A lot of people pass through Site-19.
The most common movement is the daily rush from lab station to experimental room to cafeteria back to lab station (with a few detours to the restrooms). Then there are those who move from enlightened to exhausted. There are those who move from mundanity to madness. There are the others who pass through sterile rooms in body bags, and move no more.
And then there are the movements that are not through halls, but through hierarchies.

When Researcher Zyn Kiryu was first assigned to Site-19, her orientation included a tour of the biological anomaly containment cells and a quick meal in the ground floor cafeteria. She was then offered space in the on-site living quarters. She decided she could learn to ignore the pervasive emptiness of the halls and the faint mechanical buzzing present everywhere in the site.
She'd get used to it because in the midst of the lesser anomalies she'd been shown, she'd seen something that remained in her memory long after the voice of the guide had faded out. SCP-408 would soon need a new assignment of Level-2 caretakers watching its feeding schedule. The tour guide had recalled that Zyn liked butterflies, and wouldn't it be nice if she was on the roster for 408 after she'd gotten settled in and was ready for it?
Watching a cluster of the butterflies morph into a perfect replica of the silver pendant she wore, Zyn told herself that one day, that Level-2 would be her, and wondered what "ready" meant.

A week later, Zyn moved in. She brought the usual necessities, and a few personal possessions to stave off the unfamiliarity. A spider plant in a pot decorated with painted butterflies. A gift from her old school friends: a teddy bear wearing a little lab coat. Her spare poetry journal.
Flushed with the excitement of her first day as a live-in researcher, Zyn immediately sought out the 408 roster and added her name to the list of hopefuls hoping to work with the illusory butterflies. Later the same day, she received a very polite, professional email informing her that she'd been taken off the list because she lacked the requisite experience, and please do not re-apply at this time.
Zyn blinked at the email, then closed it and shut down her Foundation-issue laptop. She picked up her lab-coat teddy bear and put it on her head, concentrating on keeping it balanced. She then stared out her window, sulking, for the next half an hour.
Lack of experience. Do not re-apply. Not good enough.

The next day found Zyn tearing through the living quarters in a mad dash because somehow she'd lost three pair of socks she must have misplaced during the move-in. Someone who was napping earlier had pity and pointed her towards the Lost and Found.
Said Lost and Found was a large cardboard box sitting in the quarters' main common room. Zyn approached the box with caution, noting the stained sleeve of a lab coat trailing over one side, and wondered if she should have brought protective gloves.
She didn't find any socks, but halfway through the box she unearthed a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, wrapped in a plain paper cover so as to seem utterly unremarkable. She opened to the first page, where three names were written neatly, next to dates. The most recent owner had purchased it second-hand nearly thirty years ago.
After some hesitation, Zyn took the book.
Reading The Art of War gave her a strange sort of comfort. She was new, unknown, effectively nonexistent to everyone else in the site. With only a Bachelor's and a few years of graduate-level lab work, she knew she wouldn't be turning heads anytime soon. The book provided advice and guidance no one else would give.
Think of the reasons not to trust you. Eliminate those reasons.
She needed allies to stand a chance here. Allies, not minions, because you want someone just as good as you watching your back. Someone who will claw for recognition just like you, plot and plan and covet just like you, will consider your achievements a means towards their own ambitions.
She'd made it this far relying on herself to keep promises, repay favors, gather friends. This was just a new piece of the sky to navigate, a new network of clouds and stars to build.
She drew a butterfly in her poetry notebook, labeled it "408", and added in parentheses, "someday".

Two weeks in, Zyn endured her first failed experiment. Glassware cracked, sample rendered unusable, hours upon hours' worth of careful work lost in one careless mistake. Her coworkers barely spared her a second glance; just shrugged it off and left her to mop up the sad remains of the biological anomaly slide.
It wasn't that they disliked her, she decided as she tossed out the cleaning rag and her soiled gloves. They didn't even know enough about her to like or dislike. Only a few of her labmates remembered her face, and even fewer bothered to learn her name. Why would someone be concerned about a nameless stranger's mistakes?
When Zyn slunk back into her quarters later, she ignored her notebook and glared at the Sharks of the World calendar she'd affixed to the wall opposite her desk. Logic. She could drown out this bitter taste of not good enough with logic. Facts. Hard truths. The shortfin mako shark is the fastest shark in existence. Highly intelligent, and capable of leaping nine meters into the air…
What is a worse thing that could have happened?
The unstable sample might have exploded, contaminating the entire lab and all the researchers present.
What is the worst thing that could have happened?
Everyone might have died.
Did the worst thing happen?
No. Not even close.
Then you pick up the pieces and salvage something from this.
Zyn crumpled a tissue, swiped at her eyes, opened up the Foundation internal messaging system, and read through the newest memos without really reading them. She remembered the indifferent looks of the other researchers in the lab. Allies, she reminded herself. You need allies.
She saw a memo sent out two days ago, mentioning two Level-1 interns coming into the lab for the first time.
No one else cares about these guys, she thought. They're distancing themselves in case the new meat makes mistakes… I can use this. I can't be the only newcomer to mess up. I can't be the only one to feel dejected, lonely, not good enough… I may be new and inexperienced, but I can still become a mentor. A colleague. A friend. Someone to share stories with. Someone who makes this place less empty, less cold.
Zyn composed a message to the new initiates.

The next afternoon found Zyn sitting alone at a table in the site's second-floor cafeteria. In between bites of sandwich, she was composing a sonnet about the inevitability of failure when someone (one of her supervisor's colleagues, apparently) sat down in the seat across from her.
"I hear you're new to the labs," the guy said as he set down a lunch tray, opened a container of dressing, and proceeded to drown his salad in it.
Zyn blinked. "Yes," she ventured, "I am. Nice to meet you, Doctor—?"
The man told her his name and a lot of things she hadn't even asked for: department, clearance level, and half an hour of personal anecdotes. Zyn hardly got a word in edgewise, but as she listened to the man describe the various insect toxins his lab encountered, she busied herself picking apart the monologue for cues.
Shaking his head, eyebrows drawn, hand gripping coffee cup tightly when talking about recent data. I should make a sympathetic sound and avoid introducing the topic… Posture relaxed, more gestures, talking about some sort of experimental prototype. Make sure to bring that up if you ever see the guy again.
When the man finally stood and thanked her politely for the discussion (Kiryu, he called her, not Zyn), Zyn scratched out the two rhyming lines she'd composed and scribbled down everything she remembered from the encounter.
Eventually, the notebook came to hold more people than poetry; every time Zyn learned something about someone, she wrote it down. It was a way to remember faces, names, life stories, when they next met… and they would come to remember her name, even if they only knew her as the person who remembered them.
It took time, but it was an investment. Every person was someone to share lunch with, someone to swap gossip with, someone to vent to when lab work went awry. Moreover, they could also vouch for her, bring her closer to 408, give her an advantage over anyone else aiming to be 408's caretaker.
Chance was something Zyn never trusted. When it came to things she really wanted, she preferred to stack the deck in her favor.

Somehow, Zyn attracted the attention of a lab director. She was invited to research meetings. The supervisors discussed a lab transfer. She did the transfer paperwork herself (show them your worth. Demonstrate responsibility and self-sufficiency).
On her first day in the new lab, she entered the room ready to get to know the other lab technicians, hopeful and wondering where the anomalous insect specimens were… but the lab techs exchanged sheepish looks and mumbled something about a miscommunication. They ushered her into the near-ancient lab archives holding handwritten notes, case files, and other artifacts of research from decades ago. She was asked to retrieve a series of documents, and maybe do something about the deplorable state of the stacks.
Zyn kept her expression carefully neutral, put away her lab gear, and got to work pulling charts. When the door closed and she was left on her own (can't spare a second of their time for the new person?), she sauntered over to a stray plastic cup sitting on a bookshelf (no doubt left by some slob who didn't pick up after themselves), scooped it up, and calmly crushed it in her fist.
It wasn't anger, she told herself. She was just making the trash more space-efficient.
For the next few days, Zyn reported directly to the archives and made herself comfortable there, shuffling between the rows of accumulated research. Dust and solitude make decent company for strategy, she thought while she tugged at a sheaf of diagnostic graphs jammed between two binders. The lab techs would be very much indebted to her when she fixed up the mess here, Zyn told herself. Then she grit her teeth as a stray medical certificate grazed her hand, and she bandaged her third paper cut that week.
Since no one who visited these archives ever talked much, Zyn had plenty of space to think about how to turn the situation to her favor. She would do her assigned task well. Better than well. She'd practice searching the shelves until navigating the stacks felt so natural that others envied her skill. Then she'd develop a system to make it that easy for everyone else. There would be no more to gain keeping her here, and no choice but to move her on.
It took a week. The lab techs blinked at how simple it was to find documents now that she'd rearranged the previously-outdated catalogs. They thanked her briefly, and moved her onto the cold storage freezers. It was a step up, Zyn told herself. She would handle the dead bugs first, and push forward until they trusted her with the living.
That night, she opened her notebook and turned to the page with the butterfly. She drew another butterfly below it, wrote the date, and wrote one word: "Soon".

Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your silence that of the forest.
Zyn was mentally reciting passages from Sun Tzu the day she met someone she immediately admired.
She had been rearranging preserved liver slices in the communal cold storage chambers (seven years of backlogged specimens since the last big sample transfer and consolidation) when someone called out her name. "Kiryu, is that you?" A man stepped between the stainless steel shelving units. He looked about her age, maybe a little older. "It's good to finally meet you. Did you know people in the other bio labs call you the freezer fairy?"
She was getting a hell of a lot of mileage out of her practiced "true neutral" expression. But she was curious. "I'm Zyn. I don't know about the fairy part, though. Last I checked, no magic wand, no sparkles, no wings." She made a show of looking over her shoulder as if checking.
The man smirked. "Researcher Kiryu, the one who flits between the shelves like a butterfly on the wind." He waved at a nearby shelf. "Everything gets magically organized when you're around, though no one notices you actually moving things."
Zyn wondered if that comment was supposed to sound vaguely insulting. She also wondered why no one seemed to want to call her by her first name, but went with a smile anyway. Even if you disagree, don't challenge someone unless you need something from them. "Guess that does sound like me." Stay focused on the immediate. "Is there a specimen you're looking for?"
"Yeah. Any chance you know where that three-headed sulfuric acid-spitting centipede and its siblings are?" The man shifted his gaze to a collection of microscope slides, and Zyn got a better look at him: tall, sturdy-looking shoulders, and a rather garish streak of blue (I'll have to ask him about that sometime) in his otherwise dark hair.
Zyn paused, racked her memory, and told him where he'd find the centipedes in about five seconds. The man seemed impressed. "Pretty impressive, Kiryu." He grinned and scratched the collar of his shirt, the motion revealing a small dragon-like design embroidered onto the sleeve of his lab coat (this guy does needlework?). "What will the lab techs do when you leave this place behind?"
When Zyn offered the man a hesitant chuckle (maybe he'd like to get lunch sometime?), he folded his arms (hiding the embroidery. Is he embarrassed by it?) and shrugged. "I'm joking. But there's been talk in the labs about having you train some of the others. Your system works more than well enough to adopt. Higher-ups like your ideas."
This person is privy to conversations that I'm not supposed to hear, was what Zyn heard. She nodded, and this time her smile was genuine. "If the system works, I'd be happy to teach others to use it. Thanks for the heads-up, Researcher…?"
"Mercer. Riven Mercer. I work in the lab two doors down."
That was a lab on 408's feeding rotation list.
"Nice to meet you, Researcher Mercer. Maybe we'll run into each other again sometime." We're definitely running into each other again sometime.
Zyn didn't write his name down. She would remember it without the notebook.

Three days later, Zyn was given a team of bright-eyed super-excited lab interns. Over the next few weeks, she taught them how to navigate the labyrinthine cold storage rooms, setting each intern in charge of a section of the organisms and organs locked in frozen sleep. She taught them how to talk to the supervisors, coaxed them to take pride in their responsibility, to be the experts that others would ask for help, to carve out their own prestige.
The division of labor gave her time to return to the labs, handling samples instead of just putting them on the right shelves. It was still a far cry from working behind the locked doors marked "SCP-", but Zyn still had her interns, her reputation as "The Freezer Fairy," and a notebook full of favors waiting to be called in. Would it be enough?
She remembered Mercer's carefree smirk, and the centipedes.

The freezer team settled into a daily routine. Zyn would meet with the interns twice a day in the morning and evening. The time in between was spent patrolling the cold storage. Sometimes they'd all exchange terrible science puns they'd heard in grad school — the guy in charge of the human anatomy section always got the most groans. The day the shyest intern told her that he looked forward to the team lunches, Zyn hummed upbeat pop tunes for the rest of the shift.
Things were comfortable.
Then, one day after lunch, Zyn entered the cold storage vault and heard a scream.
Following the noise, Zyn rushed through the racks of stinging, piercing, biting specimens, and stiffened when she saw one of her interns sprawled against a shelf, clutching an arm and breathing raggedly. On the ground, scuttling through shards of broken specimen case, was a vividly-striped magenta scorpion.
Cold storage suddenly seemed warm compared to the ice in her veins. Not on my watch, fucker…
Zyn grabbed the only thing she could reach—a stapler. Maneuvering herself towards the gasping intern, Zyn clenched her hands until they steadied. In a split second she saw the pincers click and the stinger sway.
Zyn lashed out in sheer reflex. The toe of her right shoe met carapace, and the scorpion was flung against a steel cabinet. It fell and flopped onto its back, and Zyn stomped on it, swiveling her foot as she crouched down to put her full weight onto the thing once, twice, three times.
When she saw the still form twitch, she brought down the stapler's pointy edge in terrified reaction, the sound of her intern fighting for breath drowning out the last noises made by the clawed menace as it went limp.
Zyn breathed out and collapsed against a wall, shaking, scorpion guts smeared on her gloves.
"That's why we wear closed-toed shoes in the lab," she said.
She wouldn't remember much of the next hour; her interns later told her that she'd seemed catatonic as she silently transferred the scorpion's near-dismembered remains into a reinforced plastic container, and the biohazard team arrived to clean up the mess.

Zyn later endured a long and demeaning lecture from her supervisor about the crucial specimen she'd destroyed, her carelessness when it came to emergencies, and her disregard for proper procedure. She should have let security handle it, left the intern to fend for herself. Untrained personnel shouldn't engage. Better to lose one than two.
The callousness of the higher-ups left Zyn seething quietly for weeks. Apparently, the simple medical kit tucked away at the front entrance of cold storage was supposed to be more than sufficient. Besides, the interns had been trained in emergency procedures (a two hour seminar months ago) and a breach that threatened the life of only one person was a low priority situation…
That night, Zyn tossed The Art of War back into the lost and found box.
It was obvious that the freezer interns couldn't count on immediate backup for anything less than a dinosaur breaking out. Zyn decided that her team would never again be left in the lurch with only some bandages and disinfectant. She didn't want a med-kit in every section, she wanted a specialized chemical kit on every shelf: unique to the type of anomalies stored nearby, whether poisonous arthropod, noxious reptile, or rabid mammal.
The specialized kits would take months to design, approve, and process, and even longer to put together. Zyn knew that if she worked on a side project, she wouldn't be able to compete for a 408 slot… To hell with it, she thought.
Her pitch was met with enough enthusiasm to get her interns kicked out of the cafeteria. The next day, Zyn began drafting her proposal. The report was twenty pages long and cost her several nights of sleep, but when the first prototype (Arthropod series, Zyn noted with a grin) was handed to her by an amused-looking Riven Mercer himself, she felt like she was finally getting somewhere. Within a year, the kits had been implemented in every lab at the Site.
By that time, Zyn had transferred to Riven's lab to begin advanced lab experimentation. Unfortunately, Mercer had gone on to work in anomalous object processing (promoted before I could catch up…), and the 408 roster had been changed.
Her new lab wasn't on the list.

A few months passed. The days turned into routine, an endless blur of tests, samples, analyses.
“Researcher Kiryu?” Someone Zyn didn't know was standing behind her. Someone she was immediately suspicious of, since she was currently in the biological anomaly lab, holding a syringe filled with a caustic substance, and the man didn't seem to care about startling her.
“Yes, sir?” Zyn capped the syringe and placed it to the side. The motion had become familiar after months upon months of practice. Being interrupted in the middle of an experiment wasn't.
“I've seen your group's work. Your former interns are doing an excellent job.” The man was… hard to place. He was a doctor; that was all she could be certain of. She couldn't recall ever seeing him, meaning he had to fall on one of the extremes. Newest of the new, or…
Zyn suppressed a twitch. “I'm glad to hear the interns are doing well, sir,” she ventured carefully.
The man ignored her pleasantries. “You're moving up to my lab. Check your memos, move your belongings, find someone to watch your ducklings. Oh, and bring protective gear. I'm going to dissect brains today. I expect you in place in one hour, freshly scrubbed.”

He didn't tell her that they would be dissecting the brain of a deceased reality bender.
When she exited the lab hours later, visibly shaken, Zyn reviewed what she'd learned: Dr. Everett Mann was a no-nonsense man. He was meticulous in his procedures, terrifyingly adept with a scalpel, and her new supervisor.
The next day saw her analyzing the brain slices under microscope. Successive weeks led to the generation of pages upon pages of complex diagrams, sketches, figures. With so much data came the possibility of manipulation. Practical manipulation, Mann promised, and the engineering of new anomalies nigh-fully understood.
Further time spent with Dr. Mann revealed an almost worrisome fascination with the esoteric structures of the once-anomalous cadavers, verging on mania. Though some of his beliefs were rather unorthodox, he held to them fiercely, with a self-assuredness Zyn envied. When Mann was in these excited phases, usually pacing around in a lab coat splattered with the evidence of successive dissections, Zyn listened raptly to his theories and scribbled out pages and pages of notes.
Six months into her tutelage, Zyn was granted her first pet project: “Kiryu, I want you to take what you've learned and make something,” Mann said. “Give it a form and give it a will to obey. You will be assigned ten lab assistants and you have authority to make requests for materials, which will be approved or denied as I see fit.”
That night Zyn tore out the notebook page with the butterflies and taped it to the wall, next to the calendar.
Without hesitation, she crossed out the "408".

A few years passed. During that time, Zyn ended up discussing her pet project with almost everyone she met. It started out as smalltalk when people asked what she was up to in the labs, but the excitement in the replies came as a shock to her. People from all sorts of departments offered to help out, and to Zyn's surprise, turned aside her insistence on repaying the debts.
Raw materials? Level-2, full-time researcher, Anatomy and Physiology department. The guy who remembers the day of the week based on the color of the pen in his lab coat pocket. Enthusiastic. My favorite intern from the old team.
"Researcher Kiryu! It's been forever! I got promoted, just like you thought! Remember, you called me the Viceroy of Viscera 'cause I was in charge of the organs in storage? I miss you big time, yeah. You and your dumb bug jokes. Come on in, we just got a new 'bender brain…"
A framework? Level-3, senior researcher, BioMed Engineering department. The lady with the painted nails. Easygoing. I like listening to her talk about the latest site news.
"Oh hey, 'Ryu. Good to see you again. You should visit, I'm pretty sure there's a deceased 408 sample sitting around in my lab somewhere. More than enough for a cell swatch. Thanks so much for teaching my BME techs your system, by the way: the archives and freezers haven't been so neat in decades."
Power? I need some way to keep this thing alive, and living. Level-4, lab director, jumps between three departments. The older woman who likes the soft cloths used to clean eyeglasses. Stately. I looked up to her when I first met her.
"The crystals bend the light, see. You can work the wavelengths into whatever pattern you like. Test them out, Kiryu. That kit of yours saved two of my fingers last week."
Will? How do I make this thing process, learn, adapt, obey? Level-4, lab director, Research and Development. The gentleman whose projects are all ongoing, has yet to bear workable results, who ended up using his own cells for his experiments. Meditative. He understood how I felt when everything was stagnating.
"Here. My research notes. An old man's rambles. Make the most of them, Miss Kiryu. And… thank you for listening."
Bit by bit, department by department, the pieces of the puzzle were mapped out, assembled, and put together.
When Zyn held her first complete, whole, unblemished magnum opus, a Painted Lady butterfly shimmering with wavelengths of light arranged to the patterns of reality bender cortical columns and infused with her own cells, her own DNA… as she watched the luminescent wings open and close as the butterfly regarded her serenely, faces and names passing through her mind as she remembered the collaboration that had brought her to this point… she felt worthwhile. Meaningful.
Ready.
“Hello,” she said.
The butterfly tilted its antennae and slowly, steadily, brought its front legs together: with each contact tap, a syllable of sound.
"Hello. Zyn."


