KwisatzHaddascratch

It is 6 o’clock on a Friday morning in early September. The orange glow of pre-dawn light filters through a bedroom window. The room is upgrading from a pitch-black, foreboding pit into a dimly lit, foreboding pit of tangled clothes and torn posters. Piles of paperback books litter the floor, fortresses besieged by old crumbs, school supplies, bits of paper, and that heterogeneous slurry that collects around teenage boys like barnacles on the hull of a particularly affordable cruise line. Socks, mostly. A space has been cleared on the seat of an ancient and battered easy chair in the corner of the room. There a young man sits, restless

Yellow stretches. Golden sunlight shines through the fabric and door of his tent. The Pikachu snores softly beside him - it crawled inside at some point during the night. It's a beautiful, early morning in the fields just outside the Pallet Town. Yellow considers a quick breakfast, but decides that he's wasted enough time. He can eat his next meal at home. The Pikachu exits the tent and curls up nearby as Yellow quietly breaks camp. The folding of the shelter, the repacking of sleeping bag and clothing, the collection of bits of trash from prefab food - all of it is almost meditative. Though it's only the fourth day, Yellow's pilgrimage se

"Hey!" Yellow starts awake. His pup tent is shaking under the violent onslaught of a shopkeep's foot. Dawn hasn't broken yet, but the sky glows purple and orange over the green town. "Hey! Hey, kid!" the shopkeep shouts. "Hey! You came from Pallet Town?" Yellow isn't sure, but he thinks he says "Muzzawp?" The clerk seems to take this as an affirmation. "You know Professor Oak, right?" "Mawp." "His order came in. Will you take it to him? I don't want to keep a guy like that waiting." The sales clerk doesn't wait for a response before shoving an awkwardly large parcel through the tent flap, spinning on one heel, and racing inside the Mar

Yellow wakes in a field of waving, wild grass. The Pikachu sleeps restlessly, its paws scrabbling against the ground in anxious dreams. He breaks down the tent, eats a protein bar, packs his equipment and kicks the rodent awake. Squinting, Yellow turns his eyes to the rising sun, gauges the direction he needs to go to reach the nearest settlement, and takes off at a slow hike. Soon, he and the Pikachu have passed the wide corridor of rock fences that mark the outskirts of the Professor's influence, and come upon the ruins of the old roads. Much of the pathway is jagged, with large blocks of crumbling asphalt forming treacherous ledges that w

He starts awake, the game controller slipping from his hands and clattering to the bare floor of his second-story bedroom. It's an antiquated videogame system hooked imperfectly to a salvaged old CRT, but playing it allows him the rare opportunity to relax when he's dreading the big day. Today. "Okay," he murmurs to himself. "It's time to get going." Lurching, deliberately stalling, he strolls over to his secondhand desktop and checks the torrent. There's one available file, a single-use instance of some GMO treatment. He fabs it, places it into a pocket of his pre-packed hiking backpack, slings the bag over both shoulders. No more puttin