After confirming his anti-memetic state, Luo Shu decided to test its limits—starting with the bald man's brother.
He plucked the fork from the man's hand and patted his shoulder.
"Can you hear me? Nod if you can."
The man nodded blankly, his eyes glazed. Under the anti-meme's influence, his mind was adrift in fog, his thoughts spilling out unchecked.
"I'm done with this place! When do I get out?"
He seemed to be speaking to Luo Shu, but his conscious mind registered nothing.
Just like Luo Shu's encounter with SCP-055—he'd interacted, yet remembered nothing.
An idea sparked.
"You want out? Easy. Walk into the cafeteria and attack the guards."
The man turned mechanically and marched out.
Luo Shu waited 12 seconds, then followed.
By the time he entered the cafeteria, chaos had erupted.
The bald man's brother was charging a security officer, who drew his sidearm.
"Halt! Stop or I shoot!"
No response. The man kept coming.
BANG.
A bullet punched through his chest.
In Site-19, D-class snapping under pressure was routine. The guard felt no remorse.
As the man collapsed, his eyes cleared for one final moment—locking onto Luo Shu with dawning horror.
But it was too late.
Luo Shu shrugged. Your fault, not mine.
Amid the panic, no one noticed him. Not even the guards.
He slipped away, his target clear: SCP-173's containment unit.
Descent into the Depths
Site-19's above-ground layout was a mystery, but its subterranean levels? Luo Shu had mapped them by day.
The underground facility sprawled like roots of a monstrous tree, tunneling deeper with each level.
Basement Level 1: Staff living quarters, D-class dorms, and the cafeteria.
Basement Level 2: Labs, archives, research hubs.
Basement Level 3: Safe-class containment.
Basement Level 4: Euclid-class—SCP-173's domain.
The central garden housed the elevators and stairs, watched by dozens of cameras and armed patrols.
The Site Director and MTF commanders observed from mezzanine offices above.
Yet no one saw Luo Shu.
At night, the elevators shut down. He took the stairs.
Two guards chatted idly at the entrance.
Luo Shu walked between them. "Good evening."
"Good evening," they replied automatically—then resumed talking, their conversation descending into nonsense.
One complained about a missed promotion; the other gossiped about a researcher's love life.
Their subconscious minds had taken over.
If he hadn't been in a hurry, Luo Shu would've stayed to listen.
The Lab Incident
Basement Level 2 still had lights on in one lab.
Researchers hunched over their work, oblivious as Luo Shu passed.
But the anti-meme's effect rippled through them:
An assistant wrote her bank password in the lab notes.
A stressed researcher unzipped his pants and relieved himself against a wall, sighing in relief.
A senior scientist abandoned his dissection to carve doodles into the specimen with his scalpel.
Luo Shu didn't linger.
At the end of the hall stood a blast door—thicker than a bank vault—guarded by two C-class operatives.
Beyond it: the restricted zones.
No Level 2 clearance? No entry.
Luo Shu approached, plucked a keycard from one guard's pocket, swiped it, and returned it without them noticing.
His own 2/173 clearance wouldn't have worked.
The door hissed open.
Basement Level 3—Safe-class containment.
But his goal lay deeper.
The Peanut's Cell
Basement Level 4 was cold, silent, and empty.
Only the whisper of vents and the distant scrape of SCP-173's claws on concrete broke the stillness.
Luo Shu moved like a shadow, his presence erasing itself from the world.
At SCP-173's unit, he swiped his stolen card.
The doors unsealed.
He stepped back into the hall, waiting.
Come on, Peanut. Freedom's calling.
Alarms Blare
In the Site Director's office, an alarm shrieked to life.
"WARNING! CONTAINMENT BREACH! SCP-173 UNIT UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS!"
The Director jolted awake, snatching his phone.
"What's happening with 173? Feed the cameras to my screen NOW!"