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I had no idea where I was, or how I'd gotten there.
It was a simple room. I'd almost call it an interrogation room, but it was off. There was no two way mirror. No cameras, no metal loops so the so called public servants could chain you to the table…
It was just an empty brick room with a table in the middle and a chair on either side.
It smelled faintly of mildew and dust. And the only light was a bare incandescent bulb hanging down on a chain.
A man walked in through the room's only door. He looked faintly middle eastern and he was dressed in a worn turtleneck and slacks. He had unkempt hair, a scraggly beard, and he'd gone grey long ago.
There was something in his eyes though. It felt like he was measuring you for your coffin. He sat down on the other side of the table and let out a breath. “I know you've already chosen,” He said, “but I wanted to take a moment and explain to you just what you're doing.”
I narrowed my eyes. I remembered my last decision just fine and I wasn't about to let him talk me out of it. “I don't know who you are, but I need to stay alive and free for my son. You from the Foundation or something?”
He shook his head. “Only through a quirk of naming. Look, frankly it would be better for me and the world if you stayed around, but you're not signing yourself up for an easy life.”
I got up, looking down at the old withered man. “ Sir, with all due respect, you just met me. You are in no position to judge how easy or hard my life has been, and considering my recent… I don't even know, demonic illness? I'd say I've had it at least as rough as any other single mother who worked their way through med school. But I'll keep living for as long as I'm useful because that is my job as god damned doctor and parent.”
I waved him off. “So get out of my face and bring on the feathers. I've got shit to do.”
He sighed. “You know you'll be haunted right? By yourself and an endless stream of monsters. Even the power you'll get is monstrous. The best you can say about it is that it's been digested and stolen.”
I put my hand on my hip and stared him down. “Sometimes you need a fecal transplant. Why do you want me dead so badly anyway? Think I'm some kinda threat or something?”
He shook his head and looked up at me. “No… I'm just…” He looked away, “I don't even know what I'm doing to be honest. Repenting for past sins? Praying that you won't repeat my mistakes?”
He got up and dusted himself off. “I suppose I've postponed this long enough.”
And that's when he fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth and convulsing.
I rushed over, years of emergency medical training kicking in in an instant. I pushed away the table and chair so he wouldn't bump into them and carefully put him on his side. There wasn't much else you could do for a seizure…
But it didn't stay a seizure for long.
I'd never seen anything like it. His skin went gray and his pupils shrank. His corneas widened as his eyes grew a muddy shade of brown and his jaw cracked sickeningly as a muzzle extended from his teeth.
I stepped back. Then I went for the door, but of course it was locked. I pounded on it and cried out. “Help! Help! Something is-”
I felt a strange weight on my shoulder.
The old man was gone, and in his place was a hulking, spindly, misshapen figure with massive batlike wings and huge fangs. It's visible veins pulsed an ugly purple as it stared down at me with disgust.
I plastered myself to the door, staring up into its hungry jaws.
“What… What are you?” I asked.
It bore its fangs in a parody of a grin.
“Your future, Dr. Davis.”
Then it bit down into my neck and tore out my throat in one swift crunch.

My eyes shot open in fright and I stumbled into a sitting position. The bedsheets felt unfamiliar and damp.
I thought I was blindfolded. I couldn't see anything, but more than that I felt… wrong. I knew the muggy feeling of painkillers. I knew the disorienting feeling of aching muscles and the sticky dribbling feeling of waking up from a night terror, but I'd never felt so… off.
It felt like my skull was sitting on my face wrong. Like my lips were impossibly chapped, like there were needles all over my skin, but they didn't hurt, exactly…
I couldn't feel my pinkies. Or my pinkie toes. Everything was wrong and I didn't know why.
“Latisha? Can you hear me?”
I blinked. I recognized that voice. “Frasia? What's going on?”
“You were asleep for a little while,” the kind voice began, “Do you remember what we did? To treat your illness?”
The words were like ice water poured right into my veins. “Oh…” that explained a lot.
“The blindfold is there to help you adjust. This is a lot, I know. It's best to take it slow.”
“Is Johnny safe?”
“I… I'm right here.” my child's voice was wavering, uncertain. “Your… your legs. Are they okay now?”
Shockingly, my legs felt… fine was the wrong word, but they definitely weren't hurting any more. And in spite of the strange, static riddled feeling I felt when I focused on my body, I hadn't felt quite so clear headed in months.
Whatever had happened to me, I was going to live. It was something worth holding onto.
I… smiled? I tried to smile at least. My lips didn't work the same way… I didn't think I had much of them left to be honest.
I reached up to the blindfold, but I missed. My nails felt so sharp, and everything was so gangly and awkward.
Claws, my mind provided. I had claws now.
“You're still adjusting,” Frasia said, “do you want me to take off the blindfold?”
I nodded. The motion was beyond bizarre.
She took off the blindfold and I looked myself over.
The beak took up less of my field of vision than I was afraid of, but it was still a huge, mottled thing. My feathers were jet black, but my head was all wrinkled skin.
I looked at my claws. They were shaking.
Johnny ran up and hugged me. “You're okay Mom. You're okay…”
I hugged him back.
I was crying, but my baby was here.
It was going to be okay.
Somehow.

I was able to get up walking again in a few days. It would have been sooner, but I'd sprouted dozens of pains when they rushed my transformation to get those dang parasites out of my legs.
My head was still spinning from how much everything had changed. Four weeks ago I was Latisha Davis. An aging free clinic doctor with no real prospects and an itchy knee.
Now I was an eight foot tall vulture monster. It would have been funny if it wasn't actually happening.
It was surprising how much it bothered me. I'd never turned heads with my looks or anything, but it was hard to get over the fact that I wasn't even human anymore. Every piece of my body looked wrong, moved wrong, felt wrong.
To her immense credit, Frasia had set me up in the best place to convalesce she could find. The only thing I could complain about was that the house we were staying in didn't have any windows… or any doors to the outside.
I asked Frasia if I was a prisoner and she said of course not… Though she had to amend that some of my Earth was now unavailable to me due to a complicated treaty my new family had with the group she called “The SCP Foundation”.
Still, in theory I could go to countless other Earths, or who knows how many other places besides. It was the main benefit of taking up the map.
The map… the thing I'd bound myself too was beyond strange. I could feel it in my pocket every time I moved, or from across the room if I dared to put it down. I could ignore it if I absolutely needed to, but it always called to me.
When I opened it up, I didn't just see words or spirals. I saw little fragments of a thousand lives. In this place, a man buys bread for his family, here a slug monster gives a rallying speech before an army, there a salamander lounges on a warm rock and looks up at a sky filled with floating mirrors…
I knew its power was immense. I knew in my bones that far from being trapped, all I would have to do was speak the words and I'd be… anywhere.
But I had enough common sense to keep it in its case.
It was enough to hold it back, for now.

