Pokémon Empathy Imposed

[love]

Empathy Imposed

Dakota, a hacker with the Pokemon Liberation Front, is excited to take a rescue under his wing. But he is not prepared to confront the implications of their psychically amplified empathy⁠—or of the deficiencies of his own. Original setting.

Thanks to @Sinderella and @Kbludoh for helping with this story.

Spoiler: Content Warnings

Brief but visceral violence/blood.

I’d spent the last twenty minutes watching the download bar inch toward the right. Now that it was done, my hand hesitated over the pokeball’s release button. I had everything prepared: spare bedding in the closet, meat in the freezer, quadrupedal exercise equipment under the bed, philodendrons on the windowsill—st4r had told me Rene likes plants.

I just hoped Rene would like me.

I’d expected beauty from a ninetales, and Rene, with their pearlescent fur and lithe figure, delivered it. I’d also expected a penetrating gaze and commanding air. These Rene did not deliver. They did not sit especially straight, and even without emoting, their large, round eyes conferred an impression of vulnerability. Combine this with a facial structure that had remained closer to vulpix than ninetales, and the result is simply too cute to intimidate.

“Hello, Rene,” I said.

“Hello, Dakota,” they replied. The level softness of their psychic voice put me in mind of psychotherapists. “Your acquaintance told me you’re with the Pokemon Liberation Front too. I appreciate the work you do.”

I smiled, shoulders relaxing. “Thank you. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help. Is there anything you need right now?”

Their eyes flicked toward the wall behind me. “Could you kill that fly?”

It took me a moment to spot it—it was one of those tiny fruit flies that can fit through the holes in bug screens.

“Thanks,” they said as I wiped its remains off the wall with a paper towel. “It wasn’t long for this world, anyway, if its inanition was any indication.”

I frowned. “St4r told me you were sensitive, but I didn’t know it was that extreme.”

“Yes,” they said, sighing. “It’s burdensome. But sometimes it’s good. I don’t only sense negative emotions.”

“I see. I’m curious to know more, but how about I show you around first?”

“Please.”

I kept glancing at their face to gauge their reaction as we toured the apartment—though “toured” is really too grand a word for a one-bedroom spanning less than three hundred square feet. I didn’t see any indication that the size disappointed Rene. That was good. We sat on the cushions in what might generously be called the living room. The sun from the window glinted off Rene’s fur, making my eyes water.

“That’s about it,” I said. “If there’s anything you want, I’ll see if I can buy it for you. You’re free to go outside too—just try to steer clear of people.”

Their nose wrinkled slightly at the word outside. “Understood. I’ll admit I haven’t had much free time in a while, and I’m not sure how I should fill it. For now—perhaps a nap, if that’s alright.”

“Don’t need my permission. Just come get me if you need anything. I’ll be in my—the bedroom.”

They smiled, butting their head against my arm as I rose. “Thanks, Dakota.”

Back in the bedroom, I saw a message awaited on my computer.

<st4r> Hey, when you got a second, how’s Rene?

I typed back.

<F1uff> They seem sweet. I think we’ll get along. You really weren’t kidding about the hyperempathy, though.
<st4r> Yeah. Must have sucked battling. Can you imagine?

I cringed.

