Arcs of electricity left Vincent Anderson's body as he walked through the Three Portlands rain, the wayward bolts striking nearby buildings and light fixtures as he slowly marched down the center of an empty street. Occasionally, he could be heard mumbling to himself, “It's okay… I can fix this…”
Anderson eventually reached the foot of a hill near the edge of the anomalous city. At the hill's peak stood the remains of a school. He stood motionless for several minutes, the rain making a light tapping sound on his mask as he eyed the decrepit building. A small silver droid crawled out of his pocket and up his arm before perching on his shoulder. The tiny spider-like drone's single red eye looked up at the school, then back toward its master, shaking off the rain with a tiny wiggle.
Anderson reached beneath his mask and removed a small drive and placed it within the droid.
“Take care of yourself, Benny,” Anderson said, “I'll see you soon. Be good.”
The small drone gave a salute and crawled away. Anderson watched it go, and then turned his attention back to the distant school.
“I can fix this…” he said to himself again and continued his ascent.

The Tristan Academy of the Arts had been a prestigious school in Three Portlands between 1972 and 1998, until the death of its founder Abraham Tristan and subsequent financial problems resulted in the school closing its doors. Since then, it had remained abandoned, its windows boarded over and its halls filled with all flavors of trash, graffiti, and stagnant puddles of rainwater leaking in from the numerous holes in the roof. On this day in November, however, the building came to life once more. As an academy teaching both mundane and anomalous practices, the entire building was fortified against magic. It was for this reason, Agent Sasha Merlo assumed, that Phineas selected the abandoned school to serve as the location of his intricate trap.
Merlo stood on the stage of the school's auditorium and checked her phone. Her brunette hair was tied back, and the MTF field uniform she wore gave the normally laid-back agent an appearance of authority. On the screen appeared the same message that had been there for the last two hours:

Ready or not, here he comes.

Merlo and the rest of MTF Gamma-13 were now rushing to put together the final pieces of Phineas' plan, a good fourteen hours ahead of schedule, and without a Phineas.
Merlo turned to the center of the stage. There stood two vacant folding chairs, each over a glyph drawn in red chalk. The area surrounding these glyphs was covered in an even larger glyph, the final touches of this one currently being drawn in white chalk by Agent Daniel Navarro, his focus intense as he quickly worked on the many intricate lines and curves needed.
“How much longer?” Merlo asked.
Her colleague didn't look up but simply continued his work as he spoke.
“Binding glyphs are not something you can rush,” Navarro said. “If I draw this wrong, it could turn into a killing curse, or interact with the teleportation circles under the chairs and explode, which is the exact opposite of what we want. I will give Phineas credit though, this is high end magic. The kind people go to schools to learn. It's going to get the job done… assuming I've done it right.”
Merlo nodded, opening her mouth to reply, but stopping when a series of voices blasted over her radio.
“Austringers, this is Sentry 1. We have visual on the target, ETA ten minutes!”
“Austringers, this is Sentry 2. We have visual on target… he's performing a type blue event… Visual lost!”
There was the sound of a distant explosion. The lights in the school all died at once.
“Fuck…” Navarro said, as he lit up the room with his flashlight, the glyph he was working on still incomplete.
“He's here…” Merlo replied. “I guess we're doing this live.”

Agent Clarissa Shaw was in the main hall of the school with four other agents when power went out. Dressed in the MTF field uniform, with her blond hair tied back and her glasses replaced with goggles, she and her colleagues readied their arms. The main doors blew off their hinges. A wave of Peregrine Androids flooded in through the breach. The team scattered to avoid the incoming shrapnel, taking cover in the nearby classroom doors. The opposing forces began to exchange fire. Within seconds, the hall was littered with bullet casings, hole-riddled droids, and the bodies of two dead agents.
The remaining Gamma-13 agents lost no time in tossing several canisters into the hall, quickly filling the area with a fine white powder, the oncoming wave of droids crumbling into slick black puddles. The ones that the powder failed to destroy were subdued with bullets. The hall became quiet, save for the heavy breathing of those left alive.
“Breach at the main entrance,” Shaw said over her radio, as her teammates reloaded and readied for what was likely another wave of the assault. “Hostiles subdued, Frost and Donner are down.”
“Copy, any sign of target?” Merlo's voice responded.
“Negative, we…”
The response was cut short by the loud crackle and heat of electricity, her two fellow agents flying away from her into the classrooms in which they had taken cover. Shaw turned on the spot, and was greeted by the gleaming smile of a silver comedy mask.
As Shaw attempted to fire off a round from her rifle, she felt her legs get swept from beneath her, the burst harmlessly flying into the ceiling as she smacked onto the linoleum floor. Anderson proceeded to kick the gun away, pressing down on her vest with a heavy foot as a long, animate wire retracted into his hand.
“Nice seeing you again, Clarissa,” Anderson spoke. “Would you be so kind as to tell me what you have done with my friends?”
She kept her mouth shut for several moments, looking up at her foe with silent contempt.
“Auditorium.”
Anderson gave a relieved sigh in response.
“Your cooperation is appreciated.”
The wire shot out of Anderson's hand again, piercing through Shaw's body armor with a sick pop. It then punched through her torso and wormed its way through her, between her organs, and wrapping around her spine. She let out a scream of pain and terror. The wire began letting out a small continuous shock which caused her to involuntarily stand up. Anderson gave a satisfied nod as he forced Shaw to move down the hall in front of him.
“Why don't you join me?” Anderson whispered in her ear.
Shaw did her best to remain silent as she made her forced march, occasional tears running down her face. Her body was no longer her own. The short walk to the auditorium felt like an eternity as she waited in the prison of her own flesh. Anderson had her push the door open to the auditorium, and the pair stepped inside.
On the stage were two empty chairs. No one else was in the room.
Shaw shrieked again as the coil around her spine tightened, the electricity sending waves of anguish through her.
“In the auditorium?” Anderson hissed, the coil continuing to tighten until Shaw felt a snap, and then nothing from below the waist.
“They were supposed to be here!” she screamed. “They were! Please!”
“Bullshit!” Anderson shouted. The wire whipped back, and then flung forward. Shaw flew through the air, over the theater seats, and crashed onto the stage. She rolled for several moments, then became still.
Electricity arced from Anderson as he gave a frustrated yell. The hall filled with the smell of ozone.
And then with the sound of a shotgun being pumped.
Anderson turned his head. Navarro and Merlo stood at the opposite end of the hall, the former brandishing a shotgun, the latter a pistol.
“Where are they?” Anderson asked, regaining his composure. “This has gone on long enough.”
Navarro replied by pulling the trigger, a large blue bolt of energy flying from the barrel. The cyborg fell backwards, the blast flying past him and slamming into the far wall. Anderson swiftly leapt to his feet, firing off a shot of lightning which hissed harmlessly through the air.
Navarro and Merlo were gone.
With a shriek of rage, the cyborg sprinted down the hall, his head rapidly swiveling to track his targets. Another blue blast shot past him. Anderson let out another yell and began to chase.

Agent Shaw slowly rolled herself over as she coughed. Her body was on fire from the bruises and lacerations she sustained during the landing from her brief flight. She looked over her crumpled self. She couldn't feel anything from the waist down, her legs unresponsive to her commands, leaving her to crawl upon the stage. While there was a small pool of blood from where the wire had pierced her, the bleeding from that wound seemed to have stopped.
She propped herself up as she heard fast footsteps; Agent Merlo was sprinting down one of the aisles toward her. Two other agents followed behind, each carrying a bound and gagged prisoner. The first carried a thin young man with a mop of curly blond hair and thick glasses that clung to his face as he looked around in terror. The second was a short, middle aged woman with shoulder-length brunette hair and faint blue eyes, who simply looked straight ahead, tears in her eyes. Respectively, they were Jason Contos and Dr. Medea Contos, two members of Anderson Robotics' inner circle, and two of Vincent Anderson's closest friends. The agents placed them down in the two folding chairs gingerly.
“Jesus Christ…” Merlo said, as she knelt down beside Shaw. “How bad?”
“I can't feel my legs,” Shaw replied. “Where's Dan?”
“Buying us time,” Merlo answered “Clarissa, I'm so sorry… Phineas promised us more time to set the trap, and then you and your crew got stuck in the crossfire…”
“Wouldn't be an Asimov's Fuckups mission if things went right…” Shaw said, grinning through the pain.
Merlo gave a sad smile and signaled one of the agents over.
“Get her to Sherman, now! Have the rest of the team at the standby point. The trap's set. Carter knows the contingency plan.”
“Yes ma'am,” the agent replied and scooped up Shaw gently.
“Take him down…” Shaw called to Merlo as she was carried away.
Merlo nodded in response. She turned a glance to Jason and Medea, giving them a small half wave as she drew her pistol.
“See you folks real soon.”

