MacLean came in on time for his next session, and Dr. Benson greeted him with a smile. “Good morning, MacLean. Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. MacLean silently took a seat. Benson reached forwards and pressed a button on his digital recorder.
“Alright then. So, at our last session, we were discussing your early work with the Foundation,” Benson said, speaking more for the benefit of the recording than anything else.
We were? Were we? Where are we? Why me? Who, me? What is me?
“You expressed some dissatisfaction with the way your first foray with the Mobile Taskforces was handled. Did you ever speak of this dissatisfaction to your superiors?”
MacLean winced. Benson guessed that his question raised more bad memories. “Yes, I did. I was the only survivor of an action in Dodoma. I had to write the after-action report, and my opinion came out in it, I guess. I got recommended for mandatory counseling sessions.”
“'Mandatory counseling sessions?'”
MacLean shrugged. “The Foundation goes out of its way to make sure that every one of its members stays loyal and sane, within reason, so when you get told to go see the shrinks, you can’t say no. If you do say no, you’ll be drugged, chained to a table, and then sent to see the shrink anyway. Some people I knew liked to exploit this; pretending to be grief-stricken could get you off work, at least for a few days.”
“Do they offer this treatment to all personnel, or just the Taskforces?”
“…I think it’s mainly the Agents, and the Taskforces. I never found any proof, but I’m pretty sure that the researchers and other people with high enough security clearances can sort of skip it. Perks of their position, I guess.”
Some go their whole careers without ever needing a psychiatrist. And it shows.
Benson noted that MacLean’s tone sounded faintly resentful. “Tell me more about the Foundation’s researchers.”
Shoot on sight. Shoot to kill.
MacLean frowned. “Well… The researchers and MTFs don’t always get along, and there’s a good reason for that. It’s a natural consequence of the work we do, I guess. The researchers, especially the ones above level three, are responsible for poking and prodding at all the monsters that we risk our lives to capture and contain. Whenever a researcher screws up, it’s the guards who usually do the dying.”
MacLean sighed and rubbed his forehead before continuing. “It wouldn’t be so bad, I guess, except for two things. First thing is that the Overseers tend to play favorites with the high-level researchers, or so it always seemed to me. Some people at level four get away with murder, and that’s not an exaggeration. MTFs, on the other hand, don’t get cut any slack; if you bungle a mission and don’t die, summary execution is actually one of the nicer things the brass can do.
“The second thing is… well, you know how in the U.S. military, sometimes civilian scientists or engineers will get some kind of nominal rank, no matter their service record? Well, the Foundation is a bit like that, only the ranks aren’t nominal. A researcher at level three or four can actually command a Taskforce. In person. Without going through any other channels first. So, they get used to being the bosses, and since the Overseers don’t really do anything to stop them, sooner or later they just stop caring about us.”
“They’re not receptive to you?”
“Yeah, sure, if they’re nice. If they’re not nice, they treat us like D-class.”
“D-class. You mean they treat you like you’re expendable.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
The office was completely silent for several seconds afterward. Dr. Benson cleared his throat and tried to regroup. “If I may go back a bit… You mentioned mandatory counseling sessions?”
“They were straightforward enough,” said MacLean harshly. “I told some guy in a lab coat what I thought was wrong, and he told me I was mistaken about the whole thing. He wouldn’t let me go back to work until I agreed with him. I didn’t really buy his reasoning for why secrecy was more important than the lives of the people charged with keeping secrets, so all that experience did for me was give me some advance training in how to lie to therapists.”
More awkward silence filled the air. Benson tried to regroup again. “You seem agitated by this. Is there something you’d like to-“
“Doc, I don’t need your-“ MacLean loudly interjected before cutting himself off. He sighed, and started again. “Doctor Benson, I don’t really want to discuss this any further. I didn’t quit the Foundation because I enjoyed my life there, and I want to forget it all as soon as I can. You’re talking to me because you want to know something. Can you just directly tell me what it is, so I can get this over with?”
Benson suppressed a surge of irritation, let out a breath, and thought carefully about what to say next. “The primary purpose of this interview,” he began, “is to learn whatever you can tell us about the Foundation. My superior officers are mainly interested in the military capabilities of the Foundation; their numbers, their funds, so-called SCPs that might have military applications, locations of bases, and so forth. What can you tell me about these things?”
