FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

They walked at a moderate, unhurried pace. Zach had let Jerome stay out of the pokeball; it felt weird to have his pokemon contained while all three of Glen's were out. The abra was strapped to Glen's back so he could sleep while they walked. The extra weight didn't seem to bother the black-haired boy at all, despite how thin his entire body seemed to be. Zach watched him a lot, the way his eyes shifted in relation to his face, whether they were softly smiling from a memory gone by, empty from some kind of loss or anger, or just staring. When the two travellers weren't talking, sometimes he would instruct Syn to train with Jerome. The chu's squatter body shape allowed him to sit back on his hind legs and beat at the smaller, thinner rattata with his front paws. This meant that Jerome had the opportunity to train against both a bipedal and a quadrupedal opponent as they went. Food was gotten from waystations during the day and kept in Glen's satchel. Zach had been just carrying the bags that food was sold in as carriers, but Glen for some reason disapproved. "It's an unnecessary waste," he explained without reprimand.

It took some time, but Zach did open up and start asking questions. The first was the one that had bothered him since they first met. "Why do you keep all of your pokemon out of their pokeballs? I was always told that the pokéballs let them rest."

Glen responded amiably. "That's kind of true, but not really. In a pokeball, a pokemon is broken down into its various energetic components " heat, electricity, and ether. Well..." he paused. "I don't suppose you know anything about nuclear physics?" Zach shook his head. "I thought not. Those are also involved. Anyway, basically, a pokeball is a perfectly insulated system. However much energy is put in to it is the same amount that is released when you release the pokemon. If the pokemon is tired when it goes in, it'll be tired when it comes out. However, if you want your pokemon ready to fight when it comes out, you put it in when it wakes up, and it's just as alert as though it had just gotten plenty of sleep."

"I thought... they could sleep inside the balls..."

"Nope. Common misconception. We're not sure why pokemon can actually regain energy, usually just ether, when they go in the ball. The prevailing theory among people who like to believe in the intangible argue that pokemon trainers, by virtue of spending so much time around pokemon, develop their own sort of ether. Ether is produced kind of like how heat is produced in the body. And as you hold onto the pokeball or keep it with you or whatever, your ether is transferred into it. It can't be confirmed, but the way captured pokemon tend to acclimate to their masters so quickly supports it almost irrefutably."

"So then..." he struggled with the abstract concept for a moment, fighting valiantly through Glen's more expansive vocabulary. "We should be able to shoot fireballs?"

Glen flashed him a grin. "You're quick, aren't you? That's the primary reason no one wants to publicly accept that theory, at least if they want to maintain any sort of renown in the scientific community." Zach had to decipher each big word Glen used; the older boy was clearly not concerned with the age difference between them. "No human has ever been able to consciously emit ether before. Pokemon do it all the time. Most non-physical attacks are powered by ether. Even seed-shot attacks require ether to power the seed production; if it were all purely biological, grass-types would be able to shoot a maximum of maybe twenty, thirty shots, depending on the size of the seeds and the pokemon involved. The reason attacks like hyper beam are so draining on pokemon is that they are entirely ether, which appears to have some effect on metabolic processes as well. Another argument in favor of humans having ether; we're not too genetically removed from pokemon, albeit more so than other animals." He acknowledged Zach's confusion for the first time and explained. "Metabolic means how energy moves through you. You know, like if you eat an apple, your body breaks it down into sugar, which gets broken down to power your muscles and such and then becomes lactic acid and other things. It's complicated, I know, but you'll understand it all one day, if... oh, that reminds me. Do you have a pokedex?"

"Ah..." Zach recalled thinking of stealing one when he got the pokeballs. It was too expensive for him to go after, though. He would have felt too guilty. "No."

"Well, here. I have an extra." Glen carefully reached behind him and slipped one out of his satchel. It was a pale color of blue. "Ordered this online and thought when they said 'blue' they meant something other than 'robin's egg,' which if you ask me is a travesty on their part."

