[08.06.2019]
Experiment Log I
Area 3 was a tremendous place. Alongside a two-layered artifact containment sector and similar research and testing sector encompassing well over a square kilometer, there was also the bulk of the Foundation facility's volume in the form of a multi-leveled biological research and containment wing. Deep in the interior of this wing sat a recently-prepared construction with its outer ranges a broad ring-hall—teeming now with research staff in lab coats and with notes, even more armed guards already with blackout visors raised over their gas mask equipment just in case. A pair waited with D-5575 at the outer blast door.
Martin had become acquainted with 096's cell in the past few days, as it had been part of his routine duties to feed and conduct daily observations of the "Shy Guy". It was also a continued test of the S.A.I. He clutched it in one hand. By now its smooth, heavy form and the nigh-hallucinogenic "vision" it granted him was familiar to hand and eyes.
Shortly, Martin saw Dr. Keaton with an assistant approaching.
"D-5575, you will be needing this," she said as she passed Martin the item in question—she handled it with a cautious reverence, which as he glanced over it understood and adopted the same mannerisms, "and a good dose of luck. You remember the administration procedure, yes?"
"Yeah," D-5575's hands now solely gripped the standard 3 mL syringe, its sterile needle protected in a sheath, the contents a crisp, bright liquid. Color unclear, sometimes blueish, other seconds seeming green, and occasionally a faint flash of violet. Johanna's assistant had taken the S.A.I. and began equipping it to the ex-felon's face and head, obscuring further scrutiny of the wonder-fluid.
"Okay. Just carry on as you normally would during feeding and inspection." The doctor nodded, "and when a good opportunity presents itself and 096 is still, try to give the full dose and get yourself to the doorway interior. If it becomes clear it's a poor reaction just seal it and leave the outer door. Otherwise, remain in the interior bay and use the observation slot. Report back at intervals so we can notate—if and when it regains its typical behavior you can leave. Or when we call you back out." Dr. Keaton ran through the details as she helped initialize the S.A.I., briefly walking him to the doorway before his blindness subsided.
Martin tried hard under the cool exterior of confident muscle and blank expression to follow through with entering the chamber as normal—and failed: Heart was a triphammer this time, chest was a tight ball, brain was a streaking time warp of all that could go screwy. The guard sealed the outer door behind him. He balanced the cardboard case with the creature's tentative provisions alongside the syringe of SCP-5560 as he opened the interior door.
Though obscured by the headset, Martin knew what 096's cell was like. A steel block, hollow interior dark and cold compared to the rest of the sector. A few alterations to the special containment procedures had been made from its old location—one corner had a thick chunk of foam mattressing wedged into it, several rumpled polyester fleece survival blankets strewn on and near it. That it hadn't ever received the privilege of bedding had been a shock, at first. But it seemed the entity rarely used it (certainly not to sleep), and usually just stepped around it while pacing and occasionally sat down on it. Presumably to rest from its stints of pacing and weeping.
Martin shuffled a step further into the thick blackness. Thick walls contained more than the creature and Martin was reminded of this as the sound reached him. Familiar and haunting—completely unreachable and unknown to those just outside the cube.
D-5575 panned slowly to the other corner and found it.
096's back was to him, as was to be expected, seated and with knees tucked up tightly to its chest. One arm bent back so it could wrap it around its shins and back onto the ribs of the opposite side. It was stabilized by the other braced onto the wall from elbow up. Head arced over its knees, hanging down. Eyes half-lidded, jaw slightly open like a man trying to get his balance back after a bout of nausea. Every few seconds the whole thing quivered in place, in time with the soft sobs that echoed against every surface. Despite the disturbing tableau, Martin knew this part was safe.
"Hey—hey—" It never hurt to try, but like every other time his attempt to whisper for its attention only caused a short pause in its sob-shake cycle. Martin stepped to about an arm's length away before crouching and plopping down the box. They'd tried a lot of things but so far it didn't seem to matter what they gave it, food-wise. However, the frequency with which they could coax it to eat at all had increased with the capacity to have someone introduce the stuff so near 096 (previously a guard had just chucked cafeteria leftovers in while blindfolded, or so he'd been told).
