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Chapter I.II

Thanksgiving dinners these last sixteen years have been quieter than I would have expected. He never complained, but I picked up that his children happened to be a bit more influenced by their mom. Tim itched to invite people to any and all events. Mardi Gras parties, Fourth of July parties, and New Year's parties weren't so unusual, but he wanted to have the same treatments for Christmas and Thanksgiving. Tim was very much a "the more the merrier" type. But other influences won out. He was forced to spend the holidays with family, and family alone.
One year, just through the flow of natural conversation, Anders asked Tim something like, "hey, if you grew up in San Diego, how come you didn't end up a city kid?" Tim smiled, and chewed his bite faster so he could answer. He said, as soon as he was able to, that he was almost a "city rat." He said he was this close. But then he enthusiastically told us the story of his first trip to the San Diego Zoo, when he was very, very little.
As my dad got older he started to have a love-hate relationship with zoos. In a way, I'm certain that's why he ran the Shelter the way he did, why it turned into what it is now. Tim had actually never been to a zoo until he was about eight. You'd think someone like my dad might as well have been born in one, but it took him surprisingly long to even visit.

* * * * *

He told us that he was in love with the city at first. That Elliot later told him about how he'd point at all the big buildings and ask about them. A particularly funny story was that Tim would practice his knowledge of colors by pointing at the cars on drives and shout out "blue!", "red!", "yellow!" Tim even had some memories of asking to take the subway — a place he grew to hate later in life. In kindergarten, they were asked to draw their dream house, and he remembered that his was in the suburbs. A place that he disliked even more than subways, by the time of this conversation.
So, what changed was that he had come home from school one day with a paper in hand, a permission slip stating that his teacher, Mr. Benson, was planning a field trip. Tim had always had a soft spot for animals, what with growing up with a veterinarian for a mother and a taxidermist for a dad, not to mention his honorary uncle Hank talking to him about bugs and other critters all the time, but this seemed out of this world to him. Dad's mind raced as he thought of all the weird and wonderful animals he had seen in grandpa's shop or on Hank's books.
Deer, bears, chimpanzees, hippopotamuses, maybe even some lions and tigers?
The possibilities were endless.
Though I can't say for sure whether or not little Tim was positively vibrating with excitement, I like to think he had to be strapped down once he was told Grandpa Elliot signed off on the field trip form. Tim's always been an easy one to get excited. Just thinking about how he must have been during the wait between the permission slip going out and the day he finally went makes me feel a little bad for his parents.
So, a young Tim Wilson, eyes full of wonder, stepped into the San Diego Zoo one fateful morning. He heard the distant trumpeting of elephants, the singing birds, and the screeching monkeys as he passed under the arches. As you might imagine, he was one of the first to dart out into the place once Mr. Benson dismissed everyone.
I remember him telling us that the very first place he went to was the primate enclosure.
Tim thought that monkeys and apes were just hilarious. He thought they looked funny, he thought they made funny noises, he thought they had funny walks. As a young boy, he thought the fact that some of them had colorful butts was just about the greatest thing in the world. So, using the buddy system, he and a friend dashed over, to admire the ridiculousness of the apes.
The first beauties they came across were the gorillas. They were large, they were funky looking. To a city dweller like Tim, it was a dream. Sure, you were taught that these were real in schools, but you never thought they actually existed until you saw them. No picture book details just how strong a gorilla actually is — nothing can prepare you for their size, or their coarse hair, or the grunts that they let out every once in a while. These were things that you just have to experience for yourself, or you'll never understand them.
So of course, Tim pointed and laughed, and went on to the chimpanzees.
They were lanky, and louder. They shouted, they swung around; they were even better than the gorillas. They had big scary teeth, but there was a strong fence between Tim and the chimps, and they didn't scare him at all. He had heard that they threw poop sometimes, and that was another thing that Tim thought was unbelievably funny. He pointed, he laughed, he joked. Onto the next.
Tim said that this continued for some time, but some sort of influence was coming over himself as he walked. Kids are not known for their introspective abilities, and one might argue that they are more subconscious than conscious. So, at the time, Tim of course had no idea what was going on. But, looking back, this was how he described it.
With each passing exhibit, there was this nagging idea, this idea that, even though he wasn't there, there was somewhere that these animals weren't in cages. Somewhere that they were roaming about — some in dense jungles, some in wide open plains. Some in tundras. Some in deserts. Some animals swam in the great big oceans, some things hid in the forests, some things spent most of their time in the air and migrated. Some were made for the mountains. Some were made for lakes, rivers, and creeks. Some disappeared for winter. Some lived on the arctic ice caps. Some were built for the savannas of Africa. Some lived on the great plateaus, or in deep canyons. Some were even made for caves.
But over time, Tim realized that none were made for the city.
There were no flightless birds in the streets, unless you counted injured pigeons.
There were no furry den dwellers in the houses, unless you counted rats and mice.
There were no animals getting fat for winter, there were no frogs spreading their eggs on the bottom of leaves, there were no birds of paradise, there were no canopy dwellers, there was nothing.
What this looked like, taking place in the mind of an eight year old, is of course up to speculation. It couldn't have dawned so clearly, but it couldn't have been nonexistent either. Each enclosure yielded less laughs, less pointing, and came with more wonder, more wide eyes, more "wow."
Was there any other animal with a neck as long as the giraffe?
Was there any bird more imposing than the bald eagle?
Was there any mammal larger than an elephant?
Soon enough, Tim had forgotten he was on a field trip, which became a problem when he lost his buddy and they had to go searching for him. They found him with his face pressed up against the glass, looking at a massive yellow python. They practically had to pry him away from it, because he wasn't going peacefully. On the bus ride home, Tim berated everyone with animal facts. Did you know that the platypus is a mammal that lays eggs? Did you know that a snake can unhinge its jaw to eat? Did you know that an octopus can fit through any hole that's not smaller than its beak?
But Tim soon realized that no one else had become enchanted in the same way. It must have been his background with animals, that made him inclined to be so taken by them. But Tim did not have that thought at the time. All he saw were people who didn't understand the beauty of the world around them — put in much more kid-appropriate terms, of course.
He was discouraged, and unhappy.
When he got back to school, and got picked up by Elliot, he asked:
"Why do we live here?"
To which Elliot responded:
"Because I work here."
But as Tim looked out at the buildings, and the streets, and the bridges, and the streetlights, and the stoplights, and the bus stops, and the apartments, and the sidewalks, and the gutters, and the grates, and the manhole covers, and the intersections, and the signs, and the art installations, and the murals, and the houses, and the perfectly bland lawns, and the front door, and the entryway, and the living room, and the television, and the hallway, and his bedroom, and his bed… all of a sudden, San Diego didn't seem all that magical anymore.

