Transcript of Autopsy 3-12-2015AC
"All right. This is Dr. Jack Bright, recording autopsy 3-12-2015AC. Subject is a humanoid male, age indeterminate. Subject is believed to be James Halforth, also known as Agent Alto Clef, or <a sharp whistle is heard.>"
"At this time, identification is impossible through means of retinal scans, as subject's eyes appear to have melted out of their sockets. Fingerprints are likewise missing due to flame damage. Dental records are conversant with those of Dr. Clef. Several tissue and bone marrow samples have been taken, revealing a DNA match. At this point, I would offer odds that there is a 90 percent probability that this is the corpse of Alto Clef."
"External observation shows the subject has received fourth-degree burns over ninety-seven percent of his body. In many places, subject's clothes have melted into his flesh… this is kind of icky. What? Yes, I know I'm supposed to be professional about this, but you're the guys who insisted I do this autopsy! It's not my field, you know…"
"…What risk of memetic infection? Oh, fuck you guys. Fuck you guys hard."
"Right, cracking him open now. Smells kind of like roast pig. Oooh, yup, he's good and steamy on the inside. All major organs are roasted and black. It appears, hold on, let me make a cut. Yes, it appears as if the subject would have asphyxiated before burn trauma would have killed him. Hold on, whats this?"
"There is an anomalous object in the subject's stomach. Object appears to be a metal ball, approximately seven inches in diameter. Hold on, let me, yup, there is a hinge, opening it up. Object is hollow, and contains a sheet of paper, which is addressed to… me. Of course. Letter reads:"
"Jack
I had to do it this way. I'd heard the rumors. I knew the O5s were going to try and promote me. I couldn't stand the idea of being stuck there, not actually doing anything, weighed down by paperwork. I know it works for you, but it's not me. In the end, I had to go out the way I lived, doing things no one else would think of. In the end, it was obvious. 682 WANTED us to destroy him. He was stuck, and couldn't go on as long as he was in this form. So, I talked to him, and figured it out. The whole lizard thing, it was just a cocoon. I'm sorry about what this will end up doing to 001, but, in the long run, I just don't care. Goodbye Jack, don't let them drag you down.
Alto Clef."
"…"
"…"
"No, no, it's just dust or ash or something, in my eye. You know what? I'm done here guys. This was Clef. He was a damned good agent. And I'll miss him. Tell the O5's we're not burying him at Site Omega, there just isn't enough left to be useful. And he deserves to rest."


Agent Strelnikov sat in his office, reading the latest reports on the recent round of tests on SCP-682. Nothing unusual. A few (actually, not so few) D-Class deaths, and a near-escape by that damned lizard.
Typical.
As he finished reading the section on the proposed use of other Keter SCP's when he heard a single *THUD* on his door. It was too hard to be a knock, but too light to be an attempt at entry. If nobody wanted to see him, and nobody was trying to kill him, what was it?
As usual, he answered the door with a loaded Makarov. Nobody stood outside the threshold. But there was a note stuck to his door by a small length of duct tape. Raising an eyebrow, he took the single sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper.
What he read made his eyes go wide. Wide with a burning, intense hatred, easily enough to scare even the most threatening SCP.
Dear Agent Strelnikov: Exactly one mile north from the site 19 entrance is a cache of exactly 144 bottles of Rodnik Gold Vodka. In case you don't know (which I highly doubt), this is some of the most expensive, authentic Russian Vodka on Earth. Do not use a vehicle to get to it. Do not use an SCP to get to it. I'm watching. You MUST get there on foot. If you DO violate these rules, I will detonate the entire cache using ten whole pounds of C4. Oh, and there's a time limit: 4 minutes from the very second you set foot outside of this facility… or KABOOM. No vodka for you. Happy April Fool's day.
Wasting not a second, he snatched his Soviet-era military uniform hat, placed it atop his head, and raced to the main entrance of site 19. He knew that those in Olympic-athlete condition could run a 4-minute mile, and while he was certainly in great shape, he was no olympic athlete. But, knowing what was at stake… he ran as a man on some abominable mixture between cocaine and meth.
Rushing straight through the exit's security checkpoint, he drew a small amount of fire, but was sprinting at such speeds, that the guards barely had time to aim. He burst out of the site, the image of a 4-minute countdown glaring in his mind.
tick-toc
He dashed through the area, going in a nearly impossible straight line. A straight line north.
tick-toc
Two minutes, twenty-eight seconds. He felt it. He pressed on.
tic-toc
One minute, four seconds. He felt his legs beginning to succumb to the pain of lactic acid production from the lack of oxygen.
But the prize was in sight. A crate with the word 'RODNIK' emblazoned on the side. On top was a relatively small object with a timer on it.
tic-toc
Sixteen seconds. Only a 120-foot sprint lay between him and his prize.
He was going to make it! He was going to-
Boom.
"No." thought the man.
"No! I followed the rules of bullshit! Son of bitch, what did I do wrong?"
He began to sob…
"What… did… I… do… WRONG!?!?"
Then, Dmitri Arkadeyevich Strelnikov fell headlong, unconscious from the massive effort of his mad dash.

Two figures watched from a distance through a pair of high-powered spotting scopes.
"You have done… well enough." said the first, in a deep, purposefully strained voice.
"I got the job done right." said the other, a hooded man, a hint of anger in his voice. "Don't tell me that like it didn't go as planned."
"You shouldn't speak to your superiors that way. It could get you terminated."
"That's bullshit, and you know it. As strict as Foundation regulations are, I refuse to accept that even the lowest non-D-class personnel are that expendable."
"Perhaps you're right… perhaps you aren't. Either way, we have the results we needed to see. Strelnikov can be easily manipulated into acts of greater-than-normal feats of human physical prowess with the promise of valuable alcohol."
There was a short pause.
"…particularly vodka."
"I don't understand why you needed an experiment to know any of this. It's pretty much Foundation-wide knowledge."
"Perhaps. But did you really think that he could do this? A mile in under four minutes is nearing super-human."
"…to tell you the truth? No. Now I have one question for you."
"Shoot."
"…why did you detonate the cache before he got to it?"
"It was empty. He would have died of pure disappointment, most likely, if he found he put in that much effort for nothing but an empty crate. He's probably extremely disappointed as is, but if he knew there was nothing in the first place…"
"You O5's are sick bastards."
"It's pretty much a pre-requisite for the job."
The hooded man began to walk away.
"Don't forget…" called the O5, "…speaking of this to anyone other than an O5 is grounds for termination."
The hooded man simply got into a black car, and drove away.
The O5 smiled, and walked over to a seemingly-innocuous boulder.
"I'm alone.", the now-female voice called. The rock shimmered, and disappeared, the holographic projecting device recognizing the shut-off command. In its place was a crate marked 'RODNIK'.
"Ah, yes." cooed the O5. "And now, for some time to myself, alone with my ill-gotten gains. They don't pay us enough for this damn job…" she complained, using a crowbar to pry the top of the crate open. "We're administers for one of the most powerful shadow-organizations to ever exist, and what do we get paid? A measly-"
"You are not alone." came a rough, thickly-accented voice. "You are dead."

That O5 never reported in to the Foundation the next day.
Nor the next day. Nor the next day. Or even the day after that. In fact, she was never heard from again.
After a month of searching, the other O5's decided that the Foundation's resources were best spent elsewhere. A new O5 was chosen, and things resumed, more or less, as usual.
Nobody asked Agent Strelnikov where he got the massive crate of Vodka that day.


I'm in a crowd, in front of a stage. Not sure where, but it doesn't matter, just that it's dark. Up on the stage I can tell there's a band. Just noodling a bit, sounds like, till the drummer counts off, and that familiar bass line kicks in.
The lights slowly go up over the band, punctuated by a spotlight on the harmonica player at his entrance. The crowd is grooving, but I'm transfixed by the harmonica player. An odd sense of familiarity about him. It couldn't be, but…. He reaches the front of the stage, where a microphone stand is waiting for him.
"All… my… friends… know the low rider…."
That voice… it's unmistakable….
"Low… Ri… der… is a little higher!"
And he goes back to the harmonica. Who knew Fernand could play the harp too? Suddenly it's the second verse, and he's looking straight at me. Like he's serenading me, and grinning the whole time.
"Low… Ri… der… drives a little slower…. Low… Ri… der… is a real goer!"
Then, by God, he winks at me.
…
And usually, by this point, I wake up in a cold sweat, and swear off deep-fried butter with bacon. Again.


