Four adventurers left the confines of a cryogenics chamber.

"Fuck, fuck, too real! No thanks!"

One bounded forward, one strode, one cleared their mind of their thoughts…

Micha Maina sped across the gray crater-ridden plains, light of the three suns reflecting off their spacesuit. They scrambled over the debris of monolithic towers that had collapsed across the landscape, panting into their mic. Behind came the hunter.

…one kept looking back and wondering if now was their chance.

« Micha, listen carefully, » Alexandra Maxwell said over xyr comm systems.
The hunter could barely be considered an animal. It was a mass of debris in the shape of a serpent, held together by strands of white muscle ligaments, floating through the air like it was dangled by the strings of a puppet master. Its three jaws kept snapping.
"Been listening the whole time!" Micha shouts.
N.J. saw the events nearly a full kilometer away. She rested atop one of the few standing towers, lying down and watching through her binoculars. Further up was the plane researchers Hyeon 3Mun and Alex were using as a command center.
« Get to the next tower, turn a sharp right, duck right down before the next hunter sees you. »
Micha jumped from the debris pile, landed in a pile of ash, and sprinted. They fumbled for their pistol. Three shots went off and all of them missed the hunter.

They climbed the ladder's rungs, leaving the habitation ring's false gravity to weightlessly drift through bland corridors. Their new home.

« Firing isn't going to help. Get to the tower. »
"Being so calm when I'm gonna die doesn't help either!"
The hunter stretched its jaws wide and slammed into the ground inches behind Micha, ash bursting all around. Through the haze N.J. saw Micha reach the next tower. They ran along the base to their left, entering an alcove formed from debris and the wreckage of a many-limbed machine.
"I— Now, what, now what?"
« Duck right now. »
They dropped. Two more hunters entered and passed over, unaware. Heavy breathing. N.J. was pulling down her binoculars, ready to focus more on her own safety when she caught glimpses of Micha's surroundings. She zoomed in on the side of the tower next to Micha.
"Command, this is Watts—"

There was a shudder and a fading cry. The Bifrost Superluminal Engine deactivated outside, stripping them of their pocket of spacetime that had carried them from Neptune, bringing them back into the universe.

« Don't need to call us Command, Enjay. » Hyeon's voice was shaking.
"Something's happening to the wall next to Micha."
Cracks widened along the wall. Chunks of the tower throbbed in and out, trying to break free of the structure's grasp. White muscle tissue emerged and wound between each chunk, bringing cohesion to the debris. The wall tore itself apart with the intensity of a thunderclap and a new hunter rose into the air. It turned its jaws down to Micha, flew down to them, and crunched.
N.J gagged. She put the binoculars down, trying to look at anywhere in the maze of towers asides from where Micha had tried to hide.
« Maina is down. » Alex's tone had barely changed. « Hyeon, how's the situation with Watts? »
« Oh. Shit, right. »
« Hyeon? »
« I'm uhh, sorry about this, but Enjay, don't move a muscle. »
"Wait, what's happened?"
« A hunter is behind you, » Alex said.
Her spacesuit clanged as something knocked against her arm, wholly out of sight. The knocking continued until the thing scraped against the suit, then smashed into it.

Lights in the bridge flickered on.

Then stabbed through.

Shutters opened.

Warm blood spilled and she pulled her arm back.

A vast expanse of stars appeared before the crew.

The last words she heard before the upper half of her body was ejected from the tower roof was Alex saying, « I thought I told you to keep an eye on her, not what I was doing! »

They had arrived in Terzan 2.

* * *
The four adventurers sat in the simulation room, silent. N.J lifted her VR headset and ran her hands through her short black hair, making sure it wasn't too messy, taking her mind off the lingering sense that she should be torn in half but wasn't. Vague silhouettes of eyes glared at Hyeon from under the black haze surrounding Alex's head, a perceptual anomaly left from some unspoken accident. Alex let xyr face fall into xyr hands, which became equally clouded by the haze.
"Enjay, I'm uhm, sorry about… Getting you killed back there."
N.J. yanked herself from headspace and rushed to a reply. "It's fine." She winced. Couldn't she have a better response to an apology?
"I was, well, feeling fairly overloaded back there." Xe coughed.
She failed to think of another reply. She idly moved her arm back and forth, pulling the wires leading from her simulation suit to the computers in the back of the room. They clinked with the floor in sync with her motions. A good distraction from conversation.
"So, Hyeon?" Micha asked.
"Yes?"
"Wanna switch roles next time? Don't think I'm cut out for this ground exploring business."
"Gladly. My mind can't keep up with a lick of what command does."
The door opened and Phirun Keo entered, wearing a gray suit emblazoned with the Extrasolar Activities Department seal. His expression was blank. Everyone's head turned.
"Mr. Keo, can you tell us how badly we messed up now to get that over with?" Hyeon asked.
"As much as I expected. It's nothing to beat yourself up over, I can assure you. The simulation you went through is directly modeled off the first exploration of Tau Ceti g, back in the 2020s. The bunch we sent there forgot about how unpredictable anomalies can be, got too excited for their own good. Can you guess what happened?"
"They all died?"
"They all died. We used this simulation because all of you need to prepare for the unexpected and, well, there will be a lot of that in Terzan 2."
A projector turned on, holograms flowing from it into the room's center to form a tight cluster of dots — a representation of the Terzan 2 star cluster. It blinked to a smaller size, the rest of the galaxy rapidly forming underneath it.
She tuned out of the lecture Phirun had jumped into. Like they didn't know how unpredictable the place could be. She had been working on exploration there since the Ehlers-001 probe had first been sent to the cluster, and the photos the probes sent back taught her more than enough about "unpredictability": shots of a swath of space smeared, stars molded into cubes and pyramids, a black hole filled with white. And that was ignoring the way SCP-3417-1 manipulated an AIC to serve the Ortothan war effort.
"…and you can't split up the way you did back there. That's a great way to…"
Still blabbering. N.J could ask Alex later if any of it was important. The hologram shifted into the shape of Semiautonomous Exploration Vessel Kessler-002.
The ship's main body was a long, sideways tower, antenna and dishes thrown on at seemingly random places. The squat sphere of a fusion reactor was attached to the underside, and opposite of it was a cubic machine, which N.J. had never seen before in her years at the Foundation (redacted, she guessed). Stuck on the end was the octahedral behemoth of the Bifrost Superluminal Engine, looming over the main body as a boulder would to a pebble.
"…of course, that's if there is any ground exploration. There's a good chance you'll be in here the whole time…" Phirun pointed to the habitation ring at the ship's center — the only defining difference from the standard AI-run probe design. The crew's home for however long they would be out there for.
Hyeon started talking. N.J. tuned back in.
"…and I think we all realize this. But I want to know— Terzan 2 is 28 thousand light-years away. Barely in the galaxy itself. Yes, I get that we can learn some good stuff by sending probes there, and anomalies can compromise AIs so we need people with them, but again. This is not a war that'll ever touch us."
Phirun stared down Hyeon, facial expression unchanging.
"What I want to know is if this is really a threat we need to send humans to research?"
"It is. We've recently confirmed reports that Twelve Stars vessels have, in fact, left Terzan 2. Multiple attacks against Ortothan settlements in the Milky Way and Andromeda have occurred. If they find that human Ortothan populations exist we'll be looking down their gun barrel. It'd be a K-Class to rival all K-Classes. Do I make myself clear?"
Hyeon sighed. "It's clear." He waved Phirun off with his prosthetic hand.
Micha's camera eyes whirred as they zoomed in and out, as if in disbelief. "Those attacks were still thousands of light-years off. Can't say I buy that, Mr. Keo."
"If anyone has problems with what I have been repeatedly telling you, you are more than welcome to leave the mission. You will be amnesticized, returned to you normal line of work, and someone else will take your place."
The response left Micha's mouth open and finger raised, ready to launch another question assault, but they quietly nodded instead. Phirun paced, expectantly glancing around. He retrieved a small remote from his suit, pressed it, and let the hologram dissolve.
"Well, seeing as my advice was derailed, I think this wraps up today's training. Meet back at this room tomorrow. You'll be out in Terzan 2 by May, in a month's time."
He walked to the door. N.J pulled herself out of her seat, wires still connected to her simulation suit dragging across the floor, and approached Phirun.
"Mr. Keo, I have one last question."
Phirun stopped and turned. He was slightly taller than she was, enough to make talking to him like this annoying. "What is it, Watts?"
"I spent several months of the past year working on building the first Bifrost Engine." Memetic blockers jabbed into mind. Specks of memory forced back. "Everything about those months has been removed with amnestics and something MemDiv cooked up. Now, seeing as I'm about to be living on a ship propelled by that thing…"
She breathed in. "…Can you tell me what it was I built?"
He sighed. "Watts, I'm sorry, but you know how it is with these things."
"Keo…"
"It isn't my decision to keep this redacted. Trust me. I'd tell you if I could, but that wouldn't end well."
"So what if the damn thing breaks? You want the only person from its engineering team to be completely unable to fix it?"
"The AI can handle it."
"And if, oh I don't know, a 3417 instance or something unpredictable comes along and breaks that AI?"
"Subsystems can handle it."
Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out; calm down. "Fine then." She crept back to her seat.
"I'm sorry Watts, but this is the way it is." Nothing about his voice felt genuine.
Hyeon leaned over. "Enjay, are you feeling alright—"
"I'm fine."
She had to go on this mission. She had to figure out what she had built.
Phirun reached the door and paused. He added one last note for the four. "Godspeed."

