Conrad Murphy approached the entrance of Humanoid Containment Site-29-2, covered by the dark, moonless night. He pulled the elastic from the back of his blank white mask, letting it snap across the back of his head. He yanked free a flash grenade from his black flak jacket. He continued walking deliberately towards the front gate, ignoring the facade of being a decrepit and perpetually condemned building. Conrad held the flashbang behind his back, faintly grinning behind the mask as his approach caught the attention of the night crew.
"Sir, this is a restricted area."
Two plainclothes guards moved to intercept Conrad, flicking open their collapsible batons. Conrad deftly tumbled the flashbang between his legs. The two guards turned their attention to the rattling as it clinked towards them.
"Oh shi-"
BANG
The shorter of the two guards fell backwards, blinded by the blast, the other had been fast enough to look away. Conrad rushed in, taking advantage of the brief distraction to yank the baton from the standing guard's hand. Conrad spun and ducked, cracking the steel bar against the guard's kneecaps, sending him screaming to the ground. Conrad kicked the downed guard in the chest, then brought down the nightstick against his head with a sickening crunch of broken skull.
The guard stopped moving.
He turned to the other guard, who was slowly trying to regain his senses, and stomped on the man's unprotected fingers. The guard let out a yell of pain, dropping his own baton to nurse his injured joints. Conrad knelt on the man's chest, then pulled a knife from his vest and pushed it against the guard's throat. The man stopped struggling, looking up at Conrad's flat, white mask with sheer, unfiltered spite.
"What the fuck do you want?"
Conrad grinned behind the blank white mask, slicing open the man's carotid and jugular.
"Chaos."
Conrad continued to kneel on the gurgling guard's chest, watching him slowly drown in his own blood.

Conan Murphy watched from a distance as his brother made light work of the guards. Conan joined Conrad in front of the abandoned building, then detached an ID card from the taller guard's jacket. Conrad pulled off his white mask, then pushed it against the face of the man he had just killed. The thin plastic wormed its way into the dead guard's pores, intricately knitting itself into the flesh. Conan pulled the mask from his own face, beginning the same process.
"Nicely done with these two."
"Eh, Lichtenfield's been giving me pointers."
The masks glowed slightly, then made a soft pop as the guards' faces slid from their skulls. The brothers donned the masks, not caring enough to exchange clothes to complete their disguises. The masks sucked against the brothers' own faces, making a flawless seal between their own flesh and that of the deceased guards. Conan moved in towards the hidden entry to Humanoid Containment Site-29-2, sliding his ID into a small card slot. He moved his new face into the flashing retinal scanner, presenting the illusory projection of the dead man's eyeball. An electronic tone beeped confirmation, sliding open a brick façade to reveal a steel entryway.
"And now we're in. Simple."
Conan pushed his hands into his pockets, tightening his grips on a pair of anomalously silenced pistols. The brothers walked through the door, slowly descending into the metaphorical belly of the metaphorical whale. A long passage continued inwards, steel surrounding them from every side. The pair pushed open a glass door at the end of the corridor, squeaking their shoes on spotless linoleum into the well-illuminated lobby. A disinterested receptionist appraised them with a cursory glance, waved greetings at their fleshy masks apathetically, then returned to watching funny cat videos on her iPhone.
Conrad shrugged at his brother.
Conan shot the receptionist in the head.

Constantine Murphy sat tapping at a computer keyboard in the back of an unmarked van. His brothers, lovely little psychopaths that they were, had never been ones for subtlety. Constantine had figured out the shift schedule for the guards at Site 29-2, carefully run ultrasound scans mapping the inner facility, and drilled holes into the ground to intercept every line of communication into or out of the place. He had double and triple checked the plan, intending to keep the assault as brief as possible. There was only a small window of time during which they could strike. In and out. Orchestrating this task would have taken most people weeks; Constantine had accomplished it in three days.
He watched the feeds coming from his brothers' masks on a pair of LCD monitors. One of the two pulled a gun from his pocket, killing the receptionist. Constantine watched the other brother drop a small earthworm onto the receptionist's keyboard. It wiggled in between the mechanical keys, then disappeared into the cracks, and moments later Constantine's third screen lit up.
Constantine grinned, cracked his fingers, and started to run scans on his new access channel.
The receptionist didn't have particularly high clearance on the network, of course, but she had a direct connection to the site's database. Constantine hammered at keys, throwing information into every port and waiting for responses. A small prompt appeared, notifying him of the successful pings. He pushed attack procedures into the suitable nodes, and after a short delay, he had full administrative rights. He started downloading all local data files, until finally finding the person he was looking for.

Designation: A-24867
Subject Identifier: Robin Puck
Description: Black hair, Brown eyes, Estimated ~45 years of age
Information: Detained while escaping from Foundation personnel after a raid on a Chaos Insurgency base in Birmingham, England. Resisted detainment by disorienting personnel with a cognitohazardous hand gesture. Subject was sedated and, after testing discovered additional anomalous physiology, designated as A-24867. Currently stored at Humanoid Containment Site 29-2, Wing B, Room 45.
Containment: To be fed three meals a day. Hands to be restrained at all times. No requests to be acknowledged. Available for testing on request.

"Conan, Conrad. Wing B, Room 45. Video footage shows that the corridors are reasonably clear. Local video feeds have been replaced with memetic kill agents. You'll have about ten minutes until someone realises something's amiss. Get to it."
Conan and Conrad adjusted their earpieces, walking side by side down the corridor. Humanoid Containment Site 29-2 was a minimum security facility; at night, they were reduced to a skeleton crew. The pair heard their paces echo, pointing their pistols precautionarily down every passage they passed. Conan scratched the edge of his flesh mask.
"Damn, these things get itchy."
"Get over it."
"Hey, I'm just sayi-"
Conrad turned the corner, shooting a pair of night guards in the chest, then head, knocking them to the ground like sacks of bricks. He turned to his brother, frowning at him through his stolen face.
"Get over it. We're here. Work on the lock, I've got you covered."
Conrad moved to the wall opposite the door, pointing his pistols in opposite directions to cover the whole corridor. Conan pulled a lock gun from his vest, jamming it into the door and clicking it repeatedly while twisting. The seventh tumble aligned the pins, letting him pull open the door. Conan looked inside, spotting the dishevelled man slumped against the corner of the room. The subject was wearing a bright green jumpsuit, clearly differentiating him from the expendable personnel in yellow. His hands were covered by a set of unusual steel handcuffs, chains connecting him to the wall of his cell. Conan entered, tapping the man on the shoulder gently.
"Robin Puck?"
Robin Puck opened his eyes suddenly, alert and aware. He sneered at Conan from his corner.
"What do you want this time, you-"
"Password. Eight five seven three."
Robin Puck's expression changed immediately, grinning at his rescuers.
"The cracked jetstream fills the evening."
Conan forced his pick gun into the handcuffs, pulling the trigger repeatedly. After nineteen clicks, the lock remained unopened.
"Lock won't open, I'm breaking the chain. Don't move, this stuff stings like hell."
Conan pulled a small phial of red liquid from his vest, removing the rubber stopper and dropping a small splash where the chain was attached to the wall. The metal fizzed for a few seconds, then fell apart, completely corroded by the mixture. Robin Puck wiggled his arms within his restraints.
"What about my hands?"
"Worry about that when we're out of here. Let's go."
Conan returned to the corridor, Robin Puck following close behind. Conrad glanced at the pair of them, then moved to cover their evacuation.

Constantine noticed the first alarm going off, then intercepted and blocked it. The alarm triggered again, and again, he severed the connection. He switched his view to a video feed of the source; a guard was repeatedly pulling the trigger, confused and scared at the lack of response. The guard switched to his radio and started speaking to it in hushed tones; set to a frequency, of course, which was being jammed. Constantine rewound the tapes, watching the man discovering the bodies of two of his co-workers in the corridor. He then fast-forwarded to the present, just in time to see the man nervously unholster his pistol, then start to walk in the opposite direction of Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck. Constantine couldn't help releasing a short chuckle.

Conan and Conrad heard a message in their earpieces from their brother.
"A guard's noticed the bodies, but he's gone wandering in the wrong direction. You should be clear all the way out."
Conrad sprinted to every corner they passed, aimed his guns down either direction of the crossroads, then jumped across to the other side, covering Conan and Robin Puck as they passed. The three of them continued like this, stopping to check each corridor they passed, until finally getting to the lobby. They sprinted down the steel entryway as fast as possible, exiting the still-open door they had entered through. Conrad and Conan moved on either side of Robin Puck, matching his pace perfectly. Robin Puck walked to the sidewalk near the deceptively decrepit building, panting softly. Conan turned to their rescuee, reassuring him.
"Don't worry, Mister Puck. Our escape vehicle should be here any second."
As soon as the words left Conan's mouth, an unmarked van pulled up in front of them, Constantine Murphy grinning out at them from the driver's side window.
"Your chariot awaits!"
Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck eagerly climbed through the door, slamming it shut as they drove away.
Ten minutes later, Constantine turned off all jammers and interceptors centred around Humanoid Containment Site-29-2. Requests for strike teams and support were sent to every nearby facility, sirens screamed throughout the site, and researchers hid under their desks in panic. Some people tried to evacuate the facility, while others tried to lock the place down. Even with the return of communication, there was still no comprehension, no cohesion, and no coherence.
In short, chaos ensued.

Incident Report: CHAOIN-582057
Location: Humanoid Containment Site-29-2
Casualties: Seven Guards, One Receptionist, Two Strike Team Personnel, Three Scientists, Twelve Anomalous Persons
Description: [DATA EXPUNGED]

The van slowed to a halt in a mostly empty carpark.
"Out you get, Mister Puck. Yours is the red one over there. Keys are in your pocket."
"Thanks for the break, boys. See you around."
The three men named Con Murphy sat in the car, watching Robin Puck walk across the carpark. Robin Puck waved his hands in the air, embracing his freedom from the restrictive cuffs, then pulled the car keys from his pocket. The three Cons watched him enter the vehicle, reverse out of his park, and drive down the street into the distance. Constantine turned around from the driver's seat, smiling at his brothers.
"Nicely done."
Four minutes later, Robin Puck's car exploded into flames.

