Unlike his brother, Pat gripped the steering wheel loosely, occasionally tapping on it as he negotiated the occasional straightaways on the otherwise curvy road to his girlfriend’s house.

Every time he faced a red light, Pat looked up at the mirror to see that a bead of sweat was working its way down his forehead. His feet were twitching so much he could barely keep it on the brake pedal.

Finally, Pat’s heart thumped against his ribcage. He knew what was coming once he reached Lisa’s home, but it wouldn’t be wise to delay his arrival any longer than necessary - that would only anger her.

When Pat pulled into Lisa’s driveway, he took a deep breath and set the car into neutral. He tiptoed up to the porch, where a copy of the Boston Sunday Globe lay unopened. Oh well - he could bring that up later.

The door was unlocked, and Pat gingerly opened it and stepped into the house. It was mostly silent, with hardly even a mouse’s level of noise present.

Mouse? I probably mean Pikachu, don’t I?

Whatever. The important thing was to smooth things out with his girlfriend. He didn’t want to think about the potential implications of that morning.

There was one room with sound, which was the TV room. Lisa was no doubt watching Netflix, one of her favorite things to do during the weekend.

Man, it would be nice to have weekends off. More time to pursue whatever I wanted to do besides being a cop. But honestly, this gig isn’t that bad. I just wish it didn’t take me away from her so much.

There sat Liz in her recliner facing the TV. Pat’s girlfriend was not particularly tall, neither skinny nor plump, and wore glasses without any particular color to them. She was almost as frizzy-haired as Mrs. O’Leary, and she had her arms crossed on her lap.

“Good evening, Lisa,” Pat opened.

Lisa did not respond, instead continuing to pout at the TV.

“Lisa, it’s me,” the police officer replied. “It’s your boyfriend, Pat.”

“I know who you are,” Lisa snarled. “Do you really think it’s going to make me feel any better if you keep reminding me something I already know?””

“I’m sorry” Pat replied, holding his arms up like one of those suspects he put under arrest as part of his job.

“Sorry for what?” his girlfriend responded. “Look, Pat, you went out for the day without even leaving a note!”

Come to think of it, Lisa had a point. Pat could have at least sent her a text message. Nothing fancy would have been required, just a quick gesture to the fact that he’d be gone for the day.

Instead, he’d ditched her in the middle of the night. For all Lisa had known, maybe Pat had been shot, something that happened all too often in America.

Pat sighed. “My excuse is that - “.

“No excuses, Pat. Don’t make excuses around me. I think we’ve agreed not to lie to one another.”

“Fine,” Pat replied. “This is a reason, not an excuse. I received a call at four in the morning telling me to go to the station. You slept through it. I didn’t have time to say goodbye - what if it was something urgent?”

“Was it?” Lisa asked. “I heard about the wolf attack on the news - I’ve got nothing better to do than to watch TV on Sundays.”

Pat gulped. He should have known this was coming. He just hadn’t expected it so soon; but then again, it was only due to his negligence that the truth had waited as long as it had.

“That was me,” Pat responded weakly.

Lisa gasped. “You responded to a wolf attack at a private residence at 4 AM?”

Pat nodded.

“What if I said I don’t believe you? If you were forced to respond to that situation, you would have at least communicated that you were okay afterward!”

“Well, I didn't,” Pat admitted calmly. “And that’s on me. I apologize again.”

“Damn right you’re sorry. You sound like you’re playing one of those video games where you press A to move through the dialogue, It’s too automatic.”

Of course she’d use that analogy. Lisa is a software engineer, after all.

As Lisa sank into tears, Pat gave her a backrub. “I’ll do better in the future” he promised his girlfriend.

For a few seconds, all was bliss. Or at least, these precious seconds were bliss compared to what followed right after.

Lisa turned to face her boyfriend, tears filling her bespectacled eyes. She held both her hands in front of her mouth, clasped together as though praying to God for forgiveness.

And then she shrieked like a banshee.

“I’m! Pissed!”

