September 2nd, 1902: People can be so unnecessarily cruel sometimes. I know this is a public passenger car and all, but that doesn't mean you can be loud the whole way through? Is it just common courtesy, you know? “Treat others how you want to be treated.” I'm not going to cause a commotion over it, though. I don't want to look like the bad guy and all.

September 5th, 1902: The train finally arrived in Istanbul. I don't know how much more I could have taken sitting in that thing. I made some revisions to my writing during the trip, so I guess that's a silver lining.

September 9th, 1902: The professor did not like “Ghost of Tomorrow” I had put my heart and soul into writing this piece. He claims it lacks “stakes” and “emotion.” That is just untrue! It is so emotional!
However, he did say that it has some potential. I mean, of course, this piece has potential! I made it with my sweat and tears! Regardless, I guess I am new to the field at the professional level. Failure is just one step towards success.
I can make this better. I know I can.

September 27th, 1902: How are people not seeing the beauty of my work? I guess it might not sound as engaging on paper but on the stage. On the stage, it would be a masterpiece! They would soon seek forgiveness for their initial distaste.
Damien said he thinks “Ghost of Tomorrow” is good, though. So at least I have him to assure me that the greatness I see in the writing is not a simple delusion of mine.

October 10th, 1902: What am I not seeing here? My classmates seem to be learning from the lectures. Are they hearing something different than I? Like yes, I know the basics and everything; I get the idea of “Chekhov's gun,” but like beyond that, the lessons feel nonsensical. I don't think these professors are worth the floor they stand on.

October 31st, 1902: My academics are going along fine, yet I don't feel like I'm learning anything. I listened to Mr. Brelitrov's advice and stopped trying to make “Ghost of Tomorrow” for now. He said something along the lines of, “there are always other paths you can take. Don't get stuck in a rut, or you might lose yourself.” He's probably right; I'll need to take a different approach if I want my work to meet the standards of the greats.
Aren't my works good enough already?

December 19th, 1902: I got good marks during that first semester, but I don't know how I did it. I don't think I learned anything. My scripts were still looked down upon, and even Mr. Beletrov didn't believe they were any good either.
Well, being back at home has given me time to think. As I played with Tarik in the backyard, I believe I've finally come up with a solution to my problem.

February 6th, 1903: Mr. Beletrov has given me complete ownership to use the old locker-building near the river. He is such a kind man, and I can't thank him enough for giving me this chance to prove myself.

February 12th, 1903: I will have to delay further work on my project for the time being. I need to make this building soundproof. It echos too much in here; you can hear so much noise on the outside. I don't want to disturb anyone not involved.

February 27th, 1903: Well, it's done. You can't hear a dang thing from outside.

March 4th, 1903: Directing is not as easy as they make it seem. Having someone do exactly what you want them to do is pretty difficult.

March 6th, 1903: How hard is it to follow simple instructions? If you just listen to my instructions, everything will be alright.
Regardless of the obstacles in our way, I finally feel like I am learning something.

March 7th, 1903: Maybe the professors are right. Emotion was lacking in my scripts. The actors can never express the emotions I want them to convey. Why can't they just say as I say? Do as I do?
Cassandra says that she wants to quit!? You can't leave now! We only just got started!

March 19th, 1903: We've made a breakthrough today! Cassandra kept telling me to stop, but when I yelled at her, “Shut up, will you!?” she said it with me! She even said it with the same conviction! She began to cry afterward like usual, but I made her stop, just like that.

March 27th, 1903: So today, I was able to untie Cassandra, and the most incredible thing happened. She didn't make any attempts to run away. She followed my movements to a T.
I couldn't exactly get her to speak alongside me during the test, but I'm sure I'll be able to do it in time.

April 2nd, 1903: I don't think there is much to learn from Cassandra alone anymore. We seem to be in perfect harmony, following my every word and step.
Mr. Beletrov says that my writing is getting better too.

April 5th, 1903: Cassandra is able to move and talk without me having to do it with her. I'm so happy for her. Now that this is possible, I can expand to more than just her.

April 6th, 1903: When I brought Damien over, he was very excited. I had told him about my advances, but I never showed him. However, when I showed him, he was scared. I hit him over the head with a shovel before he could do anything.

April 8th, 1903: I don't understand by Damien won't perform the right way? He was so interested in the project when I told him about it. But now that he's here, he keeps saying it's insane.
Nevertheless, I know he will understand soon enough. What's important right now is having them both perform at once. This has proven difficult, it's extremely taxing on my mind.

April 13th, 1903: My creative genius is finally being recognized! I am getting top marks in all of my classes this semester. I guess all I needed was a little push. I am unique after all, I have my quirkiness, so that explains why I needed to do hands-on work to better my writing.
Controlling Cassandra and Damien at the same time feels almost impossible! I can't control them both at once. It's so hard. I need to think of other approaches.

April 16th, 1903: I can control them in my sleep now. This seems to be the only way I'm able to control them both at once. Only problem is they will try to run when I wake up, probably because my awareness at that time is at its lowest.

May 8th, 1903: I burned the locker-building down today, I've learned all I could from them. If I'm going to have a larger cast, I'm going to have to perform a sacrifice anyways. Might as well have a test run so I don't screw it up.

May 12th: With another semester done, and my grades improved, I'm going to enjoy this summer. Hopefully, I can find a town stable enough to hold my performance.


