WildBoots
Don’t underestimate seeds.
Summary:
I'm sorry to put this on you, he typed, but I need your help.
(This is so sad—Porygon, play Despacito.)
Rating: PG+
Some cursing, some illegal activity.
Like my other stories, this one is set in a somewhat grittier version of the pokemon world where all trainers start traveling at age eighteen instead of ten.
Genres:
Crime, friendship
Status:
COMPLETE, 4.5k
Other notes:
Written in response to the prompt "someone pulls their last con."
I am open to constructive feedback! I'm already aware of a few areas where I need to make small changes--simply haven't gotten to it yet!--but I'm not offended if you point them out again.
--
Training Data
Judd took a leisurely slurp of the sludgy, half-frozen coffee, buying time while he shaped Georgia Day in his mind. Her Trainer Network feed gave him plenty to go on: georgia_wanders shared mostly photos of sunsets, flowers, or selfies with her pokemon, always with an artsy filter and a caption in Kalosian. At the top of her page was a quote from a pop song: the road is long, my darling / but keep your face to the sun. Very typical suburban Kanto girl shit. No battle videos, which spoke volumes. He could tell she was reaching for influencer status, but she didn't post often enough or draw enough attention when she did. Most of the comments on her posts came from one user, GlitzyMitzy, and were geotagged to Cerulean—a lot of miss you, sis, and get it, girl!
He and Ding were gonna get this girl, easy.
Today, with Judd at the wheel, Georgia needed money. Reasons weren't hard to invent: she'd lost her wallet. She'd spent all her money on clothes or some shit. But Judd needed a real tear-jerker, an emergency. I'm sorry to put this on you, he typed, but I need your help. A couple thugs caught me in the alley and took everything. I don't have money to get home and I don't know what to do.
With a self-satisfied smile, Judd leaned back in his chair. He spoke into the mic on his earbuds. "What do you think, Ding?"
The porygon appeared in the bottom left of Judd's screen, pixelated wings spinning in place. The animation was much smoother since the update last week, and her responses came faster now too: Found four news articles tagged Kalos and containing the word thug. Suggestion: Équipe de Flare thugs.
"Smart bird," he said, keying in Team Flare. Sprinkling in current events made the story more plausible. "Thanks, Ding."
She wasn't done. Did you mean: everythign?
Judd took another drink of coffee slush while he considered that one. The details were fussy, but he liked having to think to make himself sound like someone else. It made him feel powerful. He was careful about his own typos, but it was usually a good idea to side with Ding when she made suggestions. While he'd been ordering his drink, she'd been analyzing the message history between georgia_wanders and GlitzyMitzy. She probably knew Georgia's text habits better than Georgia did.
"Sure," he said. "She's desperate, typing fast."
Ding made the change for him before he could lift his hands to the keys. He felt the urge to hug her—thinking how the sound of her drivers reminded him of a purring cat—but he'd have to wait until later.
Technically, bringing her in at all was against the cafe's rule about keeping pokemon in their balls. He sat with his back to the far wall where no one could look over his shoulder; and even if someone did catch a glimpse of his screen, Ding wouldn't register as a live pokemon to most people. But staff would probably notice if he brought her out of the laptop in her hard-light form. He also had to admit it was much easier to communicate with her when she went digital and reappropriated the laptop's word-processing software. In hard-light mode, she was all keypad tones and chiptune—no good for getting work done. So, she'd stay in.
For now, he "pet" her with the cursor, and her on-screen avatar emitted a shower of hearts. That had been added in the update, too. Judd couldn't keep the goofy grin from his face. His sweet, smart pixel-bird.
After that, Ding didn't offer additional suggestions, so Judd sent copies of the message to GlitzyMitzy and a couple other promising accounts. Then he sat back, sipped his drink, and waited.
This had been a good week so far, so he was relaxed. Last week he'd come up empty, but a good week more than made up for a bad one. And bad luck rarely lasted, especially now that he'd switched to social media projects. Convincing someone to part with their money took more work, but the passwords were easier to get. And new trainers and their cheerleaders were always too ready to believe in something too good to be true.
Like the idea that, with enough elbow grease, anyone could be successful as a trainer. Even a skinny kid from a not-so-great part of Viridian. He had to admit the League had gotten him good with that scam.
Wincing, Judd remembered the day Jabjai finally evolved into a beedrill. For weeks, he'd carried the cocoon in a sling across his chest like an actual baby, and then—a burst of light gave way to wings. He was the first trainer he knew who'd fully evolved a pokemon, and he made sure everyone at every pokecenter knew it.
Idiot.
The new Jabjai was whip-fast and relentless ... until he wasn't anymore. They outpaced the bellsprouts and poliwags of the world. But by the next gym, Judd's peers had caught up and then some. No matter how much work they put in, Jabjai didn't make any more big gains. He'd peaked.
Judd wondered where Jabjai was now—hopefully living his best bug life somewhere out there. Then again, wild beedrill weren't known for having long lifespans. Judd pushed the thought away. Letting his pokemon go had been the best thing for them. Better than forcing them to acclimate to apartment living and trying to train them not to scratch Mom's furniture.
If he really thought about it, Judd was doing the best thing for these trainers, too. They'd have to face reality sooner or later, and he was saving them a couple steps. He was basically providing a service: they paid his fee and he taught them a valuable life lesson. Unlike the rockets, he even left them with all their pokemon. For someone like Georgia, whose family could afford to send her to Kalos for her journey, a couple hundred dollars probably wasn't even that big of a deal.
