The 12 Days of Site-87's Christmas, by Wolf Expert.

On the First day of Christmas, 87 Gave to me…
Tristan Bailey started putting up the Christmas tree. He had drawn the short straw, and was tasked with putting up the tree this year, which had been bought from a new tree farm in town.
"Eya Bailey!" Agent Ewell walked in, stepping aside from the mistletoe cautiously. "Merry X-Mas!"
"Same to you, Ewell." Tristan awkwardly stood the tree up and frowned; despite the fact that it was fifteen feet tall, it neatly fit into the commons he had set it up in, which had only a ten-foot ceiling. "…remind me to get Sinclair or someone in botany to look at this."
"Noted," Ewell said, sipping on some eggnog. "What all's happening in Multi-U?"
"Not much. We found a universe where… you know the Christmas Truce?"
"Yeah, that thing in World War 1 that made people stop fighting for an entire day because of the power of Christmas. Why?"
"We found a universe where it's a global holiday," Tristan explained. As he did so, a light flickered on the Christmas Tree, despite the fact that none had been put on. "Every year, across the world, wars stop being fought in honor of Christmas, or at least, a solstice celebration."
"And let me guess: the U.S. of A uses it to gank enemies from behind?"
"Actually, no. Here's what makes it amazing." Tristan grinned as he explained, ignorant as to what was happening on the tree behind him. "The League of Nations- U.N. never formed in this universe- has very strict rules about it. Nazi Germany tried violating it in 1943. Hitler was dead by New Years."
"Merry friggin' Christmas, eh?" Ewell chuckled and sipped at his drink, nearly dropping it as he saw what had happened to the tree.
"Yeah! And this year is the centennial of it, just like in this universe. They're throwing a big shebang; Director Weiss has given a few people permission to- Ewell you're getting Eggnog on the carpet!"
"Look at the tree, Bailey."
Tristan spun around and stared at the tree. It had changed from a plain pine to a marvelous spruce, hung with garlands and candles and various colors of berries, and popcorn strings, and at the very top, an angel. Not one of the wimpy ones you saw on the top of normal Christmas trees, either; this was a many-winged angel with inhuman form, and if it were real and not simply a wood and metal reconstruction, it would have burned out the eyes of everyone in Site 87.
"Get someone from botany. Now."

On the second day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Two magic tomes were what Dr. Sinclair pored over come December 15th. Everyone else was distracted with something about a tree in a common room. She had work to do, dammit.
So, she looked over the two books before her, scratching her head. "No, that's not right… the translation should be direct… why mistletoe…" She sighed, and looked around the dark, empty lab, lit only by a single candle by her side. She preferred to work in the dark; it helped her concentrate.
She rubbed her face and sighed. Monty- Montgomery- was gone for the holidays; he was visiting family back home. So, she was in her lab, alone, with Christmas only 9 days away. The second day of Christmas, as her mother called it; she counted Christmas as the 12th.
Either way, she was alone, in her lab. She didn't much care for Christmas, anyway, at least, not the American version; now, the Germanic version with the Krampus, That was an amazing celebration.
She reached into her wallet, and looked at a picture she had taken with her mother in Austria, during a Krampusnacht celebration she had been a part of when she was… what, 10? She was in on the act, of course, but that didn't make it any less exciting.
Katherine Sinclair, at this point, looked back at her tomes. One of them was a book written by St. Nicholas. Because of course it was; things in Sloth's Pit always seemed to line up with the times. In Thanksgiving 2013, for instance, coincided with Hanukkah, so the turkeys in the cafeteria had become golems animated by a disgruntled employee.
Katherine looked into this book and frowned. There was a ritual here for summoning the Krampus, or at the very least, a Krampus. Were there multiples? It seemed like a simple ritual, easy to contain… and could provide valuable insight into Krampusnacht and magic used by Saints.
What the heck? She clapped her hands, turning on the lights in the lab, and started looking for test approval forms.

On the third day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Three baffled botanists looked over the Christmas tree in Common Room 3, who, in turn, were being watched by various Foundation staff who were taking time off from guard duty or experimenting to look at the researchers doing it. They had been taking samples of the tree for days on end, but so far, it seemed like a completely normal tree. Of note, however, was that all the mistletoe in the site, real and fake, seemed to be vanishing, and started disappearing the previous night, forty-four in all.
One researcher in particular, Chris Hastings, was looking over one of the candles that had appeared on the tree, squeezing it in his hand, smelling it, and licking it. "Beeswax."
"Of course it is, Hastings. What else would a candle be made out of?" Dr. Partridge, head of Botany at Site 87, rolled his eyes at the annoyance of an assistant.
"No, I mean… this just formed on the tree. And look." He broke it open, revealing a honeycombed pattern inside. "Looks like it came right from the hive, but it's smooth on the outside. Maybe it's something in the tree?"
"We'll have entomology look into it," Dr. Partridge assured him."Dr. Grant's been rather bored lately; Christmas Bees would be exciting to him."
"Why bees? Pine trees don't flower…" Chris took out a notepad filled with several possibilities, including "Christmas curse", "fair folk", "enchanted tree" "Krampus (?)" and "Just plain fucking weird". "I've been meaning to talk to Sinclair in occult studies about it-"
"If Dr. Sinclair were a medical doctor, I'd be inclined to call her a quack. But, she's not, so I can only call her insane." Dr. Partridge sneered at Hastings. "Now, let's get this back to the lab-"
"Uh, we can't, sir. If you were here yesterday, you would have known that." Chris nodded to a couple of grunts, who attempted to lift the tree; it stayed in place like it weighed as much as a dump truck, and one of the agents yelped as he strained his shoulder. "It appears to be locked in place."
"Oh, very well. We'll set up the commons as a containment area, for the time being. Clear out, everyone."
All of the watching Foundation researchers protested; some booed like the disgruntled ghosts of Christmas. A few actually glared at Chris, despite it not being his fault.
This was going to be a long week.

On the fourth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Four and forty sprigs of mistletoe, both real and fake, lay in the center of a circle set up by Dr. Sinclair in the testing chamber. A very nervous-looking man from the cryptozoology department was assisting her, monitoring her through the chambers.
"Um, Researcher…" Dr. Hendricks swallowed. "I'm not equipped to do this. I honestly don't know what to do with half of this—"
"From left to right, EMF reader, Kant counter- though that's unreliable, at best- emergency Scranton activation switch, thermal camera, infra-red camera, regular camera, alarm button, and redundant recording devices."
Jason Hendricks stared trough the glass. "You know, you could be monitoring this… have a D-Class do the actual… test…"
"Yes, let's have a barely sentient clone with organs that will fail in 30 days do a complex ritual that requires speaking in at least two languages." Sinclair rolled her eyes. "Anyway. This requires someone else to read the spell, so when I start burning the sprigs, read the highlighted section on the paper."
"Right…" Dr. Hendricks looked at the paper and frowned. "Didn't think Saint Nicholas would be involved in this…"
"Ol' Nick's the patron saint of thieves— repentant thieves, granted, but he was involved in some shit." She muttered a prayer and began burning the mistletoe. "Any time now, Jason."
Dr. Hendricks sighed, and read, feeling like a fool. "O'o'o yon mistl'to, hung on yonder tree… the ol' witch-god awaits you, kiss his lips for me…"
Dr. Sinclair expected the smell of burning plastic to meet her lips as she lit the fake mistletoe, but instead, all she smelled was crisp pine needles and Yule Logs. She gave a satisfied sigh, and produced a pumpkin, carved into a Jack-O-Lantern. "Herbst abgeschlossen ist, die Flüsse fließen nicht, Krampus, Krampus, Krampus, Kommen Sie…" She threw the pumpkin into the fire; it conflagrated instantly, and from it, emerged a being with the face of a man, the horns of some bizarre deer, and white, stark hair all over. It growled at Katherine.
"Wer ruft mich? Es ist meine Zeit vorbei." The Krampus had a cold voice, like freezing to death on Christmas Eve.
Katherine swallowed at the sound of his voice. "Ich heiße K. Sinclair," She was careful not to give it her full name. "Ich bin ein Forscher für eine Organisation, die ein Interesse an Ihnen. Sprechen Sie Englisch?"
"I speak English, yes," The Krampus grinned. "Your German is poor, Fraulein."
"I have called upon you to ask you questions," Katherine swallowed. "What do you know of Saint Nicholas of Myra?"
"That is not why you had your pet call me, K. Sinclair. You and I both know it."
She repeated her question, in more detail. "What do you know of Saint Nicholas, Defender of Orthodoxy, Wonderworker, Holy Hierarch, Bishop of Myra-"
"He really calls himself Wonder-Worker now?" The Krampus snorted. "Very well. I shall tell you some information of him. I am bound by your wo-"
"Dr. Sinclair?" An unfamiliar voice entered the laboratory from behind Dr. Hendricks.
Hendricks looked behind him, and groaned as he saw who it was. Christopher Hastings, Botany, the great conspiracy theorist. The worst part is that he was right nine times out of ten, but nobody wanted to admit it. "Yes, Researcher Hastings?"
"What are you doing here, Dr. Hendricks? Wha- ohmygod!" He dropped a stack of papers he was carrying as he saw what was in the testing chamber. "Y-you've summoned a Christmas Demon! You're intending to spread Christmas joy by force because we aren't celebrating hard enough! You're conspiring with the tree-people!"
"Tree- Hastings, what are you on about now?" He rubbed his face and sighed. "It's an experiment. We're seeing what information we can get out of him about Saint Nicholas, or something— it's Sinclair's doing. What did you need?"
Without another word, Christopher fled the room.

