Gotta Catch The Pretty Ones

© 2011-2014 by Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Forty-Six

Patricia O’Donnel finished making the bed that Penny and Sara slept in, since returning to public life weeks ago she now carried her Pokeball on a special belt at all times. It’s closeness made her feel comfortable and if she did her work well Penny let her sleep in it at night, otherwise she slept at the foot of their bed in a comforter or snuggled between the two. It never occurred to her to wonder why she preferred the capture ball over a warm comforter, or that she was quite happy serving as the two women’s maid and lover instead of returning to her family. If asked all she could say was that her Pokeball was home now and home was always preferable. Humming an old tune to herself she finished with the bed that she had spent so many wonderful hours turning into disarray, especially with the one handed Sara.

Downstairs in the shop Sara Richards was passing the time reading her latest Guild newsletter, there had been no customers today even though it was a bright sunny day and that might be the problem she realized abruptly. Everyone who normally frequented her shop was out chasing down pokemon, meeting at the Hall or just enjoying the day well then the best to them, it made her day calmer. Returning to the article she was reading, an overview of the newest design of the type twelve that was in Alpha testing and should it pass would be released in three years to selected pokyhunters for Beta testing she was deep into a function review when her front door opened. Looking up she saw that it was Constable Hendricks again and he was carrying a large once brightly colored canvas sack of some kind.

“I keep telling you that this isn’t the laundry Constable” she said in greeting, closing her newsletter to set it aside as the old man puffed up to her counter. “And what do you do? Bring me your underwear, I tell you that stuff is so old and dingy you should just throw it away.”

This evoked a smile from the man as he lowered the bag, it clunked and deformed as any old a bag of balls could. Since he was here it must be Pokeballs she knew, a body had been found outside of town near the local Pokyhall a year ago, an old man who had succumbed to the ravages of time and died in his sleep. As with all things his property had been kept for a year so that family members could claim it, that they had but refused the bag of capture balls meant that they were held until the allotted time then turned over to the local tech. Part of Sara’s job was clearing such property, releasing the creatures held inside then if the balls were worth her time refurbishing them for resale. If too old or not worth the effort their capture screens were removed, shipped back to the main Guildhall and the rest sent to a special factory to be scrapped for reusable materials.

“Cleanin out tha basement” Hendricks corrected her, “This is tha property from Mr. Summers tha his family didn’t want. Apparently he was tha only one who hunted Pokemon.”

“Well we better take that bag down to my workshop” Sara decided, waving to Penny to take over for her. “How many balls are there sir, fifty?”

“One hundred ahn thirteen” he answered. “Have ah property receipt for yah to sign too, you lead I’ll follow. Things heavy, they took tha cart he was usin to drag his stuff around, really nice cart.”

Leading the way down to her workbench Sara had the Constable place his bag in a large parts box, then the two began counting each one until Sara was certain that there were one hundred thirteen, only then did she sign the receipt. Once that was done she followed him back upstairs where both had a cup of Penny’s coffee. “I can see why the family wouldn’t want to take all those balls” Sara admitted while watching her wife deal with a customer, Penny was wearing more exhibitionist style blouses every month, if this kept up her breasts would fall out in three months. “That is an awful lot to move around, I’ve never met a hunter who carried more than twenty and they are usually on special bandoliers. “

“Why drag them round then” Hendricks asked. “Makes no sense.”

“I couldn’t tell you” Sara replied, “Maybe he didn’t trust his family alone with them, maybe he just wanted them around or maybe he was letting them go one by one, I did notice that several were empty. If I was a hunter and I knew that I was dying I’d want to release them where I caught them if I could.”

“Makes sense” her visitor agreed, “So now what do yah do with em? Scrap ‘em?”

Sara leaned back, most were sevens while almost all the rest were eights and she knew where those would go. There might be a few nines but she didn’t recall seeing anything newer. “I’ll scrap most of them” she answered, “Though I will keep a few for my experiments since frying a type sevens system while testing wild ideas doesn’t cost me anything, but mainly they will be scrapped. Why do you want one?”

“No thanks” he laughed, “Just wonderin. Seem an awful lot of waste though.”

“Sevens are at least forty years old” Sara reminded her guest, “If nothing else simple wear and tear have brought them near the ends of their functional lives. I’ll turn what I can over to Johansson to reclaim but the capture screens have to go back to the Guild, they are made of a secret allow of precious metals that can be melted down and reused in new screens. So really there isn’t much waste, just the batteries which are too complex to be worth recovery though they have to be buried in a special hazardous materials landfill. I will crate them up and ship them to Traintown, it has the closest disposal site, a dead volcano.”

“Seem’s a lotta work on one person” Hendrick’s decided, “Even if yah had both hands.”

Sara laughed at the thought, “I can take as long as it takes Constable, just going through them with Penny’s help will take a month, maybe three. Now you better get back to work, you only come here to drink Penny’s coffee.”

“Busted” Hendricks admitted with a short chuckle of his own. “Ahn her cinnamon coffee cakes. I’m getten fat mah wife complains.”

“Then send her over to learn from Penny, it seems all she wants to do is bake, and show off her chest” Sara offered. They both laughed at that, then the Constable left to get back to work. Stonehome was a quiet village but one never knew when something might happen. Sara wondered for a moment what Hendricks would do if he discovered her and Penny’s real secret.

Patricia came to clear the table and Sara stopped her for a moment. “Patty” she asked softly. “What would you do if I scrapped your Pokeball?”

“My home?” the beautiful young woman asked, fear blossoming on her face as she reached down to grasp the red and white ball at her waist. “I... I don’t know. What would I do? You are my Mistress so ball or not I belong to you, I have no other place to go.”

“Well don’t worry I never will, at least not until I discover how to release you from its control. You deserve a life Patty, not just being our maid and sometimes lover.”

“But I like this life Sara” the older woman admitted. “Honestly, I couldn’t live alone again, not after Waterman. Even the slightest noise at night frightens me when I’m alone, I only feel safe with the two of you or when I am in my Pokeball.”

“All right then I won’t hurt your Pokeball Patricia and its good to know that we are useful to you. Would you please cover for Penny a few minutes while I talk to her about her blouse?”

Patricia licked her lips, looking out at the working Penny. “I like it” she admitted, “It makes it easier to... well...” She blushed. “Immediately.” Then she was gone leaving a blushing Sara behind her. Patricia had always been a lusty young lady even with Waterman, but she hadn’t been interested in women until the Pokyball rewrote part of her mind. Now she ignored men and turned to women as she had men. This simple little conversation had given Sara even more information about the balls. They were evil, at least their programming was and she had to find out how to release Patricia, Penny and the other women that Penny had captured.