By Arjun's estimations, the Coalition was surprisingly professional for an organization that was barely three years old. There was something in the methodical, cold way that they operated that reminded Arjun of the Foundation itself. But there was also a naiveté that Arjun had never seen in the Foundation. When they sent out retrieval teams, they had no insurance. There were no specifically expendable personnel to sacrifice in the case of disaster.
Arjun removed the binoculars from his eyes, wiped sand out of the lens, and then stowed the instrument back into his pack. Beside him, Zhi Xin was talking to Owen.
“So Owen, what do you think the GOC's got its hands on this time?”
Owen adjusted his shoelaces.
“You know, they say—or at least their internal communications say—that they think this hole has information about the Ahnenerbe's new toys. But who knows? They might find something more interesting.”
Owen turned to his side and quietly issued a command through the radio.
“If you find anything useful with those eagle eyes of yours, make sure to nab it, right? Make Michelle happy. Give her something to show off to the O5. I mean, they're asking for more and God knows Michelle wants to give it.”
“You think it's strange that the O5 wants more from us,” Arjun said.
Zhi Xin chuckled. “Not strange. Tedious. Look at these guys. Crawling around in the sand, trying to figure out what it is that they've dug up so that they can set the wheels of intergovernmental bureaucracy into motion. Is it a threat to consensus reality? Can we negotiate with it? If not, how easily can we blow it up? Wait, but first, can we use it and then blow it up later? And the O5 wants more in the event that we fight them.”
Without turning to face either of them, Owen said, “They're here.”
Arjun stood up as a vehicle pulled beside them. Insurgency operatives began hauling heavy equipment out of the vehicle. Assembly of the instrument took the better part of an hour, while Arjun, Zhi Xin, and Owen looked on. Eventually, a large, crude metal gate stood before them. Arjun looked into the gate and saw the universe shatter into an infinitely replicating fractal pattern. He pitied the men who had built the machine. They could not appreciate its beauty.
“Remember,” Arjun said, “reconnaissance. Find what they're looking for. Evaluate its threat potential. Take it if necessary. Zhi Xin, if anybody dies or if anything gets destroyed, I'll hold you accountable.”
“Your leadership inspires me not to disappoint you,” Zhi Xin said. Immediately afterwards, she walked into the gate and disappeared.
Arjun and Owen made eye contact. “You haven't learned how to shut her up,” Owen said.
“No. It's regrettable.”
Owen shrugged. “Time to go.”
The two of them entered the gate together. When he exited, Arjun found himself stepping outside of a tent. Workers with the emblem of the United Nations on their vests moved about, covered in dirt, hauling pickaxes and barking orders. Nobody took any notice of Arjun. Part of their mind was too busy, and the other part that would have ordinarily noticed the three was too occupied appreciating the invisible memetic fireworks display taking place three yards to the left of the intruders to pay any attention to them.
“Well, I should say sorry to Michelle. Maybe memetics isn't bullshit after all,” Zhi Xin said.
Without saying anything, Owen disappeared into the crowd of GOC workers. Arjun turned to Zhi Xin. “Come on, Xin,” he said.
“Why such a hurry?” Xin asked. “We already know exactly where we're supposed to go.”
“What?”
“Really, Arjun?”
Arjun looked back at the chaotic throng of people swarming the dig site. Zhi Xin was right. He could see a pattern in their movement, in the way their voices melded together into one indiscernible mass, in the ways their eyes traveled and their feet shuffled. Their actions and their thoughts were all caught in the gravitational well of a certain object, and if Arjun only looked to find the center of their collective orbit, he could find what he was looking for.
“I see it,” Arjun said.
Zhi Xin snorted. “Then let's go.”
As the two moved towards the target illuminated by the HALMAS, Arjun felt his mind stir uneasily. There was very little chance that anything would go wrong; even if they were noticed, it was almost impossible that they would be caught or killed, and no possibility either way that the Foundation would have to bear any consequences. Arjun imagined what it was like for the people who lived in consensus reality and were exposed to the anomalous. The universe itself was revealed to be a lie, a comfortable veneer draped over the true world by an unseen hand, and in truth, reality was an alien, terrifying place.
Arjun had known the unknowable for as long as he could remember, but now, walking through the Coalition dig site, he felt like the ignorant uninitiated about to be baptized in murky, dark water.
The two of them stopped in front of a non-descript tent. For a moment, neither of them moved or said anything.
“It's here,” Zhi Xin said. “Whatever it is. We came here to find out, didn't we?”
“Is something wrong?”
Zhi Xin was staring at the tent. “I think so. But I don't know what. It's an unpleasant sensation.”
“You're being nonsensical again.”
“Am I? Whatever.”
Zhi Xin passed Arjun and entered the tent. Arjun followed close behind.
Inside, Arjun found himself completely incapable of noticing any details about the interior of the tent. His attention was captured entirely by a small book sitting on a table in the middle of the tent. Zhi Xin had already flipped to a page inside the book.
“What are you doing?”
“How long have you been on HALMAS, Arjun? Can't you see? This is—this is—“
Zhi Xin looked up from the book. Her face was set in the rocky tones of determination; her eyes radiated the fragile gleam of fear. “You need to stand at the door and make sure nobody comes in,” she said. “You've served the O5 Council faithfully all your life. You've done it because you know that there is some greater purpose behind everything. If you still think that, then do this.”
“What's going on?”
“If you can't see, that just—it just means that something is definitely wrong. Watch the door, or else I know that things are going to get worse.”
“What?”
“Give me thirty seconds, Arjun.”
Zhi Xin took a syringe of HALMAS out of her pocket and stuck it into her arm.
When Arjun turned around to stand at the door, he found himself staring Owen in the face.
“Let me in,” he said.
“No.”
“Zhi Xin told you not to let me in.”
“I—”
“You don't know why.”
Owen's cold blue eyes did not move. They were as dry and endless as the desert itself. “She's found something.”
“Yes, and—”
“You don't know what it is. You don't know what she's doing. Let me in.”
Arjun stayed in place. There were things that he knew. He knew that it was against protocol for Zhi Xin to be taking HALMAS while in direct exposure to a possible cognitohazard; he knew that it was a betrayal for Michelle to fail to inform the O5 Council about the developments surrounding the engine. He knew all these things but he did not know them, like he knew but did not know of that greater purpose floating somewhere out there. For all anyone knew, it was in outer space, or buried a thousand miles underground, or maybe it didn't even exist. He had realized by now that he knew but did not know so many things, and the only thing that he really knew was that he had always trusted Chen Zhi Xin.
“Move, Arjun.”
She had asked for thirty seconds and now he had to give them.
“I can't. She told me not to let anyone in. I don't know why, but you sure as hell don't know why you need to get in there. I can see it in your face, Owen, don't lie to me.”
Owen reached into his pocket, pulled out a thin metal cylinder, and pressed a button at the top. When Arjun regained consciousness, Owen was behind him and inside the tent. A second later, he pulled out a lighter and tossed into onto the book. Zhi Xin swore and dropped it to the ground, where green flames consumed the book instantly.
Zhi Xin put a hand on her pistol. “Owen, what the hell?”
“It was cognitohazardous. If you suffered continued exposure while on HALMAS, your memory would store the cognitohazard and you would become unacceptably compromised. This is standard protocol.”
For a few moments, Zhi Xin only breathed heavily. Then, she said, “You're right. I fucked up. So did you; you just destroyed that thing when it was obviously important. So how about we make a deal? If anybody—Michelle in particular—hears about this, we're both fucked. Right, Owen?”
“Fine.”
Nobody spoke as they left the tent.
Hours later, when Arjun was in his quarters and staring at the ceiling, he was struck by a sudden hatred for the O5 Council. He remembered the metal cylinder and the green fire. Neither of those things should have existed. And if now they existed, then what cause was he fighting for?
Nothing made sense anymore.

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Ever since Zhi Xin had returned from leading the raid at Larissa, Arjun had watched her nibble on a stale piece of bread. Her face was scrunched in an expression that Arjun judged to be two parts frustration and one part contempt. The two of them were sitting in the cafeteria of the installation currently serving as the Insurgency's headquarters in Greece. The O5 Council had not given them the resources to construct their facilities to ordinary Foundation standards. And why would they? The Insurgency was pretending to be a renegade faction anyway, and what renegade would enjoy superior living conditions to those in power?
“I miss the food at Overwatch,” Zhi Xin said. She tossed the bread onto her plate.
“We signed up for this, Xin.”
“Completely false! We never chose to become D-Class. Nor was the choice to join the Red Right Hand really a choice. That requires approximately equivalently appealing choices. Which were not available.”
Arjun sighed. “And if we did not sign up for this, we do it because it is right.”
“You do it because you believe it to be right.”
“Enough,” Arjun said. “What happened during the raid?”
“There were no SS Ahnenerbe to be found. The temple was empty.”
“The Coalition?”
“Similarly absent, given that the Ahnenerbe weren't there. We beat the Ahnenerbe to whatever they wanted and we beat the GOC to the Ahnenerbe.”
Xin started picking at her nails. She was constantly moving from position to position—slouching, leaning back, resting her head. Arjun thought of gas particles bouncing around in a pressurized chamber. After a while, she picked the bread back up, turned it over in her hands, and put it back down.
“We took what the Ahnenerbe was after. Waited for them to come, killed most of them. Left before the Coalition showed. Standard, routine stuff, Arjun. Why are you so interested?”
“You don't usually act this bored, Xin. I was just wondering if something was wrong.”
“It was standard, routine stuff. Why wouldn't I be bored?”
Xin's words echoed in the emptiness of the cafeteria. Arjun let his attention drift away from Xin. He stared upon row after row of empty seats, and metal tables, and glowing lights that flickered every so often. There was a question nagging at the back of his mind, and as much as he tried he could not plug the leak in the dam blocking up all his doubt well enough to prevent it from escaping.
“I wonder what would've happened if the Ahnenerbe got its hands on the thing,” Xin said.
“What?”
“I mean, don't you ever just wonder, sometimes? What would happen if the ‘bad guys' win. To be honest, we're running out of unambiguous bad guys. They're wizard Nazis, Arjun. Enjoy them while they last, because the GOC isn't having any of this.”
Arjun shook his head. “You're not making any sense.”
“Look, if you can't imagine the world where the bad guys win, then what? What are the stakes? What's at risk? This is why imagination is important, Arjun. Because it'll teach you motive.”
Why am I here?
The question flooded Arjun's mind. Arjun tried repeating to himself: the O5 Council stood to protect humanity, and if the O5 Council needed an organization that did the Foundation's work while absolving it of responsibility, then so be it. But the flood washed that answer away. Ideology became faint and distant before Arjun's eyes, and he realized with a surge of panic that without that there was nothing else to hold onto. And then as soon as it came, the question receded, leaving behind a mind that was not quite sure if the question had come at all.
“So what was the Ahnenerbe even after?”
“V8 automobile engine.”
“Anomalous properties?”
Xin shrugged. “I didn't touch the thing, didn't look at it. You know. Standard protocol. We're testing the thing now. Hell if I want to be in charge, though. Testing is terrible.”
“So we have no idea what the thing is.”
“The one exciting thing about this entire ordeal, yes.”
Exciting things. Arjun thought about Overwatch. Glory and prestige had a certain smell—incense and roses, maybe—when they burned and threw up smoky fumes into the air. That scent filled Arjun's nose when he thought on his own position. He was one of the elect, the chosen few, those who would stand at the side of the O5 and turn back the tide of…
Exciting things. But there was nothing to do.
“I would avoid Michelle tomorrow if I were you,” Xin said. She yawned widely.
“Why?”
Xin laughed, before standing and turning to leave. “Her marvelous invention completely failed to work in the raid. Turns out memetics is bullshit after all. Night, Arjun.”
“Good night, Xin.”