“A pit?”
August had barely finished pouring drinks for himself and the Doctor before she'd gone into it. He sat down, brow furrowed, and stared out into the yard, as if he'd be able to see this hole in the ground from the porch. When the hole didn't magically appear, he ruffled his hair in thought – the same sandy-brown hair he'd had for the past twenty-something years. Whatever had happened to him all those years ago, it had stopped him getting any older. He wasn't as disturbed about it anymore. This didn't seem to surprise the Foundation staff, either. Lack of aging was a common side-effect with these things, it seemed.
“Yes,” said Dr. Ruth. “I know your family has owned this land for quite some time. Were you aware of the pit beneath the foundation?”
“Well, no,” said August. “We don't got – sorry – don't have a basement or a cellar here. Just the shed out back. There isn't anything underground.”
“As I said, it turns out there is, August. We're looking into it.” She paused to consider the lemonade her charge had poured for her and took a tentative sip. Considering he was only working with what groceries the Foundation provided him, it wasn't bad. “If there is anything down there,” she went on, “the research team believes it's likely that the anomaly around your home is connected somehow. We might discover what exactly is causing the, ah…”
“Rotting animals, Doc.”
“To put it bluntly, I suppose.”
“Blunt is fine. I'm used to them now,” he said dismissively. “They're just a part of my life.” But following this, his drifting gaze appeared troubled.
“Are you worried about it?” Dr. Ruth asked.
August sighed and folded his arms across his knees. “Doc… Y'think whatever's down there… You think it's giving me these dreams?”
The hesitation in her answer was more worrying.
“It's not outside of the realm of possibility,” she replied carefully. “But, August… I don't want you to focus on that. Even if the anomaly is causing the dreams… we don't know if that anomaly is necessarily him.”
He'd known what her response would be before she said it. No one with the Foundation had encouraged it – the vivid hallucinations, the waking dreams, the dreams that were so deep that he often couldn't remember where he was when he woke up in the morning. No matter how he expressed the pain of his adoration, the agony of never knowing if he'd be able to make physical contact with the figure dominating his unconscious mind… Clearly they didn't understand. They thought it was unhealthy. And maybe it was, when the obsession overtook all sense of self-preservation, stopped him eating, bathing, only kept him locked in his room with his artwork and his frequent returns to sleep, to beautiful dreams.
“I know,” he said simply. “I… I know. It's alright, though. It's enough… seeing him the way he wants me to. If it has to be when I'm sleeping, that's fine.”
“Good.” The doctor scribbled on her notepad. Always with the notepad. The pen paused. “And how have you been sleeping lately?”
“Fine. No more than usual. I'm getting better with the alarm.”
“Seven hours?”
“Give or take. I feel rested, at least. And I… Well, I get out of bed fine, I guess.”
“Good. That's excellent progress.”
There was nothing he could do to stop the hallucinations when he was awake, but the dreams… The dreams were far more vivid, more real and tangible in ways that dreams shouldn't have been. He could feel them, taste them, hear them like a lover's soft whisper. When he'd told the last shrink about his increasing desire to simply stay asleep, just keep dreaming and never wake up… well, they'd made it clear how they thought about that. Although he'd been given a very compelling reason not to do so.
He was, after all, the only one capable of serving. No one else could gather the corpses and the skeletons of the birds and beasts inexplicably drawn, or so August believed, to the site of worship for his God. He alone was immune to the entropic energy centered on his home.
He couldn't sleep forever. Not yet. Not until he was finally called to lie down for the last time.
—
This was, Dr. Ruth decided, one of the most difficult psychological files she had been tasked with managing since the start of her work with the Foundation. Little had changed in the development of 3606-A's mental state since she had begun working with him – although they'd at least gotten his sleep schedule back on track. It was apparent from the records of her predecessors that he was much better than in prior years, when this obsession with the imaginary entity consumed his sleeping and waking hours alike. No, his evaluations were simple and clean-cut these days.
Even so, she wasn't all that sure that the frequency of his artistic works had abated at all. At the moment, Dr. Ruth found herself sorting through the latest week's-worth of ink drawings, charcoal studies, photocopied dream journals, and crumpled pencil sketches to find just a few among the pile that felt relevant enough to keep. Almost every art piece was the same: a handsome, eerily androgynous male figure with cascading ink-black hair, lovingly rendered from every conceivable angle and position. Exquisite care and attention was lavished on the shape of the mouth, the delicate curve of the neck, the soft jawline. Everything save for the eyes, which were always furiously erased and redrawn, repainted, recolored over and over again until the final product was impossible to decipher. If the doctor didn't know better, she might have believed these to be studies of someone August Mayes was very intimately familiar with, rather than someone he had only dreamed up. But which drawings were really that important to his psychological profile?
Well… She could at least leave out the more explicit of his renders. The dream journals, too… she wondered if he considered that Foundation staff would be examining these. She shuffled them unabashedly into a face-down pile on the side of the desk, making a mental note to return them to 3606-A the next week.
A knock on the office door made her scan the remaining face-up papers for anything untoward before she responded. “Yes?”
The door cracked halfway, a harried-looking young man poking his face in with a manila envelope at hand. “Dr. Ruth… Apologies for the interruption. About 3606…”
“Right, right. They did say they'd have made their way into the pit by now, didn't they?”
“Last night, Doctor. The research team has been working with the photographs and the imaging results… But they, ah… they said these photos would interest you.”
This struck Dr. Ruth as quite odd. She wasn't usually among the first to receive updates about these things. “My job is to carry out 3606-A's psychological evaluations,” she said warily. “The research team is aware of that, yes?”
“Yes… They're very insistent that this is relevant.”
Dr. Ruth sighed and gestured to the already vast array of documents and artworks she was sorting through. “Leave it here. I'll take a look.”
With the messenger gone, the manila envelope sat atop her workload ominously. What was so urgent for her to see? She glanced briefly at the Level 2 Security warning stamped across the front before undoing the string clasp. The acrid smell of photo developer struck her first. These had obviously been freshly made. Carefully, she slid the stack of photos out and laid aside the envelope, examining them each in turn.
The first photo was the pit, apparently: a wide, yet shallow area cut into the earth and the stone below the dwelling, lit with harsh chemical lamps. The second, what seemed to be a coffin-shaped depression in the center of the pit's floor, and something lying inside it…
At the third photo, Dr. Ruth stifled a sharp gasp.
“No… you've got to be kidding me.”
The fourth, fifth, and sixth photos were the same as the third. All shots of the depression in the rock from different angles, to best display its single occupant. It lay still, eyes closed, apparently undisturbed by the chemical lamps and flashbulbs and the field agents no doubt getting uncomfortably close. Dr. Ruth laid the photos on her desk alongside the stacks of 3606-A's drawings, whose subject was now unmistakable.
Across the corner of a photograph of the slender, black-haired male laying in apparent sleep, or perhaps death, a code was hurriedly scribbled in marker — the new designation “3606-B”.
—
The dewy grass was cool under his bare feet. Early morning's chill was beginning to fade in the beams of rising sun breaking through the trees. Strangely quiet, bereft of birdsong.
How long had it been since he'd gotten this far from the house before? Every time he'd tried, he'd collapsed into one of those painful fits until he was dragged back to the yard. And then he stopped trying. Stopped trying to escape his proper place, allowed the Foundation to fence him in with the… with the…
What had he been doing before this?
No sooner had he thought this than the disquieting silence was gently shaken. Some faint, soft sound echoed from somewhere nearby. A female voice, openly sobbing. He found himself drawn to it, fear overtaken by his need to find its source.
Not too far away, he found her… A young woman with long, sandy hair, her checked dress tattered around her folded knees, thin arms hugging her shoulders, which shook with her weeping. Something about her seemed familiar, painfully so. He was opening his mouth before he realized what would come out.
“Cath?”
The girl shivered at her name, bringing her downturned face to look at him. His chest tightened, tongue frozen in his mouth.
No… This… this was not right.
His sister's face, once so freckled and full of life, was molten, black with decay, dripping freely onto the lap of her dress. As he watched, unable to move, a single hazel eye fixed on him and overflowed with tears, which mixed with the liquefaction of her flesh.
“August… Why did you leave us like this?”
He clapped his hands over his ears, shaking his head furiously. “I… I didn't mean to – I didn't do this! Cath, you gotta believe me, I didn't mean for this to happen…”
“They couldn't do anything for me… My body was rotten before I'd even died. I was alive the whole time the meat was melting off my bones. It hurts… August, it hurts… Why didn't it happen to you? Why did it have to be Mama and me?”
“I don't know,” he gasped, squeezing his eyes shut. Knees shaking, he sank to the ground and wept through his words. “I don't know what happened… I didn't do it… Please don't look at me like that! Cath… Please, Cath, I…”
There were hands bracing his jaw, lifting his face, gentle fingers drawing the tears from his cheeks. Burning hot and frigid cold at once. He lowered his own hands and forced himself to look up… But the figure half-shadowed in morning sun was not his sister.
“Lagu –”
He could never say the name, not in this man's presence. Each time he tried, the sound simply dissolved on his tongue, choked him as if his breath was swallowing itself. The male figure smiled indulgently, silken black hair drifting over his left eye as he caressed August's face and throat. The soft lips never parted, but he could hear the gentle voice piercing through his head.
You are still here because I desire it.
You'll sleep when I'm done with you.
Until then… My beloved, my servant…
August screwed up his eyes against the cacophony blaring through his ears, the painful noise that carried this loving voice… Gasping for breath, he looked up as the ringing faded and saw the figure's mouth opening…
What came out was not sound. A viscous, black liquid, like coal-stained honey, was spilling unbidden from seemingly nowhere. A crazed impulse overtook August, as if he could die if he didn't obey it… He was meant to drink this… He was –
He was awake.
The tinny noise of the alarm clock dragged him into the day. Immediately annoyed, August seized the thing and slapped it face-down on the nightstand. His body ached like he'd been running all night. Maybe… maybe he could just have ten more minutes…
But no sooner had he let his head touch the pillow again than another noise came up from across the house. Someone was knocking on the door. Damn them. Didn't the Foundation usually wait until after noon to bother him? He groaned, rolled out of bed, and threw the house robe on over his nightclothes. As he did so, he glanced at the bedroom window and noticed a pair of cardinals huddled up against the sill, unmoving. They were already thinning with decay, but both still had their bright crimson plumage.
Two little red birds. Strange. But stranger things had happened.
He'd have to remember they were there when he did his cleaning that day.
The knocking came again, more insistent. Thoroughly irritated now, he bustled to the other side of the house. “I'm comin', I'm comin', keep your shirt on!”
—
Dr. Ruth was beginning to doubt the research team's decision. Sure, it was important to find out the exact nature of the connection between Subject A and B. The anomaly would never be better understood without it. But was this really the way to go about it?
It was drizzling beyond the awning of the porch where she sat with 3606-A – no, in this state of vulnerability and weakness, he was only August Mayes, suddenly the scared young man he was twenty-one years ago. A part of him she'd never seen in person.
Shaking hands slowly shuffled the same four photos over and over again, his eyes glazed over as he stared at each in turn. His face was paler than she'd ever seen it. After what seemed ages, he laid the photos on the patio table and raked an unsteady hand back through his hair, gazing mindlessly out into the yard.
“Well,” he grimaced with a waver in his voice, “I guess that answers that, doesn't it?”
“Honestly, it doesn't answer much, August,” said Dr. Ruth. “We don't know what this is, or what danger it poses to you or this area. The Foundation's priority is its containment and protection, as well as yours–”
“It, it, why do you keep saying it?” he said hoarsely. “He. He is not a danger to me. And he's been contained all these years, why the concern now?”
“We do not know if he's dangerous to you. You're immune to the decaying effect around the house. But the fact that leaving the property causes you such excruciating pain, the fact that you're put into a coma when you step past the gate, does that not concern you enough to believe that this entity is capable of harm? Be reasonable.”
But August had gone back to staring at the photos laid in front of him, eyes wandering the images almost hungrily. The rain dripping from the eaves was a gentle cadence, a hush that curtained the two in an increasingly uneasy proximity. “I haven't done him justice yet,” he murmured. “This is… the clearest I've ever seen his face. He's impossibly beautiful, Doctor. I told you. Isn't he?”
She sighed and leaned back in her seat. “August, please focus. The Foundation needs to understand the entity a little better before we can adjust containment procedures, and you need to be made aware of it, but I don't want you to obsess over something buried under your house.”
“The way you talk about him is so irreverent,” he muttered. “If you all want to understand him so much, then learn to praise him as he deserves, why don't you? The animals know that much. Every carcass is an offering to him.”
“August–”
“I want to meet him,” he whispered. “I… I need to. This is what he wanted. I was meant to–”
“August,” she said more insistently. “It's not sentient. Preliminary scans have shown us that much. It doesn't breathe. It doesn't respond to external stimuli. There's no readable brain activity. There is no ‘meeting' it. What you see in those photos is all there is. There's no reason for you to go down there.”
“He's been projecting himself to me,” August argued. “The dreams, the hallucinations, it's how he communicates with me! You're trying to tell me someone who's brain-dead is capable of doing that?”
“It's an anomaly. There's a lot that goes on in our field that's not easily explained, but that doesn't mean it's actually communicating with you or that it feels anything for you…”
It was the wrong thing to say. August abruptly stood and overturned the patio table entirely, the photos fluttering behind him as he stalked back into the house, leaving a shellshocked Dr. Ruth in his wake. She unwound slightly, then recoiled when he slammed the door.
Left with the rain and the scattered photographs, Dr. Ruth sighed and stared wistfully out to the lawn, where that ominous opening in the earth was still being tended by men in stark-white biohazard suits.
—
Over the next few days, things began to settle down. Even after extensive testing by the research team and containment specialists, there wasn't much evidence that Subject B posed any more threat than previously thought. The radius of decay still seemed centered primarily on the house for reasons unknown, and test subjects left in the pit seemed to be safe from its effect.
