Onboarding - SCP Foundation

An unlit corner of the room was always a good place to sit. Nobody behind you, nobody paying attention to you, you could see everyone and nobody could see you. So long as you had an escape route secured, September thought, this was the perfect tactical positioning.

However, smug complacency can easily lead to one's downfall, she realized as a tripod leg of the twenty-something year old camera being set up next to her buckled, landing squarely against her forehead before rolling down her shirt to meticulously undo the ironing she had done before attending the presentation.

Her forehead throbbed and her eyebrow twitched once, but otherwise, she did not move. Because getting angry would be unbefitting of a Factotum.

She would not pick up the tripod by its two remaining legs and smash the person who had set it up into a carpet stain. She did not even consider it. Really.

After several seconds, a small squeak came from where the camera had once been standing. Despite September's first instinct telling her that Site-17 might have a mouse problem, she didn't bother looking up. "Jessica."

"Yes?" September's new assistant sounded like she was on the verge of a breakdown, only mustering up the courage to form a sound once she had seen that September didn't seem visibly upset.

"Why did that happen?" Visibly being the key word here.

"I… ah… it, uh…" Jessica was redder than a tomato and seemed to have the mental faculties of one.

September turned her head to face Jessica, not moving a single muscle on her face. I'm waiting, she said without speaking.

As expected, Jessica was able to get her shit together under pressure, even if just imagined. "The locking pin just, er, snapped. Rusted through."

So it was a failure of maintenance. September closed her eyes and exhaled, letting herself slouch just enough to where she knew nobody would notice. It was a pain in the ass to even have to tape this, but it was important to keep a record of things. "How does the Foundation's second-largest Site not have one modern video camera available?"

Jessica shook her head slightly, eyes devoid of all hope. "I'm sorry. I tried to find one. I don't know."

"Just… get it fixed," September vaguely waved one of her hands towards Jessica.

Deliberately not focusing on the woman now whipped up into a frenzy looking for something to fit the pinhole, September looked out to the walls of the room. Unlike most of the tedious briefings and conferences she had to sit in on for her job, this room was positively stacked floor-to-ceiling with armed guards. Which was, perhaps, the first sign that this meeting was something worth taking a small bruise on the forehead to observe. Even if they didn't seem particularly concerned about security, something September took mental note of.

The second sign was, of course, the reason all the armed guards were here, that being the attendees to the presentation. They all had the demeanor of new recruits awkwardly awaiting their first onboarding lecture. They might have been mistaken for recruits, if not for the brightly colored uniforms they wore displaying their numerical designations. Or the fact that one of them had a humpty-dumpty face and exposed mechanical joints, or the way one was struggling to stay awake under a sun lamp as the flower in her right eye was slowly closing up, or the one in the front row with metal arms. Or any number of things really.

Honestly, a lot of these people just looked fucked up. That was probably the easiest way to put it.

Not to say that they all looked like that - at least half of them looked totally normal, like the two teenage girls whispering amongst themselves, or the person constantly fidgeting to itch their back. It was only because September was so diligent in studying the files for all the anomalies at Site-17 that she knew that one of the girls could create hardlight, or that the other person's back was itchy because they used to have four tentacles coming out of it. The other girl just had a weird social media account, though. September reluctantly admitted to herself that she probably did just get screwed.

September looked up at the person walking up to the projector screen, who looked normal enough, save for a mean-looking facial scar over her eye. Realizing that things were finally getting started, she stole a glance back to her side. Jessica had fixed the tripod by… jamming a metal pen into the pinhole. An intuitive solution, September thought as she shifted her chair a couple feet away from the camera. Jessica whimpered but started recording nonetheless.

The blonde woman stood in front of the screen as a worker next to the screen pressed a few buttons on his laptop, until the projector suspended above the room displayed "SITE-17 ANOMALY SOCIAL FLAGSHIP PROJECT ORIENTATION" in bold blue letters. Was that what they were calling it? Catchy.

