Nathan peeled a rheumy eye open. The phone was ringing. It automatically picked up after the third ring.
Where are you? said the voice on the other end.
Nathan didn't ask who was calling. There was only one person that had the number.
The Director.
"Not telling." He was just two days into a week-long leave. The point was irrelevant though, as the phone — surgically implanted into his skull and hardwired to his nervous system — had a GPS the Director could easily access, assuming he hadn't already.
How soon can you get to Massachusetts?
"Commercial?"
Preferable.
"It's going to take about a day." If he didn't want him to fly private, it would all depend on the availability of flights.
Arrange it and call me back. The line went dead.
Nathan's head throbbed and his stomach was percolating. Too much wine with dinner last night, and he wasn't used to all the cream and butter the French put in their food. He lit a cigarette as he made his way to the bathroom, accelerating his bowels' already pressing needs. He snatched the travel kit off the credenza and rifled through it while perched on the toilet. A B12 syrette he injected into his thigh. Nathan probably didn't need it — usually his stomach was a garbage compactor, and he hardly ever got hangovers; on the rare occasions when he did they never stuck around.
Showered and dressed, he gazed out at the Paris skyline through the balcony window and slipped on his watch and sunglasses. Then he placed a call to the Charles de Gaulle Airport and booked a direct flight to Boston departing later that afternoon. Nathan put it on the company card. After all the fees and surcharges it totaled over ten thousand American dollars, just for a one-way trip. If the Director expected him to fly economy across an ocean he could go fuck himself.
Nathan mentally dialed him back. "Done," he reported.
Jacques' bakery on the Rue Anaïs. Ask for last month's special. Already paid for.
So the bastard knew where he was.
It turned out that Jacqeus' Bakery was only several blocks away from where he was staying. Nathan packed his suitcase, checked out of the Hotel D'Aubusson and walked over to the shop. The girl behind the counter looked like she was still in high school, had blonde hair in curls, a button nose and wet lips.
"Umm…" He hesitated. This seemed wrong, but he'd never known the Director to make a mistake. He looked up the French translation for 'last month's special' and mimicked the pronunciation while also running a search to see if there were any other Jacques bakeries in Paris. It seemed like a common name.
The girl smiled and bobbed her head. She flipped the sign in the window to boutique fermée. "This way," she said in accented English, and with a playful finger, lacquered with red gloss and dusted in flour, motioned him to the doorway behind the register.
Beyond the kitchen with its convection ovens and deep mixing bowls, downstairs into an insulated cellar and through a sliding door on casters, he was led into a room dominated by a surgical chair, the surfaces galvanized steel and a drain sunk into the middle of the floor.
Nathan smiled grimly. "You're Jacques?"
"Yeah GI Joe," she said, and blew a bubble of gum, snapping it with teeth that clicked. "Get in."
He sat in the chair and waited patiently while she administered a local anesthetic before getting to work on his face, changing the hair color and adjusting his hairline, new pigments to the iris, higher cheekbones with a harder jawline, molding his earlobes and sharpening the nose. She leaned over him, loudly chewing gum as she went about carving up his face, sculpting it like a lump of clay.
Or a wad of dough, he thought.
It was all cosmetic, nothing functionary. Her bosom pressed warmly against his shoulder as she leaned over. She smelled like cinnamon and almond extract. He focused on the cupid bow of her mouth, the thin picket lines in her lips, and found himself wishing he had more time in Paris to get to know her better.
She cleaned him off with a sterilized swab, looked him over, eyes narrowed, wiped his temple and chin, then nodded, apparently satisfied with her work. All told it'd taken a little over twenty minutes. Jacques produced a mirror and Nathan looked himself over. He had to admit she'd done a good job. It was a face, nondescript, plain, looked just like any of a billion other faces circulating the world. Not too pretty and not too ugly, nothing to draw attention. He pulled on the skin, still numb but elastic, responsive. Besides some mild swelling that made him appear slightly bloated, there was no indication of surgery.
"Want me to do your hands?" she asked.
"Don't bother." He only had a quarter of the epidermal ridges on his palms and fingers as a normal human, and had just gotten them changed a month prior. He would've liked to have had his fingerprints removed entirely, but a person with hands as smooth as glass could raise eyebrows. "You've got something else for me."
Jacques handed him a manila folder. Contained inside was a new wallet with all the standard contents — license, credit cards, even photographs of a fake family — a new passport, and a key emblazoned with the Toyota car manufacturer's logo. Attached to the key ring was a tag which read:
BOS INT Lot 16 Blue. Make: Toyota. Model: Camry. Year: 2031. Color: Gray. Plate Number: HG36T10.
He looked at his new name. It was the same one he'd provided to Air France when purchasing the ticket. He almost had to admire the Director — that cocksucker knew his every move.
He swapped the cash out of his old wallet to the new one, then handed it along with his previous passport to Jacques.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
Nathan shrugged. "Sell em if you can make money, but it's probably not safe to use, and the credit cards will have already been cancelled. Otherwise burn em." It never hurt to have a stranger traveling under one of his old pseudonyms to throw Interpol and the feds for a loop.
When he left the bakery he still had several hours to kill, and so Nathan decided to grab an early lunch at an outdoor café, the hangover already a fading memory. He ate an overpriced plate of steak-frites paired with an even more expensive bottle of sparkling water. From the café he hitched a cab to the airport.
Are you on your way?
Nathan sighed. "Heading there now," he responded. The driver glanced up at him through the rearview mirror, and assuming his passenger was talking on a mobile phone and the remark wasn't directed at him, ignored him for the remainder of the ride. "You know I have to get there three hours in advance just to check in."
You're flying to Logan?
"You know I am." It was annoying to be asked questions he knew the Director already had the answers to.
Emailing the dossier to you now.
The call disconnected.
The next ten hours were spent wading through the minutiae and hassle of air travel. The actual flight was just under seven hours, and Nathan spent the majority of it sleeping, not sure when he'd get another chance. After leaving the international terminal of Logan airport a little past four in the afternoon — the sea breeze refreshingly cool coming in from the harbor — he found the Toyota sedan right where the tag said he would. He appraised the hardware and firepower in the trunk then climbed into the driver's side, tossing the travel kit next to him on the passenger seat.
He hopped onto the Massachusetts Turnpike westbound. At this time of day the highway was a parking lot, and he set the vehicle on autopilot, cranked the AC and shut his eyes.
His destination was a town called Millbrook, located in the central part of the state. He'd passed through the area once or twice but knew next to nothing about it, and so browsed the web for information, the results appearing in his heads-up display against the dark background that was his closed eyelids. The details were dry, encyclopedic. Nipmuc tribe deeded the land and it was eventually incorporated in 1715. Consisted of 14.5 square miles of land and 6.7 square miles of water. As of the most recent census the population was listed as 2,963.
All that told him was that it was a small New England town consisting mostly of swampland. He checked local news articles, but except for a domestic murder-suicide three years ago, a particularly severe impact felt from the opioid epidemic in the first quarter of the century, and possible inspiration behind some of the stories by an author named Lovecraft, there was nothing of interest.
The car inched forward and stopped.
Millbrook bordered the Quabbin Reservoir, the primary water source for Boston, and the creation of which had necessitated the flooding of four towns back in 1938, almost a hundred years ago to the day.
Who gives a shit? Nathan thought. Discouraged and out of patience, he exhaled and closed out of the search.
It took over an hour just to get out of Boston, and another two to reach Sturbridge, where the sedan took the off-ramp of Exit 9 and button-hooked onto Route 20. The sun had already set, the sky changing from shades of rose and orangeade to velvet as the stars wheeled overhead.
His stomach growled, reminding Nathan that he hadn't had anything to eat since Paris. He'd passed on the in-flight meal.
He usurped the car's controls and manually steered into the first fast-food drive-thru he saw. He ordered three bacon cheeseburgers, a large fries and a fountain drink, and then pulled back onto Route 20, shoveling the food into his mouth after handing the controls back to the Toyota. The burgers were swaddled in wax paper, piping hot and delicious in the cheap, dirty way only American fast-food seemed to posses. The fries were a sodium blitz and the soda liable to turn him diabetic. He didn't care. It was like masturbation. Afterwards he might feel filthy and ashamed, but in the moment the act was pleasurable.
By the time he was finishing off the last burger, tossing the wrapper over his shoulder into the backseat, the car was turning off Route 20 and onto back, surface roads. Beyond Sturbridge was Brookfield and then Ware.
According to the dossier he'd read while he was still seven miles above the Atlantic, the Thaumaturgical Array Sensor — a black satellite in low Earth orbit — had detected a spike within the Sothian spectrum at 0300 local time the previous night. The witching hour, if you believed European folklore. Supposedly due to the canonical hour's lack of prayers.
Coordinates pinpointed the source to a half kilometer square patch of land in Millbrook. But the technology the TAS utilized was still in its infancy, and often gave false positives.
So basically Nathan had no idea what he was walking into. For all he knew it could've been a couple of teenage girls at a slumber party playing with a planchette and Ouija board.
Night was deepening as the Camry hung right onto a road called Hammond Hill. This was the street where the four residences within the targeted zone were located. He was lucky the place wasn't densely populated — the properties were large, each plot several acres, the homes spread far apart. It could've been a lot worse, and he grimaced at the memory of past missions involving an apartment complex, and another — not too long ago — a trailer park.
He'd studied the four residences on his phone, through 3D rendering composed of satellite imagery and GIS data. House number one was a modern two-story with a manicured lawn. The second house was more of the same. House number three was a ranch with a wrap-around porch, and like the first two there was an unobstructed view from the street. They were all possible candidates, but Nathan doubted it. For his money he was betting on house number four — a Cape Cod built in the eighteenth century, set a hundred yards from the street, accessible only by foot or via a long dirt driveway. That would be the one.
The Sothian cultists would want their privacy.
Then again it might not be in any of the homes. Half a square kilometer also covered a lot of forested area, and he didn't like the idea of having to trudge through the woods at night looking for what amounted to a needle in a haystack.
A dark sedan was parked in front of house number four, blocking the driveway. The windows were tinted and he couldn't tell if it was occupied. The car idled next to a rusted mailbox, the name MCKEOWN written on it in faded letters.
He seized control of the wheel and drove past.
"Looks like we've got company."
I know. I saw.
"You know I hate it when you watch the feed from my eyes. It's so… intimate."
Grow up. I'm using all available resources at my disposal, so don't flatter yourself. Aerial surveillance shows two SUVs and a box truck up at the house. I don't know what's inside the box truck, it's either empty or shielded somehow.
Nathan wasn't surprised. Rival factions were like an iceberg — if you saw two agents, it usually meant there were ten more close by.
He hit the blinker and swung onto the next street, driving slowly and careful to obey all traffic laws, buying some time before he had to loop back around. From the travel kit riding shotgun he pulled out a Benzedrine nasal inhaler and gave each nostril two pumps. In addition to the methamphetamine, it also contained a cocktail of sensory enhancing chemicals. He felt his sinuses immediately respond and open up, and he inhaled deeply.
I'm tracing the plates. Registration belongs to a Megan Parsons. No criminal record. Next the Director would run a background check, employment history, credit bureau scores, taxes, everything he could get his hands on. It's a dummy alias.
That was fast. "How do you know?"
Social networking accounts are boilerplate. Digital photographs along with the same exact comments have been identified on eight other profiles with mutual friends averaging at twenty-five percent. Two of these mutual friends also share the same date of birth and college degree as our Megan, and another has the same license number. There are other overlapping convergences I won't bore you with.
"Someone got sloppy." It was easy to forge social security numbers and medical documents to pass cursory examinations. The Director's examinations, though, were anything but cursory, and it took time and energy to craft convincing social networking accounts that could fool him and his search algorithms. Cutting and pasting wouldn't do the trick.
"Any idea who my new friends are?"
Nothing yet. The aliases must be fresh, no known affiliations coming back.
"Great." There was a huge difference between going up against members of the Voltaic Counsel and the GOC, or the Chaos Insurgency and the Branch Lakivians, and being able to identify which group it was could be a matter of life and death.
I'm piggybacking on their communications but they're currently radio silent. When I know you'll know.
"You want me to wait?"
Absolutely not. You wasted too much time already getting here and it's lost us the initiative.
"Hey, that's your fault. If you'd chartered a private jet I could've flown straight from Paris to Worcester, and from there I can get to Millbrook by car in less than half an hour. It would've shaved ten hours off my arrival."
I didn't like the the risk assessment. Only two private flights have flown from Paris to Worcester in the past year. There was a sixty-five percent chance your unexpected flight would have been flagged as atypical and subjected to further scrutiny.
Nathan was grateful to hear there was an actual reason behind the Director forcing him to fly commercial, but he'd never express it. "Well, what about flying into Logan?" he responded instead.
