Rain was pouring down on me from up above, pattering on the skylight of the break room as if mother nature herself had just gotten a broken heart. I could barely stand the sound. It reminded me of worse times, when the sound of the rain on glass was nothing more than the distance between me and a liquor store. Those were hard times.
The sound started getting under my skin, so I went for a walk. Most evenings it's so dark you can't tell if it's day or night, and the only comfort you might get is the buzzing of fluorescent lamps and the yellowish glows they cast across the floor. Beyond that, around here the only friends you ever get are the sound of your heart beating fast and that feeling of a chill on the back of your neck when you think you're alone.
The sound of my footsteps on the tile floor echoes like gunshots down the twisting corridor. I got a few stares from the tired Janes and grumpy Joes around every corner, but I didn't care. Nobody was gonna stop me from what I had to do. That rain! I could still hear it on the windows, and I felt my stomach sink like a cannonball in water. Somehow (and don't ask me how) I made it back to my office and sat down. My desk was littered with requests and reports, glaring up at me with their cold facts and their unending pain. I was tired. The rain still shook deep in my head and split my skull like a bolt of fire.
I drew my sidearm and laid the sleek, black weapon on the desk, a tool of death coiled and ready to strike like a venomous snake. I'd thought about the possibility of ending things before. I heard once that firing a gun is a binary choice: Either you pull the trigger or you don't. Sometimes that decision is slow. Sometimes it's a decision you make in an instant.
If nothing else, then the grave would silence this godforsaken rain.
-
Dr. Brown pulled the hat off of the corpse. "You gotta be fucking kidding me."
Agent Stevens shook his head. "This is ridiculous. How does a containment breach like this even happen?"
Brown put the hat into a box and sealed it. "He checked it out earlier for research. He got approval from three level 3's. He followed protocol, up until he put the damn thing on."
"Well, shit." He pointed at the box and glared at the doctor. "I want to make sure that thing stays locked up from now on. When I find out how the hell this happened, I'm gonna have one hell of a report. I'll be lucky if I still have a job." His eyes drifted over the dead researcher on the floor. "Then again, that might not be such a bad thing."


Back Into Hell, a Foundation poem
The howling wind steals the breath
I would have used to chant;
Boots, belt, gun, mask
My gear, my only chance
The rear doors open wider
The “go” light blinks to life
I follow my commander
Out into the sky
Plunging downward, rising panic
I still don't know what is the target
Am I falling to my death
Am I heading into hell?
The radio flares, static in my ears
Broken words not mine to hear
Clouds part, I see a landscape
I see a place that's gripped in fear
Feet find ground, my head yet spinning
Friends are screaming, rifles spitting
Things surround me, tall and dark
I feel the devil grip my heart
Some letters and number is what they say
That's all they give them for a name
Stamp them; label, date and time
These darkest nightmares from our minds
Containment is a word to me
A bureaucratic fantasy
A white coat will keep you safe
When Kevlar fails and weapons break
The task force folds, retreat is called
Not one of them is yet to fall
These things are not born of this realm
Through withering fire, they overwhelm
Engines scream over my head
I tumble down and wait for death
The bombs explode, the missiles hit
I cower and cry inside my pit
I stand up in a different world
Where fires sputter and smoke whirls
My friends are dead, I am alone with fear
From out of the darkness, more appear
I dream of this when I can sleep
After a pill and a solid drink
I still remember how I felt
When my orders arrive:
Back into hell.
Taken from the journal of Agent Baomer, commander of MTF Sigma-7


Background: At 2:01:34 on 05/13/20██ a suspected Dr. Wondertainment item was discovered outside Site ██. Agents were sent to retrieve it. The object appeared to be a mattress with various child-like designs and an attached document:

Wowee!! You're certainly lucky! You've just gotten yourself a Super Bouncy Mattress™, exclusively from Dr. Wondertainment ®. With this amazing product you can bounce sky-high, and don't worry about the ceiling! With this amazing product Dr. Wondertainment ® can bring you the best slumber party toy you'll ever find! Get your friends together and have a blast on the Super Bouncy Mattress™!!

When any human began jumping on the object, they would be propelled upward at heights in defiance of physical laws, and would not be injured upon impact with the object. An unidentified force prevented subjects from being propelled outside the space of the mattress, causing subjects to always fall back on to the mattress. Subjects would phase through any objects while being propelled, except each other. The object was classified as Safe and placed in containment locker 1563-F
On 06/05/20██ Site Director Timanson received this letter in his inbox:

Dear Dr. Wondertainment ® customer,
We hope you're enjoying all of our amazing products! Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that one of our items, the Super Bouncy Mattress™, has a defect. We ask that you return your edition of the Super Bouncy Mattress™ to Dr. Wondertainment headquarters at [REDACTED]. We will repair the defect and return it to you as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time,
Dr. Wondertainment ®

Site Director Timanson opted to not return the object. Investigation of the object showed no signs of defect. Agents were sent to investigate the area described by the document. For full information on the results of the investigation see document W-17.
On 06/21/20██ Site Director Timanson received this letter in his inbox:

Dear Dr. Wondertainment ® customer,
We hope you're enjoying all of our amazing products! Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that one of our items, the Super Bouncy Mattress™, has a defect. We ask that you return your edition of the Super Bouncy Mattress™ to Dr. Wondertainment headquarters at [REDACTED]. We will repair the defect and return it to you as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time,
Dr. Wondertainment ®

Site Director Timanson opted once again to not return the object. Regular testing continued, as well as several unusual tests in order to detect the supposed defect.
On 07/02/20██ Site Director Timanson received this letter in his inbox:

Dear Mr. Timanson,
Records indicate that you have yet to return your Super Bouncy Mattress™. It is extremely important that you return it at once! Be reassured you will get a new Super Bouncy Mattress™ back! Your haste in this is appreciated, as cooperation from every party is necessary in order to keep things safe and fun for everyone!
Sincerely,
Dr. Wondertainment ®

After consulting with the O5 counsel, Site Director Timanson concluded that it would be in violation of Foundation policy to surrender an anomalous object. Testing of the object has continued.
On 07/10/20██ Site Director Timanson received this letter in his inbox. Unlike the previous letters, this document had been hand written:

Dear Mr. Timanson,
We at Wondertainment have asked you time and time again to return your mattress. Once again we request that you please return it. You are the only person that has failed to do so, and as such we conclude that you obviously have no cause to do so. Since you refuse to return the mattress, this is a disclaimer stating that Wondertainment claims no responsibility over any damage to property, injury, or loss of life caused by the defect that you have been repeatedly warned about. You have brought this upon yourself.
Sincerely,
Dr. Wondertainment

Director Timanson refused to return the object.
Incident Report ████-F:
SCP involved: SCP-████
Personnel involved: 163 personnel involved, for full list see Document ████-E
Date: 07/17/20██
Location: Site-██
Description:
During routine testing of SCP-████, a spring broke free of the object. Due to its anomalous properties, the spring proceeded to bounce off of the ground beneath the site, constantly accelerating. The spring was able to pass through walls, ceilings, and other obstructing objects, but presumably due to its design instead accelerated through humans, typically shredding a 25 centimeter hole through several major organs due to its vertical orientation. Its state of constant acceleration caused it to bounce throughout Site-██ several times. The spring was finally arrested when it came into contact with SCP-████.
Addendum: Casualties numbered 155 (approximately half the site staffing), with 62 personnel permanently injured and 93 personnel dead. SCP-████ has been reclassified as Euclid and placed in a specialized containment locker at Site-██. Protocol Wonder-Alpha was put in place in order to deal with future recall of Dr. Wondertainment products.


The man in grey sat on the rooftop and waited. Beneath him, the city spread endlessly, an ocean of lights and color under the night sky. On the balcony below, a party was nearing its conclusion; slightly drunken couples making their goodbyes and wading their way home, the hostess surveying the mess they left behind them and sighing. The wind was fierce this high up, and he had to hold tight to his hat to keep it from carrying it away. The sounds of the metropolis were comforting, familiar. In that moment, he was at peace, though he knew it wouldn't last. He relished this small instance of freedom. Life is made in small hours like this, he thought. This place felt so familiar, yet he couldn't recall ever being here before. Then again, his memory wasn't what it used to be.
It is time.
The Breath of the World came the way it always did—sudden, silent, and irresistible. The words reached his mind without ever passing through his ears, but this ceased to surprise him years ago. A servant of the Breath learns to cope with surprises, or else he didn't get to keep his mind for very long—while the Breath prefers its agents thinking on their own, he knew it wouldn't hesitate to take matters into its own hands if it needed to. He had learned that the hard way.
An Aspect requires your attention and my judgment. I will show you the way.
It was time to go. He made his way to the stairs leading down from the roof and into the service halls. The presence of the Breath led him through twisting corridors and empty, derelict apartments, ones that had no right to exist in a classy part of town such as this. This was, of course, because they didn't. As he followed the Breath's instructions, the quality of the air began to change—the damp, cool northern European air became much drier and dustier. Sunlight began shining through the cracked windows and grimy skylights of the industrial complex he was making his way through, though it was night when he began his trip, seemingly only a few minutes ago. Turning a corner, he felt a crunch under his shoes—dry bones. He didn't want to know who they belonged to. They might have been his.
Others are searching for the Aspect—the servants of the crescent and those who seek to contain.
At least now he knew where he was going—Iran. His past encounters with the ORIA were often less than civil and ended badly. Mostly for them. Still, the vicious bastards were certainly a force to be reckoned with on their home turf. He was actually relieved to hear the Foundation was here as well—he would much rather leave an unworthy Aspect in their hands. While they were just as ruthless, at least he could respect their goals. He saw what some of the Aspects could do, felt them rend his flesh, tear at the fabric of his mind with mental claws, saw them open doors to places that should never be. And those were some of the more pleasant ones.
You are here.
It seemed he was. The last hallway led to a ladder ending in a metal hatch. He climbed out and surveyed his surroundings: he was standing in a vast salt flat, stretching to the horizon in all directions. Aside from the hatch, the landscape was entirely featureless. “Just lovely,” he muttered, forgetting himself for a moment, “You led me to the middle of Dasht-e Kavir. This is one of the largest, emptiest deserts in the world, how the hell am I supposed to find anything here?” A shock of intense pain ran through his body, and he collapsed to the ground, the salty dust staining his suit.
A favor was granted. You will obey. West, towards the twin mirage.
Grunting, he picked himself up and started walking. That was a mistake, and he should have known better by now—The Breath of the World had no patience for complaints. His outfit was ill-suited for the fierce heat of the salt flats, and his hat provided little protection from the sun, but he persevered; the Breath protected him from dehydration and sun stroke, but did nothing to keep him comfortable. When he spotted what he assumed to be the twin mirage, he was sweating profusely and his tongue felt like parchment. If the Breath hadn't told him about it, he would have missed it—it was just two patches of slightly simmering air, which did not disappear the way a normal mirage would as he approached them.
The Aspect lies between. The others will be here soon, guided by the Manticore.
He had to hurry. While the Breath offered him protection, he was far from invincible, and though he could fend for himself, he couldn't handle an entire ORIA detection squad or Mobile Task Force on his own, not for long at least. He moved into the empty patch of air between the mirages, and found himself standing in an enormous doorway, sixty feet tall at least.
The sarcophagus. The Aspect lies within. It is time to judge.