On the fifth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Five mugs of eggnog later, Christopher Hastings woke up in a daze in the common room where E-2512 ("The Christmas Tree") was, with Dr. Partridge having just come in. Not noticing the scattered mugs lying about, he nodded at Hastings and looked up at the angel on top. "Have we heard back from Theology about that?"
"Not yet, sir," Chris said, rubbing his face. "I tried to talk to Dr. Sinclair last night, but-" They were trying to summon a demon to take over the site "-she was in the middle of an experiment, so I said I'd be back later." No, you idiot!
"Very well," Dr. Partridge sighed. "Have we tried destruction testing yet?"
"Sir," Agent Ewell stepped into the room, looking distinctly yellow and frustrated, "I'd prefer if you didn't try to burn down an anomaly in the middle of a public common room."
"Who said anything about fire? We need acid-"
"I agree with Agent Ewell, sir."
Dr. Partridge looked at Hastings. "Christopher, you do realize the scientific value of this, correct?"
"Scientific value? It's a Christmas tree with lights that appeared when people got into the Christmas spirit. Unless we're planning to research whether or not trees can be living mood rings, I fail to see the value." He crossed his arms. "Besides, Bailey's the one who brought it in. Maybe we should ask him about it?"
"He's "out of town"," Ewell said, Christopher instantly picking up on the innuendo there. Dr. Partridge did not.
"…right." Dr. Partridge frowned. "I'll go talk to Father Plum in theology. Hastings, you try to talk to Sinclair again."
"A-all right." Chris swallowed and started to head down to the occult studies laboratory. On the way down, he avoided Dr. Hendricks, and knocked on the laboratory door. Maybe they had banished it?
Dr. Sinclair opened the door and frowned. "Ah. Hastings. What do you want?"
"I-I want to consult you about E-2512. I believe some magical activity might be taking place in it."
"I suppose I could be of some help," She shrugged. "Well, come in. We've made cookies."
"…we? Don't tell me…"
Sinclair held up her hands. "I haven't let him out of the testing chamber! I'm not an idiot! But he just conjured an oven out of nowhere and started making gingerbread men!"
"…so you actually did summon a Krampus…"
"Yes! And he's provided a fair bit of information about Jolly Old Saint Nick. Absolutely fascinating— did you know he could speak five different languages? And he might be affiliated with Doctor Won-"
A crackle came on from the testing chamber's communication as the Krampus pressed the button. "Fraulein, either let him in or don't. You're, as you say, waffling."
Christopher frowned and entered the room, Dr. Sinclair letting him in. She looked him over. "So, you… wanted to talk about the tree?"
Christopher nodded. "You found my notes on the floor, I take it?"
"Yes, they were out of order and nonsensical. Something about a "Christmas curse"? Just because weird shit happens around here on holidays doesn't mean this place is cursed; it just means that it's a Nexus."
"B-but the candles…"
"Ah, yes, the beeswax candles. What about them?"
"Right here-" Chris dug into his pocket to take out the sample bag containing single candle he had broken in two- only to find two full-size ones in there. "…oh dear."
"Right…" Dr. Sinclair took the bag, and took out a candle, and broke it. Over the course of about a minute, two new candles formed. "Hydration magic, then."
Hastings raised an eyebrow. "What does this have to do with water?"
"Hydration in the sense that if you cut one, two more grow in its place." She made a mock salute. "Hail Hydrate!" She then let out a laugh, leaning against a table so she didn't fall over; as she did, she made the scars on her forearms noticeable.
Christopher groaned and failed to suppress a laugh. "…one: that was a horrible pun. Two: that was completely unprofessional. Three: I am ashamed that I found that funny and got the reference, and four… what does this mean?"
"I don't know. Several forms of fae, mainly leprechauns, use it to trick humans. And no, it's not really called 'hydration', but it's a much better name than 'duplication', don't you think?"
Christopher sighed. "It sucks being right, you know that? But fairies? Why?"
"I dunno. We could ask Bailey when he comes back from out of town. Until then…" She offered a plate of cookies. "Ginger snap?"

On the sixth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Six hours was all the sleep Tristan Bailey got that night, and with good reason. For one, he wasn't in his quarters at Site 87; instead, he was in a middling-quality inn in Sloth's Pit, known as The Elk's Horn. For another, someone was next to him in bed. The head of the Department of Multi-Universal Affairs, Dr. Claire Hennessy. The somewhat pudgy, red-headed woman smiled at him as he woke up, dazzling green eyes meeting his plain brown ones.
"Hello there, gorgeous." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. "How are ya?"
"Don't call me that, Claire…" Tristan smiled at his girlfriend as he sat up in bed. "And I couldn't be better."
Claire sat up with him. "So," she said. "Apparently, that tree you brought in is causing a real stir back at the site."
"Which is exactly why I wanted to get away from there. Among other reasons."
"Oh, so I'm 'other reasons' now, am I?" Claire stuck out her tongue and got out of bed, going over to get her bathrobe on. "Seriously though, botany's got their head up their ass about it. Partridge is convinced there's scientific value in it."
"Which is why I'm avoiding the site. Partridge is gonna grill me about it endlessly."
"Partridge would grill someone about a pea pod if he was convinced it had "scientific value"," Claire agreed, putting on her robe. "Anyway. Shall we head up to the site? We need to sign the paperwork for the Truce universe."
"Yeah, I guess." Tristan got out of bed and began looking for his clothing "…why do my trousers have blood on them?"
"That's ketchup."
A few hours later, the two of them drove back up to the site in separate cars, half an hour apart from one another. Tristan paid for the room with a civilian credit card, as opposed to the Foundation one he was issued; he had lost it anyway. When he got to the site, he used an entrance different from the one Claire had used, and met her down in Multi-Universal affairs.
"Dr. Bailey," she said. "You're late."
"Overslept, madam," Tristan said, adjusting his tie. "What's going on?"
"Well, for one thing…" Claire smirked at him. "You have visitors."
"Boo!" said a voice from behind. Tristan turned around and there were two copies of him standing by, one well-tanned and wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, the other having a rather well-groomed goatee.
Tristan grinned and laughed. "Tom! Trev! What the heck are you doing here?!" He held out his arms, and the three brothers hugged.
"I gave myself time off for family," Tom said, "And Moose gave Trevor some vacation time over Christmas to visit here."
"Wait, wait, wait." Tristan said to Trevor. "Tilda Moose, hard-ass Tilda D. Moose actually gave someone time off?"
"You'd be surprised what being related to our dad can do," Trevor said. "Anyway. Less than a week to Christmas. We got stuff to prepare for."
"Yeah," Tom said. "Like… we heard you found something out regarding the Christmas Truce?"
"Oh, we've got a lot to discuss," Tristan said, grinning and heading off with his brothers in tow. "I've got so much new data to show you!"

On the seventh day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Seven days after the tree had manifested its anomaly, Dr. Partridge was grasping at straws. He was trying to think of reasons to keep it contained.
"It's a good alternative to cheap Christmas decorations… no… Oh, I know! It's… no…" He paced back and forth in the greenhouse, while Chris took notes on how E-2512 was developing.
"Sir, with all due respect," Chris said, chewing on his pen, "It's not even a safe-class anomaly. At best, it's an anomalous item with connections to the fair folk."
"Don't call them that, Hastings. They're Unclassed Anomalous Entity-Jakob-892."
"Well, UAE-Jakob-892 has a tangential connection with it, at best, according to Sinclair. If I were you, I'd give it up for the time being. Wait until after the Holiday is done to study it."
"Very well," Dr. Partridge sighed. "I'll announce that Common Area 3 is to be re-opened to the rest of the site."
"Right," Chris stood up. "I'm going to talk with Dr. Sinclair and Hendricks again. See if they've made any progress."
Dr. Partridge replied with a noncommittal "mmm", and Chris headed out of the greenhouse, into the abnormally warm December day. He made his way to basement level five, where he knocked on the door to Occult Studies.
Dr. Hendricks peeked out of the door, timidly. "Oh, Hastings. Come in…" He opened the door, and revealed that the entire lab was decorated with candles just like the ones Chris had brought in the other day.
Hastings stared. "What the hell…"
"I don't know!" Sinclair said, taking down a candle. "Every time I try to remove them, new ones just pop up! I was kidding about the Hydra thing!" She took one down and doused it in water; two more popped up in its place.
"Is the Krampus being of any help with this?" asked Chris. "Hell, he worked with the big guy in red. He must know something."
"Actually, Mein Herr," said the Krampus from a seat near the entrance to the lab, "The Wonder-Worker wore brown more than red."
"Oh," said Chris, before doing a double-take. "He's out of his cell?!"
"He can't leave the lab," Hendricks assured him. "Sinclair made sure of that. Put some kind of a… bondage spell on him?"
"Binding enchantment," said Sinclair, twitching slightly. "I've bound him to something in this room that he doesn't know about, and he can't be more than ten feet away from it at any time."
"…right," Chris edged away from the Krampus. "So, endlessly-replicating candles, a tree that can fit inside a room smaller than it… but what does it all mean?"
"We've been trying to find the source of the tree," Sinclair said. "But Bailey's been of no help; he's been spending all day with his brothers."
"Perhaps I can talk to him," Hendricks said. "Comedy night is tonight. You're welcome to come if you want, Sinclair."
"And leave this magnificent specimen-" she indicated the Krampus- "Unobserved? I'd rather go Fahrenheit 451 on the Library of Alexandria!"
"…right," Hendricks sighed. "Well, at least it'll be good to see the Baileys together again."

