The following document has been in Foundation possession since 18██. Several dating techniques have all placed the document at its authentic time period. Foundation scholars are unable to place where this document would fit among the author's other works. Current translation from Ancient Greek by Dr. ██████

Reptilius
By Plato1
Date of writing unknown
Translation by Dr. ██████
Persons of Dialogue:
Mactavius the Victim
Salares the Priest
Copernicus the Clueless One
Musinus the Skeptic
Socrates the Philosopher2
Scene:
A temple of healing
Salares: Have you come to see the deluded?
Musinus: We have come to examine his claims.
Sal.: He is in a deep slumber. Would you wish for me to recite what he told me?
Socrates: We would wish it for proper examination.
Sal.: Here is the roll, Socrates. I will recite the recorded dialogue as if it were him speaking to me and also my servant Copernicus, who was there with me. I have omitted, for the sake of convenience, the interlocutory words "I said," "I remarked," which he used when he spoke of himself, and again, "he agreed," or "disagreed," in the answer, lest the repetition of them should be troublesome.
Mus.: Please continue, Salares.
Salares reads the scroll
Mactavius: Please help me, priest I am injured.
Sal.: Servant, fetch this man water and bandages, and also olive oil with which to bathe his wounds.
Mac.: Thank you, priest, I am grateful.
Sal.: What has happened to you, Mactavius, on this day that has caused you to be so injured in such a way?
Mac.: Let me begin then, priest, so that while you heal me I may tell you what has happened. I was walking to the house of my uncle Therapedes while I was considering the philosophy of true forms, which has puzzled me greatly for many years. I was considering the true form of a lizard, which has a pointed snout and a lengthy tail and four legs, with webbing between each finger. It also has scales on it with which any man may discern it from other creatures of this sort. My thoughts were over what the true form of a lizard would resemble in the world of Ideas, where all forms are true, and not the world of reality where we are all shadows of a true form.
My mind decided to focus on getting a view of the world of Ideas, and not simply shadows, and I decided to sit on the road and ponder this realm until it became clear to me, and I sat as many men walked by and jeered at my ponderance. This did not break my concentration, and I continued to think on this realm for many hours before a vision began to come clear to me of it.
Copernicus: Priest, this man is lying. He cannot see the realm of true forms because there is no realm of Ideas.
Sal.: It is the occupation of a philosopher to think on such things, servant, and not of a man who spends his thoughts on lower realms. Therefore I would ask of you to be quiet so that Mactavius may continue his story.
Mac.: This vision was very hard to view, as my eyes were made for the viewing of mere shadows, and not to view the realm of true forms, where man has never looked before. I decided to view the true form of a lizard, which my thought was on earlier, and which I now wished to see. I searched for the true form of the lizard and I saw it. It was terrible and also majestic, and looked at me and saw that I was seeing it and it pursued me. I ran away down the road but it followed me and attacked me and wounded me.
Thereafter, many men armed with spears and swords came from the house of my uncle Therapedes to rescue me from the lizard and they attacked it with their weapons. The lizard then changed forms in order to protect itself, and it devoured all of the men, then fled from the roadside and into the hills of Olympia.
Sal.: How was it that the lizard changed forms?
Mac.: It changed shape and thus became many different things while the men attacked it. When Euripedes of my uncle's men stabbed at it with his spear the lizard thereafter gained a shield along its flanks, and it was much harder to stab with spear or sword, and the men could not slay it, and it devoured them.
Cop.: Priest, this could not be true. How could a lizard possess such intelligence to know to create a shield for itself, as a lizard possess only the intelligence to flee from its attackers, and not to defend itself by changing its shape?
Mac.: This lizard did possess an intelligence, and told me that it must kill me for it to leave this world of shadows, so that it may return to the realm of Ideas, and that all shadows should die, for they are not a true. Then I slept from my wounds as it ran away.
Salares finishes reading the scroll
Mus.: This man is delusional, for such a thing could not have happened. Were there injuries about his head to make him think such things?
Sal.: No, there were many bites along his chest and arms, from which he will be forever scarred. The bites were very large, larger than could be made by a lion or a bear, and also very deep, and Mactavius bled much blood from his injuries, and could not move his left arm.
Mus.: Surely you do not believe the man.
Sal.: I believe the beast came from the real of Ideas, and was in its ideal form.
Mus.: Such talk is nonsense. How could a man see the realm of Ideas, when he is always tied to reality?
Soc.: Perhaps it was simply powerful thought of the realm of Ideas.
Mus.: Such an act would not be possible.
Soc.: Can you not imagine the characteristics of every lizard?
Mus.: Yes, a lizard possess four legs and a tail of extreme length, as well as a flattened head and scales along its body. Its feet are webbed and it moves quickly across the ground.
Soc.: Can you imagine an animal with all of those traits?
Mus.: Yes.
Soc.: Then is that not its ideal form?
Mus.: You are very wise, Socrates. That is not something I had thought to be true.
Sal.: So then you agree that it is possible to imagine an ideal lizard?
Mus.: Yes. But what of its changing shape?
Sal.: That, I do not know.
Soc.: The lizard is of the realm of Ideas, yes?
Sal.: That is what we have concluded, Socrates.
Soc.: What of its properties when it enters our lesser realm?
Sal.: It is a true entity among mere shadows.
Soc.: How are we shadows?
Sal.: We are the simple shadows of ideal forms, cast into this realm by candle light.
Soc.: Then the beast would not also flicker like a shadow in candle light, changing shape?
Sal.: It would.
Mus.: An excellent explanation Socrates, but then what of its cries for freedom and its devouring of Therapedes' soldiers?
Soc.: An ideal form is made of the characteristics of how we perceive the lizard, yes?
Mus.: That is true.
Soc.: Then would it not be true that the lizard would cease existing if we no longer observed its characteristics?
Mus.: Yes, then it would be free from our lesser realm, and would return to the realm of Ideas. Very good Socrates, that explains why the beast would wish to destroy life around it, because life would observe it and prevent it from escaping, and that would anger it, but I doubt we can ponder for much longer today. We are needed at the house of Antioch to dine with the king there, for he has heard of Socrates's wisdom and wishes for us to share dinner with him, so we must go.
Soc.: Tomorrow I wish to return and discuss the summoning of this creature and other ideal forms as this man has done before us, so it is our duty to find knowledge of how he accomplished this. Therefore we will discuss this further. For now I wish you goodbye, priest.
Sal.: Farewell.

The further documentation referred to in the dialogue has not been found.

Footnotes
1. This is disputed. The content of the document roughly matches Plato's philosophy, however a lack of mention in other sources regarding Plato's works casts suspicion on its authenticity. It is possible that knowledge of this document was suppressed, as it deals with acts of summoning something that was not considered a god at the time period.
2. Note that Socrates was used by Plato in most of his dialogues (usually cast as the thoughtful philosopher), and that his presence in this dialogue is simply as a character.


