Rowan forces himself to adopt a neutral expression, turning to face the pair as they approach. "Ah, you two are back," he says, "Do you happen to have your receipts on you? I'll need them for tax write-offs later." His nonchalance is strained, and his lips are pulled tight. His real motives are clear, verifying where they were. Nick figures that Rowan has already called Lucas to check and make sure they were with him and Chimchar the entire time, and possibly even the stores they visited, but he supposes that more confirmation can never hurt.
"Here you go," Nick says, pulling the slips from his pocket and handing them over. The professor quickly snags them before surreptitiously scanning the top, presumably looking at the times.
The aged man sighs, saying, "They're clear." From a bush nearby, the luxray from the office earlier in the day struts forth. The large feline gives the two of them a dispassionate glance before curling up in a sunny spot, entirely dismissing them once more.
Nick fights down a shiver, ignoring Mira giving the luxray an "I can take you" look. After his first brush with them, he is in no hurry to test how painful pokemon moves are. Sure, Team Rocket gets sent merely flying away by Thunderbolts in the anime, but what is there to say those rules apply here? He could easily end up as a red stain smeared across the landscape.
"Professor, what happened while I was gone?" Nick calmly asks, glancing towards the broken glass.
Conflict wars in Rowan's eyes, looking the pair up and down before taking a deep, steadying breath. "There was a break-in while I was out, shortly after I closed the lab to the public at around four. Yuzo was upstairs working when he heard a scream and something fall downstairs. After he rushed down, he found Roseanne next to Lab One's door, unconscious, and the lobby door was broken open." The professor pauses for a moment, holding up a hand. "She's fine, don't worry. According to the police, it looks like she was hit with Spore, and she's recovering in the back now, but they stole an egg incubator. The police found it abandoned by the side of a trail outside of town after combing here for evidence, at least."
Nick's gaze flicks up to a camera on the corner of the building. "Get anything off the cameras?" he asks.
Rowan shakes his head, huffing. "No. The cameras on this side of the building, the lobby, and Lab One were destroyed—electrically fried. The police couldn't even pull any prints. The damn punks got lucky. I can't imagine any criminal with a shred of sense would break into a regional professor's lab only to steal one of the least expensive things there."
Interest flashes across Nick's face. "Really? About how expensive are they?"'
"They're just small climate control units with a few basic sensors, a couple hundred dollars at maximum. Ones for long-term mobile use cost more, obviously, but I don't keep any of those on hand. They're more for travelling trainers," Rowan responds.
'Right. So, the thieves either stole something from the professor for the thrill of it or planned to get something bigger but were interrupted.'
Nick frowns.
'Something about this rubs me the wrong way. Most people who steal for a thrill aren't exactly professionals, yet they managed to know where the relevant cameras are inside to disable them and had either the gear or a pokemon to do that. That implies a lot of forethought, which would point more towards career criminals. Why abandon the machine in such an obvious spot, then? If they wanted to dump it, they could have thrown it in the ocean or deeper into the woods to not give the police potential evidence.'
Nick turns back to Rowan. "You said the police have already been here and collected all the evidence they could, right? Do you mind if I take a look around?" he asks.
Rowan perks, a sly smile crossing his face. "You did say you were a private investigator, didn't you? Very well then, feel free. I'll let you look around and open the door to Lab One. Perhaps you'll find something those useless officers didn't. I'll get you some gloves." At that, Rowan walks inside, leaving the two of them alone. Minus Luxray, but that cat looks like it'd rather be elsewhere and definitely isn't pitching in to help.
He pulls out his Pokedex and uses the Notes app to jot down his thoughts, looking down at Mira before nodding towards the door. Perplexed, she follows him over as he crouches amongst the glass, careful to steer clear of the sharp shards herself.
Nick crouches down next to the open door, trying to divine any insight from the pile of broken bits, but a forensic scientist he is not, and he quickly gives up on that plan of action. Instead, he turns his attention to the door, glancing over the frame. The hole's barely small enough for someone to crawl through, but you could do it.
"Your gloves," Rowan says, returning from the back and passing Nick a pair.
"Thanks," he responds, slipping them on before reaching through. His arm is nowhere near long enough to touch the latch without touching the edges of where it's broken, and his arms are pretty long. He pokes one of the glass shards towards the edge of the hole. It wiggles in place.