Colonel Abtin Arjmand was not a happy man. This entire expedition was a complete and utter disaster. First he had to drag an entire platoon to this arid wasteland to search for some heathen mythical beast, and after they finally found it after a month of searching, it devoured half his men before revealing the information they needed. Now, he and his remaining men had to leave their vehicles behind and spend half a day trudging in the salt flats on foot, searching for some half-invisible gate. This artifact had better be worth it, or else he was going to have some words with the research department. Words like “fire!”
“Sir! I think I found something!”
Arjmand hurried to where one of his lieutenants stood, and the young man pointed to a patch of shimmering air. “This mirage is acting funny. It isn't fading, no matter how close I get to it.”
“Good man, I think this might be it. Rally the men, we go inside.”
If nothing else, at least they'll get out of the sun for a while.

Agent Gladstone watched the Iranians disappearing into the mirage. He and his men were using some state-of-the-art camouflage, which was the only thing keeping them alive. Staying hidden on a salt flat was next to impossible, and he doubted anyone else was capable of it. The Iranians led them right to the location of the possible SCP object, though this left them in a problematic situation—the Iranian colonel had three times the manpower at his disposal, and though Gladstone knew the men of his task force were the best in the business, he didn't like these odds. Plus, the Iranians were already inside, and if they went after them, they'll be discovered. He could wait for them to leave and ambush them then, but that meant risking damage to the SCP object, or who knows what else if the object was dangerous. No, he had to try disposing of the Iranians before they got their hands on the object, and he had a plan.
“Turner! Get that drone of yours ready. We are going to have a good old fashioned fox hunt.”

The man in grey crossed the vast hall that lay inside the mirage, making his way towards the sarcophagus. It was massive, far larger than any man could ever need, or so he thought until he removed the cover. The skeleton inside was enormous, at least three times the size of a normal man, and around him were various weapons, even the smallest of them too big for an ordinary man to use comfortably. None of them were the Aspect, so he continued his search. Eventually, he noticed something that stood out, a small piece of softness hidden between the rough edges and metal. It was a piece of dry parchment, a scroll, wrapped around what seemed to be a child's toy. Curious, the man in grey inspected the old scroll:
“Here lies mighty Rostam, Son of white-haired Zal, too great for his mother's womb. Here lies fierce Rostam, tamer of Rakhsh, performer of the Seven Labors. Here lies fool Rostam, willing slave to the coward Kay Kavus. Here lies cursed Rostam, slayer of Sohrab, his son. All who defiles this final place of rest shall share his fate.”
The Aspect is in your hand. The toy. Judgment is upon us.
The man in grey never understood exactly how the Breath of the World judged the Aspects. There didn't appear to be any rhyme or reason to which Aspects it deemed worthy and which it rejected. He'd seen it accept seemingly worthless ones, like that weather vane that wouldn't be moved by wind, and deny ones of immense power.
This Aspect is abhorrent in my eyes. Remove it from my sight.
And that was that. All this effort, for nothing. Once an Aspect was deemed unworthy, the Breath lost all interest in it. It was time for him to leave.

Colonel Arjmand couldn't believe his eyes. A palace, hidden in a mirage, amazing! He's been hunting those damnable relics for years, and he's never seen anything like it.
“Men, I want this place combed. That beast told me there is an object of power here, and what it looked like, but not what it does. Just be careful, we don't know what this thing can do.”
His men did as ordered. Arjmand reached for the chain around his neck, feeling the comforting weight of the object that hung from it. He knew the price of using it, but having it around still made him more confident. If anyone tried to take what was his, they would pay dearly.
“Sir, I think I found it! Here, in the sarcophagus!”
“Let me see. Yes, this seems to be it! Prepare the carrier unit, we leave immi—”
A sudden buzzing noise. Arjmand looked up just in time to see a small remote drone drop a payload of grenades on their heads.

“They're all down, Sir. The payload of stingers and flashbangs knocked them out cold!” Turner said, looking up from his pocket monitor for the drone.
Gladstone grinned. They didn't call his task force “The Mirth Busters” for nothing. He almost pitied the poor bastards—they just spent a month looking for the SCP, and when they finally found it, BAM! It was gone again.
“Alright, move in. I want the object secured and the Iranians neutralized.”

Colonel Arjmand barely managed to get a hold of his talisman before the grenades took down his men. He knew he was sacrificing much by using it, but he hardly had a choice.
They were going to pay for this.
Favors-Part Two


"Eat this," a tired-looking man in business-casual said, setting down a plate in front of Andrew. He had been escorted to a small room furnished with only a table. He looked down and blinked at the plate. On it sat a round, 12" circular birthday cake, with frosting, bearing the words "Happy Birthday Dana". Confused, he looked back up to the man. "I'm sorry…what?"
"Eat it."
He looked back down and looked at the cake before looking back up. "All of it?"
"Yes."
Andrew looked at the cake once more and then picked up the provided spoon. This must be some kind of science experiment. Resigning himself to the fact that he was probably a lab rat, and at least brightened by the prospect of cake, he took a bite. It was alright. It tasted store-bought. Yellow cake, vanilla frosting. But he sadly did not get far before looking back up again. "I hate to ask…can I get some milk?"
The man looked over to the wall at the one-way mirror. A few minutes later another man came in with a gallon of milk and a glass. Impressed with his luck, Andrew poured one and downed it before starting on the cake again. The first half was decently easy, but once he passed two-thirds he had begun to slow. Even the milk was little help. The man noticed, surely, and kept looking at the one-way mirror. Long minutes passed in-between slow bites, but finally, a half-gallon of milk later, the task had been completed. Andrew was escorted out and placed back in his holding cell.
-
Andrew loved to eat.
That had been his downfall, really; his love of eating. Of food in general. Food of all kinds. It was for this reason that he opened his New York bistro, Andy's. And things were good then…that is, until another Andy, the mayor's son, showed up with his thugs. Andy took a liking to Andrew's restaurant, and started hassling him. He demanded a cut of the business, or his father would have his shop shut down. Andrew's mistake was that he said no. And the next thing he knew the kid 's friend was reaching for a gun, and Andrew dove behind the counter and grabbed his. Andrew was quicker than the rest of them.
-
Andrew was returned to the room with the table on the second day. "Eat this," the man said, presenting him with another cake. the icing read "Happy Birthday Don." He was also provided, once more, with milk.
Andrew ate the cake again, with no complaint, though it did not seem as delicious this time. Perhaps it was the cake from the day before. Either way, he took much longer to consume the thing, and afterward, he laid his head in his hands. "Oh, I think I'm gonna be sick." He was swiftly returned to his cell, where he promptly threw up a good portion of the dessert.
-
"Eat this," The man said, presenting a cake reading "Happy birthday Bob".
"Why am I doing this?" Andrew asked between bites.
"That's none of your concern."
"Who makes these? Do you order them?"
"That's none of your concern."
"I used to run a bistro. We ordered our cakes."
"Fascinating. Now eat."
Andrew scowled and returned to his meal, which he completed in silence. Once again, his stomach could not handle the dessert, and emptied upon his return to his cell.
-
The next day he took a lot longer to start. "I appreciate the cake," he said, looking down at the cake reading "Happy Birthday Bill", "But this is a hell of a lot of cake to eat every day."
"You must eat."
Andrew scowled again before returning to his meal.
-
The next day he was joined by another inmate. This one, designated D-2886, was a large, flabby Hispanic man. After expressing some surprise as to the task at hand, he eagerly split the cake with Andrew. Andrew was happy to not have an entire cake to eat, even though 2886 drank most of the milk.
-
He tried sparking up a conversation, but discovered that the man did not speak any English. They shared their cake and milk, and all was right with the world.
-
A week later, however, 2886 got tired of cake. He took a few bites and then stopped. The man pointed at the cake. "Es necesario que usted coma." 2886 shook his head. Andrew continued to eat, but watched the exchange with interest. The man repeated his phrase and jabbed his finger toward the cake. In a flurry of motion, 2886 grabbed the cake and threw it right in the man's face. And then, miraculously, a new cake appeared on the table, as if from thin air. The man, 2886, and Andrew all looked at it for a long moment, and then the man drew his gun at 2886 and fired. 2886 lay dead on the floor as the man turned to Andrew. "Eat it."
Andrew complied hastily.
-
Weeks passed. Each day was a new name on the cake. Other inmates came and went, with varying degrees of enthusiasm for the task, but Andrew always stayed. Perhaps they knew he would eat the cake by himself if he had to. Perhaps it was his quiet acceptance of the task presented. For whatever reason, he always ate the cake, and never further did he complain.
-
One day Andrew was escorted into the room with the table. The man seemed a little different. A bit of a smile graced the sides of his mouth as he presented the plate. On it was a cake bearing the words "Happy Bar Mitzvah Steven". The man also presented him with a gallon of milk and, for the first time, a cup of coffee.
"This is different," Andrew remarked, cutting a spoonful of cake out of the molded dessert.
The man shrugged. "I've been told you're being kept around a while. You should consider yourself lucky. Most of the time we get rid of you guys."
Andrew sighed and took a bite. "Wonderful. I should mention that I hate cake."
"Well think of it this way. Those cakes are keeping you alive."
Andrew thought about this and took a sip of the coffee. "Well then. I hope I don't get diabetes."
The cake tasted terrible.


