They called it "Segregation" back then, they call it "Paternalism" now.

close

Info

X

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

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

The school had been closed down as a crime scene. Summer classes had been taking place, so the students were moved to nearby schools. The status of the school for the Fall semester was uncertain. They could have easily moved the Anabasis, but someone had determined that it shouldn't be removed from the site. Dr. Marlowe had been pushing for its relocation, but rumors had been going around that Marlowe had once gone to this school, and hated it with a passion. Some were thinking she'd pushed for the school to be shut down and occupied for the duration.
Priss had initially believed that, until she saw half the classes on the first floor were filled with researchers. And dirt. Boxes and boxes of dirt.
"What're they even digging for? Damn," Agents Sharpe and Locke were assigned to oversee the hauling of new boxes of dirt up from the basement and into storage areas. Then they were hauling boxes of dirt after much of the employees went off for the day. More dirt kept coming.
"They're not digging — it's the Anabasis testing."
"They're testing it by teleporting tons of dirt from parallel universes? For what?"
Locke shrugged, watching Sharpe drop the last box into place, then try to squeeze the door shut on the boxes, "For soil samples, microbes, biological material. Other stuff. It's not just dirt being brought in."
"Can't they do it one universe at a time?"
"They are."
Sharpe kicked the door shut, crushing the dislodged boxes in as she locked it, then turned to Priss, "Why with the nonstop fucking dirt, then?"
"We could've been done sooner if you let me help."
"If I let you help, you'd end up in a hospital," Sharpe patted her on the shoulder. Compared to herself, Sharpe was massive, near six feet tall and built like a wrestler, "You're exhausted and you nearly snapped your arm in two."
"I could've carried one box at a time."
"Go home and rest. If you don't take the day off tomorrow, I'll put you in the hospital so you can rest."
Priss stared vacantly across the hall, at the stairwell leading down to the Anabasis.
"It's your sister, isn't it?"
"That's what I told you twice already."
"You told me she's been drinking every day and making noise all hours of the night. But that's not all, is it?"
Priss lolled her head to one side, trying not to close her eyes, "She's constantly picking fights with people. Going out late at night, doing… I hope not what I suspect… She's already been arrested for drunk and disorderly."
"What'd she do?"
"She picked a fight with some people at a café discussing politics."
"Oh."
"Nngh."
"What about you, Locke? You say you're solidly WestCiv. If that's true, you're the worst WestCivvie I've ever seen."
"What about me?" Priss grumbled, starting to not like this line of conversation.
"How do you really feel about it all? America, nationalism, preserving the white race, the Qing…"
"I don't think. That's why I'm here. Foundation isn't a governmental organization."
"It's not illegal to have an opinion on things. Loads of us argue politics with each other, and stay best of friends at the end of each day. You… you never take part. You barely speak to anyone but me. You belong here, so there's no use trying to isolate yourself from everyone else."
"You want to know what I think" Priss stared into her lap, taking a long moment to calm herself down, "I think the Earth is our home, and our species is growing up. Soon we're going to have to go out into space and find a new home. I think in terms of advancing our species. What policies, what social issues, what ideologies and religions will get us closer to space? Those are my morals and values. What policies, what social issues, what ideologies and religions take us further and further away from space? Those are the worst evils in the world. We're not in serious danger yet, but the more we keep stepping back, the more we put ourselves at risk of complete extinction. Race doesn't matter a damn… whites may be one way, blacks may be fundamentally different, but they're all human in the end. As long as our species is trapped on one small fragile little planet, we can't afford to be identifying ourselves by race or by nation…"
"Then why the WestCivvies?"
Priss chewed lightly on her lip, "Horrible as we may be… we're still the ruling power of the richest, most powerful country in the world. And as ingrained as our bigotry tends to be, we still let people voice differing opinions. We don't keep slaves anymore, we don't put people in jail for being in debt. I think it's safer to tolerate injustice now rather than to risk upending the entire system and having to rebuild. Progress is being made, sluggish as it is."
Sharpe snorted obnoxiously, "Was being made…"

Priss came home, and found her sister on the couch with a young black couple. She would have smiled, delighted that Rhie was bringing friends home, except the two were staring at her like she'd just barged in with a gun. Both were dressed in black, and the man had a thick beard and mustache. Marxist, she suspected.
"Hey," She said, dropping her backpack on the kitchen counter, and moving along to the bathroom to wash up. She couldn't hear them out there. As she came out, she spotted them smiling. The man's smile faded quickly, the woman's lingered, turning ugly and hostile.
"What the fuck's your problem?" Locke blurted out.
Rhiannon burst out laughing, "Please forgive her, my sister has always had trouble with the subtle nuances of social etiquette," She patted the couch beside herself, but continued to address the young couple, "WestCiv to the bone, but there's hope for her yet."
"I meant you," She turned on Rhiannon, glad for the justification at least. The strangers hadn't said a word and she'd already cursed and yelled at them in less than five minutes time, "I don't mind you bringing people over, but you don't just insult your host — much less your own sister who is supporting your unemployed ass — in front of strangers."
Rhiannon smiled cheerfully, "I did not insult you until after you yelled at our guests, Prissy-baby," She turned and indicated the two, "This is Marcus and Jeanne. If you'd be patient, I would have properly introduced you all after your trip to the bathroom. I know how you WestCiv types are around Such violence… how are the hormones treating you, Prissy?"
Priss restrained herself from charging at her sister. She instead removed her coat, and stepped around the empty couch. Then she reached down, grabbing Rhiannon by the hair and yanking her up to her feet. Rhiannon howled with what sounded like laughter, and head-butted her sister down onto the empty couch. Priss wrapped her legs around her and started to feverishly pound on her sister's back.
Rhiannon got up, easily escaping Priss's unstable grasp. She turned her back on Priss, casually walking away, letting Priss lunge at her and tackle her up against the opposing wall. Rhiannon slammed an elbow into the side of her head, staggering her and letting Rhiannon turn and take control of her. She drove a knee into Priss's midsection, doubling her over, and shoved her down to the floor. Again she turned her back on her.
Priss got back up and ran headlong at Rhiannon. Rhiannon was prepared that time, easily stepping away and flinging Priss into the wall. Again, Priss came at her, and Rhiannon flung her on to the couch. Priss caught against the armrest, doubling over. Rhiannon giggled, reaching around to unbutton Priss's pants, "Insolent child! Shomevone getsh a shpanking!" She squealed. As she leaned over, Priss slammed her butt against Rhiannon, and whirled, smashing Rhiannon full in the face with her fist.
The hot rage flushed from Priss as she saw the mess of blood that blossomed from the impact. Her own knuckles burned in pain, and a cut on one of them was bleeding. Rhiannon crumpled, and Priss shuddered hard. Slowly, Rhiannon began to rise. Her nose was bloody, and her lips oozed blood onto her chest. She grinned toothily to Priss — one of her front teeth was gone, the other cracked, almost snapped in half. The rest of her incisors were cracked and chipped. Then she spat in Priss's face, the other front tooth coming off and hitting Priss between the eyes. She turned and left, the young couple rising and following her out.

