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[[div class="blockquote"]] [[[Friday morning |Morning]]] [[[Friday afternoon |Afternoon]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/0|19:31, Cafeteria]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/1|22:27, Staff Lodging]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/2|22:45, Therapy Pool]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/3|23:35, Site-17 Hallways]]] [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/4|Ten Years Ago, Site-17 Community Room 3]]] [[/div]] The guard shifted his weight from the toes of his feet to the heels uncomfortably. "Well, you know you're not supposed to be out this late, right?" It was something of a rhetorical question. The humanoids all had the procedures drilled into them. Stacey was hoping that the dim lighting of the hallway at night, with every third light on to save power, masked her slight quaking. Without anyone next to her to field questions she didn't readily have the answer for, she felt exposed. Why //did// she leave her room? What was she expecting? Her brain working quicker than she thought possible, she whipped something up. "Oh, my, uh, toilet paper ran out. I n-needed to use the bathroom." That was good, she thought. She was out, even though she knew that there were more rolls in her bathroom somewhere, and the excuse had a level of urgency that might just make the guard want to let her go. The guard gritted his teeth and looked at the ceiling as if weighing his options. From his uniform, he just seemed like a night guard. His gun wasn't quite as menacing as the ones the day guards had for Marya, and he looked more like a desk cop than a SWAT officer. Perhaps, based on the 'desk cop' appearance, Stacey should have expected him to be a stickler. "Well, I still gotta log this. Someone messed up somewhere, you're only supposed to leave in case of emergency," he said, sounding more like he was listing off things from a paper he had to read for his job. Stacey's heart sunk into her stomach. Log it? What did that mean? Was she in trouble? Was she not going to be allowed out of her room //at all?// That seemed to put a lot of things in perspective very quickly - just how much she was allowed to do and how much she'd miss it. "Is everything alright?" a familiar voice came from down the hall and Stacey's heart leapt out of her chest. The guard turned around slowly, as if he wasn't at all concerned by the sudden appearance of a third party. "Oh, yeah. Nothing major." Iris walked towards the two of them, and as she got close Stacey could make out some of her hair matted together as if she had just stepped out of the shower, even though Iris insisted she was always showered by 9:30 and in bed before 10:30. Her brow furrowed when she saw who the guard was talking to. "Stacey? You okay?" "She was just kind of milling, looked a bit lost." The guard motioned towards her as if she was a small stray cat he had found and not another person fully capable of understanding what he was saying. "Nothing serious, but I still gotta log it." Iris glanced at Stacey with slightly pursed lips, thought for a moment, and looked back at the guard. "It's no big deal. I can take care of it." Stacey opened and closed her mouth. Was Iris... what was... what? Could she do that? Just because she was older? Was she so thoroughly broken in the guard could just trust her to do his job for him? The guard mulled it over for a few seconds, blowing some air out of his nose. "I don't think-" "It's my ass on the line here." Iris held up a hand to cut him off. "If you get grilled for this, just say I pulled rank on you, yeah?" The guard considered her words for a moment. "Are you pulling rank on me?" A pause. Iris placed her hands on her hips. "Yeah." "Hey, if you say so." The guard shrugged. "Just make sure I don't see you guys again," he added as he walked down the hallway at a leisurely pace, not in too much of a hurry to make up for lost time on his patrol route. Iris watched the guard walk down the hallway and listened for his footsteps until she was sure he was out of earshot. She then fixed Stacey in a scrutinizing, albeit tired, stare, with her hands still on her hips. Stacey felt like she was melting. She had no idea what was going on or what Iris was thinking. Wasn't she going to put her on blast? She should. Stacey deserved it. Was she gonna... say anything...? "What was... that?" Stacey asked before she even knew she was talking. "Well, I've just been here longer than him. I was just offering to do him a favor. The rank thing is sort of an inside joke." Iris spoke evenly but failed to meet Stacey's eyes as she said it. "What's more important is what you're doing here." "Oh, uh, Iris, I," Stacey sputtered. "I was just, uh..." "Just feeling like the walls have been closing in on you?" Iris asked. "Wanting to push your