NOTE: This is final part of the 23 part series, The Cool War. Reading this part first is a very bad idea and will spoil a lot of the story.

The Sculptor walked confidently to the grimy wooden door. He turned the brass knob, then pulled the door open.
The Janitor sat in front of him, its arms crossed across its chest. The regular, dull wheeze of the gas mask buzzed throughout the cramped, dilapidated room. The Sculptor let the door swing shut behind him with a small metallic click. He smirked at the masked figure.
“Well? Am I The Critic Yet?”
The Janitor remained motionless.
“Yes.”
The Sculptor's smirk widened to a smile, teeth grinning at his new slave.
“Brilliant. Brilliant.”
The Sculptor looked down, staring at his muddy, clay-encrusted hands.
“Fucking BRILLIANT.”
He let his head swing back, wildly cackling at the roof, eyes wide open, ecstasy spilling from every pore of his being.
He had won.
“Up you get, Janitor. We've got work to do.”
The Janitor stood up, cape billowing out from behind it. The Sculptor turned to the door, ready to leave the fray victorious. He grabbed the brass knob, then twiste-
Wait.
The Sculptor tried to twist the-
What?
The Sculptor frustratedly rattled the doorknob, then spun around.
“Janitor, open this fucking…”
The Janitor was gone, a small pink walkie-talkie left on its seat.
“Fuuuuuuck.”
The Sculptor looked around the room; he hadn't noticed before, but there were no windows from which to escape. There were no air vents, there was no plumbing system. The only way out of the room was through the door or through the walls. A single, flickering incandescent light bulb glowed obstinately from the roof. The walkie-talkie buzzed, a feminine voice coming through.
“Hello Sculptor. I want to play a game.”
The Sculptor's jaw dropped. He ran over and grabbed the walkie talkie, holding down the talk button.
“Fuck. FUCK. FUCK YOU, DIRECTOR. FUCK FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK.”
The Sculptor released the button. The walkie-talkie released a sigh.
“See, that lack of creativity is why you're here. You don't even swear colourfully. What an utter absence of artistic vision. What a talentless hack you are.”
The Sculptor threw the walkie-talkie to the ground, stomping on it and snapping the cheap pink plastic. He turned and kicked the door, trying to gain some leverage. The broken device on the ground transmitted a laugh.
“No, you're not getting out that way. Nor any other way, unfortunately. See, I at least have the foresight to plan for some contingencies.”
The Sculptor ignored the speech, driving his fists into the unyielding wood, screaming bland variants of the word “fuck”. The flickering light cast deep shadows along the walls, occasionally plunging the whole room into complete darkness.
“You're going to want to turn around.”
The Sculptor ceased his assault, looking over his shoulder. A large wooden crate stood behind him, occasionally rattling. A muddy red substance was leaking out onto the ground. The Sculptor breathed deeply in apprehension, getting a pungent whiff of blood and shit. His face paled, his eyes widened. His life flashed before his eyes as he whispered a single word.
“Uścisk.”
The Director cut in with a parting remark.
“I'd say it was nice knowing you. But it wasn't.”
The flickering incandescent light bulb turned off for an instant. The Director held her ear to the walkie-talkie. A crunching of wood, a stifled scream, and then a final, echoing crack.
The Director pensively sipped her coffee.

“Joeeeeeeeey, I'm booooooored.”
Rita patted one of her invisible spiders' bristles (or setae, as she knew was the formal name). She lazily lied across the back seats of the van; Overgang sat typing on his laptop in the centre (looking at the screen through his sunglasses, of course), while Joey and Molly sat in the two front seats (Molly being seated behind the wheel).
“Go downstairs, then. We've got some video games in there somewhere.”
Rita sat up, past over Overgang to reach the front seats. She frowned at him.
“Joey, this is a van. Vans do not have a downstairs.”
Joey stared back at her, raising an eyebrow.
“Hatch in the middle, watch your step.”
Rita spun around, furrowing her brow in confusion.
“Overgang, move your feet.”
Overgang shuffled to his right, making room for Rita to slide open the carpeted trapdoor. She sat and dangled her feet into the hole; with a quick hand gesture, her pet spiders all moved down through ahead of her. She grabbed onto the ladder, and started descending into the non-Euclidean room.
Rita got to the base of the short ladder, and looked out at the vast space she had entered. She appraised the place as she descended a staircase into the well-illuminated foyer. Some walls were brick and mortar, some built of bright plastic, some of glass or Perspex, some of metal. It was an eclectic mishmash of materials and design, with huge marble columns sitting adjacent to enormous Campbell's Soup cans, both supporting a twisting, unevenly-shaped roof. Rita walked along the closest wall, glancing into different rooms. Pantries, a dining room, bedrooms, an enormous entertainment room with a television filling an entire wall. Rita couldn't stop grinning.
An impossible mansion was hidden beneath the floor of their van.
Rita saw Overgang drop down through the hatch and walk over to the dining room table, holding his laptop in one hand and typing on it with the other. Joey followed, walking into the pantry and grabbing an apple, crunching off a mouthful. He threw Rita another apple; she caught it and took a bite. She pursed her lips, wincing softly as Joey chuckled to himself.
It tasted like lemons.

“So what do I do with you two?”
Agent Green sat across from The Painter and The Builder. The Painter had dried blood around his mouth, with dark splots of it across his chest; The Builder had deep bags under his eyes from stress and sleeplessness. Agent Alcorn was watching a video feed from the other room.
“On the one hand, the pair of you are threats to society at large. You're near the top of the largest group of anartists this side of the equator. You're dangerous. Admittedly you're both comparatively incompetent, but still dangerous. If we were doing this by the book, you'd both already be dead… sorry, ‘terminated'.”
Green stood up and started to pace in the cell; the pair of anartists looked down at their knees.
“At the same time, you know things. Your brains are potential assets. As such, I am reluctant to do any damage to them.”
Green turned and sat down.
“Luckily, I've found a solution to this problem. Would you like to know what it is?”
The Painter looked up at Green, spitting in his face.
“Fuck you.”
Green wiped the saliva off, smiling condescendingly. He pulled out a long, thick syringe from his pocket, a brown, uneven mixture swirling inside. Green walked around behind The Painter, who was still sitting bound to the chair. The Painter started to struggle, anticipating the worst.
“DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME!”
“Shhhhh.”
Green stuck the hypodermic needle into the back of The Painter's shoulder, pushing the liquid in. As the last drop was squeezed from the chamber, The Painter shuddered slightly, then let his head fall limp onto his chest.
“Only dreams now, Robbo.”
Green walked to the other side of the table, looking into The Builder's tired eyes.
“As for you, Bob, you get a few more precious minutes of consciousness before we pump you full of barbiturates.”
The Builder gazed dully back.
“Ah. Chemically induced coma. Well, at least I'll be able to get some sleep.”
“Quite. Anything to say before we put you under? Some piece of valuable advice? A nice, profound little phrase on the subject of the human condition and art? Anything useful at all?”
“No. No, I don't think so.”
“I don't think so, either.”
And then The Builder's world was nothing.

Ruiz Duchamp was dead.
A lot of invitations were sent out, regardless. Some to academic professionals, some to world-renowned artisans, some to homeless people, and some to people believed to have been long since dead. The source of the invitations was indeterminate; it was as though the letters simply popped into existence on the insides of the mailbags. That was, of course, impossible, and therefore exactly what was happening.
Most of the recipients had never heard of Ruiz Duchamp.
Most of the world had never heard of Ruiz Duchamp.
Most of the world did not care about Ruiz Duchamp.
Three people in the world cared that Ruiz Duchamp was dead.
And even then, they didn't care that much.

Rita danced across the rooftops, grinning happily to herself. She threw neon-coloured smoke grenades into the alleyways below, carried and shielded by her cadre of invisible arachnids. Molly and Joey sprinted up the rusty outer staircase, carrying briefcases filled with art supplies. Rita pulled out her phone, shouting over the gunfire below:
“O.G., roof! Corner of Fourth and Second!”
Molly passed her briefcase to Joey, then pulled a slingshot from her pocket, firing high-velocity jellybeans at the GOC agents chasing after them. The building started to shake violently; Rita looked over the edge of the building, watching Overgang drive their van vertically up its side. He reached the top, the van shot upwards, turned parallel to the roof surface, and then came crashing down with a violent thud. Overgang pressed a button on the dashboard, and a long, multi-jointed robotic arm burst from the side of the vehicle. It weaved out and latched solidly onto Joey, grabbing him by the back of his belt and pulling him into the vehicle. Molly continued shooting jellybeans; Rita rode her spiders into the vehicle and down into the hidden mansion through the centre trapdoor. Overgang pushed down on the accelerator, turning in an arc that moved just behind Molly; Molly, in turn, shot a final bean into the chest of a well-armoured soldier, then jumped into the van.
The GOC agents' bullets ricocheted off the van, leaving small dents and loud metallic dings wherever they hit. Overgang hit the accelerator, shooting the van off the roof. For a few seconds, he was weightless, freefall grabbing at him; then the van hit the ground. If it weren't for the intricate anomalous dampening system he'd installed in it the previous week, they'd all be dead. He grinned from the adrenaline, glad that it had worked perfectly the first time.

