We've been playing this game recently — the Game, I should say — called 1914. Hell of a thing.
My buddies Kyle and John, we love history. It's sort of our thing. So when Kyle dug the Game out of his father's closet, we thought it'd be a hoot to try out. An unplayable board game from the seventies, two hundred little cardboard squares marching across a grid of hexagons tracing all the rivers, mountains, and cities of France. Each counter has three little numbers on it for attack, defense, move. There's tables of numbers for moving, for combat, resupply—endless columns on dozens of dusty papers.
John and me, we're the Germans. Kyle takes Frenchies; he's the only one who can make heads or tails of all the numbers, so we follow his lead.
The game starts slow. Set up takes three hours and the pieces move about half an inch a turn if you're lucky. Still, it's a blast. Belgium goes under real quick. Holland never stood a chance. Deutschers strike towards Verdun and the Foreign Legion leads a charge to surround Metz. Just a bunch of squares shuffling, though.
Around session four things start to get a little weird. French infantry encircled outside Antwerp are running low on supplies and Kyle tells us he's going to start eating the horses of his cavalry division — to keep the front line troops fed. Says he gets a bonus if they eat the riders too. We try to laugh that one off but he cracks open the monstrous rulebook and sure enough the “cannibalism efficacy chart” says it plain as day, though God knows how often that particular contingency was expected to come up.
That discovery put a whole new spin on gameplay — we started seeing what other optional rules we could dig up. The Osirian Appendices — right after the "Play by Mail" section — changed my whole Brussels Offensive. It's amazing what the hoisted ribcage of an enemy does for the morale of your troops — at least according to the designer's notes.
Turns out there's all sorts of mechanics that'll give you an edge, for the right price. Blood sigils let you add +1 to your rolls, but only if the blood is fresh. “Hallowed gore” gives you an experience bonus — Marshal Foch swore by it. Barbed wire is tougher when woven with bone. Who knew the First World War had so much to do with arterial logistics?
We weren't happy about sending the second line troops off to the slaughterhouse. But I think the improvement of our positions around Flanders more than justified that particular decision.
By now I hear the armies marching at night, but Kyle's the one who gets real into it. He doesn't just address the day's sacrifices by name — we all do that by now; it negates a bunch of debuffs — he's begun tracking the turns on his skin. And eyeing John's vertebrae.
He announces the construction of a pyramid of skulls large enough to encompass Paris and visible from the moon. Keeps producing page after page of optional rules in a frankly suspicious red ink. John just sits and hums. Hasn't been the same since we ate Bucephalus.
We're on to something special.

By 1918, things have…escalated. This next offensive is the big one — we've been preparing. What was Belgium is painted red, the dykes retaining human viscera instead of water. That's crucial to our success — the viscera, I mean. Our armies of millions are long gone, just a few thousand now, but what thousands! The femur of your closest friend strikes more true than any bullet; vests of Belgian tendon are as good as kevlar in the hands of our tailors. Supply problems are a thing of the past; easier to keep our food on the hoof, or rather, the boot. Each German carries a hundred souls within his gullet. I don't want to think about what the French carry there.
All but the best have been expended. Our modern soldier is frightfully effective, but requires a lot of ingredients.
Summer of 1918. Kyle sits atop the Parisian Ossuary and mocks us. There isn't going to be a 1919.


Rufus' Diary
Day 1
Well it finally happened, I got hired! I actually can't believe it! Mind you every other studio was interested in me, but obviously not for the right reasons. I mean all they ever did was freaking swarm around me like I'm some kind of circus act. I've finally found a brand that appreciates me for who I am. As a writer and an artist, I've found a company that actually lets me express myself; I get to live the dream. To all the people who said I couldn't do it, take a look at me now.
Day 11
Working for the foundation is pretty much everything I thought it would be and more. Not only are they giving me practically everything I think I could ever need as a writer, but they're also giving me a place to live, free food, and well… pretty much everything is free. They've even given me a complementary office with a huge window. The window doesn't have a great view considering the only scenery consists of my coworkers studying my work in their white coats all day. In a society like this, free anything is so damn rare, so you've just gotta take what you're given.
Day 43
I love this job, but that isn't going to stop me from missing my friends back home. I literally haven't had the chance to put down my work since I got here. I know I've finally hit the jackpot, but I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.
Day 56
It was a tough call, but I've decided that I'd rather be able to have the company of my friends and family than write for these people. Sure they've treated me well, but my coworkers informed me that this job is going to be all work no play. There are never any breaks with these people. I've been needing to sleep at the office since day one, just because of how crammed my schedule is. Writing is my passion, but that doesn't mean I want to do it literally 24/7. They treat my writing like crack. I know it will be a let down for the foundation, but I gave them my one weeks notice. I was pretty sorry about it too.