Dr. Iceberg wove his way down the hall on a makeshift I.V. crutch, with Dr. Gears limping alongside. Most of the security teams and cleaning crews had already passed, so they had the hall to themselves, which was probably for the best as neither was too stable. Iceberg had his hand clamped over his chest, and wheezed every few steps, flecks of blood dotting his tattered clothes. Gears stood straighter, but tipped hard to the right with each step, a slow, steady stream of blood leaking from a wound in his thigh on his tattered, scorched left side. They walked, two scorched, broken, bleeding men in an empty hallway, stumbling and weaving to the Infirmary and leaving small patches of blood and burnt material behind. The officer on the security cameras for that area took almost no notice, logging only “Doctors passed, injured.”
The request form read “Application testing for possible military/decommissioning via thermal and H.E. materials”. It should have read “Dr. Iceberg throws bombs at things”. Being as explosives, triplicate oversight reports, and chocolate bars were his three major passions, this shouldn't have been as bad an idea as it was. Things were going well while the conventional explosives were still being used, but when Dr. Iceberg started using his “home brew” devices, things rapidly started to go less well. Several explosions were forceful enough to receive complaints from Site Security, while the second-to-last device caused some major damage to the outside walls of the test chamber.
However, much like throwing a football in the house next to a breakable vase, “blow things up” is a game that is fun right until the last time it's played. The last toss was an item labeled on the test manifest as a “Slowbomb”. It seemed to be a dud at first, the wire-wrapped cube sliding harmlessly to a stop at the far end of the chamber. As the two men watched from what they felt was a point of safety, the device slowly started to distort, then rip apart, showing a white-hot mass of roiling plasma inside its structure. It expanded like a flower opening in a dream, moving an inch every ten or twenty seconds, a slow-motion explosion. It was as the rapidly swelling wall of flame started to march past the “safe beyond this point” line that Iceberg's manic grin started to fade.
The next slice of time was hazy to both men. Dr. Gears was able to recall slightly more details, but most of it boiled down to flames, alarms, men in containment suits, and the strong smell of frying pork. Both were funneled out to triage, made capable of walking, then sent down to the infirmary under their own power. The Walk of Shame is a very different thing inside The Foundation, and Iceberg was especially glad that the hall was empty. Gears, as always, was impassive, and except for the bodily damage and limp, appeared basically unchanged from when he entered the testing room. As they approached the infirmary Iceberg wondered, for the thousandth time, if he really was some kind of robot.
The infirmary admitted them with a minimum of notice, as they were dealing with the after-effects of a light bulb that, when powered up, emitted light that caused most bones to start to liquefy and extrude through the sweat glands. Neither of the two doctors were overly injured (by Foundation standards), so they quickly found themselves in hospital beds and nearly forgotten as the team rushed to deal with newer and stranger injuries.
As Iceberg fingered at the cool gel patch covering a nasty burn on his right arm, he looked over at Dr. Gears. Impassive as always, his leg was wrapped in a soft cast and elevated, with several small gauze patches on his face, neck, and arms in varying shades of red, pink, and black.
Iceberg winced a bit, feeling something mildly fractured shift in his chest, and nodded to Dr. Gears. “Ahh…sorry about that, again. I…really didn't expect it to get that out of hand, honestly.”
Gears nodded slightly, still facing the ceiling. “There is no need. Accidents happen.”
Iceberg leaned back, sighing as the pain killers started to pull him down in to deep, dreamless rest.

He woke with a groan to the sound of tapping. Gingerly shaking his head to clear it, he turned to see Dr. Gears tapping with a stylus at the screen of a tablet laptop. He seemed ignorant of Iceberg, or at least uncaring, so Iceberg decided to try and see how sitting up would go. The first flex of his abdomen brought a lancing comet of pain arcing through his chest, so he rapidly decided to postpone any testing and fell back with a groan.
Gears finished, carefully placing the computer on a side table and nodding to Iceberg. “You were asleep when they changed your wrappings. You won't be able to move in any serious way for two days. I will be unable to walk for four days, and have had to reassign our schedules to others.”
Iceberg sighed, closing his eyes as he eased back on the pillow. Two days of hospital food and company with a man who's been accused of being a robot multiple times, rarely in jest. Lovely. He passed some time daydreaming, mentally working out the kinks on the Slowbomb until he started feeling restless again. He turned again to Gears, watching him stare at the ceiling, arms crossed, breathing regularly. “Hey Gears…are you awake?” he asked, hoping he wasn't sleeping with his eyes open again. He knew it was just a trick you could learn, but with Gears, it was just creepy.
The tall, thin man turned his head slowly to look at Iceberg, face nearly immobile but for his mouth. “Yes, Dr. Iceberg, I am. What is it?”
Faced now with the older man's full attention, Iceberg suddenly felt oddly uncomfortable and unprepared, as if he'd suddenly been called on to answer a question while he'd been daydreaming. “Uh…well, I was wondering…why do Kain, Agent Fritz and that one tubby janitor always call you Cog?”
Dr. Gears stared a few moments, blinking slowly. “Your last name is not Dr. Iceberg, correct?”
Iceberg blinked, taken off-guard, before stammering, “Y-yeah…I mean no…or, I mean, yes, that's not my last name.”
Gears nodded, making a small gesture with his hand. “It is an alternate identification designation assigned by Site Security. Policy on this topic has been in a near-constant state of flux, both due to alterations in administrative staff, and planned security cycling. Most of the identification designations are picked at random, with some following a set assigning protocol. Some also appear to have been chosen as a form of 'gag' or 'inside joke'. However, this was not always the case.”
He paused, taking a breath, and Iceberg kept totally silent. This was the longest non-work or survival related conversation Gears had ever engaged in with Iceberg, and he didn't want to break the spell.
“During my intake, the security protocols were still being derived from old military designations and acronyms. My initial designation was 'C.O.G.', derived from the initials of my name. Later, when a determination was made that this was too much of a security weakness, my designation was altered to 'Gears', most likely due to my extensive work on SCP-882 and the similarity to my previous designation.”
Iceberg sat, processing a moment before speaking. “Wait…so…Cog is your initials? So what is your actual name?”
Gears blinked several times slowly, still watching Iceberg, and the young man knew that no answer was forthcoming. He changed tactics, hoping to probe for more information, the exercise taking his mind off the pulsing pain in his side.
“Alright, so…Gears, honestly, are you a robot? Or like…a Vulcan or something? You have to admit you're not really…ah…normal.”
Dr. Gears laid back, resting his hands on his chest. Iceberg was expecting silence, or his methodical, mechanical “I am not a robot.” reply that really did nothing to help. Instead, Gears drew in a breath slowly, and explained. “My mental peculiarities are somewhat sedate when compared to the various emergent coping mechanisms developed by other staff members. However, I can understand how mine are particularly noticeable. No, I am not a 'robot' or any other form of altered human, or non-human.” He paused, blinking several times, before continuing. “I simply…adapted too well.”
Iceberg watched the older man reclining in the hospital bed, confused. He could almost swear that Gears seemed…conflicted, or even depressed. He was about to ask, when Dr. Gears started up again. “I am not an emotionless robot. I feel. I feel pain and sadness at the loss of a friend. I feel joy when achieving a positive goal, and regret when falling short. I feel fear, even horror, when faced with things capable of great harm, or worse. It is not that I can not feel. It is that I can not respond to it. Much like the feeling you have when on powerful narcotic pain killers, I am aware of my feelings, and what I am supposed to do with them, but they feel distant…disconnected. Like seeing someone crying, and feeling a slight empathy for their plight, but not being moved to tears yourself.”
Iceberg sat, slightly stunned. His damned imagination ran off almost instantly, trying to conceive of going through everything he had already been pushed through…but this time, unable to react. Feeling all the pain, and joy, and fear, but being locked away with it, like a lunatic in a rubber room. Observed, logged, then forgotten. Iceberg shuddered, unable to look directly at Gears for a time. When he finally looked back, Gears was still staring, and Iceberg had to repress another involuntary shudder. He was about to ask another question when a nurse came in and carted him off for some blood tests. He was also informed that an oversight committee would be looking in to his explosive research at the end of the month. By the time he made it back, Dr. Gears was already asleep.

The next day Iceberg woke up late, and to his great joy was able to move with a minimum of blinding pain. The bed next to him was empty, and Iceberg looked at it thoughtfully. Since being recruited by The Foundation (fresh from college, no less), he'd been paired up with Dr. Gears almost constantly. He'd been very scared at first. Many of the new recruits reacted with varying degrees of fear, awe, and pity when he told them his new assignment, which did nothing for his already limited confidence. What's more, it took months to realize that Gears didn't actually hate him, that it was just his default setting of total indifference. Even worse, they kept getting assigned to the worst jobs…he still shivered to think about his first run-in with an SCP-882 breach.
Still, after all this time, he knew next to nothing about Dr. Gears. Many of the other staff were pretty vocal about who they used to be, and some even were allowed a semi-normal life outside the site. Gears, however, was a black box. No idle conversation of the past, no hidden tokens or photos in the desk (he'd checked), no…anything, really. Never leaves the site except for Foundation business, never takes any time off, never engages in any non-work activity unless forced to. What was even stranger was that NOBODY knew anything about him. Even the classic busybodies around the site had no real clue who he was, and the database became a large, password-encrusted tower of doom when asked about Dr. Gears.
The sharp click of the door brought Iceberg back to reality quickly. Gears hobbled slightly as he worked his way to the bed, laying down and adjusting a bandage at his side. He spoke to the ceiling, not a gesture or look for the man he was addressing. “I am being released early. You will need to remain here for another day, but I expect you to be ready to resume your duties as soon as you are released.”
Iceberg sighed, shaking his head and looking away. Silence drew out for long moments before Iceberg turned, looked pointedly at Gears, and said “What the hell happened to you? I mean…what the fuck, man? You're goddamn Spock but without those little lapses of human feeling…did they experiment on you, did you have a breakdown, what the hell?”
As Gears stared at him, Iceberg became acutely aware of the fact that what he had just said may amount to insubordination or “unauthorized security probing” of a level where “large men with guns” is the most comforting portion of the disciplinary measure. The two men stared for what felt like a long time, Iceberg almost unwilling to blink, feeling a creeping measure of fear on par with reviewing security tapes of SCP-173.
After a time, Gears blinked, slowly, and nodded. “What happened. I have been asked that multiple times, and I know of many more theories to this effect. What happened…was nothing unique. Nothing that is impossible to repeat, or hasn't happened to others. It is easy to assume that there was a single 'defining moment' in the transition to my current state, but I do not believe this to be so. It is… gradual. Like a sickness. After a time, you simply wake up… different.”
Iceberg shook his head, processing this new tidbit. “Okay…so you just… declined, I guess? Jesus… I mean… how the hell does something like that happen? You still haven't said what actually happened, what started this…”
He trailed off as Gears turned to stare at the younger man again. “Are you loyal to The Foundation, Doctor Iceberg? I assume you will reply in the positive, but think before you respond. I am loyal, but not because of a sense of duty or empowerment. I believe, fully, in the work being done here. I believe that, without The Foundation, humanity as we know it would crumble in a very short time. I believe that we, the few with the resources and means to do so, have the direct obligation to insulate others from all that we are containing.”
The door to the room opened with a small, poorly-oiled and annoying squeal that went totally unnoticed by Iceberg. Even as a young-ish doctor entered and started reading off discharge information in the general direction of Dr. Gears, Iceberg still heard little. Unsettling ideas were bumping around, unpleasant recollections of tests ordered and observed… of instances where the “greater good” overwhelmed normal human decency. Moments where he knew, for a fact, that he should be repulsed… or frightened… or at least unsettled, but felt only mild interest, at best. He snapped back from the increasingly stormy seas of his mind when Gears started to leave the hospital bed, aided by an arm from the doctor. “…why are you telling me this?” he asked.
Doctor Gears turned slightly and spoke to Iceberg over his shoulder, his voice carrying that odd toneless quality again. “In regards to your request in relation to our future work, you may find the literature I mentioned enlightening. In addition, there is an epitaph in Tasmania, Australia that may prove useful as a motto or guide stone. I will expect you to report in for new assignments as soon as you are discharged.” The young-ish medical doctor looked between the two others, slightly confused and wary, but continued to help Gears from the room. Iceberg was left alone in seconds, both unsettled and deeply confused.

