by qntm

If Adam Wheeler gave it some thought, or if someone were to prompt him with the right questions, he could put words around the fact that his existence doesn't bring him any satisfaction. He would discover, on introspection, that he's nowhere close, actually, to "happy", and that there is something vast and significant missing from his life. But he doesn't give it any thought. There's a void between him and those questions. Objectively, academically, his life is great. As a professional violinist, he does what he loves the most for a living. He has talent, recognition, challenge, variety, applause, a moderate wealth. What is there to question? Why shouldn't he love it?
During slower moments, there's a grey worry in the back of his mind. It's there in the minutes right after he wakes up in the morning, before he makes it to the shower; it's there in the dead times backstage when he can't use his phone and there's nothing to do but wait to go on. It perturbs him, from time to time, that he seems to exist in a kind of long shadow, cast by a vast class of thoughts which he is unable to think. But the rest of the time, on a day to day basis, his calendar is as busy as he and his manager can make it. He performs, solo and in orchestras, he records, he composes and teaches. Every week is a different challenge. He keeps busy, and the feeling goes away if he's busy.
On the morning of the day that వ arrives, while he is brushing his teeth, a tiny black slug falls out of the corner of his eye into the hotel sink.
"Mpfghl?"
He scratches that eye, while drooling foam from his toothbrush. He takes a close look at himself in the mirror. Yup: there's another, fatter one growing in there, its tail protruding from his tear duct.
"I can do without this," he mutters to himself. He spits, rinses, and then takes a pair of tweezers out of his wash kit. Carefully, he nips the tiny, waving end of the slug, and tugs it out. It's no more painful than extracting a nostril hair. He drops it in the sink with its friend and washes them both away, along with the froth of toothpaste.
He stares at the plug hole for a long moment. It's like he's forgetting something. He can't bring it to mind. He shakes his head, and goes to get dressed.

*

Wheeler has been on tour with the New England Symphony Orchestra for nearly a month. They're at their final venue, and it's their final night, and Wheeler has mixed feelings. Touring, for him, is an opportunity to explore a kind of liminal lifestyle, where he can suspend a lot of worldly concerns and just exist as a being who wakes, travels, performs and sleeps. But as novel as the experience is on paper, four weeks of it is gruelling. By this stage in the tour, even the most naturally cheerful members of the orchestra have begun to show frayed nerves, and the programme has become stale and repetitious. It's long past time for something else.
Last night, his manager left messages about plans for upcoming weeks. It's probably time he paid attention to those.
Morning rehearsal starts at eleven. Wheeler takes a taxi from the hotel to the venue, bringing his tuxedo and his violin with him. His violin is an heirloom, more than a hundred years old, and while he's touring it never leaves his sight. (His tuxedo is just a tuxedo.) The concert hall is as close to the centre of the city as it gets, at the heart of a rat's nest of busy roads, which means the taxi journey is a slog, even setting out after rush hour.
At the stage door, the place is in chaos, but it's only the typical pre-show chaos which Wheeler has spent much of his professional life navigating. He finishes a quick cigarette outside before joining the bustling flow of technicians, performers and administrative staff. He finds his way to his dressing room, changes, unpacks his violin and tunes it. He flicks through tonight's music, more out of boredom than a need to refresh his memory. He has the whole programme memorised.
With some minutes to kill, he checks the headlines on his phone. Yet again, something dreadful and new which he doesn't understand is going viral. Today's fad is, you paint a black vertical rectangle on the wall, or on a mirror, or over the top of a picture. And then you chant something. Wheeler can't quite pick out the words of the chant. They're in a language he's not familiar with. He's no singer, but he's performed pieces with lyrics in Latin, German, Greek, French… whereas this language has a bizarre manufactured sense to it, as if it were simply English with the vowels and consonants all switched around.

Rehearsal goes reasonably. Wheeler long ago swore that he would never coast through a performance, and he plays decently well. But it seems to him as if a lot of the orchestra is distracted. Some cues get missed. He makes meaningful eye contact with the conductor a couple of times, and they share a frustrated look. When they break for dinner, late in the afternoon, the conductor, whose name is Luján, privately remarks to him, "Their eyes need fixing."
Wheeler doesn't wholly follow. He rubs his own eye with a finger, reflexively. The memory of the morning tries to punch through, but fails. "You mean, laser surgery?"
Luján responds with a few incomprehensible syllables and stalks away.

*

The auditorium opens and the seats fill. As ever, there's a brief, grey dead time while Wheeler waits for all the machinery of the performance to spin up. The anxious feeling is stronger than usual today. It grips him, an uncharacteristic urge to run away. Sure, he thinks. I could just junk my career, right now. Pack it in and make for the stage door. Maybe the taxi'll still be there.
But he pushes through it. It's just a juvenile fantasy. It's been far too long a tour. One more show and it's over.
And finally it's time, and he's out there, under the spot, in his element. The first piece of the night is Shostakovich. Its first movement is a sedate, haunting, almost melodramatic nocturne, but before too long the concerto changes gear and becomes energetic, discordant, feral. It's lengthy, too, a real work-out, and much of it is brutally difficult to execute. He's on form tonight. Close to flawless, and his audience — which he cannot see or hear — seems rapt.
Four-fifths of the way through the piece, a kind of spell breaks. Something changes in the atmosphere of the auditorium. The temperature in the huge room seems to rise by several degrees. More concerningly and noticeably, the music behind Wheeler begins to trail off. The conductor stops too.
Perplexed, Wheeler continues to play for a moment or two, keeping to his own internal time. But after another moment it becomes clear that something is wrong, something which everybody can see but him. He steals a glance up from his instrument, and finds that Luján is staring at him. In fact, every musician in the orchestra is staring at him, all of them wearing the same expression of stony, barely-contained ang—
They've been replaced.
The orchestra is gone. All seventy of them. The things which have replaced them are not human but alien, ill-proportioned pillars of pinkish-brownish flesh. Each has, at its top, a heavy protuberance studded with goopy biological sensors and rubbery openings, and, sprouting from the very cap, lengths of various kinds of vile, off-coloured moss. They are draped in black and white fabrics, weirdly cut to either conceal or highlight their blobby, inconsistent body structures.
Wheeler reels with fright. He almost falls off the front of the stage. His stomach convulses and he wants to vomit, but a frantic fragment of his brain hasn't panicked yet and tells him, Wait. Nothing's changed. That's what humans have always looked like. Right? What's happening? What's wrong?
He glances, petrified, out into the darkness of the audience. The silent energy radiating off them has changed. They've been replaced too, he knows. And they know he hasn't. That's what's wrong.
Clutching his violin to his chest, Wheeler stumbles across the stage, past the conductor, towards the wing. As he does, the musicians rise slowly from their seats, letting their own musical instruments drop to one side or the other. Wheeler trips over a cellist's music stand, recovers. The conductor is following him, with the other musicians close behind.
Wheeler reaches the wing. There's a pair of stage hands there, waiting for him. They have the same placid, angry expressions as everybody else, and the same set jaws. Wheeler stops and turns back. His heart feels like it's going to take off.
Luján, or, rather, the biped which used to be Luján, walks right up to him. He is a little shorter than Wheeler, but much heavier-set. Rooted to the spot, not thinking clearly, Wheeler holds his violin up, as if this will shield him. The conductor takes the instrument from his unresisting hands and breaks its neck underfoot, perfunctorily, as if crushing a box for recycling.
Wheeler backs off, hands raised. He bumps into the disapproving stage hands, who gently and wordlessly try to take hold of his arms. He shakes them off and is just about able to twist past them. He dives into the warren of corridors backstage. And then he runs like hell.

*

Four floors up, in some remote, poorly-lit corridor which hasn't seen regular use in years, he finds a bathroom. He goes in and throws up. This makes him feel a lot better. He washes his mouth out and then lights a cigarette, quickly filling the tiny space with a haze of smoke. That helps too.
The adrenaline has run out and his knees are still wobbling from climbing too many stairs. But it doesn't sound like anybody is closely pursuing him. So, in this safe moment, he asks himself a serious question: Did I just have a panic attack?
He doesn't know what a panic attack feels like. Having put so much distance between himself and the stage, what happened there feels like a crazed dream, a paranoid hallucination.
But… No. Luján broke his violin. That part definitely happened; he remembers it with distressing clarity. His relationship with Luján has never been much more than tepidly professional, but the man was a professional. To vandalise a precious instrument like that would be unthinkable for him, or anybody in the orchestra. There is something wrong.
With everybody.
Except him.
He flicks his cigarette butt into the toilet. He grips the sink, and looks at his reflection, and as his eyes slowly force their way back into focus, he realises, with some alarm, that what he is looking at is not his reflection. The mirror above the sink has been sloppily painted over with a tall, black, dripping rectangle. It's giving off heat; staring at it is like staring into an open oven. And he can hear a dull, grumbling, mechanical kind of noise coming from behind it. Like distant, muffled woodchippers.
He exits the bathroom and slams the door and leans against the far wall, watching the door, as if something could very well open it and come after him.
There was another one, he suddenly recalls. Another painted block, this one on the wall in his dressing room, right behind his chair, facing the back of his head. He should have seen it in the mirror whenever he was sitting there, but he didn't. And not only that, there was one in his hotel room. It was painted over the picture hanging over his bed. Did the hotel staff paint it? When, why? Why is he only remembering this now?
The viral video isn't new. Why did he think it was new? It's been circulating for months. For as long as he can remember. Forever. And— in every venue where he's been on tour, in every city, on windows and billboards, and in small rooms and liminal spaces, people have been painting these— doors—
There's a second half to each video. He remembers now. He watched it passively, over and over, and never saw it. Something comes through. It's been leaching into the background of the world this whole time, in plain sight, and he never saw it, and it's here now—
He's having a psychotic break.
No. That's not what's happening.
Something is trying to interfere with the way he thinks. The block symbol is jammed into his mind. He can't dislodge it. He can't think about anything else.
He looks back along the narrow corridor down which he just came. The darkness at the far end of it is yet another dark, vertical rectangle. He hears the footsteps of a multitude of people coming from that direction. Not running. Just walking briskly enough to harry him.
He needs to get out of the building. Get help.
The stage door.

