by qntm

Item #: SCP-3125
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-3125 is kept inside Cognitohazard Containment Unit 3125 on the first floor of Site 41. This containment unit is a 10m by 15m by 3m cuboidal room clad in layers of lead, soundproofing and telepathic shielding. Access is through an airlock system at one end of the containment unit. This airlock is programmed to allow only one person to enter the containment unit at a time, and to remain locked until this person exits before allowing another person to enter.
Under no circumstances may any coherent information be allowed to leave the containment unit. This includes written and electronic notes, photographs, audio and video recordings, sound, electromagnetic and particle-based signals and psi emanations. During the exit cycle, a purge system rigged to the airlock flushes the occupant's memory by flooding the airlock with amnestic gas for three minutes.
A senior Antimemetics Division staff member must visit SCP-3125 every six weeks (42 days).
END OF FILE

"You're kidding me. That's the whole entry?"
"That's the whole entry," Wheeler says.
It isn't even the fiftieth strangest thing Paul Kim has seen in the database, but still: "No description, no acquisition report, no test log, no addenda? No clue who built the unit, or when, or how many times it's been visited, or who carried out the previous visits, or what they took in with them, or how long they were in there?"
"Well, obviously Bart Hughes built the unit," Wheeler says, and this cannot be denied. The man's signature style of containment architecture is recognisable a mile out. Sleek, white, plainly impregnable without the aid of extremely heavy tools. "Which makes it at least seven years old. That's sixty visits or more. I guess there are good reasons for the rest of those omissions. Anyway… the timer watchdog says it's time again."
"I don't like the idea of you routinely exposing yourself to a cognitohazard so dangerous that we can't even write the reason why we can't write it down down," Kim says. "Especially because it's impossible for us to recover any usable information this way. You're going to go in, be incommunicado for two hours and come out a smiling amnesiac. What do we gain from that? It's just a breach risk."
Wheeler hears every word of this and elects to ignore it all. There's a vague shape of familiarity about the entry as written; there are a few word choices which reassure her, in an intangible way, that it was written by someone who knew what they were doing. Possibly her.
Kim's still talking. "We should just scrub that last line from the database entry. There can't be anything good in that room."
Wheeler puts her keycard in the slot. The airlock rewards her with green LEDs and begins to cycle open. It's built as a slender vertical cylinder with a single opening. The entire thing rotates on its axis. Inside, there's barely room for a single person to stand without their shoulders touching the walls.
"What are you taking?" Kim asks.
Wheeler ducks to step in, turns to face him and shrugs. "A stick of gum."
"I can get you field gear," Kim says, as the airlock begins to rotate again, emitting a low, quiet thrum solely as an audible warning that there is machinery in motion. "We'll raid inventory. Give me fifteen minutes and I'll turn you into a one-woman war."
If Wheeler says anything in response to this, it's cut off by the soundproofing as the airlock rotates.
Kim is left alone in the antechamber. He stares at the outer door for a worried moment. He presses his ear to the door for a while, but hears nothing. Not even a faint tremble from the airlock mechanism.

*

Inside it's pitch dark for a few seconds, then some unseen sensor detects Wheeler's presence and brings the fluorescents up. Half of them, anyway. The others remain inert or flicker aggravatingly.
The room's interior walls are made from milky white glass (bulletproof, knowing Hughes) and plastered with paperwork, taped and Blu-Tacked up in vaguely coherent masses. Where there is no paperwork, people have drawn directly on the walls in marker pen. There is a conference table, long and elliptical, covered with more paperwork and a tangle of laptop computers and serpentine power supply cables. Power has returned to the machines and they are slowly booting. A data projector warms up and shines a map of the world over the far wall, almost lining up with a network of scribbled annotations on the same wall. Post-It notes of all colours litter the carpet like autumn leaves.
Other than that, the room is empty.
Skimming the paperwork, Wheeler discovers that nearly all of it is handwritten and most of it charts the progress of conversations. Most of the entries are dated and signed, and most of the dates are weeks apart. The conversations are panicked and fearful back-and-forths about dozens of SCPs, some of them antimemetic in nature but none of them obviously related to one another. None of the notes mention SCP-3125.
The only name Wheeler recognises is her own, which appears on one in ten or twenty of the notes. The notes seem authentic and the handwriting is hers. But her notes also seem as desperate and uncertain in tone as everybody else's. This unnerves her.
There are diagrams on the walls too, which are too complex to decode at a glance, but complex enough to make her eyes hurt to look at them.
Still lost for a logical entry point to the data, Wheeler curses all of her predecessors. Asynchronous research — whereby the research topic is forgotten entirely between iterations, and rediscovered over and over — is a perfectly standard practice in the Antimemetics Division, and her people ought to be better trained than this. There should be an obvious single document to read first which makes sense of the rest. A primer—
"Marion, it's me."
Wheeler recognises the voice as her own. She moves around the table until she finds the laptop making the noise. There's a video playing, apparently recorded on the laptop's own camera in this room.
The Marion Wheeler in the video is seated, and looks unfamiliar in a way which takes the one watching a moment to put her finger on. Not exhausted, not sick, not physically injured; she's seen herself that way before, in the mirror. This woman's willpower is gone. She's beaten.
"You've guessed already that SCP-3125 is not in this room," she says. "In fact, this is the only room in the world where SCP-3125 is not present. It's called 'inverted containment'. SCP-3125 pervades all of reality except for volumes which have been specifically shielded from its influence. This is it. This is our only safe harbor. This room represents the length and breadth of the war.
"Every competent antimemetics research project finds SCP-3125's fingerprints sooner or later. It manifests all over the world, in thousands of different forms. Most of them aren't even anomalous. Some of them we already have catalogued separately in the main database. A very small number of them are even in containment. Impossibly virulent cults, broken arithmetic, invisible spiders as tall as skyscrapers, people born with extra organs which nobody can see. That's the raw data. Those manifestations are troublesome enough to deal with in their own right…"
The Wheeler in the video casts around, picks up a bright green felt-tip pen and a blank piece of paper. She begins drawing a shape which isn't visible from the camera's perspective, while still talking.
"But once you get a little further down the road you start to see a pattern emerging in the data. You need to have the training in memetic science, but once you have that training and you have the data in front of you, it only takes a little extra effort to arrange those data points in conceptual space and draw a contour through them. Those data points are points on SCP-3125's hull; those manifestations are the shadows it casts on our reality. You link four or five different SCPs together into a single shape, and you see it… And it sees you…"
She's still drawing. It's detailed. She doesn't look up, and her tone of voice is distant, almost as if she's narrating the tail end of a frightening children's story:
"When that happens, when you make 'eye contact', it kills you. It kills you and it kills anybody who thinks like you. Physical distance doesn't matter, it's about mental proximity. Anybody with the same ideas, anybody in the same head space. It kills your collaborators, your whole research team. It kills your parents; it kills your children. You become absent humans, human-shaped shells surrounding holes in reality. And when it's done, your project is a hole in the ground, and nobody knows what SCP-3125 is anymore. It is a black hole in antimemetic science, consuming unwary researchers and yielding no information, only detectable through indirect observation. A true description of what SCP-3125 is, or even an allusion to what it is, constitutes a containment breach and a lethal indirect cognitohazard.
"Do you see? It's a defense mechanism. This information-swallowing behaviour is just the outer layer, the poison coating. It protects the entity from discovery while it infests our reality.
"And as years pass, the manifestations will continue, growing denser and knitting together… until the whole world is drowning in them, and everybody will be screaming 'Why did nobody realise what was happening?' And nobody will answer, because everybody who realised was killed, by this system…
"Do you see it, Marion? See it now."
Wheeler is at the core of Foundation antimemetic science. She had all the raw data readily accessible. There are extensive written calculations on the walls, but she doesn't need to read them, she can do them in her head. All it took was that slightest push, that slightest suggestion. Staring through the laptop screen, eyes wide and defocused, she understands how it all links together. She sees SCP-3125.
She feels dwarfed by it. She's encountered terrible, powerful ideas before, at every level of memeticity, and subdued them or even recruited them, but what she's picturing now is on another order of magnitude from what she knew to be possible. Now that she knows it's there, she can feel it like cosmic radiation, boring holes in the world with its thousands of manifestations and freely laying waste to anybody who recognises the larger pattern. It's not of reality, not of humanity. It is from a higher, worse place, and it is descending.
The other Wheeler presents her finished diagram. She has drawn a mutated, fractally complex grasping hand with fivefold symmetry. It has no wrist or arm, just five long human fingers pointing in five directions. At its core, there's a pentagonal opening which could be a mouth.
But the diagram was already there. It's plastered across the wall in the background of the video, plain as day, a meticulous collage in green, easily two metres in diameter and showing the same meme complex to a hundred times the level of detail. There are smaller diagrams of different elevations arrayed around it like spores, and its arms are spread wide around the seated Wheeler, who sits directly in front of the mouth, with her back to it.
Wheeler, watching, does not realise this, and does not turn around.
"How do you fight an enemy without ever discovering it exists?" the Wheeler in the video asks. "How do you win without even realising you're at war? What do we do?
"Seven years ago there were more than four hundred antimemetics research groups worldwide. Government agencies, military branches, private corporations, university projects. Many of them were GOIs or subdivisions of GOIs. We were allied with most of them. We were at the spearhead of an Antimemetics Coalition which spanned the whole globe and thousands upon thousands of people. None of those groups still exist. The last one ceased to exist some time in the last seventy-two hours.
"Three years ago, Foundation Antimemetics was an organisation of more than four thousand people. Now it's ninety.
"There's no war. We've lost the war. It's over. This is the mopping-up operation. The only reason we still exist at all is because we have better amnestic biochemistry than anybody else in the world. Because that's all you can do when you see SCP-3125: run away and try to forget what you saw… seek oblivion in chemicals, or alcohol, or head trauma. And even that can't work every time. It's circling in. We meet it over and over again and we don't realise it. There's no way we can stop ourselves from rediscovering it! We're too damned smart!"
She points at something on the wall, out of view of the laptop's camera. Wheeler, watching, turns to look. In an upper corner of the room there is a constellation of dizzyingly complicated schematics. Bart Hughes's initials are on every page.
"There's a machine we could build. All it would take is eight years, a lab as big as West Virginia and all the money in the world. Nothing that the O5 Council would blink at if we went to them. But how do we build that machine without any of us realising what it's for? It would be like building and launching Apollo 11 without a single engineer deducing that the Moon existed. The logistics would be insane, but the secrecy would be well past impossible. Someone would start asking questions. And then it would be over. So what do we do?"
"Find another way," Wheeler says to the unhearing recording. The fatalistic tone of voice makes her angry. "What the hell's wrong with you?"
"…I could tell everybody to walk away. I could send a little message to myself saying 'There's danger down this road, you should disband the Antimemetics Division and pursue other projects.' But I'd be suspicious. I'd start asking questions. And then it would be over."
Wheeler's now crouched in front of the video, trying to understand what she's watching. "What's wrong, Marion? Are you okay?"
"I could kill myself in here," the recording says. "But my team would find SCP-3125 without me, and then they'd have to fight SCP-3125 without me. It's going to happen soon, whatever happens. In the next two months at most. This year, it will be over. I may die in here anyway. I'm on so many mnestic drugs that my endocrine system is shutting down. Taking amnestics at the same time is the chemical equivalent to trepanation. I don't remember the last time I slept without having a nightmare about Adam, and I'm starting to forget whether SCP-4987 is a real thing or just the number that I gave to my life—"
"You're not like this," Wheeler whispers. "You're stronger than this. What happened to you? Who's Adam?"
"I don't know how we survive this. I don't know how we win. We're the last ones in the world. After us, there's nobody."
Wheeler shakes her head, not believing it.
"So I'm done. I'm going to walk out of this door and forget who I am and then I'm going to be you, Marion, and you trwoll have to figure a way out of this, because I can't." She gets up and moves offscreen. She can be heard breathing deeply. Her speech is starting to distort. "God, my eyes hurt. I think ilr starting infth mlaei inside."
There's the sound of a door opening, and then a piercing pulse of sound and light which terminates the recording.