From : 11311OULH@.com
To : moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P#moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P
CC : ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr#ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr
Subject : None
I picked up a new book on Lincoln today. People seem to be looking at him in a whole new light recently. I guess they have for the last twenty years or so, but I'm old, give me a break. It wasn't like that in the fifties.
I met a man named King back then. Good man, very religious but practical and tolerant. A group of his friends and congregation were organizing rallies and boycotts on companies that discriminated based on race. Picked up a lot of steam in '57 with the neo-liberal rise. People genuinely thought the WestCiv Party was on its way out and there'd be a renaissance (or revolution, depending who you asked) of racial and cultural harmony not seen since I don't know. Maybe never.
People got violent because they were scared. Not because of the boycotters, but because of the WestCivs. The Party leaders were quiet. Legislation was being openly discussed in statehouses all around the country that would do away with things like voter tax, patriotism tests, and all manner of garbage they'd passed to keep black people from voting.
And all the while, the WestCivs said and did nothing.
People who weren't scared were furious. They felt betrayed. They thought the Party had abandoned them.
Everyone talks about the fine line between genius and madness. I don't think there is a line, at least not at the moment. The line comes later, determined by whether or not the end result is useful.
1960, WestCivvies just barely keep the White House. Then they struck.
"Okay," they basically said, "we'll give you want you want. Here's your shot at freedom."
Practically overnight, they passed hundreds of bills through Congress, revoking old segregation laws and forcibly integrating whites and non-whites. Of course there was trouble. Rioting in some places, white boycotts and black counter-boycotts. But it kept. No one knew how the WestCivvies passed the laws, but they had convinced all their Party heads to vote for them.
I'm simplifying the process, clearly. Politics is complex and I could go on for pages on all the politics involved in that. Ultimately it doesn't matter because it was all a sham.
It worked so beautifully, you'd think every white business owner, landlord, entrepreneur, civil servant, and politician in America was in on it, but they weren't. It was a coldly executed plot that needed nothing more than pure racism to succeed.
Imagine, if you will, a group of monkeys, building a tower to the sky to live in, work in, play in, eat in. They build the tower for monkeys, with niches and handles for chimp hands to grab on and dig in to, for them to hoist themselves up. Food meant for monkeys, beds meant for monkeys, entertainment meant for monkeys.
Now imagine a group of small horses comes to live with them. They grudgingly allow the horses to stay and live with them, eat with them, sleep and play with them. The monkeys head up their tower, and invite the horses to come up with them.
How does a horse climb a tower meant for monkeys to climb?
How does a horse subsist on food meant for monkeys? Sleep on beds meant for monkeys?
It took more than 10 years, but that did it. The WestCiv plan was masterfully executed. America had spent hundreds of years being built for white men. It spent decades after the Civil War being socially stratified, favoring whites. The WestCivvies then brought everyone together and told them to go on about life as usual. How were the non-whites supposed to thrive in a society built for whites?
Imagine two men. Both have wives and two children. Both have a nice savings to buy a new house in a new neighborhood and start new jobs. The white man gets hired easily, and buys a nice new house within his budget. The black man isn't hired — the law states that an employer cannot refuse to hire a man based on the color of his skin, but the law also says an employer does not have to disclose to an individual why they were not hired. The black man is shown houses further away from the neighborhood's prime real estate, and incentives are made to prevent him from getting the best possible home for his money.
The white man goes on working, making money, and sustaining his family. The black man cannot get hired by a good company. He barely makes ends meet. He struggles just to survive, much less prosper. Then an enterprising individual comes to the black man with an offer; help me sell this, help me do that. He is offered great sums of money to do jobs that are considered unseemly at best, and quite possibly illegal.
And so the cycle goes. Spin it long enough, and you have what we had by the mid-70s. The WestCivvies didn't need to say anything; people saw what they were meant to see. The message: "Here is proof that whites are the superior race, and that non-whites were never meant to be our equals. Given equal chance and opportunities, equal standing under the law, the whites thrived as usual, and the non-whites devolved into squalor, drugs, and crime."
You wouldn't believe how difficult it was for people to put the whole sequence of events together and realize the game was rigged from the start. Non-whites were given their ticket to ride, then dropped off fifteen miles from the station without a compass.
In less than a year, pretty much everything was undone, and it was back to the system you see now. They called it "Segregation" back then, they call it "Paternalism" now.
Western Civ science (in)action.
From the Office of Ret. Lt. Col. Umber

« Motivation of Man | Rigged from the Start | Voice of Decay »
Anabasis Hub


Researcher Conwell looked around his office. The few meager possessions he had used to decorate were now placed in a box on the desk.
Conwell let out a deflating sigh. He wanted to say it had been a good run, but if he was being honest with himself, the work he had been doing with SCP-1360 was both frustrating and sickening. Still, he wished he had produced more results. Maybe that way it wouldn't seem like he had failed. Maybe then it wouldn't feel like he had let the poor droid down. A sharp knock at the door shook Conwell out of his day dream.
“It's open,” he called. A short woman with piercing grey eyes and a large smirk entered. Her hair was done up in a bun and a small pair of glasses sat upon her pointed nose. Conwell did his best to hide his disappointment. This woman was Dr. Freemont. Although she was at least one foot shorter than him, she always managed to make him feel small.
“Relocated again?” she asked. One eyebrow was raised as she peered into the box on the table. Her voice was sweet and concerned, but her lips were curled into a sly smile.
“How'd you guess?” He replied. Conwell pulled his box of things away from his guest and pretended to rummage through them, hoping to look too busy to talk. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Where are they sending you?” Freemont asked. Whether she didn't notice his display or didn't care remained to be seen.
“Site-84. Again. What do you want, Freemont?”
“Dr. Thompson made a request to see you. Guess I'm lucky I caught you now, before they shipped you to the Pacific.” Freemont chuckled. Conwell's mouth hung slightly open as he attempted to process just how exactly it was she could be so tactless.
“Why?” Conwell asked. He had heard about poor Dr. Harold Thompson when he was working with Dr. Johnson, and even met him once in person. Freemont responded with a heavy shrug.
“I would like to know that as well. He's been very adamant about seeing you for about the past week.”
“I thought that Dr. Collins was keeping in touch…” Conwell began, pausing when Freemont gave a sharp laugh.
“Gregg hasn't paid Harold a visit since Johnson left. Anyway, he's due for another psychological health visit, so I thought I'd throw him a bone with you. Can I tell him you're going to stop by?”
Conwell sighed and placed his head in his hands before dragging them down his face. If Freemont was telling the truth, Dr. Thompson had not been visited in almost three years, and was probably nearing the end of his rope.
“I'm afraid I have a flight to catch, and a few more meetings of my own to take care of before I jet. I'm sorry. I wish I could. I really do, I just can't,” he said as he shook his head. Freemont shrugged.
“You're disappointing him, not me. Good luck at the Casket Garden.”
Conwell hung his head and waited for Freemont to leave. The door slammed shut behind her. He then let out another sigh and grabbed his box of things before exiting and turning off the light behind him.

Conwell pounded heavily upon the door to Dr. Collins' office. He didn't wait for permission to enter, instead choosing to silently open the door and slide inside the room. The office itself was immaculate, a great deal of forethought appearing to have gone into the placement of everything down to the pens on the desk. He didn't want to touch anything, lest a curator yell at him for disturbing the exhibit.
“I can assure you that you're doing a good job,” Collins said with a small chuckle from the seat at his desk. He spoke without taking his eyes off the screen on his desktop. Conwell rolled his eyes in response. “What's on your mind champ?”
“I've cleared out of the 1360-1 lab. Are you going to be taking Zach's old office, or keeping this one here?”
“I haven't decided yet, but I'm guessing that my office arrangements are not what prompted your visit.” Collins replied. He now peered at Conwell from behind his thick glasses.
“I know you had a hand in me being transferred. That's why they're giving you command over 1360. I just can't figure out why you did it.”
Collins sighed. He looked like a father about to tell his child that he wasn't angry, just disappointed.
“Your enthusiasm for that project was waning long before Johnson left. Command was afraid that you were no longer suited to continue to lead the project, so they asked me to keep tabs on you and report what I saw,” Collins then shook his head as he chuckled quietly. “I mean, Christ, you're a grown man, I'm not going to visit you to tell you that you're doing a good job. No one does that.”
“So that's it then? One subpar visit and I'm out of there?” Conwell snapped.
“Cut that out.” Collins snapped back. “You know damn well that's not how we do things. You've hated working on the 1360 project for a long time now. Having you continue to serve as PI for that object was both a detriment to you and the research being done on 1360-1. I saw this and pulled what strings I needed to make sure that what needed to be done was done.”
Conwell tightened his fist. He imagined bashing in Collins' head with his computer keyboard. Eventually he regained his composure and placed a large file stack down on the desk.
“Alright then, captain. Here's the wheel, all of Johnson's and my notes on 1360 and Anderson, including the transcript from the attempted sting last week, and all known info on Anderson's models.”
Conwell began to make his way towards the exit but stopped when Collins called out.
“Listen, Jacob, this isn't the first time you've been relocated from a project, and it won't be the last. Hell, I've been moved around many more times than I care to count. The important thing is you remember that these decisions are made by command for a reason. The important thing is being able to move on. Please don't let this come between us in the future. Overall, you've done a good job.”
Conwell paused in the doorway and shook his head.
“Dr. Freemont visited me earlier today. Harold wanted to see me. She said you hadn't been by for one of the psychological health visits in almost three years. You should think about swinging by there if you get a chance.”
Conwell then silently passed into the hallway, allowing the door to quietly swing shut behind him.
Collins waited for the door to close before he smiled and quietly thought to himself:
Anderson,
Integration successful and infiltration now complete. I have obtained complete command of #31. Awaiting further instructions.
Saker #76
Collins waited for a second as his programming confirmed the message had been received. He then whistled as he got back to work.

Dr. Harold Thompson slowly made his way over the threshold of his cell, returning from another round of testing. What once used to be a tan, athletic man was now pale and gaunt. While the years of his incarceration had been unpleasant, it was those three years after his friend, Dr. Johnson, had left that appeared to have been the hardest yet. Two security officers stood behind him, causally watching for him to make any move resembling an escape attempt. Eight years of stellar behavior on Harold's part, however, allowed them to relax ever so slightly. It also helped that his hands were not only covered by thick leather gloves, but also bound together by thick restraints.
“Hold the door for a moment,” Dr. Freemont's honey-lathered voice called out as she appeared from behind the security officers. “Good job today, Harold. We'll continue the tests in two days. Tomorrow is going to be your psychological health visit.”
“I see…” Harold kept his back to his captors as he spoke. “Researcher Conwell?”
“I'm afraid it will just be me again,” Freemont said with a melancholy smile. “Conwell is being relocated to another facility.”
“And Gregg -” Harold began, but was quickly interrupted.
“I'm afraid I still can't get a hold of him. He's a busy man. I'm sure you understand.”
“I can't even imagine…” Harold mumbled, fidgeting with his hands as he spoke. The officers gave a slight nervous glance at each other and then back to Freemont. She rolled her eyes and held up a hand as she signaled them to close the door.
As the door began to slide shut, Harold's bare hands suddenly reached through, yanking the security officer into the door's track. The officer let out a sudden gasp, and in the next instant was solid marble.
“Shit!” The other officer shouted as he drew his pistol, but was too late. Harold had slid the door back open and had a hand on the officer's face before his fingers could wrap around the grip. He too became solid marble.
“No no no no no!” Freemont shouted as Harold turned to her. She attempted to run towards the alarm, but was quickly overtaken. Harold had lunged and knocked her to the ground. His hand was firmly wrapped around her ankle.
The room was silent as Harold got back to his feet and brushed himself off. He quickly undid his restraints, grabbed one of the security officer's pistols and pass cards, and cloaked himself in Dr. Freemont's lab coat.
He took a few moments to look himself over in a mirror. Provided he didn't draw much attention to himself he felt that it would be easy enough traversing the short distance to Dr. Collins's office. Blending in as a Foundation researcher wouldn't be hard either.
After all, he had already been one in a past life.

