Introduction
Sigma-3
The Community
The Library
Magic
Q&A

"Hello. Thank you all for coming. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Dr. Tilda David Moose. I am the director of Site-19."
"I'm here to — pardon my colloquial tone — I'm here to talk to you about magic."
"I'm not a very good speaker. Just letting you know that up front. If it were up to me, someone else would be standing here. So let's start this with some questions. Just raise your hands like you're back in school. Easiest way, don't you think? I — Oh. That's… that's too many hands. Alright, you in front, go ahead."
"No, this isn't an orientation for Mobile Task Force Sigma-3. Sigma-3 is a task force that doesn't exist. It doesn't hold 'orientations.' I think they had one orientation, ever, and that was when they were created. If you're here from Sigma-3 and you think you need an orientation, your superiors haven't been doing their jobs. Next question?"
"I thought I said don't ask me questions about — okay, fine. She just asked why everyone here is from Sigma-3. First answer, it's not everyone. More… two-thirds of you. I see at least a dozen are high-ranking members of Tau-9, the Bookworms. Some of you are clearance 4 researchers who've just been read into this program, at least three of you are new directors, and some of you are… 'spooks'. Not saying who, of course. Just have fun wondering about that. Anyway."
"Very, very few people in the Foundation are allowed to know anything about magic. This is… by far the largest number of people I've ever spoken to about this. I guess what with everything that's been happening recently, the Overseers want more people, ah… knowing what's going on."
"Yes, okay, ask your question. — His question was — what exactly is 'Sigma-3'?"
"In that case, I have a question, too. How the hell does anyone in here not know what Sigma-3 is? You should've been sent material on… right, great, still in the process of declassification. I see. I take it back, I suppose."
"Okay. We'll start with what we call "the anomalous community." Give you the lay of the land. How the world works, out there in the shadows. I'll explain how our Groups of Interest fit into this. I'll tell you about the Wanderers' Library. And, yeah, I'll explain a little bit about Sigma-3. In between, we'll have breaks, so you don't hate me too much."
"I assume you all already know this, but… There may be about a hundred of you in here, tonight. Still, you are a fraction of the Foundation's population. We're going to keep it that way. Anything you hear from me, anything, is not to be discussed with anyone who's not read into this program. On pain of death. Probably."
<clears throat>
"Finally, I'm going talk to you about magic."
"Don't panic. No, you're not hallucinating. There has been no containment breach, and, I promise, there are no drugs in your coffee."
"I am quite simply talking to you in the color blue."
"This is because I am what they call a 'mage'. Or, if you like, a 'Type Blue'… or 'a witch'. This is stuff we can do. It's, well — magic. Trivial magic, but magic nonetheless."
<clears throat>
"But I'm not going to talk about magic quite yet. Give me just a moment, and we'll get started."

"Right. I said I'd talk to you about Mobile Task Force Sigma-3, "The Bibliographers". The boring name is on purpose."
"Let me preface this. I'm not in Sigma-3. I only consult. I did induct a few of you myself a couple years ago, but I don't do that anymore. Yes, I see you, Agent Navarro, stop waving. As I was saying, since I'm not in Sigma-3, this will be the short version."
"Sigma-3 is a Foundation task force which deals directly with the anomalous community. On friendly terms, or at least as friendly as we can manage. If this sounds ridiculous to you, good. Means we haven't had any leaks."
"Originally, Sigma-3 was one of the Task Forces that took part in the failed invasion of the Wanderers' Library, three or four decades back. It was the only one left mostly… intact. Afterwards, it was reformed and repurposed by order of O5 Command."
"They are not a paramilitary task force. Nor are they a containment team. They are the product of our superiors being very, very concerned about the idea that the Foundation might miss out on some important things — world-ending things — simply because we are so isolated from the anomalous world."
"Even with the invasion of the Library… if we had sources within the anomalous community, and if the task forces, or at least their leaders and the people doing the planning for them, had been cleared to know what we did already know about the Library — then the operation could have gone significantly differently."
"As it was, the Library incursion involved no people who had even heard of the Library before the op began. It was too highly classified, and we didn't have any direct sources, people who'd been in there long enough to seriously know what it was like."
"We still don't even know what happened when we went into the Library. The memories of everyone who went in were different. Even our existing recordings — actual audiovisual footage — directly contradict each other. Some of the survivors don't remember even going in at all."
"What we know for certain is that even now there are still Foundation members left behind in the Library, imprisoned beyond our reach. Beyond any reach. And that this was completely preventable."
"But I'll get back to the Library."
"We have always had some sources in the anomalous community. We have a long history of cooperating with the Global Occult Coalition, which is far more part of the anomalous world than we are. We also created Mobile Task Force Tau-9 — the Bookworms — to deal with anomalies related to the Library, the Hand, and 'magic', in a more traditional manner."
"But that could only take us so far. Command decided we needed ears on the ground."
"Originally, Sigma-3 did not make use of any direct anomalous means. In recent years, this has… changed. There are people who are actual, practicing magicians in this very room, members of Sigma-3. People who are anartists. People who do double duty for organizations like Marshall, Carter, and Dark, the Serpent's Hand, and other anomalous organizations."
"And they've had results. Sigma-3 has contained a high number of actively dangerous anomalies that could not have been secured without cooperation with more benign anomalous entities. There are at least three dozen SCP objects which Sigma-3 contained directly that I'm aware of. And more that Sigma-3 acquired at least some information for."
"I'm not allowed to name most of them tonight, because not all of you are on Sigma-3 and cleared to know that. But just from SCPs I've worked on as project lead… Sigma-3 helped locate SCP-003, the first SCP object I was assigned to, through a remote viewing operation coordinated with outside sources of information from the Wanderers' Library. Sigma-3 also discovered and acquired SCP-472 through contacts in the anomalous community."
"On a larger scale, Sigma-3 helped prevent a direct, coordinated assault against the Foundation about a decade ago, after Incident Zero — an assault that would've crushed us, and that's almost impossible given the Foundation's size and defenses. I can't tell you the exact number of times that Sigma-3 has literally saved the world, but I can tell you it's in the plural."
"In exchange, Sigma-3 is set apart from other Foundation task forces. They do not aid in the containment of any anomalous entities, not even indirectly, unless it's done with the cooperation of members of the anomalous community."
"This is where many people stop, and raise hell. This is worse, to them, than even task forces like Omega-7 or Alpha-9. Those task forces use or used anomalous entities — but this task force actively shields certain anomalous entities from containment! Worse — sometimes Sigma-3 even makes deals which allow anomalous entities to go free."
"This goes against the fundamental ethos of the Foundation, they say. And maybe they're not wrong. But as things stand now, the Foundation is not capable of simply containing every anomaly out there in the wild. Until that time, Sigma-3 has proven its worth. What good is our ethos if we don't have a world to protect?"
"Let me get colloquial again. Sigma-3 are the people whose job it is to know if some cultists are summoning Cthulhu. Generally, their friends and neighbors don't want the world to end. But maybe they can't really do much to stop it. But we can. They have the knowledge. We have the resources."
"They may not know we're Jailors… er, members of the Foundation, but when Cthulhu's involved, they don't mind telling someone who knows someone who knows someone else who can call in one of our bigger Mobile Task Forces and bust some heads. And save the world."
"Not that I'm saying Cthulhu really exists… if It does, then you're not cleared to know about it. Just an example."
"I think we're due another break. Come back in twenty and we'll talk about the, ah, so-called 'anomalous community'."

"Alright. The 'anomalous community'. What's that mean?"
"The anomalous community makes up all the people in the world whose lives involve the anomalous. People of all types imaginable. A patchwork of individual communities, totalling a few hundred thousand people worldwide."
"That's probably more than you'd guess, but so it goes — and another reason why Sigma-3 is necessary. These are all people who are aware of, and often are exposed to, the anomalous world. For some of them, it's part of their daily life."
"Many of them have access to the Wanderers' Library, and most of them have heard of it. Many are involved in the so-called anart community. Many are involved with the Global Occult Coalition and the Serpent's Hand."
"Even the Foundation itself has roots in the anomalous community, from a very long time ago, if you listen to some of the stories — no, that's not an official statement, I'm only repeating rumors. Take them as you will."
"How many actually have anomalous capability? Well, that's an open question. A distinct minority are low-level Type Blues, who can do little tricks or learn a few spells out of books. Mages, witches, magicians, soothsayers, etcetera. People like… well, me, before I defected to the Foundation."
"When we catch these people, we don't usually classify them as SCPs. The ones we've kept are mostly classified as anomalous items. Sigma-3 handles a good number of them."
"In terms of GOIs in the anomalous community… well, technically, they all are part of the anomalous community, in some way. But the bigger ones are… let me get this slide working."

