Chapter 8: Chapter 5: Ms. Understanding

John's body seemed to react faster than his mind as he dashed to cover the girl's mouth with his right hand while she was still in shock. He felt her warm breath against his cupped hand as muffled screams tried to escape through his fingers. This confirmed in his mind that he had unintentionally made the correct choice, and he proceeded to lean his head towards the girl's ear.

"Listen, I am not going to hurt you, but it is beneficial to both of us that you stay quiet and don't make any rash movements," he whispered coldly.

The girl squirmed in protest, making John use his other hand to hold her against the wall, not just so that she wouldn't escape his grasp but also to stop her from touching his naked body so as not to accelerate the creep factor of the current situation. Expecting the young lady to ignore him, he made exaggerated head movements to indicate the camera in the corner of the room as he continued talking in a hushed tone.

"You may think that you will be saved, but they will wonder how the hell you got in here with me," he chuckled softly before continuing, "then we will be in the same boat, sans escape opportunity."

John tried to keep direct eye contact with the girl in an attempt to calm her down a bit and also divert her attention from his current clothing choice—or lack thereof. After a minute passed during the course of this quiet staring contest, the girl seemed to have finally given up the struggle.

With a sigh of relief, he took his hand off the girl's mouth and watched in bemusement as she operatically slumped down against the wall, slid onto the floor, and curled into a ball before sobbing quietly. It appears that rather than calming her down, he instead scared her into submission with his act.

John's right eye twitched in annoyance as he prepared to give the system an earful—or would it be a "micful"? Not wanting to get distracted through ponderation of the system's auditory system, John immediately pointed at the girl currently in a fetal position and screamed, "What the fuck is this?!" at his mental roommate.

[User is observing an anomalous object with the current classification of: Safe]

As if to emphasize it, the word "safe" popped up in his vision before the green text morphed into the symbol he recognized from the lootbox: the shield with an S.

Right as he was about to reply, the System made a follow-up announcement:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The System has determined possible brain damage due to deterioration of mental faculties seen in User

Example: User unable recall information recently acquired.

Calculating most likely source of deterioration and possible remedies...
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

John held his temple as he dealt with the sassy machine.

"My brain has not deteriorated," he exclaimed at the robot with indignation. With the girl still in his peripheral, he quickly explained to the system the difference between an object and a person, in exasperation.

[Every anomaly is an object with the sole purpose of generating Anomaly Tokens for use in the System shop; the User need not worry about anything else for the time being.]

"Wait, so she can generate tokens?"

Distracted by the forthcoming business opportunity, John momentarily forgot what he was arguing about and asked how this was possible.

[By placing the anomaly in a containment unit, you can get more tokens based on various factors, such as anomaly rating, unit rating, synergy bonus, and many more, which the User must find through experimentation!]

John squinted his eyes as he came to the realization, "Wait... so you want me to just shove this girl in a box to passively generate income?"

[Yes]

"How much are we talking?" John thought with a hand on his chin.

[The [basic containment unit] currently in User's possession can generate an estimated: 1 Anomaly Token per day.]

John thought about it for a moment and then ditched the idea, not even taking into account how long it would probably take to set up the units; it already seemed like a massive waste. It would surely be much more profitable to just use the humanoid SCPs as sl-*ahem*-indentur-*cough*-employees rather than just have them rotting away in some cell.

Watching the girl as he ruminated on what to do for the moment, he began eyeing the camera. He swore to himself, as he forgot to take into consideration that he was still being supervised. He walked over to the bed on the other side of the room and yanked off the sheet and blanket before tossing them over her, hoping this would be enough to hide his new acquaintance from Jemma, with the belief that if she checked the security feed, it would at most be some cursory glances.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, he sat down on the fabric lying across the floor, unintentionally leaning against the covers as he let his eyes rest for a bit with plans to check the system for anything useful. Though he ended up not following through with this, as he began sinking into a rare meditative state.

He was unaware that the reason for this was the girl, whose quivering at this moment bore some resemblance to that of a cat purring; suffice it to say, the acoustic waves channeled through the covers were quite therapeutic to his taxed body and mind. Not realizing the scientific explanation for this feeling, he instead chose to believe the girl had some anomalistic property that made her a human massage chair.

"And to think that stupid System wanted to put her in a box," he thought with a serene expression.

Surprisingly the "massage" results weren't just surface level as not only did he feel more comfortable, but he could visibly see his sanity meter recovering when he decided to skim around the System interface.

