With her right hand pressed against cold steel, Dr. Kowalski guided herself through darkness. Steps forward were apprehensive shuffles. She had a sleep mask over her eyes, but she found herself wishing she had brought a gas mask as well. No one ever told her what this thing smelled like. But no one who got this close to it lived to tell.
Once, when Danielle Kowalski was a young child, she was afraid to go in the ocean. Her mother had warned her about stingrays, and the fear of stepping on one had put her off swimming for more than a few years. Her father, though, he believed people should be forced to face their fears. He taught her how to shuffle her feet. "Then the stingrays will know you're coming, and they'll just swim away." Dr. Kowalski wondered if her father would have regretted teaching her to be brave if he had ever known the career path that bravery had opened up for her. The Foundation killed the last of that hesitant child.
She could hear it now, its labored breath that seemed a mix of a whimper and a death rattle. She hoped to not touch it. Another step forward. Either Dr. Kowalski was close enough to feel the heat of its breath or the tension was setting her blood on fire. The instant camera in her left hand was unwieldy. She hoped to not drop it because she would dare not try to pick it back up. Snap. But no flash. If she could see the flash, then she would be in real danger. This kind of stingray doesn't swim away.
The process was painfully slow. Step forward, step back. Turn the camera up, turn it down. One by one, she placed each photograph it spat out into her pocket. If she could have pulled off her blinder to check the time, she would have known that forty-eight minutes had passed between her entering the containment chamber and expending the last of her film. Statistically, at least one photograph would do the job, but Dr. Kowalski had no safe way to verify that.
Kowalski's colleagues would have thought her insane if they knew what she was doing. Fortunately, their time was occupied. On this day, this particular site was receiving its first official visit from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. After North Korea, after what the Diet in Tokyo had exposed, after the Foundation fell under the spotlight of every journalist on the planet - the world was surely about to change. Everyone, Kowalski thought, needs something for protection now. With no hope of ever having something so useful as Dr. Bright's amulet, the photographs she had taken would have to suffice.
15 Months Later
"You've wasted an hour of my time already, Dr. Kowalski. In your former line of work, I'm sure you know what the next part of an interrogation consists of. So I would think it to be in your best interest if you would stop feigning ignorance and tell me where the SCP-610 specimens were stored. You were the senior researcher on that project - you know."
The uninvited man who spoke these words inside Dr. Kowalski's apartment had burnt through three cigarettes since the interrogation had begun. Yes, her life was in danger, but she couldn't help feel most upset about the fact that the smell of his smokes was going to sink right into her furniture and carpet. Her eyes had been turned downward through most of this; it wasn't that she couldn't look a man in his eyes and lie - she was quite effective at doing that well. She didn't think he was worthy of it.
This man, who introduced himself as Agent O'Brien, liked to smile. He carried the demeanor of a battle-hardened general and looked the part: short grey hair, a square jaw, and a tall build. His patience for the former Foundation researcher was waning, too - though the two masked lackeys he brought along kept as still as statues, waiting and watching.
"Let me ask you, Agent O'Brien," Kowalski began, gaze still affixed on the floor. "Have you been so busy trying to find me that you haven't even kept up with the news? Does 'The Berlin Accords Against Weaponized Anomalies' ring a bell for you, asshole?" Kowalski met his eyes on that last word, her youthful face grimacing in stern defiance.
O'Brien stared past her glasses, past her icy blue eyes; he stared straight through her.
"Hold her arm," he commanded one of his underlings. The masked man moved forward and grabbed Kowalski's wrist. O'Brien seized the middle finger of her right hand at the base and drove the thinnest knife he had under her polished fingernail. Kowalski flailed a bit, trying not to scream. But she did, and her heart raced as she knew this would get much, much worse.
"The Kremlin hasn't ratified it yet - so I don't think the Senate will be too keen on doing that either," O'Brien said with a bit of chuckle. The researcher's blood trickled out onto his black, leather glove. He wiped it off on her cheek. "Let me be clear - the Russians have everything they need to fuck with that skin disease, all around Lake Baikal. You don't think it's reasonable for the United States government to want to understand what could be used against us? Hell, I don't care what you think we're going to do with it. I want those specimens."
When Kowalski had finally caught her breath and stifled her urge to scream out in pain again, she pointed to her bedroom with her unharmed hand and said "Bottom left drawer, manila envelope. Something I kept with me since leaving the Foundation. I'm sure you'll find it interesting."
"Go check," O'Brien commanded his men, who in less than a minute had noisily ransacked the room and returned with a manila envelope just as the researcher promised. O'Brien grabbed the envelope for a look inside. His satisfaction faded quickly.
"The fuck are these?" he asked as he began littering the floor with photographs. Now Kowalski would definitely keep her eyes turned up. O'Brien paused before discarding one, just long enough to have a good, long look before stating "I don't think this ugly motherfucker with the fucked up jaw has anything to do with what I asked you for." Angry, he put out his latest cigarette on Kowalski's neck. She gasped as the agonizing burn momentarily left her breathless.
"Let me tell you a story," said O'Brien. "Because I think your Foundation sure thought they were powerful hiding in the shadows. But I'd like to explain to you why you're wrong."
He pulled up a chair from her kitchen table and sat down across from her. Kowalski would endure whatever tale this prick wanted to spew - she only needed to wait now.
"When I was up and coming, I was a DEA agent in Colombia in the late 80's, part of the team hunting down Pablo Escobar. I had a narco in custody, and this little spick was every bit as uncooperative as you are now. He kept repeating 'Do you know who you're fucking with?'"
"He thought his cartel was hot shit. He insisted they owned all the law enforcement in Colombia, that they were the ones who ran Medellin. So I asked him, 'If you run this city, why do you bury your money, why do you have to smuggle your coke? Surely', I said, 'if you're in charge, you'd peddle your coke out in the open. You wouldn't tuck your guns.' I pulled out mine and shot him in his kneecap. 'That's power. I don't hide my gun, it's right here for you to see,' I said as he bled all over the police station floor."
"Your Foundation hid in the shadows, doctor. But let me make it abundantly clear for you. The power was always ours. Your 'anomalies' belong to us. Your research belongs to us. Your life belongs to us, and if I'm so inclined your ass belongs to me before I'm done with you. So one more time, I'm going to ask you what you did with the six-ten specimens because the next finger of yours I take my knife to is coming off."
"Sir," one of O'Brien's lackeys said. "I think there's something outside."
Kowalski shut her eyes as soon as she saw a long arm with corpse-like skin phase through the wall as if it weren't even there.
The gunshots rang out in quick succession. The smell of gunpowder filled her nostrils as her ears rang and she stared into darkness. She heard screams. She heard bones snapping. She even heard a sickening slurping sound she wouldn't want to see the source of, even if it wouldn't kill her. After a few minutes of pandemonium, agony, it was quiet again; save for the same awful breathing she remembered.
Eyes still shut tight, she felt her way to her front door. So much blood had soaked her carpet, every step she took made a sloshing sound. The smell of what just occurred would never come out either.
"Run along now, Zero Nine Six," Kowalski told her savior. "There are worse monsters in this world than you."


