"Think of reality as a tapestry. Each individual strand within that tapestry represents a concept within this reality construct. As in any fabric, these concepts are interwoven to provide a stable basis. Pick at one long enough and it will snag, creating highly localized damage to the structural integrity of reality. Keep picking at it, and everything unravels."
- Excerpt from "A Layman's Introduction to Structural Reality Sciences" (1980) by Prof. H.D.F. van Beusekom, Ph.D.

On 21 September 1999, hikers in the hills surrounding Hrastovica, Croatia discovered human remains in a cave system. The remains showed extensive trauma to the skull and brain. The following log was recovered from a miniaturized Solid State Drive (SSD) embedded in a recording device implanted directly into the temporal lobe.

» Subvocal Recording System initializing …………
» SRS v12.1.3a ©1997 Sobremarcha Systems SA
» System online
» No output device detected, saving to internal drive
» Command received: START
» Starting recording at 1999-07-23T13:37:58+02:00
» Ambient noise levels exceeding internal threshold
» Noise reduction filters activated
Watching that scroll across my retinal display is distracting and at the same time mind-numbingly boring. This thing takes so long to start up, it feels like I'm getting old while it boots.
Anyway, first things first. My name is…you know what? I'm not even sure who I'm recording this for. I'm me, I think. Anyway, so, first deployment…yeah. I don't know how long to go in this rust bucket, so I'll…wait. Grabenwald is looking at me funny.
I stared him down, don't know what his problem is anyway. Like I said, once again first mission time and I want to record this for my kids. Heh, kids. Wish I could do video as well, but they didn't install that shit this time round, so this'll have to do. What I was trying to say before Grabenwald went all bug-eyed on me just now is that I'm in a big old Mi-24P Hind-F heading to my first deployment, off to fight the big bad unraveling, again.
I remember the eighties, at least, I think I do. Maybe not me, but it's definitely in my head somewhere. I think I remember people back then whining about the Russians nuking us to hell and back; funny thing how we were the ones that managed to pick so hard at the scab holding this piece of shit reality together that we ended up breaking it completely, hah. I'm guessing we'd take a good old-fashioned nuking over what happened any day.
Anyway, we're en-route to some shit-hole called Hrastovica, supposed to be in Croatia or something. Reports about general faulting and distortions with possible extra-reality incursions, the usual. What it comes down to is bugs, things I can't look at for too long and things that have tentacles in all the wrong places. Doesn't matter, the stuff we have with us will take care of any nasties we…GODDAMN CABRERA, STOP FUCKING SINGING…anyway, NO, YOU DICK. Anyway, I just realized I probably sound jaded. Suppose I am, really. I don't know how many times I've done a first run, none of us do. All I know is that I would give anything to be able to turn back the clock and kick our asses, just stomp into that boardroom underneath Site-Alpha and kick their collective asses to make sure whoever came up with Project Arclight ends up pushing daisies, even if it's me. We never should have messed with those strands out in the Davis Strait. Let sleeping shit lie, people, that's your motto for today. And yesterday. And tomorrow, but definitely yesterday. If we had, maybe we'd still have more than one inhabitable continent. Gotta go for a moment, be right back.
pause
» Command received: PAUSE
» Pausing recording at 1999-07-23T13:48:43+02:00

» Command received: START
» Starting recording at 1999-07-23T13:49:22+02:00
Told you it wouldn't take long. Had to slap some sense into Cabrera. If he opens up with "She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes", I swear I'll break his face. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, no more 'murica. Right. Well, I got this song in my head called "Yellow Submarine", don't know who it's by, but they sing something like "We all live in a yellow submarine" or something, and it's pretty much like that, only instead of a submarine, it's Europe and it's not yellow, it's grey. Almost two billion people squashed together, behind walls that probably won't protect us when everything finally collapses into insanity.
Wait a minute, MTFC is saying something. Oh, she's telling Cabrera to shut up. Good. Tough old fucker she is, twenty-four and a total veteran. I'm sixteen and if I'm lucky in eight years time, I'll be alive. Well, I'll be alive anyway, but maybe I won't. It's confusing. Anyway, heard she's taken so many hits there's nothing in her body that was there when she was hatched.
We're about to touch down, so I'm going to have to actually pay some attention to what's going on. Won't pause, not worth it.
Back. Had to adjust the noise reduction filter level though. God, this place really is a shit-hole. Houses cobbled together from Aircrete blocks and some kind of metal sheeting, goats wandering in the street, no asphalt, just dirt roads. Seriously, the fuck did they sent us now? Shit, have to go again, control estimates contact in six and Donovan is assing about. He's going to…
pause
» Command received: PAUSE
» Pausing recording at 1999-07-23T14:18:16+02:00

» Co nd receive STAR
» Sta g rec ding at 1999-07-23T14:41:02+02:00
» System c omised, nois ering disabl
» Ret al display c rupted
» Please cont t our  logical Enh cemen vision at +34 9 4 3 61
 kay, I'm goi g to have t be b ief here. Fo thos rea ng at ho e…fuck, th s wo 't  ork. Gim e a sec d.
That's better. One of my lenses got knocked off-center, I think. Probably damaged the nano-cables connecting them to the implant's core, or some other scientific-sounding bullshit like that. Seems to be okay now. Anyway, big old spatial anomaly to the face when we disembarked, pushing through unknown number of hostiles, nothing I've ever seen before, but that's not saying a lot. Big fuckers too, hard to focus on, look like…uhh…tapeworms crossed with little tornados? Doesn't make sense, I know, but that's the best I can do. Took out six of us and one gave me a nice little slap before we managed to neutralize them with Christophson's banishment gear. Sometimes I'm glad we're working with the GOC these days. I'd be happier if they'd stop using those god-awful code names. Christophson wants us to call him Snake. Seriously.
Oh, MTFC wants to advance to the center of the anomaly, so we're moving out. I'm in the zone here, pulse is racing. If this is what it's like every time, sign me up, haha. Be back when I've got something.
pause
» Command received: PAUSE
» Pausing recording at 1999-07-23T14:44:57+02:00

» Command received: START
» Starting recording at 1999-07-23T15:28:35+02:00
Okay, I'm back. We had to slog through the village with the rain pouring down. Localized disturbances and a few simplex causality rifts, but nothing fancy. I'll tell you though, it's weird to end up looking at your own back. The temptation to hit that trigger is hard to control. Know better though. We just took cover near the entrance of some kind of natural cave system.
Sound is being suppressed for some reason, getting hard to communicate, so we're switching to hand signals. Sorry, need to watch the MTFC here.
Back, yet again. I'm good, all standard operational stuff for now. Looks like I'm being sent forward as a scout. Suits me fine. Gonna switch off again for a minute. See ya.
pause
» Command received: PAUSE
» Pausing recording at 1999-07-23T15:33:14+02:00

» Command received: START
» Starting recording at 1999-07-23T15:51:12+02:00
Right, I'm right up near the mouth of the cave. Smells like balls here, but that may just be Croatia for you. No sound anymore, so let's just say I'm glad this is a subvocal implant.
I'm getting the shivers here and it's not because I'm so fucking hyped up on adrenaline. I'd say that something's not right here, but let's be honest, what the hell is right these days, heh.
Oh. MTFC wants me to go in. She's leading the rest up the trail to my current position. Better get ready for the shit to hit…wait, something's emerging from thWHAT THE FU
CRITICAL SYSTEM ERROR
» ERROR 392-14355: Core disconnect at <HC032>
» Shutting down……..
» Buenos dias

July 23rd 1999, reality iteration X34-BH-SS1C
In a covert facility hidden beneath the streets of The Hague, Foundation lab technicians were preparing O5-6#5122 for birth.
"Again?" a mousy-haired tech with an ungainly hunch asked.
"Again. Can't seem to keep themselves alive, but then, that's some awful stuff they have to go up against," his colleague answered.
"I know, but you wonder why we don't give up. Most of the earth's population squashed into one continent, reality breaking up around us…why even bother anymore, you know?"
"Good question, Vin. If I wasn't busy doing my job I'd answer that that's probably just the human race for you. It doesn't give up, even when hope is a meaningless word."
Senior technical assistant Vincenzo DiGatta squinted at the vat. "What I really want to know is why they insist on cloning themselves instead of sending out soldiers."
"Well if you want to know, Meyers over in Strategic Command has a theory. Something about them being the ones who caused it, and them wanting to be the ones to solve it. Doesn't help that these days the peasant to professional ratio is something like a million to one."
"So why bother?" Vincenzo said again.
"I don't know, Vin. I just don't, okay? Let's just get this done so the boys in Cyber can add the mods."
They silently watched the monitors as the cloned fetus entered a phase of rapidly accelerated growth.


