Beyond the Adventure - A Pokémon Story

Chapter 3: Stormy Skies pt2

                Sweat drips from my brow as I dig through the medical machine.  I methodically trace and inspect each wire for damage, along with each node, capacitor, resistor, and chip on each circuit board.  So far, I have come up with nothing.  Chansey peers over my shoulder, holding a small flashlight for me.  After much frustration, I sit back and look at Chansey.  “Hey, mind plugging in the machine?” I ask.

                Chansey nods and wobbles over to the outlet.  She plugs in the cord and suddenly, sparks fly into my face.  “Whoa!”  I jump back.  “Unplug it!”

                Chansey pulls the plug and the sparks stop.  Finally, I realize what the problem is.  The sparks came from two nodes that have a wire plugged in, causing a short in the circuit.  It is a short wire, easy to miss, and looks like it could have just been a bridge between the nodes.  That is why I missed it the first time.  I pull the wire out.

                “Okay, Chansey,” I say.  “Plug it back in.”

                Chansey shoves the plug back into the outlet.  I shield my face, in case it sparks again, but nothing happens.  I hear a boot-up whine, so I stand and look at the screen.  The screen is garbled with various characters and pixels.  A message pops up that reads “DETECT MISSINGNO.”  I tap on the keyboard, hitting various common key combinations that may cause some sort of BIOS screen to appear.  Finally, one combo works and the boot system menu appears.  I scroll through the various options.  Chansey tries to push her head up through my arms to see, but I push her away.  “Let me work,” I tell her.  She kind of sulks, but listens, standing by me.  I find the disk boot option.  The option was chosen to boot from flash drive.  I scan the machine for the flash drive and find a disk inside.  I pull it out.  The label has a red R on it and nothing else.  “Odd…”

                I turn back to the screen.  I switch the option to boot from on-board hard drive and restart the machine.  A couple minutes later, the machine boots up, ready for use.  “Ah, yes!”

                I stick my head out the door, looking for the nurse.  “Nurse Erin?” I call out.

                Erin stands up from behind the counter.  Her hair looks disheveled and her face is tight with stress.  “Did you get it working?” she asks.  I nod.  Erin lets out a sigh of relief.  “Oh, thank you!  This will help us take care of our patients twice as fast!”

                She pushes a cart full of organized Pokéballs.  “Put these in the machine.  You can put up to six at a time, one ball her socket.  You have to program each socket individually to heal the species that is within the ball.  I have already organized and labeled them for you by trainer and species.”

                I take the cart and nod.  “All right,” I say.  “I think I can do this.”

                I take a moment to learn the operating system on the machine, then start healing the Pokémon.  Each load takes several minutes to process, but eventually, I manage to clear the cart.  I emerge with the healed Pokémon.

                “All right, who is…”  I stop.  The room was filled with people in black outfits.  They had all the people pushed into a corner.  Nurse Erin was crouched behind the counter with Jaws.  Two of the black-clad people were at the counter, a man and a woman.  The man reached over and grabbed Erin by the hair.

                “Where is it, lady?” he demanded.

                “Let go of me!” Erin cries.

                The woman slaps Erin across the face.  “We make the demands here.  Now tell us where the machine is!”

                “Hey, let her go!” I demand.