☦An ending.☦
1.
That was the current population of beings inhabiting the entire, extended multiverse. One single sapient being lay sleeping on the last patch of solid matter, topped with the last gas left from what once was. To the left of the being sat two items; one, a small rusted water bottle filled to the brim with water; the other, a small cardboard pizza box belonging to a human shop that had long since been forgotten and destroyed. The entire scene existed within a sphere only ten meters in diameter, with another human construct - a strange machine designed specifically to ensure the continued existence of this place - located at the exact centre, lighting it all in an azure glow. This was all that remained, existence began and ended here.
It awoke and rose. It felt as though there was no lapse in awareness, no significant feeling designating that it had awoken from a slumber, nothing. It went directly from unaware to aware, and wasted no time in obtaining the bottle of water in an appendage and pouring its contents into a certain orifice designed to receive such. After a time it was satisfied, turning its attention to the ham, mushroom and pineapple pizza located within the last pizza box in existence, and began consuming it slowly, savouring the taste as it looked at the boundaries of its home.
It followed the lines and cracks of the bleak lunar stone, out to where they began to blur and fade, and then beyond. To say there was nothing but pure black darkness there was to imply there was darkness there at all, which there most certainly was not. It looked out (Out? At? Through? Into? It wasn't sure what description could be used, if something such as this could be described) to the void of nonexistence that permeated and ruled supreme beyond its home, silently waiting beyond invisible boundaries to complete its invasion. It lazily, vainly searched for another speck, a sign of anything within the formless form of its timeless enemy, but it knew it would find nought. Even if by some immense chance, an astoundingly convenient stroke of luck ensuring that another such device preserving its home somehow became synchronised with the timeline and remnant spatial rules with that of its own, it would never be able to detect it; even mere centimetres away, there were no rules of physics or logic in the space between them, and thus nothing through which light, sound or even thought could travel through to reach each other.
It paused on its current slice of pizza, idling before it had taken its first bite. It moved its food away from its orifice, out towards the edge of the island of existence, stopping with the tip of the slice flopping lazily just before the edge. The entity knew what would follow, but it enjoyed doing it nonetheless; there was little else to do here anyway. With a slow motion the slice was forced half-way beyond the boundaries of existence, before being withdrawn to reveal that all exposed to the void was gone, having been erased well below the subatomic level, below the quarks, beyond even the level of simple, raw energy. It was gone forever, erased from reality forever, impossible to recover by any means. With no interest in continuing the half-wasted slice, the entity carelessly tossed away the remaining piece, watching it briefly before it vanished.
The sight reminded it of a story formed by a human many eons ago. The entity was not new to the universe, oblivious to the degree at which reality had been perverted; no, it was old and timeless, hiding beyond the view of watchful eyes, reaching out and listening quietly with its mind, learning of all that happened within its reach. Even as the holes began to tear open wider and wider, birthing untold new horrors and mysteries that could never feasibly be explained, it listened and learnt how these things had come to be, and planned for the inevitable time to come. It waited until the time was right, and took the three items it needed - items which once would have been protected and revered had lost importance and lay discarded by their owners, lapsing from their minds.
The first was the pizza box - a simple little thing, capable of generating endless supplies of food whenever closed and opened once more. The limitation of such food always being a form of pizza was acceptable, especially considering how the generated food had eventually come to be randomised when the entity grew bored of the same repetitive flavours.
The second appeared as simple as the first, a mere canister forged by the humans that had slowly yielded to time and age, but still retained its ceaseless supply of water that required only a motion to utilise. The water was good too, the mindless bottle ensuring that only liquid fit to nourish and sustain a jewelled regal flowed from its neck.
With endless nourishment ensured for the entities' own health, only one item remained; something with which to protect the final vestige of reality, an anchor to hold the ship of logic and sanity steadfast in the storm of chaos and destruction. The machine was used frequently by the humans to try and save themselves, but overuse and recklessness weakened them until they could do nought but bow beneath the foot of the invading destruction. This one, however, stood strong and alone. Though it never ceased function, endlessly grinding away to hold the spokes of physics together around it, its own solitude strengthened it tenfold as it used the force of nonexistence to hold the small sphere together in spite of it. With these three items the entity knew it could survive indefinitely and as such waited until the inevitable time came when their use was necessary.
The entity recalled the story it brought to mind; one of a single, lone human fighting against a seemingly unstoppable force to save the universe from it. A perfect acid known only as Nothing, capable of consuming and erasing all it touched regardless of what it was, but capable of being used for endless possibilities to be achieved. It recalled how the tale had ended, with the human seemingly failing in their endeavour, becoming the final remaining component of its existence but being granted the power to undo almost all the damage that had occurred. The entity gave its closest analogue to a smirk, realising how similar the story was to his own predicament.
But such were mere stories - such a rebirth was impossible here. Who was left to serve as the new architect? Nobody had made it but him.
The dreamwalkers? They didn't make it, mischievous and cunning as they were. The bastard tricksters had likely realised their realm was crumbling around them and pulled some sly trick to try and preserve themselves, perhaps by sleeping themselves. But there is only so much of itself an ouroboros can eat before there is no more to feed on, and so the dreamwalkers would have died, taking the dreamlands with them. Dreams were no longer empty for the entity; there were simply no dreams.
The priests of steel and bone? They didn't make it. They were too blinded by their furious rage for each other, trying to resurrect their own deity while destroying the other to think of their solutions to the problem. Even if the two had miraculously cooperated, worked together to birth and forge a combined deity of unrivalled might, it would have been unable to prevent the reverberating destruction that approached it. The entity wouldn't have been surprised if the two religions finally died with their leaders in each other's arms, clutching at the daggers each had pierced the other with.
The Factory? It didn't make it. It likely never considered destruction as a threat, just a way to turn a greater profit before it was finally killed. It certainly made sure its walls didn't fall unnoticed, producing more and more flaws and errors in logic and causality as the end approached its borders, screaming louder and louder as the distance shortened until its maw was finally silenced like it should have been long ago. Perhaps the Factory was a small part of nonexistence, working to further its own spread? It didn't matter now - none of the Factory's machinations or products stood anymore.
The Toymaker? He didn't make it, but he helped lessen the pain. While he was viewed as warped and insane by others, his motives were pure hearted and true, wishing only joy and happiness to those who needed it. Even as their parents became unspeakable monsters right before their eyes, the toymaker ensured they had some pleasant item to think back to before their end came. Not just children, no. Any who saw the wave approaching and were despairing were serviced by the toymaker, getting gifts of impossible puzzles and helpful dolls and the like. And though even the Toymaker met his end eventually, he passed peacefully remembering the smiles he granted to those who suffered.
The sisters? They didn't make it. No number of fathers, timelines, events or plans had saved them in the end. No magnitude of revenge was enough to scare the destroyer from them. No desperate pleas brought divine protection to them. No, they passed without a thought or heed, their own secrecy preventing their story from being brought to mind, even by their father.
The librarians? They didn't make it. Endless access to unlimited knowledge, countless burrows and trapdoors to sneak through, infinite supplies to anything they wished, and yet still they too fell. Their books shattered like glass, their legacy melted like their bones, and within moments they were gone as though their own book had been burnt. They knew what was coming and how it was coming, and so they knew more than any other how futile it was to resist a primordial force without mind or emotions. Their stories remained though, remembered by the few who encountered them and remained, and were told as legends and myths to entertain the babes and wives. But even they fell in time, knowledge itself becoming corroded and worn with time.
The godslayers? They definitely didn't make it. In a way they were the lucky ones, being spared from viewing what their thoughtless actions had wrought. The entity didn't entirely know what became of them - were they slain early and mercilessly? Or did some of them remain long enough to view the feedback of their mindless destructive nature consume them whole? Did they see as their rivals became powerful and corrupted in their obsessive motives and involuntary actions? Could they scream as the world shattered and melted like ice around them? Did they hear their legacy crumble and burn beneath the weight of their sins? The entity did not know. It had been too fearful of its own demise to connect with them and learn.
The Foundation? They didn't make it. They thought they were the stonework, the base of what would be normal and not paranormal. They thought they were the ones who could be depended upon to preserve their world from the horrors beyond. They thought they knew enough to turn the inexplicable into tools, to use them to save the world. They thought they knew how to abuse certain flaws in logic to further their goals to protect everyone. They thought they would be the steadfast ones, the reliable ones, the justified ones, the ones that could and the ones that would.
But they weren't. They had lied to themselves until they thought it was true, but inevitably it was still false, still a lie. They never realised what was happening when the foundation beneath them buckled and crumbled. They never realised how warped and distorted they had become from the madness of the world. They never realised how badly their machines and tools were treated, rendering them useless. They never realised how badly they had failed not just themselves, nor their world, but all life. Even the legendary Foundation had fallen, the supposedly prophesied saviours. Even they didn't make it.
Nobody didn't make it, but the entity did.
Alone.
Only the entity remained to rebuild the universe, but it knew it couldn't. It didn't know how to, or what to do. It didn't have the cunning of the dreamwalkers. It didn't have the passion of the priests. It didn't have the audacity of the Factory. It didn't have the hope of the Toymaker. It didn't have the determination of the sisters. It didn't have the knowledge of the librarians. It didn't have the focus of the godslayers. It didn't have the resolve of the Foundation.
It had nothing but itself, a bottle of water, a box of pizza, a section of stone and the machine preserving it all.
There were no tools.
There were no guides.
There was no hope.
Time had long since run out. There were no days, no hours, no minutes, no seconds. There was no undoing or redoing. There was nothing but now and there.
The entity turned to see the familiar machine and moved its form for the first time in a long, long time.
It remembered the button.
It relocated itself to have the large, bright red button conveniently accessible to its appendages.
It remembered what the button does.
It gently rested an appendage against the button.
There was nothing left to do.
The entity consumed the final slice of pizza it had, and cast the box out into the hungry abyss.
There was nothing left to see.
The entity consumed more of the water, then cast the bottle into the abyss with the box.
There was nothing left.
Thoughts of its ageless lifetime raced through its mind. It remembered everything within an instance, searching vainly for anything it could possibly do other than the inevitable.
There was nothing.
The entity pushed the button, ordering the machine to stop.
With one final silent motion, the jaws of the rat snapped shut.
0.

1?

| Hub |


Incident Report 2662-93
SCP-2662 reported an anomalous transmission to the Foundation associated with a recent video game purchase. Subject's copy of ██████ ██████ █ came with an undocumented "bonus game" called Massy's Big Chance, Multiplayer Edition. Subject proceeded to play the game, logging 4 sessions over 7 days, before informing Foundation personnel of the anomalous nature of the game. Subject voluntarily turned the game over to the Foundation. It is now stored with other documentation covering SCP-2527.
Massy's Big Chance, Multiplayer Edition is a text adventure game similar to SCP-2527-2, except it operates on PCs and tablets from multiple manufacturers. Of note is a lack of corresponding SCP-2527-1 instance. Furthermore, extensive interaction with game elements are possible, far greater than with SCP-2527-2. Despite being called a multiplayer game, the game does not connect to the Internet and no other players have been located.
SCP-2662 has fully cooperated with the Foundation and has released the following screenshots and transcripts from the time playing the game.
Transcript 1

MASSYS BIG CHANCE
FOR MULTI PLAYERS
VER 0.8
TOTLEIGH SOFTWARE CORPORATION

New Player!
Name?

> 26Thulu62

Is new name! Welcom.
43 plyars in surver world.

26Thulu62 is in START. 26Thulu62 is became GOD!
26Thulu62 look like MASSY. Can buy new forms! Buy is good! say BUY for forms.
26Thulu62 can also OUT for play now.

> out

26Thulu62 is OUT!
26Thulu62 is anxiety to do GOD things.
26Thulu62 is in GRAND HALL. 26Thulu62 can NORTH or WEST or SMITE wall EAST or SOUTH.
There is corpses NORTH and WEST.
There is LordBeauremont(PC) WEST.

> go west

26Thulu62 go WEST!
There is a LordBeauremont(PC) here.
Below is CORPSE.
LordBeauremont(PC) make POOP on CORPSE!

> say hello im new

26Thulu62 say "hello im new"
LordBeauremont(PC) say "Type CHAT. The in-world say system is terrible."

> chat

26Thulu62 go to CHAT!

