Chapter 1
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Disclaimer on Content Warnings: I am not well-versed in mental health issues. I have made a good-faith effort to highlight objectionable or potentially disturbing material below, but I wouldn't bet money on my judgment. If you read this and think there should be an addition to these warnings, please message me. If you have questions about the content before reading, whether on your own behalf or on another's behalf, please message me.
Content Warnings (General): Swearing. Violence. Blood. Alcohol. Not recommended for readers under the age of 13.
Content Warnings (Specific, or possible spoilers): Please open this spoiler tag if you require advance notice of certain topics.
Table of Contents:
This story is eight years old, and three of its main characters (the “kids”) debuted over fifteen years ago. I’ve grown in technical skill since then, but I still think this ridiculously-titled fic is my personal best in terms of ambition and emotional resonance, and is my most complete attempt at the kind of story I most want to write. This is why its mechanical shortcomings grew more frustrating to me as time went on compared to other things I’ve written. So, last year I rolled up my sleeves and gave it a thorough scouring with particular attention to the prose’s clarity, concision, and (sigh) punctuation. While I changed some passages and minor elements more substantially with the help of reader feedback and the benefit of years of hindsight, if you’ve already read it, you’ve still read it—it’s the same story.
For anyone who hasn’t read this before, I’ll explain the fic’s structural idiosyncrasy up front. The “numbered” chapters are sequential and take place in the fic’s present day, while the “titled,” un-numbered chapters are (mostly) stand-alone episodes that take place before the main story. There’s no trick to reading it, though; everything’s posted in the intended reading order.
Will Somebody Stop These Kids?
Chapter 1
May, 2017
Derek Brooks struggled to open a jar of caffeine pills. The difficulty stemmed from his having been awake for the last thirty-two hours. When he at last found success and swallowed a handful of pills, he figured this should buy him another three hours before his body was forced to shut down, stimulants be damned.
It was a Saturday afternoon, which meant Derek was hard at work. As of late, his office was a studio apartment in a crumbling building in downtown Goldenrod City. It lacked such amenities as air conditioning, a kitchen, tables, chairs, or a bed, but there was enough room for a mattress. More importantly, it afforded a perfect view of the adjacent alley. This was the same alley Derek had been keeping tabs on for the last twenty-nine hours as part of his current assignment.
Derek’s job was complicated, and its description varied depending on whom you asked. If you asked his family, they’d tell you it was something for the government. If you asked the Goldenrod City Police Department’s Human Resources Division (and had proper clearance), they’d tell you Mr. Brooks was a clerk in Archives. If you asked the notorious criminal organization Team Rocket (and had sufficient street cred), they might tell you he was a disgruntled police archivist who was selling them valuable law-enforcement intelligence. And if you asked his actual boss in the GCPD, he certainly would not tell you that Officer Brooks was operating deep undercover to spy on and sabotage Team Rocket.
This wasn’t quite how Derek had once imagined himself at thirty-three. Most of his now-distant colleagues from the academy had moved up the promotion ladder and didn’t have to tolerate such working conditions. The silver lining to his own position was that whenever his mom or sister asked how his job was going, he was all but required by policy to say “fine” and not a single word of substance. Family was, by and large, too complicated for Derek to handle, and any amount of potentially frustrating human interaction he could trim from his week was welcome.
The pills were starting to kick in, so Derek returned to his window and took up the watch again. He was waiting for a “Grunt” member of Team Rocket to retrieve a hidden package of fabricated police communication records which Derek was selling to him for 300,000p in unmarked bills. Only an hour remained in the thirty-hour window the Grunt had insisted on. Once he arrived, Derek would rush out and tail him until he found where he was staying so that later he could wire the place with listening devices and a few cameras. In Derek’s mind, there was way, way less that could go wrong with this plan than could go wrong with making even light conversation with his relatives. It was less stressful, to boot.
Nothing was happening at the moment, but something bugged him. His eyes wandered away from the alley’s entrance, then past the spot with the package, and finally to a number of discarded boxes. When he spotted the two boys and a girl crouching down behind them, his eyes twitched. They appeared to be spying on the package with no more subtlety than you’d expect from a bunch of stupid kids. Derek’s stomach got caught in his throat for a second as he tried to parse the situation.
The red-and-white balls they held gave them away as Pokémon trainers. To Derek’s dismay, he had to assume the worst-case scenario: They had heard about the exchange somehow, and figured if they beat a Rocket with their Pokémon, they could brag about it to their little trainer friends. Standard procedure dictated that Derek had to make them leave the area before they got seriously hurt—on top of making a wash of his entire week.
Just as he was grumbling over the prospect of digging out his badge from its hiding place and convincing these little idiots that he had the authority to order them to go away, one of the boys gave him pause. There was something about his face.
“Is that…?” he muttered to himself. “No. No, it can’t be…”
He stared for a few more seconds. “Oh, shit.” There was no pretending it was anyone else. “Shit, shit, shit!”
It was Jason. Aunt Meg’s kid. His youngest first cousin, whom he saw twice a year. In other words, Jason fit square in the category of people described in chapter 98, section 10-C of the Department Policy Guide:
“An officer employed at cover-level 3 or above may not disclose his or her status as an officer to any person with familiar knowledge of the officer’s personal identity. Any disclosure whether accidental or deliberate will be reviewed in an official hearing, with disciplinary action not to exceed termination of employment and a fine of six months’ pay.”
All it would take was one post from one relative on any social media platform, and Derek was done. On top of that, he hadn’t been expecting his annual panic attack about 98:10-C until the family reunion in October.
Derek stood up and slapped his face a few times. Then he covered his mouth as tightly as possible and yelled into his hands so hard it made his throat sore. Before he knew what exactly he was going to do, he was grabbing his jacket so as to cover his disgusting shirt and make himself semi-presentable to the outside world.
He stood in front of the door and gripped the knob while agonizing over what the hell he was supposed to say. Bringing up the subject of Team Rocket was out of the question, much less the fact that he was the one who’d arranged the deal with the package in the first place. At length, he steeled his nerves and walked outside. He would just have to think of something on the fly.
Jason Fitzpatrick was a bit amazed at his own cunning. He and his friends Travis and Krissy were going to have this Rocket goon right where they wanted him. It was a few days prior that Jason had snuck around and overheard the Grunt’s plan to acquire the “package” here:
“So, you always pick ’em up a day late, get it? That way it’s real tough for turncoats to keep an eye on the spot unless they’re doin’ shifts.”
Jason’s immediate temptation, of course, had been to start a battle right then and there, but now his patience was about to be rewarded. He didn’t see how they could lose with a three-on-one surprise attack in close quarters.
Krissy leaned over to him and whispered, “Let’s go over the plan again, just to be safe.”
Travis leaned over as well. “Way safer to go over the plan twenty times instead of nineteen. Definitely.”
