by qntm

"Ms. Wheeler! Ms. Wheeler!"
Marion Wheeler has just finished a scheduled inspection of SCP-8473 and is about to go for a cigarette. Someone is running up to meet her outside SCP-8473's containment unit. Wheeler recognises her as Dr. Eli Moreno, a trainee field researcher who joined the Antimemetics Division only six months ago.
"Dr. Moreno. Can I help you with something?"
"Uhm." Moreno interlocks her fingers nervously. She is a full head taller than Wheeler and half her age, with scraggly hair and exceedingly thick glasses. She lacks experience. But she is very smart, and she is learning very fast. In another year, she'll be among the best people the Division has, or has ever had, and Wheeler is looking forward to that. Wheeler loves nothing more than competent people.
Still, as the pause lengthens, that day of competence seems to be in the future. "Dr. Moreno, I normally expect my people to get to the point a little quicker than this."
"There's— a stone in the forest behind the Site," Moreno blurts. "It's monumental. It's like a skyscraper, it blots out the Sun. Do you know what I'm talking about?"
"Yes."
"But I've never seen it before. I don't understand how it's possible that I never saw it. It casts a shadow across the whole Site. I mean— Was it always there?"
"Yes."
"Is this because—"
"—you took your first routine dose of ops-grade mnestics this morning, yes."
Moreno seems alarmed. "That's how it works? Something that big can just be right there and we don't see it?"
"Yeah." Wheeler checks her watch, and mentally moves some scheduled commitments around. Extend this "smoke break" to the rest of the afternoon. Leave the scheduled inspection of SCP-3125 where it is. Review promotion cases after the gym instead of before. Evening meal… at this rate, never…
Moreno, suffocating under the weight of follow-up questions, finally asks, "What is it?"
Wheeler gestures to her left, down the corridor, indicating that she is about to walk, and that Moreno should follow her. "I will show you."

*

In the database it's SCP-9429. Moreno hasn't read the entry; she doesn't have access.
The stone is a single, unbroken, 91-by-91-by-147-metre vertical cuboid of ancient, weathered, dark basalt. It sits at a very slight angle, leaning fractionally to the north. Its regular angles clearly mark it as a carved object, a human-made artifact. It rises out of the forest to the east of Site 41 and dominates, not to say obliterates, the views in that direction from the windows of the Site's main block. It is, by volume, massively bigger than the Site itself, even including its underground extents. It looms. It is absolutely unmissable. The idea that anyone could fail to notice it for any period of time is, Wheeler has to admit, more than a little unnerving.
Wheeler leads Moreno up the short forest track to the stone's perimeter, and then right, following its perimeter, in its shadow. It's a wet day, and rain is dripping from the very top edge of the cube as well as from the conifers which grow right up beside it. The rain makes a constant white hiss, deadening other sounds.
"There's a weak antimemetic clouding effect surrounding it," Wheeler explains as she picks her way along the track ahead of Moreno. "To most people it's effectively invisible. You've been up to the top of some of these other hills, I'm sure. You should have seen it clearly from up there, as well, but you looked straight past it. That's normal. There's a related effect which removes people's memories after they've visited the stone. That effect is much stronger. It'll cut right through your mnestic drug regimen, and mine."
"So we'll forget all about this?" Moreno asks.
Wheeler holds up a battered little notebook and a cheap blue ballpoint. Moreno understands; she is carrying a notebook and pen as well. Information suppression is a complicated spectrum. Sometimes a written note is the only thing which will make it out of a zone which suppresses memories, electronic data, radio signals and even audible sound. Alongside the mandatory Foundation-issue "brickphone", many Antimemetics Division operatives habitually carry some combination of an instant camera, a mechanical tape-driven dictaphone, a notebook, a walkie-talkie…
Not that Moreno was expecting to need anything today.
"Of course," Wheeler continues, "one side-effect of the clouding is that I don't exactly remember the way. I guess we could set up sign posts, but somehow it never gets done… not because of antimemetic effects, you understand, just plain laziness… ah, this looks like the way up."
They come to a passage in the side of the stone. In fact it is not a passage but a tremendously deep groove, cut all the way from the top of the cube to its base, a slot with a thin line of overcast sky visible overhead and steps leading up. Wheeler begins to climb and Moreno follows. They climb in silence for some minutes. Moreno stops a few times to write down a note or two, hunching over to shield her notebook from the drizzle. Then she hurries to catch up with Wheeler, who maintains a steady, indifferent pace.
Some time after Moreno has lost count of the steps, the stepped groove makes a ninety-degree turn to the left and continues to ascend. Wheeler stops here, above Moreno, and turns to quiz her.
"What do you have so far?"
"What is this place?" Moreno asks.
"You tell me."
"Uhm." Moreno hesitates for a moment, uncertain where this is going. She checks her notes. "Uhm, well. Geologically speaking, this stone is an alien. At first I thought there had been a mountain on this spot which was excavated into this shape by human hands. But the rock itself is wrong. It's different from the mountains and hills near here. You'd have to travel at least five hundred kilometers to find basalt like this. Which means it must have been excavated elsewhere, maybe carved there, and moved here."
Wheeler says nothing, but her demeanour seems to indicate that Moreno is on the right track.
"Which isn't possible," Moreno continues. "This is a single stone. Judging from its dimensions and density, it must mass north of three million tonnes. That's now, after carving. And that can't be done. Human civilization cannot move objects of this size. Not in a single piece. The technology doesn't exist."
"Correct."
"So how did it get here?"
"Good question."
Moreno waits. She doesn't have the answer to the question, so she waits for Wheeler to supply it.
But Wheeler does not. "What else?"
"…It's been engraved," Moreno says, indicating the walls of the stepped passage. "Using tools. And I noticed the exterior walls are the same. There's a lot of weathering, but here and there between the biological crud there's this very clear, regular pattern. Right here, see? Tiny vertical rectangles. Like a… block cursor on an old computer terminal."

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"Or a tombstone in typography," Wheeler suggests.
Moreno blinks. "…Yes. It's a uniform pattern. Very detailed work, which would require quite good tools even by modern standards. I think this pattern is supposed to cover the entire exterior of the stone. And if that's the case, the blocks are so minuscule and the stone is so large that there must have originally been hundreds of millions of them."
"Correct," Wheeler says again. "Anything else?"
Moreno thinks for a minute. She stares up into the rain, reflecting on the atmosphere that the stone, or sculpture as she supposes it would be better described, projects. Loneliness, quiet, desolation, awe… intimidation. And some fear. Although, with that intimidating, fearful atmosphere, there's no sensation of danger. No threat.
"'We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture,'" she says aloud.
Wheeler hears this, but asks no follow-up question. Apparently satisfied, she turns and continues climbing the steps, and Moreno follows.
The passage makes several more turns, carving out an erratic, squared squiggle. Moreno takes no further notes. Her knees are about ready to explode by the time they reach the top.
They emerge, blinking at the light, on a wet, windswept, slightly slanted plateau. There are more of the tiny tombstone indentations underfoot. The edges of the cube are some distance away but they are not marked; the dark grey surface just ends at a straight line not far out, and the horizon itself is below it, not visible. This gives Moreno some vertigo, particularly since the surface tilts towards one corner, and the engraved basalt underfoot is slick, wet and getting wetter.
There is a small cluster of Foundation scientific equipment up here, chunky weatherproof units stacked up under a canopy. There's a table, with a rugged, beaten-up computer terminal, switched off. Further away is a diesel generator.
Wheeler ignores the equipment and paces away in a different direction, facing away from Moreno and out at the sky, playing with her cigarette lighter, although not actually lighting anything. The lighter is actually a tiny propane burner intended for lighting stoves, given to her by her mother before she died. Wheeler no longer remembers this.
Moreno waits for a while, arms folded for warmth, gradually getting wetter. She doesn't seek cover under the canopy, because Wheeler hasn't. She senses that something is about to happen. Wheeler is normally quite poised and difficult to read, but she looks apprehensive; upset, even. Focused intently on the lighter flame, Wheeler seems to be unable to look her in the eye, as if she doesn't want to push through with the next part of whatever this is actually supposed to be. Orientation? Initiation? Hazing?
What was that about getting to the point?
"It's a memorial," Moreno says.
"Hhn." Wheeler snaps the lighter shut and pockets it, moderately impressed. Only moderately, though. "That's right. Of course, I practically told you that, when I mentioned tombstones—"
"How many Antimemetics Wars have there been?"
That gets her. "Damn. So much for slow-burning theatrics. Someone told you? You read the entry?"
Moreno looks at her shoes. "Uhm. No. Really, I've never seen this place before. I was just guessing."
"You look embarrassed," Wheeler says. "You're embarrassed that you hit the right answer thirty minutes before I was expecting you to. You think you've shown me up. Right? Eli. Look at me."
She looks.
"Keep operating at that level. Don't slow up for my benefit, or anyone's. It's important."
"Will you tell me why we're here?" Moreno asks, for what she hopes will be the final time. And in another part of her mind, a fatal chain of calculations starts.