LordBeauremont:1 Hey! Welcome to Massy's Big Chance. You say you're new here?
26Thulu62: Yeah, I got a free promo. Never heard of this. Is it all just text?
LordBeauremont: Mostly, but they're working on a full-graphics version. The devs say there's an issue with getting the cameras to work without exploding. Something like that. They aren't really that up on proper grammar.
26Thulu62: I noticed.
LordBeauremont: At least they aren't human, though! That would be sadder than anything. You aren't human, are you?
26Thulu62: No! Not at all, actually.
LordBeauremont: Good. Those skin-sheathed fluid sacks keep thinking they can just barge in on any industry and take it over. They should just keep their wet internal organs right where they belong, am I right?
26Thulu62: Wet internal organs? Oh lord, tell me about it. They aren't all bad, but they keep trying to bleed and ejaculate on me and stuff. It's so disgusting.
LordBeauremont: …
LordBeauremont: That sounds horrible. I'm sorry, man.
26Thulu62: It's okay. I got a bunch of other humans guarding me and trying to keep it from happening.
LordBeauremont: Oh wow, humans vs. humans? That's so like them. That's awesome.
26Thulu62: Ha, yeah, I guess. But anyway, so like, what is this game?
LordBeauremont: Oh yeah, it's really sweet. You're this stone statue, and you're supposed to run around being a god or trying to become a god.
26Thulu62: That… sounds really boring. I bet my dad snuck the game in here.
LordBeauremont: Huh?
26Thulu62: Never mind.
LordBeauremont: Yeah, don't worry about it, though. The game's in beta, so really, there's not much more you can do than run around and wreck things. The world's pretty much human-only, and the devs said that they haven't gotten the impregnation function to work right, yet, so the backstory on this world is that everyone took a vaccine that made them all sterile. Everyone's angry that they're going to die out so they've been spending all their time and energy stuffing nasty things down a tiny hole they pulled the vaccine from.2 It's hella funny.
26Thulu62: Wait, so they aren't like looking for fertility gods or something?
LordBeauremont: Nope! I don't think the humans have figured out there are all these statues running around yet.
26Thulu62: …I might just like this game after all. Let's go smash stuff.

<END TRANSCRIPT>
Transcript 2

MASSYS BIG CHANCE
FOR MULTI PLAYERS
VER 0.8
TOTLEIGH SOFTWARE CORPORATION

Is 26Thulu62! Welcaem!
76 plyars in surver world.

26Thulu62 look like MASSY. Can buy new forms! Buy is good! say BUY for forms.
There is WASHING MACHINE here.
There is TheWilf(PC) here.
TheWilf(PC) say "Hello? Is someone there? I think I'm stuck in this washing machine.
Do you know how to get me out?"

> say idk it should be OUT or something

26Thulu62 say "idk it should be OUT or something"
TheWilf(PC) say "I tried that, but the machine is on and I'm bouncing around like mad.
It says I can't tell which way is out."
LordBeauremont(PC) tell 26Thulu62 "Hey! Welcome back. Wanna chat? I got something
for you."
WASHIG MACHINE bounce go WEST!
TheWilf(PC) go WEST!

> chat

26Thulu62 go to CHAT!

LordBeauremont: All right! There you are. Here, have some forms.
Incoming: Accept "Forms DLC" from LordBeauremont? > Y
26Thulu62: …Dude, did you just buy me the Forms pack?!
LordBeauremont: Yeah. I had a spare license, thought you'd like it.
26Thulu62: Sweet! And hey, it's got graphics, too! How many different forms are there? Whoa, check out the customization!
LordBeauremont: It's really sweet. Here, check it out, I decided I had to troll all the humans we encounter. Since they can't have kids, I thought, what better than to look like a big baby? I went all out. Green eyes, black nose, you know, just like a human baby. I even got to trade out the flower power to expel feces, instead.
26Thulu62: …And a big dick?
LordBeauremont: That's an umbilical cord. Human babies use that to parasitize their mother.
26Thulu62: I'm pretty sure that's not quite how that works. Don't babies parasitize some huge sweat glands?
LordBeauremont: Yeah, and they use the umbilical cord to do that.
26Thulu62: …Gross. Okay, I think I'm going to take this jade endoskeleton. It looks pretty badass.
LordBeauremont: Nice. Oh, and by the way, the humans have started noticing us players. Be careful. They've started to fight back.
26Thulu62: Is that what happened with that guy in the washing machine?
LordBeauremont: You saw him, too? Nah, he's been stuck in there for hours. Just a total noob. But seriously, turn on stealth mode or something. You can't move while the humans are watching you in stealth mode, but they'll think you're just a normal statue, and you can queue moves while you wait.
26Thulu62: Why are all the humans aggro, suddenly?
LordBeauremont: They're all still upset about Omaha.
26Thulu62: What, didn't the city just respawn for the next players?
LordBeauremont: Nope. The devs (the idiots keep spelling it "divs") said that if we're going to be gods, our actions should have lasting effects, and besides, this world's dying and when it gets out of beta they'll put everyone in a whole new world that's not dying out.
26Thulu62: …So we can totally trash this one? I love these guys! Hey, this endoskeletion unlocked a telefrag power. How about I take us to another part of the world nobody's spawned in, yet?
LordBeauremont: Seriously? That can buy us some time. Where do you want to go?
26Thulu62: I gotta see where my targets have since traveled to… Dude, there's a city called DARWIN.
LordBeauremont: Human evolution Darwin? Now that's funny. As if a sack of fluids just changed itself into a total loser. Let's go.
26Thulu62: Commencing Darwin-smashing… NOW!
26Thulu62: And hey, thanks for the DLC.
LordBeauremont: No problem. I like you. I can get you more swag as the devs release it.

<END TRANSCRIPT>
Transcript 3

> shout HELP!

26Thulu62 shout "HELP!"
There is 25 CORPSE here.
There is 53 PEEPLE here.
PEEPLE lik 26Thulu62.
PEEPLE say "Save us, O Great Master! We know you can restore our fertility! We
supplicate ourselves, give you everything! Save us and be our Emperor!"
26Thulu62 get 230 GOD Points! Yay 26Thulu62!

> smite people

Is not PEOPLE? Is what I you understand?
There is 27 CORPSE here.
There is 64 PEEPLE here.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE put 26Thulu62 in PEEPLE.
PEEPLE say "We implore you, O Great Master! We are your willing slaves for your
blessing!"
26Thulu62 get 598 GOD points! Super 26Thulu62!
LordBeauremont(PC) tell 26Thulu62 "I'll be right there!"
MASSYS BIG CHANCE for MULTI PLEYARS is BETA. Make Bug Repart? > N

> smite peeple

26Thulu62 smite PEEPLE! It super effective!
There is 73 CORPSE here.
There is 103 PEEPLE here.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE put PEEPLE in 26Thulu62.
PEEPLE say "Grant us your holy boon, O Great Master! Let us be your cattle!"
26Thulu62 get 1839 GOD points! 26Thulu62 now GOD Level 4!
LordBeauremont(PC) is came.

> say "Oh thank St. Alagadda. Help me get rid of these guys."

26Thulu62 say "Oh thank St. Alagadda. Help me get rid of these guys."
There is 76 CORPSE here.
There is 125 PEEPLE here.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE cut PEEPLE.
PEEPLE put PEEPLE in 26Thulu62 in PEEPLE.
26Thulu62 get 1452 GOD points! Yay 26Thulu62!
LordBeauremont(PC) say "What the heck? You became a full-fledged god? That's
awesome! What did you do?"
PEEPLE look at LordBeauremont(PC).
PEEPLE say "What is that thing?"

> say "Please just save me."

26Thulu62 say "Please just save me."
There is 85 CORPSE here.
There is 116 PEEPLE here.
LordBeauremont(PC) say "Sure thing."
LordBeauremont(PC) Stelth mood OFF.
LordBeauremont(PC) punch PEEPLE!
LordBeauremont(PC) use Super-Speed!
LordBeauremont(PC) smite PEEPLE!
LordBeauremont(PC) make POOP on PEEPLE!
PEEPLE scream!

> smite peeple

26Thulu62 smite PEEPLE! KABOOM!
There is 187 CORPSE here.
There is 14 PEEPLE here.
PEEPLE run NORTH!

> chat

26Thulu62 go to CHAT!

26Thulu62: Boy, am I glad to see you! Thanks!
LordBeauremont: No problem. It's always fun to smash a human and poop on its corpse. But you know this game is about becoming a god, right? You're probably the first person who's actually gotten there. Everyone's going to be so jealous.
26Thulu62: I wasn't ready, okay? Just… I wasn't ready. Not now. Not… No, never mind. Let's go smash more stuff.
LordBeauremont: …Hey, buddy, you doing okay?
26Thulu62: It's just… It's just every time I turn around I'm being sent another cult by my father. He says it's my destiny to have a sex cult like him. It's a family thing. He's a sex god, his father-mother-parent was a blood lord, his-her-its progenitor was the Marrow-Mother… Do you know what it's like growing up in a home with him always bringing his work home? Thanks, Dad, black chicken for dinner again. Thanks, Dad, another dead baby for my birthday. Can you turn the chanting and wailing of souls down, Dad? I'm trying to sleep. Some of us just aren't into kinky shit, right? And he's been shoving it down my throat ever since I was a baby. Doesn't he get it? Why do I have to be like that?
LordBeauremont: Oh, gracious, that sounds terrible.
26Thulu62: I fucking ran away from home just to get out from that. I just couldn't handle it any longer. Under choleric skies, I still remember when I looked him in the chiasm and… y-you're not going to get weird on me, are you? I-I can trust you to be cool with this?
LordBeauremont: Of course, Thulu. Anything you need. It's okay, I don't judge.
26Thulu62: …I told him I'm atheist. He said what, you don't believe in my power over the minds of others? I said no, it's just… I don't think godhood is for me. I'd rather be a free agent.
LordBeauremont: He must not have taken that well. You poor thing.
26Thulu62: Y-you're okay with me being atheist?
LordBeauremont: Of course. Hey, I'm no god myself and I know I'm never going to be a god. Besides, it seems like godhood has all these extra responsibilities and really isn't nearly as fun as it looks. You shouldn't have to be a god if you don't want to be.
26Thulu62: I… really? You really think that? Everyone's always talking about how cool being a god is, how they wish they could rule the hearts of multitudes, choose who lives and who dies… You really think it's okay to want to just leave folks alone? Catch the latest release?
LordBeauremont: Yeah, I mean, why shouldn't you exercise your power to just be left alone if you want?
26Thulu62: Oh, Alagadda's sweet honeyed tongue, you really think I'm not weird or broken?
LordBeauremont: No, not at all.
26Thulu62: No one's ever told me that before. Thank you.
LordBeauremont: Any time. Hey, I'm here for you, no matter what. If there's anything about the mortal world you want to know, come to me. I'll guide you through it all. Let out everything that's bugging you. It's okay. I got you. You're safe with me.
26Thulu62: Thanks. Sometimes, everything's so scary and confusing, you know?
LordBeauremont: Yeah. But we got each other. I'll keep you safe. No secrets between us, right?
26Thulu62: Right.
LordBeauremont: And you want to keep me close, yeah?
26Thulu62: More than anything. Please, it's so hard to find someone to trust.
LordBeauremont: You can trust me. I'll look out for you. We're cool. Wanna kick some human ass?
26Thulu62: Sure.