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The skies split open. A great blackened hole dissipated the clouds and chilled the thin mountain air. A hollow clanging emanated through the range, scattering the wildlife and singeing the flora's edges in a searing, dry heat. The ringing built up to a deep crescendo, rattling every bone and rock in the valley with a hollow, angry roar. In a flash of light, the entity that called itself Iscilthe exploded into existence in the realm of man, plummeting towards the earth in a fiery mass of steel and flesh and stone. The mountain ranges crackled and hissed as great plumes of flame and ice jutted from the once-serene cliffs and valleys of the gorge. The entity savoured its descent into the disorderly world, feeling the weakness of the billions of un-enslaved souls, so close now to their shackles. The shockwave of its presence tore through the cloudline as its great hooves cracked into the dirt below, sending out ripples of energy and rage into the very core of the great peaks surrounding it. This was the day of reckoning. This was the day of mankind's liberation from its own will. Their god had finally come.
Miles away, deep within the valleys of the range and far from the roar of earth's new guest, a solemn team of researchers and soldiers aligned the last of a hundred great cannons, targeting flawlessly the sight of the guest's arrival. There would be no conquest of the earth today, General Collather mused. He allowed himself a smile as the last of the great munitions locked into place. "Prepare firing order zero one zero, Adam Delta Charlie. All stations engage, stand by for munitions all-call."
Sailing through the shattering cloudline, the first of earth's great battleships mimicked perfectly the earthbound preparations. Countless batteries of glowing engines rotated seamlessly in place, aligning the great spires of the SCPAS Schrödinger forward to the guest's coordinates. A hundred trillion calculations flitted through the ship's great processors, as the monstrous conduits began their slow energetic ascent. The admiral's hands remained clenched behind his back, not a hair on his body betraying his apprehension. "All hands, battle stations. Ready main dispersion units and prepare for full-band emissions alpha through iota". His commands were met with confirmations and movement on all sides, as the crew executed the steps they had practiced daily for almost a year now. The admiral allowed himself a small upward tilt of the lip, a smile only by the most liberal standards, as his great flagship prepared to fire.
Within the dessicated husk of a former temple, the oldest of a line of mages raised his hands in prostration, his head bowed in reverence to his great and powerful god. This man was, however, no worshipper of fiery demons descended from tears in the skies of his beautiful terra, but of much older beings; gods whose love and admiration for man were matched only by their kindness and forgiveness for man's many sins. The mage clapped his hands together, and his hundred followers did the same, as a ray of bright light shone from each among them into his body, feeding into him their faith and their hope, and their deep love for all the things of this earth. He felt his eyes drift open, and a single tear rolled down his cheek as their warmth and affection touched his weathered heart. He released a scream of euphoria, and a blast of energy shot from deep within his lungs into the night sky, speeding towards earth's angry guest with a ringing, piercing fury that could only come from true, undying love.
O5-4 glanced at the confirmations flowing past his screen. All countermeasures were being deployed, and their timing thus far was flawless. Around him, the other members of the council began to fidget and tense, but he could afford himself no such luxury. With a nearly imperceptible series of keystrokes, he engaged the last of the great defences; a gargantuan flower, only miles from the moon, began to turn to the atmosphere and spread its incandescent petals. In a flash of light, the stamen ignited and a laser-like stream of heat and light rocketed towards the earth. O5-4 leaned back in his chair and allowed himself to begin feeling nervous, for the last of his work was finished.
Sand became glass. Dirt became battered stone. What life had been able to withstand the onslaught of the entity's auras dissipated into dust. Iscilthe's advance was inexhaustible, its footsteps brilliantly radiant against the crude world it had graced with its arrival. It hungered for man's armies, eager to clash with whatever challenged it. It wanted to savour again the sweet taste of their hopelessness in the face of its booming presence. It remembered still the way their swords and axes and catapults battered so futilely its body, with crumbling metals and fragmented stones, oblivious to their pathetic stature. With a thought, Iscilthe felt out upon the mountains, trying to find the crude formations and armies, the rows of hardened soldiers alongside brittle, callous machinery prepared to fight a foe beyond their comprehension. It felt nobody. No soldiers, no priests, no angry captains. For almost ten leagues it felt out, but could not sense a single wretched soul. Had mankind gotten so timid, so cowardly, so…wise, as to know it was beyond challenge?
The entity released a roar which emanated through the mountainside, refracting and shattering the earth around it. From miles away, several much louder roars similarly obliterated the skyline from which the beast had fallen. The volleys of Site 53-alpha, the destructive waves of the SCPAS Schrödinger, the prayers of the GOC white petal order, the emission of SCP 3261; all of them bore down, the thousand arrows of man, upon earth's short-lived guest. Iscilthe, steeped in the gore and intimacy of battling mankind's medieval armies, was barely able to process the magnitude of the incoming barrage, and could not have guessed that it was mankind that held the bow. How could it have known, after all, that within so few millenia the same primates it had dominated and subjugated to near-extinction would master so thoroughly and completely the world around and within them? How could a god of ancient dimensions and faraway lands have predicted the explosive potential of the weaponry mankind had brought to bear, or the penetrating power of the missiles that carried it? How could it have known that the mystics and madmen of the species would have been able to channel so effectively, so precisely the dark energies that swirled about their world? Iscilthe had barely a second to muse on its ignorance, and then the great god was no more.
Far from earth, within a realm of mist and smoke and great spirals of energy, a slow, rumbling scream echoed throughout the ether. The vengeful, spiteful, malicious sound echoed from one great peak of potential energy to the next, as the being called Iscilthe began to rumble back into consciousness. The annihilation had reverberated through to its core, jarring it out of its ethereal stupor. With a great pain, it let its consciousness drift into the new corporeal body, this one much weaker and less energetic than the former. With a wheeze of shock and anger, the new Iscilthe's limbs began to gyrate and bend, and after heaving the bile of reincarnation from its form, the entity began a shameful walk towards the conclave chambers. The other great ones glared down at its shattered form, feeling the crippled spirit and sapped energies, processing intimately what had happened to their once insurmountable peer. Some reacted with emotional outburts of shock, anger, scorn, amusement. Others began massive calculation efforts, sapping energy from the ether to process how such a rout had come to be. Still others ignored the development, spending their time on their own thoughts or in actions far away, their limbs and energies hanging dormant as their consciousness was devoted elsewhere. Iscilthe experienced a compulsion to speak, to justify its defeat, to dissuade them from its impotence.
"Mankind has changed. Mankind is strong. We must reconsider. We must attack."
The members paused briefly as they processed the outburst, and the full computational power of their minds was put to work. Even those busied with other tasks found themselves swept up within the group's thoughts as they pondered the proposal. Many quiet minutes passed as the monumental beasts silently contemplated. Then slowly, creepingly, the members of the conclave began to laugh. What a concept it was after all, that the race they saw today was the same race they had known so well in the millenia past. It was an angry, harsh laugh, a vicious sound that would indeed have shattered the minds of the humans below. What a mockery it was to presume that such a frail, backwards scrap of a species could have routed so completely one of their own. The conclave's laughter roared through the dimension, cascading in a great wave of sound and light as it devoured the local ethers and displaced the countless auras swirling within their world. Each member then released in turn an outpouring of sound and thought and sensation, expressing their incredulity, their amusement, their mirth at the concept of mankind as a victor in their battle with Iscilthe. To many, the mere concept of such a battle was ridiculous beyond consideration. So the conclave laughed.
As they laughed, the entity called Iscilthe felt within it a strange sensation. There was something else returning from the scattered ashes of its corpse within the human realm. Something that was not a part of its consciousness. Within the depths of Site 53-alpha, Doctor Savorrus hurriedly piped the remains of the radiation that had emanated from the entity back into the portal, feeling a rush of elation when the hole in the sky ripped open once again. The researchers around him finalized their calibrations, and all faces turned to the launch screen, where the first of the Class-K Cerberus rockets begin its ascent into the black fissure. Savorrus felt himself fall back into his chair as the stress of the past year began to boil away from him. The plan had been executed to the letter. He reflected on the magnitude of what they had just accomplished; the contents of that rocket would release a nuclear blast laced with an anomalous cocktail, which (if the Mount Sinai boys had done their job right) would "de-etherealize" anything within the explosive radius. He'd heard hushed whispers of a conflicted O5 council for months, outlasting even the whispers of the "fishbowl" they had used to peer into the realm he'd just bombed. Somehow, the council had been able to reach into the plans that the rest of those things had and through some metric, they'd known that with entities of this magnitude there could be no containment. Savorrus felt himself begin to relax; whatever the consequences, it was out of his hands now.
Within the conclave chambers, yet another powerful member raised its many voices, mocking Iscilthe's defeat. The entity listened, even as it felt the foreign tube of metal and minerals materialize within its bloated gut. In its beaten, weakened form it had neither the time nor the energy to process the intrusion, and was too taken in the conclave's mirth to make the attempt, instead joining in the chamber's roaring laughter. As the nearly 6000 megaton nuclear warhead began to fully coalesce, Iscilthe felt a compulsion to feel out to the nature of the device. As the atoms read themselves to it, the entity's laughter ceased to be mirthful, and instead turned harsh, cackling, and pained as the extent of the conclave's miscalculation began to dawn upon it.
The materialization completed, and the booming laughter of the ancient chambers came to an unremarkable end.


Agent Isaac Allred-Smith was not having a good October.
It had all started on September 30, when he'd filed a request for temporary leave. Under "Reason for Request", he'd written, "Too much goddamn stress."
On October 12, he'd received a notice that his request had been processed, and in response, he was being moved to another Mobile Task Force. A more active Mobile Task Force. This did not make him happy.
"The hell is this?" he had exclaimed, slapping the note on the desk of Regional Director Kate McTiriss. "Did you not read the damn paper I sent in? This is the opposite of what I asked for!"
McTiriss shrugged, barely glancing up at him. "We both know stress isn't the issue, Isaac. The past two months have been slower than anything." She straightened a stack of papers Allred-Smith had knocked over in his outburst. "I highly suspect you're just looking for a way to take out pent-up aggression. And besides, it's not like we're dropping you in an active war zone. The task force isn't even on its home turf, so things should be pretty smooth. Besides, LMTF-237 Teth is the Green Thumbs. Botany." She gave the agent a smirk. "What could be more relaxing than gardening?"
Right. Gardening. Relaxing.
On his first day with his new teammates, a meter-long insectoid made out of venus flytraps ate Agent Allred-Smith's guitar and half of his left shoe.
Everything about the new job was awful. His temporary lodgings in Site-88 were small and smelled of pesticide. The on-site ethics team, led by Dr. Cinnamon or whatever, was way too touchy-feely for his liking. And he'd liked that guitar, dammit. He needed it. Even now, as he sat hunched-over on his bed, his fingers twitched in the air, yearning for wood and nylon. The month had gone nothing but terribly.
And then the klaxons went off. Isaac felt his Foundation-issued phone buzz in his pocket. Annoyed, he glanced at the screen.