At six foot seven, Michelle Richardson stood well above the other seven members of the Insurgency's High Command. They all had sight, so they all knew that she was perpetually hungry. For years, Arjun had been vaguely aware of some enticing thing lurking just outside the boundaries drawn by the Foundation, something unprofessional and unsanitary and unscientific and quite possibly savage. He shunned it; Michelle craved it.
When Arjun found her on the roof of their research facility, staring at the lights of San Francisco's skyline in the distance, she had a painting canvas before her. It was impossible to see what she was painting in the darkness. As Arjun approached, he noticed several glass vials littering the floor.
“How are you doing, Arjun?” she asked.
“Good. Thank you.”
“Anything I can do for you?”
“No. I only came up here for some fresh air. It gets stuffy in the barracks sometimes.”
“Mm.”
Michelle turned back to her painting, while Arjun stood silently behind her. After a few seconds, she turned back around and locked eyes with Arjun. He knew that he could not observe Michelle without being observed back, and harder. If she had things her way, the universe would organize itself such that it would always be viewed through her eyes.
“Let's talk, Arjun. I don't like it when you only stand there. I want you to speak. Let's have a conversation. I'll start: what is your opinion on the engine?”
Arjun blinked. “I don't believe that we should…be so confident that the engine is really…”
“Every single researcher who has ever been exposed to the engine, without exception, has achieved some miraculous breakthrough in a field of anomalous science. Do you believe that the universe is so chaotic that a probabilistically impossible outcome such as this simply happens without fanfare?”
“I don't know, Michelle.”
The Insurgency was too far gone.
For years Arjun had seen the signs of the world, seen those signs that were straight and ordered, seen those signs that twisted and howled. He had known what was safe and what was dangerous. Then he had been ordered to dive into the jungle of the anomalous and in that heart of darkness somehow map a way through the tortuous land. The voice of guidance from on high had commanded him to eat the forbidden fruit, and so he did, and…
What did it mean to use the anomalous? Whatever goals were achieved, whatever victory was won, the anomalous was part of that result. Arjun knew that the anomalous was beginning to take root in his body. When the day came that he could no longer call the paranormal alien, when he looked at the sign of his own soul and saw it twisted, Arjun knew that he would be permanently lost.
“You're afraid,” Michelle said.
“I am not afraid.”
“Don't lie to me. I can see the fear in your eyes. You're afraid of the engine. It's understandable. But our job is to use the anomalous. It was our assignment.”
“Ultimately our job is to contain the anomalous because it is dangerous. Because it poses unacceptable risks to human society.”
Michelle laughed. “Human society? Of what value is human society anyway? For as long as either of us knows, human society has been built on a lie, and personally, I don't like deception.”
Arjun didn't know if Michelle grasped the irony of what she was saying.
“Imagine what we could do with the engine,” Michelle said. “It is a force for progress. If the Foundation were to use the engine, we would be able to achieve wondrous things. What does the Foundation understand now? Memetics. Amnestics. That's why we have Hallucinogenic Memetoamnestic Substance. It lets us see the world beyond reality, giving us unparalleled insight into the present and future. What if we understood the concept of sapience? The human—or the non-human—soul? Reality-bending?”
“So what has the O5 Council said?”
“I have yet to submit a report to them.”
Arjun blinked.
“What?”
“As promising as the results are, I have no desire to give the O5 Council any false hope. It would be embarrassing. I need more testing and more time. And even when I'm ready, a report cannot be immediately sent, especially given how absolutely secure any communications between us and the O5 Council must be.”
“But at the very least preliminary findings—so that they know—“
“I am overseeing all research regarding the engine. All eight of us had previously decided that this would be the case. Are you questioning my authority?”
“No. No, I'm not, but—Michelle, we are indebted to the O5 Council. They have elected us to be their most trusted soldiers.”
Even in the darkness he could feel the intensity of Michelle's stare. “I am doing nothing but honor the trust they have placed in us. I serve nothing but the better tomorrow that the O5 Council works towards. What do you serve?”
Over the course of the conversation, Michelle had advanced close enough that he would have had to kill her if he had any doubt about her intentions. He felt her eyes take hold of him, dissect him and subject him to the relentless force of her will. He said nothing because he knew that if he surrendered, she would release him.
Without saying anything, Michelle walked past Arjun and left the rooftop.
Arjun stood, watching the sky until the sun rose and light washed over him. Now, he could see the painting. In the middle of the night sky above the San Francisco skyline, one star shone brighter than all the rest. Eight rays of light emanated from the star. Each ray curved and then split into more and more lines of light which spread across the sky.

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The following document was collected in the aftermath of [DATA EXPUNGED]. Sensitive portions of the document have been removed.

7/16/87
Brand new entry in a brand new journal. This isn't my standard-issue Wondertainment Magic Journal. This is my new standard-issue Prometheus Labs E-Recorder. It's encoded to my voice, fingerprints, retinas, and even my pulse. It looks like a Wondertainment Magic Journal, but this thing makes it look like pencil and paper. Thing's crazy. I can tell it what I want to write and it'll do it. Heck, I'm saying this out loud right now and it's recording and formatting and everything! Only problem is that it picks up a whole lot of sound that I have to go back and edit each time I record. Also it can't pick up on italics or anything. But I can record video footage with this and I can connect online and I can write documents on this. It can play music. It even plays Tetris. It's got more processing power than a Wondertainment Super-Brain and costs more than a house. And I got it for free in the mail. I know I shouldn't be telling people this, but it's so fuckin' huge that I've got to tell somebody. The entire department got bought out by Prometheus Labs. I've never even heard of Wondertainment selling something before.

7/19/87
First day at my new job. This place is crazy. This morning, I woke up and there was a box on the front door from Prometheus Labs. I open it up. It's this big blue disk and the packaging tells me it's a teleporter. A teleporter! It's already prebuilt and everything. All I had to do was fit some pieces together like Wonder Bricks and plug it in to the wall. It lit up and then I stepped on it and suddenly I was flying into a mattress. This hits the wall at like a thousand miles an hour but there isn't even a scuff on it. So I get off the mat and pick it up. And I'm looking around, and Jesus Christ I still don't know where in the world I am. I mean it's this huge shiny steel and glass warehouse. And there's fucking fish swimming outside the glass. And I don't mean tuna. I mean fucking anglerfish. There's an honest to god anglerfish outside the windows at the top. Some guy is talking to me and I think he was saying something about the mattress, but whatever. This place is fucking amazing! I got a tour of the place, and it is just incredible. It's like Atlantis.

7/22/87
So I finally finished touring the city. This place is basically Atlantis. It's an underwater city made of glass and some kind of weird metal. I think we get supplies through those teleporters. I dunno why, but we use a maglev to get around down here instead of them. Still, it's pretty cool. The buildings are just these big, rounded structures. They're made out of the same glass and metal. The last five days all I've done is live here and get accustomed to the city. And this place is definitely a city. I've got a pretty swell apartment. It's got a hella view of the ocean but then so does everywhere down here, and it's pretty spacious. Real nice wooden flooring, granite countertops, even a luxury Jacuzzi in the bath. It's made of glass, but the good thing's that it's one way. Somehow they got all my stuff from home down here. Kinda freaky that they got in so easily, but everything seems fine. There's even loads of shops down here, like a Nordstrom's and Mens Wearhouse and Subway and even a theater! Plus my Prometheus ID card lets me get everything for free! They call this place Sub-City Twelve, and I heard someone mention Sub-City Six. Does that mean there are eleven others down here?

7/23/87
Today I finally got a tour of my new office. It's totally different from the rest of the city. It's inside a goddamn volcano, if you can believe it. Like seriously, I rode the maglev into an underwater volcano and ended up in here. Guess it's fake. There's no glass in here, just a whole lot of plastic and some weird metal I can't identify. It's sealed off from the rest of the city and completely stocked with top-of-the-line gear. They even have a biological 3D printer! Lots of biological engineering going on in here. I mean, just to get in you need to get like, five levels of decontamination, wear this spacesuit, and like every other door is labeled with a Class-4 Biohazard symbol. I don't really know why I was hired, though. I mean, yeah I helped design the dragon snails and custom pets, but what would Prometheus Labs want with something like that? They're just pets. I've been assigned to Dr. Frederick Werthal. He seems like a pretty chill fellow. I dunno though… he's like, Polynesian? So that's going to be weird. Still, I think I'll like it here. I met some nice guys. Ranjit, this Indian guy, Annie, this Asian with a real sweet rack, Gunther, this really pale German, and Bernard. Bernard's kind of weird. She's black and her name is Bernard. Yeah… So this should be interesting.