*

Wheeler stares at the dark screen for a long minute.
She's never seen herself so weak, and it damages her ego a great deal to see that it's possible. She feels disconnected from what she saw, like it happened in an alternate universe. She feels revulsed and appalled by that version of her, more so to know that that version is still inside her somewhere. It doesn't make sense. I'm looking at all of the same facts. What made her give up? What did she know that I don't?
Who was Adam?
The answer to this question is so obvious and sickening that she instinctively distrusts it. She circles around the answer, probing it, trying to find reasons to reject it, but it's inescapable. Adam was someone she knew when the video was recorded, now completely removed from her memory. Adam was someone the thought of whose safety paralysed her with fear. Someone in the same head space. Someone she couldn't bear to lose.
And then she lost.
But what if…
(But how'd the room get built in the first place? Anybody's guess. Wheeler imagines Hughes building it as a proof-of-concept, followed by a cascading series of lucky chances which led to it becoming the war room. Someone discovered SCP-3125 at random, while sealed in the room; they wrote notes to themselves which set up the skeletal external SCP database entry and the containment procedures; most of the paperwork and computer hardware was left behind by later visitors… It could have happened…)
But what if there's another room?
Unbidden, a cute factoid comes back to her right then. Site 41 is almost completely vacant. In particular, two hundred metres below Site 41 there's an empty heavy engineering lab, an underground complex the size of a hockey stadium. Self-contained, in pristine condition, totally disused. Sealed up, original purpose forgotten. Nobody has entered it in living memory. Built who-knows-how-many decades back by a dead generation of antimemeticists.
What if that's where we built our weapon?
Do I really believe I'm that smart? That my team and I had that much foresight? That we got that lucky?
She turns to look at the airlock, running the numbers in her head.
Antimemetics Division staff, other than me: thirty-eight. Forty-two days until the next iteration. That's past the end of the year. It'll be too late. If I leave this room now, I will never be back. The plan I have now is the best plan there's ever going to be.
We're the last ones in the world. After us, there's nobody.

*

Kim is so deeply buried in work at his terminal and the airlock is so quiet that he almost doesn't notice when it starts to cycle open again.
"We need to check you for notes," he begins, but then he sees that Marion Wheeler is curled up in the bottom of the narrow cylinder, panting as though she just finished a marathon run. Kim holds a hand out but she shakes her head, electing to stay lying down, knees bent up to her chest, sucking down lungfuls of air.
"What in the world happened in there?" Kim asks.
"Just need…" she gasps, "…to breathe. Be okay in a… second. Haaaaah. I think I blacked out for a moment, might have inhaled some. Haaaaah. I think I'm okay. I remember the plan."
Kim looks confused and worried for a second, then they replace him. "You shouldn't be able to remember anything… what did you do?"
"Hit my head," Wheeler says, then goes back to concentrating on breathing properly. She suddenly becomes acutely aware that Kim has her effectively cornered. Disliking this configuration for reasons which she's only gradually putting back together, she levers herself up to one shoulder and tries to stand. Kim puts a hand on her shoulder and pushes her back down.
"You look terrible," he says. "There's something inl fleth your neck. Do you see that?" He points at her throat, then taps the same spot on his own.
"What?"
"On your neck. I nefth hlai you've been infected by whatever was in there. We need to act quickly." He reaches for his keyring and unthreads a Swiss Army knife, and unfolds a short, gleaming blade. He does this in such a methodical, ordinary way that Wheeler almost forgets to react when he leans down towards her to cut her throat.
Almost. She grips his wrist. They're locked like that for a moment, a tableau. She looks into Paul Kim's eye, but it isn't his eye anymore. She squints, wondering if she's making eye contact with anything but a hole in space. She already feels the force bearing down on her own skull, trying to drill into it, but she knows its shape and that means she can hold out, maybe for a few minutes. She had hoped, prayed, that Kim would not succumb so quickly. And in a crazed little way she'd thought there would be at least a sign, a theatrical doubling-over as his mind was wrenched out of its socket.
Kim's wrist spasms as he tries to lunge with the knife. Wheeler parries and its tip glances off the airlock interior wall with a screech. They scuffle for an awkward second, then she boots Kim in the stomach with both feet, sending him sprawling in the antechamber. She launches out of the airlock, dives over him and sprints away from the containment unit.
She feels SCP-3125 following her as she runs, like a spotlight. She hears a crash in another part of the Site, as the first piece of ceiling caves in.

Concluded in Your Last First Day


> To: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: Movie?

Hi Santosh,
I haven't seen you in a while and was wondering what you're up to. Interested in seeing a movie on Friday?
Best,
Arvind

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> Subject: RE: Movie?

I'm busy that day.
Santosh

Excerpt from Bowe Commission Probablistic Risk Assessment of "Project Able"
Authored by Dr. Lara Aritza, Dr. Janet Byrnes, Dr. Kain Crow, Dr. Arvind Desai, Dr. Reginald Topher, Alpha-1 Alpha Romeo (Mobile Task Force Leader)
… Although SCP-076-2's violent, capricious, and sociopathic nature presents a severe risk to Omega-7 personnel, we consider it unlikely that Omega-7 will experience this kind of internal conflict, assuming that the Task Force completes at least one mission per week. Further safeguards are discussed in Section 7A…
…SCP-105, although still in adolescence, is clearly willing to work with the Foundation to contain anomalies. Its ability to influence events from long-range would strongly benefit applications such as espionage, reconnaissance, and direct conflict with anomalies…
…Given the current state of affairs, this probabilistic risk assessment has deemed the usage of anomalous objects within Mobile Task Force Omega-7 "Pandora's Box" to fall within acceptable operating parameters. Omega-7 is cleared to operate from a risk assessment standpoint…
…Postscript: Congratulations to all members of Pandora's Box. You are the first of a new breed of defenders. The world has changed a great deal since the inception of the Foundation. Where once we contained, now we must exploit. Anomalies are becoming more dangerous, more widespread, and more common. Once, we were static, reacting to threats. With the formation of Mobile Task Force Omega-7, we are proactive. Not only will the Foundation contain anomalies, but we will contain them before they can become anomalies. We wish the best of luck to all members of Pandora's Box.

CONTAINMENT FATALITY
On 5/27/██, all personnel at Containment Area-25 were killed when the nuclear warhead countermeasure was activated in order to contain a severe containment breach caused by SCP-076-2.
At the time, SCP-076-2 was a part of Mobile Task Force Omega-7, but had not been assigned to a mission in at least █ months. To help alleviate its increasingly destructive activities, SCP-076-2 was introduced to SCP-████ to see if its psychic capabilities could be used to calm SCP-076.
However, upon contact with SCP-076-2, SCP-████ caused the immediate disintegration of SCP-076-2's explosive collar, enabling it to rampage through the site, killing numerous personnel as well as releasing SCP-████ from containment. Proper containment measures could not be established as most of the surviving personnel had been recently transferred and were still unfamiliar with Area-25's evacuation protocols. Keter Containment Specialist Santosh Desai activated the nuclear warhead countermeasure before dying to SCP-████'s cognitohazardous effect. All personnel on site were killed, but SCP-076-2 and SCP-████ were contained successfully. Desai was awarded a posthumous Foundation Star for his act of bravery.
BEST PRACTICES:

Take it upon yourself to always be up-to-date on site and area safety protocols.

> To: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: Lunch?

Hi Santosh,
We haven't talked in a while and I was hoping to catch up. I hear you have a girl friend now? I'd love to hear all about it. Is she pretty? What's her name? I looked at your schedule; you're free from 1-3 PM on Thursday, so I was thinking we could have lunch then. You can pick the restaurant?
Love,
Arvind

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> Subject: RE: Lunch?