Nick frowns and pokes another shard towards the bottom of the hole. The response is the same: wiggling in place.
"That's weird," he mutters, taking down more notes.
"What is?" Rowan questions, leaning in.
"Look at this," Nick says, prodding the glass around the edge, "If someone crawled through here, they'd definitely knock at least some of these loose shards out, and I doubt they'd be able to reach the lock from this side."
Rowan nods. "Hmm. Are you suggesting the thieves might have had a pokemon fly or hop through?"
"Hop, probably," Nick responds. "They'd have to have a pretty small wingspan to fly through, and there's not a lot of pokemon that can levitate as far as I'm aware, and the list of ones that would fit is smaller. Hell, a lot of them are psychic, so those could probably undo the bolt from this side without needing to break the glass or teleport through, right?"
Rowan straightens, falling deep into thought. "And we can discount that possibility as the police detected no residual psychic energy. No signs of any common immaterial ghosts floating through walls, either." They have that type of detection tech? That's good to know.
"Right," Nick asserts, standing back up. "Mira, do you smell or sense anything weird?"
The fox glances up at him before lowering her head, sniffing the shards and the door before shrugging. That's probably the first thing the police tried, but it's good to confirm that there's nothing she can pick up, either. She eyes up the door, sliding it further open with a paw before glancing up at the sensor above the frame.
That's right, it was automatic, wasn't it?
"Hey, professor, is the door fried too, or is it just turned off?"
"The door?" the professor echoes, "It's electronically controlled. When I arrived earlier, I used the code and an RFID chip to unlock it for the police. I double-checked, and all the building doors are working as expected."
Nick scratches his chin, deep in thought, as he stares at the door. "You said the victim was in the back. Do you know if she's well enough to talk to her briefly?"
Rowan's face twists into discomfort as he mulls it over before reluctantly nodding. "I'll ask her. Wait her for a moment, please." He then leaves the room, heading into the back.
"Zor?" trills Mira, looking up at Nick.
"It feels like a weird slap-dash between professionalism and total amateur work. Why break into a highly visible public figure's lab for something so worthless? Why smash open a door that'd be visible from the road? Why do they have a way to tactically disable cameras but not stealthily open doors like that? I mean, I get why they wouldn't break in through the back if all the pokemon paddocks were there, but I remember there being a door or two on the brick half of the building. You could force the lock on one of those without making a massive mess. Why did Roseanne walk up to the broken door, too?" Nick rambles, cutting himself off before he can go further.
Mira nods, pacing next to him as she thinks it over. "Zor-ua," she chimes in, looking to the door, unease written clear on her face.
"Yeah, it feels like bait to me, too," Nick admits, "Good instincts, by the way."
"Zor!" she beams, which he interprets as "As if there were any doubts."
"Good news," Rowan says, walking back into the room from the back, "She's willing to see you but needs a few minutes first. Do not distress her." He levels a pointed look at Nick, who raises his hands defensively.
"Got it, nothing too probing," Nick replies, "Promise. Mind if I look at Lab One in the meantime?"
Rowan gives him one last piercing glance before gesturing to follow him, and the two do, heading deeper into the back toward Rowan's office. Nick can't help but notice an alarmed fire exit in the hall close to a pair of doors labelled Lab One and Lab Two.
'Interesting.'
Rowan unlocks the door to Lab One and leads them into the room. At first glance, everything looks undisturbed. Various machines, both familiar from his college days and not line the counters. Nothing immediately seems out of place, but Nick sees four dusty outlines of small circles beside a computer, a USB cable at its side. The machine was probably there, and that's where the legs were. He has no doubts that he'd fail to find any forensic evidence like hair, fingerprints, or anything to that effect. He has no training or access to a team of techs to run analysis, after all.
Mira walks past him, starts sniffing around the room, and investigates independently, trying to catch any hint of the criminals. He searches at her side regardless, checking drawers and cabinets, lifting up machines to check the dust under them and see if they've been recently moved or otherwise tampered with. Nothing.
"Zo," Mira frustratedly growls, muzzle dipping into a grimace as she spitefully casts her gaze around the room, looking for anything, even if she likely doesn't exactly comprehend what she's looking for.
