Chương 67

The sea changed color beyond Route 20's western marker buoys. Vermilion's harbor water had been green-grey beneath industry and rain. Beyond the Seafoam channels, the current deepened to an almost metallic blue. Black grains drifted through it where Cinnabar's volcanic beaches surrendered themselves one wave at a time. Rine watched the island grow from the Peregrine's bow. The version he remembered had been smaller than this. A grid of paths. A laboratory. A Gym with locked doors.

A burned mansion full of switches, burglars, wild Poison-types, and journals positioned for a child to discover the history of an engineered god. Reality rose from the sea in layers. The volcano occupied the western half of the island, its upper slopes red-brown beneath sparse vegetation. White steam escaped along terraces carved into the lower rock. The town spread east of the caldera behind old sea walls, its buildings made from black stone and pale mortar.

Glass-roofed greenhouses shone between residential blocks. A lighthouse stood above the southern harbor with a Charizard-shaped weather vane turning in the wind. Nothing fit inside a game map. Veyra stood beside him in an insulated travel harness. Doctor Vale had cleared her for walking, tracking, and one controlled defensive engagement. Electrical techniques remained prohibited for forty-eight hours.

The deck crossing aboard the Cold Current had strained her pathways without reopening the damage, which counted as both success and warning. Morrow floated beneath an ultraviolet recovery canopy secured to the rail. He hated the tether and had decorated it with an illusion of chains heavy enough to restrain a legendary Pokémon.

"You agreed to remain within three meters," Rine reminded him. Morrow added a tiny suffering version of himself wasting away beneath the sun.

"Ghost-type stability does not improve through melodrama." Lyra looked up from the evidence tablet in her hands.

"That claim is unsupported by observation." Morrow bowed to her. The exchange lasted only seconds. Rine preserved it anyway. Team Rocket had trained him to remember routes, faces, and weaknesses. He was learning to remember moments no enemy could use. The Peregrine entered Cinnabar Harbor under escort from two Fire-type rescue launches. A pair of Magmar stood near their boilers, feeding carefully measured heat into brass systems while Water-type crews cooled the outer housings.

On the breakwater, three Growlithe inspected arriving cargo beside customs officers wearing ash-grey masks around their necks. The island smelled of salt, sulfur, hot metal, and flowering herbs from the greenhouses. Its harbor sounded alive in ways the ruined mansion of Rine's memory never had. A Lapras ferry announced departure with a low musical call. Fishers argued over net permits while Tentacool bells chimed beneath the docks.

Near the customs shed, an elderly woman sold steamed buns to night-shift workers finishing their day at nine in the morning. Her Slugma warmed the serving stone and received a berry each time a customer remembered to say thank you. No location existed only for a protagonist to arrive. Cinnabar had breakfasts, grudges, school bells, and people whose lives would continue whether Rine solved anything beneath their feet. Blaine waited at the end of the secured pier.

He wore a white coat open over a red shirt, dark trousers, and shoes thick enough to satisfy his own warning about volcanic glass. His bald head reflected the morning light. A white moustache covered most of his mouth, and smoked lenses concealed his eyes. Magmar stood behind him. The Pokémon's body gave off enough heat to distort the harbor buildings, yet a wild Pidgey had chosen the warm stone near his feet for a nap. Identify opened before Rine consciously called it.

Blaine Cinnabar Gym Leader / Civic Thermal Authority Additional information unavailable Magmar — Male Level: Information unavailable Ability: Flame Body Additional information unavailable Rine closed the display.

"You examine people quickly," Blaine said.

"Occupational damage."

"Occupations can be changed. Habits require work." Mara presented the League warrant and joint-operation authority. Blaine read every page instead of accepting the seals.

"The Thermal Annex is contained," he said.

"Contained does not mean understood. Two Rangers suffered gas exposure after opening a service passage. One Muk occupied the waste system and objected to eviction by dissolving a support rail."

"Any Rocket personnel?" Mara asked.

"None found. Several were present recently."

"CR-17?"

"Not found." Blaine returned the documents.

"Your armored personnel may proceed to the annex. Frostfang and his partners come with me." Mara did not move.

"Reason?"

"Because the boy knows a version of my history he has never lived, and I will not let him carry it beneath my city before learning which ground is real." Stolen story; please report. Lyra's psychic pressure sharpened.

"Sabrina informed you," Rine said.

"Sabrina asked whether I preferred warning or surprise. I have survived both. Warning usually damages fewer walls." Mara gave Rine a communication bead and an instruction to remain in public areas unless the operational plan changed. Then she continued toward the annex with Iron Talon. Blaine led the others into town. Cinnabar had learned to build around danger instead of pretending danger could be removed. Blue evacuation lines ran through every street toward high ground.

Public fountains doubled as fire-suppression reservoirs. Geothermal pipes passed beneath raised walkways marked with temperature symbols that even young children could understand. At a school courtyard, students practiced an eruption drill beside their Pokémon. A teacher checked names while a Graveler rolled supply barrels uphill. No one screamed. No one treated preparedness as proof disaster was inevitable. Rine slowed.

"Something surprising?" Blaine asked.

"The children know where to go."

"They also know why." The orphanage had taught evacuation routes only to caretakers. Children who knew exits might use them before authorized. Veyra pressed against Rine's leg, reading the memory through aura. They passed the Cinnabar Laboratory, a modern crescent of white ceramic and black glass built near the harbor. Fossil-revival researchers worked behind public observation windows. Inside one chamber, technicians adjusted mineral solution around an Old Amber while a Chansey monitored the equipment.

A boy stood with both palms against the glass, waiting to see whether something ancient would breathe again. Rine felt his own excitement answer. He knew the species likely held inside that amber. He knew Rock and Flying, Pressure, a base stat total once reduced to numbers. None of that equaled watching a heartbeat appear after millions of years. Blaine noticed where he looked.