The woman - perfectly apathetic and dead-eyed - simply stood in front of the screen, scarcely moving, until her audience gradually realized things were starting and quieted down. It didn't look like she wanted to be there at all. She didn't, of course, but September had made the case that her participation was important in order to connect with the other skips in the audience. Not because she was a massive fucking pain in the ass during her interview. Getting back at her for such a petty thing would be unbecoming of a Factotum.

Once the room had quieted enough to where it could no longer be avoided that everyone was waiting for the presenter to speak, she cleared her throat and awkwardly clapped her hands together. "Right, so, uh. You're all here for, um. This." It looked like she hadn't spoken in front of a large group of people since she was 13. Which was, September realized, actually the case.

Once the discomfort of the awkward silence became greater than the discomfort of speaking, she started again. "Now, I know you were all already told this, but this is just to get everyone up to speed on the new program the site has for, ah, us. You know. I know you got a bit of an idea of what this is from breakfast today, but there's some stuff that needs to be laid out." She motioned to the guy at the laptop to change the presentation to the next slide before realizing something and turning back to the audience. "Oh, uh, if you weren't told about today and just walked out of your cell, uh… I don't know. Good for you I guess. But I was told that I am required to say that you need to go back."

Without waiting to see if anyone got up, she turned back to the projector screen, promptly choking on her next words as she saw what was on it. Aside from a "Meet the presenter" title at the top, the entire slide was occupied by a slightly faded photograph of a blonde teenager holding a Polaroid, smiling ear-to-ear with a man and a woman cropped out of each side of the frame.

She whipped around to the Laptop Guy. "What the hell is this," she hissed.

Well-acquainted with people getting upset with him from his time in IT, he just shrugged. "Beats me. I asked, they said it was the most recent picture they have of you that wasn't from your medical screenings, which we can't show."

Her nostrils flared, presumably at the fact that his reasoning was solid, before turning to look at the photo again. Maybe September saw something other than haughty indifference pass across her eyes, but it was gone when she turned back to look at the audience.

Already murmuring amongst themselves, the crowd started audibly snickering when she turned to face them. The juxtaposition of her face in front of the photograph seemed to say look at this poor bastard. Her smile and optimism: gone. It looked like a comically sad before-and-after shot, especially with her scar adding to her already dour face. Even a glare that September had to admit had some real venom in it failed to quiet them down.

Once again clapping her hands, the presenter cleared her throat and started once again. "Okay! If you, somehow, couldn't tell by the clothes, I'm also a skip." A few of the audience members who were paying attention looked confused, so she followed up with "An S-C-P. A weirdo like all of you," along with a dismissive gesture. "They said I should do the presentation to 'better connect with the other anomalies' since I 'seemed like a peer more than the staff,'" she said making air quotes and giving a lethal side-eye to September, whose face was as neutral as ever.

Despite the continued murmuring, she continued. "So, my name's Iris, though most people here call me 105. Because no bad has ever come from locking people up for reasons outside of their control, replacing their names with numbers, and intentionally dehumanizing them."

September coughed loudly. Obviously Iris wasn't going to stick to a solid script, but she sure as hell wasn't supposed to say anything that unfavorable. Iris looked over to her, wearing a smug expression, that little shit - helpful anomalous collaborator, September reminded herself. Although, the room did actually finally shut up after that, even if it was because they were all uncomfortable now. Guards included, by the looks of it.

Iris turned back to the audience. "But, hey, at least they're trying now. Only took them… hell, I don't know. Uh, whatever. I'm just here to get you all pumped up for this… whatever this is." Iris rubbed the back of her head. "And if anyone has any questions, just raise your hand and I'll answer them." It sounded like Iris was getting her teeth pulled when she said that.

Immediately, of course, a hand shot up. Iris looked like she was screaming with her eyes. Nevertheless, she pointed to whoever it was that had a question.

