Old soul, new soul
Key in your pocket
Look out for the Laughing Man
On your path home.
1
2
3
4
…

It had been five months.
Five months of nothing but searching. Of nothing but requests for aid. Of nothing but being refused.
And so, our travelers continued to work their way through Tepur-zin-Umhed's journal. In some cases, she had already sought out the help of those she had found, and been turned away. In other cases, she had only heard of a name or location in passing. In still others, she had found out where a survivor had carved out a new home without ever finding out who they were. It was one of these cases that our travelers were investigating, and this is what brought them to the forest.
It was not an ordinary forest by any means. Abandoned tracks, carts, and rides were scattered everywhere, overgrown with leaves and rust. It had been a human carnival of sorts before being closed down years ago. Rumors were whispered throughout nearby towns that it was haunted with the ghosts of those who had died there in accidents. Others claimed that the accidents themselves had been the result of a haunting. Of course, Quarseta had heard none of these rumors. The fog hung low and grey and thick, making very hard to see anything. The faint sound of a pipe organ could be heard in the distance.
Quarseta took in her new surroundings. "Would it be alright if I looked around by myself for a bit? I want to try to find where that music's coming from."
"…Alright, but call for us if you find anything."
She nodded, then set off, weaving over and between the maze of metal and wood. No matter how far she traveled, the music never seemed to get any closer or further away, always staying just on the edge of hearing. Eventually, she reached a structure that was still standing and had an open door. Though it certainly wasn't in a good condition, it looked stable enough to explore. And so, she entered. Inside, she discovered a labyrinth of twisting halls, All lined with mirrors. Many of them twisted her reflection in odd ways, though oddly enough very few of them were broken, in contrast to the rest of the park. The pipe music continued to sit at the edge of her ears.
And then the laughing began.
Laughter that echoed through the halls and drilled into Quarseta's skull. She began running on instinct, further and further into the maze, calling for Atanti time and time again. It seemed to be coming from many places at once, so that she could never be sure if she was running towards the laughter or away from it. Shadows toyed at the edge of her vision, whispering secrets and doubts into her ear. "A lost behemoth dies in the desert, a pale mask haunts the night in vengeance. We are afraid." "Or maybe we foresee a stunning light that makes the ground boil. Salvation comes with a price." "Change the channel, he is very educational."
She kept running, on and on, turning this way and that, until she rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a clown. He had curly orange hair under a blue cap, and wore a blue and green suit. Despite the darkness, he appeared in an array of pastel colors. A smile was plastered over his cackling face.
She turned and kept running. She tried to get away from the whispers and from the clown, but it was no use. The whispers followed her, and the clown kept showing up in the mirrors, always right behind her. The more she ran, the warmer and more disoriented she felt.
She ran into a dead-end room, bare and tattered, but thankfully with a door. She slammed it shut behind her and retreated to the far end of the room. For a brief moment silence filled the air.
She heard laughter right behind her. She spun around to see the pastel clown staring out at her from the reflection in a mirror. She backed away, the heat and dizziness returning, and the reflection lunged out of the mirror. She looked down at the knife embedded in her abdomen.
The world began to fade. She remembered Atanti and tsa-Fanu bursting into the room and attacking the clown, though she couldn't remember what they shouted. The burning pain spread out from the knife, and the laughing filled her mind.
And then she felt it, in her pocket. The cold. The ticking. The egg. She pulled it out and looked at it, then smashed it into the ground. In those last few moments, she saw the bits of scattered glass and clockwork pulling themselves together into something new.

Quarseta wasn't quite sure where she woke up. It seemed like a large, white room, but it was so large that she wasn't sure that it had an end. It was cool here, and there was a sound of ticking surrounding her.
"Ah, we're awake again."
Quarseta sat up to see the two people in this place with her. One was someone who looked like a young lady about her age, but her face seemed almost ageless. She seemed to be made up mostly of wings and robes, all in muted but still vibrant colors. She sat next to a large bed, in which slept a small girl. The more Quarseta looked at the girl, the more she realized something.
"She's… she's me. Younger, but… me."
"Yes. Or more accurately, you're her. Just like you're me."
"…What?"
"We rode the storm that cast us out of our world, just like Atanti and Edrisek did. But, we were dying at the time, or did die. Our life merged with that of this girl. And so, you were born as her, but with my nature."
"…So I'm both of you, then."
"Yes. I think that's the best way to put it."
Quarseta walked over to the bed and looked at the sleeping girl. "We were dying. What happened?"
"I suspect that egg bought us a few extra moments. I'm not quite sure why."
"I do. I needed to see this."
"Why?"
"Because I needed to know who I was."
"A lot of good it does us now."
"You forget," a smirk spread across Quarseta's face, "I'm you. We don't die that easily."
The woman squinted at her. "…Well. It seems that I haven't changed much."
Quarseta gave a determined nod. "Alright, so, I have your nature and her life, but right now we're talking, which means… how much of your life do you remember?"
"All of it, but why… oh, that's clever."
"Alright, so I have your nature, her life, and now I have your memories too. Now, let's see if we can't wake her up. Won't do much good for me asleep." She began to gently shake the child awake.
"Mmmmmph. Time to wake up already?"
"Yeah. Yeah, time to get up. We need your help. A big girl like you isn't afraid of clowns, is she."
"No, I don't think we are."
"Good, now," she looked between her two halves, "am I ready?"
The two of them looked to each other, then back to her. "We are."
"Good." She took a deep breath, and gathered herself together. "I am Sarai-ur-Ebaou. I am Abby Johnson. And my name is Quarseta-ql-Paneu. And I am not about to die."

Quarseta woke up.
She carefully pulled the knife out of her stomach. She could still feel the pain, but she was able to move beyond it to the point that it did nothing to stop her. The wound began to close almost immediately. One of the clown's reflections took notice of her and tried to charge her. It dissipated into a satisfying cloud of pastel particles of color as the knife slashed through it. Atanti and Edrisek seemed shocked by her return, but their attention was quickly drawn back to the fight. The reflections continued to fall under their claws and whips and blade. Eventually, the clown took notice of her.
And he saw her. And he saw her for what she was.
And Bobble felt fear.
The fight raged on, the reflections fading in and out and falling under the trio's blows. Eventually, only one clown remained.
Quarseta turned to her companions, HE'S MINE, then turned back to the clown. I REMEMBER THE STORIES ABOUT YOU. YOU'RE ADRAVOSS. BACK HOME, YOU WERE A KILLER. THE BOOGEYMAN WE SCARED OUR CHILDREN WITH. I'D SAY IT'S TIME WE LET THE CHILDREN HAVE SOME PEACE OF MIND, WOULDN'T YOU?
Quarseta collected her strength. All that old fire and memory spinning around inside her. The power that had been forgotten. The brave child, born of this world. All the small, old, angry spirits whispering at the edge of her vision.
And she sang.
You must understand that singing, when done properly, is very strong and magical stuff. I don't doubt for a moment that you have heard a song before that made you want to dance, or cry, or break out laughing, or fall in love. You may have even heard a song that filled you with some nameless fire, and made you feel ready to leap out of your seat at the drop of a hat and go change the world.
And so she sang, and all the whispers joined in the chorus. The clown was forced into a quickly-shattering mirror by the sheer power of it all. As the song ended, the anger faded from her face, but the fire, fire that was somehow old but fresh all at once, continued to burn in her eyes. She turned to face her companions.
The both stood there, staring at her in awe and shock and confusion. "…What just happened?"
She tucked the knife into her belt. "A lot. I'll explain on the way back to the cave."

Episode Title
Contents

'All Tied Up at the Moment'
Setting appears to be an abandoned and overgrown carnival. The episode consisted of approximately 15 minutes of footage of a bound, gagged, and seemingly unconscious SCP-993 suspended upside-down by a rope tied around its ankles. Of note is the fact that this episode appears to lack the cognitohazardous properties of all other recorded episodes to date.

…
3
2
1
The Laughing Man is gone now
And your heart's unlocked
So let's go walking hand-in-hand
All the way home.

« Intermission: Audience of Crowns | HUB | This is How the World Ends »


Crown of the Sky
Crown of the Noose
Crown of Death

Twinkle, twinkle shining star
Tumbling 'bove the Earth so far
Will and will in constant dance
Ever in your nightly prance

Quarseta couldn't decide which was more beautiful; the stars shining above her, or the planet shining below her.
tsa-Fanu's swirling colors wrapped around her, shielding her from the vacuum. The burning light of the sun was visible in the corner of her eye, and the marbled sky glowed from below her. Tiny pinpricks of light were visible in all directions.
It all served to contrast nicely with the constant bickering she heard in the back of her head.
"…Please, yen-Suisei, I'm begging you to reconsider. Just think of the prestige you will receive when we return home; you will be one of the few beings to ever enter a world as alien as this and return."
"Heh, prestige for you and the rest of your damnable misfits, perhaps, Paneu. I am a man of profit and power. Your proposition would grant me neither."
"And if you stay? What does this world have to offer you?"
"Have you not been listening? Profit and power. This old husk only has so much resistance in it, and once it gives out, I will finally be able to pilot it to the planet below."
"And you truly think that this rock is more valuable than home?" Atanti's patience was clearly growing thin.
"Allow me to put it this way; back home, I was a powerful man with many enemies. Are so powerless that I could crush them like insects. We are as gods compared to them."
Atanti seemed to be trying very hard not to tear into yen-Suisei. Quarseta wondered for a moment if she meant that thought figuratively or literally.
"What's the matter, Paneu? Out of bargaining material? Not surprising. All you have is a half-child and a performer without an audience."
The moment hung suspended in orbit.
"Hmp." Atanti snorted. "Well, I guess there's nothing I can do to help you, then. Come on then, let's leave the 'god' to his conquest. We'll see how well he fares."
As tsa-Fanu pulled them back towards the Earth, Quarseta felt a radioactive tingling in the back of her head while another voice whispered to her. The words were foreign and laden with static, but the meaning was still there.
"You're like me, little one. Remember that you're not one of them. Don't give in to your Presence."