On the eighth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Eight wrong addresses later, they came upon the proper tree farm. Tristan Bailey, Christopher Hastings and Katherine Sinclair all stood before the Terra Incognita Tree Farm- or at least, that's what the sign out front claimed it was.
The only problem is that there appeared to be no trees, nor a farm, and there seemed to be a distinct lack of anything incognita as well. Tristan frowned. "I don't get it. I know I bought it from here."
"Looks like you got duped," Katherine sighed. "God damn it. Why can't we have any normal holidays in this town?"
"We live in Sloth's Pit, Dr. Sinclair," Christopher said, breathing into his gloved hands. "Normal is relative, and in this town, it's a distant cousin five times removed that lives on Pluto."
"…that metaphor really got away from you, Hastings." Tristan frowned, and stepped over the threshold to the farm, past the sign-and vanished.
Sinclair started. "Shit!"
Christopher's jaw hit the ground. "…did we just lose one of the sons of Tyler Bailey? Weiss is going to have our asses on a platter!"
Tristan's head poked out of thin air; his body didn't follow. "Uh… you guys okay?"
Sinclair regained her composure. "Right, just as I suspected… illusory magics. Well, lets… proceed!"
Christopher coughed, which, by sheer coincidence, sounded like the word "bullshit".
Tristan nodded, and vanished again. Chris and Katherine followed, and found themselves in a very different place from Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin.
It was colder, for one, and there was actually snow. There were trees everywhere, ranging from five-foot-tall Douglas firs to over 100 foot tall spruces, all of which had price tags on them. The largest pine tree was the size of a skyscraper, so big that the entire place was in the shade of it. Sinclair gaped at it.
"…Bailey…"
"Yes, Sinclair?"
"You bought a Christmas tree from a magic tree farm, and you didn't notice?"
"…I may have been slightly drunk at the time."
"Ah, welcome!" a voice from nearby greeted them; turning, Chris saw that it was a tall, white-haired being with pointed ears. He looked at Tristan. The being spoke in a soft, sweet-sounding voice. "Ah, hello. You left your credit card here, you know."
Sinclair and Chris stared at Tristan, who looked ashamed. "All right, I was plastered. Went out drinking with some people from Multi-U and had too much booze in the eggnog.
Chris rubbed his face. "That's beside the point." He looked over towards the elf, resisting the urge to ask if his name was Legolas. "Sorry, but… who are you?"
"I am one of Alfheimr. Your friend here purchased a tree from us for the solstice celebration." He nodded to Tristan. "He seemed quite happy with the purchase, but, as he said, he was intoxicated." He held out a credit card to Tristan, who took it sheepishly.
"Er, thanks. Listen, there have been some… complications with the tree."
"Oh?" asked the one of Alfheimr. "Are you unhappy with the root? Is its enchantment not working?"
"If by "enchantment", you mean "making its own decorations", then it's working perfectly fine," said Sinclair.
"Excellent!" The elf clapped its hands together. "Then I presume you only returned for the credit card? Or do you wish to purchase more?"
"We're just wondering if it's safe, honestly," Chris said. "We've been… studying it, and…"
"Studying?" The elf frowned. "Ah. You're one of the Foundation, then. And before you ask, yes, we know about you. You aren't terribly well-liked, you know."
Dr. Sinclair's hand balled up, and she rubbed at the scars on her arm. "Look. We just want to know if something's gonna happen to the tree that might hurt us."
"Nothing at all!" the elf smiled. "Unless, of course, it was within the vicinity of a Krampus,. We don't terribly like those things."
Tristan and Chris stared at Katherine, who stared rubbing the back of her neck."Er. About that…"
The elf stared back. "Oh by the all-father… are you serious? Well, at least you didn't damage it."
"…define "damage"," Chris said, looking nervous.
"Well, so long as you didn't break an ornament… it should be- you broke an ornament, didn't you?"
Chris nodded. "I wanted to see what the inside of one of those candles looked like."
"For Wotan's sake!" The elf threw up his arms. "This is why my kind don't deal with your organization! You always mess up everything!"
"…how bad is it going to be?"
The elf thought for a moment, and simply said, "Do you have the means to escape a universe at your disposal?"
Tristan spoke up. "…as a matter of fact, yes."
"Then I suggest you all run into there and escape this one." With that, the elf walked off.
Tristan stared. "Did I just instigate an XK scenario?"
"He was probably exaggerating. I'll ask the Krampus about it tomorrow," Katherine said, smiling nervously.

On the ninth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Nine minutes of swearing and cursing in German later, the Krampus stared at Katherine. "The tree is from Alfheim?!"
"Yes…"
"And you broke its ornamentation?! Around me! Oh for the love of…" He rubbed his face. "You need to banish me. Now. It might help."
"What's going to happen?" Katherine said. "Tell me. What is going to happen if we don't?"
"Oh, nothing much. Just a Christmas tree coming to life and trying to kill me."
Katherine's expression went flat. "I believe you."
"Really? No flat "what" reaction?"
"This is Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin. Last Thanksgiving, we had animate turkey corpses attack the site. At this point, nothing surprises me."
"Right…" The Krampus rubbed his face. "All-father isn't exactly pleased with the Wonder-Maker intruding upon his territory."
"How is Santa Claus intruding on Odin's territory?"
"Think about it. Leader of an important organization in the north, all sorts of servants of lower class than him, great flowing beard…"
Katherine sighed and dug some aspirin out of her pocket, rubbing her scars as she swallowed it. "Right, so. Either we watch you duel to the death with a Christmas tree from Valhalla, or we banish you and let said Christmas tree tear us apart."
"That's the long and short of it," said the Krampus, biting the head off of a gingerbread man.
"In all honesty, I'd rather have you here. We stand a better chance if we have something to fight against it."
"I was afraid you'd say that." The Krampus sighed. "I'm willing to bet that spirits of other holidays don't have to put up with this."
Katherine shrugged, and was about to respond, when there was a knock on the door of the lab. She peeked through the door, and saw all three of the Bailey brothers outside. "…what do you want?"
"We hear our brother screwed up," Trevor said, poking Tristan in the side.
Tom nodded, giving Tristan a noogie. "We wanted to see if there was any way we can help un-screw it up."
"…right, okay… this is going to need some planning…"

On the tenth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
"That's at least ten sprigs of holly I've seen you hang today, all of which are from my greenhouse.." Dr. Partridge frowned at Tom Bailey. 'What exactly are you playing at? Do you want the entire site to start gluing their faces together?"
"Quite frankly, we're trying to prevent the site from being destroyed by a psychotic Christmas tree." Tom started to hang the mistletoe from the door to the entomology wing.
"Again?"
"Hush," Tom frowned as he hung the mistletoe from a strand of red string."The Christmas of 2008 never happened. We all agreed on it."
"There was Christmas in 2008?" Snarked Tristan as he passed by, putting up sacrificial gingerbread men along the hallway. Tom pointed at Tristan, Tristan pointed at Tom, and they both went "aaaaay!"
"I will never understand how Tyler Bailey could produce sons like you…" Dr. Partridge shook his head, and started walking off.
As he went, Tom shouted after, "Y'know, our mom might have had something to do with that!"
Tristan laughed, and continued pinning the cookies to the walls. Tom looked over at him. "So, Weiss is still… relatively lenient, I see."
"Anything for the good of the site, Tom." Tristan smiled.
"Not exactly what I meant." Tom shook his head. "By the way, point of interest: Trevor hung some mistletoe over Dr. Hennessy's office."
Tristan frowned. "And this is relevant to me how, Thomas?"
"And I know you're bullshitting me! You only call me Thomas when you're bullshitting me."
Tristan sighed. "Is it that obvious?"
"Tristan, the stain on your collar is the same color as her lipstick. On a related note, wash your fucking shirt once in a while."
"Look, if anyone at the Site finds out, Claire will be ruined. Think about it, the head of Multi-U sleeping with the kid of the person who invented the MUTA…"
"Could be worse," Tom said. "You could be a chick." Tristan threw a gingerbread cookie at the back of Tom's head; he winced as it collided. "What was that for?!"
"For reminding me there's a universe where we're the Bailey sisters." Tristan shivered.
Trevor walked by at this point. "I dunno. I thought that I was kind of hot in that universe."
"Of course you would think that," Tom said, going on to the next doorway to put up some mistletoe. "Right, so, we have less than a day until that tree wakes up. Is the site going to be evacuated?"
"Probably," Trevor said. "It's the safest thing to do."
"And we're going to miss an all-out brawl between two holiday spirits?" Tom frowned. "Dang it."
"I'll see if we can at least get the security footage of it after the fact," Tristan said. "Has Hastings figured out how to move the tree yet, by the way?"
"He's working on it." Tom paused meaningfully as he heard a chainsaw rev up from the direction of Common Area 3, followed by the scream of a D-Class as the kickback of said saw made him lose an arm.
"Well, at least this Christmas won't be green." Tristan pinned another Gingerbread man to the wall.

On the eleventh day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
At 11:00 in the morning, all hell broke loose at Site 87.
The majority of the site had evacuated the night before, but a few had stayed behind, all by choice, in order to study the events. From botany, Dr. Partridge and Christopher Hastings were there to observe the tree's behavior; from Occult Studies, Dr. Sinclair and (reluctantly) Dr. Hendricks, to keep the Krampus in check; and from Multi-Universal Affairs, the Bailey Brothers, ready to shove both the Krampus and the Tree in the Multi-Universal Transit Array if the need arose.
"Right," Dr. Partridge said. "Explain to me how this all works again."
"The gingerbread cookies will act as sacrifices for the Krampus in place of blood sacrifices," Sinclair explained, "and will empower it to fight E-2512. The mistletoe acts as a mechanism to contain E-2512, (in theory, at least), the bottles of Coca-Cola will act as the spiced wine for the banishing ritual for the tree-"
"Magic, got it."
Katherine frowned. He wasn't incorrect, but why bother asking in the first place?