Anderson stood in a locker room, his eyes scanning for a very annoying man in plain clothes who had been taking potshots at him across half the interior of the school. The last one had hit his leg, leaving him slightly hobbled as he continued his search. There were no other exits apparent. Whoever this agent was, he had him trapped.
“There is nowhere else for you to run.” Anderson hissed. “Where are they?”
“Did you check the auditorium?” Navarro's voice called back from somewhere in the maze of lockers.
“Do you think this is a fucking game?” Anderson shouted back, only to be met with a small nervous laugh.
“Yeah, kinda.”
Anderson reached into his pocket, and pulled out several globs of neon blue goo. He gave a frustrated sigh, and then proceeded to chuck them at each of the locker clusters. The metal quickly disintegrated into rust, leaving the once hidden Navarro exposed. The agent looked around, and then back to Anderson, holding up a bloodied hand.
“Okay, that's just cheating.”
The agent immediately clenched his fist, sending a column of flames up from the floor. Anderson dived to the side to avoid being flash fried. Navarro fired off another blast from his shotgun, the slug nailing the cyborg in the chest and sending him flying backwards into the wall. Navarro sprinted for the door, only to crash to the ground as his feet became snagged. An animate wire was wrapped around his legs, dragging him toward the sparking cyborg.
Navarro slashed his hand again and rolled over as he released another fiery blast. The wire jerked him forward, sending the column of flame into the ceiling. Anderson let out a wild howl and he dived forward, the animate wire protruding from his palm sharpening itself into a fine point as he tried to lance his foe. Navarro had grabbed the wire. Anderson grunted as he placed his weight into the strike, the wire sliding down slowly, cutting into Navarro's palms on the way down. Blood dripped from Navarro's palms as he felt the blade slowly slip.
Suddenly Navarro let go with his right hand, grabbing Anderson by the lapel. The blade forcefully sunk into his left shoulder as he let out a cry of pain, followed by a cringing smile.
“Gotcha,” he said through gritted teeth. From his hand erupted a blast of flames which completely engulfed the cyborg. Anderson screamed in pain as Navarro kicked his foe off of him and hobbled out the door, grabbing his shotgun along the way.
The bloodied agent lost no time getting back to the auditorium, his body slamming through the doors as he began to limp down the aisle. Jason and Medea watched him with impassive eyes as he frantically looked around.
"Sasha?" he shouted. "Lets go!"
CRACK
A bolt of lightning struck Navarro in the back and threw him forward. A glob of orange goo hit him mid-flight, and quickly encased him in a bright orange cocoon. As he lay incapacitated, slow, dragging footsteps filled the room, as did the smell of ozone, and seared flesh.
The agent looked up to see Anderson. Parts of his suit had burnt away, exposing charred flesh, and the strange hybrid of organic and mechanical components beneath. His mask was gone, leaving full view of his face. In place of eyes, he had what appeared to be two small camera lenses that glowed with a faint green light. Rather than a nose, he had a triangular grating that rapidly hissed with the passage of air.
"Gotcha," Anderson stated. He launched the animate wire at Navarro and let it squeeze. Navarro howled in pain as he watched his left arm, from the elbow down, roll away from the rest of his body. The cyborg watched his helpless prey scream in agony, then raised the wire for the kill.
Bang.
A gunshot rang out. Anderson backed up slightly in shock, the projectile hitting him in the torso. He turned to the source. Merlo stood in the auditorium doorway, pistol raised.
“Kill him, and you kill Jason or Medea. We've linked a kill agent between his vital signs, mine, and theirs. Either of us dies, so do they.”
“You're bluffing.”
“Want to take that chance?” Merlo raised her pistol. “Try me. Otherwise your friends are right there. Go get them.”
“So just like that, you're done? You think I was born yesterday?”
“You've sliced up our team wizard, and crushed the spine of my second in command. I've only got this 9mm. The time for tricks has long passed,” Merlo stated coolly. “You've won. Collect your goddamn prize.”
Anderson and Merlo's gazes locked for a minute, and then the cyborg began to move toward the stage.
“If you have harmed them… I'll destroy everything you care about, Sasha.”
Anderson kept one eye on the agents as he approached the stage. Merlo quickly cut Navarro free from his orange prison and watched him cauterize his stump hand with a small blast of flame.
“Mechanical asshole…” Navarro mumbled, violently shaking as he was helped to his feet a wink, the two agents watching as the worn down husk that was Vincent Anderson stumbled onto the stage.
“Friends,” Anderson called out. “Friends, I am so sorry. I swore that I would protect you, and I have failed.”
Jason and Medea looked at their employer in silence. Their eyes were bloodshot, and their faces plastered with the exhaustion known by those living in a state of terror.
“It will not happen again,” Anderson continued. “I promise you that. With every fiber of my being, I promise. I can only hope you'll find the kindness to forgive me for this… for all my faults. After all, to err is human…”
Anderson took a final step, then turned to Merlo.
"Bring them to me," he barked. "Now."
Merlo nodded, placing Navarro down in a seat in the first row, then began to climb on the stage. Anderson gestured towards the two bound prisoners expectantly, his eyes locked on Merlo as she knelt down and began to undo Medea's restraints.
Meanwhile, Navarro noticed his shotgun lying on the ground near the stage. A small smirk came to his face.
"Heads up!" Navarro shouted, diving to the shotgun and letting loose one final blast as Anderson turned on the spot and let loose another orange glob.
Both Navarro and Anderson were hit square in the chest. The former crashed into a row of seats. The latter stood motionless, his frame stunned. Merlo sprinted forward, tackling the cyborg. The two landed in a heap between Jason and Medea.
The room became silent. Anderson stood quietly, his hand around Merlo's throat. She clawed at her assailant; but it was no use, his grip was absolute. The agent made short gasps for air as the grip tightened.
"And we were getting along so well," he said with a sigh, and threw the agent across the stage like a piece of trash. Merlo landed with a sickening thud, skidding face down across the smooth surface of the stage before coming to a final stop.
Two red glyphs began to glow beneath Jason's and Medea's chairs, as a larger one appeared beneath all three of them, glowing with an intense white light. Anderson felt his entire body go rigid as he was locked into place, a great force pressing against him from all directions. Jason and Medea phased out of sight, vanishing with soft pops, the glyphs beneath them growing cold, leaving their images burnt onto the stage.
The cyborg recognized this kind of magic. He had seen it before, from an old friend.
“Well-played, Phineas,” Anderson said weakly. “Well-played.”

Agent Shaw watched the monitor in front of her intently. Upon it were the remains of Vincent Anderson, lying motionless upon a secure exam table within a cell in Site-64. At some point between his capture at the Tristan Academy in Three Portlands and his arrival on-site he shut down, and entered a form of stasis. Life signs were present, and the physical body was repairing its damaged components automatically, but none of their equipment could detect brain activity.
Shaw gave a heavy sigh, and rolled her wheelchair over to a coffee pot in the back of the observation room. She poured herself a mug and then returned her attention to the screen. They had finally captured the white whale itself.
The door to the chamber opened. Agent Merlo stepped inside. Shaw gave her superior a friendly nod.
“Any changes?” Merlo asked, looking over the screen.
“Nope,” Shaw replied, taking a sip of her coffee. “Did they settle on a plan?”
“They are shipping him to 19 tomorrow for long term storage,” Merlo sighed. “High priority PoI, maximum security containment needed, O5 orders, and all that jazz.”
“At least we got him,” Shaw chimed in cheerfully. “For once, we won.”
“It's true,” Merlo said with a small smile. “We finally got him.”
The two looked at the monitor for several moments, watching the motionless body on the screen.
“Dan and I were planning on hitting up Secret Crest tonight,” Merlo broke the silence. “I'm buying. Care to join us?”
Shaw smiled but shook her head.
“I think I'll pass for now. Thanks, though.”
“Clarissa, I insist.”
“Don't do this to yourself,” Shaw replied sharply. “You don't owe me a damn thing. This wasn't your fault.”
Shaw wheeled herself back and forth slightly for emphasis.
“If you need atonement, seek it from Holman, or Navarro. As far as I'm concerned, the only one responsible for this situation is the monster on that screen.”
Tears were visible in Shaw's eyes.
“Just… promise me I'm still a Lawbringer.”
Merlo closed her eyes. She wasn't sure what they were going to do with Shaw at this point. There was talk about making her the HQ coordinator for the agents in the field, but mobile task forces needed to be mobile above all things. It was just as likely that Clarissa Shaw would be forced to retire.
Merlo gave a sharp nod, and hugged her friend.
“They'll have to pry you from my cold, dead, hands.”

Navarro and Merlo sat at the bar of the Secret Crest Pub, a small brewpub located in Portland's Pearl District. The owner, having been a former Site Director of Site-64, made the location a welcome haven for those Foundation personnel who had gotten off their shifts. Both agents sat in plain clothes, the former's left sleeve pinned upward to make up for his new lack of a hand.
“Shaw might let you off easily,” Navarro commented as he sipped his drink, “but you're buying me my drinks forever.”
“Fair enough,” Merlo replied, holding up her fingers to signal another round. She paused for several moments before she finally added. “I'm sorry though Dan. I really am.”
“You should be,” Navarro said with sly smile. “That was the hand I used to flip people off. Now I can't properly express myself. You have emotionally crippled me.”
Merlo gave a small snort and shook her head, taking a long sip from her beer.
“What kind of ammo were you using in that shotgun, anyway?” Merlo asked. “Haven't seen it before.”
“Something I picked up on an assignment in Japan. Completely nonlethal.”
“The great Daniel Navarro; even in the face of a killer cyborg, you can't bring yourself to kill someone.” Merlo chuckled. Navarro joined in. After a few more moments they returned to their drinks in silence.
“So what happens now?” Navarro asked after finishing his second drink. “You guys got your prize. What's next for Gamma-13?”
“We caught Anderson, yes,” Merlo replied with a sigh. “But the company still exists. Phineas has probably taken over by now. Lop off one head and have another two grow back in its place.”
“Indeed,” said a warm voice from behind the two agents. They swiveled on their stools and came face to face with an old woman carrying a box. She wore a dark blue business suit, and her grey hair was tied back in a bun. She gave a soft, sympathetic smile.
Navarro and Merlo locked eyes for a moment, and prepared to speak. They were interrupted as the old woman introduced herself.
“My name is Mrs. Saker,” she said. “I was a friend of Phineas.”
“Subtle,” Merlo replied. “Phineas send you to strike out another deal?”
“Phineas is dead,” Mrs. Saker said softly. “Anderson slaughtered him in his apartment shortly before you captured him, as he did to all of those who threw their lot in with the old fool. I'm all that's left of Phineas's band of merry men.”
Merlo paused.
“So who has taken charge of the company?”
“It remains to be seen,” Mrs. Saker replied. She then placed the box on the bar next to Navarro.
“Phineas would have wanted you to have this for your troubles. I'll be working on something for your friend Ms. Shaw in the meantime. We'll be in touch.”
Mrs. Saker gave a curt nod and turned away, leaving the pub as quietly as she entered and disappearing into the foot traffic outside. Merlo and Navarro looked towards the box, the latter cautiously opening it. Inside was a black prosthetic arm, marked with the Anderson Robotics logo. A card was placed on top which read:

Thank you for your purchase of your new GYRFALCON™ Series prosthetic.