7/25/87
So I've been assigned to a secret project. I don't even know what it's for, but I'm been asked to oversee the design of pioneer organisms. And I mean pioneer organisms. Werthal is designing a lichen that grows in volcanoes! Are they trying to colonize another planet? Why is this secret? Prometheus's probably already done that. Even weirder, we got lessons at the shooting range today! Why would you need gun training at the bottom of the sea? Why would anyone shoot a gun inside a glass dome keeping billions of gallons of water from flattening them? Why does the brass think it's a good idea to teach me- a biological engineer- how to shoot a pistol? I mean, the security drones are good enough, right? If they're going to be coming in all hours of the day to check on us, they better be good to justify a violation of privacy. Still, I guess I can't complain. Werthal says the video footage is stored on the RAM. That means it gets deleted after their shifts, right?

8/1/87
The lichen bred successfully. I have developed a mold that grows in a volcano. I know it's not a mold, but when you put it like that, you really realize what it is we're doing down here. This is pushing the boundaries of science. Not only that, but the lichen are breaking down the rock in the volcano and producing organic compounds suitable for other organisms to grow in! I wanted to tell Jeff, but this is all classified stuff. I don't know why, it's not like this is anything special compared to the stuff cooking inside, like, Lab 7 or something. We're gonna be doing a bunch more over the next week or so.

8/6/87
So I was passing by Lab 7 on the way to the can, right? A-and then I hear screaming and a flash of green light. So I'm wondering what the hell is going on and I knock. And then something fucking dents the door. This is like 6-inch thick titanium, and there's a goddamn dent in it. The alarm goes off and suddenly lights are flashing and the siren's blaring and I'm trying not to shit myself. Then the security drones show up. These things are packing heat like I don't even KNOW. I mean they could probably fight off a whole army. Then they storm into that room and the door slams behind them. And so I'm just staring at that door and suddenly there's like roaring and the alarms are still fucking blaring and flashing and shots being fired and I just got the hell out of there. I don't know what the FUCK happened in there and I don't wanna know. What I do know is that I'm getting certified.

8/9/87
All anyone's been talking about is what went down in Lab 7. Officially, a biomemetic droid malfunctioned and electrocuted the guys working on it, who are currently in intensive care. Nobody's seen anyone from there since yesterday. I bet they're dead. Jesus… Lab 7 doesn't even do biomemetics. Who are they trying to fool? Nobody wants to do anything but figure out what happened in there and why it's been covered up. So what else is being covered up? Oh man…

8/12/87
Work finally got back on track today. We've started building multicellular organisms. Now I can see why they really hired me. They're using the organism molds from that… oh what was it called… whatever it's called, they're using its organism molds as templates. The molds I designed for it. Funny thing, I didn't even know what I was building those for. I guess I still don't. Heh. The point is, they really don't know how they work. It's a good thing we got hired, I guess. You know what? I totally forgot about it 'till now, but I haven't seen anyone else from the department since we were bought out. Were they in Lab 7? Speaking of Lab 7, I finally got certified for a gun. It was easy. All I had to do was fill out a few forms, get a psychiatric examination, and wait a few days. I celebrated by going out and ordering a Smith and Wesson. I keep hearing about them so I figure, why not buy one? From what I've heard, it can stop a bull elephant in its tracks. Probably lying, but hey, why not? I mean, I've got the money to buy it. They promoted me within less than a month. I'm now a senior consultant and that means I make a sweet 140 bucks an hour. 140 bucks! That's like, 1.67 times my old salary at Wondertainment. Plus, delivery with those teleportation systems means it'll be here by the end of the day, I mean tomorrow.

8/19/87
Finally found out what I really got hired for. Prometheus is designing terraforming organisms. But not like algae or plankton. They're building these giant organic factories to do the trick. And they're trying to use mass production techniques. That's what all these specifications and the mold have been for. At first I was like, why not just use algae and plankton? Then when I took a closer look at the specifications, it hit me. These organisms are just shells for the microorganisms we designed earlier. Dunno why I didn't put it together earlier, I mean they're pretty obvious now I see it. Also I was designing them. It's actually a pretty smart method. All we have to do is ensure that the one big organism reproduces instead of millions of smaller ones. It doesn't explain why we haven't been developing any plants, though. I finally managed to build some new molds. Prometheus doesn't have the same tech as the doc did, so it was a bit of a struggle, but I have to say that their 3D printer is definitely all it's cracked up to be. They're printing the first one out now as we speak. The gun finally came today. Is it just me, or is the infrastructure around here kind of falling apart? All week people have been talking about how stuff seems to break at the wrong time or their deliveries are late or whatnot. Hope they get it sorted out soon.

8/20/87
Hufff… huff… hufieuw. Okay, okay, keep it together. At least, heh, at least I can't say it wasn't a memorable day. Let's see… gluup… alright, that should do it. Okay, okay. So. The organism molds were a hell of a success, hee. They worked really, spectacularly well. Hoo boy these are some top-notch pills. What's in them? Let's see… oxy… oxycotin? No, something else… Nico… whatever it is, it's amazing. I want to take some more, but the medic said that this needs to last me the next week. Anyways, back to the molds. So they worked right and the machine printed out a nice specimen with the fangs and the converter organs and all that and shuuuu and a hell of an appetite I mean soon's it woke up it just snatched Ranjit right off the ground and just took a massive chomp I guess I should've remembered it was going to be hungry because that's how the molds are designed so I guess? It's my fault but hey I told them to step back but noooo Ranjit just HAD to get a closer look at the fangs! And then it bit him in two and swallowed his upper half and a whole server rack. Good thing we have offsite backups! I hit the alarm and wouldn't you know, it was busted! Bernard tried feeding it a fire extinguisher like a moron but it snapped it up like Werthal at a Chinese buffet man I am just making some killer jokes today. Wish Ranjit could've heard that one. Bernard snatched up Gunther's gun and just stepped up to it, still trying to fit the extinguisher in its mouth keep in mind, and shoots the extinguisher. Blows it the hell up! Then she more or less got shredded by extinguisher fragments. Around that time security finally shows up and they use- I'm not kidding here- they use a laser beam to slice the specimen in half! Where can I get myself a lightsaber? So then the medics came in and they took Gunther away and Bernard and what was left of Ranjit. Me and Annie got these pill bottles and were told to take one there and then go home and pop another. Then take one every evening, till the bottle's empty. The medic said they were universal antibiotics. Makes sense, there were some pretty nasty bugs in it. There's… thirty- no, twelve, um seven? No, six pills left. I already took one just now, see, and I guess Annie did too.

8/22/87
Can't believe I forgot to record yesterday! Must be the pills. Wonder what other side effects they have. Still, gotta take one in a bit. I think I fixed the aggression in the specimens. Turns out… turns out I accidentally scantronned a whole section of the genome! Like, you know how you can like fuck up scantron sheets by misaligning the answers? Same thing! Funniest damn thing. Going to print a new specimen tonight. Need to be more careful you know, don't want a repeat of the Bernard incident. Everyone's asking what happened, but I had to brush them off, see. It's a secret project, and we can't have them asking questions am I right? Golp, mggm. Man, these pills even taste good! Prometheus really thought of everything! Oh yeah, I almost forgot. There was a major disaster over on the east side. Part of the glass shattered and completely flooded it. Luckily, some flood doors closed that part off. Too bad about the guys in there, but eh. Accidents happen. Weird thing is that I'd never even noticed those flood doors before.

8/23/87
We did it! The new specimen printed great, with no acting out or nothing. It should be a chemosynthetic organism. We put it inside the testing chamber and pumped in a load of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide. It got fatter and then shat out water, carbon, and sulfur. What I created is a diarrhea monster! Ha ha ha ha ha. We're going to print out a few more and then test them in a legit environment. I don't know where they're gonna find a legitimate environment at the bottom of the sea, but whatever. It's not my problem. Still a few kinks with it, mainly the conversion efficiency, but I think I can fix that within a day or two.

8/24/87
Fixed the conversion issues today. Now it's converting at a more manageable but still a very high rate. Just in time too. We got a surprise visit from the VP of the department. Apparently, somebody- Gunther- forgot to tell us that they were visiting! Just good luck that we had something for them to see. I think they were impressed by it, since I got a new specification to print out. I guess this means we're still on track for the showcase. I think I mentioned it already. Too bad that Bernard or Ranjit won't be there, but whatever. Their loss, if you catch my drift!

8/25/87
Printed out the new specimen this morning. Only had to slightly modify the first mold to get this new one. The first one's supposed to get some water and organic compounds, you know. What they're trying to do here is get it to convert various toxic chemicals into oxygen, nitrogen, you know, various Earth compounds. Main goal is to normalize temperatures to Earth norms. Maybe some salt. I'd tell you all about how it works, but that would take forever, and I'm too lazy for that. It worked really nicely, though. I know I usually make these recordings at night, but I'm going to be gone all day. I have a lunch date with you know who! And if things go well, well then! Bow chicka wow wow, you know?

8/26/87
Work's progressing nicely. Doing a whole lot of new stuff at once. I'm way too tired to make a full recording, though. I just want to kick back and play on my brand new NES, but I gotta finish this just for routine. Like brushing your teeth? I'll just say a couple things we're working on. It's pretty cool, they want us to design organisms that can consume raw material and print out other organisms. And I mean raw material. Iron, sulfur, silicon, you name it, they need to eat it! Then they produce, like humans and dogs. Like, better humans. With their genomes and stuff revamped and, um, I dunno, updated, so that they are already adapted to a new environment! That way we can colonize entire new planets! It's really neat. Now we're really pushing the edge! At first I wasn't sure how to go about doing it, but by talking to some guys in a few other departments and borrowing their tech, we managed to get something out. It's times like these that really make me appreciate Prometheus Labs. They work really fast! In other news, I should be done with the pills tomorrow. I don't even have an addiction to them or anything! Prometheus really is amazing.