I'm busy that day.
Santosh

Armament Testing Range, Site-42
REGISTRY LOG
10:23:45 07/16/14: Entry: Weapon Technicians S. Feretti, R. Trellis
10:51:17 07/16/14: Entry: Emergency Services K. Appleton, M. Daniels, R. Dorian, L. Feehrer, F. Fiskerton, M. Manson, N. O'Flaherty, J. Spinelli, K. Venkatraman, F. al-Zahed
10:55:32 07/16/14: Entry: Site Director A. Desai
11:05:43 07/16/14: Exit: Emergency Services K. Appleton, M. Daniels, R. Dorian, L. Feehrer, F. Fiskerton, M. Manson, N. O'Flaherty, J. Spinelli, K. Venkatraman, F. al-Zahed ; Site Director A. Desai; Weapon Technicians A. Aardman, S. Feretti, J. Maxwell, N. Perkins, R. Trellis,

Level II Armory, Site-42
REGISTRY LOG
11:20:04 07/17/14: Entry: Site Director A. Desai
11:21:09 07/17/14: Exit: Site Director A. Desai

> To: Maria Jones (pcs.asiar|senojm#pcs.asiar|senojm)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: Site 42 Armory Authorization

Hi Maria,
As you may have heard, five weapons technicians were killed yesterday in an accident at Site-42's weapons testing lab. The cause of the accident was determined to be a malfunction in a MARK IV Gluon Separator, a prototype weapon that I had shelved almost a decade ago. It was sitting in the armory under Level 4 clearance until yesterday.
Two of the technicians involved, Rudolf Trellis and Shin Feretti, somehow received clearance to access the device. They were Level 2 technicians. I didn't authorize this and I haven't heard anything about reviving that project. Would you be kind enough to take a look at the records and tell me who authorized them?
Thank you,
Arvind Desai
Site Director, Site 42

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Maria Jones (pcs.asiar|senojm#pcs.asiar|senojm)
> Bcc: O5-7 (pcs.10|7o#pcs.10|7o), O5-10 (pcs.10|01o#pcs.10|01o)
> Subject: RE: Site 42 Armory Authorization

Hi Arvind,
There's no record of Rudolf Trellis or Shin Feretti being authorized to access the device. If you're positive that it was those two, I'll talk to the IT department, the Director of Task Forces, and get MTF Beta-1 to look into it. How does that sound?
Best,
Maria Jones
Director, RAISA

> To: Maria Jones (pcs.asiar|senojm#pcs.asiar|senojm)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: RE: RE: Site 42 Armory Authorization

Hi Maria,
I'm quite positive; the logs do not lie. I had to pull three prototype Scranton anchors out of storage to keep the lab and half of the continent from disintegrating into their component quarks. Please contact me as soon as you hear anything, or have Beta-1 contact me if they find anything. I greatly appreciate it.
Thank you,
Arvind Desai
Site Director, Site-42

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: O5-7 (pcs.10|7o#pcs.10|7o) FLAGGED TOP PRIORITY: MEMETIC ENCRYPTION UNSCRAMBLED
> Bcc: Maria Jones (pcs.asiar|senojm#pcs.asiar|senojm), O5-10 (pcs.10|01o#pcs.10|01o)
> Subject: RE: RE: RE: Site-42 Armory Authorization

Dr. Desai,
I would like to meet with you to discuss this issue. We will conduct a video conference tomorrow afternoon at 2:30 exactly. To connect to me, log onto Foundation VideoChat and join the server at address 125.34.0.51234372. Enter the password "555qU!pedaLiAn_ecL7Pse_@p0cAl!p+0_g3ner!c" exactly as shown.
-O5-7

> To: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: Visit?

Hi Santosh,
I haven't seen you in several months, and wanted to visit. You're going to be on vacation next week so I was thinking I could stop by then. I just want to spend some time with my son. I love you.
Love,
Arvind

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> Subject: RE: Visit?

Mum can visit.
Santosh

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Janet Byrnes (pcs.scihte|senrybj#pcs.scihte|senrybj)
> Subject: RE: Alpha-9 Whistleblower Protection

Dear Arvind,
Your request for whistleblower protection regarding Mobile Task Force Alpha-9 has been reviewed and denied on the grounds that there is nothing to blow the whistle on. All aspects of Alpha-9 were reviewed by the Ethics Committee already, otherwise it wouldn't exist at all.
I know you're thinking about Santosh's death. Please don't dwell on the past. It won't bring him back. I know this email doesn't touch on nearly as many things as it should, so I'd like to sit down with you sometime and talk about this entire issue. Talk like old times. How does lunch Thursday sound?
Best,
Janet Byrnes
Director, Ethics Committee

> To: gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu#gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu
> From: ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a#ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a
> Subject: Foundation Whistleblower Seeking Sanctuary

To the Global Occult Coalition Undersecretary,
I have stolen an anomalous item and am using it to ensure that this transmission will not be noticed. I have information that may be of use to the Global Occult Coalition regarding activities of the SCP Foundation and wish to claim whistleblower protection.
One week ago, two technicians were ordered to test a shelved prototype weapon in Foundation Site-42. The device promptly malfunctioned, exploded, killed the testers and three other innocent technicians, and may result in the disintegration of a 500,000 square-meter testing facility. I recently had a conversation with O5-7 (one of the leaders of the Foundation), who explained that she wished to use the weapon in Project Resurrection, which is an attempt to recreate a defunct Foundation special forces group that utilized anomalous SCP objects (see the attached document for more information).
Mobile Task Force Omega-7 resulted in the nuclear destruction of entire Sites, the release of numerous potentially world-ending anomalies, and caused reality itself to fundamentally change through the actions of just two or three different maniacs. Now the Foundation is trying to recreate this disastrous endeavor through Mobile Task Force Alpha-9. I have already tried to stop this from the inside but nobody will listen, forcing me to turn to the GOC. I will relay as much information to the GOC as I can regarding this project whenever possible.
- ARD

> To: ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a#ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a
> From: gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu#gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu
> Subject: RE: Foundation Whistleblower Seeking Sanctuary

Prove that you are not a double agent.

> To: gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu#gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu
> From: ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a#ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a
> Subject: RE: RE: Foundation Whistleblower Seeking Sanctuary

Attached is a file containing significant portions of the Foundation's documentation of the Global Occult Coalition.
It is up to you to decide if this is sufficient proof. At the very least, it will give you more information regarding your interactions with the Foundation.
As I acquire more information regarding Alpha-9, I will pass it on to you.
ARD

> To: ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a#ten.adwa2q|Ddad932a
> From: gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu#gro.nu.cog|tairatercesrednu
> Subject: RE: RE: RE: Foundation Whistleblower Seeking Sanctuary

You have been granted probationary undercover operative status under the codename Cuckoo. We await further information.

> To: Janet Byrnes (pcs.scihte|senrybj#pcs.scihte|senrybj)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: Thank You for Lunch

Dear Janet,
Thank you for lunch. It was terrific, but not as much as our discussion.
You are right. Santosh may be gone, but I can honor him by doing my best to uphold the Foundation's mission. He died to protect the world, and I will not let that sacrifice be in vain.
I have spent the day thinking about it, and I am rescinding my concerns about Mobile Task Force Alpha-9. At the very least, I can help guide it and keep us from repeating the mistakes of the past. I will be speaking with O5-7 about how I can help.
Again, I greatly appreciated our lunch. You were right about what you said; I just needed an outside perspective. The world truly has changed, but I've been too caught up to see it. I look forward to working on this with you. Mobile Task Force Alpha-9 may truly be our last hope.
Thank you,
Arvind

> To: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> From: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> Subject: RE: RE: Visit?

Santosh,
Why will you not let me see my own son?
Are you spiting your own father?
I love you.
Arvind

> To: Arvind Desai (pcs.24|iaseda#pcs.24|iaseda)
> From: Santosh Desai (pcs.52a|iaseds#pcs.52a|iaseds)
> Subject: RE: RE: RE: Visit?

Yes.
Santosh


Project Corbenic - Operation Galahad Briefing
So pass I hostel, hall, and grange;
By bridge and ford, by park and pale,
All-arm'd I ride, whate'er betide,
Until I find the holy Grail.
—Sir Galahad, Lord Alfred Tennyson

Foreword
Corbenic
Corbenic-Exclusive Objects
MTF Omega-16 mission transcripts
-SySTEMS COmPROMiSED-

By accessing this document, you have verified your clearance for Project Corbenic. If you are an unauthorized user, close this window immediately or memetic kill agent Assurbanipal-7 will be deployed.

Foreword

This is a message to all members of the newly-formed Mobile Task Force Omega-16, "Grail Knights".
First of all, congratulations. You weren't chosen at random - your hand-to-hand combat abilities, skills of judgment, and stamina are all exceptional, among other things. Corbenic is a very strange place in that you will have no Earthly weapons available, and all of your tools will either need to be found, invented, or present on your body. You were chosen for this mission because your bodies are some of the most capable bodies for exploration and combat available.
The problem remains, however, whether or not any living soldier is strong enough to navigate and map Corbenic. One of our scientists made her own path through the place - we'll get to her later - but it is crucial that the Foundation understand as much about Corbenic as possible. It is a very important realm to the Foundation and humanity at large, for reasons that unfortunately cannot be disclosed to you.
I am happy to note that none of you have read the documentation for SCP-2922. Hopefully, I will not have to stress the importance of not breaking into a document long since labeled for Level 5 clearance. I will tell you all you need to know - and for all intents and purposes what the Foundation does know - about the extradimensional realm known to us now as Corbenic.
The most important thing to remember about Corbenic is that it is the home of an enemy of the Foundation. We will capture her, end of discussion.
I'll be watching. Win or lose, we secure, we contain, and we protect.
- Dr. Isaiah Henderson, Project Corbenic Director

Primary Objective: Locate and capture SCP-PC-001, a traitor to the Foundation who is using SCP-PC-005 to actively work against Foundation operations and harbors knowledge crucial to the safety of humanity.
Secondary Objective: Explore and provide information about Corbenic and its contents.

