1st Lesson
When you were quite a good deal younger, one of the bluebottle flies which came into the house in the summer and beat themselves against the windows got into your room. You caught it and held it in your hands before letting it go to fly away again. You hoped it would stay and be your friend but it didn't, even though you could still hear its occasional taps against the glass. As children your age were wont to do, you sulked at the slight and rolled over and stuffed your hands in your ears.
You found its body a few days later, curled up in the well of your windowsill, only a few inches away from the little hole in the screen that would have let it go free. Even though some part of you knew that's not what happened, you feel guilty about the fly dying, like you were the one who killed it and not a hot sun and no food or water or air.
You could have had a little funeral, but you couldn't reach the fly in the well of the window. When you asked your mother to get it out for you, and explained why, she scolded you and said that flies were dirty. When you were older still, you learned that the fly would have died in a matter of days, anyway.
That's just how flies were.
2nd Lesson
You're older now, in school, and you've just hit back for the first time in your life. Despite all the years of reading books with spunky protagonists learning to stand up for themselves, you do not in fact feel vindicated. The blood on her face from her nose and the split lip makes you feel a little ill. Instead of crowing in joy you burst into tears and try to kneel beside her, so you can push the sleeve of your shirt into her face and make it stop.
She recoils and shoves you so hard into the dirt you hit your face on a rock and knock out one of your milk teeth, and then you're both crying. There's a humming in your head from pain and dizziness at seeing blood and perhaps a bit of indignation.
It sounds a little like a bluebottle, beating itself against the window.
3rd Lesson
You never do finish school – you have to drop out so you can take care of your mum. You're old enough to do that when she gets sick, and there's nobody else around to help her, so you do. For a while in between hospital trips and holding a vomit pan and looking up palliative care and the success rates of double mastectomies, you try to study out of your old textbooks. It's a hectic mishmash of biology and calculus and history where you can actually get past World War 2, forgetting which problem you were on by the time you come back from holding the bedpan.
It doesn't work, but you keep on trying until she's dying. Then you give up. You give up on a lot of things while you're sitting in that bed, watching her try to breathe. There's an impulse welling up in you to take the pillow and shove it over her face, just to stop that horrible rattling noise. You almost do it once, twice, then three times.
You don't, and she takes an extra five days after the doctor said she would to die, five days of piss and shit and blood and sobbing until they drug her so deep she doesn't even remember your name. Who needs to be careful with morphine when you're going to die anyway? She asks, eyes wide and earnest in her last lucid moment. After she's gone, you go out and sit on the curb of the hospital and cry so hard you give yourself a nosebleed.
Then with the coppery taste still filling your mouth, old pennies and missing teeth, you go to take care of your mother's dead body.
4th Lesson
You are older still, although not by too much, and you have the man who almost hit you with his car to thank for that. He thought you were a particularly soggy clump of rubbish in the gutter. Instead you turned out to be an mostly incoherent drunk. He still scooped you up and got you home and had absolutely nothing to do with what happened next.
The man who showed up on your doorstep with his polite smile and offered you a job as a janitor was so normal you can't remember his face. He could have been everyone you'd ever seen in a background before, a crowd shot in a television show or someone going by you in a busy street.
Mr. Jones?
Mr. Smith?
Does it matter?
He laughs and waves your question away when you ask him who the fuck would want someone as a janitor so bad that they'd be willing to send someone else out to a front door. I oversee all D-Class personnel requisitions, he replies. It doesn't matter. But the pay is good, and you can drink on your off days all you want. You'd be living on-site, but the Foundation treats those well who treat it well.
You turn and look back over your shoulder, considering the grimy hallway still soaked in muck from when you stumbled in last night. You consider the itchy corporate branded work shirt you're wearing, the one that always creeps up under your armpits. You consider the pounding hangover you've got, and the way something about the man's horribly normal face suggests that saying no might not be an option. You think good and long and hard about your life and how you're living it now.
Okay, you say. Okay.
And you try not to think of your mother.
Graduation Day
You are much much older, and your knees are sore, although that's the last of your worries on any given day. You don't even have time to consider all the different ways you've ever seen people die, and to be honest, it didn't even matter anymore. Blood and shit because they blinked, alright, whatever. It was the kind of hyperviolence you saw on movies and television and wasn't it easier to just keep your head down and mop?
You don't get to know half of the things that go on here, at Site-19. You're not a scientist in a white labcoat, you're the person who scrubs up the piss from the tile when a junior researcher sees something he wasn't prepared for. You're definitely not one of the skips kept behind locked doors- that's what all the people like you call them, skips. There's one of your fellow D-Class who keeps calling them scips, like what you do to a drink you want to savor, and he gets screamed down with derision in the mess hall every night. They're horrible, wonderful things and if you and everyone else here didn't do your part to keep them contained the whole world might end.
(That's what they call an XK. You listen more than you probably should.)
You've lasted longer than most. Is it because they want you alive? Is it luck? Who the fuck knows? It doesn't matter to you. You're just living here.
But in a way, being confined has given you an appreciation for the smaller things. You get three fucking meals a day (of Soylent Green-esque pap that you're not entirely sure isn't made of people, because wouldn't that be fitting) and a place to rest (small, steel-frame, in a room full of snoring assholes) and your job isn't too hard. (Mopping. Sometimes it's piss, sometimes blood, sometimes it's chunks of what used to be a member of those fancy on site task forces before a skip got them. Still better than working at Burger King.)
You've finally found a place. Not your place, it's a little too hostile for that, but it's a place with room for you in it and that's good enough.
You roll over and with the little metal screw you took from the mop, you scratch a line on the wall. It's the best way you've found to keep up with the time of the year, and the overseers don't seem to mind it. You scratch another line on the wall. You've gotten one year older, give or take. You're not dead yet.
Happy Birthday.
End.


Humans were never meant to live as long as O5-13.
Turtle is supposed to live this long. I could be a turtle man.
A rare smile crept across the usually sullen face of -13. The man nearly attempted to hide the smile before realizing that he was alone. No more hiding. There would be no use anyway. Something had changed. -13 was not sure what it was yet, but something was different. The ache in his bones had subsided, a rare occurrence. -13 hadn't felt so good in years.
Every fiber of his being told him that he was sitting on a familiar beach. But of course that was impossible. -13 hadn't sat on a beach for as long as he could remember.
A childhood memory?
No, impossible, and if it was the case, he was going to need to make a call to up the dose of the antimemetic cocktail he made for himself everyday. "An O5 must have no past, and must always look to the future." They had agreed on that when they made the creed with each other.
O5-13 took a long sip of the vodka he didn't realize he was holding. A flood of memories washed over him with every sip, drinking with friends in college, taking a swift, teasing sip of a drink held by some lady friend of his, spluttering all over the table when his father had introduced him to the drink. -13 closed his eyes and attempted to think of his father. What had previously been a blank slate had been replaced with a strong, tall Russian man, an intimidating frame, other than his hard but caring eyes.
-13 tried to take another sip, only to come up empty.
No matter.
His childhood had come back to him. Living with his father, many times in poverty, but never in sadness. No mother. Possibly dead? Didn't matter. The brief distraction had been nice, but O5-13 still did not understand his situation. Standing up, he moved towards the crashing waves of the beach. As he approached, the waters calmed, and seemed to freeze. A tentative step onto the water revealed that he was able to walk on it, despite small shoals still popping up around him.
The sunset was ahead of him. With nowhere else to go, he stepped forwards. The sun got larger as he approached, like a backdrop on a painted set. He moved forwards until the rest of the pink sky had disappeared, leaving only the yellow of the sun. -13 stuck his hands out towards the yellow, revealing that it was also solid. A sliver of silver caught his eye, and he noticed a doorknob.
Twisting the door open, O5-13 stepped into the sun.

O5-13 walked down a set of stairs in what seemed to be an airport. Everyone around him spoke English, a language he was somewhat unfamiliar with. Several people waited at the bottom of the stairs with signs. Scanning the signs he picked out the only one in Russian.

Добро пожаловать Врац ██████

-13 could not tell what name was on the sign, just that it was his. Attempting to look at the sign gave him a headache. The man with the sign lit up with recognition upon seeing -13 descending the stairs.
"My name is Dr. Misha Pajitnov." said the man in perfect Russian, "I attended one of your lectures on parapsychology before I got transferred to an American site. You have done wonderful work."
"Thank you, but could I see some identification?" -13 responded somewhat curtly, "I didn't live this long in my line of work by getting into cars with people who just claim to know me."
Dr. Pajitnov handed a piece of paper with an order from the Site Director and an ID badge. As -13 looked at the paper, it transformed in front of his eyes, as the scenery changed from a grungy airport to some sort of lab. The documentation regarding his processing to a new Site had been transformed into a research paper. A door opened behind him.
"Still writing?"
A man younger than he, yet his superior, stood in the doorway.
"Doctor Buchanan, what a surprise to see you here so late." -13 asked bemusedly, "When do you usually leave? Four hours early or five?"
"You got me there. Site Director privilege I guess. Come with us, we're getting drinks. Leave the papers to the Junior Researchers."
"Can't. Working. Too many anomalies, too little time."
"You'll burn yourself out this way. When was the last time you had a drink?"
"Years. Don't plan on drinking again. Too much money to just waste time."
"Well if you change your mind, pretty much everybody will be down the road. I guess you'll be hanging out with Site security again tonight."
"I like them. They don't talk as much as you."
"Cheeky. I could fire you at any time you know."
"You wont. You like me too much."
The young man rejoined the other researchers, and finally left -13 alone. O5-13 turned back to his previous paper.

