by Kothardarastrix

Hotel, motel.

As usual, James was awakened by an explosion. He didn't understand why MTF Nu-7 always had to do these drills or tests or whatever it was they were doing at such an ungodly hour, or how it managed to make enough noise down in the valley that he could still feel it inside the mountain. People kept telling him he'd get used to the rattling, but he doubted he'd ever be able to sleep through it. Grumbling under his breath, James stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast.
The explosions had abated some by the time he finished his bagel, but James was too awake by then to get back to sleep. He hated having his Saturday morning ruined like that, but hopefully he'd have time for a nap later. At least he'd managed to avoid his roommates. He took a warm shower to shake off the lingering grogginess of disrupted sleep, then settled in for a relaxing day of binge-watching. While he was loading a Doctor Who DVD into his Playstation, James remembered the stolen CD in his desk. His eyes glided over to the desk for a moment, but he shook his head and pushed thoughts of SCP-058 aside. Today was a day off.
Despite that, James found it increasingly difficult to focus on the extraterrestrial misadventures of Britain's favorite time traveler. Now that he wasn't quite as worried about the CD, the other events of yesterday were starting to weigh heavier on his mind. In particular, he was concerned about Dr. Scott. It wasn't uncommon for a researcher to crack under the stresses of life at Area-14, but it was usually someone relatively new like James himself, not an experienced scientist like Dr. Scott. Of course, if the appearance of his office was any indication, Dr. Scott had been on the edge of sanity for a long time. Dr. Johnston had always been of the opinion that Scott was nuts, but James had just chalked it up to the bitter rivalry between the two scientists. He was too afraid to ask why they hated each other so much, but figured it was probably an outgrowth of their general dislike for the assignment. Area-14, he'd been told, was often a punishment detail, the place where people who'd screwed up badly enough to get reassigned were sent instead of being fired. Dr. Johnston, he knew, had been reassigned from Area-12 after a failed 682 termination, something to do with cherry petals. James didn't know much about Dr. Scott's past, but he doubted that anyone would work on SCP-058 - or anything else at Area-14, for that matter - voluntarily. James just hoped he'd be able to transfer somewhere nicer, like Site-17, once he was a proper Researcher and not just an assistant. They had Safe class anomalies over there. No man-eating ogres, no voice-mimicking lizards, no giant parasitic spiders, and certainly nothing like 058 - just a bunch of low-risk humanoids. They didn't even have a nuclear failsafe! And best of all, Site-17 wouldn't have a Mobile Task Force shaking the walls down at the crack of dawn. Over there, he'd be able to sleep.

Conrad had seen pictures of the Atherton while making his reservation, but in the long hours since then his imagination had distorted it into a vast, ominous mansion like The Shining's Overlook Hotel. He wasn't sure if he was relieved or disappointed when it turned out to be just as normal and boring as every other hotel he'd ever stayed at. He stood awkwardly in the lobby for a while, dully surveying its predictable modern furnishings with dry, puffy eyes.
He was sure that, if not for Pentagram's heavy, low-tuned blues, he'd have fallen asleep during the four-hour drive to State College and died in an embarrassingly non-anomalous fashion, surrounded by greasy napkins and Steak 'n' Shake bags. He'd eaten two steakburgers today: a buttery one for lunch on his way out of Pittsburgh and a garlicky one for dinner just outside State College. It wasn't good for his health (or his breath), but neither was anything else about this trip.
Well, except maybe the pistol he'd purchased a few hours ago. The man at the counter had looked at him funny, probably suspecting from Conrad's demeanor that he was planning to do something stupid and dangerous, but he hadn't cared enough to ask questions. The background check worried Conrad, not because of his criminal record (just some herbal misdemeanors in the 70s), but because he feared some Foundation webcrawler might notice the purchase and send a Task Force after him. There wasn't much he could do about that, though.
Conrad only realized he'd been standing there for too long when the woman at the desk called out to him.
"Welcome to the Atherton Hotel!" Jess said. "How can I help you?"
Conrad's head creaked around to her, a young black woman holding a wide but somewhat confused smile as she surveyed the strange old man who'd wandered into her lobby. Now he wandered up to her desk. "Checking in," Conrad croaked, his voice heavy with jet lag and sleep deprivation.
"Name?"
"Scott."
Jess pulled up his reservation on the computer, then frowned.
"What?" Conrad asked.
"You're the guy who asked for 710."
"Yes. Is there a problem?" Conrad mused at how cruelly ironic it would be if the hotel had made some bureaucratic flub and given the room to someone else.
Jess looked cautiously behind her. The door to George's office was closed, and she could faintly hear him talking. He must've been on the phone.
"What is it?" Conrad asked again, more irritably this time. He was surprised when Jess leaned over the counter toward him.
"Why do you want that room?" she asked, quietly.
"Why does it matter?" he asked, looking confused.
"There's something…weird about it."
"Weird how?"
"I don't know. People always want to stay there, but they always leave after one night. And this morning…" she looked back at George's office again, then leaned in even closer and lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "One of the maids saw something in there that scared her so bad she quit."
"What did she see?" Conrad whispered, eyes wide.
She shook her head. "Not sure. Something on the TV."
"Hmm…" Conrad said. He briefly wondered if it had been anything to do with Ronald Reagan.
Jess looked at him suspiciously. "You already knew that room was weird, didn't you?"
"No," he lied, unconvincingly.
Leaning back, Jess crossed her arms. "Then why'd you want that one specifically?"
"Um," he stammered. Conrad hadn't expected an interrogation. "I read a really persuasive review." That wasn't technically a lie, but Jess still didn't buy it.
"FBI?" she asked.
"Um." He obviously couldn't admit to the existence of the Foundation, but he could certainly throw the UIU under the bus. "Something like that, yeah."
Jess did buy that one, perhaps because she'd watched too much of The X-Files. "Well it's about time," she said. "There's something very wrong up there."
"Well," he said, straightening up slightly for dramatic effect, "I intend to get to the bottom of it. Thanks for the heads-up."
"Don't mention it. Here's your key."
"Thanks." He took the card and started off towards his room, but Jess suddenly called out after him.
"Hey, uh-" she looked back at the computer screen for a second, "-'Conrad'?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful," she warned. He just nodded in reply, then continued off down the hall. Jess watched him go. She was glad that someone in the know had finally come to investigate the place, but there was something in his bloodshot, baggy eyes that she didn't like.