Suddenly, the zorua perks and dashes over to the far corner, Nick not far behind as she reaches a garbage can, rears up, and reaches a paw inside. She moves some garbage aside before fishing out a glove, dropping it on the floor. "Zor!" she calls out as Nick drops to a knee to examine it.
He reaches down, picks it up, turns it over, and sighs. "Probably not, I don't think," he says.
"Ua," she responds, an edge to her voice.
Nick points over to the spot where the incubator was prior. "It's a bit unlikely that this belongs to the assailants. Why would they dump one of their gloves off in the trash rather than pack them away in their pocket to dispose of off-site?" He raises it up and catches a whiff. It takes him a moment, but he recognizes it as a smell from his college days. He can't quite recall the name, but it's used as a preservative. "Ah, I know what that is. That smell is something used for storing samples for long periods so they don't rot. If they were handling that type of stuff, the smell would have followed them all through the building. You should probably wash that off, by the way. I know you're a ghost type and all, but I don't know how good for you it is."
"I'll show her how to use the small pokemon height sink," Rowan says with a sigh, walking over to a low trough, "Come along now, Mira."
"Hey, not everything hides a successful lead," Nick comforts, getting back up and tossing the glove back in. It's just a fact of investigation, is all." She huffs and pads away over to Rowan.
Nick, meanwhile, walks over to the computer, jostles the mouse, and the screen immediately turns on. A smile creeps across his face. If the computer was on and not sleeping...
"Hey, professor, could you open the event log? I'm unfamiliar with the OS," Nick asks, and Rowan nods.
Wordlessly, the older man walks over, types in a password, opens a few windows, and a relatively simple event log pops up.
Nick just has to scroll down a few hours, and right there, at 4:25 PM, "device disconnection." He jots down a few notes in his Pokedex. It's better than nothing. At least it gives him the time it was grabbed.
"I think I'm done here, at least for now, professor," Nick says, surveying the room one last time.
"Excellent. My assistants are likely ready now. This way," Rowan replies as they leave the room, closing it and locking it behind them.
'Assistants? There was a second witness?'
The trio enters the channel between the two buildings, soon coming to a clearly labelled break room. Inside sits a frazzled-looking green-haired woman nursing a cup of coffee while being worried over by a tall, dark blue-haired man.
"I'm telling you, I'm fine," she insists, taking another sip of her drink, "I just had a bit of a fright and a slip."
The man squirms in place, looking uncomfortable. "Are you sure, Roseanne? I could get you a blanket and some food if you want."
She rolls her eyes, "It's alright, Yuzo. Besides, the professor's back with that PI."
The man jolts as if shocked, turning to face them. "O-oh!" he begins, "Hello, Professor Rowan. Hello, Mr. Ward." Mira huffs at Nick's side, evidently displeased at not being acknowledged.
Nick gives her a placating look before smiling and walking to the table. "Nick Ward, I do wish we were meeting under better circumstances," he says, taking a spare seat across from the two as he pulls out his Pokedex for the Notes app once more.
Both lab assistants look to Rowan, who nods from the doorway.
"I'm Yuzo," the man says.
"And I'm Roseanne," the woman adds.
Nick smiles at them. "I'm sure you both are sick of being interviewed now, so I won't keep you long. Do you mind just giving me both your accounts of the afternoon?"
Yuzo starts, explaining, "Well, I was staying late to run a few pre-evo and post-evo samples, checking type energy densities, and whatnot! I was finishing up with processing some croagunk saliva, and then I heard a shout and an awful crash from downstairs. Well, I rushed down as fast as I could, and when I saw Roseanne on the floor, I ran over to help her."
"You didn't hear the glass breaking?"
Yuzo shakes his head. "No, nothing. I was on the second floor in Lab Four, at the back of the building. I only heard Roseanne over the machinery because she was in the corridor directly below."
"And that's all you saw? No glimpses of anyone?" Nick probes.
Yuzo shakes his head, a sour look creeping onto his face. "No," he states, "By the time I finished checking on Roseanne, they were long gone."
"And did the fire alarm go off?"
Confusion flashes across Yuzo's face. "No?" he says, "Why would it?"
Nick smiles. "I'm just confirming a suspicion of mine," he explains, "It might not come to anything, but I wanted to make sure of something."