Why would an HE attempt to invade the planet Earth? More to the point, what reason would an HE have to make itself an HE? This question may seem overly philosophical and speculative, but it is important for the focus of Project Heimdall. Would it be for access to natural resources, either biological or mineral? Would they come to take us all as slaves? Would they just like to displace us and move in? For the reasons that will be brought up in this report, the answer to all of these is a resounding "No."
First, we will discuss a few basics of biochemistry as it pertains to exobiology. It is generally agreed upon that life as we know it tends to adapt to its own unique environment and, in turn, modifies its environment to suit its own needs. The most noteworthy example of this principle is oxygen. This chemical is absolutely necessary for life as we know it, not only being present in our proteins and cell membranes and DNA, but in life's universal solvent, water. Without oxygen, it's clear that life simply could not exist. But one form of oxygen used to be highly toxic to all life on Earth. This form consists of two oxygen atoms linked together by two covalent bonds. Inside a living system, this chemical oxidized its life-sustaining mechanisms to the point that they could not function at all.
During the Precambrian Period, a mass extinction event occurred that we now call the Oxygen Catastrophe. At that time, some bacteria managed to develop a way to use solar radiation to transform water and carbon dioxide into metabolizable sugars and oxygen molecules. This was a very effective strategy which gave them plenty of food and a deadly byproduct that kept predatory bacteria from eating them. As these photosynthetic bacteria became more plentiful, they transformed even more water and carbon dioxide into oxygen until the chemical was present in most of the oceans and atmosphere. Many living things died. But a few, including our direct ancestors, survived by developing biochemical strategies to fight the destructive effects of free oxygen and even managed to find a way to use those effects to generate energy. Because of this, almost all life now present on Earth is able to withstand and thrive in an oxygenated environment.
Let us now look at another pair of chemicals that are ubiquitous to life as we know it: Carbon and nitrogen. Once again, these chemicals are present everywhere and interact with one another to make life possible. But one interaction of carbon and nitrogen is highly toxic in the vast majority of cases. This is a simple negatively charged ion consisting of a carbon atom and a nitrogen atom linked by three covalent bonds, commonly known as cyanide. Ironically, cyanide ions are mostly hazardous to life forms that thrive on oxygen, by interfering with the biochemical pathways that transform the energy locked up in oxygen atoms into usable energy. It is easy to imagine a hypothetical alien planet saturated with cyanide where life learned to thrive on this, just like our distant ancestors learned to thrive in the presence of oxygen molecules.
And this brings us to the point: That life that developed on two separate planets with no interaction at all would end up biochemically incompatible, even at the most basic level, even if they were built from exactly the same chemical building blocks in exactly the same proportions.
This means that an HE would not choose to invade Earth to eat either us or any other life on the planet. In all likelihood, terrestrial life would simply be too toxic to ingest. We can at least rest assured, now that we will not be on the menu if something chooses to invade. Nor should we concern ourselves with the possibility that the HE might choose to take our place on a planet that would be far too poisonous to even touch. It would be the equivalent of murdering a group of innocents for the privilege of living inside of a tank of cyanide.
But should we worry about being enslaved by the HE? Once again, biochemistry provides part of the answer to this question. There would be no purpose to transport humans back to the HE's equivalent of home. These slaves would require a specialized environment and a unique diet that is incompatible with anything that exists on their homeworld. Land would have to be extensively terraformed in order to support our sources of food, thereby removing land that could otherwise be applied to other purposes by the HE.
The practicality of such an endeavour is brought further into question when looking at the resources required to do such a thing. Besides those needed to sustain the slave race after the invasion, the HE would have to accumulate resources sufficient, not only to subdue Earth's military forces, but to transport such military might to Earth in the first place. Let us set aside the force needed to conquer Earth and simply consider transportation:
The laws of physics allow low-energy methods of transportation between planets and stars. These methods, however, are slow, potentially taking hundreds or even thousands of years. Much can happen during this intervening time. The target might advance scientifically to the point where they can easily fight back against the force sent by the HE. Or they might become so populous that they can quickly collect the resources needed to defeat the invading force with minimal effort on the part of each member of the target species. Or they might simply go extinct, either through their own actions, or by some other event, thereby nullifying the intended purpose of the invasion.
Theoretical physics does provide certain loopholes that can allow much quicker travel to a target location. So far, though, all of these theoretical methods of transportation require vast amounts of energy in order to become feasible. The minimal energy requirements would be equivalent to converting the mass of an entire star into energy. A civilization capable of doing such a thing would have no use for a slave race. It is clear that there would be no reason to use such incomprehensible energies to obtain slaves or servants who, because of their biological requirements, would be more trouble than they are worth.
What of mineral or other chemical resources? When we look at our own solar system, we see numerous planets and moons and countless smaller astronomical bodies which have the exact same resources that we can find on the Earth, sometimes in quantities that put what we have here to shame. There are even some resources that can not even be found on Earth in any usable proportions, such as iridium. To put things bluntly, there are enough resources close-by that there would be no point to traveling farther for them. Were it more practical to travel to another star for your resources, for whatever strange reason, it would be easier to mine an uninhabited moon rather than invade a populated world and subdue its population in order to take their resources. Recent findings in mainstream exoplanet research have shown that at least half of all stars have planets orbiting them. When combined with the most liberal possible result of Drake's Equation, wherein the nearest likely alien civilization would be located hundreds or thousands of light years away, it is evident that there are enough resources between us and them that we are likely to be spared an invasion for this reason.
What purpose, then, would the HE have to invade Earth? With all of these other scenarios being unfeasible, there is only one reason that an HE would attack: Complete extermination. The human race would be considered a potential threat by the HE, either in its current state, or as extrapolated by our current paths of development.
If this is the case, it would stand to reason that the HE would use methods that have a high chance of success, with little consideration for collateral damage. Such methods may include a universal pathogen that is able to infect and destroy any and all humans, application of the Grey Goo scenario, or even the outright destruction of the Earth. Therefore, it is this researcher's opinion that there is little reason to focus on military, sociological, or economic attacks, as these all have varying degrees of risk inherent in their very natures and furthermore would do little to aid in the goal of extermination. Instead, the attack would be more covert and may not even be recognized as extraterrestrial in origin, rather being assumed to be a natural event or the result of an SCP's anomalous effects.
This means that the best thing that we can do is what we are doing right now. Secure, Contain, and Protect. It may very well be that some items currently in our custody may be the tool that the HE had intended for our destruction and that we have already foiled their plans without even realizing.
Another prudent course of action may be to invest in research into interplanetary and eventually interstellar travel. If we should go forth and multiply, a single attack on a single world, no matter how large-scale the attack may be, would not cause our outright extinction. In effect, we would have a backup or multiple backups. And, should we be successful in such an endeavour, we may even have a chance at becoming the HE ourselves.


Heimdall Contingency 045- ADANA
Abstract:- At present, the majority of Heimdall contingencies are oriented towards a military invasion. While this is not an empty threat, the possibility of other methods of conquest should still be taken into place. In the case of an ADANA scenario, this is an economic victory. Any HE that poses a threat to earth can be assumed to possess technology significantly in advance of ours. The dissemation of this technology would almost certainly make the majority, if not all, of human technology worthless, rendering humanity dependent on the HEs and causing a de facto occupation.
Scenario: There are two main methods a HE species could use to cause an ADANA scenario
1. Overt- the public revelation of the invaders' existence, and a direct offering of alien technology.
2. Covert- Secret contact with, and delivery of technology to, select human agencies
In both cases, advanced technology would be offered, far in advance of humans. Three likely areas this technology would involve include medical (a vital technology, and likely to ensure positive feelings towards the invaders from the general public), industrial (again, vital, highly marketable, and gains indirect control over human manufacturing and other areas), and military technology (useful for ensuring survival and victory of human subjects, provides intimidation and deterrence for attacks), although for obvious reasons, this list is neither exhaustive nor confirmed.
Once technology has been disseminated, either directly or through proxies, it would rapidly (estimates show at best █ years, more likely █ to ██ months) out-compete and replace all modern technology in these areas. Assuming the HEs do not give humans the ability to construct these technologies, they could easily force the implementation of laws or other activities using the threat of their removal, or the promise (fulfilled or unfulfilled) of additional gifts. Alternately or in addition, technologies such as remote control could give HEs direct control of means of production, allowing near complete economic domination. It seems likely additional technology will be given to ensure further dependency. After an estimated █ years, all technology will be based on the alien models, giving them almost complete control over the human race.
Protocol: In the event of an overt ADANA scenario, the Veil Protocol will rapidly become ineffectual (although it will still be kept in place in relation to anomalous items). In this scenario, the best method is to turn human opinion against the technology. This can be done by spreading information about potential harmful effects of the technology (real or otherwise), and/or to encourage xenophobic opinions towards the aliens, leading to a reduced usage of their technologies. Attempting to enforce legal restrictions on the alien technology is also to be implemented in all sympathetic legislatures. This is unlikely to end the scenario, but is likely to delay complete technological dependency. This time is to be used to obtain and reverse-engineer alien technology, allowing us to create it on our own and breaking dependency. In the event the technology is too advanced to do this, or reverse engineering fails for other reasons, the abduction and interrogation of HEs or human proxies is authorised (it is assumed, given the HE's ability to communicate and understand human reasoning, that they share sufficient mental similarities to humans to be usefully interrogated), although efforts must be made to prevent a direct hostile event. Once the technology is reverse engineered, the dissemination of this technology at minimal prices, utilising the previous xenophobic ideas, is to be immediately carried out. If reverse engineering fails completely, hostile action may be used with a unanimous vote by the council.
In a covert ADANA scenario, the Veil Protocol may still be possible-if so, it is to be implemented. In either case, the organisation or organisations that hold alien technology are to be destroyed by any means possible. In the case of businesses, full economic warfare by all SCP fronts is to be initiated, including industrial espionage and sabotage. Attempts at legal attacks and/or public slander will also be utilised. National bodies will be removed from power-in the case of smaller nations, assassinations and attempts at sparking rebellions or coups are to be performed. In larger nations, the use of scandals, public opinion, and possible assassination will be used to spark the removal of current government, and hopefully HE proxies. If this proves ineffectual, similar methods to smaller countries will be utilised. Secret organizations are to be publicly revealed, if necessary at the cost of the Foundation's own secrecy. The use of public and legal opposition is to be used to destroy the organizations. The reverse engineering of technology is still to take place. This may lead to an overt ADANA scenario, or a direct invasion—please report to the protocols for those scenarios in this case.
In all cases except where the continued survival of the Foundation or the success of the ADANA contingency is at risk, the Foundation will not utilize alien technology before reverse engineering, and will not use it as a mass technology. The estimated threat of an ADANA scenario is a 92% risk of full conquest. With Foundation protocols, it is reduced to an estimated 46%.
Likely warning signs of an ADANA scenario include the following. If large numbers happen in a short period of time, the council is to meet to determine the possibility of an ADANA scenario.