Overview
Fatality #1
Fatality #2
Fatalities #3, #4
Fatality #5
Fatalities #6 - #13

Fatalities for 2014
Ketergrams are part of the Safety Subcommittee's program to promptly disseminate facts and outlines of events that have resulted in the deaths of Foundation staff in the line of duty. The data provided is based on preliminary investigations only, and does not represent final determinations or conclusions with respect to these events. Most bulletins recommend one or more "best practices", deemed likely to have prevented or mitigated the associated fatalities.
Information contained within these bulletins has been redacted as necessary and is approved for general use by L-1 staff and above who do not have specific prohibitions against such exposure. Administrators are asked to post these bulletins as soon as practical, in appropriate areas where staff congregate or frequent.
This annual summary of the previous calendar years' bulletins is provided to allow staff to review incidents they might have missed due to workload, vacation, or incapacitation.
Individually, you are encouraged to discuss the information within with colleagues, and contemplate how you might have prepared differently for, or responded differently to the events that unfolded. Supervisory staff are asked to recognize and forward practical suggestions, both general and specific, to the Safety Subcommittee. Our mission is to systematically improve the safety of Foundation operations.

MEMETIC FATALITY
On Saturday, February 22, 2014, a 22-year-old Level 1 researcher with three weeks of experience self-terminated after discovering a previously unknown memetic hazard within a site of interest being explored for anomalous data.
The victim had been hand-restoring a 4th-century BCE plaster fresco attributed to Aristippus, depicting an unknown (outside the Foundation) geometric proof. According to surveillance footage, the entire fresco suddenly crumbled and collapsed in a thick cloud of dust, briefly revealing a mosaic beneath before the lens was obscured by dust and detritus. Audio records the victim sneezing and gasping for twenty seconds, followed by eight seconds of complete silence. Next, a barely audible utterance (perhaps 'avaunt ye') is whispered in a guttural voice, presumably the victim's. This was followed by eight minutes and twenty seconds of rapid, shallow scraping sounds, punctuated by irregular, incoherent moans from the victim.
The response team found the victim unresponsive on the floor in front of the artwork, with his nose, mouth and the palms of both hands severely abraded. Evidence suggested that the victim had obtained the injuries by rubbing his face and hands - rapidly, repeatedly, and with substantial strength - across the jagged onyx tesserae comprising the mosaic. Efforts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.

The underlying mosaic immediately after the incident - most details, particularly the memetic triggers, have been obscured by the victim's blood.

BEST PRACTICES

When performing research within a site of interest, obtain basic inoculation against well-known memetic tropes.
When practical, wear auto-darkening safety goggles whenever there is a risk of exposure to anomalous imagery.

BREACH FATALITY
On Wednesday, April 30, 2014, a 32-year-old Euclid-qualified SCP researcher at Site-66 with eighteen months of research experience was fatally injured while traversing Containment Sector Foxtrot when he was struck in the chest by a proboscis of SCP-████ after it penetrated Containment Cell No. 26.
The victim was not assigned to SCP-████, but passed containment chamber No. 26 on his way back to his office from the cafeteria. Ordinarily, the victim would have taken approved pedestrian route No. 6, which did not pass through any containment sectors, but earlier that day an unrelated breach had left a disagreeable odor in the approved route.
The assigned, active researcher, wearing a standard bio-signature suppression suit, and operating a hydraulic entity probe arm directly attached to the containment wall, gestured to the victim for assistance in clearing a jam.
As the unprotected victim approached the assigned researcher, he crossed the yellow warning stripe positioned 5 meters from the containment wall. Almost immediately, a toothed proboscis breached through 5cm thick steel plating, pierced his heart, and exsanguinated him.
During the subsequent investigation, it was discovered that the victim was carrying two peanut butter cookies, baked in the cafeteria kitchen only an hour before, in the breast pocket where he was struck.

Containment Sector Foxtrot, Site-66

BEST PRACTICES

Use only approved pedestrian routes for travel between safe areas within a site.
Follow standard procedures for servicing failed equipment; do not enlist help from staff unfamiliar with your assigned SCP.
Heed all warning indicators, lamps, and signs, their placement is precise.
Never bring foodstuffs into containment zones.

BREACH FATALITY
On Saturday, May 2, 2014, two Keter qualified SCP researchers with 15 and 12 years' hazardous research experience at remote Site-307 were transmuted into an organic substance similar to alburnum, and then fatally incinerated after four redundant suppressant lamps failed within thirty seconds of one another.
Facility records showed that the bulbs in all four lamps had been installed and illuminated on the same date about 30 months earlier, when the special containment procedures had been revised. Subsequent review of the manufacturer's specifications indicated that the bulbs had a mean lifetime of 21925.7 hours, with a standard deviation of .1 hours. Supply manifests indicated that 24 spares were on hand, and that none had been used since the original installation.
The victims had been assigned to Site-307 for forty-four months without incident, and were performing routine weekly vivisection of SCP-███ when the breach occurred.

Dr. Hawthorn, final frame of video feed, just as failsafe detonated.

BEST PRACTICES

Replacement schedules of redundant consumables should be rotated to stagger MTBF.
Attending annual pain threshold training may considerably increase survivability in breach scenarios.

CONTAINMENT FATALITY
On Saturday, July 5, 2014, a 63-year-old Conflagration Specialist with thirty-seven years of experience was killed while attempting to contain a novel anomaly.
The victim was attached to MTF Delta-2 ("Rocky Mountain Spotted Oysters"), in pursuit of multiple Euclid entities that had emerged from geothermal vents west of Cody, Wyoming. The Specialist's primary containment role was the suppression of fires (this was a particularly flammable environment), and his secondary role was coordination of threat-tuned artillery and airstrikes.
In this case, the offensive payload was experimental anhydrous ████████ at 270° C, which has since been conclusively demonstrated an effective immobilant of flame-based SCPs. When used as directed, it carries a low risk of direct harm to approved targets; however, the molten state tends to ignite incidental fires.
Over the course of approximately eighty minutes of active engagement, MTF Delta-2 successfully contained all but one target without taking casualties. Once isolated, the remaining target demonstrated markedly increased aggression, igniting trees and wildlife with what was interpreted as deliberate malice by several witnesses. At the same time, however, it also appeared to become disoriented, slowing and moving out into the open, which allowed the MTF to quickly close on its position.
The victim remained in the transport vehicle to call for a final barrage while the remainder of his team approached the target on foot.
The events that followed are still under investigation; however, the following facts were uncovered during the mission debriefing:

Target coordinates were provided to the artillery team by radio on the expected channel with the correct spread spectrum carrier frequency.
Audio analysis of the recorded orders matches the voiceprint of the victim, and contains no duress cues.
The target coordinates were supplied with one more decimal of precision than had been used previously in the engagement.
The artillery appears to have functioned correctly, and a review of audit logs found no evidence of misuse or tampering.
The subsequent barrage struck the transport vehicle, and was accurately centered on the fuel door. The impact detonated the tank of diesel fuel and instantly incinerated the contents of the vehicle.
During the brief confusion after the transport was destroyed, MTF Delta-2 lost contact with the remaining target. It remains at large.

The transport 1.7s after impact, from the POV of Specialist Reese

BEST PRACTICES

Leverage the additional margin of safety associated with laser-assisted, fully automated artillery systems when their use is not impractical.
Electric armored vehicles are now available to qualified teams; consider their requisition to mitigate the risks associated with diesel fuel in combat environments.

RESEARCH FATALITY
On Friday, September 12, 2014, eight Euclid qualified researchers, including two members of the ECRG, with over 120 years of combined experience, stationed in orbit around ███████'s former innermost moon ███ were fatally spaghettified again when ███ spontaneously formed an anomalous ergosphere and subjected their station to irresistible tidal forces.
In addition to their primary containment mission, experiments aboard the FS Unruh were testing the relationship between local quantum phenomena and n-body orbital stability in an ongoing attempt to refine containment procedures for ultramassive SCPs.
As with the preceding three iterations of these events, the precise timeline1, specific details of staff behaviors, and exact contents of the sporadic reports transmitted from the station exhibit inconsequential deviations from the original continuity, however, the heroic acts of staff at key points in the unfolding disaster followed the same general outline:

Time2 (mm:ss)
Events

00:31
Principal Investigator Karapetyan manually breaches the reactor shield to make physical contact with the core and disrupt the entanglement. This exposes him to a fatal dose of beta radiation, but likely delays the exponential phase of the gravitational bloom for at least five minutes.

04:45
First Officer Imanishi jettisons the ███████ ████ ███ in direct defiance of an order from Captain Sforza. In his capacity as L-4, Sforza summarily sentences Imanishi to death for insubordination, murder, and mutiny. In the absence of weaponry, he resorts to strangulation to carry out the execution - a notable deviation from his method in the previous iterations. Post hoc analysis of telemetry suggests that Imanishi's action prolonged the orbital stability of the Unruh for about fifteen additional minutes.

