Link to article: SCP-7390 Fragment 2.
[[=image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-7390/Heads.jpg]] … revealing the number 1. Heads. Grimsley grins. ‘My lucky day.’ He dials George. ‘Hello?’ ‘Hello George, it’s Director Trudge.’ A sigh. ‘Work.’ ‘I’m afraid so. There’s been an incident in Death Valley that I need you to look into – I’ve forwarded you the details.’ ‘Sir, I only just finished --’ ‘I know, and I’m sweetening this with pay and a half – but you’re the closest to the site. I just need you to oversee it, make sure everything’s recorded before it gets moved to storage. Not the whole case, just the start.’ A deeper, exasperated sigh. ‘Alright.’ The call ends. Grimsley feels a twinge of regret, but it’s too late to go back now – ringing again and cancelling the assignment would only make George angry about being needlessly awoken. An email arrives confirming George has received the forwarded information. Grimsley returns the phone and Coin to the nightstand, turns off the lamp, and goes back to sleep. //**Bzzzzt!**// For forty minutes. //**Bzzzzt!**// Grimsley growls, grabbing the phone again. ‘Yes?’ ‘//Grimsley.//’ He pales, sitting bolt upright in bed. ‘Director.’ ‘//Get to work. Now.//’ The call ends. Grimsley launches himself out of bed, blindly racing for the light switch, mumbling about the Coin ‘lying’ to him. In two minutes he’s haphazardly dressed, the Coin in an acrylic case attached to a lanyard around his neck – he sprints through his apartment, grabbing his car keys and locking the front door behind him. He’s out of the town within minutes, encountering the tail end of a traffic jam the moment he turns onto a highway – had he left any earlier, he would have been stuck in the thick of it. ----- Three hours and two McMuffins later, Grimsley parks his Ford Everest in a makeshift parking area beside a collection of portable gazebos. He’s embarrassingly late to the party – his own Investigations Division is already firmly set up, agents buzzing about between the shelters while some stand at the edge of the hill’s crest, looking down the stony slope beyond. The moment Grimsley opens the car door, the cool interior atmosphere immediately evaporates. Fierce sunlight blasts down from above, filling the vehicle with scorching air; Grimsley sprints to the nearest gazebo, signing into a logbook and pointlessly flashing his ID card for confirmation, then grabbing a water bottle and going to the crest to see the accident itself. Beyond is a narrow valley – not the titular Death Valley, but a reasonably-sized sibling of it – that stretches from north to south, Grimsley’s left and right, respectively. The opposite face is scarred by gashes and scorches that led down to the main event; the ruins of a Boeing 737-400, broken into several pieces, all of which had tumbled down into the valley. ‘You are late.’ ‘Lance,’ Grimsley says, turning to the speaker. ‘You could have called me. The Director didn’t need to be involved.’ Lance simply stares back with his usual expressionless gaze. Lance Scrimshaw, like Grimsley, is one of the several assistant directors for the Department of Logistics. He, too, has his own iconic totem; whereas Grimsley always keeps the Coin on him, Lance is never seen without his full-bent tobacco pipe – which he now takes a puff from, blowing the smoke (or whatever it is; despite the obvious contradiction, Lance always says he doesn’t smoke) out of the corner of his mouth. Beyond these, the two are antitheses. Though equally-ranked, Grimsley is the least of the assistant directors, scarcely spoken to outside of work necessities, and often left in the dark even then – a small comfort to Grimsley, as his obliviousness to Logistics’ workings minimises his likelihood of being targeted. Lance, on the other hand, is the bullseye; he is the true Assistant Director of Logistics, organising and overseeing generally everything throughout Logistics’ global operations, acting as the stand-in whenever and wherever the Director is unavailable – a frequent occurrence, leading to an erroneous belief among new initiates that Lance himself is the Director. ‘So, what’s the rush? Why’d you have to wake me up at four in the morning?’ ‘The blackout window is six hours.’ Grimsley nods his head. ‘Tight, but manageable. We can probably get this moved --’ ‘Not moved. Destroyed. This whole incident must be resolved by the time the blackout lifts.’ Grimsley’s eyes widen. ‘You can’t be serious.’ Lance stares back with an indifferent gaze. ‘You’re giving me six hours to open and close an entire investigation.’ ‘No. Six hours from the time of the incident, which occurred four hours ago.’ Grimsley’s expression becomes neutral. ‘Two hours.’ Lance nods. ‘You realise it will take that long just for the removal team to get here.’ ‘They are already here, on the opposite side of the valley. I have ordered them to begin in fifteen minutes.’ Grimsley blinks. ‘You want me to figure out what caused this in under two hours, //while// everything is being removed.