Increased UFO sightings and other standard signs of increased extraterrestrial activity,
The disappearance of technological devices (Attempts to test human advancement and suitability for conquest)
Strange riots, behavior, or other psychological incidents (Attempts to test human responsiveness before invasion)
Sabotage of human industrial progress (Attempt to increase human level of dependency)
Sudden, inexplicable advances in technology (May show a covert ADANA scenario taking place—investigate and, if necessary, implement protocol)


"This is going to kick the top off the anthill, you know that, right?" General Pendergast asked, looking up from the report.
Doctor Rex scoffed, "Yeah, well, I can't help it that Dr. Von Schmidt is an idiot, or that so many fools actually listened to his ridiculous ideas." Pendergast shook his head. "Besides, General, you wanted a realistic assessment. There you go."
Pendergast sighed. "Rex, the point of Project Heimdall is to assess our risks. The O5 Council takes the 'Destroyers' mentioned in SCP-1050 very seriously—"
"Ah, yes, 'Destroyers'. The mythical race of warped abominations, allegedly waiting in the 'Realm of Darkness.' We can dismiss that claim, General," spat Rex. "There is not one shred of evidence to support the theory that aliens drop by every fifty thousand to fifty million years and wipe out large percentages of life on this planet - not one! I mean, unless you count a single artifact which makes wild and unsupported claims. Every major extinction event in this planet's history caused by the same thing? Come on!"
"What about the transmission?" asked Pendergast.
"What about it? It's three words in a predecessor dialect to Latin, followed by one hundred numbers," Rex retorted.
"And some of those numbers are the base-eight equivalent of what's on the obelisk," Pendergast continued, exasperated.
"So what?" Rex asked. "More than half of them aren't."
Pendergast massaged his graying temples. "Doctor, don't you think it at least theoretically possible that—"
"No, General, I don't," Rex said. He sighed exasperatedly. "Let's just take a look at what we know for certain - not what Von Schmidt guessed, what we know."
"Alright."
"Obsidian obelisk of improbable size, covered in a bunch of different languages all saying the same thing, and inexplicably transmitting a signal which happens to match something occasionally picked up by radio telescopes," Rex began. "What does this text say?" He walked over to Pendergast's blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. "'Beware the Destroyers.' Okay, now there's a helpful statement. 'They come by the millions from the Realm of Darkness which extends where no stars shine.' Millions. Right. Probably hyperbole. Also, where is this 'Realm of Darkness'?"
"Space," replied Pendergast.
Rex looked down his glasses at the General condescendingly. "Really? Remember, 'where no stars shine'. There's nowhere on this planet that if you look up at the clear night sky forty-eight thousand years ago that you wouldn't see stars. I mean, now we know about intergalactic space, but back then? No way. This isn't some space opera cosmic horror story, General. No, if you want someplace dark without stars, at least from the primitive worldview of Paleolithic man, you're talking a cave or underwater. Look at mythological descriptions of the underworld. Hades, Niflheim, those are the places to look. And the Foundation has spent decades digging around looking for subterranean and submarine monsters. You'd think we'd have noticed millions of something.
"Okay, moving on. 'For a thousand generations They slumber, lying in wait.' That's got to be hyperbole. No human society has ever kept records, even in oral tradition, that accurately keep track of things over twenty-five thousand years. Remember, writing only rolled around in the past ten thousand years," Rex said.
"But the writing on the obelisk—" objected Pendergast.
"What, the writing that magically appears over night? We made that?" Rex asked. "Okay. Brief description of peace, prosperity, blah, blah. 'Then They Return. They cull and burn. They are warped, and move beyond the pale, bigger than any man, unnatural births. Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike and welt on the hand of those heathen brutes is as barbed steel. It is said there is no honed iron hard enough to pierce Them through, no time proofed blade that can cut Their brutal blood caked claws.' This passage also appears in Beowulf, which, I might remind you, is fiction!"
"Then it seems likely the author of Beowulf was aware of either the obelisk, or a contemporary version of dash-two," Pendergast retorted. "It would make sense, actually. Remember that one of the messages on the obelisk was written in 985 in Early Medieval Swedish Runes."
"Right," Rex said. "Except Beowulf is about a legendary Geatish hero. Who was roughly contemporary with when the story was first told."
"We think," Pendergast countered.
"Even if Grendel or his mother - or both - are Destroyers, and I'm not saying I believe that, then that would actually support the subterranean or submarine origin of the Destroyers. Remember, Beowulf has to chase Grendel's mother to her lair, which was under a lake," Rex said. "Nothing extraterrestrial about that."
"Huh," Pendergast said. This was an aspect to the text he'd never considered.
"Yeah," Rex said. "I still don't think these Destroyers are real, or aliens, but that doesn't excuse lazy analysis. The least Von Schmidt could have done was done it right. Anyway, from the description, we can get that these alleged Destroyers are supposed to be big, ugly monsters. If I showed ancient man a tank, what do you think his response would be? You can kill a tank with a bazooka, General."
Pendergast stood and picked up a piece of chalk of his own, "But what about the next part, Rex? 'Armies are raised and cut down like grasses before a scythe - it is said the armies of Amorah and Suhdom, each ten thousand strong, were swept away between a single rising and setting sun. Heroes come forth and are slaughtered.'"
Rex was unimpressed. "If you have a hundred tanks and you go up against twenty thousand guys with spears and bows, what do you think the result is going to be? General, when was the last time you heard of a spearman beating a tank in combat?"
"Tanks? In ancient times?" the General asked incredulously.
"Alien invaders?" the Doctor countered. "I'm not saying these 'Destroyers' - if they existed - were tanks or anything like that. My point is that they could be something (apparently) completely unrelated to ten-fifty. They could even be something the Foundation has encountered and contained."
Pendergast raised his eyebrows, "Like what?"
Rex scoffed, "You want me to guess? I don't know, six-eighty-two, maybe? Or one-seven-three? Or maybe Able? Honestly, I have no idea. But we can't account for where any of these objects were fifty millennia ago. Maybe it was six-eighty-two's great-great-great-granddaddy!"
"You've made your point, Rex," Pendergast said quietly.
Ignoring him, Rex rambled on, "Just because we 'know', or I should say 'strongly believe', that there is a threat does not mean we actually have the foggiest idea what that threat actually is."
"Rex…"
Rex showed no sign of stopping his rambling tirade, however. "We have a lot of information about this object - that we know, I mean, not just that we think we know - but we don't know that there is a threat, much less anything about what that threat might be!"
"Enough!" shouted Pendergast. Rex blinked - he'd been so absorbed in his thought that it took volume to shake him out of it. Resuming his usual quiet volume, Pendergast asked, "What about the connection to Sodom and Gomorrah?"
"Do you assume the Biblical accounts of those cities' destruction through fire and brimstone are literally true, General?" Rex asked. "That the Almighty decided to smite them? Besides, their historical existence is still in dispute by archaeologists. The Bible indicates they were located near the Dead Sea, but we've not found proof of their having been there." Pendergast nodded; petty, arrogant, and bad with people as Rex was, he had a point. "Beyond that, if Von Schmidt's analysis is correct (for a change), and the numbers are dates in Earth years since the Big Bang, then none of those dates are within human history."
"Even the most recent one?" Pendergast observed skeptically.
"No other written or oral history dates back that far, at least not that we know of," Rex said. "Sure, there were humans around, but fifty or so thousand years is a long time. Remember, this SCP notwithstanding, it's generally agreed that the first true writing of language was only invented in 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia - and then independently in Mesoamerica around 600 BC. Writing numbers came first, but even there we're only talking about 8000 BCE in Sumer."
Pendergast nodded. "So, 1050 indicates human writing is five times older than we thought."
"Except there's no clear evidence humans ever actually carved anything on the obelisk," Rex said. "Remember how the Nazi scientists went home for the night, only to come back and discover the Russian version of the message had appeared as if by magic."
Pendergast thought about that for a moment, and decided to push Rex back on track. After all, the doctor had failed to answer his question. "Could the Biblical accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah have come from this SCP?"
"If they did, then that would call into question centuries of scholarship on Biblical scholarship," answered Rex. "It is incredibly implausible for the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah to have been destroyed by 'Destroyers', unless, of course, our understanding of where the Bible comes from is completely wrong."
Pendergast raised an eyebrow. "Rex, you've worked here long enough to know that stranger things have happened."
"Is it possible? Sure. But not probable," the doctor replied, adjusting his glasses. "And, on top of that, this message is a warning from ancient aliens who happened to visit this planet to warn us about other ancient aliens who appear out of nowhere every few epochs to wipe out the majority of life on the planet? I know this Foundation handles some crazy stuff, but come on!"
Sighing, the General asked, "Okay, what about 'Lightning and fire rain from the sky and the whole earth trembles.'"
"Sounds like what I understand modern artillery bombardment and aerial bombing is like," Rex replied.
"And this stuff about the Destroyers being 'a powerful flood that washes away entire mighty nations and empires'?" Pendergast asked.
Rex shook his head. "General, you know that there are flood myths in just about every culture, but apart from this obelisk's message, we have no reason to think they refer to anything other than, well, water."
"'The people pray for deliverance from the gods. The gods fight the Destroyers, but their efforts are in vain'," quoted Pendergast.
"Three-forty-three notwithstanding, how many gods do you know? And, even if you include him, how many gods do you know that actually bother interfering?" Rex asked. Pendergast was not a religious man, but he had been brought up by church-going parents, and was therefore less than amused by Rex's comment. Before he could say anything though, Rex continued. "And this whole bit about the Destroyers being 'as the gods are to men and men are to insects'? Sounds a bit like something out of Lovecraft, doesn't it? Or perhaps Star Wars - 'there's always a bigger fish'? Really?"
"And this escape fleet of 'fifty score great vessels'?" asked Pendergast.
"It wasn't until relatively modern times that fleets could be expected to weather storms without losing a ship or two," Rex said, "Or for that matter, to be almost completely wiped out by storms."
Pendergast returned to his desk. "So you honestly think there's no threat here," he said.
"General, the chances of anything coming to wipe us out are a million to one," Rex replied smugly.
Thank you, Ogilvy, Pendergast thought, trying not to smile at the apparently unintentional irony of Rex's choice of phrase. "Alright, Doctor, SCP-1050 isn't what we've previously believed it to be, then what is it?"
"I don't know," Rex admitted, "but just because I can't provide an alternative doesn't mean the Foundation's current guess is anything other than speculative bullshit - imaginative speculative bullshit, to be sure, but bullshit nonetheless."
Pendergast shook his head and looked up. "I hope you're right," he replied. "I'll forward your report. Dismissed, Doctor." As Rex left, Pendergast muttered to himself, "I hope you're right."


