worktodo | 008 | Saffron City

[Ladies and gentlemen of Johto and Kanto, something rather odd is afoot on your network today. Upon closer inspection, it appears to be the ceiling of some kind of garage-like room, rendered in video and slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-owly moving past at a glacial — yet determined — pace. In fact, it's probably what the ceiling would look like if a Gear camera was pointed at it while that aforementioned Gear was being stolen by a pair of Shuckles.

Which, as a matter of fact, is exactly what's happening.

Unfortunately for these criminal masterminds, their getaway is moving at approximately the speed of molasses left out on a park bench in Siberia, so more likely than not they're going to be noticed before anything productive comes of it.]

Well, you look like you check out, pal...

[—and apparently Albert is somewhere in the vicinity, too, given the proximity of his voice as, presumably unbeknownst to him, his Gear goes Shuckling across the floor.]

No obvious growths, no changes in teeth or coat, eyes still look bright, appetite's good...

[The purple head and glittering diamond eyes of a Sableye creep into view on the camera now, disrupting the slow-moving shot of the ceiling, and a minute later things go dark as two little clawed hands close over the lens and Gear.]

Huh. Doesn't look like there's an upper limit to these things after all. Never mind the fact that education of yours just cost as much as grad school, if not — what're you doing, Impy? Don't play with that. Just leave it there, it's fine.

[The darkness recedes, and now the Gear is on its side on a lab table — one currently covered in the pieces of fifteen broken TMs — and Albert is visible next to it. He's wearing his lab coat and gloves as usual, and is holding a Buneary who is rather nonchalantly nibbling at a piece of lettuce.

Albert continues his inspection of the Buneary another few moments, then checks his watch and heads out of sight, still carrying the Pokemon in his arms.]

Sweep and Scrappy can take care of the mess. Let's get you back in the cage, Bruce.

[And on that note, purple hands descend again, and after a few buttons click, the Gear switches off.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Same as everything else — incomprehensibly.

Sue me for hoping something might adhere to anything you might call Earth logic around here.

I don't think anyone can fault you for trying. But if it counts as anything? You have a real interesting buneary to show off.

Let's just hope he stays in the cage where he belongs. It's gonna be trouble if he ends up on the loose someday.

Yeah. That'd make for an interesting goose chase.

[Norman has to admit, it is kind of harmless looking. What more would you expect from a rabbit-like pokemon that looks like a walking piece of butterscotch-flavored cotton candy? A whole mess of trouble and a frostbitten face that's what. Always trend lightly with the woodland critters.

But enough speculation about worldwide disarray from one buneary--]

Is that the only project you're working on?

[Color him curious Agent SCIENCE.]

[Good question, Norman. Good enough, as a matter of fact, that the feed is going to flicker, cut out for a moment, and then resume as Albert switches over from Public Consumption Video to the somewhat more confidential Team FBI Private Broadcast Frequency.

Because you are ON THE TEAM. Making it HAPPEN.]

Nah. We've got a handful in the works out here, some further along than others.

[He tilts the camera to display a shelving unit relatively filled with glass containers of various powders, and petri dishes of samples.]

A bunch of the creatures classified in local taxonomy as Grass types have defense mechanisms in the form of powders — ones that'll put you to sleep, paralyze you, poison you, a whole mess of nasty effects. We've got samples of most of those, and they got us to a point where we've developed a basic spray-on repellant that neutralizes them before they make contact. To protect the face, the areas we can't cover with the spray, we've got one of these —

[He holds up a bundle of what appears to be leather and plastic.]

— gas masks. This one's dog-sized, to fit my starter. We're still working on the filter but progress is going good, we'll have that any day now. And then there's the damn cretin who thought it'd be funny to put poison in Christmas cookies and hand 'em out to little kids around the holiday — we're just starting work on extracting and mass-producing a remedy for that.

[Old habits die hard, huh? At least the other half of the bureau aren't using their time as a cosmic excuse to call an early retirement.]

That's a lot of progress. A repellent sure would be real useful.

[Then again he does notice that the police force (in Johto at least) are too nonchalant for their own good. Not the kind of on the beat police you would expect anywhere else but the countryside.]

I thought ARI could spot their pollen traces but it can't detect anything at all.

[He taps on his breast pocket. You know, just in case the thing ran away ~~or Alvin swiped it away from him again~~.]

"Airy"? Is that what you named your starter?

[Can't blame the man for never hearing of future glasses before.]

That's another one we're working on — explosive-sniffing dogs. That one's stalled out a lot from lack of time and manpower, but it's not off the table entirely.

This has nothing to do with pokemon. I'm talking about the recent model they put out.

[He pulls out a pair of what seems to be ordinary sunglasses. Surely he's heard about them, right?]

It seems like they haven't been working the same since I got here.

[Pardon him while he just squints a minute.]

You named your sunglasses? I'm more of an aviators guy anyway.

[...but wait, then context catches up. He was talking about finding pollen traces, right...?]

Hang on. What do you mean, working? What are those, some kind of night-vision UV gadget for spotting evidence?

...Something like that.

[Well there's that then. He is a little disappointed but hey- what can you do?]

They're called Added Reality Interface. You put these on and you can observe things you wouldn't be able to notice without looking up-close. Its' got the most extensive database you can imagine. Look at any object and it can tell you exactly who and/or where is it from.

[Whistle. If he's serious, that's a pretty impressive gadget. WHEN DOES HIS VERSION OF THE BUREAU GET ONE.]

That could be a huge help if we could get them working right again. You don't have any idea what's wrong? Maybe they've got a short in the wiring or something?

[I DON'T KNOW. Maybe in the next millennium?

~~And he hasn't even told him about creating your own environment. Imagine sitting under the sea, Albert.]~~

I...

[It is odd how they began to glitch ever since he arrived in Johto. Looking down at the frames once more as he pushes the temples out. Nothing seems to be out of the ordinary.]

I don't know. I'd leave that sort of troubleshooting to the R&D Department.

[It couldn't be that damn storm. That shit was brutal but ARI is one leg up when it comes to resilience.]

[Gosh you future types have all the fun.

~~DOES IT COME WITH A SEBASTIAN THE CRAB THO~~]

Around here, it's looking more and more like the R&D Department is me, a thirty-year-old who looks twelve, and a Viking kid.

Just one more reason to get you down here in a hurry, I guess.

Edited 2013-01-24 01:22 (UTC)

[~~IT COMES WITH A CRAB. THIS AIN'T DISNEY BRO.~~

Norman...doesn't know how to respond to that. I mean, talk about a rag tag team collaborating all in the name of science. They probably couldn't tell him what is exactly wrong with his ARI.]

I'm working on it. Saffron is a real long way from here.

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