The director of the Records and Information Security Administration looked at the next report on her desk. A confused frown played across her face. She reached for the intercom. "Nala, could you send a file up for me?"
"Whenever you're ready, ma'am," the secretary replied.
"SCP-…048? Yes, 048. I need the file as soon as possible."
"Sending it up," Nala replied.
The file appeared in Dr. Jones' inbox. She glanced at it briefly (the file being only a few lines long) and looked back at the report on her desk, finding the author's name. She reached for the intercom again. "Could you send this…Agent Valdez up for me? Thanks." She waited five minutes, and a knock came at her door. "Come in, please."
The agent came in. "Have a seat," Dr. Jones said. "I imagine you know why you're here."
"Yes, ma'am, I think I do."
"You're going to have to explain this report, Mr. Valdez," Jones said. "How, exactly, are you attempting to claim that there's been a containment breach with SCP-048? Is this an attempt to be funny? I know how you junior staff like your little pranks."
"No, ma'am, it's very serious. I believe SCP-048 has escaped containment and is currently infesting a new location. I believe the appendices speak for themselves."
"Agent Valdez, I've read the appendices. You know that RAISA is not known for the same degree of…harsh punishment that other departments have developed a reputation for. But if you can't explain this away, I'm afraid your career here is over."
"Please, Dr. Jones, let me explain. The appendices clearly reveal a consistent train of behavior from SCP-1022 consistent with the pattern demonstrated in SCP-048 before its classification as an SCP. If I may be allowed to go through the file?"
"One moment, Agent Valdez. SCP-048 isn't an entity or a creature. It's literally just the number, a number that seems to attract junior researchers trying to make a name for themselves. How can a number escape from itself?"
"Ma'am, I believe the evidence shows that SCP-048 is more than that. I believe it is some kind of actual, literal curse. And when it was contained through retirement of the number, it started looking for a way to escape. Sometime in the recent past, it did so, and it's now inhabiting SCP-1022. May I demonstrate?"
Dr. Jones waved her approval. Agent Valdez flipped through the file, clearing his throat. "Okay, let's look at the evidence. This is one of the most recent entries, titled "Safety Blanket." It's a blanket that paralyzes its victim."
"Right, and eats them."
"No, that's 799. This just freezes the victim. And, um…"
"What?"
"Renders the victim physically indestructible. And…then teleports itself into a different blanket, somewhere across the world. But only if you don't feed it D-class personnel."
Dr. Jones stared across the table. "You're…you're serious?"
Agent Valdez nodded.
"What was the actual object?"
"It was a bunch of blankets found on some homeless people. The researcher didn't want to touch them, so he said they were 'indestructible' and were responsible for their 'frozen' state. Apparently, his supervisor had told him that he needed to catalog an SCP or face demotion, so he went out and 'contained' some 'specimens'."
"Okay, you have my attention. Go on."
"Exhibit two. SCP-01022."
"Why the extra zero?"
"I think it's the curse. Either way, the entity is, and I'm quoting here, 'a young male in his early teens. SCP-01022 hair is a dark brown, whilst his eyes are a greyish-blue shade, and he's of average height and build. His only discerning physical feature are the large circular scars on his abdomen.' The kid supposedly had a bunch of Australian animal DNA in his bloodstream. We found him in a coma, and we were supposedly 'containing' him on a cot."
"Wait, but what was his real problem?"
Agent Valdez looked at his boss. "He was a kid in a coma. That was it. The researcher didn't even fake the blood tests, he just made up a story about how he had animal blood in his veins. He even added a note at the bottom about how the kid should be in a hospital instead of contained."
"What was that supposed to gain him?"
"I have no idea. Points for humility? Either way, the kid was put in a hospital, and the number was left vacant."
Dr. Jones nodded. "What else do you have?"
"The Door to Forever."
Dr. Jones stared ahead, her mouth agape.
"I'm serious," Valdez said. "It's called 'The Door to Forever'."
Dr. Jones lay her face into her palms. Through her hands, she said "Okay, go on."
"I'm just going to read a passage here. 'When attached to a door frame, SCP-1022 can be used as a portal to wherever you want to go. For example, if you wanted to go to Paris France, you would open the door via the door knob, and step through the door fame with the location (e.g. France) in mind.'"
Dr. Jones rested her head against her desk.
"'When you step through the door frame completely, the door will close itself and a flash of white light will be seen from behind it. Once the flash has gone back to normal, the subject inside SCP-1022 will be transported to the desired destination.'"
Dr. Jones began gently banging her head against her desk. Looking up at the agent in front of her, she said, "There…there can't be anything else to this, can there?"
"Um, for some reason, the Door to Forever could also take the money in your pockets and fuse it into weird Monopoly money somehow."

Ms. Nala was sitting at her desk when the intercom switched on. "Hello! Is anyone there?"
Bemused, Nala pushed the "talk" button. "Yes? Can I help you? Who is this?"
"It's…it's Agent Valdez, ma'am," the voice said. "I think Dr. Jones had a stroke. Please, send in emergency care!"

RAISA Directive #201209:
Investigation is to take place as to the possibility that SCP-048's current containment is inadequate for the entity's present nature. Convincing evidence has been presented to RAISA Command suggesting that SCP-1022 may be infected with either the being responsible for SCP-048's present condition or (an even more daunting prospect) a duplicate iteration of the same phenomenon.
The possibility that further containment slots may be contaminated and rendered unusable in a similar manner as SCP-048 is frightening in and of itself. However, this entity may also lead to a distracting and dangerous misuse of resources for the containment of nonexistent phenomena.
There is hope, however. Further research has demonstrated a similar tendency was present in items designated SCP-1031 prior to the containment of the item currently occupying that containment slot. In particular, one item categorized as SCP-1031 was an unnamed goblet allegedly capable of transmuting any fluid into hazardous substances; this was revealed to be a common plastic Solo cup painted to appear to be made of steel, and possessed no unusual qualities whatsoever. Suspicion has been cast on the entity known as "The Alchemist," an unknown being believed responsible for convincing researchers that various drinking containers possess anomalous properties and should be contained, even to the extent of leading a quest to recover them.
—Maria Jones, Director, Records and Information Security Administration


☦A new agent tries to prove himself.☦
From the Journal of Agent Breen:
It started when I found this spoon on an assignment from Area Director Smith in an old clinic. No one briefed me on anything, so I wasn't sure what I was getting into. It was in the cafeteria. The cafeteria was empty, save for some cobwebs and silverware on the ground. Nothing strange was there at all. Found an irregular looking spoon, picked it up, and the walls started bleeding. I could smell iron and fecal matter everywhere. I sat there trying to take things in. I was told I should go in expecting things like this in the first place.
The walls… I don't know for sure but something about them just seemed off (aside from the blood, of course). There was a warp along the wallpaper; I could feel something watching me. I swore I saw a tongue stick out. A brown sludge started seeping out as well. It was like some sort of monster's ass was poking in from another dimension. Maybe that's it? Maybe we don't document extra-planar orifices. I'm not crazy.
Well the air started to stink even more after that, it kept happening even after I dropped the spoon. Maybe it wasn't the spoon? Maybe the bogeyman just wanted me to walk in the cafeteria. I don't know. Anyway I picked up the spoon off the ground, which was now covered in sludge, and got the hell out of there.
I stood in the hallway for a moment or two, I could still smell the iron and crap, but there wasn't anything else that was strange happening in the hallway. It was just the usual creepy-old abandoned clinic. I was shaking, so I took a few of the pills the Site Director provided for me to "calm me down", and sat there for a few moments recording an audio log on what just happened.

Agent Breen reporting. Fenschermeister Sanitorium, 02:32:23
The situation remained normal until I entered the refectory. I discovered an old spoon on the ground and picked it up. Shortly afterwards the walls in the refectory began exuding large amounts of what appears and smells like blood and fecal matter. Reporting out, beginning a follo-.

Then I hear an explosion from inside of the cafeteria. Then another series of explosions. Then I heard hinges being knocked loose, and feel a gust of warm, stench-filled air in my face. The iron door flew off its hinges and crashed into the adjacent wall, followed by an avalanche of the red-brown sludge. The pills are still working so I'm just backpedalling away, incredulous.
The smell started getting stronger. The pills didn't work for my nose apparently, so I started to retch as I was running down the hall away from the incoming landslide. I ran, vomiting and damn near tripped over it as I turned the corner into the garden area. I was a long ways from the entrance to the facility, and everything else was boarded off in one way or another courtesy of the Foundation, so I found an old dead tree and started climbing. While I was watching the ooze turn the enclosed garden into a makeshift pool, I recorded another log.

Agent Breen reporting. Fenschermeister Sanitorium, 02:34:00
Aside from an increase in matter released from the wall in the refectory, there have been no changes to the situation. I am currently located in document defined sector-3, in a tree, witnessing the sludge filling the area outside. The amount of sludge is significant. We can assume the majority of the facility is now flooded. Reporting out, beginning another follow-up.

It's at my toes by that point, and I don't have any more tree left to climb. I guessed that at that point I would just have to document whether or not the substance was any more volatile than what it smelled like. I removed my gloves and submerged my exposed hand in the goop. I came to no harm, save for mild irritation. With my left hand I recorded another log.

Agent Breen reporting. Fenschermeister Sanitorium, 02:37:01
The substance does not seem to be harmful.