“What is this place, exactly?” I asked Frasia one morning over a cup of tea in the house's tasteful little breakfast nook.
She took a long sip, (a delicate process with her beak). “An acclimation dimension. We find that those who undergo the change need time to process.”
I'd have raised an eyebrow if I had one. “You mean they need time to… I don't know, grieve?”
The owl woman looked down. “I wasn't going to phrase it that way, but… yes. That.”
I sighed. I sensed this would be a long conversation. “Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to you and yours. And I get what you're trying to do, but there's some real talk we need to have.”
She tilted her head. “Such as?”
I cracked my knuckles (an odd process with claws to say the least, but it was comforting I could still do it.) “For one thing, there's no hotel in the universe that doesn't charge you anything. What do I owe you?”
She stared at me. “This place is a convalescence chamber. We don't charge our own blood for healthcare. We barely charge anyone for healthcare if we can avoid it.”
I shrugged. “You got that good single payer shit then, I respect that. But that means I've got taxes to pay right?”
Frasia swirled her tea with a talon. “In theory, yes… If you want to get down to the brass tacks, the organization you have joined is what you'd call a co-op. Everyone who takes up the map has a share in the profits from our sales. As for the company management, we elect the papers' editors once a century, which means anyone that wants to stay in power has to play at least a little nice with us poor working stiffs.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Once a century?”
She tilted her head. “We haven't covered that yet? We don't age.”
My feathers slicked down in shock. “We're immortal?!”
Frasia made an uncertain gesture and her feathers flattened slightly. “Immortal is a… loaded word. You're not invulnerable. It takes at least a few high powered rifle bullets to put a Wandsman down, and we heal very quickly, but a determined party could definitely murder you. You could also fall into a pool of lava, get thrown in an industrial trash compactor, be deprived of all oxygen for two hours give or take… you get the picture. But barring all that, yes, you could be around for countless millennia.”
I slumped back in my seat. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph…”
She put a gentle talon on my shoulder. “There's going to be a lot of stuff like that to take in… Hence the acclimation dimension.”
I shook myself. “Okay… So I'll be around for a while. So what do I need to do to pull my weight?”
I swear she was smirking. “Want to get in the saddle already? Well, for starters you'll probably want some training.”
“Training for what?” I asked.
“Oh whatever role in our organization strikes your fancy. Some folks like to charge off into the jaws of nightmares in hopes of a thrill and the more sensible among us like to educate the public. There are support roles too. Some folks maintain the enchantments that sweep the floors, and keep our people fed. And some unfortunate souls end up working…” Frasia shuddered. “The Gossip Rag beat.”
I nodded. At least some of that sounded doable, but I was pulling more than just my own weight. “And Johnny? What are you going to do with him?”
Her feathers slicked. “Well I'm absolutely not going to put him in any more danger if I can avoid it! Although given your child's gifts I can't say I don't worry about him.”
I got a sinking feeling. “When you say gifts…?”
Frasia nodded, though she looked more than a bit sympathetic. “He's a magician Latisha. And a powerful one too. He clearly took after his mother.”
I stared at the strange owl in her clean, simple dress with a teacup in her claws. She hadn't dodged anything, but every answer she gave just raised more questions. “… I'm magic too?”
She nodded. “All Wandsmen are. But what we have is added on top of what we were born with. You had mana flowing through you long before you claimed the map's power. It's just locked away.”
I blinked at her. “So… What can I do with it?”
A beak shouldn't be able to form a smile, but I swear Frasia's did. “You know, I think I know just what you need to bring you up to speed.” She pulled her map out of a hidden pocket in her dress. “Fancy a trip?”
I was more than a little hesitant. “What about Johnny?”
“I'll be fine Mom,” Came my son's voice from down the hall.
I looked him over. He was leaning against the wall in that oh so confident teenager pose that never failed to make me nervous. If what the two of them told me was true, he'd literally saved my life.
But he was 17. And when I looked at him part of me still saw a three year old.
Still… he'd been safe here for days and I couldn't hover over him forever… Though I suppose I could now literally hover? No one had prepared me for this part of parenting.
“Just stay safe, okay?” I said.
Johnny gave me a salute and I supposed that was that.
Frasia offered her talon and I took it in mine. Then she pulled her map from her feathers and said ”Main Office, Homeroom.”

A thousand images of a thousand worlds flashed before my eyes in an instant, and I landed on my feet in a dimly lit, but massive lecture hall.
There were a few others scattered in the seats around me… they were clearly other Wandsmen, though for the life of me I couldn't tell much more about them in the dim.
A great booming voice called out from the front. “Welcome all! Please be seated.”
Frasia sat down and I sat down right beside her, utterly mystified as to what could be going on.
Then the lights came up and I nearly crapped my pants.
There was a bird at the bottom of the room. A bird the size of a skyscraper with a beak that looked like it could snip a battleship in half.
Then a massive screen lit up behind it, with a powerpoint slide displayed prominently.
“Welcome class!” Said the titanic roc in front of us. “Welcome to Orientation!”

Next-->


For the millionth time in a month, Rich House looked out the window.
The distant husk of Las Vegas loomed silently, a reminder of a world that would never be his. The once-familiar lights flickered in the distance as the suburbs lay silent, mere weeks after all the adults had vanished. In their place, the sky above Sin City was an unnatural magenta that faded into picturesque blue — a beautiful sight, yet horrifically bizarre.
The other houses in the neighborhood were abandoned. The other kids in the neighborhood had left once the water and power had started dying, hoping for better odds on the open road. Their homes didn't have the infrastructural reinforcements that the House home did.
He wondered, not for the first time, if staying had been a mistake, whether they would've had better odds out in the world. It was a stupid thought. He'd seen YouTube videos and TikToks before the networks went down.
The expected chaos at first. Planes falling out of the sky, fifty-car pileups on highways without any corpses. After the initial panic, elation. Kids his age modeling thousands of dollars in looted designer clothing. Younger kids gorging themselves on candy and ransacking toy stores.
And towards the end, the bizarre. Reaction videos to New York City having literal streets of gold. The Eiffel Tower and Big Ben turning into cartoon sketches. The moon looking like a parmesan cheese wheel.
While Rich found that concerning, it wasn't all that odd. There were certain benefits to being the children of high-ranking Foundation personnel. Peace of mind was not one of them. But at least he and Rhonda could see through the chaos and come to a silent agreement to hole up in their house until they knew more.
A few leaves blew past the window. Accepting that nothing was coming to get him, Rich swallowed and pulled out his phone again.
After the initial stream of social media posts and the frantic messages back and forth, his phone had gotten quieter and quieter. People had stopped responding to him as they lost power and the world's data centers had gone down.
He scrolled through the last messages he'd received from just under a week ago.

Vicky M.

How's your power?

P safe out here, still holding up. Ghost-generators are pretty reliable. [This message has been flagged by Foundation internal monitoring. Thank you for your service.]

Ikr, we get geothermal power from Undervegas here [Message flagged for sensitive information; not sent.]

Ikr? We have generators too. You figure out more about what's going on?

My whole family's still gone. Hard to research since all the servants vanished too… Still can't get Dark's personal line. Anything on your end?

Idk if the Foundation even exists anymore [Message flagged for sensitive information; not sent.]

His stomach turned as he saw the final messages Victoria Marshall had sent him.

Vicky M.

Nice drawing

dude this is a photograph

She'd included a picture of the landscape outside of her fifth summer home.
The driveway was perfectly uniform black asphalt. The trees looked like lollipops, pencil-thin trunks with perfectly circular leaves. The ripples in the pond were perfectly delineated 'w's.
That was the last he'd heard from her. It troubled him. The cartoonization event usually transformed major locations – national capitals or other famous cities – from what he'd seen online. So why was it affecting a small Nova Scotian town so strongly?
There was a knock on the door. His stomach dropped. He hadn't seen anything mere seconds before. Was this the end?
"Rhonda!" he shouted.
For three long seconds, there was no reply.
"What?"
"Get to the saferoom."
With a groan, Rhonda sat up from the couch and walked slowly towards the saferoom at the back of their kitchen, rolling her eyes. Rich's eyes followed her until he saw the baseball bat on the kitchen table.
"Oh, throw me the bat."
"A baseball bat? What are you going to do with that?"
"Still practicing your rhymes, huh?"
"I'm serious. Why not use a gun?"
"Guns haven't worked predictably since… mom and dad vanished," Rich said.
"I know that," Rhonda said. "But they're still probably better than a baseball bat."
"That's why I'm letting you keep them all."
She looked at him dubiously. "Good luck. Stay safe."
He nodded. "I'll let you know through the intercom. If you don't hear from me…"
"I mean it," she said. "You're all I have, now that mom and dad…"
He gave her a hug.

