Researchers Bateson and Smith knew a fight was coming. At this point, it was obviously inevitable. Two inductees who sat four rows from the front were muttering at each other. Honestly, it shouldn't come as a surprise, especially considering the bulk of the crowd sitting before an empty projector screen was composed of life sentences and death row inmates. The violent, the vulgar, the vile, and everything in between from terrorists to serial child molesters all taken in. The state was always glad to offhand a couple of the more troublesome prisoners in their facilities to The Foundation. And of these wretches, two former associates were placed next to each other in the seating arrangements.
Whichever Foundation staffer in charge of filtering and designing the charts that arranged their seating was probably going to have a stern discussion. Very little beyond a verbal warning for allowing a potential altercation to occur, but still very stressful for the clerk. Punishments range from the menial to demotion to Keter Duty. There were even a few instances of researchers winding up on the inductee floor themselves, but that was exceedingly rare.
Bateson and Smith were currently the two staffers who will lead the "Orientation for New D-Class Personnel", set to begin in about 15 minutes. However, the rapidly escalating issue between D-Classes 40293 and 40284 would cause a serious disruption to the flow of the event, especially considering how the schedule was already packed as it was; Bateson and Smith had to push through four more assemblies after this one. Smith turned to Bateson, "Do you think we should shuffle the seats?"
Without looking up from the notes on the members of crowd, Bateson replied "I believe just a reprimand should keep them in line. If not, we can have one of the security personnel pull them aside and I'll deal with them."
The two men in the crowd were slowly becoming more and more agitated. Their bodies were tensing, and while it wasn't physical yet, they both were slowly increasing in volume and beginning to shake fists. Apparently, they each believed the other to be responsible for them both having been imprisoned and thus in this facility.
Smith twiddled his thumbs at the response, "I'd prefer for there not to be a scene. It'd push us behind schedule, and we've already got our necks in the wringer. With no new humanoid anomalies for several months, we've gotta keep Johanson happy or we get our pay cut for a lack of productivity."
Bateson assuaged him, "I assure you, even if it comes to that, they will be dealt with swiftly." With Bateson's reply, he turned on the microphone. He then tapped the mouthpiece, a loud reverb sounding through the room. "D-40293 and D-40284. You are both threatening to push this whole orientation behind schedule. If you can't sit still and keep your hands off of each other for ten more minutes and then the presentation, then you will be dealt with accordingly."
One of the men narrowed his eyes, but sunk into his seat, seemingly resigned. The other stared at Bateson for a moment. He was the one Bateson was worried about, considering he was physically larger than the other and had a more aggressive history of violence. Every eye in the room was on him as he stood up. He then suddenly shouted a very long steam of obscenities, and then pounced on his neighbor. The smaller man was quickly beat unconscious, and the larger was continuing to let fists fly. A security member waded through the crowd of people, and with the assistance of two other guards, pulled him off and dragged him to the side of the room.
The Researchers were about done with their shit. Smith said loud enough for everyone in the first several rows to hear, "So, we are now going to be running behind. You have forced us to go off script. Bateson, if you would."
Bateson wordlessly walked down the steps from the stage and towards the two guards who were restraining D-40293. Bateson then instructed them to hold him at his knees. Then, with the full attention of the auditorium, he drew his firearm and executed the man.
Every single inductee began to shout at once and move away from Bateson. Before the situation could get out of hand, Smith tapped the microphone. Another loud reverb echoed through the hall. He spoke calmly into the microphone, "Now. We have a no tolerance policy for fighting among inmates. You are all already condemned, so we lack any qualms about your deaths. We will not arbitrarily shoot any member of you for you are useful to us. Please, follow the rules and there won't be any problems."
Not a single member of the auditorium was relieved at those words, but most gradually settled down into their seats, nervously watching. None had believed that the automatic weapons the guards were holding were actually going to be used, a show of force to cow them. Demonstrations do wonders to dispel misconceptions like those.
Smith continued into the microphone, "We are going to accelerate our scheduled orientation such that we can remain on track." Pointing at one guard, and then another, "Would you please call janitorial staff to clean up D-40293? The body can be removed after this class is complete and filed in. And would you please carry D-40284 to the medical ward? He can get the flash cards version after he wakes up, it'd be a waste to have him fall through the cracks over this incident."
With the guards moving to carry out the given commands, Bateson dimmed the lights from the back of the room and pushed a button that unfurled a projector screen behind Smith, who walked to the side of the stage. The ceiling mounted projector turned on and ran through a few start-up processes. A light slowly flickered on then brightened over the screen.
