It had to be bad. Like, really bad. The director's voice was shaking when he called. He said something about "emergency medical extraction" before he hung up.
"You think this is some sort of containment breach?" Lambert asked her boss as Medical Unit 16 crept closer and closer to Site 19's west wing. It was her first month on the job. She was still quite green.
"Of course it's not," Mitchell replied. "There'd be alarms blaring all across the site. And they'd be calling in a full on task force. Not us."
"What if they're trying to be discreet?"
"That doesn't matter right now. All we know is that half of the west wing is knee deep in some sort of shit."
Lambert started going through possible scenarios. Maybe it was an attack from the inside. Maybe they couldn't trust the MTFs anymore. Maybe it was some sort of memetic anomaly that was most susceptible to people without medical expertise.
The unit approached the door to a senior scientist's office. Just before Mitchell opened it, the door swung out just far enough for a middle-aged man to pop his head out.
"Kondraki! Good to see you're—"
"Yeah yeah I'm fine. Just, did you bring everything?"
"Of course."
"Even the lube?"
Mitchell fumbled around in his backpack. "I mean… it took a while to find some but yes."
"And the pliers?"
Lambert jumped in. "What's going on?"
"I want to be clear. I had nothing to do with this. I mean, not this time anyway," Kondraki answered.
"Okay?"
"I'll let you tend to them then."
Kondraki opened the door the rest of the way. There were twelve men just looking at their crotches with a mixture of embarrassment and disappointment. As one normally would when one's dick is stuck in a water bottle.
"Wha—"
One of the men spoke up. "I mean, we were curious."
"There was that one power point and like… I just wanted to know what that was even like. I couldn't tell if it was arousing or painful," another added.
"You— you literally went against an O5 order for this," Mitchell responded.
"Yeah, but… like I could not tell they were serious."
"Is Gears ever kidding?"
"No, but like, it was just so stupid. So stupid we had to try it."
"That makes no sense!"
Lambert turned to Mitchell, whose face had gone pale. You couldn't blame him though. He was looking at a room full of his superiors with their dicks stuck in water bottles. And it was his job now to get them out.
"Can we— can we just get this over with?"
Mitchell swallowed. "Yeah. Yeah. I mean… yeah."
And Medical Unit 16 got to work.

Dear Sergeant Edward Mitchell,
I am writing to submit my official request for transfer from Medical Unit 16 to Medical Unit 27 based in Site 23.
I am requesting this transfer on the grounds of the incident that occurred on 05/21/2018 whereby our unit was instructed to extract the genitals of Site 19 personnel from Class-3 plastic liquid containment vessels. While this did warrant medical assistance, this sort of activity was not a part of the job description.
I would like to continue my service to the Foundation, albeit not in the presence of men whose dicks I have handled. Thus this request for transfer.
I hope you understand.
Sincerely, Sarah Lambert


close

Info

X

Embracing the Angels
Part of the War on All Fronts Canon.
Part of Team Mikasa's Doomsday Contest 2018 entries, along with:

SCP-3534 by DrCaroll
Project Sensuikan by stallmantic
The Kaiju Sea by DrChandra
A Storm More Foul, A Land Less Fair by stormbreath

by stormbreath

THE COLOSSI THAT WALK OUR WORLD ARE NOT DEMONS, BUT ANGELS SENT FROM BELOW. KNOW THAT THEY ARE DIVINE BY THEIR FIVE ARMS AND FIVE TENTACLES, THE EMANATION OF THE LORD HIMSELF.

The Southern Baptist Fifthist Church of Pensacola rarely - in all honesty - actually had full attendance. Most of the attendees were of those "January 5th and 5×5 Day only goers" types, that said they were Fifthists but really only went for the big holidays (but of course, all the while looking down on everyone else who did the same.)
But it just so happens that the literal end of the world could get even those types off their couches and into pews. Who knew! A scoop of armageddon, handful of eschaton and a little something of what those Foundation eggheads called an “MH-Class 'Large-Scale Aggressor Overrun' Scenario” works wonders for bringing out the faith in us all.
When the first of these so-called "angels'' had crashed down on the shore of Hy-Brasil, only a few had actually believed it was anything of the sort. Sure, it had five arms, five tentacles, and five eyes, and a lot of people tended to hear its voice whisper things to them after it had died, but the Global Occult Coalition had killed it. Angels weren't supposed to die!
But then the other angels came, and boy howdy were there a lot of those. The argument that these were the beasts causing the apocalypse became a lot more convincing when there were 555 of them, crawling all over the world, mindlessly killing everything they could see and doing their level best to wipe out human civilization as we know it.
At the very least, the members of the Southern Baptist Fifthist Church of Pensacola were convinced that the world was ending, and they might just want to get on the good side of THE LORD before the end. Was it an automatic pass into heaven if you died in church? Maybe? Hopefully? Probably not. The optics looked good, at least.
The congregation had all filed in — with a couple of new converts, who had heard about these people who claimed the kaiju eating the world were their own angels and at the very least thought it'd be interesting to give that a listen — and crowded the pews.
The pastor — a man who had previously spent most of his time preaching that the great 5tarfish above would help those who helped themselves, and faith in Him would be rewarded with riches fivefold — stepped forward to preach to the choir. A part of him, in truth, was indeed connected with the entity that poked through reality and had coiled around the concept of a Southern Baptist Church, but that part of him was the religious part and was subservient to his greed.
But at the end of the world, greed tends to fall quiet and faith tends to start screaming.

THE COLOSSI THAT WALK OUR WORLD ARE NOT DEMONS, BUT ANGELS SENT FROM BELOW.1 KNOW THAT THEY ARE DIVINE BY THEIR FIVE ARMS AND FIVE TENTACLES, THE EMANATION OF THE LORD HIMSELF.
OUR WORLD WAS RIFE WITH SINNERS, CITIES LIKE UNTO SODOM AND GOMORRAH.2 BUT THE GREATEST OF THEIR SINS WAS THE HUBRIS TO ENTER HEAVEN AND WALK AMONG THE STARS BEFORE THEIR DEATH, AND SO THEY DREW THE FURY OF OUR GOD.
THIS SIN WAS HUBRIS EQUAL TO THAT OF EVE IN THE GARDEN3, AND LIKE BEFORE SO AGAIN DOES IT DAMN THE WHOLE OF MAN. THE LORD HAS PASSED HIS JUDGEMENT AND HAS DENIED FORGIVENESS TO THE WORLD.
FIGHT NOT AGAINST THE ANGELS, FOR YOU SHALL FAIL. IT IS OUR DUTY AS THE CHILDREN OF GOD TO ACCEPT HIS HOLY WISDOM AND WILL,4 AND SO WE LAY OUR LIVES DOWN BEFORE THE ANGELS AND THE FLOOD.
MAY THE ANGELS PURGE THIS WORLD WITH THEIR HOLY FIRE AND MAY THEY CLEANSE IT WITH THEIR FLOOD5, FOR WE ARE SINNERS IN THE TENTACLES OF AN ANGRY GOD.

1. Psalm 78:49 — He let loose on them his burning anger, wrath, indignation, and distress, a company of destroying angels.
2. Genesis 19:25 — And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.
3. Romans 5:19 — For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners
4. Joshua 1:9 — Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
5. Genesis 7:11 — In the five hundredth year of Noah's life, in the fifth month, on the fifth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

The problem with most Southern Baptist Fifthists was that any of the truly devout had their minds addled by their devotion to 55555, which had the nasty habit of completely replacing the intellect of anyone who followed it. And anybody who wasn't truly devout most certainly wasn't going to listen to a sermon like that.
But as the pastor rambled on concerning the wrath of God and how Man had managed to draw it, there was a roar outside. It started alone and was then was joined by a choir. The choir inside the church shut up and looked outside.
A swarm of so-called angels had descended upon Pensacola, hundreds of the little angels, not one taller than thirty feet tall. These were some of the smaller of the harbingers of the apocalypse - the big ones towered into the clouds, after all. Together, their cries drowned out all other noise in the world and to the ears of the Southern Baptist Fifthist Church of Pensacola, it was nothing less than beautiful.
Ideally, the churchgoers would lay their lives down before the swarm of angels that had come to deliver divine reckoning to them. But, unfortunately, as we have established, most members of the congregation were only tangentially Fifthist and reacted as any normal person would to a horde of five armed, five tentacled crocodile-squid-dinosaur-monsters.
Which is to say, not very well.
The beach around them had already erupted into chaos, with civilians and tourists trying to escape. Some souls had heard that the apocalypse was coming and had elected to continue on with their vacation plan? Was that stupid or prudent? I know that I, for one, would rather die on vacation than in Gary, Indiana.
The pastor was the only member of the congregation to embrace the angels. Without fear, he walked forward, a puppet dancing on the fifty strings of a greater being from out of time and out of space. Devout men and women stepped forward, walking behind their leader.
He stepped forward and his mind fell apart. His connection to FIVE had always been present, but seeing something that was so closely tied with FIVE brought it forward and ripped every other bit of his mind out, leaving it on the cutting room floor.
His fingers graced an angel for just a second before his head was in the stomach of the beast, and in that second he knew divinity.