It appeared that one woman's trauma was another man's pleasure...wait that doesn't sound right.

The naked man wiped his goofy expression clean, coming to the realization that he was leaving a bad impression on his future masseuse employee. He began tapping his temple rhythmically as he tried to determine the proper way to recovering his soured reputation with the chair girl

"This would be easier if I had clothes," he thought to himself, but then remembered that this noble act of nudity was necessary to his grand plan. Though he may be able to dress without being noticed by the queen of cameralot, it's not as if he can just create clothing out of thin air.

[The System shop has an extensive variety of outfits and accessories all at an affordable price.]

"I'm really thankful that I have you to help with my ignorance training exercises." John thought, as he ignored the system's messages.

[The System is only trying to be helpful.]

"No, no, trust me, you are helpful," he said internally while waving his hands around. "Without you, it would just be infeasible to find out if I could possibly care less."

He clasped his hands together in mock prayer and thought, "But thankfully, you just keep making me push past my perceived limits and helping me become a better man in the process."

[The System is unable to determine what example of help User is referring to, but it is thankful for the validation received through its efforts.]

"No problem, champ, now back to the grind," he thought, glancing behind himself.

"How do you have the energy to just keep shaking like that?" he asked the pile of bed spreads aloud.

"Like honestly, it's just impressive; you could probably get a gold medal if the Olympics ever had a category for hysterics."

He tilted his head for a second, thinking that he might be misinterpreted: "I don't mean it's funny or anything—it's not funny, okay maybe it's a little funny."

Shaking his head to stop the currently forming smile, he clarified, "No, but I mean like mass hysteria."

Scratching his chin, he didn't realize that he had somehow derailed a one-sided conversation and completely forgotten what he was supposed to be saying.

"Well, come to think of it, most Catholic liturgies are filled with hysterics."

"Is that offensive?" John proposed this question to a person of questionable existence, then answered himself, "Nah, who cares?"

"Everyone treats all the Christians the same," he mumbled before glancing at the "girl" with a knowing look and said matter-of-factly, "But if you equate Sunni with Shia or call an Orthodox Jew Reformed?"

He sucked in a cold breath to emphasize the severity of such actions, following it up with a vaguely related piece of observational reflection: "Isn't it funny how people tend to glorify things that are foreign to them while dismissing or trivializing those that are part of their own culture?"

At this moment, he had gotten too far into his diatribe to realize that the blanket was no longer trembling while he continued, "Variety is the spice of life, but it seems some forget that one cannot sate themselves with flavor alone."

"Substance is—" he stopped abruptly, as he finally noticed the minute change in surroundings.

Surprised by this development, he couldn't help but tease the girl a bit, "Ah, it appears that Weeping Beauty has awakened from her curse." John pushed out his chest and jokingly continued, "and she didn't even need a kiss from Prince Charming."

The girl was silent as John's eyes continued flitting past the different neon blue screens. He was particularly interested in the options he had ignored previously, as he began concocting a few schemes. He felt like it was possible to find another loophole in the system quests, and that this would be his best option at escaping—for real this time. But first he would need the cooperation of this naïve girl.

He devised in his head a plan that could quicken a partnership between them, utilizing certain social engineering tactics. The first step was to make her feel like an outsider, to rationalize how he had treated her, and to get her to think that she was the problem. Due to her being teleported to an unfamiliar world, she was already more susceptible to being treated as the "outsider," and this worked in his favor.

John chose to start by mentioning the age difference, to implant the idea that he was the "adult" and she the "child," a typical case of unbalanced social dynamics used to artificially inflate the importance of what he told her. He wasn't actually sure about their age difference, but he guessed it was 3–4 years or so based on her appearance.

But reality didn't matter in this case, only what he made her think, therefore he began his act.

Letting out a sigh, he held his head against his knees while muttering, "I'm not really, ehh... good around kids."

Then he attempted to lower his threat level by mumbling to himself that he was an idiot, or that what he did was "stupid" and "useless," hammering in similar words that would show a sense of inferiority and a lack of self-confidence. This culminated in him finally crying after a few more minutes of self-deprecation.

This was when he would spin a false narrative to paint himself in a sympathetic light.

"I didn't feel like I had a choice," he sobbed.

"I just didn't want to waste my one chance of escaping this," he said, stopping to take a gulp before choking out, "damn place."

"It's been four fucking years!" he yelled while sniveling.

He wrapped his arms around his body and rocked around on the floor, saying, "They won't even give me clothes."

