robotisc7

The Photographer

CLICK

CLICK

CLICK

Agent Martens rolled his eyes in annoyance at the clicking noises. He already knew where they were coming from. Turning on his heels and facing the poorly concealed camera and cameraman, he sighed, "Again with the camera, Jones?"

The cameraman shifted uncomfortably in his position. "I can't feed off of lies or hoaxes, agent. You know that. I need the real deal. The creme de la creme, if I would be classy."

"You do understand that this is a restricted area, right?" Agent Martens replied, deliberately placing his emphasis on his words.

"Come on now, agent. You do know that I am forbidden from revealing your Foundation's precious secrets. I have your friends at the publishing agency who breathe down my neck whenever I post anything as it already is, Agent." Jones complained, "So I am still allowed to do whatever I want with your things, so long as I don't interfere with your Foundation."

Martens continued to stare at the camera, and the sweaty, bespectacled reporter behind it.

After a few minutes of silence, he sighed. "Fine, whatever. Just don't do anything that could get me in trouble."

Jones whooped quietly in triumph, and stood up adruptly, the blanket he was hiding under sliding off his coat.

Seeing Jones' excited expression, Martens warned, "Only pictures allowed. You're not allowed to post it in the same form, and you're not doing anything else."

"Come on, agent! Try to relax a little bit!" Jones joked, "You know I'm not a liar! I swear that I'm not going to do anything else!"

Martens snarled in response. "You better do so, or I'm going to have you terminated for exposing the Foundation."

"You know, when I always meet you, agent," Jones said, ignoring Martens' threat as he moved towards the caged-up creature, which appeared to be a furry, sentient couch, "You are always so cold. It's like…like you're a…a thing like this couch over here. What do you guys call these kind of things again? SPCs or something?"

"The Foundation prides itself on its secrecy and skilled agents," Martens replied, "So I'm always on the receiving end of any incident. Every person in the Foundation does."

"Why though? It's not like your Foundation has anything to hide. In fact, people should be grateful to you if they know that you're protecting them from SPCs like this couch over here. They should know how dangerous the world is, and how you can protect them." Jones said as he photographed the couch, which growled and snarled in response.

CLICK

"It doesn't work like that. People are better off not knowing what we do. Besides, some of us are not like us."

"Like who?"

CLICK

"The Chaos Insurgency." Martens finished his answer, and looked at Jones as he said it. Sure enough, to his hidden glee, Jones stopped photographing the couch, and shuddered in fright at the mention of the name.

"Scarred by them, right?" Mertens asked the shuddering photographer with ease.

"Psh!" Jones quickly recovered and retorted, "Scarred? Never! They didn't appreciate my work, and that's why they attacked me with one of their SPCs. I could handle a thing like that any other day!"

"Sure you can. After all, you're the almighty powerful William Jones, who is invincible, and strong, and brave! You were totally invincible, so much so that you almost died, if not for my intervention!"

Silence. The couch continued to growl at the camera.

"Alright, so I'm scarred, but what did you expect? Those people are not human! Once I told them I was with you guys, they got all pissed off and attacked me!" Jones replied after a few moments of silence.

"That's what you expect from a group that thinks we lie to the people." Martens replied, still smirking at Jones' reaction.

"That's why," Jones commented as he reviewed the photos, "I like you guys. You may still be assholes, but at least you're not psychopaths! That's why I send my SPC photos to you guys and not them! They could go suck my ass if they think they're going to get more photos from me and get more SPCs on their side!"

"Jones."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you for your help. Because of you and your photos, we can get a hold of SCPs like these."

Jones, pretending to be flattered at the comment, remarked, "Of course, bro! I love helping you guys out!"

"Firstly, I'm not your bro. Secondly, this is still dangerous. I can't have a civilianhanding us evidence of any SCPs by readily walking into danger. Someday, you might meet something that's not as…unthreatening as a couch, or a cave, or a vending machine. Someday, you might meet something that will kill you before you can even take out your camera." Martens warned threateningly.

"Ok. Well, I'm done!" Jones quickly remarked as he stowed his camera into his bag, "I'll just leave you and this SP-SCP together. These photos would look absolutely great in the magazine!…of course, I'll still do what the Foundation asks me to do." he added upon catching sight of Martens' expression.

"Get out of here. My shift's ending soon, and I'm not covering your presence again in front of other agents." Martens sighed and remarked.

Jones took the hint, and quickly bolted out of the site premises.

"Honestly, I think he is starting to warm up to me!" Jones quietly remarked as he walked towards the direction of the main road.

That didn't matter. He had the photos, and now his readers would be satisfied.

"Wonder if I can take a selfie with him next time?"

Dreams and Reality

The floor felt cold to the touch. I was shivering. The dark hallway stretched out before me, and the entrance of a chamber stood at the end of it.

I took a step forward. The floor swayed from under me, and I gripped the wall tightly to prevent myself from falling onto the ice-cold floor. I steadied myself, and as I continued to walk toward the entrance, I continued to hug the wall. I refused to let go.

The entrance was now only a few steps away from me. I could just-

CLICK

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"Another bad dream, Agent Martens?" the voice, dripping with sarcasm, reached me as I walked to the site canteen to get breakfast.

"Shut up." I grumbled, trying my best to ignore the source of the voice.

The voice continued, "You know, the supervisors wouldn't like it if they knew that one of their precious agents was too mentally unstable to do field work."

Unable to tolerate the voice any further, I remarked, "Dreams are not considered signs of mental instability, Lee. Though, I suppose, if you're a janitor, you probably wouldn't get any dreams anyway with that dense brain of yours, so what would you know?"

That did the trick. The voice hissed in response and fell silent, and I continued to walk towards the canteen. As usual, after I got breakfast, I sat next to my colleague, Ralph, who was unusually talkative this morning.

"Alright, so you know how they were preparing 682 for another round of testing? Well, get this. They got 999 to try to subdue it! Obviously, it failed, but I heard that 682 killed the researchers after they could not stop laughing! Crazy, right?" Ralph gabbled on.

Rolling my eyes, I maintained my businessman tone, and I remarked, "Agent Williams, do ensure that when you're talking about SCPs, please make sure your tone is formal at all times! Now, where are we at with the sentient couch?"

"The couch has been cap-has been contained by Agents Blake and Carter, and is now awaiting further research by researchers, AGENT Martens." Ralph muttered in response.

"Good."

"Say, did the…Fox show up yesterday at the recovery?"

"The Fo-oh yeah." I lowered my voice and whispered, "He just skulked around the SCP for a while, before he fled at my threats. Don't worry about him. He's probably now thinking of what to write for his article."

"Did he bother you?"

"Well, the clicking was pretty annoy-"

I paused. The clicking. The same one that I had heard in my dream. Why did I hear it? Did that mean-

"You all right?" Ralph's voice cut through my thoughts.

"I had that dream again. You know, the one where I was on the restricted floor of the site?"

"Yeah, like I haven't heard it about a million times already."

"I heard the clicking noise. The same one made by a camera. Then I woke up. Ralph, do you think that-?"

Ralph sighed, and replied, "It's just a dream, Sam. No one in their right mind would want to enter the restricted floor, not even the freaking Fox! He knows how to look out for himself."

"Still…"

"Come on, Sam. Stop dwelling on what might happen, and start focusing on what will happen. We will go to the sentient couch's chamber, and we are going to start researching what the heck it is."

"…OK."

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