"...sounds about right? It's an unprecedented situation so it's hard to say for sure."

"If I have enough money from the hospital to live on for the duration and you advise me to get a Pokémon first, I will take your advice."

"My opinion is that you should, but it's a weakly held opinion; if I were you I'd talk to a career counselor tomorrow and see if they say the same thing. I could get you a meeting with the one at the high school."

"If they will be - adaptable to my situation, yes."

"I'll fill her in on it! The one here has worked with adults before—immigrants from other countries, not another world, but it's the closest you'll get."

Nod nod. "Thank you."

"Any more shopping you want to do tonight? Don't worry about toiletries, the bathrooms at the Pokemon Center are well stocked."

"In that case I think I'm quite well outfitted."

"All right! I think I'll turn in for the night when I get back, Kellim can stay in your room in case you want to use the computer to do more machine training or learn some of our language.

—actually, I should show you some of the signs of legitimate vs. suspicious websites, in case you want to do research on anything."

"...of course, please do."

"Bulbapedia and anything linked as a source there is always a good place for research. Anything that comes from a trustworthy organization—accredited academic institutions, the regional Pokemon League, broadcast TV or radio news stations, news agencies, medical offices that government health insurance pays for—is reliable. People's personal blogs...most people are honest, but remember that one guy on the Internet is still just one guy, and can be wrong.

Outside of those, you have to get a feel for how trustworthy or professional something is. Some streaming services and marketplaces have good reputations; I'll send you a list of the big ones, along with the accrediting bodies and news agencies. If you're doing something totally weird and none of these apply, the ads are a good clue—yes static banners, no flashy popups—or you can always text me and be like 'Frank is this legit?'"

Frank sends a really long text. In addition to the list of news agencies, accrediting bodies, major online marketplaces, and streaming services, it includes visual examples of professional vs. shady ad design, and a download link for the government healthcare app, for which Kyeo is apparently automatically signed up as a citizen without a current reliable income.

"No one is - making sure that individual guys do not publish misinformation -?"

"There's some amount of effort? Big discussion platforms aren't gonna host you telling people not to get their vaccines. But, like, we don't wanna make it a crime to be wrong, because sometimes we're wrong and need a dissenter to correct us. If we censored the people who were right early about, say, plate tectonics, we never would've found out about plate tectonics.

...not every place feels that way about it, some are stricter, but here in Unova that's how most people think."

That's such an uncomfortable approach but he supposes he can probably avoid reading unofficial sources??

Frank sets off walking towards the Pokemon Center. After a while, he says "Pokedollar for your thoughts? —that's just an expression, I'm not actually offering you a Pokedollar, only inviting you to share whatever's on your mind."

"A lot of things here will take getting used to. But I'm still quite new here."

"Yeah, it's hard adjusting to another region, much less another world."

"Are the regions - countries, or provinces, or -"

"Most like provinces, I suppose, though the amount of authority delegated to the regional governments varies by nation, and people often define their cultural identity more by the local Pokemon League than the highest level of nominal elected government? Here in the Northern American Federation*—Unova, Orre, Alola, a few other...pretend I said whatever the politically correct version of 'backwaters without their own Leagues' is—the national government handles very little, pretty much only trade and the nuclear arsenal."

*the language has a term for the Americas, conceptualized as a single continent. The capital N in Northern is here lent by the federation's status as a country; referring to the landmass it would be lowercase-n "northern America".

Kyeo nods agreeably and mentally translates the "backwaters" phrase into "calm rural areas". People in movies are forever excited to move to calm rural areas and raise chickens but people with anything else going on besides that do not tend to live there.

Without any further conversational prompting from Kyeo, Frank will walk along in silence.

That's fine. If there's nothing else on the agenda Kyeo is happy to turn in for the night and plan to see the career counselor in the morning.

Frank retires to his room and sleeps. He and Kellim communicate to each other telepathically through the walls, bursts of emotion without words.

<3

<3

Frank is an early sleeper and an early riser; he goes to bed not long after sunset and rises at dawn. He messages Kyeo on the chat app—using a kind of ping that produces a visual notification but not a noise or vibration, so as to not wake him up—to let him know that he's ready to see the career counselor whenever Kyeo is.