Those Twisted Pines Hub » When Parallel Lines Diverge

July 25th, 2003
Somewhere in Northeastern Portland, Oregon, two FBI agents knocked on a secluded apartment door. The sun's rays poured in through the windows, making the hallway stuffy with summer heat. After several moments of silence, the agents knocked again.
The oldest wore her long auburn hair in a ponytail. A silver colloid tattoo, mostly covered by her jacket, peeked out just above her left wrist. She frowned as rustling came from behind the door. No one answered.
Her partner was a decade or two younger. Her brown hair was similarly tied back and contrasted with her pale skin. Her expression lacked the confidence of her more experienced peer. As the rustling behind the door continued, she whispered: "Should we knock again, or-"
"Hello?"
The door opened a crack. An olive-skinned woman with thick glasses peered out at them. The door was secured by no less than five chains to prevent forced entry. The woman's eyes narrowed as she noticed the lettering on the agent's jackets.
"Anna Becker?" the older agent asked.
The woman hesitated. "That would be me. What do you want?"
"I'm Special Agent Florence Thorne." The older agent gestured to herself, and then to her partner. She reached into her jacket pocket to pull out an envelope. "This is Special Agent Sasha Grimmer. We have a warrant to search the premises following its implication in an ongoing weapons trafficking investigation. May we come in?"
Becker blinked then cocked her head to the side, a confused smile coming to her face.
"Hang on, what do you think is in here?" Becker chuckled. "Do you think I'm running guns out of a one-bedroom apartment? In Portland?"
"We'd hope not, ma'am," Agent Grimmer replied. "And we never said it was guns."
Becker paused. A corner of her lip twitched as she nodded and sighed.
"Right." she shrugged. "Hang on, let me get the chains off. It's going to take me a moment."
Becker closed the door softly. The hallway filled with the sounds of half a dozen chains slowly being removed from their tracks.
"Well, that was easy." Agent Grimmer turned to Thorne with an amused smile.
The latter likewise grinned, only for her expression to quickly change to a frown as the colloid tattoo on her arm briefly glowed with a bright blue light.
"Get down!" Thorne shouted, and tackled Grimmer to the ground. The apartment door flew off its hinges like a shot from a cannon. It slammed into the opposite wall with a resounding crack. Several bolts of lightning followed, turning the cheap softwood into a pile of splinters. The interior of the apartment crackled with a small burst of electricity and was silent.
Drawing her sidearm as she got to her feet, Agent Thorne peered inside. Within the living room, a small portal slowly dissipated. A railyard was visible on the other side.
"Shit!" Thorne shouted. She dashed over to Grimmer, helping her partner to her feet. "We got to go Grimmer, now!"
"Thorne, hang on, we-"
Agent Grimmer was not able to finish her sentence. Thorne had already dashed through the closing portal and into the industrial space beyond.
"God damn it," the young agent mumbled to herself, then quickly spoke into her earpiece. "Suspect's a can-man and is attempting an escape through the Brooklyn Railyard. Grimmer and Thorne in pursuit."
"Just run through an unknown portal," Grimmer said under her breath as she likewise sprinted through the gateway. The small ripple in spacetime vanished a few seconds after she touched down in the gravel of the railyard beyond. "I'm sure absolutely nothing bad has ever happened from that. Ever!"
The young agent then ran off to find her partner.

March 8th, 1993
"Three Ports is pretty low on violent crime, and the golems handle the petty stuff," Special Agent Virginia Kartal explained. "Most of what we end up dealing with is smuggling."
Florence Thorne nodded. "Makes sense. This place is riddled with Ways. Gives me a headache."
"You'll get used to it," Kartal said. "In the meantime, if your wizard eyes spot a Way we haven't catalogued, make a note of it. Keeping track of them all is like playing whack-a-mole, but having another Observer here will help a lot."
They took a detour down a side alley to avoid a section of Emerald Mile that had been closed due to local gravity failure. Kartal nodded politely to the police golem who had taken charge of directing traffic, and Florence dutifully copied the gesture. The golem fired off a crisp salute in response.
"How many wizards do you guys have here anyways?"
Kartal paused to let an auto-rickshaw pass. "Not as many as I'd like. We've got a lot of irregulars here, but not a lot of wizards."
"Why not? There's two whole occult colleges here, there's got to be more wizards in this city than… I don't know, what's a place that has a lot of wizards?"
Kartal laughed. "Deer's full of anarchists and ICSUT's part of the Coalition. Not the best for recruitment."
"I guess not."
Stopping suddenly, Kartal grabbed Florence's shoulder and pulled her over to the side of the road. "Look, Florence, are you sure this is what you want to do? I know what the skippers did to you, and I'd understand if you don't want to be part of a normalcy org again. Plus, you've got a kid to look after now."
Florence offered her a wry smile. "No wonder you guys are short on wizards, if this how you do your recruiting."
Kartal frowned. "I'm serious. Don't feel like you have to do this because you owe me something. I don't want to manipulate you like they did."
Florence threw her arms around the agent and pulled her into a hug. "V, you saved my life, and I'm never going to be able to repay you for that. But I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing this for me." She pulled away after a few seconds, and when she looked up at Kartal, there was fire in her eyes. "I need to prove that I can be more than just the Foundation's attack dog."
Kartal studied her for a moment, then nodded. "Alright. As long as you're sure." She reached into her jacket and pulled out a leather case, which she handed to Florence.
Knowing what was inside, Florence opened it carefully, revealing a newly minted FBI badge. Next to it, tucked into a transparent card holder, was a plastic ID card with her name and picture on it. Special Agent Florence Thorne, Unusual Incidents Unit.
Florence looked up to see the senior agent smiling at her. "Welcome to the Unit, Agent Thorne."

July 25th, 2003
Agents Thorne and Grimmer peered from behind the doors of a boxcar. A few dozen yards away, Becker was holed up inside a small maintenance shack. During her exodus from her apartment she had grabbed a bolt-action rifle. Instead of bullets, it shot bolts of lightning.
"She knows she can't wait there forever," Grimmer whispered. "So why is she-"
A series of deafening cracks filled the air as bolt after bolt of lightning fired from the shack's window, striking three different railcars across the yard.
"Oh," Grimmer said. That answered her question. "Yeah, we gotta go, Flo. Before she gets lucky and zaps us. Don't suppose you have a rabbit to pull out of a hat here or something?"
"I hate it when you call it that," Agent Thorne replied and rolled up her left sleeve, fully exposing the tattoo beneath. The arcane markings glowed with a faint blue light once more. "But yeah, I've got an idea. When I say go, I'm going to slam a rock into one of the other cars. That should distract her. I'm going to keep that up for a bit and make her think she's hit us. When she moves to escape, grab her."
Thorne then smiled at her young peer.
"Crazy enough to work, right?"
"I mean it's crazy, that's for sure," Grimmer replied.
"Hey, if you have a better plan, I'm all ears, but you better come up with it quick."
"I think-" Grimmer began.
The railyard filled with the sounds of lightning striking the boxcars once more. One of the containers adjacent to them shook as it was struck.
"I love it," Grimmer continued. "Let's go!"
Thorne smiled and clenched her fist, her tattoo letting off a vibrant glow. A dull thud could be heard as a rock slammed into a distant container. Just as Thorne had predicted, Becker took the bait. Another round of lightning shot forth from the maintenance shack as her attention was drawn away.
Grimmer lost no time and immediately ducked out of their hiding place. She did her best to keep out of sight as she circumnavigated the yard, quickly positioning herself between the maintenance shack and the nearest railyard exit. Within moments Thorne's distraction, as well as the lightning, had stopped. It was quickly replaced by the sound of someone sprinting through the gravel. Grimmer took in a deep breath. She readied her weapon, then stepped out from cover.
"FBI! Free-" Grimmer shouted. Her words caught in her throat as she found Becker waiting, rifle trained at her head. The two fell silent. Seconds lasting hours ticked by.
"It's over, Ms. Becker." Grimmer eventually broke the silence. "You have nowhere to run. Our units have this place surrounded by now."
"Can you imagine what this would do to someone at close range?" Becker replied. "Stand down, and let me pass. You have to the count of three."
"You won't be able to pull the trigger fast enough."
"Try me." Becker snickered. "One."
Sweat rolled down Grimmer's brow.
"Two."
The agent's finger twitched.
"Thre-"
Becker's rifle flew skyward. An unseen force sent her crashing into the nearby wall with a dull thud. Out of the corner of her eye, Grimmer could see Thorne emerging from between two boxcars. The light emanating from the tattoo on her left arm slowly faded as she unclenched her hand.