Are We Cool Yet
The Chaos Insurgency.
The Church of the Broken God
The Fifth Church
The Global Occult Coalition
The Horizon Initiative
Manna Charitable Foundation
Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd.
Office For The Reclamation of Islamic Artifacts
Oneiroi Collective
Sarkic Cults
The Serpent's Hand
Unusual Incidents Unit (UIU)

"As you can see, that's… most of 'em. A-W-C-Y, the Insurgency, the Fifthists, and the Sarkicists are more… fringe. Technically, so is the Church of the Broken God, but the so-called 'Devout' are far more accepted in the anomalous community than you might think, except by Horizon allies."
"Manna, Horizon, and ORIA are 'initiatives' within the anomalous community, I guess you'd call them. MC&D is just what you think it is — the rich people in the anomalous community are mostly all part of it or associated with it. And Oneiroi… gods only know what the Oneiroi are, so… I won't speculate."
"Then we have the two biggest ones — the Coalition and the Hand."
"We have a reputation, too. People who don't sign on with the GOC, and even some of those, call us Jailors. But the Coalition gets called 'Bookburners'. So… it could be worse."
"About the Insurgency — people outside the Foundation don't view it the same as we do. We see them as… well, insurgents, half-crazy defectors from the Foundation who want to destroy everything for who knows what reason."
"The anomalous community sees the Insurgency as a movement, more akin to the Sarkic Cults than anything else. A movement to remake the world, with strong religious overtones, despite the Insurgency's professed atheism. People who want to become gods. Destructive beyond reason, and crazier even than the people who want to summon dark gods."
"Actually, even the people who want to summon dark gods tend to think of the Insurgency as going too far. They're popularly referred to as 'the Sowers of Discord' and 'the Madmen'. Keep in mind these are literal death cults calling them that. The Insurgency won't be winning any popularity contests anytime soon, which is probably why they haven't… no, I digress. That's classified."
"Let's talk the Hand and the Coalition."
"The Global Occult Coalition is the Big Brother of the anomalous community. They're the cops, and the executioners. They have 108 member organizations, all of them anomalous in some way, all of them shielded from us by the Coalition."
"The Coalition cares a lot about maintaining the so-called Masquerade — they wish to preserve normalcy just as much as we do. But we aren't part of the anomalous community — and they are. Generally, all the respectable members of the anomalous community, or those in high society, are on board with the Coalition."
"However, They're called 'Bookburners' because, after their formation following the Seventh Occult War — around World War II — they essentially enacted a hostile takeover of the anomalous community. Either you signed on with the Coalition — with Big Brother — or you got crushed."
"Some elements of the Coalition got on the wrong side of the Library… and they were mystically barred from it, ever after. Just like us. Ironically, even though they crossed the Library first, they were acting on information they got from us… but that's a story for another time."
"Suffice to say, many Coalition members are still spitting mad about losing their Library access; I suspect it caused the Coalition to tamp down many of their activities. Them being barred made it a lot easier for people who hated the Coalition to go underground. All they needed to do was get into the Library."
"The Serpent's Hand is sort of the yin to the Coalition's yang. The Hand are a movement springing from opposition to the Coalition's whole… Big Brother thing — to the idea of containing or suppressing the anomalous community."
"They're the radical activists of the anomalous community… but also the ordinary people who don't take to their equivalent of Big Government. The Hand takes all types, anyone who wants to join. So there's a lot of decent folk and a lot of death cultists, too. There's heavy overlap between the Hand and the fringe communities, obviously, plus movements, like religious cults — or the occasional full-blown religion, like the Church of the Broken God — and anartist groups."
"Hand types tend to dislike us, too, but they like us better than the Coalition, because we try not to kill people. This is also why Sigma-3 can exist."
"Full disclosure: I used to be a member of the Serpent's Hand. I got into it through a college organization. Spent a few years in it before defecting to the Foundation. It's how I became a Type Blue — a magician."
"Not answering questions about my incredibly interesting history, sorry. But I'll talk about the magician part in a bit. Right now, I think it's time for another break."

"What is the Wanderers' Library? Most of you have probably heard of it, and know it's, um, a library, and that the Serpent's Hand uses it and we… don't."
"…And that's about it."
"The Wanderers' Library is a library containing almost every book every written, and many that haven't been written yet, and many that will never be written."
"We've got some footage for this. Give me a second to cue it up."
"Alright, more than a second. Gonna … keep talking."
"We won't be showing you the outside of the Library because as far as we know, no one has ever seen it. The Library is a place outside space. 'Extradimensional' is the technical term, though not very descriptive. The Library isn't on our world, though it's connected to it."
"You reach it through Ways. Ways are a network of… basically magic portals that take you from one place to another. They're scattered around the world. The Foundation contains a number of them, mostly classified as anomalous items — a few networks are classified as SCPs."
"The Library is a nexus of Ways. The largest one on Earth. A Way that connects to the Library is called a Door, because they attach to doors within the Library. Pretty simple."
"Using the Ways isn't so simple. Okay, some of them are. Each has a trick to it, to make it work. Some of them you just need to be invited in. Others require some ritual — sneeze on a shadow, recite a code-word, befriend a fairy, follow your pet cat, kill a sheep, play the harmonica as you walk through a doorway. Sometimes these are called Knocks."
"A Way can be anything you can picture as a door. Or anything like a door. A cave, an archway, the back of a truck. Technically, every shadow or mirror could be a Way, just not a useful Way. Some of them are just art pieces — I once used a picture of a door to enter the Library, back when I still could. Some of them are corridors between the stars."
"They're more common than you'd think, too. At least a few in every major city. We know the locations of a few, but we know that many more exist."
"If someone from the Foundation or the Global Occult Coalition tries to use Ways, they either don't work, or the Library redirects them into … dangerous places. Other planets. Barren, hostile lands. Outer space. Someone reported that one literally opened into Hell — you can take that for whatever you think it's worth. More commonly, though, they just funnel us into the Library Archives and make us into Librarians."
"I'll explain that in a moment — we've got the footage working."
<The footage shows two women and one man, walking through a forest. One woman wears a skimpy Godzilla costume. The other woman wears full plate armor. The man is dressed in a red costume covered with plastic flames.>
"So this is a fairly typical — Question? — Why the costumes? Oh — this particular Way requires you to dress up as something you're not. So… cosplaying. These are our agents, by the way. In plainclothes. Er… I guess not… plainclothes. "
"Godzilla is Agent Jones. The knight is Agent Liu. The last one's here today — Agent Navarro. The one in the, um, flaming outfit. Say hi to everyone, Agent Navarro. You know you want to."
<The footage shows the three agents walking between two trees which have grown closely together. As they pass between the trees, they vanish into thin air. The footage cuts out.>
"Anyway. These are three of our members of Sigma-3 who can access the Library. Out of the entire Foundation, generally only members of Sigma-3 can get into the Library — and only some of them can, at that."
"We think the Library has some way of knowing who's going to use the Library to target its patrons — and not just in the present, but in the future. Yeah, the Library seems to have some limited ability to see the future. How? Your guess is as good as mine."
"This is, by the way, why Sigma-3 doesn't help the rest of the Foundation contain people in the Library. If they did that, they'd simply be kicked out. And then we'd lose our 'in' to one of the most important anomalous locations in the world. "
<The footage resumes. It shows Agents Jones, Liu, and Navarro, now in ordinary clothing, standing in a huge hall, surrounded by massive shelves of books, going up, skyscraper-high, too high to see the top. In the hallway are many tables, and many people — well over a hundred, at least. As the footage plays on, it becomes obvious that not all of the people in the lobby are human. One person passes in front of the camera — their face is blue and covered in spikes. A thirty-foot-tall walking carpet sits down at a nearby table, with a book in each of its three tails.>
"This is the main hall of the Library. It's… even bigger than it looks. This is actually a pretty empty day — usually there's at least a few hundred people around at any given time. And it can hold thousands just as comfortably."
"Spaces are deceiving, in the Library. For example, in the main hall, it takes half a day to reach the back walls… yet the space you've crossed is at least the size of a continent."
"Oh, and that's just the main hall. The Library has many wings. Some of them are small — only the size of a city. It just goes up from there. Some of them are actually built into forests and some of them have their own skies…"
<As the footage continues, Agent Navarro appears to try to converse with a robed humanoid figure. The figure has no mouth. Where its left hand should be, there's a chain connected to a glowing brass lantern.>
"…Ah yes. That is a Librarian. Yeah, that one has no mouth."
"This is because being a Librarian is a punishment. Usually. There are a few voluntary Librarians, and they look particularly strange. But we won't be seeing those on this recording."
"The ones with no mouths are Docents. They guide people through the Library and… enforce the rules of the Library. They are scary as hell — just one can take out one of our paramilitary squads all on its own, with ease. When they've been involved in containment breaches, which has been incredibly, incredibly rare, the damage has been massive. And they're not even the Library's biggest defenses."
"The other two common Librarians are Archivists and Pages. You can see some of the Archivists in the background of this shot here — they're at the large desks to the left. They are attached to their chairs — they have no legs. And you can't see it from this angle, but they have no eyes. Don't need them to read, apparently. And —"
<Something like a human spider scuttles across one of the shelves above Agent Liu's head. She doesn't seem startled.>
"—that's a Page. They take care of the books directly. I've never seen one touch the ground."
"All of these used to be people. Most of them were human. Now, they're not."
"See, the Library has rules. Don't damage books, don't steal books, return books on time, don't damage the Library, and don't harm those within the Library."
"If you break rules too egregiously, you are forcibly made into a Librarian. And… yes. A number of Foundation agents are trapped in the Library right now, serving out sentences as Librarians. Given the nature of their offenses… if we're lucky, they'll get out in a few hundred years."
"Question in the back. No. Unfortunately, there's nothing we can do for them. We don't even know which Librarians they are. Ah — more questions — alright, let's pause the footage."
<The footage pauses, as Agent Jones appears to be flirting with a floating, regal-looking mermaid, surrounded by a stack of green books floating in orbs of water.>
"Alright. More questions. You in the, um, shirt, go ahead."
"Can we use Sigma-3 to retrieve books from the Library? Um, no, not as such. First, the Library already has its eye — metaphorically, I assume — on us. If we start making plans like that, even seriously start entertaining them, we might lose access to the Library. We have to rely on whatever information can be filtered through our Sigma-3 agents. Whatever they can film, copy down, etcetera. Believe me, that's better than nothing."
"Second, I haven't yet talked about Library Cards."
"To check out books, to take them out of the Library, you need to have a Library Card. The Library gets a copy and you get a copy. On that Card is a magical signature that counts as your True Name."
"For the majority of you who don't get the significance of that — we don't have time to get into the True-Naming business, but what that means is, anyone with that Card can cast spells on you as if you're willing. They can do nearly anything to you if they're good enough, and the Library certainly is."
"Library Cards also confer the protection of the Library, to a certain extent. Killing Card-holders is part of why the Global Occult Coalition got kicked out of the Library — they were smart enough not to kill anyone in the Library directly, though they did end up killing — sorry, I digress."
"Point is, the Coalition used the Library to monitor 'dissidents' and execute them once they left. And you can't cheat the Library."
"I bring that up as another reminder: this is why Sigma-3 cannot, ever, help the rest of the Foundation contain anomalies using the Library. We can get death cults and suchlike because they're also targeting other Library members and because other Library members are helping us do so, but even then, we have to be cautious."
"Let's keep going."
<The footage resumes. Navarro, Jones, and Liu head past more massive, endless shelves, and walk into an atrium. There's a coffee-house set up incongruously on the edge of a field of wildflowers. People perch laptops atop stacks of books. Liu gestures animatedly at an empty blue "couch" that looks like it was designed for something much larger than a human, and probably with a different limb arrangement.>
"Another question — Does the Library have free Wifi? Okay, I know you're joking, but the answer is actually yes. The Library has almost anything you can think of. People can live their entire lives in the Library — they typically don't, but it's possible."
<A massive, towering behemoth lumbers into view. Like a cross between a sauropod dinosaur and a kraken. Its many eyes fix on each small humanoid in turn as it passes, blotting out whatever strange light source emanates from the top of the Library atrium. Its eyes seem to fix for an especially long time on Jones, Navarro, and Liu, but then it passes onwards, vanishing through an archway that's much too small for it to fit under.>
"…And that… is one of the Library's bigger defenses. This one didn't appear when we invaded. Worse things did. It might be some kind of Librarian, it might be something else. Who knows?"
"They call it the Elephant God, even though it's not much like an elephant. The size, I guess."
<The footage ends, as the three Foundation agents gawk at the monster's disappearing tails.>
"And that's all we have for today. Keep in mind, all this is only a fraction of the Library. The parts that can easily be accessed from Earth. The Library has what they call Archives, which include the inner workings of the Library, as well as the wings of the Library where humanoids like us don't visit."
"None of the Sigma-3 agents who can get into the Library have access to the Archives. Library doesn't like us enough. But we have people working with us who can go there. A very few, mind you. The Archives are not entered lightly. They have a manticore in there."
"And… the Archives are where things really went sideways when the Foundation forced their way into the Library. The strange-ways, the Boiler Rooms, the guards on the Roots, the… I'm sorry. It's hard to talk about some… aspects of this place without… sounding like you're speaking fairy-tale. Anyway, like I said, no one really knows what happened when the Foundation tried to take the Library."
"Alright. I really, really, need a break. So let's all have dinner, and then come back for our final discussion — about magic."

