[Cafe] 129 – The New Game Part 2

[A/N: It took ages to write this chapter, mostly due to distractions IRL, including the fact that I have a surgery up and coming, but in the end, this is the longest chapter I've written in a while, with it being a little over 2k words in length]

[Melinda Qiaolian May's POV]

May has been a Shield Agent for most of her life. More than half of her career has been spent working as a Field Agent, on several occasions as Agent Coulson's partner. For years, Coulson spoke to her about his dream of assembling his own personal dream team to go on missions, discover alien artifacts, and save the world. Not that Melinda would judge, she liked how naive Coulson could be, especially with his hobbies and obsession with heroes.

 So, when Director Fury approached her for a special assignment after she retired from the field, she decided to do Coulson a favor.

Which led to where she was now, donning an uncomfortable skin suit lined with wires, sensors, and who knows what else that was supposed to send information to the Eggheads watching. 

 Sure, she may not like being used as a guinea pig, but it came with the job; it was not the first time, and unfortunately, she did not believe it would be the last. However, she would admit that this was undoubtedly a new experience, seeing as soon as she lay down in the pod and watched as it closed over her. [#1]

When it did, a small screen appeared before her, and in that exact moment, she was…somewhere different. 

[Detecting New User]

[Create Account?] [Y/N]

[Leave]

Before she could even raise her hand to push the button, her will did it for her.

[In this space, you can control everything with just your mind.] A screen appeared before her, explaining what happened.

Before her eyes, the white expanse shifted and transformed, becoming what she had imagined. First, it was the lab she had just left, then a busy street in New York, before finally stopping in the living room of her house. 

[Save Changes?]

Appeared before her, and willing her answer to be yes, the screen disappeared before being replaced.

[Create Username: ____ ]

Taking a few moments to think, she sighed before entering her username.

[Create Username: The Calvary]

[Accept Username?] Accepting it, she was met with yet another screen.

[Account Created]

[Welcome: The Calvary, to your home space, a small mental representation of your main menu outside of any games, workshops, or projects. It is here that you can interact with the Forum, view the monthly catalog, and interact with the many other features that come with the Virtual Reality Pod. Where would you like to begin?]

“Launch SCP: Containment Breach,” she commanded aloud, finding this entire experience quite strange so far, but nothing she wasn’t briefed on already. 

Much to her surprise, a sudden door made of light appeared before her. Above it, the words SCP: Containment Breach were written in every language she knew and could read. [#2]

 Taking a slow breath, she stepped forward and into the door of light, finding herself in a dark void with a strange vault-like symbol before her, with the game’s name above it.

[Start?] it read, while she looked behind her to see that she could still leave if she wanted to. 

Willing herself forward, she watched as the black expanse pulled away until she found herself standing alone in what looked to be a cell, unable to move as a screen appeared before him. 

[Please select the difficulty and any added Scenarios]

[Safe - For the weakest of wills. Most things go your way, and you’ll find most dangers are not as dangerous as they should be.]

[Euclid - Everything is as it should be]

[Keter - Dangerous things lie about, you’ll encounter more dangerous anomalies, and the Foundation will appear far more competent and effective than expected]

[Apollyon - The whole world is against you, good luck]

[Scenarios - {When Day Breaks}, {Planetary Containment Breach}, {Last Human on Earth}, {Clockwork Planet} {Dead Greenhouse}, {Grey Goo}, {Potato Hell}.]

Not knowing what to expect, she read through the difficulties before her eyes glanced down to the Scenario list.

And with a slight push of her will, the list expanded, adding more detailed descriptions to each scenario.

{When Day Breaks} - The sun, the giver of life and warmth to all that call the Earth home, has turned its back on life, turning all who fall under its gaze into monsters of flesh, sinew, and bone, becoming a vessel of horrors beyond imagination.

{Planetary Containment Breach} - For a reason unknown, the site you found yourself in is not the only site to have a containment breach; instead, all over the world, every site simultaneously experienced Containment Breaches, causing irreparable damage and chaos across the globe, with many SCPs managing to escape from containment and alert the rest of the world to their presence.

{Last Human on Earth} - For some reason unknown to you, you have found that you are the last Human on the planet, all others having disappeared entirely, as if erased from existence.

{Clockwork Planet} - Due to the actions of one particular faction, a planet-wide outbreak of SCP-217 has occurred, turning most forms of life into a horrifying amalgamation of flesh and metal.

{Dead Greenhouse} - The population of humanity has dropped to near extinction levels, leaving many SCPs and nature itself free rein of the Earth in Humanity's absence.

{Grey Goo} - Over time, a Nanite Swarm has begun to replicate, and with each day it grows stronger and stronger until it will grow strong enough to consume the entire planet. One of the more complicated scenarios, as the Grey Goo will adapt to every strategy used against it, and if it assimiliates any SCPs, the Grey Goo can become unstoppable, making the run into one that is determined by how long you can last.

