They're there - Look harder

Pitter-patter, the raindrops fall. On this All Hallow's Eve, I sit in my armchair close to the roaring flame, trying to gather what little warmth circling about the empty rooms into my cloak. Footsteps jolt me awake from the twilight before slumber, fear coursing through my frail bones momentarily, before subsiding as I realize they were nothing more than the sound of raindrops dashing themselves against my window-pane. For a brief, terrifying second, I glimpsed the shadows upon the living-room wall grow long and wave to me, the flickering, dying light of the fireplace flame playing tricks upon my eyes. For a brief, terrifying second, I glimpse once again my two erstwhile companions. The two, unfortunate souls. I grow old, too old for nights like these, too old since life and youth had been taken away from me - that cold All Hallow's Eve…
-
"Another case for you, Inspector. It's urgent too, the messenger sounded mighty worried."
"Really now. Just as I was about to clock off for the evening."
An errant sigh escaped my lips as I pick up my hat, just moments ago hung upon the rack. Putting one arm through the sleeve of my trench-coat, I turn to Superintendent Chatmers and Gilroy, beckoning with a quick motion of my head.
"Well, lads, let's get busy. Death waits for nobody, and we can't have a killer loose on Halloween, can we now? God forbid, it might actually cause a scare."
Grumbling, Gilroy grabbed his own hat and coat, palming his badge into his inner pocket, and slinging on his holster. "Well, that'll be a bloody shame, won't it? At least there's some excitement in the neighborhood, me wife was complaining about how Halloween no longer gave her the chills."
Chatmers, who had cocked his revolver, and was adjusting his belt, replied with a jaunty grin, "Well, Gil, that's cos' she's used to seeing a terrifying cow-faced monster at home eating her food and sleeping in her bed everyday, as it is. I dare-say, after seeing you without pants, nothing scares her anymore."
"Shuddup, Chatmers, at least, I'll be going home tonight for a respectable dinner, not sleeping in some floozy's house and fu-"
"Alright, can it, you two. We've got a job to do."
I tried to hide a grin of my own, as the three of us stepped out of the station doors, into the cold, rainy afternoon.
-
The body was nowhere to be found. The blood, on the other hand, was everywhere. Across the street, from one end to another, it stained the grey cobblestones a deep carmine red, as if someone had opened a can of red paint and sprayed it across the ground. Passers-by and general busybodies stood about, watching the scene of the crime with much interest.
And crime it was, undoubtedly. After all, no freak accident of nature could have ensured that the lines of blood lay scattered across the floor in such straight patterns. It was almost as if the victim had been sliced multiple times with an unnaturally-sharp blade, so much so that although blood lay all about, none of it deviated from the sharp lines of crimson they created, save for the rain slowly washing them away, smudging the pattern. Chatmers whistled. "Poor bugger's dead for sure. You can't even find this much blood in a pig."
I knelt down beside the bloodstains, while Gilroy went about collecting samples. The newly-formed forensics division would want to check for any evidence of gunpowder - but I doubted it. The sprays of blood were too clean. Even a bladed weapon would have had a hard time creating such a cut, and subsequent blood-fall. Maybe one of those Eastern weapons that's been streaming in? It was said that they were sharp enough to cu-
"Say. What's that?" Gilroy cried as he pointed to the ground mere steps away from me. I whirled about, looking closely at the area - and then I noticed it. In that patch of ground, there was no rainfall. Looking up, I noticed that it was in the open, so it wasn't the rooftops. The rainfall simply… curled about that area. Almost into a discernible shape. Yet I couldn't exactly make out what it was, and attempting to do so, I began to move closer.
About two steps away, the patch of untouched air shifted, in a sudden motion. Taken aback, I drew myself to the left, away from its movement. That probably saved my life. I barely heard Chatmer's cry for me to get away as the loud roar of his revolver echoed through the falling night, nor did I hear Gilroy's shout of horror. All I could hear was the inhuman sound of footsteps, squelching against the rain-slick ground, as they slammed down in staccato towards me. I noticed, with mounting fear, that the untouched patch of air was now dangerously close, and behind it, was left a series of print marks, as if a boot had stepped in the thin layer of water above the ground, leaving behind a momentary mark. Yet even those prints were so strangely spaced, jumping from one side of the pavement to the other, that no human form could have managed that. It was almost as if the footprints were in tandem with the rainfall. Pitter-pattering onto the sidewalk.
I felt a cold breeze pass by my side, and threw myself backwards. Sharp, burning pain erupted in my right arm as the sleeve of my coat was torn, blood flowing fast from a razor-sharp cut across my forearm. More shots rang out as Gilroy drew his own sidearm, attempting to hit the menacing figure that was no more than an empty space. Yet they had no effect, the bullets not even impacting against the form, almost as if they were vanishing into thin air. I cried, my terror now utterly taking hold of me, as I rolled to my feet, sprinting across the street. An idea struck me, and I leapt onto the nearest carriage, avoiding the startled horses. I could hear the pitter-patter of the rain-steps rapidly drawing near, closer and closer.
With a quick hook, I knocked out the supports for the coach's gas lamp, and wrenched it free with much effort. The pitter-patter was closer now, Chatmers and Gilroy were both shouting at me to run. Finally, I managed to open the lid to the lamp, and with a spin, tossed it straight at the patch of unmoving, yet fast-approaching, air.
The flames flared for a brief moment, spreading across the ground, and the empty space disappeared. All that was left was the burning fragments of the lamp, and the ominous pitter-patter of the nightly rainfall.
-
That night, upon returning to the station, I sat upon my chair and called upon the entire force. They were to scour the city and search for this elusive form, be it man or otherwise. If they did find it, they were not to engage, but bring back news of its whereabouts. I did not want to risk losing any men to the strangeness that was invading my city – on All Hallow's Eve.
My next clue came in the form of an old man, brought in from the street, dressed in rags. Another one of the homeless. Cradling a much-appreciated cup of tea from Gilroy, I faced this man in my office, listening to his words.
“I tol' em', see? I tol' em' about them devils, but nobody ever took my wor's for trut'. Don'cha see? They preh' on us. They will not stop. No' for as long as we are about. Beneath of homes, they gath'r, waiting. Waiting. And taking us, on' by one, until ther' be none left.”
Gilroy shook his head. “Madness. He's been driven mad by life on the streets.”
Chatmers, standing by the side of the room with his arms folded, indicated otherwise. “In times of darkness, let the blind man be the guide. In times of madness, let the madman lead the way. What else do we got?”
I looked at the two of them with a meaningful glance, wanting silence, before turning back to the raving old man. “Sir. Do you have any idea where these ‘devils' of yours reside?”
“It ain' no use. No use at all. We' be all dead.”
“Sir.”
“Under our feet, the' be crawlin'. Everywhere. In the pitter-patter beneaf' the city, they' be crawlin'.”
“The sewers?”
“No use… no use…”
The lunatic stared into his hands, mute momentarily. Mad as he was, I couldn't help but feel a slight shiver leap down my spine. The events of the afternoon could hardly be explained by conventional means. A leap of faith may be in order.
The chance came soon enough. After the old man had left, the three of us had sat about the station, killing time as we waited for reports to come in. Then, a sweating, elderly officer barged in through the front, shouting. “Quick! Quick! One of our own, sirs! He's dead!”
Leaping off our chairs, we gathered our coats. I strapped in my pistol, grabbing a gas lantern off the shelf. Gilroy and Chatmers both sported heavier armaments: Gilroy slinging across his waist a shotgun, while Chatmers cradled his hunting rifle. We set off, into the dark night. Midnight had long since gone, but the damnable rain continued, well into the early hours of Halloween.
This time, the bloodstains were still fresh. Confusing as they were, they faced a specific direction, headed down the empty street, in the middle. On the ground, covered in life-blood, lay an officer's helmet, and a broken nightstick. The nightstick had been cut across the middle, at an angle, a clean, surgical cut. We moved down the street, all of us silent.
The bloodstains led to a manhole cover, some distance down. They seeped into the iron, draining away into the darkness below. Back-up had still not arrived. With trembling hands, I reached down, and lifted the cover, heaving it aside with some considerable effort. Steam roiled out from the open sewers, and inside, I could hear the rushing sound of drain-waters, as the rain poured into the city below.
“Are you sure about this? Should we wait for backup?” Gilroy asked, nervousness causing a slight tremble in his normally stoic voice.
Chatmers shook his head. “There's still a chance that our officer may be alive. This may be the only lead we've got. We have to follow, before the trail gets cold.”
I nodded my assent. Turning to Gilroy, I tried to flash a smile that I hoped seemed brave. “What, scared of rats, Gilroy?”
Chatmers chimed in. “I'm sure your smell will drive ‘em away, no problem there.”
Gilroy grunted, cocking his shotgun. “Very funny. Let's stop talking and keep moving.” With that, he began to climb the ladder downwards, into the murky darkness below.
It was as if we had climbed a ladder into hell. The roar of the water was so loud that we could barely hear each other's steps down the ladder, the steam and humidity of the trapped heat causing us to erupt in sweat. By the time we reached the bottom rungs, we were already drenched.
We had barely moved a short distance, following errant bloodstains, before I saw the victim. I will never forget it. I will never forget the sight of the poor rookie, dripping a trail of blood as the body was dragged across the floor, seemingly by nothing. The crumpled form shifted erratically, a few steps every few moments, scraping across the floor as the still-shining belt buckle across the corpse's waist scratched the granite.
The body stopped for a moment. As if it sensed us. Then, it began to move again, at a much faster pace, skipping across the ground like a doll with all its strings but one cut. We shouted, ordering the corpse to halt its macabre dance, and gave chase. Shots from my pistol rang out across the sewers, echoing down the tunnels. We ran for a long, long time, and soon I knew not where we were. Then, finally, a turn left, up two flights of stairs, still chasing the body bumping across the uneven steps, down the tunnel and turning right and across left and – We walked into a hall.
A hall of horrors.
We all stopped then, unable to move, to comprehend in our small minds what exactly we had stumbled upon. It was as if a morbid hospital, with rows and rows of standing glass coffins lining the ground. Each was misted over with the humidity, but I could still barely sense movement within. Moans echoed through the hall, a few screams were heard, and I realized with mind-shattering terror, that this hall seemed to be endless. It stretched far beyond what could have been possible in this god-forsaken mausoleum, into the distance. The ceiling could not be seen; the walls stretched into the darkness above us three tiny figures.
I took a few hesitant steps towards the nearest glass coffin, naming it in my head so simply because the shapes resembled those found in funerals. Yet they were made of glass, misted over in the steam, a dull blue glow that was the only source of light in the hall emanating from these coffins. I wiped the misted glass, peering inside.
A hand smashed against the glass, from the inside, with a sickening thump. It streamed blood, black barbs catching it from all sides; even it seemed, from within. A scream rang out with such feeling that I was stunned, but even that barely contained the revulsion I felt as I peered in. A body, desiccated, almost nothing more than skin and bones, with a few stray strands of hair, stood within, with barely any space to move. It was hooked all over by strange metal barbs, through the ears, the neck, spikes pushed out through the eyes, and it bled all over, a deep dark red. By all means, it should have been dead. By God, I wished it had been dead. But it was not. It was the corpse from before, brought to unholy life. It continued to move and squirm, moan and writhe in the confines of the glass coffin, unable to die, trapped in a terrible mockery of life.
Madness took me then, and I screamed. I smashed the butt of my pistol against the glass, hoping to shatter it, free the poor soul within. It didn't even scratch. I began to gibber, explaining to myself again and again that this had a perfectly rational explanation, that the man was actually dead, that the world had not just turned itself inside out. I continued banging against the glass, until my hand was finally halted by the firm grip of Gilroy. Chatmers was retching into a corner, unable to stand the sight, the idea of such a torture. Gilroy himself, ashen-faced, trembled as he held me, but it allowed me to calm down. I extricated myself from his grasp, not trusting myself to words, and leaned against another coffin, catching my breath.
Then I heard it. Again. Pitter-patter, raindrops falling inside the dry hall. Footsteps, from before, staccato rhythms tapping themselves out in the echoing hall. Leaping back, I felt the presence of forms moving closer and closer. Gilroy roared as he cocked his shotgun, and began spraying indiscriminate blasts into the darkness.
One must have caught a water pipe, because in a moment, the entire room was filled with spraying water. Then we saw the figures, moving slowly, jerking across the room towards us. They were countless, numbering in the thousands, and they moved with a deathly purpose, the shotgun pellets vanishing as they approached the figures. We turned to run.
We ran down darkened corridors, and heard the pitter-patter of the forms giving chase. Down winding staircases and up water-slick ramps, we ran for our lives, screaming, shouting, making noise to remind ourselves that we were still alive. It was not long, before we came to a gate, rusted shut, trapping us. Turning about, Chatmers began firing with his hunting rifle, to no avail. The pitter-patter grew louder and louder. Gilroy worked the gate, whimpering beneath his breath, before he finally managed to shift the gears of the mechanism. With a great screech, the gate swung open, Gilroy pushing down upon the nearby lever with all his might.
“Go! You know what to tell Marie.”
“But-“
“Just shut it and go!”
With a nod to my brave Superintendent's actions, I ducked through the opening, Chatmers following suit.
“Gilroy! You can still make it! Come on!” Chatmers held onto the gate, attempting to keep it open despite the grinding mechanism. Gilroy leapt towards the opening. Yet, mid-leap, he stopped, as if held back by an unseen force. Then, he crashed to the ground, mere steps away from the gate. It smashed shut, with a definite clang, Chatmers barely avoiding losing his hands as he leapt back.
In the distance, held aloft by empty space, floated towards us another one of the glass coffins. It was empty. Within it, we saw the writhing forms of the barbs, hungering, seeking for life to attach itself to. It drew closer and closer. And Gilroy was dragged, slowly, painfully into it. Soon, only his upper body could be seen in the darkness, the rest having been entrapped in the open glass coffin.
Chatmers took aim, and fired. A quick lancing shot flew through the air, and burst open Gilroy's head like a ripe melon. Better a quick, merciful death than the un-life we had just seen. I pulled at Chatmers, and we both scampered down the dark corridor, looking to escape the tunnels.
We came upon a flight of stairs leading up. Leaping them two steps at a time, we had almost reached the top, when I heard an ominous rumble, mixing in with the constant pitter-patter behind us. The masonry, unable to take the strain after centuries of disuse, gave way beneath my feet, and I plunged down into the darkness.
Chatmers turned and cried down to me, “NO!”
I picked myself up, constantly aware of the footsteps behind me, and shouted back up. “I'm fine! Keep going! Run!”
Turning about, I faced the empty tunnel before me, echoing with the increasing pitter-patter. To my right, I spied a tunnel leading upwards, perhaps even to freedom. It was my only chance. With a great swing, I flung my gas lamp towards the area before me, causing a slight flower of flame to erupt in the darkness, before dying out. Plunged into total pitch black, I turned and ran down the corridor, legs burning with the effort. I ran for hours, down winding corridors, unable to even remember if I was running in the right direction, just running away from the horrors behind me, and the hall full of the eternally trapped.
I broke into sunlight, smashing aside the manhole cover. The sound of carriages reached my ear like beautiful music, as I lay on my side, across the cobblestones, heaving and retching, almost blacking out there and then. I heard the sound of an officer ringing his bell as he noticed me, and I realized, with a jolt – I had made it.
-
Chatmers had not. We never found him. Nor did we ever find the figures again, or the Hall of Horrors, as we had that Halloween day.
A particularly loud peal of thunder shook me from the half-dream, half-memory. At this age, I could barely remember the details, yet I still remembered the face of Gilroy all too well, just before he had been shot – in mercy. I remembered the face of the trapped person, the one whose coffin I had peered into, the despair, the sheer despair of the un-life.
And I remembered Chatmer's face. Particularly well, in fact, for as I looked up, I stared into it, (there - outside my window!) just as I had remembered. In the rain outside my window, across from the armchair, there he stood, in a glass coffin. Terror took me, as I saw his writhing, struggling form, smashing weakly against the unbroken glass. To his left, in another coffin, was Gilroy, head somehow still intact, scratching feebly against the glass. And to his right – stood an empty coffin. Waiting. In the dimming darkness of All Hallow's Eve, the clock struck midnight, and I once again heard, interspersed with the ringing grandfather toll, something I had not heard for years.
Pitter-patter. Step. Step.


