Anomalous Item 20224 is a series of eight DVD-Rs containing unedited footage of an apparent nature documentary, collectively labeled as “Documentary 23”. The picture and sound quality of the footage is substandard, with audio-visual distortions, cuts, and missing footage common throughout the recordings. The disks will play on any standard DVD player, and the contained footage has been copied and archived.
No anomalous effects have been recorded regarding the disks themselves or the act of watching them. While the possibility of a hoax exists, such an undertaking would require several million dollars to produce equivalent special effects.
Anomalous Item 20224 was recovered from █████ ███████ on July 16, 20██. The previous owner was unaware of the object's origins, claiming to have received them through an anonymous seller on the internet. Anomalous Item 20224 is currently stored in Low Security Vault 2 of Site 19.
The following transcript lists only a general overview of major events of note.
Disk 1

00:00 – Disk starts. The scene shown resembles the Serengeti Plain. A large group of wildebeests, gazelles, zebras, and other savannah wildlife are shown around a watering hole.
00:12 – The voices of the filmmakers are heard for the first time. Three distinct voices are heard, one female, two male. (Subjects 1, 2, and 3, respectively.) The language spoken does not correlate with any known language, and has only been partially decoded. The Subjects seem to be describing the water hole scene, as the camera focuses on the drinking animals. Narration of this kind continues throughout most other segments of Anomalous Item 20224.
05:15 – Subjects 1 and 3 appear on camera. Both are wearing similar outfits: utilitarian clothing in various shades of brown with backpacks for carrying equipment and supplies. For unknown reasons, the Subjects' faces have been blotted out. Documentary shifts focus to a nearby termite mound.

The next 34:06 of tape contains no anomalous or otherwise notable content.

39:21 – First anomalous content seen. At this point in the documentary, focus is set upon a small bird, which on closer inspection is clearly a blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata). The bird displays no physical anomalies, besides being native to North America, not Africa.
40:05 – Blue jay flies away. During the filming, the Subjects did not seem to find the presence of a non-native bird confusing or remarkable.

The next 19:55 of tape contains no anomalous or otherwise notable content. All animals featured show no unusual characteristics or behaviors.

60:00 – Disk ends.

Disk 2

00:00 – Disk starts. Scene shows a series of rocky foothills at the base of a mountain chain to the west. Scrub vegetation is common.
00:10 – Camera focuses on a snake in the brush. (Researcher's note: Identified as a western diamondback rattlesnake.) Subject 3, grabs the snake by the tail and uses a stick to handle it for the camera as Subject 1 narrates. At 01:01, the snake is released.
01:01 – Cut. Next shot is the middle of a segment on a large ant colony. Ants are a light shade of blue.
01:15 - Camera focuses on a group of roughly fifty soldier ants attacking a reef gecko (Sphaerodactylus notatus, native to Florida). Ants are tearing away chunks of flesh with their pincher-like jaws. The gecko survives for nearly a minute before one of the ants cuts the gecko's jugular vein.
02:12 – Cut. Scene is now focusing on a pack of vultures feeding on the carcass of a large Bactrian camel.
05:36 – Cut. The camel stands up and attempts to bite a vulture. The remains of the camel's internal organs are dangling from the hole in its abdomen.
05:45 – Cut.

There are no visuals for the next 10:45. Sound is in the form of five individual narrations on unknown subjects.

16:21 – Cut. Camera focuses on a red panda drinking from a shallow stream. The creature is estimated to be roughly the size of a Kodiak bear.
17:00 – Red panda leaves the shot, but not before defecating on the stream's edge. Subject 1 makes a comment, followed by laughter from Subjects 2 and 3.
17:06 – Disk ends.

Disk 3

00:00 – Disk starts. Scene opens with Subject 2 in mid-sentence, pointing the camera at a snowy cliffside roughly 100-150m tall. Subjects are seen wearing mountain climbing gear, and appear to be discussing the best way to ascend the cliff face.
02:20 – Subjects begin ascending the cliffside.
02:43 – Cut. Following footage is a shot of the horizon from two-thirds up the cliffside. The savannah featured in Disk 1 can be seen in the distance.
02:56 – Subject 2 is startled by the sudden appearance of a large, indistinct creature (Researcher's note: believed to be a flying fox or similar large bat.) and nearly drops the camera. Subject 3 scolds him while Subject 1 laughs.
03:00 – Cut. Subjects are at the top of the cliff, looking out over the edge. Judging by the shadows cast by the mountain, it is nearing mid-afternoon.
03:15 – Cut. Scene takes place later in the day, near sundown. Subjects are walking up a winding dirt path. A small village can be seen ahead of them.
05:23 – Subjects arrive in the village. Buildings are small and stone, with wooden roofs. There are no signs of recent habitation: many of the buildings are in states of disrepair, and much of the village is covered in deep snow drifts. Subjects walk through the village for the next 03:40, conversing sporadically. No other life is seen.
09:03 – Cut. Subjects are now approaching a larger building, a large section of which has collapsed and filled with snow. Subjects 1 and 3 step inside first, Subject 2 follows with the camera four seconds later.
09:07 – Jump cut. Subjects are standing on top of a fallen chunk of masonry. A large swarm of black insects (Researcher's note: Further analysis suggests that the creatures resemble terrestrial trilobites rather than any known insect.), each at least 30cm in length, swarms around beneath them. Subject 3 opens his backpack, taking out a plastic box. Checking its contents once, he throws it across the hall. The swarm moves towards the box and begins consuming it. The camera lingers on the creatures as the subjects escape.
09:56 – Cut. Subjects are inside another building, and it is now night. The house's fire pit has been cleared out and a fire has been set up. Subject 1 is feeding a black-furred chinchilla some of her rations, while Subject 3 narrates.
10:28 – Disk ends.

Disk 4

00:00 – Disk starts. Subjects are walking through a thick forest of large fungal bodies. Judging by the slope of the ground, it is presumed that the Subjects are descending the foothills on the opposite side of the mountain. Available light indicates that it is mid-morning or mid-afternoon.
00:15 – Movement is spotted to the right. Camera focuses on a dark shape moving deeper into the forest and out of sight. (Researcher's note: Further analysis shows that the creature is a quagga, a relative of the zebra which has been extinct since 1883.) One frame seems to show the creature unfurling wings, but the footage is too blurred to confirm this.
00:45 – Cut. Scene shows a stone pillar, which has been partially eroded by encroaching hyphae. The pillar is clearly a marker of some sort, and Subject 1 is attempting to decode the symbols that are etched into it.
01:30 – Subject 1 now steps away from the pillar. Judging by her tone of voice, she was incapable of translating any of the symbols. Subjects move onward through the forest.
02:41 – There is a heavy seismic disturbance. The camera becomes unsteady as Subject 2 stumbles. The fungal ‘trees' can be seen to sway in uniform motion.
02:44 - The next ten seconds contain no visuals or audible sound. Analysis has shown an ultrasonic note within the blank segment. As it does not vary in frequency, it is hypothesized to be artificial in origin.
02:54 – Cut. Subject 1 is now observing a large black beetle. Every few seconds she prods it with a twig. After she does this several times, the beetle flares its carapace outward, showing the brilliant orange-yellow coloration underneath.
03:40 – The beetle sprays a yellow-green fluid from its abdomen at Subject 1, who doesn't step away quick enough to avoid the acid. She shouts in pain and attempts to wipe it off. Subject 3 steps in to help her.
04:02 – Cut. Scene now shows a shallow gully, populated by a species of cup-shaped fungi, the smallest being a meter across. Subject 2 sets the camera on a tripod and walks away. No unusual events are recorded over the next 14:12.
18:14 – A juvenile Javanese rhinoceros walks into the gully, sniffing the air. It makes a direct route towards one of the larger cup fungi and walks inside. The cup closes over it, and sounds of distress are heard from within after a few seconds. The silhouette of the rhinoceros inside the fungus can be seen as it struggles to free itself.
19:20 – Disk ends.

Disk 5

00:00 – Disk starts. Scene shows the Subjects on the shores of a lake. Local geography resembles the American southwest, with thick scrub vegetation and several clumps of tamarisk on the lakeshore. Subject 3 is filling a canteen from the lake.
00:30 – Subject 3 points out a disturbance behind the camera. Camera turns to see a group of about fifteen lemur-like creatures emerging from the brush, roughly twenty meters away. Camera zooms in to show that they are walking on their hind legs and are carrying sharpened sticks. The “tribe” ignores the presence of the Subjects.
00:54 – The tribe begins to drink from the lake. Subject 1 makes a short narrative comment, showing some surprise at the event, but only enough to suggest that this is a rare find. She continues with the narration as usual.
02:03 – The tribe's lookout makes a startled yelp. The other lemurs take notice.
02:04 – A dromaeosaurid dinosaur of considerable size (Researcher's Note: Believed to be an adult Utahraptor) appears. Subjects begin to run away. Sounds of the conflict can be heard over the Subjects' footsteps.
02:25 – Camera is directed back at the tribe. Lemurs have now either run away or been killed. The Utahraptor is feeding on the dead.
03:13 – Cut. Scene now shows the dinosaur dead on the ground, with numerous bullet holes in its head and chest area. Subject 1 is scolding Subject 3, who is seen disassembling a long-barreled rifle.
03:20 – Cut. Subjects have walked down the eastern shore of the lake. There are some unusual disturbances in the water. This continues for the next 01:36.
04:04 – A Megatherium (giant ground sloth), which is seen to have six limbs instead of four, approaches the lake shore from the brush. After looking around the area, it bends down to drink.
04:56 – Disturbances in the water increase as a large creature emerges from the lake. As only the upper portion is visible, identification is difficult. A membranous dome, lined by numerous frills of skin and cartilage, is visible. The skin is semi-transparent, showing a bulbous structure underneath. Visible are several triple-jointed arms (Researcher's note: Five limbs have been counted), which have thick black fur and hands with two opposable thumbs.
04:59 – Unknown creature lashes its arms at the area behind the sloth, attacking a pack of raptors much like the one before, which were preparing to launch an attack on the sloth.
05:12 – Unknown creature grabs a raptor in one of its hands and throws towards the Subjects, who it misses by no less than a meter. Camera moves to look at the body: the spine has been snapped on impact.
05:17 – Cut. Subjects have left the lake behind, and are now climbing over a short ridge. Animal noises can be heard from the other side.
05:18 – Disk ends.