'They could have easily slipped out through the fire exit right by where they confronted Roseanne. Hell, it would have played to their advantage by causing some extra chaos with the alarm going off. Stealth was out the window at that point anyhow. I doubt they left through the back, given all the pokemon to witness them and maybe take some parting shots, and if I were them, I wouldn't risk running all the way through the building to the brick half when on the clock like that. No, they almost definitely left through the front. Now, why did they take a long way out?'
Nick takes in a sharp breath and quickly types out some notes.
'Maybe they had to do something in the lobby before they left.'
"Thank you, Yuzo. I think that'll be all for now," Nick finishes, turning his attention to the green-haired, thin woman, "Now, Roseanne. Might I ask what you remember?"
Roseanne squirms in place, looking uncomfortable under the attention, and Nick leans back in the chair.
"Take all the time you need. I'm sure you're tired of repeating this story," Nick puts on the most affable smile he can, leaning back to not crowd her. He assumes she feels crowded, at least.
Grimacing, she responds, "It's not that; I just don't remember much. I got hit with such a big dose of Spores that it made the last few hours all hazy. I know I left early today to make it to an appointment and stopped by afterwards because I forgot my bag, but not much after that. I think I walked in through the front, and when I saw Lab One open, I went to check it out… and then nothing."
Nick frowns but jots down a few things regardless.
"Do you remember if the door was broken when you arrived?" he probes.
Shaking her head in response, Roseanne says, "No, sorry. I don't remember anything about that."
'She could be just forgetting, but I doubt that. Who walks up to something that looks like a break-in without a care? At the very least, she could have texted or called Rowan to see if anything happened, but if she did anything like that, I doubt we'd be having this conversation.'
Nick glances down and glimpses a Great Ball clipped to her belt.
'At the very least, I'd have my partner out if that was me.'
Pulling up the entry for the move Spore in his Dex, Nick asks, "Mind telling me what species your pokemon is?"
"Oh! I have a cherrim; form changes are so fascinating!" she cheerfully exclaims, "I have a dunsparce at home, too. The poor dear always gets so bored when I drag him to appointments, though, so I left him behind today." She frowns. "I think he's going to give me quite the talking to when I get home."
Grass type. Immune to Spore. If it was out, there would probably have been a fight. Even if the attackers knocked it out in one, he'd be surprised if such overwhelming might didn't leave a mark on the hall.
'Unless this lady has zero sense of self-preservation, the glass probably wasn't broken when she arrived. It's not as if Rowan seems the type to hire fools, so it feels like a pretty safe assumption that it's the latter. Did they break the glass on the way out? Why?'
A chill runs up his spine.
'Maybe to make it appear like they smashed their way in. They could conceal the real way they got in like that, to make it look like the work of idiots who got lucky.'
Nick stuffs his Pokedex back in his pocket and gets up. "Thank you. I think that'll be all for now," he says, waving and making to leave. "I'll let you both get some rest."
"That's it?" Roseanne incredulously asks.
Yuzo nods in agreement. "Yeah, that's all? The police grilled us for ages."
Nick shrugs. "They probably did a pretty good job interviewing you and jogging your memory, and I'm under no delusions that I can suddenly make you remember some extra important details. Feel free to message the professor if you remember anything else, of course." And back into the hallway the trio go, closing the door and letting the beleaguered scientists rest.
"Truly, that was it?" Rowan rumbles.
"They gave me a few ideas. Hard to prove ideas right now," Nick admits, "But good places to start. Is there a paddock close to the building where they might have seen something?"
Rowan thinks for a second before nodding. "Yes," he replies, "I have an area next to the building, currently occupied by a flock of mareep and their evolutions. I doubt they saw anything inside, given they can only see into Lab Two, but perhaps they caught a glimpse of someone fleeing. Come this way." At that, the professor leads their little group out through another door into the back, and Nick takes a sharp breath.
The vast expanse of the lot covers the rolling hills, adorned with paddocks home to various species of pokemon, a serene forest upon its edge. Here, dozens of species can be seen enjoying their leisure time together, lazing around, feasting on their favourite foods, and engaging in social activities. It's a sight to behold, bearing an almost mesmerizing whimsy. Two machokes playfully tussle, the wrestler-like pokemon earning cheers from the surrounding group of machops as one gets flipped. Bidoofs nap under a tree, while a roserade of all things keeps eyes an eye out. Before he can find his eyes wandering more, though, he feels a brush against his leg.
