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"Hold up," a male voice called. It sounded distracted.

A quarter of a minute later Hayes opened his door. His injured arm and collarbone excluded uniforms from the agent's wardrobe, but he'd done the best he could with what he was allowed, which was basically button-up shirts and slacks.

At least it was a nice button-up shirt.

A slice of his quarters was visible beyond him. As might be expected of a programmer's room, there was a computer. Actually, there were a few computers, and what looked like a half-dismantled pair of high-tech gloves laid out on his desk beside pages of notes. Other than that the room seemed fairly standard for a male - bed not yet made, hamper close to overflowing, a battered copy of Neuromancer tented over a thick softcover edition of The Art of Deception lying on one of the computer towers.

He smiled pleasantly to his superior and offered his usual two-fingered salute and a polite "Ma'am," then glanced over his shoulder. "Switch, you coming?"

After a few seconds, a sleepy-looking Pikachu emerged from beneath a comforter.

"Piiiika," the 'chu mumbled, sliding rather than clambering down to the carpet and taking the comforter with him in the process. The electric mouse shook himself and trotted out into the hall where he scratched at his ear and stretched, catlike. A little spark jumped off his tail.

"Cloning labs?" Hayes confirmed as he slipped out of his room and shut the door. The lock clicked to behind him.

"Heh." The now-agent ducked his head and ran his good hand through his hair, looking a bit embarrassed at the indirect praise. Hayes kept to TRP's pace as she moved down the corridor. When they got to the elevators he added, "The downloader worked. Everything else is gravy."

Switch cocked his head to the side and blinked blearily at the bell Pokemon. "P'ka?" It was somewhere between a greeting and a question, but their trainers were moving off and he scampered to catch up with Hayes, sticking fairly close.

The Rocket slipped his good hand into his pocket and leaned back on his heels, watching the lit-up floor number get progressively lower and start rising again, preceded by an 'L'. "Might not be so bad if they did," he commented in his mild way. "If they think it's that easy, they might underestimate us next time."

It wasn't Hayes' first time down there. To the sometimes annoyance of the tech department, the rest of the base saw no distinction between "computer scientist" and "tech support." He'd been called down more than once to take a look at the equipment, and had discovered even NMR machines use Linux.

Switch sniffed with distaste at the metallic tang in the air, ears angling back. This place smelled of chemicals and stale electricity, not the fresh sort straight from a thunderstorm. If he'd known they were coming here, he'd have stayed in bed.

Hayes had to think about TRP's question.

"Six. Technically."

"I have a Beldum. It's.. inert." Hayes glanced at doors as they went past, flickering lights reflected off his glasses. "It's alive, don't get me wrong, it just doesn't do anything. Tests say it's processing like hell under the surface, though, so something's going on. Ma'am," he added, as if to temper the profane slip.

"TRP, then?" It didn't exactly roll off the tongue. Hayes waited a moment for confirmation before continuing on. "Agent Reckless picked it up in the raid on Makko Town. Switch shocked it-"

"Piiika," came the peevish response from the aforementioned 'chu.

"-but it was running slow before that. She said it belonged to 'some geek'-" and there may just have been a note of mild indignation in the blond's tone, "-working on a laptop, so my guess is it's devoting all those clock cycles to some big task and shut down auxiliary functions apart from eating. Haven't cracked it yet."

"Will do," Hayes said shortly before they were ushered in.

A grunt, which he'd been not all that long ago, wasn't allowed access to a place like this no matter their debugging abilities, so the agent looked like more a sightseer here, glancing this way and that to note the growth chambers and the forms sleeping within. Here, something sleek and streamlined; there, just starting to grow feathers..

His attention focused on Allen when the scientist entered; Hayes straightened his posture a bit, and Switch bumped into his leg. The Pikachu wasn't fond of this room, and stayed close as they were led to the containment units and their role was explained.

Given his short notice, Hayes hadn't had time to do much research regarding the millennial wish-granters, so he wasn't quite sure to expect. Still, when the scientist gave leave, he gave a brief smile of comprehension to the man and stepped forward to look in the nearest box. He started to reach in, stopped, and adjusted his arm to scoop rather than lift the legendary out with a careful expression, cradling it in the crook of his arm.

The Jirachi's chest rose and fell, but it was silent. Switch squinted at it in suspicion.

Hayes was about to say something to the scientist when there was a tiny "Un." and the weight on his arm lessened as the Pokemon floated up, blinking slowly. "Huh..?"

"Hey, little guy," Hayes said quietly when it looked at him, watching it with his mellow smile.

A little smile grew on its face. "Hey..!" it echoed as its streamers unfurled.

At this point the little legendary lost control of its levitation and dropped on the agent's foot.