September 30th, 1993
"It weren't me what done it," Jordan Raybon protested. The man they called "Submarine" was currently handcuffed to the arm of a police golem.
Florence rolled her eyes. "Sure, Jordan, sure. I'm sure there's a perfectly legitimate reason why you popped out of an unregistered Way carrying—" She turned to look at Kartal. "What was it again?"
"Fifteen charged superconducting coils designed to power a handheld Soviet plasma projector, two liters of raw ectoplasm, three forged passports, and a Betamax tape containing some of the most obscene pornography anyone has ever seen."
Florence turned back to Raybon. "I'm sure there's a perfectly legitimate reason why you were carrying all of that in your impossibly spacious pockets when we grabbed you."
Raybon nodded. "Yes, yes, there is! I borrowed that coat from my mate, see. How was I supposed to know what was in the bloody pockets?"
"The coat has his damn name on the tag," Kartal muttered.
Raybon turned to look at her. "What was that, love? You've got to speak up, I've got tinnitus, you know."
Florence snapped her fingers in front of his face to get his attention back. "So you borrowed the coat from your friend who has the same name as you, and it just so happened to be full of contraband."
He nodded. "That's the bunny."
"And when Agent Kartal attempted to apprehend you, you weren't resisting arrest. You must have tripped and accidentally punched her in the eye."
He nodded again. "Exactly!"
Florence sighed. "My god, you are incorrigible." She waved a hand at the police golem. "Take him down to the federal building. We'll be along to deal with him shortly."
The golem snapped a salute and lumbered off, dragging the hapless smuggler along despite his continued protests.
"I don't know why you toy with him like that," Kartal said.
"It's funny," Florence replied. "Besides, Submarine's harmless."
"He gave me a black eye!"
"Mostly harmless," Florence corrected. "I'm pretty sure that him punching you really was an accident. I flash froze the puddles on the street to try and trip him up, and he lost his balance right as you stepped out to cut him off." She shrugged. "My bad."
Kartal shook her head. "Nah, don't worry about it. That was a smart move. Not what I would have expected from you though."
Florence raised an eyebrow at her partner. "Now what's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, things do have a tendency to catch fire when you're around. Ice is a new thing for you."
"It's not my fault if buildings are flammable," Florence said. "Anyways, don't go celebrating yet—I think I might have caught a water main in the spell."
Sure enough, a trickle of water had started to seep up through the paving stones beneath their feet. Even as they watched, the flow was already increasing in volume.
"I take it back," Kartal said. "This is your bad."
Florence sighed. "Come on, we need to go tell the Mayor's office before the whole district floods."

July 28th, 2003
Florence Thorne and Sasha Grimmer looked out the second story window of the Portland FBI field office. The former sighed, her expression that of someone arriving at work to see another parked in their designated spot. The latter scowled, a hot rage bubbling below the surface. From their perch, they could see a white van pull out of the parking lot. The logo of one "Spicy Crust Pizza" was printed on the side.
"Four months," Grimmer hissed. "Four fucking months working on that case. The Skippers call dibs and grab her in two days!"
Florence didn't respond. Her eyes tracked the van until it disappeared from sight. At which point she turned and walked away.
"Thorne?" Grimmer followed behind. "Hey, Thorne! Why aren't you more pissed off about this? You worked on this case longer than I did!"
Thorne shrugged.
"Oh, I'm livid," she said. "But I've been around the block enough to know that if we straight up handed Becker off to the Foundation, something big has happened. That or the Skippers had a very tempting carrot. Either way, I'm sure the reason is beyond our pay grade."
"Did you know?" Grimmer asked.
Thorne remained silent. Grimmer's brows crinkled with anger.
"Thorne," Grimmer repeated. "Did you know?"
"I had a vague suspicion." Thorne sighed. "Especially after we saw that rifle in the train yard."
Grimmer frowned, closing her eyes before she gave a curt nod.
"That's that then." The young agent turned to walk away. Before going too far she looked back over her shoulder. "Are you returning to the office in Three Ports?"
"I've already got a new case lined up there, yeah." Thorne nodded "Probably for the best."
A small grin then crept on Thorne's face.
"It was fun working with you again, Grimmer," she added. "Let me know the next time you're in town."

October 4th, 1994
Florence watched the alley behind the library patiently. They knew that Raybon was supplying a militant faction of the Serpent's Hand, but the Unit had been watching all of the known Ways between Three Portlands and the Wanderer's Library. That meant he had to be going through one of the baseline Portlands. They had arranged for Raybon to be released on bail, knowing that he would break it. He had to know that they knew that, and so he had almost certainly found and disposed of the tracker they had put in his jacket.
Which is why he wouldn't be expecting them to stake out every library in all three Portlands.
She spotted a flash of movement across the street, but further examination revealed nothing. Probably just a stray cat.
After another few minutes, the garbage bin behind the library popped open and Jordan Raybon clambered out.
She blinked. That was a new one, even for her. Only Submarine would have found, much less used, a Way inside a dumpster. He was a terrible liar, but an expert Wayfinder. It was one of the reasons why they hadn't tossed him in Paramax yet—he kept leading them to new Ways.
Raybon looked around carefully as he brushed off his coat. Once he was sure he was alone, he whistled twice. At his signal, the back door of the library swung open and a member of the Serpent's Hand stepped out.
Gotcha. She swung herself over the edge of the library roof and dropped to the ground, slowing her descent with an evocation that was well-practiced by now. As the two paracriminals turned towards her in surprise, she raised her left arm and conjured up a flame in her hand.
"FBI! Don't move!" She shouted.
At exactly the same time this was happening, the Mobile Task Force that had been lying in wait across the street attempted to spring their ambush.
"Foundation! Don't move!" The task force leader shouted, raising his rifle and pointing it, not at Raybon or the Hand member, but at Florence. Unaware that she was a UIU agent, he had correctly identified her as the most dangerous person there, and had thus made the drastic mistake of threatening her with a gun.
Things would have gone much better for him if he had just shot her immediately.
The lance of flame that Florence directed at him was barely a millimeter in diameter, a precise beam of infernal hellfire that sliced his rifle in half right down the middle, taking two of his fingers with it. He barely had time to register his loss of digits before a wall of raw force slammed into him with all the inertia of a speeding locomotive, launching him into the air and backwards into his men. Caught completely and utterly off guard, the task force members toppled like bowling pins.
Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Raybon grabbed the Hand member and tossed them into the dumpster, then dived in after them. The burst of aspect radiation that followed was all Florence needed to know that they had escaped.
Florence whirled on the stunned task force. "Goddamn you, you skip bastards, you fucked up our sting!" She spotted one of them trying to go for a gun that had been knocked to the ground. Waving her hand casually, she conjured up another fireball and reduced the weapon to slag. "I swear to god, if you morons keep trying to shoot me, I'll toss you all in Paramax and deconcept the key."
"Shit, you're a fed?" one of them asked.
She reached into her jacket and pulled out her badge. "Special Agent Florence Thorne, Unusual Incidents Unit. Once again, you have ruined a federal investigation with your conspiracy bullshit. I hope you're happy, skippers, because I most certainly am not."
She strode past them towards the end of the alley, where there was another Way back to Three Portlands. "Make it snappy," she said to the air, clicking her fingers as she did so. The Way slid open in response. Without another word, she stepped through it and was gone.
The bruised and battered members of Mobile Task Force Beta-8 ("Beta Eight Than Never") stared at the spot where she had vanished.
"Did we just get thrashed by a fed?"

March 4th, 2004
Agent Grimmer sat alone with a paperback novel in a small coffee shop in Northwest Portland. She had taken the afternoon to catch up on some light reading. As she paused to take a sip of coffee from an oversized mug, she noticed a tan-skinned woman with short dark hair approach, and gesture to the seat next to her at the table.
"Is that seat taken?" the woman asked.
Grimmer raised an eyebrow and looked around. Aside from the barista and an elderly gentleman reading a newspaper across the room, all the other chairs were available.
"Do I know you?" Grimmer asked.
"I doubt it," the woman replied and slid Grimmer a white business card. "But I know you, Agent Grimmer. I'm Agent Marin. Let's just say we're in a similar line of work."
The familiar symbol of a circle with three inward pointing arrows dominated the card. Grimmer sighed and put her book down. Reaching for her bag, she pulled out a notepad and paper.
"Alright," Grimmer said. "What doodad can you guys not be bothered to pick up yourselves?"
Marin chuckled and shook her head.
"This isn't that kind of meeting," she replied and took a seat. "A mutual acquaintance of ours informed me how torn up you were about the Becker case. I, and a superior of mine, looked into the records the UIU provided on the investigation. We felt you had at least earned the privilege of knowing why we needed her so badly."
Grimmer gestured for Marin to continue.
"As you probably figured out when you grabbed her, Becker was quite skilled at combining magic and weapons into fairly simple packages. Let's just say that she had quite a few of her previous products make it into the hands of, well, I'll call them a terrorist group. I think you can imagine the kind of damage such people could do with the ability to shoot lightning, or liquefy bones, or remove all the oxygen from concrete. We needed her so we could design countermeasures."
"I'd say you guys made off like bandits in that exchange," Grimmer replied.
"Appreciating the attitude." Marin rolled her eyes. "Before you consider this a loss, just know that in return, we handed off a half dozen persons of interest your unit had been looking for."
"How generous." Grimmer then shrugged. "Why are you telling me all this, assuming it's even true."
"Flip the card over."
Grimmer did as she was told and frowned. Where there had once been blank cardstock, now a phone number had appeared.
"You do good work, Grimmer." Marin gave a small smile as she spoke. "And if you stick with the UIU I have no doubt that you will continue to do good work. But I know you. Hell, at one point in time I was you. You want to make a difference. Instead of putting out fires with a water pistol you want to grab the hose. That's why you felt so burned after we took Becker. You felt you really made a difference this time."
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Grimmer snapped. "You don't know a damn thing about me, or how I think."
"I'm not so sure about that." Marin shrugged. "Listen, just think about it. If you're interested, call the number. You'll still have several points of return beyond that, so it's not like its binding or anything. Otherwise, ignore the card for three days. You'll forget this entire exchange happened."
Marin stood, and gave Grimmer a friendly nod.
"I hope to see you around in the future."
"You know soliciting a federal agent is a crime, right?" Grimmer asked, her finger tapping on the card.
"Is it?" Marin chuckled. "What can I say? Sometimes, you have to break a couple of eggs when you're making your illegal international conspiracy omelet."
Grimmer watched Marin exit the coffee shop and sunk back into her chair. She tapped on the business card a few times more, then sighed, and placed it in her pocket.

