The arrival of SCP-076 at the Akashic Foundation's Veil Core barely registered as a blip on the central logs. Compared to the threats that stalked the deep corridors of the planetoid, a single hostile immortal in a stone box was just another Tuesday.
The transfer was handled by a single N1S unit—sleek black humanoid, neon lines idly pulsing as it supervised the artifact's movement. Mira Han walked beside the containment cart, feeling oddly anticlimactic. Mira (quiet, to herself): "All that blood, all that fear… and here it's just a package."
They passed vaults housing paradox engines, anti-god relics, and anomalies that could erase a world with a word. 076's cube, sweating cold and chained six ways, was slotted into a secondary containment vault—triple redundancy, but nothing out of the ordinary.
The containment team barely paused. Dr. Jan, Mira's new supervisor, signed off on the transfer with a stylus flick. Dr. Jan: "File 076, contained. Welcome to the big leagues, Dr. Han." Mira: "Is it really that simple?" Dr. Jan (shrugs): "Here, yeah. We have artifacts that can kill gods. Your subject's just a relic dangerous, sure, but we've got bigger fish in deeper cells."
The N1S unit stood silent, monitoring for protocol's sake. N1S-01: "Containment stable. Anomaly risk: negligible." Mira (half-smiling): "I spent a year prepping for this transfer. Lost good people." Dr. Jan: "We all did. But in the Core, it's just another file. Focus on the research, not the war stories."
Mira reviewed her assignment: analyze the cube's spatial structure, test for residual patterns, cross-reference with the World Tree. The days of crisis were over. Here, the Foundation's resources were near-limitless.
She glanced at the data wall—dozens of higher-class artifacts, each with their own N1S or Void Walker. 076 was just another entry. Mira (soft, thoughtful): "Maybe that's a good thing."
In the Veil's Heart, even immortals were just paperwork