Day 45
It's so strange, at times. Sitting where my father once sat, working at the same battered, second-hand desk, sifting through the notes black with his nearly indecipherable scrawl. He always complained at how his brain outstripped his hands. He'd tape hours and hours of audio, but some masochistic urge seemed to compel him to transcribe everything to hard copy. I suppose it worked out for me… the notes in this old desk are all I have left now.
I remember first finding these… the attic office had been closed up by mom since dad vanished… along with every scrap of research and identification. He'd just… dropped out of the world. Mom… went crazy. She called everyone, everywhere, the university, the police, even dad's office at InTENergy, nobody had seen him. It's like he'd packed up all his work, and just stepped out of time and space.
This is supposed to be a work journal, but I think, with the subject matter, I should be allowed a little digression. Mom… is in the hospital again. This might be the last time. She was so connected with dad… it's not even that she snapped when he left, it was just… a whole part of her was missing now, like a limb gone… and she just bled out through it. She seems calmer now… but that just might be the medication. On the positive side, I can come in here without her going into hysterics now. I do wish, however, that it didn't have to be this way.
Anyway, on to the actual work? Lovely.
It seems that dad was working on some very, very obscure stuff. Basically, it looks like he was theorizing about reality, states of matter and being, and the idea that was we see and interact with, along with what we theorize to be the building blocks of reality are really no more valid than how much we feel they are. It's… dizzying. I vaguely remember some of this from back when dad was still teaching. He got stuck on an idea… I really didn't understand it at the time, but I remember dad fighting with the other professors. Someone called him a crank once, when they were over visiting… dad yelled, and nobody really visited from the university anymore.
It's odd how, looking back, I can remember things in context now. At the time, “tenure review” didn't mean anything to me, but now I realize that dad must have really miffed some people off. That was about par, though. He was a real “nutty professors” type, would get lost for days in a project until mom or someone dragged him back out… and never thought of the political side of things… that what he was doing might actually upset some people.
I'm wandering again. In truth, there's no heavy, startling revelations for the day. However, I did find an odd notation on the back of a note. It referenced someone named Professor Kanin, with some kind of code that I assume is an email address or contact information. It's the best lead I have so far, which is really quite sad.

