"Sorry to bug you, Director..." - SCP Foundation

"Down the hall, to the…" The man stopped at a fork in the hallway. Was it right or left? All he knew was that he had a report to turn in and he needed to do it fast. There was less than five minutes before the department closed up for the night. Regardless of the time, though this part of the site was relatively quiet; not many of his coworkers went in or out of the departments here. He took a look down the right, then the left. Both sides had a door right at the end with a large placard just above. The man turned back to the right side of the hallway and squinted. "Yeah, that looks about right." Briskly, he turned on his heel and jogged down to the door. Deep breath in and a knock knock knock.

The door slid open and the man was met by a tall, older woman looking sternly at him. She wore a standard lab coat with a gold butterfly-shaped brooch on the lapel and a clip held her hair in a messy bun. She tilted her head down to look at the man, her thin glasses sliding down the bridge of her nose.

"Hi! Uh, sorry for the delay. My name is Alan Phid and I'm here to, uh, submit my papers. I've got a report on, the uh.." The portly young man shuffled his papers "ancient-"

She slammed the door, hitting his face. Alan took a few steps back and rubbed his nose, before looking up and reading the placard.

'Department of Entomology.'

Just below the placard, a piece of paper was taped to the wall. In large, cursive writing it read:

'The Etymology Department is down the hall, to the left.'

"Another one?" A voice from inside spoke.

"God, I hate those guys." The woman called back. "You think for a bunch of language bureaucrats they'd at least be literate enough to read the-"

Another knock. She trudged back to the door and flung it open. Alan stood there, confused and if he was being honest somewhat intimidated.

The woman took a deep sigh and raised a finger towards the placard. "We're the department of entomology. The door you want is down the hall and to the left." The woman turned to close the door. "Have a lovely-" She was then interrupted by Alan's voice.

"I'm actually here to apply!"

She stopped dead in her tracks. A few awkward seconds passed before she turned on her high heels and flung the door open again, nearly slamming it into the poor young man's face. "Why didn't you just say so?! Come in, come in." A bright smile was plastered on her face. Poorly stifled laughter could be heard from the other voice. "Alright, in we go." The woman ushered Alan in before closing the door softly behind her.

"Now, do I have the pleasure of knowing your name?" A snort from behind her slapped a scowl onto her face.

"What's with the fancy talk?" There was a man, seated at a desk with a sly smirk on his face. The woman turned back to the soon-to-be applicant.

"Don't mind him, he's just… like that."

The man spun his seat around. "Doctor Ali Chi'tin, Assistant Regional Director. Pleased to meet ya." The woman turned and walked down a hallway, where Alan swiftly followed.

“My formal title is Regional Director Anne Tina, though you can just call me Director Tina.” Moving down the hallway, Alan took quick peaks at each room they crossed by. Walls lined with diagrams and screens, a large amber centrepiece, server rooms with…

Alan rubbed his eyes, squinted at the room and turned to the Director “Uh, what’s with the-“

“Those make sure the servers stay up.” Alan gave a most puzzled look.

“How could they possibly…” He stammered.

“She’s right, you know!” A voice called from within the server room, followed shortly by a stout man rolling into the doorway on a wheelchair. “One time I forgot to put them up and bam! Short circuit, we lost three weeks’ worth of research like that.” He snapped his fingers. "This a new guy?" The man looked up at Director Tina.

“That'd be correct. He's applying for a spot here." The man gave a hearty chuckle, turning to Alan.

"Be careful, lad. She bites!" He cheekily winked at Alan. The Director gave a small chuckle in return.

"Thank you, Pound. Now, back to work.” He nodded and rolled back into the room, briefly stopping to check on the server room’s guardians. “Take good note of that, young man.” Director Tina continued towards her office.

“Note to self, don’t forget the toy moths.”

Moving further down the hallway, Alan's eye was caught by some more mundane research. Inspection of chrysalids, simulations of dung balls rolling down a slope, all fairly normal in an entomology lab. Then they stepped into the main hub. “Holy- “

The Director turned on her heel swiftly. “Watch it, but yeah. Awesome, isn't it?” She turned back towards the hub and fanned her arms towards it. “Took a lot of begging and a cut from funding, but by God was it worth it.”

Craning his neck upwards, Alan took in the ginormous, chitinous exoskeleton hung from the ceiling staring down at him. “Who’s is it?”

“A poor little critter we had to neutralise a while ago. Unfortunately, it’s wings were lost in the blast that killed it. Wish you could have seen them. They were beyond stunning, like stained glass.” Director Tina took a forlorn sigh. “She was a beauty.” She continued to stare at the enormous mould for a while. A very long while. Staring at the Director, Alan could have sworn that her eyes were suddenly a mass of hexagons. He squinted, but by the time he blinked they once again looked normal. Must have been a trick of the light. Alan fake coughed, hoping to get her attention. It didn’t work.

“Uhm, Director?” She jolted back to reality.

“Ah! Right, your interview. Come along now.” And she was strutting down the hub as though nothing had happened.

More than a little concerned, Alan followed closely behind her. Luckily for him, Director Tina's office was just up ahead of the hub. She stopped just in front of her office door and glanced back at the man. "You're ready, right? Got all your papers?" He nodded. "Great." Director Tina swung open the door to her office and strolled up to her desk, casually sitting on her ergonomic chair.