At an electronic chime, he sat up again, surprised to get a reply so quickly. Oh. Mom wanted him to please pick up butter on his way back from work. She was baking, she added, but he understood it was also part of his penance for moving back home. A way to make him pull his weight.
Mom had welcomed him back home, saying it had been too quiet without him anyway, and of course he could stay as long as he needed. But she was also constantly asking if he had decided on schools he might want to apply to—earnest and smiling and tight-clenched. Judd couldn't blame her for wanting him out of the house. He hadn't exactly come home bearing trophies, just three sorry little fighters, two badges, and one suspended license.
And Ding.
Ding was the beginning and the end of all Judd's problems. If he hadn't been caught trying to hack his way through the Vermillion City gym, he wouldn't have had to move back home at all.
Or would he? Maybe that dream would've bled out over several months instead of hemorrhaging all at once. He saw no legitimate paths that would take him forward. Not in the gym, where the electronic gates forced him past trainer after trainer until his team was worn down, and he always fell short of getting his chance at the gym leader himself. How was that fair? If he'd been able to evolve Farah, his nidorina, then he might've had a chance. But the more they'd lost, the less money he'd had to invest in the evolutionary stones and vitamins and potions necessary for a strong and healthy team. So they'd kept losing.
Playing by the rules hadn't done him any favors, that was for sure. Eventually, he would've slid back to square one regardless. Besides, he was better at this.
Cracking his knuckles, Judd leaned over his laptop and pulled up apartments in West Celadon again, just to see what had changed. A month's rent in a Celadon apartment the size of a refrigerator box cost more than he'd ever made in a month of battling. He was close now though. A few more good days and he'd have enough saved up to last him a couple months. Enough to start. If he were willing to stay in Viridian, he could easily find a bigger place—and sooner. But that felt like settling, not like freedom. He wanted to get far away, someplace nice.
And freedom was expensive.
His apartment search was interrupted by a message from Ding: I found something interesting.
"I bet you did," he said, continuing to scroll.
The Porygon: Wingdings base programming was data collection and management. In a way, that was still what Ding did, only now she was after very specific data: passwords, credit card numbers, and account information. Every so often she would give out a jingle and let Judd know what she'd found, almost as if seeking his praise.
"Go for it, Ding-a-ling. Let's see what you got."
There was a brief silence, presumably while the porygon rearranged ones and zeros into readable text, and then she announced: Chat log dated May first.
Text filled the screen.
GlitzyMitzy (22:11 p.m.): She doesn't get a pass for that. She broke girl code. You don't deserve that.
georgia_wanders (22:11 p.m.): I know, I know.
georgia_wanders (22:12 p.m.): But maybe it wouldn't have happened if I had stayed. I'm the one who left him behind, you know?
GlitzyMitzy (22:14 p.m.): Listen—a cheater is always going to cheat. He would've done it whether you were here or Kalos or another planet. You didn't make him. He made his own choices.
GlitzyMitzy (22:15 p.m.): Honestly, they deserve each other. Let them cheat on each other next time.
georgia_wanders (22:17 p.m.): Yeah ...
georgia_wanders (22:18 p.m.): It just really freaking sucks. :(
Judd spotted the problem immediately, the proximity of "pass" and "code." Ding's algorithm had guided her towards what she thought might be a password. It didn't happen often, but Ding did occasionally present him with a chunk of gibberish. He couldn't begrudge her for trying.
"Don't worry about that, Ding. It's not important." He clicked away from the apartment listings and checked Georgia's inbox. Nothing yet.
The porygon pinged again. It sounds like: cheating sometimes hurts people, but that's not important. Is that correct?
Judd stared at the screen. That was definitely new. He wondered if he should pull up Ding's settings and suss out what exactly had been in the Wingdings 2.0 package.
Then a message from GlitzyMitzi appeared onscreen: Where are you right now? Are you safe?
His heart raced the same way it always had at the start of a battle. With a glance at Ding's icon, a green dot over her head indicating she was ready to go, Judd brought his hands up to the keys. At the pokecenter, he answered for Georgia. He thought for a moment and added, It's pretty far from where I'm staying, though.
Isn't it three in the morning over there? What are you doing out so late, Gigi?
That was a good question. Likely, the real Georgia Day was dead asleep right now, or at least she should be. Then he thought of the chat log Ding had pulled, suddenly glad for her earlier mistake. I met someone, and we went out for drinks. I was on my way back to the hostel.
He didn't walk you home?!
Judd chuckled at her indignation, thinking how Mitzi sounded an awful lot like ditzy. The next words came easily, pulled from conversations he'd overheard in pokecenters countless times: I had my pokemon. I didn't think it would be a big deal.
Is your team okay?
He paused to think. Saying no would be more dramatic for sure and might drive her to send more money faster, but it would also be more to juggle. She might push harder to get police involved—a waste of his time.
Before Judd could decide, GlitzyMitzi fired another response at him: They didn't take Eclat, did they?
He wondered if she was testing him. "Ding, can you run a search for that on the profile?"
The porygon swiveled her wings and then faded out of view.
While he waited, GlitzyMitzy pinged him again. Gigi? Talk to me. He wasn't worried about losing her attention. In fact, he thought with a smile, he should let her sweat a little, force her to become more reactive.
After a minute, Ding flickered into view again. Result 1 of 15 for Éclat. A window popped up, showing a version of Georgia with longer hair and a fennekin tucked in her arms. The caption read, Tête-à-tête with Éclat, my new best girl. Probably not a trick then, but he'd have to avoid naming the species—too hard to tell what evolutionary stage it was in now.
Sorry. Had to talk to the nurse. She's okay. Hurt but recovering, he typed.