*

He takes a confused zigzag route back down to street level. There's nobody in his way, and the stage door itself is unattended. He cracks it open.
Night has fallen since the performance began. There's a minor road right outside, behind the concert hall building, a yellow-lit cul-de-sac with a loading bay and some unattended trucks. There's a major road adjoining the minor road, rammed with stationary traffic. Some of the vehicles are, indeed, taxis, but all of them are unoccupied, and most have their doors left open. There are colossally tall darkened figures stalking down the streets, so dark and slender that Wheeler actually fails to notice them. There is screaming, a grotesque, awful screaming coming from many human mouths, coming from somewhere down the main road. But that's the only way he can go.
It's everywhere, says his last sane splinter. Not just the concert hall. It's everyone.
As he creeps towards the main road, someone, another occupied former human, pokes their head around the corner, then calls to others in the strange language, pointing him out. Wheeler stops in his tracks. In another moment, ten or eleven non-people are advancing on him from the road. Two of them are carrying something with them, a limp, badly broken human— a normal human, Wheeler realises with some shock, like him. The victim's heavy winter coat is torn open and his inner clothes are saturated scarlet. When the non-people carrying him catch sight of Wheeler, they toss the man violently aside, into the street, where he lands in a pile against a car wheel. He grunts with pain as he lands, face down, and once he comes to rest he takes a deep breath and lets out an inhuman, traumatised cry. But he doesn't try to move again. The non-people ignore him.
Behind him, Wheeler hears the stage door swing open again. He doesn't dare glance back.
This can't happen, says that last splinter. This is possible, yes, real things exist which can do this to the world. But it doesn't happen. There's someone whose job it is to protect us from this. We're supposed to be protected.
Someone stops it from happening. Someone steps in. At the last minute.
But the last minute was a year ago. And she died.
Marion.
Oh, God.
"Help," he says, to nobody.
A feeling of weightlessness rises up in his stomach. Gravity seems to upend and pitch him forward into the waiting arms of the non-people. They restrain him. They spend some time debating what to correct first, his eyes or his fingers. Right up until it starts, he's thinking, hoping: Maybe it won't be as bad as all that.

Next: Ará Orún


Previously on Stupid Cupid:

A knock on the door. “You got time for one more signature?” It's Dr. North.

Laughter bursts through the door and into Dr. Cimmerian's office. A winged cherub with a bow and a smile of a thousand commercial toddlers zips about chased by PTF Kappa-143.

Cimmerian had been shot in the shoulder; North in the back. Both are painfully aware of what's about to occur. The Cupid's arrows dissolve into pink light.

"North, let me make this clear: at this moment we are supernaturally attracted to each other. Containment Procedures for people shot by that damn cherub are to let things play out. One day of making a complete fool of yourself in front of another fool. The best case scenario is that it's only moderately embarrassing."

Cimmerian picks up a flower from the floor. Daisies. It'll do, Cimmerian supposes. He places the flower into Dr. North's coat and covers it up.
"Let's just hope no one else gets wind of this."
“Agreed.”

Site-88 Rooftop - 7:40 PM:
"… that's bullshit. Right?"
Cimmerian laughs while North attempts to figure out if any of the stories are real.
"All true stories! My turn, North." Cimmerian sips his coffee. "Why do you wear 3-D glasses?"
"I got my reasons."
"Ah, brooding of course. It's a shame though, your eyes have lovely dimensions."
"God damn it, Cimmerian!" North feels his face redden behind his red and blue specs. "My turn! Since you won't tell me how you really got your scars…"
North thinks for a moment. "Do you think we could last?"
North and Cimmerian sit by the railing on the site rooftop. Minutes earlier, they'd gotten drinks. Minutes before that, they'd agreed to go on a date. And minutes before that, they were both hit by an arrow-wielding mind-altering love baby.
"Probably not." Cimmerian puts down his drink. "A relationship built off an emotion affecting anomaly doesn't exactly sound like a healthy foundation."
"But would you still try it?"
"I'd have to get over those ridiculous glasses, but we'll see."
North nurses his beer and contemplates this.
"Hey Cimmerian, maybe we should-
"KISS!"
… Excuse me?
"KISS ALREADY!" a scratchy voice yelled.
That wasn't Cimmerian. The daisy in North's coat had just spoken.
"Ah! Christ!" North grabs the little weed off his pocket and throws it across the rooftop.
The daisy bounces harmlessly on the concrete.
Unperturbed, the plant yells, "YOU'RE MY OTP! WHEN ARE YOU GONNA KISS? I JUST WANNA WATCH!"
North stares at the flower in disbelief. Cimmerian was already talking into his communicator.
"Calling any available units. There is a sentient plant anomaly on the roof. Send a containment team im-
The communicator shatters in Cimmerian's hands. A long green tendril reaches back to the daisy.
"NO DISTRACTIONS!" The flower stands up and brandishes several sharp leafy whips.
"START OVER OR ELSE."
North and Cimmerian look at each other. His back turned to the daisy, North mouths some words to Cimmerian.
Have you got a gun?
Cimmerian winks. Of course. You?
North sighs. Nope. Alright, he'll be the bait. What a time to not have a gun.
Break on three? Yeah.
One. Two. Three.
North and Cimmerian bolt to either side of the daisy.
"NO!!!" the daisy sends its vines into a deadly whirlwind.
North runs and ducks through vines. Cimmerian dashes and aims his pistol.
North jumps away from a vine, but a second vine heads his way before he can land.
The vine explodes as Cimmerian lands a shot along its length. North lands safely. The daisy yells in pain.
"THAT WAS MY FAVORITE VINE! DON'T MAKE ME TAKE THIS FIC FROM FLUFF TO SMUT YOU FLIRTY SLASH PAIR. I SWEAR I'M GONNA MAKE YOU-
A rifle bullet runs right through the daisy's stem. North looks at Cimmerian. Cimmerian shakes his head. That wasn't me.
The daisy and vines fall limp on the concrete. At the rooftop entrance, MTF Sigma-23 "Mulchers" is on the scene. North and Cimmerian relax. The destruction of an anomaly isn't the best outcome but at least the Ethics Committee Liaison and the Assistant Director of Espionage and Logistics are-

Ring ring. Ring ring. Click.
<Indistinct phone chattering.>
<Phone chattering continues.>
<Robot voice synthesizer.>
<Agreeable phone chattering.>
Click.

The destruction of an anomaly isn't the best outcome but at least the Ethics Committee Liaison and the totally mundane junior researcher he was with are safe.
The Mulchers move to secure the perimeter. North downs the rest of his beer. Cimmerian goes to pick up his coffee but he sees the daisy's remains glow bright green. Oh no.
"YOU…"
Cimmerian shouts, "Look out!"
The glowing green pile erupts into a flurry of vines that pick up every single MTF member.
"YOU THOUGHT WE WERE DONE? YOU'RE DONE WHEN I SAY YOU'RE DONE."
The vines consider the MTF members. "I WAS THINKING OF MULCHING THE MULCHERS BUT WE'RE DUE FOR SOME DISNEY RATED VIOLENCE." The vines launch every single MTF member off the roof. They all land miraculously unharmed in trees.
"NOW THAT WE'RE ALONE. IT'S TIME FOR A LITTLE ONE-WINGED ANGEL ACTION."
North and Cimmerian hide behind the rooftop entrance port. The storm of mad vines coalesce. They twine upon each other and build up an enormous sinuous womanly mass. The vines' chosen form is verdant and voluptuous. A mane of green vines erupts from what appears to be its head. Bangs of vines fall onto its face hiding all but bright yellow lips and a single yellow eye that smile greedily. At the center of its chest, a large white and yellow daisy beats steadily.
The giant green woman moans, "AH! THAT'S BETTER!" she calls to them, "OH, BOYS WHERE ARE YOU?"
North asks, "What do we do Cimm? She's freaking crazy!"
Cimmerian thinks, then his eyes light up. "I've got it! The references to fanfiction, that level of disconnection from reality and logic, the constant fourth wall breaking! It can only mean she's a meta-narrative entity. Judging by her desire to see us kiss, her power must stem from our romantic narrative."
North frowns. "… what? Seriously!?"
Cimmerian laughs, "Yes! Don't you see, we just have to-
"THERE YOU ARE!" A long green tendril picks up Dr. Cimmerian.
"Cimmerian!" shouts North as Cimmerian dangles in the air.
"YES! YELL FOR HIM! YOUR CUTESY ROMANTIC TENSION IS DELICIOUS."
"Put him down!" yells North.
"OKAY."
The green woman swings her vines and throws Cimmerian straight at North. North can't dodge or else Cimmerian breaks something. North hopes his own body is a soft enough landing cushion.
North holds out his hands.
Three. Two. One. Impact.
North and Cimmerian roll across the rooftop. North feels his foot twist not how it's supposed to. A sharp pain shoots right through it. The pair roll to a stop.
"NOW THAT'S WHAT YOU CALL FALLING FOR SOMEONE."
"Jesus Fucking Jesus Christ! Twisted my god damn ankle!" North grabs his foot in pain.
Cimmerian shakes away his daze at being thrown. He rights himself up and leans down towards North.
"Alright, that's enough." Cimmerian cups North's agonized face. "North, look at me. We gotta finish this or we're not gonna make it out of here."
North nods through his twisted ankle.
Cimmerian yells at the green woman, "Hey! We'll give you what you want!"
"FINALLY!" The giant green woman leans over the two of them.
"GO ON!"
Cimmerian brings his face close to North. North looks at Cimmerian through the searing pain in his ankle.
"KISS! KISS! KISS!" the green woman cheers. Her daisy heart beats faster in excitement.
Cimmerian whispers to North, "We'll have to slow down on the next date. Things are moving so fast, I'm getting daisy."
North groans and winces. "Your puns make having a twisted ankle not so painful. But next date, eh? You over my glasses already?"
"Not yet, but lens not lose sight of the big picture."
"Just kiss me already, Cimmerian."
Cimmerian and North kiss. The enormous green daisy woman grins in glee. Cimmerian and North feel their lips touch. It is a short sweet kiss. One reflective of their day together, their unknown crazy future together. It's just them, but together. Cimmerian and North retreat their lips. North pats Cimmerian's face. They smile. They laugh. They lock hands.
In Cimmerian's gloved hand, his pistol suddenly glows an unnatural pink. North gives Cimmerian a raised eyebrow. Cimmerian nods. Together they aim and shoot the pink gun right at the giant green woman's daisy heart.
The bullet turns into a bright pink thread. It winds around the green woman's body over and over. The binding thread glows brighter as it restrains her.
"AH, CATHARTIC LOVE MAGIC! HOW MUCH BETTER CAN THIS GET? THIS IS THE PERFECT WAY TO GO! CIMMNORTH FOREVER!"
The pink light intensifies.
"SEE YOU SOON BOYS!"
The light flashes.
When the light settles, Cimmerian and North see the daisy woman's gigantic form is dried, brown, withered, and lifeless. They both sigh in relief.
Cimmerian sees a rifle dropped by one of the MTF members. He grabs it, rips his pant leg, and splints North's twisted ankle up.
"Let's go get you some ice."
"Yeah, that sounds good."
Cimmerian helps North up and together they hobble to the infirmary.
Cimmerian looks back at the results of the chaos. "This will be a whole lot of clean up. I hope the Mulchers got out of those trees."
North remembers something and chuckles. "Hey, Cimmerian."
"What?"
"It's your turn."
Cimmerian laughs. "Oh right! Let's see."
Cimmerian thinks. "Have you… dated a guy before?"
North winces but not from his ankle. "At this point, hell if I know."
They both laugh.
"My turn."

