Chương 69: 69-Aftershocks

"Yes sir, if the power for your home is still out by tomorrow morning disaster aid packages will be at the town center, the hospital, and this pokecenter. For now if you have a portable radio, tune it to the emergency frequency and try to avoid using your landline to prevent saturating the network, officials are working as quickly as they can." Amelia says before pressing the button to switch lines to another call.

"Hello– Yes ma'am I'm aware, if you or another human has been injured please hang up and dial 119. If a pokemon has been injured please keep them in their pokeball and– Thank you." She hangs up again, switches the line, and starts the process again as Tanya stands at the counter of the still illuminated pokecenter, a rarity as the quake cut power in the surrounding area.

The center isn't at full power, the generator isn't all that large and medical machinery is power hungry, so they only have lights and aircon at the ready right now. Meaning the pokecare machine and transfer machine is offline. But at least the pokecare machine is redundant as long as Tanya's here. Power flows through the 'mon, shimmering green as she shoves healing energy into a pair of pokeballs sitting on the counter before they flare purple and fly back into the hands of the person who placed them there.

"Next." She orders, reinforcing the command by telepathically gripping the human's clothes and guiding him to the side while pulling the next person forward. The line stretched across the room almost to the door, it'd been even worse when they'd finally gotten back to the center from the gym, the space appearing almost mobbed by people who had surrounded the space.

"Next." When they'd arrived it had been chaos, half the people weren't even looking for medical assistance, they were just alarmed and confused so they headed toward the center as they knew it's one of the organization hubs for disaster relief. One of the first things she'd learned fairly recently was the center's duties as an emergency response center.

In a time of disaster the location functions as a known rally point for the public, its normal function modified to function more as a pressure relief valve for the smaller problems that would otherwise clog the system, reducing strain on dedicated crisis response programs, essential for effective crisis management.

"Next." The Head Nurse isn't here right now, the instant Tanya and her partner arrived she'd put them in charge of the desk and ran off with an emergency kit under her arm without any further explanation.

"Next."

"Excuse me, Nurse Joy?" The next person says, ignoring Tanya as she looks at the clearly busy Joy, then makes an irritated expression at not receiving an immediate response.

"I said excuse me. I have a que–" Her voice cuts out with a wheeze as her clothes and bits of her skin flare purple and yank her to the side. Tanya knows this type, and she doesn't look like she has anything important to say, in the unlikely event she actually does she can say it outside the line.

"Next." Tanya says in a smooth monotone, pulling the next person forward, he's not holding any pokeballs, rather he's sporting some purpling bruises down both forearms. The majority of people who bring their pokeballs here also have some minor injury, which must also be healed, but he's breaking the understood rule that this is a center for pokemon firs–"Wh– I– How rude! I…"

The previous troublemaker starts, trailing off as Tanya spares her an irritated look while pulling the injured human close enough to press an arm against him and direct the free flowing power into his body.

"Next." She states, moving the now healed human to the side and dragging the next forward, keeping an eye on him as following her heal he seems slightly shaken. But if he's anything like all the others he'll be fine in under a minute.

Tanya hasn't seen Chansey, but she's most likely at the hospital helping staff there, and if the center is this swamped despite the patients it was made for being able to be kept in stasis for days at a time –even in near critical condition– she does not want to know what the hospitals look like right now. With mechanical efficiency, the 'mon works down the line, healing those who need it and slowly the line begins to shorten even as more people come in.

Thankfully after about an hour and a half it seems the worst of the wave crests and breaks, and the number of people slowly begin to decrease. She keeps working, energy flowing from her body in regular waves with every injured pokemon and human that comes to the front, but even as she works the people who seem to want to do nothing more than take up space continue to gather inside the building.

Most of them sit around watching the TV which had been set to the news, but some others simply stand around, talking with nearby people or just wait silently in a corner as if lost. Amelia keeps glancing at those ones with a worried expression, but Tanya doesn't share her concern. They look confused, perhaps slightly worried, they don't look like they'd seen the burnt out rubble of what was once their home, or like they're staring at the door hoping against hope for a familiar face to appear.

Hours pass, and the bulk of the loiterers slowly file out as things slow down and they get bored of being afraid of the earthquake, though not all of them. Thankfully, just as the sun is threatening to set and plunge the powerless city block into complete darkness, the streetlights click back on, bathing the outdoors in sodium arc orange and the return of power has the rest of the loiterers filing out into the twilight.