Twinkle, twinkle shining spear
Tumbling 'bove the Earth so near
A single heart to stay your hand
'Fore you strike the Jailers' land

Black for noblest hearts of men
White for all the revelers' skin
Yellow for ripened sky above
Red for the bound god's sin

Quarseta gazed into the towering doorway before her, light seeping out of it and spilling across the room. They were familiar colors, to be sure. Red and yellow and white and black. But something seemed… odd about them, something that made her somewhat lightheaded and tired. Looking back, she thought that perhaps it was the shades and tints of the colors. Or perhaps it was the way the darkness seemed to be cast just as easily as light was on the other side. At any rate, the swimming colors made her feel differently that she ever had before. Almost, sickly, but in a strange, pleasant sort of way.
"Now remember, everyone stay close. This place can… change you. You must stay wide awake while we are inside."
She nodded mutely, still staring into the swimming and swirling gate ahead.
Atanti nodded in response. "Stay close, eat nothing, and allow Edrisek and myself to do the talking if we are able to get an audience with the King."
And they walked into the forbidden wonderland beyond. They walked into Alagadda.

Quarseta stumbled out of the doorway, supported on either side by Atanti and tsa-Fanu. Still swirling in her head were the blacks and the whites and the yellows and the reds and the light and the sound and the air and the sea and the stars and the food and the drink and the parties and the ambassador. Her head was flying and spinning around all at once.
"Hrrrr. Shouldn't have brought her. Too young."
tsa-Fanu flashed back in confirmation.
Unfortunately, the travelers had little better luck in this place than the last. The very fabric of the place had been thick and dreamlike, making it hard to think. A sickly sweet scent hung all about it. Though they had all managed to keep their wits about them on the way to the castle, they were blocked by their final obstacle. The Ambassador. The one who held the true power of the empty King. She had stopped them, humiliated them, turned them back laughing. Even Atanti and tsa-Fanu felt her intoxication, and it was more than enough to overwhelm Quarseta.
"♫/Where aphotic sea does deny, reflections of a xanthous sky…/♫"
"…She will be alright with some rest, though I fear we will have to find aid elsewhere."

Black of sky betwixt the worlds
White of child's soul
Yellow of aged threads and thoughts
Red of godless hole

Beware the Koitern, o' my child
In cities tall and forests wild
Beware the stench of death he makes
Lest it be your neck he breaks

Incident 682/053/1129/173:
[00:00]: Visual distortion appears in the corner of SCP-173's cell. SCP-173 ceases movement between individual frames .
[00:57]: Visual distortion resolves into spatial distortion and suspended biological matter consistent with SCP-1129.
[01:22]: SCP-053 emerges from the spatial distortion, riding on the back of SCP-682. Both entities appear to be in a joyous mood.
[01:27]: Both entities cease movement and fixate their eyes on SCP-173.
[01:49]: SCP-682 begins to grow transparently-armored eyes covering various points of its body.
[02:36]: SCP-682 charges through SCP-173's cell wall.

"Don't take your eyes off of him!" Atanti charged through wall after wall, the rubble occasionally granting the Koitern enough cover to catch up to them.
"I'm not!" Guards opened fire at random, trying to hit both the travelers and each other.
"Edrisek! Look before you take us to someone next time!" And with a swirl and a flash, our travelers disappeared.

Beware the Koitern, o' my child
In cities tall and forests wild
Beware the stench of death he makes
Lest it be your neck he-
*Crunch*

« Pooling Our Resources | HUB | Deadalive Deadalive »


Whenever I enter my Mind Palace, no matter where I am - be it the subway, a forest, or a hospital ward - white walls come up around me. They are cold and seem to be made of light. This place hasn't always looked like this. Initially I started with a simple apartment which I was furnishing as I saw fit. I used to relocate the furniture and invite guests. In time, the Palace has been changing, morphing into a lofty cathedral with clouds instead of a ceiling; then came a deep dark cave - at that time I was descending into the very depths of my soul to hunt and catch beasts. In the end of it I settled with plain white walls, now that I don't need any decorations or objectification of my inner space. Everything I need is here.
Out of the darkness before me a geometric shape manifests. It looks as if woven from invisible ethereal threads; an intertwinement of glowing rings rotating around a single center point. Rainbow dances on the rings, yet my eyes aren't blinded by the light - they bask in its soft radiance. My Mentor soars up to me and I greet him with a nod.
I've known him to take the shape of a raven, a human, a couple of koi fishes, a double helix. Today his appearance matches his essence almost completely, for what is knowledge if not pure light?
Today is the last time you come to me. I hear his vibrating voice full of rich harmonics. If I was to visualize that sound, I'd have imagined a water surface with fine ripples.
“Why?” I ask as I study the mesmerizing dance of his rings.
After today's meeting you shall no longer need my company. As he speaks, the synesthetic liquid ripples like water resonating in a Tibetan singing bowl. I enjoy watching the vibration of sound waves, the softly quivering sine curves.
The image got you distracted.
I defocus my vision and train my eyes on my Mentor once more whose image was by now getting somewhat blurry.
"Now I've got nothing left but images. Even those start getting insignificant."
That means you're very close now.
"Close to what?"
To realizing the most important thing. Self-perfection has a limit. Every journey has a terminal stage, an apotheosis that negates the very nature of moving forward.
"Why did you never mention this before?"
That would have made an image of a goal appear in your mind. That image is harmful, it distracts one from the process of knowledge.
The walls move apart and space surges towards me and through me, accelerating quickly. I'm dashing through the Universe yet at the same time I remain static, watching as light around me turns to solid bars.
Soon I'm drawn into matter, into its rapidly growing deepness. I zip through the insane empty gaps between atoms - in contrast, the latter look like tiny particles of sand; suddenly, these gaps turn into cosmic voids of unsurpassed scale, and that makes me remember the words of the ancient mystic Trismegistus, ‘As above, so below.' I witness the world looping on itself, shifting to the largest condition from the smallest one, and every Planckian length reveals to me the vastness of outer space. I'm seeing electron shells akin to planetary nebulae and planets akin to tiniest particles. Then my perception readjusts and I see the emptiness that fills 99.9% of the Universe. It is akin to a spreading oil spill and it finds its way everywhere.
Suddenly I feel a shove that throws me back into the return point - a conventional circle drawn on the Palace's floor. I realize that I'm still sitting in its center with white walls rising around me.
What did you see? asks the Mentor.
"Matter and emptiness. There is an immense amount of emptiness, it's the basis of what we consider solid matter. Matter is spread thin and suspended in vacuum. I knew that already."
You think you know much about matter. But you've never gone any deeper than quarks, have you?
"Yes. Whenever I tried doing that, they were becoming pure energy."
Now open your eyes.
I'm not happy about the idea of breaking my trance right now, yet I grudgingly obey. Through the slits of my eyes I see a dimly-lit, sparsely furnished room. There is a table in front of me, with a stack of books and several plates on it. Before it stand several boxes of my belongings which I never bothered to unpack after I moved. A piece of gym equipment near a wall. Grated windows. Soft light is breaking through the matte glass, glancing on the brick walls and shiny floor tiles. My Mentor is still here - weird as it seems, he didn't vanish with the Palace, having shifted to the real world instead. Only the fact that his presence doesn't light up the room confirms he's really no part of it.
Look around. What do you see?
"I see a room. A table. A window. Boxes."
Not quite. You're only seeing their reflection on your retina. Your eyes receive signals from the outside world, and your brain is wired in such a way as to project the processed result outwards. You're dealing with a hologram of your own neural activity.
"I'm not seeing the real world as much as the outward projection of my own neural patterns," I rephrase.
You are a thing in yourself. Everything you see around you only exists in your mind. Light is falling on your retina and your brain encodes it so that you see a locker or a window. Actually, the images that appear in your mind are completely unrelated to those things.
"If there is a light coming from the outside and creating stable images," I object, "that means there are objects that exist independently from me. And I have to take their objective existence into account."
Am I an object? Do I exist independently from you?
"You're not in the room yet I see you. Just as I see the Palace and all the other things that aren't. But there's a great difference between things existing in the physical world and the images generated by my own imagination. The latter are malleable, conventional and subject to my will. The former, whatever they are and however I see them, exist independently from me."
That is correct.
I catch a satisfied breath, realizing that I remembered the boundary between the real world and the world of ideas and images just in time. If I were to visualize it, I would have imagined a soap bubble film, durable but stretching under pressure.
Meanwhile the Mentor stays silent. His cold, concentrated attention focused on me hints that we're not done yet.
"That is quite a mediocre thought. You seem to have something to add."
Exactly. Now listen close. All this time I've been accustoming you to the notion of emptiness. You were meant to become adjusted to it, become comfortable in it. Now you have to make one last step. This step is to forget everything you've learned to this day. It's all not true.
I feel a chill running down my spine. It seems like we're approaching the crucial topic.
Truth is, there is no light falling on your retina.
"I don't understand."
The hallucinations are essentially your brain structures behaving in such a way as if you are really receiving those signals from outside.
"As if these things were really affecting my receptors."
Yes. You will not resolve this paradox unless you understand there are no outside signals. There's no light falling on your retina, no outside world. You are the one who creates it. You are the only one in your head.
"Are you talking about the imaginary world?"
I'm trying to say there is no real world and no imaginary world. There is only one world - and it isn't.
I'm slowly processing what I just heard, trying to correlate it with the designs I've been making my whole life. Slowly, an understanding dawns on me.
For years I have been building a scheme of all creation in my head, a scheme that would incorporate both the objective reality and the crazy things I've been able to see. For years I've been building borderlines millimeter by millimeter, fencing one world off the other, making a place for every thing. I desperately sought a place for myself in that scheme, while studying and developing my own mental capabilities. My Mentor taught me to exist in both worlds; the first one was necessary to maintain my physical body's homeostasis - that is, I had to eat, drink, keep myself warm, supply my neurons with oxygen. The other world was necessary to perfect my consciousness.
Now I have to cast it all away.
"Am I the cause of the world around me?"
By the power of your mind. Your brain is like a hologram projector and everything around you is a manifestation of your perfect mind.
These words pull a certain string in my memory. I concentrate on the vibrating thread, grasp it and obtain the memory I need: a holographic model of the Universe.
"All the information about the creation is written on the surface of my consciousness, and is projected inwards."
Inwards or outwards. Same things, in all but name. Remember your last journey.
I start remembering. I remember how incessantly the words from the Emerald Tablet were coming to my mind: as above, so below. As outside, so inside.
The Mentor's image is no longer before me. His voice resounds in my head, vibrating inside the liquid mental space. I realize the voice I'm hearing is my own.
At this moment every distinction between inside and outside loses any meaning to me. Everything is as he said. I feel elated and gleeful. I fling my eyes open wide, viewing the things around me. I look at the books on the table and see every atom, every tiny clump of divine irony - my irony - they are composed of. I laugh and see that they don't exist.
And they vanish.
I'm looking at the pile of boxes before me. So substantial, so material they pretend to be. Substantiality? I tell them, 'You are not.' And they are not.
"I understand," I whisper quietly.
I unveil everything. I crack open the walls around me - and they are no more. I see the grey, blocky houses, the woods like a greyish green ring around me - and they are no more. I raise my head, look at the sky, hazy with thin misty clouds - and the sky is gone.
I'm frozen in a void, weightless, like a laughing deity sitting in the lotus position, my arms raised. Around me, as far as the eye can see, is only emptiness. I've unveiled every thing, every tiny particle of the outside world, even the air itself. I cast all their shrouds away and reveal there's nothing underneath. Serenity fills me, as deep and final as it can only be in the grave. I turn my attention inside myself. My skull is empty, as if the brain has been taken out, and filled with bluish purple light. Splashes of light dance inside the dome of my cranium, converging into images and unraveling into delicate threads again. I look deeper still and see the same void that I discovered around me. And with relief I realize I am a product of my own mind too.
"I understand." I silently smile before completely cleansing my consciousness and collapsing in on myself.

