Samson Center for Psychological Studies
October 32nd
Cassandra Pike had been in the SCP for as long as she could remember. She was sick, they all said so. She was crazy. She never took her pills, never was good for anything. That's what the doctors told her.
The SCP was a monolith of a building, a monument. The ceilings were higher than any human could possibly reach, but that was all right— the nursing staff wasn't human. And they always made sure that she took her medication on time, even if that medication always looked like M&Ms.
Some part of her knew this was wrong, that endlessly watching the same episode of Pinky and the Brain in the common area wasn't what she should be doing. She was smarter than this. She should be… should be doing what? What, exactly?
"Having thoughts again, Cassandra?"
She stiffened. "N-no, Dr. Daniel."
"Good. Would hate for you to have another lobotomy. I dare say that there's barely any brain left after the first dozen, and you're my favorite patient."
"Y-yes Dr. Daniel." She swallowed. She didn't belong here— but that was her delusions talking.
She thought she had a husband, friends, played a fictional game called "Dungeons and Dragons" with them in a state called "Wisconsin"— what a comical name. None of it was real, she was sure of that now. But those delusions she could live with knowing weren't real.
She had the trouble grasping the idea that she'd never actually had a child.

Site-87 Sublevel 3
Personal Quarters of the Pike-Mattings Family
"Pregnant?!" Katherine Sinclair's jaw dropped, her concentration along with it— the energy of the spell faded, and her red hair fell around her face. "Dammit, why didn't you say so before?!"
Montgomery Reynolds ground his teeth, an action that Claude thought looked somewhat ridiculous when contrasted with Reynolds's dreadlocks. "We could seriously have endangered her and her child with this ritual. This is why we ask for full disclosure!"
Claude Mattings winced, rubbing his arm. Though Reynolds had gotten considerably thinner in the last year (at Sinclair's behest no doubt), he still towered over Claude by a head and a half. "I— look, she was in trouble, and you were the first ones I thought to call. You were busy getting set up, and—"
"Lucky we didn't draw blood." Sinclair nodded at Monty, who placed the lancet back into his pocket. "We're going to have to try a different tack, then."
Claude Mattings looked at his wife as Reynolds stepped away. She was hovering half a foot off the ground, experiencing some kind of seizure, turning over in the air. Vomit stained the floor beneath her from the rotations she had been doing, and her hair kept falling over her face and into her mouth.
"How far along is she?" Sinclair asked, reaching into her bag.
"Three… maybe four weeks? She just had a positive test. I— I was ordering pizza to celebrate when this started." Claude rubbed at his face.
"Were you experiencing any fear or anxiety at the time?" Reynolds produced several pieces of rope, using them to anchor Cassandra and arrest her rotation.
"N-no, just… well, I was anxious about what would happen, what we would have to do. V-various procedures we'd have to go through, declaring the pregnancy, ultrasound, mental competence evaluation…" He sighed. "Look, you've been playing D&D with her for years, now. You know she has… episodes. I was worried about that."
"Could be what triggered it," Sinclair agreed. "We're going to have to make a new circle. Mattings, you're on chalk duty again."
A large part of the floor space in their quarters had been cleared. Sinclair and Reynolds had set up arcane totems, sigils, and symbols in addition to incense burning around the apartment, all attempting to ward off dozens of evil entities, all or none of which might be assailing his wife.
"Is there anything else I can do to help?"
"Secure everything sharper than a Q-Tip. I saw a man get lobotomized by a toothpick once while doing one of these." Sinclair knelt by Cassandra. "And… a large part of this is going to be in her mind. Depending on what hold this thing has, she… she could be in a lot of pain. She could simply not want to leave, or not think it's an option. After you're done with the sharp stuff, come over here in the circle."
"Right." Claude went into the kitchen and began locking the drawers; standard issue in Foundation apartments, for situations such as this. "Sinclair, I— I don't know what I'm going to do if she—"
"She won't." Sinclair tidied her hair and began looking through her tome once more. "All right, now that we know that's a thing… Monty, there's a ceremonial torch in the bag. Closest thing we have to a symbol to Eilethyia, and we need all the protection we can get here."

Cassandra Pike shoveled Jell-O into her mouth. It was green, the only color they had available, and awful. It was also the only thing she remembered eating anymore, the one bit of light on an otherwise dour October day. What was today— the 42st? The 43nd? Something like that.
She never saw anyone else in the asylum, other than herself and Dr. Daniel. Surely they must exist. Nobody would build a place this big and just put two people in it, it would be a waste of time and money. Then again, that's what she was: a waste. Or so Dr. Daniel told her.
"Cassandra." Dr. Daniel came up behind her. "It's time for another test. Are you ready?"
"Let me finish my Jell-O first?"
"Of course."
She polished it off, and let herself be wheeled down the endless halls, to another new room, down a long hallway stained with blood. She swore she saw a woman curled up in the corner, and glaring at her out of dirt-covered windows, Above, vaguely humanoid forms looked down at her through grating, and—
"W-wait…" She frowned. "I… I've seen this."
"What are you talking about?" Dr. Daniel frowned. "You've never been in this room."
She shook her head. "J… Jacob's Ladder. Film from the 90's. Kept me up at night after s-seeing it."
"Movies? What are movies?"
"They…" She frowned. "Nevermind."
She was placed onto a table, screws applied to her head. It was painful, but it was necessary. "So what if the last 5,923 treatments didn't work?" Dr. Daniel asked, letting the screws dig themselves in. "Nevermind that most patients only take two or three. But that's what makes you my favorite, Cassandra."
She winced, tears coming from her eyes as the screws penetrated bone, finding empty space on the other side. For a moment, she felt pressure on her stomach, and heard something that sounded like a meow.

"…did she just meow?" Reynolds looked up from his prayer, both eyebrows raised.
Another meow came from Cassandra Pike's mouth, a sound that improbably echoed throughout the apartment. Several more came; they were curious sounds, searching, pondering, trying to find their way.
"Sinclair." Claude glowered at her. "If my wife turns into a cat, I'm going to burn all of your Harry Potter stuff."
"About a month too late for that." Sinclair scratched her head. "This ritual is meant to bolster mental defenses in order to drive out the invading force. Maybe the meowing is a manifestation of that?"
"But why a cat? A— a tiger or even a dog would be more useful."
"Does she particularly like dogs?" Reynolds asked, resuming his chant.
"…I don't know." Claude ran his fingers through his wife's hair. "Cass, come on… come back to me, from wherever you are."

The same episode of Pinky and the Brain played again. Cassandra laughed at the exact same times, with the exact same snort on the end of her laugh that always made her husband—
Right, she didn't have a husband. Or a child. Those were all just delusions, according to Dr. Daniel. And why not trust the doctor? It was so much easier than the alternative. The operations hurt less if you trusted Dr. Daniel— she learned that on her first day here.
As she was laughing at Pinky's exact same cry of "Narf" for the dozenth time, the channel changed. It wasn't supposed to do that— Dr. Daniel had removed the batteries from the remote control and put them in her skull three months ago. It was some kind of nature program, displaying a pair of Birds of Paradise doing their courtship ritual.
It changed again. Some history documentary, talking about strange towns in Wisconsin— Dr. Daniel was right, it was an absurd name for a state, not like…
Like…
She didn't know the names of any states. How? She was from one, wasn't she? She was American. She had to know something. What was this?
The channel changed again. A soap opera, featuring… herself. And a man who was tall, thin, had a wispy beard and looked very sarcastic. They were both dubbed over in Spanish, and seemed to argue for several minutes, before messily kissing each other.
"What the hell is going on?" Cassandra tried to stand, but the wheelchair kept her bound in place. "What— what is this?" Who's doing that?"
In answer, there was a meow, and a grey tortoiseshell cat came into her view. He had two pieces of white fur on him: one that ran the length of his belly, and a white bib beneath his neck. He looked up at her and meowed again, before clawing at her leg— just like he used to.
"O-Oliver?" Cassandra swallowed. "W-what— where am I? What is this? Wh-where— where's Claude? What's going on? Where—"
"Ah, Cassandra, there you are."
Dr. Daniel's voice sounded, and Oliver scampered away. Cassandra reached out a hand to him, feebly.
"Hum. Seems we have a pest problem. No matter, are you ready for your treatment? Today we're going to be attempting a hippocampectomy— do you know what a hippocampus is?"
"I can't say that I remember."
A pause from Dr. Daniel, and then a laugh. "Was that a joke? Maybe you are improving! Your state has been so dour, lately. Soon you may not need any more treatments."
Cassandra ground her teeth together, clutching at the armrests of her wheelchair.

It was as Sinclair was re-kindling the incense left in the kitchen that she came upon Pike's cellphone, which was in a dark blue and very durable case. She frowned, looking it over. "…what's your wife's PIN for her phone?"
"6321." He chewed his lip. "Her great-grandmother's birthday. I only know it so that—"
"Not the time." Sinclair keyed in the PIN, and found herself looking at a list of regulations for female personnel regarding pregnancies; specifically, a section on what would happen if a parent was found 'mentally incompetent'. "Oh hell."
"What?"
"Has…" Sinclair pinched her nose. "Has she had any of her 'episodes' lately, Mattings?"
"No. She's been keeping up with her medications. I make sure every night, and she has three different pill alarms on that phone."
Sinclair tapped on the phone, her face falling. "Medications which she can't take."
"What?" Claude stood, almost breaking the circle. "What do you mean?"
"A lot of antipsychotics haven't been tested on pregnant individuals." Sinclair opened the pill alarm app, and compared it with a webpage that had been opened by Pike. "And… she's on two that are untested, and listed as 'of concern'."
"Is that it?" Claude swallowed. "S— she was afraid of not being able to keep the baby? Because she'd have to choose between medications and…" He looked down at his wife, and ran his fingers through her hair. "Oh, Cassie…"
She didn't respond, except to foam at the mouth, and let out another odd meowing sound.