Disk 6

00:00 – Disk starts. Video shows that the Subjects are traversing a salt plain on foot. Sky is overcast and dark. No life can be seen anywhere.
00:07 – Subject 3 begins to speak. The conversation is casual and continues for the next twelve minutes without notable events.
12:07 – Cut. Conversation is still ongoing, though Subject 1's tone has become increasingly worried.
12:55 – Argument between Subjects 1 and 3 breaks out. Subject 2 steps in, attempting to break it up.
13:12 – Cut. Conversation has ended. Subjects appear weary. Distant thunder is heard in the background. The camera pans to show two unknown creatures (Researcher's note: Creatures are estimated to be between 200 and 250 meters tall) on the southern horizon. From the distance, they appear to be masses of cartilage and gas sacks at least five stories tall. Subject 1 speaks, but is interrupted by a low roar in the distance. The Subjects look to the east, then at each other. Subject 3 speaks briefly, and the group resumes walking.
14:04 –Disk ends

Disk 7
Data lost. The disk has been overwritten with several episodes of the anime Cowboy Bebop. Closer inspection has shown several one-frame fragments of the original video that remain.

09:33 – A forest of crooked, leafless trees. Part of a bleached skeleton of unknown origin is seen in the corner of the frame.
26:01 – Shot was taken within a small clearing containing six boulder-sized pearls which provide ambient light through unknown means. The clearing is within a dense formation of jagged limestone towers, known as tsingy.
27:50 – Two frames of a bloated, wormlike creature with three flexible proboscises covered in feathered tufts.
44:27 – A dark blue screen filled with complex mathematical formulae appearing in white Arabic numerals.
54:14 – The final segment lasts for approximately three seconds. The soundless footage is too shaky for any conclusive analysis, but it would appear that Subject 2 is running up a steep incline at substantial speed with the camera rolling.
55:02 – Static. Faint screams and gunfire can be heard beneath the white noise. A voice identified as Subject 2 can be heard shouting before being drowned out.
55:46 – Disk ends.

Disk 8

00:00 – Disk starts. Scene shows subjects slowly descending a rocky slope towards the bottom of a small valley. There is no plant life to be seen. There is a substantial amount of smog and dust in the air, giving a red-brown color to the sky.
00:04 – Camera focuses on the bottom of the valley, observing a large settlement. Shacks are constructed primarily of corrugated sheet metal and are built several layers thick. Some figures can be seen around the edge of the settlement.
00:09 – Cut. Subjects have reached the bottom of the incline and are standing roughly 10 meters from the edge of the slum. At this distance the conditions within the settlement are seen in detail. The narrow spaces between shacks are lined with sewage and large patches of grey lichen or fungus. Roughly twenty inhabitants can be seen, though they pay no attention to the Subjects. The inhabitants are human, and their appearance is consistent with the living conditions around them: they are filthy, dressed in rags, malnourished, and many sport deformities. They walk without any seeming purpose, noticing little, if any, of their surroundings.
00:12 – Subjects start walking slowly towards the settlement's edge. Inhabitants still show no signs of notice.
00:15 – One of the slum inhabitants, male with severe deformities, sharply turns his head to face the camera.
00:16 – Inhabitant begins running towards Subjects.
00:19 – Inhabitant begins attacking Subjects, screaming “Let us go! Let us go, you sick fucks!”
00:23 – A mob has formed around the Subjects, who attempt to fight them off.
00:25 – Camera is knocked out of Subject 2's hand, and records the mob's feet for seven seconds afterwards. Screams can be heard off-screen.
00:32 – Disk ends.


"…which brings us once again to the pressing issue of just how much there is left to contain," said the Head of Foundation Staff to the meeting, shuffling the papers in his hands. A collection of bored individuals sat before him. An excited looking man started to fiddle with the projector up front.
"Next on the agenda," continued the Head of Staff, "Researcher Erit Invictus has a proposition for a new class of SCP." A collective groan came from those assembled.
"Now, now, hold your complaints," said Erit, starting up his presentation, displaying the Foundation symbol. "First off, this is not another class of 'SCP'. It's an entirely different concept altogether. See," he flicked to the first slide, "even though SCP stands for 'Secure, Contain, Protect', it has come to mean pretty much any anomalous object under the containment of the Foundation. So, what I was thinking is this."
He flipped over to the next slide, which displayed the letters 'NAO' in black block capitals. "Non-Anomalous Object.' "There are too many things humanity is just not ready to know about yet, but are perfectly explainable by Foundation standards. Going by the classic definition of an SCP, we can't contain them. But, with the NAO-class objects, our horizons are expanded so much further! Take that teleportation system from last month; a few hours of research on it and we understand how it works on a basic level. The problem is that it's still exceptionally buggy.
"I wasn't aware of any bugs in the system," muttered a woman near Researcher Invictus.
"You obviously haven't heard of the half-dozen researchers whose lower limbs would like to disagree," said Erit, shooting her a dirty look. "Anyways, until such time that the human race is ready for such a thing to exist, we should contain the teleportation system."
A few people coughed in the silence that followed. At length, one man stood up and asked, "Aren't we already on our way to perfecting the technology for use within the Foundation?"
Erit blinked. "I beg your pardon, Mister Tuomey?"
"Well," began Tuomey, folding his arms behind his back, "I've been supervising that project for a few weeks now, and from what my staff has told me, they've already worked out that issue. In fact, we've already had six successful tests in a row, wherein the subject reached the desired target without any major loss of life or limb. Sure, it's far away from the requirements of our actually using the system - there's still the matter of getting them back - but compared to most other SCPs, it's a really big step forwards."
"But, but…" sputtered Erit, fumbling with the button in his hand, "that goes against the rules of the Foundation! You're trying to use an anomalous object for collective gain!"
"Didn't you just say this concept wasn't anomalous?" asked Doctor Mackenzie.
Erit swallowed hard and started sweating. "Well, regardless, of that, the teleportation system is still very dangerous. Until humanity is ready for it…"
"Wait, wait," said, Research Assistant Godbot, holding up his hands. "I'm confused. How do you define when humanity is ready for it?"
"That's actually a good question," chipped in Aelanna. "There's really no way of defining such a concept, now is there?"
"I actually thought we'd be containing really dangerous things that aren't anomalous," said Researcher Gargus, "which opens up a whole new can of worms, seeing as that would be a monstrous waste of resources."
"Look!" shouted Erit, stamping his foot on the ground. "What I'm saying is that our jurisdiction isn't far enough. If we're going to be protecting people, shouldn't we expand what we can contain?"
"If we can understand it, why not utilize it?"
"That's Serpent's Hand talk!"
What followed was a large amount of shouting, bickering, quarreling, and all those other words that get involved in things when an argument is started up. Needless to say, the volume continually escalated throughout all of this, making opinions harder and harder to understand. The whole mess was on the verge of physical violence when someone at the end of the table coughed. Everyone present turned to see the Head of Staff sitting perfectly still, a steely look in his eyes.
"All of you sit down," he said slowly. A quick rush for chairs followed. "Get back in order." A straightening of ties and clearing of throats. Silence fell over the room for a moment. Erit moved the speak once again, but the Head of Staff stopped him with a raised hand.
"Mister Invictus, it appears you missed a few key points during your initial orientation. Allow me to elaborate them for you." Researcher Erit nodded his head. "First off, despite our vast resources, the Foundation simply cannot afford to contain everything. Regardless of how expensive certain containments may be, they are always kept under a balanced budget. Taking in such a vast quantity of objects is simply not possible.
"Second, our purpose is to contain anomalous objects. It is not explicitly stated, true, but they are the ones that only we can deal with. Normal organizations simply cannot handle them, and most Groups of Interest wish to use them for selfish or self-destructive purposes. Our focus must be on the paranormal, the supernatural; the everyday, no matter how dangerous, can be left to someone else."
"But sir…" began Erit, holding out his hands.
"Left to someone else," growled the Head of Staff. Erit swallowed again and nodded. "Third, as was mentioned in your little quarrel, it is not our job to decide what the human race is ready for. That should speak for itself.
"And finally," he said, casting a glare over everyone else present, "I want to see the attempts to utilize the teleportation system shut down. It goes against policy, and is the only thing Mister Erit got right in his presentation." He turned to look at Researcher Invictus again. "We get enough of this from new members of the staff. Don't fall into old habits, Mister Invictus. That will be all." He sat back in his chair again, and reassumed a disinterested position.
Erit stood at the front of the meeting for a few moments, coughed, and switched over to his final slide. "This concludes my presentation. Any questions?" Several dark glares from those assembled. "Right then. I'll just be…" He shuffled back to his seat.
"And now, our final item of the day," said the Head of Staff, shuffling his papers once more, "Researcher Gargus wishes to speak to you all on the state of the fourth wall after his constant assaults on it…"