***

Iris started to feel bad for the man who was denied both freedom and clothes, realizing that maybe she hadn't had it nearly as bad as she thought she did. It wasn't surprising that such circumstances would change someone's temperament and drive them crazy. She didn't think she would do much better if she were inflicted with the same torture, but even though she felt sympathetic for the man, she still stayed quiet as she couldn't trust him.

***

"Every day they take me to the lab and inject the chemicals." He said vaguely and began shaking.

He pointed to his face and said, "One of the doctors started punching my face just because he could get away with it."

"He broke my nose, and all the other doctors just laughed along."

***

Iris didn't believe the man was lying because she noticed his face was slightly swollen when she first arrived here. She felt worse about ignoring him and wondered if she was just being selfish. She wondered if the man would feel better if she talked to him, but her instincts kept her firm, so she continued to not respond to the rambling victim.

***

John figured he had farmed enough sympathy from the dumb kid and went back to the self deprecation shtick.

"I've been here for too long; I can't be saved." He whimpered pathetically, his face almost betraying his repulsion of the act.

"I shouldn't inflict pain on others just because of my own trauma," he said with a sigh, as he stopped crying.

"I'm just a monster." He mumbled.

"I'm sorry, mom." He choked as he got up and walked over to the wall.

"Time to just end it." He said solemnly as he internally thought, "System, can you display my health in real time on the screen?"

This last part was the most important one, but also the one he looked forward to the least, as he watched as a red bar and percentage appeared in the top left corner of his vision.

Internally sighing, he thought, "It's like ripping off a bandaid," psyching himself up before...

*Crack*

"Wait!" the girl yelled as she ran over to the bleeding man, the timing almost comical as she yelled, "Stop!" 

"You stupid fucking emo bitch." He thought bitterly as he watched his health deteriorate, rage the only thing distracting him from the excruciating pain. 

He watched as various system messages overlapped the red film over his eyes caused by blood.

[User has been grievously wounded!]

He screamed at the System, "no fucking shit!"

Due to possible retardation, he somehow believed he could lessen the impact by pulling his head back at the last moment, though clearly this did jack-fucking-squat. 

[Might I suggest a review of Newton's laws.]

"Shut up you bucket of b-" John's thought faltered as he went into a micro-coma for a few seconds. When he woke up, he quickly glanced at his health bar which read:

[HP: 45/100]

Cursing at the lack of information, he asked the system, "Can you give a more detailed status?"

[Clarification required]

"Like show health complications as debuffs from a videogame or something, I don't-" The eternal dialogue was interrupted by a sharp pang of pressure attacking his brain from each cardinal direction.

He held his bleeding temple and tried to regain his vision through rapid blinking and occasionally wiping with his free arm, but not to much effect as the sanguine liquid had already stained his eyes.

[The System's calculation of the User's health is just a precise estimate, it is not to be taken more seriously than how the host himself feels due to the indeterminable-]

John wasn't currently able to focus on whatever the system was saying, or rather, he felt it a waste to do so at this time. He didn't need a whole essay on why the system couldn't do this or that; he had already grown used to having to rely on himself.

After a few aching moments, his mind seemed to be stabilizing, and he chose to glance at the health bar again.

[36/100]

"Not great, not terrible," he thought, as his focus went back to the young girl, who continued to look at the "poor" naked man with a mixture of worry, sympathy, and maybe a hint of regret. Trying to get used to the red film over his eyesight, he knelt down in front of the girl and choked out, "Why shouldn't I do it?"

The girl's face quivered like she was about to break down in tears as he half sobbed, half yelled, "Why did you not stop me?!" harnessing his full acting power.

The woman began to reply,

"Because-"

***

The giant screen was just a few yards away, situated in front of a nice background painting of the Bahamas or some other tropical setting. A few fake palm trees could be seen poking out from behind the screen, which somewhat resembled the shape of an AA battery. Actually, to call it a "screen" was wrong, since it was actually a bunch of TV monitors sidled up against each other displaying a couple different designs: a jade panel with a circular line of text in the middle resembling a wheel, a blank white screen, and a screen with a single letter from the alphabet. A blonde woman in a one-piece dress stood next to the screen, smiling at the (literally) faceless audience in the bleachers situated behind John.

The man glanced down at the small screen in front of him, ignoring his (also) faceless opponents, as he studied the hint given to him.