"You always did tend to burn the candle at both ends, William."
General William Pendergast, the Deputy Director of Foundation Contingency Planning Operations, looked up. His unexpected visitor was a patrician - tall and imperially thin, his once black hair now liberally streaked with grey. Seven, as the man was called based on his numerical designation, was one of the Foundation's Overseers.
"Sir, it's late," Pendergast said, though the hour was not so much late as it was early. "What brings you out to Site-11 at this time of night?"
His visitor took a long, slow breath on his cigarette, in flagrant violation of the Foundation's smoke-free workplace policy. "This and that, General. You've been doing a fine job here, by the way."
"Thank you, sir."
"Does the number 79812108 mean anything significant to you, William?" the Overseer asked, taking a seat.
"Yes, sir, several things," the General replied. Pendergast did his best to not look disapprovingly at his superior's smoking - never a vice he had entertained himself, as he hated the smell of the damned things.
"Specifically, the Contingency Planning Operation with that designation," elaborated Seven, exhaling.
"Assume aliens which could be considered 'Keter' attempted an invasion - how do we stop them, and all that," Pendergast said. "Last updated back in 1988, was it?"
"Eighty-nine," corrected his guest. "But most of the legwork was done in '88, yes. I'm glad to see your memory is as good as ever."
"I wasn't involved in drafting that report, sir," General Pendergast observed.
"No, you were an Air Force major working at the Pentagon who had never heard of the Foundation, and I was, well, that's a long time ago," Seven observed. Though Pendergast was still in his fifties, Seven was closer to seventy than sixty. "The reason I bring this up is that several members of the O5 Council, myself included, believe this exercise needs updating. It has, after all, been two decades."
"Yes, sir," Pendergast replied. "Sir, if I may ask, why the back channels?"
"I need you to put a formal request in writing to the Council. Those of us who feel this way aren't a majority - you know how it is. A couple of the hardline science types don't want resources taken away from their pet projects for poking and prodding things." Though extensive, funded in no small degree by several lucrative patents held by shell companies, the Foundation's budget was by no means limitless - something Pendergast understood from spending a third of his time fighting for his budget in seemingly endless meetings.
"And if you get a formal suggestion for reupping a twenty-two year old analysis, you'll be able to convince the fence-sitters to side with you," Pendergast said, finishing his superior's thought.
"Precisely."
Pendergast continued, "And if this formal suggestion comes from my office without any apparent suggestion from you or those who agree with you, you won't owe the fence sitters favors next time they want something."
Taking a puff on his cigarette, the Overseer chuckled. "Well, we do pay you to spot the subtle details and speak the uncomfortable truths, so I don't suppose I can object too loudly when you apply that to the Foundation's own internal politics."
"I'll have a formal request drawn up in time for next Monday's Council meeting?" Pendergast asked.
Seven exhaled and used the stub of his cigarette to light a new one. "That will do nicely, General," he said, standing. "Good night, William."
"Good night, sir," Pendergast replied, but his guest was already gone.

FROM: General William Pendergast (Deputy Director of Foundation Contingency Planning)
TO: O5 Council
RE: Proposed Contingency Planning Operation

Overseers,
It has come to my attention that it has been nearly 23 years since the last major Foundation low-probability, high impact analysis was performed regarding "the possibility that hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligences unknown displaying vigorous, active hostility to human life and/or civilization might attempt to conquer, enslave, or exterminate humanity." (Reference Foundation Contingency Planning Operation 79812108, 01/13/1989.) In that time, significant technological advances and geopolitical shifts have occurred. Accordingly, Foundation contingency protocols for such an event are woefully insufficient. Though the likelihood of hostile actions by extraterrestrial intelligences unknown within the near future is remote, the consequences for human civilization should such actions occur would be nothing short of dire. While both world governments and various groups of interest such as the Global Occult Coalition can be reasonably expected to respond to major attacks against this planet and its civilization, the Foundation is and must be the first and best line of defense for humanity.
I propose the immediate commencement of a contingency planning operation (proposed numerical reference number 83910301) in which the Foundation will update its plans, coordinated through my office but spanning disciplines and departments.
I propose the following facilities be involved:

Overwatch HQ: Operating in both its usual oversight and coordination roles.
Research Sector-15: As the Foundation's primary facility for research and experimentation devoted to determining methods for destroying dangerous SCP objects, it is uniquely suited to the discussion of destructive countermeasures towards extraterrestrial entities.
Site-11: As both the primary intelligence center and the location of my office and directorate, this facility is best suited for taking the lead on this contingency planning operation.
Site-19: The participation of Site-19's research and scientific staff would be necessary for this project's successful conclusion.
Armed Research Site-45: As the primary facility for weaponization of SCP objects, this site would be critical in any planetary defense initiative.

I propose the following task forces be involved (recognizing that analysis is not their primary function, but believing this operation to overlap with their mandates):

Mobile Task Force Gamma-5 (aka "They're on our side, Sir!"): Tasked with "public misinformation and damage control", Gamma-5 would play a significant role in the Foundation's management of the media should hostile extraterrestrial actions occur.
Mobile Task Force Iota-10 (aka "Damn Feds"): Assigned to intercept SCP-related reports and disrupt SCP-related investigations by local law-enforcement agencies, Iota-10 would be critical in the Foundation's coordination of local agencies in the event of hostile extraterrestrial actions.
Reconnaissance Force Kappa-6 (aka "Angel Eyes"): As one of the Foundation's main espionage-related Task Forces, Kappa-6 would likely be the first part of the Foundation to become aware of covert hostile extraterrestrial actions.

I further propose the involvement of a rapid response task force, assuming availability permits.
I thank the Council for its consideration of this matter.
Signed,
William Pendergast

FROM: O5-7, on behalf of O5 Council
TO: General William Pendergast (Deputy Director of Foundation Contingency Planning Operations)
RE: Proposed CPO 83910301

Contingency Planning Operation approved. Codename designation "Project Heimdall". Research potential means by which extraterrestrial intelligence displaying vigorous, active hostility to human life and/or civilization might attempt to conquer, enslave, or exterminate humanity. Analyze likely outcomes. Develop countermeasures and contingency plans. Report findings to O5 Council when complete.

Hmmm, Pendergast thought, reading the reply from the O5 Council. "Heimdall", Norse god who kept watch for Ragnarök. Very apt.
He picked up his phone to get the ball rolling. There was a lot of work to do.