I always have grand plans that few people help me on. I'm just gullible that way. This time, it was 100 word stories for Christmas, a la Gaiman's "Nicholas Was..." I normally send one out in my Christmas cards (thanks again, Neil), and this year, I shared my story with the staff, including the idea that we all write one for the site. But, when time rolled around, there were only a handful of people who had managed to get one done: E4D (with Kens) and Mann. So, in honor of Christmas, I give you these stories. Feel free to add, but keep it at or very, very close to 100 words. Enjoy, kids!
-Troy

No Two Snowmen
Susie later thought, as blood and bile oozed from the gash in her stomach, that thorn branches were a poor choice for arms. They had been what snared her with ease, the thick vines coiling around her wrist, tiny dagger-like barbs digging into clothes first… then flesh.
But she mused for a moment that the hat they had found—neither silk nor top—was a miracle, and if miracles existed, then certainly, she might survive. But watching the other children scatter from the snowman in the pinkish snow quickly removed such illusions. As her wound turned from hot pain to cold, she closed her eyes.
-Troy

-EchoFourDelta and Dr Kens

I knew it was wrong, even as I swung the hammer down on the old man's head. The bone shattered, and blood and brain sprayed out, matching the scarlet of his suit. Tears ran down my eyes as I struck again and again. I loved the old man. I knew it was wrong, but I had to you see, for my father. For honor. Only blood would make things right. He should never have done it, mistletoe or not. Not that the guilt was his alone. I would deal with her later.
You see, I saw mommy kissing Santa Claus.
-Dr Mann

Being a Jewish kid around Christmas time always made me somewhat annoyed. I always wanted a Santa, but what I got was two grandparents pinching my cheeks and a gift card for Best Buy. Seeing this, my father told me of the Hanukkah armadillo, an armadillo that acted in the same capacity as Santa, but delivered presents to all the good Jewish children.
So, perhaps simply for a laugh, my dad dressed up as a giant armadillo, and I sat on his lap and told him what I wanted. And when Hanukkah finally occurred my dad gave me exactly what I wanted.
A gift card for Futureshop.
-Salman corbette

I have been alive in this state for about a week, and there are a couple things that I've figured out. Firstly, I think I'm in a time (CHOP!) loop, because every eleven seconds, I wind up in the same place somehow. Second (CHOP! OW!) , axes really fucking hurt, and I feel one hacking at me all the time. Third, I am fully (CHOP!) conscious, even though my left arm keeps being chopped off. Finally, the sky is (CHOP! OW!) for some reason changing; it used to be my house, then it got all dark, then an office. Although it (CHOP!) is really hard to tell, what with everything outside being fisheyed and all the damn snow that keeps falling. And the worst (nonono CHOP!) bit is that my assailant isn't even human. In fact, other than his facial features, he's completely made of snow. (AUGH! CHOP! AUGH!). And here we go again!
-Reject

I had always thought that reindeer were majestic, noble creatures. With their grand antlers and fine coats, to see one up close would be so special! That's why when the old man said he would take me to see the great herd I was as giddy as could be! Wild herds could reach hundreds of thousands, though this herd was far greater! When we first saw them I couldn't believe their numbers, their tranquil nature! Now with our sleigh overturned, the old man tramped, my leg broken, I can only think of how naive I was about such wild animals..
-toadking07

Billy was over the moon.
Christmas morning and he was allowed to open one of his presents early. As he pondered which present to open, he heard a voice from one of the boxes. “Release me this instant, you bandits!”, the voice yelled.
Billy opened the box to see a funny-looking robot.
“Big mistake, meatbag!”, it shouted.
“Wow,” Billy exclaimed, “a real robot!”
He reached for his new toy when the doorbell rang.
He sprang up with a sigh and ran for the door.
He opened the door and saw a man holding a cardboard box standing on the porch.
“Hey there little man,” the visitor said. “Is your father home?”
“He's asleep, but I'll go wake him for you,” Billy said, eager to get back to his toy.
The man smiled and quickly entered the living room as Billy ran upstairs.
“There you go,” he murmured as he tossed the robot into the box.
The robot screamed indignantly. “Unhand me ruffian, I will end you!”
“I'm sure you will Pesterbot,” the man chuckled as he left the house. “I'm sure you will.”
“He's gone, and he took my robot!” Billy said, his voice trembling.
“We didn't even get you a robot, Billy,” his father yawned.
Billy crossed his arms sulkily “This is the worst Christmas ever!”
-StH9

Merry Christmas!


Have you ever had that feeling? When you drive home from work, or walk home from the store, or do just about anything you've done a thousand times in your life. And you are almost home already, when you suddenly realize that you don't remember how you got there.
No, that's not right.
You remember how you finished your work, remember how you walked to the parking lot.
And then…you must have driven home.
But details are vague and blurred and when you try to remember them there is just nothing there.
You say to yourself that this is just a quirk of your mind. You've been driving that same path for years now. Today your mind just shut itself off and let your body do the deed. The price of routine. The only escape from everyday life you have left. Happens to everyone once in a while. Perfectly normal. Nothing to worry about.
You're wrong.
This is what a class-A amnestic feels like.


Conversation recorded on ██/██/████
Parties identified as █████ ██████ the third, ranking member of Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd. and an unknown female voice, identified as "Black Queen".
Intercepted by Foundation Agents during routine surveillance.

“Whoever this is, it better be pretty goddamn important to be using the secured line in the middle-”
“It's the Black Queen.”
“…oh god.”
“Am I disturbing you?”
“Oh, uh, no, no, not at all, it's fine, just a little get together and-”
“I could come by in person, if that would be easier.”
“NO! Uh, I mean, no, that's not necessary, don't want to put you out or anything.”
“I assure you, it would be no trouble. For me.”
“I… am aware of that. One moment.”
“…”
“… Ok, I was able to speak quietly with a couple board members… Ing, Carter's head staffer keeps an open record of all known Agents. We pulled the few we know to be in the field and started tracking.”
“I don't care about the means. Where is he?”
“Ah… yes, indeed. Well, here's the thing, we may need a little… good faith payment first. Despite your… credentials, you're still new to the club, and this is no small service. The plans you say you have could be worth much… if indeed they exist, and-”
“No. No. You need to listen to me. I want the location of this man. I need it. Now. Was I unclear in the past? Did I somehow fucking mumble when I told you that you would work with me for what I offer, or get snips and slivers of your children in the mail for the next year? Was I FUCKING UNCLEAR? I want him, now, now, now, NOW, NOW! I'm not some ass-licking little overpuffed fop who you can try and bullshit around and use your 'rules' like a shield. Bitch and bicker with me, and I swear to the Styx you will suffocate on your own anus before you die. Now WHERE THE FUCK IS HE?!”
“Oh god… I… he… he's in a storage unit in Florida. Value Store, unit eighteen. I'll send you the address and the key.”
“Much better, thank you. You will have to forgive me, I become tense on certain topics. I'm sure you understand?”
“… of course.”
“I'll forward the security schedules and layout to the drop point. Enjoy your party. Maybe I'll see you there.”
“… Wait, what? You… y-you don't… hello? Hello?”