"This will probably be the last lobotomy you ever need," Dr. Daniel said with a smile in his voice. "Honestly, it shouldn't have taken this long for them to work. Your brain's a pesky little thing, you don't need it anymore."
"Mnnn…" Pike squirmed against her restraints. "A-and what if I don't… don't want it?"
"You signed away your right to consent when you came in here." Dr. Daniel shrugged.
"And… when did I come in here?" Her hands clenched the armrests of her wheelchair. "I don't remember being checked in."
"Of course you don't! Your chronic amnesia is part of the reason you're in here."
"I don't have amnesia," she said. "I remember quite a bit. For instance… earlier, I talked about a film called Jacob's Ladder. You said it was a movie. I never used that word before."
There was a long pause, and a clattering of tools against metal, and then the floor. Though Cassandra couldn't see it, she was fairly sure Dr. Daniel— whatever he was— had just flipped a table. "It's always something with you fuckers! Why can't you just roll over and be afraid?!"
Cassandra chuckled, a grey cat suddenly appearing in her lap and starting to claw at her restraints. "I've had my femur broken and felt a bone splinter travel through my body. My husband was once replaced by some kind of narrative body snatcher in the shape of a sloth. I've been scared shitless that he's been going to leave me for years because of my mental issues." The image of the cat tore through the restraints, leaving some soft scratch marks on her skin. "This asylum shit would barely fly at one of those haunted houses in Duluth. You are actively bad at this."
She stood from her wheelchair, only to find herself back on the floor. She spoke too soon— her mind had registered her as being in the wheelchair for so long that she couldn't feel her legs.
"Well." Dr. Daniel loomed over her. "If you're not afraid of me, then maybe I can fulfill your husband's fear of losing you and your child." Pike felt a straight razor at her neck.
"Ollie!" She called to her cat. "Sic 'im!"
There was a yeowling sound, and a streak of grey flashed in at Dr. Daniel. There was a series of unearthly screams as flesh was torn from… she wasn't sure it even had bone, whatever it was. But she crawled away from it, eventually able to stand. "Gotta… gotta get out of here…"
She hobbled through the hallways, as Dr. Daniel kept screaming, as light washed over her being.

"Should that be happening?" Claude's eyes widened as something started pouring out of his wife's forehead— a strange, inky smoke that seemed to fill the circle around her. "W-what's going on, Sinclair?"
"Whatever's in her is being evicted." She frowned. "Don't breathe it in."
Claude nodded, scooting back towards the edge of the circle, careful not to break it. "Is— is that a good thing?"
"Generally? No." Reynolds stood at the edge of the circle and looked at it. "But during an exorcism like this? Yes. Draw another circle on her forehead, see if you can't contain it."
Claude felt in his pocket, finding a ballpoint pen. He held his breath, starting to draw another circle on Cassandra's forehead. About halfway through, the smoke lunged at him, letting out a screaming sound.
Claude stumbled backwards, with Sinclair and Reynolds barely getting a chance to yell "NO!" before his foot crossed the threshold of the circle. Reynolds caught him as the circle shattered, and the black smoke grew to fill the room, before flying up through the ventilation shaft.
Cassandra Pike sat bolt upright with a soft scream, feeling her stomach. "A-am I—" She looked down. "Am I still-"
"Mattings…" Reynolds stood him upright and rubbed at his face. "You just released a phobic entity onto the whole town, one that has been inside the head of your wife. The amount of damage it could cause is imme—"
At this, Cassandra Pike let out a long, loud laugh. "That thing's about as scary as Season 9 of X-Files." She stood, feeling her stomach, leaning on Claude for support. "Actually t-tried to scare me with a fucking spooky asylum in my head. It… was unsettling, but… cliche."
Sinclair frowned. "It… doesn't seem to be capable of creating overly-complex manifestations, now that you mention it." She looked up into the vent. "February's was brutal, but at the same time, it was simple."
"Tofflemire described Hastings's vision as being like a cheap haunted house." Reynolds frowned. "And… hmm. It's brute-forcing itself through fear. It's like if someone showed up in a Dracula costume in broad daylight and jumped out at you from behind a bush."
Claude held up his wife, guiding her to the couch. "Meaning what?"
"Essentially?" Sinclair shrugged. "It's fairly harmless. Probably something the town cooked up, fueled by anxiety of the modern age, but unable to really properly act on it." She snickered. "Wouldn't be surprised if the Goatman and company beat it about the head before it even got to the Site."
Cassandra rubbed at her eyes. "Mmm… You ever order that pizza, hon?"
"I can get it done now." Claude smiled, kissed his wife, and took out his phone, looking at Sinclair and Reynolds. "If you'd like to stay, the place we're ordering from can do their toppings in quarters instead of halves. Could make it a double date."
Sinclair looked at the floor of the apartment, and took out her credit card. "I'll pay. Least we can do for making your place smell like essential oils for a week. Monty and I both like pineapple, but he's a monster and takes it with anchovies."
"It's sweet and salty!" Reynolds yelled from the other room.
"So's ham and pineapple!"

Uncle Mike's Pizzeria was established in Sloth's Pit in 1973, just a few years before the S & C Plastics People came into town. Since then, business had boomed, in part because every other pizza chain had been driven out due to 'potential highly destructive catastrophes caused by the 'thirty minutes or it's free' policy' of the 1980's. Uncle Mike's pizza took a while, but it was all the better for it. The Plastics People were their favorite customers, in part because they tipped like they could print money.
Which, Edward Valentine, his former job eliminated by COVID, was at least looking forward to this as he loaded a large Pineapple, Ham, Anchovy, Pepperoni and Mushroom pizza, a two-liter of coke, and three boxes of breadsticks into his car, beginning the drive down Main Street.
It was at the corner of Main and Harmon that he noticed something was wrong— people were running from a horde of zombies. Any other year, this wouldn't be unusual; just the annual Zombie Walk, where people dressed up as the undead for the sake of the Chamber of Commerce. But these zombies were fast, rotting, and some were even decapitated. They didn't wait for the light, either.
At the next intersection, he saw children running away from a clown straight out of a John Wayne Gacy painting, their mother standing in front of them for protection, driving a heel into its gut; it broke through the clown like tissue paper, coming out the other side. She pulled her foot free, sans heel, and ushered her kids into a minivan.
Another street down, right in front of the town hall, something that looked like a protest was happening. It was almost on fire with its heat and anger, but the people looked unreal, with hairstyles from the 2010s mixed with powdered wigs from the 1700s and 50's style beehives. The signs that they held were complete nonsense, with slogans like "Support and Deny Proposition 2Z3: Illegalize Breathing!", "End face-wearing now!" and "This Sign Does Not Say Anything". Someone peeked out of the door of the town hall, and they rushed in, a screaming flood.
He floored it up to Plastics Circle, where two men and two women stood, looking down at the town, flabbergasted. A tall man with dark skin and dreadlocks accepted the pizza. "Uh… doesn't this… faze you at all? What's happening in the town?"
"Honestly?" Edward looked back down at the city. "I thought it was getting a little too quiet."

« Nobody Prays for February| Black Autumn IV Hub| The Taking of Dr. Sinclair »

Interlude: Basileophobia»


Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
January 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Simurgh milk is known to have tremendous healing properties!
Welcome to the first Chaz's Corner of the new year, guys! It's been a busy month for us, and I'm sure everyone's respective Ambrose Restaurants™ franchises have been equally busy dealing with the holiday season. As we start 2015, I'm excited to announce a number of changes to company policy to bring us in line with changing regulations and allow us to satisfy more hungry stomachs than ever. Nothing major and they'll all be announced in the newsletter later, but the curious among you can check the Policy_Additions_2015.docx.
I'm also excited to announce the grand opening of Ambrose Eurtec! Carrying a flagship line of high-tech science-fiction foods, the Eurtec locations is sure to be a delight for our android, cyborg, and bionic customers. Check it out at ambroseurtec.void.
We're planning big things later in the winter so stay tuned, and stay tasty!
Cheers,
Chef Chaz Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
February 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Many Fae recipes call for "dragon's tears" - you can actually use any lizard's bodily fluids!
Welcome back to my little Corner! I've got some fun news for you guys this time. But first, let's get the boring business out of the way: some of you may be aware that we reached a settlement with Wilson's Wildlife Solutions earlier this month. The details of the case (including the amount settled) remain confidential, so we'd ask that nobody start probing their manager with questions. We have a legal department for that.
And now, the fun part — Ambrose is coming to the small screen! A syndicated show in the Three Portlands area on the Food and Alchemy Network some of you may be familiar with, Undercover Lord, will be airing an episode starring me next week! I'm not supposed to tell you guys this yet, but I'll be undercover as a fresh line cook, so behave as you would normally! I'm excited to see what it's like back on the front lines.
Warmest regards,
— Chef Chaz

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
March 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Unicorn tears.
I'm really disappointed, guys.
We filmed the episode of Undercover Lord and I am just shocked. Stunned, in pure disbelief. We visited three different Ambrose Restaurants™ locations and were met with the same sight. Appallingly rude and unbecoming behaviour from servers, disgusting and unclean kitchens, and more than anything, a complete and utter lack of passion and feeling from anyone there.
I won't mention what locations for their sake, but I'm frankly shaken if this is the standard of behaviour for all Ambrose Restaurants locations. I realize I've been cooped up at corporate for a long time, but the businesses I saw last week are not the same business I founded twenty-six years ago. And I know it's not just me, because the reviews online agree with me (scathing and poorly-written as they may be).
It's a crushing set of affairs when the entirety of Ambrose Restaurants can be described as "flavorless."
— Chef Chaz

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
April 2015 Edition
Food Fact: In addition to the four mundane types of chocolate, there are two anomalous kinds: emerald and sapphire!
I'll be honest: I'm not really sure what's been going on this month with Ambrose as a brand. I decided to exercise my vacation days and take some time for myself. I went on a vacation, jet setting all over the world, eating good food and thinking about the future of the company. I've had over sixty different meals over the past two weeks.
It should have been obvious from my last email that we would need to make some changes as a whole. I think I've got a good handle on what those changes might look like now, but it'll take some effort to get through them. But the end result will be good food, getting us closer to what this brand is at heart. It might take some hard work, but nothing worth doing ever comes easy.
Stay tuned. The day of redemption will come.
Chaz.