Day 49
Checked up on the Professor Kanin thing. It goes to a now-defunct email address based out of a university in Ireland. I did some checking, and apparently this Kanin was doing a lot of out-there research as well, but on the less theoretical side, looking for new ways to approach things like biology and engineering… and he's apparently been missing for almost as long as dad has. Vanished one day, no note, no body, all his research cleared from his home and office… just gone.
I'm starting to get a little nervous. Hearing that, and crawling through the oddness of dad's notes… it's hard not to get paranoid. I caught myself looking over my shoulder more than once the last few days… feeling eyes on me or some such. I keep trying to ignore it, but there it is. Dad was a bit paranoid as well, if I recall… never let any of his in-progress stuff anywhere near shared labs or work areas… mom forbade him from putting a full lab upstairs, but all his theoretical work was poured out on his ranks of white-boards and legal pads.
I've been in this stupid library from open to close for nearly two days now. It's hard to know even what to ask for… more than once, I've found myself in the fiction section, reading up on topics that only appear in sci-fi stories… or horror ones. Some of the things he theorizes… things that can slide between here and elsewhere as easy as we pass through air… but insulated by a membrane of this “otherwhere”, they'd be nearly untouchable in our reality. He actually says: “The interaction of different bioforms in our own reality is not one paved with compassion and ease of interaction. Let us hope the natives of these far spheres are friendly.”
Greg called me, again. Asked if I wanted to get out for a bit, have a drink maybe. I turned him down. Again. I feel bad, but… I can't just let this sit. I tried to talk to him about all… this, but he just nodded and looked sympathetic. I can't get people to understand… a whole part of my life was just… ripped out. I can't just drop it… I can't just let it go. I catch myself getting… disconnected. Like dad used to sometimes… so focused, things like food or… emotional attachment just fade in terms of priority. Even worse… I sometimes find myself welcoming it.
Anyway. I have all the copies and books I'll need right away, and a few I ordered should be here within the week. I have vacation time saved up with the university, and there's no active projects at the lab that need my direct oversight… so I'll hopefully be able to track this thing to ground… maybe get closure. I don't know. I keep wondering what I'll do if it turns out that dad just ran out on us… or ended up in a ditch somewhere… but I don't think that's the case.
Maybe I'll take some time and yell at my cell phone company… I keep getting this weird clicking when I'm on a call. It's been going on for nearly three days now. To add even more to my paranoia, it started about the same time I emailed Kanin. I think, more than a tin-foil hat, I really need to get some rest.

Follow the breadcrumbs…
Work Journal 2 (cont.)
Or turn back while you can.
Splinters


"Sorry, Carol; forgot something."
"Hm?"
"You know, had to throw a blanket over a dead body. Wouldn't want people to see it and panic."
"Ah, of course. That's understandable."
Ruiz took his coffee back from the bemused barista, sipped it once to check the taste, then downed the cup in one gulp. He moved to his regular seat, pulling out his phone and checking for new messages.

From: Felix
Be there in ten.

Ruiz sighed, typing a response.

To: Felix
im in the coffee shop down the street

He tapped his chin pensively with the phone.
"So what are you up to today, Ruiz?"
Carol sat across from Ruiz, the counter unmanned.
"Well, I'll have to dispose of that body, of course. Can't just keep a blanket over it forever. Then I need to somehow track down my brother. He knows where I am, so he's got the upper hand at the moment. He likes to play games, though; I imagine he'll send me some kind of formal invitation to some kind of stupid 'secret lair'. He's always had a flair for the dramatic. Then I need to get him to start taking his meds again, since he's almost certainly off them at the moment… After that, I'll need to scare off a couple of scragglers, and then I'll have saved the city. A true artistic community can be established, free from the judgement of old farts and everymen. We'll be able to do something different; I don't know what, but anything's better than this. We're sitting in squalor and stagnation, some too stupid or senile to see the sensibility of severing ties with shittier artists. We need someone to slice away the shit, shear off the silliness; perhaps all we need is someone to snip-"
"Alright, I get it, business as usual, mad artistry ahoy. Hang on, I've got a customer."
Carol stood back up and walked to the counter, taking an order and preparing a fresh drink. Ruiz sunk into his thoughts. His streams of consciousness twirled within his mind like ethereal dancers, threading innumerable ideas in complex combinations. Like most anartists, his thought processes were not entirely coherent, not entirely logical, and not entirely sane. It is said that some have a tenuous grasp on reality. Anartists cannot be said to have a grasp on it at all. If we were to use the metaphor of reality as a stick, most anartists throw it away, or snap it into pieces, or set fire to it, or hit things with it, or do anything other than just hold the stick. The mindset was almost childish, and yet, it was perhaps the most coherent, logical, and sane reaction to the world. Why would you settle for just holding a stick? Why not make the stick a sword, jump into the world of make-believe? Leap gloriously into escapism, run headfirst into danger, live without reverence for your own life or that of others. If all the world's a stage, then murder's but removing a side character. The plot is more important than the people, the storyline goes beyond any player. Let the masses die. Let the show go on. Ruiz tapped a small note into his phone.

never hold sticks

"Ruiz."
Ruiz looked up at Felix, smiling.
"Felix! Know anyone who can get rid of a corpse?"
Felix frowned.
"Yes, I do, I suppose. You killed him, then?"
"Oh, no, I didn't kill him."
"That's right, he was supposed to kill himself, I forgot."
"Oh, no no no, that didn't end up happening at all. My brother killed him, bullet to the head."
Felix frowned harder, taking a seat across from Ruiz. He pulled out his phone and started composing a new message.
"Your brother was busy last night. Made quite a show at the exhibition."
"What did he do?"
"Something that got the suits called in, they mind-wipe gassed half the city. Can't remember it myself, unfortunately, but my friend had the foresight to wear a gas mask. Filled me in after the fact."
"Hmmm."
Felix kept tapping his phone, Ruiz descended into thought. Pico had attracted the attention of the suits. Perhaps he was attempting to orchestrate a crackdown? But what was his endgame? What was the reason for killing The Critic? To spite Ruiz, perhaps. Ruiz wanted him dead to shatter his control, to swing society into a state of flux. Payback for Redd was also a factor. Perhaps Pico was driven by the same thing? If there was method to the madness, he could be reasoned with.
"So how was he supposed to die?"
"What?"
"The Critic. How were you going to have him kill himself?"
"Oh, a stupid little thing. An electric chair."
"And how did you intend to get him to pull the switch?"
"I told him that the exhibit was a doomsday machine."
"You said it wasn't anomalous."
"No I didn't. I said it didn't break reality. You'd be surprised at what can be done without exploiting, Felix, if you just put a bit of ingenuity behind it."
"So how did you make a non-anomalous doomsday machine?"
"I didn't."
"You didn't?"
"I didn't."
"But you said-"
"I said I told him that it was a doomsday machine. He then investigated it and believed me. I didn't have to break reality, I just had to convince him that I did."
"Interesting."
Ruiz took a coin from his pocket and spun it on the top of his finger.
"Consider this, Felix: for hundreds, even thousands of years, mankind has been enamoured with the idea of magic, of violating the laws of physics, of bending the world to their will and whimsy. Here we are, able to do the impossible, breaking the rules that god or happenstance forced upon us, flipping the finger to the magic man in the sky. That's not how they did it in the old days, Felix. Artistic exploiting is a new fad, comparatively. Do you know how it started?"
"No."
"Warhol. Most modern exploiting tools can be traced back to his studios. He was a good salesman, filled his places with demonstrations, played off his popularity. Then, of course, The Club shut him down, and he's been underground ever since."
"What, so he's still alive?"
"Probably, but I digress. That's not how they did it in the old days, Felix. Magic's been around a lot longer than exploiting has. Not shooting lightning from your hands, of course. Just simple illusionism."
Ruiz let the coin drop from his finger into his palm, clenched it, then showed Felix his empty hands.
"See, illusionists purport to perform the impossible, but do it in a mundane way. And people believe it, they eat it up, and that's something that I respect more than the stuff that most artists pump out. They do the impossible with nothing more than smoke and mirrors."
Ruiz pulled the coin from behind Felix's ear.
"It's more interesting, to me. Actually performing the impossible, when you're someone like us, is boring. Just putting something together that breaks reality is the work of a hack. But if you can get the same effect without doing anything impossible, that's much more impressive. See, I could have sent this coin into a little pocket dimension, pushed it in and out of our world, and you couldn't tell the difference between palming it. This is the point that I'm trying to make, and this is where we need to go: the impossible is more interesting when it's all mundane. Stage magic, street magic, these are the roots we need to return to. None of it was anomalous, Felix. It was all just smoke and mirrors."
"Smoke and mirrors?"
"Carefully orchestrated triggers. It's the same sort of stuff that hypnotists do, and it's brilliant because it's the last thing you'd expect. The Critic would fight the impossible, he'd fight drugging, or infohazards, or memetic bullshit. The last thing that he would expect, the only thing he couldn't possibly be anticipating, was the mundane. The second he entered that room, the second I approached him, and turned around him, and spun those blades, the tone of that whirring resonated perfectly, the sawblade I gave him was weighted off-centre, and his sensation of gravity moved, and I turned the lights on, and they flickered to life in a set order, guiding his eyes so they'd dart from side to side, which reflexively caused a primal fight or flight instinct, flooding his body involuntarily with chemicals, imbalancing him, disorienting him, and then all I needed to do was tell him what he wanted to hear, and he was putty in my hands. He deferred to my guidance like a lamb, and he didn't notice it at all. The triumph wasn't in driving him to suicide. It was in controlling him as an audience so completely, so utterly entrancing him, that he'd be so entirely under my control, that he'd risk his life on the truth of my words. Wowwee is not an installation, it was performance art for an audience of one. It was making reality seem unreal to a man who dealt in the impossible. An anti-anart anartist's art."
Ruiz opened his fists above the table, clattering hundreds of coins onto the floor.