He made his way to the front door and opened it just a crack.
A man in a lab coat stood outside. He pushed up his glasses, and they glinted slickly.
"My name is Doctor Cole Thereven. I'm looking for Rhonda," the man said.
"Why," Rich asked, his hands tightening around the baseball bat. There was something disconcerting about this man, though he couldn't say what.
"Ah, to whom am I speaking?" the man said with a frown.
"I'm Rhonda's brother. Rich."
There was no response, so Rich pressed forward. He opened the door a bit more. "If you want something from her, you're going to have to get through me—"
Then he got a good look at Doctor Cole Thereven. The crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. The patchy goatee and mustache. The rough and mottled skin.
"Wait. You're old."
"No, I'm not!" Doctor Thereven said. "I'm not old."
He sounded childish as he said that, but his voice remained deep.
"You know what I mean," Rich said, with more confidence than he felt. "Now tell me what you want with my sister before… before I get rid of the last adult on Earth."
Doctor Thereven stood up straight and pushed his glasses up again. "I am the Administrator. I represent the SCP Foundation. While the rest of mankind dwells in the darkness, we—"
Rich restrained himself from rolling his eyes. "Secure, Contain, and Protect. I get it. Heard it all before. What do you want with my sister?"
Doctor Thereven's mouth dropped open. "How do you know about—"
"Half my family works for the Foundation."
He winced and caught himself. "Worked, that is."
"But how on earth—"
"Look, man, I'm sixteen," Rich said. "All my parents told me was that some Overseer pushed to let family members know about this sort of thing after his whole family ended up sucked into the anomalous anyways, and we've been taking advantage of it ever since."
He pushed the door ajar using his baseball bat and thumped his palm with it. "So, what do you want with my sister?"
Administrator Thereven seemed to be listening to something in his earpiece. "I'm putting together a team," he said. "And your sister might be one of the heaviest hitters, magically speaking, left on the planet."
Rich's first instinct was to bash Administrator Thereven's head in. His second was to refuse. "Hell no."
"I completely understand your concerns," the Administrator said. "But we're dealing with the end of the world here. You think I'm any happier with recruiting child soldiers?"
"You work for the Foundation."
"Okay, yes, point taken. Look, can I talk to Rhonda or not?"
Administrator Thereven deflated. He seemed tired, and Rich realized that he really wasn't that old. Rich did some math in his head. They had about a week's worth of food in the fridge left, and if worst came to worst, it was far better to have the Foundation's resources than not.
"If you're putting together a team, I want in. My sister's not going anywhere with you, unless I'm there."
"I completely understand your concerns," the Administrator said. "But we're dealing with the end of the world here. You might be safer here."
Rich snorted. "Fuck off, man. You really believe that?"
In the distance, a car alarm went off.
"It's your funeral," the Administrator said.
He pressed the house's intercom system. "Rhonda, it's someone from the Foundation."
She ran to join them, her feet pattering through the halls.
"He's old."
"I know," Rich said, cracking a smile.
"I'M NOT OLD!" Administrator Thereven said. "I'm not a boomer! I'm not a fucking boomer! If either of you say 'ok boomer' — "
"Wasn't going to," said Rich, though he was starting to have misgivings. This Administrator Thereven seemed somewhat erratic.
"Ah," said Administrator Thereven. "Well, I'm hardly an old man. Regardless, now that you're here… Rhonda House. Your mission, should you choose to accept it—"
"Are we going to fix things?" Rhonda said. "Do you know where our parents went?"
"Ah—uh—you, Rhonda House, are a witch!"
"I knew that," Rhonda said.
Rich was starting to feel bad for Administrator Cole Thereven, whose pronouncements were clearly not having the intended effect.
"Look. I need your help," Administrator Thereven said. "I need your firepower, Rhonda. I need your mind, Rich. I have food, clean water, and data feeds."
Administrator Thereven gestured at the deserted neighborhood around them. "Besides, do you really think you'll last all that long out here?"

Rich had to admit Administrator Cole Thereven had access to some pretty nice toys.
Once they'd accepted his offer, Administrator Thereven had snapped his fingers, and a hovering military jet landed silently in the street. It was far larger than mundane vehicles, but about par for the course for Foundation tech.
The interior was spacious, and Administrator Thereven had directed them to sit in a common area for a briefing. There was a round table with touchscreens at each seat, and the walls filled with bookshelves and cabinets.
"What's our plan, Doctor Thereven?" Rich said, as Rhonda went poking through the bookshelves and cabinets of the common area.
"Please, call me Cole," Thereven said, steepling his fingers and releasing a sigh. "It's… I just became the Administrator. I'm more comfortable using my own name."
That explained a lot. Rich had hoped, briefly, that Cole's appearance meant that other adults would be returning to the world, but it seemed that even Cole had no idea what had happened.
It raised other questions, though.
"You did have a plan, right?" Rich asked.
"Before I was thrust into the role of Administrator," Cole said, "I was merely Director Cole Thereven, of the Department of Anomalous Communications and Relations. So, for my job I went around talking to people. Communicating. Building relationships. And that's how I've continued thus far."
"For the love of — "
"I'm sorry," Cole said. "I had an increasingly specialized role in an increasingly specialized Foundation. Did you know we have at least two logistics departments — "
"You didn't do anything else?"
"This is what leadership is," Cole said. "Finding people who can do a job better than you and putting them in the right place to do it."
Rich wanted to strangle the man. It was entirely possible this was an elaborate psyop.
"Does the Black Moon Howl?" he asked.
Cole frowned. "I'm sorry?"
The lights flickered. A hole in the table slid open, and a holoprojector rose. A cartoonish hologram of blue Foundation logo with a face appeared above it.
"Indeed, to signify childhood's end," the hologram said, its image flickering. "Welcome to the SCP Foundation, Agent House. You have been granted emergency Level 5 access. I'm Skippy, your helpful digital assistant! I will now prepare relevant protocols for your review!"
Cole's mouth dropped open. "What? Skippy, why didn't you do any of that for me?"
Rich gave him a hard look. "Did you even try the code phrase?"
He stood up and leaned forward, scrolling through the files that Skippy provided him, looking specifically for information on visual distortions and mass vanishing events. SCP-8900-EX seemed too dissimilar and too far in the past. The aesthetics SCP-6080 and SCP-5045 seemed too visually distinct compared to what he'd seen.
Then it hit him. He pulled out his phone, opening his text history, pulling up the photo Vicky had sent him. "Skippy, can you run an automated cross reference on… this?"
"Will do, Agent House!" Skippy said.
"Just giving your girlfriend's texts to the talking robot, huh?" Rhonda said, skipping over and lunging onto the table.
"Foundation's monitoring us anyways," Rich said. "Gotta build those covert ties early. And she's not my girlfriend!"
"A girl and a friend but not a girlfriend," Rhonda said with a smirk. She sunk into a chair.
"Yeah, yeah, shut up," Rich said. "Hey, Doctor Thereven—"
"Please, call me Cole—"
"Why didn't you run any of these searches?"
Cole looked at them. His glasses glinted. "Rather… sussy amogus of me, wasn't it?"
A wide, toothy grin slowly stretched across Cole's face. He seemed to be pausing for applause, or at least trying to seem hip and relatable. Rhonda made a retching noise.
"Just answer the question," Rich said. He was tired. So very, very tired.
"Skippy, pull up DEROH-13," Cole said. "I was following this plan."

BY ORDER OF THE OVERSEER COUNCIL
The following file is Level 5/DEROH-13 Classified
Unauthorized access is forbidden.

DEROH-13

Contingency DEROH-13 is activated should:

Over 95% of all Foundation personnel cease to be active;
Less than 1,000 beings of genus Homo aged 25 or older remain within 1 lightyear of Sol;
At least 50,000 beings of genus Homo aged sixteen or older remain on Earth.

Under such conditions, the remainder of the Foundation's resources will be put under the provisional Department of Youth. The immediate directives of this department are:

To recruit suitable candidates to essential positions within the Foundation: Purview of the Team-Up Division;
To ameliorate panic in the wake of mass disappearances: Purview of the Playtime Division;
To ascertain immediate mass threats to continued life and restore containment: Purview of the Night Terror Division.

Secure. Contain. Protect.

"…Who named these divisions?" Rhonda asked.
"I think they're fun," Cole said.
Rich was starting to think the man was an utter buffoon. "Why didn't you run these searches before?"
"What was I supposed to search for?" Cole said.
"I dunno, stuff that could cause the Empire State Building to turn into a line drawing? Something that could cause birds to turn into drawn v-shapes?"
"And how, I ask, was I supposed to relate that to every adult on Earth vanishing?"
Cole was right, Rich realized. He was probably the only adult left on Earth, and the Foundation was likely running on a skeleton crew of AICs. It wasn't reasonable to expect one man to know everything… but he was still a buffoon.
"Skippy, enlarge that picture," Cole said. He examined it silently.
"Have you ever heard of pataphysics?" Cole said after a while. "Not 'pataphysics in the common sense, but how the Foundation defines the term. In simple terms, the world acts as if it's fictional sometimes. Behaves according to fictional rules. Follows tropes."
"How does that help us?"
"Because what we're looking at here… is a cartoon."
Rich couldn't hold his anger in any longer. "Is that all? Is that all you can fucking say? 'It's a cartoon?' We knew that already, from the Eiffel Tower and the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids turning into fucking animations! My friend is stuck in a living nightmare, and that's all you can say even though you're a fucking doctor? Jesus Christ!"
"Rich!"
"Rhonda, I – "
"It's okay to be angry," Cole said. "Being a teenager isn't easy but having all this thrust upon you can't be any easier. All I'm saying is that this change in the world isn't random. These transformations follow a set of rules, and this cartoonization is only the most obvious. The world is being forced to follow the rules of a cartoon, and the fact that it's so strong wherever this is suggests that the effect is flowing out from there."
Cole swallowed and sighed. "And that… that's why I'm not as useful as you need me to be," he said. "This is a cartoon, and in cartoons, adults are useless."
Rich felt hollow, an odd sense of guilt welling up in his soul. Administrator Cole Thereven seemed unsuited for his current role, but how much of that was his fault?
He cleared his throat. "So, we just have to go there and… take them out."
"And that's why you have me," Rhonda said. "Do you have a spell book or something? I was looking but I couldn't find anything."
Cole turned to her and bent down to look her in the eyes. "Rhonda… whoever you're facing, whoever you need to take out… chances are they're just a kid, too."
Her voice was small. "But we—we have to. For our parents."
Rich cleared his throat. "I… why us?"
"You were the best people on my list," Cole said. "Our best hope."
"How?" Rich said. "I don't even know where to begin."
Cole grasped him by the shoulders.
"In my time with Anomalous Communications and Relations, I developed a philosophy that sometimes the best way to deal with supposed threats is to meet them in the middle. Meet them on the playing field that they're familiar with. So, if the world has turned into a cartoon, you play by the rules of a cartoon. A band of plucky teenagers fighting the good fight, trying to save the world from a child's fantastical mistake."
Cole puffed himself up, and though he didn't look any more imposing than the previous times he'd tried to do so, Rich appreciated the gesture.
"Agent House. Agent House," Cole said solemnly. "By the authority vested in me as Administrator of the SCP Foundation, I appoint the two of you Directors of the Night Terror Division. The future belongs to the children."