OFFICIAL O5 SUMMONS

Looking up from the paper, -13 found himself in a conference room with several other people.
"What was I called here for?" -13 asked, concernedly, "Is there an issue?"
"We… have had some issues with your home country." the man at the end of the table asked, "We do not display the members of the O5 council to everybody, and unfortunately our member from the Soviet Union has passed. We need you on this council or we risk… complications."
"Forgive me for my rudeness but am I to assume that I have been some sort of back-up all along?"
"Don't flatter yourself." a woman two seats away from him said, "We have had several other candidates. However, you outperformed the others, so congratulations. Welcome to the O5 council."
"Is that… it? Do I get a choice?"
"Of course. You can refuse and pass up a chance to alter the fate of the entire world, but you wouldn't make our decisions harder would you?"
"I like my Site though. I have a lot of work going on there. The people are good."
"How naïve. Security, please take him to get amnestized."
"Is this necessary? I don't even know where I am right now and I'm sure I'll forget your faces."
"Do you think we got this far by being careless? Could you please take him to room 13?"
"Yes ma'am. Standard or special?"
"Special please. This man is very important."
-13 was escorted to Amnestization Room 13, and placed into a chair with straps. The straps were placed around his wrists and ankles rather roughly.
"Whats the order?" the woman asked over the intercom.
"Special order, no past, when he wakes up, tell him about his job and such."
"Gotcha."
"What do you mean? She said to just clear the last day or so. Hello?"
As the first syringe went in, the room around him became the conference room he was in earlier. He sits in his chair and waits.
Another day, goes by, this time he has to resolve a tie. He waits more
His skin grows wrinkled and gray. He grows older, usually sitting in a chair, waiting to have to make a decision.
They give him a treatment so he ages back a bit. The mind stays old but the body becomes new. He sits in the chair and waits.
A snapshot of his decisions over the measure of seconds. He ages forwards, sometimes backwards, sitting in a chair, just waiting until he has to make a hard choice.
He makes a decision to make himself immortal. Wasn't even a difficult decision, or a tiebreaker like it tended to be. A unanimous vote to escape death's cold grasp.
And eventually, the chair he sits in is a beach chair, with a vodka in his hand, older than he has ever been, but feeling as young as can be.
I imagine I should wake up sometime soon. Would be nice to stay here a bit longer though. Does this happen every night?
The area around his periphery darkened, moving in gradually.
My name is-
His thoughts were interrupted by the dark finally closing around his vision.The last thing he could see was the sun setting across the horizon.

O5-13 lays on the ground. An unkillable man is dead, as are the 12 other unkillable people. He had been shot several times. The light had faded from his eyes, his immortality stripped from him. A life lived many times over. An old man, older than what should've been possible. A man who had worked with impossibility every day until it became mundane, just a job.
His name was O5-13. He has no other names.


The sudden jolt of pain was enough to make him think, for a mad second, that he'd somehow jammed his pen through his hand. The boy just barely suppressed a shout, clenching his hand tightly shut and sitting up abruptly from what was a half doze. Eyes wide, he looked down at his fisted hand, then, seeing no obvious injury, tried to surreptitiously look around for some cause, or culprit. The room was silent, save for the mild drone of the teacher tapping out graph points. Everyone was hunched over their desk, hard at work or attempting to look as such. The pain started to ebb, not vanishing but smothering to a dull, pressing ache. He blinked, trying to affect an air of normalcy as one of his nearby classmates gave his wide-eyed, pale fidgeting a suspicious glare.
One breath, two, in and out. There wasn't any blood, but he was nearly too scared to look. His dad had told him pressure was the key, maybe if he let go it'd start gushing or something? His mind whirled around like a rabbit in a cage, scrabbling between fear, confusion, and embarrassment. Should he just look? What if he actually was hurt, somehow, it felt like he'd been stabbed or something. But if it turned out to be nothing, the embarrassment might actually kill him. The teacher turned, the class rapidly assuming poses of legitimate and mock attention. The boy started, sitting bolt upright in panicked reflex as the teacher's eyes held his, eyebrow cocking at the behavior, but gliding on to the next bulletpoint. The boy slumped, released. He leaned forward, feigning a search for paper, covering his throbbing hand with an arm, slowly uncurled his fingers, and looked.
The class was suddenly raked by a sharp, choking scream.
Heads turned, mouths agape, a startled mumble of “what the fuck?” wafting from the rear of the class. The boy sat, one hand clamped over his mouth, the other thrust as far from himself as possible, eyes as wide and rolling as a spooked horse. The teacher, glaring a warning in the direction of the swearing, swung his gaze at the nearly comical figure of numb shock pinned in the middle of the room.
“Is there something the matter, young man? Bad dream, perhaps?”
A rill of laughter, snickering teeth, swapped gazes. Never mind the paleness of his face, the trembling of his hand. The teacher minded, eyes narrowing. Seemed a good sort, but drugs, maybe? Something was off.
“Are you alright? You seem a little-“
“MAY I…ahh…may I use the bathroom? Please?”
The teacher's eyebrows raised, a patronizing smile playing across his lips. The last resort of the put-upon student, the bathroom pass. Still, he did look a bit off, and if it came down to vomit or worse, he'd rather it in a designated facility. Still, something was off. Why was he staring at his fist so much? Why the shaking…
“I suppose it could be arranged…what's that you have there? Yes, there, in your hand. Come up here, let's see it.”
The boy's eyes rolled, flickering between the staring, mocking eyes of his fellows and the accusatory gaze of the teacher. He rose, shivering, his eyes drawn unwillingly down to the fist clenched low, away from his body, trying to ignore the odd pressure inside, the pinching, almost shifting sensation against his trembling fingertips. The teacher cleared his throat, extending a hand as the boy arrived at the desk. Giggles laced with schadenfreude skittered behind him, his wide, staring gaze fixed on the teacher's face. His fist trembled, raising with a dreamlike slowness a few feet before freezing. No. There was no way, not here. Not in front of everyone. His mouth worked bonelessly, a creaking squawk eliciting a fresh rill of chuckles.
“Come on now. Let's have it.”
“I…I'msorryicant-“
And he was running, bolting from the room, the shouts of the teacher and laughing jeers snapped off as the door swung shut behind him. Feet pounding down the empty, wide halls. The grey tile, the dented lockers, it all seemed mocking in its normalcy, a panting whine escaping his lips as he scrambled to the bathroom. There was noise somewhere down the hall, shouts of command, but all he could hear was blood slamming in his ears as he all but fell inside, tearing open a stall door and collapsing on the toilet lid, gasping. He was vaguely aware of a voice very much like his own, but too high and laced with weeping, muttering “nononono” like some nonsense charm. He looked down at the fist in his lap, shivering like some spooked animal. The fingers rolled open, slowly, as if pried open by an unseen force. Voices outside, questioning, confused yet commanding. It meant nothing, not now, as his palm finally came into view.
The skin of his palm split bloodlessly, bulging at the sides, as a poisonously green, watery eye rolled forward to stare with broken pupil at him from the prison of his flesh. As his screams elicited a matching reply from outside his stall, the oozing pupil dilated with pleasure.


“Mr. Krain?”
I turned around and stared at an unfamiliar face. This couldn't be happening; I needed more time. I stole the aluminum foil from the broken cabinet, grabbed the sweater that I repurposed into a bag, and made a dash for the fridge. All I just needed to grab now was the-
“Mr. Krain, this is a restricted area.”
I flung open the fridge and stuffed as many bottles of wine into my makeshift bag as it could fit. Now I just needed to get to the stall before they called for backup. I looked around the room for something to fend off the assailant as she raised a device to her mouth.
“Please send security to the storage room in the cafeteria. Connor has broken in and appears to be having an episode.”
I grabbed the empty knife block and chucked it at her head, knocking her out cold. I picked up my bag and made my way to the stall. I could already hear the patter of backup arriving at the storage room as I entered the bathroom and locked the door.
I was already onto my third bottle by the time the door started pounding. I had lined the stall with as much aluminum foil as I could, but I knew it wouldn't hold. I could only hope that I'd black out before a dangerous memory returned.
I was having trouble seeing by the time I heard them begin to drill through the door. “Stop, if you breach this room you'll risk coming in contact with an… an infohazard that c-”
“Mr. Krain, that's not a real thing. None of what you are scared about is real. Those are all just stories from when you were young. You were a writer once upon a time, and you wrote all these fantastical stories.”
“No, you don't understand. The amnestics… my memories are coming back. I need… I need to stop them.”
My vision was getting blurry and I couldn't stand, but they were almost through the door. I managed to gulp down one last mouthful before the door fell and they stormed the room. Five armed guards apprehended me while a woman watched from the doorway. I tried to speak, but the darkness swallowed up my vision.

Following a patient's third episode this month, staff have been reminded that under no circumstance are they to interact with a patient after curfew without the presence of two armed guards. Additional cameras have been installed in all staff rooms and corridors, and at least one security personnel will be monitoring them at all times. We thank you for your service.

