Mission Four: Rock?

  "The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family."

  -Lee Iacocco

  Rock 4.1: Hazard Pay

  Cuicatl

  February 26, 2020

  It’s 3:37 A.M and you’re not even close to getting back to sleep. Your nightmares are filled with the same crack that’s haunted you for a week now. Pixie trusted you enough to fight your pointless, stupid battle and she paid for it. What was going to happen if you won, anyway? He’d just give up the bird? The Thanksgiving War would have been won and not lost? The world would change? No. You let your anger get the best of you and you weren’t the one to pay the price.

  The professor told you she was expected to recover with only mild scarring. The nurse asked if you wanted to file an excessive force complaint like that was even an option. Complain about the government to the government and expect them to do anything about it. You’ve seen the stories about how Americans coddle their authority figures for doing worse things to humans. Complaining probably just would’ve got your visa taken away. There was, and is, nothing you can do but stay away for her own good.

  That’s all you can do for anybody at this point. Just tell Coco you lied to her and that her real mother’s somewhere else. Someone who can actually care for her instead of abusing her love to get her hurt. Then make it really clear to Noci that whatever she thinks she’s getting by following you isn’t worth the effort. Maybe your cousin is a wanted terrorist with a god at his side, but you’ve never met him and probably never will. You’re just a failure that takes and takes and takes and gives the world nothing in return.

  Lyra can be told off with the truth. Maybe she’ll kill you herself and save you the effort. Kekoa is stubborn. It’ll be harder to get him to leave without hurting him first. You haven’t told him the full truth about how fucked you are in the head. Maybe that will be enough. And then once everyone’s gone you can face your judgment without anyone else being broken up like you were over Ach.

  It’s the least you can do. Handle the damage on the way out.

  At some point you cry yourself to sleep and drown in the same dreams of the broken, damned, and dead.

  *

  Without the sunlight beating down on you the desert is almost cold. You won’t die of heatstroke at night. That doesn’t mean you’re safe. The desert seems to have woken up. Dozens of strange, meaningless cries tear through the air. Growls, shrieks of agony, something that sounds a little too much like a dishwasher. You keep as much of your team out as you can justify. The only thing you’ve found to drink is the dew. The only thing you could catch for food had this strange sandy texture in the meat.

  Everything here seems to be blazingly fast. Anything that senses the world by smell or hearing won’t know something’s attacking until it’s right on top of you. Those that rely on day vision have the same problem. The only thing really keeping you safe, even more than the three pokémon around you, is that everything here has seemed reluctant to get close. The one thing that did, the weird bug when you woke up, was afraid to touch you.

  The pokémon here seem to fear humans. That means there must be someone nearby to ask for help. And if there are humans here often enough to be considered a danger that must means there’s water somewhere. You just have to find it.

  *

  A phone call wakes you from fitful sleep. Miss Bell starts talking before you can even mumble out a greeting. “Can you get to the lobby—get dressed and get to the lobby—as soon as possible. I have a job.”

  “I, um, sure?” You roll out of bed and reach for your clothes. “I’ll be a sec?”

  “Thank you.” She hangs up. Serious job, sounds like. It’s enough to start tearing some of the brain fog away.

  “I’m coming with you,” Lyra says. Huh. She sounds tense, too. Something you don’t know about? You grab your cane and shuffle off to the bathroom to get dressed. Cold water on your face helps wake you up a little more. There’s still a dull ache in your muscles, but your brain is clearing up. Lyra holds her elbow out to your hand as soon as you step out. She’s done a good job of learning how to help you. Maybe better than Genesis ever did. You wonder if someday she’ll be disgusted that she ever touched you.

  You walk down the stairs following Lyra’s lead. Stairs are always difficult and you’re privately annoyed that the Center stuck you on the second floor. Not that you want to be rude about it. They were crowded. What were they supposed to do, kick someone else out? Not for you. You don’t deserve it.

  Miss Bell walks towards you the moment your feet settle on solid ground. The sound of stilettos on the floor has to be her. No one else wears those to a Pokémon Center. “Cuicatl, thank you for coming on short notice,” she says. Her voice is terse but professional. “I have a slight problem that needs resolving. The details are a little sensitive. Do you mind following me outside?”

