It sounds like you didn't pay much attention last time. If you're going to have me repeat my account of the whole incident, it looks like I'll have to tell you what the score was again.

Two bodies with the side of their head blown off, Dr. Carlson bleeding out from a shot in his shoulder, and his four subordinates1 in a confrontation with each other. All of them in a cramped elevator, forcefully stopped between the first floor and the first basement level, the smell only getting worse with each passing minute.
I'd have found the situation a lot more palatable, amusing even, if I wasn't the one being pinned against the elevator wall.
“Dean, let him go! What do you think this will accomplish?” Jenna had yelled out in a weak attempt to stop him. Everyone there knew it would end when Dean decided it would end.
"Relax, I just want to talk to him for a little bit more. You see, Vincent —" and before I knew what happened, he moved his arm off of my chest and his hand to my throat, lifting me up before he continued. One swift move. "I have to admire those sheer balls of yours. Tell me, how'd you do it? Did they see it coming? When you blew their brains out with your anomaly, did you enjoy it the way I'm enjoying this?" He grinned; it was a look of pure self-satisfaction.
"Gggghh, I-I didn't —"
"Yeah! It was Carlson, right? Go on, tell us again how that happened! Walk us through it. Convince us this time the way you've been convincing us the past few minutes, right!?" As my vision was about to go completely dark, that lunatic… my body was thrown to the elevator door. Air left my lungs in exchange for a second wind of life. No one said anything. No one moved.
I think we were all waiting for each other to make the next move. I mean, what would you have done if you were any of us? I couldn't speak; my mind was too busy trying to get itself working again. Dean wasn't going to speak; he was clearly waiting for me to say something, and I wasn't going to look up at him glaring down at me. That would have enticed him. Jenna wouldn't help; I saw her gaze turn to the elevator buttons. Brian was trying to tend to Carlson's wounds; he was no good. And Carlson… well, you know why he didn't say anything. And the smell almost incapacitated all of us. It was a tricky situation. Whoever spoke next was going to lose.
So we stayed there. I don't know how long it was, but I'd say… ten minutes? Fifteen? Completely silent except for the breathing going on. I know how interviewers roll; we almost never get to experience blood, right? Try sitting in puddles of blood sometime. Your own, or someone else's, it's the same. Maybe you'll understand why most of us weren't able to speak even if we wanted to.
Carlson spoke up first, unfortunately for him.
"H… He's right, Dean." You could practically hear Dean's light fade from his grin as he turned to face our old boss. It was safe enough to look up by that point. Yeah, he was still grinning. But the look on his face? Altogether different. He was covering up his rage. It was growing. Have you ever seen a hungry, angry lion? That was the look.
"I wasn't asking you. Learn not to —"
"L-Like he said, I killed them." Dean turned around and slammed his foot into Carlson's other shoulder. Brian stumbled back and Jenna covered her mouth. Hell, I was shocked too.
"LEARN." He slammed his foot into his shoulder. "NOT." And again. "TO." And again! "INTERRUPT!" This time he kicked the side of his body and Carlson slumped over. His breathing got more ragged. It was a miracle he could even still stay conscious. "Neither of you have shown any proof! You jackasses need to start making sense or I'll just kill you both." He grabbed Carlson's hair and lifted him up. "And I will enjoy it." The smile was gone by then.
Carlson was dropped and Brian quickly set him upright and tended to his wounds again. "Dean, shut the fuck up." Bless him, honestly. He barely had any tools and was doing the best he could. I think that made the difference, ultimately. "You know what the Foundation does to people who start senselessly killing others."
"Yeah. Our good friend Vince here is going to be locked up in a containment cell for the rest of his life, our teacher is going to die before the Foundation does anything, Harrison and May will rot forever in Hell, and the rest of us conveniently forget this shit from the Forgetting Juice. Sounds like a good deal to me, doesn't it?"
"Fuck off, let them talk. Jenna, give me your labcoat. I need clean material to treat Carlson." Jenna sighed and nodded, handing it to Brian. She was still shaking, which made sense. She's the most junior of us, right? Honestly, what was that old man thinking, bringing a junior onto his team? He should have known the risks.
It was silent for a few minutes again. This wasn't another game though, seeing who would give in first. It was just too awkward to talk. That was the sense I had anyway. I never imagined one would feel awkward, of all things, in a life-or-death situation, but now I know. It felt like relief.
"Hhhh… Harrison and May didn't like Dr. Carlson's treatment of humanoid anomalies." I broke the tension this time. Carlson bought me the opportunity to speak, so I took it. The more I talked, the tenser Dean got. "Every interview was personal. He called them something other than 'it' in his documentation. I don't know what pushed them into this. Probably when they overheard Brian and Jeffery… Ash or whatever, when they were talking about interviewing that washing machine like it was an actual person." Brian's eyes went wide. I smiled. "You didn't know? I don't blame you. It was only a couple weeks ago. Not like you could have connected the dots. They wouldn't tell anyone about their frustrations, since all of us just went along with —"
Dean lifted me up without a word. My smile got bigger. "Right, you want to know how, not why. Turns out, you work for the Foundation long enough, your rank is decent enough, and appear mentally stable enough, they'll just give you a weapon for safety. That one was May's by the way. You can check the serial on it."
"But you didn't have a weapon, and Dr. Carlson didn't either…" Jenna finally spoke up. She'd learned to stop shaking and actually contribute. It was a valid question, you know, even if they all forgot. Everyone but Carlson turned to me now. I'm sure if the couple were still alive they'd be wondering that too. I didn't mention it last time, but they hardly had any time to see it coming.
"Do you all have that short of an attention span?" I opened my hand and concentrated for a bit. The gun appeared and dropped to the floor, and now everyone went wide-eyed! I can give you a demonstration now, but I'm sure that's in my documentation by this point. "I stole it from them and gave it to him. No ammo left. They only brought three bullets after all. One for Dr. Carlson, that one got in his shoulder, and two for… you guessed it." I grinned.
"Fuck off." Dean dropped me and pinned my body to the elevator door, picking up the gun and aiming it at my chest. Oh, he was pissed.
"Go on," I said. He pressed the trigger. Nothing.
"Fuck off!"
"But why you too?" Jenna exclaimed.
"He treated me like a human instead of — ggh, fuck — instead of an anomaly. Turns out the lovebirds are very good at eavesdropping. Probably saw me more as a dangerous threat. Their fault for not reporting it sooner."
"When did you tell Dr. Carlson, though?"
"A few months ago when the anomaly manifested. Turns out, even the most benign anomalies one researches can have unintended side effects years down the line." Brian sighed, and Jenna buried her head in her hands. Must've been disbelief.
"Which one, Vincent?" Brian's turn to question me.
"That will go to the grave with the two lovebirds, Dr. Carlson, and I."
The next thing I could recall was hearing that brute yell at me, since, well… I still have a giant bruise on my face. Probably kicked me, that bastard. I think he yelled for a couple minutes after that by that point. He sounded more hoarse and upset at that moment than when he was so confidently choking the life out of me. If I had the energy at that moment to look confident, I would've.
"I said get up, you asshole! Tell us what it was!" I coughed up blood.
"W-What… ggh." It got harder to speak. The only regret I had about the whole scene was Carlson not coming to my aid at that moment. He had problems of his own, yeah. Still, we were both in this mess together; shouldn't he have known to back me up too? And after all I was doing for him.
ding
The elevator started moving again. Everyone looked up. Jenna started the elevator again.
"But —"
"I've had enough of this. We need to get everyone here to the Medical Ward. We'll…" She looked down and away from everyone else. Couldn't blame her. "We'll let the Foundation sort the rest of this nonsense out." No one could dispute that.
"Wh… what difference will it make if I tell anyone here what anomaly it was? The Foundation would j-just put it down in their documentation for a skip that hasn't been tested on in over a decade. I-I was the only one to do any testing on that specific part of it anyway. It doesn't… doesn't change what happened here. We still need a mystery after all." I chuckled and continued. What? Can you blame me? It was just too amusing at that point.
"And if Jenna didn't let the elevator… the elevator go down, you would have killed me anyway. You're a psychopathic, insolent child, and I'd… I'd rather sit in a containment cell than work with you for another seven, eight years." The smirk died down on my face. "The rest of you are fine enough. J-Jenna, take Dr. Carlson, Brian, take me, Dean…" I looked up at him. That felt good to say.
"I'll go on my own." He dropped the gun by my feet. "Useless." No, I don't know who that was directed to. It doesn't matter much anyway. The elevator reached its destination, and everyone went to do their own thing. Dean walked down the hallway towards the Medical Ward, and the commotion and chatter from everyone on the floor could be heard. No alarms went off, at least. I guess he told them the situation was being resolved. At least he could be of use for one moment.
Jenna picked up the old man and carried him towards the ward, and Brian picked me up. As he did, he questioned me one last time.
"Which one?"
"We worked on it before. You know the one." He frowned, but nodded anyway. I could tell; he knew the one. I wrapped an arm around him and let him drag me off, though I still had one last thing to take care of.
"Ack —"
I coughed and spit out some blood, and with my other free hand, dropped the two unspent bullets to the elevator floor.

Oh, was that not where I should have started? Hah, my bad. You know how it is. Sometimes you don't know where the beginning and ending of these things are. Let me back up a bit then…

« You've reached the "beginning", so to speak. | Flick of the Wrist | Now I'm Here »
Hub

Footnotes
1. Really, his students, but with enough charm you can command anyone you want.


Don't Forget The Dead
Written by: XilasCrowe
Because they'll always remember you

More From This Axolotl

SCP-3529
Comments: 35

SCP-4332
Comments: 27

SCP-4663
Comments: 13

SCP-3684
Comments: 29

SCP-1143
Comments: 23

SCP-2454
Comments: 10

Changes All That Is Around Me
Comments: 7

SCP-5588
Comments: 6

[{$authorPage} ▸ More by this Author ◂]

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

close

Info

X

Don't Forget The Dead
Written by: XilasCrowe

More from this axolotl

Less from this axolotl

Stuff I did

SCP-3529
Comments: 35

SCP-4332
Comments: 27

SCP-4663
Comments: 13

SCP-3684
Comments: 29

SCP-1143
Comments: 23

SCP-2454
Comments: 10

Changes All That Is Around Me
Comments: 7

SCP-5588
Comments: 6

Thanks to Weryllium, ModernMajorGeneral, stormbreath, DrChandra, and Kakroom does not match any existing user name for giving this a look at in the chat.

