Chapter 2

Miranda smiled down at Nezumi as she slid her glasses back on and the little rodent chuckled merrily. "As I said," the courier replied, scooping the pokemon up into her hand and holding him close, "Nezumi said 'rattata'. That's it. That's all."

"He said his species name?" inquired Joanne, her pale blue eyes going wide as the scientist twitched a little at the sight of both the courier and her rattata nodding in unison agreement.

"Rattata," they both agreed to Iago's amusement.

"Oh I give up!" muttered Joanne, shaking her head and turned back to the hopeless case she called her computer as several more phones came to life, ringing incessantly and ever more loudly.

"Um, you, whatever your name is," ordered Iago as he turned to leave, waving his hand dismissively in the security guard's direction, "Would you mind getting that?"

Geoff threw down his newspaper in frustration as he hauled himself up off the chair, his bones creaking just a little. "Oh, alright," he muttered walking over to one of the workstations and snatching up the phone, "Hello?"

Miranda turned as the tall, thin man went silent, his expression paling as he eyes widened. "What is it?" she asked, breaking whatever trance Geoff had gone into.

"It, it's for you," he replied in the strange silence that overtook the room as soon as he'd answered the phone.

The courier gave him a suspicious look as she put Nezumi upon her shoulder and walked across the gleaming white tiled floor to where the security guard stood with a shocked expression upon his face. When Miranda held out her hand to him, Geoff dropped the phone into her palm and fell back into a swivel chair, staring blankly out at nothing.

"Yes?" the courier inquired, turning back the way she had come to where Joanne was hitting keys at random, trying to unsuccessfully disengage the screensaver to no avail.

The phone was silent for half a heartbeat; all except for the omnipresent mild crackling static on the line that showed it was connected. But as the courier glared and was about to hang up, a voice came on the line. A voice whose tone spoke of malevolent humor as its giggling, cackling words issued loudly from the receiver. "You're next!"

Miranda's stormy gray eyes widened for a moment as they cast about the room, catching sight of all the flat-screen monitors that faced her. Each and every single one with the same, block-letter screensaver. Each with the same phrase bouncing, rebounding and slowly shifting about. "You're next!"

"Okay, this is getting a little too weird," the courier muttered, glancing at Geoff who was finally shaking his head to clear his mind. "How long's it gonna take to purge your system?" she asked Joanne, walking back towards the relative sanity of the scientist's desk.

"I'm not sure-" the woman began, her sentence cut short by the sudden high-pitched whine that issued from TI-85 as the metallic pokemon broke the connection and flew backwards across the room, spinning and shooting sparks before crashing into the far wall.

"Ti!" Joanne exclaimed, leaping out of her chair as her monitor cracked, shattered, and all but exploded behind her.

"What'd it do?!" exclaimed Geoff as Miranda ran to meet Joanne as the magnemite rattled around on the floor, vibrating violently and making a long series of wavering exclamations of pain.

"The ghost must have caused a power surge," muttered Joanne, bending down to pick TI-85 up and held the strange creature close to her chest, "She must have pulled away at the last second..."

"She'll live, right?" Miranda inquired, standing by Joanne's side and placing a reassuring hand upon the woman's shoulder.

The scientist nodded, returning TI-85 to her pokeball before standing up and shaking her head slowly. "Look," said Joanne carefully, "if you want, I'll show you the way out. This isn't your fight-"

"No," interrupted Miranda, shaking her head slowly and causing Joanne to take pause, "I'm in. Your people nabbed this ghost from my hometown, so it's both our problems. Besides, you guys don't seem to know all the tricks necessary for handling ghosts."

Joanne smiled, micronizing the pokeball back into storage mode and waving Geoff over. "Okay, then," she explained in a more confident tone, "With the terminals on this level down, we're going to have to access the mainframe directly. Once there, I'll try to flush the ghost out again. But I'll need one of you ready to nab it."

Geoff gave a short laugh and quickly looked away, seemingly taking an interest in the suddenly flickering florescent lights along the tile ceiling as Professor Kipp pulled out a black and gray pokeball.

"I'll do it," Miranda replied with a shrug, accepting the ball with a displeased glance at the security guard, "but it'll take me a few minutes to bypass the imprint codes-"

"No, no," assured Joanne, waving her hand dismissively as she walked back towards Iago's office, "We did that already incase there was an emergency. That way anyone can 'return' it. Now just hold on, I have to inform the boss about our plans."