"Molly! We've gotta go!"
"Hang on, I'm still packing my hats!"
"Forget the hats! We need to leave!"
Overgang tapped Joey on the shoulder.
"I've told people to tell other people. FTF's continuing their tour, so they were leaving town anyway. Albeit with three new members. Nibman only came through because we called him up, the Brit's gone back home, and everyone else seems to be disappearing too. They're switching numbers so Tan can't track them. Except Arsehole, of course, she doesn't seem to care."
"She never really does. You're still coming with us, yeah?"
"Yeah. Sick of living with my parents anyway. Dad's glad to see me gone."
"Right. Great. Damn, we're finally going nomad."
Rita walked through Joey's front door, trundling a wheelie bag behind her. She was wearing a schoolgirl outfit with a plaid green skirt.
"All packed and ready to go, guys."
Joey patted her on the head.
"You look like a real schoolgirl."
"I am a real schoolgirl, Joey."
"Of course you are. Figured it all out with your folks?"
"Yup. I'm just going over to my friends' house for the night. They'll panic, but they'll get over it. Probably."
Joey and Overgang shared a concerned look.
"You sure you want to do this, Rita?"
"You think sticking with mummy and daddy's going to stop them from stealing me away in the middle of the night?"
"Fair point. We've gotta go, Molly, hurry up!"
"Still packing hats!"
Overgang snorted.
"Seriously, how many hats does she need? She's only got the one head. Rita, how many hats have you packed?"
"Four. Well, seven if you count tiny decorative hats."
"Damn. What's with girls and hats?"
"How many pairs of those sunglasses have you packed, OG?"
Overgang awkwardly re-adjusted his signature shades.
"Twelve."
"Twelve pairs of sunglasses. I haven't even packed one pair."
"Yeah, well I haven't packed a hat!"
Joey interjected.
"Well, the two of you can borrow hats or shades or panties from each other once we GET A MOVE ON!"
"Alright, I'm coming!"
Molly ran down the stairwell, heaving two bulging suitcases in her arms. A long red feather boa was draped around her floral dress, braided hair making her a perfect mix of hippie and bohemian. Joey took one of the suitcases from her as she reached the ground.
"You must be Rita, right?"
"Yup. Molly?"
"Yup! Nice to meet you."
The pair shook hands, then Molly turned to Joey and Overgang.
"You boys need to learn some patience. Never rush a lady."
Overgang rubbed his neck guiltily.
"Alright, alright…"
"Who's driving?"
"Joey."
"Ha, no he's not. Give me the keys."
Rita smiled as the four of them walked outside to the waiting van. Leaving school, moving away, going out into the great big world for the first time. Making things that meant something, enacting change where change could be enacted. Finding people who really understood them; constantly on the run from heavily armed men in black. It would be just like all her family road trips, only interesting. Oh yes, Rita thought as she hopped in the back seat. This was going to be fun.

"Your friend's taking a while."
"Probably just busy. Nothing stopping us from just waiting."
Felix sat watching Ruiz solve a Rubik's cube.
"So where exactly is the body?"
Ruiz carelessly gestured to the blanket-covered corpse on the other end of the room. Felix stood up and walked over to it, carefully pulling down the top to reveal The Critic's still-shocked face, eyes still wide in shock. Felix closed the body's eyelids, then looked up at the broken skylight.
"So he shot from up there?"
"Yup."
"Where's the glass? The floor should be covered."
"I cleaned it up. That stuff's dangerous, wouldn't want someone to step on it."
Felix rolled his eyes, gesturing around the room filled with deathtraps; Ruiz didn't notice, still engrossed in the cube. The Critic's hat still sat on his head, a flawlessly circular hole punched perfectly through the front. Felix went to pluck it off, then hesitated.
"Felix."
Felix spun to face the tall masked figure at the entryway. Ruiz looked up from his cube, and was struck with an instant sense of awe and confusion. The Janitor's dark trenchcoat dangled down its legs, billowing around without a breeze. It glanced around, silently appraising the room. Ruiz looked straight into The Janitor's darkened eyeholes. His pupils widened, his tongue felt as dry and rough as sandpaper, his lungs felt like they were on fire and his extremities felt numb and cold. For the first time in his life, Ruiz felt deep, soul-crushing fear. Well, that or love. He'd never felt either before, and from what he had heard, the two seemed very similar. Here was the being that would deliver him from his conundrum, the instrument of salvation; the supplier of The Critic's last rites. Ruiz blurted out the one thing he knew, from an artistic perspective, was objectively true.
"You are beautiful."
Ruiz stood and walked to The Janitor, grinning dumbly while offering the completed Rubik's cube. The Janitor cocked its head to one side, as if confused, then took the cube and placed it inside an inner trenchcoat pocket. A heavily obscured, almost mechanical voice buzzed from the diaphragm of the gas mask, and yet Ruiz understood every word.
"You bring me order where once there was chaos. My thanks."
Ruiz's grin widened even more, stunned into silence. Felix interjected.
"The body's over here, Janitor."
The Janitor turned and walked to the covered body. It carefully removed the blanket, folded it, and laid it down on the ground near the seat. It moved its hands into the body's pockets, checking for anything important. It removed a wallet; when opened, it was not simply empty, but brand new, the cardboard inserts still keeping its shape flat. The Janitor placed it on top of the blanket. It turned to Felix, asking for reassurance.
"I am to remove the body, then?"
"If it's not too much trouble. Sorry about… well, you knew him better than I did."
"I knew him not better or worse. I knew what he was, and only that."
The Janitor turned to the body, moving its gloved hands across the clothes, continuing to search for hidden possessions. It stood, then turned to Felix and Ruiz.
"Avert your eyes. This will be brief."
The pair of them turned away, then heard The Janitor click its fingers. Ruiz heard the sound of crunching bone, squelching flesh, crackling flames and running water. And then, in the next instant, it was gone.
"It is complete."
Ruiz turned around. The body was gone, as were the clothes, blanket, and wallet. The Janitor was crouched over the chair. All that remained of The Critic was his grey fedora, sitting immobile where the body had once sat.
"I cannot remove the hat."
Ruiz widened his eyes, surprised that anything was beyond the capabilities of the masked giant.
"Why not?"
"I am not allowed to. Is that all, Felix?"
The Janitor stood and spun to face the man.
"I think it should be, yes. Many thanks; I'm in your debt, as always."
"Be prepared to follow through on that. I may collect sooner than you think."
Felix chuckled as The Janitor briskly walked out the door.
Ruiz continued to stare at the grey fedora.

"Sam!"
"Tim?"
The Sculptor ran into The Composer's office, interrupting his work at a synth bank.
"We've fucked up, Sam. Snipper's gone rogue, fucked everyone last night. Suits everywhere, and… fuck. You don't want to know what happened, man. It was bad. Suits pulled Bob and Robbo out, so they're gone, Felix's buggered off, Sandy's in the hospital still, and Critic won't answer his fucking phone."
"Fuck. So it's you and me, then?"
"Me and you… ha. Not quite."
The Sculptor moved towards The Composer, driving a knife deep into his neck. The Composer's eyes widened in shock; he moved his mouth to scream, only coughing up blood.
"Shhhhh, shh shh shh… don't try to talk. Whatever you were going to say was probably as stupid and derivative as your shitty little excuses for songs."
The Composer mouthed silently, eyes rolling up into his head.
"It's all part of the plan, Sam, don't worry. We didn't fuck up, you did. I executed this shit fucking flawlessly. Yeah, yeah, I was the one who gave Sandy that play, I pinned it on Ruiz, I sent those lazy fuckers Bob and Robbo in and got them caught. If my trace on Felix is still working, then Critic's dead, too. Leaving me to be the king of the hill… after some housekeeping, of course. That asshole Ruiz made a move before I could; Snipper reckons he was first into the subterfuge game. Those upstart little twats almost screwed me out of a well-planned coup. Still, had you all fooled to the end. I'm the last one standing. The way it was always meant to be."
The Sculptor pulled the knife from The Composer's throat, letting his body drop to the floor. He flicked blood and viscera from the blade and carefully placed it back into his pocket.
"I was here first, you fucks. I did it first, I was the one who got this shit started, and you have the fucking nerve to make me one of many? It doesn't work like that. It will never work like that. I am above you. Compared to what I've done, you're nothing. You get me? YOU GET ME?"
The corpse remained silent. The Sculptor laughed madly, then abruptly stopped, angrily glaring at the gaping neck wound.
"That's what I fucking thought."
The Sculptor walked out of the room, leaving Sam's body to bleed out, rot, and be forgotten.

the third of one is dawn of war
The third of two is second strike.
The Third Of Three Is The Last Straw
ESCALATION AND A KNIFE
« Detained | Hub | Snipped From The Same Cloth »