It wasn't until days later that Iceberg got the chance to try and investigate the rather cryptic message. Gears had mentioned nothing more about anything he had said in the hospital, and Iceberg had found himself deluged with paperwork and solo testing. He had barely spoken to or seen anyone for nearly two days, and finally decided a little investigation might break up the tedium. It took only a little prodding to find what he was looking for, but it took more time to process:
"As you are now, so once was I
As I am now, soon you shall be -
Prepare yourself to follow me."
Iceberg sat alone in the deepest bowels of the underground site, surrounded by mounds of neatly typed records of horrors and atrocities, and tried very hard not to feel cold.


Randy Bragg's arms still hurt from the morning pushups he had recently resumed. He had to do something, after all. Even if it meant that his food might not last as long, that the precious, life-giving fat around his belly and thighs might burn away a little faster, he had to do something.
It had been at least a week since he'd fired the last few rounds out of his rifle, killing the last of the invaders he'd found lurking around the door to his basement. Their yellow faces and black eyes stared at him still, every time he looked through the tiny slit in the wall. There were no bacteria left to eat their dying bodies; no crows to feast on their eyes. The world was dead and sterile, as far as he could tell.
Bragg knew that the United States had been victorious, though. The few stragglers left behind were those who managed to survive the initial bombs, hiding in their victims homes and shelters, only venturing out when they had depleted the supplies that those visionary few Americans had stocked and supplied for so long, so hard. It wasn't fair that these yellow bastards had come here. It wasn't fair that they had killed his wife and his children, that they had killed his friends and their families with their “clean” bomb.
“Oh yes, very clean,” thought Bragg. It had dropped almost directly into their suburb, thousands of air based antiseptics. Those who breathed it died quickly, while those who ate food it landed on killed their digestive bacteria. A bomb that starved you to death! Bragg spat at the ground, letting go of the precious little water that remained. He knew for sure that-
“Hello, there!”
Bragg nearly jumped out of his skin. In the hundreds of times he'd paced the basement, his opinions rolling through his mind, he'd never seen anyone with him. He was supposed to die down here, the food running out, starving. A post-modern tear jerker. But now…
“I'm Dr. Fredrickson,” said the man, extending his hand. “And I'm offering you a chance to save the world.”
“What are you talking about?” sneered Bragg. “The world is over. It's all dead out there. The clean kind of dead, where nothing rots and you live with their eyes always watchi-
“I know they're all dead ‘out there,'” interrupted Fredrickson, pointing at the door. “I'm talking about further away than that. "
For a moment, Bragg harbored hope. Washington? New York? Did they escape? Fredrickson dashed them quickly.
"Past the pages, into the real world. I'm going to need as much help as I can get, and you're the only one alive in this book.”
The blithe comment had utterly shattered Bragg's composure. You were never, EVER, supposed to break character, not where they could read you. He rushed forward, grasping Fredrickson's… he wasn't sure what. He didn't know that it had ever been described.
“It's my lab coat,” said Fredrickson, seemingly understanding Bragg's problem. “Listen, I'm very sorry to break your fourth wall, but it's kind of an emergency. Will you please come?”
He didn't know what to say. Other than the occasional flashback, this was all he'd ever known. He had the history of his character: the Korean War, the family and kids, the quickly lost jobs. And the bomb. Of course, the bomb was the focal point of his history. But this place, this abandoned basement, was all he'd ever really experienced. That was all that was within the pages.
Bragg shrugged. What else could he do? Sit here and die? He regretfully looked up at the doctor.
“The whole world?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” said Fredrickson. “Very likely, the whole world.”
‘The whole world,' thought Bragg. ‘So much more than Maple Street…'
“I'm in.”

Cardiforce was listening, with delight. The chants of the faithful filled the air around him, exacting in their beauty and cadence.
"We are His Clockwork Servants!
We do the work of His hand!
Those who oppose will forgive us
when they are made to understand!"1
Their chants filled him with the shriven perfunctory of a man of faith. He watched gleefully as they raised the arc-welders to the wall of the hanger and struck them against the metal.

Bragg was staggered by the sight. In front of him, two men who looked almost exactly like Rommel and Patton were talking with each other, describing the different points of entry they might expect and the different prospects for armament they could hope for. Upon seeing Fredrickson, the two men smiled and walked forward.
“Who do we have here, Fred?” asked Patton, his white teeth glinting and the ghost of an American flag waving behind him.
“Randy Bragg,” said Fredrickson, motioning to the still stunned man. “He should be the last of the ones we can use. He fought in Korea, so he should work out well for you.”
“Korea?” asked Rommel. “Why would he fight in that little backwater? Don't the Japanese know how to keep order in their own country?”
Fredrickson put one arm around Bragg and whispered in his ear. “Ohnay orldway arway Ootay, got it?”
Bragg nodded, turning to ask Fredrickson what might be a good topic, when he found himself suddenly alone. He allowed himself to be shepherded off by the two men, asking him of guns and models from the next few years.
"Tell me," asked Rommel. "Who makes the better gun, from your time? The Germans or the Americans?"
Patton seemed patently interested in the same question. Bragg stood for a moment, looking from one to the other, unable to really answer much of anything.
So he lied. "The British," he said, calmly. Both men looked surprised, looked at each other for a moment, and then broke into laughter.
"This one is funnier than the others, Rommy!" roared Patton.
"Yes," agreed Rommel, "though he would almost have to be!"
The two men laughed loudly, turning away from Bragg. As they walked away, planning the different points at which they expected assault to arrive from, Bragg turned and walked around the battlefield, trying to shake off the haunting almost memories of Korea, trying to ignore the tickling fear than now began to gnaw at him.

The door to the large hanger was glowing bright orange now, having shifted from the earlier red. The heat could be felt even at the other side, where the two Foundation Agents were working as quickly as possible, going through every book they could find in their small site, leafing and discarding them with a speed only seen in those who had grown efficient at being panicked.
“He's moving quickly,” said Dodridge. “We've gone from two wounded platoons to a full squad of rangers, a Cavalry, and three post-apocalyptic survivors. Are there any left?”
“Nothing of use, I don't think,” said Lament. “We've just about run ourselves dry. Let's hope this actually works, huh?”
“It had better, or I'm pretty sure we won't be around to care,” said Dodridge, hefting and placing the two dragon-shaped bookends on a small table, sliding the book between them and turning, both men running at breakneck speed.

Bragg sat in the dirt, next to one of the other men. He looked, Bragg thought, like he might have been a banker at one time.
When the man saw him looking, he turned and smiled at Bragg. "You're one of us, aren't you?" he asked.
"One of what?" replied Bragg.
"The post-apocers. You look like you've survived the end of the world once or twice." The man smiled at Bragg. "My name's Darren Palanger. I'm from Fallen Monuments, Fallen Gods. Five atomic bombs, one city; which… will… survive!" Palanger laughed, hollowly. "How about you?"
"Randy Bragg, from Maple Street. The clean bomb."
"Clean bomb?"
"Kills all the bacteria, including the ones that keep you alive."
"Does that work?"
Bragg shrugged. "My author thought so."
"And do you?" asked another voice.
Bragg turned around and saw Fredrickson standing there. "Do you believe it works?"
"I guess I must," said Bragg. "It destroyed everything I ever remember loving."
Fredrickson smiled. "Then I have a job for you."

“We are his Clockwork servants!” sounded the cry. “We do the work of his hands!”
The men in the front were the luckiest, thought Cardiforce, looking toward them with envy. “They will be the first. The first to touch His heart. The first to become one with His body.” He was regretful that he would not be allowed to join them, join in their sacrifice to the true god.
With a crack and snap, he saw the door give way, breaking and bucking under its own weight as the flames of His servants blasted through it at last. And then came the gun fire.

“Mow them all down!” shouted the Sergeant, yelling through the snapping of shells on metal and flesh. “Kill all the bastards you can!”
Bragg found it difficult to concentrate, to remake, as Fredrickson was telling him, the description from the book. The sky had fallen away on one side, with the grim sunlight of earlier being replaced by night. Beyond the opening, glinting and turning, he saw their foe marching forward. He heard their clicking and turning as the bullets scattered some of them backward.
He had no gun, though. Only a piece of paper. Fredrickson was looking at him desperately. “Faster, Bragg. FASTER. You must try to remember before the pages. Read into what is implied!”
Bragg looked up at him, angry and desperate. “It's not exactly EASY, ya know?” He returned, trying to recall the moments in his author's mind when he'd been crafted, the implication of the device. He was slow, deliberate, in explaining its fall. Methodical in the detonation. Only the range had to be changed, the duration of the effect. Fredrickson had explained this carefully, making sure to mention the several different outcomes of Bragg not being careful. It could mean, after all, no more readers.
That didn't make it any easier.

Cardiforce ordered his men forward, charging into the room. It was bigger on the inside than the outside, he noted, dismissing the Foundation's trickery as nothing more than an idle illusion. While they hadn't expected any real resistance, they were more than capable of handling anything the tiny outpost could possibly muster.
The penitent rushed them, bringing both guns and swords to bear on their attackers. The first lines fell away quickly, but there was no way to anticipate the horses. They charged down on the exposed flank from beyond the building's sides, cutting through the primary force with ease.
“For the glory of Gondor!” shouted the lead man, his sword held brazenly aloft.
Cardiforce instructed a sniper to shoot him.

