Mandip is taken to the "Pokémon Professor"

Mandip wasn't aware of what happened next. She was dimly aware of floating in a white digital space, but wasn't aware of time, or what else might be in the space. It didn't feel distressing, or calming, it just felt like a pause.

Outside, Jack had rushed to the location Josh had told him about, a dingy flat above a record shop in Camden. He climbed up the back staircase to the door as instructed, and knocked on it. A light turned on behind the door, dimly visible through dusty frosted glass, but the figure didn't open the door. "Password?"

"Uh... MasterEngineer_73 Is Great?" Jack cringed, half-thinking Josh was joking in claiming that was the password.

There was a moment, and then the door slid open, an old man in a dusty leather jacket opening it. "Ah. You'll be Jack. Mr Egotistical told me you'd be coming." The old man led Jack into a back room, where a big computer monitor was hooked up to a loud server-like structure, and a couple of weird conveyer belt-like contraptions. "So. Caught your first 'Pokémon'?" He grinned, showing yellowed teeth.

Jack looked at the Poké Ball in his hand, a guilty expression on his face. "Uh... yeah, I guess I did catch her..."

The old man slapped Jack's arm convivially. "I'm just fucking with you. Listen, bud, at this point you can debate the ethical question, but she's your responsibility now regardless on whether you enjoy this, or have a miserable fucking time."

"That... that makes sense. So yeah, Josh sent me here to you. You are the Pokémon Professor, right?"

The old man grinned. "That's right. I'm the other London developer. I specialize in the digital data. You know how it works right?" He didn't wait for an answer, launching into an explanation on how the Poké Ball worked by converting the human form into digital data in a format which could be stored in their advanced technology, programmed as much as was possible into a Pokémon-like format so as to be understood and interpreted. "But these early models, we've not integrated the ability to stabilise the file. So right now, she can't leave the ball, but also..."

The Professor held out his hand for the Ball, and after a moment of hesitation, Jack obliged, and the old man placed the Ball in a receptacle beside the computer monitor, which lit up with a 3-D model of the ball, along with some lines of text. "C'mere, look, boy!" He pointed to where beside the Ball, it was all unknown information, even stuff they should know, like the name! "We need to run it through the formatter to put the data into a format that the technology can read. Future models of the Ball will do this automatically, and the conversion process isn't so bad, it lets you edit stuff in, you know, custom Types, Moves..."

Jack could only blink, taking off his thick glasses and rubbing his face. "This is a lot to take in, you mean I can just... edit her?"

The Professor made a non-committal face. "Well... really the deal you had was just to get a Ball..." He visibly bristled, clearly expecting a fight. But he was deflated when Jack simply shrugged.

"Hey, man. That's fine, I'm just really interested in the technology here, it's like... like sci-fi come to life!"

The old man gave a small smile. "Why... well, thank you. Anyway." He pressed a button, and the Ball slid over onto a conveyer belt, passing through the machine as the screen began to whirr. "OK, so it'll scan her through, and..."

The screen began to flicker, filling up with information, vital statistics, her bra size, a pixelated image of Mandip's face filling where the Ball had been a second ago, until the old man hit pause. "Now, our system works like Pokémon normally does, the girls have Types, it's just for us, usually they have Types indicating things like ethnicity, or particular body extremes." He hit unpause and the process continued, the screen filling in with 'Type: Asian, Level: 5, Nature: Disobedient.' "Oooh, unlucky, but sometimes the disobedient ones just need a little coaxing."

"Coaxing?" Jack looked askance at the professor.

"Pokégirls get friendlier with the usual stuff, you know, feed them, pet them, win Pokémon battles... You know, maybe I was a bit harsh. You seem like a decent guy. I'll give you a hand with her, get her trained up, give you a leg up? That debut battle's always a big moment in our little club."