Dragged Out - SCP Foundation

It had taken years to get out of the Foundation. But with a supportive wife, a powerful new partner in the form of Stephane the Apostle, and a black mark on his record Dr. George Anderson was able to get out.

Unfortunately, when you make an enemy of the Foundation, you’re low on options of who to turn to. The Serpent’s Hand might take George in after defecting, but he wasn’t sure he could change his habits enough to be truly accepted there. Plus, he might have accidentally dog-earred a page of a book in the Wanderer’s Library once… Best not to take chances with them.

The Church of Fifthism might have been an option with Stephane to vouch for them as new members, but George’s wife found that entirely unpalatable. Truthfully, George felt the same way, but he was glad he didn’t have to voice it first. He tried to be understanding with Stephane and their beliefs, but fifthism was simply not something George could ever fully delve into.

The GOC was out. The Foundation’s relationship with the coalition was generally amicable and improving in recent years, but the two still maintained a rivalry. There were only so many anomalies to go around, after all.

While the Foundation and the GOC didn’t necessarily blacklist the same people, breaking out a dangerous anomaly like Stephane was enough to get George on both organizations’ bad sides.

Marshall, Carter, and Dark might have been an option, and while their employee retirement benefits were great, it was well known that very few people live to make it to retirement under them. Plus, they’d definitely sell Stephane and murder the Andersons without a second thought, only to talk about it later around the water cooler.

The Three Moons’ Initiative was notoriously accepting and not big on discrimination. However, dying was a hard sell even on dark days.

Every other Group of Interest Anderson knew of was either crazy or specialized in creating anomalies, the latter of which made George understandably uncomfortable as one who had fought to secure, contain, and protect.

Thus, it was by process of elimination that George, his wife, and Stephane ended up as members of the Chaos Insurgency. Because, if anything, making an enemy of the Foundation was a job requirement here.

After going on a wildly irresponsible stunt to prove that he could do field work again, Researcher Flemming did, in fact, not receive a promotion. He had, in fact, been demoted back to Junior Researcher and was made to serve under another staff member to re-familiarize himself with the basics of Foundation policy.

It was an insult! It was an injustice! It was… entirely fair, and he knew it. It had seemed like a great idea at the time, proving his deduction skills, keeping himself safe in non-violent fieldwork, and containing a rogue skip all in one fell swoop!

What he’d actually done, however, is fail to allow MTFs to do their job while exposing Foundation activities to outsiders without amnestics being applied afterward.

All of this is to say that Flemming deserved to be doing grunt work in his broom closet of an office when the Chaos Insurgency attacked.

The plan was simple: use fifthist reality bending to put a hole in the wall, get in, grab what files and hostages we can, and get out. That was what Stephane was telling themselves anyway. In reality, the anti-memetic agents on their clothing somehow failed when they got within 20 meters of the Foundation building and everything went to hell from there.

They’d been expecting to at least get inside before their cover was blown since these agents were specialized against looking out of place. The building itself however must have had countermeasures against anti-memetics.

Come to think of it, what do you call that? Anti-anti-memetics? Does it swing back around to normal memetics? Maybe just mnestic agents? Stephane was trying to think of two more ideas to focus their powers, but they made it to the wall first.

After centering their mind, the Apostle got to work, rotating a large chunk of the wall ninety degrees (or more precisely eighteen degrees five times) to make two human-sized holes in the wall. What beheld the Chaos Insurgents was two impressively tiny offices, one of which was occupied by a man with “Flemming” on his ID tag.

Then, in a blink, he was gone.

Flemming didn’t panic when the alarms started because the security could handle it.

Flemming didn’t panic when the announcement went out because it was only the Chaos Insurgency.

Flemming did panic when his wall shattered, however, and panic meant stopping time.

Former Foundation Doctor George Anderson felt like he didn’t have enough shock left in his system. He wasn’t surprised by anything these days; having to turn to the Chaos Insurgency for protection, being assigned to field work to acquire Foundation files, and the failure of the anti-memetics had all taken their turn in striking his nerves and left no room for more surprises.

Which is why he went from seeing a researcher on the other side to getting sucker punched by him the next moment with only one thought: “Of fucking course.”