Bragg finished and looked up, but Fredrickson was already gone. He looked back down to his page, and noted the sudden appearance of Super Fred, the hero of a thousand worlds, catching the falling bomb and vanishing with a dash—

A young man was cutting his way through the crowd with a sword much too big, much too sharp to be real. Cardiforce heard it moving through the air, whistling, snicker-snack. However, when the men the boy had beheaded did not stop moving, he was easily removed from the equation. But the whistling did not stop.
Cardiforce looked up. There was a man there, plummeting, a white lab coat fluttering in the wind like a cape. Cardiforce assumed, for a moment, that it must have been one of the reinforcements the Foundation was expecting, his entry gone awry. A moment before the man hit the ground, he looked up at Cardiforce, smiling an evil grin. And vanished.

Bragg coughed, breathing the noxious purifying gas, feeling it eat away at his lungs. All around him, men were dying, gagging on the weapon he had created. The thing he made from a time before text, when it was only an implied threat and not a real one.
He struggled to stand, trying to run away from the deadly, impossible fallout, but he could not. As his eyes finally clouded over, he knew that his body would remain here forever, unchanging, the rot unable to take hold in a place where the bomb had been. Just as he had so many times before, he felt the darkness overtaking him, felt the little lights at the corners of his vision explode inward in a burst of adrenalin, glimpsed for a moment his wife and child standing among those golden refractions. Then, he died.

Cardiforce vomited, throwing up a mass of cogs and skin. He could feel them within him, turning slower and slower as His divine grace fled his body. He, like all those around him, had failed. Never before had the church been so close to a goal of this magnitude, and now it was taken away from them.
He had decided. Their punishment was severe, their death assured. He reached down and touched some of the metal cogs that had moments ago been his lungs or stomach, crying as they broke into pieces. Then, he died.

Fred was in trouble, he knew. He probably shouldn't have let them know he could carry people around, because now they'd be asking for it all the time. Sooner or later, someone would try to write something really helpful or valuable into the book, not realizing that it would lose more than they could imagine outside the confines of the storyland. Everything was much more beautiful in here, much more perfect. Even that silly bomb.
But Fred knew that, for a moment, he'd been someone really important. At least, for a short while, he'd been something that mattered. More than just words on a page or casual addenda, more than a footnote. He'd been a savior to the world. Then, he died.

Well, not really. Wouldn't that just be a terrible way to end it?

Agent Lament smiled as he read the final chapter and closed the book, throwing it into the pile that had been building up at his feet. The far side of the hangar was still a ruined lump of burning metal, but everything else had returned to normal. He opened up his phone and pressed a few buttons, popping his neck as he leaned it over.
“Situation?” came the voice from the other side.
“Success, Doctor. 423 is capable of exactly what you expected and is apparently highly motivating to those he encounters. Kind of a nice guy, too, once you get past the attitude. We'll have to update its file.”
“I'll take care of that personally. Tell him that the copy of the Vatsayana he requested will be delivered shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
With a click, he closed his phone and got out the notepad Fred was currently occupying. "You got your book," wrote Lament. "You ever get tired of living vicariously?"
He flipped back a couple of pages, looking through his notes intently for new addenda. He saw it, finally, at the bottom of the first page he'd written on.
'Not when that's the only living you get.'
Lament picked back through the books 423 had run through, noting how the stories seemed to fall apart. One of them, less than a quarter of the way through, quickly vanished into cursory descriptions of an unchanging room where no one ever lived, and then suddenly fell away into blank pages. He turned it over and looked at it again: The Man from Maple Street.
He shrugged and threw it into the pile. Dodridge struck a match, and they were ablaze.

Footnotes
1. His Clockwork Servants With Apologies to Yoric


The weather that afternoon was unabashedly foul. The sky was heavy with clouds, the dark grey wetness oozing into everything until nothing was dry. Patches of skeletal, leafless trees stood guard over the miles upon miles of sodden, empty cornfields. The wind blew mercilessly, beating fat raindrops to earth in a miserable drizzle. The winter snows were gone, but spring had yet to appear in its blaze of green glory, leaving the world dull and dead.
A dented red pickup truck trundled along the gravel road, splashing through puddles and potholes alike. Inside, a talk show fought waves of static for dominion of the radio. The man who drove smoked a cigarette. The woman riding beside him was loading a pistol.
The truck turned off the desolate road onto an even more pitiful driveway, little more than a winding dirt path that crept off into the woods. The trees formed a leaning, claustrophobic tunnel with their gnarled branches, reaching down as if to ensnare the unsuspecting in their grasp.
The truck slowed to a stop at the very end of the path. There stood the decaying shell of what had once been a nice, two-story home, now reduced to a pile of creaking, rotting timber and filthy windows. The man turned off the truck's engine, and the two stepped out into the drizzle. Both the man and the woman were wearing blue jeans and camouflage-pattern jackets, nothing unusual for the place and time.
The man crushed his spent cigarette under his boot. He was in his late forties, with a neat brown beard, thick eyebrows, and a fluorescent orange hunter's cap on his head. He had gone through many names in his life: currently, he was known as Scarborough. The woman was younger, with green eyes and blonde hair tied into a short ponytail. Her face was sharp and slender, giving it an almost hawk-like, predatory look.
“So, this is the place?” the woman asked.
“I'll answer that with another question, Montgomery. How often are we wrong?” Scarborough stepped up onto the porch, the boards groaning underfoot. He reached for the tarnished knob and found the door open.
Scarborough brandished his pistol in front of him as he stepped into house. The living room was dim and filthy: what furniture there was ancient and moldy, buried under piles of trash and a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. Leaning monoliths of black and white supermarket tabloids stood among the black plastic trash bags, empty beer bottles, and overflowing tobacco spittoons. The stench was easily comparable either to a dead animal, bad plumbing, or a combination of the two.
Montgomery's hand shot up to cover her mouth and nose. Scarborough had lost his sense of smell long before. With a silent hand gesture, the two waded through the refuse towards what was presumably the kitchen.
The kitchen was hardly better than the living room, though now most of the garbage consisted of old fast food wrappers and beer cans. None of the appliances were younger than twenty-five years old, and none looked to have been actively used in at least that long. The only thing of note was the basement door, which hung open at a crooked angle. A comically large number of extra locks had been installed, up to a heavy-duty deadbolt, though at the moment they were hardly fulfilling their intended purpose. The stairs beyond were a black pit.
Scarborough felt the hairs on the back of his neck stick up. It took a second for him to realize the cause of his goosebumps was not any anomaly, but something far more mundane.
“Please close that window.” He motioned to the stained window above the trash-filled sink, which was open just enough to let a breeze ruffle the mildewed curtains. Montgomery shut the window, with only minor difficulty in moving it from its stuck position.
The ceiling above them creaked loudly. The next ten seconds were breathless, torturous, and silent. When no other sound was heard from upstairs, Scarborough quietly pushed the basement door fully open and felt for the light switch. The two moved into the basement with haste.
The stairs were exceptionally rickety, and creaked even under the trained steps of Scarborough and Montgomery. The basement itself was hardly better: a bare pit of concrete lit by two bare light bulbs. Much of it was filled with the omnipresent trash, along with a dented hot water heater, and some everyday piping and exposed insulation.
One corner of the basement, however, had been repurposed into what could only be described as the workstation of a rather unhealthy mind. The old wooden desk seemed to sag under the weight atop it. Disorganized mountains of stained manila file folders and worn paperbacks with broken spines cluttered its surface and spilled out onto the floor, all the while hiding a laughably old computer and printer behind their summits. Three corkboards had been set up on the walls: the first was a map of the continental United States with colored push pins stuck in it in numerous locations. From the condition of the map, there had been many removed and re-positioned pins over the course of at least a decade. The second board was filled with plain sheets of paper, all of which were covered edge to edge in either miniscule handwriting or poorly-formatted computer print.
The third board was the most notable, filled with tacked-up photographs and sketches. Most of the photos looked as if they belonged in the tabloids sitting upstairs: blurry, unfocused images of ghosts and UFOs and Bigfeet, schematics for free-energy machines and hidden government facilities. Some others were not as easily glanced over: the severed head with a scaly arm sprouting from its mouth. A hazy shot of a massive creature with matted red fur, holding a crushed car over its head. A beached whale, its stomach burst open to reveal a mass of bloated bodies that had begun to crawl across the sand. A man offering a box of chocolates, his face blacked out and a dozen screaming mouths in the background. A blank white room labeled only as “NOTHING”.
“Busy fella,” Montgomery said, picking up a file folder and flipping through the magazine clippings inside. “How much do you think is legit?”
“Outside of what command verified, I can't say. Most looks to be garbage, but there might be a few bits worth looking into.”
“We still have to go through everything when we get back, though.”
“Opus semper tecum est.”
“Thanks. I thought I was done with high-school Latin.”
“You're never done with high-school Latin, Montgomery.”
The investigation was interrupted but moments later by a thunderous bang. Scarborough and Montgomery dived to the side, just avoiding the spray of buckshot.
At the top of the stair stood an overweight, disheveled man, wearing a stained undershirt and ragged pajama pants. His wild hair was a sharp grey, and he held a smoking nine-gauge shotgun in his hands.
“Ha! You think you could break into my house and walk away with my property?!” The man stepped down the stairs, reloading the shotgun. “You can't get past me that easily! Now, I'm going to give you to three to get the hell out of my house…”
He was answered by a bullet tearing through his right shin. The man tumbled down the rest of the stairs, landing flat on his back at the bottom with a thud. Scarborough holstered his pistol and walked over to the, gasping, wounded man.
“You little shits!” the old man screamed. “I'll have you in chains for this!”
“Mr. Malone, you are being extremely unprofessional,” Scarborough said, showing neither excitement nor anger. “I am aware you've had to make some drastic changes in the past, but I would think a man such as you would hold himself in a more reasonable manner than this.”
Malone's eyes grew wider, were it possible. The fear behind them was clear and potent.
“You're not getting it…you're not getting all my research.”
“That's secondary to our purpose here, Mr. Malone. We are primarily concerned with the simple fact that you're sticking your nose into places it doesn't belong, and given your previous connections, that does not bode well with us.”
“You…you won't get me to talk. I won't talk.”
“Mr. Malone, we did not come here to listen to you: Your little website already told us you've been investigating several items that we've been keeping an eye on. You may have traded in your glass card years ago, but no one ever leaves it all behind, and we just can't afford a slip, Mr. Malone. It's as simple as that.”
Malone's mouth worked silently for a few moments.
“Foundation bastards…” he wheezed.
Scarborough shrugged.
“Indeed we are.”
BANG
—-
The beaten red pickup truck rumbled down the road. The rain had stopped, for the time being, leaving wet roads and puddles in its wake. Far behind in the distance, a plume of smoke rose above the trees. Just a wiring problem, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Nothing unusual in the country home of Mr. Martin Malone, just some faulty wiring. Mr. Malone himself was, thankfully, elsewhere when it occurred, and would not be back for quite some time.
The inside of the truck was silent, all save the old, coughing engine and the crackling radio. In the cargo compartment beneath the floor sat several plastic bins, filled to the brim with the recovery efforts. Even working fast, it would take nearly a week for a thorough examination.
Montgomery hit the ‘off' button on the radio, interrupting the used car salesman assuring the public that “everything must go!” She brushed a strand of hair out her face.
“Well, that went about as well as expected.”
“That it did, Montgomery, that it did. The site's down, the hole's plugged, the body's hid, and it looks like there was quite a bit he was keeping for himself. All in all, a job well done.”
“I almost feel sorry for the guy, y'know? He went from being a full member of Marshall, Carter and Dark to some nutty backwoods hick.”
“He couldn't take the heat, so he left the kitchen. A smart move on his part, though it didn't do him much good in the end. Tene memoria, Malone, mortes hominum causam scientiae, et cautelam omne progredi saepe serviunt.”
Montgomery shook her head and smiled.
“Now you're just being pretentious.”