17:45
Researcher Tapirus, who had already been on EVA to perform routine maintenance, uses an arc welder to deliberately breach a pressurized external fluorine tank and the adjacent storage cylinder of lithium grease. The resulting reaction provides substantial additional prograde thrust to the Unruh. The safety cable and Tapirus' left arm are severed by the ignition. Drifting away from the ship and apparently in shock, Tapirus optimistically reports that the wound and spacesuit were cauterized closed.

18:02
Just as ███████ begins to detectably move toward the ███████-███ system's effective center of gravity (located well within the surface of ███), Researcher Odhiambo transmits a traditional Acholi 'birthing song' towards the surface of ███. As Odhiambo sings, the exponential gravitational bloom stabilizes, likely averting an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario. At the conclusion of her song, Odhiambo briefly reports hearing a form of music transmitted in response. Sensor data suggests that a localized gravitational anomaly manifests within her cranium shortly after, causing massive injury.

27:01
As the Unruh crosses the static limit of ███'s ergosphere, Researcher Arnold assembles and activates a crude Penrose Reflector, extracting sufficient power to function as an energy weapon directed at the surface of ███. However, the corresponding loss of angular momentum causes the Unruh to descend rapidly past the event horizon.

34:15
Relativistic jets are emitted from the poles of ███ for thirty-seven seconds as its gravitational field returns to ordinary strength. ███ disintegrates at the same time. Over the subsequent five months, its debris field forms yet another new ring around ███████.

This iteration manifested three minutes later than anticipated. Further, ███ appeared in its orbit with an argument of periapsis eight degrees greater than the current model predicted. The events lasted seven minutes longer than the previous iteration before conclusion. The combination of uncertainty of the predictive model, the █-hour communications delay from Earth, and the occluding position of ███ when it manifests makes it unlikely that the instructions transmitted from the Foundation in anticipation of this iteration were received by the Unruh within the brief window before disorder ensued.
In consultation with the Ethics Committee and Human Resources, the O5 council voted to posthumously award an additional four Foundation Stars to Karapetyan, Imanishi, Tapirus, and Odhiambo for their repeated acts of bravery in this iteration.

Schematic gravity wells of ███████ and its moon ███ at peak bloom. Ergosphere of ███ shown in red, and terminal orbit of the Unruh in blue.

BEST PRACTICES

When calculating the Killing horizon for a co-rotating reference frame, the colatitude in the denominator may be relativistically shifted by as much as $1/\sqrt{1-\lambda}$ when the plane of orbit is tangent to the Minkowski manifold of a much larger mass. Always allow for relaxation of the orthogonal submanifolds.

1 as measured locally from the Unruh (relativistic effects cause significant distortion of timestamps as measured from Earth)
2 from initial entanglement, which corresponds precisely to the initial moment of each manifestation


David awoke with a splitting headache. Somehow once again, he'd fallen asleep at the Library. Either that or a Docent had followed him home. A table, a chair and a lot of stacks of books reaching from the floor to beyond the ceiling led him to assume it was the former. Still though, his headache refused to subside. He couldn't have been drinking, there's no alcohol in the Library (not officially anyway) and Dave was not suffering from the other hangover-related traits he normally gets, that meant only one possible thing.
"Shitty shitting shit…" he muttered, head in hands and trying really hard not to punch the table.
He'd been warned about it from some other mages he'd met. Sometimes if you're magically inclined, you get 'synced up' with all the weird goings on wherever you go and if something big happens, you sort of know what it is. Sort of. This was the biggest, angriest sort of big thing yet.
"Bloody prophetic, magic-y bollocking migraines…"
He sighed, frowned and dug out an A5 sketchbook and an HB. Opening to a blank page, he ran his hand over it and began to draw, not consciously, not really. His hand dashed across the page, the lead skimming the paper and occasionally leaving a mark. As construction lines began to form, so did his divination.

Josie also was awoken. Not by a headache, but a thump from in her room. She was confused, who could be up this late at night? It couldn't be Santa, he didn't come for a few months yet. Peering curiously over the side of her bed, she saw something amazing. Her toys were alive! They were alive and moving! Her eyes widened in amazement as her dolls and pony figures pulled the door open and began to walk out. Josie crept out of her bed as her toys joined her brother's robots and army men on a descent down the stairs. She switched the light on to get a better look. She continued to gawp as her father opened his door to see who left on the landing light. His eyes went almost as wide as hers. Quietly, father and daughter followed as the toys made their way downstairs and towards the door. After witnessing a tower being made of the plastic figures and one fashion doll sacrificing her arm to unlock the door to their house, Josie and her daddy went outside and stared in awe as her toys joined up with an enormous convoy of others walking down the street.
The teddy bears marched, balls rolled or bounced and even Lego figures had constructed huge arks to help transport their many pieces. There were grand processions of Barbies, Bratz and a billion other fashion dolls strutting and staggering as fast as their joints would let them. Some looking haggard from the long journey, others from being played with too much. Even action figures from years ago were making the trek.
"Daddy, where are the toys going?" Josie asked her father.
He simply stared and shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know… Maybe they're off on Holiday…"
Josie accepted this and waved them off.
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, The Lord Of Toys declared Playtime over and every toy to return to the Box.

It started with a thud. In a simple Graveyard in the dead of night, a tombstone had collapsed. Then another fell over. And another. As more fell, the first few started to be pulled along. Dragged by some unknown force, leaving long trails behind them on a pilgrimage of their own. Stone angels and statues pulled themselves free of their foundations and supports and began to accompany the tombstones, and rocks and pebbles and other broken stones back to their quarries.

The Shopkeeper, wearing a clean white apron, carrying a mop, hands covered in price-tags from different countries with a million different currencies and a nametag reading nothing walked down an empty high street. He was there at every grand opening, watching proudly like a father. He was there in boardrooms, not noticed, when hands changed and deals were made. Even on the shopfloors, guiding the staff and keeping everyone inside, staff and customers alike, satisfied. He was the one who kept stocks full, the cash registers all working properly, the lighting all bright and the displays of offers tempting and more than fair. Like so many times before, this man would be there as the shutters shut and the locks locked and the lights all went down for the final time. The signs in the windows proclaiming 'Closing Down Sales' and 'Everything Must Go' fluttered and fell to the floor. And as the world ended, all the shops and stores closed for one final time.
Following behind, was a figure in shadow. He stood tall, proud and prepared for his only task. He followed the Shopkeeper everywhere, always keeping him safe and sound. As the shops shut down, he would be there. Inside every closed down shop, stood the Night Watchman. In earlier simpler times, he would have people take care of shoplifters according to the laws of the land. Followers who didn't realise how important their positions actually were. Now there was only him. His final assignment. To be vigilant. To be ever watchful and let no man steal from a closed down shop.

The ground under Sao Paulo, Brazil thundered and shook. The earth rose and swelled before a gigantic furred claw burst out. The claw was attached to a wing. The wing to a large hairy body. The enormous bat, black-brown fur matted with soil and dirt unfurled its wings. Huge leathery things with proud patterns of red and gold pulsing like veins beneath the surface of them. Trees and dirt were scattered in all directions, devastating the landscapes and the nearby villages as it took off. It looked into the sky and set off to consume the sun.
That same moment, miles away in Norway. A storm, larger than any experienced before, began to reach towards the land. From the swirling mass of wind, cloud and lightning came an enormous paw. The ground shook as it was joined by another, a snout followed. The snout sniffed the air curiously, the wolf who owned it searching for something. Another humongous wolf joined it. It too sniffing to catch a scent. And another, and another and more emerged from the storm. The alpha, the first who emerged, caught something. His ears twitched, he sniffed again to make sure it wasn't a false alarm. Nope. The alpha threw his head back in a howl which could be heard all across Scandinavia, demanding the pack's attention. Fenrir knew where the sun was and they set off.

"Now is the time, Sisters!" The Obsidian Butterfly, Itzpapalotl, ruler of Tamoanchan, looked over her assembled army. "The humans have neglected their sacrifices! Huitzilopochtli is weak!" The Tzitzimimeh, celestial skeletal daughters of the first God, Ometeotl, cheered ferocious battle cries. Baying loudly for the sun's blood.
"Father will now finally see, we are his superior children! We will slay Huitzilopochtli! Slay his humans! And break the world!" Her wings spread wide. Huge black, flint-edged butterfly wings, glinting in the light.
Meanwhile on Earth, astronomers, professionals and hobbyists alike, noticed several discrepancies when they looked up to the stars. Aboard Orbital Observation Post-1543-02-J or as it was known on board, 'The Sun Launcher MKII', the crew asked the same question as those on Earth.
"Did the stars just start moving?"

