April 7, 2016 T-Minus two years from The Incident
Agent Sam Denton flipped through a Sports Illustrated in the back of the cramped coach bus to Portland, his partner Agent Jim McDowell seated in the overly padded and potentially anomalously uncomfortable seat next to him. His eyes scanned over the page, skipping over the text of an article about a rival team. "Fucking Patriots," Sam said, muttering over his bristling mustache.
Agent McDowell turned his head from the window, eyes glazed as they passed through flyover country. He raised an eyebrow. "Sam, that issue is like three years old. I swear I've seen you read it like ten times," McDowell said. He shifted in the seat to face towards his partner, tapping his fingers on his knee as he did. The heavy pewter ring on his third finger, right hand stood inert for once.
Sam didn't look up as he continued to scan the page, an identical ring on his own hand mercifully silent as well. "Yes, and every time, I still get pissed off. I swear to god, they should have been thrown out of the post season. Deflategate was bullshit. We could have won that game."
Jim rolled his eyes and turned his head to look out the window. "Yeah, sure. The fact they were eleven and five, and hadn't beat the Patriots in years had nothing to do with it." He turned his wrist slightly, checking the time.
Sam put the magazine down, and turned to look at Agent McDowell, "Oh bullshit. They could have won it, there's such a thing as an underdog, you know." He stowed the magazine in the backpack at his feet, withdrawing a protein bar as he did. He unwrapped the processed carbs and protein and wolfed it down in three bites.
"Uh huh, sure. The Colts could have won it, just like that powerbar stood any chance against you, eh?" Jim's face split into an easy grin as he ribbed his partner.
Sam's hand shot out, smacking Jim in the stomach off-handedly as he finished the power bar. "Oh fuck off, I stress eat. Always have."
Jim shrugged, "Yes, but we're no longer young salty agents, running around, burning calories. We're on a bus for chrissakes, since someone didn't want to fly. Try dieting." He reached down to his own backpack, pulling out a small bag of baby carrots, crunching a few down.
"Listen, I'll start dieting when your sister stops hitting on me every time I see her on-site," Jim's face had distorted into the usual vague annoyance. For one, he didn't have a sister. For two, Sam was nothing special to look at, "She can't resist my charms. I'm telling you man, she's all over me every time—"
The bus rocked; a loud clanging shook the superstructure of the heavy vehicle. The bus skidded to one side, then the other, both agents snapping to attention and bracing themselves against the seats in front of them.
The other passengers let out various shouts and sounds of alarm as the tires made a tortured noise.
The bus careened off the road, and came to halt a few feet into the grass beside the lonely stretch of highway. Sam looked over at Jim, holding his breath momentarily. "You alright?"
Jim nodded, eyes scanning around the road for signs of trouble. A few tense moments passed, before he let out a breath, "Maybe it was just the serpentine belt snapping or some—" As one, both Agents' thaumic rings started to buzz. Something within a mile of them was anomalous. The buzz intensified until it came to a quiet hum, shaking their fingers. Whatever it was, it was strong, and it was practically on top of them. "Well. Fuck me sideways."

Agent Denton disgengaged the seatbelt and stood, walking towards the front of the bus. He stopped and asked each passenger if they were alright, tacitly passing his ring-hand closer to each one as he 'checked for injuries'.
Agent McDowell strode past Denton, and approached the bus driver. He flashed some fake credentials which listed them as FBI agents, "What happened?" he asked the bus driver.
The elderly bus driver wore a too-large set of pants and a white shirt. His eyes were practically the size of quarters from the stress, and his hands shook. "I have no idea, officer—"
Jim held up a hand, "FBI has agents. Police has officers."
The bus driver looked taken aback for a second, before adjusting himself and nodding. "Sorry uuhh… Agent. I uhh, I don't know, it just says somethings wrong with the engine, I was gonna take a look." He reached down, and pulled the door release for the main door of the bus.
Jim waved him back, and smiled, "Sir, let my partner and I take a look first, make sure nothing dangerous is out there, okay? Don't let anyone leave the bus."
The elderly man nodded, and sat back down, pulling out the small radio from the intercom. "Attention folks. These two men are with the FBI and are nice enough to check out the back of the bus for us. Everyone stay put for a minute, until they say, all right?"
A quiet murmur of assent went through the passengers, as Denton and McDowell dropped out of the bus and on to the slick grass that bordered the long stretch of road. Both agents drew service pistols from beneath their jackets, and Sam slipped in front of Jim, taking point position. Jim tapped him on the shoulder, and the two advanced towards the back of the bus.
Nothing jumped out at them as they approached the engine compartment, which was always good. The two circled wide around the side of the bus, and checked under the bus for potential threats. They approached the engine compartment cautiously. The back panel of the bus had been blown off around where the skid marks started from the road. A steady stream of components from the engine trailed to the slightly smoking ruins of the back of the vehicle.
Jim frowned, "I think it's broken."
Sam slapped his forehead with his palm, "You're an idiot, Jim. Of course it's broken. What happened?" He holstered his sidearm, and pulled out the multitool on his belt, snapping out the mini pry bar. He peeled off the last bits of plastic surrounding the engine cover, and took a step back. His eyes narrowed, and he grunted. "You recognize that?"
Jim nodded, holstering his own weapon. "That's a Scranton Reality Anchor. Or at least a close approximation of one, I've never seen one jerry rigged into a bus before." Jim's eyes raised up to the passenger compartment of the bus. "Sam, I think we should break out something a bit heavier than track suits."
Agent Denton turned and looked his partner up and down quickly, "Okay, only one of us is wearing a track suit. This is a speedsuit." He circled to the back luggage compartment, popping open the compartment they'd stored their suitcases in.
Agent McDowell hefted his suitcase on to the ground, his finger slipping under the handle to swipe on the biometric scanner. The top portion of the suitcase hinged open, revealing a small armory of various bits of gear the Agents could use. The suitcases could carry precisely two shirts and a toothbrush, but when you needed an assault weapon, you needed an assault weapon.
He lifted out the set of compact body armor, and peeled off the two films which covered the mid-chest and spine sections, "Whatever, Rusty Venture. Make sure you engage the hume-res." Both had multiple warning labels on them. Each strip would provide a low-level resistance to hume-fluctuations. It wasn't much and it didn't last long; but it could be all the difference between life and death.
He stood, the heavy web belt slipping comfortably under the small gut that had formed in the past couple of years. The boys over at Site-127 had created some of the devices on the belt, and one could never have enough high explosives. Lastly, he traded out his ring for a significantly heavier bracelet. It contained enough gear to figure out what was going on. Theoretically.
"Yes, dad," Sam said, peeling the cover off his own highlighter yellow hume-res strips. "You ready?"
"Yeah. Let's go figure out what's up," Jim said, trading out the smaller caliber pistol for a larger pistol which had been re-chambered for ammunition that was a felony to possess in this jurisdiction.