Sgt. Mansell looked into the room one last time, his eyes already red from the dust and tears that now streaked his cheeks. The smell of vomit lingered on his clothes with the blood and rot. He felt the clicking and whirring, the turning and buzzing of the device as its cranks and gears began to merge and shift, meshing regretfully. He had, he knew, just completed a monster.
He walked outdoors, his body feeling oddly out of sorts. He chalked it up to the surroundings. Trying to ignore the persistently echoing click as he walked, he went back outside to rejoin his unit and help bury the dead.

The tests had gone remarkably well.
Dr. Sankt was pleased. Very, very pleased. Ever since they'd brought him the first specimen, all screaming and grinding, his work had consumed him. The platoon to first discover the ruins had been searching fruitlessly for another of the Fuehrer's missing artifacts. In spite of the Bloody Spear and the Vestments of the Christ, the tiny madman was dissatisfied and sent squad after squad deep into the deserts of northern Africa, searching. At one time, Sankt had viewed these as futile quests by an arrogant man.
But that was before. Before the clockwork man, who had once simply been a creature of flawed flesh, was brought to him. He was one of two to return; the other had, regretfully, been damaged beyond repair by the harsh desert sand. But the other…
Sankt didn't have the kind of clearance necessary to know the circumstances which brought the young man to his current state, only that he had been on one of the Fuehrer's missions. The young man had been given to him when the metal began to push through his body and the gears began to tear through his flesh, twisting and flaying. It was, Sankt thought, almost beautiful to watch.
Sankt stripped away the remains of its skin with more delicacy than was required, placing each piece in its own sterile container. Long after the screams had turned to bloodless clicking, Sankt labored, until eventually, freed of its prison, the bones of molded copper and the muscles of counterbalances stood on their own.
It did only the simplest tasks. Sankt knew after only a short time that it would be mostly useless, incapable of anything more complex than the man that it had once been. So he set it to work pacing, carrying a rifle, back and forth in front of his door, letting it pretend it was still a soldier. It made him feel more secure, at least.
Then, Sankt reexamined the flesh he removed from the gears and realized his mistake.
The mounds of gristle and skin were metallic, some of them desperately interconnected in a feverish attempt to turn and move. “Of course!” thought Sankt. “How foolish of me. This must be amended.”
He contacted his superiors and told them what he needed. Much space would be required, as well as subjects for the testing, and soldiers willing to serve their country. His old friend, Dr. Rascher, had been carrying out his own experiments, and upon hearing what Sankt had discovered, cried out with joy. “Finally!” said Rascher. “We will have our answer.” It was an answer Sankt was more than willing to provide.

The first were failures. Sankt knew they would be, so he used his least important subjects: the mentally deficient. They were vivisected, studied, and disposed of in the furnaces. Sankt knew their fates would have been much the same no matter the circumstances. It was the fate of those imperfect. It was the destiny of those not members of the master race. And so the cutting, screwing, and disinfecting did not concern him.
After he felt that he understood enough, he brought in the next batch: the Romani. From one of them, he would remove a clockwork liver. From another, a living one. Laying them next to each other, he studied for hours, listening as their previous owners slowly died—one dripping blood, the other oil. When he finally comprehended their relation, he tried transplanting the organs back and forth from body to body. These experiments often failed, but the occasional success kept his spirits up. He knew that soon, he would be ready.
It was mid-1944 when he felt confident enough to send for the pianists and violinists. He would, of course, need their hands. So delicate and slender were the gears that his heart nearly broke as he removed them. Then, the artists. Their eyes would be invaluable. The singers he nearly forgot, only remembering them as he carefully screwed in the spinning lips of a poet. There would be no need for a voice, of course, but there was always a need for beauty. After all, Sankt was making a masterpiece; leaving part out would be like cutting the smile from the Mona Lisa—unfathomable.
But he knew that his delicate pieces were just that: delicate. He stewed over this for some time, thinking his work lost, until it suddenly came to him. Watching his clockwork guard march back and forth in front of his door, the epiphany appeared—the ditch diggers, the miners, the street sweepers. They could also be a part! He almost felt foolish, thinking back how perturbed he'd been when he almost forgot the singers. How could he make a true masterpiece without everything?
Their arms and legs transferred the power down to the smaller gears, carried items along the internal paths, and made it possible for a single man, a single crank, to operate everything! But powerful, skilled hands meant nothing without a mind to drive them.
So Sankt sent for the scientists and doctors, teachers and researchers. Their minds were a necessary component and could not be excluded. He struggled with the first subject, not fully seeing how the different parts were truly interconnected, but he persevered. The next was far easier. Eventually, the different parts were laced into the whole, guiding the hands and muscles in perfect, indomitable precision.
Close to completion, so near his final, beautiful goal, Sankt was finally confident enough to invite the entirety of the German leadership to his laboratory and show them what his labors had wrought.

It was a nervous group who crowded through the halls of the dank, almost claustrophobic bunker under Chelmno. Only one of the German high command had shown up, the others being far more concerned with the war knocking at the front door. However, Sankt had the answer to all their problems. With his device, Germany would be fully capable of defending itself into the unforeseeable future.
While the onlookers watched, he placed a pistol into the intake, turning the dial and moving his hand to the crank. He turned it slowly, listening to the perfect rhythm for the first time. He'd known that it would work, known innately that the device would perform perfectly. Each click was the turn of a ballerina, the pluck of a chord, the swing of a mattock, the hypothesis of a dream. Sankt felt as close to love as he ever had.
When he stopped, he turned and picked up the gun, rotating it in his hands, examining how its nickel and steel had become gold and copper. He proffered it to one of the senior officers present, who examined it with distaste and laid it aside.
“Is that all it does?” the man asked.
“What do you mean?” replied Sankt.
“Is that all it does? Turn steel to bronze?”
“Of course not,” replied Sankt, taken aback. “They do much more, so much more. This is only the first step in a long journey. Now, they can only manage a single kind of transformation, making that which is one thing into another of the same. But soon, very soon, they will be making things better. Improving them in ways we can't even imagine yet! Rewriting literature, correcting mistakes in complicated equations, making new bombs and new religions with equal skill!”
The men looked at him, and then to the mass of clockworks behind him. The officer peered at him intensely, painfully.
“Then finish it. We need a new god right now.”

Sankt labored ceaselessly. There were only a few people left to him, now. His research staff were the first he used, then the last of the emaciated, flawed prisoners. Finally, he began taking the more clever soldiers, interweaving them as best he could. He could no longer afford to be picky. Eventually, he turned to his loyal guardian. He took the gun from its hands, carefully guided it over to the table, and thanked it for the loyal service it had provided before unfastening its still beating clockwork heart.
When the Americans finally came, he knew he was almost done. He could feel them approach through the smoke, the fires burning brightly in the furnaces even though most of the guards had either fled or been used. Even though Germany might fall, her labors could still be appreciated.
He approached the front guard, smiling and waving his hands. He welcomed them in halting English, asking them for stories of the seemingly distant war. He warned them of the conditions in the camp, tried to explain what the commanders were doing, how they had to contain the infections he had been transferring. They killed him slowly—first cutting off his hands, then his eyes, then his lips.

Sgt. Mansell looked at the huge device. He'd seen Big Ben in London before he'd been sent over, and he liked to think its insides were similar. The other soldiers were outside, burying the dead between hoarse, racking vomits. He looked down at the dial in the front, the brass covering around it spelling out rudimentary instructions in English. Laying on the ground, directly below it, was a single cog.
Mansell looked at the piece, and then at the device, licking his lips. The place was obvious, it seemed, almost glaring in its inconsistency. Picking up the brass fitting, he lowered the final cog into place and saw the machine shudder slightly, almost in ecstasy. It was finally, terribly complete.
As he slept that night, he dreamed of a young woman, beautiful and bright. Sometime in the early morning, he rose, took out his pistol, and walked mechanically into the woods. The shot echoed through the trees, ringing with blood and iron.


