The atmosphere at the Pokémon HQ Lab was tense. Everyone was on edge. There was no way to tell when the next police raid was coming. They returned after the blackout to check if the lab was somehow responsible, but concluded they couldn't tell. Jovi and Hop knew Ein was harassing Eldes. He threatened to involve the Pokémon League HQ if Theta's disqualification wasn't overturned, but they were in Kanto. They couldn't be as clueless as the Orrean police. Why would they listen to some washed-up mad scientist? Wouldn't he be laughed off the phone for imagining they might care?
Lyndon delivered the contents of Ein's computers on three hard drives. They answered some questions about the 'Alfie Cult.' Ein spied on Alfie as obsessively as Ardos did. He compiled countless tables of possibilities to 'expose' him as a liar. Every article written about Lovrina and Alfie, either early when he was blamed or later when she was exposed as the abuser, were stored as password-protected documents in a folder titled 'Truth.' Lyndon also included his countless screenshots from Ein's email accounts and P★DA messenger on the hard drives. He was disgusted when he handed them over. With every public photo or video of Alfie in jail were texts – usually initiated by Lovrina, but occasionally Ein – mocking him or expressing amusement that he was jailed and Lovrina was not. Ein apparently didn't mind listening to her rants about how she didn't cause Alfie enough pain. He also mocked her 'best friend,' Ballonlea's Gym Leader Bede, who took her in to train for the Elite Four because he was a victim of the abusive Chairman Rose... and believed Lovrina was a victim, too.
They hardly needed proof that the Gallegos were despicable people at this point. Several people wondered when they met Theta as a child. They brushed it off as Ein's influence. It was clear now that it was Lovrina, too. As furious as Lyndon was to read about them mocking his dad, now he knew Alfie was a victim of Cipher, he knew it wasn't the most relevant information. He separated the screenshots into folders. There was one email from Nascour, who was apparently involved in the sale of Sandile, sent in panic during the blackout. Jovi couldn't help smiling.
'I see you had some fun with this lot.'
Lyndon shrugged. 'We had to get Sandile back somehow.'
'Yeah. Amber actually already told Zane who told Hop. We approve.'
'Verzant should take that money and leave Orre.'
'But where would he go? He can't fly, or Ardos will know. The money won't last forever – and a cleaner's wages won't go far anywhere around Orre. Sunset City is ridiculous... anyway, good work. They have no idea it was you!'
'Yeah... Ein actually suspects Nascour. Who blames Collector Edwin.'
'That's hilarious. Cipher never change.'
'Is it Cipher, though? From those messages between Ein and Lovrina – and Nascour, even – there's no way they were working with Ardos until recently. They didn't even know for sure if Cipher still existed. Or who I was. I didn't know who they were, either. If there ever was any contact, I was either in an episode I don't remember or they only spoke to someone below me, who never relayed it. Which I doubt. Everyone was scared of me. They did what I asked.'
'I don't think they did ever contact Cipher, but I guess it could've been Verzant? He was cocky enough to stand up to you.'
'He was in the end. But I think we can be sure that Ein, Lovrina and Nascour – and any minions – were working alone. They were even laughing at us – my Cipher – when Lovrina came to help take us down. They thought they could take over our facilities.'
'Yeah... I'm just getting to those screenshots. "Who the fuck is Lyndon Massey?" I love it! "How did some washed-up football player catch the Swords of Justice?" Oh, my gosh! "He's so Alfie's little brat. Can't he be recruited because he hates daddy? We can so convince him anyway."'
'There are a ton of texts about how they could lie about my dad to get me in. Have you seen the ones about Wes?'
'Yes! The fuck? Ein seriously believed his wife could seduce Wes, of all people, into joining them...'
'Who is Major, by the way?'
'Their son. Can they really blame him for running away? But it unnerves me he's supposedly so strong and we have no idea where he is... he could be setting up his own Cipher.'
Hop wearily shook his head. 'Love how Cipher is a universally understood synonym for "evil team" these days.'
'Well, it's accurate! We can be sure Theta and her parents have an axe to grind with Major, whatever he's up to. It's a shame they apparently care about him so little otherwise, they send more texts about Alfie than him...'
'They have an axe to grind with Wyatt, too.'
'Do they? I haven't got to that yet.'
'Yeah. For setting up a Gym in The Under. So they couldn't move in without pissing him off. But he'll be fine. I've only ever lost to two people since Michael... Fayiz and Wyatt.'
'I'll have to have a go,' Hop said, 'When this is all done with. I know Lee's done Mt. Battle, but I've not got the patience, so I'll abuse my position as your mate to challenge you.'
'Sure, dude.'
'Hopefully they don't know Wyatt can see auras... because I see they're out to "dispose of" anyone who can. I know he's crazy strong, but he's kind of alone down there in The Under.'
'Yeah... if we do get worried... I can go stay in Trip and Amber's apartment for a while. Anyone would be stupid to stand up to me and him. And they're not stupid.'