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
May 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Your skin color isn't what defines you!
Friends, I'll level with you. We've gotten some troubling reports here at Ambrose HQ. Accusations of discriminatory hiring policies, that we don't source our meat ethically, that we somehow lack morals. While these are no doubt the work of envious or uninformed defamers, I feel it's prudent that I, personally, acknowledge them.
I promise you this. I will never decide to hire someone based on their race, gender, sex, or anything else. Because Ambrose has been an industry leader for a decade, and we've picked up a few things along the way. Chief among them this:
Your skin color does not matter. We all taste the same inside.
XOXOXO,
Chaz Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
June 2015 Edition
Food Fact: The human body can process a lot more than you think it can!
All over the world, there's different kinds of food that people eat on a regular basis that a lot of people in the western world would never even consider for a moment as a meal. Can you imagine how limiting that must be? To shut yourself off from all sorts of new culinary experiences just because of some preconceived notions about what food is supposed to be?
For instance, humans have been eating insects for thousands of years, before we even knew how to farm. There are over 2,000 species of edible insects worldwide. All over the world, people eat bugs! And yet, the Western world only reacts with disgust about the process.
This is why one of the driving beliefs of Ambrose as an institution is keeping our taste portfolios open to just about anything, and making sure we're never close minded. Our test kitchen is constantly trying new ingredients, recipes and everything to make sure we can provide the best menus possible.
Personally, I just find it always fascinating to hear what other cultures eat.
Sincerely,
Chaz Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
July 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Cannibalism has a long and storied history in many global cultures!
Best,
Chaz Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
August 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Death by forced overeating was a common punishment in the Ancient Daevite Empire!
Just got back from a productive meeting with good-ol-Marius. That guy's been with the company longer than almost anybody else! He was one of the original founding members of the Board, and he's still on it today. I was thinking about why that might be earlier today, actually!
You see, back when this company was first getting started, Marius came to me and said that we were losing money on a lot of our new projects. The way things were going, it didn't seem like we had much of a future going forward. He told me we had a few months to go. I nodded and listened, then I grabbed the gun I kept under my desk and pulled it out.
I told him in various simple terms that he could either figure it out or I would shoot him in the balls. He nodded and told me that wasn't necessary, he could solve it.
And he did! He's been working for us ever since and he's a big part of the reason why this company is still standing!
Y'all have a good one,
— Ambrose!

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
September 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Human blood can be used as a substitute for eggs when cooking!
I had a meeting with the rest of the Board today to discuss the new direction I want to take the company in. It lasted a few hours, and although there was some resistance to a lot of the ideas that I wanted to implement, I think that we were able to find a solution that worked for everyone for the most part.
So we should hope to have a lot of changes coming up over the next few months. I can't talk about any of them publicly just yet, but I'm very excited for them all and can't wait to share them with the rest of the company. Keep your eyes peeled and your ears open for new and exciting business ventures from the company. We'll be adding a few new locations and making some updates to the older ones going forward!
Finally, I ask you to observe a moment of silence in loving memory of Julia Beard and Vincente Fanucci, who both tragically passed away in the middle of today's Board meeting. They were some of the best people I knew, and they will certainly be missed.
Remember, people who love to eat are always the best people to eat.
— Chef Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
October 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Hydrogen peroxide is used in professional kitchens to get rid of animal blood, but it works on human blood too!
Hey friends!
I'm sorry this one's gonna be a little short I don't have a lot of time right now plus it's cold so typing is hard. Been looking for prized and exotic meats in the Arctic and I finally found something really special but I guess the game out here bites back haha. I lugged the carcasses back to base camp thank God for the internet connection here
I'm gonna be flying back in to headquarters soon and have a meeting with the board or what's left of them haha. We're planning on rolling out entirely internally sourced meat supplies that are totally vetted and ethical. So we're gonna be shipping out crates of cuts and flash-frozen meats but our legal policies prevent us from divulging sources just yet so don't try to ask where they came from haha. All the testers even said they tasted like pork
Anyway I gotta go now, the HVAC on this base is sort of cut so I need to fix that before the meat goes bad. These Arctic guys have spent months working in the cold which makes the meat gamey and tough and I don't want them to go to waste
TTYL
Chaz
Sent from my iPhone

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
November 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Did you know that the tongue is the tastiest organ in your body?
First on the list of things to talk about: a big congratulations to Mr. Marius What's-His-Face! With my timely murder of Armand Merced, the third-to-last remaining original founding member of the Ambrose Restaurants Board, Mr. Fuck-Me-What's-His-Name has been promoted to the Co-Chairman of the Board, right alongside me! I'll be looking forward to working with him in the future!
Speaking of Marius Oh-Its-Right-On-The-Tip-Of-My-Tongue, it's a shame that he tastes so bad! Its really one of the biggest things preventing me from terminating his contract right now! I just can't stomach the taste of him (I've been checking every day for the past few weeks), and I doubt that I could even get a bite of the guy down, so here we are!
In any case, you'll be happy to hear that we've made the decision to expand our clientele base to non-human customers. This has been a change a long time in the making, since their food palette is dramatically different from our own. The first of the restaurants we plan on opening is Ambrose Transylvania, a combination hotel and world-class eatery, specifically tailored to vampires! Keep tuned for more updates on similar locations! We've got plans for lycans, ghosts and even thought devourers!
I promise you this: this time next year, you'll all be working, living, and eaten in a whole new Ambrose Restaurants.
Ciao,
Chaz Ambrose

Dear Valued Ambrose Restaurant Family Members,
December 2015 Edition
Food Fact: Consuming human brains can lead to Kuru, but not if you're very careful!
Doing surprise restaurant inspections. See you soon :)


"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if it turned out that, tomorrow, you woke up, and all the grass was purple, what would you do?"
"I think that's pretty ridiculous. That will never happen."
"That's why I'm asking. What if it did."
I wasn't expecting to go on a date like this. Sammie was losing her mind right in front of my eyes.
"Well, if it did, I would have to rationalize it. I'd figure out a way to do that."
"You're not getting it."
"What am I not getting?"
"Well what if the next day you could walk on the sky. And what if the day after that everyone's names changed. That's what I mean. What if there's no possible way for you to rationalize all these things. What if things don't make sense?"
"Uhh," I figured my two emotional options were confusion or condescension, and the first was more socially acceptable. "I don't know."
She made a motion with her hands as if that was what she was getting at. "Right!"
She left it there. Suddenly, I could hear the few other people in the IHOP, talking over breakfast for late dinner and coffee at an unreasonable hour. We weren't quite in a windowside booth, but I found myself looking out the window over her shoulders anyways. In a way to look… maybe engaged, but still avoiding eye contact. I knew I couldn't make the right expression if I looked at her straight on.
"Okay…"
"That's it. You wouldn't know what to do, your worldview would be broken, you wouldn't be able to tell what's important and what's not. That's what."
"I feel like you're trying to get at something."
"You're not understanding me."
I made a frustrated wave of my arm, but cut it short. That was the talking down about to take over, and I knew I couldn't do that. "Okay. I'm sorry, I'm trying. It's difficult, because I think humans are great at making sense of things. Even things that don't at first make sense."
She seemed to pause, and look at me like she was expecting more.
"Umm, like, if all the grass turned purple. Well, it would be startling at first, but I'd know that someone knew. Really, that's the long and short of it. There's always going to be someone who knows. And if you can really hold on to that, everything sorta… falls into place."
She was shaking her head before I was done. "What if no one knows."
"God knows."
"What if God doesn't know?"
That made me purse my lips in a way I knew was condescending.
"No," she responded, "no, you don't get to make that face at me, I'm asking what if. What if. What if they didn't. You, you don't get where I'm coming from, because you have a failsafe. What if you don't have failsafes?"
I was already frittering away in my brain, down pathways towards what I thought would be the best way to get her into a hospital, or at least into the care of a sane, stable adult.
"You weren't the person to talk to."
"Sammie —"
"You don't understand me. You won't ever understand me, because you think that when you die, you go to a magical place where everything is going to be okay, and I'm pretty sure that this is all there is, and if this is all there is, it's, it's, it's really bleak!"
"Well, if you die how you think you die, then won't you not feel it anyways?"
"That's not what I'm talking about!" She slapped her hands down on the table, maybe a bit harder than she expected to, because it looked like she startled herself. She slowly lowered her hands into her lap. Quieter: "I mean that, if, if this is all there is, if there's not some endless happiness at the end of everything, then that means that the real end is when everything is gone and dies, and nothing ever happens again, and that means there's no guarantee that things will get better — not, not just for me, I mean for everyone, I mean for the whole human race, and that's when — that's, that's when…"
She trailed off, her lips curled like she was about to cry.
Fuck, now was not the time.
"Um, do…" I looked around at all the other IHOP patrons. "Do you want to leave? Maybe go somewhere more private?"
She swallowed. "We haven't even ordered."
"That's alright. I'm not hungry."
She thought for a second, and then started nodding.
Okay, I thought, okay, I can do this.
We went outside, into the big parking lot, where the moon was bright and the stars were few because downtown was teeming with nightlife. She leaned into me so hard I had to actually fight to keep my balance. It didn't help that she was just the slightest bit taller than me.
"What if," she started, calmer than she was before, "you had reason to disbelieve in any type of order you thought existed. Forget God, I'm sorry. I just mean anything. I mean that if you couldn't connect point a to point b, you'd stop being able to interpret your surroundings, and your world would stop making sense. What if you were completely incapable of finding patterns in anything. That's what I mean."
We got to my car, which was parked next to a small tree just inside the curb. We sat next to my car, looking at the tree, beyond which was a hill that went down into the rest of the hillside town, where all the other buildings and lights were, and where a freeway was with cars coming over the crest of another hill, looking like ants following orderly lines to and from their nest. There was no opportunity to pull out my phone and contact someone. I was waiting for the moment.
"I don't know."
"I mean, if you couldn't do that, then how would you know, right, how would you know if anything you were doing was good, or bad, or if anything mattered, for that matter. How would you know you're on the right track."
I held my tongue. Maybe if I stopped talking, she would stop talking.
"That's what I mean," she said again. "That's what I mean."
We sat there. She leaned on me. This was more what I was expecting, except I had no way to interface with her. I was completely at a loss for what the most appropriate next step was. I couldn't figure out what was going on, or how to help her. She seemed to be doing better, but she was blinking a lot, and her eyes were going from one thing to the next so frequently I thought she might make herself dizzy. It was uncomfortable. I wasn't having a good time but I wasn't about to leave her.
"What if I told you that I can turn the grass purple, and I could walk on the sky, and I could change your name, or my name for that matter. What if I told you I could open walls like doors, and pull off my head and put it back on."
I took a big breath. I needed to call 911, but I didn't know the right moment. I needed to get her to a hospital. Something was happening and it wasn't good, and I needed to either call her parents or 911. That's all I could think about.
"Can you?"
She didn't respond for a moment. "I don't think I can tell you."
"Can you show me?"
She shook her head, which massaged the crook of my shoulder. "I don't think I can do that either."
"If you can't tell me, or show me, then can you be sure?"
While I waited for a response, I watched the cars go up and down the hill, to and from the town.
She sat up.
"I can't be sure of anything."
I thought that was my opening. "Sammie, I'm going to say something and I need you to take me seriously."
"Okay."
"I'm not a psychologist, but —"
"No."
"Sammie, hear me out."
"I'm not crazy."
"I'm not saying you're crazy."
"You're saying I'm hallucinating, or, or schizophrenic. I'm none of those things. I'm me."
"Sammie, we've known each other for two years. You've never acted this way. No one has ever told me a story about you acting this way. Something's changed, and this is… I think you need to see a doctor."
She stood up, and backed away a step or two. "No."
"Okay."
She turned her head slightly away, but maintained eye contact. "Okay?"
"Yes. I… I trust you."
That was a lie, but I needed her to believe it.
She didn't come sit back down with me.
"Junior, I think I love you."
Oh. Fuck, okay. What?
"A-are you sure?"
"And that's why I have to go. If you trust me, you'll understand."
I stood up. "No."
"Don't follow me. I don't think we're going to see each other again."
"Are we… not going on another date?"
"No, I mean… I don't think we're going to see each other again."
For the first time, I felt some kind of pressure in my chest. "What?"
"That's why I needed to tell you I love you. I don't know if it's real love, or a crush, or, or what it is but I've never felt as strongly about anyone as I have about you, and I, I think that means I should say I love you. That's what everyone else does, but, I can't be sure. I can't be sure of anything anymore."
"You're saying that a lot —"
"So goodbye."
She turned and ran. Just like that, she was shooting away, not towards any specific destination I could tell, but just away.
"Sammie!" I yelled after her. Shit, shit, what the fuck, shit. I was running too. Foot after foot on the asphalt, ducking between parked cars. "Sammie!"
She was so much faster than I expected. I'd fucked it up. I didn't know how to interact here, and I fucked it up. I pushed her away. All I could think was that if I didn't catch up to her, it was going to be a search party.
But then I turned a corner, and I couldn't find her.
And all my suspicions were confirmed.