The wind blows.
The husk of the daisy woman withers in the air. A large dry pod at the center of its chest pulls into itself and shrivels up. The pod disperses several hundred odd seeds onto the rooftop.
Each seed is shaped like a little baby with wings.
The sound of laughter echoes through the trees.


You had nothing more to lose.
(Not that you had ever necessarily had that much to lose in the first place - a mother, with long dark hair and kind eyes, who told you stories about far-off lands and far-distant times and about clever girls and wise men who had tricked or fled from the masters and mistresses. A sister, the pewter in whose hair shone brighter than the stars and who hummed all the time, as she cooked and wove and even as she died of fever five years ago now. A brother, young enough that you remember his birth, remember your small hand placed on his tiny damp skull like you could keep him as he grew. Your clothing. Your boots. Your knife. There was nothing more you were permitted, and nothing more you could earn, and yet even this you had managed to have torn away from you, when -)
This does not seem like it should be enough justification. You have heard how the priests speak in their devotions, and you have heard the words your mistresses and masters say when they make offerings at the household shrines and to the household idols, and there is great honour within them. They call upon gods whose might is unquestioned, who reign on realms above those of you mortals, special, divine, and untouchable.
(Not that you ever really believed in the gods, either.)
If you had asked your mistress why she left her sacrifices to the Mother, if you had asked the priest why he gave the blood and grain daily to Tívash Iron-Crowned, what made it worth it, they would have said “she is glorious.” They would have said “he is mighty and free with favour, and bestows upon me and my family blessing and honour in return for this devotion”.
They would not have said “What had I to lose?”

But how could you ever have expected? The day must be a day unlooked for, not least because every day is.
But you are so tired. And who unto you will ever call "get up"?
You hadn't believed it, at first. Not when you had first woken in the darkness, face pressed against the clammy stone, and wondering what you had heard, if you had heard, or if it had just been a dream, because no-one was going to call for you, traitor, murderess, no-one would try to hold you back from the axe.
You had not believed it when he called you up again, somehow convincing your bruised body to rise and stumble to face him through the bars of the cell door. And scarcely when he spoke, either - it sounded like what you remembered of your family, that had remained through the long years since you were sold away. You came close to rejecting him just for that, for turning away and curling up again and closing your eyes against this trick, if not for -
You had not believed it seeing the metal broken on the ground, torn ends glittering in the one sputtering torchlight. Because you had known that was not possible, that nobody could break iron with their bare hands, and so it could not have happened. Soon, the dream would, must shiver apart and prove it all untrue.
But, because you had nothing more to lose, when he said “Follow me” and turned to leave, you had gone. Had scarcely even hesitated before running out barefoot after him, through the twists and turns of the cell-lined corridors that honeycombed all the space beneath the city wall, the stone bruising your feet to the bone but you hadn't cared about that, just desperate to keep up with his retreating shadow as it led you through waves of torchlight and blackness, past guards and through gates, until your lungs were burning and you had turned a corner to see -
And you had still not believed it at the door, with the black-blue sky and the soft dust-animal scent of the steppe drifting in. Sky. Quiet. You could run out there, you had thought, if - and he was there against it as a silhouette, and laid a warm hand on the back of your neck.
Something had clicked, just under your ear. And your collar had split into its three pieces, and slid.
The bronze fell onto the floor, ringing like coins into a coffer.

Your ribs hurt, from that floor. And keep hurting, for two days longer, until the bruises heal. That's the thing, though, that nobody ever seems to get right. It's not - there are no doorways to duck through, no lines in the sand to cross and suddenly you will be made right, suddenly everything is perfect and there is no crying and the sun shines every day except when the crops need water. Before and after are both inexact, messy, full of endless spiralling lines that no-one could ever fully trace.
You don't come out of that door into a new world. Not yet, anyway. After all, isn't making it the battlecry?
You had not believed it. Not until you woke up, the next day, in a shelter woven of living branches and shining web-veined membrane, and it was still real.

At first, you wonder whether you could return home. Whether if you lifted the bar on that worn door, peered into that single firelit room, they would receive you. Could it all be like it was before, warmth and tales and the memory of laughter? (How long has it been since you've last laughed?)
Or would it be locked and barred and shuttered, no mother willing to take back a daughter who would poison her entire home in the eyes of the mistresses and masters, who could never be trusted again? To them, you would just be dead, wouldn't you?
There is nothing special about the the first time you realize just what he is. Nothing but that you have been loitering vaguely about the camp for days, waiting for someone to come and give you an order, prove that you ought to be there and are not thieving the food that is offered you, the spaces the other women open for you around the fires.
So you are almost grateful, when the lord asks you to fetch one of his councillors from her shelter (he walks the camp among them, lets them clap his shoulders and laugh with him, and yet they call him lord. Another thing you do not understand, another way you do not fit).
You genuflect. “Yes, ma-”
A hand clamps around your wrist, wrenches you back up to your feet. “You do not call me that.” Your breath reacts before you do, sticks within your throat. Bone creaks - faintly, you wonder if he's going to break your arm, and what you'll do if he does. Is there anyone in his band who would help you set it?
“And you do not bow,” he snarls. The ground before you should be crackling and dissolving in the venom that falls from those words. Why does it not?
“That is not what I am,” he says more gently, grip loosening. You feel the blood flood back into your flesh, your hands start to shake, will he not kill you, will he not cast you away, for you have disappointed him, haven't you?
Your lord brusquely drops your hand and turns away with a sharp breath, and - leaves. Just leaves. With you remaining staring after, not dead, not injured, not anything, but -
The five crescent moons, red as skinned salmon, where his nails bit into your skin linger, the rest of the day.

A memory: one of the boys of the house is sitting on the step, clutching his hand to his chest and, you can see, struggling not to cry. And when you bend down and ask "what's wrong?" he shows you two fingers almost black with bruises, and bent wrongly.
There is relatively little you can do - bind them to the ones beside with linen, and hand him your last slip of willow bark - and you don't bother to ask how that was earned.
The first time he calls you ‘sare, it steals your breath away. ‘Sare, sasare, little sister - you had said that before, to the new children of the household when they came to you weeping for loneliness, for loss of kith and kin, when you pressed rags soaked in cold water to the boys' weals and helped the girls clean away the blood, when you replaited their hair in the dull light from the kitchen-hearth burned down to almost nothing. Yes, yes, little sister, you would whisper, sitting on those warm stones and letting them weep into your shoulder, rocking like that would help, like you could do anything to protect anybody from their cruelty.
(You think of your sister-by-water, burning away inside her own skin. You think of your brother, last seen as they pulled you up from the dark building behind the market square to stand upon the block and be cried, who by now has been probably broken down under the burdens they would fling upon him, while he is young and can work. You had never been under any impression that you could keep them.)
But your lord calls you sister in the voice that commands armies, and smiles at you, and -
He is gone before you convince yourself to move, reach out. You do anyway.

Another memory: when you asked your mother to tell you about your father, all she said was that he was gone now. When you asked your sister, she added: but he promised to find us one day, when he worked himself free. For three days you dream that, someone coming to swing you up laughing in his arms and love you with no conditions.
On the fourth day you stop. There is nothing to be gained from dreaming.
The shrine is now nothing more than shattered stone walls and thatch scattered through the grass - its priestesses and defenders all dragged away to be piled where some of the others are digging a shallow grave for them at the edge of the clearing. All the tribute, gold plates and jewelry and linen and leather, have been dragged out from the vaults and piled on the grass, with others of the host picking through them for spoil.
And someone gasps, and then all heads turn, a slow wave, to see your lord leave the fractured sanctuary - well, no longer now, you suppose, now that there is no goddess to inhabit it. His arms are reddened to the elbow and his face to the eyes, and there is something in his hands, something dark red and mottled with vein and pale drops of fat.
The host all steps back, as he passes, a subtle shift that forms a path for him to go out upon. It goes untaken.
Instead, he turns and holds the thing out to you.
You take it. (The blood runs hot and viscous down your wrists, and you remember how it had felt, the youngest son's body going limp under the dagger you had stolen from the eldest, how their sisters had begged and their cousins had tried to tear your hands away from their throats, and when their grip had faltered you had crushed their wrists to be sure. The air had been thick with that coppery smell, and your steps had dripped behind to mark your path.
You remember how empty you had felt, afterwards.)
And you eat.

Arise, Saarn.
Will you doubt that I have chosen you?

