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  I poured myself what felt like my first cup of coffee of the night, despite the fact that I’d already downed quite a few. A full moon projected its light through the open windows of my lab, illuminating the wooden floor in a chessboard of shining rectangles. My Pokémon partner, a Shinx who’d come with the name Peggy, slept soundly in the boundaries of one of the illuminations.

  Tonight was another mostly sleepless night of work, though I’d taken a break to make a cup of ramen and coffee, only to mix up the two and try to use my chopsticks to pick up imaginary noodles in the ceramic mug. A simulation I had running needed time to render, anyway, but I wasn’t too hopeful about the result of this one. None of the others I’d been working on for the past week had provided any useful insight—or even come together and run at all.

  I sat down at the HUD of the beefy machine running the simulations and put my feet up on top of it, leaning back in my chair. For a moment I just wiggled my toes and watched as the googly eyes on my Wooloo slippers bounced, but all of a sudden the computer beeped loudly and I nearly spilled hot coffee all over myself in fright.

  “What the—” I sat upright, shoving the coffee mug off to the side, “are you kidding me?! Another failure to launch?!”

  Sure enough, when I opened the logs for the simulation, a big red ERROR sign flashed on the screen, taunting me.

  Grumbling under my breath, I searched the logs for any break in code or something else off, but the error seemed to simply come from the inability to form, as most of my simulations did. Frustrating, but given that the science behind my research was more theory than plausibility, not something I wasn’t already well adjusted to.

  I became a Pokémon Researcher for one reason and one reason only: to prove everyone wrong. A selfish reason, you say? Oh, for sure. But after a lifetime of doors slamming in my face and people calling me crazy for my theories, I deserved to be a little selfish. After time and time again having to defend myself while the Professors in Paldea discover time travel and the Aether Foundation in Alola accessing a dimension of Ultra Beasts, I deserved free reign to study what I damn well please.

  It seems like my whole life I’ve been searching for what I call Glitch Pokémon. My studies started with the musings of a Pokémon called MissingNo., but ever since I started taking my research seriously, I’ve discovered tales of many other Glitch Pokémon and even found evidence that they exist alongside us, hiding in the shadows until unsuspecting moments. Despite having legitimate findings, everything remains inexplicable at best, and I’m laughed out of every room.

  You’d think the greatest scientific minds in the world would be open to a little crazy, given what we now know about this world.

  Instead I’m labeled a conspiracy theorist and a crock of a researcher.

  Exiting out of the simulation of what should have been a Pokémon battle in which MissingNo. flees, I collapsed back into my chair and let out a groan so loud it startled Peggy into waking. She sat up with a fright and cried out, jolts of electricity bouncing from her tail to the ceiling. I rolled my chair out of the way, but instead, the lightning struck the mug of coffee—remnants of bean water and ceramic soaking the machine panel nearest it.

  “Oh, shit!” I shouted as I jumped up, grabbing the lab coat hung on the back of the chair to clean the liquid off of the very expensive equipment. I mopped up what I could quickly, and when it was all soaked into the coat and not into the motherboard, I looked over my shoulder to see Peggy’s frightened face.

  “Sorry Peg,” I said, throwing the coat onto the couch behind her, “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She seemed apologetic that her accidental discharge had spilled all over my expensive computers, but I quickly picked her up in my arms and gave her a light pat to comfort her. Peggy was easily swayed and melted into my arms, deciding to sleep there instead. How I was going to get any work done with her there, though, I couldn’t say.

  “Well, it’s not like my simulations are working, anyway.” I muttered, taking up space on the other side of the couch, moving Peggy slowly until she was lying on top of my stomach. Her breathing began to match mine, and the little purrs from under her breath vibrated through me in a comforting way. Whenever things in my research didn’t pan out and I could feel myself spiraling, the soft purring she made always calmed me right back down.

  But even she couldn’t give me the validation I needed.

  “I dunno, Peg,” I started, knowing full well she was passed back out and would hear nothing, “I’ve been at this for five years now and nothing’s working. Simulation after simulation crashes. The science just isn’t here yet, and I can’t seem to crack the code to it. Something has to change, or else I’m never finding solid proof of MissingNo. or any other Glitch Pokémon.”

  Like I’d thought, Peggy was fast asleep and responded to nothing I said, so I leaned my head back and stared up at the ceiling. No answers would be found up there, sadly. It was taking everything to not abandon years of hard work, a lifetime of passion, and a future of scientific discovery—but what had I truly done with my research? Everything was still just theoretical. Testimony and legends could only propel things so far. I needed something concrete to hand over to the big wigs and shove into the faces of everyone who made fun of me.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Would I ever find solid proof, though?

  While I was knee-deep in an existential crisis at two in the morning, I wasn’t too far gone to block out the incessant beeping of my Rotom phone going off. As it floated nearby I reached over to dismiss the notification, I paused as the screen showed an incoming call.

  Alma? Why the hell would she be calling?