Recorded brief 1189=00H
Tentatively marked "Black Queen Incident"
Briefing between ██████ ██████ & ████ █████████, RE: 'Black Queen' recording

“Ok, there we are… if you'll sit there sir, we'll get started.”
“Why is this being put on the record? It's not a mission brief.”
“Well, a case has been opened, so everything-”
“A CASE has been opened over this?”
“Sir, it's simpler if I just show you.”
“Fine, proceed.”
“Ok, as you know, around six hours ago, we received a VHS tape. Well, to be more precise, one of our drivers found it sitting on his passenger seat when he came in from a drop. Due to the suspicious nature of this, and that he was in a secured area when it happened, we-”
“Bah, skip to the end, I have two more meetings before lunch.”
“… We reviewed the tape. It… actually, it's probably faster to show you. If you'll look at the screen…”
“… God, why is the image so degraded… oh, right, you said it was a tape, right? Who still… wait, who is that?”
“We believe that's Agent Penbry. We've done some checking, he was on dispatch in Louisiana. His partner was found dead in their hotel room, Penbry was missing and hadn't checked in since the night before.”
“How the hell did he just get grabbed? And end up… like that, no less. What is that he's tied to, anyway?”
“It's… ahh… called a wooden horse, or 'Spanish donkey'; it's a torture and fetish device…”
“Jesus, what the hell do you have me watching? I… who is that?”
“We're not sure yet, beyond assuming she's the one who took Penbry. We've done some prelim work, and-”
“What is she… oh god… oh fuck.”
“I… have the audio down. Penbry's screaming won't really add anything important to the brief. She didn't even ask him anything. Didn't threaten him, or talk… just… dived in, as it were.”
“How is he still conscious for this?”
“She may have drugged him, or he… might be in too much pain. The optic nerve isn't meant to be stretched like-”
“Jesus, turn it off… turn it OFF goddammit!”
“… As you can see… we feel a case may need to be opened at this point.”
“Can I smoke in here?”
“Only if you share… So, anyway, the tape goes on… and on and on, but eventually she starts asking him things. She probes and prods, mentally and physically… and… well, she got it.”
“… Got… what?”
“Everything. Everything Penbry knew, anyway. Even the heavy memetic shielded stuff… walked him through it a bit at a time, kept him just barely on the edge of a shutdown… and just drained him. Outside our own staff, I've never seen anything like it.”
“Jesus… what was she after? Just probing?”
“Sir, she didn't even know that we had a name.”
“What the living hell… so… a total outsider, an amateur no less… just walks in and uses one of our Agents like a sock puppet?”
“Ahh… there… may be something else. After we reviewed the tape, we started taking it apart, looking for… anything, really. It was sterile, just plastic and film, but there was something taped to the inside.”
“… Dammit, don't keep me in suspense, man.”
“It… was a black queen. Like the chess piece? The crown… the crown was a tooth. It was Penbry's.”
“Jesus…”
“What's more, some digging has turned up a letter we received months ago… it wasn't deemed credible at the time, but someone identified as the 'Black Queen' makes some very overt threats, among other things. It's being looked into now, but it seems very likely that this isn't a total amateur. It… may be someone with peripheral Foundation ties.”
“Explain peripheral.”
“It is implied that we removed her father from her home at a young age.”
“We don't do that any more, barely did it back then, the high intensity recruitment… no. No. It couldn't…”
“We have a team at Site 2, in the master archives. Nothing from that period has been updated to the digital media yet, so it's… slow going, to say the least. We can't say conclusively who she may be, yet.”
“It's probably his daughter, isn't it? Goddamn… I don't even see how it's possible…”
“Sir, with as long as we've been at this, I'm surprised something like this has taken as long as it has.”
“… Realistically, how bad is this for us?”
“The Foundation is not about to crumble over one pissed off girl. At the same time, initial reviewers are observing some real intelligence and possible severe mental imbalance. I'm sure she's getting help, but how and from where I have no idea. She's smart, cunning, and seems to lack anything even approaching empathy. If we were talking about anyone else, I'd be bringing up recruitment by now.”
“… Any projections on how this will play out?”
“She fed a man his own retina, sir. I can't imagine where she'll go from there.”

Problems advance…
Quiet Game
Or at times revert.
Opening Moves


Doctor Johanna Rose Garrison leaned back in her chair, one last click extinguishing the computer's light. That was it. The last of the forms had been sent off, the final approvals and offers ferried to the appropriate personnel, and the last experiments should have been completed by now. It was, for the next twenty minutes, Christmas Eve. Maybe, just maybe, she could take tomorrow off.
The door to the office slid open, and Garrison recognized a familiar face. “Agent Bryant. Good to see you.” The man stepped in, looking sheepish, and she glanced at the clock before waving at him to sit down. Twenty minutes. “What is it?”
“Do you want to hear the bad news or the worse news?”
Johanna sighed- there went her plans of leaving on time tonight. “The bad news.”
“SCP-504's escaped from containment. Someone left the door open.”
She sighed in relief. That was manageable. “Well, send in an appropriately equipped containment team to retrieve the specimens, and that should be fixed easily enough. What's the worse news?”
“You know that termination attempt on SCP-682 we were going to try out?”
“Yes… Remind me, you were going to then drop him down a mineshaft?”
“Right. Well. It didn't work. He kind of, uh, well, grew wings.”
Johanna stared at him. “And, pray tell, where is 682 now?”
“He… escaped into a nearby orchard. And he's currently hiding in a tree.” Seeing Johanna's stare, he rapidly continued, “But we have a dozen marksmen- well, one was killed, last I heard, but the rest are there- shooting at him, and Doctor Klein is taking care of amnestics with the civilians and adjusting files as necessary.”
“Phew.”
“Though, there's a reason to suspect that inappropriate behavior among the researchers involved had to do with the outbreak, so we've got the ten of them cleaning SCP-173's pen.”
She sighed. “Is that all?”
“Er… There's been a mutiny among some of the D-class. Two teamed up and started a bit of a massacre, four others joined in.”
Johanna Garrison blanched. “Security's on it?”
“Of course. I haven't heard whether they've stopped it recently though.”
She stared at him. “There's more, isn't there.”
"Oh, yes. See, computer errors caused a large amount of data regarding SCP-006 to be released to all personnel- when its clearance normally starts at O5 level… The four tech guys who should have been monitoring it are all denying responsibility. They'll probably be trying to contact you.”
As if on cue, Johanna's desk phone went off. “That's probably them now,” Bryant said, helpfully. She leaned over, unplugged it, and looked down wearily. “Please tell me that's it.”
“Well, apart from that, it's minutia… Some of the live containment cells have some structural instability, but there are crews working on that… Let's see, the 914 test results came back- we've got a couple of half-pigeon, half-reptiles you'll want to see, the recombinant DNA is like nothing I've ever seen. I sent them to your office for analysis. They're in liquid nitrogen.”
“Thanks.”
“And apart from that, the only other thing of note is that SCP-447's container is getting filled up, we'll want to move it.”
“Of course. Get a new container.” Johanna sighed, resting her head in her arms. “I'm sorry, Gabriel, I really wanted to get the day off tomorrow, I had hoped we could spend Christmas together, I didn't know this much would come up…”
“You probably wouldn't have been able to anyways,” Gabriel Bryant patted her arm. Just then, a rhythmic cacophony passed by the hallway.
“Shit.” Garrison sat up. “Was that a brass band?”
“I wasn't sure where else to find the twelve drummers drumming,” Bryant said. The doctor turned to stare at him as he got up, dancing into the hallway.
“I mean, you've already got the eleven snipers sniping, ten doctors sweeping, Klein's data expunging, goo-ball buckets brimming, six D's a-slaying, O5's youthful springs, four calling nerds, three broken pens, two turtle-doves…”
“And a…” Johanna continued automatically, then just stared. “In what universe does 682 with wings count as a partridge?”
But Bryant was already gone, running down the hall. The 504 specimen crashed into the wall where his head had been, missing him by inches.


Site Security File 11/11/4/8888/PR – Suspicious Letter 49,003,668

Letter received at the private residential post office in the South Cheyenne Point community. Letter had no stamp, post mark, or other identifiers anywhere on the envelope other than “To my father's captors” written in ballpoint pen ink on the front. Current leading theory is that the letter was somehow hand-delivered to the post box, even with a lack of any suspicious video evidence on the day in question. Analysis has shown the envelope and paper to be basic commercial stock, and lacks any finger prints or DNA residue.
The letter itself is hand-written with a black ball-point pen, also from basic mass-produced commercial stock. Handwriting analysis is thus far inconclusive, pending further threat evaluation determinations, requiring more exhaustive review. Due to the subject matter, copies of the text body are being forwarded to Site Security for base review and database entry.
Current threat index is low. Forwarding to Site Security and Central Records in compliance with diligence protocols. No in-depth probe is proposed or recommended at this time.

When I was young, I saw a short film. A cartoon, it detailed a fantasy kingdom that suddenly discovers that they are the dream of a sleeping man, and that soon his alarm would ring. They mount an expedition to the world and cover the man's ears and muffle the clock. He then starts to dream of flamingos, but the concept was so striking at the time that I never forgot it. The concept of reality as a plastic, immaterial stratum and not at all the bedrock of the world.
Is it possible that we're all flamingos-to-be? Swirling and running about in utter confidence, only to find we're less material then the average soap bubble, and much more transient? What would that do to our view of ourselves and the world? Suddenly the sacrifices we've made, the pain and suffering endured and caused, all count for nothing at all. I'm sure you can appreciate the blind horror of a realization of that nature. How much suffering and bleak moral choices could be invalidated by the next alarm clock?
I should be another faceless, shapeless victim. Another sacrifice made for the greater, intangible Good. And I was, for a while, both my mother and I. Left to twist and sway like leaves in the wake of your shadowy passing, bobbing around the sudden void left behind. She will most likely remain a victim. I will not. You can take what you wish, as you wish, and have done so for some time. You are thieves on a grand scale. My father once said, however, that no matter how good you are at something, how confident you may be, there is always someone, somewhere, that is better.
I am going to prove his theory.
You have taken something from me. So I, in turn, shall take many things from you. I know you will ignore this for now, but later, when the time comes, you will look back to this letter, and despair. As a red spider once said, “I am going to make you cry.”
My father, for all his intellectual might, was a cripple at chess. Something about it just confounded his sense. Even at my tender age, I was able to beat him with some regularity. He insisted on being white, always, as his handicap. Forever the white king.
I am the Black Queen. And I will be crossing the board to you soon.