Nineteen percent, and if you'd then flown from Boston to Worcester it climbs back up. Higher if we used a helicopter. TF Green was at twenty-five percent. Flying commercial had less than a single percentage point probability of you getting flagged. So I sacrificed the hours and went with the safest option.
Nathan decided to let it go. He should've known better than to question the Director's logic. "So what's my approach on this one? Think I should try bluffing?"
I think they'll shoot you before you could get close enough.
"Okay… How many combatants?"
Counting seven armed by the house, four covering the sides and three about to breach. There're another two in the car that you passed.
He made a three-point turn and headed back onto Hammond.
Pull in here.
Nathan stopped the car half a mile from the McKeown house, parking it on an old fire road. He stepped out and stripped naked, breath pluming in the spring air, and squeezed into a suit of combat armor that was in the trunk. It was tailored for him, but still a tight fit. The suit was a magnetorheological fluid-based weave. The insulation and reflective surfaces blinded optoelectonics, rendering him effectively invisible to everything besides motion sensors and the naked eye. A reinforced cowl covered his head without restricting movement or his field of vision. The phone in Nathan's brain made additional components — such as a helmet-mounted display, WPSM or a situational-awareness hub — superfluous.
When he finished selecting the last of his gear and weapons from the trunk, buckling an explosive belt around his waist, he jogged back to the house, careful to stay out of the arc-sodium streetlamps. He told himself he was about to engage nine people, all of them probably highly-trained. Hopefully his own training and technology would prove superior, lending him an advantage by force multiplication to try and even the odds.
The sedan hadn't moved, was still next to the mailbox. Nathan crept toward it and planted a proximity mine on the side panel, then slunk away, up the muddy driveway before the thirty second delay ran out and the mine armed itself.
He heard commotion up ahead as he approached the house — a door kicked in followed by boots stomping across warped planks. Orders shouted to "Get the fuck down!" and "Let me see your hands!" Nathan paused at the top of the driveway and tilted his head, hidden under the eaves of pine trees that ringed the barren yard. The house was dilapidated, paint eroding from the few clapboards that remained. All of the windows were either capped by plywood or covered with newspapers that had gone bankrupt and folded decades ago. There was a hole in the gabled roof, the shutters had been stripped and the chimney was slanting so much a strong breeze probably could have toppled it.
Five are inside, now. There's one standing by the vehicles, and the last one is at the rear of the house, on the opposite side.
The two SUVs were parked on a patch of gravel to his right, sandwiching the box truck between them. He moved swiftly, circling the SUVs. A stocky man loitered by the rear of the truck. He had on a bullet-proof vest over a tactical uniform sans insignia, head covered in a helmet and balaclava. He looked like a member of SWAT. These guys — whoever they might be — definitely weren't Voltaic or Lakivians. Judging by their hardware they might have been agents of the Insurgency.
The way he was standing, the man's back was against the cargo door of the box truck, and the two SUVs covered his flanks. Nathan either had to come at him from the front or go under the vehicles, and the latter would limit his strike zone to nonlethal parts of the body save the femoral.
He couldn't afford the time to let him bleed out. Nathan switched on the active-camouflage system of the suit and rushed head-on, relying on his speed and the darkness to keep him concealed until he struck. He had three million photoreceptor cells in each retina — more than twice as many rods than average — allowing for better scotopic vision. To him the world at night was clearly visible, although it came in drained of color, like an old black-and-white movie. What he saw as nothing more than shade, what the foliage of a tree might cast on a bright afternoon, everyone else saw as inky, abyssal black.
The midnight zone.
He clung to it, that fathomless dark, and unsheathed his knife. The padded soles of his boots didn't make a sound as he swept forward, launching into the air to cover the last ten feet.
The blade flashed as he pounced and buried it in the agent's throat, his other hand cupped around the mouth to muffle any potential scream. He twisted the handle and dragged it horizontally. Blood sprayed in a fan. There was the wet sound of running water as if someone had turned on a spigot. The eyes went wide even as the body began to sag. Nathan wrenched the knife free and slipped the blade between the ribs.
He gently laid the corpse on the ground and rolled it under the truck.
Around the house, he turned the corner and sprinted to the back. The ground was uneven, an obstacle course of depressions and hillocks and half-submerged rocks, dead grass slick with dew. Scattered leaves crunched underfoot. He cut around the next corner and there was the other agent, exactly where the Director said he'd be. He was dressed identical to the previous man, watching the windows and backdoor in case anyone tried to escape that way.
He swiveled in Nathan's direction, raising the gun muzzle. But his reaction was too slow, too slow…
"What-" he managed to utter, and then Nathan was on top of him, his weight driving the agent to the ground. He jammed his finger into the trigger guard to prevent the gun from discharging as the knife severed the jugular, cutting deep, almost to the point of decapitation. He sped death along with another thrust to the heart, and left the body where it fell.
They're about to exit through the front. They've got three unarmed with them. I think they're bound prisoners by the way they're moving.
He girded the side of the Cape Cod, hugging the crumbling foundation as he made his way back toward the front and peeked around the corner. An agent emerged from the house and tramped down the uneven porch steps. He was less than ten feet away from Nathan, but the angle was poor, and the line of fire was broken by an old man trailing close behind him. The old man's hands and feet were shackled, he was blindfolded with his mouth gagged. Another agent pushed him along with a catchpole — a noose made from steel cable attached to a long rod, like the kind animal control officers used to snare dogs — forcing him to march outside.
The old man staggered and almost fell on the top step, the wire drawing taut around his neck as he tried to catch his breath, nostrils flared and cheeks ballooning around the ball-gag.
Nathan backpedaled, returning to the edge of the pine trees that encircled the property in order to gain a wider perspective. Two more civilians in matching restraints to the old man were led out: a woman in a stained house dress and a boy — couldn't have been more than seventeen. Both were being led by catchpoles. Bringing up the rear were the final two agents.
The old man was emaciated whereas the woman was obese, the boy as big and fit as a farmhand. Despite these differences there was a familial resemblance to all three, and Nathan surmised that he was looking at three generations of the McKeown family.
Overwatch is trying to update them on the deceased status of the two agents you killed. I'm blocking the receivers but it's only a matter of time before they switch to a back channel. They can't see you but they know someone is there; they think it might be snipers and are broadening their search pattern.
Nathan wanted to broach the topic that they had an Overwatch at all, but was preoccupied and filed it away for later. He waited until the group reached the medial point between the house and the vehicles and then opened fire, focusing on the two agents forming the rearguard, as they were clustered together. He mowed them down, rounds perforating their chests in red cloudbursts, and moved up the line. The vests offered no protection against the antipersonnel flechettes Nathan was using for ammunition, the needle tips puncturing the ballistic material like tissue paper.
The boy rubbed his face against his shoulder, dislodging the blindfold. Realizing he was no longer tethered by the catchpole, he dropped his shoulder and charged the agent holding fast to the McKeown woman — presumably his mother. The boy slammed into the agent like a linebacker, knocking him off balance and giving Nathan a clear shot as he stumbled, arms pinwheeling. Three supersonic flechettes sliced through the balaclava and drilled into his face, cleaving the tip of his nose in a surgical bisection and ripping the mandible from one of its hinges, the lower jaw flapping loose from the remaining attached joint. Broken teeth crested a waterfall of blood. The agent wailed. His tongue protruded like an angry pink worm from the back of his throat. If there were any words in that wail they were lost to his disfigured mouth as he collapsed to his knees.
The two remaining agents reached cover behind one of the SUVs, dragging the old man with them as they laid down suppressing fire. The shots were scattered and all over the place. It was clear they had no clue where Nathan was, and he didn't bother seeking the protection of a tree trunk as bullets stitched a line of tiny meteoric craters in the earth several feet away, spraying him with loam.
On Hammond Street a ball of fire suddenly erupted. There was the booming peal of the detonation of the proximity mine — Nathan felt the shockwave reverberate in his diaphragm — followed by the shrill protest of shearing metal and the crystal-chimes of glass hitting the macadam. The surrounding land was briefly bathed in a warm light as the flames blossomed. His suit rapidly changed colors trying to match the lighting, the outer skin turning bright orange before dimming as the flames withered and finally dissolved in a cloud of black smoke.
The two in the car are now dead, but they've caught on and switched to a back channel. I'm trying to find it now. They'll be calling in support.
I'M ALMOST DONE, Nathan texted back in order to maintain silence.
He stood and surveyed the situation. The boy had found a key ring on one of the corpses and was systematically trying each one on his mother's chains. The surviving agents hunkered behind the SUV, probably digging in, would hold the position until their backup arrived.
They didn't understand that they had just boxed themselves in.
Nathan popped two smoke grenades and lobbed them at the vehicles. One landed close enough for an agent to snatch it in a gloved hand and pitch it away, but it was too late. Pale, thick smoke was already enveloping them, expanding and spreading across the yard. Nathan cut right through the trees, emerging a hundred feet away as he made his approach.
As he closed the gap he cycled through visual augmentations, switching to thermal-infrared imaging. His suit's color automatically changed to a milky, off-white to blend in with the smoke.
He could easily see the agents now — one of them was trying to hook some kind of optical device on their head, but was having difficulty getting it to clip on the brackets of their helmet. The other clutched a submachine gun and sat on top of the old man, pinning him to the ground.
Nathan paused a moment to listen in. One of the agents was actually a woman. Underneath the current of their voices, the prisoner repeatedly mumbled something behind the plug of the gag.
"Did you see how many there are?"
"I didn't see shit. I still can't. These fucking goggles aren't picking anything up."
"Rodriguez is still alive. They blew his face off and he's still alive. I can hear him choking over there."
"Sit tight. You can't do anything for him right now. Slanted and Enchanted is on its way along with a med evac."
Nathan vaulted over the hood of the SUV, landing softly behind the pair.
"This is goddamned Charlie Foxtrot."
"You got that right."
"You still don't see anything?"
"No. I told you. Neither did Overwatch."
"Wait, I think I heard something."
The man turned on the balls of his feet, spinning one hundred and eighty degrees as the smoke parted just in time for him to glimpse the bore of the gun pointed between his eyes. Nathan fired from a range of about two inches. Blowback showered his hand with blood and bone fragments as the skull split open like a rotten piece of fruit.
The remaining agent whipped her carbine around while Nathan was aligning his next shot, readjusting from the recoil. He slapped the barrel away, iron-sight digging into his palm, as the first bullet glanced off his thigh. The other shots went wide, punching holes in the SUV's door panel and shattering the tempered glass window, breaking it into granular chunks. The tire popped, exhaling a puff of pressurized air as it deflated.
She released her grip on the carbine and Nathan allowed it to fall, belatedly realizing that it was a distraction while she drew her sidearm. He sidestepped and she unloaded into the vacant space he'd previously occupied. Wedged in the tight quarters between the SUV and the box truck, he jumped onto the side of the truck, using it to pivot and change his trajectory, angling with his foot to strike at her exposed neck.
Hearing him rebound the agent twisted and fired blindly. A bullet found Nathan, striking his forearm. The armor absorbed the round, deforming and pancaking the bullet while deflecting most of the energy, but the impact numbed his hand to pins and needles and he dropped his gun. The kick sailed harmlessly over the agent's head.
She backed away and reloaded, ejecting the clip and sliding in a fresh magazine as she skirted the rear bumper of the SUV, putting it between her and Nathan. Reaching up with a gloved hand, she ripped the goggles off her helmet, and Nathan likewise cycled back to normal vision. The smoke was dissipating, now no more than tendrils of light fog being torn apart by a gust of wind. The nearby trees swayed back and forth. Leaves skidded past, chattering across the gravel.
He snatched his gun up and sprung on top of the SUV, the chassis rocking beneath his weight and the roof dimpling.
The agent looked up at him, sidearm gripped in a shooter's stance. "You're human," she said, like it was an accusation.
Nathan cocked his head, rolling his shoulders in a shrug as if to say: You were expecting something else?
"Might be Insurgency," she continued. "Or a Yeb. Definitely not a Neo-Luddite."
Wait, Nathan thought to himself. I thought you were with the Insurgency. Again he found himself wondering just who exactly these people were.
She fired at him, but the combat suit had already learned from the first bullet and had adapted accordingly. The rounds glanced harmlessly off the armor and cascaded down onto the roof of the vehicle. Nathan hopped down. Comprehending the futility of it, the agent retreated, pistol pointed at the sky.
I'm in their back-channel now, the Director buzzed inside his head. The call signs match a known Foundation MTF.
"What?" Nathan blurted in his surprise.
"Negative," the woman was saying as she moved further away. "Still engaged. Can't terminate."
He raised the flechette-gun, aiming to put this agent down. No more playing with her. No more fooling around. With dawning alarm he realized she wasn't addressing him — had never been speaking to him, not directly.
"Initiate," she said before he could stop her.
And the Hellfire missile, launched from the Foundation Overwatch drone — a hunter-killer UAV circling high above — struck the house.
Part Two


