"Wait, she what?" Sam asked, snatching her laptop back from Diana, whose face is frozen with eyebrows raised and mouth hanging slightly open.

"I swear, Transcential Labs is one of the big genetic warfare developers. It says right there that's where she works," Diana said, letting her girlfriend steal away the computer.

Sam scrolled down the picture, skimming over the information. She groaned. "Doesn't say what her job is."

"I know it doesn't. I checked before, remember? I already told you," Di reminded her.

"Okay, sure, but I just thought that maybe you skipped over something. It would be super helpful."

Diana sighed and leaned over towards Sam, pushing the laptop off and towards Shane so she could take it's place, resting her head on Sam's lap. Shane gladly took the laptop, taking his turn scrolling through Diana's pictures from inside of the Counterparts Program's files. Sam dropped the back of her head against the wall behind her, looking up at the ceiling.

"So... What's the battle plan now?" Shane asked. He slowly closed the computer and set it to the side. There was no more information there that they didn't already know, bar one thing.

Sam pointed out one difference between Lilla's two files the minute they opened them: her marital status. While the file with her alias said that she was unmarried, they kids knew that wasn't true. Plus, Lilla's real file had information on her wife and their son.

"You know, Green said something on the phone after I left about changing something. I think it might have been that they needed to fix Lilla's file, because she slipped up and told us about Britney. I guess she was supposed to pretend she didn't exist," Sam guessed. That was the best explanation she could form.

Shane hummed, "So this is coordinated pretty tightly between Lilla and the program and probably the lab."

Di nodded. "Yeah, they're working together, it looks like."

The three sat quietly for a moment before Shane started fidgeting with the laptop again, not opening it but just twirling it in a circle on the bed. He nudged Sam's arm lightly and nodded towards the computer.

"So, like I was saying, what's the plan?"

Sam shook her head, sighing. Getting information was fine and all, even necessary if curiosity had anything to say about it, but now that they had the intel? None of them seemed quite sure where to go from there. The information that they now had, though satisfying to know that they had been right about the program's secrets, wasn't even enough to condemn anyone. Every idea they had about what it all meant was just a theory.

"Well, we could keep investigating," Diana murmured.

Shane perked up at that suggestion, though he looked a bit hesitant to accept that this was Diana's chosen course of action. "Wait, so you're saying that you want to go snooping around some more? Like, you're volunteering for us all to do that?"

Di scowled at Shane, shaking her head defiantly. "I'm not volunteering to do anything. I'm just saying that maybe the best option is for us to not leave the dust stirred up without doing anything with it."

"Well, I think you're right," Sam said, nodding. "We should check out this lab and see what's going on inside. That and trying to find out what the program is planning."

"I think the first will help the second."

Sam frowned, looking over to Shane confusedly. "What is that supposed to mean?"

Shane shrugged. "Nothing. I mean, just that if we check out the lab then we'd probably figure out a bit more about the program. You said they're working together, right?"

"Wait, I think I have an idea," Diana interrupted, pulling the laptop away from Shane and flipping it open.

Giving up the computer without much of a fight, Shane sighed and laid back on the bed, humming. Sam nudged him with her foot, shooting him a questioning look when he glanced over to her. He just shook his head. Sam wouldn't let him get off that easy, and she kicked him again.

"Okay, okay, chill out," Shane muttered, pushing Sam's foot away again. "Look, Sam, I just don't know what we're getting ourselves into. I love a good adrenaline rush as much as the next person, and I'm in this for the long run, but... The more we look into this, the less it's just about us."

"Well, yeah. If Green is trying to get everyone involved in the program, then that's more reason that we need to keep checking it out," Sam argued, rolling her eyes when Diana shifted slightly, typing furiously for a few brief seconds.

"Do you thing that maybe we should leave an anonymous tip with the police or something?" Shane asked.

Sam frowned. "I dunno. Do you think that they would listen? They might just try to find us instead of the program. They're part of the government, after all. They probably know about everything going on in the program."

"Here!"

Diana whirled the laptop around so the screen was facing Sam and Shane. On the screen was a web page opened to a logo positioned just beside one of the pictures that Di took at the program's file room. The picture had a logo that was identical to the one from the search engine.

"So they're linked," Shane sighed. "That means that the program is probably covering for Transcential, right?"

"That's what I would say," Diana agreed, turning the laptop back to herself and reading off something from the screen. "77625 Harper Road. That's where the lab is."

Sam raised an eyebrow. "That's in-town. Towards the edge over by the industrial junk."

"Think we should pay them a visit?" Diana asked. Sam groaned before nodding hesitantly. Shane just sighed.

They went after dark the next night, meeting up outside of Sam's window. Shane tossed pebbles at Sam when she opened her window to climb out, dramatically quoting Romeo and Juliet until Sam threw one of the pebbles back at his face. Diana not-so-subtly tripped Shane as he passed her walking away from the house.

"What do you think we'll find?" Sam whispered to Diana, who pursed her lips.