James didn't make many trips outside his room during the day, usually only to grab a snack or visit the suite's shared, and therefore disgusting, bathroom. He made a trip to the Site cafeteria for dinner, where he kept his head down and ate as fast as possible to make sure no one would try to talk to him. Not that he really expected anyone to try.
By the evening, James had grown tired of Doctor Who. He spent a while flipping idly through his various books, only to be reminded that the real secret world of magic was significantly more unpleasant than J. K. Rowling could've imagined, and that he was far too old for Harry Potter now anyway. James had felt silly stuffing YA lit into his suitcase in the first place, but those were the only books he'd had on hand when the Foundation moved him to this dungeon. He'd hoped to pick up new ones, but the glorified company town at the other end of the weekly shuttle route didn't have any bookstores and Area-14's nonexistent address made Amazon deliveries too complicated to fool with.
After the fourth unfruitful search for entertainment, James collapsed, defeated and bored, to the bed. There was nothing to watch, nothing to play, nothing to read, not even anything to listen to.
Wait.
James's eyes glided back over to his desk drawer, where the 058 CD had lain forgotten all day. Was he really so bored that he'd risk exposure to a memetic hazard? Surely a few more episodes of stale British sci-fi would be preferable to that. Less interesting, of course, but far safer.
Then again, James reassured himself, the containment procedures said that as long as he didn't listen for more than thirty minutes he'd be fine. Well, that's not exactly what they said, but he felt sure that any dangerous memetic properties of 058's poetry would've been mentioned somewhere in the file. That's why, with some trepidation, he placed the CD in his computer's disc drive and got ready for a disturbing evening.
At first, James just sat there with his eyes closed, drinking in the surreal stream-of-consciousness imagery, but that soon proved too disturbing to tolerate. To help mitigate the chills running up and down his spine, James opened FATE and dedicated approximately half his attention to exploring its infinite, randomly generated dungeon. Only later would it occur to him that this had been a mistake, as FATE took up the whole screen, obscuring the clock that otherwise might have warned him he'd gone past the thirty-minute mark. His avatar was locked in mortal combat with a group of venomous wyverns when something in 058's gibbering caught his attention. He wasn't consciously aware of what it was, since he'd been distracted by the game, so he paused FATE and rewound the CD a few seconds.
“Unexpected finality comes not as a colorful vehicle, but in a gray that knows not to stay before. I have crawled the trees with venom swings to blind of the drooling path that flows electricity from eye to the evening. There is no more than salvation in the bald mind of a husk that drinks his only kings.”
James couldn't quite place what made this particular nonsense stand out from the rest of it. He played it a second time, then realized it had sounded familiar because this was the same part that had played when he'd listened to it in the office. Then James noticed the time.
“Oh shit,” he said, reaching for the eject button. He froze halfway there, though, because he'd suddenly remembered something else. When Dr. Scott freaked out, James had been on his way back to Dr. Johnston's office from the restroom. The trip hadn't brought him especially close to Dr. Scott's office, but the elderly researcher had made quite a bit of noise during his episode. He'd been shouting one phrase in particular, one that James hadn't attached any significance to until now: “the drooling path”.
James plucked out his headphones and leaned back in his chair. The faint sound of Mark and Carl good-naturedly arguing about something drifted in through his door, but he paid them no heed. What about “the drooling path” had made Dr. Scott flip out like that? Momentarily forgetting his concerns about memetic contamination, James opened Firefox and Googled it. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it definitely hadn't been a hotel review. He clicked on the link, curious as to how a mildly disturbing phrase like “drooling path” would end up in such a mundane place. He Ctrl+F'd his way down to the review in question and was initially disturbed to find it nearly as nonsensical as what he'd just been listening to. As he read it, though, it started to make more sense. Kaylee M. had just recommended the bed so many times because it was really comfortable. He sighed, thinking about how nice it'd be nice to relax into a meandering menace beside some crisp blue hydrogen. And James couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a toucan-man! Maybe he should just call in sick tomorrow and go stay at a hotel.
James's suitcase was half full before it occurred to him that what he was doing didn't make any sense. First of all, he hated hotels. The very idea of sleeping in a bed that'd been slept and screwed in by hundreds or thousands of strangers made his skin crawl. Second, he couldn't just “call in sick”. He didn't even have a car! And third, what the Hell was a toucan-man?!
“James?” Mark asked. James was surprised to find himself back in the living room, dragging his suitcase behind him.
“Huh?” he asked, disoriented. Mark and Carl were playing MtG on the coffee table again, but they'd both stopped the game to look at him. Specifically, they were looking at him like he was a crazy person.
Which, James thought, he might be.
“Where are you going?” Mark asked.
“You don't look so good,” Carl added.
“I'm, uh…” where was he going? State College, Pennsylvania? Why on Earth would he do that?
“Dude?” Mark stood up. “I think you might wanna sit down for a second.”
“No…” James said, hesitantly. “I…I don't want to sit down, I want to go – I want to go to bed and specifically the bed and specifically the bed.” What? What was he saying?
Mark was now approaching him. “Here,” he said, guiding James toward one of the chairs in the dining room. James didn't let go of the suitcase until he sat down. “Lemme get you some water.” James sat there in the chair, dazed, while Mark got him a glass of crisp blue hydrogen from the sink.
“Hey man,” Carl spoke, still seated in the living area, “you're drooling.”
“Drooling?” James asked, raising a hand to his lips to wipe away the thick strand of saliva that dangled from his chin.
“Uh, here,” Mark said, handing James the water. James looked at it, and something about the nice, clear water in the nice, clear glass finally dragged him back to his senses.
“Mark?” he asked, taking the glass with one trembling hand.
“Yeah dude?”
“I, uh…I don't feel so good.”
“Yeah, you don't look good either. What happened?”
“I…” he began but stopped himself. James didn't have any firsthand experience with cognitohazards, but he'd learned about them as part of his training. He was pretty sure Mark had just saved him from one. “I don't know.”
“What's the suitcase for?” Mark asked, taking a seat next to his roommate. “Were you gonna leave?”
Instead of answering, James took a big sip of water.
“I think the pressure's got to him,” Carl opined. “I heard Dr. Scott blew up yesterday too.” That wasn't the case – at least, James didn't think it was – but he was grateful to Carl for the excuse.
“Yeah?” Mark asked, surprised.
“That's what I heard,” Carl repeated.
“Yeah,” James gasped, swallowing a mouthful of water. “He was listening to 058's tapes, started screaming.”
“Shit,” Mark remarked. “What they'd do to him?”
“Mandatory vacation, I think.” James shook his head back and forth a little to clear it.
“What's going on with you?”
“I – I dunno. I guess I just – see, I'm on 058 too, and I read some of the transcripts today…I guess it just got to me a little bit.”
Mark nodded. “Well, no wonder. That thing's fuckin' scary.”
“You have no idea.”
Mark placed a hand on James's shoulder. He meant it as a consoling gesture of comraderie, but it only made James more uncomfortable. “It's alright, dude. This is a tough job. Hell, I puked when they showed me the 939 tapes.”
“Yeah, me too,” Carl added. “That was messed up.”
James nodded and took another sip of water. “Thanks, Mark.”
“Hey, don't mention it.” Mark patted him on the shoulder once, then let go and leaned back.
“Feelin' better?”
“Yeah. Just got kind of a headache.” One that was getting steadily worse.
“Aright. You wanna join us?” he asked, pointed at Carl, who brandished his handful of cards.
“Nah,” James grunted, “I think I'm just gonna go to bed.”
“Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Get some sleep.” Mark stood up, patted James' shoulder again and went back over to Carl. The two of them watched as James carefully got to his feet and dragged himself and his suitcase back into his room. Once the door was closed, he sat heavily on the bed. Had he really been hit with a cognitohazard? He didn't dare look at the review again to make sure. Mark's thick-headedness had saved James this time, but if he had another fit like that they'd call a containment team for sure. Then again, maybe that'd be for the best. If James had really been compromised by that review, he could be dangerous. But he didn't want to get put on “mandatory vacation” like Dr. Scott.
James's eyes suddenly widened. What if Dr. Scott's breakdown had been caused by the same hotel review? What if, after hearing 058 say “the drooling path”, he'd Googled it and found the same thing that James did? And now he was on vacation? He could be on his way to that hotel right now! James didn't know what would've happened to him if he'd gotten there, but he knew he didn't want it to happen to Dr. Scott.
He whipped out his phone to dial Area-14's emergency hotline, but the sudden movement sent his head spinning. He closed his eyes and waited for everything to stop moving before trying to look at his phone again, but by then the headache had worsened, radiating out from his forehead and into both eye sockets. It wasn't the worst headache he'd ever had, but it was accompanied by a resurgence of dizziness and a new wave of exhaustion. These must have been more aftereffects of that cognitohazard; now that the adrenaline had worn off, he was finally feeling the brain strain.
Determined to overcome the pain, the dizziness, and the tiredness (A man's life was in the balance!), James still tried to call the hotline. But the numbers blurred and wavered before his eyes, sending his stomach rolling, and all he could do was collapse limply to the bed, clutching his head with one hand and letting the phone fall from the other. It lay there on the blanket, briefly forgotten, while James assured himself that he'd feel much better if he just closed his eyes for a second.
It was already helping. The mattress and pillow, which normally felt stiff, flat, and uncomfortable, now seemed to gently cradle his aching head and limp body. It seemed like he'd never slept in a bed and specifically the bed and specifically the bed that was so soft and cosy. But, he distantly realized, he was falling asleep now. One last panicked impulse rose to the surface, fighting to remember Dr. Scott and the phone lying just beyond his twitching fingertips, but it, too, was swallowed up by sleep.

James awoke. He didn't open his eyes just yet, but he could still feel the pale light of the TV hitting his eyelids, just as clearly as he could hear the faint muzak, playing a song he almost remembered. He sat up groggily, lifting the cozy hotel sheets off of himself in the process. How had he forgotten to turn off the TV? He rubbed his gritty eyes with one hand and reached for the remote on the nightstand with the other. He was just about to turn it off when the music was suddenly interrupted by a voice he almost recognized.
"There's a hole in the wall at the bottom of the floor," it said. Then, before James could press the power button, the TV turned itself off. He sat confused in the dark for a moment, thinking perhaps he'd just accidentally pressed the button or something, but then he heard the noise: a low, rhythmic thumping, like the slow beat of a massive heart. It was coming from the direction of the TV. Strangely unbothered by this, he calmly sat up against the headboard and reached for the lamp. The light didn't reveal anything new, but the heartbeat continued.
Like a man in a trance, James slid his bare feet into the cheap sandals he used as shower shoes and went to see what was the matter. The sound seemed to be coming from the wall behind the TV stand. Without the slightest hint of fear or worry, he squatted down beside the stand and pushed it aside. The heartbeat stopped immediately, because James had found its source: an uncovered ventilation duct, scarcely more than a foot wide, extending deeper into the wall. Then, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, he crawled inside.