  I almost didn’t pick up the call, but after a while of just staring at her name, I accepted the video call. The bright lights of Veilstone City blinded me at first, but then Alma’s ugly mug moved into frame and my eyes began to adjust.

  “Ugh, what do you want?” I asked, acting like she’d just woken me up.

  She was on her way to work, it seemed, as she was walking through the city while on the call. Alma and I worked together briefly, but she worked primarily as a teacher at a Pokémon School for kids. “Stop pretending like you’re not pulling yet another all-nighter,” the dark-haired woman nagged, “we both know that you’re not sleeping when you should be.”

  I shrugged. “I mean I was about to,” no I wasn’t, but she didn’t need to know that, “but seriously, why are you calling me this late? I mean, I get it’s daytime for you, but you know how timezones work, yeah?”

  “Have you seen the news?”

  “Do I look like the type to watch the news unless absolutely necessary?”

  “It’s necessary. Turn it on.”

  Mumbling varying levels of profanity under my breath, I moved the call over and opened up the news app, expecting something like a celebrity death or something.

  What followed the BREAKING NEWS caption on the live feed was pretty close.

  Breaking News: Famed Pokémon Researcher Desdemona Laurel Reported Missing on Exploration Mission.

  “Shit.”

  I gently moved Peggy to the other side of the couch and sat up, opening the live video and letting it play.

  “Team Helios has released a statement that Theoretical Physicist and Pokémon Researcher Professor Desdemona Laurel has been pronounced as Missing on her most recent exploration mission. The Professor left on the expedition three months ago and according to Team Helios’s Head, Miss Helvetica, she stopped sending updates to the team two weeks ago. With no other method of communication, Team Helios hosted a press conference where they announced her presumptive status. Not much else is known about the expedition, but Team Vale has assured that they are working on putting together a retrieval mission for Professor Laurel.”

  “Can you believe it?” Alma said, “Professor Laurel? Missing? How unreal is that?”

  I nodded but said nothing at first. I couldn’t get a sound out—everything was stuck in the black hole deep in my chest, emotion and memory finding a place to hide so I didn’t explode. Instead I was frozen, unsure how to think or speak or feel.

  Professor Laurel taught me everything I knew about being a Pokémon Researcher. She was one of the few in the scientific community who didn’t treat me like I was crazy.

  And I knew enough about her research that the exploration mission she was lost on wasn’t an ordinary one somewhere within the region. If she was out in the field, that meant everything she’d been working for had come to fruition, and she’d achieved what few in this world could say.

  She’d discovered an alternate world, and she was lost in it.

  “Yael? Hello? Did the call freeze, or…?” Alma started shaking her phone and it gave me vertigo to look at.

  “I’m here, I’m here, just chill.” I squeezed my temples to help the headache surely forming. “They said that Helvetica is in charge of Team Helios now, yeah?”

  “She is. Why?”

  I made a face and groaned. “I hate that woman, she’s such a bitch. I’d rather eat Peggy than willingly work with her again.”

  Alma seemed to clue in and put her face super close to the camera. “I’m sorry, what’s that supposed to mean?!”

  “The news report said they’re putting together a retrieval mission. I’m going to be on it.”

  “Uh,” Alma stopped walking, suddenly apologizing as someone ran into her back, “you’re not serious. Professor Laurel was still working on accessing alternate worlds, right? She’s not…”

  “She is. She wouldn’t go out into the field for any other reason.”

  “All the more reason that you shouldn’t have to be the one to bring her back, Yael.”

  “You know I do. I don’t care what I have to do. I’m getting on that mission, even if I have to shred every last bit of dignity I have to beg Helvetica to do it.”

  “Yael, you don't—”

  Before she could even begin to try and convince me out of it, a new notification popped up onto the Rotom phone, making a loud ding that she heard on her end. She must have seen the look of confusion spring up on my face because she changed subjects right away.

  “What was that? Yael? Helloooooo?”

  Her attempts to get my attention were futile—the email I suddenly received, titled Operation Singularity, came from none other than Team Helios’s Helvetica. I almost did a look around the lab, wondering if she bugged my place. I wouldn't have put it past her.

  “Did the call freeze again?!” Alma shouted, “The reception at your lab sucks!”

  “Helvetica just sent me an email.”

  Alma’s nosiness emanated through the screen, almost like she was trying to peer over my screen to read it herself. “Wait, seriously? She's emailing you of all people? What does it say?”

  I didn't bother to read the whole email right then—the first paragraph was enough. But I read it over and over to make sure I was reading it correctly and not just making up words in my sleep-deprived mind.

  Once I was sure, I spoke. “She…she wants me on the retrieval mission.”

  Alma got excited for me, but I knew better. I had been ready to beg for my place on that mission and Helvetica was the first to raise the olive branch? She'd made a point about me not being welcome back when I left the team to pursue my own endeavors—there was no way this invitation was as easy and simple as it seemed.

  Something was seriously wrong, and despite knowing it, I wouldn't be able to say no.

  Not when Professor Laurel’s life was on the line.