Mission start

Seeing Zhou Ze fall silent, Golden Retriever misunderstood and hurried to reassure him:

"Don't worry. Someone will naturally have to take responsibility for the losses caused by the incident. Since Clive was the direct cause of all this, he should be the one to take the blame..."

He paused, then asked, "Are you feeling any better?"

The wound on Zhou Ze's left shoulder had stopped bleeding, but his face was still frighteningly pale.

"Better, but I'm thinking about how we've already run into trouble twice before even reaching the Containment Zone..." Zhou Ze frowned.

There was no doubt about it. This was bad news...

Golden Retriever's expression grew solemn as well. "Let's get out of here first. It's too dangerous. Even if you need to rest, wait until we reach my lab."

Zhou Ze nodded, let out a breath, and rose from the corner.

He tried moving his shoulder. Sharp pain still throbbed through the wound, but the bone seemed unharmed.

"Let's go..."

For the rest of the journey, the man and the dog exchanged no more words. They stayed silent, moving toward the Containment Zone quickly and cautiously.

Fortunately, they encountered nothing else out of the ordinary along the way.

Only after they entered another elevator did Kane breathe a sigh of relief. "We're here..."

Zhou Ze silently noted the elevator's floor number.

They were on basement level eight, while the Containment Zone was on basement level nine. In other words, only one floor separated them from the most dangerous place.

The elevator doors slowly opened. The man and the dog stepped out warily and proceeded with care. Kane led the way, stopping from time to time to listen closely for any sounds around them.

A few minutes later, they reached a heavy metal door. A security camera above it blinked red, aimed straight at the corridor entrance.

Kane crouched beneath the camera and made a series of short sounds.

Soon, the indicator light on the metal door turned from red to green. With a hiss as the pressure locks released, the door automatically slid open to either side.

"Welcome to my lab."

Once inside the lab, Kane visibly relaxed, his whole demeanor becoming much more cheerful.

It was an enormous room. The walls were covered with screens and control panels, their blinking indicator lights bathing the space in a riot of colors. Several surgical-grade shadowless lamps hung from the ceiling, illuminating the central area with exceptional brightness.

An unusual mechanical creation stood in the middle of the room: a spherical device about a meter and a half tall, with two mechanical legs underneath. The upper half of the sphere curved inward to form something resembling a cockpit. The cockpit had two mechanical arms, each fitted with six flexible mechanical fingers and two thumbs.

Countless wires and pipes extended from the machine, connecting it to the surrounding instruments. The buzz of electricity and the sounds of data processing came from it at intervals.

"Is this the thing you mentioned..."

"Yes, the key weapon for defeating Clive. I named it the 'Invincible Tyrannosaurus Mecha'..."

Looking immensely proud, Kane bounded toward the spherical machine.

Zhou Ze spread his hands, wanting to say something but holding back.

This was clearly some fucking high-tech children's toy.

"Hmph... I know what you're thinking..."

Golden Retriever stood behind the cockpit, resting his forelegs on the control panel as he stretched out a paw and struggled to feel his way across the buttons:

"Don't underestimate my Invincible Tyrannosaurus Mecha. I got the funding by applying to develop a mobility aid, but it can do much more than that. To avoid being caught, though, I stored the weapons module separately. It'll take a little time to install..."

"All right, Doctor Kane." Zhou Ze pressed a hand to his forehead and looked around the lab, sounding helpless. "But could you stop saying its name... you know, that..."

"Invincible Tyrannosaurus Mecha!"

"Right... that..."

Kane had opened the spherical device's cockpit and eagerly jumped inside. As the hatch automatically closed, a flash of blue light shone through the gaps.

"What's wrong with the name?" An electronically processed voice with a slightly metallic quality came from the cockpit.

"Forget it. Nothing..." Zhou Ze shook his head and chose to go along with it.

"Oh, Zhou Ze, you'd better find somewhere to sit and recover as much strength as you can..."

Zhou Ze looked around the chaotic room, piled high with mechanical parts of every description. He opened his mouth, but ultimately said nothing.

He casually kicked aside some parts on the floor and found a corner to sit in. Frowning, he touched the wound on his shoulder and thought to himself.

I wonder where that Doctor Clive is now...

Outside Site-17, night had fallen. Several searchlights swept back and forth through the darkness, making the surrounding woods alternate between light and shadow.

Three kilometers from Site-17, which was disguised as a United Logistics Group warehouse center, a VTOL 505 Helicopter approached silently under cover of darkness.

In the cockpit, Doctor Clive removed his headset and switched on his Personal Action Recorder. Gazing at the brightly lit Site-17 in the distance, he spoke slowly:

"I, Clive, being of sound mind and body, hereby declare that the actions I am about to take are solely in my own name and involve no one but myself. I have received no orders from any outside organization or official representative of the Containment Facility.

I also declare that I am a liar. Which part of my previous declaration was a lie is a question I shall leave to historians and you investigators looking into this afterward. It is an infinite loop that will break your brain.

If my suspicions are confirmed, the personnel at Site-17 have been compromised. It is only a matter of time before someone informs SCP-239 of my plan of action.

Of course, I do not know what consequences this will have, either. My unique personality defects will protect me from any reality distortion, but the CK-Class End-of-the-World Scenario that SCP-239 might cause will be difficult to avert.

Whatever the case, I still prefer the world as it originally was...

In the limited time available, I have fashioned several weapons from mind-shielding alloy. They will assist me under different circumstances.

Incidentally, I am disappointed by the indecision of the other members of the Containment Facility. Despite knowing that a high-risk anomaly has a fatal vulnerability, they still refuse to take the necessary measures to deal with it.

Perhaps this is the work of SCP-239's reality-warping abilities, or perhaps they have simply developed inappropriate feelings for a threatening entity with the appearance of a little girl. I would prefer to believe the latter.

Even so, their blind tolerance toward a humanoid anomaly with such destructive power remains disturbing.

Here is a simple hypothetical: if an enemy wished to destroy the Containment Facility, they might need only ten one-kiloton nuclear weapons disguised as Girl Scouts...

Unfortunately, I failed to obtain the Genoa Blade (SCP-668) before leaving Site-19. This means I will be unable to use it to bypass basic security. However, my outside contacts have provided me with a comparable technological substitute.

In addition, my personal digital agent is now connected to my ocular and auditory implants. Once the mission ends or fails, all data concerning it will be transmitted to the Global Occult Coalition.

If my vital signs cease during the mission, the Global Occult Coalition's Clive Unit will execute the Pizzicato Protocol (planetary extermination).

Of course, I am a liar. Perhaps the Global Occult Coalition has no Clive Unit at all, nor any Pizzicato Protocol. I said perhaps...

I will arrive at Site-17 within ten minutes.

Mission start."