Tonight would be the last night of the siege. Gaius Marius Quartius, the Centurion in charge of the fort, had said that for the last three nights, but Titus knew that they couldn't hold out any longer. The Gauls, cursed Gauls, had been at the walls for two weeks, and the simple wooden palisade was scorched and tattered. No, tonight would be the end of it.
Titus and the Centurion were perched in the simple wooden watchtower at the north end of the fort, looking out over the sea of Gaul tents. They rarely spoke, the bleakness of their situation. Back when the siege had started, they would make jokes about the Gauls, cursed Gauls. Claim they worshiped black, abominable gods. Tell stories of cannibalism and human sacrifice, anything to dehumanize the enemy, but that had all stopped four nights before.
At midnight, or as near as they could tell, when the moon was at its apex, the Gaul chief had ridden forth, screaming a horrible, bone-chilling scream. The guards on duty had fired arrows at him, but they bounced off his flesh. When he got to the palisades, he had climbed them like a ladder, leaving a trail of smoldering wood wherever his feet touched them, and he went into the Roman tents and he killed a dozen men. Exactly a dozen, and he took their heads, and he left, not harming a soul except the dozen headless men and anyone who tried to stop him. The screaming didn't stop till he was back over the wall, back into the camp of the Gauls. Cursed Gauls.
Gaius hadn't known what to do that first night, but he tried to keep his men calm, claimed it was a fluke and trying to keep the camp from panicking, but to Titus, he showed a different face. Gaius was afraid. He tried to explain, using words that didn't quite work together and the vaguest of terms. “There were things in this world that are greater than man, and they want us dead, and somebody might be able to stop that from happening, but it isn't us. Tonight will be the last night of this siege.” he said.
So the chief came back again, screaming that terrible scream. Nobody got in his way this time as he effortlessly got over the fence, taking another dozen heads and leaving another twelve dead men. And it happened again, and once more. Titus looked out over the sleeping army of the Gauls, cursed Gauls, and he looked up at the moon, which was just about full, and he knew the blackest and most terrible fear.
The worst thing about it wasn't the screaming, or the fire, or the blood red rage that soaked his eyes. It was his sword. You see, it wasn't the chief screaming at all. His mouth was stitched shut with brambles. No, it was his sword screaming. A blade made of flesh and bone, with a dozen horrible mouths that screamed to one awful, dissonant chorus. The cuts it made wouldn't heal, and bled unnaturally for days. So much as a scratch…
That scream went up, and Titus ducked down, trying not to be seen, trying not to cry, but it was different this time. There were more horses than just the one. Fearing the worst, Titus stood, and saw them. A dozen men, Romans, riding black horses were racing towards the chieftain. Each man wore a white tunic with the head of the Gorgon Medusa in dark red, and they carried swords and spears. Two at the back carried an ornate wooden box between their two horses, inscribed with golden text.
The Roman horsemen were upon the chieftain now. Where their swords touched flesh lightning arced, and their spears were sheathed in fire. He fought hard, long after an ordinary man would be dead a dozen times over, but they took him apart. First his legs, and then his arms, and then head.
Titus was overjoyed, and stood to shout to the rest of the legion, but he caught sight of one of the Roman horsemen's face, and he stopped. The man, moving the severed leg of the chieftain to the ornate golden box. He looked Titus straight in the eyes for a fraction of a second, then looked away in shame.
Minutes after they arrived, the Roman horsemen took the boxed remains of the Gaul chief and rode away, and Titus was aware of another scream. Not the terrible scream of that horrible blade, but the scream of ten thousand angry men. “They weren't here for us. Steel yourself, child.” Gaius Marius Quartius said, readying his bow. The Gauls, cursed Gauls, rose up like a giant wave and crashed against the walls of the fort. Tonight would be the last night of the siege.


“He stood his ground when facing an entity forty times his size. I can respect that.”
“He died.”
“Yes.” James nodded. “That's why I respect his decision.”
Said entity had devoured Oates without pause, but it had lasted about eight seconds when it encountered James. It had swallowed the man in a mass of slithering sinew and fanged orifices… and then began to expel high-speed projectile organs as it collapsed in on itself. It was as if someone had activated a gigantic blender from inside it- chunks of squid-creature had rained down for quite some time afterwards.
Corporal McSteward glanced at her traveling companion. “You're a lot mellower than your reports suggest.”
“These are very different circumstances when compared to my usual excursions,” James said flatly, still painted with cephalopod innards.
“You're telling me,” Corporal McSteward muttered. “I don't even have a gun.”
“We can compensate for that.” James sheathed his sword.
“I must have lost it during the evacuation.”
“Indeed.”
The nearest town was several miles away, but at least that limited the project's exposure. A forced march through the scrubland was fatiguing at best and torturous at worst, but the weather and terrain didn't bother James. She got the feeling nothing did.
The things had crawled out of the base camp's walls, coming from shadow, coming from the areas where peripheral vision failed even trained soldiers. Bullets did nothing, and flesh and Kevlar offered little resistance to their grasping tentacles and rending teeth. And neither did bravery, as Oates found out to his cost.
She suppressed a shudder. James had already killed seven- that was reassuring- but it meant there'd likely be far more out there. Freakish beings of all shapes and sizes, exploring the wilderness and heading towards civilian areas.
“Are there any potential survivors unaccounted for?” That same disinterested tone, as if exchanging small talk and not discussing the potential of an apocalyptic surge of otherworldly things.
“I saw Hill reach the Jeep but I don't know where he got to,” McSteward sighed. “I think they got to him first. Him, Oates, the whole goddamned regiment. I think it's just you and me now James.”
The base camp's armoured division had proved just as fragile as the infantry; metal panels and engine parts were twisted and torn as easily as the bodies had been. Hill had reached a car in time, but as the corporal arrived he'd been racing towards the horizon as the other vehicles burned.
“I still do not understand why you call me James. That is not my name.”
“Just a pun.” She smiled slightly. “The whole oh-seven thing, you know?”
“I do not.”
“It just sounds like something Fleming cooked up…” she trailed off. There was little point in trying to explain.
076-2 was definitely part of the project, she just didn't understand how he fit in exactly, or how he'd even got there. It wasn't like the military could've just picked him up on lease. But if he hadn't been there…
“McSteward! Corporal! Corporal!”
She looked up towards the voice. In the distance was a crumpled Jeep, crushed between two jutting stones. A figure was stumbling over the tufts of grass and uneven rocks- but making good time regardless, eagerly closing the distance.
“Hill?”
“I figured it out! I figured it out,” he repeated, finally reaching her and panting.
“You're alive?” The corporal beamed, flooded with relief. “And you managed to crash the Jeep,” she added, slightly reproachfully.
“Forget about the damn car! I've worked it all out…. uh… Corporal.”
She grabbed him by the shoulders. “What are you talking about, Private?”
“I'm saying this isn't actually happening.”
She paused, but only for a moment. “What?”
“It's a large-scale psychological affecter-”
“I know what you mean, dammit, but that doesn't make any sense! If this is memetic, or neurological, or any kind of psychosomatic threat… how did it completely beat our conditioning? We've been facing that kind of thing for years!”
“It's because you were expe-”
076-2 cleaved the man in twain. It was a very clean cut.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she screamed.
“He was one of them. Look.”
McSteward stared at the body. It wasn't Hill, it was another of the tentacled creatures. How could she have been so naïve-
No. Think for a second.
It wasn't a clean cut. Hill was on the floor but he was unmarked. The sword hadn't actually hit, no matter what her mind was telling her. She'd automatically expected a clean cut because it was 076-2 doing the cutting, but from that angle? With an overarm, vertical sweep? Impossible, whether Hill was a freakish abomination or not. The sheer forces required would've practically made the target explode.
Hill was right, this wasn't happening. She'd corrected herself, and the illusion had failed to compensate for her realisation.
076-2 was shifting in and out of focus, shivering like static on an old television. One moment the sword was slick with Hill's bodily fluids, the next it was spotless. A katana, a broadsword, a saif, distorting between forms. One moment 076-2 was there, the next… nothing but a warped silhouette.
But the leer always remained, an unmoving smirk in the chaotic facade.
“You're not 076-2.” The corporal took a step back.
He grinned. “What, aren't you desperate to bring us home and show us off to your superiors? We were so looking forward to meeting them.”
“How about you come clean.”
“Fine.”
The grin expanded and carried on expanding. His eyes retreated back into his skull until they were pinpricks of puckered flesh glaring from out of a mass of wrinkles. The clothes unravelled into translucent spines, wetly pulsing and vibrating. The face degenerated into razor-edged bone and twitching viscera, the body became a conglomerate of engorged tentacles and jagged teeth.
“We are not the ohseven. We would all love to know what you're GOING TO DO ABOUT IT
She shot it. It shrieked in a pitch no human could hear.
“Ever wonder,” she said quietly, “why a soldier would have the slightest knowledge of 076-2 in the first place?”
The thing writhed around in agony, spitting blood and threats in a dead language.
“And ‘lost' my gun? You bought that?”
She shot it again. And again.
When the magazine finally ran dry the “corporal” produced her combat knife and hacked away at the spasmodic heap of gore until both her hands were numb.

Incident ██ Report Summary:
Corporal McSteward of the Adjutant General's Corps (Royal Military Police) of the ██████ Base, cover identity of Agent ████, brought in the body of SCP-███ for study.
Further investigation into the British military's acquirement of subject required. Suggest further development of existing cover story in order for Agent ████ to maintain her position within their internal security division.
Private Hill, cover identity of Agent █████, shall remain in observation until further notice. Projected recovery time estimated to be six months due to severe mental trauma. ██ of the base's support staff were killed and ██ wounded. No visible damage to the bodies.
Suggest extreme force from outset if further evidence of weaponisation attempts are uncovered. Covert operations successful in this instance, not likely to succeed in future. Recommend neutralisation of ██████ Base to imply a catastrophic accident in their munitions dump.
Addendum ███-1.0: SCP-███'s file requires amendment. Confirmed that SCP-███ capable of psychological projection and sensory overwrite via manipulation of existing neuron connections in the brain. Attempts to exploit the memories and expectations of potential victims.
Not capable of perpetual regeneration. Not impervious to harm. Decomposes rapidly.


