Story Four: Family
"Mommy! There was a giant Muk trying to get me! I think it's hiding under my bed!"
"Jessie, Jessie dear, it was only a nightmare. See? There's nothing hiding under your bed. Everything's safe, go back to sleep now." The woman held the child close, then kissed her "Goodnight" on the forehead and tucked her back into bed.
"Mommy, I'm so hungry! We don't have ANYTHING to eat?"
"I'm sorry, honey, we couldn't afford to go to the store this week. It's snowing outside, I've got an idea..."
"...Here we go, now we have a whole banquet! Just pretend that it's real and you won't be hungry anymore. I've even got a little bit of soy sauce for the 'sushi rolls'."
"This is great, Mommy!"
"We'll do this whenever we get hungry and there's nothing to eat, okay, dear? We can call it 'Snowgasboard'."
"...Jessie, don't cry. I know you father and I can't afford to get you any dolls or do anything special for you like all your friends, but every girl is a princess on Princess Festival Day."
"Mommy! Please don't go!"
"I have to, dear. I know it's dangerous, but The Boss says that I have to. I want to take a picture of you to take with me, like your father gave me. That way, I'll have you both with me in spirit. As long as I have your picture, we will never be apart, then we'll be together again when I come back...come back...come back..."
Myamoto awakened alone in her bedchamber at the Isle Noir Team Rocket Base. She stirred slowly beneath her blankets, then proceeded to get up to get dressed. Her dreams had been strange of late and disturbed her greatly. They seemed...real...as if she had actually lived them before.
A recurring image in many of the dreams was a man, a man that she seemed to know in the dream, who was very close to her, a brother or husband perhaps. Another image, and image appearing more frequently in Myamoto's visions at night, was of a little girl with red hair. Myamoto was very emotionally close to this person in the dreams, too. The girl had a name, "Jessie".
Then, there was another dream, a nightmare that she had almost every night. A strange and beautiful creature hovered over her-a pokemon. Then the dream ended with her being buried alive under a rushing torrent of snow.
Myamoto had just been dreaming about the little girl again, she recalled, as she put on the black uniform with the great red "R" on the chest. The girl looked very much like a much-younger version of the woman she had been sent to assassinate several months ago, the failed assignment, Jessica Lillis, the partner of James Rochester.
She was to go down to train with him in the Main Gym today, in half an hour. She turned off the set alarm on her clock before it had a chance to go off. Myamoto hadn't needed it much lately; the dreams were what awakened her in the mornings now.
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Myamoto stepped out upon a walkway overlooking the floor of the Main Gym. James was already below, beginning the morning "exercises". Myamoto had to report to Giovanni before joining the blue-haired youth. Giovanni was sitting in his chair with his pet Persian beside him on a balcony on the other side of the Gym, he signaled for Myamoto to stay where she was and wait. She watched James.
James stood staring at the far side of the Gym, where several black-clad minor Rocket agents were waiting for a signal from The Boss. James himself was in a black uniform, with white gloves, the reverse of the white one he used to wear as his standard issue.
Giovanni raised his right hand, then brought it down in a dramatic sweep. The ten Rockets on the West Side of the Gym rushed James, tackling him in a swift and brutal assault! An aura of blue and white electricity surrounded the young man, and his eyes glowed an unnatural, phosphorous blue, the same color as the electric aura surrounding his body. A sound like a great thunderclap shook the Gym and the air smelled thickly of an odor like burnt wires.
James stood unharmed; his ten assailants were rendered twitching, incapacitated on the Gym floor. Curls of smoke rose from burnt clothing and burnt skin. James was beginning to enjoy his new powers...they were like nothing he ha had ever had before. He was stronger in his electric attacks than a Pikachu, or even a Raichu. Still, he would have rather had his old life than this, the life of a science experiment.
"Very good, James, most impressive. I'd say that your strength is increasing...all ten of them in this round;" Giovanni laughed, clapping his hands lightly. James stared up at him and growled.
Suddenly, James ran to the Far West end of the Gym and started climbing the balcony wall! "Enough of this! Enough with you!" he shouted at his "Master" and captor, bristling with a well-charged electric aura.
"Guards! Restrain him!" The Boss shouted, fear evident in his voice despite the commanding tone with which he issued the order. Three men leapt from the shadows of three different corners of the Gym, brandishing long spear-like devices tipped with electrically charged spearheads swirling with curls of blue lightning.
It had beeneen found in early testing that James could give electric attacks and was resistant to outside electrocution if it was given from a few feet away (as with the attack of an electric pokemon). He, however, would succumb as any normal man to the direct application of a taser to his person.