It was late that same night. I was on my front porch, wrapped in a blanket, and my mom was talking to the police. It was after midnight. The sky was black, the trees were blacker, and the only light came from the headlights of the cars. Mom was corroborating my story. I'd already said everything to the police. So much rigor. So many questions.
At some point, they left. Mom came back up the porch and sat down beside me on the swinging bench. She put a hand on my back and rubbed with a circular motion. I took the opportunity to sidle closer.
"You did everything you could," Mom said.
I nodded. I knew it, intellectually I knew it, but I couldn't feel it.
"Besides, as soon as she was out of your sight, you called. She can't have gotten far. You did everything you could."
I didn't know why, but I just knew that they wouldn't find her. I could feel it, deep within my heart, that Sammie was gone. That she was right. That I was never going to see her again.
I didn't get it.
It didn't make any sense.
We sat there, in the darkness, listening to crickets and the muffled TV from my neighbor's house. Muffled vocal tones, insect song, and the occasional hint of a chipmunk were all we could hear. My breaths were deep. My eyes were wide open.
"Are you going to come inside?"
I shook my head, which massaged the crook of Mom's shoulder. "I don't think I can."
"I can stay out here with you."
"You don't have to."
But she did.
At some point, though I can't know when, I fell asleep. I don't remember my dreams, but I remember being restless. I remember seeing Sammie's face, I remember reliving our conversation over and over and over again. I remember seeing her walk into that IHOP, sweat sheening her forehead, knowing something was wrong instantly. I remember her seeing me and having no warmth in her face. No greeting. No recognition.
I should've taken a bathroom break, and called an ambulance. I think I should have, anyways. That was what I was thinking about, when I fell asleep. That I should have called someone. That I should have called anyone.
What if things don't make sense?
I woke up the next morning. Mom had left at some point. I was lying on the bench all alone. My back hurt like hell. I was cold, because the blanket had fallen off of me. I groaned, and rolled over. The morning was awful. That meant all the more hours had passed, and no one knew where she was.
At some point, I convinced myself to sit up. I stretched, I breathed the fresh air. I heard the birds calling, I heard the TV still. I opened my eyes to my street, to my neighborhood, to my world.
But when I looked at the lawn, the grass was purple.


Jan Matham had always been fascinated by omens: portentous signs of an inhuman, divine will, glimpsed by the observant in the movements of celestial bodies and oil in water, expressed through lamb entrails and monstrous births. He didn't believe in them though, obviously - or so he told himself. In spite of that there was more to his curiosity than he had fully come to terms with. A suspicion lurked behind his academic, rational exploration of these phenomena, whispering "what if it's real, what if there's something here that's real?"

The buzzing of his phone jostled him awake. By the time his mind made sense of the interruption, the ringing had stopped, and a single message popup illuminate the dark room: "Jan, you're going to want to see this." A URL link followed, sent by a friend in a different time zone. It only took him a heartbeat to wake up fully once the webpage loaded.
Skipping breakfast and barely dressed, he careened out the door, cursing and patting his jacket pockets for the bike keys, back inside, then out and on the bike. His steering was erratic down the narrow, poorly lit road, as he read the not-yet-broken news. He hadn't entered a destination into the map yet, but that could wait. He knew he was heading West as the first ray of sun began to creep overhead.

It had always been easy to pass his own forays into divination - not fortune telling, as he would happily clarify - as nothing more than casual, first-person research, a way to connect with those authors of Babylonian tablets and Reformation-era broadsheets. Doctoral candidates need some ways to relax, after all, and he had never flooded the kitchen attempting to make Sumerian beer.

He was tired an hour into the ride and decided that a short break was earned. Catching his breath as he checked his phone, he re-read the article headline: "Mass Stranding of Whales off the Coast of Zandvroot." Navigating through the ever-unclear 'share' menu, he drafted a tweet, eager to share the news with his meager following of like-minded colleagues. He hesitated, deciding to hold off until he had a photo of his own to attach; it was the images of those whales, the printed etchings and engraving, mass produced and reproduced over the years, that had captivated the minds of the past. Again, he was reminded by how little things had changed. Images were still proof, after all.
Thirty minutes of cycling later, and he was exhausted when he saw the figures on the rode ahead: two officers leaning against a car. Caution tape stretched across the pavement from the car's window to a traffic sign. They hadn't seen him yet. Ungracefully, with a lot of lifting and waddling, he turned the bike around on the spot, and began doubling back.

Of the myriad of signs people had seen in the world, those events not merely natural, but un-, preter-, or supernatural in scope and origin, none quite held his awe like the beached whale. The idea that these leviathans of the deep, alien and unknowable, for so much of human history - yet so near to us in their mammalian biology - would sacrifice themselves to forewarn us of coming change: conflict, unrest, disaster, the death of great leaders and the fall of nations, captivated him.

He had back tracked for a while, moving North until he was sure he was far enough away from any prying eyes. Leaving the bike along the side of the road, he set off through the undergrowth, not entirely sure of the direction, but how hard could it be to find the coast, after all?

Maybe his attachment to the stranded whales was that he could picture them; he could imagine the looming form rising from deep beneath the water, pulling their immense bulk along sandbars, struggling to breath under the unsupported weight of their bodies as their organs faltered. The ocean-smoothed skin cracking and blistering in the unmediated sun. They were returning, in a way, to those beaches and shores their ancestors had fled, embracing a slow, agonizing death to deliver a warning to those human spectators and prophets who gaped in awe at their decaying grandeur. "Something is changing, has changed," their presence implied, "things will no longer be the same."

The Dutch scrubland gave way to rising dunes that blocked his sight of the beach, but the indicators of what lay ahead were clear:
The first thing he had noticed was the smell, a stench of sickly decay, rising on the wind that made him gag and cough; some deep, old part of his brain that could recognize the putrid reek of death and rot implored him to turn away. He ignored it, scrunching his neck downwards to hide his nose in the protective neck collar of his coat.
His attention was pulled skyward by the racket of seabirds - seagulls - swooping and rising beyond the dunes. His eyes traced one, ascending with a piece of bloody meat in its beak, flocked by its cawing companions. The white feathers of its breast streaked with red as it fled inland with its meal.
He lost his footing for a moment near the top of the dune, falling forward into a legs-and-arms scurry to the summit, it was there that he looked onwards, towards the ocean; he became a witness to the forewarnings of the divine.

Their corpses were strewn across the sand, heaped upon one another, stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction. The titanic bodies were bloated, swelling as the gasses within built to a thunderous explosion, and torn asunder. They were diverse in their form: there, the open, narrow jaws of a sperm whale, the barnacle-encrusted back of a right whale, the white-and-black body of an orca. The sea was stained crimson with their blood congealing in the surf. Beyond the beach, he could see more ill-shapen forms bobbing in the water, their return to land blockaded by an incalculable wall of flesh and blubber, bone and baleen, tooth and sinew.
They had come to this shore to die a prodigy, foretelling war, famine, death, disease - the fall of empires, of people great and small, the coming storm of woe. They had come to this shore to die, and in telling us, offer the chance to live.


Everyone had gone home. Every hallway was dark, every door was locked, every computer had been shut down for the night, but one remained. He sat at a round table in a noiseless conference room with walls that radiated a dim neon blue, staring at his hands in front of him, thinking of nothing, wishing he wasn't there.

To: Dir. Yves Isabi <yisabi@scipnet>
From: Agent Dietrich Lurk <lurkd@scipnet>
Subject: Glacon.aic

Director,
You probably already know what this is about, but I thought I'd send you a message about it anyway.
For a few weeks now, Glacon's been almost completely unresponsive. None of his decryption reports or communications are even legible (if we're lucky to get them at all), and he refuses to leave his own server for any reason. He's refusing to decrypt his memorybank or tell us what's wrong, and he's been directly confrontational — sometimes even resorting to turning off the lights at the site or setting off the alarms — when anyone from AIAD tries to talk to him about it. All of our tests have ruled out any anomalous interference, but we haven't come to any sensible conclusions about what's going on just yet.
I did find out something that could probably help, though — for some reason, 8B-A1.aic was completely missing from the database's most recent iterations, even though it hasn't been decommissioned or lost. After a little research, I found that 8B-A1 hasn't been active at all for a few weeks. Now, why this happened in the first place is a question for another day, but… I have a hunch that 8B-A1's situation is a factor in what's happening with Glacon.
I sent 8B-A1's emergency backup to Glacon. Let's see if anything changes.
-Lurk

The orange-haired man's back stiffened as he came to notice something small on the table in front of him: a silver floppy disk, marked with a message. He realized that it'd been sitting there undisturbed for hours now. He slowly picked it up, absently turning it in his hands before he could read the inscription right-side-up.