Haley Lee sat in her office, writing up a report on the latest death that had occurred in Site-27. There wasn't a lot to write. On February 7th, 2018, Eric Bernard, a fellow researcher on Site-27, was found dead in the middle of a corridor. That was it. That was all the information they had managed to gather in the last three days. Haley sighed, looked down at the report, checking it for errors, then turned and opened up the file marked "Recent Casualties."
There were too many.
Over 80 people had been found dead on Site-27 during the last month. At least 20 of those people had died this week, and there still wasn't a single piece of information on what killed them, or how. But you know what killed them. After all, you were there, you watched it happen, you made it happen.
None of the bodies had any sort of injury on them, and by all accounts they were in perfect health. Even the cameras were unable to provide any evidence. Perfectly healthy people just…died, in the middle of the day.
Haley slid Bernard's report into the file, paused, then pulled out the file and laid it on her desk. She opened the file, and began to read through the reports. There was no point, they all said the same thing. To her though, it was a matter of respect, a way of saying that they were still looking, still trying. You don't have to look anywhere else Haley, just turn around. All you have to do is turn around, and then you'll know what killed them, then you'll remember what killed them.
She did this every day, sometimes twice a day. She remembered them all so well. Her fellow researchers, various site managers, hell, even a few D-Class she had seen maybe once. The memories were vivid, always at the forefront of her mind. But everyone else seemed to forget after a few days.
She smiled sadly as she read through the reports, memories of each person bursting into full bloom.

Casualty Report
Name: Brandon Sullivan
Site Occupation: Researcher
Date of Death: 1-16-2018
Time of Death: 4:48 PM 11:27 AM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

Casualty Report
Name: Andre Johnson
Site Occupation: Assistant
Date of Death: 1-17-2018
Time of Death: 2:27 PM 1:11 PM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

Casualty Report
Name: Shannon Bruce
Site Occupation: Assistant
Date of Death: 1-17-2018
Time of Death: 7:28 PM 4:01 PM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

Casualty Report
Name: Beverly Bass
Site Occupation: Researcher
Date of Death: 1-18-2018 1-17-2018
Time of Death: 1:07 AM 11:36 PM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

Casualty Report
Name: D-77283
Site Occupation: D-Class
Date of Death: 1-18-2018
Time of Death: 3:21 AM 2:34 AM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

Casualty Report
Name: D-77212
Site Occupation: D-Class
Date of Death: 1-18-2018
Time of Death: 11:07 AM 8:54 AM
Cause of Death: Unknown It was me.

You need to stop, this isn't getting you anywhere. Just turn around, I promise you all the answers you seek are right behind you.
Haley sighed, leaned back, and rubbed her eyes wearily. She hadn't been getting a lot of sleep these past few nights, she didn't think anyone had. She stared back down at the reports, not thinking about anything, until a knock at the door startled her out of her stupor.
"Who is it?" she yelped as she jerked upwards, scattering papers everywhere and knocking over her pencil jar. She frantically tried to organise the mess she had just made, but gave up when the door opened and a young man walked in.
"Yo," Researcher Larry Alexander announced as he walked through the door and sat down on the edge of her desk, "I got the latest report for you. This one came with a video and everything."
Haley looked at her hands. "Another one?" she inquired quietly. Turn around
"Ya better believe it! This one happened just outside your office, halfway down the hall," Alexander exclaimed. "It's fresh too, only about three hours ago." Turn around
Haley glanced up at the clock on the wall. 5:47! She had been filing the report on Bernard at barely noon! She must have fallen asleep while reading through the reports. She cursed herself quietly, but figured if this was the first time someone had come in nothing too important had happened.
"You seem to get all the good reports lately," Alexander continued, "I swear you have some sort of connections or something. You wanna hook me up with whoever it is givin' you—"
"How many is that this week?" She interrupted, "How many times?"
Alexander jumped slightly. "er, how many what?" he questioned, "How many times have I asked you about this? Maybe three, but I don't see why you're so upset abou—"
"Not that," Haley demanded, "How many deaths, this week? Haha, you don't rememBER? You, of all people, hahahahaha, turn around already
Alexander looked down at the report as if he had just realised what it was for. "Twenty-six," He whispered, "That's twenty-six dead so far this week… how did I… twenty-six…" He slowly stood up, "I'm… gonna go see if they need me anywhere." And he walked out of the room.
Haley sighed again, she couldn't blame him for being so jittery, they all were. She reached over and pulled out the video tape from the earlier incident, slid it into the computer at her desk, and hit play. She opened the file and started reading it over, glancing up at the screen just often enough to avoid missing anything important.
"Another D-Class," she muttered, "D-77335, hmmmm, I don't know much about her“ Yes you do, of course you do. I'll make sure you do
She felt a harsh pang in her chest, she remembered D-77335 so well. When she had first been assigned to Site-27 D-77335 had been the one who showed her around. They had spent the first week together, and even after Haley's job started full time, they had still tried to find time to go drinking together. Damn that girl could drink, she would drain shots like they were water and never seemed to get hungover for it. You remember now, don't you
With tears in her eyes, Haley looked up from to file to the computer screen. She knew what was coming, and she didn't want to see it, but her job demanded that she had to watch. Her conscience demanded that she had to watch, to find some clue, some little piece of information that could be used to avenge her friend. You won't, you know you won't. But you don't need to look, all you have to do is turn around. Then you'll know.
But it was no different from any of the other videos. Everything was normal, and then D-77335 just fell, like a puppet with her strings cut. There was no exclamation, no sign that anything was wrong, she just fell over dead. And everyone else just kept going about their business. Haley slumped back in her seat. Nothing. There was nothing here that she hadn't already seen a dozen times before. She closed her eyes and tried to stop herself from crying, one of her closest friends, gone, just like that, without anyone even stopping to help her.
Wait.
Haley jerked upward. She frantically rewound the footage until just before the moment of death, then hit play. Sure enough, D-77335 fell to the ground, dead, and sure enough, nobody stopped to help. Nobody even glanced down at her body as they walked past. Of course they don't, she doesn't exist to them.
Haley jumped out of her chair and dove into the filing cabinet, pulling out all of the recordings of previous incidents. And played them all one by one. Turn around
Nobody noticed. Nobody ever noticed. The bodies weren't found until hours, days after they were killed. Nobody saw them, nobody noticed until they tripped over them or something. Nobody could see the dead.
Unless they forgot they had seen them. Turn Around
Haley sat back down, and watched the times of death over and over again. Something. There had to be something that she could see. There had to be some unifying factor in each of the tapes. Turn Around
There it was. Turn Around
In the corner of her eye. TURN Around
The dark shape. TURN ARound
A lost memory. TURN AROUND
A stolen memory. TURN AROUND
Haley could no longer ignore the pounding in her head. The voice was screaming at her to turn around. She slowly stood up, and, smiling, began to turn around.
There it was. The object. The thing that nobody else knew existed. The thing that nobody else could know existed. It had stored her memories so she wouldn't be suspected, and now they all came rushing back.
She remembered Brandon Sullivan's terrified eyes, as she had chased him down a stairway. She remembered the way his blood seemed to glow in the dim fluorescent lights. She remembered how he didn't scream, not once, only whimpered.
She remembered Andre Johnson. She remembered dragging his broken body down the corridor. She remembered how much he begged for his life. She remembered taking him apart, all while keeping him alive as long as she could.
She remembered Shannon Bruce. She remembered how the girl had suspected nothing as she approached her. She remembered the shock in her eyes as a blade was driven through her heart. She remembered the pathetic gasp of surprise that escaped her as her lungs gave out.
She remembered Eric Bernard. She remembered how he had fought frantically. She remembered how she had tied him up, and cut him open. She remembered how she had pulled out his organs, and crushed them in her hands.
And she remembered D-77335. She remembered her screams, oh, such delicious screams. She remembered the way they reverberated throughout the building. She remembered how she begged those around her for help. She remembered the hope going out of her eyes when she realized they didn't notice her.
She remembered everything about everyone she had toyed with, everyone she had killed. And she remembered how good it felt.
The door opened behind her.
"Hey," Alexander said, looking up, "They sent me back up here to see if—"
The last thing he saw was his associate's twisted smile, and the nothing she was swinging at his head.