! Low-Level Breach Report !
Allred-Smith,
We've got reports of a scip about 15 miles out. Some farmer made a call to the local police, completely delirious. We think we know what it is, but it's new. Hasn't got a number yet.
Get out there, see if you can get it under control. Be careful, we're not sure how dangerous this thing is. Call for backup if needed.
- Site-88/LMTF-237 Teth joint direction overwatch
Attached files:
10-31_breach_coords.txt
ao_police_call.mp3
ao_637_tentative_file.txt

Yeah, yeah. Another day, another potentially life-threatening mission. And of course they didn't send him with any support. He was only completely new to the region.
He flicked on the police recording as he grabbed his jacket stormed out the door. Might as well get an early read on what he was up against.

"911, what is your emergency?"
"Oh God, oh God. They're out there. I still see them."
"Sir, please state your location and the nature of the emergency, if possible."
"They're staring at me. Dozens of them. I can feel their eyes on me. They took the whole field. The whole field full of their staring eyes and broken smiles."
"Sir, I -"
"It's burning! I can feel them burning! I -"

Allred-Smith clicked out of the audio. He wouldn't be getting any real information from that. Standard creepy shit. That farmer was half out of his mind, and there was some sort of weird interference in the background. A murmuring, chuckling sound, cutting itself off every so often. That couldn't be good.
Isaac fumbled with his keys as he punched the coordinates into his car's GPS. Almost as an afterthought, he opened the object file and set activated text-to-speech. He wasn't a fan of robots speaking broken English, but dying in a car crash on the way to a scip would be just perfect.

Item #: [AWAITING CLASSIFICATION]
Object Class: Euclid [TENTATIVE]
Special Containment Procedures: [AWAITING ANALYSIS]

Oh, so he was going in practically blind on how to catch this thing. Brilliant.

Description: SCP-n/a is the collective designation for a species of roughly-humanoid organisms populating the southern United States. Instances of SCP-n/a are similar in appearance to indigenous flora, with genetic analysis showing similarities to Cucurb-

OK, people that looked like plants. Or plants that looked like people. Got it. Whatever. Skip a bit.

Upon reaching maturity, instances of SCP-n/a become mobile, and gather in populated areas in large clusters. Upon settling in a location, the bodies of SCP-n/a instances will undergo a period of what is assumed to be directed necrosis, developing semi-geometric abscesses. Few instances of SCP-n/a have been observed to display the same abscess pattern. Prolonged exposure to these patterns, especially those displayed by newly-matured specimens, have resulted in observers developing a sense of paranoia in 70% of cases, and an intense fight-or-flight response in 46% of cases.

Don't look at them too hard. Sure. He'd have to squint or something, he supposed. It certainly was nice of them to send him in without any kind of special equipment.

Following abscess formation, SCP-n/a instances will manifest bioluminescence, as well as increased heat output. Extreme caution is to be exercised when -

Too late. He was here. The farmer hadn't been lying. The field was positively glowing, alive with bizarre geometric shapes emitting bright yellows and oranges. In the shadows, he could make out taller, humanoid silhouettes. They weren't moving. They only stared. Allred-Smith put his hand on his pistol. He wasn't supposed to damage anomalies if he could help it, but if those things got any closer, he wasn't taking any chances.
This was it. Go time.
Allred-Smith cautiously opened his car door, and began easing his way toward the field. One of the figures shifted. Isaac felt his heart rate quicken. He picked up his pace, reached for his gun…
…and promptly tripped over a large gourd. "The hell?!" he shouted, spinning around. A crude, frightened gaze met his own, glowing with an inner light.
A jack-o-lantern. He was staring down a jack-o-lantern.
Isaac heard laughter from behind him. "We were beginning to think you got lost," said one of the silhouettes, bending down. In the light of the pumpkin, the figure's face revealed itself to be that of Nathaniel Atkinson. "Glad you made it, after all."
"Sorry about all of this," chuckled another figure. It flicked on a flashlight and metamorphosed into Dr. Jeremiah Cimmerian. "We've been so busy that we never had the time to give you a proper welcome to Site-88."
"Well, better late than never," said a third shadow, stepping out of the darkness and transforming into Agent Jacob. "Even if Atkinson did almost ruin that phone recording."
"I couldn't help it!" protested Atkinson. "I never imagined I'd get to hear you pretend to be a farmer, or that it would be so hilarious. At least I was able to swap out Isaac's bullets for blanks!"
"Anyway," interrupted Cimmerian, regaining his composure, "apologies for all the inconveniences you've been burdened with over the past few days. We hope you can come to forgive us." He pressed something large into Isaac's arms. "And behalf on all of us here at Site-88…"
"Welcome to the team!" the rest of the shadowy figures cheered, quickly breaking out into a barrage of jokes and laughter.
Isaac looked down at the object in his arms. It was a brand-new guitar, with green tuning heads. "May your thumbs be forever green!" declared an elegant inscription on the side.
For the first time in a while, Agent Allred-Smith smiled. Maybe his stay here at Site-88 wouldn't be so bad, after all.


To be frank, Atkinson hadn't expected the object to create cockroach-like entities with thorns covering their exoskeletons. For organisms composed of plant matter, they packed enough of a punch to tear a gash in his right bicep, leaving him stumbling towards the chamber's exit door and staggering back into the antechamber. With a stuffed breathing, he tore open a first-aid kit and began to wrap his arm in some bandaging, after packing the wound.
It was strange. The plant normally only exuded arachnid-based lifeforms, and only every so often. Atkinson was sure that it was not the environment of the chamber - he paid close attention to it, especially with the object's finicky nature. Never before had he seen anything but the arachnids it normally spawned, and the sudden change was rather concerning. He flicked the minor alert button a few more times to try and call for assistance, before finally noticing that he had shouted quite a few times while wrapping himself. It was odd - he hadn't noticed it during the process, but, he could feel the ringing in his ears of his own yells echoing. He glanced through the viewing port towards the plant.
"Atkinson!"
The doctor's head turned as the crew member, Fetters, ran down the hall. He sighed and stowed the first aid kit back on its wall holster, leaning against the wall with a clipboard. "Yes, Fetters? Why didn't someone come sooner? I could have been seriously injured."
"I heard your shouting, just now. But there weren't any alarms."
Atkinson raised an eyebrow. "I was sure that I pressed it. Sure of it. Both the internal and external alarm designators. Are you certain?"
Fetters nodded, then clucked his tongue. "Mechanical malfunction? I don't know. I'll call up to the Sector overwatch."
Fetters grabbed out his clearance card and swiped it, walking back out the antechamber's door and into the hall, pressing on the intercom. Atkinson stared at the small, unilluminated indicator light on the card swipe mechanism. He squinted. It wasn't green, nor had it been after Fetter's swipe. He pulled his own card, swiping it. The door opened, and he saw Fetter standing there, speaking into the intercom. It closed again, and he promptly swiped his Visa. Again, it opened, and this time Fetter was staring at him. "What are you doing?" he asked, letting go of the intercom button.
"Testing the door. What did they say?"
"Nothing. The wing must be malfunctioning. I'll call it in."
Nathan pressed the intercom for himself as Fetters stepped aside. "Hello? Atkinson here."
He waited. And listened. And what he heard was a perfect A flat.
He grabbed Fetters by the arm and yanked him back into the antechamber, pulling the lever to lock out anyone from the containment's control room. Fetters pulled free and shoved Atkinson into the door. "What the Hell, doc? What's gotten into you?"
"A perfect A flat, Fetters."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The intercom, Fetters," he breathed. "Something isn't right."
"How would you know what pitch it was playing?"
"I used to be musically invested, to a degree. I almost majored in it, you know. playing the-"
"Get to the point," Fetters asked, impatiently. He turned and began to fiddle with the control panel, finding little to no response, mouthing confused phrases to himself.
"SCP-" Atkinson murmured.
"What?"
"SCP-" There was every indication that Nathan was stating a number to finish off the nomenclature, but no sound rang from his lips. He held up a finger and wrote the designation down on the clipboard: SCP-3142.
"SCP-"
"SCP-" Fetters tried again, mildly irked.
"S. C. P. -"
Fetters sighed. "Okay, explain."
"It's an acoustic anomaly that prevents sound from being transmitted that can describe its anomaly, basically. Long-winded descriptions are fine, but, exact designation is impossible in anything but written records. Hence, you can't finish the name." Atkinson initiated lockdown of the plant's containment, setting down the clipboard. It guaranteed twelve hours of total containment, or at least, he hoped.
"Are you sugges-"
To be frank, Atkinson had not expected that the plant would create cockroaches. And, being fair, of course, he wouldn't have expected that they would catalyze a reaction between Pentaerythritol tetranitrate, a plasticizer, and a small startup reaction to set it all going. It kicked the wall in, and Atkinson and Fetters back into the opposite wall, showered with debris. The onset of plant-insects was immediate and frantic, Fetters grabbing Atkinson off the ground quickly and swiping a card to get back out the door. He shoved Atkinson forward and tried the intercom one last time, looking down the hall. It seemed pristine.
Fetters tried to speak, but he suddenly realized that the both of them were breathing heavily, barely managing a what before wheezing, coughing, and brushing some debris from his clothing. Atkinson had left his coat behind, and his clipboard, which had taken the brunt of the debris. He leaned into the wall, palms planted on it, coughing vehemently.
"I-it… cough means that, if a con- cough tainment breach were happening… we wouldn't hear it, if someone… someone managed to figure out how to use the anomaly. Like the… the plant. Yeah. That was the plant. That's… genetic engineering, for you."
Fetters didn't bother grabbing for his phone. He knew it wouldn't do him much good by now. "So what do you suggest we do, then, huh? Stand here and wait for something to get us? What the fuck, Atkinson?"
Atkinson's oddly nonchalant attitude about things, especially in containment efforts that required a bit more force than he had planned for, had garnered him a small increment of gossip. He rubbed his temples. "Well, for starters, we start buying organic."
"What?"
"Well, I mean, look at it! The plant was obviously modified, look at it. Someone changed it between this current plant and the last seedling."
"Atkinson, focus. What do we do about the breach of Site-88?"
The doctor sighed. "Well, we find a way out. We stay calm. I think I know a way. SCP-3875 has a runoff tunnel that leads off-site. We can figure it out from there. Maybe we can get into the vehicle depot."
"Right, right," Fetters breathed, trying to gain bearings as they began their way down the hall. Somewhere behind them, the scuttling of plastic explosives scratched against the doors.
« The Gulf || __ »


My intro piece of The Gulf's canon collaboration. Thanks to Thekillerax for helping me work out a couple of kinks in this in chat.