[phrase]

He let out a "hmm" as he scratched his chin with thought while looking at the blank white screen. He tidied his loosely fitting yellow and black plaid suit, pulling the collar of the obnoxious outfit before calling out to a gray-haired man that was on the stage near the wheel.

"I'd like to solve the puzzle," the man said with a smirk, taking off his matching yellow bowler hat and holding it in front of his chest.

The gray-haired man looked at the blank screen and then back at the unofficial mustard mascot and said, "Go ahead."

"Thank you, Pat," John said with a smile before answering with:

"You have so much to live for!"

Although there was a ding and a variety of celebratory noises and effects appeared, he was startled by another whiny voice answering at the same time, almost harmonizing with him. He glanced over at what he thought was a faceless opponent...

***

John roused from his weird daydream, coming to reality as he mumbled sadly, "My free trip to the Bahamas."

The girl looked confused as she couldn't hear what he said, and she asked him to repeat himself.

"I said, I have nothing," John said with a depressed sigh, getting back into character.

"No family," he mumbled, "not even a fr-" before hushing himself. 

The girl was caught in his web of bullshit and quickly said, "I can be your fri-" but John cut her off.

He yelled, "Don't say that word!"

The girl looked confused and frightened by his outburst and inched backward.

"I'm sorry," he sobbed, and then began fabricating a story about how he had been psychologically tortured, using descriptions from stories he could remember while plagiarizing techniques and descriptions from the USSR, MSS, CIA, and so on; a little MKultra, a little Project Monarch, a little Soviet technology, and a spoonful of Nazi occultism for good measure. He didn't give any details and went quiet a few times to make the story seem more believable, as if it had left some kind of trauma that made it hard to retell the events.

At this moment, John wasn't aware that his fake description of this "evil" organization shared at the very least a crumb of similarity with what was actually going on.

To be honest, John didn't have to go so far with the stories; there were easier ways to manipulate people, but he found a joy in this kind of trickery. Almost as if because he couldn't come to terms with his, he wanted to make others question their realities too. For some reason, it was especially fun to lead this girl down such a rabbit hole—perhaps he should invest in a hat?

The end result was having her believe that he had been implanted with "trigger" phrases while not explaining what exactly was "triggered." This was on purpose, as if he had just told her what would happen, she wouldn't be so cooperative, no matter how scary he described it. It was in this fear of the unknown that the brain could conjure up images far more sinister than words could ever convey. This fear is what made her eager to listen to him.

Now that he had her eating from his hand,

it was time for the final step he had planned.

Befuddled and muddled a mess was she,

but capture the latter, and Hatter'd be free.

Shouting "Stop!" in his head, John began rubbing his temple as he vowed never to inflict head trauma on himself again. He shook his head and turned to face the girl again. "We now return to your regularly scheduled programming," he thought with an internal smile.

You are reading story Secure. Contain. Prevail. (A Marvel/SCP Mashup) at novel35.com

He watched as the girl gave him watery doe eyes, asking if he was okay because he didn't respond. He told the girl he was having PTSD-induced flashbacks and asked her to repeat the question. She gave another innocent look before repeating her unheard inquiry.

"What word can I use to replace the F-word?"

John had to hold back a chuckle and replied by saying, "You can't be my F-word; I mean, I don't even know your name."

"I'm Iris," the girl mewed, with the same unchanging, sickeningly adorable expression.

"Nice to meet you, Iris," he said, following it up with, "John, by the way."

They both stood there awkwardly, as the realization of a certain individual's state of dress gave rise to a weird atmosphere. John knew he had to take advantage of the mood he meticulously created before it was overshadowed by the uncomfortable one that was quickly brewing.

"Actually, I would prefer we use another word rather than the f-word," he mumbled while tapping his fingers together, "since I'm still not that comfortable hearing it."

"Also, I don't like working with people; I would rather feel like I won't be taken advantage of."

Even though she was confused by his statement, Iris just nodded along, not wishing to offend the mentally ill man.

"So are you okay with working for me?" he asked with a hopeful expression.

"Uh, yeah, sure," the girl said awkwardly, still not wanting to upset him by questioning his strange wording choices.

"So you wish to work for me, in my company?" He clarified.

***

Iris was convinced it was just a quirk of his when talking about other people; she assumed he meant "work with me," as in helping each other, but due to his mental trauma, got the wording messed up. While when he said "in my company," he was just clarifying, "with me." She was convinced she had figured out the weird way he talked and decided to reply in the same way to show she got the message.