  “Uh, sure?” You turn back to Lyra. “I think I’ll be fine from here. Thank you for taking me down.”

  “I’m coming,” she says. Quite adamantly. You’ve learned when she can be argued with and when she can’t, and her voice is saying that you can’t right now. “Just making sure you don’t get scammed.”

  Miss Bell at least tried to give you a starter and provide you with a thesis helper. You owe her. Even if she takes advantage of you here it balances out. But time is an issue and arguing would drain it. “Fine.”

  Miss Bell begins walking again, surprisingly quickly for someone in her footwear. “I don’t believe we’ve met, although it seems my reputation precedes me.”

  “Lyra Miura,” she answers. “You may have met my father, Jonathan Miura.”

  You still aren’t entirely sure what he does and Lyra never wants to talk about it. Whatever it is it seems to make a lot of money.

  “I’m familiar with him, yes. Please send your father my regards.”

  Lyra grunts instead of answering.

  Miss Bell opens a door in front of you and Lyra guides you through. As soon as the door is shut, Miss Bell’s tone shifts from the casual affect she’d had with Lyra to something a lot more rushed and serious. “We have a tyrantrum rampaging at a facility on an island off of Akala. I’ll give you forty thousand dollars if you can resolve it peacefully within a half hour, on top of ten thousand just for the attempt.”

  Your heart skips a beat. That’s the kind of money you’ll need to start getting anywhere. But just before you can answer Lyra cuts you off.

  “That’s insulting and you know it. Throwing herself at probable death for fifty grand? Bullshit. That tyrantrum is doing more damage in ten minutes, on top of whatever you’re suffering in PR blowback from this. She’ll take a quarter million, minimum. Double it if she succeeds.”

  Miss Bell scoffs before you can even begin to wrap your mind around those numbers. “Miss Miura, I don’t have the authorization to throw around that kind of money. Even if I did, we can resolve the matter on our own for less.”

  “Do it, then. Call down your CEO and his pet god and deal with it.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t an option,” Miss Bell answers. She’s irritated. You can practically feel the offer slipping away from you. “Fifty thousand for an attempt, double that for a success. Final offer. Reject it and I’m moving on to the next person on my list.”

  “Okay.” A few missions like that and Alice is within reach again. If you have to face down a rampaging tyrantrum so be it. They can’t be that much different from Coco, after all. And if you die, you die.

  “She’s bluffing, Cuicatl. Don’t—”

  “I’m sorry,” you tell her. Even though you aren’t. Better to get some than hold out and not get anything. “I need the money. When are we leaving, Miss Bell?”

  A presence fills the room as something’s psychic energy begins hitting your defenses, pushing and receding like waves against a beach. Lyra staggers back and swears. Loudly.

  “You can’t have that fucking thing in here! Do you know—”

  “Calm down. A minute’s exposure won’t do anything. My alakazam is here, Cuicatl. Ready to go?”

  “Yes.” You answer as quickly as possible. Best to get started as soon as possible. You didn’t ask who or what is near the tyrantrum, but if she’s willing to pay that much then there’s something on the line.

  “Good. Just wait a sec—"

  The world twists and lurches around you. Up is down, down is up, and there are no vibrations in the air, no echoes to sense the world with. Everything feels impossibly large and suffocatingly small at the same time. Reality spins and spins and spins and then there’s solid ground under you but the world is still spinning. You collapse to your hands and knees and retch. Even before you’re done you start to analyze the situation. There’s sun on your back and grass beneath you. Outside, then. And later in the day than you thought it was. In the middle distance, maybe a half kilometer away, there’s the sound of tearing metal and heavy steps. Miss Bell walks up to you with slow, uneven steps on the unpaved land. Probably should’ve changed her shoes before going to face down a dinosaur.

  “I’m fine,” you mutter. “You should stay back. They might take your alakazam as a threat.” They. What even is the gender of this thing? “You know if it’s male or female?”

