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The door opened, and the far too familiar scent of blood hit Gears all at once. He was only able to be confused for a moment before he flicked on the light switch next to the door. He saw the blood pooling beneath the generic office chair first, the discoloring from the oxidation turning it into more of a deep brown-red color that stained the white tile floors. His eyes trailed upwards, to the pale, slumped body of his assistant, Dr. Iceberg. Gears stepped into the room, making sure not to step in the half dry blood splattered on the ground. His mind was racing, but he moved with calmness and ease, carefully lifting Iceberg's one arm. He was so cold, but when is he not, really? He put two fingers to his wrist, feeling for something. Anything. He felt the sensation of panic rising in his chest, but he simply lets his arm go, hearing it thud against the desk with a feeling of.. something.
He was about to grab the walkie talkie strapped to his belt, when he saw a paper on the desk, semi soaked in blood. He leaned over Iceberg's body, accidentally knocking him lightly and making him shift. There's blood on his coat. He'll clean it later.
Luckily, the writing on the paper wasn't distorted by the blood, and Gears could read it clearly. The SCP Foundation logo was plastered in the top left corner of the paper, hastily scribbled at with the same pen that the note was written by. He scanned through the letter again, and again, and again. He didn't have to read the note to know why he did it. He knew. He sent him here. This is his fault.
Something about that acknowledgement hurts. He doesn't scowl or grip the paper harder or feel any kind of pit in his stomach, but it hurts. He folds the paper a few times, slipping it into the pocket of his lab coat and kneeling down to the floor. He picked up the gun that laid next to Iceberg's lifeless body, examining it up and down. It was one of the regular handheld pistols that the Foundation would sometimes allow them to have for a bit of extra protection, or even just to make themselves feel a little better about themselves. He tosses it to the ground.
There isn't anything else to do now. He's been here for at least a day. Maybe more. There's nothing that Gears could really hope to do, to revive the assistant he's been working with for the past decade. It was going to be rather annoying to find one as hard working as him, but he would work with it. He unclips the walkie talkie from his belt, holding down the buttons and watching the red light on the top come on.
"I need a cleaning crew at ████ in ████████." Gears speaks into the walkie talkie without even a waver in his voice, receiving conformation and clipping the device back to his belt. He waits, and he stares at Iceberg's body. He was pale. He was so pale. He has seen dead bodies before, of course, but it was weird to see that someone could get paler than Iceberg already was. His glasses were cracked, but that looked unrelated to the gunshot wound directly in the middle of Iceberg's head. Again, he has seen dead bodies countless times before, but the way that Iceberg's lifeless eyes stared through him bothered him. He wouldn't forget that. He was wracked with guilt, truly, but he stands unmoving next to the door, blankly staring at the body in front of him.
The cleaning crew gets there, collects Iceberg's body, cleans the blood, and then, that's it. It's over now. There's nothing else, so he tucks the bloodied note into a drawer, and reviews the papers that Iceberg wrote for him while he was in the hospital.