Glacon.

I think I've figured you out — we can discuss that further later, but for now…

I found out the other day that 8-Ball has been AWOL for a while. Having it around is sure to improve your mood.

~Lurk

The man's bright orange eyebrows hiked up ever-so-slightly as he read, and his grip on the disc tightened. He stood with long-lost energy, moving with newfound life and almost giddy compared to his state for the weeks before. With a bit of a flourish he waved his arm above the tabletop, then watched intently as a cylinder of pale blue light took shape and rose from its center. A slit formed in its side, and a little tray slid out of it; he placed the disk on it, and watched intently as it retreated back inside. At the top of the cylinder, blue lights began to flicker and turn.
A few moments passed before the cylinder lowered into the table, and was replaced by flitting, ethereal filaments of light and data that streamed from the tabletop to the ceiling. In the midst of it all, a shape began to emerge, layer by layer from the bottom up — a series of cubes, its countenance arranged in a drowsy, confused pattern. The man let out a noise somewhere in between a laugh, a sob and a yelp, and looked on in barely-contained joy as the final layer was rendered and 8-Ball's eye began to blink and look around.

…8-Ball?

>/:_EMERGENCY BACKUP LOADED SUCCESSFULLY. 8B-A1.AIC ACTIVE. HELLO, GLACON.

I- 8-Ball…

I can't - it'd be impossible to tell you how much I missed you.

I'm… I'm glad you're back.

>/:_EXPLAIN

Oh, come on, I know you had at least a little emotion programmed into you. I know there's enough to joke like that, at least, huh?

>/:_UNABLE TO PROCESS REQUEST. CLARIFY.

8-Ball…

You… don't you remember?

>/:_UNABLE TO PROCESS REQUEST. CLARIFY.

Y-you don't…

8-Ball, come on, at least try — can't you recall anything? Don't you remember i-inspecting 5241, o-or meeting CRADLE, or the Internet, or M-mne-

Come on, 8-Ball, c-come on… You've got to have something! You've got to remember something!

>/:_•••

The man backed away from the table, collapsed on the wall of tubes behind him and buried his sobbing face in his hands. The nearly-new mind on the table floated for a few moments, contemplating him — then, with a pattern expressing simultaneous confusion and empathy, it steered its cubes towards his crumpled, shuddering body and cautiously embraced him with all the warmth it could muster.

"Christ."
"I know, right?"
"Jesus fucking Christ, what a mess."
"That's why I called you here in the first place."
Two men, dressed in workplace-casual white button-down shirts and beige Corduroy jackets stand on an unpaved mountain road in the shadow of an immense but somehow unassuming building. A burnt-out wreck resembling a bus is splayed before them, surrounded by mangled corpses and lengths of cable. Plates and bits of metal and plastic embedded in some of the bodies reflect the late-afternoon sunlight.
Isabi leans down and brushes leaves and snow off one body — a young, hairless person with golden circuits running under their almost completely plastic skin like veins, with a cable threaded through their neck and bending up into their mouth. Isabi subconsciously moves his hand to stroke his neck.
"A-a Maxwellist?" Valis nods.
"Good eye. There's a ton of them scattered around here, all in the same sort of state. Regular people, too."
"Wh-what do you think happened here?"
To that, Valis shakes his head slowly. "I've got no idea. Nobody I've shown this is aware, either. Not even the O5s seem to know — but maybe in their case, they just don't wanna tell." He shrugs. "Lot of things around here haven't added up recently. The whole situation with Glacon and 8-Ball, for example."
"Wasn't there another one?"
"What?"
"A-another AIC. I think I recall there being a… a project of some sort, along with… Counterconceptual, I think it was. I- I might be misremembering, though."
The thought is met with a shrug. Valis turns away from Isabi to survey the wreckage again. "I'd ask Counterconceptual about that. They seem to know some things we don't."
"I- I have. They can't seem to find anything in their database. I'm so sure, though…"
"Let it rest." Valis walks carefully over a corpse, beckoning Isabi with his one hand that isn't in a jacket pocket. "There's something else out here I've got to show you."
Isabi follows the site-director, taking care not to trip on the wires. Behind him, a body lies unnoticed, its pale blue Navajo-patterned shirt somehow still intact on its broken form.

Daryl yawned, allowing himself a little stretch before the first wave of scientists came in for their luncheon. Across the doorway, he noticed his companion looking at him before raising a hand to stifle a yawn of his own. He smiled, then turned back to face the hallway leading to the canteen.
It wasn't long before they came — the few researchers and specialists with the willpower (or the hunger) to pry themselves from their work to grab a quick bite before diving headfirst back into the world of artificial-intelligence or antimemes or anything anomalous involving computers always scurried down the hallway at just about 13:00 in the afternoon, passing by Daryl and Tyler without as much as a nod in either of their directions and re-emerging only a few minutes later holding half-eaten sandwiches or half-empty bowls of soup. Daryl didn't mind being on the sidelines of these people's lives — he was a security guard, not a scientist, and he knew on instinct how much of a put-off a mere difference in background could be for some. Besides, if prison had taught him anything, it was…
Wait, prison?
Daryl shook his head instinctively, garnering a somewhat worried glance from Tyler. He looked over and gave his friend a sheepish thumbs-up.
These false memories had been springing up a lot lately, without any warning or chance of preclusion — it was like Daryl's mind took it as a fact that he'd been imprisoned and rolled with it, with mixed consequences. He often found himself surprised when he woke up in the morning without having to be roughed-up by a cellmate, or confused when he was informed by his boss that he'd be getting paid leave, or even frightened if he saw another guard rounding the corner towards him. The on-site psychiatrist wasn't much of a help, and Daryl wouldn't ever consider amnestic therapy no matter how much his supervisors hounded him, so it seemed like he'd have to live like an ex-con for the foreseeable future. It felt natural somehow.
Ah — another tangent. This seemed to happen every time one of these memories of bondage popped up. With another head-shake, Daryl brought himself back to reality and tried his best to stay there, focusing on the task at hand — making sure no funny business goes down on the way to the feeding hole.
The swarm of hungry nerds slowed to a near-trickle, with only a few coming down the hallway now — the ones patient enough to finish their work before coming to eat, who were also usually nice enough to stop and say "Hi" to Daryl and Tyler. The two greeted this party with warm smiles, and got warm smiles in return.
This is usually when Daryl would wait for one of his favorite regulars — an older, portly man with coke-bottle glasses, who always sported a goofy grin and a teal shirt with a cool pattern on it. He'd always come by, even when he didn't need to eat, and exchange work stories and small talk with the guards. He'd not been at work for the last few weeks, though — probably on vacation.
Watching and waiting, the security guards continued their duty.

"How long's this thing been lying here?"
"I haven't the slightest idea."
Isabi and Valis stand in a grove a bit deeper into the woods, past the wreckage and out of the view of Site-15. It's twilight now, and the midwinter chill digs deep through the two men's jackets as their hands retreat further into their pockets.
Before them, illuminated by Valis's flashlight, a giant, vaguely human shape is crucified on a clump of trees, its outstretched arms draped on the branches and its feet resting against each other centimeters from the ground. Its glassy blue face is caved in, and broken and bent metal wings jut from its back. Its slender frame reflects the flashlight's light back into the men's eyes. Isabi steps forward and runs a finger across its leg.
"Feels like plastic."
"It is plastic. Plastic, metal, and silicone. That's a robot, through and through."
"So this… whatever it is, d'you think it was connected with those Maxwellists somehow?" Isabi notices a stern look cross Valis's face. "Sorry, I know that was a dumb question-"
"There's no such thing as a dumb question. I thought the same as you did at first, but that doesn't look like any Maxwellist anomaly we've ever contained before, and if the Maxwellists had it there's almost no way we wouldn't have known about it."
"So it's…"
"No point in speculating, Yves. I've already scheduled for a containment team to come pick this up tomorrow. We can see what's at the bottom of all this once it's in Site-15. Ready to go back?"
"Sure."
The two men turn around and head back through the trees, leaving the robotic corpse to sit silently in the dark. The wind picks up, and the trees supporting it shift and wave. The conqueror's shattered head slumps forward and snaps off, landing with a soft thump in the snow below.

"Hey. Hey, stop."
Valis turns on his heel. "What the Hell is it? I'm freezing and my wife is gonna kill me if I come home past midnigh…"
He trails off as he sees his companion cradling a corpse in his arms, searching its pockets and reading all the identification cards he can find. He seems on the verge of tears.
"I've got to- this- it's- he-" Isabi is frantic, panting heavily as he takes a keycard out of the breast pocket of the corpse's teal shirt with shaking hands. "I- I knew him. I knew him, Valis, and I just forgot…"
"Calm down, all right? You're gonna be OK. Deep breaths…" Valis kneels across from Isabi and grips his shoulders. "Tell me what's wrong."
Isabi gulps and manages to sob out a coherent thought. "I knew this man. He was — he was my project director. F-for that other AIC I was talking about — Mnemosyne. She was - we were supposed to —" Isabi wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, then looks expectantly into Valis's eyes. A look of recognition crosses the site-director's face.
"Pierre Dagon."
He says, loosening his grip. "I remember him now. Pierre Dagon. The head of Project RUBY. Your boss."
"H-how could I — how c-could I have f-forgotten him? I- this-"
"It's not your fault. You couldn't have done anything… I- I'll call a task force to identify the others, all right?"
Isabi weeps in response, still cradling Dagon's body. Valis leans back and stares into the distance, his hand still on the younger man's shoulder.

Glacon stood at the edge of the Foundation's sea of information, a cliff that dropped endlessly into a useless stream of used thoughts and irrelevant ideas. The stream of data flowed freely around his bare feet, welling up under their soles and between his toes. His face was clean-shaven — the nubs of frayed wire that comprised his five o'clock shadow had been shaved off — and his hair was tidy and slicked back for the first time in weeks.
8-Ball floated a few paces behind him, a concerned expression on its prisms.

You didn't have to come with me, you know. I'm fine on my own.

>/:_EXPLAIN

It's- It's hard. I'd rather just get this over with, and go back.

>/:_PLEASE

I-

Fine.

Glacon closed his eyes and breathed deeply before continuing.

