"So, let's get this straight. It's… a deer, with airbags?"
The corpse was unceremoniously dumped onto the dissection table. The dog-clam had been removed and placed in a small pet carrier outside the theater, and now the room was taken up by the subject of importance.
"Not exactly a deer," Doctor Hart spoke, nodding toward the specimen. Nathaniel reached for a scalpel after donning latex gloves, setting the light down on the subject's flank. "Definitely cervine," he murmured, prodding at its side with the blade. There was far more resistance than he had expected. "This is where the air bladder is, yes?"
"One of them, according to the witness," Hart replied, drawing a finger down across its lower abdomen. "Try making the incision there, maybe?"
Nathaniel grunted in reply and took a cheap electric razor to its fur, shaving the spot before jabbing the scalpel in. He drew it down the abdomen and once across, opening the new entry into its body cavity and expanding it slowly with a pair of dissecting scissors. He then brought the incision up to the thoracic region, following in with the scissors and peeling back flaps of flesh. The coagulated blood occasionally trickled from the incision, but the specimen was unnaturally well preserved. "How long has it been dead?" Nathan inquired, poking around.
"Two days now. We gave it a rapid preservation treatment to keep it in shape for dissection."
Nathan made note to ask how they had preserved it so well later, noting the location of each of the air bladders. They were both well attached to the entire side of the ribcage with tendons and were flat, in the uninflated state. "Just epithelium," Nathan quipped as he carefully poked at the bladder. "But it's so… dense. Is this normal?" He looked up at Doctor Hart, who shrugged. "We've never seen this before either. Care to open it up?"
There was a hesitation to his voice as Nathan responded, already beginning to poke down into it. "Just afraid of a… reflex," he breathed out, relieved, as the scalpel entered the bladder. "Simplified alveoli… I think." He placed his scalpel down and shook his head. "I don't see how this would work. It shouldn't, looking at it. What did you say that happened?" Nathan asked.
"Car was heading for the deer, apparently. Typical deer-in-the-headlights look, damn thing sat there frozen. According to the victim, it just suddenly… blew up. Like a balloon. It stayed planted right in place, like it suddenly weighed as much as a goddamn block of steel. The car was totaled. A coupe."
The table was moved off to the side as Nathan sat, tongue in cheek. "I don't get it. What's with this shit? A dog that's really a clam? A deer with a five-star safety rating? Who did you say you were?"
Doctor Hart crossed his arms, glancing over at a co-worker of his. They shrugged, and Hart looked down at the seated biologist. "I suppose I can't just say that we're the cleaning crew. We work for the Foundation. We deal with these anomalies on a daily basis, but there usually is not an outbreak of this volume in such a small time." That got Nathan's attention. "Outbreak? You mean, there's more?" Hart nodded, and Nathan groaned.
"We've already seen enough, and we expect more," Hart went on. "We need a local specialist." A click sounded from Nathan's tongue as he sighed, trying to grasp the situation. On one hand, this was the opportunity of a lifetime - never before seen species that were beyond the imagination of the average biologist, let alone scientist altogether. Though, this wasn't the thought on Nathan's mind. It was currently more along the lines of, Why me?

They were out the door before Nathan could protest. They had already loaded up into the van, most of them sitting in the back, moving down US 19 with a speed just peaking above the limit of 50 miles per hour. There were no windows in the back, though one could glance out the front windshield if they glanced forward. Nathan sat across from Doctor Hart, both quiet for the moment. Enough discussion had gone on earlier, and all that was stated is that they were headed for another site of anomalous activity. They passed a Chik-Fil-A, and his stomach grumbled. He checked his watch; it was one in the afternoon, already.
His hunger was flung from his gut as the new location came into view, finally. They were somewhere back into the Brooker Creek Preserve now, after trekking down a scant dirt path off to one side of the information center's parking lot. There was some recently cleared brush in the path, indicating that this had been cut after the discovery. Now, though, as he witnessed the large, stalky plants in front of him, he shuddered.
Almost every inch of them were covered in various spiders and their webs. These plants stood no shorter than eight feet, and were a sight to see - large, thick, fleshy leaves sprouted from girthy stalks, like a bastardized version of aloe. There were also ropy vines everywhere, laid across in an oddly familiar shape. Nathaniel tilted his head, and his chest went cold.
"Are those… spiderwebs?"
Hart took a closer look at the vines himself. "These weren't here last time. Fetter, Jacob, get a scope of our surroundings." Two of the four others with them, armed now with sidearms and a light splay of tactical gear, nodded, setting off in opposite directions to circumvent the spot of anomalous activity. It only took a moment. Fetter screamed, but it was abruptly cut off by the large arachnid dropping onto him and sinking "fangs" into his throat, his body going rigid. Nathaniel watched the thing as it dragged Fetter up onto the web and began to spin him into a mass of vines, which prompted Jacob to draw his Colt. He took a double shot at the arachnid, and with a splat, it hit the ground. Hart had drawn his own handgun, but he was slowly holstering it as he approached. The one they had supplied Nathan, as he realized after a moment, was clutched tightly in his right hand, white-knuckled. He released the vice grip and holstered his, following Hart up to it.
"Doc, look at it. It's… a plant," Jacob breathed.
He was correct, Nathan noticed as he nudged it with a boot. It seemed to a heavy mass of plant growth, composed of layers upon layers of plant matter. It was an off-green hue, and the two shots it had taken had breached its thorax and spinneret. A gooey, white concoction leaked from the spinneret. "Hold on. Someone, give me a stick."
Hart handed Nathan a medium-length branch just thick enough to poke around with. Jacob was busy hacking at the web of vines with a machete, trying to pull Fetter down. Nathaniel dug the stick into the spinneret easily enough, dragging out a solid mass that he could feel within. The beginnings of a botanical embryo clogged the liquid's flow as he brought it to the breach for observation.
"It's a seed. This whole thing is a seed. The spinneret is a bulb. This… this liquid, it's a form of cotyledon, I guess." Nathan nodded at his own handiwork of deduction, looking towards Jacob as Fetter thumped to the ground. He worked off the vines haphazardly with the machete, reaching to try and feel for a pulse, or a rhythm of breath. "He's alive," he called with relief, removing the rest of the vines. "Greg, Nicole, get your asses over here." The last two members of the task force lifted Fetter between them, heading back the way they came. Jacob stayed with his handgun drawn, again.
"Doc," he said, glancing about. "We really shouldn't be here much longer. We'll need Cox's team to help with this."
Hart stood and beckoned for Nathaniel to follow, but not before taking a last look around. "Have you looked yet for anything that could've caused this?"
"Doc, we really need to-"
"No, search first. This is big, and we need to know."
Jacob sighed, frustrated, but began to wander the site without further protest. Hart searched with Nathaniel in tow. Before long, Jacob was calling for Hart to come to him. He was down by Brooker Creek itself, looking down into the water. It was clouded and off-orange in this portion, which he sourced back to a plastic bag. Jacob looked to Hart, trying to see if he had any answer for this. "That's definitely not natural," Hart breathed, settling with his arms over his chest again.

The technician clacked at the few valves between the kit currently straining the next batch, and the distillation of the income of ingredients. He glanced over at the few others in the lab, working their stations like him, the heavily ventilated space whirring with air conditioning. The viscous, orange material strained through the second set of mesh screens, collecting a solid mass of crystalline waste. The waste would be bagged, after this batch was processed, and handed off to be disposed of. Finding the proper location for dumping had taken some time - they had tried burying it, and dumping it into water, but they had it down pat now.
Carver grinned as the process unfolded before him, flipping a tablet of the resulting designer drugs between his fingers. With a quick snap of his neck, he swallowed it, and a banana smoothie materialized on the counter in front of him.
The quiet draft of classical music played from the radio in the corner of the space, and he settled into a chair, strawberry smoothie in hand.

« Shellfish For Breakfast | Green Thumb Hub | Just Like Me »


She missed the sun. It was still there, of course. It would outlast her, she imagined

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Kingdom of Stone: A Monolithic Species
An abandoned tale series that will be picked up again some day
Eat more of my SCPs. Eat them all.
Also please eat some of these

Anabasis Hub Probably the greatest story involving a pair of redheaded siblings whose infighting causes the end of the world
Manna Charitable Foundation 2000 The sequel to the above, collaborationed with Dr Reach
The Stuff Industry What happens when everyone around you at work is a complete idiot and so are you, but not only does no one get fired, but you actually turn a profit? I don't know, some stuff.
When MCF and Stuff happen A fun story of incompetence

Hagne-Allon had caught up with the mass of former miners just before they could begin to dissipate into aimless hordes. She hadn't given much of a speech… but then, she hadn't had to; the promise of asylum was its own message, when they had no other options. Now, she roamed ahead of them, waiting for them to move past, before picking up and moving ahead again. She had given them general directions, but doubted their ability to find their way amongst the thickets of woodland and rock, all tending to blur together the longer one looked.

They have no sense of proper etiquette or hierarchy. Women are seen as often hunting for game as men are washing clothes and caring for children. You could hardly tell some apart until they took their clothes off to wash. They are beautiful specimens all — lithe, wiry, fit and firm. Comes from a lifetime of hard labor, I imagine. Now they put that experience to use every night, setting up a camp that could, but for the right materiel, be called a town proper.

She looked up from her writing, smiling at the sight of a young woman about her age, skin dark as coal, laughing and chasing another woman who had apparently snatched an apple from her. At some point, the dark woman dove for the other, knocking the apple aside, and began to kiss the other one with a deep, longing passion. Hagne's eyes widened, and she smiled.