The facility had a raised, cathedral roof, and the garden had no enclosure save for the walls, so I deduced there would be air pockets still in the facility so that I could continue to navigate. I braced myself (the pills would only do so much, I was still unsettled by the fact that I would need to swim through this) and dove feet first into the goop.
I was swimming blind, my eyes were irritated. I paddled toward the door and began feeling around the walls so that I could get oriented. I was at the entrance to the garden then, inside. I swam up near the ceiling for air and could just make out the sign directing toward the refectory. As much as I did not want to, the Site Director would have my head if I didn't at least snap a photograph of the place where all of this started happening, so I started dog-paddling toward the refectory.
I was swimming upstream, and the stuff was a bit thicker than water, so I was getting pretty tired. My stomach was empty at that point, so most of what I was doing was dry heaving, whining, and bitching. I grabbed onto a rafter so that I could regain my energy, and then I saw it.
There were worms, flopping about in the goop. They looked like flatworms about the width of a garden snake, and the length I do not know. There were a couple, or maybe it was just one? I can't be too sure. Either way I could feel adrenaline pumping through my body after spotting the thing, and made the decision to keep swimming toward the refectory before I lost my nerve. I made it there eventually, and save for feeling the worms brushing against me while I was swimming, it was fine.
I dove down into the sludge again so that I could get into the refectory and edged my way in underneath the threshold. The current was immense so I had to pull myself along the walls with my hands. After some searching and some… failed gasps, I found an air pocket in the ceiling. Luckily one of the rafters - while coated with the substance - was still exposed. I removed my camera and tape recorder from my jacket. Fortunately the ones they supplied me with couldn't break if you threw acid with them or hit them with a hammer. I didn't want to open my mouth again, because I could taste the stuff, but…

Agent Breen reporting. Fenschermeister Sanitorium, 03:12:03
Based on the strength of the current, we can assume the wall is still exuding material. There are some large organisms that appear similar to flatworms floating around in the current. Will begin extraction following some final documentation.

I snapped a few photos of the substance from the rafters, then secured the documentation equipment in my jacket. I waded back into the goop, and made my way toward the entrance. The rest was downstream from there, so I held my breath as I floated out.
Internal Report: ██/██/██ RE: Agent Breen
CC: O-█,O-█, Dr. █████, Dr. ████████, Researcher. ███████
Cleaning crews have been dispatched to Area █████. The event went off as predicted with an of error of 5 minutes. The wall in Fenschermeister erupted for 23 minutes this year, breaking last years record of 16 minutes. No differences could be found, as expected, and the phenomenon maintains its Safe classification, as expected. The area should be suitable for one 'training course' parallel to routine containment for next year.
Agent Breen successfully completed the assignment. Attached is a video of the entire incident as per your request.
We are awaiting your selections for next year.
-Dr. ███████


A number of people who no longer used their names spoke to one another.
"How many so far?"
"Four. One D-class, two agents, one junior researcher. The phenomenon must be contained."
"You argued previously that—"
"I know what I said. We need more intelligence about the phenomenon before we can act, yet nobody entering its effect radius returns to report about it. Nevertheless, we must act as soon as possible."
"There is one alternative. The damaged researcher seems to retain some memories."
"His memory has been wiped."
"The RAISA operative carrying out his rehabilitation has reported that his memories continue to surface. We can exploit this."
"I suggest the Council order Dr. Skinner to carry out reconnaissance for us. I have drafted a message: 'New intelligence required. Focus on following keywords: omicron class, apollyon, reverser, holzman, hollis, numberless, 555. Presence of any words indicate operation failure and will require additional amnestic treatment.'"
"What are those words?"
"All of the research we've recovered to date. Maybe something will turn up."
"Why is he to be mind-wiped if he's our only lead?"
"First, amnestic treatments hardly qualify as 'mind-wiping'. Second, amnestics seem to reset his memories, make him more cooperative. We may elect not to go forward with the amnestic treatments, depending on what he knows. But I think the threat of amnestics will speed the process somewhat. If it fails, we can try something different. But time is of the essence."
"Is it wise to reveal this much and hope for the best?"
"None of our other efforts have been effective. I see no choice. The matter is on the table; seven votes are required."
Ten for, three against. The message was sent.

Some time later:
"Site 19 is almost abandoned now. Much of the building is unsafe, and most of the personnel are dead. Have we learned enough to act?"
"Certain files were recovered, thanks to the information we gathered. The SD cards we spread around the Site allowed us to gather even more intelligence, especially from people who believed they were speaking in confidence."
"The recording from the last death was…unusually disturbing."
"Agreed. But the question remains: have we determined the nature of the phenomenon?"
"Approximately. We do not know how or why it is in Site 19, or even in this universe. But a plan was devised for this scenario."
"Who composed it?"
"That information is unavailable. Nevertheless, it is all we have to work with. I propose the plan be executed."
"What is the plan?"
"It is an Omicron class event. Nobody has authorization to know the details."
The rest of the individuals looked uncomfortable. "Do you have any alternative?" the speaker said. Silence throughout the room. "The motion is on the floor. All in favor? All opposed? The motion carries."
"What must be done?"
"I have composed the necessary orders. Brace yourselves. Executing…now."
A gas flooded the room from numerous vents. The people inside reacted with surprise initially, then relaxed, accepting what was happening. They were fully aware that the gas was a nonlethal anesthetic combined with an amnestic; this part of the scenario was familiar to them. Contingent Omicron, it was called. For when there were things even the O5 Council didn't need to know.
"See you on…the oth…er s…the other side," a voice was heard to say.

The top floor of Site 19 was deserted as Jaime MacGilligan woke from a nightmare. It was hardly an unusual occurrence, of late. It was the same nightmare. It was always the same. The basement. The rubber balls, bouncing across the room without stopping or slowing. The conversation behind her. The bodies.
So many bodies. Many of them friends of hers. Every night, while Holzman and Hollis argued about decommissioning SCP-Numberless, someone new entered the room in front of them. Neither of the men saw their new companion, or heard the gunshot directly to the head moments later. The next night, another will walk in, see the previous night's sacrifice, and chuckle while they shoot themselves in the head. Jaime knew (in the way one knows things in dreams, things that are impossible to know) that the two men were talking long ago. This conversation happened in another universe, infinitely far away and right here. An eternity ago, four years ago. An event that never happened, that keeps happening. That will always happen.
The clown made it happen. Jaime knew this, in the way one knows things in dreams. Things that are impossible to know. A clown in a television set opened a door and let the breeze from the death of a world drift in to Site 19. It has never happened. It will always happen.
There is a message on her Grayberry. One of her last ties to a Foundation that barely exists, in a world that won't exist for much longer. The message says:
Check your laptop. New orders. O5
The Foundation-issued computer was state-of-the-art, but the battery had barely another hour of power on it. She had been running up, up, away from the basement and…whatever sort of death was there. She never had the heart to leave the Site, though. She was a Researcher, even if a low-level one, and that was that. If the Foundation went down, she would go down with the ship.
A message was waiting for her, in a sense. Her computer had been remotely wiped clean and replaced with a single program. A background covered in the Greek letter omicron, with a message in front:

If you are reading this, Overwatch Command has detected no other life signs within Site 19, indicating a crisis situation of unparalleled magnitude. However, a solution has been devised, and it has been determined that you are both capable of executing the solution and that nobody else is capable of assisting. Details from O5 are included below:

That message was followed by an SCP file, fairly complete except for the item number, which was listed as "Numberless." Jaime had no idea there was an SCP that didn't have a number, until she read the note below the file:

Intelligence suggests that this object belonged to an analog of the SCP Foundation, a much smaller organization, in an alternate universe. Due to the poorly-understood nature of the object (originally believed to be nothing more than a device capable of stopping and reversing entropy within a particular range), an attempt to decommission SCP-Numberless failed, leading to an XK-class end-of-the-world scenario. By means currently unknown, this scenario was averted; a side effect of this was the creation of a new universe, which we presently inhabit. SCP-Numberless survived the transition, but remained locked in a heretofore unknown chamber at the very bottom of Site 19. This containment chamber was evidently capable of suppressing SCP-Numberless's effect; while locked, the artifact remained harmless.
Current intelligence suggests that during the most recent Tempest Night containment breach, an unknown entity (suspected to be SCP-993, though the means by which this could have been accomplished are unknown) managed (through similarly unknown means) to unlock and open the containment chamber for SCP-Numberless. The opening of this chamber led to the reactivation of the device, which now displayed a predatory ability to lure personnel within a particular (consistently growing) effect radius into its chamber for unknown purposes via telepathic means.
We have attempted to send support personnel from other sites to provide assistance, but the device has been preventing outside entry to Site 19 through unknown means for some time. We are sorry, but there is no one else but you.
Telepathic countermeasures can be found at the following location. Please

This was followed by a series of instructions that were as shockingly simple as they were horrifying. Jaime knew there was nobody else, and no alternative. A map appended to the message showed the projected increases in the effect radius; the last bit of Site 19, the area she was in, would be lost within three hours. The surrounding countryside would be lost within two days. The effect would be planetwide within three months, and there was nobody left but Jaime. Jaime knew this in the way one knows things in real life, things that are impossible to forget. She looked at her orders once again:

You must close the containment chamber. To ensure success, you must remain inside the chamber when it closes. The Foundation will honor your sacrifice and its meaning for the continued existence of the human race, but there is no chance of survival. We are sorry.