Part Three: Products | Peregrine | Part Five: Tearing Down


Civil wars, sectarian things, Sunni vs Shiite, you think the WestCivs cared anything about that?

close

Info

X

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

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

Locke sat in the 'waiting room', reading through the report that had been filed by her. 'Anabasis' was confirmed anomalous, and was now SCP-1856. Something involving space-time. She couldn't understand it. Somehow, she doubted the people who'd written the report understood it as well — so many footnotes, divergent thoughts, and technobabble on theoretical sciences. It wasn't the only object they'd caught that had reality-bending effects. It was just the first that could actually do something on a considerable scale.
None of that bothered Priscilla Locke. What disturbed her was seeing Jaime Marlowe's name plastered everywhere. Priscilla Locke's words, her notes, even her initial sketch, were all included in the report. And her name was nowhere near them. Dr. Jaime Marlowe's name decorated every page.
She snorted, and dropped the report into her lap. It didn't bother her not getting credited so much; it was just Jaime Marlowe she hated.
Her gaze shifted, over to the short man standing nearby, having emerged from Dr. Marlowe's office. He looked over at her vacantly, as if expecting her to tell him what to do.
"Hey," she said. He fidgeted, and stood erect, nodding in response, "Sir. I mean, ma'am."
The jumpsuit indicated him as Class-D, but that wouldn't have been necessary. He looked like a junkie, fresh off the streets and hosed down like a dog until he was presentable enough to pass as human. Remembering Rhiannon's argument the week before, Priss was uncomfortably aware of his race. Most of the Class-D were black or Hispanic. Some of the doctors were, too, but the percentage of non-white Class-D was enormous. That couldn't have been intentional… everyone here was a local.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He fidgeted again, eyeing her suspiciously before responding, "My designation number is D-9…99401."
"That the name your mother gave you?"
He shook his head, "No, ma'am. Never knew my mother. I grew up in a orphanage… ev'rybody called me Boo. Short fo Butane, 'cause I always had me a butane lighter handy."
She couldn't help herself, "Do you still have the lighter?"
"No, ma'am. Took it from me before I came here. Dunno where it went now. Don't matter, everyone still call me Boo."
"Are you talking to my D-Class?" A voice suddenly broke in.
Priss looked over her shoulder. Marlowe. She looked like a porcelain doll, with big round blue eyes, perfect white skin, perfect little snub nose, supple lips. Priss hated every little thing about her face.
"Don't talk to my D-Class," she said in her cool, husky voice. Boo shuffled over to her, and she patted him on the shoulder, leading him out of the room. Like he was an animal… Priss felt a hot rush of anger go through her, and she lunged from her seat, giving a firm middle finger at the open doorway, before Dr. Marlowe returned. She smiled to Priss, motioning with her own middle finger for Priss to follow her. Fucking fucker. Somehow she knew. She always somehow knew.
Priss followed her, out into the hall and into a conference room. Sharpe was there, along with Agent Maximo and Dr. Horner, Dr. Domingo, and Dr. Valens. Priss took a seat next to Sharpe.
"Agent Locke," Valens nodded, and turned to the rest, "Let's begin."

From : 11311OULH@.com
To : moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P#moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P
CC : ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr#ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr
Subject : None
I don't know how best to compare it to, when Istanbul fell in '66 and all the dirt the Ottomans had been stashing since the 1870s came out. Everyone knew about the deaths and actual movements; some compared it to the Trail of Tears. We didn't know it was a systemic effort. The Christian Genocide, they called it, because the Armenians were Christian, I guess. Not like anyone here cared about Armenia or could even locate it on a map. Besides, it was 50 years in the past by that time. "A true testament to the power of the Sultan to keep it hidden that long" I just typed before realizing it wasn't hidden at all — nothing ever is. We just didn't care as it happened because of the War.
Speaking of that, one bit of info that riled up some of the boys was news of Ottoman plans to invade Russia. Some stupid bastard named Enver Pasha was going to strip down the defenses in the Mid-East and Thrace in the middle of a British invasion to march up into the belly of Russia. Stacks and stacks of papers detailing these plans. Only one letter explaining why it was shut down.
I know you don't care, Locke, but it warrants repeating; if it weren't for the Ottoman victory in the Mid-East war, we'd probably be in an all-out brawl with Britain, France, Russia, and China over the Arab world. Even then we knew about all the oil they had. The land was precious. Part of the Fourth Armistice in 1925 was a subsidizing of the oil by the Germans so the rest of Europe could buy at low prices, making the Sultan fat.
It was a sweet deal for everyone but the Turkish people. Probably sweeter for them than the situation in '69. You know how the US is with occupations. Remind me to tell you about China some time.
Those Muslims aren't dumb savages. Don't let any WestCiv propaganda tell you otherwise. I wasn't on the ground by then, but I met with plenty of Arabs during the time. The image of them you see of camel-riding, turban-wearing nomads living in tents and living off loot and spoils is all bullshit. Bedouin, they call those types. The Arabs I saw were dressed in robes and turbans for show; back home, they wore T-shirts, polo shirts, denim pants. They smoked cigarettes and cigars, drank whisky and beer, ate steak and watched western TV and movies. They even shaved sometimes, though they kept the mustaches.
So why the masquerade of the dumb oriental savage? Pure racism, Locke. And you've only got your WestCivvie selves to blame. WestCiv hates seeing savages start to "walk upright", they'll cut off any people they think are becoming too "westernized" if they can't control them, and the Mid-East is a rabid beast at war with itself. You can't even begin to pretend to control them.
So they played dumb, and the US threw money at them. Civil wars, sectarian things, Sunni vs Shiite, you think the WestCivs cared anything about that? I literally saw a bill pass both houses of Congress that pledged support to a Sunni country we had officially declared war on eight weeks earlier. Someone messed up the acronyms. You think they'd revoke the law and pass another one properly proofread? Nope. They made peace with that country, and declared war on another — their enemies — just to maintain our military presence there. It was more work to pass a whole new peace and declaration of war, and they preferred doing that than admitting they didn't bother to learn a damn thing.
That was before the Big Comedown. Your school isn't worth a damn if you don't know about the Comedown.
After exploiting the west for more than a decade, what was the next obvious step? Get us to fight their wars for them. It was brilliant in its simplicity. One tribe was allied to the Qing, another tribe attacked them, then came to us asking for help. They'd hide their guns and say they were helpless, and we'd send troops in to "advise" them. Qing would do the same. Money flowed east. Two or more tribes might even stage a skirmish, pretend to be at each others' throat, then call on separate superpowers to give them aid. It was the absolute best weapon the natives had against their colonial overlords, and if so many Americans hadn't died, I would've considered it the greatest comedy of the age.
Just remember, Locke; people want what they want, and it doesn't matter where they come from or who they are. The longer you keep them from what they want, the more insidious their methods become. You can't keep people from the things they want and expect them to give up and let it go.
Notice I say "want" and not "need". A need is a physiological requirement. People need food and water. They need basic amenities. It doesn't matter who they are or what they are, their body tells them what to do and they do it. A want requires more than that. A want requires concerted effort on a person's part. A force of will that has to be sharp and intelligent, clearly defined and perfectly executed. The Turkish revolt against the Ottoman Sultan was an act of necessity, and it was crushed by superior firepower. The military coup against the Sultan was an act of want, and it succeeded because it was too fast and indomitable to stand against. Of course, a handful of tanks and fighter jets doesn't hurt either.
From the Office of Ret. Lt. Col. Umber

From : ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr#ten.dkuf|n0n1eihr
To : moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P#moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P
CC :
Subject : Devil his Due
Looks like being a coward ain't an impediment to being right