Jason and Medea Contos sat at the board room table inside Anderson Robotics HQ. Neither of them could remember the last 72 hours, and had woken in their respective homes beaten and bruised. In the time they had come into work, they had learned that both Vincent Anderson and Phineas had completely vanished, leaving no one to man the company helm. Joining them at the table was Dr. Jeffery Wilson and Isaac Dillard. The former was a middle-aged man with dark skin. His face seemed to be permanently pressed into an expression of worry. The latter was a muscular man in a business suit whose hair was neatly combed back. He carried a faint scent of aftershave with him. Isaac cleared his throat, and then began to address his colleagues.
“Well, folks,” he began, “we all knew this day was likely to come. Now we need to make a decision, and fast. The stability of the company depends on it.”
Isaac let out a sad sigh.
“We need to replace Anderson.”
All the eyes in the room turned to one another, bouncing from locked gaze to locked gaze before all glances settled on the floor.
“My vote,” Isaac continued, “is for Medea to take the reins.”
“M.. me?” Medea stuttered. “For the love of God, why?”
“You're the closest person we have to matching Vincent and Phineas's raw talent,” Isaac replied. “You know their vision for our products and customers as well as they did. It will be a hard road, but we're here to help every step. Unfortunately, someone needs to step up to the plate, and I'm afraid it's your turn to bat.”
Medea looked down at the table nervously.
“I… I wouldn't even know where to start… Isaac, I can't be set adrift like this…” Medea mumbled. “I… I don't know what to do…”
“You don't need to,” said a voice from the entrance of the room.
The four heads at the table turned to the board room's entrance. Standing there was a tan man in a blue dress shirt, with a silver vest and matching slacks. He had long black hair tied back in a ponytail and piercing green eyes. A silver comedy mask was gripped in his left hand as he made his way to the head of the table. While it was no longer mechanical-sounding, the four board members recognized his voice.
“Vince?” Wilson asked. “What…. What happened to you?”
“Got a little tied up with the Foundation, I'm afraid,” Vincent replied with a cheerful smile. “I've made use of some of the tech created by Myra Rider. You remember her, right? Lovely up-and-coming member of the R&D team. Anyway, for the time being I'll be operating remotely through Saker-101 here.”
Anderson gestured to himself.
“Not bad, don't you think?”
“If your physical body is in the hands of the Foundation…” Jason asked slowly, “Isn't that potentially a massive breach of security for us?”
“You bet,” Anderson said warmly, "They've got me by the balls. If they tamper with my body I could die, and I can't use magic like this. But for the time being, it's the best option I have. I'll just pop back to them every now and then. Throw them a bone.”
The room fell silent. The eyes of the board members fell on the table. Their frames felt small under the weight of Anderson's piercing gaze and monumental smile.
“I've also got a surprise for you…” Anderson chimed, and turned toward the board room doors. “Look who's back!”
Anderson threw open the doors, and a skinless Saker unit walked in, dressed entirely in black save for its red tie.
“Afternoon everyone,” the android said in Phineas's voice then produced a small smile. “I apologize for my absence. It's good to be back.”
The board members looked at the Saker with wide eyes. Sideways glances met with one another and an air of terror crept over the table.
“Anyway,” Anderson beamed, placing his comedy mask on his face. “Phineas and I have a lot of work to catch up on from this past month. Let's hit the ground running. We still need to get the Taita series prototype rebuilt. You all take care.”
Anderson and "Phineas" left the room, the doors closing behind them.
For several minutes, there was silence. Isaac organized several papers in front of him, and met the horrified gaze of every other member of the room in turn.
“Well folks,” he said softly, “we all knew this day was likely to come…”

«Consolidation | Austringers


Let's see what an official report would look like:
Item #: … Should they become a number?
Object Class: … Very Beautiful.
Special Containment Procedures: Should they be contained?
Description:
Context: as a field agent, I travel a lot. When I have time, I go places where people dance, because I've always loved dancing. And I note down as much as possible in my travel diary, to reminisce afterwards.
Occurrence 1
France, Strasbourg, night-club 'Le Chalet', June 15th, 2006
I'd been having fun for a while when this guy invited me for a waltz.
Best waltz ever. Perfect all the way: clockwise, counterclockwise, whirl, stop, start, fast, slow. I felt like the Queen of the Night.
The guy never spoke to me - but then we were too busy being good.
He was much taller than me, so I didn't have a good look at his face. I only remember he was serious, focused. Dressed in black. Black hair.
Some time later, the DJ played a set of rock 'n rolls. After dancing one with a not-so-competent partner and fuming about it, I was sitting another out; I spotted my waltz champion and rushed to invite him. He said nothing, didn't smile, just followed me.
Total disaster. I'm good at rock and so was he - but there are about as many styles of dancing it as there are dancers; our styles were simply incompatible.
I kept apologizing. He said nothing. Looked more and more pissed off. Left before the song ended and disappeared.
Was torn between 'How rude!' and 'Yeah, feel that way too.'
Back at the hotel, I noted down everything (with a lot of swearwords: I hate it when I fail to adapt to a new partner!) and mostly forgot about it.
Occurrence 2
UK, London, Royal Opera House, April 2nd, 2009
Tchaikovski's Swan Lake, Royal Ballet
Excellent seat: stalls, front, centre, 2nd row. A treat to myself for my 40th birthday.
Magnificent performance… especially the Dance of the Little Swans, the famous Pas de Quatre.
They were really little: they looked about 12 years old. When they appeared at the back of the stage, there was a wave of surprise through the audience, but the other dancers didn't flinch.
The four dancers looked exactly alike, like true quadruplets: black hair, same face, same silhouette, same height. They all had a beauty mark on the forehead, very much like the Hindu 'Third Eye'.
They moved as one. Their head movements were impossibly identical, to the millimetre and split second.
Standing ovation for 3 minutes and 14 seconds. I timed it. The four curtsied like any performer during applause (their movements were exactly synchronized), then disappeared and weren't seen for the rest of the show.
I wanted to enjoy the whole of my treat, so I put my thoughts on the back burner until the end. But my, that was one busy back burner!
The guy in Le Chalet also had a beauty mark. When he invited me, and when I invited him later, I felt like he was peering at me with 'more than eyes' (as noted in my diary: I checked later).
Black hair - yeah well, many people have black hair.
But why/how male to female, adult to child, social dancer to classical ballet, one to four? Was it one or a group?
Nah. Must be dreaming. Or deluded? Perhaps the beauty mark was a false memory.
I checked the newspaper reports of the performance: they did point out the Pas de Quatre was exceptionally good and successful, but no detail. One report did however mention, in a pleasant aside, that the professional crew hired for filming the event suffered malfunctions in all their cameras. Nothing on the Royal Opera House website about genius quadruplet young dancers.
Yes, I did consider telling the Foundation. This was rather anomalous… But in the end, I decided not to: no certainty, no proofs, perhaps deluded… Furthermore, I didn't want sheer talent to end up contained.
Occurrence 3
Egypt, Cairo, one of the restaurants in the Marriott Hotel, December 9th, 2010
Not alone this time: with four colleagues, three men and a woman. We'd just helped solve a nasty local containment breach and decided to treat ourselves to a good dinner; at my suggestion, we picked a restaurant with a belly-dancing performance.
Food: excellent. Atmosphere: great.
Just before the show one of the musicians asked the public not to take pictures nor film it. The waiters saw to it.
Belly-dancer: black hair, black-and-gold outfit. Beauty mark.
The best performance I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot. I love belly-dancing, practised it for a long time, and am fairly knowledgeable about it. Many belly-dancers content themselves with simple moves and shimmies - trusting their half-naked bodies, shiny outfits, and the seductive aura of the dance to do the rest. Not this one: varied, inventive choreography. She moved like water - like the epitome of Woman, Grace, Pride, Sensuality… I could go on forever!
During the performance she wore a small, secret smile, but her face was … frozen?
Mid-height, a voluptuous body. Not like the Chalet dancer, who was tall and thin. Not like the 12-year-old swans. But… something in common, not only the beauty mark.
My colleagues were enchanted, clapped and whistled, gushed about her for the rest of the dinner. I didn't say much.
What. The. Hell.
Back to one person. Or was it a family: Daddy for waltz, Mommy for belly-dancing, daughters for ballet? Somehow it didn't feel right - too normal. And what were the odds of meeting them in Strasbourg, London, Cairo: were they following me? No, that was silly: I travel all the time, but I don't meet them every time. Was I deluded? Paranoid? Perhaps the guy in Le Chalet and the belly-dancer were just good… Perhaps I had imagined those perfect little swans…
Occurrence 4
YouTube, last night
Yes, I've just spent years wondering about this, and finally decided to brace up and think. And make up my mind: should I inform the Foundation? I'd rather not… Who would want to lock up Gene Kelly, Michael Jackson, Rudolf Nureyev? But it's been nagging me all this time, so yesterday I sat down at my personal computer at home and got to work.
I searched the Net with all the keywords I could think of: Royal Ballet, Le Chalet (sadly, it closed in 2010), (social) dancing, beauty marks…
Time spent: about four hours (am I going mad?). Result: nothing.
I searched video websites for 'best dancer(s) ever' and assorted keywords. This resulted in quite a few videos of four-year-olds at their first ballet classes; many reality-show candidates, best or not; a lot of crap…
Time spent: about six hours (yes. I must be mad). Result: ONE.
Cellphone video of a street show in Brazil. Uploaded on YouTube in February 2008 under the (English) title hidden dragon. Okay, when you search these keywords you get over 900,000 results, mostly about the films, but… the video displayed only 21 viewings, over nine years.
The author of the video only gave the date of the recording: the day before uploading, during the Carnival. No location given. Comments deactivated. No other video from the author (is it important?).
The video was shot covertly, and insolently filmed many signs informing the public, in several languages, that PICTURES AND VIDEOS ARE FORBIDDEN. Consequently, neither sound nor image are good quality. But you can still see two male dancers dressed in black, at least six assistants (male and female? Hard to tell) dressed in white, all with black hair, similar faces and a beauty mark.
The show is advertised as a "reenactment of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". It also features some Matrix- and capoeira-like moves. The assistants watch the show, mingle with the crowd to check for cameras. They don't speak - only communicate with gestures, sometimes rather brusque. They occasionally join the dancers in their performance; whenever they do, the only difference is the colour of their clothes - the quality of the dancing is the same: inhuman. And they all look mighty competent with swords, sabers and violence.
THOUGHTS
The guy in Le Chalet:

The feel of his hands/body was pretty normal.
He was excellent at leading waltz: clear signals from his hands to my body.
In rock: his hand signals were also surprisingly clear, given that you normally have to get used to a partner in order to decipher the signs in the split second between one move and the next. However, his signals were often not followable (e.g.: we were already at two arms' length from each other, and he signalled to 'push' me further away - not possible, I would have 1) lost balance and/or 2) crashed into other dancers behind me).