An orange symbol appeared on a gray background, appearing to be two concentric circles. The inner one was slightly thicker than the outer one, with three equidistant arrows running a short way through it and pointing at the center. The outer circle was indented outwards, cupping around the end of the arrows. Beneath the logo in bolded lettering was the phrase "S.C.P. Secure, Contain, Protect". The screen flickered slightly, as if it were an aged VHS tape in spite of the fact that it was clearly entirely digital. As the screen stood still, a voice spoke out from loudspeakers embedded in the ceiling, "Hello and welcome to your SCP Foundation D-Class Orientation! We don't have all day, so please set aside your current understanding of things and be prepared to learn!"
The screen changed to a diagram with the letters of SCP laid out like bullet points with their acronym spelled out to the right. The voice gave an introductory explanation, "We here at The Foundation obtain, study, and secure strange objects. Those items that defy the explanation of our natural laws. Those strange places that seem as though they could exist nowhere in our world and yet do so. Those strange beings with powers and properties beyond comprehension. These things are called anomalies. Our priorities with them are first and foremost, to Secure, to Contain, and to Protect."
As the voice rattled on, a slideshow of images crossed the screen. At first, there was a grainy picture of a backcountry road which seemed to warp into the sky as the forest and pylons around it became ever thicker, a pair of headlights far down the road. Then, it transitioned to a video of a stress ball being tossed into a room, rapidly accelerating until it shattered through steel constraints and destroyed the video equipment. And finally, a young girl who seemed to be entirely made of Chinaware, stress eating an ornate teapot while sitting in a cell. Most of the crowd raised eyebrows, this seemed like lunacy. Most would scoff and leave at this point, but the rust red stain on the floor to their left swayed their better judgement. The janitors must have taken the body when no one was looking but made no effort to clean the blood.
The presentation marched on, "Our organization contains several different types of staff. The staff ranks that are relevant for you to know include: The Site Director, who is the head of the facility your group will be testing in! There are researchers, who will be giving you your orders during testing and will be like your direct boss most of the time. There are also security personnel, you can tell by their Kevlar and weaponry. They are fully trained, we assure you, so no funny ideas!"
The presentation droned on and on, bringing the new D-Class up to speed. Most of the information would not be retained by them, which did not matter too much. The section that actually pertained to them was coming up soon, and most of it was not necessary for them to know. Besides, they would either quickly get with the program or get caught in the teeth. It was rare for more than a handful to make it through their contracts at the end of a six-month period.
As the presentation droned on, many were zoning out as much as they could given the circumstances until something snapped back their attention, "And the last and lowest rank of staff in the employ of The Foundation, you all! The D-Class are the testing experts, the cleanup workers, and the unpaid hazard pay employees! You all will be kept in communal dorms and move together as a group, separate from the rest of the facility. The best piece of advice this organization offers you is 'Adapt Quickly!', and good luck with your stay here at The Foundation!"
The guards quickly shuffled out the crowd to their cells and began to move in the next group. Researchers Smith and Bateson passed the baton of duty to the next pair assigned to orientation and moved on themselves.
J. Jackson didn't do much at the foundation. He spends most days just watching atmospheric readings with UFC Fights on in another tab. The higherups didn't particularly care, it wasn't a prestigious position by any meaning of the word. He barely had more clearance than a janitor, his knowledge of Foundation activities went about as far as knowing that some low-level stuff happened with no details. But, as long as nothing slipped his notice, the higher ups didn't care. Jackson watched the two fighters go at it when an indicator blinked on. Tabbing over, something strange rolled across the monitor.
The screen was basically a geographical map of Florida and the Northern Caribbean. If sensors picked up any statistically significant deviations from the baseline readings, it would highlight a polygonal section of the map and selecting it would give further details. As Jackson glanced at it, an area stretching from the Everglades to Miami covering about 16000 square kilometers. That is certainly larger than most readings. Under his breath, "Ah, shit. Can't ignore that. What's up with South Florida today…?"
He tapped at a few readings. Every measurement, sans two, was within normal boundaries. There was also an indicator going off for "X-Readings", anything that was measured but is too difficult or unknown to categorize normally. He began to think about the data. For a three-hour period over the region, electrical charge in the atmosphere increased nearly triple fold. Additionally, Foundation webcrawlers detected a large uptick in internet searches related to lucid dreaming and related phenomenon. The X-Reading was some form of unidentified radiation which surged in the area. It resonated along mental and psionic channels but no effect on the population in the area was yet noted, if one existed at all.
Mumbling to himself, "I'd bet these are all just related to that squall line that rolled through, nasty electrical storms probably hit a wire somewhere. I outta call for eggheads just to be certain, but I doubt much'd come of this." He looked over the data for another half hour or so before rolling his chair over to a terminal near the front of the room. He typed up a low-priority call and sent off a request for staff.
"Did you have to shoot him? You could've just threatened him and left it at that." Smith twiddled with a stress ball as he sat in an office chair across the desk from his partner. The previous execution was bothering him.