"How come you were picked for this?" The person asking looked to be a late teens-early twenties boy. 4051, September realized. Figures that he'd jump at the chance to pick up a job here.

"Because I've been here about half my life," Iris answered in a resigned voice.

"Ha!" The person who used to have tentacles finally stopped scratching her back and shot up. "So that's all this is? Seniority? Now you're supposed to be our leader?"

"This isn't supposed to make me the leader of anything," Iris groaned before looking somewhat indignant. "Besides, I've probably got a bit more leadership experience than-"

"And how should we know," the tentacle person cut her off. "I say, we hold an election too-"

"As if I'd EVER trust one of those damn flesh cultists with keeping anything above the table," a half-clockwork person cut in from three rows back.

The tentacle woman spun around to fire back with "The only reason you wouldn't try tampering with the vote is because you'd be clicking too damn loudly to sneak around!"

Some of the guards started to grab onto their weapons a bit more tightly. September was confused as to why they let a Sarkic and a Mekhanite into the same presentation, or how he even knew the woman was a Sarkic, though she couldn't say she didn't find their bickering at least a little entertaining. 4051 looked confused as to how he was forgotten so quickly. The two teenage girls looked a little scared.

Iris looked at the two teenagers and groaned, wiping her hand down her face. Then, she took a deep breath and stamped her foot down.

"Alright!" The two of them shut up and turned back to Iris with a look of confusion as she started yelling. "How fucking old are you two? If I saw two five-year-olds arguing like this, I'd be mad at their damn parents! You two are a goddamn disgrace! Sit your asses down when I'm talking to you or so help me God, I'll send you straight to whatever fucking freak of nature you won't shut the hell up about!"

September was honestly a little impressed that she was even convincing with that threat, but the two skips who had been arguing looked at Iris like she was their mother who had just walked in on them smoking a joint.

After several seconds of Iris staring them down, the man with metal arms conspicuously cleared his throat, and Iris finally blinked. "Uh, forgive the language," she said in a tone that actually sounded surprisingly remorseful.

"Wh-where did you learn to yell like that?" The squeaking voice came from one of the teenagers - Stacey Lee, September remembered.

"I told you, I have leadership experience." It might have been a joke if anyone except September understood it.

Probably wanting to move things along, Laptop Guy changed the projector slide to show a weekly schedule broken down by the hour.

Jessica, silent since the presentation started, leaned over to September to whisper to her. "Should we, um… have done something? Should we still do something?"

"It's fine," came September's curt response. In truth, it was probably good that 105 was establishing a pecking order. As much as September didn't care for her, she was at least loyal to the Foundation when it came down to it, and her own self-interest in not wanting to deal with anything she didn't have to would mean she'd like to nip issues like that in the bud, even if that did mean putting two grown-ass adults on blast in a crowded room.

And besides, September made sure her name wasn't anywhere near the documentation that nominated 105 as the presenter.

"Oooo-kay," Iris said as she turned back to the screen while clapping her hands - again - and started off on the next section. "So, obviously, I'm not going to go over all of this." She's supposed to, September thought before Iris continued. "You've all got this printed out so I'm really just not going to waste your time giving you the line-by-line." Well, September supposed that made sense.

"Yeah, um… the big idea is that they've got us all on this big, uh… schedule, like, you know, school." Iris half-heartedly explained. "Basically we can either sit around in our rooms or in a few common areas or be doing stuff."

A hand came up. Iris drooped but still motioned for the person who raised it to speak. 4051 stood up rather than just asking his second question, and Iris's eyes narrowed. "How come we can only go a few places?"

Alright, well, that was at least a reasonable question, even if it was glaringly obvious. "Security reasons. Site security can only keep a solid presence in so many places at once."

4051 blinked. "But, if we proved that we were real good, we'd be fine for more privileges, right? I mean, I think I've proved I can at least be trusted."

Iris shot him a condescending look. "Sure you have. But hey, we're all filed under the same umbrella here. I was told they aren't going to giving good boy points out when they've got their hands full with new and exciting security risks."