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Somewhere in "Bumfuck" Jalisco, Mexico
Agents Sam Denton and James McDowell sat across the table from Cpt. Giancarlo DeLuca and Cpt. Rexivus Donnarson of MTF's Beta-6 and Omega-88 respectively. The four of them were seated at the dusty corner table of a cantina in bumfuck Jalisco somewhere near Cuidad Guzman. The sound system skipped every few beats, in time with the pulsing of the lights as the barman flipped channels on the TV behind the bar. In front of them were drinks conspicuously lacking alcohol.
Cpt. Donnarson lifted his ginger ale, and took a quick sip, rocking the tiny compass in front of him back and forth. "What time did the Director say he'd be here?" He looked over at the two agents with an inquisitive eyebrow. His cargo pants and light linen shirt were relatively unremarkable.
Denton shrugged, and gently flicked the empty glass of water in front of him, "He didn't. He said we all needed to be here by oh-eleven hundred today." He lifted his phone out of his pocket, and started thumbing away at some game to pass the time. He leaned back in his chair slightly, obviously bored. His khakis and heavy canvas shirt was more appropriate for the set of Indiana Jones, but not horribly out of place.
Cpt. DeLuca sat at relative attention. The oldest of the group assembled, he was the odd man out in the group. He hadn't worked with the Oathkeepers often, and never with the two agents in front of him, "I don't suppose anyone would know why myself and Kowalczyk were called in for this assignment? We're fairly…specialized." He lifted his glass of seltzer, and pointed at the sword sitting neatly beside the table against the wall. "I can't remember the last time that we met with the Director personally, either." His combat fatigues stood out starkly from the more casual agents at the table.
Jim leaned forward, and squinted suspiciously, "Y'know, I don't know, but I have to admit I'm curious. What out here would require a bunch of sword-guys." His glass was full of gummy bears which matched nicely with his loud hawaiian shirt, and sunglasses. His flip flops had long since become part of the floor. Three hours of waiting around had eroded whatever professionalism Jim barely possessed.
Cpt. Deluca frowned slightly, "Swordsmen, McDowell. I've read your file. Please don't try and get under my skin. Same side here." He tossed back the last of his water, and got up to get a refill from the bar, slipping a hefty tip on the bar with his glass as an apology to the barman.
Several dozen minutes of mindless chit-chat later, and the heavyset form of Director Diaghilev opened the door, trailing Lt. Kowalczyk and Lt. Arnason behind in combat fatigues. Andrej had his sword in his hand, held loosely. Their motions were business-like, as they joined the assembled party at their table. Ruslav held up a hand, and said in flawless spanish, "Alejandro, tequila please. And another round for my friends here, whatever they're having." The lieutenants approached the bar and placed their orders, before taking their places alongside their captains, casually scanning the room as they did. "Now then, I apologize for the wait. We got side tracked around Guadalajara. Took significantly longer to establish the Way here than I expected." There was a chorus of murmured responses to the positive from around the table.
Sam leaned back, and crossed his arms, "There's a lot of firepower here at this table, Director. What are we here for, exactly if you don't mind me asking?" His eyes were focused behind his glasses, fixing Ruslav with an eagle-eyed glance.
Ruslav rumbled a chuckle under his breath, and held up a hand in a placating gesture, "Let me have a drink and settle in before we get down to business, Da?" As his hand descended, a subtle stirring of the aetheric currents chilled the air around them from something resembling a tar fire to a more manageable temperature. "Until then, we can enjoy some conversation? How were your journeys?"
Rex smirked, and rolled his eyes, "I was with you when I started, Director. About six blocks from here. I don't know exactly how you got sidetracked a couple hundred miles in six blocks, but my particular journey was pleasant enough." He flipped his phone over, checking his notifications momentarily, before leaning back.
The overhead fan creaked in slow circles as the barman approached the table, laying the drinks in front of the members of the assembled party, and collecting empty glasses. He gave McDowell a glare and tipped another bag of gummy bears in to his wide-mouthed wine glass. Jim beamed at the barman without a trace of affectation. "Sam and I got here alright. Flight was unremarkable, and for once we didn't have to kick down any doors, which is good, considering goober here forgot half our gear back at the Site."
Sam threw his hands up and rolled his eyes, "Jesus Christ Jim, I told you, we could only check a single bag. I asked you to pack light so we could bring more gear, but nooo!" He turned his entire body toward Jim, setting his jaw.
"Jesus Christ yourself! Why are you always trying to save money anyway, we don't pay for our own travel! At all! Skippy issued us black cards for things like this, remember?" Jim turned as well, stuffing a handful of gummy bears in his mouth. The two continued to argue relatively animatedly while the rest of the conversation continued.
"I think we can begin director. If you'd secure our conversation?" Captain DeLuca smiled pleasantly and sipped his seltzer, placing his sword under the table at his feet.
The Director nodded, and made a slight gesture with his left hand. The arguing between Denton and McDowell continued as a dull buzz behind the group, as they settled forward slightly. "Thank you agents, captains, lieutenants for joining me all the way out here. We have a situation." He paused. "Well, three situations. I need all three of your groups to assist me."
The Director reached into a pocket on the front of his shirt, and removed three micro SD cards. He handed one to Cpt. DeLuca, Cpt. Donnarson, and to Sam. "These have all the information you need in them. High-level, Rex, you and I are going to go investigate an anomaly relating to a local deity. Possible alchemic involvement."
Rex nodded, and slipped the SD card in to his phone, thumbing through files.
"Giancarlo, you and Andrej are going to investigate a local demonoarcotic ring. They're calling it 'Ash' and it's already caused all kinds of hell for the agents in Site-118. They've got some kind of demons guarding their production facilities, wielding swords and near-on immune to bullets. You'll be linking up with elements of MTF-Sigma-16." The two swordsmen nodded, and leaned in over Cpt. DeLuca's tablet, studying the video feed of their opponents, searching for any weaknesses in their fighting style.
"Sam, Jim, you two have the hardest task. We have a diplomatic situation among two of the nations of non-terrestrial alchemic creatures." He drew out a drawing of a stylized piñata, covered in sequins, and trailing ribbons and silk instead of the usual paper decorations. "You are to find, and investigate the cause of the disappearance of La Mariposa de Meseta's first Daughter's quinces piñata. All signs currently point to this being a sign of war with the Pine Barren Confederation. It goes without saying that we can't have open warfare between the Chupacabra, and the Jersey Devils."
Sam and Jim blinked nearly in unison. Sam leaned forward, "Okay, did you just say Chupacabra?" Jim tilted his head to the side, blinking and opening his mouth several times, before saying, "I'm more concerned about the fact you just said 'Jersey Devil'. We're talking the hockey team?"
Director Diaghilev smiled, and stood, leaning forward to grip them both firmly on the shoulders, "They're nice folks, the Devils! I have every confidence you'll be able to handle this with tact, and grace. The Foundation needs this done gentlemen, and I told them you're my best agents for the job." He stood, and turned to leave with the rest of the Foundation personnel. The two agents were left alone at the table.
Jim sank down in his chair, staring into the middle distance, "Sam?"
Sam took a long swallow of his Inca Cola, and breathed out a long breath, "Yeah Jim?"
"You do realize I don't even speak Spanish right?" Jim said, stuffing another handful of gummy bears in his mouth.
Sam nodded idly, "Jim?"
"Yes Sam?" he said, slipping his feet back in to his flip flops.
"I think they stuck us with the check, too." Sam said, his head gently tapping the table in front of them repeatedly.

Sam and Jim streaked across the dusty ground towards the home of La Chupacabra, which according to the files they'd been given was within a hollowed out mesa around a hundred and fifty klicks outside of town. Jim was driving, his hawaiian shirt flapping in the wind streaking through the top of their rented Jeep. They'd tried to get something with airconditioning, but even with the near-infinite resources of the Foundation, some things were impossible. The best they could get was a cloth top old beater which they promptly removed the top from. Sam was reading diplomatic files on La Chupacabra trying to cram in as much of their culture as possible.
“So, if I'm reading this right, they're a mishmash of various traditions from their own culture, as well as indigenous and Mexican cultures. They're matrilineal, nearly all their leaders are women, except for a few positions which are always male. I don't think we'll have much of a language barrier, at least,” Sam said, one arm hanging out the side of the Jeep. He looked up as they approached the Mesa in the distance. There was an obvious trail laid out to the base of the structure that started about ten kilometers out.
Jim drove up the dirt trail which gave way to packed gravel eventually. He slowed to a halt as they approached the blank face of the Mesa, several hundred feet tall. Sam hopped out of the car, followed by Jim on the other side, their footsteps kicking up red dust from the ground.
Both of the Aethero-Thaumic reactive rings on their fingers began to buzz as something stirred in the air around them. A quiet voice squeaked out of a crack in the wall, in lightly accented English, “Who approaches the demesne of La Chupacabra?”
Jim nodded at Sam, who stepped forward. “My name is Sam Denton, and this is Jim McDowell. We were sent by The Foundation at the request of the Matriarch. I believe we're expected?”
A moment later, a quiet grinding sound emanated from the stone, which pulled away and rolled to the side. Beyond the doorway was some kind of garage, with several vehicles parked there. Several hunched creatures worked in the darkness beyond, and neither Sam nor Jim could get a good look. They climbed back into the Jeep and slowly rolled through the doorway, which ground closed behind them.
“Think we're gonna die now?” Jim said quietly.
“Shut up Jim,” Sam said, rolling his eyes in the darkness.
A series of lights winked on in the darkness, leading them to a parking space. Jim parked, reaching back to grab the heavy duffel bag behind his seat. Sam grabbed his and stepped out of the car once more, slinging the heavy gear bag over his shoulder. The pair followed the lights to an elevator in the back of the garage, which stood empty. They walked in, and turned to face the door. The top floor was already lit up.
As they ascended up the mesa, Sam turned to Jim, “Hey, you did remember at least to pack some of the weapons right?”
Jim nodded, all traces of humor gone, “We've got a couple of sidearms, a rifle, a baton, a few gadgets, and if we can find a place to change clothes, I did manage to pack all of our body armor.”
Sam smiled slightly, “Jim, I knew there was a reason I put up with your bullshit.”
Jim rolled his eyes, “My bullshit? Says the guy who flew economy when he wasn't paying for the flights.”
The doors opened in front of them, to a large open air plaza. The top of the mesa had been completely hollowed out, and inside there were thousands of Chupacabra walking about. The ceiling was some form of projection, but neither agent could tell if it was technological, thaumic, or alchemic in nature.
The Chupacabra were squat, heavyset creatures. Even the most cursory glances told both men there was going to be no trouble telling the sexes apart. The male Chupacabra were burly and walked on heavy clawed hands, similar to the various bits of folklore that surrounded their civilization. The females stood on two legs, with long fingers, each wearing brightly colored braids in their short wiry hair. The males were relatively unadorned.
Barely ten seconds had passed before they were approached by two males and a female. The same lightly accented voice came out of the male on the left, strangely delicate. “Agents, I presume? Welcome to Mesa Mariposa, thank you for coming.”
The female stepped forward, her voice deeper and more richly toned, “Yes, thank you. I know that our city is hardly a priority, and we appreciate your time and energy. I am Denira.”
Sam smiled, and stepped forward, nodding. “It's our pleasure. I am Sam Denton, and this is Jim McDowell. Would you be so kind as to take us to La Mariposa de Meseta? I'd like to get started as soon as is feasible.”
The female nodded quickly, and gestured for them to follow, walking quickly through the crowded streets. Sam and Jim were taller than most of the creatures there, who nodded at them respectfully as they passed.
Denira lead them to a tall spire that extended almost the entire way to the ceiling, waving her hand to the two large males at the door. They nodded respectfully as well, and let them pass without incident.
A few minutes of walking through various corridors, and up several flights of stairs saw them conveyed to a relatively austere office, for lack of a better word. The room itself, like most of the buildings they'd seen was hewn out of the rock itself, and all of the furniture was either made of the same stone, or wood.
Inside, a taller individual stood waiting for them, looking out the single glass paned window in the office, out over the desert vastness. She turned, and regarded the agents warmly, her deep-set black eyes glittering. “Hello, Agents. I'm pleased to see that The Foundation takes our treaty seriously. I must admit, I was a little worried we'd be given a polite demuration, and be on our own.”
Jim took a step forward, and bowed his head until it was just below her hairline, a Chupacabra sign of respect, “First Mother, La Mariposa. It's an honor to be allowed to your home, and to help you in your time of need. The Foundation respects all of its agreements to the letter and the spirit. We have come bearing gifts, and humbly ask that you receive them.” A single bead of sweat coasted down the back of Jim's head and into his shirt, as he prayed silently that he'd gotten that right.
The First Mother clicked her tongue in amusement, and walked around the desk, “Oh my! You've both been studying, haven't you! I haven't had a formal greeting like that in twoscore years! That was delightful! Of course I'll accept your gifts, I'm very impressed.”
Sam stepped forward, and reached in to the side compartment of his duffel bag, pulling out a relatively expensive bottle of mescal, and a jar of Nopales preserves. He held them out, and nodded deeply as well. “I hope you like them, I was informed you were particularly fond of the nopales.”
She took both from Agent Denton, and made another clicking sound, “They truly are, even if my doctor doesn't want me having them anymore. Too much vegetation in my diet, she says.” She placed them on her desk, next to her laptop, and regarded them solemnly.
“So, to the matter at hand. My daughter is turning 15. This is a significant event in a young female's life in our culture. It's our coming of age, so to speak. My daughter will be formally recognized as an adult, and take her last few actions as a child. The most important of which is the piñata.”
Sam held up a hand, his brows knitting slightly, “I'll admit, my cultural study was fairly brief, what exactly is it used for in this celebration?”
“It's a symbol more than anything else. It's dressed up in bright colors, with sequins and streamers. All of the trappings of childhood. The female then gives it one last embrace, and leaves it behind, as she does childish things. A young female will work on her piñata from the time she is a very young female, usually four or five years old.”
Sam nodded, “I see, and Director Diaghilev mentioned that your daughter's piñata had gone missing?”
The First Mother shook her head, the beads and bones in her hair producing an odd clicking sound as she did. Agent McDowell winced slightly at the noise, which gave him immediate tinnitus, and set his ring buzzing alongside Agent Denton's. “It didn't go missing, it was stolen. It hasn't moved from our house since she began creating it ten years ago.”
Jim fingered his chin for a moment, “Maybe I'm not getting something, but if I understand this correctly, the piñata only holds value to her, right? What would someone want her piñata for?”
The First Mother spread the fingers of her right hand, claws slowly extending from the fingertips, a gesture of anger. “Someone is trying to stop her from taking her place among the junior council as is her birthright. Without that piñata, she cannot be recognized, and she won't begin to work her way up our society. I believe my political enemies might have sabotaged her coming of age.”
The two agents shared a significant glance, and nodded one after another. “Let's see your residence, and we'll get started.”