<F1uff> At least they’re free now.
<st4r> Amen, brother.
<st4r> Also, while I have you, I took a look at the code you sent me.
<F1uff> The web scraper?
<st4r> No, not that, I mean the code from the Pokecorp break-in that you told me looked weird. THAT code.
<F1uff> Oh. So was I right?
<st4r> More than you know. Extrapolating from the notes you left me, it looks like a lot of work went into modelling pokemon cognition. The way they’ve done it is rather brute-forced, not unlike a neural network. Comparatively inefficient, but maybe they want a way to simulate the real thing without the ethical concerns of a copy-paste, which is understandable.
<F1uff> Huh. I’m trying to figure out why they’d want to put this functionality in a pokeball.
<st4r> I’m not sure either. There’s still plenty of analysis to be done. There is a part of the same function that requests edit access to the occupant’s brain, which worries me.
<F1uff> That is… a little concerning. I’m going to hope it’s just lazy programming. A developer indifferent to granular permissions.
<st4r> You think? At Pokecorp?
<F1uff> The big boys can do dumb stuff too. You remember Herasonik? The 250 line no-op?
<st4r> Oh god lol. I remember b14ck0ut banging his head against the wall for an hour.
<F1uff> It was one for the books.
<st4r> I hope this just turns out to be some silly oversight too. Either way, you’ll be the first to know.
<F1uff> Thank you. Good luck.

I peeked out from the bedroom from time to time to check on Rene. They really had decided to nap, it seemed. I couldn’t blame them. A lot had changed for them recently, and I had to imagine they’d been at least a little stressed.

***​

The sound of tails brushing against the doorframe signified Rene’s entrance. They drank from the bowl by the bedpost and then jumped onto the mattress. I asked them if they’d slept well (they had) and if they needed anything (they did not) and told them to let me know if they got bored.

I glanced at them between uploads and installations. They were staring out the window. At some point they had draped the philodendrons’ vines over their back, which drew a chuckle from me. “You look like a skiddo or something,” I said when they turned their head.

“They’re nice plants,” was their defense. “More plants should be at eye level.”

“I suppose so?” If it were anyone else, I would have inferred that this was meant to be humorous, but Rene’s delivery was so perfectly deadpan that I second-guessed myself. I hadn’t yet learned to read the subtle head nod that usually accompanied their jokes. “Can you actually… Do they have emotions?”

“Oh, sometimes I think they do, faintly, and I can feel them, but I could just be imagining. All I know is I like being around them. Especially when it’s just one or two indoors. Really get to know them that way.”

“I see,” I said, very slowly.

“You’re looking at me like there’s something weird about wanting to get intimate with a plant.” They smiled, eyes glinting, and I relaxed; finally I’d realized they were just being silly. “But really, they do make me feel good, in moderation.”

“Maybe you were a grass-type in a past life.”

“My father was a sawsbuck. I might have inherited some proclivities from him.”

“Well, there you go.” I glanced at my monitor. “I should be done setting up this test server soon. I’ll take a break after that, if you wanna… I don’t know.”

“I’m happy lounging here for now. But you can join me if you like. There’s a lovely flock of starlings that just stopped by the maple tree, and I’m hoping they stay for—” They jolted upright and spoke in rapid, overlapping bursts that no physical voice could have managed. “We should get a bird feeder! That would be—would be a little island of happiness—so lovely—because, you know, they won’t, the birds won’t have to—to find food—I mean, if it’s fine with you.” They looked at me expectantly.

I grinned. “We’ll head to the store today.”

***​

The bird feeder was the only thing Rene ever asked me for. Once we had set it up, they were perfectly content with their living situation. I liked watching the birds too, but I liked watching Rene more—the way their throat quivered and shoulders twitched in sympathy with avian movement, the way their ears flicked in time with glass-muted chirps, the way they emoted as though in silent conversation. Sometimes I would lounge with them, upon their invitation. The bed was too small for us not to be touching, and when one day they started leaning into me, I leaned back. They became relentlessly cuddly after that. Maybe they only acted that way to leech off of my pleasure—a sort of feedback loop—but the thought didn’t make the experience any less agreeable.

Once, as we lay together, Rene’s expression turned melancholic, and I knew that one of our visitors was less than healthy. Rene said, “I’m going to kill that one,” and then a goldfinch dropped to the ground. “It was in a bad way. Mites, I think.”

“I never would have known,” I murmured, heart heavy with wonder.

***​

Rene did not, as a rule, like to go outdoors, but as a healthy ninetales, they were regularly afflicted with the urge to run. One day when they couldn’t sit still, we decided to take the half-hour drive to the beach, which they thought would be less psychically overwhelming than Vicilla’s endemic forests.

