Foundation: Fledgling

Dr_Sorts lurches out of his bed in a cold sweat, rubbing at his damp lips. He always drooled during those damn dreams. Possibly from trying to scream, he supposed…
<Heiden>: That burnt smell is just obnoxious.
<Heiden>: …and the lights in your room are out. All of them.
<Heiden>: Only self-powered devices are providing any illumination.
<Heiden>: Cell phones, battery-powered alarm clocks, etc.
Dr_Sorts rolls out of bed and shuffles across the room carefully, remembering how to navigate his messy personal room. Grabbing his discarded bathrobe off of the foot of his bed, he hits a key on his laptop to turn the screensaver off and provide some light from the monitor.
<Heiden>: Nothing out of the ordinary. The mess is familiar. The smell's even beginning to diminish, slightly.
Dr_Sorts takes some time to clear his head. He wanted to believe the smell was in his imagination, but something told him it wasn't. Plus there should have been more lights. Sorts moved to fuss with his light switch and intercom (should intercoms be in the room).
<Dr_Sorts>: (not sure on what's standard in an SCP bunk)
<Heiden>: Light switch doesn't work. Neither does the com.
<Heiden>: It's like the power's out.
Dr_Sorts drops into the seat in front of his laptop and tries to load up the intranet. The internal Foundation webpage might have an update, if he's got computer power…
<Heiden>: You've got power, and you can access your own files, but the internal network… fuck, it looks hatbotted. Something is very wrong here. All that's on the main page for 17 is a bright yellow smiley face.
<Dr_Sorts>: "SIGH." Sorts says, literally, rather than actually sighing. The smiley face turned this from a 'something is wrong and we're all going to die' situation to the 'usual bullshit around here.' He was temped to just go back to bed, but instead he gets dressed and tries to open the door to the hallway.
<Heiden>: Door opens just fine. It's dead quiet in the hallway, though. Dark, as you'd expect.
<Dr_Sorts>: Hello? Hey! Security? Maintenance? Anyone out there?
<Heiden>: Nothing.
Dr_Sorts starts to get nervous again. Returning to his desk, he throws crap around out of his drawers, looking for a flashlight. No luck, out of batteries. With a groan, he scoops up his laptop and checks the battery. That bright smiley face monitor was his only light.
<Heiden>: Any port in a storm, I suppose. It provides fairly poor illumination, but enough to see where you're going.
Dr_Sorts is comforted by the fully charged battery. This laptop was like his only friend. It never left his side (or else someone might find his porn). He set off for the nearest security checkpoint with the monitor pointed away from him.
Dr_Sorts considers that he's going to look like that Evil Otto character from the old Berserk video game, a floating smiley face on a dark black background. He chuckles.
<Heiden>: Your footsteps echo in the hallway, the only sound except for… a faint sliding sound, like something slithering along the ground. Dimly, you see something vaguely snake-like down the corridor slip into a doorway.
<Heiden>: It's not very big, but animals shouldn't be loose in the site.
Dr_Sorts pauses, and considers closing the laptop. But whatever went in that door was fine with the darkness and he wasn't. He clears his throat. "Lurker?"
<Heiden>: No response. You can't see it anymore.
Dr_Sorts creeps towards the doorway, intending to shut the door between him and whatever just slithered into that room.
<Heiden>: Nothing leaps out at you as you advance on the doorway.
Dr_Sorts is certain that whatever went in there saw or heard him coming. And it chose to get out of his way. Good. But reaching into that room to close the door just seems like a bad idea in retrospect, so he goes around it with the smiley face monitor held out like a crucifix.
<Heiden>: Nothing's in there, if you look as you go by. Well, nothing you can see. That light /is/ pretty shitty.
Dr_Sorts continues on his way to the security checkpoint, moving quietly simply so that he could listen for other movement.
<Heiden>: As you advance towards the checkpoint, you don't hear anything nearby, but the background noise you associate with normal Site operations seems to pick up. No lights, though.
<Dr_Sorts>: Hello? Anyone? What's the status? What's the frequency, Kenneth?
<Heiden>: No response. The sounds are simply indistinct voices, footsteps - things that would be normal if there was /anything/ in your immediate vicinity.
Dr_Sorts continues to the checkpoint, because it would be a marvelous hidey hole at the very least. A chance to think a way out of this.
<Heiden>: The checkpoint… has someone! A very frightened and confused looking older woman, actually.
Dr_Sorts feels a rush of relief, "Hello? Who are you? Where's security?"
<Heiden>: She radiates relief when she sees you. "Oh, thank God. Wh… what is this place? Where am I?" She's not wearing any Foundation insignia - not even a Class D uniform.