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe that actually had facilities to contain a psychotic Christmas tree and had done so before, Tristan Bailey was meeting with his counterpart. Or at least, he thought it was his counterpart.
"God, that goatee looks ugly," Tristan said to his other self.
"Yeah, I know," said Tristan-2. "I'm thinking of shaving it off."
"Oy!" Trevor yelled, having an identical goatee to Tristan-2.
"But it looks good on you!" Both Tristan and Tristan-2 said, blatantly lying.
«Are you jackasses ready to contain this thing,» Asked Dr. Hendricks over their earpieces, «Or is this going to be 2008 all over again?»
"What happened in 2008?" asked Tom-2, pushing up his glasses.
"Do you have a paleontology department at 87 in this universe?" Tom asked, adjusting his hat.
"Yeah?"
"We don't have one in our universe anymore."
"Yikes," Trevor-2 said, fiddling with his own straw hat.

Meanwhile, in our universe, the Krampus stepped into Common Area 3, nostrils flaring as it bit the head off of a gingerbread man. The tree simply stood there, taunting him.
"Well?"
No response from the tree.
"Come on, I know that you want to do this. I'm a spirit of a Holiday, you're a Christmas Tree. Just get it over with already."
More silence. Dr. Partridge coughed from behind. "See if you can get a sample of its needles."
The Krampus turned its head to say something along the lines of "piss off", and got blindsided by a sucker punch from the Christmas Tree. The conifer had sprouted evergreen limbs, and had leapt forward to strike at the horned beast.
It was at this point that Christopher Hastings finally began to question the choices in his life that had led him up to this point. He would have questioned it more, had a blast of energy not come from the tree topper and hit Dr. Partridge in the chest, sending him sprawling.
At that point, Chris started running away. The Krampus stayed behind to fight, peppermint-scented blood dripping from the wounds as he was pushed back to the first mistletoe barrier. The tree let out a screech and attempted to muscle through the wall created by the sprigs of berries, and fired a ball of green energy through it, obliterating the barrier.
The Krampus dove out of the way in time, and the ball hit the ceiling, causing it to sprout pine needles, which then started to rain down on the Krampus, impaling the creature and pinning it to the ground.
He would recover, but not before the Christmas Tree tore apart the entire site looking for the one who damaged it.

Chris ran all the way down to Multi-U, leaving the doors to the stairwells open on every level so that the tree would search the entire facility until it found him. He just hoped Dr. Sinclair was right about the tree wanting to get him after it took out Krampus, and as it turned out, she was.
He just didn't count on the tree being able to use the elevator. He gawked as the doors to the one on the Multi-U level opened, and a fifteen-foot-tall tree thing stepped out, the topper glowing bright red and green.
"I hate this job."
He started running, but he was out of breath from going down about a dozen flights of stairs. Arcs of red and green light went over his head, impacting on the walls and turning into pine needles, holly, myrrh, frankincense, and it occurred to Chris that he should stop identifying the various Christmas-related plants and run for his life.
As he ran down the corridor, panting loudly, he drew a sprig of mistletoe from his pocket and held it in front of him like Van Helsing would hold a cross to Dracula. Unfortunately, at the moment, the tree was acting more like Alucard. It simply kept lumbering towards him, and the entrance to the MUTA was over fifty yards away. He could run for it…
But it was too late. Christopher was knocked to the ground by a blast of green light hitting the hand with mistletoe in it. He yelped in pain as he felt pine needles grow through his hand. The mistletoe sprig was thrown to the ceiling above the tree, where it clung.
An entire bush of mistletoe burst from the modular ceiling, toppling the tree to the ground where it flailed about, unable to regain its footing. Christopher Hastings was somewhat aware of this as he blacked out.

"Hastings? Hastings!"
Christopher was awoken by a slap to the face. Dr. Sinclair stood in front of him, smiling. "Oh thank God! We thought you were dead!"
Christopher blinked awake, looking around. The Christmas Tree was flailing about on the ground, and as being loaded up onto a small cart by six Bailey triplets, with Dr. Hendricks assisting, lining the cart with mistletoe just to make sure. Chris winced as he looked at his arm; it was bloody, covered with pine needles which had burst outwards from under the skin. "Son of a bitch!"
"We're getting you to surgery." Katherine looked up at the mistletoe bush sprouting from the ceiling. "Fascinating… The blasts appear to have transfigured parts of the site into holiday-related plants, including mistletoe. It hoisted itself by its own petard."
Christopher blanched as he realized something, standing up slowly. "Dr. Partridge got hit…"
"Hell."
They ran (or, in Chris's case, hobbled) off to where Dr. Partridge had fallen, only to find an odd, small shrub where his body was. Christopher stepped over to inspect the plant. "It's a small tree of the genus pyrus."
"English, please?"
"Dr. Partridge is a pear tree."
Katherine wanted to laugh, but all she could do was scream impotently.

On the twelfth day of Christmas, 87 gave to me…
Twelve piles of paperwork stood before members of various departments. One for incident reports, one for casualties sustained, one for property damage, and so on. There was only two casualties for the whole thing, thank god, and even then, Dr. Partridge had already regained sapience and the ability to talk, but was excused from doing paperwork for the time being.
"Because of course he is," muttered Chris, doing two piles worth of paperwork at the same time.
"What do you expect, Hastings?" Tom sighed, filling out Containment Form 281-C while Tristan next to him filled out Multi-Universal Negotiation Form 88-B. "He got turned into a fucking tree. He has an excuse."
"My subdermis got turned into a conifer!" Chris held up his arm, which was in a sling, wincing as he did so. "Ffffffff….."
Dr. Sinclair sighed at him, getting up from a finished pile of paperwork regarding cross-contamination of anomalous objects. "I can take care of a few sheets, if you want. Just expect calls from me when it comes to requisitioning stuff."
"Egh…. thanks, Sinclair. You're a lifesaver." He sighed. "Merry Christmas, eh?"
"Oh, by the way," Trevor said, filling out the paperwork he had oh his tablet. "You might want to come down to Multi-U tonight. We've got a present for you all."
"How'd you feel about going to an alternate universe for Christmas?" asked Tristan.
"I've had enough Christmas anomalies for one year," Christopher said, heading out.
The three brothers snickered as Chris exited the room, limping slightly as he headed down to the occult studies laboratory, just to check on something related to Christmas. When he arrived there, he found the Krampus, as he expected, but also someone else.
Standing with the Krampus, talking to it, was a young woman with bright red hair and green eyes, wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater that Chris had ever seen, along with a hat that had a fake set of elf ears on it. She grinned manically as she talked. "…good thing we had Emma to fill in for you; we nearly made a botch of the whole thing!"
"My apologies, mein chef," the Krampus said, bowing to her. "I was indisposed."
"Did you really fight a Christmas tr-" she blinked as she noticed Christopher standing in the doorway. "Why, hello! Merry Christmas to you!"
"Uh," Christopher blinked. "Are you… authorized to be in here?"
"Well, this place has Christmas decorations all around, and my friend is here." She grinned. "I don't see why I wouldn't be allowed in here."
Chris laughed for no good reason. He didn't know why he laughed, something about the woman just filled him with an odd kind of joy. "Right, okay, uh. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to- haha- leave."
"Fair enough. I'm just here to collect my friend." She rummaged around the lab. "Let's see…. where'd she put that…. ah-ha!" She reached into a drawer and picked up a beaker, which had an odd glow about it. She took it in her hands and motioned the Krampus closer. "Not a half-bad binding spell, if I do say so myself. This doctor has some potential." She gave a grin to Chris. "Right, we must be off. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
With that, the woman and the Krampus disappeared behind one of the lab counters like they were walking down a set of stairs. When he came to look at it, they were both gone entirely.
At this point, Christopher decided that, even though it was only 1:00 in the afternoon, he needed a drink.

That evening, everyone at Site 87 wore Christmas sweaters that were almost as ugly as the one worn by the odd woman in occult studies. There was even a contest for who had the ugliest one (which the Baileys won), and the whole site drank several mugs of eggnog.
As he was drinking his seventh (or was it eighth?) mug of eggnog, Christopher Hastings passed by a new Christmas tree which had hastily been erected in Common Area 3, and noticed something. Under the Christmas tree was a present, which had a tag that read as such:

To: Christopher Hastings
From: Dr. W. and Herr K.

Raising an eyebrow, he took the present out from under the tree, noticing that there was a present like this for Sinclair, the three Baileys, and Dr. Hennessy, oddly enough. He shrugged, and unwrapped his gift.
Inside was a framed picture that he swore was never taken, of himself, the three Baileys, Dr. Sinclair, and several other Site-87 staff members, all in Christmas attire. He saw the message at the bottom of the frame:
"May your Christmas Spirit be Uncontained."
He laughed, and walked out of the room, picture under his arm.