Aside from the questionable status of the entity, however, there was one thing that made it slightly dangerous. On occasion, a thick black liquid would begin seeping from the closed eyes and mouth – the same fluid that seemed to make up the whole of the body's insides and the organs that bore deep into the surrounding earth, insofar as imaging equipment had shown. No one had been foolish enough to touch this fluid with their bare hands – wisely, because a lab mouse later exposed to it was desiccated in under a minute, as if the decaying effect had been distilled into a syrup.
A barely-living cadaver, body overflowing with liquid rot. This thing was what August Mayes revered as a god. Had there been others before him who believed so? Once containment was re-established, the other research teams had gone to work, including those setting out to try and match Subject B to any groups of interest known by the Foundation.
Which left Dr. Ruth with her efforts to stabilize Subject A's mental state.
Was it wrong to have said those things to him? No… No, she couldn't encourage these delusions, the obsession and the exaltation of this entity, regardless of whether it really was something akin to a “god” or not. It wasn't healthy for him. And there was no way of knowing what would happen if the two came in direct contact. At this point, the researchers were having trouble even deciding if Subject A was a part of 3606's anomaly, or simply under the effect of his connection to B. Could this thing attach itself to others if A were to die? Was it preventing A's death entirely?
No. These things weren't her concern. Her prerogative was August's psychological health.
Which, in her opinion, was deteriorating rapidly following the team's decision to reveal Subject B's existence to him.
Damn them. They were setting back decades of progress. She'd been monitoring the situation more closely since that day, checking back in on the house every afternoon, but August no longer answered the door. The skeletons and carcasses of animals were piling up around the house with no one to collect them. The provisions delivered to the porch hadn't been taken in that week, and she feared he'd stopped eating. The next fear was suicide – but she was assured that he was at least still alive inside, based on readings of the house.
Her next step had been to petition the team lead to consider amnestics. She was denied. Subject A's lucid dreaming was deemed too pertinent to uncovering Subject B's anomaly. She argued that this could still be useful if August didn't know that the entity was real. Still denied.
So she did what she could. She checked in on him. Day after day after day.
That evening, it was raining even harder than it had when this started. Despite her umbrella, the legs of her trousers were soaked by the time she made it up to the patio. The grocery bags were still unattended and sagging against the front door. The windows were as dark as the steel-gray sky. She shook out her umbrella and rapped on the wood.
Silence. She knocked again, harder.
And then she was pounding on the door with her fist, face red with irritation. “August, that's enough! You're acting like a spoiled child! Come out here, right–”
The door swung open as she'd drawn her fist back again.
The man at the doorway was a different person than she remembered. August's eyes were encircled with deep shadows, his sandy hair unkempt and cheeks shallow. He seemed to be in a state of undress, only hugging a woolen blanket around his freckled shoulders.
“What do you want, Doctor?” he croaked out.
“What do I want?” she repeated, exasperated. “August, you had me worried sick. You've got to stop this. Whatever you're feeling right now, we can work this out together, but I need you to stop closing yourself off… Please.”
But the distant look on August's face didn't make her confident he'd heard all of this. His eyes began to water, threatening to spill over.
“He's still calling to me,” he said hoarsely. “It won't stop. He – he knows I can feel him nearby.”
Dr. Ruth's shoulders slackened as she shook her head. “August… That's just –”
“Don't tell me it's a dream!” he groaned, trying to blink back the tears. “Even if it was before, it's… I… I can't sleep anymore. I'm not sleeping. I'm awake, and it won't stop. I hear his voice, I feel the chill of his hands, I taste the sweet decay of his very breath! I can't ignore it all, Doctor, I'm… I'm not…”
August's voice dissolved as he struggled to speak, his shoulders trembling with suppressed sobs.
Were it anyone else, Dr. Ruth would be able to remain professional, surely… But August Mayes had robbed her of that. This man was not a lab animal, not a specimen for study, not an emotionless anomaly. He was just a young man drawn into this horrible thing, forced to live his life surrounded by constant death and rot. And right now… right now, he needed some kind of comfort.
He fell easily into her arms when she offered them, leaning his forehead on her slim shoulder as he wept. She hesitated, then carefully stroked his matted hair with a sigh. “August, I'm so sorry… I promise this will be better soon. We'll take care of you…”
“D-doctor… please… please tell me…”
“What is it?”
“They're… not guarding the tunnel right now, are they?”
It took Dr. Ruth a moment to realize what he'd just said. Too long.
Hands were wrapped around her throat, squeezing, shaking. She gasped and clawed at the man's arms, staring up into the tear-streaked face over her, into the wide, watery hazel eyes overflowing with mixed malice and regret.
“I'm sorry,” he choked out. “I'm sorry… I'm s-so sorry… I can't… I have to…!”
—
The summer rain was freezing. August couldn't feel his legs moving under him anymore. Those dozen meters into the yard where the tunnel's entrance lay under an unguarded tarp felt like miles.
What had he just done?
No… No… Dr. Ruth was fine. He hadn't killed her. He'd only knocked her out. He was sure of that. Her pulse had felt so strong under his fingers when she went limp –
Oh, god, what was happening to him? Why was he doing this?
He staggered through the deluge, wide eyed, mouth dry and open, the blanket long discarded when it became too heavy in the rain. He was numb. He'd been numb for days.
It was the first time in the past week he'd seen the place without anyone in or around it. He'd counted the people that went in and came out that day through his window. He was sure no one was down there anymore, no one between him and…
But they'd set up security cameras. He was sure someone had seen him do what he did to Dr. Ruth, and they'd see him going down into the tunnel. He didn't have much time, then. But it would be enough. All he had to do was make it down to the pit and…
Then what?
He'd know when he was there. He'd know the will of his God when he stood before his altar. He would know.
The descent into the tunnel was via a metal ladder, like climbing into a well. The rain pouring down the uncovered shaft made his steps unsteady, made him test his grip on each slippery rung before moving on. He could feel his heart thumping against his tongue. Nearly there. Almost…
Half-starved, his body wouldn't move any faster than it already was, despite the rising sense of urgency in his limbs. He braced the rough earthen walls of the path with his hands, panting, dragging himself on. The chemical lamps were still lit at the end. Almost there. He was so close. He'd make it, he just had to get there before anyone else…
His ragged breath resounded faintly in the open space of the pit. Unlike the tunnels, this place didn't seem to be dug out so clumsily… The walls were smooth, gently curved, with tree roots almost cautiously intruding along it all, casting long shadows across the low ceiling in the lamplight. And in the center –
The distant shouts of men far behind him were drowned out by the ringing in his ears. His lungs weren't working right, his heart stumbling to meet the burden of his body.
It was like a shallow grave, this resting place where the unearthly entity lay in perfect tranquility. He was more than August had ever dreamed, more than the paltry photographs could ever hope to capture.
Skin like the moon, faintly colored at his extremities as if with frostbite. Long hair like ink spun into silk. A face neither masculine nor feminine, yet both at once, exquisitely shaped as if by otherworldly hands.
Soft lips gently parted, inviting.
Calling him.
Silently calling his name.
“Subject 3606-A, you are in breach of Foundation security! Stand up and back away from the entity!”
August had sunk himself into the hollow before he knew what he was doing. He was shaking, from his nerves or from the chill of his own skin, he didn't know. The still body below him offered no heat, no comfort, and yet he felt compulsion enveloping him, starving mouth seeking what had been offered –
“Get the tranquilizer. 3606-A, this is your final warning! If you do not comply, security staff will be forced to –”
The ringing in his ears had climbed to a peak. He was deaf to all else. Trembling hands gingerly, carefully held the entity's shapely jaw, only daring to touch with the barest of his fingertips, as if lifting a chalice of delicate crystal. As he drew near, the open mouth began to weep… A night-black liquid overflowed from the figure's lips, and before it was able to slip down his face, August hurried to seal his mouth against –
He was gone.
The disquiet melted from inside him. There was a heat flooding his throat, his empty stomach as he swallowed mouthfuls of black liquid, its sensation on his tongue numbing and burning him…
It tasted of copper, of clover honey and lamb, of snowmelt and fragrant spice. The aroma of it was soaking through his brain and dissolving him, bleeding through every inch of his quaking body…
He was frozen there for what felt like ages, bound to the entity of death and decay at the mouth… And he was suddenly, calmly content to simply die there.
Not yet.
August snapped back to earth as he was seized roughly about the arms and torn from the hollow where the entity lay, black liquid dripping from his mouth. He'd been nearly dragged away from the grave when he began to fight, panicked, desperate to get back to where he belonged. No – not now, not now!
He twisted himself in the grasp of the men who held him, finding the unshielded face of the guard bending his left arm backwards, and violently spat out what was in his mouth.
Immediately, the man screamed and let go of him, frantically trying to wipe the corrosive black substance from his face, to little effect. It was as if he'd been drenched in hydrochloric acid. The flesh shriveled, liquified and sloughed off his skull and into his decaying hands, his strangled voice thinning as the breath slipped from his lungs like a deflating balloon.
August's stomach turned, and immediately the urge rose to regurgitate what he'd drunk – but he suppressed it. It wasn't harming him. It was a gift… something given to him and him alone, deadly only to the unworthy who tried to restrain him.
Or so it would be, but the other Foundation agents weren't as unprepared. Safe in their biohazard suits, they wrestled him to the ground and pinned him there as he howled like a wounded animal. He couldn't throw them off. He couldn't get back. Not like this… Not like this…
“Let go of me! LET GO OF ME! LET ME GO! I won't, I won't, please, let me…!”
“Hold him down!”
“Fuck - what the fuck just happened to Yates!?”
“Idiot didn't wear his suit like we said –”
“Let go of me, let go, let go, I need to go –”
“They didn't say he could do shit like –”
“He couldn't, he must have –”
“Let go… please… please… I'm begging you, let me…”
“Where's the fucking tranq?”
“Here, just hold him –”
August strained to look back, cheek pressed to the cold earth, his breathing ragged. The sting of the needle in his arm barely registered through the adrenaline.
And slowly, finally, the pit spun into darkness.
—
The atmosphere around the containment site had changed in less than a week. Before, it was simply a low-maintenance Euclid-class anomaly, whose danger could be suppressed with deliveries of livestock and standard supplies for its single human resident. Now, there was a small and constant rotation of agents, and the howling screams that kept rising up and fading into hoarse sobbing did nothing for Foundation morale.
It was still impossible for staff to be inside of 3606 itself for longer than five minutes at a time, and so it was equally impossible to confine Subject A to his home following the incident. Instead, a sterile medical tent had been erected on the lawn, with Subject A as its sole occupant, occasionally visited by Foundation agents and medical personnel.
This was how Dr. Ruth found the place when she returned, just eight days after her assault. She wouldn't be staying long, but she was assured there was very little she could do to interfere with Subject A's containment at the time.
“He's harmless for the moment,” was what the team lead had casually told her outside the tent.
At first glance, however, she thought the measures to contain him were a bit excessive.
August Mayes had not dealt with the incident well. Attempts to leave him with minimal security measures had left him with deep gouges around his arms and throat from self-injury, though most of these were either bandaged or healing – his wrists and ankles were bound to a sturdy bed by thick leather restraints to prevent more, with an additional strap across his chest to keep him from trying to change position. There was something like a metal dog muzzle over his nose and mouth, perhaps to keep him from biting, but more likely because much of the staff attending him weren't entirely convinced he hadn't been able to produce Subject B's decaying fluids on his own. To get around the blockage of his mouth, he was being fed intravenously, although it was likely he would have continued refusing meals if they hadn't done so anyway.
Dr. Ruth wished with all her being that she hadn't had to see him this way. Not like this.
At the sound of her sighing, August opened a bleary eye and tilted his face to her, his breathing thin behind the muzzle. It seemed to be taking him a moment to recognize her… or maybe just to decide what to say.
“Did I hurt you?” he said faintly, voice muffled by the metal.
Dr. Ruth felt for her neck automatically – the bruises and scratches had mostly faded, but there was a bandage on the side of her head where she'd struck herself on the porch railing. “Not as badly as you've done to yourself, I think,” she replied.
His eyes fluttered a moment, as if he were trying to stay awake. “I'm sorry.”
“You'd said that.”
“I was… I am.”
“It's over, regardless.” Dr. Ruth hesitated, her mouth hanging open slightly, then pushed on. “August… This is the last time you're ever going to see me.”
To her surprise, he sighed, slowly, as if in relief. “Did they… They listened to me?”
“What? … Listened about what?”
“Th-they're… going to kill me?”
She blanched. “August, they wouldn't –”
“I've begged them to,” he whimpered. “I've been pleading for days. Doctor, please, tell them… Please… I want to die. I can't live like this. I want to go back–”
“I'm being removed from your case, August,” she snapped.
He fell silent, reddened eyes unblinking. “Why?”
“Why?” she repeated ruefully. “Because I let you cloud my judgment. I made terrible decisions to accommodate you, and it nearly got me killed in the end. The blood of the man you killed is on my hands, too. No – a good portion of the team assigned to you is being removed from the Foundation entirely for this incident. Only one person dying from this was a miracle. And you still want to add to the casualties – you want them to execute something they've been protecting for the past twenty years?”
“Is that all I am? Do you feel that way, too?”
“You –” She scoffed in disgust, hugging her own arms and glaring at the ground. “You bastard. I wish it was the only way I saw you. It was supposed to be that way. It's the way I've been able to work with every other anomaly in my care. Why did it have to be you?”
The sound of August's breath made a faint, tinny echo against the muzzle. Outside the tent, the air was thick with the sound of cicadas trilling in the woods.
“Why are you telling me this?” he said, voice weakening.
Dr. Ruth forced herself to look back at him, her eyes shining with the threat of tears. “Because you're not going to remember it anyway,” she said bitterly. “They're giving you amnestics today, like I suggested to them weeks ago. You'll forget everything that happened since they found the pit. So will I, when I leave the Foundation.”
He fell quiet again, unmoving.
“I thought you'd be more upset by that,” said Dr. Ruth.
“I am,” he whispered. “But I'll forget why, won't I? I'll forget why I want to die now. I'll forget the way I feel in his absence. I'll forget how it felt t… to kiss him. To drink the nectar from his lips. I won't know how it consumed me, and I won't long for it so much that my very existence without it feels like agony. I'll forget what… what happened down there.”
Dr. Ruth bit her lip, torn between anger and misery. “August… I did all that for you, I ignored all rational behavior and acted out of turn because I lo–”
“Doctor.” His voice was breaking, his body sagging down in the restraints. “Please don't… make me hurt you more than I already have.”


