[Cafe] 131 – The New Game Part 4

[1,419 Words, hit a lot of Writer's Blocks]

Meanwhile, in the Observation Room of SHIELD Project: Virtual Reality Pods, moments after everyone settled into their pods, Director Fury watched a live recording of everything at a speed deceleration that was comprehensible to the standard and unaccelerated flow of time outside of the Pods. While it would make it much harder to react and observe any situation happening within the Virtual Pods, Fury felt it would be safer to observe from outside the Pod rather than slotting himself into one and risking anything, and to limit the Virtual Pod Time Acceleration feature to no further than double the normal speed, making the footage look twice as fast.

Currently, all Volunteer Agents assigned to the Experiment were either en route to creating an 'account' within the Virtual Reality Pod or had already done so and entered the 'Game.' 

Nick was still wary and rightfully paranoid about the game, given Zerref's specific and straightforward suggestion for SHIELD to play, so Nick had many preparations made for the new project. Preparations were underway to ensure the safety of SHIELD and its personnel. One such safety measure was the Prototype Skinsuit Harness, which the agents who had volunteered for the Experiment now wore. 

Already, Nick could see that the researchers specially assigned to this project were salivating at the chance to dive headfirst and potentially make a revolutionary discovery. Still, Nick stepped in to prevent that from happening, to mitigate any unforeseen risks, and to take complete control of the project. Regardless of what they may learn, come to understand, or invent through experimentation, exploration, and the utilization of the technology they may obtain from the Virtual Reality Pods from Zerref, Nick Fury wanted to ensure that every measure was taken to remain in control.

If not for the sake of his life and the lives of his personnel, but also to safeguard the lives of some of his best agents and to keep the World Government Council off his back. Especially with the World Council riding his back lately to pursue more technology from Zerref and its anomalous store, as well as its cosmic and alien abilities.

Nick wouldn't lie about missing how simple his job used to be compared to what it is now. Sure, now and then, he'd have to deal with the typical alien, supernatural, domestic, or internal threat. Still, those kinds of situations were far easier to deal with than the curveballs this last year has thrown at him, the world, SHIELD as a whole, and Humanity.

Now, Nick Fury did not know what to expect to happen next, especially with Zerref and his so-called store involved, but whatever it may be that came, Nick was willing to bet that it would either be unexpected, something new, or something that left him with a giant headache in the form of the World Council kicking and screaming behind his back.

Already, he was facing such a scenario as not even ten minutes into the 'play' sessions of his agents, as each one of them died in some horrifying and sometimes frankly ridiculous ways. From things like being murdered by a strange stuffed teddy bear that leaped onto a man's face and exploded into a shower of blood, a man in what looked to be a Plague Doctor's uniform, and even a literal statue, it was as if this supposed game was designed to be a joke, some prank Zerref explicitly intended to mess with Nick and SHIELD as a whole and Nick was growing increasingly annoyed. 

Then, half an hour into the 'experiment,' Nick noticed something unusual about this so-called game. It was completely unpredictable and, therefore, decent training material for any Agents who were new to the field. After all, if every corner had something that could kill you in some horrific or unimagabe way, you'd quickly have to learn to use your critical thinking skills, observation, and use whatever information you could gather, find, or discover to avoid, contain, or escape said danger.

Information that seemed to be scattered about the 'facilities' in the form of documents, notes, case files, and clipboards tossed aside in a scientist's last moments or lying in an office cubicle or a containment cell and depending on the 'difficulty' the Agent chose, decded how much information they could access, how easily they could access it, and how much danger lay in their way before they could reach said sources of knowledge.

Beyond that, Nick saw little value in continuing the experiment, except as a form of advanced and safe training for new or experienced agents. What other reason should SHIELD even bother to pour more resources into the Project? Sure, this SCP Foundation appeared to be an organization similar to SHIELD, but only on the surface level, from what Nick had seen so far, with many differences between the two organizations.

In the meantime, Nick continued his observations, faintly listening in on the eggheads who were in a flurry of activity in recording everything seen in the 'games' through the perspective of each agent. Of course, Nick's gaze always drifted toward a particular agent, and the most experienced by far of the Volunteers.

Said agent, who was already upon her third attempt to make it even a tiny bit further from her starter position, escaping from the statue, then she had her very first attempt. At first appearance, it looked that the facility of this 'Foundation' was designed explicitly to be as hostile as possible for non-Foundation personnel to maneuver and move around, such as every corridor one of the Volunteers traveled through looked near exactly like the one they came through before, with little no variations or 'maps' that could help lead one of them out of the Facility. Even side rooms, janitorial rooms, offices, break rooms, and everything that was in between seemed to only have a string of numbers and letters as any identification to mark them out, but without some map, it would be next to impossible to navigate with how the site seemed to shift in layout with each 'reset.'

However, while the site's layout may shift and change with each reset, the eggheads began noticing some specific patterns in the design that remained consistent across resets. Specifically, it was the route between the D-Class cellblock that the Volunteers started at and the four corridors the Volunteers were led through to the cell of 'SCP: 173,' the Foundation's identification for the Statue-esque entity that acted as an incredibly dangerous anomaly that would snap the neck of whoever was not looking directly at it. 

The other thing that remained consistent with each 'reset' was the series of events that led to the subsequent 'Site-Wide Containment Breach' that occurred as soon as a volunteer set foot within SCP 173's Containment Cell. Some of the Volunteers began trying to 'tweak' the start of each reset, doing something different every time to see if they could make their head start of the Containment Breach more favorable.

One such Volunteer attempted to obtain one of the rifles that the two Foundation Guards wielded as soon as SCP 173 escaped its cell, only for said rifle to beep and emit a verbal error, stating 'ALERT! Bimoetric ID not found. Notifying nearest Foundation Personnel!' and the gun short-circuited in their hands, becoming useless. Not that the sleek and futuristic rifles seemed to have much effect on SCP 173, regardless.

Another deviation one of the Volunteers attempted was to rally and try to keep the other D-Class alive. However, their attempt failed. One more life between them and SCP 173 gave them a brief reprieve, allowing them a few more seconds to escape the statue and make it out of the containment cell and onto the catwalk above the small cubicle space that lay past the room outside of SCP 173's containment cell.

The third deviation one of the Volunteers attempted was trying to escape before they could reach 173's cell, but they ultimately failed four times before they decided to push that experiment back for a later attempt. 

At the moment, it was as if all the Volunteers were throwing everything they could think of at the problem, hoping something would work. However, little to nothing actually ended up helpful, aside from repeated exposure and trying new things with each reset and attempt. That and luck; if you are unlucky, you might find yourself stuck at a crossroads, with each direction blocked by something dangerous.