▸ More by this Author ◂

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F.A.Q.

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Doctor Foster fiddled with his name tag. He'd always hated that picture. He paused for just for a moment to look down and frown at himself before he kept walking down the hall. Site-88 was coming up on rotation to retake their photos in December. Just in time for the Christmas party.
He hated the Christmas party. Secret Santa always resulted in hard feelings. You'd think a clandestine organization would do a better job of protecting anonymity. Priorities, he thought.
He stopped again. This was the right room. He'd read the skip description and he'd kept a straight face through all of it. He could be professional. But a talking pig? And a criminal kingpin that went by the name "Boss Hog"? This was going to stretch his capacity to the limit.
He opened the door and the pig was already in the other room. A glass partition separated the two of them, and Foster walked over to his seat and sat down. SCP-4613 had already taken notice of him, and walked over to the microphone.
"Aww hell. Who the fuck are you?" it said. Somehow. Foster wrote a note that its speech didn't align with its lips when it spoke.
"Hello SCP-4613. I'm Doctor Foster." Foster knew that looking at the pig was going make it harder to keep a straight face, so he kept his nose down and took more notes.
"Well ain't you a proper gentlemen. You oughta know right now I ain't sly." The pig stayed near the microphone, and sat down as well.
"Uh. That's perfectly alright. I'm just here to interview you."
"Oh for gods sake," The pig took a moment and raised it's snout into the air, but not towards Foster "Sorry. I guess I can chew the fat for a bit if you can forgive me losing my religion. My back hurts something fierce and I already talked to one of them other doctors for a bit,"
"That's fine. I can't help but notice that you appear as a pig." Foster shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Can you tell me why that is?"
"Whooooo. You ain't got the time for that story. I'm a… what you call it… collective unconsciousness of pigs." The pig finally took a moment to look in Foster's direction, "At first I's floating, growing in power while y'all killed my kind by the millions, and this one porker just happened to be in the right place at the right time."
"So then, is your eventual goal is to stop the suffering of pigs in the world?" Foster leaned slightly forward.
"How the hell you figure that?" The pig let out what sounded like a completely human laugh before continuing. "The longer and more them pigs suffer the more powerful I get."
Foster leaned back again, checked a box on his clipboard and asked another question, "Have you been in contact with any other entities like yourself?"
"No. But I know they're out there. There's probably some Planet of the Apes monkey shit going on right now."
"And can you explain why you decided to become a criminal? It seems like it would bring an unnecessary amount of scrutiny on you." As he finished the question he heard a snort. This one sounded more animalistic. And derisive.
"Y'all ever try to get a job when you're a pig? My old owner was just fine with having a talking pig and he wasn't exactly dumb hisself. So's I come up with the plan to go into business. I'd tell him what to do and he'd act like it's all his idea."
The pig had barely finished his sentence when a low rumbling in the distance began to build. Foster had just enough time to put his clipboard over his head before the left wall crashed down, and the lights flickered twice before going out. The dust from the wall began to fill his nostrils, and he leaned forward to cough.
Foster waited for the emergency lights but after a few seconds he realized they weren't coming on. Whatever knocked down that wall must've damaged the whole system. He could hear the emergency PA system alert faintly in the distance, "Containment Breach in Sector Seven. Please find your designated safe zones,"
That would be a lot easier if the fucking lights would come on. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. No signal, but a little light. He shined it in front of him and saw that the glass partition was broken. At that moment he heard the pig's voice behind him.
"Well. I guess that's all folks."

« The North Pole | Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer | Lending a Hand »


He is not a guy, Mommy! He is a swing
"Ha, yes! Finally!"
"What you talking about, Mommy?"
Zeb Rafferty carefully buckled himself into the car seat in the back of his mother's mid-size SUV. He waited patiently for an answer, but his mother was too preoccupied with her game of Cookie Craze to acknowledge him at first.
"What happened, Mommy?"
"Nothing. Don't worry about it," was her terse reply. Still staring at her phone screen, Rachael Rafferty turned the key in the ignition and the engine rumbled to life. The look of annoyance on her face softened as she dropped the phone into her purse on the passenger seat. She turned to look at her son.
"Did you have fun at the park, Zeb?" she asked, sounding almost too concerned.
Zeb responded excitedly. "Yeah! I went on the slides, and then I swinged for a long time 'cause the swings are my favorite. I made a new friend too!"
"That's good. What's your new friend's name?" Rachael asked as she pulled out of the parking space, stopping just in time to prevent a collision with a sedan she hadn't noticed at first.
"His name is Daniel! He lives in Demmerk!" The giddiness in Zebulon's voice was fueled by the rare occasion to continue a conversation with his mother.
"Where the heck is Demmerk?" Rachael asked. She seemed to recognize the annoyance that had crept into her voice again as she executed her fifth rolling stop of the day. "Is he just visiting?"
"Daniel tolded me Demmerk is in Yurp. He is not visiting, he lives in Demmerk right now."
"Daniel told you, not tolded you." It drove Rachael nuts that Zeb hadn't learned that yet. "How can he be in Demmerk and Rochester at the same time? Were you talking to him on a phone, Zebby?"
"No, he tolded me he is not really here."
"Ugh, Zeb, are you messing with me? He told you, not tolded. And what do you mean he's not really here? Is he an imaginary friend?" A car honked as she went straight from the lane designated for right turns. Zeb could hear his mother chide herself quietly for the error.
"No Mommy, he is not 'maginary. Daniel tolded me he lives in Demmerk but he could see and talk to me. I ask him how he do that but he don't know," Zeb pleaded. He was already subconsciously preparing for some level of condescension.
His mother surprised him. "It's okay, Zebby." Rachael sighed, oblivious to the green arrow signifying it was time to turn left. Another car honked. "There's nothing wrong with having an imaginary friend. And remember it's told, not tolded."
"He is not 'maginary. Daniel tolded…told me he is thirty-nine years old and he is very sad."
"Oh Zebby, I told you about talking to strangers at the park! You're lucky the guy didn't snatch you up and throw you in a van. You should be smarter than that!" The look on her face in the rear view mirror told Zeb that she regretted her words, but he spoke before she could say anything else.
"He is not a guy, Mommy! He is a swing! Swings can't snatch you, can they, Mommy?"
Zeb could see her processing his words before she responded, as their SUV cheerfully continued to ignore the speed limit. "A swing? What do you mean he's a swing?"
"When I swinging it talked to me, but not in my ears, in my head. It tolded me to call him Daniel. Daniel was sad and he tolded me that he lives in Demmark and sometimes he can see other places." Zeb waited for his mother to question him again, but now she was silent. He continued, "He tolded me that I look like a very nice boy and he asked me how many years I old. I tolded him I four and Daniel asked if I like swings a lot. I tolded him I looooove swings so much and they are my favorite 'cause you can be up high and try to kick leaves, but I not a big boy yet so I can't kick leaves." Zeb looked down at his small feet and sighed. A car honked angrily somewhere close by.
Rachael surprised him again with her next question. "What else did Daniel talk about?"
Zeb happily continued, "I asked Daniel why he is sad and he tolded me he is sad 'cause he did bad things and it made him alone. Daniel likes playgrounds but they make him be sad sometimes. I sad for Daniel and I wanted to make him be happy. I tolded him jokes and he liked them. He tolded me they were very funny, but he doesn't laugh. I asked Daniel if he had a mommy and daddy, but he doesn't anymore. He only has a wife but she is not his wife anymore and she is far away. He had a big company too but he lost it. I wanted to talk to Daniel more but I sawed my watch and it time to go." Zeb proudly held up his wrist to look at the small watch his uncle Derek had given him for his 4th birthday. Various cartoon characters decorated the red plastic.
Rachael took a few slow breaths. A sudden bump startled her; the SUV had nicked the curb as she pulled into their driveway. The garage door opened automatically, and she brought the vehicle to a stop inside the garage, for once not hitting the lawnmower. She turned off the ignition and turned around to look at her son.
"That's a very interesting story, Zeb. Though…" Rachael paused as if to consider her next words. "Maybe next time we go to the park you can try talking to the other kids there."
Rachael opened the driver side door and stepped out of the SUV. She double checked that her phone was secure in the proper pocket of her purse, then looked at Zeb in the back seat again. "I just think it's time you made some real friends, Zebby. I bet your father probably feels the same."
Zeb opened his mouth to respond, but his mother's cell phone started ringing before he could utter a word. As Rachael answered the phone and started what would undoubtedly be a very long chat, Zeb began to unbuckle himself from his car seat. His mother shut her door, and was already heading inside the house as Zeb opened his own door and exited the vehicle. He looked down at the garage floor to see the small dinosaur toy his mother had forgotten to bring to the park for him. Zeb realized she must have dropped it before she got in the vehicle, and he felt a pang of guilt for being so upset with her for arriving at the park empty handed. He picked up the plastic dinosaur, a Lambeosaurus he called "Albert", to make sure he was unharmed. Zeb glanced towards the doorway leading to the kitchen, wanting to be certain his mother was out of earshot before he spoke. The pang of guilt had quickly passed.
"I'm glad she didn't run you over. Maybe you and I should move to Denmark," Zeb informed the toy hadrosaur, unaware of the changes in his own speech. He perked up at the sound of his mother rummaging through cabinet which housed their pots and pans. "Mommy's probably making macaroni and cheese for supper again. I told you that she would make it again, Albert. I guess we should go set the table."
The lights on Zeb Rafferty's shoes blinked happily as he made his way towards the kitchen. He found himself wondering what his father was having for supper back at his apartment. Probably Thai food again, he thought. Zeb hated Thai food. He took his shoes off as he entered the kitchen, carefully closing the door behind him and listening to make sure it latched properly, then he watched his mother retrieve a small package from the fridge. Oh, he thought. At least she's making it with hotdogs this time.

