Chapter 27

"Avery?"

The mew hovered there for a second, surrounded by narrow stone on either side. Though at their size it felt several meters away, it couldn't really be more than a meter. Quinn's transformation had robbed him of any sense of scale.

"Part of me wonders why they never gave me a different name," she said. "Lost kitten whose irresponsible parents left her while they did their terraforming work. Has delusions of being human. But Avery didn't annoy them much. My mom used to say it was cute. 'Can't live in one of those with the way you fly. What if there's a breeze, you'll fall all the way back down the cliff!'"

She floated a little closer to him. The cat didn't move like she lacked confidence. This cat was faster than the ones hovering around Absentia. Not half-mutated, not a scientist who had never used her powers. Her eyes glowed faint blue, her emotions somehow concealed behind a wall of calcified intent.

"Thought about changing it myself, a few times. Wondered who Avery had even been, years and years ago. She walked on two legs. She didn't get to wear dresses as often as she liked. She wanted to teach the world to do something that we can all do without even trying."

She got a little closer each second, tail whipping slowly around her as she flew. She could fight to keep even small thoughts in check, but she couldn't keep her animal features from betraying her. "I know it was real," she continued. "Even though it doesn't feel very real anymore. But you do."

She was much closer now. Close enough to hover vertically in the air in front of him, close enough to feel her heat when her fur brushed past him, see the pain in those huge blue eyes. "Are you real?"

Quinn touched her shoulder, the same way he might a bundle of fireworks all rigged with fuses. Only these explosives were a person, and might detonate spontaneously if they felt threatened. If that happened, what could Quinn possibly do? Could he time travel fast enough to escape a Pokémon as strong as this?

"Yeah," he said. "And… maybe younger than you now? Not sure how that works." He glanced nervously away from her, out at the deep blue sky with only tiny wisps of cloud. "Last time I saw you, you were small enough to hold in my hands. Now…"

The cat grinned toothily at him, floating deliberately higher in the air. She seemed about the same size, though that might just be an illusion of the position she chose. "Older? Probably. Been a cat twice and twice as long as I had…" She squeezed her paw, extending the claws from within. "Hands. And the other parts of being that way."

She moved closer suddenly, fast enough that Quinn tensed—but there was nothing to fear. The mew embraced him, almost like a person might. Her forelegs hung over his shoulders, feline head up against his.

She twitched, then let go of him, maybe a little too quickly. "You sent me here. One little message to a kitten who didn't know any better. Worked her whole little life to get here." She adjusted her vest again, pulling it back down into place. "On duty right now. Don't want to know what they would think if they realized who I was talking to."

She floated gradually higher off the ground, rotating in the air until she was completely upside-down. She didn't seem to notice, or care. "And Mom was right! If I run off with you…" She froze abruptly, as though the air had solidified around her.

"You're gonna ask me to, aren't you? Fly out of here, back to the time we came from." She vanished in a faint flash of light, reappearing a few inches away from him. And thankfully for the nausea in his stomach, rightside-up again. "The future was so great. Walking around stuck on the ground. Training Pokémon. Not understanding why anything works. Not realizing how much danger we're in every time we walk outside. One wrong move, and the real masters of the world wipe us away."

She was going so quickly, she might just keep on going if he didn't say anything—rambling her own little story about what his plans were and what they would do there. So some parts of Avery hadn't changed.

"Is that what you want?" he asked, voice cautious. "Take off into the timestream, and soar all the way back to the future?"

Her emotional mask cracked with some of those words. He felt the resistance when he spoke, obvious hostility to the idea before he could even complete one sentence. He knew what the answer would be before she tried to speak.

"Eventually. But there's something wrong with where we are, Quinn. If I could leave, I shouldn't." She floated over to him again, one paw on his shoulder. "There are humans in this time, did you know that? The things we used to be, big and squishy and weak and slow. Us. And the Admiralty are deciding if they'll use their science to restore them, or let them…" She shuddered, expression turning sour. "I shouldn't say. But it's evil, and I think I can stop it."

You're still you. Either this cat was exceptionally good at manipulating him, or the girl he'd spent his life crushing on was still in there. Avery wouldn't hide away while others suffered some terrible death.

"You don't have to say it, because I know what they do. I saw that future, and how lifeless and empty the world is. I don't know if any cats live through it, but no one else does. Not the world we came from—no Pokémon, no people, nobody. Just a little lichen and algae, growing on a dead world."

And the two of us still exist, which hopefully means we're gonna find a way to stop them, and not rip the world apart in some universe collapsing paradox.

But time travel wasn't why he'd come. A mew wouldn't know any of the solutions to those problems. "I don't want you to be in danger, Avery. But if you want to help, you might have to be. There's… there are some people who want to stop the Admiralty, but they need a way to reach back into Starfall. A cat on the inside, who can watch what's happening, pass messages to sympathetic cats, maybe plant devices that will listen to what's happening and warn us if they're about to attack. Stuff like that."

Things that might get you caught, tortured, or worse. Can a Mew hide that she's spying for the other side?