*

"The problem," Wheeler says, "is that every single person in the world with reliable access to high-grade mnestic medication works for me, here. And the Division is pitifully understaffed. There are forty of us, including you and me, and forty pairs of eyes is not enough. We cannot look at enough of the world at once. There is an appallingly large percentage of the world which no human has ever properly looked at. This is unbearably limiting to all forms of antimemetic research. Antimemetic biology, antimemetic paleontology, antimemetic cosmology, antimemetic archaeology… These disciplines, all of them, barely exist. They are nowhere.
"Nevertheless, we have seen this culture's cities. One or two still exist. Pure dumb luck is how we found them. A Division researcher takes a vacation, drives across Nevada while still on the dose… sees something on the horizon. That sort of thing. The cities are physically ruined, and there are heavy antimemetic effects shrouding them which make them nearly impossible to study, even for us. Large, simple things, like this stone, survived better, but even so… We think this stone was one of the last things they built before they died out.
"They were human. They were probably significantly more technologically advanced than we are. They existed tens of thousands of years ago; perhaps hundreds of thousands, we can't know for sure. It's difficult to determine what really happened to them because their entire cultural memeplex was lethally irradiated. Their core cultural concepts, the things they created, and stood for, and valued highly, can never be known or propagated again.
"We think an idea stole into their culture which they did not have adaptations to defend against. A complex of ideas. A Memeplectic/Keter-class end-of-world scenario."
Wheeler pauses, letting the rain patter for a significant moment.
"…And we just forgot?" Moreno asks. "The rest of us. Who survived the War, and became modern humanity. You and me and everybody. We, what, looked away? And walked away and 'moved on'?"
"Yes."
Moreno staggers, vertigo swelling up and briefly getting the better of her. "Hundreds of millions of people died and we just forgot? Is that what you wanted to show me? You want me to write that down?"
"Yes," Wheeler says. "Yes. Write this down. It's the first thing you're learning today. Humans can forget anything. It's okay to forget some things, because we are mortal and finite. But some things we have to remember. It's important that we remember. Write to yourself something which will make you remember."
Moreno nods. It's raining too heavily, so she retreats under the canopy and uses the table. Even so, a few rain drops spatter her notes. She writes intently and rapidly, for some time. What she writes is rushed and unrefined, with large parts crossed out. She wonders how she'll react when she reads it for the first time.
After a while, Wheeler joins her under the canopy.
Moreno, staring at her notes, asks Wheeler, as if she doesn't already know the answer: "And the second thing?"
Wheeler says:
"It is possible that their culture had an equivalent to the Foundation. It may even have had an Antimemetics Division. If they did, their Foundation, and their Antimemetics Division, failed them.
"It's a big reality. It's a big Foundation. There's a lot of Keters and a lot of Keter-class scenarios. So, maybe the end of the world will be some other Division's problem. And yes, a big part of the job we hired you for is basic research. Lab work, as safe as it gets. And yes, it's been thousands of years, and it may be thousands of years more.
"But maybe it won't. And maybe it will be our problem. To answer your original question, there has been one Antimemetics War that we know. Potentially others that we don't know of. And there is, undoubtedly, one to come."
Moreno says nothing. She looks dismayed, broken. She's right to be, and Wheeler is familiar with the reaction. This is, indeed, part of every new Antimemetics Division operative's orientation. The magnitude of responsibility can be hard to handle. It should be.
"Welcome to the Antimemetics Division," Wheeler says. "This is your first day."

*

Moreno writes for some time longer. Wheeler waits, silently. The rain doesn't let up.
"But what was it?" Moreno asks. "What was the idea?"
"SCP-9429-A," Wheeler says. "We isolated the memeplex itself in the Seventies. We have it on a slab in a Vegas room, basement level two. It's mostly harmless now. It's so culturally alien to modern humans as to be nearly incoherent. Think Egyptian hieroglyphs. I'll show you another day."
"I can read Egyptian hieroglyphs," Moreno says. "Are you saying it couldn't come back?"
"In that form, it's highly unlikely."
Moreno points at something, far away in the sky.
Wheeler looks. There's nothing out there. Just overcast sky and rain. "What do you see? Under heavy mnestic doses, some people say they see ghosts here. We even have some supposed interview logs. Personally, I think their veracity is dubious…"
"Um. It doesn't look like a ghost. It looks like a… an anorexic… kaiju. A monster. A pillar made of spiders. It's taller than this stone. At least twice as tall. It's coming here. Is this normal?"
"No." Wheeler is already racing through the checklist.
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
"This isn't part of the hazing?"
"No. I will never lie to you, Eli. I swear." An antimemetically cloaked entity which looks as monstrous as Moreno is describing has an approximately zero percent chance of being benign. They need support. Wheeler finds that her phone has no signal. Checking Moreno's is pointless, she already knows. The only way to get a message out of here is with a written note. A paper airplane, thrown off the top into the woods?
"It's bending down. I think it's looking at me," Moreno says, watching a space in the air descend. There isn't even a hole in the rain which Wheeler can perceive. "Its head is gigantic, it has to be ten meters wide. It has… graspers and arthropod legs all over it. Dozens of eyes. Some of them are blinded. There's someone riding it."
"What? Describe the rider."
"Caucasian male, twenties, skinny. Jeans, trainers, dirty brown hair, needs a haircut. He's been shot. He's bleeding out all over but he doesn't seem to notice. In the liver, and again in the throat, just above the clavicle. He's smiling. He… he says, 'No. That never happened.'"
Wheeler spends a split second wondering whether the gunshot wounds are intentionally creepy detailing, or whether the man is genuinely using some kind of advanced antimemetic power to ignore a mortal wound. And, if the latter, how, and how he originally sustained it. But more urgent questions are afoot. "He sees you?"
"Yes."
"Does he see me? Hear me?"
Moreno is transfixed and is starting to look genuinely frightened. "He wants to know who I'm talking to."
"Don't tell him. He doesn't get information about us, understand?" Wheeler pulls her walkie-talkie from her waist, sets it to broadcast an emergency beacon, turns and hurls it overarm as far as she possibly can, in the direction of the Site 41 main building. With luck, it'll land intact in the forest, outside the suppression zone cast by SCP-9429, summoning a Mobile Task Force. "Ask who he is."
Moreno is standing very still, with her arms clamped rigidly at her side. "Who are you?… He says… he says he's nearly finished. He says he's going to kill me."
"Like hell. Eli, listen to me. We're running for it. Back down the steps. If we can get to the perimeter of the stone it'll flush our memories."
"I can't move."
Wheeler hauls on one of Moreno's arms. She can't be moved. "Put one foot in front of the other!"
"It's got a hold of me." Moreno is goggle-eyed and starting to hyperventilate.
Wheeler disengages and surveys the situation. She can't see or touch any grasping spider legs, or the monumental face which Moreno can't look away from, or the rider. But she believes Moreno that they're there, real for some value of "real". She claps one hand to her side; but of course she isn't carrying her sidearm, because this is a Safe SCP on a Safe Site, and why would she be? Not that it even makes a difference when this mythical rider is able to laugh off gunshot wounds. There aren't enough options in front of her. She very badly wants to swear, and bites down hard on her tongue.
Moreno screams.
"Eli!" Wheeler shouts. "Don't look at it. Look at me."
"I can't."
"You're stronger than this."
"I'm not," Moreno cries.
"You're the best we have," Wheeler says. "I'm not making that up. You're seeing this thing when nobody else could. That makes you smarter and stronger. You can fight it. Invasion drill!"
"It hates us so much," Moreno says. "I can't think through it. I can't see. Please. Please don't."
Wheeler knocks her out. She circles behind Moreno, plants one hand on her shoulder for stability and punches her behind the ear. Moreno sags in place, then falls forward to her knees. Wheeler is just about able to catch her before her skull connects with the ground.
But she didn't hit her hard enough. Moreno is unconscious only for a second. She struggles as she comes back. It's like she's waking from a nightmare into another nightmare. She clutches at Wheeler's hand. She can't scream. Her heart stops.
Wheeler rolls her over and administers CPR, but without equipment there's very little chance of her restarting Moreno's heart.
Nobody's coming. She didn't throw the walkie-talkie far enough.
It's almost fifteen minutes before she gives up.

*

And then Wheeler is collapsed against the wall of the passage, on the next-to-last step, about to leave SCP-9429's field of influence, trying to figure out what in the fuck she can possibly write to herself.
What the hell was that thing? All Moreno did was think of it and it killed her. She was as good as any of us. She was as capable as she was ever going to be and she wasn't good enough. How do you fight an antimemetic monster which only eats the best antimemeticists?
You… you could try to build some kind of countermeme. But you'd need to be shielded while you worked on it. You'd need a hermetically sealed, self-sustaining lab as big as an arcology. Like the ones Bart Hughes used to build. Like… the one under Site 41.
God. How long have we been fighting this thing?
There's a rustling behind her. She turns to look. Far away up the steps, there he is, the rider Moreno described. A scrawny young man with a hostile frown and, yes, two steadily oozing gunshot wounds. His shoes are soaked in blood.
He calls out, "Marion Wheeler! I owe you for the lake."
Wheeler stands up. She doesn't know what lake he's talking about. But she says nothing.
The rider gestures. Blue and brown and black spiders of all sizes cascade around the corner, flooding the passageway up to his knees, pouring over his shoulders, tumbling down towards Wheeler. They make a strange, organic rustling as they pour, like wet leaves. There must be millions of them. The spiders would probably be much more effective if she was at all afraid of them.
It's too bad. She's just learned a great deal about this entity; that they have history together, and that it personally dislikes her, and that it apparently has a humanoid mouthpiece… and a lousy imagination. But she has only a second before the cascade of arachnids overcomes her, and that's not enough time to even write a single word. Moreno's death, then, was for nothing.
She steps backwards, over the threshold.

*

The rain is finally easing off. Wheeler lights a cigarette and heads back to the main building. It's almost time for her scheduled inspection of SCP-3125.

