"Giovanni was abducted during transport. The abductor wore a gray-blue coat and had blue hair. Cyrus did it himself."
Lin Hao read the message Morty had sent, then casually placed his phone facedown on the table.
Morning light slipped through the gaps in the safe house's old curtains, falling across two bowls of plain rice porridge on the table.
May came over with the bowls and chopsticks. She was about to sit when she noticed his expression and set her bowl back on the table. "What's wrong?"
"Cyrus abducted Giovanni."
May's hand trembled, and the porcelain bowl knocked against the edge of the table. She steadied it and sat down across from him. "Morty told you?"
"Yeah."
"Why would Cyrus abduct Giovanni?"
"He went to seize him, not rescue him," Lin Hao said, stirring his porridge with his chopsticks. "The base may have blown up, but Giovanni still has the complete framework for analyzing Legendary Pokémon genes in his head. That's what Cyrus wants."
"He wants to take over Team Rocket's work?"
"That's only the first step." Lin Hao rested his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl. "Team Rocket was working on replication. What they made couldn't even last twenty minutes. Cyrus has no interest in half-finished products like that. He wants control."
May frowned. "Control over living Legendary Pokémon."
"Exactly."
Morty's spare phone beside them vibrated again. A forwarded message appeared on the screen, labeled as meeting minutes from Kanto League headquarters. The sender was Charles Goodshow's assistant.
Lin Hao glanced at the heading without opening it, then pushed the phone to the other end of the table.
"The League knows too," May said, spotting the words on the screen.
"They can't trace it back to me. This is Morty's spare phone. They can't track me through it."