Le calme
The office of M. Olsen and his assistant was still. Seeing him chat innocently with his young assistant, anyone would have believed that M.Olsen had a peaceful administrative position as a typical bureaucratic intermediary in a typical organization. However, things should never be like this. The job of a coordinator within the Office of Synchronisation of the International Branches was typically anything but peaceful and yet, all was calm. This could only mean one thing; that these weren't any ordinary times. Something was amiss. And that was precisely what M. Olsen was trying to ignore by occupying himself as he could, hence the discussion with his assistant.
"… and there's this girl right now that I met in the archive building … how do I say this …
- You like her?
- No! Well, yes. But uh … We already ate lunch together a few times, and … yeah I like her.
- Invite her to dinner outside of the site, that would be a bit more romantic.
- But with work, and … "
One of the phones opposite of M. Olsen started to ring. The two men looked at each other, wide-eyed as if they were witnessing a divine apparition, so surprised that M. Olsen hesitated before picking up the almighty handset.
"Office of International Synchronisation, how can I help you?
- Hello? Oh, excuse me, I wanted to call the accounting department. Uh … sorry for the inconvenience. Goodbye.
- Have a good day, sighed M. Olsen. "
The two men looked at each other again, dejected. It's been weeks since this office that was tasked with the transport and exchange of anomalies stopped receiving emails, phone calls and assistants that used to pour in. After years of uninterrupted work, its occupants were discovering once again the notion of boredom after weeks of being in a peaceful office. The only phone call of the day had to be the mistake of a new arrival on Site-19.
"… so I was saying …
- Wait. ", M. Olsen cut him off.
Something in the phone call, other than the unpleasant frustration of the disappointment, had abruptly changed M. Olsen. No, lying to himself was pointless. He had to be sure.
" Pull up the recording papers for the anomalous objects of this year for me. "
The assistant complied, and M. Olsen consulted his digital archives in the meantime. Last week had no recordings or transfers of anomalies. The one the week before as well. While he was going back through the dates of his archives, a few transfers appeared little by little. He reached the archives that dated back two months, without having come across the slightest record of an SCP. He told himself that such things could happen. Anomalies are known to not conform to the rules after all. He went back three months more. Three months and ten days. He jolted a little when finally, a red line appeared on his screen: a safe class. Good. There's no reason to worry just because the last registered anomaly was three months and ten days ago. The abnormal is supposed to be unpredictable… so then why worry for that matter? He should take joy in it if anomalies stopped -
" Three months and ten days, M. Olsen. There have been three months and ten days since an anomaly has been registered. At least, that's what the archive papers are telling me. "
The assistant's declaration felt like a huge slap to the unconscious defence mechanisms of M. Olsen. Three months and ten days. No, something was wrong. M. Olsen's heart was beating hard. He felt like someone who had just discovered an impossible conspiracy, a plot that was beyond him. He looked for what could be responsible for this, for such was the characteristic of Man: the O5? Impossible. A bug? Unlikely. An interest group? Ah, let me laugh. But M. Olsen wasn't laughing. Certain things happen without reason to the great displeasure of the rational nature of Man.
When lunch break came, the two men left the office on edge as if they feared getting arrested for knowing too much. But instead of men in black ready to jump on them, an uncomfortable silence and a certain emptiness welcomed them in the hallways. They walked across the different administrative buildings and barely ran into two colleagues that were chatting - because they also, evidently, were finding since some time to talk. They headed to the cafeteria where the people were peacefully helping themselves to today's steak and fries and, something that almost set off an indescribable dread in M. Olsen, taking the time to talk.
Actually, the entirety of Site-19 was calm. Out of all the words that could describe the biggest establishment of the most important secret organization of the world, the word "calm" had become the most appropriate.
The meal seemed dull as their indescribable anxiety took over their minds. Minds that painstakingly repressed waves of questions like why? How? What will the SCP foundation do without anomalies? What will become of its employees? Said questions remained more of M. Olsen's own as his assistant focused rather on: why am I eating with my fifty-year-old boss instead of a pretty young girl that I like? But even this question that was more basic than M. Olsen's considerations at the time showed that something was not right, that the times of normalcy were over.
At the end of lunch break, they headed back to the office in the same state of mind, a mix of gloominess, fear and, lack of understanding. Something was going on, that was for sure. Anomalies couldn't simply stop appearing. Not after all this time. Not after the history of the abnormal, not after everything that the SCPs had changed in the world. Not after the countless organizations that have been formed, testifying to the enormous efforts of mankind to control the anomalous. The thought of all these institutions abruptly becoming meaningless saddened M. Olsen. And as a connoisseur of the history of the foundation, this created in him a feeling of vertigo: all the efforts of the great men across the ages, whether they belonged to the Royale Foundation for the Containment of the Paranormal, to the Singular Imperial Academy, to Section 9 or even to so many other human initiatives, all these efforts were now nullified.
Within Site-01, the great meeting room was still as well. The O5 stood there in silence. A silence full of the fear of thirteen extremely powerful men and women stealing glances at each other like frightened children. Their thoughts were less lyrical than those of M. Olsen from Site-19. Conditioned by years of geopolitics and long-term planning, their opinions all converged towards one idea: anomalies were now becoming a rare commodity. The word "desire" haunted them. And when the room was dead calm, O5-3 took a deep breath.
" Everybody, we have a problem. "
The office of M. Olsen, coordinator within the Office of Synchronisation of the International Branches of the SCP foundation, was calm. The calm before the storm.