November 4th, 1994
"You sliced his fingers off?"
"He was pointing a gun at me!" Florence said. "I didn't have time for subt—sub—for not slicing off his fingers."
It was Friday night and they were sitting in Kartal's living room. Florence had been in a foul mood ever since the failed sting operation, and Kartal—after arranging for a baby sitter for Robin and aided by some spirits that would have been illegal anywhere that wasn't Three Portlands—had finally managed to get her to vent about it. Florence talked more when she was drunk, drank more as she got angry, and got angrier the more she talked about the Foundation. She was now on her third glass of the Spirit Liquor, and it was starting to show.
Kartal snorted. "Since when have you ever been subtle?"
"Do I look like Gandalf to you?"
Kartal took a careful sip of her drink and winced as she heard the screaming of the fermented souls that had been used to make it. She was still on her first glass. "You look like somebody who should be trying to avoid attracting the Foundation's attention."
Florence waved a hand dismissively. "They're not lookin for me. They think I'm dead. Drowned inna lake."
"And we want to keep it that way. If you start incinerating their task forces, they're gonna figure out who you are pretty quick. It's not like there are that many wizards of your caliber running around."
Florence downed the rest of her glass like an overly large shot. "So what? What are they gonna do, assist—assassinate me? This is Portsland. Portlands. Three of them." A ghost drifted out of her mouth as she hiccuped.
Kartal frowned and gently pried the glass out of Florence's hand. "I think that's enough for you."
"Fine. Is haunted anyways." Florence frowned, then muttered something in Latin. It took her a few tries to get the words right. Once she did, she started sneezing repeatedly. More ghosts drifted away. "Dammit V, did you spike my drink with ghosts?"
"No, it came like that. Did you just magic yourself sober?"
Florence shook her head. "Exorcism. Although I guess it's the same thing for ghost alcohol. Where the hell did you get this stuff?"
"Confiscated it from Raybon. I didn't tell him that it was legal here."
That got a laugh from her. "Knowing him, it was probably stolen or something."
"Probably."
Florence sighed. "You're right, by the way."
"Hmm?"
"About the Foundation," she clarified. "I should be more careful. For Robin's sake, if not my own. I just—they piss me off so bad. I thought I could get away from them, but it turns out they're still finding ways to fuck things up for me."
Kartal nodded sympathetically. "Just be glad the skippers can't do anything here."
Florence shuddered. "God, can you imagine skippers loose in Three Ports?"
"They'd make a real mess of things, I can tell you that."
Kartal's pager chimed. She glanced at it, then sighed. "It's the office." She picked up her phone and hit 0, connecting her directly to the federal building over a secure line. "Kartal here." She listened as someone on the other end spoke. "No, sir, she's here with me."
Florence frowned, then remembered that her own pager had been turned into a pile of worms by a bit of unfortunate backlash earlier in the week.
"I don't think that's a good idea, sir." Kartal paused. "Both." Another pause. "Alright, I'll tell her." And another. "You too, sir. Good night."
She hung up the phone and looked at Florence. "I hate to say 'I told you so', especially since you were just agreeing with me, but there's some Foundation agent who's been trying to contact you. Somebody named Edgar Holman? Says he needs to meet with you about some important intel related to the Raybon sting."
"Shit." Florence shook her head. "Do you think they know?"
Kartal frowned. "Maybe. I don't know. If it's a trap though, it's not a very good one. If they try anything, it'll be obvious it was them, and even the Foundation isn't stupid enough to piss off Uncle Sam."
"Think I should meet with him?"
Kartal chewed her lip. "I'll admit I'm more than a little curious."
"So am I." She sighed. "What the hell, it's not like they can ambush me if I'm expecting it. Maybe they know where Raybon scuttled off to and want to offer that as an apology."

September 14th, 2005
"What a mess…" Agent Grimmer mumbled to herself as she looked around the blown-out remains of a southeast Portland apartment. Several of her fellow UIU agents were present, going through the motions of gathering and processing evidence. Though given all the suspects were currently dead, it was likely to be a rather open and close case. Grimmer's attention was brought back to a pair of SCP Foundation agents at the center of the room.
"So let me get this straight," the first Skipper said. "You guys tracked a narcotics ring to their base in Three Portlands and raided the place. In the firefight, one of your wizards lost control of an evocation, and the thaumatological backlash collapsed a Way. The other end of that Way was here, and as a result of that collapse, which you all caused, you've given an entire apartment complex of civilians each the equivalent dose of 100 CT scans worth of ionizing radiation. Does that sum things up, more or less?"
"More or less," Grimmer replied. "Do you think your team will be able to help us keep this quiet?"
"Not like we have much of a choice, now do we? What with the good chance this entire building is going to be an epidemiological case study someday." The second Skipper shook her head. "But, yes. Gamma-5 and Pi-1 should be able to get a lid on this. I don't suppose we could have a word with the thaumatologist that caused all this?"
"I'm afraid not," Grimmer said.
"Fantastic." The first Skipper sighed. "We'll be in touch."
Grimmer watched as the Skippers took their leave. Once they had passed into the outside hallway, she whispered to one of her fellow agents.
"Please tell me that this wasn't Thorne," she said.
"I wish I could, Grimmer," her colleague replied. "But then I'd be a liar."
"Goddamn it." Grimmer deflated. "What the hell were they even trafficking?"
"Heroin."
Grimmer paused. She raised an eyebrow as she waited for the agent to elaborate, but was met with only silence.
"Like, magic heroin, or…?" she asked.
"No. Just heroin."
Grimmer sighed and looked around the room. Her colleagues were just about to leave.
"At least it will be an open and close case," her colleague chimed in. "There's a silver lining."
Grimmer slowly nodded.
"Go team," she mumbled and headed towards the door.
In the hallway, she noticed the Skippers were still around. The two agents were talking to one another by the apartment's elevator. They briefly locked eyes with Grimmer and gave her a friendly nod.

January 2nd, 1995
The Foundation agent was waiting for her on a bench near the shoreline.
He cleared his throat as she sat down at the far end of the bench. "Agent Thorne, thank you for coming."
"Agent Holman," Florence said, keeping her gaze fixed on the river. "What's this intel that's so damn sensitive you couldn't share it over the phone?"
"One of our analysts came across something that I believe is of personal interest to you." As he spoke, he withdrew a plain manila folder from his jacket and handed it to her.
She flipped it open to find a pair of photos tucked inside. From the familiar layout of the metadata superimposed on them, she recognized them as being from an MTF HUD recorder. More than that, she recognized the scenes the photos depicted.
The first one was stamped with the date 1987-12-18. It had been taken at night, but even through the green hues of a night vision filter, it clearly showed a view of the exterior of Nine Mile Point Nuclear Generating Station. Several task force members could be seen running through the scene, but the image was focused on a single woman crouched near the center of the compound. Her face was turned away from the camera, looking towards something out of frame. Her left arm was covered by an elaborate tattoo, which glowed brightly.
The second photo was timestamped with 1994-10-04. It had been taken just after the Hand member had escaped, and very clearly showed Florence as she berated the task force. An identical tattoo covered her left arm. It had been circled in red ink.
"So," Holman said. "Was I right, Agent Elsinger?"
Florence stiffened. "You should know that you aren't going to take me without a fight."
"Relax, it's just us. I came here to talk."
"Talk, or threaten?"
"Talk," he repeated. "Corwin wanted to do it, but I convinced him that you might react negatively if you saw him."
"Does burning him to a crisp count as negative?" She shook her head. "Should have known the old bastard wouldn't have gone down with Delta-3."
Holman smiled grimly. "He got himself a lateral promotion to 64. Left Westbrook out to—"
"Don't." One of the corners of the folder had started to smoke, and her tattoo was giving off a very faint glow. "Don't talk about him."
"Alright." He waited for the folder to stop smoking before speaking again. "Corwin wanted me to tell you that it's over. As far as the Foundation is concerned, Florence Elsinger died in Lake Superior."
"Let me guess, did he also say something like, 'It would be really unfortunate if that turned out to not be true.' I don't mess with you and you won't mess with me?"
He nodded. "Something like that."
"Too little too late." She snapped the folder shut and tossed it towards the river like a frisbee. It burst into flame in mid-flight, and by the time it hit the water it was already ashes. "The Foundation spent most of my adult life messing with me in the most fucked up ways imaginable. You don't get to offer a truce now."
"You're right, of course," he said slowly. "What was done to you was unacceptable. It was an appalling lapse in our institutional ethics and it went against everything the Foundation stands for."
Florence stood up and turned to face him. "Don't you even dare try to apologize. Not if you value your life, Edgar Holman. Delta-3 is exactly what the Foundation stands for, and it represents everything wrong with your entire fascist conspiracy."
"Agent Elsinger—"
"Florence Elsinger is dead. You said it yourself." She took a step closer and lowered her voice. "You want a truce, skipper? Stay the hell away from me, and we won't have any problems. Get in my way, and you won't have any more problems, ever. Those are my terms, take 'em or leave 'em."
She turned and stalked off. Holman watched her go until she disappeared into a Way behind a nearby tree.
He turned back to look at the Willamette River.
"We really did a number on her, didn't we?"
The river didn't respond. It wasn't one of the guilty parties.

