The Counterfeit Badge - Chapt. 03

THE COUNTERFEIT BADGE

Chapt. 3

      The next morning Mike asked for directions to the Lab and learned that Professor Rowan had apparently retired and that his top researcher, Professor Salvia, was now running the lab. He hoped she had at least one strong Pokémon that could help him. He didn’t have time to raise a new one.

      He stepped out of the Tavern into a misty, overcast morning. Perversely, this made him feel more chipper than the previous sunny day had. Mike pulled his hat down onto his brow and stuck his hands in the pockets of his long coat and walked up the cobbled street towards the Pokémon Lab. There were other folks about, hurrying to get where they were going and out of the damp morning. As he walked along the fog-shrouded street, he heard the crunch of footsteps following him. As he turned a corner, he glanced back and saw a figure huddled in a hooded sweat-shirt coming up the street. He stepped into the doorway of a shop and waited, the hooded figure came around the corner and Mike grabbed him by the arm and reared back a hard-knuckled fist. A frightened, freckled face gaped at him from the hood. “Rusty! What are you doing following me?”

      “I – I – I – uhm – I’m sorry M – M – M – muh – Mike! P-p-Please d – d – d – d – don’t h – h – hit me!”

      Mike lowered his fist and carefully let go of the red-haired boy. Rusty was shaking and could barely speak. He steadied him as he regained his balance. “I’m sorry, I’m not going to hit you. But why’re you following me?”

      “Wuh – well, I was going up to Jubilife City and Oreburgh and, um, well, I th – thought maybe we could travel together? I – I think y – you are a c – c – cop, aren’t you?” He was gasping for breath, and still shaking enough that he was having trouble standing.

      “First thing. Calm down, I’m not going to do anything to you and you’re not in trouble. Let’s sit down on that bench for a minute.” Mike waited while the boy caught his breath and his nervous trembling subsided. “So, what makes you think I’m a cop?”

      “Both my old m – man and my grandfather are c – cops. You remind me of them and some of the people they work with. The way you walk, I guess. I’m not sure.”

      “Okay. Did you tell anyone else?”

      “I told Adam and Donna that I thought you were. They didn’t believe me.”

      “Good. I’d just as soon that word did not get around. But, I’m afraid you can’t travel with me. I’m going to be going into some places where kids don’t really belong and I’ll be meeting up with some dangerous people. It just wouldn’t be safe for you.”

      “Buh – but, on TV the bad guys never expect the kids to be there and so the kids always …” He trailed off, seeing the look on Mike’s face.

      “Rusty, this isn’t TV. These people can and will really hurt you. They don’t care that you’re a kid, all they’d care about is that you’re in their way and they’d run you down. What would your dad tell you if you tried to go with him on a dangerous case?”

      “He’d send me home and tell me I was too young.” He looked down at his feet, feeling embarrassed. “I just thought … well, I’m out on an adventure. I was just hoping to help, to do the right thing.”

      “I can appreciate that, and it’s an admirable thought. But you’d better sit this one out. Go back down to the Pokémon Center and find a couple of other trainers you can travel with. I think you’ll find adventures enough and chances to help people out just doing that. I think you’re going to find that even that much of an adventure is nothing like they show on TV.”

      Mike stood up and Rusty did too. “You’re a good guy, Rusty. After you’ve travelled around some, if you still want to help folks out, talk to your dad about becoming a cop. I think you’ve got the heart for it.” He turned and headed up the foggy street towards the Rowan Pokémon Lab. Rusty turned and walked the other way. He felt better than he thought he would after being told he couldn’t help. That a seasoned Officer had told him he had the heart of a cop. He lifted his head and walked with a little more confidence.

      The Lab was a little more rustic on the outside than he expected, looking more like a large mountain lodge than a sleek research facility. But there was a double glass door at the front which slid open as he approached, letting him into a modern-looking interior. The reception area was clean and brightly lit. There was comfortable seating around the walls, a low table with pamphlets and Pokémon-related magazines, and a counter that extended half-way across the back of the room. Although things were bright and clean, the linoleum floor showed the wear of many years of coming and going. There were a couple of computers and a telephone behind the counter. Nobody was in the waiting area and nobody was behind the counter. There was a sign next to a button on the wall which read “ring bell for service”. Mike ignored it and walked through the double swinging door behind the counter.

