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Manna Charitable Foundation Land of Plenty
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Eat more of my SCPs. Eat them all.
Also please eat some of these

Anabasis Hub Probably the greatest story involving a pair of redheaded siblings whose infighting causes the end of the world
Manna Charitable Foundation 2000 The sequel to the above, collaborationed with Dr Reach
The Stuff Industry What happens when everyone around you at work is a complete idiot and so are you, but not only does no one get fired, but you actually turn a profit? I don't know, some stuff.
When MCF and Stuff happen A fun story of incompetence

Everything had gone by so fast, just as Priscilla preferred. It gave her little time to sit and reflect on what had happened. How did people react when faced with world-shattering trauma, irrevocably changing their lives forever? Priss had gone to her sister and gotten a new job. Was that appropriate? Was that what you were supposed to do when you lost everything but the clothes on you and the quiet friend who'd saved you?
Seated in the back of the vehicle, she had plenty of time to let those thoughts infest her. The weight of it all pressing down on her was starting to make her crack. Even as her face remained expressionless, she felt her face start to burn, and her vision start to blur.
"Hey…" Frank noticed, catching on quickly that she was starting to lose it, "Hey, come on. You're gonna be okay, alright?"
Priss brought a hand up, pressing her knuckles into her eyes and turning away. A violent ripple of emotion twisted her guts, making her shudder and wretch before quickly collecting herself. As slowly as it had crept over her, it faded away.
"What are Nazis, Frank?" Priss asked suddenly.
"You don't have Nazis where you come from?" He asked incredulously. At her silence, he went on, "Bad bunch, them. Came around in Germany in the 1930s, led by a guy named Adolf Hitler. They were really into white supremacy, touting the 'Aryan race' as ideal, and had a particularly strong hate for the Jews. They started a war with pretty much every other superpower in the world, and would've taken us all down if they'd just listened to that most basic of military principles; divide and conquer."
"They started a war and the Kaiser just went along with it?"
"What Kaiser?"
"You don't have Kaisers either?" Her voice started to warble. Every little difference seemed to compound on her, like flecks of mud smearing on a wall, spelling out in messy brown letters 'You don't belong here.'
"I'm not really an expert of history, so I don't know… Pretty sure the Kaiser stopped being a Kaiser after World War I. Probably kept the title, but as far as I remember from history class, they started electing presidents between the wars."
Priss found her breath coming more easily. Talking like this helped, she realized, "Where I come from, the first World War didn't really technically end… it just faded away as both sides started signing ceasefire agreements for longer and longer periods. Main problem was the Qing… they were eating away at Russia and Central Asia, so Europe just started losing focus on fighting each other as Russia threatened to collapse. Then the Japanese invaded the Qing, and suddenly all of us were taking sides again in a new war."
Frank snorted, "Sounds familiar enough. Then again, people are people, no matter what universe they come from."
Priss clenched her jaw tightly, losing all taste for further conversation.

"Hey!"
People were starting to call her that. It was easier than "Dodger", or "Spiffy".
"Hey-Hey girly!"
Dodger turned, finding a little boy coming up behind her.
"You pretty. Pretty girl should have pretty things," He extended a little hand out to her, imploring her to take it. She did, thinking it was just a friendly handshake. The boy slipped her a little golden bracelet.
"I don't have any money."
The boy didn't say a word, calmly taking it back, and walking away.
The whole village bustled. People looked happy and moderately healthy. A perfectly normal sight in any relatively stable east African village with an NGO operating nearby. The difference here was that people were looking well-fed.
Shut your racism, she thought to herself. But it still stuck out horribly—people in a poor African village were looking absolutely plump all over. Some had even dropped by the hospital with severe stomach pains, nausea, and heart troubles. Diagnosis: re-feeding syndrome.
They'd been starving for weeks. Suddenly they were stuffing their faces.
They didn't bother hiding it, either. It was a gift from Allah, as far as they were concerned, and an attraction—an opportunity to shill shit to curious foreigners, and sell food to hungry people from other villages. At the center of the village, a massive circle of blood was surrounded by short fences made of wire and cloths. A lion lay at the center of the blot, beige fur painted brown and red. It was a big male, with a healthy mane and thick limbs. It lay on its side, eyes half-closed, purring sedately, as its intestines were being pulled out and chopped like individual sausages, and cooked on the spot on a great grill. Other animals were around it as well; a wildebeest, two fat buffalo, and a line of dogs that had been shaved and hosed down, likely to hide their infestation of mange and scabies. All were bloody and missing chunks of meat.
"People are eating it fine?" She asked Yasir, "No problems, no side effects?"
Yasir nodded to the grill, "As long as it is cooked thoroughly, it is fine. Some people ate it raw. They died."
"How?"
"Suicide. Or killed by their neighbors, self defense, yes? They attack their neighbors because they want to be killed by the neighbors. They call this 'suicide by cop' in the Law-eight-Order."
"Law-eight-Order?"
"A TV show, yes? American. Law, number 8, then Order."
"That's an ampersand. It stands for the word 'and'. Law and Order But yes, I know what you mean."
Dodger put a hand on her face, covering one eye and rubbing it reassuringly. The other had to watch. She wanted just one instant of normalcy. Just one quick flash of the lion's eyes widening, of it yowling in pain, anger, anything other than sedate pleasure. Anything just to make it fit in with what should have been.
It did not yowl, it did not roar, or snarl, or whimper. It closed its eyes and started to sleep. Some people nearby froze and watched. Had the beast breathed its last? Was it finally going to die? Then its tail flicked, and it farted noisily. The people near it laughed, and went back to cooking up its organs.
"The people who cut themselves, how did they do it?"
Yasir said something in Arabic, then pointed to the lion and the wildebeests near it, "Just like that. They lay down happily, and cut themselves open."
"But did they die? The animals are doing that and apparently not dying."
He shrugged, "I don't know. The people cut themselves open and die. The animals are cut open and do not die."
Dodger was already putting it all together in her mind, visualizing the food chain in action, as the small animals offered themselves to the bigger ones, and the big ones wandered into villages to offer themselves to the bigger ones still. If they regenerated their flesh and organs, it meant their organs would have to be removed first. The cat she'd seen yesterday had had its guts spilling out of it, caked in dust, while other parts of it were regenerating.
And she still had to report to "Do-Your-Best" Lindsberg. And to Kone.
"A theory… The people who ate the raw meat and cut themselves open died because no one would eat their flesh. The animals who do it have their flesh eaten, and the flesh grows back."
Yasir was starting to look queasy, the horror of it all starting to get to him, "Meaning the meat is infected with something?"
"Maybe…" People were eating the cooked meat fine; if the meat was infected with something, fire could handle it well enough, "Or maybe the meat starts to die, and rots if it isn't cut out quickly enough. Necrotic flesh gets infected, the person dies. Maybe the animals know this, and that's why they want us to keep cutting them open and eating their flesh. Easy to see it as a gift from Allah."
"I do not care what these people say, this is not a gift from Allah," Yasir turned away from the lion, "God did not cause this. You did."
Before she could respond, he added on, "I am not blaming you, or the Charitable Foundation. But something has gone wrong and I am certain you are the cause. This way, hopefully, you can fix this. I do not know how I can help more."
Dodger tilted her head slightly, groaning to herself in frustration, "Just keep people coming to the hospital. Especially people who've been eating from these animals." She pursed her lips, and started to turn away, "Just in case."

Priss pursed her lips, looking at the dimly lit room around her. More like a tunnel, but it was tall enough for her to stand atop Frank's shoulders with enough room to spare. The massive reservoir was in the room behind them.
"Don't worry, we've got the suits," Frank assured her, prodding at the Level-C hazmat suit the two of them wore.
She looked down at the Anabasis, worried about it getting sick from something brought in. She caught herself again—it's not alive, you idiot.
She knelt down, starting to adjust the knobs on the device. The hazmat suits were an unnecessary precaution; she'd used this thing plenty of times before without getting infected with anything. Given that it "merged" with living counterparts here, it wasn't likely to churn out something that would be so utterly foreign that it would spread magic smallpox around the world in a month.
Frank seemed to be reading her mind, "Wrong calculation and you might end up dumping a few tons of boiling hot water down on us. Germ-free, but probably best not to get caught with our pants down. Remember: we want water. Doesn't matter if it has heavy metals, rare earths or six-meter long tube worms on it, the hippo will take care of it. Just get us water, and all of this will be worth it, okay?"
That made sense. Then she realized that meant the Foundation-that-Was apparently didn't care if she accidentally killed herself in testing, either.
She pulled the lever, feeling it give way as if it had snapped off. The Anabasis came on, pouring its anemic light out over its selected area. Nothing appeared to happen.
"Try it again?" Frank suggested.
She pulled the lever again, and waited. This time she saw something. "Oh, fuck."
"What is it?"
She got up, heading over to the center of the room. Frank followed, crouching down beside her. Blades of grass poked out of the ceramic tile floor, some seeming to occupy cracks and small spaces, others seemingly merged with the tile itself.
"Don't worry, Locke, the tiles will grow back. Still… a little higher next time." Frank suggested.
"You're not helping," Priss complained, heading back over to the device.
She aimed it higher, adjusting the height setting while leaving the others the same. This time a long patch of grass filled a quarter of the room. No sound, no shimmering of the air, no phasing into being or dramatic entry. The room was all ceramic tiles, then quick as a frame of video, grass was in front of them.
"At least the gardener can enjoy the AC while mowing the indoor lawn."
The grass was thick and unruly, nothing like a well-kept lawn. She could easily get her foot stuck in the matted mess of roots, and probably have a snake slither by and squeeze her ankle.
"Look," She pointed, crouching down again. She indicated the tiling, just at the edge of the grass. It was a few inches higher in elevation.
"So it's replaced the tiles as well?" Frank scooted closer, pressing his fingers along the edge of the tile. It didn't feel like a smooth cut, but more like a natural break. The edges were jagged, and some of the tiles had cracked independent of the sudden change.
"Good thing there's nothing below us, then. I'd hate to have to explain to anyone downstairs how they got pelted in the face with dirt and grass and whatever else is in this. Where is this from, anyway?"
Priss pulled a stalk of grass out, clean from its root, "It should be native. From another timeline. Given that we're underground, that timeline's probably had an entirely different geological history. Lower elevation."
"That's gonna be a problem, is it? For filling the reservoir?"
She huffed a sigh, and started calculating in her head. Right away the numbers mashed into an incoherent mess. Getting it precise would be a problem. She was mostly just concerned with getting pure water in. Then she stopped herself, realizing she didn't need to fill it all at once, but could dump in water from the same spot over and over.
"No. If I find an aquifer, I can just adjust the height, and start bringing it in overhead."
"Got it. You can always settle on seawater, too," Frank took several samples of grass, sealing them in a plastic bag, "Let's do a few more tests for the Hippo's sake, then head on out of here before we start warping in wild dinosaur-riding lions or some other crazy thing."