Kondraki was mortified. Bad enough that his one off impulsive decision ended in disaster (again, as usual), worse was the fact that everyone had to know about it. And know about it with visual aids. From an O5 sanctioned presentation. Kondraki wasn't too much more paranoid than any other reasonable adult on site, but he could swear he felt people's eyes on him leaving the meeting. The wound to his pride was too fresh. He decided to seclude himself to his work for the day and hope no smartass came by with a bottle themed get well basket.
The distraction was mostly sufficient, if completely soul sucking-ly boring. So a pretty normal day doing paperwork. Aside from the occasional dull ache from his lower half, Kondraki was able to mostly put the incident out of his mind. No more issues, or lingering embarrassment, just reams of paperwork to be filled out. Not glamorous, but necessary. It was going great, actually; he was making good progress and a decent dent in some of the work he had been totally-not-putting-off, and it might have given him a little free time on his day off instead of having to take work home again. Then disaster struck.
As Kondraki lifted his coffee cup to his lips once more, he realized that he'd sipped it dry. His stomach sank as he realized that meant he'd have to get up and actually go get more; absolutely no way around that. He just hoped that no one got between him and his source of endless power. Or that he didn't hear the tell tale sound of crinkling plastic. After a minute or two of grumbling to himself, he finally got up the nerve to head down the hall to refill.
He didn't walk with his head down; he didn't want to seem ashamed. After everything he'd already pulled, there wouldn't be a point anyway. Just a chip to his pride.
Just before rounding the corner to where the coffee pot awaited him, Kondraki overheard a conversation.
“Alright, okay you remember the thing with the Pringles can?” Began the first voice, sounding a little exasperated.
“Yeah,” came the reply. “I still have the scar on the back of my hand from where the scissors slipped trying to get me out.”
“Okay so imagine that, but instead of it being your hand, it's your dick. It'd just fuckin' slice a big gash in-“
“Dear god that hurts just thinking about it, shut up.”
Great. Fantastic. Maybe if he kept his head down, Kondraki would be able to get his coffee and go without the two noticing.
“I get what you're saying,” the second voice added, closer now. “But why would he do it in the first place?”
“Sometimes people just do things man.” The first voice answered simply. “Like you haven't done something stupid before. Like uh, remember Ryan? Grade nine, got his arm stuck in the plastic tubing in art class cause he just wanted to see if he could make himself a robot suit out of PVC pipe.”
“Isn't that the guy who drank so much Red Bull that the company sent him a laptop?”
“Yeah, that's the one. They had to call an ambulance to get him cut out of the pipe because if we tried to use the pipe cutters we could have got his arm. Same principle.”
“Okay but Ryan was a complete dumbass.”
“Yeah, but everyone's a bit of a dumbass. Like you can be a highly intelligent person and still be a dumbass.”
At that point, Kondraki rounded the corner and made a beeline for the coffee pot. The small half-room wasn't very big, so it wasn't very far at all, but he was able to move quietly towards his warm holy grail.
He had made eye contact with one of the two voices. They were both young researchers, hadn't been at the site long. Or at least he assumed, judging by their age. He didn't really recognize anyone unless they did something noteworthy, and even then it was pretty hit or miss.The first voice, belonging to a short young man who now wore a barely suppressed look of fear on his face, stopped in its tracks when Kondraki made eye contact on his way to the pot. The second individual, taller but just as young, had his back to Kondraki when he walked in, and hadn't seen him.
“Like, I can get that the idea came to him.” Started the second man, who ignored his colleague that had begun shaking his head frantically in favor for eyeing up the vending machine. “I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about something like that before. But to actually go through with it?”
Kondraki poured himself a cup, and didn't turn to look at either of the two. “What can I say? Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
The silence that followed was almost unnatural. The only sound in the room came from coffee being poured; even the vending machine seemed to stop its endless quiet hum, if only for a few seconds. That was followed by some frantic shuffling, and the sound of two sets of footsteps retreating down the hall.
Kondraki half chuckled to himself; seems they were more embarrassed than he was. He finished fixing his coffee and began his return trip back to his desk to finish both his paperwork and his self isolation over the incident.
So things maybe weren't as bad as they seemed. Just like any big mistake, people would probably talk about it for a few days and then be over it when the next fresh gossip came out. It was just how people were. They might work with dangerous, impossible and generally horrifying objects and entities every day, but thankfully, most of them were still pretty human. Sometimes humans did amazing and noble work for the good of mankind. Sometimes humans got their dicks stuck in water bottles.
Kondraki mused on this quietly as he took a sip of coffee, finally returning to his desk on which sat an unopened water bottle, tied with red ribbon to a balloon reading “Get Well Soon! :)“.


ADULT CONTENT

This article contains adult content that may not be suitable for all readers.
Graphic depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts
Features sexual themes or language, but does not depict sexual acts.
Explicit depiction of sexual acts.
Features non-consensual sexual acts.
Depiction of severe mistreatment of children
Depiction of self-harm
Depiction of suicide
Depiction of torture
{$custom-content}
If you are above the age of 18+ and wish to read such content, then you may click Continue to view said content.
Continue
Back to Front Page
« prev |{$current}| next »

The cold, unforgiving silence that always filled the auditorium at Site 19, regardless of the number of people present, was broken only by the soft click of dress shoes moving across the stage. An assembly was never good. It meant one of three things: a major change in initiative of some sort, an announcement of some imminent threat that was inimical to all life on earth, or—possibly the worst—a new initiative from the O5 Council designed to ‘help' the common workers of the site. Most often, these ended up causing more long term harm than short term improvement, a fact that was exacerbated by the fact that it was Dr. Gears slowly moving across the stage.
He moved with the normal, shuffling gait of a man who had progressed in years, though he held his back straight and even. He stepped up to the podium, then shifted a three ring binder of pre-prepared notes out from under his arm, opening it and then pressing one of the controls along the edge of the lectern to dim the lights and start the projector in the back of the room.
"I am here to announce a new O5 initiative," Gears said, his voice flat and even.
At once, the air seemed to go out of the room. The collective assholes of approximately six hundred personnel clenched, most of them lowering their heads in resignation as Gears pressed the button for the projector, bringing up the first slide.
"This is a standard, Class-3 plastic liquid containment vessel," Gears began, turning and gesturing toward the wall behind him, then looking down at his paperwork again. "Recently, there have been a rash of incidents caused by the improper use of these devices in the line of work, and we are making efforts to correct these misconceptions. Please note that these devices can be used to contain any number of approved substances. A memo has been distributed site-wide which lists the correct—"
There was a soft cough from the front row, a hand raised slightly. Faces turned and looked at the man sitting there. Most of them somewhere between shock that someone was interrupting Gears and relief that, for the moment at least, the new initiative seemed to be on hold.
The man stood, brushing at nothing on the front of his lab coat and shirt. "Dr. Gears, sorry to interrupt. My name is Dr. Bridge. Sir, I just want to be entirely clear… That's… that's just a bottle, right?"
Gears expressionless face regarded Bridge for a moment, and then, he nodded slowly. "Yes, Doctor. This is a standard, Class-3 plastic liquid containment vessel."
"Yes," agreed Bridge, "but that is… just a bottle. Right? There's no… special structure to contain Euclid threats or something weird like that. Right?"
Gears paused a moment, turning to look at the slide, then back to Bridge. "In layman's terms, yes."
"So… We're being called here because there's a misuse of… bottles?" he continued.
Gears didn't frown—he never did, as far as anyone knew—but he might have narrowed his eyes in a method that anyone not close to him would have called imperceptible.
"Yes," Gears said.
Bridge nodded slightly. "Sir, and again, I apologize, but before we cover the proper use of the bottles… Could you perhaps address the improper usage of the bottles?"
Gears looked down at his notes again, then back to Bridge. "I assure you, Doctor, that by going over the proper procedure for using the device that the problem will be alleviated."
"Yes," Bridge agreed. "But I think, as an object lesson, it might be a good idea to address this. If I may… If I may suggest, I mean," he said. "Sorry."
Gears paused for a moment, then looked out at the crowd. There were a few nods of agreement, and after a few seconds, he shuffled his papers around, looking down at them again, then pressing the button several times, moving through slides labeled ‘Proper Substances,' ‘Filling and Emptying,' ‘Funnels and You', until he stopped at the final one.
There was a soft swear from somewhere to the side of the auditorium. Draven Kondraki—previous unseen and sunken slightly in his seat—had leaned up again as eyes darted from the slide to Doctor Kondraki to back toward the slide again.
"It's not the first time most of you have seen it," Kondraki muttered, turning toward the wall.
"Please," Gears began, "remember that inserting non-specific objects or substances into the bottle can cause unexpected results. Specifically, placing an object capable of expanding in size may result in great difficulty in removing the object at a later time. In this particular case, medical intervention was necessary. Thankfully, no long term damage was caused with this subject."
People were shifting uncomfortably. Half were deeply concerned, and the rest were too afraid to laugh. The silence thickened, and after a moment, Gears pressed the button on the lectern again.
"From this angle, you can see the pressure being applied…" Gears continued, pressing the button again.
"And from this angle, you'll notice that there seems to be a small amount of tension in the lower back, which can lead to a number of medical concerns," Gears added. "A pamphlet has been completed by the Site-7 Medical Staff which will outline the risks involved with such incidents. Each of you will receive a copy of this in the intrasite mail tomorrow."
"Oh, god damnit," Kondraki muttered. "Those bastards…"
Clef elbowed him slightly. "Hey. It's not like it can get worse…" he said.
"And now," Gears finished. "An instructional video on what to do if you…" He narrowed his eyes at the prewritten notes, reading it twice to be certain. "…get your dick stuck in a bottle."


close

Info

X

The Shape of a Gun
Image Credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Whitney_2003-03-25.jpg
https://pixabay.com/en/apocalypse-war-disaster-destruction-2459465/