The Lizard was dead.
SCP-682 lay on its back, black tongue lolling from its jaws. Researchers and administrators stood around, mumbling to each other. One guy was even crying a little.
Doctor Blank followed in Agent Friendly's wake as he pushed through the crowd, grunting apologies to the dazed personnel. She held tight to every detail as she passed. Don't expect anything. Just look at whatever's there.
The researchers were all more solemn than she expected, considering how far they'd gone in their termination logs. It made sense. These people had built their entire lives around this thing, and now it was rotting in front of them like a beached whale. Its massive containment tank was undamaged. The Lizard was legendary – clearance be damned, everyone knew about the dragon the O5s kept in acid and couldn't seem to leave alone. Blank didn't see any damage to the surroundings, which meant someone had drained the tank manually. Why? Obviously part of the assassination – but if somebody wanted it dead, why not finish it off while it was half-dissolved in the tank?
Friendly offered a handkerchief from his coat pocket, gratefully holding it over his own nose when Blank waved it away. She fiddled with her eye patch as she squinted at the dead animal. It was intact except for a diagonal incision from the right jaw to left collarbone; a black substance with the texture of vomit and consistency of asphault had seeped from the wound and hardened. There was a trail of claw marks in the steel floor behind it, but none underneath. It died immediately. The thing's neck had to be three or four meters across. No way a person did this. They'd waited for the creature to regenerate before they struck; why? Did they let it loose for it to kill someone else, and have the plan backfire? But whoever released it would have to be in here with the intended victim. None of it added up.
A spark went off in her brain: the first sentence of the containment procedures. SCP-682 must be destroyed as soon as possible.
“Why are we even here?”
“A sapient skip is dead, unsanctioned. That's our problem.”
“Weren't they just complying with the procedures? ‘Must be destroyed,' right?”
“Sure.” Friendly's eyes remained fixed on the carcass. “But this was unsanctioned.”
“Somebody succeeded where the Foundation's been-“ she glanced around, making sure nobody was paying attention to them. “Where the Foundation's been failing for decades.”
“So we'll give'em a medal before we shoot'em.”
___
“Thanks for seein' us, then.” Friendly's jaw was clenched as he left the director's office. Blank sighed with relief as she followed, the director's beady eyes trailing her all the way out.
The site's administrative offices were decorated like a corporate lobby - all wood panels and fake plants. The secretaries and data processors working in their cubicles were quiet, like they'd just come from a funeral. They lost a friend today. The tobacco smoke was thicker in the air than usual, and even the chattering of typewriters was dampened somehow by the mood.
“He ain't gonna help us,” Friendly muttered as they signed the visitor's log and headed for the elevator to the surface. His thick fists were still clenched.
“That's an understatement,” Blank agreed, eyes still wide, heart slowing gradually. “He was threatening to charge us with insubordination.”
“Sure he was. Lots of'em do that. He might be hiding somethin'. Might jus' not want his security lookin' bad, though, an' it might be he's jus' difficult. Thing is, we still gotta do the job we came for.”
She swallowed hard. “You really think we'll do better with forgiveness than permission?”
“We're not goin' for either one. Doctor Cooper was the last one to sign in 682's chamber. Permission or no, he's our next stop.”
___
It took an hour of lurking to sneak their way to Cooper's office. Agent Friendly smiled warmly at some of the people they passed, ignored others, nodded casually at a few, even flashed his internal security badge at a couple and threatened them into looking the other way. More than once, they ducked into a stairwell or conference room to avoid someone altogether. Blank was sure site security was going to come take them, and then what? Summary demotion to D-Class by the director, or a shootout right there in the hallway; the options were grim.
But no security came.
She was surprised how cramped and disorganized the office was for a researcher of Cooper's rank. Cooper himself sat at a desk surrounded by columns of yellowing paper, doing a crossword puzzle. He startled as they burst in. “You can't just-“
“We already, did, though. But you're right. We're kinda not supposed to be here. So let's do this fast.” Friendly's grin was charming as he lit a cigarette. He put away the lighter and pulled out a revolver in one motion. The researcher gulped, eyes fixed on the gun. Blank looked at what was in front of her. This is all wrong. This guy's no killer.
“SCP-682 was terminated without authorization last night,” Friendly continued, emptying bullets from his gun and putting them in his pocket until only one chamber was loaded. “Where were you when it happened?” He cheerfully spun the barrel and snapped it shut. Cooper glared, but said nothing. Friendly cocked the hammer, beaming. “Y'ever heard of Russian Roulette, Doctor Cooper? We're gonna have Doctor Blank here hold your hand down on your desk, and every time I have to repeat a question, we're gonna-“
“Is that what this is about? The Lizard?” Cooper burst into harsh laughter, reminding Blank of a sickly crow.
“That's what this is about, sir. So. My question. Do I have to repeat it?”
“Fine. God damn you, fine.” The doctor reached for his desk drawer, pausing when Friendly started forward. “May I please reach in my desk drawer and show you my alibi?”
“Do it slow enough to not make us nervous,” Blank said, drawing her own piece. Friendly winked at her.
Cooper dumped a brown paper bag on his desk, sneering. A glass bottle covered in a handwritten prescription rattled out, receipt fluttering next to it. “Here you go, tough guy. An old man's pills.”
Friendly picked up the bottle and rolled it in his hands. He opened it and took a peek. Checked the date on the front and matched it to the receipt.
“Huh. So you were out getting these prescribed last night. Does Mrs. Cooper know she gave you the clap?”
“Mrs. Cooper has nothing to do with it, you son of a bitch. There's a… a lady. A businesswoman. You know what I mean. I pay for her company. She gave me something more than I bargained for. Mrs. Cooper's fine, because she hasn't been anywhere near it in months. Which is why I go see this lady in the first place.” He squirmed, twisting his ring. “And now you know the whole thing. Write me up for soliciting prostitutes, but I don't know about 682.”
“We're not here about prostitutes.” Friendly tossed the pills on the desk and put his gun away.
“How do we know he didn't mock that stuff up?” Blank cut in. “Those could be sugar pills with last night's date written on them.”
“Look at him. He's humiliated. He might jus' be a good actor, so we're still gonna check this out – and God help you if we have to come back – but I'm thinkin' this‘s just a guy with V.D.”
“You're making sense for the first time since you came in here,” the researcher snarled. “And now I have some questions for you. Does Director Torres know you're down here harassing his trusted staff? Do you have any idea the reputation I have in this building?”
“Yeah, I heard. So you know what's next.” The agent whipped out the canister too fast for Cooper to react, white fog already spraying. Blank reflexively pulled her jacket over her mouth and nose. Cooper caught the amnestic full in the face, blinking furiously as he struggled for words. He slumped over the desk and relaxed into sleep.
“Old guy like this jus' needs a lil' bit,” Friendly said, sliding the cartridge back into his sleeve. “Perfect that it knocked him all the way out. Maybe he'll think he jus' took a nap on his own.”
“Okay, so he didn't do it. That leaves us nowhere! We didn't get any closer to figuring this out.” The stress of the day caught up with Blank all at once. ”We risked our careers, dosed someone, made enemies with a director, and didn't even make any progress-“
“We made progress. We eliminated one suspect. We learned some things about our guy. We know at least that he got in there past all the witnesses. That he knows all about the procedures and security routines and layout of the containment chamber, but isn't part of the research team. We ruled out some possibilities and got closer to figurin' out if maybe it was another anomaly that did this. Everything that happens tells us somethin', and we're gonna use it all. It's just not gonna happen right away.”
She took some breaths. Tried to put it in perspective. “You're right. We'll do our part, and let the rest fall into place.” She tapped her hook against the back of her good hand. “We know it was something sentient, probably sapient. We know the wound was where a humanoid would have inflicted it. The Lizard is supposed to be invincible, so there has to be an anomalous force involved somewhere…”
“See? We know more than we did this morning. And we'll learn more tomorrow. You did good. For now we've got to figure out how we're getting out of here without getting caught.”
“…It has to be an anomalous humanoid. One with some serious knowledge. Some serious skills.”
“Learning's no good if you don't get to act on it. Let's go.”
Cooper snored peacefully, drooling on his crossword book.
___
Incense curled in the dim air of the dojo. Sharks circled in their custom floor tank. A muramasa gleamed on the wall, its edge crusted in chunky black ichor.
The Foundation would hire a swordsmith to craft him another. This one belonged on display now: a trophy, to mark a momentous victory.
“It was a truly… worthy opponent,” Darkblade said, to nobody in particular. “A legend. But all legends… must come to an end.”


The Utterly Bazaar was a very cliche location for a murder. With its foggy haze, cobblestone buildings and spectral flames that vaguely resembled gaslights, one could easily imagine Jack the Ripper stalking the alleys.
The still warm body of a freshly eviscerated prostitute made the cliche complete.
Morose and Grindle, a pair of the Utterly Bazaar's guardsmen, towered over the body. Their featureless masks made it impossible to tell whether they were disgusted or utterly numb to the gruesome scene.
"Girl's a local, isn't she?" Grindle asked, his voice imparted with a metallic echo by his mask.
"Yeah. She worked at the Door Bell'O Bordello. Looks like the bastard that gutted her took her uterus," Morose said, kneeling down to examine the spilt viscera on the dingy ground.
"There's your motive. The womb of a whore will fetch a handsome price at the Flesh Market. It's all about virgins and whores with those animals."
"Great. So we've got a strung out Bloom junkie desperate enough to kill on the loose. But why here of all places? There's no way in or out of the Bazaar but the Ways, all of which are guarded twenty-four/seven." Morose rose to his feet, shaking his head. "The Doormen swear everyone who got out before the lockdown passed under the Aetherscope?"
"If any of them had just committed murder, it would have gone as red as a Tartarean lake. Either the murderer's still here, or they can make their own Ways."
"The Circus can do that, but this isn't their MO. Same for Micky D's. No one able to come in and out of here undetected would commit such a senseless crime."
"So what do you want to do? Round everyone up and walk them under the Aetherscope?"
"No. I think I have a way to narrow down the suspects. Let's go consult an alchemist."

Less than an hour later, the rapidly cooling and stiffening body was lying on a slab in the morgue with a tarp draped over her. Morose and Grindle maintained a vigil over the body, waiting for their special guest who might provide them with their first lead.
The door creaked open, and in stepped an ageing alchemist the entire Bazaar knew by sight. He was the Ed of Ed & Al's Alchemist Emporium. His greying blonde hair was held back in a ponytail, his face adorned with a pair of spectacles and an angular beard, and he still wore his heavy leather apron over his work clothes.
"Someone send for an optogram?" he asked, setting his satchel down on the gurney.
"Thanks for coming at this hour Edward," Morose said with a solemn nod. "We're security guards, not detectives, and we need to finger the lunatic who did this ASAP, or someone else might get hurt."
"Well I can't guarantee the last thing she saw was the killer, but it's worth a shot at least."
Ed gently pulled back the tarp to reveal the girl's blood drained face, still frozen in horror.
"Oh… I, ah… oh Jesus."
"You alright there Ed?" Grindle asked.
"Yes, I, I'll be fine. Thank you," he said, taking deep breaths to keep himself calm. "I apologize, I don't deal with cadavers myself that often, especially not young and innocent murder victims. Has the ferryman been paid at least?"
"Spectral Affairs is already making arrangements on her behalf," Morose nodded.
"Good. Good. If there's any sort of fund my brother and I would gladly… I'm sorry. This is not the time or the place. Let's get this over with."
Ed opened his satchel and removed a device that looked like a large syringe with a bizarre suction cup attachment on the end. Opening the girl's left eye with his fingers, he carefully positioned the device over it. Once he had a good seal, he pulled back the plunger until the vacuum was strong enough to pull the eye straight from the socket with a horrid sucking sound.
"There. That's the worst of it." Gingerly removing the eye with gloved hands, he placed it on the table and sliced it in half. "We'll save the front half for the mortician. Hopefully, they can make the body presentable."
He reached into the satchel and pulled out a small jar.
"This is one of the finest optographic philters known to Alchemy. It's a family secret, of course, but it will fix the bleached rhodopsin in the subject's retina and produce a crystal clear negative of the last thing she saw."
Picking up the rear half of the eye with a pair of surgical tongs, he set it to soak in the solution.
"In just a few minutes, we'll have the image."
Morose respectfully pulled the tarp back over the body, and they quietly waited for the optogram to develop, the only sound the ticking of the pendulum wall clock.
After what felt like hours, Ed reached back into the jar and removed the half-eye. Picking up a jeweller's monocle with his other hand, he made a careful examination of the retina.
"Well?" Morose asked impatiently.
"Yeah, you're going to want to take a look," Ed replied. Handing them the monocle while retaining possession of the eye himself, the two guards took a look at the last thing their victim had seen.
"What the hell?"