Life Can Be a Surprise

DEPARTMENT OF YOUTH

Wake Up

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⚠ Content warning: This article contains psychological abuse, substance abuse, gore, mentioned child death, and suicide.

⚠ content warning

He often wondered if he preferred the company to the silence. They never judged him through the screen.

Three knocks on the front door sent Noah Schalit rolling to the floor. He could have gotten up if he cared to, if his willpower hadn't been weighed down by a bottle of Irish whiskey, if he could bear to be seen by anyone with a pulse.
The last point was assuaged by the voice coming over the intercom buzz. "Noah? This is Lue. Is everything alright?"
Noah opened his mouth, letting something between a moan and a whine fall out. He'd have rolled over if his spot on the carpet wasn't so comfy.
"Noah." 'Agent' Cimxeeb Lue Xong spoke like a parent lecturing a rotten child. "It's been three days. I know you need time to grieve, but locking yourself in isn't good for anyone." Lue paused. "You'd know."
Noah did, in fact, know that. Over the last twenty-something years of service, he'd seen enough of the Humanoid Division to know what being locked inside a small apartment did to people. Part of his present despair might have been driven by the extent to which he understood this. Hard to tell through the whiskey haze. He was still unsure over whether or not the irony was amusing.
Noah didn't know why his body lurched to the door he swore he wouldn't open. Maybe he was hungry, or tired, or delirious. Whatever the case, his worn little limbs found irregular purchase on the curves and contours of floor and wall, just enough to drag himself to his feet and open his door for the devil.
"Jesus, Noah." Lue was unshaken by the sight of Noah, probably. Nothing shook his heart anymore. "That bad?"
'What do you think, asshole?' came out as a noncommittal "yeah" came out as slurred affirmation. Noah might've said more, if his stomach hadn't began revolting against his new posture. For all they'd been through, there was a part of Noah that still insisted Lue didn't deserve to be puked on.
Lue nodded. "Right, uh… right." He smacked his lips, and leaned into the doorway. "…Okinawan folk, huh. Never pegged you for the type. You have the radio on?"
It was the TV, actually. SCP-B81 had infected Noah's apartment some time ago, sticking him with the International Music Station and a few dozen cognitohazards. Didn't matter to him — 6E8 muscled the worst of it out of his head.
In lieu of talking himself into an upchuck, Noah beckoned in Lue's general direction and stumbled back in.
Noah was too tired to clean these days — hard to find the energy between bottles — so the living room was still unsuitable for (normal) guests. Cigarette smoke had perfumed the walls in rancid brown, mixing with the stench of old liquor bottles in a way that made you feel higher and deader the longer you shut yourself in. When Noah could stand to take the trash out, it followed him all the way to the dumpster; he was content to let it linger for now. Wasn't hurting anyone but him.
Muscle memory shoved Noah through the mess and onto the couch. The robed lady on TV was replaced by a lounge band, crooning a lazy tune in a gently swaying bar.
Lue brushed the trash from a sofa chair, sitting down like nothing was wrong. It felt deliberate, almost. Like he wanted to comfort Noah. "…it's nice. Reminds me of when MTV still did music."
"Barely a'thing." Noah rolled to his side, attention not quite on Lue or the TV. "'swhat we used to say. To'old, man. Real… real old."
"Yeah." Lue nodded. "It's that feeling, right? You've lived too long in too little time, and you've also lived too little in too much. It never feels like you're living life like you're supposed to."
A chuckle bubbled up from Noah's throat. "'unno. A'ways wanted to… t'be somethin' out've a movie. Ne'er knew what movie. Litfic works, heh." His hand unconsciously wrapped around an empty bottle, bringing it up to his lips. Empty. "S'I guess 'mliving the dream."
Lue nodded like he'd said something intelligent.
The silence hung.
"… you know." Lue shifted in his seat. "Molly misses you."
The laugh that ripped out of Noah's chest was sudden and violent, and he would have rationalized it as an act of rebellion had it been intentional. As it stood, it was yet another symptom of his failing body, and prelude to a sudden, violent lurching in his stomach.
Noah stumbled off of the couch, sputtering over to the bathroom in pursuit of dignity. He got as far as the carpet before his stomach gave, adding yet more grime to that shameful tapestry of bodily fluid that coated his floor.
To his credit, Lue pretended not to be disgusted, simply walking over to the kitchenette and fetching some paper towels. He took barely any time to find them — more proof they were watching Noah — before Lue was beside the poor bastard, wiping away the remnants of Noah's latest shame. The whole thing was vaguely nostalgic, or predictably sickening, or vanishingly tender.
Noah's chest tightened, and he struggled for breath — except his chest had only heaved in prelude to an ugly sobbing. Why? Noah wasn't sad. Noah wasn't anything but drunk. Noah wasn't anything.
Foundation should've known that. They knew everything already. They knew how to drag Noah back onto the field, how to stand him up and pump him full of praise and panic. Shouldn't they have known what it did to someone, to work 40 after 48 after 60 after 80 after 60? Shouldn't they have known what it meant to drag a man from the arms of his family? They had to. What did they see on the other side?
Weezer was next, covering something that sounded Korean. A star-shaped bruised burned in Noah's temple.
Lue settled back into his seat, finished with yet another of Noah's messes. Something pensive, or that only looked pensive, settled over his face. "… command is thinking of taking us off the field."
Noah's words swirled around his throat.
"Been a good few years, yeah?" Lue chuckled. "I mean… sorry. Am I talking too much?"
Noah rolled over. "… you're g-good, Lue. Yrgood."
Lue nodded, or smiled, or shot Noah a thumbs up. "Thanks." Another chuckle; he was almost starting to sound human again. "You know, I think I'm going to miss it. Driving down the back roads, getting plastered with marks… even the gunfights, a little."
Noah nodded, or did a sit-up. "Don't… don't miss'ose. Too bloody."
"Don't get me wrong, was always tragic when we had to resort to that." Didn't sound tragic to Lue. "You know, they're never as bloody on film. Never as deadly. Kind of odd, really."
Lue reached into his jacket, pulling out his service pistol, and for a second Noah hoped he'd shoot him with it. Instead, Lue examined it, his expression slightly more human than last Noah checked, before holding it out to Noah.
"Take this one. Small thing, no secrets, none of that fancy stuff they do in R&D. Shoot a man in the belly, though?" He made a gesture with his hand that Noah was too drunkover to recognize. "Sometimes it comes out the shoulder. Grisly stuff."
Lue paused, setting his gun on the end table and looking over to the TV. "… you know, they get a lot wrong about guns. Like… okay, take headshots, right?" Lue looked back to Noah. "Gun to temple, gun to the roof of the mouth, probably going to kill you fast, right?" He paused, as if he was waiting for Noah to agree; he did another sit-up. "Good, right. But that's… I get why they might not want to show it, but that's not actually the easiest lights-out. You actually want to go for that, you gotta hit the brain stem." Lue opened his mouth and pointed. "Here."
Noah's throat was parched.
"I don't know. Is this helping?" Lue scratched at his head. "Sorry. I… I'm sorry, man."
Noah shrugged, an act that dragged him either forwards or backwards across the carpeting.
Folk song from the TV. Sounded African. Noah wouldn't have been able to tell you which part.