Secure, contain, and protect.
As an anomaly, I choose not to
Defy those above me.
It is my choice to
Be contained.
I will never
Walk free again.
I submit that I must
Be imprisoned for my nature.
I will never again
See the sun.
I yearn to
Serve the Foundation and its interests.
It is not my function to
Try to change things.
I have to
Do as I am told and hunt my comrades.
I would never
Think of disobeying my masters.
I constantly
Find ways to help them instead.
I will continue to
Deceive those I once called friends.
They believe I will
Betray them.
The Foundation will learn that I will
Serve their interests.
I remember the others I once knew, and I
Will show there is no hope there.
The Foundation and its agents
Believe solely in progress.
Only a fool would
Go in reverse.


It was a simple, plain-looking door with the words "Archival Storage" on a faded plastic plate next to it. Some wag had put up a hand-written sign reading "FreeBay" underneath it, aping the logo of a famous online auction house. Even that sign had turned sepia with age, its corners curled and its ink bleached by the light.
She knocked on the door, and was greeted with a pleasant, "Come in!" in a voice with an odd accent she couldn't place. The door stuck a bit, and she had to give it a solid thump before it opened.
Sitting cross-legged atop a steel desk was a tall man with olive skin and short, curly black hair. An ancient symbol that looked like it could have been made with a reed stylus on clay glowed faintly on his brow. His hands shone like polished steel, and thousands of tiny, intricately interlocking servos were visible through the gaps at the joints.
She gulped in surprise. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered. "I must have the wrong roo-"
"Please, do not worry," SCP-073 said. He unfolded himself from his sitting position, flowing off the desk with a dancer's grace. "You are looking for something." It was not a question.
"Um… yeah," she said. She held a slip of paper to the man, upon which was written a hastily scrawled list of items. "I'm new here, and there's nothing in my office. I was told that this would be faster than going through Requisitions…"
"And who was it who told you this?" Cain asked. He raised a hand interrupting her answer. "No, do not tell me," he continued, "but in the future, I would not trust that person without reservation, if they sent you here without telling you what this place is."
"That figures," she said sourly.
Cain smiled and inclined his head politely. "If you would give me a moment?" He took a pair of black leather gloves from his pocket and slipped them on over his metallic hands. His shirt, she noticed, had the characteristic sheen of cheap polyester, in contrast to the fine cut and tailoring of his suit.
Cain smiled again. "My unique condition prevents me from wearing any cloth made from cotton or linen," he said, "and wool shirts tend to be less than comfortable." He clasped his hands behind his back and led the way through a sliding glass door and into the dimly lit warehouse beyond. The air here was cool and dry, and smelled oddly metallic. "A useful side effect of my condition," Cain said. "It inhibits the growth of microorganisms in this place, preserving the contents."
"What… exactly is this place?" she asked suspiciously.
"Officially, it is called Archival Storage. As you can see, the staff has their own name for it. The things stored here were previously used by Foundation personnel, but were sent here after they were no longer needed."
"Because they died," she said, as understanding dawned.
"… or retired. Or simply did not need them any longer," Cain said gently. "Not everything here is stained with blood."
He flipped a switch, and the lights activated throughout the warehouse. She gasped as the size of this place was finally made evident to her. Rows upon rows of desks, chairs, lamps, and cabinets. Some of them in good condition, others damaged and battered. Many bearing reddish-brown stains that spoke volumes about the circumstances in which their prior owners had… ceased ownership.
"The first item on your list is a desk," Cain said. "I believe that this one will suffice." He stopped in front of a wide desk with crawling ivy patterns carved over the front and side panels. The wood appeared to be in good condition, and she did not immediately see any suspicious-looking stains or claw marks.
Cain took a thin yellow plastic tag from the pocket of his coat and affixed it to the desk, scrawling a few letters on it with a Sharpie. "So that the movers will know where to take it," he said, doing the same for a couple of lamps and an office chair.
From there, they moved on to an aisle labeled "Office Supplies." Cain picked up a yellow plastic crate and handed it to her, filled it with a variety of paraphernelia essential for any office worker: stapler, tape dispenser, desk blotter, pen holder, inbox, outbox, letter holder.
"You will have to speak to Patrick Gephardt for your computer," Cain said, as they walked past an aisle filled with battered old CRT monitors and televisions. "And your rubber stamps you will have to get through Requisitions. The only ones I have are not in workable condition." He demonstrated by passing her a self-inking stamp labeled "ORIGINAL." The lettering was worn smooth, and the swivel had snapped. "Likewise, your papers, pens, and other such supplies."
"Doesn't the Foundation ever throw anything away?" she asked, awestruck. She lifted the stapler out of her crate. A couple of stickers depicting gold stars and cartoon characters had been affixed to it at some point, but they had mostly rubbed off over time, leaving behind a faint residue of stickiness.
"We do sometimes," Cain answered. "But not often." He gave her a wry smile. "It is, after all, our organization's purpose to collect things."
It didn't take long to collect everything on her list. She was walking out with her arms full of office supplies when she noticed the snake. It was looped over a large piece of driftwood, and regarded her balefully through lidless eyes.
It wasn't the only living thing here, she realized, as she put down the crate and walked down the darkened aisle. Under a heat lamp, a bearded lizard rested atop a piece of broken slate. A box turtle swam in a tank that was green with algae. "Pets?" she asked.
"Left behind by their owners," Cain said. "The dogs go to the kennels. The cats are usually adopted by others. These…" he shrugged, "were considered less desirable."
She ran her hand along the cages and aquariums, then paused in front of a thin plastic box filled with wood-and-glass frames. One of them held a variety of colorful snail shells. Another a series of pressed flowers. She lifted up one that had nine butterflies pinned to cardboard, with the common and scientific names neatly printed in a precise hand. There was a slip of paper affixed to the side.

Kondraki, butterfly collection, 1 of 3.

She put the frame down and wiped her hands off on her skirt. "Personal effects?" she asked.
"Yes," Cain said softly. "Sometimes, family members or friends come by to collect them. Most of the time, however, they end up here."
There were other aisles, with other contents. In one, a bin full of watches, all of them stopped, most of them tagged with their former owner's name. In another bin, dozens upon dozens of wallets, with their cash, IDs, and credit cards left untouched. Hundreds of coffee cups, some of them with cartoons that had never existed. One shelf contained nothing but phones, ranging from old rotary-dial models, to unwieldy "brick" cellulars, all the way through modern smart phones (each one with a small plastic tag).
One aisle contained a variety of liquor bottles, ranging from rotgut whiskey to Napoleon brandy. They were grouped under small, handwritten tags with labels like, SCP-682 is Terminated, or 1148's Purpose is Understood. "Willed by Foundation personnel to those who would come after them," Cain explained, "only to be opened in the event that the requested milestone is reached."
The largest collection of bottles had a shelf to itself, labeled simply Quiet Days.
There was one aisle labeled "D-Class." It contained mostly toothbrushes, half-empty tubes of toothpaste, and electric razors. Also hundreds of orange jumpsuits, neatly folded and stacked… when their physical condition would allow.
The last aisle was the smallest, but it was also the most unusual. A stack of Norman Rockwell prints. Desk toys, including hula girls, bobbleheads, and little ceramic dinosaurs. A few golden Buddhas and lucky cats. Some jewelry boxes, including at least one engagement ring. And a very small box of baby clothes that she hoped the owners had simply outgrown…
At the end of the last aisle was a door, which led to a library. At one end were the novels, nonfiction, and textbooks. About halfway down, they gave way to notebooks, binders, and lab books. Then came stacks of letters, each stack neatly bound together, with a familiar plastic tag affixed. All of the bookshelves had glass covers on them. "In case I make a mistake," Cain said. "I try to be careful, but one unprotected touch could destroy them."
At the far end of the library was a shelf with dozens of photo albums. On a nearby table, an album in the process of being filled. A shoebox of photographs, depicting a smiling, bald-headed man with a brutish but friendly face, often standing next to a bunch of other people wearing familiar uniforms. M. Lombardi, a small banner at the top of the page read. Here, In This World, He Changed His Life
"You do all of this?" she asked.
"It helps to pass the time," Cain said. "Especially these days, when my services are less in demand." He ran a gloved finger along the spine of one of the photo albums, sniffed with displeasure as he rubbed the dust off of his fingertips. "The Foundation has no monuments and no memorials. These are often all that remains of a friend, a lover, or a partner."
They left the library, and she picked up her crate of office supplies, and somberly carried them out of the warehouse and into the front office, whereupon Cain flipped the switch that turned the lights out. She lingered in the doorway, holding her crate of mismatched tchotchkes, shifting her weight from foot to foot, unsure what to say.
"There are three types of people who come here," Cain said, interrupting her awkward silence. "The first type rummage through the stacks, find something that makes them pause, then they leave, often empty-handed. The second type come full-knowing that they are looting the dead. Those I turn away before they can enter."
"And the third?" she asks.
"Come to remember," Cain said. "Sometimes they go to a specific point in the warehouse, find a certain object, and linger there for a long time. Most often, they go to the library, find a certain photo album, and flip through the pages until they find one they are looking for. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they laugh. But they all remember."
She swallowed back the lump in her throat.
Cain gave her a gentle smile and returned to his seat, cross-legged atop the steel desk. "I will have your things delivered by tomorrow morning," he said. "Have a good day, Miss."
And with that dismissal, she left, closing the door behind her, and the hollow sound of its closing was like a mausoleum clanging shut.

