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Riemann

March, 2005
“Mr. Brooks? Mr. Brooks, wake up.”
United States Liaison Richard Brooks bolted upright in his chair. He had just closed his eyes for a moment, he thought. He rubbed at his eyes blearily and clumsily. His hands had fallen asleep after he had slept on them.
“Claire? What's…what's going on?”
“There's been an…incident. A Russian anomaly on the loose, and Intergovernmental Affairs wants you to step in and smooth things over during the recovery.”
“Russian? Claire, unless something has radically changed over the course of my nap, we are still in the United States, correct?”
“Yes, sir, we are.”
“So shouldn't Ilya's people be handling it?”
“I…don't know how to tell you this sir, but Ilya's dead.”

“How did it happen? Are you telling me this thing got loose to Moscow, John?”
“Relax, Richard. It was sudden. He had another heart attack.”
“…a heart attack?”
“Yeah.”
“Damn.”
“I know.”
“It's just-”
“Yeah, I know. You always expect it to be some Keter.”
“Yeah. Yeah, you do. How's his wife doing?”
“As well as one could expect, really. She'll be taken care of, don't worry.”
Richard paused, cradling the handset against his ear and shoulder as he tapped out a chaotic beat with his pen onto the desk. Ilya had been a good man. One of the Foundation's best.
And now he was dead.
The voice on the other end of the line coughed. Right. The Director of Intergovernmental Affairs was on the line. Now wasn't the time to get nostalgic.
“So…why exactly are you calling me? Shouldn't you be talking to one of his deputies?
“Soon, yes. We'll appoint a new liaison in due time after a thorough candidate review, but in the meantime, we are requesting your services for an urgent matter. Congratulations, Mr. Acting Liaison to the Russian Federation.”
Richard nearly dropped the phone in shock.
“…You can't be serious.”
“No. We need a senior level diplomat on a sensitive affair, and you're the most qualified. Not to mention your experience in the region.”
“A year as a junior staffer is hardly-”
“It's good enough. Unless you'd like to file a complaint?”
Richard painfully pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “No, sir.”
“Excellent. We're faxing the details over to your office, but the short version is: at approximately 11 PM last night, local time, we had a containment breach at a black site in the North Caucasian Federal District in Russia. The anomaly hopped the fence after injuring a few of the guards and hasn't been seen since.”
“Seems normal. What's the issue?”
“The issue is that the recovery team's tracking the anomaly's path, and all signs point to it as having crossed the border from Russian-held Kabardino into Georgian-held South Ossetia.”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
“No. Our closest field team is stationed in Russian territory, but their cover is as Russian special forces. Any movement across the border would be seen as an act of war. They'd be shot on sight by Georgian border troops.”
“You think one of those guards would actually take a shot?”
“You think we should run the risk?”
“…No.”
“Then yes, I think one of them might take a shot. And if they do, that's an international incident. Russia's got no choice but to do something about it, and between you and me, I'm liking the Russians' odds against fucking Georgia.”
“Have we talked to the Georgians about this at all?”
“No. We don't have any unveiled contacts in the Georgian government.”
“…You're kidding me.”
“I already told you no. You think we want to run the risk of breaching opsec for every third world shitho-”
“It's not a shithole.”
“Underdeveloped nation. Whatever. The point is, we can't talk to the Georgians without unveiling someone.”
“Is that on the table?”
“Well, I suppose it's your job to figure it out. Why do you think higher-ups wanted a senior-level diplomat?”
“I suppose that's why you pay me.”
“I was wondering that myself.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence, sir. What can you tell me about the anomaly?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“You're not cleared for it.”
“So I'm supposed to negotiate a deal without even knowing what the hell I'm negotiating for?”
“It's scary and will kill people. What else do you need to know? Anyway, the dossier should be printing now. You've got a flight booked for 7 PM.”
“Flight?”
“You didn't think we'd let you phone this one in, did you? Polish up on your Georgian. I hear Tbilisi's lovely.”
The line clicked off, leaving Richard alone with the dial tone.

Tbilisi was gorgeous, Richard had to admit. He had forgotten the understated beauty of this part of the world, so different from the flat expanses of the city that he now called home. Richard squinted as he peered through his heavily tinted car window, trying to get a glimpse of the rugged Caucasus mountains in the distance.
“Tell me more about South Ossetia.” Richard said, still looking out the window.
His companion in the backseat of the heavily armored van shifted in his seat, somewhat uncomfortably. The man opened a manila envelope, and cleared his throat before speaking in his crisp, lightly accented English.
“South Ossetia is, officially, a semi-autonomous region of Georgia. The majority of the population is Ossetian, not Georgian, however, which has raised….tensions.”
“Ethnic ones.”
“Yes.”
“Delightful. Keep going, Evgeny.”
Richard's traveling partner slid out a paper from his stack and handed it to Richard, who accepted it and began glancing over the details.
“Low level conflicts between the two sides are ongoing. Compounding the issue is a steady supply of cash, training, and weapons from the Russian Federation to the Ossetians, which has…ah…made things interesting.”
“As you would expect from funding an insurgency on your neighbor's doorstep.”
“Regardless of the…wisdom…of such an approach, the Russians are happy to comply with our recovery efforts. The problem at hand is on the Georgian side of the equation, namely their president.”
Richard flipped over the paper, scanning the provided biography. A photo was clipped to the top of the page, revealing a dour-looking man with a smile that did not reach his eyes.
“Mikheil Saakashvili.”
“Yes. Suffice to say, he is no friend of Russia, and he is unlikely to assist us in this matter if we utilize our official positions.”
“Maybe for you, as the Russian assistant liaison. What if I pull my card?”
“Very American of you. That would play better, yes, but he is unlikely to bend over backwards without something in return. Promises, respect, anything to boost his position.”
Evgeny sighed, taking off his glasses and withdrawing a handkerchief from his coat pocket. He polished his lenses for a few moments before tucking the pair into his other pocket.
“Mr. Brooks. Imagine, for a moment, that you are Saakashvili. Russia looms over your country. Your predecessor and rival was a Soviet-era fossil and a Russian yes-man. Would you allow Russian special forces to cross the border under the cover of night? In this climate? Into Ossetian territory?”
Richard cast the papers aside and leaned his head back, closing his eyes.
“No.”
“Then you see the problem.”
Richard opened his eyes a crack, and glanced over at the window once more. The surrounding skyline of Tbilisi was cast in a soft glow as the sun began to set, painting the scenery in a wash of purple and red. Richard closed his eyes once more before beginning to speak.
“Evgeny, in your best opinion, should we unveil Saakashvili?”
The Russian assistant liaison paused for a few moments to consider this, as he too, looked outside the window. Without looking back, he replied, softly.
“Ilya thought that the best approach to diplomacy was a soft one. He was a child of the revolution, born in an era when jovial words and well-placed phone calls were all that were needed. He made sure to make friends with powerful people all over this part of the world, knowing that he could call upon them when he needed to. It worked well for him, I think.”
“A different time.”
“A naive one.” Evgeny turned to look at Richard, who tilted his head back towards him in response. Evgeny leaned in, staring straight into Richard's eyes.
“The world is changing, Mr. Brooks. Sometimes we need to get our hands dirty.”
With that, the Russian assistant liaison opened the door of the car without looking, and stepped out, leaving Richard alone with his stack of papers. He took one last look out the window, pausing for a moment to admire the colors of the sky.
Then, he too opened the door, and stepped out of the car. It was time to get to work.

“Thank you again for meeting with us on short notice, Mr. President.”
Richard sat in his chair, fingers laced in his lap, as he looked across the desk at his counterpart, President Mikheil Saakashvili. The heavy-lidded gaze of the Georgian leader was directed Richard's way as he leaned over to where a translator whispered a rapid stream of words into his ear. Saakashvili's eyes never left Richard's even as the older man nodded and quietly spoke a few words of Georgian in response to the translator.
“Welcome to Tbilisi, Mr. Brooks. I hope you have been enjoying our country thus far,” the interpreter relayed as Saakashvili continued to stare down Richard.
“It's been lovely, Mr. President, thank you. This is my associate, Mr. Zhidkov.”
Evgeny leaned forward, and tipped his head, averting Saakashvili's gaze. “Thank you for your time, Mr. President.”
“Charmed. So. Gentleman. What does the United States want with my people?”
Richard leaned forward, placing his clasped hands onto the desk. “A small request. Nothing major. You would hardly even notice it.”
Saakashvili raised an eyebrow as the translation came in, but his face remained largely stoic otherwise. He crossed his arms over his chest, and murmured a few words in response.
“And that would be?”
“We lost something in transit that's particularly important to us. We have a team in place that can recover it, but they'll need your go-ahead to cross over from the Russian border.”
The president's face remained impassive, even as the translator continued to quietly speak into his ear. Abruptly, he held up a hand, silencing the assistant as he leaned over the table, meeting Richard's eyes.
“And what exactly did you lose?” Saakashvili spoke in a soft voice, but a confident one. Richard coolly met his gaze, betraying no surprise at the Georgian's language shift.
“I am afraid that I cannot tell you that.”
“Then I'm afraid we have nothing more to discuss.”
Evgeny began to speak. “Mr. President, trust us when we-”
“I do not speak to Russian lap dogs, Mr. Zhidkov. I am speaking to your superior.”
Before the Russian liaison could finish making a noise of indignation, Richard placed a hand on his arm. The two of them shared a look for a few seconds, before Evgeny at last gave a long, slow nod. Richard turned his attention back towards the Georgian president, who remained impassive.
“Mr. Saakashvili, I'm afraid that I will have to ask your translator to leave the room.”
At long last, the president looked surprised. “And why would that be necessary? He is privy to the same level of information that I am.”
“Please, sir. Consider it a matter of…high level trust. Our superiors would not tolerate more people knowing than is absolutely necessary.”
The surprise continued. “Your superiors? The American government, you mean?”
“Not…exactly. But I can't say anything more with him in the room.”
Saakashvili was silent for a few moments. Richard could see a muscle in the Georgian's jaw twitch as he grinded his teeth, chewing out the discussion in his own mind, acquiring a taste for the situation, and eventually arriving at an answer. He raised a hand and made a dismissive motion, sending the translator out of the room. Richard turned his head to watch the assistant cross the entire length of the room, open the door, and close it behind him. Only then did he return his focus to Saakashvili.
“Mr. Saakashvili. What I am about to tell you is of the utmost importance and secrecy. It cannot leave this room. Believe me when I say that it threatens every level of national security for both your country and mine.”
More surprise, a tinge of fear, and more than a little hunger flitted across Saakashvili's face, Richard noted. Good. That's where he wanted him.
“My colleague and I represent an organization known as the Foundation. You see…”