October 20th, 2005
"What are you thinking, Sasha?" Agent Grimmer sighed.
She sat by herself within her small studio apartment. On the kitchen table was the card Agent Marin had given her. Grimmer imagined the table leg's bowing under its weight. At least that's how it felt in her pocket for the last few years. Maybe it was supposed to do that. Maybe it was memetic or something. Grimmer rubbed her temples.
"You want to make a difference. Instead of putting out fires with a water pistol you want to grab the hose."
Grimmer closed her eyes and shook her head.
"Get out of my thoughts, Skipper," Grimmer mumbled. She looked at the card again, her fingers tapping rapidly on the table top. Eventually, she grabbed her cell phone. "Fuck it."
After three rings passed, a man's voice came from the other end.
"Glad you decided to give us a call, Agent Grimmer," he said.
"You knew my number already?" Grimmer asked. "That's not foreboding at all."
"Let's just say that there aren't many people we give this number out to," he chuckled. "My name is Edgar Holman. Are you ready to take the next step?"
"Do I have a choice?" she asked.
"Of course, you do," he replied. "You always have a choice. Feel free to hang up on me at any time. But I should warn you, you'll forget this conversation."
"Super." Grimmer sighed. "Alright then. Let's see where this goes."

June 5th, 1997
"I'm gonna miss you, V."
Kartal smiled at her. "I'm retiring, Flo, not going into witness protection. I'll still be around to babysit for you."
Florence shook her head. "You know what I mean. It's not gonna be the same without you."
Kartal shrugged. "You'll get used to it."
She nodded and took another sip of the cheap champagne the government had provided for Kartal's retirement party. "They're giving me your job, you know."
"Really?" Kartal didn't seem that surprised. "What about MOOT?"
"They'd have to pry it out of my cold, dead, hands," Florence said. "No, I'll still be running MOOT, but they'll be basing everyone out of Three Ports now. More recruiting opportunities here, and more Ways to use. I want to try and get the team to a strength where they can take on one of those walking tanks the Coalition has."
Kartal whistled. "That's not a fight I'd like to be anywhere near."
"Yeah, well, it's not a fight I expect we'll ever have. But there are other things just as nasty as a UHEC and not nearly as friendly."
Kartal was silent for a minute. "You can't fight a war against the Foundation."
"I know that." She drained the rest of the champagne from the glass. "But I want them to think we can. Make them think twice when they consider messing with us."
"I'd tell you to be careful, but I know you wouldn't listen," Kartal said. "Just remember that being perceived as weak can have its own advantages. If you start using MOOT for saber rattling, that might just bring more attention from the Foundation."
Florence shrugged. "I'm not afraid of them. Not any more. I just hate them."
Kartal laughed and shook her head. "You know you're gonna have to deal with them a lot more once you have my job."
"Yeah." She sucked in a breath. "Not looking forward to that."
Kartal put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't let the skippers get you down. They're not worth it."

January 18th, 2006
Sasha Grimmer hummed to herself as she cleaned out her desk at the Portland Field Office. Her resignation had been tendered, and now it was time to close one chapter and head into the next. She wiped down the dust that remained, then placed the lid on top of a box of her personal effects and turned to leave.
Standing in the doorway was Agent Florence Thorne.
"They got to you, huh?" Thorne asked.
"You're going to need to be more specific," Grimmer replied. "Also, nice to see you too. How's the other side?"
"The Skippers," Thorne clarified. "They scooped you. Why else would a new agent tender her resignation? Especially after the Becker case."
"Is this the part where you say you're disappointed in me, mom?" Grimmer chided. "My reasons for leaving are my own. This just wasn't working out for me. Time to move on to something better."
"You won't," Thorne replied flatly. "You haven't been assigned to anything in Three Ports yet, but if you had, you'd know what a horrible mistake you're making. I promise you they'll burn you out."
"Is that what happened to you?" Grimmer asked.
Thorne remained silent. Her and Grimmer locked eyes for several moments.
"It's your funeral," Thorne said and stepped to the side.
Grimmer continued to take her exit. As she crossed the threshold she looked back over her shoulder.
"See you around, Thorne."
"You too, Skipper. I'd wish you luck, but you're going to need a lot more than luck where you're going."


I used to run a hostel back in the '80s for folks along I-40. This was back before it was common, these pit stops for travelers along the road. I had the money for it and things weren't looking too good heart-wise so I figured, why not do some charity before I hit my date with the almighty? Was never too busy but - didn't have to be. I had the operations cost covered so all it really came down to was the wait. Just sitting there, most of the day, most days of the week waiting for some folk to stumble on in and oblige them beer and a bed.
I had a friend out further East - this highway patrolman who smelled like pot and depravity. Never put much stock in what he said but I guess I liked the company, over the phone and all. We swapped stories on the hard days, when I couldn't get a figure through the door and the road just kept quiet, refused to come in. And he told me stories, of the folk out East, of the folk the highway patrolmen used to stop and talk to. And one evening - one particularly quiet evening, for the both of us, when the current of his tongue wavered a little extra than was usual, and I could taste the hemp bleeding through the receiver - he told me about the white trucks.
Supposedly, out East, and deep, deep West - further than I've ever been, and I wasn't always stuck in the middle of things - every highway patrolman gets a shot of one of these monstrosities. Careening through the road late night high on speed and running the road like they're being chased. They never are, at least from what anyone can tell but there's a terror in the white trucks, and in their drivers. Terror that can't be faked. They don't spin out, they don't split off into a million pieces when they take a car up the rear-end but they pass through. The road eats them up and spits them off rightwise and they head on past wherever they're going.
My friend spots one one night. He figures he's going to arrest it, bring it into compliance. Throws up his lights and goes for miles, chasing this thing. He ended up tracking it two-hundred and forty whole ones up the Interstate, tearing up asphalt, and my friend couldn't be eaten up by any road - and he was never any kind of crack wheelman, if you take my meaning. But he kept going. Floored the gas and swerved as best he could. Pursued in the name of the law, and you know what?
Well, it did stop for him. The sun rising over the prairie, cows shitting fire in the distance it did stop for him. It slowed and it pulled over to the side of the road and he did too. He goes to light one up before meeting some kind of new thing neither of us had ever seen and his radio lights up - and he hears something over it.
Last we talked, he said that he doesn't remember what it said. Only that the sky seemed to dim a bit, and the moon grew large inside its breadth, and darker than it usually is, and that it was like the man within was howling at him and the world around. And, that fifteen minutes later that white truck was gone - grinding up pavement like it was making up for lost time, which I suppose it was, and that a day and a psych check later he was back to hauling drunks. That story stuck with me for a while, though. Became a little convinced at some point the road might eat one of those motors up and send it through my door. I'd forgotten about the story before it did.
It was the last couple years I could operate my scene, in this hottest of July's. The day's aching for some rain, and even the night that night gleamed with this burning humidity. It bordered on painful. But of course I had to sit there and near midnight I did, at my counter, waiting for some soul to walk in through the door. And around that time I hear a ruckus outside it.
I wander outside it and in my parking lot a large white truck groans into a space. Could hardly fit, the size of the thing. Threw up a big black plume I couldn't hardly see under the cover of night. Engine is screaming and I think the thing's gonna catch fire but in a moment in shuts off, and everything's quiet again, so I head back inside and get a bed ready.
I head back to the counter and in my shop, standing there and waiting for me is this nude folk. Tall and thin and the palest man I'd seen until then. I figured he was hot, sitting in that big hauler, not to mention the degrees so I tell the poor man I won't hold it against him, but he'll need to be dressed. He apologizes, but says that in order to be dressed I'll need to look away; he's embarrassed. Figure he couldn't mug me if he tried and he would've already so - I do. Cover my eyes while I hear him do some strange business. Tells me he's ready to purchase goods and I look back around and he looks the figure of me, in my old working johns and even my little hat. His face and his eyes are the same as they were, but we must've used the same tailor. I told him as much and he said it was the only one he had to choose from. I chose not to begrudge him that.
I asked him what I could do him for. Maybe call him a mechanic, rent him out something to rest his head on or what. He said that he was having trouble getting to sleep, and wanted something to relax. I asked him if he wanted booze and he said no. I asked him if he wanted some little bits of cotton to stuff in his ears, if he had any ears to stuff them in. He confirmed that he did not. I asked him if he wanted some pills for the road and he said 'maybe another time.' He then told me that what would help him sleep was a story. That for many many miles the road, though 'ordinarily a purveyor of many such things' had been uncommonly empty, and he wanted one so that he could rest before continuing the march East. I said we had plenty of stories, and he said that he was delighted by the fact.
So I showed him over to my little rack of audio-cassette tapes, my library for people on the road. I let him pick through them. He lingered over a couple and seemed highly amused by the words on the covers. Not laughing or anything quite so violent but he did smile, and he had a wide smile he made decent use of. He asked me how they were used, and I told him that men of his caliber listened to them while on long journeys to take some of the edge off the empty. He said that that interested him, so he asked me to recommend one best suited to his own road.
I told him I reckoned the one with the goblin was the most fun.
He smiled at that, took the tape, paid for it, and asked that before he returned to his road, he might sit down and have a drink with me. I didn't see anyone else coming along through the night so I consented. I had a table in the back I set up for us. I pulled out a bottle of wine and poured some of it into two glasses. And we talked for hours that night about me.
He wanted to know where it was I came from, so I told him I came from a small town up North. He wanted to know why it was I sat along the road waiting for men like him to come along and I told him it was because it made me happy to see a man appear more alive sleeping, than he did awake. He asked me what the wine tasted like in my mouth, and I didn't quite have an answer to that. Suppose it just tasted good.
Every question I finished for him, I could see a little more of what I think he wanted his face to be. It grew solid, and full-colored, and warm. I began to realize he had hair like mine, and lips like I used to dream mine might grow into. Eventually he even leaned into his little chair the way I used to try and manage when I was younger, and wanted to be the folks from the old pictures. He seemed to fit my johns, embrace them, and make them his own. He looked like me, but he was the kind of me I reckoned I might like hanging around with. And for a while that night, after we finished with the questions, and the wine, and I touched his lips… just to make sure that they were real - we did. I did.
He was gone in the morning, and the white truck too. And that's the whole of it, I suppose.


