2027
.01 ASSIGNMENT
So this is the life of a B-Class.
Mianna's brother's words echoed in her head as she looked around the suite she'd been brought to. Unlike the intern's dorms she'd been previously living in, B-Class living spaces had windows, furniture, and were nicely decorated. It looked, in all aspects, like a hotel room, the kind she'd stayed at while at conferences in training for the SCP program. She had brought only a small bag with her, which she set on the bed.
"Dr. Skyroko, they'll want you to report for your first assignment," the guard who'd escorted her said from the door.
"Yes," she replied, letting out a shaky breath. "I'm coming." She turned and tried not to look as nervous as she felt. Outside her room, it was back to the cold, bright, windowless white halls of the facility. She walked with her escort to the elevator, where she waited in awkward silence as they descended to the research facility. She looked over at her escort. He looked to be in his late forties, tall and well-muscled, with dark brown hair graying at his temples, a severe expression, and a multitude of scars across his face. He looked vaguely familiar.
Old for a guard, usually they didn't last that long.
Mianna tried not to dwell on that thought as she remembered her brother was being promoted to a B-Class guard position, and her a B-Class scientist. They always assign B-Class personnel to Keter detail, she remembered miserably. But at least the scientists don't usually get killed.
They stepped off the elevator as they reached their floor, and Mianna walked into the crowded, brightly lit room, where a stack of reports of varying thickness were laid out on tables across the room, the guards and scientists peering curiously at them. Each cover had a color and a classification, along with the SCP's number. SCP's classified as Safe were harmless, or even beneficial, and sported a green cover on their report. Euclid was a class of potential danger, marked with yellow, and while Euclids could be terrifying, they were less prone to causing the deaths of the personnel assigned to them.
But the room was, for the most part, a sea of red reports.
Keter class.
Keters were the most dangerous, prone to attacking without provocation, filled with murderous intent, responsible for the deaths of thousands upon thousands of facility personnel. Some were viruses, some were monsters, some were portals to alternate dimensions which consumed a person and spit them out in pieces. Mianna was not feeling optimistic about the next few months.
The room began to segregate into guards and scientists, but Mianna's brother, Cullyn, had made his way over to her side. He smiled reassuringly, slinging his rifle over his back. He had already been outfitted in full body armor, and his wavy brown hair cropped close to his scalp – they'd want him to begin his duties immediately after he was assigned.
"Hey, sis," he said in greeting, stopping in front of her. "Nervous?"
"Yes," she blurted, frowning deeply.
He mussed up her hair, which she tried not to look too irritated about. "Don't be. It's only for a few months. And things rarely go wrong with researchers."
"But what about guards?" she asked worriedly.
He shrugged. "I'll be fine." Somehow, she thought he looked excited. "Alright, looks like they're assigning us. I'll see you later." He walked back to the guard's section with spring in his step, and took his place at the front of the room. The guard who'd escorted Mianna there stood at the podium, and suddenly, she realized where he'd seen him.
"Good afternoon," the man said gruffly into the microphone. "My name is Brunhart Nadmocnost, I am an A-Class personnel, twenty-seventh year. I have been on Keter detail for fifteen collective years, and twelve of those years have been guarding SCP-682."
Hushed gasps and murmurs moved through the crowd of researchers and guards. SCP-682 was perhaps one of the most well-known Keter class SCPs. It was a grotesque reptilian creature, nearly a thousand feet in length, and two hundred feet in height, and could regenerate any damage done to its body, even being completely submerged in hydrochloric acid. Worse still, it was highly intelligent and could speak.
When it did speak, though, it was only about murdering any living thing that crossed its path. It had broken out of containment several times, and was responsible for the vast majority of facility deaths.
Mianna had to fight back her inner scientist. Oh, would it ever be fascinating to study, though.
"Guarding Keter class SCPs is serious work. Some of you will be assigned to Safe or Euclid detail, and you should thank your lucky stars if you are. For the rest of you, you will need to stay in tip-top shape both mentally and physically, you will need to take your job seriously, and you will be trusted with highly sensitive information. You will have to work hard to save the lives of not only yourselves, but your fellow personnel." He smiled grimly. "And in the event of a containment breach, all ranks cease to matter, and we must work together as a unit. Even the D-Class."
D-Class personnel were the lowlifes of the foundation, mostly used as meatshields and test subjects to test the effects of various SCPs. Most were prisoners on death row, but some had been taken into the facility after even minor criminal offenses because the foundation realized they had no family or friends to report them missing.
"With that said, I'll begin the assignment." He looked down, reading from a list. "Hamlin, SCP-096."
Mianna listened to him continue to read off names, but she was fairly certain she heard the first young man whose name had been called dissolve into weeping. "No," she heard faintly over the announcment of names. "You know what they've said it's done..."