We go forward…
Queen To Pawn
And go back…
Splinters


Why, it was love at first sight, darling. You awoke to the early song of dawn, and as you rose from the clutches of Morpheus I was there, watching you, every dewdrop on the windowpane an eye into your world. I was watching as you drank deep in my flesh, through your glass vessel I was watching, and I was watching as you bathed in my skin, embracing me in your face. I was watching as you let me run my fingers across your naked skin, cleansing you, baptising you in my scent. And as I watched, I knew you were mine, darling.
I made the first move, my humid breath caressing you in the morning light, lingering by your face and neck. You walked down the street, as I leapt from puddles and gathered at your tender feet. My hands crept up your body, stroking, moving in delicate rhythms to your nervous, quickening breath. You started to run, and for a moment I thought you were going to shake me off like the others, but I held on, drunk on desire. I wanted you, can't you see, darling? And 'want' is such a powerful thing, for both gods and men alike, that I continued to caress you as you ran, and more of me leapt out of you, and joined in the loving embrace.
You tore into the woods, as I rose from the fresh grass and slithered down from treetops. If only you could stay still to take in my love, but you kept running, kept running as I hugged your chest and ran my hands over your features. Such an exquisite face, certainly a cut above the other mortals, I thought. But of course, that was why I chose you, darling. Why did you continue to spurn me, when you clearly are not like the rest of them? You did not answer, but kept running, and running, as I gathered around you and wove around your arms in a dance of fated romance.
I pooled in your shoes, round your ankles and feet, gathering, rising, pleading for you to stop. But you somehow found the strength to keep running, and for a moment I was afraid you would keep running for ever, escaping me like so many others had did. Would you, in your irrational rejection of me, keep running till every last drop of me had been expelled from your tender body, running till your supple lips shrivelled and deep blue eyes dessicated like raisins in the sun, till you lay screaming in the dirt, begging for me to leave you alone? I panicked, and lost my hold, briefly slipping off your chest before the river joined in, rising in desire with me, cuddling your warm, sweet body as you ran, screaming now, out of the woods and into the dry, bare plains.
The midday sun was unforgiving, sending me off your back in wisps of vapor before I managed to hold you again. It was a trial of love, and I strived to pass it, grabbing you, hugging you in a mad frenzy. You collapsed, and briefly I thought you were going to give up the chase and surrender your body, and I relaxed, but you started to struggle, and threw me off in splashes. I leapt right back on you, determined even as more of me lost my hold on you, but the heat and your tenacity started to prevail over my rushing desire. Would I lose you forever, my darling, in this arid field beneath the unforgiving sky?
Then like an answer to my prayer, the clouds rolled over like a smooth satin blanket, and I fell down, in drips and drops, kissing your skin, pinning it down, preparing you for my love. And I ran my lips over you, licking your flesh lovingly, as you continued to struggle beneath the weight of my body. You continued to struggle as I put my hands on your head, holding it and smiling into your bewildered eyes. You continued to struggle as I rose from the earth and wrapped my legs around your hips, and pushed my face ever closer to yours. You continued to struggle as I rushed in for true love's first kiss, embracing your hair, your eyes, quivering with lustful wanting. You continued to struggle as I closed my face upon your nose, and put my lips to yours, and then you struggled no more as I fully took you into my grasp, cuddling you even as more of me fell gently on the soft, cool ground.
Then you were still, and I forced my way past your lips and into your throat, and you were mine at last.


A possible future…
The flexi in Jack's suitcase buzzed for the third time. Sighing, he pulled it out and unrolled it. As was his usual reaction, he was sorry he ever helped invent it.
The note that popped up was a reminder. "TRANSPORT LEAVING T-MINUS 90 MINUTES. PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE." Jack pressed his thumb on the indicated spot, rerolled it, and put it back. He'd make the ship after his appointment.
Driving up to the gates of Site 19 still felt damn peculiar. Jack was used to the days when getting to Site 19 required two hidden tunnels, a parking lot in front of an abandoned hospital, and two elevator rides. The dismantling of the Veil Protocol had any number of benefits for the Foundation, and far more benefits for humankind as a whole. Nevertheless, Jack never could get over the fact that it was simply far less cool to answer a receptionist's page and be waved through. The parking spot was nicer before, too.
There was no receptionist when Jack pulled up to the door, not that he thought there would be one. He had pushed to have the whole system automated, but some piece of legislation required that the Foundation hire a certain number of recent high school graduates. As it was, Jack had to park at the gate, walk up, and pull the gate open himself.
The drive to the building was uneventful. Jack pulled the car around to face towards the gates and put the top down. He brought the keycards with him as he went inside the building.

The halls of Site 19 echoed Jack's footsteps back to him as he walked. Every containment chamber he passed was empty; the rustling sounds of contained humanoids no longer filled the air. The doors were soundproof, but he always seemed to be able to hear them. Now, nothing. The building was empty, save three rooms. Jack knew his destinations by heart.
The first containment chamber was three hallways away. Jack could hear the little beast two and a half hallways before he reached it. Of all the organic nonhumanoid SCPs they had captured over the centuries, this one in particular stood out as an unspeakably annoying creature. Jack removed the AR-68 helmet from the nearby armory and slipped it on, along with one grenade. Walking to the containment chamber, he removed his flexipad and began to narrate.
"By order of the United Nations Secretary of Secure Containment, that being myself, termination order for SCP-1013 has been issued on this day, 25 December 2231, at this time, uh…" Jack checked the clock. "…2243 hours. Termination process begun…now."
Jack cracked open the containment chamber, pulled the pin on the grenade, and threw it in, making sure not to look at the thing inside. A single squawk came out. He slammed the door. WHUMP.
"Termination process complete. SCP-1013 decommissioned. Two SCPs remaining."

Jack's next destination lay three floors down. The elevator ride was smooth, just as he remembered. He was glad that some part of this was comfortable. 1013 was a legitimate pleasure to get rid of. It was one of Clef's last requests, actually; Jack remembered it from the wake. This, however, was not going to be pleasant.
SCP-5432 had been contained for half a century now, and she had aged normally during that time. She was sitting on her bed when Jack entered the other end of the airlock.
"Hello, Josephine," Jack said.
Josephine sat quietly, chewing on a fifty-pound note.
"Josephine, it's time. I don't know how well you can understand me, but I'm sorry. I brought you a gift." Jack slipped a wrapped package of $1000 Treasury notes in through the slot.
She perked up considerably. Looking up from where she sat, her eyes gleamed. She dragged herself across the floor with her hands to the airlock and grabbed the notes. Without unwrapping them first, she chewed through the plastic to get to the bills.
Jack began narrating. "SCP-5432, also known as Patient Four in the Great Plague of 2182. Patient Zero apprehended, contained, and decommissioned 3 May 2183." Jack meant that Patient Zero had been drained of his bodily fluids and vivisected in search of a cure. They had killed seven patients doing that. Most of them had belonged to the terrorist group that had created the virus in the first place. Not all of them. And not Josephine.
Jack had laced the bills with cyanide. He had also tripped the morphine gas in her room for this event. She would hardly feel anything. She kept chewing monomaniacally. As she slowed down, her head winding around dizzily, her eyes half-focused on Jack's. "Are…are we…"
"Yes, Josie. I promise."
"Are…are we…are we cool yet?" Josie's half-dead eyes pleaded for the answer. "Are we cool yet? ARE WE COOL YET?" The screeching of her voice was as haunting as ever. Jack's mind flashed back to the days, decades ago, when those words were being screamed down corridors.
"Go to sleep, Josie." Jack narrated into the flexipad, "SCP-5432 decommissioned 25 December 2231, 2258 hours."
Her eyes faded for the last time. She lay on the ground, a half-eaten bill hanging from her mouth. Jack walked away.