- Senior Care Providers Nursing Home


The pale lights reflecting off of Neptune's surface basked the corridors of Orbital Area-11 in an alien hue. N.J. Watts flung herself through the glow as she traversed the corrugated metal passageway, one of many running through and alongside the station. In her zero-g drift she turned her head to face the bullet/micrometeorite/thaumaturgy-proof panes running down it, one of few accommodations provided by the site designers for the claustrophobic Extrasolar Activities Division members.
She spotted a silver spec. Autonomous Exploration Satellite Ehlers-001 was now a glimmer in the orbital void of Neptune, nearly blending in with backdrop of the planet's surface. Unless she had mistaken a stray asteroid for the probe.
"All personnel in Project Aster Jumper report to Command Center 2. I repeat, all personnel in Project Aster Jumper report to Command Center 2."
Already on it.
N.J. grabbed a handlebar and abruptly slowed before entering an elevator at the passage end. She clicked safety straps around her Foundation-issued orbital coverall and tapped a button to descend. The doors clunked shut, electrical motors whirred, metal rattled. The elevator began moving away from the station's axis to the bottom of its second spinning habitation ring. Gravity crept in. Every inch the elevator lowered she felt false gravity, generated by the spinning ring's centrifugal force, press down like lead bricks, the straps pushing into her body more and more.
After a minute the elevator lurched to a halt. She hastily threw the straps off and bounded from the opened entrance, speedwalking down a steel hallway that looped around the ring, ever-curving upwards. White-uniformed technicians rushed past her, frantically asking about potential X-ray receptor errors on Ehlers-001. An eight-limbed cleaning bot scooted past. She flashed her keycard in front of a scanner and Command Center 2's door shot open.
"…fusion reactor checks are so far looking good, oh, and a good California morning to you, Enjay." Hyeon 3Mun looked up from his holographic display monitor and waved a cybernetic hand.
"You still remember what places on Earth are having their mornings?"
"No, but the internet sure does."
Rows of computer terminals filled Command Center 2, buzzing with neon glows and the activity of a dozen researchers perched over feeds of diagnostic data. One of the four screens on the front wall showed a view of Ehlers-001. The probe's main chassis was a cylinder with arrays of sensors jutting out all over, function over form, with the toroid of a fusion reactor connected to its relative underside. Attached to the far end was a carbon nanotube-reinforced metal octahedron that was large enough to make the main chassis seem like a parasite. The Bifrost Superluminal Engine.
"Stunning, isn't it?"
She averted her eyes, busy inspecting the glimmering square lattices of the nanotubes, and turned to Hyeon. "No views quite like this one," she said, still more focused on the screen. The probe drifted over the Neptunian backdrop — a vessel at sea.
"So much better than anything at the Luna-Korea shipyards. Is it crazy knowing your engine's actually out there?"
"Would be if I still remembered designing it." The cocktail of amnestics and memetic blockers jabbed into her brain. The Foundation didn't trust anyone on the Bifrost design team with knowing what they had actually built, with exceptions for people who must've been promoted that she had also forgotten. A few more jabs and she figured it was best not try the patience of her nanotech implants by thinking about it.
The last of Project Aster Jumper's researchers spilled in through the door. N.J. snapped back to reality. Launch would happen any moment now.
She looked at Hyeon and found him distracted with floating wireframe visuals of the probe's quantum computer circuitry, likely tuned out of the conversation he'd tried starting. Not bothering to get his attention, N.J. slid over to her desk. Another flick of the keycard and it awoke from its slumber. The monitor lit up to extend luminescent text boxes into the air, relaying information sent by the probe's AIAD unit on the status of the Bifrost Engine.
All systems nominal.
She pressed a button to send the GO signal. A green light flashed above her monitor. Dozens more appeared as the other researchers confirmed all was well. A timer appeared on one of the screens in the front, every word read out by the simulated voice of an announcer.

T-minus 60.
T-minus 59.
T-minus 58…

The seconds ticked by like hours. N.J. nervously fidgeted with the pouches on her coveralls, clicking their buttons together and apart in a monotone rhythm. The Foundation was no newcomer to faster-than-light travel, having used probes outfitted with Lang Distortion Drives to explore neighboring stars since the 2020s, but they always went wrong. The thaumaturgic rituals they relied on were too prone to failure, once sending an autonomous station far out of the galaxy into an intergalactic void. At best they could only bring you a few light-years away in a year.

T-minus 20.
T-minus 19.
T-minus 18…

It was too costly to keep using.
She glanced at Hyeon. He wiped sweat from under his brown hair. After so much effort they couldn't afford a problem. Ehlers-001 had to work.

T-minus 10.
T-minus 9.
T-minus 8…

She took a deep breath.
This mission had to work, so she could figure out why the Division needed it to later.
It had to work.

T-minus 3.
T-minus 2.
T-minus 1.
T-minus 0.
Bifrost Engine start.

On the screens, light twisted. The space around Ehlers-001 arced into impossible circles, light passing through the wavering spacetime and presenting magnified views of the Neptunian backdrop and the probe, like it was refracting through the water of a tumultuous sea. The circles bent to form a sphere around the probe, creating a pocket of spacetime only the probe would inhabit. Ehlers-001 was now out of sight, wholly replaced by the magnified views. In nanoseconds, the views vanished too. Monitors announced the detection of high-energy gravitational waves, but there was no trace of the probe left.
Reserved cheers. Murmurs. Silence. A new timer appeared, one that would finish its countdown in seven days. Seven days until they would know if they had succeeded.

Ehlers-001 was surrounded by darkness as its bubble of spacetime carried it through the cosmos. Aside from the probe all that was present was heat it gave off, gradually dispersing into the matterless void. Despite the isolation from the universe, flickers of far off things emerged in the distance. Vague billowing masses that seemed like creatures yet weren't, ethereal glows forming shapes wrong enough to break a human mind, gray spirals — scraping past something beyond reality.
An alert rang out deep in the supercooled quantum computers. Hyperborean.aic — digitized pilot of the probe — had to take action. The Bifrost Engine vibrated the vessel as it began to strip away layers of the bubble, reverting it back into regular spacetime. The impossible imagery vanished in an instant as light seeped in from outside. Slowly but surely the universe came into view.
Ehlers-001 was in the interstellar expanse of a star cluster, 27,000 light-years from Sol. In the visual light range the sky seemed lighter than normal, the stars more tightly packed together than in Earth's skies. Switching to the full EM radiation spectrum brought a cavalcade of data. Thousands of radiowaves, X-rays, and gamma rays sped from star systems, bundles of data in tow. Each hit the probe's communications dishes and was decoded by Hyperborean, unveiling countless messages of alien civilizations. Warnings, diagrams of weapons, seven and four-fold fractals. Most were untranslated but the origins were clear.
Within a subsection of the probe, a vial of blood dripped droplets into a chamber filled with intricately carved occult symbols. Mechanical arms spun and flailed about, moving ritual artifacts through and around the fluids in well-orchestrated patterns, accompanied by a loudspeaker's recording of a thaumaturge's chants. Existence bent. A metal panel folded inwards to form a Way to another universe. Transmitters beamed status reports into the purple skies past the Way, sent to any Foundation outposts built there, and deactivated soon after. Aetheric energy quickly bled out, leaving the metal panel to reform while destroying the Way.
The status reports were short, miniscule in comparison to the reports compiled by past probes venturing to extrasolar shores. Yet they carried all the weight in the world.

N.J. forced her head off her pillow. She gently flicked a switch above the bedside table and watched the holographic display of a forested area by her bed melt away. It churned and solidified into a view of a Europan ice mine, the mass of Jupiter looming over its metal domes; a live feed lagging by the 207 minutes light took to reach her. A second hologram emerged above the sight of a spherical cargo drone descending to a landing pad. A message.
She rubbed her eyes, then lifted up to read it.

Got a signal from Ehlers-001. It's made it to Terzan 2 right on time. Not an error in sight. Division Head wants us to get this show on the road (still won't let us know why we're in this star cluster of all places) so get your butt down to ComCent 2.
Sent by Hyeon 3Mun, 1 Hr 30 Min ago

A new era of interstellar exploration was beginning.

|| HUB || SCP-3417 »


Time marches on, both for demons and the devils that contain them. At the end of the day, we all grow old.

by stormbreath

Harold Wodiew lived a rather uneventful life - or rather, as uneventful of a life as one could when you worked for the Foundation and were stationed in Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin. He was the Senior Archivist at the little site, storing the minor non-anomalous objects the Foundation wanted to hold onto, and all of their associated files.
He had a letter, from "ADRX-19". Checking with the records, he saw that it was the oldest Foundation site, back from the days before it was even called the Foundation. There had been an update - it was growing too old, and was being shelved, with everything being shipped off elsewhere.
Today, Site-87 received the first of their packages from the old base, a large wooden crate and a case of files to accompany it. It had been wheeled up to the bay doors of the Archives by a delivery man, and had stunned Harold when he read what was stamped to the side.

SCP-001

Harold looked at the delivery man, who only laughed and said, "You didn't hear? SCP-001 is dead."

Item Number Assignment: SCP-001-COG
Date: June 12th, 1904
Summary: Following the decision of the Administrator and Overseer Council to redesignate contained objects with arbitrary numerical designations, it has been decided that the anomaly formerly designated as #86243AR-001 will be reclassified to SCP-001-COG.
Formerly, the Foundation has appended all objects with a numeral designation indicating the order in which they brought into Foundation custody. As the new SCP-001-COG was the first object formerly contained by the Foundation, it was assigned the -001 tag. However, it has been decided that this system provides too much information to potential adversaries, and must be done away with.
The Overseer Council has elected to use the SCP-001 slot for a non-traditional purpose. Rather than host a single anomaly, it shall be a collection of the most dangerous, highest interest or most important anomalies contained by the Foundation. In this manner, the SCP-001 will contain an unknown number of real files, along with a large number of decoys.
However, the Administrator has voiced the opinion that placing SCP-001-COG among the other files of SCP-001 will allow it to act as both a real file and a decoy. The details of SCP-001-COG are accurate and can be placed within the SCP-001 slot without raising suspicion: one might think that we are merely being shy about our origins. However, it will belie the truly important anomalies of the SCP-001 slot, that actually require subterfuge.