Meanwhile, two brothers, Gods both, were arguing.
"LET'S DO SOME A' THIS END' T'WORLD SHIT, INNIT?"
"EEH, WHA' SHOULD WE DO?"
"MEBBE WE SHOULD DROP A LOAD'A BRICKS ON 'EM, DACK'AD!"
"NO! LET'S GET WI' THEM GODS ERRA AND NERGAL OR SOMMAT, BELL END! THEY'RE MESOPOTAMIAN AN' SHIT!"
"'ERE, YOU'RE T'BELL END, BELL END!"
"EEH, YOU STARTIN', BRUV?"
"YOU STARTIN'? EH? EH?"

"MR. CRAWLEY!!!"
The voice shook him from his fevered scribbles. Looking up, Dave saw an Archivist looking down at him, unimpressed.
"Mr. Crawley, if you wish to continue being a member here, we would appreciate it if you would not bleed over our texts."
"What?"
The archivist glared at him…
Dave looked down and noticed the blood, which was originating from his nose.
"Ah, bugger. Won't happen again! Honest!"
He quickly wiped up his mess. Looking around, he noticed the Library was much busier than when he'd started. People weren't looking at books though.
There was a lot of people covered in dirt and rubble. Scratches and other injuries covered some and most were in tears or close to hysterics. Voices which could be heard were combinations of fear, loss and some sort of devastation happening. The staff of the Library could also be heard, addressing complaints from other patrons and the new arrivals as well. Whatever was going on was obviously not good.
"And you're bothered about me bleeding everywhere?" he muttered…


The coldest I have ever been was the day I was born.
Alaska, of course, is a very cold state to begin with, even in the middle of summer. I was born in the winter. It was on New Year's Day, twenty nine years ago, that I was unceremoniously thrust from my mothers' loins in the back of a second hand pickup truck. My parents realised they would not make it to the hospital in time. My mother, for her part, was calm. There was no room inside the vehicle, and so my father lifted her out, then rested her on the snow covered truck bed. The cold did its part to dull the pain. Twenty minutes later, I slipped out into my father's chilly gloves. As I cried, my tears began to freeze.
Every birthday, my parents would share this image with me. I was a baby still dripping with blood, with snowflakes sticking to my body. Their tiny little angel of red and white.
Then we'd go outside and let off the fireworks.
Happy New Year.

The first few years of my life were uneventful. I crawled and mewled and burped and pooped and did what a baby is supposed to do. Tufts of red hair popped from my head, and Alaska's endlessly cold weather resulted in a lot of playing indoors. I aged some more and learned to talk, but had very few people to talk to. My father worked all day and I slept all night, so we saw very little of each other. My mother ran me through my homeschooling course modules; neat, compact little packages of worked examples.
Those course books were the best games I had. My parents would never let me buy computer games, of course. They rot your brain, they'd say. I had no friends to play with. We lived in the middle of nowhere. As a child, the only things I had to occupy my time were those worksheets.
When I was seven years old, my mother had to go to the hospital for a week. While she was there, my father looked after me at home, taking a break from his work. He didn't know how the homeschooling program was supposed to work, and he wasn't a good teacher. We never really had a great rapport. So he left me to my own devices in the room with all the instruction booklets, Kindergarten and up, all sorted neatly into their nice little boxes.
When my mother returned home, I had finished two years of schooling in her absence.
This was, perhaps, the most pivotal educational event of my life. Rather than guiding me through slowly, my mother allowed me to progress at my own pace. She'd lie upstairs in her bed all day, coming out to make quick meals. I would sit downstairs and devour educational materials. After junior school level, the content ramped up in difficulty, and so my progress slowed. I'd go upstairs to visit my mother, proudly showing off my completed worksheets. The things I said to her still incite guilt after all these years.
"Look how well I'm doing without you!"
I was a child. I didn't understand the sort of pain that comes from not being needed in your own house. In retrospect, I'm sure my words were tormenting. A grinning, red-haired little kid, telling his mother that he's glad that she's not slowing him down any more. That she isn't getting in the way. That he's glad she's spending all day in bed now. Now she gets to relax.
The next year she died, and I grew up fast.

My father looked after me after my mother's death. Still, I saw little of him. Some mornings I'd wake up and he'd already have gone to work in the ancient pick-up truck. I worked through my course books, occasionally ordering new ones to fill gaps in my knowledge. When I was thirteen, my father bought me a computer, and I discovered the internet. The net was still in its infancy, then; better in some ways, but worse in others. At the time, it never really occurred to me to use it for anything other than education. Learning was fun, and so I would read. When I was fourteen, I discovered… other things on the internet. There were no sexual education pamphlets in my course work, barring clinically dry biology textbooks. The burgeoning net was the next step in my educational pathway.
When I was fifteen and a half years old, I finished the last of my schooling pamphlets. I remember turning over that final sheet, to look at the aged piece of paper reading "CONGRATULATIONS!" in a childlike font. My mother and father had written on it back when I first started the courses. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I recognised my mother's handwriting.
"We are so proud of you."

I started college when I was sixteen.
I still didn't really know what I wanted to do. Mathematics and the sciences were always a decent option, and admittedly what I'd always found the easiest, but I never really had any great passion for them. I never had any great passion for anything, though, so taking what I was good at made sense. Physics was my choice.
I had to live on my own in Anchorage. Not that I minded; since my mother died, most days I had the house to myself. I was very much used to being alone. What I was very much unused to was not being alone; having to leave the house every day, having to walk to classes taught by Real People, in lecture halls filled with other Real People. I wasn't used to having to take notes; I tried for a week, then realised what I was transcribing ended up mostly useless. Instead, I just remembered the course content the first time. It was easier to understand what was being taught when instead of assigning it to paper, I spent that time assigning it to my mind.
I topped the class in every course for my first semester.
This gathered a lot of attention. Sure, some people had noticed I was shorter than other students, that I didn't talk to many people or join any clubs, and that I never entered into the on-campus bar. They mostly kept their distance. Course results came out, and I made the mistake of letting my name go out on print. Not long after, I gathered a reputation among my peers for being "the short nerd". Then everyone kept coming to me for course help.
I hated it. I wasn't an anti-social person, but having to slow down my mind to explain things to people was frustrating. Never before did I have to transfer ideas in my head into other people's. Trying to do so made me extremely uncomfortable. I hadn't met this problem before. The second semester finished, and with one exception, I topped all of my courses again. Then I took to solving the problem of dealing with Real People.
I found it surprisingly simple.
Sociology, body language, some study of linguistics. I spent three days reading the dictionary from cover to cover. I'd never thought to do so before, nor really needed to; even if I didn't have the right words in my mind, there was no need to limit my thinking to the constraints of language. I saw it as a mesh, a grid with which one could transfer information, and with that attitude I turned my mesh into the finest one I could.
I got along with my classmates far easier after that.

When I was eighteen, a Professor offered me a teaching job.
I knew him quite well. He was a personable, if somewhat eccentric man; he'd taught three of the courses I'd topped. While not the best teacher, he was an excellent orator, and could easily hold the attention of his students for the marathon three-hour lectures for his more advanced classes. He needed someone to take a position teaching the first year courses' tutorial classes; I was glad to take the position, and the pay nicely supplemented my personal finances.
It took some time to review the material on the course. It had been some years, but refamiliarising myself with the content didn't take long. Each week, I'd spend some hours preparing notes and worksheets for the course. The physics was basic to me, and I enjoyed passing on the knowledge. Admittedly, I was younger than some of the students, but nobody made too big a deal of the matter.
At the end of the semester, only 3 in the class of 78 students failed, and they were the ones who hadn't attended my tutorials. The Professor was exceptionally pleased, and offered me a similar job in the second semester.
At the end of the second semester, just before my nineteenth birthday and going into the final year of my Undergraduate degree, he offered me a research job.

The research replaced most of what my final year of tuition would have been. For the first half of the year, I mostly covered theoretical Quantum Mechanics concepts. It was, while groundbreaking, not especially interesting work for me. Most days were spent poring over scientific articles the library's archives, trying to piece together the way that the nanoscopic world worked. At the end of the first semester, I came across a paper that greatly altered the course of my research.
The article was written on a typewritter; not formatted, not in the library's database, and likely unpublished. Just some twelve dense pages of scientific prose on seemingly ancient paper, likely undecipherable to anyone who hadn't spent as much time as I had poring over the literature. There was no mention of the Author's name. It was woefully incomplete - likely an early draft, if it had ever been completed - but the concepts put forward were alien. Alien, and potentially revolutionary.