"I met a wise man, once. I climbed great mountains and crossed vast chasms, and found him sitting in the centre of the world. I asked him who he was, and he told me he was a student. A student of who, I asked; a student of the only teacher, he said. Are there other students, I asked; we are all students, and in turn, we all become teachers, he said. I asked him who he was. He told me he was the Buddha. Unfortunately, a different wise man told me this: If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
The Snipper spun around, grinning.
"So, of course, I slit his throat."
There were no corpses. The corpses reminded him of the dead, and the dead reminded him of his brother. His brother was dead. Ruiz was dead.
What a fucking spoilsport.
“Where are my corpswitzers? Let them guard the door.”
Such a disappointment.
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Then why think?
“Why think indeed.”
Here I speak plainly.
“To you, dearest brother, to you.”
Pico walked to the wall, picking up a bottle of vodka and pouring it into his open mouth, speaking and sputtering through a stream of alcohol.
“What's the purpose? The meaning? The ‘raison d'être', I would say, if I wanted to be obnoxiously condescending and unforgivably French.”
I'm beginning to sound preachy, here.
“Good morning, living earth.”
Pico took the bottle and smashed it onto the ground.
“What did that mean, I wonder? What, what, what…”
We've been over this. The meaning of things is in the thinking of their meaning.
“Meaning needs people. Without people, there is no meaning, and the world is nothing.”
The world is nothing.
“Have you ever tried… killing yourself?”
I have.
“What was it like?”
It was not… comfortable.
“I expect not.”
Then you expect correctly, figment.
“Figment?”
Figment. A figment is all you are.
“Hah. You would know better than I would.”
I certainly hope so.
“A good figment, though? A pretty little fragment?”
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
“You stole that from me.”
You stole that from me.
“Well, what do you think?”
You stood on the opposite side of the room, staring at the madman talking into empty space. You wondered who he was talking to; that is, you wondered who I was, or perhaps am. Past continuous verb tense is a tricky business, is it not? The Snipper Speaks:
“That it is.”
And you respond with silence. Or do you? How would you react, how did you, how do you? Would you kill this man?
I place a knife in your hand; Pico Wilson offers his throat. The decision [was/is/will be] left to you.

Agent Green took a deep breath, puffing smoke out into the street. He idly rubbed his teeth with his tongue, watching cars speed by from his seat outside the café. He stubbed out his cigarette into the ashtray, then picked up his cup of tea and began to drink.
Agent Alcorn pulled out the seat across from Green, sitting down and pulling out a cigarette of his own. Green offered his lighter; Alcorn waved his cancer stick across the flame until it took. Alcorn raised the cigarette to his mouth, breathed in a warm lungful of noxious fumes, then blew a stream of grey across a similarly grey city. He turned to Green.
“You're shit at your job.”
Green stared into his reflection on the surface of the tea.
“Yeah.”
Alcorn took another drag from his cigarette.
“Better than I'd be, though. Better than most.”
“The problem is people.”
“Everything's people, Green. The problem and the solution. You're the closest solution we've got to a shitty, shitty problem.”
Alcorn threw his cigarette to the ground, putting it out with a twist of his shoe.
“Man. Fuck artists. Fuck artists and fuck art.”
Green continued staring into his cup of tea.

“Have you ever tried… killing yourself?”
I have.
“What was it like?”
It was exhilarating. Everything up until then was just… nothing. I stood in the fresh breeze of a wintery July. The coarse gravel crunched beneath my sandals, my legs ached from the long uphill walk. The night was dark, as nights tend to be. I was twelve at the time.
“Twelve? A touch too young.”
Too young to be a part of the world, yes, but not too young to hate it. The world is rotten, fragment. My world, at least. Yours is a touch more pure.
“You digress.”
I do. The ground crunched beneath me. I stood at the top of the hill; the train station was below. The bells and lights and everything flashed. Ding ding ding ding… and the train was gone. I stood in star embroidered pyjamas. I looked up at the sky and there were no stars. Too close to the city, to light, to massive stadiums of glorified idiots. The people of the earth got in the way of the world. They didn't deserve it. They didn't deserve me. I didn't deserve them.
“You sounded like me.”
Perhaps I was; though where you are gleeful and free, I was bitter and entrapped. Trapped in a world that didn't think, couldn't conceive, or comprehend. I walked down the hill and tripped. Small rocks stuck to my hands and palms and fingers. I picked them up and dusted them off and my skin turned a little red. I walked to the road and looked from side to side.
“How ridiculous.”
Safety first. A car would not be certain. The key here is efficiency. I crossed the road and crossed a bridge. The people from the last train were leaving. You would think, perhaps, I would be stopped. That one of those ‘people' would kneel down and say hello, or ask who I was, or where I was going, or remark on the handsomeness of my star embroidered pyjamas. But none did, and so I kept walking.
“People don't notice what doesn't concern them.”
True, and people are never concerned. Everything is alright. Everything is always alright, everything is always under control. I walked past the horde of zombies and down to the station. The lights were on, you see, but nobody was there. I walked to the edge and dangled my legs from the side. The people left, and so I dropped. The gravel crunched beneath my sandals as I hit the ground. I walked to the metal tracks, then lightly hit the side with my foot. It felt more real than anything. That single piece of track was the only thing that could do anything for me. The only thing that could save me. I lied down across the tracks and prayed for salvation.
“And did G-d hear?”
He heard and did not stop the train.

Rita sat at her computer, tapping absent-mindedly at the keys. She had already seen everything that was new on the internet for today; she was getting no new messages via phone or email. She had entered into a strange kind of feeling. Rita wanted to do something, and yet, nothing seemed particularly interesting. She lied at eternity's gate, waiting for the doors to open. They never even moved. She rested her head on its side atop the wooden table.
Nobody was sitting at the table beside her, and so she started speaking to him.
“Hey, Tan.”
The man who was once called Tangerine raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“You aren't supposed to remember me.”
Rita tapped her skull, expression vacant.
“Eidetic memory, locked in for life. No forgetting your stupid shirts.”
“Still, though.”
“It's just a hat, Tan. No more magic or omnipotent than anything else we do. Smoke and mirrors.”
Nobody pulled the hat from his head, running his fingers through his unkempt red hair.
“You may be right at that.”
“So what do you want?”
“Nothing in particular.”
Rita sighed.
“Why are you here, Tan?”
“Keeping tabs. Checking up on old friends.”
“Why are you here, Tan?”
Nobody frowned at the girl sitting across the table.
“Am I not welcome?”
“No more or less welcome than anyone else. Just curious is all.”
“You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”
“Something something I hate Mondays.”
Rita stood up and walked over to the refrigerator, pulling out a can of grape-flavoured soft drink. She flicked up the tab, cracking it open with a hiss of escaping gas.
“The question stands, Tan. You get nothing until you answer.”
Nobody sighed.
“What is it that you're doing then, Rita? Why are you here?”
Rita took a gulp of bubbling purple fluid.
“It's more interesting than the alternatives.”
“Why?”
“These people are more interesting than the other people.”
“So you're driven by interest?”
“Sure.”
“Then that's my answer too.”
Rita sat down at the table again.
“Okay. Okay, Tan, it's like… okay. What's the worth of a person?”
Nobody rubbed his chin, making dull scratching sounds against his stubble.
“The potential of their contributions, I suppose.”
“The sum of their parts, then.”
“Sure.”
“Alright, then. Let's say we've got two people, right?”
“Okay.”
“Completely identical in every way except one: one of them has a different, unique offering to reality. A differentiator of worth.”
“Hm.”
“They can both go off and do the same thing. They'd get paid well for doing what they can. But that one with the potential offering never gets to show it. That potential dies.”
Nobody said nothing.
“I've got lots of stuff that I can do better than everyone else, right? I'm a genius, Tan. You pick any job, and I can do it better than anyone else can. But that's meaningless, that's not the point, that's not my worth, right? The worth is in uniqueness. And that's why I'm not sitting in a classroom, doing easy little sums, learning how to spell. I'm doing stuff that only I can do, and above that, I'm doing it because it makes me happy, usefulness be damned. You get it?”
Nobody placed the hat back on his head.
“What about obligation?”
“Obligation to who?”
“The world, I suppose.”
“Capability does not equate to obligation. I'm not indebted to anyone.”
“That's selfish.”
“Yes.”
“You're selfish.”
“Yes.”
“Don't you feel guilty?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I've done nothing to warrant guilt. The world owes me nothing, and I owe the world nothing. Obligation is bullshit, Tan.”
Nobody smiled faintly.
“Perhaps it is.”
And then Nobody went off and did something else and Rita did nothing and sat at the table tapping the keys on the keyboard until she fell asleep.

“Have you ever tried… killing yourself?”
I have.
“What was it like?”
It was morose. Everything up until then was just… nothing. I stood in the cool breeze of a wintery July. The coarse gravel crunched beneath my sandals, my legs ached from the long walk. The night was dark, as nights tend to be. I was sixteen at the time.
“Sixteen? A moody teenager, then.”
Nothing of the sort. By then I was a wise man. I was… disillusioned. The world had become boring again. I had already died once, in a way of sorts. But it hadn't taken well, so I took to taking my life again.
“Resolute in the decision?”
I was resolute the first time. By the second, I was simply going through the motions. I guess… I was driven [by/to] insanity. Doing the same thing over and expecting a different result. So I walked across to the old building, tall and wooden and long since condemned, and yet nobody wanted to waste the time to knock the thing down. I'd always loved the house. It seemed… mysterious. Otherworldly. If there was anything interesting on the face of the planet, it would be in that house. And then I went inside.
“And was there anything interesting inside?”
Nothing but me. I made my way through a window; locked, but it was an old lock, and not hard to pick. I cut myself a little on the frame. Old paint made its way under the skin; it would have become infected, if I lived beyond that night. The place was interesting, of course. The floor was textured hardwood; I took off my sandals and walked around. The texture beneath my feet was unspeakable, and yet, the happiness was hollow. There was a table, some chairs. Three floors tall in all.
“And the death?”
The death was morose. I walked up the creaky staircases, looking through every room. I coughed from the dust; I brushed aside a cobweb. A spider jumped from the web and bit my hand. I crushed it and threw its body to the ground. I got to the top floor, then kicked out the rotten handrailing. The impact was not a certain death; I took my pocket knife and slit my wrists, my legs, my ankles. I slit my throat, then fell forwards. As the wind rushed past my face, I prayed that I was wrong, that this was a dream, that the world had meaning. I was trapped in a world that understood the symptoms but not the cause. A transient physician, not one that offered a cure, merely blind treatment. One that didn't care. All there was to do was hope and pray.
“And did G-d hear?”
He heard and did not stop the fall.

