The familiar sculpture stood in the corner of its cell, pressed against the wall. Nothing new. But what camera footage had presented sent a shiver down several researcher's spines. Between camera distortions the object would back up and come forward towards its cell door. The sounds of loud banging and horrid screeching and scratching, like nails on a chalkboard, came from the monster while it was too far off for the camera to see. Everyone knew exactly what it was trying to do.
"It's trying to get out..." P stood up. The Safe class specialist looked to his colleague, the O5 specialized in Euclid studies.
"Was there any other strange behavior prior to this?" She looked at the man currently in charge of 173's containment, Dr. Victor Blanks.
"According to the log the guards keep on this thing, the cell's been silent for the past three weeks."
"And no one thought to tell the acting supervisor?" O crossed her arms.
"He brushed it off as nothing but the thing trying to escape." Blanks responded.
"Typical newbie." P butted in. "This is pure aggression."
"Send in three D-Class. That cell needs cleaning." They looked at her.
"And if it is aggression?"
"I guess we'll find out then, now won't we? One bridge at a time." The two watched her leave and heard her mutter under her breath. "Men. So impatient."
"You do realize it's only because we want results, right?" O couldn't hold back the annoyed groan that fled her lips in that moment.
"You're the last person I want to see right now. What do you want?" She glared at the masked man.
"I came to see the status of SCP-173."
"You're the Keter specialist." She narrowed her eyes. "Obviously you came for something else or another reason entirely. No one can be sure of you since everyone knows you've killed more people than Ted Bundy and still haven't been punished for it. That which you do say could very well be a lie. Now, why don't you go play with your little bodyguards, Keter-boy?"
Dr. O brushed past him, knocking his shoulder. He didn't flinch but ended up rubbing his shoulder. Like him, O didn't mean to be so brutal at times but her excuse was the fact she was much taller and heavy handed. Candice saw her commander walk past her and wanted to say something but her face read rage. Looking back she saw Dr. Cool and sighed. "Sir, with all due respect, you seem like the type who enjoys badgering people but dislikes being pestered himself."
Cool chuckled at the white-blonde girl. "Very observant of you, Agent."
Candice gave him a wistful look, staring for a moment, before she continued down the hall. Cool watched her before shaking his head and heading back to their office. Candice was more focused on talking to several researchers about a strange trend she'd started to notice. What researchers? Her teammates.
There was a soft chatter around the table all members of Alpha-6 were sitting at it. Candice walked in and all fell silent as she dropped several folders, the papers and documents scattering around. A dark skinned male with chocolate hair, freckles, and bright green eyes looked at her. "What's all this?"
"Report 173-6-2-2016." Agent Bomb read out. Another girl, hair blonde with a single piece dyed silver and deep sapphire eyes read another paper. "Report 682-5-16-16."
"Report 999-5-27-2016."
"Are you all seeing the trend like I am?" Candice asked.
"The behavior is changing. 173's becoming more aggressive, 682 appears to be a bit more mellow to a degree, and even 999 is acting different..."
"You're thinking it's something anomalous?" Kayla piped up.
"Exactly. That's only explanation." Candice nodded.
Jacob Daalmans, a boy with bright green eyes, dark skin, and chocolate brown locks that were dyed in a rainbow around the bangs, spoke up. "But with anomalous creatures like these, it could be literally any kind of phenomena that we're not familiar with."
"Which is why I need you guys' help in finding any evidence so it can be presented to O5." Candice stood up and looked around.
"Log 408-5-18-2016. SCP-408 too?" Agent Bomb flipped through the notes. "If 408's acting strangely then our best bet would be to ask Kondraki about it."
"999 is a Safe-Class capable of communicating with humans to a degree. Asking him might help provide some handy knowledge." Kayla added.
"Log 106-11-13-14? 106 too?" Bomb looked at her.
"Let's just be general and say that most, if not all SCPs are changing their behavioral patterns and we don't have a clue as to why."
"But why though?" The frustrating game of Clue continued on amongst the team members until Candice simply could not stand the headache that had formed any longer. Now it was just her and Alex.
They had to find something...
"The view is quite lovely." O barely held the groan that wanted to escape her lips. Could she get no peace?
"Are you going to follow me everywhere I go?" O turned to face the masked O5. He was smirking, she could see it. She glared and tried to walk past him when he failed to give a response but he stopped her, a gloved hand gripping her arm.
"Where are you going now?" She didn't even turn to look at him and he only barely caught her words as she hissed out.
"As far away from you as humanly possible in a site like this." He gently pulled her back, catching her in his arms before she fell back too far. The deathly glare she gave him was met with a smug and somewhat seductive glint in his familiar chocolate eyes. "Oh come now, I can't be that bad, can I?"