One last stop. The containment chamber was at the bottom of the building, making the elevator ride a bit farther than before. He hadn't come down this way in a long time, well over a century. Not since the Unveiling. Not since the creature he was here for had arrived.
It used to be kept out of Site 19, back in the old building. One of the greatest benefits of the Unveiling was the scientific research that came with opening Foundation research to the rest of the world and seeing what came back. Since the advancements in containment that had come from that, there hadn't been a breach from this chamber in decades. The elevator slowed to a stop.
Jack exited into a well-lit hallway. There was one room on this floor, at the far end, with a speaker grate attached to a translation device. They had found out some time ago that the beast was always talking, often at telepathic wavelengths or ultrasonic pitches. It had taken years to work out all of the nuances and process it into audible speech, but the result was…interesting.
"GOOD EVENING DOCTOR BRIGHT," the speaker intoned. "WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE TONIGHT."
Jack cleared his throat. "You're more polite than I recall. That's a development."
"YOU ARE STILL FILTH TO ME," the creature said. "MY TEETH STILL ACHE FOR YOUR BLOOD. BUT I AM CONTENT TO WAIT FOR THE OPPORTUNITY. THIS IS THE LONGEST I HAVE EVER BEEN CONTAINED IN ONE PLACE, AND I MUST SHOW SOME RESPECT. I DO NOT EXPECT YOU TO UNDERSTAND, DOCTOR."
"I don't go by Dr. Bright anymore," Jack said. "I'm barely that person anymore. We've all moved on. I'm the only one left alive, anyway."
"THE LIST OF THE DEAD IS LENGTHY, AND I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR SO FEW OF THEM. IT IS SORROWFUL. WHAT SHALL I CALL YOU THEN."
"Just Jack," he said.
"VERY WELL JACK. WHAT BRINGS YOU HERE THIS EVENING."
"I have a gift. For you." Jack said. "It's time to go."
"GO?"
"Go. We're done containing you, and you may leave."
The beast, so far as it could pull off body language, seemed confused.
"No, I'm serious."
"YOU ARE A LIAR AND A SOCIOPATH, JACK. YOU HAVE KILLED AS MANY OR MORE THAN I HAVE AT LEAST IN THE MOST RECENT CENTURIES."
"That's not me anymore," Jack said uncomfortably. "We've changed. The Foundation doesn't exist any more. We don't do those things any more."
"YOU ARE A LIAR EVEN TO YOURSELF. WHY WOULD YOU RELEASE ME."
"Two reasons. First, we live in a remarkable world now. We've traveled to star systems far away, spread ourselves out across two dozen planets. The Earth is used up, drained as far as possible, so we've evacuated the planet. There are less than twenty people left here, and as far as I know, they're all sitting on a ship, waiting for me. After midnight tonight, this planet will be human-free. You won't be a threat anymore. We've even gotten the rest of the SCPs off-world. There's no need to keep you here."
The monster paused. "WHAT IS THE SECOND REASON."
"It wouldn't have been possible without you."

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, JACK."
"It was a casual containment breach for you. We had trapped you at Site 19 temporarily during…some crisis or another, I can't recall which. You broke out, killed six that day. And in the course of that, you ended up in one containment chamber in particular."
"JACK I DO NOT RECALL THESE EVENTS—"
"Getting to that. You broke into 055's containment chamber. We have no idea what happened next inside there, but two things happened. First, eighteen iterations of you appeared in major cities, wreaking havoc. Not complete copies of you, just imitations; they all died pretty quickly once our task forces arrived. But that was about it for the Veil Protocol after that. So congratulations, I suppose."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOU—"
"We've never understood it, but apparently you did something to 055. You reappeared in your chamber after we killed the last copy, forgetting everything. We never particularly wanted to let you in on it. But 055 started putting out energy after that. Just a trickle, then more and more as time went on. We were able to harness it, thanks to the combined efforts of the Foundation, the GOC, the UIU, everybody. We couldn't have done it without global support, the kind we never would have had before Rampage Day. It changed the world. You changed the world, in a good way. For once."
The beast was silent. It was like old times again.
"So, you're free, as of…as soon as I'm out of the building. The programs are prewritten. I hit one button, once I'm safely away, and you can leave as soon as you like."
The beast was silent.
"Yeah, I don't want to mess around with weepy goodbyes either. I hope, and I mean this with all my heart, that we never see each other again." Jack turned to leave.
"JACK."
Jack paused.
"MAY I SEE THE ARTIFACT FOR ONE LAST TIME."
Jack stopped to think if there was any way the lizard could exploit the amulet to its advantage and couldn't think of any. He pulled the amulet out and showed it to the beast. "I'm still in here. Some things don't change."
"THERE ARE ASPECTS OF THAT ARTIFACT THAT YOU WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND. REFRACTIONS OF LIGHT THAT YOU WILL NEVER SEE. THINGS I COULD NOT EXPLAIN TO YOU EVEN WERE I SO INCLINED. 'GOODBYE', I BELIEVE IS THE EXPRESSION." The beast retreated to a corner of its chamber and became quiet.
Jack turned and walked to the elevator. The ride up to the surface was long, and uncomfortable. Once in his car, he opened the flexi, tapped four times, and put it back. He turned the ignition.

Jack was at the spaceport boarding the flight when the flexi vibrated again. He had programmed Site 19's cameras to follow what happened, and the show was apparently over. He watched the footage as the preflight checks were completed.
2345: All containment blocks drop. The monster waits for a moment before springing for the exit. It races to the open elevator and crawls up the shaft.
2354: The creature reaches the ground level, knowing instinctively when it arrives. It rips through the steel door with its teeth and emerges onto the floor of Site 19. It looks from side to side momentarily, then rushes for the enormous glass door. It is standing open.
2356: The lizard arrives outside. There is a moment when it looks at the giant gate and looks…suspicious, almost. It knows its former containers, knows what they are capable of. It knows what Dr. Bright is capable of, wonders how sincere he is about this transformation of his. The pause is just for a second, but all this is present. The lizard could go through the gate, or go around it; crawl over the walls or smash them. When the lizard slowly, tentatively starts snaking towards the gate, Jack believes it has made a decision. It has decided to do something not out of fear, not out of suspicion, but out of hope. It has not known hope in a very, very long time, but perhaps it decides that it is time to do something new.
2358: The lizard reaches the gate. What happens now is unrecorded, is likely unrecordable. This was technology nobody knew about; not the government, not the rest of the Containment Department, nobody. A bright blue flash of light, right when it passes under the gate. Jack doesn't know what it feels like for the beast to become mortal for the first time, but it doesn't have long to know the feeling.
2359: Site 19 warheads detonate. Something else the government didn't know about. Two directly beneath the gate, in fact.
"SCP-682 decommissioned 25 December 2231, 2359 hours. Site 19 closed at that time. Send record to headquarters." Dr. Bright tapped the pad again.


"You should have brought a mortician instead."
The doctor looked over the Mass Containment Room floor of Site 34, coated in the blood and bodies of two hundred Foundation staff members. The stench of death and decay hung over the room. He sniffed, and could tell that the same was true for the whole facility. "If they're already dead, then why bother bringing me here?"
"Because," said the woman beside him, opening a door to their right, "we've still got a survivor in here. You deal with brain damage cases?" The doctor nodded. "Then you should be able to tell us if he's got a chance or not."
"A Site is completely isolated for a month, without any contact with the outside world," murmured the doctor, looking down the dusty corridor. "You'd expect them to have been able to stay alive that long. Aren't they stocked for an isolation period of up to a year?"
"Two," replied the woman, striding ahead of him. "Near as we can tell, they were stuck here for three."
"Three?" asked the doctor, stepping around another corpse in the middle of the hallway.
"We're still researching how it happened. Time anomaly, most likely. Anyways, it wasn't the isolation or lack of food that did this. Site 34 had a reputation of being specifically staffed by the doctors and researchers deemed most likely to survive a long period of isolation. It was also understaffed at the time."
The doctor shuddered at the mutilated faces of three guards in a room to his left. "What did this to them, then?"
"Outbreak. One of the senior staff was visiting. Checking on one of the objects, routine visit - you know the drill." The doctor nodded. "Well, there was an outbreak. Senior staff member was killed during it, started the infection in Researcher Akana. Akana spread it to Doctor Ferbar and Chief of Security Beumer. Ferbar and Beumer spread it further, and you can guess how that worked out.
"It wasn't lethal, but it took a huge toll on their mental faculties. At first, they were acting independent of each other, perfectly normal behavior, even though we'd never seen a spread like this before. But after a time, we still don't know how long, they began break away from the pattern. Began to meld. Like a hive mind. Moving together, gathering stragglers and effectively assimilating them."
"So the mind became too far spread and broke itself," said the doctor. "I've seen similar things happen out in Wales. They had to destroy that one, you know."
"Yes, I read your briefings and credentials," said the woman, stopping outside a blast shield door. She began to punch in a code, saying "Anyways, that's not what happened. One of the unaffected did it. Brian Gomez. Security guard. Couldn't stand being stranded here with the others. So the day before we broke through whatever was blocking the area, he took his weapon and massacred the lot of them."
The doctor scoffed at this. "One man killed an entire Foundation Site by himself?"
A grinding noise came from the blast shield door as it slid aside, granting the two admittance. "They were a hive mind, remember?" replied the woman, walking towards the small steel door inside the small chamber. "How would you fare if someone was smashing up pieces of your brain?"
His scoff turned into a shudder. "So the guard is our survivor?"
"No. He wound up dead after an intense interrogation."
"Goddammit!" shouted the doctor, stamping his foot. "I was willing to let the vague summons slide, but this is getting ridiculous. You brought me here without any in-depth knowledge of what I would be dealing with, and you expect me to help? Who or what is so important that you'd need to keep it a secret from me?"
The woman opened the door, revealing a small room with a bed in the corner. On the bed was a short, round, balding man in a blue pinstripe suit. His face was paling, an expression of great pain covering it. His glasses lay askew, and his tie hung limply off the edge of the bed-frame. Clutched tightly in his hands was a white gold amulet, with a ruby surrounded by diamonds in the center.
As the doctor recoiled at the recognition of the object, the woman said, "The fact that we've nearly lost this one. There'd be panic if the rest of the Foundation found out what transpired here, especially since we have no explanation how he formed the hive mind." The doctor moved forwards, and reached out to touch the amulet. The woman slapped his hand away. "You know better than to touch that. Just make sure he's alright."
Taking a deep breath, the doctor examined the head of the old man, though he did not bring out any tools to cut him open with. He prodded and poked, checked his responsiveness and vital signs, took blood samples, all the while avoiding the amulet in the body's cold hands.
At length, he heaved a heavy sigh and said, "There's nothing you can do."
"You've barely even touched him," snapped the woman.
"Look," said the doctor, leaning against the wall and wiping his brow. "based on what little information you've given me, I was brought here because of my extensive experience with amnesic overdose. Now, there are certain little signs that you learn to pick up after a while of dealing with those cases, little things that are off with the patient. A specific temperature, or a certain toxin in the blood. While there are certainly differences between the overdoses and our case here, the end result is the exact same.
"If the hive mind was destroyed so thoroughly that this one was the only survivor, than there's no hope for him. Normally, if there had been much less of the others, he would have stood a chance. But with less than one-seven hundredth of his mind still intact, it's a miracle he's still breathing."
The doctor stood and started to walk out. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get out of here as fast as I can. Whole place smells of…" he sniffed. "Old flesh and burning fur."
The woman stood over the body of the senior staff member, reflecting. At length, she too sighed, and walked towards the exit. There was much to explain, and an awful lot of fallout to contain. Senior staff would want answers, and her team would no doubt be assigned to a round-the-clock investigation of the incident. Before she left, she turned back for one last look at the old man.
The faintest whisper of a breath steamed out his nostrils.
"Just like his brother," the woman said to herself. "Poor bastard."