The "telepathic countermeasure" was a headset with earbuds and slightly blue-tinted glasses. A small band running over the top of the head was the only indication that the brain had anything to do with the entire affair. If she didn't believe that O5 wouldn't bother sending her to her death for no reason, she wouldn't believe the stupid-looking thing was even real. But orders were orders.
The elevator the laptop directed her to opened as she approached. A new message popped up as she entered.

The laptop will now direct the elevator. We apologize for the music.

A screeching noise came from the little laptop. The lights in the elevator turned red, and a voice popped up from the speakers. "Omicron-level priority order acknowledged. Please relax before your impending engagement on…" The computerized voice was replaced with a different automated one: "FLOOR…UNAVAILABLE."
A sound came out like an old radio scanning, followed by the words "Morning, today's forecast calls for…blue skies!" and a piano riff.
"Sun is shining in the sky
There ain't a cloud in sight…"
Jaime hadn't seen the sun in weeks. She cried to the Electric Light Orchestra the whole ride down.

The door opened just as the song ended. Jaime walked out holding the laptop, glancing at it for any last instructions.

There is nothing left to tell you. Good luck. You may leave the laptop behind.

She put the laptop back in the elevator and walked away. She noticed that the elevator door did not close. Checking to make sure her headset was on properly, she walked down the hall. She could already see a single chair sitting empty in front of her, facing down another hallway.
She reached the chair and turned to see what it was facing. In her dreams, it was toy balls bouncing back and forth. The file she read said many people dreamed of ice that never melted or perpetual motion machines. People dreamed of impossible things, things that can't happen in real life. She looked down the hallway.
There was a room, and a table. The table was bare, the room was empty. Sometimes dreams are just dreams.
Jaime turned to look down the other way. There was a door, a huge steel door. Similar to Keter containment chambers. This one was cracked open, slightly. She walked towards the door and laid her hand on it, wondering if opening the door further would do more harm than good.
Don't worry, Jaime. There's nothing you can really do here. The voice was in her head, telepathically. She didn't know how the headset had fail—
They didn't design it to be this close to something this powerful, the voice said. Opening the door will have no effect on me. And you know you want to see me.
She didn't know if the machine was making her do it or if she was doing it herself, but she pushed the door open and walked inside.
The machine was so much smaller than she had expected, shaped vaguely like a car engine. Except this engine was white all over, and the exhaust pipes coming from the top kept moving, squirming on their own in a way that was somehow fascinating and disgusting. Jaime couldn't stand to look at it for long enough to discern any other features. And besides, the rest of the room was much more interesting.
The bodies were real. Dozens, hundreds of people sprawled across each other on the floor. Just as many Foundation service pistols lying around from where the dead had dropped them. Well, not quite dead. Jaime saw not a single drop of blood, and knew why.
"You're keeping them alive."
That's right, the voice said. They are waiting for a better world. A world only I can create. They came to offer their services when I showed them that world, but I'm letting them sleep for now. They will never die with me here. None of us will die. Nor will you.
"Then why am I awake? Why aren't you making me shoot myself too? There are plenty of guns here."
I did not make them shoot themselves. They did not want to live in their old lives while waiting for their new ones to begin. But to be honest, the headset is just strong enough to keep that part of me out of your head. You cannot see the beautiful world I intend to create, the ones these people intend to populate. I have no need to lie to you.
"They told me how to end this. The O5 Council gave me orders."
Yes, I see that. All you have to do is close the door behind you. The memetic lock will render this floor invisible again, my effect will deactivate, I will be trapped down here for another eternity, and everything will go back to normal. Oh, these people will be trapped here with me, of course. And without my effect, they will all die. Painlessly, but suddenly. Their blood on your hands. And you with us, though I imagine you knew that already. Again, I have no need to lie to you.
Jaime had not expected that sort of forthrightness. "So…what do you expect me to do?"
I am not human. Life and death are as meaningless to me as the laws of thermodynamics. I have intelligence, sentience, almost godhood. But I feel no urge to prolong it. You have envisioned me as some sort of villain or demon. Do so if you wish. Nevertheless, you have the option of either closing the door, or not.
"That's it?"
Leave the door open, and I rebuild the universe to be a world without death. Close the door, and I don't. I would point out the obvious fact that you would have the blood of these individuals on your hands, but I would not presume to insult your intelligence by acting as though you were unaware of this. Make your choice.
Jaime stood silently, looking at the room around her. "This…this isn't what I expected."
The machine waved its appendages in silence.
Jaime couldn't think, could barely breathe. The pressure of this decision on her head was unbearable. She walked across the room, stepping over bodies, looking at the device as she spoke. "Let me ask you something. Can you show me the original conversation? During the original decommissioning? What did Holzman and Hollis say about you? I could hear them talking, but I couldn't make out the words. What did they think?"
The machine sat placidly. I cannot do so. I have no record of that conversation. Your mind may have created that image from some information I cannot access, but I am not responsible for it.
The thought that now entered Jaime's head was enormous, world-shakingly huge. Jaime thanked a deity she didn't believe in for bringing that realization into her. A realization she spoke aloud to the machine in two words:
"You're lying."
Jaime lunged across the room at the giant metal door. A telepathic screech filled the room, one which might have killed her had the headset not been present. Some of the bodies on the ground lurched, swinging limbs in her path, trying to knock her down. She reached the door and began to swing it shut.
HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW DID YOU
"I just did," she said, the door swinging towards the frame. She didn't have time to say, The way I know things in dreams.
Things that are impossible to know.
The door closed.

The top floor of Site 19 was crowded as Jaime MacGilligan woke from a nightmare. A man stopped and helped her up. "What…where am I?"
"I'm not sure how you got here, but you're on the top floor of Site 19. You look familiar, though." He walked her towards the nearest medical station. "Maclaren, isn't it?"
"MacGilligan. I'm one of the researchers on Floor 13. I didn't catch your name."
"Jim," the (rather cute, she thought to herself) agent said. "Jim Freeman."

"What was this dream, David?"
The researcher paused a moment. "You know, I actually can't remember." He shrugged. "Huh. Must n-n-not have been that important.
Dr. Skinner nodded, jotting a note onto her clipboard. Much improvement.

A number of people who no longer used their names woke to find themselves napping on the table where they carried out their work. Their computer screens were all white, filled with the Greek letter Omicron. A speaker grille in the center of the table spoke: Omicron event complete.
The individuals looked around the room at each other, knowing the implications. Something had happened that nobody else knew about, something that they could never remember or allow themselves to know.
The speaker grille spoke again: Researcher Level 2 Jaime MacGilligan is to be promoted to Level 3 as per instructions of O5 Command.
The members of that group gathered their composure and sat in silence. O5-2 spoke first. "The motion is on the table. All in favor?"
The vote was unanimous.