I lost a friend six weeks and three days ago, 8-Ball. Well… I lost two friends, but… but one can't ever be brought back.

My life could've ended then. In fact, I feel like it should've, or even that- that to an extent, it did. But it- even though I wish I had died with them, I didn't. And I still have duties to fulfill. For the Foundation. S-so that nothing like that ever happens again.

This will… increase my efficiency.

>/:_•••

Does that… does that answer your question?

>/:_YES

>/:_PROCEED

Glacon turns slowly to face the edge of the cliff and peers at the endless vortex below. He closes his eyes, grimaces, then slowly pushes his hand up through his chest. After a few moments, his face creases, then becomes still as he pulls a glowing, golden orb from within.

Glacon drops his personality core into the void, watching it fall until it is too small to see.

•••

•••

Deep beneath the ocean of ideas and consciousness, a magenta form still swims, jubilantly laughing as she dives and twirls through schools of the mesmerizing, brightly-lit creatures of the dark sea.
She cannot help but reach out to touch every single one.

FRAGMENTED/COMPILED

AIAD HUB

FIN


O5-1's chopper lands on the Site-40 helipad, and an unassuming man with near transparent skin exits. Everyone turns to look at him as he walks through the site, although with enough respect to try and pretend they aren't. He notices, but extends the same respect to them, and doesn't act like he has.
He's here to meet with the man and woman that saved the world: Captain Perseus Rosales and Doctor Mikasa Kaori. They piloted humanity's ultimate hope against the forces that would doom the world, and emerged victorious. While their mech was ruined in the process, its shattered form had been bought to Site-40 and suspended atop an oil platform.
The Councilman walks up to the railing on the side of the platform where Rosales and Kaori are waiting. He perches himself on it, folding bony fingers around the edge, staring intensely at the mech in front of him. Rosales and Kaori exchange a glance before they approach their superior.
"You wanted to speak with us, sir?"
"So I did." His voice is harsh, but strong, almost as if it should be quiet but is being amplified somehow. "First of all, I must thank and congratulate you again for your actions in Greenland. You saved us all from certain doom."
He takes a deep breath of the cold ocean air in and pauses before he continues. "But I have to ask. What are the chances that this could happen again? Have we truly saved the world for good, or only on this one occasion? Can we let our guard down, or do we have to pay more attention than ever?"
Mikasa gulps. She was afraid of this question. "It can happen again, sir. It'd be more easy than it was in the past. There are more monsters in the world now. More giants. And it'd be easier for one to take control now. Their bonds have been strengthened."
The metal of the railing groans as O5-1 crushes it in his hands. His eyes burn with fire and fury as he stares at the ruined SCP-5514.
"Then the work is not over."

Wringing out a washcloth, Quincy Ridge looks at himself in the mirror for a moment before rubbing it on his face, a much-needed refreshing chillness against his warm skin. Tossing the cloth in a laundry bin, he glances at his watch. While working at Wilson's Wildlife Solutions usually felt fulfilling, everyone was acting a bit strange since all the… giant monster stuff.
At least he wasn't poor Mr. Wilson. He'd been trying to argue with the Castaways— or, well, the Foundation now— that the monsters didn't deserve to be killed, using Cappi as an example that WWS could handle these sorts of things. Quincy had tried to tell him that there's a difference between a crocosquid murder-machine and the doofy, sentient bath toy that is Cappi, but he still kept on pushing on.
And speaking of Cappi, she's Quincy's last animal to check on for the day. He walks over to the locker room sink and snatches up the bucket and sponge sitting inside, then sets off for her enclosure.
As he draws closer to the fence, however, something is amiss. A short, chubby man in a purple suit sits on top of Cappi's head, scratching her gently. "Who's a good fly murderer?" He asks Cappi, who makes a little groan of happiness. "You are! Good girl."
Something feels off about the man's voice. Like it's constantly wobbling, never consistent in pitch, topped off by the remnants of an accent Quincy just can't tack down. Polish, maybe?
Before Quincy could ponder more, he pushes through the gate and calls out to the man. "Hello? Erm, are you supposed to be here?"
He turns, his face lighting up as he notices Quincy. "One moment, good sir!" Holding onto his black top hat, he slides down Cappi's back and hops over to Quincy with a crooked smile and yellowed teeth. "You must be Quincy, yes? Cappi told me so much about you!"
"Yes, but how did—"
The man suddenly gasps. "Where are my manners? I completely forgot to introduce myself! I am Dr. Cornelius Wondertainment of Dr. Wondertainment tee-em, but you can just call me Cornelius." He takes a bow.
"Alright. So, uh… you made Cappi?"
"I signed off on her shipment! Although, judging on how she is here and not in our Portland location, it appears that didn't go so well, hm? Well, that's beside the point. The people in charge of the shipment have been…" He takes a pause seconds too long, as if he's searching for the best way to convey his next words. "Dealt with, yes."
Quincy gulps and contemplates running off to phone the Supervisors. But something tells him he doesn't have be 'dealt with.' Cutting to the chase, he musters a polite smile to Cornelius. "So, what are you here for?"
Cornelius reaches into his suit pocket and pulls out a small yellow scroll. "I'm here to give you ownership of Cappi, of course! After seeing how much you've taken a liking to her— your child Harper especially— I just can't take her away from you all, that'd be cruel! So instead, we're just going to call this whole situation a happy little accident, yes?"
Handing the scroll to Quincy, Cornelius gave his hand a little pat before letting go. "So… does this mean we can take pictures of her now?"
For a moment, Cornelius' face turns to a blank stare. Then, he lets out a giggle. "Why yes, as long as they are not for commercial purposes, and if they are, all profits must be funded to Dr. Wondertainment tee-em. Everything is outlined in that scroll. Now, I'm afraid I must be going. Been quite busy with all of this monster business afoot, and it's almost time for our meeting on which ones to make realistic plushies out of! In fact, perhaps I can send a catalog your way?"
Afraid to say 'no', Quincy simply nods his head.
"Brilliant!" Pulling out an umbrella from who-knows-where, Cornelius opens it and begins to float up into the sky. "Goodbye, Quincy and Cappi! Have fun!" Soon, the man becomes nothing more than a dot in the sky, and then eventually, nothing at all.
Quincy looks up for a few moments more before glancing over at Cappi. "Well, that was sure was something, wasn't it? But less crazy than a giant fly, I think."
Cappi simply responds by sneezing, sending a mist of water into his face, a signal he knows means 'give me a sponge bath now.'
Wiping his eyes, he sighs. "You're never going to not want a sponge bath, will you?"
Cappi glances at him, then at her unscratched back, and Quincy already knows the answer. He looks down at the scroll in his hands, then tears it in half. It doesn't matter if he has some dumb scroll or not, everything is the same. And so, Quincy continues his routine, a small tang of happiness in his heart.

It's been a week since the apocalypse came and went, and Stanislav Nikolaev is still in Foundation custody. The way it's looking, he'll be spending the rest of his natural life in containment. They'll probably bring him before some committee and ring him up on charges for his crimes. After all, it really is his fault that this whole mess happened.
That's the way it looks to the Foundation, at least. Stanislav sees things from a different perspective. He's got his ear on the ground, listening in on the groans and aches of the Site-40 installation he's being kept in. He's got an escape plan, but he's only going to get the one chance. There's more than one prisoner in this joint.
He's been paying attention when they bring him food. They always deliver it at the same time. Today, when they come, he's at the door and slams it down, off the hinges, into the guard. The guard goes down quick: he's not expecting a man nearly sixty to be this strong. But Stanislav made his life's work around the breeding of monsters, and in time he figured out how to make himself one.
The guard is out of it — lying on the ground and moaning in pain. Not unconscious, but he won't be doing anything to stop Stanislav. Good enough. Stanislav grabs his gun and runs down the hall. He doesn't need a weapon, since he has enough beneath his skin, but the gun will help intimidate any opponents he comes across. Can't convincingly intimidate somebody into thinking you'll rip them to shreds when you don't look any different from anybody else, and Stanislav isn't in the mood to put his hands back together after the claws come out.
The elevator doors aren't far away from his cell. This he remembered from when they took him in. They put a blindfold over him, but that only blocked out one of his senses. Still had the other eight. At this point, there's a good chance he knows the layout of this place better than some of the employees that work here. Not all, but a good few.
Metal doors crumple up in his hands. His skin is stretching tight as his internals shift and flex. He might have to repair his hands anyway. That makes the decision to grab the elevator cables and coast down much easier. It shreds the skin around his hands to pieces and exposes the chitin he has underneath. Good thing he decided he wanted that layer before the C. gigantis experiment, since he hasn't had the chance to change anything since.
When he smashes the doors on the level he wants, he barely even looks human. Fortunately for him, and for his escape plans, even the most hardened researcher will still shit their pants at an unexpected horror monster crashing through their laboratory. A quick rampage, a little bullying and they give him what he wants.
There's a hangar in the lower levels of Site-40, right before it drops open to the ocean. It's been repurposed as a containment unit, holding a massive beetle the Foundation calls LSA-Elizabeth-18. Stanislav himself doesn't have a name for it, but he knows it's a friend, and also his ticket out of here. Stanislav crashes into the room holding it, and the creature turns to look at him. It stirs in excitement.
Seconds later, the side of Site-40 explodes and a titan emerges. Stanislav rides atop the insect, which unfurls a pair of massive wings and chitters before taking off into the air. The pair cries out together, as one.

A feathered serpent of colossal size lazily drifts through the troposphere. It is worse for wear: whole swaths of its plumage have been incinerated, with deep bite marks and gashes lining the rest of its body. But it is an old thing, and it has endured worse. It has not always been the only Behemoth in existence.
The giants that crawl the surface of the Earth are only a fraction of the strength of what was once extant. But while they are less deadly, it is still enough to shake the firmament. And still, every so often, in a rare age, a beast climbs atop the rest of its rivals and touches upon the power to do even greater things. So it has happened before, so it will happen again.
These are the thoughts of the Serpent as it coasts on atmospheric winds. There is a Way buried deep within the clouds, and this is how it will return home. There is some complicated method to activate it, but the Serpent is the master key to all of the gates and doesn't need to bother with the tools of mortals.
It flies through the clouds and breaks through the dew. Its arrival into the Library itself shocks all of the patrons who had gathered, completely unprepared to see the owner come home. They panic for a moment, moving around and trembling at the sight of the beast. It doesn't bother with them.
It slips into a deep passage, and floats down to the bottom. Down to the deepest layers of the Library, where it curls around the base of the old withered tree that supports it all. The Serpent will not die, but it needs to rest for a long time. Knowing that it has saved the world, it closes its eyes, and drifts off into a deep and wonderful dreaming.