4051 looked at the ground and nodded. "Right. Right, that makes sense," he said as he sat down.

Iris was unfortunately granted very little respite as a hand languidly made its way up as 4051 took a seat. Cursing under her breath, Iris called on it.

The woman sitting under the sunlamp with a flower in place of her right eye slowly put her hand back down, taking just a bit longer than she should have to start talking, either not bothering to stand up or simply lacking the energy. "Ah… I like to get a lot of sun after lunch… what if I need to miss lunch… or I want to go to something at the time?" September could practically feel herself falling asleep in the time it took her to finish her question.

After another five seconds of Iris waiting to see if she was actually done or just pausing, she responded with "Well, considerations for everyone's, er, stuff obviously comes first." Iris intentionally stopped short of saying the Foundation staff would make any effort to accommodate anything. September figured this was probably smart.

Once the flower woman started to nod off and Iris looked like she was going to move to the next slide, a hand crisscrossed with wires and scarring popped up. Iris called on them with a roll of her eyes and a bored "Yeah?"

The person who shot up after being called looked somehow even more fucked-up than her hand, with exposed skin mostly being covered in either scars or exposed mechanical components. "Hi! I'm Eileen!" Despite looking like a walking corpse, she was awfully chipper.

"Uh-huh," Iris said, just looking at her with a slightly disgusted and mostly confused expression that seemed to say I didn't ask.

"Right! I just had a quick question. What's a school?"

Iris looked at her with the same expression for a few more seconds, blinking a few times, before turning back to Laptop Guy and telling him to project a new slide.

The next slide read "Available facilities" and had a smattering of photos of a few different rooms, none of which looked particularly memorable. Eileen's mouth was agape nonetheless as she sat back down.

After looking over the slide for a few seconds, Iris turned back to face the rest of the room, clapping her hands. September's eye twitched. "So, as far as those 'common areas' go, it's really just, like three rooms in the Humanoid Containment wing. The cafeteria you all know and have developed a gag reflex to is the main one, and we also have a room with, like, a TV. It was supposed to have a pool table, but the pool cues were deemed too dangerous, and all the media we can play on the TV has to be approved first, but it's, um, not nothing, I guess. The TV's behind plexiglass though," Iris listed off as she pointed to a few pictures on the screen. The mood of the audience seemed to fall slightly, as if they were expecting more. What, September wasn't sure. She had tried to temper expectations during her interviews.

"We've also got a gym. Really, they just moved some of the exercise equipment to a well-ventilated room, but at least it's connected to the 'field' they let you walk out into if you kiss up enough," Iris added derisively. "It's, like, a patch of dirt, so there's not much more you can do there aside from touch grass. But, hey, if there's one genuine piece of advice I can give you, it's to touch grass. At least a little bit. I mean it."

Sensing a lull, another hand went up, which Iris called on. The person it belonged to looked like a normal-enough man, save for the fact his clothes marked him as a shapeshifter. "Do we just get the gym, or do we get a pool?"

Iris rolled her eyes. "It's a lot harder to make a new pool. The site has one in the medical wing for physical therapy, but we're not allowed to access it due to security risks and to discourage indecency." September squinted. The first reason was true enough, but she was pretty sure Iris just made the second one up, though it sounded like she really believed it.

"Really?" The shapeshifter didn't seem content to let that one go, somehow. "It sounds like you just don't want to have a pool. Can you swim?"

It was laughable that he thought Iris had that authority, but - wait a second, Iris actually didn't know how to swim. She grew up in the desert. They had to fudge her physical exams for Alpha-9 because of that, it was a whole thing. She scheduled the pool at Site-17 at like 3:00 in the morning for a few days to get that other lady she worked with to teach her before she gave up. September sat up in her chair a bit straighter, looking at Iris.

"Of course I know how to swim," she responded without missing a beat.

"Yeah, you said you grew up in Arizona. Do they even have pools there?" One of the teenagers finally spoke up, the one who could make hardlight.

