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Harry wasn't the biggest fan of enclosed spaces.
Well, that was putting it lightly. He struggled with elevators, and on his worse days he couldn't handle firm handshakes.
No one really knew about this - well, Lillian and Melissa did, but Lillian knew everything about him and Melissa deserved to know.
Anyway, all this to say, when he woke up and couldn't open his door, he handled it as well as expected.
As in, he didn't. He tapped his keycard against the door again, hearing the soft beep that told him his keycard wasn't recognised.
Melissa had left before he'd even left their bed, so there was no way to get her to let him out, and he always kept his electronics in his office so he didn't stay up all night - it had happened before, and he was too old to pull an all-nighter now - which meant he couldn't message Lillian to get him out.
He screamed in frustration, collapsing on the sofa. It was fine. It would be fine. He could handle sitting in his rooms for however long it took for someone to realise he was missing.
...
...
...
No he couldn't, who was he kidding? He was already going stir-crazy, if he didn't get out soon he might start tearing at his walls and sofa, or worse, start crying.
.___.___.___.
"Lillihammer. Have you seen Blank anywhere?" Allan asked.
When it came to finding Harold, Lillian would always be more accurate and faster than any AI's. If Allan had been a man prone to whimsy or flights of fantasy, he might have thought they had some sort of mental link. He wasn't, however, and so he didn't think that. He merely understood that they were close and knew each other well.
Lillian frowned, rolling her head back as she thought.
"In... In his rooms." She stood up. "Hold on, I'll go with you. Something isn't right."
The two of them set off towards Harold, although Lillian frowned the entire way.
Allan didn't ask. While he didn't fully understand the nature of their bond, he knew that the two knew each other better than anyone. If Lillian said something was wrong with Harold, then something was wrong.
When they arrived, Lillian stepped forwards first, brows furrowed in what Allan had come to know as her "Worried about Harold" look. (As far as Allan could tell, she didn't have looks for being worried about anyone else. Whether that was because she just wasn't worried about them or she hid it better, only she would know.) She knocked three times on the door.
"Harry? Are you in there?" She called, and from inside they heard the sound of scrambling, and something falling. It didn't sound fragile, at the very least.
"Lills! Yeah, someone fucked with the permissions on my card reader and now I can't get out." Harold called back, sounding frustrated.
Lillian whipped out her keycard before Allan could even say anything, opening the door and stepping through. Almost faster than the eye could see, Harold grabbed her hand and pulled the two of them out of his rooms.
Lillian and Harold shared a look that presumably told them both things, and Lillian scowled.
Allan nodded thoughtfully. Who had changed the keycard permissions? Well, presumably it would be someone who had technical knowledge or knew someone with technical knowledge, and someone who would want to do so.
"Ah." Allan realised, turning on his heel and walking off. He had to go talk to some people. One person in specific, actually.
.___.___.___.
The day before, Harry and Sokolsky had gotten into an argument. It had been minor, as far as Sokolsky-related-incidents went.
It had started with, of all things, a coffee cup.
Daniil had lost his cup. He was fairly certain it was somewhere in the Archives. Unfortunately, the Archives ran under the rule that anything left in there officially belonged to them, a rule that had led to several important people losing important things, including at least a couple SCPs, several important documents, and in one notable case, a child. Still, Harry refused to let go of his rule, or any objects left in the Archives.
Still, Daniil had hopes that he could get his cup back. At the very least, he could try.
.___.___.___.
It did not go even as remotely well as he had hoped, although he'd expected it to go as it had.
Lillian and Harry had shut down every possible tactic, teaming up against him. At one point, Harry had given him a particularly cutting remark which he won't repeat here, because even thinking about it makes him frown.
He stalked off. His brain was already working through ways to get the two of them back when he stumbled across Eileen. He was in the middle of complaining about what had happened when she pulled out her keycard to get through a door, and it hit him.
His eyes widened, and he nearly embraced Eileen as he worked through the idea in his head.
If this worked, he may have made an enemy of Lillian, but he would also be a technical genius.
.___.___.___.
Unfortunately for him, he hadn't known about Harry's dislike of enclosed spaces. Harry might have even been brought to forgive him, if he had seemed even the slightest bit apologetic. Instead, he'd just shrugged.
Allan presumably felt similar, because Sokolsky had been put on leave for a week. Harry wished it would be longer, but apparently he was "a necessary part of the Site" and "integral to how it's run". Ugh. What bullshit.
At least Lillian agreed with him. Sokolsky wouldn't be getting anything out of her for a little while, at the least.