The Utterly Bazaar was far older than most of its current residents realized. Buried beneath the century-old streets and buildings were millennia-old catacombs. Who had built those? None knew for certain, not even the vile Aristocrat who now called it home. He had stumbled across the ancient Way in quite by chance during his flight from the disgusting peasant jailors who had sought to contain him.
The catacombs were a perfect abode for a noble such as himself; vast, ostentatious, dark, and amply stocked with the preserved remains of peasants to feast upon.
Still, there were occasions when only fresh meat would do, and the Bazaar overhead had proved to be ample hunting ground. Had he been concerned with practicality, he would have eaten the whole body, or perhaps have used her as a broodmare and begat his own dynasty.
But practicality was for peasants, for inferior beings forced to make do with what little they had. He was of noble birth and heir to a vast abundance too great to count. He could pick and choose what he pleased and leave the rest to rot.
The Aristocrat knew that the womb of a whore would have sold for an exorbitant price at the Flesh Market. That only made its presence on his dinner plate all the more decadent.


"I got a dollar and a dime, gonna clean up the green slime, dead bodies are a no-no, alarm says I gotta go go…" sang the translucent and bearded janitor sweeping up gore and blood in some forgotten cell whose walls had been ripped open like gift wrapping by over-sized claws. He looked over his shoulder every few seconds and his muscles were tense, like he imagined that someone was watching him. There was no SCP-447-2 on that Site, but life in the Foundation was full of surprises, and Boris prided himself on being ready for everything. There had been a containment breach last night, and while Boris hadn't exactly predicted it, he had insisted to his colleagues that something felt off and tense about work. Of course, being a level 0 Janitor, nobody paid him much attention. That didn't bother him. Honest. One hundred percent. It had been mostly like that all his life. What DID bother him was when people gave him extra work for no good reason, like when some stupid D-Class decided to not follow orders when exploring some monster's hidey hole or whatever. Such was the life of a janitor: never showered with praise, but only with more filth.
It was about lunchtime, and Boris had trained himself to be entirely immune to all the gut-wrenching sights that often followed the experiments and containment breaches in the Foundation. He felt his stomach rumbling, and a smile forming on his face as he thought of that sweet lady that served food in the cafeteria. Even though neither of them were exactly icons of material success, Boris still found himself fearing rejection on the grounds that she was too good for him. Just too nice and caring for his gruff and no-nonsense self. He finished cleaning up the last puddle of blood, and paused to admire the pristine reflection on the wall.
Boris flinched back in horror as his reflection turned into the visage of a rotting carcass covered in black slime. SCP-106 invaded the cell, grinning morbidly and sniffing the air like a jackal for new victims. The corpse-demon slowly and awkwardly shambled in the direction of Boris, who suddenly realized he was trapped inside the cell. The janitor wielded his mop like a sword, hoping to God it would hold off the monster long enough for help to come. But something very strange happened. The Old Man stared in the general direction of the janitor, paused a few feet away, and attacked with its claws. When nothing happened to Boris, the Old Man tilted its malformed head in confusion and melted into the ground.
After calming down and realizing that his hard work had been ruined by SCP-106's black slime, Boris screamed profanities and threw his mop onto the ground. "Why can't I ever get to work with the clean and nice ones for a change?" He lamented. But before he could dwell on that, there was the matter of why the Old Man hadn't been able to affect him. Should he tell his colleagues about this? Would he be considered an anomaly as well? Maybe it was better to play it safe. He waited until more personnel came into the cell and observed them from behind a smashed and corroded computer bank.
The personnel which entered the cell completely ignored Boris as usual, but something they mentioned caught his attention. Something about sightings of a new spectral class entity around the area of the containment breach. Boris followed them outside the cell and down several corridors where the freakish aftermath of last night was still visible, and blood and gore were the least disturbing things there. Giant egg sacs had burst open, fungus-like growths had spread over the walls and at least one mutant nervous system still crawled about.
Boris carefully maneuvered around all the anomalies, avoiding detection by other personnel for the moment. He needed to confirm if something was true, because if it was, then all his years of work for the Foundation meant nothing. He would be locked up forever same as all the others, probably without so much as a lousy commemorative gift for his dedication. And as he entered his room, all his fears were confirmed: he had been considered dead in the containment breach, his meager possessions had been transported elsewhere and his room was going to be occupied by a new personnel. Boris looked at his translucent and tattooed arms, and only now their abnormality registered on his mind. That could only mean one thing.
He was dead and gone.
He dropped to the ground and slumped against the wall, holding his wrinkled face in his hands. This couldn't be happening. Not after all this time, not so close to retirement. What was he supposed to do now? Clean filthy cells for all eternity? Atone for some sin he didn't know about? Find answers?
After a long time of breathing heavily and sobbing, Boris regained his composure. He always prided himself on being ready for everything, so he weighted his options. Number one? Fuck no. Number two? That can wait until his soul passes on to the other side. Number three? That was useful. Even if he got locked up after all, maybe he could help find whoever was responsible for this damn breach and get some measure of peace.
Rising and breathing in slowly, the janitor searched his memory for a mental map of the Site. He remembered that the breach had started in a laboratory three floors down to where he was. If he was a ghost now, he should be able to float and pass through walls without being seen. Reaching the laboratory, he found that it was under quarantine. Some personnel in hazmat suits were present to determine the extent of damage, retrieve samples and determine the most likely causes of the breach. The laboratory was covered in much the same biological anomalies as the corridors above, albeit in smaller quantities. Boris noticed that on one of the walls were words he could just barely decipher: "Follow The Jackal". Along with it was an image of a stylized and skeletal jackal.
He didn't remember any anomalies by that name around these parts. Was someone trying to intimidate them with cryptic nonsense? For what reason? Whatever it could be, the personnel had to see this. But how could he show it to them? He wasn't even sure if he should do it, they could find out about what really happened during the breach. Even so, he couldn't leave without helping them somehow.
Wait a minute. He was holding his mop even though he was technically intangible. Maybe he had some form of telekinesis? He reached out with his mind and clinked two coffee mugs together to call the attention of the personnel to the mysterious words.
They approached carefully and with hesitation, when suddenly one of them started choking and retching inside his hazmat, followed after a minute of agony by his helmet bursting open with fungal growths that overtook control of his body. The rest of the personnel struggled in vain against the growing tendrils of the creature, and were crushed into fine paste. The fungal mass squirmed out of the hazmat suit and down cracks in the laboratory to look for a more appropriate environment. Boris was left alone for a long time, surrounded by death and giving a thousand yard stare. His shock was interrupted when a skeletal jackal with pale glowing eyes walked inside and sat beside the corpses. It sniffed them with interest and walked circles around them before releasing a long howl. From the corpses emerged luminous spectral entities not unlike Boris, but they seemed to still be caught in a torpor.
Before Boris could say anything, the jackal left through a portal along with the spectral entities. The janitor didn't skip a beat and followed the jackal inside, hoping to find some answers, any answers. But what he found when he made it to the other side were only more questions. He was in the waiting room for a what seemed like the clinic of a therapist, but the decorations seemed oddly Egyptian. There was a solemn but soothing air to the place, like all of one's worries could be put to rest here.
All around Boris were sharply dressed and smiling people with the heads of animals attending to the lines of spectres with remarkable patience and modern equipment. There were magazines from across the eons and realms here and there, and occasionally one of the strange workers would come in with refreshments despite everyone being dead. A very pleasant and sophisticated music played that further soothed the nerves of the recent arrivals. Some of the spectres chatted like old friends while others refused to believe this was their final destination.
The rich sights were not enough to stop the gruff janitor from cutting the line and demanding to see their manager, or whoever their boss was. A lady with a cat head calmly told him that his number would be generated soon. He was even offered a massage by the cat lady, and immediately refused with a huff. This wasn't the time for pleasantries! But rules were rules, he supposed, and so he sat on a surprisingly comfortable chair and read a magazine about exotic cooking recipes. Soon enough, he heard someone call out his name.
He went through a golden and jewel-encrusted door to the therapist's office and found the jackal inside, but with a humanoid shape, dressed in a sharp black suit and carrying a golden cane. His smile was eager and went from ear to ear as he motioned with his cane to a couch beside him.
"Greetings, Boris. I hope my staff treated you well?"
"The hell is this place?" he shouted without any elegance.
"Rude. This isn't Hell. Can't you tell where you are from the decor? Or perhaps you think the staff are wearing costumes and this is all a prank?"
"Do you have any idea of who I am?" Boris felt both out of place and amazing for getting to say that at least once.
"Of course I do, it's part of my job. I know you have seen enough wonders and terrors to last a dozen lifetimes. I was just pulling your leg."
"I ain't got time for that shit! I came here to get answers!" He crossed his arms and put his foot down.
"Calm down. You do, in fact, have all the time you need. And I will answer to the best of my ability. But first, I must weigh your heart."
"Wait a minute." Boris slowly put two and two together. "You're Anubis?"
"The one and only."
"And this is the Egyptian afterlife?"
"We have made some modifications for the sake of modernity, but otherwise correct. And before you ask, I do not know why you were sent here instead of your preferred afterlife."
"Alright, fine. Can I ask you a question?"
"But of course. I'm here for that."
"Can you use your authority to help me find the person who killed me?"
Anubis gave a hearty chuckle. The chuckle slowly turned into howls of derisive laughter.
"That's not how it works, my friend. Any requests like are reserved for after the deceased has passed the Weighing of the Heart."
"Well, what are you waiting for?"
Anubis conjured a clipboard and cleared his throat.
"What have you never gotten in life?" asked the Egyptian god.
Boris paused and wondered. "Respect and recognition, I suppose. People always overlooked me even when I did my very best to impress and please them, and it hurts. Even my folks treated me with indifference most of the time, it was awful. So I guess things stayed pretty much the same when I started working for the Foundation despite all the crazy shit. If only there was an anomaly that would make people actually notice me, you know? But no, it's always something that leaves a hideous mess."
"What have you always gotten in life?"
"Orders. Always being told exactly what to do, the way to do it, like I'm fucking stupid and don't know what 2 + 2 is. That hurts too sometimes, but not as much as not getting a simple thank you. What makes it worse is how some people feel entitled to boss you around because they're soooooo much better! But I bet my bottom dollar that these pussies wouldn't dare unclog a toilet if their lives depended on it. The important people depend on us but they don't wanna admit, see? It's why they throw a shitfit when we try and fight for our rights."
"What did you give up to get what you most desire?"
Boris realized with dawning horror that if he opened his mouth, he would be compelled to answer truthfully. The answer he could give would surely damn him to being devoured by Ammut, but the alternative was going and risk eternal imprisonment in the Foundation. Boris pondered and pondered, for a time beyond time, shaking and averting his gaze. Anubis' comforting smile did not falter for a single moment, and the Egyptian god eventually got up to hold Boris' hand.
"If it's any consolation, no one will know but me. And I don't judge, ok?"
Boris swallowed hard, shoved his face into his hands and began to sob uncontrollably. Anubis just patted him on the back and offered him a glass of water.
"I caused the containment breach! I did it, OK! I gave up orders to try and get respect and recognition! I just…I thought I could maybe stop it after it begun if I planned carefully enough but…oh GOD, people are DEAD because of me! All because I wasn't satisfied with being a janitor and wanted to be a hero!"
Boris pulled his thin hair and curled up into a fetal position, alternating between sobs and screams. After several minutes, Anubis managed to raise the janitor and give a big, reassuring hug.
"Boris, people die working for the Foundation every single day. You made a mistake, we all do. That doesn't make us anomalies, that makes us human. You were very brave today, admitting your mistake. I can do nothing but congratulate you, and wish you a long and peaceful rest. Tell me, would you like one last meal and song?"
Boris eventually swallowed his crying and chuckled. "Thank you. I always did love that vegetable soup my grandma did for me and my brothers. I saw it on one of your magazines back there, actually. As for a song…how about Kino's 'A Star Called The Sun'?"
"As you wish. Do try to savor them, because…well, remember what it was like before you were born? Think of it as the closing of a cycle."
"You don't have to use fancy words with me, Anubis. I'm gonna stop existing, I get it. But it's not like I ever existed very much in the first place. My biggest regret is never asking Cindy out on a date."
"The lady in the cafeteria, I assume? I'll let her know if she comes. With your permission, of course."
"Just tell her that she is beautiful just the way she is, and that age is just a number."
"Wise words."
The meal and the song were savored, and Boris felt ready to venture into his final destination. He was guided outside the clinic and into the labyrinthine depths by two workers with lamps, and on the walls he could see the marking in several languages of the people who had gone before him. Many grew increasingly more desperate as they neared the bottom, where there was a watery pit with something cthonic swimming inside. The workers nodded and left one lamp to light the chamber as they closed the massive circular stone door.
As Boris walked down the steps into the pit, he could see a pair of reptilian eyes and an impossible, all-devouring maw that was contorted into a confiding grin. The creature seemed at once incredibly familiar and yet totally unknown. Whatever it was, Boris knew its character in one simple phrase.
"You…are NOT disgusting."