Courtesy of niram

The first time you call him welye, you do not remember what road you are on. Some road, to somewhere, that needs to hear what he has to say - great city or small village, it is not something you have asked, for it is not your place to ask these things. And it would not have mattered anyway - it is your place to follow, anywhere your feet may still lead you, in word and in deed. Your place to stand at his left hand, as you march among the emerald and umber of the forest, needles bending beneath your boots.
(There is more power in the blood of an oath than there is in water, after all. You have fought together, eaten together - the memory of the scarlet thread of sorcery humming through your veins when you bowed still sweet and sharp and clear-edged. More than enough to claim flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone.)
And he laughs, and takes your face between hands with the dust of mountains and the blood of monsters still caked under the fingernails, and kisses your forehead.

There are knives within your mind now, and not just within your hands. There is sugar and protein there too, and not just dripping from your fingertips.
Being alive is a complicated thing - odd that no-one ever gets a choice in the matter. But now, you feel like you may have got something right.
Another man drops to your left, a spear of bone protruding from what had been an eye. You know you still live only by comparison, the entire battlefield soaked in mud and blood and poison - a hand appears from behind in a clumsy attempt to drag you down, and your fangs sink down to the bone in return.
Here, it is acceptable to demand that no-one touch you, to meet any attempt with force to spare. Here, untouchable is glory and not insubordination. You hadn't thought you were made for battle, but perhaps that was only because you had never seen it.
Is this happiness? you think. And as another spray of red lashes itself over your face you correct yourself, no,
it's joy.

Arise, Saarn, you are told.
Slay, and eat.
“Are you afraid?” he asks you once, in your encampment around the walls. Tomorrow the city will fall or you will, and there has been so much for you to plan, the movements to be organized and delegated - the stars already ride high in the sky and still you are scratching and brushing away spidery words on your tablet, bending over the stretched membrane of a table to sketch walls and streets, movements and defences. The edges of your knives have been scraped until you can catch your claws on them, and the last captain come in to speak with him has left, and the quiet drops down on you heavy as a layer of ash.
Yes, you would say. But not of death. Not that we may lose and be ground down into the dust, our bones hung on the walls as a warning to the next conqueror and our spirits fertilizing the weeds in the gutters below, I would take that, but -
I love you, you want to cry. And I have never loved anything this way before. I have never believed in anything before, but around you, it is so hard not to. Because I was a city, once, too, I had barred my heart with walls of iron and basalt, and you clawed them open as you clawed open that door, and have left me soft and empty and undefended in trusting you.
You raised me up, you would say. You lifted me from my knees and set me upon my feet, you took me from the darkness and have set me upon the city walls, upon the summits of the greatest mountains by your side. Do you not see how much further the fall may be, from such a height? Do you not see how much more I may lose, having gained it?
And yet…
And yet. The brazier casts the tissue of the bowed roof in amber, sets sparks in the curling ends of your hair. He has opened for you ways in the void where there are not even stars, and your feet have not slipped when you trod them. He has given you teeth and claws, fed you on blood and wine, neither harmed nor betrayed you in all this time.
It still feels like stepping off a precipice, hoping the ground will not be that far away. Trusting your scales will elongate into feathers and you will fly.
You never believed in the gods. But then, they never did anything to earn it.

Such A World As This | »


Two men stood guarding the Declaration of Independence at the White House in Washington D.C. They had one goal and one goal only: don't let anyone steal it. Ever.
"Man," said one of the guards, "have I ever told you how much I fucking love being a security guard?"
The other guard looked at him with a skeptical glance. "Uh, yeah?"
The excited guard continued to rant. "I mean, this is the best fucking job ever. You get the night shift, which means you don't have to talk to anyone, and you get paid triple for it. You get to be right next to the Declaration of Independence, for crying out loud. And, finally, if anyone tries to steal it, I get to—"
His head suddenly exploded, sending the guard aback in terror. From the shadows, Joey Fucknuts stepped out, holding a shotgun held together by wire and duct tape.
"Finally," he said in a raspy, skeleton-like voice, "I will get the Declaration of Independence. Finally, I will unlock the secrets to space travel, so I can finally eat the moon. Do you want to try to stop me?" He shoved his shotgun in the remaining security guard's face.
However, the guard suddenly did a backflip, kicking the shotgun out of Joey's hands. Before he could process what was happening, the guard ripped off his mask, revealing he was none other than Dr. Everett Mann.
"Hah!" yelled Mann, "Your reign of terror ends now! I'll finally get revenge for what you did to my best friend, Mr. Bear!"
"Mr. Bear? I bet he'd be disappointed in you, Mann" said Joey as he reached into his ribcage and pulled out a second shotgun, identical to the first. "This will be our final showdown, Mann."
"Our?" said Mann, still in his bravado-filled voice of an ideal man. "We both know, Joey, that I never fight without backup."
Suddenly, the ceiling exploded, and several men in full body armor descended down on ropes. As one yelled "freeze!", they took out assault rifles and pointed them all at the walking corpse. Joey dropped his gun and held his hands up. One of the agents took off his helmet, revealing that he was Espionage Agent North.
"Looks like we've got you surrounded, you skeleton-looking motherfucker," said North, "come in with your hands up and I'll try to guarantee we won't put you in the cell next to the box that doesn't stop screaming."
"Looks like we meet again, North" rasps Joey, with the closest possible equivalent to a shit-eating grin on his face. "You don't have to keep up the act."
North, along with the rest of the Mobile Task Force, took off their body armor, revealing wizard's robes underneath. They put down their assault rifles and took out magic wands. Now it was Mann who had his hands up.
"The Mages Academy?" exclaimed Mann with surprise. "Wait, who are you guys again?"
"We're a highly secretive school of magicians," replied Head Wizard North, "training other magicians in the use of magic."
"So you're basically Hogwarts?"
"No, no, no. We're not Hogwarts."
"Are you sure?" Mann seemed confused. "I mean, that old fuck over there looks like Dumbledore."
"Enough from you!" yelled North. "And as for you, Fucknuts. If you really thought we were on your side… you were mistaken."
One of the wizards shot an Expelliarmus a disarming spell at Joey, who had picked up his shotgun, sending it out the window.
"I thought we had a deal," Joey complained.
"We're here to take the Declaration for ourselves," the Head Wizard boasted, "so we can finally make a Polyjuice potion a Transformation potion to transform me into Jon Hancock. Then, we can finally finish our wax statue."
"That's the most evil thing I've ever heard," Joey commented.
"Well, I guess you've won, old sport," mused Dr. Mann, "but, might I comment, your outfits seems a bit…. flashy."
Mann threw a flashbang, blinding the entire room. Once the flashbang wore off, all of the magicians were trapped in special Scranton nets, designed to prevent magic. Joey stood holding a third shotgun, which was actually a net-firing gun all along. He gave Mann a fistbump.
"You think we didn't expect this ambush all along?" said Joey to the trapped magicians. "We're gonna split the Declaration 50/50."
"Wait, what's going on, weren't you…" started North, before realizing a more pressing issue. "You think we were here to steal it?"
"Actually, yes" replied Mann, "that's what you told us."
"In reality," muttered North, "we weren't just going to steal it. We were… protecting it."
A blinding burst of light, even more blinding than the flashbang, filled the room. Tim Allen, finally able to get past the Academy's protection rituals, punched Mann in the face, immediately redmisting his entire head and sending him to the ground.
"None of you will take it," said Allen in a godlike, echoing voice. "I'll be leaving with it, in order to prove that The Shaggy Dog really was the best movie of all—"
Before he could finish, the echo of a deep "Not so fast!" emanated through the room. A heavenly light came from behind the constitution, and George Washington himself walked straight from the Declaration. With a single Infinite Mass Punch, he sent Tim Allen to the other side of the universe. After the sound barrier had recovered from this, he turned to Joey Fucknuts.
"You are the only one worthy of holding this great nation's founding document," boomed George. "Take it, and do what you will, brave citizen."
Joey gave a whoop of excitement. "Finally!" he yelled as he ripped the Declaration from its pedestal. "I'm going to the moon!" He ran out the Tim Allen-shaped hole in the wall and into the nearby forest.
"Heh, sucker," muttered Researcher Calvin, taking off his Washington wig, which he had hidden the real Declaration of Independence in. Before he could walk off into the Calvinmobile, he heard the unlatching of a pistol safety from behind him.
Dr. Mann removed the remains of the fake head from his neck as he brandished the pistol, which he had had the whole time.
"Woah, man!" said Calvin, "aren't we on the same side? We're both from the SCP Foundation, remember?"
"Wait," said Mann, "yeah, we are. Are we?"
"Are you sure?" said North, still trapped in the net. "Well, first, Joey walked into the room, and killed a security guard, but you were the security guard, but with a mask…"
"Yeah, and then you wizard guys came down from the ceiling—"
"But we were originally the task force, don't forget that."
"Of course, of course. and then Tim Allen showed up, but then you… Yeah, I guess we're on the same side."
"Alright then," said Calvin, "let's go back to the Site and— fuck!"
"What's wrong?" asked Mann.
"This is the fake Declaration! That means that I gave him—"
Looking out the window, the duo saw Joey Fucknuts riding in a rocketship, made from nothing but a couple of spare logs and the cash stacks from Joey's extremely successful rapping career.
"We need to go after him!" yelled Mann.
"But how?" replied Calvin.
"I know a guy. Hey, Nicholas Cage, you wanna help us?"
Nicholas Cage came out of the abyss, where he was lying in wait. "Of course, my friend."
Nicholas Cage transformed into his true form: the lost Challenger space shuttle. Climbing in, Calvin and Mann prepared for the chase of their life: to stop Joey from stealing the moon.

