SCP: Find Us Alive - 23: Klein vs 107

Episode Date: October 1, 2021

Klein tries to negotiate moving up the timeline of the controlled detonation. Harley begins to worry about Lancaster. 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, human experimentation, explosions, sudden noises. 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

Hey, everybody, Anna here, writer and director of Find Us Alive. I'd like to shout out some of our new patrons, Foxblade, Jan Boland, and Samot. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. Thank you for your support. We appreciate all of you. Donors on our Patreon get a handful of different rewards from shoutouts to merch to personalized messages, plus access to our exclusive behind-the-scenes content. If you'd like to join them, visit www.5podcast.com and check out our rewards. and enjoy the episode.

Always. It's Klein. I've got maintenance working on it, too. There's at least one person from every department on it right now. Let me know if you guys know anything or find anything. We're all hands on deck here. And thanks for being cooperative with me on this, Gloria. The foundation does a lot to ensure the security of its sights. The contents, of course.

Not necessarily the people, which should be evident by our little production. dickament down here. But the anomalies themselves, it's pretty rare that any of them make it out the front doors. This site was never enough of a danger to get our own nuclear warhead. 6320 was not a threat to the populace. If it was, we would have cleared the area, spread disinformation about a chemical hazard in the soil, making the land unlivable, chased out the town's entire civilian population until the only people left was us. Like a lot of the city. invasive species. It's not like we haven't done it before. But not 107. We weren't enough of a major hazard. Apparently, we used to be considered one of the safest sites in America,

one of the most predictable extradimensional anomalies in foundation hands, which really must have people up top re-contextualizing a lot of what they consider safe. Hopefully. Hopefully we were enough of a tragedy for them to try harder to prevent this from happening again. I think we should push sooner. I understand that, yeah, but our prospects are looking really good right now, and I think we should seize the opportunity while everything is still calm. Right, but... All right, all right, what I need is acknowledgement that the status quo here changes rapidly. If we wait until the next cycle to go through the detonation, we're risking a lot of factors we can't possibly anticipate. We're counting on the next cycle having no rogue events, and I don't think

that's the best option. What if something happens next cycle that prevents us from being able to do the detonation at all? What if this is our window and we miss it? All I'm doing is voicing my disagreement as acting site director. It's my professional opinion that our best course of action is to move the timeline up and blow the rift at the end of this cycle. I swear to God, Arley. I feel like I am losing my mind. I know how you feel. Hold up. Why are you day drinking?

You're doing great. Your code is going gangbusters. Everybody thinks you're our ace in the hole now. Yep. Everything's coming up, Harley. Give me that. No. Is being a side director always like this?

Just a constant battle with the people higher up than you? I swear Gloria's just being this way on purpose. Like, everything was going so well. And as she has to go and publicly say, I'm wrong in front of all the other department heads. Gloria. All those. I didn't know you two were on a first name basis.

That's not even the half of it, but... She's still mad that Shao voted me as acting director and not her. But it was only because I've been here longer than she has, and I have more level four clearance experience. I didn't know you were level four before this. I was for a while. What happened? I fucked up, Harley.

I fucked up real bad. Do you want to talk about it? No, I do not. Dear diary, I am going to talk about my feelings. Okay, I almost left Gloria voicemail. My God, would that have been fucked up? I'm not that drunk, though. Anyway, I'm trying really hard.

I don't actually know of what I'm doing here the right call considering how much upper management doesn't agree. But I have a really bad feeling about pushing it to next month. We know that the big dash ones create the large-scale environmental effects and the blackouts and the temperature changes. So, like, we can probably avoid having another one this cycle if we're careful. Everything is cool right now. Who knows what kind of crazy shit we're going to have to deal with two, three weeks from

now. Wrong. I think Shao is wrong. I think Alves is wrong, and I think I'm right. And I think they don't trust me. I think Shao knows. Shao knows about what happened at my old sight, and that's why they don't trust me. I'm doing well, this time.

I'm doing well. They're wrong, and I'm trustworthy. Okay, you have to finish up the mechanism with engineering. We still need a remote or something, though. Containment wants BH 9, I have 11 tomorrow, so I'll have it to... Oh, hey, Lancaster. Lancaster, hey! Oh, hey, hi.