New entries will be added as Operation Galahad progresses.
Area SCP-2922-C, Corbenic
Access
Access to Corbenic is done through the highly experimental Procedure 42-Humbaba, during which a human subject must be put into a medically-induced coma. Extraction involves awakening from this coma. Communication between MTF Omega-16 operatives in Corbenic and Project Corbenic personnel on Earth will be done through the one-way telepathic mind-to-phone implant known as SCP-2922.
Provisions
There are not yet any known sources of food and water in Corbenic, but a human subject in Corbenic will not experience hunger or thirst, and will possess levels of energy that render rest unnecessary. Injuries are also prone to regenerate.
Area Overview
Corbenic is an extradimensional realm of undefined volume. The human population of Corbenic believes that it is some form of afterlife. For all intents and purposes, it is an extradimensional area that can be temporarily accessed through 42-Humbaba. Whether or not it is a form of afterlife is not important.
Gravity, air, and temperature readings are all similar to that of Earth. The sky maintains a pea-green color. Weather is generally unchanging, temperature is usually breezy cold. There is no sun, but light is sustained over the area by three moons. There are no day or night cycles. Only two major areas of Corbenic have been determined to exist.
The Great Desert
The most currently well-understood area consists of a large expanse of sand. Once a human subject gains access to Corbenic, they will awaken in a random area of the Great Desert with no clothes or possessions. Other humanoids tend to generate inside the Great Desert, having expressed recent memories of dying.
The Valley of the Striders
On one edge of the Great Desert is a mountain range known as the Valley of the Striders. This area can be accessed by following the leftmost moon in the sky through the desert for as long as possible. The Valley is home to a particularly dangerous native species of primate - the Striders, its namesake. A nomadic society of humans also lives in the Valley, as does an entity known as the "Three-Faced Tree," SCP-PC-006.
Newly discovered areas:
Bogal Mountain
A mountain in the center of the Valley of the Striders, believed to be over 30 km in height. The peak of Bogal Mountain, which is above the cloud layer and has not yet been observed, is said to contain the castle of SCP-PC-007. Bogal Mountain is frequented by Striders, who are often found climbing the mountain.
The River Tock
River of greyish sludge that winds through the Valley of the Striders. Squadron 12 has been advised to follow the path of this river. Sludge is organic in composition. Agent S12-4 believes the river to be a gigantic amoeba of some form. Analysis ongoing.
The Marble Hall
Found by Squadron 12 following the path of the River Tock on the left-moon side. Large cubic structure of stone, several kilometers to each side, inhabited by thousands of humans in a hedonistic society of perpetual orgy. Narrow central stairway through the center is the only known entrance. This area is equally praised and feared by the local human settlements. Ruled by SCP-PC-008.
The Chitin Sea
Source of the River Tock. Found by following the Right Moon from the Great Desert or the Valley of the Striders. Immeasurably large biomass, with a top layer of thin chitin and deep layers underneath of unidentifiable organs and liquefied tissue. Passage across the top layer on foot is possible, though five personnel have been irretrievably lost in attempts when the layer cracked under pressure and subsequently regenerated. All agents are advised to avoid this area unless passage is crucial to the primary objective.
The Croaking Cave
Found by following the Coldbound Hare from the Great Desert. Subterranean cave of currently unknown length, interior covered in an average 3 inches of snow. Temperature is a constant 0 degrees Celsius. Named for the sound produced by SCP-PC-010. Inhabited by an estimated 100 SCP-PC-004, settled together in a single village tended by SCP-PC-011.
Greenleaf Woods
Located adjacent to the entrance of the Croaking Cave. Forested area, exact size unknown. Populated mostly by evergreens. Site of SCP-PC-012's residence before its elimination. SCP-PC-013 currently resides in its southern part.
The Black Temple
Beyond the Greenleaf Woods, a peculiar symmetrical structure can be found crafted from large, black rocks of undisclosed composition. Disfigured loud noises emanate from within this construction, yet a comprehensive documentation of its interior remains elusive. There have been no formal explorations conducted within the structure, however, nearby human settlements conjecture that it may serve as a hideout for SCP-PC-014. Instances of SCP-PC-014 have occasionally been observed emerging from this structure, prompting beliefs regarding its nature.

New entries will be added as Operation Galahad progresses.

Item #: SCP-PC-001
Threat Level: Hostile
Location: Unknown
Description: Human, female, African-American, 33 years old. Formerly a Foundation scientist known as Dr. Janet Spiegel. Implanted with SCP-2922. Was the first explorer of Corbenic. Betrayed the Foundation when we refused to meet special demands regarding her husband. Supplied false information, then broke off contact. Is obfuscating information regarding Corbenic crucial to the safety of Humanity. Husband is SCP-PC-002. Allied with SCP-PC-005 to hinder Foundation operations.

Item #: SCP-PC-002
Threat Level: Active
Location: Unknown; likely in a separate area from SCP-PC-001
Description: Human, male, Caucasian of Swiss descent, 37 years old. Formerly a civilian known as Herman Spiegel. Accessed Corbenic in an attempt to locate SCP-PC-001. Assisted by SCP-PC-005 through as of yet unknown means. Use as a hostage is advised to negotiate with SCP-PC-001.

Item #: SCP-PC-003, "Striders"
Threat Level: Hostile
Location: Valley of the Striders, occasionally Great Desert
Description: Bipedal primates of tremendous size - most recently encountered specimen during Project Galahad estimated to be at least 3 kilometers in height. Known to wander Corbenic without any apparent purpose. Peaceful when unprovoked. Often attacks humans, but "gently," as if to observe Corbenic's omnipresent healing factor. If provoked with weapons or counterattacks, Striders will not physically attack, but make vocalizations that can cause a variety of effects on humans, including:

Petrification of human flesh,
Teleportation to an unknown area, and
Negation of the healing factor.

As such, Striders are to be ignored if possible, and Strider attacks are to be dealt with passively. They will occasionally collect human subjects from the mountain to feed SCP-PC-007.

Item #: SCP-PC-004
Threat Level: Minimal
Location: All
Description: SCP-PC-004 is a blanket entry for all other humans in Corbenic. Information may be gathered if the subject is not hostile. No anomalous qualities save for regenerative factor for all things in Corbenic.
Many instances of SCP-PC-004 taken up permanent residency in the Valley of the Striders in villages and other settlements. Known sources of clothes and building materials include strider hair, stone, mud, and grass.

Item #: SCP-PC-005, "The Impenetrable"
Threat Level: Dangerous
Location: Unknown; likely with SCP-PC-001
Description: Hostile reality-bending entity working alongside SCP-PC-001 and assisting SCP-PC-002. Entity resembles a massive spider - shapeshifting elements unknown. Seventh godlike being of a council of eight. Little is known about this entity, but it had been encountered previously by the Foundation in trans-dimensional experiments with SCP-████ and SCP-████, resulting in the deaths of 52 members of Mobile Task Force Nu-7 "Hammer Down" in Incident-29415-Bravo. Use extreme caution.

Item #: SCP-PC-006
Threat Level: Neutral
Location: Valley of the Striders
Description: Plant-based lifeform on the top of a mountain near Bogal Mountain. Entity resembles a tree with three canine faces. Entity claims to be a guide for "whosoever may ask." Height and location of its mountain makes access difficult. Locals assert that only one face tells the truth.

Item #: SCP-PC-007, "The Witch-Queen of Bogal Mountain"
Threat Level: Hostile
Location: Bogal Mountain
Description: Eldest of SCP-PC-003 instances. Never leaves the castle on the peak of Bogal Mountain. Known disdain for humans, harsh temperament, and reality-bending abilities. To speak negatively of SCP-PC-007 in the Great Desert or the Valley of the Striders will cause the speaker's flesh to petrify.
SCP-PC-003 is one of the few entities in Corbenic known to eat. Striders have been known to collect wayward human subjects in stone baskets to feed SCP-PC-007. If captured for this purpose, it is crucial to cooperate and refrain from resistance. SCP-PC-007 has devoured two agents of MTF Omega-16. Digestive processes of SCP-PC-007 take two months, and both agents have healed, returning to duty after defecation. The process has left both agents with deep psychological trauma. This is to be understood as an accepted risk, and preferable to petrification or other Strider-curses, which are incurable.

Item #: SCP-PC-008, "The Elephant King"
Threat Level: Active
Location: The Marble Hall
Description: Large humanoid entity with the features of an elephant. Master of the Marble Hall. Actively seeks humans to live in its hall. Reasons unclear, possibly predatory. Related logs - PC-S12.

Item #: SCP-PC-009, "The Coldbound Hare"
Threat Level: Active
Location: The Great Desert, the Croaking Cave every year for 1 day
Description: Inorganic entity resembling an Arctic Hare, composed entirely of snow. About 4 times the size of a standard Arctic Hare, but displays typical behavioral traits of nonanomalous members of the species. Migrates to the Croaking Cave every 365 days, for a period of 24 hours, before immediately exiting.

Item #: SCP-PC-010, "The Frogs that Spit Winter"
Threat Level: Hostile
Location: The Croaking Cave
Description: Mechanical constructs resembling stylized frogs. Composed of tin, 1 meter in height. Releases a gaseous substance upon opening their "mouth" capable of freezing any substance to -20 degrees Celsius. Produces a highly compressed soundbite of a bullfrog croak upon releasing substance. Actively releases substance upon living organisms and cave interior, but are easily countered via physical contact. Seemingly unaffected by temperature of the Croaking Cave.

Item #: SCP-PC-011, "The Flame Bearer"
Threat Level: Active
Location: The Croaking Cave
Description: Marsupial organism, resembling that of the Macropodidae family. Pouch seemingly contains an indeterminable amount of fire. Capable of taking out and holding said fire in one or both of its forepaws. Highest recorded speed measures 90 km/h. Will stop and hold fire near any human it comes across.

Item #: SCP-PC-012, "Father"
Threat Level: Eliminated
Location: The Greenleaf Woods
Description: Distinguished from SCP-PC-004 due to its deviation from established immunity to injury and death. Elderly, caucasian male with deteriorated anatomy indicative of infirmities expected for its perceived age. Ostensibly identical to SCP-PC-004, barring these deviations.

Item #: SCP-PC-013, "The Wood Baron"
Threat Level: Hostile
Location: Southern part of Greenleaf Woods
Description: Humanoid with luminescent, multi-colored eyes. Branches sprout from either side of its head, and around its torso. Always sighted holding a lantern. Purpose unknown. Possesses the ability to manipulate the rate of plant growth and tropism. Ability used aggressively against trespassers.