"It's dangerous to mess with the imprint codes on these things, though," Miranda muttered, shaking her head again and pushing her glasses back up her nose, "It means any moron can just go off and walk away with your poke'."

"Yeah, but controlling it's a different story," added Geoff, rolling his eyes in dismay, "Ya'd think with all the tens of thousands of cred' this company puts into all their projects, they'd be able to plan ahead a little. Especially when dealing with a freakin' ghost! Aw well, good luck catching it, kid."

"It's a 'he'," Miranda replied smugly, ignoring the 'kid' remark as Nezumi chuckled and resisted the urge to make fun of her.

"Huh? How can you tell?" inquired Geoff skeptically.

"Oh, a ghost looked after me a lot when I was a child. My aunt and uncle were always a tad 'busy'," Miranda chuckled with a smile as the door to Iago's office swished open once more.

"Okay, all done, let's get going," said an optimistic sounding voice from across the room briskly, "We've got a lot to do, so we'd best get started." But as the courier glanced up, expecting to see Professor Joanne Kipp, she was surprised to find someone similar, but different standing in the doorway.

"I- Err, um-?!" Miranda stammered as a tall man in a lab coat over the suit he wore entered the room and tied his shoulder-length light brown hair back into a short ponytail.

"What?" inquired Geoff, giving the courier a confused look, "There a problem?"

"Well, kinda," the girl admitted as Nezumi leaned forward an sniffed the air between his trainer and the strange, bespectacled scientist, "I was kinda expecting Professor Kipp to be coming with us-"

"Kipp?" the man inquired with a start, giving Miranda a discerning look over the top of his glasses, "But... I'm Professor Kipp. You can just call me Rob, though. Anyway, shall we be off?"

"Now hold on a sec," the young courier interrupted in mild aggravation, holding up her hands to stem any argument, "Firstly, where's the Professor Kipp we were talking to a moment ago? And secondly-"

"Tatta," interrupted Nezumi with a chuckle.

"What?!" the courier demanded, turning her head to look down at the rodent upon her shoulder as Rob tried to keep from laughing and Geoff just rolled his eyes in dismay again, "You can't be serious?!"

Nezumi simply grinned toothily and nodded slowly in satisfaction.

"You mean-?"

"Rattata."

Miranda turned to the scientist and walked towards him skeptically. "You're sure?" she inquired, lifting her glasses and looking up into Rob's pale blue eyes.

Nezumi sighed heavily as Professor Kipp grinned broadly and held up the clipboard he was carrying. "Okay," he said in a more business-like tone, "The mainframe's locked away in the basement, but with everything else that's been going on we're probably gonna have a few problems getting down there."

"You're 'her', aren't you?" Miranda inquired, tilting her head to one side curiously.

"Oh, and Geoff, I will need you to come along as well. We don't currently know how many levels of the building the software's infected, and some of the non-Sylph offices on the lower levels may not be as accepting of my explanations."

"But, why-?"

"The tazers?" inquired the security guard, accessing a hidden panel in the wall without waiting for a response.

"Um, hello!" exclaimed Miranda exasperatedly.

"Oh, sorry, you had something to add?" inquired Rob, catching the long metal rod-like device that was tossed to him by Geoff.

Miranda sighed heavily, shaking her head as she waved away the offered tazer. "Never mind," she replied defeatedly, "Maybe it's better that I don't ask."

Rob merely smiled as he activated his tazer, causing the tri-prong end to light up with a bright blue triangle of focused elections that hummed pleasantly. "Very well then, shall we be off... ?"

"So, Nezumi was able to tell that Professor Kipp was a cross- dresser, then?" inquired Bob, leaning back in his chair as the computer behind him made an unpleasant grinding noise that he chose to ignore, "By his/her scent, I take it?"

Miranda smiled in reply, soliciting an eerie chuckle from the haunter in her lap. "Oh, I guess that's technically true," the courier chuckled, her stormy gray eyes filled with distant humor.

"Technically?" her stepfather inquired.

Miranda blushed lightly, smiling like the mother of an amusing but mischievous child. "Well, Nezumi didn't actually call Professor Kipp a 'cross-dresser'."