Sweet Providence.

TopDownUnder

This is a sequel of sorts to my art exchange gift for MetalRavioli! I realized I had a lot of fun writing for Aces and Eights and wanted to give it another go.
More by TopDownUnder

« It's Good to Touch the Green, Green Grass of Home || Save My Soul ||

The night was still, save for the occasional lizard skittering through the shrubbery. It wasn't usually this quiet alongside the Rio Grande, but nightfall brought along with it a sort of calming effect, forcing people back into their homes or shelters for the long night's rest.
The corpse next to the river's bank lay there, limp and unmoving like most corpses ought to be. A skink came up to the body, eyeing its decomposing fingers as a potential late-night snack. Before it could stuff the body's thumb into its mouth it heard a noise coming from a nearby bush and skittered away.
Nothing else disturbed the body that night.

The following night was the same as before. The Rio's waters were still, nothing except for the small critters of the night were about, and the body still laid there, with its tattered European coat. It seemed that, unlike the night prior, nothing of note would occur. No lizard would crawl over to try and take a bite from the dead man, no vulture would swoop down to claim the body as its own, no coyote would find it during its—
There was movement from the corpse.
A small twitch. It wasn't much, but it was movement nonetheless. One of the man's fingers, on the same hand as the thumb that the skink had tried to eat, twitched. Something that corpses were not supposed to do.
The body did not move for the rest of the night. Perhaps it had been a fluke, an unseen creature scurrying underneath the man's hand and moving it in the process. That must have been it. That had to be it.