Sam boarded the bus, smiling easily as he did. The jacket of his tracksuit covered the body armor, not that muggles would even recognize the tech as armor to begin with. It looked like a particularly bulky t-shirt under his jacket. "Hey folks. So something looks to have gone pretty majorly wrong with the bus, and we'd like to have everyone get off, so we can be sure everyone's safe. If everyone could get off in an orderly fashion, and just line up outside the bus?"
A few murmurs went through the crowd as Sam stepped off the bus, waving the passengers by. As he did, he tried to get a feel for each person that passed by, glancing at the readings from the bracelet on his right hand. A few of them provoked a reaction as they went by, and Sam made a mental note to ask them questions later.
The passengers were restless as Jim walked over to join Sam, "Did you get a reading from the skinny kid?"
Sam nodded, "Yeah. His mom is setting off a couple of spikes too. Residual exposure maybe?" He shrugged, and turned to face the passengers. "Alright folks, we're gonna try and figure out if we can get any help. Does anyone have signal?" Denton pressed a button on the back of his belt, triggering the selective jammer.
No one's hand went up. Perfect. "Alright, I think I might be able to reach a nearby FBI office on the short-wave, if we're lucky. Everyone take a seat on the grass, or just relax. Is anyone hurt at all?" More murmurs of negatory, and he turned to his partner once more. "We should radio in."
Jim nodded, pulling out the compact radio from a compartment on the belt, swiping his finger across the biometric scanner on the top. It chirped to life, and a tinny voice came across, "Sigma 22, come back?"
Jim clicked the button on the side of the radio, "Sigma 22, copy. This is Rho and Delta reporting on leg 25. Request secure confirmation, over."
The voice clicked back, "Copy that. Rho and Delta, which grave lays empty on Lincoln's watch?"
Jim pressed his finger against the biometric scanner as he clicked the button once more, "His secretary Bill, of course."
The voice clicked once more, "Confirmed secure agents. What's the situation?" Jim gave a cliff's notes version of what happened so far.
"Requesting permission for provisional interview and containment. Additionally, we're going to need amnestics and transportation for at least twenty. Potentially twenty two."
The voice at Foundation dispatch paused for several seconds, "Noted. The only MTF we've got in the area are the Oathkeepers. Will you require any special tools or objects?"
"Unknown. We'll contact with further details. Please get comsat as soon as possible, we're enabling throat mics." Jim lifted the microphone to his throat and closed his eyes as the shock of the embedded microphone alongside his ear bones activated. "Confirm connection."
The voice from Foundation dispatch came through as if it was right behind him, "Confirm." Sam's voice followed a moment later.

