She would not ask, though.
From that one question she had put about where he was doing so well for himself, and from his answer, she had felt something.
From what Cerise knew of him, and from the face he showed her now, her instinct told her that whatever Vance was carrying out would be nothing less than her own work, and that the good to be got out of it was no worse than hers.
"There doesn't seem to be anybody in Team Rocket connected with him. What can it be, then? Or did he come by it out in the field? Or is it the League?"
Cerise looked straight at Vance with her clever eyes, guess after guess rising in her mind and being ruled out one by one.
"What's this, digging for my secrets?"
Vance said it with a smile. A clever person sees at a glance roughly what every move the other makes is meant for.
Cerise was plainly a clever person, and so, of course, was Vance.
"Naturally. We're of the same intake, after all. I'd like to know how an old comrade is getting on — it bears on some of my own plans for later."
Cerise answered smiling, speaking plainly, without a care for how it sounded.
"Then set your mind at rest. However I develop, it makes no odds to you. We're on different tracks, and at different levels."
Vance said it with a certain weight behind it.
With what he could do now, he naturally made no odds to her. Her schemes could not reach as far as him. What she was capable of, Vance had already leapt past, and he could reach higher things.
Which was why he spoke of different tracks.
"Different tracks?"
Cerise was taken aback. Something did not sit right. Her mind went round at speed and she reasoned it out again, and found nothing amiss with it.
Could it be that her own progress had opened a distance between them — that he could not catch up, and had no heart to go after what she was after?
That must be it...
Clever as she was, that was still the result she came to after turning it over, and she lifted her drink and took a sip. All at once a new guess came to her, and she dismissed it again.
Because the guess was the first one with the parts reversed: he the strong one, she the weak.
It was hardly possible. She was the fastest of them all; he could not be faster than she was.
And faster not merely by going ahead of her, but by opening a distance.
However she looked at it, it was hardly possible. Cerise came back to her first guess, and there was no need to think of any other.
Failing that, he was simply talking nonsense.
But at that, looking at that handsome face of his, the heavy brows and the wide eyes, and thinking of how he went about things, Cerise dismissed it out of hand.
"Don't bother thinking about it, it's a waste of brain cells. You'll know sooner or later. Let's talk about something else and leave off digging this time — there's nothing in it."
Vance cut in. The woman was too clever by half, always guessing away at things.
There was no need for it. After this Conference she might well see it for herself.
There ought to be somebody there who would make him play a card or two.
They talked of other things, and Vance learned that she was a Breeder as well, at Intermediate level, which surprised him.
That was how a proper genius developed.
Talk turned to the raising of Pokémon, and the two of them compared what they had learned.
She was not like Vance, who caught whatever came his way. Her team was chiefly Psychic-types, all her effort in the one type.
Building up one type has its good and its bad; it is the Trainer's own choice.
They talked a long while before the conversation came to an end.
Coming out of the drinks shop, the two of them exchanged the means of reaching each other.
"Well then. Until next time."
"Until next time."
He watched her go, then put his hands in his pockets and walked back himself.
Passing Meowth's Sushi Shop, he found they had already shut up, and without thinking much of it he went back to the villa he had booked.
Outside the villa two figures stood waiting.
Coming closer, he saw it was Ambrose and Emery, the pair of them.
"How long have you been waiting?"
Vance said it as he came up, took out his key and opened the villa gate, and went in with the two of them.
"We've only just come."
Emery answered.
"Where have you been, boss? Off on a date with some young lady?"
Ambrose said it with a grin.
"I did spend a while chatting with a young lady. It wasn't a date, though."
Vance nodded, and came and sat down in the sitting room.
"Oho, so there really is a woman. How do things stand? Boss, you've come round to it at last."
Ambrose's interest was up. There was gossip all over his face as he pressed for more.
"Things don't stand anywhere. An ordinary friend, and one you know yourself."
"Who?"
"Cerise."
"Her, is it."
Ambrose remembered that spirited young woman: very capable, a strong hand on her, a Psychic besides, one of the top three of their intake of recruits, and gone to Saffron City afterwards.
"Heh heh, all the better. I remember she's quite pretty. Why haven't you made a move, boss? That woman has a hard streak in her too — if you brought her in, what a catch it would feel like."
Ambrose laughed his heh-heh laugh, rubbing his hands together, his eyebrows going.
"Very funny. She's set on her career. She wants to take me on as a subordinate."
Vance spread his hands.
"Heh heh, better still. The lower conquering the lower. Wah-ga-ga."
At that something came into Ambrose's head, and his face grew more excited still.
"???"
Vance's face was all question marks. What was the lad playing at?
"Ahem." Emery coughed, breaking in on the pair of them, and took out a package and set it down in front of Vance.
"These are what you had me collect. Only two turned up for the moment. I'll look into it further."
"However many will do."
Vance took it into his hands and opened it out. Two Mega Stones.
He had told Emery some time back to go and collect these curious stones, and now two Mega Stones had been found.
"Good, good."
Vance was well satisfied when he had looked at them. Of the two Mega Stones, one was Pidgeot's and the other Steelix's.
The Steelix one he could keep by him for use; the Pidgeot one he had no call for, and could set aside for now.
"Keep looking. Collect them wherever there are any — with a thing like this, the more the better."
Vance put the things away and gave the instruction.
"Yes. I'll keep it in mind."
Emery nodded.
"Is there something particular about these things?"
Ambrose asked. From the way Vance was behaving, he had a feeling about it.
"Not clear yet. But I can feel there's something out of the common in them. My instinct tells me they ought to be worth a great deal."
Vance made up a reason.
"Ah. Then I'll put my mind to it as well."
Ambrose knew what he could do, and understood that Psychics often have perceptions nobody would look for. Perhaps that was it.
"Mm. The more of these the better. And if the two of you do collect them, cover it up a little. Don't make a parade of it."
Vance told them again.
"Understood. Keep it quiet — I do understand that much. It all goes as you want it, boss."
"So long as you know it."
Having the two of them to do things for him was why Vance had taken them under him in the first place. There were matters he could set them to; he could not see to every one of them himself.
Today, for instance, had brought him two Mega Stones — an unlooked-for piece of luck.
And one of them was a stone he had a use for.