Authors Note: This takes place in the universe of SCP-2238.

« Green Day |Hub| Green Day III »

Global Occult Coalition Detention Center, Alabama. 1993
Commander Grant walked down the long winding halls of the non-anomalous wing of the facility, his footsteps making an audible clack beneath him as he looked for the correct door number. It was strange, the lack of sound. Grant was reminded of the horror movies of yonder days, when there were just large periods of silence as the main character waited for something to crawl out of the shadows and attack.
He couldn't help but smile as he remembered those younger, more innocent times.
Grant slowed his movement, stopping as he read the large sliver plaque attached to the wall of the steel door.

Dick C. Normus

He stifled a laugh1 as he slid his green security card through the reader and, after waiting for the light to flash, opened the door. Bruises covered the man's face from years of toil and general age, lips constantly downturned. He was sitting in a small metal cot, staring up at the ceiling. Bullet proof glass separated the two, a small hole acting as the sole means of communication. The man turned his head to the right to face Commander Grant, his glassy eyes staring right into the Commander's.
The Commander walked towards the chair in front of the glass, crossed his legs, and looked just began to watch.
"How is your day going, Dick?"

The dark figure lay beneath a tree, his breath heavy, blood covering his body from head to toe. He could feel the flesh around his frontal lobe began to heal, slowly forming flesh to fill in the holes of his brain and damaged limbs. It was akin to the feeling of rubbing Elmer's Glue on your hands and then peeling it off.
"Ken. Let's go home."
Ken looked back at the roundish creature before him, a small child over his shoulder. Masky lay just 10 or so feet behind, gun at the ready.
"Just….one….more," Ken wheezed out as he forced himself to stand up.
"No dipshit. Anymore dead Gocks and we'll have a full battalion from up North in Nashville."
"Awwwwwwww comeeee theeeeee fuckkkkkkkkkk onnnnn, we could kill them all if we wanted to, ya pussy."
Stretchy laughed.
"Sure, if you wanna end up like that damned Church."
"I'm not some damn cultist."
"You can have your little violent power fantasy later, Ken, but right now, we got a kid to take care of," Stretchy retorted, nodding his head in the direction of the child on his shoulder.
Ken cracked his neck, twisting it before it forced itself back into the direction of what would be considered a 'normal' human.
"Let's just go home."

The Circus was, like many nights before it, a great spectacle to behold for many outsiders. But to Masky, it was just another night of standing around with a gun on his hip. A thankless job, but someone had to do it. As the lights and screams and cheers of the crowds inside of the small-but-bigger-on-the-inside tents were occurring, Masky was standing, waiting. He changed his face to match the Circus' 'child-friendly' atmosphere, the flesh morphing and changing pigmentation in order to fit in. Just like he always had.
Above him, on top of a ice cream truck, was the blood soaked Ken, his clown mask off to the side as he chewed on his ring finger.
"You need a shower."
"You need a new face."
Silence.
"So," the younger one asked as he removed his finger from his mouth, not unlike a toddler, "the old man finally croaked, eh?"
"Yes, it appears so."
"What're they gonna do with the kid?"
"I don't know. I assume they'd send him to some safe enclave out west in Foundation territory. Or the Portlands, if possible."
Ken hung his feet off the edge of the truck, swinging them back and forth.
"Hendie his dad? Doubt the old man had it in him, but anything's possible."
"No, just a child he found off the street."
"Little shit got him killed."

Doctor Smith was not having a pleasant day. Not only was she having to play '''''good'''' cop to this lunatic's bad cop while he was pummeling some poor Richard, but she forgot to bring her lunch to work that day at the Detention Facility! And she spent so much time on creating those tiny sandwiches that her husband always found so cut—
Another scream punctured the air.
"Blarg," she said out loud as she saw the Commander electrocuting the prisoner with the weird clown markings. He was looking for information on the Circus, who was hiding some dangerous Green or something. She wasn't paying too much attention when the Commander hastily explained the context. She eyed the newspaper that the Commander had brought in before the fiesta of violence began, and, with a swift motion, grabbed it and lazily looked through the different articles and editorials.
Doctor Smith flipped through five or so pages of news about boring stuff like Lab's new line of SRA's, or the GRU-"P" being absorbed into the GOC as the '109th' member2 and some random person called "Professor AW" that was new to the Arms Race between Labs, MCD, and Anderson. Only when she saw a picture of some old man and some kid did she stop.

B

James Henderson

irmingham, Alabama - August 12, 1993 At 12:04 PM UTC, Special Agent Garrison was attacked by Birmingham Local James Henderson, alleged member of terrorist groups funded by the Foundation and Unusual Incidents Unit. Agent Garrison shot the suspect, killing Henderson on impact. Afterwards, Agent Garrison had attempted to bring in a Highly Dangerous Reality Bender that had escaped Coalition custody, but was overwhelmed by an unknown third party.
"He would have killed me if I didn't do something," stated Special Agent Garrison when asked by Local reporter Mabel Smith about the killing. "He was insane, really. Thankfully he didn't cause too much damage."
The 55-year-old and graying attacker had a criminal history of connections to either terrorist groups or groups that are sympathetic to them. Although never officially indicated, it is generally believed by Coalition analysts that he was very much a supporter of the notorious terrorist group 'The Serpent's Hand'.
"He was dangerous and insane to have a reality bender in his home, protecting it, "stated Commander Grant of Coalition forces to local Birmingham News. "Thankfully, Agent Garrison was able to prevent any future acts committed by the lunatic."

"CUNT!"
Another scream ruined her concentration as Grant turned the dial up from 6 to 9.
The vein in Smith's head was about to burst.