"The public gallery closes at six."

"We are here for the annex."

"That was not an answer." Rine walked on. Morrow projected an Aerodactyl carrying Rine away by the shoulders.

"Six," Lyra said.

"We can spare an hour if the operation permits." The ordinary possibility settled between them. Rine did not promise. He also did not dismiss it. The Cinnabar Gym occupied a fortified thermal station built into the lower volcano. No decorative flames marked the entrance. Its sign displayed the Volcano Badge beside a list of current heat advisories. Challengers waited beneath a shaded colonnade with Water-type supplies, burn kits, and written examinations balanced on their knees.

One question appeared on the nearest screen: Your opponent's Fire-type begins venting heat beyond the marked safety threshold. What ends first: the round, the match, or your responsibility? Explain. Rine read it twice.

"No riddles?" he asked. Blaine's moustache moved.

"Good questions become riddles when people care more about clever answers than useful ones." He continued past the Gym toward the western slope. The old mansion stood beyond a fence of black steel. Seventeen years had not erased it. Fire had removed the roof and gutted the upper floors, leaving scorched walls around a central skeleton of support beams. Vines grew through broken windows on the seaward side.

Wild Grimer warning signs hung along the boundary, and League restoration tags marked sections stabilized for historical study. The building Rine remembered as a dungeon had been someone's workplace, home, and grave. Names covered a memorial wall near the gate. Thirty-two confirmed dead. Eleven missing. Seven unidentified Pokémon recovered alive. Blaine removed his smoked glasses. His eyes were pale blue and damaged around the edges by old heat exposure.

"Tell me what your stories claimed," he said. Rine looked at the ruin rather than the Gym Leader.

"Researchers obtained genetic material from Mew. They attempted to create a stronger Pokémon. The result was Mewtwo. It became too powerful to control and escaped. The mansion contained journals describing the work."

"And me?"

"Your involvement changed. In the games, the mansion and laboratory existed near your Gym, but the exact relationship was unclear. Other versions made you one of the scientists or connected you directly to Mewtwo."

"Do you believe I created it?"

"I believe you brought me here before the warrant team let me underground." Blaine considered him.

"Better than answering the question you wanted me to ask." He unlocked the gate. Lyra glanced at Rine.

"Public area?"

"Memorial path is open by appointment," Blaine said.

"Today, I am the appointment." Magmar entered first. His body illuminated the broken hall without producing flame. Veyra followed at a careful distance, fascinated by the control required to contain so much heat within bare skin. The memorial path ended at a viewing platform above the former central laboratory. Below, melted structural glass formed a black basin. Three deep grooves marked the far wall.

They resembled claw strikes until perspective revealed that each groove ran through concrete, rebar, and stone without widening. Rine used Identify. Material: fused volcanic concrete / laboratory glass Damage age: 17 years, 3 months Primary thermal exposure: 1, 480–1, 760°C Pre-thermal structural failure: high-energy directed force Source: unknown"The wall broke before it burned," Rine said.

"Yes."

"Psychic force?" Lyra asked. She extended perception no farther than the platform. Alakazam-level barriers had once protected the room; traces remained as pressure differences along the stone.

"Something hit them from inside," she said.

"The pattern is too concentrated for an explosion." Blaine replaced his glasses.

"I was a junior thermal researcher," he said.

"I maintained environmental systems and knew almost nothing about the genetic work below my clearance. On the night of the fire, I helped pull nine people and fourteen Pokémon from this building. Magmar was a Magby. He entered the smoke six times." Magmar looked down into the basin. The sleeping Pidgey from the harbor had followed them and now rested on a warm beam near his shoulder.

"Did you see Mewtwo?" Rine asked.

"I saw a white shape through containment glass. I felt every person in the room become afraid at once. Then I woke outside with blood in my ears and half the building burning." Not confirmation. Not denial. A witness describing the edge of something too large for certainty.

"Why was the official cause a Rapidash oxygen-line accident?" Lyra asked.

"Because the people writing the report were paid, threatened, or convinced the truth would produce another attempt."

"By Giovanni?" Blaine faced the ruined room.

"His money reached the project. Whether his hand reached the final chamber is what your evidence must prove." Rine thought of Giovanni's Persian, Viridian Gym, Silph, and every version of the man rendered simple enough to defeat before the credits. This Giovanni had spent decades building distance between his name and his decisions. The communication bead at Rine's ear activated. Mara's voice arrived through static.

"Freight lift opened. We found a lower landing and recent biological residue. Morrow may recognize it." They left the mansion beneath afternoon cloud. On the road to the annex, Lyra walked beside Rine while Blaine and Magmar moved ahead.

"You believed him," she said.

"I believe he remembers what he said."

"That is not the same thing."

"No." She touched the back of his hand with two fingers. A question rather than a claim. Rine turned his palm upward. Their hands remained together for the length of one city block. The Cinnabar Thermal Annex had been built against the volcano's eastern foundation. Steam towers rose above a low industrial structure surrounded by League barriers. Rangers in respirators guarded the open freight lift. Morrow approached the lower landing. He inhaled despite possessing no lungs. His body recoiled.

Violet residue clung to the lift track, nearly invisible beneath machine oil and ash. Identify separated its components. Synthetic poison substrate Spectral-binding salts Cursed Smog stabilizer — formula family 7-C Associated researcher: Dr. Soren Pell Morrow's red eyes opened wider. The scientist who had treated him as defective property had reached Cinnabar before them. Below the lift, something struck metal in the dark. Once. Then again. Not a machine rhythm. A living thing asking whether anyone was listening.