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No, this – this is moronic. I’m not some miracle worker, I can’t just magically explain everything at a moment’s notice. Two hours is not enough time.’ ‘The blackout will end in two hours,’ Lance says. ‘The outcome of your investigation, and its quality, is irrelevant. This area must be cleared of all debris and activity within two hours. This is not negotiable. Understand?’ ‘If you don’t care about the findings, why did you call us here at all?’ ‘An investigation must be conducted.’ Grimsley throws his arms up – almost knocking the pipe from Lance’s mouth. He turns and faces the wreckage. ‘Can you at least tell me //why//?’ ‘No.’ ‘Fine,’ Grimsley says, scowling. ‘But if this happens again – if this ends up being important somehow, it’s on your head, because the report is going to be rubbish.’ Lance nods, gesturing toward the gazebos; Grimsley walks a few metres toward the encampment, then stops, turning back. Lance is following him. ‘I will be overseeing your investigation,’ Lance says, taking a puff from his pipe. ‘Why?’ No reply. After a few moments Grimsley rolls his eyes and continues. ‘What do we have?’ he says, approaching several agents writing on and examining a group of whiteboards. ‘A lot of tired people who would rather be in bed,’ one agent quips. ‘You can add me to the list, I don’t know how Talloran manages it. But seriously, what do we know?’ ‘Not much,’ George – the man Grimsley had called earlier – says, stepping out from behind a whiteboard. ‘Plane was FM-2439, en-route to Las Vegas. Mayday received at 0348, contact lost seconds after. The port engine appears to have exploded, the tail broke off and landed in a valley north of here.’ Grimsley turns to the valley. ‘It was travelling east?’ ‘It should have been, but it looks like the pilots – no survivors – turned south after contact was lost.’ ‘Cause of death?’ ‘The usual,’ a second agent chimes in. ‘External examination, blunt trauma to head, chest, neck – you get the drill. Bodies are on their way to Area-137 for autopsy.’ Grimsley turns to Lance. ‘Bodies too?’ Lance nods. Grimsley scowls. ‘Tell them to start the moment those bodies get there,’ Grimsley says, turning back to the agent. ‘I don’t care what they’re busy with, this comes first, and we aren’t waiting for a report either – get them on the phone, and they tell us what they find, as they find it. If they argue, they answer to me. Flight data?’ George shakes his head. ‘Haven’t found them yet.’ ‘Double the search efforts if you can. If we don’t find those boxes in time, we’ll lose them.’ ‘In time?’ Grimsley gestures to Lance with his thumb. ‘Upper management says this all has to be slag metal in the next two hours.’ ‘Two hours?! But that’s --’ ‘I’ve already had the argument, and I’ve already lost. The clean-up starts in fifteen minutes, just go with it. What about cargo – anything missing? Anomalous?’ George frowns. ‘Manifest says it was a half-empty mail run, with some Tactical Theo supplies shoved in. Most of it’s burnt to ashes and spread all over the place. No listed anomalies.’ Grimsley turns to Lance. ‘Unlisted?’ he says quietly. Lance silently stares back. ‘I’m not in a waiting mood. Were there any unlisted anomalies?’ Lance takes a long huff from his pipe. ‘Any anomalies present in the wreck must have manifested during the flight.’ Grimsley shakes his head; he recognises the non-answer. The two stand and stare at each-other, Grimsley’s glare trying to ply a direct answer from Lance’s indifferent visage. ‘Sir,’ George says, ‘we only have fifteen minutes. We should get working.’ A few moments more pass before Grimsley breaks off from the competition. His eyes skim over the information displayed around him – documents weighed down on desks, attached to whiteboards, scribblings – trying to absorb it faster than he could. Four hours to catch up on; fifteen minutes to catch up with. //Fifteen minutes. Fifteen – no, twelve now – until we start losing evidence. We should focus on getting down there, making sure we haven’t missed anything before it’s gone for good.// His eyes wander to Lance’s disinterested expression. //But there’s a good chance there’s something down there. Lance doesn’t tag along for the fun of it – he’s here for a reason, and that sounded an awful lot like one of his usual non-answers. ‘If you find anything, we didn’t put it there.’ He didn’t even say it was safe – just denying responsibility.// His eyes return to a map of the area, pinned to a whiteboard. //But the answer// is //down there. And if we’ve missed it…// ‘Sir?’ George says. A moment’s silence. Then, Grimsley grabs the acrylic case hanging from his lanyard, opening it and pulling out the Coin. //Heads, we go down again, myself included, make sure we’ve got everything. Tails, we stay up here, play it safe, work on what we have.// He flips the coin; catches it mid-air; slaps it on his hand… [[=]] [[=image https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/local--files/scp-7390/Valley.jpg]] ++ << [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/3 HEADS]] or [[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-7390/offset/4 TAILS]] >> [[/=]]