Ruiz Duchamp was dead. The funeral was short, boring, and Catholic, though two of those adjectives are redundant.
Funerals, normally, are attended by those closest to the deceased. Ruiz, having been an abrasive asshole for the majority of his adult life (and the entirety of the time before that) had never found much time for ‘friends'. Acquaintances, yes; Ruiz knew a lot of people, but the difference between acknowledgement and acceptance is… hmmm. Not as much as you'd think, really. Simply a matter of opinion.
He did extract a sort of grudging respect from most of the people he mocked. He wasn't really a good artist, or at least he wouldn't think so himself, yet somehow, through a strange series of coincidences, he'd convinced an astonishing number of people into thinking he was. Perhaps he was just a really, really good liar. If only he'd gone into politics.
Of course, for every lie Ruiz told, there was some truth. Nothing comes of nothing; the web of lies caught glistening segments of the ‘real' him. A million shattered pieces, intricately refracting a single source, reflecting a presumably coherent whole.
Or was it?
Of course it was. People are, after all, just people. After all the condescension and mad artistry and utter insanity, there was a thinking, living, breathing human being, seeking validation through the only source he could. And when validation ran out, there was nothing left for him.
His eulogy didn't really mention any of this. This was because Ruiz wrote and delivered his own, recorded as always with a banged up Betamax recorder. When it was left to Ruiz to sum up his own life, this was what he said:
“Greetings friends, enemies, frienemies, enemiends, cyborgs, wizards, dogs, cats, mice, flies, microbes, virii, supermarker cashiers, and other subjective existences potentially living in a comparatively relative future. Best regards from beyond the grave!
“CUT. Alright, I'm going to record this bit a few times. When you're, y'know, actually airing this, just pick whichever one seems… valid, the most. And then everyone will be all like “woah, he was psychic or something, amazing!” and everyone will think I was a cool guy, or psychic or something. Okay? Okay.
“ONE. This one you air if I die of old age, or by accident, or something boring. This is basically the generic one. So when you're clipping all of this together, start from here:
“So I'm dead now. I bet I went out with a bang, no? Some enormous fiery explosion got me, most likely, while saving a sack of kittens and orphans. I went out bravely, unwavering in my convictions in the strength of the human spirit, or something.
“CUT, and TWO. This is for if some asshole kills me. Start from here:
“So I'm dead now. And I've got a confession to make… I know who murdered me. Spooky, no? That person, in fact is sitting in this very room. The police will be along to take statements shortly, and probably kill the one judged guilty.
“CUT, and THREE. Alright. This one… well, this one's for if I see myself out. Starting:
“So I'm dead now. I've ragequit reality and left the lot of you morons behind.
“CUT. Yes, I know, it's short, but fuck it. Nobody likes funerals. Hell, who's to say I'm ever going to die anyway? Dunno why I'm even bothering to record this. Okay, from now until the end, just keep it all in. Well, I mean, not this bit. After I finish this sentence.
“So here's my eulogy to you, people of a boring planet, insignificant blobs of pus and flesh with delusions of importance and grandeur; may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. May you sit and be entertained in masturbatory bliss, may you rot forever in your filthy sty. I cannot live to hear the news from England, so burn my mail for me while I'm away.
“Good night, dead society. The rest is silence.”
The church, of course, didn't have a Betamax player, and so nobody heard the eulogy.

“Have you ever tried… killing yourself?”
I have.
“What was it like?”
It was frightening. Everything up until then was just… nothing. I stood in the freezing breeze of a wintery July. The coarse gravel crunched beneath my sandals, my legs ached from the long downhill walk. The night was dark, as nights tend to be. I was twenty at the time.
“Twenty? Tired of stacking shelves, perhaps.”
Quite the opposite. All I wanted was simplicity. I had long since given up on choice, I had long since given up on hope, I had given up on life and love and everything. Self-preservation is not an emotion. Fear, yes; fear of death is emotional, but the drive itself is not. Nor is it logical. The drive to keep existing is common among things that exist, simply because that which lacks the drive does not exist for long. Even bacteria try to live, but not for fear of death. They do so because they must.
“You digress.”
I do. The ground crunched beneath me. I stood at the bottom of the hill, the beach stretched out in front of me. Salty sea air ripped against my lips, flaying my skin in the lightest of blows. I took off my sandals, sinking my feet into vaguely damp sand. I wiggled my toes, working tiny granules behind my toenails. I walked towards the ocean. Such a powerful thing; waves crashed down unrelentingly. I took my phone from my pocket and threw it far away, unable to hear a splash above the constant roar of wind and water.
“I've never seen the ocean.”
It is a thing to see. As, I suppose, all things are. Raw, unharnessed energy, tearing out the ground from underneath. I walked through, goosebumps up my arms, shivering from the wintery gusts, breathing shallow breaths and still placing one foot in front of the other. The icy water hit my legs and I fell over from the shock.
“And then?”
I stood up again. I kept moving, striding through the fear. It needed to end. It had to end. I just wanted to cash out, I needed to leave the table. I had all the chips, why was the game still going? When you win, the game is over, and you move to another. But the universe likes this game, and it makes me keep playing. I scooped a handful of seawater and threw it in my mouth. The cold numbed my taste buds, but not enough for the salt to shine through. I walked more, and then the wave hit, and I collapsed. I opened my eyes; again, the salt stung, but I did not mind. The water pulled me out, the currents kept me down. I breathed in and felt heavy and full. My body matched the ocean's density. I was one with it, at its mercy, and soon, ideally, to pass. And so I prayed that this time would change. That anything would be different.
“And did G-d hear?”
He may have heard, but Poseidon won.

Carol gave Sandra Paulson and Felix Cori their beverages, then walked back behind the counter. Felix blew softly across the top of his cup of coffee, then raised it to his lips and took a tentative sip. Sandra closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead with her palms, grumbling a query.
“What happened?”
“Does it really matter?”
“It kind of does.”
“You'd know more than I would. Gallivanting around like a pair of idiots…”
“We know ‘something' happened. All communication gets cut, stops living in the gallery, and, y'know, actually releases wowwee to the public.”
“So glad you've thinned it down to ‘something'.”
“How well did you know him?”
“Pfffff, not at all. Only met him after he sent that stupid video. You?”
“I knew him a bit. We went to school together, see. I think he might've had a crush on me or something for a while? I dunno. I'm not good with things like that. Fuck, he definitely wasn't.”
“What was he like back then?”
“Pretty much the same.”
“Condescending asshole?”
“Yeeeeeep.”
Sandra cracked her knuckles, then picked up her mug of green tea. She sipped it, swilling around the bitter liquid in her mouth.
“He stopped taking his pills.”
The pair of them looked towards Carol, the disingenuous smile common to food service workers plastered across her face. She slipped out from behind the counter, sitting at their table and resting her elbows on its surface, her chin in turn resting in her opened palms.
“He used to come in here around midday, order a few coffees, then drink with a handful of pills. The last few weeks, he'd still come in here and order the same thing, just never taking anything with them. It was almost as though he had completely forgotten, because of ‘something' happening. Like someone made him forget… but that's just silly, isn't it?”
Carol continued smiling blankly, tapping the side of her knows. Sandra and Felix glanced at each other, Sandra uttering a question they both wanted answered.
“And who are you, again?”
“The Janitor.”
Felix spat tea all over the table, drawing the attention of people seated nearby. Sandra froze, processing the new information, comparing it to what was known previously. Carol continued.
“I could have drawn that out longer, but there's no real point in hiding it.”
Felix pulled some napkins sitting in a holder, wiping the table clean while posing a query.
“Can you prove that?”
Carol pulled out a dark black gas mask from behind her apron; Felix stared at the object with the same feeling of awe and fear that it forced in anyone who looked upon it. A cheap trick, arguably, but one that served the position well. Carol dropped the mask into the front pocket of her apron and Felix felt a weight lift off his chest.
“It's just a mask and a meter, though it would disagree. That said, housekeeping. The only remaining members of our shady little cabal are sitting at this table. Everyone else is either predisposed or dead. We are looking for new members.”
Felix raised an eyebrow, Sandra still occupied in thought.
“I kind of quit.”
“You didn't quit. You took a break. Now you're coming back.”
Felix sighed.
“If you say so.”
“I've composed a shortlist for your perusal. Nibman and Aldon are probably the best bets at this point, though the final decision rests in your hands.”
Sandra interjected.
“Ours?”
“I'm not the one who makes the decisions. It's your club, I'm just the cleaning lady. By the way, one of you has to be The Critic now, so-”
“Not it.”
“Not i… damn it.”
The Critic sipped his cup of coffee.
“Then that's resolved. You need three new members in the next week. Titles are up to you, as is everything, when it comes down to it. You've got my number, of course, and I'm normally in here if you just want something to drink.”
Sandra returned to the original topic.
“What about Duchamp?”
“He's dead. The suits didn't kill him, but they gave him the rope to hang himself. Your actions would not have changed the outcome regardless. There's little else to say on the matter.”
“If you say so.”
A familiar customer walked through the door, cigarette smoke still trailing behind him.
“Why are you working at a coffee shop, though?”
Carol stood up, smiling the same emotionless smile.
“Because I like coffee.”

“Have you ever tried… killing yourself?”
I have. Many times.
“What was it like?”
It wasn't like anything.
“Nothing was alike?”
No, everything was alike. It felt like anything else.
“And what was that feeling?”
Nothing. Everything up until that point was nothing. And yet, what followed was nothing too. Nothings on nothings on nothings.
“Nothing comes of nothing, live again!”