The third night was much of the same. No rushing water, no animals, no passing boats and certainly no movement from the bod—
Its hand moved. The cadaver dug its nails into the loose dirt, trying to find something to hold on to. After a bit of weakly clawing into the ground, it fell limp again, falling back down onto the ground as though it had never moved before.
The fourth night the body tried using the same arm to push itself up to no avail.
The fifth night the body used its other arm as well. It managed to get a few inches off the ground but buckled under its own weight. A sound escaped from the man's mouth, almost like a muffled scream.
The sixth and seventh nights the body got accustomed to its legs, wiggling its toes and bending its knees to get a sense of where they were.
The eighth night, the body used its legs and arms to get up from the ground. It managed to stand up for just a moment on wobbly legs before collapsing once more to the ground. After a moment of laying on the floor in defeat, the corpse hit the dirt with its fist, angry at itself and at the world.
The ninth night the body began to slowly pull itself towards the water's edge. Perhaps to refresh itself, or to drown itself, freeing it from this torture.
It reached the water's edge on the tenth night. Slowly, but surely, it cupped its rotten hands and scooped up some water, bringing it to its chapped lips for a sip. It spent the rest of the tenth night doing this, each handful of water seemingly bringing some colour to its ragged face. It almost seemed relieved, savouring the feeling of water going down its dry throat. As the sun rose, it fell limp at the riverbank, its forearms still submerged under the river's surface.
On the eleventh night, the body, with what seemed to be reinvigorated strength, began to rise from the river's bank, quicker than it had before. It managed to stay standing for a few seconds, before falling. It managed to land on one knee, holding itself up with a decomposing arm. After a moment, it rose back up and stood, waiting to see if it fall once more. After ensuring it had the strength to stand, it began to limp towards its tattered coat on the ground.
The body grabbed the coat and slowly put it on, checking the pockets for its revolvers. Surely enough, there they were. Dirtied, but still there. Its stiff demeanour seemed to soften a bit as it felt the revolvers, the cold metal of their barrels offering it some relief.
The body stood there for a bit, looking out on the river it had laid next to. It thought back to what had happened, why it was here, who had put it here. That bird. It remembered now. It had been sent on a damn mission, by that damn Consortium, to deal with that damn bird that man had stolen.
As dim moonlight shined down on the vast desert, Elias Everest began his journey, walking with vengeance on his mind.

The postman scrubbed the grime off his counter, left by a man coming for his mail. Working at a postal office, especially one out here in the West, was an interesting job, with… curious people, to put it kindly. He just wished those people knew how to wash themselves. The postal office had closed just when the sun vanished below the horizon, but the postman was usually up till the late hours of the night cleaning the dirt and mud that his patrons would track.
As he got on his knees to scrub a muddy footprint away, he heard the door to the building open. He sighed. A late pickup. They weren't uncommon, but they were never this late. Or this smelly.
"Take off your shoes, would you? Been scrubbing this floor for too long for someone to just show up and dirty it all up."
The postman groaned as he got up, walking behind his counter. As he bent down to grab the remaining mail from the day, he heard the patron sit down at the counter.
"Mind tellin' me your name? So I can find your mail?"
"You know damn well who I am, Cole," responded the man. Cole scratched his mind, trying to pin a name to the voice. It sounded familiar, alright, but something about it felt… Wrong. He stood back up to get a look at the patron, and-
"Oh my lord! Elias! You're—!"
"Dead? Yeah, already heard it from everyone else in town, Thereven. Don't need it from you too."
Cole stood there for a moment, in complete shock at the person in front of him. Last he had heard of Elias, he was seen dead by a passing ship on the Rio Grande. Yet, right in front of him - decomposing and rotting - was Elias.
"But I thought you had died… Heard that your body was laying next to the river. How are you… Alive?"
"Your guess's as good as mine. Thought I was dead too, but seems like I thought wrong. Any news from HQ? 'Bout the warrant?"
"Um, Pebbler seems to have returned to his home, and we're keeping close eyes on him. I know that Al Fine was writing an obituary for you and that Be—"
"I don't give a rat's ass about what they're doing. The bird. What's gone on with the bird?"
"Last I heard, Pebbler had let the bird go somewhere out there in Mexico."
"Shit…" Elias looked down at his damaged coat. It was dirtied and filled with holes from his encounter with the bird. It had barely kept him warm on his walk back to town, not that he had felt it.
"Did, uh, did HQ want that coat back?" asked Cole.
Elias laughed, shaking his head. "Doubt they'd want it back now. That bird messed it up good. Real good."
Before Cole could ask another question, the door to the post office flew open, slamming against the wall next to it.
From outside, three figures entered the office.
"Detective agency. Sorry for bargin' in like that, we're following a case."
The first one to talk was a woman, slightly shorter than Cole. Her long, pitch-black hair was put up into a messy bun, which was threatening to come undone at any moment. She proudly displayed a shiny silver revolver on her belt. A piece of cloth she wore on her shoulders hid her arms, with her hands covered by black gloves.
"We were directed here to you by some of the other townspeople, Mr. Thereven."
The second one was a tall, somewhat lanky man. He had long shaggy brown hair which perfectly framed his soft face. Heavy eyebags gave him a sad sort of look. The muted and dark colors of his suit didn't help with this.
"Was hoping we could ask you two fine gentlemen some questions."
The third man was a bit shorter than the second one. He had short black hair and some stubble. He carried himself with a vague air of self-importance and held a smug look on his face. He had one hand in his pocket, where he was playing with what seemed to be a deck of cards.
"What type of detectives wait till the dead of night to ask questions?" asked Elias.
"We were only just told about the case and it's best that we close it up as soon as possible," responded the brunette.
"Mhmm… What even is the case?"
"Heard rumour of a walking corpse."
Cole stiffened up at that, sweat beginning to drip down his face. The woman, picking up on this, turned to him with a slight smile.
"Know something about that, Mr. Thereven?"
"N-No, Miss… umm…"
She slowly walked across the room to the counter, keeping her eyes on Cole the whole time. She rested her arms on the countertop, leaning forward towards Cole.
"Darke. But you can just call me Iris."
"Ms. I-Iris, I wouldn't really know anything about that. Just, erm, spooked me a bit. You know, what with that rotting disease further out west. Wouldn't want that spreading out here, hah…"
Iris eyed him with some suspicion, before nodding and turning to Elias. She flashed him the same smile she had given Cole before jumping up onto a stool.
"What of you, sir?"
Elias shrugged.
"Heard some talk about it, but people only started gossiping 'bout it today. Surprised it got to your agency this quickly."
The black-haired man shrugged at Elias, mocking how he had done so a moment ago. "Just found us some good gossipers, is all. Ears to the ground and all that."
"Y'all don't look like you're from around here, either. How you three get here so quickly too?"
The brunette let out a small laugh, sitting at the stool on the other end of Elias'. "We got our Ways of getting around."
"Anybody say where the corpse was heading?" interjected the black-haired man. He had taken out the deck of cards and had begun playing with them, shuffling and reshuffling them.
"Nah, just that they say it shambling 'bout near that river."
"Interesting," said Iris. She held up her hand and began examining her nails, digging out the dirt from underneath them. "Heard from the people at the saloon that they saw it heading this-a-way. To the post. Said it was wearing a shitty-looking coat too."
She paused, looking Elias up and down.
"Kinda like yours, I'd reckon."
The air grew tense with this last remark as the five people in the room stared each other down. Cole tried to stealthily inch into the backroom, but a glare from both Elias and Iris stopped him in his tracks.
Elias rested his hand on his revolver as he opened his mouth.
"I'm not quite sure what you're implying with that, Ms. Darke."
"I think you know exactly what I'm trying to say."
Elias suddenly stood up and pulled out his gun, pressing down on the trigger. Before he could fully press down on the trigger, the three detectives pulled out their own guns and shot at him. One bullet hit his wrist, knocking the rusty revolver out of his hand. Another bullet hit his right knee, knocking him to the ground. The final bullet went straight through his skull, splattering rotten gray matter on the counter behind him.
Cole screamed and ducked down behind the counter, covering his mouth with his hand. He had just watched a dead man die. He almost vomited, both from the scene he had just witnessed and the smell of the gases escaping Elias' body.
"Come on out, Cole," called out Iris. "Promise we won't hurt cha."
"We already got the corpse we came here for. Just need to make sure you're alright, buddy."
Cole shuddered, whispering a small prayer underneath his breath. He closed his eyes and slowly got up, holding his hands up. He turned around to face the three detectives.
When he opened his eyes, Cole was met by the barrel of a gun.
"Sorry, buddy. Can't be leaving no witnesses."
He closed his eyes and braced himself.
BANG!
Cole breathed in and…
He was still alive.
He slowly opened his eyes. The barrel was no longer in front of him. He saw the black-haired man on the floor, laying in a pool of blood. A decomposing hand was coming out of Elias' coat, holding a smoking gun.
"Shit, Robby!" The brunette ran over to the bleeding man - Robby, it seemed - and got down on his knees to check on him.
Elias reached up and grabbed the side of the counter, pulling himself up with some effort. He almost fell back down when he stood on the knee that got shot but managed to balance himself. A tentacle came out of his coat and grabbed his revolver, placing it in his good hand. The hole in his head was visible from where Cole stood. He could see Iris staring down at Elias.
Elias checked the chamber of his revolver before pointing it at Iris.
"You wanna try that again?"
Iris grabbed the grip of her revolver, pulling it up to match Elias'. It wavered in the air for a bit before she cursed and threw it on the ground. She took a moment to calm herself before reaching down and grabbing her gun.
"Let's get out of here, Skit."
"But Rob-"
"Look at him, Skit. He's gone. We need to leave."
Iris put her revolver back in her holster and mumbled something under her breath. She walked over to where Skit was kneeling over Robby and yanked him up, pushing him towards the door. She looked down at Robby's body for a bit before following Skit outside.
"A… are we going to follow them?" asked Cole.
Elias shook his head as he slumped against the counter, sliding down to the ground.
"Too tired for that… Let them go. Chances are they were just a bunch of kids sticking their noses where they weren't supposed to. What harm could they cause?"
Cole hesitantly stepped out from behind the counter and to where Robby's body lay on the ground. He slightly nudged it with his foot, causing a card to come out from the man's pockets. He reached down and picked it up, his eyes widening when he saw the name.
"What's the problem, Cole?"
Cole handed Elias the card.