by Captain Kirby

They told us not to stray too far into the woods. To stay away from the Hollow Mountain. But Nicole was the adventurous type, and I was too clueless to question her judgement. Besides, it was summer and we were sixteen. A ripe time to get into youthful trouble. The promise of seeing a shell of a mountain appealed to our sense of discovery.
Nicole and I left early on a Saturday, telling our parents that we were going to meet up with the other kids at the park. I think my parents knew I was lying and just let me go. Children are terrible liars after all.
I met Nicole at a hiking trail that hadn't been maintained in years. There was a map next to the entrance, but the only part that hadn't faded away was a little red box with the words "You are here" faintly clinging to the space above it. When I was little, my parents used to take me here all the time. We'd walk for an hour or two, have lunch, and then circle back. But a few years ago, we just stopped going. It was around the same time that I first started hearing rumors of the Hollow Mountain.
"You packed a lunch, right Ashley?" Nicole asked me before we started down the trail.
"Ham sandwich and a bag of chips," I replied, "But we're not going to be gone that long, are we?"
"I'm not sure. I hear it takes about four hours to get there."
"But we'll be back before it gets dark, right? I just told my parents I'd be out for the day."
Nicole looked at the tree branch above me while she crunched the numbers in her head.
"We should be back by then. Probably. And worst comes to worst…" Nicole picked up a rock, pausing for a moment. Blue sparks flew from her bicep. She let the stone fly at a tree. It shot clean through.
"I can hunt us dinner," she finished.
"That's not very reassuring…"
"And if it takes any longer than that, you can light the way when my flashlight runs out!" Nicole flashed me one of her trademark mischievous smiles, "Come on! We won't make it back if we never leave in the first place."
I shook my head as we started down the trail. Whenever we crested a hill or reached a clearing, I'd try to pick out which of the mountains on the horizon lacked any earth on the inside. None of them quite fit the image I had in my head. A massive peak head and shoulders above the other mountaintops, devoid of trees and dirt and snow. A stone monument. I'd heard from kids at school that the Hollow Mountain has been hollow long before we established ourselves on this planet, dating back before our less gifted predecessors, and our predecessors' predecessors. For as long as the mountain has existed, it's been hollow.
The only time I heard more than rumor about the Hollow Mountain was from the announcement Sheriff Rivera made last winter. It was simple: "Don't travel to the mountains, it's dangerous there". He made the announcement during a town hall meeting. I was there to meet my dad to go get dinner. As all the adults came out of the meeting, there was this low, uneasy rumble as they muttered among themselves. But my dad wore his quiet smile, like he always did. He understood what was at the mountain. Not that he would tell me. All he said was that we'd find somewhere else to have our picnics.
"How do you think it was formed?" I asked Nicole. We'd stopped to eat our lunches at a small clearing. We didn't look at each other, just stared at the candidate mountains across the lake.
"Formed?" she asked back.
"You know. What would nature have to do to make a mountain with nothing on the inside?"
"I don't think nature had much to do with it."
"You think we made it?"
"I think someone made it."
"You saying it was aliens?"
"I don't know, ok? But if it really is hollow I have a hard time believing it started that way."
I couldn't help but smile. It's not all too often that Nicole gets flustered like that. But as we continued to hike and debate, I realized it wasn't as outlandish as I first thought. In history class, they taught us about a woman who could probably blow a hole in a mountain if she felt like it. Hollowing one out probably wouldn't be too different. Or the bombs that our predecessors used during the Great Cleansing. They coated the world in fire and destruction before The Bloom grew the ground we stand on overtop. And if our predecessors could do it, then aliens most certainly could as well.
"But why would anyone hollow out a mountain anyways?" I asked Nicole as we reached the edge of the lake.
"I'm not sure. But I think that's what we're about to find out," she replied. She pointed ahead to a small building across the water. It laid at the foot of a mountain, hidden from above by the trees.
"Is… is that it?"
"I mean, Kyle told me that there was a building out in front of it."
"Kyle? You've been going off of directions Kyle gave you?"
"Yeah. He said his dad's seen the place."
"Wait, what did he say was inside?"
"Well, he didn't go inside. C'mon, we have some exploring to do."
This was the first time I felt the chill shoot down my spine. The mountains looked normal. Everything looked normal. I couldn't imagine the scene in front of me without anything underneath it. It just didn't make sense.
I followed Nicole around the lake to the outpost. The lettering along the side had faded, and the wooden walls rotted. The door had fallen off of its hinges, lying on the ground next to the entrance. It was more than enough invitation for Nicole to go inside. I followed, since it was better than being left alone. The inside was in disarray. Chairs overturned, papers scattered on the ground. The only thing in order was a ranger's hat that hung from a nail in the wall. Three planks of wood had been removed from the center of the room, showing a hole leading down far into the ground, with metal rungs on one of the sides. Various torn latches and hinges from around the edge of the whole implied that, once upon a time, there'd been a more adequate barrier to entry. Nicole was already starting her descent.
"Ashley, let's go! I think this is the way in."
Finally, my common sense kicked in, "Are you sure about this?"
"You're asking that now? We're already all the way out here!"
"I know, I know. Just like, the sheriff probably had a reason for us to stay away."
"We'll be fine. If there's anything down here, I can protect you from it." Nicole flashed me her smile again. I couldn't say no to that smile. It had just the right mixture of confidence, mischief, and pleading.
"Fine. Just don't get too far ahead of me."
We made our way down the shaft to a bottom we could not see. Nicole had to take out a flashlight just so we could see the rungs in front of our faces. The tap of my carabiner against the concrete walls echoed downwards. I was worried my arms would grow tired and I'd fall. Luckily, we made it to the bottom before then. There was barely enough room for the two of us to stand. In front of us was a steel door with a keypad, and a slot to scan some sort of card.
"Well, shit. Looks like we've hit a dead end," I said as I turned back to the rungs.
"Not so fast, scaredy cat."
I looked over my shoulder. Sparks were flying from Nicole's arm.
"You may want to climb a few rungs though," she said. I booked it up.
BOOM
"Reinforced steel my ass."
I looked back down. Nicole shook out her fist. The steel door was gone. A faint blaring noise sounded from beyond the doorframe. Like a hurt animal crying out for help, except it's a security system. I climbed back down and just stared at Nicole for a moment.
"What?" she said as last. I didn't have anything good to say in response. I hung my head as we walked inside.
Slowly blinking red lights illuminated the hallway we traveled down. The echo of our footsteps punctuated the rhythmic alarm sounds. Nicole was uncharacteristically quiet, but I could tell it was because she was just trying to absorb every detail of the place. The white tile flooring, the broken speakers placed every twenty five feet, the sprinklers in the ceiling. It was incredible.
At the end of the hallway was a storage elevator. At least, it looked too large to be a regular elevator. Nicole pressed the "up" button. We waited.
"Hey, uh… Ashley?" Nicole spoke up.
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for coming with me. I don't think I would've come if it was just me."
"… yeah. You're welcome. I guess it's been fun, so far."
"You still worried?"
"Just a bit, yeah."
"Well, stop. I'm here. So nothing's going to happen to you. And since you're here, nothing's going to happen to me."
Nicole and I tore our eyes away from the elevator to look at each other. We shared a smile.
ding
The elevator doors opened to show a humanoid figure slumped in the corner. It wore an orange and white, mechanical suit with the words "SEGURO Mk III, LITE" written in black across the bicep.
I jumped back behind Nicole, who put her fists up. We paused for a moment. The figure didn't move.
"I think it's dead," I said.
"I hope so," Nicole replied. We relaxed ourselves.
"Are we going in?" I asked.
"I… I kind of want to."
"O-ok."
We both entered the elevator, but I didn't feel entirely in control. My body was on some form of autopilot. There were buttons for forty three different floors, and a card slot like the one at the entrance. A cracked display told us that we were on the seventh floor. Nicole looked back at me, quietly asking what floor we should go to. I shrugged. She pressed a button for the eighth floor. The elevator beeped, and a message scrolled across the display: "Identification badge required".
Nicole and I looked at each other, and then at the body behind us.
I don't know what possessed me to start stripping the suit off of the body. I think I must've caught Nicole's stupid. I began with taking off the combined helmet and chest piece. I had to undo a few latches, and press a button labeled "Emergency Eject". The suit hissed before the top portion fell off. Underneath I finally saw the dead man's face. He looked peaceful, staring into the wall behind me.