Item #: SCP-PC-014, "Cloakshrouds"
Threat Level: Unknown
Location: The Black Temple
Description: Quasi-humanoid entities draped in dark cloaks, their facial features consistently obscured. These creatures exhibit a lack of discernible physical legs while demonstrating levitational locomotion. They tend to move in groups of three and have not been subject to any attempted communication or contact thus far.

Interactions between MTF Omega-16 agents and aspects of Corbenic will be placed here as they occur.
PC-S12-L1

S12-02: Director, come in. We've lost an agent.
Dr. Henderson: Which one?
S12-02: S12-06.
Dr. Henderson: I understand you were exploring the River Tock. Was she absorbed?
S12-02: Negative. A bunch of humans in royal clothes piled on her like wild animals and dragged her kicking and screaming into the Marble Hall, tearing her apart with their bare hands.
Dr. Henderson: Then she's captured, not lost. Go find her.
S12-02: Director, this is the Marble Hall we're talking about. We've been hearing legends. They say it's—
Dr. Henderson: Dangerous? Corbenic's dangerous all over, this isn't news. Retrieve her. Immediately.
(Dr. Henderson hangs up)

PC-S12-L2

S12-06: Hey asshole!
Dr. Henderson: 06, what's your status? Are you still in the Marble Hall?
S12-06: Oh yeah, totally. This place is frickin' awesome.
Dr. Henderson: …have you been hypnotized?
S12-06: What do you think.
Dr. Henderson: You are obviously under the influence of a powerful memetic—
S12-06: I'm drunk, you moron. There's fountains of the best booze in the universe here. No exaggeration.
Dr. Henderson: 02 says you were being torn apart by people from the Marble Hall. How can you be so happy?
S12-06: 02 can come by too if he wants. It was real scary at first. They were trying to rip my skin open and use it as a hat. But then I saw that it happens to everyone here. The torturers and the tortured switch places all the time. Everyone kills and eats and fucks each other, and it's all one big joke, and I'm dying laughing! This is goddamn amazing.
Dr. Henderson: Just - stay where you are, 02 is bringing in a squad to come and get you, alright?
S12-06: The Elephant King says hi. Also, eat a dick.
(S12-06 hangs up)

PC-S04-L5

S04-07: Director, come in.
Dr. Henderson: I'm here. Have you made it out of the Valley of the Striders?
S04-07: Negative. Thankfully, that Strider that took -09 seems to have lost interest in the rest of us. We're doing some investigation of the River Tock presently. Found some shallow areas, doing some digging through the silt and muddy grey liquid to see if we can find any additional wildlife or other objects of interest. -01 is signaling to me from one of the deeper areas.
Dr. Henderson: Perhaps she found something.
S04-07: That's what I'm thinking. She seems horrified, too. What's not to be horrified about in this place? I'll get back to you if it's anything.
Dr. Henderson: Sounds good.
(S04-07 hangs up)

PC-S04-L6

S04-07: …Director.
Dr. Henderson: Did she find anything?
S04-07: A elderly human male was half-buried under the silt. He's still alive. He's disoriented. We dragged him to the shore. His body is almost completely inundated inside and out with the grey slime.
Dr. Henderson: Is he in pain?
S04-07: Confirmed. He's trying to scream. Like I said, he's full of slime, and vocalizations won't be possible until all of it's out. Touching his skin feels like he's a cold water balloon.
Dr. Henderson: How long has he been buried underwater?
S04-07: Unknown, presumably a long time. What should we do with him moving forward?
Dr. Henderson: Get the slime out of him, and see if he has any useful information. If he hasn't already gone insane from the torture, that is.
S04-07: Understood. Poor guy.
(S04-07 hangs up)

PC-S04-L7

S04-01: …Fuck.
Dr. Henderson: Your status, 01.
S04-01: Fine. Fine. We're all fine. Just a little shook.
Dr. Henderson: Good. Were you able to learn anything?
S04-01: Yeah… Yeah. You were right, guy had been down there a while. Can't remember his name, can't remember who he was before he got here, doesn't even think he's dead. Frankly, I'm amazed he still remembers how to talk.
Dr. Henderson: And? Did he convey any useful information?
S04-01: It's not just goop down there, Doc. There's a city, he says. At the bottom of the Chitin Sea, made of caverns and coral and bones and people. Dug into rock made from living bodies- people smushed together by tons of ooze like sand gets smushed into sandstone. And the things that live down there are all teeth- things that would make an anglerfish scream.
Dr. Henderson: Hmm.
S04-01: That's not even the worst of it, though. He kept repeating something about the Fisher King- a bloated thing that floats down there half-dead, waiting, until suddenly it's on top of you, all teeth and tearing. Says it'll eat you and never shit you out, just jellify your soul and ooze you out through its pores. It's a damn god down there- everything that moves brings it food. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole sea used to be people before that thing got to them.
Dr. Henderson: Fascinating.
S04-01: And you're drawn to it, when you see it. It's like you forget you exist. You just freeze up. Like everything you ever were is wiped clean and replaced with this… looming dread. This intimate knowledge of the fact that you've lost, and if there was ever a chance to redeem yourself it's gone forever now, and whatever “you” was is destined to become a pile of scattered memories and rotten meat. And guess what it looks like, Doc?
S04-01: It's another fucking eel.
(Dr. Henderson hangs up)

PC-S07-L3

S07-02: Director…come in…now.
Dr. Henderson: 02, what happened?
S07-02: I swear…the frogs…they ganged up on me.
Dr. Henderson: SCP-PC-010 I'm assuming?
S07-02: I…probably have…hypothermia or somethin'…I can't move.
Dr. Henderson: Call the rest of the squadron, they'll come and get you.
S07-02: Hey…what the hell is that? Oh god, it's right on me!
Dr. Henderson: 02, report!
S07-02: It's some kind of kangaroo…what the fuck?
Attempts to contact S07-02 are futile for a period of 2 minutes.
Dr. Henderson: 02, please come in!
S07-02: I'm outside. Holy hell, I'll need to tell the rest of the squadron this. Jesus fuck, fire-kangaroo.
(S07-02 hangs up)

PC-S07-L4

S07-02: Hey, sorry for the abrupt hang-up.
Dr. Henderson: Well, we don't pay you to be polite, we pay you to work efficiently. What did you see, exactly?
S07-02: The kangaroo, it brought its fire out of its pouch and it held it for me.
Dr. Henderson: Yes, this matches the description for SCP-PC-011.
S07-02: But listen! The kangaroo, I looked up at it. It had a flaming head. Its head was literally fire, yet I still felt protected.
Dr. Henderson: Interesting.
S07-02: I swear, it fucking spoke to me too.
Dr. Henderson: It spoke to you?
S07-02: It didn't have a mouth, but I swear it said something. "The fire will carry you home" or something like that. The next thing I knew I was back on my feet and outside the cave.
Dr. Henderson: Odd. We'll have to study SCP-PC-011 further.
S07-02: Indeed.
(S07-02 hangs up)

PC-S08-L5

S08-01: New location discovered, sir. Wooded area to the west of the Croaking Cave.
Dr. Henderson: You sound shaken. What did your unit find?
S08-01: We, uh… I'll explain in a bit. The forest was unbelievably thick with trees; it seems like they don't die naturally to make room for their children, but they're confined to a finite space. It made navigation difficult, but we managed. We eventually entered a central clearing and found something we didn't expect.
Dr. Henderson: Which was?
S08-01: Shit, doc, uh… I think we saw someone die.
Dr. Henderson: That's… unprecedented. Was it one of your team?
S08-01: No, it was this old man in the middle of the clearing. He was on top of this stone structure that looked like a bed, and you could tell he was in pain. We approached cautiously, and, I mean, he spoke to us. Called us by our names and told us to come closer.
Dr. Henderson: Did you?
S08-01: Yeah, well, my team and I discussed it afterward and we agreed it wasn't a compulsion effect or anything. It just felt wrong to leave him there. We circled around the stone bed and he took my hand in his and looked up at me. I saw tears in his eyes as he told me about his kids, and how they'd all grown up, and how he was proud of them for the people they'd become.
Dr. Henderson: Did he give any names for his children?
S08-01: No names, but you could picture them all just fine, based on how he described them. After that, he paused for a moment to collect himself and then told us that he'd invited them all to this clearing today, but none of them had come. He asked if we had seen them, and we looked at each other, then shook our heads. He smiled at that and said they must have all been busy, and that he understood. After that, well, he closed his eyes and started to cough real bad. Our medic, S08-03, tried to help him, but the poor guy just kept getting worse and worse. Eventually, he laid still and opened his eyes one last time, looked up at all of us and said: "Thank you."
Dr. Henderson: Did the entity expire afterward?
S08-01: Yes. He expired.
Dr. Henderson: Was there any other anomalous activity in the area?
S08-01: Not that we saw, no. Listen, doc, I've got a kid on the other side. Been a while since I talked to him since he lives with his mom now. How long do you think this mission will take?
Dr. Henderson: We have no projected date until we can locate SCP-PC-001. Did anything in the forested area aid you in that mission?
S08-01: No. I guess not. It was just some old man dying.
Dr. Henderson: Be on the lookout for similar anomalies. Finding how he differed from other humans will certainly accelerate the hunt for PC-001.
(S08-01 hangs up)

PC-S15-L6

S15-03: Hello? Doc?
Dr. Henderson: I'm here, 03. What's your status?
S15-03: We've altered our course towards south of the Greenleaf Woods. We just sensed… wind.
Dr. Henderson: Surprising. Initial reports say there is no wind in SCP-2922-C. Now, return to the initial course.
S15-03: We can't. We're already heading toward there for half an hour.
Dr. Henderson: What? And you're telling me this now?
S15-03: Yes. We just- (S15-03 is abruptly interrupted) What is that?
Dr. Henderson: 03, report.
S15-03: (whispers) Doc, there's something in the trees. Humanoid. Glowing… multi-colored eyes. With hor- oh no, branches on its head. He seems to be carrying a lantern.
Dr. Henderson: Has it seen you?
S15-03: Negative.. (shouts) Oh fuck! Yes! Yes, it just fucking saw us!
Dr. Henderson: Is it hostile?
S15-03: (sounds of running and rustling) Affirmative! It can fucking control the trees… Heck! We're being chased by fucking rapidly-growing roots and branches!
Dr. Henderson: Run, 03!
(S15-03 hangs up)

FAaTAL EXCePTION AT ERRoR COD CATASTR 44214ASFASHNRNWP@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
...
...
...
...JJJJ@@@@@@@@@@@
...
Hello again.
...
...
...
I see you have been telling more lies.
...
...
...
...
...
Isn't Procedure 42-Humbaba
such a lovely way
of saying
murder?
...
...
...
You sent an army into hell to find me
then you lied to them?
Told them an extraction procedure
was real?
I almost feel sorry.
...
...
...
Forget what's coming.
...
Enjoy what's left.
...
Dr. Janet Spiegel
signing off.
...353331
...
12525
...
> _


Site-41: Antimemetics Division Headquarters
Elise Dunwall looked at the window on the right side of her screen.