Iris choked for a second, ears getting just a little redder, though maybe it was just the projector, before turning to respond. "Look, Leora, if you don't have another question for me, can you just drop it?"

Leora, the aforementioned teenager, appeared to look away for a moment before remembering something. "Oh, yeah! How'd you end up with that mean-looking scar?" Leora tapped her right eye, mirroring the deep gash Iris had over hers.

"Leora! You can't just ask someone how they got a scar," Stacey said as she blanched and tugged at Leora's arm with a concerned expression.

September sucked in air through her teeth. She'd had that scar since she was 15, when the last time she'd helped out the Foundation blew up in her face. That was not a happy story.

Iris just looked at Leora with a completely humorless expression. "Car crash," she said in an unconvincing voice that nonetheless left no room for further discussion.

Despite the scared look on the faces of the two teenagers, Eileen shot up out of nowhere. "Oh! I died in a car crash!" She sounded like she was happy to be included and looked at Iris like a golden retriever who'd just eagerly delivered her owner a rotting animal. Iris could only stare with her jaw agape. September failed to stifle a snort, which lead to a confused look from Jessica.

"Keep recording," September said sternly, as she Jessica jump back to focus on the camera.

After a while, Iris just shook her head and sighed, muttering "At least I'm not the most fucked-up looking one" to herself as she once again motioned for a new slide, this one titled "Interaction opportunities" with stock photos of happy groups of people with watermarks interspersed with photos of horribly sullen anomalies looking into a camera with a too-high flash with confusion and tiredness.

"Alrighty," Iris started as she - god fucking damnit, she clapped her hands again. "So, uh, sort of the main point of this whole… thing is the, you know, 'social interaction.' I guess they got the hint that sitting alone in a room all day just makes things worse, but whatever." Iris sounded a bit like she was talking more to herself than the audience, but continued nonetheless. "You can talk in the common areas and during events, but no touching, and any arguments are probably going to get broken up by guards, so, just, like, don't be an ass-" Iris glanced at the man with metal arms- "I mean, butt hole, or you'll probably get thrown back in your room."

"Aw, what kind of events are we talking here, man?" A skeezy-looking guy with a haircut and beard that somehow managed to look unkempt despite being almost a buzz cut spoke up without bothering to raise his hand.

Iris grimaced, but it looked like she knew it was at least a reasonable question. "Yeah, uh, you'll have, like…" Iris seemed to be struggling for words. "Like those things your parents would go to after work. It's all pretty boring, though. Not like they'd give us darts or wood carving stuff, so it's mostly things like baking class or pottery. Looks like it's whatever some bored researcher could convince the leadership to sign off on. Not like we'd really need home ed anyways."

Much of the room seemed a little uncomfortable at the reminder that they weren't going to see their parents or home again, but Eileen's hand once again shot up. Iris saw it and very consciously decided not to call on it, since she was probably going to ask something like "What are parents."

"Hey, that's good to hear, man. Y'know, I used to run a restaurant, I'm sure once they get me behind a deep fryer they'll let me cook for you guys," the skeezy guy said with a smug look.

"Forgive me, but I feel I must object to that." A person (or person-adjacent thing) with red eyes and an impossibly straight posture spoke up. "I've assisted the dining staff in the past, and this man attempted to feed me his finger this morning."

"Yeesh, relax, it's better than chicken fries!"

"It is a code violation."

Iris squinted at the two, along with most of the people in the room. The quieter teenager spoke up. "Um, he really did… try to give them his finger this morning…" Her voice trailed off when she realized how many people were looking at her.

"Thank you, Stacey," Iris said, nodding towards her. "You are not going to be allowed in the cooking stations," Iris said, pointing at the man and glancing towards September, who just nodded once. When she saw the shapeshifter's hand come up, she called on it to cut off any further complaining.

"Yeah, so, you said we wouldn't be allowed to touch anyone else or go back into your rooms together?" September could see where this was going. Iris seemed totally clueless.

