Are We Cool Yet? [Complete!]

Termination

POV Epsilon-Six Alpha

Y'all thought Foxtrap was a bad chapter name!

Also yes it's the same doctor that worked on 049 'cause we all like having a dude to hate on.

——————

After SCP-173 was recontained, we split up to look for the others. Several additional squads entered the site, but none of the researchers are allowed back until we contain the rest of them.

I'm walking with Charlie and Gamma through light containment. There was a couple of sightings, SCPs 106 and 096. The guy who called them in is dead. Probably smeared on the floor somewhere, after seeing the Shy Guy.

The issue is, the skips seem to be cooperating with each other. Delta saw 035 and 049 entering the pocket dimension, but we're not sure if they're there as allies or prey.

Anyway, I drew the short straw. I'm the one that's gotta bag 096. The other two'll keep 106 off me until someone finds a D-class to shove in the femur breaker.

Black ooze, on the walls. Then around the corner, a deep puddle which must lead to his dimension. I edge carefully around it, and motion to the others to copy, in case one of the rogue skips pops out.

Crying. I hold up a hand, and the company pauses behind me. "It's 096, keep your eyes down."

As long as we don't look at it's face, we'll be fine, but I've been in this business long enough to know at least one of us will be dead by the time this is done.

I round the next corner. More black sludge, more crying. Funny they're heading this way this— "They're heading for 173!"

None of us are gonna live if we have to face the statue and the shy guy together.

I see a foot, then a leg. Gross, pasty white bastard. A gun cocks behind me. 

"106 at your 2-o-clock," Charlie says.

"Got it." I pull out the bag. If the leg is there, and the back is there, then the head should be—

RATATATATATATATATATATATA! Both of them open fire behind me.

I'll have to trust them to keep the old man down. I see him reaching for me and dodge around. Still, some of his corrosive liquid bites at my hand. He'd better not have melted the damn bag. I jump up and yank the bag down over 096's head.

It's usually so passive when not in its rage state, but now it pulls at the bag and yells and tries to buck me off. I have to cling to its neck, the clutch of the bag bunched in my fists, to keep it from getting free.

A stinging hand reaches into the muscles of my back and takes hold of my spine. Now I'm the one screaming, screaming and crying, or at least I think I am, I can barely hear myself over the spraying bullets.

I hope they're calling for backup... I hope the backup comes... I hope I don't die... I can't feel anymore... I'm slipping off... the bag... no... someone... I can't...

I bite my lip and hang on for all I am worth. More bullets, more screaming...

***

"Wh...wha...what happened?" The world swims into focus and I find myself in a bed. My back hurts like fire, even though I have a heavy morphine drip.

Morphine. I'm in a hospital. 

One of the doctors is waiting for me. She purses her lips at my confusion and pushes a tray at me. It contains one glass of water and a red pill.

"Wait— aren't we supposed to save the 500's?"

"Do you wanna live or not?"

I swallow it and the entire glass. Within moments the pain eases completely. When I put a hand on my back, the skin is smoother than it's been in a while, all the old scars vanished with the fresh injury.

"You're needed in Operation Room C."

"I—what? Oh, the skip one."

"They're performing an immediate termination of SCP-096, and they want to make sure the old man doesn't pop up."

Shit. 106 got away. 

"I thought they'd given up on those?"

"They are very sure this one will kill it."

Just like the rest of them. "Whatever you say, doc."

I suit up and grab my gun.

The site is still dangerous, of course, so I'm accompanied by a couple of NTF cadets who are coming to help for the same reason.

Shy Guy's pinned to the table. The bag's been melded somehow to an iron collar around his neck, so I guess that's one less thing to worry about.

I've never gotten a good look at it before. I mean, that's what we try to avoid. But now it's stuck in place, struggling, but stuck in the same spread out position countless other humanoids received their operations and terminations in. Made to keep them still.

He doesn't look all that pasty, actually. His skin is very pale, but definitely dry; white and leathery and very, very cold to the touch. "We're sure this thing actually has a heart?" I say, half-joking.

"Yes, Lieutenant."

The head doctor, Jameson, seems impatient, waiting for the rest of the MTF to take their positions around the room. 

He strokes a line down it's bony chest with one finger and it shivers. He prods at the ribs and presses on the stomach, determining the best place to cut.

096 is always crying, but somehow, with it strapped helplessly to the table, it seems genuine for the first time. Well, we'll be putting it out of its misery soon enough.

Jameson lifts a scalpel from the tray and makes a long incision. He works slowly, to keep the line nice and straight, from the base of the neck to the pelvis. It trades it's cries for screams, and I tighten my grip on my rifle.

The skin underneath is a faded pink, and there's no blood. So, no heart, right? Jameson isn't deterred. He pries at the ribs, opening the cavity. Beneath quivering muscle, I catch a glimpse of the pulsing thing that must be this creature's heart.

Jameson gently moves the excess tissue aside. The heart is pillowed like a strange artifact on a silk cushion, and like one of our field researchers, or maybe a reckless D-class, Jameson lifts it in his hands.

096 gurgles and screams something that sounds a bit like, "Larry!"

The heart is beating faster and faster in Jameson's palm. He just looks at it for a minute, and for a second I think he's about to try and crush it in his fist, but instead he lifts a scalpel and begins to cut it out from the web of veins and arteries.

A dark spot spreads along the ground and the old man rises out. This time it isn't laughing, or offering one of its off-putting smiles. This time it is screaming too.

Jameson throws himself to the floor as we fire, giving 106 all we've got. 

It's melting the restraints, and then somehow 096 is standing, swaying in it's feet and still shrieking.

106 grunts something that sounds a bit like, "Run!"

096 tears out of the room. 106 follows, and so do we. The old man opens a portal and shoves the Shy Guy into it.

We unleash all the bullets we have on it.

It's stumbling. 

It's down.

SCP-106 lies crumpled on the ground. I nudge its head with my boot. 106 is unresponsive. It's probably dead, but I order the men to take it to it's containment chamber.

The door to it's dimension is still open. Soon, we might have to follow the other skips into it.