Rene seemed more or less okay until we’d driven about two-thirds of the way. I glanced at them and found that tension had wrung their face into an unrecognizable mess of wrinkles. “Dakota,” they said.

“Are you okay? Should I stop?”

“It’s coming from just ahead. It’s… something is seriously wrong.”

“Should I stop?” I repeated.

They hesitated. “I need to know what it is,” they said. “And if there’s anything I can do.”

I kept driving. Rene’s lip began to twitch.

I kept driving. Rene’s eyes began to lose focus.

I kept driving. Rene’s breath hitched.

“Rene—”

A row of squat, windowless buildings appeared over a hill, and Rene’s stupor sharpened into rage. “Those bastards!” They snarled, eyes narrowed into red slits, fangs bared, snout deeply wrinkled. In that moment, I did not recognize them.

“Rene—”

“I’m gonna kill them all, every last one. Hell on earth, Dakota, hell on—stop the fucking car!”

I pulled over, hands shaking on the wheel. Rene started scrabbling at the door handle before we’d fully stopped, claws gouging the surrounding leather.

“Rene, tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

“It’s a CAFO, you fucking—” They snorted. “I should have known, I never saw one but it’s just like—just like—but it’s a thousand times worse.” They gave up on the handle. Their eyes glowed; there was a bang and a metallic screech, and the door swung open.

“Rene, please calm down,” I said, suddenly wishing—although I despised the things—that I’d brought a pokeball. “Don’t kill anyone. You’ll—I won’t be able to protect you if you do.”

“Just the livestock,” they said, jumping out the door. “They won’t care about the livestock. They never care—”

“Rene, wait! Please!”

Finally they turned and struck me with their gaze. I was horizontal now, hand stretched toward the open door.

“Let me help you,” I pleaded, tearful.

Rene’s expression did not soften, but they jumped back into the car. Instead of speech, a gurgle rose from my throat. Rather than try again, I looked meaningfully into Rene’s eyes while tapping my head.

“You want me to read your thoughts?” they asked, words clipped, impatience obvious.

I nodded, feeling childish. A distant part of my brain registered that perhaps I had a right to be mad at Rene, but I couldn’t indulge it, not now.

Invisible pressure manifested around my skull, like wearing a shrunken swimming cap. I thought, If you want to do this, we need to plan it so you don’t get caught. I—we worked really hard to free you—not just you, I mean, but—please just let me help you.

“Every second we wait, those pokemon—”

Which is why we need to plan and make sure we kill them all properly. My conviction was entirely feigned. I hadn’t had time to decide what I wanted to do yet, nor to assess if we even could do this on our own. Could Rene tell? Could they sense my fear through our connection? I bit down on my lip, hoping the pain would conceal any traitorous thoughts.

Clouded eyes looked into mine for a second, two. Then Rene broke off, snorting. “Just get us out of here,” they said, the same way one swats a cockroach off one’s shoulder.

We didn’t speak for the rest of the drive. As soon as we got to the beach, Rene tore across the sand.

***​

Driving back, the car’s cabin was suffocating. Sweat beaded on my forehead. Wind hissed through the damaged passenger-side door.

“I’m sorry, Dakota,” Rene said.

My shoulders dropped; I let out a breath.

“I was reckless and made you uncomfortable,” Rene continued. “I should have considered your feelings.”

A short pause. “I can’t imagine how you felt,” I said carefully.

“You don’t have to make excuses for me. But I appreciate your sympathy.”

I placed my hand between their shoulder blades; they leaned into it. “You still want to…?”

Their face lowered, eyes closing. They looked prayerful. “I have to.”

“Then I’ll help.”

“Thank you, Dakota. You’re a wonderful person.”

I wondered if that was true.