DETECTIVE ROBERT CARTER

PROPERTY OF
MARSHALL CARTER AND DARK NATIONAL DETECTIVE AGENCY

"God fucking-"

On the twelfth night, Elias Everest angered the three wealthiest criminals in the West.

« It's Good to Touch the Green, Green Grass of Home || Save My Soul || Coming Soon… »


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RR-RKPR P/1
Page 1

PERSON OF INTEREST RR/2917/1236

Name: Robert Lukas Madden
Date of Birth: 15/02/2001
Location: Friedrich-Nietzsche-Gymnasium, Leipzig, Germany
Description: 16. White male. 185 cm in height. 58 kg in weight. IQ of 152. Sight defection of -1,25 within both eyes. Both parents dead since 2002 due to a car accident; currently housed within a boarding school in Leipzig, Germany, where he obtains education. Noted for above-average results in mathematics and physics.
Possesses a minor probabilistic anomaly drastically increasing the chance of discovery of anomalous mathematical patterns, signs, and formulas within non-anomalous mathematics. Resulted in civilian discovery of at least seven mathematical anomalies since his discovery by the PANOPTICON Global Surveillance System in 2012; seemingly increases in intensity with age. Due to the highly-isolated nature of his location and lack of outside interactions, threat is currently under control.
Plan of Approach: As per order of Site-54 directorship, on 02/01/2017, PoI-RR/2917/1236's Risk and Disruption Class have been updated to Warning and Keneq respectively due to the discovery of a part of an as-of-yet unknown highly-contagious antimemetic memeplex. Due to this, active containment has been deemed necessary for the continued maintenance of the Veil within the area.
Two hours following this revelation, local agents will be officially dispatched to capture Mr. Madden and transport him to the nearby Site-54 in accordance with the below-proposed Rookie Program.

Robert Madden was the single smartest person on the planet.
Busting through the doors of his daytime prison, he felt the running wind of the cold outside tickle his slightly longer brown hair. Correcting the never-adjusted glasses on his nose, he took a deep breath, feeling his unmatched genius run through his veins. Despite his age, he was quite certain nobody in history could ever even come close to the intelligence he possessed. When even math looked back at you and nodded, impressed, it just had to be that way. He smiled with satisfaction, opening his eyes.
As expected, the courtyard was empty.
With a devious grin entering his face, Madden looked around it once more, trying to catch of he was really alone out here. Confirming that was indeed the case, he slowly but surely made his way towards the trash-bin-filled corner under some stairs leading into the building, where no CCTV cameras dared to look. He stretched, full of pride, and sat down on the decomposing sofa him and his friends dragged to the patio ages ago. Paranoically searching for any signs of nearby teachers, he took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his pockets, locating the latter in between his lips.
If only they saw me now, he thought as he expelled a fat cloud of smoke from his lungs. Robert often heard from the abysmally annoying men and women that staffed the school he was an irresponsible idiot for taking up smoking. Geniuses don't do this, he was told over and over; he surely had to know this, they implied, trying to persuade him away from the best stress-reliever he knew. And, in a sense, he thought they were right — geniuses did indeed not get caught. And so, after that long-ass conversation, they didn't catch him in the act a single another time. He learned from his enemies.
He exhaled again, putting away the stolen Zippo back in the safety of his jeans pockets. Eyeing the opening before him for one final time, Madden threw the smoke on the ground, standing up to put it out.
BANG!
Within a matter of seconds, he froze, slowly turning his head towards the source of the sound.
"Sir, that's not mi—" he backed off as away from the still-burning cigarette as he could, before walking himself into a corner. About to try to escape as quickly as he could, he raised his hands in a sorry-not-sorry-gesture, only to be interrupted by a second blow.
BANG!
Coming from the trash can in the second end of the courtyard, Madden realized it was the unmistakable sound of very, very focused clapping done by someone with frankly bizarre skill to do so. Brushing the sheer absurdity of such a thing — and his recognition of the pattern — he looked at the third bin in another distant corner, readying for the hopeful third impact. And that was when he noticed it.
A disembodied female hand, slowly but surely moving around the premises with a strange grace. Raising his eyebrow — more from confusion than fear — he knocked the cigarette to the ground, putting it out for good. Robert curiously skewed his head, raising an eyebrow, and carefully approached the container, trying to catch the peculiar newcomer. But as he was about to touch it, it disappeared into thin air, as if it was never there.
Blinking twice to check if he wasn't daydreaming, Madden rushed forward, grabbing the trash bin in his own hands, only to realize it really was devoid of the apparition, no matter where he looked.
But then, as a dull pain engulfed his occiput, all went dark.

RR-RKPR P/1
Page 2

ROOKIE PROGRAM CASEFILES

Following the nearly Foundation-wide success of new containment techniques and approaches towards the anomalous obtained from Project Resurrection and Directive Alpha/1911, we officially propose a third phase of the "New Foundation" reform bundle, as it has come to be called amongst personnel. Under the name of Rookie Program, the below-signed O4 Command members will explain, step-by-step, how such a program (as described in the previously-attached documentation) would work, on the example of PoI-RR/2917/1236.
Phase 1: Acquisition

Agent Iris Thompson sighed with frustration, nervously tapping the wheel of her blue Secret Cake Parties-branded 2008 Ford Fiesta. When no change came after five seconds, she angrily blew the vehicle's horn, once again to no effect.
Gently checking if the amnestically put-to-sleep Robert Madden sitting in the second row was still unmoving, she looked out of the car's back window. To check if the traffic was just as bad behind her as it was before her was truly a hopeless attempt, but she had to try. Much to her dismay, however, the neverending string of cars proved to exist so behind as before. Even the fabled and legendary German highways didn't help here, it seemed. She sighed again, turning her sight at the road in front of her once more.
Moving the drumming from the wheel to the gear stick, she gingerly put back one of the five photos she stored in the car from her lap to the passenger seat on the right. Even if over time, her Polaroid evolved from that to a standard phone, she still liked to keep physical copies of her captures, even when not needed for action. It was strangely nostalgic. No longer needing the Polaroid depicting the frankly rancid high school the PoI attended she took ages ago, she put it into a document sleeve next to her. Or, rather, the photo of the rancid high school Robert attended, she corrected herself in her thoughts, realizing calling people by numbers was maybe just a little too hypocritical for her.
Yawning at the sight of even more cars on her road towards Site-54, Iris picked up a second photo, depicting Site-19's cafeteria's coffee machine. She reached through into it, sticking her tongue out just slightly, and carefully input "FLAT WHITE" into 294's keyboard. With a few buzzes and beeps, it spat out a Starbucks-model cup of coffee into the output zone, the word "Irish" written atop it in black marker. Thompson snickered at the ages-old joke, taking the drink back into her car as she nodded with it slightly in appreciation of the machine's humor. She wasn't quite sure if she was long enough in the Foundation to accept a coffee machine was sentient, but hey, at least it made her life just a little more bearable.
As she took the first sip, she noted it was not only too hot, but also only half-full. Not able to decide which one was more annoying, she looked at the sleeping youth in the back once more. Realizing she couldn't mask the stench of smoking filling her car with the no-longer-strong scent of coffee, she rolled her eyes. If neither vision, touch, taste or smell could distract her from the monotony of the road, hearing would have to do the job. She turned on the radio, connecting to Spotify on her phone, and clicked shuffle.
When the strings of some random electrically-sounding song she barely recognized due to exhaustion and monotony broke into her ears, she looked at Madden once more through the mirror above her. It was funny, she thought, that she out of all people was the one they chose to acquire this golden example boy to prove Resurrection's next phase would prove a good investment. She knew it was due to her abilities and proximity, but she couldn't shake off the feeling it was some cruel irony catching up to her. But such was life — you argued not with Command, lest you wished for Command to argue with you.
The old wounds still itched, as they would for the rest of her life, but there was something really painful in helping to gaslight and kidnap more people to fuel the Foundation's structure, no matter how good-willed and beneficial for both parties it was. She couldn't do anything to stop it — not like any Level 2 Agent had anything to say in any matter, ever — but she just silently hoped the wave of fresh blood they planned to fill the Foundation up with wouldn't have to experience their own Omega-7. Because she didn't think anyone else knew how early trauma affected people better than her.

Yeah, tell me that you love me
Look deep into my eyes
Say there's no one else above me
I'm the King of Fools, 'cause baby you're the Queen of White Lies

Recognizing the chorus to be that of Orion Experience's Queen of White Lies, she suddenly broke away from her trance, realizing she's been staring at the new acquisition for an uncomfortable amount of time, even if most of it was half-consciously. And so, looking at the finally-moving road before her, she pressed the gas pedal, ready to be the King of Fools to deliver yet another sacrifice to the Queen of White Lies that would, if all went well, soon be the employer of both of them.