<Dr_Sorts>: If you have to ask, you don't want to know. My name is Johannes. *Sorts angled his computer to flash the light on his own face. He was trying to sound friendly, but his face was tense*
<Heiden>: The woman doesn't seem terribly reassured by this, but it probably wasn't meant to be reassuring. She glances about worriedly. "I don't know how I got here."
<Dr_Sorts>: That's fine. I'm just glad to see someone else. You're in a safe spot right now, so let's just stay calm and take stock of the situation. We'll figure things out. *Sorts notes that she has not introduced herself. And if she is wandering the site she might be the cause of this, or an unrelated containment breach. He studies her, trying to spot anything-
<Dr_Sorts>: - odd or familiar about her based on his perception and limited knowledge of things contained on site.
<Heiden>: "Stay calm?" Her voice is rising, indignation replacing fear. "You know what's going on and I don't, I, I, I just keep /seeing/ things down there-" She points down the corridor where you came from, "- and they aren't THERE when I look!" She storms out and opens the first door on the left. "I don't even know why I'm he-"
Dr_Sorts groans. Something bad was going to happen and he almost didn't care the way she stormed off like that. Rather than look for her, he goes to see if he can get a flashlight or a gun out of the security station.
<Heiden>: There's a serviceable flashlight. The woman's nowhere to be seen when you turn back.
Dr_Sorts grumbles. But if she just vanished it simplified things. It was also a clue. Sorts powers down his laptop and tucks it under an arm, shining the flashlight around the area, looking for odd marks on the walls or signs of anyone else. Hoping there's no blood smeared everywhere.
<Heiden>: The door's shut again, though.
<Heiden>: Nothing. It's like the Site was just abandoned. A purse is on the ground.
<Heiden>: So, uh, not nothing. Scratch 'nothing'. Just 'not much'.
Dr_Sorts rummages through the purse. He even says "Jinkies" when he does so.
<Heiden>: You get: twenty bucks!
<Heiden>: Also, identification. Emmaline DeWitt. The picture looks like the woman you just spoke to, but uglier.
<Heiden>: Oh, driver's license photos. They're always terrible.
Dr_Sorts comments to himself about how unhelpful twenty bucks is in this current situation even though he pockets it. Then he reconsiders in a fit of morals, it's not like he had things to spend money on down here.
Dr_Sorts calls out, "Emmaline?"
<Heiden>: No response.
Dr_Sorts reads her address off the ID.
<Heiden>: Another county over from where the Site's located.
Dr_Sorts looks on the back just in case there's anything weird or unusual about the kinds of vehicles she's allowed to drive, or anything else just not right about this license.
<Heiden>: Nope. Pretty normal identification.
<Heiden>: She can ride motorcycles.
<Heiden>: That's exciting.,
Dr_Sorts puts everything back into the purse and leaves it at the station. It would be relevant if it was still there later. Then he heads for the door the woman vanished into, and listens at it rather than barging through.
<Heiden>: No sound.
Dr_Sorts opens the door even as he tries to remember where this door leads.
<Heiden>: It's just a briefing room. Four nooses hang from the ceiling.
<Heiden>: Emmaline DeWitt now occupies one of them.
Dr_Sorts grits his teeth. He should be scared, and that was the problem. This was obviously staged to scare him, and that made him -furious.- Which didn't help his state of mind much. After glaring at the grim scene, he leaves and slams the door shut behind him. Back to the station.
<Heiden>: The station is certainly there. You think you remember seeing a sandwich in the purse.
Dr_Sorts goes to get the sandwich. Eagerly. But before he stuffs his face (food was his way of dealing with this crap) he checks the bread fully expecting the sandwich to be something designed to horrify him.
<Heiden>: It's horrifying. It's terrible. It's worse than anything you'd ever imagined.
<Heiden>: It's peanut butter and banana.
<Heiden>: …oh.
Dr_Sorts hates that Elvish sandwich.
<Dr_Sorts>: (elvis*)
<Heiden>: [perfect typo]
<Dr_Sorts>: (I know, rite?)
Dr_Sorts returns the sandwich to the purse. Time to move on, check the next security station and hopefully make his way out of the site.
<Heiden>: You hear voices again as you advance down the corridor towards the exit.
<Heiden>: …familiar ones.
Dr_Sorts does not call out or pick up the pace. He's paranoid now, and watching for the things that don't belong before opening the exit.
<Heiden>: They're getting louder as you near them.
Dr_Sorts thrusts the door open. If there's really people there, this will be a hell of a dramatic entrance at least.
<Heiden>: That's Yoric. What the hell.