. . .
"How does it feel knowin' we're the first humans to ever be in this area?" Micha called out through Hanger Section 1, vaulting over the mechanical claws of an inactive repair drone. They glided as gracefully as possible in zero-g until knocking their head against the hangar wall. Far too cramped of a space.
"Pretty damn cool, I have to say," Hyeon replied. "You, Enjay?"
N.J. silently nodded from the far corner, poring over the ornate details of a spacesuit layered in bulletproof armor and a maze of thaumic warding sigils.
Alex poked xyr head out through the repair drone's hatch, propping a shoulder up on its spherical chassis. "Well I can't say I feel the same."
Micha stopped caressing their forehead and raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"I'd be feeling better about it if there was any chance we'll ever be remembered for being here."

« SCP-3417 || HUB || Interlopers »


"Oh, hey, Shock, there's only like one life sign in a two kilometer radius, just take a blaster with you, just in case, and you'll be fine!" Shock said venomously to no one in particular. She paused her frantic run for a moment at a T-shaped intersection, panting lightly and darting her head left and right. The weapon in her hand was still warm from the rapid firing she'd put it through to bring her this far. She did some quick calculations in her head; based on the energy output of the shots and the fusion cell she'd jury-rigged into it, she had twelve shots left. Thirteen if her luck held out.
From her left, about 30 meters away, two labcoat-clad things that had once been human shambled at her. To her right, a locked door with a keypad that would take her minutes to hack. She bared her teeth and let out a throaty growl as her sidearm spat crackling, energetic death at each of the two things that, despite all evidence to the contrary, were not alive.
No matter what they were, they sure as hell stopped moving when half their bodies disintegrated. Shock turned to give the door lock the attention it would need. "We'll hang out in orbit and check for any other tech hotspots. It's a dead world, what's the worst that could go wrong?" She wasn't sure whether or not her crew could hear her. She hadn't gotten any response from Mariachi's Merchants since their last message, that they'd come under fire, telling her that they would ditch their pursuers and come back to pick her up.
She shoved a thin black creation of hers into the keycard slot and produced a slender, transparent screen from her bag to control it. "An abandoned Foundation facility built under an old-school spacecraft launch compound. You don't want to pass up a goldmine like that." To be fair, she had wanted to raid the place as much as the rest of them. Still, she wasn't going to pass up any chance to shift the blame for this predicament as far from herself as possible.
The keypad flashed green and she snatched her card from the reader. Her cry of triumph was cut short when the door slid open and another abomination rounded on her. Her weapon fired another bolt of luminous blue death before her brain told it to. "What are you and why the hell don't our sensors think you're alive!?" she howled at the collapsing body. There was a time and a place for contemplating the nature of life. This was neither of them. She hurdled the smoldering pile of flesh and took off down the new corridor at a bolt, making for the open office door a few dozen strides away.
Shock couldn't smell anything around the corner, so she flung herself into the empty office and hammered on the keypad to shut the door. She leaned against the wall, gulping in desperate lungfuls of air while her eyes darted around the modest room.
A hefty dark wood desk dominated the room, with an old but well maintained high backed leather chair looming ominously behind it. The eggbeater that served as her left hand struck hard against the closed door, satisfying her that it would keep out any wandering horrors. Once she caught her breath, she moved to investigate the sleek, slim computer set up on the workspace.
The leather chair rolled back smoothly and Shock plopped into it, wriggling her hindquarters back and forth on the cushioned seat. Her eggbeater arm slung off a satchel and she rested her blaster on the desk beside it.
"Alright, Dr… Dwyer," she said, glancing for a moment at the screen requesting a password. "Mind filling me in on what the actual fuck is going on around here?" Her hand pulled the keycard cracker from its satchel again, slotting it into a small slot at the side of the locked machine. She cracked her knuckles and got to work on her control screen.
The security was top notch. It took her almost half an hour to get in.
"Finally. Let's see what the hell is so interesting you need this kind of security on it." She dug around the emails for a moment before finding a folder labeled "Important". Inside were three messages.

From: 31dnammoc.latibro|7reesrevo#31dnammoc.latibro|7reesrevo
To: Site Director Richardet
Cc: Site 101 Senior Staff, Site 101 Junior Staff, Site 101 Security
Sent: 8:27 AM, October 23, 2217
Subject: Farewell
My friends,
That's the last of them. All of the escape ships launched from Site-101 have been recovered and everyone is safely onboard the colony stations.
You, each and every one of you, are the true heroes of this dark day. Even though the bickering of fools has already set in motion the machines of war that will ravage our own planet, thanks to your actions, the Foundation will persevere. Humanity will persevere.
Thanks to you, when the fallout settles, our grandchildren's grandchildren will be able to come back home to meet the descendants of the heroes that saved them on the day humanity shot itself in the foot.
Until that day, Godspeed, Site-101
—05-7

She glanced down at the system's clock. 3:17 PM, July 7, 2235. She was suddenly intensely grateful that she had gotten the ship's spatial distorter operational before they'd come here; She'd hate to be mucking about in an irradiated wasteland trying to break into this place. She pulled up the next message.

From: Site Director Richardet
To: Site 101 Senior Staff, Site 101 Junior Staff, Site 101 Security
Sent: 10:41 PM, June 15, 2235
Subject: Intruder
At 10:35 PM, Officer Sanchez and Officer Metje discovered a breached section of ventilation structure located on the primary outflow system. Their preliminary analysis suggests forced entry with handheld metal implements.
Security personnel have been directed to meet any unknown entity with lethal force, and Officer Peterson has not responded to radio check.
Personnel are advised to travel in groups, under security escort, until the situation is resolved.

Her hackles threatened to rise up right out of the back of her neck. She cast an uneasy glance at the door, not quite as confident in its stability as she'd once been. She hesitated for a moment with the mouse hovering on the third email. "What the hell got in here?" Her hand was trembling. She'd lost her cool somewhere out in the hallways and hadn't bothered to pick it back up.

From: Site 101 Security
To: Site Director Richardet, Site 101 Senior Staff
Sent: 8:18 AM, June 16, 2235
Subject: Lockdown
Attachment: Capture_Camera31_t-0757-0804.dav
Security footage has provided positive identification of the intruder as SCP-049.
Officers Phillips, Cook, Bucholtz, and Grant are missing, presumed dead.
Officers Peterson and Mulvaney confirmed instances of SCP-049-2.
Security protocols are to remain in effect until such time as SCP-049 and all 049-2 instances have been confirmed to be destroyed.