Pat flinched at his girlfriend’s outburst, simply because he hadn’t been expecting it. Usually they were able to work out their disagreements peacefully; after all, one could argue with one’s romantic partner occasionally. Fights were normal in healthy relationships - it’s what happened after the fights that determined whether or not the relationship was truly healthy.

“How dare you give me a back massage when I don’t ask for it! How dare you think you can just butter me up until I’ve forgotten your deception!”

“I wasn’t deceiving you” Pat insisted. “I just had to call into work when I wasn’t scheduled to.” When you’re dating a cop, that goes with the territory, doesn’t it?

But Lisa wasn’t satisfied. Her outburst continued.

“Pat, you almost blew up our whole freaking deal! We were supposed to be honest and transparent with one another, and you decided to ignore that promise!”

“If I could have spent the day with you, I would have” Pat promised.

Lisa shook her head. “It’s not about that. The issue is that you forgot to text me to let me know that you’d be there early! Imagine when I look at the news and find that there’s been a Pokémon attack, and that you’re gone!”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“I’m sorry” Pat said for the umpteenth time, because really, what else was he supposed to say?

“For all I knew, you could have been gone! And I didn’t want to think about you being gone! We still have so much left to do!”

Pat didn’t bother apologizing again, because he knew how this was going to go. All he had to do was to let Lisa’s rage blow itself out, and then the worst would have passed. And then they could go back to the way things had been.

Sure enough, after seething a bit more, Lisa sighed, wiping a bit of sweat off her glasses. “You’ll forgive me, right?”

“For lashing out? Of course - we all need to let loose sometimes.”

“Thank you.”

They sat there in silence for a bit longer, and then Pat had an idea of a way to make the rest of the evening far more pleasant.

“Let’s order takeout,” he suggested. “Whatever you want. Pizza? Chinese? Thai? Greek?”

Lisa smiled. “I think you know what my favorite takeout restaurant is. It’s my favorite sit-down restaurant too.”

Pat smiled, with a slight chuckle to boot. “Okay. I’ll order.”

While waiting for their food to arrive from the local Applebee’s, Pat and Lisa sat on the couch together watching some sitcom about a comedian who kept pretending to be funny, but wasn’t actually amusing in the slightest.

And then…

“Pat, did you really see a Pokémon at that woman’s house?”

Pat looked up from the sitcom, which was like a car crash: It was horrible, but you just couldn’t look away no matter how hard you tried.

“Pardon me, honey?”

Lisa raised an eyebrow. “A Lycanroc. That’s a species of Pokémon, isn’t it? You grew up with that franchise!”

Pat nodded. “Yes. It’s a Rock-type with different forms during the day and night.”

“Was it the night form that attacked that woman?” Lisa enquired.

“Yes. I guess that makes sense - it was still nighttime in terms of how dark it was at 4 AM. The sun rises early here during the summer, but not that early.”

Lisa clasped Pat’s hand in her own. “Are you worried, Pat?”

“What do you mean, honey?”

“I mean, are you concerned that there might be more than one Lycanroc here? That it might be a plague of sorts?”

Pat sighed, not knowing how to proceed. Of course, the sigh might well have been the only answer his girlfriend needed. But Pat figured that as Lisa’s boyfriend, it was his job to comfort her as much as he could.

“I’m not too worried,” he replied eventually. “Sheriff Brody says the risk to the public remains low.”

Lisa grimaced. “After the last time that was said, hearing the risk is low isn’t very comforting.”

“Maybe not,” Pat admitted. “But if we have to stay home again, at least we’re young and we have each other.”

Eventually, the food arrived. Lisa had ordered the bourbon burger with Swiss cheese and mushrooms, whereas Pat had ordered a quesadilla. The latter nearly recoiled at the sight of his food; for something from a full-service restaurant, it sure looked like the burger had been microwaved after being frozen.

Oh well - it was something to eat, so he was hardly going to complain.

While they ate, Pat felt the urge to surf the Internet. Of course, that is an urge many people struggle with in the modern era. To some extent, that goes with the territory; in a world with so many distractions, you’re bound to struggle with at least one.

Pat checked the usual news sites - CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times. He also checked the two most important sources for news, those being Reddit and BlueSky. Those two weren’t biased at all.