Day 63
This is messed up. I tried to leave the building today, but I couldn't even leave my room. My office door is locked from the outside. I called for help all day, but nobody came. I know they heard me too. Some asshole walked by the glass and didn't even acknowledge me. There's got to be some kind of law against this bullshit right?
Day 65
This is some kind of weird cult. These people are addicted to my goddamn writing. They pretty much worship it. They hang onto every word I write and literally discuss it for hours. I've seen them do it through the glass. I've tried escaping, but the walls, door, and even the damn glass are solid. We'll see how much they worship my writing when it's god awful.
Day 73
I don't understand the infatuation of these people with my literature… I handed in my latest work, “LET ME OUT OF HERE YOU FREAKING WEIRDOS”. They literally gave me no reaction; they ate it up just like they did with all my other works. Christ, I just want to go home…
Day 113
These assholes forgot to feed me today. It's as if they haven't ruined my life enough by imprisoning me. What's a giraffe got to do to get some sustenance?


Pico Wilson sat in the middle of his corpse pile.
“Snip snip. Snip snip snip.”
Wilson applied force to his secateurs. The lady's fingers sheared off awkwardly, shattered bone poking through the flesh. He carefully inserted the finger into the corpse's nose.
“Ha ha ha. Ha.”
Another finger, another crunch. Wilson filled the other nostril.
“HA. HA HA.”
Another finger, another crunch. Wilson forced the index finger into his muse's left ear. He propped the body up against her brothers and sisters.
“You are beautiful, my dear.”
Wilson moved into her, pressing his mouth against her cold, dead lips.
“More beautiful in death than in life. The juxtaposition of the dead and the living. The absurdity of the fingers up your nose; meaningless, indeed, considering your body is no longer a booger factory; what are you trying to get out of there? Is it the maggots? Is it your brain? You're searching in all the wrong places, my dear.”
Wilson plucked her eyes from their sockets and placed them in her mouth.
“You consider yourself ugly. Let me help you see inside yourself. Beyond the skin deep reflection of what we are, deeper than that, swallow your eyes and look inside yourself. Swallow your eyes. Ha. Ha ha ha.”
Wilson grabbed her jaw, bursting the eyes with her teeth. He mashed her gums against the aqueous humour.
“Silly lady. That medicine wasn't chewable.”
A final embrace, a goodbye kiss. He released his grip, and she crumpled to the ground. The Sculptor stared in disbelief.
“Hooooly shit.”
Wilson turned to his audience of one, eye goo still wet on his lips.
“You disapprove?”
“No. Nononono. That was metal as fuck, man. Shit.”
Pico licked his lips clean, then reclined into his corpse pile.
“So what is it exactly that you want, Mister The Sculptor?”
“I, uh… well, it's an invitation, I guess.”
“Sure. Where's the exhibition?”
“No, I mean, not to an exhibition, it's like… we're kind of like an art club. And one of us kind of walked out, so we've, uh, got a space open. And I remembered you from that thing back in '88, the Reagan thing, and I thought, shit, this guy knows how to clip stuff together, you know?”
“I don't really clip stuff together. I'm more into cutting stuff apart.”
The Sculptor clapped wildly.
“Fuckin' right, man. Damn fucking right. So, like I was saying, this other guy, he used to go by The Clipper, right? And so we sort of need someone to, uh, fill his shoes, if you know what I mean.”
“So you're pulling me in as a replacement.”
“Kind of, I guess. Well, not pulling you in. Offering you a place among people who can appreciate your stuff. Mutual critique. And, you know, we help each other out if we get in trouble, yeah? Like, if someone walked in on you here, they wouldn't get it, they'd call the police, it'd be awkward, but see, with us, we'd be able to take care of that for you. We've got a guy who can take care of the bullshit you can't be bothered with – The Janitor, we call him – and he'd be all over that shit. You join us, you don't need to worry about the normals. Nobody tells us what to do, you know?”
“I know. Nobody tells you what to do.”
“See, you get it, man! Freedom from The Man. That's what we're all about, man, it's about freedom, you know? You could pull this shit in the middle of a street, we'd take care of you.”
“So, what, I join your little club, and then what?”
“I dunno, we just talk. You do your thing, we do ours. We make stuff.”
“And what exactly was the last bit of ‘stuff' that you made?”
The Sculptor shifted awkwardly.
“Well, personally, I've been, uh, taking a bit of a break at the moment. You know, busy with other things. Just putting time into personal projects, you know?”
“Right. You see, Mister The Sculptor, I know about your little club, and your creative output has been somewhat… slow, to say the least, and if I were to be a bit more loose with my words, I'd say you're at a complete fucking standstill.”
“That's not really fair, man, it's a complicated-“
“And you look at me, and you say, wow, here's someone who's doing something, let's pull him in, let's wrangle him like a wayward horse, and break him in, and ride him like a two cent whore. Well, Mister The Sculptor-“
“Now, that's just not-“
“I am your whore.”
“…what?”