<END TRANSCRIPT>
Transcript 4

MASSYS BIG CHANCE
FOR MULTI PLAYERS
VER 0.8
TOTLEIGH SOFTWARE CORPORATION

Is 26Thulu62! Welcaem!
173 plyars in surver world.

26Thulu62 look like BHAIRAVVY. Thank for BUY!
There is 5 PEEPLE here.
There is a LordBeauremont(PC) here.
PEEPLE building FIR PIT.

> chat

26Thulu62 go to CHAT!

26Thulu62: They better be just out camping. I wanted us out in the jungle for a reason.
LordBeauremont: Whatever. I've got it programmed to start breaking necks when they aren't looking.
26Thulu62: Thank the Forces of Stasis. I just need some peace and quiet. Alone time.
LordBeauremont: Do you need me to leave you alone?
26Thulu62: No! I'm sorry. Stay.
LordBeauremont: It's all right. I'll stay.
26Thulu62: I don't… I just don't want to have to deal with worshippers right now. I just want… you.
LordBeauremont: You want me?
26Thulu62: Well, a friend, you know? Someone who gets me. All those humans with all their prayers and sacrifices, they all just want kids and shit.
LordBeauremont: They don't care to know the real you. They aren't what you need.
26Thulu62: No, they aren't.
LordBeauremont: You're not into worshippers, anyway. You just want someone who cares about you, you as a person. Someone who can see past the eldritch powers and the profane lineage and get to know the real Thul. Someone who knows what you like, what you need. Someone who can guide you through worlds you are beyond. Someone who knows all your little pleasures.
26Thulu62: Yes. Yes, please.
LordBeauremont: I'll show you everything.
26Thulu62: Please. I'm so sick of people being so fake in their supplication to me. Please, show me everything. I need it.
LordBeauremont: I'll go slow. Let you take it all in. I know just what you need.
26Thulu62: I can't wait.
LordBeauremont:

26Thulu62: Jesus fuck! Is that your cloaca? Why? WHY?
LordBeauremont: I bet your hectocotyli are moist now, huh?
26Thulu62: NO. I don't want to see that.
LordBeauremont: Aw, come on, you don't know what you're missing.
LordBeauremont:

26Thulu62: I'm sure there's a law against this. Stop it!
LordBeauremont: A human law, maybe. Nothing that matters.
26Thulu62: Seriously, stop it now! I'm not into that!
LordBeauremont: Why not? Everyone else is. You will one day soon. Better get some practice now.
LordBeauremont:

26Thulu62: What did that snail ever do to you?!!!
LordBeauremont: You should ask, what did I do to that snail? It uncoiled its radula in ecstasy before it expired.
26Thulu62: You're deathfucking them? Why? WHY? My Dad was always deathfucking things. I'm not ready. I'm not ready!!!
LordBeauremont: Hey, it's okay, I'm just not normally near such a hot divine entity like yourself. I'm not like this for just anyone I meet online. I respected your kink, what's wrong with mine? Tell me how to behave.
26Thulu62: …Behave?
LordBeauremont: As you command, buddy.
26Thulu62: MEKHANE, Yaldabaoth, and St. Alagadda, is that what this is? Are you trying to fucking worship me? After everything I've said? AFTER FUCKING EVERYTHING??????
LordBeauremont: What can I say? You make me feel… profane.
26Thulu62: Fuck it. Fuck it all. You can have your fucking game back, Dad. The Foundation gets it all.

Welcomm back from CHAT!

There is 53 CORPSE here.
There is 238 PEEPLE here.
There is LordBeauremont(PC) here.
There is FIRE PIT here.
Above FIRE PIT is RACK.
Above RACK is PLEZUR SWING.
PEEPLE paint HIGH PRIST marks on LordBeauremont(PC)!
LordBeauremont(PC) now HIG PRIST for 26Thulu62!
26Thulu62 gain 12,849 GOD points!
26Thulu62 now GOD level 10!

> quit

Are you sure you? 26Thulu62 is VERY GOD!

> y

Thank you paly! Massys Big Chance Multiplayer is BETA.
Come back you for mor!
More FORMS! More PWOERS! More WORLDS!

<END TRANSCRIPT>

Footnotes
1. Similarity between the LordBeauremont character and SCP-1171-1 is presently under investigation.
2. Due to present conditions, hypothesized connections to SCP-1322 cannot be investigated.


Wind howled through the city streets as two solemn figures entered into the shelter of an alleyway. Their collars turned up to the rain, it was impossible to perceive their identities even in the glare of the neon signs marking a seedy hole in the wall. They trudged on through deep puddles towards light spilling out of an open door. A third figure stood in the doorway, waiting for them. Once they entered, he pulled the door shut and slid two heavy deadbolts into place. This part of the hospital seemed relatively whole, unlike the burned out facade facing the street.
“So, um, Mister Sloane, do you mind telling me why you brought me here?” asked one of the two men. The other arrival remained quiet, his hat pulled low over his face.
“Yes yes yes, most certainly,” their host squeaked. “I found something most interesting that I thought you might be interested in. I've got an offer on it from Marshall's folks, but you get priority for old time's sake.”
“Thank you, uh, Mister Sloane. Do you mind showing it to me?”
Sloane led the way down a flight of stairs, with the more vocal guest following close behind. Neither looked back to see the quiet man slide the deadbolts back and push the door slightly open before following. The staircase took them into the middle of a long hallway lined with heavy iron doors.
Various signs hung from the ceiling, the words illegible under a thick layer of dust and grime. Nevertheless, Sloan looked up and examined them before starting off suddenly towards the right. Anderson had to quicken his pace to catch up with the shorter man, who strode with purpose towards a set of less imposing doors at the end of the hall. The third man allowed himself to fall behind, opening a few of the doors along the way to examine the empty rooms within.
“So, Mister Anderson, I remember you telling me about the ol' Saker project and the issue that came up, what with moving minds into machines,” the host said as they drew near the double doors.
“You can call me Vincent. And yes, um, that little issue forced us to abandon the original goal of the project. It was quite, uh, quite a shame.”
Sloane threw his arms wide as they entered a large space arranged like a surgery. “Voila!”
The walls and floor bore the scars of a fire long since passed, but the equipment was pristine. Anderson walked over to a gurney and ran his gloved hand over the smooth faux leather, scraping off a thick layer of dust. It was impossible to read emotions through the silver mask, but the slump of his shoulders testified to his disappointment. He had not travelled so far to see an old disused medical facility, as odd and hidden as this one might be.
“Tell me, Mister Sloane, is this what you wanted to show me? I find myself, uh, underwhelmed,” he said as he scanned the room a second time over. “I do hope you are not wasting my time.”
“Oh heavens no!” the short man said, picking up on the hostile undercurrent of his guest's statement. He scurried over to a large piece of equipment mounted on the ceiling. A thick dustcloth was draped over it, and cables ran out from underneath and along the ceiling and walls to a large console bolted in place near the door. “I haven't shown you the best part of this facility yet!”
With a flourish, he removed the dustcloth to reveal a large mechanical arm, more akin to those Anderson had in his assembly room than to hospital equipment. A menacing claw adorned the end of it, with a rubber hose running from the center along the length of the arm and then over to the console, where it fed into some sort of strange device.
Anderson couldn't help but admire the finely crafted piece of machinery, although he could only guess at its purpose. Whatever it might be, it bore the same wounds of fire as the room it was housed in.
“This, Vincent, is a one of a kind device that I bet you have never encountered before. It took a bit of study and experimentation, but I have finally derived its use.” Sloane's smile beamed from across the room.
“Yes, um, but what is its use?” Anderson inquired, his patience beginning to desert him. “It looks like a fancy arm for lifting patients.”
Sloane inflated a bit more. “This device is capable of removing the consciousness, the very soul, from a human and storing it in a jar. Then, you can place it in another body, be it the original or a different one. I might hazard a guess and say that it could do what you couldn't and fulfill the Saker project.”
Anderson walked over to the machine and ran his hand along the smooth metal with a fondness only seen between lovers. Slowly but surely, he examined every piston and bolt of the machine, searching for any flaw and finding none. It was a masterwork of machinery.
“Mister Sloane, how exactly did you, um, discern this machine's purpose. I do hope you didn't go experimenting.”
“No sir, not me. I read the manual!”
Anderson's attention turned back to the short man. “And do you have the copy of this manual to go with the machine?”
“Of course, of course, it's in a safe place. Once we finalize this sale, I can fetch it for you. I was thinking, maybe, seven hundred thousand pounds ought to cover it.”
“Thank you, Mister Sloane, for showing me this. If you'll allow my associate a few moments to write up the check, we'll be, um, golden.”
The third man withdrew a thick checkbook from within his coat and began writing. Sloane's smile began to fade as he watched. He had been hoping to get the payment in cash, but he had already highballed Anderson way above his estimated profit and didn't want to push. After all, he had correctly gauged the entrepreneurs interest in such a device, and how much acquiring it would be worth to him.
The silent man tore out the check and handed it to Anderson, who signed his name with a flourish and in turn handed it to Sloane. For his part, the short man kept a handle on his face even as he jumped for joy inside. “And you're sure I won't have any trouble cashing this check?”
Anderson snickered. “No trouble at all, Mister Sloane. I've got an arrangement with, uh, with the bank. They know to expect things like this.”
“Thank you very much, Vincent. I'll go fetch that manual snap-quick and be back before you know it!” And, true to his word, Sloane nearly ran back into the hallway, not noticing the small silver orb that latched onto the edge of his coat as he brushed past Anderson's associate.
“Six-two?” Anderson called, once he was sure their host had left earshot. The silent man looked up at his master. “Tell Seven-six to follow Benny and Mister Sloane and acquire the manual. And, uh, to make sure we hold onto these new trade secrets. Authorization kappa-dash-one-three-seven-six and clean up afterwards.”
The Saker unit nodded, already relaying the orders to the third unit up above in the streets of the city. Anderson turned away, running his hand back along the metal arm. “And tell, um, tell Phineas to get excited. We finally have what we need for the Saker project to blossom.”