luck just a little bit, see if there's anything left for you to get away with?" "Ah-" Stacey found any response turned to sand in her mouth. Was //that// why she left her room? Did Iris...? With a deep yet tightly constrained sigh, Iris let her posture lower a little bit. "I'm sure you were just hungry, though, right? Dinner wasn't very good today." Was that... an excuse? Was Iris throwing her a lifeline? Nodding, Stacey resolved herself to stop trying to make sense of Iris all the time. "Alright. I'll make you something." Iris turned around and started walking back towards their cells, and a quick look back was all it took for Stacey to take the hint and scamper to catch up with her. They walked past the cafeteria in silence, down the empty hallways, and Stacey bitterly thought that from the looks of things, she just got fantastically unlucky running into the only guard in the wing. Stacey wasn't sure where they were going as they walked past the rows of steel doors with numeric designations on them, but she knew better to ask. The silence, of course, was getting to her, with only the gentle hum of the site's innards audible through the deceptively cheap construction of the walls, but Stacey felt like maybe she should be glad neither of them were speaking their mind. Iris stopped at an unmarked door, a cheap wooden composite instead of the typical steel, and it creaked open. She flicked on the lights - a few warm incandescent bulbs - to reveal little more than a table with a few chairs and several cabinets and kitchen appliances that looked to date back to the 1980s, their cream color fading into a subtle yellow. Iris navigated to one of the cabinets and pulled out a box of prepackaged macaroni and cheese. "Sorry I'm not much of a cook," she said before holding the box up to Stacey. "This alright?" Mac and cheese was far too heavy to be having this late at night. She'd be up for hours if she ate that. "Yeah, that's fine." Nodding, Iris scanned the instructions on the side of the box and pulled out a pot and a measuring cup. Stacey watched her from across the room, not feeling comfortable sitting at the table. //Was this some kind of interrogation tactic?// she asked herself as Iris pulled out milk and butter from the refrigerator. As she pushed the door shut, Stacey saw a few things stuck onto the door by magnets, namely a couple old Polaroid photos. Stacey scoped out what Iris was doing; she was stirring the macaroni in the boiling water, and therefore unlikely to move for the next several minutes. Careful not to make too much noise (though for what reason, she still wasn't sure), Stacey crept over to the refrigerator to sate her curiosity, careful to keep a consistent distance from Iris. Once she was over by the refrigerator, Stacey squinted at the picture. A blonde teenager, with no facial scars and an ear-to-ear smile, sat in front of a cake with two candles spelling "14" on it. On either side of her were a man and a woman, maybe only a little bit older than Iris was now. The woman looked like she was laughing at a joke, and the man was looking at her fondly. The photograph itself was also faded, its coloration wiped away alongside a note at the bottom - a 'happy birthday' note from one Bea-something and an A-something. Stacey reached up to the picture to bring it closer to her face- "Don't touch that." Iris snapped at Stacey, suddenly keenly aware of where she was and what she was doing. Stacey jumped backward and clasped her arms behind her back as if to say //oh, look at little old me, I'd never touch a thing.// Iris looked at her for a second more before turning her attention back towards the stove. Now that Iris was watching Stacey, or at least Stacey assumed as much, there wasn't much of a reason to keep quiet anymore. "Hey, Iris?" "Mhm? "What's this room for? I don't think they told us about it during... anything." The furnishings and cramped nature reminded her of a low-income apartment some of her friends used to live in, making it rather incongruous with the rest of the site that at least looked //clean// and cheap, but she held her tongue on that thought. Based on the photo, there was a good chance Iris would take any slights against the room personally. Iris watched the macaroni elbows spin around the pot for a little bit, though it didn't seem like she was paying them much attention. "I said that this isn't the first time the Foundation wanted to give humanoids more privileges, right?" Stacey had never bothered to ask for more details, but she was passively aware of that fact, so she nodded in affirmation. She then realized that Iris wasn't looking at her and opened her mouth, but Iris continued regardless. "That was about ten years ago. They had some of these..." She took the serving spoon out of the boiling water and waved it around a little bit, unaware or perhaps uncaring of the specks of hot