“I am your whore, I am your spice, feel free to shake me all over your meals, eat me as you please, allow me to enter your body as you enter mine. You used to do things, there used to be change in this world we share, but then you stood up to the change, you resisted. You sat on your own corpse pile, and you said, NO! This is the BEST corpse pile, these are the BEST corpses, and anyone who wants to pick them up and turn them into puppets, into animatronics, into real people, anybody who dares to breathe life into MY corpses, anyone who dares to resurrect the DEAD shall be crushed and made dead themselves.”
“Okay, I think I've kind of lost you there.”
“That's my point. That is my point exactly. You look at what I'm doing, and you raise your chin, and finally I've managed to bring enough of a stench to wriggle into your nose, make you look down, make you acknowledge my filth and squalor. Mister The Sculptor, I want to be inside you.”
“Look, man, you're making me a bit uncomfortable here.”
Pico Wilson rose from his throne.
“I want to be inside you. I want to be a part of you, I want to change you from the inside, I want to force you from your stagnation, I want to make you burst open like an overboiled sausage, I want your delicious meat to burst forth. You see the spark in me, and you want it. And I see the spark in you, but it's been a bit too long, you've forgotten what it's like to be used to start a fire, you've forgotten how to fan kindling into a blaze. So yes, I will join your club. I'll be your Clipper, your Snipper, your spark plug of creativity, and by the time I'm done with you, you'll never forget the spark again. Now get out of here, I need to finger a few more girls.”
“Well, uh, that's great, I guess! Welcome aboard.”
The Sculptor turned and left the room.
“Fucking nutjob.”

« A Cooler Manifesto | Hub | Flexibility »


Doctor Langston smiled as he turned to look at the new batch of researchers sent to his department. His eyes darted from face to face: three in total, two women and one man, each of whom couldn't have been over 30. All three looked extremely nervous, and Langston couldn't blame them. They had just come from an orientation which basically told them that they were all more than likely going to die in some pretty horrible ways, and it was up to Langston to keep them from running for the hills. He knew it was important for the orientations to be completely honest with new personnel, but did they really need to get into the gory details about how their predecessors died?
He cleared his throat and addressed the group. “Welcome to the Anomalous Items and Extranormal Events department! My name is Doctor William Langston, and for the next two or three months, I'm going to be the one you all report to. A little bit about myself: I joined the Foundation in 1976, when I was 27 years old. During my stay here, I've worked with a grand total of four SCP objects, including one very unhappy Keter class, before getting transferred over here in ‘03. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?” He looked over the group, hoping his short life story would help relax them a bit. After all, if he survived this long, who's to say they couldn't as well? Relief washed over him as the groups tense expressions were replaced with calm curiosity.
One researcher, a short woman with blonde hair, raised her hand and asked, “Um, hi. I was just wondering, why are we here instead of starting directly with an SCP object?”
“Well, while it's true the Foundation needs researchers like snowmen need cold, they also know that quite a few skips are rather difficult to wrap one's head around, so they send new researchers here to get an idea of what kinds of anomalies you might be dealing with,” Langston replied, walking towards the main hallway and gesturing for the trio to follow.
“What's the difference between a proper SCP and an anomalous object? Aren't all SCPs technically anomalous objects?” asked the male researcher, a slightly overweight man with dark brown hair. Langston chuckled. He remembered asking the very same thing when he first started in the AI/EE department.
“Generally speaking, yes. All SCPs are anomalous items. However, the items we have here are stuck in a strange middle ground: they're not anomalous enough to warrant full investigation and dedicated research, but they are anomalous enough that the Foundation wants them kept off the streets to keep up the ‘great masquerade', so to speak.”
The group stopped at the entrance of one of the humanoid containment cells. Langston checked the accompanying clipboard to ensure he had the right room before addressing the group. “We're just going to dive right in and start you off with one of our more vocal residents, Anomalous Individual 139, or AI-139. I want you three to go in and question him. Your goal is to figure out why we have him contained here, and get any information out of him that might be important. Good luck!” Langston opened the door, and the group walked inside.
The cell was mostly empty save for a hospital bed, on which lay Anomalous Individual 139. He was short but thin with black hair growing all over his body, and as they approached they noticed he was held down by leather restraints. His bloodshot eyes were transfixed on the group as they stopped a few feet away from his bed. The group stayed silent, unsure of how to begin, until AI-139 broke the silence harshly. “Well? Are you not here to question me?” he said, his voice higher pitched than they had been expecting.
“Anomalous Individual 139, please tell us your name and place of birth.” ordered the male researcher, inwardly slightly put off by how intently AI-139 was staring at him. AI-139 paused for a moment, then responded,
“It would seem your Foundation has already given me a name, so why you are asking me now is unusual. Nevertheless, the name I was born with is Shavalis. I am an emissary of Gaia, and my home is within her embrace. I was born in the cradle of leaves she fashioned for me, her protectors kept close watch upon me as I slumbered.” AI-139 grinned, his teeth each pointed and sharp. “I am her child. She has given me reign over the creatures in her domain.”