***​

I still wasn’t sure whether I wanted to raid the CAFO, but I decided I didn’t have to be, if Rene was. Only they could feel the extent of the victims’ suffering. Only they could make the right judgment.

So I found what information I could online and staked out the CAFO, exploiting their insecure camera feeds. For Rene’s part, they practiced performing rapid psychic blasts—there would be no time for gentle precision—and helped plan an efficient route through the CAFO. These activities left us with little time to lounge by the window, but a deeper solidarity emerged from our common purpose—from discussing long into the night, from squinting at maps and aerial photographs together, our faces close enough to feel each others’ breaths. When Rene had to rest, they lay by my feet while I worked at the computer. But they never forgot to remind me to refill the bird feeder.

The day before we were set to go, I received the following message:

<st4r> Hey, are you busy?

I replied.

<F1uff> Sort of? Tomorrow’s the big day.
<st4r> Well, there’s something you should know before you go.
<st4r> I looked at the code you sent me some more. It turns out it does permanently modify the occupant’s brain.
<st4r> Are you familiar with the concept of a philosophical zombie?
<F1uff> I think you mentioned learning about it in college. I don’t remember exactly.
<st4r> It’s a hypothetical entity identical to a person in every way, except that it’s not conscious. It may feign anger or joy, may have as complex a personality as you or I, with all the accompanying foibles and virtues, but experiences no qualia.
<F1uff> So, is that what the code does? Turns a pokemon into a zombie?
<st4r> Sort of. Yes insofar as the afflicted’s inner life is decoupled from their behavior. But in our case, there’s one surviving emotion, cultivated through widespread activation of mu opioid receptors in the ventral pallidum: perfect bliss, or something closer to it than you or I will ever experience. So we get a happy zombie. I think someone—some rogue hacker or vigilante—thought they were doing pokemon a favor.
<st4r> I’m not sure they were wrong.
<F1uff> And that’s what the neural network stuff is for? So the subject can project an inner life while the heart is off in la-la land?
<st4r> Yep. Turns out pokeball sentiment logs are pretty good training data.
<F1uff> But there’s no way the simulation could be perfect. The best neural networks hallucinate, overspecialize, choke on poisoned data. Even if the code forges sentiment readouts convincingly, you’d notice a behavioral quirk sooner or later.
<st4r> Sooner or later, maybe. Seems to have fooled you pretty good, though, if you’ll forgive me saying.
<F1uff> Fooled me? What do you mean?
<st4r> Rene.

“Dakota, what’s wrong?”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Rene had sat up. I didn’t look at them. I stared at the monitor. The letters on the screen began to blur.

“Dakota,” Rene said, nudging my leg.

I wheeled away from the monitor. I gestured for Rene to read as I staggered to the bed. Memories of birdwatching flashed in my mind, unbidden. The world spun and put me on my side. I stared at the wall, at the flaking paint.

At length, Rene spoke. “Dakota, even if he’s right—and I suppose I can’t prove he’s not—why get upset over it?”

“Right. We should pop a bottle of champagne. Toast to your happiness.”

“Please be serious.”

“I am. I should be happy for you. You’ll never suffer. Shame I didn’t know earlier. Could have saved a lot of trouble, rescuing you. Getting invested.”

Their voice chilled. “You regret that, do you? Getting invested in me?”

I didn’t know what to say, so I wound up saying nothing.

I felt the air shift as Rene spun. Their departure was quiet but swift.

***​

The computer fan whirred. The sun sank. The monitor’s spectral light spotlit the door. The door remained still; Rene did not enter.

The feeder still saw intermittent activity. Exposed in the flat, white light of the entrance lamp, the warblers looked like plastic toys.

***​

I wished I could look at Rene without feeling violated. I wished there were more than a handbrake and gear stick between us. I wished I could forget what I knew.