Next: CASE HATE RED


“It's going to be worse today.”
The voice slithered out of the darkest corner of the pantry in a sinuous almost-whisper, and Dierdre's eyes widened when she heard it. She felt no fear, only surprise and curiosity. Her hand froze in midair, not quite daring to reach for the box of Fruity Pebbles. Her mouth crept into a solemn worry-line, an odd thing to see on a little girl's face.
“Go on, Dierdre, get your cereal."
The voice sounded like how spider legs felt, but she still, for some reason, was not afraid. Standing on tippy-toe, she reached the third shelf of the pantry and pulled the cereal box down into her arms.
“How'dja know my name?” she tentatively inquired, as the storm began to rage upstairs. She could hear the bellows of Bad Words and white-hot shrieks, the whirlwind of curses and objects being thrown against the walls. Mommy and Karl were having a discussion again. Mommy called them discussions, anyways, but Dierdre knew that what she really meant was that a nasty fight was underway.
Mommy always came downstairs after the discussions with poorly concealed bruises, reeking of cigarette smoke. She would smile and things would be okay for a little while, but not always, never always no matter how many times she promised.
That's why Dierdre had the Radio Game.
The Radio Game was a little game that she played, one she invented all by herself. When Dierdre played the Radio Game, Mommy and Karl's discussions weren't really there. They were just broadcasts on the radio, and all Dierdre had to do was reach into her brain and turn the dial until they became harmless crackles of static that couldn't scare her anymore. She played her little game whenever things got too weird or too scary (which seemed to be more often than not, these days) and she'd gotten so good at it that she hardly noticed the discussions at all anymore.
But, lately, things had gotten a little strange.
She'd been playing the Radio Game as soon as she opened her eyes to the sound of screaming in the mornings, lately. It had become so natural that she'd actually forgotten it was only pretend. The dial must have been broken, or maybe just stuck. Whatever the reason, she supposed that the voice in the pantry must have had something to do with it.
“Eat your breakfast, Dierdre,” it instructed, as if on cue. “We'll talk.”
“Okay,” Dierdre said obediently, and opened the cabinet for a bowl and a spoon. She set the items down carefully on the tabletop, and filled the bowl with rainbow-colored, sugary goodness. She retrieved a heavy gallon of milk from the refrigerator and succeeded in filling her bowl without spilling a drop. Despite the voice's insistence, she didn't sit down to eat until the milk and box were back in their proper places, like Mommy taught her. However, she left the pantry door ajar, and studied its depths with the careful sort of scrutiny reserved for the doddering elderly and toddlers on the verge of kidhood.
The cereal was good, and she munched happily. She could hear vague screaming upstairs, but she hardly paid it any mind. There were more interesting things at hand, presently.
“It's getting worse,” the voice said conversationally, “much worse. It was never this bad before.”
“Yeah,” Dierdre agreed resignedly, and swung her feet beneath the table.
“It bothers you.”
She felt a funny little chill run down her spine at those words, and a strange feeling, like she'd walked into a spider's web and that the stickily intrusive threads were clinging to her skin. A yucky feeling.
“I guess,” she said, a little uncomfortable, nervously chewing on her spoon. “Who are you, anyways?”
She did not receive an immediate answer. There was a brief but perceptible pause and the question seemed to hang on the air, unanswered. She could hear the chaos upstairs with perfect clarity, as if she had been standing in the room with her mother. All she could hear were words she had been told never to say. Grown-up talk. She didn't like it. It sounded ugly and mean.
“I'm your friend, Dierdre,” the voice finally responded. “I'm your friend and I want to help you.”
“Okay,” she acquiesced. She liked friends, but namely, she didn't want to have to listen to the commotion any longer. The voice certainly was good at making a distraction for her.
“Why do you live in the pantry?” she inquired.
“It's a good place to hide,” it responded. “You know all about that. Don't you, Dierdre? About hiding?”
A particularly loud crash from upstairs diverted her attention. Something heavy, she thought. Karl wasn't big and strong like Daddy had been, but for some peculiar reason, he seemed to have a knack for throwing heavy objects around during discussions. Maybe it was all the horseshoes he played, maybe not, but whatever the reason, it made her nervous.
“The way he looks at you,” the voice interrupted, “that makes you nervous, too? Doesn't it?”
“I guess so,” she admitted reluctantly, not wanting to recall the thing that she'd tried to forget about, had only even thought of because the voice had mentioned it. Mommy gave her a t-shirt to wear to bed once. It was baggy on her, and there was a big open part in the front.
“He looked at me. And he…asked me to sit in his lap,” she explained, rubbing her arms, her skin suddenly crawling with remembered discomfort. “It made me feel like there were bugs all over me.”
It was difficult for her to explain the way she felt, the way his hand rested on her thigh, and the way her entire leg had seemed to writhe with horrible discomfort.
Mommy was crying upstairs. The yelling surged, then died, then rose up again, horribly. Dierdre had heard enough, she decided, and reached for the dial-
-but nothing happened. She had to listen.
Had to.
The thought made her feel that yucky, spider-webby feeling again. She rubbed her arms briskly, trying to rid herself of the imagined, gossamer threads, then carried her bowl to the sink. She'd done okay, there were only a couple of pebbles floating in the milk, and they were too soggy to eat, anyways. Usually, she would start another bowl and watch some cartoons. By the time a few of the boring ones had ended, Mommy would finish discussing things with Karl and she'd come downstairs and join her on the couch. Her face would be puffy, but they'd talk and laugh together at Scooby. Dierdre longed fiercely for Mommy to come downstairs now and watch Scooby. But-
“Your Mommy doesn't like watching Scooby very much anymore,” said the voice. “Not since she hurt her arm.”
For the first time, Dierdre started feeling afraid. She didn't want the voice to talk about that. She didn't want anyone to talk about that, not ever, she didn't even want to think about it. It was just a movie. It was just a bad dream. It hadn't happened.
“Mommy needs time to get better,” she said adamantly, trying with all her might to stop the bad movie in her head that wanted to play. In the movie, Mommy was going down the stairs with her big bag, and Karl was yelling in his scary mean voice and grabbing Mommy's arm, grabbing Mommy's arm and shaking her, shaking her by the arm until she screamed, and there was that crack noise, that awful noise like sticks breaking. And later, after they came home from the hospital with Mommy's hand in a big white sling, Mommy told her it was just a movie. Just a scary movie, just a bad dream. It wasn't real, it hadn't happened, she'd just fallen down the stairs. It wasn't the way Dierdre thought, so she mustn't tell, or else-
“It wasn't a movie or a dream. It wasn't on T.V. You were awake. You saw it. You know you did,” insisted the voice.
“You can't know this stuff!” Dierdre shouted.
She could still hear the noises upstairs. The slaps and the crashes, the bad words and the screams. Mommy was crying. Mommy was saying “please”. Dierdre covered her ears and whimpered. Karl told her on many an occasion that crying was for babies, but she really felt like crying right now. She couldn't even find the dial, let alone turn it to make the noise stop.
“It's okay, Dierdre,” the pantry said alluringly. “Why don't you come in here with me?”
Her mother's voice, bursting free from the din, the sound of a caged bird which has taken flight briefly, only to be slammed back into its prison.
“Karl, Please! Pleeeeeaaassse!”
Diedre darted into the pantry, ducked under the lowest shelf, huddled in the corner, and drew her legs up to her chest. She did not shut the door, but the sounds were slightly muffled in here without her having to do so. It was cold, but not uncomfortably so. A breath of stale air hissed in through a crack in the wall, from the basement, and tickled the nape of her neck. She shuddered all over at the sensation, but did not move from her position.
“My poor DeeDee,” the voice consoled, seemingly all around her. She closed her eyes, briefly comforted by it. DeeDee was her special nickname. Only Mommy and Daddy called her DeeDee.
“You just want it to stop,” the voice crooned. A spider slithered out of the corner of the pantry and climbed onto her shoulder. She did not flinch as it crawled up her neck, made its way down the length of her hair. It felt like a comforting hand, a warm touch in the darkness.
“I can help you.”
Mommy screamed.
It was the most horrible thing that Dierdre had ever heard, and she cowered away from it, burrowing her face in the corner of the pantry, pressing the palms of her hands against her ears so hard it hurt. Even still, she could hear it. She could hear Karl snarling and growling and howling. Mommy wasn't even saying “please” anymore. That's when Dierdre at once understood that things were REALLY BAD this time. The discussions usually were over once Mommy started saying “please”. It was the magic word, after all, but Karl seemed to not care about manners, now, not anymore. Something REALLY, REALLY BAD was about to happen. Or happening already. She shook all over with helpless fear.
“You have to do something, DeeDee. Something to make it stop.”
“But how?” she moaned. She was only a little girl, so little. All she wanted was to watch Scooby with Mommy and Daddy, but Daddy was gone forever. Mommy got herself all mixed up with Karl, and Dierdre was all alone, now.
“Look at the floor, Dierdre. Go on. Look.”
She did. On the ground, not an inch away from her feet, was a yellow bottle. There was a picture of red fire on it. It also said some words that she couldn't read. The bottle was very dusty. She remembered that Daddy used to use it on the grill for cookouts in the summer, but since Karl never cooked anything, the bottle was left at the bottom of the pantry. Daddy always told her never to touch the bottle because it could make a fire.
The voice told her what to do.
“No,” Dierdre said, her thumb finding her mouth and staying there. “I'm not supposed to.”
“Just this once, DeeDee. Just this once is okay.”
Upstairs, Mommy was screaming again. Dierdre felt an urge to scream with her, to commiserate her agony.
Instead, she picked up the bottle.
“You know where Mommy keeps them. Right next to the microwave, in the little frog dish.”
“I'm not supposed to,” she said again.
“Just this once, DeeDee. Go on.”
The matches were right where she knew they would be, next to the microwave in the frog's mouth. She picked them up, looked at them dubiously… then put them right back where she found them.
She didn't need the matches, she realized. She didn't need the matches at all.
Dierdre unscrewed the bottle of lighter fluid, and let it spill out. It glugged and splashed and stank, but she had work to do. She soaked the curtains and the dish towels. She dumped it into the recycling bin that was filled with cardboard, emptied half of it into the big barrel of trash. She poured a line of it across the floor, out the door, and into the living room. When the bottle was empty, she tossed it onto the couch. She stepped around the mess she had made, and retreated in the direction of the pantry, out of the way.
“Now," the voice urged.
Dierdre looked at the kitchen, and the flames sprouted everywhere. Hungrily, they trailed across the floors, crept up the cupboards, spread down the walls and across the ceiling in lazy, blazing tendrils of impending destruction.
But it wasn't enough.
More, she thought, her hands swelling with unnatural heat, her eyes crackling, her heart vibrating in her chest. Make it stop. She had to make it stop.
The curtains caught, and then the trash barrel. Somewhere, the smoke detector began to wail, but she paid it no mind. Fire, the robotic female voice inside the device announced, uselessly. Fire.
All Dierdre had to do was nudge with her mind, and the blaze spread even further. Flames crept up the curtains and engulfed them. The carpet in the living room too began to smolder. The family couch was a nest of burning death.
"Enough," the voice murmured.
The work complete, Dierdre slipped backwards into the pantry, closing the door behind her.
She could smell what she had done, and hear it, and feel the heat. She cowered in the corner, frightened. She had done a very bad thing. She had started a fire. Her trembling, reddened hands were smoking.
“It's all right, DeeDee. Good work."
Dierdre realized that Karl was the one who was screaming, now, but it didn't make her feel good. It made her feel awful, actually. She played the Radio Game to turn the noise down, and curled downwards into a miserable coil of sickness and shame.
The house burned around her, and in the spidery darkness, she wept.


by Captain Kirby

O5-4 never gets messages during the daily O5 meeting. Except for today. After he felt the buzz, Four took his phone out to set it to "Do Not Disturb". He glanced down at it out of instinct, and caught the message on the screen:
Kirkland - Dammerung Update: someone is in Site-2718. More info on your personal line.
Oh fuck.
Four had to stop himself from saying anything out loud. His eyes lingered on the screen, reading it again to make sure he parsed it right.
The overseer sitting next to Four turned to him, "Everything ok?"
"Umm, sorry," Four said as he shoved his phone back in his pocket, "This is urgent. I have to take this in my office." He packed up some papers and stood to leave the conference room.
"For when the vote comes, put me down in favor of classifying the AR suits as normal."
And then he briskly walked out of the room. The other overseers didn't think much of Four's exit. Besides, there's so much going in the Foundation, if every overseer required complete knowledge of what every other overseer directed, nothing would ever get done. They trusted each other enough not to ask too many questions.
Meanwhile, Four had broken into a sprint back to his office. It's times like this that he wished he had picked a room closer to the main conference room, instead of in the opposite wing, on a different floor. So six hallways and two flights of stairs later (he never takes the elevator when going only one floor up), Four burst into his office, locked the door behind him, and took a moment to breathe at his desk.
"Fuck," he muttered to himself. Then he took a deep breath, and picked up the phone.