"Oh yes, yes you can." She raised her hand and flicked his mask, making him flinch a bit. "I'd feed you to 682 if the council didn't need you."
He let her go and watched her stand up and brush herself off before gently gripping her chin and tugging her down to his level. She growled, disliking how touchy he was being. He felt her giving off that dangerous aura again. He didn't mind though. He liked it actually. He liked pushing her temper to this point. It gave his thrill-seeking mind a challenge. Her fists trembled slightly, a rush of adrenaline bursting into her veins as she barely held back the urge to punch him. Few managed to bring her to this dangerous edge which she called the end of her temper but Dr. Cool seemed to get a little kick out of doing so. With a rough shove she managed to push the male away and stormed past him, knocking his shoulder on the way. Even here, in the small "garden" area the site had, filled with lush vegetation, flowers, and fauna where one could go and relax when they had the time, the most peaceful place on the site, she could get no peace. Cool was determined to aggravate her as much as he could. He was such a child at times. She was in no way amused however. He chuckled as he watched her go but didn't follow this time. He had to check on his Mobile Task Force.
He hummed a tune to himself as he walked into the training area. Alpha-6 had just left after a game of football. He smirked to himself at the sight of his proud Mobile Task Force but furrowed his brow a bit. Two people were missing.
Candice sighed softly as she rummaged through the documents. Alex sat next to her with a cup of coffee. "Still nothing?"
Her groan of frustration gave him the only answer he needed. The redhead placed a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder. "Don't worry, Candy. Something will turn up eventually, I'm sure of it."
"It makes no sense. They're all related somehow, we know this, but without even the slightest form of a cause or even how they're connected we're better off having nothing." Candice ran her fingers through her white-blond hair and glanced at another paper before tossing it aside. The sudden clearing of a throat caught both of their attention. The woman in the doorway had dirty blond hair and blue eyes that seemed like they'd belong to a predator. A young predator at that. Her black jumpsuit, white shirt, and ballistic vest, topped with the black jack boots and mask she was holding in her gloved right hand gave away that she was with Alpha-1. That is, if the insignia on her ID card didn't already.
"Bertha?" A light bulb flickered in Candy's head as she realized why the face looked so familiar. This was Alpha-1's second in command and Dr. Cool's number one bodyguard. Bertha Wolfgang. The woman walked over, dropping her mask on the table and plopping herself down into a chair. Alex shuddered. Candice almost immediately realized that he was scared of her and her blood grew hot with anger.
"Agent White told me about what you're up to." She narrowed her eyes at Candice. Candice gave a half-annoyed glare back, trying to hide the sudden dread that was dripping into her stomach. Alex took a short step back. Bertha trained first-hand with Dr. Cool and Candice was too fast to be hit. If they somehow managed to get into a fight from this sudden tension it would be the unstoppable force meets the immovable object. What shocked them both was the file that Bertha dropped in front of them.
"I had to do a bit of digging and managed doing so without attracting the Doctor's attention, here." Candice picked out one of the files. "This is a log of every Keter class' behavior in the last year."
"So you noticed the changes too."
"Difficult not to when it's all your commander talks about."
That caught Candice's attention. "Cool's aware of this?"
"Naturally. He hasn't let on to the council the strange pattern but I'm guessing P and O noticed it as well." Bertha looked at the woman. "Unfortunately, as close to him as I am, I'm still unsure of why he wouldn't tell the council."
Candice gave her an odd look. "Isn't it obvious?"
"What do you mean?"
"12's attracted too much attention from the O5 council and the Ethics Committee for his past crimes. No evidence has come to light, but we all know he's responsible. You should know this, Wolfgang." Candice narrowed her eyes. "You've helped him get away with it."
Bertha said nothing and after a moment Candice continued. "He wouldn't tell the council unless he wanted something done and while he does want something done, he, like us, doesn't have enough evidence to prove these incidents are linked. The council won't do anything without express evidence. They've had just too many mishaps from a lack of proof."
"We have proof." All three looked towards the doorway and saw Dr. P standing there, a laptop clutched under his right arm. He took a seat among them, moving some papers. "I knew something was going on. O insisted on experimenting but this confirms my suspicions."
Bertha looked at him. "You knew about Dr. Cool's theory?"
Candice gawked. "You knew we were sniffing about?"
P adjusted his tie. "Correction, I had heard snips among the MTF teams of strange behavior in SCPs and began digging in to it, asking questions. Within a few hours I started reading documents, logs on objects. I asked O about it and she filled me in on what she knew. The 173 incident gave me the last piece I needed. She and I have been staying up the past few night and digging through private servers. That's when we found this. He opened the laptop, tapping for several seconds before moving it so all three could see the screen. It was a private chat between two members.