Jason knew Krissy wouldn’t take the bait. She ignored the comment and took it from the top. “First, Jason throws Rabies’s ball past him to block his escape. Then, I send out Lucia, and Travis sends out Leviathan. When the enemy sends out his Pokémon, one of us will take the lead depending on the type matchup.”
So Growlithe, Bayleef, and Quagsire, respectively. One Fire, one Grass, one Water-and-Ground. “No types that beat all of ours,” added Jason, “We’re looking good.”
“Except Dragon, of course,” whispered Krissy, “but he won’t have one of those.”
Travis looked indignant. “Dragons don’t beat Water.”
“On defense, yes they do. Same against all the others we’re using.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Haven’t you ever read the Types page on your Pokédex?”
Jason rolled his eyes. He hated it when Travis made boys look stupid. Even though Jason himself hadn’t been quite sure about the Dragon vs. Water matchup, he knew better than to contradict Krissy on anything one might read in a book. In any case, this was no time to lose focus, so he tried to tune his friends out and listen for footsteps. Then, not five seconds later, he froze as he heard them coming from the wrong direction. There was someone behind them, meaning they were kneeling in plain sight.
They all spun around at once. Then, standing right there in front of him, Jason saw the very last person he had expected.
“Hey, Jason,” said Derek. “Long time no see.”
Jason was so startled, he only half-noticed that his cousin looked like death. It was almost like someone had drawn under his eyes with a black marker, and his smile was even more forced than when they took family pictures. Jason glanced over at his friends, and saw they were at a complete loss.
The silence might have lasted minutes if Derek hadn’t broken it. “I met you last year,” he said, pointing at Travis, “Your name’s… uh…”
Travis didn’t help him out, which made Jason realize he might neither recognize nor remember Derek. “Oh, that’s Travis. Um, Krissy, this is my cousin Derek. And, uh… Derek, this is Krissy.”
Krissy just managed to stammer, “…Nice to meet you.”
Then the silence was back. Jason began to worry that Derek had overheard them, so he tried to remember whether they had actually mentioned Team Rocket. Not that Jason cared what Derek thought in particular, but he didn’t trust him not to tell his parents or Travis’s what they were doing. And he especially didn’t trust his parents not to overreact.
Much to his relief, Derek seemed to be none the wiser. “So, what are you guys up to?”
The relief was fleeting: Jason hadn’t planned on needing an alibi today. Just as he was about to say something stupid like “Ya know, stuff,” Travis came to the rescue.
“Saw a Pokémon back here.”
Derek tilted his head. “That right?”
“Eh… yeah. It was one of those, uh…”
“Magnemite,” said Krissy. It was a flawless save.
“Yeah, Magnemite. Can’t just find those in the woods, so Jason wanted to be extra sure we caught it. Like, be careful about it.”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm.” Jason nodded his head with what he thought was enough vigor to be convincing. Then he asked Derek, “So… what are you up to?”
“Nothin’ really,” said Derek (or rather, half-yawned Derek). “I’ve got the day off. Was about to take a stroll when I saw you guys from my window up there, and thought I’d say hi.”
Jason thought they might be in the clear if Derek had bought their story. Now, if he would simply go on his way…
“Hey, who feels like ice cream? My treat.”
Jason could have screamed, but he managed to hold it in. “Well, we were—”
Derek spoke up again at the same time Jason did. “Actually, I know a good place by the Radio Tower, and I’ve seen plenty of Magnemite in the alleys around there, too. Never here before, though. What do you guys say?”
It was checkmate, and Jason knew it. The remainder of the game was purely academic, and Krissy spared him the embarrassment of being the first to surrender. “…That sounds good to me.”
Travis bit his lower lip as he stood up. “Yeah. I’m down for ice cream. And we’ll probably have better luck over there.”
“Okay,” said Jason, doing his best to disguise his disappointment. “Thanks, Derek.”
Derek made a noise that perhaps meant “you’re welcome,” and led the way out of the alley in a surprising hurry. It was something of a challenge for Jason and his friends to keep up as they walked through nearly a mile of Goldenrod City. It made him wonder whether Derek was actually as exhausted as he looked. Though, the way Derek would veer towards a wall and correct himself at the last inch every few minutes was evidence for “yes.”
Before he knew it, they were all sitting in a booth in a cozy, old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Despite the pleasant atmosphere, Jason couldn’t shake this feeling that something was about to get him. Perhaps he was still hyped up from being on the hunt for a real, meaningful battle, but the cause was just as likely the fact that his weirdest, scariest relative looked even weirder and scarier than usual. Derek was on one side of the table, while Jason and his friends shared the other. It was cramped, but he couldn’t blame Krissy for squeezing into their side rather than joining Derek.
Derek’s face was one thing, but it was only now that Jason noticed an even more unsettling element to his presence: He smelled like a Pokémon trainer, which was no compliment. As a Pokémon trainer himself, Jason wasn’t one to talk, but what excuse could Derek have for not showering? And then there was the clinching factor in his strangeness, which was how he had ordered black coffee in an ice cream parlor. This was an unprecedented act of weirdness.
For the record, Jason also took note that while he and Travis had ordered chocolate cones like normal people, Krissy had gotten a cup of butter pecan like a girl.
Derek took a long sip from his mug and shook his eyes open wider before speaking. “Hey, you’re turning eleven soon, right?”
Jason looked around the table for a napkin. “…I did in April.”
“Right, duh.” Derek rubbed his temples. “Yeah, you started in April last year… How’s Rabies doing?”
“He’s good. Real strong now.”
“Hm. That’s great.”
Then it was back to heavy silence. Jason wondered if they could leave on their own if they finished their ice cream before Derek finished his coffee. He wanted to get back to the ambush spot, even if the odds of them beating the Grunt before Derek got back were slim. Besides, there was only so much he could handle of this freak’s abysmal small talk.
But when his cousin broke the silence again, it didn’t feel like small talk anymore. “So, Jason,” he said with new composure, “You guys been keeping safe lately?”
Jason drew a blank. Where did this come from?
Travis shifted in his seat and stared Derek down. “How do you mean?”
“Just saying I remember being a trainer. Y’know, loads of time, no parents, pretty easy to toe the line between having fun and acting stupid.”
“We’re not stupid,” said Jason.
“That’s why I said ‘acting.’ Everyone does some dumb stuff when they’re a trainer, and sometimes when they grow up, they wish someone had kept them just a little more in check once or twice.”
This drew in Krissy. “Do you mean people in general wish that, or you in particular?”
“Not me so much. I was pretty boring. You guys seem more fun, so I just thought I’d ask. There’s no wrong answer.”
