Work Text:
Courtney was sifting through old files; which for any other person, it would have been extremely unpleasant.
Over the last ten or so years, there were hundreds upon hundreds of digital documents, data, conversations, and records of all kinds, sorted and dated meticulously by the staff and herself.
Honestly, if Courtney were being completely transparent, one of her favorite things to do after work was to go through the data.
Especially sorting through the oldest data.
Today, she was working on a new drive she had found that Leader Maxie said she could explore. When they had found it in the storage room that had been the leaders’ old office, he grimaced and set it down.
Courtney had asked what it was; he said he only vaguely knew, most likely emails or drafts of articles that had already been published, but it had been here longer than she had and was most likely useless to them.
Useless or not, data was data. Courtney had scooped it up and put it with the rest of the work she had to sort through and digitize.
So here she was, looking at the mysterious hard drive, wondering whether or not to plug it in.
The admin turned it over in her fingers, looking for any sort of dating on it. But it was for naught, it seemed, as it appeared blank; there was nothing outside of the textured black design than the few scratches it had probably gained over the years, and the indents from the manufacturing.
Leader Maxie had told her that most of the things inside the defunct office were older than Team Magma itself; many of the boxes they had thrown out or burned were full of obsolete documents from the company Team Magma had been a branch of.
“So; pretty old.” Tabitha had said while grabbing about two boxes of blank paper.
“Yes, they’re old. That’s why we’re salvaging what we can and getting rid of the rest.” Leader Maxie had explained, going through the drawers of the worn desk where he had found the hard drive.
Courtney plugged it in, letting the computer chew over the data before displaying it in a consumable manner.
The admin was glad for the simplicity, even if she was able to understand whatever was laid infront of her no matter the complications.
There were about seven files. Two of them looked to be corrupted; either something from age or incompatible software, so she ignored them.
The other two didn’t interest her. They were numbers that, at a quick glance, didn’t lead to anything interesting. They looked like simple numbers for a company that no longer existed.
The last three, are what caught her eye.
One of them was a study about Pokémon and how their environment was affected by people interfering with their habitat in a remote location that had recently been getting traffic; but the results seemed to be inconclusive, as the last line of writing stated that “More observational tests are due”.
She noticed the file name, “Harmony”, was because it was being published under “Harmony Company”.
She moved over to the other two files.
It was labeled “Harmony Preservations to Harmony Integrations”.
The file looked to be an email from one source; A. Brau, head of Harmony Preservations.
It read;
“Hey Maxie! There’s a million things happening over here. We got this study polished up that I thought you should take a look at. Aurora wanted to see if we could get a team together with some of the guys over at the Integration branch to get some more insight onto some of the behavior in the area. If you could take a look that would be GREAT 👍. Thanks Maxie. Love you.”
It lacked a formal signature. Whatever A. Brau that had sent it already rubbed her the wrong way; his disregard for professionalism, and his incorrect email etiquette.
But the one thing that did intrigue her was his departing sentence; “Love you.”
Courtney moved to the next file.
It seemed to be a continuation of the last email if the title of “Response from Harmony Integrations” was anything to take from it.
It read;
“Archie Brau,
“Your blatant disregard for the system I have clearly set up aggravates me to no end. If you would like to discuss the next project from Preservations, please follow the channels I organized and personally delivered instructions to you about. There is also an informative video about it if you are hopelessly lost.
“Outside that; I would love to hear more about this project, and will organize a team to aid in researching. If available, I would very much like to join myself. This project seems extremely promising for both sectors of research.
“Off the record; STOP EMAILING LIKE THIS. I have specifically told you to STOP it with the cutesy, unprofessional banter with the PROFESSIONAL WORK EMAILS I provided. If I have to bring this up at dinner once again I swear I will STRANGLE YOU.
“With Love, Maxie Roth, Head of Harmony Integrations.”
Courtney scanned through the email again.
And again.
It took her another second before she saw the reply from the same A. Brau, short, and simple; it was a heart. Signed with “Archie Brau, Head of Harmony Preservations.”
It seemed to go on somewhere else; but the connection was broken, and Courtney was not willing to dive into the code to try and remedy it.
She pulled out the hard drive.
The only Archie she knew- they all knew– was absolutely despised by Leader Maxie.
It almost made her head spin.
The admin closed the laptop and set the hard drive to the side.
Maybe, just maybe; not all data had to be saved.
Courtney thought she might burn the hard drive along with everything else from that office.
Courtney was researching.