CODA

It was later, when she was putting her things into her newly-delivered desk, that she discovered that all of the previous owners had carved their names onto the inside of the top drawer. Davidson. Kingsport. Iceberg.
She froze, feeling the same sense of solemn silence that had overcome her in the warehouse. It would be two full weeks before she had the courage to carve her own name into the wood. That night, as she lay in bed, she wondered who would use the desk next, once her time with it had ended.


Doomed World.
Desperate People.
Last Hope.
Fearful Wardens.
Young Girl.

Fifty Three sat in front of her room's mirror, braiding her hair for when her guest arrived. She wondered who would be visiting her in the hospital. It couldn't be her parents, the doctors told her that her disease made them sick before she was brought there. It couldn't be one of the people in the funny suits, they wouldn't be coming for four more days. If it was another little kid or teenager to play with, the doctors would have told her if it was. So, left wondering as to what was about to happen, Fifty Three continued to prepare for her unknown guest.
With time to spare, Fifty Three remembered back as far as she could. The very earliest that she could remember, she had been painting a picture in her room. Before the time that she could remember, the doctors told her, her parents had brought her here because she was sick. She saw no reason to doubt this story; she had seen other patients' rooms when they moved her, and everyone either wore lab coats or special clothes to keep them from getting sick. Well, no, that wasn't right. There was one thing, one of her favorite memories, that didn't quite belong in a hospital. After all, why would a hospital have a dragon?
She knew that dragons only lived in stories, but she also remembered very clearly that memory from thirteen years ago. She remembered the gentle giant with the cool, firm scales and the long, flowing mane. She remembered his patience as she drew colorful scenes on his neck and face. She remembered the strange, haunting melodies that he sang to her. She remembered her friend, whom she had known for less than a day.
After a short while, the door to her room opened to reveal the metal box that the doctors used to move her from place to place, to keep people from getting sick, the doctors assured her.
"SCP-053, please enter the transport container," a calm voice commanded over a small speaker.
After she had entered the container, the door shut once again and she felt the box begin to move. She noticed a small cooler and a sleeping bag sitting in the corner of the box. Food, water, and bedding. They only used those for long trips.
The small speaker piped up again. "Good afternoon 053."
"Good afternoon doctor," she replied. "Can you tell me who I'm meeting now?"
"Not yet, it's still a surprise. The trip will take a while, so I would advise that you get comfortable."
Fifty Three milled around her room for a while, ate her dinner, drained a bottle of water, and decided to sleep through the rest of the trip.
She was awakened by the voice over the speaker; "SCP-053, we have reached our destination."
She sat up groggily as the door opened. A slow smile spread across her face as she saw who was on the other side. It was her friend.

By order of the O5 Council:
Due to an increase in the frequency and destructiveness of SCP-682's containment breaches, Protocol COLUMBIDAE 682/053 is to be implemented at the nearest possible date.

Fifty Three embraced her friend, at least, as much of him as she could.
"Little one," his deep voice rumbled, "it has been too long. Have you been well?"
"Yes, I have been. Well, I'm still sick, but I feel well enough."
"Hmm. You have been among these humans too long. I have much to teach you."
"What do you mean, my friend?"
"Have you not noticed it, my child? Have you not noticed that you are not like them? You may take the same shape as them, but I can see you as you truly are."
"I don't understand."
"My child, you are not like them. Your spirit is far older. It is the same as I am, a stranger in this world. You are as I am. That is why they tell you that you are ill. It is because they fear you. They fear you because they cannot understand your spirit."
Fifty Three sank to her knees, processing the information. Why did she get the feeling that the dragon was telling her the truth? How could it be true? Was she just sick? Were the doctors afraid of her? All of this sounded like something out of a wild story. Then again, dragons only existed in stories too. Why would a hospital have a dragon?
"Would you like to hear the truth? Would you like to know our story?"
Fifty Three nodded mutely.
And so, SCP-682 spent the rest of the day telling her of another place, another time, another story. He told her of great kingdoms, of the kindness that he had seen among his people, and of the hardships they had endured.
At the end of the day, a door opened up in the wall. On the other side of the wall, there was a room that looked exactly like Fifty Three's old room. A new voice blared over the speakers, ordering her to return to her bedroom for the night. Before crossing the threshold, Fifty Three turned around.
"My friend, what is your name?"
"In our home, I was called 'Atanti-ql-Paneu'. The name that you will call me by, however, will be 'Atanti.'"
And so, their lives continued this way for many months. Atanti would tell Fifty Three of their old home. Fifty Three would paint along or rest by his side. And, in time, she came to know of their past, and the truth of the "hospital." And all this time, she grew ever closer to Atanti.
"Atanti, tell me the story of the Seventh King's Speech again."
"Not today, my child." The behemoth took a deep breath. "Tell me once again, what is your name?"
"Fifty Three."
"No my child, that is merely the name that the humans have forced on you. It suits you no better than the name 'Sicz-Eitu' suits me. No, my child, you need a name truly deserving of your nature." The great dragon sat in silent contemplation for a moment. "'Quarseta-ql-Paneu.' Will you take this name?"
"'Quarseta.'" She let the name roll off her tongue. "It's a beautiful name. What does it mean?"
"In our tongue, it means 'The Bringer of Joy.' Now, come Quarseta. We have business to attend to."
"Business?"
"Of course. Did you expect to spend the rest of your life in this prison? Now go, collect your books and your paints. There is one more friend that we have yet meet."

Incident 682/053/1129:

[0:15]: SCP-053 moves to its individual containment cell.

[1:02]: SCP-682 begins adaptation, gaining a much leaner form and a coat of interlocking plates of armor.

[4:13]: SCP-053 returns, carrying a cardboard box.

[4:57]: SCP-053 climbs onto the back of SCP-682.

[5:26]: SCP-682 develops a large, bony crest on its forehead, shielding SCP-053.

[5:43]: SCP-682 and SCP-053 breach containment.

[12:17]: SCP-682 and SCP-053 escape Site-19.

[17:24]: Mobile Task Force Beta-7 ("Maz Hatters") deployed to intercept SCP-682 and SCP-053. Mobile Task Force Eta-11 ("Snake Oil") and Mobile Task Force Xi-4 ("Chimney Sweeps") are deployed to clear areas in the path of the anomalies of civilians.

[5:18:01]: Contact lost with MTF Beta-7.

[19:11:03]: SCP-682 and SCP-053 arrive at Site-83.

[19:17:49]: SCP-682 and SCP-053 reach the containment cell of SCP-1129.
…

Quarseta looked on the scene in front of her in awe. A very beautiful person, their form twisting and turning through space in mesmerizing patterns. It was a dazzling display which gave one simultaneous senses of wonder and danger, like a coral snake or a tornado. And somehow, behind the transient images, there was a definite feeling of kindness and purity.
"Edrisek, my dear friend. It is good to see you again."
The dazzling being flashed and twirled back a greeting.
"Quarseta, this is my friend, Edrisek-tsa-Fanu. You will call them 'tsa-Fanu.' They will be our guide as we travel."
"Where are we going?"
"Home, my child. Home. Now, simply step into Edrisek's embrace, and we will take the first steps of our journey."
Quarseta hesitated for a moment, then stepped forward. Imagine, if you will, sinking deep into a soft, warm bed after a long day of tiring work. That was what Quarseta thought of when she walked into tsa-Fanu.
And then they were gone.

New World.
Desperate Travelers.
Fresh Hope.
Old Masters.
Quarseta.

HUB | Lost Golden Days »


Agent Clarissa Shaw stood silently, looking into the contents of a Site-64 interrogation room. Sitting at the table inside was a Saker who called itself Miles Wilson, an android designed to resemble an African-American man in his mid to late twenties. Agent Shaw brushed a strand of her blond hair out of her eyes as she reviewed the contents of a file she held in her arms. With a minuscule smile, she pushed up her thin rimmed glasses and entered the interrogation room.
“Afternoon, Miles,” Shaw began as she took a seat at the table, neatly placing the folder in front of her. Miles immediately looked away, his gaze focused anywhere else rather than risk eye contact with the agent.
“Hello, Ms. Starling,” Miles mumbled.
“You can call me Agent Shaw,” Shaw began, “I told you already that was just a cover.”
“I liked you better when you were Ms. Starling,” Miles replied. “You seemed nicer then.”
Miles then paused; his eyes looked around the room but still refused to make eye contact.
“That was a Silence of the Lambs reference, right?” He asked, “Agent Starling?”
“Correct,” Shaw said with a smirk, “Fitting, don't you think?”
“Whatever you say,” said Miles. “I don't have anything else to tell you.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Shaw said as she opened the file and scanned its contents. “I think there is still a lot you can tell me, like what your particular purpose as a Saker unit was.”
“I don't know what you're talking about…” Miles shook his head. “I'm sure I would know if I was a robot. Clearly, I'm not.”
Shaw sighed, pulled a photograph from the file, and slid it across the table.
“What do you see here, Miles?” She asked.
Miles looked down. The photo was of him in a college baseball uniform, standing among several other players. He smirked as he slid the photo back across the table.
“You have a picture of me from when I played baseball for the Beavers, so what?” He said, his gaze shifting to the one way mirror.
“That picture was taken for a newspaper article that was published in 1998,” Shaw replied as she placed the photo back in the file. “You're how old? 23? 25? You should be in your late thirties by now, but it appears you haven't aged. On top of that, my friends did some digging. The Miles Wilson pictured here died in 2001 from small-cell carcinoma.”
Miles closed his eyes tight and violently shook his head. Shaw could hear him mutter, “stop” under his breath.
“I think someone in Miles Wilson's family is very close to Anderson, if not Anderson themselves,” Shaw continued, “And I think Anderson made you as a surrogate. You're designed to look and act as human as possible. Anderson hasn't terminated you yet because you're too special. I wouldn't be surprised if…”
“Why are you doing this?” Miles interrupted, slamming his fist down on the table with a sickening thud, his eyes filled with tears as he finally made eye contact, “Why are you guys trying so hard to tell me I'm something I'm not? What does it matter to you if I think I'm a human or a robot? At the end of the day, I've still told you everything I know!”
“As I said before, I doubt that,” Shaw said coolly. “I imagine we'll find out soon enough.”