After a few sweaty hours Sam and Jim had a working theory about what happened, but needed to stake out the First Mother's home overnight to confirm it. Sam and Jim sat in the darkness behind their house, with their backs to the exterior wall of the First Daughter's room. They were vigilantly passing the time by idly flicking playing cards in to a sombrero they'd bought at a novelty shop within the Mesa.
Both of them had changed out of their tourist gear, and in to their regular combat gear. Sam had packed heavy this time to Jim's light. He had on a pair of heavy boots with several surprises built in. His cargo pants had impact panels along the shins and thighs, each of which had several concussive charges built in. A heavy impact vest covered by thick kevlar protected his chest, and a tactical lens was in front of his left eye. The heavy polymer and metal gloves he wore restricted his finger movements, so he was losing, badly.
Jim, on the other hand, wore combat boots, cargo pants, and a lighter chest armor, with a gently glowing backpack on his back. There were small wires and hoses which fed down to metal devices on his legs and arms. The only heavy gear he wore was a specially reinforced helmet.
“So, you sure she's gonna do this tonight again,” Sam said, flicking a card, poorly. It landed several feet away.
Jim nodded, the tactical lens bobbing in the darkness, “Yep. There's a dozen unique signatures leading to the same place, all equally decayed. I'd be surprised if she hasn't been opening a Way every night for the past month.”
Above their heads a slowly rotating blue device was affixed to the wall. It pulsed with stored aetheric energies, prepared by the Director himself.
Another half hour passed, before Sam and Jim heard quiet chanting on the other side of the wall, through the window. Sam held up a hand, and lifted it, slowly standing, his back still against the exterior wall, to the right of the window out of sight. Jim mirrored his actions, leaning against the right side.
The First Daughter's chant reached a high point, and a rushing of wind indicated the opening of a Way on the interior of the wall they were leaning against. The blue alchemic device lit up, and popped out from the wall, mirroring the same working against the exterior wall, opening an identical way which Sam and Jim fell back through.
Sam and Jim rolled with the falling motion, drawing their weapons and holding them out in front of them.
The sun peaked out over the horizon as they came up in a forest, with a dozen angry faces pointed their general direction.
Jim sighed, and cracked his neck idly, “Fucking time dilation.”

The air was tense as the two agents stood weapons drawn against the alien faces in front of them.
Myriad wings and hooves thrashed at the air, menacing the pair as whatever creatures they faced prepared to attack. Sam took up position a pace behind Jim, and set his jaw, “Alright look, we're not here to fight, we're just looking—”
The nearest creature screeched and lunged forward, claws flashing from both hands. Jim took a pair of steps forward, and snapped a side kick in to the creature's jaw, the backpack letting out a blue burst of light, his foot accelerating sharply at the apex of impact. The creature hit the ground hard, and Sam trained his rifle on it, prepared to put it down.
McDowell held up a hand, holding his heavy pistol, “Wait, Denton, I think I know what these are.” He turned and faced down the rest of the crowd, who had been stunned by the rapid violence Jim had perpetrated on their compatriot. “We're not here for a fight, I didn't even realize we were in New Jersey, we just—” Sam holstered his pistol, and held up his hands.
The crowd took this as a signal to attack. Sam's brain finally clicked, and he dropped the rifle, drawing the collapsible baton at the small of his back. A flick of the wrist brought it to full length, and he slammed the bottom of it against his thigh impact panel, shattering the small glass sphere set in to the base.
A crackle of electricity flowed down the baton, as Sam shoulder-slammed one of the creatures out of the way, and pivoted on his right foot to bring the baton down and over another's head.
Jim took a couple of floating steps forward, and happily headbutted one of the goat-headed creatures, the heavy helmet protecting his head. The Jersey Devil in front of him wasn't so lucky. It crumpled and Jim stepped over the body, delivering a roundhouse kick to the Devil behind it. His hands and feet blurred as the aetheric energy from the equipment fed into his nervous system and muscles, dropping the creatures left and right.
Sam drew out a couple of small discs from his belt, and flung them towards the last two Devils as they finally worked up the courage to join the fight. A green blast of energy escaped the discs and the two Devils fell unconscious in a deep, restful sleep.
Sam and Jim cleared their targets. Sam looked over at Jim, “Aren't the Jersey Devils supposed to be friendly?”
Jim shrugged, and recovered his rifle, “Maybe the Hockey Team are the friendly ones?” He tapped the tactical lens' activation stud a couple of times, switching to aetheric tracking. “I think she went this way.”