"Ah, Dimaccio," said Dr. Alto Clef, Director, Training and Development, Combined Mobile Task Forces, SCP Foundation.
"Clef," said Paul Dimaccio. "This is the rook." He motioned to the woman at his left.
"Ah," said Probationary Field Specialist Jane Weiss, Somewhat Nervous Brand-New Member, MTF Theta-90. "Um."
"Oh, knock it off, Weiss." Dimaccio rolled his eyes. "Who do you think he is, Lucifer?"
"Well, um—"
"Ms. Weiss." Clef's tone was as neutral as the room's décor. "I wish these idiot stories would just quit circulating. For the six-hundred and sixty-sixth time" — Clef allowed himself a brief smile — "I am not Satan."
Weiss blinked. She didn't feel particularly convinced.
"However." Clef motioned for Dimaccio and Weiss to sit. "I am a devil for punctuality, so I would appreciate Theta-90's timely arrival for future meetings. It's like dealing with those clowns from the Eee-Woo sometimes. And I mean, literal clowns, as of last week. But I digress. I believe all of us are present?"
They were. Around the extraordinarily large black marble table sat commanders, team leaders or other senior members of every single permanent Mobile Task Force currently active, plus a few non-MTF units to boot. Even those MTFs deployed in the field had at least one delegate present. It was an impressive sight, thought Weiss.
"Okay." Clef pushed a button. "Let's get started."
Nothing happened.
"Fuck." Clef frowned. He pushed the button again, rather harder. Nothing continued to happen. "Shit."
Agent Jackson of MTF-Zeta-5 ("Networkers") cleared his throat. "Sir, I—"
"Shut up, Jackson," Clef said, without looking. He was squatting, peering into the recesses under his podium. "Ah, there we go." A pop-buzz of suddenly powered speakers and a sudden illumination of a projector screen. The illumination resolved itself into the words "SCP Foundation Mobile Task Force Directorate: Semi-Annual Training Meeting" rendered in tasteful blue text on a pale yellow background.
"Um. Sir." Weiss looked out of the corner of her eyes at Dimaccio while whispering. "Why is there, uh…"
"A PowerPoint presentation? What did you expect, Weiss? How did you think these things go?"
"I had imagined something a little more exciting, sir."
"You'll be lucky, Ms. Weiss." The searchlight of Clef's sudden gaze made Weiss intensely uncomfortable. "We're all slaves to Microsoft just like everyone else. Well, before we bought them, of course. Now." The searchlight swept the room. "I only have a few slides this time."
"Thank heaven for small mercies," someone muttered.
"Watch it, Mackenzie. As I was saying. I only have a few slides this time because this meeting, if you will all recall, was intended to summarize our progress towards the goals we outlined at the start of the year." Clef paused. "And from what I can tell…"
He clicked a button. The screen switched to the second slide, which, in bold underlined red text on a black background, said: "We Haven't Done Shit."
There was a certain amount of uncomfortable shifting in seats.
Clef pointed to the slide. "Seriously. This is getting fucking stupid. We outlined four major goals for every single unit to concentrate on in their training programs this year. Dimaccio!"
"Sir."
"Last in, first question. What was the first goal?"
"Increase containment-to-casualty ratio by at least 20%."
"Indeed it was." Click. A slide filled with depressing statistics popped up. "And CON2CAS has, indeed, increased! By… two percent." Clef held up two fingers. "This is for those of you what can't count good. Two fucking percent. I know we've had some bad recoveries this year so far but these casualty rates are just bullshit. And look at how many are from operatives trying to save their buddies! I want you to focus on getting your MTFs' priorities in order. Containment, Team, Self does not mean Containment Gets Ruined Because I Help My Special Friends At Expense Of Self! Containment first." Clef suddenly pointed. "Doctors Boyd!"
"Yessir!" The Boyd siblings, temporarily representing MTF Omicron-64 ("Food Standards"), did their best rabbits-in-headlights act.
"Second goal. Any time you like."
"Um," said the male half of the pair. "Uh, take at least—"
The female Boyd sibling frowned at her brother, holding up a hand to silence him. "That's not it. It's, uh, to measurably increase operative scores in secondary-role assessments."
"Which hasn't happened. Has it, Ms. Boyd?"
"I, uh, I don't know, sir."
"You can just say 'no,' Ms. Boyd. Context should give you a little clue there. Secondary-role scores have decreased over the last half a year. I know some of the reasons" — another click, another slide — "but it's just not good enough."
At least he's not going to ask me, thought Weiss.
"Weiss."
Shit.
"What was the third goal?"
"I, uh, I don't know, sir."
"And why not?"
"Because, uh, this is my first Foundation-wide MTF training meeting, sir."
"So what?"
Weiss remained silent. Clef remained silent. It would have been very tense indeed if everyone had remained silent. Fortunately, there was a delegate from RCT-Δt present.
"Well, you could have come to us, and… ah." Researcher Kitterman trailed off as the searchlight found him but, to his credit, retained his composure. Several other delegates glanced at him strangely.
"I know you think Delta-T has the magical answer to everything, Kitterman, but I have a message from the future for you." Clef paused for just over eleven seconds. "It doesn't." Clef turned back to Weiss. "The reason you don't know is that Task Force Commander Dimaccio" — pivoting again — "hasn't told you about it. Why not, Dimaccio?"
Dimaccio indicated Weiss. "Probationary Specialist. She isn't supposed to be doing that yet. And we weren't going to talk about it until a full year had passed, per the last meeting."
"Dimaccio." Clef's mouth twitched; it looked a bit like a smile might look after being put through the garbage disposal. "Why do you have to spoil my fun?"
"I'm known for it."
"Yes, you are, you miserable bastard. Fourth goal. Green!"
Agent Green straightened slightly. "The fourth goal was to reduce collateral damage by, if I can quote exactly, "a fucking ton" as compared to last year's performance, sir."
"Yes! Yes it was. And despite the sterling efforts of people like yourself — no, I really mean it, there was comparatively little in your last outing, considering — that hasn't happened, either." Click. "Look at this."
They looked at it. Nobody said anything for a few seconds.
Clef slowly turned back to Green.
"Agent Green. Would you mind explaining to the class why my carefully prepared final slide has been replaced by…" Clef mimed squinting at the slide, "by a gigantic, childishly drawn, flashing cock-and-balls that appears to float out of the screen and would, if not for the cognitomemetic safeguards in place in this room, be inducing us all to believe that everyone in the room was actually a giant, crude phallus?"
"No, just you," muttered Mackenzie.
"You're fucking hysterical, Mackenzie. Agent Green?"
Green sighed. "I'll look into it, sir."
"You do that, Green. I know those people like to target you in particular but when their little vendetta messes up hours of work on my goddamned presentations, I tend to take it personally." The speakers popped again, and the image on the screen faded away. "Okay. Break for lunch. If you can drag yourself from the delicacies of the Site cafeteria, be back here by half past one. That's 1330 to you, Theta-90, if you'd be so kind. And Weiss?"
"Yes, sir?"
"There's never a third item in these lists. We pull that to see how all you greenhorns deal with it."
"Oh." Weiss noticed a few of the faces around the giant table smirking as they got up to leave.
"Don't sweat it. You didn't fuck it up too badly. By the way: your name. Whyss or Vice?"
"Vice, sir."
"Whyss it is, then. Now go away."
Weiss opened her mouth to correct Dr. Clef, thought better of it, closed her mouth, and went to lunch.

| Hub |


“I-It's just been so long. Sometimes I wonder if she ever thinks about me anymore.” The creature leaned towards the man, its skin crinkling. A few scales refracted the harsh light of the containment cell as they drifted to the floor. It slowly raised its left arm and cupped its hand to the side of its oxygen mask. “Sometimes, I think what they tell me, that she's okay, I don't think it's true,” it whispered, barely audible over the hum of the life-support machine.
The man sitting opposite grinned. “Why, you were the most important thing in the world to her! Of course she wouldn't have forgotten about you!” he said. His voice echoed across the walls of the small cell.
“You used the past tense. You didn't really answer me. Besides, if she still thought about me, would I be so… this?” the creature slowly swept an arm over itself. Much of its skin was gone, revealing half-formed organs made of dragonfly wings. Its legs were nothing but stumps, and the left side of its face was mostly non-existent, save for the area around the flower it had for a eye.
“Oh come now, that's no attitude to have! If she'd forgotten you, would she have made this?” The man revealed a folded piece of paper and opened it on the table between them. It was a crayon drawing of a girl and a man holding hands. The man was covered in what looked like scales and had flowers for eyes. Both of them were smiling under the crudely written words “SUZY + BEST FRIEND.”
The creature looked up from the paper, tears in its functioning eye. “Thank…” It saw that the man had vanished “…you?”
An orderly burst into the containment cell. “SCP-1252, are you alright!? We- I don't know what happened. We were with you, and then we, uh we were outside. What happened? Are you okay?”
The creature hugged the drawing to its partially formed chest, causing several butterfly scales to drift lazily to the floor. “I'm fine. I'm fine,” it said.

Adam sang to himself as he sawed the beam. “Que el mundo fue y será…” he began. Suddenly, the saw slipped, and he cried out, more from shock than pain, as it sliced into his finger. A split second later, the wound began to gush blood. “Fuck!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he patted himself down, hoping to find a kerchief, or even just a band-aid. Nothing. He squeezed the finger into his armpit, feeling the blood soak through the fabric of the shirt. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck this house, fuck this city, fuck you Louisa, fuck fuck fuck!” Adam shouted as he ran from dilapidated room to dilapidated room, trying to find something to staunch the bleeding.
He saw a man leaving the pantry, the same one who had been snooping around the place before. “Hey, asshole!” he shouted at the intruder, “Get out of my house or I'm calling the cops!” The man gave a guilty smile and stepped around a corner. Adam followed him around the corner, only to find that the man seemed to have disappeared. “Weirdo,” Adam muttered as he entered the pantry.
Sitting on the shelf was a roll of gauze and a can of something called “Plum Pudding.” Next to it was a note card reading “Feliz Navidad” in thin, neat letters.
“I'm Jewish,” Adam muttered. He stared at the gauze for a moment. "Eh, screw it," he said as he took the gauze and began to wrap it around his wounded finger. Before leaving the pantry, he grabbed the can of “Plum Pudding.”

The boy in the Boy Scout outfit paced back and forth in the blank room. He must have been in here for at least a year. The last thing he remembered was crossing the street holding Mr. Noah. Then the sound of tires squealing, then an impact. Then nothing. He obviously wasn't dead, he decided, because he was obviously alive. Still, he didn't recognize anything, and, more importantly, there was no more Mr. Noah.
"Hello there," came a voice behind him. The boy turned to see a man standing in what had been an empty spot a few seconds ago. "It seems like you're missing something. Mr. Noah, right?"
The boy tried to respond, but found that he couldn't speak. He tried a few more times to vocalize, but finally nodded.
The man smiled. "I don't think I can get Mr. Noah back for you, but I can find you some friends. Children like you, who can understand you. Perhaps you could make a new doll, one just like Mr. Noah. Does that sound good to you?"
The idea of replacing of Mr. Noah seemed horrifying, almost laughable, to the boy. But it wasn't as though there was any way to find Mr. Noah in this room. Besides, the man's offer of friends intrigued him. He had never had friends before, at least ones that weren't stuffed animals. The boy nodded again. The man smiled.
"Very good, then. Please, follow me," the man said. He opened a door that had not been there a moment ago, and passed through it. The boy followed. As he passed over the threshold, he found himself wearing an owl mask. "Oh, sorry, I forgot to mention the mask. I wouldn't worry about it, though, all of the other children have them as well," the man said, motioning around the room. It was then that the boy looked around and realized that there were other children, also with masks, all around the room.
They didn't say anything, but he could hear them just the same. Do you like dollies? they asked, what was your dolly's name? What happened to you? What kinds of dollies do you like to make? My name's Zach, my name's Sarah, my name's Nikolai, my name's…
The voices flooded the boy's head, but he was not afraid. For the first time in a long time, he knew he was not alone. He turned to thank the man, but saw that he was gone.