The four little swans:

It is simply not possible to achieve such identical moves. Especially the head moves: they are varied (up/down/up, straight left/right/left, left/down/right/down/left…) and often illogical (e.g. the dancers look right when they are moving left). Even top dancers from top ballet companies cannot synchronize them exactly: I checked videos of Royal Ballet, Opéra de Paris, Bolshoi, Mariinski and Pacific Northwest Ballet.
They moved as one when needed, but also when they shouldn't, like the salute at the end of the Pas de Quatre.
NO ballet company chooses children to perform this part; the choreography is highly technical and requires experienced dancers. What happened to the four girls who were chosen and rehearsed with the others?
No reaction from the public after the 'wave of surprise' (did I imagine this?): the standing ovation concerned the quality of the performance - I never heard anyone around me ask 'how can they be so young?'.
Did THEY manually sabotage the cameras, or are THEY able to somehow… influence equipment from afar? Why did the crew not realize something was amiss and repair it?
How can such excellent dancers appear on a show, disappear after they do their piece, and never be mentioned again anywhere?

Belly-dancer:

Pictures and filming forbidden. The waiters confiscated a few cameras politely, but firmly.
Incidentally: why forbid pictures and films? Unlike the other public performances I saw, this one was exceptionally good, but not anomalous!

The show in Brazil:

Crouching Tiger and Matrix, including impossible leaps and moves, without wires and CGI.
Incidentally: how nasty can THEY be? How dangerous can THEY get? Ergo, how contained should THEY be?)
Pictures and filming forbidden. The assistants confiscated a few cameras firmly, but not politely.
One video online for nine years, and only 21 viewings. If THEY found it, why did THEY not erase the video? Why/how no description given, no comments allowed? Who gave the video such a casual title? What happened to the author? Or… did THEY plant the video themselves? Why? …Or maybe I'm getting distinctly paranoid here!

In general:

Is the quality of their dancing due to anomalous talents, or just passion and hard work like for everyone else? Or both?
Who are THEY? Fanatical worshippers of Terpsichore, muse of Dance? Just dance lovers who somehow got together to raise the quality of dancing worldwide? Are they human? Were they humans at one point, did they morph into… something else, by dint of hard work and… what?
How do they find each other? How do they recruit new members? How do they end up looking similar or identical?
Third-Eye marks have various meanings, including creation, unity, concentration, concealed wisdom, hospitality, victory… How significant is it for them?
Why do they perform in public but refuse any recording? Not logical!

Damn. Every question raises others instead of bringing answers. Why? Why is it not possible to think clearly about them?
But still able to think.
More questions:

If they are a closely-knit group, what was the guy doing in Le Chalet, on his own? Why did he react so harshly to my failure?
Was he trying to recruit me?
Is this why I can remember and think about them?

I need the Foundation to find THEM. Not contain - just find.
It will most likely take some time, so I've just arranged an appointment with my Site Director for this afternoon; in the meantime, I need to change this 'report'.
The Foundation taught me to fight - I'm good at it. But I have to take up dancing again. At 47, I cannot start ballet; but I can work on as many styles of dancing as I can, and strive for excellence.


The second he opened his eyes, his heart sank.
His mouth was slick with a thin film that tasted like peppermint and batteries. His sinuses felt greasy and his eyes felt cold and small.
Amnestics.
Something had clearly gone wrong, but the fact that he even knew what amnestics were was a sign that everything hadn't gone completely sideways. With eyes that felt brittle, he surveyed his surroundings: Foundation dormitory, not a Quarantine Unit. Good. Not a room he recognized, but in this situation that didn't mean much. No other personnel. No obvious danger. No apparent injuries. The only sound the lazy buzz of an air filtration unit in the ceiling.
He sat up and the taste briefly intensified. Images flitted through his head like frightened birds, the sound of alarms and a panicked babble of voices, but nothing he could hold onto. Whoever had mixed his dose had done so carelessly.
“Or in a damned hurry,” he muttered. He ran a hand down his face. “Well, let's see the damage. Not much happening here. All right, J… “
A sharp ribbon of pain arced from his jaw to his temple, but it was peripheral to the panic that suddenly bloomed in his chest. In times of stress, he knew it was his habit to talk to himself in the third person, to give himself playful orders out loud to lessen the tension. Not this time, though. Oh no. The anxiety of the situation had just gone sailing merrily into the stratosphere.
He could not remember his name.
From a great distance, he heard the tight hiss of his breath as terror coiled itself around his heart. A very tempting idea unfolded in his mind. He should just get up and run. It didn't matter where. It was time to flee. It was time to dig a den, put his back to a wall, bare his teeth, and hide forever. His temples throbbed the word: Hide. Hide. Hide.
Mercifully, training kicked in. BACE: Breathe. Assess. Calculate. Execute. He clamped his eyes shut and inhaled as deeply as he could, exhaled till it hurt. Again, his lungs swelled in his chest. His body began to belong to him again. Exhale, the rabbit hammer of his pulse dulled. He sat and breathed for what felt like a very long time, and then he made himself breathe some more. He pushed down the desire for empty action. After what felt like an hour but was truly only four minutes, he let his eyelids, now soft and relaxed, slowly slide open.
Assess. He stood up, his movements intentionally slow, measured. He walked to the far end of the room and pressed his back against the wall. Assess. Starting at the left of the room, he drew his gaze rightward, forcing his eyes to halt on each object and truly see it, to receive the information each individual datum could offer him about his current situation. He fought the instinct to scan, and discussed with himself each thing he saw. He assessed.
- White wall. Blank. No photos. No personality. Not a personal dorm. Clearly general purpose.
- End table. Wooden. No drawer. Purple inhaler on top. Aerosol amnestics delivery system. Trigger warning on the front showing black. Already been used.
“Self administered,” he muttered, unaware he'd spoken out loud.
Rightward.
- The bed. Standard Foundation gray. Still made. He'd been lying on top of the blanket. His indentation was still visible. Red smudges. Still tacky judging from the shine. Blood.
His discipline broke and he looked down at himself. He was dressed in a black button up shirt and gray slacks. His clothes were stiff with drying blood. His hands were tainted with traces of red. He must have washed his hands in too much of a hurry to worry about fingernails and creases. He checked himself for scratches, cuts, any sort of injury. Nothing. Whoever had done the bleeding, it hadn't been him, but they had been close enough to share.
On the far right wall was a mirror and a sink. He shot over to it. Water drops in the white basin offered a hint of pink. He looked in the mirror. The face was familiar, thank God, but the maroon smears from his hands still made him look a crazed stranger. He stared into his own eyes, searching for an answer he knew he didn't possess.
“I really hope you didn't hurt anyone,” he said to his reflection, holding the eye contact. The face looking back at him was harried. Exhausted. He'd always grown facial hair slowly, but his stubble had grown long enough to go from prickly to the beginnings of a beard.
“Assessment,” he said. “You, my friend, have a had a shitty couple of days.” He held his own gaze a bit longer, but the blood stained face didn't seem to have anything further to add to the matter. He turned his back to the mirror and leaned against the sink.
“Calculate,” he said to the empty room, addressing the four beds as a professor to a class. “It is my calculation that I have been affected by some type of anomalous bullshit and gone and injured someone. I also calculate that since I am not in a cell or restrained, that I am in for several less than ideal surprises on the other side of that door.” He turned and looked in the direction of the room's only exit and saw the note.

don't read the report
don't look around
dangerous
go straight to red phone call MTF