Out loud, he muttered, "Alright, enough small talk already ..."
As Georgia, he wrote, I'm more worried about how I'll get home without money. Then he sipped at his drink, smirking in anticipation, and watched the three little dots that indicated GlitzyMitzy was typing.
After a long pause, she answered, I should be able to call a taxi for you from here. Gimme the addresses of the pokemon center and the place you're staying.
Judd's smile crumpled into a scowl.
As he hammered out his rebuttal, Ding prompted him, Did you mean: Thanks so much, Mimi. I really appreciate it.
"Right, right, right." He took a deep breath and allowed himself a smile. "Thanks, Ding-a-ling. I appreciate it."
Ding rained animated hearts and played a couple seconds of his favorite song (Glitch City by m1ss1ng_n0). She really was such a smart bird.
Judd typed, Thanks so much, Mimi. I really appreciate it. I'm worried about tomorrow though. I don't have a way to get more money until they send me a new card.
Did you cancel your cards yet?
He rolled his eyes, even though she was nagging him about an imaginary problem. Yes, I did.
Okay, good.
Judd didn't hesitate—it was time. The only way to get what he wanted was to demand it and to keep the pressure on. If you could send just a couple hundred dollars, that would last me until my new cards come. As an afterthought, he added, And then I can pay you back!
GlitzyMitzi was quiet for a moment.
He messaged again: The girl at the front desk said you can wire funds directly to the pokecenter and they'll give it to me in cash. Then he gave her the magic string of numbers. Of course, the code he gave her directed to the transfer machine in the corner of the coffee shop by the front door, here in Viridian City. But she wouldn't know that.
She still didn't reply, so he fired off another message, remembering to use the nickname Ding had pulled up. Sorry to ask, Mimi. This really freaking sucks. Sad face. Why not—two sad faces.
Finally, GlitzyMitzi asked, Which center is that?
Judd lied smoothly, poised with the answer in one of his open tabs. The Rue Moret pokecenter.
There was another pause. That's Lumiose City, right?
He double-checked the map—Ding had already pulled it up. Yes, 11th District.
I thought you were in Shalour City this week.
He hissed a string of curses, typed, deleted it, and started again. There was a change of plans. I was meeting ....
"Ding?"
The porygon processed in silence for a moment. Then she piped up, I found something interesting, and opened up the page of another trainer. Her profile picture showed her and Georgia with their heads together.
"You're a rockstar."
I met up with my friend Sariah who's staying here.
Judd waited, but GlitzyMitzy didn't answer. No three little dots—nothing.
After a moment, he typed, Mimi? Are you still there?
When he went to take another drink, he got only an empty sucking sound. He chewed on the straw instead. It was hard to keep calm when the money felt tantalizingly close.
Don't leave me all alone! :(
Georgia's anxiety was fictitious, but Judd was starting to worry for real. He couldn't tell if Mitzi had left her computer to get her wallet ... or if she had finally wised up. With each second that passed, he became less confident it was the former.
Judd leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Ding, you know any jokes while we wait?"
The porygon icon idled for a moment, and then a pixelated lightbulb appeared above her head. Joke (n.)—something said to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a punchline.
"Thanks anyway."
He chomped on his straw, flattening it into the smallest shape possible.
Mimiiiiiii ...
Probably, it was time to disengage before he wasted any more time. Though it wasn't like any of his other marks had responded yet ... He was about to ask Ding to help him start trawling for more passwords when GlitzyMitzy returned.
Why don't I send the money to your Trainer Network account, she said. Even if you don't have your physical license, the pokemon center staff should be able to match your face to the account and let you withdraw the money.
Judd squinted at that for a moment and then broke out in a grin. She thought that was enough to keep the money safe? "You know where to move it to, right, Ding?"
She played a little jingle in his earbuds and sent him a smiley face.
"Alright, then get ready."
To GlitzyMitzy he said, OK. That makes sense.
Do you think $400 will be enough?
Judd glanced at the time in the corner of the screen. They'd been talking for about half an hour. Not a bad hourly rate!
This time he remembered his manners. Thanks so much, Mimi. You're a rockstar.
Okay, answered Mitzi. I'll send it in just a second.
He leaned forward, eagerly watching the screen. When a pop-up window prompted, User "GlitzyMitzi" is trying to send attachments, he immediately clicked to accept.
The screen went white.
"Uh ... Ding?" Heart pounding, Judd stabbed at the emergency shutdown hotkeys, but nothing changed.
A pair of blue dots blinked into view in the center of the screen and then, with an animated flourish, became a pair of eyes. They winked. Then text scrawled across the screen: Kiss my circuits, script kid! The words repeated over and over, wrapping until they filled the entire screen, except for the eyes.
Judd reached for the keys and immediately felt an electrical shock. He couldn't touch it. At another jolt, this time from his earbuds, he jerked back involuntarily. The earbuds yanked out of his ears, but not before the laptop slid forward and toppled off the table. A beat after it hit the floor, there came a second loud crack, and Ding rematerialized among fizzling lights. Judd thought he heard staticky laughter underneath it all. His hair stood on end.
All eyes in the previously quiet cafe turned toward him. Judd ignored them and knelt next to Ding, who lay on top of the computer under the table. "Ding-a-ling? You okay?"
Something was wrong.
Gingerly, he lifted the porygon's body to press it to his chest—and her head stayed behind. Judd froze. How did that happen? What did that even mean for a creature made of data and light? Was she—?
But when he picked up her head in his other hand, the insides of her eyes spun like a program loading cursor. Under her plastic-like shell, lights still pulsed. So she was okay. Probably.
