"40,000 bucks? Are you serious?"
"Small price to pay for saving the life of a creature of legend, chief."
"Yeah, you say that, Repeat, but I don't see you shelling out the money."
"Some might say that me not having money gives me a unique perspective on its value."
"Some might also say that you're just cheaping out on me. Fine. Here. 40,000. Let's hope I don't need to buy anything for the next couple'a months."
The cashier took Mel's money with a smile that Mel considered just slightly too predatory and handed over a single disc, contained in a plastic jewel case that was itself in a plastic bag. Mel stared in the bag as she and Repeat left the counter and sighed. "For how much this cost, they could have at least made the jewel case outta actual jewels," she muttered. "40,000 bucks. That's like 100 burgers. This single CD could have fed me for a month."
"Sure, boss, if you wanted to eat burgers three times a day." Repeat clung to the back of Mel's head, trying not to grin and failing miserably.
"And what if I do? Burgers are good. You got your meats, your grains, plus they even have veggies, fruits, and dairy on 'em. Eat a burger and you got all of the food groups, right there."
"What kind of fruit are you eating on a burger? Are you about to tell me that applewood-smoked bacon counts as an apple?"
"Tomatoes, you dope. Honestly, I'm not a total idiot."
"I dunno, boss. Even an idiot would know that tomatoes count as vegetables when they're being cooked." Repeat stifled a snicker.
Mel rolled her eyes and tossed her backpack down onto the floor, next to a plushly-cushioned bench under a row of bay windows. "Now I know you're winding me up. A tomato's gotta be one or the other. You can't say it's some weird half-fruit, half-vegetable."
"Whatever you say, boss."
Sun spilled into the building, casting Mel and Repeat in a golden light. It was a beautiful morning, the kind that was all too rare – a pure blue sky, a hint of a crisp breeze drifting in through an open window, and even faint birdsong drifting through town. They'd made it to Saffron City after taking a day to sleep, after which Mel felt much more alive, and they'd immediately gravitated to the place mentioned in Hyacinth's notes – the head branch of Silph Company.
Admittedly, Mel wouldn't have needed to rely on Hyacinth's hypothesis to head for Silph in the first place; in a city that already dwarfed all of its neighbors, Silph's building stood well above the rest, ruling the skyline with a stark silhouette. Not only did Silph run all of the Pokemarts in the country, they manufactured products that got sent all around the world and were used by nearly everyone who so much as had a Pokemon in their general vicinity. As a result, they bore a not-inconsiderable amount of name recognition and had, in the years since their founding, done some rebranding.
Gone was the looming, industrial Silph, full of scientists and engineers that had such an ethical deficit that they sided with the Rockets during their siege – and full of incompetent, money-hungry executives who treated their employees so poorly that the Rockets were seen as the better option. In its place was the sleek, streamlined Silph, completely transparent and dedicated to improving the world, at least according to their mission statement. In actuality, the executives were still quite enamored with money and the rumors of sketchy experiments still surrounded the company, but they'd put a happier face on it. Silph had even, and this was the real turning point, opened their own store on the first floor of their head office in Saffron, one that sold exclusively Silph-made products. Critics initially slammed Silph for the move, since Pokemarts were roughly 90% Silph merchandise already, but Silph's sales shot through the roof; apparently, making the store 'cool' and 'hip' and 'totally embarrassing to not be seen at' was just the thing to ensure products would fly off the shelves, no matter what they cost.
The Silph Store, branded with only the Silph logo on the door, was where Mel had paid 40,000 big ones for a single CD, and it was where she'd found a seat under an open window to examine her purchase.
"'P-Upgrade, v2,'" Mel read off the receipt as she set the plastic bag it came in next to her. "This is it, I guess. Gotta say, this was easier than I expected."
"Don't jinx it, boss," said Repeat. He hopped down to the cushion and pulled the jewel case out of the bag, struggling to hold something that was almost half his size. "We don't know if this is going to work yet. And even if this is the right thing, we still need to get it back to wherever it is the Unown wanted us to take it."
"Let me have this, Repeat. After everything we had to do in Pewter, I'm glad we can just walk in and buy something we need, even if it did cost an arm and a leg." Mel turned to eye Repeat and, by extension, the CD. "In fact, I… I think…" She reached out her hand slowly, brushing her fingertips across the jewel case, leaving sparks dancing across its surface.
From behind the jewel case, Repeat couldn't see what happened. "Boss? You okay?"
