DieDie: fck are you serious

Shaneeee: di meet me by the lab entrance sam you need a hand?

DieDie: k but who is it? is it lilla?????

Noyouresamantha: no hand needed im turning off the lights and getting out ill be right out

Noyouresamantha: not lilla. just some guy sleeping in one of the hallways. i guess were lucky he found a chair comfy enough to sleep in

They were all out of the building in less than two minutes, leaving no more sign that they had been there than they had to. So maybe Sam couldn't fix the dish she dropped, and maybe the files weren't quite back in order, but they were out safe and had some information.

"You know that we can't go back to my house to look at this junk now, right?" Sam asked Shane and Diana, tossing her phone in the air and catching it again. "I am so not risking my parents hearing me sneak back in and out again to get my laptop."

"Well, it's not the best quality, but we can read from your cell screen. I don't know about you guys, but I am definitely not up to waiting until tomorrow afternoon to see what was in that file," Shane said.

Diana nodded to the road leading further into town. The lab was on the outskirts, but it wouldn't take too long to make it deeper into the city. "How about we go into town and to Mrs. Penelope's shop?"

"Yeah. If she's there then we stop in and beg her to let us stay for a little bit. If she's not then we keep going until we get back to our houses," Shane suggested, not waiting for confirmation to start walking towards the book store.

Sam huffed, "And you wont start asking me to show you these tonight?"

"Not unless we get to the loft," Diana promised, holding out her right hand for a pinkie promise. "You can bring the pictures on your computer to school tomorrow if we don't have time tonight, right?"

"What are you, seven?" Sam asked, rolling her eyes at the pinkie that Di had extended but ending up offering her own anyway. "Maybe I will, maybe I won't. My parents don't like me taking it out of the house."

Shane scoffed at that, turning around to call back, "Really? After weeks of sneaking around and literally breaking into places, that's what you're worried about?"

"Well, you should be worried about me punching you in the face," Sam muttered, heading after Diana and him nonetheless.

For better or worse, Penelope was still sitting at the counter when they got to her store. Though it was just before midnight, she was awake and reading a book, not looking the least bit drowsy. Honestly, Sam was feeling a bit tired, but there were more important things to do than sleep. One of those happened to be seeing what secrets were in the lab's files.

"Do your parents know you are out this late, Samantha?" Mrs. Penelope asked as soon as she looked up and saw them standing there. "Shane, Diana, why do you do this? Bringing me into your crimes?"

"It's not a crime to stay up late, Mrs. Penelope," Diana said, laughing. "What book are you reading? I don't think I recognize that one."

Then Mrs. Penelope was on a short rant about the novel in her hands which, it turned out, was a historical fiction. Though she deemed it 'too mature' for her to lend it to Diana, she was still happy to describe it in detail. Sam and Shane hurried off to the loft while Mrs. Penelope was occupied and was soon able to join them.

"The lighting is terrible in these," Shane complained as they all huddled together to look at the pictures on Sam's phone.

Sam huffed. "Well, sorry, Shane. Maybe I'll let you handle cinematography in the next set of stolen photos!"

At least they were all legible. The first thing they looked at was Lilla's files.

Diana volunteered to read out what was on them so they wouldn't need to butt heads trying to all read the little screen.

"Lilla Welsh. Five foot six, brown hair, blah blah blah... Oh, here! Recent assignments: JUUH, VFFG, YY, AS98. Wait, no, that's useless too. I don't know what any of those mean. Here's something, though. Says her current project is something called KM."

"Oh, that's what was written on a petri dish in the lab that I... saw," Sam told them, giving Diana a chance to finish reading after.

"Apparently there's another page in her file with stuff about the KM project on it. There we go, it says that she was involved with tests four through twelve, whatever that means, and ignition. Job description is 'overseas carrier'."

"You know, I saw something weird when I was in there. The lab coats hung on the wall? There were tons of them, but none of them said Lilla on them, or Welsh, or anything else like that." Sam hummed. Maybe this was because Lilla was in charge of transporting files instead of science and stuff.