« Joey Fucknuts detonates the Entire USA Nuclear Arsenal | Hub | Joey Fucknuts Discovers the Flayed Corpse of God »

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Avian Anthology I

My Empire of Birds

Moose on the Loose

Document recovered from a Parallel Universe

Katz and Dogs

Joey Fucknuts Steals The Declaration of Independence

Your Guard

Vacation Opportunity

The Scent of a Toaster

Burn, Baby, Burn

Chasing Suns

Wind in the Sails

Three Feet Under I

The Shape of Water is Humanoid

Dead Reckoning

Three Feet Under II

Three Feet Under III

Into the Beetle Black Yonder

Forgotten Shrine

Down Through

Hyperfine

Don't Knock on Strange Doors

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Researcher Calvin's Personnel File

Incident Report ████/████

"Sphere" Incursion Log

Initial Incursion Log

"Cube" Incursion Log #1

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SCP-093-J Blue Test

SCP-093-J Recovered Documents

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“That is why the Council of 108 has invoked Article 13, and why we are now calling upon the Foundation to honor its commitments and help us prevent another occult war.”

The unit patch for MTF Delta-3 ('Solomon's Hand')

« An Unexpected Interview || HUB || Thunder's Fist, Solomon's Hand »
December 21, 1985
Site-246
Saving the world came sooner than expected.
The scramble alarm went off while she was in the gym. Her gym, if she thought about it, since an entire annex on the lower levels had been set aside for her to practice thaumaturgy. She tried not to think about it in those terms; she was still getting used to the idea of having her own room, she didn't need a gym too.
The blaring of the klaxon broke her concentration and interrupted her evocation. She cursed quietly as she felt the sphere of force around her start to dissipate, then winced at the sound of something banging against the exterior hull. It was impossible to say for certain how the backlash had manifested, but something had definitely exploded in the water outside.
That didn't bode thinking about either. Site-246 had been built at the bottom of Lake Superior, sometime in the 60s. Technically, it had been rebuilt in the 60s — the original Site-246 had been dug out beneath the lake bed just before the start of the 7th Occult War to serve as a high-security storage facility and emergency bunker. However, building an undersea base with 1930s technology — even paratechnology — had turned out to be too ambitious, and it had been closed almost as soon as the war ended. Its submarine, subterranean vaults had been allowed to flood, although enough access tunnels had remained airtight to help construct the new Site-246 on the lake bed above the old one.
The new 246 was no less ambitious, but technological advances had made it easier to realize. It had been intended to serve as a regional command center for the Great Lakes region, and it had performed in that capacity for almost a decade — until shifting population centers, the lack of an on-site airstrip, and the discovery of a major nexus in the region led to that role being reassigned to Site-87 in Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin. As a result, Site-246 had been mothballed, leaving only a skeleton maintenance crew to keep the lights on and the water out.
And now it had been reactivated because of her. When Kappa-1 had been formed to capture her, they had used 246 as a staging ground. Then, when Sherman's March had been dissolved and reorganized around her to create Delta-3, it had remained at 246. The tens of millions of gallons of cold lake water in which the site was submerged provided an ample sink for the wild backlash off her evocations, giving her an environment where she could refine her skills in relative safety. If a particularly nasty spell rebounded and turned a cubic kilometer of the lake into lemon pudding, no one would ever know.
"Looks like that's our number, kid," Westbrook said. He shoved off from the wall he'd been leaning against while watching her train. "I've got to suit up. I'll catch up to you at the briefing room."
She nodded to him as he trotted off, then started making her way towards the briefing room. She already had everything she would need: she hadn't qualified with a sidearm yet, and she was already in her mission clothes — a snug, grey jumpsuit covered in straps and pockets. She'd taken to wearing it during training sessions, since the material was fireproof and bulletproof — that last property hadn't been needed yet, but it never hurt to be prepared. The pockets were stuffed full of extra energy bars, assorted magical doodads, and some basic survival gear that was useful to keep on hand.
She pulled one of the energy bars out and unwrapped it to eat while she walked. She'd burned off a lot of energy in that last session, and probably wouldn't have a lot of time to rest before they deployed. If she'd had her choice, she would have eaten a five course meal and maybe napped for a couple hours before setting out, but the power bar would have to do.
Florence was one of the first to arrive, so she slipped into a seat near the back of the room and waited for the rest of the task force. As she watched them file in, all kitted out in their mission gear, she was acutely aware of the fact that she was the only one wearing grey — the coloring for a special asset agent. She had known that Delta-3 had been formed around her and her abilities, but the unique coloring of her jumpsuit served as a stark visual reminder that she was, in many respects, alone.
Westbrook slid into the neighboring seat and held something out to her. "Command finally approved the name and heraldry. Came in while we were in the gym."

She took the object and examined it. It was a circular shoulder patch for her jumpsuit, the kind used to signal MTF affiliation. The outer ring bore the alphanumeric Δ3 at the top; at the bottom was the task force motto, "Much Wisdom Is Much Grief". Inside the ring was a stylized left hand, palm turned down to display the Seal of Solomon upon its back.
"Solomon's Hand, huh?" She flipped over the patch. The backside was blank. "I don't think I'll have time to put this on before we leave."
"Here." Westbrook took the patch back, then pressed it against her right shoulder. It stuck when he removed his hand. "There's a magnetic backing on it that matches up with your jumpsuit. Won't come off unless you give it a good tug, and it makes it easy to swap insignia in a hurry."
"I can see how that would be useful."
The room fell silent as Julian Corwin entered, flanked by a woman in non-standard tactical gear. He gestured for her to continue on up to the front while he turned and retreated towards the projector. He fiddled with it for a few seconds until it whirred to life. Someone dimmed the lights, and the now familiar logo of the Foundation appeared on the wall.
Corwin clicked over to the next slide, and the containment badge was replaced with the United Nations emblem, overlaid with a pentagram. The woman who had entered with Corwin stepped in front of the projection screen and turned to face the room. As she did so, Florence saw that she had an identical emblem on her left shoulder.
"I hope I have your attention, skippers, because I don't have time to repeat myself," she said. "My name is Katrine Andersen, which I tell you only as a courtesy — while we are operating together, I expect you to address me by my callsign, which is Gorgon. Note the lack of definite article." She glanced around the room, gaze settling knowingly on Westbrook for a moment. "As you may have noticed, I am from the Global Occult Coalition. Specifically, I am a PHYSICS operative assigned to Strike Team 8688. You might also know us as the Rat Catchers."
That elicited a soft murmur from the assembled task force members. Clearly, Andersen's strike team had a reputation.
Florence leaned closer to Westbrook and whispered, "Who are the Rat Catchers?"
"Nazi hunters," he whispered back. "They're the Coalition's main combat force against OBSKURA these days. Other than the Golem, that is."
Andersen waited patiently for a few seconds to let the room quiet down before she continued speaking.
"I am here today because the Coalition has activated Article 13 of the Köln Agreement."
That silenced any and all of the remaining whispers. For a moment, at least.
Florence tried to recall what she knew about the Köln Agreement. It had been covered, briefly, in the crash course on normalcy and parahistory that she had been given, but that already brief summary had been further abridged from what a normal Foundation recruit would have received. What she had been told — or at least what she could remember of that — was that the Köln Agreement had been signed in the aftermath of the last occult war to provide a framework for mutual cooperation between the GOC and the Foundation. Judging by the reactions from the rest of the task force, Article 13 was a significant part of that — and a part that was rarely used.
"What happened?" Westbrook asked, before the room could erupt into chatter.
Andersen nodded to Corwin, who advanced the projector to the next slide. It was a black-and-white headshot of a man in uniform. Despite the seemingly official nature of the photograph, he was laughing. A pair of stylized lightning bolts on his collar marked him as a member of the SS.
"Maximilian Bauer, Obskuracorps commando leader and fugitive war criminal. He's a Type Blue with a lot of muscle and a talent for shock spells. Picked up the sobriquet 'Thunder's Fist' during the war, and it just seemed to encourage him. An AOI team managed to corner him in '45. All we know is that everything within a hundred meters wound up electrocuted, and he got away. He's allegedly been behind over a dozen OBSKURA attacks since then, but he's been good about staying under the radar." She paused. "Until now."
The projector cycled through to a new slide. This one displayed an image of a man walking through a crowded interior. Judging from the angle and the quality, it was a still from a security camera. Although the picture was blurry, it was clearly the same man from the headshot, plus a few decades.
"Five weeks ago, he showed up in Thunder Bay, and he made sure to be caught on camera. We scrambled an assessment team to shadow him, but he dropped below radar again before they could get there. We assumed that he had been attempting to draw the attention of Agent Corwin, possibly with the intention of luring him into a trap, and that the Coalition response had forced him to abort."
"Why would he be after Commander Corwin?" Florence asked, then immediately regretted doing so when Andersen fixed her with an irritated look.
From the back of the room, Corwin cleared his throat. "Bauer and I have a mutual vendetta that dates back to the war. I've been expecting him to try and settle the score for a while now."
Andersen nodded slightly. "Somewhat understated, but a sufficient summary. The Coalition has long been aware of Bauer's enmity towards your commanding officer, which is why I took the step of personally alerting Agent Corwin of his presence in the region." She paused to regain her prior train of thought. "However, it now seems likely that Bauer exploited our knowledge of his vendetta as a part of a carefully calculated ploy."
Corwin took that as his cue to switch to the next slide. This one showed a fortified military installation. Judging by the snow on the ground, it was somewhere cold. Judging by the fire, it had been attacked.
"Late last night, four separate OBSKURA cells staged simultaneous attacks on Coalition facilities in Jordan, Norway, Zaire, and Brazil. Shortly after Coalition operators had mobilized in response, a fifth attack was launched on a facility in Quebec. This facility housed an object which your own organization has designated as SCP-3457-B6, one of the seven Keys of Solomon necessary to complete the Rite of Solomon. It is one of three Keys that were never captured by the Obskuracorps during the war, which makes their knowledge of it and its location all the more alarming."
Click. Another slide, another image. This one was a catalogue photo of a simple musical horn, carved from bone and smoothed to a polish by centuries of wear. A label inserted into the frame had been carefully blackboxed and replaced with the text 'SCP-3457-B6'.
"Acquiring this object was the true motivation for OBSKURA's attacks. I regret to inform you that they succeeded."
She said it as if she were reading the death toll from a major disaster, and the rest of the task force reacted with a collective hiss of unease. Florence shifted in her seat nervously — she would have been more alarmed by her teammates' reactions if she wasn't so frustrated by her own lack of knowledge.
Andersen continued. "The majority of Coalition combat resources are presently occupied, either with the OBSKURA assault which is still underway in Zaire and Norway, or with pre-existing Second Mission objectives from which they cannot disengage. That is why the Council of 108 has invoked Article 13, and why we are now calling upon the Foundation to honor its commitments and help us prevent another occult war."
At this, the room erupted into a chorus of shouted questions.
There was a piercing whistle from the back of the room that cut through the noise. "Quiet, all of you," Corwin ordered. "The Overseers have already agreed to the GOC's request. This task force will be deploying in support of Strike Team 8688 within the hour. If you have any questions about the mission at hand, I suggest you ask them now. Sequentially."
There was a subdued murmur of assent from the assembled agents. One of them in the middle row on the other end of the room raised a hand.
"What's the actual mission objective?"
"Coalition codebreakers managed to crack active OBSKURA communications channels a few hours ago. Based on what we've been able to intercept, the forces in possession of the Key are attempting to rendezvous with Bauer near Timmins, in Ontario. Our mission is to locate Bauer — preferably before he receives the Key — terminate him, neutralize any OBSKURA elements in the area, and recover the Key."
"What kind of resistance can we expect?"
"Hard to say. Reports from Quebec indicate that the attacking force was at least twenty strong, and equipped with advanced paraweaponry which the Coalition would classify as at least Gen Plus Two," Andersen said. "However, given the extensive level of coordination shown in this attack, it's possible that they may have received reinforcements from other OBSKURA cells. Be ready for anything."
"What about Bauer?" Florence asked. "From what you said earlier, it sounds like he's their heavyweight. How should we handle him?"
"With extreme prejudice," Andersen replied. She paused a moment to study Florence further. "You're the special asset, I take it?"
Florence nodded.
"God, you're just a kid," Andersen muttered, just loud enough to be heard. "If you see Bauer, don't hesitate for even a second. Hit him with everything you've got, and don't stop. He's out of your league, I guarantee it. Your only chance to take him out will be to get him by surprise."
Westbrook leaned forwards slightly to place himself in Andersen's line of sight. "If he's so dangerous, why aren't you bringing your own heavyweights? I haven't heard of anyone who could go face to face with the Golem, and this seems like exactly his kind of dance."
"Operative Josef is… unavailable at the moment," she said.
"Fine, but he's not your only heavyweight. What are the rest of your battlemages doing that they can't help?"
"Defending the other Keys."
"Awfully convenient for you then that this task force was just formed around our own newest special asset, who just so happens to have enough muscle to take on Bauer."
Andersen narrowed her eyes. "What are you implying, Agent Westbrook?"
Westbrook raised his hands innocently. "Just wondering what you'd be doing now if we hadn't picked up Firestarter."
"A strategic bombardment of Timmins, most likely."
That drew another murmur from the room.
"Seriously?" Florence said. "That seems a bit like overkill."
"Possibly. But First Mission concerns obviate any potential Second Mission or Third Mission risks raised by such a course of action. Bauer cannot be allowed to gain possession of this Key."
"Why not?" Westbrook asked. "Like, I get it, Nazi wizards stole the magic widget, but you've gotta collect them all to do the Rite, and you've still got the other six. What makes this one so important?"
Andersen hesitated. "I am limited in how much I am allowed to tell you by the terms of the Köln Agreement."
"This is an active containment effort, which means normal data compartmentalization doesn't apply."
"Those restrictions are meant to be relaxed on a discretionary basis only."
"Then use your discretion. OBSKURA clearly already knows, so there's no point keeping us in the dark if you want our help."
She sighed. "Very well. You know that the Keys, when used as part of Solomon's Rite, can be used to bind and command the demiurge?"
"Yeah, I gathered that from the file."
"Well, what your file doesn't say is that each of the Keys is a powerful binding talisman in their own right. The Sixth Key, specifically, allows for domination and control over the minds of most humanoids."
Westbrook swore. He wasn't the only one.
"Indeed," Andersen said. "With such an artifact in his possession, Bauer could raise an army of brainwashed fanatics and use them to reignite the occult war in earnest."
"Which is why your other heavyweights are defending the remaining Keys."
"Precisely. If our mission fails, we have to be prepared for open warfare with a resurgent Obskuracorps."
Florence stared at the GOC operative in stunned silence. The last occult war had been fought under the cover of the largest conventional conflict ever waged, against an enemy that had a vested interest in keeping the Veil intact. A new war would have neither of these things. OBSKURA kept the Veil only to hide from the Coalition's ongoing manhunts. With an army behind them, they would blow it apart without a second thought.
Regardless of who won, a new war would mean the end of normalcy. The end of the world.
And her job was to kill the man who would try to start it. No pressure.
Corwin stood up to speak. "I've already fought one war against these Nazi bastards, and I don't intend to fight another one. We won't fail."
This proclamation was met by a chorus of agreement from around the room.
Corwin looked at them all in turn, then nodded. "Let's remind them why we won the war. Delta-3, dismissed."
« An Unexpected Interview || HUB || Thunder's Fist, Solomon's Hand »