"You mean to tell me, there are four billion virtual machines active on one server?" Jason Ortega pointed a bony finger at the server rack, face drawn into a frown.
"Not active all at the same time, no. The CPUs wouldn't be able to handle that, but there's a lot going on under the hood to give it that appearance, and it's not just one server. I'll be talking about it more in a few minutes, though." Terry Thompson replied, waving Ortega towards him as they proceeded through the farm.
The farm. That was all it had become to Terry. Enough 60 hour weeks deploying a project will make the most amazing seem mundane. The fact of the matter, though, was the Site 11 Anomalous Computing Center contained what was probably the most sophisticated network on the planet, and stood to be for quite a long time. It had a lot of work to accomplish, and that made today's "ribbon-cutting" ceremony seem like an interminable waste of time. Terry quietly hoped for no more promotions.
Terry left Ortega to stand in front of the assembled crowd, some 30 or 40 researchers, division heads, and his own technicians.
"Alright, can everyone hear me? You guys in the back?"
Nods from all around.
"Good, let's get started. For those of you that don't know me, I'm Terry Thompson, Director of Engineering for the RAISA. Over the last few years, we've been doing more active research into anomalous AI and viruses than ever. It had also become apparent that we were under-equipped to properly research and understand their nature at times. Thanks to a significant budget increase, we've been able to build an ideal research and containment center. It's been a long road, and a lot of work. I can't call it a labor of love, but rather it's been a labor of necessity. The better we understand the anomalous nature of these objects, the better-equipped we are to protect ourselves as well as the rest of the world."
Polite applause came from the crowd. Brandon caught his eye and gave him a thumbs up; Brandon knew how much Terry hated public speaking. Terry smiled in spite of himself.
"Now, I understand there's a tour to be taken. We'll be walking the floor of the facility, we'll have some Q&A, my technicians and I will be available for two hours for any other questions, and then we're going to get to work. So, if you all will follow me."
A veritable herd of nerds walked up the ramp to the raised data center floor.
"The most obvious difference between the far— the Anomalous Computing Center and the rest of the Foundation's infrastructure is nearly everything here is standards-compliant, off the shelf, or both. We've observed that some anomalies can't or won't run on Foundation-made hardware, or on FoundationOS. A lot of you will remember the early days of so-called anomalous viruses, or anomalous AI, that were usually just smart programming ahead of their time. It's grown more difficult to determine the difference every year, and using standard hardware and software gives us another set of eyes, if you will, into how the anomaly in question works, and also protects the secret nature of our architecture from god-knows-what."
Terry led the group to a set of six server racks, loaded to the gills with blade servers and fiber-optic cabling.
"Here we have the Internet Emulation Cluster, which we've been calling ElevenNet. This was the most time-consuming piece of the Center to deploy, but we think the time will be well worth it. Any anomalous machine gets connected to a local area network, which routes external traffic to ElevenNet. ElevenNet has the ability to send and receive traffic to and from any of the four billion or so public IP addresses available on IPv4, and can also enable a virtual machine to listen at a requested IP in under three-tenths of a second. Additionally, using data acquired from public and private sources, each IP and port responds as its equivalent counterpart on the Internet. We have several thousand virtual machine base images, which cover 99.97 percent of the listening devices observed on the Internet. When an IP is requested, the corresponding server or network device VM is spun up and accepts the communication. This gives us total transparency as to the nature of the traffic being sent, which is logged and left in the clear for us to review. Data is appropriately routed through the appropriate virtual routers via BGP tables, latency is properly emulated, outages occur at a rate proportional to the real internet. The global DNS system has been fully emulated, bad records and all. Many websites and internet services work well enough for our purposes. Dummy data is sent back and forth across the network to give the appearance of activity. ICMP traffic takes up an appropriate percentage of traffic, SMTP takes up an appropriate percentage, and so on. We've essentially created a fully functioning internet, totally separate from the real one, and with a fraction of the resources."
Some audible wows were heard from the crowd. Some blank stares were also plainly visible. Talk human to them, Terry, he thought to himself. He beckoned the crowd along.
The next stop was a set of waist-high tables with various computers hooked up, with what appeared to be a camera on a tripod in front of each one.
"Here's what we've got for anomalous, or potentially anomalous, artificial intelligence." Terry grabbed a spare camera apparatus and held it over his head to show the crowd.
"At the top is a standard high-definition webcam, which is aimed at the screen. We have this cable, here, that plugs into the computer with USB, or alternately DB-25 or DB-9 and PS/2." Terry winced inwardly. You're not talking human to them, Terry.
"This long cable connects to our AI Cluster, Alexandra. Alexandra has a number of pre-programmed personalities available, from Rogerian Therapist to Child to Movie Star to Cat. When we set the AI personality to use, the AI reads the screen with a combination of optical character recognition and heuristic behavior analysis and sends back suitable responses via the USB cable. Alexandra can also 'forget' an anomaly after the session ends, restoring the AI to a like-new condition with each test if necessary, or can remember them if that is more advantageous to our research, or to the well-being of the anomaly. We predict this will help some of the clinically depressed AI we've seen, as well as help us weed out false positives and give our human researchers an advance look at the AI thanks to logs and recorded video feeds."
The clapping was a bit more scattered than what ElevenNet garnered. Terry shrugged and nodded in the direction of the next attraction, which looked out of place in its normalcy compared to the technological wonderland around them. He waved a bit wearily at the small cubicle farm. Taped to the side facing the farm was a crudely hung banner reading "BATTLESTATIONS - GET FUCKED SKIPPY".
"This is where we will be working on remote containment, which sounds like a contradiction. We have some off-the-shelf and custom designed tools for hacking, denial of service, and generally keeping hostile anomalies from further propagating as best we can. Currently, between our own abilities and compliant Tier 1 carriers, we can sustain a distributed denial of service in excess of 161 Terabits per second indefinitely. This can, in a worst-case scenario, temporarily take the entire internet down if needed, by knocking out all Tier 1 and 2 carriers which will segregate the internet into thousands of smaller networks. No magic here, just raw brute force if the situation calls for it. We can, of course, also attempt to communicate with the anomaly directly through various programs as well."
"Down here, we have our wireless KVM. What this allows for, is that any field agent that has an anomalous computer on their hands that can take standard connections, can plug this cable into the appropriate ports, and it allows for a link to the monitor, keyboard and mouse right here. This lets our trained technicians and researchers work with the device as if they were on-site, and we can deploy a maximum of two hundred of these at one time."
"Now, if you'll follow me, we have some facilities set up for cross-testing of anomalous computers…"
The tour, it seemed, took all day. The farm was thoroughly ready and the heads were thoroughly impressed. The mood lightened notably during Q&A, and open discussion with the technicians resulted in enough work assignments to keep the farm team working for a month. The dog and pony show was over at last.
Terry Thompson sighed a bone-deep sigh of relief and sat at what would be his workstation for the next two months while the technicians trained and bugs were wrangled. Brandon tapped him on the shoulder and gave him another thumbs-up. Terry laughed and gave one back.
"Hey Terry, you never did tell me how we got the budget for this all of a sudden. We've been getting scraps for years. What changed?"
Terry shot him a quizzical look.
"I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that. You of all people should know why we got a budget."
"…Right. You mean..?"
"Yes. When the floors are always clean, why pay the janitors? But one SCUTTLE outage that damn-near wipes the Foundation off the map and they start to listen."