He immediately recognized his own handwriting.
He had taken amnestics once before. He had volunteered apparently. When it's your decision to forget something, they let you record a message for yourself for when you wake up. That time he had woken to a medic who calmly explained his situation and had left him in the company of his recorded self. It had been weird to watch. His pre-amnestic self had looked like some essential element been ripped from his spirit. He had been sitting in a chair, but his whole demeanor felt hunched. His affect was as flat as a steel plate, but somehow his calm words felt like sobs, his unblinking stare, a wince. He had said that the amnestics were necessary. His post-amnestics self believed him one hundred percent and had never been too curious about what had broken that other version of himself so deeply. He had moved on easily.
This was different. This felt like theft. He was still in the middle of whatever needed to be forgotten. Whatever trauma he had suffered before, he'd shed like a jacket on a warm day. Just let it drop to the sidewalk and walked away from it. This was more like a tangle, a maze he didn't know why he'd wandered into. Every time he encountered something that had happened in the hole in his memory, he felt like a stranger inhabiting his own body. The inconsistency of his knowledge inspired a dread that was a low hum all around him. How could he know his face and his handwriting, but not his name? How could he be certain what else he had forgotten? How could he ever know what he'd forgotten to know he'd forgotten.
“And why in God's name was I cryptic with myself? Jesus Chri…”
His hand shot to his temple as a lightning bolt of blinding agony screamed from his right shoulder to the top of his head. His legs surrendered and he fell bonelessly to the floor, shrieking. The pain was terrifying, but also infuriating. Is this what he needed?! Some sort of insane skull cramp on top of all this confusion and fear. As fast as he'd fallen he leapt up, grabbing the sink and pulling himself in front of the mirror, and locked eyes with himself. The mirror shattered, his fist pounding it four times before he even realized he'd moved his arm.
Glass had found purchase in his knuckles, and rather than enrage him further, he suddenly found himself numb, stunned at what just happened. A single jagged blade of the mirror had survived his assault and hung like an icicle in its metal frame. He met his own eyes in it.
His voice was empty, toneless, like the voice he had heard on that recording all those years ago.
“Assess. There is something very wrong with me.”
He spent the next few minutes pulling slivers of glass from his knuckles. His numbness had given way to morosity and dread. He knew his self-maintenance was procrastination. He knew that whatever that outburst had been, it was what put him here. He could remember enough about his life to know that he wasn't prone to rage. Something had happened to him.
He pulled the last splinter of glass from his hand with a hiss. He wrapped his hand as best he could with one of the gray pillow cases and surveyed the room one last time, his unwounded hand on the door knob. His tantrum had sent glass, twinkling and red, well across the room. He considered it a moment, and then collected the largest shard he could find.
"Execute," he muttered. He wrapped the pillow case around the duller end of the shard and, so armed, left the room.
The hallway was chaos.
The emergency lights were flashing, but someone must have disabled the klaxon. Several storage lockers had been flung to the ground and lay on their faces like fallen soldiers. Scattered papers littered the corridor, the occasional drop or smear of red punctuating them under the strobing lights. He stood in the doorway, listening for the sounds of destruction or violence that one would expect to accompany such a scene, but all he could hear was the air system and the rush of his own blood.
He did not recognize this place.
Nor could he remember the last project of which he was a member. The last thing he could recall was lunch with… a man. Some man. No name for him either, it seemed. He sighed and stepped out into the hall. His room was at the corner of an L-junction. He turned right, heading away from the lockers, papers, and hectic lighting. This way was marked with a red line on the wall labeled, “Command.” This would be his best bet to avoid any breached Containment Units and other personnel. He would follow his own advice and call in a Mobile Task Force. The fact that they required calling and weren't already on their way meant someone had tampered with the automated system.
“Wouldn't be so hard,” he muttered. “ All you'd have to do is reroute power from communication to the perimeter defense grid and no one would…” His jaw tightened. It wasn't exactly a good sign that he was so well informed on the matter.
The red line led him through several turns. Sites were typically designed to be confusing to those without training, especially if it housed human Skips. Breaches were easier to deal with if escapees were lost and confused. He, however, moved with the confidence of someone who knew where he was. Whatever information his mind might be missing, his muscles remembered. He barely noticed the red line as he moved towards Command. As he walked, he was met by silence. The place felt deserted. There were no papers or objects strewn about, but every emergency light had been smashed. The fluorescents above had been safe in their steel cages, but halos of yellow glass twinkled every twenty meters below each warning unit, the crunch of glass marking a slow beat as he walked.
He turned another corner and the ghost taste of amnestics whispered up his throat. The murmur of voices drifted through his head, this time with a woman's voice in front, panicked, saying, “That's impossible. I thought it was only with a K.” His vision doubled and he swayed, the heel of his bloody hand pressed against his forehead. When he steadied, he looked around with a deeper déjà vu than he knew could exist. He knew this place. He must have been here a hundred times. A thousand. He knew this place was his as sure as -
“As sure as I know my own name,” he chuckled.
The door was labeled Room 2841 and was the first he'd encountered so far that was open, even if only slightly. A dented folding chair was partially jammed under it, giving him only a narrow view to the interior of this his room, but it was brightly lit. Inviting. In the terrible tangle that his life had become since waking, this was the first familiar thing that didn't fill him with dread. A thought of the note that his former self had written flickered through his mind before he dismissed it with an unconscious frown. Danger or no, this was safe territory. He would briefly investigate, arm and bandage himself properly, and find a phone to call a MTF to come save him from this nightmare. At that moment, he knew for certain that there was a red phone right next to the stapler on his desk. With a minute nod, he stepped over the chair and forced open the door.
There was a lot of blood. Most of it was pooled around the head of the man lying on his side in the corner. The white lab coat was pristine where it wasn't sprinkled with blood so red that it all but glowed. Beside his head, face-down, was small sculpture of a sphere on an oak base. He didn't have to turn it over to know there was a plaque on the front, engraved with the phrase “The Worst Ones Are Spheres,” a gift from this dead man on the ground in front of him. He had died surprised, a look of confused alarm frozen forever on his face, slightly distorted his newly concave forehead. He slowly approached the body and crouched down in front of it. He was certain of two things: This man was his friend and he had killed him.
But he didn't know his name.
There was nothing left to do. He stood up and walked to the red phone. He reached for it, but as his eyes lit on the open amnestics cabinet, his hand drifted to a halt. The deja vu was back. She had opened it. She… She had said that he was infected and she had run for the cabinet… and… and she…
Like a man asleep, he walked towards the purple, metal container. Purple was the color of all amnestics related equipment, but the color of the stuff was actually clear. All the worst ones are clear, his mind babbled as he opened the cabinet all the way and looked inside. Two of the holders were empty: one self admin, one weaponized. He had used the inhaler in the dorm. Who had used the other? He stood, staring into the shelves, not seeing them, groping in the darkness of his mind.
Though he stood like this for minutes, staring, unmoving, eyes wide, he gained nothing from it. His daze cleared and he turned back to the phone. He stepped towards it and something snapped under his shoe. He lifted his foot. Glasses. Her glasses. Not far off, the weaponized amnestic. The voices murmured, hers as loud as if she were right next to him, yelling, “Containment breach!! It's not just K's anymore!! It's jumped! ” He could picture her lurching towards the cabinet. He had seen her over his shoulder.
The images were rapid. He had run at her and she had shot him. Sprayed him in the face, but he had hit her arm and half the dose had misted uselessly to his left. He remembered the taste, peppermint and batteries and the way the world swung sickeningly in front of him as the drug sank into his nervous system. He remembered her panicked face. Her shouting. “My husband is named J…” She had flinched then, cringing away from him. “I can't stay and help you. Take this,” jamming the inhaler in his hand. “It's your only hope.” And he remembered wanting to choke her and telling her to run. Reaching for her and only getting her glasses as she fled.
Ok. All set. He'd had enough. Investigation over. Whatever had happened, it had happened to him and he needed help. Send in the cavalry. He picked up the red phone and an operator answered immediately.
“Yes.”
“I need help. There's been a breach. There's something wrong with… people are dead. Need assistance.”
“Verify.”
Fuck. Why hadn't this occurred to him? He'd need his clearance code, followed by his name, if he expected to be interviewed instead of simply terminated.
“Ok. Listen. I've been amnesticized. I don't know my name. I need some goddamned help. My code is easter, seven, griffin, wind chime, but I can't remember my name.”
“Verify.” Cold. Emotionless. By the numbers. Goddamn it.
His eyes searched frantically. Something in this place must have his name on it. A report was spread on his desk. He was about to move on when he saw the phrase, “violent outbursts.”
“Await authorities,” said the voice, gray and hard as slate. “Do not resist.” The line went dead.
He barely heard. He put the phone back in its cradle and read the report.

Description: SCP-3145 is an anomalous infection affecting people whose first or last names begin with the letter K. Vector for transmission of infection seems to be an airborne virus, though testing for the presence of a physical viral agent has been inconclusive. Early symptoms of infection are irritability, paranoia, and irrational emotional responses. Full onset of SCP-3145 symptoms manifest approximately eight hours after exposure, at which point infected individuals will become violent, especially at hearing a name beginning with the letter K. To date, the only treatment for SCP-3145 with any success has been amnestics specialized for name recollection.

Off to the side, there was a hurriedly scrawled note.

newly infected
Jennifer Bevan
Michael Jones
Robert Jandrue
mutation????

His skull was a cauldron of agony. His teeth clenched until they would break. He dropped the report. He blinked, reptilian, shaking with rage. The shard of glass exploded in his clenching fist. His eyes moved to another sheet of paper. His handwriting.

“It is my recommendation that until we know how this disease works, no one with any K's in their name should be allowed to be part of SCP-3145 Research.”

And he'd signed his name.

Dr. Jacob Jespen

This time when the pain came, it was greeted with a laugh.