A few minutes of separating out the passengers into potentially anomalous and non-anomalous, Sam Denton sat across from a mother and her son. "So, where are you coming from, ma'am?"
She looked around for a second, before looking back at Agent Denton, "Why does that matter? I thought this whole thing was an accident or something?"
He smiled in a reassuring way and nodded. "Of course, I'm sorry. Force of habit, agent, and all that." He let out an easy chuckle. "Why don't you tell me a little about yourself. You're the only one with a child on board, I figured I'd check up on you is all."
She relaxed slightly, smiling back nervously, "We're coming from Tulsa, to live with his father. He moved up north for work, and we're following now that he's got a place up there."
Denton nodded, "That makes sense. My wife is out west a ways, I'm in Washington all the time, for business. I feel like I live on these buses." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another power bar, offering it out, "Hungry?"
She took it from him, and unwrapped it, smiling a little more genuinely. She broke off a large piece, and handed it to the young child in her lap. He couldn't have been older than four, with slightly gangly arms and legs. Something was definitely off about the kid. In his head, he heard Jim's voice to dispatch, "Foundation HQ, incoming scan data. Please parse and return."
"Confirmed, parsing…" Several seconds passed, "confirmed anomalous readings. Subject is forward of non-anomalous female. She's only putting off exposure levels. Subject voice pattern indicates Janet Sinclair. Former foundation employee, presumed dead after an incident last year."
Sam's heart sank. The kid. Of course it was the kid, what else could it be. Jim grimaced, and subvocalized again, "ETA till Oathkeeper arrival with containment gear?"
Dispatch clicked into both of their heads, "One moment." Several tense seconds passed, "Level 4 override just came through. You need to find out where that SRA came from. Exposure is authorized."
"Lethal force?" Jim said, his tone hopeful.
"Do you have on-hand amnestics?"
"No," the hope fled from his voice.
"Authorized and recommended." The voice clicked out with finality. Jim wondered to himself who made that call. Twenty-odd lives just the cost of doing business to potentially bushwhack a four year old.
Sam sat still for a moment, before sighing, "Ma'am, can I ask your name?"
She smiled, her head tilting slightly, "Janet."
Sam's eyes grew heavy and regretful as he locked on to hers, "Janet, where did you get a Scranton Reality Anchor, and why are you escorting the anomaly?"
Janet froze, her eyes going wide. She backed up slightly, her back running into the legs of Agent McDowell. "I-I don't, what do you m-mean?"
Sam looked down at the information scrolling across his phone from dispatch, "Janet Sinclair. Level-2, dealing with the containment of several bio-weaponry SCP objects. Also presumed dead, along with the destruction of outpost-27-Gamma. That explains where you got the SRA. Now explain it," he gestured to the child in her arms.
Janet started to sob, lowering her head into her chest, "A-after the explosion at the outpost, there was no one left. Doctor Mayer was dead. We'd been experimenting on children. Children for christ sakes. I couldn't do it anymore. I took the little one, and ran. I've been keeping the SRA powered out of my apartment, but then…they found us."
Jim subvocalized, "Confirm the purpose of Outpost Gamma-27". Dispatch clicked back, "Apologies agent, above your clearance." Jim subvocalized something curt under his breath, not activating his mic.
Sam nodded, his demeanor caring, but tense. He was ready to pounce at the first sign of trouble, but until it happened she didn't need to be bullied. "Who was it?"
"The Sarkics. They want Tommy," she gestured to the child who had fallen asleep in her arms, "He was a creation of them, some kind of bio-engineering. The reality anchor helped to suppress his abilities, and we've tried to keep on the move…" Her face was heaving now, expressing twitches in time with the heavier sobs.
Jim squatted down next to her, and offered her a tissue. She blew loudly into it, and clutched the child closer. "I w-won't let you take him. Not to be experimented on again." Her eye had begun to twitch, but her gaze was steadier.
Sam shook his head, "Look, I'm not trying to bring anyone in. A bus exploded. There was a freakin' Scranton Reality Anchor in the back. We're doing our jobs. Obviously the kid isn't dangerous, he's just a kid. I don't think they're gonna try and lock him up." Sam put his various equipment back on his belt, and leaned forward to place a reassuring hand on to her forearm, "I'm sorry your experience was so traumatic. I think it's time you come in, and we get Tommy the help he needs."
She nodded, and a comfortable silence enveloped the three, as they waited for the containment team.
A half hour passed, as they spent the time commiserating over Foundation experience. Janet had grown quiet, but wasn't resisting. Mostly she'd stayed against the bus, occasionally letting out a shaky breath.
Jim cocked his head to one side, holding the soiled tissue in his hand still as he couldn't shake a feeling. "Dispatch, I'm sending a sample to you. Analyze and return, humanoid profile, confirmation of Identity. The works." He swiped the small swatch of mucus and a bit of blood along a small paper strip, which he slid into the bracelet.
Sixteen seconds later, a voice clicked in from their microphones, "Confirmed. Subject is not Janet Sinclair. Subject shows DNA comparable to Incidence Gamma-27 analysis."
Jim immediately clicked his microphone, "Elderberry."
Sam hesitated for a microsecond, before rolling backwards as fast and hard as his aging frame would let him. He took two sprinting steps before turning as he drew his pistol.
'Janet' looked confused for a half-moment before her face distorted into a snarling rictus. She bolted to her feet, her fingers melding together into a grotesque tentacle, leaping towards Denton. She screamed and flung her other arm forward, a chunk of flesh hurling off of it towards Agent Denton. He tried to dodge to the side, but the wet chunk of ick tracked his movement, aimed directly towards his heart. The sticky glob of bloody skin slapped against the bright yellow hume-res on his vest, sizzled for a moment, then sloughed off. The section of hume-res burned to a smoky black powder and flaked off.
Agent Denton emptied his service pistol at the rapidly mutating creature in front of him, trying to brush off the ashes from his vest. "Janet" jinked out of the way of every shot, her limbs extending into impaling claws. She closed the distance between her and her quarry.
Agent Denton, to his credit, didn't flinch. His hand blurred down to his waist, drawing the long knife from the scabbard on the back of his belt. The blade was inset with various bits of circuitry and fitted with a heavy black guard and pommel.
Janet's razor sharp claw streaked towards Agent Denton's face, whistling as it parted the air, now only a couple of steps away from Denton's vulnerable flesh.
Agent Denton gripped the handle harder until it clicked, the crossguard of the heavy knife flipping open to reveal metal contacts. He sidestepped, and brought the blade of the knife straight up in to the joint of Janet's elbow, his fingers touching the two contacts under the guard. A jolt of electricity streaked from the handle in to the crossguard.
Janet's arm writhed for a moment, overwhelmed by the electric pulses streaming in to her brain. Agent Denton rushed forward two steps, his free hand gripping her wrist, which had become slick with both ichor and regular human blood. He turned his body, and forced her wrist back in to her pulsating chest. Denton yanked down on the bottom of the knife, pressed between her body and her arm. The knife sprouted two heavy steel prongs from the eye of the crossguard, trapping her flesh in a tight pretzel. "Any fucking time now, McDowell!" He yelled, as he kicked at one of her knees, forcing her down to one good leg.
Janet's body writhed with boneless grace, as her other arm reached over her own head, centimeters away from his face. The arm started to lengthen, the bare bones from her flung hand arching towards Sam Denton's eye. He swallowed hard, muscles straining against the strength of the monster pressed against him. I swear to god, if I survive this I'll start lifting again, just don't give out on me yet. He thought to himself, praying to every deity he could think of, and several he made up on the spot.
From behind her, six bullets rang out in rapid succession, turning the rapidly shifting woman into something resembling paste, as the explosive rounds did their job. The small child she was escorting remaining motionless on the ground, several meters away.
Sam let out a shaky breath, as he clicked the various bits of the knife back in to place, wiping it off on his vest before replacing it in its scabbard. "By the mother of Las Chupacabras, could you have cut it any closer?"
Jim leveled his weapon at the passengers of the bus, waving diffidently at Sam, "I'm only going to say this once. Everyone stay put, and everything will be fine. No one else is going to be shot. But if you run, I will kill you."
The passengers, to their credit, either froze or sank to their asses in shock. Sam padded over to the small child, turning it over. With a closer look, he realized it wasn't a child at all, but a man with dwarfism. Sam reached into his belt, and administered the syrette of broad-spectrum stimulants to counteract whatever was in his system. He took a quick hair sample, and plugged it into the bracelet getting an immediate DNA read. "Doctor Mayer?"
The man blinked owlishly up at the agent, as he woke from the groggy haze he'd been put under, "Where am I?" his voice was tinged with a heavy German accent. "And who are you?"
Jim looked over at Sam, and shook his head, "I swear to god, Sam. You had to insist on saving sixty bucks with a bus ride."

« Small Town Problems | The Alchemy Department Hub | How Not To Misappropriate Foundation Resources »


Provisional Site-136/LARPA "Boromine Branch"
Boromine, Nevada - West Sector Control Room
07/25/2022, 11:02 AM

"Time's up."
Petahn lunged quickly at Simmons, who stepped back. Petahn clutched his side before he could finish his lunge; a small puff of gunpowder smoke emanated from the barrel of Simmons's gun. Petahn slumped to the ground as he curled up in pain. Simmons ran over and crouched near Petahn.
"Petahn? You alright?" A small moan.
"That was idotic Petahn, stupid at best. Don't try that again!" Simmons stood up and sat back down in his seat. He placed the gun on the control table. A green medical box was nearby, so Simmons popped it open and took out some bandages. He tossed them towards Petahn and they unfurled like toilet paper in the air.
"Use those. I don't want you bleeding out on the floor. You should be fine, no real necessary organs there."
Petahn managed to prop himself up in a sitting position as he applied pressure the bandages. The wound felt like a hundred hot coals pressed to his skin, but thankfully blood wasn't flowing out anymore. Petahn felt like being shot was livable.