But Jason knew there was a wrong answer. Did Derek know they’d been after Team Rocket? It wouldn’t quite make sense if he did. Wouldn’t he have just brought it up? Why would he be so cagey about it? This left two explanations in Jason’s mind: Either Derek knew and was trying to pressure them into quitting on their own—as if they could be dissuaded from doing the right thing by someone calling it “stupid”—or Derek didn’t know and he was just being an awkward weirdo. When he looked at it that way, it was a no-brainer. Derek didn’t know.
“We’re plenty safe,” said Jason. “Nothing to worry about.”
Derek still looked serious, but he sat back and drained the last of his coffee. “That’s good to hear.” Then, he stood up and checked his pockets. “I’m gonna head home now.”
It hit Jason that this meant the odds of pulling off the ambush were now zero. Derek talked faster as started to leave. “Hey, give your Aunt Nancy a call sometime. She’s always bugging Jen and me for stories about you. Good to see you again, Travis; real nice to meet you, Krissy. You kids have fun out there.”
And then, he was out the door. They all looked out the window after him and saw he was making a beeline back the way they had come. Krissy shivered a little and moved to the other side of the table so they could spread out and get comfortable. “Is he always like that?”
“No…” said Jason before he thought about it a moment. “I mean, he’s always a little like that, but never that much before.”
“He was definitely better when I saw him,” said Travis. “That was on day one for us last year. He was sorta like a human being, from what I remember.”
Then Travis looked around the place. The only employee was buried in her cell phone, and there were no other customers. It was just them and the Top 40 on the radio. They all leaned in over the table. “Didn’t it seem like he knew?” whispered Travis. “You don’t think he could actually be… you know… the Grunt?”
Jason couldn’t help but laugh, however strong the gravity of the situation was. “Not a chance. He’s like, the anti-criminal. Jen said he told her off once for downloading music. Oh, that’s my other cousin.”
“I know who she is,” said Travis.
“I didn’t,” said Krissy. “Anyway, even if he’s not a Rocket, it seems like too much of a coincidence to me. Could he be involved some other way?”
Jason hadn’t thought of that. “I guess. I think he works for the government or something. But you’d think he’d just say so and order us around then, right?”
“You’d think.” Krissy shrugged and leaned back again. “So, what now?”
Since all their other plans today were shot, Jason was surprised she had to ask. “We go catch one of those Magnemite, duh.”
They could always start taking down Team Rocket again tomorrow.
The package was already gone when Derek got back. He leaned his head against the wall of the alley and tried not to think about how many hours he had put toward learning where these Grunts were hiding out. He focused instead on the fact that he probably wouldn’t have learned anything important by spying on them anyway. This sort of setback would have agitated him more back in his early twenties, but by now, his career had made him numb to most forms of futility.
Jason and his friends were a different story. They’d caught him flat-footed, and he knew the situation was still far from salvaged. It gave him a stomachache. It was fortunate he only had the energy to stumble back into the apartment, otherwise he might have gone to one of the bars in the Goldenrod Tunnel to self-medicate with some hard liquor. He closed the door behind him, attempted to flip a light switch that would have been there in his non-work apartment, and collapsed face-first on the mattress.
He got his sleep, and by the time he was really awake again, it was evening on the next calendar day, and he was well north of Goldenrod. Specifically, he was walking up a familiar trail through some lush woods to the north of his hometown of Ecruteak City. At some point he couldn’t recall, he had showered, changed into decent clothes, and eaten actual food. In that sense, at least, this day was going better than the day before, but the critical problem was the same.
He could have bet a month’s salary those kids were going to keep on messing with Team Rocket. He’d read Travis and that girl Krissy like a book, and he could always read Jason like a neon “OPEN” sign. It hardly mattered how transparent they were, though, when he had no way of telling them with authority to knock it off. This meant he had to try the single aspect of police-work he struggled the most with: leveraging connections. He looked at the setting sun through the leaves and hoped she’d still be in.
Soon, the path opened up on a wide field that housed a dirt arena for battling, an obstacle course, deep-green wooden bleachers, cheap stadium lights, and a small clubhouse. Hard at work redrawing the oval’s chalk lines was a woman dressed in practical trainer’s gear. She was the proprietress of the unofficial, unaffiliated, and unrecognized (but growing) North Ecruteak Gym. Her name was Jen Brooks, and she was Derek’s younger sister. Although he was only six years her senior, thanks to a drastic disparity in facial line density, people usually guessed it was ten years.
She noticed him and waved as he walked up. “Hey, Derek!”
“Hey.”
“You should have called ahead! What’s up?”
She was in a great mood, which wasn’t unusual. Derek hated to have to ruin her day. “Ech… We need to talk.”
“Sure thing. Go on in—I’ll be just a minute here.”
Derek nodded and walked over to the clubhouse. The fresh coat of paint grabbed his attention: white with green trim. It was much more inviting than the dumpy little shack that had stood in the same spot when he was a kid. Even more impressive than the paint was the new door with an actual handle. The inside was far cleaner and brighter than in the old building as well. Derek was so focused on the walls, he didn’t notice the other person in the room right away.
“Oh. Hello, Derek.”
Jen’s best friend from journeying as a kid, Hanna Maris, was sitting at the table and typing away on a laptop. She had a number of papers spread out with complicated diagrams on them.
“Hey,” said Derek. “Didn’t know you were in Johto.”
“Just visiting for the long weekend.”
Not that this stopped her from working, Derek noticed. Hanna was a programmer who worked for Bill, the renowned scientist, out in northern Kanto. It never surprised Derek how Bill attracted the sort of fanatic employees who would put in hours on a Sunday. Of course, Derek regularly worked weekends as well, but he at least had the decency to be bitter about it. He dropped his bag near the door and pulled up a chair at the opposite corner of the table.
“You look like hell.” Hanna didn’t mess around, and Derek appreciated that.
“It was one of those days yesterday.”
“Hmm.”
With that, Hanna returned her attention to the screen for a few seconds before Jen came in.
“Woo! Finally done,” she said in a tone that made it clear she could gladly go at it for a few hours more. She wiped the dust from her glasses as she walked over to a small fridge. “Derek, you want anything? Soda? Beer?”
“Beer, please.”
“Hanna?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Jen pulled out two cans of cheap, weak, nasty beer and threw one over to Derek before pulling up her own chair.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Kanpai!” she cheered before they both took a swig of the awful stuff. Derek contemplated making an investment in the gym with the provision that 100 percent of his contribution went to securing a supply of respectable alcohol for the staff. Today, though, he was in the right mood to drink even this piss-water.
“So, whatta we need to talk about?”
This made Hanna look up from her computer. Derek answered, “It’s about family.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.” He glanced over and noticed that Hanna still showed no intention of leaving so far. That struck him as rude, or at least intrusive. “It’s Jason.”
“Is he okay?” Jen didn’t seem to care that Hanna was in the room.
