Chương 57: Nine Heartbeats

Morrow emerged in pieces. Violet vapor leaked from the cable duct and gathered around his core. He had lost four percent cohesion crossing the silver-lined cavity. The damage remained below Rine's withdrawal condition, but the Ghost's usual grin did not return. He projected the room across the concrete wall. Nine children lay on narrow bunks arranged in three rows. Most slept. Two were awake and watching the sealed entrance.

A yellow-brown Pokémon sat inside a restraint frame near the ceiling, its long nose lowered and its eyes hidden behind a metal band. Drowzee. Wires ran from the collar into a control box. Each time the Pokémon's head dipped, pale psychic pressure passed through the room. The awake children became still. One closed her eyes against her will. Iona found Milo immediately. He lay on the floor rather than a bunk, one hand pressed against a heating pipe. His hair had been cut close to his scalp.

A municipal uniform hung from his thin body. Alive. Morrow changed the image. Beyond the dormitory entrance waited a narrow observation room. Two adults occupied it. One wore a Rocket field jacket without insignia. The second had civilian power-exchange credentials clipped to his belt. A Raticate paced between them. The Rocket guard carried a handgun. Mara transmitted the images to her team.

"No direct breach," she said.

"The guard has line of sight to the children's door."

"Kadabra can take the weapon," Lyra said.

"Through the shielding?"

"Not reliably." The psychic dampening installed around Drowzee interfered with any technique crossing the wall. Team Rocket had built the room to contain its own captive and accidentally created protection against outside intervention. Rine examined Morrow's illusion.

"The Drowzee is maintaining Hypnosis through the collar." Lyra nodded.

"A broad, shallow application. Crude."

"What happens if the collar loses power?"

"The technique collapses. Most children wake disoriented. If the device has been forcing output for days, Drowzee may release psychic recoil when the pressure ends."

"Can you absorb it?"

"Kadabra can redirect part. I can stabilize the children if I am inside the room." Inside. Every solution returned to the same problem. Morrow enlarged the projection. The dormitory possessed two doors. The first opened into the observation booth. The second was painted to resemble the wall behind Drowzee's restraint frame. A faint draft moved beneath it.

"Secondary exit," Rine said. Morrow shook the image. Locked. He showed the other side: a vertical shaft containing a ladder, rusted fan blades, and three wire cages. No adult waited there, but the shaft ended against another sealed hatch.

"Ventilation service," Mara said.

"Could be an extraction route."

"Or disposal," Rine replied. Iona looked at him.

"The Saffron base moved failed assets through utility passages," he explained.

"No cameras, surfaces that could be washed, direct access to transport." Mara added the shaft to the map.

"We secure both exits simultaneously."

"With what team?" Iona asked.

"The shaft is too narrow for armor."

"Noctowl can enter from the upper vent if city engineers expose it." Captain Lark touched two fingers to her earpiece. Above them, Noctowl left the command post to inspect the exterior ducts. Rine focused on the observation booth. The guard stood near the children. The civilian technician controlled the air. Raticate patrolled both. Three threats. One room between the breach and nine hostages.

"I enter through the lower hatch," Rine said. Mara did not look up.

"No."

"I know the panel layout."

"You described it. My officers have the recording."

"Morrow listens to me." The Ghost's eyes narrowed. Rine heard the mistake after speaking. Morrow did not belong to his argument.

"That came out wrong," Rine said. Stolen novel; please report. Morrow folded imaginary arms.

"You know my signals," Rine corrected.

"We have practiced Disable together, and I can read his cohesion through Identify." Morrow considered before returning a partial circle. Better. Mara finally faced Rine.

"You are medically cleared for travel, not combat."

"Veyra is restricted. I am not."

"You fought a Gym Leader yesterday, slept on a train, and have an open psychological order connected to Team Rocket facilities."

"So assign me a rear position."

"I am assigning you outside the hatch." The old response rose immediately: she was excluding him because lawful authority saw a criminal recruit rather than a capable operative. Rine examined the thought. Mara had brought him beneath the exchange. She had used his knowledge. She intended to use Morrow. Her objection contained medical and tactical reasons he would have applied to someone else. Not every refusal was a cage.

"If the team encounters a Rocket-specific system they cannot identify?" he asked.

"You enter after the booth is controlled."

"And if delay threatens the children?" Mara's expression hardened.

"Then I make the call. That is the command responsibility you keep trying to steal from everyone around you." The words struck. Rine looked at the nine bunks.

"Understood." Iona opened her mouth. Mara stopped her with one glance.

"You are also outside the hatch."

"Absolutely not."

"You are exhausted, emotionally compromised, and the hostage knows you. If he sees you during a weapon confrontation, his response may alter the guard's behavior."

"He's my brother."

"Which makes you extraction contact after control, not breach." Iona's hands closed. Zubat pressed its head beneath her chin. Rine expected her to fight until Mara restrained her. Instead, she asked, "Where do you need Zubat?" Mara pointed to the secondary shaft.

"Mapping and early warning." Iona breathed through her anger.

"Then I stay with the lower team."

"Agreed." Rine recognized the cost of that answer. They were both learning that rescue did not grant ownership of the rescue. Heavy boots sounded on the metal stairs above. Vermilion engineers moved aside as a large man descended into the tunnel. He wore a dark utility coat over the mustard-and-brown uniform of Vermilion Gym. Short blond hair showed grey at the temples. A Raichu followed close enough that its long tail occasionally touched his boot. Rine recognized him before Identify formed. Lieutenant Surge.