"…you're here t'get'em back to Ffffffound…" Noah's throat cleared itself. "Foundation, rnt'you." Rolling over to face Lue, Noah tried to focus in on his face. "Always do. Always do."
Lue sighed through what might have been a smile, might have been a frown, something that, either way, would have looked more natural flipped upside-down. "… listen, Noah. You know how the Foundation gets. They're never going to let us leave."
"Ne'er gonna make me, make me work, 'ther." Noah rolled onto his back, and slowly, carefully worked his way back up to sitting. "Ffffffuck the threats. Fuck money. Muscles are—" a belch escaped his throat. "—muscles are shot t'pieces. Brain's full. No good."
"What about the others? What about Molly, or Spinoza, or Whateley?"
Noah's eyes refocused on Lue. How clean he was. For all the lingering stink of the apartment, none of it seemed to sink into Lue as it had Noah. Lue could have waded through a swamp of literal shit — had waded through a swamp of literal shit, several times — and come out spotless. When he finally walked out of the apartment, there'd be nothing of Noah to show for it. The thought burned in Noah's chest.
Noah forced a laugh. "Fuck 'em. Fuck'm!" He laughed again, careening into a self-satisfied, hollow giggle. "Fuck'em all. No fffffriends o' mine!" His left hand found a bottle, and on instinct he grabbed it by the neck and raised it up. "No more strrrings on me!"
"Noah, you're drunk."
"Bingo! Tha's a bingo!" Another laugh, or sob, or routine muscular contraction.
Lue opened his mouth to speak, only to pause. "… you know," he licked his lips. "They did a study. Any amount of alcohol increases the risk of cancer."
"Baruch Hashem!" He raised his glass again, too fast this time; it sailed into the ceiling with a dull clunk. "Noah Schhhhhhitter's gonn'die early. Next year'n hell." Noah picked the bottle back up and put it to his lips. It was empty.
"Noah—"
"S'maybe, 'fya wan'ta gemme back, fffffuck off!" Another laugh; Noah's throat was starting to hurt. "I've got not friends. N'family. Nothin'."
Was that genuine emotion on Lue's face? Noah's eyes kept falling up, rising down, swirling side to side to side. Hard to focus for longer than a few seconds.
The thought struck Noah that, whatever organ Lue now worked for, the Foundation must have considered its iron grip strategically more important than the bonds between coworkers. It wasn't rational, but then, was it even supposed to be rational? Every twist of the vice-grip felt crueler, more pointed — not the cold calculations of a machine, but the legs of a hateful spider, creeping through the Foundation's veins in search of something to punish. Had the cruelty always been the point?
It took another shift from the TV (was this Arabic?) for time to move again. "Come on, Noah. There's… there's people who care about you, who'd hate to see you…"
Lue trailed off, but Noah interjected before he could continue: "Fuck'm! Fuck'm. Fuck… 'em!" He laughed(?). "Coworkers can… can fuck off, y'know. Real ffffunny people w'got workin' there. Molly'sa… 'sa fuckin' creep, prying. Whateley can fuck 'erself. Brother'sno better." Noah tried to find his balance. "An… an 'fyou gonna bring up that fuckin' Spinoza creep, I—"
Whatever Noah was about to say, he didn't get the opportunity before gravity took him back down to the floor, all the fluids and sounds in his body rushing to his face — and oh, he was crying again.
Noah tried to rein his face back in, compelling imaginary muscles to fold it back into his head and leave only a dark hole. He was too angry to be crying. He was too proud. He flashed back to a young boy falling off a swing. He was too hateful for emotional integrity, had allowed himself to be a monster far too many times to do anything remotely sympathetic. Why wasn't his flesh melting with every desperate grasp of his face? Why? Why? Why?
Noah thought back to that one game Daniel always went on about, something about robots and missing children. His mind was stuck on an image from a video he'd seen on it, of a blue rabbit — or was it purple? — pulling its face off. It was supposed to be terrifying.
The thought swam back. 'Lue is watching,' it whispered. 'Lue is getting a front row seat to your every shame.' The thought giggled, or maybe that had been the TV. 'That means he's winning, and if he wins… well, back to grinder with you, no?'
'And what then?', thought Noah.
'Did it ever matter?' The thought was grinning, now, or looking at Noah with resigned anger, or disappointment, questions of 'Why?', 'Why weren't you there for me?, 'Why didn't you consider me?'. 'If you never cared what they shore from your body and mind, why do you care for what's left to shear?'
French lounge music.
Noah forced himself to sit back up, biting his tongue to ground himself. If the thought had hands, it might've clapped. "… not goin'bck. Can't. Won't."
All this time, Lue had been patiently sitting there, looking at Noah like a sick dog. "It hurts to see you like this, Noah."
"Good." Noah's smile gave out. "Ho'pit kills ya'."
"This…" Something on Lue's face twitched. Hard to discern what exactly it was. "…this isn't what they would've wanted, Noah. What would Danny and—"
"Shut up!"
All at once, balance seemed to return to Noah, and he was standing on steady ground to the tune of a break-up ballad.
"Twenty. Four. Years." Noah swallowed. "Twen'four years, I been… 'vbeen killing lives, Lue. Puttin' people in prison for fuckin' anything, magic or freedom or, or money." Noah planted his feet harder into the carpet. "What'd I get? My head's fucked, my body's fuckin'… donor kebab for monsters, and my fuckin' family's gone. Dad's dead, mom's, mom's gone, Mel hated me to the end, Danny…" He readjusted his balance. "Ne'er gotta chance to say goodbye to 'em, Lue. Too busy with work, and guns, and…"
Noah's face was contorting again.
"… Danny'n Melissa." When did the room get so cold? "That's what you… you fuckin' psychos got me with last time. Told me to do it for 'em." Something forced itself out of Noah's throat. "Too bad! Too fffuckin' bad. Not any more!"
Lue was shivering, too. "N-Noah, I—"
"They tell how they found'm?" Another laugh ripped out of Noah. "I saw. What are they gonna do, fire me?"
"Noah, please—"
"Did Danny a fuckin' deer and Melissa a pig. Hog-tied. Head on th'wall. Hung like… like a piece'a meat. Carved weird letters in her hips." His next laugh was a scream. "'n y'know what they found in Mel, Lue? Know what they fuckin' found in her?"
Lue didn't say anything.
"Worms. They, they found worms in…"
And then Noah was back on the floor, wailing through tears for something he couldn't possibly articulate. Noah wanted to lie there forever, wanted to die on his carpet never to be removed, to stew in a rot that condemned his and every other apartment in the building. He wanted clarity, wanted blindness, wanted something he could name, claim, and shame. Every pathetic contraction and expansion of his facial muscles was a plea to die, to stay dead, to be reborn a complete man who could take revenge, to whither so hard that the world withered with him, to forget about Melissa and Daniel Schalit and Nigel Cunningham and Dr. Molly Chen and Cimxeeb Lue Xong and the man who used to be Cimxeeb Xong and Noah Schalit and, and why couldn't they let him rest, why couldn't they let him die in peace?!
But the tears had to dry up, eventually; there was only so much fluid left for Noah to expel.
When he finally came to, the TV was droning, his head was pounding, and Lue was looking at him with a look that nearly brought him back to weeping.
Lue opened his mouth, looked around, closed his mouth, winced, tapped the end table with his fingers. "… enjoy your freedom, Mr. Schalit. You've earned it."
Lue got up from his seat and left, slamming the door on the way out.
He didn't take the gun.

The TV switched to gospel.