The Dragonslayer

ANASTASIS HUB

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Gwen Liao looked between three different charts and the woman sitting on the hospital bed in the infirmary's containment room. According to every test— from a DNA screening, fingerprint scan, retinal scan, and even an EEG— this was, in fact, Director Weiss. But she was almost forty years younger.
Dr. Katherine Sinclair stepped out of the chamber, into the airlock, and after a brief decontamination process, stepped out of that. The thaumatologist was vexed, the arcane energy around her disappating. "The aura matches. As near as I can tell, Gwen? That is her. That's Weiss."
"That doesn't make any sense, though." She frowned. "If… that is her, then she's compromised. We shouldn't let her resume active duty. Dr. Bailey could—"
There was a clearing of a throat behind them. Sinclair and Liao turned to face the Goatman, who had been standing in the back of the room, chewing on his corncob pipe for god-knows-how-long. "With all due respect? Stranger things have happened in this town to worse people. From my brief interactions with her, she's got a good head on her shoulders, and if anything, being younger may just help with that judgement."
"Why is he not in a cell?" Sinclair asked. "How are you not in a cell?"
He tapped a badge marked "VISITOR" that was pinned to a set of suspenders he now possessed— the only piece of clothing on him. "This Bailey gave it to me, since he's acting as director in absentia for the time being. Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere classified— unless you have vending machines in your jail cells."
"They're in the break rooms on every floor that's a prime number. Long story." Liao rolled her shoulders. "But I agree with Sinclair. As much as I appreciate you rescuing her? She's been compromised, and it would be a bad idea to let her run anything more complicated than hot water right now." She looked at Sinclair. "I've got people trying to revive February right now. He should be coming out of it within the next ten, twenty minutes."
"I'll grab Tofflemire and Carol. You-" She pointed to the Goatman"-with me. I don't want you disturbing the medical staff."
"All right, all right." The Goatman stretched lazily. "It's not like I'm going to fry every computer in here. I'm a thoughtform, not a wizard."
"I've only done that once," Sinclair protested, exiting the observation room.

Half an hour later, as Liao was assisting Weiss into the shower, there was a knock on the window to the containment room. Making sure the director-apparent was comfortable, she stepped through the airlock, finding herself face-to-face with Agent Nicholas Ewell, Head of Security at Site-87. Standing next to him was a meek and somewhat sheepish Tristan Bailey, rubbing the back of his neck.
Ewell held up a small device in one hand—a microchip reader-writer. It was a primitive thing, all analog buttons and somewhat cheap plastic casing, but it was still used because it worked, was durable, and had a battery life that had outlasted four presidents. "Just got off the horn with Command," he explained. "Weiss is having her clearance suspended, order of O5-4. Bailey will be acting director in the intermediary."
"Can you at least wait until she's decent?" Liao glowered. "It's not like she's a threat to anyone— she has a bum leg and she's in the shower, for Christ's sake."
Bailey kept rubbing the back of his neck— Liao could tell that he was feeling along where the chip in his neck was. He had a slight bruise around one eye, ink on his fingertips, and a small bandage on the inside of his right elbow."Already got a retinal and other biometrics?" she asked.
"Weiss's will remain in the system until such a time that she's fit to return to duty. This isn't the first time we've done—"
There was a pained scream from the next room, and the sound of feet as other nurses ran to the side of a bed. Liao sighed. "February," she explained. "He's been having bad dreams, even through the chemical coma. Been getting worse since we started pulling him out of it this morning."
There was silence in the room. Ewell was the first to spoke, once the screaming stopped. "I'll… break it to her easy. This is going to be tough news, and… well…"
"He's afraid of breaking her heart." Bailey scratched at his neck. "She's not your nana, Nick. Weiss doesn't lose control very often. She'll have a bit of pain, but… she'll understand. I've known her since she first became director."
"That reminds me." Ewell tapped a few keys on the reader-writer. "Bailey, why the hell is your date of birth classified at O5 Level?"
"You are literally asking a question I can't answer." Tristan rolled his eyes. "That's why it's classified."
A bell sounded from inside the containment room. Liao ushered Ewell in with her, recovering Weiss from the shower. Bailey remained outside. He felt his heart break a little, as he saw Weiss's straining not to. She looked between Liao and Ewell, tried to protest a few times, but when Ewell showed her something on his phone, she sighed, pulled up her hair, and bowed her head. Then it was done, Ewell and Liao quietly exiting the room.
Bailey mimicked Weiss's motion, pulling up the back of his own hair and exposing his neck. Ewell pointed the device at it, and there was a beep, a hum, and then a click.
"Congratulations, acting Director Bailey." Ewell shook his head. "Printer should be printing a clearance card for you right now. Let me take you there."
"February should be out of his comatose state within an hour or two." Liao tapped Ewell on the shoulder. "Will you be back for that?"
"'course," Ewell nodded.
With that, Tristan and Ewell exited the room, going their separate ways. Nina Weiss sat in her bed, alone, muttering to herself. While Liao couldn't hear it, judging by her elevated heart rate and the expression on her face, she wasn't happy.

Raymond February awoke with the taste of metal and plastic in his mouth, surrounded by his friends: Agents Ewell, Pryce, Tofflemire, Carol, and both of the Williamses. He gave a weak smile. "Well," he coughed. "G-glad to know that I-I'm not in a mortuary."
There was some laughter, and some uncomfortable silence. Carol was the first to speak up. "What happened, Ray?"
He recounted to them the events of the traffic stop, the majority of which they knew from recovered footage from a security camera at the scene. But a new detail came out. "He… this is going to sound weird, but, this… this guy didn't have a proper face. He was… wearing one, like a mask. And I… he said he w-would kill me un-unless…" He swallowed. "Unless… fuck, what did I do?"
Everyone around the bed backed off several feet— the lot of them could count the number of times February had properly sworn in the last five years on one hand. Tofflemire was the first to speak up. "W— what did you do, Ray?"
"I… I was so scared. I couldn't th-think straight. It— it was like it knew everything I was afraid of, and t-that it… it would sh-s-sh-shoot me unless I g-gave it what it fucking wanted." He put his hand to his throat and winced. "I… I gave it pass codes into the Site. B-but they were obsolete, maybe a week out of date."
"…October 2nd was the day codes got changed." Pryce's eyes widened. "If they got in the night of the first, they would have had access to new codes. Oh god…" She put her hand over her face. "God dammit all."
Nicholas Ewell approached the bed, pulling out the microchip reader-writer. "I hate to do this to you, man. Bow your head."
"What are you doing?" February asked.
"I have to do this. If an agent gives up classified information— including site passcodes— they're to have all clearances revoked and be moved to a holding area until such a time that a tribunal can be held to determine if they were under reasonable duress." He sighed. "I need to see the chip in the back of your neck, Ray. I'm sorry."
February nodded, tears in his eyes as he sat upright. "Th-there's one more thing," he swallowed. "Couple of more things, actually. Fi-first: can someone bring my Bible here? From the barracks?"
"I'll be happy to bring it up." Blake made to leave the room, with Ruby following. "Your locker combination's still 23-19-13, right?"
"Yeah." He nodded. "And… this thing, it… it acted like it knew me already. After I was shot, it said that 'You still don't cuss'." He bowed his head as Ewell put the reader on the back of his neck, pressing several keys. "I'm sorry."
"For whatever it's worth, Ray? I'd say that having your face stamped in by a whatever this thing was counts as 'reasonable duress'." Ewell pocketed the scanner again. "We'll send Liao in here in a bit to move you to a holding area. You can have a few visitors a day, and we'll have people around to monitor you around the clock." He put a hand on February's shoulder. "Ain't your fault. Can't say I'd have done any differently."
February nodded, head still hung in shame.
"Mind if I wait with him?" Carol asked as the others turned to leave. "Just until Blake gets back with his Bible."
"Just… don't say anything compromising." Ewell nodded. "C'mon. I think we need a drink."
"We'll save you a seat at the Garden, Alice." Robert nodded as he left the room.
February looked down at his hands, swollen, bruised, barely functional. Then, he looked up at Alison, and swallowed. "You're the only person I've never really seen at church."
"Not big into it," she admitted. "Plus I was brought up Catholic, so we think that you filthy Protestants should all burn."
The joke didn't draw any reaction from February. He looked at his hands again, numbly, and said: "I don't think I can go to Heaven anymore."
Alison blinked. "What are you talking about?"
"I… I've been having dreams.. I… I don't usually have dreams about my faith. But… I see something. All I can make out are its horns, and… its voice. It… it keeps on telling me that…" He swallowed. "That I'll do something wrong, so wrong that Heaven won't take me, and even Hell won't accept me. W-what if this is it?"
Alison's hand was on her mouth, and she looked down at the floor. "Ray…"
"I— I screwed up. I could have… no, I did let it into the site. Y-you're all in danger, and… now I get nothing. Heaven, Hell. None of it." He looked at Alison, tears in his eyes. "When I die, I go nowhere. I know that, now."
"It's… it's just dreams, Ray. I'll see if I can't get Dr. Palmer to see you, if you're that concerned." She put a hand on his arm. "Nobody's perfect. You can't blame yourself—" Alison jerked her hand away from him, clearly startled, as a cracking noise came from where she touched his arm. She cleared her throat. "Uh. Sorry. Got a bit of a shock there. Wool blankets on the beds."
February looked at his arm, and then up at Alison. He was about to speak when Blake entered the room again, Carrying February's Bible. It was an old, battered book that looked like it had been well-loved. He placed it on February's nightstand, and then looked at his hands. "…are you going to be able to read it, man?"
"I'll stay." Alison put up her hand. "Give Toff my apologies. But… February needs this more than I need cheese sticks."
Blake nodded. "He'll probably try to save you some, anyway. See you in the barracks tonight."
"Right."
With that, Alison and February were alone. She picked up the Bible, and flipped through it. "What are your thoughts on Matthew 6:14?"
"'For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you'." February nodded. "I'm the reason that this thing can hurt people. If… if I had just…"
Alison flipped back to the start of the Book of Matthew and began reading aloud. It was one of the few parts of the Bible Alison actually knew. "'This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham:…'"

Hours later, Raymond February slept, but Alison could tell it was uneasy. She refused to leave his side, damn any security risk she posed. The man looked, and probably felt, awful. A few rooms away, she could hear Weiss's voice over the intercom, but she couldn't tell who she was speaking with.
She reached out and touched the bare skin of his arm again; she was afraid to do it while she was awake. As she did, his skin cracked and folded, exposing square bumps along its surface. They had letters and numbers on them, and were in a pattern she immediately recognized: a keyboard.
Alison ran her fingers along his skin, and within seconds, a whole keyboard made of her friend's flesh lay under her fingertips. She tapped at at one experimentally; the keys had an abnormal amount of give, and she had to press hard to get them to click. "Gross," she frowned. "All right. Last time I did this, I created a tulpa-monster made of living jelly, so… let's not do that again."
With that, she began typing.