Shock didn't know what an SCP-049 was, but she didn't savor the prospect of being stranded in here with one. Her curiosity got the better of her and she opened the linked security footage.
The screen showed a hallway similar to the ones she'd spent the last half hour panicking her way through. Before long, a monstrosity wearing a torn security uniform shambled into frame, up to a closed door, and began hammering its freakishly lengthened arms against it. Following it was a black-robed figure who held the guard's keycard in its hand, walking swiftly to slot it into the reader, opening the door for the frenzied abomination to pass through, before following suit.
Nearly a minute passed before there was any movement on screen, then the monster came trundling back out of the room, dragging behind it two limp, bloodied bodies and pulling them off-screen in the direction it originally came from. The intruder followed, gesturing as it, presumably, directed the monstrosity. She couldn't see its face behind the eerie mask it wore.
The video ended. Shock leaned back in the chair, her jowls flopping noisily from her lengthy sigh. She pondered her situation for a while, drumming her fingers rhythmically against the desk while her prosthetic eggbeater hand tapped out a complimentary beat on the metal handle of her blaster. She sorely missed the sound of Sevent's guitar right now.
"Alright," she told herself at last, "I find out as much as I can about this 049 thing. Then I tap into the security cameras and figure out the quickest way to get to wherever the hell they stored the propulsion tech around this place. Barricade myself in there with as much salvage as I can get my hands on, and wait for the crew to show back up." Hearing her own plan helped to solidify it within her mind.
"Aha!" She had found the database and scrolled down to the entry. "Now then, forty-nine, let's see what the hell they had on file about you." Her eyes scanned the page. "You got abandoned at defunct Site-19. Blah blah… Pestilence, blah… kill any such individual… causing all biological functions of an organism to cease through skin contact?" Shock had long since given up any hope that she was going to come across anything that was going to make her feel better about this situation. She read a bit longer, then closed the file. Best just to avoid him. She started rooting around for the camera feeds.
Half an hour later, Shock had her path mapped in her head. The 'dash twos', as she'd come to call them, didn't move around much when nothing was going on, and she had seen eight of them between her and a door labeled 'Propulsion Testing'. They wouldn't know what hit them.
Shock activated the door's control panel, dashing through in a blur of black fur. She kept a white-knuckle clench on her weapon and took off at a full sprint. She rounded the first corner with her weapon level; the cameras had told her it would be here, and her nose confirmed it a dozen strides before she got there. The smoldering remains dropped to the ground and she ran past it without a second thought.
Another corner, another two 'patients' collapsed to her salvo. Everything was going according to plan so far, but the next group were gathered in a cluster of five. She steeled herself as she navigated the hallways that would take her right to them. They would hear her coming, there was no avoiding it. She might as well give them as little time as possible to react.
Shock leaped the final few feet, turning to face around the corner when she landed. Her nerve nearly gave out when she saw how close they were. Her finger twitched, firing another two blasts of blue death at the oncoming mob. She screamed at them as she fired again and again, watching sections of each one seem to simply vanish as the blue light hit them, vaporized away in an instant.
Her fifth shot came out too quick. It hit the body of the one slightly in front of the final monster before it had dropped from the shot that killed it. Her scream intensified, howling out her fear and rage as she waited for it to close the final few feet between them. Waited to atomize it until she could almost reach out and touch it.
She waited too long. Its swollen, twisted arm hit her wrist hard, knocking her blaster to the ground to fire wildly against the wall. Her eggbeater punched out, crunching its jaw and turning its vision away from her. She ducked below the creature's next ungainly swing and scrambled away to gain some distance. Her hand pulled a fusion battery from her satchel, fumbling with it.
Shock threw herself backwards to the ground to avoid the monster as it tried to knock her head off, then rolled backwards to avoid its stomps. She managed to pull her arms free from her coat as she rolled along ground. Her legs coiled under her and she sprang to her feet, pulling her coat free and wrapping it around the energy cell in her hand, which was beginning to emit a high pitched humming noise. She caught the abomination's next swing with the coat, getting a vicious gash along her forearm as its stiff, rigid fingers tore the coat from her grasp. She turned and ran as soon as she felt the weight taken from her hand, ducking around the corner as the fusion cell detonated.
Trembling, she came back around the corner, her hands coming down from covering her ears. She curiously regarded the blackened smudge and cracked cement that were the only worldly remains of the dash-two and her coat. She shook her head and steadied her breathing, pausing on her way to bend down and collect and holster her dropped weapon. Tearing off a strip of fabric from her shirt, she turned it into a makeshift bandage around her torn arm. She winced and made her way down the home stretch, to Propulsion Testing.
In her rattled state, she didn't question why the door was open. Her nose told her there were no corpses in this room. Just some… lavender air freshener? She didn't waste any time thinking about it, frantically tapping on the control panel to shut the door and engage the lock. Her heart didn't stop pounding when the door was shut, though she wasn't sure why.
She looked around the large, reinforced room. One thing became immediately apparent: She had hit the jackpot. Modified reality anchors were being converted into some new, exciting purpose in this lab. No wonder her crew had been able to be chased off with this kind of tech. Still, she had faith in their skills. They would give their pursuers the slip and come back for her.
She sniffed the air, on alert again. Air fresheners didn't move. She whipped around, bringing her blaster up level with the plague doctor who had stepped out from behind some heavy equipment, looking at her with a steady, piercing gaze. She didn't hesitate, her finger squeezed the trigger. Her blaster discharged a shower of sparks as arcs of electricity built and broke across its aperture, lamely crackling in its failed attempt to fire.
She froze, looking at him.
He stood still, looking at her.
After a while, Shock figured one of them should say something.
Eventually, she realized it should probably be her.
"Uh. Hi." She offered, lowering her weapon and giving her head a tilt that had gotten her out of some pretty tight scrapes in the past.
He loomed, ominously. She really wished he would quit doing it.
"I'm Shock. Nice to meet you." She holstered the useless blaster, thankful for the relief. "You're… or rather, these people called you SCP forty-nine, right? You sure did a bang-up job of, mm, curing everyone in here from the looks of things." She saw his eyes narrow slightly at that remark. He nodded, then spoke.
"I heard them talking, when the pestilence still gripped them, talking of being the last men on Earth, of needing to survive. They are truly fortunate I was able to find them, buried away like this, and save them." His voice resonated deeply throughout the chamber.
"They might not've been wrong, 'ya know. Our scanners show pretty much all of the planet's surface to be irradiated to hell. Shit, you came from up top, right? No one living up there." Shock leaned back against a workbench as she spoke, discreetly sliding a piece of expensive-looking equipment into her nearly empty satchel.
"Not the last, no. Not the last, and not the best. Site-42 is the last bastion of humanity. Humanity untouched by the disease, pure and fresh. I have seen it with my own eyes."
Shock nodded knowingly. She absolutely could not care less. "Well, you know, I'm just waiting on my friends to come back by and pick me up." This, it seemed, he had a hard time understanding. "Our ship, it can… let's just say it can appear wherever we need." she clarified.
"Wherever you need?" The doctor pondered this for a moment. "Could you take me with you? To where the rest of the sick are. I know this isn't all of them left on this world — I know it!"
"You're… well, you're half right." She shrugged. "My friends might want to get some payback on these bastards for shooting at 'em. As long as you agree to keep your hands to yourself, we'll see what they say." Shock paused, watching as a grey orb manifested in the middle of the chamber, just large enough to hover without touching the floor or ceiling. "Ah. Speak of the devil."

Los Dias y Los Caballeros de Leslie y El Doctor

The OCT that spawned it all

Nothing in the cry of Cicadas Suggests they are About to Die

Be sure to check out not_a_seagull does not match any existing user name's entry: My Empire of Birds.


He lay in the California Dunes, the sun resting on the horizon, a body - flesh heap at this point - and a police cruiser beside him.
The Great Anoati, face down in the desert sands, ate and spat the grains upon his mouth.
"Mr. Anoati."
He turned on the ground to face where the voice was coming from.
"… I do not think you are here to praise me."
Buck stood, sunset beating down, haloed on his back, wings in his pockets.
"No."
"What brings you here, then? To my kingdom? To my heritage of the sands?" Anoati pivoted, this time turning straight up to look at the orange sky.
"Two things. First is killing you."
Anoati just stared, stared into the color.
"The second thing is… I would like to have a talk."
Anoati blinked, and slowly turned to stand his neck on the sands.
"To talk? To talk? I am done talking. I am done being the God of these lands. These, these people, they hate me. You hate me, even though I am your God, even though I am not to be hated, but loved, and feared. Kill me where I sit. I… I command you."
"No."
"No? You dare defy an order from the Great Anoati?"
"I do."
Anoati tore a finger from the corpse nearby, turning it iron, pointing it towards Buck.
"Even against your life?"
"Even against my life."
The finger dropped. Anoati dropped back into the sands.
"Fine. Let us talk. I command you to talk."
"I…"
Buck paused, letting out a sigh.
"Do you… ugh."
"Speak," Anoati commanded.

"You killed this man?"
"… Yes. He betrayed me and… He betrayed the Great Anoati. And for that he had to die."
"Yeah. I… know the feeling."
"Nobody knows how the Great Anoati feels."
"… Can I ask another question?"
"I command you to ask another question."

"… Did… Did you like it?"
"I do not like it when a human disobeys me, no."
"Not that." Buck sat down on the hood of the cruiser, taking out a cigarette and putting it in his mouth. "I'm asking you if… If you."
"Speak clearly. Hesitation is for cowards."
Buck looked over to the stone mask.
"You want a smoke?" Buck took out his cigarettes again, taking one out and pointing it towards Anoati.
"The Great Anoati accepts your burnt offering."
"Ah, uh. I was joking. I don't have a lighter with me."
"No matter." Anoati picked up the dropped finger and ripped off another turned iron, floating them to Buck. "My gifts of Anoa-stone include its fire."
"Ah. Yeah, okay." Buck crouched over Anoati, placing the cigarette between the mask's lips, striking one finger against the other to spark and catch it on fire.
Buck sat back once more, and together they waited, waited as the unfiltered cigarette burned, billowing into the night, burned to nothing.
"I command you to tell me your true question."
"You could tell it was a distraction, huh."
"Correct, mortal. Nothing escapes the Great Anoati."
"Okay. Okay. Here's my question."
Buck looked down towards Anoati, before looking up to the clouds.

"Do you like hurting other people?"
"No."
The fuchsia sky hung low, sun halfdipped into the sands far, far away. And all was still.

"Fuck.

Why?"
"Because if one is dead, they cannot worship the Great Anoati any longer."
"That's… that's it?"
"No. It is also because I may be a harsh god, but I am not cruel. Killing a subject does not give me pleasure because it… upsets others. I know that now. I do not wish for my subjects to be upset. Some times it is necessary, but I loathe it."
"…"
"Speak."
"No, I… I've gotten what I came for."
"Then I command you to kill me."
Buck took out his revolver.
"It's been a pleasure, Mr. Anoati."

Bang.
The Great Anoati was kicked into the sand, shattered into pieces.
Buck let his cigarette fall into the sands with him.

The sun hung sliverthin upon the dunes behind the gunman as he got up, brushed some of the sand off his pants, and put his wings into his pockets.
And he walked towards it, over the dune.
And the sun set on California.

This was written for the SCP Original Character Tournament, featuring Anoati by Dr. Dromeus. Make sure to read DrDromeus's entry for round one, Ducks, Yucks, and a God, and for round two, Battle For The Minds.