Conrad noticed Room 710's odd, asymmetrical placement immediately. This, combined with its incongruous number, made him wonder if it had always been part of the building. Perhaps these unusual traits were another example of failed mimicry, like the garbled language of the online review. But the room looked normal enough otherwise, at least from the outside. There was no palpable sense of menace oozing from the edges of its white-painted door, only the weird sensation of familiar unfamiliarity common to all hotels.
Still, though, Conrad was afraid. This was what he'd trekked across the country for. This was the culmination of years of research. This was the most dangerous thing he'd ever done.
This was the drooling path.
Conrad looked carefully down the hall in both directions. Then, seeing no one, he reached for the door handle. His trembling hand moved with fearful slowness, as if the handle might suddenly lash out and bite it, but no such thing occurred. It turned like any other handle would, but the door stayed firmly shut.
After an embarrassingly long time spent staring dumbly at the handle, Conrad realized the door was still locked. The tension suddenly dissipated, and Conrad had to laugh at himself while he fished for the key. He unlocked it, steeled himself with a deep breath, and carefully pushed upon the door. Just like everything else so far, Room 710 looked completely ordinary - bathroom, closet, TV, two queen beds, and the usual assortment of miscellaneous, impractically small hotel furniture. Even after the door shut behind him, Conrad didn't feel or see anything unusual about the drab, slightly outdated furnishings. The place wasn't even dirty; they must have sent someone else in after the woman who'd quit, someone who hadn't been so frightened by whatever was in here. Something on the TV.
Before he could investigate that, though, he needed to pay the bathroom a visit. Conrad casually threw his travel bag on the nearest chair and went to relieve himself. He saw himself in the mirror while he was washing his hands, and had to look away from the desperate madman he saw there. He reminded himself that he wasn't nuts, just determined.
Conrad's investigation began, of course, with the TV. He half expected a mutilated Ronald Reagan to appear on the screen as soon as he turned it on, but was greeted instead by "Music Choice: Country". Conrad wasn't a fan of Toby Keith, but he was too focused on his mission to dig for a rock or metal channel. He wasn't here to headbang.
The hotel had the usual obscenely large channel package, overflowing with infomercials, sitcoms, and pages and pages of pay-per-view movies, including a selection of pornography with unpleasantly descriptive titles. He felt sorry for the parents of any children who stumbled across that during their vacation. Conrad was so distracted by the porn that he almost missed what he'd been looking for.
It sat there at the bottom of the guide, at a place that shouldn't have been possible - channel "000," abbreviation "RMN". It only showed one program, unhelpfully labeled "untitled," which seemed to last all day until it aired again at midnight. A press of the "info" button revealed that the channel's full name was "roomnews," but provided no other information. Conrad's heart was pounding, and his finger was itching to press the "select" button, but he stopped himself. Before exposing himself to whatever aired on roomnews, he would need to take some precautions. With his eyes closed, he ran through the basic protective mental exercises he'd learned in memetics training. Nothing fancy, just a little bit of autohypnosis to fortify the mind. It wouldn't stop the worst hazards, but it would block the weakest ones and buy him some time against most everything else. Hopefully he wouldn't need it.
Once he was ready, Conrad hesitantly pressed the button but kept his eyes closed, so that he'd only have to face it one sense at a time. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it certainly wasn't the mellow elevator music that he heard. Conrad's eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but he made sure to mute the TV before he opened his eyes. His eyes were just as disappointed as his ears, though, when they beheld nothing more exciting than a picture of a sailboat. He unmuted the TV, wondering if the sound and visuals might meld together into something different, but still only heard the same elevator music.
He stared at the screen for a long time, hoping that something would change, but had no such luck. Roomnews was odd, sure, but it certainly wasn't enough to make someone quit their job on the spot. Jess said it had been something about the TV, though, so Conrad stepped forward to examine the device itself. It looked just like any other TV, at least from the front. He peered over the top and saw nothing out of the ordinary. It was very close to the wall, though, so if he wanted a proper look he'd need to move it. He slid it carefully forward and turned it as far to the side as the available space permitted, then peeked around the side to see if anything else would come to light.
As it turned out, something did.
"Aha!" he cried, upon seeing the little red bump stuck to the back of the TV, near the bottom where it hadn't been visible from above. It was a small dome, no wider than his thumbnail. It glistened wetly in the light, resembling nothing so much as a massive pimple. He began to reach for it, but then he remembered the biohazard protocols that are drilled into everyone at Area-14 and stopped himself. Instead, he carefully moved his head closer to squint at it up close. It wasn't moving, but there was a shiny trail of thick, transparent slime oozing out from under it and running down the back of the set. The goop seemed to evaporate before it reached the bottom, though, since none of it dripped onto the table.
"Hmm," he said. If that mucus was seeping from under it, that meant it wasn't necessarily attached to the TV. Maybe it could be pried off. Conrad stepped back and scanned the room for anything he could use as a decent substitute for gloves. Maybe he could peel that weird plastic wrapper off of one of the coffee cups? No, that would be too slippery. Instead, Conrad hurried to the bathroom and grabbed one of the provided washcloths. Then he returned to the TV and, with extreme care, placed the cloth over the boil. He gripped it through the paper, gritting his teeth against its disgusting, half-solid texture, and carefully wedged his fingers under it. He wiggled it slightly back and forth, careful not to exert too much pressure lest he accidentally rupture it. Then, with a loud, wet pop, it separated from the plastic.
Immediately, the mellow muzak was replaced by a blast of white noise. Conrad leaned over to see the screen, which was now displaying only static. Then he looked back at the fleshy growth in his hand, the part of it that had been attached to the TV now visible in the folds of the washcloth. It wasn't much to look at - just a smooth, slimy expanse of red flesh - but it must have been creating roomnews somehow. This suspicion was confirmed when Conrad re-checked the guide, from which that channel was now missing.
"Interesting," he muttered. He looked down at the boil again, but it remained inert. What was this thing? Why did it create such a seemingly harmless channel? How was that connected to the hazardous reviews? There was still a piece missing.
Conrad eyed the plastic cups for the coffeemaker. If a containment team were here, they'd take a sample of the growth and run a battery of tests on it. But he couldn't do that here, and he didn't feel like taking it with him in such a flimsy container. It would be too easy to lose, and then that analysis might never happen. Or he might accidentally touch it, and find out the hard way if that mucus was toxic.
With that unpleasant thought in mind, Conrad decided he'd best put the nasty thing down before its slime soaked through the cloth. After some internal deliberation, he decided to just put it back on the TV. The television was still the center of this mystery, and he hoped that it might do something interesting if he reattached the growth.
He was not disappointed. The boil adhered back to the plastic on contact, and roomnews immediately came back online. It wasn't playing music anymore, though. As 058's haunting voice slithered out of the speakers, a chill slithered up his spine. Not just because he'd found that horrible voice in such an unexpected place, or because it indisputably confirmed the connection between 058 and this hotel room, but because it was actually making sense.
"I have something to tell you," said from the voice, and in that moment Conrad had no doubt that it was speaking directly to him. "What?" he asked, breathless, but the voice on the TV, the voice of 058, the voice of darkness, had not paused for a response.
"Something that might just change your life," it continued. "It certainly changed mine."
Conrad scrambled across the room to where a pen and notepad sat beside the phone. He wished he'd had a recorder ready, but frantic note-scribbling would have to do.
"You work too much. All the time, in fact. Why? You don't enjoy it. Who would? There's nothing enjoyable about spending your life locked up in the worst combination of military base and hospital imaginable, wondering what will kill you first. Will some horrible monster break out of its cage and tear you limb from limb? Or maybe the cleanup crew wasn't as thorough as they should've been, and there's still a little bit of some horrible pathogen smeared on a patch of wall you brushed against this morning. Or maybe you'll get lucky, and your bosses will order a nuclear strike before the horrors you study can get to you.
"It's hard, knowing that the O5 Council thinks you're just as disposable as the men in orange jumpsuits and would do away with you just as quickly if the need arose. It shouldn't be this way, should it? They said you'd be saving the world. Keeping people safe from things they weren't meant to know, things that would drive them insane if they did, things like the one that took your wife away. But that was a lie. Heroes have better things to do than sit in disorganized offices, poring over endless files and recordings and searching for an answer that doesn't exist.
"Sometimes, your mind gets so exhausted from listening and reading that your body forgets it hasn't moved all day and you become tired enough to sleep. So you shuffle in a daze back to your miserable little quarters, in a different miserable corner of the same miserable base as your miserable little office. A herd of cattle is being unloaded from a truck and led to a drab, gray pen barely larger than your office. The Foundation doesn't waste resources on giving them a nice place to live, since they'll all be dead by the end of the month. You don't watch as the dumb animals are led to their deaths, because it's occurred to you more than once that your accommodations aren't all that different from theirs - just a small, dirty box inside a larger, dirtier box. At least the cows are too stupid to know they're suffering.
"Your apartment is cold. Worse, it's quiet. This place feels even less like home than your office. You strip off your dirty clothes and collapse on the bed, hoping the worn-out covers on the wobbly bed you bought from an IKEA in Fishkill, New York five years ago will keep you warm enough to sleep. Before you close your aching, bloodshot eyes, you look over at a picture of your wife, still visible in the weak glow of the night-light that you, a grown man, can't sleep without. You tell yourself you love her, that you always did and always will, but that's just because, deep down, you know that no living woman would have the crazy old man you've become. Then you try to sleep, but it doesn't work because they're firing artillery again down in the valley and the explosions keep rattling the light fixtures. You lie there and stare at the ceiling and try not to think about the life wasting away around you and within you until nothing remains but a dull-eyed scarecrow with a head full of nonsense."
Conrad was shaking, but he didn't know if it was with anger or fear or something else entirely. He tried to keep his hand steady, so he could write the hurtful words as clearly as he heard them.
"You've got to get out of here.
"Put on some clean clothes and haul yourself out of bed. Tell the area director you're taking a vacation. Take your deteriorating car away from that cold, lifeless apartment and the dingy gray rectangle you call a workplace and go. Leave behind the files, the recordings, the monsters, and the towering gate. This place is a prison, but you can leave for the weekend. You don't have to tell them you're not coming back.
"There's only one place to go: a hotel. Not a motel; the rooms there are just as tiny and dirty as the one you're escaping. You need something nicer, a place where you can feel like a brand new person. Like a real person.
"Aren't hotels wonderful? A nice, warm room all to yourself, kept neat and clean and stocked with toilet paper by someone you never have to see or talk to if you don't want to. They even make the food, served up every morning and evening in a shiny, modern buffet for you and all your fellow travelers. You can wonder who they are, and how they got here. Perhaps they walked empty down drooling path, just like you."
Conrad quickly underlined that dreadful phrase, though in his haste he almost crossed it out instead.
"Here at the hotel, you are whole. The wallpaper and the paintings on it are so brightly colored, so much kinder than the bare walls of that horrible place up in the mountains. The bed is soft and comfortable, with clean, warm covers on it. The pool is just the right temperature and free of noisy children, so you can float around in peace and take some of the weight off your bad knees. You feel younger than you've been in decades. You could stay here forever, eating scones and nachos and popcorn and drinking from the minibar and sleeping in that wonderful bed. And perhaps you should stay forever. Once you leave, everything will go back to normal. The wasting away of your body, your mind, and your career. The emptiness. The sadness. The blackness. The darkness. The hotel will stay with you, though. Stay with the hotel, be the hotel. You are it is everything that happens to you are the hotel. Ascend."
Then the voice paused. Conrad's head whipped up to look at the screen, desperately hanging on for anything else, any other clues, no matter how much they hurt. But all it had left to say was
"Won't that be nice?"
Then, absurdly, that same damn muzak song started playing again. Conrad gaped at that stupid sailboat for almost a minute, until he could no longer deny that the monologue was over. Then he finally allowed himself to sob, only once but very loudly. He clasped his free hand to his eyes, holding back tears. Somehow, the thing that voice belonged to had known everything about him, right down to the hidden personal despair that had sent him on this insane quest in the first place. He didn't know what he'd expected, but it certainly hadn't been a verbal beatdown from SCP-058. The second half of the monologue was almost as perplexing, seeming to be nothing more than yet another disturbing advertisement for the hotel.
But, as they teach you on your first day with the memetics divison, first impressions are often misleading. Steeling himself against the mockery within, Conrad carefully combed back over his hastily scrawled transcript, searching for any clues he might've missed the first time. There was the reference to the ever-present Path, of course, though it was just as difficult to decipher. Of more note, however was the phrase "walked empty"; Conrad didn't need to reference 1981's document to recognize that phrase from one of its transcripts. He recognized "The emptiness. The sadness. The blackness. The darkness." from 1981 as well, confirming that it was connected much more closely with 058 and the hotel than he'd initially suspected.
Still, Conrad doubted the lump he'd pried off the TV was the source of the whole anomaly; if that little clot of flesh and mucus had been capable of churning out cognitohazards and giant flame-spewing cow-heart-scorpion-things he'd have been dead by now. But it was definitely part of the same anomaly, which meant that the…entity writing the hazardous reviews was most likely the same one ultimately responsible for roomnews. Maybe that was 058 itself, though the hotel anomalies indicated much greater intelligence than the "heart of darkness" seemed to possess. More likely, Conrad surmised, the being that created these things was simply broadcasting its voice through both the boil on the TV and the monstrous heart back at Area-14 - and maybe RONALD REAGAN CUT UP WHILE TALKING, too. Perhaps the owner of that voice was the dark, hooded figure that did the cutting in that video. Conrad had tried to talk to that figure once, but it hadn't had much to say then - just a big red "I SEE YOU" that Conrad still saw in his nightmares. Then it had never reared its hooded head again, and Conrad had been banished to that miserable base in the mountains that even roomnews agreed was a dump. For a moment, he wondered if both SCP-058 and the hotel had been that same entity's convoluted attempts to respond to him, but quickly dismissed that selfish notion. 058 had killed hundreds of people, long before Conrad arrived, and anyone could've stumbled across that review. Jess had even said that people stayed in Room 710 all the time. No, this anomaly didn't care a thing for him. He was just the first one to put all the pieces together.
Well, not all of them. He had more answers now than when he'd started, but even more questions. Questions like "Where did that boil come from?" and "Was this the voice of SCP-1981-1?" and "What is that fucking song?" and "How does this thing know the intimate details of my past?" It knew about his job, the Foundation, what had happened to Allison, even his private existential dread. It even knew where he'd bought his furniture!
Wait. No it didn't.
Conrad read over his notes again. Fishkill, New York? Conrad had never been there, not to any part of the state. And he hadn't bought his bed from IKEA either. The Foundation had provided it. How, with everything it knew about him, had it made that mistake? And such a specific error…
Perhaps it hadn't been an error at all. Conrad turned off the TV with its increasingly annoying music and got out his laptop. He wasn't the least bit surprised by what Google maps found in Fishkill.
It was time for a trip to IKEA.