In the games, he had been a gate made of trash-can switches, military jokes, and an overleveled Raichu. The man who entered the tunnel carried a tablet displaying hospital loads and floodgate reserves. Reality remained stubbornly more complicated. Surge stopped beside Veyra. Her golden pathways reacted to Raichu's presence. Current brightened beneath her pale bands before she forced it down. Raichu sniffed her once. Its ears rose. Surge looked at the medical harness, then at Rine.

"Your Houndour is broadcasting across three frequencies."

"She has a mutation."

"So does half the grid after midnight. Is she cleared?"

"Travel only."

"Then she stays off my conductors." The order sounded harsh. It was also correct. Surge studied the wall scan.

"We can reroute the exchange for ninety seconds. Hospitals keep power. Flood barriers move to local cells. Rail signals lock red."

"What about the capacitors inside the wall?" Mara asked.

"Local charge remains." Raichu placed its forked tail against a grounded conduit. Its cheek sacs sparked. The lights along the wall changed from green to amber.

"He can pull the local charge into the exchange bus," Surge said.

"Slowly. If we drain too fast, whoever built that room sees the drop."

"Can they recharge it?" Rine asked.

"Not after I cut the feeder."

"Then they know when the window begins."

"Yes." No silent rescue. Only a shorter period in which the children could not be electrocuted. Surge enlarged the older tunnel plans. The power exchange had been constructed over a coastal-defense network abandoned after Kanto's last major conflict. Brick service passages ran toward the harbor, most sealed when the city modernized. One line passed beneath the hidden room.

"Coolant return," Surge said.

"Dry for twenty years." Mara compared it to the Iron Talon scan.

"It ends here." The line stopped under the observation booth.

"Rocket facilities need waste removal," Rine said.

"There will be a vertical service hatch even if it is absent from the original plan."

"Big enough for a person?"

"A worker. Not armor." Mara looked at her field vest.

"Take it off," Iona said.

"Thank you, Specialist Kreel."

"I'm not a specialist."

"Then stop volunteering tactical advice before I promote you into paperwork." The exchange was almost ordinary. That helped. They moved to the dry coolant tunnel. Its entrance lay behind a bolted steel plate on the lowest exchange level. Surge's Raichu used a controlled Thunder Punch to fuse the alarm wire before an engineer cut the bolts. The technique was precise enough that the rubber insulation beside it did not scorch. Veyra watched. Want moved through her aura. Not envy exactly.

Recognition of what Electric power looked like when the body carrying it had been born prepared. Surge noticed.

"She discharges through the muzzle?" he asked.

"Muzzle, teeth, and sometimes the pathways along her ribs. The Electric tissue comes from a Boltund parent. Her other parent was Houndoom." Surge looked at Rine as if deciding whether he had made a poor joke in a room with children trapped below. Veyra demonstrated with one gold spark between her teeth. His expression changed.

"Who is managing her grounding?"

"Doctor Mireya Sen in Celadon. Professor Flint is studying her evolution."

"After this operation, bring me the reports."

"Why?"

"Because my Gym keeps Electric Pokémon alive for a living." He entered the coolant tunnel without waiting for agreement. The passage forced everyone to crouch. Mara left her outer armor behind but retained a light vest, sidearm, and restraint launcher. Captain Lark stayed at the exchange with Noctowl to coordinate evacuation. Surge managed the grid from a portable control station near the entrance. The breach group became smaller than Rine liked. Mara first. Lyra and Kadabra behind her. Iona with Zubat.

Rine and Morrow. Two Iron Talon hunters followed. Veyra remained inside her ball on Rine's chest, where the registration link carried her displeasure like a heated stone. They reached the end after thirty meters. The vertical hatch existed. Its lower surface had been welded shut. Identify spread across the metal.

Maintenance hatch — modified Material: steel / ceramic insulation Alarm trigger: pressure release Secondary trigger: magnetic separation Connected systems: observation-room alert; dormitory ventilation"Opening it triggers both an alarm and the vents," Rine said.

"Spore release?" Mara asked.

"Probably." Lyra examined the hatch with psychic perception.

"The pressure trigger can be held. The magnetic circuit cannot be bridged from this side." Morrow touched the metal.

"You can cross," Rine said.

"Can you disable the alarm?" The Ghost projected the control box he had seen. Then he displayed Raticate's teeth. The Pokémon paced near the panel.

"No engagement," Mara said. Morrow looked offended by the repeated instruction. Rine understood why. The Ghost had lived as damaged Rocket inventory. Beyond the hatch, another Pokémon wore a control system and nine children lay beneath forced sleep. Restraint felt like abandonment when he could already see the target.

"Your task is the pressure trigger," Rine said.

"Not the room. If you fight, the guard reaches the children before we enter." Morrow's eyes narrowed.

"We need you to open the door." Not obey. Need. He formed a complete circle. Morrow passed through. The wait lasted six seconds. The hatch's pressure indicator froze.

"He has it," Lyra said. Surge's voice entered Mara's earpiece.

"Grid transfer in ten." Raichu began drawing charge. The electrical pressure in the tunnel changed. Veyra's ball warmed against Rine as power flowed above them toward the grounded bus.

"Nine." Mara placed cutting gel along the weld.

"Eight." Iona checked Zubat's wing joints.

"Seven." Kadabra's spoon lifted.

"Six." Rine drew Dark energy across his thoughts—not emptiness, not numbness. A thin veil intended to prevent Drowzee's forced Hypnosis from turning the breach team against itself.

"Five." Lyra felt the barrier and extended psychic contact to its edge. Their powers met without invasion.

"Four." The cutting gel burned white.

"Three." Steel separated.

"Two." Mara caught the hatch before it fell.

"One." The exchange went dark. Morrow released the pressure trigger. Alarms began above. Mara pushed the hatch open. The smell of disinfectant and old fear poured into the tunnel.

"Move." They climbed into Team Rocket's room.