In the air the wail of emergency sirens echoing off the cliffsides this town sits between begin to quiet. The return of power and light also seems to indicate that the worst of the earthquake's effects have been triaged and handled. It's past midnight, well past when they would have changed over to the night shift, when the door finally opens to admit the Head Nurse again. Almost dragging herself inside, she gets to the nearest chair in the main room and drops with a crackle of joints.

She takes a few moments to take some breaths, then quickly adjusts her hair and uniform to hide her disheveled nature before looking at the front desk. She's impressively good at it.

"... Ok." She says after a sigh.

"Tell me what happened since I left." Amelia straightens up as her partner walks over toward the elder Joy, arm sparkling.

"Yes Ma'am. While Chansey handled the injured I operated the phone, giving instructions as described in emergency response plan ERP-E. I also rerouted emergency calls I deemed urgent to the priority hospital line, I did this eight times." She says, indicating the phone as healing sparkles begin to emit from the Head Nurse's skin.

"No one informed me of major structural damage or trapped individuals, no major injuries here, and the majority of new patients left three hours ago." The Head Nurse takes a moment to shake off the effects of Tanya's heal, rapidly stiffening then slowly intensing as the sparkles fade. She breathes a slow sigh.

"... Good. That's good." She mutters, then looks up at the TV, still broadcasting a late night broadcast of the quake.

"What's the news been saying?" The question has Amelia wince, then furrow her brow in the way she does when trying to remember something. Obviously she'd not been paying attention to the news. Well… Tanya clears her throat, looking to her partner.

"Intensity 5 upper, epicenter directly below Mt. Chimney, rail damage and minor landslides isolating this town until tomorrow at a minimum. The government has not called for evacuations." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. From what she can tell the lack of evacuations has the news broadcaster confused, but polite conduct did not allow them to say it out loud.

After Amelia relays the message to the other human, the Joy nods and slowly rolls her neck before looking back to the front desk as Amelia continues.

"... Did you go to the hospital Ma'am?" She asks, eyes lingering on the bottom of the Head Nurse's apron.

"You've got…" Both Tanya and the elder Joy look down to see a dull brownish red along the bottom hem of the garment. The Nurse pinches her apron and squints at the blood, then shakes her head.

"No. I joined the door to door wellness checks, someone fell down the stairs." She says neutrally. Amelia looks uncomfortable about the idea, but tries to hide it." Oh.

"She says quietly, abruptly looking away from the blood to something behind the desk."... Did– Did they–""He'll live." She interrupts, then slowly groans to her feet.

"Now. The mayor just dropped us out of a state of emergency so keeping you on call is illegal. Sign out, get some sleep, and come back tomorrow."

"But–" Amelia starts, but a stern look from the Head Nurse has her shutting her mouth and giving a quick nod.

"Yes Ma'am." As she starts signing out, Tanya looks at her partner, the pokecare machine, then feels internally to her still almost completely full reserves. She's not beholden to the same labor laws as Amelia, and technically even if she signs out as a student resident she doesn't need any kind of certification to work at a center, she'd just be relegated to an organic pokecare machine, and with the risk of power shutting off again it wouldn't–"You too." The Head Nurse states, glancing up at the 'mon.

"Chansey should be transferring over from the hospital any minute now." Just as she says that, the transfer machine gives a buzzing chime, signalling an incoming transfer and the elder Joy walks over to the machine. Pulling a familiar pokeball from her belt, she places it in the receptacle next to the keyboard and accepts the transfer. A few seconds later she removes the ball and pops it open, revealing a slightly exhausted looking Chansey who looks around the center calmly.

"Oh! Chansey. You're still here?" She says as her eyes land on Tanya, glancing out the doors behind her to the dark, then to Amelia as he pulls off her apron.

"You should– Oh, you are. I'll see you tomorrow." Tanya nods, and as Amelia walks past her toward the door she turns on the spot and marches after her. When they get outside, the Joy stops just beyond the door and looks up at the roof of the center.

"Hey! Uh… Swellow!" She says after a pause at the motionless lump of feathers standing on the roof.

"Swellow? Taillow?" She tries again to no response, after a minute she just grabs his ball from her belt and retrieves the sleeping 'mon. Tanya watches the ball get reclipped to the belt then turns her attention to the rest of the town as they continue on their way. The buildings don't look like they received major damage, though there is the occasional broken window but the shattered glass for almost all of them has already been cleared away.