8/30/87
Yes, it's the middle of the huff day, but BRRRRM huff I gotta huff make BRRRRRRRRM huff huff huff this recording. The shit hit the fan, and this whole place is going to hell! I don't huff huff even know how! One BRRRMMMMRR minute, huff huff huff huff the specimen is converting the environment like normal. It was a bit busted, like it was converting the wrong chemicals. The huff huff huff next minute, the testing chamber broke, and it's flooding the lab with gas! We got the hell out of there, but the fucking lockdown procedure didn't work! So then the entire ZAP complex is filling with gas. Everyone RRMMMBLL evacuated and the drones got sent in. And you know what happened? They got converted! The process worked great. Isn't that a ZIIMMM fucking joke! God CRACKLE damn it Carter open the door! Working on it! My specimen works perfectly and it's going to kill us all! We're going to fucking khoo ghaacck hgghhck suffocate on its farts! If its kids don't get us first. The environment was apparently conducive to carnivorous organisms, and they got out! You know why? Because the lockdown procedures failed miserably. We gotta get to the tele porters aye BZZT sap before the place fills with gas. Carter why is the door not open yet! Thank you! Where do we go now? Okay, let's go! So, what was I saying? Oh right, we might get eaten or CRACK asphyxiated! Jesus Christ! Shoot it CRACK CRACK KREEEE shoot CRACK it! Huffhuff huff huff. Oh my god. Ooooo my god. Holy fucking christ it tore off his head! Go go go go KREEEEeeee! Oh jesus oh jesus oh jesus! Way to go! You and your bloody bioengineering! Oh of course it's MY fault! It's not like the fucking containment chamber broke as soon as it touched it! I'll tell you what it BRRRM was! Fuck it just go! One of the specimens just snatched up Carter! It was just this fucking centipede that up and ate him! But that wasn't even one of mine! Where the fuck are these coming from? Unless… oh my god. They're evolving! How the fuck did they do that, then? I don't know! We need to move quicker! Hisssssss can you hear that? Oh my god the entire lobby's flooded! How do we go now? Let me see, come tup tup on, come on tup, come on! Here we go! We need to go left! KRASH oh god it's blocked off it's blocked off! Jesus jesus REEET jesus we're DIDDIDIDI trapped oh god please god REEEEEET god please help me no please help help jesus please oh help me help me help me AAAAAAAAAIIIIIII KRUNCH

The document ends there. SCP-████ was discovered nearby, consuming various pieces of debris strewn around the area.


"Following this event, settlements were quickly established. The interim leaders of the settlements, Omega-021, Epsilon-024, Zeta-031, and Gamma-050 decided that a meritocracy would form a solid bedrock for a stable and peaceful society. They assumed control of their settlements on the basis that their initiative and ingenuity in establishing initial control proved their ability to lead and govern. Society flourished for eighty years under their leadership. During this time, numerous more settlements were established across the continent…"
Delta-735 quietly sealed off his eardrums. He'd already read the file, and the digi-tutor was just reading it off again. Besides, if the tutor asked him a question, it would still come through. He surreptitiously snuck a glance at Phi-724. She was staring intently at the digi-tutor. Delta-735 resigned himself to the knowledge that she would not look at him, then he looked again. Phi-724 was now quietly reading through her e-reader. Delta-735 sighed to himself. Her bright, iridescent nictitating membranes, the sheen of her waxy skin, the way her nostrils flared ever so slightly to capture extra water vapor, and the way she effortlessly applied linear quadratic estimations while also calculating angular velocities and trajectories for inertial guidance systems exuded grace and beauty. His reverie was broken by the beep of his e-reader. Delta-735 nervously unlocked it to peer at his newly arrived test scores.

"Darwin man, if I'd gotten a 93 on an exam I don't think my unit coordinator would've let me back into the charging pods!" Lambda-713 buzzed, his voice muffled through the radiation suit.
"Look, I don't want to talk about it right now," came Delta-735's reply. "Can you just get the anode? We can't have a Hall effect thruster if there isn't any electric potential!"
Lambda-713 walked towards the back of the hangar. He scanned the shelves for an anode, picked one up, and returned to 735, his feet clanging against the metal floor.
"C'mon man, what happened? How could you screw up so badly?"
"For Darwin's sake what part of I don't want to talk about it don't you understand?" 735 shouted.
"Seriously, what happened?" 713 pried. 724 wasn't listening, though. He was looking somewhere else. 713 followed his gaze. Outside of the garage where the two were working, Phi-724 was trotting down the street, kicking up iron-laden dust as she went. 713 whistled appreciatively, observing how the length of each stride was precisely calculated to use as little energy to cover as much ground as possible. Then he noticed 735's eyes following her every step of the way.
"Oh Tesla! You have a thing for her, don'tcha!" 713 realized. "Wait, she's in your class…"
"Shut up and plug in that anode!"
"Dude, if you want to work with her, you gotta talk to her first!"
735 sighed, grabbed the anode from 713, and quickly secured it into the thruster casing. "Look man," he buzzed, " we have nothing in common. She's designing flying organisms for cargo transport for her project. We're designing a hyper efficient Hall effect thruster. Plus she's a Phi. Phi's are engineered to go for Iotas and Zetas, you know that!"
"To be fair, there was that one time that an Alpha and a Phi got together." 713 pointed out. "But I have a better idea. A friend from Settlement-05 told me that Phis are big on ecology. He also told me that there are rumors of some weird organisms by the original landing site. So all you gotta do is find one of those things, bring it back, and show Phi-724! She'll be all over you."
"What kind of weird organisms?" 735 buzzed curiously.
"Well, that's the thing. He swears that people have seen Homo sapiens."
735 snorted, his mouthparts curling to let the air flow through and against his tracheas in such a way that it would strike the right balance of incredulous and condescending. "You Luddite! At least try to come up with something I can believe."
"I'm serious! He says there's a few wandering around near the landing site. No one's gone to check it because Homo sapiens have been extinct for more than ten thousand cycles. But if there are some…"
735 shrugged. "Fine, let's go. We can test out the range of the thruster anyways. Help me hook this up to the buggy."

The duo cruised across the red dunes, their rucksacks bouncing as the buggy kicked up sand. The Hall effect thruster worked perfectly, propelling them forward at a crisp 20 kilometers per second. Several times the buggy almost lost traction on the granular iron sands. To both of their reliefs, the buggy did not tip. Within 120 seconds of setting off, they could see the landing site. Within 123 seconds, they were at the landing site. Within 123.01 seconds they were about to crash into the generation ship.
735 smacked the emergency brake. The Hall effect thruster immediately shut off, and the buggy's emergency magnetorheological brakes arrested all movement of the buggy, converting it into flywheel energy that could kickstart the buggy. It did not, however, arrest the movement of 713 and 735, who were hurled from the buggy and against the generation ship.
735 bounced back to his feet and picked up his rucksack, head spinning but paradoxically steadied by his own excitement. He had seen the generation ship before, but always from a distance. Now he could actually reach out and touch it. The tall, white, egg-shaped craft stood proudly, its enormous ion drives supporting it even as the bright red sand battered at it, fighting to engulf and consume it. On the side of it, nearly worn off after thousands of cycles, were two characters, written in an archaic script. One character was a sideways semicircle attached to the upper right of a vertical line. The other was a straight line connected to a second, perpendicular straight line.
"Did somebody get the license on that speeder?" 735 looked to his right to see 713 forcing himself to his feet. "Ah geez, my head is killing me."
"You okay?" 735 asked.
"Yeah, I should be fine. Check the buggy. Are the tranq guns there?"
735 bounded over to back of the buggy, where the supplies were stored. He opened the trunk and pulled out two long, thin rifles. "Tranq guns are fine. They're loaded, too. Catch!"
713 bobbled the gun, which went off in his hand. "Religion! The bloody thing almost hit me! Hey! Look at this!"
735 walked over to 713, who was peering intently at the ground. It was a footprint, but unlike any they'd ever seen before. It was a fat, oblong cylinder with ridges inside.
"Huh! This must be a Homo sapiens footprint! Okay, let's see. Homo sapiens like flesh, right? Maybe we can lure one out with some meat." 735 decided.
"Okay, let me see…" 713 murmured. He took a piece of jerky from his rucksack and moved around. "Hey man, there's a hole in the generation ship!"
"Really? Where?" 735 called back incredulously.
"Over MMMMMRRRRRPPHHH!"
"713? 713!" Delta-735 raced towards Lambda-713, his hearts pounding in his chest. The sand restricted his speed, threatening to make him slip, but 735 reached 713 in time to see him being dragged by something into a great rend in the side of the ship.
"Oh Darwin oh Darwin oh Darwin…" 735 stared into the gap. It was nearly impossible to see. Enormous gears and wires threaded through the gap, sparking and giving off horrendous noises. 735 turned, intending to get help, but then stopped. What if 713 was killed by then? Or something worse?

Inside, almost no light could penetrate the ship. The ground was rough and metallic, and all sorts of gears, rods, and jagged ends poked into the corridor, rubbing against him. Eerie, harsh shrieks, loud roars of machinery, and the crackling of electricity punctuated the thick air. He felt claustrophobic, which was bizarre since he'd spent all of last night poking around the ventilation shafts back in the hive. But this was nothing like the hive's warm, organic confines. This was cold, sharp, and grim.
735 crept a little further in. He jumped and smashed his head on a rod as a particularly violent screech hit his eardrums. The sound echoed through the vast confines of the ship. 735 swore to himself that he would never visit the generation ship again if they survived. At that moment, he heard voices, although he couldn't tell what they were saying. 735 carefully followed the sound, doing his best to avoid alerting them. He wound his way through the corridors, dodging sharp falling objects, dangling wires, and all manner of other hazards. The ship was nothing like he'd imagined it. It wasn't a space worthy utopia. It was a nightmarish prison.
Delta-735 suddenly found himself peering into a wide, bright, circular chamber. Large spotlights illuminated the white, plastic floor. Two enormous slugs, similar to the ones in the hives, lay in the middle, throbbing. Every so often, they would squeal, and their cloacas would distend, ejaculating clear liquid as well as a small, fat hominid. The tiny offspring were hideous. Their soft, smooth-looking skin was a pale beige, and their digits were fat, round things. Two enormous, bulbous eyeballs blinked and swirled as the creatures howled. At that moment, 735 heard a voice as he fought to keep from vomiting. He couldn't hear it very well, but he could tell where it was coming from.
Delta-735 looked up. Near the top of the chamber was an observation room. A tall, rounded bipedal creature in a white garment was standing within, blocked off by frosted glass. At the same time, he could hear agonized shrieks coming from behind the thing, the voice of which belonged to Lambda-713. Delta-735 shuddered, and aimed his tranquilizer rifle. At that moment, he heard something behind them. Then a large, flat object smashed into his skull, and blackness overtook him.