…The "sum" of the symbols is equal to a previously unknown integer (designated Theta Prime by Prof. Hutchinson) of intermediate value between 5 and 6.

She then looks at the list open in the window on the left side of the screen.

SCP-001 Awaiting De-classification [Blocked]
SCP-002
SCP-003
SCP-004
SCP-005
SCP-006
SCP-007
SCP-008
SCP-009

She turns to her assistant.
"Do you have the timer ready, Liz?"
"Yes ma'am," the younger woman replies, "Two-thousand five-hundred and sixty seconds."
Elise opens the search function on the left window and types in the address.
SCP-SCP-033
Enter
The start button on the timer makes a faint clicking noise as it is pressed.
Page not found.
"Reset the timer."
"Yes ma'am."
SCP-[SCP-033]
Enter
Click.
Page not found.
…
Elise leans back in her seat and lets a sigh escape.
"It was a good hypothesis."
She chuckles a bit. "Yes, but being a good idea doesn't mean that it was right. 'The Missing File Number.' Heh. Seems a bit silly now that I think about it. There's still one thing that doesn't quite line up though…"
"Something that you can't put your finger on?"
"No, nothing like that. It's just that all the secondary documentation I read about oh thirty-three would indicate that, in order to activate the effects, the number or symbol would need to represent the value to the person writing it down. If someone did fill in this hypothetical slot, they would have to have picked something which could clearly represent oh thirty-three. The file number would make the most sense to represent it as long as we're not having someone create a custom character, and doing that would probably break all of our systems."
"Maybe math's just being picky and is attributing the file number to the file itself."
"Hmm."
Elise continues to skim the document, looking for something she might have missed.
"Wait a second."

(designated Theta Prime by Prof. Hutchinson)

"Liz, reset that timer one more time."
"You got it."
SCP-θ'
Enter
Click.

WARNING! Security protocols have automatically disconnected this workstation from all virtual networks. As a necessary component of your viewing of this document, this workstation and all nearby devices and writing media will self-destruct within 2560 seconds.
Item #: SCP-θ'
Object Class: Keter
Special Containment Procedures: All information about Document SCP-i is to be contained in Document SCP-θ'. Document SCP-i is never to be referred to outside of this document. █████ is never to be referred to under any circumstances. Document SCP-i does not officially exist. This document does not officially exist.
Description: SCP-θ' designates Document SCP-i, a nonstandard piece of Foundation documentation which is dedicated to recording the Special Containment Procedures and description of █████. █████ is an informational construct with severe counterconceptual and infohazardous effects. As such, information about █████ and, by extension, Document SCP-i, is highly virulent and becomes more hazardous with increased volumes.
When left in a stable state, information about █████ and SCP-i have a tendency to auto-replicate, increasing its hazardous traits and the possibility of mnesticized individuals coming into contact with that information. Because of this, all information about █████ and SCP-i has been stored in this document due to its naturally self-containing nature.
Following initial identification of an early iteration of █████, Document SCP-i was filed under the number ███. After an indeterminate amount of time, █████ was able to fully infect Document SCP-i through the information stored there.█████ was able to inflict a currently unknown number of casualties on Counterconceptual Division personnel1 before the current containment procedures were implemented. Please see Incident Report: NIGHT MIRROR for more information.

"Hmm. Interesting."
"Interesting, yes. But I can't say that there's much usable information in there," Liz replied.
"Sure there is."
"What?"
"There's plenty of information, you just have to find it. See, now we know that there is something that we're not supposed to be able to know about. We know that information about it has some kind of bleed effect. And we know that there's another big question we should be asking about this."
"And what's that?"
"What is the Counterconceptual Division, and why don't we know about it?"
"Maybe it's defunct. Or maybe it's disinformation, and we don't have one."
"Most people would say that we don't have an Antimemetics Division either."
Liz stops and ponders this for a moment.
"I need to go tell Wheeler, don't I?"
"Yes, and I'm coming too. This whole experiment was my idea, after all."
"Alright. Just one more thing before we go."
"What's that?"
"What is today's date?"
"Oh, that's easy. Today is…" Elise hesitates. "Sorry, what was the question again?"
"What is today's date?"
"Oh, it's… When is it? When?, who?, what?, how?, why?, where?…"
Liz watches as the wrinkles smooth out and color returns to the hair of the disoriented woman in front of her. Turning back the clock does wonders for someone's looks.
"Sorry love, can't have you interfering just yet. Too dangerous for you."
Elise begins to spasm and groan in the chair.
"I wish that I didn't have to age you so far back. With a normal researcher, I could just send you back a few hours. But you've been on mnestics for, what, almost two decades now? And I have to get all of them out of your system to make sure that you can't remember."
Elise's muscles relax as the changes begin to slow.
"Now come on, let's get you to Wheeler. You have quite a bit of catching up to do. On the bright side, you were almost ready when you joined, so it shouldn't take too much for them to get you trained back up." As she half-supports, half-lifts the newly young woman out the door and down the hall, a small frown forms on the lips of Elizabeth Day.

Footnotes
1. The 25 countable casualties were caused by targeted temporal regression of memories.