Shane tapped one foot against the ceiling near Diana's head, causing her to whirl around and push him. He paid no mind and asked, "So do you guys think she's their spy? Like, getting top secret files from point A to point B."

"I don't know. Maybe, but that doesn't seem quite right. I mean, if a couple of high schoolers could break in and take a look at their files, I don't think that the files would be something so secretive," Sam reasoned.

"Maybe they never expected anyone to come looking. What would they be otherwise?"

"Maybe she's just PR?" Sam knew she was grasping at thin air.

Diana interrupted their conversation before it inevitably went downhill. "You could always ask Lilla."

"We definitely could not. Next meeting I act like I never saw a thing."

"Then how will we find out anything else about this stuff?" Shane asked. "We have to keep doing something. I mean, we know as much as we do."

"Maybe we can upload the pictures online. Someone else will probably start looking into it and we wouldn't get in trouble," Sam suggested, frowning.

If there was one thing that she knew, it was that there was no way they would be able to come forward with the pictures and not get into trouble. Maybe someone would do something with checking out the lab that could or could not actually be doing something wrong, but they would definitely get into some deep shit.

"What's KM anyway?"

Sam frowned and picked up her phone to flip through the pictures at Shane's question. She was pretty sure she had snapped pictures of the files about this KM thing, but she wasn't sure.

"Well, the only picture I got was of the front page of a file. I don't know how much info it'll really have," Sam warned.

Diana scoffed and shook her head pointing at the phone emphatically. "Well, read what there is."

"Okay... The KMV Tests... A bunch of dates and names I don't know... Fifty total test runs... Oh, test goals are to 'develop a virus prototype able to carry out the necessary requirements of the weapon', apparently." Sam stopped suddenly.

"Weapon? Like, a weapon weapon?" Shane asked.

Diana hushed him quickly, motioning for Sam to continue. "Keep reading, keep reading."

"'The necessary requirements of the virus are as follows: able to be spread quickly between populations, able to be combatted by a vaccination that completely protects the user, and able to carry out the eliminations through killermutation means," Sam read. Then she paused. "That's all it says. Anything else must have been on the next page."

"What does killermutation mean? I guess that's what KMV stands for--the killermutation virus." Diana looked frustrated with something, glaring at the floor in front of her as she spoke.

"Dunno. Probably something with mutations and killing," Shane suggested. Diana rolled her eyes before going back to frowning at the floor.

Sam sighed. "What should we do?"

"I don't know," Di muttered, turning her glare to the phone in Sam's hand. "We should give the pictures to someone... Or, no... I don't want to get blacklisted by the government for telling their secrets."

"Do you think they're going to use the virus?" Sam asked, not so much to either of her friends as in general.

"They wanted a vaccination, so probably not unless they have that done. But I don't know. Not everyone gets vaccinations. If this thing is really meant to kill anyone who catches it, a lot of people could get in trouble."

"They're going to launch it over towards the war, I bet," Sam suggested, biting her lip and scratching at the back of her hand. "We should do something."

"Who's to say that even if we brought it to court that they'd listen? Or if they did, that we wouldn't get in trouble?" Shane asked. Sam understood the feeling. Maybe it would be best to leave it be.

"We would get in trouble, and not some little thing, either. I vote we don't turn them in. Not like that, anyway." Sam argued.

"I think you were right before. Here," Diana said, holding out a hand for the phone. Sam tossed it over. Her girlfriend caught it and tapped on the keyboard for a minute before tossing it back. "I put the pictures up on notquitedeviant, onto one of their feeds. They're one of the biggest sites for theories and stuff. Someone will find them."

"Do you think it will be enough?" Sam asked.

"I think it's all we can do."

They left the store a minute later, Shane looking far more nervous than he had before the break in. Sam fought the urge to destroy her phone like it was dangerous evidence against her and her friends. Maybe it was.

Sam wasn't quite sure what she had been expecting at the lab, but it wasn't what she found. This was far trickier to handle than anything she might have thought of. Even Diana looked a bit dazed, and she had always believed in these things.

Now, at least, they were in agreement: they wouldn't say anything about what they had done. It was a pact. Transcential was just another lab, and they were just another group of teenagers in just another city. They could only hope that would last.