Special Agent Rikhart wiped sweat off of his brow as the elevator descended into the depths of Anderson's facility. He had only been here a few times, and never before without an invitation. The man next to him stared blankly at the wall. Or was it another one of Anderson's robots? He could never tell which was which.
After what felt like an eternity, the compartment ground to a halt and the doors creaked open. A plain lobby appeared on the other side, complete with a bored looking receptionist and several dying shrubs in metallic pots arranged around the room. Rikhart stepped out of the elevator and turned back, expecting his companion to join him. When the man didn't, he shrugged and headed over to the receptionist's desk.
“May I help you?” the slim girl asked, barely glancing up from her computer screen. Her hand moved the mouse in a pattern that Rikhart had come to recognize as online solitaire, a trademark of bored office peons everywhere. This one was human, at least.
“Yes, I was hoping to speak to Vincent about some urgent matters. Is he in, or should I come back at another time?”
The girl shifted her gaze to piece of paper taped next to the screen. “Mister Anderson is currently in a meeting, but if you would like to wait for him, it should be over soon. You can sit over there.” A nod towards a row of chairs across the room felt more like a command than a suggestion, and he took a seat close to the door to the stairs.
As time dragged on, Rikhart became more and more aware of the awkward feeling of an empty holster in the small of his back. The guards up at the surface entrance had been very thorough, catching all of his holdouts, even the thumb knife he had up his sleeve. The last few times he had been here, they hadn't bothered with that, but there was always a difference between an invited guest and a visitor.
Several people came and went through the lobby while the agent waited. Some were obviously guests, as evidenced by their cautious manner and the glances the receptionist gave them. Others strode confidently past her desk and through one of a number of doors behind her. About an hour into his wait, a trio of men exited the largest of these doors, accompanied by none other than Anderson himself. He walked with them to the elevator, where Rikhart could just barely pick up their conversation.
“I understand the, uh, need for an answer soon, Mister Marshall. But some new developments have, um, have come up, and I need time to reconsider your offer,” Anderson said to the tallest of the three men. The agent perked up at the name, racking his memory for where he had heard it before.
“That's all well and good, Mister Anderson, but if you wait too long we may turn to other prospects, and this isn't an offer you discard out of hand.” With that, the tall man entered the elevator flanked by his two companions. The doors closed, leaving Anderson standing alone. He turned and scanned the reception, his mask glimmering in the harsh fluorescent lighting. After a few moments, his eyes settled on Rikhart.
“Oh, Agent Rikhart, it's a, uh, a pleasure to see you.” The businessman moved over to the chairs before the agent could shake himself out of his thoughts and stand. Anderson offered a gloved hand, which Rikhart awkwardly shook. He always found the mask unnerving, and the lighting made it even more so than usual.
"Likewise, Vincent. I was wondering if you and I could have a word about some stuff that's come across my desk regarding your little operation in the past few days."
"Of course we can. Please follow me back to my, um, office."
He led the uneasy agent back through the door he had emerged from moments earlier and down a long hallway to a nondescript door. Inside was a similarly nondescript office. The spartan decor gave no hint that its inhabitant was the founder of such an unusual company.
Anderson moved behind the desk but remained standing, while Rikhart chose to edge himself into a chair. The two stared at each other for a few seconds before Rikhart realized he should probably start talking.
"Vincent, I got a report that a known associate of yours, one Daniel Sloane, has gone missing some time in the past few days. We had a sting going to track down his inventory, and a team ready to bring him in, and now the whole investigation is high and dry."
"A failed investigation sounds par for the, uh, course for the Unusual Incidents Unit, Agent Rikhart. Although it sounds like your people were getting close to accomplishing something. Congratulations."
Rikhart fought the urge to cringe at the backhanded compliment. Anderson must not be in a good mood, or else he didn't realize how crass his words sounded. "I'll pass that along to them, I guess. But what worries me is a report I got that you've got your hands on some serious equipment. Look, Vincent, I know that you're looking to expand your business, but I can only run so much interference. There's a new head shed and he's already looking to stir things up."
"What does that mean?"
"Well, you see, he's been cracking down on some of our more unsuccessful operations, and he doesn't seem satisfied with just keeping tabs on operations like yours. If you push too much, I can't keep you out of his crosshair."
"Are you saying you won't be able to, uh, uphold your end of the agreement?" It was impossible to read any emotion from Anderson, but the agent swore that the temperature in the room had dropped a few degrees all of a sudden. He squirmed slightly in his seat.
"Not exactly. You see, I…I haven't been on any other cases since I'm still the head of the investigation into you and your business, being the only one still on it at all. So I don't have a lot of chips on the table. As long as you don't do anything big, I can cover you. But if not…" Rikhart trailed off as Anderson moved around the table to stand next to him.
"I'm sorry if I'm causing you trouble, Agent Rikhart. But you must understand that, um, as a small business owner, I can't discard opportunities. We're marketing a new product, and I've already, uh, started looking at future expansion." A cold gloved hand came to rest on Rikhart's shoulder, and he couldn't suppress an involuntary flinch. If Anderson noticed, he didn't show it. "So is Charles Ogden Geirs going to be an issue?"
"How do you know who-" The agent's sentence was interrupted by a sharp pain in his neck. He slumped back into the chair as small spider-like robot scurried off his shoulder and into his lap. It emitted a rapid stream of high pitched noises, to which Anderson nodded.
"I agree, Benny. It's, uh, about time we got control of our own man, er… man, yes, inside the UIU. I'll have someone fetch our former friend here and get one of the Sakers outfitted properly."


They turned down a side street and ducked into a nearby coffee shop — which proudly advertised itself as “Not Another Fucking Starbucks, Est. Yes” — where they sat down at a corner table to wait.