That night, Zeb dreamed of a one-sided conversation. He would remember none of it in the morning.
Do you have any brothers or sisters?
Oh. Oh I'm so sorry that happened.
You know that wasn't your fault, right?
I don't know. If there is, I'm sure he's there now.
It shouldn't be like that. You're a smart boy, I can tell.
Maybe not right now, but one day, Zeb, your toes may reach the trees. If that day comes, remember that all the good and bad things in your life are what brought you there.
I used to have dreams too. I've had most of them taken away.
No, I don't think so. I've made too many mistakes. Hurt too many people.
That's true, but some are much worse than others.
No, I can't. It will not matter how sorry I am, I'm afraid.
If only it were so easy.

once they might have been something
now they were dandruff on the shoulders of the world
shed by its will, and forever memorialized in script

« And He Will Crash Upon The Rocks | Hub | Earth Dander »


The pulsing shriek continued below me
It is often said that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes. There is truth to that statement, to be sure, though it differs from the frenetic memory slideshow people envision their brain playing in the moments before or during their demise. In death, your life experiences are not confined to the substantially limited two and a half petabytes or so of memory your brain offers. Your life "flashes before your eyes" because you are suddenly gifted with the ability to recall everything you've ever seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched, now that you are unburdened with the heavy responsibility of life and its severe limitations. This is when you learn the difference between knowing, and Knowing, between knowledge and Knowledge. You become Light; a beacon in the darkness, a possible courier for a Child who sleeps and dreams of your existence. You will become a Messenger for the Child, or you can forsake that role as I did.
That is why I still Knew dread when I came back to my Home, though I had witnessed the birth and death of many stars since I last visited. Memories had become Knowledge which could not fade or be forgotten, and I had no one to blame but myself for straying close enough to Know the shrieking, writhing call of Broken Light. I spent countless eons of existence as a Stray, ignoring and fleeing the pull of the Child and my supposed purpose, but I was always powerless when it came to Broken Light; Light that has been shattered or twisted through unnatural means.  I imagine that compulsive force was a purposeful failsafe from the Child itself; a gift to its philanthropic Messengers and a bane to Strays like me, a reminder that I was never truly in control of my fate. We were all drawn towards that which needed to be fixed, to be healed.
KAHHH!!! KAHHH!!! KAHHH!!!
Home loomed in front of me; my place of origin, a dead world I had vowed I would never return to. I could not relieve myself of Knowing what had brought me here, but now I could at least prioritize the Knowledge of Home over the Knowledge of my irksome situation. There was no longer anything or anyone to Know here; even the Angels had fled at some point in time, though their unique brand of stubbornness likely kept them in place for far longer than could be considered sensible. Not that I would have ever considered them to have anything resembling sensibility. I wondered when the first cracks in their solidarity appeared. Did they stay to the very end? Did they understand they'd been lying to themselves all this time? I doubted I would receive answers to my questions, and the pull was too strong now for me to linger. I would have to continue my pondering below.
I descended to the surface, passing through what used to be an atmosphere, beckoned by the continuous shriek below as I steeled myself to become a tool of the Child and fix what was broken. A landscape of empty, sun-scorched earth confronted me. This corner of the galaxy might have been withering away and losing its tether to reality, but some other calamity was certainly responsible for cleansing my old Home of humanity. Whatever it might have been, it likely left as quickly as it first arrived, indifferent to the extraordinary circumstances that must have put it on its collision path with my Home. The pulsing shriek continued below me as I descended further beneath the rotted crust, my Light passing through matter which did nothing to impede my unwanted quest.
KAH!! KAH!! KALLL!!!
As I reached the origin of the gibbering squeals and spikes of distress that had compelled me back Home, I concentrated on my own Light. The last time I became corporeal was also the last time I had visited Home, and the effort I exerted back then had saved my Light as well as the Light of countless others. There was no reason not to take the same precaution now, and the sudden disorienting mixture of distorted Knowledge signified that I could now safely interact with the Broken Light I was nearing, and whatever may have caused it. I adjusted my senses, rusty with disuse, as I set foot on a floor for the first time in a very, very long while.
The scene before me brought the memory of my last visit Home to mind: it was another massacre. At least that bastard Kuhn had kept the Light he stole mostly intact. Whatever was responsible for this new atrocity could boast no such precision. The room I found myself standing in looked like a children's playground had been clumsily combined with a high school science lab and a landslide. Rubble had claimed large sections of what obviously had been a laboratory, and playground equipment was haphazardly strewn about, much of it bent and broken. Broken Light glittered and screamed from every visible piece of metal from the former schoolyard fixtures, mewling at me like an angry, injured kitten. So this was why I was here.
Kah! Kall! Kall!!
Clarity provided itself to me as I continued to concentrate on shielding my Light with my corporeal form, while I walked from each piece of equipment, touching it, and attempting to Know it. This was different from Kuhn; this was self inflicted. Someone had broken their own Light, and it now littered the room in the form of destroyed playground equipment, like grey matter from a shotgun suicide.
I could not make sense of the chaos. I could not Know anything. Why playground equipment? Why in this laboratory? Why and how did someone break their own Light?
Chael!
The shock of sensing that name did not prevent me from noticing the shrieks and spikes had stopped. The Broken Light was speaking to me. The voice came from all directions at once.
Is that your name? Chael? I'm not sure how I knew it, it just seemed right.
What was happening here? In my immeasurable time as a Stray I had seen stars shatter, worlds unfold, civilizations rise and fall and rise and fall again, but never had I encountered Broken Light that could speak, or Know my name for that matter. This was not the corpse of a Messenger, or another Stray; this was a mutant, a Light that never should have been.
Can you hear me?
The only way I could communicate, even in corporeal form, was to let my Light into the Light of another. But Broken Light? There was a reason I was shielding myself from it. I wasn't some foolish Messenger; I was not looking to meet new and different things with sickening enthusiasm.
I think you can hear me. This way.
My concerns were starting to lose priority as I searched for the source of the voice, which was no longer coming from all around me. Anxious confusion was turning into curiosity.
Here, Chael. I'm here.
It came from the half-crushed frame of a swing set that had begun its slow descent into disintegration quite some time ago. I approached it as the caution I usually wielded like a shield was slowly drained from me. This was definitely not normal Broken Light.
I'm glad you came.
I was glad too. As I let my Light into the talking swing set, memories that were not my own invaded my corporeal senses, becoming Knowledge. At first, they trickled in like a stream, but soon I was swimming in a newly formed ocean, gasping for breath as I decided whether to sink or swim.
I haven't been glad for a very long time.
Slowly I sank to the bottom, watching as bubbles passed me by. Lazily, I reached out to touch one.
I can tell you about it.
Okay, but we do not have much time left.

when your toes can finally reach the trees
be sure to bring your mind along with them

« Prologue: Your Dream Is Not Terribly Marketable | Hub | Origin: One Day Your Toes May Reach the Trees »