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The more time Lilibeth spent away from the cottage and at The Library, the more she realized how used she had been. By what she couldn't be sure, but she had begun to feel like a pawn in some cosmic chess game. She didn't know the players, and she didn't know the rules, but, she had gotten to know a few of the game pieces.
It had been several days since her arrival. The feeling of being somewhere new filled her both with excitement and anxiety, and there was a sense of change floating about. She had confirmation now: there were more of these cottages in alternate universes, and different people within those cottages. How many were out there? Possibly infinite? Lilibeth couldn't tell.
Perseus had put it thusly: “Whatever forces are controlling this situation, they don't appear overtly hostile, and they only target versions of what is commonly- though not always- called The Foundation.”
The Library and Ways appeared to be the only safe haven from this influence. Perseus explained how when he had first escaped his cottage, he had tried to return to his Foundation. Though he tried multiple times, he was almost immediately redirected back to the cottage once he left The Library or the Ways.
“Whatever forces are controlling this situation, they aren't overtly friendly either,” Norma had scoffed, adjusting the off-kilter top hat which she insisted on wearing. She and Perseus weren't the only other two from these cottages either. Lilibeth saw a third person arrive sometime the day after her. He was a shambling mess of a man; skin grey, hairless body, and covered in rags. He identified himself as Crux, servant of “The Nineteenth Grounds”, which by his account bore striking resemblance to Site-19.
The only individual involved in this extended get-together who had not come from the cottage was Carina. In fact, Carina was only tied to The Library, which is to say, she was firmly melded to the floor behind the desk she was placed at. Apparently, this was not uncommon for librarians here, but that's beside the point. It was her who reserved dormitory-style rooms for Lilibeth, Perseus, Norma, and Crux to stay in. They were welcome to stay as long as needed.
It was day 4 since Lilibeth had arrived at the Library.
Now, Lilibeth sat in one of the comfortable chairs placed in a circle around the center of the conference room. Across from her was Perseus, to her left Crux, and to her right Norma. In the corner, behind Perseus, Carina jotted down notes in a blank book.
“You insist on stopping it?” Crux asked.
“I'm not ruling it out,” Perseus replied, “this thing is taking people, has been taking people, and will almost certainly continue to do so once we're gone. If it's for some sinister purpose, then I want it neutralized, the scenario and whatever's behind this thing.”
“I'm telling you, it is the will of the Slouthering,” implored Crux.
“Slou-what-ering?” Norma shot the man a quizzical look.
“Listen, Crux, I understand your beliefs, and I'm doing my best to respect them, but we don't want to jump to any conclusions here.”
“I'm with Perseus,” Norma continued, “we need to figure what's going on here and we can only do that with the information we have currently. Orion, you said you found a bunch of cogs underground?”
“Yeah,” Lilibeth confirmed. “Deep below the grassy field is a series of tunnels. Most of them lead to empty rooms, but this one, it goes to a big room of machinery. I haven't a clue what it's supposed to do, but it's certainly doing something.”
“And you also said something about where the water from the pump goes,” Perseus added, “with what you think could be names of other alternates of SCP-2508?”
“Yes. Especially with Crux's belief in this ‘Slouthering' entity, I'm almost certain.”
“So what I wanna know,” Norma was pacing now, rubbing her chin, “is what the hell needs all this water we're putting in that pump anyway? And if those extra pipes you saw are in fact ours- oh shit, that means our cottages are actually physically linked and working together to provide this water.”
“Perhaps The Slouthering is thirsty,” Crux suggested. Norma paused.
“What is this Slouthering thing anyway?” she asked. Crux's eyes widened.
“Why, it is the divine. The legends of old tell of it, and its Type-Fritz Hosts. It needs them to manifest, you know. Do you not have the stories in your dimension?”
“No,” Norma stated flatly.

Lilibeth traveled back to SCP-2508 on the 7th day since she had left. She grabbed belongings, refilled generators and pumps, and made sure things were in order. She did not intend on coming back. In a way, she would miss the comfort of this place. She had grown attached to it. But she knew in her heart that this wasn't the place for her. If there was even a chance of escaping it, she had to take it. There was a house and a family she hadn't seen in almost 20 years; she especially missed her daughter Emily, who would be grown by now.
It was overcast, and there was a salty smell in the air that reminded Lilibeth of a beach at low tide. As she shut the door to what had been her home for the past two decades, her heart skipped a beat. She was leaving. Raindrops began to pepper the ground as the world was obscured from view; a circle of dirt and clay rising up and slowly consuming the sky as the elevator returned to the depths of the dark.
Soon she was back in The Library, where Crux and Norma were searching through an aisle labeled “Auniversal”. They had an unprecedented amount of information at their disposal, and with it, they were trying to find any clues as to what the cottages were, and where they might have come from.
“I see you two have been busy,” said Lilibeth.
“And, apparently, we aren't the only ones,” Norma added, “you got your stuff from your cottage? Don't need to go back for anything?”
“I shouldn't. I've had enough of filling up a pump for one life. What about you?”
“We'll be getting to that.”
“Okay,” Lilibeth sat in one of the nearby armchairs. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“Shoot”
“How exactly are you associated with The Foundation? I mean, I know you said you worked at Site-43, but…”
Norma gave her a look, “but what?”
“You're like…. 12.”
“12 and a half, thank you very much. And so what? Kids gotta feed their adults somehow.”

It was day 9 since she had left when Lilibeth saw it, on page 17 of a book entitled “The Fareaway Lands”:

In my travels I met many strange people, but none so perplexing as the group of individuals who warned me of the Ways. They could tell I was new, and cautioned me, saying that there were some places and corners you could get stuck in. They explained that they knew a lot about these kinds of places, and did their best to keep Wayfinders safe. When I asked them who they were, they simply replied “Aleph Null”.

Something about this jumped off the page for Lilibeth. There was so far no record of the cottage anywhere in The Library, but this could be a lead. If anyone knew anything about what the cottages were, it would be this group, Aleph Null.
Lilibeth rushed to tell the others, who responded with similar reactions.
“What do you think? The author seems knowledgeable,” Crux said.
“Corners that you can ‘get stuck in'? That sounds an awful lot like our predicament,” Norma agreed.
“Well then that settles it,” Perseus declared, “we have to find these Aleph Null guys. I'll run it by Carina to see if she can help us track them down.”
“Maybe they know a way out of this mess,” posited Norma.
“I hope so,” Lilibeth stared at the cover of the book; deep crimson leather with gold lettering, dusty and heavily weathered. “We've all spent so long in that place, I think we could use a change of scenery.”


Author's Note: These gnomes are based on the ones from SCP-1956.

The hustle and bustle grew throughout the marketplace as the striped feet of gnomes darted about. The festival was long-awaited, with vendors lining up their stalls across the streets and the sides of the clocktrees. The glowplants covered the stalls and tents of leather and silk, providing illumination for the spectacle of the season's wares.
The food stalls were filled with pies stuffed with the meat of large insects, and the foam overflowed from drinks that flew from client to client. There were acrobats balancing on streetlamps and juggling each other, making wide arcs and dramatic poses. The musicians played their trombeetles, coins and gizmos were exchanged between oos and aas, and not a single gnome would be caught dead with empty tendrils. The living moons danced like soapstone blimps above, carrying the night sky with them as they flapped their wings and tails.
In the middle of all the music and movement was a gnome with green and black stripes, a cap that split in four, and a pair of brass goggles. He was scrunching his oil-stained face and twitching his cap at the crumpled diagram he carried. All items crossed out, except one. He mumbled something about flying vehicles and rare crystals, not paying attention to the looks his poorly cut head tendrils were getting.
His project would look arcane and beyond everyday applications to most, and that was just how he liked it. Let others deal with scrubbing floors and serving meals. He was about to do something no other gnome in these parts had ever managed, and he would come back to tell everyone about it. Even if it landed him in another smoking crater.
He pulled his notebook from his pocket and started calculating the probability of finding what he needed and how much haggling he'd have to do. He was startled by the sound of something breaking under his foot, and furrowed his brow at the following sound. A child crying. He feared he might have stepped on a beloved pet for a second and was about to offer a mechanical substitute, but then he looked down and realized it was a simple wind-up toy.
He took it in his tendrils, pulled out a screwdriver, a rubber band and the gum he was chewing, and fixed the toy in ten seconds flat. He put it down, wound it up, and watched it walk back to the child, who wasn't sure if it was really fixed. He looked up at the child's mother, who was staring at him like one would at a roach they've been trying to get rid of for a long time.
"Well, if it isn't Plagum, the smartest gnome around." She knew that ever since one of his rivals had bested him in a glowplant design contest, Plagum was especially bothered by that sarcastic namecalling. He didn't resent being defeated fair and square, but Glibo's serenity had always seemed a bit off to him. Though they exchanged tube-letters frequently to keep score of their projects and exploits, Glibo frequently came out ahead. Plagum supposed the gardener attracted more sympathy with his simple manners, and he wasn't far from the truth. There was also the fact that Glibo's custom glowpants did not shear off head tendrils when mishandled, like Plagum's gizmos were infamous for doing.
"You mess up a celebrity's cap once, and you're labeled for life…" grumbled Plagum internally. He faced the mother and the child with as much politeness as he could. "Spare me. I congratulated the man and everything, and the kid's toy is fine. I have a project to finish." And with that, he kept going his way, paying a little more attention to his surroundings and putting another piece of gum in his mouth.
Just as he was finishing his calculations in a corner, Plagum imagined himself flying and taking pictures no one else could. Pictures so good that gnomes would ask him how he did it. He'd just smile and say it was all hard work and talent. Prizes, interviews, autographs. Maybe he'd even receive an invitation to join his heroes in the halls of the Great Crystalsight University, and study the marvels in the unexplored regions of Lagomia.
Before he could fantasize further, Plagum stopped in his tracks when he saw a stall with the item he needed. He smiled and was already putting his haggling posture on, when he noticed a sign that said "sold out". He huffed and contorted his needle teeth. Looking at the money he had left, and with the closing hour approaching, he undid his scowl and straightened his goggles. He smeared the oil-stain in the process.
"Excuse me, sir. Do you happen to have another one of those crystals stored away? I don't have much money left, but perhaps we can work something out real quick…" tried Plagum.
The vendor turned around and made an expression of shock. Before he could warn the tinkerer gnome of the acrobat about to fall on top of him, Plagum was already pleading for generosity. The squishy crash of a gnome falling on another resounded through the stall.
The slim and wide-eyed acrobat got up in a hurry and apologized about ten times to Plagum, who was far more worried that he might have to fix one of his tools. The acrobat turned around to apologize to the vendor, and saw that he had enough money for the same crystal that Plagum wanted.
"Hi there, good evening, sir! I've been saving up for that exact crystal for weeks before the festival started. It's the last one I need to finish my collection! Can you let me buy it, please please please?"
Collection? Didn't this boy realize the properties that it had in the right tendrils? Plagum would have complained and insisted he arrived first, but he had to admit the boy deserved it more for saving up in advance. The vendor was enchanted with the eagerness and dedication of the acrobat, and searched his stall for the crystal he asked for.
As he watched the young acrobat jump away in pure joy, Plagum felt his familiar anger boiling the oilstain on his forehead. He noticed gnomes were gathering around to see if anyone was hurt, so he composed himself. Now what? The festival would only last a few more days, and he could not get enough money with his deliverer job in time.
He hit a screwdriver against the side of his goggles and popped gum balloons until a glowplant shone inside his mind.
It was so simple. Why didn't he think of it sooner?
He just had to dig for the crystals himself. He had enough parts left to make a powered drill, he just had to make sure he didn't anger the sharkworms. He went home and headed straight to the workshop, where he began to disassemble various devices he had found laying around in festivals and sales. He drew the schematics of the drill on a writing desk that was far cleaner and more organized than him, and soon the roars of the machine sounded off into the night.