Zach reached for it tentatively, though he clearly wanted it. "I couldn't..."

"No, go ahead. I never even opened it. I have my own that's a lot fancier; you should consider getting one when you have money and more experience. That there is a PD-260i. It doesn't support 3-D imaging; I just wanted something to keep extra data in, you know?"

The younger boy took the book-like slate of plastic and opened the front "cover." Immediately, the screen inside blipped on. A cheery, electronic voice chirped, "Hi! My name is Dexter, and I'll be your guide to the wonderful world of pokemon!" A menu of tutorials popped up.

"You can play with that when you want. It'll record every pokemon you see and should start receiving wireless updates on some of the newer discoveries as soon as you finish the tutorials. Which reminds me again..." He took the pokedex back and spent a few minutes hunting through the maze of menus and options before he found what he wanted. "Ah. There we go. I have a friend in Veridian who set up a personal wireless network for me and a few friends so we couldn't be tracked. It's very good, from what I can tell. Here you go." He handed it back.

"Cool..." Zach said, entranced as he took it. Slowly, like the breaking of dawn, a smile lit up his face. Glen realized that that hadn't yet happened since he knew the kid. Well, except when the rattata came back to life, but kids should smile more than just when life-changing events happen. "Thanks! I'm gonna find a bunch of pokemon and learn about 'em. This..." It was taking him a little while to warm up to the childish excitement to which most youngsters are accustomed in themselves. "This is so cool!"

Glen chuckled. "I'm glad you like it. And like I said, when you feel like you want to upgrade, there are better ones out there, but for you, that should be just about perfect."

Zach spent the next hour figuring out how the little device worked, changing its name to Allanon in honor of the psychic pokemon strapped to Glen's back (which made said abra twitch in his sleep), and recording instances of the four pokemon he knew. When he was almost done playing, a raucous noise abruptly sounded from above and a shadow covered them, blotting out the fading sun.

The party stopped to watch as a flock of spearows made its way across the landscape, afraid to make any sudden movements. Spearows were fairly irritable and had been known to peck unwary travellers and pokemon to death for disturbing them. Zach, however, was not exactly perturbed. The little boy whispered, "I think I want one of those."

Glen mumbled quietly, looking out from under the brim of his hat, "Maybe find one that's wounded later. Unless you want Syn to fry the flock, that is, but that seems wasteful."

"Nah, I can do this. Just... don't move around too much, 'kay?"

The older boy sucked air through his teeth as Zach walked away from the rest of them. "Zach!" he whispered angrily, but the boy wouldn't listen. Instead, he moved with calm confidence, niether looking up nor down, until he was definitely separated from the party. Once content with his position, he turned his head up to the sky, opened his mouth, and let loose a strange, twisted shriek.

What? Allanon said incredulously, immediately awake. How did he do that?

Several members of the flock turned their heads. Zach repeated the noise, then made it again with a slightly different intonation. He was communicating with them. "That's incredible," Glen whispered.

A few moments later, six different spearows had turned from their flock to inspect the child. Two or three landed several feet away, watching the paralyzed other types for movement. The rest circled Zach slowly, squawking and calling to him. He cried right back, totally unafraid, and held out a hand. One perched on his wrist almost immediately and started walking sideways along his arm, probably digging in its talons for support even though the kid made hardly a wince, until it was eye to eye with Zach. Both made a series of quieter noises while Zach silently removed a pokeball from his pocket. He brought it slowly beside the captivated, sharp-eyed bird, activated it, and tapped it gently against the bird's head. He held the ball in the palm of his hand as it rolled, flashed, and finally sounded the chime that meant the creature was captured. With a flourish of his arm, Zach cried out one more time and sent the remaining birds flying back to their flock. The sun came back into view. The entire procedure had taken less than five minutes.

