Chương 22: The Western Wall

The infirmary cabinets concealed sixty centimeters of poured concrete. Elara moved the children into the ward under the excuse of a gas leak. Forty-seven frightened faces filled the room. Older children held toddlers. Caretakers distributed damp cloths and shoes. Mira stood beside the blocked maintenance cavity with Kakuna's ball clutched in one hand. Rine saw her through Gastly. The Ghost carried sight imperfectly across their aura bond: flashes of grey walls, Elara's fear, Mira's black hair.

Rine worked from the opposite side with Houndour and Iona.

"Ember," he commanded.

"Narrow." Houndour heated a ring around the first concrete section. Zubat followed with Supersonic, vibrating the weakened material. Rine drove an insulated pry bar into the crack. The wall broke by centimeters. Dust filled the cavity. They stopped repeatedly to prevent structural collapse. Speed fought safety with every strike. Above, Gideon's alarm began. Not the raid alarm. Orphanage containment. One loyal caretaker had reported the gathering.

"Two minutes," Iona said.

"We need five."

"We have two." Gastly passed through the concrete and emerged inside the infirmary. Children screamed. Mira did not. She stared at his red eyes.

"You're Rine's?" Gastly projected a crude image of Rine.

"That is a terrible drawing." The Ghost looked offended. Mira pointed toward the door.

"Can you lock it?" Gastly vanished into the mechanism. The first Rocket guard reached the infirmary seconds later. The lock refused his credential. He began cutting through. Houndour's final Ember split the concrete. Rine kicked the section inward. Light from the infirmary entered the tunnel. Mira stood on the other side. For one breath, neither moved. She had grown since the breakfast camera feed. Not much. Enough. Anger held her upright where relief might have folded her.

"Tomas?" she asked. Rine could not lie.

"Dead." Her face broke. The door behind her shook under an impact. Grief had no time.

"Get them through," Rine said. Mira slapped him. The blow stung more than Cassian's.

"That is for lying." Then she turned.

"Little kids first! If you push, I'll feed you to the ghost." Gastly grinned. The evacuation began. The tunnel was narrow, damp, and dark. Zubat guided the front group toward the bathhouse. Iona moved with them. Houndour stood inside the breach, using controlled flame as light. Children feared her markings until Mira placed one hand near her shoulder. Houndour flinched but did not bite.

"She's with Rine," Mira said.

"That means she's probably weird, but safe." Rine almost laughed. The infirmary door failed. Two guards entered with Raticate. Gastly used Mean Look. Red eyes filled the ward. One Raticate froze; the other lunged blindly.

"Houndour, low Ember!" Flame crossed the floor, creating a barrier rather than striking the Pokémon. The Raticate stopped.

"Back through!" Rine shouted. Elara pushed the last toddler into the cavity. One helpful caretaker followed. The second stayed to hold the door with a steel cart.

"Come on!" Rine called.

"I can delay them."

"They'll kill you." The caretaker smiled sadly.

"I know what I helped them do." Rine refused the offered sacrifice.

"Gastly, Smog." Controlled violet gas filled the infirmary at knee height. The guards coughed and retreated. Rine seized the caretaker's arm and pulled him through.

"No disposable allies," Rine said. The man looked at him without understanding. The breach collapsed behind them when Houndour fired Ember into the weakened ceiling. Concrete sealed the infirmary side. Temporary. They moved. Halfway through the tunnel, a psychic pulse shook dust from the ceiling. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. The Gym and Team Rocket had collided. Rine's watch filled with emergency reports. Explosions in Sub-Level Two.

Containment failures. Gideon ordering all personnel to defend the primary generator. Exactly where Rine needed to go. At the first junction, he stopped. Mira caught his sleeve.

"You're not coming."

"I have to open the north gate and stop the generator from killing a Pokémon."

"That sounds stupid."

"It is." Her grip tightened. Rine looked at Elara.

"Get them to Mara."

"Rine—""If I don't go, the Gym enters through the orphanage level." Mira released him with tears and fury in equal measure.