The festival had to end sooner than expected. While no one was hurt in the accident but Plagum, there was considerable property damage. Holes were torn into the sides of stalls by the shredding maws of sharkworms, products were devoured and the powered drill hit a rock that sent it flying into the face of a living moon. The celestial critter protested by hiding the stars it carried and spitting back the drill into the roof of Plagum's house.
The tinkerer would have been furious enough to chew through iron, but he had no arguments. If only he had arrived earlier, or saved up more, or just settled for a simpler project to show the University. But it was too late, and he was sentenced to a long period of community service, seeing as how he did not have nearly enough money to pay for the destruction.
"But that close up of the sharkworm's mouth was amazing!" he insisted to himself as he cleaned the debris of his foolish brilliance from the streets. His arm hurt from the glancing bite he had received from the subterranean model. Maybe his next project could be a way to better control the population of those devourers with no sense of taste…
A few days into the service, he was approached by none other than Glibo, who was carrying a covered handbasket. Plagum was surprised, and if he was honest with himself, pleased to see a familiar face that wasn't frowning. The gardener looked at the tinkerer's wounded arm, and shook his head. "You're going to become some animal's dinner if you keep this up". Even through the joke, Glibo could not bring himself to really mock the poor gnome. Plagum did struggle a lot with getting the recognition he wanted so much, and this wasn't the first accident.
"Tell you what, Plagum. When you are done for today, you can come over to my garden for lunch. I was worried that your accident might have wounded you a lot more, so when I heard you were still in one piece, I prepared something special to celebrate."
The tinkerer looked at the handbasket in those orange-black polkadot tendrils, and felt the the sweet aroma of mushroom stew. His stomach groaned loudly, and he told it to shut up. Glibo chuckled at that, and patted Plagum on the back. "Don't worry, I'm sure your stomach isn't angry at you. And you'll make it to Crystalsight soon, I am sure of it. Here, have this mushroom while you do your service." Glibo handed him a big enough fungus to silence his stomach for a while.
"Thanks, Glibo. You're a nice gnome. But don't you forget our score, you hear? I'll beat your tendril-jumper record someday!" The gardener gave him nod of approval and returned to his work. Plagum looked down and recognized a chunk of metal from the drill. He saw his reflected goggles and frown being warped by the metal's shape, creating a boogeyman of the sort that made little gnomes hide inside their bedsheets. And in his grumpy heart, he felt that the difference between the gnome and reflection was too small.
He would have something surprising indeed to discuss over lunch that day.

After weeks of community service (and a lot of temptation to use more gizmos to finish said service faster), Plagum was finally free. His parents gave him the usual speech and scolding, but were far more glad than angry when they saw he was OK. They decided to take him to the circus to cheer him up. Plagum took his notebooks to scribble down ideas as he was inspired by the acrobats' parabolas in the air. He noticed one of them was the boy who had bought the crystal before he could. He felt the beginning of a growl forming in his throat, but he remembered all the trouble his poor manners had brought him so far. He decided that this time would be different.
He stopped by a gizmo store after the show was over, and took some wood pieces, glass, wires and paint. He built a goblet-shaped crystal holder. The glass dome would open at the pulling of a lever, but when closed and placed under moonlight, the crystals hanging from the wires would form sparkling and multi-colored astronomic images.
The next time he went to the circus, Plagum approached the boy who had the crystal he needed. He breathed in and out, and felt a strange levity wash over him. His legendary frown dissolved and gave way to a smile. "Hey there, that was quite the spectacle! You must train a lot. What's your name?"
"Hey, it's you! I'm so sorry for falling on you during the festival! A bird got into my mouth and…what's that in your tendril? Oh, right, I'm Neebeem. You are the drill guy, right?"
Plagum mustered up his willpower to not get irritated at that "drill guy" comment, and to his shock, the next words came naturally to him. "Yes, that's me. My name is Plagum. I couldn't find something I needed in time at the festival, so I came up with a stupid plan that messed everything up. I should have followed your example, Neebeem. Speaking of which…" He showed the crystal holder to the acrobat. "I don't have a lot of money, but if you traded that crystal you bought for this, I'd be so very thankful." He instructed Neebeem on how to use the gizmo, and the boy was completely enchanted.
"Of course, mister! This is so cool! I'm gonna put it my room and watch it every time the moons come by! You're not mean like people say, you're awesome!" Even though Plagum scoffed, he didn't frown. "Ah, I wouldn't say I'm mean, but I have a project on good manners I need to work on. I hope you enjoy the crystal holder. See you around, and keep doing those awesome jumps!"
"Will do! Good luck with your projects, mister Plagum!" The acrobat went on his way, and the tinkerer felt a new glowplant shining in his mind. Now that he had the crystal, he could build the moonlight powered flying machine he had been imagining for so long. But he was bad at piloting, and he could not take detailed pictures of the living moons without losing control of the machine sooner or later. However, there was a solution. And it was so simple.

Later that month, on a scientific magazine that often published articles of respected scholars, the special edition's headline read in showy letters: "Ex-pilot gardener and young tinkerer use flying machine to take revolutionary pictures of living moons." On the article cited in the headline, it said: "Tinkerer is to be admitted into Crystalsight University."


We're here. I'll send you a response when the dust has settled. I hope you have a plan B, because I'm honestly expecting this whole thing to crash and burn.

Your concern is noted, but I think you'll find that we have more of an edge than you realize. Good luck.

As they stood alone in a parking lot near a trailhead for Forest Park, Sasha Merlo simply watched the light November rainfall around them and placed her cell phone back in her pocket. Her brunette hair was stuffed beneath a small beanie as she took in a deep breath. On the other side of the parking lot, Daniel Navarro was finishing up a cigarette. Once they were in Site-64 there would be no more smoking, so he was making sure to take advantage of this last opportunity. Eventually, the lanky man approached, taking a few moments to watch the rain fall with Merlo before he finally spoke.
“So…” he began. “How about those SCPs?”
Merlo immediately punched him in the arm.
“Hey,” Navarro said through a chuckle as he hopped backward, rubbing his arm with his free hand. “That's a little extreme don't you think?”
Merlo shook her head.
“Four years,” she said. “You could have at least sent me an email. ‘Hey Sasha, just a heads up, I'm not dead or had my memory wiped.'”
“What can I say,” he shrugged. “The new task force has me swamped. This is the first time I've even been back to Oregon since 2014.”
“See, that also burns me,” Merlo snapped back, “I offered you a spot on Gamma-13 at least four times, and each time you said, ‘MTFs are for squares.' And yet here you stand as a Bibliographer. Seriously, what the fuck?”
“They put a bag over my head,” Navarro replied with a sly smile. “Clearly they wanted me more. Try kidnapping next time.”
Merlo let out a frustrated sigh and turned back to the rain. She managed to maintain a frown for a few more moments before it cracked into a small grin.
“They really put a bag over your head?”
“Sure did.”
The two agents let out a brief laugh before they turned towards the maintenance trail leading westward into the forest. Half a mile in they would find yet another trail that would lead to one of Site-64's entryways.
“Think Holman will bite?” Navarro asked. Merlo's thoughts then turned to the folder in her backpack, detailing the intricate plan Phineas had shared with them back at Fort Charles.
“I doubt it,” Merlo sighed. “But right now he's the only one who'd even agree to a meeting with me, let alone another scheme to capture Anderson. Holman's our only shot, as poor a shot as it is. I'm just hoping that the incident with Saker-13 is enough to show him that Phineas is willing to play ball.”
“I mean, what else could he ask for? Two dead congressmen?”
“With our luck, probably.”

Site Director Edgar Holman looked over the folder in silence. Navarro and Merlo sat before him, each remaining motionless in the two chairs he kept in front of his desk. As he continued to read, Merlo looked Holman over. The years had not been kind, as the wear and tear of over two decades at the helm of a Foundation facility had finally begun to show. His slicked-back hair, once black, was beginning to show streaks of gray. Merlo had enough difficulty handling the MTF she had been assigned. She could not begin to imagine how one managed to sleep when they were responsible for an entire site.
Eventually, Holman took off his reading glasses and closed the folder. He looked up at the two agents before giving a small chuckle.
“I don't know what I'm more impressed by, the fact that you brought me this little scheme or the fact that you did it with Dan Navarro in tow as if it would help,” he said. He then shook his head. “We'd never get approval for something like this, Sasha.”
“But what do you think?” Merlo inquired.
“It doesn't matter what I think,” Holman replied. “I could be convinced that this plan was God's gift to the Foundation and we still wouldn't get approval, assistance from Phineas aside. They're only calling Gamma-13 together to raid known Anderson locations. Not bait traps, especially ones dependent on known PoIs.”
“So that's it then? Plug's being pulled?”
“I'm afraid so,” Holman said with a sigh. “Valiant effort, but no dice.”
Merlo gave a defeated nod and stood.
“Thank you for your time, sir,” she said and made her way to the door. Navarro followed suit. It was not long before the two agents were in the halls of Site-64, slowly meandering back to Merlo's office.
“So what now…” Navarro asked, keeping himself in time with Merlo's stride.
“I have no clue…”
“There is always my way…” Navarro said with a chuckle. Merlo laughed briefly then shook her head.
“I don't have the benefit of being a wizard, Dan,” she said. “If I go through with this unapproved, even if I was successful, they'd wipe my mind and leave me on the banks of the Willamette. I told Phineas this would be a long shot, and go figure I was right.”
Merlo sighed as she pulled out her phone and sent a single text.

