2 Minutes Before Incident SB-83-07-59
The ship's red alternate lights switched on. For the first time in the ten days the crew of Area-83 had been stuck aboard, a dangerous containment breach was occurring.
"Warning! Warning! Containment breach underway. Please remain in your quarters, if you are in the hallways seek the nearest closed room. Repeat. Warning. Containment breach underway."
"A dangerous containment breach? We have dangerous anomalies on this thing?" One tactical agent said to the other, suiting up in the security detail's quarters.
"No, I think Dr. Baldonado breached containment." the other quipped back.
"Heh. Hey, give him a break, though. I can't fault a guy for losing it a little. Now that we can see the new planet coming together down there, people are getting antsier. It's getting more irritating."
"Well, I'm handling the stress by hanging out at Andre's bar.”
“Juan's handling it by trying to eat the SCPs."
24 Hours Before Incident SB-83-07-59
Juan Baldonado wasn't taking the obliteration of Earth well. At some point in the near future, he swore, he was going to get some high-and-mighty Overseers, who the whole surviving Foundation now knew were anything but mighty, to tell him why exactly the Earth should be restored.
"What the hell did Earth ever do for me? We're fine up here, we can grow plants, we can take shits, hell we can even have sex up here! A member of our crew has become pregnant for God’s sake. We're self sufficient! We're at a quarter capacity, for three-four-three's sake –"
"Okay enough!” Juan's assistant piped up. "You're the only person who doesn't want their life back. If you don't want it, you can do whatever the hell you want, but I don't need to sit around here at two in the morning listening to you bitch about it!"
Juan took a deep breath.
It had been twelve hours since he had summoned his assistants for an emergency test of a small biological anomaly. Still pending an SCP number, this was a bog-standard pathogen known to cause "manifestation of fleshy appendages", discovered the ordinary way. The ordinary way at the Foundation, of course, was when a local called in a giant hand sticking out of her neighbor's chimney.
Juan had one vial remaining on the counter of the green sludge pulled from the incident by the recovery team. The rest of the vials he had given electric shocks, mixed with chemicals, or microwaved; all now inert. One pulsating vial sat as all that remained of the anomaly.
Juan opened it and raised it to his mouth.
Soon he was on the ground, restrained by two assistants, who shouted for security. The vial sat safely in the closed fist of Dr. Phipps, who brought the vial to eye level, wondering where the meniscus of the liquid initially was.
8 Hours Before Incident SB-83-07-59
Dr. Rayna Lao didn't use research assistants. Her official reason was always that she had no need for "kids getting underfoot", and could handle her own lab work. If the work could be delegated, it wasn’t important enough to pursue.
In the case of no-lone zones around the ship, she'd bring a technician or another Senior Researcher with her. Rayna had 36 years under her belt, 10 at Area-83, and – long-convinced that her death would be at the hands of someone else’s idiocy – she was not going to give that up because some fool pressed the wrong button.
Most nights Rayna could be found in her personal lab, awarded by the Foundation for her years of dedicated service. This was not uncommon among longtime researchers; many had lifetime projects that Administration felt required chronic pleasantries, and some unusual.
Her project – completely replacing her body from the neck down with synthetic materials, minor mechanical anomalies, artificial organs and weapons – had given her the ability to one-punch-K.O. the occasional loose SCP. But she was too old to submit her application to Red Right Hand. They didn't allow for body augmentations anyway.
As she sat in her lab in the early morning on the tenth day since the apocalypse, she noticed something strange in the ScipNet Site Incident Feed. Usually taken up by such things as "Researcher collapsed due to stress, was taken to med deck", there was a curious exception.
"Dr. Baldonaldo attempted to consume a vial of a dangerous anomalo-biological pathogen while loudly condemning O5 Command. Researcher was temporarily detained for a cognitohazard check."
3 hours before Before Incident SB-83-07-59
Junior Researcher Dr. Ion Albescu stormed down the hallway.
"Dr. Baldonado! Dr. Baldonado!", he shouted, hoping he'd acknowledge him.
"It's Juan!" the Researcher barked back, obviously annoyed at the attention his surname was receiving.
"Fine, Juan, why –"
"Why'd I try to eat an SCP, right? Right? Tell the other thousand-and-some people on this ship before they have to ask me too, why don't you, that I don't know any more than they do! An infohazard, of course! Or a memetic effect! In any case, it won't happen again!"
"It's because you were going to use that vial to stop them from restoring the old Earth right? Dr. Dark told me last night that you were going on in the bar about your technology!"
Baldonado shouted and stopped still in the hall. "Alright! Alright! Enough! I've heard every crackpot theory –"
"No, you're right!” Albescu tilted his chin downward and lowered his voice. “This is a good thing. Forget the chatter. Let's stop the Council, together!"
"I'll tell you what, I have a suggestion, why don't you fuck off. If you want to eat SCPs voluntarily, feel free to do so and face the consequences. Otherwise, I have places to be!", Juan said.
"How the fuck does he know?" Juan thought, his steps only outpaced by his heart.
Dr. Albescu watched Juan walk away.
“Have a nice day, Dr. Baldonado”.
1 Minute Before Incident SB-83-07-59
Agent Long threw on his bulletproof vest and grabbed his gun, then opened the door. The six specialists behind followed him out of their quarters, which were illuminated only by the haunting red alert lights sweeping the halls.
The hall was empty. No screams or running researchers greeted them. Perhaps whatever was loose had eaten everyone already. Long hoped personnel had followed orders, and were safe in their quarters… but something felt off. And after so many years on response teams, it was rare that something did.
