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[[div class="blockquote"]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/0|06:58, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/1|07:23, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/2|07:48, Third Floor Lounge]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/3|09:32, Executive Wing Offices]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/4|10:42, Site-17 Hallways]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/5|11:23, Humanoid Common Room]]] [[[Friday afternoon |Afternoon]]] [[[Friday night |Night]]] [[/div]] Not all heroes wear capes. Even if they should. Because sometimes, the Site-17 containment staff would reject apparel requests for no good reason. But that hardly mattered - it wasn't one's appearance, but their heart and their deeds that made someone truly special. Daniel was sure he had the heart part down pretty good, honest, but he was finding that there weren't many deeds that needed doing that were within his purview. For the time being, he reminded himself, as he was sure he'd be recognized by whoever ran the show here sooner or later, but in the interim, he found precious little opportunities to help where he wouldn't get shut down by a staff member with some overblown safety concern. Perhaps out of habit, he'd once again taken to prowling the streets, at least in spirit. In practice, he was just meandering around looking for someone to offer his assistance to. He wasn't as charismatic as that guy with the healing superpowers (cacti could recover from injuries too, it was nothing special) or as knowledgeable as the guy with metal arms (which he didn't even do anything cool with), but he was certainly more active than them. Sure, he had yet to find someone to help, but it would only be a matter of time. "Oh, yeah yeah yeah, It's just that one part that's giving me trouble there. Sorry, what was that?" ...Perhaps an even shorter amount of time than he had initially thought. "The... the what?" As Daniel rounded a corner trying not to look too excited, he saw a researcher pinching his nose and an anomaly in surprisingly heavy clothing in front of him. "That thing you said. The 'door with the laser warning on it.' What's that?" the anomaly asked. "The //door?//" The researcher responded incredulously. He already looked tired. "No, no, I've known what those are for //months// by now," the anomaly said, sounding maybe a bit... //too// proud of that. "I mean the laser warning. What's a laser?" The researcher groaned loudly, not even trying to hide his annoyance with the... woman? Probably a woman from the voice. And that was no way to treat a woman! "Is there a problem here?" Daniel said in a voice that was heroic enough to appeal to the anomaly but not authoritative enough to annoy the researcher. "Oh! Um. Maybe?" The woman turned around to reveal a - oh god. Wow. She did, uh, not look too good. Her hair wasn't a nice bright color, but the kind of grey you'd see on a skeleton in Indiana Jones, she had little metal bits around parts of her head, and her face and hand were covered in a bunch of crisscrossed scarring. Clearly, there was a point before now where //someone// failed to be a hero for her. All the more reason to help though. "Look, Daniel, I..." The researcher stopped in his tracks as his expression shifted. "Actually, I've got a meeting I've got to get to. Would you be able to help out [[[scp-6703|Eileen]]] here? I'm sure you can do it." He was //sure// Daniel could do it! Finally, just an ounce of recognition. He puffed his chest out a little bit. "Oh, of course! You can count on me." Eileen started to open her mouth, but the researcher cut her off and started talking fast. "Okay, look, she just needs to get to the common area, then get some of the techs to help her out, okay?" "Of course!" Daniel responded almost reflexively before he could even process the request. Well, it was only to get to the common area, and he knew where that was, it was right in the middle of the wing. from where he was, he just had to... um... Daniel looked around. "Hey, uh, where-" By the time he turned back around, the researcher was gone. After spinning around in confusion a few times, Daniel was interrupted by "Oh, uh, hi, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Eileen. Where are we going?" It took Daniel a moment to catch up with Eileen's sudden questions, but he quickly regained his footing. "I'm Daniel, though..." He thought back to how his title was received at breakfast. "...Though sometimes people call me other things." A true hero didn't look for recognition. "Oh, people call me things too! It's hard to tell what those things are, though, they usually say it real quiet when I'm not listening." Despite Eileen's deathly pallor, she seemed particularly upbeat. "Um, okay!" Daniel wasn't quite sure if he could make something of that, and he wasn't sure he wanted to try. "Well, you said you wanted to get back to the common area, right?" "Oh!" Eileen nodded. "Um, maybe. I was just asking where I was, but I think I know where that is, so once I get there, I should be fine, right?" "Oh, of course!" The irony in