Hiroshi clenched his fist inside his pocket, forcing himself to remain outwardly composed. He longed to smash through the glass and free every child and Pokémon in that lab right now, but a rash move could doom them all. Instead, he tapped a finger against his thigh – a subtle prearranged signal through the psychic link.
Daisy received the message and responded immediately. Found them. Victims confirmed: five Pokémon and five children, came her telepathic confirmation. Hiroshi felt a flicker of sympathetic fury through the link as Gardevoir beheld the suffering below through his eyes. Alakazam is accessing the network now, she added, her mental voice tight with restrained emotion. They would have to act fast.
Hiroshi forced himself to move on from the agonizing view. He continued down the corridor to a reinforced door labeled "Data Archives – Authorized Personnel Only." With another swipe of the keycard and a press of the officer's forged thumbprint (the glove he wore had a thin film replicating Liu's print), the door clicked open. Inside, cool, dry air whooshed out – the archive room was chilled to keep the servers cool. Racks of computer servers stood in neat rows, their indicator lights blinking green and amber. At the far end of the room, a lone technician sat at a terminal, earphones on, likely passing the graveyard shift by listening to music.
The technician, a young man with bleary eyes, didn't notice Hiroshi at first. The agent silently closed the door behind him and approached with measured steps. Only when Hiroshi's shadow fell over the console did the technician jolt upright, yanking off his headphones. "Oh! Officer Liu... I mean, sir!" he blurted out, eyes wide in surprise. "I-I wasn't told you'd be coming down. Did something happen?" The screen in front of him displayed a matrix of surveillance camera feeds and scrolling code – he must have been monitoring systems, albeit inattentively.
Hiroshi managed a thin facsimile of a smile, trying to put the man at ease as he walked closer. "No emergency. Just a surprise inspection," he said in a low, authoritative tone. "Carry on as usual."
The tech nodded nervously and began fumbling to close out of a media player that was open on the console (confirming Hiroshi's suspicion that he'd been slacking). But as the feeds flashed on the screen, Hiroshi noticed something concerning: one of the camera views showed an empty barracks room – the very bunk room where the real Officer Liu and three other unconscious personnel were hidden, tied up and gagged. Daisy's camera loop had masked the hallway, but internal room cameras might not have been fully covered. On another feed, a security patrol in some corridor looked more animated, speaking into their radios. A subtle alarm was spreading. Perhaps someone noticed those men were missing from their posts or not responding. The technician in front of him might catch on at any second if he saw irregularities on those monitors.
There was no time for subtlety. Moving in a blur, Hiroshi struck. His hand chopped down at the base of the technician's neck, hitting a precise pressure point. The man gasped once and collapsed forward. Hiroshi caught him under the arms and eased him silently to the floor, ensuring he was merely knocked out. The young tech would have a nasty crick in his neck when he woke, but at least he'd wake up at all. Elusive Fox took no pleasure in unnecessary killing, especially not of unwitting cogs in the machine.
Working quickly, Hiroshi dragged the unconscious technician to the side of the room, propping him gently against a wall behind a rack where he'd be out of immediate sight. Then Hiroshi slid into the still-warm seat at the console. Alakazam was already at work; the cursor on the screen darted from folder to folder as files opened and closed in rapid succession, seemingly by an invisible hand. Hiroshi knew his Psychic-type partner must be concealed in some dark corner of the room, using telekinesis to manipulate the computer or interfacing mentally with the systems. A slight distortion in the air to his right—like heat haze—hinted at Alakazam's presence.
"Good work, partner," Hiroshi whispered. He plugged a small device – a miniature data drive with a wireless transmitter – into a USB port on the console. Instantly, lines of code reflected in Hiroshi's eyes as his custom program executed, coordinating with Alakazam to extract every scrap of useful data.
File after file flashed on the screen: blueprints for advanced weaponry (schematics of rifles with notes like "armor-piercing rounds – capable of penetrating tank armor", and grenades described as "micronized high-yield explosives"). Another window showed designs for exoskeletal suits – powered armor frames akin to something out of a sci-fi army. Hiroshi's jaw tightened; these criminals had been busy. Then came the research logs labeled Project SPARTAN-γ. As he skimmed, his stomach turned. The logs detailed the augmentation of kidnapped children with cybernetics and even genetic splicing: one report coolly described an attempt to fuse Machop muscle tissue with a human child's physiology to accelerate strength growth, with a note that the subject did not survive the procedure. Another mentioned harnessing a Pikachu's electrical sacs to power a human neural implant – essentially trying to give a child electrical abilities – resulting in severe neural trauma. Photo attachments (which Hiroshi glanced at and immediately wished he hadn't) showed x-rays of small skeletons reinforced with metal and ceramic implants, and surgical tables with ominous blood stains. It was the Halo Spartan program twisted with Pokémon experimentation in a way that was beyond monstrous. Hiroshi realized that the children in the lab were intended to be living weapons, and the Pokémon were nothing more than component parts to these people.
He gritted his teeth, forcing back a surge of fury. Focus. There would be time for anger later – if he let it consume him now, he might miss something important or make a fatal mistake.
Suddenly, a red warning icon blinked on the monitor. "REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED – Security Lockdown Initiated" flashed in bold text. Someone elsewhere in the facility had noticed irregularities – perhaps a tech on another level saw the camera loops glitch, or a guard tried to call Officer Liu on the radio and got no answer. Either way, the base was starting to realize something was wrong. Alakazam reacted swiftly, trying to keep the system open, but the screen abruptly went black as higher-level network security kicked in.
Alarm klaxons had not yet sounded, but Hiroshi knew it was a matter of seconds. He yanked out the data drive – it had captured a trove of evidence in time, now safely beaming its contents to a remote server beyond the reach of these criminals. They wouldn't be able to purge this knowledge to cover their crimes; the truth would see the light.