Chapter Text
Some music played in the background, just some casual strum of a ukulele to a tune that no one there could put a name to.
Here's the setting: A typical classroom, an odd set up for the Foundation, but then again, they did take over a former school in the middle of fuck-all nowhere for this, so it was pretty much expected. The students and teacher were odd and weren't at the same time. For the Foundation, it was mostly normal, for anyone else, not particularly. It was a good classroom at least, meant to hold about twenty to thirty students. A large chalkboard in the front, a smaller whiteboard that could slide across it, a projector screen and the corresponding projector, and some other commonplace things, minus windows. But that's enough of the boring shit.
Roughly seven in the morning, the first person in the classroom is a young man likely in his late twenties or very early thirties. 5'3, short hair, blond, a little bit of a tooth gap if you look closely, but he seemed to be asleep in a corner in the back of the classroom. Some would wonder how he would find comfort in skinny jeans, a long sleeved floral shirt, sunglasses (indoors?) and a white hat, especially on the cold tile floor but none made the effort to disturb him. Other did question whether or not the scratched up ukulele beside him was his, but it was a passing thought at most.
The room slowly filled, all twenty five seats with people from around the country, and a few from beyond. CIA, Interpol, MI6, even one or two GOC who decided to move over. From research to containment, retrieval to disinformation, this is where they went for paid leave until the higher ups would give them something better. Some were already Foundation staff, others are just starting, but they were all there because the Foundation, ever the cynic of the anomalous world, would not trust any of its staff immediately. Most especially with its bread and butter: Mobile task forces.
Now, it was not guaranteed that everyone there would be one, some already were and were just being sent for whatever reason that they weren't completely sure of because being vague to lower ranking staff is habit by now. A few faces were familiar to each other, but most weren't, but it didn't stop the casual smalltalk before class began. If they were going to see each other on a minimum of a weekly basis for a while, then they might as well get to know each other.
When the clock finally ticked to eight in the morning, everyone waited on the teacher to arrive. One of the students was even so gracious to try to wake the person sleeping in the corner, but when he got up and swatted her hand away, the class soon realized why there were twenty six people in the room but only twenty five seats.
The young agent groggily walked to the front of the classroom, immediately grabbing the office chair to sit in after being awakened. The morning voice did him no favors at all.
"Mornin'." He rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses. Staying up late is a decision he regretted, all the more he felt so when he finally registered the smell of coffee from everyone who had to force themselves awake early enough for a class. "Name's Alto Clef, so whether you wanna say Agent Clef, or Dr. Clef, or whatever the fuck, just say it with some level of respect, will ya?"
He cleared his throat, forcing himself up so he'd stay awake. "You fuckers probably went to class thinking there'd be a James Bond teaching you. They told you a competent agent roughly your age, goes by an alias, so you immediately think someone in a good set of clothes, tall, looks and acts like what you'd expect of some James Bond and maybe a tier or two lower. Maybe even some tall Agent 47 kinda guy who's clearly gone through hell and is now here to teach you about it."
"Or maybe you didn't expect that, and you thought of literally anyone else. But no, fuck you. It's a 5'5 bastard in a Hawaiian shirt and shades for no clear reason. Plays ukulele, alto saxophone, and a bit of piano, but will also make sexual references to neither your comfort or humor. The problem with the first two is fuck your expectations, this isn't a movie, and it'd be a lot more interesting if it were me."
Clef picked up a piece of fresh piece of chalk from the box and broke it in two, earning a few suppressed cringes from the students. Some of whom thought it was a joke, but to the few who had heard his name before knew he was the real deal, or at least it was Agent Clef and not some impostor. They were told that was his name anyway, but every group who were so unfortunate to have him as dispatcher remember him as an unpleasant voice who would try to flirt (to no avail) in free spaces of time during an operation, much to everyone's displeasure.
"For the record, I'm almost thirty. Yes, I'm your teacher. Move on, you're locked in here with me." He clicked open a tin of mints to eat one, sighing before he continued.
"You're here to be future MTFs, so lots of you are currently agents, formerly agents, or this is your first time in this sorta shit ever. What I'm teaching you is How. I mean the theoretical, procedure, rules, the typical what-to-do and what-not-to-do. Types of anomalies and shit. Everything that's on paper, and some practical in case you need to shoot something, which isn't as universal as an option as you think, so you're gonna learn substitutes for that."
Naturally, a few snickers were heard between them. Clef just rolled his eyes underneath the shades, it was routine at this point. He wasn't known to have the best reputation to be taken seriously, at least initially. He wasn't known by that many people anyway, mostly among his former students (despite only having taught for about two years alone) and having handled MTF operations as dispatcher in the few years before that, and even less as an actual agent.
"Anyways, welcome to my class. I know Dimaccio already gave you the rundown on getting in here, but I'm obligated to give you another one. No homework. Basically, I keep everyone up to speed. Also I don't do papers often because, y'know," he flicked his sunglasses gently, "So majority of your points come from recitation and practical. Sounds easy? You'd be surprised how fuckin' stupid people can be nowadays."
Clef pointed at the first student he could see. "You. Where the fuck did you come from and what have you heard about me? Name too."
The student, likely the only person in the room who was younger than the teacher, spoke up immediately though a little too quiet for Clef's liking. "Shard, sir. Epsilon 11. Others have said you can be... A little unorthodox."
"An unlucky bastard, I see." While it wasn't obvious, he consistently kept glancing back to him. A little too familiar and a little too not-familiar for his taste. Never heard of a "Shard" before, at least not this specific Shard. The previous ones were dead as far as he knew. This one had a rough history, but he didn't want to bring that up. Yet. "Not exactly in the mood to remember any of your names, so if I do remember, it's probably a bad thing. Anyways, he's right. Unorthodox is a very very light way of putting 'I'm not boring.'"
