[Mission log excerpt begins.]
ζ-9-24: Niner two four to base, come in?
Base: Go for base.
ζ-9-24: We have reached the — what are we calling it?
ζ-9-11: [Unintelligible]
ζ-9-24: Right, SCP-3194-2. It’s … hard to describe, frankly.
Base: Please try, nine twenty four.
[Radio silence for 21 seconds.]
ζ-9-11: Uh, it’s — can I talk?
ζ-9-24: [Unintelligible]
Base: Affirmative, nine eleven. Please go ahead.
ζ-9-11: It’s weird here. There’s no echo. The floor’s the same uniform stone tiles as the tunnel. You’d expect the room to be really echoey. But it’s just dead. There’s no sound at all.
Base: Can you describe what you see?
ζ-9-11: Kind of? There’s the — there’s dash three off in the distance, obviously. It’s not that bright. Doesn’t hurt to look at it or anything. It—
ζ-9-24: Are you rolling?
ζ-9-15: Oh yeah.
ζ-9-11: It must be putting out a lot more light than it looks like, because I can just make out the ceiling. You know how if you see something really dim in a dark room you can’t see it if you look straight at it? Cause of your what you call it.
ζ-9-6 and ζ-9-15: Fovea.
ζ-9-11: Yeah. You have to look at it sideways because your low-light vision isn’t as good when you look straight at something. It’s like that. If I look straight up it’s just black, but if I side-eye it I can make out … something.
Base: Wait one, zeta nine.
ζ-9-24: Copy that.
[Radio silence for 22 seconds.]
Base: Twenty four, Dr. ██████ wants you to set up the millimeter-wave now.
ζ-9-24: Copy that. Give us five minutes.
[Radio silence for 4 minutes 35 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: Niner two four to base.
Base: Yeah, ████?
ζ-9-24: Millimeter-wave is powered up, all indicators green. Ready to begin transmitting.
Base: Okay, ████. Doctor ███ reminds you to withdraw into 3194-1 during the scan.
ζ-9-24: Thank Doctor ███ for the reminder. Pressing the big green button now.
[Radio silence for 8 minutes 54 seconds.]
Base: Scan complete, ████. The data are a little noisy but we’ve—what? That’s impossible. [Unintelligible.] ████, uh, nine twenty four, give us a minute here.
[Radio silence for 3 minutes 11 seconds.]
Base: Nine twenty four, copy?
ζ-9-24: Go for niner two four.
Base: Doctor ██████ is asking you to please deploy a flare above your current position.
ζ-9-24: Copy that. ███████?
ζ-9-6: On it.
[Radio silence for 49 seconds. Sound of flare gun being fired. Radio silence for 4 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: Mother of God.
ζ-9-11: [Retching sounds.]
ζ-9-6: [Unintelligible.]
Base: Nine twenty four, sitrep.
[Retching sounds and unintelligible crosstalk for 28 seconds.]
Base: Zeta nine, sitrep.
[Retching sounds for 6 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: Shit.
Base: Zeta nine, do you copy?
ζ-9-24: Yeah. Hang on.
Base: Zeta nine, say again.
ζ-9-24: I said give us a second here, goddamn it. █████ and ███████ are in a bad way.
Base: Please elaborate.
[Radio silence for 24 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: Okay, it’s going out. I think — █████?
ζ-9-11: Yeah. Okay. [Retching sounds.] I’m okay.
ζ-9-24: Base, niner two four. We got a good look around the chamber. It’s hard to take. Disorienting.
Base: Please elaborate?
ζ-9-24: Right. It’s—
[Radio silence for 4 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: [Exhalation.] It’s large. The chamber we’re in, dash two, is very large. Cannot estimate dimensions. There’s no sense of scale. Or, I mean … the sense of scale is all wrong.
ζ-9-11: It’s like being a mosquito in an aircraft hangar.
Base: Did you get video?