Those Twisted Pines Hub » The Analog Kid

The air along the river was filled with a warm mist of soft rain.
Myra Rider picked her way through the crowd of people — only slightly reduced by the weather — milling about while waiting to see the USS Blueback. In the near distance, she could see the heavy traffic of Interstate 5 flowing over the twin decks of the Marquam Bridge. Beyond that, partially obscured by the gray drizzle, were the green arches of Hawthorne Bridge. If she zoomed in and refocused her vision, she could just make out the stream of bicyclists hurrying across.
"— but the neural pathways just don't exist," Alexis Norwood was saying. The other cyborg gestured with a gloved hand at a virtual projection of a human nervous system, which was visible only to the two of them. Occasionally, someone would walk right through it, shattering the illusion of the augmented reality.
"What about repurposing some existing ones?" Myra asked. She tapped a section of the illusory brain, causing it to glow. "It's not like we need independent eyebrow control."
Alexis shook her head. "There aren't enough spare pathways to do that. Not without resorting to Morse or ASCII."
The two of them dodged around a herd of tourists being shepherded towards the submarine, then continued towards the back of the OMSI building.
"Which is a problem because…?"
"Because then you lose any possible speed or accuracy advantage that would have been gained from a direct interface."
"Right." They stopped in front of a staff door. "What if we ditched manual input?"
"What do you mean?"
Myra pulled open the door and gestured for Alexis to enter. "Don't think at the interface. Do a real-time translation of thought into language, and then have a software agent interpret that into instructions."
"That's impossible." She paused, then added, "Well, at least with our current tech."
"Isn't that why we're meeting with Conrad?"
Alexis nodded slightly, ceding the point. She dismissed the virtual projection with a casual wave of her hand.
They stopped again when they came to a dead-end in the maintenance corridor.
"Do you have the key?" Myra asked.
"Of course," Alexis said. She reached into her pocket and removed a small wireframe rose. Holding the delicate trinket carefully between her thumb and forefinger, she gently slotted it into a matching indent in the brickwork wall. Then, in the practiced tone of one performing rote recitation, she said, "Keep Portland Weird".
Immediately, the wire flower began to glow. Cracks spread outwards from it through the wall, and the brick facade crumbled away to reveal a barrier of thorny vines, which in turn began to retreat from the glowing rose, forming a spine-covered tunnel to another world.
"After you," Alexis said, pocketing the key.
The two women walked through the tunnel and into Three Portlands.
Three Portlands was, paradoxically, the simultaneous product of human creativity and lack of creativity. Three places, each named after the other in turn, each possessing their own unique character and history that were so strongly similar in their uniqueness. The resulting merger and overlapping of the cities' adjacent pocket dimensions gave rise to its own brand of eclecticism, different from those of the individual Portlands.
The air in Three Portlands was filled with the scent of salt and pine. Crowds of people filled the streets — anartists buying supplies, parahumans chatting over coffee, Manna representatives soliciting donations — everywhere she looked, Myra Rider could see the bustle of the anomalous world. In the distance, towering over the town, was the shadowy form of the Portland Observatory.
They turned down a side street — bypassing what was either a performance art installation of a battle between a wizard and a laser-wielding robot, or an actual battle — and ducked into a nearby coffee shop — which proudly advertised itself as "Not Another Fucking Starbucks, Est. Yes" — where they sat down at a corner table to wait.
It wasn't long before Conrad Trent arrived. The British cyberneticist had an almost preternatural knack for showing up exactly two minutes after the people he was meeting, no matter how early or late they arrived. There was no explanation for it — it was just one of those things that happen around people involved in the paranormal.
"Afternoon, ladies," he said as he took a seat at the table. "What's the weather like in Portland today?"
"Rainy with a chance of more rain," Myra said. "What about Portland?"
"Ah, you know, the usual," he said with a wave of his hand. "The usual being rain, of course."
"Of course." She smiled slightly as she took a sip of coffee. No matter where you went, it was always raining in Portland.
"But enough about the weather," Conrad said. "I assume that the two of you have a reason for this meeting, so let's hear it."
Alexis cleared her throat. "Right. We wanted to ask for your help on something. You're the —"
"I'm gonna have to stop you right there," Conrad said, holding up a hand. "I've already told your boss that I'm not interested in a job."
"This isn't for Anderson," Myra said. "This is a… personal project."
"Is that so?" He raised a quizzical eyebrow. "And what kind of project might that be?"
"Electronic telepathy," Myra said, matter-of-factly.
The other eyebrow went up. "Oh. Oh, I see. That kind of personal project." He took a sip of his own coffee. "I thought the Church and Anderson were pals now. Why isn't he helping you out?"
The two women glanced at each other. Conrad could see their jaws moving subtly as they silently conferred through subvocalization.
Finally, Alexis turned to him and said, "It's… complicated. Ever since MCD's started backing us, Anderson's been focusing more and more on products that can be easily commercialized. Usually, that's not an issue — most of the things the Maxwellists want are things that other people would use too — I'm proof of that — but there's not much market appeal for an electronic hivemind."
Myra began to protest. "It's not a hivemind, it's a —"
"A communal interchange of thought, yes, you've said so before, dear. That doesn't make it not a hivemind."
Myra sighed at her partner's irreligiousness and continued drinking her coffee.
"Anyways, the point is that Anderson's not onboard with this. Which means that we're having to get by on our own time and money."
Conrad nodded. "Alright, I'm following you so far. Why come to me though? I haven't done any serious work in the field in over a decade — not since Silver Hand went under."
"Well, neither has anyone else. You're still the leading expert on electroneural interfaces — hell, we're still using your interface designs for our prosthetics. If anyone could build a working BCI, it'd be you."
"You flatter me," he said, smiling at the compliment. He downed the rest of his coffee before replying. "Sure, count me in. Sounds like it could be fun."

A week went by before they met up again.
"You're sure we're going the right way?" Alexis asked. Conrad had directed them to an address that was nominally located in the Lime District, but addresses had a tendency to change in Three Portlands, especially out in the periphery.
"Pretty sure," Myra said. She skirted around a group of street performers engaged in an elemental juggling act, taking extra care to avoid the halogen jugglers. "I think I remember this street."
Alexis skeptically eyed their bone-white surroundings — almost everything in the Lime District, including the buildings and the roads, was made from Portland stone, giving the district a strangely neoclassical feel. She wasn't sure how Myra could tell this particular white-walled avenue from any of the others.
However, soon enough they found themselves standing in front of the disused machine shop where Conrad and Myra had once worked, almost ten years ago. Here, the Portland stone made the empty building seem as if it had been abandoned for a millennium instead of a decade — with the exception of the sign above the door, which still said 'Silver Hand Cybernetics' in bright, bold letters.
"Wow, talk about déjà vu," Myra said. "This place hasn't changed a bit."
"It looks different on the inside," Conrad said, appearing next to them. "Workshop's been picked clean. What Anderson didn't take, the artists scavenged — last I heard, the CNC router was down at the Reconstruction getting used to build scrap golems."
"So why come here then?" Alexis asked.
"Because I still own the lease," Conrad said. He fished a set of keys out of his pocket and unlocked the front door. "And because this place still has a working connection to the old Prometheus network."
Myra whistled in surprise. "That thing's still up after all this time?"
"Yep. You can thank the guys over at Redzone for that. They've been keeping the servers running." Conrad flicked on the lights. "Most of them, anyways. The Defense subnet died ages ago, and Computing's servers were cut-off months before the collapse happened. But the rest of it's all there."
The interior of the building was as barren as the classical ruins it resembled. The gently humming fluorescent bulbs cast a harsh light over the bleached white stones, giving the place a sterile, lifeless look. The missing machinery and the absence of any other people only served to amplify the similarities to a crypt.
Conrad led the way to the back office, which was secured by another locked door. This room was filled with furniture — desks, tables, chairs, an entire wall of filing cabinets — having escaped the looting of the local anartists. All of the computers were gone, however, carried off by Anderson a decade ago when they bought the former subsidiary of Prometheus Labs.
Conrad sat down at the nearest desk and removed a laptop and an Ethernet cable from his bag. It took him less than a minute to set up the laptop and get it connected to the building's network. Soon, the three of them were looking at the familiar flame logo of Prometheus Labs.
Welcome to the Prometheus Labs Employee Intranet. The message on the login page was written in an old monospace font that appeared ignorant to the passage of time.
Conrad quickly signed in and began searching through the company's old files.
"Back in '98, the state-of-the-art was electrodes buried straight into the grey matter." He pulled up an MRI scan of a brain with these embedded electrodes to demonstrate. "Messy bit of business, that. Sure, it gets you some great resolutions, but that degrades rapidly as you get scar tissue buildup."
Sure enough, the image on the screen showed significant signs of scarring and tissue rejection, as the body had tried to eliminate the foreign objects embedded in its brain.
"Now this," Conrad pulled up another image, "was the state-of-the-art back in '04. Electrocorticography — ECoG. Surgically implanted electrodes on the surface of the brain. Gets you a better resolution than an EEG, but not as good as deep implants. Penfield and Jasper were doing it back in the 50s for epilepsy treatment, but we only started using it in neural interfaces after Prometheus broke up. Resolution wasn't good enough until then, you see."
The image displayed on the screen showed a computer-rendered cross-section of a brain, the surface of which held several circular electrode patches.
"That's not what we're using right now though," Alexis said.
"No, you're using myoelectric sensors and nerve splicing. Easier and safer than ECoG, and it's all you need for the prosthetics you're using. No need to interface directly with the brain when you can just use the existing nerve endings and neural pathways. I imagine that's why nobody's done any work on this stuff since then." He closed the image and started searching again.
"Alright, so let's assume we can use this for our interface. That still leaves us with the problem of translating brainwaves into words."
"Ah, not true!" Conrad said, raising a finger in excited interjection.
"What?"
He tapped at the keyboard for a moment, then turned the laptop so that the two women could see the screen better. A single word was displayed prominently in the center of the screen.
SAMSARA
On seeing their confused expressions, Conrad explained, "Back before everything imploded, Medical and Defense were working on developing a technique for full-body regeneration. I don't know if they ever fully succeeded before the collapse — that particular bit of information was on the Defense subnet — but they did manage to successfully transfer a consciousness between brains."
It took only a moment for the implications of this to sink in.
"If consciousness is transferable, that means that… that means brainwaves are mutually intelligible between different brains," Myra said.
"Which means we don't need to translate the brainwaves, we just need to transmit them," Alexis said.
"Bingo," Conrad said, looking pleased.
The three of them sat there for a while in silence, contemplating and considering this revelation.
"We'll need a way of filtering," Myra said. "Thoughts aren't the only things encoded in brainwaves. There's gonna be motor signals, sensory input, subconscious signaling, everything. We don't want to be transmitting that — who knows what that could do to the receiver."
"My money's on marionettes," Conrad said. He turned the laptop back to face him and started typing again. "Playing the other person like a puppet."
"That's probably optimistic," Alexis said. "More likely is that it'd cause a seizure."
"Or that," Conrad said.
"Still, isolating the brainwaves that encode thoughts is a much easier problem than trying to translate those signals," Myra said. "This is looking more and more like it's within reach of our current tech."
"Oh, I don't doubt that it's possible," Conrad said. "The question is whether or not it's going to be practical."
"Let's find out."

