Whenever he had nothing better to do, Tristan Bailey would look at a picture of his family that sat on his desk. In the picture, him, Trevor and Tom were only about 8 years old, standing in front of a Christmas tree with their presents in the background. Tom was holding on to a stuffed platypus of all things, Trevor holding up a book about Galileo that he should have been far too young to read, and Tristan was holding up a Nerf gun at the camera, with a dart flying straight at it. Clara, their mother, was standing behind them, signs of age already starting to show on her face. Next to her, giving Tom bunny ears, was their father, Tyler Bailey. Tyler was grinning at the camera, his black beard full and his hair thinning.
That was years ago. Since then, for security reasons, Tom, Trevor and Tristan had grown distant from mom. She knew they worked for something called S & C Plastics, but it baffled her why physicists were working for a company like that. And as for dad…
Tristan was distracted from his thoughts by a Skype call from Trevor at Site 19. Odd, he thought. It's not 5:00 in Nevada yet. He never calls this early when he's working… A dreadful feeling formed in the pit of his stomach; was there some kind of a breach? Did the MUTA explode? Did 447 touch a dead body?!
Tristan opened the window to find Trevor sitting at his desk, smiling stupidly into the camera. "Happy Holidays, Bro."
"Happy- Trevor, you nearly gave me a heart attack!" Tristan crossed his arms and scowled. "Did you seriously call just to wish me 'Happy Holidays'?"
"Actually, no. Tom would've called, but he's busy with a situation in the Empire. Something about killer penguins attacking Foundation zoologists." Trevor looked around, and twiddled his thumbs uncomfortably. "I was just wondering if you… said hi to dad, yet. It is almost Christmas."
Tristan rubbed his face and sighed, looking at the picture again, then at his smart watch; he had a five-hour break today. Enough time to visit dad. "I'll do it today. Thanks for reminding me, man. How's the girlfriend?"
"Transferred to Wyoming," groaned Trevor. "We're still managing long-distance, though. We're thinking of meeting up in Vegas for the Holidays."
"That's good."
The two triplets continued conversing about banal things for the next fifteen minutes, until Trevor Bailey's supervisor walked by his workstation and he was forced to close the chat program. Sighing, Tristan rose up from his seat and made his way out of his office, on his way to visit his dad.

Tyler Bailey, the inventor of Multi-Universal Transit Array, sat in his arm chair reading the latest issue of Weekly World News when a knock came to his door. The 70-something man rose to his feet, making his way towards the door and grabbing a wakizashi that he kept to fend off burglars or worse. When you lived in a town like this, you had to be careful about this kind of thing. He didn't know how to use the sword, but it looked intimidating, and that's what counted.
He leaned against the doorframe, calling through the front door. "Who's there?"
"Dad, come on," said a familiar voice. "Do you always have to be like this? It's just me."
Blinking, Tyler Bailey opened the door to find himself face-to-face with one of his sons. Frowning, he asked a question. "How did Abraham Lincoln die?"
Without missing a beat, Tristan answered this question and the others that were to follow. "Shot by John Wilkes Booth while watching Our American Cousin in Ford's Theater. Nixon resigned from office in '74, both Bushes are still alive and are Republicans, and Pope John Paul II was not assassinated. Yes, I'm from the baseline." He smiled wryly at his father, who smiled back and put down the sword.
Tyler Bailey hugged Tristan, who did his best to hold back tears of joy. "Hello, son."
"Hey, dad. Merry Christmas."

"I didn't expect you to get here so early!" Tyler Bailey chuckled as he boiled water for some hot chocolate. "I thought you boys weren't arriving until the 23rd!"
"I got an early flight," explained Tristan, smiling at his dad. "Tom's probably having trouble down south, and Trevor said he was coming up with his girlfriend. I got lucky."
"Took the red-eye, then?"
"Yeah. Weiss let me go early just to visit you. She's doing fine, by the way; not at all sore about that thing back in '89."
"Good!" Tyler chuckled as he brought hot chocolate to his son, sitting across him at the kitchen table. "So, how goes stuff in Multi-U?"
"Dad, you know you shouldn't talk about that stuff; you're no longer Commissioner of the Department."
"Bah! The only reason that department exists is because of my invention! I have every right to know about it. Besides, I'm still an employee."
"You're a consultant."
"Same difference." Tyler Bailey blew on his hot chocolate and smiled at his son. "So, what's new up in old Sloth Spit?"
"Not much, really," shrugged Tristan as he took a sip of the drink. "Things got hectic last year because of the whole Mayan Apocalypse thing. We were preparing evac plans for half the US using the portal device…"
"Glad the Mayans were wrong about that, eh?" Tyler chuckled. "Besides, if they were right, they didn't account for leap years and shit. If anything, the apocalypse would've happened in February, and we'd all be caught with our pants down."
"Mmm," said Tristan, looking at his watch. "Hey, dad, how about we watch that film you like so much?"
"Which one?"
"You know, that Noir one from the 40's. The one Welles did."
Tyler blinked. "The Shadow? But you hate that film!"
"It's Christmas. Besides, what else are we gonna watch? Rankin-Bass productions on ABC? The Science of Christmas on Discovery?"
"Fair point," noted the elder Bailey, standing up and heading to the living room. "Come on, then. You mind making the popcorn?"
"Not at all!" Tristan went into the kitchen, checking his coat pocket as he did so; the syringe was still there, and still capped, for when he needed to use it. He sighed softly to himself and rubbed an eye, before looking in the pantry for some bags of popcorn.

It was snowing outside when the credits started rolling. Tristan smiled at his dad as the film ended, fiddling in his pocket and looking at his watch; his five hours were almost up, but he still had some time. "Better than I remembered it to be."
"Hah!" Tyler Bailey clapped his hand, and looked under the Christmas tree where all the presents were. "…you know, son, if you want, you can open your present early."
"Dad!" Tristan stared at his father. "I can't! It wouldn't be fair!"
"Bah! I won't tell the others; you can always just re-wrap it. Go ahead, take a look." Tristan moved towards the tree, taking his box-shaped present out from under the tree. He carefully undid the wrapping paper, and smiled at what was underneath: a collectors edition version of Carl Sagan's Cosmos. "I remember how much you loved that series as a kid. You were… what, 5 when that show first came on the air? But you still watched it every night it was on."
Tristan sniffed, smiling at his dad as he took out his smart phone and took a picture of the collection, for future reference. "Thanks, dad…" He dug in his pocket briefly, before opening his arms for a hug. Tyler Bailey accepted, hugging his son tight.
Tyler Bailey was so happy he didn't even notice the needle with the Class-A amnestic dig into his back and be injected, nor did he notice when he started going to sleep. Tristan sighed and laid his father down on the couch, putting the needle in a Bio-hazard bag and re-wrapping his Christmas present.
After some more cleaning up, such as washing out the mugs of hot chocolate and disposing of the popcorn bowl, he stepped out the door, and made his way back to the portal home.

Tristan Bailey stepped back into the baseline, looking like he was about to cry as the portal shut behind him. Director Weiss was standing there, looking concerned as she spoke up. "How was he?"
"He's good. Wasn't suspicious like last year." He handed the Bio-hazard bag to an assistant. "I assume I won't have to write a report about this?"
"About what?" The director shrugged. "You were visiting family, simple as that." With that, she started walking out of the department. Tristan followed soon after, stopping in front of a plaque near the door to the Portal Chamber.

THIS LABORATORY IS DEDICATED TO
DR. TYLER BAILEY
INVENTOR OF THE MUTA
1935-1997

Tristan smiled softly at the plaque, touching the engraving before walking down the hallway, whistling a Christmas carol to himself.