"Oh! Ah, sorry." Mel shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut to try and make the stars in her vision disappear. She grabbed the CD and stuffed it back in the plastic bag, then into her backpack. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. No big deal. Look, let's get outta here. We've got some research to do, and I for one am not looking forward to it."
"Research, you say? Perhaps I might be able to assist you in this endeavor."
Mel looked up – and she didn't have to look very far. A person in a trench coat stood before her, and it was only because Mel had met them before that she knew that they weren't three kids stacked on top of each other. "Hyacinth? What're you doing here?"
"Well," said Hyacinth, transparently grinning even though Mel couldn't see their mouth, "in an immediate sense, I'm offering my aid in your research-based quandary, for which I may only wish to ask a favor further in the future." Apparently sensing the words that were about to come out of Mel's mouth, they continued. "But I suspect that is not the intent behind your query, hm? No, rather, the reason behind my presence in this city today is because I have gathered evidence that one of the two organizations that I am currently investigating is, as one might say, 'up to something.' I only wish to find out what the something is to which they are up."
The wave of words washed over Mel, leaving her momentarily stunned. She focused her attention on Hyacinth's mind, but only got the same aspirations of helpfulness that Hyacinth perpetually gave off. "Wait, who's in town?" she asked, once Hyacinth's statement had time to sink in.
A notebook appeared in Hyacinth's hand and they began leafing through it, scanning each page at lightning speed. "The information I have thus far collected indicates that Genesis intends to conduct an operation somewhere within the city limits."
Mel shivered. The image of Degree Absolute and the rest of her cronies standing at the pier, waving at her, leapt into the forefront of her mind.
"Granted," Hyacinth continued, "Saffron City is not, well, small. Deducing their movements at this point, now that I am already within the borders, will be more difficult. However, I began my search here, at the Silph office building, simply because I suspect it presents the most temptation for organizations with malicious intent – as evidence, I offer the Rocket raid on this very location."
"You must be a blast at parties, Hyacinth," Mel said once she had sifted through Hyacinth's verbal onslaught.
"I wouldn't know. I rarely attend parties."
"Ah." With a rustle of fabric, Mel stood up, sliding her backpack on. Repeat took the hint and climbed to her shoulder. "Look, not that I don't like seeing you, but if Genesis is around here, I think it's high time I wasn't. They're a bit too, uh…"
"Dangerous? Criminal?" Hyacinth prompted.
"Creepy for my tastes. Plus, I'm pretty sure I personally ticked off their head honcho. So come find me once all the heat dies down and we can get cracking on this research stuff. I'd tell you where I'm going, but I bet you could find me either way." Mel approached the store's entrance, opened the door, stared outside for a moment, then gently closed the door before rejoining Hyacinth. "Change of plans."
"Allow me to posit a guess," said Hyacinth. "Agents of Genesis are just outside the door?"
"Yep. Think it would be a bad move for me to dive out the window instead?"
"Hm, I would assume so. I expect that would be significantly more noticeable."
The lights in the store turned out in unison, prompting a wave of quiet gasps that rolled through the shelves of merchandise. "Attention, Silph Store patrons," squawked an intercom set into the ceiling, "the exits have been sealed. This is a routine exercise. Please do not attempt to leave the building."
Mel scanned the room, her height giving her clearance over the shelves that Hyacinth didn't have. "Some of the customers are freaking out," she muttered low enough that only Repeat and Hyacinth could hear her. "But the guy at the register isn't. He looks perfectly calm. So either this legit is some bizarre thing the Silph Store just does sometimes…"
"Or," Hyacinth finished, "and I think this is significantly more likely, this is the Genesis operation and he is a plant."
"Right. So what is it they're trying to do, exactly?"
"I wish I had that information for you." Hyacinth pocketed their notebook and rolled a Pokeball in the palm of their hand. They tugged at the brim of their hat, the simple motion symptomatic of the touch of nervousness that Mel felt swirling around them. "I'm afraid that I know precious little about their goals as of yet, which is not a state in which I relish being. With that in mind, Miss Rylan, what would you say about conducting a little active investigation on our own terms?"
"I'd say we might as well get to it, Hyacinth."
It had been years upon years since the Rocket siege on Saffron. They had slowly infiltrated the city, growing their numbers and their influence, until they had enough people on the inside and the outside to take control of the Silph building wholesale. After that, all it took was trapping the Saffron gym leader and her subordinates in their gym for the entire city to be under Rocket command. The Elite Four's own non-interference pledge, wherein each member of the Elite Four promised not to use their considerable power to weigh in on local matters for fear of wielding undue influence, complicated matters further; in fact, the Saffron siege was the reason for the nullification of said pledges. As quickly as three years later, Lance, then the champion of the Elite Four, was seen taking action against the Rockets in Johto.