Glen watched as Zach let loose the spearow, who hopped about in the grass a moment before fluttering up to his shoulder and nibbling playfully at his ear. Zach pulled out his pokedex after a moment and recorded the image. The older boy's eyes were as close to popping out of his skull as his perpetually nonplussed gaze would allow. "Zach, do you have any idea how impossible making that noise is supposed to be?" Most pokemon calls, those that don't articulate their own names, anyway, involve the movements and ululations of parts of the anatomy to which humans have no access. The spearow is one of them. For Zach to make that noise means he could manipulate his throat and vocal cords in ways most people believed were impossible.

Zach blushed slightly and stroked the bird's beak. "I... guess I just learned, is all."

It has to be him. It's the only way. Glen nodded. "Well that's... pretty cool. Why hadn't you done that before? You could have a freaking army!" he laughed.

The little boy laughed back, clearly proud of himself despite the humble flush on his cheeks. "I think I'll call her Samantha." He turned to the bird. "Do you like that name, Samantha? Huh?" It fluttered its wings and let loose a squawk. It appeared to be happy.

"This is insane," Glen muttered with half a grin. "Well, whatever. Let's go find a tree to sleep under for the night. We should make it to a teleport station soon enough, and Allanon needs plenty of sleep if he's going to get all of us up in the mountains in one piece."

For the next two days, the conversation and training continued at a fairly even pace. Sam was given the opportunity to practice solo aerial maneuvers her instincts wouldn't have taught her and Amber was given the simultaneous opportunity to practice sniping. He only hit once or twice out of every few dozen attempts, but Glen wasn't concerned. He'd learn one day, and Glen was a bad enough shot himself that he didn't exactly have a place to reprimand the saur.

"Glen?" Zach asked once. It was another hot, summer day. Zach had already been burned on the tops of his ears, but luckily, Glen had a salve in his bag for that.

"Yeah?"

"Did... um..." He looked down and seemed to have trouble forming the question he wanted to ask. "When the Rocketeers hit me with the pokeball, they started talking about whether I was... something special, I don't know what. And you asked me all those questions, and I do... have chest hair..." Glen looked sideways at the boy. One thing he had not yet gotten used to was how quietly spoken he could be when he wasn't sure of himself. "What do you think I am?"

Glen was silent for a while. There were too many ways to answer that question that would unnecessarily worry the child, but he did deserve an answer. "Hm. That's a tough question. The best answer..." He held his chin in his hand for a moment. "Oh, I'll just come out and say it. You know how Sam listened to you so well when you called her?"

"Uh-huh."

"And you've told me that other pokemon always seemed drawn to you, or at least calmer around you than other people, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the science is over both of our heads, but the short story is that three or four years ago, I was working in a laboratory trying to figure out the relationships between genetics and pokemon evolution. We learned some very cool things in that lab."

Zach's eyes opened wide. "But you're only twenty, or something..."

Glen smirked. "Call me precocious." The abra twitched again, which for some reason made Glen chuckle. "Anyway, as part of the research, what scientists do is we read a lot of papers by other scientists. While I was doing that, I came across some papers from a few years even before that about genetic experimentation that didn't make a whole lot of sense. I started tracking down papers like those and trying to find connections. On a totally unrelated note, I was kicked out of the lab for using lab materials for my own purposes, namely running gels on Amber's DNA to determine whether he was male or female."

Zach thought he knew enough about anatomy to make the distinction. "I thought that..." his cheeks colored.

Glen laughed aloud, which made the younger boy feel immediately better. "No, no, saurs don't reproduce the way most animals do that look like them. They reproduce like plants, using seeds and pollen, and the only thing that makes them like animals is that they will lay the seeds kind of like eggs. The only physiologically defining characteristics appear only after they've evolved into ivysaurs, and I'm an impatient person who didn't want to keep referring to my pokemon as 'it.'" Amber grunted his approval. "The lab manager was not pleased about how many supplies I had to use to get the information, although he did take credit for my work and publish it. The bast- uh." He cut himself off for the sake of the little ears in the area, then shook his head to clear it.