"It's good to see you awake, Nigel."
Nigel gritted his teeth. He thought of screaming at the placid psychiatrist to his right, but he decided to just go with it. Less painful that way.
"Nigel, I know you don't want me here, but we need to know why you did this."
Nigel sat up in his infirmary bed wearing a grimace meant to look like an innocent smile. "Did what, Doctor?"
The psychiatrist sighed, removed his glasses, cleaned them with his shirt. "Nigel, they flushed the amnestic out of your system before it could take full effect. And even the memories it did erase aren't completely gone. You should know that better than anyone."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Look, Nigel, we know. We know that you gave yourself an unauthorized dose of Class A amnestics. We also know that you should be able to remember why. I can show you the blood toxin screenings, the brain scans, your responses to memetic triggers. I'm here to help you. I just want to talk."
Nigel couldn't think of any response to that which wasn't screaming. After a long pause, the doctor changed tactics.
"It's been a tough couple of months, hasn't it Nigel?" The psychiatrist didn't even bother waiting for a reply before tapping his clipboard with his pen. "Why, it says here that one of your brand new researchers succumbed to a cognitohazardous Fifthist propaganda page. It must have elicited some intense emotions."
"Succumbed to a cognitohazardous Fifthist propaganda page". Bastards make it sound so damn clinical, thought Nigel bitterly. Esperanza didn't just succumb. Put up one hell of a fight against that skip. Maybe it would have been better for her if she hadn't. Maybe then she'd only be huffing corpses and chanting nonsense instead of downing Haldol and screaming nonsense. A clear image of the eager young researcher flitting about the lab sliced its way through Nigel's awareness. He could see those big, bright brown eyes that looked…He flinched and buried his head into his pillow.
The psychiatrist continued, unfazed. "Oh, and you were right in the middle of that CI ambush. Says that one of the agents dispatched to rescue you was shot right in front of you. That must have been horrific."
I suppose 'horrific' can describe the smell of a good man's blood drenched in your clothes and hair, or the slimy texture of his grey matter on your cheek. Ben was a good man. A decisive man. Quick. I suppose he was all sorts of other things that I'll never know about.
Something about remembering Agent Nguyen's mannerisms dredged up a dark sludge within Nigel. He clenched his fists next to his head, determined to remain in control. If the psychiatrist noticed (If!, Nigel thought bitterly) he did not show it.
"I suppose this is the part where I conclude that you chose to cope with these deaths by forgetting them," said the psychiatrist in that hatefully bloodless voice. Nigel gave him a skull's grin meant as a gesture of agreement. It vanished as the psychiatrist continued. "That would be asinine, of course. A man of your genius wouldn't dose himself up the way you did to forget some passing acquaintances." The doctor continued placidly as Nigel began to sputter. "Oh, not that they didn't matter to you. But you were trying to forget something far deeper to your heart than some co-workers."
Silence descended upon the infirmary.
"Andrea has been worried about you, Nigel."
Nigel allowed the rage to contort his face for a second before forcing it into a mask of serenity. "Who?"
"I told you, we know the amnestic didn't work."
"I don't know what you mean."
"The conclusion is quite obvious. I'm hardly judging you, Nigel. Sharing a workplace with one's wife can lead to unbearable tension within a marriage. You'd clearly grown sick of her, but not sick enough to break her heart. An accidental dose of Forget-Me-Drops could be the catalyst you needed."
"It's not like that."
"Not to mention that Foundation hires seem to be getting more attractive by the year. You can hardly betray your marital vows with an intern if you don't remember making the vows in the first place."
"Shut up! Shut up! You cold bastard with your fucking clipboard, you have no idea. You have no idea at all!" Some rational slice of Nigel Segerstrom knew he had snapped, but the rest of him didn't care.
"Clearly I don't."
"Damn right you don't! You fucker, you've never loved anyone as much as I loved Andrea. You don't even know what love is, Doctor." Nigel spat out the last word with all the contempt he could muster.
"Explain it to me, Nigel. What is love?"
"You fucking want to know what love is? You know the UIU? Let's pretend we liked them. Like, we really fucking like them. So much that we threw opsec out the window and told them everything. Everything. We tell them what 447 does to dead bodies. We tell them all the nasty details of 110-Montauk. And just to top off the love-fest, we give them some goddamn Keter and tell them 'hey, we like you guys so much we're just going to give you this and hope nothing bad happens'. And of course because we're talking about the UIU, they fuck up. They don't feed it at exactly the right time, or they cross test it with the wrong skip, and the entire goddamn Foundation crumbles. And once the shell-shocked survivors rebuild, once every fuckin' skip is back in its cell, you know what we do?"
"What do we do, Nigel?"
"We find the UIU and do it all over again. That's love."
The psychiatrist pauses. "So your wife betrayed your trust, either through physical or emotional infidelity. I'm sorry to hear that, Nigel."
Nigel threw the blankets off his bed, yanked his body to a sitting position, and screamed at the doctor. "She didn't betray shit, you fucking moron! She's the only goddamn person in this goddamn world that has my back no matter what. She's…she's…"
"She's your Achilles heel," murmured the psychiatrist.
Stricken, Nigel slumped back. The psychiatrist tapped his pen. Finally, Nigel spoke up in a hoarse whisper.
"Do you realize, Doctor, that my wife works in one of the few institutions on the planet where one can die investigating a sack of potatoes?"
"I'm very aware of that."
"We have a children's cartoon that makes kids violently psychotic."
"That's true."
"Did you hear about the murderous teddy bear?"
"Which one?"
Nigel shot an inquisitive look at the psychiatrist. "What?"
"Never mind," said the doctor quickly.
Luckily, Nigel didn't press the matter further. Staring at the ceiling, he said quietly, "You'd think it's not that dangerous to be a Foundation psychiatrist, as opposed to an MTF agent or a researcher. I mean, you would. But our coworkers just don't understand that we're the first line of defense against pathological memes and cognitohazards. Bet you my life savings that no one in my med school has to worry about their wife dying or going irreversibly insane from reading some new book her boss wants her to look at."
The psychiatrist studied Nigel for a while. "I think you're ready to tell me why you did what you did, Dr. Segerstrom."
Nigel's shoulders sagged and he resigned himself to the tears leaking out of his face. "I wanted to forget my wife because I can't imagine life without her. All those deaths…I saw Andrea's face on both of their corpses."
The psychiatrist steepled his hands together. "Was it worth it, Nigel?"
"I…I don't know."
"What are you going to do now, Nigel?" asked the psychiatrist in the mirror.
Dr. Nigel Segerstrom, Foundation psychiatrist and devoted husband of Dr. Andrea Segerstrom, Foundation psychiatrist, looked blankly into the mirror to the right of his hospital bed. "I don't know," he whispered back.
"Nigel, this is Nurse Petersen. There's someone here to see you."
Nigel turned around. There was Nurse Petersen, warm and compassionate as ever, and the pale, drawn, lovely face of Andrea Segerstrom.
Nigel didn't know what to do, but he did it anyway.


New York City
"Hey, Sal, got a cig I can have?" Mary-Ann Lewitt looked between her husband and her latest creation, sprayed on the wall of a vacant warehouse, and it was sprayed on the entire wall, at least 20 feet high. It was a bright red vulva with a hand, flipping off the audience, sticking out between the lips. It was painted entirely in menstrual blood, which had taken her months to collect; she called it "Period Piece: The Modern Age."
The Pakistani man frowned at Mary-Ann upon hearing her request, looking at her pregnant belly. "You're with child. It's generally not a good idea to smoke-"
"It's not for me, ya dimwit." She pointed up at her piece, wiping her bandana-covered brow with one hand. "I need a proper way to express how women are destroying their bodies with drugs and pills and plastics and lord knows what else." She dug in her pocket, taking out several dildos that, by all means, should not have fit in there. "I won't smoke it, I just need it to tie the piece together."
"I think it's fine as is!" He waved a hand at the Period Piece, smiling at her. "It's just saying that a period is the way a woman's body says "fuck you" to itself once every month. Maybe you could put a mirror over there-" He pointed to a warehouse opposite the wall- "or a sculpture of Eve or something, but really, it's fine!"
Mary-Ann elbowed him in the side. "You say that about all my work, Sal. It's getting old. I at least have the balls to criticize your shit."
"…did you really think that my Bacon Treaty piece was disgusting?"
"I thought it was disgustingly simplistic. But I did appreciate you trying to be 'Cool' in the sense that 'we agree'." Mary-Ann patted her stomach and sighed. "I'm hungry. Let's get some pizza or something."
"How about we go to the old place? You know…" Salah smiled, pulling a map of New York City out of his pocket and pulling Mary-Ann close so that she could see the map, too. "It was right… here." He pointed to a spot on 32nd and smiled as the warehouse district faded away to be replaced by the urban sprawl of Manhattan. Mary-Ann rolled her eyes and bapped him in the gut.
"You're gonna get fat if you keep on relying on the Cartographer's stuff," she muttered, walking up to the pizza parlor as Salah put away the map. "A bit of exercise is good for you. You can't just rely on those candles forever."
"The City of New York says I'm not allowed on the subway anymore, remember? Gimme a break, honey." He walked up to the pizza place as well, and looked at the menu. "Veggie-lovers pizza sounds good."

An hour later, the pair of them stood in front of the entrance to the BackDoor. Mary-Ann had taken the map from Salah and had forced him to walk; he was visibly winded, while Mary-Ann had barely broken a sweat. "Now that's pathetic. I'm three months pregnant, and you can't even keep up with me." She looked around the alley and frowned. "Where the fuck is Chuck?"
Charlie came out of the wall, his pink hair done in a mullet today. He frowned at the both of them, toying with a nose ring. "Now is not a good day to be in the BackDoor. Just warning you."
"Why?" asked Salah, still panting for breath. "Did Gilligans get in again? Just give them to one of the Baileys; they know what to do with Gilligans."
"Not the Skippers," said Charlie. "The Critic's in town. She's looking over the Cartographer's new thing. You know, the Korea one?"
"The one that shows every person in the country who wants to dissent?"
"That's the one," he said, holding out a hand for their token. "You sure you wanna go in? It's gonna be Bedlam in there."
Mary-Ann handed Charlie her token and nodded. "We'll just avoid the Cartographer's place for now. We're probably going to head home, anyway, unless something comes up."
"Something will come up," muttered Salah. "It has the last five times the Critic's come into BackDoorSoHo. Why should it change now?"
"Point," said Mary-Ann, looking at Charlie. "You know where to contact us if shit goes down, right?"
"Yeah, yeah…" and with that, Charlie vanished into the brickwork. Soon after, Mary-Ann and Salah vanished into there, too.

Agent Ruiz Duchamp was not having a good day. His non-Newtonian shock armor was starting to rip at the seams, his gun jammed on the firing range this morning, he was getting cold sores again, his arch-nemesis was in town, and the barista at Starbucks put cream in his coffee this morning. He was lactose-intolerant.
Then again, as everyone in the MTF knew, Ruiz Duchamp never had good days. He hadn't had one since Milwaukee. He hadn't had a good day since his brother had defected to the Chaos Insurgency. He hadn't had a good day since he had met Nobody.
Ruiz was one of the few survivors of the Milwaukee incident, and ever since then, he had been ruthlessly chasing the shadow that was known as Nobody. He had almost caught up to her, once, in Dubai, before the scarf-wearing bitch had literally frozen him on top of one of the tallest buildings in the world. He survived, even though it took three days to thaw him out.
And today, the stupid motherfucker was here. In New York City. He knew exactly where she was, too, and he was going to take his entire platoon and kill that fucker dead this time. And there was nothing- not a fucking thing- Pico could do to stop it this time.
The van pulled up to an alleyway, and the task force stormed out, surrounding a large spot of graffiti that was located in the Alley. With an audible sigh, Charlie emerged from the brickwork, arms crossed. "I'm not gonna let you in."
"We have tokens," Ruiz said, taking out a pouch and opening it onto the concrete. Several tokens with the words "ARS GRATIA ARTIS" stamped on them, some still stained with blood. "You kind of fucking have to."
"I ain't gotta do shit, Gilligan. Piss off." Charlie reached into the brickwork, and pulled out a detonator from a red piece of graffiti. The cord went back into the wall, merging seamlessly with the entrance to the BackDoor. "Or I blow this whole alley to the Oort Cloud, and then your friends can have a hell of a time explaining to the NYPD why an alleyway blew up for no reason."
The entire MTF raised their rifles at him, with Duchamp sneering. "Go ahead and try, Aussie."
Charlie shrugged. "Eh. I can just be painted again. But since pink spray paint is so damn hard to find…" He sighed. "I'm going to give my guys warning first."
"Of course."
"The Critic probably already knows you're here."
"Naturally."
"You won't kill her."
"Fuck you, paint huffer." Ruiz spat in Charlie's direction, but by then, he had gone back into the brickwork to raise the alarm. A subordinate of Duchamp's looked at him.
"Sir? How will we get in without him?"
"We wait." Ruiz grinned with a grim satisfaction. "We wait."