The creature was asleep as they woke it — a fact it didn't enjoy particularly, as sleep allowed it to speak with its companions from the great beyond, the age-long members of the Center for Transcendental and Eschatological Research. It was the dead of the night in that tiny corner of their world, and they were moving it from the vehicle they had tugged its tank in.
It listened to them carefully.
There was the woman of the mean voice that had waken up the day when they moved. She felt exhausted. She hadn't been sleeping well. The creature knew why that was and… yes, she carried the thing in a backpack. But she was not alone.
There was the grey man that had been lifted by Color around him. It might had a pure, immutable soul, but the creature could not discern it; guilt defined him. Shame defined him.
There was one with a pure, immutable soul. That soul sang and grew and changed and bloomed, and the creature wished it could know more about him.
There was one with a pure, immutable soul. That soul waved as a long cascade of green silk across the horizon; the laughing woman, who was not laughing.
There was the one that had been taking care of it. He was sad and oh so very lonely in his sadness. He could not cry any more.
There was one more with a pure, immutable soul. That soul had fruits, ideas ripe for the taking, dreams light as balloons that lifted him out of its body.
And then there was its own self. It had a pure, naked, immutable soul. It shined with the strength of a thousand minds. It had cast away what it had been — body, form, memory — when it was alive to become this. It was a soul, distilled ego, almost pristine I.
So its thoughts went as they moved it into the strange and comfortable not-building, matter a shadow for its strange consciousness; the not-building was special, too, for its walls and floors were as strings of bright gems mounted inside them. They sang a tale it liked: seek the faults, seek the faults, seek the trash, seek the trash, help the people, help the people, eat dirt, make stone, eat scum, make glass, eat waste, make iron- It went on and on and sounded happy. Had it had the time to talk to them, it would have. They seemed to have a very satisfying life.
The kind of life it wanted.
And it was taken down, the tank barely fitting inside the tight fit of the hole, several ropes tense all around it. One of those pulling to let it slide down let go of the hefty load, and the rest had to let go too so they would not be hurt. The tank broke as it crashed against the ground, but the creature itself waded the dry concrete with the water that was within and fell twelve meters down.
Into the water.
And then it began to cleanse.
Joyful, it thought -cleanse the water, seek the impurities, seek the blemishes, cleanse the water, make it clear, make it salty?, no, make it flavorless, make it grey?, no, make it pearl?, no, make it transparent, make it so it does not taste to them, so it does not harm them, help the people-
It would try to talk to the strings of light surrounding the water later. They would be interesting friends.
The creature's tendrils grew and grew, slowly filling the water. It took as much blemish as it found; and much blemish was taken. As it reached the walls of its new home, its comfy tank now lost forever, it heard a ruckus over it. The creature listened to it.
The people checked on it, the laughing one laughing again, the brothers shaking hands, the sad one relieved, the grey one talking to the mean one… concerned? They all left but the mean one, who took the thing out of her bag.
The creature stared at them. It did not like them. It had grown an eon as a soul un-carnate, and was wise. Even if it had made its new brain for a higher purpose than to worry pointlessly, everything it, the soul, knew, was that they did not belong.
Then the mean one started pulling on the lever. It tried to stop them, the mean one and the thing. It knew, with sad certainty, the body it was in would not be strong enough. It was going to happen — again.

Priss stared at the Anabasis. No matter how much she kept pulling the lever, it seemed to have broken down. At best, dust would drop into the cavernous space targeted by the device. The Hippo — not a hippo — was wading in the shallow water, watching her intently.
"What did you say?" She asked no one in particular. As soon as the words were leaving her mouth, she had forgotten who she was talking to, if not herself.
The Anabasis didn't even look remotely human. The core of it looked like a leaf blower without the long tube for precise blowing, with knobs, text, and a lever that looked a century or two out of date. She couldn't imagine thinking she had been talking to it. It had to be stress.
Whoever had said it, they had the intended effect—Priss was suddenly very much aware that she was alone and unwelcome, in this country, in this world. The place was probably bugged.
"Hey guys," She waved to nothing in particular, as if a camera were pointed straight at her face. Then she gave the Anabasis another strong pull of the lever. Finally, it started to work. A long cube of brownish water materialized over the reservoir before dropping with a firm splash into the shallow tank, the echo lingering in the large room. The Hippo just stared at her.
"Come on. Eat dirt. Stop staring at me. You're supposed to be blind."
The hippo kept staring. She pulled the lever again, bringing in another cylindrical mass of water. Then again. And again.
The hippo wasn't dead— it waded in the water, keeping up with the steadily rising water level. But it kept just staring at her. You don't belong here, it seemed to be saying.
Priss fumed, and flung her notepad at the Hippo. It hit the creature just behind the head, prompting it to quiver, and start to move, emanating a deep whining sound from it. Priss thought it sounded like "mooootherfuckeeeeerrrrrrr…"
"Who you calling 'motherfucker', motherfucker?" She snapped back at it. Immediately she felt stupid for shouting at it. Most likely she had just imagined it saying that. How could it manage syllables in a single monotonous drone?
It was starting to suck in the water, setting to its work cleaning the water. Hopefully it would be able to handle any unusual microbes or bacteria in the water. If not, they'd have to boil it all, and probably return the Hippo. It seemed not to notice her anymore, happy to float about, absorbing like a sponge and swelling with water. A second later, it became smaller, as bubbles emerged from under its stumpy legs.
Priss lowered her head, sighing heavily. She pulled her legs in to herself and rested her head on her knees, one hand on the lever, cranking it back again and again, continuing to fill the reservoir. She was starting to lose feeling in her arm, the ache from continuously cranking starting to ease, when the Hippo 'spoke' again, "loooooooooooooook…"
She lifted her head, and her stomach clenched. Something was in the water. It had come in with the water. The Hippo backed away, as the creature emerged from the brown depth.
It looked like a man, covered in fur, with hands like a badger or a bear. Its chest was bare, looking like the bottom of a turtle's shell. Its head was the most off-putting, being little more than a hairless oval, with two big black ovals stacked one atop the other. The upper one looked like it could have been an eye. The creature stared at her and she stared back, both unmoving. Both scared.
She broke the silence first, not knowing what else to say when confronted by such an alien creature, "Get out of here!"
To her surprise, it started to swim towards her in a hurry. That's it, I'm dead, she thought. She'd been expecting Anabasis to bring in some kind of boogin or cloud of poison gas to instantly kill her, like a warning from God to stop dicking with time and space. The creature hoisted itself up out of the water, pulling its weight up onto the central platform. It took a moment to look around, before hopping up onto the ladder and climbing towards the exit.
The Hippo went back to gently gliding through the water. Priss started to sob quietly.