"He already proved that he couldn't keep his hands to himself, even in a room full of armed guards. He would've been even worse when dealing with unpredictable anomalies." Bateson typed into a word document, preparing for the inevitable report explaining why the janitors had to scrape the floor off between orientation sessions.
"It's still a waste of resources, you've probably ensured us both a pay cut for the next few months."
"So be it. It's all part of the job description. When they pulled me out of the MARC, I didn't sign the forms to play nice. Anomalies are so much better to deal than corpses, and corpses are better than most people."
"Man, I could cut a boulder like hot butter with those words."
"I'm being hyperbolic, but the lack of humanoid anomalies for several months has my nerves at their ends. I should've let you handle it."
"Maybe. What's done's done." As Bateson finished speaking, a low priority alert flashed at the top of the second monitor. Text scrolled by, highlighted in green, asking for any researchers who were available to report to On-Site Monitor Station 4. These kinds of alerts rolled through every now and then, asking for scientific trained personnel if the people at the monitors were not able to figure something they picked up. Out of the thousands of incidents that had fallen under this, only a small handful ever actually amounted to anything. It was usually just some scientific effect that fell out the given monitor's experience.
To most researchers it was just a way to pick up an extra twenty bucks an hour when they had nothing better to do. Less than what they got when on-duty, but good pay, nevertheless. Smith rolled over and looked over the alert and commented "Isn't that station the atmospheric monitor? It's probably outside of our purview but they aren't typically picky. You have any plans for the next hour or so?"
Bateson rolled the idea around his mind for a moment or two before saving the document he was working on and sending a notice to the system that he and Smith would head down. "Alright, let's head over"
Smith entered the Monitor station and looked around. There were three computer setups for reading but only one was actually manned. A young Asian man had split his tabs on the screen, watching some money match on one side, several notifications blinking away on the other.
Smith rang out, "You called for more staff?" Bateson followed in the doorway briefly afterwards.
Jackson turned, "Ah yeah. Hey, welcome in. So, uh, I got some stuff here I wanted you all to take a look at…" He began to mess with the things on his desktop, closing the fight and a game of solitaire in the background. He shuffled windows around. Bateson and Smith just shared a glance with each other as he took his time.
Eventually, he got all the information pulled up then asked the pair, "Would you want me to explain the readings? Or, uh, would you just like a printout, or something? I personally think that lightning just fried a relay somewhere, transformer blew, something like that. A line of electrical storms went through the other day, and it caused some issues in Miami with power shortages."
They didn't want to be harsh with him, but the scientific side of things was evidently not his strong suit. Nearly in unison, "We'll just take the printout, thank you."
Sitting back in their office, Bateson flipped through copies of the measurements. Smith was searching for something on his terminal. They were double and triple checking just to ensure that nothing else was picked up that failed to be noted. Smith spoke first, "Well, I've been looking for the past hour and no requests for electrical repairs related to weather have been made for at least four months, so the monitor's theory is out the window. You have any explanations?"
Bateson made some noise approximating a grunt, "Well, it's certainly abnormal. Radiation spikes of any kind are always a big red flag, especially of the unknown variety. Honestly, I'm better with chemistry than physics, but I've still got a certain feeling regarding this whole thing."
"What do you mean?"
"Normally, I'd be quick to write this off as merely an anomalous incident, a footnote in a logbook somewhere. Radiation spikes happen a fair bit, not incredibly uncommon. The electrical charge is weird but honestly not anomalous in any way, there was a storm system in the area."
"Yeah, I've come to a similar conclusion. Bunch of nothing as always."
Bateson quickly interrupted, "No. I'm not so sure this time. I think you wrote something off that you shouldn't've."
Smith replies almost defensively, "You mean the web searches? Dude people look up random shit all the time, remember when they almost sent in a taskforce over some weird space men images that kept cropping up before they realized it was a weird Gen Z meme?"
"Yes, I am aware of internet culture. My issue is the location and the timing. The search uptick was regionalized entirely to Southern and Central Florida, as well as Grand Bahama and the Havana metro area. It almost made a circle. Additionally, the uptick became weaker the further out from the center you go. It isn't a natural appearing phenomenon."
Smith looked perplexed but flipped through his copy. He flipped through again. And again. Seeming almost exasperated, he said "Fuck man, you've got a point there. What was it about the timing that bothered you? They were offset by a couple hours."
"The duration wasn't."
"Yeah, you're right. Again. Both events lasted for what, three and a half hours, give or take? The difference in length between the radiation spike and the search uptick was less than five minutes. This is certainly abnormal."
"I think we should send this up the chain a ways. The monitor found something. I'm just hoping the effects remain with people dreaming lucidly."