  “Female,” she says. “She was sent to a game park on the mainland during the darkness. They were doing some veterinary tests today when she woke up and broke her ball. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “And you didn’t have anyone here to contain her?”

  “Our people who would usually do it are off the island. We’ve contacted Selene and Olivia.”

  Then they really don’t have anyone to stop it but you. You can hear the tyrantrum slam into a solid structure. Heavy materials groan and fall. “Two hundred thousand for the attempt, then. Double for success”

  She sighs. “One fifty, doubled if you succeed within five minutes.”

  “Deal.”

  Negotiating more could get people hurt and you’re about steady enough to move. You pull yourself up to your feet and start walking towards the tyrantrum. You want to send out Noci to help guide you but she’s still recovering from her battle with Hala and you don’t want to risk the tyrantrum attacking. For now you have to walk across the uneven ground on your own. You consider how to approach this. If this were any other dragon you’d know how, but Coco’s language isn’t exactly the same as upper draconic. Some of the nuance might be lost. Your gift can smooth the words out. It can’t for the body language. That’s more important than words for most pokémon.

  Something explodes. The tyrantrum makes a triumphant roar. You wonder if she’ll even be able to hear you when you try to talk. Might as well get started. You scream, shrill and vibrating, before lowering your voice into your best attempt at a purr. It’s messy and might be more of a growl if you were any bigger. You hope that she gets the message. The battle continues. You keep walking forward and scream again. This time the earth answers as a shockwave rockets through the ground, knocking you off balance again. Even a quarter kilometer or more away her attack is that strong.

  Should you send out Coco? Some dragons are cannibalistic. She also might assume you’re taking a hostage when you aren’t. And if things go south while she’s in her ball then at least you’re the only one paying for the mistake. You’re pretty sure pokéballs can’t be digested.

  The roar and purr combination doesn’t seem to be working. Ordinarily it means conditional surrender. A call to stop fighting and talk about what the victor wants. Maybe you’d need a deeper noise. You’ve read that tyrantrum communicate in growls deep and loud enough to travel through the earth and be interpreted kilometers away. You can’t really make any sound that would be deep to a dragon.

  Gunshots break out. They’re louder in person than you’d expected. Loud enough that it hurts. At least four are fired before they abruptly stop with the sound of snapping jaws. You stop moving. Probably too close now. If draconic isn’t catching her attention, you can always cheat.

  “Hey!” You shout in Nahuatl. You strain to press your gift into it so that it is heard and understood. “I want to talk.”

  The tyrantrum grunts and you can feel its steps as it turns around. A full grown tyrantrum can weigh nearly eight thousand kilograms. You cut off the thought there before more useless, terrifying trivia follows it. The footsteps come closer and closer until one is enough to knock you off balance all on its own. You can hear and feel and smell the bloody breath of a dragon beating down on you. Her full head follows her breath, coming within centimeters of your body and sniffing. Tyrantrum have a sense of smell more powerful than a stoutland’s. Oh, right. She can just smell Coco on you. If you’d had even a second to think things through you would’ve realized that.

  The dragon pushes its head into you, knocking you back onto your butt. Not good. Not the worst. She could’ve easily killed you if she’d wanted.

  You growl a traditional greeting in old draconic. A submissive greeting. What a fraxure would make to a hydreigon, or a zwelious to a haxorus. It’s not quite a plea for mercy, but it’s not not one.

  The tyrantrum snorts at that. Amusement. It’s what Coco does when she’s amused, anyway. Upper draconic is useful for letting dragons talk to each other, but every species also has their own habits and languages and rituals. Tyrantrum evolved entirely apart from all the others: they might as well be alien in some ways.

  “My daughter,” she growls. “You have my daughter.”

  Your breath dives back into the deepest parts of your lungs and your heart stills.

  Bloody moons and faded stars, this is how you die.

  “Yes,” you answer once your mind and body start working again. “Would you like to see her?”