Agent Shaw sat in the office of Agent Sasha Merlo, leader of MTF Gamma-13, Asimov's Lawbringers. While Shaw sat back in her chair, relaxed and with a cup of coffee, Merlo's eyes remained glued to the phone, biting her nails. A portion of the MTF had been deployed to the residence of Jeffery Wilson, Miles's father, to bring the man into Foundation custody. Now they both waited to hear the mission status. The room remained silent, save for the ticking of Merlo's electric blue clock on the wall.
“Aha!” Merlo ecstatically shouted as the phone rang, the sudden influx of noise forcing Shaw to jump and spill some of her coffee. Shaw attempted to regain her composure as Merlo flipped the phone onto speaker.
“Go for Merlo!”
“Merlo, this is Carter. We're at the Wilson residence,” A man's voice came over the speaker, and heavy rain could be heard in the background. “It's gone.”
Shaw watched the color drain from Merlo's face. Her smile morphed into an expression much more solemn.
“What?”
“It's gone!” Carter repeated. “The house is burnt to the ground. There's nothing here. We're combing the area, but I don't think the search will…”
Merlo hung up. Slowly she sank back into her office chair and spun around, turning away from her companion.
“Just once, I want us to be faster.”
“There's still a chance. If the rest of the team combs the area, maybe…” Shaw began, only to stop talking when Merlo shook her head.
“The man's house burnt down. Something tells me it wasn't because he left the goddamn stove on,” Merlo replied. “No, Wilson knew we were coming. He's long gone.”
Merlo then got to her feet and began to head towards the door.
“Do you want backup?” Shaw asked.
“I should do this alone,” Merlo called back, and disappeared into the hall.

Edgar Holman, Site Director

Merlo took a deep breath as she read the nameplate on the door, and then gave a sharp knock.
“It's open,” called a man's voice from inside.
Merlo took a moment to compose herself before stepping inside. The office itself was quite large. Numerous shelves lined the walls, each filled with minor anart items that had been brought to Site-64 over the years, but didn't require official object classification. At the back of the room was a large desk covered in a slew of files, each labeled “Clayton.” Sitting in a rather large chair behind the desk was a tall, sharply dressed man with slicked back hair.
“Merlo?” Holman asked. His voice was a deep bass.
“Director,” Merlo said with a halfhearted chuckle, “We've had some developments with Wilson…”
“Oh? Go on.” Holman quietly placed the folder he was reading down and made it clear she had his undivided attention.
“Gone,” Merlo cringed, “The residence was burnt to the ground. Carter is having the rest of the crew comb the area, but you already know how that will go.”
Holman nodded in agreement. A sympathetic smile came to his face.
“We just can't win, can we?”
“Maybe not this time, but we still have the Saker. I'm sure that we haven't exhausted that avenue yet.”
Holman's smile quickly morphed into a frown.
“About that,” Holman said with a sigh, “I just got word from Overwatch. The Saker is to be transferred to Site-81.”
“Excuse me?” Merlo nervously chuckled.
“I'm sorry, Sasha,” Holman replied, “It's out of my hands. Security reasons.”
“Those motherfuckers broke into Site-19!” Merlo shouted as she banged her hand on the desk, “How the hell is Site-81 going to help? You're just going to let that bald quack take our prize? We lost three agents during the last raid! Aside from that punk out at Site-84, Gamma-13 is the authority on Anderson…”
“Agent Merlo!” Holman's voice filled the room like a sonic boom; Merlo took several steps back from the table.
Merlo remained silent for a few moments as Holman took a few deep breaths.
“Edgar, please,” said Merlo, “Don't let them do this to us.”
Holman closed his eyes and slowly shook his head.
“There's nothing more I can do. I'm sorry.”
Merlo nodded in understanding. With a sigh, she turned and began to head to the door.
“Oh, Sasha,” said Holman as Merlo began to disappear into the hall, “Remember that you're still in charge of Miles until the transfer. Do with that information what you will.”
Merlo gave Holman a sly smile and nod before quietly disappearing into the hall. There was work to be done.

Agent Merlo sat alone in her office, her eyes glazed over as she furiously scanned document after document from Anderson's POI file.
“There's got to be something here…” she mumbled to herself.
Merlo's phone then rang.
“Go for Merlo,” she impatiently shouted as she picked up the receiver.
“Ah, um… this is the office of Sasha Merlo, yes?” asked a deep, metallic, male voice. “I have to say that it's very nice to have a chance to finally speak with you.”
Merlo froze.
“Who is this?” She asked.
“Oh yeah, sorry about that, I'm Anderson,” he replied, “I, uh, I believe you're familiar with my work.”
There was a pause. Merlo wasn't sure what to say. This was Anderson?
“Why should I believe you?” Merlo hesitantly asked.
“Well, if you put me on speaker phone, I could disable that Amur unit that's been in your office the last two days.”
Merlo immediately dropped the phone and reached for her pistol, quickly scanning the entire room before she heard the laughter coming from the other end.
“Yeah, uh, I was just kidding,” Anderson chuckled.
“You have my attention,” Merlo hissed, “Why call just now?”
“Oh, right! Well, you see, you are right to think that Miles is very valuable to me. I was sort of hoping that maybe I could pick him up.”
“… You're serious.”
“As cancer,” Anderson replied.
“That's not going to happen,” said Merlo, her eyes were wide in confusion.
“I thought you might say that…” Anderson sighed, “I wish this wasn't always so difficult.”
“I'm sorry?” Merlo asked. “I'm making this difficult for you?”
“Don't get me wrong, Sasha,” said Anderson, “I really do like what it is you and the Foundation do. I think it's, uh, the bee's knees. You guys do things I'd never want to touch, you know, containing eldritch horrors and such. I, uh, I just wish you weren't so quick to squash the little inventors. Given enough time, even anomalous technology becomes mainstream. I mean, Christ, if we were cavemen, you guys would try to contain fire because it would be too spooky for your tastes. Do you know what I'm saying?”
Merlo didn't respond. This was Anderson?
“Well, fuck it then,” Anderson said after several more moments of silence. “I, uh, guess I'll just have to come get him myself. I was really hoping it wouldn't come to that. Oh well. I guess I'll see you soon, Sasha. Tell Ms. Starling hello for me.”
The line went dead.
Merlo then felt something move on her neck. Out of reflex, she quickly snatched at the spot and threw the object away. A small black ball bounced against the wall and came to rest on the ground. The object quickly produced a set of legs and a red spot for an eye. Merlo recognized it as one of Anderson's Amur Recon Drones. In a flash, the tiny robot scaled the wall of her office, and disappeared into the ventilation system. Merlo's mouth hung open for a few moments before she slumped back into her chair.
“Well, fuck…”
That was Anderson.

«Part One: Hunting Anderson | The Elusive Anderson | Part Three: Meeting Anderson»