Stretchy wrapped the bandage around the kid's knee. A majority of his legs had been scraped and cut during his run through the forest from the Gocks. The kid was awake now, but didn't speak. Not that Stretchy blamed him much. He just saw one of the closest things to a parental figure get his brains blown out.
Hell, it reminded him of when Icky and Manny got rid of Fuller. Even if it was necessary.
He stood up and stretched his back out, which was surprisingly easy for a creature without a skeleton.
"Kid, ya need anything while I'm here?"
Silence.
Stretchy moved his hand fifteen feet across the trailer he lived in towards the cooler, opened it up, and popped out a bottled water and soda.3 He placed the soda next to the kid. He plopped himself right next to the kid towards his left. He took a deep breath and sipped his water.
There was a good fifteen seconds before anyone said anything.
"You got a name kid?"
Kid didn't even nod.
"You got any hobbies?"
Kid's face was in a downtrodden frown.
"Can you talk at all?"
Nothing.
He wondered if he was a special kid. Maybe he couldn't talk, or, if he did, something bad would happen that'd kill a lot of people. It wasn't out of the question, it happens. They usually learn to control it when they're kids, or, if they're unlucky, they'll be found in a river. Or, if they're really unlucky, they'll be sold to Micky Dees.
God damn, Mickey Dees. He heard the horror stories of what they'd do. Stories of little men in suits walking into their local club and asking for a "good catch", mostly a young child, although it could be an adult as well, was brought before them to inspect at their own leisure. And, if they liked it, they'd bring it to their mansion on fucking Wall Street or wherever else and just play with it. Amuse themselves. Use it as a way to get rich people points at rich people parties where people sipped wine, sucked each other's cocks and sniffed each others farts. "Oh yes, I have a man who can turn his penis into a boomerang" "Oh, well mine can be burnt alive and still survive, I tried it myse—"
"Vince."
"Huh?"
"My name is Vince. At least, I think."
Stretchy was a little taken aback, but pleased nonetheless.
"Heh, thought you were a mute for a second there."
"I get that a lot."
"How old are ya?"
"Nine, ten-ish I think. My parents never kept many dates."
"Why not?"
Vince shrugged. "Never had much of a reason."

"CUNT! BITCH LIPPED WHORE! DAMN GEO SEA CUNTS I'LL FUCKIN' RIP YOUR BALLS OFF LIKE MY GRANDAD USED TO DO!"
Dick struggled against his restraints, wiggling and moving and writhing around in the metal latches that kept him down. He had gotten used to the automatic electrical shocks that came with this contraption. Some experimental chair of some sort, mostly for human subjects.
But he was a clown goddamnit!4 And clowns don't quit! Sets bad precedent, if anything.
He could almost move his feet before the door opened and slammed shut, and a—
Oh my.
Before him was a short woman, her hair tied up into a bun on her head. A white labcoat covered her shoulders, and she wore a pair of beautiful thick rimmed glasses.
"Hello, Dick."
"Hello, uhh," he muttered, squinting his eyes to look at the identification, "Ms, uh, Smith, yeah. I know plenty of Smiths, and you're the most Smithy of them."
"Neat."
She took her seat across from him, a notepad in hand.
"Tell me," she began, looking through her blue ink soaked paper notes as if her life depended on it, "what do you know about the Circus?"
"It's gonna take more than some hot nerd to get me to spill the bean—"
"I'll give you a memetic hazard that'll give you instantaneous orgasms upon viewing if you comply."
"Where do you want me to start?"
"Start from the beginning, please."
"Well," began Dick, reclining in his chair, "it all began when my grandfather fucked a Clown…."

Stretchy exited his trailer to face both Masky and Ken. A pistol was still at Masky's hip, and Ken, well….
"I already told you to stop that," Stretchy said.
Ken rolled his eyes and removed his finger from his mouth, saliva covering it to the base of the finger.
"What did you get out of the kid?" Masky questioned, stepping closer to Stretchy.
Stretchy rubbed the back of his neck, looking back at the trailer.
"Well, the kid finally spoke. It's progress, I suppose. Other than that, his name's Vince."
"Nice name, he choose it himself?" Ken quipped sarcastically.
"Yes, actually."
"Oh."
"Are you going to tell Manny or Icky?" Masky asked, leaning against the trailer.
"No, no, we don't need to worry them about thi—"
"Dipshit, you brought a goddamn Green into the Circus who's being tracked down by murderous Gock fucks. It's all of our problems," Ken interrupted.
"I know, I know, but if we can get him to Portland, we could avoid causing any trouble."
"Are you suggesting we bring a child to a potential hot spot for anomalous activity and criminal activities?"
"I know it's not the best solution, Masky, but it's better than here or anywhere else."
"The city would kill him," Masky retorted.
"He's survived worse at this point. Besides, we fared worse things at that ag—"
"Please don't compare our situations, Stretchy."
Ken tuned out as the two children bickered like an old married couple. He wondered if there was any ice cream left….

"….and that's how I became a Clown Breeder with no prior experience, training, or discipline."
Doctor Smith stared blankly at the man. Silence covered the room like a blanket.
"So, uh, you gonna give me the meme or no—"
Before he could continue she punched him and shoved a pill down his throat and poured water down it. He gagged as he felt himself get queasy and weak before the world started turning to black.
Grant placed his face into his palm, groaning after the four hour memoir that was recited to them.
"So, uh, what should we do—"
"Fuck this, I'm going to the Tracking Department."
And in one swift move he took his coat, notes, and pistol and left the room, leaving the dumb struck Smith and drooling Dick.

« Green Day |Hub| Green Day III »

Footnotes
1. It got him every damn time.
2. Which Smith really didn't like. 109 just didn't have the same ring to it.
3. Icky and Manny banned alcoholic drinks after the whole Bubblegum fiasco. He still had the nightmares.
4. Not capital C, but still


« Icky & Ichabod | Dread & Circuses Hub | A Real Humdinger »