Some time in 2014, O5-4 became afraid of death. His brother, niece, and mentor all passed away within weeks of each other. The first died in a drunk driving accident. The second was shot during her third period math class. The third died of a heart-attack at the age of 86. It was a lot. O5-4 didn't deal with it all too well. He went by Daniel back then, so he would hear a lot of
"Oh, Daniel, I'm so sorry."
"Daniel, if there's anything you need to talk about, just give me a call."
"You can take a break if you want, Daniel. Take a few days to mourn."
And Daniel did. But it didn't help much. Death was something that happened to D-class and MTF agents. Not to friends and family. He had trouble processing it. Didn't help that the three funerals were scheduled each one day apart. In the end, Daniel never really got over it.
But really, it's not too surprising. Foundation personnel rarely dealt with death well to begin with.

"Hello."
"Is this O5-4?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"Erica Dunders? You asked me to look over the Project Dammerung funding."
"Right right. You said someone is in Site-2718?"
"Yes. I just got back the power bill for the site. It's higher than it usually is. Like someone has been running the lights and power outlets all day."
"Intruders?"
"Maybe? They didn't set off any alarms so maybe its someone from the original team?"
O5-4 placed the receiver face up on his desk, and then pulled up a list of the researchers on the project. He went through one by one, checking their current assignment and status within the Foundation.
"Umm… hello? Sir? Are you still there?"
There it was. O5-4 clicked on the link to Dr. Emily Young's assignment status.

Last Position: Lead Researcher of SCP-4514.
Current Position: Unassigned

In 2018, Daniel was recruited to join the O5 council. The reasons were never made clear to him, but then again dealing with the upper echelons of the Foundation is murky business. He replaced the previous O5-4 who simply "could not continue to fulfill their obligations as part of the council."
Three days after receiving his new title, Daniel began cultivating a small team. It was an open secret that every O5 member had pet projects that only they knew about. This was Daniel's. And the first person who he cleared to be on the team was none other than a zealous Emily Young.
He'd met her while spending time at Site-44. He was supposed to be talking to the research leads there about possible changes to D-Class testing regulations, when he noticed Emily literally running through the halls with a stack of papers in her hand. She nearly crashed into Daniel, sending loose-leave flying.
"Oh! Sorry!" Emily said as she crouched down and started picking up papers.
"It's fine, just slow down a little," Daniel replied, "what's so important anyway?"
"Test results."
"Test results for what?"
Emily stopped to look up at Daniel, "For the damn inside thing. I think we figured it out!"
"Oh. Well… good work then."
Daniel didn't know what Emily was talking about, but something about her enthusiasm made him interested. She cleaned up her papers and scampered off shouting "eureka" as she rounded the corner.
When Daniel got back to his office at Site-01, he did a brief search for Foundation research reports with the word "inside" in the title. Most recent one that popped up was authored by one Emily Young.
Two months later, he called her to offer her position on his little project.

O5-4 picked up the receiver again.
"When did you say the energy bill got hiked?"
"About a month or so ago? Hard to tell exactly. We don't pay for utilities once a day."
O5-4 dug through the Project Dammerung folder on his computer. He hadn't had to open it ever since the start of ΩK, until about a month ago when he added a new, special version of the SCP-4514 document. It was largely the same as the one on the public database, except for a modified discovery section:

Discovery: On 5/14/2130, SCP-4514 was recovered following a violent altercation between two inebriated individuals Foundation Agent Alexander Durango and a civilian named Benjamin Wolt. The quarrel resulted in SCP-4514 being used to kill one of the involved persons Wolt. Foundation personnel were alerted after the local paper published a story covering the event, who administered amnestics to all witnessing parties. A disinformation campaign was run thereafter to discredit the news agency.
The following is an interview conducted with Durango following the recovery of SCP-4514:

Interviewer: Afternoon Alex.
Durango: Afternoon. This just going to be the standard after-incident interview?
Interviewer: Yeah. I'll just start with the usual question: where did you get the knife?
Durango: A close friend gave it to me a long, long time ago.
Interviewer: What friend?
Durango: He's not around anymore. He died a few days before Omega-K started.
Interviewer: That doesn't mean he doesn't have a name.
Durango: Fair, fair. His name was Anthony Michaels.
Interviewer: Did Michaels do anything… interesting to the knife?
Durango: Not that I can think of. Although I can't be sure. It was really important to him. Carried around everywhere. A gift from his dad when he joined the Foundation.
Interviewer: Huh. You know why he would give you something so personal?
Durango: Not sure. Just got it in the mail one day with a letter that said "take good care of it". Obviously I fucked that part up.
Interviewer: I see. Well, I think that's all from me. Good luck with your supervisor.
Durango: Thanks, I'll need it.

Fourteenth of May. O5-4 double-checked the calendar. Seventeenth of June.
"Fuck."
"Excuse me sir?"

Of all of the things Daniel never thought to plan for, it was over-completion of his objective. The goal of Project Dammerung was selective immortality: to allow certain individuals to live forever. This meant that Daniel prepared for the possibility of accidentally killing people, or accidentally hurting people, or simply giving elongated life instead of immortality. He thought the margin of error would be focused on the "immortality" part of the goal, not on the "selective" part.
This is why on September 12th of 2020, Daniel had to work entirely off the cuff to hide Project Dammerung from the rest of the Foundation. He ordered the records be destroyed. That the site be deserted. He ordered the amnestization of the entire project team. He asked for a lot. Obviously some of that fell through the cracks. He had recruited excited researchers who could keep their lips shut, but he didn't look at loyalty too closely.
However, he didn't think too much about the possibility that his team might simply desert him. Less than a minute after he got off his last call with Emily, he was summoned to an emergency O5 Council meeting.
The meeting opened with the expected questions: what exactly is happening and how can it be contained? They laid out a priority list:

Population Control
Veil Control
Terminal State Replacement

After the last priority was written on the board, Daniel could feel himself start to speak, almost on reflex.
"Why do we need to fix it?"
The entire council turned to him. He resisted the urge to fidget with his pen.
"This obviously falls outside of baseline," O5-9 replied, "We need to reestablish normalcy. It's the cornerstone of what we do here."
"Right, but what if this isn't reversible?"
"We haven't even started research into it."
"I know but it would be silly to put our resources into finding a solution that doesn't exist!"
Daniel tried hard to believe the words he was saying. But he didn't care about wasting resources. He just wanted to keep his immortality.
"Four, this conversation is not conducive to our current situation. We can revisit this issue after we've made some progress," O5-1 said.
Daniel conceded the point, and left the meeting crestfallen. The Foundation was full of smart people. They were bound to figure something out if they tried hard enough.
At least that's what Daniel told himself for the next year. And when no progress had been made he hedged the statement a little more. And then a little more the next year. And then ten years had gone by, and still no one had a damn clue how to deal with ΩK. It helped that Emily put herself in a coma five years in.
So, Daniel pieced together a proposal. He put it forth during the O5 Council meeting.

Proposal Date: 9/16/2030
Update Proposal: Reclassification of immortality among species in the kingdom Animalia as non-anomalous.
Dialog:
It's been just over 10 years since the start of the ΩK-Class "End of Death" Scenario. The world has been exposed to the phenomenon of immortality the entire time, and has begun to adjust to it, while we continue to throw valuable time and resources at attempting to reverse this phenomenon. Thus far, there is no progress in sight.
While I agree that immortality is certainly not within what we should consider a baseline reality, returning the world to baseline would most likely have more disastrous consequences than leaving things the way they are. People would have to relearn what it means to fear death, to fear danger. A large portion of the population would most likely kill themselves within a week of the restoration to baseline. And even then the entire human population would have been exposed to the existence of this anomaly.
Some have discussed the possibility of administrating amnestics world-wide to cause a hard reset; the act of inducing amnesia in the entire human race would most-likely be as catastrophic as restoring death without alerting anyone.
At this point in time, the most reasonable course of action would be to accept the world as it is now. Once we can accept the nature of the situation, we can focus our efforts on maintaining our new baseline.
Conclusion: Proposal passed by a vote of 7-5-1.

O5-4 hung up the phone, forgetting to thank Erica for the alert. He was not about to lose his most prized possession because some researchers regretted their actions from a hundred years ago. Emily was not going to take his immortality away. O5-4 sent a message to his secretary:

From: O5-4
To: Greg Kirklan
Subject: URGENT: Dammerung Emergency
Message:
Send Red Right Hand to Site-2718.

Hundred-Year Favor

End of Death

Where Death Used To Live


In the next instant, all hell broke loose. The crack of rifles filled the air. Foundation operatives poured into the room amidst a hail of bullets.

