#director kleinheart

[melinoelabs]

Why do we get results where the competition doesn't?

Well, I'll tell you.

We treat the strange, anomalous and extranormal with all the dignity and respect it deserves.

And not a drop more.

Sure, we could be like the Wal-Mart of extreme sciences, spinning an ever-expanding impossibly huge web of lies and coverups while trying desperately, futilely, to lock up and control it all to keep normalcy afloat.

But I ask you, what has normalcy ever done for us, really? It maintains the natural order? Newsflash, Scippy, the natural order is neither of those things and, quite frankly, it sucks to boot!

Be the strange you want to see in the world, that's our motto! *

The reverence for the mundane is a truly sad form of idolatry friends, empirically verified in the bottom 10% of idolatry experiences by multilateral studies.

That's the real 001 you're trying to keep locked down. The World. Object Class: Bemused. Containment Class: Sisyphean.

Tell me, what's more "normal":

Spending millions watching and waiting for a bunch of redcaps to turn some suburban family into organic dye, send in a squad to wipe out the nest, drug the witnesses, and pretend the whole thing never happened just to do it again the next week...

Or selling easy to use, affordable Puck-Off Brand™ live-capture traps to an alerted populace?

Remember, we were all terrified by the internet at first and now it's just annoying. Same principle applies.

Anyhow, stop trying to kidnap my pet. Walbert is not an 'anomaly', he's a very sensitive purebred New Cheddland dromiceiomimus, with papers, and is a very good boy.

Kindly,

Director Maria Kleinheart

*If you are in possession of an unused portion of any previous mottos, return the unused portion for an updated replacement and complementary antidote.

#melinoe laboratories #melinoe labs #unreality #microfiction #SCP foundation #scp fanfiction #statement of purpose #mad science #extreme science #director kleinheart

[therobotmonster]

"Doctor Martin, why are you an atheist?"

Director Maria Kleinheart wasn't the sort of person who asked indirect or idle questions. She was in every way a Kleinheart, the spitting image of her grandmother. Only she wasn't staring out from a yellowed ad in a back issue of Popular Science or Woman's Day, she was staring from across desk made of polished slate.

Emil Martin didn't respond immediately. That sort of question usually came with an invitation to services or a badgering about Pascal's wager. That didn't fit what he knew about the director, though that wasn't much. An intense religious conversion would explain the rumors around her distance from the rest of her family.

"Director, is this a personal or work related question?" Emil finally asked.

"Work." She replied.

"Is that appropriate?"

"Yes. This is about security clearances."

That made even less sense. Emil decided to risk a lecture on his eternal soul and answered truthfully. "Pretty standard, insufficient evidence."

"Would you rather it be true?" She asked. "Would it be comforting to know you existed for a purpose, that someone was in charge of your existence, caring for you?"

"Not really." Emil replied. "I'm rather Hitchenisan in that regard."

"Good enough. Follow me."

-

"BE NOT AFRAID."

The words seemed to come out of the air itself. The thing was at the center of the large, expansive lab that had once been a missile silo. It was a sphere, surrounded by two rings of brass-like metal. The rings were lined with hemispherical semi-translucent white glass or crystal protrusions. The inner ring spun slowly, as did the central core, though only the faintest irregularities in its glowing blue-white corona revealed that motion.

The outer ring was held in place with steel chains, each link six inches in diameter. Two chains locked the ring to the floor, while a third latched the top to the ceiling. The cuffs the chains connected to seemed to have been welded shut around it.

"BE NOT AFRAID." It 'spoke' again. Its voice was clear and musical, but wrong and artificial at the same time. It sounded like familiar voices; his mother and father, his cousins, his old school pals, his boyfriends, even Director Kleinheart, each synthesized poorly via an AI speech simulator, all speaking in perfect time.

Every time it spoke, Emil smelled his grandfather's sweet cornbread fresh from the oven.

"That looks like an angel." He finally gasped.

"Looks like." Director Kleinheart smiled. He wasn't sure she could do that. "I knew we picked the right man."

"This is why you were asking about my beliefs?"

"Yes Doctor Martin. You see, freedom of religion is an extension of the principle of innocence until proven guilty. Once one faith is shown to be correct, all others are revealed as wrong."

"And you wanted to make sure I, what, wasn't guilty of being wrong?"

"No, the mistaken are innocent of everything except the actions they directly take." Kleinheart continued. "It's the ones who would take this to mean they were right that are fifth columnists to an unaccountable alien power."

"Oh." Emil replied. He didn't know quite what else to say.

"I want you on our team that's studying it. We need to know how it works, what it's made of, what those things its made of can be used for, you know the drill."

"BE NOT AFRAID." Again came the smell of cornbread.

"Are the restraints necessary?" Emil asked. "It is telling us we don't need to be afraid of it."

"Oh, we thought that too at first." The director said. "But we've already learned quite a bit about our little intruder here, even a bit of its 'source code' for lack of a better analogue. That message isn't meant for us."

"What is it then?"

"Can't you guess, Doctor?"

Dr. Emil Martin shrugged. "I have no idea."

"It isn't giving us a warning."

Director Kleinheart smiled for the second time in Emil's memory and spoke again.

"It's repeating its orders."

#be not afraid #ophanim #short story #flash fiction #kleinheart robotics #do you think god stays in heaven #etc #melinoe labs #melinoe laboratories #the rare non unreality melinoe thing #not unreality in the sense that its prose and not an in-universe artifact