Nine hours and two misspelled cups of coffee later, Iris found herself driving down the spiral road leading into the parking lot directly leading to a series of elevators that ended in Site-54's main lobby. Sighing once more, she stopped next to the barrier separating the civilian part of the shopping center from the "maintenance" section. With a quick move, she opened the window, allowing for the fuel-ridden wind of the underground to wriggle her long, blonde hair.
Sticking her tongue out, she turned towards her purse, flicking through numerous shopping and payments cards, before finally finding the one she was looking for.
Bingo.

Sliding the plastic item through the terminal stopping her from coming forward, she quickly retreated back to the relatively safe haven of her Ford. An atmosphere tainted by a teenage smoker wasn't exactly the nice alternative she hoped for, but everything was better than the air of a busy city, especially underground. And it's not really like she had any other options. She shrugged, starting to play with her hair.
With a quiet beep, the system recognized her clearance, slowly but surely forcing the raising the blockade. With a heart on her shoulder, Iris turned her hands at the wheel and took a deep breath, entering into the vast underground complex of Site-54.
Navigating through the endless containment rooms centered around the underground roads, she realized how… actually strange 54 was. It wasn't her first time here, but she didn't really notice its weirdness before. Building an entire Site in such a way as to allow vehicle transport throughout — hell, even encourage it — was… not that surprising, actually, all things considered, she thought. Maybe years ago during her initial containment it might've been, but… the Foundation has changed, she sadly smiled, maneuvering around the pillars holding back the millions of tons of metal and concrete and people above.
Fourteen years, yet so many memories, bad and good alike. Kondraki, Able, Site-19. General Bowe, Sloth's Pit, Site-43. Esterberg, Area-150, Clef. It was almost unrecognizable from what it once was, for better worse, she thought, turning left towards the industrial elevator leading to her destination. Taking a sip of the cold coffee, she groaned silently, thinking of all that it took for them to get here. Of what a fucking mess Resurrection actually was. And of what a blessing and chance it gave all of them. As yet another terminal accepted her card again, redirecting the vehicle down into Level -10, Iris took another breath, eyeing Madden's unmoving self. Perhaps he will find his own chance a blessing too, she noted in her mind, if all goes well. If what they have planned for him works it, another one of these projects might give another Iris out there a chance for a good life. Might.
It took a few moments, but the bottom floor came eventually, letting her out into the gigantic containment complex imprisoning tens of hostile gods and demons. Ignoring both the screams and voices of her loved ones, Iris silently continued in a straight line, closing her eyes briefly. Arriving at a blast door protected with so many locks and layers it'd make even the Coalition blush, she stopped, opening her window again.
"Name?" Came the voice of a bored guardsman, peaking just out of an armored booth and recognizing the Frontispiece activation glyphs on her car. The voice bore a barely-detectable accent, tainted by the monotony this position must've been.
"Agent Iris Thompson," Iris replied, showing the man her identification, much to a lack of reaction.
"Purpose?" He continued, quickly typing something up on the terminal next to him.
"Person of Interest retrieval for the purposes of Rookie Program," She pointed at Madden with her head. "It's all in the database."
He didn't reply, instead furiously starting to click the keyboard before him. Clearly angry at what he saw, he stood up, reaching towards the bookshelf sitting behind the chair, coming back down with a filled-to-the-brim file folder. Finding the apparently appropriate document, the guard sighed, putting it on his desk.
"Orders here directly order the containment of PoI-RR/2917/1236, not transport to Site-120, as stated in your documentation," He skewed his head, raising an eyebrow. "Care to explain, or should I call Site Command?"
She immediately turned her smile into a frown, then back into a grin. "New orders from O4, authorized directly by Ontokinetic's Director." She pointed at the entry in front of her. "Care to let me in, or should I call Site Command?"
As if enchanted by those four simple words, the man immediately buckled up, clicking some buttons at the panel he operated, showing Thompson it will take a while.
As door after door depressurized, releasing magical energy, Thaumiel-compounds, and whatever else they threw to keep unwanted visitors from entering, Thompson fell back into her car seat. Tapping the wheel nervously, she gave the guard yet another heavy look through the window, realizing that the gossip surrounding the international Foundation facilities was essentially true. She knew some of them rejected the new database looks and classification systems, but she couldn't believe they would really oppose Resurrection's ideas. At least not to such a degree. But, from the looks of things, the enthusiasm at both her appearance and mission and the machinery the room before her contained wasn't exactly high.
It took a while, but eventually the doors opened wide, revealing a misty and dimly lit interior beyond their barricade. Driving carefully, Iris navigated into its insides at low speeds, hoping the infrastructure of the machine had improved at least enough to not cause any more car crashes from the last time she had used it. And, with a heart on her shoulder and an unspoken prayer on her lips, the universe proved her right. It was now nothing more than a peaceful drive across a few tens of meters of dull metal to the company of humming computers and the fabric of reality being torn apart in front of her.
And just as expected, there it was, the nearly-anomalous thing every Site was now supposed to use.
An octagonal frame inbuilt into the floor, surrounded by myriad computers, magical gateways, and reality-anchoring devices keeping the portal in check, the prototype teleportation device was just as alien to her as the first time they've met. Extrapolated as a solution for local Site travel problems, the gateway was formed from the calculations made by some genius back at Ontokinetics that discovered the multiverse, but the knowledge that it connected to Site-120 and was formed from non-anomalous mathematics didn't make it any less strange. With an unusually excited move the membrane the metal held back vibrated, as if had long-known Thompson will come to it tonight.
She groaned, realizing she — and the young recruit in the back of her vehicle, for whom it would undoubtedly be worse as it was his first time using the machine — was in for some unpleasant headaches and minimal amounts of lost time burned away by the sheer power of the contraption. But hey, what can you do, she thought to herself and shrugged, driving forward into the blinding light in front of her.

Phase 2: Participant Testing

The only thing Robert Madden could extrapolate from the data his head currently held was the fact it hurt like hell.
Groaning without giving it much thought, the boy opened his eyes, blinking twice before fully reconnecting to reality. It took a while for him to get accustomed to the blinding cleanliness of the corridors of what he presumed to be a hospital. Shrugging the initial confusion off, he realized he must've just lost his consciousness after the bang and ended up here on some basic check or whatever. He stretched his limbs hard, and stood up from the chair next to some newspapers he was located on before.
And then, at just a moment's notice, he realized he was not in any hospital. He wasn't sure what exactly made him come to this conclusion — though if he had to guess, he'd say it was either the total emptiness, the shortness of the corridor, or the large "120" engraved on its walls — but this felt more like some research facility than any medical establishment.
Curiously albeit carefully, Robert took the first step forward, heading for the only place he could, the doors at the end of the place he found himself in. Beyond them, a dim light laid. Though due to the doors' milk-glass composure he couldn't quite make out all of what the room held, he was sure it contained a desk and a tall person with bright sitting next to it. He was no longer the one in control, for the first take in what felt like years. He swallowed hard.
Eventually though, his inert curiosity took over the fear of a strangely unfamiliar situation, forcing him to grab the door handle and enter through.
When Madden opened his eyes, he was no longer standing alone inside a strangely cold corridor; he was now standing inside a strangely cold office alongside someone. That someone proved to be a young blonde woman wearing a suit, dark sunglasses, and a tie, situated on the other side of a long desk with another chair on the end next to Robert, extended as if it was personally inviting him. In front of where he'd sit a stack of papers and a single pen sat. The rest of the table was entirely empty.
Swallowing once again, he took his seat and cleared his throat, looking directly at the agent's masqueraded eyes. She didn't say anything, instead pointing with her own pen at the set of papers and writing tool Madden was seemingly supposed to use.
He gave them a look, judging the number of sheets of paper to be more than ten. He sighed, correcting his glasses, and clicked the pen, ready to see what it had in store if no one wanted to tell him. Before he could get to work, however, the woman cleared her throat.
"Name?" She asked in a voice that very much tried to be intimidating. She failed.
He raised his eyebrow, leaning in on the table. "And how's that your business? Who are you?"
She hesitated for a moment. "I'm… Lily. Lily Veselka. I can't tell you more, I'm afraid; not before you answer a few of my questions and fill in those papers, at least." She smiled with a half-sincere apology.
He closed his eyes, and inhaled hard. Confirming his pulse wasn't out of norm so that he wouldn't snap at this "Lily" that dared to be such a bitch to someone like him, he opened them a moment later, and put on a fake smile.
"How exactly can I help?"
He had to hold himself in to not be actively enraged by this flurry of basic questions he was sure they — whoever "they" even were — already had the answers to. Who he was, where he lived, if he had any friends, all of that idiocy. Though Robert was sure he sighed just a few too many times to break the image of someone composed, the stranger in front of her didn't get any more frustrated with his nonsense than he would expect her to. But then again, judging from the men in black uniform she wore, it was most likely her job anyways.
Eventually though, when all that was supposed to be said was said indeed, she showed Madden it was high time he opened the stack of papers in front of him and made sense of their insides. And so, with a heavy heart, he did.
Expecting a few billion law regulations written in sub-molecular text, he was quite surprised when he found out it was just a simple instruction and… math questions. Closed math questions. He scoffed slightly, raising his eyebrow as he eyed the agent unnoticeably, but continued reading, intrigued where this all was going.
There were ten of them, one set for each page, every single one having A-B-C-D answers available below their text. Covering math, they were rather simple, forcing his brain to work just enough to not be bored but not enough to exhaust itself. He filled them in three minutes, and then turned the page over, starting to read the rest.
Like that, it continued for a while — Madden read the questions, scratched his metaphorical chin, and answered, happy his egoism was fuelled for just a moment longer. But after a while, they got hard. Really, really hard. Eventually, even nonsensical.
Robert tried to pretend before himself and the agent he knew what the late exercises tried to get to ask him, but they… they made no sense. Using symbols and formulas he'd never seen, they felt so alien as to be entirely incomprehensible in nature. They felt like they were somehow designed specially to fuck with his paragon logic. He marveled at who made these and thought they were a good idea, but more importantly, he marveled at the fact he was able to answer them. Correctly.
He had no idea what he was doing and why, but with each question that got close to total nonsense, he felt his consciousness expand into areas that didn't exist. Areas that, by all logic he always knew and was able to rationalize to himself, shouldn't exist. And yet, they did, and he walked right through them, able to somehow formulate the exact calculations necessary to make each jump across the darkness.
And, with each proper answer he laid down on paper, the agent before him smiled. He didn't notice that, though — he was too knees-deep in action to realize the world around him was still a thing.
It took many hours — how many, he could not tell — but eventually, he was done. With a mind more run-down than a racing horse he stood up, and threw the test across the table towards Lily, grinning like an idiot.
"So, now," he began, panting. "Will I finally get to know what's going on here?"
She eyed the paper, shuffling its pages, and grinned unnoticeably. "Yes. Yes, I think you do." She added more loudly.
Before the boy could raise his eyebrow, the agent stood up, and grabbed the handle of some doors behind her, almost identical to the ones he came here through. She swung her arm theatrically, bowing down as if she was inviting him in to whatever the hell laid beyond them.
Lily smiled mysteriously. "Come on through and find out."

