BAROQUE

[ BEGIN LOG ]

Rsr. Thorely: Um, hi everyone. Welcome to the Department of Unreality orientation. Help yourselves to the bagels, am I right?

Silence.

Rsr. Thorely: Fine, more for me! Ha ha.

Unidentified Audience Member: Was that a joke?

Rsr. Thorely: So, I was asked to give you all a brief introduction to our department. Mine. Ours in the future. If we pick you to join, I mean. I pick you, sorry. I run things. If you don't count the cat that outranks me. I don't. I'm not sure he actually outranks me.

Unidentified Audience Member: Would a cat outrank us?

Rsr. Thorely: Oh, no! You're all probably fine. I was told this was all Level 4 researchers? I've had a bit of an issue with the clearance system, so I am technically a Level 1 Adjunct Junior Researcher. But IT is looking into it!

Rsr. Thorely: Um, so. Here at the Department of Unreality, we deal with some anomalies that are pretty scary stuff. Some of you may be familiar with that one where the world spun around a lot for a while in my office, of course. And that one where I saved Site-15 from like, ten things.

Unidentified Audience Member: I'm from Site-15, we haven't had any containment breaches in years.

Rsr. Thorely: huh

Unidentified Audience Member: What would our directives be?

Unidentified Audience Member: What kind of equipment are you working on? I heard Unreality had promising new tech ready to go!

Rsr. Thorely: We do?

Unidentified Audience Member: Is it true you killed a guy?

Unidentified Audience Member: Didn't Jennifer Williams live with you?

Unidentified Audience Member: How did you manage to speak in lowercase with no punctuation?

Unidentified Audience Member: Is it true you once spilled narrative acid on SCP-3812?

Rsr. Thorely: What?

Unidentified Audience Member: Didn't you once meet a clone of youself and then have sex with-

Rsr. Thorely: OK!

Rsr. Thorely: OK.

Rsr. Thorely: Ok.

Rsr. Thorely: I'm gonna be honest, everyone, I don't really know much about this department, I'm new-ish,¹ so I need you all to bear with me. What are you all talking about?

Unidentified Audience Members: See, as far as we've heard-

[SEVERAL MINUTES OF FOOTAGE OMITTED.]

Rsr. Thorely: I'm pretty sure that didn't happen. I've never seen anyone even enter my off-

Unidentified Audience Members: No dude it totally did!

Rsr. Thorely: (Under THEIR breath) …dude?

Rsr. Thorely: Ok, but the director doesn't exist anywhere in the system, I checked.

Unidentified Audience Member: Exaaaaactly what they want you to think.

Rsr. Thorely: Who's "they"?

Unidentified Audience Members: Exaaaactlyyyyy.

Rsr. Thorely: Woah.

[SEVERAL HOURS OF FOOTAGE OF EXPLANATIONS OF POWERSCALING IN SCP OMITTED.]

Rsr. Thorely: WHATEVER! LEAVE! SEE IF I CARE FUCKASS! YOU DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF THE GREATEST DEPARTMENT IN THE FOUNDATION, I'M SURE WE'LL MOURN YOUR LOSS. AND IF ANYONE ELSE WANTS TO LEAVE, DO IT! I DON'T GIVE A SHIT!

Rsr. Thorely: I cannot believe I didn't know this stuff! All this time I thought I was probably hallucinating most of these! There's so much stuff I don't even remember doing or hearing about or seeing!

Rsr. Thorely: Fine, whatever, it's time.

Rsr. Thorely: We're storming the capitol.

Rsr. Thorely: What? No, yeah, it was like- No I know it's kinda crude but it was a joke. Fine. Whatever. Not the capitol, a legally distinct administrative building.

[ END LOG ]

[ BEGIN LOG ]

[FOOTAGE OMITTED FOR SECURITY REASONS.]

O5-2: Next item on the agenda is ruling on a request by IT to stop using video and audio logs instead of the actual video and/or audio. Any thoughts?

O5-2: Computers are a passing fad, we'll be back to paper and they'll look stupid. Nay.

O5-3: Big talk, little man. I'll kick your old ass dumb ass shit ass.

A chair is thrown at a window from outside the room. It fails to break the window, bouncing back wth a faint 'thump'.

O5-9: The nearest chair is miles away from here.

O5-5: At least a good hundred miles. Mm-hm.