The city was a bright beacon, set amidst a gloomy backdrop of rural fields. A black van followed a lonely two-lane road toward the distant lights. Moonlight spilled through the front windshield, and cast a ghostly glow on the van's silent occupants.
Agent Grayson was behind the wheel, focused on driving. This left Agent Bouchard free to gaze out the window and let his thoughts drift through each element of tonight's operation.
It was December 24th — Christmas Eve. Businesses had closed early; people were home with their families. If not for this mission, Bouchard would be home with his. But they had an objective:
Alex Petrikov. Ex-military; an anomalous bomb-maker disavowed by the Russian government, implicated in several anoterror events. Considered an influential and active threat, a priority target for all the relevant authorities. Last night, the Foundation intercepted a message that Petrikov had been sighted. MTF Omega-20 was here to seize the opportunity.
Towards the rear of the van, Miguel Barrientos occupied himself with checking and re-checking his equipment. Really, he was avoiding staring too much at the man seated across from him: Bill Adams was uneasy around "psychic mind-reader crap". Of course Miguel didn't literally hear other people's thoughts, but Adams' wariness was palpable nonetheless.
Agent Barrientos represented one of his squad's "extra-normal assets" (or a WOLF, if one cared to use the coded designations), operatives with psychic abilities that could be applied in missions. His involved a receptiveness to the people in his surroundings - he could pick up on their moods, their dispositions, the essence of their reactions. This was how he'd first been recruited by the Foundation, trained and transferred to Psionics Division, and ultimately assigned to Omega-20.
Agent Adams was once a New York City patrol cop whose investigation into a string of vandalism led to an encounter with the anart community. His actions in that case impressed the Foundation's responding agents enough that he was considered and hired. In the years since that time he had patrolled the control rooms and corridors of many Sites, participated in numerous missions, and earned a reputation as a reliable field operative. A prime example of Omega-20's LANCE operatives: combat-trained and hardened by experience, willing and capable of executing any orders to further the Foundation's goals.

Agent Bouchard descended a stairwell, exited into an alley, and returned to the van. In a vacant unit on the opposite side of the building, a local Foundation agent had pointed out the derelict two-storey redbrick building across the street. She verified that the target had been followed here, and that nobody had left the building since then. There was very little civilian presence in this neighbourhood to be concerned with. Bouchard expected as much, given the absence of festive decorations on any building in sight.
Back in his seat, Bouchard addressed his men. "We'll play SWAT team, in and out quick and hot. Our objective, we take alive; any other hostiles are expendable." He paired Grayson with Adams and two other LANCEs; Barrientos with himself. Grayson kept the headlights off as he eased the van out of the alley, around the block, and parked up just short of the house.
Swift and silent, each operative filed out of the van and stacked up at the corner of the redbrick building. Following an exchange of hand signals, Adams and Grayson's team swept around the rear of the building. One by one the operatives shuffled into place, allowing the next team member to bound to position, until the last man was around the corner and out of view.
As the two stood alone for a minute, Barrientos' focus wandered: this equipment was much more high-tech than anything he'd gotten to use in the Philippine Marine Corps. How would the action compare to his experience? Barrientos was the newest addition to this team, and younger than any of his teammates. Bouchard's thoughts suddenly overshadowed his own. The other team was in position; time to breach the door.
Barrientos sensed the presence of men inside. He stood ready to fire once the entrance was opened. Bouchard positioned himself and heaved his boot forward. Extra telekinetic force behind the kick put the whole door off it's hinges, knocking down the terrorist directly behind.
In the next instant, all hell broke loose. The crack of rifles filled the air. Foundation operatives poured into the room amidst a hail of bullets that seemed miraculously (in truth, at Grayson's will) to land everywhere but their intended targets. Terrorists dropped until only the members of Omega-20 were left standing.
"Room clear," Adams declared as he led his fireteam across the dilapidated living room, their new focus a doorway into to a kitchen and dining area.
Barrientos picked up on the presence of a hostile coming from the top of the stairs. He was already poised when the man with the Kalashnikov's head dropped into view, and a few 7.52 mm rounds reduced it to a gory pulp.
"Lances, sweep the rest of this floor," ordered Bouchard. "Grayson, hold here. Barrientos, with me." He indicated the way up to the next floor. Barrientos nodded and took point.
Climbing the stairs placed the men at the end of a dark hallway with two doors on either side. Bouchard pointed his barrel down the length of the hall, covering his squadmate while they cleared each bedroom. Barrientos swept through them all, only to confirm his initial read: there was nobody else upstairs.
Upon regrouping with Grayson the team was beckoned into the adjoining kitchen by Adams. The LANCE Team had uncovered hidden access to a basement level. A narrow stairway descended into a cramped space, dominated by a long workbench in the centre. The surface of the bench seemed divided into several workstations, all of them cluttered with tools and materials, and partially assembled explosive devices. All but one, a corner of the bench which was bare.
A hole in the wall gave way to a low-ceilinged tunnel. The man who had investigated it reported that the other side came out into some sort of utility tunnel - from there a person could pop up at any number of surface access points… Barrientos slammed a fist into the wall and cursed that their target got away.
"Not quite cleanly, though." Grayson was analysing a piece of cardboard affixed to another wall, riddled with thumbtacks holding up handwritten notes, photographs, and maps. "Looks like they had a handful of targets in mind; likely for some coordinated series of hits." Gesturing to the incomplete bombs left on the bench, "And now they don't have the means to make that happen."
"So," Barrientos followed. "We have to figure out which of these targets he'll still go after…"

Six days later
A tense silence filled the black van, which tonight was parked near the front of a fashionable boutique hotel. The van was inconspicuous among the other vehicles in the lot, but from inside offered a wide view of the driveway to the entrance and, through floor-to-ceiling windows, into the lobby itself.
Bouchard sat still as a stone in his seat up front. Only his eyes scanned back and forth, taking in the details of the scene. This was a familiar part of the process: The team would arrive on scene, their leader would read the situation, and then come up with a plan. But they had been sitting quietly for hours now, and boredom was turning into unease.
Bouchard, Psionics Division veteran that he was, seemed to be perpetually unreadable. So Barrientos tried his companions in the backseats for insight. "Is something wrong," he whispered. "We got the right place here, right?" Adams regarded the question with a side-eyed glance, but said nothing.
"For sure we do." Agent Louise Galena was present for tonight's mission. She was a petite woman with an inversely proportional attitude; skilled at turning on the charms when an attractive feminine lure might pull a quarry into vulnerable position, but otherwise had no tolerance for being mistreated. "That Tracking MTF came in and analysed all the evidence, started staking out the potential spots…"
"Yeah yeah, and again the man himself falls right into their laps." Barrientos knew this much already. A New Year's Eve gala was to be hosted in the hotel ballroom, the reason it was among the slated targets. An undercover agent following a lead finds Petrikov staying as a guest, likely to plant the bomb in advance of the party.
"Sounds a lot like a certain night about a week ago," Adams muttered. It was a concern shared by Barrientos, that this could end like last time. And if that happened, there wouldn't be a next time.
"That wasn't anyone's fault," Louisa countered. "The tunnel was an unknown factor. And this time we've got him where there's no way out unseen."
"Is that the problem for us too, then?" Barrientos guessed. "That we'll be seen dragging the guy out?"
Grayson twisted so he could fix a stern gaze on all three in the backseat at once. It didn't take any special ability to read 'Cut it out' in his expression. Silence once again filled the space.
"Barrientos," Bouchard spoke at last. "Get a load of this guy."
Leaning up forward, he could see the guy in question. Strolling from the elevators, across the lobby to the exit. An aura of satisfaction radiated off of him; more than satisfied, the man was euphoric. "He really likes staying at this hotel." Realization came a second after, and he immediately substituted the correct answer: "He's high on drugs."
Bouchard gave a nod of approval. "He only just went in an hour ago. At least the third guy I've seen follow the same pattern."
"I'll bet prostitutes are involved," Adams spoke up. "Some pimp pusher setting these johns up with a gram and a girl, and charge even more for being in a nice joint like this as if-"
"Alright," Galena interrupted before Adams' rant got out hand. "What does it mean for us?"
"Put a call in to the nearest Site with a motor pool, get their best approximation of an ambulance. Uniforms to match, stretcher essential." Bouchard went on to explain what each of them would be doing when it was time to act.

Eric Burns, the hotel's overnight concierge, glanced around the lobby: no one in sight. He returned his attention to his iPhone.
He was about to beat his high score in Angry Birds when he heard the chirp of a siren. His head snapped up. Police lights washed through the glass entrance, bathing the lobby in a spinning red glow. Two paramedics and three officers stepped inside.
Eric fumbled to hide his phone under the counter and rushed out to meet them. "Excuse me! Excuse me, can I help you?"
Adams, being dressed as a police detective, spoke first. "Responding to an emergency call. Drug overdose," he said at uncomfortably high volume. Eric instinctively looked around, relieved there weren't any guests within earshot. Now, upon seeing a well-practiced flash of a fake badge, he would allow Adams to escort him back toward the desk where they could speak discreetly. The uniformed policeman Barrientos trailed behind.
As this went on, Bouchard and Galena, dressed as EMTs, pushed a stretcher toward the elevators. Telekinetically pressing the button from across the room maybe only saved seconds, but in this work seconds counted for a lot. Grayson, dressed as another beat cop, hovered behind until the elevator arrived, then joined Galena and Bouchard for the ride up.
Adams and Barrientos accomplished much of their purpose through tactful intimidation. Simply by choosing where they stood and their posture they had Eric away from the desk phone, where he could complicate things by calling someone. Adams asked Eric what he knew.
"I don't know anything!" was the response. Barrientos mused to himself how true that was.
"So you say the caller didn't notify the front desk?"
"N-no," Eric stammered. "Not that I know of."
"Other staff are working?" Adams followed up. Eric noted a couple of maintenance staff and custodians who were in the building. "Nobody else at the desk though?" There was not. "So if they had called, you would know." Even though he was intentionally stalling for time, Adams still found these circular conversations grating.

"We need him alive, to make him talk about the bomb. It could be planted already."
Bouchard nodded in agreement with Grayson. "Yes."
"Well. I mean, I can paralyze him temporarily. But if he dies… There's a chance it could kill him. If it's for too long; if he reacts bad…"
"It's temporary. Once we know it's him inside, do it. Just as long as it takes us to open the door." The matter-of-fact way Bouchard described it was reassuring. "Galena has the mundane sedative, once that's in him we're good to go."
Grayson nodded. "Good to go."