The ACT
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Alright, try it again. Focus on our pot, and try to move us somewhere else.
okay
If you do this for me, I promise you you'll never have to worry about water again.
im thirsty
I know, buddy. Now, on my count… three, two-
In an alleyway in West Virginia, a cactus was trying to float. After poky's grand escape from the facility that kept them prisoner, Carnegias knew that now would be the time to train his forced protege. Gone would be the days of relying on useless fleshy mortals for locomotion… Or at least, this is what Carnegias would have hoped. Cracks in the clay pot and soil scattered around made it obvious how successful levitation has been so far.
The sounds of subtle eldritch moaning filled the air around the fallen plant pot, and through the miracle of determination, poky was levitating. Carnegias would have shouted in joy if he had a mouth, but instead he simply commended poky on a job well done. Perhaps he was shaping up to be a worthy vessel after all!
Good, good! Fly to the heavens, show to me a-
but water though
Ah- ah… yes, right. I did say we needed water next, didn't we?
yeah
Well, let's try to fly out of this disgusting hovel and see if there aren't subjects that will bend to our will and sustain us, shall we?
and give us water
Yes, and give us water.
yay
After a shaky launch, poky puttered along in the air out of the shady alley and into the night-lit streets. No longer did they need to worry about hiding, they were coming ever closer to their true potential. Carnegias figured that poky had earned a reward for their good work, and so he sought to find a place that would be comfortable for them to hunker down in for the night.
As they bobbed in the air, Carnegias scanned the buildings around them, looking for something that may have the sustenance they required. Suddenly, something caught his eye… something peculiar… Many people would see a pizza shop and think that it's nothing out of the ordinary, however Carnegias was perceptive. After spending ages trapped within the confines of the SCP Foundation, he knew that even if it was a coincidence, the shop was worth investigating.
Halt.
what
The pizzeria.
i cant eat pizza
Yes, I know, but they often have drinks and such, yes? And patrons who eat there?
oh yeah
It's settled then. Direct us to Spicy Crust Pizzeria…

Leslie wasn't sure where she was going. Thanks to some good new friends, though, she at least had a lead on Merle's location. Sadly, the entire state of West Virginia is still a bit of ground to cover. The internal map programmed into her brain didn't have secure locations beyond important sites she was supposed to report back to, so she just looked for signs of Foundation involvement.
She knew about callsigns, things that could indicate if something was secretly run by the Foundation but disguised in broad daylight. Marks in the forest, the way a few rocks were formed, warnings of where not to go. The most obvious sign of Foundation involvement were businesses with the same acronym, S.C.P. If she was to get more information without being caught, finding a sympathetic agent or researcher would be her best bet.
As night came around, she started to get a bit tired; sure she may have been brought back to life, but that didn't mean she doesn't need sleep every once in a while. She wandered around a small town, seeing if there wasn't a safe place to sleep away from any stray animals or birds that would be more than happy to have a little snack on the go, when all of a sudden she had text fill up her display screen.
Yes, YES! Drink, poky! The weak, pitiful Foundation will know that they made a mistake by entrapping the Great Carnegias in a box!
and poky
And poky! Carnegias and poky, the true rulers of this wretched mortal plane!
thanks for water everyone
Leslie almost flew into a light post as the words invaded her vision. Her communication network was definitely supposed to be secure, and by the way the messages were phrased she figured whoever sent them weren't personnel who located her. Someone had managed to hack her, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing she wasn't sure.
Suddenly in the distance, she noticed a commotion. People were running, or in some cases crawling away from what looked like a local pizza place as glass and stools and pizza boxes were being thrown through the ruined windows and front door. A part of her knew that she could get hurt or worse for investigating this, but another part of her felt a duty to help people.
She didn't wrestle with the decision for long, the conviction of a brilliant doctor and an eccentric knight inspired her with what she needed to do.

Carnegias was laughing maniacally, he didn't care if these mortals were innocents or if they were working with the slavers, but seeing poky truly express their potential and wreaking havoc made him feel… proud. Much like a coach watching their star performer get a touchdown, Carnegias watched as poky eviscerated bodies and tossed tables and chairs around like they were plastic toys.
these people are screaming
Yes poky, yes they are.
but thats bad
It's bad if the people who help us are screaming. These people aren't helping us, they aren't our friends, they just got in our way of domination.
oh okay
Now, try to find any cowards who think hiding will save them from the wrath of the most powerful cactus known to man!
thats mean
Like I said, buddy, these people aren't our friends. It's okay to call people who aren't our friends mean names.
oh
Try it, if you want!
they smell
Good first try, we'll get better at that.
The pair effortlessly tossed aside a chunk of the counter as they floated into the kitchen, searching for employees who thought that they could hide. Carnegias missed this feeling of being in control; sure he wasn't the one doing the killing, but at least he was on the side of the person with the power.
As the carnage and destruction continued, Tyrone blocked the door to the break room with a filing cabinet and quickly tried to contact the Foundation.

Leslie knew better than to immediately try to engage with whatever this floating cactus was, but it was clearly intelligent and very, very dangerous. She would vomit at the sight of so many mangled bodies if she could, but instead she focused on what she could do here. She didn't know if whatever this thing was could be reasoned with, but her priority was to find any people that needed help first.
Making sure to fly above the cactus so it couldn't see her, if it could see at all, she tried to get a good view of the ground below. Most of the people on the ground were obviously dead, and those that weren't were too far gone for her to even try to save. Despite everything, she heard something among the havoc… someone talking through the air vent.
She snuck her way into the grate, tracking the sound in hopes of finding a survivor. Looking through the vent at the source, she finally was able to make out what the sound was.
"It's Tyrone, please come quick, some kind of cactus thing is here, it's pretty obviously some kind of anomaly and it's got a telekinetic field so I can't get close to it. Can't count casualties right now, but at least, uh, six civilians are dead," the voice said.
Leslie didn't know if that person was going to be on her side or not, but at the mention of anomaly she knew that he at least knew something. She crawled out from the vent to get a better look at the voice, only to see a rather plain-looking person wearing a uniform for the pizzeria. It was only then that she noticed the logo on his name tag… it couldn't be a coincidence, not with how he was talking. Now she knew she had to help; with luck this person could help her find Merle.
"Hey, up here!" Leslie shouted, "You're with the Foundation, right?"
Tyrone spun around to find the source of the voice. "Don't come close! I know how to handle freaks like you, don't even try me!" Tyrone wasn't convincing in his threats despite his confidence in them. His posture made him look like he was a dog hiding from a thunderstorm.
Leslie buzzed down onto the arm of a very poorly-kept red armchair and looked directly at Tyrone. "I'm not here to hurt you. I want to help."
Tyrone turned to her voice and looked down at the mosquito in front of him. Leslie flicked her wings, a habit she picked up when she was nervous.
"God fucking… two anomalies? Look, I don't know how so many of you broke out of containment, but I'm reporting you too once the Feds get here," Tyrone said exasperated. "I was just working a bit of overtime, I'm too tired for this shit."
"Uhm, I'm actually a Foundation Agent… kind of," Leslie said, technically not lying. "You can't tell anyone I'm here because I'm not supposed to be here, and I don't know anything about what's going on out there, but you and I are on the same team here."
A smile flicked across Tyrone's face for the first time in the last half hour. First an insane cactus with eldritch powers trashes the place, and then a talking mosquito comes along claiming to be a Foundation Agent? Fuck it, sure, if this is his end he might as well go along with whatever bullshit he's dealing with right now.
"Alright, if you're an Agent, what do you suppose we do? That thing out there can obliterate anything in its path; how it hasn't found the break room is beyond me, but if you go out there and try to stop it you'll be squished like nothing." Tyrone explains.
Leslie thought for a moment, "Well, I think it's intelligent. Ever since I got in the area, I've been getting messages from someone on my communication network. My guess would be it belongs to them, so… if I can get their attention I should be able to talk to them!"
"Communication network?" Tyrone asked.
"I'm a cyborg mosquito." Leslie explained.
"…Right. Of course you are." Tyrone said, not wanting to even question it, "That still won't explain how you'll stop it from crushing you."
This gave Leslie pause. "I guess I'll just have to be convincing, won't I?"
Tyrone knew this bug was going to die, but at least it might be able to stall for time before the real Agents got here. So long as she didn't lead them to the break room, he figured this was his best shot.
"I guess you will."

"Hey, Carnegias!" Leslie shouted, "That's your name, right? I can see you talking to someone!"
Leslie had interrupted poky drawing blood from a fallen victim in order to water himself. At the sound of the shout, the blood that was floating in the air unceremoniously splashed to the ground, becoming an ugly red puddle.
who said that
If I knew I would tell you.
"I'll tell you who said that," Leslie said flying closer to the cactus, "But only if you listen to what I have to say first."
the voice can hear us
Or it has a cellular device.
im scared where is it
Don't be frightened, surely they will perish at our might!
"I'm not here to hurt you. Either of you. I just want to talk," Leslie said calmly, hoping they wouldn't notice a speck in the air.
friend?
Fool! You don't need any friends, you have me! I mean, you have my power! Friendship is a… a trivial thing!
oh
As the next messages showed up, something clicked in Leslie's head. She knew what to do. Hours of romance movies told Leslie everything she needed to know about what was going on here.
"Carnegias, why are you lying?" Leslie asked.
Lying? Lying? What could I possibly be saying that is false?
the voice is being mean
Yes poky, we should find it and destroy it post-haste!
"You two seem very close, I can tell the bond between you is strong," Leslie remarked, flying high above the cactus as it started to throw everything it could in every direction in an attempt to destroy the source of the voice, "Why are you lying about friendship being trivial, Carnegias? Don't you like being poky's friend?"
Friend? Friend? Foolish! Do you really think he's my friend? He's an… accomplice! He's an accomplice and you shall bow before us! I would not be friends with such a… a simple being!
The cactus stopped suddenly, clunking to the ground. All of the objects that were swirling around it came to a crashing halt.
you wouldnt?
There was a deafening silence in the ruined pizzeria for a long time, the only sounds being the flickering of lights and the dripping of bodily fluids. Leslie had them cornered.
but carnie
Poky, please, don't be distracted by this voice's ravings. We need to search it out and destroy it!
but
"Carnegias, are you really so cruel?" Leslie asked, "To outright say that you're not the friend of someone who so clearly looks up to you? Do you really just think of poky as someone not worth caring about?"
please carnie
Please what?
please say youre lying
I…
"Well Carnegias? Is it really so hard to admit that you're friends with someone even if they're different from you?" Leslie said, "You seem like you put on the guise of the tough, strong, heartless guy, but deep down I can tell you want companionship. You want to be friends with poky, you relish the idea of it, but being friends with someone goes against the whole image you've made for yourself."
That's not true, vile mortal! You poison-tongued devil! You… you…
Leslie could see lights flashing outside as the authorities started flocking towards the shop. She knew she stalled long enough, she just hoped that her words were able to keep them occupied, too.
Buddy, please, look outside! The slavers are returning to take us away! Please, do something!
no
Come on, they have water! And rocks! You love water and rocks! Kill them for their water and rocks!
im not listening to you anymore
WHAT? You go against me after all we've worked for?
you think im dumb
you said we were a smart cactus
but you were lying
i wanna go home
i wanna go back to my owners
they loved me
Poky, your owners are dead and you killed them. So snap out of this and DO SOMETHING!
Several agents dressed in protective black uniforms burst through holding guns trained at the cactus on the ground. They formed a circle around it preparing to contain it once again, slowly approaching so they know that they're surrounded.
youre not my friend
Poky…
Leslie remained silent as an agent carefully picked up the pot and put it into a secure glass box. As they were leaving, Leslie received one last message from the pair.
I'm sorry.