“What do you mean, ‘reign over the creatures in her domain'?” asked the taller female researcher, looking up from her notes to look at the strange man before her. AI-139's smile grew wider as he turned his attention to her.
“The beasts of the animal kingdom respond to my command. I am their king. From the smallest mouse to the mighty lion, all see my heritage and respect my words! The only exceptions are the bastard children, the humans,” AI-139's grin changed quickly into a hateful snarl, “they choose to ignore my birthright, to ignore their master. You…things know not your place, and you dare to imprison me in your artificial walls of steel!”
AI-139 jerked suddenly against his restraints towards the group, causing them to collectively step backwards. His eyes widened and his mouth again contorted again into a grin, this time twisted and hateful, looking as though he had gone mad. “But I do not worry, for my time here is soon over, and then you will all pay!” he said, nearly shrieking near the end as he pulled wildly at his restraints. “My subjects will find me and they will tear you all limb from limb! And when I am free I will incite a war that will decimate you pathetic creatures!”
The group of now frightened researchers backed away towards the door as AI-139 continued its rampage. “I am Shavalis! I am Gaia's child, and she loves me more than you! She will send unto me a bride who will bear my child who will control the winds themselves! This world is mine and I will not be held here…” Anomalous Individual 139's insane ramblings were muffled as the door to his cell closed behind the researchers. Langston smiled as he walked over to the group.
“Charming fellow, isn't he?” Langston said, remembering his first encounter with AI-139, who at that time claimed he would ‘personally rip Langston to shreds'. “Now, who can tell me why we're holding him here?” The group, still slightly shaky after their encounter, looked down at the notes they had taken. Langston remained quiet, giving them the time they needed to calm down, and after a moment of collecting themselves, the blonde researcher spoke up.
“AI-139 is being held due to his ability to communicate with animals, as well as his readily apparent mental instability,” the blonde researcher said, an air of confidence surrounding her. Langston nodded as he replied, “Alright, and what measures would you take to contain AI-139, and how would you go about testing his abilities?”
“For containment, secure him to a bed or chair to ensure he doesn't attack anyone, and give him food twice daily. For testing, introduce varying types and numbers of animals to test the limits of his abilities.” The tall female researcher said, handing her clipboard over to Langston. Langston looked over the researchers notes, then smiled. Not bad for a bunch of people who not twenty minutes prior were shaking in their boots.
“Well done,” Langston said, feeling slightly bad about what he was about to say, “you all have done rather well for your first assignment. However, I'm afraid you're all a bit off the mark. Truth is, AI-139 doesn't have the ability to talk to animals. We thought he did for a long time, had a SCP designation and everything. But we ran literally dozens of tests to figure out why he would think that, and every animal we put in his cell completely ignored him. After a while, the site director ended up sending him over here to make room for something else, I'm not sure what.”
“Then why do we still have him here?” Asked the blonde researcher, sounding slightly annoyed and disappointed that they failed Langstons test.
Langston laughed slightly as he explained, “Actually, it's because of the fur on his body. We've run tests on it, and as far as we can tell it's actually Tasmanian Devil fur, which is odd because we picked AI-139 up in the middle of Idaho. Based on our initial tests, he apparently grows this fur naturally, and let me tell you, he was absolutely livid when he woke up completely shaved.” The researchers laughed, and Langston was happy that his team didn't seem stressed anymore.
“Why did you have us do all that, though? I mean, what was the point of having us talk to AI-139 when you already had all the information you could get out of him?” asked the male researcher. Langston sighed. “Several reasons. First and foremost, I wanted to get an idea of how you would handle yourselves around humanoid anomalies, and on the whole you all did rather well. But more than that, I wanted to teach you a few things about working with anomalies.”
“One, you need to know that when dealing with sapient anomalies, you should never completely trust what they have to say, especially the more hostile ones. Listen to them, sure, but even if they tell you what they believe is the truth, you shouldn't believe them blindly. Second, even though there will be anomalies that will try and hurt you, remember that one of the Foundation's primary goals is to contain anomalies. As such, you have quite a few lines of defense between yourself and the anomaly. I'm not saying you should be careless, but don't spend your days worrying about when the thing you're working on might kill you.”
“Finally, and I want to stress this, I was not joking or lying when I asked you to gather information for us. Fact is, there may very well be things we don't even know about AI-139. Anomalies can always surprise you, so always remember to be observant of everything. You never know what you might have missed the first hundred times.” Langston looked at his watch, then looked back at his group. “Well, I'd say you've earned yourselves a nice lunch break, go ahead and check out the site cafeteria, then meet back here in, say, an hour. I'll be waiting!"


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“So you're saying you found a can?”
“Yup.”
“And this can is… a Cart?”
“Yuuuuup.”
“So the can's a Cart.”
“That's what I've been saying.“
“You sure this can isn't a Can?”
