"Oh? What's all this you're talking about?"
They were still at it when Lt. Surge came in from outside, a powerfully built man of over two metres, and the weight of his presence filled the room all the same.
"The S.S. Anne. Uncle, have you got any inside word you could let slip?"
Seeing who had come in, Nolan said it with a smile.
"Inside word, is it. What do you want to hear?"
Lt. Surge sat down opposite Vance.
"This trade event — aren't there pseudo-legendary Pokémon turning up? Which ones are they?" There was a real hunger to know in Nolan's eyes as he asked it.
"So you know there are pseudo-legendaries coming. You've got sources of your own, then, have you." Lt. Surge grinned, and went on, "There are, and not just the one — three of them. A Bagon out of the Hoenn region, a Gible out of Sinnoh, and a Deino from the land of Unova. None of ours."
"Wow. That's something. Whoever stands behind the S.S. Anne has some weight to them, to get hold of all that."
Nolan said it with feeling. His opinion of the power behind the S.S. Anne had gone up.
"And don't you go getting ideas. Your uncle wants no part of that business either — the water runs deep there." As he said it Lt. Surge took out a Poké Ball and set it down in front of Nolan. "I can't get away tomorrow. Leave this Raichu with you. If there's trouble it can step in, and with that and a little of my face behind you, it ought to keep the pair of you safe."
"A Raichu... ha, thanks, Uncle."
Nolan took the Poké Ball with the Raichu in it and thanked him.
"Thank me for what? I'm your uncle, of course I look after you. Oh — that reminds me." At that Lt. Surge dug into a trouser pocket, brought out four Badges and held them out to Vance.
"Vance, lad, these four Badges came through as well."
"Thank you, Chief."
Vance took the Badges in both hands. Pink, gold, crimson and green, one for each city's Gym.
And the level these four stood for was high, the green Viridian Gym Badge above all — that one was hard, and then harder.
Very few Trainers ever got that Badge out of Giovanni's hands, and Giovanni himself was a Trainer nobody could take the measure of, which was why the Viridian Gym was called the foremost Gym in Kanto.
Giovanni. Boss of the greatest criminal organisation in the world, and a League Gym Leader of the Kanto region.
Absurd as it sounded, that was how things stood. Perhaps it had been nothing more than the Boss amusing himself — he had thrown a Gym together in Viridian City on a whim, and before he quite knew it he had built Viridian City up along with it, and made the Viridian Gym into the foremost Gym in Kanto while he was about it.
The head of a criminal organisation slipping into the League and working his way into its upper ranks said something about the state of the League too, and he was not the only Gym Leader of that sort — there were several. The Vermilion Gym, the Psychic Gym in Saffron City, the Fire Gym on Cinnabar Island, the Poison Gym in Fuchsia City... League Gyms, you could call them. Gyms Team Rocket had built, you could call them just as fairly.
And the League simply did not know it, had no notion of it. On the surface it was all song and dance, the League ruling over everything, and what the truth of it was underneath, it could not have said.
The funny part was that the Gyms Team Rocket had its people inside were the best known and highest ranked in Kanto, while the Gyms the League itself had founded and propped up were obscure and sliding further into decline year by year.
That had a great deal to do with how the League had developed. Plenty of able people never got their promotion, for one reason or another, and plenty of useful proposals were sat on by certain individuals and left to rot.
With advancement that hard to come by, with rotten officials and fools in charge, an institution that vast was going downhill by the year.
It was as well that a body of capable people kept it standing by sheer effort, so that the League still held on to a certain amount of fighting strength and a certain amount of authority; whenever a chance came they threw themselves into it, hoping to bring the League back.
The sweep Lance was leading now was exactly that kind of effort.
Lt. Surge sat with them a while longer, told them both to enjoy themselves tomorrow, and left.
As Gym Leader of Vermilion he had face enough that, in the ordinary way of things, nobody would make trouble for the two of them.
After Lt. Surge had gone the two of them talked on for a while, and then went off to their own rooms to sleep.
The next day, at the Vermilion docks, Vance and Nolan came up in front of a luxury liner.
It was a clear day, the sun bright, a steady sea breeze coming in with the faint briny tang of seawater on it.
"So this is the S.S. Anne."
Vance tilted his head back and murmured it, looking up at a liner that had to be a hundred metres and more in height, an enormous ship fitted out in the grand style.
That was as tall as a thirty-storey building. A man standing in front of it looked very small.
"Well? Luxurious enough for you? Grand enough?"
Nolan raised an eyebrow at him.
All around them people catching sight of that vast shape were exclaiming over it one after another, and the size and splendour of the thing set them imagining what a pleasure it must be to sail on a ship like her.
Out on a deep blue sea with a luxury liner under your feet, the breeze in your face, somewhere between water and sky, a voyage as lavish as it was lovely — that would certainly be something to enjoy.
Nolan led him past the queue at the ticket check and the two of them went straight aboard, and were given a very fine spot besides.
On the liner's upper deck, taking the sun, waited on by attendants of very pleasing appearance.
And if a man were so inclined, he could have an encounter with one of them as well.
"Today I've you to thank for a taste of how the rich live."
Vance said it from his deck chair, smiling.
The VIP tickets had been Nolan's doing too. What they had cost, he had no idea, but they had not been cheap.
"Heh, why talk about it? You've come to Vermilion City, so I'm going to look after you properly." Nolan said it open-handedly, turned over, and went back to enjoying the massage of several attendants dressed as maids.
"Mm, harder just there. Mm... that's the pressure. And see to my friend as well — what are you standing about for?"
A few of the attendants came over then and set about massaging Vance.
Vance did not refuse. He let himself enjoy it as well; the young woman's work was not at all bad.
"The wine, the fruit, whatever there is — bring a set of everything, and the dearer the better. If there's more to pay, put it on this card. Don't go economising on our account. The main thing is that my friend has a good time."
The cool, distant manner Nolan had worn before was gone, and out came the open-handed young gentleman; he tossed over a gold bank card and told them to bring the best of everything.
"We're going to enjoy ourselves properly. This one's on me. The main thing is to have a good time."
Nolan was putting on all the airs of a rich young wastrel, and in point of fact he was one — with a Gym Leader for an uncle, he was short of neither money nor influence.