close

Info

X

Title: Conservation of Bullshit
Written For: Jamcon 2018

Related SCPs:

SCP-3176 — "Estimated Time of Arrival"
SCP-4856 — "Test Case One"
SCP-4417 — "The Long Way Round"

More by this author

Urgh. Time travel. Let me tell you about time travel.
Doing anything successfully with time travel, my friends, is like finding your way through a mirror maze using trails of breadcrumbs that you have to lay yourself. It's like doing a ten-thousand piece jigsaw puzzle where all you have to go on is a blurry photograph of an earlier edition of the puzzle, upside down and half-complete, as seen through a stained-glass window that hasn't been cleaned in months. It's like building a machine, the purpose of which is unclear, using only instructions written in Dutch and a French-to-German translation booklet, compiled by a drunk translator who wasn't fluent in either. Also, one in ten pieces are missing, and one in a hundred pieces are for a different machine entirely.
I exaggerate, of course, but only slightly — it should at least help to convey why I retired. Over my time at the Foundation, I came to hate time-travel with a burning, firey passion. It's only really a problem because I'm starting my retirement in 1999, and I'm a 39-year-old (or 278, depending on how you quantify it) Task Force Commander who was/will be born in 2026.

People never fully retire from the Foundation. Not really. They usually know too much to be happy with a life of ignorance, or have been there too long for amnestics to be any use, which grants them a permanent place on the radars of countless other groups. Most opt for contract work — occasional research for an increased salary, or the odd investigation into an extranormal event that doesn't seem to be causing too much trouble. It's for that reason that I found myself standing over a dead body, with a child staring me in the eyes with a look of surprisingly calculated suspicion for one so young.
I decided to do the obvious thing and took out a bar of chocolate, half of which I offered to the kid. Poor thing seemed pretty cut up about the whole 'murder' issue. As he munched away, he began to talk.
"Are you going to kill me?"
I smiled. Kids are a lot smarter than most people give them credit for.
"No, no I'm not. I think this man might have been trying to, though."
I gestured to the sheet-covered mound on the floor, and the bullet hole in the wall opposite. The child, bless his heart, looked unconvinced.
"Are you a policeman, then? You don't look much like a policeman."
"Oh? And why is that?"
"You've got a gun. Only killers and soldiers carry guns. Are you a soldier?"
"Hah, sort of. We detected a… well, do you know what the word 'temporal' means?"
The kid shook his head vigorously.
"It means, sort of, to do with time. Something nearby isn't exactly when it should be, and I've got to figure out what it is." I had an idea. "Do you feel like helping?"
He nodded, slowly, and I started to grin. "Great. You can call me Dick-" A smirk, which I did not appreciate, "or Mr. Miguel, if you prefer. This man fired a gun at you, right, and then someone," I paused. Best to be honest here, I think. "or something, stopped him. Do you have any idea what that thing looked like?"
Another vigorous head-shake, and a miniature snowstorm of dandruff. "No. There was… uh… weird purple light, though? Like fire, but, sort of, cold?" The kid realised what he was saying and clammed up. "I probably just imagined it though."
I sigh. Nothing for it, I was going to have to cut the veil. It's always easier with kids anyway — they're much more willing to believe things, and memory-wipes work better on unformed minds.
"No, no, that sounds about right. That's what we call an 'anomaly'. It's something that, ah, shouldn't really exist, but does anyway. My job is to go around and help sort them out."
"Oh, like that 'temporal' you were talking about?"
"Exactly! It's an anomaly, and probably has something to do with the purple light. That sounds like exactly the kind of stupid crap," a phrase that elicited a giggle from the kid, "that they'd slap on to a time machine to make it seem more impressive. You'll never find a more unbearably self-centred group of nerds than temporal researchers."
"Hmm. Well there was the fire, and a kind of buzzing noise, and then the man appeared."
"This would be the man who died?"
"Yeah. He appeared, and so did another man about a second later. The second one, uh, punched the first one and then stabbed him with a sort of syringe."
"And the first man, he shot at you and missed, yes? And then the other man disappeared?"
"Yeah."
"And that's all you saw, before I got here?"
The kid nodded, and looked down at his feet. I patted him on the back, and sighed.
"Your parents. I expect they're probably out at the moment, right?"
He murmured something that may have been "shopping".
"Right. Why don't you go outside for a little bit while I finish up here — it's a lovely day, after all. I'll make sure everything's when and where it should be, and you won't have to worry about any of this any more. Sound good?"
A hesitant nod, and I caught a glimpse of his face beneath a tangled mop of hair. He looked like he was trying hard not to cry. I handed him the rest of the chocolate, and motioned him through the door. Another day, another job, another chrono-mess to sort out. I clicked my neck, and settled down to work.

I popped a pill — a mild mnestic agent to counter the delayed amnestics I'd stuck in the chocolate bar — and began pacing the room. Someone (it seemed like a 'one' at this point; 'thing's don't normally have the imagination for stuff like this) was screwing with time, and that upset me on a very personal level. I began examining the shelves, searching for some clue as to why someone would want to kill a kid like this, and why someone else would risk a paradox to stop them. Photographs, ornaments, books, nothing out of the ordinary. This was a normal, run-of-the mill townhouse — Victorian, terraced, slightly messy but only in the way of all houses containing a young child. Familiar to anyone who's done any amount of fieldwork.
Extremely familiar, actually. Those photographs, those souvenirs — oh goddamn. I swung around, yanking the sheet off the body, revealing a face I'd seen many times before. Every time I looked in a mirror, in fact.
"Fuck fuck fuck fuck."
I stared out of the window at the kid, who was in the process of forgetting the last hour or two.
"Fuck!"
I'd been stupid. I should have recognised him from the haircut, to be honest: my parents were never that good at hairdressing. Of course, I went by Richard back then, so he wouldn't recognise me based on my first name, and Miguel was a pseudonym — the most basic form of identity concealment the Foundation had on offer. I glanced at the tasteless kitten-themed calendar, which confirmed it. 2038, twelve years after my birth. Which meant that three of the four participants in this charade had been the same person. Extrapolating from that, I could only assume… ah. Hmm. Of course the murderer wouldn't be around for comment, but knowing him, or rather, knowing me, he/I'd have left a message somewhere. I flipped over the calendar.

Hi,
You've probably worked it out by now. Or maybe not, I don't really care. Point is, I'm in a loop-catalyst timeline, which means that anything I do now can affect the overall outcome. You know that already, but I can't stress it enough. I killed me/you, which means it's technically suicide, so you don't have to worry about prosecution; a small benefit, but one worth noting.
It's up to you what you do now, since I'll probably be back to attempt to murder the kid in a couple years or so — continuity, am I right? I don't know why I/you/we did it in the first place. Maybe we were blackmailed, or bribed, or just wanted to bring the timeline crashing down on our heads. In any case, you're technically investigating a paradox I've just resolved, so you're free to go.
Try not to fuck everything up again,
Richard Miguel, Iteration 1, 2038 (at least for now).

I barely even noticed the body behind me disappear in a flash of self-correcting purple light as I made the decision not to kill my childhood self, and ended up never having been going back to stop me. I slumped against the wall, head pounding.
Fuck time travel.
Seriously.


I promise he won't feel anything.
…
I've done this tens of times before. Worst-case scenario, what happens to him today would've happened to him in six months. Definitely less painful for him this way, but if you were doing it for his sake you'd take him to Switzerland and let Dignitas take care of that, not me.
…
They wouldn't let you talk to him after he's dead, though.
…
Do you have everything you'll need for that, by the way? Cheek scrapes, blood samples…
…
That's good. You're a lot more committed than a lot of my clients; most of them don't realise what kind of person they have to be to keep their loved ones stuck on this planet for the rest of eternity.
…
It doesn't have to be, but I mean it as one. Trust me on that.
…
Not a problem. You're not paying me fifty grand for poor customer service.
…
You're paying me fifty grand for a mugging gone wrong.
There are two parts to keeping someone on this earth: making them restless in the first place and making sure they can't undo that before you're ready for them to. It's not going to be hard to keep myself anonymous if I get it over and done with quickly, and an armed robbery? Easily violent enough. Both parts taken care of in one fell swoop.
…
You said he likes jogging in Centennial Park, so that's where I'm going to do it.
Nice place. Going to be a pretty place to haunt, at least.
…
What do you think'll happen if I get found out?
Sure. Australia doesn't have capital punishment, so the state won't get me for mass murder. But everyone I've taken care of this way — all forty-seven of them — will have plenty of time to find out who I am, and what I had to do with them being the way they are now.
And unless I can break out, there's quite literally no way in Hell I'm going to be able to run from them.
…
But it's one you can trust. I'm not making you pay any extra, and it's going to last for a lot longer than a year.
…
Now, any last questions?
…
Don't tell your son you love him. He'll figure out you're lying soon enough.