The Cartographer paced around his apartment, wondering where the hell she could be. She said 6:15 promptly, and it was almost 6:30… just where the fuck was she? Did she not think his masterpiece was worth critiquing? He had spent the last year working on it, and now she wasn't even going to show up?
"Son of a bitch!" York, the Cartographer, felt like flipping his cartography table. Didn't she think that maps would be considered art?! That little-
"Hello there, Mr. The Cartographer." He spun around, seeing a woman in a cloche hat, gray dress suit, and a red scarf standing in his display gallery. "I apologize for my sudden entrance. I take it I am not too late to see your piece?"
"O-of course not, ma'am." The Cartographer looked at his watch, and saw that it was exactly 6:15. "Come here, come here. The piece is right this way." York walked into the display room, and directed her at a map of North Korea. Once every second, blue dots appeared and dissipated in it. A countdown clock was in the upper-left hand corner, ticking down despite being made entirely out of ink, while another clock ticked upwards; the count on the second one started on December 17th, 2011. "I call it 'The Map of Dissent'."
"A rather uncreative name," commented the Critic, looking over the map. "I do admire the technique, however. It mirrors the cartographic techniques used in the Gojoseon period. I assume all these dots are dissenters?"
The Cartographer nodded enthusiastically. "Yes! Each one represents a single dissenter that can be found in North Korea, or at least, someone with dissenting thoughts. You can even zoom it in to a certain degree; I'm still working on the magnification."
"This clock," said the Critic, pointing towards the top. "It detracts from the work, somewhat, but it also serves as a nice juxtaposition; a pseudo-digital appliance in an otherwise medieval piece. What is its purpose?"
"The one counting down indicates how much time is left in the life of Kim Jong-un, down to the second. Once that clock runs out, he dies. The other one is how long it has been since Kim Jong-il died."
"Check your calculations," snapped the Critic. "Kim Jong-il's been dead for far longer than that — although nobody but the North Korean government knows, so I suppose I can't blame you too much." She reached into her pocket and took out a smartphone. "Apologies. I have to answer this mail."
The Cartographer frowned, and was about to comment on how rude it was to do that, when suddenly, chaos broke out outside of his window.

wow
much shibe
so cool
"For the love of-" Mary-Ann rubbed her eyes to clear away the Comic Sans as she stared at their dog, calling to Salah. "Honey, I think Gerry got his hands on Amaterasu again!"
"Is that font appearing around her?" He called back, chopping up carrots in the kitchen.
"Yeah! Tell him that if he touches our dog again, I'm gonna kick his-" Mary-Ann's phone suddenly rang, and she took it out of her jean pocket, sighing into the receiver. "What."
"M-A, it's C." Charlie was on the other end of the line, and he began to sing. "Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip…"
"Shit! I understand." She clicked off the phone, and called to Salah. "Dinner's cancelled. We got Gilligans."
Salah stopped chopping veggies and stepped out of the kitchen, grabbing a pen off of his writing desk. Mary-Ann took up a metal slingshot, and looked around the living room of their apartment briefly. "Crap, where is it?"
"Where is what?"
"The cricket bat we got from Marshall, Blackwood and Dark! We're gonna need it if they're packing heat!"
"One: 'if'? Two: We loaned it to Dickens, remember?" Salah picked up his own slingshot and made for the door. "Now, c'mon, we got some Gilligans to kill, again!"
"Let's do this." Mary-Ann grinned as she rushed out the door and up the stairs of their building.

The Critic looked through her purse for a very particular item, her attention now completely distracted from the Cartographer's work. "I do apologize, Mr. York, but I need to take my leave."
"Wha-who? Do we have the Gilligans on our back again?" He peered at the Critic as he covered his map with a tarp."They're after you, aren't they?"
"Such insistent terminology!" muttered the Critic as she took out an aerosol can. "Just call them the Foundation. I know you think that dignifies them, but really, the fact that you even know about them is humiliating." She went to the window, looking below her; a large crowd of anartists was armed with slingshots, bullets that shot guns, cream pies filled with something that was both acidic and vulgar, copies of The DaVinci Code, swords made out of newspaper, and pens. They were ready in case the Foundation Agents came this way. "You all down there!" The entire crowd turned in the direction of the Critic's voice as she threw down several aerosol cans. "Have a party for me, will you?"
The crowd took up the cans, and handed them to the unarmed members among them. Nobody smiled, and everybody grinned at the new gift. With that, the Critic made her way for the door. "Perhaps we can pick this up some other time, Mr. York."
"Perhaps," said York, looking over a map of the BackDoor that he had drawn years ago. "Perhaps."
Nobody walked out the door, and nobody was in the hallway a few seconds later.

Ruiz Duchamp broke the neck of some no-name anartist who had tried spraying his visor with paint. It was ruined now, so he took off his headgear and started firing into the crowd. Around him, members of his Task Force died as their chests were penetrated by miniature guns flying at supersonic speeds, or their arms were chopped off by claymores made out of back issues of the New York Times. Ruiz still stood though. He scanned the crowd of bright, vibrant colors for any sign of grey-
There. Coming out of the apartment building in the back. That scarf gave her away immediately. Ruiz ran through the crowd, firing in front of him and gunning down innocent anartists in pursuit of his mark. Said mark saw him, and smirked in his direction before making her way down an alley. Agent Duchamp ran after her as fast as he could, not noticing the Pakistani man and the American woman on the roof above him.

"Salah, for fuck's sake, you don't have to make a bridge every time I need to jump a rooftop!" She frowned as her husband drew a basic bridge using his pen before letting her cross. "The baby will be fine!"
"Mary-Ann, you shouldn't even be doing this," he said the pen re-absorbed the spent ink. "You're pregnant, you should be staying at home in the panic room with Ammy and not out here, fighting the god-damn Foundation!"
"Oh, so just because I'm pregnant makes me a fragile woman now, does it? Ugh!" She rolled her eyes and took out her slingshot, taking aim at an agent that was just coming in through the breach in the gateway. She let lose a stone which grew in size as it passed through the air, eventually blasting a hole through the agent's leg. "Damn. Was aiming for his balls."
Salah got the message. "I'm just saying it won't be good for our daughter if you keep on over-exerting yourself like this." Salah started to draw up a chair when he noticed that an agent was running through the crowd, after a woman in… grey… "Shit! That guy, right there." He pointed at the rogue agent. "He's going after the Critic."
"Already on it," said Mary-Ann, loading up her slingshot with a cherry bomb taking aim at the runner. "Just need to account for trajectory and…"

Ruiz Duchamp let off a shot at Nobody. "Hold it right there."
The Critic turned to face him, crossing her arms with a wry smile. "Hello again. How long has it been since we last met? 6 months? 7?"
"Seven months, 18 days, 15 hours, 24 minutes."
"Zero heartburn," quipped the Critic. Ruiz raised his rifle at her, and she put up her hands. "All right, I get the message. You want me dead." She tsked. "Ruiz, you are the very definition of obsession, you know that?"
"Shut up!" Ruiz fired a bullet that grazed her dress suit. "You killed a lot of good people in Milwaukee."
"For the umpteenth time, Ruiz, I did nothing. All I did was try and encourage a little fun."
"Half the city died because of your 'fun'!"
"Well, yes. But that bug's been worked out now!" She sighed. "Nothing I say is going to keep you from killing me, is it?"
"Not a fucking thing, Lady. Not a fucking thing."
"Very well," the Critic said as she typed one last messaged on to her smartphone before turning it off. "Give my regards to Pico, if you see him again."
"Fuck Pico, and fuck-" Ruiz blinked at the sound of whistling coming from behind him. He turned to see a small cherry bomb fireworks sailing towards his head. It landed at his feet, the fuse disappearing into the casing. For what seemed like the longest time, nothing happened.
And then the Cherry Bomb went off.
The last thing Ruiz Duchamp remembered before it went dark was the smell of fruit, the taste of wild cherry Kool-Aid, and his eardrums popping. The last thing he saw was a woman in a grey suit turn on her smartphone as she walked off into the distance.


