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Iris Black was going to be late to class.
It was, to be fair, not entirely her fault. Thursday was Derby night, always had been; which meant that Thursday was also Derby after-party night, either to celebrate a win or make up for a loss. Normally, she went for a few hours, drank a little, smoked a little, and was in bed by 1 or 2 in the morning, with plenty of time to make a 10:30 class. This time, however, the Double Dees had played the Legion; and the Discordians always partied hard because they had a lot of losses to make up for. Someone spiked the punch with AUM, someone else was passing out joints of Kallisti Gold, and to make a long story short, Iris woke up at 10 AM in a bathtub full of empty beer cans wearing only her Derby helmet and someone else's underwear.
After picking her way through the detritus of the night before, she managed to locate her pants, complete with keys, wallet and phone, in the back of the freezer; she stole a t-shirt that was hanging from the ceiling fan, and sprinted out the door with only 20 minutes to go. She checked her phone. Deer wasn't too far away; if she went fast, she could get there in 15 and still be able to freshen up in the bathroom before class. Her rollerblades were still right where she left them, tied up near the top of a tree in the front yard; a snap of her fingers undid the knot, and they dropped right into her waiting hands. She strapped the blades on, buckled her helmet, and set off for school.
Iris weaved through the mid-morning traffic, furiously dodging pedestrians and cyclists; she almost knocked over an android carrying a stack of boxes, and shouted a quick "Sorry!" over her shoulder as she left it in her wake. Her favorite shortcut was coming up: a pair of Ways that, if she was careful, she could open at high speed, skating only half a block in Oregon to skip half a mile of ThreePorts. She sped straight toward a solid brick wall, screaming "Open Sesame!" at the top of her lungs; at the very last moment, it hinged open, and she popped out of a similarly solid brick wall in Portland, Oregon, just in time to slam full-speed into the hood of a limousine that was, inexplicably, parked right between two dumpsters behind a pizza place.
Momentum carried Iris across the hood, and she crashed into the asphalt on the other side. She heard her left wrist snap before she felt it; then the pain shot up her arm, and she curled into a ball around the injured limb, shouting strings of curses that made up in volume what they lacked in variety. "FUCKING fuck! Motherfucking fuckers! Fucking shit-fuck!" A car door opened and closed, and at least two people approached her. Possibly three. They weren't saying anything, which meant they were either huge fucking assholes, or they had been waiting for her. She stopped cursing, and opened her eyes.
It was three. A slimy-looking kid, maybe a little older than her, in a hideous green-and-gold plaid suit, flanked by two guys who looked like they had been bought straight off the rack at the bodyguard store. The bodyguards, as expected, said nothing, but the kid smiled and offered her his hand. "Good morning." Data point one: English. Rich. Smug as hell. Definitely a huge fucking asshole. "May I help you up, Ms. Black?" Data point two: knew her name. Definitely waiting for her.
"I think I'm fine on my own, thanks," she replied, wincing as she pushed off the ground with her elbows. "You seem to have me at a disadvantage, Mr…?" The sheer cliche of the phrase almost triggered her gag reflex, but she powered through. Both her palms were scraped and bleeding; that could be useful.
Sleazeball gave her a flamboyant bow. "Chrysophilus Marshall, at your service. But please—my friends call me Skitter."
Iris got her blades under her, and stood up to her full six feet, still holding her injured wrist close to her chest. "Charmed, I'm sure." She wiped some blood from her right palm with a finger, and started to draw a sigil on her left arm, taking care to keep it hidden from the three men. "And who, might I ask, are these two gentlemen?"
"I wouldn't call them gentlemen," he said. "This is Three, and this is Four. Say hello, boys."
Three and Four barked a perfectly-synchronized "hello," and Iris finally noticed the barcodes tattooed on their foreheads. Maybe they actually had been bought from the bodyguard store. The sigil was almost complete; she only needed to stall for a little bit longer.
"Well, to what do I owe the pleasure, Mr. Marshall? I assume our meeting was no accident?" She nodded at the wall that concealed the Way. "You seem to have been waiting exactly where it would inconvenience me the most."
Skitter laughed, spraying Iris in spit. "No, Iris—can I call you Iris?—this was no accident. I am here to offer you a business opportunity. One that will, without a doubt, make you wealthy beyond your wildest dreams. If you would just join me in the car?"
The sigil was finished. "Well, Chrysophilus, I would love to, but unfortunately, no'oley bugud gegrasacog nohadz hacar-ficar!" As the Ouranian syllables burst from her lips, Iris felt her bones set and change. She pulled her hand back, and a sword stabbed out through her wrist-skin; the spell's backlash set it aflame. She took a wild slash at Skitter, who leaped out of the way with unsettling agility, then she did a quick 180 and sprinted down the alley, dispelling the burning bone-sword and letting her radius and ulna return to their natural shape. If she was being honest with herself, it probably hurt more than the break had, but that spell was always a crowd-pleaser in the derby rink, and she was glad it performed in an actual combat situation.
Skitter shouted some instructions to the bodyguards, and the limo door slammed. There was still just enough blood on Iris' palms to work another small spell without draining her internal reserves; she flicked her hand behind her, scattering it on the asphalt, and shouted a quick incantation. "Nobo dokez ch'haz!" Spines shot up from the ground, angled back toward her pursuers; they'd have a hard time making it over that with their tires in one piece.
The limo started, and the engine revved as it sped up towards her. As Iris turned out of the alley onto the street, she heard the tires pop. That should delay them for long enough that she could make her escape. The next Way was just up ahead, in the Joan of Arc statue in the center of a traffic circle. The statue that had two more of those bodyguard guys standing next to it, alongside another asshole in head-to-toe Supreme hypebeast gear.
"Mademoiselle Black," he shouted, doffing his bucket hat, "so kind of you to join us!"
"Oh, fuck a duck," Iris swore as she swerved down a side-street. The next-nearest Way into ThreePorts was almost a mile away, and that one would put her by Prometheus Plaza, inconveniently far from campus. She was definitely going to be late to class. Well, there was one other option, but it would piss off the feds, and just attending Deer put her on all manner of watchlists. It was a last-resort sort of move.
Skitter Marshall ran out into the road on all fours, his eyes glowing yellow. He stood, and smiled wider than a human should be able to; his teeth had become needle-points, and his saliva hissed when it dripped onto his suit. "I wanted to do this the easy way," he said, taking a syringe full of red liquid out of his jacket pocket and slamming it into his neck, "but you had to ruin it for both of us."
Last-resort time. Iris did not want to stick around for whatever that drug would do to him. She executed a perfect u-turn, and headed back towards Joan. Hypebeast and his goons were piling into a cotton-candy-pink Rolls Royce; Iris flipped them off as she skated past. She turned south down Chavez, and got ready to commit some federal crimes.
"Fiaco nowole! A'epalizage! Tajnachef'so cho thu fof'widayo shabbe!" The words dried Iris' throat and chapped her lips, each syllable of the chant building on the last. She scratched at her palms, reopening the scrapes, and pressed a bloody handprint on each thigh; this working was dangerous without an external source of EVE, but a little bit of backlash was preferable to getting kidnapped by the kind of people who purchase scary bodyguards in packs of four. "Lofo segwar dibuq udinbak noy renkeb!" The chant meant nothing, of course; Ouranian was a constructed language, designed expressly for thaumaturgy. It was contextless babble, each string of syllables merely a mnemonic for a certain etheric pattern or energetic frequency, and—in Iris' experience—it worked really, really well. "Zametus nabagaf hrov'leiko ptau!" The final incantation seared its way through her mind, and she began to accelerate.
The spell was a variant of Rhadamanth's Sling, modified to launch a person rather than a projectile. It borrowed a bit of the momentum from a large moving object—say, a car, or a pack of derby players—and dumped it into Iris, shooting her forward at irresponsible velocities. Once it got going, it essentially maintained itself on ambient Elan-Vital, but the first burst required to cast it was always a bitch. She would have to go easy for the rest of the day or risk total burnout; but if it got her to class on-time and saved her ass from Skitter and Supreme, it was worth it.
Of course, it was a lot riskier outside of a derby rink. All the rinks in Portlands had various circles, runes, and sigils painted on the floor, so that the backlash from the competitors' spells could be channeled in the safest manner possible. The road in Portland Oregon had no such protections. Around where she cast the spell, a three-foot circle melted into a pool of crude petroleum and gravel, the asphalt reduced to its raw components; as she sped onward, runes glowed on the blacktop wherever her skates touched it, the Ouranian incantations repeated over and over in an arcane script. Thankfully, they faded away after a few moments, leaving only a sooty residue that would wash away in the rain—she wouldn't want to explain a mile-long runic inscription to the FBI, or worse, her academic adviser.
Iris heard a loud pop from behind her, and something whizzed past at chest-height. They were shooting at her. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and saw Hypebeast hanging out the window of the Rolls, brandishing a Desert Eagle x Louis Vuitton collab—turned sideways, gangsta-style. He was shouting something, but she couldn't hear him over the wind in her ears and the roar of his engine; then he fired another shot, and Iris decided to focus on getting the fuck out of there.
She had been having excellent luck with traffic so far—enough cars to slingshot off of and use as shields, but not so many that she had to spend more brainpower dodging them than dodging bullets. Unfortunately, there weren't quite enough to give her pursuers any trouble. The Rolls Royce was cruising down the center of the road, other cars swerving out of its way; some close calls had left a few scratches in its hideous pepto-bismol paint job, but the goon-clone was a good enough driver to avoid anything worse. They were definitely gaining on her.
Then the light ahead turned red. The cars ahead of Iris slowed down; she pumped a little more juice into her spell, and sped up. A semi-truck pulled out into the intersection, signaling for a left turn. Iris kept heading straight for it, and so did the Rolls. Just before she slammed headfirst into the trailer, she bent over backwards and limbo'd underneath it at 40 miles per hour. The Rolls Royce was not as agile, and hit the trailer with an earth-shaking crunch. For a moment, just before impact, Iris and Hypebeast made eye contact; then she stood back up, and continued on her way.
A few more blocks, and she was almost there. Iris' spell ran out just before she hung a hard right down the hill; she dodged past two cars and a motorcycle, and swung into Reed campus. There were mobs of students coming back from morning lectures on every path; she slalomed around them, and cruised through an archway into the library courtyard. The sequoia was dead ahead. A final burst of mystical force, almost completely draining her, sent her sailing over the heads of the confused mundanes. She landed on a picnic table, scattering its occupants' books and breakfasts, and jumped headfirst into the tree's trunk, her hands curled in the gestures that would send her through to the other side. Several moments of horrible vertigo, and she was home free.
Well, almost. Iris checked her phone. 10:29. One minute to get to class. She sprinted toward the library doors, which opened just in time. A freshman was in her way; he dove for cover, his coffee spilling all over the ground, and she was inside. Fifty seconds. No time to take the elevator, but the classroom was in the basement. There was a folding table set up in the lobby—WAN For All, the campus Maxwellist group, was handing out open source literature and free flash drives. Iris tucked into a ball and rolled underneath it. Forty seconds. Through the door to the stairwell, between some seniors arguing about Pythagorean numerology, and over the banister. It was only a fifteen-foot drop, and Iris had just enough magical energy left to stop her fall safely—a little trickle of power activated her blades' dampening runes, and the kinetic energy of the impact was converted into a spray of dramatic but harmless sparks. Thirty seconds. A straight shot down one hallway, a hard right down another, and she slid through the classroom door with twenty seconds to spare.
"Ms. Black, how kind of you to join us," Dr. Greenberg said, looking pointedly at his watch. "And on time! Incredible."
Iris sighed as she sat down. "Long night. Longer morning."
"Now, Ms. Black, I do expect my students to arrive prepared to class." He stared pointedly at the empty table in front of her. "Where are your materials?"
Iris unbuckled her helmet, and made a few passes over it with her free hand. "Abracadabra." She reached inside, and retrieved her textbook and school supplies from the built-in spatial deformation. "Anything else, Professor?"
"Just one more question, then we can begin." He gestured vaguely at Iris' torso. "What on earth is a 'Futanari Titwhore Fiasco'?"
She glanced down at her borrowed t-shirt. "Honestly, Professor? I have no idea."
« When Situations Degenerate || Get Out Of Her Way || They Laid Down The Law »


NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION RECORDS AND INFORMATION SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
The document you are attempting to access has been sanitised. The original contains cognitohazardous material and is not suitable for viewing outside of RAISA-supervised contexts. In order to preserve the comprehensibility of the content, this sanitised version has only keystone elements of the cognitohazardous material removed.
— Alyt Vervloet, Archival Superintendent, RAISA

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[1st page]

NON-FICTION!

People died so I could write this. I'd appreciate it if you could spare a few minutes to read it.

[2nd page]

Let's start with MIRANDA. There are three things you need to know about MIRANDA: she was tall, she was dazzlingly charismatic and she was more stubborn than gravity. Nobody else could even imagine this mission, but she could. They said it was impossible, and she showed them it might not be. They said it could never be made to work, and she put together a plan that showed them how to do it. They said it would be dangerous, and she just laughed.

MIRANDA led this mission before there was a mission. When it came time to assign a team leader, she chose herself. No one had put more into the project, no one knew more about the project. Still, there were those that spoke out against her.
"She's too inexperienced in the field," they said.
"She's too valuable to the core unit," they said.
"She's too domineering to lead a small team," they said. The rumour mill told a different story. It said that if she'd been straighter, more male and less black that she'd have got the job with no resistance. Of course no one was saying that, but they were not saying it very pointedly.
What do you think she said to that? Not a damn thing. She didn't need to tell them they were wrong. She showed them. They stopped saying that.

Three months after she got the project signed off everything was ready, faster than any reasonable timeline. There were already plans drawn up for a manned craft and soon we had a shiny new ship in the hanger. We had a fully reconditioned latent-space portal because the second-generation portals had always been designed with manned missions in mind. We had a team: every one of us a volunteer, every one hand-picked from across the Foundation. We weren't the best in our fields but MIRANDA saw in us the parts of something more. She made us into that something.

[3rd page]

We sat in that cockpit, staring into that portal, wondering if humans could survive on the other side. All the science gave it a very promising maybe. Electromagnetic waves don't propagate so well out there so once we went through we'd be on our own. MIRANDA brought the engines up and eased us through, careful, but confident.

Things went fine for a while. It was nothing but smooth sailing through empty skies and a deluge of data flowing from the instruments to the databanks. We saw more kinds of nothing than there are words for in any language I know.
Then we saw the nullity transition layer closing in around us. If this place had weather, then this would be the storm — angry nothing whipping around in complex curves and hard, pointed angles. MIRANDA dialled up the stabilisation field. It wrapped around us in a gently not-humming aura of thing-ness that kept reality in and everything else out. She pointed our bow straight into the layer and told us to strap in.

We should have been fine, but we weren't. The layer started seeping through the outer fields in an every-colour fog and the hull began rattling like a castanet. The instruments stopped responding and stayed solidly in the green, ignoring the obvious danger. MIRANDA took just a single moment to think about it before turning the ship around and leaving her dream behind. That was one of the things that made her a good leader: she always put people before dreams. She yelled at us to get back into the centre of the ship, nearer to the field generator while she stayed up front to get us lined up on the portal. We left, out of the bridge, back past the crew quarters and into the mess room. We only stopped once we were right in the centre of the ship, above the field generator where its effects were strongest.

MIRANDA's updates from the cockpit lasted for a little while, crackling to us over the internal comms. Then they stopped making sense. Then they stopped.

That was MIRANDA. She was always pushing forwards, always at the front. That meant she was often alone, especially at the end.

[4th page]

Next was DIMO. DIMO was as big as two men and careful. He built the ship's engines by hand. Then he broke them down and built them a second time because he wanted to make sure he hadn't missed anything. He never did things the easy way if it was the wrong way.