It was a dark and stormy night.
The Site-19 Annual Multidisciplinary Symposium About Research Articles (SAMSARA) was off to an auspicious first day. Site Director Acosta stepped back up to the podium.
Her eyes struggled to appear excited. "Thank you, Dr. Maravilla and Dr. Velasquez, for that wonderfully enlightening talk on 'The Chemistry of SCP-2829's Secretions, and Its Practical Applications in Containment Innovation'." The doctors bowed, Dr. Maravilla disconnected his laptop, and they each walked back to their respective seats to the tune of sparse clapping.
Director Acosta suppressed a yawn. "Next, we have an exciting presentation by-"
She was cut short by a stocky, lab-coat-clad figure barreling through the double doors and sprinting up the platform steps. The young man paused, held up one finger, and tried to catch his breath. Then he stole Dr. Maravilla's unopened bottle that was left on the podium, and gulped it down in its entirety.
Acosta tapped her foot repeatedly. The sweaty young man leaned over and whispered in her ear.

Acosta could feel individual hairs turning grayer by the second. "Alright, nobody move, NOBODY MOVE! There. Alright, so here's the situation at present. SCP-049 was found dead in its cell 20 minutes ago."
A cacophony of cheers, sighs, laughter, and yelling erupted from the gathered scientists.
"Quiet! This means, first and foremost, that the Site is on lockdown until we get this sorted out. And you're all suspects. Mobile Task Forces are sweeping the building. I've got Internal Affairs investigators on every line. We are going to get to the bottom of this, and figure out who gets the dubious honor of a posthumous celebration. Agent Curie will be leading this investigation."
The tall, wrinkled man pushed his comically oversized glasses up his pointy nose, and cleared his throat. "Yes, hmm. I will be personally conducting all interviews. I assure you, my team and I are most experienced at handling situations like these."

Researcher Genesis Rosas was the first to be cleared, as she had been confirmed to have slept through the entire symposium. A forensics specialist, she was quickly called to begin assessing the victim, or what was left of him. She stared down disdainfully at the broken white mask and corroded robes that sat in a pile on the floor. The security guard accompanying her stepped over the caution tape and handed her 049's file. "Ironic," he mimicked in an Emperor Palpatine voice, "he could cure others from death, but not himself."
Genesis lightly smacked him with the clipboard. "This is serious business, nerd."
The guard shrugged. "Nothing serious about that thing. Glad it's gone", he said pointing at the pile. "Yeah, so security cameras all black out 10 minutes before it happened. No weapon, no blood, no footprints, at least from what I can tell."
Genesis twirled a loose curl of her jet black hair. "From what I've been told, no decommissioning was scheduled. It was either a skip, an intruder, or someone in here."
"Well, the perimeter sensors were still up. No one went in or out."
Genesis set down the file. "You're still thinking inside the box. Plenty of ways someone could have pulled this off without triggering those, but I'll wait for the MTFs to finish their sweeps."
"What about the skips? Barring this sucker, every sentient slash mobile skip is secure."
"Never underestimate skips."

Agent Curie faced the wall of the interrogation chamber. He took a moment to dramatically stroke his beard before he began.
"Doctor Maravilla. How coincidental that your talk concluded right after the deed was done. A bit too coincidental, don't you think?"
Dr. Wilberto Maravilla sat in the uncomfortable metal chair, rubbing his temples. "Seriously? You really think I would threaten my own job security here, breach every protocol in the book, just over that damn plague 'doctor'?"
"It is possible that you and your co-author purposefully engineered your presentation to be so boring as to lull any witnesses to utter apathy and allow a third agent to carry out the termination."
Maravilla stood up. "Alright, now that's just insulting. That presentation was one of the best of the day! Our clinical tone was perfect! Our conclusions fascinating!"
Curie looked down at the table. "I dunno, it could have used more narrative."
"…What?"
"Nothing. What beef, if any, did you have with the SCP in question?"
"Beef?" Maravilla made air quotes. "Before transferring to Site-234, I made frequent visits to the Chemistry Labs here. The hallway that leads to those labs passes right by that infernal thing's cell. Every time, I would hear it calling out after me. 'Oh, my good sir, are you a true doctor, as I am?' Day in and day out. Finally, I was tasked to analyze one of the vials in its bag. It turned out to be distilled urine. I put in my request for transfer that same day."
Agent Curie scribbled on a notepad. "Mhm yes. I must now conduct more interviews. Guards, return this doctor to the auditorium." Dr. Maravilla shrugged, and walked out the door.
One down, one hundred and eighteen to go.

Dr. Velasquez now sat in the chair, picking at the scab on her knuckle as Agent Curie droned on.
"… and woke up SCP-3233, paid off her little critters, smuggled them into Site-45, had them steal the Claw, seduced SCP-2719 to get inside the Plague Doctor's cell, and finished it off." Agent Curie leaned in to face the suspect.
Velasquez blinked. "And I'm supposed to have done all this while Maravilla was struggling to connect his laptop."
"So you admit it!"
Velasquez hit her forehead on the cheap table. "What. Look, I hated that thing as much as anyone else, but this is ridiculous! Why don't they just chalk it all up as a budget-saving free termination and be done with it?"
"Hmm. That would be the sensible response, after all… but only if you were the mastermind behind the Site-19 embezzling ring! This is just the tip of the iceberg!"
"I never thought I'd say this, but I think I preferred talking to 049."

One by one, the doctors were interviewed and each one admitted their disdain for the skip. Three time-shifted copies of Dr. Thaddaeus Xyank were found, all with buckets of popcorn and camcorders, and all cursing themselves for neglecting to account for Daylight Savings Time. Dr. Kumail Khan lightened the mood by putting together an impromptu "Best 049 Impression" contest.
Finally, all of the researchers, MTFs, and staff were once again gathered in the auditorium. Director Acosta tapped the microphone.
"Thank you all for your cooperation and patience. MTFs have finished clearing the Site and have found no evidence of any Ways, sabotage, or any other methods of intrusion. In other words, the perpetrator is somewhere in this room." She motioned to Genesis, who took over the microphone.
"I've gone over all the evidence and cross-referenced every interview. The killer is none other than Agent Curie!"
The crowd gasped. Then a second time, as they saw Genesis pointing at an empty seat.
"-the fuck?"

Outside, Agent Curie took a deep breath of relief and removed his ill-fitting mask to reveal a better looking, more medieval one. He grinned to himself. "There's only room for ONE cure in this town."


« Previous Tale | Maim the Sky, Slay the Sun | Next Tale »

Nonstandard Reality Acclimation and Preparedness
Final Certification Exam

1. Successfully recognize nonstandard reality environment (NSRE) within 5 minutes of exposure.
  • Activation of circle-square trigger.
  • Activation of mother-daughter-aunt trigger.
  • Completion of full NFPOT checklist.
2. Successfully document NSRE effects within 10 minutes of exposure.
  • Note divergences in physical, emotional, and logical environments.
  • Note presence of non-sentient, non-real entities.
  • Note presence of sentient, non-real entities.
3. Successfully alert one other individual to presence of NSRE within 15 minutes of exposure.
  • External activation of circle-square and mother-daughter-aunt triggers.
4. Successfully create an action plan for combat, communication, or evacuation within 20 minutes of exposure.