  She hisses out a yes and her meaty breath blasts back into your face. You let out Coco and brace yourself for jaws to clamp down on you. They don’t. You hear Coco whine beside you and lower herself to the ground. Good. At least she has that instinct down. The tyrantrum moves her head and starts to sniff her daughter. She spends a lot more time examining her than you. It’s a little like what you and Kalani did with Pixie, making sure she was okay after being with someone not trusted. You ignore the stabbing guilt that comes up when you think of her.

  That makes you weirdly scared of something other than death. Maybe this is where Coco leaves you. And then you’re alone with a metang who has her own agenda and—

  And that’s it. That’s what you wanted. Why does it scare you now that it’s here?

  “What are you?” Coco asks.

  “Your mother,” the tyrantrum answers in a low rumble you feel more than hear. It’s probably meant to be endearing, but at your size it’s just threatening. A drop of liquid lands on your leg. Drool? Rain? Blood?

  “She’s my mother,” Coco says. You can’t tell if that saves you or seals your doom. It’s… really nice to hear either way. Even if it’s a lie that’s about to be ripped apart.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “I laid your egg,” she says. “I did not hatch it. I was raised by the small ones. I do not know how to hatch eggs.” She doesn’t mean literally. For dragons “hatching an egg” is the same as “raising a child.” Sometimes an injured dragon will turn her unhatched eggs over to a healthy one who can better protect them. You weren’t sure if tyrantrum would have that tradition. Turns out that they do.

  Coco is unnaturally still. You wonder how she’s processing that. Her mother not wanting her. The girl she thought was her mother lying to her. It could take a long time before she ever works that out. And the first step might be snapping your neck.

  She snorts and slams her tail into the ground. “I have two mothers! Do I have two fathers?”

  What…?

  …

  Her being fine with this never crossed your mind. You lied to her. She should hate you. Like everyone does. Like you do. Why is she happy about this?

  The tyrantrum snorts after a long pause. Maybe she’s as stunned as you are. “I suppose. I don’t know where my mate is, though. The small ones took him from me.”

  “Is that what grievance drives you?” you ask in upper draconic. Maybe that’s a bit too formal for her. You still don’t know how much of the language had developed sixty-five million years ago.

  “Yes,” she answers. “It is.”

  “I do not know where he is. I can learn. Would you like me to do it?”

  “Yes.”

  Coco speaks up as you pull out your phone. “Can I show you my teeth? I have very sharp teeth.”

  “Yes,” the tyrantrum grumbles. “Show them to me.”

  Masochist. Even with skin thick enough to take a bullet—wait.

  “Are you hurt?” you ask her. “I heard a fight earlier.”

  A low rumble shakes through the ground and seems to settle in your bones, as if every part of you is vibrating with it. What does that even mean? Your gift isn’t giving an explanation. Too far from speech. “I will be fine, small one. Oh, oh yes. You have very good teeth.” Her attention turns back to her daughter. You can just imagine Coco softly wagging her tail in delight, jaws wide open and latched around the tyrantrum’s leg. “And cold teeth, too. You take after your father.”

  Coco slams her tail into the ground. “Does Second Father have good teeth?”

  “Yes. I believe the small one was about to find out about him.”

  Right. You tell the phone to call Miss Bell. She answers on the first ring.

  “Any danger?” she asks. Your hand drifts towards the wet spot on your leg. Danger. No. That seems to have passed. Your heart rate has slowed again and for a moment there the world felt almost normal.

  “I’m fine. She wants to know where her mate is.”

  “Hang on. Let me check.” The line goes silent. Probably put you on mute. Not for long, though. “California. They got moved to different facilities during The Blackout. Haven’t shipped him back yet.”

  That was their problem. Moving a dragon and her mate to separate areas for over a month was a recipe for disaster, and you have no idea how anyone signed off on it. It’s hard to even blame the tyrantrum for any of this. The humans probably had warning enough.

  “I would get him back soon.”

  “I’ll look into it. Do you think she’d let herself be captured? We need to check for survivors.”

  “I’ll ask.” For the moment you set your phone down on your leg. The one that doesn’t have an unknown fluid on it. “They want to know if you will go into another ball.” You expect her to say no. You don’t want to make it sound like you want that. The tyrantrum growls, the snarl ripping through the air more than the ground. That’s probably a no, then.