There's a beautiful purity in their ignorance. Or perhaps naiveté in their society. I had initially suspected it to be mere joy earlier, but the longer you observe them, you notice men pairing with men, women pairing with women, not a care for offspring or proper mating ritual. They love whom they will, and all accept it. I know you are a strong and long-lived woman, Overseer, so I dare not question your judgment, but after having witnessed this group in battle, I cannot imagine that any attempts at reforming their primitive little society will be beneficial in the long term.

She had assumed the gathering group of people in the corner of her eye had been gathered for food, but the longer she listened, the more she heard voices rising in a cacophony of noise that began to sound belligerent. She rose, and rushed over to the mass. The miners parted for her, as they usually did to those deemed authority figures, to reveal the center of the conflict.
It was a woman, young-looking, but with the far too clean look and slightly unnatural sheen of a panacea-user. She flashed a smile at Hagne, showing teeth far too perfect to be natural. Her hair was red as blood, and close to the roots, Hagne could make out a pattern of stitching on her scalp. Her eyes were big, beautifully so, and unnaturally blue. Everything about her screamed of some manner of fraudulence or another.
"What is this? Another huckster?" Hagne snarled.
The woman leapt to her feet with easy grace. She was shapely, indicative of very good health, compared to the lean and sometimes malnourished forms of the miners.
"Huck? Huck… Huck, rhymes with fuck!" The woman grinned those blindingly white teeth again.
Hagne grunted and stepped up to her, clutching her spear close at hand. The woman seemed not to notice, "These people are under the protection of the Eighth Overseer. I am tasked with ensuring they reach Whore's End safely and unmolested. What manner of trinket are you shilling? Miracle cures? Low-cost panacea?"
The woman spread her arms apart innocently. For all her apparent healthy looks, she was dressed in a patchwork coat of thick cloths. Hagne thought she saw the subtle glint of metal underneath it.
"Check my pockets. Take my clothes; I carry no purse on me. I take no coin, nor whatever currency these people use. Hello, by the way. My name is Dodger."
Hagne tilted her spear, using the sheathed buttspike to keep the woman from approaching her, "Stand your ground. What is your business here?"
The woman — "Dodger", she claimed — glanced around, and shrugged again, "People are my business. Miserable, filthy, hopeless people."
"You prey upon them? Peddle them as slaves?"
"Why so pessimistic?" Dodger looked hurt, "I serve them. Not as food for others, before you start leaping to accusations. I've been blessed with much, as you can see," She turned herself around, waggling her hips in a crude manner perhaps meant to be suggestive, before turning to face Hagne again, "I am a vulture. A vampire. A ghoul. I am addicted to pleasure, and the only pleasure I get nowadays is seeing the smiling, happy face of a person I have helped. The happy sobs of a grateful individual is a more potent a sound than the loveliest music. The sight of a wounded person rising to their feet in good health is more pleasurable than the boldest sunrise. The crushing bear hug of an individual to whom you have given all that you could to help is more gratifying than the loudest, screaming-est orgasm."
Hagne-Allon's lip curled. She certainly saw the appeal of this woman to the miners. Lewd, crude, loud, and charismatic, and colorful to look at, "You'll forgive me if I have trouble believing it."
Dodger shrugged again, "You don't need to believe; it's the truth," She reached into her coat, withdrawing a small pouch and reaching in, "How are you, by the way? Is your body functioning properly?"
Again, she tilted the spear, to keep her from approaching, "I'm fine. Don't touch me." She looked up and down the woman again. She had brought a satchel with her, which was on the ground behind her. Unless she held a short blade within, she was completely unprotected.
"How have you lasted this long in the wilderness?"
The woman shrugged, "I packed supplies."
"I mean how have you avoided…"
"How has someone as pretty as I avoided the unwanted advances of violent men brandishing bludgeons?" Again she looked around herself, "The same way you all have; I do not walk alone."
"Where are your travelling companions?"
"Spread across the land. We have outposts every few miles or so," She smiled again, reaching into her coat to take out a small square bit of parchment. Printed on the front in fine dark-green type were the letters 'MCF'. The rear showed a small map of the region, from Whore's End to the Dumping Grounds East.
"What is this?" Hagne offered the parchment back to Dodger, but she refused it.
"It's a card. A… it's a bit of parchment."
"I know what parchment is, I can read and write. What is 'MCF'?"
Dodger smiled, and touched two fingers to the bridge of her nose, "Manna the power, manna the food, manna the drink, manna the entity and Manna the Entity — Would you wish me to leave?"
"I wish you to leave."
"Or — OR! Would you let me roam the ranks of your freed miners, my hands extended, offering everything I have to give, food, drink, medicine, until I have nothing left but the clothes on my body — or not even those? Would you truly deprive these people of any bit of help they can receive?"
Hagne stared at her long and hard, waiting for some sign, a facial tic or unwarranted smirk, any excuse to vehemently reject the woman and send her off. The woman didn't even blink.
"Fine. Stay. But you will receive nothing from me should you choose not to leave before we reach Whore's End. And should you continue on, you will submit to the Overseer's authority, in what-ever she might wish to do with you."
Dodger nodded, and smiled to her, again with her incoherent chanting, "Because Manna helped us, what can we do but share that same help with all of their children?"

Someone had spread the rumor once that the longer you lived on panacea, the more likely you were to forget your own name. They hadn't meant it literally…
"Anna Sobotka," She said aloud, her own name for just over four thousand years.
The ironic part — was it irony? — was that she had entirely forgotten who had said that to her. She'd always pictured the person saying it as being a woman like her, short and blonde, big nose and short hair. Then she saw a portrait in her main hall, and remembered it wasn't the person who had told her about panacea; it was a serving girl of hers, dead for at least 80 years. Her petrified body was in the mausoleum she'd established at the top of her cliff-side tower.
"Honey Pot," She said aloud. That had been the girl's name. Her parents named her that, and she'd stubbornly refused to change it.
Everyone knew where she was; "Whore's End" they called it. They said it was named for her, but it had been called that long before she set up camp here. The river running through the land had been pristine at some point after the Fall. It was the last clean river for miles in every direction, and remained so for hundreds of years. Then erosion uncovered a stockpile of some manner of chemical waste. She didn't know; it was already ancient history by the time she'd found the place. The river became polluted, and started to stink of sulfur and chlorine. People who drank from it or waded in it felt it burn their skin, and called it "Whore's End", making light of a hypothetical young woman forced by circumstances to prostitution, succumbing to the bodily rot of some unknown venereal disease or other.
Her enemies had taken to saying it referred to her, withdrawing to her wretched home at the end of her life. It was somewhat frustrating, but she refused to change the name. To do so would admit defeat, and admit that the place was indeed named for her.
She had plenty of patience and more than enough time. The world around her had already dissolved into a thicket of savage tribes, people no longer identified as Americans or Canadians or anything else. Such words were older than ancient. They pre-dated myth. Men fought and died and established dynasties and empires lasting hundreds of years atop the burial mound of the greatest, richest, most technologically advanced civilization the planet had ever birthed.
That civilization had reached space. They had eaten and slept beside small windows, outside of which they could bear witness to thick clouds of dust and ash that covered the world during the last days leading up to the Fall. How must they have felt, believing themselves to be the very last of their civilization, of their species?
Anna only felt joy for them, convincing herself that they had turned away and gone in search of another home. She imagined now an entire civilization sprawling across a distant solar system, colonizing planets, mining comets and asteroids, and soaking in energy-abundant sunlight for hours every single day.
Niggling doubt drove her on. Doubt that anyone had survived in the stations long enough to start moving. Doubt that they could even reproduce effectively enough in a zero-g environment. Doubt that even if they had made it out, their descendants arriving successfully on some life habitable planet, that they would even have survived long enough to become spacefaring again.
That drove her here on Earth. A people perpetually ignorant, illiterate, living on legends, myth, fanciful stories of a version of the past that never existed. Believing themselves to be different from one another, and thus incapable of co-existing peacefully. Every little minor kingdom that advanced sufficiently was more likely to be broken and beaten by a lesser group, their scrapes at technological prowess erased, and the species as a whole back to the stagnancy of perpetual feudal living, spears and shield combat, pestilence, and hand-to-mouth living.
The other Overseers didn't help matters. They only cared for eliminating each other, and carving out a following on Earth that would elevate them to living Godhood. Short-sighted, unsustainable, doomed to failure. The only thing that would work with creatures like that was violence.
The thicket of savage tribes had to be burned down. Those who resisted had to be killed. Those who fell in line would remember their old tribal identities and their old lives as stories, while taking upon a new identity. Not a tribal one… but a human one. A single, monolithic culture, for a single, monolithic species. One that would breach the clouds that coated the Earth, and be able to once again see the sun any time they wanted.
She missed the sun. It was still there, of course. It would outlast her, she imagined; outlast everything and everyone, panacea be damned. The clouds just made it impossible to see for months, even years at a time. Nothing could grow. Entire species went extinct. Vegetation was almost nonexistent, with the added benefit of the deluge of life-strangling ash, soot, fallout, and chemicals that had escaped from their containment once the infrastructure had completely rotted.
Containment… She had nearly forgotten. All those Keter-class anomalies, run rampant for millennia. Or hell, there were Euclids and Safes that could wreak global catastrophe if left to their own devices. The fact that she still stood here, on solid ground, with thousands of living people around them, meant the best case scenario had occurred when the Fall happened.
"This place smells like a swimming pool," She said aloud. It was starting to hurt less to speak. Her jaw had been replaced the year before, and it still wasn't healing properly. She didn't want to have to rely on copious amounts of panacea on such a vanity, and so had relied on conventional treatment to help it along. She wasn't at risk of dying — worst case scenario, she use up the last of her panacea reserves, then hunt for more later on.
"I like the smell. It's pleasant. Even by comparison with the outside," She smiled. It hurt badly. Her teeth no longer clicked together when she spoke, but she couldn't stop the twitching in her jaw that made the right side of her jaw itch insufferably. That had been another vain excess she'd insisted upon; salvaging what remained of her face. It meant the prosthetic would be all the more noticeable by being mismatched in tone.
"It's hot in Topeka."
The medicus behind her looked up. She smiled to herself, not turning to face him, "The pain is becoming more bearable. You can leave early today. I will see you next week."

