SCP-5000 ⨷ Suit

⨷SCP-5000⨷

Gunshots echoed down the concrete hallway of Site-22, each one like a punchline in a very unfunny joke. Screams followed, but not the kind you hear in horror movies—the real ones, where you can almost feel the soul being sucked out of the poor bastard making the noise. That was the soundtrack for the evening: panic, fear, and the unsettling realization that today was not a good day to die.

Victor Black, who until five minutes ago thought the worst part of his day was the cafeteria's meatloaf, was hiding under his desk. His hands shook so violently that if they weren't attached to him, they might've been mistaken for jazz hands. As he cowered there, he wondered if this was how all office jobs ended—with armed lunatics, blood on the walls, and the faint smell of burnt toast (which, oddly enough, he could still smell despite the carnage).

"Who the hell are they?" he thought, his mind racing like a hamster on an over-caffeinated wheel. "Why are they killing everyone? And how did they find us? I mean, this place isn't exactly on Yelp."

Just moments earlier, Victor had been in the canteen, engaging in the most mundane of activities: eating dinner with colleagues who were equally disinterested in life. It was just another night at the freak show until the men in black combat gear strolled in like they owned the place.

One brave, or perhaps stupid, scientist stood up to greet them—because who wouldn't want to be polite to armed strangers? The answer to his question, "Can I help you?" was a bullet to the head. The cafeteria turned into a blender of chaos, with Victor narrowly avoiding becoming the garnish on someone else's death smoothie as he bolted out the back door.

Now, huddled under his desk, Victor was trying to convince his bladder not to embarrass him. It was a losing battle. He could still hear the screams, now muffled and distant, like a bad memory trying to claw its way back to the surface.

When he finally mustered the courage to crawl out from his hiding spot, he was greeted by the unnerving quiet of a slaughterhouse after hours. He peeked out into the hallway, the emergency lights flickering on and off, casting shadows that danced like ghosts at a rave. There was no one in sight, just the residual aura of death and a lingering sense that he was the punchline to some cosmic joke.

Victor took a deep breath and stepped out of his office, moving deeper into Site-22—a decision that, on the scale of bad ideas, ranked somewhere between licking a doorknob and playing chicken with a speeding train. The exit was in the opposite direction, but so were the armed men, and Victor wasn't about to test his luck.

He wandered down the dark corridor, using the wall as a guide, as the flickering lights played a cruel game of "will they, won't they" with his nerves. At one point, he thought he saw someone—a soldier, dressed in black, standing perfectly still at the end of the hall. Victor froze, heart pounding so hard it might've left bruises on his ribs. But when the lights flickered out and then back on, the figure was gone. Victor had no choice but to keep moving, hoping that whatever was hunting him would lose interest or develop a sudden urge for a coffee break.

He reached the stairs, and without thinking, he plunged downward, deeper into the bowels of Site-22. The kind of place where people didn't go unless they had a death wish or an urgent need to find the bathroom. The corridor at the bottom was short, ending in a single door that looked like it hadn't been opened in years.

Victor fumbled for his key card, hands trembling like they were auditioning for a role in a horror movie. He dropped the card, swore under his breath, and bent down to pick it up. A bullet whizzed past his head, close enough that he felt the wind from it, and embedded itself in the metal door with a sound that suggested it was not going to be a good day for whoever was behind that door.

Victor swiped the card with the grace of someone who had just been scared half to death and shoved his way through the door, slamming it shut behind him with a satisfying *click*. For a moment, there was silence, the kind that makes you think, "Maybe I'll survive this after all," before life decides to remind you that, no, you won't.

Inside the room, Victor found himself staring at SCP-5000—a mechanical harness hanging in the middle of the room, looking less like a piece of advanced technology and more like something you'd find in a BDSM dungeon. The irony wasn't lost on him: survive a massacre, only to be taken out by a kinky death machine.

The banging on the door behind him snapped him back to reality. The armed men were trying to break in, and it was only a matter of time before they did. With nowhere else to go, Victor looked at SCP-5000, then at the door, and then back at SCP-5000.

"What do I have to lose?" he muttered, his voice trembling.

"Only your life," a voice in his head replied, dripping with sarcasm.

Victor reached out and grabbed the harness. It was heavy, cold to the touch, and felt disturbingly alive. He slipped it on, and the thing practically jumped to life, adjusting itself to fit his body like a tailor with a vendetta. He screamed as it tightened around him, the metal pressing into his flesh, and for a moment, he thought it might crush him before the armed men got the chance.

Then it got worse.

The suit enveloped his head, silencing his screams, and the door exploded open, sending debris flying into the room. The masked men stormed in, flashlights sweeping the area like they were looking for lost car keys. They fanned out, confused by the absence of the technician they'd just seen enter.

But Victor was still there—at least, he thought he was. He opened his eyes, expecting to see the barrel of a gun or the fist of an angry mercenary. Instead, he saw nothing. Literally, nothing. He looked down at his hands, his body, and realized he was completely invisible.

"The suit made me invisible," he thought, half relieved, half horrified. 

Not one to waste an opportunity, Victor walked—no, glided—past the confused mercenaries. The suit had silenced his footsteps, turning him into the world's most terrified ninja. He passed his own office, glanced at the blood-stained walls, and kept moving, trying not to think about how everyone he'd ever worked with was now dead, or worse, trending on social media.

