Title: Progress Report
Author:
subdivided
Rating: G
Characters: Nagisa, Seven,
Ritsu
Note: The stuff about butterflies is true.
-PROGRESS REPORT-
Her story was full of holes. If her project had really been sabotaged, where was the evidence? Or the motive? On the other hand, the directors argued, she didn't gain anything by lying about it. She was guaranteed funding, access to equipment, manpower, either way. Regardless of success or failure. The reports were only a formality.
(None of them liked progress reports. They made Nagisa defensive, prone to wild overstatements and unnecessary allocations of blame. Seven couldn't take them seriously, because secretly - not so secretly - she found all attempts to make their organization more like a conventional daibatsu hilarious. Ritsu considered them invalid and never bothered with them. True progress is often proceeded by decay, he was fond of saying. The one time he was called to task, he sent a report in the form of a living chrysalis. The message was: cut this open, and you won't get a half-formed butterfly. All you'll get is a dying caterpillar.)