Richard leaned his head back, watching the faint tendrils of smoke rising into the air from his cigarette, only to fade away into the ceiling. His attention turned to the window and the Tbilisi skyline beyond, where a light snow had started, softly blanketing the surrounding world. He spared a look over to his right, where his smoking companion, President Saakashvili sat. The Georgian leader was similarly nursing a cigarette of his own, and had not taken his eyes away from the window since they had sat down. Richard idly tapped out some ashes into the tray next to him.
“How do you handle it?” The voice coming from the president was so quiet that Richard hardly registered it at first. He paused for a few moments, considering the question.
“It takes time. I know we dropped a lot on you.”
“It is a…grave understatement to say such a thing. I have not slept since you told me.”
“I didn't either when I found out. Took a lot of self-medicating until I could really sleep at night. Still don't sleep too well most days.”
“Then tell me, Mr. Brooks. Why do you do this?”
Richard paused again as he reached the end of his cigarette, while noting that the president had done the same. He snuffed out the leftover butt into the tray, and reached into his pocket for another pack of cigarettes, before carefully withdrawing two and handing one over to Saakashvili. The Georgian accepted the cigarette with a thankful nod, and lit it, before taking a few pensive drags. Richard glanced over at the president for another moment, before lighting his own.
“I was unveiled not long after I had finished a few years in the Foreign Service. Was recommended by my predecessor as liaison actually. I had worked for him as an attaché in Berlin when the wall fell. I suppose I agreed to go along with it for many of the same reasons I went into diplomacy in the first place: someone's got to make sure this place runs smoothly, so it might as well be someone who can get the job done. And the money doesn't hurt.”
Saakashvili chuckled, interrupting Richard's memory. The liaison looked over at the president, who was shaking his head.
“I was half expecting some American drivel about freedoms or enforcing your sense of justice. Refreshing to hear a diplomat speak the truth.”
“I don't represent the United States, Mr. President. I represent the Foundation. Despite appearances, the two are not the same.”
Richard paused for another moment, as he blew out a breath full of smoke, looking at it as it vanished into the air once more, there for one moment, and gone the next.
“This job carries a lot of responsibility. Not everyone can handle being unveiled. Takes a whole lot of red tape to bring someone inside. Believe me, we appreciate what you did for us, opening the border like that. Trust me when I say that it saved a lot of lives.”
“I appreciate your trust in this matter, then. I…ah…my apologies. I seem to have a bit of a headache.”
Richard looked over at the president, who had begun to rub at his forehead. The Georgian's eyes were squeezed shut, a vein in his forehead bulging.
“Do you need a moment?”
“No…no, it's fine. I'm….ah…it feels like a migraine.”
The liaison stood up from his chair, and collected his coat that had been draped over the plush backing. He snuffed out the end of his mostly un-smoked cigarette into the ashtray, but not before blowing out one more cloud of smoke, this time firmly aimed at Saakashvili.
“I have another engagement to run to anyway, Mr. President. I hope you feel better. We'll talk soon, I'm sure.”
“Yes…of course. Thank you again Mr…uhh…sorry…”
“Brooks. Richard Brooks. Don't worry. People have a habit of forgetting my name.”


The Foundation has recovered approximately ████ instances of media which, while not anomalous themselves, contain references to anomalous events, items, organizations, or individuals. The majority of these are only obtainable on known "Black Market" channels run by various groups of interest or accessible via anomalous means such as the Wanderer's Library. However, approximately ██% of such known media is released on more public facing channels such as television broadcast, book sales, and internet file sharing sites. Typically these forms of media are "adaptions" of non-anomalous popular culture, taking the form of new or altered episodes of media released at the time.
In almost every case of altered media none of the original creators profess any knowledge of it and there is no record of any source for these alterations. Research into the sources of these pieces of media is ongoing, however there does not seem to be a single consistent source, so the phenomenon has not been identified as an event needing an SCP designation.
The following list contains samples of such media contained at Site-73's media archives. A complete list can be acquired by asking the current head of the archives. Copies can be used within the site's recreation room at any time, with deliveries to other sites being authorized with the permission of the current head.
Further documentation can be found here.

Format of Media: Live Broadcast
Date of Recovery: 2000-01-01
Title of Media: I Am Weasel, an animated series produced by Cartoon Network and created by David Feiss from 1997 to 2000. The series involves the rivalry between "I. M. Weasel" a highly intelligent anthropomorphic weasel, and "I. R. Baboon," a significantly less intelligent and successful anthropomorphic baboon.
Notable Portrayals of Anomalous Events: The short is titled "I R Contained?" and aired as the second short in an episode following "The Legend of Big Butt." Within it Weasel is a researcher at the "SPP Foundation," with Baboon being the anomaly he is in charge of researching. As such Baboon is referred to as "SPP-8UTT" throughout the short. What follows is several invasive tests or the purposes of discovering Baboon's anomalous properties. These tests are highly exaggerated slapstick violence leading to results such as Baboon's skeleton flying out of his body, his rear end exploding, and his left hand gaining sentience and trying to strangle Baboon. Baboon insists throughout the short that he is perfectly normal, to which Weasel always replies that "You're a talking Baboon, of course you're an SPP!"
Near the end of the short Baboon states that Weasel himself is a talking weasel. This causes Weasel to react similarly to an individual exposed to a Class IV cognitohazard, before passing out.
The scene then changes to the two being watched on a security camera. Standing in front of monitor is The Red Guy, a recurring character based off the popular image of Satan. He informs a chimpanzee wearing an amulet that the containment of "SPP-Weasel" is proceeding without any problems. The short then ends.

Format of Media: A Playstation 4 Blu Ray Disc
Date of Recovery: 2019-03-18
Title of Media: Hitman 2, a video game developed by IO Interactive and published by Warner Bros. Interactive in 2018. The game stars "Agent 47", a professional Assassin who works for a fictional organization.
Other Notes: Standard copies of Hitman 2 requiring online connections to access the majority of the features of the game. This copy can access all content with the exception of leaderboards and the multiplayer functions.
Notable Portrayals of Anomalous Events: The third stage, "Three-Headed Serpent" is completely different from the standard release. Rather then travel to Colombia to assassinate three drug lords, Agent 47 is sent to London where he must assassinate the heads of Marshall, Carter, and Dark Ltd. The explanation is that they are rivals to the Providence, the organization who is currently employing Agent 47.
The stage itself takes place at a mansion owned by Carter, where a secret meeting between the organization and several other groups of interests is being held. The Foundation, Global Occult Organization, The Factory, and Gamers Against Weed are all mentioned as attending, and Agent 47 can disguise himself as agents of any member of the aforementioned organizations.
The level, and thus the game, is seemingly impossible to complete, as Mr. Dark has not been found by any who play it. Examining the game files shows that a model does not exist for Mr. Dark, but is intended to be dynamically generated similar to a target in a later mission in the game.

Format of Media: A Blu Ray Disc
Date of Recovery: 2014-07-09
Title of Media: Forrest Gump, a feature film released in 1994 starring Tom Hanks and directed by Robert Zemeckis. The film is about the the life of the titular Forrest, a mentally disabled man.
Notable Portrayals of Anomalous Events: The film does not start in the same fashion as the standard release. An individual not directly shown is shown entering a room similar to an unmodified Standard Humanoid Containment Chamber where Forrest is sitting on the chamber's bed, looking out the window. He identifies Forrest and asks what brought him here.
From here Forrest begins telling the story of his life, with most of the film being identical to standard release of the film. Barring the removal of the "flash forward" scenes where Forrest would ordinary be responding to individual's reactions to the story he is telling. The film diverges following the scene where Forrest's mother dies of cancer.
An unknown individual approaches Forrest. He is wearing a uniform similar to a Global Occult Coalition Agent, though several differences indicate it is likely a fictionalized version of the organization, which is not named in the film. He is recruited to the organization with the claim that the events of his life indicate he possesses probability manipulating properties.
What follows is a fifteen minute montage of Forrest engaging in several anomalous entities. Several of which are known to be contained by the Foundation in the present day, but were not contained or known to exist within 1974, the period the flashback takes place.
After this montage the film resumes its normal course with Forrest meeting Jenny and learning that he has a son, with Jenny revealing she will be dying shortly. Unlike in the film, Forrest does makes an effort to preserve Jenny's life. He uses his contacts within the organization to acquire anomalous artifacts as part of his attempt. However, this results with Jenny being transformed into a being similar to SCP-███████. Forrest is forced to kill her.
At this point the man who recruited him arrives on the scene. He explains that Forrest's anomalous properties function by "stealing the luck" of people he love and care about, claiming that his mother, Jenny, Bubba, and Lieutenant Dan have all suffered because of his own anomalous properties. A montage follows displaying the projected lives these individuals would have lived. Notably their fates are similar to events Forrest had gone through during the course of his life.
Furthermore he says the organization has discovered that his son will inevitably suffer the same fate if Forrest himself is not contained.
The film ends with Forrest saying goodbye to his son before being taken away by the organization, fading to black as he performs a bitter monologue about how foolish he has been.