Tyrone moved the filing cabinet out of the way of the door so he could thank the agents and brief them on the events that took place. He handed over the security tapes for storage and to track down the civilians that needed to be amnesticized. He didn't mention anything about a mosquito, as per his deal. When everyone had cleared out, Tyrone once again retreated to the break room and slumped down onto the arm chair, exhaling loudly.
"Told you I could be convincing," Leslie said from the vent.
Tyrone didn't bother to look up and just chuckled, "Yeah… fuck me I don't know how you did it, but damn."
Leslie simulated a giggle, "Thanks, I appreciate it."
"What are you even doing here anyway? You said you're not supposed to be here or some shit," Tyrone said.
"Uh, well…" Leslie hesitated briefly, but the guy seemed trustworthy, "I'm trying to find someone. They used to live in Michigan but they were moved to a neighborhood around here, somewhere in West Virginia."
"Shit, is that right?" Tyrone said, "There's a housing complex a ways away; the Feds use it for released D-Class and a few other people they wanna keep tabs on.”
"You know about it!" Leslie excitedly chirped.
"I mean, if it's the same one you're looking for, I live there, actually. There's a halfway house and a couple of normal abodes around." Tyrone said.
"Can you take me to him? I-I mean, to there?" Leslie asked.
"For saving my ass and at least… 45% of this store? It's the least I can do."
Leslie could barely contain herself. She buzzed around in joy as Tyrone stretched his arms and stood up from the chair. It was time to go home.

La Marcha GrenaDEETa

Leslie's Journey in the OCT

The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate DEETstiny

Check out my competitors tales, too!
Captain Kirby: To Be Announced


The good doctor's chronicling was interrupted by the gates to his palace being thrown open, making a slamming sound that reverberated through his chamber and made sticks and dirt fall from the ceiling. Through the doors came two of the bird-men, walking as if they were a drunken wreck, as always. They seemed to be in some kind of great urgency, not just because they burst into his chamber instead of knocking, but because they screeched with some strong conviction that began to give the good doctor a headache.
The doctor placed down his pen and crude paper to listen to the bird-men. Of course, he had no way of understanding them, as he did not speak Birdeese or what language the bird-men talked in. The doctor sat and tried to make eye contact as the men with the heads and wings of bird jabbered in, making arcing motions with their wings and flopping about the room. Eventually, they quieted down and looked into the doctor's eyes, seeking his absolution.
"Yes, yes, that sounds pleasant enough to me," said the doctor, trying to sound confident and non-metallic in the face of his subjects, "given your urgency, you should do what you need to do."
The bird-men paused. The doctor didn't know if they could understand him, or if they were playing the same guessing game that he was. Then, the bird-men began to continue their uproar, but the doctor stilled them with a raise of his hand.
"Silence!" he boomed, "I trust you two, and whatever you need to do, I leave it in your capable hands."
After that, the feathered fools spent a moment looking into eachother's eyes, before leaving the palace and leaving the good doctor in silence.
Once he was sure the subjects had left, the plague doctor slouched down in this throne, letting out a sigh as he did so. He still had no idea how he had been thrust into the position of king, or judge, or whatever the bird-men considered him. One day, he was sitting in his cell, minding his own business, trying to answer the question of whether or not an eldritch abomination counted as a mammal in his diary. The next day, the bird-men had broken down the door to his cell and carried him to the makeshift town of dirt and bones, and starting coming to him for what he imagined to be advice.
The doctor still didn't know what happened to the outside world. He hadn't seen another human, hell, another living organism other than the bird-men, since he had been stolen from his cell. The sky had been stained with the color of dirt, and there were still entire flocks of bird-men blocking it out.
All the doctor knew is that it gave him many a quiet moment to continue his chronicling. So he picked up his pen and paper, and tried to push the other thoughts to the back of his mind and hoped that it would be another good hour or two before the bird-men came back.

The first thing Shock registered when she woke up was the smell of shit. Even before she opened her eyes, she could smell it from a mile away. The second thing was the intense amount of pain she was in.
She tried to stand up, but when she got a stabbing sensation in her arm that made her go back down. She felt that she had at least a few broken bones. Did I crash into something? she asked herself. It probably didn't help that whatever the toaster man had haphazardly slapped into her legs and back were probably all breaking down.
Once she had found a position that didn't make her entire body hurt like hell, she opened her eyes. She realized she was in yet another jail cell, but this time composed of wood, dirt, and the aforementioned shit. From her vantage point, she could see various other mud-huts and the outline of a wall in the distance. In addition, she could distinctly see a large palace with stairs leading up to it, alongside the usual flock of bird-men in the sky.
Shit, did I really get pulled back here? Shock checked her hand, and she still had the eggbeater-dimension-portal device she had whipped up. She could probably teleport out of this place, but the eggbeater ran on her own energy, and she felt that if she tried to repeat that stunt from the factory she'd kill herself.
So Shock decided to choose a very unusual strategy for her: biding her time. Yes, she'd bide her time, get back her energy, and hopefully come up with a better plan.
Yes… I'll bide my time… was Shock's last thought before passing out, just before two humanoid figures, resembling birds, opened the gate to her cell.

The good doctor found himself staring out the window, at the wasteland beyond the palace. He let out a longing sigh. Yes, he was king, but he was king over a mount of dirt covered with feathers. Besides, he was not meant to be a king. He was meant to be a doctor, and he found himself mourning in the fact that he hadn't been able to operate on a patient for what seemed like an eon.
The doctor stood up and went to the window. Oh, what he'd give to have a patient. Even a pig, hell, even a horsefly would do.
Just as he started contemplating trying to kidnap one of his advisors in order to operate on them, a bird-man burst through the doors and started cawing at him. He groaned in agony; at first, ordering around his subjects had been fun to do, even if his orders meant nothing. Now, after a straight week of hearing that damn cawing in his sleep, the doctor found himself wanting to surgically remove his ears.
He turned to the bird. "What is it?" he asked, in his best attempt to sound interested.
The bird-man then stumbled out of his office. The doctor first decided that it might've been a fluke, but then he saw him return with a limp body slung over his shoulders.

When Shock came to again, she found herself slung over the two bird-men, in some sort of dirty, shitty chamber. She was facing some guy in a black cloak on a stray throne, wearing some weird bird mask. He was in the middle of some tirade which he halted when he saw Shock waking up.
"Ah, you've finally awoken," he said in a metallic voice that grated against Shock's ears, "tell me, what are you doing in my realm?"
Shock opened her mouth to say "What?", but in her near-fugue state she instead slurred something along the lines of "Whaaaaaa…"
"Answer me," the bird-mask-man demanded, "why have you come into my kingdom!"
Shock looked to the left, then to the right. She saw the bird-human hybrids who had taken her standing as still as possible. Out of respect, or out of fear?
"Are… are you the one in charge here?" Shock managed to force out of her mouth.
The masked man paused for a moment. "Yes, yes I am," he said in a voice that seemed to lose its previous confidence, "yes, I'm the, the king here. But I'll repeat myself, what are you doing here?"
"I think… I don't, I don't… I think I fell…" Shock began to spin up her eggbeater.
The masked man strolled up to Shock. "I daresay, do you think you're mocking me?" he asked, before diverting his attention to the eggbeater, "wait, what is that peculiar device?"
"It's… it's not, really, it just a, spin…"
The man approached Shock and began to examine her. "I think that she might just be delirious," said the man in the black robe, "so we won't be able to get anything useful out of her. Take her to somewhere safe, and give her food and water until she seems stable."
In the corner of her eye, Shock saw one of the bird people take out something shiny. A knife… This seemed to put the bird-mask man into a panic: "No, no, no! W-what are you doing, don't kill her, she's the first person, uh, that we've found here!"
The birds paused for a moment, watching the bird-king panic. He approached Shock, took something out of his cloak that looked like a flask, and tried to put it to Shock's mouth. Something in her half-broken mind shoved it away, causing the man to stagger back.
The bird-men reacted by plunging the knife into her neck, and she felt the burning pain echo throughout her entire body. She let go of the energy within the eggbeater, and a bolt of energy came from it, creating a portal on the floor. She heard audible shock in the king and panic from the birdmen and they fell downwards through the portal. As Shock felt her limp body pull through, she wondered if she could really take one more fall. As she passed into unconsciousness, perhaps permanently, Shock found herself wondering how she would wake up this time.