      There were voices coming from a room at the end of a short hallway. As he quietly approached, he could hear a woman describing the attributes of starter Pokémon to a new trainer. He slipped in and leaned against the wall next to the door. The woman, with short black hair and wearing a white lab coat, and a boy about 10 or 12 years old, had their backs toward the door. The room was lined with stainless steel counters, glass and steel cabinets and several monitoring and treatment machines and computers. There were doors out of the room to both sides and a window at the back that looked out to a lawn and garden with a tall fence around it. The door to the left stood open revealing what appeared to be a nursery area. The other door was closed. The lab was set up to function as both a research facility as well as a treatment center along with the function of giving new trainers their first partners. The lab was clean and fairly orderly, though papers, books and other items told Mike that this was a place where people actually worked. He noticed a photo on the wall opposite from the door by which he stood. It was a photo of a gray-haired man with a mustache and long side-burns. Professor Rowan.

      Mike returned his gaze to the woman. She reminded him of a mountain road, tall with dangerous curves. He could see that she was a couple of inches taller than he was. Her dark hair was cut short to the top of her neck and swept forward with a bright green streak on the right side. She exuded an aura of strength and confidence, she knew Pokémon and she knew trainers, especially new ones. She was enjoying this very important first step for the young man she was helping. She was also being serious with him, explaining the fundamental differences between the three Pokémon on the table and the basics of how to care for them, but putting it all in terms that a young trainer would understand.

      The boy made his choice (the fire-type) and they turned towards the door, the woman gave a little gasp. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone else was here! You really should’ve rung the bell …”

      “My apologies,” he gave her a half-bow. “You’re Professor Salvia, right? I need to speak to you about a Pokémon when you’re done with this young man.”

      Professor Salvia eyed him somewhat dubiously. “Ohhh kay … I’ll be right back. Please, touch nothing till then.” She walked the boy to the front of the building and returned a few minutes later. She took note of the fact that Mike was still leaning against the wall in the same spot where she had left him. “You’re kind of old to be just starting your journey, aren’t you, Mr. … ?”

      “Kohler. Mike, please just call me Mike. And yes, as has been observed before, I am a little old for starting a journey.” He pulled out a battered, black wallet and flipped it open showing her his shield and I.D.

      Salvia took a step forward to look. “Pokémon World League? C.I. Branch, huh? Okay, I guess you’re not just starting out. You’re here about what happened up by Hearthome City?”

      “That’s right. And I need several things from you. First, I need information. What have you heard about what happened?”

      “Okay Mike. Let’s step into my office and sit down. I’ve got fresh coffee and we’ll talk.”

      Professor Salvia handed Mike a steaming cup, then settled into the chair behind her desk, Mike sat across from her.  “The first I heard about it was when an investigator from Hearthome City Police showed up here. They showed me a photo of a man who had been badly burned. They thought it might have been a wild Pokémon attack and wanted to know what kind. You know, which ones might have been capable of the damage that was done, that sort of thing. It took me a moment to get over the shock of what I was seeing, that’s for certain. I told them that no wild Pokémon was likely to have done that.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      “To begin with, in most cases, by the time a wild Pokémon gets to a level where it can do that kind of damage, it has matured … a lot. Pokémon are very intelligent creatures. They learn and mature in ways that are similar to humans. One which has evolved into its final form in the wild has experienced many years of living and battling. And one thing they learn is to stay away from people. But they seem to also know that people, even with all of our strengths, knowledge and technology, are fairly fragile creatures. A fully evolved wild Pokémon has learned how to control its attacks so as to not kill, or even seriously injure other Pokémon, or a human. You see, wild Pokémon rarely battle each other to the point where one of them faints, you usually only see that when they’re battling for their trainers. You’re in Law Enforcement, how many times have you heard of a wild Pokémon killing a person? ‘A couple of times’? That’s because it is an extremely rare event. We have documentation here at the lab of three such cases in Sinnoh in the last hundred years. Two of those were Gyarados that had been injured and attacked the boats that had hit them, the third was a sick Rhydon that basically collapsed onto a trainer trying to catch it. It is such a rare event, that we can feel safe allowing ten year old kids to take Pokémon and journey around the region as part of their coming of age.”

