I pick up a few things about myself in an hour—mostly that, when I’m surrounded by people who look like they’d sooner stab me than say hi, my brain automatically starts tracking exits and rehearsing escape plans. The mug I got handed is old and battered, probably not the most food-safe thing in the world, and hot enough to roast my tongue. I drink it anyway—the pain keeps me grounded. The woman with the buzzcut from earlier is across from me, feet propped up, cigarette pinched between her fingers, letting smoke drift out slow. She’s got that look like she’s just waiting for things to go sideways.

  Beldum is hovering at my left elbow, close enough I can practically taste the static in the air. Every minute or two I swear its hum is rattling my teeth. It’s not just observing—it's running some kind of internal surveillance: faces, movements, how far it is to the nearest exit, which guy hasn’t let his hands leave his lap since we sat down. I get flashes of its calculations: who’s carrying pokeballs, who’s alert, who’s most likely to lash out first. My money’s on the guy with the crooked teeth and the scar on his neck, though it’s a tight race. Sometimes the details are so clear I lose track of what’s Beldum and what’s just me.

  I nod at the woman, giving something like a smile. “Appreciate the coffee,” I manage, voice frayed from too much smoke and too little sleep. “Didn’t think there’d be a warm welcome.”

  She smirks back at me with all teeth and none of it friendly, that same stare that could sand rust off metal. She’s wearing a mining patch over her coveralls and a nameplate—“REI”—sharpied onto the pocket. I jerk the mug upright with a reflex that surprises even me. “Sorry. I—” No script. I’ve got nothing. “Didn’t get your name.”

  She looks me up and down like she’s measuring how fast she could knock me out and drag me behind the loader. “Rei,” she says. “You’re the bloke who crashed in after dark with a half-starved Teddiursa and a Beldum. Not exactly local wildlife.”

  Beldum gives off a quiet metallic click. A couple of the miners tense up; pretty clear nobody here’s a fan of surprises—especially the kind that hover and might lose their temper for fun.

  “Just lost,” I say quietly. “Passing through.”

  Rei snorts. “Nobody’s lost out here. Half our crew’s fugitives from something.”

  She gives Teddiursa a long, sceptical look. “If that’s yours, you better keep it close. I hope you didn’t swipe her off a mother. Ursaring round here don’t forgive easy.”

  Teddiursa, sensing a challenge, gnaws at my sleeve with a growl that’s more cute than threatening. I stroke her head and feel the tremor running beneath the fur. I know that kind of shaking—it’s what you feel when you’ve lost everything and the only thing left is to bare your teeth. I guess we’re not so different.

  Rei gestures at the tent’s limp flap. “Supervisor’s gonna want to talk to you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She disappears into the crowd, and I’m left cradling my coffee and a trail of stares that don’t even try to hide the suspicion. Teddiursa whines. I tip the mug so she can lick the rim, and she does, tongue darting with precise, desperate laps. Somewhere in the tent, a radio squawks the weather—stormfront inbound, two days max before the roads shut. The men and women in here pay it zero mind. That’s how you know they’re all from places with worse odds.

  Beldum nudges my shoulder, threading a thin thought between the pulsing of its own anxiety—a warning, but not for me. I get the message: keep quiet. Watch.

  I shrug deeper into my jacket and move to an empty table near the fire pit, close enough to steal a bit of warmth. Teddiursa resettles onto my lap, stretches herself out, and is snoring before I’ve even finished sitting. Beldum floats in, close enough for the metal chill to brush my arm. I watch the steam from my mug cloud my vision and keep tabs on the camp: who’s whispering behind their hands, who’s working hard not to notice me, who looks like they’re just waiting for an excuse. Five minutes. Ten. Long enough that I start to think nobody cares about me, then the tent flap snaps open, and a breeze cold enough to cut glass whips across the floor.

  He’s tall—easily a head over the rest, with a hard face and beard that’s losing the war against gray. His eyes are bright, not the dull worker’s stare, but sharp as a laser rangefinder. His jacket is clean, zipped high, every patch and button exactly in place.

  He walks straight to my table and sits, not caring that Teddiursa is now half-hissing under my coat or that Beldum’s eye is a slit of warning red.

  “Let’s make this easy,” he says, voice honed to a blade. “Who are you?”