the situation sailed right over Daniel's head as he picked a random direction and started walking. "Just follow me." Daniel kept a regal pep in his heroic step as he walked, making sure Eileen was following far enough away that she wouldn't see him scanning the walls for a map. If she didn't notice that he needed it, no harm, no foul. A couple of hallways in, though, and the vaguely brutalist architecture was starting to get to him. This wasn't the same tiling they used in the hallways that had containment cells... But it's not like they'd let humanoids too far, would they? They'd just turn them back toward where they were going. But then that would tell the staff that Daniel was clueless - which he wasn't, of course, but- "So why are you here?" Eileen suddenly piped up, a reassuring if slightly jarring indication that she wasn't too suspicious of Daniel. "Oh, well, you see, I'm part cactus," Daniel said in a way that was far too self-confident. "Cactus?" Eileen blinked. "What's a cactus?" Daniel stopped in his tracks. "Excuse me?" "Is that some kind of animal?" Eileen's patchwork face held a steady expression of curiosity that betrayed no hint of irony. "No, it's like, um..." Daniel cleared his throat. It was also, he supposed, a hero's duty to keep people informed. "It's a plant." "Ooh!" Eileen suddenly lit up. "Like an angiosperm?" What. "Like a //what?//" "An angiosperm," she said with a smile. "Over ninety percent of plant species are angiosperms!" Were... were cacti angiosperms? Daniel suddenly felt very self-conscious of the fact that he didn't know something about cacti. He could play the odds and just say yes, but what if he was //wrong?// "Well... they've got spikes..." "Oh, like evergreens? Evergreens are gymnosperms, they don't have flat leaves!" "Oh, maybe." Daniel looked at Eileen suspiciously. "If you don't mind me asking... how do you know all that?" He decided not to press her on not knowing what a cactus was. It was wrong to call ghouls - //girls// stupid. "A nice lady on one of the research teams gave me a huge textbook so I wouldn't need to keep asking her questions," Eileen responded. "She just pulled out a book from her office and gave it to me right before she had a private meeting with... uh, someone else in the office! I've read the whole thing." "Must have been a real big book." "It was, yeah. Heck, my forearm popped clean out when I tried to bring it back to my room." Daniel unwittingly made an expression of concern and slight discomfort, but once again, it seemed Eileen didn't register it. From the looks of it, she was someone who might need some help. Just in general. Not like him, he had a great sense of direction. For instance, they were now just a few doors down from... uh... "You guys need help with something?" came a voice from behind Daniel as he was stroking his chin thoughtfully. He spun around to see what cretin had startled him, but Eileen spoke up first. "Oh, yeah, well, Daniel here is helping me get over to the, you know, common area, is all." Daniel cleared his throat, and the interrupter looked back to him. Daniel recognized him faintly as someone he'd seen in the hallway before and took that as a good sign that he must be getting closer to the humanoid containment area. "Yep, just helping this nice young lady along." "Yeah, uh, this is the... medical wing?" The man said in a questioning, almost sympathetic tone. "The common area's over that way and down a flight of stairs," he said, pointing in a seemingly random direction. Daniel wasn't even sure if that was the direction he came from or not. "Oh, neat, do you think you could help us?" Eileen asked. Daniel looked at the two of them, feeling all but forgotten. "Well, I don't-" "Sure, no problem. I was going to go over there anyways. The name's [[[scp-4051|Rainer]]]." "Well, I was just helping her out now, I wasn't the one who needed directions or anything," Daniel said. "Yeah, I know how it is," Rainer said with a slight chuckle as he started walking, motioning for Daniel and Eileen to follow him. "I have no idea why they laid the site out like this - though I'm sure they have a good reason for it - but it made it real easy to get lost." Daniel ran up to walk next to Rainer and narrowed his eyes slightly. "So they let you walk around here a lot, huh? I didn't see anyone minding you." "Well, a little bit, sure." Rainer rubbed the back of his head, seeming slightly embarrassed. "They let me help around the site a good amount." "They do?" Daniel's face dropped. Eileen started saying something behind him, but he wasn't focused on her. "Well, sure, just some odd jobs around the site with maintenance and research." Rainer turned to face Daniel. "What do you do around the site?" Daniel recoiled at the question. He'd //asked// to do //plenty// of things around here, but there was just so much //red tape// keeping him from actually doing anything. They'd deny him work, then complain that he was bored! "I help a lot in the greenhouse," he half-lied. He'd recently applied for work as a 'botanical assistant,' and how could they possibly reject him with his qualifications? So, he wasn't really //lying// to Rainer, just fudging