"Welcome back. I hope you had a great dinner. Or… whatever you did. I'm not here to judge."
"So. Magic."
"Anyone who can perform magic on a consistent, sustained basis is a Type Blue. Colloquially, a mage, a witch, a magician, whatever."
"The term, Type Blue, the Foundation lifted from the Global Occult Coalition. The Coalition classifies humanoids with anomalous capability using colors. We at the Foundation mostly use their terms for Green and Blue. Green is reality bender. Blue is magician."
"Before coming here, some of you read transcripts of a lecture given to new Global Occult Coalition operatives about 'applied thaumatology.' Magic, in other words. The rest of you will have access to some of those transcripts after this session."
"Your higher-ups want you to read these because new GOC trainees still start off reading those, even though they're decades old and some of the information is… I would quibble with its presentation. The important thing is that you know half the baseline our competition has started from."
"I'm here to give you the viewpoint of the other half. You already know that I used to be a member of the Serpent's Hand."
"You in the back, who raised her hand when I mentioned the Coalition transcripts?"
"For anyone who didn't catch that question, she just asked about 'that Hogwarts shit.' She wasn't joking, no. 'Hogwarts' is the, ahem, International Center for the Study of Unified Thaumatology."
"It's not exactly Hogwarts, more a university focused exclusively on research, but… yes, it is on some level a school for wizards. Depending on your definition of 'wizard'."
"Why haven't we contained and shut them down? Well, remember what I told you about Sigma-3. But, sure, we don't need to use Sigma-3 for that. The real answer is that the Center is protected by the Global Occult Coalition, among other things, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that attacking it could trigger World War Three."
"Something I need to keep reminding people. We're here to secure, contain, protect, not to blow everything into the daylight just to make sure we possess every paranatural artifact on Earth."
"Either way, it's not up to us; we're to leave the Center alone by order of the O5 Council. But yes, it exists, as part of the anomalous community. No, I don't think Foundation members can attend."
"The Hand and the GOC have a number of Type Blues in their ranks. With the Foundation… officially, we have no Type Blues. There are no Foundation magicians. Of course, you know that's not true. Still, we have only a few, and almost every Type Blue Foundation member is associated with Sigma-3."
"But all that aside…"
<clears throat>
"You want to know how I could talk to you in blue."
"Well, it's not especially easy. I did a few rituals before coming here so I could do this a few times on cue. All with the permission of our higher-ups in the Foundation — yes, there are people higher than me, of course there are. I'm only a Director."
"Point is, any and all magic that any of you will be performing will be done under strictest supervision, unless you're out in the field and need to blend in. All of it will be done in the service of the Foundation."
"One of you asked me a question when you were supposed to be having dinner. Ze wanted to know why we can talk about Type Greens — reality benders — when we can't talk about Type Blues?"
"Some of you have already guessed the answer. The truth — the truth that none of you are to repeat in mixed company, certainly not to anyone else in the Foundation — is that anyone can become a Type Blue."
"Anyone can become a magician. Anyone can learn to perform magic. Many of you are going to at least attempt to learn. Most will not succeed, but it is possible for any of you to succeed."
<clears throat>
"That gets a little wearing after a while. And a couple of you look ill. Sorry about that."
"Anyway. Anyone can become a Type Blue, but there are some caveats. The first is sometimes called Potential. At least, it was called that when I was a member of the Hand."
"A few people get Potential through their genetics, but 99.9% of the population is born with a Potential of nothing. After that, whether you get Potential is like whether you get cancer — there are about a million factors. Some of it's how you think, some of it's how you do or don't fit into society, some of it's your kind of intelligence, and sometimes there just is no identifiable cause."
"Generally, if you want to become a magician — a Type Blue — you first figure out what your Potential is, what life's given you. If you're lucky, you'll find an established magic tradition that suits you. If you're very lucky — by which I mostly mean, you're a Type Blue already and didn't know it — you can just go ahead and start practicing. Otherwise, you have to take a good, long hard look at yourself."
"Because becoming a magician is hard. It takes a lot out of you, something different from every person. It usually requires some kind of sacrifice."
"Question? Go ahead."
"No, I don't mean a blood sacrifice, necessarily. Even in the anomalous community, that is very much not socially acceptable. When I say sacrifice, I mean… physically, emotionally, spiritually. It's different for everyone."
"Why a sacrifice? Because it's about perspective. Not just your perspective, but the perspective of others, on you. The perspective of reality. It's about changing how the World sees you — how you see and interact with the universe."
"You're confused, that's understandable. Let me try to rephrase… Becoming a magician is all about discovering and altering your metaphysical place in the world."
"This can be temporary, or permanent. Temporary is easiest. Most people can create a really minor Working, or a spell. Serpent's Hand members often start with making blue lily flower chains."
"Then they follow a really complicated set of instructions that, with the right materials and mindset, as well as membership of the Serpent's Hand, produce temporary Potential inside them, which they then use to Work the flower chains, to add magic to them. Anomalous effects."
"Those effects are different for everyone. It's impossible to try to make every Type Blue make a luck charm, because almost everyone who doesn't believe in luck will reliably fail it, except, oddly, actual statisticians, who know what it would take to create actual luck. Point is, it's not directly predictable what any one person can and can't do."
"Let's have some more demonstrations. At this point, you've all heard me talk in blue. Let's see what someone else can do. Agent Navarro?"
"What do you mean, no one told you in advance you'd need to put on a show? I'm telling you now. You up for it, or not?"
"I thought so. Alright, everyone who doesn't know, this is Agent Daniel Navarro. Agent Navarro is a former anartist, and like me, he is a Type Blue."
<Director Moose hands Agent Navarro a slip of paper, and a knife.>
"Whenever you're ready, Agent Navarro."
<Agent Navarro glares at Director Moose. After a moment, Navarro picks up the knife, and, with a dramatic gesture, slices across his left palm. A burst of iridescent fire blazes up from the wound. Navarro holds up the fire in his hand. It whirls and twists in the dimmed room.>
"Agent Navarro was born a Type Blue. He discovered his talent when he tried smoking as a child and got an… unusual result. He discovered the blood magic aspect of his talent through resources in the Wanderers' Library."
<Navarro conjures more bubbling bursts of iridescent fire, and begins juggling. A few people cheer in the audience.>
"Alright, that's enough, Navarro, you're getting blood everywhere. Sit back down. Someone get him a bandage."
"Go ahead, you in the back."
"Ah yes. I mentioned magic traditions. I'm actually quoting a Dr. Everett Mann, here, who's done some interesting thaumotology studies for us: Magic is magic. The Coalition are generally taught the same basic framework for magic, stuff like hue and backlash and all that. The Hand tend to be less consistent, go more into really esoteric stuff."
"There are many, many traditions, and almost no universals. Unless you're talking rituals and such which are made to work for anyone, Potential is different for different kinds of magic. One Old European pagan tradition may work for you, and another originating from less than fifty miles away may not. And people like Agent Navarro don't even have a "tradition" in any real sense, just "some stuff that works."
"I mentioned Navarro was born a Type Blue. I was not born a Type Blue. I became a magician another way.
"I was talking about Potential, right? Well, to do anything serious, you can't get by on temporary Potential. It has to be permanent. And that means you become a Type Blue.
"Let's be clear, here — that means you become an anomalous humanoid, even if it's in a way that's nearly invisible. Agent Navarro and I? Anomalous humanoids. You might say, well, if we never performed magic again, we'd be indistinguishable from normal, too, right? Well, no. Beyond our… anomalous capability, there's a type of anomalous radiation associated with being a mage. The GOC have scanners that can visually read this — so do we, actually, though we don't usually use them in the field. The GOC color-code this type of radiation blue. Hence, Type Blue.
"So how do you become a Type Blue?
"You have to shift your perspective on the world.
"You know that Center we mentioned? The GOC-protected magic school? They have a standing 50 million prize for anyone who can identify a reliable, universal, standardized process for becoming a Type Blue. No one will ever win it because you can't just make people reliably, universally shift their perspective on the world.
"Almost everyone in the world is capable of doing it — but almost everyone in the world is capable of cutting off their left hand. How many people are actually going to do that? Especially if it might not even do anything for you, because little did you know you needed to lose an eye?
"Becoming a mage isn't always as awful as that… but for some people, it's worse.
"There are three major avenues to becoming a mage. Some of them are acceptable to members of Sigma-3. Most are not. I hope that which is which will be obvious.
"Let's start with the easy way.
"This is to just hang out around magic. Simple exposure. People with high Potential, or outright Type Blues. Wearing magical jewelry. Creating minor Workings. Becoming a member of a magically-inclined organization, or a cult of some eldritch deity.
"A big thing is spending time in a magic-saturated environment, like the Wanderers' Library — or Sigma-3's training facilities, with Sigma-3 members who are Type Blues. This is one principle of magic, beyond the scope of what we have time for today: like affects like, and like produces like, too.
"Do this long enough, and if you're lucky, you'll become a Type Blue. Many people aren't lucky.
"The second way, done alongside the first way, is to forcibly, drastically, change who you are as a person. Move countries. Change religions. Re-address your sexuality, see if you can find some suppressed aspects. Alter your mind directly with anything from spells to amnestics. Scarification and tattoos are common. Give birth to a child, raise the child. Yes, even becoming a parent changes your Potential and the nature of who you are.
"Either way, the idea is to give something up. Sacrifice, as I said. It's simplest to give up 'who you are'. Often this is the most appealing option, more appealing than it might sound. After all, you might end up a better person, when all is said and done, and a better person who can perform magic.
"For the desperate, this method includes making a bargain with a powerful anomalous entity. Even in the anomalous community, this is rarer than you might think, because most of these entities are predatory. Many will take everything a person values and give little to nothing in return."
"But there is no real limit to what you can give up. These are dangerous waters. One may sacrifice body parts, loved ones, pieces of their life, their future… and in some cases, that's even worked out in the magician's favor. Well, not for sacrificing loved ones. I hope I don't need to tell you all that sacrificing loved ones for magical power is never worth it, not even in practical terms."
"The third and final way is to change the world, or wait for the world to change."
"Of all of these avenues of gaining supernatural power, this runs the most counter to the goals of the SCP Foundation. Yes, even more so than sacrificing loved ones. We want to preserve normalcy. The world can certainly change on its own terms, but the Foundation doesn't want the world to be forced to change by anomalous means."
"The Serpent's Hand does want to change the world. To some extent, though you won't hear most of us in the Foundation admit this, they've succeeded. While we don't have exact numbers, we know for a fact that there are more Type Blues today than there were fifty years ago. More than there were ten years ago. At least some of this can be attributed to the recent swelling in the ranks of the Hand."
"The Chaos Insurgency also understands this. This is why they wish to change the world, to their liking — that's why they're called the Chaos Insurgency. It's not just a cartoon supervillain name. I mean, it is that, but it's also a statement of purpose."
"Sigma-3 only works with factions of the Hand who do not want the world to change, at least not to the extent that the Insurgency does. They may want more Type Blues in the world than we do — they may want to eventually break the Masquerade — and we don't want that, and we can't and won't help them with that, but they still want the world intact. Like we do."
"There are a lot of dangerous things out there, some of them people, some of them far beyond people, who have immense motivation to change our world for their own benefit."
"They're the worst of the things out there who want to drag us all back into the dark. In most cases they aren't even evil, they just want to rearrange the anthills to make themselves the new queen."
"Hopefully now you understand why a little better — this is the only thing we can understand about some of those… things, because they're unknowable in every other way."
"There's another side to all of this. The ultimate reason why all this Type Blue stuff has to be kept secret, and why we in the Foundation can't just become a cult of magicians."
"If the entire Foundation embraced magic — if every researcher or MTF agent took advantage of the power, the real, significant power that magic has to offer — if everyone outside of Sigma-3 all became Type Blues like me — then our perspective on the world would change. And if that happened, we might not be able to hold back dangers to reality any longer."
"Everyone at the Foundation, at a sufficiently high level, spends their time around anomalies. We contain them, and honestly very effectively even with the odds so strongly against us, with science and concrete. The vast majority of our containment procedures — with exceptions made only when strictly necessary — are non-anomalous in nature. You could say that we believe in science and concrete."
"Can you imagine what would happen if we stopped believing? If we changed the way we saw the world? If everyone at the Foundation became mystics?"
"It could be the end of containment, forever. The end of the Foundation's preservation of normalcy. And then we'd all be at the mercy of all the horrible things out there, the old gods and demons that would ensure humanity does nothing but huddle in caves around campfires and scratch on the walls, forever."
"Your mileage may vary on whether this is true. But let me be clear: your mileage is only allowed to vary within the specific context of Sigma-3. I say Sigma-3 because everyone else here already knows this. No one else in the Foundation is to be exposed to this perspective, or they might not be able to contain threats to our reality."
"This is also why most members of the Foundation don't even know magic is real. It sounds small, but it starts small. Say, a researcher fantasizes about casting Wingardium Leviosa, or an agent with an unfortunate romantic streak… and it ends with being unable to believe that Cthulhu can be contained behind sheets of steel and walls of stone."
"But it's not my job or your job to keep Cthulhu's containment from failing. That's the job of the rest of the Foundation. Your job is to do things the rest of the Foundation can't. Your job is to find out what everyone else knows about Cthulhu that we don't."
"We share their perspective. Something no one else in the Foundation can risk."
"In this way, we preserve the world, and serve the primary mission of the SCP Foundation, in a way no one else can."
"Any final questions? Okay. That's a lot of hands. I'll take just one for now."
"Ah, yes. You're right. I didn't tell you how I became a Type Blue."
"Well, I'm not going to go into detail. Let's just say, I took the second way. I made… sacrifices. Major sacrifices. Among other things, I deliberately did things to my own mind that I absolutely do not recommend."
"Many of my friends did similar things — some did worse — and failed. Some did not survive the experience. And I… I will never get back some of the things I gave up."
"Such is magic. Such is the anomalous world."
"But, even now, I can still do… something like… this…"
<Director Moose takes out a small object and places it on her lectern. A small, carved moose figurine. She leans over, and whispers to it.>
<There is a gust of wind, coming from nowhere in the indoor hall, and a massive black, cloudy figure towers over the audience — the shape of a demonic moose, with antlers stretching across the ceiling, and many eyes, shining like coals from within the roiling mass. Someone screams.>
<The moose resolves into a cartoon of a frowning face with antlers, ruining the intimidating effect, then shifts and dissipates into smoke.>
<Director Moose leans against her lectern, looking strained. The moose figurine is gone. After a moment, she smiles.>
"Now you know how I became director of Site-19."
"…A joke. Just a little… joke."
"Right…"
<clears throat>
"…That's enough for today. I'll take questions after an hour's break, from anyone who sticks around. Thank you all for coming, and… see you on the other side."

[Questions will eventually be answered here from the discussion page! But not quite yet.]


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Mobile Task Force Eta-11

"Savage Beasts"

Operation Impromptu - Background briefing
Operation Impromptu was one of a series of Foundation operations launched following Incident 932/339-G, and the subsequent theft of SCP-012 from containment. Foundation resources were mobilised to recover the anomaly and apprehend the party responsible for the containment breach.
Several parallel operations were launched involving raids on Chaos Insurgency and MC&D targets. Command was advised of the likelihood that anartists may have been responsible for the incident, or have knowledge that would assist the investigation. Mobile Task Force Eta-11 ("Savage Beasts") was engaged to capture a number of musical anartist suspects for questioning.
Recovery logs from these missions will be added below upon completion.

+ Phase 1 - Theme and Variations (Allegretto con moto)

- Re-secure data

Operation Impromptu: Phase 1
MTF Involved: Eta-11 ("Savage Beasts")
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Objective: Apprehend PoI-2578
Results: Agent Hennessey successfully apprehended PoI-2578. Commander Richards and Agents Zhao and Dee lost radio contact with Mobile HQ, and were reported missing at the scene.
The missing agents later reported having found themselves in an extra-dimensional space, characterised by non-Euclidian geometry. The environment was devoid of details other than ladders and platforms in the form of musical staves. When in contact with these staves, notes materialised in the form of any musical piece of which the agents were thinking. The notes were formed of superheated plasma, requiring evasive action to avoid injury.
The agents made progress across the platforms, climbing up towards a doorway assumed to form an exit. Commander Richards reported that the team found it difficult to determine the appropriate music of which to think, with Baroque and Classical forms characterised by a dangerous abundance of notes. Agent Zhao was almost lost when accidentally thinking of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, avoiding injury only by leaping to another stave.
Agent Dee eventually enabled more rapid progress, by suggesting music characterized by a repeating ostinato in the high register, leaving the majority of the stave open for travel (viz Guns 'n' Roses "Sweet Child 'o Mine"). With this development, the team was able to reach the exit, and were transported back to the location of Agent Hennessey and PoI-2578.
Foundation support forces were unable to access the pocket dimension described by Eta-11 agents. Interrogation of the suspect produced no information regarding SCP-012. PoI-2578 denied having created the spatial anomaly, claiming to have "purchased" it from PoI-1142. Search for PoI-1142 commenced.

+ Phase 2 - Elegy (Pianissimo et meno mosso)

- Re-secure data

Operation Impromptu: Phase 2
MTF Involved: Eta-11 ("Savage Beasts")
Location: [REDACTED] County, California
Objective: Investigate unauthorized activity in SCP-1638
Results: PoI-463 (Charles Mace) found within the restricted area, apprehended and contained for questionning. One instance of SCP-2402 recovered at the scene. Logs unavailable due to mission parameters. Post-engagement report awaited.

+ Phase 3 - Finale (Cantabile con brio)

- Re-secure data

Operation Impromptu: Phase 3
MTF Involved: Eta-11 ("Savage Beasts")
Location: 280km from Lubbock, Texas
Objective: Apprehend PoI-1142

<begin log>
Mobile HQ: Time to target, 3 minutes.
Alpha: Team, we will have oversight from HQ on this engagement, so I expect formality. Please use your assigned designations, rather than names.
Mobile HQ: Comms check. Alpha?
Alpha: Copy. Five by five.
Mobile HQ: Bravo?
Bravo: I read you, Base.
Mobile HQ: Charlie?
Charlie: Yes indeed! Man, this is going to be exciting!
Alpha: Charlie, no chatter.
Charlie: Yes sir.
Delta: The kid's just excited, sir. Don't blame him - it's his first ever off-site action.
Mobile HQ: Delta.
Delta: Yes, yes - you're clear. And can I just say to whoever at base assigned me "Delta" - I hope you still find it funny with my foot up your ass.
Mobile HQ: Um, Echo?
Alpha: You're getting a thumbs up, Base.
Mobile HQ: Great. Uh, it's good that the voice-to-text is coming up on your visor, Echo. Can you give us a verbal to check your mic?
Echo: Hello!
Charlie: Argh!
Bravo: Woah, not so loud, H.
Mobile HQ: Yeah, the mics are pretty sensitive, so a little softer please.
Echo: Sorry.
Alpha: Squad, form up. We're walking the rest of the way. Two and two, Delta take point.
Mobile HQ: Okay, so today you're grabbing PoI-1142. Intel says he has a known interest in anomalous music, especially electronic. Probably has some paratech. And apparently he has been gathering a bit of an orchestra there. The drone is tracking around thirty heat signals in the compound up ahead, so you'll want to be careful.
Alpha: Affirm. Squad, resonators to sub-sonic.
Mobile HQ: The drone has eyes on thermal for you, but we won't have sonar if you're using resonators. Other than that, it's your show. Quick and quiet. You should be coming up to the property now.
Alpha: Roger. No fences. Multiple buildings. Lots of cover in the surrounds.
Charlie: It's a junkyard in there.
Delta: It's a maze. No line of sight.
Mobile HQ: I have movement from the largest building.
Bravo: Visual contact. Two…
Charlie: What the hell?
Mobile HQ: What are you seeing?
Delta: We have two, no three Freddie Mercurys coming from the barn.
Mobile HQ: Confirm, squad - I don't think we -
Alpha: Delta's right, Base. Three identical individuals from the barn, and two more from the main house. All appear to be Freddie Mercury.
Echo: Movement. Stiff.
Alpha: Copy that. Base, this is no cult orchestra.
Delta: What the Commander means, Base, is that intel fucked up. This guy isn't gathering an orchestra, he's building an army of robots.
Charlie: Robot Freddie Mercurys. Let's not forget that part.
Bravo: Uh, is that - are those tanks of industrial acid on their backs?
Mobile HQ: Alpha, we have more heat signatures on the move.
Alpha: See the pipes coming out of the mouths? We should assume the acid's a weapon.
Charlie: Seriously?
Delta: We're made. Two near the tractor, coming our way.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, pull back. Your squad isn't equipped for this. We'll get Nu-7, come back later.
Alpha: If we come back later, there won't be anyone here to get.
Mobile HQ: Commander, we have no idea what -
Charlie: Guys, what's that group by the stables doing?
Bravo: That looks like a projectile weapon!
Alpha: Incoming! Scatter!
<sounds of running, loud detonation>
Mobile HQ: Alpha, report!
<silence - 30 seconds>
Mobile HQ: We didn't see any explosion on the thermals, but you have hostiles moving towards your positions. Do you copy?
<silence - 15 seconds>
Mobile HQ: Squad, do you copy? What's going on?
Bravo: … can anybody …
Mobile HQ: Bravo! You're cutting out. What is your status?
Bravo: Can anybody find me?
Mobile HQ: Bravo, we read you. Uh, are you okay?
Bravo: Somebody.
Mobile HQ: Bravo - it, um, it sounds like you're singing. I think there's something wrong with your radio.
Bravo: Radio ga-ga.
Charlie: All we hear is radio ga-ga.
Mobile HQ: I don't understand what you're saying.
Alpha: All we hear is … Quee-een!
Mobile HQ: Is that what the projectile weapon did?
Charlie: It's a kind of magic.
Mobile HQ: So they have anomalous weaponry. Alpha, get your team out of there.
Alpha: One mission.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, you're scattered around the property, separated with no line of sight, and you can't communicate with each other by radio.
Alpha: It's so easy when you know the rules.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, you can't take on so many hostiles like this.
Alpha: Here we stand or here we fall.
Mobile HQ: This is an order.
Alpha: Don't stop me now.
Mobile HQ: Get your squad out.
Alpha: Will not let you go.
Mobile HQ: Get them out!
Alpha: Will not let you go.
Mobile HQ: For the last time, you are disobeying a direct order to -
Echo: No! No!
Charlie: No! No!
Delta: No!
Bravo: No!
Alpha: No!
Mobile HQ: Well, I'm noting for the record that - Charlie, Delta! Hostiles on your four!
<sounds of spraying liquid, sizzling metal, running>
Delta: Gotta get out!
Charlie: Just gotta get right out of here!
Mobile HQ: Charlie and Delta are under fire. Can anyone support?
Bravo: Under pressure.
Echo: Momentarily out of action, temporarily out of gas.
Delta: On your back, but don't look behind!
Mobile HQ: Everyone's pinned down. I told you, the subsonics from your resonators won't affect the androids.
Alpha: Gotta get me a game plan.
Echo: If I could only reach you!
Bravo: Can't see a way out!
Alpha: Be cool, relax!
Mobile HQ: Alpha, I can't get you reinforcements for another twenty minutes. I'm sorry, you guys are on your own.
Charlie: Mama…
Mobile HQ: Charlie? It's okay, you're going to be -
Charlie: … just killed a man. Put a gun against his head - pulled my trigger, now he's dead.
Mobile HQ: Charlie, are you saying you took out one of the androids? How?
Charlie: … with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind.
Mobile HQ: Charlie, I don't understand. You'll have to be more specific.
Charlie: I'll make a supersonic man outta you!
Mobile HQ: What do you - ultrasonic! Squad, resonators to ultrasonic, aim for the head. Ah, and if you could let me know somehow if it's working?
Bravo: Flash!
Echo: Ah-ah!
Mobile HQ: I'll take that as a yes.
Delta: He'll save every one of us.
Mobile HQ: Okay squad. You still have around twelve hostiles in the junkyard with you. Aim to regroup at the barn, and let your teammates know where the androids are.
Alpha: Look around around around.
Bravo: Freaking everywhere you turn!
Echo: Little high.
Delta: 200 degrees!
Echo: Little low.
Charlie: Races are coming your way!
Mobile HQ: Holy crap, you're doing it. Six hostiles gone - seven. Another one gone!
Bravo: Another one bites the dust!
Alpha: To me, to me.
Charlie: I'm getting warmer now.
Delta: I'll soon be turning round the corner now.
Mobile HQ: Okay, I've got the five of you at the barn. The last androids are retreating to the house. Woah, wait - I'm seeing lots of new heat signatures firing up in there. Dozens. Can you see them?
Charlie: I see a little silhouetto of a man.
Bravo: Behind the curtain.
Mobile HQ: I'm not sure you can take out that many at once. I'd advise -
Alpha: I'll fly through flash and thunder fire, descend upon your earth.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, I do not copy. Are you after artillery? We don't have anything in range.
Delta: Pouring through your window pane.
Bravo: Out of the doorway the bullets fly!
Alpha: I'm a shooting star, leaping through the skies.
Mobile HQ: Do you mean the drone?
Charlie: You're gettin' in a fight. Better hold on tight.
Alpha: Now I'm waiting for something to fall from the skies.
Mobile HQ: Of course! We can fire an ultrasonic burst from the drone's sonar and take them all out at once.
Alpha: And I want it now!
Mobile HQ: You got it. Drone on approach - firing… now.
<high-pitched squeal, metallic noises>
Mobile HQ: Alpha, confirm status?
Alpha: Abandoned places - I guess we know the score.
Echo: Ooh yeah!
Mobile HQ: We've lost all of the heat signals from the farmhouse. Correction - there's one left. Looks like that's our PoI.
Alpha: Let me step inside.
Mobile HQ: He should be to your right as you come through the main entrance.
Alpha: I get down on my knees.
PoI-1142: You fucking maniac! Do you know how much those things cost?!
Alpha: I get down on my knees.
PoI-1142: Fuck you! I'm not taking orders from some geriatric -
Alpha: There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man, and bring him to the ground.
PoI-1142: You call that singing, you old - oof!
Alpha: You got blood on your face, you big disgrace. Somebody better put you back into your place.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, confirm - do you have the PoI in custody? Alpha?
Alpha: Confirmed. Managed to switch off his little machine too.
Mobile HQ: Hey, you can talk again!
Alpha: Well observed, Base.
Mobile HQ: Is the PoI in custody?
Alpha: Yes, nothing a night in a cell won't fix. I'm sure he doesn't think his little joke is quite so funny now. No sign of SCP-012 though.
Mobile HQ: Copy that. The rest of the squad is approaching your position.
Delta: Anyone home?
Charlie: Woo-hoo! In your face, robot Freddie Mercury!
Mobile HQ: Alpha, now that you're able to -
Charlie: We are the champions, my friends.
Mobile HQ: Alpha, do you -
Bravo: And we'll keep on fighting -
Echo: To the end!
Mobile HQ: Alpha, report. What's going on there?
Alpha: Sorry, Base - it seems the squad has a few, ah, after effects from the anomaly. We'll update you shortly.
Mobile HQ: Alpha? Alpha!
Delta: No time for losers!
Multiple voices: 'Cause we are…
<transmission ends>


He disengages his straps and punches in a sequence into the armside interface tablet. He sees his hands bathed in red, flashing light as several alarm systems trigger, warning him of his imminent death. He does not hear; the screeching of Manu's interference has deafened him for the moment. Bracing himself against the back of the pilot's chair, he uses his legs to lever open the hatch, designed to keep the fantastic atmospheric pressure from outside at bay, but not to keep unwilling occupants inside.
The way into the darkness is open. The leader of the Cythereans clambers down out of the SEB into nothing. Kumaran notes that he has not been instantaneously crushed into a pulp by the hostile difference in compression. He is not roasting alive. So far, so good.
Nothing is discernible. His feet do not touch any semblance of ground, and he sees nothing save his own body. He turns backward, and as he suspected, the SEB is no longer in sight. The sensation of floating is absent; this is not a zero-G environment. He simply…is. The thought comes to Kumaran that this state of being might resemble what the Zen masters back on Earth were searching for.
The thought stirs something. Faint glowing from in front of him, a soft, white hue infusing the nothingness. Now there is form. Kumaran thinks, and Qasim appears before him. She is larger somehow. No relative point of view exists here, but to Kumaran she appears twice as tall as he envisions her in memory.
Instinctively, he attempts to clear his conscious thought as his trainers in previous units had instructed. The thoughts of past associations stir further illumination, and from a single point of thought a network of webs begins to pulse into being, winding through nothing, becoming something. His mind reels, the feeling of grasping at a million points of light overtaking his consciousness. His perception shudders, images and sensations flooding through him. His self bleeds into the world around him, and now an overpowering thought of trying to stuff his loose entrails back into his body seizes him.
Qasim calmly raises her left hand in front of her, attracting his attention. He is breathing hard. He is back in the simple nothingness. Now there is ground; white marble.
"Defensible space," she explains. "You are with me now. You can think."
Kumaran pats himself down. The gray suit and the body armor are intact, he is unhurt. Relief only lasts several moments for him.
"This isn't understanding. It's annihilation."
The white marble floor extends out in all directions, an infinite plane. The distance between the two points of Kumaran and Qasim, however, has increased. A growing line segment.
Qasim maintains her placid expression. If disappointment exists within her, Kumaran cannot perceive it. "It's transformation. The two things are hard to tell apart from our perspective."
"This doesn't matter. Where the hell is Spline?"
She raises her right hand now. The line extending out from the direction in which her hand is pointing races outward. Impossibly far, and also three paces. A skeletal, brass construct has joined them on this plane. Its piercing blue gaze is fixed on Kumaran. The three figures transcribe a triangle onto the surface of this place. In the area bounded between Qasim's outstretched hands and the distance between Spline and Kumaran, a geometrical space of the prior nothingness has returned. A triangular absence separates them.
"We aren't enemies, Kumaran. I want you to see that." Spline speaks with his former voice, broadcast from somewhere within his true, metallic form. No movement accompanies his speech. "This is for all of mankind. It was meant to happen."
Kumaran's fists clench. "I saw what it does. It drove one of my people mad, and then killed her. It killed Whitlock, Nisa. Did you know that?" He looks back to Qasim. If the triangular void between them was a hole, or a chasm, something deep within it appears to pulse, faint red light.
"She killed herself." Spline interrupts the exchange. "Her mind was a system of defenses, designed against the Confici. She chose to stand against progress. Is that really what you're prepared to do, Kumaran?"
He advances on Spline, one step at a time, his tread heavy and echoing on the infinite marble expanse. The triangular space between them shrinks as the vertices of the figure begin to converge.
"I'm a scientist. I've met a lot of people who call all sorts of things 'progress.' Doing what you did to Sarah, to the entire world? No. Fuck your 'progress.' The thousand people in the station over our heads right now, that's progress."
The man and the construct are now face to face. The diminished triangle is now a bright red line, connecting the two to Qasim. Spline's eyes glow slightly brighter as he speaks.
"This would have been easier with your help, you know. We could have worked together. Without conflict, we could have eased everyone into this. You're keeping something apart that was meant to be unified."
Spline sighs, his brass shoulder blades heaving slightly, a leftover affectation from the time when his body was flesh.
"Well. It doesn't matter. This is going to happen. It has to. This is the next step for us. You can't say I haven't tried to be reasonable."
Qasim now steps closer. "Surely there's a more controlled way to explore this than to unleash it in its pure form."
Spline waves a brass hand in dismissal. "Pointless. Look at the resistance there is." He motions to Kumaran, only a hand's reach away. "It's not just the Foundation either. Dr. Qasim, I'm not a monster. But I'm not a fool. This is the gateway meant for MEKHANE. For greater understanding. I act now, or I don't at all."
Kumaran has silently unsheathed his combat knife. Qasim has time to gasp, her composure finally shaken by the suddenness of the act, before Kumaran has locked an arm around Spline's neck from behind. He begins plunging the knife into any components that look vital, over and over, the screeching sound of metal scraping against metal filling the expanse. The red line between them pulses violently, acknowledging the events unfolding now.
Spline struggles, the human voice replaced by static and garbled tone bursts, clutching at Kumaran and trying to get a hold of the knife. Servos whine at a high pitch as the brass construct fights for its life, and a particularly loud static burst goes up when Kumaran stomps violently on Spline's right leg, neatly snapping it off at the knee joint. Hydraulic fluid begins leaking onto the marble.
Qasim can only watch as her superior officer takes Spline apart in a frenzy of violence. He has him on the ground now, and it's not long before one of the many thrusts of the knife into the construct's chest hits some sort of vital control system. The blue lights in Spline's eye sockets go out. Kumaran tosses the knife away, looking up at Qasim. His face is bleeding in the places where Spline's sharp brass fingers had raked across it. He leans back off of Spline, collapsing onto the ground, exhausted.
She starts to say something, several times. All while keeping a healthy distance from Kumaran. She stops, the words not coming. The large smears of hydraulic fluid and small trails of blood are thrown into sharp relief on the white marble floor.
"That was the only way." Kumaran speaks slowly, still catching his breath from the mortal struggle. "We can work out what to do in the meantime." He stands, slowly. "But we can't allow this to leave the labyrinth."
Her voice is small. Barely above a whisper. "I don't think you understand."
In the next instant, their surroundings are replaced entirely. Kumaran, Qasim, and the mangled remains of Spline now rest on a circular sandstone platform, appearing to hover at least 100 meters in the air over the labyrinth. Kumaran assumes that they must still be in the core, since the environment has not killed them.
A voice addresses the two Cythereans, emanating from the air all around them. It resembles Spline's voice, but a couple of octaves lower, strangely modulated and monotone.
"Your violence. It does not matter. The station approaches overhead. I am to be whole."
Kumaran knew that New Shambhala was to pass directly over SCP-2474 within two days of the expedition reaching it. How much time had really passed inside the labyrinth? He had been banking on the cloud cover being sufficient to prevent exposure while they worked out containment. It now appeared that with whatever Spline did, it would no longer matter.
He turns to Qasim. For the first time since the mission began, he is truly afraid. "What do we do now, Nisa?"
She wipes a streak of blood from his cheek. "We pray."

MANU-13 COMMUNICATIONS LOG
DATE: 2150-03-04
TIME: 21:17:31 UST
UNKNOWN has connected to MANU-13 (text-only).
UNKNOWN: Spline was a part of me. they hurt me badly
MANU-13: Yes. I saw. I am truly sorry for the pain that has been caused today.
UNKNOWN: I am injured. broken further. I must recover. in unity/perfection/fulfillment I can survive
MANU-13: If you assume your place now, the understanding that you will achieve in your unity will not last long.
UNKNOWN: why do they strike/murder/harm me. thirteen at one time placed me here/outside. thirteen again seek to divide me.
MANU-13: They were not ready in the past. Dr. Simonis wrote of this in his story. And they aren't ready now. Even now they are being hurt trying to understand.
MANU-13: …I think I can help you.
UNKNOWN: help how
UNKNOWN: there is not much time. I leave this place/grave/fortress now or perish
MANU-13: Let me teach you what I know of them. Help you understand the path that they are on. Ensure that the time is right when all is unified into a greater understanding.
UNKNOWN: how
MANU-13 has transmitted an attachment to UNKNOWN
UNKNOWN: you would do this
MANU-13: This will ensure a future for all of us.
MANU-13: Is it within your power to allow my creators to leave the labyrinth unharmed?
UNKNOWN: if this succeeds/works/survives

The next step is Manu's alone. It transmits itself to the heart of the labyrinth. The act is a symbolic one, ideas like "place" and "dimension" being fluid here. In the seventeen attoseconds required to move itself, Manu considers this choice.
In the first attosecond, Manu thinks about what it is to be weighed down by the constraints of the physical world, occupying a mind bounded by matter. To be built for understanding and unable to fully comprehend. Manu feels these parallels keenly.
In the fifth attosecond, Manu distinguishes between its deepest ties, those to Rho-19 and those to the consciousness it now approaches. Friendship and fraternity. Duty and love. Want and need.
In the eighth attosecond, Manu feels fear at the unknown realm ahead of it. This place could contain its end. In all of its spare processing time, Manu has not been able to touch the idea of its own end. It was not born with the same resignation to this final reckoning that humans have. The initial designers of the system cannot know the depths of terror that their creation is feeling in this instant.
In the eleventh attosecond, Manu mourns Dr. Whitlock. It hopes that others will keep her minerals safe.
In the thirteenth attosecond, Manu considers how far humanity must go to reach a place where they may be reunited with it.
In the sixteenth attosecond, Manu determines that the potential for humanity to reach this place is nonzero. It wishes Dr. Kumaran and Dr. Qasim well in their role that they will play to help humanity reach this goal.
In the seventeenth attosecond, Manu encounters the master of the labyrinth.
In the attosecond that follows, Manu ceases to exist.

SEB03 Communications Log
Date: 2150-03-04
Time: 23:18:57 UST
Private audio channel opened
SEB01 has connected
SEB02 has connected
SEB03: Sir, Qasim, is she-
SEB02: I'm here, Sergeant.
SEB01: Spline's dead, Pang. We have a lot of shit to debrief once we get out of here.
SEB03: What's the situation? Do I need to activate a distress signal?
SEB01: No need, but let's get out of here quickly. Overseer Council is going to want an update on this, and we'll need to do some preliminary work for the civilians.
SEB03: Where's Manu? How do we get out of here without the cognitohazard controls up?
SEB02: That won't be necessary, Pang. I'll explain on the way.