These are commercial buildings, so minimal damage is to be expected, but as their path puts them through a small residential area the similar lack of damage proves that this place builds their buildings with appropriate earthquake safety measures in place. Good. Though she could have guessed that already with the well prepared disaster response plans.

Thankfully their hotel seems equally undamaged and soon enough –with a long exhale and compression that has Tanya feeling like the world is growing around her– they're inside the building. Unfortunately the hotel was not exempt from damage, there are some cracks in the plaster and all but one of the ornamental vases are gone. But the lights are still on, and soon enough they're back at their room.

As soon as the door closes, Tanya relaxes the slightly uncomfortable straining to keep at her reduced size and expands with a stretch as Amelia starts grumbling to herself.

"No one can tell us apart anyway, I could have stayed. She was tired. I could have helped." The 'mon slowly sits down on the corner of the floor she'd made up to be her sleeping area and watches her partner with half lidded eyes as she kicks off her work shoes. Personally she agrees that they'd be able to help. But…

"The law is the law. Even if you don't agree with it." She hums.

"It's never good to violate your half of the social contract, even with the best of intentions."" Yea…" The Joy grumbles as she grabs her sleeping clothes and marches off to the bathroom. A minute later Tanya hears the running water of a shower, and as the shower goes on the 'mon grabs Swellow's pokeball with telekinetic grip and carefully aims the ball to release the 'mon on his perch.

Mentally pressing the release button, she's satisfied to see him appear in a flash of white and only barely shift with a chirp before falling fully back to sleep. A few minutes later Amelia comes back out with a yawn, hair wet and an irritated expression on her face.

"... I really should have eaten something before brushing my teeth. And the water was cold." She mutters softly with a glance at Swellow. But despite her comment she doesn't stop from dropping into bed and throwing the covers over herself.

"... Goodnight Chansey."

"Goodnight." She answers quietly. But as the 'mon listens to Amelia's breathing slow, and as the dark quiet of the very early morning truly sets in, Tanya cannot sleep. Instead she watches, listening to the occasional sound of wailing sirens and the subdued noises of a wooden building settling after it had been disturbed by a quake.

—-- –_– —-- Walking down the darkened hallways of the volcano side bunker he'd spent almost two months of his life living inside, Austin glances at the long cracks on the concrete formed by the quake and the empty fluorescent light bulb sockets where they'd been knocked loose. When the quake happened he was in the lab, and it had rained shattered glass as the walls and ceiling cracked and rumbled. An earthquake they caused.

Austin pauses as he gets to an intersection, carefully peeks out to ensure he's not being watched, then continues. He should be asleep right now, everyone thinks he's asleep right now after the hours of chaos trying to get the central computer system working again to calculate the final adjustments needed to get this insane machine working. After a moment he comes to the door to the lab, one of the few doors with a code lock on it, and punches in his code before stepping inside.

Since he was hired onto this project and put as the head scientist they'd created something impossible, using cutting edge machinery, mathematics that exists in the fuzzy line between theoretical and practical, and a rock that should not exist they've created a way to do something his ancestors once attributed to some mythical impossibly strong pokemon. Never daring to believe, even in their fantasies, that they could do such a thing themselves.

Austin comes to a stop in front of the central computer's main terminal, black and white text indicating the health of the small array of computational and storage banks as it works through the last of the equations that will make this machine work. And it never will work. He'll make sure of it. Putting his hands on the keyboard, he taps out his username and password to get into the machine and gets to work, disabling the normal safeguards that prevent accidental deletions.

Because he's certain there is no other team beyond this bunker, and even if there is, the way this project has been managed gives the scientist no confidence that they would use the power of this machine properly, even if they do successfully manage to use it to create new land like they say they will. This entire project is going to crash and burn, and when it involves a volcano it becomes exceedingly necessary to avoid that.

Safeties disengaged, the scientist selects the culmination of innumerable sleepless nights and constant draining effort, hovers his finger over the delete key, and hesitates. They'll know it was him. He's not precisely sure what they'll do to him for this, but… They've brought in the full catalyst, they're installing it tomorrow morning and configuring the amplifier for a full scale firing tomorrow. This is his last chance. Austin takes a slow breath, then presses the delete key. And a message appears in the log.

'Error: insufficient permissions for this action.' The scientist blinks. Insufficient permissions? That doesn't make any sense, he built the architecture for this system, who would have– A hand grabs him by the shoulder.

"What are you doing?"