Object Class Assignment: SCP-001-COG
Date: April 21st, 1912
Summary: Following an assessment by the Foundation's Classification Committee, it has been decided to assign SCP-001-COG the Object Class of "Euclid". This has been decided as a result of SCP-001's infrequent attempts to escape containment and the moderate danger level of the anomaly.
The Object Classification system is an attempt to assign simple metrics and descriptors to anomalies under Foundation supervision. These will ideally allow for a simple way to communicate the danger level posed by an anomaly in the event of a containment breach. Some have objected to this system as dangerously reductive, but the Classification Committee has decided the benefits outweigh the risks.
This may come as a surprise to certain readers who have been following the new Object Class system with interest. They may recognize that the "Keter" Object Class was named after the first fatality caused by SCP-001-COG, that of Doctor Hermann Keter. Dr. Keter was one of the highest ranked scientists in the Foundation prior to his death, and the decision was made to name a vital element of our operating practices after him. However, the anomaly that killed him does not meet the qualifications of a Keter-class anomaly.

Incident Report SCP-001-COG: Containment Breach
Date: 15/06/1932
Reporting Personnel: Sergeant Vincent Jordan
Summary: SCP-001-COG breached containment today, by creating a microsingularity close to it for teleportation. It reappeared fifty feet outside of its containment cell, attempting to travel the halls of ADRX-19. It is worth noting that this is substantially shorter than other teleportations that it has achieved, which have measured up to three thousand feet in the past.
After breaching containment, SCP-001-COG appeared confused by the bright lights of ADRX-19 (recently installed as part of a Foundation-wide attempt to renovate the appearance and decor of all Sites and Bases, but coincidentally helpful in the impediment of SCP-001-COG's escape attempts). As SCP-001-COG is photosensitive and harmed by light, it began to panic.
SCP-001-COG encountered a group of researchers and attacked. It first utilized a microsingularity, producing large amounts of radiation, poisoning all researchers. It attacked one researcher (Dr. Henrietta Clark) with its claws.
Site security arrived at the scene seconds later and scared SCP-001-COG away from the researchers with a burst of warning fire. They were able to successfully guide it back to its containment cell using high-intensity flashlights.
Dr. Henrietta Clark has been placed on medical leave and is expected to make a full recovery, as have all other involved researchers.

Incident Report SCP-001-COG: Neutralization
Date: 17/08/1961
Reporting Personnel: Sergeant Vincent Jordan, Junior
Summary: This morning, a routine check of all anomalies contained within ADRX-19 indicated that SCP-001 was not moving. After entering the containment cell, armed guards received no hostile response from SCP-001.
Further medical investigation of the anomaly revealed that it was no longer breathing, and its heart had stopped beating. While little is known about the biology of SCP-001, it was confirmed that it both had a pulse and needed to respirate.
This comes at the end of long period of apparent old age from SCP-001. In the past decade, SCP-001 has been weaker and more sluggish than it was when initially captured, demonstrating significantly less violent behavior and fewer breach attempts.
It is likely, therefore, that SCP-001 merely died of old age.
An autopsy for SCP-001 has been scheduled for 19/08/1961.

Foundation Wide Update: ADRX-19 Closure
Date: 01/06/1980
Summary: ADRX-19 was the first of the Foundation's dedicated containment locations, and its legacy still bears an impact on operations today. The leading containment site (Site-19) was named in honor of ADRX-19, as a tribute to the dedication of the individuals who worked at that site.
Many of the current operational practices and architectural designs that are used by all Foundation sites were first conceived and implemented at ADRX-19. These are many and vary wildly in nature, but ADRX-19 was the first Foundation building to truly have the "Foundation style" that is so familiar to us all.
However, ADRX-19 is growing old, and it is time for the Foundation to move on from these roots. Beginning in 1970, Phase I of a plan to phase out ADRX-19 began. As a result of this, anomalous objects ceased to be sent towards ADRX-19 for containment and were sent to other locations, including its successor, Site-19.

Beginning in 1973, all Keter class objects were transferred from ADRX-19 to other, more appropriate locations. Beginning in 1977, all Euclid class objects were transferred. And now, all remaining Safe or Neutralized objects are being transferred to other sites. Archival and low-security objects will be sent to appropriate locations.
The actual building of ADRX-19 will be demolished once all objects have been relocated, and all personnel stationed there will be transferred to new locations.
Overwatch would like to thank all the staff members of ADRX-19 for their commendable service over the past ninety years. Their dedication is appreciated.

In the crate, Harold found nothing more than a pile of inhuman and strange bones that belonged to something that should have never existed. The files he had been given were strange and outdated - they looked like they had been written decades ago and had never been updated.
He had heard legends about what SCP-001 was, little stories from here and there. The greatest failings of the Foundation and the Ethics Committee or secrets too terrible for the Foundation at large to know or terrible monsters. It happened all the time over lunch: "What do you think SCP-666 is? SCP-013? SCP-1000? SCP-001?"
He was disappointed, in a way, to know that it was nothing more than the first thing the Foundation ever threw into a box. There wasn't really anything important about it, not anymore, at least.
As Harold wheeled the crate containing the remains of SCP-001 to the back of the storage hanger, he mused to himself about how the Foundation had moved on. The documentation he recovered implied that SCP-001 had been crucial to some of the early decisions of the Foundation - Keter wasn't named after the Kabbalah but a German doctor, for instance.
So that's why it rhymes with Peter and not better?
Weeks after the bones of SCP-001 came in, Wodiew was still thinking about it. Something just didn't sit right with how something as influential as it was being treated. He had always assumed that SCP-001 was a cause for the foundation of the Foundation, rather than being as unimportant he discovered it to be.
One late night, just before he closed up the Archives for the night, Wodiew walked down the dank halls and found the crate that contained the skeleton. He cracked it open with a crowbar and removed the skull.
The Foundation had never figured out where SCP-001 had come from, or what it was. All they knew was that it was a demon that screamed radiation. It had died before they could ever figure it out - not that it looked like they were trying very hard when it did die.
He couldn't justify his feelings - there was just a gut instinct that SCP-001 was supposed to have been important. There wasn't any rhyme or reason for it, he had just heard too many rumors about what it was. But there was nothing that justified those feelings, and no reason it should be any different than the rest.
He raised the skull in his hand, examining it and turning it around, trying to find something that all those that had come before him had failed at doing, and failing at that.
Alas, poor SCP-001.


About half a pound: that's the first thing she remembers.
It's the difference between an empty fifteen-round nine-millimeter magazine and a full one. When equipped with a fully loaded cartridge, the Beretta M9 pistol weighs around two and a half pounds. The one she's currently holding is scarcely over two. That means it's almost empty. Just almost, because the pistol's slide-bar is still in position.
She has no idea how she knows this.
There are at least four men charging down the hallway that connects to this apartment. Judging by sound of their footsteps, they're wearing heavy body-armor. The faint blip of a radio tells her they're organized — law enforcement? Maybe. Could be military, too.
The pistol is warm in her palm; the room has an acrid, eggy smell. There's a dead body at her feet, with heat seeping out from a dozen or more holes along its chest. Each contributes to the rapidly expanding crimson pool that stains the dead man's crisp, white cotton shirt. The red trickles down to spread across the hardwood floor. She doesn't recognize the corpse's face.
The footsteps stop at the door behind her. A muffled voice murmurs orders.
She turns and opens the door, stepping behind it. When the shotgun swings through, she throws all of her weight forward and slams it shut. The barrel is caught between the door and its frame. She steps back, lifts the pistol into position, and discharges two rounds directly into the side of the shotgun's barrel. The slide snaps back and locks; the pistol is now empty.
By the time the deformed shotgun retracts, Xiaoshan is already on the other side of the room.
Xiaoshan. That's her name.
The doorway erupts in a cloud of shredded timber and smoke.
The kitchen is like the rest of the apartment; pearl-white stucco walls with a hardwood floor of polished walnut-brown. There's a quaint marbled island in the center, with three burgundy velvet stools stationed on the end facing away from the counter-top. A rack over the oven holds several spices, a bottle of champagne, and a tin of olive oil. The space is neat and tidy — 'cozy'. Yes, that's the word. Very 'cozy'.
Xiaoshan snatches the champagne bottle and throws it into the microwave along with her pistol. She punches the 'popcorn' button an instant before she hears one of the men hollering. It sounds like 'POLICE!'. She snags a steak-knife and dashes low for the bedroom.
So, her name is Xiaoshan. She has (apparently?) killed a man; the police are now after her. And judging by how she's locking the bedroom door and counting off the seconds before the improvised bomb detonates — while simultaneously scouting the exterior balcony for signs of an escape route? — she knows how to handle herself.
Now she just needs to figure out who she is and what she's doing here.
The men in the kitchen are shouting something. She can't quite make it out, but it sounds English. Alright, then — she's in North America. Or maybe Europe? No, the accents are definitely North Ameri —
The room shakes beneath the force of the explosion. Her legs move before her body has time to think; she slams the pommel of the steak-knife against the pane of sliding glass that separates the interior of the bedroom from the balcony. Her body rushes through the web of cracks that appear, rupturing it outward into a spray of jagged, glittering edges.
Sunlight. Clear sky. Fresh air. Seven stories. Each spike of sensory data stabs through her psyche, then melts into the background. That last bit looked important, though.
She tries to hold onto it, pull it out for analysis — and that's when she notices that she has already lunged over the railing and is now sailing feet-first toward what will no doubt be her bloody, violent demise.
Well, that was utterly pointle —
CRNKT.
She slams down. Asphalt bulges, ripples, and splits beneath her. As she collapses, the impact bolts through her legs and hips, spearing up her spine.
The interlocking ceramic plates that comprise her vertebrae snap together like puzzle-pieces. Layers of insulating magnetorheological fluid compress into dense, flexible shapes, providing structural support and acting as secondary energy dampers. Excess kinetic force is expelled as whorls of super-heated steam from her mouth and nostrils.
She wobbles to her feet. She's at the edge of a parking lot, occupying the small but notable crater where she landed.
So… apparently, she's some sort of robot?
Okay.
That's fine. Good, even. She's learning new things about herself. That's a plus, right? Stay focused on the positive.
For example: There's a short woman about ten yards ahead, standing next to a dark blue Toyota Scion. She's staring at Xiaoshan with slack-jawed shock, holding what are presumably the car's keys in her left hand.
See? Transportation. Things are looking up.
Xiaoshan takes a step forward. The woman is petite and brown, with a head shaved as smooth as glass — and a face full of iron piercings. Her dark burnt sienna skin contrasts sharply with the bright pastel blue of her loose-cut kurta top and paijama bottoms. She is not moving; instead, she opts to silently stare.
"Hi. I, uh — need your car."
Some part of Xiaoshan automatically calculates the distance between them and starts formulating plans to acquire those keys. Each plan is ranked by their probability for success; all but one involves the precise application of violence. The one that doesn't has the lowest chance of them all.
Someone shouts something from way above. Police sirens kick in from the other side of the building. Xiaoshan closes her eyes, takes a breath, and forces the part of her brain screaming for swift and decisive action to just shut the fuck up.
She opens her eyes: "Please? It's kind of important."
The woman snaps out of her trance. She looks up at the apartment above, then down to where the sirens are howling. Finally, she looks at Xiaoshan — and unlocks all the doors.
"Get in. I'll drive."
Wait.
Seriously?