He gestured back to be quiet, then burst around the corner to the main hallway, where a bizarre fleshy abomination greeted them. It stood six feet tall, with the remains of a human at the center of it, vermiform arms flailing, tipped by tiny hands swinging at the agents. Through the movement in its mounds of sagging flesh, the being was seemingly overjoyed, jumping about excitedly, and dragging itself toward the Administrative bridge.
A pocket of gas escaped a fold of skin as the entity moved, and a nametag fell to the ground from inside the knot of flesh.
Level 4- Senior Researcher- Juan Baldonado.
Rayna awoke to the sight of blood-red lights. She could sense that the vindication of her life's obsession was coming. Today, she would see her life’s work come to fruition. She sprinted down the hallway, and followed the disgusting sounds to the admin bridge.
Soon, there in front of her was the massive, fibrillating monstrosity.
She ripped a patch of synthetic skin from her arm without a moment's hesitation. Instead of blood, a blowtorch came forth. A blue flame sprouted from the brass head of the fixture. She doused the barrage of deformed, nectrotized arms swinging at her.
Juan rushed Rayna on the left and breached into the hallway leading to the O5 Council's quarters. A few of the Council stood outside their quarters with guns drawn, but most remained inside. The thick metal door splintered as a mass of skinless, bleeding muscle spontaneously grew from the rogue researcher.
After shutting off the flame and putting the torch back in her wrist, Rayna peeled back more of her augmented skin, which seemed to be organized by way of color-coordinated tattoos as landmarks. She exposed the next of her many improvements; an entire cybernetic left arm.
In his excitement, Juan had grown so much so as to become caught in the door by his convoluted mass of skin and pseudopodal limbs. Rayna took the opportunity to strike.
She slammed what remained of the door hard, severing a long, eldritch arm. Even separated from Juan, the arm slammed itself against the ground.
Rayna was suddenly hit by an expulsion of corrosive bile from a toothless, dark orifice that Juan had opened on his torso, occupying the space where his lungs might should be. It streaked directly across the top of Rayna’s head, burning her eyes to the socket. Her eyes were the only part of her body still purely biological, and she had the misfortune of being hit precisely there.
She collapsed to the ground screaming. O5-7, O5-12 and O5-13 discharged their weapons into Juan, but he seemed to suffer no effects. The three Overseers called out to their colleagues to join them in fleeing.
As Juan dragged himself over the floor, Rayna sat still screaming out behind him. The Council sprinted toward the exit to the main concourse at the other end of the hall. But Juan didn't pursue them. His quickly-regrowing, seeking feelers gathered at the door of each Council member’s living quarters.
The sound of the hinges on each door popping punctuated the blinded Rayna’s self-pity and clued her into what was happening.
Eleven.
Rayna had the presence of mind to count the bangs.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
He was going to destroy SCP-787700. This monster was about to doom the new Earth.
Rayna jumped forward, guided by the scent of burning flesh. She disrobed; removing the skin from her torso, her other arm, and her legs. The cybernetic frame she had fashioned for herself was now visible, and to only an entity of even more bizarre presence. Rayna weaponized every accessory in her arsenal, beating Juan in a blind fury. She lit blowtorches on both arms and spun buzzsaws out of her shins. She became a goddess of steel and sparks, a whirlwind of terror.
It wasn't enough, but it was a start. Rayna felt the clicks of her cybernetic diaphragm expand her lungs as Juan's mangled remains reorganized, flames surrounding him. He knew he had Rayna bested.
He lunged toward the door of O5-1's quarters and saw one of the sacred books sitting upon his desk. He leapt upward, one bloodied eye still guiding him forward, and landed directly on the bottom of a metal cage, which collared his distended head, and locked shut fast around him.
Rayna's sternum lay deployed upon the floor, the captured Juan upon it. Her metal ribs extended from her chest, as if an arachnid’s arms, and encircled the majority of the room.
Juan was doing his best to defy her. The cage was near breaking as he thrashed against the walls. She needed more material, fast. The only metal anomalies nearby were a few clockwork segments lying in the living quarters; things unknown and emitting in the intuition of the synthetic epinephrine a mystical song.
Rayna touched the artifacts and imploded.
In a fraction of a second, all of her musculature tore. Screws and shrapnel flew. All parts of her snapped cleanly into the form of a prison. She could feel the dissection rip apart her head, the last part of her not recruited for Juan's new containment chamber.
Then all she felt was confidence. Confidence, and pride that her project had succeeded. Her backup memory storage, deep within the cage, kicked on and activated, within which she could computerize her mind, ready for activation should anyone find her one day — or should her captured enemy escape.
The official story everyone heard the next day left out the details, so all anyone knew was that Rayna had killed Juan "due to a tense situation boiling over". When the Council finally entered their hallway a few hours after with a full squad of agents, all that remained was a severed mound of flesh, a wobbling metal fragment later identified as an artificial heart ventricle, and thirteen open doors. The official story took no side.
Ion Albescu, a man who would in a month be an Overseer if all would just go along with the damn plan, argued sides with quickly-developing camps among the staff. He and his small, impromptu gang of loyalists told the story of how Rayna was going to sabotage the ship and release SCP-217.
Rayna had her fanatics too. Researcher Barrow, another would-be Overseer successor, assembled his own faction. They were quick to tell the legend of how their hero took down a beast of immeasurable disgust, and guaranteed humanity a glorious future. But most of all, Barrow spoke of how Rayna's mechanical nature had saved not only them, but herself as well; that she lived fragmented in and around the Earth to this day.