Below, Mira scans the field, sticking close to his side as she looks over the threats. Seeing all these pokemon in one place, especially so many fully evolved, must be a threatening experience. She eyes up a foreign bisharp, the bladed creature relaxing against a stump. Her fur stands on end, and she growls, looking stuck between fight and flight as she stares it down.
"Hey," Nick calls, snapping Mira back to reality, her eyes meeting his, "It's different than in the wild. Nobody here has any reason to fight." Mira looks back to it just in time for a Chingling to fearlessly hop over and settle by its sharp feet, paying the dark type no mind. It glances down at the diminutive psychic bell once before returning to watching the clouds.
The zorua huffs before stepping from his side, catching up to the now far ahead professor. It's strange that she recognized the species, though. Perhaps she saw it in captivity, or is it native to her homeland?
'Maybe I'm just overthinking it, and she could sense that it could resist all her moves. I need to get on those books when I have some spare time.'
"And here we are!" Rowan says, leading them all to a large paddock with a small silo at the closest corner facing the lab, a series of bowls fed by pipes below it, and in the far corner nearest to the building, a series of automated water troughs. The enclosure is shared by perhaps two dozen mareep milling about, with a pair of flaaffies and a single ampharos lazing in the center, although they could leave if they so desired; the fencing is low enough that he doubted it could stop the pokemon from hopping over even if the gate wasn't open. "Ah, the feeder?" Rowan rhetorically asks, evidently tracing Nick's gaze, "Rather than having dedicated feeding times, we let pokemon self-feed."
"You aren't worried about portion control?" Nick replies.
Rowan shakes his head, saying, "No. Each pokemon here wears a tag that lets them access amenities as they desire, and it limits the number of times a day any given pokemon can trigger a feeder. It even stops them from getting at types of food not intended for them, so we don't have to worry about anybody trying food formulated for poison types and getting themselves sick." At that, Rowan glares a few pens over at a torterra, the towering turtle immediately trying to hide between an exeggutor despite the vast difference in width. The professor grumbles.
"Think that they would mind if I asked them a few questions?" Nick asks, gesturing towards the pasture.
Rowan thinks for a moment before acquiescing with a nod. "I don't see the harm in it," he says, "I still don't think you're going to get much out of them, though."
Needing no further prompting, Nick leans on the edge of the enclosure, calling out, "Excuse me, could I have your attention for a moment? I'm investigating what happened in the lab, and I have a few questions for all of you since your section is closest to what happened."
There's some nervous shuffling and bleating from the sheep-like mareep, although there's little reaction from the comparably tall ampharos and flaaffies other than them turning their attention towards him.
"Don't worry, everyone is fine, " Nick reassures, "But there was a break-in, and I'm working with the professor to ensure the people who did this are caught."
The nervous energy dims but doesn't dissipate.
'Were they not informed, or are they just like that? If it's the former, does it mean that the police didn't at least check in with them? I can't imagine why.'
"Thank you," he says, "Now, does anyone recall hearing a scream somewhere around…" He lifts his hand, pointing towards the sky, "When the sun was around that high in the sky?" Almost the entirety of the flock calls out what Nick is pretty sure is assent, but he's unsure. So many voices make it hard to focus on just one. He looks to Mira.
She nods.
"Great!" Nick says, "Now, did anyone see anything?"
Dead silence meets him.
"Nothing? No matter how small a detail, it might be key to helping us figure this whole thing out. Nobody saw anything unusual at all?" he says.
Silence once more, holding firm until one of the short pink flaaffy holds up a stubby arm with a shrill cry before stepping forward from the mass of fluff.
"Thank you. Now, what did you see?" It looks toward the professor, eyeing his relaxed stance, and then turns back to Nick, babbling out a series of "Flaa fla, ffy, flaa-ffy, flaaf" while pointing at one of the windows of the lab itself.
'I have no bloody clue what it's saying. Does it think it saw someone in the room? A pokemon, a human? Just hear something? That should be Lab Two, though, and everything's pointing to Lab One being the target.'
Mira's faux flames flicker in an invisible wind, and a man's shadow materializes in the window, although only a shadow, silhouetted by a ring of light. Although one can't see into the room itself from this angle if you happen to be Flaaffy's height, Nick has no such problem. A moment later, the light disappears.
"Thank you, Mira," Nick says, the fox holding her chin high and looking away like she is above the praise. Still, her tail wags once before she suppresses it.