“He’s fine, but I think he might be in trouble soon, him and his friends.” He looked again, and Hanna was still the same. He said to Jen, “I was thinking of talking in private.”
“Hanna knows Jason. It’s cool.”
“If he’s in trouble,” said Hanna, “I’d like to help too, if that’s all right.”
Derek sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue, and it was true she was no stranger to the family. He started from the beginning and told them what he had seen and heard the day before. Naturally, he left out the details he could only have known if he were a cop. In addition, he reattributed key bits of evidence to fake overheard quotes from the kids that in reality had come from his own intel and inference. The whole picture he gave was accurate, though.
Jen put her face in her hands. “Oh jeeze… they’re so clueless.”
It was a relief to have Jen in agreement with him. He recalled that she and Hanna had been similarly adventurous to the point of idiocy back in their days as a trainer-duo. He could only imagine what they would have tried if Team Rocket had been in Johto fifteen years ago. “I don’t want to tell their parents just yet,” he said, “And I assume you don’t want to, either.”
“Of course not,” said Jen. “The kids would be devastated.”
Informing a parent of a trainer’s inexcusable decision-making was called “The Death Sentence” in the police force. Legally speaking, parents needed no justification to have their child’s Pokémon license revoked, and a child journeying without a license was officially “missing” and could be forcibly returned home. It was rare to see an officer who didn’t give warnings to trainers before going to the parents.
“I was hoping you could talk to them,” said Derek. “I think Jason’s more likely to listen to you.”
“He likes you, too.”
This was a dubious claim, but Derek didn’t have to address it directly. “Well, Travis doesn’t from what I can tell. And their new friend Krissy definitely doesn’t.”
Jen made a pouting face. “Oh no, you didn’t scare her, did you?”
“I wasn’t trying to!”
Hanna shook her head. “Poor little girl.”
Derek just groaned.
“Well, don’t worry,” said Jen, “I’ll take care of it—no problem.”
“You want a hand?” asked Hanna.
“Definitely! Thanks a million.”
Derek took another look at Hanna and considered the prospect. She was a few years older than Jen, a fair deal smarter, and immeasurably harder to read. He believed she was sincere in her desire to help, and that she was well-equipped to do so, but something bothered him. Unlike with Jen, there was a possibility Hanna didn’t buy the entirety of the story as he had told it. Did she suspect he was omitting key information? It was too hard to tell.
In the end, he was more desperate than uncertain. “Sounds good. Jen, you have his cell number, right?”
“Yeah. Goldenrod’s not too far, so I’ll just invite them here.”
She started pulling her phone out of her pocket, but Derek stopped her. “Maybe wait until tomorrow. His defenses might still be up if you call him so soon after I talked to him. For that matter, don’t mention me at all, either.”
“Makes sense. Day after tomorrow should be safe.”
It sounded like a plan. Despite himself, Derek allowed his shoulders to relax a tad and finished his miserable beer. “The outhouse is around back, right?”
“Yeah, can’t miss it,” said Jen. “Man, it’s so lucky you were there yesterday. I’ll be in the back room doing this week’s paperwork—feel free to stay as long as you want.”
Derek grunted, then took his leave of the clubhouse. It was getting dark. He could hear several Hoothoot in the woods having a conversation as they woke up. This was how an evening was supposed to feel and sound, and he often missed it living in Goldenrod. It was a powerfully comforting place—but Derek’s brain had natural defenses against comfort. While he was taking care of his business, something agitated him again. There was an element of great importance he had overlooked, perhaps because the old gym, now his sister’s gym, had a disarming effect on him.
As he was returning to the clubhouse, Hanna came out the door and approached him. It was starting to come together: She suspected something, and he’d let his defenses down somewhere. But where? Where was the attack going to come from?
She met him halfway. “Derek, I’m really sorry, but I looked through your bag.” She held up his badge. His knees nearly melted on the spot, and he began to sweat. He felt like the dumbest person alive for leaving his bag out of his line of sight.
“Hanna,” he said, calmly as he could, “you are going to get me fired.”
“I won’t tell a soul, really,” she said. “Just hear me out.”
What could he do? She had him by the short hairs.
“I want to help. Not just with Jason—with the Rockets. Bill’s lab is one of the best in the world. It’s the perfect place to reverse-engineer Team Rocket’s new tech. We keep reaching out to the police, but they hardly ever return our calls.”
“Hanna. Listen. All those decisions are way, way above my pay grade, and that’s not going to change when you get me fired.”
She wouldn’t budge. Her eyes were like steel. “You know I’m right. How are you all going to get an edge on the Rockets when you won’t turn to the actual experts like Bill?”
Of course he knew she was right. Anyone who’d spent five minutes trying to get anything out of a police scientist knew she was right. But that was beside the point. “Get this into your head: It’s not my call. It’s not even my boss’s call. They’re so paranoid about spies and moles all the way up, they’d never sign off on anything like this. Hell, I’m not even allowed to tell other officers what my assignment is, that’s how nuts they are about this. It’s not my call.”
“You don’t have to make any calls. You just need to get me some of Team Rocket’s toys to reverse- and counter-engineer, and I’ll refer to you as an ‘anonymous source.’ However, if you won’t comply with those terms, I’ll be forced to tell Jen about your job. …And your grandma.”
Derek wanted to scream. There was an even chance Jen would tell some people, and a virtual certainty their grandma would tell everyone. But what Hanna was asking was out of the question. He thought about grabbing the badge away from her. Even if her reflexes were quick, it would be no trouble to out-muscle her. But he knew Jen would believe her even without the badge—to say nothing about how awkward it would be to wrestle with Hanna.
“Derek,” she said, “I don’t want to have to do this. You’ve always been really great to me, even when Jen and I used to give you such a hard time.”
“‘Used to?’”
“Are you on board or not?”
He clapped his hand to his forehead. Either way, he had exactly one hope, which was that Hanna could keep a secret. Since this was a safer bet than trusting Jen’s discretion, he didn’t have a choice. “Fine.”
She smiled and tossed him his badge, which he pocketed as fast as he could.
“Just one question,” he added. “What else did you see in the bag?”
“Nothing important.”
He wasn’t going to let her decide what was important. “Tell me everything. Exactly.”
She rolled her eyes. “One shirt, one pair of pants, two socks, one pair of boxers, one-hundred and eighty-five Pyen in change, and a bag with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and anti-perspirant. There was a hidden pocket, and the badge was inside that along with a small notebook. I didn’t open the notebook.”
She wasn’t lying. At least, he didn’t think so. It was too dark to see her face clearly, and he could never get all the way inside her head, regardless.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “Your secret’s safe with me. And thanks a ton. You’re the best!”
She turned on her heels and headed back to the clubhouse. Derek followed behind her closely and swore in his head. It was little consolation that she’d only found one hidden pocket.