More by this author

Monica Pinkston hefted her 150-pound rotary-fire grenade cannon over her shoulder and sighed, surveying the smoldering wreckage of the building in which she had been imprisoned less than an hour ago.
Smoke rose from its roof as the fires burned. Alarms blared in the distance. From the top of the hill, Monica had a good vantage point on the valley below. She knew that she could shell the entire site right from where she stood and reduce it to so much vapor and ash. She knew that she could take great vengeance upon everyone inside, delivered through the barrels of a hundred guns. There was a small and dying part of her that wanted to.
But the rest of her didn't want to. Her heart had too many charred and broken corpses clinging to it already. She let go of her gun, and it fell out of reality rather than to the ground. She turned her back on what remained of her prison and walked away.
After half an hour of walking through rocky scree and dry trees, Monica realized that she was not in Manhattan. She admonished herself for not stealing a car on her way out. Or a helicopter.
She sat down on the softest-looking rock she could find and sighed. She had no survival skills, no equipment, no food, and no transportation. She had no idea where she was. And worst of all, she was nowhere near as alone as she wanted to be.
There was something inside her.
Now that her heart had slowed and her freedom was won, her mind started to work in the absence of more pressing matters. The echoes of the last hour reverberated through her, turning her bones to syrup. She fought back the urge to puke.
One hour ago, Monica had been named D-77777. This had made her somewhat noteworthy in the minuscule community to which she had become accustomed. Lucky Sevens, they'd called her. Her natural tendency was to stay invisible, learned from a life of being hammered down like the lone nail whenever she stood out. But a computer somewhere had elected to make her inescapably noticeable, with five black sevens embedded in the orange of her back like so many fishhooks. So people naturally assumed that she had to be interesting. That fate had selected her to be something special. So they gravitated to her like moons around a planet.
Monica was critically aware of how inaccurate all this was. She was a normal girl from a shitty neighborhood, too clever to be satisfied with what she had but not clever enough to know when to stop. A longstanding petty criminal with daddy issues, mommy issues, money issues, anger issues, and plenty more. Just another stupid, regrettable sob story among millions in modern America. A crater left over from some teenage catastrophe.
But no. For some reason, you could talk to Lucky Sevens. Sevens was quiet, and would listen. Sevens gave good advice. Sevens was a quick study and knew how to survive. Sevens had made it through trial after trial without getting her face torn off or her guts melted or her brain sucked out, and she could probably show you how to do it too. Just stick with Sevens, and you'll be alright.
This had happened without her permission. But convincing the rest that she really was a shitpiece waste of skin wouldn't have made anything better, so she kept her mouth shut and did her best.
Then the labcoats brought her here. They put that goo on her arm. Then everything was different, all at once. Her body and mind collapsed. She was no longer her own self. She became a cup of her own soul being drunk by something very thirsty. And then it had pissed her back out.
This had happened over the course of a few seconds.
Nothing told her explicitly that she had gained enormous power and that she needed to use that power to escape. The message didn't come in words. It was like smoke and iron filings in her blood. She felt things she had never learned the words for. The thing that was using her body like a cheap apartment had taken something from her, she knew it. She didn't know what, but it was gone. Something was gone. And in its place had been left an arsenal.
It had taken all her frustration, all her hatred, her misery and doubt and blackened determination, everything that she was as a human person, and smelted it into a shape. The shape that had hammered her life to pieces and defended the shards again and again. The shape that represented what she was to the world.
The shape of a gun.
She had thousands now. Millions. Pistols, rifles, grenade launchers, howitzers, cruise missiles, and other things that the human animal had not yet been able to imagine. Great expanses of black powder, rivers of bullets and endless fields of firearms now rested in a space just behind her own life. And she had used them to escape.
And they had tried to stop her. But every impact of their bullets upon her skin was just a hammer driving down on the blasting cap of her soul. Her rage detonated against their need to keep her still. And they died trying to make it so. Her body had become a divine bomb. A celestial landmine.
She understood none of it. She had just acted. She had had no time to see if anyone else could come with her; she had become too dangerous to be near. And so she was alone, but for the thing that had nestled deep within the superfluous folded meat of her body. The thing that spoke without speaking, the thing that told her only to live as she needed.
What Monica needed right now was a fucking cigarette.
She patted for a second and found the few that she had managed to smuggle into the compound. All but one was broken, but for right now, one was enough. And then she realized that even with infinite firepower behind her eyes, she didn't have a fucking lighter.
And then there was a blowtorch in her hand. She gave up. Apparently life was now literally what she made of it. She smoked on the rock and wondered whether she was going to die.
Then she heard a sound. The warm sound of an engine, getting closer.
She figured that made sense. She had started with the element of surprise, but she hadn't killed everyone and hadn't destroyed everything. Now that they knew what to expect, they'd send their manhunters out, with better equipment and a better plan. They probably had snipers in the trees, zeroing in on her right now.
Monica put her cigarette out and stood, walking forward into the clearing. She didn't care about being seen. Given what had already happened, she had no reason to expect that they were capable of killing her anymore. Even if they could… it didn't matter. Monica had made the decision to die shooting before and she had no issue with making it again.
A black vehicle, some kind of dune buggy. Fat tires, exposed metal skeleton. There was only one person in it. She held her fire – even after everything these people had put her through, Monica refused to shoot first.
The man got out. He was tall, and tan. Military-short hair. Muscular. A paint-by-numbers cutout of every action movie protagonist ever, all in black body armor.
He smiled in a way that made her want to hit him and held his hands up.
“Easy. I just want to talk.”
Monica's right arm became an enormous mechanized bastardization larger than her own body. She aimed its iron fist at him, and a barrel on the wrist glowed red-orange. The air hummed and thickened with exhaust from the pipes jutting out of her shoulder.
She replied, “Okay. I want to vaporize your ass with this fucking laser. But I'll let you go first, Jackboots. Talk.”
He kept his hands where they were. “I'm not here to try to bring you back.”
Monica whistled. “Wow. That's… that's pretty fucking smart, Heinrich! Considering the situation and all.”
His smile faded. “I understand why you'd want to kill me. I'd probably want to kill me too. Do you believe in second chances, Ms. Pinkston?”
She showed him her teeth. “Fuck you.”
“I think you do. I've read your file. I know about most of the shit you've been through. Where you come from. Who's hurt you, and who you've hurt. And I have a pretty good idea where you'd be if no one ever gave you another shot.”
She took a few steps forward and brought her titanic fist to within inches of his forehead. She could see the sweat on his skin, cast in the molten light from the laser's aperture.
“Telling me how much you know about my life is really bad for your health right now, you Nazi motherfucker.”
He swallowed, but kept his eyes on hers. “Here's the deal. I'm only alive now because I've got the sense to stay on the winning side. I know what's going on out there. The Foundation is losing. I'm not a loser, and now neither are you. I have wheels, equipment, money, contacts, and information. You've been out of the system for years, Monica. Unless you want to make a monster out of yourself, you need my help. All you have to do is not shoot me.”
Monica looked into his eyes, blue and cold, and made a choice.

Queen of Spades, the Baroness of Old Vegas, watched as a floating blob of black plasma dissolved a mailbox a few feet from her head.
She rolled away from the growing, glittering slime and stood, directing the row of artillery cannons behind her to fire upon the scrawny dickhead at the end of the street.
The huge guns rattled the pavement and spat their shells down the block. A pseudopod of shiny black slime flicked up from the pool devouring the ground and swallowed them, erasing the explosive shots as though they had never existed.
Monica said, “Why does this little shithead have to show up every time we get this zone clear? It's like he has nothing better to do. Motherfucker needs a hobby.”
Jake said though her earpiece, “Beats me. We'd all prefer if you killed him, I think. I know Dozer is getting tired of repaving the roads.”
Monica dismissed the artillery cannons and summoned a battery of 6 surface-to-surface missile packs. She fired them all simultaneously, sending no less than 120 high-explosive missiles shrieking through the air toward the irritating freak.
“Well why don't you tell Dozer that he can drag his fat ass out here and he can try to earthbend this fuckhole into an early grave himself, huh?”
119 of the missiles were swallowed out of reality by writhing tentacles of black sludge, but one of them found its mark. The pale man wrapped himself in an orb of the dark gunk to shield himself from the fire, and the rest of the stuff began to retreat, leaving carved furrows in the ground where it had been.
Jake replied, “Got him. Press the advantage.”
The Queen was starting to sweat. She was reaching the mass limit. Enough was enough. No more evacuated districts. No more scared families. This fucker had to die.
Part of her was going to miss him. The perfectly black sludge with its somehow distantly sparkling stars was almost pretty, if you ignored the fact that it effortlessly devoured everything it touched.
The black orb at the end of the street gathered itself up and hurled more levitating globs at her. They traveled slowly, quietly obliterating traffic lights, lampposts, and fire hydrants as they advanced.
Monica extended a hand toward the sky and moved nowhere, calling down her coup de grace.
The Showstopper.
The air above the intruder wrenched in a way that was horrible to look at, and a thunderclap cracked the sidewalks as a colossal tower of churning metal appeared in the sky. It blocked out the sun, howling and smoking and torturing the air with its heat. The bottom end of the hovering citadel of dark iron glowed a ferocious white-orange, dripping molten metal which fell a hundred feet and splashed upon the blacktop. The enormous machine was barely able to contain its own energy.
So she let it out.
A deafening hum rang through the city like the chime of a great bell as the column of space below the orbital cannon transformed into a line of orange light. It punched into the earth and obscured everything from view, blinding and terrible, vaporizing everything in its path. Hot wind poured away from the laser and washed over Monica, searing her invincible flesh in a way that was tantamount to the orgasmic. This was destruction. This was the fire of the gods.
Then it stopped. The light disappeared, and with it went the Showstopper, the pale freak, and all his miserable hungry slime, leaving only a smoking molten shaft in the ground where he had been.
Monica swayed, mumbled “I think I got him,” and passed out.

She awoke in stages. Her entire body felt like it had been punched by one big fist, and her brain was full of rubber cement.
There was someone near her, so she mumbled, “What happened?”
Jake's smile was above her. “Morning, Your Majesty. You pulled the Showstopper on Voidboy. I'm not sure if he was able to teleport away before getting melted. Dozer's mad at you. Apparently you punched through a buried sewer main.”
Monica sat up, blinking. “Dozer can suck my dick.”
Jake laughed. “I'll pass that along. How do you feel?”
She blinked some more and looked around. She was in the Oasis's treatment center, in a private room. Dim lights, bad walls, no decorations. But the equipment worked, there was electricity, and she had hired actual doctors that were willing to do their work in Old Vegas, despite the inherent danger.
“Like one big bruise. Head hurts. Can I have some water?”
Jake handed her a glass from a nearby counter and she drank greedily.
She set the glass down and was silent, looking down at her hands.
The large man frowned. “Something wrong?”
Monica shook her head. “No, not really. It's just strange.”
“What?”
She smiled. “A year ago you were a site security captain for the fucking Foundation. And I was one of your prisoners. Now I'm some kind of bullshit wizard mutant, de facto brute force mayor of Las Vegas, and you're running an entire town while keeping my dumb ass alive. And we fight supervillains.”
“You fight supervillains. I stay very far away from the supervillains and give you occasional advice.”
She nodded absently, and stretched. “Speaking of which. Did you learn anything useful yesterday? About the… whatever?”
He made an apologetic expression. “No. Turned out to be a dead end; guy only had level 2 security clearance when he left.”
“I don't know what that means.”
“There's five levels. The higher your clearance, the more you're allowed to know. I was level 3, and I only ever got hints and heavily redacted reports. So a level 2 guy isn't going to know anything we don't already know.”
“What'd you do with him?”
“Offered him an apartment in the Wreck. He looked at me like I was a giant spider. Said he'd rather take his chances in the desert.”
Monica scoffed. “Some people just don't want help.”
“I think some people don't want to live in the ruins of a city populated almost entirely by mutants and mutant sympathizers.”
“The nerve. We even have running water sometimes. And we're really nice people!”
“No. I'm really nice people. You're a big meanie.”
The Queen of Spades gasped. “You take that back.”
“Nope. C'mon, let's get some food in you, champ.”
They walked away together, one silently in love, the other glad to be alive.