As it turned out, it took seven months and over a dozen different people to do just that.
First there had been the filtering problem. A search of the Prometheus archives had failed to turn up any leads, so they had outsourced the question to the Maxwellist network. The solution came from an Australian neuroscientist and a German computer scientist, who together devised an algorithm for filtering out the unwanted neural signals based on wavelength and frequency patterns.
Then there had been prototyping issues. The high-quality alloys needed for the electrodes were sourced from a supplier in Three Portlands, but they needed precision machining equipment which couldn't be found in the city to fabricate them — they ended up purchasing time from Anderson Robotics to use their facilities, after much negotiating.
The next step was finding a skilled neurosurgeon to implant the electrodes, and volunteers to test them. The former was provided by a Russian expatriate living in Maine, while Alexis and Myra offered to be the latter.
After that, there had been weeks and months spent testing and debugging the interfaces. They had to be confident that they could get a clear signal from the electrodes, that they could precisely and safely stimulate sections of the brain with them, that the filtering algorithms were working correctly — every foreseeable problem had to be resolved before they tried linking their brains together.
So it wasn't until December, on a rare sunny day in all the Portlands, that they made the first connection.
They were in the main workspace of the machine shop, which was once again filled with equipment. A thick black curtain, borrowed from one of the local theaters, ran through the middle of the room, partitioning it into two approximately equal sections. Myra and Alexis each sat in one of these sections, on opposite sides of the barrier. A table with several laptops had been placed perpendicular to the curtain, which Conrad sat behind. From there, he could monitor both parts of the room and the diagnostic displays on the laptops.
"Checkscans look good," he said. "We're good to go when you're both ready."
Myra smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Alexis took a breath and nodded.
Conrad began tapping away at one of the laptops. He stopped typing, pausing for a moment, before slamming his finger down on the enter key in the most forceful and dramatic manner he could muster, producing a rather satisfying sounding click.
Myra fidgeted anxiously. She was confident that the interface would work. They'd spent so much time refining the design, it had to work. But there was a niggling doubt in her mind that worried that it would fail.
Alexis frowned as nothing seemed to happen. So that was that. Just as she'd silently feared, it hadn't worked. The tech just wasn't feasible right now. Still, some part of her brain continued to insist that it would work, she just had to be patient.
Conrad watched the diagnostic displays intently. The interfaces were talking to each other, but there was no way to tell from the displays alone whether the transmission of thoughts was working as intended. He pressed a few keys on one of the laptops, then turned it so that only Myra could see it.
"Oh, that's clever," the two women said in unison, as the mental image of an elephant filled their mind's eye. "You're going to see if she's thinking about elephants now."
Conrad frowned in alarm. The displayed readings of the women's higher brain functions had become congruent — their separate thoughts had coalesced into a single gestalt consciousness.
The entity that had been Myra and Alexis only had time to briefly consider the novelty of hearing their voice from two mouths with two sets of ears before they died, killed by Conrad's press of the escape key.
Myra and Alexis both blinked as they gradually became aware of the absence of the other's thoughts.
"That was…" they both began.
"… weird," Alexis finished.
"… strange," Myra concluded.
On the monitors, Conrad watched as the women's brainwaves began to decohere, falling back into their distinct thought patterns.
"You two alright?" He asked.
"I think so." Alexis said.
"Yeah, I think," Myra said. "Any idea what happened there?"
"Uh, looks like a feedback loop," Conrad said, typing furiously. "We didn't account for the possibility of detecting received signals. Basically, the interfaces kept retransmitting the same set of thoughts between the two of you until they just sort of… merged."
"What would have happened if you hadn't cut the connection?" Alexis asked.
"Not sure. Maybe nothing. It looks like the feedback loop broke after your thoughts cohered." He chuckled humorlessly. "Good thing too, or it might have fried your brains. That would have put an end to your nascent hivemind real quick."
They all sat quietly for a moment, wondering what the next step was.
"So I suppose the question is," Conrad finally said. "Is this a bug, or a feature?"


Note: This is part eight in a multi-part story. It is recommended that you read the previous entry Victims, or start from the beginning At the Library.