"I guess it wasn't aliens then," Nicole remarked.
Next, I slid the pants down just far enough to expose the belt loops on the jeans he wore underneath the suit. On one of those loops hung a key card that I handed to Nicole, who laughed a little.
"What?" I asked.
"Just don't pull any funny business with that corpse," Nicole teased. I narrowed my eyes at her.
"Did you want to strip the dead body?"
"I would've, but you're such a natural at it!"
"Oh shut up!"
We couldn't stop ourselves from laughing. It was probably some sort of mental defense mechanism, but I embraced it. My heart rate lowered as we crept upward. When the doors opened, we were both grinning from ear to ear like a pair of morons.
The eighth floor looked like the office my dad used to work in. Cubicles upon cubicles. Each one with a suited corpse slumped in a chair or lying under a desk. But the dead bodies no longer phased us. It didn't feel real anymore anyways, so why not have fun exploring it?
Nicole and I entered the closest cubicle. I tried to turn on the computer, but it had no power.
"Hey, hey Ashley! Look!" Nicole pointed to a loose page she'd picked up off the desk. In the upper right hand corner was a symbol that I'd seen only in history class, and a name underneath it: "SCP Foundation".
The words "holy shit" fell out of my mouth. We just stared at the pages in disbelief. And then at the suit. And then at each other. These were the people who tried to kill us in the Great Cleansing. These are the suits they wore to protect against the Bloom. This… this was why the sheriff wanted us to stay away from the Hollow Mountain.
"Put your hands up. This is the SCP Foundation, and we are here to contain you."
I turned around. Nicole was wearing the top piece of the corpse's suit. She mimed holding a rifle trained on my head.
"Not if I have anything to say about it!" I replied. I imagined a bright light and showed my palm to Nicole. A flash of light burst from them and I turned and ran. After a moment Nicole gave chase.
"We must maintain normality. Your existence is a threat to the veil!" Nicole shouted behind me.
"Normality is bullshit!" I shouted back. I let out a cackle, but Nicole gained on me, eventually tackling me to the ground.
"You are hereby under containment. I will take you to your cell now," she said, trying to suppress a laugh as well. I conceded, and let her lead me back to the elevator. This time when she swiped the key card, she selected the forty third floor. I broke character.
"You really think the cells are up there?"
"Not really, I just want to see what there is. We can check the other floors later."
I nodded. Even though the role play was over, Nicole didn't take off her piece of the suit. We could feel the elevator struggle its way up thirty-five stories. I swear I could hear pops and creaks coming from the ceiling. If one of the cables gave way, we'd end up like everyone else here. I looked back over my shoulder at the corpse in the corner. I couldn't tell if its head was tilted like that when we left it last. It probably hadn't moved. Probably. My mind was probably just playing games.
ding
The elevator doors opened again. This time, it was just a small hallway with a door at the end. The hallway was dark, unlike the other floors. Nicole took out her flashlight. It illuminated a placard next to the door reading "Project Director Ohabi". The door was ajar.
Nicole left the elevator without even a second thought. I followed slowly behind her, having regained some of my caution. Placards and pictures hung from the walls of the corridor. My eyes glazed over trying to parse what I saw any further.
The door opened with a long, shrill creak. Nicole and I both looked around to make sure nothing responded to it, but the hallway was still. We entered the room.
It looked like an executive's office. A single large desk in the middle of the room faced the door, with two chairs in front for guests. A suited figure sat slumped in a chair behind the desk. On top of the desk was a computer, a single piece of paper, a pencil, and two different buttons. One was a bright red button, kept safe behind a locked plastic cover. The other button was blue, and rested on top of a transmitter that was not built into the desk. In the left wall was a slot with the words "EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS" written overtop of it. A single page hung limply from the slot. At the back of the room hung a large, blinking sign that read "316 Years, 4 Months, 15 Days Since Last Reset".
"Woah," Nicole said. I just swallowed. Before I could say anything else Nicole went around the side of the desk and tried jiggling the computer to turn on. I let out a sigh, and walked to the paper hanging out of the wall. I tore it from the slot, and began to read it.
"Hey, Nicole."
"Yeah?"
"This thing is is from 2024. That's like… fifty years ago." From the Great Cleansing.
"What's it say?"
"Umm… here we are. Urgent. Code Red. Full Oh-five authorization to commence reset procedures. Authorization code three, seven, three, one, we are baseline."
"What do you think reset means?" Nicole asked.
"I don't know."
"I mean… you want to find out?" Nicole glanced at the blue button on the desk.
"No. Don't you fucking dare."
"C'mon, the whole place is probably broken down anyways."
"We have no clue what that's going to do!"
"Stop being so scared! Seriously, you were just stripping down a corpse to get an ID card. Where'd that spirit go?"
"I don't know? Maybe reality set in?"
"Ashley, please. Just stop worrying. I won't let anything happen to you. I just… I want to know! I'm so curious that it's killing me."
I opened my mouth to say something, but then just closed it again. I couldn't see Nicole's face behind the helmet of her suit, but I could imagine her smile. I could imagine that look in her eyes. I knew I couldn't stop her. I just couldn't.
"Fine. I trust you."
"Thanks Ashley. I appreciate that."
Nicole pressed the blue button. Her suit made a sucking noise. So did the dead man's suit.
A voice echoed through the room.
"Commencing Protocol Sweet Dreams. Good night."
Nicole started grabbing at her suit. At her neck. Sparks started flying from her arms, but they were all orange. No blue.
Twinkle twinkle little star began to play.
"Nicole?"
She kept grasping. She dropped to her knees. The flashlight rolled away. I lit up the room with my hands as I ran to her side. I pulled at the suit myself. I tried unlocking the latches, but they wouldn't budge.
Nicole punched the face of the helmet. Nothing. More pulling. Still not working.
Twinkle twinkle little star started over.
The sparks stopped spewing from Nicole's arms. Her grip weakened. Mine strengthened.
Just a little harder. A little harder.
Nicole's body stopped moving.
I let go of the suit.
Twinkle twinkle little star stopped playing.
I looked at Nicole. I couldn't help her. I couldn't do anything. Fucking useless. I started to cry. I didn't think about setting off any alarms. Or waking anyone up. I was the only living thing inside the whole mountain.
Eventually, I did bring myself to stand up. I walked looked at the desk. The piece of paper caught my eye. I read it. I read it again. I then folded it up and put it in my backpack. I don't know why. Maybe it was so I could explain later. Maybe it was as a memento. Maybe I was just insane.
I took the ID card from Nicole. That would be the second time I'd robbed a corpse. I walked calmly to the elevator and made my way back outside.
When I finally emerged from the building of the Hollow Mountain, it had grown dark. We must've been in there much longer than I'd thought. I was about to leave the building when I realized I had no clue where to go. I had been blindly following Nicole to get here. I'd been blindly following her for years. Now I'm just lost. I sat on the door step and just stared into the lake.
Maybe someone else would come and save me.
It would be a silly thing, I thought. Making it out of the legendary Hollow Mountain only to die because you can't navigate the way back. I started pitying my own likely death. Getting lost in the woods. I'm not even going to get killed by the Hollow Mountain. Nicole wouldn't go out like this. She'd probably start walking in some direction until eventually she found civilization.
My stomach rumbled. Now I was hungry too.
I remembered hearing how painful it is to die of starvation. Or dehydration. I didn't want to go out like that. I just wanted to go on a fun adventure with my friend. That's all I wanted. Was that too much to ask? Of course it was. I should've known better. I should've stopped her.
"Damn it!" I shouted. It echoed across the lake, reverberated in the trees, until I swore I heard it come back to me. Except… it wasn't the same message.
"Ashley!"
I looked across the lake. A few lights traipsed along the edge of the water.
"Ashley!"
"Dad?"
I started running. It was dad! He came! With Sheriff Rivera too! I ran right into my dad's arms, and began to cry tears of relief. I don't think I've ever squeezed him tighter.
"Ashley."
I let go of my dad and turned to Sheriff Rivera.
"Where's Nicole?"
I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out. I sniffled once and then I just let my gaze drop to the sheriff's feet.
"I— I see. Were there any survivors in there?"
I sniffled again, and then went into my backpack. I pulled out the piece of paper I had grabbed earlier. Sheriff Rivera read it over:

Dear Avery,
Hey Avery,
My love,
Avery,
The blue shit is already inside
You're not going to read this anyways so what's the
I figured out why they added that feature to the SEGURO suits.
We choose to die normal.

He crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it into the lake.
"Cowards," he mumbled.
"Come on Ashley, we're going home," my dad said. I nodded, and we began the long, quiet hike to town. We never went back for Nicole's body.