"Yeah. Can't have fights breaking out, and you'd need surveillance in your room if there were more people in it," Iris answered matter-of-factly.

"Well, yeah, but what if, like, you get another… consenting party, and you want to just… you know…" He made an odd pumping gesture with his hands.

"What's that supposed to-" Iris started before the realization hit, her face scrunching up as she brough her hands to rub her temple. "Oh god." Honestly, September thought it was a reasonable question to ask, but she kept her mouth shut, watching with mild amusement as most of the audience perked up and leaned in.

"Look, any sort of… sexual contact is strictly disallowed. It's considered illicit cross-testing between anomalies." September scoffed. Was she embarrassed? What was she, 12?

Everyone turned back to look at the shapeshifter. "Right, sure, but what if we make sure to teach everyone about safe practices? So long as we've got the right contraceptives, it should be just fine." He didn't seem to be letting this one go. September supposed years locked up in a room will do that to you.

The audience turned back to Iris, expectantly, save for the teenagers who just looked more confused. She shifted awkwardly. Even Laptop Guy was staring. "Look, that's not the point. Close contact can lead to a whole bunch of random shi- stuff."

The audience looked at Iris as though she were insulting their intelligence. "No, I'm serious," she continued, "I heard about one time where two mindbenders did it and they formed an egregore. It was a huge deal when it happened."

The tentacled woman nodded. "Sounds hot."

Iris groaned.

"You know, abstinence policies rarely ever work." September was almost impressed by his insistence at this point. Did he really think he was going to win? "In almost all cases, lack of proper education and support only led to higher rates of pregnancy and STI infection, you know."

Once he was done talking, everyone once again turned back to face Iris in unison. This certainly had their attention. Iris just narrowed her eyes and smiled. "Well, I'm pretty sure those cases didn't have internal surveillance and armed guards."

That seemed to get the point across. Everyone just shifted in their seats, and gradually turned back to the shapeshifter to wait for a response, like he was their chosen representative in this bout, even though he seemed to be losing steam. "Okay, so, like… what are we supposed to do, then?"

Iris just shrugged. "Depression kills libido."

September had to turn her face away and bite down on her lip. Goddamn, she absolutely could not have picked a better response.

A few awkward glances shot around the room as everyone seemed to be whispering to each other, until the shapeshifter scoffed. "What are you, Catholic?"

"Yes."

Everyone just shut up and looked at Iris. One person in the back coughed. After several seconds, the shapeshifter just replied with "…Oh."

"Why is that the thing that- you know what, I don't care." Iris sure looked like she cared.

"Hey, you know, I think she's got a point," the tentacled woman added, nudging the flower-eyed woman, a petal falling off of her as she started awake. "I mean, get too close to one of those clockwork fools and you're liable to end up as grey goo."

Instead of chastising her for that jab, Iris just looked at the ground, ignoring the clockwork man struggling for a rebuttal. "Happened to my buddy Adrian."

Stacey looked even more scared and confused upon hearing that. "What?"

"Ah, nothing." Iris looked back up. "Look, all I'll say is that there aren't any restrictions to media you can request." A few people perked up. "At least a dozen people will see the request and know you made it, though, and there's no guarantee it'll even be approved." They sank back down again.

Upon seeing that everyone had been thoroughly beaten down, she turned back around and had the next slide projected. "Okay! Last one." Iris clapped her hands. September flinched.

The last slide read "Opportunities in the Foundation." September squinted. Was Iris really the best person to be talking about this?

"I'll keep this one short," Iris said as she regarded the audience. "Provided you keep up good enough behavior, you might get a chance to work here. I think the Ethics Committee demands you get paid, but it's not like you can use the money for anything, so the bigger thing is just having something to do. Honestly, if it's just, like, cooking or moving boxes, some structure can do you good." Well, September figured that was actually a surprisingly reasonable thing for her to say.