DIMO was careful when he talked too. You can tell that he'd thought about every word before he said it. Some people take fifty words to make their point. DIMO didn't. He'd pause and think and then he'd say three words, but they'd be the right words.

The fog took a while to get back to the mess room, but inch by inch it did. DIMO stood in the doorway watching it approach with an unreadable expression and said, "Not enough time." He dialled up the field generator and then paused for a second, thinking. Then he nodded to himself and turned the dial a click farther.

Fifteen minutes later the lights started flickering and the mist started creeping closer again. DIMO's eyes narrowed and his jaw tightened. He stared down at the floor for a moment and then sighed, shoulders dropping by just the tiniest fraction. "I'll repair this," he said. He left.

Another fifteen minutes later the lights stabilised and the mist retreated from the edges of the room. We didn't hear from DIMO again. Just whispering over the internal comms. Nothing clear, just the shapes of words. "…my family…" I think. Then nothing.

That was DIMO. When he was wrong, he did it the right way, even if it was the hard way.

[5th page]

The third member of the team was ETISHA. She was the smart one, the smartest person I ever met. Some people are so intelligent that they seem to be talking another language, but ETISHA wasn't like that. She made you feel smarter just by being around her. I never did work out how.

ETISHA figured out what had happened to the others, or at least she said she had and I wasn't nearly clever enough to argue. "I think they've been subsumed into the local immateria." She saw my uncertain look and tried again. "They're part of all this nothing. They don't exist any more. Maybe they never did now. Or maybe the field is containing what's left of them?" She stopped speaking and I could see the idea turning in her like a key in a clock.
"So can we get them back?" I asked. ETISHA gave ME one of those looks that said she wasn't going to answer soon and when she did I wouldn't understand.

We got a few hours closer to home before the atmosphere system gave out. The obvious solution was the suits. Problem was, the suits weren't in the mess room with us and everything outside the room was filled with all kinds of nothing. ETISHA got creative. She built an oxygen generator out of the guts of a lighting panel, a water jug and some indigestion tablets and converted the toilet into a makeshift breathing tent. It smelled bad enough to bring tears to our eyes but it was better than suffocating, for a while.

[6th page]

It wasn't enough. Once it was clear that we wouldn't be able to last all the way back on toilet air, we decided we'd have to get the suits. That meant walking into the miasma that had done whatever it had done to MIRANDA and DIMO. We decided to play rock-paper-scissors for it. I don't know if she threw it on purpose. I don't know if I tried to win, but I did, and she left.

What came back out of the fog wasn't really ETISHA any more. It had her shape, her face, her voice, but it wasn't her. She was like a painting of herself — like if she turned too quickly she'd disappear behind her edges. She carried a bundle of fabric under one arm that seemed more substantial than she did.
"I brought. This. For you." She dropped the bundle at my feet. It was just a suit.

There was a smile on her face. It was warm but hollow. I could see the bulkhead through the back of it.
"And. This." She put a notepad on the table. "You only. Need. To plant a. Seed." She winked at ME and then she just… wasn't, anymore.

That was ETISHA. She was always helping you, but you could never quite figure out how she'd done it.

[7th page]

Lastly, there was ME. I'm ca
I'm out of time. Please get us home.

[Original discovery classification]
Spontaneous, handwritten fiction found on the mess room table of unmanned Latent-Space Exploratory Vessel Audre on its return to real-space. Other paraphernalia associated with the fictional crew was also found, such as clothing, food items and toothbrushes.

The cognitohazardous property of the original document has been identified as a reality incursion attempt by unknown entities designated MIRANDA, DIMO, ETISHA and ME. Reading the document and considering the entities therein has been shown to increase their actualisation in our reality. Even the sanitised version may have an effect in limited circumstances. Exercise caution with this material.
Current actualisation:
MIRANDA - 56%
DIMO - 41%
ETISHA - 47%
ME - 3%

Access unsanitised document? (Y/N):█


A lance of pure force traveled down her arm and out her hand as she punched the Nazi wizard in the face with all the power of a speeding locomotive.

Florence prepares to punch Maximilian Bauer in the face.

« Much Wisdom Is Much Grief || HUB || Individual Efficacy »
December 21, 1985
Timmins, Ontario
They found Maximilian Bauer walking in Hollinger Park.
"This presents a problem," Andersen said, lowering her rifle.
The three of them — Florence, Westbrook, and the Gorgon — had camped out on top of a building near the city center, and were monitoring the streets from their elevated perch while members of the strike team searched on foot. Others were occupying the building below them, waiting for the signal to move. Another team was standing-by outside the city, ready to deploy as backup.
"Right, because we can't just assassinate him in broad daylight," Florence said.
"What? That's easy," Andersen replied. "No, because it means the rendezvous point will be in the city proper. Killing one man in a population center is dead simple, killing twenty-one is significantly harder. There'll be a firefight, potential hostages, urban cover."
"So we kill him before they make the hand-off," Westbrook said. "From what you've said, they need Bauer to use the Key at its full potential, so if we take him out we've neutralized the threat."
"Only temporarily. They'll find another thaumaturge eventually. And Bauer might have a dead man's switch on him that'll alert the team with the Key if he's killed before the rendezvous. If that happens, they'll go dark, and we might not ever get the Key back."
"Alright," Westbrook began. "What if—"
Florence tuned him out as she stared at Bauer through her own binoculars. He was wearing a thick overcoat to shield against the Canadian cold — the Nazis had apparently learned the benefits of proper winter gear, albeit a few decades too late. There was a bulge in his coat that might have concealed a weapon or a radio, although it was impossible to tell which at this distance. As he passed a group of ice skaters, she saw him reach into the coat and begin to withdraw something.
"Or," she said, interrupting Andersen and Westbrook's argument. "We've been duped."
That got their attention. "What?"
She watched as Bauer withdrew a simple carved horn — the sixth Key — and held it to his lips. He blew into it, and though she couldn't hear it, she saw its immediate effect on the nearby skaters. All of them stopped what they were doing mid-motion, although several of them continued to move forwards from their momentum. Two of them crashed into each other and fell to the ice, still posing rigidly.
Then Bauer turned to stare directly at her. From almost half a mile away. And he winked.
As Florence stumbled backwards in surprise, the air was split by the sound of lightning on a cloudless day. A plasma projector.
OBSKURA was there.
Westbrook swore. "We've been made."
"Bauer has the Key," Florence said. "He knows we're here."
"We have to kill him now," Andersen said.
"Too late," Westbrook said. "I don't care how good your aim is, Gorgon, you aren't sniping a wizard who knows you're there. We need to abort and call in air support."
Andersen sighted down the scope of her rifle for a moment, then lowered it again. "Agreed. Tell your people to get out, I'm calling in our bombers."
"No."
They both turned to stare at Florence. The young thaumaturge had stepped away from the building's edge and stood up, facing the direction of the park. Her eyes were closed in concentration.
"We don't have a lot of other options, Firestarter," Westbrook said. There was a sound of gunfire below, then more thunder from a plasma projector. OBSKURA had engaged the task force members inside the building.
"No," she repeated. "I've got him."
Then she leapt off the side of the building.
What she was about to do was something she would have never even considered before joining the Foundation. She had always favored fire for her evocations — a tendency born from natural affinity, and then encouraged by the Lake Ghosts — but recent events had shown her the dangers of this narrow focus. Over the last few weeks of training in the thaumaturgy gym, she had spent a great deal of time practicing with direct physical force. She didn't have the same natural talent for it that she had for fire, but she was skilled enough now to make what she was doing merely stupid, instead of suicidally stupid.
As she cleared the edge of the building, she released the power that she had gathered in a blast of kinetic force, launching herself into the air on a ballistic trajectory. Backlash roiled around her, blowing out traffic lights and melting a section of asphalt. Someone on the street below shouted, and she tried not to think about the amount of amnestics that would be needed for the aftermath. Save the world first, make witnesses forget it later.
She fell towards the park, using another burst of force to adjust her trajectory to target Bauer more precisely. As the ground rushed up to meet her, she gathered up her will again. Time to see if this would end in suicide or homicide.
This next evocation was something she had never practiced nor prepared for. Although this was a strong testament towards her sanity, it would have been better if she hadn't had to devise the working in mid-flight. With only a few seconds to get it right, she decided to employ an old spell she had once used to deflect bullets. Instead of diverting an incoming projectile, however, she was going to divert herself.