The gravel beneath his feet protested with a crunch as Rufus T. Heckle exited the alleyway, face-first into the acrid street smoke. He was not a very well-dressed man, though he held a distinct noble air around him, one that sent flies spiralling over his head and rats scurrying under dumpsters in shame when he coughed, throat smarting at the smog. But it was not the rats and flies and smog that occupied Rufus's mind as he approached the corner of 3rd and King's. It was the words the youngster had said at their last meeting three days ago, the cryptic "final message before death" every detective inevitably faces once or twice in his career. The Other Side is always just around the corner.
It's a cafe, an inn, a safehouse, though not in the usual sense, the youngster had said. They say it's a very important place, the kind where the guy you're looking for might frequent. Rufus might have mentioned something about his job being very unlike the "usual sense", but let him continue. The youngster had nothing much left to say, though, and forty-six hours later his roommate found his set of clothes heaped over his shoes, at the start of a large bloody smear ending abruptly at the east window. It was the same window that, from two stories above, overlooked Rufus as he trod round the corner store, pausing only to scoop a handful of large pebbles from the sidewalk. "The Other Side is always just around the corner," he mouthed, like a forgotten nursery rhyme. "Just around the corner."
One, two. Three, four. As if in a dream, he dropped them almost ritualistically as he rounded the block into the back alley, two before the corner, two after the corner. Crunch the gravel. Cough at the smoke from the street. There seemed to be a certain rhythm to it. I am doing this. Why am I doing this? He didn't even know if he was thinking anymore, the second round around the block nothing but a deep revenant calling from an ancient OCD. Corner store, here come the pebbles. One, two. Tie my shoe. Like a forgotten nursery rhyme. Three, four, knock on the door, and sure enough there at the side of the building was a pair of clear glass doors, tucked in low like the one from Alice in Wonderland. It even seemed just as small, cowering from the world in its cosy brick cubbyhole, and Rufus subconsciously stooped as he went through it. Above him, "The Other Side Cafe" hung daintily in embossed italics from velvety rope.
It was an elegant affair, with glowing orbs keeping sentinel along the walls. Gas lamps? In this day and age? The checkerboard floor was odd too, shining like marble yet creaking like old wood when stepped on. Around him, patrons dined and drank, occasionally flickering (what?) like Chinese mask performers to reveal…something. Whatever it was, it left him with the strange mental image of a pale shell-less crab in the moonlight, grotesque yet familiar. The whole place was…how would he put it? Otherworldly.
There was a two-seater near the corner, below a warm orb-light, and a genteel middle-aged man was sitting at it. There seemed to be something innately different about him, something that stood out, yet did not stand out from the contours of his face to the shapes of his shoes. Rufus immediately made a mental note of his appearance, and to his suprise found that he couldn't. Sure, the gentleman was probably forty-ish, with the look of a chap one'd probably find on a park bench feeding pidgeons somewhere. His attire did not just reek of "drab", it utterly defined it. It kept in the quiet of its seams, like the one guy at the party, the diplomatic one who never talked too much to anybody, and it was perfectly boring, even indescribable in its inanity. That was it. The drab man in the chair, the boringly impossible, impossibly boring man, he defied description, and he expected Rufus to sit down with him. No words, no signals. Just an expectation.
"I suppose you know why I'm here?" said Rufus as he sidled in smoothly, though it was an empty assertion of power, a perfectly scripted line from an old noir movie.
You're dealing with events way over your head here, kiddo. Best you stay out of this. said the impossible man. Except he didn't say it like that, he said instead, "Yes."
Extending a hand (perfectly indescribable, thought Rufus), he greeted. "I'm the Proprietor." Even the way he said it sounded capital. "I hear about things from the patrons here and there, and I couldn't help but expect your arrival. Yves must have told you about the place."
Rufus took his hand. "I'm Ryan Gore." Carefully chosen alias here, though deep inside he knew it wouldn't hide a thing from this oddly dull man. "Yves, that was his name? The kid who got killed?"
"Killed? Hardly, though I can imagine he wish he were, Mister Rufus."
They were both silent for a moment, as a maid in a gas mask passed by with tea. Need a cup, sweetie? she breathed. "No milk, one sugar, Rosie," said the Proprietor. Rufus merely smiled and waved no, thanks. Rosie the gas mask maid might have smiled back, and she set down a steaming teacup from her tray before giving a curt nod to the Proprietor and moving on.
"So, what about the other cases? The gypsy woman on the twenty-second, the park vagrant on the twenty-fifth, what happened to them?" implored Rufus.
"Same as the kid. What did you expect?"
"Who killed…took them?"
"Can't say for sure. Lots of people come and go through the Other Side, and it gets hard to keep track of who entered where from here. This is where the lines get thin, after all. I built this establishment on a rift, Mister Rufus, and it bleeds onto people, leaves a stain. If you're looking for the guy who took those people, following those stains would be very helpful indeed. Given the nature of the crimes, wouldn't you say he'd continue hunting round the same neighbourhood?" Proprietor took a long sip of his coffee.
"Aha. Typical serial killer. How do you suppose I find this…stain?"
"Why, just look at the patrons around you, Mister Rufus. Hell, there's even one trailing down your neck as we speak."
Rufus glanced at his reflection on the immaculate checkerboard floor. Sure enough, a muddy streak was running from the end of his left ear down to the collarbone, looking more like a birthmark than anything now. He scratched at it almost instinctively.
"Well, there you go. It's been nice talking to you, Mister Rufus, but sadly that's all the help I can afford to give to a stranger. Goodbye." The Proprietor might have smiled a bit here.
"Thank you for the help."
"Oh, there's no reason to thank me," said Proprietor. "Trust me. There won't be any."
Rufus Heckle got up, tucked his chair in, and headed for the door before deciding to ignore the last bit. He was a detective, for what it was worth, and by God if he didn't do what he was paid to do. Good day to you, sir, breathed a maid as she held the door open for him.
He exited the Other Side Cafe, breathing in the last fumes of warmth from within.
"And a good day it shall be," he proclaimed to no one in particular. It echoed off the blank brick wall behind him, as he headed off into the cold.


The forest somehow seemed to get darker the closer the two men got to their destination. Agrippa kept reminding himself that the solstice had been three days prior, and the sun simply chose to fall sooner than in earlier months. But the feeling of menace these woods held for him never passed. Agrippa didn't like the woods. Most of his people, at least the other Class II's, usually didn't. Ari, his companion, liked it less than Agrippa did.
Ari never slowed down, though. Agrippa couldn't tell what he was thinking, as per usual. Ari was always the headstrong type, even back in the creches. It was a small act of the gods that he was never thrown out and stuck in some Class III pod to spend the rest of his life drooling and building roads. Maybe if the creche had had a different headmistress, he would have been, but Professor Allgrass wasn't about to let Ari get the best of her. For all that Ari was unspeakably stupid, he was undeniably brilliant. He matriculated at the bottom of the legion (Agrippa didn't come out much higher), but he made it. Two centurions, born and bred to Advance the Greater Reason. Agrippa chuckled and spat.
"What's so funny now?" Ari asked.
"You, coming out of the best plutoborn creche in all of Sylvanos, and can't help getting lost in the woods."
"We're not lost. We're looking for someone who generally mislikes being found."
"If the Integrators get to him first, you know what happens to us, right?" Agrippa asked. "You know what happens to the movement if we lose the Woodsman?"
"The Woodsman's not the primary goal, though," Ari said.
"Yes, you've been hinting at that," Agrippa said. "He has some kind of weapon, right? Something from the other world?"
"Well, there's no way of knowing," Ari said, "but that's what we're told, and Milephanes himself wouldn't have asked us out here without good cause." Both Ari and Agrippa preened a bit at that; Milephanes was starting to be something of a folk hero, even among those outside the Movement, and they were his chosen instrument for this mission.
"Of course not. Whatever it is, the NatPhi kids at Alexylva want it, so it has to be valuable," Agrippa said. "But what I'm saying is, do you know what happens if the Integrators find us before we find it?"
"You mean, we'll get a medal?"
"Ari, we'll get the black bile scraped out of our brains, be thrown in front of a target, and be used for practice by our old classmates. The ones you used to love to humiliate, remember?"
"They humiliated themselves. I just pointed it out more than they liked."
Agrippa wasn't in the mood to banter. He heard a sound just over the next hill. He stopped Ari and signaled to him that they should take cover. The two men split up and took positions behind trees, ten yards apart, and became completely silent. They watched the hillside, and waited.
Integrators. Four soldiers, surgically augmented to be more machine than human. Forget the Braincaps; Agrippa has seen the schematics for all the technology stuck inside these men. Not even men, anymore; sexual organs removed, gender identity (along with every other mission-irrelevant thought) wiped. They moved with the speed of insects attacking an enemy anthill. Two of them were even walking on all fours, catlike. Agrippa had heard rumors that they could see in infrared, that they could hear human blood from inside the body, that they could smell souls. But you can never believe the propaganda those University kids throw out, he thought. The Integrators passed by without looking.
Even Ari's implacable smile was gone for a minute. "We have to hurry."
"Yeah. Which way?"
"Follow me."