The 3rd District has a saying. It's one that every officer — from traffic cops on up to the district's captain — eventually learns: 'Pass it off to the boys down the hall'.
Detective Jackson Worth heard the phrase three weeks after he started as a patrolman. He was still green, then — full of piss, vinegar, and that special sort of invulnerability that comes with the first time you hold a shiny badge and your very own gun. He spent shift after shift walking the streets of Philadelphia, distinctly aware of the subtle tap, tap, tap of the pistol against his thigh. The shape of it; the weight of the thing.
Then, one night, he heard that terrible scream.
He charged toward the sound. His pulse roared across his ears; every step he took was a thunderbolt, propelling him closer to destiny. When he rounded that corner, his pistol was already out. His palms did not sweat. His hands did not shake. He was ready — ready for anything.
Anything except for a woman's blood freezing at room temperature.
Delicate crystals of scarlet extruded from her pores, merging into an intricate, expanding web. It looked like a beautiful crimson snowflake placed under a microscope — except for the tattered body dangling at its center. Ten minutes later, the snowflake evaporated. All that was left was that shredded bloodless corpse.
He asked his commanding officer what to write it up as. The old man pulled him aside, patted him on the back, and told him to 'pass this one off to the boys down the hall'.
It means that sometimes, a crime can't be solved with shiny badge and a gun. Sometimes, you just have to walk away. Sometimes, you just leave it up to the boys down the hall.
Nowadays, Jackson often forgets that he even carries a gun.
He's not twenty minutes into the case and he's already figured he'll be passing it along. According to SWAT, the suspect used some sort of IED in the kitchen. She then proceeded to practice a swan-dive out of the apartment's seventh story window. One of the officers had already texted him a snapshot of the dent she left.
Then she stood up, dusted herself off, and got into a car with someone else.
Next, there's the victim: Travis Wilhelm. 23 years old; a white, upper-class engineering major and self-proclaimed 'political provocateur'. About eight or nine thumb-swipes through his numerous social media accounts gave Jackson a more accurate impression: professional shit bag. Two hours prior to his death, he was posting comments urging his followers to 'exercise their 2nd amendment rights' against some journalist he didn't fancy.
But that isn't the reason Jackson intends to leave this one up to the boys down the hall. The reason for that is on account of Mr. Travis Wilhelm being — to put it simply — 'still alive'.
It's easy to miss if you don't know what to look for. And who's going to look? There's over a dozen holes in his chest and nearly a gallon of his blood on the floor. What are you gonna do, check his pulse? But when one of the officers snaps a photo, Jackson catches it — just as the camera flashes.
The pupils contracted.
Jackson pulls out his phone and pretends he just got a text. "Hold up, fellas." The three other officers stop what they're doing and turn to face him.
"Well, shit. Guys, gimme a minute alone in here, alright?" It's not protocol, but they do it anyway. One by one, the officers shuffle out into the hall. They can feel it, too. This is outside their jurisdiction. Jackson's just giving them deniability — an excuse to leave so they can all go home and keep pretending like this universe makes any goddamn sense.
Once they're gone, Jackson settles into a chair and starts swiping down his contact list. He's hunting for the special number. It's the one he's supposed to call when things like this happen; when corpses move and blood turns to ice.
He's still swiping when he catches movement from the corner of his eye.
Pretend you don't see it, he tells himself. His pulse is pounding. Fucking hell. Why does he have so many numbers on this thing? And why can't he swipe faster?
He's half-way down the list when his eyes dart up. He immediately regrets it. Out of all the fucked up things he prepared himself to see, it's the absence of a corpse that gets him to drop the phone.
"How unfortunate."
Detective Jackson Worth freezes. The voice is right behind him. He can feel its breath; fetid and cold, like icy waves rolling across the shoreline of his nape and collarbone. His hand dips down for the pistol tucked under his coat.
"I seem to have broken this vessel."
He spins around, his pistol already out. His palms do not sweat. His hands do not shake. He is ready — ready for anything.
Anything except for a corpse's spinal cord extricating itself from cold, dead flesh, crawling toward him upon hundreds of spindly, delicate, razor-sharp legs.
"I suppose yours will have to do."


Stars shine down on the first night. The congregation has gathered outside to sing joyously to the stars, their voices twisting together in acoustic pentamerism. Twenty four joyous bodies sang, young and old together, though one was absent from their number. An angel from the stars had come to make their bodies right, tended his first patient this very night, and so they sang. Gathered around a great fire, their limbs twisted in ecstasy cast about a great tentacled shadow as though the darkness matched their rapturous dance.

This is the revelation of the Star Surgeon, which the inward-facing eye saw, resonant within my void. The forms do not fit inside wordshapes and MUST NOT be read if you are growing a soul. Blind is the one who does not speak aloud the words of this prophecy. Fumigant is the one who listens so that his eyes bleed. It is inevitable: It has already happened.

Stars shine down on the second night. Twenty one happy throats matched the happy harmony, and lamented that they had too few arms. No one had entered the church but those that the Angel had beckoned to be cured, and made right. None had left. A beautiful man from the congregation collapsed to his knees as the chorus climaxed, clawing at his throat, screaming that he couldn't feel his smoke duct. Eyes bloodshot, for the worship had never abated, his brothers and sisters drug him near to the church doors - surely the surgeon would fix him next; he had it really bad.

In the day that the door opened to Yellow and to Red, and to White, and to Black, the Surgeon was made to see the VOID without and with Anguish undertook exile. And he dwelled in the lands of Shalmaneser, son of Ashur-nasir-pal five and five star-lifes. And all the smoke-beacons he there made were 5ive hundred hundred and twenty: and the BLIND IDIOT WORLD COLLAPSED. And he dwelled in the lands of Zhōu Dìng Wáng, son of Zhōu Qĭng Wáng. And the stars in the sky numbered 5555.

Stars shine down on the third night. Thick black smoke pours from the building, but there is no fire hot enough to burn those who live IN WITH the stars. Sixteen congregants litter around the fire, their bodies exhausted from hauling wood from the nearby forest; their lungs ached from singing. A young girl, only 51.75 years old, leads the next dirge, her voice honey sweet. She laments with cherubic tones as her bleeding fingers compel the wooden guitar to sing. Why was her body all wrong? "Soon, soon, the angel will make me right. Five arms, five minds, and my inward-facing eye will open."

And he left from the lands of Zhaoxiang, son of Huiwen. And he dwelled among the lands of Ptolemaîos Philádelphos, son of Ptolemaĩos Sōtḗr. And no smoke-beacons were left to stand: heretics broke them and killed them. And he dwelled in the lands of Robert, son of Hugh Capet. And the stars in the sky numbered 55555.

Stars shine down on the fourth night. Starlight and firelight scarcely meet through the billowing smoke. The bonfire burns low, three congregants remain to stoke the flame, their voices hoarse and cracked, eyes straining to remain open as bodies slump, collapsed to the cold ground. The doors had stood open since mid day, and inside, through the billowing smoke they caught glimpses of their brothers and sisters whose bodies had been made right. The grace and beauty of it- pulling their forms along on their five grasping, writhing hands. They no longer had their outward-facing eyes, and their chests had hungry maws, ready to gobble down their deepest desires. Out from the church they crawled, arms stitched into beautiful pentaradial symmetry. Legs, so obviously extraneous, had been cut free and the wounds stitched closed by an expert hand. Pitch black smoke streamed perpetually from the distended mouth on their faces. Hands with grips of iron pulled another inside.

And he was removed from the lands of François Fillon, son of Michel Fillon, to dwell in the captivity of thirteen kings. And with Anguish he broke his bonds and dwelt among the lands trwoll plr mlgn thei. And he set five and twenty smoke beacons from ready kindling. And their smoke occluded him from the eyes of the thirteen kings thereafter. And there he dwelt until the stars in the sky numbered 555555 and he returned to the land of Yellow and of Red and of White and of Black and taught himself all that he knew.

Stars shine down on the fifth night. A black cloud through which the stars can see. The doctor, with no work remaining for him, left the backwater shanty church. He had thought very little of the place when he arrived, and truly thought little of it after. He found it queer, only, that so many people having such a similar reaction to the Pestilence would willingly quarantine themselves in the wilderness like this.