As James reached for Giovanni's right leg, the three guards thrust the tips of their spears past James' aura of lightning, and lightly into his flesh. He screamed in agony and fell to the floor. The guards stood over him and applied their electric-spears to him again, delivering powerful voltage.
"Tsk, Tsk, James. That was very naughty." Giovanni sneered.
"P-Please! N-no more;" James whimpered; "I'll behave...Please...Stop!"
"Take him to Cell 7-B;" The Boss ordered. The guards delivered one more powerful shock to James, causing him to lose consciousness, and then they dragged him away by his feet.
Myamoto walked up to Giovanni, a concerned look lining her face.
"It looks like you will be training alone today;" Giovanni muttered under his breath.
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That evening, Myamoto was allowed to visit her "training partner" in Cell 7-B.
"You know that disobedience only causes pain. James, why did you do that this morning?"
"I'm absolutely sick of what they're doing to us here. All the pain, the tests...the man took everything from me, Mya, Jessie and Meowth are probably dead by now...and...I'm not sure I'm even human anymore...they've made me a freak!"
"But you don't think I'm a freak, do you? A clone?"
"Your situation is different...Mya, aren't you tired of all the tests? All the 'training'? Giovanni doesn't care about you anymore than he cares about me...we're just toys to him, to be used...don't you ever want to try to leave this place and live your own life?&ife?"
"I've wondered what it is like outside of these Rocket Bases and labs. I do admit it. And you're only making me wonder more, talking about the forests and cities and your friends...Jessie and Meowth...but if you keep disobeying, Giovanni will have you terminated."
"I'm not sure if I even care anymore;"
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"Quiet as a mouse;" Jessie whispered to Meowth as she crept into the dark interior of the Pewter City Pokemon Center through a small window that she and Meowth had pried open.
Jessie and her feline friend had learned, through careful eavesdropping last night at Iwake's Grill, that the Pewter City Pokemon Center had some loose ties with Team Rocket, dealing with the exchange of information.
It was said that the Center had been providing the very Boss himself with information upon the genetics of Pokemon, transferred to an undisclosed location.
PerhaPerhaps, Jessie thought, this tied in with her "mother" somehow, for she had uncovered a few records in the last few months with scant traces of a "Myamoto Project" bearing some linkage to Pewter City.
She and Meowth knew that their source was probably correct, even though they were merely eavesdropping on a dinner conversation. The men they were listening to they recognized as Team Rocket assassins.
They had been sent to the Pewter area to look for Jessie. She and Meowth had escaped them after an encounter in the nearby woods just the day before. Jessie and Meowth had followed them to Iwake's Grill later, in disguise.
They had been pursued by many such hired guns in recent weeks, having been lucky to escape them. All this, and they were still hiding from the Police. Jessie's rap sheet would be longer now than it was when she was a loyal member of Team Rocket.
Many were the places she and the cat had broken into to steal infoinformation on their quest to find the truth about the "Myamoto Project". It was Team Rocket's plan to build an army of "perfect Team Rocket soldiers" cloned from the genetic material of its once best member, Jessie's deceased mother, Myamoto.
Prison time would be the least of Meowth and Jessie's worries if they were ever captured by the Fuzz. Being confined to jail or prison would become a death sentence to them both, as assassins would easily find their location and eliminate them. I was an easy thing for a Rocket or two to break into a jailhouse and many were the Rockets in prison that would gladly eliminate a traitor. Crooked guards in the prisons would look the other way. The typical Officer Jenny was too nave to see that, or perhaps just didn't care.
Meowth pawed lightly behind Jessie as they entered a pitch-dark corridor. This was the back of the Pokecenter, sure to lead to labs or back rooms where records were kept and nd transferred.
"You know what dis reminds me of?" Meowth began; "Dat one time when we broke into dat Breeding Center."
"The one run by Butch and...grrr...Cassidy;" Jessie spat.
"Dat first time James got attacked by dat Victreebell of his."
Jessie laughed softly; "It would have been funny if we weren't trying to get away from Butch and Cassidy at the time."
"He never could get dat ting trained."
"I wonder if Jessiebelle's doing any better with it."
Jessie let out a long sigh. She missed James deeply. It had been almost five months since his death. She and Meowth had gotten through their grief enough to move on with life, but this pursuit of truth felt incomplete to them both without him.
From what Jessie heard, James' family had collected his pokemon and his remains from the Vermilion City Hospital. She and Meowth, being fugitives, did not attend whatever funeral they had giv had given him.
Jessie heard a sharp "click" in the darkness and immediately froze. Meowth did likewise.
"Put your hands behind your heads and turn around slowly;" a voice gruffly ordered. All the lights of the Pokecenter came on at once. Officer Jenny of Pewter City stood at the end of the hallway with a small army of lesser officers, with her gun drawn on Jessie.