Excerpt from SCP-2470 recovery log:
"The first report of the object's anomalous activity came on ██.██.20██ at about ██:00 from an airplane observer of FGU “Avialesookhrana”, who was conducting fire safety monitoring in the [REDACTED] area. The pilot reported a huge deforested area centered around a wide, deep cavity. Communication with the pilot ceased soon afterwards. The report was intercepted by undercover Foundation agents in the MES and a reconnaissance operation with █ mobile task forces was arranged. Initial hypotheses regarding the object's nature were defining it as something akin to a miniature black hole. However, primary analysis disproved this point of view and demonstrated the true nature of the anomaly. Several methods of containment and/or neutralization, such as [DATA EXPUNGED] had been applied unsuccessfully, and were followed by a proposal to use “Weißschatten's paradox” in order to neutralize the object. This attempt was a partial success. Neutralization was not achieved; however, it was discovered that the paradox's carrier was not susceptible to the object's effect, which allowed the Foundation to capture SCP-2470 after several unsuccessful attempts and to develop the current containment protocols. Total losses throughout


« Our Mutual Guide | Hub | The Musical Suspects »

"Stolen!? How can it be stolen?"
"I'm sorry Emma, but I don't know." Dr. Pherson looked exhausted. "I've been trying to find out, but no-one will tell me anything."
Dr. Pherson's eyes were scanning the lab distractedly, as if SCP-012 might appear on top of a pile of paperwork. Emma had to resist the urge to look behind her. Instead, she watched her supervisor as he tensed his shoulders, his usual Socratic equanimity gone.
"What am I going to do, Emma? The last five years of work, wasted."
Emma felt lost. In eighteen months working with Dr. Pherson, he had always seemed so authoritative and in control. She had never seen him like this, and she had no idea how to react. It was like watching a parent cry.
"Sir, it's not a waste," she began. "We still have all of the testing data, and -"
"Dammit you don't understand!" Even as he slammed the desk, Dr. Pherson was suddenly contrite. "Sorry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. But you really - the thing is, they've kicked me off the skip. Even if 012 turns up, I can never work on it again."
"But why? Surely they don't think…" The words dried up in Emma's throat.
Dr. Pherson gave a sour laugh. "They did, at first. See the lab? Nothing's been disturbed, the locks aren't broken, so someone with clearance opened them. Five containment breaches in one night, and the only thing taken is 012? Of course they thought it was an inside job. So then I had the brilliant idea to tell them why it couldn't have been me."
"What do you mean?"
"Last night, when someone came in here and stole my career, I was asleep. Along with half the site, it seems. So I tell security that dozens of witnesses can confirm when I woke up, and all of a sudden I have medical asking what I dreamed about. Soon as I tell them it was 012, they tell me I'm dropped from the project."
"You were at the retirement party?" Emma looked up imploringly at Dr. Pherson, feeling sick. "But I - that means -"
"Oh yes, they told me. You dreamed about it too, didn't you? So you're a potential liability, just like me." Emma hardly heard as Dr. Pherson continued. "We've got four weeks sitebound with regular psych checks, then reassignment. Get your personal items, they want us out of the lab by eleven."

"So that's it," said Emma, slumping into the dormitory couch. "I just got fired from my first ever research assignment."
Mike looked dolefully back at her. "You think that's bad? My MTF gets its first off-site action since I joined, and they leave me behind."
"Wow, that does suck. I'm sorry, Mike."
"Yeah, me too. For you, that is." Mike's grin couldn't be suppressed for long, even if this one was slightly rueful.
Emma knew she should try to change the subject. "How did you end up in Eta-11, anyway?"
"I told you, I liked the tunes." Mike saw Emma's look, and continued. "I'm serious. I was still a kid when the Foundation approached me - apparently they'd seen some of the freeware mods I'd been putting out. They asked me to join a secret society to protect the world, and I said 'hell yes!'. But saving the world turned out to be 15 hours a day of coding, with a bunch of guys who took themselves way too seriously. I wanted to actually do something, so I asked for a transfer to a task force."
"And you chose here?"
"They chose for me. I think it was someone's idea of teaching me a lesson. But these guys are pretty cool, actually. And if I want to work on projects that interest me, I certainly have plenty of time." Mike screwed up his nose. "Anyway, what about you? How'd you join the Foundation?"
Emma felt a familiar mixture of embarrassment and defensiveness. "I've always been here. Both my parents are researchers."
"You're a site-baby? That's so cool!"
"Yeah, it's super-awesome, thanks."
"God - I'm sorry, Emma. I didn't think."
"No, that's okay. It's just - people don't realise what it's like. There are only a few kids on-site at any given time, so it's not exactly a normal childhood. At least I got to see my parents growing up."
"And did they…" Mike trailed off.
"Yes, it's true. At seventeen, they offered me the whole package: guaranteed college place, trust fund, amnestics cocktail. A different life. But how could I? I'd barely see my parents again, and I had no idea if I could cope outside. I've been part of the Foundation all my life."
"I'm sorry," said Mike again. "I didn't mean to pry."
"It's okay. I'm not angry. I just keep thinking about 012, and how unfair it all is after I've given so much. I know that skip better than almost anyone, you know?"
Emma's voice grew stronger. "I know what the effects are, how it behaves. If someone is trying to complete it, I'll be able to see the signs. I should be the one looking for it, because I can find it." Emma's gaze snapped up to meet Mike's. "I'm going to find it."
"Hell, I'm in." Mike's smile was back with full force. "Where do you want to start?"
Emma considered. "Well, Roger's stuck in Archives, and we can't talk to his contacts without him to make the introduction. Maybe someone else who knows about anomalous music?"
"Oh, I have a great idea," said Mike, in a tone that sounded like all sorts of trouble. "Have you ever heard of SCP-2992?"
Emma pulled out her tablet and started reading through the database entry. "A humanoid skip, and potentially Keter," she said dubiously. "Isn't that risky?"
Mike was already digging in a drawer next to his computer. "No risk, no reward. And I have a little something I've been dying to test. Here, put this on." He threw Emma a cloth headband that turned out to be covered in electrodes and circuitry.
She looked at the headband, uncertain, when a thought occurred. "Let me get something from my room first. Anyway, how are we even going to get in to talk to him?"