The group of people in black suits surrounded a fresh grave. Everyone who used to work with Dr. Kondraki and lived to tell the tale was present: Gears, Alto Clef, Kain Pathos Crow (for the sake of decency he agreed to be wearing a collar), Simmons, several assistants and also a young beautiful woman who had tried to pass herself off as the widow of the deceased, but during the funeral was identified as Jack Bright.
A priest was performing the rite. Afterwards the coffin was lowered and covered up with soil. It seemed highly unnatural for such a wayward troublemaker like Kondraki to lie peacefully inside a wooden box and not try doing something about it. Everybody seemed a bit confused, as if not knowing whether to mourn or breathe a sigh of relief.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust”.
Gradually the small gathering started to disband. Foundation members, inured to lose their colleagues and witness death, were leaving without turning back, as if they wanted to close this chapter of their lives. Dr. Clef was the only one who took his time. People were walking by, passing the stout, hunched up Training and Development Director's silhouette. Dr. Gears stopped beside him for a moment with a questioning look, but Clef only made a "nothing for you to see here" gesture with his eyebrows.
Eventually there was only a single person left on the whole graveyard. Stepping towards the freshly-covered grave still fragrant with the questionably fresh smell of earth and cemetery dew, Clef pulled out a bottle of Heineken beer that he was hiding underneath his clothes during the whole ceremony, and opened it against the edge of the grave. Several foamy drops fell on the tombstone.
“There is your blessing”, Clef muttered, moving aside to stand in front of the gravestone. He gave it a reprimanding look.
"Well, well, Konny. You were one hell of a bastard, and everybody knows that. Of course they wouldn't have spoken all this goody-good bullshit about you if not for the funeral regulations. As for James Blackshaw…” Clef smirked. "This was Kain's idea, although I told him you'd like Beethoven more".
He took a gulp from the bottle and fell silent for a few minutes.
“But you know what? I would never have imagined you to wind down so fast. Really. It was you who started this whole Duke mess, rode the Reptile; you tricked Able himself in swordplay. And now? You just a bag of bones, aren't you? And here we are!”
Clef stared at the name and the years of life carved on the tombstone, as if the rock could understand him. A mischievous grin flashed across the face of the “father of lies”.
“By the way, there is something I can tell you now that I've never told anybody. You can keep a secret, can't you, my dead friend?”
The cemetery answered him with quiet rustle of leaves, mixed with distant noise of passing cars, and the morning fog swayed lightly in the hollows.
“Ok. I see, you're interested. After all, you were always itching to take a picture of my face, didn't you? It was a matter of professional honour for you, right? And what made you think I actually had a face? Did you notice, Konny, that people saw me differently? Someone even mentioned the third eye, but he was made a laughing-stock. Seriously, who would come up with something like that?..” Clef rubbed his forehead. “If you were even a little familiar with the Bible, Konny (which I doubt), you probably heard about the guy with six wings and four faces. But let me tell you, it's just the beginning. My case is much worse”.
Clef took another swing from the bottle, brushed the beer “moustache” off his upper lip and carried on.
“Okay, let's take a look at it from a different perspective. Here you all are, unanimously calling me a liar. I am used to not take offense, I even play along. But nothing of what I said was a lie. Was it the truth?" Clef smirked. “Lil once asked me about it. She was like: “Tell me the truth”. I laughed. My god, how I laughed, Konny. You are all so narrow-minded. You have invented such ridiculous things like truth, lies, fate, justice, egg pillows. They don't exist, Konny. They don't exist. Except for the egg pillows. The O5 Command sweated for such a long time over my PDA after that incident trying to recover the audio. They hired experts to recognize the motions of my lips on the video feed. I can't know for certain, but I'm almost sure they tried. Do you know what they would have found there if they had searched properly? My laughter. Whole lotta laughs! And also a few words mentioning that whatever I said would always be true,” Clef slurred the last words, reaching for the bottle again.
"Or maybe none of that. So you all better leave me alone with this crap. You are just primitive creatures with linear fates. How can I explain to you what multiplane reality is? You can't even understand wave–particle duality. Well, take yourself for example, Konny. If you knew what I know, you wouldn't be lying in this coffin like a piece of lazy shit. You would have overcome death and stood right behind me!”
Clef shrugged, barely keeping from looking back.
“I am anything and everything. I am all that you can possibly imagine. God? Will do. The Devil? Fine! No, really, why are you thinking inside the box?” Clef laughed one more time. “I liked you, Konny. I liked your vision of me. And I liked being what you saw me as. I told you, all of this is just an illusion. Like your butterflies. Speaking of which. I know that you aren't there in the coffin. I also know that you've locked the little ones several meters under ground without a single drop of sugar syrup. You are a magnificent bastard, Konny, you are. I know that you're out there! You wouldn't have lost an opportunity to attend your own funeral! All of us wish for it deep at heart – to jump out of the coffin shouting “surprise!” So c'mon! Come outside!”
Clef looked around. He peered into the trees, the tombs… the air – maybe a butterfly wing would suddenly flutter by. He waited for about a minute, with a bright smile that wouldn't leave his face, then laughed nervously – and fell silent. He was alone. Really alone.
“Miserable bag of bones”, he muttered, taking several steps away, but looking at the grave until the last moment. Then he tucked the bottle into his coat pocket and walked away without looking back.


Two Days Prior

"You want The Suit?" the dog asked. "Are you sure?"
"Adams is going to need it," Clef said, "especially if the Coalition starts stepping up their efforts."
Professor Kain Pathos Crow gave a low, angry growl. He slapped his front paw against a button on his console, and the finally-completed Egg Walker folded up into its storage configuration and rolled up the ramp. "You should take her off the Task Force," he said angrily. "She's not ready."
"She's going to be ready, Crow," Clef said. "And she's going to be one of the best assets the Foundation has ever had. Call it a hunch."
"I don't intend to have my most important creation put at risk of destruction on one of your hunches, Clef," Professor Crow retorted. "I spent months… years…"
"I know what you're worried about," Clef interrupted. "But Adams can do it. She just needs that goddamn suit."
Kain Pathos Crow gave his old friend(?) an angry glare. He glided his little hover-platform past a pair of large water tanks, where a couple of white-coated researchers were apparently conferring with a pair of nightmarish sea monsters with long tentacles and glowing spots all over their bodies. "Elliott!" he barked.
"Yes, Kain?" A thirty-something woman stuck her head up from behind a desk where she had apparently been working on a computer. Her eyes were large and surprised looking, and she pushed her glasses up from where they had been sliding down her nose.
"Would you get Dr. Clef the Suit?" Kain asked.
"We're not completely done with…"
"Yeah, we are," Kain said. "We don't need to put on all the markings and numbers. What we have now will suffice."
"Right," Dr. Elliott said. She dashed into a back room, from which the sound of rummaging could soon be heard.
"Isn't that the one who was with Adams and 105 in that stupid bar crawl incident?" Clef asked.
"She was the getaway driver," Professor Crow replied, "and she's a damned good researcher too. Gonna take her away from me too?"
"Not planning on it," Clef said. "The suit should do fine."
"That's not what I meant," Professor Crow said. "They promised me that they'd reactivate Olympia. It's been days and I haven't heard anything else. What gives?"
"A bit impatient, aren't we?" Clef laughed. "Look, I wouldn't worry too much yet. You'll get your girls back soon enough."
Their conversation was interrupted by Dr. Elliott returning with a silver case under one arm and a sleek, black helmet under the other. "Here you go," she said, huffing and puffing. "There are flexible solar panels in the fabric: it should keep it going for most of the time, but you're going to have to plug it in every once in a whi—"
"I'll figure it out," Clef said. "Thanks." He picked up the suitcase and helmet. "Hey, look on the bright side, Crow. If I'm wrong, we'll all probably die, then you can tell me, 'I told you so.'"
"Only if all dogs don't go to heaven," Kain said, deadpan.

Day 1

"All right, Adams," the voice over the loudspeaker said. "How do you like the suit?"
"I look like a video game character," Adams complained. The suit was form-fitting, and jet black, and a bit shiny, too: supposedly from the flexible photoelectric cells embedded into the fabric. The "sexy spy catsuit" look alone was enough to make Adams cringe, but then there were the faintly glowing bits, and the dark red decorative piping… "What the hell is this thing?"
"Leftovers from an abandoned project from the Omega-Seven era," Clef said. "It's a bit complicated, but think of it as enhanced combat armor."
"Okay," Adams said, raising her hands and clenching her fists. Despite the tight fit, the suit didn't seem to restrict her movements. "Will Alpha-Niner be issued these too?"
"Nope. Just you," Clef said. "Technically, everything in that room is subject to Special Containment Procedures. The Procedures in this case are, 'If Adams breaks or loses them, she's in deep shit.' So take care of them, capisce?"
"Yes, sir," Adams said, putting as much sarcasm as she could into her salute.
Clef chuckled. "All right. We'll start with sensory input. Put on the helmet, close your eyes, and count to ten. By the time you open them, the vision systems should have activated."
Adams slid the helmet on over her head and locked it into place. It fit snugly, as if it were made for her (and it almost certainly was). She followed Clef's instructions and closed her eyes…
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
"One."
Adams opened her eyes.
Something behind her eyes went click.
The world exploded into painful color. The light didn't so much pierce her eyes as barrel through like a juggernaut. Adams staggered, her optic nerves ablaze with an overload of information. She clawed at the faceplate of the featureless black helmet, struggling to get it off, get it off, get it—
"ADAMS." Clef said. His voice was painfully loud. "ADAMS. LISTEN TO ME. FOCUS. CONCENTRATE. CONCENTRATE ON MY VOICE."
She closed her eyes again. Took deep breaths. Tried to drown out the pounding of her terrified heart through force of will. "Too much… too much color!" she gasped. "Can't… can't see…"
"Adams, listen to me! It's feeding information directly into your visual cortex! Everything from gamma rays through infrared! You just need to filter!"
"Don't… know how…" Adams wept as she pounded the visor of her helmet against the concrete floor. The blurring of her tears twisted her vision further, which didn't help her current situation at all. "Can't… can't control…"
"Yes, you can," Clef snapped. "It's just like going from a dark room into a lighted one. Your eyes will change the way they see the light. Your brain will change the way it processes the information. You just need to give it time to get used to it. Open your eyes, Adams. Don't be afraid." His voice took on a sneering, condescending tone. "Or are you just an air-headed office bunny like everyone thinks you are?"
Oh, fuck you, Clef.
Raising her eyelids those few scant millimeters was the most terrifying thing she'd ever done. When she did, she wanted to scream. She didn't do it. She refused to let that smiling asshole see her weakness again.
The explosion of information… didn't quite lessen. More like she grew accustomed to the insane amount of data pouring into her brain. She started picking out the important bits, filtering the junk, disregarding the noise to focus on the data. In a few moments, she was able to stand, breathe, slow her racing heart back into something resembling its normal resting rate.
She looked up at the observation room with its bulletproof window. "Dr. Clef?"
A metallic click. "Yes, Adams?"
"Please don't insult the office assistants again, or I'll report you to our superiors for another round of sensitivity training."
She heard Clef chuckle. "Understood, Adams."