Everyone Wears a Mask

The Hanged King's Comedy

Do No Harm


They faced each other with unyielding gazes and their auras of power increasing in intensity. One was on top of a metallic pillar and the other was on top of a flesh and bone pillar. Both of them rose far above the canopies of the forest, the sun beating down on the landscape. The birds flew away into the sky as Ion screamed at the top of his lungs. Bumaro shook his head. This wouldn't do. This fight wasn't going to be nearly hot-blooded enough.
"Come on now, you can do better than that. Surpass your limits, or you will never defeat me," said Bumaro.
"Get fucked, Boltbrain! I'm doing fine!"
"Fine? You have been powering up for five minutes and nothing changed!"
"That's because I am preparing my new ultimate form!" He narrowed his gaze and pointed at Bumaro and smiled confidently, striking a dramatic and rather flamboyant pose.
Bumaro sighed at his opponent's bravado. "You always improvise and try to pull tricks on me instead of committing to your training schedules and establishing strategies."
"It works half the time, doesn't it?" said Ion, his shark-smile growing ever more cheeky.
"That's exactly the problem. We are caught in an eternal stalemate which you cannot settle because you are too beholden to fleshly passions. I, on the other hand, take this seriously. And I intend to put an end to it."
"Listen to yourself! It's nothing but business with you! Can't you ever show a little bit of excitement? Or is that big screw up your ass making it too hard for you?"
Bumaro frowned. "The only thing that is hard for me is hearing these weak jokes over and over again. You used to have a sharper wit, you know. I think becoming a father dulled it somewhat."
"What the hell did you say to me? Everyone loves my jokes!"
"These people work for you, don't forget. And your daughter is still young, she can't help but idolize you."
"At least I still know what it's like to connect with someone and start a family with them! All you care about is work, and you know what? It's leaving you rusty!"
Bumaro sighed at the pun, and assumed his perfectly calculated fighting stance. "You will find that my performance is not impeded by my age."
Ion laughed at his exasperation, and assumed a primal fighting stance. "BRING IT ON, YOU SORRY EXCUSE OF AN ABACUS!"
The Master of Machines reconfigured himself into an angelic clockwork knight several stories tall, his golden wings and halo giving him an aura of beauty and awe. He conjured his sword and ran like lightning straight for Ion's throat.
The Lord of Flesh turned himself inside-out through his unhinged jaws. His entire countenance was like that of a deformed ogre, his skin missing in random patches, black muscles tensed like steel cables and biological armaments sprouting everywhere.
The mutated behemoth struck the clockwork angel with his horrific claws, only for the enemy to disappear in a burst of blinding light. Ion grabbed at his face and screamed at his burning eyes, striking in all directions in attempt to hit his enemy. But Bumaro had analyzed all of Ion's opening gambits from previous battles, and figured out that the Lord of Flesh would not anticipate a dirty trick of his own.
"Come out here, you COWARD!" shouted Ion.
"If you insist." Bumaro deactivated his cloaking field, appearing right behind Ion and running him through with his sword, then kicking the behemoth forward several dozen meters into a boulder which exploded from the force of the impact.
Ion rose, regenerating the wound from the sword and growing new eyes. He hurled a sphere of flesh and bone towards Bumaro's face, who attempted to slice it in half. The sphere dodged his blade and enveloped his entire head with crab-like legs. Bumaro tried to rip it off with his free hand to no avail, and Ion took the opportunity to bite down on the clockwork angel's sword arm, thrashing around like a crocodile.
Bumaro fired laser beams from his eyes that destroyed the crab grabbing onto his head and severely damaged Ion. Despite this, the behemoth still managed to bite off the sword arm. Stunned by the pain, Bumaro could not fight back. Ion ripped off a leg with his powerful jaws. He raised the limbs above his hideous head like a trophy and laughed loudly. "It looks like it will cost an arm and a leg to fix this!"
Bumaro floated off the ground through the use of an anti-gravity core, and pressed a button on his chest with his remaining hand. The spare limbs which Ion had ripped off detonated in a giant explosion, reducing the behemoth's flesh to a molten slurry dripping from a skeleton. He could not even scream as his vocal chords and nerve endings were gone. Bumaro sprouted his substitute limbs and chuckled.
"Ah, no jokes, Ion? That's a shame. You seemed like such hot stuff for a second there."
Ion grew multiple arms to give Bumaro several middle fingers. Bumaro didn't let the banter slow him down, and fired a barrage of missiles at the weakened enemy. Ion used tentacles to grab the missiles and redirected them at Bumaro. There were too many projectiles, and the clockwork angel could not dodge them all. He was caught in an explosion that reduced several trees to ashes. He used his scanners to try and detect the enemy through the cloud of smoke but it didn't work.
A swarm of locusts burst into view, biting through his armor and crawling into the exposed neural interfaces. Bumaro was totally overwhelmed by stinging pain throughout his whole body. He tried to activate an emergency countermeasure, but was interrupted by a large boulder being dropped right on top of him. The sheer damage from the missiles and the boulder prevented him from freeing himself, try as he might. Ion sauntered up to him with another huge smile, his fists shaped into hammers.
"Aren't you going to finish me?" asked Bumaro incredulously.
Ion scratched his chin with an extra arm in consideration. "Welllll, I could, but it seems to me like you hit rock bottom!"
"Please just finish me," requested Bumaro in the most perfect deadpan tone.
"Alright, fine. You really are stone cold." He swung at the boulder with his hammer-fist, shattering it into a thousand pieces and freeing Bumaro.
"What…why did you…" he stammered in shock at the display of mercy.
"Come on, don't start gravelling at my feet now! Keep fighting!"
"Anything to shut you up."
"Says the tin man who told a pun of his own at my expense!"
Bumaro could not argue against it, so he just got up and conjured his sword again. He needed new tactics. And he was certain that Ion would not spare him another time if the fight got boring.
The clockwork angel came to the conclusion that the situation was serious enough to demand some big improvisation. He spread his wings and flew high into the air, beyond the clouds and reaching for the void of space. Covering himself in a new, highly resistant armor, he descended like a meteor in his enemy's direction.
Ion braced for the collision, a dozen moves racing through his mind. His eyes widened as Bumaro reached out with his hand and opened a portal between them. Ion's opponent had vanished just before hitting him.
"Two can play at this game!" Ion shouted. Thaumaturgical runes glowed crimson across his flesh and he sliced open his own portal in reality, calculating the approximate location of his opponent based on the energy signature of his portal. He grew wings and stepped through, emerging in the middle of the sky with his enemy nowhere to be seen.
"I guess the tin man doesn't have the heart to fight me head on!" He shouted. Bumaro deactivated his cloaking field one more time and rammed him with the force of a freight train, pinning him against a floating and invisible object. The behemoth ripped his enemy's head clean off, only to notice that it was a decoy holding firmly onto him still. And with his sharp senses, Ion could perceive a subtle humming of machinery and an increase in temperature right next to him.
The real Bumaro appeared, his golden armor reflecting the rays of sunlight in a dazzling display. He raised his hand, sending out a signal to the invisible object Ion was pinned to. There was the booming sound of a huge cloaking field being deactivated as an airship armed with a fusion cannon came into view. Wasting no time, Ion split in half and let the decoy pin down his fake half. Flying away from point blank range of the rapidly heating cannon, Ion's thaumaturgical runes glowed ever brighter as he prepared his own beam.
They fired.
A flash of light exploded into existence that could be seen for dozens of miles.
The air rumbled like the world was coming to an end.
But not louder than their hot-blooded screaming.
The beams pushed against each other, the spot where they connected crackling with pure destructive energy arcs. Bumaro and Ion began falling apart into gears and blood as the fight neared its climax, but both absolutely refused to give up. In the end, what decided the victor was a simple move.
"HEY, ION!"
"WHAT, YOU WANNA GIVE UP?"
"I BET YOU CAN'T THINK OF A PUN ABOUT LASERS!"
Ion went into a state of shock as he realized he really couldn't, his eyes going totally white. In that fraction of a second, his beam was overwhelmed and his defeat was sealed.
He fell into the ocean below, his mind fading to black. But when he regained consciousness, he wasn't chained down for interrogation or anything of the sort. He was in his human form and lying on a bedroom inside the airship. He was guided to the roof by robotic servants, where he met Bumaro in his human form as well, sitting on a beautiful dining table covered in tea, biscuits and sandwiches.
"Sit down. I figured you must be hungry. Do excuse my servants if the food and drink is not so good. I don't exactly need such things."
Ion looked around in suspicion. "Where are the cameras? Are you trying to poison me or something? You know that doesn't work on me, right?"
"For countless years we have been rivals. We know each other better than most people ever will. And now you won't even let me be your host! You insult me." Said Bumaro in a humorous tone.
"Hold up. Are you telling me…that I…really grind your gears?"
"Tell your daughter that one if you haven't already, I'm sure she'll love it."
"Sure will. But…there is something I don't quite understand. Why did you spare me? You could have gotten rid of the leader of your Church's biggest enemy faction. That sounds rather irrational, especially coming from you. So what gives, Boltbrain?"
"Simple. You spared me when you had the chance to do the same to me. Think of it is as a gentleman's principle."
Ion burst into uproarious cackling. "Oh…oh man! That's fucking precious! Why don't you quit your bullshit and admit that you were just having too much fun!"
"Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Now be a good cult leader and eat."
"You don't have to tell me twice. Say, my daughter is gonna be participating in this school play, and I would be honored if you showed up."
"Certainly. But only if you promise to help with some issues that are dividing my Church."
"Hush hush on both ends?"
"Hush hush."
"Deal!"
The Lord of Flesh and the Master of Machines shook hands, finished their meal and prepared to go their separate ways for now. However, they were interrupted by a massive aura of power suddenly manifesting nearby them. From a pillar of light emerged a humanoid figure dressed in a black cloak and a white bird-like mask, a scalpel in his hand. His cloak billowed in the wind, his eyes gleamed with purifying intent and he spoke in a vaguely Eastern European accent.
"This sickness…will not persist."
Bumaro and Ion looked at each other, nodded and assumed a back-to-back badasses pose to fight the new challenger.