They had to get out of here.
He jammed his laptop into his backpack, wincing because it was hot to the touch. Then he swung the bag over his shoulders, scooped up both pieces of Ding, and scrambled out the door. Unsure where else to go, he made his way home.
Mom wouldn't return for a few hours, so Judd laid Ding on the kitchen table, aligning her head and body with care. Her eyes still swirled with loading circles. At least she didn't seem to be getting worse? Not that you could get much worse than decapitated.
For now, he decided to let her system try to sort itself out—dubious as that sounded, even to him—while he took stock of the situation. The laptop was utterly fried. Cracks webbed the screen and several of the keys had actually melted together. He supposed he could still open it up and see if any of the internal components were salvageable, but he wasn't counting on it.
Judd turned his back to the ruined computer and reached for his phone instead. By the time he pulled up the search engine, he realized he had no idea where to begin. He didn't even know if he should take Ding to a pokecenter or a repair shop ... or whether he should take her anywhere. How much much would their scans reveal of what he and Ding had been doing together?
He stole a glance over his shoulder at Ding. No, he couldn't leave her like that. He had to bring her ... somewhere ... and he would just have to figure out how to sidestep the consequences.
As Judd was pulling up directions to the nearest pokecenter, he heard a chime and a whirring behind him. He turned in time to watch Ding rise slowly and spasmodically off the table, her head levitating in place over her body.
"Hey, Ding-a-ling. Are you ... okay?"
His phone vibrated. Helło, r3gištered ûser Judd¡ Welcome to P0rYg0n: WingDing, _Edition Z.0! I åm Ding, your cyb3rnetïc friend¡
The sight of the garbled text made Judd feel nauseated with guilt and worry. Was this some kind of virus? He took a deep breath. There had to be a backup of her system files on the cloud. Something.
At the same time, he had to marvel: he had also never known Ding to be able to send messages from a device she hadn't jumped inside.
While he was puzzling through that, Ding sent a second message to his phone. I f0und somêthing interesting.
"Um."
With a mechanical whir, she drew herself up. Her head tottered jerkily to one side and then the other. She messaged, Kn0ck, knoç k.
Judd stared at his phone then back at his twitching porygon. He finally managed, "What the fuck?"
Did Ÿou mean: who's th3re¿
"Okay. Who's there?"
Õran.
Was she serious? Another thought hit him: had she been stuck looping his joke request this entire time? Gods, she was shot, and he only had himself to blame. She'd done her best for him, and in return he'd gotten her blitzed by a rotom—because what else could it have been?
"Oran who?" he answered glumly.
Oran y0u glad I'm nøt dead¿ said Ding. Then she made a high-pitched whooping sound, and her head spun a full one-eighty degrees.
He spluttered a single laugh, surprised more than amused.
Without a pause, Judd's phone buzzed again. Kńock, knøck.
This time he answered obediently. "Who's there?"
D¡ng!
Ah. Her overcooked system had reached its joke-researching limits. Judd sighed. "Hi, Ding."
She shuddered in place and beeped. D¡d you meÃn: D1ng who?
"Sorry. Ding who?" He tried to pull up the route to the pokecenter again, but the messages from Ding kept interrupting.
Ding-dong, she announced and then emitted a chime like a doorbell. The text kept scrolling. It's me, Ding (your cyberńetįc fri3nd). I am at your do0r, inviting yoü outs1de.
"You ... want to go outside? We can do that." The pokecenter was only a short walk away.
No, Judd, Ding messaged, it was a j0ke.
Judd's mouth hung open. He had never seen her so chatty, not without prompting, and not ... like this. Where had she gotten the idea to change the joke?
Another thought flickered through his head: was this Ding? Had something else hijacked her system? And now it was in his phone, too.
"I'm so screwed."
Ding stared at him—or, at least, turned in his direction. Her head slowly drifted upside-down. Querÿ, came the message on his phone. How māny Juddš doęs it take to scr3w in å lightbułb?
"No, no—Ding. Stop. I'm being serious." He caught himself and sighed. Ding was all messed up and here he was scolding her. In a gentler voice, he said, "You just relax, Ding. I need to figure some things out."
He couldn't do jack shit without a laptop. Even a junker would be several hundred dollars at the very least, and that was after whatever it cost to fix Ding. Did he even have enough for that? He had no idea. And if he couldn't work in the meantime …. Judd groaned, dropping his face into his hands. "How am I gonna pay for any of this shit?"
At another ping on his phone, Judd raised his head.
Ding offered, I found som3thing intēresting¡
This time the message included a link, which took him to a page about white hat hackers—people paid to hack companies to help them improve their security. At least, he supposed, she hadn't stalled out in an endless loop of jokes. He shook his head in disbelief. "Where did this come from?"
Did you m3an: good 1dea, Ding¿
Judd opened his mouth, shut it again. He felt light-headed. "I'm not sure if we should do anymore hacking. I don't want you to get hurt. Or, more hurt."
W3 hurt peoplè.
She'd said something about that earlier, hadn't she? Yes, this was definitely Ding. And she was probably right. Judd swallowed and looked away, unable to argue. "Yeah."
For a moment, the only sound was the whir of Ding's processors.
Quėry: we coūld h3lp people & balanc3 the deficit. Is that cørrećt?
Ding hovered closer and watched over Judd's shoulder as he read her message. She met his gaze, the lights in her eyes flashing off and on. He couldn't remember her asking him for anything before. When he finally opened his mouth, he knew better than to say anything other than, "Good idea, Ding."