liquid she flung about. "These 'community rooms,' but it was really just to say they had them." Once the macaroni was suitably softened, Iris poured the contents of the pot through a strainer and into a sink, all done with a level of haste that either suggested intimate familiarity with the procedure or a lack of concern for one's own skin. "After they put a stop to all that, nobody used any of them," she said as she transferred the macaroni back into the pot and added in her pre-measured ingredients with a certain level of detachment. "I still did, a little, purely out of habit. But it's really just a room I go to when I want some time to myself." Iris shot Stacey a stern look. "Just don't tell anyone else, yeah?" "Yeah, oh, yeah. Right," Stacey said. Except all Iris //did// when she was in the common area was complain that she wanted to be alone. "Alright, take a seat," Iris sighed, though it seemed to be more from exhaustion than annoyance. Stacey obligingly sat down across from Iris, who was ferrying the small bowl of food from the countertop to the table. She sat and watched the steam rise from the bowl of creamy macaroni, admitting to herself that it //did// look pretty good (although such a dish was rather difficult to mess up, considering the instructions on the box). She stayed silent as Iris doubled back to the counter for a fork and then to the refrigerator for a bottle of red sauce. "Not sure how much you like spicy food, but hear me out on this one." Iris plopped the bottle next to the bowl as she pushed them both toward Stacey. Stacey recognized the bottle instantly - sriracha sauce, the store-bought brand with the rooster on it. "Just mix a little in and see if you like it," Iris continued, sitting down across from Stacey and resting her head on one of her hands, a position that seemed to be a first for Iris when speaking to someone. 'I didn't know you liked spicy food," Stacey mumbled as she popped open the bottle. Iris normally ate either vegetables or whatever slop in the cafeteria had a good amount of protein in it. Her palate didn't seem particularly refined. "I don't really," Iris yawned. "A friend told me about it a while back, and I just like it more than straight cheese." Though her expression was subdued, it was clear, even in the dim yellow light, that Iris was watching Stacey expectantly. Figuring that it would be good to humor Iris for all of her work - even if Stacey very much so didn't ask for any of it - she squirted a little bit of sauce out into the bowl, mixed it lethargically, and then took a forkful into her mouth. Iris raised her eyebrows expectantly. "Well?" "Oh, it's really good," Stacey said with a weak smile. She already normally put sriracha in her mac and cheese, but Iris looked like she really needed to have this. The edges of Iris' mouth quirked up a little bit, but the hints of a smile failed to reach her eyes. "That's good." Stacey added more sauce to her bowl and set about eating it, though at the speed she was going, she wasn't going to get very far before she had to get sent back to bed, which was kind of the idea. Iris, however, looked like she was thinking of something to say, which said to Stacey that maybe she should just wolf the whole thing down before Iris could say anything else. "Stacey." Iris' tone was serious, almost grave. Stacey's window of opportunity had passed. "I think we should talk." Iris' demeanor reminded Stacey of her father when he faced the grim obligation of explaining the birds and the bees to her. Stacey swallowed hard. There was no getting out of it, as Iris was her only chance at dodging disciplinary action... was that intentional? "Okay." "Look..." Iris seemed to be finding it difficult to find a place to start. "I know it sucks here. I knew it as soon as I came here. I know you'd rather be home, or somewhere you can just... stretch your legs. "I get it. I tried to sneak out before. I did things that were..." Iris' eyes lost focus for a second. "Things that were way more stupid. People got hurt, and I'm worse off. I don't want to see you make the same mistakes." Stacey didn't say anything. She just bit her tongue. After a moment of silence, Iris continued. "I just want to set some expectations. I think it's important you hear it from me, okay?" Iris' voice was so understanding, like she was talking to a lost child. It made Stacey want to scream a little bit. "The Foundation has been doing all this for a long time now. Even I don't know how long, but they've got everything down to a science. They don't like changing things very much." Iris paused to let Stacey digest what she was saying. "That includes treatment of humanoids. "They've tried in the past, but it never..." Iris clasped her hands together tightly. "...Worked out. For one reason or another." Stacey said nothing. Iris looked like she was almost pleading for her to say something, but she stayed silent. Perhaps she just didn't want to say the next part out loud. "All this, what they've got going now... probably - no, definitely isn't going to last. These things never do." Stacey balled her hands up so tightly she could feel her fingernails, which she now kept short, digging into her palms. "But I haven't //done// anything." Her words were bitter on her tongue. "No. And I don't think you will. But it's not about you," Iris said ruefully. "It's about //us//. The anomalies. When it comes down to it, we're all just one collective, at least in how the Foundation treats us. It's easier that way." //Easier?