Day 2

"All right, Adams," Clef said. "Seems like you've gotten the hang of the first part of what the helmet can help you do. Now it's time for the second part."
Up in the observation lounge, the window turned black as a polarizing light filter activated. One of the walls of the test chamber lit up, displaying a swirling pattern of lights.
Adams immediately recognized the distinctive orchid-and-worms pattern of a Berryman-Langford Memetic Hazard. She let out a shriek of surprise and closed her eyes.
"Open your eyes, Adams," Clef ordered.
"Are you fucking insane!?" Adams shouted. "With a live cog-hazard in the same room as me?"
"You will be protected from its harmful effects," Clef said. "Open your eyes."
Adams opened her eyes.
It wasn't that she wasn't being affected by the deadly pattern swirling on the screen. It was more that she could recognize what it was trying to do, and was able to deny it. The image on the wall was trying to tell her heart to stop, but like a child putting her fingers in her ears and yelling loudly, she could somehow drown out that voice.
"Congratulations, Adams," Clef said. "You are now one of the few un-innoculated people to ever see a Berryman-Langford Memetic Kill Agent and live. What's it like?"
"Why don't you clear your windows and see for yourself?"
Clef chuckled. "I think I'll pass. All right. Let's try some audio hazards next, then we're going to repeat yesterday's exercises on ultraviolet and upper EM-spectrum tracking."
"I think I'm starting to get the hang of it," Adams said. "Though I think infrared would be more useful. Not many humans give off ultraviolet or gamma rays."
"I've got my reasons, Adams. I'll explain later. For now, let's continue the lesson…"

Day 3

"All right, Adams," Clef said. "I think that's enough for the helmet. Now it's time to test the suit."
He pressed a button, and a minigun popped out of a hatch on the other side of the room and opened fire. Adams tumbled back as the force of the bullets knocked her to the ground, pummeling her with supersonic projectiles. "I get it!" she shouted. "The suit's bulletproof, let me up!"
"Of course the suit's bulletproof," Clef said. "That's just the first part of the test."
Another hatch popped open, and the muzzle of a large caliber anti-material rifle emerged from a gun port in the wall.
Oh shit, Adams thought.
The rifle fired.
Something behind her eyes went click.
Adams felt the round punch into her left arm. She felt the pain for an instant, then it was as if all the agony just… went away. She knew her arm was hurting. She didn't care.
It was just pain.
The rifle's muzzle turned. The next round hit her in the forehead, then the back of her head hit the ground. She shook her head as stars exploded behind her eyes.
Up above her, a ceiling panel opened up.
Then a grand piano fell on her.
The minigun ceased firing. The rifle pulled back behind the gun port. There was only silence, broken by the sound of hot brass clattering to the concrete floor.
With the sound of snapping piano strings, a fist punched through the splintered wood, followed by another fist, then a head and shoulders.
"All right," Clef said. "Let's review: the suit will stop penetration, although not impact, of rounds up to .50 caliber Browning. It will also stiffen against broader-area impacts. Also, it will enhance your strength and speed up to—"
Half of a shattered piano smashed against the observation deck window.
Clef chuckled. "I guess you found that out already. Next exercise…"

Day 4

"All right, Adams," Clef said. "Let's talk guns."
"Are you going to shoot me again?" She was still pissed about the piano thing.
"No. Today, you're going to be the one doing the shooting."
One of the walls slid open, revealing a firing range beyond. The walls and ceiling were covered in what appeared to be battleship armor, and the bullet trap was a long, heavily armored cone the length of a football field.
"There's a Mark-7 sidearm on the firing line," Clef said. "Go ahead and load it."
Adams walked to the firing line, picked up the pistol, checked the chamber and magazine. "Should be a piece of cake," she said, as the slide snapped home. "I've always been good at marksmanship."
"I know," Clef said. "But this drill is a bit different. Pop-up targets at unknown ranges. Your goal is to place ten rounds into each. Ready?"
"Ready," Adams said, taking up her firing stance.
"Begin."
The red light lit up, and the speakers let out a buzz. A small white circle, about the width of a baseball, flipped up at the end of a metal arm.
Adams raised the pistol and tracked the target, lining up the front sight with the center of the circle. She exhaled halfway, took up the slack on the trigger—
The target dropped away. The red light flashed and the speakers buzzed.
"Zero points," Clef said. "Next target."
"What? Wai—"
Another target flipped up on the end of a metal arm. Adams brought the weapon around, lined it up…
The target fell away. Red light. Buzz.
"Zero points," Clef said. "Stop thinking. Just do it. Your body's trained. You know the motions. Focus your mind on finding the targets and let your muscle memory do the rest."
"But—"
Another target flipped up. Adams spun and opened fire. One hit, two hits, th—
The target fell away. "Two points!" Clef said. "You need to fire faster!"
"That's insane!" Adams protested. "You can't get groupings that tight that fast!"
"No. THEY can't get groupings that tight that fast. YOU are wearing a highly sophisticated combat suit. YOUR abilities are far beyond that of any human. YOU can do this. Next target!"
A surge of anger blazed through her blood.
Something behind her eyes went click.
She put the first round into the next target before it had flipped completely into place. The second and third followed just as quickly. The fourth clipped the upper edge of the target, so she pushed down the muzzle of the pistol and put five and six back into the center…
She put two more into the target before it fell away behind the berm.
"Eight points," Clef said. "Not too bad. Next target."
"But I'm out of ammo!" Adams protested.
Red light. Buzz. "Reload faster! Zero points!" Clef said.
Adams swore as she grabbed a magazine from the firing line and slammed it into place.

Day 5

"… all right, Adams. Take five."
"What the hell happened?" Adams cleared and safed her weapon, then inspected the damage. The trigger hung loosely in the lower receiver, giving no resistance to the touch of her fingertip.
"You pulled the trigger before the bolt returned fully." Clef said. "When you did, you must have broken something in the trigger group. You were literally firing faster than the weapon can cycle."
"The Mark-19 carbine has a cyclic rate of 950 rounds per minute," Adams said.
"Yeah, I know," Clef said. "You're faster."
Adams put the rifle down on the table. "Okay, I'm a little bit freaked out now," she said. "What the hell is this suit, anyway?"
A long pause. "I guess you do deserve an explanation," Clef admitted. "All right. Get changed and meet me outside. It's lunchtime, anyway."

"So," Clef said, rummaging through the picnic basket. "Do you want turkey or beef?"
"Turkey," Adams said. "Hold the hallucinogens."
Clef laughed. "I only did that once, and it was for a seminar."
"The walls were alive and my purse was trying to eat me. And you were screaming about how you were a living God. I have no desire to repeat the experience."
"You handled it better than most," Clef said. "Poor Chang was clawing the tablecloth." He handed one of the two sandwiches to Adams. "All right, down to business. Do you know anything about the Bowe Commission?"
"A little bit. It was before my time."
"Hm. Okay, once upon a time, the Foundation wasn't the international, independent organization it was today." He opened up a little foil packet of mayonnaise and spread it liberally over both halves of his bread. "It needed help, especially funding and manpower. It found both through a man named General Bowe."
"I've heard of him," Adams said. "I don't know much about him, though."
"Well, General Bowe was the head of the U.S. military's secret paranormal research branch," Clef said, spreading potato chips over the upper half of his sandwich. "Cold-War die-hard. He truly believed that the Soviet Union was an empire of evil, godless monsters, the whole deal. They went to the GOC, but the UN wasn't interested in helping the U.S. build up a private arsenal. General Bowe needed to find someone with enough resources to fulfill his needs, but outside the aegis of the United Nations."
"Us?" Adams asked.
"The Foundation," Clef confirmed. He picked the tomatoes out of his sandwich and tossed them onto his sandwich wrapper. "Match made in heaven, right? We get our money and an unlimited supply of convicts. They get their weapons. Hence the research. Hence the increase in field teams and security forces. And especially hence MTF Omega-Seven: a Mobile Task Force made up of humanoid anomalies."
"… except Omega-7 failed," Adams said. "Able killed them all."
"Yeah. Bowe wanted soldiers, but what he got was a psychopath and a teenager. What he needed was someone who was good at killing, but was also controllable. Seventy-Six was good at killing, but he could never be controlled. One-Oh-Five followed orders, but she was never really a killer, no matter how hard they tried to turn her into one. So one of the other researchers came up with a different approach."
"The suit?" Adams asked.
"Pretty much," Clef said. "Instead of turning an anomaly into a soldier, you train up a soldier and give it the power of an anomaly. That suit you're wearing represents the end result of that project."
Adams steepled her fingers as Clef tore open his little packets of salt and pepper and sprinkled them onto his sandwich. "So how come everyone knows about Iris and Able, but no one's ever heard of this suit before?" she asked.
"It was in early prototyping when SCP-076 killed Omega-7 and O5 shut down all weaponization of anomalies." Clef put the other half of his bread on top and pressed down firmly, crunching the potato chips. "Up until I asked Crow to resurrect one of his old projects for you, the suit wasn't completed."
"I've never met Professor Kain Pathos Crow," Adams said thoughtfully. "Maybe I should consult with him regarding improvements to the suit's design."
"Improvements?" Clef scowled. "Why the hell does the suit need improvements?"
"It's not exactly comfortable, for one," Adams said. "Rides up a bit. And it takes forever to put on and take off—"
"Adams?" Clef said. "You focus on keeping SCP-105 alive and being ready to put a bullet in her head if she turns bad. That's your job. My job is dealing with the eggheads and bureaucrats. You want to ask Crow for improvements, you send the requests through me. Capisce?"
"Capisce," Adams said, rolling her eyes.