Format of Media: A collection of MP4 files downloaded from a torrent file labeled "Frasier Season 12" hosted on ███████████.org
Date of Recovery: 2013-██-██
Title of Media: Frasier. An American sitcom starring Kelsey Grammer. The show was about the life of Frasier Crane, a psychologist living in Seattle and hosting a psychology themed radio show. Conflicts between the intellectual Frasier and the more "down to earth" cast members were a common source of conflict within the plot.
Other Notes: The show aired for eleven seasons. In line with other media of this type, no record of writing, or producing, the twenty four episodes of this "Season Twelve" exists. Fourteen of the collected episodes are comprised of clips and recorded lines from the previous seasons edited to create new stories. However, the remaining ten episodes are seemingly completely original. These ten episodes are filmed in a drastically different style than the original TV show. Most camera angles would have been impossible to film on the Frasier TV set. One episode has the cast speak an unknown language with subtitles being increasingly vulgar and nonsensical. Continuity is also non-existent, with multiple episodes ending with the entire cast's death. Four of the original episodes of the "season" deal with anomalies.
Notable Portrayals of Anomalous Events:

Episode 9, "Freedom, horrible Freedom" is the first original episode. The plot deals with Frasier being unable to leave his penthouse. Every attempt he makes results in him walking into his bedroom. This was demonstrated through multiple shots, each from a different angle, including several from outside the building Frasier lived in. It was eventually established that every other character could leave. Eventually Niles offers to hold Frasier's hand to guide him. When they both walk out the front door Frasier walks into his bedroom with Niles' severed arm. The remainder of the episode is Fraiser dragging every cast member through his front door. Despite tearing every cast member apart no blood is shown and even when Fraiser is left holding their severed heads they berate him. Near the end of the episode, Frasier shoots himself. This causes his head to fly off his body. No blood or other expected results from a head being forcibly removed from a body follows. Fraiser's head successfully leaves the front door. It rolls down the hall before colliding with an unknown entity. Frasier recognizes it, and blames it for his inability to leave. The episode then ends.
Episode 14, "Father's Day: Part 2" does not follow any continuity with the previous episode despite claiming to be a two parter. The episode is about Martin Crane joining a faith similar to that of the Church of the Broken God, wherein he becomes increasingly mechanical and hostile to his sons before eventually forcibly converting them into robotic entities that join him in worship.
Episode 19, "The Godhood" Has SCP-343, an entity similar to SCP-1348-01, and an entity similar to the complete form of SCP-███ approach Frasier. All three claim that Frasier is the reincarnation of God after he was killed, and that with his ascension he has the duty to create a new Garden of Eden. What follows is several attempts to create a new world with Fraiser's own neuroses leading him to create flawed and deformed humans. Ultimately Frasier decides that if he is God then the most ethical thing to do is erase himself. Upon making this decision the show cuts to black, no credits are shown in this episode.
Episode 24, "Goodnight, Seattle" consists of Fraiser and Niles staring straight forward into the camera for 23 straight minutes. While they stare ahead several figures from known anomalous broadcasts come in and dismantle the set. Eventually the two are standing in front of a camera in an empty room with a concrete floor, everything else having been removed. A character in a Big Bird costume then takes the camera, but collapses onto the floor while making sounds similar to a person asphyxiating. The scene fades to black on Fraiser's shoes.

Format of Media: A paperback book
Date of Recovery: 1991-07-11
Title of Media: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. A children's novel published by Joanne Rowling June 26 1997. The first in a series about Harry Potter, an orphan who learns his parents are wizards and he has been registered to Hogwarts, a school where he will learn magic.
Notable Portrayals of Anomalous Events: The third chapter of the book, "The Letters from No One" is not within the book. Instead the third chapter is titled "The Keeper of the Keys," ordinarily the fourth chapter.
The chapter starts similarly to the standard book, with Harry receiving a letter stating he has been accepted to Hogwarts. However, after Vernon Dursley takes the letter from Harry the narrative diverges from the standard book. Rather then destroy the letter he begins crying. Petunia Dursley begins crying as well once she reads the letter.
It is at this point that the character Rubeus Hagrid enters the Dursley home. The narrative states that he was too large to fit the front door, "Yet the giant walked through the door nevertheless." Both adult Dursleys beg Hagrid for "more time." But Hagrid declines saying "yeh knew the price ye'd have to pay."
Following this an entity described similarly to the appearance of SCP-701-1 is said to "come from Alagadda to greet Harry." The entity hands Harry a long silver dagger.
The narration then states "Harry knew what he had to do." Harry then uses the knife to kill the Dursleys through disembowelment.
Hagrid then takes Harry to Diagon Alley, and the narration proceeds mostly unaltered from the original book. With a few notable differences being:

When Harry is given his wand, the shopkeeper mentions states that the main antagonist Voldemort did "great things, terrible, but great." In the altered narrative he then states, "Of course, nothing compared to the Hanged King. But, then, very few are," with the narration stating Harry agreed with him at that matter.
How Harry reaches the train station is not explained, and none of the Dursley's are mentioned in the narrative.
The Chocolate Frog Card depicting Albus Dumbledore lists one of his accomplishments as "Giving a grand Tribute."
After being challenged to a "Wizards Duel" by Draco Malfoy, the narration states: "Harry considered the knife that was still with him. However, he knew that such a gift would be wasted on someone like Malfoy."
During the scene where Harry is given Christmas gifts, it is noted that the Dursleys have not sent him a gift. The narration states that this is because "Harry had already given them they greatest gift of all."
After the climax of the novel, during the scene of the end of the year dinner, Dumbledore instead gives Harry 10,000 House Points for "Being the Chosen Ambassador." At this point Professor Quirrell, who in the original text did not appear after his defeat, is dragged into the great hall by Hagrid and Professor Snape. Harry then approaches Quirrell, and using the silver knife given to him disembowels him. He then says. “With this, fool's blood, it is the Hanged King's.” All the students and faculty applaud him.
The novel ends not with Harry getting on the "Hogwarts Express" but returning to Number Four Privet Drive. There it is shown that the corpses of Vernon and Petunia are still within the house. Dudley Dursely, who has not been mentioned since his parents deaths, is described as being "much thinner than he had been last summer." The book ends with the same sentence as the original novel. "I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer."

Addendum: Online discussion about an edition of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets where Harry kills the character "Aunt Marge" with a knife have been discovered. Recovery attempts are ongoing.


Chen's only forms of company left in his cracked concrete cage were a white ceiling with yellowing, chipping paint, horrendously bright, gaudy orange lights, and a sink with a leaky faucet. Despite the rusted spring jabbing into his spine every night, he managed to sleep relatively soundly in the D-Class facilities. On a half-rotting desk just beside his bed rested his medal of honor. It had only been a fortnight ago when he had received it, which was an eternity in D-Class time.
They had no alarms here, nor clocks. After all, time was meaningless to those who had none left.
The featureless stainless steel door buzzed open and roused him from his sleep. His sand-caked eyes slowly opened with an audible snap, and his snores cut directly from the source. The lights then turned on and assaulted his tired gaze, searing insignias of death into his retinas. He let out an audible groan, turned over in bed, and buried his face in the musty pillow.
"Rise and shine, D-Class." Her voice was as awful to hear as ever.
Chen slowly sat up and allowed his gaze to wander close to her face but refusing to meet her eyes. He fought the urge to prostrate and beg for forgiveness. Those days were past him.
"Today, you'll be helping us test a new anomaly. I believe you'll be relatively familiar with this one." Was that smugness in her voice? Chen dared a glance closer to her face. Despite her blank expression, her eyes shone with pure delight. He had trained eyes; he knew that she had one corner of her lips curled up at the edge.
Chen dug deeply into a pool of festering resentment. First, he dipped his toes in those waters and then he dove in headfirst.
"Is that so?" Chen couldn't stop the shaking in his voice. Damn his cowardice. Even in the intoxicating throes of rebellion, he knew his place.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then she lowered her gaze at him, eyes narrowing.
"Five minutes." She turned around and left the room.
The moment she was out of Chen's sight, he realized how lightheaded he had become. He leaned forward, put his head in his hands, exhaled loudly, and greedily gulped down several lungfuls of air. He'd held his breath the entire time without even knowing it.
He rushed to his restroom, turned on the lights, and paused at the blanket he had laid on the floor two weeks ago. He got down on one knee and lifted the blanket, exposing shards of shattered mirror sprinkled on the filth-encrusted tile floor. He barely even recognized himself. Not once did he ever think he'd sport a shaved head and bags more conspicuous than the Senior Researcher's ego.
Imagine being worth less than a coffee stain.