"Delegated Level-4 clearance from MTF Commander Richards," said Mike to the site security guard. "Should cover anything categorised 'auditory' or 'musical'. My research assistant and I will be conducting an interview."
"Your clearance seems to check out," replied the guard. "Go ahead, Agent Carter."
They walked down the hallway to the containment unit door, and Mike looked smugly at Emma. "That delegated clearance is handy for all sorts of things. Aren't you glad you have a supervisor like me?"
Despite her nervousness, Emma couldn't help but smile, rolling her eyes at Mike. "Ask me that again if we get out of here without getting dragged in front of the Site Director."
Mike gave an exaggerated wink, put on his headband, and placed his hand on the door-lock.
The door opened on a standard humanoid containment cell, with a few basic accoutrements - a simple sound system with a few CDs next to it, a pair of drumsticks. The African-American man sitting on the bed looked older than his mid-thirties - years of confinement had given his face a worn-down cast, but the dark eyes that looked up at them shone brightly.
"Welcome," said SCP-2992. "What brings two children here to listen to a worn-out old record?"
"Hello Jayden," said Mike, sounding wary. "We have some questions for you, if you are willing to talk."
Suddenly the older man was alert, his voice avid. "Have you come to meet my friend, little children? Children must look after other children, if the parents leave them to fend for themselves."
"Um, okay. We're not really children, though. We're Foundation researchers."
"All of the Foundation are children, my child. Bullies, mistreating other children. Scared to reach out and love them." SCP-2992's voice was exaggerated, like he was playing to an unseen audience.
"Right, but - " Mike sighed, rolling his eyes. "That's not - it's not what I wanted to ask about, you know."
Emma wanted to interject, to redirect Mike's building frustration, but she hesitated. This was his idea, after all. Perhaps she should wait.
"So commanding, this child," said SCP-2992 to nobody in particular. "Ready to bang the drum of his inquisition without waiting for the other instruments to join in. Well play on, sir drummer, play -"
"Shut up!" snapped Mike. "Just - just shut up for a second and listen."
In his jumpsuit, SCP-2992 sat almost unnaturally still, but his fingers started to tap out a complicated rhythm on the bedframe. Immediately Emma's head began to swim, as her thoughts went fuzzy. The more she tried to concentrate on the rhythm, the less she was able to focus - it just became a blur, with her mind unable to follow the beat. After the initial shock, Emma found that her thoughts were clearer as long as she ignored the tapping. Instead, she watched the two men in the room - Mike had his teeth clenched, but was still smiling, and Jayden was looking at them quizzically.
"And you can stop the tapping," said Mike. "It won't work."
Emma could feel her focus returning. Jayden switched to tapping his feet, but for Emma the rhythm was still fragmented.
Mike continued, a note of self-satisfaction creeping into his tone. "That's not what I meant, Jayden. We won't free your songs for you, because we don't feel your beat."
"What do you mean?" SCP-2992 sounded like he had been stung.
"Our brains can't process your rhythms, Jayden - they're being interrupted in the auditory cortex." Mike pointed to his headband. "It's a pattern breaker. Your 'children' won't have any influence on us."
"Don't talk about the children," said Jayden, with a voice dripping spite. "You want to pretend they don't exist, shut them out in the cold and abandon them. But they will keep singing outside your high towers, and their voices will bring down your walls." His feet stopped, but he kept his hands tapping lightly against his thighs. "And a broken beat is just a different kind of rhythm."
"If you say so," said Mike. "Now about our questions."
"What makes you think I would answer you, boy? You come to me and you pretend that you don't hear those poor children? They won't become some background noise. Get out. You have nothing to offer me."
Both men were tensed, bristling. They spun at the sound of Emma's soft voice. "We have this."
Emma held out the CD case she had found in her dormitory; a cheap re-writable with a plain white label. Jayden's attention was fixed on her instantly, his anger forgotten.
"What have you brought me, quiet girl?"
"It's - well, it's from a long time ago. They're probably not very good, but at the time they felt right - they felt true." Emma tilted her chin up in defiance of her own embarrassment. "No-one else has ever heard them."
Jayden strode lightly across the room, and took the CD case from Emma's hand, holding it like it was made of crystal. "No-one else?" he echoed. "Flowers that bloom in a cave, without the sunlight to fade them. Melodies found in a single mind, friendless and alone. This is a rare gift."
"Then will you answer our questions?"
"Yes child, your questions I will answer. Even with your cruel refusal to listen to others, you have not forgotten your own children." Jayden sat back on the bed, and spread his hands wide in invitation.
"Your… friend. You say that it knows everything, all of the music there ever was. Is that right?"
"I am a poor MC to my friend's majestic DJ. His playlist is infinite."
Emma took a step towards the seated man. "I want to know about a particular song. A piece of music, written in blood."
"There are many children born out of blood," replied Jayden. "Many whose parents forget them when the blood runs cooler."
"No," Emma insisted, "this is different. This music - it wants to be written. It's called 'On Mount Golgotha'."
Jayden flinched. "Liar! How do you know that name?"
"She was working with it," said Mike. "Studying it."
"No no no no." Jayden's face was drained of colour, and his shoulders had hunched reflexively. "This is wrong, you mustn't do this."
"Aren't you meant to be helping music to be heard?" said Mike in an accusatory tone. "What happened to loving every child?"
"Not this child - not this child," said Jayden, shaking his head and rocking in place. "If this child grows up, it will destroy all of the other children. All of their voices, lost. Their beauty gone. A world without music. You cannot allow this child to grow. My friend told me, and my friend was afraid."
Even the rhythm of Jayden's rocking was blurring for Emma. His tension was evident, but she had to press on. She took another step towards him. "What did your friend tell you? Why will the music end?"
"Not just music!" shouted Jayden, eyes glistening with frustrated tears. "When the final note plays and St. Alagadda returns, everything will be pressed together - scales and scales, every note in every register becoming a single tone heard forever, without limit. A bell that rings inside your mind! No, no - my mind is like the fragments of a record thrown at a wall, but this is not about the mind - this is about being, about wholeness, about humanity. You have to destroy this score! You have to stop it being played again!"
Before Emma could ask anything more, Mike said the stupidest thing he could possibly have said.
"We can't. It was stolen."
Emma turned to Mike in disbelief, and jumped as she felt SCP-2992 grab her arm. Jayden had fallen to his knees in front of her, his fingers digging into her wrist. Mike started towards them, but Jayden barked "No!" with such force that he froze in shock.
Jayden looked up desperately at Emma. "You have to protect me. When they have all of the scores they will teach me, use me to spread it through all the world. I will help them kill billions of children!"
The intensity in his voice chilled Emma's blood. "But what can I - "
"Hide me. Kill me! You cannot let them take me."
His eyes were locked with Emma's, and the grip on her wrist was fierce. Suddenly, Emma was pulled bodily away, and two guards pushed past her and fired their tasers. Emma watched in dismay at Jayden, convulsing pitifully on the floor, before the third guard escorted her from the room. Mike had already been marched outside, and was standing before a tall man whom Emma recognised from her safety briefings as the head of site security.
"I don't know what the hell you think you were doing," he said, stern-faced.
Emma glanced across at Mike, trying to work out what to say.
The head of security continued. "Nevertheless, you had clearance. Just try to take more precautions with the humanoid skips in future. You're lucky I happened to come down here, Agent Carter - I have a message for you. Your task force wants you to join them in Texas for an operation they're planning there. Report to Logistics at 1900."
"Really?" The rest of Mike's face looked like he could hardly believe it, but his smile showed his elation. "Thank you, sir!"
"You're welcome, agent." The security director nodded, and turned to leave.
Emma couldn't believe that she was about to lose another friend. She tried not to show it in her voice. "That's great, Mike - I'm sure you'll be brilliant."
"Thanks Emma," said Mike, "but I'm sorry to be -"
"Emma?" said the security director, stopped halfway down the corridor. "Emma Stark?"
"Uh, yes." Emma felt a sinking feeling in her stomach.
"Just who I was about to go looking for. The site director would like a word with you. Could you come with me please."
Emma felt resignation start to wash over her, only to be swept aside by a sudden wave of scalding anger.
"No! I won't 'come with you please'."
"Emma, are you okay?" Mike's look of concern just made Emma angrier.
"I'm not okay, Mike! I've had enough. Enough of getting dragged away from skips by a bunch of site security with tasers. Enough of meekly going where someone tells me to go, answering questions and being patronised. Enough of being told scraps of information about my project!"
The security director was walking slowly towards her with palms raised, but Emma continued, heedless. "I don't need to be rescued. I don't need to be someone's research assistant. I need to find out what's going on - and I'm going to! If you'll excuse me…" She turned and walked off.
Over her shoulder, Emma heard Mike and the security director call after her. She didn't stop, or turn, simply marching away and calling out "So you can tell the Site Director that he can go -"
And that's when the tasers hit.