The young man was pleasantly surprised to find that the office was relatively normal. Across from the door was a modest yet chic dark-brown desk, backed by a window overlooking the site's gardens. The walls were plastered with a burgundy wallpaper, upon which several framed photos were hung. They were of old looking men and women, important to Anne for one reason or another. Among them, several cases of pinned butterflies and other beautiful insects could be found. The room was tidy as well, apart from the multitude of papers stacked atop the Directors desk. "My apologies for the mess, I've been quite frantic preparing my application for department head."

Anne pulled a large mass of papers off her desk and slid them into a filing cabinet beneath her. "As you can imagine, I wasn't expecting a new applicant so soon. Sorry about the rude welcome, by the way. Illiterate new linguist researchers have been swarming us lately." Alan took a seat in front of the Director and got his papers in order.

"Oh it's no problem! I get it." The Director rested her head on her folded fingers, supported by her arms on the desk.

"Now, how about you remind me of that name of yours?" The man, absentmindedly pulling out his reports and application documents, replied.

"Alan Phid, ma'am. I am applying for a managerial position here. I have experience, I've been an employee the logistics department for the past three years, after all."

Anne picked up his report and began reading. "Part of your application requires a demonstration of knowledge on entomology. I'll assume that's what this is?"

Alan adjusted his glasses, "Right, Director. A report on ancient mechanisms for flight within insects and how they are subverted by the anomalous. Most of my background knowledge is self-taught, but I did attend a professional entomology course at a university in the past year in preparation for this position."

"This department is, er, quite the odd one." Alan twiddled his thumbs as he watched Anne continue reading. Not looking up from the report, the Director replied "Odd is the baseline here, my friend. You want to survive? Make like a roach and adapt to the chaos." Alan stared concernedly, gulped and said "Noted."

15 silent minutes passed by with the only sounds being the distant chirps of cicadas from somewhere in the department. After finishing skimming his paper, Anne moved to type up her notes and glanced at Alan. "Mr. Phid, from my skim I can say that I was quite interested in your findings. However, I cannot make a decision on my own or at this moment. I'll be deliberating the status of your application with the current management team and admissions." She stopped typing to stare at him. "If you ask me, you've got a good shot at this."

A meek smile grew from Alan's mouth. "Why, thank you, Director."

"Now, I'm going to send you off on your way. Keep those compound eyes sharp on your inbox and phone, we'll be in touch."

Alan squinted, "Compound eyes..?"

"What, you don't have those?" Anne blinked, changing her glossy human eyes into a mesh of hexagons, before switching them back. The blood drained from Alan's face and he tried to flee. The tension was quickly broken by a hearty laugh from Anne, "Calm down, good sir! It's just a neat little party trick I have. These lenses are embedded into my eyelids to help me with certain experiments."

He stared at the Director, "Does everyone who works here get those?"

"Nope, it's just me and a few other senior members."

"…Cool."

"So, how were they?"

Chi'tin snapped a file shut, glancing up, wating for Anne's response. She was pouring herself a cup of matcha tea, mixing in a spoon of honey. Not looking up from her drink, she replied. "He was nice, if a little confused." She took a moment to look back at him. "I like him." Chi'tin pushed himself off his seat, walking towards Anne.

He leaned around her arm, taking a moment to inspect her drink before asking "What was his name?"

"Alan Phid."

She hit the end of her spoon against the lip of her porcealin teacup, shaking off some honey still stuck to the spoon. Strutting over to her desk, she heard a chuckle from Chi'tin. She placed her tea down and dropped herself onto her chair, slumping in it. Then, spinning it around, she cocked her head and weaved her fingers into one another. "What's so funny?" Chi'tin moved towards his desk and sat back down, rebooting his laptop.

"They're always confused, aren't they?"

"Yeah. I told them, while working in my department, odd is-"

The phone on Anne's desk rang. She moved to pick it up before Chi'tin interjected. "Aw come on, can't we chat a bit more?" Anne shook her head and picked up the phone.

"Regional Director Anne Tina speaking, who is this?"

"…"

"Oh! It's a pleasure to hear from you. What have you-"

"…"

"Immediately? With all due respect, it's three AM. I haven't slept in-"

"…Of course. I'll arrange for that as soon as possible. Pleasure to hear from you."

She slid the phone back into place and let out a deep sigh before quickly moving to clear her desk. "I've got to go."

Chi'tin shot up from his seat, "What for? Who was that? Do you need me to-"

"No, you should stay. It was the Department Supervisor from Admin, they want me for an emergency meeting. Something to do with my application for the Leader position. I'll be back by tomorrow if all goes according to plan. In the mean time," Anne tossed a pair of keys and a card to Chi'tin, very nearly missing his hand. He flipped the card over and read the text embossed on it: 'Director-Level Access'. "You're in charge. You've done this before, right? You''ll be fine." Chi'tin, flustered, fumbled with the keys and card, shoving them into his pockets. By then, Anne had already moved to the door, holding it ajar. She turned back to look at Chi'tin, who stared at her like a deer on a dark road, before turning back around and exiting the area. Her heels furiously clicked as she near-sprinted down the hall towards the central hub.

It was time to secure her spot.