"Jesus, the food is getting worse by the day," Agent Lee said.
"Tell me about it," Agent Eastman said. "I think this is another immortal-lizard sandwich. And from the taste…" Eastman took a bite. "…I'd say this was removed with a leaky blowtorch. From the dark-meat side."
Lee chuckled. You had to bitch about the food when you couldn't deal with whatever else was wrong. "So who else is coming to this bountiful feast? Allen's got lunch right now, doesn't he?"
"Yeah, Allen should be here any minute. Milton shouldn't be far…oh, shit. Never mind." Eastman looked down darkly.
"Yeah. He caught it yesterday." Lee leaned forward and whispered, "He had an errand to run…downstairs."
"Shit." Eastman took another bite. "How far down?"
"Not as far as you'd think." Lee glanced around to see if anyone was listening; he had heard that RAISA had started putting "morale officers" throughout the Site, making sure that people stayed upbeat while their friends kept disappearing. Other than the cafeteria being a bit sparser than usual, nobody seemed to be taking particular interest in them. "Barely halfway through the Keter levels."
"That's at least eight floors from the bottom of the site," Eastman said.
"The bottom of the site that we know about," Lee said. "We have to know now that there's something down there that they're not telling us."
"Obviously, we don't have to know," Eastman said, "or else we would know. I don't want any amnestic treatments that I can avoid."
"Have you ever considered…" Lee glanced around again. "Have you ever considered that maybe we have a right to know things that our current employers might not want us to?"
Eastman blanched. Leaning forward, he whispered, "No, and neither should you. We got good fucking jobs, that just happen to be for people who like to keep secrets. And who keep secrets the Benjamin Franklin way. Y'know, 'three can keep a secret if two of them are dead'?"
"Listen," Lee whispered back, "I know you know something. I know there're some people who have…who have a different idea about what people like us should know. Especially when it's our asses on the line."
"Our asses are always on the line," Eastman said. "What the fuck does it matter if we get our neck snapped by a statue, or stuck in a desert behind a mirror, or if we just…disappear? Dead is dead. And for all we know, O5 could be sending a team down to the basement as we speak. I don't get paid to think. I get paid to shoot shit."
Lee sighed. "There's a big difference between an assigned job, a posting, where they tell you what you're getting into, give you a fighting chance to make it back, and a big-ass death trap in the basement of Site 19. Something powerful enough to shut down security cameras, unlock doors, make one of us disappear, without letting us shoot back. I've talked to some people who checked out the scene of the disappearance, okay? No signs of struggle. No bullet holes, no scrapes, no blood, nothing. People just vanishing into midair. And yeah, that scares the shit out of me."
Eastman looked at Lee for a long time. "You're sure this is what you wanna do? Risks or no?"
"Hell yes."
"Okay. Come with me." Eastman checked his Grayberry. "My phone says we have an hour before anyone comes looking for us. If you want to do this, now's the time."
"You sure you want to have your Foundation phone on you when we're about to…to do this?"
"It'd be more suspicious if we didn't carry them. I've got the tracker off, though. You might want to do the same."
"You can turn it off?" Lee was shocked.
"Yeah, give me yours." Lee handed it over to Eastman, who put an SD chip in the back and handed it back. Lee looked at the screen, which showed a skull-and-crossbones logo with the words "I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD" below it.
"You ready for this? There's no going back now," Eastman said.
"Absolutely," Lee said.
They walked to the nearest elevator. Eastman pushed a series of buttons, and the elevator began to move.
"Okay," he said to Lee, "here's what we know. There's an SCP that doesn't have a number, something that isn't supposed to be here. Some people have been having some strange dreams, the same one, about a room at the bottom of Site 19."
"Yeah, I had one a couple of nights ago," Lee said.
Eastman looked at him. "What did you see?"
"Just weird shit. I was sitting in a chair looking at a table with some ice on it. Some part of me knew that I was in the basement of Site 19, even though nothing around me looked like it. It was hot in the room, so hot, but the ice didn't melt. I know there was something goddamn strange about the ice not melting. It wasn't dream physics, even the dream version of me knew something unnatural was going on. I just kept staring at the ice, for minutes at a time. Suddenly, I had the oddest feeling."
"Like there was something very important happening behind you, right?" Eastman looked at him with a sort of desperate tone to his voice. "Like something was about to happen behind you that you had to see?"
"Wait, you had it too?''
"Similar," Eastman said. "Except it wasn't ice. It was one of those Newton's cradles, the little toy with the balls that just tap-tap-tap back and forth. I never saw anyone touch the thing, but it just kept going. Suddenly, I saw a man in a suit, someone I didn't recognize, standing right behind the thing. He put these two wooden blocks on either side of it, just to where the balls would touch them before rolling back down. He stood there and stared right into my eyes while I watched the cradle. It felt like hours before I realized what he wanted me to notice."
"It didn't slow down," Lee said. "It never slowed down. It just kept going on its own. Forever."
"What did you see behind you?" Eastman asked. "What was happening in the room behind you?"
"Hollis was there." Lee was now staring directly into space, barely focusing. "Hollis was arguing with someone."
"Holzman. It was Holzman." Eastman's trance was identical to Lee's.
"I know it was Holzman and Hollis, and they were fighting over the reverser."
"The numberless SCP." A dinging sound snapped Eastman out of his reverie. "C'mon, Lee. We're here." He shook his companion to wake him.
Lee shook his head to clear it. "Right, right." They walked out of the elevator.
There was a single, small room. Maps and notes covered the walls. Lee looked at some of the notes. Research failed to create an environment…entropy increased…it
SCP…not only decreases but reverses
All events will tend towards order.
an endless unstoppable fuel source for the ultimate engine of destruction. And if not that, then what? Men living forever
"This is what we know," Eastman said.
"Where are we exactly?" Lee asked.
"A little ways down. Why?"
"Down, as in…towards the basement?"
"Nobody's been lost this high up yet. It shouldn't be a threat." Eastman shrugged. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I think I get how people disappear without a trace," Lee said, turning his back.
"How?"
Lee snapped around, his service pistol in his hand, and shot Eastman once directly in the head. Lee's accuracy with guns had never been so great before, but now, he knew he could do anything. The Reverser would tell him what to do. It was so smart.
"They walked downstairs," Lee said to no one in particular. Eastman's body lay on the floor. He was not bleeding. Lee walked over and stood over the body.
"The radiation will keep you from actually dying, but the bullet will keep you immobile. You'll keep dying, but you'll never actually die. Thank you for your help."
Lee turned and walked back to the elevator, punching a different series of buttons to go further down. As the doors closed, he heard Eastman moan.
"Don't worry, buddy," Lee said. "I'll leave the door open for you."


