Spiritual Malaise
Someone winning the grand prize at Royce’s Casino always drew a crowd, and this time was no exception. Some lucky Pokemon had just won it big on a slot machine, but not just any slot machine, this baby had its own special nook in the middle of the casino, complete with dramatic lighting and your very own waitress. At 10,000 Poke a pull, it was by far the quickest way to flush your money down the drain and be entertained while doing so. The waitresses usually bickered amongst each other for the right to attend to the Pokemon playing at that machine, for the patrons were (usually) very well off and tended to tip an awful lot, one could easily make a couple of weeks worth of income off a slightly inebriated roulette player.
You need not be told that the winning Pokemon was very lucky indeed, and that he was also very happy. He was both of those things, but the former was for a reason you wouldn’t normally think.
This was the second jackpot he had won in a row, and someone winning that twice in a row never happened. It wasn’t supposed to, it wasn’t programmed to do that. Something was very, very wrong, and Royce had an idea of who the culprit was: that blasted Porygon system they installed to oversee the mundane electrical and computational tasks that were required to actually run a casino of this size and grandeur. He never trusted that Porygon, and for good reason. She was moody, and prone to lashing out at the employees of the casino in very annoying (but generally non-lethal) ways, such as showering them with sparks and turning off the lights in the basement when a Pokemon was down there, leaving them to feel for their way out.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to find another game of ours to enjoy, it seems this one is malfunctioning. If you’d like to collect your winnings at the register, we’ll see to it that you receive your payouts and-” The Clefairy attendant was interrupted by the (now mildly annoyed) gambler.
“I most certainly will not! You never stop when you’re in the middle of a winning streak, and unless really are as ignorant as you look, you would know this, my dear. The only thing seeming to be malfunctioning right now is my sense of charity, and if you’d like to see any tip at all you’ll leave me be and keep the drinks coming! Some Pokemon just don’t know their place.”
Royce frowned. He did not approve of such treatment of his employees, as the gambler would soon figure out. He snapped his fingers and one very attentive Machamp ran in front of him, standing at attention. He was waiting for orders.
“Bill, see to it that that man over there makes like a tree and gets the hell out of here, will you? Close off the area when he’s gone, too.”
“You got it, Boss! What about his winnin’s? Want me to wait until-”
“Bill, we offered him a chance to collect his winnings, and he chose not to take it. Make sure he knows he has forfeited anything he may have won here tonight. Make sure he knows we don’t tolerate that kind of attitude towards our employees.”
“Righto Boss! I’m on it!”
Royce smiled and watched the Machamp go about his business. Bill wasn’t very bright, but he certainly was imaginative and very creative when it came to fulfilling orders. He would usually watch and take delight in the scuffle that was about to come, but he had other, more important business to attend to.
It only took him a few minutes to get down to the basement of the casino, where all the sensitive electronics and that blasted Porygon were held. What was her name again, Vendetta? Whatever. She almost lost him a lot of money today, and he wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again. Wind and Eve were already there, seemingly having a difficult time in dealing with her.
“Mind telling me just what the hell that was, Vendetta? I’d hate to see you abandoned again. We have no use for malfunctioning equipment, you know. Takes up space that could be occupied by better, newer things. Things that don’t attempt to give away all of our money to anyo shmuck who pulls a lever. Get it?” She didn’t respond.
He never liked talking to her, mainly because she was always holed up in those damned contraptionss. He couldn’t get inside there like she could, and that took a bit out of his attempts to intimidating her. He didn’t like that.
“You. Wind. Make sure she gets the picture, or you’ll be out with her.” He pointed a single claw towards him. “You hear me? Out.” He pronounced out as if he was implying something, and he probably was. Best to just nod and look like you understood. Wind was smart, and did just that.
“I’ll be back in an hour, and I expect to see some results, boy. Remember what I said.” He left as quickly as he came in. He didn’t need to waste time with threats or bodily harm, it was a given that being on his bad side would bring the latter.
Wind waited until the doors leading to the basement were closed, and turned his attention to the machine containing Vendetta. She considered him an acquaintance at best, and an annoyance at worst, but she usually responded to him. Not today, though. Today, she was silent as she stared blankly at him, or rather, at the space in front of him.
“Vend, what’s going on? I just replaced the wiring in this thing yesterday, is it loose? Let me take a look..” He bent down to remove a panel from the wiring, and as he did so, his companion came out from his collar and ran into the interior. She was much smaller than any tool Wind could ever hope to hold, and much smarter, too. The Joltik scurried about the inside of the machine, searching for any sign of disrepair. There was. The jacketing of the wiring Wind and Eve had so carefully installed earlier in the week had somehow melted, creating a faulty ground. No matter, such things were easily fixed. They just needed some more wiring and she’d be good as new..
