SCP: Find Us Alive - 22: Departments

Episode Date: September 3, 2021

Harley navigates the strange worlds of the other Departments on his ongoing quest to teach the Body Code. Everything is fine! Everything is going great. This episode was written by Anna Maguire and features the voices of Logan Laidlaw (Harley), Jackson McMurray (Lancaster), Tabi Bardall (Agent Love), Taschia Ritter (Klein) and Anna Maguire (Raddagher). Original music by Jackson McMurray. CONTENT WARNINGS: alcohol, injury mention, death mention, hospitals. Follow us on Twitter @Site107 or visit findusalivepodcast.com for updates, info, art, and more. Join us on Patreon for exclusive behind-the-scenes content! Word of mouth is the best advertising, so be sure to share with your friends if you like the show! This podcast and all content relating to the SCP Foundation are released under a Creative Commons Sharealike 3.0 license. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Good morning, Overwatch Command. It is currently 6.15 a.m., and I'm about to start a very long series of consultation meetings. I thought it'd be smart to knock out as many of them in one day as I possibly could. I may live to regret that decision, however. There are 11 departments in this building. 12, if you count the rogue faction, they certainly count themselves. but I will not be meeting with upper management communications or the field agents, so that brings my number down to nine.

Nine departments. I'm currently praying that I can get them all done before 6 p.m. It'll be a marathon. I've never been great at running. And at the end of that race comes blessed sleep. Blessed, mildly uncomfortable post-back tattoo. sleep. I haven't been getting much of it. Maybe I should bring that up with psychology. I am going to see them today after all. Time to get moving. Wish me luck. Just finished my first meeting. Maintenance.

Our chefs, janitors, and repair people. Those who keep our psych functioning in the day-to-day, they're impeccable at what they do. And they are very good at making me personally feel totally incompetent. Not because they're rude or unkind or anything, they're just very effective. I went in expecting an ordinary meeting with a group of people, cross-talk, disagreements, distractions. But there weren't any.

They were all on the same page with one another, the whole time. It was like they were communicating telepathically or something. They agreed on everything. They all know what they want. And they all want the same thing. How do they do that? They're keeping inventory on a lot of stuff. They're largely responsible for feeding the lot of us,

so plenty of their use of the code revolves around tracking what food we have at the start of a given reset. Maintenance has some information on the reality anchor as well. It went very smoothly. If the other departments go like this, I'll be done before, too. I take back everything. I will not be done before two. Psychology was second on the roster.

I almost knocked over their card tower when I walked into their office. It was nearly five feet tall, and when I asked how long it took to build, they all gave me this weird array of vague, nervous answers. But they were happy to explain to me that it had something to do with unharishing the mellow. They also talked very fast, all of them. Well, not all of them.

Lancaster was in session with somebody, so he wasn't there. I expected the due to how quickly they talk, it would wrap up just as fast. But it took us a very long time to get on topic, and to stay on topic. And for me to hear what they were saying with all them talking over each other, they had quite the well of energy in there. And maybe one of the most decorated office spaces in the building. The most decorated, not necessarily the best decorated. Two down. Seven to go.

Hold on, give me a moment. My apologies, Overwatch Command. I just got out of my meeting with containment, and I spent the whole 50 minutes with every muscle in my entire body. Totally rigid. I now feel like I'm made out of some kind of soft rubber. I don't know if any of you were problem children as kids. I was, to some extent, a little too curious for my own good sometimes.

Drowed my mother's up a wall. But that feeling, when you're sitting in a chair too big for you, and you're being asked questions by the assistant principal who you've only seen once or twice because her office door is always closed, that's what meeting with Alvesh feels like. We met in the good conference room in A1. They said they didn't want to meet in the downstairs break room because they share it with security. I don't know what about it they didn't deem acceptable, but I suppose I'm going to find out later. Very well-dressed and very strong, the containment personnel.