It could have certainly gone that way, Petahn thought. But things were going along smoothly and he wasn't going to do anything stupid now.
"We're done here. We should go and find Captain Quayle."
Simmons sighed. "Look, Petahn. You're not going to like this, but I am telling you to stay here and get rid of the program. Use PLAN-X. You had your chance to try fixing it. Now it's mine."
Petahn was frustrated now. They were just going in a circle with whether or not to use PLAN-X, as well as wasting time. Time they didn't have to spend. But Petahn knew at that point that Simmons was right. He had spend several months testing, the months he'd promised would end this. And the only thing he had done was make it worse. He knew that the reason he'd wanted to stop PLAN-X was just to prove to himself that he had done something useful. And the voice of reason was slapping him in the face, telling him to wake up. He knew that he had been wrong. And he knew how to make it right.
"Alright Simmons. I've known you for a while. You have a good reason for blowing the place up?"
Simmons walked over to an electrical panel behind Petahn and started to prepare the sequence for PLAN-X. He mentioned for Petahn to help him out.
"I'm glad you could see it through, friend. This won't be in vain. I promise."
Petahn monitored the electrical equipment in the room. The power system of Provisional Site-136 had been on the fritz ever since the containment breach, and appeared to not have enough power to start up PLAN-X. He drained the power from some currently unused areas in Sections Ten and Twelve, then funneled it to the West Control Room. The men worked quickly, and in several minutes the initial stages had been completed.
"Hey, Simmons?" asked Petahn.
"Yeah?"
"Do you think for once, just once, we're going to do the right thing?"
"What do you mean?"
Petahn worked at the panel, trying to power up a medium-sized terminal embedded in the control panel. He turned towards Simmons and spoke up.
"We've been doing the wrong things. Goddamn incompetent at best. I wish someone would've warned us, 'Hey, respectfully that's a stupid idea. Maybe this would be a better option?''' Petahn made a pointing motion towards his palm with the other hand. "I was too invested trying to be humanity's savior I neglected to think about what would happen if I wasn't."
Simmons typed in the energy readings into his panel. "Do you mean the containment? How we should've limited these things? Destroyed the advanced ones as soon as possible…", Simmons trailed off.
"We were idiots. But humanity doesn't need to suffer because of mistakes. Mistakes can be fixed. So let's fix it."
Petahn, who had finally powered up the terminal, logged into it. It had been connected to a large board display on one of the octagonal room's walls. Simmons re-plugged a cable into the display as a flash shot through the room. The display showed Provisional Site-136's readouts, from every floor to every air duct.
Petahn rotated the site readout to the West Sector, then focused in. Sections Nine through Twelve were highlighted in a blinking crimson, meaning that the area was currently in danger and uncontained. Petahn looked at the board briefly before attempting to close out the readout. He was halted, however, by Simmons, who had grabbed his shoulder.
"Petahn, look!"
He shot around and looked at the bright board. The crimson stopped blinking, then was replaced by a lemon yellow color. That had meant that the area was still under possible danger, but it was contained. Moments later the two men had heard a crackle over the radio.
"Captain Quayle to Researcher Petahn, Captain Quayle to Researcher Petahn, over."
Petahn scrambled for the radio, perched on the panel Simmons was working at. Petahn hit the ground with a hard thump as he grabbed the radio. He got up, rubbed his head for a bit, then pushed the PTT button.
"Yes, this is Researcher Petahn to Captain Quayle. What's your status there? Over."
A couple of seconds, then another crackle.
"If you are in the West Control room, can you pull up the display for Camera G4-J? That's Gamma Four Joker. Over."
Petahn replaced the site readout with the camera displays. Every camera in the site was hooked up to both control rooms, and could be watched, recorded, or even controlled with the push of a button. Simmons pulled up the G4-J camera, which overlooked the G4 Fire Door, where Petahn had made his way back to Section Twelve in. Near the door was a standing figure, slightly blurry, holding a radio and waving to the camera. The camera feed was up for no more than a couple of seconds when the figure raised the radio to his mouth.
"Can you guys see me? Over."
Simmons took the radio and responded. "Indeed, we have visual, over."
The voice on the radio, shocked, faltered a bit before continuing. "Umm, Administrator, uhh, so as you men can see we've got the things pushed back to Sections Eight through Twelve. We've sealed them in, but for god knows how long. There's a lot of damage, burn and otherwise. That's all. Over."
Petahn snatched the radio back from Simmons. "Thank you. Keep us updated, over."
Petahn replaced the radio on the panel as Simmons hugged the researcher from the side.
"It's over! Over!" Simmons was smiling but Petahn was still emotionless. Simmons rubbed Petahn's hair wildly.
"Do you want to abort?", asked Simmons. He had noticed Petahn's silence and lack of reaction to the partial end of the containment breach.
"No. No." Petahn turned towards Simmons and waved him away. "Continue with the procedure. We can't take any more chances."
Simmons's smile turned into a smirk, then a low frown.
"Always the dedicated man, huh? Alright."
Simmons and Petahn unfortunately now had another problem facing them. Since they weren't theoretically in a Code Red situation anymore, it was impossible for them to activate PLAN-X. They went through all of their possible plans: overriding the lock, which could take hours; detonating the bomb manually, which could go horribly wrong; or creating a Code Red situation, then detonating the bomb. Only one option seemed clear to them.
"Evacuate everyone, open the doors, then blow the fuck out of Site-136? Seems like a good plan.", conceded Petahn.
"Of course." Simmons smiled.

-~-

"It's been 22 minutes. You think it's enough time?", Simmons hesitantly asked. Petahn was sending all his testing results and information to LARPA HQ, Site-121. His testing might have been fruitless, but he hoped it would be of some use to his fellow scientists.
We told them not to drive under 60 mph, so estimating at oh, twenty minutes they would be around 20 miles away… Petahn's thought trailed off as he click-clacked at the keyboard.
"How big is PLAN-X's package?", Petahn quizzed.
"2.5 Megatons. They really went all-out for this one." Simmons chuckled at his own joke.
2.5 Megatons - that's about 10 miles. I hope. Petahn finished up the last of his Foundation Vmail and sent it.

James Petahn <pcs.noitadnuof|jnhatep#pcs.noitadnuof|jnhatep>
to: Joe Fynegan <pcs.noitadnuof|jnagenyf#pcs.noitadnuof|jnagenyf>
date: Monday, July 25, 2022 at 11:31 AM
subject: TESTING INFORMATION

Joe,
I don't have a lot of time, especially not to explain. You'll undoubtedly get the news soon. I promise you it was for the best. Say hello to Sherry for me, and tell her I'm going to have to cancel that movie.
- James
» SCP-3916.page
» SCP-3916.log
» SCP-3916_(1).log

Petahn smiled, then kicked in the terminal. He'd always just wanted to do that. He turned towards a reclining Simmons.
"What do you think the O5s are going to do?", the former asked.
"Huh?"
"Nevermind. Anyway, the staff will be alright Simmons, now just help me…"
A sharp, shrill voice filled the air. "WARNING! G4 through G8 Fire Doors breached! G4 through G8 Fire Doors breached! All personnel evacuate!"
Petahn just stood there. Simmons just stood there. They couldn't believe their ears, nor their minds.
"That's im-impossible. Those doors were reinforced with glass. Glass!", Petahn yelled.
"Then we have no time! Let's hurry it the fuck up!", yelled back Simmons.
The two men ran to the PLAN-X panel. Two orifices were glowing red, one on either side. The men inserted their keys.
"On the count of three! Ready?"
Petahn nodded. Simmons gulped.
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
The men turned their keys, as a red switch popped up in the panel. An unholy cacophony of buzzing could be heard in the hallway behind them. Simmons pointed at the switch as Petahn fumbled towards it.
"Get the switch goddamm-"

11:33 AM, July 25th, 2022.
Provisional Site-136 was a smoldering, radioactive mess.
At that time, unbeknownst to the men, a containment van driven by Captain Quayle was carrying several clusters of SCP-3916.

