The next day, everyone gathers around the locked Deadzone door in the small Alabaster base.

“So this is the one you wanted me to kick down?” Marshall turns to Taylor, who nods.

“Yeah, I’m pretty suspicious of this place. And if I’m right, then there should be something that everyone will want to see in there.”

“Is it really okay to knock down the door like that?” Evelyn asks the two boys. “It’s a Deadzone, right?”

“Screw that! Marshall’s already broken one, doesn’t matter what he does now. Come on, let’s see this door violated!” Skylar cheers Marshall on, who promptly nods and kicks the door down with a large smash.

Everyone quickly floods into the room, Taylor leading the group and Nana wheeling Rose in.

Taylor starts to scans the room like a hawk as he steps inside. The room is filled with several computers and file cabinets, and some loose papers on some desks. Adam quickly rolls into the room on his segway, behind the ultimates, a little late to the party. He explains that this room is an information database, not unlike the one back in the main facility shown off by Nick.

“I suppose I couldn’t really stop you even if I wanted to.” He simply states.

Taylor, ignoring Adam and everyone else, quickly makes a beeline to the closest computer and starts typing away. Some of the others gather around to watch, while a few go off and investate on their own. Those who stuck around couldn’t tell exactly what Taylor was doing, but it seemed to be hacking of some sort. His hands move swiftly over the keyboard, it’s obvious that he knows what he’s doing.

“Uh, Taylor? Since when could you do that?” Eli asks, surprised. The others seemed to have the same question on their minds.

“Oh yeah, right, well…” Taylor speaks as he goes through several files on the computer. “I got my memories back not too long ago. Back in the jungle, actually.”

“What? Well why didn’t you say anything sooner? Are you some ultimate hacker or something?” Honda asks, leaning towards the computer to try and see just what Taylor is even looking at.

“Eh, not exactly. Sorry, I didn’t want to say any sooner because I didn’t want to blow my cover, at least until I did something like this. I’m... the Ultimate Agent. Secret Agent, Spy, whatever. My mission here was to check out Alabaster’s suspicious activities. Remember how we found in the main Alabaster base that they were worried about government scrutiny? This has been a long time coming.”

“No way, dude! You’re a secret agent!? That’s awesome!” Nicos aggressively pats Taylor on the back with a wide smile on his face. The others are a lot more shocked, but silently wait and listen.

“This killing game though? Waaay out of my expectations. I’m afraid this might not even be related to what I was after, so I’m totally lost on what that’s still all about.” Taylor sighs as he continues to search through the computer.

“To be honest, I’m glad my memories came back when they did. Any later and we might’ve totally missed this opportunity. I guess I could explain that too, while I’m at it.” Even still, Taylor doesn’t look away from the screen. “There’s these intention scanner things. Alabaster uses ‘em.”

“Yeah, I remember going through one of those when we first arrived at that first facility.” Eli puts a hand to his chin. “A security system made by Nana and Hoshiko’s pops. Alabaster bought some, just like all the big companies did.”

“Think so. Anyways, if I stepped right through one of those things with my memories, they’d catch onto me right away.” Taylor frustratedly clicks the mouse a couple times.

“Oh, so like, you erased your memories to bypass that system? Damn, that’s pretty crazy.” Marshall, unlike the others, seems to be taking this news pretty well, and doesn’t seem to be as surprised as the others.

“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” Taylor confirms. “I was to sneak into Project Eden, regain my memories after some time, and begin my investigation. Though things didn’t totally go as planned, I can still get my job done.”

Adam approaches the group by Taylor, almost bumping into a desk in the process. “I see, that does explain your memory loss, and your rather incredible feats that we’ve seen you perform. I suppose that would all make sense for an ultimate Agent…”

“Aha! Here we go. Finally.” Taylor smiles as he gets in, and the computers all around the room suddenly light up as they unlock too. He quickly reads and scrolls through an opened document.

“Dear god… It’s worse than I thought.” He mutters.

“Well, what? What is it? We don’t have all day you know, and we can’t all read as fast as you.” Skylar groans.

“Christ, okay. Let’s make this simple so you can all understand.” Taylor turns his chair around to face the twelve (thirteen if we count Adam!) others around him.