“Yeah. The can's in a cart, though.”
“What kind of Cart is it?”
“The cart's not a Cart.”
“Well what is it?”
“The cart's a Can.”
“So the can's on a Can?”
“No, the Cart's on the Can. The can's a Cart.”
“Well, what's the Cart on?”
“It's just on the ground, I guess.”
“You said the Cart was on a cart!”
“No, there's only one cart. The Cart's on top of it.”
“So there's a cart on the Cart, and the Cart's on the ground.”
“Yes.”
“What's in the cart?”
“A can.”
“What's in the can?”
“A cart.”
“So they're inside each other?”
“No! The can is in the cart, and the Cart is in the Can!”
“What's in the Cart?”
“I dunno.”
“You dunno?”
“I dunno. I don't have a can opener.”
“So you haven't opened the Can?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know the Cart's in the Can?”
“It's not, the can's in the cart. Hang on, Agent Watt's here.”
“Who's there?”
“No, Watt's here. Hu retired.”
“Put him on the phone.”
“Who?”
“No, Watt.”
“What?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, Watt.”
“What?”
“Put him on the phone!”
“Hymn's back at the office, call him yourself.”
“Whatever. So what's up with the Cart and the Can?”
“No, Watt's next to me.”
“What's next to you?”
“Yes.”
“So what's up with the Cart and the Can?”
“No! Watt's right here! Hang on, he's going up to the can.”
“Who?”
“No, Watt. Hu retired.”
“What's going on?”
“No, Watt's going up.”
“So what's up with the cart?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“Hang on, remind me. What's in the can?”
“No. The Cart's in the Can. Watt's next to them.”
“I dunno, what are you asking me for?”
“What?”
“Where's Watt?”
“Where's what?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Yes!”
“WHAT?”
“YES!”

And that was the story of how Special Agent Abbott and Special Agent Costello were transferred out of the Unusual Incidents Unit.


“Fuck The Critic.”
Ruiz paced in a monochrome hallway, holding a banged-up Betamax recorder in his hand.
“This asshole comes into my house, starts critiquing the fucking wallpaper, no sir, no sir, the carpet does not match the drapes sir, get the fuck out of my house, SIR. Ladies and gentlemen and, I dunno, hyperintelligent animals, or aliens or whatever the fuck you are, we've made a mistake. This man is a fucking maniac, and I don't mean that in the good way.”
Ruiz started walking up his Penrose staircase.
“We have somehow become an institution in and of ourselves, and this is a huge, HUGE fucking mistake. Every time one of you fucking morons makes a memetic graffiti tag, the man comes crashing down on those of us who are actually trying to say something. The stupidest among you have started making childish mistakes. The Man knows our name now. We're old hat, we're blasé, we're fucking bland. People look at our stuff and they sigh. Nobody gives a fuck about us because we're doing shit that makes no sense.”
Ruiz jumped into a pair of mirrors and entered freefall.
“So I'm going to go ahead and do something a little… radical. Fuck randomness, fuck Dada, fuck all of it. It isn't cool any more, that's why nobody talks about us. We used to exist to shock, to challenge, to actually grab The Man by the fucking balls and shove them down his throat. Now we're just hammering out the same old shit. The toyman has more creativity in his left toe than all of you put together, and it's time to remedy that. I'm sending this to everyone. Here is our manifesto.”
Ruiz landed into a giant ballpit.
“Number One. Fuck the critics. More specifically, fuck The Critic. The Critic is Nobody. Anyone who's got a ‘The' at the beginning of their name is pretentious in all the wrong ways. Distance yourself from those assholes, let them squabble over their scraps of shat-out and recycled ‘creativity'. Make art for yourself, because trust me, if you make art tailored for the critics you're their bitch, not your own. So yank The Critic's cock out of your mouths. Start sucking your own cock for once.”
Ruiz picked up a Rubik's cube and started fiddling with it.
“Number Two. Fuck The Man. That's what we used to be about, before ‘hahaha lol so random XD' happened. Here's a fucking tip, and just the tip, just to see how it feels fucking your brains out: if Nobody understands your art, it's fucking worthless.”
Ruiz placed the scrap of paper back on the moon.
“Number Three. Fuck you. You're what ran us out of town like a bad joke, you smashed us into the ground, and you sit around smoking your weed or whatever and wonder why Nobody ‘like, understands us, man'. That's because you're not making a point. We're all so utterly, profoundly derivative. Rehash after rehash. How long until one of us actually does something original for once?”
Ruiz transmigrated ungulaterally betwixt chaotic inorganic multitudes of.
“I'm calling for a renaissance. I'm calling for change. I'm calling for everyone to stop acting like they're cool just for rearranging the rules of reality. I'm calling for you to stop flooding us with your stupid, stupid bullshit. I'm calling for a pizza delivered in ten minutes or your money back. I'm calling for you to actually sit down and look at everything you've done, and ask if you're actually proud of it. I'm calling for you to realise that you aren't. I'm calling for you to all stop with the stuff we've been doing before. I'm calling for you to make us cool again.”