'I'll go, too,' Hop offered, 'The last thing we want is them getting hold of those facilities.'
Jovi sighed. 'Too bad we can't show any of this to the police without them going after Lyndon for hacking... but maybe we can hint that we're suspicious.'
'Or, as usual, we'll have to take them down ourselves.'
'We've never had to deal with them framing us – successfully framing us – before, though...'
Someone knocked on the office doors. Jovi called to them to come in. The doors slid open. Krane stood with Jamal. They were so used to seeing him in his red aerospace engineer's overalls, he looked unfamiliar in jeans and a t-shirt.
'Oh, hello!'
Jovi waved. She stood to wheel in a chair from the neighbouring room.
'It's great to see you in person, Jamal, but... I hope that's not bad news.'
'Oh, no. Well, I guess it's bad that I'm paranoid Cipher could listen in to a phone call, but that's why I drove up.'
'We were just going through all these screenshots and documents from Ein's computers and yeah... the Gallegos are definitely in league with Cipher, but it seems to be a recent thing. They were working alone until then.'
'We sometimes see their boy skulking around in Quartz Town, y'know.'
'Really?'
Jovi frowned. 'That's a little worrying. We know he isn't speaking to his parents... but is there any chance he's responsible for the blackouts and they're not...?'
'No,' Lyndon said, 'Ein's lab still had an internet connection.'
Jamal nodded. 'They definitely don't have access to the satellites via the space center. Security is way too tight. I've worked there since it was built and I still get searched every morning. I talked to our computer geeks, too.'
'I tried to hack in.'
No-one blinked at Lyndon's announcement. 'Just to check. But yeah. It's so secure, it'd take me forever... if I could even get in, which I don't think I could. The government could learn from you.'
'Well, there you have it! If Don can't hack us, nobody can. It's not impossible that there's a well-disguised Cipher member working with us, but they'd have to be pretty high-up to understand our systems well enough to communicate with the satellites. And we all know each other. So if that's the case, we have an incredibly talented and deceptive actor in our ranks, but that's pretty unlikely.'
'I thought so... but I'm glad you've confirmed it. That'd be horrible for you guys.'
'Yeah. We'd all be shocked and disappointed in whoever. But another reason I think it's impossible – we only have a skeleton crew through the night, but the blackouts happened in the day. The place was fully staffed. Everyone's been wary since the first blackout, but no-one saw anything weird going on.'
'So we can basically rule out hacking or infiltrating the space center. But they do have access to the satellites. I asked Lyndon if it's possible they've launched their own stuff... but he said he'd have to ask you. It sounds ridiculous, but...'
'No, no. Cipher would try anything. It's not exactly easy to hide a rocket, though. They're big. They make a lot of noise. We have three airports with 24/7 air traffic control staff to avoid. Four if Citadark Isle's open. SCX – Sunset City – is only 350 miles away. Then there's the military monitoring our airspace.'
'Is it possible to avoid them?'
'Very, very unlikely. The whole region would have to be otherwise occupied – and we know we haven't been since Cipher last went down.'
'What if Ein launched his crap then?'
'Ein's a Pokémon specialist, right? Is he even capable of building a functional rocket? Or a satellite? It's not easy. I guess he could've employed some aerospace engineering graduates, but that's unlikely. That's one Orrean degree that's valuable everywhere. There's no reason for them to turn to crime.'
'Where would they build a rocket?' Lyndon asked, 'I went to his lab to bum off their internet connection... it's big, but not that big.'
Jovi nodded. 'Yeah. I can't really see it. Unless they hid it underground? No. Scratch that. If they already had a place underground, they wouldn't need The Under. And it still has to launch without anyone seeing it. Unless they want The Under just because they're greedy and they did hide it underground and launch during the last Cipher fiasco.'
'It really is unlikely. Someone would've seen it, I'm sure.'
'I mean... it was a bit of a shitfest. There were black clouds over half of Orre.'
'But someone, somewhere in the world, would've noticed a rocket that wasn't supposed to be there. It wouldn't just be visible from Orre. Look up at the right time and you'll see rockets that launched from Mossdeep.'
'Yeah. You're right. But that still leaves us with a question... how the fuck do they have access to our satellites?!'
Jamal stared thoughtfully past Jovi for a moment. 'Well... there's no evidence they have access to the satellites. Influence over them, yeah. But it's actually unlikely they're accessing them. We need to start thinking about how they might be controlling them without direct access.'
'Invaded a military base?' Hop suggested, 'Or something like that?'
There were muffled sobs outside. Everyone tensed up. Were the police back already? What would they think when they found Lyndon and Jamal in the Director's Office? Knuckles tapped the door. Jovi nervously stood. She lowered her voice.
'Uh, Lyndon... Jamal... wanna head into the residential wing and pretend you're just here for coffee?'
'Oh, yeah. Sure.'
The doors opened before they could stand. Flustered and confused Professor Krane stood with a trembling woman, clutching a baby in a threadbare blanket. None of them recognised her.