The Keterlord sighed, slumped on his stool, and stared down through his nearly-empty glass at the grain lines on the bar's wooden surface. Today was his birthday, but nobody at work had remembered or bothered to recognize it.
He didn't feel much like a Keterlord at this moment, nor much like a lord of anything really—just another Foundation clock puncher who'd punched out for the day, now drinking himself into oblivion until the time came to punch in again tomorrow morning.
He despised the nickname. The security grunts had given it to him on account of a certain, regrettable question he'd asked during his second day of orientation at Site 19. And it had stuck. Even now, nearly five years later, he was positive that at least a few of his colleagues didn't know his real name.
"Fuck 'em," he muttered, before sucking down the last of his drink and pushing the empty glass toward the bartender: "Another scotch, neat." He was so accustomed to being addressed as "Keterlord" or "The Keterlord" that sometimes it felt more real to him than what his mother called him.
That fateful orientation question had seemed benign enough at the time he asked it. After all, he held a PhD in Materials Science from MIT. He'd simply been curious about the choice of metals in a few of the Keter-class containment cells. But the wording of the question—"Don't you think it would be better if…"—had made him sound like a know-it-all, like an overconfident kid trying to assert his self-assured cockiness before he'd actually proved himself.
But the Keterlord had proved himself, eventually, despite those early months of second-rate assignments and supervisors taking credit for his work. He had designed countless alloys, polymers, and composites to meet the Foundation's ever-expanding needs. From a fabric that could stop knives to a plastic strong enough to mold into firearms, he'd churned out new patents like they were lab reports. Still his colleagues mocked him with that nickname, even as his work produced containment cells strong enough to hold God himself.
The Keterlord grinned at that thought as he sipped his drink. God descends to earth with trumpets blaring and holy fire raging, only for the Foundation to drag him off and lock him up in a five-by-five cell. Any prophets would get "Class C amnesiacs" of course, which as he understood was only the latest O5 euphemism for a bullet to the head.
He downed the remaining scotch and pushed the glass forward. As he looked up to find the bartender, he noticed a woman at the other end of the room, sitting at a table alone, and looking in his direction. He could see green eyes behind her black-rimmed, technocratic glasses. Her dark brown hair contained a few streaks of grey, a few shades lighter than her charcoal suit.
The Keterlord undressed her in his scotch-addled mind. She looked familiar—had he seen her at the Site 19 mess? Perhaps elsewhere? Before he could place her, she was leaning against the bar next to him, and he could feel the warmth of her side through his coat.
"You work at the farm," she said.
"I don't—"
"—Relax. I do too, and I know you recognized me sitting over there." She smiled and raised two fingers to signal the bartender, who slid two full glasses to her.
"Tough day?" she asked.
"Don't want to talk about it."
"That's alright," she said, handing him one of the glasses.
"Thanks," he said, knocking back the drink in one motion. "I haven't seen you here before. What's your—" the Keterlord stopped mid-sentence as he felt the liquor hit his bloodstream, "—your," but he couldn't get the last word out.
"Are you alright?" she asked with a concerned look.
"I—" his vision began to blur. "I—"
The last thing he saw was a discreet smile creep across the woman's face, then it all went black.
___
He awoke violently to a bucket of ice water poured over his head, which ached terribly, seated in a cold metal chair in a dark room.
"Where am I?" he said, "What is this?" Then he remembered the woman in grey, the drink she'd given him.
The room was pitch black, and even as his eyes adjusted, all he could see were the outlines of several figures in the darkness. He tried to move, but his wrists were cuffed behind his back, and he'd been strapped to the chair with thick nylon webbing. He heard voices whispering.
"… . think he's awake … don't get too close … "
"THE MIGHTY KETERLORD HIMSELF, I PRESUME!" another voice boomed from out of the darkness.
"I'm not—" he felt tears welling up.
"Don't try to deny it," a voice cut him off, "We know what you are, Keterlord, and you belong to us now."
"You don't understand," said the Keterlord, "I'm just an—"
"Just a what?" a third voice said, "A monster? A weapon? A plaything of your beloved Foundation?"
"No! … I mean, wait … what?"
"—a God?" said one of the voices, "An immortal? A de—"
"STOP!" yelled the Keterlord, "Yes … YES … I AM THE KETERLORD!!" He heard feet shuffling nervously around him. "AND YOU MUST RELEASE ME! RELEASE ME, OR I WILL … I'LL, ummm … DESTROY YOUR MINDS WITH … with … FIRE … yes, WITH FIRE!!" A long silence ensued.
"Impossible!" yelled one of the voices, "for we are wearing armor made from the purest telekill alloy!"
"Chief, that's not entirely—"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up! You know what, fuck you guys! Can't anybody deal with a little bit of goddam ad-libbing?! Anybody?!"
"This is embarrassing. Carl, just turn on the lights already."
The lights flashed on, and the Keterlord realized he was in a room full of his coworkers. A large sheet cake sat on the table in front of him.
"SURPRISE!" they yelled, some less enthusiastically than others.


"Good morning, Sir. Yes, you have reached Uncle Merl's Discount Emporium, how may I assist you? I'm sorry, this is tech support, we don't handle sales. No, Sir, I can't direct you to sales without a reference. I don't care if your friend says I did a few days ago, I'm not doing it now. Because the last time I did someone got sold something she wasn't supposed to have. Sir, I do not appreciate this sort of language. Goodbye."
Mr. Sami was not having a good day.
Though Mr. Sami only rarely had good days, this one was no ordinary bad day, he thought. It was a bad day with expectations, with dreams. It aspired to be the best bad day it could be, a day so absolutely terrible other bad days will tell stories about it to their children.
Mr. Sami had somewhat of a flair for the dramatic.
Mr. Sami was a tech support supervisor at Uncle Merl's Discount Emporium, top provider of all products mysterious and magical, or so the company claimed at least. As far as Mr. Sami was concerned, they were the top peddlers of overpriced crap that broke down every ten minutes, often disastrously. Say what you will about Marshall, Carter, and Dark and their business practices, at least their products worked as intended most of the time. Every time one of Merl's crappy dehumanizers or shoddy levitators crashed and burned, it meant more work for him. Like right now.
"So, Ma'am, what seems to be the problem with your Luxetron 3000? It's too bright? Ma'am, you are aware the Luxetron is a device made to dispel magical darkness? No Ma'am, it is not supposed to be used as a tanning lamp, it's all in the manual. Page 23."
And sometimes, the product was just fine and the customer was an idiot.
"Ma'am, let me transfer you to our luxomancy expert. Please hold." Mr. Sami rose from his cubicle, and scanned the office for the tip of a pointy hat. "Hey Dan, call for you on line 5! Another moron using the Luxetron as a tanning lamp!"
A voice replied from the cubicle sporting the pointy tip. "Do not disturb Danerius the Magnificent! He is at work peering into the very fabric of the arcane stream!"
"Finish your goddamn Freecell game later and answer the bloody phone!"
A tall, white haired figure rose from the cubicle, the majestic appearance of his robes only slightly spoiled by the flowery tie he chose to wear over them. "You shall pay dearly for this interruption, Sami. I shall inflict upon you a hex most foul for this transgression!" His threats might have been more credible if Dan didn't make them every time he had to answer a call.
"Yeah, threaten a shaman with a curse, that's a real bright idea, Dan. Now if you don't mind, I have another call."
Mr. Sami sat down at his desk went back to work. In the following two hours, he had to deal with one of their patented Snoozebooks malfunctioning and causing people to mildly explode ("If I were you, Sir, I'd take my daughter to the hospital, they might still be able to reattach that foot. No, Sir, the book is non-refundable"), a customer complaining about the new Durandal series ("It's a new model, Sir, some bugs are bound to occur. Yes, I do realize not being able to cut through the skin of large lizards is a pretty major bug. No, we do not cover medical expenses of injuries caused by our products, you signed a disclaimer") and Bob the warlock trying to fix the copier with dark rituals again ("Let go of the mouse blood and ram skull and call tech support, Bob, seriously"). Only four more hours till quitting time. He needed a break.
Mr. Sami went outside for a smoke, taking care to avoid Mr. Jamu's office. He still hasn't filled his performance report for this quarter, and his boss did not take kindly to tardiness. Jamu might be his cousin, but that got him no breaks with the man. Outside, he saw Sarah from the legal department huddled under a puffy coat, her hands shaking from the cold. "Rough day?" he asked.
"You can say that again. Bernstein's in a foul mood."
"Why?"
"He said someone screwed up and left a trail leading to one of our more… questionable ventures. Now the spooks are sniffing around, asking questions."
This was Sami's fault, though nobody knew it. He knew he shouldn't have transferred that lady to sales without a reference, but she asked so nicely. No one ever asked Mr. Sami for anything nicely. Luckily for him, he managed to cover that mistake up by getting rid of the sales rep with a particularly nasty curse.
"Please, those idiots couldn't spot an anomaly in a single word dictionary," (one of their more useless products, Mr. Sami thought) "besides, I thought Bernstein said they had a man on the inside to take care of that sort of thing."
Being involved in the distribution of anomalous objects was never completely safe. Some people objected to Merl's selling some of his more… unique products. Dangerous people. To be honest, the spooks scared Sami, but he couldn't let Sarah know that. He was really only in the business because of his father anyway.
Sarah just shrugged and lit another cigarette. Sami couldn't help but notice how fine she looked today. Maybe it was time for him to finally man up and ask her out. "Say Sarah, are you doing anything tonight?"
This caught her attention. "I'm always doing something. Why, what did you have in mind?"
Sami shifted around uncomfortably, he really wasn't very good at this sort of thing. "I thought maybe we could hang out at my place, I could cook you some of my world famous gumbo." He nervously tried to scratch his nose, remembered he had a lacquered wooden mask on, and slid his hands to his pockets, hoping Sarah didn't notice.
Sarah just smiled. "Sounds like fun. I'll be there at eight." She finished her smoke and went back inside.
Sami gleamed under his mask. Maybe this day wasn't going to be so bad after all. He'd have to stop at the supermarket to get some groceries for the gumbo, maybe get a new aftershave…
The sudden sound of motors and rotors woke him from his day dream. The parking lot was now filled with black cars and jeeps, and several black helicopters circled the skies around the office. Men in discreet clothing emerged from the assembled vehicles, and several made their way directly to him. One of them, a particularly large man in an ill fitting grey suit, grabbed Sami and slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, and proceeded to drag him to the back seat of a nearby van.
"Couldn't spot an anomaly in a single word dictionary, eh?" the man said, a smug look on his face. "Oh, and Agent Stanton wanted me to thank you for selling her that Discloser. She says it was very handy."
Sami just sighed. Well, at least now I won't have to fill that performance sheet, he thought.