Bauer's eyes widened in surprise as her shadow fell across his face, which was the exact moment she chose to unleash her spell.
She felt the curious and nauseating sensation of stopping without any deceleration, as the evocation suddenly siphoned off her momentum and harnessed it to her will. As she alighted gently onto the ground before Bauer, her fist swung forwards to connect with his jaw, releasing the kinetic energy she had stolen from her fall.
A lance of pure force traveled down her arm and out her hand as she punched the Nazi wizard in the face with all the power of a speeding locomotive.
Anyone else would have died instantly and gruesomely. As it was, Bauer had used the last few nanoseconds before her strike to prepare a counterspell. It saved his life. Instead of his head exploding into a cloud of fine mist, he was merely thrown backwards, landing several yards away in a snowbank.
The backlash from the conflicting spells was horrific.
All of the snow within a five foot radius of where Bauer had been standing instantly melted and flashed into steam. A nearby tree suddenly found itself green with unseasonable growth before flowering, withering, and dying within the span of five seconds — then, just for good measure, it burst into flames. The park was filled with a hellish honking as a flock of Canadian geese materialized in midair, confused and angry about being in Canada. A second wave of backlash caught one of the geese and turned it inside-out, which just seemed to make it angrier.
Bauer pulled himself to his feet and picked his way out of the snowbank. His nose was broken and bleeding, and at least one of his ribs had to have been cracked by the blast, but he was otherwise unharmed. The Key had been knocked out of his grip and had landed in the snow between the two of them.
He spat defiantly. "A good effort, girl, but you're no Golem. Even the Judenriese couldn't stop Thunder's Fist now."
There were a lot of pithy remarks Florence could have made about Bauer referring to himself in the third-person, but instead she loosed a bolt of fire in his direction and dove for the Key.
He had been expecting this, and was waiting and ready. He reached out and grabbed the spell from the air, turning in place to redirect it. As he spun around, he twisted the blazing bolt into a lance of lightning, which he sent hurtling back towards Florence with an angry shout.
She tried to shield herself against the spell, but all her combat wards had been designed for stopping physical attacks. The spear of crackling energy sliced through her counterspell and hit her square in the chest.
The pain was excruciating, and for a moment the whole world went black. When she returned to her senses, she found herself lying on the ground, face-down in the snow. She struggled to raise her head, just in time to see Bauer pick-up the Key.
He smiled at her. "You lose, girl."
Then he raised the horn to his mouth and blew.
Florence didn't hear anything. The GOC had inoculated all of them against the horn's frequencies before the mission. But, acting on some reflexive instinct, she froze as if the horn had worked.
"You've got spirit, girl, I'll give you that," he said. "Power, too. But I've been fighting wizards tougher than you my entire life. You never stood a chance."
She gathered up her power as he stalked towards her, being careful not to let anything bleed into her aura where he might notice. It required an agonizing concentration of will, but she focused completely on the spell. She would only get one more shot, and she needed to make it count.
Bauer crouched down in front of her, face plastered with an ugly grin. "Was worried that shock might kill you, but you're tougher than you look. You'll make an excellent weapon in the wars to come."
He reached out to stroke her face. Before his finger could touch her, she detonated.
The blast made the firestorm she'd called up in Minneapolis look like a Zippo. Flames, white-hot in their intensity, burst forth from every pore on her body — and rather than radiate outwards in all directions, they surged towards Bauer with a ferocious hunger. He screamed as the inferno sought to consume him. He called up a shield, but not before the fire had already melted the skin off his hand.
As Bauer stumbled backwards behind his shield, Florence rose to her feet and thrust her arms towards him, channeling her entire being into the burning energies she had called forth. The universe shuddered under the force of their duel, and she was distantly aware of the backlash cracking around them as reality began to simply give up. She ignored it, focusing entirely on Bauer's destruction.
They stood like that for several full seconds, which is an eternity in a wizard duel. Florence could feel the energy being drained from her soul as she pushed past her limits, no concern given to the possibility of dying from thaumic exhaustion. If she didn't kill Bauer now, he would kill her. It was that simple.
Her efforts were rewarded when she felt his shield begin to falter. Their duel was brutal in its simplicity, raw power matched against raw power. And she had more of it.
Bauer took a step back. Then another. Florence pressed her attack, probing the shield for gaps.
"Stop!" Bauer cried, a hint of panic in his voice. "Stop, or I'll kill them."
Florence didn't stop, but she did hesitate, causing a break in the flames which Bauer took advantage of to fortify his shield.
"That's right," Bauer said. "I know what you're thinking: how many dozens do I have under my control? Hundreds? Thousands? The entire city? With a word, I can slay them all."
Florence hissed as she continued the assault. But already it was weakening, her will divided by the fear Bauer had placed in her mind.
"Cease your attack, girl, and withdraw from the field, or their deaths will be on your hands."
The flames guttered out as she fell to her knees with a cry of hate. Bauer stood across from her, shaking from exertion. The flesh of his right hand had been burned to cinders, exposing the underlying muscle and bone. His face was blistered and burned from the heat of her attack, and his eyes blazed with hatred. He looked like a vision of death itself, but the Key was still held firmly in his remaining hand.
"Pathetic," he spat. "Peace has made you weak."
"Damn you," she gasped. "You bastard."
"You should have killed me," he said. "Did you learn nothing from Chamberlain, girl? The sheep cannot make peace with the wolves."
She didn't say anything. She couldn't. She had wasted all her energy in her last, futile assault. She had just enough left to look him in the eye as he prepared to kill her.
He raised his ruined right hand and pointed it at her. "Now, die in agony."
His chest exploded.
CRACK. The sound of a rifle echoed through the city.
From her rooftop perch, the Gorgon smiled grimly.
Bauer stared at the gaping gunshot wound in his sternum. Awareness of his impending demise dawned in his eyes, and he snarled.
"DIE!"
He fell to the ground, dead.
A moment later, he was joined by every single civilian in the park, whose hearts had stopped beating.
« Much Wisdom Is Much Grief || HUB || Individual Efficacy »


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TITLE: Oh-Seventy-Six
Images: N/A
Music: Same Ol' (The Heavy)

More by The Great Hippo:

SCPs

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SCPs

[SCP-3034]
The Counting Station

DO NOT LET HER FINISH

[SCP-3035]
Science Bugs

case_of_the_mondays.png, case_of_the_mondays (1).png

[SCP-3054]
Cragstaff Sanitarium

You are sick. You are broken. We will fix you.

[SCP-3045]
bzzip.exe

HAMLET: I am no longer moody.

[SCP-3043]
Murphy Law in… Type 3043 — FOR MURDER!

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[SCP-3057]
Fossil Fuels

…witnesses provided confirmation that instances of SCP-3057-4 did, in fact, have feathers.

[SCP-2639]
Video Game Violence

i need to know how many people i've killed

[SCP-437]
Summer of '91

That was a pretty crazy summer, y'know? Sometimes I really miss that place.

[SCP-3079]
300 Tricks: Stage Magic Made Easy

NOTE: No method for accomplishing this trick is provided.

[SCP-2753]
Let's Play Jenga!

High art carries high risk!

[SCP-2679]
The Many Graves of Jeannette Parslov

Whatever it takes, do what you must; whatever the cost, come back to us.

[SCP-3074]
Kafka's Parking Garage

Thank you for choosing Izatova Parking Center. Have a pleasant day.

[SCP-2571]
Cragglewood Park

Mr. Blair, have you always been an only child?

[SCP-2419]
The Laughing Men

Throw them back into the incinerator where you found them.