      “What did the investigator from Hearthome City think when you told him all of this?”

      Mike watched as a wry smile crossed Salvia’s face. “She definitely did not like my answer. Not a bit. She kept trying to get me to say that it was possible. I told her that if a ‘mon did this to a person, it was most likely at the direction of another human. But she didn’t seem to want to hear my explanations. In the end, as a scientist, I had to admit that it was a slight possibility, though highly unlikely.” Professor Salvia looked up at him and asked, “I suppose that answer doesn’t please you either, does it? The Police are trying to pin this on some rogue, wild Pokémon, aren’t they?”

      He looked down at his coffee for a moment, thinking over how much to tell her. “What did you think of the burn pattern in the grass around the body?”

      Her blue eyes widened in surprise. “What burn patterns? The photo the Hearthome detective showed me was of a body on a table. It looked like it was in a hospital. I never saw the area where the body was found.”

      Mike opened his satchel and pulled out two photographs of the body when it was still on the ground. “I’m sorry to ask you to look at it again, but here is what I’m talking about.”

      Her hand trembled as she took the photos, but she got control of herself as she examined them with a critical eye. He thought again about how strong she was. Some people might see her as cold, but he had seen that tremor in her hand and watched as she mastered it. The emotions were there, but she kept them in check when she needed to. His respect for this scientist went up several notches.

      Salvia handed the photos back to him and quickly wiped her eyes as they brimmed up a little. “I’m sorry. Not very professional of me to cry, is it?”

      Mike took the pictures back, “if you weren’t moved by this, I would have serious doubts about you. You’re a good person, and good people don’t have to see things like this very often.”

      She smiled over at him, “thanks.” She turned serious again. “Okay, those burns around the body look like they could be from a Pokémon’s fire attack. You probably already thought of a ‘flamethrower’ attack. It’s a pretty common one; almost all fire-types learn it at some point. But it’s also available as a TM. And it’s fairly powerful. A high-level Pokémon using flamethrower could do that. But another possibility is will-o-wisp. It could spread out in a pattern similar to this, and it would continue burning for a while, so it could do that kind of damage. Solar beam might cause burns similar to what he has, though I wouldn’t think we’d see the grass burned around the body as much, it’s more precise. But look Mike, the ground is burned around the body like this because he was already on the ground.”

      Mike studied this Pokémon Professor for a moment, judging how far he could trust her. Her frank eyes looked into his, asking for explanations. She knew it wasn’t a wild ‘mon that did this and was hoping that the hardened detective sitting across from her would believe it too. “Actually, he was already dead. I think someone was trying to make it look like a Pokémon had done this to try to cover up what had really happened.”

      She nodded. “Now that makes much more sense than what your Hearthome colleague wanted me to believe.”

      “What do you know about counterfeit gym badges being handed out to trainers?”

      “Not a lot. I had started hearing about some fly-by-night gyms popping up here and there, with people claiming that the real gym was closed for one reason or another. They trick trainers into paying them money, give them a cursory battle and hand over a fake gym badge. I guess the badges look pretty good, but don’t hold up to close scrutiny and of course, they don’t have the electronics. Trainers get taken for several hundred or a few thousand PokéYen, and then are told to go back to the real gym once the fake is discovered. First I had heard of it was, oh, two or three months ago. Though, I’m only hearing it from trainers coming back through here.”

      “So, neither the Sinnoh League, nor the police are saying anything about them? They’re not warning people, warning trainers?”

      Salvia thought about that and said, “Well, now that you ask, no, they’re not. And that is a little strange. There hasn’t been any official word about it at all. I’ve been telling new trainers, like that boy that was here earlier, basically telling them to make sure they go to legitimate League-sanctioned gyms. Oh, there have always been a handful of people, here and there, who think they can set up and run a new gym. Most of them are up-front about what they’re doing because they want to get sanctioned when they prove themselves. But, even if they give out badges, they’re honest about them not being fully sanctioned badges. The few like that that I’ve seen have been made out of copper or bronze, with no gemstones, just some nice etching or metal-work.”