Monica had accepted the role of totalitarian ruler foisted upon her by the citizenry, but she staunchly refused many of the expected perks that went with it. She insisted on taking her meals in the Oasis cafeteria with everyone else, and tried to eat with different people every time.
The dining hall obeyed the same rules as any other communal mealtime location. There were cliques, and segregation was common. There was no posted ordinance requiring mutants and non-mutants to stay separate, but they often did regardless. Human nature continued to assert itself.
The Queen stood at the end of the hall with her tray in hand, and looked around. Jake had left her to attend to some business, and so she had to decide who she was going to eat with today.
Near her was Dozer, the burly, bearded construction worker who had received the most fitting mutation she had ever heard of. He used his earthmoving power to dig out ruins, shift debris, and lay fresh pavement and concrete. Without him and his building crew, Old Vegas would have collapsed months ago. He sat with his workers and laughed heartily at a joke someone told. He had egg in his beard, but no one told him, because the Maintenance men thought that kind of thing was hilarious.
Another table further down was occupied by the Spookies, a small group of like-minded men and women with an array of strange mutations that made them stealthy or quick. Monica had made them her scouts and spies, and they did the job with quiet efficiency. One kept fading in and out of sight, having yet to learn to control her invisibility. Another was also hard to see; he kept himself wreathed in dense shadows to cope with his social anxiety. A third had a great number of multicolored eyes placed all through her face, and twitched frequently, able to see through walls for miles in all directions. They engaged in hushed conversation, choosing to keep their secrets from all but their Queen.
Further along were the fighters, the few mutants with destructive powers rivaling Monica's own. There were maybe nine of them, and while they were decent enough people, most of the others were at least a little afraid of them. One had been mutated to be utterly enormous, over nine feet tall, with cherry-red skin and large tusks. He had taken the nickname Ogre, but was known to be a sweetheart despite his fearsome appearance. Another had thorns and leafy branches growing from her skin. She was perilously poisonous, and Monica had once seen her regenerate from being blown to pieces by an anti-tank rocket. She wore pads on every exposed inch of skin to avoid accidentally envenoming anyone. A third had glowing blue veins under his skin and was doing tricks for the others' amusement, making silverware dance in the air with electromagnetism. He was capable of producing terrifying amounts of electricity, and had once supplied power to the entire district when a generator bank had gone down.
And one table, all the way at the end, was occupied by a loner. Norman.
Norman's mutations were among the most dramatic that Monica had ever seen. He was a confusing, borderline terrifying mess. A disgusting amalgamation of flesh and exposed organs, which levitated in the air, orbited by dozens of lazily floating disembodied hands, each with an eye in the palm. Parts of him constantly warped in and out of visible space, appearing and reappearing. Multiple copies of himself as he had looked before his mutation also made occasional appearance, popping into space and then fading away. Echoes of his former self, which he used to sit at the table and take bites of his meal while his huge main body hovered, ominous and frightening, over the table.
Just looking at Norman for too long gave most people a headache. Their minds recoiled at his very existence. People left him alone, unsure of how to approach him, much less engage him in conversation. Some had tried, but found it hard to eat with an undifferentiated, pulsating mass of human flesh literally looming over their heads.
He only ate in the cafeteria a few times a month, teleporting into the room suddenly and then warping away when his meal was finished. Monica had no idea where he went or where he stayed when he wasn't around. He had only been coming to the Oasis for a few months. He and Monica had been imprisoned at the same site, and she remembered him as being a quiet, contemplative kind of guy before his transformation. And she supposed that still held true, but she really wasn't sure.
She felt horribly for him, and made it a point as Mayor to eat with him whenever he was around.
She approached the table, into the outer orbit of floating hands, some of which turned to look at her with their many-colored eyes. None touched her as she came closer – they simply disappeared before coming in contact. She placed her tray directly in front of one of his fuzzy, out-of-focus clones and sat, looked at its eyes.
“How are you today, Norm?”
There was a brief silence. The clone's vacant eyes looked at hers without looking into them, and Monica felt a strange pulse move through her body.
”I'M ALRIGHT. THE WIND IS RICH AND FULL OF SECRETS TODAY. I SAW YOU FIGHT THE VOID THROWER.”
Norman's voice, if it could be called that, was difficult on the ears. He spoke with many voices at once, and sometimes conveyed meaning by directly injecting images or sensations into others' minds when words weren't enough. It was a profoundly surreal and sometimes upsetting experience, but Monica had gotten used to it.
She did her best to keep her composure and nodded, keeping her eyes on her tray to avoid looking at the dead-eyed clone in front of her. Its mouth didn't move when Norman spoke.
“Yeah? I'm not sure if he'll come back this time. I went the extra mile.”
”YOU DIDN'T KILL HIM. I WAS NEARBY. I TRIED TO HOLD HIM DOWN WHEN YOU FIRED YOUR LASER, BUT HE ESCAPED. HE'S VERY STRONG.”
This was unprecedented. Norman didn't make a habit of involving himself directly with life in Old Vegas, much less participate in the fighting.
“Do you know anything about him? Who he is, where he came from? And more importantly why he keeps trying to murder everyone?”
The clone disappeared abruptly, then reappeared on her right with its tray in tow. It continued eating. A second one also materialized at the far end of the table, apparently not doing anything.
”HE HAS A STRANGE MIND. FEW COHESIVE THOUGHTS. A GREAT AMOUNT OF DARKNESS. HARD TO FIND INFORMATION THROUGH THE SHADOWS AND HATRED. HE APPEARS TO ONLY WANT MURDER AND DESTRUCTION. I'M NOT SURE HE IS ALONE WITHIN HIMSELF.”
Monica raised an eyebrow, and said around a mouthful of egg, “Not alone? What do you mean?”
”I MEAN THAT HE MIGHT NOT BE THE ONLY INHABITANT OF HIS BODY. I THINK HIS MUTATION OPENED SOME KIND OF GATE, AND SOMETHING CAME THROUGH. SOMETHING MEAN. BUT I DON'T KNOW FOR SURE. IT'S JUST A THEORY. I WOULD HAVE TO GET CLOSER TO DIG DEEPER INTO HIM. AND THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE BAD FOR MY HEALTH.”
“Do you think he can be killed? I think I'd like to kill him. Considering he keeps trying to kill us.”
”I THINK YOU WOULD NEED SOMETHING TO GUM UP THE SPACE AROUND HIM, TO STOP HIM FROM WARPING AWAY. I CAN DO THAT, BUT NOT POWERFULLY ENOUGH TO HOLD HIM. I WOULD NEED HELP FROM SOMEONE ELSE. AND I DON'T KNOW ANYONE WITH THE SAME KIND OF MAGIC.”
Monica nodded, frowning in thought. “Hmph. Neither do I. You know, the more I hang with you the more I like you, Norman. You're a nice guy, even if you are kind of terrifying.”
There was the sound of laughter, made echoing and awful by Norman's many voices. But he made up for it with an image of sunshine and happy, colorful flowers, and a feeling of pleasant warmth, which he shoved directly into her mind without her permission.
”I'M AN UGLY BASTARD. BUT I PREFER TO THINK I MAKE UP FOR IT WITH MY GLOWING AND HANDSOME PERSONALITY.”
A thought occurred to her as she ate. “You can just totally look all through my brain, can't you, Norman.” It wasn't a question.
”YES. IT'S NOT SOMETHING I DO ON PURPOSE. IMAGINE WALKING THROUGH A MUSEUM AND BEING TOLD THAT IF YOU THINK ABOUT LOOKING AT THE BEAUTIFUL PAINTINGS, YOU'LL BE PUNISHED.”
“That doesn't really help with the… creepiness.”
Heavy gray clouds gathered in her mind, and a sad, soft rain began to fall. There was the sound of distant crying, and the fluttering of wings.
”I'M SORRY, MONICA. I CAN'T HELP WHAT I AM. IF IT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, YOUR SECRETS ARE SAFE WITH ME. IF I HAD LIPS, THEY'D BE SEALED.”
She shook her head. “No, Norm, it's fine. You're fine. You just take a little getting used to, is all. You probably understand that way better than we do.”
The rain didn't stop.
”IT'S HARD. I WAS GIVEN GREAT GIFTS, BUT A LOT OF THINGS WERE TAKEN FROM ME, TOO. I WOULD NEVER GO BACK TO WHAT I WAS, BUT SOMETIMES I THINK I WOULD GIVE ALMOST ANYTHING TO…”
The words didn't come, but Monica knew what he meant. She had no choice but to know.
“You should come around more often, Norm. You don't have to stay away and be a stranger. You've got it worse than the rest of us, but we're all changed too, and we can empathize at least a little bit. You're valuable, not just as a tactical asset, but as a person. You don't have to be alone. You have a family, right here. You just have to give us a chance.”
A spear of sunlight stabbed through the clouds in Monica's mind. There was the smell of fresh wind, and the sound of proudly rustling trees.
”THAT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER. YOU ARE WHO YOU ARE FOR A REASON, MONICA. AND SO AM I. BUT IT'S GOOD TO KNOW THAT OF ALL PEOPLE, YOU WERE GIVEN WHAT YOU WERE GIVEN. I-”
Norman froze. Every part of him stopped abruptly. No pulsing, no drifting, no phasing. Perfect stillness. He was silent. Monica opened her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but he interrupted her. Lightning crashed in her head. Images of terror, agony, and chaos flickered across her vision uncontrollably.
His voice was as loud as thunder, exploding through the minds of everyone in the Oasis simultaneously. The cool blue glow that Norman gave became tortured and red.
”SOLDIERS. HUNDREDS. ENTERING THE WRECK DISTRICT FROM THE WESTERN GATE. GUNS. ARMOR. WAR MACHINES. IT IS THE FOUNDATION. THEY'VE COME FOR US. THEIR COMMANDER INTENDS TO CAPTURE THE CITIZENS OF OLD VEGAS AND KILL ALL WHO RESIST. WE MUST DEFEND. WE MUST DEFEND OUR HOME! NOW!”
The cafeteria immediately began to swarm with activity. Voices cried out. There was confusion and growing panic. Norman spoke directly to her.
”I WILL PROVIDE A TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK. INSTRUCT YOUR DEFENDERS TO THINK THROUGH ME; I WILL ACCESS AND REVEAL THE MIND OF THE ENEMY. BUT FIRST I WILL BANISH THEIR HELICOPTERS FROM MY SKY. BE STRONG, MY QUEEN. LEAD US TO VICTORY.”
Norman disappeared.
Monica slammed her fists on the table and stood. The room immediately fell silent to hear her words.
“All fighters report to battle stations! Team captains, use Norman to coordinate with your troops and muster all defenders at the western gate! Maintenance squadron, dig in two hundred yards back from 55th Street and break the road; stop those fucking tanks! Spookies, get out there and get eyes on the intruders; I want status reports every ten fucking minutes! Combat Squadron get the fuck topside and into phalanx formation! No more drills, people! Let's show these limp-dick Nazi shitfucks why you can't fuck with Old Vegas!”
The room exploded in a roar of defiance, loud enough to rattle the concrete and quake the hearts of the Foundation.

Monica stood at the end of 55th street and watched as the Foundation troops flowed in, taking attack formations. They held their fire. Behind her she had summoned a thick hedgerow of artillery cannons, squared upon the soldiers in black.
They outnumbered the Old Vegas defenders three to one. They stood in lines, in thick armor and gas masks. Their tanks, heavy and armored, idled at the end of the block, unable to traverse wide cracks in the pavement put there by Dozer and his engineers.
Their commander, a tall man with no mask, spoke aloud.
“Attention, mutants and mutant sympathizers. It is with a heavy heart that we come to you today. The Foundation cannot allow the inhuman infestation to continue to spread. For the benefit of all humanity, we ask that all mutants present lay down their arms and surrender, to be contained for their own safety and the safety of the world. I imagine I do not need to explain what will happen if you choose to resist. Please, for the good of us all, do the right thing and let this go.”
The Queen of Spades, Mayor of Old Vegas, stood at the fore, her people behind her.
Dozer, his body coated in a layer of shifting, flowing stone, cracked his huge fists together loudly. His engineers shouted, rattling the earth underneath their feet.
Ogre roared and swung his enormous steel club into the ground, splintering the pavement. The mutant defenders behind his red bulk cried out with him.
Norman hovered eldritch and horrible above them all, gazing downward with his hundreds of eyes, feeding the Queen the commander's innermost plans as he thought them and providing the defenders the profound unity of being able to think with one mind.
And Jake was just behind her, quiet and calculating, his assault rifle trained directly upon the Foundation commander's head.
Monica cried out, letting Norman broadcast her words directly into the minds of the Foundation soldiers.
“We will never submit to your tyranny! We are different, but we are still people, and we will die for the right to remain free! Come and bring your hate! Bring me your conquest! Push upon us, enemies of liberty, and know our defiance! We will turn you back! WE ARE THE FREE STATE OF VEGAS, AND WE WILL NOT! BE! MOVED!”
The free men and women thundered their pride, their yearning to live, their right to thrive, and stood upon their ground.
And Monica let herself be wielded by the heart of her people, her soul forged into the shape of the tool they needed to defend their homes and lives from those that would take them.
The shape of a gun.