"But," Iris said as she raised a hand up as if to caution her listeners, "Do not ever take a job that has to do with whatever weird thing you're here for. It, um…" Iris glanced over at September, whose face had dropped into a scowl. "It's just more trouble than it's worth. Take my word for it."

A few people looked a little confused. September was mulling over getting up to shut Iris up, since she was probably kneecapping some Foundation initiative with those comments, but at the same time, going up and stopping her would probably make the Foundation look worse to the skips in the audience.

Thankfully, a brave soul raised his hand to spare September the trouble. It was, somewhat predictably, from 4051, Rainer Miller, September remembered. "Well you know, I'm not really sure that's the type of 'advice' you should be giving, right?"

Iris's eyes narrowed. September recognized that she was actually, genuinely upset by that, not just acting tough like with the argument earlier. "Just how long have you been here, even?"

"Look , I'm not saying our situation here is perfect, but the Foundation looks out for us. I know a lot of us would be worse off somewhere else," Rainer appealed.

Iris huffed and crossed her arms. "Just because this place is better than others doesn't mean anyone here's got our best interests at heart. We're being kept in a research facility, not a goddamn hotel."

The atmosphere in the room was getting thick. Everyone's attention was turned to the two speakers. "Even so," continued Rainer, undeterred, "If we're given an opportunity to do help when others can't, you should-"

"Cut the shit," said Iris, sneering as she cut him off. "None of us owe anyone a damn thing. Not one."

Rainer pursed his lips, breaking eye contact before continuing. "Just because you haven't done anything doesn't make it wrong to try."

"Ha!" Iris let out a single laugh, sharp and humorless. "Just what the hell do you think I've done? What the hell have you done?"

September stood up. Alright, this had gone on long enough. Time to shut them up before they said something classified and she had to expense a bunch of amnestics. She could practically hear Jessica shivering behind her as her chair made a loud scraping noise against the vinyl floor and everyone broke their focus from Iris to look at her.

"If all we have left in this meeting is pointless bickering, perhaps it's best we simply conclude this presentation here, hm?" September looked over to Iris, still clearly upset but at least knowing better than to start shit with a Factotum in public. The IT guy took the hint and powered off the projector. September turned to face the rest of the skips, and in a somewhat warmer tone, said "You're all free to go to any of the aforementioned common areas or return to your assigned rooms. Curfew is at 8:00."

The crowd gradually got up and started to move over to the doors, with perhaps a little bit of encouragement for the flower-eyed woman and extra care to make sure the clockwork man was rushed out early. Iris glared over at where Rainer had been standing, now obscured by the tide of people leaving their seats, before shaking her head to walk over to the man with metal arms.

Before turning back to see what question Jessica was having trouble vocalizing, she stepped in front of Iris, earning a glare from her. "You know, I'm not going to try to make you come out and lie to the people here about what it is you think about us. But, whether you like it or not, you are the senior to many of the anomalies here. They'll be looking to you for at least some maturity. I hope you can at least appreciate that," September said in a harsh whisper.

"Sure," was the only response from Iris as she pushed past her.

September turned around. "Miss Thompson," she said in a stern voice. Iris froze and turned around, still wearing the glare. "Are we clear?"

"Yes, ma'am," Iris said with a mock salute before continuing on her way.

September mentally cursed her as she went back to make sure Jessica got the recording, which, at the very least, she did. September did kind of shift to autopilot after a certain point, though, when she started to think about how many more arguments or interactions or ambitious schemes from shapeshifters were likely to crop up as long as this little project was going on. Although she knew that it would obviously be the best outcome if things went smoothly and this became the new normal, a part of her was kind of hoping all the skips just stayed in their rooms and didn't talk to anyone else… No, that wasn't right. It was unbecoming of a Factotum to hope for a Foundation initiative to fail…

Actually, scratch that, it was just shitty for a person to hope other people don't get better. That was the bigger issue.

…It was still going to be a huge pain in the ass though.