It was a Sunday evening at Site-113, and Josh and Roy were doing inventory.
Josh was reviewing the contents of a set of metal shelves, the deeper parts of which were coated in that specific kind of grimy dust. He was a relatively recent hire to the Foundation, scouted as an electrical engineer, but now doing work as a general technician. Tonight, this meant doing inventory. "Six Scranton Reality Anchors," he called over his shoulder.
"Six Scranton Reality Anchors," Roy said, scribbling it down on a notepad. He was career Foundation. Josh had no idea what his original skillset was.
Josh paused. "Okay, bear with me a sec," he said, hefting down one of the anchors. It was a brushed metal pylon, support legs retracted into the cylindrical casing. A standard American plug- with grounding pin- hung about a foot from the base. "Scranton Reality Anchors."
"Yes?" Roy set his notepad down on his knee.
"We plug these in, and weird stuff starts following the rules."
"That is the standard operations procedure for a Scranton Reality Anchor, yes," Roy said. He sounded tired, but he always sounded tired.
"But..." Josh held up the pylon like it was proof of an argument unto itself. "If we can do that, then doesn't that mean 'weird stuff' all follows empirical principles? Like, if we can build a device that makes it normal, isn't it... not really anomalous? Imagine if someone called nighttime anomalous, but also we had these Johnson Candescence Pillars that could make certain areas like day."
"You're getting there," Roy smiled with one side of his mouth. "Check the bottom."
Josh flipped the Scranton Reality Anchor over. "They make these in Indiana?"
"You ever see that George Clooney movie about the CIA?" Roy leaned back against another shelf.
"I'm not really a movies guy."
"It was something about goats. Anyways, it was about how in the sixties or something, the CIA put a lot of money and research into whether or not psychic shit was really true."
"And it was a big Foundation coverup or something?" Josh perked up.
"No," Roy said. He didn't say the word idiot after it, but his tone very heavily implied it. "That shit's not real. But the government spent a lot of money because they thought it might have been."
Josh set the Scranton Reality Anchor back on the shelf. "So, what, the Foundation's all a big scam?"
"Not all of it," Roy said. "They really do have a big lizard they can't figure out how to kill. Look- you heard what they do upstairs?"
"No," Josh said. "I don't have anywhere near that kind of clearance."
"Word gets around," Roy shrugged. "Anyways, they say they have an idea locked up. One that's more real than we are, and if you know about it, it kills you."
"You're fucking with me," Josh said.
"Hand to God," Roy swore. "That's what they say. They have entire floors of this building devoted to 'containing' it. Like eight members of senior site staff working full-time on procedures for locking up this killer idea."
"But..." Josh held up his hands. "How would anyone have figured out how to 'contain' it? How would anyone realize it existed at all?! If nobody knew about it, wouldn't it just go away?"
"The 05s don't care," Roy said. "They're all creeps too old to even count as baby boomers. They just get the grant documents with big scary complicated words in them."
"Well." Josh crossed his arms over his chest. "I guess there's not really a more credible agency you could report a researcher to if you figured they were fucking around."
"Now you're starting to get it," Roy said. "Some of it's real, and it's probably just boring shit we don't understand yet. Most of the stuff we've got locked up is just one layer of grift or another. You know, I got hired alongside a guy who just turned an old breakroom into a 'containment unit' and swore it was for an item that erases itself from your memory? Nobody's tried to check if that's how it actually works in fifteen years. He's an executive researcher now."
"Well if it's so easy, why haven't you done it yet?"
Roy snorted. "They pay me six figures for this already. Why would I do more work?"
"Huh." Josh turned back to the shelf they were taking inventory on. "I kinda feel like a kid who just got told Santa wasn't real." He glanced back at Roy.
Roy shook his head. "Nah, someone tried to do a Santa one already. They figured out pretty quick that one was a scam."