« The Machine || HUB || Burnin' for You »

Global Occult Coalition Ritual Site "BOREAS"
Greenland Ice Sheet
3 Hours Before Ignition
It had only taken nine months. Nine months of sleepless nights, nine months of frantic effort, nine months of organizing thousands of people on Earth and more than a hundred in space. Jess could hardly believe it was almost finished. One last wave of crew, herself and a few other stragglers. Then their mission would finally begin.
She'd been trying to get a little shuteye in one of the Coalition's observation huts, a heavily-warded prefab trailer about a quarter mile from the ritual circle. Out there on the ice, the thaumatologists were triple-checking the apportation circle, a nine-pointed star inlaid with layers of overlapping silver and beryllium bronze. The geometry had been specially formulated for this mission by the Archmagi of the Scholomance, as the traditional pentagram's fivefold symmetries were considered risky at best. Twenty-seven of the GOC's most powerful mages on this side, another three already on the Joyeuse to stabilize the receiving end.
It was one of the largest apportation rituals ever performed, and Jess would be the cargo.
"Nervous?"
Jess sighed. "Is it that obvious?"
"As a squid in the senate-house."
Vice-Captain Tiffany was a bit of an enigma. Her personnel file was normal enough. Grew up in rural Arizona, graduated cum laude from Annapolis, eight years in the Navy then another six in the private sector. One ex-husband, one estranged sister, no kids or pets. Not too different from most of the crew on the surface; but there was something off about her.
It wasn't the pointy ears. Or even the weird idioms. Jess knew about elves, or Sidhe, or whatever. Met a few in Ireland, consultants on a joint operation with the Garda National Consensus Bureau, something about a magic cow. Perfectly lovely people. But Tiffany was not one, or her file would've mentioned it. And there were other irregularities. Like her surname, which was apparently also Tiffany; or her ethnicity, which was listed, bafflingly, as "Indian" rather than "Native American" or "South Asian" as would be standard; or the multiple mentions of SCP-5525, which Jess was not cleared for, in her personnel file's metadata. Sloppy redaction work.
"Something on my face?"
Jess had been staring. Shit.
"Uh, no, sorry, just… lost in thought."
"Hmm." Tiffany looked out at the enneagram. "Atlantis."
"… Sorry, what?"
"You were wondering what my deal is, right? Atlantis. Ask your girlfriend, I'm sure she's been briefed on it."
Jess froze. She and Michelle had agreed to keep their relationship quiet for appearances' sake, at least until they were out of the Solar System. She decided to play dumb.
"Ask who? I don't know what you're talking about." Smooth.
Tiffany rolled her eyes. "Your bosses told Hiram and Hiram told me. I told a few people. Didn't realize you were trying to hide it."
"Goddammit."
"Yeah. Anyway, I came up to tell you they're ready for us. Just waiting on your go-ahead."
"Then let's go."
At some point in the future, if the Veil ever came down, Ritual Site Boreas was going to be the archetypal case study on egregious and excessive use of apportation.
Apportation was an incredibly useful tool, and even more dangerous. When done right, it generated a horrific amount of backlash which could never be completely controlled — not to mention the nearly unavoidable imprecision that could leave you buried halfway in a wall at your destination.
When done wrong…
As a rule, the Foundation didn't use apportation except in the most pressing of emergencies. Even the GOC, which had been using strategic apportation since its earliest days as the Allied Occult Initiative, limited its use outside of responses to severe and immediate threats. The yearly resupply of Farpoint Station on Pluto, which tended to generate more backlash than a month of all other PHYSICS division operations, was a regular source of controversy within the Council of 108, frequently denounced as an intolerable excess.
More apportations had been performed at Ritual Site Boreas in the last nine months than had been performed during the entire Seventh Occult War — all of them targeted into deep space.
"Whoever ends up writing the Nexus file on this place is going to have a hell of—"
Jess was interrupted by another wave of backlash rebounding off the site's wards and producing a darkflash — anti-lightning, which briefly absorbed all light and deadened all sound in the vicinity. As a manifestation of backlash, it was usually only seen in the aftermath of protracted duels between battlemages, and even then only for the first few hours. At Boreas, they had started happening during the first month of operations, and now occurred every few minutes.
"They're writing it off completely," Tiffany said, seamlessly picking up the conversation as soon as the darkflash dissipated. "The cover story I heard is a radiological hazard left over from Iceworm."
"Never thought I'd be glad the US based secret nukes in Greenland."
"The Cold War made all our jobs easier." Was that a hint of regret in Tiffany's voice?
Their conversation ended as they entered the apportation room. The rest of the crew was already there, milling about out of the way of the wizards. It was a motley bunch, a mix of scientific and support personnel who hadn't been needed for the retrofit — although most of them had been just as busy as their crewmates already in space. In her case, as the only member of the ship's control council still on Earth, Jess had been left with the task of representing the Damocles Initiative to the rest of the Foundation and the GOC.
That was an upshot of leaving Earth forever, at least — she'd never ever have to deal with D.C. al Fine or the Overseers again.
The presiding magister nodded to them as they entered. "Director, Vice-Captain, thank you for joining us."
He raised his voice to address the entire room. "In a moment, I am going to ask you to step into the circle. Please try to keep at least a meter of space between yourselves, it will reduce the chance of any mishaps. You will then be apported 330 million kilometers to the Joyeuse. A probability beacon has been set up to ensure that you arrive inside the cargo hold. When done correctly, this method of apportation is fairly safe. However, there is still a chance of injury or death. By stepping into the circle, you acknowledge and accept this risk, and waive any claims of liability."
Jess rolled her eyes. Setting aside the fact that they were about to embark on an interstellar voyage of no return, the vast number of NDAs they had all had to sign just to be there — some of them enforced by geas — made it highly unlikely that any of them would ever be able to make a liability claim, even in a Veiled court. Still, you could always trust a wizard to observe minutia.
She stepped up next to the wizard. "Remember, we're not coming back to Earth, ever. This is the last chance to back out. Anybody got cold feet?" Silence. "No? Good. Then let's go."
With a word from the wizard, and just a modicum of shoving and pushing, the crew arranged themselves inside the circle.
"Director Fordyce, we are standing-by to apportate on your mark."
She took one last look out the window, at the stark glacial landscape that would be her final view of Earth. Even scarred and pockmarked by backlash damage, it was beautiful.
She closed her eyes and nodded. "Energize."