Elizabeth Cooper-Hughes ate undercooked beans off a flimsy paper plate in the remains of a charred building. There wasn't much left but the corpses of structures in Chicago since starlight began falling freely. She huddled close to the fire with other children and did her best not to sob.
Something was wrong.
A newly-nameless recruit ran through the narrow corridors of the underwater habitat. Red lights flashed and sirens howled as the plated walls began to buckle, creases running from one to the next as if chasing her down. Squirming darkness leaked in through new gaps in the world's shell, spitting and hissing at the endlessly recycled air.
Something was very wrong.
Wren stood in a wide field of golden wheat. She had been reaping. She was reaping. She would reap. It didn't feel like a metaphor, it was simply life. Day after day, year after year. The sky never rained, the sun never set, and there was always more work to be done. Her parents would return when she finished the last field though. They promised.
Something was obviously wrong, because she felt confident a circle could perfectly fill a square.
Overseer-6's loyal dog played cards in a dingy basement somewhere under Bangkok. The rules of the game weren't clear, something where highs were low and lows were high. A loaded revolver with a single bullet sat at the center of the table. When they laid their cards down the final time, an old man snatched it up and shot her in the chest.
Something was obviously wrong, because the simplest family tree was no better than a knot to her.
Egret walked down the aisle of a gently rocking train, paused, and found herself cognizant of that wrongness. It wasn't a perfect recognition, something still buzzed angrily in the back of her head, but she had the distinct feeling that something wasn't quite right. She looked back and forth, eyes passing over gently flexing walls, vein-latticed windows, and seats covered in sheets of squirming cilia. The nagging feeling wouldn't pass, but it was hard to say why.
She looked through her backpack next for some hint of wrongness. Bottled water, energy bars, latex gloves, a glass jar full of pale worms, an assortment of unmarked pills, and a trashy novel she didn't remember buying. That wasn't unusual enough to be the source of her anxiety though, nor was anything else in the bag. If something was going on, it was too subtle for her. Even in Alpha-1 she had always worked more on 'people problems' than spending time with the weird shit brigades.
The train jerked to a sudden stop. A noise halfway between a foghorn and a guttural roar sounded in the distance. Darkness was the only thing beyond the fleshy windows. A hole in one wall opened with a wet squelch, and darkness started leaking inside too. The black sludge didn't look hostile, or even particularly alive, but it still didn't seem like very good company for a train ride. Egret started walking down the long aisle again, swiftly at first, but slower as the gentle rocking of travel resumed. No matter how far she walked, the far end of the corridor was little more than a pinprick on a shrinking horizon.
Most of the seats on the straight path were empty. Most, but not all. One held a shimmering figure of shifting symbols and ghostly light. Another pair of seats was occupied by a chitinous, many-armed thing whose head was locked away inside an iron box. A third rider was a normal dog, sitting and panting as though it was just where it wanted to be. Or, maybe it was a cat? It was definitely not some kind of lizard, scales aside, because it was clearly some kind of badger, gnawing at something unspeakable. Egret didn't linger to consider it.
It was harder to ignore the more human riders. Most were cursed with some aspect that would have doomed them to one of the Foundation's vast underground complexes. Forking horns, blurry faces, painful presences, there was plenty to condemn them all with. The train halted again, and something far behind Egret roared back in a tone of unabating, unquenchable, unrelenting impatience. They set off again soon after, rumbling down whatever tracks had been laid through the melting scenery outside.
A gray-uniformed woman with curtains of sleek black hair stared intently at Egret from her seat. She tenderly stroked a bare sword that lay across her lap, and the gnats in Egret's head were whipped up into a furor at the sight.
"What?" asked Egret as the woman turned toward her.
"▓▒░░▒▒▒░▒░░░░▒▓▒░░░░▒▓▓▓▓▓▒▒▒░░░░░▒▒▒░░▒▓"
"What?"
"▓▒░░▒░░▒▓▒░░░▓▒▒▒░░▒▓" The woman pointed a finger at Egret's backpack. "▓▒░▒▒░░▓"
Egret shook her head and kept walking. The nerve of some people. Footsteps followed behind her, but not close enough to be a cause for concern. That might change if she drew much closer, but even then the concern would not be Egret's.
The train stopped. A city of alien buildings drooped from the clouds outside, each inverted tower hanging like an icicle over a sea of endless white. The train's floor pulsed like a heartbeat as it moved, through a strangling jungle whose shadows were full of unblinking eyes, through a sketchy landscape of ash and ink. The bellowing horn sounded as it stopped, first in an empty plane of throbbing guilt, then in a crowded one of fire and serpents. Egret paid all of it no mind. The train would bring her to her destination eventually, wherever that was.
"░▒▓▒░" shouted the woman from behind. Egret reached for the pistol holstered under her arm and found it missing. The gnats in her head buzzed loudly. The train stopped in a dim night lit by furious stars and surrounded by the thundering beat of artillery fire. "░▒▓▓▒▒▓▒▓▒░" Egret reached for her pocket knife and found that missing too. The gnats howled. The footsteps came quicker and closer. "▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓"
Egret scrambled out of the hissing sword's swift arc and ran. The swordswoman pounded after her. She passed by a group of robed figures who reeked of pulped oranges, by a giant moth that recoiled from her presence, and by a man in the same uniform as the woman chasing her. He too turned to watch her passing. Were it not for the sight of her fellow travelers, Egret would have thought herself to be running in place. The distant end of her path stayed distant. The footsteps remained close behind her. The outside world changed from one brand of nonsense to another, rhyme and reason absent from its shifts.
The train stopped again, howling in its manner. A hole stretched open in one wall of the train next to Egret, showing a flash of something that might have been English on a distant wall, and the buzzing reached a fever pitch. She leaped through the fleshy doorway, skidded across the hard stone platform, and crawled to her feet. She turned just in time to see the tail end of a great worm slithering into a stone tunnel.
Egret stumbled through the empty subway station, head aching and knees bleeding. She had been wrong about the signs. They were a fair approximation of English, of any words, but an approximation all the same. Ignoring those, the station could have been anywhere on Earth. A wide complex of concrete pillars, glowing advertisements, and vending machines. All that, and no people. The buzzing calmed to a deep purr as Egret climbed the long stairway up toward the surface.
The city above was still and quiet. Skyscrapers towered, streetlights shone, and cars sat on the road. The wind was dead. The city was dead. Egret followed the buzzing as it led her to the mouth of a wide alley lined with dumpsters. She wasn't sure why she should be heeding the noise, but she wasn't sure what she was doing there in the first place. Perhaps she had gotten off at the wrong stop? Egret shook her head and rubbed at her eyes with both hands. The things she did had purpose, and the Overseer didn't allow for mistakes. She was there for a reason. Some reason.
The alleyway twisted in on itself, left turn after left turn never intersecting with any other path. Two white moons overhead stared down like the eyes of an unusually attentive god. Egret's boots splashed in the briny fluid leaking from the dumpsters lining her path. The slow river flowed down into a squat stairway, leaving small waterfalls in its wake. Something like sound leaked out from around the door at the bottom, and something like light poured out as she opened it.
The nightclub was not so different from any Egret had done business in. Formless shapes writhed to the tuneless song of collapsing stars. A bar ran along one wall, a small stage along the other. Light was sucked from the fixtures above toward the event horizon of a dark eternity. Something that was inhuman in every way stood behind the bar, staring at Egret with peaceful blue eyes.
"░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░"
"Yeah, I've got it," said Egret, unsure of why the words were coming from her mouth. "Do you have my boss' share?"
"░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░"
Egret put her backpack down on a barstool, unzipped it, and pulled out the jar of worms. They crawled in a circular, squirming tide as she placed it on the finely polished bar. The bartender, whose nails were filed immaculately, placed a heavy book with two spines next to it. It seemed a fair exchange to the gnats, who voiced their pleasure in the same way they voiced their objections.
"░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░"
"A pleasure doing business with you too," she said before stowing the book away. Politeness was key when the Overseer's reputation was in question.
"░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░" The bartender extended its open hand, sending the gnats into a senseless frenzy. Egret swallowed hard and grasped it tightly. Warm, soft, and terribly unpleasant. Like sitting next to a crackling fire on Christmas morning, surrounded by the empty silhouettes of her family, and having her fingernails ripped off. Her eyelid twitched uncontrollably as they shook hands, but she stopped herself from pulling away all the same. Politeness. The Overseer's reputation. All that.
The alley outside was still all left turns as she walked away, and the brine flowed back into the dumpsters. She dared not look inside. Back through the city streets, back past the still cards, back down the station stairs. The train arrived the moment she sat down. Inside, Egret found the gray-uniformed woman. Sitting. Waiting. She stared, bare sword laying across her lap again, but made no further move. Egret smiled, and took a quiet pleasure in her look of revulsion.

Egret found herself in another subway station some time later. She couldn't say how much time later, because she couldn't say what exactly she had done since her last meeting with the Overseer. Not that she couldn't remember, they just happened in no order and carried no sense. She stumbled through a crowd of commuters, ignoring the odd looks they gave her as she stooped to pick up loose change.
It took at least an hour to find a payphone with a coin slot. It was stuffed into a dark, dusty corner of the station next to a closet with a lock but no doorknob. Hànzì flashed on the screen as Egret stuffed coins in, waited for a tone, and dialed the international number for Slithering Cherished Pets. Someone picked up after exactly two rings.
"Hello?" said a tinny voice. "How can I help you?"
"Yeah, uh, abject three four updraft nine nine honeydew sincere. Dropbox six, high priority. I'm in China, otherwise aggregate green." Egret hung up the phone and sighed.
She rubbed her eyes, then her temples, then both at once. This nonsense was the worst part of her job, no question about that. All she could do now was hope she had succeeded. That, and figure out how to get back home with no money, little fluency, and a backpack full of something that probably didn't belong in this world.

« Previous Tale | Maim the Sky, Slay the Sun | Next Tale »


They first spoke when Anselman came out of his disciplinary hearing. They had seen each other before that, glances stolen in cafeterias and hallways, looks uncompleted, conversations not started. They had passed like parallel lines before this, and more than he was angry about his conduct slip, about his emotional outburst, Anselman was upset that they had to speak for the first time now, like this.
Lavoie was waiting for him, fine blond hair, watery blue eyes, white hot anger. “You really fucked with her, you know?”
Anselman bristled, brown eyes flickering behind unstylish glasses. He didn't want them to meet like this. “I just got chewed out in there. I don't need more here.”
“She's my patient, she—”
“It. It's an it, not a she. It's not your patient.”
Lavoie stepped back, narrow eyes, buck teeth. “You had no right.”
“None of us has a right.” Anselman hunched, a big man feeling very small. He had done wrong, he had allowed weakness, he hated himself. “I didn't mean to fuck anything up. I'm sorry.”
“You ought to be transferred.”
“They can't. The lemon doesn't trust anyone else. I've tried to get it away from me, but.”
“So what are you supposed to do?”
“My job.”
Lavoie rolled his watery blue eyes, turned on his long legs. The hallway was empty as he walked away, his leather shoes making a soft echoing squeak like a dying mouse as he left Anselman behind.

They didn't speak again for two weeks. They had no reason to, they were assigned to different projects, they had different disciplines. They passed each other once on the way to their respective children and once on the way back, and they looked at each other, unstylish glasses and watery blue eyes, and they tried to figure out how the other one worked.
Lavoie confronted him outside of the dormitory snack machines, because of course he did. Psychiatrists were very good at confronting. It was late, they were both in pajamas, Anselman was clutching two Snickers bars.
Lavoie approached him and said, without preamble, “Why do you hate them?”
Anselman tried to find a witty retort, but he was too distracted by Lavoie's matching pajamas, button down and sky blue and white slippers. Who dressed like that? “Who?”
“The SCPs. The human ones.”
Anselman blinked, slow. He didn't wear matching pajamas. His pajamas were plaid flannel pants and a dirty ‘Where's the Beef?' t-shirt. “I don't hate them.”
“Yes you do. I saw the 2118 tapes, I saw how you put 3424 in a locker. Why would you put them through that if you didn't hate them? Your pain—”
“My pain,” Anselman snarled, smacking Lavoie in the chest with a Snickers so hard he stumbled back, “is my pain alone. No one here knows—”
Lavoie barked a laugh, rubbed his chest where the chocolate had hit it. “Everyone here knows. Everyone here has felt your pain, or some version of it; it's basically required if you want to work here. It feels special to you, but it's not special. No one's pain in the Foundation is special.”
Anselman wanted to yell, but he settled for flinging a candy bar at Lavoie and storming back to his room. He slammed the door and it didn't reverberate, which he resented. If he had stayed, he would have seen Lavoie stare after him, head cocked to the side like a golden retriever, blond hair, watery eyes. He would have seen Lavoie eat the candy bar.