“So how about this: we set it up like it's a normal daredevil routine, with a guy on a motorcycle jumping over an audience member, and I'm the plant in the audience. He flies off the ramp, but he doesn't have enough speed. He's going to crash into me! I scream, the audience screams, everyone screams! Then, at the last second, I open wide and swallow him whole! W'd'ya think?”
Motormouth was in the breakroom of Clown Alley, the little trailer outside the Big Top that housed the Circus's entire Clown population. Of course, it was only little on the outside. The Clowns had converted the trailer into an orthotope, giving them plenty of hyperdimensional living space. Most of the other Circus Folk found the place impossible to navigate, but for some reason, Motormouth had always had a head for it.
“Barney, your act is dangerous enough when someone's holding your mouth open. It's too risky for you to open up at the last second,” Icky, the Clown Troupe Leader, counselled him.
“But that's what people want; the danger!” he insisted. "The jaw-dropping spectacle of a death-defying act!"
“It's only a death-defying act if you don't actually die,” Eugene said as he put a tiny olive on a comically large sandwich he had spent the last several minutes preparing. “I doubt Herman would want to risk it, given how many people we've lost lately. Dicksy, Stretchy, and Madam Rezarta all nabbed by the Essie P. Plus Masky, Ken and…I don't know, their other goon just went AWOL, so God knows where they are.”
“Don't forget Virtuoso,” Icky added solemnly, staring sadly into her glass of Milk.
“I wouldn't Icky,” Eugene said sympathetically, sitting next to Motormouth and setting his sandwich on the table.
“Hey, thanks buddy,” Motormouth said as he quickly placed the whole sandwich into his mouth and into his second stomach. Eugene glared at him in cold rage for several seconds before the Freak started laughing. “I'm just kidding!”
He reached into his mouth and retrieved the sandwich, completely intact, and placed it back on its plate.
Eugene hardly seemed appeased.
“You disgust me,” he said with a sad shake of his head.
“I thought Clowns only ate candy.”
“I put honey mustard on it!”
The three of them all covered their ears as the staticy screech of the Circus's antiquated PA system crackled through the air.
“ATTENTION! ALL HERMAN FULLER EMPLOYEES ARE TO REPORT TO THE RINGMASTER'S TENT IMMEDIATELY FOR A VERY IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!” Herman Fuller's voice boomed from all around them. “I REPEAT, ALL EMPLOYEES REPORT TO THE RINGMASTER'S TENT AT ONCE! NO EXCEPTIONS!”
“He does not sound happy,” Icky murmured anxiously. “Come on guys, we don't want to be late. He might set us on fire.”
Eugene hastily scribbled a note reading ‘Eugene's – Touch it and face my fury!' and placed it on his sandwich, and followed the other two outside.
They saw everyone had taken Herman's announcement seriously, as a large crowd had already assembled in front of the Ringmaster's tent. A small stage had been erected, with a drawn curtain concealing what was no doubt an unwelcome surprise. Everyone seemed to be ill at ease, with a few furitive murmurs being the only sound to break the ominous quiet. Motormouth ducked off to join the other Freaks, whereas Icky took her place at the front of the Clowns.
“Any of you know what this is about?” she asked.
“Must be something big to call everyone out,” Pius replied. “That's rarely something good.”
“It's never anything good. Name one time it was good,” Eugene said.
“Well…there was the time he introduced us to Dicksy.”
“How was that good? Dicksy was a jerk who treated us like chattel!”
“But then we got to see Manny beat him up. That wasn't too bad.”
The mention of the Man with the Upside-Down Face caused Icky to notice that he was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is Manny?” she asked.
Before anyone could answer, Herman Fuller strode onto the stage, and none dared to utter even the slightest peep. The tall, skinny, beanpole of a man looked unusually forlorn, his head hung low and a handkerchief tightly clutched in his hand.
“Friends, I'm afraid I have some terrible news,” he said, dabbing his crocodile tears with the handkerchief. “Last night, my Freewheelers – my sweet, innocent, helpless little Freewheelers – were murdered!”
The crowd remained deathly silent. Everyone hated the Freewheelers, the animal-doll-tricycle things Herman had used to spy on and torment them, but they feared how they might be punished for this new act of rebellion.
“Don't worry, I didn't call you here to point fingers. I know exactly who's responsible. I called you here because I have known for some time now that the Freewheelers were no longer adequate for protecting our Family, and so I set to work on developing replacements for them. Now seems as a good a time for their debut as ever, so without further adieu, I give you the Penny Farthings!”
The curtains to the Ringmaster's tent flew open and out rode a procession of two dozen penny farthing bicycles, mounted by ghastly creatures. Each rider looked like a human circulatory system made from twisted, rusted wires. Their arms were long enough to touch the ground, and their gangly necks were too weak to support their heads upright so instead they just drooped.
The crowd murmured in fear and shock as the Penny Farthings formed a perimeter around them, fencing them in.
“We can all sleep a little easier now knowing that we have the Penny Farthings to protect us from enemies from without, and within.”
He pulled open the curtain behind him, revealing the Man with the Upside-Down Face hanging upside down by his ankles, his arms bound and his mouth gagged.
“Who's strung up now?” he asked him with a smugly satisfied grin.
“Manny!” Yume screamed in horror, the flowers of her hair instantly wilting. “Herman, let him go!”
“Speak out of turn again child and I'll throw you to the Clowns!” Herman threatened. Yume immediately hushed. She glanced over to the Clowns, expecting them to be licking their chops, but instead they looked just as uncertain and horrified as everyone else. Herman turned back to Manny and smiled.
“Well old friend, I can't tell you how much pleasure it gives me to finally see your face the right way up after all these years. Oh, we've had our good times, it's true, but what you've done is quite unforgivable, and what sort of leader would I be to let such a senseless and wanton crime go unpunished?”
“But you can't kill him!” Yume screamed, tears pooling in her eyes.
“Oh my dear, sweet Yume. I'm not going to kill him; all of you are,” he said with a wicked smile. “I snuck into the cookhouse this morning and placed a little bit of Cotton Candy into the oatmeal.”
“Oh no. Oh no no no no no,” Yume wept, as she and everyone else realized what was about to happen.
“Oh yes. Mr. Brenneman, play Upside-Down Cake!” Herman ordered.
Over on the Cotton Candy kiosk, a disfigured Tom Brenneman proudly displayed the paper roll of mesmerizing music for the self-playing calliope. No one other than Herman knew for sure what the Cotton Candy wrapped around their nervous systems would make them do when it heard the song 'Upside-Down Cake', and Icky had no intention of finding out. Acting almost on instinct, she drew out her deck of trick cards. All fifty-four cards were engulfed in a red aura and went flying towards Tom. Fortunately for him Icky was merciful and they did no mortal damage, but the paper roll was destroyed beyond any hope of use.
She immediately called the cards back to her and held them around herself in a defensive perimeter as she crouched in preparation for the inevitable attack.
“Icky!” Herman screamed, sounding genuinely shocked. “How could you? How could you?”
“Fuller, there's no reason this has to go any further. Just let Manny go. You know how vital he is. There is no Circus without Manny.”
“Is that so? In case you've forgotten, it's Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting! I feed you, clothe you, house you, protect you from the Essie P and the Geo Sea and the Insurgent Sea and this is how you repay me!”
“You burned Virtuoso alive you son of a bitch!” she spat at him. Herman shook his head sadly.
“It would truly be a shame to lose such a lovely and talented performer as yourself, but if that's how you feel…first Clown to bring me her heart is the new Troupe Leader!”
Herman seemed to expect the Clowns to jump on her like she was made out of candy, but not one of them budged.
“None of you? None of you! After all I've done for you!”
“You let that bastard Dicksy breed us like animals!” Doctor Tinkles yelled.
“You put us all in danger by trying to steal from Emcee D!” Motormouth cried.
“You left Pius and me to rot in an abandoned hub with a feral Fun-lover!” Eugene howled.
“Well, in my defence, you never finished telling me how you got away from there!” Herman countered. “It was a little disappointing, to be honest.”
“We are sick of your bullshit Herman!” Icky declared. “We're not going to let you kill us, or mind control us, or bully us with these abominations of yours anymore!”
The entire Circus cheered in support.
“I'm giving you one chance Fuller! Let Manny go, or I kill you.”
Herman glared down at her with utter contempt, and she knew this wasn't going to end peacefully.
“Penny Farthings, have at them!” he ordered.
A green fire flared up inside the chest of each Penny Farthing, smoke and flame wafting out of every opening. They howled as if in maddening pain, and began assaulting the crowd in a wild frenzy.
“Clowns, take them down! Jam their spokes” Icky shouted, throwing her cards at each rusted monstrosity's enormous front wheel. “Freaks, get Manny free! Alfie, unleash the Fun-lovers!”
All obeyed her orders without fail. The Clowns, so often viewed by the Freaks and Carnies as otherworldly monsters, rushed to put themselves between the Penny Farthings and the innocent. Though they were dealt many blows, they did not cry or bleed, but instead only squeaked like chew toys. This clearly both frustrated and confused their attackers. The Clowns grabbed whatever was at hand and shoved it between the Penny Farthing's spokes, sending them toppling over. This didn't stop them, however, as they still clawed their way along the ground, lashing out at anyone within reach of their distended and mangled limbs.
Seeing that her cards were having minimal effect on the creatures, Icky grabbed a sledgehammer. Normally used for driving tent spikes into the ground, she put the tool to work smashing the toppled cyclists into scrap metal, and the others soon followed her example.
Motormouth reached down his throat and pulled out his submachine gun. He unleashed a hail of bullets upon Fuller, only for him to catch them all in his teeth and spit them back at the crowd like he was a human Gatling gun. Once he had exhausted his ammo, the Freaks stormed the stage, ready to tear him limb from limb. Herman whistled, calling one of the Penny Farthings to him. He leapt onto its back and rode it into the Den of Freaks. He came out only seconds later, wielding a cutlass (one of many swords reserved for swallowing, throwing, and for sticking into the human pincushion), ready to cull down rebels like he was reaping wheat. Some of the Freaks ran after him anyway, while others rushed to help Manny, slicing through the bonds with whatever they could find.
“Manny? Manny are you okay?” Yume asked as she removed the gag from his mouth.
“Fire up the Kaleidoscope, dial up a Door to the Darkness,” he replied as he rose to his feet. “He's getting the slowest death possible!”
Alfie zigged and zagged through the chaos, ducking attacks and dodging friendly fire until he reached the Funhouse. Throwing open the emergency exit, he shouted “It's a mutiny! We're taking down Fuller!”
He was grabbed from behind by a Penny Farthing, the metal of its hands piercing through his clothes and into his skin. The creature hoisted him into the air, its rusted hand poised to rip his heart out of his chest, when a familiar noise came from the Funhouse.
“Wowwee! Wowwee!” Mortimer screamed as he came flying out of the exit. He shape-shifted into an enormous pink gorilla in a bow tie and tore the rider from its mount. He grabbed it by its arm and began beating it against the ground in a rabid orgy of violence.
“Mortimer, do be careful not to hit anyone, won't you?” Ripley asked as she and Bailey strode out of the Funhouse in their tall, humanoid forms. She stuck out her leg and toppled a Penny Farthing as it whizzed by. “Since this is a mutiny, should we assume pirate forms?”
“That's a little predictable, don't you think?” Bailey asked. The Penny Farthing Mortimer had dismounted escaped his grasp and launched itself at Bailey. Bailey grabbed its head and crushed it in his hand. “Come now Mortimer, you can't be so careless with your playthings.”
“I'da'champ! I'da'champ!” he chanted as he bashed another Penny Farthing into pieces.
“Well, he seems to have these brutes under control. What do you suppose we should do?” Bailey asked.
“I could unleash the Kraken,” Ripley suggested.
“That's complete overkill.”
“You always say that.”
“Because it's always true! You clearly just want to unleash the Kraken so that you can shout ‘Unleash the Kraken!'. Do you honestly think there's any situation where unleashing the Kraken would solve more problems than it would cause?”
“I don't know because we've never let it out. Frankly, your assumption that it would automatically be a disaster is prejudiced against colossal mythical sea creatures. For all you know the Kraken could be great at conflict resolution…”
Their conversation was briefly interrupted due to Ripley being decapitated by a passing Herman Fuller.
“A cutlass? I guess we ended up going with a pirate theme after all,” Bailey remarked. “Ripley dear, are you alright?”
“Quite.”
Mortimer chased after Herman in a fury, tearing up the ground with his fists as he went. Herman granted his Penny Farthing additional speed as he tore through the fairgrounds, trying to find Icky in the chaos. He thought that if he killed her then maybe, just maybe, he could quell this rebellion. Her, Manny, and anyone else who had dared to speak out against him. Once they were strung up in the Matinee, everyone would know the price for betraying Herman Fuller. Who then would choose to defy him if it meant an eternal living death?
There, in the centre of the battle, he saw her. Surrounded by Clowns and Freaks alike, they were destroying the last of his Penny Farthings. Pushing his mount even harder, Fuller raced towards her. So focused was he upon his quarry, that he didn't see the Man with the Upside-Down Face accost him from the side, ramming a tent pole through the spokes of his Penny Farthing's front wheel. Herman was thrown through the air in a high arc, his sword still in hand, ready to impale whoever got between him and the ground.
“Eugene, open him wide!” Icky shouted as she grabbed the inside of Motormouth's right cheek. Eugene grabbed the left, and together they pulled his mouth open nearly 10 feet.
Herman flew right down his gullet and into his second stomach.
“And the crowd goes wild!” Motormouth shouted, raising his arms in triumph. Indeed, the crowd burst into victorious cheering at the sight of Herman's defeat.
“You got him?” Manny asked as he rushed to meet them, having successfully destroyed the last Penny Farthing.
“Manny,” Icky hugged him tightly, with several of the others joining in.
“We'll celebrate later. This isn't finished yet,” he said.
“Yeah, this is not a long-term solution,” Motormouth agreed. “I know my stomach can take a lot of punishment, but I'm worried than any second he might come bursting out of me like an alien.”
“The Kaleidoscope is spun up Manny,” Yume said.
“Where are you sending him?” Icky asked.
“The Darkness.”
Icky smiled, and nodded in agreement.
The four of them ran to the Kaleidoscope, where a Door was already waiting. Unlike the usual Doors, which were bright white and smokey and filled with calliope music, this one led only to a black abyss.
“On three,” Manny said. “One, two, three!”
He and Icky stretched open Motormouth's piehole and on cue he regurgitated Herman Fuller straight into the Darkness between Dimensions. As he screamed in rage his top hat fell off his head, landing upon the floor.
“Good Riddance,” Manny said grimly.
“Get your damn hands off me you Freaks!” Tom shouted as Eugene and Pius dragged him towards the Kaleidoscope.
“What do you want to do with him, Manny?” Eugene asked. Manny chuckled and placed a hand on Tom's shoulder.
“Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom, Tom. You just can't get 'a head', now can you? Yeah, toss him in with Fuller.”
“What? No, wait! Manny, I'm sorry! Please, no! No!”
With one good toss, he was lost to the Darkness.
Icky sat herself down on the Kaleidoscope's steps, burying her head in her hands, overwhelmed by the enormity of what had just happened.
“Guys, give us a minute to talk, alright?” Manny asked.
“Sure thing,” Motormouth nodded. As he, Yume and the two Clowns gave them some privacy, Manny knelt down and picked up Fuller's top hat.
“Thank you,” he said, sitting beside her. “For a minute there, I really thought I was going to be eaten alive by my own Freaks.”
“I couldn't let him do it. Not just because of what I said about this Circus needing you either. You're my oldest friend here. You're my best friend. You're the closest thing to family I have now. I…well, I guess you knew that.”
“I don't always understand what I see in people's minds. When I was a kid, I loved Herman like a father, and I thought he loved me like a son. I was wrong.”
“Well, I love you like a brother. I hope that's what you see when you look at me.”
“It is,” he nodded with a warm smile.
Icky let a long, exasperated sigh.
“I can't believe all of that really happened. Manny, what are we going to do? We can't close the Circus.”
“We won't, don't worry. Herman didn't do anything but bark orders, spend money, and kill people. I can run this Circus fine without him. Better even.”
“Does that mean you're going to be the Ringmaster?”
Manny chuckled at the suggestion.
“No, I don't think I have the face for it. The Ringmaster should be a little easier on the eyes; someone who's a good performer, and a good leader.”
He placed the top hat upon her head.
“You can't be serious.”
“Why not? You've been here almost forty years, you know this Circus inside and out. The Clowns love you, and anyone else who's not afraid of Clowns loves you. I love you. It's basically the same as being the Troupe Leader, just for the whole Circus.”
“So…how would that work? What would you be?”
“I'd be the Man with the Upside-Down Face, same as always. We can hammer out the details later, but for the most part I'd run back of house, you'd run front of house, and we'd have to come to an agreement on anything else. We can split the Circus's profits fifty/fifty. How's that sound?”
Icky thought for a moment.
“I don't want to run things like Fuller did. If we do this, we do this right. From now on this is a proper, respectable business. No more indentured workers, no more corporal punishment, no more murders. We stop treating this place like a prison and start treating it like a home.”
“That's how it should have been from the start,” Manny nodded. “We have a deal then?”
“…Do we still call it Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting?”
“Well, his name is on literally everything. Awful as he was, this place wouldn't exist without him. I'm willing to let him have his legacy.”
“I can live with that,” Icky nodded. “So, what sounds better? Ringmaster or Ringmistress?”
“I'd go with Ringmaster, just because I know how much it would irk Fuller to have that title taken from him.”
“Ringmaster it is,” she smiled, hopping to her feet. “Come on, let's tell everyone that Herman's gone forever!”
She dashed out of the tent, but before Manny followed her he paused at the Door they had thrown Fuller through. He thought about the Darkness, thought about everything he knew about Fuller, thought about everything he didn't know about Fuller, and knew that he wasn't really gone forever.
"Well, long enough at least," he said to himself with a smirk. He shut the Kaleidoscope down, and went to celebrate with the others.