The testing chamber door was spotless and clean, unlike his own living quarters. Go figure. His heart thundered in his chest. No amount of deep breathing bullshit would be enough to calm his nerves.
The Senior stepped to the side, unlocked something and popped open a control panel of some kind. She quickly typed something, pressed enter, and closed it back up. A beam of light leaked out from the corner of the door before disappearing.
A lump got stuck in Chen's throat. Breathing became more difficult. Despite his relatively long life span as a D-Class, this shit never got any easier.
"Don't forget this," the Senior roughly tapped a heavy metal cylinder against his shoulder directly on the bone. Nice.
Chen took it and momentarily allowed himself the delusion that she had his safety in mind. After she roughly shoved him in there, he no longer held onto this idea.
The testing chamber door slammed shut behind him, leaving him with his predator.
"No fucking way," he spat between his gritted teeth.
A wide and spacious room with stainless steel paneling encircled Chen and the skip. The Senior Researcher was right. He did recognize it. How couldn't he? He was the reason the damn thing was even in this cell to begin with. In the back of his mind, Chen supposed this was just how the Foundation thanked the personnel they didn't care for.
An amorphous glowing mass hovered before him, swallowing light from the bulbs above and spitting them in every direction, dotting the walls with little pinpricks of shine. This was new. Chen wasn't sure what was spinning harder, these lights or his head.
Slowly, the lights began rotating while maintaining their flickering quality. Chen lowered his stance a little, ready to dodge or run or, well, do anything, really. He then remembered the little cylinder that the Senior gave him. He did the same thing he did last time; he pushed the button on the side—
There was no button. In fact, chunks of the Anchor were missing from the body itself, which exposed part of the circuit board.
From above, he noticed the Senior sitting behind a window—likely bulletproof or something—with her legs crossed.
Why did she look so god damn amused?
The lights rotated rapidly against the walls, with each pinprick coalescing into one large circular light. Once it gained its full size, it honed in on Chen's face.
His eyes went wide and he saw the walls melting, the floor, bubbling, laughter dripping from mouths frothing in between the cracks, MTF soldiers hurtling from a bright blue expanse of nothing, felt hot coffee stains boiling into his orange jumpsuit and cooking his meat by the shoulders, the windows turning opaque, bubbles forming on their surface before popping and turning into eyeballs, half of them with the corners crinkling with delight, the other half dripping with vehement ire, and saw himself sitting in a lonely little computer room, drilling his eardrums until he'd had—
"Enough."
He held the Anchor with both hands and shook violently where he stood. Its weight felt lovely in his palms. He turned the sharper ends of the damaged casing inwards, held it high and rammed it into his head with an audible thud.
Little twinkling stars danced across his vision, momentarily bringing him back to reality. Everything faded away, with nothing but a bright light and a pleased-looking Senior to remind him of where he stood.
Within seconds, it all came back.
He beat himself once more, sending another swathe of stars in his vision. Oh, how he missed the night sky. Oh, how he missed the sense of awe and wonder at the possibilities. Too bad those possibilities were all a GOD DAMN LIE!
This soon became a fucked up game of tug o' war, with Chen's end of the rope being the broken Anchor that offered stargazing and freedom via bloodied concussion, and the anomaly's end of the rope being his sanity.
Chen dropped the Anchor, fell to his knees, and clutched his pounding head. In his haze of head trauma and bloodstained eyesight, he noticed something about the Anchor…
The casing had dented to the point of coming off. He seized this at once and tore off a nice and sizable sheet of hard, sharp freedom. All thoughts of escape via exsanguination left his mind when he saw two little green wires jutting out from the circuit board.
Fumbling, he quickly took the wires and twisted them together. The Anchor beeped once, and Chen knew he'd live. He triumphantly jammed it into the ground, and then everything stopped.
The laughter. The coffee. The eyes. It all stopped.
Chen looked over to the Senior, who had quite the large frown plastered across her dolled up face.
He won.
She lost.
So…why did he feel so empty?

Chen slowly exited the test chamber, his head fighting between hanging low and hanging high.
"You lived," the Senior spat at him. Her eyes burned holes into the side of his bloodied head. "…Be at testing chamber eighteen in two hours. Understood?"
Chen nodded and returned to his room. He shut the door behind him and locked it. Fighting the urge to look at his medal, he slowly sat down in bed and took several deep breaths. They came out ragged. He could taste blood.
Imagine being worth less than a coffee stain.
No. There had to be more. Was it his attitude? No. He had been nothing but cheerful, social and encouraging. He cracked jokes left and right, made sure to smile at everyone he ever…was that the issue?
Imagine…being worth…being worthless.
He fought the urge no longer.

Bright, dancing orange and searing heat danced from the mouth of the incinerator at the other end of the room.
Chen shouldn't be here, but it's not that he cared, of course. An intrusive thought then crossed his mind: he imagined himself as a cartoon character with his eyebrows on fire and scrambling left and right for a source of water. In the end, his mind settled on dunking his head into a toilet to put out the flames. He laughed at the thought.
It felt good to laugh.
He removed the medal from under his outfit, dangled it by the cord, and watched as the burning amber blaze danced golden glints off the surface of his mark of honor. Oh, how he loved this little thing. It was the most beautiful lie that life had ever granted him: that he was worth it. Without a word, he let it slip from his fingers and smiled wryly as he closed the incinerator door.
Well. The next test should begin pretty soon. Better get going. He left the room without even bothering to take one final look at the last good memory he ever made. She was right there, right in front of the room, her back turned to him. It seemed like she hadn't noticed him. She was awfully unaware for someone so important.
Chen did his best to sneak past her, but of course, he forgot about the automatic closing door and nearly jumped out of his skin when it slammed shut behind him. Surprisingly enough, she, too, jumped. A bit of steam rose from above her shoulder and she did a little dance.
When she turned and glared immense daggers into Chen's eyes, he saw a dark brown stain slowly spreading down her white blouse. Little trickles of coffee hung off of her chin and dripped to the floor. She held a white mug in one hand, that which also dripped coffee.
His shock immediately turned to raucous, rebellious laughter, bent over, knee-slapping, breath-stealing, 'fuck you'-slinging guffaws that rang out across the featureless white halls and drilled directly into Little Ms. Higher-Holier-and-Haughtier-Than-Thou.
A vein started throbbing in her pretty little forehead, and Chen laughed even harder. What she did next should have sent waves and quakes of terror down Chen's spine, but instead, he welcomed it.
She threw her empty mug to the floor, grabbed him by the collar of his orange jumpsuit and slammed him into the wall, which knocked the breath out of him and sended blackened lights arcing across his vision. She didn't say a word; her burning red cheeks and hate-filled eyes said everything.
But Chen could practically hear it in her voice.
Chen, you insufferable little shitstain.
For too long, he had groveled at not just her feet, but the feet of all of his superiors, begging for acceptance. For too long, he wanted in.
Now?
Chen hacked up a fat one from the lowest recesses of his throat and let it loose directly into her eye. She recoiled and froze for a few moments. Chen's bloodied phlegm slowly slid down her soft little cheeks like runny red mascara.
The last thing he saw before everything went black was her fist.

When he awakened, he found himself tied to a chair. Typical. Even the Foundation couldn't even get creative enough. He blinked away the blurriness and saw Higher-Than-Thou grinning wildly at him.
They were in the testing chamber.
Despite his pride, he shivered.
She stood right next to the Anchor from the test before. She slammed her boot directly onto the thing. She then stepped out of the chamber, punched something in the control panel, and sarcastically waved goodbye. The doors slammed shut.
From just above, it descended upon him.
He closed his eyes, as though that would somehow make it all better.
It didn't.


.

by Captain Kirby

+

-

After the first five years, Agent Cervantes forgot there were other colors. Observing the world through a crimson lens had brought her so much excitement. One second she saw an artist's passion, a mother's embrace, and the exchange of Valentine's Day chocolates. Then the view hurdled her into operating rooms, warzones, and red-faced arguments. Each moment a rollercoaster.
But after so much time, the visions lost their vibrancy. Her days turned monochrome. Cervantes could've sworn she'd seen that cherry pie, or that blood transfusion. The wine all tasted the same, and her tongue numbed to strawberries.
"Excuse me?" Cervantes didn't know how to address the Red.
"Yes, Ava?" the world echoed back.
"I was just wondering, are there other… things like you?"
"I am not sure I understand."
"Like, is there someone who archives the world's blue?"
The universe paused to contemplate this thought. A long time passed. It could've been minutes, it could've been years, but Cervantes waited for a reply. And after what could have been an eternity, existence answered:
"What is blue?"

+

-

Forgotten, and stumbling in the cold, the only features Agent Ramirez could distinguish were the warm orange lights, now too far away for her to reach. One dangled high in the sky; the other radiated from the city of Lamplight.
Ramirez felt like she was dying. Like the cosmic cold flooding into her would not leave, no matter how close she got to those beacons of heat. So she gave into her fate, and took a seat on whatever matter she was standing on.
It was a pathetic way to go out, really. She wanted answers so badly that she gave up the comfort of the extradimensional settlement. And now that she found her answers, she wished she had remained ignorant. She was cold, alone, and unsatisfied.
But her train of thought continued despite her expectations. She was expecting to die five minutes ago. Now ten. And now she was livid, so she took it out on the citizens of Lamplight.
How could they be happy just sitting there in that orange bubble of theirs? They said they wanted to experience the mystery, build the world around it, but that was nothing more than an excuse. It was lazy. Questions this, intrigue that. No one in that entire goddamn town had the conviction to step into the dark to find the answers.
Ramirez liked the sound of that word, "conviction". She might be cold now, but at least she had follow through. At least she did what she set out to do.
"Fuck them," she whispered. It made her feel better at first, but then disappointed soon after. Disappointed this was how she'd spend her final minutes, which had now stretched into hours.
As she sat in the cold, Ramirez found herself apologizing to Lamplight. She became thankful for its orange glow, to brighten up her eternal night. It was almost as if she wasn't dying alone.

+

-

All that Graham felt was regret. If she could remember more things she would have felt loss too, but regret was the only thing left. So she just felt regret that she did not understand why she should be feeling loss.
She had been alone in the desert world for three days now. And while the facts slipped from her mind, the facts were present nonetheless. She killed the only other thing in here with her. Yes, it was for survival. No, it did not care what she was (besides edible). But three days ago, she wasn't alone. Three days ago she had a purpose. Three days ago, there was more to her life than miles and miles of yellow hills and golden grains.
The thing sometimes shifted to look like one of Graham's colleagues. Other times it became her partner. And one time, it even mimicked her. In each of those moments, just before it attempted to feast on Graham's shambling mind, she felt relief. Because a friendly face broke up the world.
One day, she forgot how to walk. She tripped while scuttering down a sand dune, and planted face first into the ground. Her arms would not respond, and her neck held a mutiny. All she could do, was open her eyes to see the sand, or close them to see nothing.
Her last thought before she went, was that there wasn't much of a difference.