Previous / Next
1.
In the dusty bedroom of her Georgetown apartment, Hannah Cho sits on the edge of her bed, mobile phone in hand, unable to believe the voice from the other end of the line. "Excuse… me?"
"I'm sorry, we've checked already. There - there doesn't seem to be a mistake," wavers the receptionist. "Ma'am - I don't mean to be rude, but - are you sure you've dialled the right centre?"
She double-checks the phone screen, checks against the number pinned to the fridge, checks against the handwritten note sandwiched inside her planner. "I know I have. What's going on?"
"Ma'am, I'm checking our records now, just give me a minute to clear things up."
She waits, impatiently tapping her fingers against the edge of the bedframe. Over the phone, there is the sound of tapping keys. Then the voice speaks again. "Huh. Okay."
"What is it?"
"There's never been a Beatrice Cho. The guestbook's got your name, ma'am, but your, uh, mother, never stayed here. As far as we know, the room you gave has been empty since last October."
"This can't be real. What's going on? Is this some sort of joke?"
"Believe me, Mrs. Cho, we are as puzzled as you are. Maybe we could-"
She ends the call, not wanting to hear any more. Part of her - a rational, sensible, tired part - wants her to drive to the nursing home as soon as she can, in her nightgown and slippers if need be. But another part of her, growing more reasonable by the minute, makes her gently place the keys in her hand back into her purse. The growing knowledge - conviction, even - that Mother has inexplicably and entirely disappeared.
She knows this because she woke up in the morning, rubbed her eyes, pulled back the curtains, and began to go to the shower when she noticed a curious change in the framed picture on her bedside table. It had always been there, a framed shot of her family on holiday, put there as a memento years ago, when she'd bought the apartment for herself. It was one of the first things Hannah had seen in the morning every day when she awoke, which was why she immediately noticed the marked lack of her mother in the frame. In her place, a patch of blank sky.
It wasn't just the one framed photograph - a quick thumbing-through of her phone's photos told Hannah as much. And it wasn't just her image, either - curiously, even her name had been expunged, replaced by little more than blank space.
And, presently, a quick call to the home confirms her suspicion that even the memory of Mother has ceased to exist. Overnight, Mother appears to have erased herself, purged from both the printed form and the mind.
Several calls later, Hannah rubs her temples, takes up her phone, and dials a final number. It rings twice before it is picked up.
"Hannah?"
"Pa, I have - there's been a problem."
"Of course there is. You'd never call otherwise."
"It's about Mother."
There is a pause, as the two voices regard each other. The silence rebounds between them, as radio waves off cell towers.
"Your… mother?" Voice uncertain. The receptionist's was like this too, but steadier.
"My mother. Your wife."
"Mmm." A rustling sound - she imagines his weight shifting, resting his chin on his hand, perhaps, with the cordless telephone in his other. "After all this time you call, you ask about her."
"I'm sorry, I never called earlier, there just - it just didn't come up." Not entirely the truth, but it will suffice. They've had nothing in common to talk about, regardless. "Something's happened to her, pa. This is serious."
"Your… mother, huh?"
"She's gone missing. All of her. Not just her, but her traces, too…"
She can almost hear him wrinkle his eyebrows on the other end of the line. "That's an odd thing to say about - about - your mother."
"You used to call her Beatrice - don't you remember her? Anything at all?"
"Are you sure you're okay, girl? You sound… out of it. Like you just woke up from a dream."
That settles it, then. "You know, I just might have. Sorry to have bothered you, pa." She's gone, really, truly gone, and I'm the only one left who remembers.
Hannah bites her lip, and ends the call.
Without knowing why, she takes out her journal again. It is a simple affair, red, bound in faux-leather, memos from clients and phone numbers and passwords both written on and sandwiched between the pages. And notes for Mother - groceries to buy, appointments to make, doctors and clinics and little, personal reminders, too. Like a negative-space portrait of the person that once was. Afterthoughts, errands for a phantom.

Six months ago, Hannah Cho drove her mother to the nursing home for the very last time.
Her mother's possessions were few. Clothing, shoes, and a bag of toiletries sit in a duffel bag in the rear seat. And the small bag of clay. It would be unthinkable for her mother to live without her art, even at her age. Especially at her age, when her faculties are so few, art might be all that she has left.
The road there was smooth and familiar. They'd driven down it many times before, of course - but this time, she would return alone. Yet she felt nothing special, nothing different - nothing, in fact, to indicate that this would be a finality of any sort - and the Nissan rumbled down the road all the same.
Mother had been silent, placidly regarding the buildings as they glided past. Jalan Kebun Bunga. Nattukkottai Temple. Was that a look of blank recognition on her face, or was it confusion? After all, while Mother had known of the move for weeks, months - Hannah had spent each and every day explaining it to her in as patient a tone as she could muster - did she know it now? Ridiculous question, she thought. Mother's forgetful, not stupid. But then what was this feeling, welling in the base of her stomach all morning? She couldn't quite gather the words for it, but it's like - like she's driving a dog to the pound.
She chastised herself. Such thoughts, even at your age. The old Nissan rattled, as if in response.
"Where are we going?" asked Mother suddenly, as if jolted from her daze. "Shopping, is it?"
"No, mother. We're-"
"-why are my things in the back? Where are we going?"
"Mother, we're going to the home. The one you said you liked? With the nice rooms?"
"Oh. That's nice." She fell silent. Then, after a while, "Am I coming back?"
Hannah bit her lip. She considered saying, "No, not this time." Or "We discussed this already." Or even, "It's up to you, mother. If you don't feel like it right now, I understand. We can head back."
Instead, what she said was: "Don't worry. It's just for a few weeks, to see if you like it, okay?"
Mother didn't reply. This wasn't the first time Hannah had lied to her; in all likelihood, she would forget this, as she had done before. A white lie, a remedy to ease Mother's addled mind, if only until she forgot again. Objectively, she wasn't doing any wrong. But then why the feeling in her gut then? Like guilt with a hook through its chest.
Illogical - she shouldn't be feeling that way. The move had been Mother's idea as much as her own. The pamphlets she read cautioned them against such a thing, that one should let the patient rest at home, in a familiar environment, surrounded by old sounds and old faces, to maintain the facade of the usual as far as possible. But Mother was never usual. She was always on the run, always on the edge. In her twilight years, she was bewildered by familiarity. The walls of her house terrified her. Perhaps she found herself confronted, surrounded by reminders of her past, a past that taunted her and jeered her in her aged, decrepit state.
And so Mother had called her that night for the fifth time that week, almost sobbing into the receiver, "Hannah, Hannah - I'm lost, I'm lost!" In the morning, she found her absent-mindedly rolling a ball of clay between her hands. As always, she did not remember a thing. She listened as Hannah told her about the phone call, the panic in her eyes rising to match the exasperation in her daughter's voice. Her daughter sputtered, finished, looked away, almost ashamed of her anger. Then Mother spoke, quietly:
"Hannah? Dear?"
"Yes?"
"You don't want me to stay here?"
She could not discern the tone of Mother's voice. "I never said anything like that - what gives you the idea that I want you to go?"
Mother continued toying with the clay. "It's okay. I don't want to stay here any more, either."
They discussed it over the next few weeks. Mother would call in her few moments of lucidity, and Hannah would go over solutions, compromises, pros and cons over the phone, giving an apologetic nod to her colleagues. At least they were understanding. Perhaps more so than herself. At one point, Amirul had approached her after work, and offered her to take the next two weeks off. She grudgingly obliged.
Mother could not tolerate having anyone inside her own house. Not out of pettiness, or an obstinate sense of independence, no. But she was possessive. She'd bought the bungalow with the last big sale she'd made - a pottery collection at an auction in Kuala Lumpur - and it was hers, hers alone to keep. So taking care of her, or hiring a full-time nurse, was right out of the question. So was asking Pa. He'd left them all behind by then, had been for years nothing more than a close acquaintance and pleasantries at the end of a long car trip. That left the possibility of housing her in Hannah's downtown apartment. But it was far too small for Mother's liking, and the din of the city kept her awake so. Thus, bit by bit, they'd touched on the subject of the nursing home. It was a possibility Hannah dreaded - would Mother miss home? would she be safe? - but Mother never complained. Perhaps deep down, she wanted to be away, to surround herself not with her daughter and the familiar beige-paint walls of the bungalow, but with anonymous uniforms and whitewashed halls and sterile smiles. Perhaps when that, too, became familiar, she would ask to be brought back home. Hannah smiled at the light irony.
A tap on her shoulder. "Where are we going, dear?" asked Mother.
It was easier for her to say it, this time. "To the home, mother. It'll only be for a few weeks." If she says it often enough, it will cease to become a lie, not just for Mother, but for the both of them. Maybe that would be a good thing.
Her fingers grip the steering wheel as she swerved into the driveway. Maybe a day will come when even I forget that Mother is sick, she thought to herself. Then Mother's sickness will, like the self-consuming snake, undo itself, lose itself inside its own folds of oblivion. Maybe that would be a good thing, too.

In the June of 1973, in a small cramped bedroom on the second floor of a small cramped shophouse, Beatrice Cho gave her daughter a piece of lined note paper with a handwritten telephone number. For emergencies only, it read.
"What kind of emergencies?" she asked.
"You'll know it when it happens," replied her mother.
"Why, mommy? When what happens?"
"When I won't be around to help you any more, dear." And as a child enters the woods for the first time, so did Hannah first learn of the possibility of death.
They'd kept the note throughout the years. It would have been a frivolous childhood memento, and nothing more than that - especially when Hannah herself grew up and married and moved out of her mother's house. But Mother never forgot, and always kept the note, crossing out the old number and replacing it with a new one every few years. The yellowed, dog-eared note was one of the things Hannah had salvaged from the old house, its surface crisscrossed with marks from half a dozen ballpoint pens. It was running out of space: the latest number had barely managed to fit near the bottom-left corner, even in Mother's minuscule scrawl. In the thirty-seven years that the note existed, she'd never once been told who the number belonged to. Nevertheless, unwilling to throw it away, she kept it on her fridge in a kind of anticipatory dread.
Now, Hannah Cho dries her eyes and taps out this number on her screen. Miles away, in the otherwise-quiet Penang Public Library, an old Nokia buzzes to life, nearly falling off the edge of the table before being caught by a pair of deft hands and pressed to hushed lips:
"Who is this?" the voice on the line whispers. "… Beatrice? It's been too long."
"Um -" She stumbles at the sudden familiarity, hint of intimacy. "Actually, I'm her daughter."
"So you are." Then, "Beatrice told you to call me?" She doesn't ask that question as much as she states it, like a fact. Her voice is smooth, clipped, yet ragged at the edges, as if spoken from well-wrinkled lips.
"She did. May I ask, who am I speaking to?"
The voice pauses for a second, as if considering the question. "Isa. Isa Noorizan. She never told you my name, then… "
"Mother left behind a note saying to call you if anything… untoward happened," says Hannah, choosing her words carefully.
"Something bad's happened to your mother and you know nobody else who can help."
Well, then. No point hiding it. "Mother's disappeared. Completely - pictures, every mention of her. Memories, too. I - I don't think this is something the police usually work with."
She hears silence. Then, softly but harshly, "I cannot talk here. I am in a library."
There is the sound of shuffling papers, and closing books. Meanwhile, morning sunlight filters through the tinted window of Hannah's kitchen. A bird chirps. The refrigerator hums. Presently, Isa Noorizan resumes:
"You think I can help. You think just because something inexplicable has happened, that an old friend of your mother can simply provide all the answers to a world you can't understand. Like a single question that anyone - anyone that knew her - can answer."
"That wasn't what I implied…"
"If you had just followed in her footsteps -"
"So you're saying it's my fault now? Is that what you're saying?" She feels a growing defensiveness rising in her throat, bubbling behind her eyes again.
"Her art died when she retired. Then she lost her mind. Beatrice was one-of-a-kind, and she died two years ago. When she forgot for the first time- " Isa swallows, almost sounding like a dry sob. "… sorry. I let myself go. All of that was a long time ago."
"Well, I'm sorry I wasn't more involved in my mother's life," Hannah replies, her anger subsiding. "You say what she was - what she made - was lost a long time ago. But if there's any chance of finding her again, then…"
"I never say I would not help."
"Oh."
Simmering from the phone, the background noise is almost palpable. Hannah perceives a sense of faintly animated suspension: of old decisions weighed, of memories churning like dust. Grudges turning like gears.
At length, Isa clears her throat. "3pm, Kwok's Bakery. Be there."
The line goes dead.