Research Assistant Richard Moss ran. He could safely say that he had never been this afraid in his entire life. The events of last twenty minutes buzzed in his head like bees. Explosion. Sirens. Security breach. Attackers. What was a Chaos Insurgency? Gunshots. Deaths. Lockdown offline. Running. More explosions. More bullets.
There was some bizarre form of music filling his ears. Everything seemed to fall into a rhythm: his breathing, the thudding of his heart, the pumping of adrenaline, the scream of the emergency alarms. The bullets were behind him now. For how long, he didn't know. Not long enough. He barely knew how he ended up running down this hall, or what he had done to acquire the item now tucked under his arm like a football.
He skidded to a halt, nearly tripping over his own feet with his momentum. This was the chamber he wanted. Panting, he scanned his ID card. Under normal circumstances, this would have been useless during a security breach. The uninvited guests had provided an unexpected blessing in taking out the lockdown procedures.
The door slid open with a hiss. Richard jumped into the room.
“Lord Blackwood!”
The slug turned the nub of its head towards Richard.
“Oh, good morning. While you obviously know of me, I don't recall having ever met… what's wrong?”
“Sorry sir. Can't chat. Security breach. Need your help.”
“Calm yourself and catch your breath, man.”
Richard paused for a moment. His panting slowed.
“The site has been breached and there are enemies on their way here. I don't know if we can hold them off ourselves, so I'm letting you out and hoping. There's a key card in my pocket that can get you into your vault: stairs down the hall to the right, three floors down, chamber sixteen…” his voice trailed off as he strained to hear the dim scream from up the hallway. “Shit! You know Latin, right?”
“Why yes, I began studying it as a boy back in primary school. What does that have to do with an attack of any sort?”
“Just trust me: you're going to be using it soon.”
Richard lifted the tarnished helmet out from under his arm and placed it on his head.
—
Publius Carthephilus Aetius began to regain consciousness. Death was much like sleep, he had decided: deep and dreamless. The blackness faded away at the edges of his mind. Heat and sensation and hearing gradually flowed into his perception. Without time, the process took both years and mere moments. The final push was like falling from a great height as the blurred colors and sensations whirled around him in a last mad maelstrom before snapping sharply into focus.
He was standing in a small, plain room. The only things of note were a small desk, a filing cabinet, and a glass tank filled with water, some tropical corals, and a brightly colored slug. Beyond the room he could hear a loud, repeated screeching noise. He looked down at his new body. Gangly. Thin. The usual orange jumpsuit had been switched out for the long white coat he had seen the doctors wear.
“Are you all right?”
It was an older man's voice, though he did not recognize the language. Publius glanced around the room. There was no one else there, same as before.
“Who's there?”
“So you're why he said I'd need Latin.” It was the same voice, this time in very formal, accented Latin, coming from the glass tank.
“Who are you? Where are you hiding?”
“I'm not hiding anywhere, my good man. But that isn't the time for that: we must get out of here quickly. There are enemies coming this way.”
“Wait, what? Who? Who is attacking?”
“I don't know, but I intend to find out and stop them, whoever they are. Your assistance would be greatly appreciated.”
There was an awkward pause as Publius looked at the slug. Seeing no other reasonable option, Publius removed the lid of the tank, reached inside, and picked up the slug. He placed it in the breast pocket of the lab coat, where it poked its head out of the opening. Publius stepped outside into the corridor, wincing at the alarm sirens.
“To your right, and then down the stairs, and we can… oh, lovely.”
There was a shout from three figures to their left, perhaps thirty feet away. There were two men and one woman: The woman was shaved bald, a skull tattooed on her face and a machete in each hand. One man was bleeding from a small circular wound in his shoulder, yet still held a butcher's cleaver in his good hand. The other was completely naked, with tangled hair down to his waist and smeared with blood red war paint, armed with a makeshift spear.
Publius' mind sprung into action, analyzing the situation in an instant. Three enemies, all armed, one wounded, against one unarmed man and likewise unarmed slug. Judging by their looks, crude weapons, and slack postures, they lacked any sort of professional training or discipline. These were simple thugs. Still dangerous, of course, and more so than what they would have been with this unfit body.
The naked one attacked first. Publius sidestepped the spear thrust, shedding the doctor's coat and the slug as he stole the weapon from the man's hands: the attacker's momentum sent him sprawling to the floor. Publius swung the spear around and hit him hard on the head with the haft, knocking him unconscious.
He was barely able to dodge out of the way of the woman's first machete swing. In his peripheral vision he could see the wounded man running away, back to find reinforcements, no doubt. That was a problem for later.
The woman was a better fighter than the spearman, to be sure: she kept herself moving, preventing Publius from slipping around behind her. He dodged her swings by uncomfortably small amounts, waiting for a opening. His spear was no use at this distance, he needed some way to get space between them, but she had good reach…
There. An opening. She had swung too wide, too hard. Publius leapt back and threw the spear.
It struck home, its jagged scrap metal point puncturing the woman's neck. She managed a moment of bloody gurgling before falling dead.
Publius pulled the spear from her corpse, wiping the blood on her clothing and picking up one of her machetes. With it, he walked over to the unconscious naked man and hacked off his head. He left the labcoat where it lay, instead picking the slug out of the pocket and placing it on his shoulder.
“Nicely done. Now quickly, back down the hall.”
Publius ran as directed, despite his complete disorientation. He would trust the slug for now: it knew more than he did about this place, though he knew next to nothing to begin with.
“Oh, where are my manners?” the slug said from his shoulder. “I am Lord Theodore Thomas Blackwood, a servant of her majesty, queen Victoria of England.”
The name was barbaric, and his queen and country meant nothing to Publius. Nonetheless, it was only proper to introduce himself to the slug that spoke.
“My name is Publius Carthephilus Aetius, a soldier under Gaius Marius in the war against Jugurtha and a… reluctant survivor.”
“Ah… that explains matters. Bound to the helmet, I suppose. You're quite a long way and time from home, my friend. But, we can't let that get us down. Your body's prior owner told me where my collection was being stored, and so that is our goal. There is superior weaponry there.”
Publius glanced down at Blackwood.
“You do realize that you're a slug, correct?”
“Oh yes, very funny. I've heard that one before, I'm afraid.”
—
Hazzard Jack beat a man's head in with a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. He loved the feel of the pulp between his tattooed fingers. The rest of the gang was likewise enjoying themselves: there was nothing like some rape, arson and pillaging to start the day.
He took a deep breath of the smoky air before splattering himself with the man's blood. The fun was running dry here. Time to move on.
Those fools in the Foundation. They thought they could protect the world, keep it spinning, keep its destiny locked up and “secured”. The concept was childish, really. Entropy always won, and Hazzard Jack liked winning.
Fuck bitches, kill bitches, raise some hell and spread some chaos. That was his motto.
Wait…what was this? Running from a fight? Some coward had run back. He only had a bullet to the shoulder, that was nothing. He said something about a man in a helmet down a couple levels, someone tough.
Hazzard Jack would see about that.
—
“Exactly how is this supposed to work?”
“You use a keyhole. It is a key, after all.”
Publius looked at the keycard. It was not like any key he was familiar with, though of course everything in this place was alien and unknown to him. He had decided that writing it all off as magical would be the best option for the time being.
“I can't find any keyhole.”
“Still disoriented, I see. It's right there, next to your hand.”
The “keyhole” was a smooth black box with a slit in it, positioned on the wall at chest height next to the door. Publius looked at the card again. Everything he had seen so far seemed to have a parallel to the world he knew, just magical, for lack of a better term. This must be much the same. He inserted the card into the slot, and the door slid open, revealing the vault beyond. Emergency lighting kept the room dim: the stuffed and mounted animals seemed ready to leap at them from the shadows.
“Now then, I have some dueling swords which would interest you, but what we are really looking for are my particle destabilizers. They will be long metal tubes, hollow, with a wooden attachment on the end opposite the hole.” Blackwood said. “With two pairs of eyes we should be able to find them easily enough.”
It was a stroke of good fortune that the room was well organized: animal specimens here, plant specimens there, artifacts separated by area and time period. The muskets were quickly found within a glass display case, next to the sword rack and other, more mundane, firearms. Publius opened the case, took one of the guns of the shelf and inspected it. In his mind it seemed like some sort of club, but why would they bother adding a metal handle, much less a hollow one? He looked to Blackwood for an explanation.
“Oh, yes, you wouldn't know how to use this. Don't worry: it is quite easy. Simply point the end with the hole at the enemy and pull the trigger located there, and you should be…Oh dear, they haven't even set up the aether collectors. They're all about as useless as sticks at the moment, until we find the reserves…aha! Those glass balls over there, if you take those and insert them to those brass slots on the side of the tube…”
The instructions were simple enough, and Publius had finished within a few minutes. He hefted the gun, finding a good way to hold it as Blackwood had told him. The wooden part fit against his shoulder
“Well done. That should last for a few shots at…”
The room shook as the door and most of the adjoining wall exploded. Publius dove to the floor, showered with dust and rubble. Over the ringing in his ears he could dimly make out some footsteps and foreign conversation.
“Are you all right?” Blackwood said quietly.
“I… I think so.”
“This will be dangerous, but I have to ask you to stand up. We do have an advantage. Just trust me."
Publius sucked in a breath, braced himself, and stood up, gun in his hands. His vision swam, but he could make out eight rather barbaric individuals in the room similar to the three before that he had fought, all still bearing a wicked assortment of tattoos, piercings and homemade weapons.
“Well lookie here!” One particularly brutal-looking raider walked towards the pair, swinging a wooden bat wrapped in barbed wire back and forth. “It's helmet-man! It's like it's fucking Halloween or something!” The rest of the gang laughed.
“What's he saying?” Publius whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
“Just insults, ignore them.” Blackwood focused on the hooligan in question. “It would be in your best interest to lay down your weapons, sir. We're willing to avoid violence if you are.”
“Is that so? How about I tear you a new asshole instead?” The man shouted, leaping at the two. Publius swung the musket at the attacker, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger. A bright beam of red light sprang from the barrel, illuminating the chamber. And hitting the man directly in the chest. His body went rigid, limbs bent at angles they were not meant to go, his skin and clothing charring black and peeling away like an onion. The light faded. The ash drifted to the floor.
Publius looked at the gun in shock, then at the pile of dust, then at the gun again, and then at the slack-jawed insurgents. He grinned.
“Velim caput tuum devellere deinde in confinium gulae cacare.”
Lord Blackwood shook his head as best as a sea slug could.
“My God, man. That's just foul.”