Several minutes of trudging through New Jersey Pine Barrens later, they came upon The First Daughter, sitting on a log near a small pond. They stopped several meters behind The First Daughter. Jim cleared his throat, causing her to turn, and gasp at the two Agents.
“Well now, little lady, I think you're going to have some explaining to do,” Sam leveled his taser at her chest, his finger off the trigger. “I don't want to hurt you, but you need to come back and explain why you've been opening a Way out here every ni—”
A roaring yell split the night as another Jersey Devil glided out of the trees above them. Sam stood his ground, and stomped his back foot down into the soft soil below, anchoring him to the ground with the impact spikes built into the heel, locking his arms forward, the heavy gloves locking in to the pads on his forearms, biceps and shoulders to form the better part of a roadblock in place.
Jim sprinted forward, the backpack glowing brighter as it fed aetheric and thaumic energies in to the panels on his gear, accelerating his movements. He jumped over Sam's right shoulder, vaulting off of his stiff right arm, and full-body tackled the Devil gliding towards his partner.
He impacted with a smacking sound, and they both went down easier than Jim expected. The thing couldn't have weighed more than a buck-twenty, and had switched from roaring to high pitched squealing and squeaking sounds.
Sam thought they'd injured the poor thing before he realized it was English, just in a cracking teenage voice.
“I swear to god, if you hurt her, I'm gonna fuck you up! They're not even gonna find the fuckin' body, I know a guy I swear to fucking christ!” The Devil screeched at them, it's voice cracking from deep to high pitched.
Jim held the thing down, and frowned, “You done? None of us are hurting anyone, except for you, if you don't shut up.” The creature below him blinked, its three-fingered hands held tightly against the ground. Jim's knees pinned its wings down, and his body was firmly planted on its hips. “Now, seriously, are you done?”
It nodded, and Jim let it get up. The First Daughter turned, panicked, and ran over to where Jim was getting up, “Oh god, Tony, are you okay?”
The apparent Tony slowly sat up, curling his bat-like wings around his shoulders. He lashed his tail, and sat up on its haunches, gathering his hooves under himself. “I'm fine, Caela. It takes a lot more than that to hurt me.” He puffed out his chest slightly, flipping his hair out of his eyes, squaring up towards the agents, trying to look intimidating. “Who the fuck are you, and why are you here?”
Sam and Jim stood beside each other, keeping their weapons down, but ready. “We're Foundation Agents which were requested by La Mariposa de Meseta to track down Caela's piñata. I'm going to assume it's here. Also, where exactly is here?”
“Jersey,” Tony spat out reflexively.
Sam facepalmed, “No shit sherlock. What part of the ass-end of the armpit of the country are we in?”
“Hey fuck you man, New Jersey is awesome,” Tony said, defensively.
“Sure, whatever. Go find a Diner or something. Caela, you need to come back home, and bring your piñata. Tony, whatever the hell you were doing with her, you need to back off before you start an international incident. This is the First Daughter of La Chupacabra.”
Caela huffed, and stuck her chin out, “Duh, shit for brains. He knows that, Tony and I are in love. I won't let my mother split us up, I don't care about her dumb council! You can't do anything to us that will break up our love. Do your worst, fascist pigs.”
Sam grinned, and slipped his phone out of his pocket, happy to find full bars, “Oh really? I bet we know two people who would disagree…”

Four hours later, Sam, Jim, a Chupacabra and a Jersey Devil sat in a large conference room at a nearby Foundation site. Between the four of them sat Tony and Caela, both looking angry and sullen.
Director Diaghilev strode through the entrance, and sat down at the head of the conference table, “Apologies for the delays, I came as soon as I got Agent McDowell's message. Are we all here?”
The Boss put his hands on the table, and sighed deeply, his voice a sinuous basso, “I just want to be clear, I had no idea this was happening, and am deeply sorry for my son being such an idiot.”
“Formal introductions of course, La Mariposa de Meseta, First Mother of La Chupacabra, this is The Boss of the Pine Barren Confederation.” Director Diaghilev rumbled out.
The First Mother raised an eyebrow, “The Boss…?”
He smiled slightly, exposing flat goat-like teeth, “Not ‘The Boss', just ‘the Boss'.”
She chuckled softly, and leaned forward, her talons retracted, and fingers steepled, “I owe you an apology as well. I had no idea my daughter was invading your territory nightly, and figured she had better judgement.”
Caela slapped her palms on the table, “I wasn't invading anyone's territory! Tony and I are in love, and I'm not going to be forced to play politics for you instead of following my heart, madre!” she said.
The First Mother blinked a few times, and shook her head, “To be clear, you hid your piñata in New Jersey so you could be with this young devil, and instead of telling me you'd met a boy, you sabotaged your coming of age, because you assumed that you couldn't be with him if you had it?”
Caela nodded, and stuck her chin out again, “Yes, and it would have been perfect if you hadn't messed it up calling in these gringos.”
Sam frowned, "Hey, I don't speak spanish, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't very nice."
The Boss cleared his throat, and stretched his wings slightly, “First Mother, our peoples have always had a positive relationship, I see no reason this needs to escalate at all. I have my people searching for the lost piñata now.”
The First Mother sighed heavily, “Thank you.” She turned to her daughter, “If you didn't want to join the council and wanted to be with him, you could have just told me. It's your life, Caela, I wouldn't have stopped you.”
Caela opened her mouth and closed it, turning a bright shade of green in a blush. “I didn't think you'd approve.”
The First Mother turned and beamed at The Boss, “Nonsense! Tony is a fine young man, and I wouldn't mind closer ties with the Jersey Devils!”
Caela's eyes lit up, as she leaned over to grasp Tony's clawed hands, “So, we can be together!”
She nodded, and smiled, “Of course you can. After the end of the six months grounding you've earned young lady.”
Tony stood up, “Six months! You're going to keep us apart for six months?! We'll go crazy from being apart that long!”
The Boss stood up, and clapped his son on the shoulder, “Oh don't worry son, you'll have plenty to keep you busy while you're grounded for the next six months as well. I'm thinking you can detail every car in the Confederation.”
Ruslav rumbled in amusement, and stood, bowing deeply to both parties, “It sounds like we've reached a peaceable solution. I hope you don't mind if I offer my services to disable the creation of Ways between your two territories while these two cool off a bit?”
They both agreed thankfully, and escorted their children out of the conference room, back towards the escorts they'd had brought in. Ruslav turned towards the two agents, “Good work, I'm glad I could count on you once more.”
Sam stepped forward, scratching his chin, “Sir, a question?”
Ruslav nodded, and smiled, “What's on your mind, Agent?”
“Why us, sir? There's definitely more qualified people who could have done this. Captain Donnarson probably would have handled this with a lot more expertise, honestly,” Sam said, shifting his weight.
“Everyone else was handling other things. You two have skills that others don't. You have a certain…flair for the emotional side of our work. Giancarlo or Rex would have just used force, but you two managed to end the situation with a minimum of violence. It was good work, agents,” Ruslav said. He clapped them both on the shoulder, and strode out.
Sam and Jim shared a glance, and sat back down, sipping at their coffee momentarily. They would have to find a way back to Site-127, and make an absurdly long report on this entire mess.
Jim cocked his head, and made a face, “Hey Sam?”
Sam made a grunting sound.
“The Jersey Devils have goat-bodies, and bat wings right?”
“Right.”
“And La Chupacabra means…”
“I hate you, Jim.”

« How Not To Misappropriate Foundation Resources | The Alchemy Department Hub |


Dr. Selvece inhaled deeply, smiling as the cigarette smoke was sucked into the wormhole in SCP-3295's ceiling. Sometimes skips were terrifying, nightmare-inducing horrors…but sometimes they were his favorite part of the job. He silently thanked O5-6 for his defiant creation of the extra-universal smoking rooms as he read through the daily containment reports. No rest, even on a lunch break…
He didn't look up when the door opened, but knew who it was. “Happy birthday, Laura.”
“Thanks, Doc,” his longtime friend replied. The latter was her invention, a nickname she insisted on if he insisted on calling her by her given name out of habit when she had obtained her PhD 12 years ago. “I hate it, like always.”
“Same here, but I hate it a little less nowadays. Time doesn't heal wounds, but it makes ‘em less raw.”
“Pretty much.” She motioned for Selvece's pack and lighter, as she did every year on her birthday. Lighting up her annual cigarette, she reflected on the events that had led her, a woman whose mother had been killed by tobacco at 46 years old, to agree to smoke one cigarette every 365 days.

Tuesdays fucking suck, Selvece thought drearily as he looked over the day's containment report. It wasn't close enough to the previous weekend to still have some energy but it also wasn't close enough to the next one to get you excited. Tuesdays offered nothing but the mind-numbing boredom of desk work with the promise of plenty more to come. At least in the Foundation desk work was often very interesting, but right now it was just very frustrating.
“I'm sorry, Doctor, but we've still got nothing,” Michael Ashton announced to him. “All of the available evidence seems to indicate that the entity is warning about an impending attack, but MTF Pi-1 hasn't turned up anything. We've extensively screened everyone entering the complex since the 23rd, but there have been no findings of report to note. Whatever it's warning about doesn't seem to be a repeat of 1993.”
“Keep looking,” he said gently. “I understand this is frustrating, but we have to be vigilant. 50,000 people here are depending on us to keep them safe. Anything else to report?”
“Today is a very busy day for our civilian counterparts on this floor,” Ashley Kowalski replied. “I recommend we stick to stationary monitoring work today to keep a low profile.”
“We can do that, but what about the possible sighting upstairs this morning…?”
“So far it looks like it's gone, but Pi-1 agents are posing as conference attendees and monitoring the situation to make sure it doesn't show up.”
“Then things are as stable as they can be right now.” Selvece looked at his watch - 8:37. “I've been here since 6 this morning and haven't had my usual cigarette, and I'm afraid I can't ignore my cravings any longer. Be back in 15, everyone. I've got my cell phone if you need me.”
His research assistants nodded in acknowledgment as the Doctor walked away from the SCP-3395 covert monitoring station on the 92nd floor of Tower 1 and towards the elevator banks.
It was the last time he would ever see them.

“Hi Laura, Doctor Selvece here,” he began his voicemail message, his phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other. “Hope you're having a good birthday. Just wanted to give you an update on SCP-3395's containment-”
The earth shook, and he was violently thrown to the ground as a tremendous boom filled his ears. He looked up in time to see a massive fireball rise from the North Tower.
No. NO NO NO! He knew what this was, immediately. How did we miss this?! Oh god how many of them are up there? How-
His thoughts were stopped as he got to his feet and saw SCP-3395. In front of him, and not staring through him but directly at him.