« The Under-Class | A Monolithic Species | Slay, Cure, Protect »


like the deepest orgasm couldn't achieve, nor the sweetest liqueur

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Anabasis Potent Drug
Start here
Eat more of my SCPs. Eat them all.
Also please eat some of these

Anabasis Hub Probably the greatest story involving a pair of redheaded siblings whose infighting causes the end of the world
Manna Charitable Foundation 2000 The sequel to the above, collaborationed with Dr Reach
The Stuff Industry What happens when everyone around you at work is a complete idiot and so are you, but not only does no one get fired, but you actually turn a profit? I don't know, some stuff.
When MCF and Stuff happen A fun story of incompetence

Priss watched as the Anabasis came on, sending that familiar streak of cool air through the room, and the man-shaped mass was brought back into being. It had been a man once; what came back looked like something's attempt to put back together what had exploded into pieces of meat. A man-shaped, man-sized, fully clothed hamburger.
"Something stripped him," Edgars muttered through his gas mask, prodding at the mass with a long pole so as not to put his hands on it, "Look. All the buttons are done up. And the camera's missing. The shoes, too."
"Saw it coming," Priss said smarmily, "No reason to be using D-Class. Machines. A mannequin with a tape recorder. Anything. We can't communicate with them once they've crossed over, so why bother with a living person?"
"We use 'em or we lose 'em," Another technician said, "And it's better for them if they get to stay with us than returning to prison. You see how those places are lately?"
"No," Priss said, again blandly, watching as the man-shaped hamburger started to wetly slouch, "I haven't."
"Filling up with illegals. I hear it's worse in Hawaii and California, but since they're starting to get overcrowded, they're sending Chinese refugees all the way over here. Not just in the prisons, but the immigration people, too."
"Why do we even need D-Class anyway?" Priss glared at the group. Four 'technicians', two junior researchers, and her, an agent. Normal personnel outnumbered all the D-Class on-site. Priss figured there was no reason they couldn't use animals first, then some volunteers when it got safe.
"You'd rather go in?" The technician — Sandy — said.
"Yeah, I would," Priss jumped slightly as the slouching corpse abruptly keeled over, head smashing wetly into the floor, "These kind of prisoners have nothing to gain and nothing to lose. Nothing stops them from lying their way to freedom."
"Getting caught does," Edgars retorted. He abruptly jerked, "Easy, baby," He patted the Anabasis, and began to fan some of the anomalously cool air towards its heated surface.
"You just reminded me," Priss butted in, "Whatever became of the reports? The hallucinations?"
Sandy shrugged, "Probably something brought in by Ana. We quarantined the school and flushed it for any airborne pathogens or something. Haven't had any recurrences since."
"Is that what they said?" Priss mused. The measures the Foundation took to prevent just that sort of thing made that statement suspect. The fact that both Sharpe and her had seen and touched the same thing also made the idea of it being a pathogen or a hallucinogen suspect, "Where's the full report?"
"Not done yet. Marlowe's more focused on her."
Priss turned, and found her gaze drawn immediately to the Anabasis. It hadn't moved, hadn't changed in any way. It was an inanimate object, and only reached up to her knees. Yet it had drawn her attention first. She suddenly realized everyone had been referring to the device as if it were a living being.
"It's not alive, you know," She glared at Sandy in particular.
Edgars gave her a queer look, "Yeah, we know. Were you having doubts?"
"You keep calling it 'she' and 'her' and 'baby'…"
Edgars shrugged, "Like ship captains call their boats? Like guys call their cars? So what?"
She turned and left.

For the first time in a month, Priscilla Locke came home to a normal, tidy house, her sister fully dressed and not drunk or entertaining strangers and gossiping behind her back. For once, she was actually cleaning, and had on her prosthetic teeth.
"Hey, Prissy… How're the hormones treating you?"
She couldn't hope for too much change in her all at once.
"You know that's not funny, nor an appropriate greeting at all."
Rhiannon shrugged, "Just making sure you remember who you are. Who you were. Everything. I'm talking to people, like you wanted."
"Therapy?" Priss was hopeful, though this wouldn't be the first time Rhie had decided that 'getting help' meant using other people's money to buy 'them' liquor.
"Group sessions. We talk. It helps," Rhiannon looked like she was telling the truth. She even kept eye contact longer than Priss, "I was just waiting for you to come back home. I'll be out late. You can look after yourself?"
Priss nodded, unslinging her bag onto the table, watching as Rhiannon went out the door without a snarky word or an odd smirk over her shoulder.

Before the Second World War, the building had been a Jewish Temple. That was until the "Hep Scare" when the flood of anti-Semitic migrants from northern states to South Florida just so happened to coincide with the elections that brought in a West-Civ majority in the state senate. Then it became a charity, with much of its former owners still holding the deed to the location. Then it was abandoned during the riots of 1970. Then it was briefly used as a detention center for protestors just ten years before. Then it was abandoned again.
The lights were on at night. Nobody stopped people from coming inside. It was a peaceful mix of junkies and their dealers, prostitutes and their eager clients, and even the infirm and homeless being tended to by people of some means. But everyone who touched their fingers — index and middle only — to the bridge of their nose always got a reply from the squatters who seemed to guard the stairwell heading down to the cellar. The scene down there was like a vision of hell.
In one corner was a teeming mass of nude bodies, different sizes and colors, the occasional figure prying itself from the mass, drenched in sweat and other fluids, sometimes followed by a fresh figure slipping in their place. Some more conventional couples stuck to themselves, not willing to share their experience, but vain enough to want an audience. Elsewhere, people drank, smoked, snorted, ingested all manner of hallucinogens and mind-altering drugs. Others read from books — the Qur'an, the Bhagavad Gita, the works of St. Thomas Aquinas, Thucydides, Xenophon, Confucius, Lao Tzu… Everything and anything that might've been considered "suspicious" to an ordinary citizen and loyal member of the West-Civ party.
At the far end of the room was a single couch, with a light directly above, and a microphone leaning to accommodate some speaker reclining comfortably on the couch. Rhiannon Locke wished she could say she went straight for the speaker's post the first time she came in here, but in the years since she'd first discovered this den of sweat and smoke and liquor and piss, she'd found herself many months at a time in each corner of the room, sampling everything she could.
Now, seated at the speaker's couch, she felt elevated like the deepest orgasm couldn't achieve, nor the sweetest liqueur or the most potent drug. This must be power, she thought.
"You're all my family now, do you realize that?" She warbled softly into the microphone. She could never tell if it was even connected; she never heard its reverb, or the tinny echo of her own voice bouncing off the far room. It was always hard to hear for her.
"A family looks out for its members. We fight and bleed as one. We yell and criticize each other, but the moment someone not in our family tries to step in, we shout as one 'STOP!'… Only we as a family can call one another out on our flaws.
"What brings us here, together, as family is exactly what disconnects us from the world around us. You and I, man of the times and gal in tow, we tried to fit in, to try to show the world that we belong here.
"And they said no. And more than just saying 'No', they did 'No'. Conditions were ripe for a brave new world — a revolution! For boys and girls to live free and equal, all types and all skin tones.
"But all we got were no's. 'No'. 'But wait,' some say, 'what about that time they tried to make a change? The time they said 'fuck it all' and let us all live together for a time? It was a lie. A lie, and all the more revolting for being so timely.
"They kept you in a cage, then asked 'why are you in a cage? get out of the cage' they said, while you were locked in a cage. You flailed and flustered and begged for help, and they said 'Look here, now, at this little whelp; unfit to be our equal, just as I said' then they opened the cage and made you bow your head.
"I know this is history for you all. Ancient, old, in the past. The struggle is now, the change to come will be ours and it will not start from a cage with a lock on the door. I tell you this now because there's war eruptin' far from our shore. The Great Qing Empire has re-invaded southeast Asia. 'The fuck does this have to do with us?' some of you ask. Well, if I must explain…
"People from there are coming over here, living in fear of their end drawing near. And the first to leave any conflict area are always the men of the times and their wives of means. 'Means' means 'white', or in this context, 'white enough'.
"Wasn't too long ago we called them 'Chinaman', no matter if they were from Malaysia, Indonesia, Dai Viet, or Nippon. 'Ching Chong Chinaman', we cackled at them. 'Ching Chong Chinaman'. Now we throw open our doors and beg them to come to us. But only the white ones! That won't stop the others from taggin' along, though.
"So our pretty white country favors the light-skinned, and they take them along into their refugee centers and immigration services. You ever been to the local immigrant station down yonder Southwest 17th street? Some people pitch tents on the lawns, that's how long and tedious that process is. What do you think will happen when white, upright Asian refugees start cloggin' up the services far out west? They'll start moving the brown, low-down Hispanics from Bumfucktown, Guatemala further and further east.
"And guess what; this is Miami. We're the end of the line. Everything rolls downhill, and they'll keep shovelin' what they consider to be their 'shit' until it piles up on us. Lovely people, Central Americans. Where will they keep them all, the local government?"
Rhiannon looked around. The orgy seemed unaffected, but everyone else showed at least passing interest in what she was saying. The readers and lecturers had stopped and were listening. More than enough people were quietly hanging on to her every word.
"Remember where we all started off: locked in a cage."

