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"Well, kinda...not exactly," Morada stuttered, hands up defensively, trying not to upset him.
Ash stared was staring at Jessie, or whoever she was, unable to see a difference between this and the woman that had tried to steal pikachu so many times. But that really wasn't saying much, for Jessie and James had fooled him with less extravagant costumes, but still... "Does this mean she's been an androbot all along, or did somebody make a whatchacallit that just looks like Jessie."
Morada crossed her arms. "The word is 'android' and how should I know? I just met the-er-girl."
"She-she couldn't have been..." James tried say. "I would have known if..." But he couldn't get the words out. Had she been lying to him the whole time? Well, she never really had said 'hi I'm Jessie and yes, I'm human' but still...an ~android~...
"But what's the difference?" Ash asked. "Between a robot and an android I mean."
"Er..." Morada started. She wasn't exactly an expert on those things. "Well an android is in a human shape, obviously, but some robots are too... Well the main difference is, androids use their programming as more of a brain than as instructions."
"Huh?" James and Ash said at once.
Morada gave an exasperated sigh. "Well...an android can be programmed to do something, but it gets to decide how to do it. It can somewhat think for itself, but it still has to do what it's programmed to do," she said. "But a robot you have to do everything for-tell it exactly what to do, it's mindless--and unless it's real advanced, ya sometimes have ta use a remote control."
Ash looked over at the tank. "But what if she's a robot-how do you tell?"
Morada bit her lip. "I'm pretty sure she's an android-the scans showed real advanced programming-but there is one surefire way to find out."
"What?" James asked. With the downpour of secrets that he'd been wading through recently, from Jessie's disappearance to this, he didn't think he could stand not knowing the complete truth about anything else.
Morada gave him a look that screamed 'are you stupid?' and said, "well there IS an 'on' switch."
"Hey, Batch," Buson called from the truck. "Give us a hand here!"
Butch stiffly walked over to the grungy pickup where several Rocket's were unloading the pickings from their latest heist. "It's Butch," he growled at them. "Can't ANYONE get my name right?"
Buson laughed at him. "Like it matters, kid," he said, tossing Butch a bag full of pokeballs. "Take that in for us."
Butch wanted to punch the man, but there would have been two things wrong with that. First of all, Buson was an Elite Rocket, and on the list of the Boss's favorites. Second, he was really REALLY big.
Two other Rocket grunts had been 'recruited' by Buson and were struggling with a parcel that looked suspiciously like a body bag. "What's in that?" Butch asked, eyeing the thing. "Strange shape, it's not a pokemon."
Buson glared down at him, disapproving of his curiosity. "Wouldn't you like to know," he smirked, putting a large bag of pokeballs over each shoulder, as if to mock Butch's trouble with the one, slightly smaller bag. "Inside with the thing, I don't got all day."
Butch exhaled quickly, and turned to leave. He began to make his way to the sorting room. That was where the caught pokemon were divided into categories based on type, level, and rarity (so the Boss only got the best). He'd reached the door when he heard one of the grunts yell out, "Where does this go, sir?"
"Shiranui-Hakase could use her, take her to the labs," came Buson's reply.
Butch's mind geared up a bit. Labs? Her? and the lead scientist of Team Rocket was involved too... he had to check this out, it might be important for the "resistance" that was starting to build up in the lower ranks. Butch quickly threw the bags into the sorting room and ducked into the bushes to follow the grunts.
The labs were a series of buildings near the center of the Rocket base. Well, technically only one building was an actual lab; the other's were small constructs that surrounded it. Normally the Team Rocket scientists were working in different labs all over, but five hears ago all of TR's best had suddenly picked up and moved to the Boss's hideout for reasons unknown to the lower ranks of the team.
Butch followed the grunts past the constructs and up to the main building. He hid behind a corner and watched as the grunts dropped the bag on the grass, stretched, and knocked on the door. Butch was quite surprised to see Domino open the door. "And you want?" she asked in that tone of hers, obviously finding it disgraceful to be in the presence of grunts.
One of the grunts pointed to the bag. "Buson thought your scientists might like this-whatever it is." It was a girl grunt, Butch hadn't noticed because her hair was so short, her face plain, and her chest insignificant. But her voice was female. Much of the reason that female grunts didn't get promoted to often was because they weren't pretty enough to catch the attention of the Boss.
Domino poked the bag with her toe. "Well don't think I'm going to open it," she said, looking annoyed.
The female grunt glared at Domino, but said nothing as she bent down and unzipped the bag. A person-a teen with bright orange hair-fell onto the grass, and Domino jolted. "I know this kid," she said at the same time as Butch had thought it.
He didn't know her name, but he had definitely seen her before. She was with those kids that had the pikachu...
Domino was in a state of frenzy. "She was with those kids that had the pikachu!" she yelled. "They ruined the Mewtwo project...oh I'm getting my revenge on this brat!" Domino said, grounding one fist into the palm of her other hand. "Bring her inside. We've been needing a new lab ratacate even since our prototype got stolen."