The CAFO itself was hard to spot at night, but after all the preparation I’d done, I probably could have driven there blindfolded. A few meters past the broken streetlight between exits 60 and 61, I pulled over, grabbed the laptop from the glove compartment, connected to the CAFO’s wireless network, and ran the script I’d prepared.

“Cameras are down,” I said after a few seconds. Then, hollowly, “Good luck.”

Rene was out the door before I’d finished speaking. In the time it took to blink, they’d disappeared into the dark.

I proceeded to the frontage road off exit 61, doubled back, and reached the fallen oak at the other end of the CAFO. I grabbed a set of binoculars from the glove compartment and peered over the tree stump. I could only just see the pallid gleam of hoop barns in the moonlight. All appeared still. In my mind’s eye, meat-bred torchics’ heads popped like champagne corks as Rene tore past; blood dyed white feathers red, streaked down cage bars, darkened the packed dirt below; rage contorted Rene’s face. Perhaps, as their slaughter neared completion, and the weight of a thousand victims’ torment lifted from their back, their feral snarl would relax into a relieved smile.

The thought distracted for a moment, until I remembered that it didn’t matter, that Rene no longer knew relief or pain. Bitterness resurfaced, and with it the same futile thoughts. I should be mad; I’d been exploited. I should apologize; it wasn’t Rene’s fault. I shouldn’t talk to them; they aren’t real. It shouldn’t matter; it can’t be ignored. Contradictions writhed, compounding into knotted binds.

A flash of red light woke me up. The fire trailing from Rene’s mouth cast curved horns, osseous protrusions, and spearhead tails behind them in hellish light. Not only had guard pokemon shown up, but they happened to be a species immune to both fire and psychic. I don’t know how I hadn’t seen them in all the hours I’d spent staking out the CAFO; I like to think that, by pure coincidence, they had been employed the day before my and Rene’s attack. But it doesn’t matter.

The houndooms were gaining. Rene wasn’t going to make it in time. Most likely, their pursuers had been trained not to kill, in which case Rene would merely be impounded if subdued. Given their condition, that wouldn’t really matter; they would retain the same oblivious happiness. Another contradiction. I remained ensnared a moment more—then Rene’s eyes met mine with a lucid sharpness of panic, and mental binds yielded to a flood of memory. I remembered embery eyes flickering among birds; the scent of washed fur; the warmth of the sun compounding with the warmth of a plush body and filling the cavity of my chest. I remembered lying alone last night, feeling the world constrict around me, like I had a hundred times before.

I grabbed Rene’s pokeball from the cupholder and dashed out the door, mashing the recall button. I leaped over the tree stump, nearly falling on my face, and ran. I was a hacker, not an athlete, and I knew that I was not fast, but I still ran. By the time the pokeball finally recalled Rene, about four hundred meters away, I could make out the texture of their pursuers’ fur. As I turned around and made for the car, legs burning, I expected constantly to feel the pinch of fangs in my calf.

I half dove, half slid across the tree trunk, landing awkwardly on my shoulder, then pulled myself up with the car door, one hand on the outer handle, one hand in the side compartment. I don’t know how close the houndooms had come to reaching me. In retrospect, maybe they’d stopped chasing after I’d recalled Rene.

I drove exactly the speed limit, shaking. I’d practiced enough that I could follow the escape route without really thinking. I didn’t see any cops. After half an hour of circuitous turns, I parked in the rear lot of the Daisytown Shopping Plaza, then released Rene and threw my arms around them in a single motion. The smell of blood filled my nose.

“Did I worry you?” Rene asked, voice soft but tremulous.

I didn’t say anything, but held my embrace. I felt Rene’s mind latch onto mine.

How do you feel? I asked.

“Is this a trick question?” they hedged, shifting uncomfortably.

I pulled back so that I could look into their eyes. How do you feel, Rene? I imagined saying it like an apology.

Their blood-soaked grin was all the answer I needed.

---

Spoiler: Author's Note

The idea that a neural network could literally simulate a brain is pretty silly, but it works for the story.