« Icky & Ichabod | Dread & Circuses Hub | A Real Humdinger »


by DarkStuff

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Chapter 1
We Just Make Toys

Chapter 2
To Think I've Spent My Whole Life Waiting

Chapter 3
I Don't Get It, I Functioned Before

Chapter 4
You Can't Win Them All

Chapter 5
Be Strange or Be Forgotten

Act II

Chapter 6
Sometimes the Best Intentions are in Need of Redemption

Chapter 7
Life's a Show

Chapter 8
...And I'm the Star!

Chapter 9
Back in Habit

Chapter 10
Pepper's Lament

Chapter 11
Souls & Somas

Chapter 12
Deceptive Cadence

Act III

Chapter 13
And I Think To Myself...

Chapter 14
Everything Will Be Okay

Chapter 15
Holding an Umbrella but the Sun's Still Shining

Ascension

Chapter
Title

Chapter 1
Sometimes I Wish This Moment Could Last Forever

Chapter 2
Waiting on the Good Times

Chapter 3
Forever Young

Chapter 4
We Didn't Do This For Nothing

Chapter 5
URA-1902 aka The Missing Link

Chapter 6
The Consequences of a Deep, Dark Disassociation

Chapter 7
The Call to Action (for a Modern Audience)

Chapter 8
The Elusive Mx. LaFerrier

Chapter 9
It Feels Like I Only Go Backwards

Chapter 10
Along for the Ride

Chapter 11
A Hole in the Tapestry

Chapter 12
XXXXX

Chapter 13
Industrial

Chapter 14
Dancing with Rachael

Chapter 15
Ascension

Epilogue
A World Unto Yourself

Collaboration Contest Entries w/ Ellie

Make America Normaler

Off the Hook

Misc. Tales

Cornelius the Collector

Curtain Call

The Really Really Real Adventures in Capitalism

I've Been Through the Desert on a Horse with No Name

On the Radar for the miniseries The Ursus Maritimus Incident

Group of Interest / Canon Hubs

Hub
Notes

Dr. Wondertainment Hub
Made w/ taylor_itkin does not match any existing user name

What a Wonderful World Hub
Made w/ help from Uncle Nicolini, a canon sprouted from Vend-a-Friend!