Navarro groaned loudly as he placed his right hand to his head. He felt as if someone had attempted to crack it open, but failed and decided to punch it repeatedly instead. Slowly, he propped himself up and opened his eyes.
“Well then…” he mumbled to himself as he looked around.
Navarro was on top of a large polished steel platform in the center of what appeared to be an otherwise empty warehouse. At least three spotlights were shining down on him from somewhere above, making it difficult to see his surroundings. His jacket had been replaced with a black metal breastplate. The symbol of the SCP Foundation was engraved above his heart. Looking down, Navarro could see his reflection in the surface of the platform.
“God damn it, they made me art again, didn't they…” he said as he rubbed his temples and very carefully got to his feet. It was then that a man's voice pierced the darkness.
“If you value keeping your head and limbs attached to your torso, you'll stay on the platform,” the voice said. “That breast plate has been rigged to seal off all holes in the event you step down from there. The same will happen if you try to remove it yourself. You'll need someone else to do that for you. Oh, and don't try anything magical. That will trigger it too.”
The voice was deep, and surprisingly non-threatening. Almost like a game show host. Navarro squinted against the spotlights and could barely see a tall figure standing in the distance, presumably the voice's source.
“So what, the armor protects me, but is also deadly in and of itself?” Navarro addressed his host as he watched the figure meander closer.
“I call the piece ‘Reflections of Daniel Navarro,'” the man replied, stopping his gait just far enough to keep his face obscured in the darkness. He was dressed in a black business suit. A single leather glove covered his right hand. “Quaint, don't you think?”
“A little too obvious if you ask me…” Navarro began as he looked down at his reflection in the platform. “I take it you're JTH?”
The man didn't respond. Instead, he pulled a small, black, leather bound notebook out of his pocket and quietly flipped to a page near its center.
“June, 2004. Daniel Navarro is apprehended by the Suits. He is assumed dead by a majority of his friends and family. A funeral is held for him in Portland, Oregon,” the man read aloud. “November, 2005. Daniel Navarro is spotted, both alive and well, leading a Suit raid on a studio in Seattle. The raid results in the destruction of at least $100,000 worth of art and materials that I had personally provided, and the arrest and presumed death of artists Francis and Elizabeth Baker, both of whom were acquaintances of Navarro prior to his apprehension, and were dear friends of mine. The local anart community is both in shock and pain from Navarro's apparent turncoat nature.”
“They were building giant, lead sculptures of spiders that easily could have killed hundreds of people if they were…” Navarro protested, but paused as he felt the breast plate tighten around his torso. Looking up, he saw his host pointing at him with his gloved hand.
“Please, Daniel, if you'd be so kind as to let me finish, that would be appreciated,” the man said. He then flipped to the next page in his notebook. “March, 2007. Navarro personally leads a raid on a cache of supplies, which was due for shipment the following morning. The clay is subsequently destroyed, resulting in the stalling of at least five different projects, and a net loss of nearly five million dollars on my end.”
The man paused and looked up at Navarro before shaking his head.
“I lost a lot of ‘friends' after that one,” he chuckled. “It's pretty astounding how fast some people will drop you when the weather turns foul. It didn't have to be that way though…”
The man then snapped his head back to his notebook, and proceeded to read.
“June, 2008. Agent Navarro leads an effort to destroy a piece titled, ‘The Folly of the Censor,' killing its creator, Damion Cartwright, in the process,” the man continued, stopping as Navarro laughed to himself.
“Let me guess, another friend?” Navarro asked, stopping as he felt the armor tighten again.
“A very, very, close friend,” the man said between clenched teeth, his gloved hand clenched tight as he held it at Navarro. “And if eyewitnesses are to be believed, you engulfed him in nuclear fire, and then shot him in the fucking head.”
The man then relieved the pressure, and looked down at his notebook again, chuckling as he then shook his head.
“All those incidents are enough for me to hate you, Daniel. The fact that you are a turn coat, the fact that you have cost me more money than most people see in their lifetimes, the fact that you have killed some of my closest friends… but this last one is what really takes the cake. November, 2010. Agent Navarro leads a raid on a warehouse in Portland, resulting in a standoff between Foundation forces and the warehouse occupants and contents. The occupants, Tanya and Eric Hill, are slain. The latter was my brother. The former was my wife.”
“Wait…” Navarro said as the man stepped into light. He had short blond hair and was clean shaven. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips were curved into a regretful smile. “Jericho…”
Navarro's mouth hung slightly open. When they had last spoken almost a decade prior, Jericho T. Hill was a wealthy businessman who had found a hobby as a patron for both anomalous and non-anomalous art within Portland. He had been a kind soul, but seemed to fade out of the public eye around late 2004 for reasons unknown. Now, however, the kindness was gone. Standing before Navarro was a man entirely drained of energy and emotion.
“Hello Daniel,” he said. “It sure has been a while hasn't it? I don't think there is anyone else on this planet you've screwed over more than me and my friends.”
Jericho then removed a pistol from his jacket pocket, holding it loosely in his ungloved hand. Navarro recognized the sidearm as his own.
“So is that it?” Navarro asked. “Are you going to shoot me with my own gun? “
“You know, I hadn't thought of that,” Jericho chuckled as he analyzed the pistol. “I suppose it would be easy wouldn't it? I could pop you in the head here and wash my hands of this. But that wouldn't bring back all my friends, that wouldn't bring back Eric, and that certainly wouldn't bring back Tanya. No, that wouldn't be the way to handle things.”
Jericho then petted the pistol with his gloved hand, and held the gun to his face as he slowly blew on it. The gun began to disintegrate into flakes of rust. With the gun destroyed, Jericho then gave another small chuckle, and turned back to face Navarro.
“You took away everything I loved, so I'll take away that one thing you cherish enough to become a turn coat,” said Jericho, “I'll take away your freedom.”
“How?” Navarro asked, “You going to keep me here forever? The Foundation will eventually find me.”
“Certainly,” Jericho snickered, “But, if I keep putting you into situations like this, how long do you think it will take for them to question your value as an agent? If they are constantly pulling you from incapacitation, when will they start to see you as a liability? What if I silence or kill all of your contacts in the field? What use would you be to them then?”
Jericho's lips then turned into a devilish smile.
“You're rather anomalous yourself, Navarro, self-described wizard as you are. If all your utility as a field agent was stripped from you, do you think they'd contain you too? Or maybe they'd just wipe your memory and leave you on the side of the road in Indiana. I wonder…”
Jericho then tossed Navarro a cell phone.
“I've rigged this to activate after twenty-four hours. In the meantime why don't you stay here and reflect on your current situation.”
Navarro eyed the cell phone, and then shook his head.
“You're not really thinking this through, are you, Jericho?” Navarro asked. “When I get out of here what's to keep me and my friends from finding you and gunning you down?”
“By all means you're welcome to try,” Jericho chuckled, “I'd love to see you run around on a wild goose chase. But, no, I don't think I'll be around for a bit. I'm tired, and can use a vacation. Do you know how hard it was to track down Pyotr and convince him the best way to reach you was through the casket?”
Jericho gave a small satisfied nod and slowly turned around to begin walking away.
“Take care, old friend,” He called over his shoulder as he slowly disappeared into the darkness. Navarro heard a door open and slowly close in the distance.
“Yeah,” Navarro mumbled to himself. “You too…”
Navarro then sat down at the center of the platform. Looking down on his reflection, he uttered a defeated sigh.
“Well, shit.”

It was nearly a day and a half later when Navarro heard the warehouse door open. A short woman with neck length brunette hair and a bright red winter jacket slowly made her way across the empty floor. She stopped just short of the platform and shook her head, a small smile on her face.
“We've got to stop meeting like this, Daniel.”
Navarro gave a small chuckle in return before flipping her off. Her name was Sasha Merlo. She was a Foundation field agent stationed at the local Site-64, and someone Navarro had worked with on several raids in the past. When Jericho's phone finally activated, she was the first person he could think of to call who might actually show up to set him free.
“Hmmmmm…” Sasha hummed as she struck a thoughtful pose. “I do quite like the piece, but I do question the artist's use of color…”
“Sasha,” Navarro sighed, “It's been a very, very, long day. Can you please just get this off me?”
“I suppose…” she said with a hint of disappointment. “So I just pull the armor off, or, what?”
“That's what the artist said to do. I'd do it myself, but I quite value having my appendages attached to my torso.”
“Yeah,” Sasha began as she lifted the armor off, over Navarro's head, “me too.”
She then tossed the breastplate aside, the metal hitting the ground with a loud clink.
“A recovery team should be here soon to pick up the platform and armor,” Sasha said as she sat down on the platform. “You do know there are probably four or five reports, and maybe a committee hearing, or two, you're going to have to deal with for this, yeah?”
“Don't remind me,” Navarro chuckled as he took a seat. Within a few moments a team of six more Foundation agents entered the warehouse.
“Buy you a drink when this is done?” Sasha asked.
Navarro gave a nod and quietly waited for the questioning to begin.

Two days later, Navarro found himself sitting at the desk in his office in Site-19. A blank Person of Interest form was displayed on the monitor of his computer. An old photograph was gripped tightly in his hands.
A few hours after Agent Merlo had set him free, he was summarily buried under the weight of half a dozen reports that needed to be filed. Taking a break from the paperwork, Navarro managed to find an old photograph among the numerous belongings that cluttered his office. It was taken before he had come to work for the Foundation. The background was an art studio, where a newly made marble sculpture had recently been unveiled. Standing in the foreground was a much younger Daniel Navarro and his old friends, Tom, Jackson, Alexis, Jill, and Jericho T. Hill.
“And you'll leave? Tom, Jackson, Alexis, and me; we'll never see you again?”
“If that's what you want.”
Jill's words echoed in his head. He looked over the happy faces in the photograph one more time and sighed. He quietly pulled out a lighter and set a corner ablaze. Within moments the photograph was incinerated. Navarro swept the ashes into his office trash can and returned to his work, another bridge burnt.
He then began to fill out the Person of Interest form.

Name: Jericho T. Hill

«Part Two: Meeting Over Coffee | Hub | Part Four: The Templar Incident»


Daniel Navarro sat alone at a secluded table in a coffee house in Portland. Rather than the usual attire he wore while acting as an agent for the Foundation, here he sat in a set of street clothes. Spread out on the table before him was a series of eleven notes.