"So what does this have to do with me?"

"Ah, the end-all-beat-all question. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I don't know why they would want a human subject. I can speculate, but none of the answers I've come up with are pretty..."

Zach interrupted him. "Human subject? You mean... me?"

"Ah-ah-ah, don't jump to conclusions." He gave the boy a moment to take that in before continuing. "But yes, you, assuming I'm right. It's... The thing is that I don't have any proof. There's no way for me to know for sure what they're up to, because the people doing this - Pokenomics, the company - are very, very powerful and very, very good at what they do. You remember a few years ago when people learned how to devolve eevees after having used a stone so they could use the stone again?"

"Uh-huh."

"Pokenomics. Devolution shots - Pokenomics. Hybrid technique theory - Pokenomics. They do everything big in the world of pokemon, because they have the best, I mean the very best, scientists in the world."

"And you think they did something to me?" Zach seemed very disquieted at this point. He was looking down on the ground and had a surprisingly dark look on his face for one so young. Glen had clearly touched a nerve.

"Well, I can't confirm anything, but yeah. I think maybe."

"My dad works for Pokenomics. He's a scientist."

Glen caught his breath. No way. Would a parent be heartless enough to experiment on his own son? Who would do that to a person? Who could be that cold? I could, he told himself. Which was true.

The papers dated back to ten years ago, that was for sure, but also several years before and after. This had been going on for a long time, so Glen's racing heart didn't necessarily have warrant. It seemed unreal. Why would they have let him into the real world on his own? He was a powerful and valuable subject at this point. Suddenly, things clicked into place. Why Zach didn't have an elementally-charged starter pokemon and in fact had caught his own. Why he didn't have a pokedex of his own. Why he had chest hair and a deeper blue color to his eyes than most.

After a moment of thinking to himself and slowing his pace, Glen asked, "Did you run away from home, Zach?"

The boy nodded, on the verge of pouting.

"Did you steal those pokeballs?"

Nod.

"Did your parents want you to become a trainer?"

Shake.

Glen moaned. "Oh, Lord." Allanon spoke up briefly. I don't think it could possibly not be him. We're in danger. With those words, Glen's pokemon came in closer. "We may want to avoid the open road from now on, then," he whispered. Syn, in an apparent act of soothing friendliness, got beside Zach on his hind legs and held his hand with a paw. Zach smiled down at him.

"Hey, Syn." He looked back up at Glen, easily comforted. "I think I'll be fine with you guys around, though, right?"

Glen gave him a half-smile. "I'm sure you will be." He wasn't sure. "Even so, keep your pokemon in their pokeballs tonight. We're probably already being followed by the Rocketeers; it'll just be safer that way." Zach nodded, and they continued on their way.

Syn stayed nearby Zach the entire rest of the day. Glen wasn't quite sure why, and he didn't have a moment to consult Allanon alone. It was one difficulty with the psychic pokemon: he could read minds on occasion, but he couldn't decipher actual, directed words from Glen. They had tried. It just didn't work.

That wasn't the important problem, though. The important matter at hand was Zach. Zach was a genetic experiment. It made Glen feel like he was escorting a piece of etched glass. It was the same as when he had carried around samples in the lab he used to work in. The fear of dropping them and losing precious hours of research was a constant pressure, no matter how comfortable he was with procedure, and this? This was not a procedure he knew much of.

He saw Zach simultaneously as a little boy that he could treat like a younger brother and teach and help in what he was doing, and as a specimen, to be carefully observed. His first clue that this might have been the one had been Zach's reaction to seeing Jerome "die." The little boy had let out a high-pitched whine like a dog, something children simply could not do. After that, he had asked every question with purpose, touched him like a scientist would, and analyzed him as though he was just another piece of data. Which, to one part of Glen's mind, he was. He was a specimen. A cute one, for sure, but that's just because kids happen to have that property. Most of the time. And it really didn't have too much of an effect on someone who had euthanized jigglypuffs and charmanders.

