"I suppose it wouldn't be very professional of the staff to leave them lying around."

He sighs.

"We never were going to manage this all in one trip."

"Would have been a lot to hope for."

"It might be worth following an employee if we don't make any progress. But," he shakes his head, "I'm not feeling that adventurous yet."

"I assume you're better calibrated than me on that. Uh, how did you get to know all this stuff?"

He walks in silence for several steps before answering.

"It's my job. I couldn't tell you that if we were still on Earth, but it'd be pointless to try and keep the secret here. I work for an organization that works to find and secure anomalies like this."

"Secure them?"

He nods.

"The majority of the anomalies are dangerous to the public, but destroying them is difficult or impossible, and on the few occasions where it does work, often backfires. So instead we try to keep them contained."

"Why isn't this common knowledge? People know about, oh, nuclear waste, even though that meets the description."

"There are a large number of anomalies that are memetic or information based. Knowing about them harms you, or changes you personality, or subtly influences your behavior, or brings you to the attention of hostile beings. In general, it is safer to keep all of them secret."

"Is this one like that?"

"Not as far as we know."

"Must make recruitment a nightmare."

"It does. People who have already been unfortunate enough to encounter SCPs are a decent number of our new recruits. Others notice something unusual and search us out. Occasionally we actively recruit, but it's ethically dubious, since we have to erase memories if they refuse."

"I would call that ethically dubious, yes. You don't do that when people innocently encounter things, do you?"

"I think you know the answer to that. Of course we do. The foundation is far better than the alternative, but it's still terrible in many ways."

"How did this organization get started?"

"There are contradicting stories. The actual story likely lies in the true nature of SCP-001, but I'm not high enough access to know what it is."

"How'd you get recruited?"

"My family owns several hospitals. I noticed some inconsistencies in the patient records and started digging. Patients were appearing or disappearing during transfers. It was covered up very well, but not completely. When I had enough evidence, I told my father. The next day they brought me in."

"Was your father in on it or was someone intercepting your communication?"

"He wasn't. It was one of the members of the board and several dozen lower level staff. Our family's hospitals were- are the standard dropping off point for amnesticized Japanese citizens."

"So presumably your father got his memory erased. How do they do that?"

"Amnestics, a class of drugs that has never been released to the public. They can do anything from erase a few hours of memory to erasing a person's entire life."

"Uh, is that just a risk that gets run every time or is it a matter of dose or something?"