Maybe this one could. She hid her feelings better than his friends in Absentia could, except the ghost. "But I don't care what they want you to do. I won't try to convince you. If you say no, I'll tell them it wasn't worth the risk. Hell, you could come back with me if you want. But I happen to know they're going to bombard our little village into a crater eventually. You're probably safer right where you are."

She sagged lower and lower in the air with every word. Her almost comical energy finally stopped bubbling, and she dropped to the ground. Her ears folded backward, and her confidence broke. "I think Starfall wants to help," she eventually said. "Er—Sinnoh. The persona from the starship. Before it…" Her tail flicked into the dirt behind her. "I dunno. But it's been helping me since I was a kitten. It hates what the Admiralty is doing, but can't do anything to stop them. Maybe it could work with your friends?"

The AI wanted to rebel against its own civilization? Avery would sense his skepticism at first, the most obvious reaction to that news. If she were anyone else, he probably would've dismissed the idea out of hand. But this was his friend. Avery wouldn't lie to him. But she might be wrong. Or maybe they're using her. Mew are powerful, old, and smart.

It also might be listening right now, maybe even using the tool she was carrying. But surely it wouldn't be able to overhear their telepathy. Quinn could focus his thoughts to one person without much difficulty.

"How can you be sure it's not trying to manipulate you? Maybe this whole thing was to get you to me, so I could lead you to the rebellion. Then it blows them up from orbit."

Avery stiffened with those thoughts. Not resisting them, he would've sensed if she wanted to intercept his thoughts. Rather, he felt the wave of indignation as the information passed between them. But underneath, something more sincere. She couldn't ignore the obvious potential danger. This was still Avery, the friend he'd grown up with.

She couldn't make it all the way through parapsychology by being stupid and gullible.

"We have to trust it somewhere. It knows we're talking now. But if I go back to ask it and I don't… it might get bored of me. Maybe there are cats watching right now." She floated back the way she'd come a short distance. "I think I trust it. There would be easier ways to trick you. I might choose to be selfish and leave with you. I think it's telling the truth."

She was right about one thing. They had to extend some amount of trust. To maintain the status quo was to lose to the Admiralty. Quinn had already seen that outcome once, he didn't need to live through it a second time. But he could do something else.

His antennae lifted, and his eyes unfocused. He could still see Avery, but her little twitches and the faint flick of her tail was soon joined by many similar but different versions. Every little way the breeze might blow, while her mind faltered on the edge of the decision. Not a single version yet, until one of them decided to act.

"I'm guessing it's not safe for me to go back with you," he began. "Is there a way you have to communicate with it? Maybe I could bring a communication device with me, and give it to the people in charge."

She nodded. "Y-yeah. The observatory has fabrication for making extra equipment. I'm sure Sinnoh could help me hide the request as something innocent, in case a cat goes poking through the records later. What about me? If you did want me to help you, what would I do?"

No deviation so far. He kept his antennae up, focusing deliberately on the future. If that AI was about to do something…

But even after traveling several times, he couldn't look forward into more than a few moments. "We have transmissions hidden in one of the diagnostic frequencies the Starfall's satellite networks use. I can give you the frequency, and the encoding scheme. And I have your first assignment, if you want it."

She nodded eagerly. "I'm not promising I'll do it. If I think it would get the humans killed… then we'd be killing ourselves in the future, right? Or something. Time is… confusing. But I'll think about it. And try to do it, if it's possible."

He told her the frequency. Obviously the rebellion knew the potential danger—it wasn't something that would lead back to their hidden village. Though if they decided to stay in touch with the persona, a hyper-advanced AI from the original starship that first settled Earth would probably be able to find them quickly. If it had satellites, maybe it had already… And hadn't attacked.

"There are several important cats who were sympathetic to other Pokémon before. They want you to get a message to them, asking for help. They might not know what the Admiralty plan to do. If cats found out, they might not support them. Replace the Admiralty with cats who don't want to do quite so much genociding."

He shared the description of the cats they wanted to talk to, along with the memories of their faces and scents he'd been shown. Less traceable than a photograph, though it should remain just as firmly planted in her memory. "I don't know how they expect you to do that. Or what you're supposed to do if they say no. It seems really risky to me."

He saw the motion before Avery actually moved. She was going to pounce on him, show off just how unpredictable she was. Quinn lowered his antennae, tucking them in against damage. But he stayed still, letting her do it.

Avery pounced him to the ground, propping her forelegs up against his chest. Her scent was suddenly much stronger, her expression braver. "Cats are smarter than me in a lot of ways. But they're also so… predictable. They're all one culture, I still remember how to be different. I'll think of something. And maybe Sinnoh will come up with a better plan. I'm on a two year tour right now, so… won't be going back for a while."

Two years—would've been too long, except that he was back in time. Which meant that technically the leaders of their rebellion didn't even know he was putting them in contact, because he hadn't met them yet!

"That's fine, because they don't actually know I exist. They won't even be listening on that frequency for…" He had to spend a few seconds doing the conversion between the mew dating system and one more familiar to him. "Thirty-eight years?"

He pushed her slowly off his chest, looking suddenly distant. "Arceus, I'm a bad time traveler."