“Project Eden is pretty crazy. So we’re all… Ultimates, right? Alabaster made a big deal of how we have loads of influence around the world and stuff. Project Eden was about collecting Ultimates like us. But, uh, it wasn’t so they could help us advance our talents...”

“Of course not! I’ve been saying that all along!” Kyoya shouts, outraged. “So what were they really up to?”

“Well, with our influence, Alabaster thought that if they controlled us, they’d, um, control the world. You know the weird devices in the jungle that were giving us nightmares? With more control they’d be able to precisely dictate what went into our heads and what didn’t, and could… well, brainwash us to do their bidding.”

Almost everyone is too shocked to speak. Some have their jaws dropped, others have their eyes open wide. One, however...

“I knew it!” Kyoya screams. “Those fiends!”

His yelling brings everyone back down to Earth. “Are you fucking kidding me!?” Skylar shouts at Adam, glaring at him. “What the fuck is this about? Is that true?!”

“Brainwash!? How on earth could they?? That’s just... Terrible!” Rose cries out, hands clenched into fists.

“Y-Yeah, I’d like to know as well.” Honda’s tightly gripping on to his cape, his arm shaking a little.

The same thought was on everyone’s minds, though. There’s no way that could be real.

Everyone looks over to Adam, expecting answers, but he remains silent as though in thought.

“...Alright, well, there’s something else that’s concerning too.” Taylor breaks the silence.

“I said before they needed ‘more control’ to use those weird emitter things for full-on brainwashing. Well, turns out ‘more control’ means ‘intimate knowledge of the human brain’. A normal AI wouldn’t have the precision or knowledge to work with the specifics of a human mind. So they needed, well, a ‘special’ AI I guess. A human AI.

“If brainwashing isn’t enough, apparently Alabaster can just take your mind and, through what seems to be a rather difficult process, upload it into an AI, and combine the two. Merging them together and creating some sort of super computer, that Alabaster can control.”

“Ah-” Adam tries to speak, but is quickly cut off by the display in his monitor shutting off.

The ultimates look over, mostly confused, but it only takes a few moments for the display to come back on, same as always.

“Finally, I think I get it now.” Adam speaks, somehow sounding more natural than ever before, his voice less robotic.

“It seems like Taylor isn’t the only one who’s lost some memories!” He lets out a bit of a chuckle. “I’ve had some suspicious for a while now, but hearing it spelled out to me like that simply confirmed it. I know exactly how that AI uploading machine works, because it was used on yours truly.”

Again, jaws drop. A few more than before, but not everybody.

“So! Allow me to re-introduce myself. I am Gawain Hall, an unfortunate victim to Alabaster’s schemes, and now an official ex Alabaster employee.”

“Y-You’re kidding, right?” Marshall starts speaking as soon as Adam finishes. “There’ just no way. This is all too crazy!”

“Yeah, this is all pretty crazy. I can see where you’re all coming from! Ha! Fret not though, friends. I am here to support you now, more than ever.”

Some time passes, and everyone lets out their feelings, and finally calms down. Unfortunately it seems that Adam doesn’t know any more about this killing game than anybody else does.

They spend some time scouring the rest of the computers and physical files in the room, but nothing else of note seems to come up. It seems like Taylor already found and explained the biggest things they’d find.

"Yeah, I hate to admit it but I think we’re done here.” Taylor sighs.

“Don’t worry about that. You’ve already dug up a lot of into today! Though I apologize for not being of any more help. I wasn’t privy to this information before.” Gawain lets out a sigh, or at least does as good of a job as a computer could.

“Hoshiko? You don’t look too well… Is something wrong?” Honda asks with a puzzled look on his face, while Hoshiko looks like she just saw a ghost.

“Um… It’s nothing important really, I just saw something kinda shocking. It doesn’t relate to what we’re looking for, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Well, alright… Though don’t be afraid to speak up about it. I’m sure everyone here would gladly lend an ear or more to help.”

Hoshiko just nods slowly, then turns and leaves. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to do here so everyone else follows after her, though she seems to have gone already by the time they reach the hallway.