CIA3441: Good to hear from you.
AGEVB: I have news.
AGEVB: The software is working effectively. The hardware is just strong enough to handle it.
CIA3341: Excellent. How many are left?
AGEVB: According to my calculations, there are approximately 192 left.
CIA3341: We're making good progress. Keep it up.
[END OF LOG]
"Short and sweet. But abnormal software should only be able to work on SCPs like 079." Alex crossed his arms. Candice gripped the document in her hand, a light switching on.
"Obviously it's not, and whoever this is is getting the exact effect they want." P stated.
"Wait... That correlates with... On February 21st of 2016 at 13:45, SCP-999 began to make a whining noise and appeared to be clutching its "head". A scientist was sent in to question it, claiming that upon examination, 999 appeared to be on the verge of tears. Upon questioning, SCP-999 stated that that there was "a loud sound that was making its head hurt". The scientist asked 999 to describe the sound and analysis claimed it similar to a dog whistle."
Dr. P grabbed another paper. "On March 19th of 2016, SCP-682 began showing signs of extreme aggression, flailing in its containment cell. Breach restraints were successfully placed on the lizard. Upon questioning, SCP-682 demanded the scientist disarm whatever machine was creating that "wretched noise". When the scientist explained there was no sound being played, 682 countered, claiming it sounded like a chainsaw and nails on a chalkboard.
Candice looked at P. "Run a full scan of site security for malware, recent downloads and data transfers."
P agreed and loaded a full list of all hidden and unhidden Foundation documents within the last several years. A ding from the laptop indicated that the history had been completely retrieved. "Now filter it for sound files."
The three watched the screen as all sound files uploaded and downloaded to the database were revealed. One caught Bertha's eyes immediately. She pointed to one that didn't have the same small icon as all the others. "That one's encrypted."
Dr. P hooked up his onion router and encryption bypassing software and opened the file within a matter of moments before loading the audio into his playback software. He played the file and all three listened. At first they heard nothing but several seconds later, Candice groaned and rubbed her temple. It was bothering her. She could hear whispers in her ear. They sounded ominous. A mix of kind, pleasing, sweet, threatening, evil. Some sang softly, some complimented her. Some were aggressive, threatening to hurt her. That was when the chainsaw started. It revved like it was right in her ear, and she could hear tortured screams as it began to sound muffled, like it was cutting into something soft but thick. It faded and the screams died down, now being replaced by the sound of what she could only assume was a dog howling in agony. A dog whistle pierced her ear drums and made her cringe as it amplified in volume. She was horrified at what came next. The sound of tools being sharpened, yelling, squealing, the screaming of a child. She covered her ears and looked at the other three, wondering how they weren't absolutely horrified. But they couldn't hear it. That was when voices began to whisper dangerously loudly, "It was you". Candice suddenly screamed, making all three jump as she fell to the floor. Dr. P stopped the audio and immediately went with Alex to help her up.
"Why did you-"
"That audio... They're using it somehow to stir up aggression and other abnormal behavior. I could hear it..." Dr. P's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered. That was right. Candice was an SCP. SCP-3015. Whatever this was it was specially programmed to target anomalies, specifically SCPs. Meaning something outside of the Foundation was behind this. Whatever it was, it was intelligent. But it was also someone within the Foundation.
"I'm taking her to the Psychology department." Alex looked at the O5. P nodded and watched them leave before turning back to Bertha. "I'm going to do more research on this. Make sure Cool stays out of this, and, as much as I hate to ask this of her, deliver Dr. O a message for me. Tell her to try and manipulate Cool's attention as much as she can. Keep him out of this as long as she can or at least until I see fit."
Bertha raised a brow. "Why though? Cool can handle the knowledge."
"It's not handling the knowledge that I'm worried about. Knowing Cool, he's going to try and take this little evidence to a problem we're just scratching the surface of and try running it to the council for approval to kill someone. People are going to die. Innocent people. Cool's still young and reckless, even if he is an O5." P placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. "We all know 12 has his heart in the right direction and wants to do what's good and what will benefit all of humanity rather than a small percentage of it. The trouble arises in how he goes about it. He's too misguided and I guarantee it's because of the 682 incident. Please Bertha, no matter what he says, he's still young and still so naïve in his own stubborn ways. Protect him and teach him that doing what's best for everyone may not always be what's best for himself."
Bertha looked into the slightly older male's ice blue eyes, recognizing the shine of someone who'd seen love and loss, coupled with a tired glint and friendly familiarity, and nodded. "Yes, sir."
From outside the room, the masked male pulled his ear away from the door. He had all he needed to know and more. Perhaps too much more...