appear out of nowhere, it was as if it had been conjured by a god. They can do that, you know. Sometimes. To an extent. Okay, maybe only a few of them, for very specific things... Eh... wait. What was that thing you said? Use it on someone we don't want getting captured?" Chip swiveled his head. "How does that work?"

 

[Negrek]

"Well, at least where I'm from, if a pokémon's caught by one pokéball, it can't get caught by any others. They just, like, bounce off instead of working. Don't ask me why, it's some physics shit. So the deal is, if there's a pokémon you don't want Giovanni to catch, you have someone you trust catch them instead. Then you put the pokéball somewhere safe, have the person who caught them guard it, whatever. Then Giovanni can chuck all the master balls he wants at them, and they won't do shit. Of course, can't guarantee these pokéballs follow the same rules as the ones back home. But I tried to catch Mewtwo back when we saw him at the Isle of Light, and the ball did the whole bounce-off-stupidly thing. So he might have his own pokéball somewhere. Super handy if we found it. Or if we could grab some of his stash, we might be able to protect some of the legendary pokémon with them. Catch 'em before the bad guy does, that sort of thing."

 

[Namohysip]

"I see..." Chip's eyes flickered with thought. "This could mean quite a lot. And it might be just what we need to convince Zekrom that we really should redouble our efforts into this technology! Eh, but, her main concern was that it could also be used to unjustly imprison someone in a cruel and unusual way. To be honest, we don't really know what it's like to be in one... Hmm. I wonder if I can have you vouch for the technology for me... Zekrom doesn't listen to me anymore. One too many 'bad requests' is what she called it. Hmph... Nate, there's nothing wrong with experimenting, is there?"

 

[Negrek]

To be honest, Nate had wondered himself about whether it was a good idea to try and introduce pokéballs to Cibus. They could be a big help against Giovanni, maybe, but they could pretty much turn life on Cibus upside-down. God knew if humans could pack each other up in little balls all kinds of shady shit would be going down in his world. Not that there wasn't loads of shady shit going down already, but, like... more. Somehow Nate didn't really think this porygon was the one to discuss all that with, though. "Yeah, I could talk to Zekrom about it. If you wanted to test it, maybe offering to be the one to get caught would help? Zekrom might like that better than you dragging somebody else in. Pokéballs on my world, they ain't really like anything at all when you're inside. One second you're in, next thing you know, you're out again. Don't even know how long you've been in there. Some pokémon don't like it, but it don't hurt or nothing."

Nothing wrong with experimenting? Ugh, this fucking guy. He and that poochyena should totally hang out. They'd probably love to talk mad science shit. Nate put on a bland and hopefully curious-looking smile and said, "Sucks that Zekrom don't want to hear about your ideas no more. What kind of things was she telling you were bad ideas?"