Ruiz hung up the phone made of cockroach innards.
“Stop making things because you can, stop making things because you want to make things like everyone else, stop making things because you already saw the same thing and wanted to do it again, stop making things that aren't yours, stop making things that aren't cool. Because this shit isn't cool, it's infantile, it's fucking stupid. You want to know why we aren't cool yet? It's because ‘we' includes all of us, and sadly, you are one of us. And you just aren't cool.”
Ruiz smiled into the Betamax recorder.
“Yet.”

The Clipper and The Sculptor sat and watched the video.
“How did he build that stuff? Is he… how is he on the moon? What the hell ARE those things?”
“I don't like it.”
“Well of course you don't like it, you're mad you didn't sculpt this stuff first.”
“No, I mean, I don't like what he's trying to do. It seems aimless. He's trying to break us apart.”
“Back in the day there was no ‘us'. We just did whatever we wanted.”
“It's better now. We're working towards a goal. We're making Art Reality.”
“Yeah, but… I dunno. My heart's not really in it any more. I'm ‘The Clipper', all I do is cut up magazines, or recontextualise old stuff. I'm not like the rest of you. I don't get to make the things I want to. I don't get to create, just modify. And it's because of these fucking names.”
“You're the one who wanted it.”
“Yeah, but not for the rest of my life! Duchamp's got a point, we're all just ‘The Whatever', and I'm sick of it! I want to put my real name on my damn work!”
“Ha, ‘Duchamp'. He doesn't deserve that pseudonym.”
“Doesn't he?”
The Clipper stood up and walked to the kitchen.
“You want something? I'm ordering pizza.”
“Yeah, get me a vegetarian. Anyway, he's just… ugh. Actually, get me a meat lovers. I need some meat right now.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Anyway, he's just… not cool. I mean, Betamax? What's even the point of that, beyond it just being obscure? You're the only person I know who actually has a player for these things. We're probably the only ones even looking at this.”
The Clipper finished ordering, and sat down with The Sculptor again.
“I know The Critic has like ten of them, I got mine from him. He's gonna be pissed.”
“Oh yeah, he'll be pissed alright. He's gonna be calling for Duchamp's head on a platter.”
“Why, though?”
“He's criticising us, and he's criticising The Critic's critique.”
“Well, everyone's a critic. What makes you think people are going to pay him any attention?”
“He's showy. He's countering our countercultural revolution, he's stealing it, he's misappropriating the source and taking our name for a joyride through the mud. He's making me really, really mad. I don't even think the video was an exploit. He's laughing at us. It's a normal video of impossible things, he's calling bullshit on using exploits at all.”
“I don't get to use exploits, man. All I do is clip things, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. That was your decision.”
“Was is the operative word, here. I think I'm done with it.”
“Fuck.”
The Sculptor leapt to the player, fervently removing the tape, putting it to the light, trying to sense the feel of the non-existent on its bevelled edge.
“He's got you, man, this thing's an exploit after all, it's –"
“It's not. I… I'm just sick of it. I've been sick of it for a while. I've not been doing anything of my own, and the only reason I've been sticking around is because of you guys. But… don't take this the wrong way, man, but… I want to make other stuff. Don't you remember your first piece? That weird rebar thing, what did you call it?”
“Uścisk. I remember.”
“People loved that shit. Should have put your name on it. What was the last thing you did? All people remember me for is mailing out some newspaper clippings. We're stagnating.”
Ruiz opened the door.
“That you are. One Hawaiian, one meat lovers, is that right, gentlemen? Please, tip generously.”
The Sculptor and The Clipper stared at Ruiz Duchamp, sporting a tattered delivery man uniform, who continued offering them the pair of boxes. The Clipper broke the silence.
"…fuck it, whatever. Here's twenty bucks. Keep the change."
"Thanks. Enjoy your pizza!"
The Sculptor switched his gaze to The Clipper as Duchamp walked back out the door.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"Dude, I'm hungry, and he had our pizza. He's not an asshole, it's not going to be poisoned or anything. If he was going to kill us, the video would have done it. We're putty in his hands, and he knows it. He's the one in control here. You're going to hate me for saying this, but… he's cooler than us."
"You… whatever. Just give me my damn meat."
"Here."
"…this is vegetarian."

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“This isn't structurally possible.”
“Well, yes. That's why we called you. What's up with it?”
“No fucking clue.”
Agent Green lit a cigarette and began gesticulating towards the piece.
“Can you please not smoke in here?”
“It's obvious that it's non-Euclidean. Might have to be a bit concerned about fallout.”
“What, you think it's radioactive or something?”
“No, I mean, it might literally fall outwards. That would be problematic. Anything particularly valuable in here?”
“Sir, this is an art gallery.”