  “She says no.”

  “Heard it loud and clear. Can you get her to move somewhere else?”

  That you might be able to do. “Can we go for a walk?” you ask the tyrantrum. “They would like it if you walked somewhere a little farther away.”

  “Yes.” The ground shifts as she raises herself up a little higher. You pick yourself up and start to move in a random direction. Miss Bell never said where she wanted you to go. Coco darts forward and raises up her back under your hand. Aw. She wants to guide you without being asked. Best girl. You don’t deserve her at all.

  “My name is Cuicatl Ichtaca. You can call me Little Green. It’s what my sister did.” Human names are hard for dragons and a literal translation of your name felt weird. Your mother was named Green. You are Little Green. That is a name that made more sense for ellas, and you liked having your own nickname. “What is your name?”

  “My mate calls me Earthshaker,” she says. “The small ones have another name. I cannot say it and I do not know what it means. Earthshaker walks lazily beside you, taking one step with every five of yours. But her steps are big enough to risk tripping you up with every impact. She takes a big step forward and you can hear and feel her turn around, facing back towards you. Her breathing gets closer to the ground, closer to you and Coco. “And what is your name, child?”

  “I disembowel things!” she says with pride. Which is technically the answer to her question, even if she won’t understand it.

  “That’s what her name means,” you add.

  “And have you disemboweled things?” Earthshaker asks.

  “Yup! A few fish and some small furry things.”

  Earthshaker snorts. “Then it is a good name.” The dragon picks herself back up and begins to move ahead with thunderous steps. You can distantly hear a radio sound off as people move in to check on the wreckage behind you. For now you keep a hand on Coco and keep walking.

  “We can come back to visit whenever we get a chance. Let you and Coco reconnect.” As soon as you say it you realize that it might’ve been a lie. Most humans don’t like being reminded how fragile they are. Any pokémon that kills humans, even if justified, might be put down. You bristle at the thought. Earthshaker did nothing wrong and Coco should be allowed to meet with her in the future. Yet you don’t want to ask Miss Bell about it now because she might lie. And if she doesn’t lie and tells you flat out that Earthshaker will be killed then she might rampage again. Justifiably. You would even join if you could.

  “I would like to see her again,” she says. “But I know how you small ones are. Scurrying around as if something matters at every moment of every day. And my daughter seems healthy. Come back when you slow yourself. I will be waiting.”

  Alice said the same sort of thing a few times. Fully grown dragons can afford to hunt once a week and rest in the meantime. Moving constantly, hunting for whatever it is humans hunt for, seems too much for them. Ellas pitied you for that. Never understood it when you insisted that you had to attend school and do laundry and make dinner and couldn’t just go off to the mountains at a moment’s notice.

  Sometimes ellas took you anyway. It always seemed to work out when you got back since no one was reckless enough to openly defy a hydreigon. Although little punishments would be slipped in for different things. Father would beat you for the quality of a dinner that would be fine on any other day. That sort of thing.

  “An…” There’s not a good word in Upper Draconic to describe your relationship with Miss Bell. Most dragons only submit to their mate, parents, and older siblings. She is none of those things. You don’t really want to explain employment to a dinosaur. “A nearby small one owes me favors. She can bring me here quickly when I want to.” You hate committing to more teleportation in the future, but Coco more than deserves it. What’s a little pain? And you can tell Miss Bell that this is to keep Earthshaker from rampaging again. That makes money sense, right? Assuming they don’t put her down. That might also makes money sense. “What kind of dragon is your mate?”

  “I do not know the name you would use,” she says. “He has wings and three heads. Does that help?”

  Hydreigon. Coco’s father is a hydreigon. You’d thought she was great before, but her parents are maybe the best paring of dragons ever.

  “I know them, yes. My sister is one.”

  Earthshaker snorts. “And how does that work?”

  “My mother also raised her from when she was small.” Single female pronouns. Upper draconic doesn’t have female plural. “My sister has very high standards for mates. You must be very powerful.”