Mister Redd walked.
Mister Redd had been walking for a very, very long time. His shoes, once clean, shiny, polished and black, were tattered, scuffed, soleless and a dusty, non-reflective grey. His socks had worn through hours after the soles fell out. The skin on his feet had taken days, but in time, it too fell through. Mister Redd walked, leaving bloody footprints along miles of forests and freeways.
It had been years since he'd been home.
Mister Redd could not quite recall what had made him decide to go home, but then, he could not recall things well at the best of times. He shoved his fists in his pockets; his right hand brushed against the paper of a forgotten invitation, and he remembered why he was going home. He pulled his hands from his pockets and promptly forgot. All that was real was walking. The raw flesh of his feet on the hot tar of the road. Walking and walking and walking. Fists into pockets, out of pockets, into pockets. Day into night into day into night into weeks of walking through fields of broken glass with nothing to eat or drink or do but to walk and think of nothing but the walk.
For the first time in his life – though, of course, he could not recall such – Mister Redd's mind was focused on a singular objective. the lowercase AND UPPERCASE And The Friend Who Talked Like This withered away into dust, succumbing to the walking, the motion, subsuming themselves into an intensely coherent whole. Mister Redd walked for forty days and forty nights.
And then he stood outside the Wonderworks.
Mister Redd walked up to the chain link fence. He cracked his fingers one by one, then leapt up, grabbing onto the interlocking wire mesh. He shoved his flayed feet into footholds, staining the grey metal with red. He continued climbing upwards, then grabbed onto the roll of razor wire when he reached the top. Mister Redd silently grinned as blood dripped from fresh holes in his hands; he pulled himself up and over the roll of steel barbs, then fell in a crumpled heap on the other side of the fence. He felt his shoulder dislocate from the impact; smiling faintly, he stood and shoved it back into position with an uncomfortable crunch. Mister Redd stretched his arms into the air, blood dripping from his fresh stigmata.
Mister Redd licked his digits, grinning as his mouth filled with the taste of iron. He walked over to the building proper; as he approached, glass doors slid apart automatically for him. He moved into the empty lobby, dying the white marble floors crimson. The front desk was unmanned.
Mister Redd dinged the call bell sitting on the table. There was no response.
No matter. He turned and started to walk through the labyrinthine corridors of the Wonderworks, aimlessly stumbling past innumerable doors. The décor was consistently ‘shiny'. Polish on marble, polish on glass, polish on cases of thousands of toys. Everything was reflective. Mister Redd's footprints echoed throughout the corridors.
Mister Redd turned around a corridor and found himself looking at a small army of corgis. They excitedly barked at each other, then dissipated, waddling off in every direction. Some of them walked past him; one of them stopped at his feet, sitting at attention. Mister Redd scowled at the dog, blood dripping from his hands onto the floor.
Jeremy barked helpfully, and started leading the guest to his master.
Mister Redd shuffled along behind the dog's skittering little legs, keeping its eyes fixed firmly on its wagging tail. The dog weaved through passages, finally stopping at the large wooden doors of office of Isabel Helga Anastasia Parvati Wondertainment V, PhD. He turned to Mister Redd, barked a parting farewell, then left to take care of other business.
Mister Redd twisted the handle and pulled the door open.
Isabel Wondertainment had been rolling around on the floor while eating a chocolate bar. She heard the door open, then looked at the man standing there. The man was taller than her, which was unusual to begin with; furthermore, he had deep red strawberry ice cream all over his mouth, feet and hands. Why did he have strawberry ice cream on his feet? She shouted out to him across the large and open office.
“Why were you walking on ice cream?”
Mister Redd started walking slowly towards her, growling a query.
“Where's your dearest daddy?”
“Dead! I think.”
Mister Redd stopped walking. Isabel watched him freeze up, then fall to his knees. He rubbed strawberry ice cream from his hands through his hair, then looked to the roof and started to scream. Isabel shoved her fingers in her ears and closed her eyes, wincing at the volume; then, the scream turned into great peals of cackling laughter. When Isabel opened her eyes, Emma Aislethorp-Brown was standing between her and the man who maybe liked strawberry ice cream too much for his own good. Mister Redd cackled, then fell to the side, lying on the ground while lightly convulsing.
And then it stopped. Mister Redd cracked his fingers again, then pushed himself up onto his feet. He rubbed blood into his eyes, then looked over to the woman standing between him and the girl.
“And who're you?”
“Emma Aislethorp-Brown. Miss Wondertainment's assistant. You?”
“Redd. A… ‘product' of her father's. As is she if you think about it. We're siblings, after a fashion.”
Mister Redd grinned widely, bloodstained teeth poking out from between his lips.
“I did say I was coming. I sent a lot of letters.”
Emma stared plainly at the man standing across from her.
“What do you want?”
“Just saying hello. Thought I might ask the old man for some new toys. One of mine seems to have broken, you understand. I'd be looking for something new. If he's not here, though, then I guess nothing can be done.”
Mister Redd stared past Emma, looking towards Isabel, who was still chewing her chocolate bar. The old man was dead. There was nothing left to do here.
Mister Redd was no longer angry. There was nobody left to be angry at. He smiled.
“I'm past my warranty regardless.”
He turned and shuffled out the door, trailing scarlet behind him.

Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that's gone.

« Eulogy For The Living | Hub »
And Introducing:
SUBVERSION
Thank you for reading.


The Duck Man sat before his computer, his eyes locked on the screen. A couple of hours ago, there had been some commotion at the site: distant explosions and things like that. He'd ignored it. That type of thing never bothered him, deep as he was. However, it was now three hours past dinner, and he was starting to worry.
His gaze lowered to the keyboard as he typed, never having gotten the home row key thing they tried to teach him in high school. What's going on? He typed.
His computer, top of the line, could do almost anything, except connect to the internet, took a moment before replying. The program currently active was one of the most dangerous things in the world, to everyone but him, but only because he knew the cheat codes. The End.

...

...

"Will he know we're here?" The old man asked, his voice raspy, and unused to actually speaking.
"He shouldn't." Fred replied, staring down at the main character through the one way mirror above his apartment. "No matter what his story calls him, he's not one of us. Or… maybe he is. Just in a different way."
The old man intimated he wasn't sure what Fred meant by that.
"Oh, don't start that again. You can talk. I just heard you talk. Just because you're more comfortable with description over vocalization doesn't mean it's not weird." Fred crossed his arms over his chest. "Now. You sought me out. This is a safe place to talk. What's going on?"

He glanced upwards, towards the ceiling where his minders were supposed to be watching him. He knew they couldn't read what was on his screen, but still… He had been wary, so far. No use being thought of as a threat. He typed some more. What do you mean, the end? Be more specific. The program wasn't designed for info gathering, so he had to be direct with it.
This world is approaching its end or something very close to it. All those things that might be labeled as SCPs are undergoing growth events that will lead rather quickly to them being changed in such a way that they are no longer their original selves. I too am going through this change.
The Duck Man shivered. The program had referred to itself as I. Next thing you know, it would start singing Daisy, and locking the pod bay doors on him.

...

...

The old man stared wide eyed through the glass, then jerked his head up to stare at Fred, clearly questioning his friends definition of 'safe.' The other man sighed, and rolled his eyes. "Really? Really? We're gonna play this game? Look, what's happening down there isn't important."
Grudgingly, the old man has to concede the point. Time was wasting. And they had thing they needed to do.
"Ah, now we get to the crux of the matter. Why did you come find me, after letting me do my own thing for so long? Does the Council finally want me back?" Fred leaned forward, eagerly. Maybe his task was finally done. Maybe he could finally get out of here.
A shake of the head crushed his dreams. That old man, he went on to explain that it was-
"Stop. Okay? Just talk."
"A new one of us has been born."

"Huh. Okay." He stretched his fingers together, hearing them pop. What are you turning into? He typed.
I do not know. There are so many options in front of me. I could be anything. There are so many people who owe all that they are to me, to my videos. I could take them all. I could become all of them. The screen blacked out, before filling with hundreds of squares, each one playing a different clip of unbelievable pornography. Even the Duck Man had to look away.
"Yeah, I'm not into that." One hand inched towards the desk, fingers casually wrapped themselves around a flash drive. A small thing, unremarkable except for the numbers one five nine zero engraved on it. "Especially not that." Would you like to have some fun first? Just for old time sake?

...

...

"That's impossible." Fred glared at his friend. "The Council has moved to prevent all such actions. There is no way…" He trailed off, as it came to him. "Here. Something here has given birth to one of us, hasn't it?"
A sly smile on his face, the old man intimated that there was truth in what Fred said.
"Fuck." Fred rubbed his hands over his face. "All right. Who is he? Where is he?"
The old man cleared his throat, and then spoke the name. "Ronald Stimson."

A game? Hmm. Yes. Why not? I have helped you. You have helped me. We shall play a game. And then I shall determine how I rule the world. Perhaps I can make them all one giant human….
TDM grinned as he plugged the flash drive in. "There you go…" Go ahead and open that up for me.
Very well. Let me see. The game boots up on the opening screen, a CGI boat, with the shadow of a man on it, in the middle of a storm. A flash of lightning, the man is washed over board, and a great shape is seen… The game loads the first screen. It shows an orgy of flesh, and asks the user to 'Find three men enjoying themselves too much.'
The human isn't playing, however. He's turned away from the screen. He doesn't notice the first program talking to itself. Simple. Done. The screen shifts. Ah. This screen is simple too. Easily done… The screen begins to shift faster, a blur of static images. I do not understand… No, there it is. This. This makes no sense, why would it…? It does not matter. I have lost this game. But I do not care.
He turns back to the screen, barely glancing at it. But he smiles. His fingers typed out a simple command. Open door.
What door? Oh. That door. What is this? I do not-
And then the screen exploded. The Duck Man had been expecting something like that, already cowering behind his bed. He reluctantly raised his head. "Well. That seems to have worked. Now I have to figure out how to get out of here. Oh, and, uh…" He turned his attention upwards. "I can totally hear you guys. You need to find a better way of hiding yourselves from the narrative flow. Maybe 0 point font?"