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Thump.
Thump.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The noise gently shook the walls and floors of the small studio apartment.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Knock.
Knock.
The wood carving of Richard Nixon rocked back and forth on its hook.
Thump.
Thump.
The frame holding the poster of Hitler rattled slightly on the wall.
Knock.
Knock.
The shaking upset the clock made out of a repurposed lab rat and caused it to skip forward
three and a half minutes.
THUMP.
THUMP.
Finally, the noise managed to shake awake the sleeping artist.
KNOCK.
KNOCK.
"Shit!" The artist thought to herself. She quickly rolled out of bed and dug out a small
sculpture before rushing to the door.
On the other side of the door was what resembled a six-foot tall blobfish, except that it was
covered in barely-visible downy fur, and had muscular arms that were webbed like the wings
of a sugar glider. It was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt. It looked at the artist with
beady black eyes, before holding its enormous four-fingered hand out expectantly.
The artist quickly pressed the sculpture into the creature's hand. "It's called Cleanliness is Godliness," she said.
The creature closely examined the piece. It was a realistic soap carving of Mr. Clean, standing triumphant over a much smaller representation of the original bar of soap. The blobfish looked back up at the artist.
"Right, context. Well, if you leave it somewhere overnight, by morning it will have eradicated any living material in about a two-foot radius. It's a commentary on the sterilization of popular culture, as well as the dangers of adhering too strictly to-"
Before she could finish, the creature opened its two-foot wide mouth and greedily shoved the sculpture in. It chewed thoughtfully for about a minute before swallowing. Apparently satisfied, it thumped away.
Her month's rent having been paid, the artist took a sigh of relief.
Turning to her cluttered desk, the artist looked over the pages and pages of blueprints she had drawn up over the last few months. Her apartment wasn't big enough for her to assemble all of the schematics together into a full blueprint, so she had only a rough idea of what the final product would actually look like.
The idea came to her in a nightmare; over ten thousand moving parts, seventy-two illegal memes, four human brains, and a pocket dimension the size of Jupiter. This was going to be her immortality—if it didn't kill her (and everyone else) first.
Refocusing on reality, the artist began gathering her belongings. Today, she had errands to run.
BackdoorSoho was perhaps the most colorful place on the planet. The graffiti that appeared in patches across the rest of Manhattan expanded to cover every surface that would take paint, and some that wouldn't. Even the sky was slowly working its way through the color spectrum. Right now it was light green.
The streets, in contrast with the grid of upper Manhattan, wound back and forth, over and under each other in spatially impossible ways, making the neighborhood both massive and tiny at the same time.
The storefronts were often stacked one on top of the other, with stairs, ladders and walkways creating layers on layers and streets on streets.
Her first stop was the metalworking shop, in a narrow alley off Duchamp Boulevard known as Sélavy Alley.
A man with receding black hair stood over a workbench.
"Hi, Jakob," the artist said as she walked through the open storefront.
"Hey, kiddo," he replied. Jakob called everybody "kiddo." The artist was fairly sure he didn't know her name.
She looked at the scorch marks on the wall. One of the shelves had collapsed. The floor had puddles of what looked like motor oil. "What happened," she asked Jakob.
"Some Church wackos wanted me to build them something. Called it 'the will of he who shall be made whole' or some malarkey. They got mad when I said no, so I had to get Hank to take care of them."
As if on cue, a seven-foot tall amalgamation of used car parts in a vaguely human shape lumbered in from the back of the shop. A license plate reading "HANK" was screwed on to its chest.
"Wasn't anything he couldn't handle, of course. What did you need?"
"I'm here to pick up the parts I ordered."
"Right, right." He went to the back of the shop.
The artist tapped her foot and looked at the piles of scrap metal strewn about the small shop. She wondered if she would be able to recoup some of these expenses if something went wrong. She then realized that if anything did go wrong, she, and a lot of other people, would probably be dead.
He came back out a minute later, holding a large pile of shining metal parts.
"Let's see here", he said, "we have five Penrose gears,"
He placed five stainless steel gears that were neither spirals nor circles on the counter.
"Three reinforced psychic shields, 30 centimeters by 60 centimeters by 2 centimeters,"
He produced three metal rectangles and placed them next to the gears.
"And twelve custom parts, made from imaginary metal." He pretended to lift several metal pieces up onto the counter.
"If you don't mind me asking, what do you need all these for?"
"Secret project. If I'm really lucky, you can see it at the “Sommes-Nous Devenus Magnifiques?” exhibition in about five years."
The artist took one of the gears into her hands and inspected it closely. It twisted back on itself in a way that defied Euclidean geometry, an object that was both spiral and complete circle.
Inspecting the shields, she was able to see the complex and delicate layering of telekill alloy. Hopefully this would be enough to prevent resonance.
She pretended to inspect the imaginary metal. Jakob did good work.
"You've really outdone yourself, Jakob. These are fantastic," the artist said as she wrapped the parts in cloth and placed them in her bag.
"Art demands the best,” Jakob replied. “Of everything.”.
The artist gave Jakob a fistful of crumpled bills, hugged Hank, and left the shop.
Her next stop was three stories above one of the main streets. As she climbed up the fire escape, she saw the sign that said “Biological Components and Alterations.” The storefront windows were barred from the inside, and the door was a solid piece of metal.
Opening the door, she saw Frank talking on the phone. She shut the door as quietly as possible.
"For the last time, no! I've already told you, I can make the zygote, but you're going to have to find someone else to implant it."
Frank looked at the artist and rolled his eyes.
"No, I don't know anyone who can do that because nobody's ever done anything like this before."
He held his hand to the mouthpiece. "This might take a while. You got a minute?" The artist nodded and sat down on a whale vertebra.
He turned back to the phone. "Look, I've been far more reasonable with you than any sane person should be. What you're doing is dangerous, irresponsible, and quite frankly, doesn't make any sense. The only reason I'm doing this is I'm reasonably certain this won't kill you, and also because you're paying me."
The artist stifled a giggle.
"Honestly, I don't care. You either pick it up when it's ready, give me my money, and leave me alone; or tell me now, and we can skip straight to the leaving me alone part."
Frank paused.
"Fine, I'll see you on Friday. Goodbye."
Frank hung up the phone and put his head in his hands. "I swear to god, you people are going to kill me. I mean, an in-utero art project? Why would anyone in their right mind do that? I try to talk her down, and she's like, 'no, I already booked the gallery space nine months in advance.' I swear, sometimes I forget why I moved here."
"The rent's cheap." The artist pointed out.
"Yeah, that's probably it. What did you need?"
"I need some kind of sedative for that clock you sold me. It keeps gaining time whenever anyone bangs on the wall."
"You do realize it's not meant to be an accurate timepiece, right?"
"I know, but it's getting out of control, and I can't re-set it."
Frank shrugged and grabbed a small phial from under the counter.
"A drop of this should slow the heartbeat enough to let time catch up. You'll have to experiment with it to get the correct dosage. Don't give it more than five drops in twenty-four hours."
"Thanks," the artist said, handing him a handful of money and some change.
"Anything else?"
"Has my order come in yet?"
"No it hasn't," Frank replied, scratching his head. "It's too dangerous to ship it here, so they've decided to take it through the Ways. Even then, they're really worried that something might happen. Are you sure I can't talk you into something less potentially world-ending? I've got a couple things in stock that should do what you want."
"No thanks," the artist said, "the potential disaster is central to the theme."
"I would tell you you're making a huge mistake, but you wouldn't listen to me anyway."
The artist walked to the door. "Good luck with that zygote," she called back as she returned to the street.
"Thanks. I really need to stop selling that girl stuff."
Outside, the sky had changed to a golden yellow. A girl was doing backflips down the sidewalk. A couple was waltzing in the middle of the street (nobody owned cars in BackdoorSoho, and no one really knew why it had streets). The artist smiled to herself.
But there was no time to dwell on that. The artist started making her way toward the gallery space. She had a lot of work to do.