Since then, even with the threat of the combined powers of the Elite Four contributing to the lack of major crises in Kanto and Johto, Silph had decided to beef up their own security. Guards were hired onto company staff, more cameras were installed, and the networking expert Bill was even brought in – he designed a system where sensitive and valuable items could be whisked away across the network to a secure location, just like his Pokemon storage system, in the event that the company found themselves threatened. Bill stayed onboard with the company afterwards, being one of the only people in the region who could reliably troubleshoot the networking devices.
Gone were the days when Bill had accidentally combined himself with a Pokemon due to his own rashness and inexperience. Now, Bill was head of the technology services division in Silph, with salary and benefits to match.
Mel had heard of Bill before – who hadn't? His Pokemon storage system had been the norm for as long as she could remember, built upon and enhanced by other engineers in other regions; from the basic version where trainers could store only so many Pokemon in a box before having to manually swap boxes at a Pokemon Center, to boxes swapping automatically, to the abolishment of boxes altogether, to the entirety of the storage system being accessible through any networked device, letting trainers trade out the Pokemon on their team at any time. What Mel hadn't known were the details of Bill's employment, but she had learned all of that and more when she and Hyacinth had stumbled across his office.
The idea had been simple. Mel and Hyacinth would sneak through the building, scoping out exactly how far Genesis had gotten and where they were trying to get to. Much to Mel's confusion, though, nothing seemed to be going on. The lights had gone out throughout the building, but that was it. Nobody roamed the halls except security guards – and a flash of Hyacinth's badge had been enough to convince them to let Mel and Hyacinth continue their search. But they'd found nothing.
At least, they'd found nothing until they happened across an otherwise-nondescript office bearing Bill's name on a placard. Hyacinth looked at the name, looked at their notes, looked back at the name, then knocked on the door, and Bill had eagerly welcomed both of them in once Hyacinth explained the situation.
Bill stood only a hair shorter than Mel and he was dressed in a rumpled powder-blue suit sans jacket, one that might have looked daring on anyone else but on him just looked like all of his other suits were in the wash. His wavy reddish-brown hair was streaked with gray, but his eyes were bright and lively, with a fire behind them that made him look younger. "Nice to meetcha!" he said cheerfully, a trace of a Goldenrod accent under his words, as he welcomed Mel and Hyacinth in. Mel didn't need her abilities to pick up on his nervousness; though he tried to mask it, his voice wavered up and down. "I only wish it was under, y'know, better circumstances."
"Certainly, sir," Hyacinth said. Mel let her gaze trawl across the office; it was a disaster area of a workplace, with stacks of papers piled haphazardly between boxes of machine parts. A half-built device taller than Mel was stood against the wall opposite them, its guts spilling out onto the floor. "I'll get right to the point," continued Hyacinth. "As you are one of the higher-ranked people here, I would like to ask you a few questions concerning current events."
Bill nodded, taking a seat in a plush swivel chair and spinning around in it once before coming to a stop. "Fire away."
Hyacinth's questions had been pointed, but Bill had expounded on them far more than Mel had expected, and soon she found herself with more knowledge of Bill's history than she ever cared to have. Nothing Bill said seemed particularly helpful to her, but Hyacinth on the other hand wrote down every word with no small degree of satisfaction. "Thank you, sir," said Hyacinth. "That was very enlightening. I feel like I have a better image of what exactly might be going on here."
"You do?" Mel asked, her eyebrows arched. "Because I'm lost. Mind filling me in?"
"Certainly, Miss Rylan, though I would recommend that we table this discussion for now. I believe our current course of action ought to be to evacuate the building as quickly as possible – the two of us and our esteemed colleague here."
"What?" exclaimed Mel and Bill simultaneously.
Hyacinth slipped their notebook into a pocket and approached the door. "Indeed. So let us depart."
The door flew open before Hyacinth could lay hands on it, and they backed up. In the hallway stood two people in off-white robes, one of whom Mel recognized as the muscle-bound man whose form Repeat had borrowed to help escape their hideout in the Sevii Islands. "Bill?" the other person, an altogether smaller man who bore the confidence of someone who knew they had very large backup, asked.
"Y-yes?" Bill stuttered, his eyes wide.
"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me. Your… services are required."