Agent Green walked down the street, a Styrofoam cup of tea in one hand and a glowing cigarette in the other. Endless crowds of people flowed around him, occasionally bumping his arms or legs. Green moved to the right, turning down a secluded alleyway. Go straight, go straight, turn left, go straight, turn right, turn right, turn left, go straight, turn left…
Agent Green found himself in front of Safehouse-53.
Safehouse-53, from the outside, appeared to be an abandoned tailor shop. The storefront windows showed a small room, dust coating mannequins wearing antiquated dresses and suits. Green sipped his tea and walked to the wooden door, rapping on it and hearing his impact echo. He heard a shout from inside, gradually louder footsteps, and then Agent Tangerine swung the door open from the inside. Tangerine was standing two steps down, wearing a blue and orange Hawaiian shirt; the door did not, in fact, lead into the abandoned tailor shop, but into a basement level below.
"Gotta give up the smokes, Green."
"Nothing keeps you warmer. And let's face it, something else is going to kill me before these do."
Tangerine shrugged half-heartedly, walking back down the stairwell; Green downed the last of his tea, threw his cup to the ground outside, clenched his cigarette in his jaw, then walked down just behind.
"How long have you been here?"
"Got here about ten minutes ago. They wipe you too?"
"Yup. I've got nothing after the horn went off."
"Same here. On the downside, no idea what happened last night. Upside, whatever it was, we grabbed some Artists to talk to."
"How many?"
"Eight all up, but three of them I know; you can take the other five."
"Sounds good. Standard truth serums?"
"Unfortunately not. We're all out of Class B hypnotics here; I'm pulling some more this afternoon."
"Ah. Back to the classics until then?"
"Yup. Just like old times."
Tangerine reached the end of the steps, leading Green into a dimly-lit, steel-lined room. A computer and printer sat in a far corner, a small gun cabinet stood to the left, and a door on the right led into a row of holding cells. Tangerine sat down at the computer, tapped some keys, and started printing off the first file.
"First up, The Builder. Part of The Critic's lot. He was the one making that big white marble thing."
"Do we know why?"
Tangerine shuffled the paper into a manila folder, passing it to Green, who leafed through the contents briefly.
"You ask him, he's in Cell 3."
"Restrained?"
Tangerine slapped his head mockingly.
"No, I completely forgot to do that. Of course he's restrained, go get him."
Green shook his head dismissively, entering the corridor of cells. One, two… three. Green pulled his ID card from his pocket, swiped it through the reader, and heard the buzz and click of the opening electronic lock. He opened the door and walked through. A short, brown-haired man sat with every limb chained to the steel seat beneath him. He was snoring softly, head hanging limp against his chest. Green slammed the door shut as loudly as he could, waking The Builder with a start.
"AH!"
"NAME! NOW!"
"BOB! Bob Utzon! Who the fuck are… fuck. Oh, goddamnit, you weren't supposed to know that."
Agent Green took out a pen and wrote 'BOB UTZON' on the cover of the manila folder, then sat in the seat opposite The Builder. Green placed the folder on the desk, plucked the cigarette from his mouth, and exhaled deeply into The Builder's face, who sputtered at the unexpected wave of smoke. Green grinned; it was cliche, but breathing into someone's face was effective. He was utterly dominating this little artist.
"Nice to meet you, Bob."
"Fuck you, I'm not saying shit."
"Oh, I think you will. Just breathed hypnotics into your face."
The Builder blanched; he had bought the lie.
"Fuck, man! I've got rights!"
"Ha! No, Bob, no you don't. You don't have rights, you don't get a call, or a lawyer, or any of that. If I want to, I can leave you here to rot until the day you die, and nobody will come to save you. You don't exist. You get me?"
The Builder remained silent.
"Now, Bob, the last thing you remember is a big honking sound, right?"
The Builder remained silent, the sides of his mouth betraying his fear.
"Bob. Listen. You can tell me this now, or we can just wait until the muscle relaxant kicks in. But if we wait until then, maybe your body goes limp, or your jaw goes numb, or you bite your tongue off. And then I'll have to listen to you talk while blood's pouring out of your mouth, I might mishear you, it just makes it awkward. I'll get it out of you sooner or later, so you can save yourself the trouble, maybe save some dignity too, if you just answer my questions now. Got it?"
The Builder remained silent, motionless for a few seconds, then nodded wordlessly. Green internally celebrated his triumph; the waves of bravado and bullshitting had worked faster than he expected.
"Excellent. Question number one: big marble building last night. Why?"
"Artistic domination. Contain the other artists' pieces within a makeshift museum of my own design."
"We've destroyed your piece. Is it anomalous in any other way?"
The Builder sneered at the demolition of his work, but contained his anger.
"It shouldn't be, no. It's harmless."
"Fantastic. Next up: current location of The Critic."
"No idea. He messages us when there's a meeting; if you could give me my phone, I could…"
Agent Green scowled at The Builder.
"Don't play games with me, Bob."
The Builder remained silent.
"Next question: who's The Snipper?"
"Oh, that nutjob. No idea what his name is, got a body horror fetish or something. Doesn't do much for me, but hell, whatever gets his rocks off is his business."
"Where is he?"
"No fucking clue. Wasn't going to be turning up last night."
"Alright. Last question for now: what do you know about Ruiz Duchamp?"
The Builder scoffed.
"He's a fucking hack. Mailed a bunch of us some stupid bullshit. Really annoyed Tim - 'The Sculptor', I mean."
"Location?"
"If we knew that, he'd be dead."
Green stood up and walked to the door.
"So, hey, agent guy, when do I get out of here?"
Green slid his ID through the slot, a beep releasing the lock.
"Hey. HEY! AGENT GUY, I'M TALKING TO-"
Green closed the door behind him, blocking all sound from behind.

Joey Tamlin awoke to find he had been chained to a metal chair.
"Fuck."
He attempted to move himself; the chair was screwed into the floor.
"Fuuuuuuuuck."
He attempted to loosen the chains. Each time he thought he was free, they pulled into his flesh even more.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-"
Joey stopped and looked up at the opening door, noticing a familiar hawaiian shirt. Agent Tangerine sat down opposite Joey, his face utterly neutral.
"Hey Tan."
Agent Tangerine remained silent.
"You want to help me out of these?"
Agent Tangerine remained silent.
"Come on, man, don't be a dick about it. You're a man in black, that's fine. Wasn't expecting it, but that's okay. I know how this works, you'll ask me a few questions, I give you a few answers, then a quick little pinprick and I forget this ever happened. I'm not in any position to do something about it. Ask me your questions, and we can both get out of here, and you and I can get back to making shitty art. You're with them, and I get that, that's fine, that's okay. But Tan, you're with us too. You make good stuff. You make stuff that looks good, you make stuff that makes people think. You're cool. You're one of us, Tan, you're part of our family no matter what, okay? We're brothers, man!"
Joey couldn't stop himself from shedding some tears. He felt a little betrayed, but that didn't matter. He just needed to loosen his bindings a little more, get on Tangerine's good side, just figure out some way to-
"This is the eighteenth time you've given me that spiel."
Joey looked up, confused. Tangerine looked straight ahead, devoid of all emotion.
"You always tell it the exact same way. The first time, you want to know what I did? Stupid, naive, trusting, young me? I untied you, we talked, and then you tried to beat me up. It didn't work, of course; I'm a trained agent, you're just an artist. I subdued you that time, and then we wiped you, and you went back and everything was back to normal. Then, later, you found a message in my phone that you shouldn't have. We pulled you in, you gave the same speech, that time I didn't release you. We had a discussion, but then you'd somehow loosened the chains, and just as I was leaving, you tried to grab me from behind. I'd already fought you once, and you didn't remember the first time, so I had even more of an advantage. So that was the second time. After that we tightened the chains, and you didn't get out again. The third was after you and Overgang shot up some infohazardous fireworks. The fourth was when you started organising a raid on a Foundation site, so we put a stop to that. The fifth was… hell, I don't even remember. You've been in and out of here so many times, we ought to install a revolving door."
Joey struggled against his restraints.
"YOU STUPID FUCKING-"
"The seventeenth time was when your sister died."
Joey stopped.
"But I don't have… a sister."
Tangerine stared intensely down at his legs, no longer able to keep eye contact with Joey.
"Jessie Tamlin. Three years younger than you, apple of your eye, loved her more than you loved yourself. Beautiful, fun, brightened the day of anyone she met. She'd come along to exhibitions, she'd sit with all of us and hang out; she was living with you, even, before Molly moved in with you. And then she did something incredibly, incredibly stupid. She was working on something for you, something to say thanks for always being there, and then she messed up. She couldn't exploit the way that you can, Joey, she couldn't concentrate right. She lost control of the thing, and whatever it was, it made a hell of a bang. Best guess was that she was making fireworks."
Tangerine dropped tears into his lap.
"She died, Joey. Jessie died, and you weren't the same. You started drinking all the time, you'd do LSD with every meal, you buried yourself in the most complete escapism you could. And then you tried to kill yourself, and I realised you weren't going to get any better. But you're right, Joey. I'm with the men in black, but no matter what, we're family. We're close as brothers. We're friends. I asked you, dazed and drugged as you were, why you were doing all of it. You said you were doing it to forget. You needed to forget."
Tangerine looked up, face still as neutral as he could keep it, tears still pouring down his cheeks. Joey noticed his own eyes had begun to leak.
"So I helped."

Agent Green waited outside the cell as Tangerine left, still wiping the tears from his eyes. Green patted the back of his long-time friend.
"Don't worry. By the time we're done, he won't remember any of it."
"He said he forgives me."
"That's good, Tan, that's good. Hell, I saw you drag him in last time. He'd be dead if you hadn't done it. You did the right thing."
"Still. I'm fraternising with the enemy."
"Fraternise long enough, they're not your enemies any more. Nothing on Duchamp, or this Snipper guy?"
"Nah, he… he knew as much as I did."
"That's fine. We had to make sure anyway. Go on, Tan, I've got the next two, already got their files here."
Tangerine looked up at Green, frowning.
"Wait, you're not going to…"
"Hey, we can't afford to wait until we get those drugs in. What these guys know might be useless in a few hours' time. May as well go two for one; already put them in the same room. Keep an eye on the cameras for me, right?"
"Right."
Agent Green walked down the corridor as Tangerine returned to the main room. Six, seven… eight. Green pulled his ID card from his pocket, swiped it through the reader, and heard the buzz and click of the opening electronic lock. He opened the door and walked through. The two girls in the room sat strapped to their seats facing the door. Green let it slowly close itself behind him. Both of them were sternly staring at him.
"Ladies."
Green took the wooden seat across from them, placing their files onto the table.
"First question. What are your names?"
The girls continued to stare, lips closed tightly.
"Really, I only asked that as a courtesy. Your names are, as we all know, Annie Cline and Candice Brahms. You play in the band… 'Futanari Titwhore Fiasco'. I'm still not sure if I'm pronouncing that first word correctly, no idea what it means. Just another reference I'm not getting, I suppose."
They remained silent.
"Next question: did you create those duplicates of yourselves?"
"Let them go!"
Candice looked over to Annie, frowning at the outburst. Her own lips remained closed.
"We can't let them go."
"You have to!"
"Allow me to clarify; we can't let them go because we don't have them detained. We're not certain where they are."
"Oh. Good!"
Annie looked to Candice while grinning, then realised what she had done. Annie shut her mouth as her face turned a bright red.
"Ladies, we're willing to let a lot of things slide. Honestly, having weird copies of yourself running around is the least of our worries. Don't make loads of them, keep it to yourself, pretend you're twins or something, and we aren't going to have any problems. So, were you the ones who made them?"
They remained silent. Green massaged his temples, feigning exasperation. He had them exactly where he wanted them. The outburst had proved they had compassion. Compassion can be used. Compassionate people can be reasoned with. Green had his battle plan.
"Listen, ladies, we need to get something straight. You've likely heard a lot of stories about 'The Man' and what we'll do to you if we catch you. Most of the stories are nonsense, intended to make Artists like you hate us all the more. We're going to let you go, ladies; while you're a part of a problem, neither of you have done anything that goes especially against our agenda. You are reasonably 'underground', to use your jargon, you're quiet about the things you do. You maintain some semblance of normalcy, and really, that's all we give a damn about. Hell, if all Artists were like you, I'd have no problems at all. But they're not. You might not remember what happened, but a lot of people died last night because of the actions of some so-called 'Artists'. Now, you don't particularly strike me as uncaring monsters. Some of the people who died might have been your friends, your family, I don't know. They were someone's family. They were someone's friends."
Green paused for effect. Annie's expression had softened considerably; Candice's face, while still stoic, was no longer a frown. Green felt a wave of triumph. They were putty in his hands.
"Now, we're in a position to stop these people before they hurt anyone else. We have people who can take care of it. But we need to know where they are, and what they're doing, and where they're going. Anything you can tell us is useful. Okay?"
"Okay."
The both of them said the word in unison. Green had won.
"Okay. Cutting to the chase, I've got two really important questions for you, alright? First question: do you know a guy called The Snipper?"
Candice looked to Annie, who was pulling a face of confusion, then answered.
"Never heard of him. If he's got a 'The' at the beginning of his name, he's probably with The Critic's lot."
"Alright. Pretty much confirms what we already knew, but everything is useful. Second question: do you know anyone named Ruiz Duchamp?"
Candice shook her head, but Annie's face lit up with a spark of recognition.
"Oh! I do, yeah! He came to one of our concerts once, he was really nice. Invited me to an exhibition he was holding."
"Can you tell me anything about that exhibition?"
"It was just moving dioramas. Pretty simple, he was acting as though they were amazing. But, like, it was kind of weird… it was in an art gallery."
"Art in an art gallery is weird?"
"It is for most of us. The whole point is, like, breaking out of the system, you know? Not putting stuff on the wall for people to see. He was kind of odd."
Agent Green took down a note on his papers: 'SEARCH ART GALLERIES'.
"That's very useful. Thanks very much, ladies. Sorry about chaining you to chairs and everything."
Candice remained silent; Annie grinned back at him.
"No, no, it's fine! Actually… I'm kind of 'into' this."
Green blushed slightly as he made his way out of the room.