Ian and Kyouko had run as soon as they knew that somebody was either trying to capture or kill them, and they had done nothing but run for the last five minutes. When the Way that had been their original destination had become compromised, they had known where the next Way was located. They had known that if anybody was taken or killed, staying behind only meant that they would probably share that same fate. So they had left Carlos, and they had run. They had both become very good at running.
Events were still happening according to plan, which Ian was very thankful for. He had little confidence in his own ability to improvise.
In the darkness, Ian had trouble seeing the river he was looking for, so he scanned in front of him for the reflection of stars in the snaking water. Finding it, he quickly slid down the bank and into the river. Kyouko was fast behind him. Both of them were breathing heavily, and the sound of flowing water filled their ears.
“One of us has to stay behind to open the Way,” Ian said.
There was silence as Kyouko stared at him.
“I'll do it,” Ian said. “You won't die if you do it, but you'll be taken. It's better for me. I'll die, but they'll do worse to you if they take you.”
“You hesitated.”
“Well yeah, I don't want to die.”
Kyouko blinked. “All right. I'm sorry. It looks like you're going to die.”
“I know,” Ian said. He clenched his teeth and shivered in the night air. Water was seeping into his pant legs and the tiny woman next to him was still staring at him and his heart beat out a machine gun tempo. “I know.”
There was silence again. Ian read the time on his watch: 10:52:46 PM. There were seven minutes and fourteen seconds until the Way could be opened.
Kyouko opened her mouth halfway, but Ian held out a hand to silence her. Listen, he mouthed. The padding of footsteps and the rattle of military gear filled the air. Ian did not breathe. The silhouette of a man peaked over the top of the riverbank. The man was alone.
Ian and Kyouko were low enough in the water that they weren't spotted. For several long seconds, the man peered around in the darkness. Then, after fumbling for a moment, he took out a flashlight and pointed it at the river. Ian and Kyouko weren't there anymore. The man had been too occupied taking out his flashlight to notice the sounds of splashing water, and was too surprised when he felt something sharp sink into his leg to put up any resistance. He collapsed to the ground in a limp heap.
Ian started dragging the man down to the water. “Oh my God, oh my God,” he said. “Did you kill him? Tell me you didn't kill him.”
Kyouko shook her head.
“Then what the hell did you do to him?”
“There is neurotoxin running through his veins. He's paralyzed now. He'll be dead in ten minutes.”
Ian closed his eyes. “So we can use him to open the Way.”
Kyouko nodded. “I was wrong. You won't die. But who knows? I might be wrong again and you'll die after all.”
“Let's not talk so much about my death, okay?”
“Would you like to talk about mine?”
“No!”
Ian let go of the man's limp body at the edge of the river. Dark water lapped at the man's feet. His unfocused gaze passed between Ian and Kyouko slowly.
“He's not Foundation,” Ian said. “They have better equipment. And they wouldn't make a mistake like this.”
The man's lips twitched. Now that he could examine him closely, Ian could see that he had dark skin and straight black hair. He was mumbling something in a language that Ian couldn't understand.
“Who, then?” Kyouko asked. She leaned in and placed her face an inch from the man's, peering at him with unblinking eyes. “Not a jailer. Not a book-burner. Where do you come from, strange man?”
The man's voice grew louder. “Shut him up,” Ian said. Kyouko ripped off a piece of her shirt and stuffed it in the man's mouth.
Ian looked into the man's eyes. They were too unfocused for him to make out any sort of emotion. The man lay there passively, submissively, mute to their ears and helpless against their will. If he had seen fear in his eyes, then Ian might have regarded him as a human being, but he saw nothing there, only the poison.
“He's from the Insurgency,” Ian said. “I've seen them before. The Insurgency's dogs…they take them from the gutters, they starve them, and then they let them loose. They're hardly human.”
“This one is very much a human,” Kyouko said. “Can't you see?”
She ran her hand over the man's cheek. “Feel him. He is warm, and soft, and he fears death. Seems like a human to me.”
Ian looked into Kyouko's eyes. Fascination and wonder and discovery were inside her gaze as she toyed with the man's body. Ian didn't know what Kyouko thought of the man. What did he think of the man?
A lump of meat about to expire.
“Ian,” Kyouko said, “why did he come after us?”
“Presumably because he was told.”
Ian wondered what the man wanted. The Insurgency marked the frontier of the unknown, even for those who made it their business to know all. They did not know what the Insurgency's goals were, or where they came from, or what they believed in. The Foundation and the GOC were known threats, defined entities that could be measured and calculated and recorded. But for all Ian knew, the Insurgency was driven by an unknown, unseen, malevolent force, driving people to kidnap and steal and kill.
“Because somebody wanted Carlos, and they wanted him alive because they have some twisted plan for him,” Ian said. “So they took him. But us, they don't need us alive, and they don't want us telling anybody that they were here. And now they want us dead.”
Kyouko looked away from the man to roll her eyes. “Wants on wants, plans on plans. Sounds pretty boring.”
Carlos was gone. Suddenly, Ian wanted to scream. The Insurgency had taken Carlos, and now, for just a moment, Ian wished that it had been somebody else who had taken him, because then, he would know why. He wanted to think to himself, I'll enjoy watching this man die, but he couldn't. He could not hate somebody if he knew nothing about them. There was nothing to despise in the alien, nothing revolting in the blank, formless surface of the unknown. There was no ideology or motive to contest. There was only fear and ignorance.
Now, the man's eyes were half-lidded and glassy. He made muffled noises underneath the makeshift gag. Blood from his leg was staining the water red.
“Where do they come from, Ian?”
“The Insurgency?”
Kyouko nodded.
Ian watched the man's eyelids fall lower and lower. “Nobody knows. Most people think they're an offshoot from the Foundation. They do the same work as the Foundation but on a different side, and they do it with less rules and more unpleasantness. And some people think that they're still part of the Foundation.”
“This one doesn't seem like a jailer, though.”
“When you see what they do to people, it's hard to tell them apart.”
Kyouko shook her head. “They're not jailers. They're prisoners. What do you think, Ian?”
“I don't care. I don't care at all.”
He knew that Kyouko knew he was lying, but she didn't say anything.
Ian sat at the edge of the riverside and rested his head in his hands. There were three minutes until they could open the Way.
The sound of gunfire broke the silence of the night air. Sprays of water fell on Ian's face as he scrambled away. The strobe lighting of muzzle flashes stabbed at his eyes as shadow and fire played across his vision. He had been found, the Way hadn't been opened yet, and—
The gunfire stopped. Men were beginning to yell.
Before he could react, somebody shined a flashlight in Ian's face, grabbed him, and shoved him to the ground. There was more yelling. Ian couldn't begin to understand most of it, but through it all—
“What are you fucks waiting for? Shoot her!”
Ian stumbled to his feet, only to meet the muzzle of a gun pointed straight at him. The man carrying it tensed.
“If you shoot, I am going to kill him,” Kyouko said.
Kyouko held their earlier prisoner's limp body upright. She was pressing a knife to the man's throat. Her face was perfectly relaxed. Several gunshot wounds marked Kyouko's body; Ian knew she didn't care. Ian couldn't even tell if the Insurgency soldiers understood what Kyouko was saying, but the man pointing the gun at him had lowered his weapon.
One man stood apart from the rest of the Insurgency soldiers. This one wore a military uniform with a straight back and a cold glare on his face. He raised his gun to aim at Kyouko, and then the yelling started again. Ian looked into the eyes of the Insurgency soldiers, and he saw fear. He saw them turn to the uniformed man and address him in hurried, pleading tones, while the uniformed man cursed and spat at them. They crowded around him, blocking his line of fire. Meanwhile, the poisoned man groaned and writhed in Kyouko's grasp. There was foam beginning to line his lips. In the chaos, his gag had fallen out of his mouth. He was still babbling in the language that Ian couldn't understand.
Finally, the uniformed man shoved his subordinates out of the way. “You dumb bastards are all dead when we get back to base,” he said, and then he shot Kyouko. She fell to the water, dragging the poisoned man down with her. Her skin began to ripple and distend. Ian saw that nobody but him noticed.
The uniformed man turned to Ian next. Kyouko's ploy had bought him some time, and now she would buy him some more, but Ian knew that it wasn't enough. He glanced down at his watch. There was a minute left.
“Your men wanted their comrade to live,” he said.
“They're fucking idiots. Either he's alive now or he was going to die anyway.”
The man turned to his men and yelled something at them. They didn't respond. One of them had waded down to the water. Ian watched as he stooped to cradle the poisoned man's head. They had the same dark skin and straight black hair.
The man turned away from Ian to raise his weapon at his own men. “Don't you fucks understand? This is bigger than one fucking person. “
“Is that what this is about? Some greater cause?”
“Look,” the man said, turning back to Ian. “We're trying to make the world better for these miserable bastards while you hide in your holes. If we were in charge, the world would be perfect, or at least a lot fucking better than it is now. But they're too stupid to help us help them.”
Ian listened to the man's words. All he had wanted was for the man to talk as long as possible, but now, actually hearing what the man had to say, he felt all of his concentration and his planning twist and snap. He looked into the man's eyes and saw a shell, filled with teeming darkness, a puppet, set in motion by forces that mocked and derided the reason of humanity. Ian started laughing.
“You stupid bastard,” he said. “You want a better future? By killing off or locking up the strange and wondrous?”
“We—we'll make the world safe for you as well! There won't be any more ‘consensus reality.' We just, we just need—sacrifices need to happen.”
The man raised his gun, and then Kyouko's body exploded. A scaly tail knocked the uniformed man away. A terrible hissing filled the air.
Eight biting snakeheads, each one as large as an automobile, snapped at the Insurgency soldiers, tearing through flesh and bone, picking entire men up and then swallowing them whole. Eight thrashing tails, each one as thick as redwood trees, smashed and flailed at the now-running soldiers, crushing them beneath clubs of scale and flesh. Screaming and gunfire assaulted Ian's ears. He collapsed to the ground, curled up into a ball, and closed his eyes tight. He could smell blood in the air. And through it all, he could feel the sensation of hissing, of forked tongues and eyes that glowed like rubies in the night, of death and carnage. It was the unseen malignancy that animated the Insurgency, come back to take what it had given and reap what it had sown. It was Chaos.
Free of the human mind that suppressed it, free of the human body that contained it, the demon snake Yamato no Orochi bathed in a river of blood under the moon.
When Ian got to his feet, the surrounding landscape had been transformed into a desolated field of toppled trees and split earth. Kyouko was human again. She was kneeling over one of the bodies of the dead, a knife in her hand, cutting out the man's heart.
“Kyouko,” Ian said. “I…”
“I knew…I was probably going to survive,” Kyouko said. “But you said that you feared death. And that you did not want to die. So I thought that I would not have you die.”
“Thank you.”
Kyouko took the heart out of the man's chest and handed it to Ian. He checked his watch; Kyouko's timing had been perfect. It was the heart of a man who had died that night, on the Witching Hour, and it would give them passage through the Way.
A commotion drew Ian's attention. It was the uniformed man, a gash in his side seeping blood, aiming his weapon at the two of them. Ian wanted to give the man a medal. After his men refused to follow his orders, after being set on by a giant eight-headed and eight-tailed snake, he still wanted the two of them dead. So long as there was blood in his veins, Chaos would drive him forwards. Now, Ian wanted to laugh again. There was nothing he could do to stop him from shooting.
The man never fired. He collapsed to the ground, blood flowing from a new wound in his neck. In the uniformed man's place, there was a woman in a suit and tie.
The woman didn't seem to notice Ian and Kyouko. She spoke, as if to herself, “He was missing humility.”
Ian and Kyouko ran for the water, but the woman didn't give chase. Instead, she knelt down by the man's body and started rifling through his clothing. Eventually, she procured a vial of red liquid. She stood, shook her head, and then walked away.
Ian threw the heart into the river as he and Kyouko dove into the waters. The river churned, embracing the two. As Ian felt the power of the Way pull him into the Library, the last image he had of the woman seared itself into his mind. Blood from the uniformed man's neck wound had stained the sleeve of the woman's suit, and had colored her right hand red.


☦Fifthism puts on a show.☦
 Clyde plucked the metal strings of his guitar with no audience save for his pet cat. The sound echoed against the walls of the apartment with no other harmony save for quiet breaths and soft purring. Clyde's apartment was plain despite his wealth; the only indication of the roots he grew from were the guitars he played, several thousand dollars each. Not that anyone in his band knew enough to know.
 There was a swipe of shadow against his ear, a sensation of the teasing lips of a lover. A shiver raced up his back and the music acquiesced to silence. Clyde turned his head, pressing a hand against his ear. Odd- his cat was by his feet.
 Clyde found himself with an idea, an inclination. He put the guitar away and fetched his phone. In the darkness of the unlit apartment, Clyde called his father for the first time in three years.
 “Ms. Silva speaking, how may I help you?”
 “This is Clyde. Let me talk to my dad.”
 The line on the other end was silent for some time. The honeyed voice melted to the old nanny he remembered well. “Clyde? It's been so long. Where di-? Your- your father, yes. I'll transfer you right away, dear.”
 “…Son.” The voice was gruff, tired. Older than he remembered. More worried. He could hear the balding through the phone. “Where the hell have you been? I thought you were dead.”
 “Hi dad.” Clyde had to steady his voice. “Look, are you still in contac- wait, that's stupid. Of course you are. I need to ask you a favor. Is that annual banquet still happening? The one in Cali, with the MCD people? I have a favor to ask you.”

