Running out of time

Part 7 - What should we do now?

Locations: Site-██, Germany; Site-17, United States of America; Site-██, Poland

Date: 11th March 2022 - 28th March 2022

Your POV:
After an unsuccessful attempt of destroying the machine with nuclear bombs, we decided to stay in Germany for some time in order to prepare an operation of securing the machine as soon as possible. We knew, that society couldn't find out about this, and we had to find a way to hide the machine lying in the nuclear crater without anyone noticing it.

Our greatest enemy was time. If we waited for too long, people would take photos and this would reveal the truth about Foundation's existance. At the same time we were unable to do it immidiately due to enormous heat in the center of explosion and deadly radiation dose in the nearest area.

Thankfully O5s found a solution to this problem in no time. They decided to use a machine, which allows to move things to different universes. Cain told us that they tried to use it after SCP-PL-106 drew a number 1 in order to move it away from us but due to its anomalous properties it didn't work. They sent few of their people into another universe, where they would backfill the area near this machine with soil, and then move it to our universe in order to hide the machine from people's eyes.

It took them some time, but eventually they received a signal to transfer the soil between universes and go back from a safe place. Surprisingly it worked and despite drones taking photos from safe distance, nobody found out about the machine and almost everyone thought that it was a terrorist attack and not a planned action.

Governments also did a good job at hiding the truth. They immidiately started an investigation and after that blamed a completly fake anarchist organization. People believed them which meant, that officially Foundation didn't have anything in common with that and people were unaware of its existance.

However it didn't matter how long we would hide it, everyone would die if we left it alone. We had less than four months to find a way to destroy it and we had to ask 343 for help, so after few days we decided to go back to USA. I wanted to take another helicopter which would take us there, but Olivia decided to try and teleport us there, and before we were able to react, the entire world around us began spinning and few seconds later we landed on a floor in Site-17.

Despite the fact that I didn't have a motion sickness, I felt butterflies in my stomach and I wanted to throw up. I started coughing but thankfully my breakfast didn't leave my body, but as it turned out, not everyone was this lucky. Olivia lost consciousness after teleporting, Cain, Abel and Myung-Ok started vomiting while Iris was lying on the floor with a completly pale face, and I knew that neither of us wanted to do that again.

It took us few minutes before we started feeling better and went in the direction of SCP-343's cell. Scientists weren't afraid of us which was a completly different reaction than I expected, but despite that they were still looking at us wherever we went. O5 council most likely told them everything about our mission, but I knew that most of them didn't trust us. I expected that, especially after Abel's confession. They were afraid of him and everyone else, because they knew what Abel or Olivia could do if they wanted to kill them.

After few minutes of walking through different corridors and ignoring everyone in the facility looking at us, we arrived at 343's containment chamber. Olivia approached the door and together with us stepped inside, in order to find a way to find a new way of saving the world.

Having crossed the door we found ourselves in a vast workshop filled with countless scultpures and paintings hanging on walls. Many of them presented different scenarios of humanity's future. There was an image of powerful intergalactic empire, where people didn't have to worry about their problems, because technology was able to solve anything. Somewhere else I spotted a picture, where everyone lived in wealth and social problems were solved immidiately. But at the same time I saw a scultpure, where the entire planet was covered in dead bodies and nuclear fallout killed almost every living being. Countless possibilities how our world could change in the future were here, but none of them would become a reality if we wouldn't succeed. I was walking from one art piece to another, wondering how our story would look like, when I somebody grabbed my shoulder and said with a calm voice: