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Present Day

Two months passed since the strange final interview with Joanna Cross.
The day began on which the Foundation's mistake would end the world. But Kendra Campbell did not know that.

As the day went on, Kendra Campbell became more and more sure that she could hear some kind of humming. No one else could hear it: never a good sign.
She decided that she would call in to the site therapists on Monday. She hoped maybe Glass was around again. He was always cool.
The clock ticked down.
Thirty minutes remained before the end of the world.
Campbell returned to her desk after a late lunch break and found that she had a message waiting for her.

Doctor,
I am afraid I have not been completely forthcoming with you.

Footsteps, behind her. Campbell turned around — and stared down the barrel of a gun.
Joanna Cross approached Campbell's desk. In one hand she held a gun. In the other she held a gigantic potted flower by the stem.
"Hello, Doctor Campbell," she said. "Long time no see."

After several hours of climbing stairs, swimming through multi-colored oceans, and climbing through the machinery underneath the Library, Alison Chao carefully stepped through a tangle of roots and onto a thin, long wedge of granite protruding out into thin air. Rain, Septima, and Dega followed.
Thirty minutes left to go, Alison thought.
They stood in front of a vast sky.
"Sky" was a bit of a wrong word for it, but no better one came to mind. It was a nice clear, blue and possessed of a number of pleasant-looking clouds. Up above at the top of the sky, a vast network of roots weaved itself into the distance. Amorphous floating light sources moved slowly through the root-hung chandeliers, the kind found all over the Library.
The sky below seemed endless. Alison wasn't even sure there was ground down there. True, this space was technically all contained on the inside of the Library, but…
Dega swished her tail. "Is this a bad time to mention I'm afraid of heights?"
"I've got some rocks I could throw down there," Rain said. "So we can listen to hear when they hit the bottom."
Septima collapsed to her knees and planted her ear firmly against the rock, and started whispering.
"Jeez," Rain said. "Just a bad joke."
"I require silence!" Septima said. "I am communing with the rock."
"Don't," Alison said. "You'll need all your power for where we're about to go."
Septima shot her a glare. "This takes no power. I am merely communing. If anything, this would help regain my power." She huffed a little bit, like an angry cat. "Please, I will need quiet, respectful silence." She resumed murmuring.
They waited several long minutes in silence.
Presently, a shape soared towards them, resolving into the figure of a humanoid with four vast wings.
"Good," Alison said. "He's here."
Septima leaped to her feet. "I have finished communing with the rock," she said. "It is a very, very, very long way down."
"Great to know," Rain murmured.
The four-winged figure drew close and dropped down, folding his wings as he landed and smoothly transitioning into a bow. Alison and her companions bowed in return.
"Greetings," the humanoid said. His face was covered in a thin coating of down, and his hair seemed to be entirely feathers; otherwise, he looked relatively human. "I am Ataxis. I believe we have not time for true introductions, for we must make haste." He gestured at Alison. "Do you have my payment?"
"I do," Alison said. She reached into her pocket, drew out a simple, silver key, and pressed it into the avian man's hand.
Ataxis examined the key from several different directions, gave it an experimental lick, and swallowed it whole.
An immensely pleased expression crossed his face. "Excellent!" he proclaimed. "Truly satisfying, truly. You are a woman who makes good on her bargains! And so, without further ado—" Ataxis pivoted on one foot, facing out towards the sky, opened all four wings at once, and swept his left hand upward.
One instant there was nothing but sky at the edge of the granite protrusion, and the next that space was occupied by a massive crystalline door.
Alison reached out and touched it, closing her eyes and concentrating for a moment. Then she smiled.
"This will do nicely," she said to Ataxis.
"Most excellent," Ataxis said. "You will understand if I would like to be far away before you open this door. And… remember to shut it after you."
When Ataxis had flown away into the distance, Alison finally sighed in relief.
"Okay," Rain said. "It's a door. Where to?"
The door began to open. First, there was only diffuse light in the doorway. Then, the mist resolved itself into a plain, metallic-grey corridor.
"This," Alison said, "is a Way directly into Site-17."
An indefinable hum began to fill the air as Alison and her companions stepped through the door.

For a long moment, Kendra Campbell stared down the barrel of Joanna Cross's gun. Then Cross lowered the gun.
"I will shoot you if I have to," Cross said. "But I really, really don't want to."
"Why?"
Cross chuckled. "Call it affection."
Campbell eyed the plant. "What the hell is that thing?"
The plant was… hard to look at. Green, with a pink-and-red blossom, but with a sheen about it that made it look like the colors were swimming. And the way it was shaped — the color of the green was off, the stem too thick, too smooth. It seemed like a thing shaped into the idea of a plant rather than a living organism.
"It's a focus," Cross said. "When you asked me two months ago if I was here to break out the Witch Child — the answer is yes. But it's not the whole answer."
"Alright," Campbell said. "What's the whole answer?"
Cross looked at the watch strapped to her wrist. Funny, Campbell thought, I haven't seen anyone wearing a wristwatch in a while.
"The world ends in twenty-six minutes," Cross said.
"What," Campbell said.
"Twenty-five minutes now," Cross said. "Walk with me. Walk ahead of me. I'm gonna need your keycard to open doors."
"Where are we going?"
"To the Site-17 bar."
"You want to get a drink?"
"What better time than right before the end of the world?" Cross laughed. "No, there's an actual reason. Let's get moving. We're running out of time, you know…"

Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir was still listening. Only twenty minutes left to go.
The song was changing. Building. More words and not-words being added to the chorus. A curious pain from everywhere, a full-body headache. She could barely hold still.
Then she saw the light opening in her mind's eye. Down the hallway. A familiar form stepping through, with three companions.
She was still pulling out the IV tubes when the woman opened the door, but she remembered her manners.
"Hello," she said. "My name is Sigurrós. It's nice to finally meet you."
"Likewise," Alison said. "Pardon me as I get ritualistic here for a moment. I, Alison Chao, known as L.S., also known as the Black Queen, come here to meet with you on behalf of the inhabitants of this planet, on behalf of the Serpent's Hand, and on behalf of myself. I have come to ask a bargain of you."
Fifteen minutes left to go.
There were new words in song now, new words that Sigurrós could recognize.
Never never never never
Yesterday and forever
Forever and ever and ever and ever
Never never never never
Never never never never…

Cross led Campbell through the labyrinth of hallways that was Site-17.
"You're obviously not supposed to be here," Campbell said. "You're gonna get jumped first time we pass security."
"I've given myself a bit of a glamour," Cross said. "But I don't really think it'll be a problem. I don't think many people are going to be paying us much attention."
The sound of shouts came from down the corridor. Campbell listened to the security codes echoing through the speaker.
"Shit," she said. "Containment breach. SCP-239."
"Not a moment too soon," Cross said.
"You're ending the world," said Campbell.
"What?" A note of surprise was in Cross' voice.
"Really, after all that talk, this is what it comes down to. You releasing a reality bender and ending the world." Campbell laughed. "To think I almost fell for all that shit you said."
Cross sighed. "We're not ending the world. We're saving it."
"Right."
Cross paused, moved ahead of Campbell, cautiously peered round a corner, continued. "Remember that breach — the one when your friends captured me? We didn't cause that breach. We came here to try to stop that breach."
"You came here to stop a containment breach?"
"We knew about it in advance," Cross said. "A hole in reality erasing an entire planet — yeah, that's gonna leave a mark. In both the future and the past. Fortunately for us."
They arrived in front of the Site-17 bar. A dozen members of an MTF detachment squad raced past them. Not one batted an eyelash.
"I see the glamour's working pretty well," Cross said. "It's because of Rita, even though she doesn't know it… Family members are mystically connected. The glamor makes me seem like I should fit in here because my sister fits in here."
"So—" Campbell started to say.
In the next instant, she saw a massive explosion balloon above one of the holding facilities a block away. Not natural: A flash of blackness, not light. The instant after, she was knocked off her feet by the shockwave.
Cross had been knocked over too. She sat up, still clutching her giant potted plant. She stared at the black flames and swore loudly.
Campbell hauled herself up off the ground, ran her keycard through the slot, and stumbled through the door.
The humming was everywhere, now.

Rita Butler had been drinking, sitting alone, in the Site-17 rec room. The rules were lax here; it was easy to sneak in the vodka in clear plastic bottles.
There were always people here in the rec room, but they were people doing their own thing — playing ping-pong, punching hanging bags, lifting weights. People who wouldn't talk to her.
It was, in its own way, a perfectly acceptable existence.
When the klaxons went off, she hadn't thought to head for the doors fast enough, and her way was blocked by a milling crowd of people by the time she had.
Then a burst of green light blew the side doors right open.
In came four people who clearly didn't belong. A lizard-person, a woman in a flamboyant outfit waving a staff, and another woman with color-shifting skin.
The woman who led them was dressed in street clothing, carried a strange-looking shotgun and a giant flower, and looked deadly serious.
"Get out of here if you don't want to die," the leader said, and to punctuate that, she raised the shotgun in the air, and fired a blast of green light at the ceiling.
The crowd scattered away. The leader pointed her minions in various directions, and they scattered along with the crowd. But she herself strode forward, eyes searching the crowd — landing on Rita.
Shit. She froze in place. Deer in the headlights reaction. You need to run.
But the leader was upon her, before she knew it, seizing her arm, leaning in, hissing in her ear. "Your sister is here, trying to save the world. Help her, for gods' sakes. She's in the cafeteria. Go. Now."
And then she was striding away, leaving Rita shaken and alone in the emptying building.
After a minute, Rita lurched towards the door. She grabbed an abandoned sidearm on her way out.

Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir heard the words of the song reach the fever pitch she'd been waiting for, that she'd been dreading.
They were running through the hallways, Alison just ahead of her and the others close behind, but they weren't going to make it to the surface in time. Somewhere up above, she could hear the chittering of innumerable wings.
She could teleport herself there… but she could sense reality shaping up there on the surface, and you never wanted to be so sloppy with another reality shaper. They could smack you right back to where you'd come from, she'd heard.
Sigurrós looked up at the ceiling. Her feet lifted from the floor. She rose into the air.
Never never never never never never never…

The nice thing about the Site-17 bar is that one of its main rooms had a wall of surveillance camera feeds.
The Foundation knew its personnel, at least to that extent; if a containment breach happened in the evening when a lot of people were (mostly) off-duty drinking, it was to everyone's advantage to get as many people aware of the situation as well. Even if some of them were drunk. People joked that containment breaches were to the Foundation what sports were to everyone else.
Right now they showed the breaching SCP-239.
239 was crossing camera feeds at a rapid rate, heading for the surface of the Site via the most direct route possible. She simply… unfolded the chambers and hallways out of her way and let them settle back into place after her. It was both impressive and oddly tidy.
Campbell had never seen a reality bender in action before, but the thought rose in her mind: She knows how to clean up after herself.
Behind her, Cross was doing… something… with her potted plant. Taking it out of the pot, holding it over the center of the floor with one hand, making odd shapes in the air with her other hand.
"I hope to god you're telling the truth about trying to save the world," Campbell said.
"Shit," Cross said. "It's not taking."
Campbell was transfixed by the cameras. She saw something familiar.
A creature that she'd last seen wearing SCP-963. A humanoid with a featureless face and scaled black skin.

Sigurrós burst through to the surface, letting her feet touch down on concrete, closing up the path she'd taken behind her.
It felt a little startling breathing the surface air again. Physically, not just in a dream form. She hadn't expected there to be that much of a difference.
In fact, it felt very odd to be breathing like this, she realized. She needed to go back to her room. She needed just a bit… just a little bit more sleep…
She startled awake as she nearly fell over. The adrenaline rush countered the soporific effect, and she realized the presence of something behind her.
She turned around to see a blank, scaled face watching at her through invisible, myriad eyes. Eyes within eyes within eyes. No mouth, but a voice. That eternal murmur…
nevernevernevernevernevernevernevernever
The murmur had a feeling soaked through it, the urge to go to sleep and never wake up again. Not noticeable until you got close, until it was almost too late…
"My name is Sigurrós," she told the thing. "Who are you?"
In response, it reached out, invisibly, with its mind, and touched her. Seeking, probing. Sigurrós was startled enough by this that she didn't immediately stop it. Then, she probed back.
The strange creature seemed to open up, to unfold in response to her probe. And it kept opening, further and further, eternally branching tendrils, reaching out far away into forever —
"You're… a Way," Sigurrós said aloud.
Five minutes left until the end of the world.

It was almost comical, the way Cross was looking at her weird potted plant in obvious frustration.
"Alright," Cross said. "Breathe, start again." She began moving her hands again in a new pattern.
Campbell watched the screen. "What is that thing?"
"You were there when I was captured," Cross said. "You saw Dr. Bright killed and resurrected."
"Yeah." Campbell thought back, remembering the necklace curling around that sword. But…
"Just keep asking me questions," Cross said. "I'm not joking. I get anxiety. Talking helps my anxiety."
"No shit," Campbell said. "Okay. I saw 963… Bright… take over that… that thing. I thought that… killed it?"
Cross laughed a little bit. "That thing is the personification of a damaged Way, forced into humanoid form to heal itself."
"A Way? A magical passageway?"
"At least you Bookworms know that." Cross moved her fingers a little faster, making shapes in the air. "This transformation almost never happens, especially not like this. We all had the bad luck that your Foundation found it first. Wandering the wilderness alone, blundering across highways, scaring farmers…"
"Why didn't 963 kill it?"
"Because it's not possible to kill a Way. But you can damage it. You can make it vulnerable. And… there are things that live in Ways. Things that prey on the vulnerable. Some of them are things that never did exist, and never will exist, and don't exist, but desperately, desperately want to."
"And they're… dangerous?"
"More than anything you can imagine." Cross grimaced, paused in her invisible-pattern-weaving, shook out one of her hands, and continued. "They are the Neverwere. You can understand them as parasites of the soul."
"Oh."
"They are deeply unhappy and deeply hungry, and this one has landed the most powerful host it could imagine. This one is trying to become a Way. To take over its host."
"Okay."
"It only got that foothold because of the damage that… soul-searing medallion did. Nine sixty three. And then it only worked because the Way is in this form, so its soul has become something a Neverwere can understand." Cross laughed. "It's as if reality is conspiring against us."
"Why is that a problem?"
"Because it won't work. It can't become the Way. And the way it is, it can only stay stable for so long. Soon… it's going to go nuclear."
"What happens then?"
Cross smiled grimly. "A hole in the universe where the Earth used to be."
Campbell took that in. "How do we fix this?"
"The Witch Child," Cross said. "She has to kill it."
"What is the plant for?"
"It's a focus." Cross adjusted the angle of the plant's stem. "Sigurrós is young, inexperienced, and the only person currently on this planet who can help. These things are designed to help her."
"Okay."
"We've got to metaphysically plant them in magically "key" areas of Site-17. In this case, the bar is a locus of human energy, but it's such drunken energy that I'm having trouble—"
Cross stopped talking.
Campbell had been watching 239 and the faceless humanoid stand stock still in front of each other in an apparent staring contest. She turned to look to see what was going on.
She saw Rita Butler, standing in the doorway and aiming a gun at Joanna Cross' head.

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Present Day

Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir, the girl the Foundation called SCP-239, stirred in her coma-induced slumber.
She was fidgeting anxiously in the dreamscape constructed in her mind, and this anxiety finally had leaked down through the layers of her mind to affect her physical form. Her physical form that was pretending to be asleep, and had been pretending to be asleep for quite a long time now.
A very long time. Especially for a kid. But, you know. It's what kept the rest of them happy.
Well — most of them. But the ones who could see through it didn't need to be made happy. So far, at least.
She could wipe them all out with a thought, but that would be… horrible. Unbearable. She liked them way too much. They were lovely people, when she watched them in her projected astral form, and many of them had been even more lovely before when she was allowed to be awake, even Clef when she'd accidentally confused him into trying to kill her. (If that's what she'd actually done. It was hard to remember, and years ago by now. Almost another lifetime, for someone as young as her.)
She loved people.
Sigurrós' physical form stirred again, and the old-fashioned stabilized telekill alloy that still lined her walls began dissolving a little faster.
She needed to calm down. But it was hard. What was coming up was too big. She'd had two months to think about it, and she still technically had the option to say "No", but she wasn't gonna.
Of course she wasn't gonna. The consequences were too much for her to even consider saying "No".
She could project herself in the future and see it. A vast black hole in the world — a hole in reality, with her at ground zero.
Everyone, everything she loved gone in an instant. Leaving her to float into the void. Truly alone.
And it would be all her fault.
So she couldn't say no, and she couldn't fail.
Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir sat in the landscape of her mind and watched a conjured clock count down. Twenty hours.

Two Months Ago

We serpents coil in our nest.
We are the wanderers gone wandering. We walk the road of still water. We abjure the eyes upon us. We see through the fogged glass.
This is Jailor ground. They call it "Site-17." It is the Jailor's largest humanoid containment facility. The largest anomalous prison. More than one god is chained here.
We are not the only ones watching. They suspect our presence, but right now will do nothing. They do not understand what is coming. Nor Joanna Cross's mission.
We watch Joanna Cross sit at a white table in a white room. This is an interrogation chamber. Her interrogator enters: Jailor's Doctor Kendra Campbell.
Kendra Campbell opens her notebook and shows Joanna Cross its contents.
Kendra Campbell: "No script. These are my notes. Just notes, for what I'm gonna ask you. No script."
Joanna Cross nods her head.
Kendra Campbell: "Okay. Okay. Between you and me and everyone monitoring us right now… I am shit at this. I don't know why they're so insistent on me interrogating you, and I don't know why they're letting me ask my own questions, and I don't know why you asked me to, and…"
She pauses to take a breath.
Kendra Campbell: "You said I should be asking you questions that aren't from my script. So. Okay."
She hesitates.
Kendra Campbell: "We've met thirty-seven times so far. In normal people terms, outside of here, that would make us friends. We're not friends and we both know that. But hey, maybe you can help me out a bit here. What do you want me to ask you?"
There is a tremble in the air — not visible to Kendra Campbell — as she fulfills the terms of the geas. She remains unaware of this.
Joanna Cross: "My gods, Doctor. They didn't tell you a single thing, did they?"
Kendra Campbell: "I…"
Joanna Cross: "That's okay. You asked me a question that came from you, both sincerely and of your own volition. Technically, you're being coerced into sitting here across from me, but that's okay. You've fulfilled the terms of the geas."
Kendra Campbell: "What's a geas?"
Joanna Cross: "It's a type of magical binding. Your bosses knew about it already. Did you figure out why they made you read only from that list of questions?"
Kendra Campbell: "Why? Are you going to explain it to me?"
Joanna Cross: "Don't mind if I do. They know I wanted to talk to one of you. They knew I could only give new information as a response to direct questions. They've interrogated Hand members under circumstances like this before, you know. They wanted to know how much I'd volunteer without you having to give anything yourself. Plus some other concerns about memetics."
Kendra Campbell: "I'm not sure I get this."
Joanna Cross: "They don't totally get it either. It's all very silly. You're all trying to play a game where you don't understand half the rules."
Kendra Campbell: "Man, if this was all it took to get you to gush like this…"
She laughs.
Kendra Campbell: "You should've said something before. All the times you gave me that same damn line, over and over…"
Joanna Cross: "I didn't have much of a choice. I did feel like kind of an ass."
Kendra Campbell: "Because of the, er… the geas."
Joanna Cross: "That's over now, at least for this interview. Kind of a relief. All that crap made me really want to talk. Makes me wonder if this was all part of your plan. Your boss's plan, anyway. We've already established you don't know anything."
Kendra Campbell: "So does that make me the good cop?"
Joanna Cross: "Sure. Don't think I'll tell you everything, though. You are still a Jailor."
Kendra Campbell: "Jailors. Right. That's your name for us."
Joanna Cross: "It's just slang. Don't take it personal. You tend to pick it up if you hang around with the Hand long enough. But you can't deny it's got a bit of… veracity to it, can you?"
Kendra Campbell: "We secure, we contain, we protect," Campbell said. "If you want to call us Jailors for it, then I guess I can't stop you."
Joanna Cross: "What questions did you want to ask me?"
Kendra Campbell takes a photo from her notebook and shows it to Joanna Cross. The photo shows blue lily faerie chains.
Kendra Campbell: "What are these?"
Joanna Cross: "Blue lily chains. My blue lily chains, in fact."
Kendra Campbell: "Are they even anomalous?"
Joanna Cross: "What do you think?"
Kendra Campbell: "Fuck if I know. Field agents seem to think they are. But I've hit them with every test in the book, and…" She waves her hand. "They seem pretty normal to me."
Joanna Cross: "Your agents already know they're anomalous, and they already know what they do. I don't know why they didn't tell you."
Kendra Campbell: "What do they do?"
Joanna Cross: "The field agents are correct. We Hand members use these flower chains for… for magical good luck, basically. Minor protective wards. You know. Or…well, no you don't know. And that's the point, isn't it?"
Kendra Campbell: "What's the point?"
Joanna Cross: "This is a little something a precocious teenager could put together. Something a bunch of teenagers understand, and it's something one of the Foundation's best and brightest can't crack. Why?" She leans forward. "Knowledge."
Kendra Campbell: "I could've cracked it if I had a higher clearance level," Campbell said, a little resentfully. "We do have people studying thaumotology. We're not stupid, you know."
Joanna Cross: "I just said that. Knowledge. You're not stupid, just ignorant. So why didn't they tell you, do you think?"
Kendra Campbell: "Maybe they wanted me to figure out some… new mundane tests for detecting magic. Maybe they wanted to be sure it was really anomalous. I don't know. I'm not high enough clearance yet for this."
Joanna Cross: "Maybe they'll wipe your memory of this conversation."
Kendra Campbell: "Maybe."
Joanna Cross: "Well, knowing what spells are imbued in those chains would help. You could crack exactly which ones in those fairy chains in about thirty minutes if you know how. That's being generous. Just takes some basic counter-magic."
Kendra Campbell: "I'm flattered, but I'm not a reality bender. Pretty sure I can't, you know, do magic. Let alone 'counter-magic'."
Joanna Cross: "How do you know? Why don't you try performing some magic and find out?"
Kendra Campbell: "That's definitely above my clearance level."
Joanna Cross: "That clearance level stuff you have sure is something. Pretty sure that 'something' isn't 'the scientific method'. Kind of ironic for a Foundation full of scientists, don't you think?"
Kendra Campbell: "I thought you guys were all about the Harry Potter Muggles versus Wizards shit. You know, inborn genetics special powers teenager fantasy thing. Only the Chosen Few."
Joanna Cross laughs.
Joanna Cross: "Maybe a few of our traditionalists, but they're full of shit. Anyone could make these fairy chains, in the same way that anyone can do multiplication. You need a pencil or computer to write out the equations. And to know, you know, multiplication tables. And numbers."
Kendra Campbell: "Numbers?"
Joanna Cross: "Yes. That's just it, though, isn't it? You Foundation scientists… you barely know the difference between one and three and you classify the existence of two, and here you are trying to perform calculus. And you damn well aren't going to let the rest of the world learn to count while you're at it. You wanna keep them in the dark."
Kendra Campbell: "We're preserving normalcy."
Joanna Cross: "And what's that mean?"
Kendra Campbell: "We're guarding against panic in the streets."
Joanna Cross: "They still panic in the streets. You just wipe their memories of it. And my gods, how often you have to break out amnestics. Do you know how many tons of amnestics the Foundation goes through per year? No, you probably don't, do you. I wonder how many Foundation members are killed by anomalies compared to Hand members. Is that above your clearance level too?"
Kendra Campbell: "I can't imagine you know that either. You're just baiting me."
Joanna Cross: "You're the one who wanted answers. That's the real difference here. Knowledge."
Kendra Campbell doesn't answer.
Joanna Cross: "How about that, huh? A bunch of witches, punks, and bookworms know more about the world than a whole organization of scientists and their paramilitary muscle. It's no wonder you're not very good at the whole… secure, contain, protect, you said. Right?"
Kendra Campbell: "You sure are full of cheap rhetorical points."
Joanna Cross: "Then have another. Do you support gay rights?"
Kendra Campbell: "Where the hell is this going?"
Joanna Cross: "It's just a question. Just to see where we stand."
Kendra Campbell: "Yeah, of course I fucking do. My sister is gay." She hesitates. "And also, I'm not an asshole."
Joanna Cross: "So what would you do if the someone said that gays were a threat to normalcy and had to be locked up for the good of everyone?"
Kendra Campbell: "Look, lady. In the cellblock just down from here we have a guy who can laser your face off with his eyes. I'm pretty sure my gay sister can't laser your face off with her eyes."
Joanna Cross: "How would you know?"
Kendra Campbell: "Pardon?"
Joanna Cross: "How would you know your gay sister can't laser your face off with her eyes?"
Kendra Campbell: "I don't think you're making a very strong argument here."
Joanna Cross: "No, seriously. Do you have any idea why the man in the cellblock just down from here can laser your face off with his eyes? Can you predict the typical occurrence of face-lasering in the general population?"
Kendra Campbell: "Could you, in my position?"
Joanna Cross: "I don't know. But I sure would be better equipped to find out. You getting my point?"

Present Day

There were some things amusingly mundane about how the Library worked, L.S. thought. The Library Cards were one of them.
Yes, they looked impressive: glimmering squares of etched brass for the permanent Cards. And, yes, the Library Cards had your name on them, a name that acted as your True Name for any magical purposes.
But beyond that, they were essentially just library cards like any mundane Earth library card.
In days not so long gone by the Library Cards were one giant weakness just sitting there in your pocket, since anyone could steal them and use them against you. The True Name made you effectively 'willing' for the purposes of any spell cast upon you. A pretty awful situation to find yourself in, and not well balanced against the mere ability to take books outside of the Library.
But whoever ran things behind the scenes at the Library had wised up. They'd added new protections to Library Cards, and new privileges, too, for certain users.
Privileges such as direct access to the Archives.
The Archives was the informal term for the parts of the Library where humanoid sapients weren't allowed by default, at least not through the front doors. The Librarians had never minded those few who managed to find ways in or, well, Ways in, but those paths were always very dangerous.
As well they should be. The Archives were part of the underlying machinery of the Library, part networked prison-slash-zoo for various greater and lesser monstrosities that had invaded the Library over the centuries, part restricted text section, and part passage to Library wings for non-humanoid sapient entities to go read their equivalent of books. Some of it was filled with acid, a sizable portion completely underwater. If Cthulhu wanted to to check out a book, the Archives were where he'd pay his visit.
The Librarians classically hadn't been very enthusiastic about letting humanoid sapients in there, if only because they didn't like losing Patrons. But that was, again, before the Library Card upgrades.
Now, if your account was in good standing (which hers was), and if you'd performed certain tasks (which she had), and if you'd done certain favors for the Library (which she had), they would conjure a service entrance Way just for you.
The new-issue Library Cards could literally let you breathe underwater, after all. Even in acid. They still didn't exactly make the Archives safe, but, you know, every little bit counted.
L.S. headed towards the local Library desk, took off her cap, and nodded to the Archivists working there. Librarians could see through the Cap of Neglect, of course, but they seemed to find it annoying to talk to her when she was under its effects.
She walked past the desk and wandered the stacks directly behind it. It took only moments, this time, for a robed Docent with a few more arms than the norm to materialize like a walking pillar from the gloom.
She knew this Docent by sight, from the gold-and-violet symbol on its shoulder. A symbol unique in color and shape: a distinguishing mark. Very unusual. Identity was a privilege granted to few Librarians. Being a Librarian was, after all, a punishment.
This Docent was a "trustee". Most Docents had only one hand, the other replaced by a chain and a lantern, and most Docents had no mouth. This Docent was the same, but had been granted "additions".
Most visible was the compact red-gold clockwork device attached to the left side of its face that could produce a language understood only by other Librarians. And she knew that under its cloak was a red-gold chassis attached to its sides and back from which it could unfold up to four mechanical limbs.
"I'd like to enter the Archives," she said. "Please."
The Docent grunted in its own language through its red-gold larynx, and held out its hand. It examined her Library Card, and then unfolded one of its mechanical arms from under its cloak.
This arm terminated in a stone knife. A knife to open Ways.
The Docent shuffled off the side, and began cutting a complex pattern into the air.
L.S. left it to finish opening the Way. This could take some time, depending on where you meant to go. Especially opening Ways for patrons — those seemed to take significantly longer. Probably metaphysical reasons.
L.S. went to find the couple companions waiting for her in another wing of the Library. She left her cap off. Now, she was just Alison Chao.
This small circle of friends did know her real name — and they even knew who her father was, big-name Foundation researcher Doctor Charles Gears. They did not know she was L.S. or the Black Queen, though. That would be going a touch far.
She found Rain, Septima, and Dega in the West Liko Wing, arguing. These three represented part of one of Alison's several inner circles; Zakuro and the others were off the grid somewhere in Lattaka.
Those who remained…
Iris "Rain" Joseph, rainbow-skinned color changer, black human woman and fragment of another universe's One Deity, a hedge mage of fair usefulness.
Septima Varan the High Enchantress, an ana-human of unknown origin and a high opinion of her reality-altering skills that was not entirely unwarranted, despite the entirely self-bestowed title inspired by her equally self-involved brother.
Dega Tee, a reptilian woman who insisted on referring to herself as 'lizardfolk' after playing too much Dungeons & Dragons, but still a competent fighter. Or, ugh. Capital F-Fighter, probably.
They were arguing about SCP-239.
"The Witch Child is not a child," Septima was saying, waving that oversized staff of hers around dangerously. "The Witch Child is the Woman with Stars in Her Eyes. She who made the People, She who made the Land and Corn and Squash."
"She's from freaking Iceland," Rain said irritably. "She's as white as white can get."
"Only the cultural imperialism of the Europeans could turn her white!" Septima nearly knocked Dega about the head with another wave of her staff. Dega jumped out of the way, flicking her tail for balance. "A disgrace and a lie. Also, truth, but only truth for now. She is not what we see with our eyes."
"I thought the Star-Eyed Child was the woman with stars in her eyes," Dega said. "The one they call Es-Cee-Pee One-Three-Four?"
"Don't be so literal!" Septima turned to face Dega, and noticed Alison watching. "How long have you been standing there?" she demanded.
"Only a couple hours," Alison said. "I see you're all ready to go?"
"Damn right we're ready to go," Rain said.
They headed for the Way into the Archives. Sixteen hours left to go.

Two Months Ago

Joanna Cross: "Do you believe in God?"
Kendra Campbell: "What?"
Joanna Cross: "You know. God. Yahweh. Big Man in the Sky. Fate Personified. General ultimate distant father figure. Or, hey, any of the other variations, I'm not here to be picky."
Kendra Campbell: "I think that's a bit too much of a personal question."
Joanna Cross: "Most of you don't believe in God, I'm sure. Scientists are mostly atheists. Just speaking statistically. I think the Foundation's a bit different, though. You still don't believe in, like, God God. But God has many different faces. Here's another personal question for you. Do you believe there is a Plan?"
Kendra Campbell: "What kind of plan?"
Joanna Cross: "A Plan. A right and true way that things should be."
Kendra Campbell: "I'm not sure what you mean."
Joanna Cross: "It goes back to the Garden, Doctor. Adam and Eve, standing naked in the dark. Innocents. Knowing nothing. Until the Serpent came along."
Kendra Campbell: "Yeah, I was raised religious. I seem to recall the Serpent was the villain."
Joanna Cross: "Why, though?"
Kendra Campbell: "Eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. Going against what God said. All that crap."
Joanna Cross: "Knowledge of good and evil. Why's that supposed a bad thing?"
Kendra Campbell: "You tell me."
Joanna Cross: "Eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was gaining the power to know, to discern right from wrong. The power to understand how the world works. Which humans can't understand. Eating the fruit was sin because humans aren't meant to discern for themselves how the world works. Because they aren't meant to change things. Only God is meant to do that. People trying to change things, or trying to see what should be right or wrong, that is just… sin. Deviating from the perfect Plan. Right?"
Kendra Campbell: "Right. I guess. I wasn't the best student in Sunday School."
Joanna Cross: "You should know the story better. If only because you want to understand your enemy. Or yourselves."
Kendra Campbell: "Fine. Why do you identify with the bad guy, then?"
Joanna Cross: "Because the Serpent's only the bad guy if there really is a perfect Plan. If there really is a perfectly correct way things should be."
Kendra Campbell: "Okay."
Joanna Cross: "But if there is no Plan… if there is no correct way things should be… and if what you think is the Plan is wrong… Then what?"
Kendra Campbell: "Okay. What's your point?"
Joanna Cross: "The Foundation does believe in God. Your God is Normalcy. Normalcy, the perfect, arbitrary Plan from which there can be no deviation. Trying to change Normalcy is the worst sin of all. The cardinal sin against which your organization stands with all its might. A stalwart bulwark against change."
Kendra Campbell: "I think it's plausible that you might be over-thinking this philosophy stuff."
Joanna Cross: "If you think we're off point, feel free to redirect us. I'm being pretty cooperative, aren't I?"
Kendra Campbell: "That's one way of putting it. Okay. Look, I do have a question. About your sister."
Joanna Cross' demeanor changes. She is startled.
Joanna Cross: "My sister…"
Kendra Campbell: "Did you come here to recruit her? Kidnap her? Hurt her? Anything like that."
Joanna Cross: "Hurt her? Gods, and you complained about personal questions."
Kendra Campbell: "I mean, bit of an odd coincidence, being that she's stationed here on MTF Tau-9 and all. I don't believe for a second that you didn't know." She hesitates. "She's my friend. You can't blame me for asking."
Joanna Cross: "I knew she was here."
Kendra Campbell: "So did you come here to recruit her?"
Joanna Cross: "I love my sister, but I didn't come here to recruit her."
Kendra Campbell: "I find it really hard to believe that this was a coincidence."
Joanna Cross: "It wasn't. This is how the Foundation works. They think you have a vulnerability, they try to scrape it raw to see if it'll scab. If it doesn't, you're written off. They'd be willing to lose my sister in a heartbeat. That's why she was assigned to your "Bookworms." A honeypot to attract flies. To attract me."
Kendra Campbell: "So…"
Joanna Cross: "I'm not here because of her. She's here because of me."
Kendra Campbell: "But that's not why you came here."
Joanna Cross: "No."
Kendra Campbell: "Then why did you come here?"
Joanna Cross: "What do you think?"
Kendra Campbell: "You're asking me?"
Joanna Cross: "I just did, didn't I?"
Kendra Campbell: "I gotta admit, this is one of the parts where I agree with that shitty list of questions. I think you came here for SCP-239."
Joanna Cross: "That's an interesting theory."
Kendra Campbell: "So you're not gonna tell me."
Joanna Cross: "Gotta preserve a little bit of that mystery, right?"

Back at her lab station, hours later, Campbell examined the transcription of the interview log. Cross had actually given quite a bit of information, really. Well.. Maybe. Quite a bit of information compared to all the other interviews, at least.
For whatever reason, no one had objected to the content of the interview, or approached her with an amnestic pill. Or, at least not that she remembered. Ugh. Still, she now knew far more than she'd expected to know.
Why, though? What was in this for Cross? What was her game?
Either way, she was approved for another interview tomorrow morning, no problem at all. So—-
Campbell heard footsteps, and turned, suddenly afraid of once again seeing Dr. Bright. She was relieved for a moment to see Rita Butler. And then she stopped being relieved.
"Hi," Rita said, cautiously. "Kendra, I… I know I shouldn't be asking, but… I know you… you know."
"Interviewed your sister," Campbell said.
"Yeah." Rita fidgeted. "I know I technically have the clearance, but normally I wouldn't ask because, you know, conflict of interest…"
"It's cool," Campbell said. "Don't worry. I don't mind."
Rita gave an awkward half-smile. "Did she say anything about me?"
For some reason, Campbell froze for a second in hesitation, remembering how Cross had gotten when that subject came up. "Yeah."
Rita stood there, waiting expectantly, with that concerned look on her face…
"She said she loves you," Campbell said. "And. Other… stuff. She talked a lot about philosophy. Good and evil crap. I never heard her talk so much, because, well, the other interviews, she just kept repeating that same damn line…" Campbell cleared her throat. "Rita, I'm sorry. I can't imagine how this must feel for you."
"Is she…" Rita swallowed. Goddamn, that woman wore her emotions on her sleeve. "Did she say, I mean…" She paused a moment. "I guess I'm asking if the rumors are true? If she came here to… to recruit me."
"No," Campbell said. Shit, what was even the right answer in this situation? "She said she loves you, but she didn't come here to recruit you."
Rita waited.
"I think she's telling the truth. She seems to think that you were…" Campbell wondered if she was going too far, sharing too much. "…that you were assigned to the Bookworms, to MTF Tau-9, because Site Command knew she was your sister."
Campbell hesitated. Rita just stood there, waiting. "Maybe Site Command wanted you to be able to deal with her if worst came to worst. Maybe they thought you would deserve to know if anything… had to happen."
Christ. That was definitely the wrong thing to say. It was unfair, it really was, that Rita had been assigned to this damn team. Campbell felt ashamed of the self-pity she'd felt yesterday. No amount of repetitive interviews could measure up to your own sister being held in the prison you helped run.
Fucking Site Command. The hell were they thinking? Would it really have been so hard to transfer Rita into the goddamn Arctic Circle or something, a place where she'd never have to think about her wayward sister ever again?
But Rita was just nodding.
"What do you think is gonna happen to her?" Rita asked.
"She's not to be harmed in any way, clear orders," Campbell said. Probably too eagerly. "They're afraid she's got some kind of anomalous protection. They'll probably just keep her in a humanoid containment cell. Figure out what to do from there." She hesitated again. "Not too bad, right?"
"Yeah," Rita said. "I guess not."

Alone again, Campbell returned to taking down information. She wrote and deleted several purely speculative paragraphs on the 'blue lily chains'. Those fucking flowers, goddamn.
She hoped the Foundation higher-ups weren't actually logging all her keystrokes, or at least not reading through those logs too obsessively. For all that she hadn't given much credence to Cross's overcooked points on science and research and clearance levels, it was true that she was kind of worried about how her superiors would react to too much interest in reality bending.
Or, hell, maybe she was overthinking this now too. She was a member of MTF Tau-9, after all. The Bookworms were supposed to be interested in magic, even if they weren't supposed to do magic.
Or, you know, know anything useful about it at all, just in case you might get corrupted…
Her computer screen seemed to flicker and swim for a moment. Just… dissolved into shapes and colors before resolving back into a computer screen like any other. A computer screen like it always had been.
Great, she thought. Gonna have to catalogue this too. Or maybe not, maybe it's nothing. She briefly envisioned being taken off all of her projects due to unacceptable anomaly exposure, and left doing terrible interviews with captured Hand members forever. Always either repeating the same line or babbling on about philosophy, forever.
She glanced down at the blue lily flower chains. "You better not be doing anything funny to me," she said.
Just in case, she packed them away, back in the secure ceramic-lined containment box they'd arrived at her desk in. She found herself wondering what was inside, underneath the ceramic lining.

Campbell's follow-up interview went in a fairly unproductive direction, for most of its length. Cross rephrased a few of her philosophical points and gave disappointingly little information. Campbell was, indeed, shit at interviews, she thought. Even though Cross was the one in handcuffs, she was railroading Campbell like a seasoned pro.

Joanna Cross: "Do you know why we're going through this song and dance at all?"
Kendra Campbell: "What?"
Joanna Cross: "Surely you've wondered why the Foundation hasn't just sent in an interrogator to torture me."
Kendra Campbell: "Because torture doesn't work. Subject just tells you whatever they think you want to hear. You have no way of knowing if the information is true or not until it's too late. Sometimes you'll never know at all."
Joanna Cross: "Oh, please. The Foundation isn't gonna give up a thing like torture merely because it doesn't work. They'd torture me anyway if they could, merely because it's tradition. It's how these things go, and that's reason enough. It's part of the Plan."
Kendra Campbell: "And yet we're not torturing you."
Joanna Cross: "I have protections. I don't mind telling you that they are protections that are easy to unravel."
Kendra Campbell: "Why would you tell me that?"
Joanna Cross: "Because you'll never figure out how to unravel them. Not you or the rest of your team. Your bosses are too scared to let you. To delve too deeply into anomalous methods. So here I sit. Forever safe. Only in the SCP Foundation."
Kendra Campbell: "We use anomalous methods. When we have to."
Joanna Cross: "Yet here we are."
Kendra Campbell: "Kinda tempting fate, don't you think? You almost sound like you want some good old-fashioned torture."
Joanna Cross: "Jack Bright said something similar."
Kendra Campbell doesn't answer.
Joanna Cross: "Doctor Bright was in here to talk to me before you. He mentioned anomalous methods as well. Technically, he's best suited among you to back that up. Our conversation… did not go well."
Kendra Campbell: "I can't even imagine."
Joanna Cross: "Man, Jack Bright, though… I knew about him before coming here, you know. One of the few exceptions to your No Anomalies No No Not Ever rule. An SCP item who gets to be considered a person? And a staff member? Heavens forfend!"
Kendra Campbell: "He's a good scientist. We don't imprison our members just because they had anomalous exposure, not unless we have to. I would've thought you'd approve."
Joanna Cross: "I do. I've seen his file, of course. They used to keep Bright on a short leash, but it got longer and longer as time went by, right? Now he's… a personnel director, if I remember correctly?"
Kendra Campbell: "Right."
Joanna Cross: "Let me tell you a secret about Jack Bright. Do you know why they keep him around? Why they trust him with so much?"
Kendra Campbell: "I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to know that."
Joanna Cross: "Then they'll wipe your memory of this conversation anyway." She smiles. "Do you know about Five-Ninety?"
Kendra Campbell: "SCP-590? That healer kid. Touches you and you get healed. Fucked up in the head."
Joanna Cross: "Touches you and he receives all your ailments. Pain. Wounds. Broken Bones. Cancer. Mental illnesses." She pauses. "Did the file you had clearance for happen to mention Bright's involvement with Five-Ninety?"
Kendra Campbell: "Yeah. He used 590 to heal several cases of mental retardation for … I don't know. People. Made 590 tractable. Easier to contain."
Joanna Cross: "Five-ninety is Bright's brother."
Kendra Campbell: "What?" She pauses. "What, so he's, like, a little Bright kid too?"
Joanna Cross: "Jack Bright's little brother. They scrubbed the name pretty well, but… definitely Bright's little brother."
Kendra Campbell: "He's… jesus…"
Joanna Cross: "Bright's been around longer than most of you already. He doesn't age or die. When you're rotting in your grave, be it tomorrow or after dying at the ripe old age of a hundred, Bright will still be here. Quietly doing this having proven his loyalty on the skin and bones of his own little brother."
Kendra Campbell: "What's your point?"
Joanna Cross: "Isn't it obvious?"
Kendra Campbell: "Why are you telling me all this? Why all this philosophy crap? All these existential questions? You know I'm not gonna listen. Are you trying to deflate me with word flood? Seduce me to the dark side, what?"
Joanna Cross: "I don't know. Is it working?"
Kendra Campbell gives her a skeptical look.
Joanna Cross: "I'm just kidding."
Kendra Campbell: "What, then? Why are we having this conversation?"
Joanna Cross: "I am trying to convince you, yes, but you'll probably be mind-wiped after this anyway. But it's not just you. I'm trying to convince all your colleagues and superiors who who will read this, the security personnel who will obsessively vet it before deciding which clearance level can read it and what needs to be redacted into oblivion, I'm even trying to convince your Site Command."
Kendra Campbell: "Why? Aren't we the enemy?"
Joanna Cross: "I think you're redeemable. Not just you. This whole Site. My sister. The whole Foundation. Even Dr. Bright. I don't think you've gone far enough into the dark that you can't yet find your way out again."
Kendra Campbell doesn't answer.
Joanna Cross: "Am I wrong?"

It was that last exchange in particular, especially, irrationally, those last three words, that echoed in Campbell's mind long afterward.
As it turned out, Cross was wrong about at least one thing. For whatever reason, Campbell was not mind-wiped. Not to blank out Cross' last, desperate pitch. Not to remove the knowledge of Bright's little brother, that suffering little boy locked up in a cell somewhere in this very site. Bright came to receive her report, and said nothing. No one mentioned a thing.
There was, however, no follow-up interview. No thirty-ninth interview with Joanna Cross. They moved her cell, to … somewhere. She was still held in Site-17, but Site-17 was an enormously big place, a place that Campbell had only seen about 2 percent of in five years of living on location.
She got rid of the blue lily chains, and stopped suffering audiovisual hallucinations. And she added that to the report. Finally, something solidly anomalous.
And nothing else happened for a while.
One month later, Campbell returned to her computer to see a message on it, typed in Notepad and left open for her to read. It read:

If you change your mind, don't forget about me.

The note was unsigned. Campbell did not report it. She was going to, but somehow… she never did.
The second month passed without incident.

Present Day

Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir lay awake in bed with her eyes closed, listening.
She could hear it now, as the hours ticked down. That indefinable humming, that humming that sounded like it was coming from somewhere deep inside her soul, and all around at once. A wordless, tuneless, eternal song.
Twelve hours left to go. Twelve hours to the end.
As she listened, she found that she could make out one word. Just one single word in the endless song.
Never never never never
Never never never never
Never never never never…

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"You know she's going to die, right? That you'll be asking a probable god to die?"
"…"
"Well, hell." The woman ground out her cigarette. "Better than an Earth-shaped hole in the universe." She stood. "Let's get to it."

Present Day

The woman known as L.S., infamous leader in the Serpent's Hand, known to the Foundation by the name of The Black Queen, read a book by candlelight in the Wanderers' Library, and thought about the end of the world.
Here in the East Aera Wing — the Library was big enough to have wings named this way, like countries — it was night.
Technically, the Wanderers' Library did not have day or night. But day-night cycles were key to maintaining the healthy magical and psychological function of all manner of beings. As a great many books within the Library itself could tell you.
So, many of the Library's wings had day-night cycles. Bright light during the 'day', darkness and dimmed lights at 'night'. Variations on the theme in the stranger, farther-out wings. Illusions of meteor showers. Hovering alien planets. Dim gods peering through the chandeliers.
'Night', here in the East Aera Wing, meant swirling star-patterns, black and white in a purple and gold sky above the fog masking the top of the stacks. A vision from another world. The night sky of Sarra Mello.
L.S. had once taken a Way to Sarra Mello. An awful place, with air like breathing lava, and hordes of fae insects trying to eat your succulent eyeballs. But she'd always loved that sky… that sky like a Van Gogh painting. She came here, sometimes, to think.
Tonight, she considered how her old enemy, the SCP Foundation, the shadow organization that had stolen her father from her, was about to end the world.
She'd had advance warning. Lucky. One of the birds had whispered in her ear. Another Little Sister, sending her a message from another world.
L.S. watched the clock of her pocket-watch tick down to exactly twenty-four hours remaining before the end of the world.
At twenty-three hours and fifty-nine seconds, she snapped her book shut and headed for the Archives.

Two Months Ago

Kendra Campbell stared at the interview subject seated, handcuffed, across the table, and hated her.
It wasn't just the subject, one Joanna [Middle-Name-Redacted] Cross, that Campbell hated. She hated working on Mobile Task Force Tau-9. She hated being called a "Bookworm". She hated investigating magic, she hated researching a fucking magical library she'd never even seen, and she hated investigating a magical organization almost entirely made up of self-righteous magical pricks.
But just for right now she probably hated Joanna Cross the most.

INTERVIEW t356y-SH-CROSS-CAMPBELL, NUMBER 35
Interviewer: Dr. Kendra Campbell, MTF Tau-9 Researcher, Clearance Level 2, Gen. Special Access Program Tau-9.
Subject: Joanna Cross, Serpent's Hand operative ██████
Observers: ███████, █████, █████████
[Note: Dr. Campbell shows signs of frustration. Takes an unnecessarily long time to begin reading assigned list of questions.]
Dr. Campbell: Is it true that your first and last name is Joanna Cross?
Operative Cross: Yes.
[Dr. Campbell pauses again. Signs of frustration evident.]
Dr. Campbell: Is it true that—
Operative Cross: This is your thirty-fifth interrogation of me, Doctor. You already know what I will say. What makes you think this time will be any different?
[Dr. Campbell pauses for a lengthy period of time.]
Dr. Campbell: Interview terminated.
[Operative Cross does not speak. Dr. Campbell exits interrogation room.]

"I don't understand why we're still interrogating her," Campbell said, slowing to match her pace with the leisurely strides of Dr. Gears. She was in trouble, she knew she was in trouble, but she'd found that Gears didn't even notice jokes, let alone the petulance she was feeling right now. "She's said the same exact things in all thirty-four previous interviews. What was the point of number thirty-five?"
Gears took his time answering. Campbell resisted the urge to try to figure out what he was thinking. Gears bore the same facial expression that he always did, a cold look of bland calculation. "Gears," indeed. That too-perfect name. Joke? Code? Fortuitous coincidence?
"I'm a researcher, not an agent," she continued. "I have exactly zero training in interrogation."
"The reasoning is above your clearance level," Gears said. "The fact that you are a researcher and not an agent is one reason why you were given a script. You are working with items recovered from the breach in which the interview subject was captured. Therefore, you are an appropriate choice for interviewer."
"I can't even ask her anything useful."
"You have done admirably in following the letter of the rules," Gears said. "As instructed, you did not deviate from the script. It is, as you know, acceptable for an interviewer to end an interview early for reasons of an emotionally distraught state. However, others may not feel convinced that your emotional state merited ending the interview after hearing the answer to only one question."
"Is there really no one else who can do this?"
"There is only one deemed qualified to interview this subject who is not otherwise engaged," Gears said.
"Who? Can you get them on it?"
"Doctor Rita Butler is the only other available member on Mobile Task Force Tau-9 deemed appropriate by Site Command to interview this subject."
Campbell stopped short.
That was the other thing about Joanna Cross. Joanna Cross had a sister.
A half-sister, but they'd grown up together. A half-sister who was also assigned to Mobile Task Force Tau-9. A quiet, occasionally funny woman, also a doctor, a bit of a nebbish but in an endearing way.
A sister named Rita Butler.
"But… that's her sister, sir," Campbell said.
"Nevertheless, Doctor."
Campbell stared into Gears' passive, implacable face. This was manipulation, she knew. She didn't think it was coming from Gears — if Gears was even capable of being manipulative if not ordered to by his superiors — but it was still working.
"I… you're right," Campbell said. "I apologize."
Gears nodded, once. "I have scheduled your next interview for tomorrow morning."

EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW t356y-SH-CROSS-CAMPBELL, NUMBER 36
Interviewer: Dr. Kendra Campbell, MTF Tau-9 Researcher, Clearance Level 2, Gen. Special Access Program Tau-9.
Subject: Joanna Cross, Serpent's Hand operative ██████
Observers: ███████, █████, █████████
Dr. Campbell: Is it true that you work for the organization calling themselves the Serpent's Hand?
Operative Cross: Yes.
Dr. Campbell: Did you help conduct a raid on Foundation Secure Facility Site-17?
Operative Cross: Yes.
Dr. Campbell: How did the rest of your group escape?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you.
Dr. Campbell: Why did your group breach Site-17? What was your goal?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you.
Dr. Campbell: Was your goal to remove SCP-239, referred to the Serpent's Hand as "The Witch Child", from its containment cell?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you.
Dr. Campbell: Were you involved with prior attempts by the Serpent's Hand to breach SCP-239's security?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you.
Dr. Campbell: Which SCP objects in Foundation custody are you aware of?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you.
[Truncated for length. Campbell finishes reading assigned list of questions; Cross responds as before.]
[Dr. Campbell begins to exit the room.]
Operative Cross: Doctor?
[Dr. Campbell stops in place. Note: This is the first instance of Operative Cross speaking a phrase that is not in response to a question.]
Operative Cross: I'll make you a deal. Come see me tomorrow without a script. Come with your own questions. Real questions. Not this half-assed memetic bullshit.
Dr. Campbell: [hesitates before answering] And if I can't?
Operative Cross: Then why bother coming back at all? You could interview me a hundred times. Or five hundred. You already know every single thing I'll say.
Dr. Campbell: Why are you talking to me now?
Operative Cross: I feel sorry for you.
Dr. Campbell: [clears throat] I don't know if I can get approval for this.
Operative Cross: I wouldn't want you to break any rules. Tell you what. Tell your bosses to ask their friends in the GOC what a geas is.
Dr. Campbell: Why?
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. [smiles] Say hello to my sister for me.

Rita Butler had been keeping to herself since the breach of Site-17 two months back. Understandable, since she'd just then learned that her sister was a Hand agent.
Rita had been as surprised as everyone else. She'd barely seen Joanna since the incident in which she'd been recruited by the Foundation.
That incident… Containment breach by SCP-682, of all things. Now that gave you special cachet in water-cooler conversation.
682 was one of the big-name SCPs, one of the ones that everyone knew about, including all the people who weren't supposed to. 'Her' breach had been an especially spectacular one, with 682 escaping from emergency Foundation transport and rampaging through New York City like a classic movie monster. He'd even smashed up a smaller skyscraper.
Rita and Joanna had gotten lucky — they ended up in the hospital with only minor injuries, even though they'd been right at ground zero when 682 came crashing out of the sky.
A night on the town with 682 was quite the introduction to the paranormal, and so when the Foundation came calling after her, she said yes, happily, and never looked back. Her husband was dead, her biologist colleagues distant. She joked that 682 was just too cool to not want to see more of the same.
That wasn't true. It had been the most terrifying experience of her entire life.
To think that the world was chock-full of things like this… to not know, to be clueless and vulnerable again, sounded like the scariest thing in the world.
At least the Foundation had a good handle on the situation. If you were gonna die, you'd be able to look death in the eyes. Civilians on the street wouldn't get that chance.
But Joanna hadn't been recruited. Maybe the Foundation didn't need more anthropologists-with-a-minor-in-religion. Or maybe she'd failed whatever behind the scenes personality test the Foundation had given her. Who knows.
Joanna was mindwiped, and Rita joined the Foundation.
She'd thought that was the end of it — it's not like she told Joanna much about her work as a regular biologist anyway; they mostly saw each other on Christmas and Easter. Then, this.
Joanna Cross, member of the Serpent's Hand. Joanna Cross, the terrorist.
It was enough to make you hole up in your room forever and never come out.
But she was just so tired of being alone. Not just this month, but always.
So tonight, when a few members of MTF Tau-9 went out for drinks, Rita went with them. "Out" was just to the Site-17 bar, which was mostly empty right now, but hey, at least they had a bar, unlike most Foundation sites.
She braced herself for all the questions that would come about Joanna. But before she got the courage to talk to anyone, Tau-9 local section leader John Peters was stumbling drunk and dominating all conversation.
"It's about courage," Peters proclaimed. "Anyone can get skill. Talent is bullshit. Courage is the most important thing."
"Man, you're just talking bullshit," the man next to him said. Who was that — Agent Ramesh Patel? God, that shouldn't have been hard to remember. She really needed to get out more.
"Courage!" Peters dramatically raised his fist into the air, ignoring Patel. "The courage to act! To act when no one else will."
"And America?" Patel asked. "The America to act, to America when no other America will."
"Fuck off, Ramesh," Peters said. "This is real talk time, goddammit. This isn't just… goddamn rhetoric."
"You need either many more drinks or far fewer." Patel tried to take away Peters' glass.
Peters pushed him off. "No, man. No. I'm not just talking bullshit. Like… let's get real world here. Let's use a real world example." Peters swayed back and forth, surveying the room, and his eyes settled on Rita. "You! Butler!"
Rita jumped a little on her stool and set down her vodka. "Sir?"
"We're off-duty, goddammit," Peters said. "Butler. Butler. My friend, my compadre. Let's say… let's say there was a bomb in Site-17. Across the site in Section 3. Someone just called and told us. We have no way of knowing when it's gonna go off. Definitely WILL go off. You with me so far?"
"Yeah," Rita said. "There's a bomb."
"You two got this," Patel said. "I'm getting another drink."
"Right," said Peters. "Alright, so let's say we got Section 3 evac'd, but some poor old lady grandmother scientist, maybe someone like Bart from accounting — okay some poor old dude grandmother scientist — look, he's stuck back there, because he broke his hip or some shit."
"Okay," Rita said.
"Everyone except us is tied up. I dunno, containing skips or eaten by gremlins or something. And we gotta decide if one of us is gonna hop in a truck and go into Section 3 and get this old lady. No one's gonna get ordered to do it, so forget that bit." He took a drink, and looked at Rita again. "So?"
"I don't get what you mean," Rita said.
"I'm talking about courage," Peters said. "Which of us would have the balls to volunteer to jump in that truck and drive over to Section 3 and go save that old lady?"
Rita watched him blankly.
"Would you, Doctor Butler, have the balls to go rescue that old lady, even though you might get blown to kingdom come along with her? It's a key question. A question we all gotta ask ourselves."
"I don't know about that," Rita said. "I can't drive, so… I don't think I'd have to, uh, confront that question."
Peters stared at her. "You can't drive?"
"I grew up in New York," she said. "Not easy to own a car in a big city."
"And you never learned?"
"No…"
"Well, shit." Peters looked like his entire view of the world was shifting. Rita became conscious that everyone else in the bar had shut up and was listening to them. "Let's get you some driving lessons, stat! How about it?"
Rita looked down at her cup. "I've never needed to drive," she said. "It doesn't really agree with me. And I pretty much live onsite, now…" She felt strange, defending something completely different than she'd been expecting to defend.
"Oh, goddammit," Peters said. "Look, I…" He looked at his glass. "I need another fucking drink. Let's come back to this, Butler. Just one second—"
And then Peters and Patel got into a minor scuffle over Peters trying to get another drink, and by the time the others broke them up, Peters had forgotten the whole thing.
No one got around to asking Rita about Joanna, or about the status of her loyalties to the Foundation.
She finished her drink in silence.

Twelve hours after the interview, Campbell sat in her research lab, examining a pale blue origami flower chain found on Cross when she was captured.
"Blue lily chains/Faerie chains", the label said. Reports from Tau-9's field agents confirmed that the flower chains were popular amongst the younger Hand members, and that they had a number of anomalous effects. Precisely what anomalous effects the flower chains may have had were blacked out of the reports. That was for higher clearance levels.
But she wanted to know, and Gears didn't mind her testing. In the last few weeks she'd run every test she could think of on the flower chains, twice. They seemed about as anomalous as suspicious-looking dirt.
She began gathering up the papers strewn across her desk. "Enough for tonight," she said aloud.
"Enough of what?" a voice asked from behind.
Startled, Campbell glanced back to see a too-pale man in a labcoat approaching her desk.
"Hello, Doctor Campbell," the man said.
Campbell squinted in the fading light. She hadn't noticed that the lighting in her office had gotten so dim — or, hell, at least it was hopefully the lighting and not some horrible subtle anomalous side effect of these stupid flower chains. Either way, the man wasn't wearing a name tag.
"Sorry, do I know…"
Then she saw the thing around his neck. That necklace with that ornate amulet. The red jewel gleaming in the center of a starburst.
SCP-963-1. Doctor Bright. Director Bright.
Campbell felt the papers slip from her hand.
She'd seen Dr. Bright in person only once before, during the chaos of the Site-17 breach in which Joanna Cross was captured.
She'd seen a breaching SCP, a humanoid with a featureless face and scaled black skin, morph its hand into a long, sharp sword — a German Zweihander, actually, complete with the tiny spierhaken prongs emerging from the blade a short way up from the hilt — and shove that Zweihander directly through Bright's chest in one swift motion.
When it withdrew the blade, the prongs caught on the necklace around Bright's neck, and that amulet came away with it.
And then the faceless horror suddenly became docile. Because it had become Bright.
"Relax," Bright said. "I'm here to give you good news."
He held out a slim file folder. She took it.
"I didn't know Directors hand-delivered good news," Campbell said. The back of her throat was dry.
Bright chuckled. "We're changing your orders. Take a look."
Campbell flipped open the file folder and read the instructions. They were remarkably short.
She cleared her throat. "Sorry, did I read this right? I can ask Cross literally anything, so long as I am the only one who comes up with the questions?"
"Don't worry." Bright's tone was open, friendly. "If she ends up telling you anything you're not supposed to hear, we'll just wipe your memory. Not a big deal."
"Not a big deal?" The line slipped out before she could stop it.
Bright only smiled, and walked away.

Family »


On the flight back to Headquarters, Agent Fredericks mused on how familiar the blurry outline of Washington D.C below him was getting.
Every week, it seemed, Director Hoover wanted them to come back and talk to him about the case. What they'd uncovered, how close they were to getting the Red dog, and any other detail, significant or not, that happened to come into his head.
The plane touched down on the runway, just as it had so many times before. Fredericks knew exactly where every potmark on the asphalt was, and he could feel every one of them as the wheels rolled out and touched down.
Walking off the plane, getting baggage, of course Mister Hoover sent a car down, he always did. Fredericks hardly looked out the window as he pretended to be interested in his briefcase documentation. He just wanted to get back to the investigation.
Why did Hoover care so much? There was so much new information flooding past his desk, and there was so much these days, with the internal investigations, that Hoover probably hardly had any time to look over individual cases. He just got to smile and nod as agent after agent paraded through his door, not comprehending or taking real interest in any individual report.
Fredericks frowned loudly as he saw the FBI building come into view. At least he'd be out of this hole by the end of the day. He prepared his routine in his head as he got into the lobby. Just be in and out. As quick as possible. The elevator ride up wasn't much to talk about. Grey people in grey clothing. One had a briefcase.
Hoover's office, end of the hall. Talk to the secretary and get buzzed in. Look at Hoover, smiling genially and trying to look like the team dad, with an office draped in red white and blue.
Hoover paused upon seeing Fredericks enter the office. "You look troubled, agent. Penny for your thoughts?"
Fredericks paused, tightening his grip on his papers and blinking twice. "Oh, uh, sorry sir. Just had a lousy trip over. They need to fix the potholes in this city."
Hoover chuckled. "Don't I know it. What do you have for me today?"
Fredericks slid over a pile of documents, which Hoover grasped tightly and pulled onto his desk. Hoover put on some reading glasses, and pretended to glance over the papers. Fredericks could tell when Hoover wasn't actually reading. His eyes didn't move.
"You reported to my secretary over the phone, that you found something in Florida?"
"Shipping, sir. We believe the spy ring, if there is one, may be operating from there."
Hoover tightened his lips into a thin line as he pretended to study the documents again. "Is Agent Walsh already there?"
"Yes sir. We arrived together, when you dr- recalled me, uh, sir, back to headquarters."
Hoover leaned over the files. "So are you ready to move in, on what you might find?"
"Yes, sir. I explained it to you over the phone."
"Well, you'll be off again in the morning. It's always a pleasure to see you, son. Send Agent Walsh my regards."
As he was returned his files, slapped on the back, and hustled out the door so that the next agent could waste ten minutes of their time, Fredericks contemplated the likelihood of solving the case if he was recalled every week.
He decided it wasn't very likely.

It was about halfway between Jacksonville and Miami that the Ford broke down. Fredericks thought it broke down because Walsh had taken that corner a bit too fast and that as a result, they hit that bump and the wheel flew off. Walsh thought it was because Fredericks had left the map back in Atlanta, and they'd had to make do making notes on a fast-food restaurant napkin.
In either case, they were now both standing by the side of the road, with a smoking, three wheeled vehicle between them.
Walsh futilely kicked the fallen tire, and swore under his breath. "Where the hell do they get these cars?"
Fredericks shrugged. "Probably discounts them from the major manufacturers, get the duds from the assembly line." He shaded his face, and peered into the distance ahead of them. "You want to just walk? We're only around a couple miles away."
Walsh looked up and down the dirt road, then shrugged. "That's not too far away."
So, they walked. It wasn't a particularly long walk, as both partners walked in silence, occasionally glancing at the other to make sure they were still there. Around them, the foliage and oppressive heat made Walsh wish for the desert, and Fredericks wish for a sunhat.
But, they were soon at their destination. They walked past some official government cordons, an empty checkpoint, and climbed over rubble. They were rewarded once they'd ascended the last broken pillbox. There was a small concrete bunker, with a brass door and a nice wallpaper of kudzu vines. Printed above the door, in steel, was a label.

National Observation Bureau of the Office of Defense - Yorktown

Fredericks strolled to the entrance, wiping some grime from the label. "This place hasn't seen action in awhile, has it?"
Walsh grabbed the door, and pulled. "At least not from our side… oof, help me out with this thing, willya? It's pretty heavy."
They both grabbed, grappled, yanked and sweated on the door until with a final squeak and creak it slid open, revealing a very dark room.
Fredericks crouched and walked in, holding one hand on the brass doorframe. "Hand me the flashlight, please?"
Walsh dug into his bag, and produced the torch. "Do you see something?"
"No, but I want to."
Fredericks clicked the flashlight on, and looked around. In front of them were two doors, both wooden. One was labeled "ENIGMAGRAPH CHAMBER", the other "Project NOBO"
Standing, Fredericks walked towards the first door. "Doesn't look like anyone's been here. Maybe the intel was wrong."
"Maybe. But that could also be what they want us to think."
Fredericks nodded, and pushed the door open.

Inside, there were five desks, five typewriters, and mountains of yellowing, wet papers.
Walsh dug around in the first pile of papers, looking for anything interesting. Most of the papers were completely uninteresting, boring documents with no information. The one that did have information turned out to be a small scrap of a yellow label. Walsh held the label in his hand, and turned it over. There was writing here, typed small and pressed together.

TO THOSE WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
test test test test test test Enigmagraph 112 test test test

Fredericks leaned over one of the typewriters, grabbed a scrap of paper, and typed on it. "Hey. Walsh. Tell me if you can read this, or if it does anything."
Taking the paper, Walsh scanned it over, and handed it back. "Yeah, that works."
"… Walsh? All I wrote on this was 'hi'."
"Did you?" Walsh took the paper back, glanced it over again, and handed it back. "I guess you did."
Fredericks frowned quietly at his companion. "I don't think you're reading this."
"Of course I'm reading it."
"I wrote that you were a fat goon."
Walsh tilted his head. "I don't remember that at all."
Fredericks crumpled the paper, and tossed it towards the trashcan. "Guess we know what that does."
Walsh walked around one of the typewriters, poking it with his finger. "That's the opposite of a good thing. How long've these things just been sitting here, open for anyone to copy?"
"Probably decades."
Walsh patted the typewriter, then headed to the doorframe. "This alone is definitely enough to get this place searched. We ought to check out the other room, then clear out of here so the cleaners can do their thing."
Fredericks walked behind him, placing a few unreadable papers in the evidence bag. "You got it, partner. Lead the way."

The second room was a pristine example of a ransacked lab. Broken beakers, shredded papers, mysterious broken piles of electronics that might have once contained useful information, all lay among many other artifacts. The flashlights' beam swept across the floors and ceilings, zigzagging until they could realize the true damage to the room.
They both shook their heads, disappointed. "Damn."
Then, the beam of the flashlight fell onto one folder. Wet, but intact, it lay on the floor, its contents still unmolested inside. Fredericks crouched down, and picked it up. There was a message scrawled on the front.

[…] Do not reveal anything about any projects or policies you have seen. If questioned, this is your script.
“Where are you?”
“Nowhere.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Who are you?”
“Nobody.”

Fredericks flipped it open, and pulled the papers into his hand. He flipped through them, making sure to read every individual paper. "Well, this is interesting."
Walsh peered over his shoulder. "Shine the light on it, I can't see in the dark."
Fredericks lifted the light to the folder, and Walsh looked on. He was looking at serious stuff. Writing and diagrams of men, standing in crowds without being seen, walking into bases draped in swastikas, and coming out covered in blood.
"Looks like some nutty covert ops stuff, from the war?"
Fredericks frowned. "Just lying there? Someone wanted to leave it out for us."
Walsh grabbed the file, and stuffed it into an evidence bag. "Look, I think we should split. This place is feeling less safe by the second, and I don't like the idea of invisible super soldiers left alone in the dark."
"You're being paranoid."
"You're not?"
Walsh took a brisk pace in walking out the door, and was followed soon after by a grousing Fredericks. They had a helluva lot of people to contact in not a lot of time, if they wanted to get out of here anytime soon. Which they did.

Another plane ride. At least there was a purpose behind it this time.
Fredericks looked around at the other people waiting for a plane. There was an old woman in a babushka, reading the Wall Street Journal. A little girl and her mother, sharing a soda pop, and two businessmen wearing identical outfits, save for the color of their hats.
But why were they looking at him like that?
Fredericks glanced up from his book, at the people surrounding him again. Yes, they were looking at him. All of them.
"Flight 56, please come to the gate…"
Every one of them stood, and began filing towards the plane. After a moment, Fredericks followed them. If he was being shadowed, there was no reason to make them suspicious.
"Now boarding, Flight 56 to Washington…"

« Chasing Tails | HUB | Data Not Public »


The American woman standing near one of the stands in the marketplace was the giveaway that Abd al-Rashid bin Tannous was in the right place. Abd al-Rashid, in the glow of the cultural tolerance that he was ordered to take upon himself, repressed all of the negative thoughts about the almost certainly godless Western harlot that stood before him, while simultaneously trying to repress a sense of pride at doing so. He could tell her American origin from…well, it was nearly sweating from her pores. The inappropriate dress, the stern, impertinent, rude glare at the men walking past her.
"You would be the guide I was instructed to meet?" Abd al-Rashid said.
The American woman's visage took on the serene awe that is only found in the faces of children who have recently soiled themselves and individuals completely non-fluent in a language that is being spoken to them. "I rated Josephine," she stumbled through. "I…evaluating Josephine? I Josephine named." She paused, then shook her head.
Abd al-Rashid began to politely walk her through conversational Arabic when the world around him grayed out slightly, faded; it didn't pass away completely, but it gained a perceptible sheen of unreality. In the gray fog, Abd al-Rashid heard a voice speaking to him.
My name is Josephine, the voice said. You'd be doing me a wonderful favor if you could get very, very startled by all of this now and move on to the "acceptance" stage post haste. I'm attracting enough attention as it is without you going apoplectic or drooling.
Once the voice stopped, the world returned to normal. Abd al-Rashid was immediately cognizant of the stunned, nearly-idiotic expression on his face, and regained his outward composure as quickly as possible. "You, ah, you are a mind-reader?"
The woman paused for a moment, looking at Abd al-Rashid closely, as though inspecting his face for blemishes. Sorry, it takes a moment for me to decode your thoughts. Yes, a telepath. Before you start, yes, I'm aware of the hadiths forbidding and condeming telepathy. Let me assure you that I am not of the devil Shaytan, that none of my thoughts are manipulated by him, and that I will not use this ability for spying or infiltration in your presence. Though I cannot universally say the same for the individuals we are about to meet.
Abd al-Rashid was quickly adapting to the rather unusual situation, accepting the fading and refocusing of reality around him as necessary. "Do I need to speak for this to work?"
It helps, Josephine said. Helps you focus thoughts into coherent words. I can work around its absence if you're uncomfortable, though.
"No, no, it's fine," Abd al-Rashid said. "Shall we proceed?"
Yes, certainly, Josephine said. We need to enter the aperture. Close your eyes. Abd al-Rashid did so. Clear your mind. I need you to focus on a very specific thought. Abd al-Rashid nodded.
I want you to think about the first time that you realized that, one day, your mother was going to die.
Abd al-Rashid looked at Josephine, cocked his head to one side, frowned, then closed his eyes again. A moment passed.
A short whistling tune came from behind where Abd al-Rashid was standing. He opened his eyes, turned, looked behind him. There was an enclosed market stand where one had not been previously. Josephine walked past him into the opening. When did these stands start being enclosed? Abd al-Rashid thought before following.
The building looked about the size of Abd al-Rashid's small apartment bathroom in Shemiran from the outside, but once he crossed into the stand, the world behind him faded away into nonexistence. Suddenly, without looking around, without needing to look around to confirm, he knew that, if he were to turn around, the doorway he just walked through would be gone. He knew he was surrounded on all sides by an infinite space exactly similar to the clay brick world he saw in front of him. And he knew that if he were to turn around and walk away, he could spend the entire remainder of his natural life searching and he would never find anything in that infinite space other than the man — no, the boy, possibly eleven years old — sitting placidly in front of him, smoking a cigarette.
Josephine spoke in English towards the boy, who glanced briefly at her before wincing and looking away. The boy said some words in return to her in English. The back and forth continued for a few moments before Josephine nodded and walked past the boy, disappearing a few seconds later.
"Wait, where did —"
"You need to hope you know what you're doing," the boy said in perfect, unaccented Istanbul Turkish, staring into space in a trancelike fashion. "Whatever plan you have in mind, she has planned ten ways to kill you without deviating from whatever expectations are had of her. She is trying very hard to behave like a human being, but some part of her knows that it will never be successful, and will certainly never balance out the things she has done. She has a self-control that will never belie how close she is to snapping and taking everyone around her down with her."
Abd al-Rashid continued staring, never having closed his mouth from any of the previous three miracles he had witnessed in the past ten minutes. "Did you read my mind?" he asked.
"Hmm?" the boy said, snapping his eyes on Abd al-Rashid before taking a drag from his cigarette. "Oh, I could give a aşk meleği göt lalesi less regarding how you handle her. I simply distrust anyone with too much hava for me to even look upon them. Now siktir git to House Afsenah so I can discorporealize this aperture and this child's form. Just walk past me like the gerçeklik bükücü did and be on your way.
Abd al-Rashid was ready to ask who taught this boy to reference the orifices of shamed females in casual conversation, but he was yet more baffled by the terms he had used to refer to Josephine. Too much…aura? he thought. And what is a "reality bender"? He started to ask the boy, but the child stood and walked away from where he was sitting, disappearing in a way that caused Abd al-Rashid to know he would not be coming back.
He looked at the place where the boy had pointed for him to walk, shrugged, and followed.

The feeling of transitioning from that…nether place, or whatever it was, into House Afseneh was much more anticlimactic than Abd al-Rashid had been expecting. He remembered being beside the boy's little table, walking past it. He remembered admiring the fine Persian rug on the floor of the reception room of the House. He then realized that he remembered nothing of the intervening time.
Josephine was beside him. Abd al-Rashid knew this from the sound of breathing. He was too stunned by the scene around him to actually notice anything else. The room was…opulent would have failed to describe it. Fine chandeliers in many different styles hung from the ceilings. The walls themselves were frescoes that seemed to — no, he realized, they really are moving. Incredible.
Serpents in pastels and duller colors slithered in two dimensions across the walls of the room, scales flexing in impossible detail. They crawled across what appeared to be the "ground" of the landscape, which changed from realistic to impressionistic to surrealistic to cubist on each of the surrounding four walls but kept a basic structure to it, though he couldn't tell what similarities he was seeing. Abd al-Rashid had never been a student of art, but just watching these serpents snaking, darting, nipping at each other, and finally joining at the base of an enormous tree that incorporated stylistic elements of all the art in the room, all the colors and cubes and lines meeting in some great Yggdrasil that sprawled across the ceiling, he was torn by the desire to collapse into tears from the beauty of it all and the desire to collapse into a fetal position to hide from the truth of how small he was.
"They are nearly grown now," a voice before him said. Abd al-Rashid was stunned back into the room itself and away from the scene on the walls. An impossibly tall man, seven, eight feet in height, but otherwise perfectly formed, stood before him. "The Lady Josephine recalls, I believe. You were here when they were younger, were you not?"
"I was," Josephine said. "Some years ago. They were barely mobile, mostly just colors and shapeless forms. Will they take humanoid form?"
"I believe so, though the decision will, as always, be theirs," the tall man replied. He walked to where Abd al-Rashid stood and bowed deeply, his head nearly reaching Abd al-Rashid's. His face remained tense as he said, "Malachi Tavana, gracious Majordomo and First Servant of Nuwaz Vizier Afseneh, himself master of the High Estate of the Most Esteemed House of Afseneh, Pearl of the Djinn, Guardians of the Sacred Spheres, Defenders of the Mortal Coil, at your service."
Abd al-Rashid simply stood silently. Josephine said, "Malachi, how many of those are real and how many of those do you just make up on the spot?"
Malachi's face remained serious. "I have never said before and I still refuse."
"The part about the sacred spheres, though. I know you just made that up right then."
"I may have. I may not have. A dedicated servant never tells."
"Well, Gracious Majordomo, would you be kind enough to show us to quarters?"
"Of course, Lady Josephine. You and your guest are always welcome."

Abd al-Rashid found in the three days he spent as a guest that the splendor of the Estate of House Afseneh was innumerable. Volume after volume could be written to record the details of every room of every wing of the House, of which there are many. There may well be no way to count how many rooms were in the Estate, given their changing number. Regardless, Abd al-Rashid had finite time and saw a finite number of those rooms, but the wonders in that place seemed infinite.
At the end of the second day in the House, Abd al-Rashid sat for dinner with the High Court of Afseneh. Nuwaz, the Vizier of the House, sat near what was clearly the head of the table. The chairs were equally beautiful, equally enormous (though more proportionately sized for some of the diners; the majordomo had been asked to join them and, towering over all others in the room, had little difficulty with the seating arrangement). It was clear that there was a symbolic equality in the room, with the Vizier serving as a "chief among equals". One seat at the headmost position was left vacant, food served but with nobody seeming to believe the seat's occupant would be joining them.
"If I may be so forward, may I ask for whom the empty seat is left for?" Abd al-Rashid whispered to Malachi as the food was being served.
"The head seat at the table is reserved for the proper Mistress of the House, the Queen of Afseneh. Šahrāzād, her name is said in the proper Persian."
Abd al-Rashid thought for a moment. "You mean…Scheherazade? Of the One Thousand and One Nights? A fictive princess is your queen?"
"She is the greatest of the fictives," Malachi said, a touch of annoyance in his voice. "And moreover, a fictive capable of creating more fictions. From her, we have learned how to birth new fictions as well. Who better to be honored so?"
Abd al-Rashid, abashed, nodded politely and continued to watch the food be distributed. It had all of the hallmarks of the decadent surroundings; enormous, glistening hogs brought whole to the table, platters and plates seemingly unable to continue supporting the weight of the feast atop them. Among this was brought two plates of equal elegance, but carrying only some pieces of nan-e khoshke-shirin and a bowl of — certainly perfectly crafted — ash-e anār, the pomegranate stew glistening before him. He was about to question the difference between his and Josephine's plates, when he suddenly had a revelation. Oh, of course, he thought, they needed to serve real, physical food for their corporeal guests. The rest of this is all but imaginary. Though the dedication to detail in the olfactory department was…thorough. Abd al-Rashid drooled at the smell of it all.
The meal was generally as he expected it to be, polite enough where the humans were concerned, much more jovial where the djinn were concerned. Much laughter and uproar came from their end of the table, with polite smiles and nods from Abd al-Rashid, who understood little of the cultural context for what they were saying, and Josephine, who was unable to use telepathy to read the minds of sentient concept-beings and didn't speak any of these languages being used.
"So, darling," Vizier Afseneh said (Abd al-Rashid presuming and hoping) in Josephine's direction, "what did you think of the children in the atrium?" His Arabic was crisp and lightly accented, if at all. Malachi translated into English.
"Very well developed. Beautiful, even," Josephine replied through Malachi. "I don't believe I had ever seen djinn children in such a…larval state."
"Wait, I'm sorry," Abd al-Rashid interrupted. "The…those serpents in the reception area, those were…those were djinn?"
Silence, then a soft, deep chuckle from the vizier. "Son, if I may ask, where do you think you are? Physically, geographically, your position?"
Abd al-Rashid gulped. "Well, from the rumors, I would presume that we are underground somewhere. The exact location is a closely guarded secret; the House is reached only through mystical gateways of some kind, whose function and operation are also secrets. All the other djinn Houses are likewise; the Nabhanites in Oman, the Roxelanans in Turkey. I once met a Khotani djinn —"
More chortling from the vizier. "Oh, yes, that must have been quite the experience."
Abd al-Rashid smiled, the least uncomfortable feeling he had had all evening. "Yes. He invited me to his nightly meditation after evening prayer. I hadn't realized he was looking for a sparring partner, or that Khotani 'meditations' can end in death."
The Vizier's chortles turned into guffaws. "They are rather…intense people, yes. Living in caves in the Tibetan mountains will do that to man and djinn alike.
"As for my question, however, it is difficult for you to perceive what this Estate actually is. We djinn, the ones to whom you speak, are sentient, sapient ideas, formed through acts of personal volition into humanoid creatures when we find it convenient, taking…other forms when we wish to do so as well. The Estate in which you are sitting, as well as all of the furniture in it, is made likewise of djinn. Immature djinn, formed through an act indescribable to corporeal beings, taking shapes at the will of their…parents, if you will. The beings will become more complex as time goes on, changing forms and shapes, developing a greater understanding of how to cope with the universe around them. The chair in which you sit is a three-year-old; the rug now bunched up in the legs of the chair and table is two; the floor that both are stationed upon is four weeks old. They are capable of great feats at a young age, but must learn to harness and control it before they can join us."
Abd al-Rashid was stunned. Everything in the Estate was simultaneously now both majestic and…rather disturbing, honestly. Everything alive, everything with the potential for intelligence and self-awareness? He was ready to be horrified when he felt the vizier's hand on his shoulder. He looked down at Abd al-Rashid with concern.
"Child, let me stop you for a moment. I know that Parviz sent you here to apologize for what you said to Agent Faruhar. I will not claim to be thrilled with it. But I am a strong believer in the freedom of individuals to feel and act as they see fit, even in ignorance. And your behavior was ignorant, there can be no doubt. I hope you find Agent Faruhar in your journeys, and I hope that by that time, you will have learned better ways, or at least better restraint. But I will not have an apology from a young man who has not offended me, and you have not offended me."
Abd al-Rashid looked up into that face, twinkling and clearly possessing an ancient nature that the vizier either could not or chose not to hide. "Thank you, lord," he said. "I hope to do better. I hope…I hope to be better. I do regret my words."
The vizier's face lit up again. "This is the best I could have hoped for you, child. Are you finished with the stew? I hoped it was to your liking; I had it brought from a Way leading back to Iran." He picked Abd al-Rashid up and guided/pushed/forced him to the end of the room nearest the hallway, a confused Josephine following. "I would have chosen a Turkish delicacy, but I didn't think your lovely escort here would have been much fond of it. No offense to your cuisines, of course; I simply meant that something a bit…"
They left the room on yet another tour.