It Had All Been For Nothing

The monsoons had come.

There were no windows and one foot of solid cement in between Clef and the outside, and yet the rain’s steady hammering echoed loud and clear. Too loud, in fact, as the doctor could barely hear his own thoughts over the chorus.

Sighing, Clef snapped the laptop closed, his hands reaching under his glasses to massage tired, heavy eyelids.

One sip of coffee, and he was back in business.

*Tip, tip, tap, tip, tap.*

He began to feel his left foot prickle with the telltale sharp pains of pins and needles. How long had it been since he had moved? One, two hours?

*Tip, tap, tip, tip, tap, tap, tip… tap… tip… tip.*

His typing slowed to a crawl, and then finally to a stop as his finger bounced off of the last key. In the silence after that, as the steady patter of the rain and of the business around him began to fade in once more, he paused to look on what he had wrote.

To whom it may concern,

Due to the numerous breaches it has caused and the uncountable personnel it has killed, it has been generally known by the majority of the Foundation for a long time that SCP-682 is too dangerous to contain, and must be neutralized for the safety of humankind. Although, unfortunately, it is also generally known that SCP-682 cannot be injured or terminated by any known means, and thus it continues to live in containment to this day.

So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to shove SCP-682 into SCP-914, put it on the “Rough” setting, and hope for the best. If we’re lucky, SCP-682 should come out completely neutralized. If not, well… there’s a reason I’m sending this to you.

With a final click, Clef pressed send. It was done, and there was no turning back now.

The recipient, whoever it would end up being, was going to have one hell of a night.

Clef began making his way to SCP-682’s containment chamber, waving, smiling when necessary, and acting like an otherwise normal person along his way through the labyrinth of twisting white hallways, only hoping the other staff, in particular the more intuitive ones, would buy it.

Considering the fact he found his journey unimpeded, perhaps his efforts must have worked. No one suspected a thing.

He paused at the door, keycard hovering just over the reader, and smiled, almost chuckling to himself.

It always was a common myth among the newbies that the great Benjamin Kondraki had ridden SCP-682.

And it seemed that now, in one way or another, that myth would finally come true.

Clef had no idea how he had managed to fit SCP-682 through a one by three meter door, but somehow, it had happened. Once the lizard managed to crash through the door, its claws hit hard tile, began to slide, just as planned, right towards the input chamber of SCP-914, its door wide open and waiting for its oncoming test subject.

By the time the lizard knew exactly where it was headed, it was too late. Clef leapt off the thing’s back as it tried to twist around, eyes bulging in a primal fear, claws desperately skittering on the practically frictionless surface. But in the second it took for SCP-682 to whirl around and realize its plight, it had already collided with the back of the chamber in one sickening clang.

Clef, meanwhile, landed on his back with a sickening thud, all the air knocked out of his lungs in one giant reverse gasp. ‘Twere it any other time, he would have taken a second to regain his bearings. But a second was time he did not have.

Stumbling from side to side, the walls spinning before his eyes, the doctor carried himself to the door as fast as his legs could carry him, gripping the edge until his knuckles turned white and throwing all his weight opposite to the door, slamming it shut just as SCP-682 lunged towards him, ramming his head against what was once an opening with a sickening metallic clang. For a moment, the entire chamber shook with the impact.

And then… silence. Still and quiet, with nothing but Clef’s own heavy breaths to be heard.

Suddenly, the chamber trembled once more, another lurching clang reverberating through the air.

Clef watched in horror as the door to SCP-914 suddenly groaned in what almost seemed like metallic pain, the door beginning to buckle in a head-shaped dent.

Another clang sounded.

And then another.

And another.

With each one, the dent in the door grew larger.

There was no time to lose.

Staggering from the convulsions of the trembling chamber, Clef made his way to the center of the machine, upon which sat a single, blood red dial. Grasping the dial, he prepared to jam it to the left as far as his arm could take him.

But then, another tremor shook the ground beneath the doctor, knocking him in the opposite direction until his hand finally fell away, and he crumpled to the ground in a broken heap.

Slowly, Clef brought himself to stand as the room once more spinned around him, his vision blurry and warped. It took a second for everything to finally come into focus, but when it did, the doctor’s heart jumped into his throat.

There, before him, was the blood red dial, its pointed edge jammed all the way to the right, towards “Very Fine.”

Oh shit.

SCP-914 whirred to life, and the lizard within began to shriek. Clef, did as well. He screamed, he banged on the doors, gripped the dial with all his strength until his knuckles turned white, did anything he could, hoping some miracle would happen.

But none did.

Clef fucked up, and now the world was going to pay for it.

The process was agonizingly slow. He could feel the seconds ticking down, one at a time, wearing at his chest, whispering of his folly in his mind. And slowly, but surely, over that long minute, he came to the final realization that the world was going to end, that everyone he ever knew was going to die, and everything the Foundation did had, in the end, been for naught.

And it was all his fault.

‘Twere he any other doctor, he might have curled up in a ball and cried.

Finally, the whirring stopped, and from the machine emanated a pleasant ding.

The doors to the output chamber hissed open, revealing behind it a blinding light, one even Clef could only look away from, blinking repeatedly to clear the spots that had now appeared in his vision.

The doctor raised his gun, despite knowing how useless bullets would be against what was once SCP-682. And yet, despite knowing the futility of it all, the pointlessness of his actions, he was ready. He was ready to be humanity’s last bastion against its destruction, as well as its first casualty. It was funny… Clef never thought that, despite everything, he would be so calm in the face of death. But in the end, he was ready.

Raising his head high and squinting, he faced the light.

And there, in front of him, stood a gecko, nigh one foot tall, his scales a pleasant shade of green which reminded one of tranquil meadows under bright blue sky, a smile upon his face so warm and calm even Clef himself felt a sense of serenity wash over him, over the room, over the world itself as it breathed a gentle sigh.

“Hello, sir,” said the gecko, with a voice so serene and inviting, like a mother cooing to her babe as it slept serenely, swaddled in her arms, “did you know that fifteen minutes or less can save you fifteen percent or more with Geico?”

Humanity began to cry tears of joy as one, for now was the day it was truly born.