 The annual banquet was grand, as every banquet hosted by Marshall, Carter & Dark Ltd. had been. Satin curtains lined the walls, matching the tablecloths in bold crimson accent, which were themselves accented with candles. Save for the fashionably late, everyone who was someone was there. Women in classic evening gowns reintroduced themselves to acquaintances; men in custom tailored suits discussed about nothing in particular. All around, wine was shared and the crowd waited for the opening speech.
 Nothing was out of place this evening, as wholly expected by the guests.
 The host, wearing a suit that a lesser man could cut himself on, addressed the crowd. He thanked Marshall, Carter and Dark for their generosity in funding the banquet. He thanked the guests for arriving, even those that had arrived mid-speech in a fashionably late style. He thanked their yet-to-arrive evening entertainment, an unknown group by the label ‘Constellation Starfish'. He thanked the chefs and the waiters. He made an unfunny joke that was met with polite laughter and then thanked the guests for laughing. After his list of thanks, he moved on to advertise for Marshall, Carter and Dark's summer collection. Nothing was out of place at all.
 Constellation Starfish arrived later, during the course before dessert. Their beat up van rode into the parking lot, much to the confusion of the valet workers. The only reason the band wasn't thrown out immediately was the lead guitarist, who carried himself like a patron despite his shabby clothes. The guitarist seemed a little uncomfortable as he settled into this demeanor, as if he hadn't used it in some time. He was the one that explained the situation.
 The band didn't need any help with setup, although according to many of the guests they certainly needed help with their fashion sense.
 When the desserts were served, the band introduced themselves. The drummer was Brook, a girl in a dated hairstyle and an unironed shirt. The backup vocal was sung by Rosa, another girl with her unstyled hair and unflattering, vintage clothes. The lead singer, Morgan, sported a piercing gaze and socks that didn't match his pants, which were fashionable last season. There was supposed to be a big burly man that helped with unpacking, but he had snuck away somewhere. The only one who acted with any kind of respectability was the lead guitarist, Clyde. He was the only one that acted like them.
 Expectations were low. A no name band. A shabby no name band, no less.
 Morgan tapped the mic once, tested it. “Good evening ladies, gentlemen. We're Constellation Starfish. After the show we'll be selling some albums and t-shirts near the entrance if you want to pick up any. Our first song will be a nice upbeat tune to start the night…”
 As the music began, the air of disquiet stifled and acquiesced. The only person who played professionally was Clyde, but there was something about the music that rattled into the bones of the guests. The notes slid into the mind through the ears, squirming around one's consciousness until it was all that could be thought of. It evoked memories before this human existence and the guests began to remember what they had forgotten they had forgotten. What they used to be.
 About halfway through the second song, one of the women grabbed a decorative candle. She held it into the relative darkness of the room, hot wax pouring down and over her tender skin. She didn't let go and instead waved the candle back and forth. The candle was joined by others, creating a dance of shadow and light over the walls and the floor to the music of Constellation Starfish. Audience and performance became one entity, singing a collective memory and reminiscing times beyond their comprehension.
 When Morgan opened his eyes to gaze at the audience, he took in the sea of candles and saw instead stars against the darkness of a void. The shadows twisted into tendrils, curling around arms and clutching at the hands that clutched at warm wax. Flickering darkness drowned the crowd in unfelt caress. Ethereal arms wrapped around bodies like a possessive lover, around him and his band. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he recognized what he was doing. He tried to break the spell, to stutter his words, to sing off key. Anything. But his words were no longer his. His voice was no longer his tool of expression.
 He wasn't sure if he wanted to run away screaming or fall to his knees in worship.

 The unified collective remained well into the evening, until its voice was hoarse and the last candles had burned away in the now-singed hands that held them. The shadows stilled and returned to their usual lifeless mimicry. Morgan found himself capable of speaking at his own will again, though he didn't want to anymore. “Thank you for being such a great audience, everybody. As I said before, we'll be selling t-shirts and albums near the exit. Don't forget to like us on facebook and twitter…”
 The paraphernalia stand was empty by the end of the night, with some further generous donations on top of it. Constellation Starfish made more money that evening than they had in their entire existence previously.

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Manna Charitable Foundation Best as it Gets
Start here
Eat more of my SCPs. Eat them all.
Also please eat some of these

Anabasis Hub Probably the greatest story involving a pair of redheaded siblings whose infighting causes the end of the world
Manna Charitable Foundation 2000 The sequel to the above, collaborationed with Dr Reach
The Stuff Industry What happens when everyone around you at work is a complete idiot and so are you, but not only does no one get fired, but you actually turn a profit? I don't know, some stuff.
When MCF and Stuff happen A fun story of incompetence