His scarred chin had a single line of saliva running down it, clinging to the indented flesh, and I reached forward with my tissue to wipe it off. The scar ran from his right cheekbone downwards, just touching the corner of his mouth. He was wrapped in a red plaid blanket, asleep sitting up. He slept a lot, but at his age, it was normal. I could see the wrinkles on the skin around his eyes stretch and contract as he tried to squeeze them shut, even in his dreams.
I work as a caretaker for those elderly that we have decided to keep around. Usually something unusual happened to them, or they were part of some event and have firsthand knowledge that we want to hold on to. Usually they need to stay near whatever caused it, for the purpose of research. I live at research site 21. We deal in containment of the ones who don't need to. It's pleasant. It has to be.
I was sent here after I got on someone's nerves. Who doesn't matter. There's a lot of land between us now, and an ocean. I did the same thing there. People willing to do this job are limited in number.
He woke with a start when the tissue touched him, eyes wide in an instant. He tried to strike out with his fist, but lacked the strength, and was caught by the blanket. I'm used to that by now.
"Oh… I'm sorry." he said, and he meant it."I was… having a bad dream."
I served him extra soup and soft bread for dinner, because he had slept through lunch. It was getting worse. His body had decided that a century was enough, and that isn't something we can help with. The doctors had said six months to a year. We haven't told him that yet, and probably never will.
I turned on the radio, and the Beatles came on. That's a luxury I get when I'm helping him. He is very hard of hearing, nearly deaf, so I can listen to what I want.
He ate quietly, lost in thought, until he finished. As I moved to take away the dishes, he at last spoke. "You remind me of…" he said, pausing with what sounded like confusion towards the end."Of…" he repeated, and after a second's pause, let out a breath that wheezed like wind in the sails of an old wooden boat. "Of my nurse. Her name… I can't remember her name. She was… pretty. She looked like you. She…"
He seemed to be searching for something- her name, perhaps. Perhaps not. I turned down the music to listen. That's part of the job, listening. Many of the old ones like it, like to feel noticed, especially when so may have spent so long here. They always seem to talk about their families, their childhoods- never about the reasons that they're here.
"It was on my second day, I, I… I was hit by a shell. Shrapnel, I mean. In the leg, just a cut. But it wasn't healing right. It wasn't… I was never in the front lines, I was meant to look ahead for places we could use. Places we could defend near the beach."
He seemed focused for the first time I could remember, staring straight at me with steel eyes and that glaring scar. He was not telling me anything I did not already know, and he knew it. He knew that I knew why the cut wouldn't heal, and what that meant.
"They… the Turks had us pinned. They were tossing bombs and bullets at anyone who got close, and no one knew what to do but keep throwing ourselves back in and hope. Cally and Jenkers… they were the boys I'd come with. We were in the 6th Dublins. They got put in the trenches then they got put on top afterward. I didn't find out 'till later, of course."
We hadn't taken sides in that battle. There was something we had to keep them away from. It was a chaotic time for everyone, I've learned. The reins had slipped out of our hands, and the idiots once off their leashes were much harder to steer. So, they went for Gaillipoli. They went because it would make a clear route to Russia, and the Turks who owned the peninsula rallied to keep it. We were caught in the middle, trying to keep anyone from finding us in our underground bunker, there underneath a rock that they called the "Sphinx." It was a biohazard containment site.
"I only had to spend one day there, before that little cut got so bad that they pulled me back out. I was lucky, of course. We weren't near the heavy fighting. That's when I met the nurse. She really did look just like you."
We didn't have much to work with. HQ was trying to get through, but it was a war zone. What were we supposed to do? We had a few guns and bombs we'd gotten from an agent with the Turks. Our orders were to keep ourselves hidden at all costs. Things were crazy back then. We'd lost two of our best researchers when they defected to Germany, and when the gas started spraying out in panicked clouds over the trenches, it was all we could do to keep it explained. One small site out of many, we were.
"She seemed to know what was happening. At least, she seemed… confident. Took off my leg at the knee, opened up the bottom half and took something out, something that looked like a mouse with fur made of fucking veins, veins and little squirming things with fishhooks and, and she stabbed me with something when I tried to scream, and… and… and then I woke up."
He paused, and then seemed to relax, eyes unfocused. I took his bowl.
"Bad dream," I said.
"Yeah," he said.
What was I supposed to do? Back there, with shells falling like glass and nails every day and people dying at your doorstep because that's what you had to do…no matter what, that was what you had to do…
All we had was a little food and a couple guns and a couple shells and one Petri dish, and when it broke it changed things in us so what am I supposed to do? The others didn't live like I did, like I keep doing. I knew that I couldn't leave him, not with that thing inside, and HQ still couldn't get through with pickup, and he couldn't… I couldn't let him remember either because that might give us away. When they got to us two days later, he was so fucked up in the head that he couldn't remember who he was because that's what I had to do, and that scar, and… and no matter what…
After HQ finally got itself picked up and decided who should win and what should happen to the assholes who tried to leave us, they tried to fix him up, but I had done too much. He didn't know what was real and what wasn't, and he doesn't, and I do, and I can't tell him because he already knows even if he…
No matter what.
Six months to a year.
Six months to a year.


"Sergeant Thomas Allenby. Serial number nine four two—"
The butt of the revolver cracked against his jaw, hard. Sergeant Allenby laughed bitterly as he spat out a broken tooth onto the packed dirt floor. "If you break my jaw, I won't be able to tell you anything," he sneered.
The man cocked the hammer of the revolver and placed the cold steel muzzle against the Marine's forehead. "You will tell me everything!" the man growled. "Starting with how your little patrol managed to find this place!"
"Sergeant Thomas Allenby, serial number—"
The gun fired. Allenby screamed in pain, then laughed out loud, his voice shaky with pain and manic shock. "FUCK!" he screamed. "The fucking LEG!? Are you crazy? Hit the femoral artery and you'll kill me in seconds, then you'll never get anything out of me!"
"You will tell me what I want to know, or the next bullet goes in your brain!" screamed the man.
"FUCK you!" Allenby shouted. "You fucked up! You shouldn't'a shot me! Now I know you're fucking bluffing! You can't kill me, I'm the only one who knows what you want to know, you slopehead gook motherfuck—"
The revolver was cocked again. The muzzle was placed back against Allenby's forehead. The man took up the slack on the trigger. Allenby knew that he should be afraid, but pain, shock, and adrenaline were conspiring against him. All he could do was laugh.
"Dai Ta?!" someone shouted. A newcomer. He was jabbering something in Vietnamese, too fast for Allenby to understand. The colonel chuckled in response. Something exchanged hands.
"It seems," smirked the colonel, "That I have a reason to keep you alive a little longer." He thrust a manila envelope into Allenby's face. "What is this?"
"I… I don't know," Allenby said, staring past the envelope into the colonel's eyes. "I've never seen it before in my life."
"Lies!" growled the colonel. "It was in your backpack! And more…" He turned the envelope around. "Do you see this? This is the symbol of your Central Intelligence Agency!"
Oh shit. For the first time since the Viet Cong had captured him, Allenby was afraid.
"I have… I don't know what you mean," Allenby protested.
"More lies! You are no soldier, you are an American spy!" He struck Allenby across the face with the packet of papers in frustration. "I ask you again. How did you find these tunnels?"
"A map…" Allenby said, then immediately bit his tongue in frustration.
"A map… Ah… I see." The colonel laughed cruelly. "Very clever of you Americans." He shuffled the papers together. "Doubtless, if I line up this triangle with this…"
His voice stopped abruptly. Allenby smiled.
"Sir?" one of the guards asked.
"Tuan," the colonel said slowly, then something in Vietnamese. Probably, "Come take a look at this."
After that, things got a bit chaotic.
Allenby didn't see what happened next. He could barely even hear it through the heavy cell door. He didn't have to. He already knew.
He knew that the confused murmuring that turned into panicked shouts were the colonel and the guard forcing some poor sap to view The Image.
He knew that the scratching sounds were an infected individual scratching The Image into a wall, with a knife or a key.
He knew, when the screaming started, that the infection had gone terminal.
It was half an hour after the dying started when the colonel burst back into the room. He was waving the packet of papers in Allenby's face. "LOOK AT THIS!" he screamed. "LOOK AT THIS, PLEASE!"
Allenby just closed his eyes and smiled. "Sergeant Allenby, ser—"
"LOOK, DAMN YOU, LOOK!" The colonel forced Allenby's eye open with his fingers and pushed the image into his face. "LOOK, PLEASE, for the love of GOD!"
Allenby smirked. The smirk became a low giggle. "You never noticed," he said, shaking his head. "You never noticed…"
Then the colonel did notice. Both Allenby's eyes were glass.
Allenby heard the colonel go for his gun, heard him try to cock the revolver, but the man's palsied hands were shaking too hard for that. He heard the gun clatter to the floor.
It took the man a long time to die. Allenby enjoyed hearing every moment of it.

Some time had passed.
The underground tunnel complex was now a charnel house. The dead and dying lay everywhere.
Allenby staggered through the tunnels, the manila envelope with the two halves of The Image (carefully realigned to the "safe" configuration) tucked into his belt. He was using a discarded enemy AK-47 as a makeshift walking stick. Every once in a while, he paused to listen and to feel for air currents.
It took him a long time to find the exit.
He emerged from the stuffy dankness of the tunnels into the oppressive humidity of the Vietnamese jungle. He sighed happily, feeling the sun on his face.
There was a rustling in the undergrowth. He turned. "Nolan?" he asked, expecting to hear the calm voice of his pick-up.
Instead, there were two sharp clicks, like a typewriter. Two silenced .22 caliber bullets ended his life.
"Sorry."