My name is David Rosenfeld, but everyone who knows me calls me Jester. If you've never been stationed at Site 19, you've probably heard some horrible rumors about me - that I'm a killer, a monster, worse. As far as the world outside the Foundation knows, I'm all those things and more, and I've been dead a long time to boot. There aren't a lot of people left anymore who know my whole story, so I wanna take this chance to clear the air and tell you who I am, where I come from, and why I'm the way I am - give you a chance to get to know the real Jester.
I was born in a small town in upstate New York in 1938, and I guess you could say I was trouble from the day I was born. My father was a big-shot banker in the city, real Fifth Avenue, did his best to fit in and make himself presentable. I was part of a set of twins. My brother, Jacob, he came out everything a father could wish for, all his fingers and toes, but me - well, to put it the way dad always did, "No green-skinned freak is any son of Solomon Rosenfeld's." The doctors had never seen anything like me before. Even today, as far as anyone in the Foundation knows, I'm one of a kind.
See, I'm a goblin. I know, goblin ain't exactly proper scientific terminology, but if you showed a picture of me to a bunch of kindergarteners, they'd tell you the same. My skin is green all over, like a bullfrog, and about as leathery. I'm about four feet tall in my shoes. My eyes are yellow and they reflect light in the dark like a cat's eyes. My fingernails are sharp and pointed like talons, and so are my teeth. I don't have a single hair on my body. I wouldn't exactly have fit in at yeshiva - not that I ever got to go, of course.
As far as the world outside our family knew, I died the day I was born. Dad paid someone to make out a death certificate with my name on it, and as soon as I was old enough to be weaned he locked me in the basement and wouldn't let me out. I slept down there, read down there, ate down there, the works, all alone. If there was ever company over, I was to be silent as a mouse or I'd get a thrashing afterward. They fed me scraps and sour milk, and when I was sick I just had to tough it out. It was like being a prisoner in my own house.
Mom tried her best to be kind to me, but dad got just as angry at her whenever he found out. She'd sneak me books, and some decent food now and then. She even let me have a cat for awhile. I named him Mittens and I loved him with all my heart, but he got out one day and never came back. Mom never would tell me what happened to him. I think dad or Jacob must have done something horrible to the poor little boy. Jacob wasn't much better than dad was. I always thought it was kind of ironic back then - the green-skinned monster sitting to himself just wanting someone to talk to, while the normal-looking kid upstairs was a bully and a thug.
By the time I was fifteen I had had enough. Enough of the beatings, enough of the solitude, enough of eating rotten food and throwing it back up the next day. I decided I was getting out of that house if it killed me. It was Seder night, and all of dad's important friends and co-workers and people from the city were upstairs breaking bread, while I was alone in the basement with some limp cabbage and a piece of stale matzo. I started making as much noise as I could. Screaming, knocking over shelves, breaking plates, banging things together, anything to get his attention. Wasn't long before there was a commotion upstairs and I heard him undoing the locks on the door. He was on his way down to give me a thrashing, but I was ready for him - the second the door opened, I socked the son of a bitch right in the face. He went down like a ton of bricks and I ran. Right out the door, down the street, into the night, a thin little goblin, alone, hungry, and scared - but free.
I slept in a park that night and woke up starving. I'd been waiting for weeks for a chance to get out of that hellhole - but what was I supposed to do now? I stole some clothes from the line in someone's back yard, a long coat and a hat. I turned the collar up to try and hide my face so nobody would get a good look at me while I wandered around trying to figure out how I was going to eat, where I was going to live. I didn't know if dad would be out looking for me, or mom, or the police, or what, but I knew I'd have to get out of town. I started wandering down the road out into the country when, in the distance, I heard the sound of a calliope. I'd obviously never been to one, or even seen one, but I'd read enough books, and heard enough shit on the radio, to know that sound could mean only one thing - the circus was in town. And what circus is complete without a freak show?
I found the boss' tent and introduced myself. I lied about my age, of course, and I told him flat-out I wanted to be a freak. He spent a good fifteen minutes looking me over and asking me questions - can you juggle? Can you sing? Can you wrestle? Do you know any magic tricks? He wasn't too keen on hiring someone with no experience, but once I convinced him I wasn't just wearing a costume he said he could pay me and find a place for me.
The next couple years I went all over the country with that circus. City by city, places I'd never even imagined I'd be able to see. I didn't usually go out in the towns on my own - too many gawkers - but I made some good friends in the sideshow. Hell, I even got married to a midget named Annie - the moment she stomped on the glass was the happiest moment of my life, and though we agreed we weren't ever gonna have children, it didn't stop us from having some fun behind the big top after all the lookey-loos had gone home for the night. The circus was more like a family to me than my real family had ever been.
At first I was called "Monstro-Boy" - they'd dress me up in a loincloth and put me in a corner with a chain around my neck, and I'd act like a rabid dog and lunge at the marks as they walked past my little corner of the sideshow. Sometimes they'd do me up with fake blood or foam around the mouth. It was fun at first, but it wasn't all that fulfilling. Scaring people wasn't hard for me - it was natural for people to startle when they saw me. I spent a lot of time hanging out with the main acts and learning their tricks - tumbling, tightrope-walking, magic, so on - but I didn't get my big break until 1959. Boggles, one of the clowns, got thrown in the pokey after he got into a fight at a bar in town, and the boss needed to find a replacement fast for that night's show. I leapt at the opportunity. The boss wasn't so sure about it at first, but I begged him and I showed him some of the moves I'd learned, and he got an idea. He went back in one of the costume trunks and spent about five minutes rummaging around, and pulled out a tiny little motley and a patchwork jumpsuit that looked like it was sewn together out of kids' pajamas. That night, under the big top, Jester the Goblin was born.
I did eight shows that weekend as Jester, and every one was a hit. They were rolling in the bleachers, and I felt something I'd never felt before. All my life, people had been scared, revolted, disgusted when they saw me. But now, they were happy instead. Boggles got canned and in six months' time I was the biggest clown (figuratively speaking, of course) on the tour. They even started putting me on the posters - "SEE THE ONE, THE ONLY, THE WORLD-FAMOUS JESTER THE GOBLIN LIVE IN THE CENTER RING!" We went back to New York City and I even got to do a routine on Ed Sullivan. Life was good - but like the book says, there's a time to laugh and a time to weep.
July 23rd, 1964 - that was when the first murder happened. One of the trapeze artists was found dead in his tent the day after we rolled into St. Louis. His eyes were gouged out and his skin had been cut to ribbons like a giant pair of claws, and on the inside wall of the tent was the number 1, written in his own blood. Of course they suspected the guy with the claws - but I had an airtight alibi, I was with Annie the whole night. Still, people started looking at me real funny after that.
There were three more murders the next three nights. The lion-tamer, the unicyclist, and one of the other clowns, all killed the same way, all with a number on the wall in their blood. One, two, three, four… Everyone was wondering who was gonna be next, and the longer it went on the more and more people started doubting me. The boss said the police couldn't find any evidence that I did it, but just to be safe he was confining me to the "jailhouse" tent on the edge of our camp, and he sent Omar the Strongman to make sure I didn't leave. I felt like I was back in dad's basement again.
That night I woke up to the sound of a scream. Annie's scream! I yelled at Omar to wake up and we rushed to her tent. It was dark, but I could tell she was hurt pretty bad. There was a man standing over her, taller than me, wearing some kind of metal claws on his hands, just cutting at her with them. Omar shone a flashlight at him and I recognized the face - it was Jacob! I told Omar to stay back and I jumped right at him like I was Monstro-Boy for real. In thirty seconds I had him flat on his back, and I would have cut his throat with my own claws if the police hadn't rushed in and separated us.
I was booked at the station house for aggravated assault and attempted murder. I had a feeling it wasn't going to go well for me, but I never made it to trial. The next night I was taken out of my cell in the middle of the night and put into a windowless van, and by morning I was at Site 19 - where I've been ever since. The doctors ran all kinds of tests on me, talking about how I was a "genetically unique specimen" and an "atavistic recurrence of an extinct forebear of homo sapiens" and all kinds of scientific mumbo-jumbo that I still barely even understand. I plead my case and they told me they knew I was innocent. Annie and Omar and the boss had vouched for me, and Jacob had confessed to the murders - he'd seen me on TV and decided to get even with me for running away. I asked when I was free to go, and that's when they told me never - I had to be protected and kept secret from the "civilian" world, because my existence was an abnormality and I was a threat to normalcy. It surely wasn't the first time a man in a lab coat told one of my people something like that.
They put me in a windowless cell and only let me out to run their tests on me. It was like being back in the basement. It was worse than being back in the basement. After three weeks I tried to hang myself with the bedsheets and they put me on suicide watch. They sent a shrink to talk to me and I told him the truth straight up - I'd spent my entire childhood in a box, and now I was back in that box. The best days of my life, the only time I'd truly been happy, was when I was on stage making people laugh, and the Foundation had made sure I'd never have that opportunity again.
The shrink had an idea. I hadn't been the only person to try to take his own life lately - suicide rates among the people working at Site 19 were way up. This was a hard job, he said, and sometimes the things people have to do catch up to them. A lot of the people working on site were there 24 hours a day for long periods of time, and there wasn't much for them to do between shifts. Maybe laughter was the best medicine? And so it was decided - Thursday nights in the Site 19 auditorium would be Standup Night with Jester.
It took a few weeks to hit my stride - standup is a little different than clowning, of course - but before I knew it I had the swing of it and the crowds kept getting bigger and bigger. Sure, I worked a little blue sometimes - these were soldiers and scientists, after all, not blue-haired old ladies and their grandkids out for a nice Sunday matinee. Soon we were getting enough attendance that I had to do two shows a week. Staff morale was up, suicides were down, and I was happy again. I had to talk the director into letting me read the papers and watch some TV every now and then - had to keep my material fresh, after all. First it was three channels, then a dozen, then thirty, then hundreds, then there were millions of people making jokes on the internet for me to keep up with. Not that I understand a single thing about how the internet works, but the doctors let me watch some of the popular videos and keep up with the trends.
So that's been my life for the past 45 years. Eventually I couldn't keep up the routine like I used to and had to cut back to one show a week, then one every two weeks. I do one once a month now, and I still draw crowds to the Site 19 auditorium - I hear they even do a "live secure webstream", whatever that is, so that people at the other Foundation sites can tune in. I've been entertaining three generations of Foundation employees, keeping them sane in between the things they have to do to protect the world.
Once a few years ago there was a guy named Able that got stationed at Site 19. I never found out what his whole story was, but I don't think he was any ordinary joe - he was covered in all these strange tattoos, and looked like he'd just as soon kill you as talk to you. Always had the same look on his face, didn't seem to care about anything but work and training. One of the squaddies bet me an extra weeks' worth of dessert rations that I couldn't make him laugh. I put on the show of my life for him, and in the end I lost that bet - but as I left the stage at the end, I would've sworn I saw him crack the slightest little smile.
The doctor told me last week that I have cancer. I guess it runs in my family - I heard eventually that my mom died of it in '88. He says the prognosis is good since they found it early, but considering my "unique physiological condition", that's a wild guess at best. I've got a biopsy scheduled for Tuesday, and after that they'll decide whether to operate or put me on chemo or what. In the end, I guess you could say I've lived a blessed life. It hasn't exactly been the American Dream, but I went from being an embarassment locked up in a basement to being a man who's touched thousands of lives in a little way, and maybe nobody outside the Foundation will know when I finally kick the bucket, but I think I can say I've made a difference in this world. I don't know how many years I've got left, but G_d willing, I'll be able to spend them doing what I love the most - making people laugh.
-David "Jester" Rosenfeld