SCPF Europan Outpost CANTOR
2050-06-12, Anno Terra

"So, what's the damage?"
There's a click click click as Milo's assistant runs up a database entry.
"Kyle Wheaton, biological age 31, chronological age the same. Left kidney missing, three old wounds in the abdomen — that's two bullet, one knife — and mild blunt force trauma to left shoulder. Partial prior removal of skin, bone, left kidney, subcutaneous fat, and some miscellaneous soft tissue and cartilage. A lot of replacement dermis that might be worth taking out for reuse, and most of his skeleton's artificial. He's honestly in fairly good health, all things considered."
The surgeon licks his lips and grins.
"Alright, I can work with this. What's most pressing?"
"Seems to be small intestine, pancreas, and anything ocular. Oh, and hearts are always needed, so see if his is any good."
Bending over the struggling figure, he cups their cheek lightly in his hand. With his free arm he begins to massage the side of their head, running a long fingernail under a flap of skin below their temple. Pulling the flap back reveals a layer of soft red meat, which can easily be twisted aside to expose the bone beneath. Milo does the same on the other side of his patient's skull, and in a matter of minutes their facial structure lies open like a blooming flower, spreading out radially in five neat strips. A click, a crunch, and a wet squelching noise, and Milo deposits the left eyeball on the tray next to him. The right one is placed next to it a few seconds later, followed by a few stringy lengths of nerve fibre and four pieces of beige material that look suspiciously like eyelids.
He calls to his assistant again. "Who's this going out to, lad?"
"Embrey, HMCL supervisor. Lost a good chunk of his skull in a recent breach."
"And the other one?"
"Storage. It's amazing how often Researchers blind themselves in the course of duty."
Milo snorts, and turns back to the former fugitive. They've stopped struggling now, and lie silently facing the ceiling, chest rising and falling in rapid bursts. He asks them to roll over; when they don't comply, he simply grasps them by the shoulder and forces them onto their stomach. Most people expect it to be easier to get to the digestive system from the front, but they're wrong — there's a series of notches between the lumbar vertebrae that allow you to pretty quickly empty the body from behind, and of course you avoid having to pluck out all the ribs individually if you want the heart and lungs.
Zzzzzip.
Milo pulls the patient's jumpsuit down to their waist, briefly unbuckling the restraints on their neck and midsection. Even if they'd been able to find the exit without eyes, there were always at least a dozen armed guards wandering the clinic at any one time. He wouldn't even have gotten out of the building. He'd consented to the procedure, and it was too late for second thoughts.
Zzzzzip.
Pink skin is rolled back, and a small pile of bone fragments begin to form next to the surgeon as he goes about his work. Metal and polymer are separated from flesh with the help of some surgical scissors, and a large tupperware box begins to slowly fill with bloody plastic. A kidney, a stomach, a length of gullet that he manages to free by disconnecting the skull from the neck and poking his fingers round against the trachea, and finally three discrete sections of the small intestine; each is laid carefully in its own sterile container, and packed in a crate with other miscellaneous viscera.
"Right arm in one piece?"
"Better not. Says here there's been an increase in damage below the wrist, so they'll probably want it separate. I'd say you're good to pack the legs on their own, though. Most likely they'll be able to make any adjustments during reattachment." A pause. "Actually, on the subject of reattachment, how's his wrist? Only, mine's been giving me gyp lately and I-"
Milo sighs. "I'm going to stop you right there, lad. If I could pull something like that, do you think I'd still be walking around in this heap of junk? There are almost always surgeons and engineers and gunmen who need the parts more than we do. You'll have to fill out the forms and get in the queue like the rest of them."
"Yeah, yeah, I know."
"Look at it this way: you've got a well paying job somewhere indoors, no pressing obligations, a health plan that renders you potentially immortal and a pension that's to die for. A little carpal tunnel every now and then's a small price to pay, right?"
"Mhm. I- yeah. Yeah, you're right. Shouldn't be ungrateful."
"Hah! Gratitude's got nothing to do with it, my boy. You've got a cushy number here that not many people know about — don't go spoiling it by drawing attention to yourself." Milo picks up a hand and gestures with it. "You know how many people think Deconstructionists still use scalpels and bone saws? If it became common knowledge that it was as easy as this, there'd be copies of thirty-four eighty-four in every bookstore and everybody'd be their own doctor, physician, and plastic surgeon. At this point, the only thing standing between me, you, and the unemployment office is the Overseers' paranoia. It's astounding enough that they opened it up to civilians."
"…Huh."
"Now, come help me put the rest of the fellow in suspension and then we'll go to lunch. I'm buying."
"Right, uh, yeah. Thanks."