It was a very real temptation for Glen to hit the kid with a pokeball now and then to see if he could be captured. Only Allanon's constant reminders whenever he fingered one at night, after the little boy had gone to sleep, kept him from trying.

That particular night, Glen volunteered to keep watch for one shift and Syn would do the other. Sure, it meant Amber would have to carry Allanon and Glen would carry the raichu so that the two of them could get their sleep, but it would be worth it. The older boy dutifully stayed awake, walking the perimeter of the small copse of trees they had turned into a camp site for the whole of his four hour shift. Nothing happened, luckily. When his time was up, he gently shook Syn awake, reminded him not to get carried away, and pretended to go to sleep. For some reason, he didn't want to sleep that night. Instead, he tapped Allanon awake, quietly asked him to divert the chu's attention, and walked about a hundred yards away with his bag.

Once there, he turned away from the camp and brought out a tiny flashlight to peruse the papers again. He had looked at them so many times, he had most of the tables memorized and could quote the conclusions. It just seemed like there had to be something he was missing, something that would point the way to an incontestable proof of these tests. Even with all the evidence, in the back of his scientifically-trained mind, he knew that it was folly to say for certain that Zach was subject forty-six A.

Allanon came to join him. The abra sat down next to him, seemingly asleep, as usual, but awake. You know it's him. But Glen, about telling him that " was it worth it?

Glen scratched his head uncertainly. This was Allanon's famous question to him when he made decisions. Was it worth it? Sometimes, Glen could act on an impulse that travelled through so many channels, it would seem like a rational decision from anyone else. So Al had to remind him not to, sometimes.

"I don't know. It probably was not, because eventually, he'll want details that I refuse to keep from him." Never deny someone who asks for information access to that information. "Anyway, no one can say that for certain. They're not even described as humans in these." All four papers he was holding at the time had the same author. Dr. Z. G. Vars. None of them had actually been published. These were the first papers he had found " unfinished reports that as far as he knew had never made it into the soup of scientific literature that comprised all of man's knowledge about the universe. No first name was given, but Glen had a guess. Sons were often named for their fathers. "How could they get away with that? Why would this paper even be written?" And besides, they weren't perfect papers. They hadn't even been edited for technical points yet. There were misspellings and grammar mistakes in all four. It didn't make sense for those four papers to exist.

Check the authors again. Who else was involved?

Glen sighed. "R. Birtheright, R. Walden, and C. Plean. On all four papers. Same guys, same research. That's how things usually go."

I just... I don't like those names. Something's wrong with them. There's a... I don't know, Glen, it feels like a motivation. I'm sorry I can't understand it. His dark, sibilant voice was frustrated and depressed. More powerful psychic pokemon could sometimes detect residues of thought and feeling on artifacts and items with strong ties to the original owner.

"Psh, as though this could possibly be your fault. I still have the feeling I'm just being paranoid sometimes, you know?"

Yeah.

They continued searching through those papers and more, trying to find another clue. Dittos frozen into vaporeon-shaped molds with, as usual, eevee reproductive cells mixed in them. Glaceon eyes used to amplify lasers. Clefairies subjected to voltages considered unsafe for everything but jolteons. Why? Why would you do that to a pokemon? And why only normal pokemon? Most studies were involved in ether and figuring out how it worked, if they weren't working with genetics. It was the hot topic of the time. Normal pokemon don't have a lot of ether to speak of; it's not in their nature unless they're up to learning energy attacks, and most aren't. Bad things happen if they're forced to - a pidgey with hyper beam will kill itself trying to use it. That was also in the literature he had collected, just in case it had a connection.

Something suddenly picked at Glen's brain. "I think... I think I have it..." Was it something Zach had said? Something about normal pokemon and their ether. He could feel that there was finally new information, or a new connection that he could make. Something...