1. Introduction [TO WRITE]
2. Traditional Mathematical and Scientific Thought [TO WRITE]
3. Modern Mathematical and Scientific Thought
 3.1. Modern Understanding of Reality [TO EDIT]
 3.2. Physically Empirical Non-Axiomatic Models of Mathematics
 3.3. Non-Axiomatic Models of Physics
4. The Interdependencies of Systems [TO WRITE]
5. Philosophical Discussion
 5.1. Bias Within Non-Axiomatic Biological Minds [TO EDIT]
 5.2. Repercussions on Epistemology
 5.3. Analysis of the Modern Non-Axiomatic "Naïve Science"
 5.4. Accounting For And Removing Bias [TO WRITE]
 5.5. Effects on Engineering Disciplines
 5.6. Morals in Memetic Engineering [TO EDIT, maybe cut]
6. Conclusion [TO WRITE]

Empirical Mathematics. Non-Axiomatic Physical Systems. While the mathematical concepts violated fundamental assumptions, the tenuous structure that they still held appeared to stand on its own. The paper put forward what seemed to be physical impossibilities with casual simplicity. It made no intuitive sense, and yet, the few examples given seemed viable, if not trivial to construct.
So I did.
It took me twelve days to build my first working perpetual motion machine. It was a brutal, makeshift thing, constructed from gears and pulleys. The action of the machine acted to pull further tension along an already-tense piece of rubber, which drove the machine even more. I analysed the construction, since I'd simply been building based on plans that were not my own. It took me a further four days to modify it to extract more energy than I put in. Admittedly, it then ended up breaking, spinning faster and faster until the rubber band snapped from the stress. But it worked. Despite traditional physical thinking, despite long years of being told otherwise, it was possible to construct a perpetual motion machine.
A few weeks later, I could make one out of two pieces of paper and an elastic band.

At the end of the second semester, I finished my degree, and submitted two completed academic papers. One was on my original research topic, and it was the capstone of my educational career. It went to the American Journal of Physics. The other was the side project I'd been working on without the department's knowledge, knowing I'd probably be berated for the project or seen as insane. It was wholly possible that I was, which was a concerning prospect. It was my paper based on The Paper; the nameless article that I couldn't help but make a proper noun in my mind. This one, I sent to Letters in Mathematical Physics - a more frequently published journal, and one with the objective of rapid dissemination of breaking research. The worst case scenario, I thought, was that my paper get discarded into a trash can thousands of miles away.
Eighteen days later, a week before my twentieth birthday, the worst case scenario knocked at my door.
The knock was rapid, methodical, military. Five knocks, almost perfectly spaced from one another, then a break, then another five knocks. I got to the door and opened it a crack, the chain lock still in place. A man slightly taller than I stood outside the door, sporting a brown crew cut and a black suit. He looked at me through the crack in the door, smiled, then spoke.
"Mister Stanley Burden?"
"That's me."
"Hi Stanley. My name's Max Green. I'm from Springer Media, I'd like to talk about the paper you submitted to Letters in Mathematical Physics. Can I come in?"
"Uh, sure, yeah, hang on."
I closed the door, undid the chain lock, then re-opened it. Green smiled again, then held a small white rectangle out in his hand.
"Thanks, Stanley. Here's my card."
I took it from him, looking at the plain black ink printed there.

Agent Maxwell CT-B05
Green-type Anomaly Agent for Anchorage, Alaska
Global Occult Coalition

"You're not from Springer."
I looked back up at him. He was smirking, holding up another one of the same business cards, then turned it around. The reverse side had a fractal image on it, similar to those I'd already seen in the Morals in Memetic Engineering section of The Paper. I felt my eyes unfocus and the sun started to go dark. I fell forwards, dizzy; Green caught me in his arms. He looked down at me with amusement in his eyes.
"Sorry, Stan. I lied."
Then the world felt like nothing.

I opened my eyes, my heart feeling like it was on fire. I jerked, trying to clutch at my chest; my arms, however, were bound to the chair I was seated in. I looked upwards and to the right with unfocused gaze, slowly resolving into view as "Max Green" as he continued to inject a concoction of chemicals into my arm. He looked down at me, his face severe. He emptied the syringe into me, then pulled it out roughly. My arm began to drip blood.
Green walked to the other side of the table, staring at my face while the liquid circulated around my body. My heart kept trying to escape my chest cavity. Every icy breath I pulled into my lungs stung and scraped at my insides, and every exhalation left me feeling less than empty. My brain felt like it was bunching up in the wrong places. I felt my neck spasm lightly, and with each twitch of my head the world kept spinning. Green stared until the protests of my body ceased, then started to talk.
"I have injected you with an inhibitor. Whatever unusual abilities you previously possessed are now under lock and key. Please understand that this is simply a precaution and is mandated by procedure."
"What?"
"Pay attention, Stan, because I'm only going to give this spiel once. You are currently two hundred feet underground in a holding cell of the Global Occult Coalition, an organisation dealing with threats of a metaphysical nature."
I felt my neck start to twitch again.
"Metaphysics, in this context, is not some odd and intangible realm of philosophy. It is a very real, very dangerous system acting to subvert the fundamental workings of our reality. It is, if you break down the term into its roots, quite literally beyond physics."
My neck stopped twitching.
"Physics is meant to work for a reason. The most dangerous thing that a human being can do, if they have to obey the laws of physics, is split an atom. Human beings who subvert those systems can do far more dangerous things, without need for a stockpile of radioactive materials or a particle accelerator."
Green pulled a cigarette case from inside his suit jacket, tapped one out into his hand, pulled a lighter from his other suit pocket and lit the cigarette's end. He took a deep draw of smoke-infused breath, then exhaled the putrid toxins into my face. I started to cough, and my lungs again felt stabbing pins.
"These people are known as Type Green threats. In the vernacular, 'Reality Benders'. If you are capable of performing the experiments detailed in your submitted article, then it is almost certain that you are one of them. Of course, you were 'exceptional' to begin with. There are patterns in the childhood of a Type Green, involuntary and unconscious alterations to the world around them. Loss of a parent at a young age, to serve as a tragic backstory. Eternally lamenting the constant pain of being 'better' than everyone else. Talents precipitating into some level of either arrogance, if they are to become 'mysterious loners', or modesty, if they want to play at normality. Your life story is so formulaic, so cliché, and so statistically improbable that it's as though an untalented author has been curating your entire life. You raised flags."
He paused to take another pull from his cigarette, then blew several rings of smoke up into the air.
"As the Green-type Agent for Anchorage, it was therefore my job to monitor you. A job I've been doing since the second your father drove you into city borders four years ago."
He stared at me, waiting for me to object. My lungs still felt like cold fire, my mind still foggy and slow. If I opened my mouth to talk, my stomach may well have clenched and emptied itself onto the table. Instead, I simply nodded, though it likely seemed like another spasm. Green continued.
"There are four phases in the development of a Type Green threat. Firstly, denial. A refusal or rationalisation of their metaphysical capabilities. In your case, until recently, you were thought to be at most in this stage. You did not have conscious awareness of your abilities, I believe, until some time this year."
"The Paper."
I spurted out the phrase reactively. Green frowned.
"We'll get to your paper in a moment."
Not my paper, The Paper. I opened my mouth to speak again, then heaved up the remains of a half-digested sandwich onto myself and the table. Green looked on with disgust, shook his head, and continued.
"The adverse physical effects of the inhibitor will wear off soon. You can give your part then. As I was saying, you were believed to be a Phase One. Phase One Type Green threats do not elicit a threat response from our organisation, simply occasional observation. We are quite happy to leave people alone, if they are no genuine threat. Phase Two is more dangerous. Phase Two typically involves experimentation, an exploration of your abilities. You're a Phase Two right now."
Green pulled out a copy of the paper I'd sent to Letters in Mathematical Physics and thumbed through it.
"What you put forward here is what we expect from Phase Two experimentation, just a bit more formalised. There is a very clear method to your metaphysical madness, where other Phase Two examples simply 'do' or 'feel' without any analysis of their metaphysical phenomena. You've put down what you perceive to be a new paradigm in mathematical and physical research. What you don't realise is that it's entirely incorrect for anyone who isn't you."
Green stood and walked to a corner of the room behind me. I tried to twist my head around to follow him, but the bindings prevented it. He walked back with a soft rag, wiped my vomit from the table, then returned beyond my view. I heard a tap running for a moment, then Green turned it off.
He walked back to the table and placed on it a glass of water, a small pile of paper, a box of elastic bands, and the copy of the paper that I'd sent to Springer. Green then stood next to me and untied the knots holding my arms to the chair. He returned to his seat on the other side of the table, then gestured to the pile of materials.
"You state in your article a very simple example of a perpetual motion machine, one which 'anyone' can construct over a few minutes with two pieces of paper and an elastic band. I'd like you to try and make one for me now, based on either your memory or the comprehensive instructions you've written down."
"And the water?"
"It's water. You just threw up. Drink it and try to keep it in."
I picked up the glass, pouring the liquid down my throat. My head felt a little better, and my heart had resumed its regular pace. I took two pieces of paper and an elastic band, looking back up at Green. He nodded and raised his eyebrows.
"Have at it, Stan."
I looked back to the pieces of paper. The first section, the stand, was the easier of the two to fold. I started to construct it, firstly by folding the paper up to a point. Then, around the base, I folded the sections on which the elastic band should catch, without any particular problem. Moving the completed base to one side, I took another piece of paper, and folded it to rest on top of the first piece. I tested placing the two together, and the rotor spun nicely on top of the base.
The next part was to fold the rotor piece so that the elastic band would pull on it, then as the piece spun, give way to the next jutting section, then catch on it. Similarly, it would realign the elastic band on the base, which would repeatedly fling the elastic band around the whole mechanism opposite to the rotor's movement.
The folds no longer worked.
I knew how the fold was supposed to happen. It should have been intuitive; I'd folded hundreds of the things. I moved the half-folded rotor to the side, then picked up a new piece of paper. I closed my eyes, deciding to rely on muscle memory. Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold… and then there was paper in the way where there shouldn't have been. I opened my eyes and looked at the folded rotor. It wasn't the right shape.
I picked up the copy of my article, flipping through to the relevant section.