[SCP-3143]
Murphy Law in… The Foundation Always Rings Twice!

When it comes right down to it, me — them — hell, even you — we're all just characters in that trashy dime-store novel called life.

[SCP-3089]
That Old Time Religion

Remember how we explained that successful people don't actually need any of their toes to walk? Well, that's going to come in handy for Secret Number Six.

[SCP-3117]
A Monster-Shaped Hole

I'm not talking to you.

[SCP-3128]
Let's Play Monopoly!

Hey, guys? I'm, uh. I'm using this.

[SCP-3138]
A Sepulcher by the Sea

Should it prove feasible, all non-canonical corpses are to be extracted, examined, and catalogued.

[SCP-3241]
The SS Sommerfeld

It makes me wonder what an old monster like myself is even doing here, anymore. And then? Someone special comes along and reminds me.

[SCP-3219]
This Sour Earth

Notably, no reports describe any attempt to examine the residence's storm cellar.

[SCP-4028]
La Historia de Don Quixote de la Mancha

Justine eventually re-unites with her sister, Juliette. Alonso strikes down a lightning bolt intended for them both, then challenges the narrator to a duel.

[SCP-3546]
Doggone it, I Fold!

Specifically, fan-art of Sonic the Hedgehog, a video-game character produced by Sega in 1991.

[SCP-3561]
An Unfinished Work

Despite multiple reports from neighbors who claimed to have witnessed members of his family standing at the windows, no trace of Theodore Holdstock's wife and children could be found.

[SCP-4054]
The Seventh Door

SCP-4054 is The Seventh Door, an unlicensed platform adventure game released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1988.

Every newcomer has a theory about SCP-076.
'The brother of Cain' is the obvious angle, sure. Greenhorns love that one. They always throw it out there like it's just common knowledge. But when Agent Xiaoshan first arrived at Area 25B a decade ago, it took a surly Foundation vet just thirty seconds to fieldstrip it:
"What, Abel? The guy from the Bible? The one who gets fuckin' murdered?"
"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir. That's who he is, right? I read the documentation." Xiaoshan was already two years in Field Ops. By then, she had exchanged gunfire with a squad of Gocks. She'd seen a rogue reality bender cut down in a spray of .50 caliber beryllium bronze rounds. She knew the precise texture, color, and flavor of her own liver.
In other words: at this point, she figured she was pretty hot shit.
"So what, you think gettin' killed turned him into a fuckin' super-killer? Like some Lamarckian inheritance bullshit? If I break yer jaw, are you gonna turn into the Harry Houdini of breakin' people's jaws?"
She blustered: "Well, uh — he knows how to handle livestock, and then there's —"
"Does me knowin' how to build a fuckin' boat make me Noah? Maybe he just likes to fuck sheep." The bald, scarred vet clamped his massive hand down on Xiaoshan's shoulder. When he squeezed, she swore she felt something grinding inside the socket.
"Kid, lemme tell you a secret: Forget what the docs say. Forget what the egg-heads say. And sure as fuck forget whatever hog-shit the people upstairs say. When it comes to Oh-Fucking-Seventy-Six, there's only two things you gotta know — 'Open Fire' and 'Reload'."
Three years later, SCP-076 breached containment. Agent Xiaoshan watched as he stripped another man's flesh from his body like the skin of a red, juicy, overripe grape. It took five minutes of sustained gunfire to finally put him down.
Two minutes after that? Xiaoshan was still firing.
She paused twelve times to reload.
Every newcomer has a theory about SCP-076. And eventually, every newcomer realizes the same thing: When it comes to Oh-Fucking-Seventy-Six, theories don't matter.
Only firepower does.

Researcher Sebastian Hardin has a theory about SCP-076. And, much to his consternation, no one wants to hear it.
"So… you some sort of robot?"
Agent Angela O'Hara is a pretty, petite woman with thumb-thick curls of copper-red hair that reach her jaw-line. She's also the only person in Area 25B who's been willing to give Hardin anything more than the time-of-day. She sits across from him at one of the cafeteria's tables, stabbing peas with her fork.
"Just the head and neck. The rest of me is meat." He taps the side of his metal head with a fleshy finger to demonstrate, then resumes pretending to read his book.
"Just the — wait, what?" Agent O'Hara sets her fork down. "Come again?"
Hardin synthesizes a sigh. His head is an upside down egg plated in a carbon steel alloy. It has an external sensor mounted where the nose ought to be; a pinhole behind it permits data to trickle in. His digital brain is six pounds heavier than its biological counterpart, and includes an integrated heatsink with a one-way vent at the top. His core processor runs so fast that in the time it takes you to read this sentence, he'll have read sixty more.
However, he finds that this makes people uncomfortable. Hardin dislikes making people uncomfortable. So, he keeps a few books around to pretend reading while blazing through a catalog of novels and essays he keeps stored on his internal drive. Right now, he's holding a copy of Asimov's Foundation and Empire, but he's actually just finishing up Haraway's essay, A Cyborg Manifesto.
He sets the former down and internally closes the latter. Judging from O'Hara's tone, he can tell it's going to be one of those conversations: "Just the head and neck."
"They're… prosthetics?"
"Yeah."
"You have a prosthetic head. A prosthetic brain."
"Yeah."
"How does that even work?"
"Every part of the human body can be reduced to a mechanical function — which can, in turn, be modified, augmented, or even replicated by machines."
"But your brain is, what? A computer? Doesn't that make you, like, an AI?"
"Did Long John Silver's peg-leg make him a robot?"
Agent O'Hara scrunches her nose. "I think there's a pretty big difference between having a stick for a leg versus having a microchip for a brain, Hardin."
Hardin synthesizes another sigh. "Look, can we get back to the matter at hand? I need to have this meeting with the Commanding Security Officer about Oh-Seventy-Six. Every time I try to arrange one, I get the run-around. I can't even get anyone to tell me who I'm trying to have a meeting with."
"If you're looking for the CSO, that's Gunny. She looks like that." O'Hara jerks her thumb behind her. Four tables down, a woman sits alone, eating in silence. She's tall and muscular, with shoulders as broad as a steel girder. Her dark hair has been buzzed down to a dense peach-fuzz. "Sergeant Xiaoshan."
Hardin stands. "That's her? That's the CSO for Oh-Seventy-Six? Why didn't you tell me? I've been trying to —"
O'Hara seizes him by the wrist. "Sit down. Are you crazy?" she whispers. "You do not bother Gunny. Not here, not now, and not about your cockamamie theory. She will tear your metal head off and squish it in her bare frigging hands."
Hardin's sensor array clicks down to focus on O'Hara. The fans inside his skull start humming. Reluctantly, he sinks back into his seat. "But I need to have this meeting. That's the whole reason I'm here. It's been two days, and I still haven't gotten past the secretary's secretary."
"Well, keep at it. Go through the proper channels or whatever. But unless you're either under her command or have an appointment? You do not just talk to Gunny. You especially do not just talk to Gunny about Oh-Seventy-Six."
"She's the on-site expert. My superiors specifically requested for me to speak with her."
Agent O'Hara shakes her head. "Hardin, do you know why she's the resident 'expert' on Oh-Seventy-Six? Because out of the platoon of forty-three crazy sons of bitches sent in to stop him, she's the only one who walked out alive."
Hardin slumps. "Does she always eat alone?"
"Yeah." Agent O'Hara grins. "It's funny, y'know? Everyone who comes here has a theory about Oh-Seventy-Six. But everyone who stays? Eventually, they come up with one about Sergeant Xiaoshan."