  I could invent a name—hell, I could invent a whole backstory—but there’s a tone in his voice that tells me he’ll sense a lie six syllables ahead. So I go with the only thing I have left: “I’m nobody.”

  He stares, calculating. “Nobody with a Beldum and a wild cub that doesn’t try to tear your face off?”

  “She’s not wild,” I say, and even as I say it I know it’s a stupid thing to argue, but I can’t help it.

  He nods, pretending to buy it. “You got business with Team Plasma?”

  The word hits like a hammer blow. I don’t flinch, but I feel my fingers clamp around the coffee mug just a little tighter.

  “No,” I say, but he’s already watching Beldum, reading the silent tells.

  “Right,” he says. “And this—” He points at Teddiursa, then at my jacket with its obvious blood and mud stains. “—was just a pet rescue? You want to tell me how you wandered into restricted territory with no ID, no transport, and a Pokémon that most people will never even see?”

  I stare at the table, eyes tracing the burn scars and old cigarette holes. “I wasn’t trying to come here. I got out. That’s all.”

  He leans back, face unreadable. “Out of where?”

  I try not to answer, but the words are out before I can stop them. “A lab. Up the mountain. I don’t even know what it was called.”

  He narrows his eyes, letting the silence stretch. “Not many folks even know there’s anything up that way.” He lowers his voice. “You mean the one with the locked gates and the night shipments? Most people who go in don’t come out.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t have to.

  His gaze softens, just a flicker, but it’s enough. He glances at Beldum, then back at me. “Supervisor Kade,” he says, tapping the badge clipped to his pocket. “I run this camp. And you’re lucky you didn’t run into a worse crew, because half the ops in these mountains would’ve fed you to the wilds or shipped you back in a crate.”

  I try to sound braver than I feel. “You gonna do that?”

  He laughs, a sharp bark. “I got no love for Plasma, or for the bastards running your old lab. I just need to know if you’re going to bring trouble down on my people.”

  I look at Teddiursa, then at Beldum, then at the tent full of workers who keep glancing over, waiting for Kade to give the word. “I don’t want anything except to keep moving. I’m not staying.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  He nods slowly, then leans forward, elbows on the table. “You’ll stay until the storm breaks. After that, you head west—Mistralton City’s that way if you’re lucky, or wherever else you think is safer. But you keep your Pokémon on a leash and your head down. Last thing we need is Plasma heavies showing up with trackers.”

  I nod back. “Fine.”

  He gets up, giving me a short nod. “Rei’ll get you fixed up with some supplies. Don’t go pocketing anything, alright?” With that, he moves off—practical, all business, not wasting another second on me. I finally exhale, my shoulders dropping. Teddiursa gives a soft whine but curls up tighter; Beldum’s glow settles down. For once since waking up in that tank, I’m starting to feel almost normal.

  A diesel engine coughs to life nearby, shaking the tents with a rumble that’s more threat than invitation. The crowd stirs: mugs get drained, cigarettes stamped out, someone cracks their neck and stretches like they’re about to go twelve rounds with a punching bag. The miners move in slow unison, not eager but resigned, each shuffling toward the exit with the same hunched, almost defensive posture. A few throw glances my way as they file past, but none of them linger. I get the sense that if a fight broke out, no one would notice unless it blocked the door.

  Rei materializes in front of me, stamping her boots to shake off a layer of grime. “C’mon,” she says, and jerks her thumb, not waiting to see if I follow. I half-jog to keep up, shaking Teddiursa awake with a gentle squeeze. She blinks, groggy, and buries her face in my jacket. Beldum goes silent as a knife, trailing just behind us as we cut through the bustle of people and out further into the cold, which is somehow wetter and more bitter than before.

  The camp is in motion now—a line of hi-viz parkas marching toward a battered brown transport truck, its bed already crawling with bodies, boots clanging on metal. Yellow halogen lamps turn the snow into a slurry of piss-bright mud. Beyond the circle of light, the mountains are just black teeth, waiting to bite down on whatever comes next. Rei leads me not to the truck, but to a squat prefab shack set off to the side, with a rusted metal door and a single bulb burning above it. She shoves the door open and the smell of chlorine and old sweat smacks me in the chest.