1
"Oh God, this is it! It's happening!"
"Calm down. We've prepped for this. What kind of scenario?"
"…AK-class, cause unclear. The signal came from Area-23. Critical containment failure, final countermeasures unsuccessful."
"Alright. Initiate sequence AK-23. Scranton Reality Anchors fully functioning, time dilation active, reality checks indicate no distortion, we are set on this end."
"Hume readings stable. Physical Constants Calibrator fully functioning. Initiating reconstruction in 3,2,1…"
3
"There's another one!"
"What was it?"
"Looks like an RK-class. Some kind of… clockwork insects escaped."
"Got a signal?"
"No, not yet… hold on, wait, yes, the signal has been received, from… Site-21. Critical containment failure, final countermeasures unsuccessful."
"Alright. SRAs fully functioning, time dilation active, no distortion yet… initiate sequence RK-12- no, wait, 21. RK-21."
"Hume readings stable. PCC fully functioning. Initiating reconstruction in 3,2,1…"
17
"World ended again."
"What was it?"
"Nothing anomalous this time. Just a nuclear war."
"Between who?"
"Hell if I know. Looks like some Russian stuff went off."
"So? What's the big deal?"
"We got a signal from Site-40. They're calling it an XK-class."
"Critical containment failure?"
"Right. Final countermeasures were unsuccessful."
"Sounds like a bit more than nuclear war to me. Whatever, initiate sequence XK-40. All systems are clear on this end."
"Everything's all set. All systems go, initiating reconstruction in 3,2,1…"
150
"What the hell, it's hasn't even been 2000 years since the last one."
"Got to be kidding me. What about SK-12?"
"Must've gotten instructions from the wrong site!"
"Oh for… never mind. Do it again. Everything's green over here."
"Got it. Everything's set, initiating reconstruction in 3,2,1…"
635
"Fucking hell."
"Oh god, don't tell me it was-"
"The cakes… again."
"Oh for- whatever. All set on this end, what about you?"
"Christ, can't they keep track of this? This is the third time in a row those damn cakes have escaped! You know what I did this morning? I woke up and I thought, 'hey, maybe we won't have to reset things.' Then I remembered- we're only woken up when we have to reset things."
"…. Everything's green on this end."
"….sigh, yeah, same here. Hit the reset."
665
"… You know what, fuck this. I'm sick of this bullshit. Let's set our own parameters."
"Hold on! We have specific instructions! I have a signal from Site-75!"
"Yeah, but every time we've followed those instructions everything goes back to hell within less than 3000 years. Remember sequence IK-50? You can't seriously tell me that it planned for a dog to poison the Western Hemisphere!"
"I dunno… We got this job for a reason."
"Yeah? What reason is that? Why didn't they use computers instead? This is literally the most important device in the universe. So why use a couple of humans?"
"…"
"That's what I thought. Let's see if we can't make some changes. Hell, maybe we'll do better than whoever came up with these protocols. I'm sick and tired of watching myself grow up, have a family, and then watch everyone I've ever known or will know get eaten by some eldritch thing for the hundredth fucking time!"
"Okay… but do you know how to make changes?"
"Of course. Don't tell me you forgot what little training they gave you. Come on, I'll show you how it works. I am done with those goddamn cryopods. We're in this for the long haul."
1365
"Okay, my turn. Let me see… 43. What's that correspond to?"
"43…43… ah, here we go! Amphibious humanoids with three genders."
"So… what do we call the third gender?"
"Let them figure that out. Plug in the values and hit the reset."
"Everything's fine on my end."
"Ditto. Hit it."
"Wait, hang on! I'm not finished plugging them in-"
"Too late! Reset!"
2000
"Here we go, number two thousand!"
"Damn. That's a hell of a lot of resets. Say, how long have we actually been down here?"
"… You know what, I'm not sure."
"Must be the time dilation. Let's say… I dunno, hundred million years?"
"Way too long. Two million years."
"That's too short!"
"Think about it, every time we reset nothing lasts longer than 3000 years. Usually they blow themselves up like two thousand years in."
"You keep forgetting about the period of evolution!"
"That doesn't count! It's fast forwarded!"
"It's counted!"
"No it isn't!"
"It clearly is-"
"Oh shut up!"
"You first!"
"Tch…"
"Whatever, jeez. Two million, happy?"
"Thank you. Okay, what do we do for our two-thousandth reset?"
"Let's see if we can fiddle with what goes on up here…"
2001
"That wasn't as funny as I thought it would be."
"Oh, you think? Tell me, was this before or after they started feeding Jesus old people?"
"Well excuuuuse me for trying to add a little levity!"
"You got the little part right! Just… just reset it already. This is kind of sad."
"Wait, why don't we see where this goes?"
"You seriously want to see where this goes?"
"Well, yeah?"
"Seriously?"
"Hey, it might be interesting."
"Can't believe I'm saying this but I'd prefer taking a nap than listening to you."
"The pods're right there. Go right ahead."
"I think I will!"
"Fine!"
"Fine!"
2596
"We did it!"
"What? Really?"
"Really! Let's celebrate!"
"With what? There's no wine in here."
"Oh come on, isn't this a little exciting? 3000 years without resetting!"
"What about reset three seventy-five?"
"They blew themselves up like a millisecond before 3000. Not this time! We made it to 3000 years and 35 seconds! Sure, it was by retarding the human race, but you can't argue with progress!"
"Good enough, I guess."
"That's the spirit! Hey, listen. Why don't we just… kick back this time?"
"Kick back?"
"Yeah. Let's let the world end, but this time, let's just see what comes next. I mean, every time something goes wrong, we immediately reboot. Aren't you a little interested to see what happens after?"
"Well, kind of."
"Yeah you are! Just kick back and relax. It isn't like - snort - it isn't like the world's gonna end if you do."
"……I'm hitting the reset."
"Hey hold on-"
2597
"You fucker! What was that for!"
"The joke. It sucked. That wasn't even a pun."
"Oh shut up."
"Seriously though, what kind of joke was that supposed to be?"
"I dunno. An ironic one, I guess."
"Do you even know what irony means."
"… Does it even matter?"
"I don't want to live in a world with your jokes."
"…..Oh shut up. Look what you did. Only twenty-seven hundred years before scorched earth this time."
"Wouldja take a look at that! I don't think that color's ever been described on the visual spectrum before!"
"Thought for sure that dumbing 'em down would work. What do you think went wrong?"
"Eh, we've got time to figure it out. What do you think it is?"
"It's boring as shit is what it is."
"Tch, plebeian."
"Plebe-what the fuck?"
"What?"
"Plebeian, that's what! Nobody's used that word in millions a' years!"
"We watched language evolve yesterday."
"Oh you know what I mean!"
"I do. You're an idiot."
"… Takes one to know one!"
"Do you look in the mirror a lot?"
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Shut up!"
"Ow! Hey!"
2598
"Grrk! Let go!"
2599
"Grrf!"
"Rrrgg!"
2600
"Guh!"
"Gaah!"
"…"
"…"
"Oh shit."
"Oh shit? Oh shit."
"It's sparking, what does that mean?"
"It means it's broken, you idiot!"
"I'm the idiot! You're the one whose elbow got lodged in it!"
"You're the one who lodged my elbow in it!"
"This isn't helping! How do we fix it?"
"I don't know! I only know how to operate it!"
"Shit it's sparking some more!"
"What do we fucking-"
2601
"Oh God, this is it! It's happening!"
"Calm down. We've prepped for this. What kind of scenario?"
"…AK-class, cause unclear. The signal came from Area-23. Critical containment failure, final countermeasures unsuccessful."
"Alright. Initiate sequence AK-23. Scranton Reality Anchors fully functioning, time dilation active, reality checks indicate no distortion, we are set on this end."
"Hume readings stable. Physical Constants Calibrator fully functioning. Initiating reconstruction in 3,2,1…"


You, Priss Locke, are not responsible for your sister or her actions.

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Anabasis All the drugs in this world won't
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

Priscilla Locke waited all night for her sister to return. The next morning, she found Rhiannon's cell phone in the bathroom; it had been restored to factory default settings. The SIM card was missing.
A week passed. More protests started. The city looked to the County for help, and the County blinked. What could they do? They were already overwhelmed by the flood of refugees coming from land and sea. So the city cracked down the only way they knew how; repression. Curfews, at first. Then restrictions on public gatherings. Protests had to take place downtown, where the police could easily contain them, and the worst they could do was briefly disrupt rush hour traffic. Priss kept waiting.
Another week passed. The Key Biscayne massacre, as it was being called, was national news, and igniting a political firestorm. No sign of Rhiannon Locke.
"Sheeeeeeeeit," Aurianne Sharpe responded as Priss told her what had happened that night, "This is what was keeping you up?"
Priss sat in her apartment, slouched on the sofa and watching Sharpe mash spoonfuls of ice cream into a waffle cone. The company was a welcome relief from the loneliness and the worrying. And the silence. She hadn't realized how alien the apartment felt without her sister bouncing around. She felt like a visitor in her own home.
"I didn't think it was safe to talk about."
"What happened on the Causeway was exactly the kind of mad, slimy shit that comes about when politicians pandering to the lowest common denominator aren't paid enough to care about doing anything properly," Sharpe pointed at Priss with her ice cream cone, "Fat fucking chance that a scrawny little girl like her would make that situation any worse."
"Then where is she?"
Sharpe dropped onto the couch alongside her, mashing the ice cream on her own lips for a moment before answering, "Probably dead in an alley somewhere."
Priss glance sidelong at her; Sharpe's eyes had widened as soon as the words left her cream-coated lips.
"I'm… I'm sorry! I have no idea what got into me."
"Don't be," Priss grumbled, "That's exactly what I would have said if it weren't for… how she acted that night."
Sharpe shrugged, "She got lucky," She started flattening the ice cream down into the cone, "S'not like it's a secret I enjoy anything sweet."
"What should I do?"
"Report her as a missing person. Ask around for her. Check out her usual haunts, her friends. It's been two weeks; the longer you wait…"
Priss lowered her head, clasping her hands behind her bed, "Friends. Haunts. Last known associates." She hadn't even thought of that. Mostly she'd been worried about Rhiannon's safety if she actually said anything to the police.
As she thought over the idea, she realized she had no idea what Rhiannon had been doing every day when she wasn't at home. She didn't know who she was seeing, where she was meeting for group therapy, if she was even getting therapy. The only friends of Rhiannon's that Priss remembered had been from high school. All of them had moved out of state. Aside from her former job, as far as Priss knew, Rhiannon had no real roots in the community. As far as anyone knew, Rhiannon Locke didn't exist.

