//------------------------------//
// Spreadsheet Hell 
// Story: Site 16 - The Tartarus Gate 
// by Journeyman 
//------------------------------//

Spreadsheet Hell

Doctor Sylar was once again on a mission from above, and a laser-guided heart attack was in his future. 

“I’m too old for this shit.” He huffed and puffed down the plain, boring corridors, past security checkpoints, down a couple boring hallways and back into the same endless wall of cubicles. The small chatter that had somewhat dominated the open offices was reduced to the steady clicks of keyboards and filing paperwork.

Once again, he stopped by the familiar water cooler to take a breather and a drink. The group of griffons and ponies that were once chatting profusely were no longer present, likely back at their labs and cubicles now that their breaks were done. Sylar chugged a glass and gasped, trying desperately to get his breath back. For good measure, he filled and drank another.

Crumpling the tiny cup and tossing it in the wastebasket, Sylar reluctantly galloped off. The moderately bright fluorescent lights and sterile, filtered air were his only companions as he searched. “She has to be here somewhere...” Sylar had left the rows of cubicles and entered a grid-like construct within Site-16. Sixteen rows by five columns, with a single room in the center to use for orientations, debriefings, and a select few customized for interrogations should the need arise.

Sylar swiped his card at the first one he saw and opened it. Inside, a group of doctors and researchers looked up upon hearing the disturbance interrupting their meeting. They said nothing as the panting doctor with a disheveled mane scanned the room slowly. The doctors were examining the chemical composition of a complex molecule blown up to massive proportions on a powerpoint presentation. The blank room was decorated a little better than the usual drab hallways and featureless walls. An artificial plant and a watercooler were wedged into the far corners of the room and paintings adorned the walls. One depicted the silhouette of Princess Celestia spread eagle across an egregiously large sun, while Princess Luna did the same on another, only she was superimposed over the moon.

The project head snapped out of his stupor. “Doctor...?”

“Sorry, wrong room.” Without another thought, Sylar darted back through the door, slamming it shut with his magic. Wheezing, coughing, and ignoring a stitch stabbing at his abdomen, he continued to the next room.

“Where is she?” he thought out loud.

Sylar opened the next door. Each scientist inside looked up to discover the intruder, just like the previous room. “Doctor Sylar! We’re having a meeting!” the project head, a towering gargoyle named Gregor, yelled indignantly. Paperwork was distributed among the two dozen scientists, but the contents did not concern Sylar in the slightest. 

“Sorry. I need to borrow...” He scanned the room and found who he was looking for. He grabbed a pony by the ear with his magic. “this. I’ll return it later.”

“Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow!” Doctor Willows, a frumpy brown mare with a perpetually irritated expression on her face, complained loudly as he dragged alongside him and shut the door. At that time, Willows had managed to shrug off the shroud of surprise clouding her mind and used her own magic to shove Sylar into a wall. His own magic sparked and vanished, his hold on her now gone.

“What’s going on, doctor?” she shouted. Willows, the Foundation Ice Queen, was not angry, per say, but she was not pleased to be dragged out of a meeting against her will. Even if she wished she was in order to escape a routine report on a hostile SCP’s containment. “You better damn well have – ”

“Less talking. More running.” 

Willows could only watch blankly as Sylar took a deep breath and ran back towards the endless row of cubicles. At least it seemed endless for those that worked there, like herself. Willows thought for a moment, contemplating the context of her situation. She had just been dragged out of a necessary but boring meeting, only to be told her savior/foalnapper needed her to follow him to some unknown part of the facility.

Sighing in resignation, Willows cantered after Sylar. “He better have a damn good reason for all this.” Somewhere in the back of her head, the voice of her mother was telling her to not follow ponies that foalnap her.

Researchers turned their heads as she passed, obviously curious as to what could motivate the usually dull, lifeless Sylar into running as if his tail was on fire. No matter the reason, Willows had half the mind to buck him in the teeth. Galloping past dozens of fellow Foundation members was not a flawless means to avoid unwanted interest. If his goal was important enough to commandeer another researcher, than it was important enough to allow for a little discretion when the attention of others could be easily gained.

“Idiot stallion,” Willows said with scorn. Nevertheless, she followed the trail of turned heads Sylar left in his wake. However, she couldn’t help but be impressed; Sylar was an overweight stallion with high blood pressure problems and going on fifty. He could move pretty fast when properly motivated.

Sylar stood by one of the numerous record rooms used to store reference documents and research notes for other members of the Foundation. Whenever hardcopies of secondary source materials were needed, it was just a room away. Out of spite more than low stamina, Willows slowed her pace to a light trot. Sylar pranced in place, waiting impatiently for her to catch up to him. Once there, he quickly slid his keycard into the slot, watched the light turn green, and barged right in.

The record room was dimly lit. How the higher ups expected the lowly researchers to find anything in such a room was lost upon both of them, but that did not concern either just yet. Sylar seemed to know exactly what he was after and where, so Willows sat on her haunches and waited for him to finish. “If this is a waste of everyone’s time, Salizar is going to get a very unpleasant report.”

“Ah ha!” Sylar had, of course, ignored her until he found his file. She rolled her eyes and blew a stray lock of dirty brown hair out of her eyes. Sylar extracted a large dossier from a plastic tote and closed the lid. The dossier itself was inside a simple manila envelop, but that itself was had a single rune emblazoned across the surface. Sylar swiped his ID card across the surface and the rune vanished. It was a simple alert spell that activated as soon as it left the confines of the record room, and could only be deactivated as long as a recognized card was swiped and logged.

Sylar, with dossier in tow, ran right back out. Willows rolled her eyes again as he passed, but followed him nonetheless. “My patience wears thin, doctor.” 

Their next location was not nearly so far away, and that was good for Sylar; he looked ready to drop dead from a heart attack. It was at that time her interest started to become piqued. Little could force Sylar to do work when he did not wish to do it. Something successfully doing so without any prompting was curious to say the least.

Sylar swiped his card once more, opening a small research room with its walls lined with plain desks, lamps, and cushions. Sylar plopped the dossier on the first desk. “Memorize this. You have,” he held removed a pocketwatch from the confines of his labcoat, “four hours.”

Willows’ eyes bulged; that dossier had to be an inch thick! “Four hours!? There’s about twenty years of material here.”

“Twenty three, if memory serves. Now get started. This is an order from the Site Director and O5.” 

Now that made her jaw drop. “O5!? What do they want with me or this?” she hefted the dossier for emphasis. Sylar choosing her made sense, at last; she was the only one at Site-16 with an eidetic memory. It was a handy skill to possess, making her invaluable in terms of understanding and/or memorizing large quantities of information.

But the real question was why did the O5 Council need a file opened and examined right now? O5’s word was law to be sure, but the fact that something garnered their attention, and especially on such short notice, was a cause for concern. Willows did not get any answers, for Sylar ran out the door the moment she finished her sentence.

Willows stared at the door, breathing in and out deeply to soothe her anger. O5? Belladona? What was happening that required her to read a dossier at the drop of a saddle? Whatever the reason, a wounded pride was a better price to pay rather than an angered Belladona.

Reluctantly, she sat down and made herself comfortable on one of the cushions and opened the document.




Subject: Twilight Faustina Sparkle
Known affiliations:
Velvet (Mother)
Nightlight (Father)
Shining Armor (Brother)
Princess Celestia (Mentor)
...
...








SCP Foundation Homesite
Editors: Maverick Frond