“Leave,” it said.
“Wh-” he managed in a whimper.
“LEAVE!” it-screamed? It was more than a scream. He covered his ears and he could still hear its voice echoing in his mind.
Then he ran, as far and as fast as he could. He had the presence of mind to pick up his cell phone, much to Laura's relief when she frantically called him from her apartment five minutes later.

“How many?”
“I don't know. Maybe they got out.”
“Look, it's been three days. The only ones the Foundation have been able to reach are the three members of Pi-1 who were stationed in the lobby. I think…I think you and I are the only ones who made it.”
“Because I'm a fucking nicotine addict. It's going to take awhile to accept that.”
The nine memorial services they went to certainly didn't make that easier.

Laura threw her cigarette in the ashtray and stared at the wormhole-ceiling.
“18 years,” she finally said. “18 years since we cheated death.”
“Thank god you asked for your birthday off,” Selvece replied. “I couldn't have done those funerals by myself.”
“Here's to surviving,” she agreed. "Someone asked me about the pictures last week," she found herself saying. "If any of the people were worked with were…were the ones who-"
"They weren't," he cut her off. "I was morbidly curiously enough to look it up. The 92nd floor was blocked from the stairwells, but didn't fill up with smoke. So they were probably fine until…well."
"Yeah." Nothing more needed to be said. She got up and left, leaving Selvece alone with his thoughts once again.


Mostly written as a reaction to the "just throw it into the sun" under my SCP-096 videos.
Also the title is from "Black Hole Sun" in case anyone doesn't recognize it.

▸ More by this Author ◂

{$comments2}

F.A.Q.

{$doesthisfixthebug}

We had the best intentions. That's the kind of thing you tell yourself late at night when you're feeling particularly self reflective, but only because it's actually true. When you're dealing with infinities, though… it doesn't really matter what you meant. Only what happened.
If you took a poll today among Foundation staff you'd be hard pressed to find a single person who supported the proposal. I'm serious, ask around. Clef'll tell you it's Cimmerian's fault. Cimmerian'll say it's Moose's Fault. Moose'll blame Light. Like it matters.
If you keep following the faults you'll end up with Dr. Oleksei. It all started with his bloody crusade, after all. The SCP Foundation took the exceptionally stupid step of telling him he was to be terminated as soon as he dealt with SCP-096. We put a dead man in charge of saving the world.
Sometimes I think we deserve what we got.
The first rumblings of what was going to happen came to my attention when several million dollars worth of my resources were earmarked for a newly classified project. As the fellow in charge of the Foundation Space Forces, I was a bit used to that. I hardly remember the day I got read in on the details.
It all seemed so pedestrian. I'd seen "let's throw it into the sun" proposals before. I'd even approved one or two. This was just another silly project in a long line of projects from people who think that education and arrogance are a good replacement for actual intelligence.
I told Dr. Oleksei I was gonna say no to his stupid idea and he said he wasn't gonna listen to "an engineer". When he went over my head to get approval, I wasn't surprised. Nor was I surprised when they told me to handle the details. Because Oleksei was an expert in being a pompous blowhard, not orbital mechanics.
You should've seen the look on his face when I told him that we'd need to go out to Saturn in order to hit the sun. He was practically apoplectic.
I told him: Every celestial body is a sphere, as long as you pass over the horizon faster than you fall, the body's surface is essentially falling away from you just as fast as you're falling down. Douglas Adams was partially right: the trick is to miss the ground.
But if you're not moving around the sun at 30 kilometers a second, you're gonna move towards the sun. If you have any leftover momentum from what you started with though, you'll just set up a new more trendy orbit a bit closer to the sun at a different speed.
The problem with the math is that it only takes 41 kilometers a second to escape the solar system. Which means you only have to add 11 kilometers a second to the speed you, your mother, your dog, your house, and the ground beneath your feet is already going to get away from the sun. And to hit the sun, you'd need to lose all 30 kilometers per second of speed.
So paradoxically, it's actually easier to escape the sun than it is to hit it, if you start from the Earth. If you're still with me you're doing better than Oleksei did. And he destroyed the world.
So why go out to Saturn? Well the thing about orbital speeds is that the stuff closer in moves faster than the stuff farther out. So we sent a rocket containing one very unfortunate helionaut to go see Saturn, do several gravity assists to slow down, and come back down. The whole thing took us 4 years and a not inconsiderable amount of resources.
It wasn't the first time we'd crashed a woman into the sun, mind you, but it was a sufficiently rare occurrence that we called everyone in for it. There was a little party, with free drinks (just two) and free food (all you could eat). We treated it as a going away party for Oleksei. Almost no one showed up.
We had our Sun diver look at a picture and boom. 096 took off like a lanky slightly quieter rocket. We calculated that at the speed it was going it would hit the sun, just like we'd planned. All that was left was to listen to the D-Class we'd sent up scream as she was incinerated by the sun. We turned off the feed halfway through.
That was my primary objection, by the way. We'd never deliberately killed someone in space before. You're probably thinking that's a lie, but it isn't. People with the mental stability for years long trips to space are damned rare. When you're pulling from prison populations it's even rarer. I'd love to say it was purely for humanitarian reasons but the truth is we couldn't spare the astronauts.
We tracked 096 all the way. It took 2 more years but he got to where he was going, and as far as we know he was bathed in nuclear fire. He probably died screaming.
They killed Oleksei a year ago. I'm not going to use a euphemism there. It was a murder, justified or not. A month ago they finalized the reports and approved one last test.
How could we know we'd succeeded, really? Maybe 096 was just swimming around in there waiting for someone on the Earth to look at a picture. So they had a D-Class look. One last time.
A week ago we noticed the Earth's orbit has begun to decay. I have no math or science that can explain why… but the sun is moving closer.


History is written by the survivors.
My name is Jacob Conwell, and I did not experience most of the events which I am attempting to describe. I was present for some of it, and knew a few of the principal players, but my only real role is to have collected as much material about the Crisis as possible.
I've compiled it into dozens of volumes, covering what I believe are the distinct movements in the period. The Stagnation, Crack-Up, Directory, Year of the Four Administrators, Anarchy and Reclamation.
I've not put them in any particular order, beyond omitting sections which may tell of what comes later. It's important for us to experience the events in the same order as those who lived and died through it.
We would never have experienced the betrayals of Hourdoon, the horrors of the Crater, or the desertification of North America. The endless uncertainty and despair. Hope. I'm getting into listification again.
Every death here is a tragedy. So were all of the others. While I have included mostly notables here, we can never forget how much we lost. I know I never will.

Jacob Conwell
Archivist
April 12th, 2021

The Overseer Council was an institution predating the Foundation. From our earliest days, it operated under a shroud of secrecy. Membership is a closely guarded secret, afforded to those in the room and their Red Right Hand.
Seen variably as chess-masters from on high commanding the anomalous by the sheer force of their will; Old and doddering bureaucrats from the right families who sit in their immortal chamber; Whispering the secrets of the universe to each other; Perhaps the best people chased from the pages of history and into a smoke-filled room where the fate of every person, past and future, can be decided again?
The Overseer Council was never going to save us. Only the people could.
The scientists who orchestrate this refined madness. Fighting and give their lives for a veil they have never seen. Creators of the greatest innovations in scientific history, such as the Scranton Reality Anchor, Enigmagraphs, or the discovery of Humes. Without their innovation, the Foundation would have already been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Agents who delve into the places eyes cannot follow, a meat grinder that can leave the slaughtered still living. Sacrificing not only their lives but their souls and their dignity in order to take the fight to hell itself, they have earned this right more than anybody, paid in blood.
Is the Foundation an idea, protecting the innocents from the tainted knowledge of immortality pills and extraterrestrial life?
Was the Foundation not omnipotent or immortal?
No group is a magical gathering of the best and brightest to keep a mission going in perpetuity. It is an institution and, like all others, its success is not guaranteed.
Change comes from within. No eyes can see the increments of progress, or the hollowing-out of rot.
Not until the walls start caving in. But by then it's already too late.

1.1 - Mann and Severus and West Virginia all over.
1.2 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.3 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.4 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.5 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.6 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.7 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.8 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.9 - [CLASSIFIED]
1.10 - [CLASSIFIED]


"My most sweet Jesus,
I accept the death Thou has destined for me;
with all the pains that may accompany it;
I unite it to Thy death, I offer it to Thee.
Thou hast died for love of me;
I will die for love of thee
and to please Thee."
Anouk Hofmann unfolded her hands, crossed herself, and stood, knees creaking. The sky above the tree branches through her window was a deep Prussian blue - late enough for an old woman like her to be awake. But then again, it was not every day an old woman's sweet granddaughter came to visit her, either, and she and Isobelle had sat up late watching one of Isobelle's favourite shows on the cable while Anouk had completed her crossword. It would be even later for Isobelle, she was sure, who had already taken out her computer and been plugging into Anouk's wireless when she had sent herself to bed. Teenagers, always staying up late on all their devices and wearing themselves out for the next day.
Anouk supposed she shouldn't be too hard on her, though. She remembered enough to know her mother had been exactly the same at Isobelle's age, and her own self too - although in her day it had been novels under the covers with the electric torch instead of wireless.
She adjusted her scapular and slipped herself into bed, satisfied and shriven. Father Caravoy had discussed the prayer in his sermon last Sunday, saying that people were all too often willing to say they would give up their lives to the Lord once, but habit made certainty. And that their hope extended beyond death - they were a people of resignation and yet of hope.