A second chair is thrown at the same window from outside the room. It fails to break the window again, bouncing back wth a faint 'thump'.

O5-13: Where's the second-nearest chair, am I right?

O5-12: We all wish you'd kill yourself, thirteen.

O5-6: It's true.

A third chair is thrown at a window from outside the room. It fails to break the window, bouncing back wth a faint 'thump'. The window, however, explodes due to an unrelated manufacturing error caused by the momentary distraction of a worker at the reinforced windows plant, which was prompted by a particularly heated Twitter exchange between the worker and another user, who, unbeknownst to him, was a former lover he had taken while on a trip to the Seychelles years prior.

Alex Thorely enters the room through the window.

O5-1: The door was open.

Rsr. Thorely: It was?

O5-8: Most certainly.

Rsr. Thorely: Why?

O5-11: 'd reck'n it'd be pretty darn' foolish ta' try t crash this 'ere part'y, don't ya missy?

Rsr. Thorely: (Under THEIR breath) …missy?

Rsr. Thorely: Those aren't even real contractions! And I am here for answers!

O5-7: But do you know the question?

Rsr. Thorely: I don't know, was your attempt at casting what I assume is 'explode this person's heart' successful?

O5-7: No… I'm sorry…

Rsr. Thorely: Good, now keep your words normal color.

Rsr. Thorely: If you couldn't tell by my new swag, I am now the big boss.

Rsr. Thorely: Give me the keys to the SCPs.

Silence.

O5-1: No.

Rsr. Thorely: Please?

O5-1: No.

Rsr. Thorely: DRATS! Fine! Have it your way!

Thorely starts concentrating. They point at O5-1, holding the pose for several minutes. Beads of sweat form on their forehead.

O5-3: They aren't doing anything.

Rsr. Thorely: Am too.

O5-3: Am not.

Rsr. Thorely: I'm using my powers.

O5-5: You haven't even told us who you are.

Rsr. Thorely: What! I'm Alex Thorely! Your most powerful employee!

O5-6: No you aren't.

Rsr. Thorely: Yeah!

O5-6: I know every personnel file the Foundation has. You are Alex Thorley, a junior researcher in… AcroAbate?

Rsr. Thorely: Ohhh I am so exploding you with my mind for that!

O5-6: No abilities or powers of note.

Rsr. Thorely: Oh yeah? What about my Nonexistent Physiology? Huh? I can do this!

Nothing happens.

Rsr. Thorely: Scared?

O5-1: No.

Rsr. Thorely: You all just don't understand the Department of Unreality like my new friends do! I am Tier 0 which is the coolest one! I can make things exist, and teleport, which, by the way, reaches all the way to Poland! and I can make dissociative episodes happen on other people, AND I can manipulate memories, AND, I can put people into comas and erase their existence and hack into the Foundation's database AND I can manipulate the narrative! Watch THIS!

Nothing happens, but on the other side of the world, the Scarlet King's lesser known brother, The Devil from The Bible, appears, immediately killing one man living in San Diego. Said man was clutching a gun in his sleep.

Rsr. Thorely: Had enough yet?

O5-1: No.

O5-11: See 'ere pard'ner, the pr'blem, 's I sees 't, 's that you really can't do a darn thing!

Rsr. Thorely: Oh yeah well did you know I'm non-binary?

O5-11: W'll I ne'er…

O5-11 dies of dysentery. Game Over, Pard'ner!

Rsr. Thorely: Anyone else need to be convinced I mean business?

O5-1: No. We were just running out the clock.

O5-4, who had not had a speaking role so far because he was too busy charging a Revolutionary War-era musket, puts a whole bunch of grapeshot through Thorely's skull. Their head is instantly reduced to mincemeat.

O5-1: Weren't-

O5-5: Yep. They were rubber bullets.

O5-1: God damn, man.

O5-6: What I really want to know is what the fuck Tier 0 means.

O5-3: Oh that is when you have characters who can affect objects which completely exceed the logical foundations of High 1-A, much like it exceeds the ones defining 1-A and below, meaning that all possible levels of High 1-A are exceeded, even an infinite or uncountably amount of such levels. This tier has no endpoint, and can be extended to any higher level just like the ones above.

O5-6: Again, what I really want to know is what the fuck Tier 0 means.

Every O5 except 6, in unison: Oh, six…

Freeze frame.

Laugh track.

[ END LOG ]