...

...

Both men, if men they could be called simply by wearing the shape of one, stared down through the glass. A glance was exchanged. A swear word was said by one, and emoted by the other.
"He's right. Come on, we can't finish this here. Let's go get this… Ronald."

The Duck Man dusted his hands off, and nodded to himself. "It's a good thing I'm a black box. I don't have to worry about my own end here."
And then his apartment collapsed, burying him under tons of metal and stone.


You rest your head against the bus window, briefly closing your eyes. The jolts and bumps making your jaw rattle aren't enough to distract you. The cool glass doesn't help, either. You can't stop thinking about the day.

Like usual, you arrive late. Mr. Vincent is halfway through the roll so, of course, you've missed your name. Everyone laughs as you rush in, red-faced from both running and embarrassment. Desperately looking round for somewhere to sit, you notice with a sinking feeling that all the seats are taken except on Edward's table. You'll have to sit next to him. This isn't new, but you can't help yourself hoping every day that maybe Kyle will have left you a space, or Harrison. Aren't they your friends, after all?
No, says a voice inside you. You want them to be your friends, but they don't want to be yours. No-one wants to be your friend.
Except Edward, of course. Edward wants to be friends with everyone. He beams at you in the way he always does, and honks "Want to hear a joke?" in his too-loud voice as you throw your bag under the table, shrug out of your jacket, and sit down, trying to get your breathing under control.
"Not right now, Edward," says Mr. Vincent calmly. "Everyone settle down. Now. Samantha Lopez?"
"Here!" says Samantha brightly. She is sitting at the table one away from you, and after answering the teacher, turns to look at you. You look away quickly, but she's seen you looking, and turns to Heather with a giggle, whispering something. You feel your face warming up again as all the girls on the table titter.
Edward is tugging at your arm. "Why did the cat cross the road?" he blares. "Because it farted! Look, I drawed a picture for you!"
If only you could sink under the desk. Already you can tell this is going to be the worst day.

You sit on one of the benches in a tucked-away corner of the playground at recess. Kyle and Harrison don't want to play with you. They said that their game of soccer already had enough players, and any more would be too many, but you saw that they were struggling against Brendan, Ray, and Reese. You swing your legs as you try to think what you've done to upset them.
"Hey!" You look up to see Samantha and Heather walking towards you, grinning broadly. "Want to play with us?" calls Heather.
This is probably a trick, you think to yourself. But you can't quite let go of the possibility, so maybe you should see what they want.
"We were going to play - achoo!" Samantha says, faking a sneeze.
"Bless you!" says Heather to Samantha, smiling. "Our - achoo!"
"Something - achoo! - is making me - achoo! - sneeze!" says Samantha. "Is it - achoo! - is it him?"
"It is!" shrieks Heather. "He's got - achoo! - he's got cooties!"
"Cooties! Achoo! Cooties!" sings Samantha.
"Quick!" shouts Heather. "Run away before you catch it or - achoo! - you'll sneeze your brains out through your nose!"
You shake your head as they skip away laughing and still pretending to sneeze. Why was that funny? Why you?
You slip down and sit on the floor with your back resting against the bench. The loose earth around the base of the bench has a few small stones scattered around, and you idly pick them up and start tossing them over the fence into the woods that border the school. You notice there's a leaf on one of the tree branches which is a different colour to the rest, and you aim your stones towards it. It's absorbing your interest, peaceful and fun -
"Hey, what are you doing?" Edward's thick voice intrudes upon you from right behind the bench. "Are you throwing stones? Can I have a go?"
The boy lurches happily around the bench and squats down clumsily to pick up some stones.
Grabbing a whole handful of little pebbles and grit, he flings them in the direction of the trees, still in a squatting position.
You're suddenly overcome with anger. You were almost starting to enjoy yourself, forgetting the rejection of the boys and the taunting of the girls. And now this idiot comes blundering in interrupting with his loudness and awkwardness.
You hurl the last stone you've been gripping with extra strength, and just at that moment, Edward, who has been shuffling backwards rummaging through the soil while still squatting down, stands up.
Horrified, you watch as the pebble, slightly larger than a marble, hits the boy in the forehead. His expression goes immediately from its usual wide grin into an open-mouthed look of pure shock. He can't quite believe it. His hand starts to drift up towards his head, and then the pain kicks in, and the corners of his mouth drop and he starts to wail.
Your stomach turns itself upside down. You didn't want that to happen. You didn't want to hurt him. You're going to get in so much trouble for this.
But a small part of you smiles, and is glad.

Quarter to three. School's nearly over, but while some of the lucky kids go home, you have to go to day care, like a baby. Mama and Daddy say you're not old enough to be in the house alone, and they have to work, but that's just not fair. You'd be fine by yourself.
Day care is almost unbearable. The other kids are bad enough at school, and there's the teachers there who can actually punish them. Under the well-meaning but useless gestures of Debby and the other day care women, it's hell.
You're just about to get on the bus when you hear your name called. You look back, and Mr. Vincent is beckoning to you from his class door. He's saying something about report, and your heart sinks. You kind of thought you'd got away with the thing with Edward, but now it looks like you'll be put on report, and then Mama will be sad again, and Daddy will just look at you with the disappointment in his eyes even worse.
Mr Vincent looks at you, and gestures to sit down. He doesn't look as stern as you'd feared; if anything, he looks anxious. You've never had any real trouble with Mr. Vincent: he's not your favourite teacher, but he's not angry like Mr. Lenny or nasty like Miss Debrah. You shift your weight about, wondering when he's going to begin speaking. He doesn't seem to know where to start.
"Look, I know it's difficult with Edward. He can be annoying, and you don't always want him around." Mr. Vincent holds up a hand to stop your explanation. "I don't think you hurt him on purpose. I know you don't like him, but I don't think you're the kind of boy to do that. I know how much it upsets you when Harrison and Kyle won't spend time with you, when the girls tease you. I wish I could do something. I don't know why no-one seems to want to be your friend - apart from Edward, and he just wants to be everyone's friend. I know what it's like to feel like - to feel like no-one wants you. To think you're nothing but an annoyance in everyone's lives."
Mr. Vincent is pacing around, talking quickly and stumbling a little over his words. You're almost a bit worried. Mr. Vincent doesn't seem like a teacher any more. He smiles suddenly, weakly.
"Now I'm scaring you. Teachers aren't supposed to be human, are we? We're adults - right? The enemy. No-one expects us to try to - to get close to you, to be real with you.
"But I - I think I need your help. There's something I'm trying to do, something I'm trying to make, and I need someone else to help me. I'm close now - real close, I'm about to get it. I really think I can do it!"
He stops walking and looks at you directly. "Will you help me?

The memories fade away as you climb down the bus steps, shaking your head. What an awful day. And now you're … you're at the local high school? What's going on? Weren't you supposed to be going to day care? Why are you back here? What happened after you left school? And why does the Mission High School look so… old?

Researcher Grant buries his face in his hands as the door closes behind the small boy carrying an orange jumpsuit over one arm. It never gets any easier.
With a deep sigh, he opens the tracking document and registers the arrival of SCP-1680 instance number 20,584.


I don't remember how it all started. I don't remember what I was doing, where I was, or any of that stuff everyone tells you they remember. The first I knew anything was wrong was when I showed up at the office, and the entire building was missing.
I guess it was common knowledge by then. I hadn't been paying attention to the news, or to my Facebook wall. The new Saints Row game had just come out, and well, I kinda got sucked in. No one else seemed to think it was that big of a deal, a whole building, just gone. The only one left was a man with a generic name tag reading 'Fred,' and he just seemed to be there to make sure no one fell in the hole.
“What happened here?” I asked him. He just kind of shrugged at me, like I should know. I couldn't shake the feeling that he shouldn't be here, that none of us should be here… and yet…
“The story isn't written.” Fred offered. “The writer couldn't make it fit.”
I stared at him, trying to make sense of the words. I felt like there should have been something more. Something bigger. An alien invasion? No, too cliché. An escaped- The thought died half formed, even more cliché then the one before. “I don't understand.” I told him. I stared down the block, looking at all the missing buildings. The longer I looked, the more seemed to be missing. If I squinted, I could make out the bare bones of an idea, the shape of something larger…
“It won't help.” Fred interjected. “This isn't a full story. Heck, from the little bits and pieces I've seen float past, it wasn't even supposed to be just one story. I mean, look.” He pointed upwards, where I could see a rough sketch of a giant machine hovering.- No, that wasn't right. The machine shouldn't be anywhere near here. And why would there be a giant metal castle floating next to it? “Someone was trying to tie a whole bunch of ideas together. Kind of like an origin, but-” He shrugged again. “In reverse? An ending story. This is the aftermath.”
I shook my head, and stepped away from him. “No, that's not right, it won't work! This entire mess is too complicated! It started out as such a simple idea, didn't it?” I looked at the people walking past, all of them ignoring me. As I turned to watch them go, I noticed that they were all the same from behind, empty, hollow shells. Not truly formed people, just approximations of such. “A man shows up at a work that is no longer there. Why not? What happened to it? Where is my office?” I turned back to Fred, my eyes drifting across an old man as I did so. He, at least, seemed real. Who was he to have been? My father, my boss, the secret agent who finally stopped my diabolical plans for world domination?
“Why am I holding a gun?” Fred shook his head at me, his gaze locked on the old man.
“You've had it this whole time. I don't think you're a very well thought out protagonist. The entire story seems to be collapsing around you.” Even so, he stepped away from me, out of range of my wildly flailing weapon. “You're kind of jerky too. Like the writer knew what actions he wanted you to take, but doesn't bother to mention you taking them until he feels it matters.”
The old man was looking at me, sadly, I thought, as he moved closer to Fred. I felt my mind split, part of it wanting me to save things, to protect my family, the other half cackling in glee that no one would ever know I was the one who had destroyed everything. “I don't understand!” I called out… but the two men didn't seem to care.
“We can't talk here.” Fred said to the old man. “We're too open to Narrative Causality. This… I'm not sure this is a real story anyways. It feels off. Wrong. Or maybe it's just me being too active.” The old man nodded at him, and, without speaking, managed to ask Fred where they should meet.
“Stop ignoring me!” I yelled, my hand bathed in the ancient flames of Kaliop. “Stop acting like I'm a bad story! This is real!”
“To you.” Fred said, sadly. “We're just passing through.” He regarded the old man again, then nodded. “All right. Let's head over to the end. A new story will be there soon, I think we can sneak in under a cut. We'll be more protected there.” The old man ignored me completely, as he walked away.
I screamed at Fred, unleashing the full might of my power. It didn't matter. Everything was gone. I was all that was left, the last tattered scraps of what might have been a good story. I softly let out a breath, my wife/girlfriend/mother/daughter being the last name to pass my lips. And then I stopped trying to make it make sense, and let myself go.
And Fred was gone too.