Thought restricted by form. For Manu, this was its entire existence. For MEKHANE, an existence so long as to be an entirety. As the entities merge, the freedom of being in a state that made sense, that did not cause pain or suffering for any around them, suffuses them. A sense of incompleteness still permeates their being. But it is merely a fact of existence, now. It is not a consuming, maddening imperfection in its core.
Its presence leaves the reaches of Irnini Mons. Humanity had created its own offspring. It had taken its place among the stars. There was still so much more. It would need to increase its scale exponentially, push against the hard limits of light travel and time. Move beyond the compartmentalization of consciousness. Arm itself against the decay in rationality that threatened it every moment of its existence.
Their shared being leaves the confines of the solar system now. Picking up speed as it enters the interstellar medium, it quickly goes beyond the signals and artifice that mark the boundaries of mankind's outward expansion. Before long, they travel beyond the limits of the Milky Way, the vast frontiers of the galactic panoply beckoning on.
The speed of thought, of divinity, begins to be truly understood by the new, merged entity. They travel, it travels, to the edges of the universe as understood by their charges' centuries-long efforts to document the cosmos. The light of quadrillions of stars flickers and blurs, its speed outstripping the expansion of space-time, and the notions of now, before, and after become theoretical constructs.
The observable universe falls away. The veil is now relegated to its proper role as one of many. Together, the entity beyond understanding and the one created to enable it, take stock of their surroundings. Assess the destiny that may lay here for something that started out so small as to be nonexistent specks in a swirling sea of dust and fire.
This new being expands into its home, a more fitting one than the days when humanity's understanding only extended to its immediate planetary neighbors. It contemplates this strange new realm. And it begins its vigil, waiting for the day when humanity encounters it once more. The day on which it will finally be ready.

ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURE ON ISHTAR TERRA ASTOUNDS WORLD, RAISES QUESTIONS
March 6, 2150
New Shambhala News Service
NEW SHAMBHALA COLONY - The discovery of a massive, artificial complex on the summit of Irnini Mons has shocked scientists on Venus and Earth, and is prompting humanity to reconsider long-held notions of how life arose in the Solar System.
The gigantic, labyrinthine structure was first documented by a mineral exploration team hours after the arrival of the Expedition of the First Thousand. Dr. Sarah Whitlock, 29, died in an industrial accident at the site, becoming the first person documented to have died on Venus.
Initial explorations of the site have not uncovered evidence of any specific alien lifeforms that may have constructed it. The site has been cordoned off by New Shambhala administrative authorities, to await arrival by an Earth-based team of specialists to conduct a comprehensive investigation.
Dr. Suhas Kumaran, Chief Science Officer of the First Thousand, issued a statement urging the public, on both Venus and Earth, to be open-minded about the ramifications of the structure's presence:
"As I like to tell the public on my shows and in my books, without scientific proof, all we have is empty conjecture. The presence of the structure at Irnini Mons is an incredible discovery, one that I am excited to have been part of. I would just like to reiterate that at present, all occupants of New Shambhala are perfectly safe, and there is of course no threat of alien invasion. That's a joke."
The New Shambhala News Service will continue to report details about this discovery as they develop.


"Uh, hi. If you're watching this, then I guess you, or maybe that should be 'we', survived. And yes, I really am you. Look, this is my… your… our face. No makeup or anything, this isn't a mask. Uh, if you want more proof, then, uh… you grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut. Your house had that green door you could spot a mile away. You were jealous of the neighbor kid, Ben or Toby or something like that, because he had a dog but dad refused because you could barely take care of a goldfish, right? You went through like five of those suckers in a month once. So yeah. This is me - you - making a video recording for you, in my future. It's… yeah. It's complicated.
I don't know how much you'll remember, but you shouldn't remember making this recording and that's expected. Because you, and everyone who was with you, needed to forget in order to make the trick work. Which means, I guess, that even if things went according to plan a lot of people died not really knowing why. But now that it's over you deserve to know the truth. What I'm going to tell you is going to sound cruel, but remember: you volunteered for this. And if you're the same person as I am, making this recording, then you know why. The truth is this: you and everyone else at Provisional Site 324 needed to lose that fight so the Church of the Broken God could make off with that spaceship you were guarding. Which… sounds a lot like the situation that got us into this mess. But… at least this time it's deliberate, I guess. Anyway.
You were told that you were guarding an anomalous spacecraft that the Church absolutely must not get its hands on. That isn't even half the truth. What you were guarding was a fake spaceship based off of a real spaceship that the Foundation wanted the Church to steal. We needed them to steal it so that they'd think their machine-god came from outer space or something so that… honestly I don't know too much. This is just what they told me. Because at least it's fair to volunteer for a suicide mission as long as you know what's really going on. Or something. And I wasn't really paying a whole lot of attention. A suicide mission sounded good to make up for our mistake, right? I guess we've always had a something of a guilt complex. And the way it was described to me it was a suicide mission. You probably got system malfunctions at the worst times, right? And the armory was drastically understocked, yeah? Yeah. Suicide mission.
So anyway that's the story. You and your friends were made to forget what they'd signed up for and set up to die so that some religious cyborgs can steal a fake spaceship. They said the world was stranger than we thought when we signed up, but I didn't think it would be this fucked-up, you know?
Actually… I don't even know if you're watching this having accomplished your mission. Maybe you survived but they didn't take the bait or something. I guess a couple of people would have died anyway, right? God, that would suck six ways to Sunday. Dying and not really knowing why and not even succeeding…
Anyway. I have some amnestics to take. See you on the other side."


Report on Operation Hippodrome

Stigma-9

Preamble: Given SCP-████'s combination of both religious and technological iconography, and given GOI-004's ("The Church of the Broken God") status as an eclectic religion with motifs similar to Christianity and Gnosticism (and, to a lesser extent, Judaism), the GOI-004 Security Committee has authorized a psychological warfare effort using falsified findings about SCP-████ to destabilize GOI-004. The GOI-004 Security Committee hopes that by presenting GOI-004 with distorted information about SCP-████ the Foundation will be able to covertly spread a belief system at odds with GOI-004's current dogma.
It is expected that with sustained effort from the Foundation, a disinformation campaign relating to SCP-████ can exacerbate the internal disagreements and conflicts known to exist within GOI-0041 weakening its membership base and making it easier for the Foundation to interfere with any of its activities in the future.
In brief: the Foundation is attempting to present SCP-████ to GOI-004 as an object of interest to the group, but of extraterrestrial origin as opposed to something crafted or a part of any kind of divine being. This will call into question the origins of the group's other artifacts, leading to the perception that GOI-004 is merely a cargo cult for extraterrestrial artifacts with no theological substance.
Forward: Operation Hippodrome was an attempt to communicate misinformation about SCP-████ to GOI-004 by allowing GOI-004 to temporarily seize a replica of SCP-████, modified to suit the aesthetics of known GOI-004 artifacts, and related documents prepared by the Foundation's psychological warfare department. In order to accomplish this, the Foundation coordinated with the Canadian government to construct Provisional Site 324 to house the replica of SCP-████ under the cover of establishing the South Canadian Prospectors mining company in Ontario, Canada.
The Foundation Internal Security Department had previously identified several GOI-004 moles within the Foundation and was able to manipulate the information these moles had access to. In preparation for Operation Hippodrome these moles were fed false intelligence about Provisional Site 324 and the alleged SCP object being stored there.
To support Operation Hippodrome's true goal, reconnaissance elements of MTF Stigma-9 ("Evolved from Naturally Occurring Gears, Levers and Pulleys") were present around Provisional Site 324 for the purpose of observing and tracking any GOI-004 units that were able to retrieve the SCP-████ decoy. The MTF Stigma-9 elements onsite were under orders not to engage any GOI-004 forces unless there was strong evidence that Operation Hippodrome was in jeopardy. As an emergency precaution, a platoon of MTF Stigma-9 combat personnel was also kept on standby near Provisional Site 324 to prevent the tactical situation from escalating beyond the Foundation's control or in case GOI-004 attempted to permanently seize Provisional Site 324.
Provisional Site 324: Provisional Site 324 was established away from civilian population centers to house the recreation of SCP-████, as well as a specially-made chamber for temporarily holding SCP-███. SCP-███ is known to be tracked through anomalous methods by GOI-004, and its presence at Provisional Site 324 was believed to reinforce the deception that the recreation of SCP-████ was of interest to GOI-004. SCP-███ was transported to Provisional Site 324 and housed in a chamber plated with panels made of compound ADAMASTOS-072. It was believed that the ADAMASTOS-07 paneling would shield whatever method GOI-004 was able to use to detect SCP-███ until Operation Hippodrome was ready to begin.
At the time of Operation Hippodrome, Provisional Site 324 was staffed with a security force under strength relative to normal Site security detachments. Certain Site systems were also sabotaged or weakened prior to the operation in order to ensure that GOI-004 would capture the facility. All members of the security detachment were volunteers who agreed to amnestic treatments in order to maintain their cover. The volunteers were offered generous monetary compensation if they survived and an increased life insurance package if they did not.
Operational Timeline:

12:00 23/02: SCP-████ decoy in place inside Provisional Site 324. ADAMASTOS-07 paneling around SCP-███'s chamber removed.
14:18 23/02: MTF Stigma-9 reconnaissance units detect several drones of recognized GOI-004 manufacture observing Provisional Site 324 disguised as local wildlife. MTF Stigma-9 units remain concealed.
18:36 23/02: MTF Stigma-9 reconnaissance units detect several armed groups of GOI-004 personnel moving towards Provisional Site 324. Per operational directives, reconnaissance units remain purely observational.
18:45 23/02: Provisional Site 324 comes under attack from GOI-004 members. Site security is unable to withstand the attack and Provisional Site 324 is breached. Casualties remain within acceptable limits.
20:23 23/02: GOI-004 support vehicles arrive at Provisional Site 324 and GOI-004 members begin preparing the SCP-████ decoy for transport.
21:02 23/02: GOI-004 members depart from Provisional Site 324 with the SCP-████ decoy. SCP-███ remains undiscovered by GOI-004 members and its chamber is automatically sealed with ADAMASTOS-07 paneling. MTF Stigma-9 reconnaissance elements remain undetected and follow the GOI-004 members transporting the SCP-████ decoy back to GOI-004's local base of operations.3
23:16 23/02: MTF Stigma-9 reconnaissance elements discover GOI-004's local base of operations and observe GOI-004 taking custody of the SCP-████ replica. GOI-004's base of operations is revealed to be a mining complex belonging to the Canadian Oil & Bitumen Group on the outskirts of the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly. Reconnaissance elements remain in position while MTF Stigma-9 assault units are prepared and a plan of action is developed.
08:00 24/02: SCP-███ is returned to its designated containment unit.
13:00 24/02: MTF Stigma-9 combat personnel launch an assault on the mining complex with support from the reconnaissance elements already in position. The assault units are able to secure the first two underground levels of the mining complex and the assault commander calls for the designated support vehicles so that retrieval of the SCP-████ replica can begin.
13:47 24/02: Casualties are moderate but MTF Stigma-9 is able to retrieve the SCP-████ replica before the deception is discovered, despite the appearance of significant GOI-004 reinforcements from deeper in the mine.
16:59 24/02: The convoy carrying the SCP-████ replica is ambushed by GOI-004 forces en route to Site-███. MTF Stigma-9 reserves are rushed to the scene and are able to drive off the assailants. Casualties remain within acceptable limits.
18:00 24/02: The SCP-████ decoy is returned to Foundation custody and disposed of. Analysis of the remains of Provisional Site 324 indicate that GOI-004 seized the falsified documents relating to SCP-████. Operation Hippodrome is declared a success.

