Kapitel 164: Skye’s new job -160
[SCP-12555]
Skye had been left alone in her cell for a few days after learning the truth about her parents. She had been given plenty of time to think. She had been looking for them, trying to find them for years.
She had always been scared about what she might find, did they know about her? Were they even alive? What would happen if she found them? would they dislike her?
And now she had most of the answers, they were alive, and they were looking for her. Yet she now feared she would likely never get a chance to meet them, not since she was held captured here.
She realized that if she didn't do as these people wanted, she was likely to rot in this cell forever if not something worse. So, the next time they came by, she told them that she was ready to cooperate.
She was then taken out of her cell and moved into another, bigger cell which she shared with others. Well calling it a cell might be a little rude, for while she was still trapped here, she still had her own bedroom and what looked like a living room where she could spend time with the others.
If not for the fact that they were all wearing those dreadful prison jumpsuits, she could easily mistake this for some dorm.
The first person she met in her new cell was a rather big black guy, though he was friendly enough.
"Hey there, I'm Jason, welcome to the team."
"I'm Skye." She introduced herself, still not ready to use her real name.
"So you are our special person, eh? You look pretty normal to me, really." He said as he looked her over.
"Special person?" She couldn't help but ask, even if the agent had talked about some special gene or whatever, she wasn't sure she bought all that.
"Don't know a whole lot, eh? I guess they are planning on briefing you later, though no worries. We can tell you what you need to know to not… die too quickly down there," Jason said, trying to be friendly but rather failing.
Next, she was introduced to the rest of the team; Jason was the leader. Jim, another young guy, was with him. Candy was a big tough girl, who clearly wasn't shy about smacking some heads together.
Guy was covered head to toe in tattoos and was the team sketcher. Finally, there was Eric, who didn't say much at all and creeped her the fuck out with the way he looked at her. Even if all the others said, he was harmless.
She also learned what she would be doing. Apparently, there was some massive underground city that they would be exploring. For some reason, tech didn't work down there, so everything had to be done by hand.
Which was a big enough task without the dangers that lurked down there. Apparently, just touching the stone with your bare skin could turn you into some kind of zombie.
Which only some rare and special people would avoid, someone like her. Due to many other teams being careless when they dug out collapsed hallways, plenty of these zombies were walking around. And with tech not working, they were dangerous.
This is why each team working down there was given a special person since they could apparently order the zombies around so they could work in peace.
Their task was simple enough: map out the entire place and dig through collapsed halls, which risked flooding, to find new areas to map and explore.
…
The following day, Skye and her new team were escorted through a series of heavy-duty blast doors and into an elevator that descended deep into the earth. The air grew cooler and more humid as they went down, and the walls of the shaft turned from concrete to ancient stone.
While everything had been pretty damn high-tech until now, the elevator was a far cry from everything else, little more than a wooden box with some rope and an engine up top. Everything meant to move down was primitive.
As she looked around the so-called ancient alien city, she couldn't help but be rather disappointed. Everything was covered up, and wood and plastic covered every inch of the place. Chemical lights gave the area a creepy feeling.
Something that wasn't helped by the collars around their neck. Apparently, these freaks that had captured her strapped everyone with fucking bomb collars. And since this city stopped them from working, they instead used some unstable chemical ones.
Jason turned to Skye, his expression serious. "Alright, Skye. This is where you come in. You've got the gene that lets you control these zombies. We'll be relying on you to keep them off our backs while we work."
Skye nodded, trying to keep her fear in check. "I'll do my best."
The team moved forward, and Skye could feel the weight of their expectations pressing down on her. Though at the same time, she couldn't help but be disappointed with his whole effort, she had honestly expected something like that from Tomb Raiders.
Instead, she got this boring wooden maze to work through. At least there was zombies, though they didn't look like dead people at all.
If anything, they looked like their group, people in bright orange jumpsuits limping through the halls. Though their eyes were a dead giveaway that something was wrong.
She had been nervous the first time a few stumbled their way, but under the urging from the others, she had just told them to stop. And those zombie-like people had frozen.
After that, it really was boring work. She couldn't help but wonder if they would be doing something more interesting soon. The others mentioned their last specific person who went mad with power.
He had tried to gather an army of zombies or SCP-1255-1 entities. He had attacked other teams and turned them into more of his servants. They had only survived by fleeing the moment he started going crazy.
In the end, his plans to use the zombies to get his freedom failed; the collar around his neck ended his life like it would everyone if they didn't get them removed in time. Something that meant that getting lost down here was a bad idea.
It was dangerous work and it didn't even pay anything. She couldn't help but grumble and cruse, which at least helped her get along better with the others since they all shared the fact that they hated their captures.