  Inside: a concrete floor sloped toward a drain, a row of battered lockers, and a single shower head sticking out of the wall like a tumor. The steam is thin but real, and the air is warm enough for my face to sting as it thaws.

  “Wash up,” Rei says. “You smell worse than you look.”

  She tosses me a towel the colour of old oatmeal and kicks a pair of flip-flops on the floor in my direction. “There’s soap if you don’t mind sharing with the rest of us.” She draws her mouth into a thin, hard line. “Don’t take too long. We run three shifts and the next crew’s waiting.” She glances at Teddiursa, who’s already nodding off on my arm again. “If you want her clean, now’s your shot.”

  I nod, fighting the urge to ask if I actually have a choice. She lingers in the doorway, watching for a second, then disappears.

  The water takes a full minute to go from ‘barely not frozen’ to ‘maybe won’t kill you,’ but when it does, I strip off my jacket and let the heat scald a week’s worth of grime, blood, and fear from my skin. Teddiursa hangs limp on my forearm for the first half, then wakes up and lets out a single, startled chirp as the water hits her. Her shock fades to a kind of dopey pleasure, and she stands on two feet, nosing around my ankles, paws up. I soap her down, careful of the raw patches on her nose and chest. She closes her eyes, lets me scrub behind her ears, even leans into it when I claw out the worst of the dirt. There’s a moment where it’s just us, the sound of water, and the faint, fizzy hum of Beldum floating outside the door.

  When I’m done, I dry off with the towel, which smells like bleach and regret, and try to wring some of the water from Teddiursa’s fur. She shakes out, then sprints in a tight, manic circle around the tiny room before collapsing, shivering and content, in a heap on my foot.

  I put on my clothes—still damp, still torn, but at least not caked in blood anymore—and step out. Rei is waiting, arms folded, staring at Beldum. There’s no fear in her eyes, just the tough patience of someone who’s seen enough to fill two lifetimes.

  “Follow me,” she says, and this time I do, not looking back. She leads us to a storeroom at the back of the camp—boxes stacked to the ceiling, shelves full of spare parts, nothing labelled, everything covered in a thin layer of industrial dust. Her hands are quick and efficient: she pulls a fresh bandage roll, a can of burn salve, a half-finished box of protein bars. She hands them to me without word, like she’s been told not to care but can’t quite stop.

  For a second, we just stand there, and she looks at me with a strange kind of curiosity.

  “You really walked out of Plasma?” she says at last, low and quiet. Not a challenge, just a question aimed at the dark between us.

  I nod, not trusting my voice.

  She grunts, sorting the emotion away for later. “Camp rules: If you can carry the load, you do your share. You want to stay on the boss’s good side, keep your head out of sight and don’t let the Teddiursa run wild.” She cracks a grin, the first one I’ve seen that doesn’t look like it hurts. “If she bites a guy’s fingers off, you probably make more friends than enemies.”

  We both laugh, the sound echoing in the empty shelves.

  She nods at Beldum, whose red eye is cool and low, a warning light on a dying battery. “That one yours?”

  I consider the question. The truth is, I don’t even know. But Beldum gives out a little pulse—a faint flick of heat behind my forehead, unmistakable: We’re in this together.

  “Yeah,” I say. “It’s mine.”

  Rei thinks about it, then sticks out her hand. “Don’t shake if you don’t mean it.”

  I do. Her grip is rock-solid, and for once it feels like I’m not about to get thrown off a cliff.

  She lets go, half-smiling now. “Get some sleep. If you’re smart, you’ll be gone before the storm hits, not after.”

  I give her a nod and make for the bunks—just another sheet-metal box plunked down in the wasteland, barely holding together. I pick a spot in the far corner, out of range of the loudest snorers and as far from the barrels as I can get. Blanket, such as it is, gets pulled over me. Teddiursa tucks herself under my coat without even waking up. Beldum settles overhead, its eye dim but still there, always watching. Finally, for the first time all day, I let myself breathe. I stare up at the ceiling—so patched and worn you can see light through half the seams—and try not to think about whether this place will still be here after the storm, or if it’ll just disappear like everything else out here does.

  I close my eyes. For the first time since I woke up in that tank, I let myself drift, and for a few hours the world leaves us alone.