  “I can hunt,” she says. Her attention shifts back to Coco and her many questions. Not quite as many as Noci would have, but still a lot. They end up playing some game where Coco tries to pounce at her mother’s head before she can lift it, Coco continuing to ask questions between leaps. Good. It doesn’t feel like a crisis anymore. You sit down and lean back on your hands. You still don’t know why Coco isn’t leaving. You’re glad she isn’t. Pixie and Noci have been taking up more of your time lately and you’ve been leaving her to Kekoa too much. You should fix that. Treat her like an actual daughter. You, um, you don’t quite know how to do that. Maybe ask her and Noci for input on where you go? Except VStar sort of just decides that. You already ask them about new team members. Budget things, maybe. Although a dinosaur and an alien robot might not be the best accountants.

  The phone starts to ring. You shift your weight so you can answer it.

  “Two things: We have a medical helicopter coming over. Can you get the tyrantrum to promise not to attack it? And we have a dragonite carrying over her mate’s ball right now. ETA of an hour.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  She’s almost confused why she wouldn’t be okay with the helicopter. You’re guessing she just doesn’t know that they can put guns on them. Or she knows and doesn’t care. It’s a long hour after that. You’d forgotten how much you’d missed the tropical sun. The adrenaline from the crisis fades and leaves you pleasantly empty. With every minute your back gets lower and lower to the ground until you eventually pass into peaceful sleep.

  *

  Even with deep breaths the teleportation still sends you to your knees. You gasp in as much air as you can while your fingers curl up, nails digging into your palm. You don’t vomit. It feels like your blood is on fire and your body is fading in and out of existence, but you don’t vomit. There’s that.

  “Sorry,” Miss Bell says. “I remember the first few times I tried it.” Something presses against your right hand. “Take this water. Drink it slowly. That should help.”

  As soon as the cap is unscrewed you tilt the bottle up and swallow as much as you can.

  “Slowly,” Miss Bell repeats. You slow your pace just a little in response. The world spins slower now. Maybe you could even stand. You’re not going to. “Thank you for your help today,” she says. “I’ll have the money into your account within a few days.”

  “Three hundred thousand,” you whisper between shallow breaths.

  “Yes. Three hundred thousand. That still leaves one question.” You hear her get up and walk somewhere on the hard floor. A chair is pulled out and then slid back forward. Are you in her office? She didn’t tell you where she was taking you. “There was a talonflame carrying a camera over the island. At least one of the local news teams got video. Probably video of you. The media is going to want to know why you were there and what you were doing.”

  She probably has a plan. It’s her job. You’d rather not have the attention, but that doesn’t seem to be a choice. “What would you do?”

  Miss Bell gently presses a plastic packet into your hands. “Gummies,” she says. “Eat them slowly when your stomach calms down.”

  “Thanks.”

  Your stomach definitely has not calmed down yet. You still clutch them tightly, if only to have something to hang onto.

  “If you’re fine with it I’ll tell the media that you can talk to dragons. We brought you in for that. It’s true, doesn’t reveal you’re a psychic, and lets you step up to say more if you want.” She pauses. “There is one complication, though. The media might recognize your rather distinctive hair. Then there’s a chance that you could end up as a minor celebrity of sorts. You could easily lie low and wait it out: the media has bigger stories to tell right now. Or you could embrace it. There might be money in that, and not just from me.”

  You don’t want to embrace it. You heard the news clip you did on the butterfree and your real, accented voice is grating. The more digital clips there are of your actual accent the more likely it is someone puts the pieces together back home and you get conscripted the second you step off the plane.

  Miss Bell must see your answer on your face. “Got it. I’ll handle things, then. Just don’t be surprised if a blogger or cameraman confronts you about it at some point.”

  You’d rather face down a tyrantrum, but sure. Fine. It’s still worth the money.

  “Next up is taxes. We do calculate those in-house for what you make from us, but if you make money from someone else, too, you’ll probably need to hire an accountant.”

  Taxes. Right. Damn it, not even the money you earned is what you bargained for. “How much will I have left?” you ask.

  “Um, probably three-quarters or so? I don’t know off the top of my head.”