// Stacey ground her teeth together. "But I'm not like you." She spoke with unexpected forcefulness. "I'm not even - it's just that... that phone. I can't do anything. They'll fix the phone and then I can go home. That's it." A small whimper forced its way out of Iris' throat as her chest and lungs tensed up. "Stacey." She called out her name in a strong tone as though to ground her. Stacey said nothing in response. "The Foundation contains things for lots of reasons." //Things?// Stacey was a //thing// now? "One reason is if something would give away the whole... anomaly thing. Even if it isn't an anomaly itself." Iris received no real reaction, though Stacey felt like she had begun shaking, ever so slightly. Iris continued nevertheless. "But, hey, the Foundation's not the worst place you could've ended up. At least you're not getting killed or press-ganged." "So that's it, then?" Stacey whispered sharply. "I'm just supposed to be happy with that?" Iris leaned back in her seat. "Well, I think it's important to be given all that straight, you know? Better now rather than-" "I just have to live like that?" Stacey's voice was rising now, surpassing a normal person's voice and far outstripping her normal tone. "I don't get a say in the matter? I can't do a thing?" "Stacey, I tried." Iris rested her elbows on the table and assumed a reproachful position. "It never worked." "So what?" Stacey stood up from her chair suddenly, finally getting her legs to stop shaking. "I don't get to do that? You won't even give me the choice to try?" "I don't want you getting //hurt-//" "So what, you just want me to end up like //you?//" Stacey's voice broke on the last word, but she kept going. "I don't //want// to do nothing but bitch and do crosswords all day! I want to //want// things!" "Stacey, please just calm down." Iris' eyes were sad, and betrayed the fainted suggestion of fear. "I'm just living the only way I can." "//Bullshit!// You're just scared! You're just a fucking coward!" Iris had no response to that. She looked back at Stacey, who had found herself with nothing left to say, before she absorbed the words and slouched, her body tacitly communicating defeat. With the lack of anything from Iris to focus on Stacey was left to consider what she had said, and blanched. "Iris, I - I'm sorry, I was just-" "It's fine." Iris shrugged as if to say she had taken no offense, though her face showed little emotion. "Are you going to finish the food?" Stacey looked back down at her bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was still probably warm, but right now she didn't feel like she could stomach any food. She shook her head stiffly. "That's okay," Iris sighed. "I'll finish it off." That was a lie. Iris never shared food. She said it would make her sick. "Okay." Stacey stared at the bowl, not daring to look back at the woman seated across from her, who probably wasn't looking right at her anyways. "Iris?" "Hm?" "I think I want to go back to sleep now." Stacey forced herself to keep her voice even through the shame, embarrassment, tiredness, and that strange emotion that was left when anger had just left. "Alright," Iris said tightly, moving over to the door. "I'll come back and clean up later." Stacey got up and stood behind Iris, father than she had been when they walked here. Iris flicked off the lights and made her way over to Stacey's room wordlessly. Without any conversation or anything of note besides the long, identical hallways, the walk seemed to both take an eternity and was over in no time at all. Iris stood a respectful distance back as Stacey opened the door and stepped inside. Once she was in the room, Iris moved to shut the door. "Good night, Stacey." "Iris?" Stacey yelped, her voice jumping out of her throat like a scared frog. Iris held the door. "...I'm sorry." "Thanks." Neither Iris' expression nor tone changed whatsoever. "Sleep well." And with that, she shut the door. [[div class="footer-wikiwalk-nav"]] [[=]] << [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/2|22:45, Therapy Pool]]] | [[[devils advocate hub|Devil's Advocate Hub]]] | [[[http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/friday-night/offset/4|Ten Years Ago, Site-17 Community Room 3]]] >> [[/=]] [[/div]]