Another two weeks passed. Work slowed; Priss found herself coming home earlier each day, with more time to endure the deafening silence of Rhiannon's absence.
Jaime Marlowe stared across her desk at Locke, lips fixed in that coy smirk that so annoyed her, like she took pleasure delivering bad news.
"It's about your sister."
Locke's expression didn't change.
"I felt you should know before it hit the news. This is going to come crashing down — on you in particular — and I want you to be ready when it does."
She dropped a manila folder onto the desk at Priss. Priss tilted it on the edge of the desk and opened it. Notes, memoranda, photocopied police reports. Photos of people, crowds on the Causeway.
Shots of Rhiannon Locke. Shots of Rhiannon Locke laughing and smiling. Shots of her at the scene of a small protest somewhere, with a stalled car nearby, windshield cracked and back window coated in blood. Shots of her on the Causeway, carrying a backpack. Shots of her later in the day, without it.
The notes all involved Rhiannon in some way. Police reports involved arrests made of self-described 'cultists' who all described Rhiannon as the leader of their 'pack'. They always used the same moniker for her; "Subhuman Mongrel". A group of them were arrested, caught before they could commit some vaguely described "act of terror" on a water treatment plant in Westchester.
"This is a cult," one of the suspects had said in one of the transcripts, "the way Jesus Christ and his Disciples were a cult. We come to bring the good news."
More notes, from government agencies, Miami police, Miami Beach police, even from the Foundation. A long string of "suspicious persons", "suspicious gatherings", and "unconfirmed terroristic rumblings". All pointed in some way to Rhiannon Locke.
"We're going to protect you," Marlowe went on, "But I've no doubt the Department of WestCiv is going to have people coming to talk to you soon enough. Do not lie to them; tell them everything you know about your sister and what she's done."
"I don't know anything about her," Priss said with a bewildered smile, feeling her eyes get hot and wet, "I don't know who her friends are, where she goes at night, where she goes during the day. Nothing."
"Good," Marlowe blew past Priss's warbling tone without a hint of sympathy, "Just keep your head down. And for God's sake, if the WestCivvies do come to talk to you, do not try to contact Rhiannon Locke afterwards. That's like… just begging to get yourself disappeared."
Priss shrugged, tears welling in her eyes, and smiling again, "She's got no cell phone on her. I wouldn't even begin to know how to contact her." She looked down at the envelope, then closed it, and rose from her chair, "Thanks," She muttered to Marlowe.
"Just go, clean yourself up," Marlowe responded, seemingly more concerned with Priss getting snot and tears on her desk.
Priss stepped out and went straight to the bathroom. She locked herself into a stall, set the toilet seat down, and broke down sobbing. She'd failed. The only thing ever asked of her by her mother was to make sure Rhiannon stayed safe, and she'd failed.
She decided to head home early. As far as anyone who asked was concerned, she was afraid for her life. When her car didn't start, she numbly got out, and began to walk home. The world stood as it always had. Chaos and anarchy were nonexistent. Everything was quiet for her as she drifted through the long strip of houses and businesses separating the school from southwest 7th street, one of the major thoroughfares that separated the rich "southwest" from the poorer "northwest".
She looked up, and saw a mural on the side of a fast food restaurant. Police officers were depicted, skinny and shriveled, wearing body armor and army helmets. A man sat in a car, hands up in surrender. In bright green was sprayed "PUT YOUR HANDS UP GET OUT OF THE CAR" over them, with smaller words in red rimming the center of action. She drifted past without reading the rest.
As she crossed a short road, a man suddenly jumped down from a tree in front of her. He was black, thin, looked as if he hadn't eaten in days. He was smiling wildly, hands out at his sides and spread open, as if she were an officer, telling him to keep them where she could see them.
"Have you heard?"
She shrugged helplessly, "Yeah, I've heard." She wasn't in the mood to humor him.
He pressed his index and middle finger to the bridge of his nose. She kept staring. Then he backed away with a frown.
"Nothing's ever gonna be the same now. Change is comin', you hear? You tell 'em that, you tell 'em 'No more blood', no more bodies. You tell those men of the times that the times are a-changin'. It's a revolution comin', you hear?"
He sounded like a teenager. It wasn't even noon. Normally she would've yelled at him, told him to get back to school and stop being stupid. She just shrugged now, and mumbled, "Okay."
He turned and started to run. She kept moving, crossing 7th street, past the storage center, and onto 8th street.
Traffic ground to a halt. The lanes were pinched off, as police cruisers parked in the street, with a small crowd of angry people flocked around the front of Domino Park. She didn't want to look, but she couldn't avoid it, like a tumor lodged in a throat, forcing all food, drink, and air to go through it, or go nowhere.
There was broken glass on the sidewalk, and an old woman with blood on her face was yelling in Spanish at a younger woman. The woman was being held back by two officers. A group of older men were trying to restrain about thirty other people from surrounding the officers. No one was holding the old woman back. She kept shouting, gesticulating with a cane, looking as if she would use it as a weapon. At least one man in the crowd was wearing the distinctive beret of a WestCiv militiaman. He was shouting at least two or three racial slurs a minute.
She kept moving, leaving the main road and walking down into the quiet residential side roads of Little Havana. The shouting and cars honking faded, and she could keep walking in peace. Alone with her thoughts.
Just a few blocks from home, that loneliness was interrupted by a man in an ill-fitting shirt and camouflage vest, beret marking him a WestCiv militiaman. He moved up alongside her. A pistol was strapped to his hip.
"Howdy, miss. Lovely day, ain't it? You doin' alright?"
She nodded.
"Reckon you heard what's been going on lately. Don't mean to impose upon you none, but it can be quite dangerous roaming around these parts without some kind of armed escort."
Her eyes drifted towards his gun.
"Not meanin' to offend you or… aggrandize myself." He stretched the pronunciation of the word as if it were brand new for him.
"I just live a few blocks away, I'll be fine," She said.
"In Little Havana?" He quirked a brow at her, looking away with a brief expression of ugly, naked aggression, before turning back to her, "The den of the beast?"
She stared numbly. Ninety percent of the neighborhood was Cuban-American or some manner of Hispanic ethnicity. Every week since Key Biscayne, there was a meeting at the church. Neighborhood watch did a better job keeping the community safe than local police, due to them being stretched thin dealing with far more neighborhoods than just one. At least she hoped that was why.
A distant crack broke the silence. Then a series of them followed, back in the direction of 8th street. The WestCivvie gave a sleazy, victorious smile, and started moving towards the fire, "Take care of yourself, ma'am."
She nodded numbly, and kept moving.

There was finally a change in the news cycle. Priss got to hear her last name on the lips of every reporter, local and national, from DuMont Network News to FOX, CNBC, and America Today. At least now there was no doubt; Rhiannon Locke did indeed exist.
Priss couldn't stand the sluggish influx of information. Watching reporters speak for twelve hours straight about a BREAKING NEWS tidbit already hours old by the time they'd started. Refreshing online newsfeeds, seeing the same headlines top each list, slightly re-worded but essentially the same. She gave up and kept her head down. Once a week, she decided she would check up on it.
A month passed. By now, the whole world knew about Rhiannon Locke's former job. They knew about the boss screaming 'subhuman mongrel' at a shy young employee. They ate up any bit of information given by her "official representatives", carefully edited for TV and played for all. Talking heads of all stripe made fortunes yelling at each other for the cameras.
Every week, a video would be released by Rhiannon Locke, of her sitting on a couch, talking. Just talking. Everything Rhiannon said, Priss had heard before. It was as if she'd been using Priss as her sounding board for her speeches. She even heard some of Umber's words re-packaged for Rhiannon's own purpose. She was a madwoman, roaring and screaming, laughing and crying and gesticulating wildly. She could whisper to the camera and make herself perfectly understood. She told stories, all of which Priss recognized as being events from their past, in such a dramatic fashion as to make them seem wildly unreal. All of it managed to neatly fit right back in with her overall message: racial equality, gender equality, a break-down of the "nation-state" in favor of the "world-state". A new vision of an America that did not, and seemingly could not exist.
Civil rights leaders condemned her as a terrorist, usurping their peaceful cause for chaos and anarchy. One talking head on DuMont even suggested she was a West Civ "plant", acting to discredit and demonize the minority rights movement. All the while "Cultists" sprayed graffiti, spread leaflets, and infiltrated protests to turn them violent.
Just a few more weeks, Priss figured, and all it would take for Rhiannon to set the county on fire would be a gentle push. Then… what?

From : 11311OULH@.com
To : moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P#moc.liamtoh|rekcoL_P
CC :
Subject : None
I know what's been on your mind the past couple of days. I'm not going to say anything about her. I'm not afraid of what the Department of WestCiv might think, or try to spin my words into something to justify taking me down. She did what she did and I'm not going to dignify her by talking about her or what she may or may not do now.
I'm only going to say this: You, Priss Locke, are not responsible for your sister or her actions. She is an adult, and so are you. Her choices in life are her own, and she'll suffer the consequences herself. You are not responsible for saving her from herself.
And don't let the fact that she has the same last name as you be a crutch for you to go down with her. Blood doesn't mean you have to protect her from everything and everyone. Blood means SHE shouldn't do this kind of shit and then expect her family to take the fall for her.
There was a guy in my regiment back during the Turkish occupation. Luis Greaves, immigrant from Guatemala, lived in New Orleans. Had a sister named Anita-Flora or something Anita. You probably know the type; magnet for trouble, runs through guys like new pairs of shoes.
So every once in a while, Louie Greaves gets a letter from mom and dad: his sister's in trouble, she's gotten suspended from school, she's stealing money from them, she's staying out late and coming home early morning smelling like booze. So Louie sends them money, tells them 'Don't worry, everything's going to be okay', gives them advice on what to do, etcetera.
Then the hammer falls: she's been arrested. Turns out she's whoring herself while still stealing from mom and dad. Everyone but Louie suspects drugs. All that money Louie's sent, he can't afford to bail her out. So he finally took our advice and took some time to head back home to straighten things out.
Three weeks later we get the news; Luis Greaves was killed in a shootout on the streets of downtown NOLA. His body wasn't found for a week. His balls had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth. Apparently he'd confronted his sister's "pimp" and gotten in his face about her. The pimp didn't take kindly to him and threatened to ship her off to Mexico or something. Louie lost it, then he lost his life.
Few weeks later when I get back, guess who I see out on the streets in a low-cut top and high-riding skirt; Anita-Flora Greaves. Still out on the streets. Still hooking. Still with the same guy that killed her brother. She didn't give a fuck. People like her simply don't. It's not worth ruining your life to save her from herself.
Please make sure you take care of YOURSELF. No offense to your mother, but right now you're the only good Locke left.
From the Office of Ret. Lt. Col. Umber