I'm sorry to put this on you, he typed, but I need your help.
(This is so sad—Porygon, play Despacito.)
Rating: PG+
Some cursing, some illegal activity.
Like my other stories, this one is set in a somewhat grittier version of the pokemon world where all trainers start traveling at age eighteen instead of ten.
Genres:
Crime, friendship
Status:
COMPLETE, 4.5k
Other notes:
Written in response to the prompt "someone pulls their last con."
I am open to constructive feedback! I'm already aware of a few areas where I need to make small changes--simply haven't gotten to it yet!--but I'm not offended if you point them out again.
--
Training Data
Judd took a leisurely slurp of the sludgy, half-frozen coffee, buying time while he shaped Georgia Day in his mind. Her Trainer Network feed gave him plenty to go on: georgia_wanders shared mostly photos of sunsets, flowers, or selfies with her pokemon, always with an artsy filter and a caption in Kalosian. At the top of her page was a quote from a pop song: the road is long, my darling / but keep your face to the sun. Very typical suburban Kanto girl shit. No battle videos, which spoke volumes. He could tell she was reaching for influencer status, but she didn't post often enough or draw enough attention when she did. Most of the comments on her posts came from one user, GlitzyMitzy, and were geotagged to Cerulean—a lot of miss you, sis, and get it, girl!
He and Ding were gonna get this girl, easy.
Today, with Judd at the wheel, Georgia needed money. Reasons weren't hard to invent: she'd lost her wallet. She'd spent all her money on clothes or some shit. But Judd needed a real tear-jerker, an emergency. I'm sorry to put this on you, he typed, but I need your help. A couple thugs caught me in the alley and took everything. I don't have money to get home and I don't know what to do.
With a self-satisfied smile, Judd leaned back in his chair. He spoke into the mic on his earbuds. "What do you think, Ding?"
The porygon appeared in the bottom left of Judd's screen, pixelated wings spinning in place. The animation was much smoother since the update last week, and her responses came faster now too: Found four news articles tagged Kalos and containing the word thug. Suggestion: Équipe de Flare thugs.
"Smart bird," he said, keying in Team Flare. Sprinkling in current events made the story more plausible. "Thanks, Ding."
She wasn't done. Did you mean: everythign?
Judd took another drink of coffee slush while he considered that one. The details were fussy, but he liked having to think to make himself sound like someone else. It made him feel powerful. He was careful about his own typos, but it was usually a good idea to side with Ding when she made suggestions. While he'd been ordering his drink, she'd been analyzing the message history between georgia_wanders and GlitzyMitzy. She probably knew Georgia's text habits better than Georgia did.
"Sure," he said. "She's desperate, typing fast."
Ding made the change for him before he could lift his hands to the keys. He felt the urge to hug her—thinking how the sound of her drivers reminded him of a purring cat—but he'd have to wait until later.
Technically, bringing her in at all was against the cafe's rule about keeping pokemon in their balls. He sat with his back to the far wall where no one could look over his shoulder; and even if someone did catch a glimpse of his screen, Ding wouldn't register as a live pokemon to most people. But staff would probably notice if he brought her out of the laptop in her hard-light form. He also had to admit it was much easier to communicate with her when she went digital and reappropriated the laptop's word-processing software. In hard-light mode, she was all keypad tones and chiptune—no good for getting work done. So, she'd stay in.
For now, he "pet" her with the cursor, and her on-screen avatar emitted a shower of hearts. That had been added in the update, too. Judd couldn't keep the goofy grin from his face. His sweet, smart pixel-bird.
After that, Ding didn't offer additional suggestions, so Judd sent copies of the message to GlitzyMitzy and a couple other promising accounts. Then he sat back, sipped his drink, and waited.
This had been a good week so far, so he was relaxed. Last week he'd come up empty, but a good week more than made up for a bad one. And bad luck rarely lasted, especially now that he'd switched to social media projects. Convincing someone to part with their money took more work, but the passwords were easier to get. And new trainers and their cheerleaders were always too ready to believe in something too good to be true.
Like the idea that, with enough elbow grease, anyone could be successful as a trainer. Even a skinny kid from a not-so-great part of Viridian. He had to admit the League had gotten him good with that scam.
Wincing, Judd remembered the day Jabjai finally evolved into a beedrill. For weeks, he'd carried the cocoon in a sling across his chest like an actual baby, and then—a burst of light gave way to wings. He was the first trainer he knew who'd fully evolved a pokemon, and he made sure everyone at every pokecenter knew it.
Idiot.
The new Jabjai was whip-fast and relentless ... until he wasn't anymore. They outpaced the bellsprouts and poliwags of the world. But by the next gym, Judd's peers had caught up and then some. No matter how much work they put in, Jabjai didn't make any more big gains. He'd peaked.
Judd wondered where Jabjai was now—hopefully living his best bug life somewhere out there. Then again, wild beedrill weren't known for having long lifespans. Judd pushed the thought away. Letting his pokemon go had been the best thing for them. Better than forcing them to acclimate to apartment living and trying to train them not to scratch Mom's furniture.
If he really thought about it, Judd was doing the best thing for these trainers, too. They'd have to face reality sooner or later, and he was saving them a couple steps. He was basically providing a service: they paid his fee and he taught them a valuable life lesson. Unlike the rockets, he even left them with all their pokemon. For someone like Georgia, whose family could afford to send her to Kalos for her journey, a couple hundred dollars probably wasn't even that big of a deal.
At an electronic chime, he sat up again, surprised to get a reply so quickly. Oh. Mom wanted him to please pick up butter on his way back from work. She was baking, she added, but he understood it was also part of his penance for moving back home. A way to make him pull his weight.