It'd begun before she'd first learned about it. Rhiannon knew this. She didn't want people to have to wait to see it unfold; she wanted her words to strike like a revelation, and the next day everyone would look up and suddenly see what was happening right outside their front doors.
The INS office on SW 17th street was nestled right in the middle of a sprawl of residential housing, upper-middle class and lower-middle class largely mingled together, just a few miles from the luxurious Coral Gables neighborhoods. Buildings around the office had long since been demolished and remained vacant lots. No one saw refugees squatting on their front lawns. But they had to look if they ventured past their blocks.
A few dozen people from Southeast Asia were now being brought in by local government convoys. The line already waiting was told to move back, and let the Asians in first. At least 50 or 60 newcomers from Dai Viet and Laos were being put ahead of them. Most of them were well-dressed, if frightened and tired, carrying bags with them.
Rhiannon wasn't naïve enough to believe racism was a one-way road. Some of the refugees already in line saw these newcomers as intruders, given undeserved special privileges and recognized the injustice of this. Most simply saw "Chinamen" and got angry.
Rhiannon sat in the vacant lot, nestled on a branch of an overgrown low-hanging tree, able to take in the entire sight. A select few of the Hispanic refugees refused to move. Police started to approach them. The refugees held their hands up, and started moving around. Not away, but just… around. Some moving in circles, just to prevent the police from taking them by the shoulder and forcibly moving them along. They would have to use force on them. The police just weren't ready for this.
It was earlier than usual for the INS station to open. Rhiannon knew this. That's why she had told the group at the Temple to spread it around town that the station would be open this early. It was just about 6:45 AM. More refugees began to move in to stand in line, and saw the absurd sight of men and women with their arms up, screaming protests as they ran in circles, the cops grabbing some and looking hesitant to tackle the others. This was the sort of scene they'd seen in Texas, Arizona, California. Not all the way down in Miami, Florida.
7:20 AM, the protestors got tired, and simply moved out to stand in the street. Someone had brought signs, mostly scribbled in Spanish, the message not quite clear overall; some read 'Chinese go home', others read 'Cubans were here first!', an assortment of others protesting the favoritism of light-skinned Asian refugees over the darker-skinned South and Central Americans. Rhiannon grinned as she recognized at least two of the signs in her handwriting.
Less than thirty people were gathered in the streets. By 8:15, it had grown to sixty, mostly in the form of bystanders, nearby residents watching, and the very beginning of local news media on the scene. Traffic was starting to thicken as people drove to work. The protestors were starting to hold up traffic. Shouting matches began between residents and protestors. Cars that stopped too long got dirty hands pounding on the fronts, as if their message were clear enough through the rage-fueled din of angry men and women shouting and stomping around.
That got police moving, as they started grabbing and rough-handling people. Screams and shouts intensified. A car screeched to a halt, hitting a protestor with enough force to knock them onto their knees, screaming. He got right back up to his feet, not so much as a limp as officers pulled him away from the car. The man in the car rolled down his window, started yelling. In rage? Confusion? Panic? She wasn't sure if anyone close by could tell. It was just noise; more noise in the dissonant orchestra of rebellion. The confusion was too much. An officer drew his gun. Amongst the din, Rhiannon heard, "Put your hands up, get out of the car!" Another officer repeated it, then another.
She had no idea who the man was. He was bald, had a goatee, was wearing a tanktop. Could've been Cuban, could've been Honduran, could've been a white boy from Orlando. Whatever got into him, he shouted, loud enough for Rhiannon to hear, "Fuck you, pig!" and hit the gas.
Gunshots ran out, and the car jerked to a halt after moving backwards several feet. People screamed in terror and started to disperse. The car's windows became clouded with cracks and blood. The man had panicked, and hit the gas in reverse, but there was no way the cops could've known he wasn't intending on blowing through them. Now the cops were panicking. Rhiannon knew it was horrifying, tears welled in her eyes, and her guts churned in revulsion. It was a tragic event. An accident, even. Then she laughed, feeling elevated like the deepest orgasm couldn't achieve, nor the sweetest liqueur or the most potent drug.

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Anabasis Hub


The biologists observed as the former canine spewed its guts from its new thoracic orifice. It used them like a clam's foot to drag itself across the linoleum floor. Nathaniel's expression was one of intrigued confusion and mango.
He wiped the yogurt off of his upper lip.
"So…" one biologist began, considering his limited ability to believe what he was seeing. "You found this in your backyard?"
"Mmn," one of his peers intoned, shaking his head. "I mean, it backs up onto Lake Tarpon. If that's… goddamn, look at it." The attention all turned back into the clear window of the dissection theater. The group had cleared it of equipment for the observation. Its stomach, and partial degrees of its intestinal mass, flopped out again. With it, the organism dragged the mass of the former canine towards the wall opposite. "Is it… what, some sort of bastardized clam?"
Nathaniel hummed and nodded, rapping his knuckles on the observation window. "I guess. What in the fuck, though?" He dragged his fingers through his oiled, brown hair, pacing along the length of the hall. "Do you even have a dog?" he asked, glancing at the one who had brought it in. The peer nodded towards the dog, claiming it as his, leaving Nathan to groan in dismay. "What do we make of this? Your dog is a goddamn clam, using its digestive system as a fucking foot." Papers shuffled as he grabbed at the packet again from the side-table that had been taken from the theater. He flipped through the week's report from the environmentalists. For the fifth time now, he found nothing of note, especially not of this caliber. The papers scattered back onto the table.
"So, what? Do we call Bay News 9 or some shit?"
Nathan held up a hand. "No, no. We don't even know what this is. For all we know, there's a gas leak, and we're all high off our asses." The man was struggling to make sense of the situation, resorting to even the least likely of cases. Even if it were a gas leak, the chances of them all hallucinating the same thing were astronomically low. "We figure out what it is, I guess. We document it. We put it out to the other counties, see what they make of it."
Nathaniel made his way back to his workspace, plopping into his chair with the concerted notion of sending the pictures to the next county over. He first glanced over the morning news — new educational budgeting, another stolen car. His hands fidgeted with a Cavalier pen while he scanned the material. Still, there was nothing that would suggest something like this. As he dragged the pictures over into the attachments, his spare hand was on the telephone. Ever since they had implemented daily cross-county summations, he had their number on the brain. The chair beneath him creaked as he leaned back, palm across his forehead.
"Yes, you've reached the Hillsborough County branch of White-Semingway Environmental. How may I—"
"Extension 2190."
The receptionist paused to dial the number, but not before speaking a brusque 'thank you, sir'. Nathaniel waited for the dial tone to end, his eyes glancing towards the monitor of his computer. It cut off abruptly. "Hey, Joseph, have you gotten any, erm, I dunno. Any strange reports today?"
There was no response from the other end of the line. He clucked his tongue and waited, hoping half-heartedly that he would just wake up. Waiting a while longer, he reached for the telephone, before a few mechanical clacks rang from the other end.
"Doctor Atkinson?"
Nathaniel hesitated. His chair creaked again as he sat up, leaning over his desk again. He now noticed that the email he had been trying to send had gone from view.
"Yes? Who is this?"
"We have information that you may currently have a biological anomaly in your possession."
A breath left his lips, slightly ajar, his thoughts rushing in anticipation. "Yes, yes. The dog? What of it?"
"You have sufficient knowledge of the local area, yes? Worked in this area for six years, transferred from a Minnesotan research coalition?"
"I… I guess. Wait, how do you know this? What's going on?"
"We'll explain when we arrive. Please do not leave the building."
Nathan blinked a few times, considering the words carefully as a low tone played over the receiver. The line had disconnected abruptly after the other end had finished. His first instinct was to look for the others and try and speak about what had just gone down, but they were still engrossed with the window. Instead, he focused on the computer screen, searching through his 'Drafts' box for the email he had started. There was nothing.
He clicked his tongue and began another, browsing for the pictures. He searched his folders. And then searched them again. And a third time. On the fourth, he turned fully, grabbing for the camera hooked up to the computer. The buttons all flashed colors as it woke up, displaying the previews still of the anomaly. It was no longer reading a connection to the computer, though, which warranted his looking back up at the screen. It was black now.
He threw his eyes back, and became very aware of the hushed silence that had fallen over the office. The chair creaked and groaned as he stood and pushed it to the side, looking out a large window near his desk. It gave a full view of the parking lot (despite his requests to move to a better desk with a better view). There was a van parked out front that hadn't been there before, with words printed on the side. He couldn't read them from the angle he was at, but there had been no announcements for maintenance today.
A bell came from his desk, and Nathaniel jumped to it. He grabbed his phone up and flipped through the notification, reading quickly and only finding a garbled text message from one of the other biologists. When his eyes were up again, looking down the hall, they had been replaced by four men, each in a full suit. They were clearly not local — or at least, they were dressed far too formally for the occasion, accounting for the thin veneer of sweat across their brows.
"You've got something on your coat."
Nathan glanced down. Mango. "P-pardon me," he fumbled, tossing the coat onto his desk, covering the papers. "Who was it that you said you were?" he asked, approaching the new group cautiously.
"I didn't. I'm Doctor Hart. And I need your help."
"What did you do to my co-workers?"
Three of the men dispersed, coming back from where they came only briefly, returning with papers and a few duffel bags. "They were sent home sick for the day. Don't worry. They'll only remember that they got the day off, and that there was a cleaning crew coming through."
Nathan gestured towards the dissection theater. "And the… thing?"
"They'll only recall a vague notion of a strange morning."
The biologist nodded and sat on the edge of his desk, crossing his arms abreast. "Then, what? Why do you need my help? Some of them are far more qual-"
The man held up a hand and came forward, the others setting their things on another desk and clearing it of other objects. "Leave out the extraneous. Let's get to business, or pretty soon, we're going to have a fully blown environmental breakdown here."