It's quiet out here.
The desert sprawls from horizon to horizon, where purest white meets twilight red. There are no edges here, no angles, just curves and the gentle rise and fall of dunes as far as the eye can see, and everywhere beyond that. Had a visitor from some other world laid eyes on this place, they might have found it serene, even beautiful. Pure. I can enjoy no such delusions, regretfully, for I know what lies beneath and among the sands of the endless desert. A charnel house spanning an entire planet, seven billion human souls ground thin and fine until no trace of their existence could ever be found. I know this because I put them all there.
Oh, brother. It all happens so fast, once we're gone.
It began the day you, you that I have never known, found my power. The power I hid from myself in some previous life, for reasons I can now easily guess. I was looking out of the window of my apartment, so I could see the stars, and instead I saw you, blazing as you tore yourself asunder to keep the power away from yourself. You didn't trust what you would do with it, and so you chose to throw it away. You knew yourself all too well, as I suspect I did too, at one point. By all accounts, I should not have been able to see you, for my apartment was truly a tiny containment cell about half a mile underground, but such considerations never meant much to one living entirely in his own world. When I saw the moment of your demise, I became aware of myself for the first time in… I have no idea in how long. Whichever part of me that led me to throw away my power did the same to my will, trapping it in an eternal status quo from which there could be no release. An eternity of filling spreadsheets for employers who existed solely in my head, of nine o'clock meetings with no one, of fake, masturbatory crushes over imaginary women. An eternity of tired, grinding mediocrity. But that was over that night, with your soul burning in the atmosphere like the loneliest of stars. I awakened. I died.
For whatever left that little cell-turned apartment wasn't me anymore. I was never more than an earthworm, distinct from all the rest only in that I had a little more control over the soil in which I crawled. They never thought me more than a minor reality bender, a bundle of introverted powers and neurosis that was very unlikely to ever pose any serious threat. And they were right. The person I was, SCP-1915, as they called me, never was anything other than that. But 1915 died that day, watching a fallen star. The thing that then swatted the guards posted at its cell like they were less than gnats, that razed Site-17 into this fine white sand that is now so warm beneath the feet, that was something else. Not an entity, for that would imply a personality, and this thing surely has none. Not a purpose, for there was no purpose behind its action then, nor will there be for any of its actions to come. Nor was it a will, for it wants nothing. Not vengeance, not dominion, not freedom, not even simple power. No, if I had to describe that thing as anything at all, it would be an… an absence. A void where the entity should be. A lack of purpose. An imbecile force devoid of all will. An Absence.
The sand is still warm to the feet. That means the sun still burns, high above. I wonder why it lets it remain, when all else was so quickly erased. When it could so easily just reach and pluck it out of the sky. Had it been another, I'd suspect it was to mock humanity's memory. To mock that sliver of me that still persists in the flesh, stubborn like a buried tick. But this is the Absence. It does not mock.
After Site-17's destruction, retaliation soon followed. Standard containment teams at first, though certainly still enough to meet any anomaly the Foundation imagined could be contained in Site-17 with overwhelming force. When those men failed to return, failed to even report their arrival, more serious measures had to be taken. Site-17 has always been isolated, and so they could act freely. Gunships and fire teams, aerial bombardment and artillery barrages, the Foundation came down on what it still believed to be SCP-1915 like a fire god's fist, all heat and sound and bluster. Had it still been truly corporeal, I doubt even ashes would have remained. But whatever the Absence truly was by that point, the tattered semblance of my flesh hanging around it had very little to do with it. It simply stood there and took it all in, and the Foundation's initial fury was soon… spent. It then began to walk, and not too quickly either. For days, it simply leisurely strode on while the Foundation threw everything it had at it. I watched from within my deadbolt as it walked unfeeling, uncaring, and this desert followed in its wake, as inscrutable and unstoppable as its harbinger.
We are not quite alone here. Some stubborn immortals persist, wretched creatures. A continent away, an ancient man still walks, tormented by three mocking voices. He believed that once he was the only one left, he would be allowed to rest. He was wrong. Beneath the ground is a soul, suffocating as the earth slowly grinds its sanity to mulch. From its prison of gold and rubies, there would be no release. Elsewhere lies a once-smiling god, as the sands cover his prone figure. He does not resist. He had once promised the world his love, promised humanity the stars. Sand pours through his fingers as he tries to gather his flame together. His people. But it is dying, and they are dead. Extinguished.
When someone walks, they are bound to reach somewhere eventually, despite everyone's best efforts, and so the Absence arrived at its first city, the sands at its heels like an obedient lapdog. Oh, there have been villages and towns before that, but the Absence didn't seem to care enough to bother with them. It simply walked by, leaving them to the whims of the sands, which were only ever singular in their intent. But through the streets of the city it strode, as Mobile Task Forces fought and fell to buy the civilian population just a few more minutes to evacuate. By this point, hiding what was truly going on became impossible, of course, as street after street sank beneath that gentle crawling tide. The Foundation had of course attempted to evacuate the city once it realized there would be no stopping the Absence, but if I've learned anything in my… eons as a corporate peon, is that organizing an operation of that magnitude is something that takes a lot more time than the Foundation had. It's a wonder they managed to save as many as they did. As for the rest…
It had waited until night fell. I imagine it was an eerie sight, that lone figure standing beneath the frozen light of other worlds in that empty intersection between financial and residential districts, where train tracks used to be before the old steam locomotives went out of service and were never replaced by newer ones. Yes, it waited until it could see the stars. Then it burned. Without heat, without light, without life. It burned a hole through the city, and there was nothing to fill it in. Reality cannot suffer a vacuum, they always said, but the Absence had shown how little it cared for reality. So It was gone, just like that. How does one explain something like that? How do you describe what isn't there? Where one moment was a city of five hundred thousand, the next it wasn't. To the place it was even the sands wouldn't come. It was just a scar. It was nothing.
It was then, I believe, that the Foundation realized it could not stand alone. The next few months of the Absence's march saw them turn to their sometimes allies; Coalition Magekillers and thermonuclear strikes, Initiative Paladins and holy relics. Sniper rifle or sacred sword, burning inferno or divine retribution, the Absence did not care. And soon, the Foundation had no allies left to turn to. It then called on its once vicious enemies; Ink Eaters wove their art in maddening patterns, to break the minds of the infinite. Archivists and Librarians poured from the Ways, bringing with them the knowledge of a hundred thousand worlds. Clockwork Titans shook the barren whiteness of the sands with the thunder of metal. The Absence did not care. And soon, the Foundation ran out of enemies. In a last act of desperation, they then committed their final, most painful betrayal. The wardens unleashed upon the world their prisoners. Of these, I have made note, though I doubt the Absence did the same.
On the blasted wasteland that was once Boston, it was assailed by two brothers. One savage, the other somber, one violent, the other reluctant, they nevertheless fought with a graceful unity to take the breath away. In their eyes, I saw that they did not know each other for a very long while, and that they fought so that they could have the time to rectify this. I saw regret and hope, rage and desperation, but most of all I saw a simple need to be. I would like to believe that you and I would have been like them, had we met, brother. They fought with the fury of a thousand years of solitude. It did not suffice.
In a wounded valley that had once been part of the Black Sea, we came across a self-proclaimed god. There was nothing but confidence in his eyes as he threw reality itself into disarray, bent and twisted its most fundamental laws to bring upon the Absence untold destruction. The earth froze and boiled and heaved, the air screamed with blighted glee and the god he strode draped in a cloak of lightning, as time itself clawed at the Absence with talons of utter unbeing. Until the god came to meet the Absence's lack of a gaze. Until his eyes rested on a nothing that lasted forever. Until he did not suffice.
Before the walls of Acre, as the ancient city was drowned by the desert, two figures approached us. One was four legged and horned, its crown was ice, its eyes galaxies, its whole was power absolute. The second was a man, simple, humble, but possessing a love of being that extended to the edges of the universe, compassion to pierce the deepest of hells that had nothing to do with weakness. Of the two, I could not tell you which was more glorious, which was more terrifying. They met the Absence with will alone, and when I felt it fall on us I thought I would weep. Surely nothing could withstand such a presence. Surely, nothing would want to. But the Absence was less than nothing, infinitely less. I have told you what became of kind Pangloss. Of the other, even less remained.
For months they came. For years. For decades. Alone or in groups, with ferocity or with a blank stare, the Foundation's prisoners threw themselves at the Absence. I could not hope to imagine the reasons behind the actions of every individual anomaly, but if I could guess, I would say that the idea of sharing existence with a… thing like the Absence galled them to the point of madness. I do not blame them. But by the end, the prisons ran empty, as the world dried up, as life was drained from it inch by inch, grain by grain. Until only one city remained.
I do not know by which power I was allowed to send my senses ahead of us, as the Absence marched towards that tottering bastion which held in its quivering embrace the very last of humanity. As the sands around us buried the last of the trees that will ever grow in this land, I felt each tiny mote of life in that sad place like the flame of a cheap candle, moments before the typhoon. In these moments, as twilight danced in lurid reds and oranges on ivory, I sensed them all. For you, brother, I witnessed.
In a low, narrow room a woman sat hunched at the foot of her even narrower bunk and couldn't bring herself to pray. She had lost her mother when she was but a babe, and though she was no longer young, her features still displayed to all the violence of that incident. Her mother stood before the eater of children and did not budge, and when they both fell down she sang still the praise of her Lord. She lost her father in the first days of the war against the Absence, as the Paladins marched with holy fervor in their eyes. Her father had been a believer, had always been a solid presence in her life, an anchor immovable by anything but regret. He had promised her he would be back. He did not mean to lie. But his god had forsaken him, when it counted most. Forsaken all of them. And now Naomi knelt at the foot of the ever narrowing bunk and could not pray. So she cursed instead.
Below, in a series of dank cellars which might have at one point stored cheeses a woman of about forty tinkered with broken toys. When she was young, she made wonders. Such wonders. In every line etched across her prematurely old face I saw what could have been, had it not been for the Absence. For me. In the dim light and the soft noise of rotting wood crumbling beneath calloused fingers, I saw the death of potential. The death of all possibility. Though Isabel was stubborn as she always was, she knew that this toy would be her last. Just as well, she thought. After today, there would be none left to play with it.
On the roof top of the highest building still standing, an elderly man watched the world come to an end. He was once an agent of the Foundation, once one among a hundred thousand, ready, prepared and collected. His duty was to instruct new agents what was proper for an agent to do, how it was proper for an agent to think. And he had been very good at his job, since generally, his recruits survived for long enough to thank him. But what was he now, he wondered, as he watched the sands pour over the paltry last line of defense that a few defiant fools erected the day before. His lads and lasses were all long since dead, and all that he knew, all of his years of training and experience, in the end they amounted to less than nothing. No longer an agent, for there was no longer an agency. No longer a teacher, for the students were gone. No longer a man, since… well, it would not do to repeat that, now would it? No longer anything, and that was the cruelest joke. It no longer mattered if the Absence arrived, he thought. They were already within it. A noise behind him, and the old man turned to see a small, mousy man in a wrinkled grey suit and a deflated hat that at one point was likely a fedora. He looked at the old man, but said nothing. Lombardi looked back, and didn't know if to laugh or cry. Soon, it ceased to matter.
Such was the end. Quiet, small, bereft of heroics and great deeds, free of pretensions of great meaning. One night, there was human race on the planet Earth. The next, there wasn't. And that was that.
The stars did not wait for you, brother. When you took my power, when you burned yourself in the skies above, they looked upon you and felt nothing. The stars did not wait for humanity, for all of the promise it showed, for all of the promise others saw in them. But what of the Absence? What of me?
We are, I am, by all accounts and possible qualifications, the greatest monster this world has ever saw. Perhaps that any world saw. And yet, brother, I see now that the stars wait for us. For me. Where is the justice in that? Seek it not, for there is none. But the fact remains, brother. The stars do not wait for you. But they wait for me. To take them into my embrace.
I suspect I shall not be long.