Clef stretched with a few cracks heard along the way. He really just wasn't in the mood for this. "Yeah, almost forgot. I checked all your backgrounds, some of that is my own work or your colleagues, future colleagues, or bosses, or whoever. All of you minus Shard over there are older than me by two years at the minimum. Whatever that means to you, prodigy, lucky, unlucky, you decide that for yourself and keep it there. Point is I'm teaching you shit, so you either respect me now or I terrify you enough to start doin' that."
He pointed to the other end of the room. "Blondie, you're GOC, right?"
The Blondie nodded. "Yes, sir, my name's Verlaine-"
"Anyone ever heard of me outside the Foundation?"
"Not that I can recall."
"Good enough." He waved a hand to dismiss him.
He moved to sit on his desk, ignoring the part where he's a little too short for his feet to touch the ground. "All the boring shit is in your syllabus, so don't ask boring questions. Ask questions but don't be stupid. Take a lot of this with a grain of salt, just not the lessons I give you. First thing I learned is that the rumors aren't accurate, some people say I'm the devil, some think I'm a whore, which reminds me, my office is only open after dark. If you wanna see me outside of class, like after 8pm or something."
Clef sat in silence a while before realizing that was important too. "You're all quiet. You scared or something? Either way... Yeah, that's about it. They covered everything for me since it's nothing so so esoteric, I don't really give a shit about the lessons so much because they're not that connected other than being shit you need to know to keep going. Any questions? Give me names too."
Immediately several hands were raised, at which point he just pointed at whoever got his attention, mentally scratching his head for anything he might remember about them though faces weren't his forte.
"Hair dye, go."
"How are you that small?"
Agent Condren. Disinformation, no particular specialty but good for just about anything under disinformation. Former criminal with a special skillset to break in anywhere with unorthodox methods, not excluding knocking people out with muffins. Also scarily good at golf and driving.
"Shut the fuck up, Condren." Clef pointed at the other side of the room.
"Verlaine. What's your history, if I may ask?"
Agent Verlaine. Retrieval and containment, transferred from the British sites because he was meant to move to the US for whatever reason. Tall, blond, looks like the type to be MC&D's favorite pretty boy. Clef's number one target for a James Bond joke if ever. Plus points for former GOC Assessment Team member.
"No, you may not. Redacted to hell and back. Researcher-lookin' guy in the back."
"Is the shotgun real? Did you have any experience in research? And uhm, Weiss."
Researcher Weiss. Containment for a couple of SCPs but pulled out to move to an MTF. Somehow ended up trying to do all the classes in one go to save time, but may lose sanity over time, but either way constantly looks like one more coffee away from death.
"'Course not. Works like a real one though, if you wanna see it. Also, does being Dr. Kondraki's fiance count as research experience? He just hasn't proposed yet but I'm waiting. Black jacket- Other black jacket with the shoulder length hair."
"Are you seriously our teacher? You seem-"
Agent Dove. Intel. Supposedly everyone given the name "Dove" is a master of disguise because the John/Jane Doe thing with an extra letter (A GOC habit passed onto Foundation somehow) but Clef can tell that they're new to the alias handed over to them.
"Fuck you. Circle glasses, curly hair."
"Gold. What was the song you were playing earlier?"
Agent Gold. Disinformation, Clef's getting overwhelmed with the amount of people who happened to be above six feet (Counting about a fifth of the twenty five, do the math.) and all people he had to look up at, but he respected that someone who looked relatively soft was able to pass as an agent.
Clef grinned, then laughed a little. That was enough an answer, he assumed, since there wasn't much that was said afterwards.
"What's with the sunglasses indoors?"
Clef raised an eyebrow. "Name?"
"Byun."
Agent Byun. Retrieval and containment. Transferred from Site 19 but has a solid reputation of being kind of shit at anything that isn't on paper. Not that it was her fault, she just has comically bad luck with missions, like getting struck with lightning at some point. Twice, in fact. She's fine. (Probably. Insurance is great in the Foundation.)
"I'm a vampire so I'm sensitive to light, yes, that's a thing, and if any of you are gonna correct me by saying you've already met vampires, clearly you have no idea what the fuck genetics are."
A few snickers were heard across the classroom, but none pushed for the right answer as everyone had their own assumptions to bet on another day. There weren't too many questions anyway.
"Okay, so I lied, there is homework. When you come back, which I'm never really sure when that will be, bring... Actually, just bring yourselves tomorrow. Everything's optional, just go here like you'd go to the mall or something. Fuck all if it's not work appropriate, just do it. Trust me, or not."
He finally made use of the piece of chalk in his hand and writing his number on the board, though no one was entirely sure if it was his number at all. "If you're wondering, no, I don't have social media. I just have my number. I swing any way you want me to if you get what I mean." He winked under the shades, but it wasn't seen. "I'm never really at my office unless you want me there, at most I'm there in the evenings to check on something so if you catch me there then you know what happens. Also the lights don't work in there."
The teacher contemplated a few seconds on what else to say, but shrugged.
"That's it. Get out, I don't want to deal with you fucks for the next hour."
A few looked left and right at each other if they were really being dismissed, at which the teacher just pointed at the door. "This is me dismissing you! Shoo! Go on. Except Shard, you stay."
The period felt too short, but no one was complaining as they picked up their stuff and left, some with more hesitation than others. The teacher then picked up a beat up thermos and sipped away at the cocktail he mixed with orange juice. He was going to need it for the next hour.
As the people left the room, Clef added another note with an unnerving smile. "Also, uh, if you ever come across hallucinations. Try not to feed 'em, thanks."