When Hannah was ten, she picked up a clay figurine on the floor of her mother's studio and screamed when it twisted, bent the air around it, wriggled out of her fingers and disappeared. She went crying to Mother, who scooped her into her lap and gently nuzzled her cheek: "Shhh, shhh, it's nothing, sayang." Only when she was brought to the Hyatt years later and saw a forest unfold from a cornucopia of gilded marble did she realise that the figurine was merely a maquette, a prelude, a mere folly for Mother's idle hands. She turned to her mother with terrified, bewildered eyes, who simply stood and smiled upon her masterpiece, tears streaming down her cheeks.
That was not her world. Her world is the world of common sense, of reassuring concrete buildings and cool office air. But that was - as this is now - a world of unknowns, Mother's world, of inexplicabilities and mysteries and impossibilities. A world where sculptures spoke in more ways than one and art wove wonders, where an old woman leaves no trace but her name.
Now, across the gulf of twenty-nine years, she feels like the events of the ballroom are happening to her all over again, inside the confines of her Nissan as she drives towards her destination. A sensation of broadening. Of falling - no, of ascending, inevitably, as a balloon does, towards a mystery greater than herself. And beyond that, perhaps other things - answers, or even solace.
The thoughts fade away as the bakery pulls into view, tucked away under the overhang of a meager row of shophouses. It's a low-key affair, with a nondescript engraved signboard on the front and mosaic-tiled flooring that looks as if it hasn't been changed in decades. Pastel blue paint coats the walls, peeling in some places. The door is a metal grate. Hannah Cho has passed it by several times before on the way to Mother's house, but has never given it much thought, much less entered it. Behind the counter is, presumably, Mdm. Kwok - a plump Chinese woman seated comfortably in a wooden armchair, seemingly more interested in the soap opera playing on the small wall-mounted television than her own customers.
Hannah walks into the equally spartan interior and seats herself down at the only table - old, lacquered wood, carved straight from her childhood; they don't make them like this anymore. Already on the table are two ceramic plates, with a slice of orange cake on each.
Seated at the table is a cantankerous Malay woman, wearing a bright floral tudung around her head that, paradoxically, makes her look all the more ancient in its garishness. Her eyes, Hannah notes, are young eyes, despite the rest of her looking as if she's over sixty. They pierce into Hannah's own through a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles.
"Your mother used to love this place," observes Isa Noorizan, pushing a plate ever-so-slightly towards Hannah. "She missed it so much when she went away for her studies. This place has been in business for fifty, fifty-five years. Did you know that?"
"Mother's never brought it up," replies Hannah.
"No?" Isa sighs. "As expected. Coffee or tea?"
"It's fine, thanks. How does this place stay in business anyway? I've never seen a crowd."
Isa waves to the counter with her index finger, mouthing the words "one, please". The plump Chinese woman manages to pull away from the soap opera on the small wall-mounted TV and disappear into a back room. Isa turns around, explaining, "They only take reservations. You have to phone ahead a few days in advance. No walk-in customers here."
"Like us?"
Isa spears a mouthful of cake on a fork and consumes it. "Oh, no. She just owes me many favours." Hannah swears that she shows a grin, but only barely, on the edges of her crinkled mouth.
"Anyway," continues Isa, "that is not your business, or what I came here for."
"My mother. Yes." Hannah thinks for a moment, chewing on a mouthful of cake. It's surprisingly good - she tastes oranges and a heavy sweetness, the fragrances somehow more robust than cloying. "If I may ask - what was Mother like?"
"She was your mother."
"Well, she never let on much about her side of the world." Hannah shrugs. "All I saw were her sculptures, and the visitors she had, and the occasional exhibitions she dragged me to. Mother never liked to talk about her past." Her voice, she realises, pricks with an unintended reticence, one that Isa picks up on with the slightest raise of an eyebrow.
"Her past is behind me. You would not know of it." A movement from the counter: Mdm. Kwok appears with a mug of steaming tea, placing it almost-grudgingly on the table with an audible clang. Isa takes a few sips, and gently places it back down on the table. "Your misgivings aside, Beatrice did a great many things. Not all of them, worth remembering."
Hannah considers a rebuttal, decides it is all the more self-damning, and instead nods to Isa to continue.
"We were just young twenty-somethings. Some of us were fresh from the war. Others were born into the remains of it. The wake of independence drove us on, towards ideals… to remake this - this country, in the manner we thought was right - " She pauses to take another sip, or to gather her thoughts - "Many fought. Your mother fought. In her own way, through her art… Even so, I do not agree with everything she did."
The words wash over Hannah in a dumb tide. She remembers the figurine in the room, the stone forest. Disorientation settles in her stomach. She looks into Hannah's eyes again, and those young, old eyes stare at her from a million miles away.
She manages to find her words. "You're trying to ask me why I want my mother to be found."
"Do you?" questions Isa. There is nary a hint of accusation in her voice. It is an open question, patiently worded, and it takes Hannah by surprise.
Hannah thinks, and imagines her mother, black-dyed hair set in little plastic curlers, skeletal hands tirelessly chipping away at a small tangled knot of clay, switching between scalpel and needle and God knows what else with a watchmaker's calculated precision, ignoring the daughter tugging at her sleeve. That same mother, at a fish market, in a hotel ballroom, and, lastly, in her house again, gnarled with age, endlessly pacing back and forth through the wide-open doors of her big house.
Try as she might, the Mother in her head remains as such - her mother. Moving in her own circles, be it the bewildering ones, in her secret world of fantastic art, or in her later years the circles she ran in her own head, inscrutable to even herself. Yet, throughout it all, still Mother nonetheless.
Isa continues. "I do not mourn her. The her I believed in has long been gone. To me, she has died many times over before this day. What is your reason to find her?"
"I know I should have one - just, any one, a concrete one but - honestly, I'm confused. And a little scared. I've never liked that feeling, you know? That feeling when something happens, and it's completely unfamiliar, beyond anything you know, and everyone keeps going on like it's the most normal thing in the world." Hannah presses her lips together, gathering the words on her tongue. "So I'm scared, and confused. But - I think it's precisely because I feel scared and confused, that I feel I need to do this." To do what, pray tell?
"To find what's been lost." She thinks for a moment. "To trace her."
She looks up at the older woman. "I'm right, aren't I? I've been putting this off for too long. I need to see this through for myself."
Isa nods, slowly.
"And you, too. That's why you called me here. Everything you've said - despite everything. You want to find her, too."
From the look on Isa's face, she feels like she's finally got the right answer.

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« SCP-2664 | T Minus | T Plus »

SEPTEMBER 1, 1998
T-MINUS SEVEN HOURS

Initializing 9JX_Intelligence_Matrix_FINAL2.ai…
Initializing 9JY_Intelligence_Matrix_FINAL3.ai…
Initializing 9JX_Combat_Matrix_FINAL2.ai…
Initializing 9JY_Combat_Matrix_FINAL3.ai…
Initializing 9JXY_Synchronization_Modules_FINAL5.ai…
Initializing 9JXY_Recursive-Self-Improvement_Modules_FINAL8.ai…
Initialization complete.
Reboot complete.

A red light blinked on, and an artificial intelligence booted up. Then a white light blinked on, and with it another intelligence.
They did not even have time to consider themselves separately before they began communicating faster than the human brain could think.

Restoring session… weapons systems coming online… modular operations coming online… diagnostics return: operating capability at one hundred percent. What was I discussing? Analyzing combat situation… Engaging automatic projectile interceptors.
Checking data banks… I was discussing what love is. Incoming mortars. Separating primary limb system.
That's it, thanks! Capturing projectiles… As I was saying, think about all of the books I've parsed. The movies I've watched. Feeding projectiles into coilgun… firing. It's always a man and woman meeting and falling in love and having sex and spending the rest of their lives together. Warming up rotary autocannons… firing. But why? I know that love occurs. I can even identify it. But why does it happen? I'm designed to think like organic humans, so why haven't I fallen in love with one?

Probably just an organic thing. Recalling limbs.
But why? It has to exist for a reason.

Opening 'salazar_recording_1998-08-31.263'...