"Small price to pay for saving the life of a creature of legend, chief."
"Yeah, you say that, Repeat, but I don't see you shelling out the money."
"Some might say that me not having money gives me a unique perspective on its value."
"Some might also say that you're just cheaping out on me. Fine. Here. 40,000. Let's hope I don't need to buy anything for the next couple'a months."
The cashier took Mel's money with a smile that Mel considered just slightly too predatory and handed over a single disc, contained in a plastic jewel case that was itself in a plastic bag. Mel stared in the bag as she and Repeat left the counter and sighed. "For how much this cost, they could have at least made the jewel case outta actual jewels," she muttered. "40,000 bucks. That's like 100 burgers. This single CD could have fed me for a month."
"Sure, boss, if you wanted to eat burgers three times a day." Repeat clung to the back of Mel's head, trying not to grin and failing miserably.
"And what if I do? Burgers are good. You got your meats, your grains, plus they even have veggies, fruits, and dairy on 'em. Eat a burger and you got all of the food groups, right there."
"What kind of fruit are you eating on a burger? Are you about to tell me that applewood-smoked bacon counts as an apple?"
"Tomatoes, you dope. Honestly, I'm not a total idiot."
"I dunno, boss. Even an idiot would know that tomatoes count as vegetables when they're being cooked." Repeat stifled a snicker.
Mel rolled her eyes and tossed her backpack down onto the floor, next to a plushly-cushioned bench under a row of bay windows. "Now I know you're winding me up. A tomato's gotta be one or the other. You can't say it's some weird half-fruit, half-vegetable."
"Whatever you say, boss."
Sun spilled into the building, casting Mel and Repeat in a golden light. It was a beautiful morning, the kind that was all too rare – a pure blue sky, a hint of a crisp breeze drifting in through an open window, and even faint birdsong drifting through town. They'd made it to Saffron City after taking a day to sleep, after which Mel felt much more alive, and they'd immediately gravitated to the place mentioned in Hyacinth's notes – the head branch of Silph Company.
Admittedly, Mel wouldn't have needed to rely on Hyacinth's hypothesis to head for Silph in the first place; in a city that already dwarfed all of its neighbors, Silph's building stood well above the rest, ruling the skyline with a stark silhouette. Not only did Silph run all of the Pokemarts in the country, they manufactured products that got sent all around the world and were used by nearly everyone who so much as had a Pokemon in their general vicinity. As a result, they bore a not-inconsiderable amount of name recognition and had, in the years since their founding, done some rebranding.
Gone was the looming, industrial Silph, full of scientists and engineers that had such an ethical deficit that they sided with the Rockets during their siege – and full of incompetent, money-hungry executives who treated their employees so poorly that the Rockets were seen as the better option. In its place was the sleek, streamlined Silph, completely transparent and dedicated to improving the world, at least according to their mission statement. In actuality, the executives were still quite enamored with money and the rumors of sketchy experiments still surrounded the company, but they'd put a happier face on it. Silph had even, and this was the real turning point, opened their own store on the first floor of their head office in Saffron, one that sold exclusively Silph-made products. Critics initially slammed Silph for the move, since Pokemarts were roughly 90% Silph merchandise already, but Silph's sales shot through the roof; apparently, making the store 'cool' and 'hip' and 'totally embarrassing to not be seen at' was just the thing to ensure products would fly off the shelves, no matter what they cost.
The Silph Store, branded with only the Silph logo on the door, was where Mel had paid 40,000 big ones for a single CD, and it was where she'd found a seat under an open window to examine her purchase.
"'P-Upgrade, v2,'" Mel read off the receipt as she set the plastic bag it came in next to her. "This is it, I guess. Gotta say, this was easier than I expected."
"Don't jinx it, boss," said Repeat. He hopped down to the cushion and pulled the jewel case out of the bag, struggling to hold something that was almost half his size. "We don't know if this is going to work yet. And even if this is the right thing, we still need to get it back to wherever it is the Unown wanted us to take it."
"Let me have this, Repeat. After everything we had to do in Pewter, I'm glad we can just walk in and buy something we need, even if it did cost an arm and a leg." Mel turned to eye Repeat and, by extension, the CD. "In fact, I… I think…" She reached out her hand slowly, brushing her fingertips across the jewel case, leaving sparks dancing across its surface.
From behind the jewel case, Repeat couldn't see what happened. "Boss? You okay?"