the start date a bit. "Sounds fun!" Rainer said as he rounded a corner. Daniel had a sneaking suspicion that his cherry voice was a front for a more subtle mocking tone. Perhaps Eileen's indistinct waffling was also some kind of mockery. "Well, how's all that janitor work you do?" Daniel's question came off a bit more pointed than he had intended. "Oh, you know, it's not too bad with my portals," Rainer said in a slightly smug tone. Daniel's mouth opened a little. "...Your what?" "My portals," Rainer said matter-of-factly. "I can pull pretty much anything out of them, so they come in handy with odd jobs." "Show me," Daniel demanded before he was aware he was talking. "I can't really, uh... do that?" Rainer looked around an intersection before taking off to the left again. "Regulations, you know, not supposed to at certain times." He then turned to look at Daniel. "What do //you// do?" "I have..." Daniel pursed his lips together as he thought of a good way to make cacti seem more impressive than quite possibly literally everything a person could imagine. "...Many similarities with certain plants, like //extreme endurance// and unique defensive measures." "Oh, that sounds pretty cool." Rainer //sounded// genuine, but some people were good at pretending. "It's more than cool, really," Daniel continued. "You know, the Foundation benefits quite a bit from my particular set of skills." "Is that so?" Rainer brought a hand up to his mouth to suppress a chuckle. Okay, he //had// to be making fun of Daniel. Daniel frowned. "What, you think they like you more?" "Uh, haha," Rainer laughed awkwardly. "Not sure if 'like' is the right term there, but-" "So what do they have you do?" Daniel cut him off. How come they let //this// guy do whatever he wanted? No, he was probably just bluffing. The nerve. "Look, I'm not sure I should be talking about this," Rainer deflected as he turned to look behind him. "Shouldn't we be helping that lady-" The abrupt stop caused Daniel to look behind himself at... an empty hallway. Um. Uh-oh. "Eileen?" He called out sheepishly after a moment. "Oh, yeah, over here!" A hand that looked like crumpled-up paper waved from the entrance to another hall. "You said I needed to find a staircase, right? Is this it?" Rainer squinted. "Oh, yeah. Huh, guess I overshot it. My bad." "Oh, cool! That's good. I'll just go down here." Eileen sounded excited. "Man, I finally recognized a staircase on my first try! And now I get to //walk down// it! Ooh-hoo! Man, they never let me do that! I can't wait." Daniel opened his mouth to say something before closing it again. Did she say she'd never seen //stairs?// Even so, they were, in general, pretty intuitively designed, so it's not like that should be a //big// deal or anything, right? Besides, how else would she have gotten up here if not for, like, the medical elevator... right by... where he found her... "Hey, uh, Rainer, do you think-" "//Whoop!//" Eileen yelped from the staircase as her hand disappeared. "//Oh, fuck!//" Daniel and Rainer whisper-yelled in unison as they realized that anything that happened to Eileen would probably bite them both in the ass. As Daniel hurried over, he began to contemplate how to weasel - no, not weasel, but, uh, some other, more heroic word - his way out of this. It was just one staircase, right? How badly could she get hurt? And even if she did look like she could be disintegrated by a stiff breeze, how hard could it be to put her back together? It certainly looked like other people had tried, and Daniel knew some things about anatomy. Well, cactus anatomy, but human and cactus DNA was //mostly// the same, so it probably wouldn't be too bad. They both slowed down before they rounded the corner, perhaps just a //little// squeamish about what they were imagining happened to Eileen and what would happen to them as a result... Only to see her being held in one piece(!) by that one tall lady who only showed up on the site a couple of times each week - [[[scp-1985|Jacqueline]]], Daniel remembered - who was standing halfway down the staircase. Daniel let out a sigh of relief and shrunk by two inches as he deflated. "Oh, wow, you know, you're pretty strong, lady!" Eileen said with a smile. "Or, you're just a little shrimpy," Jacqueline replied in kind. "Aha! What does 'shrimpy' mean?" Deciding that one response was enough when it came to Eileen, Jacqueline turned her gaze towards the two young men wearing guilty expressions looking down on her, and Daniel realized he had missed his window of opportunity to skedaddle. "Hey, did either of you see who was looking after her?" Jacqueline asked in a surprisingly cordial tone. "She had a couple of techs as her minders, but she wandered off." "Ah, sorry," Eileen said quietly. "Oh, don't worry about it. It's not your fault," Jacqueline replied. After a few seconds of silence, Daniel realized she was waiting for an answer from him or Rainer. After //another// few seconds, he remembered that Rainer didn't remember how he found Eileen, and that it was therefore his responsibility to explain the situation to Jacqueline, who was almost eye level with him despite standing several steps below him. Not