Wilson's Wildlife Solutions Hub
My pride and joy, my very own Group of Interest

"That's Agent LaFerrier?"
"That's the guy."
A short, skinny man sat on the opposite end of the one way glass. A voice would come through the speakers and ask him a question, and he'd respond with unmatched conviction and vigor. He seemed to enjoy it, where most would answer in a slow sluggish drawl. It was rare to find someone in this field that loved their job so much. Very, very rare. Yet somehow more striking was that his features were in direct contrast with his actions - his skull shown more than his face, and his eyes never looked like they were quite looking at anything. If you were to hold a conversation with him, his voice would tell you that he was deeply invested, but his eyes would only look in the direction of you. For being only thirty-two, and showing so with his energy, he held himself like an old, seasoned veteran.
"How're they doing?"
"He's on track for a clean score of 70. Like always."
"Like always indeed."
Dr. Hillenburg kept close watch on LaFerrier. The bug in the system that they were, always getting off from their loyalty tests with a score of 70. Most field agents held 30, and this was perfectly acceptable. The O5 were required to hold 80 or above, and they were considered the most convinced of the Foundation's cause. Agents were usually there because of health care benefits, and often because the secrecy of the Foundation kept them in comfort. Among agents, there were many lives that they would rather forget in favor of being under the watchful eye of a multinational covert organization. LaFerrier didn't seem to be one of them. And somehow, although this should have been in every way a good thing, it was deeply concerning to the higher ups. Some would say they were very much looking a gift horse in the mouth, but there's another old war story adage about horses and gifts that nobody much cared to get rid of.
"When they're done, don't bring them out. I'm going to have a talk with them."
"As discussed. Of course."
Hillenburg did not look to see the assistant exit the room. His eyes were affixed on LaFerrier, almost in an attempt to scan them like the other equipment was. Hoping to find what made them tick. Hoping to find a crack in their conviction. They, of course, didn't get 80. But it would have been insane to think that they would. It takes knowing the answers to the questions before they are asked to get something so high on the loyalty test, and LaFerrier was only human. Supposedly. The test was five minutes from being over, and Hillenburg began to sweat. There was an inhuman look about LaFerrier. Some odd combination of their sunken eyes and crooked nose and lazy gait. The way they looked at you without looking at you. With that effect, Hillenburg caught himself wondering if LaFerrier was staring at him at a couple different points. Reason told him that their eyes must just be darting about the room, and who wouldn't wonder who was watching them from behind a one way mirror? Still, the feeling was unable to be shook.
Very soon, the questions stopped coming through the speaker, and LaFerrier stood up, awaiting someone to escort them. Unfortunately, that's not what they got. Hillenburg took one long, deep breath, and opened the door to the room. LaFerrier watched him wordlessly as Hillenburg took a seat opposite them. Hillenburg supposed that LaFerrier thought this to be another part of the test, and the test instructed one not to speak until prompted. Thus, Hillenburg did.
"Hello, Agent LaFerrier," Hillenburg spoke as he lent out a hand.
"Hello, Dr. Hillenburg. Nice to see you again." LaFerrier did the same, and they shook on it. Retreating back into a comfortable position in the chair, Hillenburg began.
"You have continuously gotten exceptionally high scores on the loyalty test. Enough to bring attention to yourself, and you should be glad to have it. Loyalty test scores are not taken lightly, don't I know it?" Hillenburg chuckled. LaFerrier followed suit, and it was uncomfortably real. LaFerrier had a sturdy smile cross their face and press against their teeth. They must have expected some sort of promotion. "So I have come in here to ask you a few questions about yourself. Consider it a profile that you will be giving around to interested officials. But of course, don't lie."
"I would never," and Hillenburg knew it.
"Firstly, I would like you to describe how you got here. Your life story, but particularly what led you to work under the Foundation."
"Of course. I was born in Paris, France, to parents that apparently never wanted me. I was brought to the orphanage, and soon picked up by a lovely couple. They were old and never had the opportunity to have children. Their names were Ebba and Arthur Karlsson. They were very sweet and raised me right, and they taught me all the conviction I now have. Arthur particularly was a very hard worker, and had long hours at construction sites. He always came home in terrible pain, but he never complained about it. The only way I knew were his terrible moans as he went to crawl into bed. The work ethic of that man never left me. He will always be my inspiration, his name shall be put on my tombstone if I have any say in it. Ebba was sweet and caring but altogether left no impression on my young self. After school, in which I always maintained perfect grades, I focused all my attention on getting enough money to go to America. It was not that I felt the need to leave France, per se, but that I wanted to be a part of something big, and America is the biggest you can be. It could only be a government job in America for me. I always had fantasies of the FBI, or the CIA. I took up police school, excelled in every way, and made it into government work, where I was quite happy for a very long time. That's when you came to me, and offered me a job in something even bigger. The salary was exorbitant and honoring, but it didn't matter to me if you paid me in dimes. I could not refuse your offer. And here I am."
"Good. Have you ever traced your birth parents?"
"No, I felt it wouldn't do me any good to find people who didn't want me."
"Alright." Hillenburg wrote on his clipboard, paraphrasing LaFerrier's answers. A transcript of this conversation would be available at a later date, so it was an empty task, but Hillenburg wanted time between his questions. "Tell me about your time working with SCP-2728."
"SCP-2728?"
"Yes, tell me about your time on that assignment."
"As far as I could tell, it was a menial task given to me while they figured out where I could truly go to work. One of my first assignments. Very simple. All I had to do was walk to a building that didn't exist. It got very confusing, and, well you know how it goes. You interviewed me. Spotted my double at the building and thought I might be an anomaly."
"Yes, I was there. Tell me about your time working with SCP-2729."
"That was after a couple of interim assignments, I worked with SCP-2729 when it was found out I was affected by it. It's not every day you get a perfectly sane man claiming to see invisible soldiers. I rather enjoyed that assignment, I still get called in periodically. It lets me travel very far and wide around the Pacific, surveying a quite harmless and very interesting anomaly. The research team was swell as well, always very encouraging and humorous without being distracting."
"Very good. Now, I'd like you to tell me. What is your first name?"
"My first name?" Agent LaFerrier paused, suddenly very confused. But as always, they were also very compliant. It was only about three seconds before they answered. "Victor, but everybody calls me Vic."
"What did the research team working with you on SCP-2728 call you by?"
"LaFerrier. I should have clarified, all of my friends call me by Vic, but with all of you we use last names."
"Yes, but I am certain the research team called you by your full name at least once. What did they call you?"
LaFerrier sat, now truly looking off slightly past Hillenburg's left ear. They suddenly sat very stiff. "They called me Victor."
"Good. What is your middle name?"
"My middle name is Adams."
"What did the research team on SCP-2728 say your middle name was?"
"They…" Very, very stiff. "They called me Alphonse."
"Is your middle name Alphonse?"
"No."
"Good, moving on." Hillenburg glanced over LaFerrier, trying to check for any hint of lying. If they were being deceitful, they were extraordinarily good at it. The only expression on LaFerrier's face was that of a mind gone blank. Blank where it wasn't blank before. Blank, but only now discovering the white, enveloping blankness. "Describe to me how SCP-2729 has affected you."
"SCP-2729 has rarely affected me, but every once in a while I will get a terrible migraine and pass out as SCP-2729 resets. Sometimes I only get slight headaches while it flickers."
"Good. Do you remember being a part of MTF Pi-1, 'City Slickers'?"
"I'm an agent of theirs currently."
"Good, and how many missions have you gone on with them?"
"Two. I have -"
"No need, I've been told I don't have clearance to know one of them, and it would be dreadful to forget this conversation."
"Of course."
"I would like to ask, however. Was your life ever at risk during these missions?"
"Yes."
"Do you find it peculiar that you would be allowed to go on life threatening missions while you have the possibility of fainting or becoming incapacitated at any given time?"
LaFerrier was sweating like they had never sweat before. LaFerrier was an anomaly in the system: they seemed to always maintain a zen like calm. Except, of course, that they didn't. But that's what it says on all of the official reports. And that's how everybody remembers it. LaFerrier was certainly beginning to crack. "I had not thought of it."
"Very well. Do you remember the day of May 26, 2014?"
"I do."
"Would you mind repeating it to me?"
"I was told that my double inside SCP-2728 had sent out another cryptic message. They felt the need to update me on these things."
"What time in the day was that?"
"What?"
"What time in the day was that?"
"How should I remember?" This wasn't a sign of anger, LaFerrier was entirely sincere.
"Give me your best guess."
LaFerrier seemed to ponder this for thirty seconds.
"I would say that I held the telephone around 2:00 in the afternoon."
"Where did you take the phone call?"
"I was in MTF Pi-1's barracks."
"You weren't."
LaFerrier fell deathly silent.
"You were incapacitated and in the infirmary at Site-31. You could not have taken that phone call."
"You must have the records somewhere."
"We keep extensive records of all of our anomalies, LaFerrier. We have been especially careful to keep yours. You see, after the SCP-2728 incident, there has always been the wonder of why the anomaly reacted to you the way that it did. And after checking the records, we have confirmed. LaFerrier, I have heard that phone call myself, and I can guarantee you that it was your voice on the other line. Agent Omar and Agent Levard also place you at the scene in MTF Pi-1's barracks, but see, LaFerrier, you couldn't have taken that call, because you were in the infirmary at Site-31."
LaFerrier's expression hadn't changed since it settled on the deep, turmoil of thought that it shown with their uncharacteristically intense eyes, flaccid lips, and stiffened back. LaFerrier did not have any response. Hillenburg had struck them speechless.
"Do you remember being in the infirmary that day, LaFerrier?"
A full minute. "I do."
"LaFerrier, I would like you to describe how Junior Researcher Tallahan was fired while on the job at SCP-2729 with you."
A long, terrible pause. Hillenburg and LaFerrier locked eyes for an indeterminate amount of time, and could feel the sweat coming off of the other's brow. Neither seemed to blink. "He hit on me."
"LaFerrier, Tallahan was a thirty-four year old heterosexual cisgendered male. Why would he hit on you?"
"I was a woman."
Hillenburg was surprised at how fast that answer came to them, but he didn't let it show. "LaFerrier, what is your first name?"
"Victor."
"What was your first name?"
"Victoria."
"What is your middle name?"
"I don't know."
"LaFerrier, do you remember having been a member of MTF Sigma-10, 'Working Man'?"
"Yes."
"What did they call you by?"
"Vernon."
"What is your middle name?"
"I don't know."
"LaFerrier, do you remember Incident-URA-1902?"
LaFerrier had finally broke their facade, but only slightly. Their eyes dilated, and their lips twitched with horror. "I do."
"Agent Victor Adams LaFerrier," Hillenburg stood up. "I need you to tell me where you went."
"What?"
"After Incident-URA-1902. LaFerrier, you were the only corpse that we didn't find of MTF Sigma-10. You had left your type-4 hazmat suit, and we found your fingerprints on a knife with PoI-348-17's blood on it. LaFerrier, where did you go?"
"I don't know."
"You do know. Where did you go."
Agent LaFerrier was red. Their eyes darted around the room, their mouth half agape. "I don't know."
"LaFerrier, after you cut open Tamara Herring, where did you go?"
LaFerrier slouched, and mouthed "Tamara", and began to hold their head in their hands. "I don't know!"
"After you took the fetus out of her abdomen, LaFerrier, after you tore her open, where. Did. You. Go."
LaFerrier breathed faster than ever before, at a pace unable to be maintained. Hillenburg feared that he was running out of time. Hillenburg feared that LaFerrier would pass out. But most of all, Hillenburg feared LaFerrier. "I don't know where I went!"
Hillenburg's voice boomed. "WHERE DID YOU GO?"
LaFerrier screamed.

"HOME!"

"Extend your arm."
"What?!"
"Extend your arm, LaFerrier."
They hesitated, tears streaming down them, and then they complied. LaFerrier always complied. LaFerrier couldn't not comply. Hillenburg pulled back LaFerrier's sleeve, forced his weight upon their wrist to hold them there, and stabbed a syringe into their arm. LaFerrier screamed in terror, but did not fight back. And soon, he wouldn't be able to. LaFerrier slumped in their chair and fell to the floor. Hillenburg's heart was racing, but he always maintained composure. Hillenburg leaned over LaFerrier's body and held his finger to their throat for a pulse. There was none. He was dead. Dr. Hillenburg towered over what used to be, in every way, the perfect agent. He breathed heavily. Hillenburg calmly stowed his clipboard and tossed the syringe. He exited the room, and requested that someone take out the body. It was time to speak to the higher ups.

Hillenburg went to the elevator, took it three floors up, and retreated into his office. Sitting down at his desk was immensely calming, and his nerves very soon began to loosen. He looked down at his left arm, pulled up his sleeve, and began to call the number he had written on it. The phone rang three times before someone came to pick it up.
"Hello?"
"Hello, this is Dr. Hillenburg. Clearance code 908A-OPO2-RE34-9UI0. Is this Site-31?"
This was met with a long pause as the receptionist plugged his credentials into a computer, as usual. After about two minutes, she spoke again. "Yes, it is."
"Good. May I speak with Agent LaFerrier? It's urgent."
"Of course. Please hold."
And so Hillenburg held, shifting through the transcript of his latest encounter with LaFerrier and absently playing with his grey sideburns. He then leaned back in his chair, rolled to the other side of the office, and put on a pot of coffee. Afterwards, he grabbed at a bowl of fruit and pulled out an apple, which he began to chew on. All in all, the holding took about ten minutes.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Agent LaFerrier. It's Dr. Hillenburg."
"Ah, of course. Hello, Dr. Hillenburg. How may I help you?"
"Very simply, actually. We've had a glitch in our systems, and currently everyone else is occupied so I took it upon myself to call you personally. We don't seem to have your first or middle name anywhere in our online documents, and we need it to file your most recent assignment. Mind repeating it for me?"
"Of course. I am Agent Victor Adams LaFerrier. Everybody calls me Vic."
"Thank you dearly, have a good day."
"To you as well."
Hillenburg placed the phone down and let out a deep sigh. Of course it hadn't worked.
His home. It must have been in France. They could track airplane tickets — but no, something told Hillenburg that LaFerrier wouldn't need a plane to get from here to there. In fact, they could be there already. Well, Hillenburg knew LaFerrier was there. Just which of them.
He needed personnel under his watch immediately. He needed some people in France. Hillenburg booted up his computer and searched for personnel available for reassignment in France. Hmmm… ah, yes. Site-31. That would work.
Later, he called into the morgue, and they reported that no body of any Agent LaFerrier had ever made it to their services. They did, however, see an assistant come through and seem very confused, forgetting what they were doing that brought them down all that way.