To this—and the box's lid being peeled open—something clicked. The pale creature's stifled crying cut off with a sudden sniffle, and it craned its neck to peek over its arms and knees towards him. The D-class scooted back to avoid bumping heads with it as 096 crept in an awkward crawl-squat to the assorted sustenance. A fast response.
Martin rolled the vital syringe tube in one hand and watched the thing's hands probe into the box, timidly drawing back at first touch but gradually grasping hold of what he supposed was an orange. Or a grapefruit? He had thought it a large apple until 096 had begun picking away strips of odiferous peel and plucking out the sections. It was probably the best idea to try and stick it while it was distracted with eating. Martin slowly rose and padded as lightly as his frame allowed to get alongside the thing. He chose a spot on its fairly sparse thigh—still one of the few parts of it guaranteed to have any substantial muscle at all—and leaned in with the needle primed.
The whole of it twitched, and Martin froze as he heard it utter something between a gasp and a hiccup. He pressed the plunger and wished he could hurry the process; on the edge of his headset's view he noticed the creature's head turn swiftly to him, eyes wide but still somewhat vacant and the remainder of the mangled citrus dangling from its mouth. He withdrew the needle and recapped it. Damn he was sweating, despite the chill.
He staggered upright and took several steps backwards to clear the room. It was still focused on him in spite of the dark, though it looked him not directly in the S.A.I.'s "eyes" but at various points above, below, and beside his head. As he hurried to back through the door it seemed to relent, returning its attention to the box and on gnawing on the fruit, gnarled hand reaching in to fish out something else.
"Doctor, I've injected 5560. The pain response was not enough to trigger 096, but…"
"But?" Confusion crackled over the radio.
"It… It reacted, just not dangerously," Martin scratched his head and checked his rampant-yet-slowing pulse. "I'm about to start watching through the slot, anything I should w—"
A wheeze, followed by a strangled wail, cut him off. Martin ducked down on well-trained self-preservation instinct and scuttled to be furthest from the interior door. A hefty thunk landed against the inside of the containment chamber directly opposite where 096 had been crouching and preceded a series of sounds that Martin realized he wanted to hear even less than its infamous death screams.
Whimpering, hyperventilating, and half-choking. The absence of more bangs and steel-rending sounds emboldened him to poke his head up and peer through the observation slot. Distended, scar-covered palms both pressed against the bulletproof acrylic, vibrating it such that anything beyond the sheet of material had been rendered "invisible". He could not muscle the retracting pane to the side to see any more. The creature's force as it leaned into the wall was too much.
"Martin?" Johanna's distressed voice came over the radio before a suck in of breath and a return to composure, "Martin, what's happening?"
"Not sure," he said, view trained on the sonar map of quaking palms against blurred window, "096 is blocking the slot, but I think it's seizing."
As he spoke, 096 let out a particularly unsettling gurgle and its hands slumped away from the observation window, and after a moment D-5575 sidled closer and slid the pane aside. He poked forward just enough to see it—crumpled and pulsing in ragged gasps against the lower part of the wall.
"It's collapsed, I think?" he updated, "Not unconscious, and still breathing. Not spasming or struggling, and not reacting to me either."
There was a second or two of radio silence, and then, "I see. Continue with periodic updates." Martin grimaced; Dr. Keaton did not normally sound so uncertain, especially not in the middle of a Foundation experiment. He braced for long study, resettling his knees so he could continue peering in on 096's misery.
"Uhh… doctor?"
"Copy, what's happened?"
"096 is asleep."
"What?" Her surprise was understandable. In about twenty years of containment, and a year of observation prior, this creature had never been known to sleep or otherwise lose consciousness. If it were not triggered and mid-rampage it was only ever pacing, crying, hunching into a corner, or some combination. After a moment where Martin could hear Johanna and several others conversing in hasty mutters in the background, she finally came back: "Understood… We will need you to continue observation until it wakes up, or until 1100 hours. Please continue to update us if anything else happens."
"Y-yes," Martin nodded, hoping for nothing this time. Boredom was preferable to… to what he didn't know. 096 remained immobile, for once the most calm and still entity in the room.