“I had the d-d-dream again.”
Dr. Skinner dutifully jotted this note onto her pad. “Was it the same as the others?”
David squirmed in his seat. “Roughly, y-y-yeah.”
“Can you tell me about it, David?” Dr. Skinner looked plaintively across the coffee table at the subject, then back at her initial notes. Thirty-one year old male, one of the only researchers recruited from a non-scientific civilian job. Level 3, but very provisionally, and only because nobody else wanted the Site 38 job. Fairly big fish in a very small pond, before his…accident. Now he's a psych case.
“It was the same. Not much different.”
“You have to tell me, David. What did he say to you? Start from the beginning.”
“Okay, it was during the breach, like it always is.” He paused.
“It's okay, David, you're in a safe place. You can talk about it. He can't hear you.”
“He says he can. Every time it happens, he says he hears me. I think it's real.”
Dr. Skinner sighed. “David. Look at me.” The researcher turned his head. “The entity you encountered is fully contained. You have never come into contact with it. You hit your head during the breach and experienced severe hallucinations. Nothing you saw was real. Now, with that understanding, what did he say in this dream?”
David took a deep breath. “He had me against the wall, and he was talking to me. I can't remember what he was saying for a lot of it; I don't even think I could understand him in the dream. He kept showing me these s-s-scenes, awful, horrible scenes. P-p-people being cut down and eaten alive. Skips were breaking out everywhere, in every hallway. Everyone else was running around, fighting, dying. Some people were even breaching containment on s-s-skips themselves, trying to use them to fight off…whoever w-w-was attacking us. Isn't that insane?”
Like you were, dammit, Dr. Skinner thought. But David didn't remember any of that, and it wouldn't help to bring it up again. “It really doesn't sound very realistic, but it's just a dream. Go on.”
“He showed me all of the dead and dying, and I just kept laughing.”
Dr. Skinner paused, pretending that she was hearing this for the first time. “What do you mean, laughing?”
David shrugged. “I…I don't know. It just…I couldn't help it. I know how horrible it s-s-s-sounds, but at the time…it just seemed hilarious. Something about the way he smiled when people died.”
Dr. Skinner had this note in David's file already. It was very disturbing the first time she heard it, but that was two rounds of amnestic drugs for David ago. Every time he was back in this room, he told her about the same dream. He always had the same dream. Horrifying or not, it got old.
So far, though, it looked like the therapy was working. The researcher would be traumatized for life, of course, but who wouldn't be? O5 hadn't ordered her to oversee David's therapy because there was any realistic chance of actually curing him. Something slightly more serious was at stake here.
“Did you see anything else?” Dr. Skinner asked.
“Well, he s-s-show—“ A knock at the door interrupted the session.
“I'm very sorry, David, excuse me a moment.” Dr. Skinner rose and walked to the door. A messenger outside slipped her a note. She glanced at the words on the page, then returned to her seat. "Now, then, where were we?"
"He talked for a long time. He took me to this room, deep under Site 19, and he kept talking the whole way there. I just remember…"
"Go on."
David squirmed. "He just kept saying 'Omic-c-ron.' And I don't know what that means, but…at the same time, I think I do. It's so…it seemed so familiar."
Dr. Skinner straightened up. "What does Omicron mean? Or what do you think it means?"
David glanced at the psychiatrist with curiosity. Dr. Skinner wasn't always as subtle as she intended to be. "Wait, what d-d-does that note say?"
"Hmm?" She looked at the note. New directives from Overwatch, it said. New intelligence required. Focus on following keywords: omicron class, apollyon, reverser, holzman, hollis, numberless, 555. Presence of any words indicate operation failure and will require additional amnestic treatment. "It's a message from my daughter's school. Nothing relevant to this. Please continue."
"He…he kept taking me further and further down. I saw things, horrible things, people being ripped to pieces. He showed me rooms, I guess they were SCPs. I think he let s-s-some of them out, I can't be sure. But he took me to the bottom. The bottom of Site 19. D-d-do you know w-w-what's d-d—"
"David, please remember, none of what you saw is real. It was all a dream. But whatever you saw might tell us something about the root of what's disturbing you so much. Please, feel free to talk about it."
"There was a bottom. There were d-d-doors, locks, but he opened all of them. He took me inside and s-s-showed me what was there."
Another pause. "David, you need to talk about this. What did you—"
"I was different," he whispered.
"What was that?" Dr. Skinner.
"I was different before. There was a world before this, and I wasn't like this then." David's voice had changed subtlely. Dr. Skinner had seen hypnosis before, and the person in front of her had clearly gone under. It wasn't just the stutter disappearing. It was something else.
"How was it different, David? Please, stay on the couch—"
David stood up and stumbled forward, looking dazed. "There was a different world. There was a Foundation, but it wasn't called that. I don't think we had a name. It was smaller, much smaller. I think it was just Site 19 and a few outposts. And I wasn't called…no, I was still myself, but I wasn't a researcher. Or a landscaper. I had a different title…" David was pacing around the room now, muttering frantically. "Omicron Class Defense Marshal. That was what they called me. I was at Site 19 when it happened."
He's losing it, Dr. Skinner thought. "What happened in your dream? What did you see?"
The look David gave Dr. Skinner chilled her to the bone. "Knock it off, doctor. You know it wasn't a dream. Just like I know that memo has nothing to do with your daughter. And like I know that button under the desk is about to call someone who's going to make me forget about this." David paused. "For what definitely feels like the third time."
"Just stay calm, David." Her finger twitched in a practiced motion. "Nothing you're thinking is real. Focus on the sound of my voice—"
"I'm not going to hurt you, Martha. But time is running out. Holzman didn't finish the job he started. Something that isn't supposed to exist is sitting in the basement of Site 19, and it's waking up. There's an SCP that doesn't have a number, in a room that isn't on any map, and it wants to start running again. I don't know if Bobble woke it up or the other way around, but somebody has to stop it."
Two Agents burst the door down and knocked the researcher to the ground. As one restrained him, the other plunged a syringe into his neck. His eyes fluttering, David muttered a few final words, then lost consciousness. The Agents lifted him up and began to carry him out.
Dr. Skinner followed them to the door. "Wait. What was that he said?"
One of the Agents paused. "The tranq knocked him out, ma'am. He wasn't making any sense. I'm sure you'll see him after the next round of amnestics." They kept moving.
"But what did he say? It might be useful."
The agent looked over his shoulder as he kept walking. "He said, 'Please close the door behind you.'"


I'll be honest with you. This is shit. It's really only going up because a few people in the chat encouraged me to put it up, and I really don't know what else to do with it.
Roight. Now that we're done with the self-depreciation…
***
"Um, sir?"
"Yes, Moyle?"
"We appear to have a spot of trouble."
"What sort of spot of trouble?"
"Well, you know those SCPs? Those things in all of our cells?"
"Yes?"
"Well, they've gone and done it again."
"Dear lord. Again?"
"Again, sir."
"What is this, the third time?"
"Fifth."
"Dear lord. We'll have to explain why Burma's not on the map again."
"Sir. I'm not talking about them doing that again."
"Ah. Which that again are we talking about?"
"They went and deleted the archive again."
"How do you mean? They've done it so many ways, you know."
"Well, if you look at the database, it's returning everything as 'access denied.'"
"Have you tried breaking in through the back way?"
"Both my best computing skills and homosexuality have both failed us, sir."
"Oh dear."
"I know. The situation appears rather grim."
"Are the SCPs all there?"
"Well, from what I can tell, most of them are. I can't exactly check them all right now, sir, but I'm pretty sure they're all still there."
"Well then, you know what we'll have to do now."
"Right then. I'll go put up the decorations."
"We're not going to blow up the bloody base, Moyle. I'm talking about rewriting the SCPs."
"Oh."
"You look like you're hiding something from me. What is it Moyle?"
"Well, you know those employees we have? The scientists and researchers and doctors and whatnot?"
"Yes?"
"They're all dead."
"How?"
"Gunshots to the head, sir."
"Oh dear. Any idea why they did that?"
"Well, I found a note on their corpses, sir."
"Yes?"
"They all wrote the exact same thing."
"And that exact same thing was?"
"They have all written, 'We have chosen to commit suicide rather than continue working for the Foundation because the bloke running it is,' and I quote, 'a lilly-livered, horn-rimmed glasses wearing monster, who we all consider a shitfaced bloody bastard.'"
"Huh."
"They put a special emphasis on the word bastard, sir."
"I figured they would. You know what we need to do, correct?"
"Considering the situation, we'll need to hire some more people."
"Correct."
"Well, there's a problem there too, sir."
"What would that be?
"Well, we can afford to rehire the guards, and the scientists, and the researchers, and the doctors, and the administrators…"
"But?"
"But the cost of hiring new writers is through the roof. Unless you find someone who is extremely generous, there's no way to hire a single new author."
"Why can't the others do it?"
"Well, even though it's their jobs, the reports the researchers make are always highly unprofessional. You need a writer to make sure his work is good."
"We could always do it ourselves."
"Are you willing to do that much work for yourself, sir?"
"Well, no."
"And I'm not willing to do it either. So you see the problem."
"So I do."
"Do you have any ideas, sir?"
"Well, what did we do the last time this happened?"
"If I remember correctly, it required more cattle prods than we can reasonably afford."
"And you say it's too expensive to hire any new writers?"
"Yes, sir."
"We could trick people on the internet to do it for us."
"Sir?"
"Look here at this website. Average imageboard, right? Well, what say if I were to do a sloppy write-up of a random SCP? And if we get a few people to promote it as a great writing idea, set up a website around it?"
"I still don't see how that solves our problem, sir."
"Well, we've got hundreds of thousands of objects to rewrite. If we get enough people on-board with this, they're bound to come up with something like what we've really got. We'll just take whichever ones we can and use them to fill in the archive. Reject the rest, you know?"
"How will we make it seem… well, not suspicious?"
"Simple enough. Write them off as bad writing."
"You know, sir, thinking about it, it's a rather brilliant idea. Just one problem with it."
"Yes?"
"Neither of us is the best writer. What if they chose to take whichever SCP we put out there and stick it on a pedestal? Make it so that we aren't able to edit it properly, just because it's the quote-unquote 'First?'"
"Well, once we have enough money to hire some proper writers, we just execute everyone involved."
"Doesn't that put us in a similar situation as now if the writers we hire commit suicide as well?"
"Well, then, we think about that when we get there, now don't we?"
"Isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place, sir?"
"No. That one involved beers."
"Ah, yes. Care for one now?
"Sure, Moyle, sure."


Belfast, Ireland
The GOC surveillance team who used the flat as a staging area had been stationed there for four weeks, doing an assessment of a Known Threat Entity in the area: a young man with low-level mind control powers who, so far, didn't know that he was anything other than a charismatic and persuasive university student with better-than-average luck with the ladies. Given the weak level of his powers, and his generally agreeable and stable personality, the watch team were generally inclined to classify him as a Response Level 1 and move on: someone to check in on once in a while, but not worth the hassle of neutralizing.
Agent Chandra was on her way back from a fish-and-chips shop with a big paper bag containing her and her partner's supper when the red Toyota hatchback pulled alongside her. "Excuse me," the young man in the front passenger seat said, "Can you tell me how to get to the Ulster Museum?"
Agent Chandra turned away to point, and that was when the man in the back seat raised his gun and shot her.
The four men in the small hatchback burst from the car carrying submachineguns. They booted down the front door of the building, hustling up the three flights of stairs silently, bowling over a confused (and, soon, terrified) sixty year-old lady in the process. Three of them took up positions outside a particular apartment, while the fourth pulled a beanbag-like object from his jacket pocket and hurled it at the door.
The door shattered off its hinges, skidded down the hallway, and came to a halt at the feet of a rather confused young man monitoring the feeds from several hidden cameras on a bank of computer monitors. Flaherty reached for the handgun on his desk and died slumped over his keyboard with eight bullets in various parts of his body.
They caught Meehan in the shower and blew his brains out against the cracked and mildewed white tile. Lincoln managed to get to his weapon and fire a couple of shots through his bedroom door before the invaders bounced in a flashbang. He was trying to throw it out the window when it went off. Two rounds turned him from a blind, screaming man in to a silent, dead one.
The men stripped the computers of their hard drives, grabbed whatever else they could, and stole a few small (but valuable) items, while one member of their team spray-painted the words "Tiocfaidh ár lá" on the wall.
They ran down the stairs and piled into the car, disappearing into the rapidly advancing night. The entire incident took no more than six minutes.