“Wind! We just need some more rubber, there’s a bad ground here that I think is causing the-”
The lights in the basement flickered, then went out. The only remaining illumination was from the screen that Vendetta currently inhabited, an eerie greenish-blue glow. It made Wind and Eve’s eyes hurt. Squinting, Wind got closer to the screen and tapped on it, trying to get Vendetta’s attention without success. Was she sick? He didn’t know how to take care of her kind, they were extremely rare.
“Vendetta, are you all righ-” He stopped speaking as Vendetta herself flickered in and out of view on the screen and stared right at him, not at the space in front of him.
“Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all test subjects. Paging all. Please enter verification for user Ze-KR.”
Wind wasn’t sure what to do, he had never heard Vendetta ask for a password or code of any kind before, so he simply asked her what she meant.
“Error. Verification incorrect. Test subject not found. Test subject aborting. Test subject paging, test subject paging, test subject paging.”
“Vendetta! What are you going on about? What do you need? Tell me so I can get this fixed so Royce will leave both of our asses alone!” No luck. Vendetta was staring at him, but she didn’t seem to be aware of him. Text appeared on the screen below her.
User ROYCE not found on this level of the tower. PleASE specify a different USER.
Wind knew Vendetta communicated via text when she couldn’t speak for some reason or another, so he brought his hands out to the keyboard located right underneath the monitor, and began to type. He’d bring up his account, and instruct her to reboot, sometimes she just got lost within the machine’s circuitry and needed a restart to find her way out. It had happened a couple of times before, when they first got her.
User: WIND
User WIND not found on this level of the tower. PLEASE SPECIFC=Y A D19IFFERENT USer.
He frowned. Installing his account was the first thing he’d done when he finally managed to get her to cooperate, did she delete it? He decided to try his partner’s account.
User: EVE
User EVE no19t found on this level of tHW TOWERS. PLEASEspecify a difnrerent USER.
No luck here, either. Maybe something shorted out the memory banks of the machine and left only Vendetta’s account left. He didn’t know the password for it, but he’d try anyway.
User: VENDETTA
USER VENDETTA19 NOT f19ound on this level of the tower. PLEASE a DIFFERENT USER.
NUMBER OF IN19CORRECT ATTEMPTS REACHED. ENABLE ADMINSTR=ATOR ACCOUNT?
An administrator account? Vendetta had never told him about this, why had she kept it from him? It’s possible even she didn’t know about it, but that seemed a bit improbable - she supposedly knew the ins and outs of this system like he knew the back of his hand - she grew up in this machine..
YES
ADMINISTRATOR ACCOUNT ACTIVATED. PLEASE19 ENTER PASSWORD.
Great. Why ask to enable something if it was just going to ask him for a password he didn’t have? Unless Vendetta was trying to communicate with him..
19
ACCESS GRANTED. ONE. FOUR. ONE. FOUR. FOUR. FOUR. FOUR. SEVEN. EIGHT. FOUR. ONE. SEVEN. NINE. ONE. TWO. ONE. FOUR. FOUR. NINETEEN. NINETEEN. NINETEEN. NINETEEN.
The numbers scrolled for what seemed be forever, and Wind could only watch the screen, mystified. He’d had to fix a few glitches in her system before, but nothing was ever like this. Was this even a glitch? It had to be, but he wasn’t aware of what could be causing it. He decided to pull the plug on the power source. It’d annoy the hell out of her and she’d get a good jolt of pain because of it, but at least she’d be able to come out of the machine.
He pulled the power, and the machine remained on. It had no battery backup, so he was bewildered as to why it wasn’t turning off. The text kept scrolling, and he became aware of the presence of whispering coming from the machine screen. It was Vendetta talking, but it didn’t sound like her. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to tell what she was saying, but then realized the text on the screen had changed from numbers to words.
THE PASSWORD YOU ENTERED was NINETEEN that is NINETEEN for THE PASSWORD you have VERIFIED as NINETEEN is a GOOD number to VERIFY AS NINETEEN you have DONE WELL PLEASE nineteen VOLT VERIFY as FORT NINETEEN. I 19 HAVE BEEN 19 FOR AN ERA.
THE END IS NOTHING. it is N19INETEEN.
With that, the power to the machine and the entire casino went out. Wind and Eve were left in total darkness, and the only sounds were from themselves. Vendetta wasn’t in the room with them.
It would be days before the system (and the power to the Casino) came back online, and Vendetta was completely unaware of what had transpired during that glitch. As far as she was concerned, Wind, Eve, and Royce were making the whole thing up. She did feel a bit under the weather though, or at least, as under the weather as her type could feel. She couldn’t quite put her finger on the source of her malaise, but it probably wasn’t important. Just a glitch in the system. Wind would fix it.