that he would ever fear getting his shit rocked or anything. "Well, I saw a guy she was asking some stuff to, but he just sort of... pawned her off to me, I guess." It felt sort of odd talking about someone right in front of him like an unwanted lamp from a deceased relative. Jacqueline raised an eyebrow. "And you?" She asked, turning towards Rainer. "Well I was just - just walking back from a doctor's appointment and I, uh, saw they needed some help with directions is all. "Oh, so, the both of you were looking after her?" Jacqueline's friendly tone led to Daniel only realizing that implicated him //after// he nodded his head in agreement. "In that case, how come neither of you noticed our fine friend here-" Eileen beamed in Jacqueline's arms- "throwing herself down a flight of stairs?" Rainer sighed. "Well, to be honest, we just got a little-" "We were discussing the intricacies of our anomalies, and how it pertains to our current situation," Daniel said, hoping the more official-sounding language sounded better to whoever Jacqueline would be reporting to. Normally, he'd own up to such things, but he really didn't want to risk looking like he bungled the first task the Foundation gave him out of sheer negligence. He'd make up for it next time, so long as there //was// a next time. "Ah, sounds interesting." Jacqueline nodded. "Like what?" "Well, like my... unique physiology," Daniel explained. "I have the tolerance and endurance to rival a cactus." Jacqueline smiled. "Neat! Looks like the brains of one, too!" "Right, yeah, and..." Daniel bit his tongue as the disconnect between her words and tone started to hit him. "Look, I know we messed up," Rainer sighed. "Do you know what we need to do now because of all this?" Daniel gave him the side-eye. Well, ideally what they'd do is ask her to keep quiet about this as a favor, not willingly give themselves up for their punishment. He couldn't make it too clear he was hoping to shirk responsibility, though, so he looked back to Jacqueline to hear the news. She pursed her lips together for a moment before speaking. "Y'know, all things considered, I think you guys are fine. You shouldn't have been in that situation at all, so you can't be held accountable for messing it up. It'll probably just look worse on whoever let it happen." Rainer grimaced. "Well, I didn't want to make more work for anyone..." He trailed off, seeming slightly ashamed of himself. Now that Daniel was no longer under direct threat of getting cooked, he felt much the same. "Don't you two worry about it. I'd recommend just slipping back to the common area before anyone notices." Jacqueline hefted Eileen in her arms (who made a little yelping noise) and started making her way down the staircase. "If you'll excuse me, I should probably be heading back now. I'll see you two around!" she half-yelled in that same friendly voice as she turned around and walked off down the hallway. Several seconds passed in relative silence, and neither Daniel nor Rainer moved. Maybe they felt like they were just moments away from something //actually// bad happening to them or maybe they just weren't quite sure what to do with themselves now that someone had walked off with their damsel in a bridal carry, but Daniel just felt... awkward around Rainer. Eventually, though, Rainer cleared his throat. "Well, uh... I messed up with the directions. It was my bad." No, Rainer wasn't the one who should be apologizing. "No, I mean... look." Daniel found it hard to get through his words, but he wouldn't be much of a role model to anyone if he didn't know how to be humble. "I'm the one who messed us it. It's just... It's like... People are different than cacti, you know?" Rainer blinked. "What do you mean?" "They just, like..." Despite the fact he was merely trying to explain how little cacti had to say, he found it hard to articulate his thoughts. "They're not great to, like, practice... conversation with." "You mean you can //talk// to cacti?" Rainer sounded... //impressed// as he turned to face Daniel with an incredulous expression. "Well, sure." Daniel felt his ears get warm. "A little bit." "What do they have to say?" Rainer asked eagerly. "You know, most of the time it's-" "Oh, hey, Jackie, I was just looking for... guh... //what the hell do you think you're doing?//" A shrill voice suddenly echoed down the hallway. "Oh, sir, I was just, um..." "You put her down //right now!// Six inches for the Holy... The humanoid regulations!" "You know, Rainer, maybe we should just... pick this conversation back up in the common area," Daniel suggested. "Oh, yeah, sure. Sounds like a plan." Rainer quickly agreed, staring down the hallway to the source of two voices squabbling alongside a significantly quieter third. "Cool." Daniel nodded and looked down the hallway alongside him. "So, you know any //other// ways to get over there?" [[div class="footer-wikiwalk-nav"]] [[=]] << [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/3|09:32, Executive Wing Offices]]] | [[[devils advocate hub|Devil's Advocate Hub]]] | [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-morning/offset/5|11:23, Humanoid Common Room]]] >> [[/=]] [[/div]]