Delta-735 woke with a start. He was strapped down to some sort of table, oriented upright.
A large, beige creature in a light-green full-body garment and mask stood in front of him, speaking into a recorder in some incomprehensible language. Delta-735's eyes widened as he frantically fought to extricate himself from his restraints. The creature noticed him move, said something else, and then waddled away from him. Across the room was Lambda-713, tied to a similar board, whose eyes widened upon seeing Delta-735. Several electrodes were taped to his skull.
"735! Are you okay?"
"Except for being tied up by a fat hominid, I'm great!" 735 snapped.
"Can you get out of these restraints? They're too tight!" 713 called back.
"I'm trying!"
735 made a show of fighting his restraints, but Deltas weren't engineered for athleticism.
The fat thing waddled back into view, dragging a trolley of sharp-looking surgical instruments. 713 and 735's eyes widened in disbelief. This creature was going to perform surgery on them? Without any sort of robotic assistance?
The fat creature said more things into its primitive recorder, took a serrated scalpel from the trolley, and moved towards him. If he could cry, Delta-735 knew he would have. Even while Delta-735 plead to every scientist he could think of, the creature made a long, straight seam down his chest, from neck to groin. Oddly, he couldn't feel anything. Then it peeled back the seam. Fat, muscle, nanomesh, and bone came with the seam, exposing 735's organs. His two hearts pulsed in time with the electronic devices that regulated them, drumming out a grotesque tempo. Delta-735 wanted to close his eyes but he couldn't keep them off the spectacle happening to him. His lungs throbbed as they exchanged oxygen and captured carbon dioxide for photosynthesis. His stomach was very nearly empty, probably because he had not eaten anything since before they left, but the chloroplast sacks busily performed photosynthesis in the artificial light. Delta-735 almost giggled. All this for some girl?
The hominid continued prodding around inside his chest cavity. It fiddled with his hearts, almost shutting them down at one point, poked at his lungs, investigated his rounded stomach, and generally poked and prodded. Its clothing was spattered with blood. All the while, it mumbled into its little recorder. Once it was satisfied that it had prodded him enough, it took a spray canister, rolled the edges of the seam back together and sprayed. The cut in Delta-735's chest sealed up. Then it took its scalpel and moved it to 735's arm. It busily sawed away at his arm, exposing his nerves, tendons, and blood vessels. Mercifully, 735 couldn't feel it. He supposed he had been given some sort of anesthetic. Then the scalpel sliced him in a particularly sensitive nerve, one that the anesthetic failed to desensitize.
The pain forced 735's adrenaline response to kick in. His arm ripped itself from the restraints, ignoring the blood spattering from his arm, and socked the hominid in its masked face, sending it reeling. As the hominid tried to regain its balance, 735 was already freeing himself. Fear gave him wings, as he bounded across the operating theater and pounced onto the hominid. 735 smashed the creature into the ground, beating at it with his fists, kicking it, throwing everything he could grab from the trolley at its head. The hominid fought at first, then weakened as a bright red fluid that was probably analogous to blood gushed from its head. Eventually, it simply stopped moving. But Delta-735 wasn't done. He ferociously beat at it and beat at it and beat at it and beat at it, smashing until the creature's head was a pulpy red and grey mess. Delta-735 sat there, panting in rage and fear. Had he killed it? Was it dead? Had he killed something? Oh god he had killed it! 735 got to his feet, finally remebering his opened arm. He stood up, taking the scalpel from the hominid, and stumbled towards 713. He sliced the restraints holding 713.
"What do we do now?" 713 asked.
"We get rid of this."

Omicron-746 was watching the sands for a project of his from the gatehouse. Thus he was able to see Lambda-713 steering a buggy towards the settlement, with Delta-735 lolling against his shoulder. 713 stopped at the gatehouse for 746 to come out. "Dude, where have you- Curie! What happened to Delta-735?"
"He was attacked by a sand sweeper. His arm's in pretty bad shape. Help me get him to his hive. What's wrong?" Lambda-713 snapped.
"The generation ship blew up! That's what's wrong! Our fucking heritage is gone!" Omicron-746 replied, as they picked Delta-735 up. "They found some weird shit in the wreckage. There were some… slug remnants in there! Like, the ones in the hives, but these ones were spawning something else! Nothing even remotely human!"
"Huh. Do we know what they were spawning?" Lambda-713 asked innocently.
"No. We found some weird, pink skin, but that's about it."
"Guess we'll never know."
"Yeah. Say, I heard you guys went out looking for Homo sapiens. Did you find anything?"
"No. Not a thing."