Not that Skye would ever consider these as good people, they had all done things before that had landed them in prison or should have and just landed them here instead. While she was a hacker and broke the law a lot, at least she didn't have blood on her hands.
------------------------
[SITE-019]
Within the fortified halls of Site-19, there was a standard humanoid containment cell containing SCP-049, the infamous plague doctor. It was a relatively safe object to contain, merely having a Euclid rating. SCP-049 was generally cooperative enough as long as his demands were met, which were thankfully nothing more extreme than a few animal carcasses. However, there was no doubt that his recent little wandering into a high-security Site hadn't jeopardized this little luxury of his.
Everyone wished to know how he accomplished it, as he shouldn't have any abilities to allow him to teleport or go around unnoticed. After all, this was the 21st century. It had been a long time since people dressed as plague doctors hadn't been considered conspicuous as they moved around. So far, he had refused to elaborate on his methods, which had apparently been enough to push someone important to ask the questions in person.
It is not normally something that was allowed, and people with security clearance rank 4 were not allowed to interact with SCP objects, much less a dangerous humanoid one. However, rules are dead and people are alive, at least until they have been touched by SCP-049.
A small army of security personnel had arrived from off-site to ensure that everything was handled appropriately. The staff of Site-19 didn't know who was coming to visit since the entire section of the site they would be moving through was sealed off temporarily to ensure their secrecy and safety.
The SCP object itself was moved out of its containment cell into an interview chamber, something it agreed to easily enough. The interview chamber had been filled with lavenders, both fresh and distilled essence filling the air. The aroma of lavender was overpowering, to the point that many of the security personnel had opted to use masks. However, it was well known that the scent of lavender calmed the entity, and as such, no amount of the smell was spared.
"The ETA for the principal's arrival is 5 minutes," one of the security personnel said as the rest of them rushed to ensure that everything was perfect and that they could properly protect them.
It was, however, nothing but a sham. There would be no real danger, as they all knew that the man they were tasked with protecting, Putin, was actually here in person; they were merely here for appearances' sake.
The last few minutes passed quickly, and out of the empty space appeared a dark silhouette. Even though the room was well-lit, the darkness of that person's suit just seemed to absorb the light around it, casting them in a perpetual shadow.
"Greetings, doctor. I have been looking forward to meeting you," O5-1, Alexander Ricci, said as he projected himself into the room.
The plague doctor paused and looked at him curiously as if confused about something. "What are you?" the SCP object finally asked.
The question did not come as a surprise, as Alexander was well aware that the object could see more than most people could. The full extent of his ability was not well understood, but he could see something in people that concerned life and death.
It was curious how it would respond to seeing him in person, given that he wielded Solomon's two rings of life and death, which granted him enormous power over those two concepts. But at least while in this state, the entity knew that something was not right since it clearly couldn't see or judge whether he was infected by whatever plague it had taken upon itself to cure.
"I am merely a projection of myself, so I'm afraid I couldn't be here in person. I am a rather busy man, so I'm sure you understand. You yourself are doing important work," Alexander explained and then deflected.
"Yes, yes, my work is very important, and I understand that yours is too, which is why I agreed to this meeting. I am hoping that you can allow me to better continue my research. It's quite important, I'm sure you understand."
Alexander had also expected that, as he knew that the entity had not been given any carcasses recently since it had refused to reveal how it appeared within Site-009.
"You help me, I will help you. I simply wish to know how you appeared in that gathering of doctors," Alexander made a vague promise before asking the questions he so desired answered.
"Well, you were gathering the best of the best, so I figured I might as well show up myself and offer my services, though clearly you did not desire such," the entity explained while answering nothing.
"The procedure that was carried out there had little to do with pathogens and disease, so it was not quite your area of expertise. I am curious as to how you ended up there after all, you weren't invited," Alexander continued to press while making sure to offer up some empty flattery.
However, no matter how he continued to ask the question, no matter what empty promises he offered, SCP-049 remained silent on the matter, constantly deflecting away. It was infuriating and unexpected since so far there had been few records of the entity refusing to speak up, at least about anything not directly linked to his work, and even then, the entity always mentioned that it was connected to his work in some way.
So what could possibly be the reason for this unexpected secrecy? Did the entity possess the ability to teleport and had just kept it secret so far? It was unlikely but a possibility. Though since it had not used this ability to leave containment even during rough patches where its demands weren't met, perhaps it needed some kind of catalyst, some kind of gathering of elite doctors? While strange, it would hardly be out of place in the world of SCP objects and their random abilities and attributes.
In the end, Alexander just had to conclude that he couldn't get a straight answer and ended the interview, though he still planned to figure out that answer. He clearly needed a different approach; perhaps he lacked some SCP object that would get the doctor to speak.
A/N
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