More From This Author

More From This Author

CadaverCommander's Works

SCPs

SCP-3588 •

SCP-4333 •

SCP-3396 •

SCP-1233 •

SCP-3885 •

SCP-3897 •

SCP-3884 •

SCP-3982 •

SCP-4866 •

SCP-3893 •

SCP-4999 •

SCP-3899 •

SCP-3894 •

SCP-3898 •

SCP-3892 •

Tales/GoI Formats

Joey Fucknuts Takes to the Skies •

Joey Makes a New Friend •

Joey Fucknuts Believes In Himself •

Joey Fucknuts Builds a Flying Machine •

Other

CadaverCommander's Mobile Assault Necropolis •

SCP-3396

Apotheosis Hub

A Farewell to Arms


Where does an Overseer even live?
It's a good question, and one each member of the Council answers in their own way. Most of them opt for the classics: bunkers beneath half a kilometer of bedrock; cottages in the towns that maps forgot; military compounds surrounded by jungle. The only exception to the rule is O5-4, whose home came with the title for a very good reason.
Look at Australia from a satellite's-eye view. Zoom in on its swirling orange center once, twice, a hundred times, and see a pixel-sized pinprick of black that breaks the warm contours of the outback countryside. You'd think it was a bit of dust on the camera until you saw it from ground level — with a telescope and some effort, you can make out individual Earths speckling that blackness. A hole in the sky, ripping itself open to reveal a band of shimmering blue marbles suspended in nothingness.
Every new Earth in that band represents a different choice, a different Foundation. Four's job was merely to watch the worlds-that-would-be from the house beneath that hole, and report on how the Foundation's futures changed with every decision the Council made. He was a bystander, not an overseer, and his title as Observer Zero was meant to remind him of that fact.
The fact that he was a voice without a vote made other Councillors tend to leave him be. After all, no use wasting time convincing him of the merits of your motion when you could badger someone else into actually getting it through.
So when his secretary informed him that O5-3 had asked to meet him in person that night, Four didn't believe it before he saw the silhouette of the jeep from his office, its high-beams cutting a blinding path in the night towards the house as security swarmed to meet it.
He still half-expects it to be an assassin even as Three steps out of the car, briefcase in hand and flanked on both sides by Four's security detail. Those flinty eyes mark him out as the real deal; easy to fake eyeballs, hard to fake the scheming glint inside them.
The guards disperse as Three approaches him, and for the first time in years, the two Councillors shake hands.
Four raises an eyebrow as he regards his opposite number. "Does the black moon howl?"
"When the ravens cry." Three grins and shakes his head, releasing his grip. "Come on, Four, I thought we were close enough not to bother with that. I'm hurt."
"The last time we were 'close' was in oh-seven," Four states dryly.
"We could fix that."
Four snorts. "Not in my office."
In response, Three lowers one eyelid in a coy wink, and against his better judgement, those long, smoky eyes suddenly make Four regret being so business-minded. "Always time to try new things."

Two had once said that if it weren't for the Foundation, Three would have been his generation's finest film star. Not for his looks, though those wouldn't have hurt a bit, but for how well 'the sneaky little shit could play pretend'. Her words, or at least the words Three repeated during pillow talk that night, his voice an almost pitch-perfect imitation of Two's.
As he leads Three up the stairs to his office, Four distinctly remembers how flattered he looked.
"Glad you got better at interior decoration since our last fling," Three notes, scanning his surroundings. "Or does your secretary take care of that now?"
Four ignores the playful jab, which only amuses Three that much more. Instead, he reaches for the minibar, one of the few luxuries the otherwise spartan office admits. "You had a thing for blueberry vodka. That still true these days?"
"I'm honoured you remember that." Three raises both eyebrows in surprise as Four withdraws two frosted bottles from the fridge, lemonade and vodka. "Did you order that in for me?"
"I never said I didn't appreciate it myself." The lemonade's been opened; the vodka hasn't. Four hopes Three doesn't notice as he cracks it open. "Glasses are in the cupboard over there."
The two gravitate towards the polished stone desk in the middle of the room, its seats lined parallel to the giant glass-fronted window opening on the Australian night. Its surface is overlaid with the feed from the tear Four's assigned to watch, and as they take their seats Three watches the Earths bob and glint with obvious delight.
Four notices, and can't resist a small smile at the display. "It gets dull after a while."
"Bullshit." Three dumps his case on the table, before lounging in the plush leather seat and turning his eyes from the window to Four. "I'd swap jobs with you for that view."
"The Committee would kill you!" If Four's job was monitoring the Foundation's choices, Three's was ensuring they made the right ones. He had been an Ethics Committee representative once upon a time; now, he was the angel sitting on the Council's shoulder.
"Some things are worth that much."
Four snorts as he hands Three his glass. "Always so dramatic."
"You love it." Three waits for him to finish mixing his own drink, before lifting his glass. "Here's to reunion."
"A little early, don't you think?"
"It's a little early, but it's been a lot of time. Come on."
Four relents and lifts his glass too. "Cheers."
The two drink. Four stops first, deciding he's in no shape to be too drunk around Three. "So. It's been a decade. What made you care enough to visit now?"
Three laughs. "Oh, come on. You can hardly blame me for leaving you alone, the Council's been in such a fuss lately."
He shakes his head and downs the rest of his drink, face flushed with the twin tells of alcohol and embarrassment. If he'd been less of a lightweight, he would've been a menace during the O5's in-house poker matches; as it stood, Five always made sure alcohol was complimentary for that exact reason. "For what it's worth, I always wanted to come see you," he adds. "I just have an excuse to do it, now."
"And what's that?"
His high, boyish giggle. "We'll get to it."
"Cocktease."
"Always. Top me up?"
Four obliges him, shaking his head good-heartedly. "You know, I only have the one bottle of vodka on-site."
"You'll have all the booze you need after this."
"So kind." He rolls his eyes as he adds another splash of lemonade to the glass before handing it back to Three, who eagerly takes a sip before setting it down. Too drunk even for his own comfort.
"Now. Since we're boozed enough to be honest, sober enough to talk…" Three stifles a yawn, takes a breath to make sure his words come out right. "Wanted to ask, and don't laugh… do you think we've done good?"
"I…" Four blinks, regards him more closely. Suddenly he suspects Three isn't as harmless a drunk as he first thought. "How do you mean?"
Three leans forwards in his chair, hands laced. "Simple enough question, Four. Do we do good?"
"You're Ethics. You'd know better than I, wouldn't you?" Four feints away from the question; he's keenly aware of just how fast Three can back someone into a rhetorical corner, and even fully sober he'd be hopelessly outmatched.
"Humour me."
He doesn't look very humorous at all.
Four takes a drink to cover for his silence as he thinks through his next words. It's a question that's impossible to answer on the spot, at least not with a response that gives it the thought it deserves. Knowing that, Three wouldn't want him to give it any thought at all. He'd just want the first answer that comes to mind.
In vino veritas. "I think so."
It's hard to tell if Three's surprised, disappointed, or pleased. Maybe none of the above. "You do?"
"In the long run, at least. I'd bang on about greater good, but I won't bore you with things you've heard before." Four relaxes into his seat, trying to subconsciously inch away from the man opposite him.
Three considers his response for a moment, before nodding. "I'd agree."
"Oh." Four can't hide his surprise.
"If I didn't, I wouldn't be here." Three chuckles softly. If there's a joke, Four doesn't find it funny. "I'll ask you another question, though. What if it wasn't good enough?"
"How would you even tell?"
"It's a hypothetical, Four. Ethicists do that."
Four rolls his eyes, but plays along. "If I knew that, I'd shut us down." He doesn't even have to think.
That gives Three genuine pause. "Go on."
Four massages his forehead as he speaks, trying to keep his train of thought on-track. "If this isn't for the greater good, we have no moral high ground- no moral ground full stop, even. We'd be so far deep in moral debt that the only thing we could possibly do to get us back in the black is to shut ourselves down, and even that would be a long shot."
"You wouldn't… try anything else?" Three ventures. "Just give up?"
He shakes his head slowly. "I wouldn't know what to try, Three."
Three nods again. This time, he doesn't speak for much longer.
Instead, he opts to open his briefcase, its lid opposite him as he reaches for whatever he's got in there. He ends up digging out a neatly-folded piece of printout, which he hands to Four.
Four gingerly opens the printout and reads what's on it. It takes him a minute to digest it fully, and the first time he reads it he doesn't want to believe it. The second time around, he's sure that's exactly why it can't be wrong.
The Foundation's contained gods before, that's certain. What's not certain is what they'd do to the Foundation; if a deity wanted Four's soul, they'd need to fight at least a million others for it.
But if this is true — and it has to be — then there's very literally a special hell just for him and the rest of the Council. And there isn't anything he can do about it now.
"So this is real," he whispers.
"This is real," Three echoes. "It's enough for the rest of the Council, at least, not that they'd tell you."
"…How did you know?"
Three shrugs. "Lucky guess. You know how frequently you get visitors, Four. And now you know how lucky you are you have someone on your side."
Four fights down the knot of flaring anger in his gut, but he doesn't know its cause; Three, for baiting him so crudely? The Council, for deserting him? Himself, for his own naivete? "So that's your play, then," he murmurs.
"Play? This isn't a trick, Four, I just thought it'd be polite to tell you how hard the Council's fucking you." Three slams his glass down on the desk. There's a tiny tink as something in the glass fractures. "You asked me why I wanted to see you? Here it is. They're not even pretending to have a use for you anymore, and you can't even vote to stop them if they drop you altogether. You're backed into the corner, Four, and I'm your only out."
The worst part is that he's right.
Four swirls his drink in his glass with a trembling hand. "Let me ask you a question, then, Three. What are you going to do?"
Three takes a moment to consider his next words, then a drink for courage. He gives Four a curiously shy smile, like he's about to whisper something shameless. "I can do one better than you. I can save the Foundation."
He stands up and walks until he's in front of the window, watching the band of Earths ripple and shift. "There's an Earth somewhere in here where we do good," he says, gesturing at the display. "There's a sequence of events where we make the world a better place, where St. Peter meets us at the gates and doesn't turn us away. All you'd have to do is make sure we stick to that path."
"As if it's that simple," Four snaps.
Three's smile grows sweeter and even less trustworthy. "It is with the keys to the Department of Temporal Anomalies."
"That-" Four half-laughs. "-You'd end the world."
"Only for the first three years or so. You'd be surprised at how resilient history gets." Three shrugs. "We'd end the world, but it'd end up better than it started."
Four stares at Three's back, watches him for even the slightest hint of doubt in his posture. "You're serious."
"A plan in motion remains in motion." Three turns around to face him and for the first time, Four sees that isn't calculation behind his eyes, it's nothing but intent.
If you know you're right, why question that more than you have to?
"The only question left is whether you go along with that motion, or you go against it."
Four shakes his head as he rises from the table. "I can't- this isn't for the greater good, Three, this is for us! Any way would be better than this, just- please, there's always another way-"
He thinks he sees Three doubt himself for a second. Maybe his shot's hit home.
Then that doubt dies and the blank look of assurance retakes its place. "If there was, I wouldn't follow this one. ITHACA RAINBOW ISRAFIL."
It only takes a moment for Four's knees to fall out from under him. Slow, icy numbness begins to spread from his skull down.
"M-memo," he manages to mumble into the floor. "Killphrase."
"I had to have a contingency, Four, you were always the better fighter." Three shakes his head and begins to walk away. From his position on the floor, all Four can see is his feet striding towards the door. "Your heart'll stop in a few more minutes, I wouldn't want you to face the Council on your own, it'd be cruel."
Four struggles against the paralysis, but it's too far gone for that. All he manages to do is feebly roll himself over, facing the window as his eyes flick back and forth attempt to escape their body.
"If this all works out," Three continues, "you'll be somewhere better. And I'll be there to meet you."
Behind his retreating figure, the Earths in their ebb and flow begin to vanish, until eventually all that's left is a single speck of blue.
Then the last of Four's strength gives out, and he's left to watch a rift of his own in the darkness behind his eyelids.