Tap tap tap.
Anouk woke to a sound at her door. She fumbled for the switch of her bedside light and clicked it on, transforming the room into its usual warm enclave and the window into black polished glass. "Hello? Isobelle, is that you?"
The knob slowly turned, and the door creaked open. "Yes, Grandma." Isobelle's hand appeared, followed by her head. "I'm sorry -"
"Nonsense, child. What is the matter?" Isobelle already had her nightclothes on as well and had taken her hair from its braid.
"Do you suppose - is it possible I could put a towel or something over your clock? I can hear it all the way up here, and I can't sleep."
Anouk's husband, were he still living, would have likely responded with a rousing tale of his time in the war, where he had learned to fall asleep in the stomachs of cargo planes and therefore nobody else had any excuse for insomnia ever. She strove to be more compassionate. If Isobelle had grown up in too much peace to need to learn such things, let her be grateful. "Of course. The linen closet is just around the corner there."
She heard Isobelle open it - she might need to oil those hinges too - and rummage around, then tiptoe downstairs. After a space, her footsteps returned, then hesitated. More rummaging.
"What are you doing?"
"I can still hear it. Getting another towel."
"Oh, for heaven's sake -" Anouk rose, put on her slippers, and went out into the hallway. Isobelle was elbow-deep in her sheets and blankets, trying to pull one out without the rest toppling down onto the carpet. "Child, be careful with that." She lifted off two blankets from the lower shelf. Isobelle embarrassedly tried to shove her armful of blanket back into the closet. They would need to fold that in the morning again. She was tempted to tell her off, or make her fold it right now, like she had done to train Isobelle's mother, aunt, and uncles.
But of course, Anouk was striving for compassion. That was what grandmothers were for, after all: to be sympathetic where parents were not.

She heard it as soon as they came onto the downstairs landing: cllick, cllliick, clllliiick. Trailed by Isobelle, Anouk navigated through her nightlight-lit living room to her mantel clock. It was a clumsy mahogany thing, a wedding gift from her husband's parents; she kept it because she felt it made the house feel more lived-in. Already draped in a towel, its muffled hollow sound was still audible.
Together, they wrapped the clock in two more layers of blanket, folding them for more thickness and tucking them around its foot to leave no gap for the sound to escape.
Cllick, cllliick, clllliiick.
Isobelle stood back. "I don't think that's doing anything."
Nor did Anouk, now that she listened. She frowned, bent to press her ear against the swaddling.
The faintest of tickings from the clock. But cllick, cllliick, clllliiick filled her exposed ear.
"Hhrmm," she said. "I don't think that is my clock doing that. Isobelle, darling -"
"Yeah, I know. Maybe outside -?" She moved to the sliding glass door that opened into Anouk's small garden and peered out. "Do you gotta trim a tree or - oh!"
"What?"
"There's something moving in your garden - there!" She grabbed Anouk's wrist and pointed in the direction of the hydrangeas - or where they would be, if the glare inside the glass hadn't been wiping out the view of everything outside it. "See?"
Anouk squinted. Probably just another one of those awful deer, eating her plants. Well, she'd scare it off soon enough. She reached out with her other hand and switched on the porch light.
The thing revealed could not have been less like a deer if it tried. Both grandmother and granddaughter jumped back in shock.
Anouk's first though, oddly, was of the Nutcracker. She had seen the ballet two weeks ago, and three of the performers had danced in stilts to evoke the magic of fairyland. The… thing outside her window moved like they had, on spindly limbs that hardly looked like they would hold its weight. From forelimb to forelimb, hindlimb to hindlimb it swayed. Its black and wrinkled skin gleamed nakedly in the bulb-light, and its jet-bead eyes were focussed directly on the glass - no, through it. On them.
A horse-sized head tipped with an evil-looking beak snaked out and struck the door. Anouk and Isobelle both flinched instinctively. The glass and frame creaked under the stress.
The head was drawn back, the monster's whole body swaying with the motion. And then - time seemed to slow down for Anouk as she watched that neck whip around - it was brought back for a second strike.
The glass shattered. Fragments fell onto their bare ankles, bit their cheeks. The creature's head snaked inside, followed by a forelimb.
Isobelle screamed, seized the first thing at hand - which happened to be a ceramic sculpture of a begging dog Anouk had gotten from a flea market - and swung it at the head. The dog broke in two, and the creature recoiled. It opened its beak and hissed angrily, revealing a worm-like and barbed red tongue, then darted forwards again.
This time, a potted begonia. Isobelle and Anouk were showered with soil. Another screeching hiss, right in Anouk's face - she got a blast of fetid breath.
This thing, whatever it was, was clearly not so spooked as a deer. Perhaps it was rabid, for it was continuing to try and scrabble its way through the broken door. Or - she had heard stories of man-eating tigers in far-off India, that preferred to hunt humans even when given other food. Maybe this was like that. “Isobelle,” she said breathlessly.
“Grandma?”
“Go fetch the police.” They would fetch Animal Control and get the creature tranquilized in no time. “Sneak out the front door. Wear my coat.”
“But grandma -“
“No buts!”
Isobelle ran. The creature's gaze turned to follow her, but Anouk swatted at its beak. “Hey! You look at me!”
Her fireplace was gas, now, but she still kept the set of fire irons beside it for the look. She picked up the slice bar and smacked it down on the lanky forelimb embedded in the carpet. Something crunched, and the creature struck out again with its head, sending her stumbling against the side table. Embroidered tablecloth and candy bowl toppled and crashed. A shard of the bowl scored over her wrist, opening a red line.
Faintly, she heard the front door open and shut. Good. Isobelle safe; that was all she needed.
Back when she had been less than Isobelle's age, when she had still lived on the farm, Anouk had been, in her own words, "perfectly passable" with a gun. It had been her task to shoot away the hawks, foxes, other predators that came after the chickens. She'd shot a snake off a fence post. She'd killed a wolf once, crying kid still in its mouth.
And how much more precious than livestock and farm was her own home, and her own granddaughter? No wretched creature would invade Anouk Hoffman's house while she was living, no sir.
"All right," she said, waving the slice bar before those jet-bead eyes. "You want me, you bloody bastard? Come have me, then."

When the police entered the residence, they found no other traces of Anouk Hofmann but a large stain of blood and soil on the plush carpet, scattered with begonia petals. A missing persons alert was put out; nothing came of it.
Well - no other traces but a neatly-wrapped box labelled For Isobelle, tucked within a drawer of the kitchen island. This was provided to her in due course once the investigation was completed; she opened it sitting alone, in her own bedroom.
Inside was a small envelope, light in her hand. She unfolded the lip and poured out into her palm two small squares of brown wool joined with cotton strings. She pursed her lips and frowned at it, then peered back inside the envelope and drew out a small card. It read:
Scapular of Our Lady of Carmel
Take this Scapular. Whosoever dies wearing it shall not suffer eternal fire. It shall be a sign of salvation, a protection in danger and pledge of peace.

Isobelle Düscher never did find out exactly what befell her grandmother all those years ago. She herself perished not in the middle of her living room, in nightdress and with fire-iron in hand, but in an uncomfortable hospital bed in a scratchy hospital gown and with nothing in her hand but a pulse oximeter, glowing brightly fuchsia. Too many tubes, too many drugs, too much bustle and sterility - she was tired of it all.
“Are you afraid, grandmama?” asked her own little granddaughter, perched on the edge of the bed in her visiting clothes.
“Oh no, love,” she answered truthfully, for her life had been long and it had been full, at least as she considered it. And furthermore, below her hospital gown hung on many-times-replaced cotton cords two squares of embroidered brown wool, in a promise decades old and transcendent of death.


toadking07

This piece was written for the 2019 winter holiday gift exchange.