Monsters?
No, no, no, it wasn't like that. We began with the best intentions. That might've gotten lost along the way, but it isn't how we started. We were young, and idealistic. I was in love. We were all eager to save the world from itself. The boss had led us to defeat the great Beast, and we twelve loyal apostles were willing to follow him back out of hell, and start building paradise. I wasn't a monster then, I'm sure of it.
The Beast. I still think of it, from time to time. In the middle of the night, I wake up in a cold sweat, phantom images swimming before my eyes. Some of my fellows, my beloved amongst them, erased the memories from their heads, if only so they could sleep peacefully. I could never bring myself to use the damn things. I always figured every memory was worth having, you know? Even the ones you hated, you learned something from. I still think the Beast is the worst thing we contain, despite our efforts to put it to good use.
I'm sad to say, it was my idea to use the Beast. The engines were still running, the engines were greased. It would have been an insult to those fed to it to have made their sacrifice be in vain. I thought we could control it, use it to thwart our enemies. Heh. How wrong was I?
It helps that in those days we had proper villains, not the conglomerations you get nowadays. Faceless corporations, or trust fund babies who think they can freak people's minds with far-out art performances. Nothing like what we fought, back in the day! The fights we undertook were in black-and-white, good versus evil, all those trite old tropes. People with power seeking to abuse it, and calling themselves by monikers that explained who and what they were. The Winter Wolf. Grendel. The Trollen Tribe. The Last Ghoul. Each of them unique and interesting, with their own plots and machinations. But at the same time, the majority of them the type of people whom, if you happened to run across in a bar when not on assignment, would buy you a drink, and reminisce about previous encounters. Or at least not shoot you when they recognized you off the clock.
I remember when all that changed for me.
Don't tell my wife, but it all started at a high class brothel, back in- Was it the thirties? May have been the twenties, or the teens. They all blend together after a while. I know I was promoted out of Senior Staff before the second World War. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Let's just say, pretty girls look good no matter what year it is. Don't look at me like that, I was tracing a lead! A very attractive lead… It was another time, standards were different. Anyways, I was chasing down rumors that the necromancer who called herself Dancer was using the sex slave trade to raise herself her own little army. I was there to shut her down, if I could find her.
I was, ahem, chasing my lead, and If I may say, I was doing a fantastic job of it, when all hell broke loose. Apparently, someone, and I blame that traitorous preacher, had let Dancer know that I was seeking her out. So there I am, courting this dear lady, when the door bursts open, revealing a slavering horde of undead whores, calling my name! Well, it felt like a horde. More like a whored, hey? Heh, sorry, puns ARE the lowest form of comedy, I know, I know. Probably only a dozen or so, but when your pants are around your ankles, and your gun is in a jacket across the room, even three would feel like a horde. I bid the lady a polite good night, and dove for my gear, hoping to outrace the grasping claws. I had just got my hand on my jacket when one of the zombies knocked me through the goddamn wall.
So, picture this: Me, no pants, still in a state of… ahem, activity, blasting through this plasterboard wall, hard enough that I lost all sight of my pants, and I have the good fortune to fall into bed in the next room! A soft landing, because the bed is already occupied! I'm trying to give my excuses to the duo, explaining that I wasn't trying to make it a trio, when the gentlemen and I finally make eye contact. Even without that damned wolf mask, I recognize his eyes, and it's clear he recognizes me from the way he's forming ice claws on his fingers, and starting to snarl. The bloody Winter Wolf himself, in the middle of taking his pleasure. Not an image I can easily forget, I tell you what!
I extricated myself quickly, trying to make excuses, when HIS door bursts open, his own horde of zombies prostitutes calling for his head. A glance is exchanged over the living girl's head, and we both nod at each other. Now, I still had my shirt on, unbuttoned, but the Wolf, he's completely naked. His body swells as he rises off the bed, grabs a chaise lounge, and begins to beat the undead menace soundly with his improvised melee weapon. So, naked beastman beating undead zombies with furniture, as I'm struggling to pull my hand cannon from the armpit holster I had stupidly removed.
Let me tell you, the guns we had back in the day, they were something else. Filled with blessed rounds, well, not always, but in that situation, because, necromancer, and you could easily slip in whatever ammo might be needed. I always kept a couple of silver bullets on-hand, just in case. Hand-tooled back at the Factory, designed for the agent on the run, large bore, but little-to-no kickback. I found myself trying to shoot past the now-completely iced-over and armored Wolf, zombie heads popping like corn, when what should happen, but the damned ceiling caves in, a whole shit ton of undead dancers falling on top of us.
The Winter Wolf and I wound up back-to-icy-back. I'm getting torn up, cause someone has armed these creatures, knives and the like, but since they don't feel pain, they just keep coming! My gun runs dry, and I start using it like a club to beat off these girls. Always use a big gun; that way you can hit someone with it if you run out of bullets. And if anyone tells you you're overcompensating, you can shoot them. I was able to snag a machete off one of the dead girls, but you ever try to chop through dead flesh? Well, all right, the flesh isn't an issue, but the bone gets in the way something awful. It got to the point where I was just maiming them, and then spinning so the Wolf could finish them. I could feel the beast's armor getting thinner, and heard him getting hit, but I couldn't afford to turn to look.
It felt like we fought there for hours, but it was probably no more than 15 minutes. When all the bodies had stopped twitching, we finally were able to turn to each other. We both kept our eyes above the waist. He was bleeding, but so was I. And we looked at each other for a long time, as I slipped my coat back on, in hopes of covering myself at least a little bit. I do try my best to always look like a gentleman. I think that's where my eldest got his affection for pristine suits. The walking cane is all his grandfather. My hand had slipped into the pocket of my coat, palming a single silver bullet.
“Dancer?” he said, although it was more of a growl. In his transformed state, everything he said was more of a growl.
“We were trying to put a stop to her. You?” I didn't back down from his glare, despite the extra foot of height he had on me. Any display of weakness, and he would have likely gone for my throat.
“Trying to recruit her. Apparently, she prefers to play alone.” He sneered, but with a snout like that, most of his facial expressions looked like sneers.
We stood there for several more minutes, just looking at each other. I clutched the bullet tighter in my hand, and wondered if I was fast enough to load and fire it before he tore my throat out. And then he just nodded at me, I nodded at him, and he scampered out the window, while I borrowed a pair of pants from one of the dead girls, and went to meet my driver outside.
You'd think that was the end of that story, but you'd be wrong.
About three weeks later, my middle boy comes running in, all “Papa papa, there's a man here to see you!” I ruffled his hair, and went to the door, and could feel the blood drain from my face. The Winter Wolf was at my door. He was dressed, well, rather ordinary a nice suit and tie, a good fedora, but it was hard to forget those eyes. He smiled at me, but it didn't reach those cold dark orbs. He raised a hand, in which he held a familiar wallet. “You lost this.” That was all he said.
He studied me as I studied him, then he turned his attention to my house, with the children playing in the yard. “You're not what I expected,” he said, not looking at me. “I didn't figure one of the Foundation's hired killers-“
“I'm not a killer,” I recalled protesting. The lie hung hollow on my lips, even then. I wasn't an assassin. I was a researcher, and sometimes agent, when it was needed. It didn't matter that some people died, I wasn't sent to kill them it was their own fault they resisted! At least, that's what I told myself.
“-to be a good family man,” he continued, as if I hadn't even spoken. “I came here to kill you.” He said it so nonchalantly, as if he had said he was going to pick up a dozen eggs. I didn't move. None of my guns were close enough to matter. “I was going to kill you, as an object lesson. Well. That is what I told myself. I knew in my heart the real reason was revenge, plain and simple.” He turned those dark, burning eyes on me, and his lip twitched slightly. “Your little Foundation destroyed my pack. My mate, my brothers. All under the excuse of protecting society.”
He turned away from me, his gaze on the cherry tree, blooming in our yard. “You made me a monster.”
“But I can't do that to some one else's pack.”
We talked, then. We talked for a good three hours, about why the Hand did what it did, why we did what we did. We forged, if not a friendship, then at least mutual respect. I even gave him the silver bullet I would have used on him. He had it reforged into a ring, for his new mate. She didn't quite understand why he always referred to it as offering her his life, but I knew what he meant.
We stayed in each other's lives. I made sure I didn't go on any missions that involved him. He directly avoided any contact with the Foundation. I was a groomsman at his wedding. He would play cowboys and Indians with my boys.
My oldest son killed him 30 years later in an altercation with the Serpent's Hand. I never told him the dreaded Winter Wolf was also his kindly uncle Jason. I don't think he would have cared.
I'm sorry, I'm getting on, and my mind wanders. Our enemies, they have always called us monsters, because they think there has to be another way. That we should be able to contain skips without treating them like objects. That we should be able to use the benign ones, or at least make them comfortable.
The problem will always be knowing which ones are the benign ones. Because it changes, you know?
After all, I was the one who tamed the Beast. I was the one who said that it could be useful, that we didn't just have to contain, but could also utilize. I made the biggest mistake the Foundation would see for generations.
I decided we should weaponize The Factory.


It's not easy being unusual.
Especially when you're twelve years old.
Especially when, due to you being unusual, the people in lab coats have you locked away in an empty metal room.

Stacy never considered herself to be different from others. A normal kid, developing even a little bit slower than her peers. The sickly, frail, yet unbelievably smiley girl was a joy to the world with all the attention she paid to it. Parents were fond of her, they spoiled her but weren't eager to let her near other people. "You will get ill for sure," they said. "It will hurt a lot and will be very boring."
Home schooling, a few pen pals whom Stacy would never have to hide from. They shared secrets, although her friends were envious of her - their parents weren't nearly as lenient.
On her twelfth birthday Stacy made a wish to visit the sea. Of course, her parents asked about what she wished for, and the girl wasn't able to keep her little wish secret. Her father frowned, her mother made a sad smile. Stacy spent quite some time watching their outlines from beyond her room's door, hugging her large stuffed penguin toy. Dad was flailing his arms around, Mom was trying to calm him down. Finally, her fair mane appeared through the ajar door.
Having heard their reply, Stacy couldn't help but cry. With joy of course. Her wish was granted.

It was by the sea when she realized why her parents were afraid to let her go anywhere.
It was beautiful - any new and unfamiliar place seems beautiful to a child. White sand with half-buried lumpy rocks, waves of dark water rolling against the shore, brightly-green algae and seashells - all of that made Stacy completely overjoyed.
They were living in a small house on a hill, rarely visited by anyone else. They had to walk to get to the sea, and every time these 'walks' brought the girl utter joy. Still, it was the sea she loved more than everything.
They always went there early in the morning or late at night, with no one around. Mom still adhered to her explanation about people carrying atrocious diseases around, and Stacy did not argue. Instead, she gathered sea shells and pretty glassy rocks - not as neat as the cabochons in her mother's stain glass displays, but that didn't make them less pretty. Stacy kept on swimming far away from the shore and going straight to the bottom - there was always something interesting lying there. A couple of times she encountered lazy medusae and obtuse fish, being wary of the unfamiliar creatures. But that didn't stop her from gathering.
And then, in one day, it all ended. Stacy had just emerged from the sea with her latest find in hands - this really huge conch only recently inhabited by a mollusk. Yet, instead of her mom and dad, a kind red-haired woman with weird glassy eyes came toward her. At first Stacy was deathly afraid - her parents always told her how dangerous people were - but the woman told her that her mom and dad were called off to discuss something important and work-related, and they were asked to give her a lift back home. Weird as it was, Stacy believed her.
They were riding in a big white car with this red-haired woman and a grim-looking man in a pretty-looking black outfit. Stacy liked soldiers and she liked to look at parades on the TV, but the operative paid her no heed and kept looking forward with a sullen look.
After they got there, the woman made a phone call which the girl did not understand. There were too many weird words that mom and dad never said.
"Already? That's wonderful. Tell recon the job is done. Yes, have Sakharov interview those two, pick their brains, amnesticize and let go. No, I'm being serious. Yeah, I'm aware of that. OK, have it under my responsibility. Yes, C… Third, programmable. Oh, and there's a coffee for all of you if you visit the neighbors too."
The red-haired woman turned towards Stacy with a frightened look that was quickly replaced by a kind smile. The girl was clueless as to what this "C" was and what "programmable" means, and she smiled back.
Stacy never got to see her parents again.

There were a lot of doctors. She was being sounded, tickled and examined. Stacy kicked back and refused to give in, but then they gave her this candy which made her sleep very quickly. Every time, she awoke to some tube in her arm or to a doctor listening to her heartbeat. And she was irritated.
Then there was a lot of talking. She was talked to by that red-haired woman, and later on - by a grumpy old stooping fellow with similar glassy eyes. At first the girl was taking offense and called for her parents, but soon… She just got used to it. She was getting as many cartoons as she wanted, and she adapted surprisingly fast. She liked it there.
But later came this very ominous man with glasses and told her there were "experiments" scheduled for today. Dad did say this word a couple of times, but Stacy never got the time to find out its meaning. The girl was asked to get into a pool, and the man's glassed stare was horrifying enough for her to comply. She felt safe in the water. Also there were her favorite seashells down there, which she liked to play with. She spent a lot of time in the pool and was eventually dragged back up. And they didn't show her any cartoons any more.

"So tell me, Stacy dear, when did you learn to remain underwater for that long?"
"I don't know, aunt Ann… Mom told me I always could. That everyone can do it."
"Is that so? How do you do that? Could you tell me?"
"I just hold my breath, that's all. There."
"And don't you ever feel like breathing in?"
"Nuh-uh."
"Interesting…"
"Aunt Ann, when will we go to watch cartoons?"
"Wait a bit. We'll finish with the pool and you'll get to see all the cartoons you want."

Later on, there was this empty room. They gave her a coloring book, told her to do as she always did in the water, and she complied. She was there long enough to cover the book completely. And she didn't draw a single breath - there was nothing to breathe with.
Then there was another empty room and she finally got the cartoons she was promised. Stacy was staring at the screen and didn't even notice when the air became oxygen-free. Anyway, it was not like she knew what "oxygen" is.
And it happened every day. Different rooms, different pools, different occupations and time spent.