"Oh?"

The courier shook her head, glancing out the door and wondering how much longer her beloved's Gym Challenge was going to take. "No, what he actually called her was a 'bean-picker'."

Her stepfather blinked loudly, suddenly feeling dreadfully inadequate a man for not being able to decipher a simple rattata's pun.

"Oh, it was something he picked up that first time we were in Celadon," said Miranda quietly, speaking the words as though they might cause her to burst into flames of embarrassment, and speaking the name of the city's Gym Leader with equal caution, "It was because of something one of Erika's assistants said when they insisted on doing my hair and all that."

"I heard the one girl had to wear her arm in a sling for two weeks," agreed Bob with a nod, glancing at the perpetual wavy tangles his stepdaughter's hair grew into.

Miranda nodded. "Yeah, but it was more to do with that outfit they made me wear," she explained cautiously, desperate to avoid the subject and return to her story, "One of them, her English wasn't very good, said that I looked like a 'first-time bean picker' because I looked so uncomfortable in that silly kimono they made me wear."

"I'm sure it looked very nice."

Miranda shrugged. "Anyway, in Japanese 'bean-picker' is a very similar word in to 'cross-dresser' in some fashion," she explained with a smile, "I think it's the pronunciation or maybe the kanji's similar or something. But still, I'm proud of him for remembering! Anywhen, where was I? Oh, yes. Well, when Kipp lead us down to the next couple of levels the power went out again, and..."

The red emergency lighting system cast an unpleasant crimson glow upon the gray plas-crete walls of the emergency stairwell as the metal steps clanged dully under their collective feet, taking the group down only five levels before encountering a problem.

"It's sealed our section off," explained Rob as the stairwell down to the next level was blocked by a set of thick tri-tanium doors that slid out of the walls to seal off the top five Sylph Co. controlled floors of the building incase of a problem, "We're going to have to find another way down."

"Can't you bypass them?" inquired Miranda, staring down at the imposing metal 'floor' that began after the last step, and had the words "Gate 3" written in large white letters across it.

Rob shook his head in dismay as the words slowly began to seemingly 'melt' as they watched. "No," he said slowly as the painted words slowly bled into one massive puddle of white goo, "Not from here. I'll need to open them manually from elsewhere."

'Good thing then that she's a 'man' right now, ' chuckled Nezumi in pokespeak, only to be ignored completely as the puddle of white goo oozed once more, spreading out across the joined metal plates to form the words, "You're Next!"

Miranda glanced at the rattata on her shoulder and smirked, missing how pale Geoff's face became as the words morphed. "Where about's is the override?" she inquired of Rob who was already heading through the closest door and into the first level of the purely Sylph Co owned office space.

"It's not far," he replied, glancing about before motioning for the others to follow, "We'll need to tear up a few floor tiles to get at it, though."

"Were you expecting an attack or something?" the courier inquired, causing Geoff to blink and turn away from the words.

"Naw. Well, not from the outside anyway," the security guard explained as they followed Rob into a room that took up the entire floor, but was dominated by a perfectly square wall of intricately connected cubicles.

Miranda merely nodded, noting the heavy tri-tanium shutters that had rolled down to block all light from the windows that encircled the room. "Seems pretty quiet," she commented in a low tone as Rob activated his tazer and crept cautiously forward, "Think everyone got out okay?"

Professor Kipp gave a small shrug as they walked along the outer edge of the huge beige square formed by the cubicle walls, the room seeming deafly silent save for their footsteps upon the polished tiles of the floor. "Can't say for sure," he replied, raising his hand to stop the others as the trio came to the opening across from the elevators, "But I figure the people on this level got out okay at the very least."

Rob glanced back at Geoff and raised his tazer, causing the security guard to roll his eyes and shuffle past Miranda. "On three," the scientist whispered, causing Miranda to smile and shake her head in dismay, "One, two-"

"Hey, wait a sec," interrupted Geoff much too loudly, "Do we go in on three, or just after?"

"Oh get over it," the courier muttered, stepping past both men and walking into the short hallway between the seven-foot high walls, "A tazer's not gonna hurt a ghost anyway."

"It's not?" pouted Rob.

"It'll tickle," Miranda replied with a shrug, glancing into two open cubicles before moving on and taking a left at the cubicle crossroads she came to, "A tazer's designed to affect the nervous system of a living thing, right? It's meant to stun them by messing with their natural electrical systems."