One of them was carrying around a briefcase that must have weighed 20 pounds. They said it had papers in it. I think they might have been lying. So the original plan with research was to meet them in their office down in BH9. That did not happen, however. I intercepted the white goats just outside the containment chamber, where they were conducting an experiment. To me, it looked like an office chair race,

but I don't know much about their scientific process. Masterson said something about the rift's effect on our physics, specifically extreme speed. I watched Dr. Tatarov crash one of the chairs into the wall. The other researchers cheered. Masterson's birds, who were also there, cheered as well. I suppose they may have witnessed similar experiments before. Research is obviously noting down their direct findings on the main rift. Their system has specific subjects spread out between them,

so one has most of the information on dash ones. One has things on the environmental effects that happen when they go off, etc. One of them asked if they could get them in color. I told them probably not. That lot is very excited about their upcoming plan to use a controlled detonation on the rift. they're all awfully fond of blowing things up as scientists often are

I'm sorry I'm so sorry it's just one I swear but why are they like that the second I walk in they're all like hi Harley are you here for the meeting you having a good afternoon I was having a good afternoon what of it I don't need to tell you anything about my life

who do you think you are The Harley's Life Police Department Anyway, I gave them some recommendations and they showed me their progress on putting info on plant leaves which I think will work out fine and the leader said the plant strategy might be worth shopping around to other departments in case they need more space

and then the mean short one said that I shouldn't try that myself or else it'll die and I'll lose my progress and then the tall one said don't be mean, but I know they were all thinking it. They just act nice to gain your trust. But I know. I know the truth.

Anyway, Bodney went well. So what are we doing here? Got any body code questions? No. All right. Don't you have work today? I'm supposed to meet with surveillance. I'm surveillance.

I know. And since we're done meeting, I think I'll take a break for a minute. Okay. Back to work. Want to be done before six. Good luck. The engineering office looks like a spaceship. The engineers have decorated it to look like a spaceship.

It's also very dark. You took the bulbs out of most of the lights. I'm not sure why. None of them would tell me. I don't think I understand what engineers. does. I know it's something with computers. The less mechanical stuff that maintenance doesn't work with. But when I asked them what they intended to record with the code, it sounded like they were just making stuff up. I really think they were just making some of it up. Also, every so often, one of them would say something that sounded totally ordinary, but all the others would laugh at it.

Different departments have different inside jokes, I suppose. At one point, they asked me if I wanted anything on my office to light up rainbow. I told them that that didn't sound like something I needed, and they said they could get it done while I was asleep. I told them I didn't want to give my card out to anybody. And that is how I learned that engineering is the only department besides upper management where every member has a master key to every floor in the building. They all have one.

Not just the department head. I asked why. They said they didn't know. But they allegedly know how to get into the secret floor. Further investigation by me into the existence of a secret floor revealed it to be a crawl space underneath the floor in the AB break room, where the engineers are keeping. a 15-inch TV and a GameCube. I don't know what I was expecting from Security's break room, after hearing the way

containment spoke about it. Messy, maybe? A stubborn light that won't stop flickering? Maybe it smelled weird. It was none of those things. It was the volume. It's no secret that security personnel are enthusiastic. and noisy. It's a fairly common experience to be awoken in the wee hours of the morning by a pair of guards talking to each other and their foghorn voices.

But a lot of them in one room is another experience entirely. My ears are still ringing. They really are some of the nicest people on sight. The moment I walked in, they all started cheering. Officer Haldi, currently had a security, is an enormous woman who could break me. in half, and has the widest grin to ever grace Site 107. And like being in a ball pit full of Siberian huskies, I couldn't help but get sucked into their energy. I had to soundly lose a couple wrestling matches before we could get down to brass tacks.

That whole group seems to be tighter-knit than any other department. They must wear all that body armor for how soft they are underneath. Haldy said she's glad I'm taking care of Radiger. Apparently they're all a little worried about that one. They took the heaviest losses in the shift. They're mostly using the code to memorialize their fallen friends. You know I pride myself on being a nice guy. Maybe not the best guy in the whole world, but I think I'm pretty amiable.