"A set-up" Meowth whispered.
Jenny spoke; "You have the right to remain silent..."
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James stood before Giovanni, flanked on his right and his left by guards. His head hung low, eyes not meeting those of his superior.
"You will obey now. You will not try anything like the incident the other day ever again. Am I right?"
"Y-yes sir."
"I didn't hear you."
"Yes sir!" James replied.
"Very good. You may go back to your quarters now and we shalnd we shall resume your training tomorrow. Guards!"
The two guards escorted James to the apartment-like dwelling that was his home on Isle Noir-that is, when he wasn't in the Brig for disobedience. They carried electric-spears and wore thick rubber gloves and suits of rubber over their regular clothing, for protection.
It had been discovered, rather painfully by one Rocket, that James could not only cause electric energy to blaze from his body as an aura around him, but that lightning arched off his person involuntarily if he were touched by any living organic entity.
Several weeks ago, Agent Butch Kosaburo Anheiser had come up to James after one of his training sessions to "congratulate" him for a well done session and make snide comments about him being a freak. Butch made the mistake of clasping his hand on James' shoulder when James turned to walk away from his annoyance. Butch was in a coma in the Isle Noir infirmary for three de days.
Giovanni watched the guards leave with James. The boy was becoming quite a problem. The day before yesterday was not the first time that the young man had tried to attack him. That last time almost reminded him of a scene out of "Sparticus".
The Boss of Team Rocket remained unworried, however. His last major genetic-engineering project, Mewtwo, had nearly killed him, but Myamoto and James were nothing to worry about. James, however rebellious he was becoming, had always been a rather meek individual and easy to control.
The electric powers that he had gained from the Jolteon splicing had increased more than what was natural in the pokemon, but James was still not as powerful as Mewtwo had been, and never would be. When he disobeyed, Giovanni's loyal guards were always there to punish him.
Giovanni wished to have more training and more tests before applying the genetic splicing to Myamoto and eliminating the young man. Truly, ly, he did not want to eliminate him at all, for with his new strength, he would be a valuable asset to Team Rocket, more so than he had been. But if he did not regain that loyalty to the Team that he had possessed when he was a failure, James would have to be terminated.
Myamoto, too, was not a danger. She was loyal, Giovanni knew that she considered him her "father" because he had laid the plans for his scientists to create her. Giovanni had considered becoming something besides a father to her, something that he had dreamed about with the original Myamoto. He was her partner, but longed to be closer, but she had married another man.
Giovanni taught the clone of Myamoto about Team Rocket and how to become what she was to be, a "perfect member". He had longed to teach her more...other things, but had decided that it would be a disgrace to the true Myamoto's memory. "Myamoto-two" was a mere copy of the woman Giovanni hahad once loved, a shadow. He considered her a little less than human because she was a clone, to be used for the Team, for his gain. With an army of such fine members, Giovanni was sure he would come to control the world.
That is, if any of the other Myamoto clones survived. The first clone, Myamoto or "Myamoto-two" as the scientists sometimes referred to her as, was the only one to have survived so far. All of her "sisters" had expired before being even half-formed in their gestation tanks. The Head Scientists of Team Rocket were unable as yet to decipher whatever complications were causing this to occur.
Giovanni retired to his office and placed a glass of ice upon his mahogany desk. He sat down with a glass bottle. Tonight, he felt like getting reacquainted with his old friends, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.
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That evening, at midnight, Myamoto crept into the West Gardenden of the Isle Noir Team Rocket Base. She often came here when she could not sleep. There was a light dusting of snow upon the ground. This time of year, the Garden was more of a courtyard than a garden, but some plants still grew, even in winter.
She spied James sitting on one of the concrete benches, looking up at the stars.
"Could not sleep either?" Myamoto asked.
"I was just thinking about my partners. Jessie, more than the cat, really. I miss her."
"She was special to you, wasn't she?"
"More than she ever knew. So, why are you up? Having those dreams again?"
"Yes. You know, James, they seem...so real. I'm beginning to suspect that they are not dreams, that they...actually happened to me somehow. I don't quite know how."
"You are a clone. Perhaps you are having memories from your original or something."
"I was suspecting that. How did you get so smart, James?&quames?"
"I dunno. I never considered myself very intelligent. Jessie and Meowth always considered me a dope. I wonder where they are now, if they're alive, if they're thinking of me..."
James and Myamoto often met each other and talked in this garden late at night. It was the only time they could do so without guards looking over their shoulders. They both sneaked out here when they were experiencing insomnia, which was often. James worried about his former friends and Myamoto was awakened by vivid dreams and nightmares. It was quite strange...they had become friends in the last few months. James had forgiven Myamoto for nearly killing him and his partner, Jessie. Perhaps, because they were in the same situation now, genetic freaks, slaves, the science experiments of Team Rocket.