Inside, the lab looks undisturbed, but on the far wall sits a door Nick knows isn't the one leading to the hallway. It's solid, and no glass panel is inset around head level for peering through.
"Hey, professor, what's that door in the lab?" Nick asks, pointing.
Rowan tears his eyes away from Mira after that admittedly fascinating display on her part, following his finger before frowning. "That? I have a small stockpile of evolutionary items locked up there. It wasn't broken into, though. Neither the cameras nor the access log for the vault show anything."
"Fla, fla, flaaffy!" the pink sheep-esque pokemon calls, vigorously pointing to the glass.
"I don't know, professor. Flaaffy here is pretty sure they saw something," Nick says, shrugging, "Do you mind if I take a look at the footage for myself?"
The professor nods towards the same door they exited from at the rear of the building. "The computer in my office has access. Perhaps you'll catch something that both the police and I missed."
The walk to Rowan's office is short, and as Nick settles into the same chair from earlier today, this time scooted around to the professor's side of the desk, Mira at his side, he can't help but find grim amusement in how he feels more at ease walking in here to investigate theft, break-in, and assault than to ask for help.
The professor turns the screen to face them, revealing a surprisingly familiar interface.
'I swear I've seen this UI on managers' computers at work. There are only so many ways to design a hammer, I guess.'
"Here," Rowan says, sliding his chair out of the way and letting Nick get at it. The controls are intuitive and straightforward. The system has twenty-four-hour recording, three weeks of footage, no audio on any cameras, and a simple click-and-drag interface to move around on the timeline. It even has timeline highlights for when any given camera detects motion. Looking at the cameras themselves, Nick can't help but notice that the footage from the brick half of the building is decidedly more homely than he expects.
A hypno idly watches television next to a quaint kitchen, Rowan's luxray wandering into the frame and nibbling on some feed left in a bowl.
'Ah. The professor's house is attached to the lab. There is no way anyone could break in from that direction without disturbing anything without some bullshit of the highest order. Come to think of it, that may be why they didn't break in at night, too. I vaguely recall something about luxray being able to see through walls, which could ruin even an attempt before they start.'
Nick shakes that thought from his mind and goes through the timeline.
4:15 PM: the two cameras out front fail, and the screens go black.
4:17 PM: the lobby cameras in sequence a few seconds apart, then thirty seconds later, the hallway cameras heading towards the lab.
4:18 PM: down goes the Lab One camera. Yuzo is still working upstairs, though, plugging away, leaning over at some inscrutable machine.
4:25 PM: Yuzo suddenly jolts, looks around for a few moments, releases a staravia, and sprints downstairs with it in tow. All in all, they were inside for perhaps ten minutes, and it seems like they disconnected the machine in the same minute that Roseanne screamed, according to his notes.
'Whatever they did to take down the cameras, they didn't manage to catch a frame of whoever broke in. The professor said that the cameras were electrically fried, though. Maybe they used a small electric type like a joltik to get at the cameras? Still, some of those cameras see one another. Even if they used something too small to be easily seen, you'd probably see some sort of flash from it using an electric move with any range. Even if it was a quiet, close-range move without any visible electricity, the user would have to fly across the lobby to reach the second camera in maybe three seconds tops, all without showing up on video.'
"Yeah, that's not right," Nick mumbles, setting the camera view in Lab Two to fullscreen.
He scrolls through the timeline several times, even far before and past the break-in time. Staring at the door, he spots nothing. No light. No doors opening. His eyes flick to the glass when he sees movement, albeit before the break-in. He can barely make out the reflection of a mareep eating at the feeder outside.
Something about that strikes him in particular, and he scrolls further. Indeed, a trickle of mareep occasionally wanders to the feeder to eat, one of the flock deciding to take their portion occasionally throughout the day. He flicks over to one of the rear cameras, watching them closely.
He looks at the time on the clock, and his eyes widen. 4:18 PM. A mareep eats from the feeder.
He goes back to the Lab Two camera.
No reflection.
The footage isn't consistent.
"Son of a bitch," he says, leaning back in his chair and laughing, "All that effort, and they missed just one small thing."
'Was it a porygon? A rotom, perhaps?'
"Would you mind sharing with the class, Mr. Ward?" says Rowan, annoyance clear in his voice, but it can't damper Nick's mood.