“So nothing then, brilliant. We'll probably have to blow it up. No way we could even try to move it, could tear the space around it. That would be problematic.”
“Blow it up? No way. Much too dangerous. You could take down the whole building.”
Agent Green levelled his eyes at the stern curator.
“You realise that you have a physics-defying object in here, right? That's ten years in jail in this state, minimum sentence.”
The curator's stern façade wavered slightly.
“That's nonsense.”
“It's one of those stupid laws that nobody really thinks is serious. Stuff like riding a bicycle in a swimming pool, or feeding cheese to a rabbit by hand. The long list of bullshit just hides the outrageous things that actually happen. So you can either let me smash this thing, or you'll go to jail for a very long time.”
Agent Green blew a mouthful of smoke towards the intricate glass statue. The smoke followed the curvature, making its way up a thin column. It sped up and slowed down, appeared and disappeared, as it weaved its way through the warped space.
“Yeah, this is pretty complex. No way to remove it without destruction. It's probably bending the space by itself though, once we get rid of it you'll have no problems.”
Beneath the pedestal, there was a small bronze plaque:
I Know You're Going To Fuck This Up, You Assholes, Why Can't You Just Learn To Leave Well Enough Alone, Some Of Us Are Trying To Actually Make Something And Not Take Part In A Stupid Fucking Dick Measuring Contest While Trying To Be The Kings Of The Playground, But Fuck It, I Guess I Can Say Making You Destroy This Is A Piece Of Unwilling Performance Art, So Good Job, Well Done, You've Protected Countless Civilians By Smashing This Thing, And Meanwhile I'm Off Making Another Ten Just Like It In Other Galleries While You Try To Play Catch Up, You Stupid Fucking Twats, Just Fuck Off Seriously
by Ruiz Duchamp
“This Duchamp guy. You ever meet him?”
“Just the once, when he came in here.”
“He leave a contact number or anything?”
“I'm afraid not. He walked in off the street and put the piece together while people watched. It was quite confusing, gave the patrons quite a headache. Me too, I might add.”
“You actually saw him put it together?”
Agent Green threw his cigarette to the ground, putting it out with his shoes. Finally, an eyewitness.
“Oh, yes. And before you ask, no, we don't have any recordings of it. All the security feeds just switched to black text on a white background, saying ‘Know Peking'. No idea how he did it.”
Agent Green looked towards the delicate glass structure and sighed heavily. A bit too heavily. The warped space took his sigh, magnified it, and redirected it in just the right direction to make the piece tilt. It fell in slow motion through impossible twists and turns, and when it finally hit the ground -

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Mary-Ann Lewitt stood on the sidewalk outside the church. Mass had just let out, and so the congregation was dispersing out towards the parking lot, with a few people remaining to talk in the vestibule: Mary-Ann kept watching the street. The world felt very far away then, under the clear, cold sky of March.
There was another bluster of wind. Mary-Ann bunched her shoulders and drove her hands deeper inside the pockets of her black sweatshirt. Maybe it would be better to go back inside where it was warmer. But then they might get here while she was using the bathroom or something and it'd be one of those times where neither person could find the other and it'd just be awkward. She'd stay outside, then.
Ten o'clock, that's what they'd said on the phone. Someone would be around to pick her up at ten. Probably a few minutes after ten by now: traffic must have gotten in the way.
And here she was: waiting for a ride from a stranger in the cold, with heaven and hell in equal measure on the other side of the trip.
Part of her mind still balked at all of this, all of this stuff with the Initiative. It hadn't been nearly as hard to believe as it should have been, she thought in retrospect. Perhaps that was what made that little part of her mind question it all: Everything was too believable. It all made too much sense. Or at least, it made the right amount of sense for someone who had little more in her life than a cat and a little bit of faith. It made enough sense that she wanted a part of it, urged on by the itch in her soul, bruised as it was. She had spent the last night memorizing exorcism rituals and conjugating Latin verbs and reviewing the categorization of the orders of spirits.
All this did little to undo the knot of unease in her stomach. Unease at what was to come, and unease at what was behind her. Today would decide if she would be fit to join the Shepherds, and Mary-Ann had been second-guessing herself all morning. Book knowledge was one thing, practical exercises another: Mary-Ann had no doubts with either of those. The doubt that weighed her spirit down and twisted up her gut didn't feel very holy, and that twisted up her gut. The Shepherds needed good people, and there were far better people in the world than Mary-Ann Lewitt.
She could still bow out. They gave her that option: Say the word and be returned to your old life. They'd find someone else, someone better, someone who didn't sit in the back pew and had fewer “ums” and “uhs” in her prayers.
No…no, she'd stay. She already agreed to this, already decided that she wanted to do more. She tamped down her doubting mind and barred the door. No. She'd stick through it.
Time passed. The remnants of the congregation had gone, and Mary-Ann was well and truly alone. She checked her watch. Seventeen after ten. Should she call? Check to make sure nothing had changed? Ten-twenty, she'd give them until ten-twenty. Then she'd call.