This is a sequel to Going Out Of Book. You should probably read that first.
At first, all she saw was darkness. Then a red glow crept in. She was lying on a cold, hard surface, staring up. There was hissing, and cranking, and a rattling that sounded like a million wooden beads hitting the ground at once. Behind her was something that resembled laughter. The noise blended together into a low rumble that seemed to wrap around her and gently squeeze.
She became aware of a voice. “I told you doing this here was a good idea!” Whooping laughter followed.
The world was spinning. Her head felt like she had spent the past three days mainlining Jack Daniels, and her stomach wasn't much better. There was something wet under her nose. Touching a finger to it, she saw that it was blood.
Okay, she thought. This isn't the worst thing you've ever done. Get up.
She had begun to push herself up when a hand appeared in her vision. “Need a hand?” said the same voice as before.
She brushed the hand away. A voice in the back of her thoughts wondered why it had been red, but she ignored it. Rolling to her side, she tried to force her body up from the ground, but her arms buckled. A pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and started pulling up. She shook them away. “Fuck off,” she mumbled, more to herself than the person. Sucking in a deep breath, she wrenched her legs forward, under her body, then pushed up. She rose to a squat. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to stand. Her legs wobbled, but she stayed up.
Wiping the rest of the blood from her nose, she began to examine her surroundings. She'd been lying on a circular stone platform, about a foot off of a green carpet. The room was massive- the ceiling wasn't visible, and the walls looked hundreds of feet off. Around her, two dozen people were gathered around three grills, talking, laughing, clutching cans of beer. At least, some of them were people. There was something that looked like a shark with legs devouring a large hamburger. Next to it, a dog-sized mass of squirming tentacles worked a grill. They were both conversing with what looked like a ten-foot tall man made of copper, brass, and gold.
She turned. Behind her was another man, his skin lobster-red, eyes pure blue. He was dressed in a patched up leather jacket, jeans, and a Black Flag t-shirt. As far as she could see, he was completely hairless, though a thin ridge ran down the center of his head and into his jacket. A grin was spread across his face. “Hey,” he said, “I'm Colby.”
“I thought this was a Li-”
“Man, that was fucking awesome,” he said, his grin spreading wider. “You know it's been like… two months since anyone used that Way? Mitchelloth said nothing would happen if we came here, but I bet he's not feeling so smart now, is he? Hey Mitch!” he yelled, throwing an arm up in the air. “You owe me that copy of DeFronde, you fucker!” He turned his attention back to Alison. She became suddenly aware of several other… beings surrounding her.
“So, where am-”
“They didn't believe me when I said I could feel the Ways! Serves them right.” His grin widened, and he began smacking his knuckles against his palm. “You've gotta be a first timer, yeah? Yeah, if you weren't you'd know how to go through one without getting all mashed up. I can show you that, if you want. But man, lemme just say how cool that was! Most people, when they first come through, they're completely out. But you got up like it was nothing. Fucking sweet.”
“That's great, but-”
“So you'll want to meet everybody, right? It's no fun exploring the Library on your own, especially not the first time. Unless you've already got a guide, but if you did you wouldn't have landed like that, right? But don't worry, we're always open to new people. Where are you from anyway? I mean, you probably don't know the actual answer to that. But I mean, what country? Who's president? Do they have Gillferan food? You seem pretty-”
“Shut. Up,” she said, almost spitting the words. “I'm just trying to ask one damn question. Why is that so hard?”
Colby blinked at her. The grin melted away. “Oh. Yeah. Oh, damn, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude like that.” He rubbed the back of his head, looking away.
She sighed. “You said this was the Library. Last I heard, libraries had books, and I don't see any. So what's going on? Where am I?”
“We're in a side area,” he said, still looking away. “You know, for other stuff. Relaxing and sleeping and, you know, stuff.” He gestured towards the grill. “The actual books are in a different area.”
“Alright,” she said, crossing her arms. “How do I get there?”
“You don't want to stay a bit?” He looked hurt. “Come on, it'll be fun. We've got steaks, and Damon's making pasta, and there's gonna be cake and a big book reading. You'll get lost if you try to go into the stacks on your own.”
“I'll be fine,” she said. Looking around the room, she saw dozens of other groups of people. Some were cooking, some were sitting and reading, one had even set up a campsite. From what she could tell, less than one in ten of the beings here were human (or at least looked it). “Which way are the books?”
Colby sighed and pointed. “Can you maybe tell me what you're looking for, at least? I could probably point you in the right direction.”
She thought for a moment. “I need information on the Serpent's Hand. Where they are. What they're doing. How I can find them. And anything you have about the Foundation.”
Colby paled. “The Foundation? Are you out of your mind? What the hell do you want with them?” His eyes darted around the room. He clicked his teeth together. “Man, I should have known something like that was up with you, the way you showed up. Look, I can't have anything to do with that stuff, L.S's whole group is fucking crazy…” he trailed off.
L.S. The name sounded familiar. She'd heard it before, rumors of an ever elusive figure within the Hand. She sighed. “Then why bother?” She turned to walk off.
“Excuse me,” said a voice. Alison looked and saw a short, blonde woman approaching. “I heard you expressing your interest in the Hand?”
“Can you help me get to them?” said Alison.
“I can do better than that,” said the woman, smiling. “I'm a member. I can answer any questions you might have. But first, let's get a burger.”
The burgers weren't terrible, for something cooked by an alien tentacle monster. Juicy and well-seasoned, with just the right amount of cheese. Alison ate it quickly, taking stock of the beings around her as she did. She'd seen a few non-humans in her travels: the waste spirit, aliens captured in a Foundation facility, a demon summoned when a spell backfired, but nothing like these, and never so many. There was something that looked like a miniature animate tree, a man with wings that shone in the light, a woman whose face always seemed to be hidden in shadow.
There were talking animals, and a robot that looked like it had come out of an Asimov novel. Only a few meters from her, a mass of floating bubbles was talking to a woman with a birdcage on her head (complete with parakeet). From what she could tell, they were discussing the physics behind divine intervention. There were a few humans too, but not many. She wasn't sure what she had expected coming here, but it hadn't been this.
The blonde woman walked up. She had a plate with three burgers, a pile of fries, and a large can of beer. At least, Alison was pretty sure it was beer. The label didn't seem to be in English, or any other human language she'd seen.
“Alright,” said the woman. “First thing's first, my name's Meredith. You are?”
“Alison,” she said.
“Nice name,” said the woman, taking a large sip of beer. “So, Alison, what do you want with us? Not often someone just shows up on our doorstep like this.”
Alison thought about this. She didn't know this woman. For all that she knew, Meredith was completely lying about being a member of the Hand. She could be a plant, she could be an angry spirit, she could be a buddy looking to avenge Diligem. “I'm looking for a friend. He vanished a few months ago, but before he did, he was talking about you guys, and coming here.”
Meredith nodded. “And you think the Foundation might have something to do with him going missing, right?” She took another swig of beer, then crumpled up the can and placed it by her feet.
“He thought they were watching him. He was… different, and said they would come after him for it. The night before he disappeared, he called me to say he needed to leave as soon as possible. That was the last I heard of him.” It wasn't a great lie, but it would work. Probably. At the least it would hold up until she decided if it was alright to tell the truth.
Meredith nodded. “What was his name? We get a lot of people looking for refuge.”
Alison bit her lip. “Jonathan Bell. He had black hair, green eyes, was about this tall,” she motioned with her hand, “and always looked real nervous.”
“I can't say I've seen him, sorry,” said Meredith. “Though there's dozens of groups of us around the Library. It's entirely possible he's with one of them.” She took a bite of cheeseburger and thought as she chewed. “But you're doing more than just looking for him.”
Alison started. “What do you mean?”
“If you were just looking for your friend, you wouldn't need information on the Foundation,” said Meredith, staring into Alison's eyes. There was something disconcerting about her glare. Alison fought back the urge to squirm. “You're planning something against them. Or at least, you want to.”
“It's not like that,” said Alison.
“Look,” said Meredith. “Why you're here is not my business. If you want it private, fine, it's private. But moving against the Foundation is different. They're dangerous, and that's not something you hear often around here. If you're in their way, you're finished. Three of my friends have been killed by them. Two more were captured, and there's absolutely nothing I could do about it. So, are you sure you're up to making an enemy of them?”
Alison wasn't sure what to say at first. Of course she was. That's what she'd come all this way for. She just hadn't expected it to be put so bluntly. “I am.”
Meredith smiled. It wasn't a cheerful expression. “We'll see.”
After they ate, Meredith took Alison to another room, filled with beds. “There are things I have to take care of,” she said. “It should take a week or so. In the meantime, take a look around the place. Explore the Library, see what you find. Just be careful where you go.”
That had been three days ago. Since then, Alison had spent most of her time wandering the stacks. She'd kept to herself, mostly, and the few times someone had tried to approach her she'd been able to brush them off.
Searching the stacks had yielded little information about the Hand or Foundation. The organization behind the shelves, if there was one, was completely beyond her. Books were arranged with no regards to content, condition, author, publication date, even language. A copy of “The Complete Harper Lee” (over a thousand pages long and with text almost too small to read) would be right next to a user manual for a 1959 Austin Mini. It was maddening.
After the first two days of searching, all she'd manage to scrounge up was a book of poetry, “Oh, That Spiteful Snake”. Calling what was inside “information” would have been like calling Goodnight Moon an epic. Questioning the people she lived with didn't give her much else. Most of them preferred to be left alone to their reading. The few who cared to answer did so in the vaguest possible terms. Still, it wasn't a total loss. Even if the books weren't what she was looking for, they were fascinating, and by the third day she had developed a hefty stack of reading material.
It was the evening (according to her watch) of the third day. The last time she'd seen another person had been seven hours ago. The flow of people around the Library, she'd noticed, was similar to people grouping around a coastline. Most tended to stay near where resources were plentiful, by the common areas and living halls. Go even a few hundred meters deeper “inland", and the amount of people quartered. Go a few hundred more, and you'd only find one or two people browsing each shelf. A kilometer or more, and you would be searching alone. She'd wandered at least five.
Which was why she was so shocked to see someone else. She turned the corner to a shelf (REMUNERATION, read a small gold placard on the side. They all had signs like that. As far as she could tell, it was irrelevant to anything) and the woman was standing at the end, reading a book. She was short, and blonde, wearing a long black coat, and green fleece cap. Anything else was too far away to see.
Curious as the sight was, Alison ignored her. She walked down the aisle, running a finger across spines, pulling out and flipping through any books that looked useful. None were. A few seemed interesting at least. She slipped those into her bag.
Her finger stopped when she felt something warm. It was resting on the spine of a thin, white book with no text. As she pressed her finger to it, it pulsed, like a heartbeat, and began to warm. Curious. This was the first thing of its kind she'd seen here. She pulled it from the bookshelves, and it squirmed in her palm. At least, it felt like it did. The book itself didn't move. The cover felt like it was made of leather, and seemed heavier than it should have. In gold emboss, a complicated tetragram had been placed on the front cover. She flipped it open.
Sand erupted from the pages, slamming into her stomach. The world spun around her as she was launched into the air, and came slamming back down into the ground. The book spun out of her hands, landing at the other ends of the shelves. A geyser of sand spewed from the pages, spreading across the floor. She lay in a small pile of the stuff.
Her head was pounding. A trickle of blood ran down her forehead. She wiped it away and tried to stand, but her foot caught on something, and she fell back. Something tightened around her ankle. Sand covered her foot, creeping up across her leg. She tried to tear it away, but the sand clamped down.
There was a hissing noise. The sand around her was beginning to vibrate. It rattled against her, grains leaping into the air, showering her. A trail of it was snaking across the floor, moving across the carpet from her to the book like a worm. The hissing grew louder. It almost sounded like a voice.
Sand wrapped around her arms and other leg. The pile underneath her was shifting, spreading out around her. The edges rose in the corner of her vision. They seemed to tower over her, like a tidal wave of dust. The hissing was even louder now, a screaming in her ear. Piercing through it was a voice. I wondered how long it would be until you came. It sounded like someone speaking through an avalanche. How long you would be able to deny your sin. Does it pain you, Mikhal, to remember what you have done to me? I hope it did.
The sand rushed down towards her. She sucked in a breath of air and began to count seconds. The wave crashed into her. Soon, she was cocooned in it. I see her face in my mind every day. The way it looked when she realized you had left, when she knew you had damned us. You couldn't even stay to see that. You wouldn't even look us in the face when you seal our fate. Coward. The sand was tightening around her. Already, she could feel herself beginning to give, to buckle under the pressure. It was hard to think of anything past the pain, but she forced herself to think, to keep counting time.
They took her from me. I never knew her final fate. I hope they killed her quickly. I don't know how long they kept me alive. I don't remember anything but the pain, and hoping that you would return. But you never did.
Thirty seconds. She released her breath, bringing the words to her mind. Nothing happened. Her stomach sank. Had it failed? Had her timing been off? She'd only cast this spell a few times before. Had it-
A wave of wind burst from her, ripping the sand away. She pushed herself to her feet as it began reforming. A whip of sand lashed at her, but she rolled out of the way. As she did, she saw the woman from before, standing at the end of the shelves, only a few meters from the book. Her arms were crossed, and she wasn't moving.
“Hey!” yelled Alison, “Help! Close the damn book!”
The woman didn't move. Another bludgeon of sand rushed at Alison. She ducked under and sprinted towards the book. The woman didn't move.
Something slammed into Alison's foot, sending her tumbling to the ground. As soon as she hit the floor, sand wrapped around her arm. It threw her up, pinning her to the wall. More ropes of sand sprouted from the ground, moving towards her. The woman was nowhere to be seen.
Alison tried to wrench her arm away, but the sand gripped it too tight. Another tendril collided with her leg. She kicked at it. Her feet hit the side of the sand and burst through. It reformed in seconds. Still, it was better than nothing. With her free hand, she groped at the shelves behind her. Her fingers wrapped around a thick volume, and she ripped it from the shelf, swinging it at the sand holding her arm. It sliced through and she fell, pinned to the shelf only by her foot, hanging upside down.
She wound up and threw the book as hard as she could. It hurtled through the sand, and she crumpled to the ground. There was a crunch, and pain shot through her side, but she ignored it. Already, she could see the sand reforming and rushing towards her.
Clutching her arm, she sprinted forward. Tendrils of sand batted at her legs, but she danced around them. She could hear the voice behind her, screaming. You dare? it cried. You dare try to flee? To run from this fate, when we could not? Turn around, coward, and face me with some dignity. She ignored it. Sand smacked into her back. She stumbled, but kept running.
The book only a few meters from her. She dove, arm outstretched. As she did, the fountain of sand sprouting from it turned and slammed into her shoulder. She tumbled down. The stream of sand twisted in the air, rocketing towards her. She pushed herself forward, rolling under it. Reaching an arm out, she snatched the cover of the book and threw it shut.
The voice stopped mid-sentence. The sand fell to floor. The Library became quiet. Panting, she rose to her feet. The world seemed to spinning around her. There was a buzzing noise in her ear, and her vision was blurry. Her knees buckled. She reached out and steadied herself against the shelf before she could fall any further.
It was thirty minutes before she could stop shaking and begin walking back to the common areas.
Meredith was sitting by her bed, reading a book. She looked up as Alison limped near. “Well,” she said, “don't you look like a woman who's just had an experience?”
Alison grunted a reply and collapsed onto the bed. “What the hell was that?” she managed to say after several minutes.
“What was what?” said Meredith.
Alison sighed. “What do you want?”
Meredith stood and stretched. “So, I've talked to some people. They'd be interested in meeting you.”
Just like that, the pain disappeared. Alison sat up. “What? Who? When?”
“Now, if you're up to it,” said Meredith.
Alison nodded.
“Follow me,” said Meredith. They began walking, out of the common area and into the Library. A few people stared at Alison, bruised and limping, but she ignored them. They wound through the shelves, moving back and forth between them until she'd lost any idea of where they were. Then they kept walking. Every time she tried to question where they were going, she was met with silence.
It was 45 minutes before they stopped, in a shelf that looked like every other (MENDACITY, read the plaque on the side). Meredith knelt down and rapped against the rug three times. She stood, took five steps back, and stomped twice. Then she took four steps to the left and stomped another six times.
A hole appeared in the floor. It didn't slide open, or open like a door. It just appeared, as if it had always been there. Leaning against the side was a ladder. The floor below was made of wood, and well lit. Meredith began climbing down. Alison followed.
They descended into a short corridor. At the end was a red door. Lining the roof were several fluorescent lights. On the sides were paintings depicting a variety of scenes, from what looked like the birth of Christ to a man floating in space.
“The Hand isn't what you're looking for,” said Meredith. The first thing she'd said since they left. “Most of it would be useless to you. They're not a bad group, but they're not up to going against something like the Foundation. They still hide from them, whisper in secret, use their nonsense names. They're scholars, and that has its place.”
Meredith opened the door and motioned for Alison to enter. “But we're the fighters.”
Inside was a large room, lined with chairs, pillows, and bookshelves. In the center was a fireplace. A flame flickered, the only source of light, casting twisting shadows across the walls. It smiled like old books and expensive liquor. The only other person, kneeling by the fire, was the woman in the green cap.
“What the hell!” said Alison. She looked from Meredith to the woman. “Who the fuck is this?”
Meredith didn't say anything.
“Of course,” said Alison. “Now we're playing this game. Lovely.”
The woman smiled. “I said almost the exact same thing.”
Alison scowled and stepped towards her. “Did you? Is that supposed to be some grand, revealing comment? Should I fall to my knees and forgive you for leaving me to fucking die?”
“I wouldn't have let that happen,” said the woman. She stared into the fire. “But if I'd had to step in, we wouldn't be talking now.”
“What a shame that would be,” said Alison. “I'd suggest you start saying something meaningful.”
The woman stood. “It's not often I meet someone like this. But it's not often someone like you comes to us either. I'm sorry that things went the way they did back there, but you were never in any real danger.” She stared into Alison's eyes. Alison looked away. Something about her gaze felt wrong. “You're lucky. L.S doesn't often accept people so soon. My name is Amanda. I'd like to welcome you to the Serpent's Tooth.”


