Leo woke up from a pleasant morning sleep while many important figures of the SCP Foundation had already reached the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia.
As if to demonstrate the power of the SCP Foundation, in this short amount of time the quarantine zone, which had initially consisted of nothing more than a small white tent, turned into a massive university campus.
Or rather, from the outside it looked like a university campus, but in reality it would be more accurate to call it a small SCP Foundation city. During this time, the five council member had increased to six members, though it looked like it would soon return to five.
The ruthless general who arrived from Russia completely met the expectations of the other five council members, but also exceeded them a little too much.
The temporarily designated Mr. 06, the moment he heard about the virus, proposed that everyone who had been infected should commit suicide, claiming it was for the future of humanity.
Whether there was anything wrong with his words was debatable, but he had definitely made an impossible proposal.
Up until yesterday morning, those infected by the virus consisted only of SCP Foundation staff and executives, but since nightfall, the Foundation had received information that some national leaders and wealthy individuals had also been infected with the purple plague.
In other words, convincing all of these people to commit suicide was completely impossible.
While the other council members rejected the proposal with mild disappointment and continued forming theories about how the virus spread, Mr. 06 slammed his fist on the table in anger and shouted that this was not a game and that if necessary, everyone infected with the virus should be killed.
Even Mr. 02, who had been trusted because he was young, talented as a hacker, and had a good heart, thought that Mr. 06 was a complete idiot at this point, and something unsurprising happened.
Mr. 01 called the soldiers guarding the door and ordered Mr. 06 to be arrested and turned into a test subject.
After Mr. 06's recent behavior, Mr. 01 had no faith that he would keep the secrets he had seen here even if he were expelled from the Foundation.
If information from an organization like the SCP Foundation, or more importantly the existence of anomalies, were revealed to humanity, the world would absolutely be overtaken by chaos.
All state leaders knew that in such a situation, states considered to be an invincible order would collapse within just a few days. Because what we call a state is essentially nothing more than a building constructed using people as bricks.
If the bricks scatter in fear and begin attacking one another, the building will naturally collapse.
For precisely this reason, countries around the world came together and accepted an independent SCP Foundation issuing them orders.
If a reckless man like Mr. 06 were to one day stand in front of cameras and declare that nothing should be hidden from the public, there would be neither a public nor a state left.
In such a scenario, states would collapse and the only remaining solid pillar would be the SCP Foundation.
In fact, the SCP Foundation could easily take over humanity in this way, but not a single council member had ever considered doing something like that. That was exactly why they were able to become council members.
Mr. 06 was shot with tranquilizer guns by two soldiers and dragged away across the floor, leaving only the sounds of coughing and low groans in the room.
After looking at this situation, Mr. 01 realized that he had to make a decision.
SCP-280: an anomalous medicine that heals all wounds. It was discovered last year and was entirely used up in testing within a short time. Unfortunately, it could not be mass produced under any experimental result. Its composition could not even be identified.
According to the information in the SCP-280 file, not a single sample of the medicine remained, but in reality, Mr. 01 had secretly kept a few for emergency situations. Although it had already been learned that the medicine did not work against diseases, Mr. 01 thought that perhaps it might work on this anomalous illness.
However, there was one problem.
He had only kept three of them.
After thinking for a while, he calmly mentioned the medicines he had kept, but said there were only two.
When he said that he would give the second medicine to Ms. 03, as expected, no one objected.
Because while the other council members were sleeping, Ms. 03 had spent the entire day searching for a cure for the virus without ever leaving the laboratory.
Another reason was that everyone here knew that SCP-280 did not work on diseases.
Even Ms. 03 herself, who had personally conducted the SCP-280 experiments, knew that it would not work, but since she was not one of those overly intelligent yet overly emotional bitches from movies, she silently swallowed the medicine she was given.
Just as Mr. 01 and Ms. 03 swallowed the medicine with a glass of water, a flustered Foundation administrator rushed into the room.
Like everyone else, he was also sick, but at this moment there was joy on his face. Before he began speaking, he dragged into the room a petite girl with glasses and a messy bob haircut, who had been following behind him.
"Let me introduce her to you. Hahaha. This girl you see is named Layla. She recently started working at our office as a computer technician. You won't believe it, but she has a very solid theory about the principles of the purple plague."
The administrator's excited attitude had already drawn everyone's attention, and when they heard his last words, almost everyone straightened up in their seats.
At this moment, the shy looking girl pulled at her bronze colored hair with her hand, revealing the second eye that had been hidden beneath it, and took over the conversation. However, it was clear that she was still nervous in front of the council members, as she sometimes stuttered and forgot words while speaking.
(She already has an illustration on Patreon)
But in the end, what the girl said made sense to everyone.
Ms. 03 even repeated her words.
"What if we've been wrong from the very beginning? What if this isn't a virus the way we think it is, but something more like a computer virus? If the virus spreads during information transfer… that would explain why only high ranking Foundation staff were affected. But then why were world leaders also infected with the purple plague?"
The one who answered Ms. 03's question was Mr. 01.
"Do you actually believe those men actually not planted spies among us?"
Finally, the young girl named Layla overcame her embarrassment and excitedly explained the conspiracy theory she had come up with.
"According to my hypothesis, the purple plague only manifests in those who are aware of its existence. And most importantly, even though we have no visual data of the virus itself, everyone knows the virus is purple. Don't you find that strange? It's as if the more information is transferred from person to person, the more effective the virus becomes. My theory is this: if the virus depends this heavily on specific information, then let's run a test first. For example, let's distort the information. Maybe if we tell people that the virus is actually red, its effects will weaken. In the worst case, we erase everyone's memory."
Mr. 01 looked at the excited young girl in front of him in astonishment. Unlike the others, she looked healthy.
"When did you learn about the purple plague?"
"This morning, sir."
"And in just half a day, you produced a theory better than everything we've come up with over several days. Interesting. What did you say your job was?"
"I'm a computer engineer, sir, but back in university I used to come up with these kinds of conspiracy theories and explain them to my friends. It's a habit from those days. That's why I wake up smiling every day since becoming part of the SCP Foundation."
Mr. 01 told her that she could leave for now, but in his mind, he had a
lready decided to give her the name Ms. 06. He just needed to complete a few procedures first.