« The Missing Link | A Deep, Dark Disassociation | The Call to Action »


Lucas Monaco, the representative, knocked at the door.
Skitter Marshall walked over to open the door. The second that he twisted the handle, Lucas pushed the door open hard, knocking Skitter over on the other side of the door, arranged his fingers into fake guns, pointed them at Iris and Robert's heads, shouted "BANG! BANG!", miming recoil from each hand and making the people he was pointing them at jump a bit, then rounded the door, pointed both at Skitter's head, and ended on a "Bang."
The three inheritors stared, a bit confused, and watched as Lucas turned around, closed the door, pulled out a key, Twisted it clockwise into the door's keyhole, making its perimeter glow a faint turquoise and hum at a sinusoidal 200Hz. Iris was the first to try and speak, but quickly realised that her mouth wouldn't open any more. Lucas saw this and responded.
"Don't try to say anything, you'll hurt yourselves. Give me a few minutes."
Lucas walked to the three windows in order - they were open, for k-n's sake - slammed one shut by pulling it downwards, walked across, pulled the next one downwards, walked across, pulled the next one downwards. Lucas then pulled out a remote from his pocket, pointed it towards each window in order, and turned them off. Swirling, inky blackness now flooded outside. It seemed to cast odd shadows into the room, despite the only light sources now being inside: the yellowy fluorescent light bulbs on the roof, the red dot of the fire alarm, and the spreading turquoise from the door which was humming at 174Hz. Lucas turned around, already walking towards the stepladder that was resting against the refrigerator.
"I would recommend not opening those windows. Or looking out them for too long. Something might see you if you do. Not's a weird place. Too many Wednesdays and Thursdays."
Robert noticed something propelling itself through the hollow not outside, felt his heartbeat raise and his head hurt, heard a faint chuckle in his ears, and deliberately stared at the floor. He tried to lick his lips but his lips were stuck together and that made him breathe a little faster and his nose made a little high pitched whine from the dried up mucus inside it happening to have turned into an impromptu biological whistle and his face started to redden because he thought someone had noticed but Iris and Skitter were busy staring at the magic man and Lucas the magic man was climbing the stepladder.
Lucas Monaco climbed the stepladder which he'd placed in the middle of the room, took out what looked like a hot glue gun from his left trouser pocket, shoved it up inside the air vent, closed his eyes and scrunched his nose, then pulled the trigger. Everyone's ears popped as the pressure in the room suddenly increased - the windows started ever so slightly bowing outwards, but nobody inside the room noticed this change - and the vent was filled with bright orange foam. It sparkled, shiny, bubbling softly, Lucas was staring at his watch, three, two, one, and at once it lost its lustre as it dried and became rigid. Lucas stepped back down, put the ladder against the wall, walked over to the sink, shoved the thing that was definitely not a hot glue gun down the sink, pulled the trigger again, another burst of pressure (another slight bowing outwards of the windows) and then three, two, one, putting the gun back into his left trouser pocket and turning back to the inheritors. Lucas pulled a piece of paper out of his right pocket.
"Okay, nods or head shakes. Have any of you met me before?"
Three head shakes.
"Good. Are any of you allergic to wheat, rice, or MSG?"
Three head shakes.
"Good. Have any of you had sexual intercourse within the last nine months?"
Two head shakes and one nod. While Robert was nodding, however, he noticed that Lucas wasn't looking at them anyway, but just staring at the sheet.
"Good. Have any of you passed through non-euclidean spaces within the last five weeks?"
Two shakes and one nod.
"Good. Have any of you ingested live macroscopic organisms within the last 72 hours?"
Here, Lucas actually looked, and nodded back when he saw three nods of affirmation, then scrunched the piece of paper up and threw it over his shoulder. Nobody saw it land, because it stopped existing before it hit the ground.
"Okay. I'm going to give each of you a pill and a glass of water. You're going to be able to move your mouths in about…" Lucas ballparked the door at 108 Hz. "…80 seconds, at which point you should immediately consume the pill and finish the glass of water. You need to finish the glass of water after taking the pill. Do not say anything until I ask you to or it's possible that you'll die. Highly probable that you'll die. Also don't look out the window. Also try to control your breathing. And heartrates."
Lucas pulled three purple pills out of his pocket, handed one to each inheritor, moved over to the sink, opened the shelving below the sink, pulled out three clear glasses, stuck the glasses under the tap, filled each glass with water, put them to the side, took out the hot glue gun, shoved it up the tap - another slight bowing outwards of the windows, three, two, one, and the world is cured - put the hot glue gun away, picked up the three glasses (two in his left hand), walked over to the inheritors, handed them each a glass, nodded, then walked to the other side of the room, took out another piece of paper from his right pants pocket, and stared at it intently.
"Don't come into my field of view. Stay exactly where you are. Don't say anything until I ask you to. Consume the pill as quickly as possible. Watch my left hand."
Lucas put his left hand into the air, holding up five fingers, listening to the hum.
74 Hz. Four fingers.
71 Hz. Three fingers.
63 Hz. Two fingers.
55 Hz. One finger.
50 Hz, and then a sudden silence. No fingers, and the inheritors felt their lips part. Iris threw the pill into her mouth and started draining her water immediately. Skitter had already been pushing the pill against his lips and the second it slipped through he pulled the glass up to his mouth and drank as fast as he could. Robert had no idea what was going on and was freaking the FUCK out a little but the crazy magic man told him to take the pill so he put the pill into his mouth and started drinking the water and he kind of choked on it a little and coughed up some water but kept drinking and drinking and "oh shit" he thought "do I need to lick that off the ground he emphasized that I needed to drink it all oh fuck but he told me not to move as well what do I do fuck it just keep drinking" and it never occurred to any of them, later, that finishing the glass was unneccessary for reasons other than proper hydration.
Lucas Monaco started sneezing. One sneeze. Two sneezes. Three blood shot out of his nose and spattered onto the paper. He looked down and saw three blank squares where something had been printed which had now been irretrievably lost. Below that, though, was a handwritten scrawl. Lucas wiped the blood off his face and the note with his left hand, before putting his left hand into his left pocket and pulling out a Medusa M47 revolver and pointing it at Skitter Marshall's head - still staring at the scribbled handwritten note - before calmly saying:
"Password."
"What?"
"Password. Tell me the password."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Tell me the password."
"I still have no idea what you're talking about."
Lucas pulled the trigger and the gun went CLICK but that was all. He pointed the gun at Robert Carter, still staring at the paper.
"Tell me the password."
"That gun's clearly not loaded."
Lucas directed the gun downwards and pulled the trigger, and with a great BANG which made everyone's ears ring and the windows shake a little, a lead slug pushed its way into the wooden floor. Everyone's ears were ringing, but Lucas pointed it back at Robert Carter.
"Tell me the password."
Ears ringing, Robert Carter shouted "I DON'T KNOW ABOUT ANY FUCKING PASSWORD!"
Lucas pulled the trigger, a click that nobody could hear over the ringing in their ears, and then pointed it towards Iris Dark. Before Lucas could say a word:
"You're a time traveller, aren't you?"
"Tell me the password."
Iris grinned ear to ear. "That is absolutely wild."
"Tell me the password."
Iris looked at the other two.
"Look, it doesn't matter what we say, he knows what we're going to say, it's written down on that sheet of paper. Arguably the longer we keep talking the more secure the password is. So I guess I'll just keep talking - maybe say some random words, I dunno, albatross, albania, southern comfort and screaming silences - it legitimately doesn't matter what I say because he hasn't written it yet. I think. Did I get it right?"
Lucas directed the gun to the ground, and again a BANG and this time louder and ringing and Iris closed her eyes and when she opened them Lucas was pushing her against the wall and holding the gun against her head and she could hear him over the reinforced ringing and she watched his lips shape the words, still coated and dripping in blood that had spurted out of his nose:
"TELL ME THE FUCKING PASSWORD!"
"HAPPY ALICE WANDERED THROUGH THE FOREST AND THERE SHE SPIED A SPIDER WHENCE CAME THE RAINY WOLF AND EVIL POURED UPON THE BLACK PARADE AND THE HEAVENS CRIED THICK BLACKNESS AND WE DREAMPT THAT HER GRANDMOTHER'S TEETH WERE LONG and sharp and she screamed upon the flesh and we salted the wound and the world felt like nothing amen."
Lucas released Iris, turned around, walked away, stared at the piece of paper, confirmed that all the words matched, then put the Medusa M47 back in his left pocket with his left hand and scrunched up the piece of paper before throwing it over his shoulder and nobody saw it land because it stopped existing before it hit the ground.
"Okay. How long have we been in this room?"
Lucas looked back at Iris who was leaking tears from her eyes and looking very angry whilst glaring daggers at him. He glanced at Robert, who was sitting down and shaking from psychosomatic hypothermia. He looked towards Skitter, who was checking his watch to give his response:
"Maybe eight minutes?"
"Alright, that's already too much not exposure. We need to get out of here before something notices."
Lucas pulled a Kullback-Liebler warhead from his right pocket (though to Skitter it just looked like a fountain pen) then clicked out a pattern in Morse code through it. He threw it over his shoulder and nobody saw it land because it started dissipating mid-air and its payload began to propagate through the room and leak out the windows a little bit which made the things that weren't outside start paying attention to the room.
"What's your name?"
"Skitter Marshall." said Skitter Marshall.
"Well, Marshall, grab the girl and pull her towards the door, because her and the other guy seem to have looked out the windows. I assume I told them not to."
Skitter looked over to Iris and saw that she was now crying blood, frowning, staring towards Lucas Monaco. He grabbed her hand and pulled her towards the door. She looked down at her hand and saw an odd fleshy thing attached to her elbow instead, it wasn't her hand that had been grabbed, it was some fleshy five-fingered thing, she didn't have her hand yet, no, she was going to get that later. She'd have to saw this one off soon, to make room for her hand. She smiled and cried some more blood and started grinding her teeth together and she heard the whispers from inside her head.
Robert Carter was cold and cold and cold and cold and then cold and he felt cold and Robert Carter was cold because he was cold and he was cold Robert Carter was cold it is cold he felt cold it was cold and he felt cold and Robert Carter felt cold and it was cold and it is cold and it is cold and Robert Carter was cold and then cold but cold and it is cold Robert Carter was cold and it was cold and Robert Carter was cold. Lucas Monaco grabbed Robert Carter is cold it is cold Robert Carter is cold and cold and cold and then cold and pulled him towards the door.
The Kullback-Liebler warhead had knitted through the room and was going to tear it apart in a few minutes.
Lucas Monaco grabbed the key that was jammed in the door, Twisted it widdershins, and then Lucas and Skitter and Robert and Iris were no longer in the room.
The lights were still flashing imperceptibly at 50Hz and the fire alarm's red LED was still on and one of Thursday's Serpents sunk its teeth into the window and injected its slick spirited ethanols into the fabric of the warhead. It broke in and slithered and slid and ran into two pieces of paper and a fountain pen that were anchored in the wrong ways. The room was in a different place, the Serpent had pulled it out into the Not, where it would drift until the Kullback-Liebler warhead realised what was going on and sliced the Serpent into a trillion tiny hours which were wasted before it realised its life was gone.
Meanwhile, Lucas and Skitter and Robert and Iris were in Paris, and Iris and Robert wanted to empty their stomachs but the pills refused to let them try.

Oh, I got my cool on! (Tailormade!)
I'm winning so they had to dump the Gatorade -
And I don't give a fuck about my family name.

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