Two more weeks passed. They didn't look at each other in the hallway anymore.
They didn't see each other again, really see each other, until they really saw each other in the snack machine alcove, late at night. This time, Lavoie was getting something—a Nature's Valley granola bar. The hard kind that turned to dust when you unwrapped it but still managed to break your teeth.
Anselman had seen the figure down the hallway, but when he saw who it was, he stopped short, snack tokens held tight in his sweating hand. Lavoie looked at him like a raccoon caught in a motion sensor light. They were both still, afraid to blink, like two cryptids catching sight of each other in the woods.
Slowly, like one backs away from a bear, Lavoie stood and smoothed down his matching sky blue pajamas. “I wanted to say I'm sorry.”
Anselman lowered his hands, straightened his spine, adjusted his unstylish glasses. “For what?”
“For what I said. I shouldn't have belittled—”
“Not belittled,” Anselman said before he could stop himself.
“Minimized,” Lavoie corrected, unaware. “I shouldn't have minimized your pain.”
That's right, Anselman thought. You shouldn't have. “Thank you.”
Lavoie nodded and stepped aside for Anselman to get his candy. Anselman approached, dropped his coin in the machine, perused the options. He was about to press a button when Lavoie said, “You lost your son.”
He said it softly. It was nearly gentle if it wasn't so devastatingly accurate. Anselman swallowed. “Yes. He was eight.”
“How long ago?”
“Seven years.”
“Were you married?”
The hum of the snack machine, the bright white lights. Anselman jabbed at his selection. “Yes. She divorced me not long after. I threw myself into the Foundation.”
Lavoie laughed, but this one was hollow. “Like embracing the void.” He picked at his granola bar. “Where is she now?”
“Why do you care?” Anselman demanded. Lavoie shrugged. “Remarried. She has a new family. She seems happy, but I don't know.” The Snickers bar dropped. “Now you.”
“Now me what?”
“Yours. Tell me yours.”
Lavoie hummed, picked at his granola bar. Fine blond hair brushed his forehead, and Anselman wanted to touch it. “There's not too much to tell. My siblings died when I was nineteen. Brother and sister. Car accident, they were hit by a semi.” He shivered. His voice was soft and factual. “I was in school, six hundred miles away.”
Anselman placed a big, soft hand on Lavoie's sky blue shoulder, and felt the thin man shudder. “It's okay. It wasn't your fault.”
“I wanted to….”
“I know. Me, too.”
“And everyone here, we've all lost someone. In emotional or physical ways. Maybe it makes it easier for us to accept everything else here.” Lavoie's voice dropped to a whisper, and he said, lips barely moving so the cameras wouldn't catch it, “I started working here because I loved it, the weird stuff, the wrong stuff—but when I met the humans they were all my sister, and they were all my brother. I can't help but humanize them.”
The hairs on Anselman's arms stood on end. “Don't say that.”
“Don't tell anyone I did.”
Anselman nodded, and pocketed his candy bar, and went back to his dorm without looking back.

They asked questions in the hallway, now. They crossed paths twice a day, once on the way to their assignments, and once on the way back. They each got one question a day, because they were always in too much of a rush to ask many more.
Anselman asked, “Is that your actual hair color?”
Lavoie tilted his fine blond head and said, “Yes.” On the way back he asked, “Do you really need those glasses?”
“Yes,” Anselman said, adjusting his unstylish glasses. The next morning he asked, “Why do your pajamas match?”
“I like the way they look, and how they feel. They're very soft,” Lavoie said. He ran his fingers down his arms absentmindedly, and Anselman felt the hair on his own stand on end. He thought all day of what Lavoie would ask him that afternoon, but was still caught off-guard when he asked, “What did your t-shirt mean?”
“Where's the beef? Like Wendy's? Come on, Lavoie,” Anselman said, laughing. They were falling into a rhythm, preparing questions during the day and overnight, presenting them like offerings when they passed, no longer parallel lines but overlapping waveforms. Anselman asked, “How do you stand those granola bars?”
And Lavoie said, “I crush them up and eat the bits out of the bag.” And that evening: “Do you ever get cavities from that much candy?”
“No, I've got strong teeth. Worst I get is a headache. Who do you hang out with outside of here?”
“No one. My best friend is Dr. Wu, she's in observation. What are you in?”
“I got my doctorate in botany, so they put me with the plants a lot. I guess that's why I'm with the lemon. You?”
“Child psychology. Do you have any friends?”
The question gave Anselman pause, ticking clock, furrowed brow, but he answered, “I have you, I think.” Lavoie made an expression, and Anselman couldn't tell if the expression was pity or fondness, and he tried not to dwell on it. He asked that afternoon, “Do you play any instruments?”
“A little cello. Do you play sports?”
“A little football. What's your name?”
Lavoie smiled. Anselman realized while he had seen Lavoie laugh many times, he had never seen him smile. The sight made his heart race. “Charles,” Lavoie said, and without pausing for the time to pass, he asked, “What's yours?”
Anselman swallowed and said, “Peter. Nice to meet you, Charles.”
“Likewise, Peter.” Lavoie winked and leaned forward to whisper, “I like your silly pajamas.”
“Thank you,” Anselman said. He was trying very hard not to blush. “I like yours, too.”

They asked questions in the hall, but it was another two weeks before they saw each other at night again. This time, Anselman swung his door open, snack tokens tight in his hand, and found Lavoie staring back at him, fist raised as if to knock. They stared at each other, watery blue, unstylish glasses. Bated breath.
Lavoie lowered his hand and raised the other one, proffering a Snickers bar. “I couldn't sleep.”
“So you came to me?”
“Wu is in dorm C. You're closer.” He smiled again, and Anselman could not fight the blush this time. Lavoie didn't notice, or pretended not to, and he said, “Can I come in?”
“Yes.” Anselman stepped aside, and he watched Lavoie walk into his room, a sight made real that had been plaguing his dreams for months. Lavoie's hair stuck up at the back, and Anselman wanted to fix it. He wanted to touch it. He wanted to touch him.
Lavoie had turned and was looking at him, eyes shimmering with their constant moisture. They almost glowed in the dim light of the glow-in-the-dark stars Anselman had stuck to his ceiling. Anselman closed the door. Lavoie blinked, and looked around. “Nice room. I like the stars.”
“Thanks.”
Lavoie poked at the desk chair, totally covered in dirty laundry. “No chairs.”
“Didn't anticipate company,” Anselman replied, and he knew he sounded gruff, and he knew he sounded nervous. “You can sit on the bed.”
“Thanks.” Lavoie did, he moved to the bed and perched on the edge, looking at Anselman with an expression he couldn't parse, like code, like anart. A self-contained anomaly. Anselman sat next to him, and their knees almost touched. Lavoie stared at them, at the knees that almost touched like parallel lines, and then he said, “I'm gay.”
Anselman jolted like he'd licked a lightbulb socket. “What?”
“I'm gay. I just…wanted you to know that. I thought it might be important.”
“Why?”
“Because—I don't know. Because of what we're almost doing.” Lavoie looked up into Anselman's unstylish glasses. “What are we doing? I didn't…misread?”
“No, I…” Anselman swallowed. “I haven't, in a while. Not since my wife left.”
“We've been flirting, right? In the hallways?”
“I've been trying to. Have you?”
“Of course. Do you want to…?”
Anselman's heart was pounding and his throat was dry. Unthinkingly, he tore into the Snicker's bar, cheeks burning bright like the sun. He wanted to touch Lavoie. “Yes, I think so.”
“If you don't want to—”
“I want to.” Anselman swallowed the bite of candy and set the rest, unwrapped, on his bedside table. “I want to, but it's hard. Not because you're a guy, but because—I've told you things I haven't told anyone here, and I don't know why. I don't talk to people, but you're pushy, and you're honest, and I like your smile, and I haven't kissed anyone in nearly ten years. It's been a while. I don't know how to do this anymore. I want to touch your hair.”
Lavoie wasn't looking at him, he was looking at his bedside table. He wrinkled his nose at the unwrapped chocolate. “That's how you get ants.”
Anselman laughed, a real laugh, one from his chest, and Lavoie looked up at him with his watery blue eyes crinkled in a smile. Without pausing to let his brain come up with more excuses, Anselman pushed his big hands into Lavoie's hair, letting them glide over the fine blond strands, and he kissed Lavoie. He kissed him and it tasted like granola, and chocolate, and it knocked his unstylish glasses askew. He kissed him and he felt safe. He kissed him and light began to bloom inside of them both like the light from the snack machine, reaching down the empty corridors where terrible things were contained and beyond.


You were never big on dancing, but hobbies have to start somewhere, right? Here I am, practicing valsadão, perfecting the form while I wait for you to wake. Quiet enough for you not to hear me; I know how your ear is tuned to my footsteps by now.
Hmmmm ba doo-ooh, mmmm doo wooo… Do you still regret it, Luis? That miserable, miserable December? You forgot what love was supposed to be. Burying yourself deep in dirty liquor and construction, thinking nonsense all the while. Maybe it was our different outlooks on life. But what fool is raised to believe in God and think everything to do with your life on Earth ends at death? Maybe I was the lucky one then, growing up in… Nordeste. Mind is too addled to remember where anymore. Uh, raised by parents harboring a fury against John Paul II. I either sleep forever in nothingness, or live forever on this planet. So let's say it was, ahh, the lack of hindsight, that made you think you'd lose me forever.
Oooh ooh… excuse me for everything spilling out like an overwrought telenovela. Ah well. I wish they played music here. The kind to dance to. I still remember every melody and every step for every version of this dance. That's something mothers don't let their kids forget. Always cherish that fiery passion for beauty.
Last I heard of my mother, she was teaching kids how to dance for cheap. Wouldn't come to America. There wasn't enough money in it for her, and even if there was, what could she tell everyone back home? Her son became a faggot? She could at least understand that part if nothing else; that's more than enough. If she's still alive, I'm sure she would continue teaching. Maybe she's learned some English by now. Perhaps she would love to hear I still speak Portuguese too. It's like training wheels after all.
To think, had we never been locked up, we could have started our own dance studio. Luis e Altair, o dançarino escondido. I wish you had been taught the rhythm of Puerto Rico so you could teach me as well.
Aaaaaah… ah, ah, ah ahhhh…
A whole decade, and they believe that you're still dangerous because of me. I know better. I know deep within your heart and your soul, you're as dangerous as a dead mouse. But we're only at the mercy of each other. Committing crimes only to sustain ourselves, blaming each other. Hey, how much of that do you wish you could take back? Is life better here, or could we have steadied ourselves for a new home? Ba-dahhh, dun duh-dahhh… I don't think it mattered. Here, we're the most docile we've ever been. I can't even feign hating you for whatever you've done now. It's our honeymoon. How soft we've gotten. I don't even long for pills anymore. Do you feel the same way?
…I would hope so.
It's a good change of pace. A new rhythm for us. I am simply tethered to you. And that's all. We're no more special than anything else here. It's perfectly okay. Wherever you go, I'll follow. Try to work your way into Heaven for the both of us. I need to see something new.
…

It's too lonely and quiet. Oh well. Ghosts don't need sleep, just stuff to do. Bum bum hmmmm ooooh doo… Does it matter if you aren't awake, anyway? I'll simply dance for two. Vamos, menino! You'll have to pick up the pace for me later.