Site-113.

Chapter 3. The red planet.

It's been two days since I was let out of the interrogation room. Despite all the chutzpah around my arrival, it doesn't look like the foundation was planning on punishing me any time soon. I've got my own office complete with all my belongings, even the access keycard was returned to me.

Unsurprisingly they revoked my level 3 access, and I was left with a level 2 card. The security officer told me I could get the access granted once more if I put in effort and cooperated with the foundation though.

I've been through a lot of briefings and read a lot of files the past two days. Most importantly they had researchers which ran tests and asked questions about my encounter with the 939 instance to try and find out why it didn't kill me, but I've also gotten to run some tests on some other anomalies myself. Researching a specific SCP is a very comprehensive task and failure to read a file before testing might just end up getting you killed.

Right now, I'm sitting in the cafeteria. It's pizza day and the staff on site were busy grabbing their favorite pizzas from SCP-458.

I looked out one of the windows at the endless expanse of red sand. Curious thing about the sand here, actually, it's filled with iron which has mostly rusted due to erosion. Hence the color of the sand.

I picked up a slice of pizza which I promptly ate.

Today was an important day. After running all their tests and coming up mostly empty handed, the researchers felt it was time to put me and Tomato in the same room again.

I was deep in thought about how the experiment might go when I heard some shuffling of feet leading toward me. Most of the staff had left the cafeteria by now so I was surprised someone came over to me.

I looked up at the person and to my surprise, it was Jade.

She let out a soft smile. "Can I sit here?"

I nodded with a smile of my own, and she sat down at the table across from me.

I let out a small sigh. "I bet you know all about what happened when we came with that spaceship..."

Jade looked at my clearance before answering. "Yeah, I heard. I'm surprised you're alive at all, to be honest."

"So they say."

I looked out of the window again in thought. "Jade, do you think I might be an anomaly?"

Jade let out a little laugh. "Well, you wouldn't be the first, but I highly doubt that. The tests would have yielded some results, don't you think?"

I thought back on all the different tests they ran on me and a shiver ran down my spine. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

I looked up at the clock, seeing that the test was going to be conducted in half an hour. It was across the entire facility in the keter wing, so even if it was a while from now I should still get going. I excused myself from the table and said goodbye to Jade before beginning to walk through the halls of site 113.

"Whenever you're ready, press that button there and the door between you and the 939 will open."

This was the first time I saw Sebastian since we arrived at the 113 mars facility. He didn't seem to recall meeting me originally at the space hangar and was more focused on the test at hand.

He was telling me about the different controls inside the testing chamber and how I could best operate them. I took some mental notes of the most important parts before telling the researcher I was ready to start the experiment.

"Alright. I'll be on the other side of the plexiglass right there; security will let the anomaly out of its cage momentarily."

With that Sebastian left the chamber, leaving me there alone in the room with nothing but the button panel.

I heard what sounded like a metal sheet being dragged through the door to the adjunct 939 containment, followed by a small snarl.

I'm guessing they let Tomato out of his cage.

I looked through the plexiglass window in the door and into the small room. Sure enough, an instance of SCP-939 was right there. The window must be one-way, because it didn't react to my presence on the other side of the window.

I hesitated for a moment, lingering my finger above the button on the panel.

"You're sure this is THE 939, right?"

Sebastian, now on the other side of the glass, showed me thumbs up before mouthing that the glass was soundproof.

Just great.

I took a few steps back from the door and steeled myself.

Well, if it isn't Tomato, at least it will be a quick death. I pressed the button.

The doors slid up with little warning. There was no longer anything between me and the highly dangerous Keter anomaly.

I hesitantly opened my mouth to speak. "T-Tomato?"

The 939's head snapped toward me as it instantly detected the soundwaves I had produced.

The creature took small steps toward me with saliva dripping from its dagger-like teeth.

I gulped, swallowing some saliva. "Y-you're not Tomato, are you...?

The 939 jumped forward, landing right before my feet. I was so shocked I fell backward landing on my back, hitting all the air out of my lungs.

I was completely helpless to move as the 939 slowly walked up toward my face. A drop of saliva hit my forehead as the anomaly kept its head right above mine.

"You're not so bad after all."

After uttering the sentence, the 939 sat down on the floor and began panting like a dog.

"Tomato! Oh god, you really scared me there."

I stood up from the floor and put a hand on Tomato's head, giving him some good scratches and pats.

"Please, don't do that again."

There was a small buzzing sound as the door to the testing room opened, and Sebastian stepped into the room.

Tomato let out a warning growl toward Sebastian and positioned himself between me and him.

"Tomato, calm down. They don't mean any harm..."

I cupped my arms around Tomato's torso and picked him up like a kitten. I've heard that 939's can grow larger than a man, so Tomato must be a juvenile because he was maybe half as tall as I was.

The researcher cleared his throat before jostling some notes in his notebook. "Marked aggression toward personnel beside the test subject."

Tomato growled slightly at the man but remained otherwise silent and unmoving in my arms.

"See boy, he's not here to harm you."

Sebastian put his notebook away. "This is completely remarkable. The 939 almost seems to think of you as a sort of master figure." A slight smile formed on Sebastian's face. "At least now we know you weren't lying about what happened in that cargo bay."

I cleared my throat before preparing to give Sebastian a question. Sebastian raised an eyebrow and looked at me. "Yes?"

"I... Would it be okay if I could keep the anomaly in my quarters? I think with some training I might be able to do something about his aggression."

Sebastian looked intrigued at my questioning. "Maybe. You can stay here for now though. Going through the halls might be a bad idea, especially considering how deadly they can be when let loose. While you're busy with that, I'll see if I can find a collar, harness or something of that nature so you can have him in a leash if you ever need to take him on a walk or something along those lines."

Sebastian took one last look at me and Tomato before leaving the room. "I hope we can figure out what's causing "Tomato" to be so docile around you in particular someday. Maybe we can start an SCP-939 training program and have them issued to guards... Ah, no matter. I'll return shortly."

With that, Sebastian left the room. Now it was just me and tomato left in the test chamber.

I looked down at Tomato who looked much more content now that it was just me and him. I gave him a small smile.

"Good dog."