Mom had welcomed him back home, saying it had been too quiet without him anyway, and of course he could stay as long as he needed. But she was also constantly asking if he had decided on schools he might want to apply to—earnest and smiling and tight-clenched. Judd couldn't blame her for wanting him out of the house. He hadn't exactly come home bearing trophies, just three sorry little fighters, two badges, and one suspended license.
And Ding.
Ding was the beginning and the end of all Judd's problems. If he hadn't been caught trying to hack his way through the Vermillion City gym, he wouldn't have had to move back home at all.
Or would he? Maybe that dream would've bled out over several months instead of hemorrhaging all at once. He saw no legitimate paths that would take him forward. Not in the gym, where the electronic gates forced him past trainer after trainer until his team was worn down, and he always fell short of getting his chance at the gym leader himself. How was that fair? If he'd been able to evolve Farah, his nidorina, then he might've had a chance. But the more they'd lost, the less money he'd had to invest in the evolutionary stones and vitamins and potions necessary for a strong and healthy team. So they'd kept losing.
Playing by the rules hadn't done him any favors, that was for sure. Eventually, he would've slid back to square one regardless. Besides, he was better at this.
Cracking his knuckles, Judd leaned over his laptop and pulled up apartments in West Celadon again, just to see what had changed. A month's rent in a Celadon apartment the size of a refrigerator box cost more than he'd ever made in a month of battling. He was close now though. A few more good days and he'd have enough saved up to last him a couple months. Enough to start. If he were willing to stay in Viridian, he could easily find a bigger place—and sooner. But that felt like settling, not like freedom. He wanted to get far away, someplace nice.
And freedom was expensive.
His apartment search was interrupted by a message from Ding: I found something interesting.
"I bet you did," he said, continuing to scroll.
The Porygon: Wingdings base programming was data collection and management. In a way, that was still what Ding did, only now she was after very specific data: passwords, credit card numbers, and account information. Every so often she would give out a jingle and let Judd know what she'd found, almost as if seeking his praise.
"Go for it, Ding-a-ling. Let's see what you got."
There was a brief silence, presumably while the porygon rearranged ones and zeros into readable text, and then she announced: Chat log dated May first.
Text filled the screen.
GlitzyMitzy (22:11 p.m.): She doesn't get a pass for that. She broke girl code. You don't deserve that.
georgia_wanders (22:11 p.m.): I know, I know.
georgia_wanders (22:12 p.m.): But maybe it wouldn't have happened if I had stayed. I'm the one who left him behind, you know?
GlitzyMitzy (22:14 p.m.): Listen—a cheater is always going to cheat. He would've done it whether you were here or Kalos or another planet. You didn't make him. He made his own choices.
GlitzyMitzy (22:15 p.m.): Honestly, they deserve each other. Let them cheat on each other next time.
georgia_wanders (22:17 p.m.): Yeah ...
georgia_wanders (22:18 p.m.): It just really freaking sucks. :(
Judd spotted the problem immediately, the proximity of "pass" and "code." Ding's algorithm had guided her towards what she thought might be a password. It didn't happen often, but Ding did occasionally present him with a chunk of gibberish. He couldn't begrudge her for trying.
"Don't worry about that, Ding. It's not important." He clicked away from the apartment listings and checked Georgia's inbox. Nothing yet.
The porygon pinged again. It sounds like: cheating sometimes hurts people, but that's not important. Is that correct?
Judd stared at the screen. That was definitely new. He wondered if he should pull up Ding's settings and suss out what exactly had been in the Wingdings 2.0 package.
Then a message from GlitzyMitzi appeared onscreen: Where are you right now? Are you safe?
His heart raced the same way it always had at the start of a battle. With a glance at Ding's icon, a green dot over her head indicating she was ready to go, Judd brought his hands up to the keys. At the pokecenter, he answered for Georgia. He thought for a moment and added, It's pretty far from where I'm staying, though.
Isn't it three in the morning over there? What are you doing out so late, Gigi?
That was a good question. Likely, the real Georgia Day was dead asleep right now, or at least she should be. Then he thought of the chat log Ding had pulled, suddenly glad for her earlier mistake. I met someone, and we went out for drinks. I was on my way back to the hostel.
He didn't walk you home?!
Judd chuckled at her indignation, thinking how Mitzi sounded an awful lot like ditzy. The next words came easily, pulled from conversations he'd overheard in pokecenters countless times: I had my pokemon. I didn't think it would be a big deal.
Is your team okay?
He paused to think. Saying no would be more dramatic for sure and might drive her to send more money faster, but it would also be more to juggle. She might push harder to get police involved—a waste of his time.
Before Judd could decide, GlitzyMitzi fired another response at him: They didn't take Eclat, did they?
He wondered if she was testing him. "Ding, can you run a search for that on the profile?"
The porygon swiveled her wings and then faded out of view.
While he waited, GlitzyMitzy pinged him again. Gigi? Talk to me. He wasn't worried about losing her attention. In fact, he thought with a smile, he should let her sweat a little, force her to become more reactive.
After a minute, Ding flickered into view again. Result 1 of 15 for Éclat. A window popped up, showing a version of Georgia with longer hair and a fennekin tucked in her arms. The caption read, Tête-à-tête with Éclat, my new best girl. Probably not a trick then, but he'd have to avoid naming the species—too hard to tell what evolutionary stage it was in now.
Sorry. Had to talk to the nurse. She's okay. Hurt but recovering, he typed.