Overgang Dood awoke to find he had been chained to a metal chair.
"Fuck."
He attempted to move himself; the chair was screwed into the floor.
"Fuuuuuuuuck."
He attempted to loosen the chains. Each time he thought he was free, they pulled into his flesh even more.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…"
Overgang stopped and looked up at the opening door, noticing a familiar hawaiian shirt. Agent Tangerine sat down opposite Overgang, his face utterly neutral.
"…uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I did not see that coming."
"You didn't see it the last time, either."
"Damn, Tan, how many times have I been in here?"
"This makes six."
"Shit, what did I do the other times?"
"Oh, all sorts of stuff. Mostly minor."
"And, just remind me… what did I do this time?"
Tangerine sighed.
"I'm not cleared to know, actually, and it's been wiped from all our minds. Downside of working for The Man. But I think you helped."
"That's good, at least. Hey, is this going to take long? I was going to meet a girl, you know, plans and so forth."
"You'll be out as soon as we get amnestics in. Probably this afternoon."
"Alright, cool."
"You're taking this calmly."
Overgang shrugged.
"It's just the way it is. I get that it's nothing personal, it's your job, whatever. But we're still friends. I know I'm in good hands, Tan. I trust you."
Tangerine's stomach crawled with guilt.

Agent Green was waiting, again, outside of Tangerine's door.
"Nothing?"
"Nothing, but like I said, wasn't expecting anything. I know as much as they do."
"Alright. Back on cameras, The Painter's up next."
"Got it."
Agent Green walked down the corridor as Tangerine returned to the main room. Eleven, twelve… thirteen. Green pulled his ID card from his pocket, swiped it through the reader, and heard the buzz and click of the opening electronic lock. The Painter sat and stared at the door.
"About bloody time, I've been sitting here for a fucking age. Ask me the questions and kick me out of here, bitch."
Agent Green formulated a plan immediately, and that plan composed of punching The Painter in the face until he learned some respect. He took that urge and repressed it, then wondered why he was repressing it. His subject was a pampered, impatient, spoilt artist. He'd likely be very receptive to physical assault.
Time to put the Pain back in Painter.
Green pulled his fist back and drove it sharply into the side of The Painter's jaw. The Painter jerked in his restraints, unable to defend himself. He shook his head, then spat out a dislodged tooth, face contorted in incredulous anger.
"DIDJU JUST FUGGIN PUNCH ME?"
"Shut up, or I'll do it again."
"YOU FUGGIN-"
Green relished the feeling of his knuckles against The Painter's jaw. He spat out another tooth, then adopted the appearance of a scolded puppy, if a scolded puppy had been punched in the face twice and looked like a person.
"Shut. Up."
The Painter whimpered. Green raised his fist again, enjoying the response of further discomfort.
"Two questions. Question number one: what do you know about The Snipper?"
"Heesh a fuggin lunuhtic. Dunno more n' dat."
The Painter spat out a mouthful of blood.
"Two: what do you know about Ruiz Duchamp?"
"Fuggin ashole. Desherves whatsh comin' to him."
"Do you know where either of them are, or might be?"
"I dunno. I dunno."
Green raised his fist.
"I DUNNO! I SHWEAR, I DUNNO SHIT!"
The Painter sputtered blood all over the table. Green turned around to leave.
"…yeh, you walk away, ya bitsh."
Green turned in a fluid motion, whacked his fist against the side of The Painter's skull, and left him hanging limp in his restraints.

Melanoma-on-the-arsehole-of-existence awoke to find she had been chained to a metal chair.
"Fuck."
She attempted to move herself; the chair was screwed into the floor.
"FUCK! BITCH FUCKING FUCKBUSTING CUNTLASER FUUUUUUCK!"
She attempted to loosen the chains. Each time she thought she was free, they pulled into her flesh even more.
"COCKSUCKING BITCHTITS WHORE CUNTFUCKING GRANNYBANGING FUCK FUCK TITTYSLUT ANUSPARADE ASSHOLES!"
Arsehole stopped and looked up at the opening door, noticing a familiar hawaiian shirt.
"FUCKING FUCK! CUNTBITCHING CRACKSNIFFING DOGFUCKING MANWHORE! YOU SNAKESCREWING SARSAPARILLA SKULLING SCARABSUCKING SON-OF-A-SEAHORSE! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, YOU CUNTSTABBING TINYDICK CISGENDERED AUTOMOBILE FUCKING BITCHLICKING SHIT EATING PISS GUZZLING CLOACA TONGUING-"
Agent Tangerine closed the door without entering.

"You didn't even go in that time!"
"We're getting nothing out of her until she's sedated, trust me."
"Alright, you'd know better than I would. Last one, then?"
"Last one, all yours."
Agent Green walked down the corridor as Tangerine returned to the main room. Twenty-one, Twenty-two… Twenty-three. Green pulled his ID card from his pocket, swiped it through the reader, and heard the buzz and click of the opening electronic lock. Rita Summers sat chained to the chair, her long black dress dangling over the chains. She was avidly staring into her lap. Green moved and sat down across from her.
"Miss Rita Summers."
"That's me."
"I'd like to ask you some questions."
"I'd not like to answer them."
Rita continued staring into her lap. Green tapped his fingers impatiently on the table.
"Miss Summers, I've read your file. Two years until you finish school, perfect scores in every test. You're smart; hell, under different circumstances we'd be offering you a job."
"I'd not accept it."
"Why not?"
"Because, Agent Green, I don't care for what you do. I'd not do it out of misguided obligation, and whatever you pay is below my paygrade."
Green realised she knew his name. She must have caught a glimpse of his ID as he came in. Green knew how to deal with 'geniuses' with the whole 'unfettered' thing going. Physical threats could help, but Green didn't want to punch a schoolgirl. He feigned shock.
"How did you know my name?"
Rita looked up from her skirt, sneering condescendingly.
"It was on your ID, idiot."
Green, continuing the charade, moved uncomfortably in his seat, brushing an errant itch on his neck.
"Ah. Well, very observant of you, Miss Summers. Now, I'm hoping you might reconsider answering some questions for me. People could be in a lot of danger if you don't."
"Why should I care?"
"You should care, Miss Summers, because you are a subset of people."
"Oh, I'm so scared. Go ahead, torture me, do whatever."
"No, Miss Summers, there's no need for that. How would you like to wake up and have forgotten how to add? Or spell? Or tie your shoes?"
Rita cackled.
"Oh, that's great. Threats, yeah, that'll work. No, Agent Green, I don't think you're in any position to be making threats."
"You're tied to a chair, Miss Summers. My threats can be backed… up… with…"
Agent Green felt his throat tighten. He scratched his neck, feeling a growing bump.
"What… you…"
"Agent Green, you've officially lost control of the situation. Same thing's happening out there to your comrade Agent Tangerine."
Agent Green swore under his breath. He reached for his gun, and then his arms stopped moving. He tried to stand, but his muscles did nothing. She wasn't just any artist, she could be a reality bender, something had been missed; his mind buzzed with hypotheticals and escape plans. Rita stood up, chains clinking loosely to the ground.
"Three words, Agent Green: invisible trained spiders. You've been injected with a paralytic. You should be able to move in a few hours, no long-term effects; I'm not a monster."
Rita reached into Green's pocket and pulled out his ID card.
"I could lock you and Agent Tangerine in here, if I wanted. No ID, nobody knowing this happened. You'd slowly starve to death. But I won't do that, because hell, imprisoning people against their will? Kind of a dick move. What kind of person would do something like that?"
Rita walked to the door, buzzing the lock open and leaving it ajar.
"I'll be taking my leave now."
Rita walked down the corridor confidently, brushing down her crumpled black dress. She slid the card through every reader as she passed, flinging the doors open one by one and checking inside. The first person she saw was
"PANDA-KILLING FUCK SUCKING-"
"Oi, I'm here to get you out."
"Oh. Rita. Hurry up then."
Invisible spiders gnawed the chains off with acidic venom.
"Alright, where the fuck is Tan, I've gotta beat the shit out of that backstabbing asshole."
"No beating the shit out of anyone, A-hole. They've been taken care of."
The next door had The Painter sitting behind it, still unconscious with a bloody mouth. Rita looked to Arsehole. They knew what he'd been planning. They knew what he was a part of. They weren't happy. Arsehole grinned, Rita sighed.
"Well, okay. One punch, that's it."
Arsehole ran towards The Painter, driving her fist into his face and breaking his jaw. He woke up screaming from the pain. Arsehole walked out happily and locked the door behind her.
The next person they found was Overgang. Rita grinned, Overgang tilted his head.
"Wait, are we breaking out? Is this a thing we're doing?"
"Yup!"
"Well, no complaints here."
The restraints fell; Overgang rubbed his wrists with his hands. They moved as a group to the next door; Annie and Candice were chattering behind. Annie turned to the door as it swung open.
"Oh. Hey guys, what's up?"
"I'm breaking everyone out. Wanna come?"
"May as well, it's a bit cramped in here anyway."
Their chains clanked down, they moved past the table and joined the group. They continued opening doors until the found cell number five.
"Joey! What's wrong? What did they do?"
Joey Tamlin looked up at the group, tears slowly drying.
"Did I have a sister?"
The group of them shared looks of confusion, then apprehension. Overgang walked to the front.
"Yeah, Joey. Yeah, you did. Tan brought you home one day and told us all to drop the subject. Doesn't take a genius to figure out what happened, now we know who he is. Now's not the time to talk about this, though, we're getting out, and you're coming with us."
Arsehole shouted from the back.
"Don't worry, we're gonna beat the shit out of him!"
"Don't listen to her, Joey. Beating the shit out of him is up to you."
Joey felt the chains loosen and shook them off.
"No. Tan helped me. I don't remember, but by the sounds of it, it's better that way."
"You gonna be okay, man?"
"Yeah. I'm fine. Let's get out of here."
Joey walked out the door and joined the small crowd; the corridor was getting somewhat cramped. Rita walked to the next door, swinging it open to see an empty room, and then the next door, finding The Builder squirming against his restraints. He looked up at them, hopeful. The group turned to one another, sharing frowns. The Builder shouted in fear.
"NO, WAIT!"
Rita slammed the door shut, shaking her head in disbelief. The group walked out into the main room. Arsehole walked over to the gun cabinet, pulling it open and filling the pockets of her jeans with five pistols each. Overgang walked over to the computer; Tangerine was still sitting immobile at the desk.
"Sorry Tan, you're in the way."
Overgang moved Tangerine's body to the ground carefully, then sat down and cracked his fingers.
"Let's see what we're running with… standard DOS running, here… hah! Hey, Joey, you know that game I had messing up last night?"
"Yeah?"
"They've got it in here! Still stuck on your name, dunno why… should be funny when they find the antipiracy, though. Alright, let's wipe some stuff from their database…"
Overgang continued clacking the keyboard; Arsehole had already run up the stairwell with Rita, Candice, and Annie. Joey walked over to Tangerine's body, sitting it up against a wall. His eyes were open, but whether he was still conscious inside his brain, Joey couldn't tell.
"Sorry about this, Tan. I know you did it for the right reasons, and… you're a good friend. But you're still a spy, man! You've been spying on all of us. That's just not cool, you know?"
Tangerine remained silent, having no choice in the matter.
"We're going to have to move away, now, Molly and me. We'll be telling everyone about you. Everyone's going to know your face, Tan, and when they see it they'll keep their lips shut and walk away. I thought you were one of us, but… you aren't. There's no half-assing it. My sister, man, I don't even remember her existing. I don't remember a damn thing."
Joey pushed Tangerine's body to the side carelessly.
"You fucked us over, Tan, and you fucked me over."
Joey kicked Tangerine in the stomach.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE ONE OF US!"
Joey kicked again.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE AN ARTIST!"
Joey kicked higher, expelling the breath from his lungs.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE COOL!"
Joey went to kick again, but Overgang grabbed his arm.
"We're done here, Joey. Everything they've got on us is gone, everything's deleted."
"The records, yeah. But he remembers."
They looked at Tangerine's immobile body, hawaiian shirt crumpled from the impacts.
"Fuck it, it doesn't matter. Let's get out of here, Joey. We're done."
Overgang walked Joey to the stairwell, leaving the body lying still in the dimly lit room.
Tangerine cried a single tear before passing out from pain.