The Red Woodsman's hut (hovel's more like it, Agrippa thought) lay some ways away from where the Integrators had been heading, the only factor that gave the two any comfort under the circumstances. Ari snuck up to the door and rapped out a pre-arranged code while Agrippa stood watch. When the door creaked open, Ari waved Agrippa forward, then ducked inside. Agrippa hurried over and closed the door behind him.
The smell was even worse than Agrippa had imagined. Whatever food the Woodsman had been living on for so long, he was apparently a little less demanding about its freshness. The stench of rotten meat filled the single room, and Agrippa was glad that the only window was blocked off. Not that the candlelight was helping much.
The Woodsman was old, very old. Much older than Agrippa had imagined, judging from the ancient gaze in his pupilless eyes. Ari acted nonplussed, but it was clear he was surprised. They had hoped to find the legendary hermit, hoped he would be able to lead them in their uprising. They had talked to some of the other Guardians in their legion, even a couple of Class I University students. They all agreed that there was only one person who might have the knowledge on how to bring down their government, and certainly one such as the Woodsman would have motive enough. The Woodsman was the last of his people. Now it was clear that he wasn't going to last much longer either.
"Welcome, white devils," the Woodsman said. "I trust your trip was…uneventful?" He turned and stumbled towards a small mound that was clearly his principal furniture in the shack, waving a thin branch on the ground to feel his way through the room.
"Yes, sir, very peaceful, sir," Ari said. Odd how he never spoke that way to his own commanders.
The Woodsman's cracked face smiled slightly. "Who's the other? You said someone was here, and he's breathing loud enough I'm afraid he'll die before I do."
Ari chuckled nervously. Agrippa said in a shaky voice, "The name's Agrippa Widewater, sir. Friend of Aristotle's. He's spoken of you."
"Yes, this devil mentioned you to me as well." The Woodsman's blank eyes seemed to fix on Agrippa's as he smiled.
Agrippa cleared his throat. "Um…devil?"
The Woodsman registered no surprise. "Yes, devil. White devil. I work with Aristotle here because he is less stupid than his countrymen, and with you because of his word that I should. But your people disgust me." He leaned forward as he spoke. "I may well be the last of my people. Do you know of my people?"
Agrippa shook his head, then realized his mistake and said, "No, no, I'm afraid not. The forest people?"
The Woodsman snorted. "Gods, no. Do you know nothing of your history?"
"Yes, certainly. We came to this land many hundreds of years ago and found your kind here. We tried to bring you into our Empire, but our diseases wiped most of you out—"
"Let me stop you before you embarrass yourself further," the Woodsman said, no longer smiling. "The white barbarians that spawned you came to this land, and found my people's red barbarian neighbors. The desert dwellers in the south, the snow people of the north, the grasseaters of the east. Many of us died of your sicknesses, yes, but our towns lived on. We allied with your people as you killed our enemies, then ran as you slaughtered us for our land. You stole our words, our medicines—I likely enough had kin named Widewater, back when I had kin—and then shoved us around the continent like marbles.
"My people were the people of the cave country, the Tsalagi. Our homes were east of here; you ground us out like burning embers. I am Adahy, and I may be the last of my people, and I may not; I have no way of knowing. My eyes are gone, and I shall die soon, but I have one gift to pass on, and the only ones—" The Woodsman paused at this last part "—the only ones I have to pass that gift to are two white devils. I will give you this gift from the world beyond this one, but let an old man have his regrets."
Agrippa had no response to any of this. Ari, smart little beast that he was, rose to his feet and fell to one knee before the blind hermit. "And let me pledge, sir, the enduring thanks of the better world your gift will bring about."
The Woodsman seemed sated. "Better for someone, anyway. Very well, I suppose you should be getting on, then. The box is on that little shelf there, beside the door." He pointed at a small brown box, oddly out of place in some imperceptible way; Agrippa had noticed it immediately upon entering. Something about the box's construction reeked of the unnatural. He walked across the room and picked it up.
"You may leave as soon as is prudent, travelers," Adahy said, and retreated to a small alcove.

Ari and Agrippa had run for what seemed like hours before they reached the end of the woodline and approached their barracks. They snuck into the building, nodding at the guard they had already bribed into silence. Of course, he likely thought they were just out fondling some pórnoi in the pleasure district; the question wasn't asked, so long as the gold was forthcoming. The package was hidden until Ari pulled it out from under his tunic. They looked at the artifact, awe-filled in spite of its obvious cheap construction. Of course, the Phitransimun Combine wasn't known for its craftsmanship for most of its postal service; only high-grade objects were treated with real care. And this was clearly a postal container of some sort; the label was recognizable, the alphabet somewhat decipherable, even if neither Ari nor Agrippa knew where anyplace was called "Omaha."
Agrippa tried to gingerly pry open the wood-pulp container, but the adherent holding the flaps in place caused part of it to rip. Ari took the box from his hands and pulled the rest of the pulp apart. "The covering isn't important; it's what's inside that counts."
Working his way through the pulp coverings and the endless layers of clear, elastic paper air pockets used for padding (what amazing skills these outworlders have, Agrippa thought, as he gathered up the scraps falling from Ari's hands), Ari uncovered a small booklet.
"Wait, where's the weapon?" Agrippa said.
Ari flipped through the pages. "I have no idea. But maybe Milephanes will."

The booklet that was brought to Milephanes was never translated into the language of their people, but Milephanes had learned how to read the offworlders' speech well enough by this point. He knew that the phrase "UNITED STATES" was important immediately; that was an important empire in the other-realm, and powerful. And while it took some research to learn what "CONSTITUTION" meant in this sense, he immediately took great interest in the concept of a "DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE."

COMMUNIQUE
FROM AGENT ███████ ("PROFESSOR ALPHA" , MTF P-1)
TO RESEARCHER ESKOBAR
HEAD OF RESEARCH
ALEXYLVA UNIVERSITY
FWD: TO SENIOR RESEARCHER ███████
SITE 38 DIRECTOR
FWD: TO OVERWATCH COMMAND
PRIORITY TWO ALERT
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN:
ANOMALOUS OBJECT ACQUIRED AT ██° ██.█████' N ██° ██.████ W AT 0330 THIS DAY. OBJECT: TYPE THREE CLASSIFICATION (DELIVERY ARTIFACT, UNREMARKABLE MAKE). CONTENTS: TWO HUNDRED FIFTY (250) COPIES OF IDENTICAL SHEET OF PAPER. FULL CONTENTS INCLUDED IN APPENDIX OF REPORT. NOTABLE EXCERPTS, TRANSLATED APPROXIMATELY INTO STANDARD ENGLISH:
"We hold these [facts?] to be [clear?]: that all mans is to be treated as the same as one another, that the sands of time and nature's winds have left those that survive to be worthy of certain rights, including life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Governments are instituted among men with power given to be from the will of those men, and when any ruler seeks to defy that will, it is to those men to see that ruler's blood spilled from sea to sea, and to choose new ruler to make men safe and [pleased?]"

"The history of current Regent of Novomundus tells to us that he is such ruler and cannot be suffered for further living. Let the truth be known [followed by a long series of political complaints, including "Making for that womenfolk can steal the glory and pride of man, rightful ruler of woman and beast," "Releasing among our people the great scourge, the [integrators?], the half-machines, that our children may find themselves prey in our homes," and "Making of many childrens idiots and slaves against all laws of natural order."]"

"We, therefore, the Representatives of the united People of Novomundus, take arms against the injustices listed above and swear our lives that these cruelties be not endured any longer. The Gods of our ancestors, they that support us, may do so; but let it be known that whosoever stands in our way is to be annihilated. We shall destroy everyone who opposes, and let their carcasses pile up to realm of heavens. If all the gods in heaven and the demons, and the good and bad people all oppose us, we shall not relent. We shall not yield.
—Milephanes of Sylvanos"