A note to all Foundation personnel: Yesterday, 12/25/20██, containment for several SCP artifacts, including 1252, 1551, and 747 was breached. In all instances where the SCP object has been capable of speech, the effector of the breach was described as “a kind man.” While the breaches were not, in and of themselves, severe, the fact that a single individual, apparently acting alone, has proven capable of bypassing all security measures, and has chosen to do so on a day as significant as yesterday, should be troubling to all Foundation employees.
To be clear: as there has been no indication of negligence on the part of Foundation employees, no one is being punished for this incident. This is only a reminder that, despite however human SCP objects may appear, we are still interacting with entities far beyond our ability to comprehend. It should go without saying that all Foundation personnel, of all levels, must maintain absolute vigilance at all times.
- O5-██


A 6-ball the size of a Volkswagen hovered placidly in the experimental chamber. It was proving very difficult to incinerate.
Dr. Ulysses Jackson bit at his thumbnail as he stared through the glass. He was sorry, of course. It's just that there had been six D-class in there a few moments ago, one of them had mentioned "pool" (the swimming kind, but it didn't matter), and he had forgotten most of that proof he had read during the recovery of a particularly interesting fundamentally real object. Forcefully forgotten it. Rubbed it from his memory so many times he was pretty sure there was a rut worn into his Broca's Area so deep that "pi" and "pie" now meant nearly the same thing to him.
But his recollection had never been so fuzzy as to screw it up this bad. At least he didn't think so. Of course, there were always "odd balls" when dealing with this particular memetic hazard.
The problem with the Class A amnestic wasn't so much that it wiped your memory (all of them do that), but how targeted the memory-wipe was. For example, despite numerous dosages throughout his career, he remembered very clearly what would come next.
First, A security klaxon would sound initiating a yellow alert in his sector. And so it did, just on schedule.
Next, a security officer would burst through the door and say:
"What the hell happened in here?!" Officer Kelly McDonnel said, looking out onto the chamber and spitting a few lines of a coded message into her walkie.
The third part, Dr. Jackson had down pat, although up until now it had taken a lot of rehearsing. "This is an official statement:" he always began, looking directly into the nearest security camera. "My name is Ulysses Jackson, and I have unwittingly caused a containment breach of SCP-609. I would like to officially remand myself into the custody of attendant security personnel and submit to amnestic therapy as per Procedure Odd-Ball Zero-Six." Surrender really was the way to go. Otherwise it's all boots and truncheons and hard linoleum tiles and a large dental bill.
Just then the last piece of the assembly instructions clicked into place, and the gigantic green globe in the room next door collapsed down to proper size and found itself subject to the laws of gravity. Thankfully, there wasn't much clean-up, as the initial manifestation had enveloped most of the people present in the room. Just a small pool of blood and the odd leg here and there, and those mostly ash and completely sterile thanks to several incineration attempts.. Nothing to lose much sleep over. He'd forget the looks on their faces in a few minutes anyway. Forget he had even requisitioned them.
But somehow wouldn't forget this procedure… Class A's are funny like that, he supposed.
"Jesus, Jackson…" Kelly said. Using her key, she opened the alarm box and disengaged yellow alert.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sure you are but… Jesus. All si-"
She didn't get any farther. One of them manifested inside her mouth, stopping it up.
"…I'm really sorry!" Jackson said, hanging his head. Goddamn trigger words. Why did her eyes have to be green?
Kelly gagged a moment, and slowly pried the cool ball from her jaw. She'd be fine, but those facial muscles would be sore and bruised for a while. "Why? Why do we keep doing this?"
"I don't know…" But he did. Three years of good production out of a tenured Researcher was a good bargain, considering the low cost of cleaning up after his little… episodes. By then a few others (they sent seven just to be sure) arrived to escort Dr. Jackson to an interrogation room. What triggered your recollection, how much do you remember of the initial containment, what do you think we could change about your environment to prevent recurrence, please swallow this and
Bam. Awake in his dormitory room. Jackson knew something about a bad experiment and a procedure he had been forced to forget, but remembered the entire arrest process with crystal clarity. Something of a deterrent, maybe? Who knew. Although there would be a 2% reduction in his pay, and more restrictions surrounding his off-site roaming privileges would arrive in the mail today. Even though he couldn't quite remember what he had done or why he deserved it, he knew it would happen again sooner or later, and also knew that the mistake was of such a nature that attempting to leave the Foundation now would mean a higher content of heavy metals in his diet than he was prepared to ingest.
So Dr. Jackson counted his fingers: 1-2-3-4-5-█-7-8-9-10. Yup. All present and accounted for. Maybe he would head down to the cafeteria, get himself a slice of 3.141592. Chocolate flavored. Cheer himself up a bit before getting back to work.


It woke up in a field as dawn broke and looked around it. It wasn't impressed by what it saw. The field was… just a field. Not even just a field. It was a monotony of ugly, yellow-gray grass, snarling and tangling around itself. There was no value here, nothing but-
But there was something, right there at its feet. In the weak gray light, there was a flower. Quite an interesting little thing too, and unusually colored. A smooth dark chocolate shot through with streaks of deep crimson. It would be a rare bloom, if there were actually any other blooms around. As it stood, the little thing was unique.
Did the flower just move a bit? Just then? No? Yes. Probably following the sun that was already beginning its slow climb.
Then there was another flower, it saw. Just a little ways away. It pushed through the ground and bloomed into something just as unique as the first one. It looked up more and saw petals unfurling everywhere in the field! They were growing straight and proud, above the old gray grass that clung to the stems. The sun was just far enough up to lend some warmth to the field, but it wasn't just a field anymore. In the new light, wild flowers dotting the plain, it was a garden.
It was a garden. Yes, it was a garden, and with the garden came gardeners. There weren't many at first, but they hacked away the grass with speed, coaxing new flowers out into this little world. It wandered among them, they who had their backs bent, working as feverishly with their flowers as any bee did. More gardeners came. Of course they came. It was quite a big field. In the cool lemon light of the morning, the gardeners came and they created.
This was the time for wild growth, it remembered later. It looked around at the flowers the gardeners made. They were enormous, beautiful, extravagant. The world burst open with unrestrained color. All of the gardeners ran around, letting the blooms grow together, creating more and more. There were no set plots, no boundaries. They all competed to grow the biggest, the most exotic, all twining in and out and around each other. There wasn't much pruning, it noticed. They all just added their own absurd gaudy flowers to the mix and left them for the next.
But flowers wilt, oh yes they do. The sun got higher, and the light became harsher. That muted shine that softened edges got brighter, and made the beautiful colors clash. The heat rose. Those glossy petals lost their vibrance, and the stems sagged, weakened, as everything that supported them leeched away. It saw the gardeners realize what had happened, and it watched them scramble. For a short time they tried to keep things as they were. There were things that could be done with wilted flowers. But there were just too many, and they started pulling each other down, all those that they were entwined with. The first gardeners and the best gardeners, they tried to prune as they went, but there were so many others now, making more and more pastel blooms that withered when they left. Finally, those first gardeners and best gardeners gave up being subtle. It watched as everyone else was pushed away for awhile, and the endless trimming began.
Those gardeners cut away the dead, the gaudy, the parasites. The primal jungle of color was tamed, and so much was taken away. It was sad at this. The garden looked more like a field again. Only the most unique, or the ones that they worked so hard to preserve, were allowed to continue. The gardeners returned to something very different than what they had left. What was there in a garden, that wasn't a flower? What would they do now?
That was when they got interested in the thorns, and the vines, and the leaves. These new gardeners in this new world worked in new ways. They still coaxed a flower out, but it was just a spark of color in the real attraction. They wove the stalks in and out and around, moved leaves with painstaking care. They created strange and wonderful sculptures that lived around their blooms. They met its approval. This wasn't the world of beautiful chaos that it had seen before. There was pruning, always. There were plots where every plant was shaped. Only the very best were allowed to twine and create something even more beautiful than anything on its own. Gardeners of the morning school were gently or forcibly nudged away. Flowers weren't enough anymore.
That's not to say that there were no flowers. A few extravagant blooms survived from the morning, but they were beginning to wilt away.
Because flowers wilt, the gardeners knew that very well. That's why they dealt in thorns now.
It walked around this new garden, as the sun began to reach its zenith. It was unheeded by the busy gardeners working in the heat. It marveled at the complex world that had come out of the old field, until it stopped at a flower. This flower was untouched. Some things grew around it, but it was never touched.
The gardeners had saved it, or forgotten about it. It had no idea which. Of course, when it looked around at the complex plants that now grew here, the little thing looked like nothing special. Of course it was where all of this had begun, but it was just a little brown and red flower now. Wasn't it?
Brown and red. Red and brown. Blood and shit. In the bright light of the sun.
It looked around. Nobody ever paid attention to it, it would probably be totally fine if it just reached down and
Pluck.
He was searching for someone, across all the pages on the wiki.


in the shape

Threat ID: KTE-8544-Porcelain "Butt Gh
Authorized Response Level: 7 (Apocaly
Description: Type-Z8 poltergeist inh
capable of travel by inhabiting hu
subdued temporarily by defec
taken to avoid falling
Wiping is t
ass

I know the thaumaturgists already told us that it wouldn't be susceptible to targeted metaexposure, but I still maintain that it was worth a shot. I didn't even need to use the whole page.- Researcher James, age 8.

00:00: Test commences. Subject instructed to initiate stated protocols.
00:14: Subject reports gastrointestinal distress. KTE-8544-Porcelain produces characteristic vocalization.
00:23: KTE-8544-Porcelain attempts to replicate via subject's posterior, but is hindered by testing protocols.
03:19: Subject ceases testing protocols. KTE-8544-Porcelain observed to be subdued, but active. Subject instructed to remain on toilet in case protocols must be resumed.
03:41: <CLASSIFIED> due to subject's unusually small frame and an oversight in toilet selection.
04:19: <CLASSIFIED>

I would have sworn that those cafeteria burritos would do the trick. Here's hoping they can get the guy a new butt.- Researcher James.

