”yes.”

she looked around a stack of papers piled high on her desk. almost illegible notes. for some reason, the scientist had always insisted on wildly scrawling them all by hand. as time passed, her office had only grown in its impressive organized chaos. she clearly lived here. it would seem safe to assume that she had it all digitally copied somewhere.

pushing away a spiked mug of coffee into one of the few free spaces in front of her, she then pulled the creaky center drawer of her desk and popped a mint, rolling it in her mouth once before addressing him.

”what can i do for you, mr. del mar?”

she hardly looked surprised to see him. rather, there was a tinge of smugness to her, accompanied by a hint of annoyance, a hefty dash of curiosity—all veiled on a practiced face, but mars was perceptive.

gorgo snored, announcing his presence behind the desk. also hidden was djall, practically comatose on the cold metal floor nearby.

Martín del Mar

☉

mostly, she had turned her attention away from the unown report. after looking into it, disassembling it, and offering it to the porygon for deeper analysis, she figured she had done the extent of what she could for the situation. the devices were literally in other hands. why worry, when she had so many other things to get done on such a limited timeframe?

she knew something would crop up eventually, though.

when she looked down at the phone placed in front of her, what she homed in on was far more bizarre than she could have guessed. her brow furrowed briefly, before she looked back up at him. her smugness has passed.

”well. unfortunately, i hardly know what advice to give you this time.”

her head turned to the side, and her arms came up to cross over one another.

”is the name 'dark triad' familiar to you?”

the amber stare fixed on him was sharp and investigative. it housed new suspicion.

Martín del Mar

☉

her eyes narrowed a sliver more, barely enough to notice as they passed from one to the other on his face. it still wasn’t a glare, but rather the kind of gaze she might fix on an unpredictable test subject.

”it’s the name of the program file. it was also found on a wrynn corp machine like the one jules cotillard was using to generate wormholes.”

she had discovered it early on, but it hadn’t seemed like a detail to worry about. an odd name, sure, but people named programs all sorts of nonsense all the time. it wasn’t until Rowan Wrynn had informed her of it having also been discovered on the wrynn corp machine that more concern had sprouted.

meteno 99943 had taken up much of her attention, but recent research on the devices again alongside young Eris Halla had turned up something interesting. something that aligned more with her fears from the beginning.

she gestured to the seat across from her.

”sit, if you like. i have time.”

Martín del Mar

☉

the name of the organization? ”could very well be.” she had the same theory, but of course, she questioned if there was perhaps more to it than that. it was in her nature to overcomplicate things. what to do when one stumbles upon the obvious answer? certainly take a step to the left, and look around.

she sighed lightly as he took his seat, suspicion taking a backseat in favor of continuing her tired, meandering forward march for answers. if he was an alien, then by arceus, let him show his teeth and find out. there was a pistol very close by. things were easily hidden in this room.

”i can’t help but wonder if we’re meant to discover these things—clues, like the filename. whoever planted these devices around hoenn for us is clearly aware of and taking advantage of our curiosity.“ it was incessant—especially that of the two people in this room in particular.

what had Eris Halla and lulu found?

”they’re pokédexes.” her face was flat as she assessed his for a brief moment, looking to pick up on any sense of revelation. ”... essentially, at least.”

there were questions. why, for instance, did multiple unown of the same letter result in alternate entries?

were they from alternate universes, perhaps?

”my thought is that whoever has distributed these has done so with the intention of taking inventory of the unown appearing in our world. given that we now know they can pass through dimensions, perhaps they are tracking a migration of some sort.”

she looked back down at the phone on her desk. far on the contrary to mars’ bizarre and phenomenal memory of the report, lulu found it difficult to remember all the words contained, for some reason—but there was a lot going on, to be fair.

”may i?”

Martín del Mar

☉

”perhaps each one originates from a different place. different worlds.” she suggested. ”or, maybe the words are just rewards for playing someone’s game.”

she picked up the phone.

”how many times have you contributed to it?”

scrolling through, her thin eyebrows arched into the hard edges of dark bangs.

”well. there’s a lot more here than last time i saw this.”

her thumb slowed over nightmare as well without a word. it might as well have been her name, as far as she was concerned. it had something to do with darkrai, or its realm, if it even truly existed. she was sure of it.

”tch. pokerus...” things were really hitting them from all sides, weren’t they?

her face pinched even more briefly. yellow? were there not enough y words for them?

finally, she looked up, blinking. there was so much to unpack, even for her. there were certainly some patterns. there were also some alarming oddities, and several words she’d never seen before. 

the device was slid back across the table.

”i assume you’ve researched these. we are the goddamn quasar. all eyes are on us, mr. del mar.”

she crossed her arms, sitting back again.

”almost feels like the apocalypse is coming, doesn’t it?”

the look on her face was too indifferent, albeit maybe a little annoyed that it had not been by her own design. 

Martín del Mar

☉

still reclining back in her chair, lulu searched his expression. pokerus in hoenn? surely, this was nothing more than a hunch. paranoia. she could relate, but disease was just not something she was willing to pile onto her laundry list of concerns without ample warrant.

”...”

”mr. del mar, with all due respect, if pokerus were in hoenn, i think i would know about it.” she had some of the top scientists in the world working under her around the clock, after all.

”what do you base this theory on, or am i to assume you are using this list as some kind of reliable forecast for our downfall?” in which case, she would likely pour him a tall glass of tequila and get back to her work. while there might be something to it, it was clear enough to her that there was little they could do but wait and see. pandora's box had already been opened.

Martín del Mar

☉

at the emphasis in his defense, lulu quirked a brow, but she didn’t interject as he elaborated. once he was through, she was unsure of how to proceed.

following the strange shifts in memory from FERNANDO SILPH ’s alterations, lulu had done some brief studying on psychology. she was no expert, but mars had clearly settled into some kind of obsession. people tended to become more defensive when you called them crazy, even in so many gentle words. she did not want to set him off. he needed a psychiatrist.

she would try to be helpful anyways.

”you're playing their game, and they’ve got you. they have your name. they are pulling you in, for whatever reason.”

”perhaps you should take the rest of the day off, mr. del mar. reset, you know? maybe leave the report behind somewhere, in a safe.” maybe give the key to a trusted friend. she paused, before suggesting, ”i recommend the hot springs in lavaridge...”

Martín del Mar

☉