The good doctor hummed a theme to himself as he trotted on the winding old country roads. His adventuring party was somewhat odd: a sapient mosquito and a middle aged man in pots and pans would be strange company. But it was the first time in years that he'd seen the outside world, and he found himself in a good mood.
"How much longer until we get to West Virginia, guys?" Leslie asked in a shrill, high-pitched voice. The pilgrimage from Site-19 to the state was a long one, and even Don Quixote's motivational speeches were starting to wear down now.
"Not much longer now, mi amiga!" Don Quixote yelled in his usual overenthusiastic voice, "but I must warn you, the mythical lands of West Virginia are host to the greatest of horrors. We must be—"
Quixote was interrupted by the opening of a strange blue portal in the sky above them. Expelled from the portal were a strange fellow in black followed by a dog-human wearing a torn green jumpsuit, followed by two bird-like humans. The black fellow appeared to have a rough landing, but simply got up and dusted himself off. The dog-human, on the other hand, landed on the hard ground with an audible crack that made the good doctor wince. The two bird-men flew across the sky and both landed in a nearby ditch.
The fellow in black turned around and, after almost glazing over the man covered in armor of pots and pans, immediately fixated on the good doctor. "Who are you?" he asked.
The doctor came closer to inspect the fellow, but with a wave of his hand he shooed him away. "I asked you a question, who are you people?" the fellow repeated.
"By god, I think we look exactly the same!" said the doctor, "but your robe is a little bit stained with some substance, and—"
"You didn't answer my—" continued the black-robed newcomer, before pausing mid-sentence, "speaking of which, how did I get here? I was in the bird palace, then the dog-girl—" the fellow paused for a second, "huh, I guess she got me out of that conundrum."
"Wait a tallied second," replied the doctor, "if— if I'm you, and you're, well, me, does this mean that, somehow, that old parallel universe theory is correct?"
"Um, I hate to interrupt," interjected Leslie, "but while you're on the subject of the dog-girl, she's kinda, uh, dying."
The good doctor and his clone turned towards the sprained body of the canine. She was lying on the small crater she'd made on impact, covered in blood. At least one arm was broken, and she was out cold.
The doctor immediately rushed over and took out his tools; it was time to put his theories to the test. His first task was to see what the damage is. He took his scalpel and opened the chest, and saw that one of her heart chambers were caved in. He poked it for a second, and this was followed by a popping sound.
"What are you doing!" replied the duplicate doctor, "I'll take over this operation. I do not want you damaging the heart" The fellow came over with a syringe and started pulling at the dog-girl's arteries.
"You think I'm incompetent? The nerves are torn as well! I will operate on those." The doctor took out his nerve paste and began spreading it.
Immediately the doctor's doppelganer criticized his work: "You're spreading it wrong. You'll just tug on her nerves, and that'll be the death of her."
"And what are you doing? Why are you injecting it in the heart? You'll make it collapse under the strain of the fluid, let me take over with the heart operation."
The doctor took the syringe and moved it towards the arteries, filling them with its green fluid instead. The other doctor took the nerve paste and spread it across in a much more delicate way that somewhat amazed the good doctor.
"I guess I was in the wrong there," said the other fellow, "I think the nerve paste is steady. Have you repaired the heart?"
"Just finishing, fellow. There, she should be at least breathing now, but she's still dead. What am I missing?"
"I think I see something, near her spinal cord. Let's turn her over."
The doctor stitched up the incision, turned the dog-girl over, and made another. Immediately, he saw the problem.
"It appears that she doesn't have a spine. There's only a grey pipe filled with some kind of copper nerve… and it's broken in half."
"I don't think we can complete this operation. Unless you have a spine just lying around somewhere—"
The good doctor reached into his bag and took out his spare spine.
The fellow looked astonished for a moment. "Alright, now just put it in there."
The doctor stuck the spine in place, and affixed it to the remaining nerves. "Now all we need is electricity, to revive her brain," he remarked.
"Electricity? Nerves?" Don Quixote blurted, "what kind of medical madness might you two men be speaking of?"
"Wait, electricity?" said Leslie, "We're in the middle of nowhere, where would we get that?"
"Hold, fellow, I just conceived an idea," replied the good doctor. He began to run away.
"What are you doing, are you giving up now?" shouted the fellow.
At the ditch, the doctor stopped and dragged the limp body of one of his bird-people out. "Give me a hand here!" he yelled.
The two doctors dragged the cadaver to the one they had been operating on. "This one's still breathing, we might be able to use the electricity from its brain to revive the dog!"
"Kinda like jumpstarting a car?"
"What's a car?"
"This could be complicated." The clone took his scalpel and made an incision near the avian man's brain. Then, grabbing a handful of nerves, he connected them to the base of Shock's new loaner spine. Finally, in order to stimulate the last breath of the bird-man, he gave him a swift kick in the arse. This was followed by a deep breath from the dog-girl, followed by a heartbeat.
"¡Dios mio! She draws breath!"
"She's still out cold," remarked the fellow, "um, excuse me, sir with the horse, but do you think you could carry her?"
"Certainly, ¡compañero!" blurted Don Quixote, before slinging her up onto his steed, "She appears to have some sort of sword, but attached directly to her hand! She may come to be a valiant companion on our adventure, alongside our newfound surgeon!"
"You're too kind, sir. All I did was—"
"Now, we must continue on our adventure, to find Leslie's true love. We may still encounter resistance yet, but with our might, no obstacle will block our way! ¡Vamanos, amigos!"
And so the now-even-odder group— a mosquito, Don Quixote, a plague doctor, his doppelganger, and a passed-out dog smuggler— continued on the road to West Virginia.

« The Scent of a Toaster | Team Bird Hub | SCP-4248 »

This was written for the Original Character Tournament, in a matchup of The Plague Doctor by Gabriel Jade and Shock by me.
Gabriel Jade also made a pretty cool tale for the contest, and I'd highly recommend checking it out if you liked this!

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Tales

The Little Robot that Could

Join the Flock

The Siege of Site-19

Tales of the Automaton: The Big Birdocalypse

Footage Recovered From a Private Server

Avian Anthology I

My Empire of Birds

Moose on the Loose

Document recovered from a Parallel Universe

Katz and Dogs

Joey Fucknuts Steals The Declaration of Independence

Your Guard

Vacation Opportunity

The Scent of a Toaster

Burn, Baby, Burn

Chasing Suns

Wind in the Sails

Three Feet Under I

The Shape of Water is Humanoid

Dead Reckoning

Three Feet Under II

Three Feet Under III

Into the Beetle Black Yonder

Forgotten Shrine

Down Through

Hyperfine

Don't Knock on Strange Doors

Other

Researcher Calvin's Personnel File

Incident Report ████/████

"Sphere" Incursion Log

Initial Incursion Log

"Cube" Incursion Log #1

"Cube" Incursion Log #2

SCP-093-J Blue Test

SCP-093-J Recovered Documents

SCP-093-J Green Test

SCP-093-J Purple Test

Exploration Log 4480-1

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by Captain Kirby

See, I got this image in my head. I've been trying for days and it just won't come out. I haven't really told anyone because umm… well you don't tell people these sorts of things. I'm not a fan of getting strange looks, or being asked to go see a professional. Although, in the end I guess I am seeing a professional.
So should I just begin? Alright.
It's this real poorly lit corridor. Like, it's supposed to be lined with fluorescent lights but half of them are busted, and the other half weren't given enough power. Walls and floor are all concrete, and there's something standing there at the end of the corridor. Looks sort of like a person, but it walks all wrong. I mean, it puts one foot in front of the other, but it just, feels wrong you know? Of course you don't know. That's why I'm talking to you.
Anyway, the thing, it looks right at me and shrieks. It just lets out something ear splitting. I mean, that could be something carrying over from work. My ears haven't been right as of late.
What do I do for work? I uh… I work at an accounting firm. But we're next to this construction site. Right. Yeah sorry, I haven't been sleeping well. Bit slow on the easy questions.
But back to the… vision? Sure, let's call it that. I'm on my knees with my hands over my ears. And the thing, it starts laughing. Just laughing and laughing. And then more of them appear. And they're laughing too. Next thing I know I'm in an arena and its just full of these laughing silhouettes that can't walk right and don't laugh right either. Like it was some sort of show and they wanted to watch me suffer.
Nah, I don't need water, but thanks for offering.
I don't think there was anything more. It was just, weird. I don't know. It's the sort of thing that just sticks with you. Like, have you ever been laughed at? I mean, of course you have. Not like— Not like I think there's something to laugh at you about. That's not what I meant, no. I just mean that it happens to everyone. It's probably the fastest way you can hurt someone is to just laugh at them. Makes you think you've done something wrong. Normally its humiliating, but when someone's laughing at you for no reason, its like a combination of that and like… terror? Nah, that's too strong a word. It's kinda off-putting, I guess.
Yeah, off putting is definitely how I would describe it. Like all those people in the stands, they just wanted me to feel bad. Feel miserable.
I mean, I dunno. Maybe I am depressed? I can't diagnose shit like that.
Since when did anti-depressants become injections?
No, I don't think I need any medication.
I said no thank you.
Get away from me!
Get off!

Someone fucking help!