Green Thumb Hub | Banana Smoothie »


Jakeob Aldon glared at Felix Cori, and Felix smugged at her. Smugged is now a word, it is the past-tense of smug, which is also now a verb. It means "to be in a state of deserving a punch in your stupid, smug face." But Aldon did not give into the temptation, because she knew that Felix was her ticket to a new body.
"Yeah, I think I figured it out," she said without a hint of venom.
"Jeez, no need to be so hostile," he said for no real reason.
A growling sigh escaped Aldon and dragged itself out into a long groan. She massaged her temples and surveyed the massive disc awaiting its future payload. It was just a statue, she told herself. This didn't have to be a big deal. In, make thing, out. Boy, thing, girl. Easy peasy.
"Explain to me… exactly what it is you want me to do," she said to Felix.
"We need you to make a statue of a person, that's it," he assured. The smug levels decreased, and for a moment Aldon could see the impressionable idiot she had befriended years ago. "Nothing anart about it, the entire point is that everything in here is not anomalous."
Aldon looked at the windows.
"Okay, most of the things. Some of them." Felix pondered for a moment before shaking his head. "Anyway, we're not asking you to make an actual deity or anything. Just a dude, like… I dunno, eight feet tall?"
"And it's not magic," she said.
"Not magic."
She eyed him warily. "And it won't hurt anyone?"
He smiled and shook his head, unabashed by her gaze. "Nope!"
Aldon stole a glance at Cassandra Paulson, who was busy being a bitch to the other anartists in the "church." Aldon watched the other artists hauling and painting and sweating and panting, and she had to wonder what the hell the point of it all was. These things usually had a point, AWCY? rarely made things just to make them. Because just making things for the sake of making things is cool, and aussies are anything but cool.
"Fine." She whipped her gaze back to Felix. "Where's the clay?"
Felix's shoulders sagged with relief, but Aldon caught a twitch of The Critic's smirk. She watched a man and his ego do battle for a moment before she leaned forward and flicked his nose.
"Felix. Focus. Clay. Where?"
He clutched at his stinging face. "Right, right. Sorry. Come on, I'll show you. We've kept it stored in this side room over here."
He guided her through the rows of pews, offering hellos and dispensing orders to the anartists as he went. The more Aldon bored her gaze into his back the less he acted the mighty leader, and by the time he pushed open a heavy door at the edge of the room he was silent.
Before them sat a miniature mountain of gray-brown clay. Aldon scooped a handful of the stuff and played with it in her hands. It was difficult to pull apart and she could see in several places the mountain was beginning to harden and crack.
"There a problem?" Felix asked, now edging into nervousness. Aldon would have laughed at how easy it was to break The Critic's faux confidence, if she wasn't so frustrated.
"Yes. You idiots literally just left it stored out in the open. It can probably still be salvaged, but I'm gonna need a bucket of water."
"I'll get right on it," he said, preemptively breathless from all the running he was about to do.
Aldon watched him dash out of the room with a sadistically satisfied smile. She traipsed after him, and found herself taking way too much enjoyment from watching The Critic actually doing something himself. Soon he came lumbering back into the main room with a bucket in both hands, water occasionally sloshing out as he went. Sweat dripped from his brow by the time he arrived back at the clay mountain.
A ferret looked up at her from inside the bucket.
The surprise kind of ruined her whole venomous persona. "Why is there a ferret?"
"It came out of the faucet."
Aldon took the bucket from him and stared at the animal within. "The ferret… came out of the faucet?"
"Yes. I dunno if it's a ferret, exactly, but it… watch. Ooga booga!"
As he screamed and waved his arms around, the ferret twitched and melted into a thin brown sludge inside the bucket. After a few seconds passed it slowly gathered itself and protruded from the bucket again. It hissed at Felix.
"Okay," Aldon said. "That… happened. Uh. Thanks for the water, Felix."
"Mhmm." He backed away from the hissing creature. "Good luck on the statue."
She set the bucket down by the clay, then glanced over her shoulder at the retreating Felix. "Does it have to be a dude?"
"I guess not?" he said between pants. "It's just what I pictured, initially."
"Eh, alright, why not." She had gotten enough enjoyment out of his effort, might as well indulge him. "Do I have a deadline?"
Felix leaned against the door frame. "Soon?"
Aldon laughed. "I can work with that."
Progress was slow, and at first just a tad agonizing. She knew that she had to get this done, not just for herself, but for the people waiting for it. It was not a particularly large audience, but it was larger than what she'd get in her living room. Even if she didn't know most of them, even if she didn't like a few of them, they were her audience.
It helped that the audience happened to be a magic-wielding group of artists promising to give her a new body to play with.
So she threw together globs of half-dried clay and splashed some water on it before slamming down some more. Digging deeper into the mountain yielded softer clay, so she burned a good hour excavating for better material. Once that was finished she went about molding together the clay to form some semblance of a person, pinching and smoothing the clumps into a single whole.
It was ugly, but it was a start. From atop his mountainhome of Dryclay, Everett McWaterFerret watched Aldon slave away at making the sculpture look less like ass. Except for the ass, which was made significantly more ass-like. Clothes were not included, as gods did not cater to human concepts like clothing, warmth, or basic modesty. Not that this particular god had much to be modest about, since Aldon did not particularly savor the idea of sculpting a giant dong.
Seconds dripped into minutes which poured into hours which flooded Aldon's mind with a torrent of anxiety. Was this really it? One statue and then that was it? Quest completed? No regal knights or fair princesses, just an idiot Critic and his bitchy accomplice? Not a dragon in sight, just a big fire-breathing metaphor for self-loathing and cynicism.
It couldn't be this easy. They wouldn't like the statue. Yeah, that was it. With each accented muscle and every smoothed surface, Aldon came to the realization that she was absolutely awful at sculpting. When she stepped back she questioned the proportions, when she leaned in she hated the detailing.
Steam thoroughly vented, motivation completely drained, and confidence utterly dashed, Aldon sat atop the remains of the clay mountain. Hunger clawed at her stomach as doubt bit into her mind. The only thing to drag her from her melancholic haze was Everett gently nibbling on her finger. She looked down at the magical creature and groggily scratched behind his ear.
"You hungry too, eh?" Everett made whatever noise ferrets make. Or maybe the noise polecats make. Or some weird mix of the two.
Regardless of what the sound could be described as she took it as a "Yes," so Aldon collected him in her arms and marched over to the door. After jimmying it open with one hand she glanced around for someone to yell at, but found the place largely deserted. The walls had been completely painted, the mosaics had all been hung in place, and the pews were arranged as they should be.
"Uh… Hello?" she called into the empty pseudo-church. "Fuck, how long was I in there?"
From Nowhere stepped The Janitor, and with him The Critic. Felix called and waved and bounded over to her, a mix of excitement and worry in his voice and actions. He grinned and reached out to grab her shoulders but hesitated when Everett hissed at him.
"Allie! You still have that. Hmm. But holy shit, you've been in there for ages. You… you didn't finish, did you?"
"No, I still need to do the face. I just… dead in the water, y'know? Then I realized I was hungry, and figured I should probably fix that before I passed out or something."
"Before you go, I want to see what you have so far."
Aldon sighed and slowly trudged back toward the room with him. "It's really not that great. I dunno if I should keep working or just start over, but… it's kinda shit."
The Critic gave her the same knowing look he had already given her so many times earlier, but for some reason she didn't want to sock him for it. It actually made her feel a little better. He threw the door open and peered inside the room for a moment.
He laughed. "Allie, do you not like it?"
She shrugged and felt her stomach clench from something other than hunger. "Not really."
"I like it, no major problems. If anything, I might complain it's too short."
"What?" Aldon transferred Everett onto her shoulder and slipped into the room to act as a comparison. "No, look, it's too big. It's like nine, almost ten feet tall."
"Well, I like it," he said with a tone of finality. "I even like how the face isn't really all that defined."
"It's more just because I didn't finish than some intentional… thing," she admitted.
"I think you should keep it like that. I think it's great as-is, honestly."
The pit in her stomach slowly ebbed away, making the emptiness within all the more apparent. A long gurgling sound leaked from somewhere in her abdomen and she chuckled nervously.
"Well, cool. I, uh. I guess I can go, then?"
Felix nodded. "I'll get back to you when I can about your new body. Shouldn't take too long. Janitor, mind giving her a ride?"
The being nodded and Aldon waved Felix off before stuffing Everett into her shirt. She closed her eyes and waited for the Way to open, and as she stepped forward she felt like she had really accomplished something.
Maybe it really would be this easy.

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< The Hyacinth Hymnal | DNM | Operation Cannery Row: Excerpts from the Foundation Regional Print Media Archive >
- | - | -

1. Visions Of Sugared Pastry Cooked Up In Clarified Butter
The smell of sweet tea steeping gave the whole house a syrupy, calming fragrance. Grandma's was always full of the kind of senses that stuck in your head for days, that you took back into the real world with you. The smell of the sweet tea and the sound of wind chimes kept Mackenzie from crying when she felt alone. None of the people at school knew about this. They were all so far away from this place in the Laurel Hill woods.
Here, she rolled dice of hewn stone to predict the weather. Here, she drank fresh-squeezed lemonade that sparked and popped with the flavor of electricity. Here, she tossed written prayers into the fire and read answers in the smoke and ash. They were all the same prayer, really. To leave the world of the mundane, the world of her parents and her grades and getting pushed over on the playground, to leave it behind. To live in this world, glimpsing the Everything Under Everything and taking over the little well-decorated downstairs shop. There, her Grandma — frail and old but with a fire in her eyes and a collection of hats to make any churchgoer jealous — entertained Governors, foreigners, executives, pouring tumblers of bourbon with single fat ice cubes. They were there for her collection, "the finest of magic objects in the whole South," she always said.
Some British men showed up more than once. Almost a dozen times over the summer, they came, holed up in the shop for hours of talks. Mackenzie spent those days alone, rolling her dice, thinking about the things to come.