The children of Marifah ran up the towers of God, for there were no trees left in Heaven to watch the sun.
Mm-ee-ll-aa was one of the first to climb God's City and watch the skies go from blue to red, to green, then finally black. Like the other children, when Mm-ee-ll-aa would wake up the first thing she would do is get her feet blessed by Marifah and travel to the city.
Despite subsisting on the same food as all the other children, Mm-ee-ll-aa was quite graceful when traveling, some say dancing, throughout the ruins. In a different era, the children would get jealous at Mm-ee-ll-aa's ability but in this world, all they could do is praise her, for what could be the nature of better vs. worse when all was under the dominion of Heaven?
Mm-ee-ll-aa jumped from building to building, looking below at the wonder of the city. Many districts had been submerged, others in eternal flame, but the worse was those districts that looked unchanged from the old times. Because those were there the places where Geyre's Hunters lived. Deadly, dangerous men who ate human flesh and whose gaze could turn you to ash, or so the stories go.
She finally arrived at her favorite spot in the city. There was a sign near the top which was written in the ancient language. A traveler once came to God's City and told Mm-ee-ll-aa that they both shared the same sound. She still remembered how he pronounced the tower's name, "Metlife."
Mm-ee-ll-aa found an empty window while climbing and went in. They were told not to go into the buildings and to stay outside. But Mm-ee-ll-aa loved to learn about the old ones. She fashioned herself as a veritable Beller.
The Beller, an ancient man, who they say traveled to every corner of the world and captured 10,000 Wonders. He lived in a time when men were still able to swim and when trees still grew. Some sages recall that when Abirt cut down the last tree in Heaven, the Beller was the one who slew him, bringing balance to Marifah's world.
Mm-ee-ll-aa walked through down a vast hallway peeking into the rooms. Many were untouched and still had primeval tablets and other small antiquities.
Suddenly, as her eyes glazed from one spot to another, she found herself looking at a treasure. It was a thin white sheet with a small drawing at the base. It was a tree. She quickly tore the image off and started to leave the building.
BOOM!
Mm-ee-ll-aa instinctually jumped back and hid behind an office desk. Whatever made that blast was close by, perhaps only one story above or below her.
She laid on the dilapidated wooden floor and crawled to the window, sweat on her forehead growing. The blast could have been made by anything: a wonder, a God, a tribesman. In the great province of Heaven, the priests told the young ones to flee when anything unusual happened in the city. But Mm-ee-ll-aa stopped following the cosmic path years ago and vowed to follow the Beller's wisdom.
Mm-ee-ll-aa looked over the edge of the window and saw that the sound came one floor beneath her. She stepped onto the glass and walked down the side and peeked into that bottom floor from the top of its window.
Inside she saw the cause of the noise. It was a capsule, smoking and shooting sparks like that of a traveling Angel. She slid through the window opening and leaped behind a toppled cabinet.
A hissing sound came from the capsule and a door jutted out from the side. A man walked out, clad in white. What shocked Mm-ee-ll-aa most was not the SCP logo on the side of his shirt, the weapon in his hand, or how exotic his clothes were. It was that his skin was clear and clean. The only person that had soft-looking skin like him was Marifah himself.
Mm-ee-ll-aa's eyes were peering up from the cabinet and the man turned and glanced. She slipped down, in an attempt to not be seen but it was too late.

What the hell was that? thought Lieutenant Samson. He popped his head outside of his lander. Where am I? This doesn't look like Omicron Null. His eyes darted around the room.
Samson's hand fumbled around in his backpack till he found his pistol. He was on his way to meet an associate across worlds but for some reason, the extraversal jumper he was sent crash-landed in what seemed to be an abandoned building. There was dust, glass, and an overall sense of melancholy everywhere. The desks were overturned and there was a cracked glass panel to the side.
Samson walked out of the jumper and he immediately noticed a shifting figure near an overturned cabinet. He held up his pistol.
Samson rushed forward, it was critical that he understood the totality of his surroundings. When he got near to the cabinet, he sprang forward and aimed his gun…He didn't expect a child.
He could tell that it was a girl, but barely. She wore dirty rags and had a cloth covering a large portion of her face from her mouth to her neck. What was most intriguing though were a number of carvings engraved on her face. There were four letters — "M" on the forehead, "E" on the left cheek, "L" on the right cheek, and "A" on her nose.
'"I might still be on Earth for all I know.' 'Hey, there. Do you speak English?" The child stared at him, but her eyes were curiosity rather than fear.
Wait, I think I have something. Samson slipped off his backpack and opened the zipper. The simple movement frightened the child so it started to slide back.
“Don't worry. Shhh” spoke Samson trying to act soft. Something that would shock the boys back home.
Out of his bag, he pulled out a bar of hardtack and snapped it in two. He put one half in his mouth and held out the other in front of the child.
The child took the biscuit and uncovered the cloth that was around her face. To Samson's surprise, the child's lips were sewn shut and there was a small gash in her throat. She broke the tack in very small pieces and slowly threw them in. Samson's idea that this was still his Earth quickly faded.
The child leaped over the cabinet and went near the capsule. She stared at it for a while and Samson came over. Her eyes glanced at the capsule and they stopped at a familiar image. A double circle with three prongs pointing inward and three edges jutting out.
“Can you read?" Samson dragged his fingers over the words as he said, "These words say ‘Multi…versal…S…C…P…'” Mm-ee-ll-aa's ears perked up.
Before another word could be spoken, she leaped in front of Samson and in one hand grabbed an arrow that silently pierced the air around them.
For Samson, time seemed to slow down as he realized that they were just attacked. Samson brought out his pistol from its holder and squatted down. Mm-ee-ll-aa leaped onto Samson's back and guided him to the window. From there, she pointed down where Samson could see clearly.
Three hunters ready to catch their prey.
"Finally, some good fun!" laughed the Lieutenant.
The lieutenant surveyed the ground and found an overturned car. They were only two or three stories above the ground so he thought he could make the jump, so he did.

Mm-ee-ll-aa didn't expect that he would jump off the building. His feet were covered and she could tell he wasn't blessed. She grabbed on his back tights and kept clinging as they collided with the ground.
The clean man ran, dodging a great number of arrows, and hid behind an esoteric machine. She always thought it was decoration, but she never realized how great a shield it made.
As the arrows started to batter the machine, the clean man started to speak words, but like before, she understood none of it. She peeked above the shield and saw the three hunters. They wore black cloaks and their faces were covered in a dark red paint. Two held bows and one was barehanded.
Unexpectedly, the hunters stopped firing and the barehanded one started to speak.
"Lo! There are two things in the world, Gods and Men. If you are men, then you will die. If you are Gods, then we will die. Let us live, die, and repeat the pattern forever, for we are sons of Geyr…"
The clean man looked over the barrier and fired his mystical weapon at the hunters.
…Movement faster than light. That is what Mm-ee-ll-aa witnessed as the lead hunter grabbed the metal chunk that the clean man shot.
"Ahh," said the barehanded hunter as he closed his eyes. "Geyre blesses us today. One more lamb for the slaughter."
The clean man said a few words to himself, then ran. With his eyes closed, he raced through the debris with instinct as his only guide.
Mm-ee-ll-aa hung onto the man and looked back as the three hunters chased after. One took to the air, one through the ground, and the leader stood still as if he was waiting for the man to come to him.

To be continued


by qntm

Previously

But it is.
They wrestle him to the ground and pin his arm out flat, forcing his fist open to give access to his left index finger. The dread idea is beating on the door of his mind, demanding to be let in. It's wrong, the shape of it is awful and it's too big and slick with poison and he knows if he lets it in it'll swamp everything he is, filling his home up with sludge and broken glass. It wants to drown him in it and he knows it'll replace everything he is with itself. He knows it's taken the rest of the world already and all of the people around him, and he holds out, and he continues to hold out right up until one of the people pinning him produces a chisel █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ overrides everything else ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ Yes, he says, yes, he throws the door open, ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

*

██████████████████████████ the world is ruined. █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ beautiful things, and smash them or cover them with filth. Find delightful people and disfigure ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ We, who are drowning in and driven by వ, who radiate ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ They, who number in the billions, and are ████████████████████████████████████ for the engine ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ In the centre of the city █████████████████████████████████████████████ where people can be fed in and the door locked ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ irreversible ███████████████████████████████████████████████████
██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ intact, and watching, █████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ this last splinter of Adam Wheeler ███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
██████ starts to work against that which it knows to be wrong.
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ a ray up there, a narrow yellow nourishing sunbeam. He follows it, ████████████████████████████████████████████████ over the top of the walls. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ and out of the city, █████████████████████████████████████████████████
█████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████
███████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ away from the core. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ A kind of thread unravels behind him, an infestation ████████████████████████████████████████████████████
A black slug drops from his tear duct, falls to the asphalt and shrivels. ████████████