Fragment of InComm bulletin suspected to be distributed by GOC Internal Communication division, confiscated from captured sleeper agents in Site-229

Modern Thaumaturge: A Perspective
by Field Agent "Bluesocks" (44667218/722)

It is often said that modern mages have it far easier than older generations, that they know no hardship nor the struggle of becoming true mages that was the norm until as recent as last century—and as result, they have become far weaker, dependent on modern convenience. While this stereotype is misleading at best, and outright discriminatory at worst, it might be worth examining how much of it is true.
Imagine hypothetical scenario of facing an angry dragon, or to be specific, a winged, massive reptilian entity with innate thaumatological capability and affinity to a certain Platonic elements. A hundred years ago, if one was to face a dragon in their natural habitat in Iceland, their best course of action was to hide and pray, as the closest capable mage would be thousands of miles away playing cat and mouse against the prevalent, albeit less public, mage-hunting organization.
Today? You could connect to closest UNGOC hotline, who would then dispatch a team of mages through either a supersonic transport or an apportation circle, and then pommel the dragon with their enchanted bullets. Easy, right?
Well, reality has a special way to twist your expectation.
To begin with, dragons are protected Fiji-Goodrick Threat Entities with their proper environmental sanctuary. To meet one, you would have to trespass into top secret GOC facility with their security. No way they would dispatch a team of mages to rescue you—higher chance they're the ones throwing you to the dragon's maw.
If you've cleared the proper paperwork and we could ignore why they're leaving you alone with the dragon in the first place, there's still the problem of how expensive it is to deploy a battle mage capable of handling a dragon. Not because of the high per hour rates of such specialist—rather, the logistical cost of their equipment. Such limitations that wasn't observed by previous centuries mages makes most specialist barely scraping by even with their outrageous hourly rates the GOC happily paid. Add to that most of the works that wasn't covered by Ptolemy supply: runic bullets that must be ordered from specialists, symbolic weapon that needs to be made and bonded specifically by the mage, training fees, the list goes on.
Speaking of training, I have observed that most people who claimed "modern mages have it easier" never actually bothered to see just how much effort does one need to graduate from ICSUT, much less to be employed as a certified GOC Field Ops. Applied Thaumatology requires not only physical and psychological compatibility, but also massive amount of efforts to convert one's innate talent into an actual, practical capability. It's an answer to why, even in the ages of Unified Thaumatology, the amount of mages we could deploy still far below our "normal" paramilitary forces. Becoming a mage is still as difficult as it is as the last century—if not more, due to the stricter control under ICSUT and by extension, GOC.
I cannot deny that modern conveniences have lessened mages' struggle in some aspect. Unified form of Thaumatology results in more standardized equipment and even interchangeability of items such as generic wards or grimoire. Advance in imaging, detection, and containment of thaumic workings has lessened the burden in mages who could focus more in handling actual threats. Well, at least for those under GOC's wings. But we cannot judge current generation of mages by the lenses of ages long past. Similar to regular branch of military, current technological advance might conveniences the personnel, but the threat they faced on regular basis also evolve, and it is a matter of whether you are fighting an actual dragon, or bureaucratical one. []


by stormbreath

1994: When I Chanced into an International Conspiracy
My first interaction with the Foundation was in the summer of 1994. I was a kid right out of college, just having gotten a job as a Park Ranger. That was my dream job, ever since I was a child. Not this, not by any means.
I was working at Crater Lake then. That's where I've been working for the past twenty years. Before the Foundation, I had entertained the idea of trying to work at a different park. Yosemite had already fascinated me, for instance. But the Foundation controls. The personnel of Crater Lake didn't leave Crater Lake with their memories intact, and I value mine.
Two weeks after I started work, I drive to work. I notice there's a nice car in the parking lot, something that sticks out like a sore thumb in the parking lot of a national park. Cars like that belong in Illuminati bases, not a park in the middle of Oregon. As it turned out, the latter was more like the former than I would have preferred.
I clock into work and my boss calls me aside. Tells me that somebody is here to meet with me, and it is extremely important. He leads me aside into one of the offices, and there is an impeccably dressed man inside. The man smiles as I sit down across from him.
"Hello. You're Mr. Lance Owens, correct?" He smiles the whole time. This is procedural for him, nothing out of the ordinary.
I gulp out a response. "Uh, yeah, that's me. What's this about? You from the feds?"
He laughs and shakes his head. "Not quite. Mr. Owens, I'm going to let you on a little secret. It's actually something of a big secret. Are you ready to hear it?"
I nod.
"The supernatural, the paranormal, ghosts, vampires, werewolves: it's all real. All of it."
Surprisingly, I didn't think he was crazy at first. I don't think I really understood what he was saying.
"I work for an organization known as the SCP Foundation. That stands for Secure, Contain and Protect. We keep the anomalous away from the world, so that it remains safe."
"Like in X-Files."
"Exactly." He makes this little smirk, like he knows something I don't. That's probably true. "Just like in X-Files. But the reason I'm here is to hire you, Mr. Owens."
"Oh, well, I… I just got this job and I went to college for this, I've only been working for two weeks and-"
"You misunderstand me, Mr. Owens. There is an anomalous object within Crater Lake National Park. You've heard of the Old Man of the Lake, yes?"
"Of course, it's one of the main attr-"
"The Old Man of the Lake — which we refer to as SCP-3310 — is the linchpin in a complex thaumaturgical ritual system which prevents the catastrophic resurgence of a dormant apex-tier pluripotent entity with unknown ontokinetic, pistiphagic and deamorphic properties."
I still have no idea what any of that is supposed to mean.
"In layman's terms, it is preventing the rebirth of a deceased god."
I sit there, speechless at the stream of technobabble he spouted at me, all of it well defined and scientifically approved and completely, utterly meaningless. "Okay." I pause for a second. "What do you want me to do?"
"All we ask of you is that you keep on your normal work, and get paid a little extra for it. And in the rare occasion that the situation demands it, you doing everything you possibly can to make sure that Llao, god of monsters stays dead."
There was a brief moment of silence.
"No biggie."

1995: When I Realized the Mess I Was In
When the Illuminati hijacks your life and doesn't tell you anything, you start to itch there at your collar. You try to figure out what they really want from you, what they really want from the world, and most importantly, who the everloving fuck they actually are.
And in January 1995, that itch I had started burning and I decided that I had to learn everything I could about the Foundation, so on a cold winter's night I drove out to Crater Lake and broke into my boss's office. It's been long enough that I feel comfortable talking about that. Nothing bad will come of it, not now.
I was looking for his files on 3310 and for any scraps of information about the Foundation. I was already familiar with the Old Man by that point, and I didn't need to learn anything more about him. But the Foundation remained in the shadows, barely anything visible beyond the surface.
Those files didn't even come close to revealing what the Foundation really was, but between the lines you could just make out its true shape, like the fin of a shark poking above the surface. There's a lot in common between a shark and the Foundation, you know.
One of the documents in the 3310 file was about a potential cover-up of the Old Man. One of those old bastards on the council — O5-2, I think — got nervous about the fact that people simply knew that the Old Man existed. That bothered me, at the time: The leadership of the Foundation, with so much power and control, was anonymous. Rank and serial, no name.
So O5-2 makes a proposal: targeted application of amnestics to remove the Old Man from the collective memory of the world. There was an estimation of how much that would cost, and it was in the hundred millions. Dosing thousands of people with amnestics. A massive undertaking. I was shocked that they would consider such measures for 3310.
There was a reply to the proposal, coming from the desk of O5-9. They argued that the current containment was working fine and that if knowledge that the Old Man was anomalous was concealed, that was enough. The situation was fine, and such a measure was unnecessary. It would be better to save such resources for a more pressing time.
Did you catch that?
Do you get what's missing in that rebuttal?
At no point in that rebuttal did O5-9 ever say anything to regard of "we don't have that kind of money" or "the logistics of dosing that many people is impossible." It doesn't enter the equation. The proposal is treated as something that could be feasibly accomplished, if the Foundation wanted to. The only barrier was that it wasn't needed, so why bother?
It rapidly began to dawn on me the kind of people I was working with and just how much control they really had. I found that discussion fairly early on during my investigation (if you can even call it that) and it was enough for me to stop immediately.
The way it seemed at the time was that I had been hearing of a bear in the woods. So I mount a hunt to go and find this bear, and I track it down to the cave. I sneak in, gun at the ready, and whip around the corner, only to find I'm not hunting a bear, I never was. This thing is not a bear, nothing like a bear.
No, I realized I was a fool looking for a colossus.