"Buying or selling?"
Three hours prior to the events of the operating theatre, imminent patient Kyle Wheaton rubs the back of his neck nervously, feeling with worn fingertips the boundary between skin and metal. He traces ridges across his jawline, feeling the scars where they inserted the plastic replacement, rubbing the various accumulated skin-replacement polymers. The operations were smooth as anything, but the aftereffects were astonishing. Probably why they're so secretive about the whole thing. He drops his hand to his side and plunges it deep into his pocket, brushing up against his far-too-light wallet.
"S- selling."
The receptionist smiles, and nods. She looks about twenty, but given the circumstances she could be two-hundred.
"Bone, dermis, or viscera?"
He looks around. If he ran now, he could probably make it maybe ten, fifteen metres. The clinic was on a main road — it was gone twelve so the dome's floodlights would be off, but the abundant neon rendered the whole scene in near-perpetual noon. He'd likely be clearly visible to whatever Foundation agent or automated drone was stalking the streets, and the next alley would be… yeah, about twenty metres down. Surveillance was always tight, and had started getting tighter following the publicisation of Deconstruction. Nah, he'd have no chance.
"Sir, if you don't answer soon, we're going to have to ask you to leave."
They both knew what that meant. He'd be dead as soon as he left the sanctity of the clinic.
"Yeah, uh, sorry. I'd like to sell, um…" He shuts his eyes in subconscious defiance. "Wholesale."
The receptionist blinks, and Kyle can feel twenty pairs of eyes piercing the back of his neck. Resisting the urge to turn around, he waits for her response.
"I mean, if you're sure. Just sign these forms, and we'll bring you through into the operating room. You're a very brave man for doing this. You'll be helping a lot of people."
"Yeah. Yeah, I know."
"We don't tend to get many wholesales, you see. The process needs live patients, and most people aren't willing to hand themselves in prior to, to the end, so to speak. And of course, piecemeal trading tends to be more kidneys, skin, bone, intestine; stuff you can sort of do without, you know?"
Kyle, whose skeleton is currently 7% biomesh and 19% low-grade reinforced plastic, knows.
"You're very brave."
Kyle disagrees, and so doesn't correct her.
"You, um, need to sign at the bottom."
He wordlessly scribbles his signature along the dotted line, and the receptionist pulls the clipboard back. There's a faint susurration behind him as people start to break through the awkwardness that 'wholesale' entails.
"Right this way, sir."
He walks through the door.

***

You are on-record as Kyle Wheaton, identification number 000112b8ea59cf3. Is this information correct?
Kyle looks around the bright white cube. The walls and floor are the same featureless rubber tiles, and both doors are practically invisible when closed. The only distinguishing features are a camera in one corner and a metal grate not quite in the centre of the floor. "Yeah."
Please provide a non-colloquial response. You are on-record as Kyle Wheaton, identification number 000112b8ea59cf3. Is this information correct?
"Yea- yes. Yes it is."
A faint beep.
Are you are aware of the wholesale procedure, and what exactly it entails?
"I'm going to be butchered like a pig and sold for spare parts in your weird, secretive, Illuminati-ass organisation."
Another faint beep.
That is a… satisfactory answer. For future reference, a simple yes or no will suffice. You are aware that once the process has been completed, you will be placed in storage until such time as you are able to be reconstituted?
"Yes."
The beeps keep coming, just on the edge of hearing.
You are aware that, at the time of your storage, your private fund account will receive a payment of exactly five-hundred and twelve thousand US dollars, which will increase or decrease with inflation until such time as you are able to be reconstituted?
"Yes. That's the point."
I have to ask. You are aware that you may remain in suspension for a length of time not exceeding five hundred years, Anno Terra?
"Yeah."
Please provide a non-colloquial res-
"Yes! Yes, I'm aware."
Please repeat the following: 'I, Kyle Wheaton, consent to the Deconstruction procedure, knowing full well what said procedure involves'.
"Jesus, covering your ass much?"
Please repeat-
"I, Kyle Wheaton, consent to the Deconstruction procedure, knowing full well what said procedure involves."
A louder, longer beep.
Please remove all clothes and personal belongings and place them in the tray provided.
Kyle looks around the cube. Sure enough, a tray has extended out of an otherwise nondescript wall. He strips, and places the bundle of fabric in the blue plastic square, next to his keys, wallet, and phone. For a moment he stands naked, shivering in the cold recycled air.
Please put on the provided jumpsuit.
The tray slides away, and a second adjacent slot opens. From it, a grey jumpsuit bearing the Foundation insignia is extruded. Kyle slips into it — it's cheap cotton, and slightly too big.
Before the procedure begins, do you have any questions?
"Will it hurt?"
The AI takes a moment to respond.
Anaesthetic will not be provided due to complications arising from inflammation, but I am lead to believe that the procedure is not painful. You may experience moderate to extreme discomfort during disassembly, but this should subside as you become accustomed to your remaining anatomical features. Do you have any further questions?
"No."
Please step through the door to your right. A medical professional will restrain you shortly.
He does so, and the lights in the cube switch off.

The operating theatre is dimmer without the surgical lamps, but not completely dark.
Kyle's eyes were currently staring at the inside of a plastic tub, of course, but if he had possessed his normal visual acuity he would have been one of an increasingly large number of humans to see something that had (for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years) remained a blissful mystery. He would have seen two figures — one old and grinning, one young and trying not to gag — lift what remained of his body from the slab and carry it to a second slab a little way away. He would have seen them lay him down and thread electrodes through his exposed brain tissue before tightening straps around his waist, neck, and the remainder of his forehead.
If he had had any nerves left in his throat, he would have felt a gag slide into place and would probably have tried to scream. If his ears had still been connected to anything, he would have heard the sound of two men pulling a lever and watching him slide slowly into a slab-shaped hole in the wall. What little living tissue was left attached to the man would then have spent a very, very long time staring at nothing from the inside of a morgue drawer — a slightly modified one, true, but still undeniably a place for corpses to rest in temporary peace.
It was a lucky escape, then, that he was already blind.


She woke up. That surprised her. She noticed several things in the first few moments of consciousness, each more alarming than the last.