Make you wanna cry.


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The following article is a part of the And Every Time We Meet Again storyline. Whilst you can read it on its own, it's highly recommended you read the previous installments to get this article in its fullest.

26th of May, 1985
Central Europe Regional Command Headquarters, 25 kilometers south of Sopot, Poland

He didn't feel it. Not at first, at least.
As the sound of old lights firing up filled his hurting head, Daniel Asheworth violently woke up, trying to stand up from his seat. He would, of course, he would if he could — the problem this time was that he couldn't. Even though he could barely see with his post-sleep eye state, he did notice the obvious — he was chained with both his wrists to a rock-solid chair.
He tried moving in any way, only to notice his rune gloves were gone. He cursed slightly in his mind, realizing that any potential escape plans were going to be noticeably harder without them. Even if he knew magic well enough to not need outside stimuli to help him use it, any thaumaturgist saying they didn't find items that helped concentrate magic handy was a liar.
As he looked around, his still sleepy eyes were suddenly blasted with the light of the blinding lamps above him. He now knew what woke him up, at least.
And that's when it hit him with all its power.
As he tried looking to his right, his brain suddenly exploded with a feeling of pain unmistaken for anything else he had ever felt — he knew what it precisely was a little too well. Total thaumaturgic drain, from his body to his soul — a feeling similar to an electrocution, but somehow reaching into one's soul and the very essence of being, grounding him totally. He realized that having been chained up with his gloves removed was nothing more than a formalitie — even if he had them, he was essentially useless.
"Looks like you're finally awake." a towering and sarcastic feminine voice suddenly filled the room from Asheworth's front. Trying to identify its source, he noticed a human-sized hologram standing in front of him, showcasing the borders of a red, blurred, feminine figure.

O5-9, current Administrator of the SCP Foundation.

Immediately noticing the personnel recognition system he met less than a month before, he realized their location — the Central Europe Regional Command Headquarters.
"May we begin?"
The darkness around Asheworth was suddenly brightly illuminated by lamps identical to the ones above him, revealing two audiences sitting on court-like benches on his two sides. He looked at the light above him, noticing a small air vent. Though initially, he thought he noticed something akin to a spark within, he quickly dismissed it as nothing more than a mistake on his part.
Looking to the right, he saw a large crowd of mostly unfamiliar faces — though, some of them known due to the Summit of O4 he had taken a part in — especially the mysterious man in the red suit — looking at him in disgust, all eyes focused on himself only. Turning away as quickly as he could to his left though, he noticed what he deemed a much friendlier sight — Jessie Rivera, Jeremy Cornwell, and James Micheals. Though they for one didn't look at him in disgust, they did look… disappointed, almost — something akin to a good mother's reaction at a kid doing something bad — neither anger nor disgust, just… disappointment and sadness.
"Hey, what—" Asheworth tried to say, only for the three of them to slowly look away from him. Trying to reach out to them again, he was suddenly cut away by the voice of O5-9, overshadowing the quiet chitchat going on in the hall.
"Daniel Robert Alliston-Asheworth," Nine said, with her blurred avatar looking directly into his eyes, with what felt like a literal mind-drill. "Are you ready to begin the trial?"
"Wh, wh, what?" Asheworth uttered in panic, looking at the feminine figure before him. "This is got to be a misunderstanding, miss. What's going o—"
He tried to usher his words as quickly as possible, suddenly getting interrupted by a transparent hologram of a screen appearing before him and others present, forming what appeared to be a Foundation document.

Internal Tribunal Department

CASEFILE

Judge: O5-9
Defendant: Daniel Robert Alliston-Asheworth
Corpus delicti: The Defendant is hereby accused of committing crimes provided for in paragraphs,

§ 1.1.1 Espionage
§ 1.1.2 Diversion
§ 1.1.3 Armed assault
§ 1.2.2 Transmission of information containing operating secrets
§ 1.2.4 Armed rebellion
§ 1.2.5 Adhering to GoI
§ 1.2.6 Unauthorized collaboration with GoI
§ 1.2.7 Sabotage
§ 1.2.8 Deliberate violation of secrecy
§ 1.2.9 Theft of Foundation objects, personnel or documentation
§ 3.2.1 Insubordination
§ 4.5 Reduction of terrestrial environment to uninhabitable by humankind
§ 5.1 Development of weaponry based on anomalous functions
§ 5.10 Collaboration with GoI from the list of outlawed organizations

and attempting to commit crimes provided for in paragraphs,

§ 2.1.1 Use of anomalous objects against humanity (with the purpose of coercive or non-coercive change of power or established societal norms)
§ 5.4 Use of anomalous objects (with the purpose of limiting societal rights and freedoms para)

of the ITD Legal Codex.