+

-

Hawley laid back against a moss covered rock, at the top of a grassy hill. He could see leaves and stems and blades of green for miles and miles. The breeze was cool, and the sun was just right. He had earned himself a rest after a hard day's work, but something about napping felt wrong.
"So, what now?" he called out to the forest. There was no response, which made him smile. He was talking to the trees like a goddamn hippie, what else did he expect?
But, as the forest remained silent, Hawley grew impatient. That tree girl must've heard him, right? Kind of rude to ignore him after all Hawley did for her. For all of them really.
Hawley got up and reentered the forest. He went from tree to tree, knocking on logs, and calling out.
"Are you just going to leave me like this?" he shouted. Then he kicked a tree too hard. Probably broke a toe.
"Fuck!" He fell on his ass, and clutched his foot, "Damn it! Fine bitch, be like that. I see how it is. Just leave after I'm no longer useful."
Hawley heard a shuffling of leaves behind him. He forced his neck as far as it could go to see what was back there. Just out of the corner of his eye, Hawley caught a few vine-like locks of hair.
"I'm sorry. It's not on purpose," she said.
"What?"
"You can't come with us."
"But— but I joined your psychic contingent, right? I'm here in this synthetic world, just like you."
"The others don't trust you."
"I gave you an opportunity for revenge. A gift."
"But you're still Foundation."
"Not anymore! I left!" Hawley felt defenseless, having this conversation on the ground, still massaging his foot. This girl spoke to him like a younger brother.
"Not in title, but in spirit."
"That's bullshit, and you know it."
"Then why do you still have your ID card?"
The girl pointed to the small plastic rectangle hanging from Hawley's belt.
"Wait, that wasn't on purpose."
"Exactly."
"But—"
"It is not up to me. Thank you so much, Douglas. I won't forget you."
A small breeze fluttered through the trees. Hawley covered his face, but when he looked again, the girl was gone.
Careful not to push on his (probably) broken toe, Hawley stood up. They weren't going to just leave him behind. He'd follow them, wherever they went. He'll chase them all the way to paradise. He hobbled and hobbled. He traversed endless miles of forest, always with green grass below him, and green leaves above him, blocking out the sun.

+

-

The two bluest things on earth are the sky and the sea. Abagail Liu experienced both of them softly flanking her as she fell to her death. She was not afraid. It didn't feel much different from her flight a moment prior. And everyone knows blue is a calming color.
Abagail just wished that Olivia was there to experience this endless blue with her. Views like this are meant to be shared.

+

-

DATA EXPUNGED

+

-

In his last moments, Sforza could see the following:

A dozen men or so. All of them cheering as Sforza gasped for his last breaths. They filled the king's courtyard like an audience fills a theater. The sting of their hostility is dulled greatly by knowing Sforza's end at least bring joy to some civilians.
The courtyard furbishments (largely obscured by the men mentioned prior). Sforza decorated his courtyard top to bottom with royal banners and drapes, everything purple of course. There is nothing more royal than purple. He would've doused the whole castle in the color if he had the time. It is the only color fit for a king such as himself.
Sforza's younger brother Gonzalo, standing between the hanged man and the crowd, up raised on a crate. Gonzalo was never fond of the decor, or Sforza's choice of wife, or a number of other things. But he was very vocal about the amount of violet Sforza used around the castle. It was likely the only matter that Sforza's brother felt he could dispute.

In documentation of Sforza's death (which would later be mistaken for fiction) a number of details were incorrect without any excuse. Most of them to do with the nature of Gonzalo's betrayal. However, no one could fault the historians for assuming that Sforza was aghast. That he spent his final moments cursing his brother for committing such a sin. But that is simply not the case.
I wonder, would Gonzalo still hate me if I changed up the color scheme more?

+

-

They live their lives with gray on all sides.
Wake up in your containment cell. Go to sleep in your containment cell.
Gray gray gray. The walls, the floor, the ceiling.
Just you and the gray.
The door never opens.
The gray is not a good friend.

+

-

We all die alone.
There are no colors here.

+

-

And we may be reborn, or we may move on, and enter the unknown alone. But in the transition, in the moment in between, the dark turns to bright and all the world is white. There is so much of everything. Nothing stands out. It is overpowering. There is only white and its constituents are lost in the shine.
This is where colors go to die.

A blind man made broad strokes across a canvas. He used watercolor, but he was equally skilled with acrylics and oils. Friends of his asked if they could observe, see his process. Everyone thought that watching a sightless man paint would be a spectacle of sorts. But the blind man declined. His art was created more through guesswork and instinct than method.
The only time he let anyone in on his artistic secrets was when the neighbor boy asked for lessons. The blind man had declined any previous apprentices, but something about the young lad's candor struck him differently.
So now, the boy watched as the blind man flew. Not in the literal sense, but the blind man believed that the rush of doing something so absurd must feel just like flying. He soared across his canvas, did loop-the-loops with his brush, landing and taking off from his palette to refuel and adjust course.
When he finished, the blind man had no clue what he made.
"How do you know it's finished?" the boy asked from the far side of the room.
"Because, I started with a palette where the colors were all separated. They had their own little space, carved out just for that part of the rainbow."
"But you took them out of that space."
"Yes, I did. And I introduced them to each other. Red met yellow. Orange said hello to blue. Violet and green had a nice picnic together," the blind man motioned for the boy to join him, "Come closer and see."
A pair of shoes clicked along the ground, until the blind man could hear the soft sound of breathing.
"The painting is in harmony. No color is lonely or overshadowed. And once I bring every shade and hue together on the canvas, I know I'm done."
"But how do you know if it's any good?" the boy asked.
"I don't know if it's good. All I know is that it makes me happy."
The boy nodded, but the blind man didn't know that.


Space…
The absolute last place I thought they would send me. But they really sold it well. I remember the Doctor strolling in whilst reading from his clipboard. God, that man was a genius.
The first time I met him was rather special. He walked in yawning with disheveled clothes and said; "Hello D-13733, we would like to have you available for the next experiment. How are you currently feeling?"
"I'm good, but why ask? You people never cared at all before," I said quite curiously, wondering what this man was doing here. What in God's name is so important that he needs to see me in person?
"The Ethics Committee limited the experiment to certain groups like volunteers. That's why." Seems like there were some complications, but he did not state that he cared to begin with. Yeah, this was probably worth hearing out, since interesting things rarely happen down here.
"Ah, I see. It's a questionable experiment or it has a low survival rate… Who am I kidding? It's probably both," I said, wondering if he'd answer more personally this time.
"I cannot confirm that. But you are most likely interested in one of these later sections," he said as he folded some of the papers over and highlighted a couple of paragraphs. A standard response, yet still intriguing enough to get my attention, I never got to read the fine prints here before.
His clipboard was old and barely hanging together just like the contents he handed over to me. The bundle clearly included way too many notes, post-its, and other things for me to look through.
But that one bureaucratic clause he referred to had an offer that was too good to be true. Too good to pass up on. I really did not expect it, but God, I should perhaps never have read it. Then it wouldn't have turned out like this.
"As the paragraph states, once we got our data you are free to go," he told me after I was done reading, underlining it word for word with his pen.
Confused, I looked at him and scanned his face, wondering if he'd just lied. "As in free free?"
He answered quickly and bluntly; "Yes, after the experiment you can go back to your previous life, assuming you survive of course." The latter part didn't even surprise me anymore after all the time down here.
"So, I'm very unlikely to, aren't I?" I answered with a small smirk on my face.
The only thing I got back was the classic; "I cannot confirm that," but I should have expected that.
"But hypothetically speaking, if I do, that's it? I'm free, just like that?"
Our intense staring match got finally interrupted when he gave me some lenience; "Well, there is of course a final examination we need to do, checking if you are rehabilitated to a certain extent… You are not a murderer, are you? I know you have a criminal record but it didn't mention any charges specifically."
I couldn't help but to smirk again; "No, I was just really good in burglary and theft. Unfortunately, I stole something from the wrong people… your people by accident."
"Good, then some amnestics will do."
"So, you are gonna brief me in? A little summary of this thing?" I asked, looking for some of that leniency again.
"No time for that, just read the documents. I'll come back later to see if you are still interested," was the last thing I heard from him before he walked out the door. It baffled me to see a man so tired walk so determined. So self-confident.
But just like that, an almost non-existent chance of freedom was presented to me on a silver platter. Quite a welcome change from the more commonly traumatization or death. I was likely going to get either of those in a weird experiment sooner or later so why not take the chance? Why not read this through?
Even if it was a trap, which it undoubtably was, as long as it was different from the white walls, I couldn't care less. But looking back, reading those documents was the first mistake of many to come.