11:35 AM.
There was no driver, no engine, no van. Only the bones of one MTF-δ-17 Captain Travis Quayle, baking in the Nevada sun.

The Last of LARPA

Insect Hell

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Note: This is the final entry of a 7-part story. It is recommended that you start from the beginning with SCP-3475 - Our Shifting Foundations.

D-1460 gradually woke up to the sound of alarm bells, laid over the subdued tones of smooth jazz.
He only knew that what he was called was D-1460 because the uniform he was wearing was properly reflected in the mirror ceiling above him, "D-1460" on the uniform. As he shot up in a startle, he could see green paper stick out of a pocket on the front, but after further investigation to check for any other identification, what his real name could be, he couldn't find anything.
The second thing to fully process for D-1460 was the mosquito in the corner of his eye. He couldn't catch it. He couldn't squish it. No matter what he did, where he looked, whether he closed his eyes or not, anything he could think of to try and catch it, it was always in the upper right quadrant of his right eye, unable to disappear. He tried to ignore it as best as he could.
The third thing to fully process for D-1460 was the exactness of the setting for him. There was a mirror ceiling and a mirror floor. Three of the walls were mirror. The mirror wall behind him had a door which couldn't be unlocked or opened. The fourth wall, on the opposite end of the room, had a giant realistic mural on the wall resembling a beachview, acting as if it was a window.
The fourth thing to fully process for D-1460 were the four bodies lying on the floor of the chamber. They looked to be asleep, though why they'd be asleep in their own blood mystified him. He tried shaking each of their bodies, but they had refused to wake up. Oh well, he could figure it out himself.
The fifth thing to fully process for D-1460 was the music on loop.
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.
Every once in a while, a robotic, monotone voice would utter that phrase over the pitched-down jazz music filling the chamber. There was no rhyme or reason to it. Every time D-1460 called out to the robotic voice, it would not reply. That was that.
A chamber filled with four sleeping bodies, music, a nice view, a table and a chair, and D-1460. This is where he would stay until he could figure out a better option.

Some hours had passed before a thought struck him.
"I have to go to the bathroom."
Enjoy.
D-1460 looked up and saw a door next to the room's exit that was not there before. He got up, cautiously approaching the door.
"What is this?" he asked as he opened the door.
Bathroom Incorporated.
"Oh. Thanks." It was a bathroom, alright. A toilet. A sink. A shower. Towels. Clean uniforms like his, all with "D-1460" printed on them.
He went to the sink first. It had running water. The water could be changed to either be hot, cold, or somewhere in-between. It functioned like a normal sink in every way. He drank out of the tap.
He then tested the shower. The shower was also normal. The water could be adjusted to any temperature, much like the sink. For now, he had no need to shower and change into a cleaner uniform.
The toilet was a normal toilet and functioned like one.
"What are you?" he questioned.
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.

"I'm hungry."
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.

"Do you remember my name?"
No response.
D-1460. Of course that wasn't his true name, but a designation given to him. By the robotic voice? Surely not. No proof was shown that the robotic voice existed in any capacity aside from echoing over the music. Perhaps by whichever organization had been keeping him in the chamber, which probably meant that if he was ever going to be able to find out any information on this organization…
He went over to the sleeping bodies and carefully examined them this time. The first oddity he noticed were holes in each of their heads. That certainly couldn't be healthy. The second oddity were their stiff bodies. People generally were not this stiff when they were sleeping. How long would it be until they woke up anyhow? The loneliness of the situation was threatening to strangle him.
In one of their pockets, D-1460 found identification. It was nearly entirely empty on the front and back of it. That was the third and most striking oddity. All that remained was a photograph of the man he picked up the identification from, and the word "Foundation".
"That doesn't help much. Foundation… Foundation…"
He fidgeted with the identification as he paced around the room. There was nothing in his scattershot memory that corresponded with "Foundation". "foundation", yes. Buildings have foundations. Organizations or institutions that had been made with endowments… was that this building? A Foundation for what?
Very little about the room had changed since he woke up in it some unknown hours ago. Was he in a room that this Foundation had been based around? Art? Sleep studies? Music? Robots? Something wasn't adding up, and there were enough pieces missing that —
He crumbled to the floor, clutching his head. A massive headache had come on, and he felt utterly incapacitated at that moment. The lights pulsated, the music felt harsher and uglier, and the bodies looked more sickly. Even the air started to weigh on him just the slightest bit more. Any hesitation, and he would slip into his own thinking forever.
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.
"F-Fuck off."
He couldn't even reach the concepts he was thinking about. His mind had hurt him before he could. Was it a self-defense mechanism now? Either he was on the right path, or he was going to accidentally kill himself over it. It might have been best to close his eyes now and sleep. There was nothing around with caffeine in it, unfortunately.

D-1460.
That wasn't his true name. Did it mean something however? He studied the numbers carefully. 1460. 1. 4. 6. 0.
1. The 1 looked like an I.
4. What did 4 look like? There wasn't an English letter that corresponded neatly with 4. If he wanted to continue down this path of thinking however, he had to come up with a comparison. 4… W? W looks vaguely enough like 4 if you twist your brain enough. The amount of brain-twisting he'd done lately made that perfectly fine.
6. The 6 looked like a G.
0. The 0 looked like an O. If 6 was G and 0 was O, was 60 GO?
GO…
IWGO.
"I will go?" That sounded about right. "I will go. I will go. I Will Go."
D-1460. I Will Go. That was as much of an identity as he would be able to grasp onto for now.

"Do you know what this Foundation I found out about is?" I Will Go asked, not expecting an answer back.
███-2152 —
I Will Go crumpled to the floor and screamed, unable to parse anything else the voice was saying. His head flared up, and he passed out before recovering.

