May 26th, a surprisingly reasonable hour, Anti-Skullgirl Lab 0
Adam doesn't know how Molly can stay awake this long. Panzerfaust is probably more machine than man at this point, and the Princess is just in a whole other league, but Adam knows he and Molly are both reasonably normal humans, and staying awake for almost forty-eight hours now is killing him. Whatever Molly's secret is, Adam wants it. It'd make going through all of Lab 0's records so much easier.
Brain Drain must have hated writing down what he did and why, and that attitude must have carried over to all of his subordinates, because the Lab's records are horrendous. Adam's found a project with five separate names, each used by a different person who worked on it. And that's assuming each of these people only worked on one project at a time. Otherwise, he might be looking at anywhere from two to four different projects with that mess. The record for "most confusing set of records" doesn't go to anything Adam's looked through, though. That "honor" goes to something the Princess found, which the Black Egrets have taken to calling "Project Fukua" after the first name for it the Princess found. Project Fukua has eleven different names that the Egrets have found so far, and half of the reports sound like they're talking about an entirely separate project. The team only knows they're all connected because the schedule of which scientists did which experiments would be completely impossible unless it was all one project. Though why Brain Drain wouldn't classify cloning humans and Parasites as a separate project from placing the spirits of the dead into cloned bodies is beyond Adam. The science involved for each part is completely different from each other, he knows that much.
Naturally, Project Fukua has been the main focus of everyone's record inspection, since that sort of necromancy is extremely illegal without proof of consent that can be shown to predate the death of whoever you're reviving, proof that Lab 0 just doesn't have, but it's not the only concerning thing Lab 0's been up to. Adam's found a "Project Painwheel" that seems to be meant to create anti-Skullgirl fighters by more or less lobotomizing people and attaching automatic weapons to their bodies. That one's still in the middle of looking for subjects, thankfully, and Adam's pretty sure the Princess will shut that one down as soon as she can. Additionally, Molly's come across mentions of a "robot warrior" that Brain Drain was working on but couldn't design a mind for. Apparently he doesn't have a good way to teach a machine how to think, which Adam is thankful for. He's seen R.U.R., he knows what would happen if you could mass-produce artificial people.
Other than the projects that violate scientific and/or medical ethics, so far it looks like Lab 0's crimes mostly amount to the usual sort of things you would expect from a government research lab with little oversight and less accountability. Kidnapping people to use as test subjects, murdering people who threaten to blow the whistle or blackmailing them into silence, lots of bribery and embezzlement (not directly recorded, but the Lab's ledger has some very suspicious entries), and a surprisingly large amount of traffic violations. Apparently some of the Lab's scientists live off-site and don't care about following traffic laws during their commute to and from work. Panzerfaust found some recordings of scientists talking about bribing Canopolis's traffic cops to ignore anything they saw. Thank goodness no one working at this Lab ever thought to turn off the machines they used to record their experiments.
The Egrets have already found enough evidenced to prosecute a solid half of Lab's 0 staff for enough crimes to put each person in prison for life, and that's after a day and a half of checking the Lab's records. Adam knows there's going to be a lot more where that came from, and that's still not counting all the witnesses that need to be interviewed, figuring out who to offer immunity in exchange for testifying, and getting all the victims whatever aid they can. It's going to be a long few months, but if the Black Egrets don't do the work, who will? But for all Adam knows that he and the rest of the team are doing important work right now, he just wants to take a nap. Huh, a quick look around, and it seems like even the Princess is starting to feel tired. This might be Adam's chance.
"Princess?" He calls out to catch her attention.
"What-" The Princess's question is interrupted by a yawn. She must be really tired, she's usually good at keeping any yawns quiet.
"What is it, Adam?" She asks once she can speak properly.
"That's what I was going to ask about," Adam says. "Could we take a break to get some sleep? I'm having trouble keeping my eyes open, and it sounds like you aren't all that awake yourself, Your Highness."
The Princess blinks once, twice, then says, "What time is it now?"
"It's... the 26th, Your Highness," Molly says, barely audible.
Adam can see the gears in the Princess's head turning as she realizes that the Black Egrets have been working on this investigation for more than a whole day straight.
"Uh, yes," she says after a few minutes, "We should go sleep. But first we need to get all of Lab 0's records to a secure location so they can't destroy anything."
The Black Egrets don't know if they want to cheer at being done with reading meeting minutes and expense reports or cry at having more work to do.
A/N: R.U.R. is the play that gave the world the word "robot." It's from the 1920s, so I feel like it (along with Peacock referencing the Shadow in the last main story post) fits the overall vibe of Skullgirls well enough that I don't really want to come up with an equivalent I'd need to explain anyway. And it seems that Lab 0's projects are getting halted for the time being. But the Black Egrets haven't gotten a chance to see these projects in person yet, so who knows how up-to-date the records they've read through are. Parasoul and friends might be in for some surprises when they take a look through the actual Lab.