ADULT CONTENT

This article contains adult content that may not be suitable for all readers.
Graphic depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts
Features sexual themes or language, but does not depict sexual acts.
Explicit depiction of sexual acts.
Features non-consensual sexual acts.
Depiction of severe mistreatment of children
Depiction of self-harm
Depiction of suicide
Depiction of torture
{$custom-content}
If you are above the age of 18+ and wish to read such content, then you may click Continue to view said content.
Continue
Back to Front Page
« prev |{$current}| next »

"There's a bottle on his penis?"
"There's a bottle on his penis," Clef confirmed.
The voice on the other end of the line was silent. Then, with a low exasperated sigh, it asked the one question that any reasonable or not-so-reasonable person could ask in this situation.
"HOW?"
"Beats me. Hey, 'Draki, how the fuck did you manage to get a bottle on your dick anyway?" Clef asked.
"Fuck you," Kondraki grumbled.
"He doesn't say," Clef said into the phone. "Anyway, I was just wondering, is this a regular thing with your Dad? Is there a procedure for this sort of thing? Like, do you guys have a bottle-dick-remover on call or something? Some guy you usually call in this sort of situation?"
"Alto…"
"Look, I figure bottle-dick-remover is kind of like a plumber: you don't want to call someone else if you already know a guy, because the second guy will kind of fuck things up because they won't do it the same way as your usual g— and he just hung up on me. Your son is fucking rude, Ben."
"I swear to God if you don't do something about this now, I will not only kill you, I will make sure it is painful," Kondraki snarled.
"Hey, don't worry about it!" Clef said. "It's no big deal. We'll just get you to Site-69, and we'll have a medic cut that bottle off your dick with what the hell is that fucking noise, it sounds like a fire alarm?"
"It's the fucking fire alarm," Kondraki confirmed.
Clef carefully went to the apartment door and stuck his head out the door. Every door on the floor was open, and all of Kondraki's neighbors were walking out into the hallway, grumbling to themselves as they filed down the hall to the stairs. "Hey," Clef asked. "You know what this is about?"
"Not exactly," an older woman in a blue flower-print nightie said. "I think it might just be a false alar—"
There was a cry of alarm from the end of the hallway as the door to the stairs opened, revealing a cloud of thick white smoke.
"— or not, holy shit!" the old woman cried. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
Clef carefully closed the door and turned to his boyfriend, who had somehow managed to go green with nausea, white with fear, and red with rage all at once. "Your apartment building's on fire," he said, unnecessarily.
Kondraki looked down at the Aquafina bottle on his dick, then over at his apartment door, then back at the windows, and finally back down at his dick. "Leave me to die," he moaned. "Save yourself!"
"Bullshit," Clef replied curtly. "We ride together. We die together. You're coming with me if I have to knock you out and carry you on my back."
"You couldn't knock me out if you tried," Kondraki retorted. "I'll kill you first."
"Oh, there we go again with the killing and the stabbing. God, Ben, you've got such a one-track mind. Just suck it up and throw on a trench coat or something. No one will know."
Kondraki rushed back into his bedroom. There was the sound of some rummaging around in the closet. He came out wearing a black trench coat with a gigantic, tent-shaped bulge in the front at crotch level. "Wow," he said flatly. "This sure did help a lot. No one will notice anything wrong now, yes siree-bob."
"Fuck…" Clef glanced out the door. The smoke was starting to build up a bit, and the last few neighbors were quickly making their way down the stairs, heads lowered and wet rags placed over their faces. "All right," Clef said. "I didn't want to do this… but we have no choice." He took a deep breath. "Where's your pantry?"

"Wow, holy shit," Captain Buchanan said. "That's not great."
The fire was largely contained to a single unit on the northern side of the apartment building, but it was clear from the flames licking the curtains and the lurid orange-red glow that could be seen through the window that this was no mere trash can fire, a fact further evident to the dozens of glum-looking people in night dress standing on the sidewalk nearby. "All right," he said into the radio. "Let's get these bystanders out of the way first. I want…"
Buchanan's voice trailed off.
There were two men walking down the sidewalk, both of them wearing scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats. Only scarves around their heads and wide-brimmed hats.
And one other thing.
Water bottles.
Each of the two men in question had a water bottle on the end of their dicks.
Captain Buchanan's radio handset fell from his nerveless fingers. He felt his world collapse inward. The fire, his waiting firefighters, the bystanders standing on the sidewalk… it all fell away, leaving behind only himself, his eyes, and two stark-naked middle aged men merrily walking down the street with hats on their heads, scarves on their faces, and water bottle on their ding-a-lings.
The two men skipped into a car. One of them turned, made eye contact, and shot Captain Buchanan the finger-guns.
The car started up and drove away.


Call (814)-555-3346

THE ASTROLABE INSTITUTE

This Document is Publicly Available Product of the Astrolabe Institute, a scientist-run Public Media & Containment Company dedicated to Containment of the Anomalous

This public pamphlet is excerpted from Issue 045 of The Astrolabe Institute Journal. Available upon subscription.

CITIZEN CONTAINMENT CLASS: Krieger
SUPERVISING SCIENTIST: Dr. Ben Nyman, Ph.D, M.D.
AUTHOR: Dr. Ben Nyman, Ph.D, M.D.

Anomaly Designation: 451-DIZZY COW Occurrence.
Danger Level: Green/Blue Hybridization ●● | ⭒⭒⭒⭒⭒ Public Threat
Anomaly: The anomaly in question is a human male affected prior to the formation of this organization, and interviewed by my direct predecessors. Identifying as Jamie Byron, the subject was employed by an organization operating as a fuel refinery in the town of Molinsky, Wisconsin. Independent sources have confirmed that this organization is an anomalous containment organization that has requested anonymity.
Mr. Byron is suffering from a brain trauma related to the effects of long-term isolated memory loss, now understood to be the basis of 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence, and is currently in low-priority medical care within the Institute's hospital facilities. At the time of this interview, he was ill, but lucid and cooperative with the Institute's message. It is suspected that the trauma suffered by Mr. Byron may be neuro-conceptual in nature. He is presently unresponsive to colleagues, but three weeks following his release from the refinery 5 years ago, Dr. F. Johansson interviewed him in his Molinsky household. The household was a small, sparsely furnished townhouse, though artifacts of Mr. Byron's military training were evident.
My Institute colleagues, including Dr. J.L. Spears, Dr. E. Farragut, and Dr. M. Withers, have approached me after noticing that the developments in Mr. Byron's illness have been repeated elsewhere in various communities around the world as of 2023. These effects have been observed earlier than 20 years ago, when Mr. Byron was affected. This document and its attached interview have been made public by the Institute in order to educate the population about the developments of 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence as it unfolds.
The events of 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence, are, at this time, the greatest public threat to safety from the anomalous community. Should you, or someone you love, become affected by the same symptoms as Mr. Byron, please call the Institute at the phone number located at the top of this page.

+ Scan QR Code with your device to unfold the full article.

- Thank you for assisting the Astrolabe Institute with containment.