"Don't worry about it, just don't look at it, okay? Everyone says it's fine if you don't look at it..."
"Yorke, SCP-049. Branco, SCP-515. Rosenfield, SCP-173. Kraus, SCP-106..."
The list went on, and the guards all looked significantly more nervous as they learned their assignments. Mianna waited anxiously, and didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until-
"Skyroko, SCP-682."
She couldn't keep herself from gasping and looking over at Cullyn. He'd blanched, and suddenly looked as though someone had handed him a death sentence. They practically had.
When all the names had been read off, the guards started back out the door, more solemnly than they had initially. Cullyn tried to give Mianna the same reassuring smile he had when he'd first seen her, but this time it came out more of a pained grimace. She watched him go with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and hoped she'd get to see him before his formal training started.
Meanwhile, Mianna noted that the researchers had started to convene, and she rushed over to join them. The man that stepped up to their podium was tall and thin, with slicked-back black hair and sharp green eyes that regarded the group of young researchers curiously. He also seemed to be sizing them up. He reminded Mianna of a snake.
"Hello, scholars. Some of you may already know me, I am A-Class Lucien Kuloth, fiftieth year..."
Mianna's eyes widened. The doctor didn't even look fifty, much less old enough to have worked in the facility fifty years.
"I have been researching Keter-class SCPs for thirty years. The majority of my research has been on SCP-2023, but I have worked with SCP-106, SCP-682, and many others, as well. Ours is a pursuit of knowledge. Guards are there to contain, but we exist to learn, to glean what knowledge we can from the unusual menagerie of objects at our disposal. With that, I will announce your assignments."
682, Mianna thought hurriedly. I can be with Cullyn.
"Gaskill, SCP-2299. Whately, SCP-734. Kanter, SCP-106. Skyroko, SCP-2027."
Disappointed, Mianna let her shoulders slump as she stepped over to pick up the file for SCP-2027. She had never heard of it, but it was in the 2000 range, which meant it was fairly new to the facility, sometime in the last 25 years.
As the doctor continued calling out names, she thumbed through the "general information" section of the report, glancing it over, but freezing at the first two words in the description-
Sapient. Humanoid.
Humanoids were perhaps the most terrifying of any SCP. There was nothing human about most of them, they were grotesque, twisted caricatures that perhaps resembled humans, but they were not human. And sapient meant it'd most likely be able to speak, which was even more unsettling. She sighed and snapped the folder shut, knowing she'd have images in the file to prepare her for seeing it the next day.
At least it was only for a few months.
If she made it that long.
It was dark by the time Mianna had made it back from the orientation to her room, and she flopped onto her bed with a sigh, pulling out the hair tie that held her curly, waist-length chestnut hair in a ponytail. She still had the file in hand, and reached over to turn on her bedside lamp before opening it. She glanced over the first page again.
SCP-2027
Object Class: Keter
Sapient, Humanoid
SCP-2027 MUST BE DECOMMISSIONED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. Until this can be achieved, the links between SCP-2027 and SCP-2023 are to be exhaustively investigated.
Mianna made a face at the decommission order. The only SCPs that were ordered decommissioned immediately were extremely dangerous. SCP-682 was one of the highest decommission orders. As she read on, she remembered that Dr. Kuloth had claimed to have spent most of his time at the facility researching SCP-2023, and vowed to ask him about it if she saw him again. She looked down to the next section.
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-2027 is to be contained in a 10m x 10m x10m cell which is to be lit from all angles, including the floor. Light panels must also be installed on the backside of the cell door and stairsteps leading into the cell. If SCP-2027 is allowed into shade or darkness of any kind it rapidly gains physical strength and becomes aggressive.
She let out a sigh, relieved that her work area would be well-lit... if perhaps too well-lit. She was not terribly interested in reading the physical description, and simply turned to the section with photo documentation, expecting to see something horrific.
She was disappointed in that regard.
The first picture looked like a mugshot, and the face that looked back at her appeared... entirely human. A young man, with sharp, angular – Mianna might have gone so far as to even say handsome – features, bearing an expression Mianna found hard to read, somewhere between mild annoyance and plotting how to kill the photographer. His hair was long and wild, falling in jagged layers over his shoulders, and though the picture was in black and white, she assumed it was red from his pale skin and the multitude of freckles covering his face.
Well, she thought, relaxing slightly, he might be dangerous, but at least he's not hard to look at.
She mentally scolded herself on realizing how ridiculous that sounded, and sighed. Her mind wandered back to Cullyn.
He'll be looking at 682 all day for the next few months...