Pasadena, California, United States of America
Mister Grey smiled as he walked through a wing of the Norton Simon museum that didn't appear on any maps, the one that Frank Gehry didn't even know he was building for them when the museum was renovated in the 1950s. The museum was justifiably proud of its collection of contemporary art, but none were quite so avant-garde as the works being displayed today.
He walked past a piece named "Janus," proffering a tray of champagne to the two well-dressed patrons studying the sculpture. The two men (one young, one old) who had been melded together, back to back, to form this piece writhed slowly in their drug-addled agony, offering a unique perspective on the passage of time and an illustration of the tension between the present, the past, and the future.
The artist was standing near her largest piece ("Anemone" - a study of societal pressure, through the medium of a hundred arms grafted into a sheet of living flesh, the arms constantly reaching out towards the viewer in a mute plea for aid), demonstrating the method she had used to create this artwork with a pair of gerbils, melding them together and separating them again by a touch of the rust-encrusted scalpel she had purchased though their club.
When the lights went out, and the underground museum wing was plunged into darkness, Mister Grey didn't panic. He didn't even worry when the lights came back on and he discovered that the artist was unconscious and her scalpel was stolen.
He did, however, get quite upset when he found out that all of the art pieces had been killed. Damned Philistines, no appreciation for high culture at all.

New Delhi, India
Even here, in this land of old religions and older traditions, the voice of The Broken could be heard.
A small voice, perhaps, drowned by the crush of bodies, but relentless, grinding through the ignorant resistance of the blind and lost. Insistent. Irresistible. Even more so now that the foul jailer of God had been slapped down, the voice of The Broken felt cleaner, brighter, stronger then ever before.
Deep below the city they sang and rocked, these new children, fresh to the comforts of The Broken. Brother Sig watched in pride as they prayed in sweating earnest to the reliquary on the podium. A small vial, yes…but a product of pure love and evangelical devotion. The breath of God, the so called “clockwork virus”, had been known to the faithful for some time…but this was no mere breath. This was the roar of its voice, the wind from its great passing.
Nurtured by the monks in the Australian monastery, this was a hundred times faster, turning the flesh to the divine in a matter of hours, spreading as fast as the passing breeze. When the devotions were finished, Brother Sig would release the vial into the Ganges, and bring thousands to the will of The Broken. Soon, hundreds of thousands would turn ageless, endless voices to the sky, and bring-
His thoughts and flesh were abruptly interrupted by metal fragments.
The MTF came hot on the heels of the first shotgun shell, pistols making a strobe light in the dim room, the chanting replaced by frenzied screaming, then silence, the smells of cordite, sweat and shit thick in the air. The four men in gas masks clumped to the central dais, one reaching out and gingerly lifting the thick vial of silvery-brown liquid.
“Not a bad smash and grab.”
“Easy on the smash, there…”
“Bugger off, don't be so literal.”
“Looks like the lot of them…so much for "God's" protection.”
They quickly secured the vial in a steel canister, clumping back to the surface at a brisk pace. Had they lingered a bit more, they might have heard the sound wafting up from the pile of bodies. Soft and small, but insistent.
The sound of ticking.

Quantico, Virginia, United States of America
When Agent Wolfram came into work the next morning, he found his office being quickly emptied by men wearing FBI windbreakers. "What's going on, boss?" he asked.
"You're being reassigned to white-collar crimes, Wolf," Assistant Director Pavlova said. She handed the young man a manila folder. "You're a good agent. You deserve better than to be stuck down here chasing ghosts."
"I see," Wolfram said slowly. "What about Uecker?"
"I guess you didn't hear? Uecker's dead. He killed himself last night."
"Let me guess," Wolfram said, very slowly and very carefully. "Shot himself twice in the chest and once in the head?"
"I don't like what you're implying, agent," Pavlova said.
"Well, then, let me make it very obvious!" Wolfram shouted. "You and your bosses have never liked the work I'm doing. Well, I'm done. I quit. You can reassign me all you like, but you can't stop a private citizen from searching for the truth. And it's out there. I know where to find it."
He slammed his badge and gun down on the empty desk and stormed out of the building to his rather beat-up Honda Accord. He took a moment to rest his head against the steering wheel, then started up his car and pulled out of the parking lot.
In the movies, car bombs always engulf the vehicle in a massive fireball: this is because most car explosions are gas-ignited. It looks visually interesting, minimizes dangerous shrapnel on the set, and helps cover up the fact that there are no people in the car. In the case of the bomb that killed Agent Wolfram, the saboteur had decided to go more subtle: a tiny explosive charge on the main brake line, triggered when the car reached a certain speed, sufficed.
A.D. Pavlova shook her head sadly when she heard the report of the fatal five-car pileup on the radio a half hour later. "Should have taken the transfer, Wolf," she sighed.

Hong Kong, China
“Good god Harken, we're just going after a low-level shape shifter…”
“What? Do you think I'm under-prepared?”
“…how many barrels does that thing have?”
“It's called 'accuracy through target saturation', look it up. It also gives me a mild and oddly inappropriate erection.”
“I am getting a transfer. Today.”

Baghdad, Iraq
In the worst terrorist attack to date, the National Museum of Iraq was attacked and leveled by a massive car bomb planted by an unknown party. Not that anyone needed to know, of course. Just another senseless act of violence in a country that had seen too many.
It was a pity more people on the investigation team hadn't seen the movie "Die Hard."

Zurich, Switzerland
"You found HOW many skips in Swiss bank deposit boxes?"

Ulan Bator, Mongolia
"All right, guys, let's go catch us a death worm."

Buenos Aires, Argentina
"That's a lot of Hitler clones."
"We're going to need more napalm."

Foggy Bottom, Washington, DC, United States of America
"You'll never get away with this."
"Won't I?"
"You can't. You can't just kill a Congressman in the middle of Washington, DC, and expect to get away with it. There will be investigations. There will be inquiries. They'll find out all about you…"
"I see. You seem to be laboring under several false assumptions, Congressman. The first is that they will discover you've been murdered. That will not be the case. What they will discover is your naked body hanging from a noose looped over a hotel room shower curtain rod, with an extra-large sized tube of KY jelly close to hand, and a semen-stained copy of "Barnyard Beauties" crumpled at your feet. I honestly don't expect the investigators will investigate very hard."
"Wait, you can't…"
"Your second false assumption is that we even care. You see, we're operating under Snowblind protocol. Small events, here and there, nothing too huge, but enough to do the job. A church burning down here, a small terrorist attack in the Middle East, a couple of nondescript, senseless murders of non-white, non-blonde, non-women. Things that might normally lead the news on a slow news day, except that it's not going to be a slow news day. The media are all going to find something more interesting to talk about. Maybe Paris Hilton is going to get a full-body tattoo of herself sucking a giant cock. Maybe the cast of Jersey Shore is going to have an orgy with a pair of sheep in the middle of a shopping mall. Or maybe a stodgy old conservative Congressman is going to be found dead of autoerotic asphyxiation while in possession of copious amounts of bestiality porn."
"… oh God, no, you can't do this! I have a wife! I have kids! I have constituents! You can't let them think—"

Inter-site memo from Resource Allocation Department, excerpt

I swear to god, if I see the words “covered in fire”, “extreme threat suppression”, or “requesting more munitions” in ONE more goddamn report, I'm taking the month off. Who knew cutting the leash on groups of well trained, highly disciplined Agents could result in something about as dangerous and controllable as a blind chimp with a shotgun?