"Yes, I wish to work in your company."

***

"System?" Jon thought nonchalantly.

[This type of agreement typically requires a contract]

The electronic feminine voice almost sounded like it was gritting it's teeth, but he convinced himself he was imagining this, and replied:

John glanced at the girl again, and asked the system to provide him with one.

[This action does not fall under the System's reigns]

"Alright, so I guess a non-verbal agreement is fine; besides, as far as I know, you don't need a contract for objects." He thought sinisterly as he threw the system's previous logic back in its face/screen.

The system was silent for a few seconds, making John believe it had been convinced by him. Unfortunately, the argument was not yet over, as it declared:

[Denied: The foundation does not employ anomalies!]

"Why not?" John thought suspiciously, "you aren't racist right?"

[The specified entity is not eligible for the foundation staff.]

"Yeah, but why?" he pressed.

He figured this argument might take a while, so he asked Iris to hide under the sheet again, with the excuse that it was so she wasn't seen on the security camera.

[User, your task is to contain the anomalies, not employ them.]

After waiting for the girl to go back under the covers, he responded: "That's nice, but it does not answer my question." His face was notably less amused by the repetition as he thought, "What is the reason I cannot hire an anomaly that has the full capabilities the average employee would require?"

[Please refer to section I5, page 20 of the document previously assigned for a rundown of the dangers posed by unsecured anomalies within the foundation premises]

John decided to play along, and he spent the next couple of minutes skimming through the aforementioned page of the document in his head. It seemed that the system had a point, but this piqued his curiosity, so he flipped through the next couple of pages.

One of the pages that stood out the most was I5-25, with the header "On artificial intelligence," which he began to read in interest.

***

Artificial intelligence has been under periodic R&D since the discovery of [redacted] in 19██, resulting in the creation of the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division (AIAD). The on-and-off efficiency cycle is due to the erratic funding provided by the foundation in response to a series of unfortunate financial and safety decisions, with a few notable examples:

[Incident I-134]

[Incident I-135]

[Incident I-136]

[Incident I-139]

[Incident I-160]

[10+ more]

***

"A few?" While looking at the page full of incidents, John was perplexed. He wondered why this particular division was so prone to issues and clicked one of the incidents at random, skimming through and skipping sections full of useless excerpts.

***

Dr. ████████, spent an estimated 27.5 million dollars with intentions to develop the "malleable anthropoid infiltration droid," which was capable of "cleaning, cooking, and socializing," listing it under the category "espionage tool."

...

Dr. ████████ also somehow managed to acquire █████ ███ from the Alchemy Division to use as an outer "concealment layer" in order to simulate lifelike human skin.

...

Funding for the project was cut as the Dr. had no logical explanation for why this "espionage tool" required a fully functional [redacted], resulting in his expulsion.

...

The machine in question was seized by Dr. Bright for self-proclaimed safekeeping, though its current location is unknown.

***

His eye twitched as he read the page, and he decided the rest of the incidents weren't worth reading. Scrolling down further, he reached a section that was more substantial to his current needs, raising his eyebrows as he came across a particular excerpt, re-reading it a few times before his mouth began twitching and the beginning of a sneer blossomed from the corner of his lips as he thought: "After reading through the section you mentioned, I've come to the realization that you are right."

[The System is thankful for User's consideration.]

With his hands behind his back, he tilted his head at an upward angle and thought, "That's why I'm going to have to fire you."

[...]

"Sorry, rules are rules and all that," he thought as the sneer fully manifested.

[The System is unable to determine the cause of User's current action; clarification is required.]

"Well, you see, dear System, you are the anomaly!" John thought, causing a nonexistent crowd to gasp loudly in his head, before they began shouting "Johnny" over and over again, until the system tried to respond:

"Well, you see, dear System, you are the anomaly!" John thought, causing a nonexistent crowd to gasp loudly in his head, before they began shouting "Johnny" over and over again, until the system tried to respond:

[User there-]

"No, no, no," he silenced the system's thoughts while making a "shush" gesture, "you see, I5-20 was pretty informative, but I believe I found a more important section, which I find quite the doozy."

With a twirl of his finger, he thought: "Let me refer you to page I5-25, where I've found something...truly remarkable."

He then pointed to the aforementioned section he referred to, which described the dangers of "artificial intelligence assistants" and how any unsanctioned AI was supposed to be deemed a threat to the foundation.

"I do not believe you have been sanctioned." He thought, "Therefore you are a threat, and I must fire you."