"Come back." He remembered Tomas saying Pewter first. Promises to the living were worse because they could hear them break.

"I'll try." Houndour turned with him. Gastly emerged from the tunnel wall. Rine and his partners ran toward the fighting. The tunnel punished speed. Its floor changed elevation without warning. Rusted pipes crossed at head height. Water concealed holes left by removed military conduit. Zubat navigated by sound, but frightened children still stumbled. Rine remained near the rear until the breach was sealed. He carried a six-year-old boy whose leg brace caught on debris.

Houndour walked ahead with Ember held as a controlled glow inside her mouth.

"Does it hurt?" the boy asked.

"The fire? No."

"The yellow part?" Houndour's markings pulsed.

"Sometimes." The child reached toward her. Rine caught his wrist gently.

"Ask."

"Can I touch?" Houndour sniffed his fingers and turned away.

"That means no," Rine said. The boy accepted it. Consent taught in a tunnel beneath Team Rocket felt like rebellion. Mira moved among the children with Kakuna's ball attached to a cord around her neck. She had organized partners into groups exactly as the orphanage trained them—then changed the purpose. Stronger children carried bags instead of competing. Older partners counted younger ones at every junction. Team Rocket had built useful skills. It had simply lied about who deserved their benefit.

At the flooded section, panic spread. Water reached an adult's knees and looked bottomless to the smallest children. Elara stepped in first. Iona guided each foot placement while Zubat marked safe stone with clicks. Rine set the boy on his shoulders despite the fracture beginning to swell beneath his uniform.

"You said your arm hurts," Mira said.

"Shoulder."

"That is part of your arm."

"Technically."

"You're annoying." Relief hid inside the insult. The first explosion from Sub-Level Two shook water from the ceiling. Several children screamed. The little girl whose psychic ability had awakened sent loose pebbles spinning around her head. Rine felt the rising pressure. He knelt within sight.

"Look at me." She could not. Lyra's training returned. Rine shaped Dark energy into a quiet boundary around the group, not blocking their minds but dampening outside psychic noise from the battle. Houndour stood beside him and reinforced the pattern. The spinning stones fell. Rine's vision blurred. Extending the veil across so many people consumed more energy than resisting a direct probe.

"Breathe with me," he told the girl. Four counts in. Hold. Four out. The children copied because they had nothing else to do. The tunnel became a chorus of controlled breath. Rine released the veil before it collapsed. They continued. At the first junction, Mira's demand that he return collided with every protective instinct he possessed. He wanted to lie, promise, and push her forward. Instead, he told her exactly why.

"The generator is a captive Electivire. If Gideon overloads him, this tunnel could collapse. The Gym will enter through the upper level if I don't open another route."

"Let adults do it."

"The adult who knows the system is helping, but he needs access codes I have."

"Lyra?" Rine stared.

"How do you know that name?"

"Your ghost made a heart." Gastly hid behind Houndour.

"Later." Mira's expression promised consequences. Rine handed her Tomas's old study guide.

"Why?"

"Because I'm coming back for it." She clutched the book against her chest. It was not a promise of survival. It was a reason to attempt it. Rine waited until Mira, Elara, and the final group passed the junction. Iona remained.

"Go with them," he said.

"Zubat can reach the generator vents."

"The children need navigation." Iona looked toward the dark route ahead and then toward the base.

"Milo," Rine said.

"You have to reach him." She hated the argument because it worked.

"Don't die before helping."

"I'll put it on the list." Iona followed the children. Rine turned alone in human terms, Houndour and Gastly beside him. The tunnel behind led toward freedom. The maintenance ladder ahead led down. He chose down. The first children reached Mara after seventeen minutes. Confirmation came through a green pulse on Rine's hidden receiver. Then another. Groups one and two safe. Group three stopped transmitting. Rine had already turned toward the base when the signal changed to amber. Tunnel injury. Continuing.

He forced himself not to follow. Elara, Iona, and Mara owned their portions of the plan. Trust meant permitting other people to solve problems without his control. The lesson felt terrible. At the ladder down, Houndour stopped. Smoke rose through the opening. Her ears flattened as the smell awakened handler memories. Rine did not pull the lead.