  Three-quarters. Two-hundred and twenty-five thousand. That’s workable. Enough to buy back all the pokémon but Alice or make progress on ellas. You slowly pull open the packaging and pop a gummy in your mouth. The shape is weird. The taste is an almost plasticky thing that’s probably supposed to be bluk berries. You chew it anyway.

  “Have any of mom’s pokémon come up for sale?” Even just one would be a comfort.

  “I don’t think so. We have someone looking into it. A few heatmor and ferrothorn and a lot of conkeldurr and swanna have been sold in the major border or Mesoamerican markets but none were marketed as being from a pro trainer. Even if they’re past battling age they’d still be marketed like that for breeders.”

  If they weren’t auctioned then maybe your Father just sold them to a friend. He has contacts all over, but you should still be able to find them eventually. And if the owner knew their last trainer’s husband, he’s less likely to mistreat them. That’s good, in a way. Even if it means that you don’t have them here with you now.

  *

  Sometimes you swear you can feel people’s energy. The emotions and power boiling off of them even as they stand silent and still. You can feel Lyra’s now, furiously looming in the lobby as Miss Bell leaves. “What the hell,” she asks. “You let—” she cuts herself off and hisses. “Somewhere more private. Follow me.” She holds out her elbow to you, but you don’t get the sense that it’s an offer. More of a demand. You don’t get why she’s angry: everything went well and you got a lot of money. She doesn’t lead you up the stairs to your room. Or outside. Probably just to some empty room somewhere. Not being able to see anything is annoying right now.

  “Alright, now, why? You just risked your life for $100,000. That’s not nearly enough for that kind of work and you just ignored me and took it.”

  “Three hundred thousand,” you correct her.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I negotiated up later.”

  “That’s, ugh, fine. You still almost threw your life away for money. Stupid. You can’t spend any of it if you’re dead.” It still would have helped someone. Some of mom’s old pokémon. Or Kekoa. Or Father. How do you make a will? You’d rather it go to getting mom’s pokémon back. “Don’t do that again. You’re worth more than whatever she throws at you.”

  As if.

  Lyra sighs but doesn’t press it. “Second, she has an alakazam. How are you even sure you chose to do that and she didn’t choose for you?”

  You don’t want to have this conversation. Not now when you’re still a little bit outside of reality – because holy shit you have actual money now. You find yourself talking before you even really can think about what you want to say.

  “I’m a little PSI-sensitive. She couldn’t do that unless I let her.”

  Lyra’s energy instantly changes. Rage to fear. Maybe that’s better. “How much is ‘a little?’”

  “I could talk with Noci and use her to translate before she evolved. That’s pretty much it.”

  A lie. A small one. Enough that she’ll get off your back without killing you, hopefully. At least, hopefully she won’t kill you until you figure out how to make a will.

  “Oh,” she says. “I guess that makes sense.” Neither of you says anything. You won’t because the response is hers and you don’t quite know what she’s getting at. Sure, you could focus more on her surface thoughts, but that feels like the wrong thing to do now. “I almost envy you,” she finally says. “Being safe from psychics without having the temptation to become a monster.”

  That’s about as well as that could have gone. Good. You yawn fiercely. Time for a nap. Barely slept last night and this morning has been too much.

  Lyra sighs. “Alright. But I’m not done with this. We’re talking more later.”

  *

  “Hey, Cuicatl,” Kekoa calls out once you and Lyra make it back to the room. “You’re already a meme.”

  “I—what?” A joke? Miss Bell said you would get attention, but you didn’t think it would make you a joke.

  “Yeah. There’s a photo of you sleeping near the bloody tyrantrum. You, uh, okay here’s one. The tyrantrum is labeled ‘climate change’ and you’re labeled ‘the government.’ Or the tyrantrum is ‘my credit card debt’ and you’re labeled ‘me.’ The idea is that it’s someone ignoring something really scary nearby.”

  “She wasn’t that scary,” you protest. Not once you got her talking. She was just annoyed.

  “Girl, she killed at least eight people.”