« Mongrelization | Motivation of Man | Rigged from the Start »
Anabasis Hub


The facility's power supply had been cut for the past twenty hours. God knows what put the lights out, but the more belligerent occupants were grateful. The darkness of the site blanketed every cell, granting the many objects contained within a perfect cover to slip the militias sent out to keep order.
One such object slipped through the veil of blackness, scuttling behind the back of an unsuspecting mercenary. The man was spraying boiling lead into a crowd of orange jumpsuit wearing men and women, each vying for an escape from the hellish facility.
The object couldn't help but feel contempt for such a worthless creature, blasting its own worthless kin with primitive weaponry. A firecracker with a bit of metal stuck on it, jettisoned down a tube. It was akin to a caveman throwing rocks, at least to the object. If only he had retained his weaponry upon arrival to this damnable dimension. Why, he'd have the whole organization in flames…
The object shook off the grandiose dreams of revenge. It didn't matter, time was vital and he had to locate his partner. Poor boy, he wasn't ready for such a mission. He would hear his partner's panicked, almost incoherent wailing deep into the night. He was a fresh body at the academy, right in his prime. He didn't deserve this hellish dimension and its ghastly occupants.
“I've gotta keep a clear head,” the object thought to himself. His partner was likely either in a panic or near catatonic somewhere nearby. He hadn't been too far when the pandemonium of the breach caused them to get separated. Nonetheless, he felt bad. He had been the senior officer assigned to the new cadet, and he failed him at every turn.
He thought back to when they first landed in that field. They had already lost their weaponry, and the mayday they issued appeared to fall on deaf ears. The bipedal beasts, the 'humans' as they referred to themselves, seemed dangerous but stupid. The object sighed to himself, he didn't like to say it out loud, but he did underestimate those bipedal brutes.
Another type of beast raced through from behind the object. The gentle sound of a crack and a scream cut short were the tell-tale signs of it.
It stood somewhat larger than a human, and was crafted in an exaggeration of their visage. Somehow, it seemed even more disturbing to the object than the humans. Still, the object had learned through the passing comments of the humans and observation that the beast had an easily exploited weakness.
The object turned, but he did so with a deliberate, slow motion. It was a meek attempt at putting off having to stare into that awful form's green, lifeless gaze.
His sight affixed to the sculpture, freezing it in its tracks. He must've only gazed at it for a few seconds, but that short passage of time had mutated into hellish hours within the mind of the object.
The guttural call of one of those humans finally broke the showdown. The object felt the greasy, wretched hand of the human on the top of his head, brushing down his sensitive sensory organ, causing a chill to run the length of his body.
“Thanks 131, you really helped us out in containing 173!”
The human grabbed the object, who was unable to do anything but swear worse than any sailor. Swears that, to the human, sounded like nothing more than cute little bleeps.
“Let's go find your friend, little buddy.”
Freedom would not come today.


When you come across it, half-buried in the grass by the side of the walking path, the first thing that stands out is how comically out-of-place it is. The hideous ochre rust that adorns its surface is in sheer contrast to the small ring of bright yellow flowers that surround it. You lean in for a closer look. It appears as if someone hastily dug a pit for it and then jammed it in there before fleeing.
You carefully dig it out of the ground. Perhaps when you get back home, you can sell it to that antique shop down the street. Or maybe you can give it to Enrique for his upcoming birthday. He's a big fan of old things.
As you scrape the dirt away, you get a better look at the object. It's a bell shaped like a cartoon anvil. You grasp it by the large ring on top. Oddly enough, it doesn't ring. Curious, you turn it upside down. The clapper has been taped to the side. Briefly you wonder why, as you remove the tape and ring it a couple times.
The sound is mellow and gentle, with a clear, high pitch and a pleasant waning note. Almost immediately, you sense the gaze of some flesh-craving crime against nature. You look around, like a startled rabbit, but there's not a soul in the woods save you. The sun is sharp and bright, but suddenly you're aware that the trees all but blot out the sky, and there isn't a creature to be heard at all. It's just you and the miles and miles of suddenly very empty forest around you.
You stand up, still clutching the bell by the clapper, and start walking. You can feel your heart throbbing in your chest. You are also suddenly very aware of how squishy it is. You walk slightly faster, eyes flashing from side to side. There it is again; the feeling that something is watching you, seeking to messily devour your flesh. What little sun remains is swiftly blotted out by the unbroken canopy of dark green trees that tower over you, but the path is well-defined. You just have to follow it.
As you quicken your pace, the lack of sound becomes ever more disconcerting. Where are the birds, the bugs, the squirrels? It's the middle of summer; you shouldn't be able to go more than an inch without startling something. But the only noise being made is the sound of your feet thumping on the dirt. Is it just you, or are the trees leaning in towards you? You hear a sound and your heart almost stops. You stifle a plea for mercy and look at the ground. You stepped on a twig.
You chide yourself for your paranoia and ridiculous train of thought. You chuckle to yourself nervously, but you can't quite help but feel foreign eyes observing you. You take a look around you. The trees aren't getting closer. They're sitting plump on the edges of the path. The forest is completely empty, with nothing around you except the plants. Yet you can also sense that it is getting darker, and the clap of thunder spurs you into action. As you return to your car, your pace isn't quite a run, but neither is it a leisurely walk.
___
Almost as soon as you shut the garage door, the increasingly grey sky turns a deep navy, and in a fashion akin to the world's largest zipper, tears open. It's like God's showerhead; thousands of gallons of water on jet setting pulverize the ground, punching gashes into the earth, which bleed rain. You consider writing this down; maybe you'll take it to that poetry competition next week. You turn around, planning to get a- wait a minute, what the hell is that!
Enormous grey, emaciated, puckered hands with fingers sharp enough to cut rock are curled around the doorframe on the far end of the room. They are attached to the body of a leper, half peering around the door. You can see ribs and even pulsating organs through the ash colored, inhumanly thin torso. Huge scars line it in a hideous patchwork fashion. The legs are even worse. You can clearly see the bone through the thighs, which are far too scrawny to support the rest. The feet, scarred and stitched, boast three triangular toes. The face is a hideous, grey hairless mess. Two bulging, white orbs with pinprick pupils stare back at you from within lead-colored sockets sunk deeper than the Titanic. There is no nose, only a long, thin gash. The mouth leers jaggedly at you, with crisp, white, shark-like teeth. The whole thing rests upon a two meter tall frame.
For a moment that appears to be an eternity, you lock eyes with hell itself. Then you rub your eyes. The creature is gone. You stare at the door for a little longer. The door refuses to stare back, because doors cannot stare. You let out a nervous chuckle, telling yourself that from now on, you'll stop reading horror novels and eating those spicy pretzel bits before bed. There are small scratch marks on the doorframe.
___
You can't stand making real dinner, but TV dinners taste like motor oil. You weigh your choices, an hour for preparation and cleanup for a warm, savory meal, or ten minutes for a microwaveable box of tasteless processed stuff.
You descend to the cellar, where all your groceries are kept. It's still the only place in the house with a concrete floor, and as your feet cringe from the chill of the concrete, you consider replacing it with hardwood. You bend down, open the freezer, and search through the various processed edible plastics. You pick out what looks like a mildly edible Hungry Man and close the freezer. As you turn towards the staircase, you see what looks like ash-grey socks sluggishly ascending ahead of you. For a second you pause, but then you dash after it. That Hungry Man in your hands is probably tough enough to incapacitate an intruder. But when you reach the top of the stairs, there isn't a soul except for you. Then you notice the cuts in the wood.
___
As your head hits the keyboard for the fourth time, ruining a vital push, you reluctantly accept that you need to get some sleep. The roars of dismay and racist, homophobic slurs that blare through the speakers only confirm it for you. You quit the game and shut the computer down, then get up out of your chair, stifling a yawn and stretching your arms skyward. The rain is still pouring down, and you can hear it drumming on the roof. You stagger out of the room, pulling your shirt and shorts off and tossing them to the ground, and force yourself towards the bathroom. As you perform your nightly ablutions, you start hearing some noises. As if someone is tiptoeing upstairs.
You take a look at the mirror from an angle. Leering at your reflection from your bedroom is the leper, tilted and peering through the doorframe. It has no eyes, and something red is splashed over the mouth, giving a hideous impression of lips. And it is still smiling. Those enormous hands are wrapped around the doorframe. As you startle backwards in fright, all thoughts of sleep gone, the toothbrush dropping from your mouth, it pulls back into the bedroom. You immediately peek through the door, but as usual, there is nothing there. Nothing except the gashes in the frame.
___
You are huddled in the bed. Every light in the house is on, which is probably a terrible idea since the storm is really getting underway now. Thunder is smashing and crashing, while the lightning is flashing at every second, sure to fry the circuits in your house very soon. But you don't care. Your eyes zip around, sure that with every flash, the creature will be back. You aren't even sure why you're in the bed. You're about to get up and make for the car, and then you realize you might encounter the thing on your way. And who's to say it isn't waiting in the car?
As the hours pass, your eyes start to lower. Your mind starts to wander. And then you fall into the half awake, half asleep twilight that comes from unwary sleep.
A sound startles you out of your half-sleep. And then, for one split second, your nose is touching the gash in the face of the leper. It is wet, limp, and soggy, with a rubbery texture. Your eyes are centimeters away from the empty, ragged sockets. And you can taste the warm, wet breath on your lips. It smells of urine, rotting meat, and putridness. This time, your scream most certainly awakens the dead. But you have no time to enjoy the exaggeration, as the entity flees the instant it notices your wakefulness . This time, you grab the axe at the bottom of your bedstand. It was a gift from your father, who claimed that you could never be too careful. You snorted then, but now you appreciate his prescience. With the cutting tool in your grasp, you pursue the creature into the hallway. But once again, it's gone. You stand there, in the middle of the hall, breathing deeply. You're tempted to pass it off as some sort of hallucination. And then you recall the gashes in the wood, the sounds from the day, and above all, the smell and the feel of that beast against your skin. It was like touching decay and death. It felt wrong. And now, it's vanished without a trace. But you know. You know. It will return. It will be back.
You cannot touch it. But it can touch you.
As you stand in that lit hallway, in a twilight between wakefulness and slumber, carrying an axe in the middle of the night as thunder and lightning rage outside your sheetrock cage in a crescendo of brilliant destruction, you wail.
And then, with a brilliant flash of insight, it hits you. This is all because of that bell. Everything started when you rang that bell. You knew there was something wrong with that. This thing wants the bell. But then, you realize, the bell has been sitting on the dinner table the whole time. It could have taken the bell anytime it wanted. It's playing with you! So you do the only rational thing. You snatch the pair of pants from the ground and don it hastily. Time is everything. You snatch a flashlight from your bedstand, and then run downstairs. Quickly, you find a scrap of paper and a pen and write a note. You aren't even sure what you wrote, but you are sure that it is important.
You grab the car keys and bell from the table and race into the garage. The bell and note are stuffed into your pocket, and the axe into the shotgun seat. You turn the key as you push the remote to open the garage door, but the car isn't starting. A particularly brutal flash of lightning startles you. You look to the side and see the demon, entering the garage from your house. The eyes are back, but blood is oozing from its pupils. It is still grinning at you, and you know for a fact that its hands have become longer. It is reaching out to you. But then, as it sees you see it, it stops, oddly unsure whether or not to move forward. That is all the time you need. The car starts up, and you smash the accelerator, forcing the car from 0 to 60 in three seconds.
___
The car ride shreds what is left of your nerves. The rain is coming down in buckets upon buckets, and every time you look to the side, you can see the hellbeast, illuminated by flashes of lightning, standing at the edge of the road, reaching out to you and the bell. Providence smiles somewhat, as you do not encounter any obstacles. When you reach the walking path, you get out, hoisting the axe and flashlight. You don't bother to shut the door.
You pound through the woods, the rain soaking you to the already-chilled bone. This time, the trees are definitely leaning out at you. But you don't care. Fear has given your feet wings, and you race through. But even as you speed down the path, the monster still pursues you. Every time you dare to look back, it is shambling towards you, kicking up mud, following the pathway and the bell. You keep searching the ground with your flashlight. There! The little ring where you found it! You skid to a halt and fall to your knees. Hastily, you press what remains of the tape back to the clapper, securing it. Then you bury the bell back into the grass, far deeper than you found it.
You stand up, but then slip on the wet ground. As you lie there triumphantly, slightly sunk into the mud with the rain splashing onto you, the flashlight illuminates a sudden movement. You look over, and burst into exhausted tears, as the flashlight illuminates the devil himself, strolling towards you. The face is grey, hideous, messy, rotting, and elated as the water runs down its awful visage. Its eyes have returned, and it stares at you with undisguised triumph. You can see water vapor being emitted from the ripped slit in the middle of its face. The mouth is upturned in a victorious leer, teeth deep black and rotting. You are too tired and exhausted to offer any sort of resistance. As it leans down to pick you up, the last thing you see before merciful slumber takes you are the beast's hands, great bony things, with the flesh, meat, and muscle completely degloved. They are growing.