Joyeuse
(532) Herculina
2 Hours Before Ignition
The first thing Jess noticed was the smell of recycled air and polished metal. The second thing was that her feet weren't touching the ground.
She opened her eyes. The cargo bay was plain, rectangular, and mostly empty, save for some metal crates strapped down to the floor and a few jumpsuited individuals watching the incoming teleport. She glanced over her shoulder, where several of her newly-apported jumpmates were drifting off and flailing. As Tiffany stood next to her, calm and stationary, she gestured at two figures in the distance, standing astride an open shaft.
Michelle Dahl was beaming at her, clinging to a cable that ran along one of the bay's walls. Her hair floated around her head like a frizzy mane. Next to her, wearing a pressed blazer, was Hiram Douglas, a man who stood with a practiced rigidity that should have been utterly incompatible with microgravity. His tall, narrow face was adorned only with a short salt-and-pepper beard and a few thick lines around his eyes.
With just a flick of his leg he kicked off the wall and glided towards Jess as easily as walking. Moments later, Michelle pounced from her perch, arms outstretched, and quickly overtook Douglas.
Jess floated helplessly as Michelle bumped into her and wrapped her arms around her midsection. "Jess. I'm so glad you're here!" The combined momentum meant both of them were drifting backwards and slowly spinning.
Jess ran her hand along Michelle's neck and smiled. The cat was certainly out of the bag, but there are no secrets in space. "Me too."
"I wanted to stand closer, but Hiram told me it's bad luck for the commanders of a ship to get telefragged before its maiden voyage."
She glanced around for the captain, but the pair was rotating at a disorienting rate. Suddenly, a firm hand came down on her shoulder and arrested their drift.
"Director Fordyce," Douglas said. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you in person."
"I could say the same, Captain Douglas." The women released each other and straightened up as best they could. "How's the ship shaping up? I know it's not quite what Prometheus Labs envisioned."
"It's certainly different, but so is the nature of our mission. I speak for all the crew when I say we're looking forward to getting underway."
Tiffany had drifted over while they were speaking, and now she exchanged salutes with Douglas. "Captain, on that note, and with your permission, I'd like to take up station on the bridge to assist the officers on duty."
He nodded. "Yes, of course. You should familiarize yourself with the officers and get a feel for operations before we launch."
She saluted again and floated off towards the elevator shafts.
Douglas turned his attention back to Jess and Michelle. "What about you, Director? Would you like a tour of the ship while we still have microgravity?"
Jess turned her attention from Tiffany's graceful drifting back to Douglas. "Yes, please. I've seen the schematics, but the map is not the territory."
"Very true, especially when dealing with a vessel like this." Douglas held out a hand for Jess to grasp, then pulled her along as he drifted forwards in the cargo bay, with Michelle trailing behind.
Moving in microgravity is disorienting — you never realize just how much you rely on the ground to move until you're no longer in contact with it. All of zero-gee movement is just pushing, pulling, and drifting off of any sturdy object (or person) in arm's reach. Jess was thankful she wouldn't need to get accustomed to it.
"This," Douglas said as he gestured to the space around him, "is a cargo bay, as you can see. This entire level is primarily empty space, allotted either for cargo, shuttle hangars, or for the containment chambers your superiors insisted we include."
Michelle piped up. "In a pinch, they would also make a decent brig."
"Yes," Douglas said. "They could. All of the cargo level is flexible — we've designed it so that portions can be retrofitted when our needs change. Here, let's continue."
Douglas grabbed a support beam on the wall and pulled himself along the end of the chamber. Jess followed unsteadily as he entered a large doorway that opened straight into a large vertical shaft proceeding up and down.
He grabbed the ladder that ran along the shaft's side, and turned back to Jess. "Elevators aren't of any use in microgravity. We've been using the shafts to get around the ship. Of course, once we start accelerating, the g-force will pin everything to the ground, and the elevators will run through here."
Jess clung to the elevator, and glanced downward, where the shaft faded into the dim light of numerous LED safety strips.
"Engineering's down there," Douglas said, following her gaze. "I would show you, but Dr. Song is hard at work preparing for the black hole integration, and asked specifically not to be disturbed."
Jess nodded. "Up it is, then."
The trio moved upwards along the ladder. At first, Jess climbed it normally with her hands and feet, but it was actually much easier to just glide next to the ladder, reaching out for a rung every so often to add more speed or realign her trajectory.
"Next," Douglas said, "is the medbay and research level, home to all of our databases and digital storage."
They came to an opening in the shaft, another stop for the future elevator. It led straight to a reception area that was tidy and well-stocked. A petite blonde woman in a white jumpsuit was fiddling with a clipboard next to a filing cabinet anchored to the floor.
Douglas smiled. "Dr. Wikström! How go the preparations?"
"Oh, I think I've finished taping down all of the sharp things. Organization will be much easier once we have gravity." The chief medical officer's voice was pleasant and airy, with a light Swedish accent. She turned to face the shaft. "Is that Director Fordyce I see?"
"Yes! Hello, Dr. Wikström." Jess held up her hand in greeting.
Leila Wikström gave a small wave. On her left hand, a seam between skin and metal ran diagonally down her palm. Her last three fingers were all artificial.
"It's exciting to see the Control Council together at last," she said. "I'll do my best to make sure you're all ship-shape throughout our voyage."
"We're in good hands, then." Jess smiled.
Douglas cleared his throat. "Let's continue. I'm afraid we're working with limited time."
They turned back to the shaft and continued upwards, drifting towards the next bright spot.
"Next will be the canteen and leisure space," Douglas explained. "Many crew were surprised just how much volume we've dedicated to recreation. The truth is that once we get underway, boredom is by far the biggest killer. Not that research and maintenance won't occupy us, but we'll need variety to keep everyone's mind limber. I've encouraged everyone to take up a hobby, several if they're able, with preference for activities with minimal waste and maximal peer enrichment."
"It makes sense," Jess said. "Our database of novels and films won't get any larger on its own. We'll have to expand it ourselves to keep things fresh."
"By the time we get to Alula Borealis," Michelle intoned, "we'll be a floating art commune. Let's just hope the aliens like our poetry."
The next door approached, and the trio glanced inside. This was one canteen, connected to a network of other gathering spaces, studios, entertainment centers, and music rooms. Most of the tables in the dining hall were empty, but one close to the shaft held two familiar men. Pierre Duval, a drab man with curly brown hair, thick-rimmed glasses, and the vaguest suggestion of a beard, and Anton Orlov, a tall, prematurely balding fellow with a permanently incredulous expression. Commander of Strike Team 2112 ("Starship Troopers") and Mobile Task Force Psi-1 ("Redshirts"), respectively. They were focused on a game of cards; those not in their hands were pinned to the metal table by whiteboard magnets to keep them from floating off.
Michelle cupped her hands around her mouth. "Hey! Pierre!" He glanced over. "I bet twenty bucks you're gonna lose."
He smiled thinly. "Ah, madame Gormogon, your money is no good here. We are a hundred million miles from any nation of Earth."
"That just means it's about to become a rare commodity. Even rarer, for you." She winked, then kicked off the doorframe and drifted up the shaft, with Douglas and Jess following closely behind.
"There's not much to be said about the next level. Most of our life support is there, along with our hydroponic farms, waste reprocessing, and hygiene facilities." Douglas glanced into the next level's bland corridors as they floated past. "I will say, though: microgravity has a surprising number of benefits, but a few very large downsides. Many crewmates have told me that they eagerly await our artificial gravity solely so they can shower properly. For many, weightless sponge baths leave something to be desired."
Michelle nodded solemnly. "Just drying off can be… a trial."
"Now we're surrounded by the crew blocks," Douglas said, floating stiffly upwards. "I imagine most of the crew is sequestered in their cabins right now, finishing up their last communiqués to Earth."
Jess nodded. "What about yours, captain?"
"My last message was written a long time ago."
"Do you have family on Earth? Grandchildren?"
"I have nieces."
"No issues with leaving them behind?"
Douglas looked back at her. "I was ready to leave in 1997. When Prometheus canceled the project, I was given two more decades to spend with family and friends, to enjoy all that Earth has to offer. I had years to make peace with living on the ground. When I got the call from the Coalition, that they were building this ship and wanted me as captain, do you know what I did?"
"What'd you do?"
"I agreed, without hesitation. Because I was needed. Because I knew I was capable of leaving it all behind, and I didn't know if that would be true of their second choice."
"That's an impressive level of detachment."
"Call it what you will. Our mission is too important to let anything get in the way." He smoothed out his blazer. "The bridge is ahead. Our tour has come to an end."
Jess nodded, and held out her hand. "Thanks for showing me around. I look forward to serving with you, Captain Douglas."
He shook her hand firmly — it took all her balance not to be wobbled up and down by the motion. "I could say the same, Director Fordyce."
At that moment, the safety LEDs in the shaft flashed orange, and an intercom blared: "Ignition in T-minus one hour."
Michelle rubbed her hands together. "Alrighty then. Come on, Jess. Let's go blow a hole in space."