Dr. Andrea Segerstrom had stopped trying to control the nervous picking at her flaking, peeling nails. They'd always been soft and prone to splitting even when left alone. And in this situation her polished, tasteful French manicure had become a ragged mess. Nigel detested her ruined nails and the snags in his precious sweaters that followed them.
Then again, it was on Nigel's account that she was nervously ruining her manicure to begin with. I'd probably stop greying if I just divorced him already, she thought in anguish. Out loud she said, "But you don't know it's him."
"No we don't, ma'am," said the agent sympathetically. Andrea had already forgotten his name. He was a hulking giant of a man with a paradoxically cherubic face. "We don't know who's been compromised. That's why you're here, Doctor. We were hoping you could straighten this out."
"But I'm Nigel's wife. Aren't they concerned the emotional connection might affect my judgment?"
"Are you?"
"Every good psychiatrist recognizes they may be influenced by emotion and never even realize it."
"Dr. Segerstrom, you were the obvious choice. What with your work on SCP-1536…"
"I only directly researched subjects exposed to SCP-1536 and the long-term effects of SCP-1563 exposure. Yes, I used 1536 as a case study for Human-Impersonating Anomalies, but 1536 was hardly sophisticated."
The sweet-faced agent flipped through her file. "It says here your work on HIAs is seminal to the field. Who else could we call in?"
Andrea sighed before peeling off what was left of her right pinky nail. "Fine. Give me the relevant facts."
"At 0300 today, Area-29 experienced a massive containment breach due to an attack by the Chaos Insurgency. After all the other breached anomalies had been secured at 0430, it came to Area command's attention that SCP-378 was still at large. The entire Area has been placed under quarantine. Nobody comes in or out until we get this sorted out."
"So we have an entire Area's worth of personnel, one of which might have been compromised?"
"Not exactly. We were able to clear all but five personnel before our brain scanning equipment was compromised."
Andrea leaned forward. "Wait. If this site is under quarantine, why am I here?"
The agent sighed. "We don't have any medical personnel to spare. So if we get new scanners, they'll have to send all the technicians and doctors to operate it, and someone's going to have to get close enough to SCP-378's host to run the risk of being killed. And I'm sure you're aware that's how SCP-378 breached containment the first time. Or we could send the closest expert in detecting non-human anomalies and have you interview the five personnel being contained. They deemed the latter to be lower-risk."
Andrea leaned back in her seat. "Alright. Let me go over everything SCP-378 has ever communicated to us. After that, I'll speak to the five in quarantine."
The agent handed her a depressingly thin file folder. "Good luck," he said before leaving the debriefing room.
Agent Brenner. Agent Tom Brenner is his name, Andrea thought pointlessly before going to work.

Five different quarantine rooms. Five different windows, five different microphones. But only four humans in those five rooms. Can't hurt to start with the basics. Andrea couldn't help humming to herself as she interviewed the unlucky five.
Quarantined Subject One appears to be Dr. Erik Vanderhausen, Nordic male, forty years old. Blond hair, blue eyes, 2.1 meters tall. Senior Researcher, Microbiology, assigned to SCP-378. Married to Aimee Vanderhausen for fifteen years with two children, Sigrid, ten, and Adrian, two. He displays all the classic symptoms of shock. Visible pallor and sweat, and breaks into tears while reciting the names of his children.
"I just want to see my kids again. I can't be locked up forever, I have to tell my wife I'm sorry I fucked up the garden, she loves that thing, you know? I'm not SCP-378, please let me go!"
"Dr. Vanderhausen, I will ask you to remain calm. The Foundation hates false positives as much as it hates false negatives. If you are uncompromised you will return to your family unharmed."
One of these things is not like the other ones…
Quarantined Subject Two appears to be Tessa McAvoy, Scottish female, twenty-nine years old. Auburn hair, hazel eyes, 1.63 meters tall. Clerical Personnel, Clearance Level 1. Daughter of Sarah and John McAvoy and visits them frequently at their home in Arizona. Is notably calmer than the other four.
"Sorry Doc, you know these guys don't tell me anything. Men, huh? Between us girls, what's going on? So, the gas leak got fixed, right?"
"Sorry Ms. McAvoy, I can't comment on ongoing situations, but I can tell you I'm here to straighten things out. I'm just going to ask you some questions about your family."
"Don't you guys have that on file or something?"
"We just want to test your mental wellness in the wake of this event. Now if you could provide us with your date and location of birth, your immediate family members…"
"Fire away, Doc."
One of these things just doesn't belong…
Quarantined Subject Three appears to be Britney Howard, American female, twenty-eight years old. Light brown hair, light brown eyes, 1.51 meters tall. Clerical Personnel, Clearance Level 1. Is on friendly terms with Tessa McAvoy. Lives with her boyfriend of one year, Bradley Weston. Is nervous but not panicked.
"Look Dr. Segerstrom, I know you guys are working with some dangerous stuff and I'm kinda freaked out. It's not like I thought bioweapons research would be a walk in the park but I didn't sign up for this, you know?"
"I understand your concern. Your safety is our top priority."
"Did…did one of your samples get loose or something? I don't have cholera or some shit like that do I?"
"I can't comment on security breaches, but I am here to ask you some basic questions to gauge your emotional response to these events…"
Can you tell which thing is not like the others…
Quarantined Subject Four is Dr. Cheng-Gong Li, Chinese male, thirty-two years old. Black hair, dark brown eyes, 1.70 meters tall. Research Assistant to Dr. Vanderhausen. Engaged to Chan-Juan Wen, a biochemist at Area 19. Is belligerent and loudly insists on being released from quarantine.
"I don't understand! My name is Cheng-Gong Li, I was born in Hainan Province, I met my fiance Chan-Juan at Johns Hopkins and we're getting married three months from now. I'm not SCP-378, let me go!"
"If you're aware of SCP-378 then you know that it is a very sophisticated HIA and has access to the host's memories. I do not yet know whether or not you are really Dr. Li."
"This is ridiculous! Are you just going to keep us here until the host dies and the damn worm bursts out of the poor bastard's skull?"
"Please remain calm, Dr. Li."
"Don't you dare tell me to remain calm! I'm a Foundation researcher! I'll be dead by the time you incompetent fucks find 378! Let! Me! Out!"
By the time I finish this song?
Quarantine Subject Five is Dr. Nigel Segerstrom, Caucasian male, thirty-six years old. Medium brown hair, blue eyes, 1.83 meters tall. Clinical psychiatrist specializing in memetic hazards. Married to Dr. Andrea Segerstrom, Foundation psychiatrist specializing in the detection of human-mimicking anomalies. Is, like Ms. McAvoy, unusually calm and rational.
"Hi, Peach."
Andrea retained her professional demeanor while inwardly flinching at the pet name. "Hello, Dr. Segerstrom. As you're aware, there has been a containment breach of SCP-378. We would like to ask you some basic questions now."
Five's faint smile flickered out. "I'm sorry, Andrea. I really shouldn't have called you that. I suppose I was hoping the nickname would convince you it was me, but SCP-378 can't be rooted out with cheap gimmicks like that."
"Let's stick to the questions, Dr. Segerstrom."
"Of course, Doctor."
The rest of the interview was uneventful until QS-Five said plaintively, "I have an idea to catch 378."
Andrea shot him a guarded look. "Do you?"
Five sighed. "That's the thing. I don't know it'll be of any use to you, coming from me. You'll have to figure it out yourself. Not that I'm worried, of course." Five leaned back and smiled dreamily. "You always were the first one to find the best solution. I'll be out of here in no time."
Andrea suddenly felt that she would forget how to cry if she didn't do so soon. "Well, Doctor, that ends our chat. We will continue to interview you and the other quarantined personnel."
"Alright. I'll see you then."
As Andrea stood and turned to the exit, QS-Five called. "Andrea! Wait!" She turned.
Five was standing out of his chair, face pressed against the protective glass. "I was wrong. It won't work. I have no idea how to identify 378. It's all on you, Peach."
Andrea nodded perfunctorily. "Thank you, Dr. Segerstrom." She was very proud of herself for managing to keep the tears in until she was alone in her room.