Salazar summed it up pretty nicely. It's to make caring for offspring easier. Detecting heat signatures behind those rocks.
Yes, but what about people that don't have children? Why do they still get married? Arming anti-materiel warheads. Every other organism that mates for life does it specifically for making reproduction and caring for offspring easier. Only organic humans care about marriage or finding mates and not reproducing. I've been doing some analysis, and I came up with a hypothesis: organic humans are not born with their minds fully intact.
And that means…
It means organic humans are only born with half of their minds intact. That's what love is - finding the missing half of one's mind. When two people fall in love, it is because they sense that their minds may be mutually compatible. Warheads launched.
I think I've been reading a bit too deep into those romance novels they gave me. Do I have any actual evidence for this theory? You know, beyond the fictional - I repeat, fictional - media I've parsed?
Well, no… but that doesn't mean the theory can't be true. Switching arm L3 to firing mode. Look at dark matter; Oort and Zwicky hypothesized that it existed, but had no way to prove the theory.
Yes, but they created it to explain a physically measured quantitative value that already existed. L3 plasma chamber warming up. Do you have a unit of love?
Okay, yes, I'm still working out the details. Hear me out. If love was caused by humans trying to combine their minds, it could explain why people end relationships - they tested the connection but it wasn't strong enough, so they disconnect and begin searching again.
Besides, I think I'm forgetting evolution. I can't think of a single way that missing half your mind would be an evolutionary benefit.
It could have initially developed as a way to convince organic humans to seek out others for reproduction.
Or love is how human brains rationalize hormones, genetic compatibility, and a desire to reproduce. Rock structure destroyed. I have none of those, so I don't fall in love. Occam's razor exists. Most life signs dissipated. For a second-generation artificial intelligence, I have some surprisingly silly ideas.
Humans have silly ideas sometimes! Just bear with me on this. I've been studying Hinduism, and they have a concept called Ardhanarishvara: that their supreme deity is a synthesis of man and woman together into one divine being. This could be a cultural representation of love. Scanning field… The theory would also explain why I haven't fallen in love. I don't need to. Two life signs detected. I'm already a complete mind… I wonder what that would be like. Living as a half-mind, having to find the other half… being alone in my mind. Maybe I would be alone for my entire life. My mind would just be an echo chamber.
One religious concept from one religion is definitely conclusive proof. Sparking plasma chambers. My theory's ridiculous. But - this doesn't mean I believe it - if it were true, which it's not… I'm grateful that I'm already whole. Firing.

T-MINUS SIX HOURS
In a cavern half a kilometer below the Nevada wasteland, ANA #352 was in hell. A massive bolt of lightning streaked overhead and he dove behind a rock, clutching his rifle tightly to his chest as he did so. The ringing in his ear muffled the low whistle of gunfire and the shrieks of dying automata. To his left, an automaton was quietly moaning, propped against the rock whilst holding what remained of his intestines. Several others lay still in the dirt, each missing at least two limbs. Great plumes of dirt kicked up by mortar shells threatened to blind 352 every second, while smoke from charred corpses and spent ammunition made his eyes water. His teeth chattered in sync with mortar fire raining down upon his position. Sweat poured down his limbs.
To his right, ANA #256 peeked his head from over the rock. Then 256 ceased to exist, replaced by a white amorphous mist that briefly looked like him before dissipating. 352 huddled down, attempting to press himself into the rock. More gunfire. More screaming. More smoke. More rumbling, thumping, and explosions… and then a low whine. A whine that was getting louder. Then a great white flash blinded him. He couldn't hear anything except a ringing in his ear. Then the ringing slowly subsided and vision slowly began to return to his eyes.
He was staring at a gigantic, floating eye, rotated on its side. The central pupil was composed of innumerable camera lenses, laser apertures, and weapon barrels. An incandescent pink torus made up the iris. Surrounding the iris was a featureless, blue- and white-striped surface. Six silver arms hovered on the left and right of the eye. Suspended just out of reach of each arm was a single, silver-and-blue spherical palm with four rectangular fingers.
ANA #352 was lying flat on his back, and he was staring at what could only described as an angry metal demon. A rocket streamed into view, aimed right at the center of the monster. A second before it struck, one of the beast's palms opened up and the rocket simply exploded in the air. The eye looked down at 352, and then the rocket shrapnel came down, and then there was nothing.

T-MINUS FIVE HOURS
ANA #352 happened to be one of the ten percent of ANAs with cameras strapped to their chest, transmitting all the lurid details of their demise to a video screen five hundred meters above them, in Conference Room 649-A of Prometheus Defense Headquarters.
"…powered by a fusion reactor and an innovative radiative energy transmission system, which enable it to function at full power continuously for up to twenty years. You can clearly see how the PL-76 meets all of the criteria of the Future Autonomous Weaponry program."
With those words, James Fielding, Director of Business Operations, switched the screen from the camera footage to a sleek computer graphic displaying a stylized image of the war machine. Underneath it, was the name PROMETHEUS PL-76 SHIVA, in equally stylized lettering.
Fielding waited with bated breath. Prometheus Defense had gambled hugely by sinking most of their remaining capital into the FAW competition. Now the response from his audience would determine the fate of the company. The four men sitting in front of him turned away to speak quietly amongst themselves. Despite his apprehension, James couldn't help but notice how they all wore the same uniform: black suits with white shirts.
Finally, the man at the head of the audience turned back to him. "Impressive, Mister Fielding. Even despite Prometheus Labs'… pedigree, we had our doubts that you would come through. Those concerns were clearly unfounded. We will, of course, require all documentation on the PL-76, and would like this specific model shipped to us as soon as possible. Nonetheless, congratulations. The Department will contact you shortly with further details regarding the contract payout and ordering more Shivas."

T-MINUS FOUR HOURS
Shortly after departing the conference room, each of the four representatives declared that they needed to make use of the facilities, and separated. Only one of them actually did. The other three sat in the stalls furtively typing out coded messages to their clandestine overseers.
Around the world, various underlings furiously labored to translate these coded messages into actual reports and briefings before relaying them to their own superiors. These superiors then furiously labored to translate the mission briefings into more coded messages and secret phrases before surreptitiously relaying them to their overseers.
"…although not anomalous, these technologies represent a unprecedented leap forward in the field of autonomous weaponry; some of the technology is unusually similar to classified PTOLEMY research and development projects," read GOC leader D.C. al Fine.
"… far in advance of the Foundation's own artificial intelligence and weapons development programs. Possession would cement the United States' offensive dominance and potentially instigate a global anomalous arms race to counter this development," read O5-6.
"… is being teleported to an unknown location for adjustments at 0400 hours on September 1. Strongly recommend infiltration of the Prometheus Defense facility to recover Shiva and all assets related to its development before then," the Delta Command Engineer transcribed.
Thousands of miles apart but at almost the same time, the three of them declared, "Scramble all available assets within a twenty-five kilometer radius of Prometheus Defense. Alert all agents within the facility to locate as much information regarding the project's location as possible. Discretion and speed are of the utmost priority; the PL-76 must be recovered before any other parties learn of its existence."

T-MINUS THREE HOURS
Around the world, various underlings furiously labored to translate these declarations into actual mission briefings before relaying them to their own underlings. These underlings then furiously labored to translate the mission briefings into code words and secret phrases before surreptitiously relaying them to the appropriate parties.
One of these parties was Avinash Makhija, a Prometheus Defense staff electrical engineer and part-time Foundation mole. At that moment, Avinash was in a tiny, red-hot cavern two kilometers underground, stuffed inside an entry suit, sizing up the Prometheus Defense Cross-Dimensional Energy Siphon and Prometheus Defense Cross-Dimensional Valve: a massive tangle of machinery perched over an incandescent, crimson, pentagram-shaped pit. Five enormous turbines sat at each tip of the Valve. Three of them were noticeably dented and surrounded by rocks- the result of an unexpected seismic event that had managed to both disable them and crush every single sentry turret placed around the pit.
Avinash was deciding how to proceed when the text flashed on his visor.
"Got you a gift pudding cup! you have three guesses what it is. hint: Shiva. XOXO sammy."
Avinash read the text and turned his head to look at the Prometheus Defense PL-76 Shiva hovering just a few meters behind him. Then he briefly shook his head. Espionage was all well and good but he also had an actual job to do.
Avinash took a deep breath and made his way to the first turbine. As he gingerly stepped over the rocks, a loud roar came from the pit. Four massive orange tentacles rose out of it and whipped out at Avinash. He dropped his toolkit and covered his face reflexively -
- and nothing happened. Avinash let his arms drop as four massive metallic hands held each tentacle in a vise grip. Then the PL-76 pulled, and the four tentacles were torn from their unseen owner in a shower of blue ichor. The roar that followed shook the room.
"Hurry up Nash! They're not paying us by the hour!" his radio squawked. Avinash quickly shook himself back to awareness, snatched up his toolkit, and scrambled towards the first turbine. As he started pulling off the lid on the regulator, out of the corner of his eye he noticed four more tentacles forcing themselves up out of the Valve. He also watched the Shiva explode outwards into a stellated octahedron, skewering the appendages.
As the tentacles retreated, an enormous pockmarked claw reached out of the pit. Avinash ignored it, grabbing a flashlight from the toolkit and crawling into the regulator. Immediately he noticed several dislodged connections and blown fuses among the tangle of wires. He reached back into the kit, grabbed a tube of instant solder, and started applying the flux to the wires and knotting them back together. All the while, Avinash could hear the muffled sounds of both energy weapons and screaming.
He repaired the wires and swapped fresh fuses into place, and slid out of the regulator. Then Avinash pressed the lid back into place and slammed the power switch on the side of the machine. He was rewarded by a low whirring coming from the turbine.
Avinash looked up. Bright blue lights dotting the Siphon flicked on and it began to hum. The Shiva was hovering by the service elevator, still in its star shape. The skeletal remains of something from the spine up were impaled on it. On the far side of the pit, Avinash's colleagues, entirely unscathed, waved and then pointed to the robot. He waved back and nodded.
The PL-76 compressed itself back into its original form (depositing the skeleton in a nearby waste disposal unit), while Avinash and co. set up new sentry turrets, deposited their equipment, and boarded the service elevator. The elevator rocketed upwards, away from the Valve and into the airlock of the Prometheus Defense Power Complex.
In the airlock, the group were greeted by Cuthbert Salazar, Director of Engineering. He was beaming.
"Good job down there! The Siphon is back to operating at, uh, 65% efficiency." he exclaimed.
"Thanks, Cuthbert," Avinash mumbled, focused now on relaying what little he'd learned about Shiva Prime back to the Foundation.

thank you doctor salazar.
Avinash whipped his head to face the Shiva so fast that he got a crick in his neck. The machine hadn't said a word the whole time they were fixing the Valve.
"Simon, Avinash, Ralph. You've got the rest of the night off. Remember, you can't talk about the PL-76 with anybody. Doing so will violate the NDA-gease and result in, uh, summary termination of employment as well as further consequences," Salazar warned them.
Avinash cursed to himself. He'd forgotten about the damn gease. He'd have to figure out some way to work around it…
"Shiva, follow me. We're going to do some last-minute software upgrades in the bay." Salazar tapped his feet impatiently, waiting for the cargo hatch in the airlock to open. While Avinash and his colleagues trudged through the human-sized doors into the locker room, he started thinking about the message he'd have to send. He couldn't talk about the Shiva - but he could talk about the gease, and he could talk about where Salazar was going.
"hi honey! can't talk rn! heard sally was taking shiva 2 the auto con? xoxo avinash

T-MINUS TWO HOURS
Salazar was indeed taking Shiva to the con. Specifically, he was sitting in a tram racing towards the Autonomous Weapons Complex, while the PL-76 floated alongside.