There it is again. Where is what again?
MacLean smirked. “What, you think you can win a war with the Foundation?”
Benson kept his face stern. “Can you answer my question?”
Yes. The answer is “More than you can imagine.”
MacLean leaned back in his chair. “No. No I cannot. I don’t anyone below Overseer level who would know all that. I’m not sure if even they know all of it. Listen,” he said, leaning forwards again, “The Foundation is built to survive anything. Anything. A nuclear apocalypse would only be an inconvenience for the Foundation. A huge inconvenience, sure, but still just an inconvenience. The way they survive is mainly by two things. First, they spread themselves out and make damn sure they their presence remains secret even from each other. There are layers upon layers of bluffs and double-blinds to make sure that even if you kill half of them, you’ll never find the other half. Second, they exploit the hell out of those SCPs. Mind-control, teleportation, infinite food and water supplies… the Foundation can be pretty self-sufficient and still damn powerful when they want to be.”
Silence prevailed again, until Benson decided to point out the obvious. “While you haven’t given much specific information, you seem you have a working general knowledge of what the Foundation is capable of.”
MacLean shook his head. “I don’t know the half of it. I know just enough to know that the Foundation scares the shit out of me.”
“Well then, if that’s all, I think we can stop the recording for now.” Benson pressed a different button on his machine. “However, I still have more questions for you.”
“What about?”
“This is mainly for my own curiosity. I get the impression that you still have some respect for the Foundation. Am I correct?”
“No… Yes. Sort of.” MacLean let out a breath. “The Foundation’s mission is flawed. That’s how I feel about it. The whole ‘containment’ idea is messed up from the beginning. Plus, there are a lot of sociopaths running things in the Foundation, and they inadvertently helped me realize what was wrong. But the majority of the Foundation personnel are just people doing their jobs, or people who really believe that they’re saving the world. It’s hard to hate them, even If I hate who they work for.”
Benson glanced at the machine. The “recording” indicator light was still on. “I see. My superiors are concerned that you may have some mixed feelings about working against your former employers by assisting us, and you’ve just about confirmed that just now. How can we be sure that you do not have some lingering loyalty to the SCP Foundation?”
“…I’ve… had some experiences with the Foundation. That business with Dodoma was just the start of what would be years of things that still give me nightmares.”
“Of course. Would you be comfortable telling me more about these experiences?”
Why do you want to know these things?
“No. But you’re going to insist, aren’t you?”
“I may.”
MacLean sighed and pulled a small cardboard box out of his pocket. “Is it alright if I smoke in here?”
“If it relaxes you, go ahead.”
“Thanks.” MacLean pulled out a lighter and lit up a cigarette. He sucked in deep on the first breath and exhaled grey smog at the ceiling. “…The next incident that really made me feel bad about working for the Foundation happened a few months after Dodoma. Remember what I was saying about researchers? Team Beta-62 got requisitioned by an asshole named Dr. Morris. We all called him Doctor Prick. Right, now, a week before that, Beta-62 and a few other teams busted into an abandoned Russian military base that some See-Eye goons had taken over-“
“Pardon, me, but did you say ‘See-Eye?’”
“Yes, C.I. The Chaos Insurgency. They had taken over a Russian military base, and the MTFs, along with some backup from the Spetznaz, rushed in and cleared them out. It wasn’t easy; they’d planted razor-grass all over the place, and someone in a guard tower had a kind of sonic cannon that they blasted down a gunship with; we lost team Beta-60 that way. Still, eventually we killed or captured everyone inside, and we… that is, the MTFs… thought that was it. Then we just sat back, and let the Foundation’s investigators clean up the mess and look for anything interesting. The Spetznaz and most of the MTFs went back to their respective bases, and Beta-62 stayed behind to help stand guard.
Well, as it happened, the investigators turned up several concealed hatches in the bunkers and shelters on the base, all of which seemed to lead down into a sub-basement of the base that connected all the buildings. That was a little unusual, but the really weird part was that the basement was below freezing and completely full of fog. Thick fog, the kind where you can see less than a hundred meters in front of you in good light. Dr. Morris, the researcher supervising investigations, sent a couple agents into it to have a look, and we never heard from them again. After that, he decided to go in and have a look himself, and guess who happened to be on call?”