Researcher James was instructed to interview KTE-8544-Porcelain to ascertain information that could assist in the entity's liquidation.

Researcher James is seen pacing the restroom. Camera focused on KTE-8544-Porcelain shows the entity in its toilet. Scene is dramatic.
<Begin Interview>
Researcher James: So. KTE eight five four four porcelain. If that is your real name. Who are you?
KTE-8544-Porcelain: i am the butt ghost!!
RJ: And why should I believe you? <Slams his hands on the toilet seat and presumably glares at the butt ghost in a threatening manner.>
BG: im going to eat your butt
RJ: How bizarre. <Stands up from the toilet seat and accesses a plastic baggie of Goldfish crackers.> Why do you eat our butts, butt ghost? Butts do not equal love, you know.
BG: ffft fart poot poop phbbbt
RJ: <Chews on Goldfish crackers like a hard-boiled detective would chew on a cigar.> Fascinating, truly fascinating. You know, despite your rather… prolific history of gluteocidal self-replication, you seem to be a solitary creature. Mind telling me why?
BG: <makes more hilarius farting noises>
RJ: But of course. It would only make sense, with you being a butt ghost. One last thing: <Looks the butt ghost dead in the eye with a chilling stare.> Wiping. Why does it get rid of you? Where are the hostages?
BG: <tries to eat jameses butt, butt he cant becus hes in the toilet and james isnt> im a butt ghost
RJ: <Attempts to snap his fingers, but he hasn't quite gotten that down yet.> It all makes sense now! What else could the moral of the story be? I've got all I need to go to the presses with this!
<End Interview>
Closing statement: Researcher James was grounded for unrelated reasons after the conclusion of this interview.

He knows he's only allowed one snack in the afternoon. And by the way, we don't have to make him a Researcher just because only he can talk to it.- Researcher James's Dad

Test ID: 8544-Porcelain-Gimmel-83
Description: At the recommendation of Sanderson Consulting Partners, a task force was formed to use victims of KTE-2985-Silver to destroy the butt ghost. Four infectees were brought to the toilet containing the entity. The entity was destroyed by repeated exposure to emissions of the infectees.
Question: Is there any reason we couldn't have just used normal lasers?- Researcher James's Dad
Yes. The reason is because butts.- Researcher James

KTE-8544-Porcelain: Liquidated.


Barcode splashed cold water across her face, well aware that it had been seventy-two hours and three minutes since she had last been asleep and that sleep would not come for another seventeen hours. She looked up into the mirror: The young woman who looked back, with the round face and short-cropped hair all dyed up, and the bare arms sleeved with tattoos of I Ching hexagrams, looked unfamiliar in a way. She recognized that it was herself, but the image felt disconnected. Like a photo that she couldn't remember taking.
She'd need to get her dye touched up, she noted: the black roots were showing beneath the orange and white. The circles under her eyes were exceptionally dark, almost black, as they always were towards the end of her waking cycle. Her senses were dulled to the point where the world around her consisted of a blurry blank vastness, viewed through clouded, rippled glass.
And yet…
She flicked open her foldable toothbrush and squeezed a glob of blueish goop onto it.
And yet the world exploded with color and noise around her like a demented scrapbook. Each object, the sink, the faucet, the soap dispenser, the toothbrush, her hands, was outlined in its shadows a thousand days hence, and bathed in colors that had no wavelength, and twisted around in more dimensions than it ought. She saw things from all sides and none, things that existed and did not. She saw it all, all at once, if she looked the right way.
If she looked in the mirror at the right angle and let her eyes go unfocused just the right amount, she could make out a blood-red bobbit worm with a thousand rippling legs, curled around her neck.
“Morning, sunshine,” it said in a velvety voice with some indiscernible Slavic accent curling around the edges of its fleshy mandibles.
“Go home, Vinnie,” Barcode said through the toothpaste foam. “You aren't real.”
“Aw, don't be like that.” The worm skittered around her shoulders, undulating rhythmically. “I'm plenty real, and you're hurting my feelings.”
“You're a figment of my imagination.”
“You're no fun anymore.”
Barcode spat into the sink. Drink, swish, spit, drink, swish, spit.
“I was never fun, Vinnie.”
She rose from the sink, put her toothbrush and toothpaste into the pocket of her pajama pants, and brushed at her shoulder where there was no worm.
The young woman named Barcode, of the Esoteric Warfare Unit's fourth squad, trundled out of the bathroom, her bare feet brushing against the cool, cracked tiles.
—
“So I says to the guy, I says ‘Do you want to see some real operating?' and I show him Bessie like this, and he looks about ready to shit himself and… BC, are you sleeping on the job?”
Barcode half-heartedly flipped off the dark, shriveled husk of a man sitting there on the low concrete wall. Ramses. Fitting name. Brought a plague on every house he entered. That, and he looked like he crawled right out of the Valley of the Kings.
He actually had crawled out of the Valley of the Kings, though the exact details changed with every telling.
“No.”
“You look like a walking corpse.” Ramses twirled his favored razor around in his fingers.
Barcode didn't dignify that with a response.
The other man sitting on the wall looked like someone had stapled a face and a brain to a flank steak off of a rhinoceros. This was Whalebone. His fingers were as thick as her wrist.
“Morning, Barcode. Heading home today.”
“And leave when we get there.” Ramses flicked his straight razor closed and slipped it back into his pocket. “About fucking time.”
“Heh heh heh, yeah, we could all use the relaxation. What are you gonna do, Bar?”
“Sleep. Shower.”
“You'll sleep through all good things in life if you keep this up, BC.”
“That explains why I'm stuck listening to you.”
Whalebone laughed, and it sounded like a hippopotamus with a respiratory infection.
“Too bad we can't have our leave here.” He nodded out towards the beach and ocean. “Home is probably frozen solid by now.”
That it was. Snow and ice back home, rather than tropical salt breezes and bright flowers and five suns and a crumbling Nazi bunker. The last bit wasn't particularly nice to look at, but it did contribute to the overall atmosphere in ways that Barcode could not adequately describe now. She could, however, see a few burning towers of screaming goat skulls, an erotic carrot hive-mind, some micro-zeppelins with sloth faces, and aborted spoons in the background, none of which existed.
They had found a flag when they first got there. Kramer cut it up and used it as toilet paper. Said the chafing was worth it.
“Long story short, the guy got fucked over.” Ramses continued whatever story he was telling before. “And I look down and lo and behold, he had no legs. Nothing below the waist. I look down at him and I say, I say ‘see, you should have listened to me, never trust lactating clowns', and then I cut his throat. Common decency was at stake.”
Barcode ignored their talking: the words went around her like so many three-eyed salmon.
She felt a twinge in her head, something pulling down at the edge of her stretched tarp-consciousness. Something out by the ocean, fluctuating the Field, bobbing up and down. Irregular. Like a lead weight dropped on a sheet of rubber.
hey kramer im picking up something on the water
ANY IDEA WHAT IT IS?
The words tasted yellow in her head. A gaunt, looming yellow.
no idea going to run down and check it out
RIGHT, I'LL TELL MACNUGGET
Barcode wandered out of the bunker and down the wooden scaffolding that led to the beach. The thumping in her head grew more intense, louder without sound. Muskrat liches scattered as she passed. There were weird things out in the water, probably just some big dumb thing messing up the local Field…
She was on the beach, sand in her toes. The Thing, whatever it was, was drawing closer. And it was big. Her mind brushed against its presence, like a swimmer brushing a foot against a boulder they could not see to its full extent. She couldn't see anything with her eyes, but she could feel it there, swimming off the coast. Maybe a few hundred yards out and approaching.
A spout of water erupted from the waves, and a sharp lance of panic stabbed through the blurriness in Barcode's mind.
“WHALE!” she screamed with voice and mind, drawing the Field around her close.
The mist and spray fell back to the ocean as a wide, bloody gulf opened up in the sky. Wisps of damned souls shrieked as they poured out of the gaping hole and swirled about in the pooling black clouds. The thumping became an all-out assault against Barcode's mind, coiling and prying and trying to find an opening in the Field. The waves broke as a great humped back rose above the water, grey and red and speckled with the fleshy, screaming faces of its old, eternally tortured meals. A massive wedge-shaped head, encrusted with barnacles and sea lice, opened up its mouth and roared.
The air rippled and tore, and whatever mild local gods inhabited that place collectively shat themselves.
Barcode found herself rooted where she stood, immobile. The fear that sprung up sublimated on contact with her mind, burning away the blurriness and leaving cold, strangely logical thought behind.
There was a Whale. There was a God-damned Whale maybe a hundred yards away from her. There was a dog-fucking God-damned Whale that knew she was there. There was a shit-licking dog-fucking God-damned Whale here right when they were going to head back to Baseline. There was a cunt-chafing shit-licking dog-fucking God-damned Whale here and she couldn't move because sparing any neurons from maintaining her shield would let the Whale into her head and reduce her mind to a fine slurry. She could feel its gigantic, salt-rimed eyes already peering down at her soul, like a king looking at a worm in his apple, trying to crack it open.
A mass of golden fire screamed over her head from behind, hitting the Whale in the shoulder, cascading off in sheets of flame. The pressure on Barcode's mind lifted just enough that she would allow herself to move, allow herself to run. More fireballs launched overhead.
kramer is there a plan
ARE YOU UP FOR A SOULSHOT?
do we have a choice
NOT UNLESS YOU WANT THIS THING TO GAIN THE ADVANTAGE. KILL IT IN FIVE MINUTES OR FIVE MONTHS YOU KNOW HOW IT IS.
right ill do it
WHALEBONE'S BRINGING YOU A CADABRA.
The fireblasts were now accompanied by the booming thumps of a cannon. That'd be Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The Whale roared again, though in irritation rather than pain. Barcode didn't have to look to know that the full extent of the barrage was maybe a little bit of temporary discoloration of the skin. It would be in the shallows now, reaching the shoreline.
She was at the cliff, at the base of the scaffolding. She looked up to see Whalebone jump off from the top and plummet to the beach. The slight form of Spleeny rocketed off of the cliff face, striding towards the Whale on six legs of braided barbed cables.
“Catch!” he tossed her a gun, a sleek grey thing on a shoulder strap. Red runes were painted along its length.
“Get me up there!”
Whalebone grabbed her around the waist with both hands. His skin rippled with the silhouette of his elasmotherium totem.
“Can you keep yourself stable?”
“Yeah.”
“Right then. Alley-oop!”
He threw her at the Whale.
Barcode nudged herself just enough to keep herself stable as she flew, wind howling around her. She had precious little mind to spare outside. Everything she could afford had to be directed at the Whale.
Her mind hit the Whale's like a jet hitting a wall. If it had been big before, now it was monolithic, a singularity of hate corrupted by the static of the ghosts that swam in the air around it and the souls roiling in its gut.
Below, Spleeny lashed at the Whale with her barbed cables and spears of her own blood, whisking around it. A scarlet lance lodged itself in its eye, and for a moment there was a crack in its mind before it healed from its injury. Barcode squeezed through, and began assaulting the Whale's mind. Not to damage it permanent, just enough to make it recoil, just enough.
For all of this, Barcode was in the air for six seconds. She landed where the neck met the hump. She shaped the Field around her hands and feet to maintain her grip and continued hacking at the Whale's mind. Cannon shots and fireballs continued to barrage it as Spleeny continued to circle and lash.
The pain in her head was indescribable, like getting eaten alive inside her own skull. She could dimly feel a dribble of blood running down her lip. She aimed the Cadabra, pressing the barrel right against the Whale's smooth grey skin.
Within the burning pain that surrounded her in the Whale's mind, she could hear its voice and understand its tongue.
Maggot [rot, scum, decay] infesting the fruit of the Tree / slave to knowledge [ignorance and false teachings] impotent / die a thousand/million/billion deaths [forever] undying / disgust-abomination wracked in/by/with filth
Barcode was assaulted by a flood of new pain, human pain, the mindful-mindless anguish of a thousand souls driven beyond madness, stripped of the very capabilities of sapient thought. They swirled around her, and she could feel herself drifting off to join them in their unthinking chorus.
No. Not today.
She pushed through the well of spirits, their claws tearing at her, to reach the core of the Whale's mind. It was unfittingly frail under her presence, a husk that felt as if it would collapse at her touch. But it did not collapse.
She struck at it, and pain shot through her. Again, again, again…
There! It recoiled!
Barcode screamed, blood pouring from her eyes and ears and nose and mouth, her mind writhing in pain she had no comprehension of, and pushed one last time against the Whale's consciousness, driving it back upon itself for the briefest moment, letting it coalesce into a tiny, shriveled, pitiable shell of a mind and soul for a fleeting second.
Right under the barrel of her gun.
She pulled the trigger. A crackling stream of concentrated thaumic energy cut through the Whale's flesh like a white-hot needle boring through a fingernail, cutting down into the water, into the sand, down to the bedrock. Molten meat splashed across the beach and water boiled off into clouds of steam as the Whale buckled and collapsed. The open sore in the sky wavered and collapsed upon itself, as the wailing of lost souls faded.
The Whale steamed and smoked and was still. They had killed it before it had gotten out of the water. Barcode slowly made her way down the carcass. Her arms and legs trembled.
Upon reaching the sand, she walked a short distance, and collapsed. She was dimly aware of Spleeny and Whalebone approaching her.
With a grunt, with her last bit of energy, she rolled onto her back, lay there spread-eagle, and laughed. She laughed until her stomach hurt and her lungs ached and tears dripped down her cheeks. She laughed because she had to, because she would die if she didn't.
When the laughing died down, she could hear the faint scuttling of a thousand legs in the sand behind her head.
“Cuddle?”
“Fuck off, Vinnie.”
—