The way it came out was miraculous. Last month it was an empty lot, with MCF operatives handing out food and clean water and offering medical services. The operatives were still there, working out of a fully-functioning concrete building. Lights, air conditioning, everything working perfectly. A fully built hospital in the middle of a Somali refugee camp should have been a beacon for masses of humanity, writhing and shuffling and pushing one another as they sought desperately needed aid. A beacon for hope and humanity.
So why was it fucking empty?
Dodger held her nose up, trying to relax herself before her throat closed up and she suffocated. That wasn't fair to say it was empty… there were plenty of people here, getting checkups and waiting in lines, and several hospital beds were occupied. There were just more people across the street, gathering around the man shouting from the back of a run-down technical with its tires freshly stripped off.
"What's going on out there?" One of the doctors asked another.
"Rabblerousers have got people convinced the place is infected with something. Saying it's demonic, or something."
"Demonic? I thought they were Muslim."
"Islam has demons in it, too."
"Oh."
Dodger went out the door, met outside by a local guard as she stormed across the dirt road towards the crowd. She knew right away it was a crock of shit—the man on the back of the truck was trying and failing to be subtle as he motioned to others to start corralling people to his left. He was trying to get them to block her way towards him.
"Hey," She called out to him, turning sideways so as not to elbow a woman in the face, "Hey! Hey!"
She avoided someone coming her way, then noticed a man push someone else in her path. The crowd started to notice her, and turned her way.
"What do you want?" A man nearby yelled in her ear, grabbing her by the shoulder, "Who do you think you are, some kind of army soldier? Fucking marine?"
Dodger was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, casual, along with a bandoleer and a belt. She thought she looked more like a police officer when she'd dressed. Hadn't realized Somalians here were unlikely to have experienced civilian police before.
"Don't touch me. Who are you? You're not in charge around here, so fuck off."
The man took that rather well, she thought, as he stepped aside and the crowd started giving her room. She thought so, but then the man on the truck was looking right down at her, addressing her directly in English.
"You, American, what do you say? How is it you have a hospital building built and supplied so fast? Where was construction? Who was working here? What poison are you putting in the medicine?"
Dodger kept her hands to her sides, clearly visible. Despite her look she didn't have a gun. MCF Mission members weren't allowed guns either. Some of the people in the crowd had guns. The speaker's words reverberated around in Somali, and another language or two she didn't recognize. Some voices came out in hostile response. She hadn't noticed it before, but the crowd wasn't entirely against her. An enclave of about a dozen men were shouting down the man. Some were bracing for a fight with the rest of the crowd.
"It's called 'prefabricated shelter'—we build it elsewhere, pack it up in pieces, then bring it here and put it back together. What do you say? Why are you stirring shit up here?"
The man began hounding the crowd again, while the man who had tried to touch her now came up in front of her again, "I suggest you go back inside, slut."
She wasn't even paying attention to him. She had had visions in her head — heroic and overblown, perhaps — of her standing up onto the back of the truck, shouting down this rabble-rouser, espousing the new hospital as safe, and exposing him as… what?
"You really want to see?" The man suddenly shouted towards her, then back to the crowd, "She really wants to see!" The crowd began to shout louder, angrier. She couldn't even begin to imagine what these people had gotten into their minds that they were turning down food and drink and medical supplies just to stand around and be angry about something else yet again. Suddenly she realized something odd about the man… his teeth…
"Hey," She called out again to him.
He turned to her, leaning in close like a performer on a stage, "You will see, American. Just wait."
"Where are you from? What is your clan?" She asked in response. His teeth… they weren't all perfect and white, but the more he spoke, the more she saw what was missing — no implants, no fillings, no off-colors. If anything, his molars were whiter than the rest of his teeth.
Someone was getting her words across to the crowd, and some people were starting to take notice of her.
"What's your clan, fucker? Where are you from?"
Someone else had brought it up in Somali, and some people in the crowd were starting to cry out in turn, demanding to know the man's allegiance. Should be just like Mexico… Dodger thought. This area was largely one clan, so that severely limited the pick of lies this actor on the truck had to deliver. It would shut him up for a while, at the least.
A young man in the crowd was gesticulating at the man. The side opposing the speaker had grown enough in the few minutes that the speaker couldn't be heard anymore over the tumult.
Dodger made her way over towards him, when shots began to ring out. People started to scream, and she brought her arms up and dropped into a crouch. She quickly rose, heading for the derelict pickup truck. She started sucking in deep breaths, feeling her throat start to clench on her again. She couldn't concentrate any longer on finding the man— by the time she reached the truck, he was gone. She could barely see straight. Every breath she took was somehow just not enough to sate her.
"Listen to me," A voice called out near her. Her eyes darted about, and she sat upright, as hands came down on her, holding her still.
"Listen!" It was the young man, "Were you shot?"
She blinked, and looked down at herself. Mud caked her pants, and someone had tried to steal something from her bandoleer. Otherwise, she didn't see anything to indicate she was hurt.
"It's fine— I'm fine!" She swatted away more hands that were coming towards her belt.
"You should not have come out, you only made things worse."
She furrowed her brow at him, "I just asked that guy a question!"
"You nearly got yourself hurt. Men were looking at you, some as if you were a fine cut of meat."
"Oh yeah?" She'd never had any trouble with the locals before, none of them haranguing her or leering at her. Why now?
"You are with the Charitable Foundation, yes? My name is Yasir. Come with me, you must see."
Dodger got up, her breathing still strained, but at least she wasn't at risk of being trampled or shot. She kept struggling to keep her breathing steady as Yasir and his companions began leading her away.
"I know what the Manna Charitable Foundation has been doing here, this is not my worry. No problem, you understand? People look for any excuse to demonize a foreign operation here, especially with whites like you. Most people don't care. You come, you give food, medicine, they will take it. Something has happened now, people are losing trust in you."
"I noticed," She kept her hand over her face, hiding her nose as she pressed it up, expanding her nostrils to ease her breathing.
Before she could ask what, they stopped. They had brought her beside a large shack, with a strip of chicken wire hastily duct-taped over a corner where the shack met the wall of the shack beside it. One of the men approached, waiting for Yasir's nod, before peeling off the tape and lifting the wire up.
Dodger had been watching him, waiting for an explanation. The explanation shot out from under the chicken wire. It was a cat… or what should have been a cat. It was on a leash and collar, and gaping at her with big, almost sad eyes. Its ears were gone, and it had chunks of fur missing from its body. It was also missing a back leg.
"So… what? It's a feral cat." She noticed just as she finished speaking, and just as the man tugged on the cat's leash, turning it over to show its left side. Its ribs were exposed, and what she had thought to be dirt or mud was actually blood caked in its fur as the cat's organs threatened to slide out from the gaping hole in its side. The cat seemed not to notice. It was purring affectionately, trying to come closer to her.
"So… what? It's a mutilated cat… what's this—"
"This is not the only one. Days ago animals begin to appear in the village. Big ones, you understand? Not only dogs and cats, but jackals, wildcats, even monkeys. We hear one village twelve kilometers away, a lion appears, but the lion does not attack anyone. You know what the lion did? It did what all the animals that appear here did. You know what that is?"
Dodger looked at the cat again. She couldn't put together in her head what that thing could have done to end up with its guts hanging out and still living… and happy, "Am I supposed to know?"
Yasir sighed, pressing his lips together firmly, "If you don't know, then this is a problem."
"What did the lion do? What are all the animals doing?"
"Not all the animals, only some," Yasir clarified, and started shoving the mangled cat back under the chicken wire. It didn't resist, even trying to rub against his foot as he pushed it away, "The animals come into the village, they lay down and show us their bellies. Then they do not move. They will stay laying until someone comes by and cuts them. They will let us cut into their bellies. They are happy for us to cut their bellies open. They want us to cut them all over, to cut off pieces of them."
Yasir said something to the man nearest the cage, and he lifted it again, pulling the cat out by its collar. It didn't protest, but mewled lazily as he turned it over onto its back, showing Dodger its hind leg. The other was half gone, showing dried bone at the end.
"This leg, here," Yasir pointed to the stump, "We cut it off completely. Completely, you understand? Yesterday, we find this," Again indicating the leg.
"Meaning its leg is growing back?" Dodger offered. She didn't think they would be lying. The cat should've been dead anyway with the gaping hole in its body.
Yasir nodded, "It is growing back. Look here," He indicated a hairless patch of skin on the cat's stomach, "Come closer, look."
Dodger crouched down to get a better look, as the man beside Yasir crouched beside her, pulling a knife out and starting to cut into the cat. It didn't stop its affectionate purrs. Fresh blood poured out of the wound, staining its already grimy fur.
"See this, in here?" Yasir pointed as the man opened up the skin, ripping it open further to expose more bloody flesh. Dodger had a strong stomach for this sort of thing, but the way the cat just lay there purring made her want to cry. It was beyond disturbing.
"What am I looking for?" She asked wearily.
The man kept pressing his fingers in deeper, wiggling them as if stirring a pot of warm soup. Then he pulled out a hunk of flesh, cut into a cube.
"That piece, we leave behind two days ago. Yesterday, the cat is healed up again. So we cut it open again, and find that piece still there."
And now they found it a third time, Dodger realized. She got up, not able to stomach the cat's cheerful purring anymore, before turning to him, "What's this have to do with the MCF?"
"I don't know. Only thing I know is your hospital is finished last week. Next day, these animals appear. Starting here. Then they appear in villages two kilometer away, three, then ten. All starting here."

Three hours after waking, her body still stiff from that awkward seated position she'd taken, Priss still felt drowsy. Her vision blurred every time she blinked, and she had to move slowly, lest a sudden movement send stabs of pain through her head.
At least the sight was pleasant enough. An underground lake, not yet filled, looking like a brand new luxury swimming pool. From their vantage point right over the reservoir, they could take it all in— the Rabbi and Opal, giddy and chittering about the artificial cavern of concrete they had managed to pull off; Westinghouse, asking things like weight distribution, pillars, and insulation; and herself, resisting the urge to just sit down where she stood and staring vacantly at the pristine white ceiling until she was comfortable.
She looked down at the dufflebag in her hand. She'd almost forgotten about the Anabasis. Her arm had gone numb from its weight, and prickling sensation had abruptly returned.
The bowl-like reservoir was hollow and about thirteen meters at its deepest. Ladders connected to a high platform positioned directly over the center of the bowl. Niches in the bowl would open up as it filled with water, covered with metal gates. When the reservoir started overflowing, the niches would open, and clean and dirty water would flow out and in to the reservoir, respectively. The niches were open, with Torres' volunteers adjusting and checking the piping, making sure the Vestan sewage system that drained from the camp had fused correctly. By tomorrow or the next day, the Hippo would be brought in, and then she would make it rain.
"What I don't get — I mean, Rabbi, don't get me wrong," Opal's voice came in over the low murmuring of the group, "it's impressive and all that… but why do we need this whole place? The Vestan seems to be a perfectly good filter system, and the camp uses Vestan-grown sewage and drains. There's no risk of contagion from the Sour."
"Well, we planned this place when we got here, and we didn't know that at the time. Besides, I've been running tests and we might have a bigger issue… there's a chance that some of the piping is lead."
Priss grinned, and started to laugh to herself. It was inappropriate, but she couldn't help herself.
"What?" Frank ignored Priscilla, staring intently at Jacob.
"The Vestan piping. We thought it would be mostly plastic, but… it wasn't. There's lead pipes down there. And there's more."
Frank rubbed his eyes as Opal crossed her arms, looking about to explode, "We've been poisoning our beneficiaries, Jacob? Tell me we haven't."
"It's not a problem!" Jacob looked frustrated, as if he hadn't just said it was a problem, "We're replacing the outgoing pipes. Incoming shouldn't be a problem, since the Hippo should be able to handle any pollutants. Also, related issue…"
"More?" Frank put in.
"You know how like, sometimes when you make fruit punch, you don't fully liquefy the fruit, and some of it collects at the bottom? There might be — well, there is — some fungi that isn't growing properly, and gets left behind in the pipes. It won't be an issue as we start cleaning out the pipes."
Frank said nothing. Opal pressed her palms into her eyes and sighed loudly, "Last thing we need is people sucking down crap-filled water when we promised them clean and pure, then starting to… I don't know… sprout extra arms and legs or grow pipes in their bellies!"
"I just said it's not an issue —!"
"Your exact words were 'Also, related issue'!" Opal nearly shrieked.
"Well I was exaggerating! It's an issue now but it won't be an issue by tomorrow. Besides, it's not my fault. We might not have these same issues if we used it entirely as intended."
Frank glanced up, "Unexpected effect from our manipulating it?"
Jacob shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe."
Frank shrugged, mirroring Jacob's gesture in a condescending fashion, "And we didn't bother to test this out before-hand. No big deal. After all, it's just Somalians. Mongrels, as the Nazis would say."
Subhuman mongrel.
Jacob went rabid, "Don't you start pulling that Godwin shit on me! You know that's not even close to what we'd intended! If we had more time we'd be able to iron these things out but we don't. We just don't!"
Priss smirked — by now, she'd given up and was sitting atop the Anabasis, rocking gently back and forth and at a state of ease, "You know… back home, the Party for the Supremacy of Western Civilization would have tested all of this beforehand on some 'subhuman mongrels' as you put it. If the locals got uppity… well, that depended on the administrator. Best-case scenario, the locals would get a nice lecture about all the benefits coming their way, and the hope for the future. Most of the time, it was just curfews, crackdowns, and cracking heads if anyone protested too loudly. It was inhuman, but… when you've got thousands of people already living in such squalor, on the brink of death every day, it was a noble sacrifice."
The others stared at her like she was a monster. She regretted even speaking up. She looked away, still rocking, "My sister called herself a 'subhuman mongrel'. She considered herself one of them."
Opal blinked. Then her expression slowly turned into a frown, then a cold grimace. She turned to Frank.
"I'm not keen on world history, Frankie. Please, help me here. There has never been a Party for the Supremacy of Western Civilization, right?"
"Opal-"
"Never mind. I just don't care. You deal with her," she said, coldness permeating her every word. "You deal with her, you are responsible for her, whatever messes this one makes, it's on you."
Opal turned for the ladder and started to climb it. Jacob and Frank stared back at Priss; the 'Rabbi' seemed disgusted, Frank was just tired. For a long while, their expressions didn't change.
She hadn't saved herself. That would've been funny someplace else. But not here. You don't belong here.

