SCP-049 x Reader - Untouchable

Chapter 2

   I hadn't minded you being quiet, watching as you begrudgingly slipped into the chair in front of the desk before crossing your arms over it and burying your head into them.

   The sight was new for me; unorthodox, in its own way. Never before had I witnessed you in such a passive, vulnerable position. I especially wouldn't have expected you to do so in front of me.

   Intending to leave you be, I took the time to examine the room, first glancing over the things at the desk you were easing into. One of the strange, synthetic boxes sat at the corner of the desk with several openings caught my attention. With a tilt of the head, I noticed a few buttons along the side of it upon further examination.

   "Do you know what this is?" I inquired. "Is it one of those toasters I've heard about, perhaps?"

   "Hm?" Your voice was laced with disinterest. "Oh, it's just a printer. That can't toast bread worth a crap."

   Printer? One of my hands raise to the top of it, thumb sliding underneath into the crevice. It seemed loose on that accord, and so I lifted it up, revealing a glassy surface underneath. "May I ask of its use?"

   The sound of your shifting was audible, and my gaze locked on you to see you had lifted yourself up somewhat from the desk. "I'd think you know what a printer does."

   Hand lowering from the odd device, my fingers furled gingerly halfway towards my gloved palms. "Oh, no, no, I'm not from your time, [Name]. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what decade I'm even in at the moment! I hadn't exactly kept up with time, you see."

   "Uh... When exactly did you get locked up in here?" Since then, the boredom had left your tone as the more we spoke.

   I straightened myself, releasing a short and faint hum. "I believe your people had originally taken me in during the fifteen-hundreds... If that is to be worded properly."

   You let out a huff of amusement before throwing a glance at the printer. "Then you've been here for a good five hundred years."

   "...Oh. Well, that's certainly irking." My gloved digits began to wriggle about as I thought over things. That long? I've been in custody of such intractable scientists for five centuries?

   A single brow of yours shot up. "Probably a stupid question, but: Why?"

   "Why, that's five hundred more years gone by of me not being able to work on my cure!" I remarked. "Five hundred years of it still festering beyond these walls and taking in more lives! I could've had so much work done in that amount of time..."

   "Well... We're getting out now," you tried to comfort, "so you'll be able to make up all that time with another five hundred."

   My eyes narrowed behind the chitin. It wasn't necessarily a glare, but the thoughts going through my mind were quite frustrating. "And what if it's too late? So many lives succumbed to the ill-fate of the disease..." Subconsciously, I had began to pace. "So many of your kind have suffered through it, so many creatures lost to what I couldn't prevent..."

   "We're going to get out of here," you snapped, which had ceased my ramblings. My eyes went to you as I stopped moving. "I just... You said I needed to rest a bit first, right?"

  Silence was all I had for a long moment before I managed, more calmly: "Yes... Yes, of course. Apologies. Ah," I approached the printer, "tell me more about this device, then, in the mean time."

   There was a trace of a small smile on your face as you turned in the chair to face it as well. I found it odd. "Okay, then..." You mumbled out, hands out in front of you on the desk.

   Clasping my hands together behind me, I shifted a bit where I stood to get a better look. Modern technologies were always elaborate and strange to me. It had taken me several breaches to even figure out how that moving boxed that took you somewhere else worked; specifically the one that lead out of my chambers.

   "You basically have something you want copy, or ink onto paper from uh—" Hastily, you had glanced at the other device stationed in front of you, and you half-heartedly gestured to it— "That thing. It'll put it on the paper. It... 'Prints' it onto the paper."

   Absentmindedly, I placed a hand on the glassy part I had exposed by lifting up what I had no word for it other than 'lid.' "You duplicate things onto paper, is it?"

   "Basically," was your only reply.

   I stared down at the device, intrigued by its workings. "I would've never thought such a thing would ever come! I wonder how it does it."

   Suddenly there was a click, and my eyes geared over to you. A smirk laden on your face, one of your fingers had pressed into a button on the side of the printer.

   Yanking my hand away as soon as I had felt it vibrate, I stared down at it expectantly. The device pushed out a slip of paper from one of the slits on the side, on it being an exact copy of the palm of my glove. You took the paper quickly up into one of your hands.

   Turning that said paper; I was able to see it better as you faced it towards me. "You see? Prints it."

   "How... Fascinating," I commented, throwing a glance down at the printer. I was quite familiar with the natural curiosity and desire the human race had, but modern technology always seemed to exceed that.

   "I guess that's not really something I'd ever expect to hear a printer described as," you commented flatly as you leaned back in the chair and set the newly-printed paper face-down on the desk next to the machine it had originated from.

   "And I presume you know what the flat box in front of you is as well?" I inquired whilst I stepped around and to the other side of you to get a more frontal view of it.

   Your head whipped over in the direction of it as you straightened yourself. "Mhm-hm," you hummed. "It's a computer." Adjusting your body, you put your fingers on the gadget arrayed with an abundance of labelled buttons in front of the computer. I observed as you pressed a button on the lower right side of the black material bordering the glassy surface, the symbol changing to a glowing white whilst a whirring noise was audible.

   "What's that sound?" I asked as soon as I heard it. "Is it alive?"

   "Wh- No, it's not alive. I just turned it on," you answered amusingly. The display of glass remained a blank slate of black, but some sort of white, blocky letter showed a 'Loading' in the middle of it with small dots popping up in a row in the same colour below it. "We're in some freaky facility, though, so I won't be able to—"

Welcome, [last name]. Please enter your card to enter.

   You ogled at it, but I only blinked in reaction. "By card," I began, "I assume it means the ones I always see on the guards and doctors."

   "Y... Yeah, but..." I took notice of how your eyes shifted back and forth over the words, each of the words that came from you being enunciated with disbelief. "I didn't expect this to be mine."

   I only hummed, briefly scanning the room once you had started to do so yourself. You rose from the chair, heading over to the racks where a white coat was hung up. Taking a lanyard from one of them, a card was attached to it.

   Walking back over, you lowered back down in the seat and held one end of the card towards a small black box with a laminated green slight in the middle of the top of it. 

   A faint beep was audible, and I gazed upon the computer's display to see 'Access Granted' flash before twitching to something else. Still, the screen was black, but it was divided into several different sections by thin, white lines. I watched curiously as you moved an odd, small shape across the screen. Hearing a click, it was suddenly different again.

    To no surprise, I hadn't the slightest of clue of what was going on, though you seemed to know what you were doing, so I held back any questions and let you do whatever it was that you were doing.

   "Logs... I've kept logs of what I did..." Wonder clung to your voice, opposite of the troubled expression that could be read on your face. "My assignments. Y... You."