As sheer panic and utter confusion and fear filled the thaumaturge, he started rapidly looking around himself, trying to get a single person on his side.
"Miss, this is… I, I, I," he said nonsensically, trying to make sense of what is happening. "This has to be a misunderstanding, I—"
"SILENCE," the Overseer said in a powerful voice, effectively stopping all objections from Daniel. "Your cooperation with PoI-5936 has been found out the moment you blew Overwatch up. You do not need to hide that fact anymore. May. We. Begin. The. Trial?"
Asheworth stared in disbelief at both the screen and the woman, suddenly regaining his voice, realizing it's best to just follow along for the time being. "Yes," he replied in a calm voice, pretending to be composed as hard as he could.
"Fantastic," the Overseer sarcastically replied, bringing her hands together in a pyramid-like shape. "Due to the… rather obvious circumstances surrounding this case, I will not hold a complete and fair trial.," she said, spawning an immediate reaction from O4's crowd. Silencing it with a quick wave of a hand, she continued. "As much as I would like to execute the defendant right now, I am unfortunately required to hold this joke of a trial." She paused for a moment. "Apologies. I… let us just begin."
"I am going to ask once and once only — how do you answer to the accusation of cooperating with Damien Nowak in the ploy to destroy both Site-01 and steal humanity's terrains, giving them to various anomalous races?" She paused for a moment, walking behind Asheworth's chair and back in front of him again, gesticulating heavily. "As I do not believe anything while worthy can be said by you, I will give you one chance to say your side of the story. Use it wisely."
"This is fucking absurd," Asheworth's thoughts screamed, trying to run away from this place in any way possible. "Why does no one see this is all fake?!" Immediately calming himself down, he realized he needs to play the game as well as he could, which he couldn't when he was angry.
"I… okay, let me begin at the, well, beginning," he said, with O5-9 nodding in response. "I am going to say everything I know in good will of the case." He paused, inhaling and closing his eyes for a second.
"I was the lead investigator of the Damien Nowak case, initially chosen due to my expertise with thaumaturgy, ontokinetics, and the relative knowledge regarding the person I was supposed to chase," Asheworth said, trying to remember as many facts as he possibly could. "I… years ago, I was a part of the group Damien Nowak now guides — or, rather, guided — until the day I was betrayed by its leader."
"I left when he murdered someone close to me after exploring my magic talent to his — or, at that time, our — goal of bringing the terrains we then believed humanity had stolen from the anomalous world. I, of course, no longer believe that goal."
"And how do we know you're, as you say, no longer associated with PoI-5936, despite all evidence pointing to the fact you are? How do you defend against the fact most of your actions have been either focused on researching about Damien Nowak or straight up trying to meet him?"
"I… pardon?" he said with disbelief in his voice. "Miss, I am — I was, I mean — the leader of his case. It was literally my job to—"
"Yes, yes, that's a pretty explanation, but does it explain why half of your Foundation search history is literally taken up solely to this supposed enemy?" Angrily replying, with two moves of her blurred hands, Nine quickly changed the screen to show Asheworth's terminal search history. Though most of it was taken by simple RAISA terms and job schedules a normal Site Director would search for, the deeper she scrolled, the more of it became overtaken by internal documents regarding Nowak, to the point where down the line, it was him and him only. "This is… obsession. Obsession beyond just work duties."
"I… look, yes, I was obsessed with him — I hated him. I wanted to kill him to the point of obsession. I admit. I'm not sorry for being irrational about someone," Asheworth replied, immediately realizing he probably shouldn't have said that.
"That does not explain why literally each of your interactions lead to him escaping after realizing his plan," she continued, this time in a more angry voice. "Except, of course, the one you had after destroying all of Overwatch Command. Clever, but not clever enough."
"I simply couldn't— okay, look, can I get a pause for a second?" the thaumaturge said, trying to get to any defense he could, realizing actual evidence won't do anything here. "Can I know why I'm the only one trialed here, if, as you say, everyone can see that Jessie Rivera and Jeremy Cornwell took part in these missions too?" He knew it was shitty, but that was pretty much the last he could have done to try to save himself.
She rolled her blurred eyes, looking at the people sitting left of Asheworth. "We've looked at evidence, and saw no connection between them and your plans. An outstandingly complex manipulation, that's all," she said, walking behind him and giving both Cornwell and Rivera a tired look. "And, may I add on a more personal note — a truly abhorrent manipulation," she added, with a snarky tone.
Asheworth looked around the room, trying to desperately find literally anyone who would defend him against this absurdity, or at least wouldn't look at him in disgust. Failing to do so, he said, with a panicked voice: "Miss, with all due respect, this is… absurd. This is either blatant fakery or misinterpretation of evidence or—"
"You will not question ME in this room, you—!" she nearly screamed at the top of her lungs, frustrated by the thought of anyone, let alone someone literally chained before her, questioning her authority. Not a second later, the mysterious man in the red suit materialized out of nowhere behind her, whispering something to her, coming closer. Asheworth could have sworn he was in O4's crowd not seconds before, but it might as well have been a mistake on his part. Either way, the woman nodded, turning her head towards the room once again.
"Yes, sorry. You're right. I've gotten a little too heated," Nine said, looking at the man next to her. "I think a short break will do everyone well."

* * *

Ve didn't notice it. Not at first, at least.
"Shit," Ailbié Tier'ney said, quickly hiding the steel of ver long, runic dagger from the air vent's opening. Though ver reaction was merely seconds too slow, ve was sure the spark of pure irrilite ver weapon was made of was visible to at least one person within. Turning ver head towards the rest of the ten-person group located within the tight vent, ve asked: "Do you think they saw that?"
One of the other slowly nodded in agreement. "Yes, probably. Doesn't mean they'll care, though."
Turning ver slim Fae head towards the leader of the group, ve again corrected the ever-falling red berrett that for some reason kept falling of ver head. Ve never got why it always seemed to hate ver head, though ve always imagined it had to do something with how Fae heads were built differently from human ones. The slightly longer, pointy ears, large eye cavities filled with big, black eyes, and long necks connecting to the half-transparent wings located at their backs weren't exactly all that similar to human ones. But Ailbié didn't really care — the hat was somewhat a part of ver character of years now, and so was it always being slightly off.
Scratching ver short, green-like hair, ve closed ver eyes. It was going to be a moment until they were going to actually get down there — the Overseer still needed to get into a place vulnerable enough for them to strike effectively — so ve thought a quick nap would do ver good. If it was ver call, Ailbié would've attacked before the trial even began — but, probably fortunately, ve had no part in making the actual plans for the mission — She told them what to do, and they listened. Last time, She told them to reclaim a very specific place that had strategic value. This time, She told them to rescue the man being trialed beneath them. Why, they didn't know. They didn't need to understand; so long as they listened, all had always turned out well.
Closing ver eyes for good, Ailbié Tier'ney put ver hat over ver eyes, giving in to Morpheus' grasp.

* * *

"Apologies for the delay. I… I'm better now."
As the avatar of the Ninth Overseer appeared again before him, Asheworth flinched
"During the short pause, I've realized one thing," she said, continuing her habit of walking around Asheworth's chair. "The trial is essentially useless."
"We do not trial terrorists, and there's quite literally footage of this man being exactly that — a terrorist," she paused for a second. "So I truly believe I've gotten to a conclusion I do not think will surprise anyone."
As his heart started beating like a racing engine, Daniel looked nervously around himself, and then at the woman in front of him. The Overseer backed a little, snapping her fingers and scraching her head, reading to say something. His body responded in the only way it knew how — prepareness for battle.
"I, O5-9, with power given to me by my position as the Administrator of the SCP Foundation," Nine said with a towering voice, making sure everyone within the hall heard her, "Hereby sentence you, Daniel Robert Alliston-Asheworth," she paused, making Asheworth's heart skip a beat. "To death."
As the entire court exploded with chatter and protests, the red-suited man came forward, replacing the Overseer in standing in front of the judged. He grinned, and, coming closer, he put on two white gloves, almost identical to those Asheworth was wearing. He reached towards the thaumaturge's face, grnning almost unnoticeably as a red little spark appeared within the corner of his eye.
Daniel's thoughts raced, trying to literally do anything — he started moving in his chains, only to be met with failure. He screamed with frustration, only to be met with silence. He tried looking at the ones he cared for, only to be met with nothing more than disgust.
He closed his eyes, coming for the impact of the servant's hand. He knew there was no way out of this.
The moment the warmth of the man's hand felt millimeters apart from his face, a deafening shot suddenly filled Asheworth's ears. He opened his eyes, noticing the red-suited main falling down like ash. The man disintegrated like dust, leaving only his suit on the ground seconds after. Even though he was seemingly dead, Asheworth knew the demon wasn't gone for good. Not yet.
Looking for the source of the shot, his eyes noticed a ten-manned group of Fae appearing from within the vent directly above Nine's avatar, coming down into the room. Operating perfectly in-synch, they whistled a song he didn't understand, which seconds later resulted in most of the room falling asleep. The Overseer's avatar tried to reach for the alarm button, only for the display of her avatar to be smashed to pieces seconds later.
Suddenly, one of the walls of the hall exploded, opening a path to the outside — nine of the Fae walked towards it, with what appeared to be Jessie Rivera and Jeremy Cornwell's bodies located inside a cobweb-like cocoon, dragged in their hands. The only remaining warrior walked towards Asheworth, extending ver hand towards him.
"Come," the newcomer said, snapping ver fingers. As Asheworth looked directly into the glistering, almost transparent eyes of the Fae warrior, his chains shattered like glass, making him finally free.
"Why are you doing this?" Asheworth asked, trembling with a mixture of both fear and disbelief. "Why free me, why after all I've done to hurt your people?"
"She wants to see you," ve replied, starting to head towards the hole in the wall. Giving Asheworth a look turning ver head, it was clear ve isn't going to wait for him..
"W-Who is 'She'?"
"Our mother, but, to be fair, she is yours too," ve continued the walk, starting to whistle a weirdly calmful song. As ve stepped outside of the dark complex into the outside burning with bright light, suddenly, long and beautifully blooming vines entered the building through the hole, growing at a rapid pace. Staring in disbelief at the beauty that overtook the room in mere seconds, Asheworth stood up, looking in wonder at the growths. Taking a step outside, he was greeted by the warmth of sun, for a moment, feeling like he was once again happy.
The Fae looked at him as ve corrected ver hat, with a slight smile on ver face.
"Oh, and I think you call her Mother Earth."

* * *

???
???