*

He regains consciousness on a hard, scrubbed floor in a wide, cool corridor. He is lying against one wall of the corridor, as if tossed there like a ragdoll, with his back to the wall and his right arm stretched out, clenched into such a tight fist that his finger joints are hurting. He releases the fist, gasping. Disoriented, aching, he rolls and plants his other hand on the floor, and it's then that he discovers what's happened to that hand.
He reacts as he must react. He clutches the stubs where his first two fingers were, and screams and cries hopelessly at the echoing building. Nobody answers him.
The last thing he remembers, he was playing Shostakovich. He was flying through it, unimpeded. In his mind, he can hear what he was playing, note-perfect, right up to the instant the memory cuts off. And he can't think of what comes next. Instead, that last incomplete snippet of music goes around and around in his head, abruptly ending mid-note and slowly fading back in again from a few seconds back, an earworm. He can't jolt himself out of it. He's a stuck record. He can never play again.
He tries to make the right shape with his remaining fingers. His hand won't do it. He rubs his eyes with his… his good hand. He feels like garbage, hung over, dehydrated. He's missing his shirt, and his arms and chest are almost grey with muck.
He can never play again.
He sits there, huddled, for a long while, being small and unhappy and lost. He knows he's going to have to move eventually. He's working his way up to it.
He looks up the corridor, eyes gradually recovering. He can see alright without his glasses, as long as he doesn't have to do much reading. He's in a school. There are notice boards, banks of lockers, a rainbow mural. The place is deserted and silent. There is a dull red light coming through the windows in the classroom doors on the far side of the corridor, suggesting that the Sun is low on that side of the building, rising or setting. He has taught one-off music lessons in one or two schools, but he doesn't recognise this one.
With some unease, he examines his bad hand. The stumps of his fingers are lumpy and uneven and have healed badly. A mass of scar tissue and scabs, and no stitches in sight. As if the digits were removed with great imprecision. Hacked off. Or bitten off? It troubles him that he can't remember. His memory is normally so sharp and clear. He thinks he's thinking clearly, but when he concentrates and tries to access the lost time, something in that gap pushes him back. A fierce red heat.
It occurs to him that, though his severed digits have healed very badly, they have healed. They certainly aren't bleeding, although there's a continual ache. How long would that take?
How much time has he lost?
What the hell happened?
Way down the corridor, away from the classrooms, an office door is standing ajar. In that office, a telephone starts to ring.

*

The office is poky and dimly-lit, piled high with paperwork. Two small desks, battered office chairs. He finds the ringing phone and picks up.
"Hello?"
The voice is synthesised, female. "Mr. Wheeler?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
With a measured tone, the robotic voice replies, "Mr. Wheeler, you have been sick for an extended period of time. I will be pleased to answer all of your questions, soon. But not now. There is a woman in room W16. She is dying."
"I— I'm not a doctor."
"I know. There is nothing you can do to save her. Nevertheless, you must go to her. Now."
"I feel like I'm… I'm not the best person to do that. I'm not in the best place today."
"It has to be you. There is no one else."
"…Who is she?"
There is a pause. It is as if the entity on the other end of the phone is unable to choose her words. "She is… significant. Go now, please. She does not have much time."
Wheeler is at a loss. He doesn't seem to have the strength to not do what he's told. He doesn't have any other direction to go in. The phone handset is corded, or he'd take it with him. He frets a little about not being able to take it with him. "You'll still be here?"
"Yes."
He leaves the handset off the hook. He goes back along the silent corridor. He finds the door numbered W16 and peeks through the safety glass into the orange-red-lit classroom, squinting at the sunlight which floods it from the far windows. It's still not clear to him whether it's dusk or early morning. There is nobody in the classroom that he can see.
He opens the door and goes in. There are elaborate, colourful biology posters and coursework displays, desks in disarray, scattered books and felt-tip pens, brightly-coloured backpacks. He takes a pace or two up the central aisle, not seeing what he thinks he should be seeing, and turns around, and jumps, startled. There is a huge chalk sketch on the blackboard, a highly realistic rendering of a woman's head and shoulders. He would swear the board was blank when he walked in.
The image is moving. It's as if it's being drawn and erased and redrawn, five or ten times per second. The woman looks about his age. Her face is framed with masses of hair, although with the negative colour effect of being drawn in white chalk on a black background, it's difficult to tell what colour her hair ought to be. The one splash of colour comes from the thick, bright blue frames of her glasses.
She looks distraught. And she seems to be saying something, and though there is no sound, there is text written beside her:
Adam?
He says, "Yes?"
She says,
I remember everything
And then the words scrub themselves out and become,
I can't forget a single minute of it
More lines come out. Each new thing she says erases the old.
I know everything he did now
I was blind, and he ran rings around me
I made mistake after mistake
He killed everybody I love except for you
After this, her lips stop moving. The last phrase lingers for longer than the others, before scrubbing itself blank.
Wheeler spends a long moment absorbing the final statement, turning it around, trying to figure out where, if anywhere, it slots into his life.
He has never seen this woman before.
But… is that true? He studies her features, and his memory cycles around, and he unearths something deep and significant in his past, a bizarre encounter he hasn't devoted thought to in what feels like a century. Her! That one time at the hospital, remember? You gouged a chunk out of your foot, backstage, after a show. You spent half a night in the emergency room, and she was there and you got talking. God. Who was she, now?
A… government agent, or at least in that sphere. She was unreal. On a whole other level from me. Tough, skilled, beautiful, sharp like a sapphire. We talked about music. Film scores, and the trash which passed for TV sci-fi those days, and David Lynch. It was… well, you don't know, that early, but… it was promising.
But nothing happened. They patched up my foot, and we never went anywhere.
Did we?
"Marion," he breathes. He's almost got it. He holds a hand up, fearful, as if motioning for her to stop. "No. This can't be—"
I sent you away, because I was trying to save your life
He remembers. It reconnects, all at once, the years upon years of inextricable shared life. There's too much energy there. It crashes through him, violently, it's like grabbing a frayed electrical line, it's like being shot. He stumbles backwards, disbelieving. He never imagined how much he was missing. "No. No, no. Marion."
And it didn't work
"What happened to you? I should have been there!"
And he ruined the world
And now you have to live in Hell
"Where are you? Someone said you were dying—"
I'm already dead. I'm the memory
But now the memory is dying too
He's found his way into Heaven, and he's ruining it
Like the Earth
"What do you need? I'll stop him. I'll help you. I'll do anything I can. I love you."
She says nothing.
After a moment or two, Wheeler realises that her image has frozen.
He goes up to it and peers at the chalk work. Hesitantly, with his right hand, he reaches out to the heavy chalk shading of her hair, and touches it with one finger. He leaves a dark dot. The chalk dust is real, on the board and on his finger. She's just a drawing.
She's gone. It's all gone.
He blacks out.

*

He regains consciousness on a hard, scrubbed floor at the front of a school classroom. He is lying there as if tossed beneath the blackboard like a ragdoll, one arm stretched out along the wall. He rolls over, gasping, and plants his other hand on the floor, and it's then that he discovers what's happened to that hand.
"Dear God," he says, staring, uncomprehending, at the mangled stubs. In a strange, abstract way, the loss of his first two fingers just doesn't connect with him. It's as if he woke up already accepting it. "What the hell happened?"
He compares his left hand with his right, which, mercifully, is pristine. He flexes them, mirroring the action as best he can. There could be a little nerve damage in his left hand; he'll have to talk to his specialist. But he should be able to wield a bow.
"I suppose I'm playing left-handed from now on," he says to himself. Good God. How long is it going to take him to get to the same level of proficiency? A good while.
He thinks back. The last thing he can remember is playing Shostakovich. He was flying through it, and he was having no trouble. He can almost hear what he was playing, note-perfect, right up to the instant the memory abruptly cuts off. But he can't think of what came next. Instead, that final snippet fades in again from a few seconds back, repeats itself right up to the cut-off point, and stops, almost with an audible click. It's an earworm. He feels like a stuck record.
So he does what he always does: hums a different song to displace it.
He feels strange. He is hung over, dehydrated. He's missing his shirt, and his arms and chest are almost grey with muck. And he is dying, positively dying, for a cigarette. But he feels strangely upbeat. As if he's recovered from a prolonged illness. As if the worst is over.
He gets up, eyes gradually recovering. He can see alright without his glasses, as long as he doesn't have to do much reading. The classroom is silent, lit red-orange from a Sun which could be rising or setting. There are elaborate, colourful biology posters and coursework displays, desks in disarray, scattered books and felt-tip pens, brightly-coloured backpacks. The blackboard is blank.
Wheeler has taught one-off music lessons in one or two schools, but he doesn't immediately recognise this one.
Way down the corridor from the classroom, an office door is standing ajar. In that office, a telephone starts to ring.

*

The office is poky and dimly-lit, piled high with paperwork. There are two small desks, each with a beaten-up office chair. Each desk has a phone, one of which is off its hook. He puts it back, obeying a hard-wired instinct to tidy up. It's the other phone which is ringing, though, of course.
"Hello?"
The voice is synthesised, female. "Mr. Wheeler?"
"Yes. Who's this?"
With a measured tone, the robotic voice replies, "Before we begin, may I ask you a quick question? Does the name 'Marion Hutchinson' mean anything to you?"
"Not as such. Should it?"
The synthesised voice makes it impossible to tell whether the caller is dismayed at this, indifferent or relieved. "No. …My name is Ulrich. I'm part of an organization called the Foundation. The objective of the Foundation was to prevent what has happened from happening."
Wheeler turns around, suddenly afraid. But there is nothing behind him. "And what," he asks with some trepidation, "has happened?"
"The world's gone to hell, Mr. Wheeler."
"Well. Bad luck there."
There is a long pause. Long enough that Wheeler wonders to what insane degree he might have understated the situation. "…Yes. Very bad luck. Mr. Wheeler, we need your help. And by 'we need your help' I mean I need your help. Because there is no one left of the Foundation but me. And I have no one but you. And I am dying."
"I'm very sorry to hear that, Ms. Ulrich," Wheeler says. He finds that he means it. He chooses his next words with some care. "What do you need?"
"I need you to find a man named Bartholomew Hughes. Please take a seat. I will explain everything."

Next: Unthreaded