In all great family trees, there is a small and stunted little twig that is ill mentioned and highly embarrassing. A stain on the illustrious painting of heritage. A black sheep. A brown M&M. The family as a whole would prefer that it be trimmed with a nice pair of hedgeclippers, but gardening shears for metaphysical representations of genealogy were very expensive and surprisingly shoddy. Most families survived by very carefully navigating social traps and generally ignoring the existence of such a brown M&M. The more captivating families preferred exile or banishment.
The Wondertainment line was one such captivating family. They were full of colourful names, from the yet-to-be-born Ivan "The-Terribly-Excitable" Aeryn Emthe Remy Wondertainment. Or the grand Mehmed Mahlia Prudence Zanna Wondertainment. Or even Isabel Helga Anastasia Parvati Wondertainment V1,the distant ancestor and the great-great niece of John Wondertainment.
John. The brown M&M.
John. Born Johnny Monterey Macarena Kalene Wondertainment, known in most documentation as John "I-Don't-Want-A-Bloody-Middle-Name" Wondertainment. Further known to the mundane people with boring things like houses and well-paying jobs as John Unterhaltung.2. John, who coincidentally had a house and a well paying job. John, who wanted nothing to do with any of the Wondertainments.
John had a difficult childhood. Being raised by his Wonderparents, John always dreamed of doing well in school and perhaps becoming a doctor. His parents naturally had wanted him to be a painter, or perhaps a sculptor or a bonbon boutiqueist, and were suitably horrified that such an innocent child could ever want to do something so awful with his life. Little Johnny Monterey Macarena Kalene Wondertainment spent many a night in the Wondertainment Sleep Tight Dream Bed™ as punishment. He still has nightmares about racecar beds.
He left as soon as he could. Using words like "emancipation" and "constitution", he confused his parents long enough to slip out, taking his Way to a nice and respectable college, where he attended classes and received high marks. The ultimate shame for his parents.
So yes, every family tree has its issues. Currently, the Wondertainment issue was driving a nondescript grey car home from the nondescript grey hospital, listening to Steve Reich on the very descript pink radio3. It was going to rain, apparently.
It had been a perfectly wonde- good. Good day, John decided. No one had died. In fact, several people were surviving, thanks in large part to his own efforts. It didn't occur to him that something could go wrong.
It was about the time that he pulled up in his driveway that John realised something was off. His door, for instance, was not designed to be hanging uselessly off of one hinge, buckled into his foyer. In a rather polite state of disbelief, he entered the house, awkwardly closing then locking the door, more for his own mental security than any protection it could currently provide.
The interior of his house looked like a small tornado had drunkenly rampaged about before deciding upon a spontaneous redecoration4. John's heart was in his throat as he tried the nonfunctioning light switch, then slunk over to the telephone, preparing to call the police. It was all he could do not to panic as he noticed that the line on his very new rotary phone had ended prematurely. His hands trembled as he put the phone down, stepping quietly over the remains of his Magnavox.
It was the sound of some thing creeping towards him that gave John pause. In the dark hall, it looked horrible. A brown M&M with legs. Too many legs. The thing froze, raising what might be a head in John's direction, tilting it ever so slightly.
This was when John's nerve broke. He spun around, sprinting to put as much distance between him and the M&M. For a moment, he felt the thrill of success, but then, the thing propelled itself off the ground, throwing John onto his back, dripping some hot, unknown liquid from its gaping maw, hot puffs of stinking breath washing over his face. He flailed wildly, limbs knocking uselessly into the hairy form above him, until he jerked to the right, freeing himself. John scrabbled for footing, accelerating wildly into the bathroom, where he grabbed the door, tensing to slam it.
"Wait!" the thing cried.
John watched in stunned silence.
"I'm here about your father!"
John slammed the door even harder.

John stared at the Shiba Inu wagging its tail in front of him. It was panting happily and drooling on his carpet.
The dog had been chatting through John's silence, oblivious to the quiet numbness that was creeping gently down John's spine, pooling lazily in his stomach. The fatal numbness that comes with betting everything on the three legged racehorse named Lucky. "And so I was worried that you were gone and I had to search everything and then you weren't there and what could I do I and then I thought I heard panicking and then there you were!"
"…What happened to my father?"
"Candy division wasn't going so well maybe someone was fudging the numbers so he went down for a personal inspection and then he slipped and they called it an industrial fudge accident and whoa it was messy!"
The Shiba Inu panted proudly, waiting for John to laugh.
"So, he's dead." John's hand began to shake weakly.
"At least he died before the skeleton got him!"
"Don't-"
"Yup! They're plotting to rule the world! They hide inside of people, and they're skulking in wait for the perfect time to burst out and order spare ribs from restaurants! If they had the stomach for it.5."
The dog waited again, his muzzle open and lips pulled back into a huge grin. When John didn't laugh, he kept going.
"Nobody is safe! Not even you! There's a skeleton inside of you!"
John chuckled in spite of himself, before his utter failure to hold his stomach contents interrupted an equally bad pun. It was so unbelievable. The dog. His father. Himself. It had been too long since the real, moving racecar beds, discoball treetoppers, and rocking horse rockets.
He didn't know how long he sat there in his broken home. Perhaps he would have stayed there forever, if not for feeling the dog rest its head upon his leg, meeting his gaze with sad puppy eyes. He idly scratched it behind the ears.
"He asked for you to see it, one last time."
John shook his head at the dog. "No." He was not in the mood to argue.
The Shiba didn't care.
It was now launching a coordinated assault on John's fingers, attempting to flood them out with its tongue. John shook it off, standing unsteadily to look around his house. He had cleaning to do, regardless of the dog, regardless of Wondertainment. Quietly and automatically, he began to clean, ignoring the whines of the Shiba Inu behind him.
His concentration broke at the "schlorp" behind him, which experienced housewives would tell you is the sound of a clogged drain. A Wondertainment would tell you it's the sound of a determined Shiba Inu casually violating spacetime. John turned slowly.
He was greeted with the sight of an impossibly large, gaping maw enclosing around him. In reality, it was more of an improbably bored yawn, but it would be highly unlikely for John himself to know that. Before he could cry out, the jaws slammed shut around him.
The Shiba Inu wagged its tail happily, precious cargo now secured. It was time for John to visit the family namesake. It looked back once at the ruined house before stepping out into something that was definitely not Earth. There was business apaw.

