Click.
Clack.
The rubber ferrule of Doctor Valeria Echevaria's forearm crutch clicked and clacked against the linoleum floors of Site-19 as she made her way towards the surveillance area from the testing chamber. She carried in her right hand a tablet containing the day's subjects and reports — only a scant few people were fortunate enough to be in this week's testing batch. Taking a seat at the chair nearest the surveillance equipment and microphone, Echevaria hefted her forearm crutch onto the countertop and pushed it to the side, then she laid the tablet down in front of her and pressed the intercom button.
"Hello, Doctor Anderson. Can you hear me well?" She spoke succinctly, her authoritative tone betraying her small stature. Echevaria peered toward the camera feed of the testing chamber.
Doctor Anderson, a tall, square-jawed, specimen of an ideal man stood in the chamber, a few meters away from a shut container. The room was otherwise empty save for a camera on the northwest corner. Anderson gave a thumbs up and looked straight into the surveillance device.
"Can you give me verbal confirmation, Doctor Anderson?" Echevaria snapped in response.
"Yes, Doctor. I hear you loud and clear."
"Thank you. Now, please state your legal name and gender assigned at birth for the record."
"My birth name is Robert Ludwig Anderson, but I go by Mabel. I was assigned male at birth. But that's about to change, heh." She looked so happy, it was almost infectious.
Almost.
"Thank you. Please approach the container in the center of the room." Anderson obliged, taking a few steps towards the box. She clasped her hands together as she did so, giggling like a schoolgirl with a smile from ear to ear.
Echevaria had seen this hundreds of times. It was one of the perks the Foundation had for good employees who happened to be transgender. She didn't know much about the fine details of the program, but she knew it was upheld by the employee retention program, and they only allowed up to one hundred transitions a year.
She herself was not transgender. Echevaria was, however, intersex. She hadn't found out until she was a teenager. — she never had a period, and never grew breasts. They had called her condition "XX gonadal dysgenesis," three words that she had not understood as a teenager, but now knew all too well since leaving Cabo Rojo. Just another thing she had to fight uphill over, but not enough to keep her down.
"Opening containment locker in three… two… one." She pressed a button on the console in front of her. The lock on the container in the chamber released, and it swung open to reveal an inconspicuous red jasper. "You may make contact with SCP-113."
Doctor Anderson gawked at the little red gem in front of her. She hesitantly raised her hand up, moving ever so slowly toward it.
Echevaria had been recruited by Doctor Mann himself right out of medical school for her focus in uterus transplant surgery. Shortly upon being scooped up, Echevaria heard of SCP-113 and the miracles it performed, even if for some people it wasn't exactly desired. She pitied the schmuck who first discovered the stone's properties. But she didn't think about him much, what she wanted to know instead was what would happen to an intersex individual if they touched SCP-113. More specifically, she wanted to know what would happen to her. Would it correct her ovaries? Or would it turn her into a man? Would it even work on her?
She wasn't transgender. She identified as a woman, and was confident in this about herself, even if her biology seemed to disagree. Though many of the boys she had gone to high school, college, and even med school with seemed to write her off as a "tranny freak," Echevaria knew deep inside herself who she was. But this didn't stop the nagging feeling of dysphoria she felt every time she saw someone walking out with a working uterus who had walked in without one. She was no man.
Anderson froze. She stared down at SCP-113, its bright reflection glimmering in her eyes. For a brief moment, she hesitated. Doubt and concern clouded her thoughts as she turned to face the camera.
"Will it hurt?" she spoke up, swallowing nervously.
Echevaria tapped the comm button and spoke, "It has been reported to hurt, yes."
"What if it's too much? What if I can't take it? What if I'm not a real woman?"
The speaker in the testing chamber crackled to life: "You are a real woman, Mabel. You don't need SCP-113 to be a real woman."
Silence permeated between them. Before Echevaria could offer to reschedule Anderson's transition appointment, Anderson lunged forward, left hand touching the red jasper. Before Anderson could complain that nothing was happening, she was on the floor, violently convulsing and wretching.
"AAAAAUUGHHH!" she screamed.
"What you're feeling is normal, Mabel. Don't worry too much and just focus on getting through the pain," Echevaria said nonchalantly as she took notes on her tablet. Once it looked like she was about to stop, Echevaria grabbed her crutch and handheld mirror the team kept on standby.
Mabel Anderson continued to groan and scream and wretch and seize on the ground for approximately sixty seconds until the pain suddenly went away. She stood up, looking around. Within moments, Echevaria was ambling toward her, mirror in hand.
"Looking for this, Doctor Anderson?"
"Thank you. Oh my God. Is that my voice? I sound like my vocal coach. Oh my God," she started tearing up as she grabbed the mirror, examining herself. Her jaw was soft and fine, her lips pillowy and gentle, and none of that pesky stubble remained on her upper lip, jaw, and neck. Tears turned to sobs as she lurched forward to embrace Echevaria.