"Yeah, so?" inquired Geoff, holstering his tazer and following the girl into what soon became a strange hedge-maze variant.

"So, a ghost lacks a central nervous system," continued the courier as Rob walked behind Geoff, desperately resisting the urge to tazer the security guard just for fun, "You'll do a little damage but nothing that it'll really notice. I'm afraid you'd need to switch them to a more lethal setting to make the tazers effective."

"I can do that!" said Rob with a grin as Miranda stopped, contemplating the four-way intersection she'd come to, "Oh, take a right here, miss."

The courier nodded, her hand suddenly clutching the hilt of her wooden bokken as a muffled sound several cubicle entrances in the wrong direction caught her attention. "Hold on," Miranda whispered, slipping her sword free and creeping along towards the sound.

"That won't help you much either then," muttered Geoff as Rob paused and glanced in the direction he'd indicated.

"Um, it's-"

"Shh!" came Miranda's response as she suddenly pressed her back against the thin beige wall and listened carefully, the blade of her wooden weapon held straight up in both hands, "Listen."

The two remained quiet for a moment, listening to the faint whimpering coming from close by. "Hop up and take a look," the courier whispered to Nezumi who nodded and quickly clamored up the rough texture of the wall.

Once at the top, the rattata glanced around inside the small office space, inhaling the scent of the human that wasted his life away working in the cramped, doorless prison, his whiskers twitching in response to the perpetual breeze from the air-ducts, but failing to spot any occupants.

'Sorry, Boss Lady, ' Nezumi whispered in pokespeak, shaking his head in dismay at the half-eaten, but by now stale donut on the desk, 'There ain't nobody home.'

"We must have the wrong one," the courier explained, reaching up and taking the rattata in her hand before leading the way down the aisle, "we must be close to it, though."

"But, um, the override-" stammered Rob, glancing back down the way he'd directed, only to have Miranda and Geoff make a right turn and disappear. "Hey!" he exclaimed as the air became still and devoid of sound once more, "Wait for me!"

As Professor Kipp rounded the corner, he caught a glimpse of Geoff taking a left down yet another passageway. "Hey!" the scientist hissed in a harsh whisper, chasing after the fleeing security guard, "Would ya wait up already!"

But as Rob rounded the second turn, he found the long hallway devoid of life, empty except for the several dozen openings onto cubicles. "Guys?" he inquired a little nervously, creeping forward cautiously as he unscrewed his tazer at the center joint, "Where are you? Would ya come out already, this isn't funny!"

But as he slid the casing back on the metal rod, revealing a mess of wires and odd circuitry, Professor Kipp happened to glance back the way he had come. "What the-?!" the scientist exclaimed, nearly dropping his tazer as the scientist spotted the wall that now blocked the way he had come.

"Oh, this is NOT funny," he grumbled, pulling out a small Phillips screwdriver and making a few fine adjustments to his weapon before sliding the casing back in place and giving it a quick test run.

The tazer flared as Rob hit the switch, sending an arc of electricity a meter or so long before grounding out into the floor and searing the ugly gray carpeting down to the linoleum. "Alright!" he called out loudly, holding up the weapon and glancing around, "Who wants some?!"

With that, a horrible grinding noise issued from one of the cubicles, causing a look of horror to spread across Rob's face. "No..." he whispered, recognizing the sound almost instantly and running into the closed office before staring in horror at the computer monitor.

"No... No, it can't be..." the stricken scientist repeated, rushing off into the next, and the next, only to find the same result. The same words printed neatly at the bottom of every screen he checked. Every computer the scientist came to had dropped down into DOS, and the words "C:\>Format C:\" were all followed by "C:\>Y" and accompanied by the horrific grinding of hard-drives self-destructing, sacrificing all their data to the eternal void.

"No!" the scientist shrieked, running to the console and desperately banging the keys ineffectually, "That was my thesis on the kingdom Inanimae! And now it's gone!"

Just then, another computer's hard drive began to grind, causing a look of horror to cross Rob's face as he ran across the way and into the next cubicle in time to see the same words at the bottom of a black screen.

"Noooo!" he exclaimed, grabbing hold of his hair with both hands as several other computers began to format C:\ in unison, "Not my Swiss bank account!"