ζ-9-15: I was busy trying not to piss myself.
Base: Understood. Wait one, zeta nine.
[Radio silence for 14 seconds.]
Base: Nine twenty four, Doctor ██████ is asking you to describe your physical symptoms.
ζ-9-24: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-11: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-24: I think it’s just vertigo. Dizziness and nausea. ███████ and █████ have vomited, but they’re okay now. Really bad vertigo. The flare’s burned out now so we’re back in the dark. It’s better. Not great, but better. I think we’re okay now.
Base: Copy that. Doctor ██████ wants vitals on all of you: rate, BP. Are you able to comply?
ζ-9-24: ███████?
ζ-9-6: [Spitting sound.] Aye aye.
[12 minutes of log omitted.]
Base: Okay, copy all that. Looks nominal. You are ordered to proceed toward 3194-3 as you are able. Maintain five hundred meters from 3194-3.
ζ-9-24: Copy, base. Proceeding to half a klick. Oscar mike.
[38 minutes of log omitted.]
ζ-9-24: Niner two four to base.
Base: Go ahead.
ζ-9-24: We’re approximately five zero zero meters from dash three. It’s hard to tell for sure. No landmarks at all. This place is absolutely empty. Except for—
ζ-9-11: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-24: Base, we can’t see any features. Chamber appears to be completely empty except for dash three.
Base: Say again your last, nine eleven, we didn’t copy that.
ζ-9-11: I said “him.” I don’t know why I said that.
ζ-9-6: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-11: No. I mean yeah, I’m good.
Base: Nine twenty four, Doctor ██████ wants another vitals check.
ζ-9-11: I said I’m good.
ζ-9-24: Just do it, ███████.
ζ-9-6: Aye aye.
[14 minutes of log omitted.]
Base: Uh, okay, they’re telling me you’re still within safety margins. You are to proceed to fifty meters from 3194-3 and prepare the spectrometry experiment.
ζ-9-24: Okay, base, we copy. We’re off to see the wizard.
[Radio silence for 7 seconds.]
Base: Base copies.
[Radio silence for 19 minutes.]
ζ-9-24: Base, come in.
Base: Base copies, go ahead.
ζ-9-24: Base, we are now approximately … approximately fifty meters from … from dash three. Christ almighty, it’s a hell of a thing. Spectrometer is set up, had a loose wire but it’s okay now.
ζ-9-11: Did you hear that?
ζ-9-24: Hear what?
[Radio silence for 14 seconds.]
ζ-9-11: I guess nothing. Never mind.
Base: Nine eleven, are you experiencing auditory phenomena?
ζ-9-11: No, base. Just my ears playing tricks on me. This place is weird.
Base: Understood, uh, wait one.
[Radio silence for 18 seconds.]
Base: Doctor ███ says you might experience objective—what?—objective tinnitus. Might sound like ringing or rumbling. Is that what you heard?
[Radio silence for 6 seconds.]
ζ-9-11: Must’ve been, base.
Base: Understood. Please report any other sounds.
ζ-9-24: Will do, base.
Base: Doctor ██████ says you’re clear to start the spectrometry experiment.
ζ-9-24: Understood, starting experiment now.
[Radio silence for 11 seconds.]
ζ-9-11: Experiment underway.
Base: Great. Are you recording video on the phenomenon?
ζ-9-15: Been rolling for a while now. I’ve stacked every filter I have to try to get the exposure right. It’s got…I don’t know, structure. Something like structure. I hope the camera’s getting it.
Base: We hope so too. Any other physical symptoms so far?
ζ-9-24: Don’t think so, base. I think it was just the vertigo, and that’s passed. ███████?
ζ-9-6: A-OK.
ζ-9-24: ███?
ζ-9-15: Yeah, okay.
ζ-9-24: █████?
[Radio silence for 6 seconds.]
ζ-9-24: █████? ███████—
ζ-9-6: █████? Come on, █████, can you hear me?