Echevaria never knew what to do in these circumstances. Her own husband, River, was a trans man who worked as a J&M Tech at Site-19. The two had met at a queer literature club hosted on-site by some of the researchers, and River had told her he had been waiting for use of SCP-113 for over five years. Echevaria had, in a breach of privacy, asked Mabel how long she had been waiting to use SCP-113 when they first met earlier in the day, and she responded with "eight months." Echevaria didn't think it was very fair, but she was usually happy to see people become their ideal selves. Today was not one of those days.
"I'm happy for you, Mabel."
It wasn't necessarily a lie, but Echevaria wanted SCP-113 for both her own interest and her husband's. Even if it had no effect on her, it would work on River. It had to.
"Oh my God. Thank you so much, Doctor Echevaria. I'll never forget this moment, thank you so much." The newly realized Mabel wept ugly tears, staining her cheeks as she walked out of the chamber and toward her new life, into the arms of her girlfriend who had similarly touched SCP-113 a few weeks prior.
Echevaria shot a longing gaze at SCP-113. She was no man, and this was her prime fear of touching the jasper. She already suffered dysphoria as it was, she didn't need to punish herself further. Mabel long gone, Echevaria sighed and leaned on her crutch. The gem glimmered in response, taunting her.
You know you want to try it.
She shook her head.
You want to know what would happen.
She approached, crutch clacking as she rolled her eyes.
"I am no man." She slammed the lid shut.
But River is.
River Mato lay beneath the covers of his shared habitation quarters with Valeria, sleepless. Even though he was exhausted from a difficult day of maintenance on the Site, he just could not manage to catch forty winks. He grumbled, blue eyes staring intently through the thin sheets and to the alarm clock that rested on the nightstand, reading back "1:00 AM."
Valeria was unusually late this evening. He knew that her work wasn't the most conventional and often required bizarre hours, what with her working for that shady Fire Department he had heard equally horrific and terrific stories about. Whatever their deal was, they couldn't seem to figure out whether or not they sucked or were great. On one hand, they fulfilled a lot of the Site employees' desires, but on the other, they did a lot of obviously vile stuff. He had often asked Valeria how she rationalized working for them and her own experience as someone down and out, and it did seem to trouble her, but also bring her much joy. Mostly troubled her.
But not enough to quit.
Quitting. River had in fact been thinking about quitting. The days were long, the pay wasn't worth the stress, and he was getting to be forty now. He couldn't do this type of work much longer— he was no spring chicken. But surely if he quit, the Foundation would throw out Valeria, so he remained. Even if she didn't want to, she was paid exorbitantly well. She made double his income working half the hours.
What he wouldn't do for a long vacation with his wife— just the two of them going on a road trip or something. That seemed nice. When was the last time he drove anything that wasn't a forklift? Was his driver's license still even valid on the surface? Hell, when was the last time he had seen the surface?
River sighed, turning to face the entrance to his and Valeria's habitation chambers. As he did so, he could have sworn he heard something outside. He grumbled, tossing the covers off of him and swinging his legs in front of him.
"Hon? That you?" he asked, taking a cautious step toward the door.
No response.
Just as he was getting ready to go back to bed, he was alerted by the sound of the doorknob frantically jiggling. River leaped into action, running back to the door and peeping out the porthole. It was Valeria, holding a dolly with some sort of box.
"Hon?" he tried again, confused.
"River! Open the door, quick!" she replied, looking frazzled. Without a doubt in his heart, River complied, undoing the lock and latch and opening the door for his wife. Valeria stumbled in, nearly tripping over her crutch as she brought in the dolly behind her. She was out of breath, face flushed, and hair a mess. Her husband reached toward her, cupping her face with his palms.
"What happened, Unkistapi? What is that?" He gestured with his head toward the container.
"Mi amor," she panted. "I brought you the rock." Valeria smiled, tears streaming down her cheek.
"The rock? What ro—" River blinked. For a moment, he seemed to not understand what she had just said, but it did eventually click. "Oh. Oh no. Val, what have you done? You're going to have the Foundation Internal Affairs Board come down upon you! Upon us! Why?!" His eyes went wide, letting go of his wife's head and pulling at his own hair.
"So you can be the man you were always meant to be."
The smoke trails and scent of cigarettes struggled against the recycled temperature control system of the Site-19 Fire Suppression Department office in a never-ending and unsolvable dispute of which was the more revolting.
"So you're telling me he didn't end up touching it?" a male voice asked.
"Nope," a woman responded.
"I bet he said something touching about how he didn't need the rock."
"Are you sure you haven't read the case already?"
They shared a laugh.
"Typical," the male snorts. "So what are we going to do with these two?"
"Echevaria has a spotless record and is an asset to the Medical Department. Whatever we do to her can't be too bad. We'll call it a crime of passion. But there is still the trouble of her not wanting to return to the Department."
"And Mato?"
"He's a more complicated one. The J&M Chief has consistently reported he underperforms at yearly evaluations. He has no real education other than basic Foundation GED equivalent, and technical maintenance know-how."
"Hmm."
"That's why they wouldn't let him touch SCP-113, by the way," the woman continued. "We want to reward good behavior. All the other employees who have touched it and transitioned have done so because they were good boys or girls."
"I have a suggestion, if you would."
"Oh?"
"Send them to forty-three. They're all insane there anyway, what's another two loose screws."