Just as Frank had sat down and started to settle in for the night, trouble came.
"Oy prick!" Dodger called before she peeked into the cube, auburn hair looking black, as if she'd been caught in a thunderstorm.
Frank eased back in his seat and crossed his arms, "Late night visits between Mission group members are typically frowned upon."
The woman shook her head, smirking despite her words, "Ew, Frank. Ew. I'd think your standards would be much higher than that."
"And so modest," He smirked in turn. Dodger was anything but. She didn't bother with makeup when out in the field, but she still stuck out horribly, looking either too young to be in her position, or too pretty to be someone expected to get themselves dirty with actual work.
She produced a wad of paper, and slipped into the cube. She was actually dirty for once—shirt stained and pants smeared in dust, "Report from today. I forwarded a copy to Torres first. His team's taking a look at it."
"More shit?"
She came closer, and dropped it into his lap, "You take this nice pile of shit, and you eat it. Then you go to bed with a nice smile, and wait for another in the morning."
"Wonderful," Frank held the report up, thumbing through it, knowing just what to look for and how to skim past the inane bullshit and prose Dodger tended to load in. As if her reports were going to be published as great literary works.
"Wait, what is this? How do we know these animals are being affected by the Vesta donation?"
"We don't. But think about it. The animals are regenerating body parts from seemingly nothing… Vestan fungus grows into stuff we design it to."
Frank groaned and put the report down, "God help us…"
Dodger pursed her lips and crossed her arms, "Smile. Savor the shit. Remember how sweet it tastes compared to the shit we're likely to have to eat tomorrow."
"Why didn't we know of this?"
She shrugged, irritatingly calm about this situation, "None of my contacts knew, but then I don't have any ears among the town elders the way you all do. Why didn't the elders warn you?"
Frank shook his head. Political intrigues, he guessed. "I'll have to warn Lindsberg and the rest."
"Yeah," She was still calm, even smirking at him.
"What's so goddamn funny?"
"Smile, Frank. It can only get worse from here. Enjoy it while you can" She turned to leave, and leaned against the door again, "Savor the taste."
"Ugh, just go."

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Mikhael Andreyev had never really liked Jews, and he despised Americans, so when he received a report that a pair of American Jew spies for the KGB had found evidence of a merzost in the Southwestern desert, he was annoyed. Although any anomaly on American soil would have been enough for the report to be forwarded to the GRU Psychotronics Division, what made it a priority was that it had appeared from space in a craft that, per the report, bore the Soviet flag on it. Anything that could be used as a weapon against the Americans, especially something already marked as belonging to the USSR, had to be recovered or destroyed.
He briefly thought about setting a false trail for those fools at the Foundation to "accidentally" discover it and take care of it for him, but quickly decided that it was more important to find out where it came from and why Division "P" didn't seem to have any files that matched the description of the beast. Better to send some field agents to acquire the creature.
That evening, after closing his tailor's shop in Brooklyn, he stopped by the Western Union and sent a telegram to a distant cousin who lived in Las Vegas, inviting him and his family to come visit in November. He also stopped for a few minutes at a public phone booth and made a short call to a man with a thick Texas accent. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Andreyev placed an order for some specialty fabrics and then went home for the night.

Jonathon Walters had been best friends with Bud Jacobson ever since they were assigned as partners by Divison "P". The two men had covered their true allegiances so well that even their wives didn't know, nor did they suspect anything when the friends got a wild hair and went off camping and hunting for a weekend in the desert without warning. Just boys being boys, after all, and the men certainly knew better than to cheat on their wives, or if they did, not to bring anything home with them. The fact that their hunting gear was rather more professional than would be expected of casual hunters escaped their wives, who were just grateful to have a weekend to themselves.
After leaving home, Jon and Bud stopped at a nondescript house on the outskirts of Las Vegas and swapped cars, putting their Buick in the garage before driving off in an equally nondescript pickup truck that disguised a powerful engine and bullet-proof cabin.
They spent the next few hours chatting amiably about various local sports teams and the relative merits of their favorite and least favorite players. It wasn't until the final hour of the drive that Jon finally broached the subject of their mission.
"Group leader says that this dog, or whatever the critter is, is being held at that UIU facility outside Salt Lake that they think we don't know about. It's supposed to only be lightly fortified, so I'm thinking smash-and-grab?"
"Nah," Bud replied. "Maybe if we knew where exactly it was inside, but if we have to search for it, it'd be better to do it sneakier. Knockout gas in the vents?"
"That could work, but I bet they have windows open with this heat. One-on-one knockouts would be better, I think. I'm pretty sure the safe house in Salt Lake has some gas masks, so we can stop by there first. It'd be better to do this tonight, too, so there's fewer people to deal with."
"Sounds like a plan, bud."
"Hey, I'm Jon. You're Bud!" Jon laughed at the well-worn joke. "Now keep your eyes on the road while I go over the floorplans."
A grin on his face, Bud kept driving, the setting sun glowing red at their backs.

Special Agent Walsh was not having a good day. After the surprise inspection by Director Hoover, he and Fredericks had been assigned as the official dog-wranglers. It wasn't like Walsh disliked dogs, but he was leery about hanging around one that could cover you in radiation scars while licking your face. It didn't help that he kept having paperwork forwarded to him that had nothing to do with any of his cases, so that he spent at least an hour a day just returning stuff to the mailroom. At least he didn't have to deal with the snail man, though. Just the thought of what he did to people made Walsh's skin crawl.
Walsh had just finished transferring some dogshit to a lead-lined box and was typing out the internal transit slip when the lights flickered and died. He frowned in the sudden darkness and picked up the telephone receiver to call the switchboard for a line to the lobby, but the phone was dead. He retrieved his gun from the desk and groped his way over to the door leading to the hallway. He carefully cracked the door open and bent over to look through the crack at waist height. Wan moonlight was shining through a window at the end of the hall, but he couldn't see any suspicious movements. He didn't realize it was already so late, but it was easy to lose track when dealing with some of the things they had in custody.
Still, it wasn't storming, and the facility had a backup generator anyway, so it was highly unlikely that both the power and the internal phone lines going out was a random occurrence. Walsh quietly opened the door the rest of the way, went through, and closed it behind him. He didn't have the key to lock it, but hopefully that wouldn't be a problem. He crept down the hall as quietly as he could, but even so, the slight tap-tap-tap of his footsteps seemed to echo in his ears. He paused before turning the corner, listening for anything around the other side. Hearing only silence, he ducked around the corner and faced another empty hallway, lined with doors to other offices.
He went down the hallway slowly, glancing at each door to make sure none were suspiciously ajar. By the time he made it to the stairwell entrance at the end, his paranoia was oddly both heightened and lessened at the same time, precisely because he hadn't found anything to justify it yet. He opened the stairwell door as quietly as he could, but couldn't help but internally flinch at the slight squeak that was normally unnoticeable during the day but seemed as loud as a siren in the dark. The window across from the door gleamed with the same weak light as the hallway, barely illuminating the stairs.
He made his way down the concrete steps to the ground floor and the thankfully silent door to the lobby of the building. He carefully looked through the door's window and didn't see any abnormal movement, which in itself was worrisome, as he'd have expected the overnight security at the front desk to be there. He left the confines of the stairwell and made his way to the dark area behind the desk, where he found the security guard slumped in the footwell, unconscious. Walsh checked him quickly and professionally, but didn't find any blood or lumps on the head. It must've been chloroform or something like it, but how did the assailants get so close without the guard getting suspicious?
Walsh didn't even have to think about it; anyone invading the building at this time of night must be after one of the suspects in custody downstairs. Moving more rapidly now, he made a beeline for the depths of the ground floor, where the secure elevator to the custody cells was. Sure enough, the doors were pried open, held in place by an H-shaped metal bar at ankle height. A rope was tied to it, trailing down into the depths. He stuck his head into the shaft and saw the roof of the elevator 20 feet below, the emergency hatch open.
He briefly debated waiting for the invaders to come back this way, but there was too much danger that they would kill or damage the beings down below. Cursing under his breath, he climbed down the rope and then dropped himself down the hatch into the pitch black elevator. He felt for the doors and found them pried open too, another H-bar holding them open at the bottom. He saw light reflected off the wall at the end of the corridor in front of him, where another hallway crossed it. The shape of another slumped body was beside the doors of the elevator. Walsh regretted passing it by, but he didn't have time.
He drew his gun and crept down to the junction. He pressed against the wall right before the corner and listened carefully. There was silence, until he heard a sudden, distant angry barking.
Oh for Christ's sake, they're going after the darn dog?! Hope they brought their radiation gear. No, wait, I don't.
Without many options available, Walsh spun around the corner, gun pointed down the corridor. He spotted two men in dark clothes and gas masks about halfway down the long corridor, one halfway into the entry chamber for the dog's cell, one facing back towards Walsh.
Crap.
"Shit."
With that, the man facing Walsh went to draw some complicated-looking gun at his side while his companion dove into the doorway, taking himself out of the line of fire. Walsh's training took over and he aimed and shot at the man down the hallway. A graze to the shoulder rather than a direct hit. Walsh took aim again and fired, a fraction of a second before the other man did. Walsh saw the other man's shoulder jerk back as the small canister struck him right in the sternum and gas broke free of it. The strike huffed the air out of Walsh's lungs and he involuntarily took a deep gasp to recover his breath, inhaling the strange gas.
Almost immediately he felt his head start swimming. As he fell and felt consciousness slipping away, he saw the man walk towards him, his silhouette menacing in the light of the flashlight dropped to the ground by the open door to the cell.