He didn't feel it. Not at first, at least.
It was a weird feeling, what first met Damien Nowak after he woke up. Utter and overpowering calmness, to the point of being weird — but nothing really out of the ordinary. Something akin to what you think you felt as a child, taken from the deepest bowels of your memory. The feeling of that one time you were truly happy, extracted again onto your now-dead self.
It lasted for less than what felt like a week — though he wasn't sure that even was a week. A week of something akin to that state between sleep and the real world, experienced only in the back of your still asleep brain attaching itself to reality around itself — the feeling of being sentient enough to feel the beauty of this stasis, but not enough to realize he shouldn't be experiencing one. Not after death, at least.
That's when it hit him.
Like a wine stain on a freshly cleaned white shirt, he felt it. The Red, invading his rest within the place of rest. It was hard to explain what it was, other than that — Red, with a capital R. It was like all of the hate, anger, destruction, and jealousy within humanity had one common name — Red. That Red invaded his eternal bedroom, taking a grasp onto his resting soul, stealing it from Purgatory's final steps. If he could, he would scream.
Damien Nowak wasn't a weak man — he spent most of his life running away from people that didn't understand his goal wanting to murder him, most of the time in the worst ways possible. But that… it was too much for him. Even after all these years of hurt, feelings of guilt, and pain, the unbearable feeling of having the very essence of you being ripped with a cold hand, shattering the connections it had with you was just too much.
He didn't think a living organism could even imagine something similar. The closest he thought he could get to explaining it to a bystander was what having your spine torn out would feel like. Except it's happening to two million versions of yourself at the same time.
But what was the worst part of it was that he couldn't even give his executioner a face to hate — it was like nature itself wished to pain him for all he had wronged in his life, like an obsessive Fae sorceress stabbing the very nerves within her victim. He always realized some punishment was awaiting him after his end, but he at least hoped it would have a face to fault — but there, it just… felt like it was the world itself doing that, hurting him for the ways he had gone south in.
Well, that wasn't entirely true — but, to be fair, it wasn't a lie either. The moment he gave into the cold grab of the death of his personality, his character, his very being is when he saw it. A cold, young, calm, feminine face, with long blonde hair coming into it, eyes burning with a pure red. She took what was him and stole it into herself, merging the part of him that was Red into the Red that was already in her.
And the moment she closed the gates to his place of rest, leaving him an empty husk with no soul of his own, he heard the final words to ever grace his person.
"Ah, there you are," she said, with a sarcastic voice. "Was worried I won't even get it full for a second there."

SCP-5672

And Every Time We Meet Again

Somewhere Out There

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Ralliston's Works

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When the Sun Sets For Its Thousandth Time (+36) •

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PILOT EPISODE
EXT. WOODS - NIGHT
An empty, narrow trail winds through a dark Pacific Northwest mountain forest.
It's nearly silent.
A bicycle suddenly RATTLES down the path at breakneck speed,
throwing up greenery and dirt in its wake.
On the bike are three teenagers. A screaming bespectacled boy sitting on the handlebars,
a sharp-faced girl standing on the back pegs, and the driver, a coily-haired girl
focusing on the trail as she pedals. This is KENTA, RAI and ROSIE, all 16.
Behind them, flashlight beams cut through the trees, throwing long shadows over the underbrush.
Men shout indistinctly behind them.

RAI
They're getting closer-
KENTA
CAN YOU SLOW DOWN?!
ROSIE
We're almost there! We're gonna make it!
KENTA
We're gonna make it into an early grave, that's where we're gonna make it!
RAI
It'll be an earlier one if they get us first!
ROSIE
The road!

The woods clear in front of them, the trail taking a short, steep drop onto the street below.

RAI
YES!

An unmarked, black courier van suddenly screams to a stop directly in front of them. The three SCREAM-
CUT TO BLACK

INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - NIGHT
Rosie, Rai and Kenta sit on one side of a simple metal table. They're a mess; clothes dirty,
exposed skin scratched up, twigs and leaves in their hair. Kenta is leaning back in his chair,
blood streaming down his face from his nose. His eyes are already beginning to show bruising.
Rosie unties the bandana from around her neck and hands it to him.

ROSIE
…Sorry about your nose.
KENTA
(nasally)
It's fine. I've uh- had worse.
RAI
Have you?
KENTA
(tearfully)
Not really.

The three look up as a door opens. A man and a woman, both clad in nondescript suits,
enter and stand by the door. The three kids watch them nervously as the man looks at them
and makes three marks on a clipboard.

MAN
Five point four, sixteen point four, thirty-two point four.

The woman looks over the clipboard and nods. The two silently leave the room, leaving them alone again.

KENTA
…What do you think they're gonna do to us?
RAI
They're not gonna do shit to me. I'm not scared.
KENTA
Rosie?
ROSIE
I'm thinking.
RAI
Can you think faster?
ROSIE
I'm thinking as fast as I can!

The door lock clicks.
A man walks in. 5 o'clock shadow, hair a little overgrown. One half of his face is scarred with
an otherworldly fractal-like pattern, his left arm missing above the elbow.
His left eye is a solid black prosthetic. He might be handsome if he weren't so scary. WATTS, late 30's.
Watts slowly drags out the metal chair opposite the three teenagers,
not reacting to the agonizing SCREECH it makes against the floor.
He sits down heavily, slapping a manila folder onto the table.

WATTS
I only have one question.

Rosie stares him down.
The other two exchange a glance.
Watts leans closer menacingly.

WATTS
What time is it?

Rai and Kenta look confused. Rosie's stone face doesn't let up.
Watts glares at them. Slowly, Kenta glances at his watch.

KENTA
It's- um, it's three fifteen?

Watts drops his head into the table with a loud THUNK.

WATTS
THREE FIFTEEN. Why are you doing this shit so early?

Kenta grimaces, ashamed. Rai rolls her eyes. Rosie's face is unreadable.
Watts pries himself off the table, running his hand down his face.

WATTS
It's SUNDAY, you little psychopaths, what's WRONG with you?
KENTA
Sorry, Mr. Watts…
RAI
Hey, no, I'm not sorry for anything. We didn't do anything wrong.
WATTS
Oh no?
RAI
No! We were just-
WATTS
You were shooting off fireworks in the old water tower.

Rai opens her mouth, then closes it. Caught red handed.

WATTS
Come on, kid. You know we go through all the mail.
Nobody in the world orders this many Roman candles.

Kenta shoots Rai a look.

KENTA
Told you we should have split the order…
WATTS
I want to go back to bed. So… four weeks probation.
KENTA
(Horrified)
Four weeks?!
RAI
(Pleasantly surprised)
That's it?
WATTS
And no more blowing things up in the quarry.
RAI
(Horrified)
What?!
KENTA
But it's midterms in four weeks!
WATTS
That sucks. Should have thought of that before you
got me dragged out of bed at the ass-crack of dawn.

He waves a hand toward the door.

WATTS
Go home. Class starts at seven, we'll iron out the
details tomorrow. I mean- later today. Ugh.

The three stand up and make for the door as Watts spreads some of the papers out on the table.
He shouts out the open door.

WATTS
And can somebody out there get this kid some ice?
Or a tissue or something?
You all drove him all the way back here like that? Jesus…

Rosie is last out the door, keeping her head down.

WATTS O.S.
Nope. Not you.

Rosie freezes in the doorway.

WATTS
Talkin' to you, Hatcher. Sit down.

Rosie, still stonewalling, sits back down in the center of the three chairs.
Watts sighs, shaking his head.

WATTS
So you're the little ringleader of this operation.
ROSIE
Well, the others-
WATTS
That wasn't a question.

Rosie stares silently at him. Watts stares back. He taps a finger on the papers.

WATTS
Do you know who this is?

Rosie answers without looking.

ROSIE
My predecessor, Dr. Rose Hatcher One, the original-
WATTS
Wrong. Try actually reading them.

She looks down.
Paperclipped to some documents are two photos. One of a frightening angular
platinum-blonde woman in a lab coat, the other a broad-shouldered man in black tactical gear.
Rosie's neutral expression falters as her eyes spark with recognition.

WATTS
This is Dr. Raiden Key and Special Agent Kenta Fukushima.
The Point One versions.
ROSIE
It's so weird to see them… old.
WATTS
You should think about letting them get that way.
ROSIE
I'm not endangering them. I've never forced them to do anything.
WATTS
You have an influence over them. You're a leader,
maybe even more than your original. That's power, Hatcher.
You need to learn how to use it before one of you gets hurt.
ROSIE
They're their own people. I don't make choices for them.
WATTS
You know your whole brick wall schtick doesn't work on me, kid.
If you really didn't care, you wouldn't have let Kenta bleed
all over your scarf thing.
ROSIE
Don't worry, I'm not going to break any of our shiny new clones…
WATTS
Oh, knock that off. I'm trying to be sincere with you here.

He meets her gaze and holds the eye contact.

WATTS
You're smart. So don't be an idiot.

Rosie doesn't waver for a second.
Watts breaks first, gathering up the files.

WATTS
That's all I got. Go to sleep so you can get something
out of class tomorrow.

Rosie stands up and heads for the door.
As she leaves and her back turns to Watts, a guilty frown flashes across her face.

INT. FOUNDATION OFFICE - NIGHT
Rosie walks down the narrow, fluorescent-lit halfway toward the glass doors of the building.
Emblazoned on the doors, visible from the inside, is a stark circular logo.
Kenta and Rai are waiting for her. Kenta holds a bag of ice to his face.

ROSIE
You waited?
RAI
'Course we waited. What did Watts want?
ROSIE
Same old thing about responsibility and the
"future of the Foundation" and whatever.
RAI
They really have one speech, huh?
KENTA
I feel bad.
ROSIE
Don't. He can handle it.
RAI
God, you're gonna be a terrible hitman.
KENTA
I'm not going to BE a hitman. I'm gonna be a Special Agent.
RAI
Same difference.
KENTA
Ugh. What are we even going to do for the next four weeks?
There's nothing to DO here.
ROSIE
Don't worry.