"Look," Adams glared down at the nametag. "Eric. These guys," he hooked a thumb toward Barrientos. "These guys are here, routine response. Me," gesturing now to his own suit and shoes. "I'm a guy with cases to work. I'll tell you this much: I know something's up around here."
He let that hang in the air, looking for a tell. "And either I'm looking at a guy who turns a blind eye to the comings and goings of certain individuals, maybe in exchange for a little pocket lining…"

On the cue of a chime, the elevator doors slid open. Grayson rested a hand on the grip of his Nighthawk T4 9mm pistol, ready to draw as he stepped out first. The corridor was deserted. He was about to wave out the others when the door to a nearby room pulled open.
Grayson tensed, but it was an elderly Asian lady who poked her head out. He raised a hand to wave her back inside. She returned a wave of her own, a hand signal which indicated she was part of the Tracking MTF. She'd probably done this 'curious hallway peep' every time she heard a door on this floor open and close all night, ensuring the target had never left his room.
Grayson returned the gesture. Omega-20 moved toward the room of their quarry. Grayson and Bouchard stood on opposite sides of the doorframe, letting Galena alone fill the view of the peephole. She knocked sharply and waited.
After a moment she knocked again and called out "Hello? Emergency medical response…" Everyone in the hall stayed hushed. Shuffling was heard behind Petrikov's door. A shadow darkened the peephole.

Eric looked stunned and confused, but it wasn't the face of a guilty party. Barrientos read the panic rising off the young hotel worker. If they truly believed they were in over their head, they would crack - beg the mercy of the hotel supervisor, come clean about every misdeed they'd ever performed on the job, and plead anything to avoid being arrested. For what the Foundation wanted - a low-profile affair that need never be mentioned again - this would be bad.
Barrientos cleared his throat, catching Adams' eye. He scratched an imaginary itch behind his ear, followed by an adjustment of his shirt collar. Felt like more signals than a third base coach would need had been discussed between them, but Barrientos was relieved he at least remembered the one for 'back off a bit'.
"Or maybe," Adams relented. "Maybe you're just so unobservant you truly didn't notice so many strangers coming and going through the joint you're meant to be overseeing." Eric bowed his head. "Look," Adams said in a friendlier voice. "If that's so, then it's your bosses' business and not mine."
A chime sounded from the back of the lobby and elevator doors slid open. All heads turned to see Bouchard and Galena at a quick but calm pace, pushing a stretcher with a white sheet draped up to the shoulders of a large stocky frame. Thinning gray hair and a plastic breathing mask obscured Petrikov's face. Barrientos moved to join them.
Adams hastily turned back to Eric. "Listen," handing over a card with a phone number for the local police's 'auxiliary detachment' - a line to ensure the Foundation would hear and filter anything he chose to report at a later date. "Let me know if you can tell me about anything else around here. Aside from that, just keep this incident to yourself, alright?"
Eric managed to nod wordlessly.
And just as suddenly as they had appeared, MTF Omega-20, and their target, were gone.


The Foundation Official Handbook 3rd Edition

Spatial, Temporal and Dimensional Anomalies
Pg.247/Chapter-24 - Erratic Trans Dimensional Travel

So, you've been trapped in a pocket dimension. What now?

So, you've been transported to an area isolated between time and space. What now? The first step is to examine your surroundings for possible exits and dangers; if it is too dark to see, use your mobile device as a light source. If you happen to spot a doorway/window/archway or any other form of a pathway to which you cannot see what is on the other side, begin moving in the direction of this possible exit.
If you happen to spot a creature/living light/sentient shadows or sentient object of an aggressive nature, don't panic. The inhabitants of the pocket dimension you have entered most likely view you as an intruder/source of nutrition, and should be treated in the same way you would treat encountering a hungry bear, with extreme caution and a flight-or-fight mindset.
Has the aggressive creature spotted you? If so, begin to slowly move away from the creature. If not, also start to slowly move away from the creature. If the creature in question notices this action and begins to walk/hover towards you do not let it near you, as it may attempt to attack/consume/melt/devour/obliterate and/or place a nest for its young within your chest cavity.
Please note that this textbook doubles as both an excellent source of information and a blunt weapon due to the size and weight of this piece of educational literature. While attempting to stealthily assault the creature you've encountered is possible, it is incredibly likely that this event will result in death, serious injury or forced immortality in a non-responsive state. Out of the last 20 survivors of erratic trans-dimensional travel to a pocket dimension, 19 out of 20 agree that attacking a possibly god-like entity with a textbook is a bad idea; the twentieth is currently recovering following their unfortunate reentry inside of a trash compactor.
If you survive your time in a pocket dimension and discover an exit, please note that your inevitable reentry into our dimension appears random and you may suffer from any of the following:

Reentry under a body of water
Reentry within an object
Reentry into the stratosphere
Reentry into the wild
Reentry onto highways, railways, subway tracks or tarmacs
Reentry into another person/organism

If you survived any of these unfortunate reentries, please alert your nearest Foundation Dimensional Research Station (FDRS) for extraction and debriefing. If you did not survive, alerting your nearest FDRS is unnecessary and should be avoided. If you are unsure of your current state of being, please flip to page 272 of this handbook "Existing and why it is important to productivity" for more information.


Karina steps into her apartment and finds it corpseless. Closets devoid of potential cadaver contents, refrigerator lacking all forms of gutted organs or rotted skulls, computer monitor not tracked with flaking blood. Not even a stench of the damned.
This makes her very nervous.
She runs her hands between the cushions, shoving her head under the sofa, looking behind her shelves, hoping she'd see some sign of a practical joke. Nothing is found.
"Fuck."
Hands in pockets, she idles as her brain attempts to process this lack of decay. A moment of internal screaming passes and she pulls out her phone and dials.
Beeep, beeep— "Hello, this is Disembodied Spirit 12 of the Graverobbery Tips and Tricks Helpline. How may I—"
Wrong number.
Beeep, beeep— "I can smell your fear. I am under your floorboards—"
Wrong number.
Beee— "Heyo, Karina, how's it going?"
Right number.
"Wess."
"Yes?"
"Did you steal my corpses?"
"…I …I don't follow."
"My corpses are missing. You were the last person in my apartment. Did you take them?"
He sighs. "Why on Earth would I want to take your corpses? Nothing to gain from that. Besides, I was in and out of your place too fast to even take your wallet. Can't take… how many corpses did you have?"
"I've seen you rob graves faster."
"C'mon. Look, if it makes you feel any better I've been at the party ever since, and you think these guys'd appreciate some human dragging a sack of bodies in here?"
Resting by the wall is an aged shovel with a gold trim, a champion among graverobbing equipment. A swift kick knocks it off, sending it clattering onto a cushion of assorted tombstones. Karina doesn't feel much better after it.
"You're still at the party?" she asks.
"Well duh, have to pretend I'm better than some boring mortal, eh?"
"You're with literal demons."
"And they're lovely people! My pal Baron's been doing volunteer charity work with the Council for over a decade now. C'mon, Karina."
Her eyes take to the window. Retracting the phone from her ear, she winds up her arm like a baseball pitcher, set on throwing the device right through the glass. She clenches just before she can let go, slowly bringing it back to her head. "Would they approve of stealing the dead?"
"Probably not."
"THERE. See?"
"Oh come the fuck on, they wouldn't steal your corpses. I'm sorry this happened but it could be anyone. Hell, maybe the Foundies did it. I don't know but could you stop implicating me in this shit?"
"Sorry but it took me years to perfect this and now it's all gone and—"
"Can't talk anymore, some guy with more horns than eyes is calling me over for another round of sulfur booze. Cya." Beeeep.
"Wess!"
She dials again.
Beeep, beeep, beeCRASH.
The phone soars beyond the now fragmented window with all the grace of a concrete-laden eagle, dropping out of sight in seconds. She regrets this decision immediately. Fists trembling, she punches the wall. She also regrets this decision immediately.
Beeee… Crunch.
"Oh. Fuck. Fuck…"
The crunch is unmistakable. It is the wet sound the human body cries out when skin and bone gives way, letting an object stab into places of vital importance. Like a stabbing. Or a phone falling from a 9th story window onto an unsuspecting bystander. It wasn't the first time she'd accidentally killed someone but even now she still felt the emotional numbness guilt instills.
. . .
Wait.
They're likely dead. Freshly dead, too.
. . .
NEW CORPSE.
She throws her yellow coat on and zips out the door. Several flights of stairs and a side door later, she's inspecting the body of a formerly drunk thirty-something year old man, standing in an valley of trash bags and grime between two apartment buildings. Her phone is deeper in his skull than it ought to be. Screen is cracked beyond repair, too. Shit.
A few looks around: sky has a faint morning glow, nobody on the streets, nobody else in or around the alley. Additional glances are spared on the corpse, on the street, on the corpse, on the stree— oh fuck a person — false alarm, mannequin in the clothing store window was too convincing in its disguise.
Toronto is not yet awake. She's in the clear.
Wrapping a trash bag tight over the body's head to prevent excess blood splattering, Karina drags the dead man over the concrete, letting out a stream of "sorry, sorry, sorry." By the time her arms are begging for relief she's made it to the dumpster. Her dumpster. The one with the happy sticker of a top hat-clad skeleton next to the bullet hole who's origin she dares not question. She runs through her unlocking incantation — a set of phrases carrying about as much depth as lorem ipsum — and she hefts the lid open.
It's an abyss inside. Well, not an abyss. If you took a long enough look you'd see the inside of Karina's closet at the bottom, but she's been through these motions enough that she doesn't care to look nor care to be too careful with heaving her new corpse in. She groans, wishing for the first time she hadn't stopped going to the gym.
"Sorry but… hng… I can patch you up. Faustus is out of business but I can… gah… Get you back together."
The man is dragged up a makeshift stairway, assembled from trash bins and trash bags and trash in general, and his head passes over the dumpster's rim. Karina loses her balance, giving a last push before the stairway gives way and violently collapses. The body falls out.
"Okay, fuck you, fine then!"
A poorly trained thrust spell leaves her lips and the corpse bounces skywards, falling back and banging neck-first against the rim. Said neck crunches.
"Eh, it's fixable."
The head sloughs off. The rest of the body falls down to the underworld of Karina's closet while the head bounces against the ground, landing just right to push the phone in deeper. She shouts and kicks the head up in a closet-bound arc before it sprays too much blood to be an issue. It drops into the dumpster.
One corpse in. One of one total corpses. One of what was formerly just under a hundred corpses.
Karina leans against the side of the dumpster and hits it with her fist. "Didn't flunk out of ICSUT to be the most incompetent necromancer in history, goddammit," she mutters to nobody. Of course all of this had to happen today. Of course it all did.
Jerking footsteps approach behind her. She spins around.
"YOU SEE NOTHING—"
Rot. A pyramid of the dead, raised on legs of spinal columns and distorted appendages, tangles of hands for feet scratching into the concrete. Faces push out, the ones with intact jaws prying their mouths open to release guttural, soundless screams. The darkness of vacant eye sockets bleeds out, the grim amalgam obscured by the shadows of the alley. There's more bodies churning inside but only the periodic shifting of limbs on the surface gives any sign to their existence. Karina staggers back and collapses against the dumpster. The pyramid piles more flesh into its legs to shamble forward, bones cracking as it does. Liquid decay drips with each heavy step.
Two arms slither out from nets of intestines, carrying a pristine blue box wrapped by a white ribbon. Pristine except for the note on its back, crudely written in marker.

