Lab Induction - SCP Foundation

"Welcome to the Level 1 Research Staff Laboratory Induction. My name is Dr. Eisenberg. Now, all of you are probably asking yourself 'Who the hell is that?' and 'Why isn't someone like Dr. Gears introducing us instead, being that he's head of the research site?' Let me put it this way. That monkey you saw down the hallway? That's Dr. Bright. Like Dr. Gears, he is Level 4 Research Staff, which means he is considered about as important as two-three roomfuls of you here… including myself. It also means they get to ehm, relegate administrative tasks, so do level 3's, the shit falls through… you'll see. But it isn't so bad.

"Now, all of you here folks joined the Foundation because we pay off your college debt, pay you a decent salary, and allow you to get your doctorates done. We're kinda like the army, just that we don't make anyone march uphill like an idiot.

"Now, good news is, we don't care what college you went into, as long as you have a working head on your shoulders - for one, as you probably heard, what we got here doesn't only fuck with physics, it makes porn of it, so there's hundreds of experiments that need to be run, and that's what we need you for. And for two, you will be working as assistants to other researchers, who will outline your tasks in a way that doesn't require you to go through tons of theory. You carry out the experiments, you write down the findings carefully and anything unexpected even more carefully, and that's pretty much it for 90% of the time.

"However, it isn't all that easy, and I'd like to say a few things to help you survive until it pays off. See, you might hear essentially everyone else bitching about how hard and risky their job is, but it's a matter of fact that the researchers aren't any better off. Intel just watches stuff from afar, if an MTF sees something they don't like, they get to 'retreat', but we, not only have nowhere to go if shit hits the fan, we have to take whatever they bring in, and prod it until we find out what exactly does it do, and how to prevent it from doing that without control. So, listen carefully.

"Now, first, SCPs… they probably told you the gist of what we do here on the main briefing, with all the other folks there - the supposed House MD's and James Bonds and John Rambos, so I don't need to go through all that shit. Now, if you're in direct contact with a Keter class object you're likely fucked, and well, pure Euclids you'll meet only during initial containment, and there's little advice I can give you for that. What I'll speak about are the 'Safe's'. The bureaucratic cunt who thought up that name probably never seen one.

"Do not fuck about with a safe SCP, and mainly, do not let your guard down. The most dangerous times when researching an object isn't the first time you're around it, it's the umpteenth time you've been asked to collect a bunch of data, think you know exactly what it can do, and get careless. Might seem odd now, but you will begin thinking like that, no matter how weird or dangerous the item you work with is. It's human nature, something about psychological baselines but I'm a metallurgist, not a shrink. I guess it's so since in most of the world, if something does A for five hundred times, it won't do B for the five hundredth one time.

"Here, not so much - it's how half the stuff in containment gets their 'Euclid'. For example, the two staff that died swilling their own shit because of one nine eight - shapeshifter cup from the devil's mother we thought we had contained. One of them was a researcher like you, and all he did was reach for what he thought was his own thermos on the desk in front of him - turns out the bloody thing teleports every so often.

"Second thing. D-Class. Disposables. The folks in orange jumpsuits recruited from death row inmates. Their main official purpose is to manipulate Keter class objects so that we don't have to. That much you heard on the briefing. They are also used for human testing of SCPs. Now, listen well, and you back there, try looking a bit less freaked out - we aren't fucking Schutzstaffel.

"Now, the official documents say they are terminated at the end of each month, and so will die anyways. Now, I seriously doubt that, given the amount of them even I use, and since you aren't brain dead, you will probably doubt it too. You might even get reluctant to terminate D-classes that you have run a set of experiments on.

"Let me run with a practical example. One of the memetic SCPs we had on site, relatively harmless thing, a jingle or a song of sort. There, with the suspenders? What's a meme? How can I put it… memes are malicious ideas. They break your mind's programming if they are read in, from any source. Sort of like the computer viruses bored Bulgarian youths write - no matter if it's from a floppy or email attachment, it does the same, whether it's displaying a silly message, or making your hard disk plow. Over there? What? That's a cognitohazard, not a meme? You're probably right, I don't work with these… either way, what it does is more important to what it's called.

"Either way, researcher who did the testing was 'humanistic' - he didn't know better. Returned the D-class he used to the pool, not even with a note about what's been done. A few days later, we contained another memetic SCP, one that killed people, it was an image. Another researcher who ran tests on that one, by incidence, took in the same D-class. In his mind, the two memes merged somehow. From what the camera feeds show, the man started babbling, then tore his own trachea out, and so did the researcher and the two security staff present.

"So yes. There's a reason why their papers contain a short summary of what they were sentenced for, beyond selecting a fitting psychological profile for SCP testing. Read it through. And any time you get the urge of returning a used D-class back to the pool, think to yourself: 'Is prolonging the life of a rapist worth risking the life of my colleagues and friends?'.

"Now, that's all of me, really. Questions?

"You with that look? Demotion to D-class? Ah fuck, who told you that? I thought so… see, that, and Keter duty is one of the pieces of bullshit we scare the greenhorns with. Now, see… most of the ways you can fuck up here, we'll have no one to punish, and taking out sensitive information, they'd kill you for that everywhere.

"Next one. Why do you have to stay on site? Probation period, really. For the next six months. Those who go through it, you'll get your level 1 permanent clearances, and will be able to spend their time off wherever. Those who don't… you'll get class B amnestics and forget everything you ever experienced here. Which isn't as bad as it sounds - we'll still give you the salary.

"Guy in polo shirt? Where's the best place to meet women in here? The Internet… Joking. Try Bio section's staff break room, lots of cute girls there, like Rights.

"You there, girl with glasses? Why don't we research the objects so they can help mankind? Well, I could say that… Screw it. Know what? You can. If you succeed, and develop a theory that explains and reproduces an object, it'll get reclassified as SCP-EX, leaked to the public, and you might get a promotion out of it. So far, I have heard of about five people succeeding… in the last century. Hell, I'm still trying to work out what triggers structural cancer, and the six of us have been messing with it for two years by now.

"Go on. What do you need to get promoted? Ambitious, aren't we? Well, goes like this. You finish your degree, and then you either leave with the civies, or you stay with us, sign a permanent contract, and get level 2 clearance. After that, it's a matter of luck and arseclimbery, and since I have neither, I'm still stuck as a Researcher.

"Another girl? A dog somehow got into the on-site showers? That'd be Professor Crow. Next time he does that, steal his glasses.

"Anyways, you're all dismissed - in a while, security personnel will escort you to the researchers that you'll be working for. In the meantime there's some coffee and donuts here too, so help yourself."