She pushes the glass doors open into the night, a smile finally breaking across her face.

ROSIE
I have a couple ideas.

MONTAGE:
1. A harsh alarm rings. Rosie slams her hand down to silence it.
2. Rosie in a tank top and shorts, doing pullups on a wall-mounted bar.
3. She shoves books into a bag: Advanced Physics and Hamlet and Single-Source Thaumaturgical Exploitation.

INT. HOUSE BUCHANNAN CLASSROOM - DAY
Rosie is asleep at a desk, head resting on her arm.

TEACHER OFFSCREEN
HATCHER.

She starts awake. A few kids snicker quietly. She blinks, shaking her head.

TEACHER
Late night?
ROSIE
Sorry, ma'am.
TEACHER
Moving on.

The classroom is the open living room of a small house. Rows of desks face each other,
an aisle down the middle. Various teaching materials are hung on the walls and stacked in corners:
posters, textbooks, scientific equipment. Intermixed are strange devices and machines
that likely do not belong in any kind of school. One poster on the wall bears an image
of a humanoid black shape and reads “Shadow Entities: 1. Ignore, 2. Leave the area, 3. Report quickly.”
Across the aisle, Rai mouthes the words "Are you okay?" Rosie gives her a thumbs up.
Rosie looks down at her tablet on the desk. On the screen is a simple
illustration of what looks like a pipe bomb.

TEACHER
Can anybody tell me the difference between a
cognitohazard and an infohazard?

Kenta, eye sockets and nose bridge purple, raises his hand.

KENTA
An infohazard affects you if you know about it,
a cognitohazard effects you if you see it.
TEACHER
Not just see it. If you-
KENTA
If you perceive it, right.
TEACHER
If you perceive it. That means sight, hearing…

Rosie sighs as the teacher's words fade into the background.

INT. HOUSE BUCHANNAN CLASSROOM - AFTERNOON
The kids mill about, shoving their stuff into their desks and packing bags.
Another student (SCOTT, 16), approaches Rosie.

SCOTT
Hey, Hatcher. Heard you did the fireworks thing?
ROSIE
Yuuup.

Scott's tone is serious, but his eyes glint.

SCOTT
You really shouldn't be breaking the rules like that.
The water tower is super dangerous.

He subtly holds out his fist. She taps it.

ROSIE
I'll keep that in mind. Thank you for informing me of the danger.

He grins as he passes.

SCOTT
Glory for House Buchannan.
ROSIE
House Venture can suck it.

Rosie hangs back, scanning a bookshelf near the door. She pulls out a book and flips through it.
The pages are printed with different maps of the same area. She drops it into her backpack.

KENTA OFFSCREEN
Rosie!

Rosie throws an arm over Rai and Kenta's shoulders as they appear behind her,
the three of them walking out together.

ROSIE
You guys ready to go?
RAI
Onward to our punishment…
WATTS OFFSCREEN
Oy. Delinquents.

Watts stands below a tree on the sidewalk outside the house. A few of the
passing students wave to him, a couple jokingly saluting him. He largely ignores them.

STUDENT A
Hi, Mr. Watts!
STUDENT B
A's for the Grades God, right Mr. Watts?
WATTS
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Go do your homework.
You three! Come on. We're going to the Office.

The three kids follow after him.

EXT. TOWN - CONTINUOUS
NegaSeattle looks, on the surface, like any other western Washington small town.
One main road lined with small brick buildings, eventually petering out into
narrow branching single-lane roads leading to tiny houses, isolated among the pines under the gray sky.
But as the four make their way up the street, the differences become clear:
cameras on nearly every building, an armored car parked outside a post office,
most of the townspeople either very old or heavily scarred.
Some of the signs along the street edges have no text at all, just strange, intricate patterns.
Clusters of equipment are mounted on some of the roofs. Every few hundred feet,
a red-tipped Emergency pole with a phone handset mounted on it.
They approach the largest building at the end of the street, an old brick thing
with “TOWN HALL” etched into the stone above the doorway.

WATTS
After you.

Rosie opens the glass front door, the same one she exited the night before.

INT. FOUNDATION OFFICE - CONTINUOUS
Despite the century-old exterior, the inside of the building is updated to the highest standard.
Electric locks, bulletproof glass windows, cameras mounted on the ceiling, business casual everywhere.
Watts gestures them into a conference room.

ROSIE
Don't you have your own office by now?
WATTS
Ew. No. I don't want people to know where they can find me.
RAI
I bet they just won't give him one.
WATTS
I haven't dealt your probation restrictions yet,
don't push your luck.

The three sit down at the glass table.

WATTS
Wait here. I have to go get the paperwork.

The second he leaves the room, the three huddle together.

ROSIE
I have an idea. Should be totally probation-legal.
KENTA
What kind?
ROSIE
Exploration.
RAI
NICE.

Rosie pulls the book of maps out of her bag.

ROSIE
We'll use this.
KENTA
Is that here?
ROSIE
Yup. The whole valley.
WATTS OFFSCREEN
Alright, listen up, you little shits.

Rosie shoves the book back in her bag. Watts doesn't notice.

WATTS
Here are your parameters. 24-hour motion tracking on doors-

Rai smirks.

WATTS
AND windows.

Her smile drops.

WATTS
Like I said before, Quarry Bomb Club is banned until midterms ends,
even in daylight.

Rosie huffs, folding her arms.

WATTS
Nightly check-ins with your Floor Supervisor,
bi-weekly verbal check-ins with your House Supervisor, me.
And curfew, 9pm.
RAI
Bullshit.
WATTS
I can make it 8, if you want.
ROSIE
Nope! 9 is totally fine, actually.

Rosie elbows Rai.

ROSIE
9 works great for us.

Rai catches on and nods.

WATTS
Kenta? How about you?
KENTA
Works.
WATTS
Alright. Then sign these.
CHURCH OFFSCREEN
Watts.

Watts looks up toward the door, occupied by DIRECTOR CHURCH, early 60's,
a broad tank of a woman with graying brown hair.

CHURCH
I need to speak with you when you finish up.
WATTS
I've got time right now.
CHURCH
Outside.
WATTS
…Oh.

Rosie buries her face in her paperwork, but she's eyeing their nonverbal interaction.

KENTA
Done.
WATTS
Fast.
KENTA
Yeah.
RAI
Second.
ROSIE
Hang on,

She signs a messy signature at the bottom, pushing it across the table back to Watts.

ROSIE
Here.
WATTS
Great. You're free for the evening.
I'll see you all for check-in in a couple days.

The three kids hurry out of the room.

KENTA
What's in that book?
RAI
Yeah, what's your “homework” looking like?

Watts follows behind them, slower, rolling his eye. He catches Church's eye,
nodding toward the door. She holds up a finger, indicating him to wait.

EXT. TOWN - CONTINUOUS
Rosie plops down on a park bench, pulling the book out of her bag again.

ROSIE
Okay, circle up.

The others lean in close as she opens up the book to a map of the area.

ROSIE
This is NegaSeattle.
RAI
Yeah, we know.
ROSIE
I say, that since we're not allowed to go out at night,
we do something feasible in daylight. Before-9 light.

She jabs a finger onto one spot of the map.

ROSIE
Train tunnel.

Rai snorts.

RAI
There's no train tunnel. If there is, it's definitely
collapsed by now.
ROSIE
Yes, there is! Why would there be railway marks
on the map if there wasn't one?
RAI
Well, there WAS one, but not anymore!
It's probably just a pile of rocks now.
KENTA
No, it's still there.
RAI
No way. Says who?
KENTA
Garrison has been there.
RAI
Mr. Garrison lies about stuff ALL THE TIME.
KENTA
He wasn't lying about this!
ROSIE
Doesn't matter! It'll still be fun. And it's not even that far out,
if we take the bikes we can get back before 9, easy.
RAI
Except your bike.
ROSIE
Yeah, my bike is out.
KENTA
And ours are still at the water tower.
RAI
Yeah, they're not gonna let us go back out there.
ROSIE
Whatever. I'll get it cleared with Watts, he'll let us go.
It's light out, it's not like we're going after dark.
RAI
You ask him.
ROSIE
I will-
DONNA
KENTA FUKUSHIMA THE FOURTH.

Kenta squeezes his eyes shut.

KENTA
Oh, no…
DONNA
Young man, you have some EXPLAINING TO DO.

Approaching them is DONA, late 50's. She looks extremely exasperated.
Rai claps Kenta on the shoulder.

RAI
Rest in pieces, Kenta.
KENTA
Pray for me…
DONNA
I've been texting you ALL DAY.

Kenta stands up and shuffles over to her.

KENTA
I'm sorry, Dona…

She pulls him into a bone-crushing hug.

DONNA
They told me you got injured?! And you didn't TELL ME?!
KENTA
Hrnk-

She pulls back, looking closely at the bruising on his face.

DONNA
Look at you. What were you thinking? Come home.
Let me put something on it.
KENTA
I'm fine, Donna. We're supposed to stay in the House anyway.
Motion detection and stuff.
DONNA
Oh, I can set up motion detection.
I can baby-proof the apartment all over again.
KENTA
Alright.
DONNA
Plus, how good can the food in the House be?
KENTA
Not as good as yours.
DONNA
Damn right. Let's go home.

Kenta goes with her, waving over his shoulder at the girls. Rai laughs.

RAI
You told Griff yet?
ROSIE
‘Course I told Griff.
RAI
What'd he say?
ROSIE
Twenty extra pullups a day.
RAI
Not bad for him. Alright, I'm gonna go back to our room and unload.
You can talk to Watts about our bikes. Want me to take your stuff?
ROSIE
Sure.