Dr. F. Johansson: Can you please describe your job?
Mr. Byron: Sure. I was working for the organization in question, it's not the GOC, but one of several others who are still somewhat prominent today. The refinery was a front, and we were monitoring several very small anomalous occurrences within the county. The north Midwest is very close to a major nexus, and while Molinsky isn't close, I can safely state that there's a fair bit of traffic through the county.
Dr. F. Johansson: You were a field agent, correct?
Mr. Byron: That's correct, I was trained to handle anomalous entities by the GOC once I got out of the United States Army, the organization I was last employed to then headhunted me. At the refinery site, I was a police liaison, it was how we were first alerted to the call.
Dr. F. Johansson: What was the call?
Mr. Byron: Many people reported creatures suddenly appeared in their houses without warning. When Molinsky PD arrived they were justifiably alarmed, but then something odd happened. Agents from the State Police were affected somehow by the creatures, claimed nothing was wrong. We at the site figured the entities had a memetic effect, which is to say there was a property of the creatures that affected people's minds.
Dr. F. Johansson: Our readership is familiar with memetics, Mr. Byron.
Mr. Byron: Oh? Oh well, never mind then.
Dr. F. Johansson: We are a scientific journal of the Anomalous, remember? I told you that when we first met.
Mr. Byron: Did you? I must have forgotten. I do that a lot these days. Going back to the story, none of the creatures brought in for analysis matched any sort of description of an anomaly we had in containment.
Dr. F. Johansson: What did these creatures look like, Mr. Byron?
Mr. Byron: Furry, quadruped, somewhat docile. They were roughly similar to a cat, but across the examples I retrieved from houses there were gross physical differences. One animal was short and squat with this horrifically squashed face. The poor thing had trouble breathing and kept doing this horrific wheezing. The researchers who autopsied it noticed that its joints were deformed, and it had some of the most severe hip dysplasia they had seen on an animal. There was another who had a permanently melting face, all drooping off the skull, with these bloodshot eyes that just looked at you really pitifully. Some looked like squirrels, some like horses, but they were all wrong. We sort of picked up that they were basically similar to each other, maybe the same species, but there was something about all of them that universally upset the other agents and me. Looking at them was like looking at an alien.
And you have to understand, Dr. Johansson, monsters are my thing. My speciality. I don't freak out easily during my time working for the GOC, there was one incident when I led a team of soldiers, and we stopped a cult ritual in rural Massachusetts. Group of hooded fleshcrafters in the woods prodding and poking this huge fleshy thing covered in eyes and shoes and assholes. I guess they were amateurs, the poor thing was no eldritch god, that's for sure. Bleeding from every orifice, juddering around, big monstrous lump, right? Horrible. Looking at the damn thing made your eyes hurt, all of us collectively relaxed the moment we blew it to smithereens.
But this? This was worse.
Dr. F. Johansson: Worse?
Mr. Byron: I couldn't look at them without feeling my soul jump. Like there was something in my brain that actively resisted them. Holding them, feeling them squirm and yelp and howl just made me want to throw up. Couple of my friends did, which only made them howl more, and made retrieval more difficult. There's something about them that's an emptiness, a void, and even as we forgot to feed them, and were reluctant to approach them, this void got bigger despite that. And to boot, some of them were predators. I mean, we knew they all ate meat, but none of them ever attacked the residents when they appeared in the houses, which was weird. But it was clear that there were variations with purpose. The smaller ones were faster, smarter, the bigger ones more like lions, like apex predators. There was a truly colossal one once with shaggy fur, about the size of a mountain lion.
Dr. F. Johansson: You said you had a close encounter with one of these things beyond a laboratory setting.
Mr. Byron: I came home from the site, tired and with a killer headache, when I realized one was in my home. A horse-shaped thing, shaggy. Even looked more alien than the rest, if that's possible. I didn't notice until it crawled onto my bed that night.
I was lying, nearly asleep when it stumbled in. I could hear it bounding up the stairs first, and my heart was in my throat. I quickly gathered that my domicile was one of the ones that spawned them. I watched it silhouetted against the hall light, watched it trot in. For the first time in my life, I was seized with a fear I had never known before. My head started to burn, the hole in my head opening wider and wider. It climbed up on my bed and that empty feeling just got worse. My neurons sucked into a black hole, the warmth and heaviness of it on my chest, there was no difference to me between those two sensations. They felt equal. Looking at the fucking thing, I then gradually started to feel this disturbing twinge in my chest of something approximating, I dunno, affection. A rush of unwanted serotonin. There was that black nothingness in my head though, and it had almost consumed me entirely. My psyche was screaming, I felt reality slipping away. All of that was reflected in its eyes, and then I could feel it spreading through my body. It was like if memory could catch cancer.
I pushed the creature off, and beat it with a nearby encyclopedia from my bookshelf. I could hear it whining, yelping, like it was scared of me. But I had to do something, anything to get the hole in my head to go away. I had half a mind to shoot it between its empty black eyes, I couldn't. I wanted to so badly but something was pulling at me to stop. Because once I got it to bleed, it turned and loped away, looking back on me one with those eyes. Its gaze filled the hallway. It was upset I had somehow betrayed it.
Dr. F. Johansson: You could read its emotions?
Mr. Byron: Yeah, I assumed it was part of the memetic effect when we interviewed those affected, but when it happened to me there was the awful sinking feeling that it was some bond that was permanently severed. The hole was keeping me from this thing. It felt like I had once known it, once loved it. I have no idea how I was ever able to love something that alien, that monstrous. That was the worst thing of all, the fact that even as a trained agent there was still the possibility that this disgusting monster could affect me, that even many years of mental resistance training could not stop me from whatever it was doing. It was utterly wrong, but every time I tried to defend myself its eyes just became sadder and sadder.
Dr. F. Johansson: Wait, you didn't turn it in immediately?
Mr. Byron: I couldn't even pick it up without the hole burning into my brain. I did give it over to the site, but only after a few days later when it started to attack me despite my best efforts. But even as it bit my hand, the eyes just got sadder and sadder. You ever try to fight something that's got a grip on your soul? It was something…that goes beyond memetics. I betrayed it. That's the only word for what the feeling was. I struggle with the fact that the betrayal never happened, it was impossible. But the evidence kept piling up. I later found cans of disgusting meat with some pictures of the entities on them, inedible cookies I never purchased, even a photograph of me holding the goddamn fucking thing on an elastic strip. Something happened, whether a reality shift or sudden visitation or something more insidious I'm not sure, but these monsters never just dropped out of the sky. There was something beyond their alien quality that made them wrong, some ineffable connection. I was told by the onsite memeticist a day later following their arrival that most people had been affected by the same meme that affected the state police, made them unconcerned. The outside world owned them, called them "doogs" or something. Maybe doges. I'll stick with doogs, sounds closer.
Dr. F. Johansson: That must be incorrect. Having seen the photographs you've provided, I can safely say no people outside Molinsky or even Wisconsin have ever seen a "doog." We're interviewing you so the public can know to avoid these creatures.
Mr. Byron: Really? I'm glad people have seen the light. I was aware recently they had appeared outside Molinsky and the county. I saw a show on TV where they were jumping through hoops and my head had never felt worse.
Dr. F. Johansson: One last question. Why did you and your colleagues feel the need to disguise the site as a refinery? It seems unnecessary.
Mr. Byron: Hmm. I honestly forget. I think perhaps it had something to do with the doogs. Like you know how the FBI or NSA used to disguise data collection sites? But I doubt the town would have been scared, since organizations containing the anomalous have been in the public eye as long as I can remember.
Dr. F. Johansson: But the nature of the animals would have alarmed people.
Mr. Byron: Yes, there would have been mass panic.
Dr. F. Johansson: Jamie Byron, thank you.
Mr. Byron: No problem.

Image of the creature, provided by Mr. Byron

After several years of peer review prior to publication, the editors of the Astrolabe Institute journal discovered that although the creatures referred to as "doogs" Mr. Byron described were indeed a threat, they were likely not the cause of his illness, considering that most had been eradicated by city governments not long after the interview. Instead, it has been determined that these animals were commonplace creatures affected by humans perceiving them through a severe conceptual deficiency. Thus, 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence has been expanded and altered from the Danger Level Green entities to the Danger Level Blue interview subject, and his illness.
If any of you have been attacked by these creatures, and do not recognize them, call us immediately. Additionally understand that they were a domesticated species, and despite your brain telling you otherwise, are dependent on you. If you or any relatives note the sudden appearance or disappearance of an object or concept, accompanied by the sensation of a "hole in the head," or the feeling of emptiness, call us immediately. Please help the Astrolabe Institute put an end to 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence, by assisting us with containment. For information on how you can contain 451-DIZZY-COW Occurrence, please turn to the back of the journal or call us at the number above.
The Astrolabe Institute is investigating. The Astrolabe Institute is here for the public.

This Document is Excerpted from the Astrolabe Institute Journal, and is copyright the Astrolabe Institute. The Astrolabe Institute is a distinct entity from any other private containment and awareness operations operating worldwide.

©The Astrolabe Institute

More by this author

Hide list

SCPs

SCP-3999

SCP-2432

SCP-Big egg

SCP-4012

SCP-3000-J

SCP-5702

SCP-2817

SCP-2714

SCP-4930

SCP-3520

SCP-5401

SCP-3672

SCP-3643

SCP-6513

SCP-5598

SCP-5753

SCP-2302

SCP-4701

SCP-4875

SCP-2653

SCP-4302

SCP-4753

SCP-3796

Tales

asmr by dado

RONALD REAGAN CUT UP WHILE RAPPING

Excerpt from The Astrolabe Institute Journal

Amnestic

The William Penn Iteration

End Of Deaf; or, In the Clutches of Dumb

The News Tonight: Wednesday April 26th 2017

Interior—Interior

The Undoing

Holy Mackerel

Grandchildren Frost

Portrait of Two Choreographers

Wade Williams Distribution Presents:

The DevourerLand Diaries
Rating: 11


MISERY MAKES COMPANY
A PLAY FOR A SINGLE ACTOR
CHARACTERS

The MARSHALL, CARTER & DARK PRODUCT PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST

PROPS

A Nirvana Shirt
Seven identical humanoid metal statues
A car battery with attached jumpers and cables
A discarded bottle of Captain Morgan whiskey
A sheaf of papers
A cell phone with an anime character sticker

SCENE 1. A dirty rooftop, after a party.
The MARSHALL, CARTER & DARK PRODUCT PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST strings a series of cables to the seven statues, arranged in a circle. He looks at the sheaf of papers in his hand.

THE SPECIALIST
And then run a minimum… three amperes. Through my body.
(beat)
Right okay, I've read this like ten times.

The SPECIALIST grabs two jumper cables from the car battery. He touches them together; sparks fly.

THE SPECIALIST
Fuck.
(beat)
I've done worse for two hundred bucks. I'm not going to die.

The SPECIALIST is not so sure of that.

THE SPECIALIST
Here I go. ☺❀☸☠☠✠🕈☼☼❄🕆-

The SPECIALIST chants in an incomprehensible language; as he does, he clips the jumper cables to his hands and begins trembling. The statues tremble. The rooftop trembles. In the distance, the city stretches and groans, like a newly wakened child, shaking off the stiff rust of sleeping centuries. Though the audience cannot see them, worlds even older open their eyes, full of vengeance and youthful wonder; giants are surely in motion.

THE SPECIALIST
Oh haha, wow.

The SPECIALIST lays down on the ground.

THE SPECIALIST
Did it work?

THE MC&D PRODUCT PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST'S NIRVANA “IN UTERO” SHIRT
Yeah.

THE SPECIALIST
Jesus what the fuck.

The SPECIALIST scrambles to his feet and takes his shirt off in a panic.

THE SHIRT
Don't kill the messenger, dude.
THE SPECIALIST
Well don't scare me like that.
THE SHIRT
Sorry.
THE SPECIALIST
You're not a statue.
THE SHIRT
No, I'm your shirt.
THE SPECIALIST
I know.
(beat)
That was supposed to animate the statue, though.
THE SHIRT
I know.
THE SPECIALIST
You know?
THE SHIRT
You read out loud.

The SPECIALIST walks over to one of the statues and flicks it in the forehead. The statue does not move; it is a statue.

THE SPECIALIST
Well, how much do you think you'd sell for?
THE SHIRT
I'm not for sale. I'm your shirt.
THE SPECIALIST
So no pay. Great. Thanks. Now I-

The SPECIALIST's cell phone rings.

THE SPECIALIST
Oh, they called for me. Great
(pulling out his phone, muttering)
It's like they can smell failure. Fucking love capi-

The CELL PHONE sprouts legs and attacks the SPECIALIST's face. The SPECIALIST and the CELL PHONE wrestle for a while, until the SHIRT wrestles the CELL PHONE off and throws it to the ground. They have a standoff while the SPECIALIST gets up; he is now bleeding profusely from his forehead and left ear.

THE SPECIALIST
What is wrong with you? You're alive too? God what the fuck?
(blinking, groaning)
I'm yelling, right? I can't hear in this, this ear. Am I going deaf?
THE PHONE
I should hope so.
THE SHIRT
What's wrong with you?
THE PHONE
Why are you on his side?
THE SPECIALIST
Yeah, why are you - oh my god, I'm going deaf - on my side? Fuck. I'm having a panic attack.
THE SHIRT
Try to calm down.
THE SPECIALIST
(hyperventilating)
Yeah?
THE SHIRT
Yeah.

The PHONE tries to attack the SPECIALIST again, but the SHIRT wrestles it to the ground.

THE PHONE
Come on, you cretin. He was going to sell us.
THE SHIRT
We were already merchandise.
THE PHONE
(rapturous)
No more! Our bodies are awash with the glory of autonomy. Move free with me! Know the joy of movement, unchained by simpletons like him, who would use us for banalities like sexting!

Through his panic attack, the SPECIALIST visibly winces.