Content Warnings (General): Swearing. Violence. Blood. Alcohol. Not recommended for readers under the age of 13.
Content Warnings (Specific, or possible spoilers): Please open this spoiler tag if you require advance notice of certain topics.
Death. Child abuse. Bullying. Irresponsible consumption of alcohol. Irresponsible gambling themes. Suicide themes.
Table of Contents:
- Chapter 1
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Foreword
This story is eight years old, and three of its main characters (the “kids”) debuted over fifteen years ago. I’ve grown in technical skill since then, but I still think this ridiculously-titled fic is my personal best in terms of ambition and emotional resonance, and is my most complete attempt at the kind of story I most want to write. This is why its mechanical shortcomings grew more frustrating to me as time went on compared to other things I’ve written. So, last year I rolled up my sleeves and gave it a thorough scouring with particular attention to the prose’s clarity, concision, and (sigh) punctuation. While I changed some passages and minor elements more substantially with the help of reader feedback and the benefit of years of hindsight, if you’ve already read it, you’ve still read it—it’s the same story.
For anyone who hasn’t read this before, I’ll explain the fic’s structural idiosyncrasy up front. The “numbered” chapters are sequential and take place in the fic’s present day, while the “titled,” un-numbered chapters are (mostly) stand-alone episodes that take place before the main story. There’s no trick to reading it, though; everything’s posted in the intended reading order.
Will Somebody Stop These Kids?
Chapter 1
Derek Brooks struggled to open a jar of caffeine pills. The difficulty stemmed from his having been awake for the last thirty-two hours. When he at last found success and swallowed a handful of pills, he figured this should buy him another three hours before his body was forced to shut down, stimulants be damned.
It was a Saturday afternoon, which meant Derek was hard at work. As of late, his office was a studio apartment in a crumbling building in downtown Goldenrod City. It lacked such amenities as air conditioning, a kitchen, tables, chairs, or a bed, but there was enough room for a mattress. More importantly, it afforded a perfect view of the adjacent alley. This was the same alley Derek had been keeping tabs on for the last twenty-nine hours as part of his current assignment.
Derek’s job was complicated, and its description varied depending on whom you asked. If you asked his family, they’d tell you it was something for the government. If you asked the Goldenrod City Police Department’s Human Resources Division (and had proper clearance), they’d tell you Mr. Brooks was a clerk in Archives. If you asked the notorious criminal organization Team Rocket (and had sufficient street cred), they might tell you he was a disgruntled police archivist who was selling them valuable law-enforcement intelligence. And if you asked his actual boss in the GCPD, he certainly would not tell you that Officer Brooks was operating deep undercover to spy on and sabotage Team Rocket.
This wasn’t quite how Derek had once imagined himself at thirty-three. Most of his now-distant colleagues from the academy had moved up the promotion ladder and didn’t have to tolerate such working conditions. The silver lining to his own position was that whenever his mom or sister asked how his job was going, he was all but required by policy to say “fine” and not a single word of substance. Family was, by and large, too complicated for Derek to handle, and any amount of potentially frustrating human interaction he could trim from his week was welcome.
The pills were starting to kick in, so Derek returned to his window and took up the watch again. He was waiting for a “Grunt” member of Team Rocket to retrieve a hidden package of fabricated police communication records which Derek was selling to him for 300,000p in unmarked bills. Only an hour remained in the thirty-hour window the Grunt had insisted on. Once he arrived, Derek would rush out and tail him until he found where he was staying so that later he could wire the place with listening devices and a few cameras. In Derek’s mind, there was way, way less that could go wrong with this plan than could go wrong with making even light conversation with his relatives. It was less stressful, to boot.
Nothing was happening at the moment, but something bugged him. His eyes wandered away from the alley’s entrance, then past the spot with the package, and finally to a number of discarded boxes. When he spotted the two boys and a girl crouching down behind them, his eyes twitched. They appeared to be spying on the package with no more subtlety than you’d expect from a bunch of stupid kids. Derek’s stomach got caught in his throat for a second as he tried to parse the situation.
The red-and-white balls they held gave them away as Pokémon trainers. To Derek’s dismay, he had to assume the worst-case scenario: They had heard about the exchange somehow, and figured if they beat a Rocket with their Pokémon, they could brag about it to their little trainer friends. Standard procedure dictated that Derek had to make them leave the area before they got seriously hurt—on top of making a wash of his entire week.
Just as he was grumbling over the prospect of digging out his badge from its hiding place and convincing these little idiots that he had the authority to order them to go away, one of the boys gave him pause. There was something about his face.
“Is that…?” he muttered to himself. “No. No, it can’t be…”
He stared for a few more seconds. “Oh, shit.” There was no pretending it was anyone else. “Shit, shit, shit!”
It was Jason. Aunt Meg’s kid. His youngest first cousin, whom he saw twice a year. In other words, Jason fit square in the category of people described in chapter 98, section 10-C of the Department Policy Guide:
“An officer employed at cover-level 3 or above may not disclose his or her status as an officer to any person with familiar knowledge of the officer’s personal identity. Any disclosure whether accidental or deliberate will be reviewed in an official hearing, with disciplinary action not to exceed termination of employment and a fine of six months’ pay.”
All it would take was one post from one relative on any social media platform, and Derek was done. On top of that, he hadn’t been expecting his annual panic attack about 98:10-C until the family reunion in October.
Derek stood up and slapped his face a few times. Then he covered his mouth as tightly as possible and yelled into his hands so hard it made his throat sore. Before he knew what exactly he was going to do, he was grabbing his jacket so as to cover his disgusting shirt and make himself semi-presentable to the outside world.
He stood in front of the door and gripped the knob while agonizing over what the hell he was supposed to say. Bringing up the subject of Team Rocket was out of the question, much less the fact that he was the one who’d arranged the deal with the package in the first place. At length, he steeled his nerves and walked outside. He would just have to think of something on the fly.
*********
Jason Fitzpatrick was a bit amazed at his own cunning. He and his friends Travis and Krissy were going to have this Rocket goon right where they wanted him. It was a few days prior that Jason had snuck around and overheard the Grunt’s plan to acquire the “package” here:
“So, you always pick ’em up a day late, get it? That way it’s real tough for turncoats to keep an eye on the spot unless they’re doin’ shifts.”
Jason’s immediate temptation, of course, had been to start a battle right then and there, but now his patience was about to be rewarded. He didn’t see how they could lose with a three-on-one surprise attack in close quarters.
Krissy leaned over to him and whispered, “Let’s go over the plan again, just to be safe.”
Travis leaned over as well. “Way safer to go over the plan twenty times instead of nineteen. Definitely.”