"I honestly don't know. Could be a conspiracy, could be nothing," Diana answered. "I'm tempted to say that there's secrets waiting, but I've always thought that there was something they were hiding."

"Maybe you've always been right," Sam murmured, letting their words fall into silence and footsteps until they neared the lab.

The wind hummed as the kids grew closer to the lab, only taking a moment at each corner and stop to look around themselves. As Shane had said and Sam was tempted to agree with, they were all getting far too comfortable with sneaking around during the midnight hour. Still, it was the best hour for sneaking about.

The air was a bit chilly, but not enough so to warrant going back on their plans. Diana had a cold glint in her eye when they reached a place where they could look at the outside of the lab. Sam barely caught the harsh look that her friend gave the building, but it was there. Shane just seemed wary. As they were moving away from governments and towards laboratories, Diana was becoming more invested and Shane less so. As for Sam, she wasn't sure what to think. But something had to be done.

The teenager forced her hands not to shake as she knelt at the door to the lab, pulling her lock picks from her side pocket and snapping them open. Di gave her shoulder a squeeze, the sign that all was clear, and Sam went to work. The lock turned open about two minutes later, Shane hurrying back from around a corner when Diana whistled quietly for him.

"Split? Shane and I will cover the front rooms and files, you take the real lab room," Diana whispered, barely breathing into Sam's ear. Silence was a commodity.

Sam nodded, waiting for Diana and Shane to begin tiptoeing through the front room before peering around herself and heading to the back. There was another locked door, but this one was not locked like any other usual lock. Instead of seeming to be designed against human entry, it was closer to an airlock, keeping anything without hands either in or out.

At least it meant that Sam didn't need to figure out how to pick it. All she had to do was really, really hope that there weren't any zombies or something on the other side of the door and open it. Thankfully, there was a lack of zombies, and the only thing that Sam could see was a basic-looking lab, though a bit dark.

After a brief debate with herself, Sam tentatively flipped on the lights, flinching as they turned on suddenly, brightening the room. No one jumped out to grab her and take her to the police, though. With the lights on, Sam could see the countertops of the room, covered in almost-cluttered vials and petri dishes. Hanging across hooks on the wall nearest the door were a dozen or so lab coats, neatly tucked in line. What caught Sam's eye were the file cabinets situated underneath the lab tables.

"Research... Results... Oh! Personnel!" Sam had to hush herself as she found precisely what she was looking for. The drawer wasn't any more locked than the door to the lab, so she tugged it open.

Inside were files lined up, marked only by numbers. Sam blew out a breath, disrupting her bangs. So maybe it wouldn't be so easy as just looking up Lilla Wren, or rather Lilla Welsh, as that's what the files from the program seemed to says she really was.

"Wait," Sam whispered to herself, leaving the drawer for a moment to rush over to the lab coats hanging on the wall. They each had both a number and a last name, so maybe she could use Lilla's as a way to find her file more quickly.

It was a great plan, minus the fact that Sam couldn't seem to find Lilla's coat. Unless she had yet another alias, none of these belonged to Sam's CP. Back to the file drawer, then.

Sam was starting to get antsy about being found again just as she tracked down the file. She pulled out the papers and laid them across the floor, fumbling with her phone to snap pictures of them without really reading them. She just checked that they were clear enough to be legible before throwing them back into their folder. Odds were that they were not in the right order and anyone could tell they had been meddled with by a mere glance. Sam was more concerned to getting done and getting out.

Next step: search the lab part of the lab. If she were more science-oriented, Sam might have been tempted to try reading through the files under Research or Results. Instead, Sam sent Shane and Diana a message and passed the remaining files by to look at the array of lab equipment.

Noyouresamantha: there are files about the experiments in here if you haven't found anything better. have a file on Lilla

DieDie: find the first page of a file and it should have a rundown of whatever exp. just take a pic we can look later if theres sci mumbo jumbo

Noyouresamantha: k

Noyouresamantha: theres tons of petri dishes and stuff but theyre all labeled with codes

Sam tapped at the top of a petri dish where a label was plastered, reading 'KM-42'. There was no indication of what was actually inside, so she picked it up and flipped it over, hoping for something that would make sense. Instead, the top of the container fell off, startling Sam and making her drop the other half of it to the floor.

"Oh, shit!" Sam cursed, keeping her voice as low as she could as she leaned down to pick up the dish. The lid was cracked and the gelatin from the main part was busted apart, so Sam put them back together.

Standing back up, Sam looked around the room and sighed. No alarms were going off, but it was time to get back home before someone decided to check in on the lab. Grabbing out her phone to tell her friends the evac notice, Sam peeked around the last set of shelves, looking back into the final hallway-like area of the room after she sent the message.

Noyouresamantha: okay i think we should probably clear out

When she saw when she looked up was less than encouraging, and definitely backed up her idea that getting the heck out of the lab would be a good idea. And fast.

Noyouresamantha: shit guys we need to get out theres someone else in here