"… what is this?"
"I believe you already know what this is."
"Looks like a bunch of lines."
"It does. But if you place this plastic overlay over—"
"WAIT! STOP!"
"… it's a fake. So you do know what this is."
"…"
"I do have to admit, your delivery method is diabolically clever. A blind operative, trained to compensate for his disability, used to handle a dangerous object that kills when seen. My higher-ups were fascinated by this. We may adapt this idea for our own purposes."
"… damn you…"
"Allow me to repeat the warning I gave you when you first assumed this position, Mister Schlesinger. Do not meddle with what you don't understand. Otherwise, there is a high probability you will find your tenure here short, and unpopular."
"… damn it, you people don't get it, do you? We're fighting for the sake of the free world here! If the damned Reds take over Indochina, that'll collapse the entire Pacific…"
"Ah, yes, your vaunted domino theory. I will be blunt, sir. An ideological conflict between two mere nations, even two as powerful as yours, is of no consequence to us. We have little interest in saving the ''free world'' at the cost of the actual world."
"…"
"Here is my ultimatum: cease and desist all of your efforts towards PROJECT OMEGA immediately. We want it all shut down and disavowed. MK Ultra. Groom Lake. Even that little project in Philadelphia. An auditor from our Foundation will come by in a few weeks to check on your progress. Good day."
<click>
"… holy shit. Miss Jones, could you please hop down to the corner store and buy me a carton of cigarettes and a fifth of bourbon, please… oh, and contact Building Security. I want a camera set up outside my office door… oh. To watch out for vandals…"

"What have you got there?" Crow asked. The young researcher looked up from his newspaper, where he was circling various stories with a red pen. So far, he seemed most interested in rumors of an artist's project gone bad. Apparently the statue had come to life and started killing people…
"Not much," Cog said. The young man hung up his trilby hat and jacket on the coat-tree. Unlike Crow, whose desk was a complete pigsty, his side of the small office they shared was clean and neat, almost mechanical in its precision. "I took a trip up to Langley to give the CIA Director a message from The Administrator. I believe it went well."
"Did you bring me back a souvenir?" Crow asked, grinning.
"My travel budget included no allowances for personal purchases," Cog pointed out.
"You've got no heart," Crow sighed. "Oh yeah. Xav called. He wants your complete report on The Pattern on his desk by tomorrow morning."
"Have you started a file for it yet?" Cog asked.
"Not yet. Was going to let you do it."
Cog walked to the large file cabinet that took up half the office, filling up the entire back wall. Each drawer contained file folders with the original reports and mimeograph masters for every anomalous object in containment by their Foundation: all but one, which was labeled "Unassigned Numbers." He reached into the drawer, pulled out a random manila envelope from the stack, and opened it up, looking at the number typed onto the file folder within.
"571," he read.
"Good number," Crow yawned.
Cog sat down at his desk and undid the brads on the file folder, releasing the Special Containment Procedures Form. He slid the triplicate form with its carbon-paper intermediate layers into his typewriter, carefully aligned the guides with the proper box, and began to type.

Item #: SCP-571
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures:
A single piece of paper containing an instance of SCP-571 should be kept inside an opaque, sealed container of any kind, at the center of any high security containment room…

END


The squad split to opposite sides of the street at the head of the block. Private Scott followed two others and the sergeant into a bombed out church. The four soldiers sifted between the pews, calmly but rapidly assuming position. They scrambled over chunks of concrete and stone littering the floor with early morning irritation. Scott turned his gaze up to the broken rafters of the roof and tripped clumsily over his own feet. It seemed funny to him that the cathedral in this little French town was larger than any back in Trenton. Clambering over a cracked slab of the wall, the four men set up at a pair of tall stained-glass windows. The intermittent missing diamond panes offered a fine view of the road below while providing a modest visual obstruction to anyone approaching. They had to take it in good faith, Scott supposed, that the other five men had found a position on the other side of the street.
The sergeant lay prone and silent, the barrel of his rifle poking slightly past the sill. Scott stood awkwardly by, looking over his shoulder at the beams of light coming down through the roof. It was almost angelic.
“Get the fuck down, jackass,” said Private McKenzie jovially, tugging on the edge of Scott's coat. Scott scrambled down, weapon bouncing loudly off the stone. Then they waited, tensely. A full platoon of German soldiers was scheduled to come through sometime that morning, though they didn't know when. They had three squads behind them, thankfully, but Private Scott's squad would be at the front.
They fidgeted. McKenzie and Scott flicked pebbles at each other, and Jacobsen smoked. The sergeant just lay there. He could have been asleep.
After a long while they became aware of other sounds under the songbirds and the light creek of the broken ceiling slats. There was movement, and slight hints of “s” sounds drifting from voices at the far rear of the cathedral.
“You hear that, sarge?” asked Private Jacobsen, inching over on his elbows.
“Yup,” the NCO responded. “None of our boys are up this far.”
“Maybe two of us should go check it out-” Jacobsen added, eager to get up.
“Jerry ain't up this far either,” the sergeant continued, not listening. He peered far off down the road. “We're all going,” he decided. “Get up.”
The four stood and began moving to the back of the church, Private Scott in tow. The light disoriented them, shifting from bright to dark as they walked beneath the gashes in the great ceiling. The sergeant lifted a finger to his lips. A spent cartridge jangled underfoot, and Scott jumped a little. Behind the altar and to the left was a wooden door, slightly ajar. Voices echoed from within, up a long stone staircase. And there was another noise, something subtler, and higher pitched, barely audible.
Suddenly the sound of gunfire erupted up from below. The soldiers sprang from inaction and pressed themselves against the wall. There were shouts from the basement, and more shots. The sergeant motioned quickly with two fingers, looking markedly at Private Scott. Scott turned from the wall to the door, rifle outstretched, and felt aching pangs of adrenaline up the back of his neck. He pushed into the stairwell gingerly. The three other men followed him slowly down the moist, dark passage. The gunfire had stopped, but there were still loud cries emanating from below, and a strange, shrill chittering, as if from rats.
They came to the bottom of the steps, and Scott leaned quickly around the edge of the threshold. It was a long basement room with a low ceiling, poorly lit by flickering torches in wall brackets. At the end of the room was an altar, hung with a white cloth. Upon it sat an ornate golden goblet. It shone strangely in the relative darkness, giving off a bluish shimmer.
In the center of the basement was a wooden table, upon which stood two figures. They were a man and a woman, and they wore odd khaki jumpsuits. The man was frantically fiddling with a flamethrower, cursing loudly in an accent that sounded German. The woman stood at his back, brandishing an ugly machete. There was a third khaki figure below them on the floor, body partially obscured by a dark, flowing mass.
As Scott looked closer, he saw that the mass was in fact a swarm of thousands of vermin. They were nothing he had ever seen before – grapefruit sized, skittering with perverted rapidity on spindly legs, screeching incessantly. Most of them pressed at the table, crawling over each other in ravenous eagerness to get up to the two figures. The woman swept the machete low, angrily slicing back the creatures that managed to mount the table. The man was cursing in German, and whacking at the flamethrower with his fists. Private Scott stood agape at the base of the stair.
“What the hell is going on in there?” asked the sergeant impatiently, pushing Scott aside and stepping down to the basement floor. “Oh fuck-” he managed. The rushing mass of creatures on the floor turned simultaneously from the table to look at the four soldiers. The little nightmares grinned with hundreds of thousands of unnaturally needle-like teeth. After a moment's hesitation, they sprinted for the men. The sergeant was paralyzed. Scott hysterically squeezed off a clip of shots while a screaming McKenzie attempted to pull himself back up the staircase. The four soldiers were quickly over-swept. A tide of tiny, searing pinpricks attacked their bodies, ripping little chunks out of their flesh. They were pulled down to the floor. Their ears were filled with the incessant screeching. Scott blacked out when they began tearing at his face.
Private Scott awoke on the stone floor, his sight blurry, spluttering blood. He turned his head, and the dead eyes of the sergeant stared back at him. Jacobsen was slumped in the corner, also dead. McKenzie was face down on the stairs. He didn't know how much time had passed, but he was sticky all over with his own blood. An excruciating pain suddenly expressed itself throughout his body. He gurgled, arching his back. There was an acrid smell in the air, like burning, and the myriad little bodies of the needle-toothed creatures lay blackened and legs-up on the floor all around.
The man and the woman in the khaki suits were standing over their fallen comrade at the other end of the basement.
“I'm sorry, Marty,” said the German one, folding the man's arms over his chest.
“We should have been more cautious,” said the woman, distraught.
“Look, we got the goblet,” the German replied, “and he died doing his duty, in the field. We couldn't have foreseen the flamethrower malfunctioning.”
“I know…” said the woman, dejectedly. Scott coughed again, and she looked over to the staircase. “One of those bastards is alive!” she exclaimed. The woman ran over, feet crunching on the small bodies littering the floor. She bent down and put a finger to the side of Scott's neck.
“Alexandra! We don't have time for this!” chastised her companion.
“I know,” she replied, exasperated, “the Germans are going to be here soon.”
“The Nazis are going to be here soon,” the man said sharply.
“This kid is barely alive,” she said, ignoring him.
“Leave him. An unfortunate casualty.”
“We can save him,” she said, after a pause.
“How? He's fatally wounded…what, do you mean to use…?” the German asked incredulously.
“Yes!” the woman exclaimed.
“No way,” her companion cried, waving his hands. “Leave him. Even if you did what you're thinking, you'd be giving him no choice.”
“He has no choice. He's dying.”
“How would we ever get away with it, Alexandra?” the man pleaded.
“We'll take him with us,” she said firmly. There was a long silence between them. Private Scott spluttered weakly, blood soaking through his uniform. He felt his feet growing cold.
“He'll be stuck, he'll be imprisoned for the rest of his life,” said the German.
“I know – I know,” said the woman. “But at least we'll have given him life. We owe him that.”
“He's not our burden…,” the German said, but his tone revealed that he had given way. “If anyone ever finds out about this, it will be both of our heads,” he stressed, conceding.
Scott was aware of someone crouching down beside him. He sensed something cold and metal being pressed to his lips. And suddenly his body was filled with a warm, dense liquid. The pain was forgotten, like a dream slipping away, and he felt the ragged tears across in his flesh sealing and knitting together. And he was better.
SCP-1451 is a Caucasian male of indeterminate age…