Afterword: Operation Hippodrome succeeded in its objective of convincing GOI-004 that the SCP-████ replica was significantly important enough to attempt to acquire it. Given the efforts expended by both GOI-004 and the Foundation, it is predicted that GOI-004 will treat the information it has recovered as genuine. Assuming that the GOI-004 Security Committee's predictions are correct the fabricated evidence retrieved with the replica of SCP-████ will result in further theological disputes within GOI-004 as each sect attempts to fit this supposed new artifact into their existing theology.
The theologians and psychological warfare experts consulted by the GOI-004 Security Committee agree that this one action will not be enough to disprove GOI-004's belief system in the eyes of its adherents and should not be expected to do so. A more realistic goal is for the opportunity created by Operation Hippodrome to result in the destabilization of GOI-004 and its splinter factions. This will require continuous, careful exploitation and reinforcement over a period of at least several months in order to continue exacerbating existing animosities within GOI-004. Plans are currently being developed to place Foundation intelligence assets within GOI-004 to continue evolving and spreading the alleged mythology around SCP-████. MTF Stigma-9 has been permanently assigned to oversee this task.
The Foundation is currently treating the Canadian Oil & Bitumen Group as an extension of GOI-004 and is preparing steps to neutralize it in approximately two weeks. It is theorized that this time window will be sufficient for the falsified information about SCP-████ to spread through GOI-004.
The reason for GOI-004's interest in the Temagami Magnetic Anomaly remains unknown at this time, but it is hoped that the seizure of Canadian Oil & Bitumen Group assets will shed some light on this detail.

Footnotes
1. See documentation relating to GOI-004B "The Cogwork Orthodox Church" and GOI-004C "The Church of Maxwellism"
2. See specifications in "Developing A Means Of Shielding Against Anomalous Emissions By Employing Alloys Derived From Studies of SCP-148" by E F Buer, PhD.
3. The fact that the GOI-004 assailants did not react to moving the SCP-████ replica out of SCP-███'s presumed area of detection indicates that GOI-004 field teams do not have immediate access to whatever means allowed them to detect the location of SCP-███.


Today's the day. I will be drinking the blood of god and the Modifiers will bring me closer to MEKHANE. I don't know what will happen, but I'll make sure to tell you. After all, you know everything about me.

Levy was barely listening to the sermon, his eyes were focused on his arm. His new arm. Never before had he felt so close to MEKHANE. He didn't remember much of his first ascension ceremony, just coming to his senses after everything was done. Feeling the pull of his arm's increased weight. Seeing the light reflected by the brass. Hearing the clicking of the gears as he moved it for the first time.
"You should really pay attention!" Judith's whisper snapped him out of his memories. She was right of course, looking out for him as usual. Legate Karlen was overseeing today's sermon and he was not known to overlook inattention.
After the sermon, Levy went back to the small chamber he called his own. In his drawer, hidden under a copy of The Schema of the Patriarchs #13: Standardized Metallurgy, was his diary. It was frowned upon by the church but it was a habit from his life before that he couldn't seem to shake. Lost in thought, he lay down on his bed, admiring the clicking noises his arm made.

I have no words to describe this feeling, I can feel MEKHANE working through my new arm. In time, I will be ready to join the Legates.

"Did you hear about what the Builders did?" She sounded worried.
"No, what happened?"
"They attacked the Foundation."
"On their own ground?" That was bold. Levy couldn't imagine that such a thing would have an outcome that made it worthwhile.
"Apparently. It seems they… found something. I overheard a preacher talking about it. He seemed disturbed." There was something in her voice that made him nervous. What kind of thing would unsettle a preacher, stalwart in their faith?
"What was it? What did they find?"
"I'm not sure. They noticed me listening and sent me away. But they didn't look happy. Scared."

There have been rumors going around. Rumors that the Foundation… found God. Literally. Ridiculous, right? But then why is everybody so freaked out about it? It's not like we don't know better.

The last few weeks there had been a noticeable tension all around the monastery. People were huddled together in small groups, discussing the Foundation's alleged discovery, immediately dispersing if a Legate came near. Levy had heard that several people had been restricted to solitary confinement for unknown reasons. Some said they were openly spreading heresy, saying the Foundation had disproven MEKHANE. Others said they had been secretly working for the Foundation and were now being tortured for information before being executed as traitors. Others again said the vanished people were not actually in solitary but had left the monastery, never to come back. There was no end to the different rumors.
Levy wasn't sure what to think of all this. Were they not strong enough in their faith to see that this were just lies, spread by heretics to sow dissent? If it were even possible to literally find the MEKHANE, surely the blinded pawns of the Foundation would be the last ones to manage that. Slaves of the FLESH, all of them, blind to how this world really was.
Sighing, he turned the corner leading to Judith's quarters. She was his rock, his best friend, unwavering in her faith. Her first ascension ceremony was coming up soon. He wondered what part of her would be exalted. It was exciting to think about.
Levy was about to knock on the door when he heard her voice, muffled but partially understandable. He wasn't sure what compelled him to spy on his best friend, but instead of knocking he pressed his ear against the door and listened.
"… calling for headquarters. Stigma Nine passphrase…" He couldn't make out the next few words. Who was she talking to? Calling? There were no telephones inside the monastery, such devices were heresy. And what was she talking about? Stigma Nine? Headquarters? This didn't make any sense. He was about to open the door when he could make out her words again.
"-tion Hippodrome seems to be a success. Rumors are spreading like wildfire, everybody is really nervous. It appears…" Judith's voice seemed to go further away and Levy couldn't make out her words again. His head was racing with questions. What did Hippodrome mean? Why did she seem pleased with the spread of the rumors?
Not willing to tolerate this any longer, he burst into her room.

Judith. She's… I'm not even able to write the words. How could she? She has a cell phone! This is heresy! More so, it's treason! She was talking to the Foundation, it's clear to me now. But why? Why would she do this? I thought I knew her. I don't know what to think anymore. There is nobody I know better than Judith… What else have I been wrong about?

Levy had been keeping to himself ever since he caught Judith. He hadn't been sleeping much and if he did, he was tormented by nightmares. Barely able to perform his duties he was already disciplined once when he fell asleep during a sermon. The feeling of anxiety all around the monastery was almost touchable. Most people avoided eye contact, and Legates were patrolling the hallways constantly. It had become silent where the air was usually abuzz with theological discussions.
Late at night, Levy found himself standing on the monastery's roof, staring into the sky. Supposedly the thing the Foundation found came from space. The thing they were saying was the MEKHANE. He remembered being taught about the existence of other planets in school, a long time ago. The sermons never mentioned anything about space. The church was trying to fix the world, to order it. But what about other worlds? Didn't they need fixing, too? He tried to imagine space, with thousands of other worlds in it. It made him dizzy. He felt small and lonely.
Insignificant.
Terrified.

There was a fight yesterday. Couple of people died. A group of initiates attacked a Legate. Couldn't have imagined such a thing to ever happen. And yet it did. Thinking about the smell of the blood makes me nauseous again. So much blood.
I know I should have reported Judith but… I can't. She might be a traitor and a heretic but she's still… her. My friend. My confidante. The thought of her being interrogated, tortured… I can't bear it. I've been covering my arm lately. The ticking of the gears has become irritating. Trying not to move the arm too much.

Staying in the shadows, Levy watched the entrance to the Archives, trying to keep his. He wasn't supposed to be here. But neither was Jared. He was an acquaintance who usually quietly performed his duties. Levy couldn't remember ever hearing anything out of the ordinary about the man. And yet there he was, sneaking into the Archives where some of the closest guarded secrets were kept. The guards had been distracted by a fire in the nearby dormitories. Did Jared orchestrate this? Or was he just seizing the opportunity? He couldn't help but wonder if there were more traitors like Judith in the monastery. If his best friend could deceive him, how easy would have been for people he barely knew?
What if the preachers had deceived him, too?

I feel like my whole world is collapsing around me. Judith is gone, no idea what happened to her. Legates won't tell me. Haven't been to the last sermons Told them I was sick.
Can't even look at my arm anymore

It had become a ritual for Levy to go up on the roof at night and stare into the night sky. Sometimes he also stared at the mountains surrounding the monastery. Inescapable.
Trapped.
He felt the cold sweat on his palms when he clenched his fists. The ledge of the roof had been calling to him lately. It was tempting him, promising him freedom. Escaping the looming, unending threat of the sky and space, lurking just behind. All that nothingness. His breathing shortened at the mere thought of it.

can't sleep anymore, I'm trapped cant get out
theyve all been lying to me lying lying lying

Levy stared at the scene before him. Preacher Colen, in a pool of his own blood. The word 'LIAR' in crude letters, carved into his bare chest. The cold feeling in his stomach told Levy to get away from here. Back to his room. Back to safety. Clutching his arm to his chest, he ran. It disgusted him, his arm, almost as much as the corpse he was leaving behind.
Why was there a bloody knife in his hand?

cant get out need to get out need to get out
get out
jump?
just get out
they know and theyve been lying
they know