SCP-5002 Investigation Update Presentation - continued

Date: 16 December 2019

Location: Site-06, Wing G Common Room

<recording continues>

Agent O'Connor: … which brings us back to today. And to me, sitting in a room full of liars.

J-R Simpson: What?

Director May: Excuse me?

Agent O'Connor: For instance, Officer Lowry was lying about his smoke break.

Officer Lowry: What the hell do you mean by that?

Agent O'Connor: I think you were gone for longer than you said, Officer. And you were drinking.

Officer Lowry: I was not!

Agent O'Connor: It's boring in the middle of the night. You wanted to get a buzz on, and you had your Jack Daniels to do it. Normally you'd smuggle the bottle out at the end of your shift, but when you discovered SCP-5002, you realised they would search the entire Wing. You panicked, and you hid the bottle in the containment chamber, while Dr. Grossenbacher was examining the body.

Officer Lowry: No.

Agent O'Connor: The bottle is not on the cell's camera feed from overnight, but it does show up later in the morning, just after you were there. You can try to lie to me, but it will not work. In fact, the only person here who didn't lie to me is a murderer.

Dr. Yau: What are you saying?

Agent O'Connor: I'm saying that, out of everyone here, only D-4986 told me the truth. You are a killer, but you said that you didn't kill SCP-5002, and I believe you.

D-4986: Ha! You'd be the first.

Director May: Then you suspect SCP-████ was the murderer?

Agent O'Connor: It's funny you should mention him. The thing is, when everyone is lying, their lies contradict each other, and those contradictions can paint a picture. Even your studied weariness, Director, was a front, at least in part. Although I'm sure it is quite tiring to be the subject of blackmail.

Officer Lowry: Blackmail? For what?

Agent O'Connor: Better to ask "by who?". Someone who worked in wings across the site, who could see evidence of SRA failures being covered up. Someone who had evidence that SCP-████ had been breaching containment – who assumed they should bring a sexual assault kit to a murder scene. Someone who could trace D-2825's mental breakdown back to continual attacks by SCP-████. Someone like Dr. Grossenbacher.

Dr. Grossenbacher: This is ludicrous.

Agent O'Connor: Come on now. The director basically told me that you knew about the SRA failures. I assume this is the reason behind your sudden promotion to Chief Medical Officer?

Director May: Yes. God, yes. She told me she would inform RAISA that I had been doctoring the security records, putting staff at risk. She insisted on being made head of Medical for the site.

Dr. Grossenbacher: Scheisskerl.

Agent O'Connor: You were lucky, Director. Just imagine what she would have asked you for if she knew what you were really up to.

Dr. Grossenbacher: What?

Agent O'Connor: The reality anchors weren't malfunctioning, were they, Director? Malfunctions should be randomly distributed, but as you said, SCP-5002's chamber was never compromised. And yet SCP-████ had clearly escaped regularly – he admitted it, and his series of attacks on D-2825 confirms it. I think you were deliberately shutting down his SRA, letting him escape. There were just enough other "errors" to deflect suspicion, but never risking SCP-5002's containment. And you controlled room allocations: you must have placed SCP-████ in Wing G, even though he's hardly a low-risk humanoid. You wanted him to attack SCP-5002. You wanted him to rape her, to terrorise her.

Dr. Yau: Jesus!

J-R Simpson: Emma! You monster!

Director May: That is an extremely serious allegation, Agent. I hope you can support it with more than speculation.

Agent O'Connor: You always showed an interest in SCP-5002, but you were relaxed about Dr. Yau's slow progress. You just wanted to know that SCP-5002 was suffering.

Officer Lowry: Level 5 access. I never would have -

Dr. Yau: But why?

Agent O'Connor: I didn't know that until I spoke to the Director's divorce lawyer. He confirmed that she was in London the night of the killing. He also confirmed that she had changed back to her maiden name. Evelyn May was previously Eve Holloway – mother of Kate Holloway, murdered in 2017 as a result of SCP-5002's anomaly. I don't know what strings you had to pull to try to get your revenge, Director, but I don't think her death will bring you any peace.

Director May: You don't know anything! My baby was murdered! That animal could die a thousand times and it would never be enough.

J-R Simpson: How can you say that about her?

Agent O'Connor: How can you say her, Michael?

D-4986: Oh shit.

Agent O'Connor: After all, it wasn't the Director who brought a knife into SCP-5002's containment, did she?

J-R Simpson: I – I didn't -

Agent O'Connor: You kept up that stony façade for a while, Michael, but now the cracks are showing. All that stress you were under, it wasn't from your thesis. You were fine until you got assigned to anomalous humanoid testing, and then something changed. Dr. Yau treated them like people, and you realised that they were. I think it crossed a line for you. I think you joined the Serpent's Hand.

J-R Simpson: <weeping> God … oh …

Director May: How do you know?

Agent O'Connor: I wasn't entirely sure, but it fits. He was so startled when I mentioned the knife, and he remembered seeing it in the dishwasher – for him, that was unexpected. He just happened to have an urgent personal appointment immediately after the murder, on the same day a Way mysteriously appears next to the site. That was his escape route. He was meant to break SCP-5002 out, maybe some other skips, and then disappear the next morning in the confusion.

D-4986: Then why did he kill her?

Agent O'Connor: I think you waited up that night, Michael. Everyone knew that Officer Lowry would take his smoke break at 2am, and you knew he would rattle the door to SCP-5002's cell as he left. That was your signal. You took the knife from the kitchen, and used your copy of the key-card to open the chamber. You knew it would show up on the security report, but you assumed you'd be long gone by then.