Phase 3: Explicit Purpose Explanation

"Have you lost your FUCKING MIND?!"
"I—"
"You brought him here?! Without my—"
"You h-had no saying matter in this, I—"
"'No saying matter in this' my ass!"
As Magdaleine Cornwell, one of the five Directors of Site-120, sighed with more power than the other Director — James Micheals — thought was possible, she massaged her temple, walking around the big lecture hall. She inhaled, visibly calming down, and approached Micheals once more.
"Just… why?"
The other walked towards the closest audience chair, sitting atop its back and crossing his legs. "I… We needed s-someone to prove Rookie will work. O4 did, I-I mean. And Robert's…" He gesticulated heavily. "Well, he's p-perfect for this."
She rolled her eyes, groaning. "Oh, don't you pretend kidnapping a boy and getting him into the Foundation is morally justifiable because you'll make him your assistant. You're fucking ridiculous."
"We-We've been over this so many times. He's g-got no friends, no family, n-no nobody. He's an isolated genius we would've otherwise thrown into a cell." He sighed. "For god's sake, he discovered a fucking a-alien memeplex using nothing but logarithms. An alien memeplex. At age 16. How long do you t-think the rest of the world — hell, even the rest of the Foundation — would let him on out there?"
"That's beside the—"
"No, it's not, and stop pretending it is. We are the o-only chance for him."
"I—" The blonde Director tried to say, only to be cut off by the sound of the doors being slammed open. She looked at the top of the hall, noticing Iris walking through with Madden next to her, giving a thumbs up towards Micheals. She sighed.
"Whatever. You do you." She started to walk up towards the exit, turning her head at the other doctor. "But if you fuck up — and believe me, that you will — I've had nothing to do with this."
And with that, she left.
"So, uh," the young recruit carefully began, meeting the Director at the bottom of the large hall. It consisted of gigantic blackboards and an audience that undoubtedly held massive scientific summits when it wasn't used for borderline-immoral recruitment. If not for the fact Robert had no idea what this place truly was, he would have felt perfectly at home here. "What… What is this? She—" he pointed at Thompson. "—told me you'd have answers. So, give them to me."
Micheals smiled slightly, walking up towards the board before him, a Foundation sigil engraved on the wall behind it. Picking up the idea, Madden followed, curiously eyeing the emblem, but continuing without any words spoken.
"Alright, h-here we are," James exclaimed, a note of pride in his tone, extending his hands at the blackboard(s) he propped himself up against. "My name's James. Real p-pleasure to finally meet you, Robert." He extended his hand.
Raising an eyebrow, Madden accepted, keener on studying what the hell the board contained than the strange man in front of him. It was a total of over 100 m2 that could be filled up with calculations, occupied only by one really long line of math.
"Why am I here?"
"I—"
"I don't want any more lies. I want the truth. I think I deserve it after all I've just gone through."
"Well…" He smiled apologetically, Robert feeling the first note of sincerity in this place since he'd awoken inside the complex all those hours ago. "I-I'd love to tell you. I really would. But… I can't. Not yet, at least." He pointed towards the equation above him with his head. "Not before you calculate the above."
For a moment, the boy thought he was joking — by all logic and reason his mind had, he should, no he must have been joking. There was simply no way that after all of that, someone like him still had to deal with even more bullshit like this before getting at least some answers. Others? Maybe. But not him. Not someone like Robert Madden. He looked at the face of the doctor in search of any sign, of any gesture suggesting he was kidding.
But he found none.
He sighed, and walked up to the blackboard. James smiled, starting to back off from the hall, and gave him a thumbs-up. "Have fun!"
He slammed the doors shut. Robert sighed once again. With no other option but to abide, Madden came forward, and grabbed the first marker. He closed his eyes, corrected his glasses, and marked the first letters below the equation.
It was simple stuff really, at first at least — dividing, multiplying, all basic methods to try to get the x to be on just one side of the sentence. But then, after half a blackboard covered in markings, it got weird. Again. Just like the last time, the further down the path he'd gone the more… esoteric the formulas he got from seemingly nowhere manifested themselves inside his head, until the work was nothing but the ramblings of a madman. To someone that wasn't him, at least — even though he had no idea what most of it was, it somehow still made sense to his mind, now working full speed.
Three full blackboards filled and three hours down the line, he was able to get down to a simple, and — for the first time today — sensical equation. A single sentence, where the x was ready to be uncovered if he just multiplied some numbers on the right. He sighed with relief, and marked down the final answer, taking a step back to behold his work.
But as he noticed what actual answer he'd given, a wet shiver went down his spine. By all means, he was looking at a number that didn't exist. A number that shouldn't exist.
He rushed forward again, frantically checking every piece of math and derivatives before him to see if he hadn't made some mistake. Practically begging the universe for it to be true, he corrected his glasses again, deriving everything out again.
But, every time, it was all correct. He glanced at the answer one more time swallowing hard. What his eyes beheld was the truth of the universe, recontextualizing quite literally everything he took for granted during all his sixteen years of genius. He sat down on the floor from shock, and stared at the board for what felt like ages as he refused to blink.
And then, it all disappeared. Within a single second, all of his hard work stopped existing, wiping itself away in the blink of an eye like it had never been there.
"I—" he let out, touching the white material in what could only be referred to as an amock. If his throat wasn't barely hydrated, he would have let out a scream of pure terror.
"For what it's worth, you did a good job. This was the intended result."
Robert jumped back as a voice came from his right, eventually revealing itself to be James, looking at the blackboard in admiration. He nodded in appreciation, and noted something on his clipboard.
"But… I…" the young boy panted, grabbing his head in total lack of comprehension. "What the hell was that?"
"A number that shouldn't exist. L-Like you just proved."
"But…"
"Trust me, f-friend, this isn't even the weirdest thing we deal with h-here. At least be happy you didn't get m-mauled by a bear."
Robert raised his eyebrow, shaking his head. "What… What do you mean?"
In response, he just smiled. "Guess you're finally ready to see the film."

As the final frame turned itself off, Madden stared at the ground, not sure what to make of what he'd just heard. He grabbed his head with his right hand, and took a long sip from the plastic water cup he was just given,
"So," his technically new boss exclaimed, visible happiness in his tone. "What do you think?"
"What do I think?" He replied after a while, swallowing hard. "I don't fucking know what to think, is what I fucking think."
James just chuckled. "Guessed that much. But, oh well, it'll wear off after a week, that I guarantee you." He stood up, and went towards the hanger standing in the corner of his office. "We start work tomorrow at 9. Don't show up late."
"Huh?"
"Welcome to the Foundation, Junior Researcher Robert Madden," Micheals said, throwing him a piece of plastic with some code and his face engraved upon it, as he put his coat on and walked out of the room. "We've got much work to do."

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