No go.

She once again pocketed her phone and the two continued in silence, only stopping their solemn gait when they heard Holman calling out behind them. The older man was nearly sprinting, his breathing heavy as he finally caught up.
“Sir?” Merlo asked.
“You two… the AMAT Lab… now!” Holman said between gasps. Eventually, he regained his breath and let out a final sigh. “There has been a development.”
Merlo felt her phone vibrate. As she followed behind Holman she discretely checked the new text.

Dust hasn't settled yet.

Site-64's Anomalous Materials lab was one of the newer labs in the facility. As such, when Holman, Merlo, and Navarro entered they were greeted with the sights and sounds of new scientific toys whirling, buzzing, and otherwise being scientific. A handful of researchers buzzed as they went about their business, excitedly chattering among themselves before they noticed the three outsiders standing at the threshold of their academic lair.
A scrawny man in a lab coat with messy blond hair and sleep deprived eyes stepped forward. His lips were turned up into an ecstatic smile, as he offered a handshake to Holman.
“Director,” he said in a slightly monotone voice, “thank you for making the trip down here.”
“Of course, Conwell,” Holman said, eyeing the chittering researchers in the background. “These are Agents Sasha Merlo and Daniel Navarro, would you mind telling them what you told me on the phone earlier?”
Conwell gave the two of them a sharp nod, his smile vanishing briefly.
“We've met.”
“Long time no see, Sadman,” Navarro replied. “What have you got for us today?”
“A flashdrive was left on my desk this morning. Inside was directions to synthesize a stable variant of SCP-1360-1,” said Conwell. He then took a small tray from a nearby workbench. Sure enough, a square of the familiar tough, black fabric that always covered Anderson's androids was there. Conwell then handed over a small piece of paper. “This was found with the flashdrive.”
Merlo snatched it from his hands and read it hungrily, Navarro reading from over her shoulder.

Conwell,
You and Johnson got pretty close to cracking this. I felt that you deserved an answer.
Tell your superiors that all my cards are now on the table.
Phineas

“We're running a large series of tests,” Conwell added, looking to Holman. “But once we get your approval, I'd like to send this to the paratech devs. Self-repairing body armor could be a useful tool. However, I think you'd be more interested in this little tidbit.”
Conwell took out a small spray bottle, and immediately sent a few drops of an unknown liquid flying at the fabric. Within seconds the aramid fibers shriveled into dust.
“Phineas also provided instructions on how to destroy it. I imagine this, if weaponized, could be handy to Gamma-13, or any number of task forces dealing with Anderson robots.”
Merlo and Navarro beamed at Holman. Both agents wore a smug smile. Holman sighed in response.
“How much longer until you finish the preliminary tests?” he asked.
“I've cleared our entire testing schedule for the day,” Conwell replied with a smile. “Give us a day or two to verify everything, and I'll have the full report on your desk.”
“Have a copy ready to send to the paratech devs,” Holman replied, then turned to his agents and gestured to the hall. Merlo caught a glimpse of the AMAT lab techs scurrying about before the door closed, leaving the trio alone in the hallway.
“Soooooooooooo…” Merlo said, turning to Holman with a grin. “Phineas provided us with a dead Saker, names, locations, and has now armed us. He clearly wants Anderson taken down. If we don't take him up on this offer, he's going to find someone else. This is our shot, Edgar.”
Holman rubbed the bridge of his nose. He then let out an exasperated sigh.
“I'll pass this up the chain,” he finally said after several moments of silence. “No promises anything will come of it though. Our track record is not exactly top tier.”
The Director slowly walked away, two fingers rubbing his right temple.
“And for the love of all that is good and holy, behave,” he added. “Or I swear I will personally be dumping your bodies into the Willamette.”

Very clever. Your gamble worked. Gamma-13 has been approved to launch the operation.

I figured that would grease the wheels enough to get things moving.

Right. So this bait you mentioned…

Dr. Contos and her son. Two people that if captured would draw Anderson out. I'm still on good enough terms with them that they can agree to meet with me. There your team can grab them. Should be simple.

Just tell us where to be, and we'll make it happen.

As per our initial agreement, they are not to be harmed during any part of these proceedings, else the identities of no less than five of your agents within MC&Ds operations will be revealed.

I thought you said you laid all your cards on the table.

I kept an ace up my sleeve.

Agent Clarissa Shaw sat alone in a small coffee shop in downtown Seattle, the outside world soaked in Washington's fall rain. Her long blond hair was neatly hidden under a red wig. Her usual thin-rimmed glasses had been replaced by contacts that changed the color of her eyes from blue to green. As she sipped from her mug of coffee she looked at her watch.
Any second now… she thought. The door to the coffee shop then opened. Shaw hid her smile behind the mug.
As Phineas promised, a thin young man with a mop of curly blond hair and thick glasses entered a short, middle-aged woman with shoulder-length brunette hair and faint blue eyes followed behind him. Four businessmen trailed them, each looking about the room in a seemingly random pattern. Jason Contos and Dr. Medea Contos had arrived.
Shaw turned her head and scratched her ear. A gentleman in the far corner of the room folded his newspaper, while two women in different corners closed their laptops. The company of six had only just sat down after obtaining their drinks when Shaw and the others stood in unison throwing several canisters to the ground and covering the room in a fine cloud of white powder. The four businessmen attempted to stand and draw pistols hidden on their person but rapidly fell apart as the powder coated them. Thick black puddles were all that remained.
Shaw and her fellow agents lost no time in drawing their pistols, the barrels trained at Jason and Medea. The two scientists held their hands up, Medea shaking in terror as she looked around at the approaching agents. Jason maintained a vigil of hatred.
“Gotcha,” Shaw said with a sly smile and tapped Jason on the nose.

Dr. Contos and Jason are in our custody. We have the bait, and Navarro has set up the trap. We're ready when you are.

In a studio apartment on the edge of Three Portlands, an old, bald man with a large white beard watched the rain come down. Occasionally, he'd glance at his phone, each time there would be no new messages and his heart would sink a little deeper.
“Something has happened,” Phineas said to himself as he turned around, and went to the kitchen where he started preparing water for tea. Saker-45 and Saker-32 should have checked in by now, as should have Douglas Walker and Tessa Kim. With Jason and Medea now in Foundation custody there was much to do before the final blow could be struck. All hands would be needed on deck.
The kettle whistled as the water came to a boil. Phineas reached into his overflowing sink and pulled out a dirty mug in which he placed several bags of peppermint tea. As the water took on its light green-yellow hue, Phineas sighed. They had just kicked the hornets' nest.
“I hope no one else got stung,” he said to himself and looked down at his steeping tea.
Shikt
There was a sharp pain in his back. Protruding from his stomach was a large, thin blade. Phineas felt himself forced forward, a powerful electric shock blasting through him, destroying the functions of his mechanical limbs. He used his arms to keep him from slamming into the kitchen counter, the devices powering down as they locked in place.
“You bastard…” a metallic voice said behind him. “Did you think there was any place you could hide that I wouldn't eventually find you? Don't you remember all that we've done to build this company? Don't you remember what I've done?!?”
Phineas coughed. He could taste blood in his mouth. Slowly turning his head, Vincent Anderson came into view, his silver tragedy mask shimmering in the dim light of the room.
“Hey Vince,” Phineas said with a small smile. “You finally fixed that voice module, I see.”
“Silence…” Anderson hissed, twisting the blade and delivering a fresh wave of pain. “How could you do this to Jason and Medea? Of all people…”
Anderson trailed off. He reached into the pack he carried and pulled out a large black helmet covered in wires, carefully placing it on Phineas's head. The helmet quickly began to hum.
“Initiate.”
The old man felt a sharp jab at the base of his skull.
“What are you up to?” Phineas asked. He felt his mechanical limbs grow rigid while his biological self grew weaker. Even a cyborg of his caliber still needed his internal organs.
“Its one of Wilson's gizmos. Creates some kind of electronic neural imprint or something.” Anderson said in a matter-of-fact manner. “I don't really know, Wilson made it before signing on with us. The point is, I'm digitizing your memories. It will take some modifications, but I'll have my friend back. Then we'll get Jason and Medea, and put this mess behind us.”
Anderson paused for several moments.
“Then all will be well again.”
Phineas gave a short laugh before coughing up a large amount of blood.
“I was wondering when we'd reach this point,” Phineas said as he spit out the dark red fluid. “You can't just edit out the parts of people you don't like, Vince.”
“Don't tell me what I can and can't do, old man,” Anderson replied. There was a static sound. Phineas imagined that his old friend would be crying now if he was still able. “I'll see you real soon.”
Anderson then pointed his right index finger at Phineas's head. There was a bright flash, like lightning. Then Phineas was still.
Anderson stood motionless for several moments, and then slowly slid down to the floor. He pulled off the tragedy mask, and placed his head in his hands, slowly rocking back and forth.
“It's okay…” he said to himself. “I can fix this. I can fix everything. It's okay… it's okay…”
Anderson then got to his feet and flicked the tragedy mask with his index finger. The masks expression changed to comedy. Anderson placed it back on his face and made his way towards the door, grabbing Phineas's phone on the way. He quietly scanned the texts and sent a reply.

Ready or not, here he comes.

Anderson stepped out into the Three Portlands rain as Phineas's apartment erupted into flames.

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