2001: When the Foundation Came Close
I have only ever interacted with two of what the Foundation called "SCP objects." Skips is common slang for Foundation employees. I guess that included myself, which is an alienating thought. Even then I was only tangentially working for the Foundation. They aren't who I received the bulk of my paycheck from, only a little stipend.
The only other SCP object I have ever seen — in the context of my employment with the Foundation, I've seen all the ones on the news — is SCP-978. They call it the "Desire Camera". It doesn't take pictures, it shows whatever the subject wants most in the world.
In case you're keeping track, this means I interacted with a tree stump capable of causing an eschaton and what really amounted to a toy.
An agent had come down from Portland, carrying the camera with this veneer of secrecy and safety, like it was precious cargo. We had been informed of the visit weeks in advance and had been told to prepare for the event like it was of the utmost importance. We treated it that way, the fools we were, because we didn't want to let the big, scary, spooky Foundation down.
So the agent comes in, all full of himself. We all have a thousand questions for him — everyone there worked for the Foundation, but had any of us ever seen the inside of a Site? Even so much as touched another anomaly? We were all Level 0, with an elevation for 3310. I was 4/3310/HMCL at the end, sure, but for everything else, I was stuck at 0.
I was the one boating him on the lake to take the photo and along the way I tried to make small talk with him. He wasn't having any of it, so I shut up. I took the containment of 3310 seriously — everyone at Crater Lake did. Nothing but the utmost professionalism when it came to that log and that lake. Still, do, mind you. That wouldn't change anything.
We had been told it could end the world. I hear that a lot of Foundation agents deal with something called "K-Class Fatigue". You keep hearing about this and that can lead to the end of the world and that phrase stops carrying any weight. It diminishes the importance and you stop caring, those words stop being important.
But those few of us stationed at Crater Lake only ever dealt with the one object, and we only ever heard that one thing had potential to end the world. There would be nights when we'd ask each other if we thought there was a potential of there being other world enders out there, and we'd always settle on the answer of "Most likely, yes, but let's not worry about it."
The agent and I were out on the lake, sitting in a small motorboat. It had taken a few minutes to find the Old Man — he's a wanderer — and the agent seemed like he was getting fed up with me. I imagine there has to be a massive difference in standards between a Park Ranger and a Foundation Agent. Both of us were competent at our jobs, but they weren't the same job.
We pulled up to the Old Man and he snapped a photo. The print came out instantly since it was a Polaroid. He shook it out and showed it to me with a look on his face like I was supposed to explain it.
It was a completely different picture. The Old Man — I just knew it was him — was back to being a tree, planted in the ground and whole again. At the bottom of the picture were two figures, not quite human. One was attacking the other, breaking open his rib cage and biting his heart. It was gruesome.
I told the agent that it probably represented Llao and Skell. At that point in time, I had gone above and beyond looking for any scraps of information about those two, in the off chance that any of it might help me deal with a "containment breach." Didn't do me any good, of course: all you need to know about this job is that there are storms and monsters.
That photo, by the way, never got included in any of the documentation on 3310. Apparently, the photos 978 produces aren't reliable enough or something for the Foundation to put any actual weight on them, so they pretty much just get ignored outside of the file log on 978 itself.
That day was one of the most important days of my career. It didn't even matter to my job in the slightest.

2013: When the Masquerade Was Shattered
I was coming into work one day, a few days after the whole thing in Korea. You remember that there was that one brief gap between it happening and the Masquerade really breaking, right? It wasn't immediate like everyone seems to pretend it was. Hell, Korea barely had anything to do with the end of the Masquerade.
When I came in, all of my staff were huddled around the TV in the break room. One turned her head up with the most sullen look on her face.
"You need to see this."
I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn't the words "SCP Foundation" plastered across the banner of CNN. Total information release about the Foundation, all of the files dropped onto the internet. To this day, they still don't know who did it. Did you know that? Our world was flipped on its head, completely shattered and we don't know who to thank for it.
I wonder if they're still alive. They wouldn't be if the Foundation got ahold of them.
Twenty years in the Foundation, at that point. I had gotten used to the idea of living in the dark for the rest of my life and never actually finding out who or what I was working for. But there it was, on the screen, loud and clear: the Foundation was real and they were here to stay.
You have to remember that our situation was very different from almost the entire rest of the world. Those stationed at Crater Lake knew about the Foundation, but we only need the numbers of two anomalies. There were hypothetically a thousand more, but they were only ever alluded to.
So we weren't like the rest of the Foundation, because of how unfamiliar and clueless we were about the Foundation when the Masquerade broke. And we weren't like the rest of the world, because we weren't quite as clueless as they were. We had, at the very least, heard about their mission statement before. We knew the anomalous existed, we just didn't know anything more concrete than that.
There weren't many people in the world who had the same perspective as us. There were other people had the same situation as we did, but they were few and far between. I've had the chance to meet a couple of them over the years, but that was a while after the Masquerade broke.
And fuck if the Foundation was going to give a shit about us.

2014: When the Storm Broke
I'm sure that you're aware of that whole phenomenon where the Sites got swamped by protesters and onlookers, right? That was a major problem for a lot of them in the early days after the Foundation went public, but for the most part, they were ready for it.
Us? Ha, good luck. There weren't nearly as many people coming to Crater Lake, but we had a noticeable surge in activity. Some people were just trying to get a look at the Old Man (I had made a decision to stop any non-Foundation lake travel to stop that), but there were those people who tried to use us as a way to get into the Foundation.
They never believed me when I told them that I knew jack shit about the Foundation, and I really can't blame them. I wouldn't have believed myself either — my name was in the personnel directories, right there with a 4/3310 Clearance. (Nevermind the fact that everything else was Level 0.) How could somebody that high not know what's going on? How could they not have answers?
But the journalists and the reporters — don't even get me started on that Information Breach hack — weren't the worst of our problems. The files on 3310 were released to everyone — not just the general public, but also to those "Groups of Importance." I had never even heard of any of them prior to the Masquerade, only that one American Secure Containment Initiative because it was in the 3310 documentation. And they don't exist anymore!
Sarkics were the first to attack us. At the time I didn't know anything about them, but I've done a little research myself. The Foundation's databanks are very informative, not that my position gives me any access to them.
It was a small group of Neo-Sarkics, only about eight of them. When they rolled up, we pretty much just rolled over and let them take over the park. They struck at night, and we were just a night shift. Not many of them, but even fewer of us. We were just Park Rangers, and they were armed to the teeth — a few of them armed with teeth.
That's what caused the eighth activation of 3310, those idiots. They pulled the Old Man out of the lake, and immediately the skies turned dark. The Gammas looked like insects that time. They climbed out of the ground and started charging the lake. Awful, still get nightmares about them.
The bugs started getting zapped by lightning coming from the clouds, just like normal. The Sigma event stops the Gamma until somebody can throw the Old Man back into position and let him do his thing. It's not looking good, however: there are way too many of the insects, and Skell's getting overwhelmed. Can't kill them all.
But then something unexpected happened — eight bolts, all at once, fucking smote those Sarkics. Instantly dead, all of them. Skell's smart — he realized what he needed to do. I swear I heard something chuckling right after, this warm laugh that fills your soul.
Skell's a real proper god, not like that Yaldy. Looking out for his devotees and servants, saving them from the heretics. You can't convince me that the Sigmas aren't targeted. Ever one to return to the favor, I gave the Old Man a push back into Crater Lake and saved the day.
That was enough for the Foundation to up our security detail. The Chaos Insurgency attacked a couple months later, and for about a year afterward the whole park was swarming with black ops. I managed to stay in control of operations thanks to a twenty-year service record, but I never really was in control. How can you tell a man with a gun you outrank him?

2022: When I Gave Up
After thirty years of Foundation, I decided that I had enough. Things had mostly normalized around Crater Lake, but after the latest scandal — I can't even remember what it was, there were so many — the camel's back broke. I'd found a job in the private sector, uninvolved from the anomalous. They agreed to hire me, and I submitted my two weeks to both the Foundation and the Parks Service.
Parks Service was the easy one. I feel like what I've said to you may not have really represented my employment status the best — I was firstly and foremost working for the Parks Service. The Foundation came up infrequently, but you couldn't ignore it when it did. So I had dealt with the Parks Service plenty of times, I knew what to expect.
But the Foundation? Give me a break. Their entire idea is secrecy. I was shocked when I got a response after quitting, and then it was an invitation to Site-64. Now that was the cruelest twist of fate: only when you quit do you get to go to a Foundation site.
Once I had packed up and everything, I made the drive up to Portland. Fortunately, it was on the way to my next job, and I didn't have to go out of the way. I like the fact that I didn't have to give anything more to the Foundation at the end.
I've heard that in the days before the end of the Masquerade, Site-64 was subterranean and under a park in Portland. Now there's an above-ground entrance, maximum security and it looks like a military base. They probably bulldozed the park to make room for all that. Fuckers.
I'll never forget the look on the guard's face when I handed him a Level 4 ID card. Sure, that level was only for one item, but my card still was still orange and emblazoned with a 4. Not many Level 4s drive a car like mine or look like me. They're stuck up in the labs.
The reason I was there was because the Site Director — Holman was his name, I think — wanted to meet with me to discuss 3310. Apparently, 64 was the closest Site and had been overseeing our containment to a little degree. Our meeting would be recorded and sent off to the O5 Council.
I've already talked about how I don't like the concept of the O5s, right? Good.
The talk went pretty well. I told him everything I knew about the anomaly, and what he needed to brief the next poor sap to get my job. The little things I had picked up along the way, nothing major. I gave him a recommendation among the staff, and it was all so pleasant.
It was clear to me that the Site Director had only vaguely heard of 3310, and it was nothing more to him than another cog in his well-oiled machine. I had spent my entire life working to make sure it never activated, and he spent five minutes every other year to briefly review any updates. He didn't even remember the mythological context, the entire frame under which containment had been pitched to me all those years ago. To him, it was just a log that caused a storm.
At the end, I asked one final question, doing my best to frame it as innocent curiosity and nothing more. Right after we had made our final goodbyes and formal closures.
"How many anomalies do you oversee containment of here?"
"Oh, approximately forty directly in the site itself, a couple hundred anomalous objects, and then many more in the surrounding area, like yours."
I nodded and smiled. That was all I needed to know to make my final judgment about my total, unseen masters. I gave Holman my ID and formally ended my tenure with an international, monolithic, all-powerful conspiracy.
The elevators took me to the surface, and I stepped outside. I was done dying in the dark, and now was my time to live in the light.

A collection of six stories, covering thirty years of a life lived on the periphery of Foundation, before and after the end of the Masquerade.