"This contract is an agreement between Florence Crook, The Marshall, Carter & Dark Acquisitions, Imports and Exports Corporation - New York Branch (hereafter referred to as Marshall, Carter & Dark) and The Seven Society."

2. Don't Expect Them To Thank Or Forgive You
Why in the name of Hell am I here? was all Mackenzie could think to herself, leaned against the wall, punch in hand, as some horrible Beastie Boys song blared over the too-loud speakers. She made the critical error of not wearing waterproof mascara, but she wasn't expecting it to hurt so bad to look at Lisa, hair done up, makeup perfect, dancing raucously with the Clemson-bound senior quarterback.
She wasn't expecting to spend her senior prom thinking only of the past, but the memories wouldn't let her be, they hadn't since she went away. The first secret hand-holding under the table at lunch. The long afternoons Mackenzie spent helping Lisa fill her Lisa Frank notebook with spells, incantations, and sketches. The scandalous rush of kissing the cheer captain behind the risers on some starry Friday night after a Bulldogs game.
The good memories always came with company. Her sudden disappearance at winter break. The night Mackenzie drove the three miles to her house in the cold December night and threw pebbles at Lisa's window. The hope when she showed her face in the window, the feeling of it coming crashing back to earth when she whispered, shuddering. "My father. He knows. About everything. He read my notebook, Mac."
No more phone calls. No more kisses beneath the bleachers. No more interwoven spells and locked hands.
Just her. Walking out of the hall alone, after watching her first love kiss the prom king. Thank God for graduation.

"Under the terms of this agreement, after the death or retirement of Florence Crook, her grand-daughter Mackenzie-Lee Crook will assume responsibility for Acquisitions, Imports and Exports (as defined in §A¶12) for the Seven Society in Florida."

3. The Fellowship Of Hell
Mackenzie's roommate came back to the dorm, still groggy from her morning class. She stepped into the room and her sleepy eyes, for a moment, didn't perceive the difference. But she snapped into attention when she saw the bottom bunk was stripped bare. Mackenzie's half of the closet was cleared out, and her desk was bare but for a handwritten note. She picked it up. "Dropped out. Sorry."

Poem For My Grandmother On The Occasion Of Her Death by ML-C

It was two weeks before your ninety-forth Birthday and
You "slipped the surly bonds of earth and touched the face of God"
(As they say)

Peggy Noonan didn't know a lot of things, and one was that
you already had.

That in the hawthorn-breaks on your tiring-house The
Holy Ghost rushed in to
finish your work.

But even Godlike reason and capability
can't quite beat a Crook when there's
work to be done.

4. (Both Of Us Do)
After months of asking her to get a drink after every meeting of the Southern United States Extranormal Organization Cooperation Treaty Enactment Task Force (because you couldn't get more than three Foundation and U.S. government people in a room without a long acronym spontaneously appearing), Mackenzie was mostly doing it for the running gag at this point. So when the relatively cute Foundation press officer said "yes," it caused a nontrivial amount of surprise.
When she actually showed up at The Bull (and on time, even), it was an even bigger one. After three or four gin fizzes, though, nothing in the world was capable of surprising her, she figured. They walked out in the muggy Gainesville night, laughing and leaning on each other for support. When they got to Kate's door, she got a look in her eyes Mackenzie couldn't recognize.
"Listen, I," the anxious Kate, with the stammering and the wavering voice, was back, "this was tremendous, you're really special. I'm engaged." Mackenzie narrowed her eyes and almost wanted to laugh. I guess there was still a way to surprise her. Kate continued. "I mean…I was. Years ago. Anne. She thinks I'm dead. Fuck, I don't even know why I'm telling you this, it's not —"
Mackenzie put her pointer finger to Kate's lips and stared right in at her eyes. She gave the girl whose doorstep she was standing on a long kiss, feeling the warm hum of the alcohol, hearing the sound of crickets. She pulled away after ages.
"We've all lost people, Kate. You don't get into this game we're in without something being a bit fucked up with your story." Kate smirked, a bit sadly, at that. Mackenzie laughed. "So, am I coming in or not?"
5. I Double E, Con't
When she opened her eyes, everything was blurry. Trusses and towers of light, pure and white, surrounded them. They were the only things visible in the buzzing dark. Kate was feeling falling-down drunk, like her thoughts worked but her limbs weren't quite on the same page, moving slowly and then all at once. She stumbled and Mackenzie held her up for support.
"Where the hell are we?" Kate asked, slurring.
"The Everything Under Everything. Points of light. Come with me." She seemed totally unaffected by the disorienting surroundings. "There's stuff here you can't quite see yet. But you can see the exits. This is how my people get around."
Kate looked up, questioningly. "Marshall, Carter and Dark?" Mackenzie made a derisive noise with her breath. "No, not those morons. My people, of which you are one, now, if you'd like to be. When you're walking outside and there's a breeze that lasts just a second, rustling the leaves with surprising force, you know that thing?"
"Yeah."
"Someone's traveling via leyline, right through you. Here. Hold tight." Mackenzie felt Kate complying with her request as she pulled her into one of the pillars of light. Blinded for a second, they blinked their eyes and saw a full moon reflected on the waters of the Gulf. The two of them could see the glowing line of fireflies, floating out over the water into the horizon.
Kate collapsed into the sand, exhausted. Mackenzie sat down to hold her there. "Welcome to Horseshoe Beach. I used to go here all the time as a little girl. That leyline goes straight over the water to Panacea."
Kate's eyes flashed with recognition at the phrase. "There used to be a church here." Mackenzie nodded in recognition. "Yeah, there was. My people did some foul, evil things before figuring out the right way to go."
"Mac…Who are your people, exactly?" There was a hint of fear in Kate's voice.
"Do you love me, Kate?"
"Of course. Every day."
"Will you, no matter what?"
"Yes." Silence for a few seconds. "Who are your people?"
"The Order of the Hyacinth." The words floated in the air. Kate closed her eyes and leaned into Mackenzie's embrace, listening to her heart racing. They sat, no sound but the lapping of the waves, for a very long time.
6. Excerpt From The Enigma Variations Demo Tape

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7. We Are Cursed
Glass broke with another bullet, raining over the heads of the two women crouched below it. Mackenzie finished reciting her verse into the radio. "Thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God." If she was going to die, she was going to die broadcasting the word of the Lord, for Christ's sake.
Kate, bruise on her face and a tear in her suit-jacket sleeve, pistol almost empty, whispered frantically to her. "Hey, not that I don't appreciate the poetry of the fucking shortwave suicide note but you are all sorts of fucking magic. I am not going to die in Goddamn ass-fucking Dixie County. Find a fucking leyline and let's teleport out of here."
"I need a dried flower, an hour of time, and leylines aren't every—"
More gunshots. A scream. Who knows how many they had left. "I love you, Mac, and I need you to improvise. Quickly."
Mackenzie, eyes wide, searched around the shack they were holed up in. Her eyes settled back on her partner.
"And I love you, Kate, but you really can't pull off a pocketsquare." She yanked the stupid floral-patterned cloth out of Kate's jacket pocket. The spirits better be feeling generous today, Mackenzie thought, flicking open her lighter. The fabric caught flame, smoke making waves, finding nothing.
Kate looked on the verge of tears. "No line?"
"No." Mackenzie had never tried what she was about to try. But as the noise of assault rifles got closer, now was not the time for precedent. "But I'm improvising." She grabbed Kate's hand and looked at her. "Think very intently about somewhere very safe. Also, I'm very sorry for what I'm about to do."
She pressed Kate's hand right into the heart of the flame. She screamed. Everything went white.

They snapped back into reality with an ear-piercingly loud crack and fell in a heap on hardwood floor. They were inside a house. Snow was piled outside the window. They were far away from Florida. The two of them were covered in cuts, like they'd jumped through a window. Kate's hand looked horrible. But the look on her face was worse.
"Oh god. Oh god. Mackenzie, I didn't have time to think, I didn't mean to —"
Mackenzie didn't have to ask what she meant. Because a woman was descending the stairs, looking at Kate like she was seeing a ghost.
All the breath went out from Kate's body. "Anne."

- | - | -
< The Hyacinth Hymnal | DNM | Operation Cannery Row: Excerpts from the Foundation Regional Print Media Archive >


Expedition log ███
Item Class: Not Applicable (anomalous object)
Current Location: deciduous forest in ██████, ███████ (relocation discouraged)
Temporary Designation: AO-9131
Day 1 Notes: AO-9131 appears to be a variant of Platanus racemosa (Western sycamore). Leaves noted to change color every few days to reflect the pattern of the sky and foliage of surrounding trees. No further morphological anomalies are noted.

Isn't it beautiful? So quiet. Everything is quiet. Just listen. Pour yourself into the experience, give yourself freely into the landscape, you wish to capture just a fraction of an eyeblink's view, an infinitesimal slice of time carved out by your mind…
I painted this. Me. I remained for longer than intended, and I painted. I painted, and I remained. I became the sentinel on the coast; I now stand equal with the mighty trees that guard the forest.

Day 2 Notes: AO-9131 has been noted to produce faint noises, similar to human vocalizations. Analysis of preliminary recordings revealed no memetic properties. More sensitive recording equipment requested, currently en route to temporary expedition base.

Sometimes you want to do more than capture, more than preserve. You want to disappear entirely, want to become a part of what you behold.
You want to do more than see the grains of sand fall through your fingers. You want to be the sand, be the river that laps patiently at the muddy stone-bank, smoothing the harsh rocks to unblemished pebbles.

Day 3 Notes: Closer examination of AO-9131. Textures of the bark, leaves, and seed pods are irregular.