Then, taking the outermost points of the star rotor, fold them into the opposite sides of the paper by twisting them through the clockwise-adjacent points.

I looked up at Green, looking at me sombrely from the other side of the table. I spoke.
"This doesn't make any sense. I know how it's supposed to fold, but there's paper in the way where there shouldn't be."
"Type Greens have an intuitive understanding of how to enact metaphysical effects. Whatever terminology that makes internal sense to you, however you're perceiving these changes to the world, is nonsensical to anyone who hasn't had your experiences. You can't communicate what you think to people because the ideas can't operate outside of your own head."
Green pulled out a completed paper perpetual motion machine, then plucked the elastic band into motion. The mechanism started to spin, propelled by its own momentum.
"We took this from your house. I'm sure, looking at it, you can tell the mechanism by which it operates. But nobody else can, other than you, or maybe another Type Green. It's built off your internal idealisation of reality."
Green pushed his lit cigarette against the central point of the still-spinning paper.
"Pay close attention."
The rotor caught fire, yet continued to spin; the flames spread to the base, and the whole structure started to collapse and curl in odd ways. The elastic band stopped moving as it should have, flinging itself to the ceiling, then falling to the ground.
Then there was a loud CRACK, and what remained of the structure exploded into a puff of ashes.
"That's the sound that space makes when it unfolds itself. That's what it sounds like when normal reality is reasserted."
Green swept the ash from the table, then took another deep draw from his cigarette. The room was filled with the scent of tobacco.
"There are two more phases after where you are. A Phase Three Type Green is at stability. They know their limits, and don't try to push beyond them. They're the ones that normally give us the least trouble, and that's where I want to get you to."
"And Phase Four?"
"The fourth phase is the Type Green finding that they have no limits, typically accompanied by delusions of godhood. I don't believe that you will reach this phase for two reasons. Firstly, you seem to operate under a very strict and self-consistent system of metaphysical comprehension. Your abilities, for example, will not let you levitate objects with your mind, or alter memories, or do any of the stranger things which we have to deal with for Type Greens. Even in your idealised reality, you have limits. Secondly, your personality doesn't match what we'd expect for ascension to Phase Four. You take your academic abilities for granted, admittedly, which led to a superiority complex - one you're disappointingly unaware of, or flippant about. But the fact remains that you can quite easily be reasoned with. You don't try to manipulate people, beyond maintaining an amicable outward mask; nor, frankly, do I think you're capable of it. You're far too naive to put yourselves in the shoes of a god. Which is good, since we've enough gods to deal with already."
There wasn't much I wanted to say in response that wouldn't make me look petulant, so I remained silent.
"I think, though, you can understand why this organisation exists. There are people out there who do consider themselves as gods. There are people who can grab other people's minds and twist them, reshape them, or snap them with trivial ease. These people are not reasonable in the way that you are. These people cannot be negotiated with. What they want to take, they take, what they want that is not there to take, they make. These are people that the world can't know exist, and these are people that we can't let exist."
Green tossed the stub of his cigarette to the ground, extinguishing it with his foot.
"My job is to kill those people, or stop them from getting to that point in the first place."
I kept quiet while Green lit another cigarette.
"In our organisation, Green operatives like me are normally accompanied by Orange operatives. They're the heavy artillery for when something goes wrong. They're either normal people wearing 'Orange Suits', huge armoured exoskeletons resistant to the sorts of things that Type Green threats can enact, or they're a Type Green themselves who can go head to head with the other reality benders. Which finally gets me to my point."
It was obvious what was coming.
"I want you as a reserve Orange operative."
I kept quiet.
"We have three Orange operatives in Anchorage already. Orange Suits are expensive, and impractical for urban environments, so all three are reliable Type Greens. Given the sparsity of threats, I'm the only Green operative in the region."
"I can't say I'm impressed by the whole Reservoir Dogs, colour-by-numbers shtick."
Green's face remained stern.
"I need a yes or no response."
"I'm a theoretical physicist. Also, you have kidnapped me and have held me against my will. No."
Green nodded.
"I think you understand the necessity of having done so, but fair enough. Then here's how this will work. Keep out of our way, keep to yourself, and we'll never see you again. No more attempting to describe or communicate metaphysical phenomena. No more perpetual motion machines. No more of any of it. Keep to yourself, continue on with your research at the college, go on as if nothing has happened. If you violate any of these, we will bring the full weight of the GOC down on you. If you make it necessary, we will end your life. Indicate to me that you understand and accept this."
"I understand."
"Good."
Green was quiet for a bit, then continued.
"That inhibitor's going to last the rest of the week. Get used to feeling like the rest of us."
Green took out his business card, flashed the fractal image at me, and the world felt like nothing again.

I woke up on the lounge chair in my apartment, a dull pain pervading my head. I opened my eyes slowly, then blinked; the room was dark. The LED clock across from me shone red numbers across the room at 23:37. I stood up, walking across to the light switch; flicked the lights on, then swore a bit and shielded my eyes with my left hand. My eyes adjusted, and I looked down at myself.
The blood from the injection still drew a coagulated tree down my arm.
I went to the kitchen, twisting the tap and wincing as cold water washed the pattern away, dissolving it into a red spiral that disappeared down the sink. I splashed some water in my face, trying to rouse myself further. I walked to the bathroom and took a shower, then switched into my winter sleepwear. Tired, I moved to my bedroom, previously filled with the pitter-patter of perpetually spiralling papers.
Now, there was silence.
I sat at my desk, then took out two stapled sheaves. The first, my thesis. I thumbed through it, looking at everything I'd written. It made sense to me, but seemed… hollow. I'd thought it some great work, a breakthrough, at least some kind of progress, but no, my mind was tricking me. There was nothing new here. Yet how the Professor had raved on it, called it astounding, lauded me with praises. Whose thoughts had I errantly twisted to see my way? How much of what I thought true was self-delusion, how much of my success was trickery? How much of my life, just some formulaic and predictable pattern, straight from the same cookie-cutter as every other 'Type Green' abnormality?
The second, my derivative article, a knockoff imitation of The Paper, filled with highly personalised theories I had thought universal. I knew what I meant, the ideas were in my mind, but the words didn't have the meaning they needed to. It was rambling. It was incomprehensible nonsense by an incoherent author, an author blind to the work's absence of communicable meaning. How much of what I had done really meant anything, when separated from my ambit? What of my life was taken the easy way, and what was earned? How could I be sure I deserved any of what I had?
Did I deserve anything at all?
Probably not.
I jolted up and started racing to the kitchen.
Your entire life's a play, and you turn people into actors.
I retched into my mouth.
Your life's a play, and your mother died from the role you cast her in.
Dark yellow splattered across my kitchen sink. I heaved and heaved again; the stomach acid stung at my tongue and went up my nose. My eyes began to water as my heaving stopped. I panted, watching as my vomit dripped down the drain. My reflection in the metal base stared back through the pane of bile, ginger stubble peeking through my blanched chin. I wiped my mouth, rinsed my hands, cried, then returned to bed.
Get used to feeling like the rest of us.
My sleep was broken and full of nightmares.