Where have you been, man? I feel like I haven't seen you the last couple days. Well, you're not the only one who's close to a breakthrough. That's all I'm going to say. Oh, yeah? What kind? Well, I think I've made a connection between how non-14Bs people's brains interact with the anomaly and how to maybe...

fix it. Elaborate. Well, I don't really want to yet. I don't want to get ahead of myself and then find out later that I'm offered that I did something wrong. You want to wait until your idea is more fleshed out? Yeah, uh, fleshed out. Do you need

any help? I could come in and... No, I'm good. You've been working yourself kind of hard recently. No, no, I'm just excited. It's really nice to have a concrete idea to work on. Besides, you and Harley have been working a lot, too. Can't argue with you there. Speaking of work, though, I got to get back. I don't

I want to lose my train of thought. All right. Uh, well, come by the cafeteria tonight. We're watching Ferris Bueller. Okay, I'll try to finish up before then. You need to take rests. Uh, scientists. And I tried to hang on to the inside of the stall door so he wouldn't see me,

but it fell off the hinges. And I almost landed on... Harley, I have a favor to ask. Do you not know how to knock? I've never knocked on a door ever once in my fucking life, Harley. Can you babysit tonight? Babysit you? No, babysit dump truck.

Klein wants me to help her get booze from the departments that are being difficult about it. Radiger can't do it? No, she's going to be on shift and she says he's distracting. Can you do it or not? I absolutely can. You're not allowed to do anything weird to him. I'm going to do all a matter of weird things to him. Don't!

Or I'll make Lancaster do it instead. You've seen Lancaster recently? I fixed his camera a few days ago. He said it made a little popping sound, and then it stopped working on our end. His office looks like a printer blew up in it. He's got sticky notes like everywhere. I'm a little worried about him.

Why? He's always been a little weirdo. Yeah, he gets like that sometimes. But he hasn't spent any time with me for basically the whole cycle. He's just holed up in his office all the time. When I was in there, he said he was doing stuff with a memetic. Said something about, like, perception, alteration, or direct. exposure or whatever.

He sounded like he was on to something, at least. You're not concerned? No, I'm not concerned. He seems fine. He just looks invested in what he's working on right now. Besides, how much time did you actually spend with him before we got stuck in here? That's a good point.

I guess I've gotten used to seeing everybody more than usual. We can do something about it if he starts to smell. This is relevant and important information, especially now. I was research. Why would I... An emergency bomb? I'd want to use it for the detonation this cycle. Listen to me! I don't care if you agree with it or not. But I am 107 site director, as long as we're in here, not you.

And shout to do it this cycle. You have to measure the blast first. We don't. If you knew about it, then that means Carson did tune. I'm just... ...computer for any other info that nobody bothered to tell me. It's a great idea for me to come down there right now. Yes, I'm being sarcastic. I can't see you right now, or am I thinking about this? Goodbye.

Pull yourself together. Let's just go see what Carson's got. No. You know what? I'm gonna blow something up. Right, are we almost ready? Uh, no, they're not coming, especially not all this. Because, strictly speaking, we're not, uh...

We're not a hundred. 100% cleared on this one, actually. No, no, no, no. We're cleared on the materials. We just didn't exactly get containment to sign off on doing it today in the main containment chamber. But where else are we supposed to test it?

We don't have anywhere else big enough, right? They want us to measure the explosions. So we're going to measure the explosions. We have more than enough supplies to rig this one up a second time, maybe even a third. It'll be fine. We're far enough away, and there's nothing around the explosive that can even hit the anomaly.

I got most of upper management to give it the go-ahead, so we'll be fine, and if we do any significant damage to the walls, they'll just fix themselves anyway. And we're all up here, so there's almost no risk involved. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. And if we do this test real quick, it'll bump us ahead of schedule by like three days. That's a net win for everybody. Okay. Are we ready?

Arm the device. Ear and eye protection on. Detonation in three, two, one. Wait! Jesus, Lancaster! Sorry, sorry, oh God, I'm so sorry. Are you okay? I'm fine, I'm fine.

Thank God, I... What the fuck, Lancaster? I knew anybody was going to be in here. I'm so sorry. What the fuck are you doing in here? Well, I wanted to see the... No, like... How did you get in?

I've borrowed a card from one of the containment guys. Without an escort. Yeah, I mean, I guess so. I just need to, I had to look at the... Never mind. I need to go. No, stay where you are. I'm coming down there. Today I learned that, well, we are not important enough to warrant a nuke.