This was the closest one to Baseline we've seen so far. They're becoming more active, and we're running out of time. For every successful execution like this, there is one that drags on for months. The Department of Extra-Universal Affairs has closed off the portal and banned any return trips, though will keep an eye out for any activity from that side.
That said, pass on congratulations to the men and women of squads 4 and 5. They're earned their leave.
- Colonel Manu Avninder, Esoteric Warfare Unit


The agent laughed indignantly. "Let me get this straight. You sit in a lab all day, writing papers or mixing test tubes or sitting on your ass pretending to do work, while I'm out there, fighting the same abominations you write your ever-so-precious reports on, and your job is harder than mine. How many of your coworkers have been shot, ripped to shreds, rearranged, broiled, or mutilated in the past year? Would it be zero? I'm pretty sure it's zero." He punctuated this last section with a harsh pound on the break room table.
The doctor smiled, watching a bit of her coffee go over the rim of her mug. "Well, those of us that bothered to go to college," with a pause here for a patronizing chuckle, "know that research can be a lot more taxing than shooting or stabbing or brutalizing or trying to convince yourself that you're macho or whatever you guys spend your time doing. We actually have to make decisions and conclusions, and that involves thinking. You remember what that is, right? The stuff that you did with your brain before it all turned into action movies? Well, those of us in research have to do that all day long. And not the kind of stuff you can copy out of the back of a textbook either. I mean, we-"
A D-Class, who had up to this point been minding his own business, cleared his throat. The two noticed him there for the first time, both having long since reached the point where they no longer even consciously processed Class D's.
"Really, you assholes? I can't believe this crap. You," he pointed to the MTF agent, "get body armor and weapons and backup. And don't even get me started on you, princess," and he now turned to the researcher, "behind your steel doors and one-way mirrors and armed escorts. Both of you can't complain about anything. You guys just throw folks like me in with these skips or whatever you want to call them, and then see if we get torn up any differently than the last guy that got torn up. And then you talk about it with all your friends. Makes me fu-"
A scream, somewhere in the residential quarters outside of the common room. The three, along with assorted other idlers and busy-bodies, rushed over to the scene.
They'd already got the body covered in a blanket. It'd been thirty seconds since the body had been found, but the rumor mill was already in full swing:
"Suicide."
"Slit his wrists with a knife he stole from the kitchens." And then, pantomimed the action: "Just. Like. This."
"Guy was an attorney or accountant, or something. Name was Something Neston, I think. Quiet, kept to himself."
The first Security Officer to arrive shuffled through the deceased's meager possessions. A few books, photographs, cell phone, assorted files of no clear importance, and, finally, an ID.
"Randall Weston, Clearance Level 1. Accounting Department, Site 45," he quietly repeated from the card. Photograph on the card matched the corpse.
The officer looked, reluctantly, at the area around the body. There, at the foot of the bed, a piece of notebook paper, just slightly stained with blood.
He picked it up, and read it.
"I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore. There is no way I can fit another tank into this budget, and not a chance in hell I'll be able to replace two fighter jets in addition to that! And that's not even counting the fact that my superiors decided not to account for food or the fact that gas costs-"
It went on like that for quite a while. He skipped a paragraph, picked it up again somewhere in the middle of the next.
"-do you expect me to find 300 sniper rifles? Nobody has a few hundred M24s collecting dust in their att-"
He flipped to the next page.
"-pay the maintenance workers with the $4.23 we'd have left after that fiasco. It's a good thing we all shit pure gold, or we'd really have to worry-"
Looked at the next paragraph.
"-one bit of good news at least. The $300 that was allotted for heating leads me to believe that we have perfected time travel, and are now in 1925, when it would be possible to heat the facility for that price. I'd advise you have our lawyers work on patenting that, but they're going to have to work pro bono because we can't afford to keep them on retainer-"
The officer gave up, went to the last couple of sentences.
"I will the remainder of my earthly possessions to my sister. I'd ask for a proper Christian burial, but I just took a look at the amount of money assigned to corpse disposal.
- Randall Weston"
Eventually, the Site Director came down. This didn't really concern him, but he needed to keep up appearances. The Security Officer handed Weston's ID to the Director before he could even ask.
The Director eyed it, and scowled. "Fifth fucking accountant this month."


"I still think this is a terrible idea."
"No, it's awesome! Like, deconstructive or whatever."
Overgang and Joey stared at the enormous red bauble that towered over nearby buildings, pensively sipping eggnog. It had several hundred minuscule trees hanging off the side of it. Overgang posed a question.
"So, it's an hour and ten to midnight. What happens when it's Christmas?"
"Presents happen."
"Presents happen?"
"Presents happen. Everywhere."
"Elaborate."
"It literally causes Christmas miracles."
"Elaborate more."
"Sick children will walk, Tiny Tim will get his presents, Scrooge will see the light. The town will be filled with cheer and goodwill, children will run downstairs only to see Santa Claus pop up the chimney. Rich people will let beggars into their houses, every church bell will ring twelve times. A cranky old man will smile for the first time in twenty years. Kids will ice skate while laughing happily, and be joined by their otherwise dismissive parents. Snow shall fall down, leaving beautiful white fields by morning. John McClane and Hans Gruber shall fight a war of wills, little Macaulay Culkin will fight off a pair of thieves. The Grinch's heart will grow three sizes, and Charlie Brown's sad little tree will get the love it deserves. Peace on earth, goodwill to man. The perfect Christmas."
"Well, that sounds lovely, if a bit boring."
"And of course, since Christmas is about the little baby Jesus and the mother Mary, every virginal female in the city will spontaneously give birth, whereupon the newborn is promptly crushed by a pile of gold, frankincense, and myrrh."
"That's more like it."