The clock has struck one, Daniel.
~ JTH

The clock is at two.
~ JTH

Tick tock, we're now at three.
~ JTH

The bells toll four.
~ JTH

Time is running out, Daniel. The clock strikes five.
~ JTH

Halfway there. The clock strikes six.
~ JTH

The hour is seven, Daniel.
~ JTH

The pendulum swings, and now it is eight.
~ JTH

Time grows short. The ninth hour is at hand.
~ JTH

Are you frightened, Daniel? The clock strikes ten.
~ JTH

Hour Eleven. See you soon.
~ JTH

Each one had been found at the last eleven anart sites Navarro had been assigned to. While he was not one to scare easily, Navarro would be lying if he said he wasn't feeling slightly uneasy. Whoever JTH was, it now appeared they were making good on their promise from Belarus. They were coming to see him soon.
Navarro quietly folded up the notes and placed them in his jacket pocket. He then took a sip of coffee as he rubbed his temple and waited for his guest to arrive.
A short while later, she did.
Navarro waved to her as she found her way to the back of the coffee house. She was a tall, pale woman in her mid-thirties with short black hair, dressed in a black rain jacket. Without a word, she approached, choosing to stand by the table rather than take a seat. For a moment, the two stared at each other, waiting for each other to speak.
“You know,” Navarro broke the silence, “I was half-expecting you to not show up. Please, take a seat. Do you want anything to drink?”
The woman shook her head as she sat down.
“I figured that if I didn't make an appearance here, you'd take it upon yourself to visit me at home or work,” she replied.
“You got me there,” Navarro said with a shrug. “How are you, Jill? Still teaching at that high school?”
“The school was closed down in 2008,” Jill said, “I've been working at a graphic design firm since.”
The table then fell silent. Jill simply stared at Navarro, her eyes a mixture of anger and sadness.
“I suppose I should get on to business then,” Navarro sighed.
“That would be appreciated,” returned Jill.
Navarro then pulled a file out of his pack and slid it across the table, allowing Jill to open it before he spoke.
“My sources tell me you're still involved in the Portland anart scene from time to time, I was hoping you could point me in the direction of a particular artist. They've been making animated lawn gnomes. Normally they are harmless enough, stealing bits and bobs from sheds, moving things around at night, so on and so forth. However, recently a group of ten of them pummeled a local teenager unconscious and stole, among other things, his shoes,” Navarro chuckled slightly before taking another sip of his coffee. “Naturally, my employers sent me in to see who is making them and get things to cool down a bit.”
Jill closed the file and slid it across the table, folding her arms as she shook her head.
“Sorry, can't help you out.”
“I see,” Navarro replied, setting his now empty mug down on the table. “Well, then, would you know someone who would know?”
“No.” Jill countered.
“Of course not,” Navarro sighed. “I'm sorry for bothering you then.”
He then placed the file back in his bag, a small smile on his face as he stood up.
“If you're still married to Tom, please tell him I said hi,” said Navarro, “I saw that sculpture of his at the Portland Art Museum. It looks nice.”
Jill shook her head in response.
“How do you sleep at night?”
“Preferably on a bed,” Navarro replied, “But, I'm sure that's not the answer you wanted.”
“When we heard you were nabbed by the Suits, we thought you were dead!” Jill hissed. “I don't know about your friends in other cities, but we held a fucking funeral here! Myself, Tom, Eric, Jackson, Alexis, hell even Jericho was there!”
Navarro opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't get the words out before Jill unleashed another wave.
“Now imagine how we felt two years later when we heard, not only that you were alive, but were working for the Suits, and leading a raid on the Baker's Seattle studio! How could you? Of all people, how could you work for them?”
Jill's hands were now closed into tight fists, the intensity of her glare enough to burn a hole through steel.
“And to top it off, you think you can just roll in here after all this time, as if nothing has happened, and ask me to help you?”
Navarro sighed and returned to his seat. For several moments he remained silent.
“Jill, humor me for a second,” he began. “How many anartists do you personally know? No names, just give me a number.”
“What does that have to do with…” she began, her expression now one of confusion.
“Just a number Jill,” Navarro interrupted.
“… Eleven.”
“Right, and I bet for the most part they are harmless, relatively normal people who picked up anart the same way someone picks up other hobbies, like you and your sketches,” said Navarro. “For the most part they don't want to prove some point about society or harm people. But there are anartists out there who are like that. And the ‘Suits' as you call them; they aren't in the habit of taking too much time to do the delicate task of determining the difference.”
Navarro then reached back into his pack and pulled out the file and sliding it back across the table.
“That's where I come in,” Navarro continued. “That's why I go to people like you to find out who artists like whoever made these gnomes are, because if I don't find them first another agent will and I can almost guarantee they probably will not do as good a job as I do of keeping things civil. Unlike me, they haven't been on both sides of this. Yeah, maybe how I handled the uniform change wasn't the best way to go about things, but I do what I do to keep people like you out of the crossfire.”
Jill fell silent as Navarro placed the file back into his pack. He then pulled out a box and placed it on the table.
“By the way, I almost forgot to give you this.”
Jill opened it to find a small metal picture frame. Inside was a colored pencil sketch of a blue sailing ship at sea, the image moving over the waves on the paper. On occasion a bank of fog would appear, and then vanish, taking the ship along with it. The ship would reappear at the center of the image a few moments later. In the bottom corner she could see her initials.
“I stumbled across that in a raid on the east coast,” Navarro said as he placed his pack back on his shoulders. “Since my employers were just going to place it in low priority storage until the end of time, I felt maybe it would be best if it just vanished one day and was returned to you.”
Jill covered her hand over her mouth as she looked down at the picture and slowly nodded a ‘thank you'.
“If I give you a name, will you promise they won't be hurt?” She then asked.
“I promise,” Navarro replied.
“And you'll leave? Tom, Jackson, Alexis, and me; we'll never see you again?”
“If that's what you want.”
Jill then quietly grabbed a napkin and quickly wrote down a name and address. She then folded the napkin up and handed it to Navarro.
“Thank you very much,” said Navarro as he pocketed the information.
Jill nodded and quietly placed the lid back on the box.
“You have a nice life, Jill.”
Without another word, Navarro stepped out of the coffee house and into the rainy Portland night.
Navarro traveled on foot for quite some time, gathering his thoughts as he made his way across the damp city-scape. As he stepped across an alley, he felt a sharp pain at the back of his neck, as if he was bitten by a bug. Quickly, he slapped at his assailant, only to find a piece of paper. Navarro silently read it to himself.

The clock strikes twelve.
Hello, Daniel.

Navarro then glanced down the alley. There he saw a tall figure in a dark coat, a hat pulled low over their face, obscuring all view. Navarro watched as his vision then blurred, and his legs gave out from underneath him. He could see the figure begin to make its way down the alley toward him.
“Well, shit,” Navarro mumbled as he finally blacked out.

«Part One: 15-11-2012 | Hub | Part Three: J. T. H.»


None of the members of the Black Rabbit Company were terribly fond of boxes…

Boss looked down at the unconscious man sprawled out on her bed. Horribly uncomfortable thing, that bed: the mattress was thin, and they refused to give her a pad for it when she asked.
The half-dressed researcher splayed out on that uncomfortable mattress struck Boss with a moment of pity. He was an average, sad inhabitant of that lonely, mid-life crisis bracket: Stress and isolation had built up into a desperate need to find some sort of validation in his life, to combat the looming menace of receding hair and flabby stomach. She didn't know his name. He might have been a decent man, maybe. Just a guy who wasn't strong-willed enough or smart enough to avoid a massive mistake.
She'd leave it at that. Just a little bit of sympathy. He was, after all, one of the orchestrators of her misery, and the misery of her sisters.
Boss had learned years ago that she had to make do with what she had available. Tools were just that. Take them away and she still had herself. Pose and voice. Flicks of the tail. A playful purr. A sway of the hips. Subtle, surgical weapons. Just enough to worm into his brain. Just enough to stick there. Just enough to help him make a massive mistake.
It had taken three months for him to make the mistake, though. Boss was a patient woman (she had to be, to manage her sisters), but her patience had waned enough to allow her desire for action to be whetted deadly sharp.
The Black Rabbit Company was going to escape. She would see her sisters again. She would see Wizard again. They were going to get out.
Boss emptied the researcher's pockets. He had claimed that there would be a full fifteen minutes before security knew something was up. Boss gave herself five. She'd take those odds. Couldn't be harder than herding cats.
A condom, forty-seven cents in change, the wrapper from a Twix bar, a watch, ID card, and a smart phone.
New sparks of activity shot up in regions of Boss' cyberbrain that had long remained dark.

"Ey, ukhnem…"
Ba-dum-pap
The rubber ball bounced against the concrete wall.
"Ey, ukhnem…"
Ba-dum-pap
The rubber ball bounced against the concrete wall.
"Yeshcho razik, yeshcho da raz…"
Ba-dum-pap
Nanami stared blankly at some spot on the wall. Her arm moved automatically.
"Ey, ukhnem…"
Ba-dum-pap
The ball followed the same pattern every time. Hand to floor, floor to wall, wall to hand, over and over and over.
"Ey, ukhnem…"
Ba-dum-pap
She had thought she was going mad, back when she still cared to think.
"Yeshcho razik, yeshcho da raz…"
Ba-dum-pap
The ball landed back in her hand and stayed there. She stood up, and the dull glass of her eyes faded slightly. She stretched out her arms, and her voice grew from low murmur to the full force of a well-trained diaphragm.
Maybe, if she sang loud enough, the song would carry her away from this place.
"Razovyom my beryozu! Razovyom my kudryavu! Ai-da, da ai-da, Ai-da, da ai-da! Razovyom my kudryavu!"
Her voice crumpled against the walls. It could not escape this cage, and neither could she. She slumped onto her bed, and the glassy look returned. Perhaps she would just stare at her outstretched hand for hours until she fell asleep, and dreamt of staring at her hand for hours. It would be a change of pace from dreaming about bouncing a ball against the wall.
And so she stared.
After some time, she felt something in her head, as if some fuzzy film had been pulled back from her brain. A log long empty blipped open, with a message.

[Boss: Oi, get off your ass. It's time to fuck shit up.]

Momoko had many hobbies. Unfortunately, given that bar fights, gunsmithing, cooking, and surfing were all out of her reach, she had few hobbies she could actually enjoy. She spent most of her captive days exercising, thumbing through what books her captors would loan her, and programming her dreams.
Tonight's dream involved fighting deep-sea angler-elves in the Outback, on the back of a T-rex with feathers like an Indian spice rack and big robotic arms. Benedict Cumberbatch was also there. He was a pigeon. Momoko was pretty sure that was a glitch, but she might upgrade it to feature in future installments.
The fighting had been appropriately lively and Momoko was enjoying herself, when Benedict Cumberpigeon opened his mouth-beak and screamed with the exact tone and pitch of an air raid siren.
Every time. Momoko grimaced, and with one hand unscrewed the still-screaming pigeon man's head. In the hollow stump of his neck was a red button.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't patch out the "incongruous outside noise to rouse the dreamer" bug. She pressed the button, and woke up.
The siren continued, out in the hallway, accompanied by the sterile voice of an automated alert system.
“Containment breach in progress. Site lockdown procedures initiated. Please report to your designated safe zones. Security personnel to Sector 4.”
Sector 4…she had no idea where that was. Couldn't be anything good, of course.
The door opened, and there was no one on the other side. A text-voice appeared in her head.

[Boss: Get moving - Nanami needs backup.]

Oh ho! Momoko shot out the open door and sprinted down the hall as site schematics unrolled in her inner eye and a blue AR arrow scrolled out on the floor.
“Containment breach in progress. Site lockdown procedures initiated. Please report to your designated safe zones. Security personnel to Sector 1.”

[Boss: Shit, I'm locked out. Diversion's over, they'll be on our ass.]
[Momoko: Fine by me.]

Wind kicked her hair back. She could run! Finally! She bounced down the hall, past rows of nameless metal doors, throwing in a somersault or cartwheel every so often for good measure.
She shot past an intersection, and the timing was just right that her foot connected with the head of the guard turning the corner. His helmet's flight was accompanied by the audible snap of his jaw. Momoko ducked into a roll and kept going. No momentum lost.
More messages appeared in her head.