Bud looked down at the ass who'd shot him. Everything else had been going smoothly, probably more so than could be reasonably expected, but he did not appreciate getting his shoulder hit like that. He kicked the unconscious man in the ribs before bending down and picking up the gas bullet. He put it in his pocket and walked back over to where Jon was crouched in the doorway.
"He's down and gone. I think that shot broke my shoulder, though. Will you be able to get the dog up the elevator by yourself?"
"Yeah, should be able to. There's a carrier in here and I can tie the rope to it. Let's hurry before anyone else shows up."
Bud nodded and took a guard position in the doorway while Jon collected the dog. He may not be as good a shot with his left arm, but it was still better than nothing. And he wouldn't be able to wrangle an upset dog into a carrier with only one arm.
There was some low cursing behind him as Jon discovered that the dog carrier was significantly heavier than he expected. Given the limited info they'd been given about the target, he suspected that it was lead-lined, but he hadn't realized just how heavy that much lead would be. Nevertheless, he maneuvered the carrier over to a door leading into the next chamber. He'd seen some hanging full-body suits over on the wall, but didn't have time to get into one. He figured that if he got the dog into the carrier fast enough, he should be okay.
It was some kind of airlock door with a big wheel in the middle to unlock it, like in a submarine or something. The wheel itself was easy to open, but the door was heavy. He suspected that it was steel with a lead lining, like the dog carrier. His skin started to feel warm and tingly as he pulled the door open, but once it was open enough to slip in with the lead box, Jon did so. The dog was in a corner, alternating between growling and barking at him.
It took a few abortive grabs before he was able to grab the thing by the scruff of its neck and shove it into the box, but he finally did so after about five minutes. Once it was inside, he quickly slammed the door shut and flipped the latch so it wouldn't open unexpectedly. After that, it was a relatively simple job to half-carry, half-drag the box out to where Bud stood watch.
Bud's shirt was visibly wet with blood in the light from the flashlights, but he was still upright, so he was in good enough shape for them to get out and to the safe house in Salt Lake. Getting out took longer than either of them was comfortable with, but between Bud being one-handed and the damn dog moving around in the heavy box, they did the best they could. Really the hardest part was getting back up the rope to the main floor. After a half hour they were back in the truck, the dog carrier in the back, and on their way to the safe house.
Jon was starting to feel sick to his stomach, and his skin was itching something fierce, but he put it down to nerves about nabbing something as dangerous as that dog. He didn't even notice the weird sunburn-looking patches on his face and hands until they were back at the safe house and he'd finished vomiting into the toilet.
He was having trouble thinking straight, but he was fairly sure that he was in trouble.

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I believe it was Shakespeare who said "All the world's indeed a stage, and we are merely players, performers and portrayers, each another's audience outside the gilded cage."
He was half-right.
-Excerpt from The Coolest War: Memories of a Critic, by Anonymous

The symphony hall was packed to capacity for what promised to be the event of the season. Ushers lead men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns down dimly lit walkways to their seats, the twinkling of hundreds of tiny lights on the chandeliers overhead illuminating the elaborate architecture. The city's finest conversed in their box seats, the elite and the middle class sat out front to see and be seen, and in the galleries even the less fortunate of the city had put on their Sunday finest and turned out. A hush fell over the assembled multitudes as the Conductor stepped onto the stage, empty save but for his podium. The audience rose in respect as the thirty-ish impresario in impeccable white tie took his position upstage, bowing once to the crowd to signal that they could sit. The Conductor turned to the podium, where his sheet music and baton lay at the ready. He opened the book to the first movement of tonight's performance, looked straight ahead at the empty space before him, lifted his baton, and the performance began.
A sense of shock and wonder rippled through the crowd as the first bars of the overture rung out - aggressive, powerful, demanding attention. A brief pause allowed the crowd to compose themselves - there was no band on stage, there were no speakers anywhere to carry the sound, and yet, as sure as they could hear their own breathing, they heard music. Before they had too long to ponder it, the second bar hit them, at first just the horns, then came the violins, the bass section, oboes, flutes, timpani, and the sound of an entire orchestra filled the hall and echoed from front to back. The Conductor kept time and signaled the invisible, imaginary band with his baton, sweat dripping down his brow as he struggled to ensure that the cellists were in tune and the xylophonist wasn't coming in too early. He gave them a five-minute preview, in music, of what he hoped would be his magnum opus - the history of creation itself - and as the final strings of the overture gave way to the lone drum representing the heartbeat of the last man alive (or perhaps the first), he prepared himself for the part he had not yet performed before an audience. The Moog synthesizer kicked in as the Conductor grabbed the podium with his free hand, twisted it around 90 degrees counterclockwise, turned himself sideways to face the crowd on the left and the fictional orchestra on his right, and picked up the second baton.
With a quivering hand, the Conductor raised his second baton towards the audience, and flicked it like a magic wand, the Moog providing a sting to punctuate the flick. Nothing. The violins quivered along with his hand as he tried the flick again - still nothing. The Theremins kicked in on the third try, and with a third flick - and the sound of the gong - the chandelier hanging above the floor seats vanished, leaving only a hundred flickering bits of light in midair. The crowd gasped and applauded politely, but the Conductor only raised a finger to his lips, a "Shhhhhhh!" provided by the electric guitarist's Vocoder, as he carried on. Continuing to direct the orchestra with the baton in his right hand, he now stared upward at the flickering lights, pointing at one with his baton and nudging it slightly to the left. He pointed at another and moved it up somewhat, then another which he directed to fly around in a circle. Before long, the points of light were flying every which way around the hall, up and down, front to back, swinging in grand arcs over the balcony or zig-zagging or orbiting the head of a particularly confused old woman in the front row. The orchestra carried on in a regimented cacophony, dozens of leitmotifs representing the different lights as they swirled around, joyful, playful, ever in flux, one minute a minuet as two lights seemed to dance around each another, another anticipatory as one slowly wiggled its way up from the floor to the top of the hall, triumphant as it swirled about above all the other lights - and then a crashing sense of betrayal as it swung down, collided straight into another light, and the light broke apart and was snuffed out, accentuated with the sound of the cannon.
Silence fell, and the hundred lights stopped their play and gathered in a circle around the attacker. The string soloists called out in confusion and mourning. Why? How? What has happened? The time for wonderment was short lived, as from the back another light swooped down and smashed into another extinguishing it, then a third, then a fourth. The gathered lights panicked and grew a bright blue, huddling together at first in fear, and then some of their own launching outward to defend themselves against the yellow-red aggressors. The machine gunners kept time, the bassoons sounded the march, and the accordionist wailed - it was war.
Few in the crowd took the time to look at the Conductor as the war raged on above them. Had they, they would have seen the sweat dripping from his brow, his hair soaking wet from it, his hands wildly flailing in both directions at once as his mind focused on keeping both his imaginary productions in sync. The orchestra rose to a crescendo as the room grew dimmer, more and more of the once-so-innocent lights vanishing into the darkness, and the last handful of blue lights gathered together in a ball, their attackers orbiting around them like a giant molecule of some unimaginable element, diving in and out in an attempt to penetrate the defense. A single chord that the Conductor had hoped would sound like the one from A Day In the Life sounded out from the entire band in unison as all the attackers swooped in at once and the entire concert hall erupted in a blinding flash of white light. The lone drumbeat returned as the light faded, and the crowd could see that the ceiling of the concert hall had been dematerialized entirely - and beyond it, there stood nothing but a sky full of millions of stars.
The Conductor set his batons down as the drumming stopped, turned to face the audience, and gave a short bow. The crowd applauded thunderously, some of them rapt with joy, others with tears running down their faces, all of them looking forward to the second movement. The Conductor cleared his throat and snapped his fingers, and in an instant the performance was over. The roar of the crowd ceased as the men and women disappeared back into the ether from which they came, and the walls fell in until the concert hall was once again the rehearsal space of the West Soho Performing Arts Center.
"Well, there you have it," the Conductor said to the two actual humans remaining of his audience of thousands. "Concerto No. 3 for Reality Warper, 1st Movement. 'The Fall of Heaven'. What do you think?" The bespectacled middle-aged man in a Grateful Dead t-shirt, his long graying hair tied back in a ponytail, gave a tentative nod of agreement.
"Well, you put half your audience to sleep," the Critic said as he gestured to the ten-year-old boy who'd nodded off next to him, "but I was a Phillistine at his age too. The lighting effects are a little amateurish, and the score could use more Steinman and less ELP, but your work with the audience has improved by leaps and bounds. I swear I recognized my old drill sergeant sitting two rows behind us."
"Thank you," the Conductor said. "I'm planning on elaborating more on the visual effects in the second movement. We haven't even gotten to the creation of man yet, after all. It ought to be ready by the next time you're in town if you'll have time to see it."
"I look forward to it, Mr. Chesapeake," the Critic responded as he stood up and headed for the door. "Keep working on this and by '84 you'll be ready to make a big splash. Leave the sheet music on my desk and I'll have some more detailed notes for you by the weekend. Oh, and see if we can do the next session earlier in the day so your son can stay awake through the whole thing. I'm sure he's got an artist's soul buried in there somewhere."