All of a sudden, George couldn’t see a thing. Had the punch made him blind somehow? No, striking someone in the jaw shouldn’t cause that kind of damage. His vision should be blurry, not gone.

It was during this inner distraction that only a scientist could have during a fight that he was disarmed, his gun being stolen by the man who had punched him.

Unfortunately, that was all George could do until time resumed as normal for Flemming.

Flemming was dithering.

He had punched one chaos insurgent trying to enter the building and stolen his gun.

Then, he had literally fired blindly at all agents around as best he could. Now, however, he was out of good options.

To make it more defensible in situations like this, the site had been built on a hill. Flemming did not want to test his luck by walking downhill blindly, which he would have to do if he wanted to leave the area. Even the high security doors out of the offices weren’t an option while time was stopped. His bubble of free-flowing time didn’t extend to the building’s security system and electrical wiring as a whole, after all.

He could hypothetically go after the agents further by trying to wrangle more guns, but he’d already gone after the only lone agent who looked like a research type, as opposed to a field expert.

Going after anyone else would involve either risking multiple agents unfreezing or risking the more capably equipped ones unfreezing.

Regardless, there was only one good choice left.

Stephane couldn’t believe their senses. First, they saw a lone Foundation member on the other side of the wall disappear. Then, they heard multiple gunshots go off simultaneously in close proximity, some of which impotently attempted to crossover to their personal reality surrounding their body to kill them. Finally, after all of that could be processed, they saw…

The Foundation Agent on his knees with his hands on the back of his head.

Was he…?

“I surrender!” the man shouted.

That’s one question answered.

“Agents, take him,” Stephane ordered. They had been placed in their first mission as a leader of rookies to test their abilities. Stephane also suspected that the group was only meant to cause a distraction. Regardless, the original mission of getting to a Foundation terminal was unworkable with them compromised so quickly. They’ll have to settle for kidnapping.

As Stephane thought about all of this, they realized no one was complying with orders.

Three of the four other members had been shot and either killed outright or knocked unconscious. Only their lover, George, and Stephane themself remained now.

They decided to just grab the Foundation and leave.

“Let’s go, George.”

After getting punched five times in the head and rendered unconscious, Junior Researcher Flemming had understandably lost track of time. It felt like it had been a while though, based on how hungry he was and what little his internal clock had to offer him.

He tried to stretch, only to become more alert as he realized his hands were bound in front of him. His feet were similarly bound. He quickly sat up.

A familiar-looking man with a bruised jaw was sitting on a bench next to him in what looked to be the back of a van.

“About time,” the man muttered.

“Hello to you too,” Flemming said with a cocky grin.

The man held a blank expression for a while before taking on a pensive look.

“Sorry we had to nab you like that. We were only supposed to access a terminal and get a few files,” he said. “Obviously, things didn’t shake out that way.”

“Obviously,” Flemming agreed.

After a few beats of silence, Flemming decided to ask for help sitting on the bench; George complied, pulling Flemming to his feet before guiding him to the bench. The man’s head was still fuzzy, after all.

Having nothing left to say to each other, they sat in silence for half an hour until the van stopped.

“Stopping for gas, can you go get snacks, Hon?” a voice called out from the front of the vehicle.

“Sure thing,” George called back before leaving the van. He also made sure to give Flemming a stern warning, “Wait here and behave, or we’ll have to incapacitate you further. You understand?”

“Yeah,” Flemming returned, “not my first time being handcuffed.”

George was a bit put off by that comment, but he decided not to pursue further. He didn’t want to know, and his prisoner understood the threat.

With that he hopped out, closed the back door behind him swiftly, and went to buy snacks.

Flemming, meanwhile, took the time to weaken his bindings. Contrary to his word choice, Flemming’s wrists and ankles were actually bound with rope, not handcuffs. Still, George’s keys would help him cut through all the same. He just needed to whittle away at them. He decided to start with the legs. Running away came before manual dexterity on the list or priorities.

Flemming let the panic and stress of his situation overtake him, and, before long, time froze for him once more. Time to get to work.

Stephane had filled the tank and went to select snacks with George soon after.