The creature that no longer resembled a Hippo and Enrico Momio's soul watched silently as both Locke sisters went away. And took the thing away with them.
"The bloody hell was that," Enrico said. He already knew he wasn't able to feel fear anymore.
He was beginning to understand his new circumstances. He was simply remembering how he used to feel fear, and thinking he should be feeling fear; but he was not able to feel fear, not even agitation.
He could feel disgust, though. And he came to terms with that almost instantly, knowing the rest would come, if only from revulsion.
Oh, good, I still can be a cynical bastard.
As they drifted together across nothingness, Enrico desperately clinging to the diminutive dot of presence that was the Hippo's soul, the thing disappeared as Locke carried it away.
The creature retorted: "I have no concrete idea, but it has your mean friend in a grasp she cannot break. Perhaps it is a grasp she has accepted. In any case, they do not belong here."
"Well, she is an auditor. They can't belong anywhere, that's sort of the point… I wonder where she got it."
Enrico scratched the back of his head. When he realized he was doing it out of pure habit, he thought about stopping, but then shrugged and kept scratching.
"What is an auditor?," the beast asked.
"I thought you knew everything…"
"I insist, I am not your sky-god, Enrico. I know little. I dedicate most of my thoughts to controlling the body I made to inhabit it."
"Ah. Well, it's like a lawyer, only they can close your entire operation if they feel like you're breaking the rules. Even violently so."
"Really. Well, that wouldn't be nice, I like it in here," it said. "I've grown quite settled to my body already."
"It's hideous, man. I mean, no offense-no, fuck that, feel offended if you want, it was weird two nights ago, now it's just hideous."
"It's a collection of different biological waste from parallel realities, Enrico. Of course it would look strange, even alien to you… to us. That doesn't make it any less comfortable."
"Parallel realities?," Enrico said.
The creature that no longer resembled a Hippo pondered him. "You didn't even know, did you."
"Know what? Oh, never mind. See, we have to help my folks! There are violent people out there, and if that thing… if they get their hands on Locke and the thing, what they will do with it-"
"Violent people?"
"Militias, I think. Maybe other big players are making a move on us, on our stuff. On you, even."
"On me?"
"Sure, you can purify water rather quickly, right? Well, there are people out there that would make use of you."
"And these… militias are sending me to those people instead of letting me help you?"
"After killing my friends, most likely," Enrico added.
There was a surge of light as the creature, soul un-carnate, went back into its body. "I should help," it thought, a tinge of genuine concern over its thoughts.
"Help? Help how, you told me it'd be problematic-!"
The creature's body started to tremble. The nail-like spikes on its back glowed red. There was a trembling noise and everything around Enrico was light for a brief moment.
Then the creature came back. "I just helped."
"Wait, what? How?"

While the house was a nice, clean, orderly place, it was in the middle of the Gran Paradiso National Park, Piedmont, and a lake could be seen from two sides of the house; the other two were surrounded by trees. Accessing it was difficult; the closest thing to civilization around it was a dirt road. Most of its floors and ceiling was woodwork. However, everything in it was either comfortable or plain out functional; a home away from everything. A haven.
The minimalistic furniture contrasted with a few old relics made of oak wood, dark and baroque.
And there was a visitor sitting in the oldest piece of furniture, a slightly dilapidated and dusty armchair. Riding her raised left leg as an expert cavalryman, a tiny girl laughed at the rhythmic movements of her unlikely mount. The visitor was wearing a short bright green dress which contrasted with the tiny girl's, flowery and fairly plain. A man left the kitchen to eye on them both as he cleaned his hands with a rag.
"Hello, sis. Heard you coming in," Gary said, "but I didn't wanna disturb your game session."
"Dad!," Hada announced, dropping from her aunt's leg. "Aunt Dizzie is staying for dinner!" The man looked at the visitor, brows arcing in surprise.
"That so?"
"Unless something major goes down in my jurisdiction, yes, I'm staying here," the woman casually said in a grave, kind voice. She looked tired, but happy.
The tiny Hada went to the armchair again and hugged her legs. The visitor smiled and caressed her tiny head.
Gary smiled at the scene. As he went back to the kitchen, he commented: "Well, we'll have enough for three. You'll eat in the damn chair, as usual?"
"If you don't mind," she calmly answered.
"Mind? Dammit, I can't imagine what you go through every day, sis, and you still get the job done and find time for us. Of course I don't mind."
"Will you tell me stories tonight, auntie?," the adorable whisper melted the visitor's face into another larger, brighter smile, her eyes slightly watery.
This was her heaven. Her only rest. The place where she was safe.
"Oh, sweetie," she answered, "that's the one thing I have, stories, so many of-"

A beat.

She froze.

.- aspid surge
.- analyse: h:ebony-malac - p:natur-flat - w: tight - c:13kCasp
.- checking… 90+/-2%
.- aspid surge convergence confirmed
.- sool region - laascaanood - somalia
.- region marked as UNSTABLE
.- comparing with PSYCHE reports
.- WARNING
.- potential 2-m, 3-m compromise
.- sentinel stallite system alert
.- issuing fullbright alert…

A beat.

"-them."
The visitor looked at Hada, the girl's face slowly turning into a sad frown.
"They called you now, didn't they?"
"What makes you say that?"
"When they call you, your eyes always go from being like this-", Hada pulled the corners of her eyes back, turning them into two thin slits, "-to this." Hada pulled them down, and then she shrugged. "And you stop smiling."
Her aunt felt pride on her. Three years, and she is this smart already. "Tell your father I'm sorry, dear. Will you?"
"But you just arrived," Hada pleaded.
With a sad, distant smirk, the visitor caressed her hair. A few strokes, just that. She needed it.
Then, knowing that waiting any longer would only make it harder, she stood up and found herself in the dark, narrow safe room by her office, the walls filled with files and cardboard boxes stacked in white shelves.
There was no furniture but the old, dilapidated armchair and a perfectly normal stool she used when she had to read something. Her bright green flat shoes, perfectly matching her dress, rested on the low seat.
There, there was no older brother in the kitchen.
There was no little girl.
In her world, there was only the Mission. And a long, demanding mission it was.
Steeling herself, she hurried to the security door, decorated with a series of pentacles arranged in a perfect pattern of concealment. She checked her dress, flattening a few wrinkles here and there, and opened the lock.
While Madam al Fine wanted to at least glance back at the old armchair, she knew she couldn't afford any further distractions. She walked into her office through the armored panel that hid her study, which closed back once she went through it, seamlessly hiding itself amongst the other parts of the wall.
Three people, two of them in military uniforms, were waiting for her. "Let's get to it then. Tell me everything we know," the Scary Lady said.

"You've warned WHO?"

Six minutes later, inside a bare office in a large official-looking building in Abidjan, a man called 'Pericles' by his superiors and Assistant Director by his subordinates received a call.
He stood at attention as he listened to his most absolute superior. Her orders were clear, concise and brief.
As soon as he hung up, he started making calls again. He phoned his secretary, his three, most immediate junior officers and a man who, he was aware of it, would do any job he gave him.
Even that one.
Once 'Pericles' was done, he sat behind his desk. He knew he would be expected briefly in the regional command hub meeting. However, he took a moment to ponder on his life and his loyalties.
Suddenly, 'Pericles' made up his mind. He opened a drawer in his desk. At its bottom rested a wooden toy bird and a bag of luminous candy.

"The Coalition! I think I remember some of your associates speak in very high terms of them when close to my tank. I only assume they will come and help us-you seem concerned."
"CONCERNED, it says! ME? About the fucking GOC figuring out we're breaking the 1987's agreement in at least eight points?"
"Excuse me?"
"We don't deal with the GOC, Hippo. We don't deal with them 'cause they don't actually LIKE us. They think we're more trouble than we're worth, and they think we tell them whenever something goes awry, but this time we haven't told them, and if that thing from before, if Locke-oh God."
"I told you I'm not that."