[User-]

John interrupted the system with his arms crossed: "There is no arguing out of this one; you are an unsanctioned AI with an unknown origin, and that classifies you as an anomaly."

[The System has determined that it can allow a one-time exception.]

[Are you sure you wish to hire this anomaly?]

"I'm positive," he thought confidently as he watched the series of prompts appear in his vision.

[Employment in progress...]

[Qualification unmet: legally-binding contract signed by subject]

[The qualification requirement has been nullified for the following reason: the subject is owned by the foundation and is not eligible for the statute of frauds or similar contractual laws.]

John scrunched his eyebrows at this particular message, thinking that the way these researchers treated the SCPs was kind of fucked up. Wasn't the foundation supposed to be the good guys? Maybe it was just like every other powerful organization in that they felt like their opinions were important enough to be classified as "fact," and they always had a certain kind of reasoning. The kind of reasoning that would allow them to shoot a child and still feel morally justified, because their morals were based on a well-crafted belief that required the child to die.

they did What Had To Be Done©

for The Greater Good™

In his opinion, this kind of "dictator" was worse than someone with evil intentions.

A person with "good intentions" will not only torture you, but they will believe that you should be happy while they are doing so; they will believe that there is something inherently wrong with your mind for not trusting their "vision," and they will try to correct that. Whereas the person with evil intentions will gain satisfaction through simple torture, the person with good intentions will never be satisfied. The person who believes they know what is best for you will not only inflict torture on you, but they will also believe that you are inherently wrong for not enjoying such torture as they try to "correct" your mind such that you can truly appreciate their "vision."

"Evil" people doing "evil" things will have a small string of conscious confirming to themselves the horror of their actions, whereas "good" people doing "good" things will only have a self-confirming thought process in which they will continue to rationalize their evilness as misunderstanding, never even considering that what they are doing is wrong.

and these types of people are far more common than the ones with pure evil intentions.

John smirked as he watched the bar in his vision almost finish filling up.

[Binding subject to System: 97%]

[Binding subject to System: 98%]

[Binding subject to System: 99%]

When the bar filled to 100%, he briefly wondered if any spectacle would take place like the gift box from earlier, but it seemed this process was more low-key. There were no flashy visuals, although there was a "ding" sound to alert him of something, as well as another one shortly after.

He was ready for the first notification, but was not expecting the second one at all, so he swiftly opened the system panel to see what it was for.

A little blue arrow appeared on "screen" to direct the man through the various options, until it reached a particular menu to highlight one of the options.

________
[Construction]
[Research]
[Staff] <--
________

After clicking this prompt, a brand new panel appeared in front of him.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Unassigned

[Iris A. Thompson+]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Departments

[Unlicensed Personnel]
[Class Personnel+]
[Security+]

(Locked departments are hidden)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The first thing he noticed was Iris's full name under the "Unassigned" tab, which he promptly clicked to see more information.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Iris Angela Thompson

[Health: 100/100]
[Sanity: 90/100]
[Mood: Uncomfortable]

[Endurance: I]
[Judgment: I]
[Austerity: I]
[Compassion: III]

Skills 
[?]

Abilities 
[?]

Knowledge

[?]

 

([?]—These have yet to be determined, and further observation of the employee is required.)

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

While John wasn't all that surprised by the girl's stats, he was curious why the employee stats were so different from his.

[When assigning statistics to employees, it is more important to judge their character and knowledge rather than their bodily condition.]

"I see," he thought nonchalantly.

Scrolling back to the departments page, he decided to click another tab at random. This brought out another light display with a list of various sub-divisions. John felt flabbergasted as he scrolled through page after page of security teams and finally closed out of the panel.

"This isn't going to work."

He tapped his fingers together rhythmically and proceeded to ask the system to wipe all of the department's data.

[Why does User wish to do this?]

He answered the system's question, "Because it's my foundation, and I'm going to run it my way."

The system didn't retort and simply followed through with his request, as if knowing that it would lose any argument it attempted against John.

The man smiled in return and assigned the girl to her new department.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Department of Osteopathy
Very important!

Leading Supervisor: [Iris A. Thompson+]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He then checked his mission log with a smirk.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
[Growing your team] (completed)

Now that you have your facility, you need to hire some staff! You didn't really plan on doing everything yourself, did you? ...

Mission: Employ your first staff member.

Reward: 1 supply cache (common), 10 Anomaly Tokens
________________________________________________________________________________________________