Out loud, he muttered, "Alright, enough small talk already ..."
As Georgia, he wrote, I'm more worried about how I'll get home without money. Then he sipped at his drink, smirking in anticipation, and watched the three little dots that indicated GlitzyMitzy was typing.
After a long pause, she answered, I should be able to call a taxi for you from here. Gimme the addresses of the pokemon center and the place you're staying.
Judd's smile crumpled into a scowl.
As he hammered out his rebuttal, Ding prompted him, Did you mean: Thanks so much, Mimi. I really appreciate it.
"Right, right, right." He took a deep breath and allowed himself a smile. "Thanks, Ding-a-ling. I appreciate it."
Ding rained animated hearts and played a couple seconds of his favorite song (Glitch City by m1ss1ng_n0). She really was such a smart bird.
Judd typed, Thanks so much, Mimi. I really appreciate it. I'm worried about tomorrow though. I don't have a way to get more money until they send me a new card.
Did you cancel your cards yet?
He rolled his eyes, even though she was nagging him about an imaginary problem. Yes, I did.
Okay, good.
Judd didn't hesitate—it was time. The only way to get what he wanted was to demand it and to keep the pressure on. If you could send just a couple hundred dollars, that would last me until my new cards come. As an afterthought, he added, And then I can pay you back!
GlitzyMitzi was quiet for a moment.
He messaged again: The girl at the front desk said you can wire funds directly to the pokecenter and they'll give it to me in cash. Then he gave her the magic string of numbers. Of course, the code he gave her directed to the transfer machine in the corner of the coffee shop by the front door, here in Viridian City. But she wouldn't know that.
She still didn't reply, so he fired off another message, remembering to use the nickname Ding had pulled up. Sorry to ask, Mimi. This really freaking sucks. Sad face. Why not—two sad faces.
Finally, GlitzyMitzi asked, Which center is that?
Judd lied smoothly, poised with the answer in one of his open tabs. The Rue Moret pokecenter.
There was another pause. That's Lumiose City, right?
He double-checked the map—Ding had already pulled it up. Yes, 11th District.
I thought you were in Shalour City this week.
He hissed a string of curses, typed, deleted it, and started again. There was a change of plans. I was meeting ....
"Ding?"
The porygon processed in silence for a moment. Then she piped up, I found something interesting, and opened up the page of another trainer. Her profile picture showed her and Georgia with their heads together.
"You're a rockstar."
I met up with my friend Sariah who's staying here.
Judd waited, but GlitzyMitzy didn't answer. No three little dots—nothing.
After a moment, he typed, Mimi? Are you still there?
When he went to take another drink, he got only an empty sucking sound. He chewed on the straw instead. It was hard to keep calm when the money felt tantalizingly close.
Don't leave me all alone! :(
Georgia's anxiety was fictitious, but Judd was starting to worry for real. He couldn't tell if Mitzi had left her computer to get her wallet ... or if she had finally wised up. With each second that passed, he became less confident it was the former.
Judd leaned back in his chair with a sigh. "Ding, you know any jokes while we wait?"
The porygon icon idled for a moment, and then a pixelated lightbulb appeared above her head. Joke (n.)—something said to cause amusement or laughter, especially a story with a punchline.
"Thanks anyway."
He chomped on his straw, flattening it into the smallest shape possible.
Mimiiiiiii ...
Probably, it was time to disengage before he wasted any more time. Though it wasn't like any of his other marks had responded yet ... He was about to ask Ding to help him start trawling for more passwords when GlitzyMitzy returned.
Why don't I send the money to your Trainer Network account, she said. Even if you don't have your physical license, the pokemon center staff should be able to match your face to the account and let you withdraw the money.
Judd squinted at that for a moment and then broke out in a grin. She thought that was enough to keep the money safe? "You know where to move it to, right, Ding?"
She played a little jingle in his earbuds and sent him a smiley face.
"Alright, then get ready."
To GlitzyMitzy he said, OK. That makes sense.
Do you think $400 will be enough?
Judd glanced at the time in the corner of the screen. They'd been talking for about half an hour. Not a bad hourly rate!
This time he remembered his manners. Thanks so much, Mimi. You're a rockstar.
Okay, answered Mitzi. I'll send it in just a second.
He leaned forward, eagerly watching the screen. When a pop-up window prompted, User "GlitzyMitzi" is trying to send attachments, he immediately clicked to accept.
The screen went white.
"Uh ... Ding?" Heart pounding, Judd stabbed at the emergency shutdown hotkeys, but nothing changed.
A pair of blue dots blinked into view in the center of the screen and then, with an animated flourish, became a pair of eyes. They winked. Then text scrawled across the screen: Kiss my circuits, script kid! The words repeated over and over, wrapping until they filled the entire screen, except for the eyes.
Judd reached for the keys and immediately felt an electrical shock. He couldn't touch it. At another jolt, this time from his earbuds, he jerked back involuntarily. The earbuds yanked out of his ears, but not before the laptop slid forward and toppled off the table. A beat after it hit the floor, there came a second loud crack, and Ding rematerialized among fizzling lights. Judd thought he heard staticky laughter underneath it all. His hair stood on end.
All eyes in the previously quiet cafe turned toward him. Judd ignored them and knelt next to Ding, who lay on top of the computer under the table. "Ding-a-ling? You okay?"
Something was wrong.
Gingerly, he lifted the porygon's body to press it to his chest—and her head stayed behind. Judd froze. How did that happen? What did that even mean for a creature made of data and light? Was she—?
But when he picked up her head in his other hand, the insides of her eyes spun like a program loading cursor. Under her plastic-like shell, lights still pulsed. So she was okay. Probably.