  Oh. That’s not good. More likely she gets put down because some humans were stupid. You yawn again. Yeah, that’s really bad. But you’re swaying on your feet. Another nap would be nice. And hopefully this one won’t become an internet joke.

  *

  You can feel the stares on your back as you walk out of the building with Coco. You ignore them and no one approaches you. Probably has more to do with Coco than you since you’re, apparently, a joke now. It’s a pleasant walk to the beach under the warm Alolan sun. There still aren’t a whole lot of people back, either, so you manage to get some space to yourself when you reach the sand. You settle down and Coco digs in beside you.

  “Can you bury me,” she asks. “I want to be buried.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  It’s a little hard since you can’t see her, but you manage for a while. Then Noci finally flies by and lifts up a whole lot of sand with her mind to dump on Coco. The dinosaur squeals in delight and thrashes around in the sand. A lot of it hit your face and hair and you crawl backwards, shaking your head and spitting out any that got in your mouth. You’ll need a shower after this. A second shower for the day, since you had to wash the blood off your leg earlier. That one wasn’t at the Center—Miss Bell apparently has a private bathroom near her office—so at least you weren’t mooching off their water. Some Centers limit you to one shower a day. You don’t know if this is one, but you also don’t want to mess up and then find out.

  Once Coco digs herself out enough you decide it’s time to start the talk. You can’t give them a lot of choices, because you don’t have a lot of choices, but you can at least tell them why you’re asking them to fight. If it’s not good enough or they don’t want to after then they don’t have to. You’ll figure something out.

  It’s amazing what a lot of money can do for your confidence that you’ll figure something out. It was just words before, because you had no idea how you’d actually do it. Now, well, you still don’t really know. VStar won’t make that same mistake twice and missions don’t pay a whole lot. It still helps with some problems, like Coco’s diet. But the more problems you solve with the money you were given, the less is left to help Alice…

  You’ll need to figure out what’s most important to you when you can’t have everything, but just being able to have something is new and exciting and reassuring.

  “Alright, I guess I owe you more of my story.” Coco stills and swims over through the sand she’s still in to rest her head on your lap. Who knew that tyrunt could not only swim, but that their tail was powerful enough to move them along through the beach? Noci probably floats closer. Maybe she doesn’t. Her choice.

  “I, um, I have my own family. My mom died after I, after my egg hatched. And then I had a brother. He also died,” you whisper. Is anyone filming this? You ask Noci and she says no. That doesn’t mean no one is. Maybe she just can’t see it. No, you won’t tell them that you killed your brother. Not here and now. This is a good day. “My mom hatched some pokémon of my own. They’re my siblings. Your uncles and aunts, Coco. She swishes around her tail in the sand in happiness.

  Gods, you really, really don’t deserve her at all.

  “They, um, my dad sent them somewhere else. I’m battling and hunting pokémon now to try and get them back. That’s why I’m doing all of this. If you don’t want to help that’s fine. I’m not hunting for food, just,” you sigh and drop down to a whisper. “I’m not a good person. If you want to get out now, please do. If you want out later just tell me. I won’t do what I did with Pixie. I—I promise.”

  [UD_Cuicatl is not defective]

  Yeah. That whole rant where she threatened to blow herself up. You have no desire to get back into that with her.

  Coco pulls herself out of the sand and shakes herself off, sending chunks of it onto your legs and clothing and hair. Definitely need that shower now. “You’re hunting for family,” she says. “I will hunt with you. They’re my family, too.”

  Don’t. Deserve. Her.

  “Okay. I guess…” Yeah. They can help with this, if not the details of spending the money. “There are going to be choices. Which family to obtain first. What to spend the money we get from hunting on, like, things that help us now or that help get family back later. I’ll ask you about the choices when I need to make them. And when we get to new places, I’ll tell you what all is there. If you want to see something I’ll try to make it work. Okay?”

  Coco finishes shaking herself off and lays down, head on your lap. “Okay,” she says.

  [Affirmation]

  Maybe this could go okay. Maybe you won’t do to them what you did to Pixie. Maybe you can get family back and—and maybe you can keep going.

  What a difference a day can make.