No sound evacuates the bowels as effectively as that of Area 25B's emergency klaxons.
Hardin's up and out of bed in an instant. The young Foundation researcher is already at his bunk room's door by the time distant pops of gunfire are rattling down the halls. SCP-076's containment procedures flash up out of his internal drive and through his mind. In particular, it's the bit about flooding the facility with seawater and sealing the entry shaft that sticks with him.
He steps out into the hall. Two or three researchers charge by, running from the gunshots. A few more security officers rush forward. Some give Hardin a passing glance, but they all keep going.
Hardin turns and runs toward the danger.
It takes him a full minute to reach the scene. Three agents are at a corner. One of them is on the floor, frothing and convulsing. The second is dragging her away, and the third is pressed flat to the wall. As Hardin approaches, the third agent gestures for him to hang back. More gunshots ring out — much closer, now.
"Some sort of reality bender," the third agent says. He's sweating. Hands are shaking. Hardin doubts it's inexperience; not in a place like this. It looks more like raw animal fear. "Insurgency, maybe. He's like some sort of colored shadow, he keeps unfolding and people keep dropping."
More gunshots. Hardin steps up behind him. "May I take a look?"
"You got a death-wish? Be my guest." The agent steps back.
Hardin peeks around the corner for half a second, then snaps his head back. He processes the data: Three agents down. Two are still twitching; the last is a corpse. A fourth agent is using a half-open door for cover, firing on the assailant at the end of the hall.
The assailant is a human-shaped tessellation; a kaleidoscope of sinew, blood, and bone that expands out like tree branches only to collapse back in with every step taken. They move like a 3-dimensional shadow, growing and shrinking at sharp angles while moving with impossible, unpredictable speed.
During that brief moment, Hardin saw their hand unfold into thousands of overlapping duplicates, each distorted by a very precise geometric function. Throbbing blood-vessels zig-zagged across several meters of space, reaching for the agent behind the door. The hand then clipped through the door.
He didn't see what happened after that. But judging by the lack of an additional gunshot? He can wager a guess.
Hardin pores over the available data. After some rapid-fire math, he draws up a working hypothesis and develops an experiment. It'll take about forty five seconds to test this safely, but if he's correct? He can put a stop to it.
Just as he's double and triple-checking his work, a data-point his core processor dismissed as irrelevant bubbles up to the surface: The agent behind the door had short, curly red hair.
Agent O'Hara.
Hardin takes the agent's gun and steps forward.
"What are you —"
"I have a theory."
Since that brief moment when Hardin looked down the hall, he has spent minutes performing a pain-staking analysis of the data. But as far as the agent is concerned, this researcher just glanced at a monster and suddenly decided to play cops-and-anomalies. That's probably why the agent's first reaction is to scream bloody murder while trying to pull Hardin back.
But Hardin planned for that, too. As soon as the agent lunges, he slams his elbow into the man's gut. He then pivots to the left and lifts the pistol.
Researcher Sebastian Hardin proceeds to empty the pistol's remaining rounds into the ceiling.

Imagine, if you will, the puzzling perspective of a 3-dimensional being looking into a 2-dimensional space.
It's a lot like looking at a painting. A flat world at your feet, full of flat people living their flat lives, oblivious to their flatness. For them, the universe is a labyrinth filled with impenetrable walls, obscured corners, and closed rooms. But to you?
Nothing is hidden and everything is seen. You're above, looking in. You can walk around every wall, see past every corner, and step into every room. You can even peer into the people's skulls — watching their flat little brains thinking their flat little thoughts. It's so easy to reach in with a few fingers and squish those flat thoughts apart.
Sometimes they might catch a glimpse of you. Sometimes they might even try to stop you. But they never get anywhere, because they never know what they're looking at. They only attack all the places you aren't. They never just look up.
In short, it's like watching an army of ants wage war against your shadow, utterly oblivious to the man above who casts it.
Now: imagine, if you will, how fucking terrified you'd be if one of those ants suddenly looked up from your shadow and started firing a gun into the sky.

The tessellated man vanishes. Hardin drops the gun. The agent stumbles back, grunting: "What —"
Hardin runs to Agent O'Hara and crouches next to her. A quick assessment tells him she'll likely live, though there is a possibility of minor brain damage.
"— the hell —"
He checks the other two and makes a similar prognosis. The seizures have stopped; they're breathing. Pupils are responsive to light. All good signs.
"— just happened?"
"I scared him off." Hardin stands, then checks the remaining agent just to confirm. Dead. "Not certain he'll stay away, but I think we're safe for now."
The klaxons suddenly change pitch, then shut off. The agent, still struggling to understand what just happened, looks relieved.
"That good?" Hardin asks.
The agent nods. "That means Gunny killed Oh-Seventy-Six."

Two days later, and Hardin still hasn't gotten that appointment.
O'Hara is in medical. She'll need some physical therapy, but her doctors are optimistic. The other two agents are also slated to make a full recovery. As for SCP-076 — the remote-operated CIW system designed to cut him down failed to operate. Investigators are thinking Insurgency sabotage.
There's no official word on what happened next, but — according to an apocryphal account — Sergeant Xiaoshan charged into the kill-box, tore the remote-operated hundred-plus-pound KPV 14.5mm heavy machine gun out of its mooring, then proceeded to 'engage' SCP-076 in 'close-range combat' with an anti-aircraft cannon. One source went so far as to claim she even screamed "smile, sheepfucker" while firing.
Probably nonsense. Hardin focuses on pretending to read a book while organizing his internal list of MP3 files, sitting alone in the cafeteria. He's so engrossed in this that it takes him a full minute to realize that someone has sat down across from him.
"Alright, chrome-dome. You saved a lot of my people. So, I'm giving you a one-time free pass." Xiaoshan's voice has a quiet harshness to it. It's the sort of voice that's low, but still manages to be heard even in a room full of chatter. "Let's have it."
Hardin stops, looks up from his book, and focuses his sensory array on Xiaoshan. She's staring right at him. "— ah. Oh. Hello, ma'am. Have it?"
"Your theory."
"My theory?" He's so thrown off by her sudden presence that, for a moment, he forgets the whole reason for being here. "My theory about wh — oh. Right, yeah. Oh-Seventy-Six."
"Get on with it."
"Well, uh, I was reviewing his psych profile, yeah? And I noticed something — nobody ever talks about what happens when he's inside his coffin."
Xiaoshan raises an eyebrow. Hardin continues:
"And that's the thing. I don't think anything happens when he's inside the coffin. He's effectively dead when he's in there, right? But that got me to thinking: How much time does he spend alive versus dead? So I did some rough calculations, and… he doesn't usually last long outside the coffin. In fact, Omega-7 constitutes the longest span of time he's ever been outside that coffin while in Foundation custody."
"Mmhm."
"From our perspective, we've had him for decades. But from his perspective? He's been with us for less than a month. And then that got me to thinking about something else: How old is he? Like, really?"
"Where you going with this?"
"To us, he seems ancient. Thousands of years old. But what if he's not? What if he's actually pretty young? His psych profile describes him as a 'perfect psychopath' — I won't get into the lack of professionalism with that term, but let's just say… there's another diagnosis here that I think fits much better: What if his behavior is a product of being a mentally underdeveloped adolescent?"
There is a long, palpable stretch of silence.
Then Xiaoshan starts giggling.
"Oh my god," she says. "Oh my fucking god. That's — okay. That's not bad, chrome-dome. That's actually pretty rich. I'm using that. I needed it, so thank you for that."
Hardin is confused. Of all the responses he prepared himself for, this was not among them. "Uh…"
"He's an angry little edgelord. That's what you're telling me — that he's an edgy teenage gamer, furious because nobody can beat him in a death-match. You're telling me that Oh-Fucking-Seventy-Six is a little boy who's mad about video-games."
Okay. He hadn't thought of that angle. "I guess, yeah. That's effectively what I'm saying."
"So, what's the punchline? How does that help us contain him?"
"Well, with your permission…" Hardin braces for impact. "— I've been sent to get your approval for psychotherapy sessions. Angled from the presumption that we're not dealing with an alien intellect so much as an emotionally stunted, undeveloped child."
Xiaoshan sinks back in her seat. The cushioning's plastic sleeve squeaks under her. "The Bixby — the one you scared away. How'd you pull that one off?"
"Well, I remembered studying 4-dimensional spaces when I was learning linear algebra, and I still had some of the matrices in my internal drive, so I —"
She rolls her eyes. "I'm not asking you to show your math, Hardin. I'm asking you how you knew it would work."
Hardin takes time to think about his answer before giving it:
"I didn't. I had a theory, I didn't have time to test it — so I took the shot."
She nods. "And it worked."
"Yeah."
"One day, it won't. You know that, right?" Xiaoshan gestures. "One day, you're gonna make a call like that, and it's gonna be wrong. And people are gonna be dead because you were wrong. I'm not trying to bust your balls or play Obi Kenobi to your Skywalker here, kid. I'm just trying to figure out whether or not you understand this. Because if you don't, you're useless to me. You gotta know it. You gotta know it in your bones."
Again, Hardin takes time to think about his answer. He nods.
"Yes. I am aware."
"Alright. I think this'll work, then."
"Wait. What? You're agreeing to the psychotherapy?" Hardin isn't even sure what he thinks about it himself. He's certain about his theory, but he's not so sure about what the people upstairs are trying to do with it.
"Fuck no. Tell your superiors to go fuck themselves. As far as I'm concerned, the only therapy Oh-Seventy-Six needs is a depleted uranium slug straight through his skull. Fuck your theory. But you?" She leans forward. "You, Hardin?"
"You, I'll keep."