[Boss: Nanami get that security system down.]
[Nanami: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ]
[Nanami: I'M HACKING AS FAST AS I FUCKING CAN]

[Nanami (ynapmoc.tibbar.kcalb|hctiBcitamesopA#ynapmoc.tibbar.kcalb|hctiBcitamesopA) has joined adminNet]
[Alexandra has kicked Nanami from adminNet. Reason for ban: Unauthorized Access. Alexandra sets ban on *!ynapmoc.tibbar.kcalb|hctiBcitamesopA#ynapmoc.tibbar.kcalb|hctiBcitamesopA]
[Commissar Sorhyu (malb.malb|malbak#malb.malb|malbak) has joined adminNet]
[Alexandra has kicked Commissar Sorhyu from adminNet. Reason for ban: Repeated Unauthorized Access Attempts. Alexandra sets ban on *!malb.malb|malbak#malb.malb|malbak]]
[Tsarmina the Vile (ritok.ssertrof|ssertsim.seyeneerg#ritok.ssertrof|ssertsim.seyeneerg) has joined adminNet.]
[Alexandra has kicked Tsarmina the Vile from adminNet. Reason for ban: Repeated Unauthorized Access Attempts, Ban Evasion. Alexandra sets ban on *!ritok.ssertrof|ssertsim.seyeneerg#ritok.ssertrof|ssertsim.seyeneerg]
[Nannersbannanners (srekcuftihs.tahw.rof.nwod|nrut#srekcuftihs.tahw.rof.nwod|nrut) has joined adminNet]
[Alexandra has kicked Nannersbannanners from adminNet. Reason for ban: Repeated Unauthorized Access Attempts, Ban Evasion, Being a Shithead. Alexandra sets ban on *!srekcuftihs.tahw.rof.nwod|nrut#srekcuftihs.tahw.rof.nwod|nrut]]
[Dancypants (41.3tq.a.si.xel|ssefnoc.tsum.I#41.3tq.a.si.xel|ssefnoc.tsum.I) has joined adminNet]
[Alexandra has kicked Dancypants from adminNet. Reason for ban: Repeated Unauthorized Access Attempts, Ban Evasion, Being a Shithead, Hitting on the Bot. Alexandra sets ban on *!41.3t.q.a.si.xel|ssefnoc.tsum.I#41.3t.q.a.si.xel|ssefnoc.tsum.I]
[Varvara (seifisnetni.mehtna.lanoit|n.naissur#seifisnetni.mehtna.lanoit|n.naissur) has joined adminNet]
[Alexandra has kicked Varvara from adminNet. Reason for ban: Repeated Unauthorized Access Attempts and Ban Evasion, Being a Shithead, Hitting on the Bot, Damnable Persistence. Alexandra sets ban on *!seifisnetni.mehtna.lanoit|n.naissur#seifisnetni.mehtna.lanoit|n.naissur]

At this point in the log, three and a half million virus-laden sockpuppets joined all at once.

Hana buckled down under her ballistic shield as bullets bounced off it. The filters in her lungs burned as they scrubbed out the tear gas. Short, shallow breaths, don't overstrain the hardware. The cool metal door of Tomi's cell was at her back, there were guards down the hall to the right and left, and she had eight bullets left.
She'd missed all this. Missed it terribly.

[Hana: I need Tomi's door open!]
[Nanami: I'M FUCKING WORKING ON IT]
[Momoko: Got tied up, I'm going to be late]
[Nanami: YOU HAD ONE JOB.]

The bickering especially.
There had been a point, months ago now, where she had given up. Seemed distant now, silly even. Captivity had given her a lot of time to think on it, and after a while Hana had realized that she had been a child back then. Unused to real failure. Too easily broken. In need of some hardened edges.

[Nanami: DOOR'S OPEN FUCKFACE (*^3^)/~☆LOVE YOU SIS]

Not too many hard edges, though.
The door slid open, and Hana pulled herself back to square the shield in the doorway.
“You're blocking us in,” Tomi said in her dull gravel voice. Hana twisted her head around to look at her sister, who was sitting on the bed in a serene lack of plussedness.
“Well konichiwa to you too.”
Tomi stood up, cracked her shoulders, then her elbows, then her wrists, then her neck, then her jaw.
“Blind idiot bull-rushes are usually Momoko's job,” she said as a finger automatically wormed up her left nostril. “I suppose we'll have to fill in.”

The wave of toxic sockpuppets had scattered across the digital battlefield, like so many dead gnats. The Alexandra AI had retreated across the horizon for the time being, and Nanami had slipped through the breach in the banwall. Her second wave of attack programs ate through the remaining network defenses like hydrosulfuric acid through a cardboard box.
Security was hers. For the time being. The previous officer for this kiosk sat slumped in the corner, with his head facing the wrong direction.
“Who's the best? I'm the best,” she said to herself as she clicked on the microphone and cleared her throat. Oh, this would be fun.
“One, two, one, two… Hello, filthy American pig-dogs: This is DJ Tsarmina bringing to you the soothing sounds of Johann Sebastian Bach's 'Air on the G-String', with special accompaniment by the Bleeding Shits Philharmonic Orchestra. Thank you for your participation, and enjoy the show.”
The graceful strings rose from the site's PA system, joined shortly after by the muffled screams of painful, uncontrollably bowel-loosening. Nanami leaned back in her chair, put her feet up on the control board, and felt the knot of tension that had curled between her shoulder blades dissolve and flow away. With one hand she played around with the lockdown commands, isolated the security squads, sent all-clear communications to the outside.
She had needed that. She really did. She watched the cameras of security guards writhing around on the floor, with the pleasant presence of Bach her only company.

[Boss: You'll get tired of that joke eventually.]
[Nanami: Never.]

Wizard stood on a plain of pockmarked ice, looking up at the one remaining star in the empty sky. A black star, surrounded by a halo of fading gases, and nothing else.
He felt as if his guts had been scraped out by some jagged claw, and the hole filled with ropes of frozen nitrogen. The cold burned, and he could do nothing to stop it.
This is all there is.
The voice came from inside him, circled around him. Red's voice. His own voice.
The entirety of existence, dancing towards nothing.
Without meaning.
You are alone. You will always be alone.
And then there was not even the black star and the black sky. There was nothing.
The pain faded. Wizard opened his eyes and saw his room. The echoing voice of Red was gone. Warmth returned to his body, his shuddering faded, his breathing slowed. He tried to sit up, but nausea forced him back down again.
He was dying. He knew it in his gut, he was dying. Red had never been that strong before, not even at the beginning, and he had only grown stronger in these past months. The doctors kept repeating their mantra - “We aren't seeing any changes, we aren't seeing any changes” – lies told by liars. To what end, he didn't know, and he didn't care. It didn't change the outcome. He would die alone here. The girls weren't coming. They were probably all dead now, too. Dead or mad. No one could last in this place without going mad.
Madness and death, dancing towards nothing.
He lay on the floor, and was dimly aware of sirens outside his cell, then replaced by distant, indistinct music, but he paid it no mind. Tricks of the imagination, clearly, or tricks of his captors to further torment him. The door slid open. Another trick. That door never opened.
A ghost entered the room. A ghost with calico hair and an orange jumpsuit. Rifle slung over her shoulder, bullet-proof vest.
“Go away,” Wizard said. “You're dead.”
The ghost walked over, grabbed him under the arms, and hauled him upright. His legs felt like newborn sponge.
“You're not real, you're not real, you're dead, leave me alone…”
Slender scarred fingers deftly undid the pressure seals on his helmet and removed it. It clattered on the floor.
The slap across his face wasn't harsh, but it stung enough to cut off his words and freeze him in place. The ghost hugged him firmly and didn't let go.
“Hey there, Wizard,” Boss said.
Whatever response Wizard would have made was held up in his throat for a moment or two, and then came out all at once, in tears and quaking sobs. Boss held him close, and didn't say anything.

[Boss: I found Wizard, will bring him to the meetup point. Just…give him a moment. He didn't take it easy.]
[Nanami: No prob, things are quieting down anyway. I've switched over to the backups.]
[Boss: Right. We'll be there in a bit.]

She let Wizard go, and he wiped his dribbling nose on the back of his glove.
“Are the others okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, we're all fine."
“Thank God…”
“Come on.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Let's get you out of here.”
Wizard grabbed his helmet and his hat and put both back on. The two walked out into the hall. Piano was playing over the PA system.
“Tchaikovsky?” Wizard asked.
“Piano Concerto 1 in B Flat Minor, I think. Gotta love her theatrics. No one should be giving us any trouble: Anyone not sealed off by bulkheads is in no condition to do anything. Bit of a mess, though, so watch your feet.”
The pair stepped gingerly around a blind-eyed researcher lying in a puddle of every bodily fluid the human person can produce. He wasn't screaming in pain anymore, which probably meant that he was trapped inside his own mind, watching whatever Nanami had cooked up. Shock porn, most likely. Wizard didn't feel much like asking. Neither did Boss, for that matter.

[Nanami: Oh ho HO, girls! Lookit what I found!]
[Nanami: (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ・。*。✧・゜゜・。✧。*・゜゜・✧。・゜゜・。*。・゜*✧]
[Nanami: SCP-2117]
[Nanami: HYPE MAGIC NOISES.]
[Momoko: Is this…]
[Nanami: It is.]
[Hana: Holy shit it's a spaceship.]
[Momoko: A goddamn spaceship.]
[Boss: Goddamn, it is a spaceship.]
[Hana: That is a big goddamn spaceship.]
[Tomi: It has a Grand Wave Motion Projection Cannon.]
[Momoko: Nope. Mine. My husbando. I'll fight you for it.]
[Tomi: Bring it.]
[Hana: grabs popcorn]
[Nanami: And it's just sitting around up there. A whole goddamn spaceship. Would be such a pity if something happened to it, something like an adorable and talented computer hacker getting her hands on the access and launch codes for the transport shuttle.]

“Is there something going on?” Wizard asked. He knew the tells of a TacNet chat well enough. How easily everyone slid back into their old roles, like they never stopped. Boss grinned at him.
“Oh, not a lot. Nanami just dug something interesting from their files. What do you say we go steal a spaceship?”

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