      She paused, thinking. “One other thing about the fake gyms giving out those fake badges … the Pokémon they use are usually pretty weak. At least that’s what it sounds like. Every trainer I’ve talked to that has been taken in by them has commented on how easy their battles were. Mike, I don’t think that any of the ones I’ve heard about have a ‘mon that could burn a man to a crisp. I don’t know, do you think the counterfeits are connected to this murder?”

      Mike shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. You’ve confirmed my thoughts on these burns though. Thank you. Now, I need one more thing. I need a partner going into this.” He again saw surprise in her eyes as she started to shake her head and he quickly said “No, no. Not you! I’m sorry. I need to get a Pokémon.” Her surprise and denial were quickly replaced by relief.

      “Ah! Yes, I can help with that!” Salvia thought for a few moments, then gave Mike a fetching smile and she stood up. “I would think that, since you already know you’ll be facing a strong fire type, you’ll want to go with a water type, right?”

      “That’s what I was thinking, yes. Also, unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll have a lot of time for raising one from the usual starter level. I’m going to travel from here to Hearthome by foot, and that gives me only a short time to work with it.”

      “Do you care if it’s a female?”

      Mike looked the Professor in the eye and said, “I care if it’s strong and smart and can move fast. That’s what I need. Gender, even looks won’t count.”

      “Good. I’ve got one that is kind of a difficult case. It was a starter, a Piplup, that Professor Rowan gave a young man a few years ago. The boy was badly injured in an accident, he was in a coma for a long time, and unable to continue as a trainer. His family wanted his Pokémon to be brought back here so they could go to other strong trainers. His Piplup had evolved into Prinplup by then. She’s strong and smart, but she’s also been pretty down about losing her trainer. The few trainers that have tried her are put off by her somber mood and go with something more cheery. I think you two just might get along. Go out back and I’ll bring her out.”

      Mike stepped through the door that Professor Salvia had pointed to and found himself in the fenced in yard he’d seen before. The lawn was well kept, surrounded by various berry bushes and some shrubs with a tall privacy fence around it. He only had to wait about five minutes and she came out followed by a blue Pokémon. It was about two feet tall, bird-like, had webbed feet and flipper-like wings. The wings ended in hard, sharp points. Two hard ridges extended from either side of her beak and went up over her head. She walked with her head down, looking at the ground, uninterested in being outside. Mike looked up at Salvia and asked, “Does she have a name?”

      “Her name is Pearl.”

      Mike sat down in front of the Prinplup. “Okay Pearl, Professor Salvia tells me you’re smart, so let’s talk. She thinks that you and I might be able to work together. You seem to trust her, and I do to.” Pearl looked up at Mike, as though she were looking deeply into him, studying what kind of person he was. She nodded at him, waiting to see what he had to say.

      Professor Salvia watched Mike talking with the little Prinplup. She was surprised at how Mike spoke with the Pokémon as if she were an equal. He was talking with a potential partner, rather than a pet or a tool. She had rarely seen people interact in this way with Pokémon, at the moment she couldn’t remember any other regular trainer that did. Maybe some champion-level trainers. Most trainers talked at their Pokémon, giving orders, perhaps asking if they were okay to continue a battle, but not reasoning with them in this way. She was also rather amazed at herself for the feelings she suddenly seemed to be having towards this hard-bitten angular man. He was so very different from anyone else she knew.

      “So, here’s the deal,” Mike continued. ”I’m a detective and I have a job to do here in Sinnoh. I’ve got to try to find someone who did something very bad. They are dangerous and I need someone with me to help watch my back. I need a partner. And, unfortunately, we won’t have a lot of time for training, because we need to get to Hearthome City, so we’ll only have a couple of days or so to get to know one another. It will be dangerous and difficult, but you’ll have a chance to help me stop a very bad person. What do you say; do you want to take a chance on me? And, afterwards, if you and I don’t really click, I’ll bring you back here. It will be up to you.”