Most of these sites didn’t have the Lycanroc attack as front-page news. This made sense to a point, just because if there was an outbreak at all, it remained localized to Boston and surrounding municipalities. But there’s no way of knowing if it’ll stay that way.

Finally, he looked at the Boston Globe website, which was locked behind a paywall. Pat swore under his breath; so far as he was concerned, it should be illegal for an online newspaper to make people pay for it. Journalism ought to be a public good in his view, just like the protection of the police force if need be. Pat couldn’t be bothered to pay up, but it didn’t matter, because he saw the headline nonetheless.

POKÉMON CHARACTER ALLEGEDLY BREAKS INTO AREA HOME.

Pat snorted, barely resisting a dry laugh. “Allegedly?”

Lisa leaned over to glance at her boyfriend’s computer screen. “They have to say that at first, you know” she stated. “They can’t just spread unwarranted panic.”

Pat frowned. “At this point, I’d hardly call it unwarranted to tell the truth. I know exactly what it was, because I saw it with my own eyes.”

“I believe you,” Lisa said. “But I don’t know if all the pundits do. Have you seen what they’re saying on the Internet message boards?”

“I’m afraid not. They strictly prohibit us from any computer activity that isn’t strictly related to the job.”

Lisa held up her computer, which did not feature the front page from the Boston Globe or any “mainstream” news outlets. Instead, it was a message board that looked like hardly a step up from 4chan or some other alt-right rabbit hole.

“Here’s an article from this commentator you might have heard of…Charles Weldworth. He’s got a pretty crazy nickname too - you might have heard of him.”

Pat rolled his eyes. “I try not to think about him.”

“Well, he’s at it again. It’s been posted on all these forums, including the Boston subreddit. And it ain’t pretty, trust me.”

Pat grimaced. “Oh boy, what’s Weldworth saying now?”

Lisa pouted wordlessly, but she didn’t need to use words, because the implication was obvious nonetheless: You don’t want to know.

But one of the things about being a police officer was that you had to deal with the worst of humanity as well as the best. Just because you didn’t want something to be true didn’t mean you didn’t have to engage with it all the same.

“Well,” Lisa continued once her boyfriend stared into her soul, “here goes: Weldworth published an article with an insane headline. I’ll text you the link.”

Lisa did as she said she would, and Pat received the message instantly. He opened the article, expecting his world to be shattered into a million pieces.

Somehow, it was even worse than he’d thought.

WELDWORTH: THIS POKÉMON INVASION IS A PLOY BY THE DEMOCRATS TO STEAL THE ELECTION - DON’T LET THEM!

“Oh boy,” Pat muttered. “This is going to be something.”

The article was very long, needlessly so, because Weldworth kept making the same point over and over again. He was basically arguing that President Fiddlesticks would use the Lycanroc attack in a small Greater Boston community as an excuse to declare martial law and cancel the November election before any ballots could be cast.

“I don’t believe it!” Pat bellowed, which made his girlfriend visibly flinch.

“It doesn’t matter what you believe, Pat,” Lisa sighed. “There’s always the court of public opinion. And it’s not just the loonies like Weldworth who might think you’re making things up.”

Pat sighed. “I think we should end this conversation here. It’s not helping either of us to keep dreading tomorrow.”

“An early night, I take it?”

Pat nodded. “I had an early morning, after all. I’ll need my sleep, because I feel like tomorrow’s going to be a big day.”

Really, after the battle at Mrs. O’Leary’s home, I don’t think today was that big a day. Not much happened other than that.

And yet, Pat found himself yawning as he ascended the stairs and got ready for bed. Something about boredom could be exhausting.

Nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow, Pat was asleep.

It wasn’t until morning came some hours later that he would learn how much things had already changed. Not just for the Morris brothers and Lisa, not just for Pat’s inner circle of friends from the police academy and colleagues at the Wildebush precinct.

No, the events that night (of which Pat was blissfully unaware for the time being) would be of enormous consequence. And once he woke up, he’d have to reckon with them.

But for now, he’d earned his rest.