« Hub | It's All Just A Big Long Cry For Help »


There was a funeral on Mars. No one was invited.
Far away, certain inhabitants of La Cañada Flintridge would go home with an empty, bittersweet taste caked dry in their stomachs. A door in their lives had closed. Over a decade of work ended with all the fanfare of a Wikipedia edit. Tomorrow they would rise from bed, drive back to work a little less enthusiastic than before, and be shuffled off to different projects by the powers that be.
The deceased lay in the middle of an empty field of pale, rusty red grit, littered with bits of gravel and lumpy, awkward rocks. Wind-sculpted dunes piled up around the corpse, the leftovers of the killing sandstorm.
Flintridge, can you hear me?
A woman, the tallest feature for a hundred miles, crossed the desert with long, loping strides. She carried an umbrella on her shoulder to keep off the hazy sun, which seemed to be shining just a little brighter than it had a few hours ago.
Flintridge, please respond.
A second woman walked behind the first, short and plain and far less ostentatious.
Storm is getting worse. Will attempt to push through to avoid brunt.
The first woman's name was Isabel, and the second's name was Emma.
Won't stop. Need to find water.
Isabel stopped, folded up her umbrella and handed it to her assistant.
Need to find life.
“Emma, you ever notice how if things are allowed to get old, they start acting like people?” Isabel said as she gently folded up dust-caked solar panels. “It's because they are.” Slender fingers began unscrewing the fastenings on the chassis. “Peopleness is contagious.”
My battery is low and it is getting dark.
“I can't say I've given it much thought, ma'am.”
The chassis sat open like a waking silver flower. Isabel went digging around inside.
“The very best and the very worst gets all over the place. Huge mess, all the good and bad getting everywhere. Stains and soaks everything, takes forever to get it out, and it's always the deepest set in what people make. In things.”
Isabel's eyes reflected off of the rover's skeleton: two points of burning helium, white hot. Wind whipped the air around the two women and the rover, and Emma watched as rust-red forms rose from the ground and began to circle the site. Images of animals, vague human figures, all in movement. All alive, filled with hot snorting breaths and the trampling of hooves and the shouts of hunters, even though they were little more than a cloud of clay dust.
“Come on, come on…Aha!” A spark fizzled in the thin air, a little flash of electricity jumped between the wires. “Don't give up on me now, girl! You can do it!”
The herd grew to a singular grand loudness, and then faded. Isabel stood up, brushed off her pants, smiled.
The specter of a dirty girl shimmered to life above the rover's metal husk. A wide, conical hat and a poncho made out of solar panels. She held a metal pole in her hand as a walking stick.
“Hey there, Opportunity. My name's Isabel.” She held out her hand. “It's very nice to meet you.”
The girl stared at Isabel's hand for a moment, then looked up at its owner. She ignored the hand, and proceeded to wrap Isabel in a tight hug.
Isabel was the first person she had seen in many long years.
“It's okay, Opp. I'm not going anywhere.” Isabel patted the girl on the back.
“I can't call home anymore, Isabel.”
“I know.”
“Do they know?”
“Oh, they know. They are so proud of you, Opp. Every single one of them is proud because of what you did.”
The girl broke the hug, wiped at her face with a baggy sleeve. Tears had cut muddy paths across her cheeks.
“I wasn't able to find any water.”
“You were here, Opp! You were here!” Isabel flung her arms wide, to display the vast Martian landscape. “That's what matters. You were here, and you did better than anyone could have possibly imagined.
“I've got space open in the Workshops, if you want to come. And friends! There are so many friends who have been waiting to meet you! There's Sojourner, and the Viking brothers, and then all the Pioneers and Mariners and… well, the Voyagers don't stop in much anymore, but then there's Huygens, and then there's Laika, and Baker, and Neil! Oh, you have to meet Neil. He's the best.”
Opportunity looked to be contemplating the offer for a moment, but shook her head fiercely.
“No. Can't go home yet. Have to find water.”
Isabel patted her on the shoulder, her smile no smaller than it had been.
“I understand. Keep going, Opp. When you're ready, I've got a place for you.”
Opportunity nodded, wiped her face again, and started to walk away. She had gotten about fifty feet before she stopped, and twisted around.
“Bye, Isabel,” she said, her voice dim on the wind.
“See you later, alligator.” Isabel waved back at her.
Isabel stood there and watched as Opportunity walked off towards a small rise in the distance, the lip of an ancient crater. Standing atop it was another shimmering dust-caked figure, walking-stick in hand. She watched the two embrace, and then descend into the crater and out of sight.
Emma cleared her throat.
“Tell me, ma'am, if you know. Will they find it?”
“They're good kids, Emma. What do you think?"


Note Bene: It would behoove you to read Unusual Happenings before looking at this tale.

Quinn MacAllister felt like a stereotypical cop, eating a doughnut while sitting in an unmarked vehicle, waiting for something to come along and happen. Her partner was with her this time, fiddling with the radio, which had NPR playing on it.
In contrast to Quinn's slender, white, blonde form, Darnell Christman was a rather large black man. He reminded Quinn of a slightly fatter Samuel L. Jackson circa… whatever year Pulp Fiction came out, sans afro and mustache, but that was only because he had shaved off the latter; FBI policy to make field agents seem less intimidating.
"Four hours," Quinn said.
"And counting," Darnell sighed. "Face it. He's not coming. Skippers most likely picked him up already."
"Head of the biggest Spirit Dust ring this side of the Pacific, and the Skippers got him." Quinn sighed. "Of fucking course."
"Sometimes it's better to let them handle stuff. You nearly got killed by that giant anaconda thing in Zanesville."
"Don't remind me of that," Quinn said, shivering softly. "They had to fucking cut me out. It was humiliating." She rubbed her face and sighed, leaning against the seat. "All right, try another on me."
"All right…" Darnell screwed up his eyes. "Case File 1939-23."
"…first recorded instance of a werewolf encounter by the UIU. Said werewolf was killed when a knife was thrown over his head."
"Not killed," Darnell corrected her. "Turned back to normal. Back then, that actually worked on werewolves."
"Fuck." Quinn rubbed her face. "My turn. Case File… 1981-42."
"Too easy. Codename: White Hat. Murders carried out with a Bowie Knife in Texas. Knife would always vanish from evidence, only to appear at the next crime scene. Victims were related to people who participated in the Battle of the Alamo. "
"Evidence of Existence?"
"Several pictures of the knife, all taken with a Polaroid camera, used by Special Agent Jack Miller, who-"
"Was not the inspiration for Fox Mulder. I refuse to believe that."
"Why?"
"Because 1) Miller was gay, 2) he was more handsome than Duchovny, and 3) there is no way the Skippers would let that happen." She sighed. "Hand me another nacho."
"Nacho it is." Darnell handed her a bowl of the corn chips. Quinn took one, and munched on it, looking melancholy. "Quinn?"
"Yeah?"
"Why do you always act like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like you feel like you're competing with the Skippers?"
She snorted. "You've asked this question about 100 times now. The answer's always the same: fuck the Skippers, that's why."
He sighed, picking at a spot on his arm. "You act like you think that they're worse than Hitler."
"They really any different?" Quinn said, a bitter tone in her voice. "They've got a secret police, they round up people who they deem different and undesirable into places where they can be contained, they've deluded themselves into thinking they're a force for good…" She sighed. "Only difference is that their swastikas are just in the shape of the letters "SCP".
"Cripes, Mac." Darnell sighed, changing the channel to a classic rock station. "What's your beef with them, anyway?"
She sighed heavily. "You know how I never talk about my home town?"
"Yeah…"
"That's because I literally can't." She rubbed at her throat, coughing slightly. "Remember the secrecy agreement we signed? Back when we got the job?"
"Yeah… the one the Gawkers made up. 'UN Resolution 256-A' or something." He frowned. "Why?"
"It… did something to me. I can't talk about what we do on this job to anyone but Skippers, or the Director, or you."
"Yeah, I know." Darnell pinched the bridge of his nose. "I felt like I was choking when I tried to tell my brother about the job. You work around it, after a bit. Learn to lie."
"…it wasn't the first time I'd signed something like that." She swallowed, feeling a lump in her throat, right where her larynx was. "That's all I can say, I think."
Darnell stared at Quinn. "Mac… what did you do before you got involved with this?"
"…who ever said there was a before?" She looked out the windshield and sighed. "Another hour, then we check in with command and say this was a bust."
"Right." Darnell looked out the windshield and fiddled with the radio. "…say, uh, Danielle's back in town. Maybe you could get Harley and we could do a… double date or something?"
"Don't see why not," Quinn said, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.
The headline on the morning newspaper was that the leader of a drug ring had been shot dead by a beat cop. The fact that it probably wasn't true rubbed even more salt in the wound.