« Being John Wondertainment »

Footnotes
1. Wondertainment genealogy is complicated enough to turn a simple family tree into an exercise in 4 dimensional topology. Which they then marketed as Wondertainments Tipsy Turvy Topology Tables!™. It sold surprisingly well in the 8-12 and midlife crisis demographic.
2. Which is an objectively horrid name. Where's the wonder in Unterhaltung?
3. Who am I kidding, it was grey.
4. Wondertainment Tequilanados™ coming soon!
5. Humerus, isn't it?


Jakeob Aldon stared at her bedroom ceiling, her limbs in odd places and cold sweat beginning to soak into her clothes. She took a few deep breaths and arranged her limbs in a bit more of an orderly fashion before stealing a look at her alarm clock. 5:38AM. Three hours of sleep. Yay. Stupid dream, waking her up. She was pretty sure it was a dream. She pulled at the elastic of her shorts and was very uncharacteristically glad to see a penis.
"Uh… what are you doing?" Finnegan looked down at her from his seat in front of the computer. His eyes were starting to redden and were beginning to grow small black bags under them.
Aldon released her waistband and squirmed slightly when it snapped against her. "Nothing. Dream. Just checking."
Finnegan's shoulders sagged. "Oh. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just- not the usual one. It was… weird."
Finnegan pushed himself away from his desk. "Do you want to talk about it? I know you don't usually like to, but if this was different…"
"No, really, I'm fine. Don't worry about it." Aldon rolled off her bed and stood. "Anyway, what are you… What is all over you?"
Now that the grogginess was wearing off, Aldon could see dozens of pentagonal… silvery-gray blister-looking things jutting from Finnegan's skin. Finnegan lifted an arm and stared at one of the various blisters. "Boron crystals. It's on you, too."
"What-" Sure enough, boron crystals were covering her. "Is this why I'm having weird, random mini-dreams? Because you're playing some weird music?"
"I doubt it." Finnegan shrugged. "Relax. It's not dangerous. A friend said she needed some boron, I was playing with these CDs, and one produces boron. The CD is almost over, anyway."
Aldon grabbed one of the disks off his desk. It was labeled "The Absolute Absolute Absolute Absolute BEST of The 5th Dimension!!!!!" Aldon didn't know who or what The 5th Dimension was, but she was not currently enjoying their music. In fact, she was pretty sure it was the worst-
"Wow, that was real cool," they both said in unison as the music stopped.
"No, goddammit, that was not cool," Aldon immediately said. "This is aussie shit, isn't it? How many of those CDs have you played?"
"That's the only one. Relax, Allie. I know you don't like them, but I did the research. Just pull the crystals off. See?" He held one of the crystals between his thumb and forefinger. "C'mon, you know how careful I am."
Aldon mentally stumbled, dropping any pent up anger she had been carrying. "Yeah… sorry. Dream just shook me up, I guess."
Finnegan collected both their crystals in a pile on his desk. He sighed and scratched at his jaw. "You sure you don't want to talk about it?"
She gestured at her everything with jerky hand movements. "I'm just sick of this shit, Finn. Talking about it will do fuckall."
They remained in place for a few moments, Finnegan sitting with his arm on the desk and Aldon standing within arm's reach. Finnegan started to open his mouth as if to say something, and instead just sighed.
"I'm sorry, Allie."
The look on his face made her feel like a fishing line had gotten snagged on her spleen. "Don't blame yourself, man. Please? I feel shitty enough without also having to worry about you worrying about me."
Finnegan groaned slightly as he lifted himself from his chair. He held out both arms and slowly advanced on Aldon. "C'mere."
"No, Finn, don't-" The hug was unavoidable. Auburn whiskers scratched at the crook of her neck, and without anywhere else to go she knew her only option was to reciprocate. A few moments passed before she mumbled, "Thanks."
He released her only to grasp her shoulders. "Can I do anything else?"
"Yeah, go to bed. You look like shit."
He laughed as his hands slipped off her shoulders. "Because you had so much beauty sleep. Fine, off I go. What about you?"
She headed for the door to her little studio. "I'm just gonna go sculpt, I think. G'night, Finn."
"Night, Allie. Wake me if you need anything."

Several hours later, Aldon regarded her latest work from her seat of an overturned paint bucket. It was a life-sized female made of anomalous clay. She couldn't decide if she was happy with it. Was the bust the right size? Were the hips too wide? She knuckled her cheek and ground her teeth together.
She sighed and groaned and pinched her cheek in frustration. She wasn't sure what its flaw actually was, but it just didn't measure up to the image she had in her mind before starting. Maybe it was because she just made it. A little time away from it would let her appreciate it for what it was. Hopefully.
She went to the sink and washed off the errant clay from her hands and forearms. She rubbed her fingers together under the running water, and for some reason they felt unnaturally large. Something between a sigh and a groan left her mouth. After a few slow breaths she looked up to the mirror on the wall.
Another sigh escaped her and she finished washing her hands. "Gonna be one of those days, eh." It wasn't so much a question as a resigned statement.
A small glance at the statue provoked an urge to smash it, to rid herself of its existence and to just start anew. Maybe she'd show Finnegan. Even he'd be able to tell if it was horrible. But what if it really was? She wasn't sure if she could handle having something she was so emotionally invested in shot down. It wasn't just something she made, it was a part of her.
Her stomach untwisted itself slightly to let out a groan. Hunger was a blessing at this point. Anything to get her mind on something else. She left the statue where it was, in the center of the workroom. She flicked the lights off and slipped outside her little workshop.
Finnegan lay on his bed. Earbuds plugged both ears, leading down into his pocket. His signature beret covered his face, his chest moving slowly enough to suggest he was still sleeping. Aldon shut the door as quietly as possible, and took care not to make any unnecessary noise as she navigated the room toward his mattress.
She took notice of Copper, the little golem she had recently created, was standing on Finnegan's desk. Next to Copper was a second golem Aldon had never seen before. It looked a lot like the boron crystals, and was even standing in the same place Finnegan had left them. The limbs of the boron golem retained the pentagonal shapes, though its head was a sphere with five pentagons drilled into it. Aldon hadn't really expected her first attempt at creating sapience to… be able to create more sapience, but neat.
She moved on to more pressing issues and gently lifted the beret to reveal Finnegan's hairy mug. After collecting herself and forcibly ignoring any possible issues, she pushed her middle finger against her thumb, her hand shaking as it neared his face. A monstrous flick made contact with the Irishman's nose, violently waking him from his peaceful slumber. Finnegan yelled incoherently, his thrashing limbs missing the retreating Aldon. He collected himself when he realized he wasn't actually dying, taking the time to don his hat. He took a deep breath as if to say something poignant and then simply offered Aldon his middle finger.
"I'm hungry," Aldon said. "Are you hungry?"
"Really? For food? You did that for food?"
"You said to wake you up if I needed anything. I need to eat. Where do you want to go?"
"Let's look at how much money we have." Finnegan pulled out his wallet and displayed its contents. "Oh, look. I'm broke. I imagine your wallet's equally unencumbered. Where might we find sustenance given our current financial situation?"
Aldon managed a smile. "Is the answer the pizzeria? I bet the answer is the pizzeria. The answer is usually the pizzeria when you start talking like a wordy doucher."
"The answer is indeed the goddamn pizzeria. Again."
"God bless employee discounts."