Mianna looked through a few more pages of the file, specifically searching for a containment breach associated with this SCP. There were pages upon pages of interaction reports, which she decided to read through later, as it might give her useful information on how to speak to it. Mianna grew more relieved, but also felt more guilty, when she found no documentation of a containment breach in the file. She remembered that 682 had escaped containment more than any other object on the facility.
She jumped and shut the file when there came a knock at the door. "Come in," she said, her voice too high with nervousness.
Cullyn stepped in the door in sweatpants and a t-shirt, and she leaned back against the headboard of her bed and motioned him over. "They aren't starting you tonight?"
He shook his head and scratched at what was left of his hair, sitting down on the end of the bed. "No, but we did get to go look at it for today."
Mianna let out an anxious breath. "And?"
Cullyn shrugged, smirking slightly. "It's huge. And lacking significantly in the 'cute and cuddly' department, let's just say that." He sighed. "My bunkmate from the C-Class barracks was assigned to SCP-999. God, can you imagine? Whose ass must he had to have had to kiss for that?"
She gave a laugh, but it was mostly humorless. "Probably a lot of them... Or he's so incompetent they don't trust him on Keter or Euclid detail. But they usually demote those to D-Class. He must be an A-Class's kid, or something." Mianna thought back to when she'd first started off as a researcher. SCP-999 was one of the first SCPs the young researchers were introduced to, probably to lull them into a false sense of security.
It was a Safe class, a gelatinous mass of translucent orange slime which caused immediate euphoria in anyone who touched it. She'd heard rumors the stuff had even managed to subdue SCP-682 for a brief period of time, but the effect had not lasted. In terms of assignments, guarding SCP-999 was probably the safest job available in the facility. Mianna sighed heavily, cursing her and Cullyn's luck.
"Oh," he said suddenly, tapping the file in her hands. "You didn't even tell me what you got." He noted the red cover with a frown, and she flipped it open.
"SCP-2027," she said, turning the file toward him so he could see the first page.
"Sapient humanoid," he read with a furrowed brow and a frown. "So you're going to have to talk to it, then, and I bet it looks fucking horrific."
"Actually, he looks fairly normal," Mianna informed him, turning to the photograph documentation section.
"'He'?" Cullyn regarded the picture with a frown and looked back to his sister. "It's not a 'he', Mianna, it's an 'it'. SCPs aren't humans, they're not even animals, they're objects."
"Some of them are," she said, a little taken aback at her brother's logic. "But there's certainly SCPs I think we could consider somewhat human-"
Cullyn cut her off. "Not Keter classes."
She looked down after a moment with a sigh. "No, probably not Keter classes."
Cullyn flipped through the rest of the file, glancing it over, seeing exactly what Mianna had just seen. "Well, it's never caused a breach. That's good."
Mianna frowned and took the file, setting it on her bedside table next to the lamp and looking back to Cullyn. "What about 682, though?"
Cullyn shrugged. "Well, the common factor for every breach 682 has caused is that they were doing some major experimentation on it and something went wrong. But the research department doesn't have anything big planned that we know of yet, so I should be alright. The Captain seems-"
"The Captain?" Mianna raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, Brunhart, the head guard. We call him Captain. Anyway, he seems to know what he's doing, so I figure I'm in good hands."
Mianna finally smiled, looking somewhat relaxed that Cullyn was comfortable enough to refer to his fellow guards as "we", and that he seemed to trust his supervisor. "How are the B-Class barracks?"
"Well, I've got my own room," Cullyn said, returning the smile. He looked around. "Nothing like this, obviously, but it's nice to have some privacy."
"Yeah, it is," Mianna agreed, remembering a few days prior when she'd been jammed into tight quarters with fifty other young researchers, and no walls between them.
Cullyn stood. "Well, I'll leave you to it," he said, walking to the door. "We've both got an early morning tomorrow. I'll see you for dinner, maybe."
Mianna nodded. "I'll see you then." Cullyn shut the door behind him and she finally stepped over to the dresser to unpack her bag. She had only four outfits and two pairs of pajamas, but she imagined they'd let her get some new things now that she'd been promoted. Her work clothes, consisting of a sweater, a skirt, and a lab coat, were uncomfortable, and it was a welcome relief to change into her track shorts and a sweater. She'd gotten workout clothes for the days she'd actually had time to go to the facility gym, but by now, they'd all been converted to pajamas.
After setting her alarm for 6 am – late, she was used to waking before 5 am – she slid into bed under the covers, cautiously, still not quite feeling ownership of anything in the room. The bed was too new, it was uncomfortable, her bed in the C-Class quarters had been slept in so much there was an indent she fit comfortably in.
Nevertheless, she rolled over, closed her eyes, and tried to fall asleep, worrying over how tomorrow would go.