Chapter 5 – Professor Rowan
The lab was quieter than I expected.
I stood in the entrance for a second after the door swung shut, getting my bearings. Long workbenches along both walls, covered in equipment and open notebooks and things I didn't have names for. Data scrolling across screens. Two researchers moving between benches without looking up. The air smelled clean and faintly chemical, and underneath that the warm particular smell of Pokémon in an enclosed space.
A Chimchar was sitting on the edge of one of the benches, watching me the moment I walked in.
I looked back at it. It tilted its head. I looked away first.
"You must be Ryan."
A young woman in a lab coat was crossing the room toward me, clipboard in hand. "Owen called ahead. The professor will be with you shortly." She gestured toward a row of chairs. "Wait here."
I sat.
The Chimchar kept watching me. I kept not looking at it.
The lab had a particular energy focused, unhurried, like everyone inside had enough to do and knew exactly what it was. On the nearest screen a map of Sinnoh's routes rotated slowly, data points scattered across it in different colors. I recognized the layout immediately. Sandgem in the south. Jubilife northwest. The routes connecting them like lines on something I'd looked at a hundred times from the other side of a screen.
Then a door opened at the far end and Rowan walked in.
He was older than I'd expected. Broader than his game sprite suggested, white hair, a face that had spent decades outside. He moved without hurrying, glanced at something on a bench as he passed it. When he looked up and saw me he didn't stop just kept walking.
He extended a hand. "Good to meet you, Ryan. I'm Rowan." He sat down across from me, leaning back slightly, forearms on his knees. "Owen's report was brief. Found on Route 201 last night, no ID, no Pokémon." He looked at me with the calm curiosity of someone who'd seen enough unusual things that one more didn't particularly surprise him. "How are you holding up?"
I blinked. I hadn't expected that to be the first question. "Fine. Better than last night."
He nodded. "Route 201 after dark with no Pokémon isn't a situation most people walk away from without a story." Said it without pressure, just as a fact. "You don't have to share it. But if there's something I should know something that might affect your registration or your safety it's better to say it now."
"I genuinely don't know how I got there," I said. "I know that's not a satisfying answer."
"It's an honest one." He studied me for a moment not suspiciously, more like turning something over in his mind. "Where are you from originally?"
I hesitated just long enough to be noticeable. "Far from here."
He accepted that with a small nod, filing it away rather than pressing. "No family to contact?"
"No."
"Alright." He stood. "Then let's get you sorted. ID, legal status, a place to start that's what we can do today." He turned toward the side room. "Follow me."
I followed.
I was halfway across the lab when I noticed Mara.
She was standing at a bench near the back wall, notebook open, talking quietly with one of the researchers. She must have come in through a different entrance. She glanced up as I passed just a flicker of eye contact, brief and unreadable and then looked back at her notebook without missing a beat.
I kept walking.
Rowan didn't seem to notice the exchange. Or if he did he didn't show it.
The side room was small and plain. Table, two chairs, one screen on the wall. Rowan set a paper down between us without preamble.
"Basic assessment. Standard for every new registration. Questions on types, moves, basic Pokémon behavior in the field." He sat. "Twenty minutes."
I looked at the paper.
Read through it once. Then again, slower, like I was thinking about it.
Question four: What type is super effective against Water?
Question fourteen: Name two moves a Fire type Pokémon cannot learn.
Question twenty-one: What is the primary difference between a Pokémon that has fainted and one that is injured?
I already knew every answer. Had known them for years. Some I could answer three different ways depending on context. I picked up the pen and kept my pace deliberate — read each question twice before writing anything.
This is it? Moving through question seven without slowing. This is what they give everyone?
I caught myself on question twelve my pen had already formed the full correct answer before I'd decided to write it. I looked at what I'd written, crossed out the last part, replaced it with something slightly less precise. Close enough to pass. Not close enough to raise questions.
Question nineteen I left half finished, like I'd second-guessed myself.
When I set the pen down Rowan collected the paper without comment. He turned the screen on.
"Practical component. I'll give you a scenario. Tell me what you'd do."
The screen showed a stretch of tall grass, a trainer at the edge of it, a silhouette of a Pokémon half-hidden between the stems.
"You're approaching a wild Pokémon you want to catch," Rowan said. "It hasn't seen you yet. You don't recognize the species. What do you do?"
I thought for exactly the right amount of time.
"Observe first. Watch how it moves, what it's doing, whether it's calm or agitated. Try to get a sense of its type from its appearance before I do anything." A pause. "Then approach from downwind. Let it notice me before I get too close so it's not startled."
"Why downwind?"
"Some Pokémon have strong senses of smell. If they catch your scent before they see you they might bolt or attack before you get the chance to do anything."
Rowan wrote something on the paper. Not much. Just something.
"Most trainers your age say throw a Pokéball," he said, without looking up.
I said nothing.
He set the pen down and looked at me not the easy look from the hallway. Something more direct. Like he'd just turned over a rock and found something he hadn't expected underneath.
He didn't ask about it. He moved on.
"Registration and your trainer ID are covered," he said, folding his hands on the table. "A starter Pokémon costs extra. Most trainers come prepared for that." He glanced at me. "I'm going to assume that's not your situation."
"No."
He nodded once, unsurprised. Reached into a folder, slid a single sheet across the table. "These are the Pokémon currently available through the lab for trainers who can't cover the standard cost. All healthy, all at a beginner level."
I looked at the list.
Shinx. Geodude. Zubat. Starly. Buizel.
Read through it carefully. The Shinx was the obvious choice Electric type, strong early, solid evolution line. I knew exactly what it became and exactly how to train it. The Buizel wasn't bad either. None of them were bad Pokémon.
I read the list a second time. good Pokémon, all of them, and none of them what I'd been waiting for since the moment I'd woken up in that forest with pine needles under my palms and something pulling at the back of my head that I couldn't explain.
I opened my mouth to ask for more time.
And then it hit me that same feeling from the path last night, faint and directionless, like pressure from a direction that didn't exist. Except stronger now. Much closer. Close enough that I forgot what I was about to say.
Rowan was watching me. "Is something wrong?"
I looked down at the list. Then slowly toward the door.