Joyeuse
(532) Herculina
5 Minutes Before Ignition
They called it the Dandelion.
It was a sphere, half-a-kilometer in diameter, made from a spidery lattice of steel and copper wires. Woven into the wireframe were thousands of stubby, gun-metal gray cylinders, about the size of semi-trucks, which protruded from the sphere like the spikes of a vast sea urchin. There were exactly 19,683 of them, all completely and perfectly identical, down to the brush strokes of the message hand-painted on the side: "Point away from face."
They were nuclear-pumped lasers. Each cylinder contained a bundle of a hundred thin gold rods, strapped around a Mark 616 "Pyramidbuster" — a 500 megaton Teller-Parsons thaumo-nuclear bomb. It was the pride and joy of the Gormogons, although they had never before been allowed to detonate one. Nine months ago, only three Pyramidbusters had ever even been built, and that was still technically true; DC al Fine had negotiated a deal with the Pentagram that gave the Gormogons access to the Atlantean Void Furnace, and they had used it to create 19,682 conceptually-linked clones of the Pyramidbuster laser.
"This is what you've been working on?" Jess asked. The three leaders of the ship had assembled on the bridge to watch the ignition of the kugelblitz, a concentration of energy so intense that it would collapse into a black hole.
"Day and night." Michelle said. "Getting them aligned perfectly was a bitch."
They were not actually looking at the Dandelion — there were no windows on the bridge, and even if there were, the ship was oriented in such a way that the view would have been obstructed by the drive hemisphere. The image displayed on the viewscreen was being provided by a live camera feed taken from the staging platform several hundred kilometers away. It had been placed into orbit around Herculina, just above the range of Prometheus' abandoned and automated defenses, to provide a stable base from which to assemble the Dandelion — and to house the engineers who would not be departing with the Joyeuse.
John Nelson, second-in-command of the Gormogons, chimed in over the radio from his position on the staging platform. "The hard part was getting them all out here in the first place. Took a month of round-the-clock wizarding, and those bombs do not appreciate backlash."
"We managed to do it without blowing the Northern Hemisphere into space. I call that a win."
"You know," Jess mused, "We're gonna look really stupid if this doesn't work."
Michelle shrugged. "Hey, I'm just psyched to finally get to set one of these things off."
As they watched, the image on the viewscreen began to dim as the Dandelion's orbit took it behind the asteroid.
"Herculina is now between us and the Earth," Douglas reported. "We have a one hour window to perform the ignition. Dr. Dahl?"
The leader of the Gormogons was practically vibrating with excitement. Gingerly, almost reverentially, she lifted the remote detonator that had been velcroed to the central control console. It had just one button, covered by a molly-guard, which would turn the Dandelion into a nuclear sunflower. There was a lock on the bottom, to which she had the only key.
Hand shaking slightly, she inserted her key and turned it clockwise, priming the detonation circuit.
The button, in accordance with tradition, began to glow red.
Michelle cleared her throat, then leaned over to speak into the intercom. "All personnel, this is Oecumenicus Volgi Iphegenia Masonbane. Prepare for kugelblitz ignition in five seconds."
She flipped open the molly-guard and let her thumb rest on the ignition button as she silently counted down.
"Oppenheimer," she whispered, "Eat your heart out."
She pressed the button.
The Dandelion exploded.
Almost all of the energy of the blast was converted into X-rays and focused inwards, into the kugelblitz. Even so, the small percentage that leaked out from the device created a flash of light brighter than the Sun, which could easily be seen as far away as Pluto. It was more than enough to instantly vaporize the structural components of the Dandelion, converting the delicate wireframe into a rapidly expanding cloud of plasma that hit the Joyeuse a second later. The electronium reflector intercepted the blast, shielding the crew and the rest of the ship, but the accompanying shockwave produced a noticeable jolt that sent everything drifting towards the floor.
On the viewscreen, the feed from the staging platform cut out.
Douglas keyed on the radio. "Platform, we just lost your feed. Can you confirm status?"
There was no response, other than static.
"Platform, what is your status?"
Michelle bit her lip. Setting off the largest explosion in human history was undeniably awesome, but it would be considerably less awesome if it had also killed her second-in-command.
Jess squeezed her hand. "The platform was at a safe distance. It's probably just a plasma blackout."
Michelle nodded, but kept her eyes fixed on the empty viewscreen.
"Platform, please respond."
"—ere, Joyeuse?" Nelson's voice broke through the static.
"Say again, Platform?" Douglas looked over at Michelle and Jess and offered a tight-lipped smile.
"We're still here, Captain. And we're getting some hot gamma readings from where the Dandelion used to be." Nelson paused to let that sink in. "Congrats, Michelle, it's a black hole."
A chorus of cheers and applause erupted from the bridge crew. Michelle gave an excited whoop and pumped her fists into the air, sending her drifting away from the control console — at least until Jess caught her and pulled her in for a kiss.
Douglas observed the celebrations with an indulgent smile, then held up a hand for silence.
"Alright folks, Dr. Song tells me we should have a margin of a few hours, maybe a day, before it gets too small to feed. Even so, let's not waste any time. Let's go get this thing."
The Joyeuse did not possess its own maneuvering thrusters — if it wanted to turn, it was expected to vector the thrust from the singularity drive. But in-order to fit the black hole into the drive in the first place, they were going to need to fling themselves at it, rear-first, and "catch" it between the superconducting blades. To that end, twelve chemical rocket boosters, derived from the conventional Centaur upper stage, had been strapped to the external hull. They would be used now, for this initial maneuver, and then jettisoned into deep space.
"Ready, Captain."
Douglas nodded, then spoke into the intercom. "All hands, prepare for thrust on my mark. Three… two… one… mark."
Twelve rockets fired, accelerating the massive ship at a few tenths of a gee and pinning every unsecured object to the ceiling. When the thrust cut out, they were on a collision course with the tiny black hole.
"ETA to intercept is twenty-two minutes and thirty seconds, Captain."
"Excellent. Keep course corrections to a minimum until we're five minutes out."
While the bridge crew were occupied with fishing for black holes, Michelle drifted away to make a private radio call.
"Nelson. I think you know what I'm about to say."
"No."
"I'm not going to be returning to Earth, and the Order needs a leader."
"No. No no no."
"That is why I will be resigning from my post as Oecumenicus Volgi…"
"Fuck off. Pick someone else. Salvador actually wants the job, pick him."
"…and appointing you as my successor. Congratulations, Oecumenicus Masonbane, you're in charge now."
"Fuck. I accept. Fuck. I'll miss you, Michelle."
"Name a kid after me. Or maybe a cat. I'm not picky. Dahl out."
She drifted back over to where Douglas and Jess were floating.
"Captain, can you handle things on your own from here? Without me and Jess, I mean."
He nodded. "Of course. Why?"
Michelle grabbed Jess by the arm and started tugging her away. "We still have 20 minutes of microgravity left."
« The Machine || HUB || Burnin' for You »
rating: +89+–x


It's still dark out.
"Haha, I have to go now!"
Pluto barks playfully and nuzzles his nose against a tall, young man who is leaving the house.
"I promise, I'll be back sooner than you think… Stay safe, P."
The door clicks shut. Pluto droops his head and his tail stops wagging, as his companion heads off to walk. Gary, his owner, always tells him that he has to go to walk to earn money for stuff like food. Why doesn't Gary bring Pluto along? Pluto is very good at walking. It doesn't make much sense.
In fact, now would be the best time to go, since the sun's rays are just coming up.
Grimacing, Pluto shuffles through the kitchen - where he tries to avoid looking at his bowl of food - and into the living room. He doesn't really feel like eating. Again.
He plops down, pale as a ghost, and stares at the pitch black telly1.
Well, not pitch black per se, but without much light to reflect it's dark enough for Pluto's eyes to wander away. Before, Gary used to leave the curtains open and Pluto would hop up onto the window sill to observe the beautiful sunrise; the weird metal chunks zipping past every few minutes on the cold morning concrete; the annoying man with weird, white, thin rectangles.
Now he always leaves the curtain closed. It's something the woman in white said to do - the woman who always comes to visit Pluto, because she loves to look inside his mouth and flash lights in his eyes and give Gary exotic white rocks, which he slips into Pluto's food. Pluto knows this very well, but Gary would never do anything dangerous, so the white rocks must be safe, right? After all, the lady says it's supposed to "help ease the pain."
That would probably explain why Gary cries some nights while holding Pluto. The white rocks must be helping Gary with his pain!
If only the white rocks were helping Pluto himself…
And the sun. He misses the sun. Outside, the country is now basking in the sun's warmth. Oh, how he longs to feel the morning breeze and warm, early sunlight again.
Argh, he should stop complaining! As long as Gary is okay, that's all that matters. Gradually, the furry canine drifts into unconsciousness, where he reminisces on the days when Gary would still play with him and take him for car rides.
He's disturbed, however, by panicked knocking at the front door. Instantaneously, Pluto's ears stand erect and his tail straightens out. Despite the pain2, he still leaps up from his comfy spot on the carpet and stands at attention, where he begins barking at the intruder. It must be that rude man with his white rectangles again!
But suddenly, something drags hideously down the wooden frame, creating an awful scratching noise, the sound of which makes Pluto wince. He gallops back to the kitchen and resumes his retaliatory barking. Yet, the man doesn't stop! He's relentless. He has even made a hole in the front door, and is desperately trying to force his way through the doggy door.
The light seeping in is blinding. It's been a long time since Pluto has seen the light.
Nevertheless, this man must be taught a lesson, even if it means Pluto has to pounce into the hot summer morning and eat all of his paper—
"Pluto?"
The dog stops.
"Ah, I was really worried! I was trying to tap on the window but you couldn't hear a thing! It's me, I forgot… I forgot my keys."
Gary… Phew. It was just Gary.
"Sorry for all the noise, I was just scared for a moment there, ha… Ha."
Gary doesn't sound right.
"You alright there, bud?"
Silence.
"P, I'm… I'm sorry for scaring you, I just really needed to see you. Nothing was working, y'know. I tried for a long time to cure you. My dad couldn't help you. Melissa couldn't help you. I'm sorry, Pluto, for… For all of that. But I… We… Want you to know that it's okay now. Come on out, bud. Let's go for a walk, yeah?"
Finally! A walk! The doggo starts running around frantically in a circle.
"Just like I promised. Let's go."
Pluto excitedly launches towards the door and out into the warm light.

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Footnotes
1. "Telly" is what Gary calls his little box where he watches little people after finishing walk.
2. A feverish sort of pain throughout his body, which has lingered for a few months now.