Bark has patterns consistent with linen cotton canvas
Seed pods, when split, shed bunches of short, dark-colored hair. Samples collected, DNA analysis of hair will be done upon return to Site labs.
Leaves possess oily sheen. After colors change (approx. once every 2 days), leaves are wet to touch. Paintlike substance rubs off. Samples collected. Chemical analysis using field kit underway.

I wanted to be forever in the place I was inspired—to never have to close my eyes to bring back the memories, to eternally be able to reach out and touch the landscape that so enraptured me.
Just as it was always a part of me, I am a part of what I love. Now it is everything that I am, now, at long last, I know the colors of the sky I could never mix just right with my humble paints.

Day 4 Notes: Recording equipment has arrived. Higher-quality recordings of tree “whispers” taken, content is indecipherable. Attempts at communication ruled out; vocalizations deemed low-priority area-based anomaly emanating from tree.

I never finished the painting I'd once believed to be my life's masterpiece. It doesn't matter anymore.
It is one thing to mix colors of light, another thing entirely to feel these colors on your upturned face, drink them in with every fiber of your being… I want everyone to see me, see what I've strived to emulate, see the fragment of infinity I've managed to hold onto and preserve for snatches of time. See me. See me, and the beauty that surrounds me. I think, I dream, I weep, I bleed, and the canopy fills with the silk swathes of sky.

Day 5 Notes: Color-changing leaves may be some form of camouflage or other defense mechanism. Based on close observation, tree seems susceptible to fungi and insects that prey upon non-anomalous variants. No anomalous predators encountered during duration of stay. Further investigation of color change pending; mechanism is believed to be secretion of dye-like substances from leaves at regular time intervals.

“Is it time to go already?” There is a crash from somewhere amidst metal supports, a muttered curse, and the sound of a tent collapsing.
“Mercer, we only requested five days for the observation period. We've got enough info to lay down prelim containment. There's already an abandoned ranger house nearby that will be remodeled for a live-in agent, and as of three a.m. today, the entire forest is owned by, well, a company we know.” Dr. Kiryu rolls up the top of a near-empty bag of dried fruits. “Besides, we're almost out of food.”
“There was an up-and-coming en plein air artist who disappeared up here, you know. According to newspaper clippings the lab techs pulled. All the locals ever found were a few canvases and tubes of paint. Guy was eventually called a lunatic and a litterbug. Do you think…” Researcher Mercer briefly looks over his shoulder as he wrestles with packing up the tent.
Kiryu sighs, and picks up a sample bag containing a few waxy, pastel-sheen colored leaves. He regards them almost fondly, almost regretfully, in the dim light of early morning.
“It's possible that this is something he left behind. But we never really know anything for sure except how to keep an eye on these things.”

Temporary Containment Procedures (Doctor M. Kiryu, Researcher R. Mercer)
Anomalous Item #████ Cache: N/A
Recovery Date: ██/██/████
Description of Effects: Nonthreatening morphological and auditory anomalies
Item is to remain in original location of discovery. A repurposed ranger cabin is to house two Foundation personnel, who will maintain security of the location. Land has been reallocated to Foundation assets; passersby are to be turned away under the premise of a forest-wide restoration process.
Additional Notes: Item is believed to be the work of an anomalous individual. Investigation of the identity of the anomaly's creator currently deemed unnecessary.

Memo: re:AO-9131
Should any civilians possess existing knowledge of the anomaly and make resulting inquiries, they are to be informed that the tree is an ongoing artistic monument, dedicated to honor the Plein Air artist ████ █████, a frequent visitor to the forest, believed deceased missing.


< Operation Cannery Row: Document 2013§451A3 | DNM | The Hyacinth Hymnal >
- | - | -

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.
As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.
- Song of Solomon 2:1-2

Mackenzie put out her cigarette, the warm July air sticking to her skin. The smell of fresh rain and honeysuckle filled the air. She liked doing this with a bit of a buzz. Made it easier to not overthink. Kate was hanging back, only halfway out the door to the balcony. Mackenzie could tell she was nervous.
“What do you Foundation people call it?” Mackenzie pulled the dried flower out of its cloth bag, one of the many supplies laid out on the wicker table.
“I-double-E. Intentional Extranormal Effort,” Kate said. She took a few tentative steps forward.
“You guys are adorable, you know that? It's just magic. It's been around longer than your group or mine, and it'll be around long after both of ‘em are gone.” She tossed the box of long matches, underhand, to Kate, who caught them with both hands. “Light one.”
Kate, hands shaking a bit, ran the matchhead futilely along the side of the box a couple of times. Mackenzie turned away. She closed one eye and spun the flower in her fingers in front of her face, aligning the stamens just right with the breeze, like her grandmother taught her. With her bright lipstick, natural hair close-cropped, and black boots, Mackenzie-Lee Crook was the opposite of the straight-laced Kate McTiriss, who even on her rare off days wore button-ups, blazers, and slacks in the Florida summer heat.
The first night she'd stayed over at Kate's apartment, Mackenzie was unable to stop herself from storming out of the bathroom to chastise Kate for keeping her meager makeup collection in there. The humidity ruins the eyeshadow, has nobody ever told you that? Six months since that night, they were the picture of the uneasy détente the Foundation and Marshall, Carter and Dark had achieved in the American South.
The two groups were figuring out how to coexist in a strange world. So were the two women standing in the humid air, facing the thick and tangled woods. The new Press Coordinator for the Foundation in North Florida handed the Tallahassee Governor's Club's top auctioneer of anomalous objects a spluttering match. Mackenzie gave Kate a slight smile and a small nod, trying to reassure her. They both took a moment to breathe. She brought the match to the dried bluebell, and it caught in an instant.
“So what are you doing now?” Kate bit one of the nails on her left hand, or what was left of a nail. All nerves, that girl.
Mackenzie held the flower stem as steady as possible as the smoke rose from it. “Finding the leyline.” Kate opened her mouth to ask what exactly that was, but was interrupted by the air above Mackenzie catching fire. From nothing, a narrow line of blazing flame, suspended in the air, sweet smoke pouring upwards into the night sky. Mackenzie jumped a bit with excitement. “Got it!” She turned to the table and put out the flower in the bowl of salted water. She made a quick sign of the cross and muttered a thankful prayer under her breath, and picked up her favorite knife, sliding out the blade. During all of this, Kate was staring up, awestruck, as the flames in the air settled into glowing lights, like a line of fireflies, shifting and pulsing.
Mackenzie studied the shifting lights. “I knew your place was special. Look at this, it's uninterrupted! Beautiful.”
“Yeah…” They both stared. Kate tore her gaze from the leyline and fixed her eyes on her partner. “What's with the knife?”
She smiled at the directness of the question. “There's magic — bits and pieces of cracked reality. The things you contain, the things we sell. Those are concentrated. But the magic is everywhere in this part of the world. It's like…blood. And these are the veins, running through everything. And you don't harness it by waving a wand and saying some words. You make a cut to get at blood.” Mackenzie raised the point of the blade to the string of floating lights and, with one decisive motion, sliced downward and dropped the blade. Kate heard a sound like deep wind chimes echoing in the back of her mind. Her heart raced as — stardust, that's the only way she could describe it, stardust poured from the wounded sky into Mackenzie's cupped hand, thick like honey.
The girl in the boots turned to the girl in the blazer, pure unreality shimmering in her hands. “Are you ready?” Mackenzie stepped up to her. “You can say no, it's okay.”
Kate's heart was beating so loud she could hear it. The wind chimes were louder, too. But she wanted to see what the other side — the Everything Under Everything – what it looked like. What Mackenzie saw in her nightly prayers outside. Kate, wide-eyed, nodded.
Mackenzie dipped two fingers into the pooled magic, letting the rest spill to the ground. She slid her fingers across her lips and they gleamed and crackled with power. They closed their eyes and leaned in.
They kissed under the Florida moonlight, and Kate felt the world catch flame around her.

- | - | -
< Operation Cannery Row: Document 2013§451A3 | DNM | The Hyacinth Hymnal >


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Anabasis Rot
Start here
Eat more of my SCPs. Eat them all.
Also please eat some of these

Anabasis Hub Probably the greatest story involving a pair of redheaded siblings whose infighting causes the end of the world
Manna Charitable Foundation 2000 The sequel to the above, collaborationed with Dr Reach
The Stuff Industry What happens when everyone around you at work is a complete idiot and so are you, but not only does no one get fired, but you actually turn a profit? I don't know, some stuff.
When MCF and Stuff happen A fun story of incompetence

"'How're the hormones treating you?'"
Priss nodded.
Sharpe gripped her fingers on her thigh, clearly more affected by it than Priscilla Locke was, "That's…. She does it in front of other people?"
Priss nodded. They both sat in the waiting room of a doctor's office, the room steadily clearing out minute by minute.
"That's a fucking cunt-move. No offense to you… but that's a fucking cunty fuck thing to do. In front of total strangers."
Priss shrugged, "It doesn't bother me as much as it seems to bother you."
"It should," Sharpe reached a hand out, as if to touch Priss's face. She awkwardly jerked it back, seeing no reaction from the other woman, "You should've taken a few more teeth from her."
"I can't. It's not just…"
"No, I get it. She protected you when you were kids, and now you think that makes you beholden to her for the rest of your life. She helped you once, but now she's on a downward spiral and she's intent on flinging as much of her own shit onto you as possible before she crashes."
Priss shook her head, averting her gaze from Sharpe, "It's… she's family…"
"Don't give me that crap… 'blood is thicker than water' horse shit. Psychopaths like your sister exploit that to their advantage. Just because they're related to you doesn't mean you should have to bear the burden of their assholery. What if you had an uncle who kept stealing your panties and sniffing them and selling them? What if you had a cousin who kept beating the fuck out of you and stealing your things? What if your father was a sexual predator who kept raping people and asking you to keep it secret — ?"
"Except she's not," Priss gnawed on her lower lip. She wasn't angry, but the reaction at least got Sharpe to stop, "And what is it with you with those crazy-ass examples? Everything's always 'uncle pedophile' with you."
"Aurianne Sharpe?" The voice of one of the attendants interrupted.
"She's not a psychopath out to hurt everyone around her. She's sick, and she needs help."
Sharpe rose up, straightening her jacket, before leaning over to meet Priss's gaze, "Then get her help. Professional help. Mental illness isn't a zero-sum game — half-assed help isn't better than no help."