I definitely had my doubts, hearing everybody. say he's the worst, but I anticipated that were I ever to meet him, Simmons wouldn't be so bad. I stand corrected. Simmons is the worst. What's that guy's deal? Records informed me that they will be using the code as little as possible, as this is an opportunity for them to practice their rote memorization. I didn't see very many of them, considering they mostly spoke to me from behind shelves and piles of file boxes before they disappeared back into the stacks again. Because let me tell you, Overwatch Command, it is a mess down there. A horrible, dusty, disorganized mess. I don't know how long it's been like that. It was a maze. Literally,

it took a good 10 minutes for me to find a table to sit at. I'm not even sure how many records employees, there are. I talked to four or five, but there must have been at least a hundred more skittering around back there. There are so many files. Cabinets, boxes, stacks

of loose paper. I think they've written down everything we've ever done. One of them definitely sniffed me while I was walking out. I'm nearly done, almost. There's only one more department I'm scheduled to meet with.

Just one. And I can't lie. I've been avoiding it. But I want that nap. So I'm going to go straight up there. I'm going to talk to them. And I'm going to be totally fine. It'll be over before I know it.

Here we go. Wing AD1 looks like any other. But you can feel the change in the air as you enter. The gravity increases, at least it does on your heart. There's a sinking feeling of muted fear in that place, like standing under the gaze of a long, dead god's empty eye sockets. Hollowing. A sharp smell of the antiseptic won't come out of your clothes

for too long after you leave a medical wing. Site 107 has a pretty, well-equipped one. Supposedly we were supposed to expand into a much larger site over the next few decades. But I guess that plan has fallen through for obvious reasons. But enough of our medical staff, including the famously terrifying Dr. Gravitt, have stayed down here with us. It's a hallowed place, the medical wing. It spends the first couple weeks of every recycle, filled with its returning patients, those who are crushed in the rubble every time we reset. But the system is well established by now. The doctors and nurses by Gravett's order have taken to

teaching themselves new practices to accommodate these injuries and their prolonged effects. And every 32 days, their congregation again returns to the altar of their operating tables. Dr. Gravid reports that she is now confident in her ability to perform certain procedures on the human brain as well as excise tumors. I believe her. I don't know where else in the world the foundation has stationed that monolith of a woman. But the look in her eyes leads me to believe she's seen horrors I can only imagine. I don't think I will imagine them now. Hmm? Oh, hi, Klein.

I have something I'd like to go over with you. No? If you're up for it. Is it something nice? Uh, it's something I think you'll like. Great. Um, okay. What's up? Ah, and here I am. Done with everything on my list.

Soon I'll add more things to that list. But for now, I have nothing. to do. For now, I am once again alone in my booth with you, Overwatch Command. My department isn't a department. It's just me in here by myself. Nobody to report to, no one reporting to me, I can do everything my way. This is a fairly lax situation, our arrangement in here. It's very little I'm not allowed to do. They're going to let me into the department head meetings. Nobody likes being told what to do.

It's exhausting to have people making choices for you, people who are often thousands of miles away, who have never seen your face. It's difficult to leave your life in the hands of people who don't know you or know anything about you. It's a bit crushing, if you think too hard about it. Before the shift, I came to work, I did my job, and I went home dreaming about what I would do if they would let me off my bureaucratic leash.

The shift certainly broke that leash, all right. I've gotten to do something I've always wanted. I wrote a code, and people liked it, and people are using it, and they're asking me how to better use it. I went to school for this. I never thought I'd actually be doing it. I'm useful. I'm integral. I'm an important part of the system finally, indispensable.

They're letting me come to the department head meetings. And I'm happy, I am. I couldn't ask for a more favorable outcome for myself. It doesn't feel like I thought it would. Oh, man, that was the whole plan. I never thought I'd get here and I'm not sure what I should do now. This was kind of it. Kind of a strange feeling in your chest, isn't it?

I'm sure I'll think of something. And until then, Overwatch Command, I'll be in here talking to the air, telling you all about the crazy people I work with, live with. And if you still care to, if you care about any of us, Find Us Alive.

Episode 22 was written and produced by Anna Maguire. The voice of Harley is Logan Laidlaw. The voice of Klein is Tasha Ritter. The voice of Radiger is Anna Maguire. If you like our show and want to support us, follow us on Twitter at Site 107 or visit Find Usalivepodcast.com. This podcast, along with all content relating to the SCP Foundation, is released under a Creative Commons share-a-like 3.0 license.

Thank you for listening.