"Oh! Ah, sorry." Mel shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut to try and make the stars in her vision disappear. She grabbed the CD and stuffed it back in the plastic bag, then into her backpack. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. No big deal. Look, let's get outta here. We've got some research to do, and I for one am not looking forward to it."
"Research, you say? Perhaps I might be able to assist you in this endeavor."
Mel looked up – and she didn't have to look very far. A person in a trench coat stood before her, and it was only because Mel had met them before that she knew that they weren't three kids stacked on top of each other. "Hyacinth? What're you doing here?"
"Well," said Hyacinth, transparently grinning even though Mel couldn't see their mouth, "in an immediate sense, I'm offering my aid in your research-based quandary, for which I may only wish to ask a favor further in the future." Apparently sensing the words that were about to come out of Mel's mouth, they continued. "But I suspect that is not the intent behind your query, hm? No, rather, the reason behind my presence in this city today is because I have gathered evidence that one of the two organizations that I am currently investigating is, as one might say, 'up to something.' I only wish to find out what the something is to which they are up."
The wave of words washed over Mel, leaving her momentarily stunned. She focused her attention on Hyacinth's mind, but only got the same aspirations of helpfulness that Hyacinth perpetually gave off. "Wait, who's in town?" she asked, once Hyacinth's statement had time to sink in.
A notebook appeared in Hyacinth's hand and they began leafing through it, scanning each page at lightning speed. "The information I have thus far collected indicates that Genesis intends to conduct an operation somewhere within the city limits."
Mel shivered. The image of Degree Absolute and the rest of her cronies standing at the pier, waving at her, leapt into the forefront of her mind.
"Granted," Hyacinth continued, "Saffron City is not, well, small. Deducing their movements at this point, now that I am already within the borders, will be more difficult. However, I began my search here, at the Silph office building, simply because I suspect it presents the most temptation for organizations with malicious intent – as evidence, I offer the Rocket raid on this very location."
"You must be a blast at parties, Hyacinth," Mel said once she had sifted through Hyacinth's verbal onslaught.
"I wouldn't know. I rarely attend parties."
"Ah." With a rustle of fabric, Mel stood up, sliding her backpack on. Repeat took the hint and climbed to her shoulder. "Look, not that I don't like seeing you, but if Genesis is around here, I think it's high time I wasn't. They're a bit too, uh…"
"Dangerous? Criminal?" Hyacinth prompted.
"Creepy for my tastes. Plus, I'm pretty sure I personally ticked off their head honcho. So come find me once all the heat dies down and we can get cracking on this research stuff. I'd tell you where I'm going, but I bet you could find me either way." Mel approached the store's entrance, opened the door, stared outside for a moment, then gently closed the door before rejoining Hyacinth. "Change of plans."
"Allow me to posit a guess," said Hyacinth. "Agents of Genesis are just outside the door?"
"Yep. Think it would be a bad move for me to dive out the window instead?"
"Hm, I would assume so. I expect that would be significantly more noticeable."
The lights in the store turned out in unison, prompting a wave of quiet gasps that rolled through the shelves of merchandise. "Attention, Silph Store patrons," squawked an intercom set into the ceiling, "the exits have been sealed. This is a routine exercise. Please do not attempt to leave the building."
Mel scanned the room, her height giving her clearance over the shelves that Hyacinth didn't have. "Some of the customers are freaking out," she muttered low enough that only Repeat and Hyacinth could hear her. "But the guy at the register isn't. He looks perfectly calm. So either this legit is some bizarre thing the Silph Store just does sometimes…"
"Or," Hyacinth finished, "and I think this is significantly more likely, this is the Genesis operation and he is a plant."
"Right. So what is it they're trying to do, exactly?"
"I wish I had that information for you." Hyacinth pocketed their notebook and rolled a Pokeball in the palm of their hand. They tugged at the brim of their hat, the simple motion symptomatic of the touch of nervousness that Mel felt swirling around them. "I'm afraid that I know precious little about their goals as of yet, which is not a state in which I relish being. With that in mind, Miss Rylan, what would you say about conducting a little active investigation on our own terms?"
"I'd say we might as well get to it, Hyacinth."
***
It had been years upon years since the Rocket siege on Saffron. They had slowly infiltrated the city, growing their numbers and their influence, until they had enough people on the inside and the outside to take control of the Silph building wholesale. After that, all it took was trapping the Saffron gym leader and her subordinates in their gym for the entire city to be under Rocket command. The Elite Four's own non-interference pledge, wherein each member of the Elite Four promised not to use their considerable power to weigh in on local matters for fear of wielding undue influence, complicated matters further; in fact, the Saffron siege was the reason for the nullification of said pledges. As quickly as three years later, Lance, then the champion of the Elite Four, was seen taking action against the Rockets in Johto.