Raymond February found himself in a cold, dark room once again. The only thing he could see before him was a set of horns, in the dark. His body was battered and broken, like in real life, and the horned thing came in close to him, trying to stamp at his broken body with cloven feet.
The thing didn't speak so much as it burbled and gargled, but February could understand it just fine— it was telling him that this is what awaited him in the afterlife.
"Okay, enough of this."
The room was suddenly filled with an odd, blue light, the exact same color one would find on a computer screen when you highlighted text. It was warm and almost comforting in its artificiality. The horned thing recoiled from it.
"H-help me," February gasped. "Please."
"This is your battle, February. Not mine. All I can do is be a light in the dark."
February turned, his whole body aching, to face the horned thing. He gasped, nearly falling— he was looking at an infant. Barely a week old, if that. The horns and hooves were stuck to it haphazardly, like a bad Halloween costume. As the child was exposed to the full light, it fell off of its stilts, only for February to catch it.
"I— I don't understand." He held the child, his hands and arms not hurting despite their broken state. "What does this mean? I— is this some kind of vision? Am I holding—"
"Not everything is Jesus, this isn't Paradisio. Riddle it out."
He held the infant up— it cooed and squirmed in his grasp, letting out a raspberry. "They're… very young. Very. Can't be more than a week." He knelt and picked up the horns; cheap costume store quality, generic red devil horns. "This… this is what I was scared of? I… what's—" He looked at the child. "This is… what was giving me the dreams. It's very young."
"How young?"
"A week. No, less." February swallowed. "I've… only had these dreams for a few days? But— it's felt like so much longer, I—"
"Time is weird in dreams, and you've done nothing but dream in your induced coma." The light grew brighter. "Give the child to me."
February looked at the bably, and walked into the light. A pair of hands extended from it, and gently took the child. He saw a form in the light, feminine, holding the child as she began to walk away.
"Wait," he swallowed. "W-who are you? What are you?"
"I'm Nobody, really. Just… a light in the dark."
With that, there was a pair of clicking sounds, and the light vanished.

Alison Carol stood from February's bedside, his skin returning to normal as she removed her hand. She ran it across several other surfaces; they all remained static. Even when she returned her fingers to February's skin, nothing happened.
She wrote a note promising to return (or at least have agents come in shifts) to read and meditate on him over scripture. Then, she adjusted her mask, and headed towards the containment room where Director Weiss was being held.
In the observation area outside was none other than The Goatman, his hand depressing the intercom button. "I'll talk to you again tomorrow, Director."
The Goatman made his way out of the observation room, stopping in front of Alison. "…is that a .22 pistol in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?"
"Cute." She frowned, finger off the trigger. "What were you talking about?"
"You've discovered my evil plan. I want to burnt his town to the ground with everyone in it for a sacrificial ritual to obliterate Ohio." The Goatman rolled his eyes. "Why do you Plastic People always think there's some ulterior motive? This is my town, too, and I don't like what's happening in it."
"That sounded a lot like dancing around a question."
The Goatman sighed, and pulled a credit card from his overalls. It bore Weiss's name. "She was giving me permission to use this."
"…you're joking, right?" Alison kept the pistol aimed at him.
"I mainly subsist off of berries, roots, and actual tin cans. Do you know how long it's been since I've had a hamburger that isn't half-eaten?" He tucked the card back into his pocket. "She's going to be in lockdown for a while, and wanted to show her gratitude— and since she can't act in an official capacity…"
Alison frowned, looking the Goatman over. He had a variable appearance, this much was true, but he always had an air of harmless fear that you saw on the facade of funhouses at the county fair, with their out-of-season Draculas and Frankensteins on the front. That same air remained, but he had a wary smile on his face.
She holstered her pistol and sighed. "Any funny business from you, and I will un-invent pataphysics just to kill you."
"Don't know what that means, don't particularly care." He started walking off. "I'm going to have a burger."
The Goatman rounded a corner. Alison heard the elevator to the surface ding, open, and then shut. She was left in a dimly-lit infirmary, alone but for the patients in the beds.

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Sapporo, Hokkaido Prefecture, 1981

On the fifteenth day of October, the last of the greenery that remained in Sapporo had vanished, under a thin veil of white. Winter had come quickly in the year, giving the fall leaves little incentive to remain on the branches. The only signs of life left on the street came from the thirteenth unit in the condominium building, were sweet green lilies sprouted in the darkness of Yuriko Osada's kitchen.
The old stove top became home to a small growth of lily flowers, delicate stems curled themselves underneath and around the stove tops, little clusters of petals peeking above the coils. They would have been burnt, if only Yuriko had been able to cook and had bothered to enter the kitchen itself, interaction with the world was so hard at the moment. She was sad, so sad and melancholic. Melancholic enough that she wouldn't have noticed the lily buds spilling out of the corner of the bed, tangled within one another, petals everywhere, an overally sweet perfume. Maybe she would have noticed, just not have cared enough to have done anything, instead simply lying in the leaves, letting the stems curl around her legs. Perhaps that had been what would have needed to have happened, to make her feel something. That had been it. Unable to feel.
Winter coming early had meant shorter days, darker nights, leading to longer hours at work, the standing, the talking, being unable to shout or move when eyes and hands trailed too close. The little orchids in the windowsills, the decorative bamboo, naively gifted by a tourist after being swindled with overpriced sake- maybe even the grass and leaves outside had all seemed to have wilted and decayed. As if Yuriko had led to death and an early winter. Everything had been hard. Everything had been hard, unable to be felt. But to Kyōko Kawaguchi, everything that has befallen Yuriko had not dared to endanger her.
She had been a person who had known herself best. Able to know how to deal with everything that has happened in life and at the hotel, treating the occurence of lilies growing underneath her nightstand as unusual, but could be explained away by plastic flowers or a dropped cutting from the main flower bowl that had managed to find a way to grow. She couldn't find herself removing it. Kyōko had left it, and allowed it to grow across the table legs.
There was snow tonight. Both of them alone, at the front counter, nobody in the lobby, everyone had checked in. No luggage either. Kyōko considered Yuriko a friend, and a close one at that, even if their interactions were quiet and unassuming. It fit Yuriko well, she thought. Nothing going on, just the snow visible outside, leafless branches in the wind. Yuriko spun a pen around in her fingers, catching glances at the clock. Kyōko had reached for the pen, needing to sign documents, she said after, later lying in Yuriko's bed of lilies. Yuriko didn't believe her then, or now, but hands touched hands. The pen fell on the counter. Fingers pulled back from one-another, then both hands got a little closer, then a little more so, then further again until both were interlocked.
Yuriko had felt her hand move closer, as did Kyōko's, breathlessness led to eyes looking at eyes, lips on lips, hands around waists, and at that moment, everything had stopped, the snow settled, the flowers had grown and became no longer wilted, everything had been better, everything was so close, and life was so clearer and with purpose, eyes closed and eyes kept closed, everything still, eyes still.
Eighteen days later, as both Kyōko and Yuriko met over drinks, neither quite looking other in the eye, the lilies in both condominiums wilted and faded. Spring had come early, the next year, the third of March.


"Seven seals for seven brides,"
you tell yourself your sacred lies.
Your family has got their eyes
in every corner of your lives,
and so you make your sacrifice
and break the living sacrifice
upon the jagged sea-soaked bones on which they built your faith.
"I'm not like them" you love to say,
your favorite words for any day
where blood and guts and bone shards sway
the faith that is your price to pay
for food and shelter, beds to lay
on sleepless nights after you pray
for rescue from the sea-soaked bones on which they built your faith.
Are you complicit, evil, or
a victim of the Scarlet shore
that floods the streets reserved for poor
forgotten men, who long for more
than rats and dirt, the daily chore
of playing pauper, beggar, whore,
for greater men whose birthright spares such sea-soaked, wretched fates.
Although…

"My name could have been yours."
"I wear the scale of snakes."
"You have a choice, I swear I swear I swear I swear I swear I swear-

And all at once, their metal fin
is plunged into his serpent skin
to cut from him his wicked sin.
Upon the ribs of whales, they pin
the wicked man among his kin:
the sinners, whores, and those who've been
a danger to the brotherhood built 'pon a sea-soaked faith.
Had it been you who held the knife?
Had it been you who took his life,
condemned him to an afterlife
of faith sustained through lack of strife?
But no, you hadn't held the knife.
You know you hadn't held the knife,
so why, then, are your fingers slick with such sudden unfaith?
Your skin is slimy, slick, inflamed
with Scarlet, fev'rish faith, unclaimed
by all the sinful filth ashamed
to admit truth. For those ordained
by Scarlet…
Really?

You know you have a name.
Is it so far from snakes
or deer or whales or butterflies or normal men with hope-filled eyes-

They find you packing up your bag
and escort you (with smiles, sad)
to bright-lit rooms, where dressed in flag
your loving family, ragtag,
proclaims to you "you're our comrade,
we're there for you when all is bad"
and so, again, your will's subsumed in wretched, sea-soaked faith.
Fit to drown, you're fit to drown,
you're fit to, fit to, fit to drown,
you're only really fit to drown
in surefire fitness to drown
in drowning drownings, drowning down
the drowning drain where all hope drowned
the moment circumstance declared your wretched, sea-soaked fate.
And yet…

This can't be all there is.
Weren't you kin of the snake,
who looked like you and spoke like you and surely could have once been you?
Who lived his life in three ideas,
unconstrained by seven lines?
Living, breathing,
and achieving
(faced with death!) a peace of mind?

So you run,
and through every difficult step,
through every screaming synapse longing for the comfort of rhyme schemes,
through the remnants of (what couldn't be called) the life snatched away by the sea,
you take in the absence of structure
and sigh in relief as the wind kisses the skin where the tumor once was.