I remember when he came back a couple of days later with a whole other bunch of paperwork and a black suitcase. Presumably all related to the same project. I wonder if some of those new contents would have made me change my mind.
"So you read the document?" Direct to the point, just like last time.
"Yesh," I could barely speak whilst devouring my meal. I did not have the luxury of decent breaks like he probably had. If I had to guess he didn't use them anyway, since he looked even more unkempt this time around. His eye bags had grown larger and turned purple, his hair looked worse than my bedhead.
And yet besides the unshaven stubbles, he seemed to have a bigger grin this time.
"I don't mind you eating but please don't talk with your mouth full. Anyways, what do you think?" he said whilst two guards brought in a chair and a small table.
"So as I understand it, and to put it real simple, you just want to launch people into space but without a spacesuit?"
"If you put it very simply, yes, that is what it comes down to. We want to see if we can temper the human body to be able to withstand extreme environmental changes. Think of it like overcoming our limits when it comes to things like temperature and pressure for example."
"Like all the G's you are submitted to at launch and the weightlessness once we leave the atmosphere?"
"Yes, it is of course not limited to that. But should we succeed, this would be a great asset in future projects with other personnel." The two guards were slightly uncomfortable about that comment.
To which extent did they know what was going on?
"And if we fail, you'll still get data. Not bad," I answer snarkily. I had seen this too many times, but as a researcher, I would also do the same. I was not a genius like him, but I wasn't stupid either.
"I'll take that as a compliment," was the response I got. I answered almost immediately "It was," right back.
For a mere second, we were both laughing at each other as if we both had outsmarted the other.
Whilst he scribbled down some information, a post-it from some notes came loose and fell at my feet. "You dropped this," was what I said when I took it off the ground and reached out to him.
And without even looking up he went; "Can you read it for me? I need to know where to put it." Truly how invested was he in his work?
"Isn't this like classified stuff?" I replied. Not often was I instructed to read things that weren't handed to me in the first place.
"No, that stuff is definitely something that I can't bring with me. These are just calculations I need to finish. So what does it say?" made me realize that he really didn't care about this information being out there.
"Uh, a second please, this isn't really made up of words. Let me read it for ya, RA 22h15-" was all I could get out before he interrupted.
"RA 22h15m36 Dec -18d40m22. Thanks, I know where to put that." proved how good of a memory he had. I don't even know how to memorize it completely.
"What is up with that?" I asked, surprised.
"You mean the post-it? You never read any scientific articles from the literature down here?" he asked me, as surprised as I was. At least he looked up this time.
"The only things I read about space down here were newspaper clippings and short stories like a story about stars. To me, that note looks like a bad date. Quarter past… ten minus the 18th of… December? Am I remembering that right?"
He stared at me looking if I was serious or not before explaining; "Those are coordinates. We have several probes ready to monitor the experiment and that is the location of one near Saturn if my memory serves me correctly." His eyes suddenly changed into a different look and he asked; "Anyway, since you are still engaged, what do you think about it?"
I had made up my mind long ago, but that didn't stop me from thinking for a brief moment. Something was off but eventually the "Yeah, I'm in," sealed my fate. That was probably my second and most costly mistake.
"Great, stretch your left arm please."
"My left arm?" What was happening? The documents I got earlier mentioned training and check-ups but this was rather odd.
The Doctor put on rubber gloves and opened the lid of the black suitcase. A small vial and a syringe were laid out on an evenly dark lining. "I'm going to give you an injection and perform a standard physical evaluation. If the results fall within the acceptable range, we'll move on."
Quite intrigued yet slightly scared I asked; "And if they don't?" And without emotion, I got a short "Then we'll observe the side effects." The substance was likely very experimental but I am sure he would just say "I cannot confirm that," again. Something in me said that I didn't really want an answer anyway.
"And only a physical evaluation? No thought-prying by the labcoated head shrinkers?" I asked wondering why they did not do a mental check. Then why did he ask me earlier if I was a murderer and mentioned rehabilitation? To draw me in?
"Quite a unique way to refer to therapeutic sessions but no, we'll have none of that. We mainly care about your durability here," he said, dodging the question partially.
I wanted to get this over with quickly. "Anyway, I'm done eating, so just give me the shot," was my third mistake. He chose a blood vessel in my left arm and injected the substance into me. As he took a cotton pad, I felt a cold feeling flow through my entire bloodstream. I lost the aftertaste of my bland desert on my tongue and began to feel numbing in my body.
I fainted.
I was woken up by a familiar voice; "You feeling alright there?"
I told the Doctor "Have been better, have been worse," whilst I slowly got up. If I didn't, they would probably make me. I had to adjust to the light but it was clear that I was in a new room.
"Please tell me who you are," overwhelmed me a bit in my daze, but giving my number was quite a habit that I had grown accustomed to. "D-13-" was all that I said before he interrupted me yet again.
"No, you can read that from your uniform. Give me your name, nationality, those kind of things," he almost yelled. He was probably a bit annoyed by the time it took me to make sense of what had happened.
"Raulas Jakelaitis, Lithuanian, 26 years old, do you need more?" I asked him. I knew he was invested in his work, but at the moment I didn't care.
"No, you seem conscious but pretty pale. I'll get you some water and a beverage. We'll start the examination in ten minutes," he said slightly disappointed. That is what you get for drugging me.
"You sure you don't want to wait for those side effects?" I said whilst he was walking away.
After the physical examination, I didn't see much of him anymore. He sent me a note that I would get a new routine. It was the training I had been reading about- it was a rather welcome change between the usual boredom or dead lurking around the corner. Quite funny how I got both later down the line.

How long has it been since the launch? One month? Two?
All those preparations just for this. They put me into a high-G centrifuge, some kind of sauna with a low oxygen level, and made me experience pressure in underwater constructions. And that is not including all the examinations and other sports activities I had to partake in. Training my ass! We trained for nothing.
I experienced side effects from the substance they kept injecting into me for this? Heavy headaches, vomiting, bleedings noses, and other things with a lack of medical attention. "To help you get a better durability."
But what a joke it was… Blasting some folks into this vacuum-filled obnoxity. Seriously, well played. Well fucking played! Opening the airlock whilst ordering people to maneuver in the cockpit for extra data. Truly a masterful move.
Some died immediately, the rest were less fortunate. Some died by simultaneously being boiled and frozen by the cosmos. The rest suffocated or got severe radiation poisoning. And how long did they last? Four minutes? Five?
You probably didn't care for our survival to begin with, but you do about the length of it. You got to get your test results, right? Classic Foundation, the ends justifying the means…
But they never really do.
Checking which treatment works the best like that… Quite easy from the ground, wouldn't you say? I wonder if the Ethics Committee knew you were planning this all along. Do they know this? Do they condone this?
Guess my treatment worked the best and the rest just signed up for a one-way trip to their death. You probably also wrote me up as deceased since I passed out after a few minutes as well.
But if you know about my survival, I wonder which number you gave me. It probably won't be the same as the one on my orange overall that has now faded slightly away like myself. D-13733, Raulas Jakelaitis, a lost man in space.
I guess I got that promised freedom somehow. I wonder if you'd let me keep it if I got back. Do I even want to go back? Probably. As much as everyone likes to go to space, I think I just want to get back home again.
Once I'm back you would probably lock me up and feed me the same bland meals as before. With even less nutritional value if you're extra cautious. Still, the absence of taste would be delicious and chains around me would feel like a hug at this moment compared to this void. Perhaps I should bring something of value to bargain with.
I should probably stop thinking about this for now and try to find a way out of my current predicament. If I don't get some solid ground under my feet again I'm definitely going insane.
I'm sure I can find a way to move from here, probably something similar to swimming. I just hope I find a way to land. Something tells me that the planet in the distance is slowly getting bigger…

To be continued


Wake up.
The force of it hit her like salt, like an eight-pound steak smashing her across the eyes. She groaned. She felt the ground move beneath her, rattling through something.
Couldn't she sleep just five minutes more? A little more?
No. Wake up. Check the cortex.
Groaning, she opened her eyes, and saw cheap sawn wood dangling in front of her. She batted it away. It wouldn't go. It was the floor. She snarled and dragged herself upright.
She was in a train car hurtling at some impossible speed, something she couldn't keep track of. She groaned again. The cortex was blinking at her, telling her she had an urgent message. She clicked it.

This is a message to all personnel of the SCP Foundation across the multiverse.
At 05.56 this morning, a series of apparently natural events occurred across time and space. No commonalities or connections have been found between these events, except one: every single Foundation site in existence was destroyed by them.
From Orchard to Nomos, Harkhret to Cinders, every permanent or temporary installation in every universe was annihilated. Millions are dead. Containment breaches too vast to imagine have taken place. Reality itself is under threat, and we are scattered and lost.
From this moment forward, we are a foundation of nomads.
The telepathic networks remain active. Our corps of 20 million has been reduced to a tenth of that number - those of us lucky enough to be off-site or in transit. We have no abodes, nor can we re-establish them until we know what has happened.
There are many colleagues to mourn - and we shall - but that must come tomorrow. There is much work to be done - to organise ourselves, save what can be saved, and stop the situation from spiralling out of control. Assignments will be sent to each of you soon; for now, stay safe and stay hidden. Use the back Ways, or find a space outside of reality to lie low in. You will be needed.
Our duty was once to stop reality and normalcy from imploding. It is now to prevent the annihilation of reality itself. Our methods will become subtler, more secretive. We will truly dwell in the dark. But we also will, I promise, step into the light again.
~The Administrator (formerly O5-5).