Since then, even with the threat of the combined powers of the Elite Four contributing to the lack of major crises in Kanto and Johto, Silph had decided to beef up their own security. Guards were hired onto company staff, more cameras were installed, and the networking expert Bill was even brought in – he designed a system where sensitive and valuable items could be whisked away across the network to a secure location, just like his Pokemon storage system, in the event that the company found themselves threatened. Bill stayed onboard with the company afterwards, being one of the only people in the region who could reliably troubleshoot the networking devices.
Gone were the days when Bill had accidentally combined himself with a Pokemon due to his own rashness and inexperience. Now, Bill was head of the technology services division in Silph, with salary and benefits to match.
Mel had heard of Bill before – who hadn't? His Pokemon storage system had been the norm for as long as she could remember, built upon and enhanced by other engineers in other regions; from the basic version where trainers could store only so many Pokemon in a box before having to manually swap boxes at a Pokemon Center, to boxes swapping automatically, to the abolishment of boxes altogether, to the entirety of the storage system being accessible through any networked device, letting trainers trade out the Pokemon on their team at any time. What Mel hadn't known were the details of Bill's employment, but she had learned all of that and more when she and Hyacinth had stumbled across his office.
The idea had been simple. Mel and Hyacinth would sneak through the building, scoping out exactly how far Genesis had gotten and where they were trying to get to. Much to Mel's confusion, though, nothing seemed to be going on. The lights had gone out throughout the building, but that was it. Nobody roamed the halls except security guards – and a flash of Hyacinth's badge had been enough to convince them to let Mel and Hyacinth continue their search. But they'd found nothing.
At least, they'd found nothing until they happened across an otherwise-nondescript office bearing Bill's name on a placard. Hyacinth looked at the name, looked at their notes, looked back at the name, then knocked on the door, and Bill had eagerly welcomed both of them in once Hyacinth explained the situation.
Bill stood only a hair shorter than Mel and he was dressed in a rumpled powder-blue suit sans jacket, one that might have looked daring on anyone else but on him just looked like all of his other suits were in the wash. His wavy reddish-brown hair was streaked with gray, but his eyes were bright and lively, with a fire behind them that made him look younger. "Nice to meetcha!" he said cheerfully, a trace of a Goldenrod accent under his words, as he welcomed Mel and Hyacinth in. Mel didn't need her abilities to pick up on his nervousness; though he tried to mask it, his voice wavered up and down. "I only wish it was under, y'know, better circumstances."
"Certainly, sir," Hyacinth said. Mel let her gaze trawl across the office; it was a disaster area of a workplace, with stacks of papers piled haphazardly between boxes of machine parts. A half-built device taller than Mel was stood against the wall opposite them, its guts spilling out onto the floor. "I'll get right to the point," continued Hyacinth. "As you are one of the higher-ranked people here, I would like to ask you a few questions concerning current events."
Bill nodded, taking a seat in a plush swivel chair and spinning around in it once before coming to a stop. "Fire away."
Hyacinth's questions had been pointed, but Bill had expounded on them far more than Mel had expected, and soon she found herself with more knowledge of Bill's history than she ever cared to have. Nothing Bill said seemed particularly helpful to her, but Hyacinth on the other hand wrote down every word with no small degree of satisfaction. "Thank you, sir," said Hyacinth. "That was very enlightening. I feel like I have a better image of what exactly might be going on here."
"You do?" Mel asked, her eyebrows arched. "Because I'm lost. Mind filling me in?"
"Certainly, Miss Rylan, though I would recommend that we table this discussion for now. I believe our current course of action ought to be to evacuate the building as quickly as possible – the two of us and our esteemed colleague here."
"What?" exclaimed Mel and Bill simultaneously.
Hyacinth slipped their notebook into a pocket and approached the door. "Indeed. So let us depart."
The door flew open before Hyacinth could lay hands on it, and they backed up. In the hallway stood two people in off-white robes, one of whom Mel recognized as the muscle-bound man whose form Repeat had borrowed to help escape their hideout in the Sevii Islands. "Bill?" the other person, an altogether smaller man who bore the confidence of someone who knew they had very large backup, asked.
"Y-yes?" Bill stuttered, his eyes wide.
"I'm going to have to ask you to come with me. Your… services are required."