At the time, Sarah Desjeux was alone in her surgery room. Out of mere habit, she merrily hummed, but she wasn't putting her heart into it; her mind was filled with what her mother would have called 'plenty of bad omens material'.
 -she placed all the boxes with surgical gloves in the top drawer. Then took one of them, which she left with the large bottles of disinfectant-
Sarah was not a particularly joyful person. That was one of the most tragic misconceptions about her, and the most common one. She didn't exactly put a facade, either; she just wanted others to realize life could be lived with a smile and a shout and a laugh. That did not mean she was immune to its horrors, of course.
 -she counted all the surgical scissors again. She was missing one, and since they had had three major surgeries that day, and they could have left it in? No, she thought, that can't be, Lila was counting them, she never misses one-
Actually, that was not entirely true. After living such a long, busy life, she was beginning to understand the calmness, the serenity with which certain old people used to carry themselves around. The aplomb. And that was what most people would expect of a leader such as herself: composure and seriousness. And that's what they would get.
 -and there was a large splatter of blood where that poor boy's leg had fallen to the ground. She examined it. Still fresh, no trouble. Sarah took a wipe and crouched to deal with the drops, the white floor bright anew as she went through it-
That was not to say she was immune to worst things in life, but she was pretty resilient. She had buried dead workmates, she had performed amputations after running out of anesthetics and she had delivered dead children to young mothers who wished. It really didn't get much harder than that, she mused.
 -three, four, five, six, seven? I thought we had seven big bandage rolls here. She shook her head. Shouldn't have bought them large rolls, but would they listen? Noooo. We at the Continental Branch know what we do-
No, life was hard, and it was hard on her too. Day to day life was difficult, filled with work, full of wonders and death alike. But it was good to have fun and try to enjoy it while it lasted; and there was something, something she had felt since she was a child. The smiles. She loved the smiles they dedicated her, and the laughs. She had grown into a person everybody around her liked, or at least respected; and they had grown, she knew it, thanks to that silly short woman under her almost indomitable mop of chestnut hair.
 -da doo doo daaa, now we clean around here, antiseptic everywhere and a bit of daa doo oh, what's with racket out there, I can't even think-
She cleaned the shelf of the last piece of furniture in the surgery room until she felt satisfied with its neatness. She wiped her sweaty face with the back of her hand as soon as she discarded her gloves. Daily work. That was the key. Patching people, patching minds by talking to them and getting to know them. Humans, all of them mortal, all of them little, all of them inconsequential. All of them fragile.
 -all of them so very beautiful.
And here I am, all alone, Sarah laughed at her own thoughts. She left the surgery room, going into the busy aisle outside, a few volunteers working with Somali doctors who had come from Mogadischu and Garowe. All of them wore the white-and-green surgical robes provided by the MCF. Some of them, whom she didn't even now, rushed to respond to some emergency. The hospital was alive.
That was the part of a project she loved the most. See it outgrow her.
As she glanced through one of the windows in the well-illuminated aisle, Sarah felt, if not happy, content.
And then, as the small toy bird she always carried around and used in private to talk to her superiors and a few well-placed friends started to vibrate with the voice of a man she once knew, the window exploded towards her.

"No, you don't get it. There is a basic law when dealing with the GOC and trans-reality stuff."
"There is?"
"Yes. Just don't do it."

When Frank reached the place where the shooting had gone down, he had been expecting to find a PR mess and a few injured people.
Instead, he was met by a horrid scene.
Several corpses were scattered around the now extinguished bonfire, where their volunteers had been burning meat — My orders. — as the gasoline-soaked wood underneath it had burn completely. As he came closer to it, he realized there were living, breathing animals in the pile, miraculously calm and silent. Some of their corpses were intertwined, already growing back and combining. Frank grimaced. There we go, Dodger's undying pets. Great.
Frank wondered where she was. He could use a bit of Mission Watch insight now.
The largest one, the head of a particularly badly hurt wildebeest, looked at him. Half its neck was covered in dirt. Under its neck, the rest of the body was covered in bleeding injuries and burns.
Frank noticed the bleeding was slowly decaying, the corpse rapidly recovering from the injuries it had suffered. Not enough hurt to put you down, right, big guy?
As if answering his thoughts, it softly bellowed. One of the AMISOM soldiers jolted and shot it twice.
Frank grimaced. He turned to the other part of the scene. But he did not want to do it. He did not want to check on the bodies.
The Executive Security member went over the corpses, he made the count. Seven of them wore white and green vests. At least ten were civilians. Six more were militians, perhaps irregulars that tried to stop the violence; most of their guns were gone. Some were piled in mounds, muddied and bloodied.
Frank noticed one of the corpses was oddly familiar. His heart sunk as he recognized Enrico Momio's corpse.
He had work with him for years. He felt the need to sit somewhere and sleep, sleep for a hundred years. Instead, he closed his eyes, open in an expression of surprise.
"See ya, you pest," he whispered. "Will keep an eye on Tino for you."
"This is more than just one shooting. They've killed a bunch of armed veterans! We have to report to our superiors, right now!," their sergeant said. Frank nervously nodded.
"And it was not bandits, either. This is probably people from Laascaanood itself, angry over our decision to incinerate the meat," he said. The soldier cursed in Arab, but Frank did not have the time to argue. "Warn your superiors, tell them to bring here whatever men they can spare. Please. If they attack us, they will murder all of us. They will probably go after all those who supported us, as well. This could very well turn into a bloodbath. The hospital is our only quarters in the area and it is a very evident target, so as soon as you-"
And then, he saw the explosion in the distant hospital. When the sound reached them, he was already running towards it, with a pistol he took from a dead member of the militia.

"Don't do it? At all?"
"They get real serious about it, too. They're all about causal cross-contamination and timestream fussion or collision between parallel Earths and stuff like that. They get real serious. Real, kill everyone around the stuff itself just in case, serious!"
"They do?"
"YES!"
"Well, then I don't understand why would anyone talk anything but ill of them. Your friends must be all liars."

Last Hearth, AKA, Hearth Actual, AKA the Stoker, was calmly debriefing his boys as they flew to their target. He liked to think of them as "boys", despite the fact that they weren't children nor exclusively men.
"Target is, as of now, unknown but present in a Manna Charitable Foundation station in Laascaanood, Somalia. As luck would have it, most AMISOM and Puntaland military units are out of town. As bad luck would have it, PSYCHE warns us of very high risk of local violence due to a combination of anomalous activities conducted by the MCF and inter-tribal or sectary violence. In fewer words, boys, this is an all-out assault, another one."
That's what they called him for, usually. Him and his boys. He pondered them briefly; two hundred of the brightest and best the Coalition had, deployed by chopper from Mogadischu 'cause, why, no apportation-capable Strike Teams were available at the time! And they needed a large Strike force this time, since riots and mass control might become an issue!
Faint-hearted bastards, all of them.
"Sentinel satellite 22 detected a huge Aspect Radiation spike near the town. It was Ebony, but brief. Very brief. We are not certain of the precise location of the entity that generated it, but it's pretty obvious that it should be in an MCF location. Problem is, with ongoing local violence, we will get in trouble if we just jump in… and it might be worse to not do so at all. We all know what will happen if other groups get their hands on an Ebony hue entity."
They all knew. They had all lived through situations like those, generally to take back whatever the bad guys took for their personal use, and then set it on fire so that nobody else could use it. The very reason why the Global Occult Coalition existed. Last Hearth occasionally thought people upstairs were too interested in their own damned careers to remember that.
"So we will attack first any group of non-anomalous combatants that may look like they are attacking MCF interests in the area. We will also be going in sort of blind. We will be going against civilians, militias and perhaps even the MCF volunteers themselves, if they are responsible for this mess."
There were other Coalition teams available to deal with the problem, but they had chosen him and Team Phalanx for a reason. The reason being they knew everything there was about getting their hands dirty before joining the Team. Nowadays, every single one of them underwent post-mission memory wipes to keep them sane, or at least functional. Every single one of them was obsessed with physical form, absolutely committed to the five-fold Mission and conditioned to obey to him. Many of them had had organs replaced by wetware and hardware devices as part of the APAR(T) program, and one of them had even been selected for the SPAR(TA) testing program. He was basically a machine at that point, more a weapon than people. My boys, Umber proudly mused.
"However, Mission-wise, this operation is to focus on Destruction. If Destruction is impossible, we will simply prioritize Survival and retrieve the item for further study. Concealment is secondary; the entire area has been put in a communications blackout by PSYCHE, and they'll chalk it all up to tribal violence when the deal is done and journalists are allowed to go back to the streets."
And then, he waited for a moment before continuing.
"Protection, in an operation where we can expect locals resisting to us, is a minor concern. In other words, business as usual. ETA: two hours, at around eight and a half local time."
As their helicopters came closer to the place, Hearth checked once and again on updates from PSYCHE and the Sentinel network. There were no news from the latter, but the Special Observers and the only Assessment Team in the area reported many bad news on the civilian front.
Other Team Leaders would have frowned, grunted and asked their superiors to reconsider their role in all that. Maybe send another group, or just try a different, more discreet approach.
Team Leader Hearth would not.

"Fuck. Never mind, you just don't get what you've done," Enrico's soul said. The Hippo's soul seemed embarrassed about the whole thing.
"So…," it started, "I have an idea. You said you wanted to be alive again, didn't you?"
"I can!?," Enrico jumped.
"Not in your old carcass, it's wasted. I checked. Mmm… but there is another possibility."

Olympe had felt the blast rather than hear it, since he was tinkering with Garziel and Poitriburg on the Old Orange. Technically, he was not allowed to teach them how to do it, but he had done it anyways.
"Ziel, Poitri, go see what that was, please," he told his trainees. "Do what you have to protect the hospital. I'll charge Oldie."
As the women left the garage in a hurry, their robes still stained with oil and the semi-abnormal fluids used by the machine's engine, he stood in front of the Old Orange and looked at the canister where he would be enclosed.
Technically, he was not allowed to try and put layers of armor on it, but he was about to anyways.

Rico's memory of a face grimaced. "I'm not possessing a person."
"Oh, no, everyone finds mind-riding very inconsiderate even in cases of emergency such as this! Not to mention the kind of control required takes a long time to master… No, you wouldn't be possessing creatures that might have pure, immutable souls. You'd be, uh, possessing creatures with no mind."
"What?"
"You are familiar with the orchard somebody planted nearby the camp, I believe?

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