She dismissed the cortex with a wave, and stood up. The floor rocked around her, and she nearly fell. She was on a train. She looked out of the windows and saw stars and an empty sky.
So, yeah, it's been a bit of a day.
She sighed. "You can stop pretending to be my subconscious now, Simon. I know it's you."
A slight shifting occurred in her telepathic receiver. She could almost hear his grin. "Alright, alright, I'll cut out the italics. You're awake now, anyway."
She nodded and walked to the window. The train track veered through the cosmos, dodging stars, melting into nebulae. She always found it calming. A wisp of steam could be seen, distantly, from the engine-room.
She ran a hand gently along the wooden frame, and leaned her head out. There was no wind to whip her hair. She sighed.
"So we're dead, then."
"No! Not at all. They're already reorganising themselves. Looks like -5 managed to pull it off."
She nodded. "And how did I end up here?"
"Well, er - you weren't caught in the explosion. Everyone who was - there was some kind of malfunction with the resurrection system shortly before it all started. That, too, didn't seem like it was planned. Just a regular, predictable system glitch, caused by an accidental miscalibration weeks ago. Anyway, uh - your last body got hit a few seconds before it went down. You got lucky. The system found an opening here."
She nodded again. The enormity of the matter would, she was sure, sink in eventually.
"Where are you?"
A chuckle. "Riding a sailing ship off the coast of 17th-century France. Or a 17th-century France, I suppose. It's bound for the Cape, but I'll be long dead by then - mission shouldn't take too long to complete, and they'll kill me after I finish it. Although, I suppose, my orders will be different now."
Simon's life had always seemed oddly glamourous - sifting through timelines, exploring possibilities - but now it seemed like matter. It all seemed like matter, dead matter. There was a supernova she could dimly see burning in the distance, and it didn't bother her.
She'd been on the Multiversal Cargo Train many times before, carrying spices from Orchard and Olowain to far-flung outposts like Migs or Lamplight. Its odd collection of motley stars as they shifted in and out of time drew tourists to it, who would hang on the wooden cars as it rattled onwards, gawping at immense fire and spellbound dust.
But that's all it was. She'd read about the chemical reactions that went on in each of them a hundred times. A thousand thousand flames and gases, acting and reacting, creating empires of flares and spots heading through the stars, entire arms of shallow flame a hundred times larger than Earth that bled and splintered as they detached themselves. You didn't have the mental space to worry about them all.
She turned from the window and accessed the cortex again. Grey-green images of trees erupted out of soil and absorbed Site-19, Site-35. A volcano erupted and melted Site-581. Two time-splices occurred, randomly, stitching Site-25 to Site-889. She watched them all and felt a twinge of panic.
What was going to happen next?
"Not much, I think. We're all reeling."
"You don't sound like you're reeling. The entire Foundation was gutted from beneath and you sound like a computer program."
"We all cope in our own ways. I don't think it's entirely hit me yet."
"No. Me neither."
They sat in silence, in entirely separate corners of reality. She wondered if she could see whichever universe he was in from here. It sounded like a splinter timeline from Sol, but several hundred years behind…
She'd never liked going into Sol. Simon was from there, and he'd tried to show her around, but it all had that feeling of twistedness, distortion. No Kiev, except a declining city in a country called Ukraine. A name that literally meant "borderland", where in her world it was the centre of everything. No Occitania, only something called France - a forgotten idea where the north had conquered the south, instead of the other way around. No Andalus, no Magna Graecia, no New Tehran, nothing. Just the same shapes in different places.
She looked at her hands critically, and then wondered why.
Maybe missions would be different, too. No bases to return to, no debriefs, just a constant psychic uplink. Information and stimulation flooding in and out constantly, overwhelmingly.
Spiros was dead, of course. That hit her but didn't hurt. Spiros was dead in Site-64, probably peering over one of his bits of anart and squatting close to it with that wonderful body of his. She wondered if he looked surprised in death. He'd never done so in life.
Caspar would be dead too, of course. And Musa, Zhang, Franklin. Ai-Fan had probably jumped rather than see her plants be burnt. Names and faces flitted past, and she considered each one in turn, trying to remember what they looked like, the lines in their faces.
It was all going to be different now. A foundation of nomads.
Maybe it was good, though. No, not good, but - maybe it was something that needed to happen. She'd always sensed a rudderlessness to the Foundation. They contained, and contained, and created circles within circles where a purpose was meant to be. Nomadism implied direction, purpose. Nomadism implied… a strategy. A plan.
She sat up. A headache was starting. "Tell me about where you are, Simon."
"OK. Why not. I'm lying in a hammock, gently swinging with the motion of the ship. It's mostly dark. I can see water through a cannon-hole - there's probably a technical term for that - and the moon is shining on it. There are snores and mutterings all around. A boy in the corner is crying for home."
She could picture it. She could taste the salt.
"Orders are being shouted above, but not many - this company knows its business well enough. The air is thick and musty. Most of these people - including this body - will not live for very long. I don't think they regret anything, though. I wonder what it is like, having so short a life. It's been so long that I've forgotten the feeling."
"There are probably fish nearby, swimming underwater. There's a sense of stillness, of calm. I hope it lasts. Ah, a bell is ringing - I think my shift is starting above deck. Does that answer you?"
"Hello?"
But she had already fallen asleep, exhausted, as the train rolled on through the night.

And the train didn't stop. It carried on. It feasted its way across the gap between universes, picking up and dropping off cargo and passengers. Stars bloomed and fell, tourists clambered on, gazing up slack-jawed and open-mouthed.
In one compartment, someone was peering over a map, drawing little circles, signs denoting universes and realities. A timeline was stretched out over the paper at an impossible angle. The draughtsmen scratched his chin and leant over, trying to make connections that were speculative, unreal.
In another, a band of stowaways huddled tight. One of them was thinking of bathing by the river, which was only ever "the river" to her. She drew her shawl closer. The fabric was comforting. She tried to remember the village songs, and found it harder and harder every day.
The river in the stowaway's mind stretched out into the minds of others, of telepathic receptors of the psychically aware, who filtered them into buckets of slop and treasure, depending on their inclination. They clung to the sides of cars and listened to the night, to the signals emanating from world after world, universe after universe.
Not many were aware of their final destination. It probably wouldn't seem important when they reached it. But it was there, inexorable, a tiny sliver of inevitability amidst the chaos. They could barely see beyond their own noses. Some of them, not even that.
When she woke up again, she felt different. Better rested. The train was stopping on a timeline, a Sol timeline, and the cortex was blinking red at her. She smiled, and flexed a muscle, and then another one, enjoying how it felt to pierce the stale air.
It was going to be a long day.

/

Foundation of Nomads

On the West-Bound Passenger Train


Unexpected Light

Unexpected Light - Felixou

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He was alone- alone in the site that once contained him. He could remember that this place used to be full of scientists and agents, but now there is only the shadow of what the site was. The shadows are fleshy things that would just ignore him, and he would ignore them too because they were never looking at him or his face.
He did not go outside; the outside scared him more than anything. He was scared of the outside- not because he would become one of these shadows, but because he has the horrible feeling that someone would look at him. At his body. At his face. He also knew it would not be a person that was looking at him- it would be the sun, and he would not be able to do a single thing about it. The idea of going outside at night was an option, but he was still too scared. Besides, he had no reason to go outside- inside the site he was alone. There was no one to look at him; he was free to cry alone in the darkness. It was like a paradise for him.
Then, one day, he was sobbing alone, like every other day, when he heard a voice- the voice of a woman. He could hear the woman asking for help and food. Through the sound of the sobbing, he heard her come closer. He could hear the voice begging for help as she approached, little by little. When she arrived in the room with him, she screamed in fear, terrified by the crying, pale monster that was sobbing in the corner of the room. Surprised by the scream, he turned around, he could see the woman, as well as a small child holding her hand. The woman was looking directly at him- and directly at his face. He could feel the anger, an emotion that he had not felt in a long time. He screamed so loudly that the woman fled in panic, leaving the child that was holding her hand alone. He could feel the anger boiling again. The woman seized her chance to run through the hallway of the site and into the stairs. As the anger subsided, he realized: She looked at his face, his face, HIS FACE, MY FACE.
His hunting instinct rang out again- he could tell that she was running on the floor beneath him. He raised his arms above his head and started punching the ground of the dilapidated site. Sinking his claws into the cracked floor, he drove them deeper and deeper until it gave way. He jumped into the newly-formed entry and rushed in the direction of his target. He charged through wall after wall, clearing a path to get his prey faster, concrete shattering and rebar twisting in his frantic rush. The woman continued running. She looked over her shoulder to see the monster catching up to her more and more. While she looked back, she failed to realize that she was outside. "Ho shit" she said knowing her fate.
At that moment, her body started melting, beginning with her head. Her nose dropped off her face, hitting the ground with a splashing sound. One of her eyes popped out of her skull, leaving the eye hanging on by a single, stringy vein. She tried to move to the refuge of a shadow, but her legs were already decomposed into so much red flesh-mud. She screamed in pain until her mouth melted too. The monster looked furiously at the dying prey, stolen from him. After the painful death of his target, he continued sobbing like always. He was interrupted by the sound of another human. Not from the woman, now a shadow like the rest, but from behind him.
He turned back. The little girl that had been holding the woman's hand was standing in front of him. The girl was crying and calling the name of her mother. When she finished rubbing her eyes, she opened them, and looked in the direction of the pale monster, directly at his face.

(…)

(…)

Nothing…

(…)

(…?)

…Nothing?
She clearly looked directly at his face but… He did not feel angry? He was confused, he approached the child to make sure of what he had just witnessed. No, the girl did not really look at him. Sure, he and the child clearly made eye contact, but the girl did not see the face. This little girl was… blind.
The girl was still crying and asking for help. She assumed there was someone else with her since she heard the sound of crying. She approached the sound by lifting her arms to make sure she would not bump into something else. Once she touched the monster, she said with a tiny and innocent voice, "Mo-mommy?". These simple words touched the monster. He thought he would only feel sadness and anger for the rest of his life, but these words changed everything. With this realization, the confusion turned to happiness. He looked at the little girl to make sure that she was real, and he slowly surrounded the girl with his long arms to hug her. The girl, who was searching for hope, accepted this hug and hugged him back. The crying of both the monster and the little girl stopped.
They lived together. The monster found a friend, and the little girl found a guardian. When the monster is interacting with the girl, he feels human. He was treated like an animal in his cell, like a monster- nobody could think that there was a heart inside that ruthless killer. For the first time, he found someone that could understand him. The girl too was happy with the monster, she didn't know what he looked like, but she knew what he really was.
He was a surprisingly good parent; he would protect the girl at any cost. The monster would even bring food, most of the time scavenged from other survivors. On one occasion, the girl tripped on a metal beam. The monster was so furious, he destroyed the beam as he would kill any other prey. He took the beam between his longs fingers, and slammed it into the wall in front of him, screaming furiously until the wall collapsed. Afterward, there was nothing left of the beam and the girl seemed happy about it. The girl had total confidence in the monster, confidence he shared. Nothing could stop them.
The only thing that ever bothered them was the flesh shadows. The things tried to make prey of the little girl, trying to push her into the brightness of the sun by imitating the sound of her mother or trying to simply kill her themselves. But, every time the shadows became a nuisance, the pale monster would swiftly correct them. They couldn't approach the girl. Even the deceptive voice of the flesh-creatures couldn't reach the girl through the screams of the monster. The monster protected the girl, no matter what.
There was only that one day- that one, single moment that destroyed everything.
The monster and the girl were playing around with the rubble of the site. He was lost in thoughts. He thought of the sun, the big red monstrosity that broke the day, and was waiting to break his day. He had a bad feeling, looking back at the little girl only to see that she was not near him anymore. He looked all around him, she was not there. He left the room, only to see the little girl walking toward the entrance. She was two feet from the entrance- two feet from outside where she would meet the sunlight. The little girl was following the voice of the shadow man, but this one wasn't imitating the sound of her mother. Its voice was that of the crying monster.
He was far from the entrance, he ran so fast- faster than when he would track prey. The girl didn't stop- she was still following his false twin's voice. He was so close to stopping her, but she was already outside when he arrived. The little girl screamed in pain as one of her arms began to melt. The monster made a choice. Without hesitation, he left the building to confront the sun. He, too, began to melt but it wouldn't matter. He got above the little girl and blocked the sunlight that had been melting her. The pain was immeasurable, but it wouldn't matter, so long as he protected the girl. He knew he would not survive. He just hoped that the girl would.
The monster dragged her back into the site while blocking any sunlight from reaching her. She was unconscious, and her left arm was missing. The melting of his body didn't stop- he knew he would become one of these flesh things soon. He took a final look at the girl and shed a single tear; the tear landed on the arm of the child, and by miracle, the melting stopped.
He ran as fast as he could away from the site to make sure that he would not harm the child. He only stopped when his legs were entirely melted. He could not see the site anymore, but he could now look upon the sea. He laid on his back and looked one last time at the sun, placed just above the ocean. He looked on as his eyes melted. He gave a long, powerful scream that could be heard from a mile away- a scream so powerful it dragged the dust off the ground, carrying it far into the distance. A scream of sadness mixed with anger. Then, the scream stopped, leaving the silence behind. A dead silence.