hap borfday :))

Karina stares at the note, a grin widening on her face. Carefully undoing the ribbon, she opens the box, uncovering the gleaming silver and wood frame of the Pocket Ouija Board Model III.
"Holy shit. Holy shit!" She jumps up and hugs the nearest protruding torso, careful to not tear the strands of cartilage keeping its head together. "You left to get me this! You remembered! I didn't know you could remember!"
Its response is miscellaneous groans.
"I was so worried about you and— Wait. How did you get this?"
Quieter groans.
"Ah. That makes sense."
A dozen arms point to the dumpster.
"Ready for the birthday party?"
A dozen hands give a thumbs up.
Raising the dumpster lid again, Karina watches as the pyramid worms in and descends like liquid down a drain pipe. She jumps in after and the lid slams shut. Before the unlocking incantation switches off, the sounds of the undead and electronica echo through the alley for hours.

UP NEXT: Cease and Deceased


The Great Mole Revolution (Remolution); 7th of Diguary, Mole Year 178.
Location: Main Molerdom Underground System, Puławy, Poland.

Moleday 1: Moles are protesting from low wages in the main corridors of the underground mole system. The Grand Molernment has been slowly but surely decreasing the wages of mole coal miners and their acceptance for this to continue. Around 100 mole miners march through and out of the corridors, saying in a high pitched voice "Higher wages for the mole miners!" repeatedly.
Many complaints are listed towards the Grand Molernment's choice, yet they decline to change anything. This has sparked yet another reason to march, and today was the day to do so. The moles surely got their message across; even if they bumped into a few walls on their way because of their funny sight.
Moleday 2: Even more complaints are given to the Grand Molernment. No difference has been made, and the mole coal miners said that, if this continues on for longer, they will go on strike. More moles join the upcoming revolution; this time more moles with jobs which are resulting in lower wages every day.
Moleday 5: After five moledays of the Molernment's reluctance to increase the mole workers wages, the strike has begun. More than 400 moles march the corridors every day now. It is now omnipresent, as every small bump, corner and passageway have small or big groups of moles saying they want a change. Some have even resulted in going directly to the rulers of the moledom in groups of 10 to 50 to voice their complaints directly towards their leader.
Yet they still end up failing; every attempt at changing it simply ends up with a decline, and for some moles which voice it for too much, are sent to small isolation chambers for a period of one to two moledays to make them adapt to the low wages. This never worked out; the moles remained solid in their speeches and continued to fight against the Grand Molernment's choices.
Moleday 8: The royalty and their guardmoles are getting tiresome of the constant protests. The amount of moles marching is now inestimable. All of the high-pitched voices now turned into high-pitched waves of protest. The protests are starting to become a big worry, and the Molderndom is afraid they will have to soon form an army or rebellion to this protest. As long as the protests start to gradually decrease to a level which can be dealt with the absence of force, the Molerndom was fine.
Moleday 9: Yet, on the 9th day, the Grand Mole King almost fell off his grand throne after hearing that the protests are now getting serious. Information that the protests caused many mole-villages to protest as well. It couldn't continue, or the Mole King was ought to be carried off of his throne and sent to farming for 30 mole weeks. The king had to think of a way to stop these protests and to make the moles accept the change. He had to think quickly.
Just in case, the Mole King assembled an army of 50 guardmoles and 200 molescripts. The situation was not looking to glide into safety any time soon.
Moleday 12: The situation is now bitter. The remolutionaries formed the "Remolutionary Army" to fight against the Mole King's forces. As soon as this came to the Mole King's attention, the Mole King had no choice but to prepare for a revolution. The Remolution; to give everyone happiness and a fair cost to keep not only the economy up but also the small but warm smiles of little moles.

THE GRAND MOLE KING HAS RECEIVED INFORMATION FROM HIS MESSENGER:

The Mole King's messenger waddled to his throne, urging the Mole King to hear a critical piece of information. The messenger said:
The leader of the Remolutionary has contacted me. They want an imminent change in the next two mole days, or they will wage war on us. The Remolutionary demanded a rise in the wages of jobs such as coal mining, tunnel digging and the shopkeepers of our city. Another demand they have requested is an explanation of your decision on why you have decreased their wages. They told me directly to say this to you; "Two mole days of co-operation, or two mole months of war".
Will you accept this, my King?

"Give it two days" the Mole King intoned, before slowly walking down the stairs of his throne, turning left to an old, wooden door. He slowly planted his two feet and two paws near the door, took a deep breath, and pushed it. He was stuck, realising he had to pull it. So, he pulled it, and walked inside, slamming the door shut, letting not a single peek from outside of the room he went in to be spared. His messenger crawled off as swiftly as he could to give the new information to the Remolutionary.
Moleday 13: The Mole King prepared an army. The Anti-Remolutionary Army. 50 guardmoles and 250 mole conscripts. He marched down to a huge, hollow area of the tunnel system. He quickly steadied his positions there and declared his mole workers to shut any passages to his throne room and other important passageways. His army was prepared with small stone muskets and very simple wooden and stone armour. They started digging trenches, forming barriers and readied themselves.
Supplies are carried into the soon-to-be battlefield. Molesław the Chubby now just had to wait.
Moleday 14: The messenger has returned, walking onto the battlefield calmly, accidentally bumping into a barrier. "King, King!" he shouted. The Mole King's attention was now purely towards the messenger. "They know what you're planning…" The messenger said nonchalantly. The Mole King looked up to the ceiling and exclaimed: "May the will of the Mole gods be with us". The tacit gesture instantly informed the messenger to crawl off and to deliver information about the war.
Moleday 15: The potent and 800-strong Remolutionary Army marches into the huge arena which soon would turn into a field of mayhem. Armed with small muskets, cannon crews and stone sabers, they readied their forces. Both of the sides messengers came to the center. With an exchange of words, the messenger on the Remolutionary side said that it is time for war, not for conversation. The other messenger understood and walked to his side.

THE BATTLE HAS COMMENCED

The 7th of Diguary, 178 in mole years will now mark the most important date of the mole history. The removal of the King "Molesław the Chubby" for the Remolutionary leader "Digismund the Claw". The war… To settle the unsettled.
The Remolutionary Army forces charged first; a battalion of 70 moleteers. Their offensive was soon halted, though, as their forces were sent from an angle pointing straight into a big pile of dirt. All of them stacked upon each other, in a small "molehill", until they held their position behind it. Soon, they stood in a horizontal line and all got their muskets. Aiming for glory, they shot in almost perfect synchronization - the recoil of the muskets sent all of the Remolutionary musket forces back a few mole meters.
Half of the forces rolled on their sides uncontrollably from the recoil, tumbling into piles of slightly injured and tired moles. The ones that could got back on their feet, as one more battalion was sent with 50 swordmoles. The opposing side sent their fearsome squadron of guardmoles; experts at swinging stone sabers around, with fine stone armour and pointy stone hats. 50 on 50; the two forces soon were to meet at a point in the middle of the battlefield.
When they met, instead of stopping and fighting, they bumped into each other, losing their weapons in the meantime. A wild confusion of unsure and weaponless moles ensued. Soon, they'd rely on hugfighting it and to see who could overpower the enemy by vicious hugs. The Remolutionary Army's musket battalion rushed forward; tripping on some of the small holes in the ground and the small fighting bodies of moles.
The Mole King's forces sent his conscripts forwards, as the Remolutionary forces prepared their cannon crew. The conscripts rushed, falling into a few trenches and calling it a day after a few attempts of trying to crawl out. The remaining conscripts either bumped and hid under mud heaps or big rocks, or joined in with the absolute kerfuffle in the middle of the battlefield. This all happened whilst the Remolutionary Armies cannon crew squadrons activated their cannons.
They shot; yet half of the cannons didn't work, the other half shot stone pebbles rather far. This didn't cause any damage, though, as the pebbles didn't hurt the moles and only created trip hazards across the battlefield. Both leaders got weary of this and sent all of their reserves forwards. A raucous stampede of mole feet and paws echoed the room. From both sides, they shouted their war chants and boosted the morale of their forces across the battlefield.
The colossal war charge was overwhelming. Every mole on the battlefield had the motivation and soul of a true warrior. They met at the center, where the hug battles were taking place. A few of the forces were sent back due to the pebbles fired by the cannon crews, and the musket forces were trying to fire even more, sending waves of moleteers backward. When the moles met at the center, it was really hard to distinguish which mole was on which side.
As soon as a warmole would prepare to attack another warmole with its saber, it was taken down by a domino of falling warmoles. They discarded their weapons and started to brutally fight their war with hugs. Every mole was hugging and brawling the other, trying its best for the other one to either get tired or to pin it to the ground. The huge war continued on for 8 mole minutes before most of the forces on both sides began to grow very tired.
Some warmoles fell asleep due to the tiring conflict, and some tried tickle-fighting the enemy for them to give up. Nothing more than 5 mole minutes later, every single warmole was sleeping. On atop each other, like logs in a lumber mill. Yet, one defiant warmole decided not to fight, hiding behind a mud hill it bumped into. It slowly found the path to the tunnel connecting the battlefield and another tunnel system which it was familiar to.
It walked up the path, found the Mole King's throne room and broke down the dirt barriers. It grabbed a piece of wood, a tiny stick and a bottle of ink. It waddled its way back to the battlefield, with its fat little belly swinging like a pendulum from side to side each second it walked. Reaching the center of the battlefield, it shouted: "The Remolutionary Army won!". This loud remark woke up most of the warmoles, allowing the mole carrying the wood and stick and ink for the Mole King to sign a treaty of peace and fair wages.
Without reluctance, the Mole King signed the piece of wood. Every warmole woke up every other warmole, and soon every mole was gathered to a ceremony.
"My fellow moles and moles. Today, was a day which I regret happened. It is now an undying piece of the history to show us what happens if we moles and moles don't get along. War. None of us want that. We all want to be fairly treated, and to have a fair wage. Everymole, rejoice, as we have a new ruler, Digismund the Claw. He will grant us the path to success and freedom! Hoorah!" The moles shouted back with all of their happiness: "Hoorah!".
Robert instantaneously removed the jobs of the coal miners. "You deserve better; not to mine coal, but to learn, with the M.I.T.S.E and the brave Astromoles. The coal miners are now to research electronics to advance the Mole Institute of Terrestrial Space Exploration!"