She was doing this because, despite telling herself that she would throw out the hard drive— burn it, or smash it with the maul she kept for special occasions— she had continued to look through it.
The admin had gone through he code and unscrambled the two files that had seem corrupted(she found out it was a formatting error due to the transition to new software), and began looking through them.
She was slightly disappointed, but still intrigued when they seemed to be a continuation of the research that the previous files had been about.
They were two separate documents from both the Integration division and the Preservation division, with the same results. The only difference was that they seemed to have differing opinions on what to do with the information they had gathered.
The Integration branch wanted to introduce walkways and sighting spots for easy access to people and tamed pokemon, which would allow for people to be introduced without directly harming the environment.
It seemed to be directly pushing against the Preservation branch, who thought people and nonnative pokemon should be entirely removed, removing any risk for familiarizing the wild pokemon with the people they were supposed to fear for their own safety.
Courtney had taken the hard drive out once again and gone to bed.
It had taken her several days to have the idea to actually look up the disbanded company; after several searches, she had ended up with a handful of results spanning between fourteen and eleven years ago.
It was promising, at least.
The admin had gotten somewhat annoyed after going through several dead links before finally stumbling on the most official, and most cooperative website that was somehow still working.
It was a basic format; a few paragraphs under the title of "What our company is about", labeling some basic and non-descriptive goals, the main one seeming to be "giving the best lives to people and pokemon".
A short scroll led her to the description of the two divisions; the integration and preservation branches.
The descriptions were much shorter this time; Integration seemed to try and improve the lives for the pokemon and people living together, while Preservation wanted to help the lives of the pokemon and people living separately.
It seemed nice, initially.
That was, until she remembered who seemed to have ran the Preservation division.
With another scroll, Courtney had ended up on a page about "our team".
The admin had froze when she saw the image of the founders.
The photo was from fourteen years ago, but they both looked the same; Maxie's hair was still slicked back, revealing the widows peak he hid nowadays. His glasses were rectangles that sat low on his eyes, and his outfit was still dark, with a forest green turtleneck that somehow didn't clash with his hair, and a black jacket over it.
The man next to him, was leaning against Maxie with a playful smile. He had a hand wrapped around his side, like he was trying to pull him closer, but Maxie was unamused, keeping his place.
At least, that's what it would have looked like to anybody who couldn't read Maxie's face. The corner of his mouth was just barely being tugged at, dimple faintly on his cheek as he tried not to smile.
They were both looking at the camera, but the man with the bandanna's attention was clearly on Maxie.
It almost made Courtney's skin crawl to see Archie so close to the leader of team magma, a hand on his side and affection in his eyes. It was unnerving to see Maxie with a similar look on his face.
They looked so different. They didn't look bitter or sad; Courtney realized there was a missing look of heartbreak in their eyes she hadn't been able to name before.
They also looked young, which wasn't as strange, but still foreign.
Archie had a bandanna on, as always, but it wasn't blue; it was a similar green to the sweater Maxie had on. The rest of his outfit was colored similarly to the magma leader's as well; a dark brown leather jacket, a white shirt featuring the logo of the company in a mossy color, and dark pants.
The Magma Admin tried to move on. She scrolled past for a moment, just before coming back to read the summaries they had made about themselves to the side. Courtney noticed how it was written; the style, while talking about Maxie, was somewhat strange, but still had quirks that the Magma leader's writting had. Archie's, however, had only the tone of something Maxie would write, and tried to cover the immaturity the photo revealed.
She lingered on the photo for a second longer than she wanted.
They really did look happy; content. They looked like they didn't know where their lives would be going, and in all honesty, they probably didn't.
She finally tore her eyes away and moved on.
The rest of her investigation didn't give her much. After the summary of the founders, there was more discussion of the teams, what jobs they took, and the different responsibilities they had, before ending with an invitation to join the company.
The rest of the page led to dead link after dead link; anything that looked promising spat her out to an error page, at which she gave up.
She opened log on her other screen, which she had been periodically relaying what she was doing into, before typing a short paragraph how nothing of use came from her investigation.
She stopped.
Was it really useless?
Courtney thought back to the photo from the page. Maxie, young, and full of drive to improve the future. Archie— how ever much she disliked to admit it— Glowing, and eager to help in any way he could.
She backspaced.
"Nothing more than illuminations of the past were found. Not worth looking into further."
The Admin also decided, for the first time in half a decade of working with her boss, She would not tell Leader Maxie of this investigation.
Courtney closed the laptop and called it a night.
She would probably destroy the hard drive in the morning.
But maybe, she'd make a copy for herself.