The Banners weren't given enough time to set up camp each night. They broke out their cots and rested in the dirt and mud, with the cubes for cover. Every hour or so, the whine of jet engines was heard, as Qing jets streaked past, providing aerial reconnaissance. They almost never dropped bombs.
"Hey Sergeant Sheng," Cpl. Steve Chin called out.
Sheng rose to his feet, flashlight out in the dark, making himself an easy target for anyone who might've been looking his way with a gun, "Who's speaking?"
Sheng always seemed to make a point of never taking the enemy seriously. Every chance he got, he'd get up to his feet, popping out of cover. When it was quiet, he'd talk loudly, give out boisterous laughs, even call out to hidden units nearby. When it was dark, he had an obnoxiously bright LED flashlight he'd shine in a soldier's face. He didn't care; he didn't take the Dai Viet insurgents seriously.
"Don't we have like… tanks and artilleries and bombers?" Chin called out in turn, trying to keep his voice lower than Sheng's.
"Yes!" Sheng called out, "Yes we do! But we can't use them here."
"Because the Emperor wants the land unblemished and intact?"
"Why do you ask me these things if you already know the fucking answer?" Sheng's flashlight waved around wildly, then shut off, "We aren't at war with the land, only her people. We have to save her from herself."
Why? Chin almost thought about asking that. Then the world suddenly brightened. Flares were being shot into the sky.
"Not ours," Sheng called out before anyone could ask. A cascade of pops and cracks followed, incessant. Four minutes passed before they streamed off into silence.
"We—" Sheng began, then was cut off as the gunfire resumed. Now Chin could feel impacts on his cube, nudging him again and again with each hit.
"Well, up and at them," Sheng resumed, "Stay put until I say so."
The gunfire kept coming, on and off, for nearly an hour. Chin nodded off, the gentle thumps on the cube soothing on his sore back. When he woke up, it was still coming.
"What are we even doing?" A soldier next to him shouted against the din. It abruptly died down, allowing Sheng to fill the void.
"Eh? Don't you pay attention to briefs? Too late to hurt us now, anyway; we're flanking them. Two Banners stretching out south and west, pushing them against the river. We come in from the East."
A crooked crescent advancing on the thick pocket of insurgents. They'd detonated all the subterranean tunnels they'd found, then let the insurgents run rampant around a huge area, while the strings of cubes herded them all together, then started enclosing them and pushing them towards the river. It might not have worked so smoothly if the insurgents had had rockets and mortars left.
Chin suddenly tensed up. Did they have rockets and mortars left? Then he relaxed, remembering the force of irregulars the army had sent in to "absorb" the insurgents' mortar and rocket fire. Irregulars… ex-cons, foreign auxiliaries, mercenaries, conscripts, peasants. Vietnamese peasants taken from their villages for supporting the insurgents. Then fired upon by the insurgents, thinking them to be Qing Regulars.
No big deal, Chin relaxed and nodded off again.
When he came to again, it was dusk. Sheng had come closer, and was looking down in his lap, face blank. Chin didn't say anything. Suddenly Sheng burst up, peering over the top of the cubes. His radio came alive with a fast voice, barely comprehensible. Sheng whirled, started shouting, "The hammer's coming down! Avanti! Let's go!"
The whole line surged forward, leaping over the gray cubes and charging into the dense foliage. Gunfire was heard, but not directed at them. They passed trenches, shovels, picks, knapsacks and empty cans and containers. Still no people. They slowed to a walk. The gunfire didn't let up.
"Wait, stop!" Sheng called out. Just then, bullets flew past, and a swarm of men came charging at them. Visibility through the vegetation was poor; the insurgents suddenly appeared. Men on both sides dropped from point-blank fire. The rest slammed into one another, turning the fight into a melee.
Chin was untouched, and looked around in a panic. Everyone was dirty, wet, indistinguishable from one another. Men were biting one another, most going for the fingers pressed in front of their faces. Others wrestled over dropped rifles. Every so often a gun would go off point blank. A man with an enormous beard lunged at Chin, flailing wildly at his face. Chin brought his elbow up to smash him in the face. The man barely seemed to stagger, and slipped past Chin. Before Chin could recover, the man had brought his hands around and started to press them into Chin's throat. The man dropped, with Chin on top of him, as another insurgent with a clean-shaven face stood up over him, bellowing incoherently as he raised his AK up, aiming to smash Cpl. Chin's face in with the stock.
Chin winced, and the man jerked violently, blood quickly pooling in his shirt. The edge of a blade burst out from his chest, thrust in with such violence as to drag several vertebrae out with it. A wet piece of bone fell onto Chin's neck. He would've squealed if he could breathe. The man's body fell, and Private Qianlong looked down at Chin. He examined him, then carefully drew a smaller knife, waited, then stabbed the man strangling Cpl. Chin. He continued to stab until he was satisfied. Then he reached behind him, pulling up on the dead man's beard and cutting it off. He tucked the beard into a pocket before helping Chin up.
Gunfire was still going off up ahead. "Let's go!" Sheng continued to shout, "Avanti!" They broke into a run again. They ran into stragglers along the way, putting them down quickly as they came.
There was a break in the trees, and Chin could see a mound of wood, rocks, and metal, atop which men knelt behind sandbags, stacks of wood or concrete blocks. They had been facing away from Chin and the group, and were now turned and aiming directly at them. Chin barely managed a shout before they opened fire. Several rounds knocked him back onto his ass, flattening against his armor and crushing his chest. He gasped for air, unable to move or look around.
The sky above was open. The moon was still out, and he could see some stars. Smoke lingered in places, but he could still see them. A black bird high above was lazily diving downward, its wings folded in. Chin tried to smile, the motion sending sudden stabs of pain through his jaw. He could feel his molars throbbing. One of them had cracked solidly in half. He tongued at it, trying to get the broken piece out. It was still lodged in his gums.
"Eeeeeghhh…" He grunted, and started to wheeze with pained laughter. It wasn't a bird, he realized. It was a bomb. Then it exploded, and the world went red.

Shi Mingxia was trying to focus on the news. Something breaking had happened. The newscasters were talking fast. Images of what might have been an explosion. Then red. It was too blurry for her to make out exactly what it was that was red. It had to be important, because she could hear people chattering loudly in the halls, some gasping, others screaming and sobbing.
She chewed on the tube lodged down her throat, to keep her gag reflex from making her wretch and dislodging it again. The men standing above her were unfamiliar except for Wu.
"What else do you know about the bacterium?" One of them was asking, a man with one brown eye and one gray.
She grinned, and shrugged, <You've asked me this twice now> She typed on a laptop placed near her right hand, in English. The man was speaking English, and didn't look Chinese, <Can you be more specific>
"When did you first identify it? Where did it come from?"
She shrugged again, easier than always reaching for the distant apostrophe with her trembling pinky.
<What difference does it make It is contained>
"It was contained. There was an incident on the front lines; a bomb went off. It was loaded with bacteria, infected thousands of our troops. We believe someone supplied the insurgents with it, engineering it to be easily dispersed by air. We've interrogated some captured insurgents and we've got a few leads, but their stories contradict. We need anything, anything, you may be able to give us."
She grinned again, chest heaving slightly. Engineered? She had been operating under that assumption before. Hadn't she already discounted that idea just before the outbreak that got her quarantined?
Her head started to throb again, and she felt blood oozing down her throat. A sharp pain ran down along her skin, and she looked down, seeing blood oozing from her nipples as well, and from her navel. She lay her head back and closed her eyes. The men were talking now, fast and loud.
"No, no, no," she whispered over the tube in her mouth. This was beyond anyone's ability to engineer. This was something unique and anomalous. Someone should've called somebody to deal with it earlier, not her. She was just a lab assistant.
She looked off to her side, at the window. Was it red outside, or was blood starting to cover her eyes? She squeezed her eyes shut to clear the blood, but the bed started to move before she could look again.
Not my problem. The pain was gone. Shi Mingxia closed her eyes and passed away.

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Anabasis Hub


I don't know nothin' about it. I just shut the window.
I ain't kiddin', neither. I sit and I wait and when the light turns red, I shut the window. Been doin' that for… Hell, I dunno. Long ass time. Couple years for sure. Oh! I do know the item number. Five-Seven-Nine. But that's it.
I dunno what it is, and I don't wanna. I just shut the window.
There's nothing to know. I sit in my cube and I read books and play some games sometimes. Don't even have to leave for lunch or to rock a piss or nothin'. Heh… I shits where I sits. No joke, they got everyone decked out like that, and it's pretty cushy. Most of the time nothing happens. I don't even think I had to shut the window for… Hell, I dunno. Long ass time. Couple of years for sure. Oh! I do know the item number. Five-Seven-Nine. But that's it.
I dunno what it is, and I don't wanna. I just shut the window.
Been here longer than anyone else I know. Sometimes after shift, they come up to me and say "hey, we're goin' for a drink, you wanna come." And I says "sure", cuz I'm a nice guy like that. We go over to the on-site bar and we have a couple drinks. Everyone talks about family and kids and what they're doing it for. I ain't got a family. I tells them they're all my family and they chuckle. Chuck L.! That's my name! I say it's cuz I laugh so much. At games. At TV. At jokes. Jokes are funny. But that thing they got me doin'? That's not funny. Lucky, I haven't seen it for… Hell, I dunno. Long ass time. Couple of years for sure. Oh! I do know the item number. Five-Seven-Nine. But that's it.
I dunno what it is… I did once, but I don't wanna. Not anymore. I just shut the window.
The others? I don't know. Sometimes they talk about what they do, even though it ain't right. It's against the rules. They know that, too. They say "We all got clearance, what's the harm?" There was a lady named Jaimie who wanted to know that I shut the window. But I didn't say. It's okay to tell you, right? I told people… I told people they were sharing. They were telling each other the things they did, and it's not right. It's not… You're not supposed to know what the other person does. It's against the rules. And they knew that, too! When everyone said what they did, something bad happened. I'm glad I said something when I did or it coulda been real bad. It ain't been that bad for… Hell, I dunno. Long ass time. Couple of years for sure. Oh! I do know the item number. Five-Seven-Nine. But that's it.
I… I knew what it was once, but I don't wanna. Not anymore. I just shut the window.
I didn't see Jaimie after that. It's better this way, though. Some things… Some things I ain't never gonna forget. No matter how many times I get dosed, no matter how dumb I get. Yeah, I know I ain't bright. I weren't never bright. Heh heh heh. Bright, like Dr. Bright! That's funny. I like to laugh. Like to chuckle. Chuck L.! That's my name! I say it's cuz I laugh so much. There's a lot to laugh about in this world. That's what I like. I like funny jokes and sunny days. I like to go outside when I'm off and feel the grass on my feet. It reminds me… It reminds me how important it is that I keep doing this. Because of things like… Things like this thing they got me watchin'… Because if I don't do this, I don't… I don't wanna know. I do know the item number. SCP-579. But that's all.
I did know once, but I don't want to. Not anymore or ever again. I just shut the window.
And I've heard other parts of the process. It's not pretty. A lot of it is very mundane, but there's this one guy who shuts a door, and behind that door are about 500 people, sometimes more, and most of the time they don't come back out when it's over and we get the all-clear. Jesus I'm getting lucid. You said I can't have any more pills, eh? I'd really like some. I haven't been this together in… Hell, I dunno. Long ass time. Five years for sure, maybe longer. It's hard when there are all these patches missing. Oh! I do know the item number. SCP-579. But that's all. That's all I know about it.
That's all I know and that's all I wanna—
…Shit.
Pardon me, but this is a restricted area. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. No, it ain't strictly required but… Don't argue, just go. God help you if you don't. Heh heheheh! HA-HA! God! That's funny. I do like to laugh. "Chuckle" they call me, behind my back when they think I ain't listenin'. I know our session ain't over, but that's okay. You'll end it yourself in a second when it hits you. …Yep, there you go. Feel that behind the eyes? Yeah… Too late now. Put that helmet on and don't take it off until I take it off for you. YES it's important. Trust me. You don't wanna see it. You don't wanna know.
Hell, I don't wanna know, but I know. Been a while since this happened. Loooong ass time. Five years at least, probably more. SCP-579 doesn't try to break containment often, but when it does…
Nevermind. You don't have to think about it.
Because I'm here. And I shut the window.