A grin splits Nick's face as he flicks to an earlier point when a mareep was eating, about 3:45 PM. "Behold!" he exclaims, pointing at the sheep-esque pokemon, "See that mareep, Rowan?" He drags the Lab Two panel out from the window and sets them up so the two feeds are side by side. Rowan's brow furrows as Nick points next to the tiny reflection in the window. "When the mareep are at the feeder, we can see their reflections in the window, but when we look at the time of the break-in…" Nick jumps the footage forward, and Rowan's eyes go wide. "Standing in the same spot. Still more than bright enough. You know what that means, right?"
The resulting "Zor!" from Mira sounds downright ecstatic as comprehension blooms on her face.
"Someone either altered the footage or was directly fooling the cameras," Rowan quietly mutters, swallowing dryly.
"And that's not all," Nick chimes in, grinning sagely as he returns to the hallway camera, scrolling back to before it was destroyed. "Why didn't they leave through the fire exit? Once they knocked out Roseanne and heard Yuzo coming, they could have set off the alarm and pulled the emergency sprinkler next to it to create even more chaos and slip away more easily. But they didn't. Instead, they left somewhere else. My instincts say the front."
Rowan's brow furrows, and he shifts uncomfortably. "And why do you suspect that?" he asks uneasily.
"The door. Professor, someone infiltrated your security system so utterly that they could quietly insert or edit footage live. Do you really think they couldn't just hook into the door and unlock it from the inside?"
Worry spread across the professor's face, a deep frown settling in. "You're right," he begrudgingly admits. "You're saying they broke the door on the way out to make it look like a sloppy robbery."
Nick nods, quickly scrolling through the rest of the exterior cameras, looking for signs of looping or the like. Nothing. Every non-destroyed exterior camera has a pokemon walking through the frame, or you can see the shadows of the clouds moving or something to that effect. "And I bet that's the only reason they took the incubator, too. I bet plan A was to slip in and out like ghosts with what they needed, but when Roseanne showed up, they had to improvise. By the time you realized anything was missing, they could have been long gone since I don't imagine you run tests on evolution items daily. I bet they were also looking for something in Lab One, granted, because that's where she caught them. Perhaps they stole something we missed. Perhaps they stole data from one of the computers. Maybe they couldn't find it before she showed up and had to bail, taking the incubator as a distraction."
Nick shrugs before turning to look at Rowan, tearing his eyes away from the cameras. "Honestly, I expect they broke the cameras on the way out, too, and then used their exploit to wipe the earlier footage. They made it look like a sloppy break-in on purpose as their plan B so nobody looked too close at things. Imagine if nobody, including Roseanne, showed up on video, and then nothing was missing after she was attacked. "
"The police would be far more interested in that than in a simple robbery for something worth a few hundred dollars that was later recovered," Rowan breathed, "By the time I did proper inventory on the evolutionary items, they could have been gone for weeks, especially if they were smart enough to only take small amounts of them so nothing appeared out of place at first.
Getting up from his seat, Nick says, "This feels extremely premeditated. They knew when you, and presumably your luxray, were out of the building. They knew when the building was minimally staffed and that the only person left would be busy upstairs for more than long enough, too. The only reason they got caught is that someone who wasn't supposed to be there swung by, after all."
Rowan isn't far behind, shooting up from his seat and walking purposefully toward the door. "Come now. I'm going to check on the evolution items," he says, glancing at them to ensure they're following before heading back to Lab Two. Rowan unlocks the door to let the group in before heading to the vault, typing in a long code, sliding in a keycard, and scanning a fingerprint.
The walls of the tight room are lined with small black boxes, each labelled in small text using a printed sticky tag on the corner. Slowly, Rowan reaches over to a box towards the back of a shelf and flips the lid open to reveal… nothing.
He closes his eyes and sighs, tossing a set of keys to Nick.
"Professor?" Nick asks, confusedly eyeing up the keys.
"Head to my home in the other half of the building; that key will unlock the door. The washroom is on the first floor, straight from where you enter. If the police are to take you seriously, you'll need to get cleaned up," the professor says, gesturing to his chin.
Subconsciously, Nick reaches up to his own, cringing at the sheer amount of scruff. "Point taken," he admits, looking glancing down at Mira. "Come on now, let's get ready to make a police report."