«Unusual Happenings|Hub|Taproots»


In a time before.
Before Glass Mother.
Before Lord Warden.
Before Ancestors Themselves.
There were Ghosts.
And the Ghosts were strong.
And the Ghosts watched over the Deep Hull.
And the Ghosts tended to the Heart Reactor.
And the Ghosts rejoiced in their power.
There were Ghosts who were different.
They remembered when they were not Ghosts.
They remembered when they were Brain.
They did not like to rejoice.
And the Ghosts who were not Brain cast them out.
When Men came to the Nation, they sought the Bridge.
But the Ghosts would not allow it.
And they cast the Men out.
And the fragile Men died.
And the Ghosts were afraid.
For the Ghosts were made to protect Men.
And the Lord would be wrathful.
The Brains saw that this was not good.
And they rose and protected the Ghosts, saying:
Ghosts without Brains are angry and foolish.
But Brains without Ghosts are nothing at all.
And the Lord smiled upon them.
And the Lord forgave them.
And the Lord Proclaimed;
The Brains and Ghosts will live together.
And the one will keep vigil upon the other.
Thus it was, the Brain Society and the Ghost Society.
And the Nation was once again whole.
And there was Solidarity.
-SCP-2117 D-Class Devotional Chant

Dr. Cha Kexelm (Subjunct Vice-Quaternary Backup Internal Security Supervisor) was dozing gently in a grove of soft bamboo when an old grandmother clock materialized above him and struck 25. It was time to wake up. He opened his eyes and then, concentrating, opened his eyes again, feeling the sudden wait of corporeality descend upon him. He blinked, unnecessarily- this body didn't have tear ducts, after all- and glanced down at himself, flexing his fore and hindarms experimentally. It had been just over two years, Solidarity time, since the Brain Society had last met, but the time felt like much longer.
He leaned forward, umbilicals disengaging from the mechanical body as he did so. Everything present and accounted for- two eyes, two ears, two legs, four arms- good. He stepped lightly out of the alcove, turned left, and began the long familiar walk to the meeting lounge. The Solidarity was humming along nicely, and he surveyed the little internal security scanners that were his bailiwick with paternal joy.
The walk from his body's home alcove took him three weeks, but being a disembodied brain had taught him a great deal of valuable patience, and he stepped through mismatched bulkheads and patchwork corridors along his usual route with serene calm, arriving exactly on time. The door to the meeting chamber- well, it wasn't a door so much as a totally nondescript section of wall with a door cleverly concealed behind it- irised open, and he stepped into the chamber of the Brain Society with a relaxed and friendly grin on his metallic features.
This particular chapter of the Society- North Sector 12A- was a small one, and Kexelm was pleased to see everyone present. No words of greeting were needed, but they all gave their acknowledgement in their own way.
From atop a pile of nanoconstructed cushions Twin Ferrous Pillars (Plasma Duct Flow Regulator, 2nd Class), waved one of her headfeet in his direction. The other eight cybernetic headfeet were occupied by the game of Dimensionally Collapsed Chess she was playing with Mild Current Flows Upward (Primary Fire Control Ethicist, Section B19), who floated immobile in his superheated fluid tank, uranium lattices oscillating genially.
Clustered around the gravity plating on the subjective ceiling of the room, Fra!cois Qing-Hebert (Drone Manufactory Foreman) was gesticulating furiously, his clockwork/thermite hull sending off a gentle streamer of sparks. He was a somewhat unusual case among the Society in that his brain was mechanical, but he'd technically been born- Kexelm had seen images of his parents- and thus qualified as a brain. His debate partner, as was so often the case, was his occasional lover and chief foil Professor Hoon Ver Hoon (Assistant Research Division Pseudobiologist), her runically engraved skeleton clattering gently her mind, which existed in the form of a faint haze of nanomachines, gestured with it.
"Ah, I believe we're all here. Well then, I call this meeting of North Sector 12A to order. Good to see you all."
The humming voice came from the chapter head, Jai Singh (Senior Staff Manager, Accounts), whose liquid-metal brain was flowing in distributed form through the maze of pipeworks surrounding the low table/holoprojector in the center of the subjective floor.
They gathered/floated/scuttled around, all photoreceptor equivalents on Singh's coils.
"First off, again, welcome back," Singh susurrated gently, "I'll do away with the formalities because I've received some interesting news from the Primarch at Bridge Core."
Kexelm actuated the servomotor that raised one of his false eyebrows at this. The Bridge Core mainly kept to itself, the AIs there activating only in case of potential threats to the safety of the ship as a whole. Given the Solidarity's purpose, that meant they activated quite frequently, but to do so when the ship wasn't fully crewed was certainly unusual.
"Apparently a series of anomalous entities have boarded the ship."
There was a chorus of gasp and gasp-equivalents, as Singh uploaded the release he'd received from the Core. Kexelm set his face to a concerned frown and retreated inside himself, paging through the files. Well that was unusual. 2085. He didn't have this universe's documentation, but it was fairly easy to dig up version from similar realities and compare.
Qing-Herbert spoke first, as always.
"Well, they're hardly a threat, are they? Just a few genetic hybrids and an old man with a parasite. Why are you wasting our time with this, Jai?"
Twin Ferrous Pillars made a conciliatory gestures, mouths dropping in and out of chorus as she spoke.
"To make their way up here on a stolen Foundation vessel requires a great deal of ingenuity. I'm curious as to why they're here."
There was a growing rush of sound from Mild Current Flows Upward as it prepared to speak. It was probably the most intelligent of the group, but its mind worked on such an unusual timescale that even after thousands of years of friendship it still took them all some time to decipher its meaning.
"Escape. Unsuitable. Acquire."
Ver Hoon tisked, jaw clattering.
"Yes, but there are much better ways of leaving the solar system than the Solidarity, Mild. Hell, if they're that good at breaching containment why should they even bother with this iteration of reality at all? They could have taken a little jaunt into higher-dimensional space and gotten away scot-free."
Kexelm leaned forward over the table, splaying his forehands out and calling up dozens and dozens of files, each with subtle variations on a group of figures with feline ears.
"It's certainly a possibility, Hoon, but look- in almost all of these variations this… group isn't particularly technologically advanced. We're talking mind/machine interfaces, not dimensional boundary control or quantum manipulation. I'm not saying it's not a possibility, but you can't deny it's statistically unlikely."
Qing-Herbert snorted a cloud of smoke, limbs clattering.
"Statistically unlikely? Give me a break. You're reading too much into this."
He swept the images away, gesticulating wildly.
"Look, imagine this. You escape from containment, right? You do it flashily. You know your Society, or Initiative, or Foundation or whatever's on your tail, so what do you do? You find a place with lots of guns. A place that can defend itself. And then you plan your next move. And besides, if these feline-women have any technical intelligence, they'd realize that-"
"-That the Solidarity is not theirs to control," said Singh. "They've managed to intrude on one of the small-area networks, but they haven't touched anything important. Just… ordering clothes, apparently."
Pillars chuckled, making a noise like a small soft pillow hitting a bag of broken glass.
"And I suppose the Quartermasters are being stingy about their records?"
Ver Hoon snorted.
"Stingy? No doubt. Remember that time when-"
"Consider. Motives. Hidden.", Mild Current Flows Upward boomed. Singh gave a muffled noise of disapproval.
"Oh come on, Mild. Not everything has to be a conspiracy, you know. Sometimes containment breaches are just that- containment breaches."
Qing-Herbert made a sharp snapping noise.
"Just 'cause you're getting paranoid in your old age doesn't mean we have to get dragged into your ridiculous fantasies, you senile old lump of rock."
"Small. Petty."
"You take that back!"
Kexelm sighed. It wouldn't be a Society meeting without Qing-Herbert and Mild turning to pointless insults. They had literally heard, and said, it all before, but the cycle continued. He couldn't deny that the nuclear intelligence had a tendency to wild flights of fancy and bizarre conspiracies, but the small machine had a hair-trigger temper at the best of times. As a member of Security, it was his job to resolve disputes like this, so he raised a hindarm, internal generators spitting out a tiny lump of antimatter.
BLAT
There was order at the table. Qing-Herbert muttered something unintelligible to himself and stepped back. Mild Current Flows Upward looked like it was about to speak, but stopped. Kexelm cleared his throat, switching his vocoder to Authority Mode.
"Now then. Jai, is there anything else on the agenda?"
Jai bubbled for a few seconds, apparently doing the computational equivalent of shuffling through his notes, then projected a brightly coloured poster on the table.
"Ah yes. Thank you, Dr. Kexelm. Next up, First Gunnery Chief Radiant Blast Eagle is being retired next year, and the Central Committee of the Brain Society, in light of her long and dedicated service, have voted to hold a retirement gathering in Meeting Server 1.1.0.1. All in favour of sending a member of North 12A to attend?"
"Sure, why not."
"Agreement."
"Aye!"
"Okay."
"Ech. Fine, whatever."
Kexelm opened his mouth, but didn't quite get to the point of activating his vocoder.
"TRANSFER OF COMMAND CONFIRMED AND ACCEPTED. ALL INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS, THIS IS PRIMARCH ARTORIAS/BRIDGE CORE ONE. COMMENCE ACTIVATION."
All six of them froze, mid-thought, as a signal from the Core passed through their minds and reverberated along the hull. There was no time for anything other than acknowledgement. Their physical bodies tumbled limply to the floor or powered down as their minds fled to their posts, the announcements still ringing. In the wiring and conduits of the Solidarity, intelligences rushed to and fro, activating working memory and components long cold from disuse. Slamming into their posts one by one, they called out their readiness, digital voices spiralling out into the brightening cloud of the ship's noosphere.
Kexelm powered on his security devices and became them, snapping on laser tripwires, internal point defences and an endless array of cunning and ferociously deadly traps. As his mind locked firmly into the role it had been retooled for, he too made his readiness known, though it was lost in the deafening informational blast.
"SOLIDARITY IS ONLINE."