They had to get out of here.
He jammed his laptop into his backpack, wincing because it was hot to the touch. Then he swung the bag over his shoulders, scooped up both pieces of Ding, and scrambled out the door. Unsure where else to go, he made his way home.
Mom wouldn't return for a few hours, so Judd laid Ding on the kitchen table, aligning her head and body with care. Her eyes still swirled with loading circles. At least she didn't seem to be getting worse? Not that you could get much worse than decapitated.
For now, he decided to let her system try to sort itself out—dubious as that sounded, even to him—while he took stock of the situation. The laptop was utterly fried. Cracks webbed the screen and several of the keys had actually melted together. He supposed he could still open it up and see if any of the internal components were salvageable, but he wasn't counting on it.
Judd turned his back to the ruined computer and reached for his phone instead. By the time he pulled up the search engine, he realized he had no idea where to begin. He didn't even know if he should take Ding to a pokecenter or a repair shop ... or whether he should take her anywhere. How much much would their scans reveal of what he and Ding had been doing together?
He stole a glance over his shoulder at Ding. No, he couldn't leave her like that. He had to bring her ... somewhere ... and he would just have to figure out how to sidestep the consequences.
As Judd was pulling up directions to the nearest pokecenter, he heard a chime and a whirring behind him. He turned in time to watch Ding rise slowly and spasmodically off the table, her head levitating in place over her body.
"Hey, Ding-a-ling. Are you ... okay?"
His phone vibrated. Helło, r3gištered ûser Judd¡ Welcome to P0rYg0n: WingDing, _Edition Z.0! I åm Ding, your cyb3rnetïc friend¡
The sight of the garbled text made Judd feel nauseated with guilt and worry. Was this some kind of virus? He took a deep breath. There had to be a backup of her system files on the cloud. Something.
At the same time, he had to marvel: he had also never known Ding to be able to send messages from a device she hadn't jumped inside.
While he was puzzling through that, Ding sent a second message to his phone. I f0und somêthing interesting.
"Um."
With a mechanical whir, she drew herself up. Her head tottered jerkily to one side and then the other. She messaged, Kn0ck, knoç k.
Judd stared at his phone then back at his twitching porygon. He finally managed, "What the fuck?"
Did Ÿou mean: who's th3re¿
"Okay. Who's there?"
Õran.
Was she serious? Another thought hit him: had she been stuck looping his joke request this entire time? Gods, she was shot, and he only had himself to blame. She'd done her best for him, and in return he'd gotten her blitzed by a rotom—because what else could it have been?
"Oran who?" he answered glumly.
Oran y0u glad I'm nøt dead¿ said Ding. Then she made a high-pitched whooping sound, and her head spun a full one-eighty degrees.
He spluttered a single laugh, surprised more than amused.
Without a pause, Judd's phone buzzed again. Kńock, knøck.
This time he answered obediently. "Who's there?"
D¡ng!
Ah. Her overcooked system had reached its joke-researching limits. Judd sighed. "Hi, Ding."
She shuddered in place and beeped. D¡d you meÃn: D1ng who?
"Sorry. Ding who?" He tried to pull up the route to the pokecenter again, but the messages from Ding kept interrupting.
Ding-dong, she announced and then emitted a chime like a doorbell. The text kept scrolling. It's me, Ding (your cyberńetįc fri3nd). I am at your do0r, inviting yoü outs1de.
"You ... want to go outside? We can do that." The pokecenter was only a short walk away.
No, Judd, Ding messaged, it was a j0ke.
Judd's mouth hung open. He had never seen her so chatty, not without prompting, and not ... like this. Where had she gotten the idea to change the joke?
Another thought flickered through his head: was this Ding? Had something else hijacked her system? And now it was in his phone, too.
"I'm so screwed."
Ding stared at him—or, at least, turned in his direction. Her head slowly drifted upside-down. Querÿ, came the message on his phone. How māny Juddš doęs it take to scr3w in å lightbułb?
"No, no—Ding. Stop. I'm being serious." He caught himself and sighed. Ding was all messed up and here he was scolding her. In a gentler voice, he said, "You just relax, Ding. I need to figure some things out."
He couldn't do jack shit without a laptop. Even a junker would be several hundred dollars at the very least, and that was after whatever it cost to fix Ding. Did he even have enough for that? He had no idea. And if he couldn't work in the meantime …. Judd groaned, dropping his face into his hands. "How am I gonna pay for any of this shit?"
At another ping on his phone, Judd raised his head.
Ding offered, I found som3thing intēresting¡
This time the message included a link, which took him to a page about white hat hackers—people paid to hack companies to help them improve their security. At least, he supposed, she hadn't stalled out in an endless loop of jokes. He shook his head in disbelief. "Where did this come from?"
Did you m3an: good 1dea, Ding¿
Judd opened his mouth, shut it again. He felt light-headed. "I'm not sure if we should do anymore hacking. I don't want you to get hurt. Or, more hurt."
W3 hurt peoplè.
She'd said something about that earlier, hadn't she? Yes, this was definitely Ding. And she was probably right. Judd swallowed and looked away, unable to argue. "Yeah."
For a moment, the only sound was the whir of Ding's processors.
Quėry: we coūld h3lp people & balanc3 the deficit. Is that cørrećt?
Ding hovered closer and watched over Judd's shoulder as he read her message. She met his gaze, the lights in her eyes flashing off and on. He couldn't remember her asking him for anything before. When he finally opened his mouth, he knew better than to say anything other than, "Good idea, Ding."
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