Rob ran out into the hallway again, barely taking the time to poke his head into each cubicle as his personal horror mounted. "Ack! All my saved games!" he exclaimed, rushing about in a blind panic, "No! Not the last ten years of e-mail correspondences that I've been saving for no apparently good reason! And... No! It can't be! Not my entire hentai collection! Noooo!!!"

Bob raised an eyebrow.

"What?" his stepdaughter laughed, causing Wraith to smirk and suppress a chuckle.

"Go on," the man sighed, leaning back in his swivel chair and smiling paternally.

"Anyway," continued Miranda, "As I was saying..."

Geoff turned as Rob's scream of denial filled the expansive, cubicle-infested room, bouncing off the many flimsy walls of five hundred some odd Sylph Co worker's willing encumberie.

"Rob?!" the security guard inquired, holding his tazer before him and rushing off suddenly in the direction they had come, "Rob, guy! Where are ya?!"

The scientist's scream came again, and this time Geoff turned around to make sure the courier was following him. "Oh, well now that's just great," the security guard muttered dryly, not the least bit surprised to find his passage blocked by a beige cubicle wall.

"They really don't pay me enough for this," he muttered bitterly, turning back around and jogging off towards the sound, taking a right at the first intersection before suddenly finding himself in one of the large cubicles the middle management used.

"Rob?" he inquired, skeptically, walking across the thinly carpeted floor as he scanned the room, making his way towards the peculiar wet slapping sound that filled the air, "If that's you man, you better tell me now, 'cause I'm tazering the first person I see!"

But the only response was the strange wet slapping sound, only made worse by the dim red radiance of the emergency lighting system, and the sudden gasping, gurgling sound that Geoff now realized was coming from the chair in front of the desk.

"Oh, man," the security guard muttered to himself as he grabbed the back of the chair and pulled it away from the desk, "I'm sooo gonna regret this..."

And as he turned the chair back around and looked at what was lying upon it, flopping about in an obscene parody of helplessness, Geoff did regret it. "No..." he gasped, taking a step back from the large blind albino cave fish that lay across the chair, "Oh man why... ? Why does it always have to be fish?!"

With that, the Anoptichthys jordani tilted its eyeless head up towards the man, its wide, razor sharp tooth filled mouth opening wide as it suddenly spoke. "Explain THIS security guard class four Geoff!" the fish demanded, its tail flipping impatiently.

"It- It's a fish-!" stammered Geoff, dropping his tazer and taking a few frightened steps backward.

"I know it's a fish!" the sightless, albino cave dweller reiterated in a deeply annoyed tone, "I said explain it!!!"

"What?" inquired Miranda as Bob coughed into his hand.

"Oh. Nothing..."

Miranda glanced over her shoulder at the sound of the two screaming Sylph Co. employees, and gulped loudly as she realized that she'd somehow managed to leave them both behind.

'Oh, man... ' muttered Nezumi, shaking his head at the cacophony of terror.

"Don't tell me," the courier replied, shivering as she carefully leaned to one side and glanced into the nearest cubicle, "We're all gonna die, right?"

'Well, they might... ' the pokemon replied leaning with Miranda, his nose twitching as he caught the scent of another human. 'Hey, looks like we got a live one here, ' the rattata squeaked quietly as Miranda nodded slowly.

"It's probably one of the people from the higher levels who didn't quite make it out," she whispered quietly, not wanting to alarm the huddled figure in a lab coat they spotted cowering under the desk.

Nezumi nodded in agreement, clinging more tightly to the shoulder of Miranda's courier jacket as the girl stepped carefully into the doorway and walked slowly forward across the dull gray expanse of thin carpet.

"Excuse me?" she called in a sweetly maternal tone, "Are you alright?"

The huddled figure made a pained noise as it shuffled itself farther into the shadows, kicking the wall of the cubicle with a dull thud as it moved. For a second, the courier caught a glimpse of a haggard looking face before an emaciated hand reached out and pulled the chair in closer to protect itself from the outside world.

"It's alright," assured Miranda with a small smile, crouching down to place her wooden sword upon the carpet before taking a few steps forward, "I'm here to take care of the ghost. That's what you're hiding from right? The gastly you guys brought in?"

