Would lightning go faster if it didn't zigzag?
"God, I'm such a bastard. I really had you going with the melodramatic lost ghostly love bit! Gullible fuck, aint'cha?
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeh. For… reasons of my own, I decided to insinuate myself into this Foundation, and see what happens. So, here goes.
Yoric Elroy turned up the volume on his mp3 player, and the secondhand sound of trumpets and chunky guitars filtered tinnily through the cube farm. Within seconds, the nameless worker drone in the next cubicle popped his head over the tiny dividing wall and glared. Yoric dismissed him with a wave and a grin, cranked the music up louder, and turned to his computer. A few clicks later, and a set of what appeared to be satellite schematics appeared, followed by images of an explosion of some sort. An accompanying text file read: "Yoric, I need a way to make sure that the destruction of the Russian satellite ████████ is not traced to the Foundation. Try to have it ready for me by 5:00 tomorrow. Thanks, Dr. ██████"
Running a hand through his shaggy brown hair, Yoric slowly leaned back and sighed. He'd tried to talk to the guy in charge of programming the satellites, but he'd been too busy to talk… Word at the office now was that he'd been 'terminated'. Some new kid was handling the work until the powers-that-be got around to finding a replacement. "Note to self, meet the new kid. Could be interesting." Yoric stood up and headed for the break room, thumping on the wall and waving to his exasperated coworker as he passed.
"Bastard…" grumbled the balding agent, turning back to his work. Yoric, headphones blaring, heard nothing, and kept walking. Even if he had heard, he wouldn't have cared.
As soon as he was out of sight, Yoric powered down his media player and lowered his headphones, letting them hang loose around his neck. Grabbing a random stack of paper from an unattended cubicle, he searched it for names and signatures. Hmm… Bright… Gears… Bright again… Well, Bright it is. With a shrug, Yoric walked down the nearest hallway.
Carefully shielding the action from the hall's security cameras with his body, Yoric produced a small omnipick from his sleeve, palmed it, and headed for the nearest office. "Knock, knock!" Yoric called out, "anybody home?" No answer. In a single fluid action, he picked the lock and turned the knob. To the camera, it looked as though he simply stumbled as he reached for the door, which swung open to reveal a small but tastefully furnished office. After a quick glance at his surroundings, Yoric walked over to the compute and tapped the spacebar.
As luck would have it, the computer was already logged on. Ah, nice! this means I won't have to hack it. Inquisitively,Yoric clicked a file labeled [DATA EXPUNGED]. Scrolling through it, saw that it was a list of SCPs and their descriptions, and that while it was heavily edited, it was much more revealing than the list he had access to. He saved the file to a flash drive, and turned away from the computer, just as-
"Doctor, I'm sorry for barging in like this, but the door was open and- wait, who the hell are you?" It was a wiry young man in thick glasses, with a nametag reading 'FIFTH' and a worried expression, which changed swiftly to one of confusion.
Yoric extended a hand. "I'm Yoric. I'm supposed to give these papers to Dr. Bright, but he doesn't seem to be here at the moment, so I'm not sure what to do now."
Fifth ignored the hand. "This isn't Brights' office." he said, frowning. "This is Dr. Black-Rectangle's office, and she's almost never here. She's one of the most overworked doctors we have on staff."
Yoric shrugged. He had a very expressive shrug. This one said: I wasn't hired to ask questions. if someone says Brights' office is down that hall, I assume they know what they're talking about. "Oops. Oh well. Can you tell me where to find him then?"
Fifth rattled off a series of directions, which Yoric pretended to listen to, then dropped a stack of papers in an inbox and headed for the door. Yoric followed. "Hey, aren't you the guy who's covering the satellites until they find a replacement for mumblemumblewatsisname?"
Fifth nodded. "Yes. Now I really need to find Dr Black-Rectangle and speak to her." Without another word, Fifth took off around a corner.
"Dr. Black-Rectangle, huh? I think I've seen the name on a few reports…" Yoric shrugged again and turned back toward the cube farm, dropping the stack of papers in a wastebasket on the way.
Of course, I gave up and turned myself in immediately. Those foundation types are way too smart for me. I knew I didn't have a chance of outwitting them for even a moment.
What are you, an idiot? do you just believe everything you're told?
Later that day, Yoric sat laptop in hand in the cafeteria, alternatively eating pizza and devising the most ridiculous explanations for disasters (The satellite exploded because it was struck by debris jettisoned from the International Space Station's toilette. there was no other satellite. What they saw was 'swamp gas from a weather balloon, trapped in a thermal pocket and reflected the light from Venus.) and wondered briefly if he should quit while he could.some of the SCP files he'd stolen were… eye opening, to say the least. Casting aside his doubts with a bite of stuffed crust, Yoric reminded himself of all that he had to gain. I'll start with 005.
If I'd given up, do you really think we'd be having this conversation?