Jason knew Krissy wouldn’t take the bait. She ignored the comment and took it from the top. “First, Jason throws Rabies’s ball past him to block his escape. Then, I send out Lucia, and Travis sends out Leviathan. When the enemy sends out his Pokémon, one of us will take the lead depending on the type matchup.”
So Growlithe, Bayleef, and Quagsire, respectively. One Fire, one Grass, one Water-and-Ground. “No types that beat all of ours,” added Jason, “We’re looking good.”
“Except Dragon, of course,” whispered Krissy, “but he won’t have one of those.”
Travis looked indignant. “Dragons don’t beat Water.”
“On defense, yes they do. Same against all the others we’re using.”
“Nuh-uh.”
“Haven’t you ever read the Types page on your Pokédex?”
Jason rolled his eyes. He hated it when Travis made boys look stupid. Even though Jason himself hadn’t been quite sure about the Dragon vs. Water matchup, he knew better than to contradict Krissy on anything one might read in a book. In any case, this was no time to lose focus, so he tried to tune his friends out and listen for footsteps. Then, not five seconds later, he froze as he heard them coming from the wrong direction. There was someone behind them, meaning they were kneeling in plain sight.
They all spun around at once. Then, standing right there in front of him, Jason saw the very last person he had expected.
“Hey, Jason,” said Derek. “Long time no see.”
Jason was so startled, he only half-noticed that his cousin looked like death. It was almost like someone had drawn under his eyes with a black marker, and his smile was even more forced than when they took family pictures. Jason glanced over at his friends, and saw they were at a complete loss.
The silence might have lasted minutes if Derek hadn’t broken it. “I met you last year,” he said, pointing at Travis, “Your name’s… uh…”
Travis didn’t help him out, which made Jason realize he might neither recognize nor remember Derek. “Oh, that’s Travis. Um, Krissy, this is my cousin Derek. And, uh… Derek, this is Krissy.”
Krissy just managed to stammer, “…Nice to meet you.”
Then the silence was back. Jason began to worry that Derek had overheard them, so he tried to remember whether they had actually mentioned Team Rocket. Not that Jason cared what Derek thought in particular, but he didn’t trust him not to tell his parents or Travis’s what they were doing. And he especially didn’t trust his parents not to overreact.
Much to his relief, Derek seemed to be none the wiser. “So, what are you guys up to?”
The relief was fleeting: Jason hadn’t planned on needing an alibi today. Just as he was about to say something stupid like “Ya know, stuff,” Travis came to the rescue.
“Saw a Pokémon back here.”
Derek tilted his head. “That right?”
“Eh… yeah. It was one of those, uh…”
“Magnemite,” said Krissy. It was a flawless save.
“Yeah, Magnemite. Can’t just find those in the woods, so Jason wanted to be extra sure we caught it. Like, be careful about it.”
“Mm-hm, mm-hm.” Jason nodded his head with what he thought was enough vigor to be convincing. Then he asked Derek, “So… what are you up to?”
“Nothin’ really,” said Derek (or rather, half-yawned Derek). “I’ve got the day off. Was about to take a stroll when I saw you guys from my window up there, and thought I’d say hi.”
Jason thought they might be in the clear if Derek had bought their story. Now, if he would simply go on his way…
“Hey, who feels like ice cream? My treat.”
Jason could have screamed, but he managed to hold it in. “Well, we were—”
Derek spoke up again at the same time Jason did. “Actually, I know a good place by the Radio Tower, and I’ve seen plenty of Magnemite in the alleys around there, too. Never here before, though. What do you guys say?”
It was checkmate, and Jason knew it. The remainder of the game was purely academic, and Krissy spared him the embarrassment of being the first to surrender. “…That sounds good to me.”
Travis bit his lower lip as he stood up. “Yeah. I’m down for ice cream. And we’ll probably have better luck over there.”
“Okay,” said Jason, doing his best to disguise his disappointment. “Thanks, Derek.”
Derek made a noise that perhaps meant “you’re welcome,” and led the way out of the alley in a surprising hurry. It was something of a challenge for Jason and his friends to keep up as they walked through nearly a mile of Goldenrod City. It made him wonder whether Derek was actually as exhausted as he looked. Though, the way Derek would veer towards a wall and correct himself at the last inch every few minutes was evidence for “yes.”
Before he knew it, they were all sitting in a booth in a cozy, old-fashioned ice cream parlor. Despite the pleasant atmosphere, Jason couldn’t shake this feeling that something was about to get him. Perhaps he was still hyped up from being on the hunt for a real, meaningful battle, but the cause was just as likely the fact that his weirdest, scariest relative looked even weirder and scarier than usual. Derek was on one side of the table, while Jason and his friends shared the other. It was cramped, but he couldn’t blame Krissy for squeezing into their side rather than joining Derek.
Derek’s face was one thing, but it was only now that Jason noticed an even more unsettling element to his presence: He smelled like a Pokémon trainer, which was no compliment. As a Pokémon trainer himself, Jason wasn’t one to talk, but what excuse could Derek have for not showering? And then there was the clinching factor in his strangeness, which was how he had ordered black coffee in an ice cream parlor. This was an unprecedented act of weirdness.
For the record, Jason also took note that while he and Travis had ordered chocolate cones like normal people, Krissy had gotten a cup of butter pecan like a girl.
Derek took a long sip from his mug and shook his eyes open wider before speaking. “Hey, you’re turning eleven soon, right?”
Jason looked around the table for a napkin. “…I did in April.”
“Right, duh.” Derek rubbed his temples. “Yeah, you started in April last year… How’s Rabies doing?”
“He’s good. Real strong now.”
“Hm. That’s great.”
Then it was back to heavy silence. Jason wondered if they could leave on their own if they finished their ice cream before Derek finished his coffee. He wanted to get back to the ambush spot, even if the odds of them beating the Grunt before Derek got back were slim. Besides, there was only so much he could handle of this freak’s abysmal small talk.
But when his cousin broke the silence again, it didn’t feel like small talk anymore. “So, Jason,” he said with new composure, “You guys been keeping safe lately?”
Jason drew a blank. Where did this come from?
Travis shifted in his seat and stared Derek down. “How do you mean?”
“Just saying I remember being a trainer. Y’know, loads of time, no parents, pretty easy to toe the line between having fun and acting stupid.”
“We’re not stupid,” said Jason.
“That’s why I said ‘acting.’ Everyone does some dumb stuff when they’re a trainer, and sometimes when they grow up, they wish someone had kept them just a little more in check once or twice.”
This drew in Krissy. “Do you mean people in general wish that, or you in particular?”
“Not me so much. I was pretty boring. You guys seem more fun, so I just thought I’d ask. There’s no wrong answer.”
