SCP Foundation

Red tactical lighting bathed the troop bay, reflecting off the matte-black visors of Delta-5. They sat knee-to-knee, rocking in unison as the transport navigated unseen terrain. No one spoke. The only sounds were the low hum of the engines and the cramped rhythm of gear being checked for the tenth time. They were the "Front Runners", the first ones in, which meant they were usually the first to bleed if the intel was wrong.

The Commander, callsign Bravo, stood near the rear hatch. The transport pitched hard to the left, throwing him off balance, and his gloved hand shot up to grip an overhead rail. He waited for the suspension to settle before keying his internal comms.

"Sound off," Bravo ordered, his voice flat and tinny inside their helmets. "Status checks."

"Vigo, green," the first operative replied, forcing his thumb to go still. "Hermit is green," the heavy weapons specialist added, tapping the pressure gauge on his gear.

Bravo scanned the row of faceless visors, his own reflection staring back at him from the dark glass. "Listen close. Command designated this one 6687. We're going in blind—no classification, no established patterns. That means we treat the target as hostile until it's in the box. Watch your sectors, watch your spacing. We secure, we extract. Clear?"

A dull chorus of "Clear" echoed through the cabin.

Static hissed. The voice of the Intelligence Liaison broke through, detached and cold. "Delta-Lead, this is Overwatch. You are nearing the last known coordinates. Nav-grid places the anomaly within a hundred meters. You have a go for immediate interdiction."

Bravo keyed his mic. "Copy, Overwatch. We are deploying."

The transport ground to a halt, inertia throwing the operatives forward. The rear hatch disengaged with a hiss of equalizing pressure. The squad surged out, their movement practiced and fluid. They fanned out immediately, weapons snapped to shoulders, forming a semi-circular perimeter.

Lieutenant Locus scanned the area, his head sweeping from left to right as his specialized optics overlaid the terrain with thermal and Hume-reading spectrums. He froze, his HUD locking onto a distortion in the distance.

"Contact," Locus whispered into his mic, his finger hovering near the trigger guard. "Anomaly signature front. Seventy meters. North-Northwest."

The squad went still. Every barrel snapped toward the coordinates Locus called out.

Bravo moved to the front, his hand raised in a closed fist before signaling a wedge formation. The team advanced, the rangefinder in Locus's visor ticking down the numbers. Sixty meters. Fifty.

"Angler, prep the containment rig," Commander's voice crackled over the squad's shared frequency, a low, muffled murmur from behind his gas mask. "Kappa, keep the dampeners active. Vigo, if it shows any sign of activation, you are clear to use the suppression kit. The rest, just don't fuck up. Clean extraction only."

A support drone drifted overhead, releasing the containment crate ten meters behind them. They ignored it, eyes locked forward.

Forty meters.

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Squeak.

The noise was small but sharp, and had clearly long since worn through the patience of everyone in the room.

Dr. Bright nudged a desk leg with his shoe, sending his worn office chair into another slow, lazy spin. The ruby-encrusted amulet of SCP-963 hung against the sternum of his current host, a man in his thirties with messy dark hair and deep circles under his brown eyes.

A man leaning against the console beside him finally spoke, his voice a low grumble. "Are you going to do that the entire time?"

Bright's rotation came to a halt, turning his head to look at Clef's unmoving profile—standing with his right hand buried in his pocket, likely resting on a concealed sidearm. A garish Hawaiian shirt, covered in bright red hibiscus flowers, hung loose over his frame, clashing violently with the gray tones of the booth. "Just keeping the blood flowing, Alto. It's either this or I start humming."

"Please don't." Clef finally shifted his gaze from the chamber below, meeting Bright's in the reflection on the glass. "And why on earth are you wearing Dr. Magnussen's lab coat?"

"Fits better. My last body was a bit more... svelte, but this one has broader shoulders." Bright pushed off again, spinning in the opposite direction. "Besides, he left it on the back of his chair. Finders keepers—simplest way to handle property around here."

"Or to get me stuck in a three-hour disciplinary hearing," Clef stated, his expression unchanging. "Magnussen spent the entire 0800 briefing convinced an SCP breached containment just to steal his laundry. He's already filed a Level-2 Security Failure report over a missing piece of cotton."

"Well, technically, an immortal doctor wearing his soul in a shiny necklace 'breached' his office," Bright said, a hint of amusement coloring his words. "Anyway, it makes me look more authoritative. Professional. Like I actually belong in this wing."

"More like a thief who's about to get our security clearance audited. Just stand still and try not to look like a maniac until the escorts get here," Clef replied, his attention drifting back to the chamber door below. The conversation was over as far as he was concerned.

Bright let out a quiet huff, but he didn't argue. Instead, he simply pushed off the floor again, letting the chair carry him into one more slow, mocking circle.

A few paces back, a senior researcher with a ginger bob-cut—and a lab coat that was actually buttoned correctly—stood with her weight shifted onto one leg, her expression outright bored, doing all but looking invested.

Over at the monitor bank, a young research assistant sat folded forward, his shoulders hiked up toward his ears. He stared at the green waveforms on the screen, his thumb obsessively flicking a slider up and down, doing anything possible to look busy so he wouldn't have to acknowledge the two men standing behind him.

The quiet inside the lower containment cell broke with a Clank. Clank. Clank. The thick dark steel slab scraped against its floor track and slid backward into the concrete wall. A draft of cold, stale air blew from the dark hallway into the testing chamber.

Three men wearing bright orange jumpsuits bunched together in the open doorway. A security officer stood behind them, a yellow-tinted visor obscuring his face. He held a carbine across his chest, barrel angled toward the floor in a posture of casual menace.

"Enter the chamber," the guard ordered, voice muffled by the helmet.

And so they did. They had barely taken two steps inside when the grinding noise returned. The blast door slid out of the wall, cutting off the sight of the guard and the hallway beyond, and slammed shut behind them with a deep, resonant thud. The men squinted, bringing their hands up to shield their eyes from the bright white light. Slowly, they lowered their hands and stared ahead at the center of the room. One of them took an involuntary step back. "I don't like this..." he mumbled, his voice tight.

"Shut up," the second man hissed, not taking his eyes off the far wall. "Just look at the floor. Do what they say. We get through this, we get out."

The wall speakers popped with a voice, calm and disembodied. "Attention all D-Class personnel. Please approach {{user}} for testing."

For a long moment, none of them moved, glancing between the darkened observation window high on the curved wall, and whatever was in front of them. Then, the man on the far left, wearing black ink that stamped the numbers 9042 across his chest, finally took a small step forward, then another, walking toward the center of the room.