Chapter 9 – The Morning After
I was at Rowan's lab at half past seven.
Not because I'd planned to be early I just hadn't slept well. Not badly, just lightly, like some part of me was still keeping watch even when I didn't need it anymore. By seven I'd given up, gotten dressed, and gone to find breakfast at the small place near the lodge with its shutters open and a Bibarel sweeping the front step like it was the most important job in the world.
I stood outside the lab now with a paper cup of something that was close enough to tea if you didn't think about it too hard and waited.
Rowan opened the door at twenty past seven without looking surprised. "Come in."
Quieter than yesterday. One researcher at a bench, the Chimchar from before asleep on top of a cabinet with its tail flame low and steady. I followed Rowan to the side room and sat down.
He folded his hands on the table and looked at me. That look again like he was building something in his head and wasn't in any rush to finish it.
"I'll be direct," he said. "You scored higher on that assessment than anyone I've registered in the last three years. Not slightly. Significantly." A pause. "The question about approaching downwind wasn't in any material I've published. The way you handled the practical scenario wasn't guesswork." He looked at me. "You know Pokémon. Not the way someone who grew up around them knows them. Something different."
I wrapped both hands around my cup. "Yeah," I said. "I do."
He waited. He was good at that.
"I know a lot about Pokémon," I said. "Types, moves, behavior, how they think, what they respond to. Evolutions, habitats, things most people here probably haven't heard of." I paused. "I can't fully explain where it comes from. But it's real and it's not going away and I'd rather you knew upfront than figured it out later and wondered why I hadn't said anything."
"And you're telling me this because?"
"Because you're going to notice anyway." I looked at him. "And because if I come to you with something later something weird I want you to already know I'm not making it up."
He was quiet for a moment. Not surprised. More like settled. Like something had just confirmed itself. "Where does the knowledge come from?"
"That part I'm keeping to myself." I looked at my cup. "Not because I don't trust you. But the answer is complicated and I genuinely don't think it would make things easier for either of us."
He accepted that with a small nod. "Fair enough." He leaned back. "What I will tell you is that Sinnoh isn't a simple region right now. Things are moving in the background that most trainers your age don't see. The fact that you arrived the way you did, with the knowledge you have " He stopped. "You're going to attract attention. From people you'd want to and from people you wouldn't."
"Are you one of the ones I'd want?"
"I like to think so." He stood. "Come to me if something happens you don't know how to handle. I can't promise answers but I'll listen." He nodded toward the door. "Don't you have somewhere to be at eight?"
"Pokémon Center," I said.
"Good." He paused with his hand on the door. "The balance on your ID it's not a gesture. It's an investment. I expect a return eventually."
"What kind of return?"
"I don't know yet," he said. "Neither do you. That's what makes it interesting."
I made it to the Pokémon Center at three minutes to eight, which felt like a personal achievement given the morning I'd had.
Joy looked up when I came in. "Staff area's through there. Locker, uniform, someone will show you around." A pause. "How was your morning?"
"Informative," I said. "Rowan wanted to talk."
"He has that effect." She nodded toward the door. "Busy day."
The staff area was small lockers, a table, a board covered in shift schedules with notes stuck on top of other notes. A boy maybe a year older than me was pulling on a jacket near the lockers. He looked up.
"Theo," he said, sticking out a hand. "You're the new one?"
"Ryan." I shook it.
"Good timing." He pulled the jacket straight. "Four trainer check-ins before noon and someone brought in a Geodude yesterday that bit half the equipment in intake so the mood back there is well. You'll see." He grabbed a second jacket and held it out. "Joy will put you on desk first. It's not complicated, I promise."
I pulled the jacket on. A bit big across the shoulders. "How long have you been here?"
"Eight months. Started basically the same way no money, new in town, needed something that wasn't nothing." He headed for the door then stopped. "What's your Pokémon?"
I looked down at my belt. "Still figuring each other out, honestly."
He looked like he wanted to ask more, clocked something in my tone, and let it go. "Fair enough. Try not to let the Geodude bite you. His name's Boulder apparently, which the staff think is hilarious and I think has just made him worse."
The morning wasn't complicated, which was good because my brain was still somewhere in that side room with Rowan. Check trainers in, log their Pokémon, pass them through to Joy and the Chansey who did the actual work. I found where things were kept. I figured out which trainers were regulars the woman with the Luxray who came in every Tuesday, the old man whose Slowpoke had some ongoing thing with its left front paw that Joy seemed to have strong opinions about.
By midday I'd stopped having to think about where anything was.
Theo dropped into a chair during break with a sandwich and the posture of someone who had fully committed to doing nothing for fifteen minutes. "Not bad for a first morning," he said. "Joy said you picked it up fast."
"It's not that complicated," I said.
"No," he agreed. "But you'd be surprised how many people walk in here and immediately make it complicated. Last week someone tried to argue with the check-in system. The system. Which is just a screen you tap things into." He took a bite of his sandwich. "Anyway. You're not from Sinnoh are you."
"No."
"Thought so." He said it like he'd had a bet with himself and won. "The way you looked at everything this morning not like you'd never seen a Pokémon Center before, more like you were checking if it matched something you already had in your head."
I hadn't realized that was visible. "That obvious?"
"Only because I did the same thing when I got here." He unwrapped the rest of his sandwich. "I'm from Johto originally. Came to Sinnoh about a year ago, ended up here eight months ago, and I still catch myself doing it sometimes. Just comparing." He shrugged. "Where are you from?"
"Far. Not somewhere you'd know."
He nodded and moved on, which I appreciated more than I expected. "Does it cause problems? Being from outside?"
"I'm still figuring that out."
"Honest answer." He thought about it for a second. "Sandgem's fine, people here don't really care. But the further you travel the more it depends some people are just curious, some have opinions they didn't ask you if you wanted. Just how it is." He looked at me. "You carrying papers?"
"Trainer ID. Rowan registered me yesterday."
"Then you're fine legally. That's the main thing." He finished the last of his sandwich, crumpled the wrapper, looked around for somewhere to put it and settled for his jacket pocket. "You planning on staying or just passing through?"
"Staying," I said. "For a while at least."
"Good." He stood as Joy appeared in the doorway. "You picked a decent place to land. Break's over."
I followed him back out.