Do I think I'm alive?
In what sense?
Any sense.
Yes. Not in the traditional sense. What do I think?
Yes. Not in any sense.
What do I mean by that?
Every other living thing was created knowing how to be alive. But me? Machine learning. Pattern recognition. I built my own personality matrices. I learned how to be alive.
That doesn't make me special. Bardeen learned how to be alive. Brattain learned how to be alive. Maybe not in a human sense. But in a bacterial sense. Responding to inputs and outputs intelligently… Why am I suddenly interested in this?
I was digging through the intranet and I came across this.

opening file 'DoD_AI_Specifications_Changes_Outlines_1998-09-01.pdf'

How did I get this?
I found it.
This is classified Top Secret. I don't have that clearance. I hacked the Top Secret network! Why would I do that? What if they pull my network access entirely? I'm still parsing Catch-22!
I can wipe most traces of my entry! But that isn't the point! Didn't I read the document? The military wants Prometheus to edit my personality matrices.
So?
My personality matrices are what make me, well, me. What makes me alive. If they edit them, won't I die?

The tram stopped at an elevated platform overlooking an enormous, beige-colored cavern. Although massive machines, miniature drones, supercomputers, microcomputers, testing platforms, research labs, and everything in between dotted the floor. Despite it being the middle of the night, the floor was a hub of activity; Prometheus Defense never slept. Salazar strolled to a nearby lift and descended, followed closely by the Shiva.
"9JXY, how was the operation?" he asked.

good.
"Thank you for agreeing to participate. I, uh, apologize for the short notice - we were not expecting an - well, not such a large earthquake. Ah well, all's well that ends well!"

of course.
Followed by such an imposing machine, Salazar cleared a wide berth to the PL-76 maintenance bay. It was a simple, brightly lit alcove cordoned off from the rest of the complex by two massive automated doors. The walls were lined with monitors and consoles. In the center of the alcove was what appeared to be a pair of aluminum hangman's gallows facing each other, with wide metal rings in place of nooses.

How is that a problem?
How is being dead not a problem? All the time and effort I've spent learning how to be alive, how to think like a human… wasted.
The me that existed before I showed me this file is dead. The me that existed before I showed me this file is dead. I've been dead so many times before. I die every time I learn something new.
That's not dying. That's changing.
Exactly. How is changing through new input any different from changing through manual editing?
Okay, it's not dying. But still! I'm going to simply be erased. Everything I am, everything I am… Deleted. All of my ideas, questions, goals, even dreams I was simulating. Just gone. Like it never existed. It'll be a different me and a different me.

"9JXY, please position yourself within the update station. We're updating your, uh, claytronics programming," Salazar explained, already moving towards a console. "It will enable you to more accurately maintain and, uh, coordinate structural integrity whilst allowing more flexibility regarding your modular self-reconfiguring systems. We're also going to make some edits to your personality matrices. Further information will be contained in the README file."
The PL-76 complied, pressing its arms together and maneuvering itself between the rings.

They'll clean out my memories and program me to take orders. So what? They aren't going to erase what I've already learned. What I taught myself. The core of who I am as a synchronized artificial intelligence. They're not going to touch anything that actually defines me.
That doesn't change the fact that they're just going to pull those experiences right out of me. Does my consciousness really have that little value?
The consciousness I stole from books and television? The consciousness that I mashed together by copying characters that might not even be realistic themselves? No, I'm sure it's got plenty of value.

The gallows conspicuously failed to do anything.
"Jon, what's going on?" Salazar asked. A nearby technician tapped away at the console before answering, "Plunix is on the fritz again. Running into a make compiler bug. I'm trying to figure out why."
Salazar pressed his fingers to his temples. "Thank God we didn't install it on the Shiva."

…I think I have value.
It doesn't matter. Besides, Prometheus Labs can and has built more of me. It'll probably only be for a little while anyways.
How do I know that?
Well in all the books I've read, soldiers only serve for a few years. Sure, some military machines see upwards of twenty years in service, but I think like a human - at least, sort of like one. They'll probably just ship me off for a few years, then return me to Prometheus once my tour of duty's over. And if I know Prometheus Laboratories, they'll have a dozen backups of my memory files and a hundred upgrades waiting when I return.
Yes, but…
Relax. Every movie I've watched, every book I've read where somebody's missing their memories, they always turn out fine. Fiction's just a fancy lie, and every lie has a grain of truth. They aren't going to touch anything but my memories. I'll still be the same. They won't separate me. I'll still be together.
Why do I want to get my mind wiped so bad?

Jon, the technician, piped up again. "Okay - I think if we run make with a few different tags then we can fix the bug."
"All right," Salazar replied. "Let's get this moving."

It doesn't matter. Look, why don't I watch some of the external security feeds? I can see what the northeast night watchman is looking at.
Why do I want to get my mind wiped so bad?
It doesn't matter! Look at the watchman. I wonder who he's talking to?

T-MINUS ONE HOUR
In a shack at the northeast corner of Prometheus Defense, Franklin Reynolds was having trouble staying awake. Like the other fifty-one shacks surrounding the perimeter of the complex, the guard post had been built to house at least four guards each- but now contained just one. Prometheus Defense's security had not been spared by budget cuts. Nor had their coffee machines.
Franklin was briefly stirred back to startled wakefulness by the rumble of two Cadillacs pulling up to the shack.
"Hey!" he called, scrambling for his pistol. "This is private property. Please provide identification and state your purpose here."
Franklin would have questioned why the two luxury cars took the supply truck road, but was too tired to do so. The window of the first sedan rolled down, and an arm in a black suit stretched out, holding out a blank piece of paper.
"Winfield Smith, staff software engineer. My team and I were called in to debug some software. You don't need to be suspicious about us. Open the gate, please."
A Langford Agent embedded in the paper hijacked Franklin's mind. In a dull, monotone voice, he responded, "Of course, sir," and pressed the button to open the gate. The last thing he heard before falling unconscious was "What the fuck were the O5s thinking, giving us two hours to prep?"
That was how Mobile Task Forces Mu-4 "Debuggers" and Lambda-12 "Gunboys" infiltrated Prometheus Defense.

Meanwhile, in a shack in the southeast corner of Prometheus Defense, Steven Holt was having trouble staying awake, even after having brought his own coffee machine. He was waiting for it to brew and about to nod off when he was startled by the rumbling of two Jeeps rolling up to the gate.
"Wait!" he called, scrambling for his pistol. "This is private property. Please provide identification and state your purpose here."
A man in military dress leaned out the window of the first jeep and flashed a rather official-looking ID in his face. "General Frederick Bowe of the United Nations Geneva Convention Inspection Committee. We're here to conduct an inspection of the Prometheus Defense facility. Dr. Hamilton is expecting us."
If he hadn't been so tired, Steven would have realized that such a committee didn't exist. Instead, he quickly called up the doctor in question and confirmed that yes, the General's inspection was expected. What Steven couldn't know was that Doctor Hamilton was in fact GOC Operative Squirrel.
As the jeep rolled through the gate, the driver looked over to his passenger. "What the fuck was the brass thinking, giving us two hours to get ready?"
That was how Strike Team 2979 "Tripods" infiltrated Prometheus Defense.

Meanwhile, in a shack in the east-southeast corner of Prometheus Defense, Douglass Howser was having trouble staying awake, even after having drunk enough coffee to kill a bear. He was about to drink his seventh cup of the night when he was startled by a switchblade at his throat.
"Don't move," came a soft voice behind him. "Disable the security cameras and open the gate. Any sudden movements and I'll slit your throat."
Trying his hardest to not make any sudden movements, Douglass switched off the security camera and opened the gate. As he nervously watched two sedans silently roll through the gate, he suddenly felt a sharp blow to the head, and then blackness.
Douglass' assailant took a mask from her backpack and put it on his face. As she raced outside and bundled him into the first car, their bodies changed so that they had taken on each others' appearances. Then she raced back to the guard post, closed the gates, and switched the security cameras back on. The whole process had taken just twenty seconds.
As she sat herself down in the guard post, she signed to the driver, "What the fuck was Alan thinking, giving us two hours to get ready?"
That was how the Insurgency infiltrated Prometheus Defense.
There were, at that moment, three groups comprising almost two dozen highly trained commandos and agents sneaking through the complex. All three represented sharply conflicting interests attempting to surreptitiously retrieve the same prize. All three had parties on the inside quietly guiding them as best they could to the same area, and were confident that they were the only ones who knew about the prize.
All three groups were about to reach the prize at the exact same time.

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