      Pearl studied Mike again. She certainly appeared to be smart, he thought. She was carefully weighing what Mike had said and was, again, looking into his heart. She stood there for perhaps a full minute, then reaching out her wing in a very human-like gesture, gave him a curt nod. Mike took the proffered wing and shook it once. Neither knew for certain how things would work out between them in the long run, but both of them felt they had made the right choice.

      Mike, Pearl and Professor Salvia walked back inside. “I’ve got to get going,” said Mike. “We still have half of the day to do a little training against some wild Pokémon. With luck we’ll be getting into Hearthome in two or three days.”

      Professor Salvia told him about some patches of grassland and forest between Sandgem, Jubilife City, Oreburgh and Hearthome where some higher-level wild Pokémon lived, so they could get in some good training. Then she reached into her lab coat pocket and pulled out a red and white colored ball and handed it to Mike, “This is Pearl’s Pokéball.” She looked over at Pearl and said “you don’t really like being in it much, do you?” Pearl shook her head.

      She asked Mike, “Do you have a Pokédex? I can update it with the data for Sinnoh.”

      He pulled out a battered, red-colored electronic device and showed it to her.

      “Geeze Mike, that thing is older than me … er. Well, you need a new one. Here, let me take that for a minute and I’ll transfer all your data into a new ‘dex. This one will have the information that we’ve gathered at the lab about Sinnoh region Pokémon as well as your existing data that I’ll transfer.” She plugged Mikes beat-up old Pokédex into one of the lab’s computers. She took a key ring out of her pocket and unlocked a cabinet under the counter and pulled out a new Pokédex. She plugged the new ‘dex into a second slot. The computer lit up and Professor Salvia typed a few commands, she hesitated a moment then with a little bit of a devious smile, typed a short line of text. After a few moments, there was a soft “ding” and she pulled out the new, bright orange Pokédex. She flipped it open and held it out to Mike “here, press your thumb onto this gray pad …” He did and the screen lit up with his photo and an electronic voice said; “This Pokedex belongs to Detective Mike Kohler. Attempted use by any unauthorized person may result in this unit self-destructing.”

      She grinned at Mike’s expression, “Don’t worry … there’s no actual explosives in the unit. Basically, if someone other than you activates it, it’ll give a 10-second countdown and then shut off. The ‘self-destruct’ thing is just something I’ve always wanted to put on one of these. Your old unit has been wiped, it’s junk now. The gray pad here on the new one is a DNA coder – you just touch it to unlock the unit. Now, here, enter a password on this screen; something you’ll remember. That’s just added security to keep someone from just holding your hand on it if you’re unconscious. This one is a little more sophisticated than your old one … I hope it helps.”

      She stepped over to a cabinet and pulled out a plastic bag. “Here’s some food for Pearl, my own recipe for water-type Pokémon. This should last you till you get to Hearthome City. The food they carry at the Poké Marts is good too, but I think mine is a bit better.”

      Mike took Pearl’s Pokéball and dropped it in a coat pocket, put the Pokédex in an inside pocket and took the bag. He looked over at Pearl and said, “Okay, we’ll only use the Pokéball when we really need to. And thank you again, Professor Salvia … for all of your help. And the coffee … you make good coffee.”

      She smiled at him, “My friends call me ‘Div’.” Seeing Mike’s slightly puzzled look, she added “It’s short for ‘Divinorum’. My mom was a mystic. She named me after a plant she favored to help with visions … she may have used it just a little too much.”

      Mike Grinned at her. “Thanks Div. I really do appreciate your help …”

      She stepped close to him and rested her hand on his chest, over his heart. “Please be careful Mike. Obviously, whoever these people are, they are frighteningly twisted. I’d kind of like to have you come back for a visit … in one piece. I don’t know why, but I really like you.”

       Mike pulled her to him and held her for a moment, looking into her eyes. He was rather pleased with having to look up just a little. Then he stepped back and said, “I’ll see you later Div,” then he and Pearl walked out the door.
~~~~~