"Your choice." She looked toward the freedom tunnel, then the ladder. Gastly descended first and reappeared below as two red eyes. Houndour followed. Level One had emptied into combat positions. Abandoned carts blocked the corridor. Rine found a discarded Rocket helmet and used its emergency channel to monitor orders. Gideon commanded squads toward Sub-Level Two while ordering Research to destroy samples. One message directed personnel to seal the western medical tunnel.

"They know." Rine ran. Two technicians reached the tunnel controls ahead of him. Houndour used Ember on the first control cable. Gastly emerged through the second technician's screen with Mean Look. Rine struck the emergency stop before steel shutters cut across the evacuation route. The technicians surrendered.

"Leave through the western tunnel," Rine said.

"Gideon will kill us."

"Staying might do it faster." One fled. The other reached for an alarm. Rine knocked him unconscious. The action was efficient and unemotional. He checked breathing, moved the man away from smoke, and continued. Responsibility after violence had become one of his safeguards. Group three transmitted green. All children were beyond the base side of the tunnel. Only then did Rine permit relief. It lasted until the first psychic explosion shook Level One and every light turned violet.

Pure Mind Incense entered the vents. Rine's untrained psychic senses opened painfully. Hundreds of emotions crashed into him: terrified Pokémon, furious Grunts, focused acolytes, and Gideon's cold attention at the center. Houndour's Dark aura covered him. Gastly hid inside it. They moved toward Sub-Level Two as a single quiet shape inside a screaming building. Before descending, Rine transmitted green to Mara. The reply came amber. Iron Talon had encountered Rocket scouts near the bathhouse.

Mara's team could hold the exit but not conceal it much longer. The evacuation became a race between the children's pace and Team Rocket's recognition of the real target. Rine contacted Lyra.

"Draw attention north."

"The Gym assault is already moving."

"Make it louder."

"That increases casualties."

"So does letting Gideon redirect squads west." Lyra remained silent for two seconds.

"Sabrina authorized a barrier breach at the north loading bay." An explosion followed through the floor. Dust rained around Rine. He had requested that violence. People he could not see might die because it pulled guards from the children. There were no clean hands in command. Rine saved the transmission rather than hiding from it. If the operation survived, he would review who paid for his decisions. At the ladder, Houndour waited. Gastly's eyes floated below. Rine descended toward the cost.

At the final count, forty-seven names answered. Rine listened through the receiver while Mara repeated each group number. He did not know every child well, but the list had lived in his memory long enough that absences would have felt like missing teeth. No absence came. Elara transmitted last.

"West side clear." The words made Rine's knees weaken. He permitted himself three breaths. Then his Rocket Watch attempted to lock Houndour's ball remotely. Rine tore the device from his wrist and placed it on the tunnel floor. Gastly emerged, entered the casing, and corrupted the registration command. The screen displayed Gideon's message: > Return to command. Your dependents are secure only while compliance continues. The threat had become a lie. Gideon no longer possessed Mira.

Rine crushed the watch beneath his boot. For the first time since induction, Team Rocket could not reach him through a screen. The freedom lasted only a moment. Gunfire sounded below. Rine retrieved the damaged watch because it still contained evidence, then descended. At the bottom of the ladder, he found Iona waiting beside a dead emergency lamp. Her Zubat clung upside down beneath the stairs, trembling from the echoes of distant combat.

"Forty-seven?" she asked.

"Forty-seven." Her face folded for half a second. Then she wiped it clean with both hands.

"Good. I thought Group Amber got turned around."

"They did. Mira corrected them." Iona gave a breathless laugh.

"Of course she did." Rine wanted to follow the children out. The desire was almost painful. But Wallace still waited beside the living generator, Mara's hunters were fighting toward the holding levels, and Gideon retained enough infrastructure to bury everyone under Saffron if he chose. He looked once toward the western wall. Houndour pressed against his leg—not urging him toward safety, but acknowledging where it lay. Then the three of them turned deeper into the base.