Today hadn’t been ideal by any means, but at least George and Stephane themself were okay. They hardly knew the other members of the mission, but they were comrades all the same. In a life where one had been thrust dramatically through time and escaped one powerful organization in the modern day already, people worthy of trust were in short supply.

Stephane would cherish the one remaining member, their precious George, with little moments like joining him for snack shopping to show their appreciation. Besides, George never wanted to go after the “Buy 4, Get 1 Free” deals they liked.

Unfortunately, this was quickly interrupted. While Stephane was admiring the “automatic doors” that roared at their approach (which Stephane still suspected had a soul, no matter what George said on the matter), their eyes caught sight of a man with bound hands running with a familiar pair of keys.

This was just destined to be a long day, wasn’t it?

Flemming ran as fast as he could, which, admittedly, wasn’t very fast.

George Anderson and Stephane were hot on his heels, and Flemming knew all too well that he was likely to get caught. He had never been particularly fit, despite his occasional hiking endeavors, and his opponents were operating without the detriments of bound hands, a fuzzy mind, an unknown location, and a total lack of allies.

His only real advantages were his anomaly and the Foundation. His anomaly had just been used and wouldn’t be available again for some time yet. As for the Foundation, he made sure to display himself on no less than three of the remote, wooded gas station’s security cameras before leaving the vicinity. That should alert the Foundation to his location quickly, even if he was unaware of it himself.

He was probably getting caught before those advantages could help him though.

Stephane and George were chasing the bastard into the woods. George, wonderful as he was in Stephane’s eyes, was not a physically adept man, and it was clear he was running out of stamina. Stephane, having thorough control of their own body through anomalous means, was not suffering the same fate, but it was clear that they were on their own.

Stephane tossed George the keys and told him to stay put while she gave chase.

After five more minutes of chasing, it was clear that while Stephane would come out on top, it was beginning to take too long. They needed to be long gone by the time Foundation agents picked up the trail, and this chase was taking too long. The captive was obviously tired, but he was also obviously getting enough adrenaline to keep him moving forward.

It was time to end this.

Stephane pulled out a dangerous technique. They were going to amplify their luck fivefold. All luck, both good and bad, was getting a massive boost. It was overkill since they only needed the man to trip, but it was the only thing they could do right now, and time was of the essence.

Some time well into the chase, Flemming was feeling lucky. During his brief glances back, he realized that the bruised guy was no longer keeping up, and now the other Insurgent was looking frustrated, though not necessarily fatigued.

Still, if he could keep this up a bit longer, his anomaly should surely kick in and let him get away for real.

As he thought that, a hill appeared in the distance, a steep one with no way around that he could see from here. Within a few minutes, he’d be at that hill and running a literal uphill battle. He turned his head to get another look at the one chasing him, only to trip once his head was turned.

No, not tripped, his ankle was bitten by a snake! Flemming could already feel the burn of venom entering his bloodstream. The snake, fearful and certainly unable to swallow its latest prey, quickly retreated, but the damage was already done, and Flemming was already on the ground.

Good, the man had fallen. Stephane canceled the luck technique immediately afterwards; they didn’t need a bear running into George or anything now that the captive was practically in their possession again.

Stephane picked up Flemming in a fireman hold after giving themself a hefty strength augmentation and set back toward the road. He wasn’t even fighting back.

It took a good thirty minutes to get back to George and five minutes more to get back to the road, but, ultimately, things were looking up.

At least, they were, until they got back to the station. The van was gone. Just gone. Later, the two Insurgents would find out that the bad luck from Stephane’s technique had blown a car thief’s tire and caused him to hotwire the van before driving off with it. For now, though, panic set in.

Flemming woke up to a bright light, and next thing he knew he was back in Foundation custody. The doctors had given a weakened duplicate of SCP-500, as was standard protocol, but he was kept for observation as a precaution. It seemed he had bought himself enough time.

Meanwhile, George Anderson and Stephane the Apostle were both in Foundation custody once more. George and his wife were amnesticized and relocated to another site in order to regain him as a staff member.

Stephane, on the other hand, was locked way, just another anomaly to secure, contain, and protect. An anomaly that had sworn revenge on everything that put them here.

Thanks to DrScaramouche for the pairing! Check out their entry here! And our previous entries here and here