Arousal? Allanon suddenly said, and looked behind them.

Glen frowned. "Maybe, but that's not what I was thinking. An aroused state might induce..."

No, idiot. Get us back over there. I think that stupid mouse thinks it's mating season.

The human's eyes went wide. "After a day? Damn it." Glen shoved the papers in his back without a moment's hesitation, picked up it and Allanon, and started running back.

Freakin' ADD even when he's 'courting.' I shouldn't have made you resuscitate him in that warehouse; I guess he was imprinted, or something. Here. They were suddenly back at the camp.

"Thanks." The human set him down and crouched low to the ground. His sensitive ears picked out where Zach was pretty quickly, and he turned without making a sound. The moonlight and starlight effervescing through the trees in the sparse woods they had come upon revealed a surprisingly and remarkably peaceful scene. Syn was on top of Zach, kissing him, clearly aroused. The boy seemed to have gotten involved of his own accord, although it was hard to tell, because his eyes were closed and he was on his back. All of his clothes were on, so at least nothing totally untoward had happened. Ambrosia, of course, was sleeping peacefully, not ten feet from them. He was hard to wake up.

Glen shook his head and sighed. "Boys!" he whispered frustratedly.

The abra shot him a mental, sideways glance. It's worse than that. If Zach is... *ahem* involved in this, then...

"Puberty," he breathed. "He might not be..." He turned to Allanon. "Is there any way you can check?" Glen wanted so badly for Zach to be subject forty-six A. If he was, then Glen had control of the greatest specimen science could produce, and the most controversial. Why that subject existed was not fun to speculate upon, but he had to exist somewhere, even if the paper insisted he was an eevee. If Zach was aroused, though, then the only thing that could in any way be construed as evidence of his identity was invalidated by the onset of puberty. Trace follicular activation would no longer be an indication that he was turning into... Glen didn't want to think about how far it might go.

He looked back at the two. They weren't aware the rest of the world existed. Syn had been trying to get more than what Glen had given him for two years, and Glen guessed that he had seen his opportunity in the boy. Frickin' horny animal. If he startled them, Syn could end up shocking the boy and possibly frying his brain. Then again, if Zach's ether really was accessible, it might not be a problem, but Glen wasn't quite willing to take that risk.

Al shook his head. They're too close together for me to tell. I can tell you about how you feel about it, though... He sent across a smirk. Pervert.

Glen's cheeks flushed. "It's a natural reaction; none of us have had an opportunity to have a normal relationship in years."

The abra laughed in his odd, dark voice. It was soothing, as it always was. Voyeur.

"Oh, put a sock in it. And yes, I do mean your brain." He sat down against a tree to watch and make sure it didn't go any further. The raichu was very clearly aroused, and Zach was blessedly unaware of it, as far as the two observers could tell. The animal was suckling gently on the human's tongue while Zach's arms curled around the mouse's smaller body and scratched his back. Why the kid was okay with it, Glen wasn't quite sure, but if it gave him a moment of comfort in all the strangeness he had been thrust into, Glen wasn't about to take it away. The chu was very softly, slowly humping the boy's stomach, but it could just as easily have been the boy's heavy strokes on his back as they kissed one another. Besides, Zach wouldn't have even known what humping was - he wasn't exactly going to be distressed.

Glen was irked that there was no good way to determine whether Zach was aroused. It mattered, and he wanted to be absolutely certain. As in everything in science, a single contradictory instance can dissolve an entire theory. He shook his head angrily and smoothed his hair. "Al, I think I'm gonna get some sleep. When they're done, would you mind reminding Syn that he has a job?"

Sure. Glen settled down against the trunk and closed his eyes, pulling his hat low over his eyes, as usual, and laying a hand near his bag. Pervert.

He smirked. "Shut up."

The revelation had left him.

The elfin face in the bushes nearby grinned. Idiot shouldn't have used that flashlight. Morning would bring sweet victory.