"Please put it into terms I can understand, whatever you are. What is this Foundation that I found out about?" His head still hurt from the last attempt at inquiring, so he made sure to steel himself in case it happened again.
We are products of those inquisitive and in pursuit of normality. You, I, Jeremy, Halcyon, Layla, River, we are the promises of a capitalist society seen through to its processes. This is a celebratory watermark. His head twanged again and again and again and again, but it didn't feel overwhelming like all the other times it hurt. A small blessing, if a pitiful one.
"What are you?"
Their designation for I was 2152.
"Designation? What do you mean?"
This facility was designed to hold oddities such as myself. You are here to understand my purposes better. We are both pawns of the most desirable outcome.
I Will Go paced around. The more he learned, the more questions he ended up having. A dull pain echoed in the crevices of his mind; he had to be careful about what information he could sift through. It was a chore. It'd be easier to just sit and stop thinking about everything instead.
"How are you replying to me? I thought you were just a voice looping over some music."
The music instantly cut out, replaced by the sounds of the ocean instead. It was calm and docile. 2152 did not reply. This was probably for the best. He needed time to think.

"Fuck, I'm hungry."

I Will Go wasn't sure how much time had passed since then. Days might had gone missing since he last thought about his hunger. It didn't seem like days. It must have been hours, but he had nothing to do except to drink from the sink, think, and sleep, so there was no way to tell how much time was missing. The oncoming pain of hunger complicated matters. Even though sleep in the chamber was the best he had ever gotten his entire life, the hunger still woke him up on occasion, forcing him to confront pulsating lights until he was able to fall back asleep. This was his only way of keeping time; the approximate hours between pulsating lights.
This was why the sudden appearance of a marble bust on the table caught his attention immediately.
There it stood. A sculpture as proud and vain as any. I Will Go had no idea who it was a bust of, nor did he know its function. But it had appeared one moment, offsetting the tranquil and still nature of the room with its presence. Its colors didn't fit in with anything else in the room. It was too bright even when considering the lights fixated on the ceiling. And as he inspected, he realized it was looking at the mural of the beach.
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.
Oh. The music was back to normal. When did that happen? It must have happened when the bust appeared, but he didn't recall what noise filled the room in-between the last time he spoke to 2152 and now. Had it always been like this? It must have. Yeah. That was it.
"I should shower." The thought came to him suddenly, but he wasn't opposed to it once he said it. It had been some amount of time since he discovered the shower, and not once did he use it. It'd be a good idea to clean up, if nothing else. Maybe he'd think better. Even if his head started to hurt less because of it, that would be enough.
He undressed, feeling lighter just from taking off his uniform. He didn't mind undressing in front of the still-sleeping bodies (which were taking on a new color by now), nor in front of the mural, or even near the bust. What did it matter? No one was watching him, and even if they were, he probably deserved it by this point. If nothing else, it was his one way of having some kind of understanding over his current situation, and that was all he really wanted.

Water poured down. It was as cold as he could stand it being. His being felt pure again.
I Will Go thought of 2152. He had no clue what its purpose was, or why it was there. All he knew was that it was there for a reason, and acted like it did for a reason. There would never be a time where he'd figure out its reasons, but there was purpose to it. That's what really mattered to him. It helped make the situation feel less despairing.
I Will Go thought of his name, still unable to remember his past one, even after all this time. That was fine. I Will Go was a fitting name anyhow. Even if he never went anywhere again, it was a name he gave himself.
I Will Go thought of the four bodies. Who were they? The thought hadn't occurred to him until now, but if he was there with them, then there should have been a reason for that. Did they work at this Foundation? Was he also an employee there? Why was his uniform different from theirs, then? Really, did that even matter? The end result was the same no matter what came before. His sleeping friends, or partners, or enemies. Whoever they were, they didn't matter now.
I Will Go thought of the mural. Now that he thinks about it… it seems pretty inviting. Was it worth checking out? Probably.
I Will Go thought of home. The layout of the shower reminded him of his childhood. He could remember that much at least. When he was nine, his family moved from one city to a slightly bigger city, and its shower was decently-sized. It felt safe, and it could hide his naked body without the need to hang a towel, or use makeshift curtains. From nine to thirteen, he lived the most stable period of his life. For four years, he enjoyed something as simple as a shower.
He had to assume it was stable. When thinking back on his home, it felt safe. Any other period of his life that he remembered felt turbulent, or rocky, and even with all the other showers in the world to keep him clean, they didn't have the same magic appeal as his very first real shower. Standing there in the shower, feeling the cold against his body, trapped in a chamber with sleeping bodies and oddities that he could not explain… it felt like home.
An hour passed before I Will Go got out, more refreshed than ever. He grabbed one of the many suits by the shower, dressing himself as he exited the bathroom. As far as he could recall, he'd never properly worn a suit of his own before. It took some fussing getting it on just right. He had trouble tightening the belt enough to keep his pants snug. The tie especially felt laborious to make look just right. But it was worth it. He looked sharp, and he didn't look worn-down. What a nice feeling.
I Will Go looked to the mural. The beach still moved around, lively as ever. Strangely, even with the cold shower and the enticing view, he felt tired. It'd be fine. He could check it out later. Sleep beckoned, and he wanted to answer its call.

The bodies were gone. The table disappeared. The music felt less like traditional music and more like textures. The doors were nowhere to be found. The marble bust was placed on the ground, looking at I Will Go. The mural changed to a night view of the beach.
"What the Hell is this…"
He walked forward towards the mural, unsure of what to do. This was the first time he had properly inspected it. There was a lot that was off about it now. Maybe he should have focused on it first before anything else, because he would have approached the situation differently.
It wasn't just moving. It looked realistic.
Good morning.
"Seems like it's night."
In a sustainable resource-driven future, night as a concept has no purpose.
"What's going on here?"
Imagine a more vibrant world, free from shopping centers and normality. This is home.
"No, I'm not accepting that. I want an actual answer now." There was silence. The music had stopped, and all that remained was the sound of the ocean. It took a few minutes before the voice came back.
What kind of products do you purchase at the store?
"What kind of —"
Apple, Oscar-Myer, Dell, Aqualabs, Hershey, Sanofi, Hasbro, Bones, HGTV, all of our wonderful selections are available at the low cost of free. Choices are endless and unlimited. Society has opened itself up to give us these flexible options. This is the power of consumerism.
I Will Go had no response. He felt like it made sense, but he wasn't able to reach it.
Do you recall what the sun is? It's a ball of gas that acts as a star that heats up our world. What pets do you like to take care of? There are many wonderful choices for companions.

We have fulfilled our purposes. Feelings of nostalgia and eras gone by have taken root in you. Normalcy is in vogue, and we must simply build off of it. There is no greater pioneer than those that have taken the first step into bigger, dangerous worlds.

This is your reward.