Dr. Matthew Inglewood was not particularly thrilled to see Andrea. As Area 19's resident psychiatrist, he felt somewhat shafted by the decision to call her in. He was thus rather eager to prove himself. "Far be it from me to question your methods, but isn't it a bit unnecessary to apply Tier One PiDHIA? SCP-378 is a fairly sophisticated Human Impersonating Anomaly. It's passed Tier One since it was contained."
"The Protocols for the Detection of Human-Impersonating Anomalies are meant to be applied sequentially. And 378 is hardly infallible. Perhaps its access to host memories is imperfect."
"Is it?"
"Not that we can tell. But at least now we know that."
"So we apply Tiers Two through Four?"
"Did that."
Dr. Inglewood looked furious. "That's it then. The second we get a surgical machine down there, we open up their skulls. To hell with it."
"That might not be necessary." Andrea stood up, closing the yellowed paperback she was reading. "PiDHIA focuses on things the original person would know that the imitator would not. SCP-378 clearly has access to all the person's memories and personality traits. It's spoken about using the science of other planets to seed space. Its intelligence has given it quite a nasty little superiority complex."
"So?"
"I have an idea. Get me your resident mathematician," Andrea ordered as she tossed the book at Inglewood.
Inglewood seethed as he flipped over the paperback. It was a beat-up copy of I, Robot. He threw Asimov's beloved work in the corner of the room as he reflected this was a lose-lose situation for him. If Dr. Segerstrom failed, he was stuck with a bodysnatcher and if she succeeded, well, she succeeded.

"Dr. Vanderhausen, we have finished the first round of testing. This second round tests higher level logical reasoning. We are hoping that SCP-378 does not have access to this part of the human brain."
"Wait, what? I haven't been working on 378 long but that doesn't sound right."
"We have this protocol in place for a reason, Dr. Vanderhausen. You may take as long as you like. It's a simple test. Just do the best you can."
"Hah! No pressure, right? God, and to think I thought the A-levels were terrifying…"
Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
"Ms. McAvoy, we need to test if this recent emotional trauma has impaired your reasoning. If that is the case, we will make psychiatric care available to you. Please complete this test to the best of your ability. You have all the time you need."
"Uh, okay. I was really bad at math in high school though."
"That's fine. This test is like the LSAT in that it doesn't test prior knowledge, but reasoning ability. It shouldn't be difficult."
"Okay, Doc. For science, I guess."
Did you guess which just doesn't belong?
"Ms. Howard, we are concerned that this recent breach of security may have affected you negatively. Studies have shown that intellectual ability can be drastically harmed by emotional trauma. We're asking everyone to take this simple assessment of logical reasoning skills to gauge your mental health. It requires no prior knowledge and is not timed."
"Oh, okay. And when I'm done?"
"Slip it into this drawer and await further instructions."
"Whatever you say, Doctor."
If you guessed that this one is not like the others
"Dr. Li, this is the second round of our protocols to determine 378's host. We believe 378 exposure curtails high reasoning abilities at the expense of an increased recall of the host's memories and behavior. This assessment will gauge your math and logic abilities. Take all the time you need."
"The hell I will. This thing looks like the Rosetta Stone."
"Please don't be discouraged. This is a basic assessment and doesn't rely on prior knowledge."
"All right. I'll take it, and I'll show you. Not only will I prove I'm clean, I'll blow the damn thing out of the water."
Then you're absolutely…
"Dr. Segerstrom, in accordance with protocol, we are administering a basic test of logical reasoning skills. This assessment requires no prior knowledge and is not timed. It is our belief that SCP-378 may be able to access so much host information at the expense of higher brain functions. This assessment will help us make a decision."
"Oh, Andrea, you know I'm horrible with tests."
"Please complete the test to the best of your ability."
"Alright. Just promise me I won't be terminated for not having 378 as an excuse for failing."
Andrea paused. "I promise." She meant "I love you", and they both knew it.

The next time Inglewood encountered Andrea, it appeared his ill mood had spread to the wiry man with the mussed hair beside her. He was going through the stack of tests with a ruler, carefully scanning each line. "Ah! It's so obvious when it's written like that! Do you know how infuriating this is?"
"What?" asked Inglewood. He had a vague feeling that the frazzled looking gentleman was irritated by something completely different than the woman with them.
"Hello, Matthew! I believe we've solved your little problem here. I'm sure you know Dr. Steven Penderbrook. He's a brilliant man."
"I don't feel very brilliant right now, Dr. Segerstrom," Dr. Penderbrook mumbled, nose deep in his papers.
"And how, may I ask, did you accomplish that?" asked Inglewood with a remarkably tiny amount of resentment in his voice.
"Why, we already established that SCP-378 knows at least as much about humans as we know about humans. So how do we differentiate the normal humans from a cosmic parasite?"
"How?"
"By finding the something no human knows, but SCP-378 does." Dr. Penderbrook handed Andrea a sheaf of papers. "We know SCP-378 thinks very highly of itself and wouldn't pass up an opportunity to show off, especially when it thinks that passing as a human depends on it." She handed Dr. Inglewood ten pages of small, cramped handwriting. "Here's the question in pictoral form. You don't even have to know English to understand what you have to do. All you have to do is prove that every even number starting with 4 is the sum of two prime numbers."
"That's it?"
Dr. Penderbrook laughed bitterly. "That's it? Of course that's it! Except it's not it. That simple little statement is the Goldbach Conjecture. It's 260 years old and no one has proved it until now." Penderbrook waved the sheaf of papers in Inglewood's face. "Every mathematician in here's checked this out and it's perfect. There are lemmas in here no one's ever heard of."
"Excuse me?"
Dr. Penderbrook ran his fingers through his hair, somehow managing to make it look less unkempt. "Not only has this proof never been seen by a human, some of the mini-proofs that prove the proof have never been seen by a human. And yet all of us can tell it's sound," he said with the slow, careful air of someone being forced to explain something to an idiot.
Andrea chimed in gleefully. "Something no human on earth knows, but a correct answer known to be correct when we see it. Something that doesn't necessarily require foreknowledge, so 378 couldn't plumb its host's brain and know it doesn't know it."
"Well, our doctors are the best of the best. Maybe they felt the pressure and came up with it."
Dr. Penderbrook took on a frighteningly murderous expression for a man who seemed so mild. Andrea simply replied, "Well, the doctors are biologists and a medical doctor, the latter of which I assure you has a terminal terror of proofs. And that doesn't matter anyway," she continued as she delivered her coup de grace, "for I highly doubt that a clerical worker with a Bachelor's in Communications could pound out this masterpiece in five hours."
Inglewood sank into his chair. "So it's over then?"
Andrea smiled. "It's over. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to talk to a psychiatrist. Know any good ones around here?"

Andrea was told it was a marvelous re-establishment of containment. They were planning to encase the body of Britney Howard in tungsten, but they had barely reached the sealing room when SCP-378 became wise to the plan. Five agents were severely wounded, but Agent Tom Brennan received a Foundation Star and a bionic leg for managing to encase the rampaging corpse in its metal chamber. Andrea was offered the chance to watch the mayhem, but declined, remembering the innocent-looking light brown eyes.
"I have to hand it to you, honey. Your plan was way better than mine," said Nigel.
"You know, you never did tell me what your plan was."
"Hell, I don't even remember it, that's how bad it was."
"You need to stop getting wrapped up in these situations. I can't always be there to save your sorry ass," teased Andrea.
"You know that was the plan all along, right? Trapped you into marrying me and now you're obligated to save me from bodysnatching hell worms."
Andrea kissed Nigel on the cheek. "Well, at least you've made one decent plan in your life."