One room.
Two women.
Ten men.
All with funny faces.
They're not ahegaos.
A dozen people sitting at a plastic table stared intently at the loose pages in front of them, soaked in some kind of sauce. Red-eyed, begging to be let go while looking at the contents of the plastic cups before them with disgust. The folding chairs all around them were barely holding up. You wouldn't expect such a meeting to end well, least of all if the Foundation was involved, but actually it had a much more innocent (meh, nah, more like boring) context.
"Eight, will you hurry up and get it over with? My wife is expecting me home at eleven o'clock."
"I'm Six, and it's already five thirty in the morning, Four…"
"Aaah… fine." Then, the man lay down on the table and seemed to fall asleep immediately.
"Damnit, Six, just hurry up."
"Well, I was hoping you would read the papers, but I guess some of us aren't in a position to do that."
"Your mom isn't in a position to do that."
"Guys, guys, let's listen to what he has to tell us," said a woman who was sitting in her chair with the backrest in front of her, "and if he's wasting our time, we'll just fire him.
"Uhhh, maybe it wasn't a good time to discuss this."
Everyone looked at him at the same time, their haggard faces showing the same expression: do you think that?
"Alright, I didn't want to disrupt this celebration, but there's an issue that we have to deal with as a regional council. Andrés Mondragón has…"
"Oh no" they all said in unison.
"Tell me he didn't make a challenge again."
"Last time we had a fucker trying to destroy Earth using a laser from the moon."
"Besides that one time when all documentation was almost unreadable."
"Or when they reported that Hawaiian park turning into dirt."
"Or that researcher who wanted us to believe that eclipses were anomalous."
"And the time when Thirteen supposedly encountered a terrifying entity, and it was just a picture of some random guy."
"Not to mention that Site-34 always ends up with more work to document and sometimes depression."
"And those reports are often poorly done or unfinished."
"Well… those of…. whatever his name is… are usually more complete, that dude documents fast." Said someone with a shrug.
"I understand, I understand." Six replied, trying to calm down the rest of the regional council. "Well… he has just started another challenge."
The group let out a groan and threw their heads back. The guy who seemed to have fallen asleep stood up and asked:
"I thought that after attempting the tournament he had given up."
"Well, he's back, and not in pog form."
"Tell me it's at least something peaceful this time."
"It seems that on this occasion he challenged the researchers to document anomalies involving tables."
Everyone looked at him with a dumbfounded expresión, "Really?"
"Well, maybe we don't have to do that much paperwork this time. I mean, how much can you actually document about tables? That Wilson has an animal that looks like one?"
"The Royal Spanish Academy lists about 15 definitions for table."
"Holy shit!! How?" Someone said as he knocked over his cup on the table."
"Well, maybe nothing bad will come of it. Six, do you think we should do something about it?"
"About Andrés' challenge?"
"No, about your ass. Of course about Andrés' challenge!"
"Ah, I don't think so. Although his constant delight in getting researchers to abandon their work to investigate random things, I've noticed that it boosts morale on the Site. Most researchers look reassured and even enthusiastic after it. I'd say it even brings the whole Site closer."
"So why did you invoke this board during my daughter's birthday party?"
The director who answered to Six stopped talking for a moment and became nervous. He hastily began to pick up the pages he had given them (which, on closer inspection, appeared to be just some reports on a possible SCP-ES-300).
"Well guys, you know, I was just trying to talk to you and…"
"Fuck, you were looking for some story about the fucking executive board, weren't you?"
"The group stood up in annoyance as everyone looked around for any heavy objects to throw."
"No, wait, let's not get aggressive."
Just then, a young man carrying some documents walked into the room. The boy looked shaken and very nervous.
"Sir, I have news about the situation we were instructed to monitor." He paused for a moment as he looked at all the people ready to throw all kinds of objects at Director Six. "I'm sorry, I didn't know you were busy, but this is urgent."
The group looked at the boy as he approached the table and placed a folder on it.
"One of Director Thirteen's intelligence teams discovered that the communal tables are interdimensional tombs of Lovecraftian sharks who are upset that people use them for sexual…"
"Aaaaah, for fuck's sake, that's it."
Epilogue:
Update as of September of… this fucking shit year. Researcher Andrés Mondragón disappeared at the beginning of the year, it is not known if it was in an attempt to avoid retaliation or because he was out of electricity again. Some of the reports referring to tables turned out to relate to actual anomalies whose existence was confirmed within the same week, which also coincided with the return of the revenant.1 Another researcher tried make new challenges for the staff, but I don't know what happened because I was not able to participate monitor the situation.
Director 05-6