"I was dreaming of the red-haired little girl again. If what I dream about are memories, she must have been a little sister or a daughter. And therhere was something about snow."
"Snow;" James sighed, staring at the light dusting on the ground and on the garden's few still living bushes; "Jessie loved snow. She told me that her mother used to make food out of snow when she was a child for her. Jessie grew up poor and would talk about not having enough to eat. She tried doing that for Meowth and I once, when we got trapped in some mountains chasing that brat and his Pikachu. 'Snowgasboard' I think she called it."
Myamoto stared at James in utter shock; "Did you say 'Snowgasboard'?
"Yes, I did."
"Did Jessie ever tell you anything else about when she was a child?"
"A few things, but I don't see why you would want to know..."
"Just tell me!"
"Well, she said that she always hated the Princess Festival when she was a girl because her family could never afford to get her Princess Dolls or do anything special for her. The . The only toy that she ever had was a Karate-Warrior puppet-doll that she said her mother gave her. She was raised mostly by her father because her mother died when she was young in the Andes or something, she never told me how..."
Myamoto's eyes were wide; "Karate-puppet, Andes..;" she whispered; "Oh, my...How? James, what you are saying is exactly like my dreams! The little red-haired girl in my dreams...could it be that I knew your partner as a child? That my original knew your partner? That 'I' was her mother or something? And I almost killed her?"
"I do not know. Try to remember more."
"I'll try."
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At the Pewter City Municipal Jail, Jessie pleaded from behind the bars of her cell with Officer Jenny, who was sitting at her desk, watching a small television set, to let her and Meowth free.
"Can it, honey. I'm sick of hearing it, it, I'm trying to watch TV here. You will get your chance in court tomorrow."
"But, you've got to let us out! Team Rocket assassins are after us! Don't you understand?"
"Yeah, right. You two are known Team Rocket members! Why would they send assassins after you? All you criminal-types, you lie through your teeth. Your fate will be decided in court tomorrow, so just accept the fact and shut-it!"
"I've told you why assassins are after us;" Jessie retorted; "The cat and I know too much!"
"Yeah!" Meowth added.
"You mean all that garbage about the clones and such, like I'd believe that I'm a clone!" Jenny replied; "The Justicia family has always had a strong family resemblance, it's they way we are! I'm a big fan of science fiction, my dear, but your story, I just don't buy it."
Just then, the Jailhouse door creaked open and another Jenny walked in, she looked older thanr than the other Jenny, her indigo hair streaked with gray and white.
"Aunt Jennifer?" Officer Jenny asked.
"I've come for a visit, you weren't home, so I phoned the station and the boys said that you were here, guarding a couple of prisoners."
The Jennys hugged, mumbling things like "Oh, I've missed you!" and "How have you been?" and other such nonsense.
"Oh, the infamous Jessie Lillis of Team Rocket?" All the forces have been looking for her for months!"
"We set up an ambush last night! On an anonymous tip that was called in about a robbery of the Pewter City Pokemon Center to take place."
"Your force will be commended for this. You may even get a medal. What are you watching?"
"Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, I love this show! This is the episode where the crew finds a Jem H'dar child and tries to raise him...you know, those genetically engineered warriors of the Df the Dominion..."
"I hate Star Trek. Turn it off."
"You really are missing a lot, it's a great show."
Jessie spoke up; "Please! You have got to let us out of here! We'll be killed tonight or tomorrow if you leave us in here! Team Rocket will succeed in creating perfect soldiers, and you won't be able to stop them!"
"What is she talking about?" Aunt Jennifer asked.
"I think that woman needs some psych meds. She keeps ranting and raving about some sort of "Myamoto Project" whatever that is, about clones and stuff. And she says that the Happenstance family and our family are all clones engineered by Team Rocket years ago or something. It's more far-fetched than even DS9!"
"It's all true!" Jessie cried; "I have evidence!"
Aunt Jennifer's face went stark pale; "What do you know?" she asked Jessie.
Jessie poured out a long story about her and her par her partner being shot by an assassin who looked like her mother and of finding records of cloning projects, the Joy/Jenny project in particular and what she had uncovered of the "Myamoto Project". Meowth added what he knew, from what he learned from Giovanni when he used to be Team Rocket's Top Cat.
"You don't believe all this, do you?" Officer Jenny asked Aunt Jennifer, who was staring at Jessie, transfixed.
"My niece, you were not ready for me to tell you this yet. You were going to learn in a few short years. What this woman and cat are saying is all true. I am of the First Generation. I am JennyNine."