But Jason knew there was a wrong answer. Did Derek know they’d been after Team Rocket? It wouldn’t quite make sense if he did. Wouldn’t he have just brought it up? Why would he be so cagey about it? This left two explanations in Jason’s mind: Either Derek knew and was trying to pressure them into quitting on their own—as if they could be dissuaded from doing the right thing by someone calling it “stupid”—or Derek didn’t know and he was just being an awkward weirdo. When he looked at it that way, it was a no-brainer. Derek didn’t know.
“We’re plenty safe,” said Jason. “Nothing to worry about.”
Derek still looked serious, but he sat back and drained the last of his coffee. “That’s good to hear.” Then, he stood up and checked his pockets. “I’m gonna head home now.”
It hit Jason that this meant the odds of pulling off the ambush were now zero. Derek talked faster as started to leave. “Hey, give your Aunt Nancy a call sometime. She’s always bugging Jen and me for stories about you. Good to see you again, Travis; real nice to meet you, Krissy. You kids have fun out there.”
And then, he was out the door. They all looked out the window after him and saw he was making a beeline back the way they had come. Krissy shivered a little and moved to the other side of the table so they could spread out and get comfortable. “Is he always like that?”
“No…” said Jason before he thought about it a moment. “I mean, he’s always a little like that, but never that much before.”
“He was definitely better when I saw him,” said Travis. “That was on day one for us last year. He was sorta like a human being, from what I remember.”
Then Travis looked around the place. The only employee was buried in her cell phone, and there were no other customers. It was just them and the Top 40 on the radio. They all leaned in over the table. “Didn’t it seem like he knew?” whispered Travis. “You don’t think he could actually be… you know… the Grunt?”
Jason couldn’t help but laugh, however strong the gravity of the situation was. “Not a chance. He’s like, the anti-criminal. Jen said he told her off once for downloading music. Oh, that’s my other cousin.”
“I know who she is,” said Travis.
“I didn’t,” said Krissy. “Anyway, even if he’s not a Rocket, it seems like too much of a coincidence to me. Could he be involved some other way?”
Jason hadn’t thought of that. “I guess. I think he works for the government or something. But you’d think he’d just say so and order us around then, right?”
“You’d think.” Krissy shrugged and leaned back again. “So, what now?”
Since all their other plans today were shot, Jason was surprised she had to ask. “We go catch one of those Magnemite, duh.”
They could always start taking down Team Rocket again tomorrow.
*********
The package was already gone when Derek got back. He leaned his head against the wall of the alley and tried not to think about how many hours he had put toward learning where these Grunts were hiding out. He focused instead on the fact that he probably wouldn’t have learned anything important by spying on them anyway. This sort of setback would have agitated him more back in his early twenties, but by now, his career had made him numb to most forms of futility.
Jason and his friends were a different story. They’d caught him flat-footed, and he knew the situation was still far from salvaged. It gave him a stomachache. It was fortunate he only had the energy to stumble back into the apartment, otherwise he might have gone to one of the bars in the Goldenrod Tunnel to self-medicate with some hard liquor. He closed the door behind him, attempted to flip a light switch that would have been there in his non-work apartment, and collapsed face-first on the mattress.
He got his sleep, and by the time he was really awake again, it was evening on the next calendar day, and he was well north of Goldenrod. Specifically, he was walking up a familiar trail through some lush woods to the north of his hometown of Ecruteak City. At some point he couldn’t recall, he had showered, changed into decent clothes, and eaten actual food. In that sense, at least, this day was going better than the day before, but the critical problem was the same.
He could have bet a month’s salary those kids were going to keep on messing with Team Rocket. He’d read Travis and that girl Krissy like a book, and he could always read Jason like a neon “OPEN” sign. It hardly mattered how transparent they were, though, when he had no way of telling them with authority to knock it off. This meant he had to try the single aspect of police-work he struggled the most with: leveraging connections. He looked at the setting sun through the leaves and hoped she’d still be in.
Soon, the path opened up on a wide field that housed a dirt arena for battling, an obstacle course, deep-green wooden bleachers, cheap stadium lights, and a small clubhouse. Hard at work redrawing the oval’s chalk lines was a woman dressed in practical trainer’s gear. She was the proprietress of the unofficial, unaffiliated, and unrecognized (but growing) North Ecruteak Gym. Her name was Jen Brooks, and she was Derek’s younger sister. Although he was only six years her senior, thanks to a drastic disparity in facial line density, people usually guessed it was ten years.
She noticed him and waved as he walked up. “Hey, Derek!”
“Hey.”
“You should have called ahead! What’s up?”
She was in a great mood, which wasn’t unusual. Derek hated to have to ruin her day. “Ech… We need to talk.”
“Sure thing. Go on in—I’ll be just a minute here.”
Derek nodded and walked over to the clubhouse. The fresh coat of paint grabbed his attention: white with green trim. It was much more inviting than the dumpy little shack that had stood in the same spot when he was a kid. Even more impressive than the paint was the new door with an actual handle. The inside was far cleaner and brighter than in the old building as well. Derek was so focused on the walls, he didn’t notice the other person in the room right away.
“Oh. Hello, Derek.”
Jen’s best friend from journeying as a kid, Hanna Maris, was sitting at the table and typing away on a laptop. She had a number of papers spread out with complicated diagrams on them.
“Hey,” said Derek. “Didn’t know you were in Johto.”
“Just visiting for the long weekend.”
Not that this stopped her from working, Derek noticed. Hanna was a programmer who worked for Bill, the renowned scientist, out in northern Kanto. It never surprised Derek how Bill attracted the sort of fanatic employees who would put in hours on a Sunday. Of course, Derek regularly worked weekends as well, but he at least had the decency to be bitter about it. He dropped his bag near the door and pulled up a chair at the opposite corner of the table.
“You look like hell.” Hanna didn’t mess around, and Derek appreciated that.
“It was one of those days yesterday.”
“Hmm.”
With that, Hanna returned her attention to the screen for a few seconds before Jen came in.
“Woo! Finally done,” she said in a tone that made it clear she could gladly go at it for a few hours more. She wiped the dust from her glasses as she walked over to a small fridge. “Derek, you want anything? Soda? Beer?”
“Beer, please.”
“Hanna?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
Jen pulled out two cans of cheap, weak, nasty beer and threw one over to Derek before pulling up her own chair.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Kanpai!” she cheered before they both took a swig of the awful stuff. Derek contemplated making an investment in the gym with the provision that 100 percent of his contribution went to securing a supply of respectable alcohol for the staff. Today, though, he was in the right mood to drink even this piss-water.
“So, whatta we need to talk about?”
This made Hanna look up from her computer. Derek answered, “It’s about family.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.” He glanced over and noticed that Hanna still showed no intention of leaving so far. That struck him as rude, or at least intrusive. “It’s Jason.”
“Is he okay?” Jen didn’t seem to care that Hanna was in the room.