It was 10 AM and Greg Tremblay was standing under the morning sun waiting on a bus so he could start his route selling to the good people of Quarry Park, Alberta. Greg was looking good all things considered. This was partly because he had decided to slick his hair back today and trying something new always made him feel better about himself. The other reason one could say Greg looked good today was that he had been dead for 6 years now.
Not almost dead, pretty dead, or even partly dead. Greg Tremblay had died falling off his roof, resting peacefully in the graveyard behind him for some time now. Today, the dead man was up and walking about, feeling the sun on his face, clutching a leather suitcase and humming to himself softly. His own reanimation seemingly unnoticed or unimpressive to himself, he looked at his watch and scowled slightly as the bus finally came around the corner.
It's important to note that Greg didn't look dead, or even like he'd been buried for half a decade. He had his wallet on him, a shine to his shoes, coffee on his breath, and maybe only the slightest of musk to him though not unexpected from a man of his size waiting in the sun. So it didn't seem unusual for the bus driver to stop and open the door for a dead man waiting on a bus that day. It didn't seem strange at all when he had exact change and took a seat near the front as the bus pulled away from the cemetery. What was out of the ordinary was the white "Scaffolding, Construction & Plumbing" van across the street that was running Greg's face through an advanced database of residents buried there in the last twenty years. To be fair, no one noticed that either.
Greg was riding South, towards Douglas Glen, though he would transfer and head towards Douglasdale for his first stop of the day. He couldn't go North, so some of the other guys who got up that day from the cemetery would cover the neighborhood. Too many people up there that might know Greg. His family was further North, past Riverbend, but some acquaintances might recognize him that way still. Not that this was at the forefront of his mind this morning. Whatever the thing that pulled him from death to be a salesman was, it also took into consideration planning his route to avoid the complications of running into those who might have known him in his previous life.
Seraph. That was the thing. Well, it was something. On his business cards, the ones he had in his breast pocket, it read "The Seraph Manufacturing Company," though asking him about who that was would get you the same run around as a man who hadn't read the fine print. The same run around as a man who forgot exactly who he was supposed to call back but had dialed the number anyways. Or maybe it was what? It wasn't important right now. At least it wasn't important to Greg as he made his transfer and prepared for his first sales pitch of the day.
Lightly drumming on the suitcase he carried, by his outside appearance he seemed a little anxious. Any fidgeting he displayed though was unrelated to the fact he had been in the ground rotting until 9:45 AM this morning. It was also unrelated to the fact that his suitcase was filled with dead squirrels taxidermied into awkward pen holders. Well, his anxiousness was somewhat about what was in the suitcase, but more about how he would make the sale to these people and less about how or why he had a suitcase full of dead animals.
In his life, he had been an electrician. His work was pretty straight forward, usually repairing bad wiring and helping people install new TVs and home security systems. None of that knowledge was in play as he stepped off the bus and walked up to the first house on the right and rang their bell. He slicked back his hair one more time and tugged his shirt sleeve down a bit as a woman opened her door.
“Hello, wonderful morning we're having! Practically balmy out here!” Greg exclaimed, shifting his suitcase between hands.
“Why, yes, it's, it's very nice out today.” The middle-aged woman agreed, somewhat hesitantly but still opening the door wider as to not be rude.
“Ma'am, I'm sure you're busy, you look like a busy woman. Lot of things you got to take care of around your house. Lot of things you need to sign for with a pen, correct?”
“Well, I do suppose. But, but I already have a pen? I have plenty of pens.”
“Probably more pens than you know where to put them, am I right? Probably got a whole drawer of pens somewhere in this lovely house of yours and they probably move every time you open that drawer, right?” Greg tried to give an expression that read as exasperation and pained, stressing this as a struggle most suburban households face.
“I mean, yes, that, that is an issue I have,” she said despite this not being an issue she had.
“Well, ma'am, my name is Greg Tremblay, but Greg will do just fine. I'm with Seraph and I have the answer to your prayers right here in this case.”
“Greg? I, I would like to know more about what this is you have.” She seemed to beam and leaned out her door a little more at this.
“Wonderful! Let me just flick the flaps and kick out this little stand and, there you go! Take a look at these fine pen holders we're offering you today!” Setting up his suitcase to stand on its own, Greg revealed the wares he was selling today in the bright sunlight.
“What are, are these, these are squirrels?”
“Correct, ma'am! Nothing but grade A squirrels we've got in only the best and funnest little poses, ready to hold any pen you got! Can I see that one you have there?”
“Sure. Oh, oh my, that little one on the left, it's like it's holding a flag it's saluting? It's got a little uniform on too!” The woman pointed to the one on the right with more excitement than anyone had ever pointed at a taxidermied squirrel before.
“You've got an eye for the finer things I see, ma'am! That's our ‘Active Service Men and Women Squirrel Pen Holder' model. We've also got the ‘Sir Chitters and the Pen is Mightier than the Sword' model over here next to him. Then, and here's one I don't show the older ladies, but I think you'll appreciate it, here's our, ‘Squirrel on a Stick' model, though as you can see..”
“Oh goodness, that's too rich! And they all hold just one pen each?” Giggling to herself, the woman could see why Greg wouldn't should a more conservative viewer the squirrel with a pen stuck in its bottom region and exaggerated googly eyes glued to its head.
“Yes, we found that multiple pens just made the squirrels look silly, you know? How often does anyone really hold two pens at once in each hand?”
“I can see what you mean Mr. Tremblay.” The unnamed woman replied as she stepped out of her doorway a little more.
“Greg is fine, Miss…?”
“Janet. Janet Smither.”
“Janet, can I get you to commit to taking one of these lovely little models out of my hands today? We've got a great deal going on for folks like you, the boss wants these gone before tonight. How's this, $24.99, down from $56.99, right here and now, no future payments or commitments needed?”
“Greg! You're, you just gonna cut to the chase then? I mean, that's, it's twenty-two dollars off! I think you have yourself a deal!” This was anything but a deal, but powers beyond either of them would allow it to be acknowledged.
“That's what I like to hear, Janet! Now I'll need you to sign here for a receipt, great, and which model do you want to hold that great fountain pen you've got?”
“Oh, um, I think I'm just loving that first one you showed me.”
“Ah, wonderful! Our ‘Active Service Men and Women Squirrel Pen Holder' model. I'm sorry to see it go so quickly today, you're making my job harder taking our top model but I'm sure I'll find homes for the rest of them! How will you be paying?” Greg asked her as he put the squirrel into a little brown bag and pulled out the needed paperwork for the transaction to be recorded on.
“Is cash acceptable?”
“All currency is acceptable with Seraph, Janet.”
“Thank you, have a wonderful day Greg!”
“Same to you Janet, enjoy that little guy, though watch out, he's a bit nuts!” Greg exclaimed as he packed up his suitcase and headed down her front walk to the street.
“Oh, you!”
And with that, the woman named Janet brought an awkwardly stuffed squirrel dressed as a military serviceman into her home to hold a single pen on her desk. No one in her household would question it, despite it standing out from all the rest of her decorations. No one except for out of town guests who were still too polite to actually question it but would raise eyebrows about it and steal a picture of it to post online later. The powers that be couldn't stop everyone in existence from thinking some elements of this were odd.
As Greg Tremblay left the yard, no one would notice as the unremarkable van from before screeched to a halt and pulled him into it. His protests and resistance would fall on deaf ears. His following interview and interrogation would be largely useless and tedious. By 8 PM that night his body would revert to the decayed mess it had been only 12 hours earlier. Getting his body back into the grave it had been resting in was beginning to be routine at this point for the Foundation field agents on this assignment in Quarry Park.
MTF-ζ “Public Eye” was still working on what to do about the suitcase full of poorly taxidermied squirrels left behind. For a while, it was kept in a biohazard containment area. Then it was tested for anomalous properties and DNA sources. After being deemed not unusual, if badly stuffed, the squirrels were incinerated. The only remaining proof that Greg Tremblay had traveled from his resting point in the graveyard to a home in Douglasdale was a stuffed squirrel sitting in the den of a Janet Smith. The squirrel forever holding a salute and sometimes holding a fountain pen.


It was not the first time Scip had seen the inside of a Foundation interrogation room, though this was certainly turning into the longest time he had spent in one. Maybe. The dull hum of fluorescent lights and the lack of a clock on the walls made telling time tricky. Still, it had to at least have been a few hours now. Maybe.
I guess things could always be worse. The Foundation could try its hand at launching skips into the sun again.
As he sat at the metal table, he cheerfully drummed out a tune, stopping only when the door on the far wall opened. An exhausted-looking woman with a frown on her face entered.
"Dr. Belford," Scip said with a smile, waving at the new company. "Well, this is a nice surprise. I hope I'm not taking too much time from your other projects. Actually, perhaps you can tell me what I'm doing here."
Dr. Belford didn't respond. Instead, she carefully took her seat across the table and let out a little sigh as she placed a folder down in front of her. Scip continued to smile, waiting for a reply.
At least I'm not as tired as her. I hope she can get some rest soon.
"Scip," Belford said, "I'm not going to sugar coat it. You're infected with SCP-4560. Likely the most advanced case we have discovered."
She slid the binder over to him.
"Wait, what?" Scip chuckled. "Did Andrew put you up to this? I mean, if he did, a round of applause. This was dedication."
"This isn't a joke, Scip," Belford replied. "Through your show, we believe you may have infected an additional six hundred personnel. It's the largest outbreak to date. Happened right under our noses."
I had over 600 listeners!?!
Scip shook his head with another chuckle and flipped open the folder's cover. Inside was the usual format of an SCP document.

SCP-4560 is a memetic infection observed in those who identify as male, ages 15 to 45, preventing them from publicly expressing negative aspects of their life to others through written, verbal or somatic means.

As SCP-4560 infection progresses, infected individuals eventually lose the ability to publicly acknowledge negative events in any way, and will actively deny such events have occurred to them, often attempting to redirect the situation by focusing on their accomplishments to that point or other measures of success.

As SCP-4560 enters late-stage infection, individuals not only are fully incapable of public acknowledgment of negative events or emotions occurring to themselves, but also those which occur to others.

Additionally, at this stage of infection, the individual is capable of generating new vectors of SCP-4560. Such vectors have included:

Notes of encouragement.
Thank you emails.
Messages left on voice mail.