Dr. Grossenbacher: But it didn’t show up.

Agent O'Connor: I'm getting to that. You offered SCP-5002 the knife for protection, didn't you, Michael? And then you told her to escape before Officer Lowry came back. But she wouldn't leave, would she?

J-R Simpson: No. No, she refused.

Agent O'Connor: And I think she told you why.

J-R Simpson: Yes. I'm sorry, Karen. I kept asking her to go, and then she said – she said that she wanted to stay. Because she was sleeping with Dr. Yau.

Agent O'Connor: Exactly.

<crosstalk, raised voices>

Agent O'Connor: Quiet! Quiet, everyone. There is more to be said. Michael, once SCP-5002 told you, you left the containment chamber. You were flustered, you rushed straight back to your room. And you left the knife behind.

J-R Simpson: Yes, that's right.

Agent O'Connor: Did SCP-5002 tell you that she had slept with Dr. Yau that same evening? That's correct, isn't it Dr. Yau?

Director May: Karen!

Dr. Yau: You don't understand. Emma and I were in love. She was a wonderful woman.

Agent O'Connor: Your research made slow progress, just to keep Emma near you. How long had you been seeing her? Three months, four? Long enough to work out how to edit the camera system in advance, so it looked like she was alone in her cell every night. Strange – I wouldn't have looked at the footage so closely if I hadn't been trying to work out where the Jack Daniels bottle had come from.

Officer Lowry: Damn.

Agent O'Connor: And you had access to the security system, so you could clear any key-card access before the records were submitted to Central. I presume that's why it took you so long to call the Director on the morning of the murder. You saw that Michael had opened SCP-5002's cell, perhaps you were trying to decide whether to risk exposing your secret in order to implicate him.

Dr. Yau: I saw he had unlocked the cell, but I knew he couldn't have killed Emma. I wanted to talk to him, but there was no time.

Agent O'Connor: I think you must almost have run into each other, that night. You were in the containment chamber with Emma before Officer Lowry started his shift. You heard him rattle the door as he left at 2am, just like Michael did; that was your signal to leave. You must have returned to your room just as Michael left his. Perhaps you passed him while he was in the kitchen getting the knife.

D-4986: And then what, she went back later and stabbed the bitch in her sleep?

Agent O'Connor: I don't think so. Thwarted love is a good motive for murder. But SCP-5002 wasn't stabbed in her sleep. There was blood all over her bedclothes, not just near the wound.

Dr. Grossenbacher: That's right.

Agent O'Connor: It's more likely that she was stabbed standing up, then wrapped in the sheets and dragged back to the bed. And there's something you've all forgotten. Something that Dr. Yau missed when she wiped the security records.

Officer Lowry: Do you ever get to the point?

Dr. Yau: What do you mean?

J-R Simpson: When I left, I didn't lock the cell door.

Agent O'Connor: Correct. Like leaving the knife behind, you forgot in your rush. Until you realised in our interview, and you knew something was wrong.

Director May: For god's sake, what?

Agent O'Connor: Michael's signal to move, Dr Yau's signal to leave, was Officer Lowry rattling the containment door on his way out to smoke. But Officer Lowry shook the door every time he passed it. In both directions.

Dr. Yau: <gasping> Oh.

Agent O'Connor: He came back from his break, shook the door, and found it was open. And you went inside, didn't you, Officer?

Director May: Answer her.

Agent O'Connor: You were a little drunk. You started arguing with SCP-5002.

J-R Simpson: Officer Lowry?

Agent O'Connor: And she told you. About her and Dr. Yau.

Dr. Yau: Joe?

Agent O'Connor: She flaunted it at you. And you couldn't take it. You grabbed the knife, and -

Officer Lowry: You're just like her, you know? You think you're so fucking smart! You think you're so much better than me, just because you went to college and I'm some night janitor. She could have loved me! Not that anomalous whore.

Dr. Yau: Joe, what did you - <sobbing>

Agent O'Connor: I know you liked him, Dr. Yau, but you were too kind. You glossed over the issues on his psychiatric report. Maybe you knew about his drinking. But every good thing you did for him just fed his infatuation with you.

Officer Lowry: Shut up. Just shut up, you bitch.

Agent O'Connor: You hadn't planned ahead, but everything you did after you killed her was clever, even daring. Emma must have told you about the doctored cameras, so you knew you hadn't been filmed. You left the cell, put the knife in the dishwasher, went back to the Security Station and waited calmly for morning. You made sure to "discover" the body with D-4986 as a witness, and took Dr. Yau's key to hide the fact that the door was unlocked. You gambled that Dr. Yau would wipe the door records to conceal her affair, or perhaps you were still trying to protect her. You carefully rolled the corpse over, to explain any traces of blood on your clothing. And then you guarded the scene, just to be safe.

Director May: Can we get security in, please.

Agent O'Connor: Leaving the Jack Daniels was a mistake, of course. But you didn’t want to draw suspicion, so you were desperate.

D-4986: Fucking Lowry!

Agent O'Connor: You almost got lucky. So many other things were going on, your actions might have been obscured. But in fact the solution in this case was one of the simplest explanations, and one of the oldest motives.

<door opening>

Unknown: We had a request from this room?

Director May: This man is to be detained for questioning in connection with murder.

Agent O'Connor: You can take him away, officer.

<recording ends>