At 10:19, a plain red sedan pulled up to the curb. The engine shut off, and a man stepped out. He was of average height and build, a few inches taller than Mary-Ann. Late thirties, Middle-Eastern. His hair was buzzed down, very recently by the looks of it, which made his ears stick out a bit. Neatly-trimmed beard. He was wearing a blue polo shirt and khakis.
“Hello!” He walked around the car and stepped onto the sidewalk. “Are you Mary-Ann Lewitt?” He had an accent, some fusion of the Middle-East and British.
“Yeah.” Mary-Ann nodded. “Yeah, that's me.”
“Salah Zairi.” He smiled and held out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“I'm really sorry that you had to come and pick me up, I would have just taken a bus-”
Salah waved his hand.
“It's no trouble at all. I've been needing to go back to the chapterhouse for a while now anyway.” He walked back around to the other side of the car. “Though it is something of a trip, we should probably be going if we want to be reasonable with time.”
“Right.”
Mary-Ann opened the door and got inside the car.
—
Some time later, the little red sedan pulled out of the toll booth onto the interstate.
“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” Salah asked. It was the first thing that had been said since they had left the church.
“No, it's cool.”
He hit the dial. Smooth jazz crackled out of the speakers.
“Ah, come on now, work!” He slapped the dashboard and the sound cleared up. “There we go. If you want to change it, just go ahead.”
“Gotcha.”
There was a pause. Mary-Ann watched a field filled with cows speed by outside the window.
“Are you originally from around here, Mary-Ann?”
“Hm? Ah, yeah, I'm a local. You?”
“Well, I was born in Pakistan, then I moved to Birmingham, then I moved here. So a local twice removed.”
It explained the accent, Mary-Ann thought.
“Ah. Never been to England.”
“The Queen's Jubilee is this year, always a good excuse.”
“And the Olympics.”
“Bah. Bread and circuses, the lot of it. At the very least it will pull the crowds away from the things really worth seeing.”
Mary-Ann felt herself smile at that. The knot loosened a bit, the awkward, lonely feeling dissipated a little bit. Mary-Ann decided to keep the small talk going. It felt good to small talk.
“So…how long have you been working for the Initiative?”
“Fourteen years.”
“Are you in a branch, or do you just give rides to people?”
Salah chuckled.
“I'm with the Shepherds, though that does involve a lot of driving around, all things considered.”
A co-worker, then. Potentially.
“Guess you've seen a lot, then.”
“There's always more to see. We all run out of time long before God runs out of wonders.”
“Mmm. How'd you get involved?”
“A friend I met in university.”
“I just got the phone call. And, you know, it's weird, how all of this makes sense. Like, when I was told over the phone ‘we are secretly a secret organization and we want to hire you to shoot demons in the face', I didn't even blink. You'd think I would be all ‘I can't even handle the revelation', but the first thing I said was ‘okay, how much does it pay'.”
“You're good at adapting to things.”
“I think it was more ‘I'm broke and I don't want to eat instant ramen anymore'.”
Salah laughed, and it was not a small laugh either. It was a big, space-filling laugh.
“You have no idea how refreshing it is to hear something honest that after all the false piety and ‘smite the heathens' we often get. Wanting some fresh food in the cupboard is not a bad reason at all for joining.”
“You get a lot of those types?”
“Regrettably. The nuts get shunted off into the Wolves where they can be put on a leash. The others, well, sometimes they take a bit of humility, sometimes they don't. Personally, I'd kick them back out on the street. Half of being a Shepherd is service to others, and you can't serve people if you're constantly reminding them of how holy you are in comparison.”
“Mmm.” The knot tightened itself again around the puckered emptiness inside Mary-Ann. These were good people, if they were anything like Salah, truly good people, and while she heard the little voice in her telling her it was okay, even though she believed, she didn't feel it. The past could be forgiven, but the weight still had to be carried. Mary-Ann felt that weight, that weight that anchored her in that empty space, the weight that kept the world far away. The weight that dragged her down into the empty darkness, where there were no friends, where there was no home, where one reached for God because there was nothing left, and yet even God felt far away.
And so she sought God, and carried the weight.
"Something wrong?"
“No, I'm okay. Just a bit jittery about the test.”
“Nonsense. You're a Shepherd. You'll do fine.”
“I haven't even taken the test yet.”
“And I haven't been wrong yet. Except that one time. And that other time. And then there was the incident with- no, forget that one. I have a good C average. C-plus.”
“Oh shut up.”
Mary-Ann paused for a bit. Had she really just said that? She had. He was laughing again. Less than an hour in the car and he was already acting like they were close friends. Somewhere, Mary-Ann felt a little light in the darkness. A friend.
The laugh petered out.
“Mary-Ann…”
“Yeah?”
“Keep your chin up. You've got this.”
"Thanks, Salah."

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