The thing under the desk gave a surprised exclamation, and soon Miranda could see a pair of wide eyes staring out at her from the darkness. "M-Miri?" came the pained sounding tone, "I-Is it really y-you?"

The courier blinked, glancing at Nezumi whose eyes narrowed as he sniffed the distance between them. 'Fang Face nailed him with nightshade, ' the rattata muttered, 'And he ain't in good shape.'

Miranda nodded, kneeling a short distance away and leaning forward to peer into the darkness. "How do you know that name?" she inquired suspiciously, her heart thudding harder in her chest as Miranda thought she recognized the man's voice.

"Miri..." came the pained reply, followed by a dry, hacking cough as the chair was forced out of the way with a pained grunt, "Please, I- I've been hurt..."

The courier shook her head, refusing to believe what her mind desperately tried to tell her. "You're an illusion, aren't you?" the girl accused through gritted teeth as she bowed her head and squeezed her eyes tightly closed, "You're nothing more than the gastly trying to mess with my mind."

"No..." the man replied as a shaking hand touched her shoulder lightly, its grip as weak as a newborn's, "Miri, it- it's me. It really is."

Nezumi glanced at her with befuddlement as Miranda opened her eyes, desperately wanting to accept the illusion for real as the courier looked into the cloudy gray depths of the man's eyes and saw a wounded vision of her Father staring almost happily back at her.

"I- I hate you," she told the man in a shaky tone as tears welled up in her eyes.

"Miri," the illusion of her father whispered paternally, his warm smile marred only by the emaciated look of his face as his shaking hand reached up and touched the courier's cheek with cool, dry fingers, "how can you say that to your own father?"

Miranda smiled weakly, her body shaking as she shook her head slowly. "You- You're just an image pulled from my mind," she whispered, sniffling and pushing up her glasses to wipe away a tear, "you're just an illusion sent here to distract me."

"Shh..." her father whispered, wincing as he shuffled forward on his knees and put his arms around Miranda, "It's alright now, dear. You can stay here with me now. It'll be just like it used to be."

The courier felt her heart ache painfully as she simply threw her arms around him and found herself crying against his shoulder. "You're not real... You're not real..." she sobbed, shaking all over and knowing that she should simply leave, yet not finding the strength to do so.

"I'm as real as you want me to be," Nicholas replied, his voice sounding a little more pained before a hacking cough overcame him for a moment, causing Miranda to hold him closer until the fit had passed. "Th-thank you," he managed as his daughter pulled away and looked into his eyes.

"Is, is there anything I can do?" Miranda asked, her tone sounding almost helpless as she became lost in the illusion, unable to find the strength to disbelieve.

Her father smiled, the crimson glow of the emergency lights above their heads dimming as the air grew cold. "There is one thing..." he chuckled, sprouting long sharp fangs as somewhere in the distance Miranda could hear the sound of a panicked chittering in her ear. As though some kind of rodent were screaming something at her.

"D-daddy?" the girl stammered, pulling away and stumbling backwards as the man's eyes blazed suddenly red and long black claws sprouted from his fingertips, tearing painfully from beneath the skin, "Wha- What are you-?!"

"I'll swallow your soul!" her father laughed as a sudden blur of purple streaked out of nowhere, leaping at the illusion's throat.

'Swallow this!' Nezumi exclaimed as his oddly gleaming fangs sank into the man's throat and black dust erupted from the wound like a partially plugged geyser as Miranda's hand fell upon the hilt of something hard and reassuring.

"Dreck!" the courier exclaimed, suddenly remembering where she was and thankful for her habit of placing the business end of her wooden blade forward whenever she put it down as she grabbed it up and jabbed the bokken forward with all her might.

The illusion howled in seeming pain as the curved wooden blade passed through his chest as though it were made of straw, spewing more black dust as he clutched at the weapon with both hands.

"M-Miri-!" the man stammered in seeming shock as he looked pleadingly into Miranda's eyes, "How-? How could you do this to your own father?!"

"You!" the courier growled, taking the sword hilt in both hands and twisting it with a grunt, "Are NOT my Father!"

The room filled with an awful laughter that seemed to come from the intercom system as the illusion exploded outwards in a hail of gritty black dust which quickly dissipated, causing Miranda to fall forward as Nezumi dropped to the floor with a piece of chewed up paper in his teeth.