The last executive gently pulled the conference room door shut, and the heavy soundproof door sealed out all the noise outside.
Giovanni was left alone in the vast room.
Rather than sit down immediately, he walked over to the enormous floor-to-ceiling window.
The window was one-way. From here, he could overlook the entire underground base's training grounds, but from outside, all anyone could see was a pane of pitch-black glass.
He watched the members sweating on the training grounds below, but his eyes were unfocused.
In his mind, the business blueprint that voice had laid out kept replaying over and over.
A game corner, Dratini, the black market, an industry chain...
Each term was like a precisely cast stone, setting off overlapping ripples across the lake of his thoughts.
These ideas represented paths he had never envisioned.
He had always believed that developing Team Rocket meant constantly expanding its military strength, swallowing up territory, and accumulating wealth and power through the most primitive means.
Yet that voice had revealed an entirely new world to him.
A world where money and rules could weave a vast net that enveloped the entire Kanto region.
This was far more sophisticated, and far grander, than mere robbery and plunder.
An intense excitement seized his heart, making the blood throughout his body begin to heat up.
At the same time, a deeper, colder desire surfaced.
He had to find this person.
This "strategist" hidden within Team Rocket, possessed of such a terrifying mind.
This person had to work for him.
And for him alone.
Giovanni's gaze sharpened again, the look of a predator fixing on its prey, filled with an unquestionable possessiveness.
He turned and pressed the internal communicator on the desk.
"Send the files of everyone who attended this meeting to my office."
"Remember, everyone. Don't leave out a single person."
A crisp acknowledgment came from the other end. Giovanni ended the call and strode out of the conference room.
Meanwhile, Ye Li had already returned to his little cubicle.
This was the clerical staff's office area. Rows of cubicles divided the space into neat sections, filled with the oppressive atmosphere of corporate drudgery.
He let out a long breath and plopped down into his creaking chair, feeling as though he had just come off a battlefield.
With the heavy atmosphere in the conference room earlier, especially when Giovanni had suddenly lost his temper, he had genuinely thought he would be dragged out and fed to Golbat.
Fortunately, the boss had only changed the plan at the last minute.
And the new plan sounded... pretty convincing.
"At least I don't have to risk my neck on Route 15 now."
Ye Li patted his chest, relieved to have escaped disaster.
He knew nothing about what had actually happened in the conference room, merely assuming that the big boss Giovanni had had a flash of inspiration and suddenly seen the light.
He switched on the old computer on his desk and began organizing the minutes from the meeting.
This was his actual job. Boring, but safe.
As he typed, he silently grumbled to himself.
[Giovanni really doesn't waste any time getting things done. Once he says it, he does it. No dragging his feet at all.]
[A game corner in Celadon City, Dratini from the black market... he's really going big with this.]
[But is it really okay to take such a huge leap? If anything goes wrong and the cash flow dries up, all of Team Rocket will be left living on air.]
[He'd better not start thinking about robbing the League's supplies to plug the hole then, or I'll be in trouble. I might not be lucky enough to dodge it next time.]
Even as he worried about his life, he could not help feeling a little anticipation for this grand plan.
If it really worked, Team Rocket would be getting a serious upgrade.
And a low-level clerk like him might get a few crumbs too, perhaps a pay raise or something.
At that thought, even his movements as he organized the documents grew a little lighter.
Inside Giovanni's office.
A small mountain of folders had piled up on the heavy solid-wood desk.
These were the complete files of all thirty-seven members who had attended the meeting, from executives to ordinary members, without a single omission.
Seated in his large executive chair, Giovanni picked up the top file without expression.
He did not look at the career history or accomplishments, instead flipping straight to the photograph.
The man in the photograph had a brutish face and a vicious knife scar across his neck. His eyes were so fierce that he looked ready to leap out of the photograph and bite someone.
The file read: proficient in close-quarters combat; Pokémon: Machoke; personality: hot-tempered, simple-minded.
Giovanni casually tossed the file aside.
Not him.
Although that voice had been tinged with disdain, its reasoning had been clear and orderly. It could never have come from a brute like this.
He picked up the second file.
The person in this photograph was equally muscular, his eyes revealing a ruthless fearlessness in the face of death.
The file's assessment read: battle maniac, extremely enthusiastic about acts of destruction.
Giovanni tossed it aside again.
Not this one either.
The third file, the fourth, the fifth...
He flipped through them faster and faster, and the pile of folders he discarded grew higher and higher.
The subjects of these files were almost all cut from the same mold.
They were excellent thugs, adequate cannon fodder, and villains who could strike terror into their enemies at the mere mention of their names.
But they were certainly not strategists capable of devising a blueprint for a "business empire."
Their heads probably had room for nothing beyond muscles and a desire for destruction.
Giovanni's brows knitted tightly.
Could that voice really have been nothing more than a hallucination brought on by excessive stress?
No.
He immediately rejected the idea.
Thoughts that clear, carrying personal emotions, could not possibly have been a hallucination.
That person was definitely there.
Right there in that conference room, right here among these files.
He was just... very well hidden.
Giovanni stopped leafing through the files and leaned back in his chair, his fingers tapping unconsciously against the desk.
His gaze swept over the pile of files he had rejected before finally settling on another thin stack at the corner of the desk.
Those were... the clerical staff records.
There were so few clerical staff that their files amounted to only a handful, and he had unconsciously overlooked them earlier.
Giovanni narrowed his eyes slightly.
A bold conjecture formed in his mind.
Combat personnel drew too much attention, and their personalities were too flamboyant for them to hide themselves easily.
But clerical staff were different.
They were usually inconspicuous and reserved, handling the organization's paperwork, intelligence, and logistics, like silent screws in a massive machine.
The most dangerous place was often the safest.
The most unremarkable person might conceal the most astonishing secret.
A cold smile curved Giovanni's lips.
He reached out, took the few clerical personnel files, and placed them before him.
He would start investigating these people.
One by one.
He refused to believe he couldn't root out that fox hiding in the shadows.
Before you continue