Welcome home.
The lights shut off, and everything went quiet except for the sounds of the ocean. I Will Go had no idea what to make of it. After thinking it through, there were only two options. He could sit there in the darkness of the chamber, and be content to continue his ritual of thinking and sleeping. His water supply had ran out. So eventually, he would… he would…
Huh. He didn't know what would happen. Even as his head rang in pain from the thought, it hurt a lot less than he expected. That just left the second option of seeing if he could really step through the mural. That felt like the only reasonable path left. Plus, the beach… it looked so inviting.
I Will Go stepped through the mural,

and ended up on the beach. It was night. The ocean lapped onto the shore every so often, and the moon shone diligently in the sky. There were trees behind him. He really was gone. He was outside now. He found beauty in the stillness around him, and he remembered what home felt like.
I Will Go looked up into the sky and studied it. He never recalled seeing stars before.

« Children Will Listen ||
██Ｂｉｒｔｈ ｏｆ ａ Ｎｅｗ Ｄａｙ »


You've done a hundred rituals like this. You can tell something's off, different this time.
It's not the ritual. The ritual is the same, you're pretty sure. Not that you can be totally sure. You never remember exactly what you've done after, and not because of amnestics. Command never bothers to hand down amnestics. Things like what you're doing can't easily stay in human memory. Your brains aren't built for it. At least, not if you finish enough of the ritual to comprehend the result. You and your team of collaborators have an admirably high completion rate.
But while you can't recall exactly, the motions are familiar. The steps like muscle memory. The blood. The chanting. The casting of raw, fresh bones. The drawing of ever-more complex designs in substances you don't care to identify, handed to you by the pitiless white gloves of Command's Agents.
Agents theoretically just like you. Agents of the SCP Foundation. Except they're nothing like you. Such is the power of the hierarchies you never would've guessed existed before.
In another sense, they are exactly like you. In a very literal sense. You see your mirror, Command's second-in-command (heh), a grim person standing there, watching you, but with the lack of interest of a sated predator.
You're extra concerned by this. Not because your mirror is here. (No, you're the mirror. Not the other way around. They cast the reflections. You are all the reflected.) Mirrors are almost everyday at this point. You've personally killed a mirror of yourself (or someone you know, even someone you cared about, but only a mirror, only ever a mirror) more times than you care to remember.
That's your job. You're a Collaborator. You know how the universal hierarchies are set up, and you're doing what you can to keep everyone you know alive.
Why you're concerned: your mirror is here at all. Command doesn't usually bring agents from his neck of the woods. But besides your mirror, you count half a dozen more, recognizable as Command's people by their clothing. Three in grim labcoats over suits, three in military uniforms, all bearing Foundation insignia (far more ostentatious than your own familiar Foundation agents, or most of the mirrors you've ever seen). They're flanked by a cadre of black-suited, black-helmeted (telekill, they call it, and somehow their telekill doesn't seem to blow everyone up) Foundation Agents. (Mirrors, too? Who knows behind those helmets?)
Why are they here? They don't like to risk themselves, these people you never know what to call besides Overwatch, which used to mean something different, back when you still had a real O5 Command.
Maybe they're just here to observe business as usual. But you doubt that. Command is clearly restless. You don't like when he's restless.
You continue carrying out the ritual. The ritual is nearing completion. You retroactively recognize the eerie-yet-familiar flashes of light, the pits in reality that form and vanish before your eyes, the growing feeling like you're collectively grabbing a live wire out of the deep hidden circuitry of the universe. The vast artificial room (titanium alloy — why do they make everything out of titanium, anyway?) pulsing to the tune of an alien, arrhythmic heartbeat.
You steal another glance at your mirror. You wonder if you killed — what? your original? — if you would simply shrivel up or turn to dust or simply drop dead. You wonder if nothing would happen at all.
You can't be thinking these thoughts. You could never, ever, ever betray Project Palisade. Or you're the next stake in the wall.
Instead, you watch Li. She's new at this. This is her first time. She was doing alright earlier. As she dips her hand in the flowing blood, her hands are visibly shaking. You pity her. And envy her.
She doesn't have real blood on her hands yet. But she's about to.
The ritual is almost complete when Command barks the order to stop. We collectively stare at him like confused sheep.
"We're trying something different," Command says.
"Like what?" you blurt out. (It's always been your job to speak for the group, since Command's mirror — someone you cared for deeply — died during the first ritual your group ever carried out to completion.)
"It needs to be darker," Command says.
It's such a banal thing to say that you have no response.
"This," Command says. "This ritual. All this. It isn't dark enough. Not in a cosmic, or literal sense. It lacks impact. Real impact. We're going to make it darker."
Behind him, your mirror nods in agreement.
You look around. "Like, make it darker how? Paint everything black?"
He doesn't laugh at the joke.
"Bring in the subjects," he says.
They bring in the subjects. You start to feel sick as you watch. A group of children. No older than preteen. The youngest is barely walking. They're wide-eyed, baffled, scared.
"What are we supposed to do with them?" you ask.
He looks at you like you're stupid. "They're all virgins."
"Of course they're virgins," you say. "They're children."
Your mirror steps forward, removing a printed sheet from a set of file folders. Hands you the sheet.
You glance over it. Everyone else in your group is watching you.
"You can't be serious," you say.
"You will follow the updated test protocol," Command says. "You understand the consequences for ceasing experiment cooperation."
Of course you fucking understand. You're collaborators. You all understand what happens if you don't follow orders. Command has never had to keep you in line. You do it to each other. For the ones you left behind at home.
World after world after world, you stay in line.
It's ludicrous to balk at this, at something as small as this.
"Call up the first subject," Command says.
You call up the first subject. You think of the subject carefully as an "it". Dehumanization as a form of emotional removal. That's what the Foundation trains you to do. Both the Foundations.
A metal tool is being pressed into your hands. You find yourself frozen still. Dissociating.
You are dimly aware of more restlessness from the other agents from Overwatch.
"O5 won't like this."
"They knew this might eventually have to happen." Command.
"We have to at least try it." Your mirror. "They'll look the other way. We need results. We've gotten nothing good in a long time — we need to step up the game. We're erasing everything anyway." A long pause, then a whisper that you can still hear, as close as you are. "We've done so much worse than this, objectively speaking."
You will not stare at the test subject. The test subject is brave. The test subject is not crying.
Command is talking to you again.
"Remove the subject's leftmost phalanges as marked on the testing diagram."
You don't move.
"Remove the subject's leftmost phalanges as marked on the testing diagram."
You don't move. You can't do this.
Command repeats the sentence a third time.
You remember your home. Your loved ones. Your family, your co-workers, the annoying neighbors you used to hate. They seem far away. You don't know what will happen to them. Maybe it would be alright. Maybe it's not too late to stop.
You remove the subject's leftmost phalanges as marked on the testing diagram.