Every newcomer has a theory about SCP-076, and every vet has one about Sergeant Xiaoshan. But Researcher Sebastian Hardin is the first to come up with a theory that covers both:
They're both batshit crazy.

Next: Project Hellhound


The text of this work was originally posted to my youtube channel as part of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lEeWjJU09Y
It is licensed Creative Commons 3.0 SA/BY.
The artwork was created by Rura and falls under the same license.

▸ More by this Author ◂

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Dr. Shaw held a pitch black shaving razor in one hand and pulled down on his skin with the other. He was looking down into his own reflection in the surface of what he could only assume was highly radioactive water.
He wasn't sure, of course, but the slightly warm fuzzy feeling was definitely stronger here than it was elsewhere. The face looking back at him had olive colored skin and prominent tattoos on the face and neck. Shaw's amulet hung around that neck, dangling just over the water.
It was impossible to know how long it had been since the end of the world. Until a goat ate the ruby necklace he hadn't remembered anything but the on-site fail-safe nuke going off. Once he had control of the goat he knew it was only a matter of time before the animal would die of hunger, so he made the trip back to Site-19 and laid down to wait for Able to come back.
Still, the fact that the world was still radioactive meant it couldn't have been that long right? The serious part of him was worried. SCP-2000 should've already activated.
He didn't have much time to think about that, though, because a giant creature came over a nearby hill. The dead earth kicked up into the air as soon as it noticed him. The creature stood on two legs, maybe 10 or 12 feet tall.
Its dark green skin was pocked with pustules, each of them slowly oozing some sort of white fluid. The creature's head look like a cross between an anteater and a shark, with a long snout filled with hundreds of rowed teeth. Dr. Shaw cracked his neck and materialized a grenade launcher out of the air. The creature raised its clawed arms into the air and roared.
Then, just as it came down on all fours to begin to run, SCP-682 came bounding over the hill as well and snapped its jaws around the green monster's neck. 682's mouth clamped down hard as the other creature began to thrash, but it couldn't find purchase on the ground as 682 arched its back and lifted it into the air. Suddenly an almost deafening crack sounded throughout the valley and the other monster fell limp. 682 let it fall to the ground and turned to face Dr. Shaw.
"Oh. I'm going to enjoy this." It said with whatever passed for a smile on the thing.
Dr. Shaw let the grenade launcher fall to the ground and it disappeared. He created a long black rope with a loop at the end and spun it over his head. 682 was almost upon him when he stepped to the side and let the loop fall around the creature's neck. Shaw pulled the rope tight and was flung into the air and onto SCP-682's back. It wasn't clean landing and he felt himself slipping backwards.
"I see you've learned more tricks. Able. It won't help you."
Shaw pulled hard on the rope and tried to keep himself from being dragged beneath the beast. "I'm not Able!"
SCP-682 stopped and sniffed. "Shaw." Then it began to buck against him.
"Wait, goddamn it. Wait!"
The creature didn't respond, flinging its back end into the air. Shaw was being buffeted now against the back of the creature. Over and over. And hard.
"I know how to bring the people back!"
The creature stopped and snorted. Then it let out a low chuckle. "You are stupider than I remember."
"How did you feel when everyone died while you were still in a box?"
SCP-682 gave another hard buck against Shaw. While he was in the air, Shaw pulled hard again on the rope and he moved up the beast to just behind its neck.
"I've always wondered about you. Do you want everyone to die or do you want to be the one to kill them?"
682 pulled one of its front legs up and scratched at the rope. "Both."
"Close enough. I saw you kill that thing just now. You did it because you could. But you want to kill me. Think about that feeling but with 7 billion possible victims."
There was a long pause. "What do you need from me?"
"I could use a ride."
Dr. Shaw let the rope disappear and grabbed one of the spines along 682's back to steady himself. Then the two of them set off for what was left of Yellowstone National Park.

« An Ending | Vs. Hub | The Melody Is Familiar »


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When Situations Degenerate
Content Warning: Suicide, body horror, torture, murder, terrorism.

