The Monster's Room - Chapter 40
They even fulfilled Marie’s desire for affection.
For instance, J pretended to be a bed, arranging his body like a cradle to lull Marie to sleep, while the Marionette troupe played a lullaby for her. The hands gently removing the s***n-soaked hair were filled with tenderness.
Interestingly, the horse knight, whom Marie had recognized had an unexpectedly romantic side, since the ring incident. What this meant was…
“How long will you keep kissing me…?”
Whenever Marie lost consciousness, he would place light, feathery kisses all over her body until she woke up. Even after she regained consciousness, the kisses did not stop. From the top of her head to the tips of her toes, he meticulously kissed every inch of her before letting her go.
Sometimes, she also had moments of solitude.
Leaning against the corridor wall, she felt her mind clear. Hugging the cotton doll made it even better. The cotton doll acted as a pause in Marie’s routine. Whenever she felt anxious, she would visit Spiegel’s room.
Spiegel, whose powers amplified in the mirror room, taught Marie many things. Not only did he provide information from the Foundation, but he also showed her how the world operated, leaving no room for frustration.
Yet, there was one person even this magical mirror couldn’t locate.
<The whereabouts of the former senior is unknown.>
John Doe.
He was invisible even to Spiegel’s abilities from the start. So Marie directly requested the Foundation to locate him. She asked them to remove him from his position.
In return, she promised to remain quietly in Zone F-49 with SCPs of Apollyon class. Though it sounded like a negotiation, it was closer to using the Foundation’s resources to find him.
<To be honest…>
But the Foundation couldn’t find him either.
<John Doe has escaped.>
As usual, she was unlucky.
* * *
In fact, the Foundation intended to bury this incident. Isolating anomalous entities was already a handful, and revealing internal divisions and conflicts would offer no benefit.
The solution was simple.
By raising the security level of the incident drastically and classifying it as an unsolved case, it could be easily managed.
However, the Foundation could not bury this incident due to several variables.
The first variable was Marie.
An SCP dealing with SCPs. No one at the Foundation could ignore the appearance of a being that was even communicative and well-behaved.
“…Well-behaved?”
<Yes.>
Marie did not understand. Wasn’t she the one who had threatened to have John Doe removed by using Spiegel’s presence?
<Precisely because of that.>
“What?”
<It’s rational. Rather than attacking directly, killing someone, corroding, driving mad, or destroying the facility, you stated your demands clearly without resorting to violence.>
“…”
It was then that Marie realized how far the Foundation’s standards deviated from common sense. She should have recognized it when they talked about the end of the world. It seemed that the higher-ups valued her attempt to negotiate rather than launch a direct attack.
<Especially the aspect of giving a warning was impressive for them.>
“Why’s that?”
<Because it’s predictable.>
Brooks explained matter-of-factly.
<The Foundation has dealt with unpredictable anomalies for a lifetime. When you provide a clear warning and lay out exactly what you’ll do if certain conditions are met, who wouldn’t prefer that? At least within the Foundation, nobody would dislike it.>
“…”
<I want to make it clear that compared to other anomalies, Marie Garcia, you are truly, truly well-behaved and moderate.>
Marie’s gaze drifted to the cotton toy nestled in her arms. If you’re talking about being well-behaved, isn’t the fluffy cotton doll also remarkable in its own right? Sensing her thoughts, Brooks firmly disagreed.
<A well-behaved doll doesn’t explode people, Marie.>
“…If it doesn’t attack, it’s considered well-behaved.”
Regardless, Marie was drawing attention from the Foundation.
In the midst of this, Marie’s proposal had a significant impact. If John Doe could be removed, she would remain quietly contained in Zone F-49 with the anomalous entities.
It was, truly.
An astonishingly tempting proposal.
Not asking to leave the Foundation, not demanding more freedom, but offering to be quietly contained with anomalous entities under her control!
The Foundation quickly calculated the costs.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly.
The cost of entering Zone F-49 was drastically reduced. So much so that it was equivalent to removing an entire year’s budget for one base.
It would have been foolish to reject it.
The only demand was the removal of John Doe. The Foundation took it lightly. They hadn’t been asked to kill him, just to temporarily strip him of his authority and quietly reinstate him later.
The second variable emerged at that point.
It started with the former assistant’s struggle.
He had no intention of slipping away while being tied up with his former superior. So, he prepared the negotiation table with the higher-ups, recruited spies like Connor and the Special Forces leader Kevin Harris, and sought help from factions hostile to John Doe.
The effect was explosive.
Those who disliked John Doe collected information and sent it directly to his email.
Until that point, the Foundation had no intention of giving up on John Doe.
Despite his personality, the results he consistently delivered always brought significant benefits to the Foundation. That’s why they merely pieced together the massive amount of information collected by the former assistant without much effort.
Soon after, however.
They realized something was wrong.
<We, and the Foundation, were shocked and caught off guard.>
John Doe.
<Who would have thought he was conducting numerous unauthorized experiments?>
It became clear that this mad scientist truly needed to be removed.