Spicy Crust Pizza was a small, supposedly local pizzeria. For the most part, this was true. John Ericson was a local man who had bought out the place from another local man. While Ericson operated his business like anyone else would, he did not actually make any money from the pizzeria directly. Instead, what would have normally been his money was funneled into an account that dozens of other supposedly small businesses pumped their owner's earnings into. Superficial Corrective Procedures; internet sensation Silly Crab Productions; even the lesser known Scalpels, Chains and Presents Ltd. The organization behind this bank account then paid Ericson and his kind their actual paychecks.
Unaware of all this, a certain employee entered Spicy Crust Pizza with a friend in tow. Aldon ordered two drinks and a large meat lover's, and ravenous duo forked over what little cash they had. They ate within the pizzeria, as they usually did. There wasn't much room in their apartment. While they technically had a kitchen, it was usually empty and was too small to house a table. The living room was too packed, and they were too neurotic to bring food into their respective work areas. So they sat at a table by the glass outer wall, watching pedestrians hustle and vehicles bustle as they ate.
"You ever get the feeling you're being watched?" Finnegan asked through a mouthful of spicy crust.
"No. Why?"
"Because we're being watched." Finnegan sipped at his soda, his gaze focused over Aldon's left shoulder. "Or you are, at least. There's a man and a woman sitting at that table, and they've been staring at you since they walked in. They're not very subtle."
"Crap." Aldon sighed. "Do they… Let's see, who do I not like?"
"Well, they're coming over now."
Aldon held her head in her hands. "Noooo. Make them go away, Finn."
"And talk to the scary people? Nope."
"God dammit, Finnegan. One comment. One goddamn comment and you never-"
"Hello, Jakeob." Cassandra 'The Director' Paulson stood over them, her arms crossed and her mouth pulled into a half-smile.
"Goddamn, it had to be you of all people. Go to Hell, Paulson. I have no interest in-" Aldon caught sight of the man with Paulson. Felix Cori smiled and lifted and hand in greeting. "Oh. Hey, Felix. Still palling around with these losers, huh?"
"Well, actually, it's just the two of us right now," Felix corrected. "So, just the one loser. And I'm kind of The Boss now. Well, The Critic."
"Oh, god, you're still using titles." Aldon sighed. "Wait, how did you become the leader?"
He palmed the fedora on his head. "Didn't say 'not it' fast enough."
Aldon couldn't help but laugh. She turned to Finnegan, who had ignored a majority of the conversation to continue eating. "For context, she's one of the idiots that fueled my desire to move out here. He's actually okay, even if he hangs out with a bunch of jackasses. Felix, this is Finnegan, my roommate."
The two simply nodded at each other.
"So… let's get this over with, I guess," Aldon said. "What do you want?"
"Let me do the talking, Sandra," Felix said. "Allie, we want you to join us."
"Pass."
"But-"
Aldon was almost surprised how easy it was to call up the anger she had felt earlier. It took a fair amount of restraint to not start shouting. "Fuck your group. Even with you in charge. She's still there, and I'm sure she'll just strongarm you into recruiting more shitheads. I'm flattered you came to me first, though. Unless I'm not, and whoever else you tried also had the brains to decline."
Feix's shoulders slumped under the weight of defeat. "So, that's it? You've decided, and nothing can change your mind?"
Aldon resumed eating. "Pretty much."
Paulson cleared her throat. "What if I told you we had a way to give you a female body?"
Aldon almost choked. "What?"
Paulson wore the kind of smile that made Aldon want to instinctively punch her. "It's not exactly difficult, if you're not an amateur. We have the materials, we just need a new Sculptor."
"Wait, are you talking that stupid golem thing with the dong cult?" Aldon said. "The expensive 'Gee I Hope They Do Not Fuck This Up' thing?"
"No, of course not. We have plenty of clay capable of the task, courtesy of our old Sculptor. But we need a replacement for him for an upcoming project. Help us with that, and we'll help you with your body situation."
"Just- here." Felix put down a small card with a phone number on it before Aldon could say anything. "Call me when you make a decision." Then he hurried out, Paulson right behind him.
Finnegan wiped his mouth and threw the napkin onto his empty plate. "What are you gonna do?"
Aldon rested her head on the table, staring at her food. Despite only having one slice, she didn't feel all that hungry anymore. "I don't know."
She glared at the piece of paper with the phone number on it. The image of the statue she had worked on that morning sprung to mind. The constant dreams-turned-nightmares upon waking up.
"Fuck it."

« Anart Antics | Hub | Covert Cursing »


He was back on Vaygach Island, staring out at the dead water of the Kara Sea. Behind him something burned. It was screaming, but it sounded hollow, like he was listening at the end of a long tunnel. Karsten found he couldn't turn around. His feet remained firmly planted in the cold, wet mud like a statue fixed to its pedestal. It was 1999 and he was 24. He was 24, and he'd already seen a lifetime's worth of horrors.
"Don't worry, it won't escape," said a soft voice from behind him. Then came the touch of slender fingers on his shoulders. Magda.
His heart leapt and he felt the hold on his body disappear. Karsten turned, only to be left staring at a hollow, fire-blackened skull.
He woke up with a start in the relative cool of the tattered tent, 15 years later and every bit as dead inside. Karsten Eiker rubbed his eyes and cursed himself for falling asleep. Ever since landing at Aden Adde International Airport, he'd felt like a piece of meat on a barbecue. He hated the weather in this place with a passion he'd never been able to summon for anything else, but if all went as it should, he'd be out of there soon.
He'd gotten a ride out here to the middle of the desert from a local Chaos Insurgency contact, a man he knew as Jilbis. Google Translate told him it meant "viper" or "cobra". He'd never gotten the need for code names; in this information age, no amount of obfuscation could shield you forever, let alone a simple one-word code name. Regardless of his personal preferences, he'd gotten "Laertes". He'd never been a fan of Shakespeare; too much tits and death for his tastes.
Someone entered the tent.
"You come highly recommended by a Russian friend of mine, Mr. Laertes."
The speaker, a local warlord known only as The Tiger of Jilib, blocked most of the light as he stood in the opening. He was a massive man, not just in height, but also in girth. Karsten knew him as Yusuf al-Hilam, the son of a doctor and a car mechanic, who nursed the trauma of his parents' mismatched social status and the accompanying bullying like a hobo nursed his last beer. He was everything you'd expect from an East-African dictator: crude, gullible, vain and most importantly of all, predictable. Karsten smiled.
"That's good to hear," Karsten said, "considering I'm not on very good terms with my Russian friends."
The Tiger didn't even seem to register the reply and simply nodded, grabbing a bottle of what was probably booze. He looked at Karsten. "Would you like a drink, Mr. Laertes?"
Karsten got up from the rickety folding chair he'd been napping in and nodded. "Sure, why not? I need all the moisture I can get, eh?" He tried to sound whimsical, but the dream had disturbed him, even if he'd dreamt it countless times before. He never seemed to get used to it.
The warlord poured him a shot and handed him the chipped little glass. It had something in it that smelled like it'd come out of a dead animal's rectum, but The Tiger didn't seem to let that bother him; he downed his glass without thinking twice. Karsten was thinking twice, possibly even three or four times about joining him, but he still emptied his glass. It wasn't that bad really, so he gracefully accepted a refill when he was offered one.
"Shall we sit?" the warlord said and gestured at the arrangement of colorful but completely mismatched chairs in the tent. They stood arranged haphazardly around a small camping table that was as rickety as the chair Karsten'd woken up in. At the moment, this table held Karsten's reinforced metal briefcase.
"Let's," Karsten said and strolled back over to the chairs. He sat down and raised his glass in salute.
"Do you have family, Mr. Laertes?" The Tiger asked.
Karsten took a sip of the foul concoction and shook his head. "No. In my line of work, a family is a big fat target."
The warlord nodded. "Of course, of course. Not even parents or a brother though? Surely you are not entirely alone."
"I had a sister."
The way he said it made The Tiger wary of digging any deeper. "Well, let's not waste any more time on smalltalk, Mr. Laertes. I take it you have brought me the item you were so enthusiastic about?"
Karsten silently put his glass away and touched his finger to a little black pad on the briefcase's top. After a few seconds of satisfying whirring it opened with a soft click.
"There you go," he said.
He saw his customer's face light up and at that moment he knew that all of this would go off without a hitch. Here was a man who had no greater motivation for what he was doing than the simple, animalistic desire to destroy.
The Tiger of Jilib peered into the briefcase and cleared his throat. "Is this the only one you brought?"
"Just the one, yes," Karsten answered. "We'll be producing more, but these things take a long time to manufacture. This is the first, and may I say, you're getting a very good deal here."
"I am sure that we are, but you will forgive me my misgivings. What you have promised me sounds sounds quite…unbelievable."
Karsten nodded. "Well, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. How about we take this baby out for a test run then? I assume you have a suitable weapon somewhere around here?
"Yes, of course," the warlord said and barked an order at one of his many soldiers, most of whom looked like they liked holding guns, but weren't very good at using them.
Karsten watched as they brought out an RPG-32 Hashim. He motioned for them to bring it to him. Inspecting it, he saw it hadn't been taken care of very well. Not that it really mattered, not for the purposes of this test. He carried the grenade launcher over to the briefcase and took the specially crafted ammunition container out of its protective packing material. It felt light and balanced, almost too light for the sheer amount of destruction contained within. For a moment he hesitated, unsure what was going to happen exactly, but then he attached it to the back of the launcher.
"Ready when you are, Yusuf," he said and passed the weapon to the Somali. "Did you have a target in mind?"
The Tiger glared at him, unaccustomed to being addressed by his given name.
"You will refer to me as the-" he started before Karsten interrupted. "Tiger of Jilib, yes. I'm sorry."
Karsten held up his hands apologetically. "I forgot my manners, sir. Please forgive me the discourtesy."
The warlord frowned but nodded. "Apology accepted. And no, I have not yet selected a target. How about that building there?" he said and pointed at a shack some 100 meters off.
Karsten relaxed and smiled. "Fine by me. Have a blast."
The stupid pun was lost on The Tiger, who immediately brought the scope up to his eye and gleefully fired. The rocket sped towards the low building and when it impacted, just for a moment, nothing appeared to happen. Then the air seemed to fold in on itself and with a loud screeching sound, everything disappeared. Karsten's senses were telling him it was all gone. The desert, the building, the warlord, his troops, their command tent, everything. It wasn't darkness, because you could see darkness. It was an absolute nothing, and within that nothing, something was screaming - something inhuman.
Then reality seemed to reassert itself. The Tiger of Jilib was on the desert floor, eyes wide and empty. His skin was nearly translucent now, showing the tissue beneath like a morbid anatomically correct model. He seemed smaller somehow, shriveled inside his clothes. A cursory glance told Karsten that The Tiger's soldiers and every animal in the immediately vicinity had suffered the same inexplicable fate. He watched, senses deadened, as the sands shifted and scores of dead scorpions rose to the surface of the desert.
When his battered and beleaguered brain had finally managed to grab ahold of reality again, Karsten felt a burning sensation. Then the pain hit him like a runaway semi. He ripped open the thin white shirt he had on, looked down and saw that the tear-shaped pendant he'd been wearing had left a deep burn mark. The smell of his own flesh cooking was nauseating and he staggered back for a moment before falling down on his ass. He wanted to rip the pendant off its simple twine string, but he knew better than that.
"Okay," he muttered, "okay, let's recap. Jesus."
Karsten was silent for a moment. The only sound he could hear was the rushing of the wind as it already began covering the corpses with a thin layer of desert sand.
"Okay."
He got up and dusted himself off.
"So they work, that's for goddamn sure," he said to no one in particular, and took out a small tablet from his inside pocket. It was amazing what money could buy in terms of connectivity out in the middle of nowhere. He woke the thing up and tapped out his password. A few seconds later it was connected to one of the Insurgency's secure communications servers. After supplying his credentials, he accessed his list of contacts and sent a message to his handler.