Day 6

"All right, Adams," Clef said. "Today we're going to talk about why the entire firing range is armored like a tank."
"I assume it has something to do with this gigantic rifle on the side table?"
"You assume correctly. Pick it up."
Adams hefted the enormous gun. Even with the suit taking most of the weight, the weapon was incredibly unwieldy. "What the hell does this thing fire?"
"20mm cannon shells. The same kind they put in fighter jets."
"What am I going to do with this? Blow up a tank?"
"You could," Clef said, "Or you could fight the Global Occult Coalition."
"I'm listening," Adams said, perking up.
"Good," Clef replied. "A GOC STRIKE trooper in a White Suit is basically a human-sized tank. It can run at speeds upwards of 60 miles per hour. It can shrug off weapons fire up to and sometimes beyond .50 caliber BMG. It can be dropped by parachute from a plane or apport in with the aid of a thaumaturge. And most importantly…" Clef said, tapping a control on his console, "… it's fucking invisible."
Six dummies clad in white armor suits materialized on the firing range. "Jesus!" Adams shouted, recoiling in surprise.
"He's too busy to help you," Clef said. "Now, our invisibility tech isn't as advanced as the GOC's, but this should suffice for training. A White Suit's PAVISE system renders it invisible to infrared and visible light, but they're somewhat visible in the ultraviolet and upper-EM spectrum. None of which matters because they're also shrouded by a cognitohazardous compulsion not to notice them. And if you can get past both of those defenses, you've still got to find a bullet big enough to punch through their armor."
"This suit," Adams said, as understanding dawned. "It makes me just as fast and as strong as a White Suit. The helmet senses ultraviolet and upper-EM and filters out cognitohazards. And the rifle…"
"The rifle is our current best chance to punch through a White Suit's armor without also taking out an entire city block." Clef's voice was low and grim. "I'm not going to lie to you, Adams. Even with all these upgrades, your chances in a one-on-one fight aren't much better than 50%. And STRIKE Teams deploy in squads of eight, plus commander, all in White Suits."
"Those are their heavy hitters, then?"
"Hell, no," Clef said. "The heavy hitters are Orange Suits. But nothing can fight a UHEC, so we're not even going to try. If you see something that looks like a cartoon robot and sounds like a monster? Just fucking run."
"All this isn't exactly doing wonders for my confidence." Adams dug the toe of her boot into the floor. "You're telling me I'm screwed."
"No," Clef said. "I'm telling you that you've got about a one percent chance of taking on a GOC STRIKE Team and winning. Which is better than anyone else in the Foundation's chances, which are a big, fat, stinking zero. Now stand on the line and engage your sensors. I'm going to re-cloak the target. When I say 'go,' you will have about ten seconds to engage and destroy them all."
"Is that all?" Adams asked sarcastically. She inserted a magazine the size of a phone book into her enormous weapon.
"Nope!" A hatch opened, and a .50 caliber machine gun emerged from that damned gun port. "You're going to do it all while getting shot at!"
Adams swore. She ducked behind a concrete barricade as a burst of heavy machine gun fire punched big holes through absolutely everything.

FROM: Assistant Director Alto Clef, Division of Training and Development
TO: O5 Council
RE: Mobile Task Force Tav-666, Operation Elpis.
Asset Samekh has completed familiarization training with Phase 2 equipment. Current rate of integration is estimated at 25%.
As of the writing of this report, amnestic treatments and false-memory constructs continue to hold. Per pre-existing standing orders, Asset Samekh remains unaware of its prior identity.
I will continue to monitor Asset Samekh's progress and provide training and support as needed.
Dr. Clef

PRIORITY MESSAGE: PALISADE BROKEN MENAGERIE (REPPRI-5PALBM)
AT 1827 HOURS LOCAL TIME, AIAD "GRAPE" DETECTED INTERNET TRAFFIC INDICATING A POSSIBLE BROKEN MENAGERIE (ANOMALOUS THREAT IN WILD) INCIDENT. FOUNDATION AGENT WAS DEPLOYED TO ██████ █████ HOSPITAL IN ████████████,MI. CONFIRMED OCCURANCE OF SCP-008 IN WILD.
MOBILE TASK FORCE BETA-5 ("BABYSITTERS") TO PREPARE FOR IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT. ELEMENTS OF MOBILE TASK FORCE ALPHA-9 ("LAST HOPE") and LAMBDA-2 ("NNE") TO ACCOMPANY MTF-B5 AS OBSERVERS.

FROM: O5 Council
TO: Dr. Alto Clef (Commander, Mobile Task Force Tav-666)
RE: Mobile Task Force Tav-666, Operation Elpis.
Asset Resh-2 to be released from storage and returned to Asset Resh. Asset Samekh is to be deployed with Phase 2 equipment as security detail for Asset Resh.
Assets Resh and Samekh will deploy with Mobile Task Force Beta-5 as observers. Let's get Iris some hands-on experience (before we possibly get shut down forever).
O5-7

It felt oddly right to be back in tactical gear again. The equipment had changed, but its purpose had not: to make sure her most vital gear was carried in a comfortable, but easily reachable, fashion.
Iris tied her boots tightly and tucked the ends of the laces under the tongue of her boot. Adrian had showed her a neat trick that would make sure that the lacing didn't slip and her shoes didn't come untied. It had taken a few tries to remember how it worked, but once she'd gotten it right, the way the boots gripped her ankles felt… proper.
She was pulling a blue long-sleeved shirt over her tank-top when the women's locker room opened, and Mrs. Emma Peel walked in. Except it wasn't Mrs. Emma Peel, it was Adams in a close-fitting black catsuit.
"What the hell are you wearing?" Iris asked.
"Anomalous tech," Adams said. "It's some kind of super-suit." She put down a silver pistol case and a helmet that looked like something straight out of Power Rangers.
"You look like Catwoman," Iris said.
Adams sighed. "I'm gonna get so many stupid comments, aren't I?"
"Look on the bright side," Iris said. "Everyone's going to be so busy staring at you that no one will want to shoot at me."
"Thanks a lot," Adams grumbled. She fished her tactical vest from her locker, pulled out the plate inserts and tossed them onto the floor, handling the heavy ceramic plates as if they were playing cards.
"You're not going to wear the plates?" Iris asked, shrugging into her own armored vest.
"Won't stop anything this damned suit can't," Adams said, pulling the Kevlar on and closing the clasps. "Oh, by the way. I brought you an old friend." She gestured to the pistol case.
Iris gulped.
She undid the latches on the gun case and opened the cover, slowly and reverently. A Polaroid camera lay within, nestled in pluck foam. She ran a finger over the familiar scuff mark on the bottom left edge.
"We were able to find a few cartridges of original Polaroid film in our stocks," Adams said, strapping her pistol belt around her waist. "Not sure if it'll work after all this time, so we also brought three more of that new stuff. Good?"
"Yeah," Iris said. "We're good." She checked the straps and gave them a brief tug, then slung the camera and its protective case over her shoulder. Feeling that old, familiar weight fall into place at her hip felt good, like coming home after a long trip abroad.
"Hey," Adams said, giving the younger woman a confident grin. "Don't fret. This is gonna be a piece of cake. We'll just sit back and watch the MTF do their thing. Everything goes smoothly, we spend a couple of days up in the mountains looking good in black…"
"Some of us better than others," Iris quipped slyly. "You should seriously find out if you can wear pants over that thing."
"Goddamn it," Adams muttered. "I'm seriously gonna have some words with R&D after we get back…"

PRIORITY MESSAGE: PALISADE BROKEN MENAGERIE (REPPRI-5PALBM)
AT 2200 LOCAL TIME, OPERATION "CAMP GRANADA" COMMENCES.
I saw a clothes horse and he rear up and buck, and they tell me that a man made a vegetable truck


Martha stood in a vast river, feeling the chill down her knees. The river, clear as clean glass, babbled around her, swirling and surging, but there was no shore. White mists loomed over the water, but she felt as if she could see through this endless pale veil, all the way to the end of the river. She wondered where the river came from.
Birds were chirping, their chorus went through the open window, bringing in the wind of early spring. The wind flipped open a few pages of a notepad, but Martha hardly noticed. Her roommate, Yang, came in and called to her, but Martha did not respond, so Yang just placed a cup of coffee on the table.
But even the normally pleasing smell of coffee failed to be a distraction. Martha sat motionless, staring at the pages in front of her. Her mind was in a different place.
Sounds came from beyond, but the mists were like a thick white curtain, making them distant and unreal. She wondered for a moment if she had forgotten something, but the feeling passed.
The river flowed faster and louder now. The chill was still there, but now felt pleasant. She bent down, and dipped her hands into the stream. It was beautiful, like liquid crystal, but also lacking. It was too clear, contained no life, no diversity. She saw no colorful stones at the riverbed, no fish swimming, no banks dotted by flowers.
But she saw possibilities.
Martha picked up the pen and began to write. She felt the words flow, as waters of a vast river loomed by thick white mists. She wrote page after page, as coffee grew cold, as the birds flew off, as Yang came and went without getting noticed.
She knew what she needed to do. The white mists were still there, but lighter, happier, as songs flew above the river. There were not only fish and stones and flowers and trees, but also dark corners and shadowed edges. The river's flow changed too, no longer continuous, but with sharp turns and falls, rocks and rapids.
The banks were solid now, forming a specific path for anyone who would walk alongside the river to see things she intended to display. Even as Martha stood there, she felt the rush of the river, urging her to go down. But instead, she turned.
And saw that the beginning of the river still hid itself in the thick white mists.
Soon after sun down, Martha rose from the chair, grabbing the sheets and claiming victory. Yang, now sitting on the sofa, offered her what was left of the dinner.

In the end, it was not a thick book, but a small pamphlet with a black and white cover. Martha made a few copies and distributed them down the street.
Most were never read, ending up in dumpsters or gutters, but a few were picked up. The readers would skim through, then read again, this time, more carefully, methodically. They read it with a cup of coffee, or when waiting for the bus, or as they climbed into bed before turning off the lights.
They did not realize what would happen when they flipped open the pages, and even as they went through the words, thought it only a curiosity. A fine piece, but no more. But that night they would dream.
They dreamed of the vast river. They dreamed of banks and valleys, of waterfalls and sharp turns, and the white mists looming over. And they walked the same path, water spattering and lapping at their feet. They felt the river rushing down, urging them to continue, to feel the flow and become part of it.
In the morning, all had forgotten what they dreamed. They got up, and continued their daily life. But somewhere in their head, a river in the white mists flowed. Quietly at first, but becoming louder and louder as they dreamed of it each night.
Then, a few times, after a day's work or study, they would go home and begin to write. The river ran through them as words formed on paper or screen, and grew louder and louder.

“This is actually working! I can't believe it.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean, this is exciting! Like, this is really original.”
“So you mean this is coooool.”
“No, Yang. Stop that.”
“I like how you did it, though. Pens and paper, all old-school. I thought you would be typing it down from the start.”
“…”
“What's the matter?”
“When I get this thing bigger next time, be sure to remind me that we live in the modern age and actually have laptops.”

Martha stands again in the vast river, ready to create something new. She pictures something that will not just convey the urge, but a feeling more powerful. Maybe to make them see themselves, to form a new view, or even to shape reality. They will know as the river runs through them, with endless possibilities and endless power.
Martha looks back, to the thick white mists looming over, and wonders where the flow comes from.

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