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“Fzzzzttt!!!”
I grinned at the little metal orb floating next to me, keeping one eye on them and one eye on the tracks ahead.
Magnemite was always excited to go down into the train tunnels. I’d seen other Pokémon partners get anxious when descending into the dark. Once some intern from Galar brought a Sizzlipede down with him, the poor thing had a panic attack and damn near burned the kid’s jumpsuit off. But no, Magnemite never had any trouble. They thrived down there, even. I always had to call them back to my side, stop them from investigating every glint of metal that caught their eye.
But I couldn’t complain. Distractible as they were, Magnemite had a real eye for electronics. Between their inherent feeling for electricity and magnets, and my training as an electrician, we had never found a gizmo we couldn’t fix, or a problem we couldn’t solve.
I guess we were kind of the same in that way. Me and Magnemite, thriving in the tunnels.
Today we were under Nimbasa City. We'd started in the famous Gear Station, but by this point we were a couple miles down the tracks. Nimbasa had been having unexplained blackouts all week. The city had their own wiremen on it, of course, but between Gear Station and the Pokémon gym they wanted some extra hands on the job. Someone there knew a guy who knew me, and, well. Now here I was.
I’d been walking for a couple hours now. I’d come down here prepared to spend the next week figuring out where the fault in the system was, but that turned out to be the easy part. All signs pointed to an intersection at the edge of the city, which was now only a few yards ahead of us. Magnemite was pulling me in that direction as well, and despite their expressionless face, I could tell from the way their magnets spun that something big was up ahead.
If only I could actually see anything. The subway tunnels were dusty. Underground passageways always were, of course, but it was bad here. I had a respirator mask on, but my flashlight was only able to penetrate a few feet through the dark.
But I only had to walk for another couple minutes before Magnemite stopped and spun a circle around me. I looked around and saw a heavy steel door, painted with a black lightning bolt inside of a crimson triangle. Whatever we were going to find down here, we had found it.
I had been given all the master keys to the subway tunnels, so getting in wasn’t a problem. The room on the other side was all concrete, but you could barely see any of it beneath all the wires. They caked the walls like vines, a layer of tangled multicolored mess that spilled out across the floor and ceiling. I cringed. Even with all my safety gear, there was no way in hell this was safe.
Still, I had a job to do. I trudged onward. There was a steel panel in the wall up ahead, peeking out from under the wires. As good a place as any to start.
I glanced back over my shoulder and whistled. Magnemite had been dancing around the room in spirals, taking in the chaos, but they sprang to attention when I jabbed a thumb towards the panel.
I didn’t have to tell them what to do. Magnemite hurried forward and pressed their magnets against one of the screws holding the panel in place. I lifted a bushel of wires out of their way as they spun the screws out of their sockets. I couldn’t help but smile. Me and Magnemite had been at this job for a few years now. It always felt good to get to work with them. It was only a couple minutes before Magnemite finished with the last screw, and the panel fell from the wall. Their single eye squeezed shut in satisfaction as I gave them a congratulatory pat and stepped forward to take their place.
My turn. I gave the newly exposed mess of circuits and wires a once-over, but all I could do was frown. Just like the wiring around me, the inner workings were a mess. Whichever idiot approved this room for use had better have been fired for it. But other than that, there was nothing outwardly wrong with any of it. It would’ve all been functional, if it had any power to function with.
It was like the electricity was just gone. Siphoned away.
I tried to think, but I couldn’t deny the knot of uneasiness in my gut. This was wrong. Last time I had seen something like this was when a Raticate chewed through the wrong wire and shut down an entire college campus, but there was no break here. It was just gone. I would’ve blamed an electric Pokémon, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anything stronger than a Galvantula down in these tunnels.
Maybe some trainer had lost an Electivire down here. Maybe Team Plasma was up to no good. No, no, no crazy ideas. Whatever was happening down here, I wasn’t gonna be the one to fix it. I took a step back and tried to scratch my face through my mask. It was time to leave.
But as soon as I stepped back, I felt my ankle catch on a wire. Because of course. I teetered for a few steps, unsteady, but I caught myself without spraining my pride too badly. Magnemite gave a little trill of interest and whizzed over to me. I would’ve been touched by their concern, if they hadn’t sped right past me to hover over the wire I’d stumbled onto.
But now that I looked, the wire was different from all the rest. It was huge. It was a cable made up of three waxy black strands, each easily a foot thick. I panned my flashlight down, following it. The strands were held together by what looked like giant white zip ties, and the end of the cable…
The cable didn’t end at the wall. It didn’t go into the panel or continue on through some pipe. Instead, the copper wiring within the black insulation was bare, teased apart and spread out like the petals of a flower. As I watched, a thin white bolt jumped from one strand of copper to another. I froze. How the hell hadn’t I noticed this in the first place? I had to leave now.
Magnemite. Magnemite was still inspecting the black cable. Uncomfortably close to the sparking copper wires. I lunged forward, hands outstretched.
My heart skipped a beat.
I fell to my knees. I couldn’t breathe. I pounded on my chest, coughing for air, and dragged my vision upwards.
Sensation curiosity
I was just in time to see the copper wires snap closed around Magnemite.
Hunger
I lunged again, but the cable retracted, whipping around my feet and out of the room. I had just enough time to see Magnemite, magnet-like arms straining against coppery tentacles. One second and it was gone. I pulled myself to my feet and limped back out, out onto the tracks, still pumping air into my lungs.
Magnemite. Magnemite. I needed Magnemite.
I could hear the staticky sound of Magnemite’s cry. They were screaming. I pushed myself, faster, down the tunnel. I needed them, I needed them, I…
They were there. Magnemite laid face-up on the tracks. They had been scratched to hell and back, their silvery body now a mess of stringy white grooves. Their magnets were on the ground beside them, no longer compelled to stick to them. And their eye-- their one ever-watching, ever-curious eye-- had gone dark.
I fell to the ground and retched. The pain was trying to force its way out through my throat. All that came out was a sob.
I don’t know how long I knelt there before I saw the light.
It was farther down the tunnel from me. I saw it, shining white, dull against the whirling dust. I shouted. I had meant to shout for help, but I had no words. I screamed.
The light got closer, closer, bigger, and my heart skipped a beat.
It was too big. Maybe it was the light of a train. They’d forgotten I was down here, me and Magnemite were about to be a stain against the tracks.
My heart skipped a beat.
My nerves were on fire. I couldn’t breathe. I could breathe, my lungs were pumping, my heart was pounding, but I couldn’t control any of it. I was on the electric chair. My arms, my legs, I was convulsing, electricity coursed through my body, neurons and ligaments snapping. I could feel all of it but I couldn’t control any of it.
Sensation curiosity joy
I saw it. I saw the light. That brilliant jagged crystal, with black cables pouring out of its underside like tentacles. It loped down the train tracks, two black arms and two black legs, humanoid in all the wrong ways. It was made of rubber and string, a marionette compelled by some electric hand.
Coppery fingertips reached out toward me.
Joy elation togetherness
Hunger