the second of first starts at the end
The second of second trifurcates.
The Above Is Split In Seven
LESSERS LIKE THE WHOLE
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…
Temperatures expected to drop today, with a high of 43, rain all day with a chance of sleet or freezing rain this evening, low of 23, so make sure and salt those sidewalks and stairs today. This weekend's set to be colder still, high of 32 on Saturday with a 30% chance of snow accumulation greater than one inch. That's your local weather, it's 6:45 am on December 12th, 1997. Up next, Tschaicovsky's famous Nutcracker Suite performed by the Boston Philharmonic orchestra.
Dr. Thaddeus Xyank rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes and pulled himself into a sitting position, arching and cracking his back. A morning much like a few dozen others that had passed in rapid succession. Routines have their charm. Glasses, toothbrush, shirt and tie. Lab coat, keycard, coffee and bagel. Briefcase, hallway, "Good morning, Phil." "G'Mornin' Dr. Xyank, sleep well last night?" "You bet," office, check for mail. Close the door, roll up the blinds. A dreary Friday morning, damp and grey. He was glad, for once, for oil heat and basic climate control. The mindless inconvenience of "roughing it" among ancient savages was finally becoming comfortable. He took a sip. Still a little too hot, but it would do to start drinking it.

~You have Four new voice messages.~
"Dr. Xyank, it's Marcus. We've hit a snag. Transport is working, but the field size is proving to be a little unstable. Last test object was a chair and only half of it went through, and the other half was pretty seriously irradiated. I've reviewed your notes about timing, and I think the precision required might be beyond our equipment's capability. I'll be in the lab around 10 if you've got a minute. No rush, still a few more things to check."

The white board was turning pink, it had been written, erased, and re-written so many times. Notes were beginning to slip out of the margins everywhere he looked. His calculator booted, loaded at 50% opacity, and transcribed everything lightning-fast for the double-check. The problem Marcus Kitterman had called him about only required nanosecond precision. That shouldn't be out of reach of a Pentium… unless the radio chatter around the site…
Xyank sighed and relaxed, suddenly very glad the department was working exclusively with inanimate objects, at least for the time being.

~Next Message~
"This is Athena Anastasakos calling in a shift-end report. Experimentation progressing nicely, however the topology of our model is causing difficulty. Request permission to recruit two additional engineers from Extra-D at Level 4-Delta clearance to finish the device. Please let me know as soon as possible."

Athena was doing a wonderful job keeping up with the Tachyon emitter design. 281 was a smart little object but it offered almost no insight into the nuts and bolts of temporal displacement or dilation. It was, after all, just a large battery tied to an alarm clock. However, it was about three kilos heavier than it should have been, and the circuit board in/out voltages just didn't add up. Something else was hiding on the ‘seventh' side of the device.

~Next Message~
"Hi Doc, Burt Tomlin. Expect a visit today at… 0800. Can't tell you more here. Bye."

Bertrand ‘for christ's sake just call me Burt' Tomlin? Whatever for? He hadn't seen Burt for more than five years, since the 176 incident. A chill momentarily lingered at the top of Thad's spine as he sank into his chair and opened a very empty briefcase where he kept a few blank files to ‘read' from in case someone with the wrong clearance came in unannounced. Tomlin wasn't one of those, though. He had the right clearance. He should. He was on the recovery team when…When. If he was coming so soon…

~Next Message~
"Good evening Dr. Xyank this is Dr. Piedmont. I just wanted to thank you for… crap, it's 1997, isn't it? Never mind, Thad. We'll be in touch."
~End of Final Message~

…Doctor what? What could he possibly be thanking… Oh.
In that case, Thad considered it was best to start work for the day. The sooner he actually cracked this damned nut, the better. A receiver, five key presses, and a ringing on the other end. Trees outside blew in the rapid wind, knocking the last of the autumn leaves loose.
"Junior Researcher Anastasakos," she answered, her exhaustion obscured by a thin veneer of professional demeanor.
"It's Xyank. Can you secure the line please?"
Five atonal beeps.
"That should do," Athena groaned. Thad could practically see her rubbing her eyes over the phone. "I presume you're calling about the request I left for you?"
"I am," Thad replied. "Do you have any techs you'd prefer to work with? Anyone you've dealt with before?" Thad booted up his device and began to scroll through the roster.
"Not particularly," Athena answered. "I just need someone's help bringing the last board into view. We… it's been a very long week, and we've made a lot of progress, but if I can't actually see what I'm reverse engineering-"
"Understood. How many do you need?"
"I thought I said two, but… Yes, two is fine."
"Alright, I'll have the paperwork in by this after-lunch. Gotta go now. Visitors ought to start popping in any minute now."
"Oh? OH! Right. Thank you," Athena said, relieved.
"One more thing, Attie; get some sleep. You're no good to me exhausted."
"What about the deadline?"
"Ms. Anastasakos, we are working on a temporal displacement device. There are no deadlines." Thad glanced at his watch. 0700 exactly. One hour remaining.
"Except when there are," he corrected himself. But he had already hung up.

Thad was making passionate love to a phase transformation when 0800 reared its ugly head and the door handle jiggled. Sigh. "Come in!" he hollered, not looking up from the red marks flying frantically across the page. His left hand slipped under the desk and grasped the Beretta 92 service pistol waiting there… you know. Just in case.
The door hesitated for a moment as the latch slipped and when it opened a gust of dust, wind, and desert heat burst across his senses like an atom-bomb. Dr. Xyank winced and coughed and raised his hand as two khaki-clad folks pushed the door shut behind them and pulled off their glasses. One male. One female. Loaded for survival in a hostile world. Carrying concealed firearms. Tired.
And neither of them were Burt Tomlin.
"Dr. Xyank! Thank Christ, it worked." The woman pulled off her headscarf and pulled off her goggles, spraying dust around the office like it was someone else's job to clean it up and no one was trying to get some work done here today. Thad cleared his throat conspicuously.
"Can I help you?" Xyank asked impatiently, the pen finally dropping. He peered at them over his lenses as the male dropped a rucksack, grabbed a small waterskin, and started filling it from the water cooler in the corner.
The man in the desert drab chuckled, and shook his head. "That's funny. Real funny. I bet you get a chance to do that a lot." He drank deeply and voraciously as though it had been days since he'd last had a drop. "We made the rendezvous just like you told us. Fifty-seven days, eight hours, twenty-one seconds exactly. Now if it's all the same, I'd like to be debriefed so I can go home and see my cat, please."
Thad's head cocked to the side. The specific time interval meant something. It always did. Reduced to seconds, that was 4953600 s. Divide by the basic "now" interval of 11.25 s and that's 440320 temporal units. So they either missed the drop or… "…What year did you start in?"
"Doctor, enough is enough," the female said, slumping into a chair and taking the skin from her partner. "I mean, you mentioned you might be a little confused when we got back-"
"Did I?" Thaddeus had never before realized his talent for understatement. "Well, so I am. Humor me, please."
The realization washed past the pair of them as they looked around the office. As though things were missing. Crucial things. The male looked at his companion, leaned over to the door, and opened it on a busy hallway. Tentatively, he stuck his be-watched wrist past the jam, and sighed. "…We're Agents Gregory Hartford and Vanessa Freedman… From July 5, 2019 CE."
"And you're on assignment for whom?"
Vanessa closed her eyes and slumped forward. "…For you, Doctor." She reached into a satchel and produced from it a small gilded-clay cup, placing it on the desk before him. "It's Safe… But don't put any water in it. And be careful. It's come a very long way."
The Doctor's lips drew into a tight frustrated line. The visitors had made it right on time, according to the current model. He cursed his future self for all the extra work, but realized it was no use. This was exactly the kind of hole he was making it his life's work to close. "Thank you both for your contributions. Welcome to 1997." Thad archived the time, date, names, and object recovered, then picked up the receiver and pressed no less than 19 buttons in rapid succession. "12, please… Dr. Thaddeus Xyank, regarding a 'pick-up'… Yes, I'll hold." This was going to be a very busy morning.