There was a party outside the window.
All of the Tyrant's dancers were whirling through the streets, waving the banners of House Totch in honor of the conqueror's recent victory.
The smells of meat and spices wafted up from the streets. There was laughter, drinking, everything a person could want out of a celebration.
I quashed the envy in my chest. None of that mattered to an old slave like me, save that it meant another hard shift bringing down extra furniture for Lord Totch's victory banquet.
I tried to remind myself things could be worse. Lord Totch was fabulously wealthy and his servants never went hungry. Those of us who worked in the house were dressed in such finery that without our bronze collars you could mistake us for petty nobility. The whippings were not ideal, but after feeding his lordship's lusts we were always bandaged and given extra rations.
At the end of the day, things were fine. Frankly they were better than a convict's child like me could ever hope for. All I had to do to keep it going was to haul hunks of priceless wood, and that meant time in the palace's attic.
Geyre had granted me strength enough to lift three at a time even in the twilight of my forties, so I was making good time sorting the usable furnishings out the debris of a hundred nobles' conquests. There was a brace of bronze swords, there was a vase born in a kiln far to the South, there were dresses and furs I dared not touch with unwashed hands…
And there were chairs. Many chairs, but not so many as to stop the Tyrant's petty nobility squabbling over the honor of who got to sit in them.
But as I was climbing the wooden steps to the tenth load, I heard something.
There was the tiniest squeak coming from behind a homespun draping.
Normally, that would hardly bother me. I was too busy to bother with the rats in the palace when there was a banquet to prepare, but there was something about the squeak that was strange to me. It almost sounded like a word.
I don't know why the flight of fancy overtook me, but I couldn't help but put down the chairs for a moment and see what had made the sound. I knew it was something living, because I could make out the faintest wheeze coming from a darkened corner.
I pushed a small chest aside and found myself in front of the most curious sight.
It was a strange, covered dome, like the temple I'd attended oh so long ago, but in miniature. It was covered with a filthy layer of cloth and I briefly wondered that we hadn't been told to clean here before.
Now, all propriety demanded that I leave well enough alone and ask the head butler if he wanted it swept later, but I suppose I should come out at this point and admit to my defect.
You wouldn't think there was much wrong with me at first glance, after all I have fine dark skin, fair hair for my age, and I'm missing naught but two of my teeth, but my defect lies in the mind.
I'm curious, and I have a hard time stilling my hand and biting my tongue (though Kalef knows how long I've practiced). If I'd become the scholar I'd longed to be before I knew my place better this would have been an invaluable asset. Unfortunately, it did me no good in my station.
So after a brief internal war, and a glance to see that none of the other slaves had followed me up here, I parted the sheet.
I have seen many terrible sights in my day. I watched my father lose his head for stealing bread in the square, I saw the aftermath of the bloody charge that took Lord Totch's new city, and I'd seen more cold dead babes being clutched in their disbelieving mother's arms than I could count.
But there was something viscerally awful about what was under that sheet. Something ugly and wrong.
It was a cage filled with bones, cracked and withered with the scent of feculence and rot covering all of them… and on top of it all was an ugly, emaciated little bird. It could have been no bigger than a starling, but it was clearly deformed, with claws on its wings as well as its feet and a layer of rubbery skin over its eyes.
The worst part was that it was breathing.
The red, rubbery flesh parted, and the creature locked eyes with me.
And then, to my shock, it spoke. “Please… Help…”
There was absolutely no reason for me to do anything but back away. This creature was clearly a monster, and I knew what happened in the tales…
But something in me broke looking at it.
I opened the cage, picked it up and carried it to a water basin. It was lucky I'd brought up one in case I needed to clean any chairs before moving them. I brought it's head to the water and it plunged it in instantly.
I swear it guzzled half the basin before it pulled back its head. All the while its feathers grew back, turning from pins to silky black as the creature swelled to the size of a pigeon.
I found myself frozen. It turned back and looked up at me. “Th-Thank you. Miss…?
I shook my head. “I'm not giving you my name, creature. I'm just the maid.”
It nodded. “That's wise.”
It coughed. “I think I've been asleep for a very long time.”
I tilted my head at the thing. It stood up. It almost looked like it was smiling at me. “I'm the- well, I can't say I know my number now. I'm a Wandsman. Do you know what that means?”
I shook my head, taking a step back. I didn't know if it would do any good, but I wasn't about to take any chances with what I was more and more convinced was one of York's demons.
The bird nodded. “I suppose that was too much to hope for. Look, if I've woken up, that means my Map is near.”
I blinked at him. “Your Map?” as per usual, I couldn't help but ask.
He nodded. The bird cleared its throat. “I don't suppose you've seen a small silver scroll case around here…?”
Shockingly, I had.
The Tyrant was always eager to display the spoils of his conquests… Under heavy guard of course.
I crossed my arms. “What do you want with it?”
“It will help me get home.” It said. “I think I've spent far too long in this place already.”
I admit, I was torn. My master could kill me with ease if I betrayed him, but I had no idea what the demon could do to me if I refused. I was cursing my kindness already.
The creature sighed. “Look. I know this is a lot to take in, but I could really use your help or at least some directions. Maybe we could make a deal?”
A shiver ran down my spine.
Deals were dangerous. Deals were between kings and gods or sorcerers. They were so far outside what I had a right to in my station that I couldn't imagine what would happen if I struck one.
“What are you offering?” I asked cautiously.
It tilted its head, eyeing my collar. Its eyes seemed to brighten as though inspiration had struck it. “How about freedom, power, and the chance to see the worlds?”
The bronze of my collar chafed. The lashings on my back stung.
And he'd said "Worlds", plural.
“What do you need me to do?”


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⚠ Content warning: This article contains topics that could potentially be perceived as racism.

⚠ content warning

Sapient clowns. You've heard about them, but are they really as good as people claim they are?
If you're reading over this now, chances are, you've heard Levealuto Aston's speech, or read a transcript of it. If not, you'll most likely be clueless on my following statements within this piece. My name is Rodrick Schaefer from The Bozian Conservative™1, and I'm writing this to state my opinions on sapient clowns.
1. Sapient clowns and livestock clowns.
In Aston's speech, he says how sapient clowns are in the same family as livestock clowns, which is technically correct. Sapient clowns can form their own ideas and mindsets, which is a trait that they don't have in common with livestock clowns.
However, even if this is true, they shouldn't be treated as if they're much better than livestocks. They're still in the same family; they aren't much different outside of this factor, nor are they close to resembling humans in almost2 any sense.
Sapient clowns aren't superior to any other species, especially not the human race.
Sapient clowns have the ability to exhibit thoughts, emotions, wants and needs, which is more than other clowns do. I am aware that this means they can revolt against humans, yet humans have the resources needed to shut them down. I mean, if they didn't, how else would they have been able to capture them as they have?
Even then, there isn't enough proven sapient clowns to cause a large enough revolt to actually do damage.
2. Sapient clowns and world domination.
First, even looking at that makes it seem absolutely hysterical. Clowns and world domination in the same sentence? It doesn't come off right in any sense. If the sentence doesn't even seem right, how does the entire idea of it make even the smallest amount of sense?
Bingo!
It doesn't.
Like I said in my previous statements; sapient clowns do not have the ability, nor the numbers, to take over humanity.
A vast majority of clowns aren't sapient, which doesn't help the sapient clowns' and Levealuto Aston's situation. Every single sapient clown, and some non-sapient clowns, would have to group up together to at least semi-successfully go through with this idea. It's just not doable, really, especially with sapient clowns being raised around litters of other clowns.
I mean, if you were raised around a bunch of people that weren't able to even form language outside of a certain noise, wouldn't you feel like there wasn't much hope for you as well?
As chucklets, sapient clowns are forced to grow up around other clown-types, which must dwindle their intelligence levels, and might even bring some to becoming/blending in with another type.
In addition, do you really believe that telling a clown to "despise every human except you" will truly work? If you want a clown to hate the entire human race, and you train it to, it'll do exactly that, and won't make an exception for you. It's just purely senseless to believe that that'll work out in your favor.
3. Conclusion.
I hope that after reading my statements, anyone that's reading this has been encouraged against Aston's ideas, and goes with my more rational stance. Sapient clowns aren't higher beings, and shouldn't be treated as such.
As for Levaluto, I hope you come to your senses and realize how irrational this is. I hope so for the safety of yourself and for others, and if you don't, then I hope that you don't do something that harms you or someone else.
I appreciate everyone that's reading this, especially anyone who'll share this around to other people who you might or might not know.

Footnotes
1. A conservative newspaper corporation in favor of preserving traditional practices and regulations within the clown industry.
2. Sapient clowns represent humans in the sense of showing a form of life, as any other creature would.