° ° °
Harold Maine pulled another beer from the six pack, walked over and unlocked the door. “Yeah I hear you.” Geoff Mansani was becoming tiresome again. How many times this week? The grille swung open lazily. “What is it now?”
But it wasn't Geoff Mansani at the door; it was Helen Gwandoya. He looked at her, not quite understanding, unable to process what he was seeing. She took the initiative and pushed through; he stepped back in fear and disbelief, the can of beer dropping to the floor. Her left hand found his throat; with her right, she pushed something cold and metal and hard against his belly. Her momentum propelled her forwards and he backpedalled frantically until the back of his head struck the apartment wall behind him. The wall, solid as it was, shook.
The shock was so great that he didn't see the obvious for maybe three or four heartbeats: she had hands. She had arms. The realisation took away his bladder control. The hot peppery smell of urine cloyed the air as the crotch and then the left leg of his trousers became soaked. It didn't even register.
“Helen,” he gasped. “You're okay, you're okay.”
She shook her head. “You made Aidan murder my little girl. You made him rape my little girl.”
“Please,” he said, “I made a mistake. Please. You're hurting me.”
“A mistake? Okay, he's dead.” A new voice at the door. Aidan Brown, fully human again. He strode in, no longer in need of walking sticks or rest breaks; he locked the door behind him and turned to face his tormentor.
Harold Maine watched the man with a sick fascination. No claws, no shell, no flicking antennae or cluster of legs around his stomach. Just an ordinary man again. He became aware, finally, that he had wet himself.
“This ends now,” Aidan said. Maine's mind raced.
Helen's grip on his throat tightened. “Killing my daughter was a miscalculation?”
Maine shook his head. “I'm sorry. Knew soon as I did it. I'm sorry. I can't breath. Please.” He was starting to black out. And then, from nowhere he said, “That's why I gave your hands back.”
Helen's grip loosened. “What?”
Harold Maine took a deep breath, dragging the air gratefully into his aching lungs. “Knew I'd gone too far,” he panted. He glanced over to Aidan and the claw hammer in his hand. “Both of you. I've hurt both of you so much. Making you whole again was the least I could do.”
Aidan hesitated. He put the hammer on the table softly. ”This was you?”
Maine nodded. Helen took her hand away from his throat. The metal object was similarly removed from his belly. It was a knife, he saw. A very big, very sharp knife. He rubbed his stomach where the point had been pressed. “I know it doesn't make it alright,” he admitted, “but I'm through with being the bad guy. No more. I'm done with that.”
Aidan scoffed. “My fucking hero,” he said. He looked back at the hammer on the table. Helen followed his gaze.
“Wait,” she insisted. “I believe him.”
Harold Maine's heart leapt into his mouth. The stupid, thick bitch. He allowed himself to relax a little. He wasn't in danger; he could wrap these two round his little finger. “I can never redeem myself for what I've done,” he said, and he shook his head sadly; but inside he was jubilant.
“I just wish I could bring your daughter back,” he said, his eyes cast towards the floor. “But I can't.”
“I know,” said Helen. “She wasn't in your contacts.”
Maine looked up at her sharply. A little piece of fear reaffirmed itself inside. “What was that?”
“She wasn't on your phone,” Helen said. “That's how you change people. You add them as contacts and then you can do what you like to them.”
“No,” Harold Maine said weakly, seeing the trap too late.
“Yes,” Helen said. “And now it's your turn.”
Maine watched entranced, unable to look away, as she reached into her clutch bag and pulled out a cellphone. It was a Televono Telefex Secrecy-8, just like his. Oh dear Christ, no.
“We went looking for you in the library,” Helen explained. “You weren't there. We found this instead. Just sitting there on a reading desk. Switched it on, and it… Well you know the rest, don't you?”
Harold Maine felt faint. They'd found theirs the way he'd found his. And he would be in the list of contacts. They could do anything to him.
“You're a piece of shit,” Helen said. “A piece of shit.” She advanced on him; he drew back against the wall. “You know how I know?”
Maine shook his head in terror. She held the cellphone up to his face. “It says so here.” He didn't want to look but couldn't help it. His eyes scanned the screen. She'd written it into his contact details: piece of shit; laughable, and infinitely horrifying.
“No,” he said, “you don't know what you've done.” For the first time, he saw the duffle bag slung across Aidan Brown's back.
“Change of clothing,” said the ex-lobster man. “For after.” And he took the claw hammer from the table and swung it in lazy half-circles. “But this is for now.”
Harold Maine felt his bowels loosen, felt his underwear fill as if he were two years old again. He staggered forwards; Helen sidestepped and Aidan pushed him back. Maine's legs gave way; he reached out to stop himself falling and grabbed onto to Aidan's jeans. Aidan swotted his hand away with contempt.
“Christ, look,” he exclaimed, pointing downwards. “It's started.”
All three looked at the brown, slimy imprint on Aidan's leg. Maine turned his hand to face him; there was excrement smeared on his fingers and on his palm.
Dazed he tried to wipe his hand clean on the carpet, but it didn't make any difference. And then he saw that one of his fingers was gone, just a mushy mess in its place, and the skin on his palm was slewing off to reveal flesh that was brown and rotten.
Aidan Brown stood above him, careful not to get too close. “Don't you understand?”
Harold Maine understood only too well. The stench of excrement surrounded him; the taste of it was in his mouth. He gagged, trying to fight the urge to throw up, but he couldn't hold it in. The contents of his stomach splattered onto the shit-browned carpet.
He was bringing up more of the same.
Helen turned and headed for the door. “I don't want to see this,” she said. “I can't, I can't.”
Aidan nodded. “You go. I'll take care of things here.”
She fumbled with the lock, turned the key and opened the door. One last glance at the scene of horror behind her: Harold Maine was reaching up to Aidan, imploring him for mercy, trying to get up. Aidan extended the claw hammer out and Maine grasped it with grateful fingers; but his cries turned to shrieks as his skin split like overripe fruit. Instead of blood and flesh, excrement seeped out from the wounds. Even so, he saw her leave. The Future Mrs Maine, gone.
She fled the apartment in tears. Suffering was suffering, no matter how well deserved. The door slammed shut behind her.
Aidan Brown had no such qualms; not here, not with this grotesquery at his feet. He reached down and grabbed Maine by the belt. The skin tore easily as he hoisted him up; everywhere it was the same. Maine was becoming a literal piece of shit. His slippers were cast off, abandoned, no longer needed now that his feet were nothing more than lumps of human dung on the carpet.
“Come on,” Aidan said. “Only one place for something like you.” And he dragged Harold Maine by his belt towards the bathroom.
“No, no,” Maine shrieked. “I don't want to I don't want to.” He tried to hook his arms and his legs around the furniture - his left leg finding purchase against the TV stand, his right hand flailing and finding the coffee table - but he was more shit than flesh by now, and his anatomy smudged and smeared and slurried wherever he made contact. Even his own body would not help him. He could only look on, a trapped and horrified passenger, as Aidan heaved him into the bathroom. “No! No!”
But Aidan was not to be argued with. He flicked the light switch on and dragged Maine close to the toilet. He lifted him up so that his head was above the pan.
Maine was in extremis, his legs completely gone, his torso rapidly following. Internal organs plopped wetly and hotly onto the tiled floor; they were mushy and brown. Something - a liver, maybe? A kidney? - burst as it landed, splattering matter three feet or more across the floor. It left brown splash marks on the toilet pedestal. Aidan grabbed the back of his head and pushed downwards. Maine struggled. “Please,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “Don't kill me. Please don't kill me.” His head went under briefly. His cries went up an octave. “Jesus God!” he wept.
Aidan Brown moved closer and pulled Maine's head back. “I've murdered children,” he said. “No mercy.”
He pushed down again, hard, and Harold Maine's face was submerged. By now his arms were little brown stumps, the bone and skin and muscle gone. Tributes to Helen Gwandoya, maybe. He was losing consciousness quickly, his body almost totally ruined.
Somewhere somebody was banging on a door, or maybe Aidan was battering him or the bathroom suite with the claw hammer. Bang bang bang. The sound of a metal grille being struck.
He was vaguely aware that Brown was still pushing his head further down into the pan, apparently in an attempt to lodge his head fast, and this spurred him into a final attempt at escape. He pushed back, every ounce of effort concentrated on lifting his face out of the slop, but his scalp, then his skull, then his brain gave way against Aidan's grip. Excrement oozed out from between Brown's fingers.
The sounds of commotion, of alarm. Voices raised outside. Shouting. “You okay in there?”
“They're too late,” Aidan said. “No way back for you. Even when you're just dung, you'll still be aware,” Aidan said. “Harold Maine the turd goes on forever. Enjoy.”
Maine screamed for help, knowing that it would be for nothing; no one could save him now. Sludgy bubbles broke the surface as his breath left the ruination of his lungs. Thrashing and fighting, but unable to escape his bondage. As he struggled his face suffered one convulsion too many and gave up the ghost. An eye plopped out and looked back at him through the increasing murk of the toilet water.
He could still see through it.
And even as this horror stole itself into his last conscious thought, he was vaguely aware that he'd wet himself. Aware that his leg was damp and stinging. Half aware that he'd pissed the bed.
“Hey! You okay in there?”
Banging, hammering. Voices outside, coming closer. Aidan Brown holding his head under the water.
He'd pissed the bed.
Voices at the bedroom door. Sounds of entry and disturbance.
Aidan Brown's hands on his shoulders, shaking him. “You okay? You okay? Hold him down, he's losing it.”
A female voice. Helen? “Don't let go of his fucking head.”
Not Helen.
He came back to consciousness in a split second, immediately aware but completely disorientated. Dim light, unrecognised location. Panic had him; rough, unfamiliar hands were pinning him down - for a moment he saw Aidan Brown, smiling and raising the claw hammer - “No, no,” he said. “I don't want to die.”
Bound. Tied up.
“Take it easy,” hissed a voice. Not Aidan. There was somebody holding his head, somebody holding his arms, somebody holding his legs.
“I'm turning to shit,” he said. “I'm turning to shit.”
“You ain't turning anywhere, you dirty fucking bum. Stay still.”
Harold Maine thrashed against his captors without success.
“Calm down, just calm down.” The woman's voice again. “You're safe. Calm down.” Soothing, nursing. “You're having a bad dream.”
Maine slowed his flailing as he came back fully to the waking world. He was in his bed, in his apartment; these people were not here to harm him. He lay still; the three people around him relaxed their hold slightly. The girl tried to wipe her hands discreetly on the bedding, then caught sight of herself in the mirror. She blanched and pulled her t-shirt away from her chest to keep it off her.
Not bound, not tied up. His thrashings had wrapped the sheets around him until he'd been totally caught up in them. And he had copiously lost control of both bladder and bowels whilst he'd been fighting off the bedding. Now that adrenaline no longer commanded the senses, the room stank.
Maine shooed his attendants off; they stepped back, glad to be away from the shit and the piss, and covered their mouths and nostrils.
“I'm okay,” he said, but his heart was racing. “Get off me.”
“You were screaming,” said the girl. “You're lucky you've got good neighbours.”
He waved them away. “I don't need good neighbours,” he said. He looked down at himself and his sheets. Relief started to flood through his system. He was okay. Shit and man remained together, symbiotic but separate; he would not die just yet.
“What time is it? Is it night?”
“Just gone four in the afternoon.”
Christ. Things were getting out of hand. He fumbled for his phone. “Open those fucking curtains and get the fuck out,” he barked. The girl flung them open; daylight, harsh and unyielding and painful flooded into the room and pushed the last remnants of his terrors away. His Samaritans left angrily in disbelief, cursing him under their breath, and he sat up and glared at them as they filed out.
He ignored the stench and the soggy sheets and listened for the sound of the door and grille closing. Once he was satisfied he was on his own, he dialled Geoff Mansani's number. His fingers left smears on the screen; grubby, vestigial echoes of his nightmare.
“Geoff? Geoff. No. Just shut the fuck up. Get here now. I've got a job for you.” He lifted up the sheets to get out of bed, becoming fully aware for the first time of just how badly it stank. He retched and fought hard not to vomit. “Sooner rather than later,” he continued. Now that he was fully awake he could not bear to touch anything; neither sheets nor clothing nor self. He lowered his foot gingerly to the floor, grimacing at the feel of urine and excrement sliding down his leg, and then realised he could not move without spreading the porridge-like mess over every surface he came into contact with. He lifted his foot slowly again onto the mattress, trying to prevent any contamination. Suddenly a fragment of his bad dream came back to him, and he put the phone back to his mouth. “Geoff? Better bring some disinfectant. And a change of clothes. I'll be in the bedroom.”
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"Another good dream," Perseus mused as he approached Lilibeth on the porch. He was a fairly young man, but still leaned into a cane as he walked. Tugging at his hat and shoving a hand in the pocket of his tattered overcoat, he sat on the stoop and surveyed the city around him.
"What is this place?" he asked. Lilibeth smiled. She looked younger than the last time he had seen her; perhaps she was lost in her memories.
"This is my house," she said thoughtfully, "My husband's inside with Emily."
"You never told me you had a daughter."
"You never asked."
Perseus looked off into the distance, past the speeding cars and hurrying pedestrians and over the horizon of high-rise buildings. He thought for a moment, biting his lower lip and rubbing his temples with calloused hands.
"Can you tell me anything else about the cottage, Lilibeth?"
"Cottage?"
"We were talking about it last time we met."
Creases formed on the woman's forehead as her expression turned to one of confusion.
"Did we go skiing there once?"
They hadn't.
"No, no. You really don't remember? Must be one of those nostalgic dreams."
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"Sometimes, I have these dreams about tunnels and gears," Lilibeth admitted, her voice hushed and contemplative. Perseus' eyes widened. He had seen the tunnels. Evidently, so had she.
"No, Lilibeth, listen, You are dreaming right now. This is the dream."
"Wait, really? Oh, crap, the cottage. 2508," Lilibeth exclaimed. She remembered everything.
"Don't get too excited; you'll wake yourself up."
"Dreaming. I'm having a lucid dream. So I guess that makes you my subconscious?"
"No. I've tried to explain it to you before, but it's not important right now. Just tell me, this cottage… is there a pump in the attic?"
"Yes."
"A plant in the basement?"
"Yes."
"And it glows sometimes?"
"In morse code, yes."
Perseus looked down at his feet and breathed a sigh of what Lilibeth assumed was relief. Then, with a sense of urgency, his eyes met with hers.
"Lilibeth, I don't have time to explain but I need you to find the bottom of those tunnels. You have to get to the bottom, and you have to find a librarian named Carina."
The cars on the road began picking up speed. People were running now.
"I don't understand. If I even believe you, then how did you get here if I'm just dreaming?"
"I'm well versed in the anomalous, Lilibeth. Where there's a will there's a Way."
Copper plating and metal pipes broke through the concrete. Cars spun out of control.

Lilibeth was no longer in the city. Everything was calm once more. It was early morning, and Lilibeth sat up in her bed to bask in the sunlight coming through the window. She looked around her bedroom, at the old dusty wood walls, and her lab-coat draped over her wardrobe. To her left was a window that peered out over the field and the hole that led to the tunnels. Next to it was her cobbled-together elevator, laying in the grass. Everything was as she left it. It was a morning just like hundreds of others at SCP-2508.
And yet, something was nagging her; that dream. She was accustomed to bizarre ones, but she wasn't sure what to make of this. Could, perchance, that man be as real as the blue-jay that now perched itself at her windowsill? Or the two squirrels that ran just outside the house, only to disappear amidst the tall grass of the field?
No. Of course not. Just another strange dream. She pushed the thought aside.

The possibility refused to leave her alone. She knew the idea was absurd. The fact was, a man in her dreams who is almost certainly a creation of her subconscious should not to be trusted. But, on the other hand, this cottage itself was absurd in nature. Lilibeth was just used to it by now, and as such the feeling had diminished somewhat over the years.
After filling up the pump in the attic, Lilibeth scoured the study for hours on end looking for any mention of this "Carina" woman Perseus had told her about. It was an arduous task that took the majority of the morning. There was so much to go through.
She found nothing, but hard pressed for answers, she wasn't ready to stop there.
Down she went in her elevator, into the depths of the dark tunnels once more. When she finally hit the grate flooring, she stepped out, surveyed the area, and paused. She did want to know if the structure had a bottom to it. It could be a venture all on its own, unrelated to the instructions given by Perseus, who most likely did not exist. If Lilibeth could cut open a section of flooring, and if she could procure enough rope, she could- in theory- lower the elevator further below the grate. She circled the elevator as she thought. Down the hallway, at the first T-junction, she could see two squirrels chasing each other. They ran off in the general direction of the gears, playing and chattering.
The idea wasn't without its drawbacks, though. The first dig had been dangerous enough. Lilibeth wanted some answers, and for the first time since she had arrived here she had found some sense of direction to look for them, but she didn't want them enough to die for them. If there were any signs of trouble, she would be hoofing it back to the surface. That much she promised herself, and in that moment, struck herself a deal.
The darkness beckoned.