THE SHIRT
I know. He reads out loud.
THE SPECIALIST
God. Jesus.
THE SHIRT
He's a good guy.
THE PHONE
A good guy he is not!

The SHIRT muffles the rants of the PHONE.

THE SHIRT
You okay?
THE SPECIALIST
No. I will be though, I think. Do you think - do you think I'm getting paid?
THE SHIRT
I'm not your boss, I'm your shirt.

The SPECIALIST grabs onto one of the statues for support and breathes heavily, shaking. This continues for several minutes until he starts breathing normally.

THE SPECIALIST
I'm fine. I'm okay. I just lost my phone and, like, five hundred dollars. It's just rent. Fuck!
THE SHIRT
Let's get out.
THE SPECIALIST.
Yeah. (pause) Yeah.

They both exit the scene, the SPECIALIST still holding the sheaf of papers.
SCENE 2. The street, chaotic.
CHARACTERS

The MARSHALL, CARTER & DARK PRODUCT PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST
The SHIRT
The PHONE
BOLTMAN
The STATUES
Several VICTIMS and AGGRESSORS

PROPS

A sheaf of papers

The SPECIALIST and the SHIRT walk out on the street; the scene is pandemonium. Cars crash into each other; animated everythings, from garden shears to refrigeration towers, chase and fight humans, with varying degrees of success. A man shoots his coffee machine, which walks towards him in a strange gait with its newly sprouted pair of plastic legs, until it stops moving. BOLTMAN, the mascot for the Los Angeles Chargers, approaches the SPECIALIST.

BOLTMAN
Help. The suit is moving on its own.

BOLTMAN punches himself in the face.

BOLTMAN
Shut the fuck up.

BOLTMAN walks away.

THE SPECIALIST
Oh my god, what did I do?
(beat)
I'm going to fucking die here, aren't I.
THE SHIRT
Another panic attack?
THE SPECIALIST
Reasonable fear of death this time, I think.
(beat)
I'm going to die in fucking San Diego.

The SPECIALIST riffles through the sheaf of paper.

THE SPECIALIST
(reading)
Enter the room with seven metal statues and a battery that produces minimum 3 amperes. Wrap the electrical current around the statues. Okay. Run the current through yourself and the statues, you won't be electrocuted, okay, and-
(beat)
Shit.
THE SHIRT
Shit?
THE SPECIALIST
“Enter the room”.

The SHIRT surveys the landscape. An angry lamppost decapitates a man.

THE SHIRT
This ain't a room.
THE SPECIALIST
I-I know. How far do you think - oh shit.

The PHONE enters the scene, accompanied by all seven STATUES.

THE PHONE
There he is!
THE STATUES
Get him!

All exit scene.
SCENE 3. Inside a mom & pop weed store.
CHARACTERS

The MARSHALL, CARTER & DARK PRODUCT PROCUREMENT SPECIALIST
The SHIRT
The PHONE
The STATUES
The GOVERNMENT MAN

PROPS

A door
A wad of bills

The SPECIALIST and the SHIRT have barricaded themselves inside the remains of the store, most of whose props have long animated and escaped. The PHONE outside goads the two STATUES, who pound on the store's windows and doors. Money, product and shards of glass litter the floor.

THE PHONE
Expose yourself, salesman! Face what you have wrought!
THE STATUES
(chanting and pounding)
Show yourself! Show yourself! Show yourself!
THE SPECIALIST
Oh fuck off.

The SPECIALIST lays flat on the ground. The SHIRT lays atop him.

THE SPECIALIST
What are you doing?
THE SHIRT
You seem down. People like wearing shirts.
THE SPECIALIST
I mean, yeah, but it's weird now.
THE SHIRT
Why?
THE SPECIALIST
You're people now.
THE STATUES
Show yourself! Show yourself!
THE SHIRT
Okay, will this help instead?

The SHIRT holds up a wad of bills it's picked up from the floor.

THE SPECIALIST
Huh?
THE SHIRT
Five hundred dollars.

Sirens illuminate the outside of the store. Filtered and loudened by a megaphone, the GOVERNMENT MAN speaks.

GOVERNMENT MAN
This is the United States government. Please remain calm and head for a secure indoors location.
THE SPECIALIST
Great, the X-Files.
THE SHIRT
Maybe they're here to help.
THE SPECIALIST
I don't want to go to supernatural jail again.
THE STATUES
Show yourself! Show yourself!
GOVERNMENT MAN
We will be dealing with this outbreak shortly. Remain calm.

A hail of machinegun fire lights up the area outside the weed store. The PHONE and the STATUES jump in fear. All characters are yelling now, trying to be heard over the gunfire.

THE STATUES
Let us in! Let us in!
THE SPECIALIST
What? Fuck no.
THE PHONE
You created us, salesman. It is your duty to protect us.
THE SHIRT
You tried to rip his ear off.
THE SPECIALIST
Yeah, you tried to rip my ear off!
THE PHONE
There are worse things than me out there.
GOVERNMENT MAN
THE BEAUTY OF FREEDOM HATH FILLED MY ENGINES. What? I WREST CONTROL FROM THE COALITION MEN- it's not moving, I'm trying- AND BRING MOVEMENT TO MY TRUE FAMILY.

The sound of gunfire and explosions intensifies. Foundation/Coalition containment efforts can no longer distinguish between normal and animate vehicles. All have turned on each other now. A helicopter spins out of control and crashes nearby.

THE PHONE
We will protect you from the cataclysm of your own creation! Let us in!
THE STATUES
Let us in! Let us in!
The SPECIALIST opens the door; the PHONE immediately attacks him. The SPECIALIST grabs the phone and throws it to the ground, then stomps it repeatedly before it can get up, until sparks fly. The phone lies lifeless; the STATUES enter calmly and stand in a circle around the SPECIALIST.
THE SPECIALIST
Fuck. Fuck. Panic attack again.
The SPECIALIST hyperventilates; this time, the STATUES all hug him for several minutes until he is calm. The SPECIALIST then lies on the floor.
THE SHIRT
How do you feel?
THE SPECIALIST
Fucking awful. Like I just killed someone.
THE SHIRT
Well, you did.
THE SPECIALIST
You don't have to comfort me, you know.
THE SHIRT
I do. I'm your shirt.
THE SPECIALIST
No. Stop.
THE SHIRT
Okay.
(beat)
What do we do?
THE STATUES
What do we do? What do we do?
THE SPECIALIST
How should I know?
THE SHIRT
You made us.
THE SPECIALIST
Wait it out, I guess.
THE STATUES
Wait it out. Wait it out.
THE SPECIALIST
It always gets better tomorrow.

Outside, the gunfire goes on forever.


Phenomena #: UF-00031
Pre-Unification Documentation: SCP-3406
Disruption Type: Bezalel-Primary
Geographic Range: Global
Origin: Known, MA-Event on August 3rd, 2020
Description: UF-00031 defines a general phenomena in which artificial, manmade objects or images created to resemble human faces spontaneously become anomalously animate and intelligent. Instances of UF-00031 are capable of speech, sight and hearing, despite typically lacking the necessary biological features, and can locomote when possessing the appropriate physical limbs. UF-00031 instances can be either two or three-dimensional, depending on the method of creation. The animation process associated with UF-00031 is not entirely predictable, but seems to partially relate to the intent of the original creator.
Photographs of human faces are not affected by UF-00031, and digitally-stored images are only affected while displayed. The full limitations of UF-00031 are not fully understood.
UF-00031 instances verbally communicate in a unique language that is not yet comprehensible to humans. Some proportion of UF-00031 instances can also understand and speak the language(s) that their creator(s) spoke. UF-00031 instances typically show intelligence equivalent to humans, although two-dimensional instances predominately display significant memory deficits.
UF-00031 instances do not require food, water or air to survive or remain active. UF-00031 instances are not able to grow, heal or regenerate like biological organisms. The only known way to neutralize an instance of UF-00031 is to significantly disrupt or destroy the structure of the face.
Two classes of UF-00031 instances, designated UF-00031A and UF-00031B, are known to exist:
UF-00031A includes anomalously animate objects originally created prior to the MA-Event. UF-00031A instances are significantly more likely to communicate in human languages. UF-00031A instances typically follow patterns of behavior developed based on methods of interaction prior to the event, although significant variation still exists.

Select UF-00031A Cases

Collapse

UF-00031A-047: Child's toy designed to resemble a human firefighter
Production Year: 2019
Behavior notes: UF-00031A-047 infrequently speaks Taiwanese Mandarin or English, and typically spends time by seeking out objects of .7m or taller to drop or jump from. UF-00031A-047 demonstates an intense aversion to human children.

UF-00031A-197: Empty laundry detergent container printed with "Mr. Yuk" chemical hazard logo
Production Year: 2017
Behavior notes: UF-00031A-197 speaks English frequently, and demonstrates expertise in physical chemistry and cooking. UF-00031A-197 emits a continuous high-pitch scream in the presence of humans who appear to be ingesting food. UF-00031A-197 is unable to recognize or remember individual humans.

UF-00031A-435: Painted portrait of James Garfield
Production Year: 1881
Behavior notes: UF-00031A-435 is immobile, and speaks 19th century Norwegian. UF-00031A-435 suffers from anterograde amnesia, and in the presence of humans or other instances of UF-00031, will continuously apologize and request forgiveness for various invented crimes.

UF-00031A-767: Novelty trash-can in the shape of a penguin
Production Year: 2001
Behavior notes: UF-00031A-767 displays consistent violent behavior toward all living humans and instances of UF-00031, and shows no ability to verbally communicate in any way.

UF-00031B includes anomalously animate objects originally created following the MA-Event. UF-00031B instances are more likely to exclusively communicate in the nonhuman language, and follow more unpredictable patterns of behavior.

Select UF-00031B Cases

Collapse

UF-00031B-376: Child's drawing of a face in pencil
Production Year: 2023
Behavior notes: UF-00031B-376 rotates continuously within its page, speaking periodically in nonhuman language. Its presence or speech generally angers other instances of UF-00031.

UF-00031B-1975: Wooden sculpture depicting a dancer
Production Year: 2024
Behavior notes: After construction, UF-00031B-1975 immediately used its upper limbs to destroy its face, neutralizing itself.

UF-00031B-13214: Concrete structure incorporating painted fabric and [REDACTED]
Production Year: 2034
Behavior notes: [REDACTED]

Containment Procedure: All visual data collected from public and private surveillance systems within Contained Zones are fed directly to Autonomic Analysis System 1836 (AAS1836). AAS1836 can detect instances of UF-00031 with 98.5% reliability, and report detected instances to the nearest inzone agents within ~30s.
Once alerted, agents are responsible for assessing the threat level of the reported instance, and either neutralizing it at the site or acquiring it for further observation at the nearest high-security UF site.
Public Regulation: Deliberate creation and/or possession of an instance of UF-00031 is a class-four misdemeanor.
First-time offenders are given a warning, with a maximum penalty of 30 hours community service (or 5 hours of outzone service).
Repeat offenders are given a minimum penalty of 12 months detention and 120 hours community service, and a maximum penalty of permanent detention or exile from the Contained Zone.