We do have what many of us are referring to as an emergency. bomb. And it's what it sounds like. A large explosive device intended to use on an anomaly to neutralize it, or failing that, to delay any effects until additional support arrives. General consensus is that it must have been one of the numerous installations in this site put here in anticipation of its expansion. There is a chance, depending on what we learned about it, that we may use it for the control detonation next cycle. Radiger, why did you tell them? I told them because you did not tell me not to tell them.

Yeah, but... They asked about it, so I did my job. Yeah, you're good at your job, but why couldn't you just read my mind? I can't read anyone's mind. I didn't mean literally. Oh. I'm not actually mad at you. I'm mad at myself, and I hate it when all this yells at me.

She yells at you a lot. Yeah. She does. Why did you do that? Why did I... All right, it's not like I was trying to sneak around or anything. I just didn't feel like we needed to get containment signature on detonating a little explosive. Like, it didn't even have anything to do with the anomaly.

I think they were mad about you doing it in the containment chamber. Maybe. We weren't even close to the rift. It was fine. Listen, if you see research doing stuff like that again, just don't... No. What? If you want me to keep secrets, you have to justify it to me first.

I... All right. You're right, actually. I should have gotten it cleared with them. I don't know why I keep... Never mind. We'll talk later. Bye.

All right, guys! You look like shit. Thanks. Get more sleep. I would love to, but I cannot. on account of the tattoo and the existential crisis. Ah, I see. You look like shit as well, I might add.

I need all your liquor. Oh, you're too late. Love cleaned me out an hour ago. You hear I almost blew up Lancaster today? What? In my defense, uh, he should not have been able to get into the containment chamber, so... Do you mean you literally? Almost blew up Lancaster? We're testing one of engineering's improvised explosives and he just walked in. He's...

He's fine. Nobody got hurt. That sounds like somebody could. Could have been... Nobody got hurt, all right? Nobody got hurt. So, I'm going to use the emergency bomb for the detonation? No.

No? It requires manual activation to set it off. We would need to kill a D-Class. Or, you know, any person, any human individual who's cool with getting blown up. I've got one more jar of shine in the filing cabinet. Oh, my God, give it to me. Yeah, I checked his room, and this seems like the only other...

Oh, he is? Do you think I could? Speak of the devil. Hey, Harley. Just came by to check on you. Seems like you haven't been around in a while. Also, Klein said she almost blew you up. Yeah, she did almost blow me up, but it's okay.

My ears are still ringing a little bit, though. Where have you been? Oh, I've just... I'm working really hard on this project. I'm sorry. Can you work less hard for a little while? Probably, but... I'm sorry, Harley.

I know that I haven't spent any time with you or any of the others lately, but I just have so much motivation right now. And I can't stop or I'm going to lose it. Are you doing okay? Love said your office is a disaster. Yeah, yeah, it is. It really is a mess. Don't look at it, though. Don't look at it or you're going to ruin it.

Can I look for two seconds? You can look after I finish the actual thesis when I start putting things away. Do you need any help organizing? No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to... I haven't been sleeping very well. It's fine. I get it. I don't think any of us have.

Well, I should really get back to it. The sooner I get done, the sooner I can, you know, try to kind of get back to normal. Promise you're all right? Of course. I'm all right. My primary goal as your acting site director is to minimize further casualties as much as possible. We lost nearly half our staff in the shift. It is my firm belief that in spite of ordinary foundation protocol, I have an ethical and moral obligation to the people in this building.

All of them. I want to thank all of you for bending the rules with me. The foundation we knew on the outside would have actively encouraged the expenditure of a human life over a test involving the emergency bomb. And I appreciate each one of you who is trusting me on this. Human life is one of our irreplaceable resources in this circumstance. It is my promise to all of you that I will do everything in my power to ensure the safety of everyone here, regardless of their station.

And for those of you who voted against me, I am tired of fighting you. If you agree not to use the emergency bomb in any scenario short of apocalyptic, Dick. I will stop pushing for the detonation date to be moved up. I just want us to agree on this one thing. I don't feel that this is too much to ask. Thank you for trusting me. Episode 23 was written and produced by Anna McGuire. The voice of Harley is Logan Laidlaw. The voice of Lancaster is Jackson McMurray. The voice of Klein is Tasha Ritter. The voice of Agent Love is Tabby Bardol. The voice of Radiger is Anna McGuire. 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.