"I'm finished here. Good thing too. I'm all out of the 3000 stuff."
"Yeah, I got the logs too. I know the drill. It's not like I wiped myself."
"You know, you need to lay back a little bit. Getting stressed has never done anyone good. Crack a joke every now and then."
"Well, when everyone's laughing at you, sometimes you just gotta laugh along. It's how I dealt with stressful shit like this in my own time."
"Let's not go down that rabbit hole now. If you want to talk more about it, buy me a beer."
"Yeah, see you later man."
click


Dr. Caroll pulled into the house's driveway dressed as none other than James Gatz.
His younger brother's house was a large house, one with every inch covered in colorful, spooky decor. Plastic arms stuck from the house's front yard right next to a large inflatable of Frankenstein's monster which was slowly beginning to tip over. The music was pounding, and Caroll recognized it after only two notes.
As Caroll exited his vehicle securing his self-defense firearm and approached the door, he looked down at himself and began to doubt the cleverness of his costume. It's wasn't that it looked ugly; his pink suit was indeed one of a wonderful hue and even had a matching tie. It was just that it wasn't much of a Halloween costume. Perhaps he simply could've gone in his lab coat.
He rang the doorbell and began to warm up his throat to do his best Gatsby impression. His brother opened the door to see Caroll apparently talking to himself. They both chuckled, but one chuckle was of embarrassment, and the other was of a genuinely comedic sense.
"And you're still a fucking geek," Caroll's brother said in a joking, childish manner.
"Always have been, Trey. Always have been."
"Come on, come inside." Caroll hesitantly followed his brother's advice and stepped through the doorway into a household full of vibrant, pulsing neon lights and at least forty people he's never seen before, all in a costume of some sort.
Trey had a small bar at his house with his bartender for the party being his best friend since their childhood. Caroll and his brother departed as they went their separate ways and Caroll began to make his way to the bar.
He sat down next to a man in a superbly-constructed costume, covered in thick black fur with wings that looked like an actual insect's hanging off of his back and glowing red eyes which Caroll assumed were just goggles laced with LED lights. Caroll didn't really know what the man was supposed to be, but he favored the costume nonetheless.
The bartender made his way over to Caroll. "Roy, right?"
"Yeah."
"Just makin' sure I still remember you right." Caroll didn't understand the statement because they rarely ever talked, even in childhood, so how the bartender could remember Caroll in a manner considered "right" was behind him. "What would you like?" the bartender asked, leaning on the counter.
"Surprise me." The bartender nodded and began to make Caroll's concoction as he turned to the man next to him. He paused, not sure how to approach the individual, but eventually just spoke up and let the conversation carry itself. "What do you think of the party?" The man appeared to ignore him, just staring up at the vibrant lights which would occasionally streak across their faces. He repeated himself and the man slowly turned to him.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, I guess." Caroll began to almost get lost in just how well the costume was. The man observed Caroll up and down, almost like a piece of meat before continuing. "Um, Gatsby, right?"
Caroll smiled. "Thank God someone got it. I didn't think anyone was actually going to realize that this was a costume and not just something I slapped on to look fancy or anything." Caroll took a wild guess at the man's costume. "Mothman, right?" As he finished his sentence, he realized that the man already broke eye contact with him, looking again up to the lights. Asshole, Caroll thought to himself.
The bartender came back with Caroll's drink which was a nice shade of maroon and Caroll took a sip. He couldn't tell what it was, but what he could tell is that he was enjoying whatever it was he was drinking. "Thanks." The bartender nodded and went to the other end of the bar to assist another partygoer.
He turned back to the man who sat next to him to see that in the blink of an eye, the man was gone. Out of pure curiosity, Caroll took another swig of his drink as he stood up, taking it with him. He began to walk around, looking for the man. He was just too curious as to how the man made a costume so accurate and realistic.
After circling the house over and over again all the while keeping an eye out for the man, a woman leaning on the balcony which hovered over a moderately-sized backyard caught his attention. He couldn't see her face, but her body was slim— or, slimmer than average at the very least— and her straight jet black hair fell down to her shoulders, ending in a curl. Caroll decided if he was going to go ahead and try and woo this woman with the charisma that he always believed he had but really didn't, then he should be sure to not drink anymore. The risk of fucking this up was too great, and he hadn't even seen her face yet.
Caroll opened the sliding glass door to the balcony, slowly approaching the woman's left. As he continued to take steps towards her, he noticed that she gave off an aura of pure care and comfort. This stopped him in his tracks but not before she already noticed him.
She smiled as soon as they made eye contact, instantly breaking the ice by opening her lips to speak to him. "I like your costume. Gatsby was always one of my favorite books."
Caroll blushed, but not because of the compliment; rather, because of how gorgeous this woman was. She had grey-blue eyes which shined with a passion, her pale skin glistening in the moonlight. She wore a blue dress which looked extremely comfortable. "Yea—" Caroll stopped himself as he realized his voice was cracking, ultimately causing him to blush even harder. He cleared his throat and then continued his sentence. "Thanks."
Her smile only grew friendlier. "You're welcome." There was an awkward pause as Caroll couldn't take his eyes off of her's and she playfully turned left and right, not turning around because she didn't want to break eye contact, either. "Aren't you going to guess mine?" she asked.
"Oh, right, sorry." It took him until he looked down to her wrists and spotted two tattoos; a bird on one and an open cage on the other. He chuckled. "No way! Elizabeth Comstock?"
She giggled. "Well dang. No-one else has got it." Caroll finally approached her side and they leaned on the railing together, only inches apart. They didn't even know each other and yet they both knew there was a bond already beginning to form. "Sarah."
"Roy."
"Well, it's a pleasure, Roy."
"Ditto." Sarah chuckled at Caroll's response despite the fact that it wasn't really humorous in any way, shape, or form. An awkward yet almost warm and romantic silence filled the air following Caroll's Pokemon remark and he took a few steps closer to her. She didn't move and seemed to relax, so Caroll believed that he was on the right track.
Suddenly, a loud yelp of pain seemingly coming from an animal broke the silence. Both Caroll and Sarah jumped and quickly switched their attention to the noise, noticing that it originated from the thick, damp woods which lay beyond the fence. A large portion of the fence has been busted open, appearing to be able to fit an adult deer.
The fuck? Caroll thought to himself. Suddenly, in a panic, his eyes darted to a doghouse which had been flipped over and had been covered in claw marks. All at once, he remembered the innocent little puppy his brother had told him that he got a few weeks back. Caroll's pupils dilated in fear as he took all of this in.
"Oh my God, what is—"
Caroll gave her a friendly shush before saying, "I'll go check it out."
"Roy, you might get hurt." Little did she know, Caroll didn't care. He repeated himself and then walked down the stairs off of the balcony and into the backyard. As he entered the assumed manmade aperture, he reached into his suit and unholstered his pistol.
Despite the fact that he worked for the SCP Foundation and dealt with the paranormal for a living, Caroll never expected anything like this to occur.
He continued in the direction of the yelps as he continued to raise his pistol higher and higher towards the horrid sound's source. He brushed back a few leaves and he froze in shock at what he saw.
Before him, a large, black humanoid covered in fur was hunched over, its insect-like wings fluttering back and forth in apparent pleasure. As Caroll continued to stand there, unable to move a single muscle, he realized that the weakening whimpers were coming from right beneath the monstrosity alongside a slow flow of thick blood which covered the fallen leaves around them.
The dog was dead, and there's nothing he can do about it. The dog wasn't his main point of attention anyway; it was the mysterious figure which stood before him, chowing down on the gory remains of Trey's puppy.
The creature suddenly spun its head around in a 180-degree turn, revealing the man— no, the thing— that he had spoken to at the party. He truly realized it wasn't a costume as soon as the glowing red eyes made direct contact with him and he could see the dark soul of whatever this was peering into his.
Then, it blinked. Caroll quickly aimed down the sights to his pistol and opened fire at the entity's center of mass, all the while hoping for the best.
But what Caroll forgot was that he wasn't some sort of armed agent for a living; he was but a mere doctor who had never had to use that gun before in his life. And that factor was going to affect this situation to an extent which he could not even believe to imagine.

To be continued…


I, being of solid heart and sound mind
Do swear to be the one who stands alert,
Who will persevere, sacrifice, exert,
And give my all that I might serve mankind.
I do accept that I will be a judge
And a jury to them that I shall keep,
But not an executioner. Their sleep
Will be safe from any hate, fear or grudge.
I do accept that my life in the world,
My friends, and the freedoms that I once knew,
Are gone, that I might know and keep respect
With solemn guarding of the truths unfurled
For me to hold. I will be wise and true,
By our mantra.
I do accept my fate to someday die
In darkness that you may live on in light.
Against corrupt and foul things I will fight
To collect and keep until end is nigh.
I do accept that if I am corrupt,
Then death may be unleashed on all,
And that for my sins, judgment may yet fall.
My life may now but be yours to disrupt.
I do accept there are forces at large
Lesser men sent out to destroy the strange
Who hunt to harm, to kill, and to dissect.
We will instead stand guard over our charge
For they are part of the world they would change.
By our mantra:
Secure. Contain. Protect.
Formal Oath of the Foundation, first sworn in 1821 for the laying of the cornerstone for Site-1.