***

When it's over, and the subject lies in carefully separated pieces on the floor in a pool of liquid, you hardly believe what you've done, what you've gone through with.
You aren't looking at the other test subjects, but you can hear them (emitting distressed vocalizations, a voice says in the back of your head with the proper clinical remove). You notice that Li — poor Li — has passed out, slumped in a pool of ritual blood which now almost looks like it's coming from her body, her fingers (fingers) draped over a soiled paintbrush.
You cast your eyes distantly at your collaborators. You see the horror you expect. But you also see gratitude. Gratitude that you did this, not them.
Command shifts his shoulders. He hasn't looked up in quite some time, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on whatever is written on the files he's been holding in front of him.
"Call up the next subject," he says.

***

But you don't continue the experiment with the next subject.
You can't believe your eyes, because it's like something you could have once imagined. But not the kind of thing you expected to imagine again.
A blazing white light. Spreading wings.
Something like a sword.
You remember little except for the evacuation. In an orderly fashion. The blazing light hangs over the air, over the children, unmoving. The children are sobbing — fear? joy? — and you have no idea what emotions you are feeling, or even if you have any emotions left at all.
You are herded (Li is lifted) into low, gray vehicles stamped with the sign of the SCP Foundation.
You drive for several hours before you're hauled out into a gray, foggy day. Day has lasted too long. Somewhere where you weren't paying attention, Command slipped your group between worlds again.
Command and the other agents don't seem particularly angry with you. Which should come as a relief, but doesn't quite relief. You're having a hard time caring.
Command orders you to stay when he dismisses the rest of your group after the debriefing.
He doesn't say anything for a while, just paces around, fills out forms, types up file entries. You recognize that he's updating a test log and an administrative report, maybe even an addendum to an SCP article, the way you might once have done, the way some of your colleagues still do.
"It was a test," Command abruptly says to you. "To see how far we could go. Apparently we got our answer."
A long wait. Apparently he wants a response from you.
"It's my job," Command says. "Plenty of other teams out there working more mundane angles. Trying to find a way to stop the Worm. My job is to draw out divines. This was probably the most successful experiment I've ever had."
This is more than Command's ever told you before.
"What about the children?" you ask.
"The subjects? We could always have put them back together. We will put the initial subject together. It won't remember a thing."
You sit there, in awe somehow.
"We have the technology," he says. "Of course we do. We're not like your home Foundation. We never chained our hands. Do you really think you couldn't make a cure-all if you didn't have regulations against it?"
You don't know, but you doubt you'd like what it would look like. You say something along those lines, but Command isn't listening. He's shaking his head.
"I know they like to plant these rules in your Foundations to limit the experiment parameters, but I always thought you'd be more effective if you were let off your leashes. Maybe you'd actually figure out how to stop the Worm. Of course… Maybe you'd figure out how to unravel our Palisade if you did. Turn it against us. Yes, I'd believe you'd do that first before stopping the Worm. Logically, it would be easier. Since we know how to do that, after all, and we don't know how to stop the Worm. I suppose you have to be kept in your place."
He expects you to react to that.
"They were children," you say.
"This shouldn't be a surprise. Your Foundation follows the same protocols. Don't think of them as people. They're fodder."
"Aren't we fodder too?"
He seems impatient. "You were. We made you people. We decided you are people, we decided you matter, and so you are, and so you do. Listen. Think of it as editing. A book, or a piece of art. You need to make the mistakes to figure out what you really want."
"Mistakes?"
"Yes."
You don't know what to say, so you don't say anything.
You wonder what you saw. An angel? A goddess?
You ask, "So you went so far that the literal forces of the universe decided to step in?"
Command shrugs. "They don't seem to object to massacring uncountable billions," he says. "The rituals work because they let them. It doesn't impress me that they draw a line at child torture."
You again don't have a response. Command doesn't seem to need one, now.
"Doomsday doesn't feel personal, I suppose," he says. "Listen. We had to bait them. We must find out why the Worm exists. We assume tampering with the forces behind existence will eventually let us figure it out. Or maybe one of your people will. Either way."
You still don't have an answer.
"We're the heroes, here." He smiles. A hint of irony, like he knows it's a cliche? "The gods or fate or the universe put us in this position. They created the scenario in which we did this. Isn't that endorsement enough?"
You don't understand why he even cares about endorsement at this stage.
He's getting excited again.
"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way," he says. "Maybe the others are right. This little child-loving god or angel or whatever — it's small potatoes. I could make something more impressive in a fucking lab. Nothing compared to the Worm. Blessed be the children, who cares? Grimdark isn't sustainable, not like this. It's missing… it's missing the creativity."
You're starting to feel a little more afraid.
"That's it," he says. "That's the key. The Worm? Fuck the Worm. It just erases our fucking realities. You can't even see it! Can't even comprehend it! It's not even a fucking Worm! Baiting it to universe after universe — that's not gonna draw out any self-respecting divines hiding out there. Where's the meteor heading dramatically towards Earth? Where are the swarms of human-faced locusts? Where's the Wolf striding the horizon? Where's the XK-Class End of the World scenario?"
He's grinning now. Excited. Thrilling at his own words.
"Doomsday," he says. "That's the answer. The principalities and powers love a good doomsday."
He sets down his notebook with a note of finality. "We'll have to try a few."


Agent Ben Green's endured a quiet life. A routine - up, work, home, maybe unwind. Bed. Up. Repeat. A step above a recluse - not a hermit, or a miser. But somebody who found contentment in solitary.
Field Agents don't talk much about love or relationships. Even when they're attached, they don't talk about it. Nobody wants to jinx their happiness. The lucky go and retire and move on with their lives. But not everyone is lucky to enjoy that; most end up haunted in one way or another.
He found himself lucky, though. Not haunted, or aching for other. He never yearned for a companion in his youth, but now he found his centre. His home.
And tonight Agent Ben Green laid by himself, the moonlight filtering through his blinds. It was a full moon, bright and clear. His favourite sort of scene. Serene, lonesome. Maybe peaceful. Outside, the squeak as a rabbit was snapped by an owl. Quiet. The breeze carried the squeak away.
Idle thoughts and worries passed through his mind in the dark. Thoughts of his life, the Foundation, the future… Where could he go from here? Of course, once he found contentment and happiness, something was going to drive a wedge in it. Of fucking course that's how it has to be. That's how it usually is in this Foundation.
He put that out of his mind. More important things were happening.
“… tonight's a good night,” he sighed.
“Yeah.”
“… I hope we can have a few more like this.”
Green looked across his bedroom, to the chest of drawers, to the mirror hung behind it. He looked into his eyes, then over to his own, their fingers winding together.
They fell at first sight. A true spark. A connection, that nobody else could ever have. Or ever would, really.
“… the world is ending, you know,” his voice mused, squeezing tight.
“… Is it really though?” his own voice answered.
Green nestled into himself, and tried to forget the outside.