[Radio silence for 4 seconds.]
ζ-9-6: I think she’s seizing.
ζ-9-24: What?
ζ-9-6: Absence seizure. Look at her eyes. Help me get her on the ground. It’s okay, █████, you’re all right.
[Radio silence for 46 seconds.]
Base: Sitrep, please.
ζ-9-6: She should’ve come out of it by now. Absence seizures are short.
ζ-9-24: How short?
ζ-9-6: Like ten seconds. Base, I want to administer ten of Versed. Do you concur?
Base: Wait one, nine six.
[Radio silence for 6 seconds.]
ζ-9-6: Screw it.
ζ-9-24: ███████, wait.
ζ-9-6: Ten of Versed in. Come on, █████. You’re okay. Come on.
[Radio silence for 35 seconds.]
ζ-9-6: Yeah, there you go. You’re okay. Just relax.
ζ-9-11: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-6: You had a seizure. You’re okay.
ζ-9-11: [Retching sounds.]
ζ-9-6: Woah, that’s all right.
ζ-9-24: Is she going to be okay?
ζ-9-6: I think so. She’s coming out of it now. Postictal. She might be pretty sick for the next hour or so.
ζ-9-11: [Unintelligible.]
ζ-9-24: What was that?
[Radio silence for 6 seconds.]
ζ-9-6: She said, “Did you hear it?”
[Mission log excerpt ends.]
Debriefing of MTF Zeta-9-11, █████ ████████
Debrief Conducted By: Dr. ██████, Lead researcher, SCP-3194
[Transcript excerpt begins.]
Dr. ██████: At MET ██:██:██ you reported hearing something.
ζ-9-11: I said I thought I heard something. I was mistaken. I think.
Dr. ██████: Can you describe what you thought you heard?
ζ-9-11: Not…really? It was like a voice, but it wasn’t a voice. It wasn’t words. More like…concepts.
Dr. ██████: Can you describe these concepts?
ζ-9-11: Not in any useful way.
Dr. ██████: Please try.
[Silence for 22 seconds.]
ζ-9-11: “At last we can begin again.”
[Silence for 8 seconds.]
Dr. ██████: Is that what you heard?
ζ-9-11: Yes. No. It’s what I felt.
Dr. ██████: And you associate these words—
ζ-9-11: Not words.
Dr. ██████: You associate this phenomenon with SCP-3194-3?
ζ-9-11: I think so. I don’t know. Doc, honestly, I think I was just exhausted. We’d been on the march for four days straight, in the dark, sleeping in the cold on stone floors. I think I just cracked up a little.
Dr. ██████: Were you compliant with the prescribed anxiolytic regimen?
ζ-9-11: The ██████████? Yeah, █ times a day as ordered.
Dr. ██████: Did you experience any side effects?
ζ-9-11: How would I know?
Dr. ██████: Let’s talk about your seizure.
ζ-9-11: If that’s what you want to call it.
Dr. ██████: What would you prefer to call it?
ζ-9-11: No idea. I just know I’ve never had a seizure before. Or since.
Dr. ██████: Do you recall any unusual sensations just before the incident? Particularly any unusual odors?
ζ-9-11: I don’t remember anything just before the…incident. I remember setting up the spectro gear, then next thing I knew I was on the ground throwing up.
Dr. ██████: And have you had any lasting symptoms?
ζ-9-11: No, I feel fine. I mean—no. I’m fine.
Dr. ██████: Please say what you want to say. This is not a part of your fitness evaluation. Your place on the team is not in jeopardy.
ζ-9-11: Well…I’ve been having these dreams since we got back. Every night.
Dr. ██████: Can you describe the dreams?
ζ-9-11: [Provisionally classified as Grade 2 cognitohazard.]
[Silence for 1 minute 13 seconds.]
Dr. ██████: Oh.
[Transcript excerpt ends.]