From: Laertes
To: Hephaestus
Subject: Ninurta Project Field test
Field test successful. Yield exceeds expectation, but operators need to be shielded better. Burnt a hole in my chest and I wasn't even firing the fucking thing. ETA approximately 14hrs from now. Will debrief. Get me a coke and a tuna sandwich, I've earned it.
P.S. The UN should pay us for cleaning up here.

He put the tablet away and took in the scene in front of him one last time. There was no fire, no smoke, there was nothing to show that any weapon had been fired. Just a five meter deep crater where once a little shack had stood. That, and the lifeless bodies of sixteen men, nine goats, two cats, three dogs and give or take fifty-four scorpions.
Karsten fixed his shirt as best he could and calmly went looking for a vehicle to drive into the nearest town. With any luck Magda wouldn't be there the next time he slept.


Written by Whatopercy
I can't easily tell you the story of how I met Charles.
It was the fall of 2001. In the past year, the country was rearing its ugly head, drool dripping from its fangs as a bee stung it right in the unmentionables. I was caught up in the passion of the times, ready to kick some Middle Eastern buttocks. For us teenagers, that meant joining the SWAT's-uprooting the weeds at home before heading to their source.
Looking back now, I see that I was a fanatical, brickheaded youngster with delusions of grandeur, but that's not the point.
I entered a New York police academy the same month those old titans gave way from their lofty perchs. Already had my bachelors degree, so the training wouldn't take so long. Six months and four weeks later, I was dressed in my blues and whites-ready to chew into the cesspit that was the city of gold.
We struck with the speed of a thunderbolt. I can't remember how many houses we assaulted, how many doors we kicked in, how many people we shot. For some reason, our exploits never even made the news. Every time we clicked on the box it was something about a big pop musician of the day.
I'm not sure when I woke up to the lie. Frankly, I can't remember anymore. Those drugs they gave me must have really done their jobs swell.
They left me one memory. We were supposedly knocking on the door of a terrorist weapons smuggling operation. At least five teams showed up at the jumpoff point for the assault. The captain in charge of the raid was a massive man, over six feet tall and strong as an ox. He had a peculiar tattoo on the dorsal of his left hand, a six sided star with the eye of Horus imprinted with impeccable care in the center.
When our trucks rolled up, it suddenly occurred to me that we had diverged into suburbia. We hummed over to a small, olive green house. As we unloaded equipment from the supply van and distributed it, a grimy, wide eyed garden gnome eyeballed us with an unsettling stare.
I was part of the rear guard, but, being adjacent to a small window, I could see everything going on in the building.
It was a family, eating supper, laughing around the table. There was a girl, probably in her teens, about my age when I first got into the business. A somber, surly man with deep pits under his eyes sat at the seat closest to me. As he turned for a drink, I got a look at his arm. It had been melted off.
Not ripped off, you understand, or cut off. It had been melted. I could see ridges and dark plains of the flesh, an abominable mound where the shoulder should have been. A moment later, a bright light filled the room. Our captain shot the father instantly, and an officer shot the daughter a moment later when she screamed, her blood exploding against the window. It's no problem to shoot someone who killed your mother with a plane; it's a whole different story when you start shooting tired men with ashen arms.
I'm not exactly sure how it happened, but somehow I ended up in a Mexican standoff with my captain and an invisible sniper, the mother hysterically sobbing over the shattered body of her dead daughter. I could see vast hatred in his eyes, his tattoo angrily glaring at me with the force of a raging hurricane. Five seconds later, a bullet went through my skull. Another three seconds later, another brain case was subjected to the act.
Miraculously, at least I assume, I got to the emergency room in time. Of course, when I woke up, I was handcuffed to my bed and a detective was reading me my rights. About three days later, I was entering the county jail with a busload of maniacs, disillusioned with logic and my mind full of questions.
Prison came like water to me, surprisingly. It gave me time to think, to resign myself to my fate of an inexplicable 30 year sentence, and to educate myself.
About three months later, a man came to visit me. He was dark skinned, wearing a small green fedora, along with a beltless trench coat. He introduced himself as Charles Moore, small business investor. When I asked him what he wanted, he said that his only wish was to speak with me. So began our little chats-every day between 4 and 5 PM, he would come, and we would talk. It was always about my life in the service-how I had been duped into it and finally realized the depth of its insanity. He was fascinated by our conversations, and I, in turn, was fascinated by him. He was a remarkable man-seemingly well read and dignified in every facet, and yet he carried a sense of world-wizened, unpretentious fatherliness.
As our relationship grew deeper, I occasionally cracked a joke about the ridiculous sentence I had received, how there was a conspiracy against me and the one armed man. Each time I did, he nodded, completely serious. Whenever I attempted to explain that it was a simple joke, he would say, "Old sport, there's truth to every rumour," and we would drop the subject.
I remember our last discussion very clearly. It would be my last day in prison, and the opening of my eyes to a world beyond the one I had known.
As light shined through the prison bars that day, I slept late. Later, in fact, than I had in my life. My cell door opened with a buzz that awakened me from my deep slumber. I stood up and rubbed one eye. Warily, I placed a foot outside the cubicle. A number of prisoners were being led out of the cellblock and loaded onto a bus, jeering to their brethren in the levels above them about reduced sentences and the like. To my astonishment, Charles was talking with the warden of the prison, a frail, crumpled old woman. Seeing my figure, he came over to me, striding with an air of professionalism I had not picked up on previously.
"Charles?" I asked, bewildered.
His lips stayed neutral. I was beginning to grow afraid at the sight of his imposing figure.
And like ice, his demeanor evaporated. He put a hand on my shoulder, and said "My friend, there is nothing to fear." He smiled, a sad, painful smile. "The time for deceptions has passed, and i'm afraid we still haven't been formally introduced," he said. From the depths of his coat, he removed a thick red file with my name on it, emblazoned with an odd symbol I am now very familiar with. "We've been observing you for quite a while. Since your incarceration, in fact." I had nothing to say. The whole situation was overwhelming me. Who was this man? Certainly not the same one who came to me all those years ago, seeking to give me solace.
Sensing my discomfort, he continued. "I represent the intelligence division of the Foundation for the Containment and Cataloging of Anomalous Artifacts and Lifeforms. We're interested in acquiring your services. You'll receive a paygrade greater than that of your last place of employment, dental, bereavement and health benefits, and immediate acquittal from your charges."
My head was spinning; I couldn't think of what to say. What came out of my mouth was, "Why?" He laughed, a funny sound that was akin to donkey happily braying. "Because my friend, you have integrity, and you've got guts. We look for those characteristics. In this field, they're rare. Plus, you were thrown in here for trying to prevent the assassination of one of our top researchers. Or so," he took a document from his folder. "our profile says."
He paused for a moment. "I'm not going to lie to you. Many people don't come back from a job like this. But it's either that, or you stay here for the next twenty six years. The people we're fighting have more sway than us in this department. That's how you got here under our radar in the first place."
"Consider it, okay? I'll be outside. Blue Cadillac, on your right." He picked up his file and left.
I stayed silent on my bed for a long time, millions of thoughts racing through my head. If I went, I would die. If I stayed, I would live in shame. There was a conspiracy. I had gone down protecting innocent lives. A bullet had gone through my skull then. Why was I afraid of another one now?
Fifteen minutes later, I was walking out of a New York State Penitentiary a freed man. A blue Cadillac sat on my right in a handicapped parking space. I opened the passenger seat door and closed it behind me.