(Baxter Building, Next Morning)
Orion had barely lowered his hand from the door when it swung open, and Valeria was already talking.
"You're earlier than I expected."
She had a lab coat thrown over yesterday's clothes and her hair pulled back in a ponytail that looked like it had lost an argument with a pencil somewhere along the way. Behind her, the private floor of the Baxter Building opened into hallways full of humming machines and closed doors, none of which Orion had ever had a reason to walk through before.
"I said first thing."
"You did." Valeria stepped back to let him in. "You also said it like a man who hadn't slept."
He hadn't, not really, but that wasn't the reason he'd come. He opened his mouth to get straight to it, the question he'd carried the whole way over, but Valeria was already walking, and stopping her mid stride felt rude in a way he couldn't quite justify.
She glanced back at him over her shoulder.
"You don't get out here much. Might as well see the place before we get into anything."
Orion followed her down a hall lined with framed schematics he didn't recognize and one framed photo of the whole family covered in what looked like solidified pudding. He filed the question away. It could wait ten more minutes.
It couldn't wait much longer than that. He could feel it sitting in his chest like a held breath.
They passed a lab where something small and blue was orbiting a workbench on its own, unattended, and a second one where the whole wall was a chalkboard covered floor to ceiling in equations Orion didn't have the first idea how to read.
Valeria caught him looking.
"Doctor Richards's. He says he'll erase it eventually."
"Will he?"
"No."
A door at the end of the hall slid open before either of them touched it, and a small white cylindrical shape rolled out on a cushion of air, one large blue optical sensor swiveling toward them both.
"Miss Richards. Owner Oak."
"Hey, H.E.R.B.I.E."
"I was not informed you had a guest scheduled for this morning."
"I didn't schedule him. He just showed up."
"Understood. Shall I prepare refreshments, or would that be redundant given the early hour and the general urgency I am currently detecting in Owner Oak's posture?"
Orion looked down at himself. He hadn't realized he was standing like that.
"I'm fine, H.E.R.B.I.E. Thank you."
"Noted. I will remain nearby in case that assessment changes."
H.E.R.B.I.E. drifted off down a side corridor, still scanning the hallway as he went. Valeria shook her head with the kind of fondness that only showed up around people who'd annoyed her a thousand times and were never once actually annoying.
"He does that to everyone. Don't take it personally."
"I wasn't."
"You looked a little personally."
They kept walking, and the hallway opened into a smaller room that Orion recognized before Valeria said anything, mostly because it looked exactly like the kind of space someone would build for a creature they loved and also occasionally forgot to childproof around. A low platform sat in the corner, cushioned and half covered in what looked like scorch marks from a project gone slightly wrong, and on it, floating a few inches off the surface, was a compact, armored shape with a single red eye that turned toward them the moment the door opened.
Valeria crossed the room without any of the careful posture she'd worn in the hallway a second ago. Metang drifted up to meet her, and there was a soft magnetic hum in the air that Orion felt more than heard, a kind of low charge that made the hair on his arms stand up slightly.
"You've gotten bigger."
"He's not bigger. He's just floating higher because he's showing off."
The hum shifted, higher and quicker, and Metang tilted in the air in a way that looked almost like a shrug.
"See. Showing off."
She reached out and rested a hand flat against the cool metal of its body, and for a second she didn't say anything at all, just let the contact sit there. Orion had seen her run numbers on a battlefield with the same face she probably used to grade her own homework. This wasn't that face.
"Metang, trust me."
She said it quietly, mostly to the Pokémon and not to him. It wasn't a command. Orion had heard enough trainers give commands to know the difference. It sounded like something she'd said so many times it had stopped being words and started being a habit, the kind you didn't notice yourself doing anymore.
A second, smaller shape drifted in from an adjoining room, pale green and slender, with a red horn curving up from its head and a fabric like skirt trailing after it as it moved. Orion did a double take.
"Is that Ralts?"
Valeria didn't look up from Metang.
"Franklin's Kirlia now. Evolved a few weeks ago. He was too embarrassed to make a big deal out of it, so he mostly just started calling her by her actual name instead of pretending nobody would notice."
Orion turned toward the doorway where Franklin had just appeared, a sandwich half-eaten in one hand and a Kirlia floating beside his shoulder, her horns catching the overhead light.
"Congratulations, Franklin. And you, Kirlia. Evolution marks a milestone worth noticing."
Franklin grinned, wiping crumbs from his thumb. "She's been impossible all morning. Kept floating my controller out of reach until I said it out loud."
Kirlia chimed, a sound like wind chimes in a breeze, and spun a slow circle in the air. Thank you, Orion. I feel... lighter. Sharper. Like the world fits better now.
Orion inclined his head. "That is the point of growth. Well done."
Franklin glanced at his watch, then at the hallway leading deeper into the lab complex. "I should go. Got a thing with Billy and Conner later. Power control drills. If I'm late, Billy texts me fifty times in a row and Kon shows up at my door with a protein shake and a lecture."
Kirlia chimed agreement and drifted toward the door, her movement smooth and unhurried. Bye bye, Orion. Valeria.
Franklin followed her out, the sandwich disappearing in two quick bites before the door slid shut behind them.
Valeria exhaled, the tension in her shoulders dropping a fraction. She gestured toward a side door marked GUEST QUARTERS — 3. "This way. Quieter than the main lab."
The room was small, functional, a desk and two chairs and a screen dark on the wall. Valeria took the chair facing the door. Orion sat opposite.
She didn't waste time with preamble.
"What do you need, Orion?"
***
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