Marcus indelicately picked his nose and wiped it on a bit of wrapper left over from the breakfast sandwich he purchased at 9 o'clock. To his credit, he used the hand sanitizer next to the console before doing anything else. The smoldering remains of a chair were still laying on the floor of the test chamber. "…Two minutes," he said, sliding down the computer bank and re-checking the in-room Geiger counter.
"How many of these tests do you run in a day, Mr. Kitterman?" Thaddeus peered at a screen showing the recorded event. 281 activated synchronously to the EM transmitter. A temporal bubble erupted and retracted in the center of the test chamber. There was a flash of light and a radiation spike, and then the bits left behind collapsed.
"Anywhere from ten to twenty, slowly turning up the Δt as we go. Everything between 3 seconds and 5 hours works fine, but past that, the field starts getting irregular and—" across the room, the counter erupted in a series of clicks. "Oop, here we go."
A loud cracking sound and a bright flash of light later, 2/5ths of a chair fell into the pile of remains. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma radiation, and a few million free neutrons to boot flew across the room in every direction.
"Yikes," Thad said flatly, leaning back in the chair. "Thaaat's not supposed to happen…"
"Mmmmmhm. At that level of radiation a human traveler loses all their hair in a few days and their pancreas soon after," Marcus said, shaking his head. "I'm thinking it's because the event-horizon ends up shearing so many atoms when passing through a solid object, but until I can get a success under my belt, it's hard to tell."
Thaddeus looked over the bank of monitors as his calculator began printing to his vision to check and recheck the expected values. Everything turned up green. And so it was time to ask the stupid questions.
"You've rebooted?" he asked.
"Yup."
"Verified the timer's accuracy?"
"To the picosecond." Marcus said, tapping the cesium clock in front of him like an old friend.
"And the Faraday Cage is closed?"
A loud banging sound in the adjacent testing chamber made their hearts jump into their throats. A steel I-beam, 2 m in length with the word "NO" plasma-cut out of its center had just slammed into the floor, apparently from nowhere. Marcus Kitterman looked sheepishly at the displeased Dr. Xyank, who rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.
"…Mr. Kitterman. Please take greater care to account for radio chatter in the future." Thad looked out into the testing chamber and let the air flap out between his lips. "Now get a Faraday cage built in here and resolve that paradox. Immediately."
"Yes, sir," Marcus answered, with a phone already in his hands.

After lunch there was another man in his office uninvited that was still not Bertrand Tomlin. What's more is that he was busily staring at the contents of the briefcase. Or rather, the lack of contents. And the badge hanging off of his belt only had a bright red "EC-3". This man did not belong here.
"EXCUSE ME."
The L3 jumped out of his skin and spun on his heels hands up and clenched, ready to pound the shit out of whatever he saw. The look in his eye was easy to recognize. This man had seen things… A lot of things. Some of them above Thad's pay grade. Fist cocked back, the L3 caught himself, blinked back to his senses, and relaxed, slumping onto the desk, gripping his chest.
"Jesus Thad, you scared the shit out of me!"
"It seems you have me at a disadvantage. Who, may I ask, are you?" Thad asked gruffly. The voice sounded familiar but he couldn't place it.
The L3 stood and offered a hand which Thad reluctantly took. "Dr. Lowell Piedmont, EC-3," he said, a smile creeping back onto his face. "You know, you're not a very easy man to find. Even when you do exist."
"Yeah, I get that a lot," Xyank said, kicking the door closed behind him and hurrying behind his desk. The briefcase closed with a thwack and latched shut on its own. "What is it I can do for you Dr. Piedmont?"
"Nothing. Well. Nothing yet." Dr. Piedmont replied. "But… I don't know, I suppose later there will be something. Only… huh. This is hard."
"Only I've already done it?" Thad offered as he tapped a cup of water and sipped it slowly.
"Yes… You've both already done it and haven't done it yet, apparently. Which is confusing." Dr. Piedmont ran an unwelcome finger along one of the side tables, looking at it like others had before him, as though something should be there.
"This may come as something of a surprise to you, Doctor, but this isn't my first temporal anomaly," Thad said, watching carefully. Waiting for an excuse to call security or kick him out or something. Anything. Some manner of clue that he'd seen something he shouldn't or knew something he couldn't but something about the bags under Dr. Piedmont's eyes said there wasn't much fitting that description.
"Don't I know it!" Piedmont finally said. "This whole office… Well… I guess you'll figure it out, soon enough."
"Pardon me, sir. But is there anything at all you have for me apart from cryptic references to future events?" Thad's patience was at an end.
"…Only that the 'Esoteric Containment' department is your friend. And if you find yourself in need of any…let's say pertinent information… Well, you've shaken the right hands." Dr. Piedmont winked and left a card on Thad's desk, and left. "Good Afternoon. Glad we could meet. Again."
Dr. Xyank looked at the card for all of forty-five seconds before he decided 'what the hell' and picked it up.

Dr. Lowell Henry Piedmont
Ethics Committee / L-3
Ex. 8-065-92

"…Oh Goddammit."

The rest of the afternoon was blissfully uneventful. Quiet calculation, a good tasty and nutritious meal followed soon thereafter by a relieving and cleansing bowel movement, some postulation and speculation and one or two calls to Attie and Marcus to see how they were progressing. His own tachyon field detection project was about to make the 442i a reality. Six dozen years early, too. And it was as he looked at the whiteboard proving it could be done, head propped up on one hand, and wondered how it was possible to invent something before it was invented, that a knock came at the door.
Quickly, Thad pulled a projector screen down in front of his notes. "Door's open."
Around the jam and into the room came one Agent Bertrand Tomlin, looking awfully dapper in a bowler hat with a handlebar mustache, muttonchops and brown tweed jacket. He peeled the facial hair off and spat some stray fibers from his lips. "Sorry I'm late. Missed the drop by nearly half an hour."
Before Xyank could mention that it was just as well and he had quite a busy morning regardless, a magazine was dropped on the desk, in mint condition although the date of publication said clearly "1892" right there on the plain blue cover. Just beneath the white text: Foundation. "Would you mind telling me what the hell your name is doing in this journal?"
"What?!" Thad grabbed it up and flipped to the contents page. Sure enough, there he was. And Athena's name, too. "This really doesn't seem like me. Why in hell would I publish findings that haven't been found yet?"
"I was hoping you could tell me." Tomlin said, pulling his collar apart and kicking off his ill-fitting shoes. "Now that you've…Wait, you said it hasn't been found yet?"
Thad looked at Tomlin's stupid face in a manner that made it clear how stupid that face was.
"Don't you look at me like that, Thad. Don't you dare look at me like that. I have been holding your hand for five years of my life, trying to get you caught up with yourself and I'm going to damn well tell one of you about it!" He slammed the chair onto the ground, and sat in it, staring at the Doctor as he purposefully mussed the pomade out of his hair. "You told me time travel was invented today. You told me this, from my perspective, thirty-seven hours, fourteen minutes and… seventeen seconds ago. Factor in that 18.47 hours of that was on May 1st, 1892 CE. What does your model say?"
Thad picked up a red pen to write it out and Bertrand knocked it out of his hands.
"Just. Calculate."
"…August 19th twenty… no…forty-sev… Yegods! There's no way that's right!"
Tomlin's eyebrows kissed the ceiling as his arms and legs crossed, mouth drawn in a tight frown. "I'm going to be honest with you, Thad. I don't even remember meeting you anymore. How old I was or how old I'm supposed to be or which Causal String is fucking which. Now, I'm tired. I'm achy. I smell like dog piss, horses, and rail-yards. Something has fucked our shit up royally. Either we've gone too deep or not deep enough, and I need to know from you, right now, at the very least, that Time travel was invented today!"
The phone rang, and Xyank picked it up. "Thad Xyank…"
"Dr. Xyank, it's Athena Anastasakos. Can you-"
Thad's fingers flew across the keys as his face lit up. "You're not serious?"
"We got the last board in view. It's so simple I'm embarrassed we didn't think of it ourselves. The device employs a novel enzyme. Dissolve it in water, and it acts as a superfluid at room temperature. All you need to do is shake it and the motion of the molecules actually causes a luminous bloom! Relativistic motion in a test tube! At room temp!"
Thaddeus, as though he'd seen a ghost, glanced at the title of the paper he had not yet written. "And we can reproduce it?"
"With a goddamn high-school chemistry set! Erm. Pardon my language," she replied.
Burt Tomlin, just barely able to hear it, breathed a sigh of relief, finally allowing himself to relax.
"Okay. First thing tomorrow morning you and I are writing a paper. And then we're going to test it."
"But Doctor, we're months away from a safe, functional prototype!" she protested.
"I understand, but right now I know of at least twenty-seven open loops that need closing and if I find any more there's no way we'll be able to keep track of…" A light bulb turned on in his head. "…Check that. Let's talk more about this tomorrow. Something's just come up." Thad slammed the receiver down and spun in his chair, raising the projector's screen so that Tomlin could see it. "Does any of this look familiar to you, Burt?"
"Yeah, that's a Temp Ex, for TVM."
Thad frowned and rubbed his nose. "Burt… for the love of whatever god you wish, hold my hand for just five minutes longer and repeat what you've just said in English, please."
Tomlin rolled his eyes and sat back. "Fine. It's a Temporal Expression."
Xyank's blank, wanting stare bid him to continue
"…Temporal Expressions are a memetic/info-nomalous method of temporal displacement, allowing any event boundary to serve as both horizon and vehicle to the chosen destination. This one resolves to 'TVM', or, 'This Very Moment.'" Tomlin checked the board. He grabbed paper and jotted the expression from memory. Then pulled a watch from his pocket and studied it closely. "Yeah… it's a little archaic, but that's definitely a Temp Ex. I thought you said you hadn't invented it yet."
The Doctor smiled. "Apparently, I have."