⚠ content warning

Two old men stood before an old oak door. They had renewed the bindings, knots and spirals of blue woad and white chalk and black charcoal, as their families had for millennia. They had sacrificed a black lamb, cutting its throat with a golden sickle and letting its blood seep through the channels cut into the threshold. They had donned their battle armor: bespoke suits from Savile Row, the finest silk ties, gold watches and diamond cufflinks, handmade leather briefcases. And now each stood there, key in hand, ready to open the twinned locks that would allow them entry to an ancient evil's prison.
"Did you bring the mistletoe?" the first one asked. He was short and fat, almost obese, but his suit managed to hide most of it with its clever cut and pinstripes.
The second was tall and stick-thin, and completely bald; he held himself upright with a gold-topped cane. "Of course. Harvested it myself under the full moon last Thursday. Did you bring the brandy?"
"Picked it up from the cellar this morning. Nothing but the finest. This one was actually a present from De Gaulle, if my father's notes are correct."
"Wonderful. Shall we?"
"I believe we shall."
They stepped forward, and turned their keys. The door creaked open, revealing swirling mist; the men's eyes met, they nodded, and walked through.
A mass of flesh, two bloated bodies fused together, writhed upon silk sheets before a many-horned many-toothed altar while a city burned around it. Sex-smells, death-smells, fire-smells, a blend of foulness that overwhelmed the senses and choked the lungs. Four black eyes gazed up from the bed, four lips parted, and a two-part harmony choked out words in a language not spoken for millennia.
"By Gothog and by Carthac and by Moluch I command you! Come not in that form!" shouted the fat man, and everything changed.
A black-eyed god sat upon a throne of cold silver, a three-headed beast snarling on his right and a chained woman weeping on his left. Tormented souls were crushed beneath his feet, and the stone sky above was studded with the crystalline glow of false-stars. In a voice that filled the cavern and yet did not drown out the wails of the damned, he spoke the language of Homer and Hesiod, and drove the visitors to tears.
The thin man screamed, "I command you in the names of thundering Zeus and Poseidon earth-shaker, come not in that form!" and again, everything changed.
A dead man swung from an old fig tree, his black eyes bulging and his woolen robes stinking with the contents of his voided bowels. Below his feet, a handful of silver coins were scattered in the fouled dust, and far in the distance three men suffered on a hill, their moans carrying further than they should across the desert. He grinned a corpse-grin, and bile spilled from his lips as he spoke the language of the Visions of Hozai, the Book of Daniel, and the Seventeen Remedies for Death.
"In the name of Yeshua ben Yusuf, I command you! In his father's seventy-two sacred names, I command you! Come in a more pleasing form!" The fat man was growing hoarse, but his words were heard, and once more everything changed.
Raw data screamed past at the speed of light. No sights, no sounds, no smells, just numbers and more numbers, raw profit, stocks and currencies changing hands faster than the human mind could follow; and at the center of it all squatted a thing, an algorithmic monster, the sum of all the insider deals and picosecond advantages. And although they could not see it, they knew it watched them; and they knew its eyes were black.
"One final time I command you!" the thin man said, though he could not hear himself. "By the compacts signed by our ancestors! By the spirits and spells which keep you bound! By Medici and Morgan, by Rothschild and Rockefeller, by Croesus and Crassus and Koch, I command you! Appear to us in mortal form!" And, for the last time, everything changed.
Their senses returned, the two men found themselves kneeling on a thick Persian rug. They stood, and took in the familiar sight of a luxurious office, all dark wood and leather; a deep mahogany desk squatted in the center, a monogrammatic "D" carved into the front and accented in gold leaf. Behind it sat the man they had come there to see. Average height, average build, and forty years younger than the others; his suit was black, his tie was black, his hair was black, and his eyes, of course, were black.
Before either of his visitors had fully recovered, the man in black spoke. "Ah! Bertie and Amos! What a pleasant surprise. Please, have a seat. I'm sure you have much to ask of me."
The fat man got his bearings first. "Percy, as usual, it is a delight to see you, but there is some housekeeping to be done before we have our chat. Rupert?"
"Yes, Amos? Oh. Right. Where did I put them? Ah, here we go." The thin one pulled a bundle of mistletoe from an inside pocket, and gave half to his counterpart. They circled the room, removing nearly-dead mistletoe sprigs from various vases and urns and replacing them with fresh ones, saying a quick prayer in the sacred tongue of the Druids each time. The man at the desk watched in silence, a faint smile on his lips. When they had finished, they returned to the middle of the room, and pulled up a pair of elegant leather armchairs.
"Now," the fat man said, retrieving a bottle of cognac and three glasses from his briefcase, "shall we drink?" A generous pour went into each glass, and the men raised a toast.
"Buy cheap," said Marshall.
"Sell dear," said Carter.
"And don't give me that do goody-good bullshit," said Dark.
They sat quietly for a few moments, enjoying the brandy and each other's company. Dark broke the silence first. "So, what can I do for you gentlemen? Is this just the yearly ward-renewal, or do you need advice?"
"Well," Carter said, "there's the usual stock predictions and investment advice. What to look out for over the coming year, which hot stocks to avoid, what companies to acquire."
Dark nodded. "The Algorithm placed that information into your handhelds. Much easier than having me write it all down for you, don't you think?"
Carter pulled out his phone and swiped through a few screens. "Oh, how convenient. Distressing, of course, given what else I have stored on this thing, but I suppose you can't really blackmail me, can you?" He smiled nervously as he put his phone away. "That's all from me. Amos?"
Marshall shook his head. "Nothing from me. It has been lovely seeing you as always, Percy. Same time next year?" He forced a chuckle, and Carter followed suit. They stood, collected their briefcases, and moved to leave.
Dark stared at the other men over his intertwined fingers as they stepped toward the door. "One more thing, gentlemen?" They paused, and turned around. "You aren't getting any younger. Have you selected your replacements?"
There was a long pause. Dark did not break eye contact.
Carter caved first. "Well, yes, of course, I have, that's no problem."
Marshall jumped on the end of his sentence. "And, yes, I have as well, it's just…"
"It's just what?" Dark raised a single eyebrow. "Is there some issue?"
"No, no issue," Marshall said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. "I've picked Chrysophilus Marshall, my grand-nephew. Lives in London. Goes by 'Skitter', lord knows why."
"And I've chosen Alphonse Cartier, from the French branch of the family, as much as it pains me. My brother's spawn are all otherwise occupied, and my sister married a woman, so no luck there."
Dark nodded. "Wonderful. And my replacement?"
Both men spoke at once. "Well-" "You see-" A short silence. "No, you should-" "Please, I insi-" Another silence. Again, Carter caved first.
"There's nobody," he said. "All the Dark lines have gone extinct."
All the lights in the office went out, except a single lamp on Dark's desk. "Excuse me?"
"There was nothing we could do, Percy! Most of them were gone before you were made Dark!"
The lamp's glow no longer reached the walls of the room. Dark's eyes were pools of blackness, and his hair and suit were barely distinguishable from the shadows behind him. "And what of the others?"
Marshall pulled a small notebook from his breast pocket. "Aaron Czarnacki finally hunted down the last of the Schwarz line, in revenge for their actions during the Second World War; Czarnacki met his own end at the hands of the Coalition, a year later. The Negrescus were purged by Ceausescu. Duncan MacDuff shot himself after strangling his wife and sons. The last of the Kurokawas was killed by Aum Shinrikyo's sarin attacks—an unhappy accident, we believe. The Lenoirs' mansion sunk into the bayou with the whole family inside. We were planning on choosing one of the brothers who ran our Hong Kong operations, Yin and Jianhong Li, but they were assassinated last June. Simultaneous car bombs. Still haven't tracked down the perpetrators." He snapped the notebook shut, and met Dark's gaze. "Your influence does not lend itself to longevity, Mr. Dark. Poor Percy was perhaps six months from suicide when you took his face."
With that, Dark dropped its mask. The last light went out, the office disappeared, and Marshall and Carter saw the chamber behind the door as it really was, for the first time since they sacrificed Percival Black to his family's demon. They were inside an ancient barrow-mound, cyclopean slabs holding back the soil, carved with the intricate knots and runic script that kept Dark contained. The niches in the walls held dozens of corpses, sacrifices made over the two millennia since he was moved to Londinium from a tomb older still, on the banks of the Tiber; the freshest, of course, was Percy's, and it was that body that sat before them, in a golden throne behind a black granite altar.
They had removed his eyes and tongue first. Then his heart and lungs, his liver and his kidneys, his testicles and his brain. The organs lay in bowls on the altar; the heart still beat, the lungs still breathed, and the brain was still painfully aware of everything that happened to its mutilated body. Holes gaped where they had taken out the organs, and in the other places that the ritual demanded they slice him open. And in those holes was Dark. It was a serpent, coiled over and around and through itself, each scale a different shade of shadow; it was a cloud of thick, black smoke, streaming constantly through Percy's wounds as though a coal fire had been lit in his stomach; it was a swarm of spiders, weaving black silk webs around the body's limbs and laying eggs in its flesh. It took these forms and more, the shapes blending into each other, collapsing and reforming, some seen only in the mind's eye, others only seen in memory; but regardless of its shape, those same black eyes stared from Percival's empty sockets, utterly without pity.
In a voice like a slave-driver's whip, it spoke. "Your insolence is not charming, Mr. Marshall. Need I remind you of the geasa you swore? They are carved into Percival's flesh, just here, if you would like to refresh your memory."
Marshall fell to one knee. "No, Mr. Dark. I remember my oaths. But-"
"But you have lost track of my children, Mr. Marshall, and let too many of them come to harm."
Carter knelt beside Marshall, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground. "Mr. Dark, there is nobody left. We cannot find a replacement. Your bloodline is no more."
The corpse's ruined mouth turned upward in a smile. "There is one, Mr. Carter. Percival was a busy beaver at university, and did not always scatter his seed on barren soil. He did not know he had a son; his son did not know his father. His son, unfortunately, has passed; but he had a daughter, and it is this daughter who will be made Dark."
Marshall looked up, confused, and met Dark's gaze. "But the compact specifies-"
The voice was the deathrattle of a sweatshop suicide. "Do not tell me what the compact specifies! The terms of the original bargain will still be followed, this I swear to you. Find the girl. Bring her to me. And your replacements will make her Dark." It paused, for just long enough that Marshall's sweat began to drip from his forehead to the floor. "You may go."
Marshall and Carter fled the room, almost forgetting their briefcases in their haste. Once outside, they threw their whole weight against the doors, slamming them shut, and locked them tight. Then they collapsed, their old lungs gasping for breath.
"Fuck me," Carter wheezed, "we forgot to ask him her name."
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