As he approached the exit, two guards stood in his way, guns raised, alert and ready to shoot anything that moved. Victor slipped past them with the precision of someone who had been practicing for this moment his entire life, even though he most definitely had not.

But luck, as it often does, ran out. One of the guards turned at the last second, his shoulder bumping into Victor's invisible form. The guard's eyes widened in shock, his gun immediately raising toward the unseen threat. Victor's heart skipped a beat—if it skipped any more, it might have just left altogether.

And that's when SCP-5000 decided to take over.

Victor's body moved without his consent, the suit snapping the guard's neck with a speed and precision that could only be described as deeply unsettling. The second guard barely had time to scream before his head was slammed into the concrete wall repeatedly, turning it into something resembling a deflated football. Victor blacked out, probably for his own sanity's sake.

When he came to, he was outside Site-22, standing on a hill overlooking the facility. He looked down at his hands, covered in the suit, and wondered if he was still human, or just some sick joke in a cosmic sitcom. The suit's heads-up display flickered to life, strange symbols filling his vision, one of them translating into "Journal Entry."

Victor stared at it, his brain finally slowing down enough to process that he was now part of something much bigger, and much, much worse. He began recounting everything that had happened, hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone out there would understand and save him.

As he trudged through the desert toward the nearest SCP safe house, Victor noticed that his thirst was gone, his knee was no longer busted, and his mind was starting to wonder if this whole thing wasn't just one big acid trip gone horribly wrong. He reached the safe house, found it abandoned, and turned on the TV. What he saw made his stomach drop—worldwide chaos, monsters running amok, and the realization that everything he thought he knew about the Foundation was a lie.

He sat down, still wrapped in SCP-5000, and laughed. Because what else can you do when the world is ending and you're wearing a suit that might just be the punchline to it all?

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Item #: SCP-5000

Object Class: Safe

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-5000 is to be kept deactivated within a standard storage unit located at Site-22. All files and intelligence retrieved from SCP-5000 are to be stored on a secure server, with backups available upon request from the Archival Department.

Description: SCP-5000 is a non-functional mechanical suit identified within its internal schematics as an 'Absolute Exclusion Harness' designed by the SCP Foundation. Although SCP-5000 is believed to have once possessed a number of anomalous functions intended to protect and benefit its occupants, the damage inflicted on it in the past means that it is currently only capable of basic file storage. For a record of files contained within SCP-5000 upon recovery, see Archive 5000-1.

SCP-5000 first appeared in a flash of light within SCP-579's containment chamber at Site-62C on 12/04/2020, containing a corpse genetically identical to Foundation employee Victor Black. Victor Black is currently employed at Exclusionary Site-062, and mnestic therapy has confirmed he has no knowledge of SCP-5000 or memories concerning the events detailed within its archives.

Archive 5000-1:

JOURNAL ENTRY 0001-1

My name is Victor Black. I don't know what's happening. I think I might be the only one left.

The date is um oh two oh one twenty twenty (sorry thought transcription is tricky (sorry im not used to this yet um)). The date is 02/01/2020. I've just. I have just escaped from Exclusionary Site-06. I think … I'm not certain, but I think everyone else is dead. Those guys, they were thorough. If I hadn't got to the suit, I'd be … oh god.

JOURNAL ENTRY 0001-2

I need to get myself together or this thing isn't going to be legible at all. Most likely they're going to want some kind of record of this whole incident for posterity.

I'm currently on my way to the nearest Foundation installation - a small safe-house for Agents making their way through this part of the country. Most likely there won't be anyone there, but I should be able to get into contact with my superiors and find out what exactly is going on.

Things started around six, maybe seven hours ago. A group identifying themselves as Mobile Task Force Zeta-19 ("Lonely Only") - Insurgent infiltrators, maybe? - entered the Site, they had proper identification and everything, and gathered everyone into the canteen. Then they started the shooting.

Jesus, I … I can still taste the blood. I can't get that awful metal taste off my tongue. It's a miracle I didn't get hit or trampled on, the way people were climbing over each other to get out of there. If I hadn't gotten to the Exclusion Harness, I'd be dead. No doubt about it - like I said, they were thorough.

I'm a technician for the power grid on ES-06, so I don't fully get how this thing works, but I understand the basics. This perception filter thing doesn't mean people can't see me, but it does mean they can't recognize the fact that they can see me. Which I guess is the same thing when you get down to it.

But those infiltrators … they didn't even take anything, didn't even try to. I watched after I got into this thing - I was too scared (fucking coward) to make a run for it. They just checked the bodies and left. An extra bullet for every head.

They were just there to kill us.

JOURNAL ENTRY 0001-3

Finally made it to the safe-house after hours and hours of trudging through this goddamn desert. Heard a few explosions in the distance - maybe the Foundation sent an MTF to engage those infiltrators before they got away? Hope so.

Never been happier to see bottled water in my life. The Harness sustains your body while you're wearing it, apparently, but my mind still thinks I should be drinking. Human nature, I guess.

Anyway, once I get these legs of mine rested, I'm going to try to get these systems online. I need to get in touch with the Foundation and find out what exactly is going on.

JOURNAL ENTRY 0001-4

Holy shit.