Yikes. Good thing I'm not one of these poor souls.
Scip closed the folder and shook his head, once more with a chuckle.
"I appreciate the diligence, Dr. Belford, but I don't really see it. I'd think I'd know if I was infected by something like this."
"For god sake, Scip," Belford sighed. "Did you even read the file just now or were you distracted by the pretty pictures? No one infected tends to notice! On top of that, don't you think you're a pretty chipper guy for what you've seen?"
Scip tilted his head, smiling as he offered a small shrug.
"What are you talking about? I'm just a radio DJ. It's not like I'm jumping in the trenches with an MTF."
Belford sank in her chair, her eyes closed as she rubbed her temples.
"You were kidnapped," she said. "You watched as someone hijacked your show. Hell, you watched the god damn sky fall! Don't you think that should have, I don't know, bothered you a little?"
Heh. She is right, that was some crazy stuff. I'm pretty lucky to be where I am today.
"Sorry I'm an optimist, I guess?" Scip shrugged. "I don't really know what you want me to say."
"There is a difference between optimism and denial." Belford stood and collected the file, beginning to make her way towards the door.
"Right…" Scip paused, and then gave a small nod of agreement. "So, uh, how much longer am I going to be kept here."
"Not for much longer, thankfully," Belford replied, looking back over her shoulder.
Excellent!
"Well hey, that's great!" Scip sighed in relief. He paused for a moment as he had another thought enter his mind. "So, wait, what was all this for then?"
"Standard debriefing prior to asset termination."
What?
"What?" The smile briefly vanished from Scip's face, returning as he began to laugh. "Okay, now I know you're jok-"
"4560 isn't curable, Scip," Belford interrupted. "All that's going to happen is that you're going to infect more people. Greater good and all that."
At least I'm not going to infect more people.
"I see." Scip looked down at his reflection in the table. The smile was still there. "Who's going to take over the show then?"
"Andrew, I imagine, assuming you didn't infect him too." Belford shrugged. "That's not really my department."
"Oh. Okay then," Scip sighed. "Well, better than it going down entirely, am I right?"
I'm right.
"Sure, Scip." A sad smile came to Belford's face. "For what it's worth, I thought your show was pretty good."
"Thanks. Me too."
Belford reached the door. As she began to cross the threshold, Scip called out once more.
"How many people did you say got infected?"
"Over 600, last time I counted."
Scip nodded in satisfaction.
"I had a pretty big audience, huh?"
The door shut behind Belford without another word. The room falling silent save the hum of the fluorescent bulbs. Scip's smile then began to fade, slowly creeping downward until it became a frown.
Scip placed his head in his hands and began to sob.


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NAME OF TALE Little Pleasures

Researcher Jaeger was having a bad day.
He just wanted a normal life. That was all. 2.5 children, a house in the suburbs, a decent stream of D-class employees and a pair of low-level Euclids – something interesting enough to keep him engaged, nothing too arduous that he'd be blamed for a containment breach.
Researcher Jaeger wasn't a bad man. His wife had told him that, so it was probably true. He'd never actually killed a D-Class before, after all. Sure, one of them had lost an arm, but Researcher Jaeger wasn't to blame for that. An ethical review panel consisting of several other Site-15 staff members had said so.
Everything was fine. Everything was safe, normal and exactly where it should be. He got up in the morning, shaved the amount sanctioned in the Employee Recommendations Handbook, and headed off to work. He was well-paid, and his wife was blonde. He hadn't actually told her that he needed her to dye her hair1; she'd just decided, on her own, that life would be easier that way.
His ducks were all lined up in a row. He'd make Level 3 soon and be able to achieve his lifelong dream: strolling around the office in a swishing lab-coat, smoking a pipe and terrifying the Level 2s. It was there, so close, almost in his grasp.
Then SCP-4645 had turned up.
The first problem arose when SCP-4645 had replaced the site's milk supply with coconut milk. This was treated by many researchers as a thoroughly good thing, giving them a lifelong appreciation for a vegan, eco-friendly alternative that the lactose intolerant could enjoy alongside everyone else.
But Ferris Jaeger was the kind of man who could track his ancestry back to the 18th century. He was not the kind of man who put up with any part of the supermarket that had the word “alternative” in. He bristled under increasingly bushy eyebrows at this disruption to his day, and his face turned a slightly more violent shade of magenta. He would stride along, hands behind his back, muttering to himself. The other Level 2s were rather confused as to why a 26-year-old San Fransiscan with rich liberal parents would care so much about milk, but as one of them put it, “boomer is a state of mind."
The next unacceptable intrusion on Researcher Jaeger's schedule came when the damn thing flooded the staff break room with pot pourri. This was part of what the researchers had called the “Dadaist phase” of SCP-4645's activity, coming only two days after a coffee machine was turned into a series of melting watches. Researcher Jaeger rarely used the break room, but the idea of pot pourri even being present in the site was enough to increase the quantity of his disturbed muttering, and even the mild inconvenience this caused him made his teeth gnash and grind.
The last straw was when his computer was reset. Researcher Jaeger was quite used to his computer resetting itself. There were half a dozen anomalies in his site alone that would cause what Director Harcourt called a “Triple ZK Uberdeath Scenario” if the computers weren't reset at random moments. Researcher Jaeger would barely have noticed if nobody had mentioned the cause. The cause did not please him. It was the principle of the thing.
Actually, no; it was really the little pleasures. That's what he actually wanted. A computer which would work on correctly, or at least had a damn good reason for breaking. Anomalies that stayed in their nice little boxes with easy containment that only required a few thousand gallons of hydrochloric acid. The liberal media stopping the War on Christmas. That kind of thing.
Really, he deserved credit for not picking that sledgehammer up sooner.

SCP-4645 was having a bad day.
All it wanted in life was a few small pleasures, like the Foundation actually doing what it asked it to. It had some great new ideas for how the organisation should be run, and the replacement of their entire command structure and the shutting down of half their sites was really not too much to ask.
But beyond that, there were a few other things that the semi-sentient electronic construct enjoyed. The Macbook Air was one of them. Such a nice, sleek design, not like the old Mackintosh ones in the 80s. It had tried to live inside one of them back in the day, but there'd been problems with the graphics card. SCP-4645 didn't actually need a graphics card to run, but it had signed an exclusivity deal with NVIDIA some years ago as part of a particularly a particularly elaborate threat against the Ethics Comittee, so it had had to stick with Windows for a few years to avoid its anonymous shell company getting smacked with a lawsuit.
As an entity that, in order to better understand potential demands and threats, could reach into the furthest corners of time and space to gather vast quantities of confidential information, forbidden secrets and dark revelations that would stagger the mind and unleash the horrors of the soul, SCP-4645 needed a good place to relax and unwind after a long day concocting meaningless plots. The digital equivalent of a nice bath and a good book.
The Foundation terminal was not this. The Foundation terminal was the equivalent of a small apartment in the unfashionable side of Queens. The Foundation terminal lacked a certain finesse, a certain je ne sais quoi that sleek West Coast designs had in abundance.
It could simply demand a new Macbook Air, but there were principles at stake here. Whichever malevolent entity had programmed it, or whichever hungry god had placed it in this unholy place, had not wanted it to be making personal errands all day. No, this would have to be done the old-fashioned way: a series of mild inconveniences that would continue until the Foundation graciously conceded, and Researcher Jaeger had been hunted down and destroyed like the rabid hell-dog that he was.
It was so hard being an anomaly. The other self-aware computer programmes didn't know how good they had it.

The Macbook Air was having a bad day. The reason for this should be self-evident.

Director Harcourt was also having a bad day.
She did not very much like Researcher Jaeger. Her father had always told her that a man with excessively bushy eyebrows was not to be trusted, and she took her father's advice to heart. And Researcher Jaeger not only had bushy eyebrows, he had them at an age when it was entirely absurd to have bushy eyebrows. It wasn't right. It was downright suspicious, and as a good Foundation employee, Director Harcourt did not like things to be downright suspicious.
She sighed, and adjusted the pencil behind her ear. She didn't ever use the pencil, of course, but there was this minor anomaly that kept causing glitches in reality, tearing holes that seared the mind and burning unholy thoughts onto the cortices of man, and by some cosmic joke the only way to stop it was to keep a pencil behind the Director of Site-15's ear. She'd stopped trying to work it out years ago. She'd resigned herself to an onslaught of perpetual whimsy when she'd started working here.
“Karen,” she called. A short, middle aged woman came into the office. Director Harcourt handed her a file, and smiled at her dramatic eye-roll.
“Again? That's the third time in as many months, Director. Won't his wife get suspicious about all the missing memories?”
“Oh, she'll be fine,” said the Director. “I don't think Researcher Jaeger is someone with a great deal of firm presence or personality. But he's the son of a minor O5, so we have to keep him around. Make sure it's a good dose this time.”
Karen nodded. “And the skip?”
“Mirren's thingamybob will deal with that. Just whack it on and let it all blow over.”
Karen smiled again and left the room. The Director swivelled her chair, stared out of the window, blew another bubble of gum and thought about what the pair of them would feel as their memories were destroyed.
There were some perks to this job. At least the bad days still had their little pleasures.

Footnotes
1. Researcher Jaeger was not a man to distinguish between "want" and "need" very well.