Chapter 44 "Delegates From Site-19"

In his containment room, he realized something. After the previous encounter, he noticed a change in himself; he felt a strange, icy sensation running through his body.

It wasn't because his room's air conditioner started to cool down; instead, he experienced a sudden rush of chilly energy coursing down his arm. He lapsed into intense thought if anything had altered inside his body.

He turned away from the lights that were glaring directly into his eyes and focused on his arms. He wished he had something he could wrap around himself to insulate his body from the chill.

The moment he started to think about it, William's arm grew a lot of furs. It began to appear at the speed of the naked eye and started to wrap around his arm and fully cover it.

William realized he wasn't dreaming or having a hallucination, and he stood up from the bed. His right arm was completely covered in fur, and the fur was so thick that it appeared as if a bunch of cottons had been pasted to his arm.

His left arm was still untouched. He had doubts as to why it would happen to him right now. But he tried it once more. This time he imagined his left arm to be fully covered with the same white-yellowish fur just like his right arm.

He needed some time, but eventually, he was able to change both of his hands into something else altogether. He found it remarkable that he had been able to acquire such an anomalous ability.

He deduced that this must have resulted from the interaction with SCP-2006. He was able to duplicate its anomalous properties, and that is shapeshifting.

This will become very handy to him, as there would be many possibilities and potential to use it in different situations. He will undoubtedly train himself to manage it in the future totally.

He had previously come across other SCPs, but nothing happened no matter how he tried to recreate their anomalous abilities. There was absolutely no weird sensation or feeling, just like he was about to shapeshift.

Before he could copy any anomalous abilities, it appears that there were other requirements that had to be met other than making direct contact with the SCP. He thought about it but came up with nothing.

He would need to try his new ability later when he had more time to meddle with it. He changed his arm back to normal by imagining how it would look before and went to bed.

William was in no hurry, he had to understand how his ability works later fully, and he had a lot of time to practice it. With that, he went to sleep as told there would be a meeting that he needed to attend.

—-

The next morning.

As mentioned by Dr. Erik, several guards were already stationed in front of William's containment room, preparing him for a meeting that was mentioned before.

William woke up from his bed and opened his door. The guards didn't put him under any cuff or restriction. Instead, one of them just told him to follow his lead as he had been called by Dr. Erik.

He didn't have any other choice but to comply. It was a bit unusual for him to be treated like this and called at this early in the morning. Either something was happening in a bad way, or he was taken for another examination.

They walked for a moment, escorted by the two guards, and arrived at a room that he had never entered before, mainly because it was out of his reach and couldn't be accessed with his card.

William walked inside the assembly room. It was a room with several researchers and guards looking at him from their chairs. He didn't recognize any of them except for Dr. Erik and Grace that were present.

"Glad you have arrived just in time." said Dr. Erik as he looked at William that was standing in front of the door. He then walked up to him and showed it to the audience.

"This is SCP-A1 or Alpha One for short, currently still in our observation regarding its anomalous traits and origin." said Dr. Erik, "Alpha One, meet the delegations from Site-19."

There were three people sitting in front of the row, the researcher on the left was busy typing on his laptop, the guard on the right was looking at William menacingly, and the man with vest and shirt in the middle smirked.

The man in the middle stood up from the chair, walked toward William's direction, and shakes his hand. "General Bowe's Secretary, Benjamin Noah."

William was a bit shocked that he would shake his hand. After changing a few pleasantries to each other, Dr. Erik started to explain the meeting.

"They were the delegations from Site-19, Secretary Benjamin Noah, alongside Researcher Moon Winchester and Officer Clint Mire." said Dr. Erik as he pointed to both Dr. Moon and Officer Clint.

"They are here to-" Dr. Erik was stopped by Secretary Noah before he could finish his words.

"Since both of them are here, let me and my team explain the situation regarding our arrival at this site." Secretary Noah then snapped his fingers.

Dr. Moon, who was typing the whole time, stood up and brought his laptop in front of the room, plugged it into the projector, and started to show the information to the rest of the audience.

Secretary Noah then gave Dr. Erik and William the hint to take a seat and listen to what he was going to say.

"Our arrival is here to assess the performance of several SCPs and personnel coming from several sites across the globe to be tested upon our new and currently undergoing project that could benefit humanity," said Secretary Noah as he explained the material.

He then waved his hand to Dr. Moon, and a logo was shown up on the white screen, "An attempt to create a new division to the Task Force, called Mobile Task Force, Omega 7, Pandora's Box, led by General Bowe himself."

Hearing this, William was a bit surprised. He was familiar with the name of an MTF called Omega 7 "Pandora's Box" and was stunned to know that this world hadn't created the task force before.

Secretary Noah then continued, "The main thing of Pandora's Box is to utilize several SCPs that we deemed are going to be useful and could maximize our chance of success when carrying it a mission with their anomalous properties."

"We already have several candidates that are in our consideration regarding SCPs that are going to be part of the Pandora's Box. Of course, they will still be within our supervision by the Officers that are also part of the Pandora's Box."

William looked at Grace, who was sitting in the back of his seat. She doesn't seem to be surprised with the information that was presented by Secretary Noah.

"Given this meeting, we received some information from Site-199's Site Director that he recommended both SCP-A1 and Captain Grace here that were present in this room, to be put in consideration for the program."

A chance to be part of the Pandora's Box Task Force was definitely something that William didn't expect to happen, but this was his golden ticket, and he couldn't walk away from this offer.

"We were a bit careful and skeptical regarding our selection, hence why there are several things that both of you must do before we review you further regarding the program."

Secretary Noah then looked at Officer Clint. He nodded and started to give a document to William, Dr. Erik, and Grace, each filled with information for them to look at.

"General Bowe himself gave a direct order that the selected individuals that fit into the program must be able to carry out a mission in the field."

Secretary Noah snapped his fingers again, and the screen changed, showing a picture of a mannequin of a scarecrow with a pumpkin head.

"All information regarding your first mission is within that folder, and your mission is to secure an SCP that was exposed to the general public."