“He’s fine, but I think he might be in trouble soon, him and his friends.” He looked again, and Hanna was still the same. He said to Jen, “I was thinking of talking in private.”
“Hanna knows Jason. It’s cool.”
“If he’s in trouble,” said Hanna, “I’d like to help too, if that’s all right.”
Derek sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue, and it was true she was no stranger to the family. He started from the beginning and told them what he had seen and heard the day before. Naturally, he left out the details he could only have known if he were a cop. In addition, he reattributed key bits of evidence to fake overheard quotes from the kids that in reality had come from his own intel and inference. The whole picture he gave was accurate, though.
Jen put her face in her hands. “Oh jeeze… they’re so clueless.”
It was a relief to have Jen in agreement with him. He recalled that she and Hanna had been similarly adventurous to the point of idiocy back in their days as a trainer-duo. He could only imagine what they would have tried if Team Rocket had been in Johto fifteen years ago. “I don’t want to tell their parents just yet,” he said, “And I assume you don’t want to, either.”
“Of course not,” said Jen. “The kids would be devastated.”
Informing a parent of a trainer’s inexcusable decision-making was called “The Death Sentence” in the police force. Legally speaking, parents needed no justification to have their child’s Pokémon license revoked, and a child journeying without a license was officially “missing” and could be forcibly returned home. It was rare to see an officer who didn’t give warnings to trainers before going to the parents.
“I was hoping you could talk to them,” said Derek. “I think Jason’s more likely to listen to you.”
“He likes you, too.”
This was a dubious claim, but Derek didn’t have to address it directly. “Well, Travis doesn’t from what I can tell. And their new friend Krissy definitely doesn’t.”
Jen made a pouting face. “Oh no, you didn’t scare her, did you?”
“I wasn’t trying to!”
Hanna shook her head. “Poor little girl.”
Derek just groaned.
“Well, don’t worry,” said Jen, “I’ll take care of it—no problem.”
“You want a hand?” asked Hanna.
“Definitely! Thanks a million.”
Derek took another look at Hanna and considered the prospect. She was a few years older than Jen, a fair deal smarter, and immeasurably harder to read. He believed she was sincere in her desire to help, and that she was well-equipped to do so, but something bothered him. Unlike with Jen, there was a possibility Hanna didn’t buy the entirety of the story as he had told it. Did she suspect he was omitting key information? It was too hard to tell.
In the end, he was more desperate than uncertain. “Sounds good. Jen, you have his cell number, right?”
“Yeah. Goldenrod’s not too far, so I’ll just invite them here.”
She started pulling her phone out of her pocket, but Derek stopped her. “Maybe wait until tomorrow. His defenses might still be up if you call him so soon after I talked to him. For that matter, don’t mention me at all, either.”
“Makes sense. Day after tomorrow should be safe.”
It sounded like a plan. Despite himself, Derek allowed his shoulders to relax a tad and finished his miserable beer. “The outhouse is around back, right?”
“Yeah, can’t miss it,” said Jen. “Man, it’s so lucky you were there yesterday. I’ll be in the back room doing this week’s paperwork—feel free to stay as long as you want.”
Derek grunted, then took his leave of the clubhouse. It was getting dark. He could hear several Hoothoot in the woods having a conversation as they woke up. This was how an evening was supposed to feel and sound, and he often missed it living in Goldenrod. It was a powerfully comforting place—but Derek’s brain had natural defenses against comfort. While he was taking care of his business, something agitated him again. There was an element of great importance he had overlooked, perhaps because the old gym, now his sister’s gym, had a disarming effect on him.
As he was returning to the clubhouse, Hanna came out the door and approached him. It was starting to come together: She suspected something, and he’d let his defenses down somewhere. But where? Where was the attack going to come from?
She met him halfway. “Derek, I’m really sorry, but I looked through your bag.” She held up his badge. His knees nearly melted on the spot, and he began to sweat. He felt like the dumbest person alive for leaving his bag out of his line of sight.
“Hanna,” he said, calmly as he could, “you are going to get me fired.”
“I won’t tell a soul, really,” she said. “Just hear me out.”
What could he do? She had him by the short hairs.
“I want to help. Not just with Jason—with the Rockets. Bill’s lab is one of the best in the world. It’s the perfect place to reverse-engineer Team Rocket’s new tech. We keep reaching out to the police, but they hardly ever return our calls.”
“Hanna. Listen. All those decisions are way, way above my pay grade, and that’s not going to change when you get me fired.”
She wouldn’t budge. Her eyes were like steel. “You know I’m right. How are you all going to get an edge on the Rockets when you won’t turn to the actual experts like Bill?”
Of course he knew she was right. Anyone who’d spent five minutes trying to get anything out of a police scientist knew she was right. But that was beside the point. “Get this into your head: It’s not my call. It’s not even my boss’s call. They’re so paranoid about spies and moles all the way up, they’d never sign off on anything like this. Hell, I’m not even allowed to tell other officers what my assignment is, that’s how nuts they are about this. It’s not my call.”
“You don’t have to make any calls. You just need to get me some of Team Rocket’s toys to reverse- and counter-engineer, and I’ll refer to you as an ‘anonymous source.’ However, if you won’t comply with those terms, I’ll be forced to tell Jen about your job. …And your grandma.”
Derek wanted to scream. There was an even chance Jen would tell some people, and a virtual certainty their grandma would tell everyone. But what Hanna was asking was out of the question. He thought about grabbing the badge away from her. Even if her reflexes were quick, it would be no trouble to out-muscle her. But he knew Jen would believe her even without the badge—to say nothing about how awkward it would be to wrestle with Hanna.
“Derek,” she said, “I don’t want to have to do this. You’ve always been really great to me, even when Jen and I used to give you such a hard time.”
“‘Used to?’”
“Are you on board or not?”
He clapped his hand to his forehead. Either way, he had exactly one hope, which was that Hanna could keep a secret. Since this was a safer bet than trusting Jen’s discretion, he didn’t have a choice. “Fine.”
She smiled and tossed him his badge, which he pocketed as fast as he could.
“Just one question,” he added. “What else did you see in the bag?”
“Nothing important.”
He wasn’t going to let her decide what was important. “Tell me everything. Exactly.”
She rolled her eyes. “One shirt, one pair of pants, two socks, one pair of boxers, one-hundred and eighty-five Pyen in change, and a bag with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and anti-perspirant. There was a hidden pocket, and the badge was inside that along with a small notebook. I didn’t open the notebook.”
She wasn’t lying. At least, he didn’t think so. It was too dark to see her face clearly, and he could never get all the way inside her head, regardless.
“Don’t worry,” she said, “Your secret’s safe with me. And thanks a ton. You’re the best!”
She turned on her heels and headed back to the clubhouse. Derek followed behind her closely and swore in his head. It was little consolation that she’d only found one hidden pocket.
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