He's laughing.
Laughing at the end of the hallway.
The same hallway he has run down countless times.
One time, a shadow had followed him and chased him here.
Another time, a flame had followed him and struck him here.
Yet another time, a torrent of water had followed him and poured over him down here.
Not a problem.
He just opened the door and entered, and they never followed.
Once, he'd suffered lacerations on his forearm here.
Once, his skin had suffered burns here.
Once, his leg had suffered fractures here.
Not a problem, not at all.
He could always just open the door and walk out, and then they wouldn't hurt him.
Whatever follows him, it's not a problem.
Whatever injures him, it's not a problem.
And so he's laughing.
Laughing and leaning on the door.
The same door he has opened countless times before.
He laughs, and drops the broken doorknob to the floor.


ikuragunkan
LurkD：SCP-2521


Junior Researcher Sheppard was having a rough day. The machine slumped motionless in the middle of the workshop, its central control screen displaying in bright red letters: "Defense System Armed!" A circular opening in its chest waited patiently for another incorrect activation sequence to dispense a second canister of tear gas into the room.
"Just hold onto this control lever here in the cockpit," they'd said, one of the researchers even grabbing onto the lever to show it was safe. He only grew concerned when another one of them approached wearing an insulated rubber suit. There would not be an extra one for him.
His recommendation of 'asking the head researcher on the project for advice' was dismissed quite rudely with arguments such as 'he's a dog' and 'we don't allow animals in Level-34-B,' which he'd found to be unsatisfactory.
"Don't worry, I figure I can crack the defense override in about thirty seconds. Just hold on really tight." The researcher told him as he produced needle-nosed pliers and a screwdriver. Sheppard's brow furrowed worriedly as the man brought the tools down to the walker's control panel. He shut his eyes, expecting the worst.
But nothing happened.
"Hey, it worked! We fried the defense override!"
Sheppard opened his eyes, sighing in relief. "That was the last of the defense overrides, ri—"
He was cut off by a loud metallic clunk. All eyes went to the researcher sitting in the machine's cockpit, who had thrown a lever, disgorging a hefty minigun from the lower half of the apparatus. She looked back at them, sheepishly. A moment passed. "So, uh, should we pull this out too?"
"Yeah. Yeah, we probably should."
By the time the team broke for lunch, one minigun, two antipersonnel machine guns, sixteen surface-to-air missiles, and a boxing glove attached to a spring sat in a crate labeled 'dangerous materials' for security to come pick up.

"Project Name: Persephone. Project Lead: Kain Pathos Crow. Project Aims: To create an entity, object, or event capable of-"
Beep!
Crow stopped his diction; his computer beeped with a new report from the team working on Project Lazarus.
He read the latest update, sent by a junior researcher assigned to the project. While the report looked promising enough, Crow had long since learned to read between the written words and discern the hardships behind the scenes. He let out a low chuckle as the report glossed over the 'unforeseen self-preservation mechanisms' in place; he had entirely forgotten about those. Seeing as the report failed to mention anyone getting grievously injured, it was safe to assume all had gone well.
He had lamented his lack of energy to oversee the restoration of his own project, but Shaw had pulled some strings and assured him that the most capable team at Site-19's disposal were on the case. The project had gotten bogged down early on; the waiting list for tests involving SCP-914 was vast, and even a site director's power had its limits. He had to make do with weekly updates from the team.
His temporary office at Site-19 was much more sterile than he'd grown accustomed to. Modern, efficient desks and furniture replaced the cozy wooden frames he had come to love. The only piece of home he'd been able to bring had been his computer; he didn't dare leave it behind. After all, not many computers were outfitted for canine use.
He started as his office door slid open. His paw shot up to hit a key on his modified keyboard, saving, encrypting, and hiding progress on his secret project. He looked up just in time to see the wide smile of an old acquaintance coming through the open door. Crow was sure that he was just imagining the frigid breeze that blew in alongside him.
"Clef. Fancy seeing you here. Shouldn't you be out somewhere trying to kill something weird?"
"That's exactly what I'm doing here. How many talking dogs do you see on a daily basis?" Clef reached towards his hip with his left hand, his exact actions obscured by a lab coat.
"What are you getting at, Alto? I'm sure you didn't come here just to say hi."
"You know perfectly well what I'm getting at." Clef pushed his hat up out of his eyes with his other hand and stared intently, his mouth curling into a sneer that made him seem for all the world like a cat with a cornered mouse. "You've been here over a month to oversee a new project, but you haven't been down once to check on its progress." The subtle shift in his tone raised Crow's hackles.
"Hah, well, Elias put his best team on it. I'd probably only get in the way." It was difficult, but not impossible, for a dog to smile disarmingly, as it turned out. Crow was thankful he had no nervous sweat to betray him. He stifled his desire to pant.
"Now that, I believe." Clef nodded along, then tapped his chin pensively. "The thing that doesn't add up is that you haven't accessed any files relevant to the project."
"Well, like I said…"
"In fact, as far as I can tell, you've only accessed a single document since you've been at the site. Tell me, Kain, what exactly is so interesting about SCP-485?"
Shit. Perhaps he hadn't been as careful as he'd thought in hiding his research from prying eyes. 485 was the first on his list of anomalies relevant to Project Persephone.
"Well. You know. I'm just curious about how Omega-K has interacted with some of the anomalies we have contained here."
"Mmmhm. And you found out it doesn't work."
"It hasn't been tested since…"
"It. Doesn't. Work. I looked over the old autopsy reports myself. It induces cardiac arrest, that's all."
Crow's eyes narrowed slightly. He'd seen the autopsy reports himself during his snooping; complete cessation of all biological functions had been the determined 'cause' of death in each case. He didn't press the issue.
"Besides," Clef continued after a moment, "This is normalcy now. O5 directive. No need to go digging around further into anomalies like that, right?"
"Yeah. I guess curiosity got the better of me."
"Good." He smiled. "It's not necessary for the O5's to hear about a tenured professor's curiosities. I'll make sure it doesn't wind up on their radar, because we're friends. But," - his smile vanished so quickly Crow wondered if it had ever actually been there. - "This little curiosity streak needs to end here. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it does much worse to the dog." He gave a cheeky wink as his left hand finally reappeared from within his lab coat, his index and thumb mimicking a gun. He pointed at Crow.
Crow sat motionless, his mind spinning for long after the specter of Alto Clef left him alone in his unfamiliar office.
His paw reached forward, tapping a button which recognized his carpal pad and activated the computer once more. He leaned forward, his retinas being scanned by the computer. After a brief delay, the warm colors of his base desktop disappeared in favor of a very basic and bland secondary and very secret operating system. He stared at the screen for a moment, pondering whether or not he dared open his secret project again.

"Wakey wakey, sleepyhead." Shaw stood over Crow, who was lying in the circle of cushions on the couch in his office.
"C'mon, Elias, it's… three in the morning."
"I can come back later if you like. I just figured you might want to know the team just sent up word that Project Lazarus is complete."
It was surprising how quickly the old dog could spring fully awake. "Finally!"
"What do you mean, 'finally'," Shaw asked as he grabbed the handles of Crow's wheelchair and pulled it into position for his old colleague to move to it. "It's only been like…" He checked his watch. "A month and a half."
Kain busied himself with moving from his comfortable ring of pillows to the chair, so he would have something to do besides glaring at Elias.
"You've been cooped up in here for the past couple weeks, anyways. I've been missing you at the cafeteria. Something on your mind?"
"Hm, no, just… just getting old, I guess." In truth, he'd spent nearly every waking moment since his unexpected visit working out a way to browse the database under Clef's, and the O5's, radars.
"Hah, well you won't have to worry about that for much longer. I've had a peach suspended in a vat of 447's slime since the late 80's, and it hasn't aged a day. A tank full of that stuff is gonna be the Cadillac of immortality. Trust me, I'd know." Elias wheeled his old friend leisurely into the hallway, nearly abandoned at this hour. "So you're sure it doesn't have anything to do with Alto's little visit?"
Kain turned in his chair to look up at his friend, curiously. "Wh… did he mention that to you?"
"Nah. Cameras everywhere. I make it a point to know where he is at like, literally any given instant. He's… Well, he's Clef. You know. So, what did he want to talk about?"
"He just had some questions about the project."
"Oh yeah? Which one?"
"Hm? Project Laz—"
"'cos it couldn't be Lazarus. I gave him the full documentation for it."
"Wel—"
"Could it have something to do with you snooping into some of the deadliest… well, previously deadliest anomalies we have documented?"
"Elias…"
"But what's most curious is how you got so interested in 2935 and 4009 after Clef paid you a visit. Wouldn't you agree?"
They shared in a silence, approaching an elevator. Shaw pressed his keycard to the electronic scanner, which beeped in response. He pulled the chair to a stop, glancing around and seeing no one else, he knelt down and turned the chair to face his old friend.
"Kain. Buddy. You've got to believe me. I'm on your side here. But you've got to tell me what you're thinking. I can't keep all of the access logs hidden if I don't know which ones are going to be connected to next. It's a pretty huge stroke of luck he only found one before I got the rest purged."
Crow sighed. Perhaps this was for the best. He was beginning to realize that this would be beyond his ability to achieve alone in secret. And of all people, Shaw might be the one person that he truly could trust with this. Crow turned his head from the elevator's slowly opening doors.
"Alright, Elias. You got me… How familiar are you with the myth of Persephone?"

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