"Tell me, did you ever try doing that to other people?"
"Well… I tried with my mom."
"Oh, is that so?"
"I took her hand and we were walking on the bottom. But she asked me never to let go of her hand, no matter what."
"So it is… How sweet. Thank you, dear Stacy."
"Thank you for what, aunt Ann?"

That was when they got her the Boy.

He was ten years or so older than her, but she called him Boy nonetheless. Stacy liked to spend time with him - he had this funny clothes, very comfy and of her favorite orange color. She kept yanking him by his shirt's hem.
They even seemed to become friends, although the Boy was looking at her warily. They started doing these "experiments" together, but the boy was always surfacing long before she did. Then they told her to take his hand and that made him stay. He kept gawking at Stacy, at his hand, and that made the girl laugh jovially underwater. In a few days they were comfortable sitting in the empty room or walking on the pool bottom.

"Will you stay to be my friend? You're so sweet…"
"Of course I will. Where else would I go?"
"D-1634-1, please refrain from talking for now."

But then they carried the Boy away.

He wasn't back in a day. In a week. Even in a month, though he promised.

"He promised we will always be friends! Why did he not come?"
"I'm sorry, Stacy. He will not visit you again."

They got her another boy in a week, but Stacy just wept and demanded her Friend back.
They didn't bring anyone else to her.
The next day Stacy stopped breathing out of spite. But the people in lab coats did not bring her friend back.
Not even in a month.
In two months she grew tired of that, which she stated explicitly. The people in lab coats nodded their heads and went about their business.

It's not easy being unusual.
Especially when you're twelve years old.
Especially when, because of you being unusual, even the people in lab coats have you locked away in an empty metal room. Locked away and forgotten.


TO: Esquivel, Roberto
FROM: Site-67 Secure Connection
RE: thought you'd like this
Attachment: mistyveil.pdf
announcing yourself, Roberto? found this in the fall issue of Route 5. you're a literary type, you should pick it up. unless you saw it before it went to press. sly old bastard :) i think you're going to fit in around here.
-jwx

The Stars Over Misty Veil
by Lila Stone
The moon shone sharply through the cold night air, as Roberto Esquivel, six feet of lean muscle and too old to have anything to prove, informed me that we stood at the grave of George Herbert Walker Bush. I laughed. But he isn't dead yet. And anyway, here, in the middle of Nebraska?
By that point I didn't care if he was toying with me. I found him in the center of no less a group of personages than Nathan, the farmer and secret painter; Gertie, the mechanic and not-at-all secret theater critic; and Juan, poet-in-residence at Lucy's Diner. New in town and already admitted to the deepest of inner circles. He ordered three cups of coffee at once, saying he liked it hot, warm and cold. By the end of my shift I was determined to find out what game he was playing.
He solemnly smoked his cigarette, a South American brand I had never heard of that tasted of flowers and ash. He addressed the plain gray headstone that read only Tested by Fire. One day, George Bush was no longer George Bush, he said. Soon after he became head of CIA, he learned a few things. And then he stopped doing it. Someone else had to do it. He ended up here.
I was going to tell him that this one didn't count, you couldn't just make up secrets, it wasn't fair. But I stopped. The things you learn to trust are the reactions that people can't fake. You either learn that or you get hurt. And this man, gray at his dark temples, lines around his kind brown eyes and scars on his knuckles, could not have made up the awe that I heard in his voice as he told me this. Not if you put a gun to his head. I wasn't sure what to make of this. The only thing I could do was go next; my turn to divulge a secret about our surroundings.
That space over there was a blank stone, I said to him, pointing a few rows over. This was one of the things that only I knew about Misty Veil Cemetery, a place where I could have a smoke break and read a book in solitude while the patrons of the diner waited patiently for my return. Solitude is hard to find in Dotson.
The stone disappeared one day without explanation. It must have been stolen, I told him, since the grave had not been disturbed. Re-interment was out of the question. I completed my trade for the secret fate of the 41st President of the United States. His turn again.
But he stopped. I had thrown him off balance somehow, this remote traveler with a center of gravity deep beneath the earth. Surely that can't top the secret grave of a famous person. My laughter died on my lips before I had a chance to regret how girlish it sounded. That serious look crossed his face again, and I knew my secret got into him somehow, and with that we now were well past the point of flirtation and curiosity. I shivered a little.
Tell me who you think is in that grave, he said. It wasn't a command, but he knew that I had an opinion on that. And he knew I would answer.
I had thought often of who lay beneath the smooth, featureless stone. I had deduced that he must have been from out of town. Nobody dies in Dotson without someone knowing the body. Strangers in Dotson tend to be artists, so he must have been somehow connected with the scene. But then an artist in Dotson will always be known to someone, so maybe he was connected in some other way. The stone was nice, so someone cared about him. Maybe Reverend Abernathy could have arranged that, but it wasn't like him to leave no message.
Roberto's eyes stayed locked on me. He didn't move a muscle. My logic was sound, he said. But this was beyond logic, and I knew it. He told me that not as an accusation, but almost like a professor, prodding a student. He was full of little distinctions like that, things that could be easily taken a different way if you didn't pay enough attention. That's probably why I was really out here. And anyway, he said, how did I know it was a man?
I smiled. Just a hunch.
What other hunches do you have? He remained serious. Transfixed.
At times, as I stared at the horizon beyond the blank stone when it was here, I thought about that. But it felt like I was doing something untoward. Making the dead fit my own story, when they couldn't fight back. Letting daydreams and fancies cheapen the tranquility of this man and his resting place. Something in Roberto's eyes gave me permission.
I think he was from somewhere far away, like you, I started. I imagine a man who lived a life that wasn't concerned with jobs and deadlines and bills. But he still understood all kinds of people. I think he would have been interested in what a waitress had to say, just like you. Whenever I came out for a smoke, I could imagine him lighting my cigarette and telling me a story or a joke.
A slight nod. I kept going.
Someone loved this man. Many people did in all kinds of ways, but this man shared something with somebody that goes farther than any of that. See, that's why the stone was blank. There weren't any words that could have gone on it. Nothing would have suited. And his monument had to be something mysterious, frustrating, inspirational. It makes me sad, to think it's been stolen.
In that moment, it did indeed make me sad. Why does talking about something help us to grasp it? Why had the enormity of this loss of a monument only become clear to me now? None of that mattered. Something about the two of us here, this time and this place. There is nothing so intimate as sharing a stranger's grief. There was so much about this night that I did not understand, but I knew something about who these two men were now.
I wiped tears from my eyes, strangely unashamed. The proper thing would have been to not intrude on what is clearly someone else's life, something that no one except these two men could have shared. But this was a night where things that were true held sway, brilliant little points of experience that streaked into our vision like falling stars in the darkened sky. Decorum be damned. I moved closer to Roberto.
He would have found your monument to be perfect, I said to him. A blank signpost for someone who was a guide to so many, he would have found it funny. But there's another meaning to it, something deeper. The truth of it comes to me like starlight, Roberto. Like out of the air.
He smiled now. Did I find it strange, to have something take hold of me like that, he asked.
I said that this had been a strange evening. I returned the smile. This is to be expected, in a place like Dotson, with a man such as you.
He took the compliment. Gravity crept back into his smile a little, the lines in his face somehow looking deeper. We understand far less of this world than we think we do, he said to me. Reality is not a settled thing from moment to moment. He took both my hands. But that's not something that you can just tell someone. You need to bring them to it, in the right places, at the right times. And then deeper truth comes forth from them, true understanding. Something I learned from my friend here.
We shared a few moments together with these thoughts, the mist of our breath an offering to the stars that shone in this place. We turned to leave, both knowing where we were going next without speaking. As I reached the gate, he touched my shoulder.
Turn around, he said. And so I did.
Behind me, the stone marking the grave of this man was back. Planted firmly in the frozen earth, impossibly undisturbed. It had never been removed at all.
In that moment, I should have been startled. I should have doubted my senses, suspected the stranger I was with. Instead I thought of the thresholds I had crossed to come to this moment. I left behind the poisonous security of my career. Cut my ties to my family. Let phone calls and messages from former friends go unanswered for months. All to come here, but something was missing. Having burned down the effigy that I had pretended to be, what was I now? Something held back the answer to that question.
This was a signal. I was in a truly unknown landscape now, a realm where God knows what held sway. I had thought I succeeded in the act of tearing down, destroying. But now, I knew I had the blank space in front of me that I had sought. Something else was stirring inside me now. The way forward was shining out into the night.
Roberto's hand remained on my shoulder. I like this town, he said. You'll have to show me around tomorrow.


1While the world was still young, and Man still spoke clearly, and the warmth of creation was still in the ground, there lived a soybean farmer who was called Polyakov.
2Polyakov was a virtuous man, and listened to the Words of Pangloss. Pangloss rewarded him for this by teaching Polyakov to see the flame of Wonder that was in the Worlds and in the Spirits.
3Polyakov used the Wonder to create many wondrous miracles and machines, which he shared with the rest of man.
4Eventually, Polyakov had learned to craft well enough to the dancing flame that was Wonder that he took up a new title, that of Wondermaker.
5One night, thieves broke into the home of Polyakov the Wondermaker. They stole many of his wonders, and disappeared.
6But the thieves that had escaped did not know how to use the wonders, and in their folly and greed, they made and became lost in the Crucible, which was the shadow of Wonder.
7One of the thieves did not escape, as she had become injured in the Wondermaker's house. Her name was Wan.
8Polyakov the Wondermaker healed Wan's wounds with what was left of his wondrous machines. He offered her food and allowed her to sleep under his roof.
9Over time, Wan's Spirit was opened and cleansed. And Polyakov the Wondermaker showed her the Wonder in the World, and in Spirits, and in his machines, just as Pangloss had shown him.
10And Wan Became a student of Wonder and of machines, and was like a daughter to Polyakov.
11When Polyakov the Wondermaker had reached a ripe old age, Wan took up a new name, Mekhane, and left to venture out into the world.
12And Mekhane became a great, and powerful, and wise teacher among the worlds, and her teachings found as many disciples as some of those Spirits with greater form.
13 And in this day, and all the days past, there have been some Spirits, especially among Man, who can see and craft the Wonder.