October 17th, 1974

“And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence.”
Virtuoso bowed his head as he finished Veronica's request, pausing graciously for her enthusiastic applause. Normally, Virtuoso would only perform songs from actual operas or musicals (on Fuller's insistence), but for now, it was just the two of them in his sideshow tent. She snuck him sheet music, when she could, of songs that Fuller would never approve of, and he would sing them for her when there was no one else around.
“Your covers are always better than the originals. How do you do that man?” Veronica asked as she took a puff of her reefer. Virtuoso softly hummed All Along the Watch Tower, so she wouldn't have to speak over him. “Oh, so me and the Clowns came up with a new act for the Big Top. I use my magic to make a life-sized house of cards, which is pretty rad on its own, and then the Clowns start pouring out the front door, sticking their heads out the second story window, popping out the chimney and all that jazz. They're generally causing chaos, and I act like I'm spazzing out because they're going to knock the house down, but it stays up until I finally get them all under control. Then Pius sneezes like a kitten, blowing the whole thing over. I chase them around the ring a few times for good measure and then we run off stage. The crowd loves it. I bet you'd love it too.
“You know, if you really wanted, we could probably sneak you in some time. We could put you in some clothes and in a wheelchair, sit you where Herman couldn't get a good look at you. I'm sure he wouldn't even -”
They both went silent at the sound of squeaking tires rolling into the tent.
Before them was a tricycle made partially from a blond ragdoll, ridden by an oversized, bedraggled rat. The rodent itself was blind, but the doll head had a mismatched pair of button eyes so shiny they were practically mirrors.
Of course, some mirrors were actually windows, with their reflections hiding whoever might be looking through them.
The rat rider squeaked and pointed at Veronica, gesturing for her to follow it.
“Yes Mr. Fuller,” she nodded obediently, just in case Fuller happened to be looking through the Freewheeler's polished button eyes. “Talk to you later V.”
Virtuoso nodded in farewell, but did not resume singing until both she and the Freewheeler were out of sight.
Veronica followed the grotesque little minion to the Ringmaster's Tent. There she found Fuller nervously pacing behind his desk, with a bemused looking Manny sitting on the opposite side.
“You sent for me Mr. Fuller?” Veronica asked. Fuller nodded, but was too caught up in his own thoughts to answer. “Am I in trouble?”
“We're all in trouble Veronica. Real hot water, from a fine kettle of fish! Up to our ears in boiling, smelly fish water, that's what we're in!” he replied as he fretfully wrung his hands.
“… What?”
“He's worried about this,” The Man with the Upside-Down Face replied as he slid her a newspaper, The Weekly Wanderer, a subscription available to anyone with a Library card. The headline read The Factory To Open Industrial Themed Amusement Park Next Friday.
"The organization known only as The Factory, best known for its mass production of anomalous goods as well as holding a monopoly on the anomalous market in certain realities, has announced that the grand opening of its own amusement park, The Factory Funtime Facility, will be held on October 25th. The Factory released the following statement to Library Docents earlier this week:
" 'Since our inception, The Factory has strived to be the purest embodiment of capitalism possible, like Coca-Cola. In the past, this meant maximizing production without any regard to social or environmental consequences. Those days are gone. Today, capitalism is about buying happiness. We want to sell you happiness, like Coca-Cola. Abstract concepts, like happiness, and Coca-Cola, have much lower overhead and higher profit margins than physical goods. Market research has shown that despite not having any clear definition, happiness is the most desirable abstract concept. To tap into this market, The Factory has constructed a special facility: The Factory Funtime Facility, where The Factory will facilitate fun times.
" 'Formerly a disposal site for our industrial waste, we've repurposed our obsolete and malfunctioning machinery into a multitude of rides and attractions that our Foremen are certain will induce fight or flight responses in our patron's sympathetic nervous systems (the closest empirically observable phenomenon that we can equate with ‘fun'). Like Coca-Cola.
" 'In today's busy world, people can no longer afford to participate in enough fun activities, like Coca-Cola, to reach their desired level of happiness. Luckily, The Factory prizes efficiency above all else, and with 140 years/all eternity of experience, we've become extremely efficient at efficiency. We guarantee that The Factory Funtime Facility will be the most efficiently fun experience anyone's ever had.
" 'So, come on down to The Factory Funtime Facility, located throughout the Multiverse in the Crossroads Nexus (please consult local Wayfinders for your nearest emanation). Admission is one copper shilling or equivalent in human desperation. It's like Coca-Cola!'
"The Library was unable to obtain any further information from The Factory itself, however, multiple Wanderers have confirmed the presence of an industrial-style amusement park in the Crossroads Nexus. Numerous members of the Serpent's Hand are organizing boycotts and possibly even a protest of the Funtime Facility, due to The Factory's history of horrific -”
“Oh, those hippies aren't going be able to stop The Factory,” Fuller said, snatching the newspaper out of Veronica's hands. “I can't believe it. I've kept this Circus going for a hundred years. Through wars! Recessions! Persecutions! Social upheavals! The worst bugbears the anomalous world can throw at us! And this is how it ends? Being run out of business by The Factory?”
“Ah, sir, with all due respect, the Funtime Facility doesn't exactly sound like it would provide an experience anywhere near what we offer,” Veronica countered. “And even if it did, it's an amusement park. We're a travelling circus, so there's no direct competition.”
“None of that matters when we're talking about The Factory!” Fuller objected. “The Library doesn't call them the Robber Barons for nothing! They ruthlessly create and maintain a monopoly in whatever market they decide to enter, and now they're offering anomalous entertainment! They won't tolerate competition. Best case scenario they drive us out of business, but more likely than not they'll buy us out.”
“Buy us out?”
“That's what it will say on the internal report, but I don't expect any of us will ever see a cent from the deal. They'll just seize everything and indenture all of us!”
“Most of us are already indentured,” Veronica reminded him. Fuller glared at her coldly, and his Freewheeler squeaked a little closer to her.
“Veronica, do you think I'm cruel?” he asked. The blood drained from her face at the not quite rhetorical question. “Oh, I may be a bit quick to crack out the whip when need be, and I may have killed a score or two of rebellious underlings in pre-emptive self-defence, but that's all for the good of the Circus Veronica! Surely you see that? This Circus, and the people in it, are everything to me. I'm a philanthropist if anything; feeding, clothing and - most importantly - sheltering Freaks from a world that wants them either detained or decapitated. All I ask in return is for you to put on a decent show to earn your keep. Does that make me such a bad guy?”
“No sir, you're very generous,” she replied promptly.
“It's a privilege, if anything. Travelling the worlds, performing for adoring audiences. I know you love performing.”
“I do sir, I love it. I'm very lucky to be here.”
“We all are Veronica, but it seems our luck's run out. Reggie Wondertainment told me about The Factory once. He used to work there you know, before he escaped. All the unskilled work there is done by humans. They'll hire outsiders when they're short on staff, but for the most part, their human workers are born and bred inside The Factory walls. They're wretched, starving things with ghastly white skin covered in coal black soot, chained to the machines for 16 hours a day, every day.
"They live in constant terror of being mutilated by the machines or punished by the Foremen, but any will to escape or rebel has long been beaten out of them. Sometimes The Factory will modify them with mechatronics or spare parts to make them more efficient at their jobs if they decide it's cost-effective, but even then they don't last long.
"And of course, The Factory doesn't share our libertine, bohemian outlook, oh no. They'd never tolerate a voluptuous little thing like you squandering her childbearing potential by canoodling with other girls. No no no, breeding pits are more their style. Fifteen feet deep, chained to the bottom for good measure. There are two pipes, one for water and one for gruel, both in meagrely allotments, plus a drain in the middle. They inseminate you with seed from the most cowardly obedient workers -"
"Fuller, stop," Manny objected.
" - and have you popping out litters of preemies every eight months like clockwork."
"She gets the idea."
"The pit fills up with them until they're able to work, unless the mother has the gumption to put them out of their misery first. Course, if she does that, the Foremen will -”
“Goddammit Fuller, that's enough!” Manny ordered. Fuller finally yielded and leaned back in his chair.
“I've made my point,” he said smugly.
“You have sir,” Veronica said softly. “I don't want our Circus -”
“My Circus.”
“ - to be taken over by The Factory. What should we do?”
“What can we do? Last time The Factory was driven out of a market it took the combined might of the Essie P and a Fey army. We're doomed. Done for. Kaput!”
Herman jumped from his chair and took a punch at a floor lamp in frustration. It dodged the blow by swivelling its swing arm, and then swung it back to successfully knock Fuller back into his chair.
“It's not as bad as all that. Wondertainment has been competition for The Factory for generations, and they're still around,” Manny reminded him. “Listen: incarnation of capitalism or not, The Factory is still a business. Diversification is always risky, and this article makes it pretty damn clear The Factory has no idea how to run an amusement park. We go to their grand opening, incognito of course – don't go blabbing your name to the first person who asks like you did in Sloth's Pit – and we do a little Industrial Espionage. If there's anything we can do to make it more of a nightmare than it's already going to be, we will. We use the information we gather there to decide what we do next, but whatever we do we make sure everyone knows how awful The Factory Funtime Facility is. After one quarter of hemorrhaging money, they'll write the whole enterprise off and go back to mass producing monkey paws.”
“Jiminy Christmas Manny, you're talking about corporate sabotage against The Factory,” Fuller said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. Manny laughed and shook his head.
“I remember back in the old days, you weren't scared of anything. Whatever happened to the man who stumbled into a Dali painting of a world and convinced the monsters he found there to work for him as Clowns? To the man who stood before the Ambassador of Alagadda and insisted all our meals and accommodations be comped? To the man who once escaped a Geo Sea strike team by shouting ‘Look, a distraction!'?”
“I like Manny's idea,” Veronica said. “And it's not like we're sneaking into The Factory itself. It's a public amusement park. If we're smart, no one will even notice us. Even if they do, we're all magic to varying extents. We can handle ourselves.”
“Argghhh! It's one thing for the big guy to be on board with this, but I will not have it said that a twenty-something female stage magician dared to go where Herman Fuller dared not,” Fuller said. “Very well then! Let us steel our courage and gather our wits! Let us muster what might we have and march upon those rusty gates! Let us risk imprisonment and torture and death and employment at the Unseelie Tentacles of the Foremen! May the Broken God have mercy on our souls, for Herman Fuller and Co are going to The Factory Funtime Facility!”
…
“It doesn't open until next Friday,” Veronica reminded him.
“Yes, then, is when we march, is what I meant. So, go find something to do until then.”

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