She takes their bags and walks off down the street. Rosie stands up
and turns back to the office building.
As she approaches the stairs up to the doors, she stops, listening.

WATTS OFFSCREEN
I'm not sure. Maybe 64.
CHURCH OFFSCREEN
Site-64 wouldn't have space to accommodate them all.

Rosie creeps toward the corner of the building. Watts and Church are talking quietly in the alley.
She eavesdrops.

WATTS
I'm telling you, we've never seen an anomaly
of this scale originate from this Nexus before.
We need to move them until we at least figure out what it is.
CHURCH
Moving the children would be impractical and more dangerous than locking down the town.
WATTS
Church, come on. You know these kids practically
live in the woods. There's no way you can keep them all
in city limits without locking them up.
CHURCH
We'll get a team investigating as soon as we can.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Ira.
WATTS
I'm not “bringing it to your attention,” I'm telling you
we need to move the kids. For their safety.
CHURCH
(pointedly)
Thank you for your input, Mr. Watts.
But you're not directing this program.

Church heads for the exit of the alley and Rosie quickly hurries down the street away from them.
As Rosie walks toward the edge of town, her brow furrows thoughtfully.

EXT. FOREST EDGE - EVENING
The sun is lowering over the green mountains. It's not dark, but it will be soon.
Rosie stands on the back of Rai's bike as they look over the trail entrance.
They proceed down it, Kenta following behind, carrying a full backpack.

EXT. FOREST - CONTINUOUS
The three ride over the rough trail through the trees. It's not an easy route,
but they're clearly accustomed to mountain biking.

KENTA
So I brought snacks, water, a big light in case of shadow entities.
RAI
Pshh. Nobody is afraid of shadow entities.
KENTA
They're like wild animals, Rai. You don't have to be AFRAID of them,
you just have to be respectful.
ROSIE
Eventually we're gonna have to ditch the bikes and walk a ways.
KENTA
Mr. Garrison said the entrance is hard to see
because the area is so overgrown.
ROSIE
You got the tick remover?
KENTA
Of course.

Their travel continues. The woods are dense and vibrant green,
birds screech in the branches overhead.
Rosie taps Rai's shoulder.

ROSIE
Right here. We're gonna have to walk,
we need to go this way.

Kenta and Rai lock their bikes to a pair of narrow trees, and they start hiking through the brush.
The sun is going down, twilight setting in. They continue on, talking and laughing and
occasionally stopping to examine the map book.

KENTA
We should head back soon.
ROSIE
Yeah, we probably should.

Suddenly, Rai holds up a hand, shushing the others.

RAI
Wait, sshh-

They stop walking. Kenta slowly reaches into the bag and pulls out his flashlight.
Somebody is speaking nearby.
The three duck down into the bushes, watching down the hill.
Another trail crosses their path, and on it stands Watts, and a stranger wearing hiking gear.

RAI
…Is that a hiker? Like, a normal civilian hiker?
KENTA
That's impossible, how'd he get out here?
ROSIE
Ssshhh!

Watts and the hiker are talking. Watts looks tense. His voice is indistinct, but it's clear he's agitated.

ROSIE
He looks mad…
KENTA
Who IS that?
RAI
Do you think it's somebody from a Group of Interest?
ROSIE
Maybe it's something from the Nexus? Maybe somebody got teleported from someplace else?

They freeze as Watts slowly rests his hand on the gun at his hip.

KENTA
…We shouldn't be here.
RAI
Oh my god, he's strapped-
KENTA
We should go. You guys, we really should go.
ROSIE
No, I want to see what's happening!

She moves to get a better view.
Her hand displaces a small rock.
It CLATTERS down the hill.
The hiker looks up in their general direction,
Then back to Watts, shouting something.
The three kids huddle closer together, watching.
Watts moves to draw his gun.
In a fraction of a second, the hiker disarms him, tossing the firearm into the brush.
Watts throws up a guard, backstepping away.
The hiker throws a punch, landing it, even from several feet away.
The hiker hits with an impossible amount of force, practically laying Watts flat out on the ground.
Rosie and the others watch, frozen.
Watts jumps to his feet, but the hiker tackles him, pinning him down.
Kenta grabs Rosie by the back of her shirt.

KENTA
(whispering)
We need to go. WE NEED TO GO.

Rai and Rosie scramble to their feet, trying as quietly as possible to back up from the top of the hill.
Rosie looks over her shoulder.
Watts grunts as he tries to push the hiker off him.
The hiker's hand presses against Watts' face.
His pinky finger slips under the edge of Watts' prosthetic eye.

WATTS
NO-!

Kenta and Rai look back at the sound of Watts' scream,
Just as the force of the hiker's hand on his face forces his prosthetic out of the socket.
From Watts' empty socket glows a blinding, flashing array of headache-inducing colors.
The colors reflect in Rosie's pupil.
All three kids are bowled off their feet, clutching their heads.
Rosie is the first to stand back up.
Her vision swims for a moment, she blinks, eyes focusing.
The illusion of the hiker has been dissolved, replaced by a huge, iridescent monster.
Most of it is a huge, geometric undulate-like skull, facial features replaced with
a mirage-like void of prismatic color. The air hums around it.
Gleaming white and skeletal limbs manifest from the cracked reality around it.
One of these clawed hands, joints bending the wrong ways, holds Watts down
by his head.
The three teenagers stare in horror.
Rai starts to scream.
Rosie slams her hands over Rai's mouth, but not quick enough.
The creature's enormous head swivels, mind-numbing face pointed directly at them.
Watts sees them too, the color draining from his face.
He uses the distraction, knocking away the monster's claw and rolling to his feet, covering his cognitohazardous eye with his hand.

WATTS
GO! RUN!

At his direction, the three of them take off into the woods.
The monster SHRIEKS behind them, a high-pitched noise that makes Kenta slam his hands over his ears.
Rosie, Rai and Kenta tear through the forest, thoughts of stealth totally gone.
They reach the bikes quickly, Rai's hands shaking as she tries to work the lock.

ROSIE
Hurry! HURRY!
RAI
I-I can't!

Kenta grabs her arm and starts dragging her down the trail,
dropping his backpack off his shoulders.

KENTA
No time, we have to run!

They do. They sprint down the trail.
Low branches scratch their faces.
Thorns catch their clothes.
Kenta trips, sprawling out on the ground before Rosie yanks him back to his feet.
They keep running.

EXT. FOREST EDGE - SUNSET
The three burst out onto the street, breathing raggedly.
Rosie runs for a wide metal pole, the top portion painted bright red.
She grabs the attached phone, ripping it out of its cradle.

ROSIE
EMERGENCY CODE CHARLIE-509! U-unidentified
hostile anomaly spotted, uh- northwest of town, about- um-
KENTA
Two miles?
ROSIE
Like, two miles northeast of town!
OPERATOR
Status?
ROSIE
Three unharmed, but it's got Watts, please hurry!
OPERATOR
Stay where you are.

MONTAGE:
1. An agent straps some kind of gun to their chest.
2. A heavy black car screams out of a garage.
3. Two teenagers are asleep on a bunk bed. Their door's deadbolt locks on its own.

EXT. FOREST EDGE - CONTINUOUS
Out of a smaller black car comes an armored figure, approaching Rosie, Rai and Kenta
as they stand huddled together next to the Emergency phone.

AGENT
You three again? This had better not be some kind of-

In the growing dark, she sees their absolutely petrified expressions and her tone softens.

AGENT
Oh. Okay, all three of you, separate. Arms out.

They comply, holding their arms out as the Agent scans them with a small-screened device.

AGENT
Hm. You've definitely been exposed to something.
It looks minor, though, nothing unusual for this area.
There's a team sweeping the woods.
Can you tell me what happened?
ROSIE
There was a-
WATTS OFFSCREEN
That really got you guys, didn't it?

Rosie slowly turns to look over her shoulder.
Walking out of the woods, down from the trail they came from, is Watts.
He's partially obscured in shadow.

AGENT
Sir,
WATTS
Real sorry, Agent. This one's a false alarm.
ROSIE
What-?
AGENT
What's going on?
WATTS
They got way too close to a shadow entity.
Accidentally. Scared the shit out of ‘em.

He chuckles. Rosie and the others are shocked into silence. The Agent sighs.

AGENT
Ugh. This is why we teach you about these things.
WATTS
Wasn't their fault. They didn't see where it was until
they were right up next to it.
ROSIE
Wait, no, it wasn't a…

Watts steps closer to the group, into the light from the streetlamp.
Rosie's face pales.
Watts has both his eyes.
She looks back toward the Agent, to see if she notices the faint, iridescent shimmer around his body. She doesn't seem to.
Rosie closes her mouth tight.

KENTA
Mr. Watts…?

Rai elbows him. The three exchange the same look of terrified realization.

WATTS
Hatcher.

Rosie looks over at him. He hands her the map book, streaked with mud.

WATTS
You dropped this.

She takes it, deliberately not looking into his face.

WATTS
Sorry for the inconvenience. Tch, kids, right?
Take them back to the Buchannan and I'll explain
to the team when they get back.
AGENT
Thank you, sir.

Rosie, Rai and Kenta follow the Agent back to the car, not daring to look back at Watts.
They pile into the back seat and the car pulls away.
Rai takes Rosie's hand. Rosie takes Kenta's.
She turns to look back out the rear window.
Watts watches the car like a hawk beneath the streetlamp, casting
a long shadow into the dark.

END OF PILOT