Thaddeus Xyank cleared his throat half-heartedly as he looked at his own office window and slipped the package inside. Had it really only been a few months since all of this had seemed so hopeless? He considered for a moment opening the door and stepping inside, patting himself on the back, giving him the pep-talk in person as living proof that one day, one day very soon, all the work would pay off…
But he already had not. And so he did not.
Instead, the good Doctor Xyank pulled a pad of paper from his pocket, and jotted down a quick equation. He walked slowly past stock-still bodies of friends and colleagues, through all of the rats stuck stubbornly in the maze of causality, to the door at the end of the hall where Eternity awaited him with arms thrown wide.
…

Part Two: The Deep End | Hub | Part Four: Exit History


He sees her long black hair and flowing blue dress, and even through the static and blur on the cheap monitor he can see she's got hands that have only a few years at most of waiting tables and punching keys in them. She must be the youngest thing in that dilapidated club by a good two decades. He notices her eyes. He's seen them before in guys who'd been inside too long, looking up at him from underneath newspapers on a park bench, maybe one other place. She's eighty in the head if she's a day.
He's got the shades pulled down tight and all of the lights off. He knows it isn't necessary; no one's looking for him. He comes to others. To the clinic where they give him ineffective pills to sleep at night; to the gray warehouse downtown where there are never any job openings; to the parole officer who barely even looks at him as he checks the boxes on the form once a week. He comes back each day to roost in a building he's sure would be ugly if the streetlights weren't missing their wiring. Up the stairs he goes, a boarder haunting a room for a couple of months, a man sharing a face with a thousand janitors, night attendants and strangers riding the bus.
Someone with a mangled e-mail address sent him a message a few nights back. This is a man who opens everything, even the stuff from the crooks with the ads for pills and wire services. He knows he shouldn't, but you just don't know when one of those messages will be for you. The attached video file should have made him pause, but what was a scavenged computer to him? It was a victory if the thing played. The evenings keep stretching out, like endless freight trains, thwarting any attempt at moving along, parking him right where he is and making him stop and think. Sure, why not. Anything to kill the time while he listened to the click-clack of railcars on tracks below his window.
And anyway, who wants to think about what he's got to do tomorrow? The best you can say about a man who gets sent to the can for five years is that he's a cautionary example, but even he knew, then as now, that you don't do a job with someone you don't know. And especially when it's the kind of stunt these guys were trying. But here he was. That he agreed to something while knowing better didn't surprise him. What did surprise him was the desperation that drove him, welling out of him like something out of a pinprick wound that's stained half your shirt red in the time it took to look around. He'd told himself he doesn't bleed anymore, and that he doesn't lie to himself anymore either, and a failure on both counts.
So a video, sent just to him? Why not. He clicks the attachment, "lana_neal_sings_the_blues.mov". The address and the subject are gibberish, but the message. "for milton". To his shame, his breath catches at the sight of his name. Not a soul left on this Earth still calls him Milton. His true name. He can't remember the last time he heard it. Who could possibly know the secrets that this message held?
The video loads, and there before him is the raven-haired woman with the fresh face and the impossible age in her downcast gaze. The recording looks old, maybe from the 70's. It reminds him of something on tv in the background when he was a boy in distant times. It's just her in an empty club, the house lights dimly illuminating a tattered, threadbare stage that can't ever have seen the bright lights it was meant for. Somewhere off camera, a single piano plays, a late-night number for when the last patrons are leaving. Low, quiet notes that fall like a slow rain, almost a whisper as they cover the nighttime streets in diamonds.
Languidly, she raises her head and looks into the camera, transfixing him from a different time and place with her dark blue eyes, and unbidden thoughts come rushing to him that this must be the first time someone's looked right at him in months. Who is she? His mind reaches back, into neighborhoods obscured by a haze of years, landscapes that only partly exist in the real world as he knows it now. He can't possibly know her, there's no way he would have forgotten. He doesn't know her, but she's the ghost of something he does, something calling to him from places he knows he can't go to anymore. Does she know him?
She joins the ethereal piano player, and if she has eyes that have seen an old woman's troubles, she's got a voice that puts those troubles to shame. She keeps her eyes on him as she sings, and he hears someone from out of time, beyond the world of old broken-down hoods and beyond the burdens of worldly girls who dance with the night. He can't understand the words of her song, but it doesn't matter. Her voice rises from her slightly parted lips like smoke, spiraling up in its own time, hanging in the air to dissipate slowly and stinging his eyes. She sings, and he forgets. She sings, and he remembers. She entwines her song with the quiet piano, her voice clear in another tongue as she stays with the high notes. She never takes her eyes off the camera, and he knows that she knows him.
Her song ends, and he marvels at the woman who doesn't exist, the woman from nowhere who just took hold of him and stopped him dead in the tracks of his life. He plays the file again, trying desperately to kindle some sort of definite recollection, some way to make sense out of what he just experienced. Each time he sees it, it's different somehow. He hears the same song and she moves the same way, but he's spellbound anew for the first time, each time. By the time morning comes, he knows that he'll never be able to understand a woman who sings with a voice beyond time, but he doesn't care. No one is meant for eternity, he thinks. But he figures he's okay if he found just a little piece of it.
He's no stranger to the sunrise closing out a night vigil. The dawn has never brought hope, not for a long time, anyway. This one's no different. He knows, always knew, that today is it for him. He's done jobs like this one before, and he knows who walks away and who doesn't. A week from now, his meager possessions will be scattered, a parole officer will make a check mark before closing a file, and a new boarder with the same face will attempt to sleep in the place where he couldn't. Not a soul existing will mark his time here, his monument a John Doe tag in the morgue if he's lucky. But one soul, beyond existence, he's certain has witnessed. Through the regret, through the failures and the days gone by, the wounds that bleed in places where no one can see, he's got something to hold on to, and today, it'll do.
Before he raises the shades, Milton closes his eyes and meets the gaze of a beautiful woman in a blue dress who has eyes heavy with a life outside of comprehension and sings like someone beyond the angels.
"Some other time, kid."
He walks out into the sunlight, and in thirty seconds, he's gone from view.

Instance
Date
Summary
Selected Transcript

SCP-1229-37
12/16/2013
Transmission depicts Ms. Neal singing a song while standing on a stage, accompanied by piano. Original transmission appears to be 5 minutes and 38 seconds in length; however, an additional 10 seconds of footage are present at the end in an alternate version recovered from the ██████ file-sharing service on 12/22/2013. To date, this is the only observed instance to manifest in multiple versions.
Researcher's Note: Original song by Ms. Neal is in French, and has been translated into English by research staff. "<No matter what's waiting/ When the future is in ruins/ And the water's all gone/ Through the rain on the window/ No one sees no one/ Before night moves us on/ But I'll remember you/ Yes I'll remember you>"


It's about the time that Kondraki blows up a bus full of nuns to capture the flying fire-breathing walruses that Dr. Alto Clef has the first suspicion that things are not going as they should be.
It should be awesome, he realizes. And it is awesome. Riding the adrenaline rush of explosions as the fire-breathing flying walruses scorch the earth around them, causing bystanders to flee in terror from the pyroclastic pinnipeds. Diving behind the counter of a Starbucks and opening fire with his shotgun (loaded with FRAG rounds) and seeing the fat flying walrus (with the flames jetting out from under its massive mustache) explode in a shower of meat and blood. And it definitely should be awesome when he and Kondraki fist-bump on top of the stack of bodies as the city of Des Moines burns around them both.
But as he rode his black convertible back to Site-19, with a beautiful blonde woman giving him head from the front passenger seat, Dr. Alto Clef could not help but feel a small voice in the back of his head whispering something to him (like the Roman soldiers who would stand next to conquering generals, telling them that they, too, were human).
This is wrong.

He was rappelling down the side of a building, with the office windows exploding outward all around him, a beautiful redhead at his side and Dmitri Strelnikov providing covering fire from a hovering Little Bird helicopter, when Dr. Clef suddenly realized that he might not be the hero.
It was the expression on the girl's face that did it. She was frightened, yes… of course she was. And she was exhilarated, and aroused, and ready to make love to him…
… just like every single woman he had met in the past few years.
Why was it that every beautiful woman in the world wanted to share his bed? That was statistically improbable. There was no way that even the sexiest man in the world could shag every single beautiful woman he came across… and Clef was not sexy.
After they had destroyed the Skyscraper's Spontaneous Combuster, as he was leaning in for a kiss with the redhead, Clef paused with his lips bare millimeters from hers, then leaned back and gestured to the door.
"You can leave if you want," he said.
He wasn't surprised when the girl bolted.
Something was wrong.

"Crow?"
"Yes, Clef?"
"… how many civilian casualties were there?"
"None. They evacuated the place before we went in."
"They evacuated ten city blocks in thirty seconds?"
"Of course. The cops are very efficient."
"… six cops can't even knock on ten city blocks worth of doors in thirty seconds. Much less evacuate everyone within."
"Well, maybe they just weren't around. Maybe we just got a lucky break."
"Are we sure there were no civilian casualties?"
"Of course there aren't any. Do you see any?"
"No, I don't. But… I just have this feeling that something is wrong."

It was during the middle of his ninth swordfight against SCP-076 that Clef realized what the problem was.
Life was… too exciting.
There was no way that life could ever be this exciting, he realized. The life of an SCP Foundation agent could be interesting… but a firefight and a life or death struggle every day? Not a single day passing during which he did not battle for the sake of the world? Not a single day in which all he did was paperwork and file reports?
He was a researcher who spent more time bashing in people's heads with a crowbar than he did doing any actual research.
After he kicked Able over the edge of the Grand Canyon. Dr. Clef took a moment to think back to the last day he could remember ever being bored…
… oh.
Oh.
OH.
That's what went wrong…
And if that were true…

"… Gears?"
"Yes, Clef?"
"… I'm thinking that maybe we shouldn't deploy against SCP-953 this time."
"… why?"
"Because… in the end. With all the collateral damage we'll deal bringing her in… it would be less destructive just to let her eat a liver or two."
"Are you saying that you're giving up?"
"No! I'm just… look. Is this the only way?"
"We are the Foundation. We secure. We contain. We protect. But if you're tired, I can send in Kondraki instead."
"NO! No… I'll do it. I just… needed a moment to think."
"Take all the time you need, Doctor Clef. You've done enough work. After all, the Foundation would fall apart without you."

It is after he has thrown SCP-953 into the intake of the Boeing 747 that Clef finally allows himself to grieve.
He grieves for the dead bystanders he will never see. For the pain and chaos he knows he is causing, but cannot perceive. He grieves for the Foundation, fallen from grace, and for his friends, who know not what they do.
He grieves for Dr. Alto Clef, trapped in a hell of his own creation.
Damned to be badass for the rest of his life.

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