« Minneapolis Burns || HUB || Much Wisdom Is Much Grief »
November 12, 1985
Site-246
She woke up. That surprised her.
She noticed several things in the first few moments of consciousness, each more alarming than the last.
First, she was in a jail of some kind. She had spent enough of her life on the streets to learn the ins and outs of the justice system, or what passed for it, and instantly recognized the layout of an interrogation room. Single door in the corner, with no handle on the inside? Check. Pane of glass occupying the far wall, lit in such a way as to only show her reflection? Check. Bright light overhead, angled just shy of her eyes? Check.
This was further supported by the second thing she had noticed, which was that she was handcuffed to a chair. She was slouched over with her wrists behind her back, supported only by her arms, and the ache in her shoulders suggested that she'd been like that for a while. Whoever had captured her wasn't taking any chances on her waking early and trying to escape, which was smart. As it was, while she could probably melt the handcuffs to slag and blast her way through the door, it would take her a bit of time.
Time that she didn't have because of the third thing, the man sitting across from her holding a gun. He was tall, with a lean, muscled physique that could only be described as powerful, although it had the wiry quality of an aged athlete. His black hair was thoroughly peppered with grey, but it was neatly trimmed in a military cut that suggested a rigid professionalism. He stared at her with steely eyes, not speaking a word. He didn't have to. The weapon in his hand spoke clearly enough. If she tried to blow her way out of the room, he would blow her away. The cold intensity of his gaze suggested that he wouldn't even hesitate.
(She also noticed, as a fourth thing, that someone had taken the time to strip-off whatever tattered remains had been left of her clothes and dress her in a loose-fitting black jumpsuit. But since this wasn't directly relevant to her immediate survival or potential escape, she didn't dwell on it.)
"You aren't MPD," she said.
Something like mirth flickered through his eyes. "Really? What gave it away?"
"Cops don't have flamethrowers. Even if they did, they wouldn't know to use them like that."
He raised his chin slightly, but didn't speak.
"You knew about me. What I can do. You were prepared."
"Being prepared is what this organization does best," he said.
"Yeah? And what is this organization, cause I'm betting it ain't the Boy Scouts."
"Surely you can hazard a guess."
Florence looked down and gritted her teeth. That was almost answer enough in and of itself, and she didn't like to think where it was leading.
"One of the Suits, right? Not the Feds, they're still basically cops, and you definitely aren't a cop. Don't have the right attitude." She chewed her lip. "Everyone says that the gawkers don't take prisoners, so you're probably not with them."
He waved a hand — the one not holding the gun — encouragingly. "Keep going."
"Foundation."
He grinned viciously. "I knew you were a smart one."
She sucked in a breath. She had hoped she had been wrong about that one. That maybe she had been misremembering the symbol worn by the strike team, or that she'd been misinformed about what it meant.
But she hadn't been wrong.
She'd been captured by the Foundation. She might as well be dead. Either way, her life was over now.
She was tempted to try a break for it anyways. If she was fast, and lucky, she might be able to beat the gun. She was already considering attack angles when the door opened to admit another man.
His appearance was a stark contrast to that of her interrogator. Whereas the older man exuded an air of quiet, reserved power, the newcomer projected the wild confidence of youth. He wasn't tall so much as he was lanky, and his short blond hair looked like it had fought a successful battle against the efforts of a comb. He looked to be in his early 20s, and wouldn't have been out of place on a college campus.
"Commander Corwin," he said, tilting his head in a respectful nod.
"Westbrook," the older man said by way of greeting. "You're interrupting."
"I know, sir. I've been sent to relieve you. The Gorgon's here, and needs to speak to you. She says it's urgent."
Corwin blinked, then sighed. "It always is, with those people." He stood up and passed the gun to the younger man — Westbrook, presumably. "Be careful with her, she could flash bake you if you let her."
"I'm sure that we won't have any issues, sir." Westbrook flashed her a wry smile as the old man left. "Isn't that right, kiddo?"
Florence stared at him warily. She recognized him, somehow. It wasn't his face — she was fairly certain that this was the first time she had seen it. It was something deeper than that, something that only a wizard would have been able to see, and then only if they focused. There was a familiarity to his aura that she couldn't quite place.
But she knew she had heard his voice before.
"You were there," she said quietly. "In the alley."
"Wasn't sure if you'd still remember." He paused, as if considering that statement, then added, "Hypoxia tends to leave people a little loopy."
"You got lucky. I had it figured out at the end. Was about to punt you into Lake Superior."
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe you're lucky you didn't try. We had contingencies in place, and most of them would have ended with you sitting in that chair with a lot more bruises."
"I don't feel particularly lucky. Must be something about being handcuffed to a chair and having a gun shoved in my face."
He chuckled. "I like you, kid. Here—" He set the gun down on the table, pointed away from her. "Better?"
She blinked.
Of course. Why had she thought the gun was meant to stop her? Nobody sane would bring a loaded gun into an interrogation. It was a distraction, a way to keep her from focusing on the real countermeasures. If she went for the gun, or tried to burn her way out of the room, there would be something else waiting to stop her. Maybe gas.
Or maybe Westbrook was really that stupid.
She rattled the chain of the cuffs against the chair. "There's still the handcuffs."
He smiled and shook his head. "I like you, but not that much. The cuffs stay on until I know you won't try anything."
Not that stupid, then.
"Worth a shot." She shrugged as much as the cuffs would allow, trying to appear nonchalant.
He studied her expression, and she could tell that he knew it was a mask.
"I figure you're probably pretty angry with me," he finally said. "Scared too, if you're smart."
"Yeah? How do you figure?"
"You tried to incinerate me earlier," he said. "Not something you normally do to people you like."
The image of Westbrook, clad in black tactical gear and standing over McKenna's body, flashed through her mind, and she felt the anger in her gut begin to boil.
She had never had much love for the rest of the Lake Ghosts — oh, sure, she was grateful to them for rescuing her off the street, but she had long since realized their ulterior motives. They were gangsters and thugs, and while they had some semblance of camaraderie, she had no illusions as to what they would do to her if she stopped being useful to them. She had seen it happen to the pushers, movers, and bookmakers who had tried to cross the Ghosts. Often, she had been what happened to them.
Still, their deaths hurt. There was a quality of Stockholm Syndrome to it, but it was difficult to spend years with a group of people without growing to care for — or at least about — them in some manner. The Lake Ghosts might not have been her friends, but they had been hers.
"You killed them." Her voice was quiet, but her anger was clear.
"As a point of fact, I did not." He pressed something underneath the edge of the table, causing part of the surface to slide away and reveal a TV monitor. After a moment, it flickered to life, revealing an image of a nearly identical room.
Charles McKenna was sitting in it. Alive.
She looked back and forth between Westbrook and the image of McKenna.
"This is a trick."
Westbrook rolled his eyes, then leaned over and pressed a button next to the TV. "Mister McKenna, please say something to let Miss Elsinger know you're alive."
On the screen, McKenna started turning his head to locate the source of the noise. "Blow off, skipper!"
At the sound of his voice, the anger burning inside her winked out. Its sudden absence left an emptiness that made her feel cold and tired. She choked out a quiet gasp.
"Chuck? Is that really you?
He froze at the sound of her voice. "Flo?"
"Yeah. They got me too." She chewed her lip, thinking about what to say next. "Where has Chicago's spirit gone?"
"Oh, the sentry challenge. Checking to see if it's really me. Smart."
"Well?"
"To join the ghosts beneath the lake." He found the camera in the corner and fixed his gaze on it, so that he was staring right at her. "Flo, the Ghosts are finished. You understand that, right? If the skippers haven't hit the other safehouses yet, they will soon."
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying that it's every man for himself now. If you see an opportunity to save yourself, take it, and don't look—"
Westbrook hit the intercom button again, silencing the other man. "Thank you, Mister McKenna, but I think we've heard enough from you now. One of my colleagues will be along shortly to address you." He pressed another button, and the surface of the table slid back into place to hide the TV once more.
Florence sat there in stunned silence. Westbrook leaned back in his chair and waited for her to speak.
"How?" she finally asked.
"We took down the real sentries minutes before you noticed anything. There's a lot of really noisy things you can do with impunity thanks to a silence field. Stuff like tasing your sentries and swapping them with dummies."
"You staged the killings."
"With style," he said, a pleased grin on his face.
"Why?"
"Isn't it obvious?" He didn't give her a chance to respond before answering the question anyways. "We did it to get you. To lure you out into the open and make you mad enough to conjure up that firestorm. It was our best shot at catching you."
The fear she had been feeling expanded to fill the void left behind by the anger, and she shuddered. The Foundation had been hunting her, specifically. The Lake Ghosts had just been in the way.
She looked away from him so he wouldn't see the flash of panic in her eyes. "What are you going to do to me?" she whispered.
"Well, I was going to start by offering you a job."
There was absolute silence for a solid five seconds.
She laughed. It was the kind of mad, hysterical laughter that only comes from the sudden relief brought by the vanishing of ten tons of terror.
Westbrook waited for her to finish.
She managed to choke down the laughter, then shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Do you always handcuff people to a chair when you do job interviews?"
"You really like to harp on that, huh?"
"You would too, if you were handcuffed to a chair."
"Fair point." He pursed his lips thoughtfully, then withdrew a key from his pocket. "I think we're past the point where you'll try to incinerate me on sight, wouldn't you agree?"
She stared at the key, the ache in her wrists suddenly coming into sharp focus. "You'd just fill the room with gas or something if I tried. Wouldn't do me any good."
He frowned as he stood up. "I don't know what would possibly give you that thought." He strode over behind her and unlocked the cuffs.
She stretched, groaning as she did so from the stiffness in her arms, then started rubbing her wrists. "Alright, let's hear this job offer then."
Westbrook sat back down across from her. "You need to understand the entirety of the situation you're in. So you can make an informed decision."
"Gosh, how considerate of you," she said.
He ignored her sarcasm. "First thing, your pal McKenna was correct. The Lake Ghosts are done. We've already amnesticized most of them, and handed the real bastards over to the UIU. There won't be anything for you to go back to if you decide you'd rather walk."
She shook her head. "You think I want to go back to that? Living in a slum with a bunch of gangsters who only see me as their attack dog?"
He shrugged. "You seemed pretty upset when you thought I had killed them."
"The Ghosts saved my life once. I've lived with them for years. They're the closest thing to a family I've ever known. But I'm sick of being on their leash." She grimaced. "Sick of burning for them. Sick of killing for them."
He nodded thoughtfully. "I understand."
She snorted. "Do you? Something tells me you're not offering a job in accounting."
He sighed. "Will you let me finish?"
She waved a hand. "Fine. You said that's the first thing. What's the second?"
He stared at her intently. "Every time you do an evocation, you threaten normalcy."
She blinked. "What? You mean, because someone could see me?"
He shook his head. "No. I'm talking about backlash. When you use magic to do improbable things, more improbable things happen as a consequence. Like when you pluck a taut string and it keeps vibrating for a while afterwards."
"If it's so bad, why haven't I seen it doing anything when I cast?"
"You've got a natural affinity for evocation that we think has been letting you subconsciously redirect backlash away from yourself. That's good news for you, but bad news for everyone else." His expression turned grim. "That light show you put on last night? We think it's what sank the Edmund Fitzgerald."
"Jesus." The blasphemy slipped out on a soft exhale. "But that was ten years ago."
He waved a hand. "Time's fluid, especially where magic's involved."
She looked down at her hands. "I didn't know."
"You do now," he said. "There are ways to control backlash. Redirect it into less damaging manifestations. Our thaumatology chops aren't as good as the Coalition's, but we can help you learn how to do it."
She looked back up at him. "Why would you do that? I mean, surely there's other wizards — better wizards — who you could recruit. Why me?"
"The long answer is political and classified. But the short answer is that there aren't better wizards. Not that we can recruit, anyways."
"That can't possibly be true."
"It is," he insisted. "I know you don't realize this, but you might be one of the strongest wizards on the planet. Easily within what would have been considered battlemage caliber during the war. What's more, you've got a natural talent for combat magic. That firestorm you called up is something that most wizards twice your age couldn't pull off. You're the occult equivalent of a nuclear powerhouse."
There it was. It always came down to power. Who had it and who didn't. Who wanted it and who wielded it. The Lake Ghosts had taken her in because they'd wanted her power. Now the Foundation was trying to do the same.
"You want to use me as a weapon."
He frowned. "Do you know what SCP stands for?"
She shook her head.
"A lot of things, actually, but the relevant one here is our motto: Secure, Contain, Protect." He paused a moment to let that sink in. "We don't want to use you as a weapon — we want to use you as a shield. You have power, and lots of it, and I think here you could do some genuine good with it. Hell, you could save the world. It's kind of what we do when we aren't handcuffing wizards to chairs."
She thought about that for a while. "And if I say no?"
"Like I said, you can walk. We don't like throwing wizards into lockup — there's just not enough space for it, and there are people who would get real upset if we made it a habit. And amnesticizing you wouldn't do any good. You'd still be able to do thaumaturgy, and without what you know now, you might actually burn down the Twin Cities next time. So, if you don't want the job, we'll drop you off wherever you'd like with a change of clothes and some pocket change."
"That simple?"
"Just like that." He snapped his fingers to punctuate his point. "Of course, once you're out in the world, there's no guarantee that someone else won't come looking for you. Coalition might decide to put you down for the massive backlash you've been causing, or the Feds might toss you in Paramax for your many paracrimes. Hell, those are probably some of the nicer options for a lone, untrained battlemage."
She shivered at the thought of a GOC sniper angling for her. It didn't matter how powerful you were, a bullet through the chest would still kill you dead if you didn't see it coming.
Maybe it wasn't a bad thing that the Foundation wanted her. She was always going to have power, and that meant she was always going to be hunted. The Foundation, at least, might be able to shield her from other hunters with less friendly motives. And if what Westbrook said was true, they could help her control her power, and learn to use it for more than just burning down buildings.
That might be nice.
She met his gaze. For a long minute, neither of them said anything. Then she nodded.
"Alright."
"Excellent." He leaned back a bit before offering her a hand to shake. "My apologies, in all this fuss, I forgot to properly introduce myself. Cody Westbrook, wizard catcher and professional hoarder."
That got a laugh out of her. "You already know everything about me," she said, shaking his hand.
"Not everything," he replied. "Welcome to the Foundation, Agent Elsinger."
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