Shi Mingxia couldn't focus with the lab assistant staring at her. She cast a sidelong glance at him. He was still staring. She finally gave up and turned to face him. That got his attention.
"Are we going to have problems here? Should I send for another lab assistant?"
He stared at her, eyes widening as he realized what she meant, "My apologies, Doctor. I do not mean to — I am not particularly fond of women."
She caught on, and sighed, "Can you stare someplace else, please? Shouldn't you be taking notes?"
He held out his notes to her, "This is what I have managed. We cannot conclude if it is man-made or not. If not —"
"I know what it means."
"Dr. Sienowicz was killed by this disease, wasn't he?" The assistant was on the edge of his seat, thinking himself on the brink of some new realization.
"Or he was killed by whomever was responsible for engineering this bacterium. You know, the more realistic possibility rather than assuming the bacterium is intentionally targeting some people but not others."
She glanced down at the counter. She had been wearing gloves when she handled the bacterium. Visualizing the old man in her position, shuffling papers and pretending to look busy whenever she was around, she couldn't remember if he had been wearing gloves…
She almost stopped herself, and had to actively fight the compulsion to give up and try something else. Very carefully, she slid the sample out from under the microscope, and adjusted it to give her hand some space to take its place. She held still, and peered in to the microscope. Why she had expected anything, she could only ascribe to her own general ignorance. Sienowicz was the true scientist; she was only an assistant.
There, nestled amongst the grooves of the latex, but unable to perforate the polymer fibers, was the bacteria. As if noticing her reaction — the subtle tension of her muscles, the sharp intake of breath — the bacteria stopped moving, like cockroaches caught out in the open when the lights came on. The mere fact that they were there, on a solid surface, outside of a moist environment…
"You," She flailed her free hand at the lab assistant behind her, hoping he was at least staring in her direction now, "Quarantine. Get on the phone, tell the manager to quarantine this lab."

"Where did it come from? 'We don't know'. How does it work? 'We don't know'. Is it trans-dimensional, trans-universal, both, or neither? 'We don't know'."
Dr. Jaime Marlowe felt like a failure. The more she filled out the report with those sorts of non-answers, the more she wondered how a Dr. Eddlestein, Dr. Bright, or a Dr. Eastwatch would have handled this sort of anomaly. How quickly would they have deciphered the incoherent number patterns on it, or begun to grasp the thermodynamics behind a thing like this, which left the room freezing the more it was used, while making those obnoxious clicking noises as it started to overheat. She couldn't even understand how they had figured out it was called "Anabasis".
She spun the paper about on the cold desk top, contemplating just how long it would take for her to run out of things to do, button combinations to press, and random trash to "warp" in from the fifth dimension. How long before they decided to give up and stick it in a box in a basement someplace, and assign her to something utterly pointless, realizing how much of a failure she was and how she couldn't be trusted with potentially game-changing anomalies like this one.
She jumped to her feet, gasping and heading out the door before she ended up having a panic attack. The place bustled with activity; Foundation personnel assigned to the site, looking busy. She hated how easy they made it look. So often, she had long stretches of time with essentially nothing to do. Meanwhile, everyone else always seemed to be busy at every moment, and she ended up re-reading the same files, re-typing reports, re-doing things, just to look busy.
Again, she felt her chest tighten and stomach churn violently. Panic attack. She rushed down to the cellar where it was being held. At the very least, the temperature in there would be cool, so she wouldn't start sweating so horribly.
"Nothing?" She asked the small group clustered around the Anabasis. It always alternated, and that annoying woman was always among them.
"Nothing," A male voice said.
"No, wait," Of course, that woman Priscilla Locke, "I think I've figured out the first two knobs."
"Have you, or have you not?"
"The numbers change with the last click. We've been testing it a bit, and we figured the first three clicks are for length, width, and height, setting up the dimensions of whatever is going to be brought in."
Marlowe glared at Locke. Her stupid freckled face and that stupid way she stared back without blinking. Was she retarded, or did she think it was cute? Marlowe looked to the others. They all seemed to be in agreement.
"It took you a month to figure this out?" She asked incredulously.
"To be fair, we were using the first three knobs all at once and thinking they were each for length, width, and height," The first man, a technician called Edgars, said, "We saw it wasn't actually working consistently each time, so we started going by trial and error until we figured out we only needed the first knob for shape."
Dr. Marlowe gripped at the side of her head, fingers curling in her hair and tugging until they were tense around her fingers, "So you've figured out how to adjust for size."
"Basically, yes."
"And it doesn't like… re-set any of the other settings?"
"No."
"Okay. Start testing with D-Class."
They all stared at her, and Locke butt in, "Excuse me, Dr. Marlowe, but —"
"Put in a fucking man-sized space, put in a man, send him out, then bring him back. Make sure he's got a hazmat suit and oxygen. Logical?"
She knew the looks on their faces. It wasn't anything to do with the device or the potential testing. It was the D-Class. Always with them. They couldn't handle the simple fact that the D-Class were there to be used. That they had to be clothed and fed and taken care of was incidental due to the fact that they had to be as human as possible when facing the unknown, so that no real loss would be suffered should something go wrong and they died. People had done it with animals for centuries. Suddenly they cared because it was humans being used instead of animals? Did they care enough about the D-Class to clothe them and feed them and shelter them from their own pockets? To have one sleep in their home? Date their sisters or daughters?
"Get it done," She gave Locke a last smoldering glare, then turned to leave, feeling much better now.

Shi Mingxia didn't mind being naked around others. It was entirely fine for her; it was just unpleasant when those others were dressed in big white hazmat suits, and had her in the center of a room wrapped in plastic. She smirked at them as they looked her way again, and gave a little wave. They turned, heading back outside.
"Can I at least get a bathrobe?"
They didn't listen. She sighed, and lowered herself onto the plastic, sitting down and getting to work thinking. She hadn't had anywhere near the level of experience with the bacterium as Dr. Sienowicz had, so she could only guess as to the mode of its transmission. Thus far, it had demonstrated itself to be waterborne, highly resistant to extreme temperature, and now potentially able to survive on dry surfaces, given what had happened to her.
Best-case explanation she could think of… it was a weapon. A nanobot posing as a bacterium, perhaps, changing based on commands being received from a hacker somewhere. Despite the fact that it was very clearly not a nanobot, and very clearly biological.
That left the lab attendant's goofy-ass theory, that the bacterium was somehow sentient, and forcibly mutating based on what it overheard… despite the utter impossibility of something that small being able to discern human speech. But she wasn't an expert in any of this… she was little more than a glorified intern. And now she was squatting in a quarantined room, completely naked, and probably about to die at any moment.
The door slowly started to open. She glanced up, and could see an unprotected face through the plastic, looking around quizzically. It was that lab attendant… She couldn't remember his name. Xi-something…
He noticed her, eyes widened, then he opened the door into her little sealed chamber. She bolted to her feet, rushing to try to stop him. It was too late; he stepped out, nearly bumping against her.
"What is wrong with you? How did you get out of quarantine?"
"They're dead," His eyes briefly traced down her bare body, only seeming to put him more on edge, "All the scientists. All the officials."
She glanced over his shoulder, noting someone in a hazmat suit approaching the doorway. She turned him around, just in time to see that person fall over, face-planting on the threshold, and starting to curl like a worm on fire. Xi the attendant started to whimper and sob. She gingerly reached out, turning the squirming body over.
The man's eyes were drenched in blood, his mouth working open and shut, with nothing but reddish-black and dark green pooling in his mouth. The sight alone made her gag. He'd been sweating profusely and coughing up blood.
"He's dead," She murmured.
"But wait, he's moving. The others —"
"He's dead," She reiterated. She drew up, and peered out of the containment room. Other bodies lay around. Some were squirming.
"It's zombies. Zombie apocalypse. Heaven help us, zombies!" The boy was getting hysterical.
She smacked him to get him to stop, "It's not zombies, you twit! Go find my clothes. We need to contact someone. And do not go squawking about zombies to people."

All it took was once; "Steve Chin" he'd introduced himself as, forgetting that it was family name first, then given name. They all laughed at his embarrassed reaction. Now he was "Steve Chin", or "Chin Steve the American".
"Ey, Corporal Steve," One of the men beside him nudged, noticing how profusely Chin was sweating, "how're you enjoying the weather?"
The convoy had crossed into Indo-China an hour earlier, part of the Emperor's surge in forces to put down the Communist elements in Dai Viet and further pacify the region. The eight-year plan to annex Indo-China was five years behind schedule, so the Emperor's patience was understandable strained.
"This blows," Chin grunted in response, "Why don't we burn out the jungles so we can force the fuckers out in the open?"
"This is the Emperor's land. You wouldn't dare slash and burn what's properly his."
"The damn I wouldn't. The Emperor has plenty of trees all over China. What's a few more square kilometers to him? I say burn it all, rebuild later."
Despite the heat, Chin sneezed, and found himself starting to shiver. He glanced up, and noticed all the others around him were sweating profusely too. Not a big deal, he figured; it was rather humid today. He wiped his face on his sleeve, and got odd looks from the others. Looking down, he realized he'd sneezed up a big wad of bloody mucous.
"Must have caught something."
The man beside him nudged him again, "Just a little blood, Corporal Steve. At least you didn't get to see the crime scene I left in the toilet back at base."

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