{Potato Hell} - Unlike the Grey Goo scenario, this scenario begins with a simple brown bag containing a portal to an alternate dimension of Earth, where strange potatoes have fully consumed it. This growth has started spilling out into your dimension, and with each day, this growth will expand, sucking the Earth and land dry of life and nutrients, as they grow through and into every possible crevice they can.

[Note that most scenarios only affect the world outside the Foundation Site you are attempting to escape, and provide an extra goal for players who wish for an extended experience after escaping]

Looking at each scenario's description, May eventually decided to pick what sounded like the hardest, {Grey Goo}, before selecting her difficulty, Keter, and in that same instance, she selected, she felt the whole room shift as sounds began to echo around her. That's when she noticed the piece of paper on the desk before her.

On top of the paper was that same vault-like symbol, and below that, the acronym SCP with its meaning spelled out below it.

Secure. 

Contain.

Protect.

Below that, in bold letters, was a title. 

Orientation Leaflet for the D-Class Personnel. It read as she continued down the paper.

On behalf of the SCP Foundation and our staff, we welcome you to an exciting one-month working period in one of our top-secret research facilities. Unfortunately, the exact details of your upcoming work assignments are highly classified. However, please read this document carefully to ensure your stay is as safe and pleasant as possible.

Each of the D-Class Personnel has been given a numerical designation. Your personal designation is D-9341. 

Please memorize your designation, as the staff will use it to refer to you from now on during your stay within this facility. 

During your stay, you will take part in various testing procedures. Some of them can be extremely dangerous if appropriate precautions are not taken. This is why we require your full cooperation at all times, under all circumstances. Our highly trained researchers and scientists are knowledgeable in minimizing risks and ensuring the safety of personnel involved in testing. If you fail to comply with the instructions you are given, you will be sent back to your term in death row. 

If everything goes as planned (meaning that we have your full cooperation), you will be released at the end of the month and granted an absolute pardon for all your previous offenses.

As she read through the paper, May quickly realized just how suspicious everything she read appeared. Not only did this document claim that she was some death row inmate, but it also claimed that so long as she followed their instructions and orders without complaint, she'd receive an 'absolute pardon' of all previous crimes, if she survived till the end of the month.

It wasn't just her gut feeling that told her this...The Foundation was likely to run experiments that would have killed her. Still, they were also incredibly powerful, possibly even as strong as a government agency or program, which could rival Shield, as unlikely as that might be. 

Before she could form more hypotheses, a hand knocked loudly on the door.

"Step away from the door! Failure to comply may result in termination!" A man's voice shouted from the other side of the door.

Playing along, but already contemplating her escape, she stepped back from the door and stood against the wall, watching with complete focus as the door to her sterile white cell slid open, to reveal a man in strange militarized armor in black and white.

"It's your lucky day, D-9341! We got some work for you and two others, so do us a favor and step out of your cell and follow me, oh. By the way, we are authorized to terminate any disobedient test subject, so I would recommend not doing anything stupid," The man in armor warned rather bluntly, not even hiding the fact that she was going to be a test subject.

Not saying a word, she stepped out of her cell and turned to follow behind the lead guard while the other followed behind her, their gun at the ready for any sudden movement she may make. 

As she walked down the hall, she noticed the strange design of this facility. Everything was a sterile grey and white, and there were little, if any, in the long corridor of doors besides numbers that lay above the door. 

It was clear that this was seemingly more in line with keeping it hard for anyone to navigate in case of an attack or an escape, something SHIELD has also done with their own prisoner facilities.

As she followed, the intercom suddenly came on, and a male voice began to speak, mentioning an agent and 'Heavy Containment.'

They stopped by a few more cells, giving the same speech as two more joined her side, all three of them wearing the orange jumpsuits with 'D-Class' stitched on the back in bold black letters.

The two guards led them further down the corridors. As they walked, May noticed the increasingly complex design of the facility, with its numerous corridors, cameras covering every angle, and the fact that every corridor was designed with the ability to lock down sections of the facility to either block routes or trap intruders or escapees if needed. 

There were also guards constantly patrolling, but never alone, as they always traveled in pairs or groups of two. 

Then the guards had the three of them halt before a strange section of the corridor, with two coils lying in the ceiling above, and two lines of yellow and black industrial warnings on the floor beneath them.

When they approached, the coils sparked to life, sending down a jolt of electricity towards the ground before the guards had them go through, but befoe she could begin questining the design choices and sheer money that was thrown towards the design of this facility, the three of them with the two guards arrived at their location, a section labeled [SCP: 173].

—

[#1] - Imagine the Virtual Reality Pods of Fallout New Vegas, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4.

[#2] - Imagine the same doors of light from Marvel’s Loki’s TVA; instead of orange, these doors are white in color.