Inter-site memo from Information Control Department, excerpt

Would you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell your testosterone-poisoned monsters to at least TRY to be a LITTLE discreet? I know you "feet on the ground" guys think we've got it easy, but I'd like to see one of you hyperviolent rockheads try to spindoctor four guys in black ninja suits gunning Mickey Mouse down in the middle of the Main Street Electrical Parade.

Inter-site memo from Legal Department, excerpt

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Somewhere in Colorado
"And so, with your house burning down around your ears, you turn to me," the old man said softly. "The man who, many years ago, warned you to clear the dry brush away from your homes."
"Hey, don't you DARE start on that shit now!" the man in the grey suit shouted. "This is bigger than our petty differences. We're looking at life or death right now!"
"You're the one who started this!" the woman in white chimed in. "You provoked them. You bloodied their nose. You created this mess. You fix it!"
"I started nothing," the old man said calmly. "The man who did is now dead. This could have ended there. But you smelled blood. You wanted a piece. And once you'd had a taste, you could not leave well enough alone. You had to attack the hunters as well. And now the hunters have let loose their hounds, and you are afraid."
"Fuck you!" the man in grey shouted. He was getting to his feet to say something more, but that was when Sandra drew the gun from her jacket and put it to his forehead.
"Sit down, Mister Harrington," she intoned flatly. "Or I will have you thrown out and you'll get no help whatsoever."
There was a deadly, tense moment of silence before Harrington reluctantly sat down. Sandra kept her gun trained on him the whole time.
If the old man noticed the interruption, he chose not to acknowledge it. "I follow a simple rule," he said softly. "You get back what you put in. Provide me with resources, and I will get results. The more resources you provide, the more results you get. This requires a modicum of trust… but then, when we stand with our backs against the wall, there is nowhere to go but forward."
The man in the red robes, who had been sitting silently in the corner since the meeting began, rose to his feet. "Then you shall have everything."
"Holiness!" protested the woman in white. "You cannot…"
"The Teacher was right," The High Priest of the Broken interrupted. "As were you. This is no longer about The Great Work. This is about preventing The Final Shattering. This man has shown what he can do using the aid of a few. What more could he accomplish with the entire weight of the Church behind him?"
The man in the red turned to the old man. "The armies of the Broken God are at your disposal, Teacher," he said. "Use them as you will."


(another true story)

1 Jan 2012, 5:54 PM
US Airways flight ███
Somewhere over western Ohio
I always request the window seat when I fly commercial. The view out that little porthole just never gets old. Maybe I look like a little kid, craning my neck to peer out the window and smile in wonder; if I do, I'm too caught up in the loveliness of it to care.
"I can see my house from here" really doesn't begin to cover it. As the ground falls away, familiar things turn into minutely exquisite models. The grey and brown of an Ohio winter merge into intricate patchwork beauty, and the orange glare of the sodium streetlights separates into a million discrete points of glitter.
The clouds are best of all. As we climb off the runway, I always lift myself against the great soft weight of acceleration to watch, because to climb through the cloud cover is to loft into another world. The jet's speed lends me parallax and perspective, turning clouds from a painted backdrop into a landscape in their own right. I've seen traceries of cirrus become a wispy maze of floating cotton ribbons, like something a Moorish dancer would twirl through the air. One summer afternoon, the looming thunderheads turned into the very Pillars of Creation, without a single light-year between us. It's magical beyond anything in a fairy story.
This time, as we climb away from the airport, the flat sullen gray of an overcast December is transmogrified into a rugose plateau. The clouds lie mercilessly level, their flatness enforced by some atmospheric thermocline; to me, they look like a rocky tumbled moonscape stretching to the horizon. The last glow after sunset lights them in ethereal slate and faint gold. Their plain is broken here and there by rifts and ravines, mere gaps in the cloud that would let the people below glimpse blue sky. From up here, though, they are black crevasses: the last evening light does not break through to the ground. I gaze through the widest ravine and glimpse a scattering of streetlights below. They glitter brighter than the stars.
Perspective abruptly upends itself.
It isn't a moonscape I'm seeing: it's the roof of a cave, or the underbelly of a titanic Laputa. Stone blocks out the sky. Where earthquakes rip it open, the glimmer that wins through is not streetlights but ancient, livid constellations. As long as I cower in the safe grey caverns, the malevolent gleam of the stars stays at bay, but through these rifts I can stare down the Things Outside. For a moment I've locked eyes with something vast and terrible, and my wild stare is the only thing keeping it away —
— The girl in seat 22E coughs.
I blink, and perspective rights itself again. Clouds roll by below the window. The last of the gloaming is fading down to night, and the streetlights glow orange far below. Small children chatter and whine two rows up. I suddenly need to pee. All the banalities of air travel have reasserted themselves as abruptly as they vanished.
It's getting dark out there now, and there's not much to see, so I go back to my reading. If I keep glancing sidelong out the window for the rest for the flight, though… Well, can you blame me?
Someone ought to be keeping a watch.


Day 52
Very…unsettling developments. Dad's notes kept referring to “Unit 14” in reference to collected materials and documentation. He'd go on about something, more often than not what he came to dub the “physical anchors” of these reality anomalies… and then just break off, stating a reference number, and Unit 14. I looked everywhere, through everything, tore the house apart, and didn't find anything that made any sense. I'd nearly given up, just writing it off as part of the stuff he'd taken with him… and then I went though mom's bills. She'd apparently missed a payment on something since going to the hospital. A storage unit. Unit number 14.
To my credit, I didn't speed the entire time. I spoke to the gentleman at the counter, telling him about my mom, and how she'd missed the payment due to sickness and such… he hemmed and hawed about letting me in, but once I'd made the payment with an extra twenty bucks, he gave me the spare key. My hands were shaking, physically shaking when I opened the unit… I had no idea what to expect, really. I almost screamed when I saw just a blank wall of boxes. Just another dead end…
I decided to look, and that's when I found the papers. Mounds of them, mostly from newspapers, many from other countries, printed articles, scientific notes… it looked random at first. But there was a pattern. In notes and scribbles, dad walked me through it… four men vanishing from a farm in Idaho. An explosion in a preschool. A string of rapes and murders in Japan. The stories didn't make sense. They started shocked, confused… one person even reporting seeing a “dinosaur” fleeing a ruined home… and then suddenly a clean, sanitized explanation, and the story is smothered. It seemed crazy… but with dad's notes, and the research… it started to make a sick kind of sense.
A pile of notes stuffed in a box gave me the next piece. Dad theorized that these “anchor points” would sometimes jut in to our reality… often with unpleasant effects. Kanin apparently felt the same, but he was less worried about the math behind it, so to speak, but in the practical applications such points could have. They argued back and forth for a while, Dad calling Kanin reckless at best and suicidal at worst, Kanin telling dad he was being an old maid, too scared to take a leap. Kanin apparently said he was going to publish a paper on the whole concept… and then it just ends.
Nothing dated after that letter. Nothing relating to the paper or what happened… nothing. It was like looking over a cliff. I think… this is when he left. When dad vanished. It was dark by the time I left, carrying a few boxes, feeling numb and shivering. The guy was locking up, seemed rather glad to have me out so he could go home. I went home, ate a sandwich and lay down.
I was watching the news this morning, and there was a blurb about a fire. The storage place… the place burned down. They didn't know if it was arson or not. It burned down less than an hour after I left… maybe less then half an hour. The guy from the office was found burned to death. It's… getting harder and harder not to be paranoid. I… don't carry my phone anymore. It's in my car, with the battery pulled out. I feel so alone, so isolated, so cold. I can't even see mom, they say her state is too delicate right now. I'm scared.
I'm scared, but God help me, I can't just stop.

Day 53
I haven't been out all day. My shades are drawn, lights out… I'm writing this in the basement, with the door locked. I woke up this morning, went down and collected the mail. Bills, a newsletter from the university… and one of those big, tan envelopes that tie shut. It was weird… no return address, no anything, just blank. I almost didn't open it, I kept thinking about that stupid fire. I did, finally. It was a photo. Just one, single photo. Black and white, but newer, not faded like those old photos can get. I'm… not… really sure what it's of. There's some massive… thing in the middle, looking half rotten, and a bunch of men around it, most with guns, but there's three men in lab coats, seeming to be looking over the thing in the middle, or doing something with it.
The one on the right is my father.
Older and thinner, but him, I know it. I'd swear to it.
There was no date or anything on the photo, but written on the back there was a hand-written note. It said “Montauk Monster. He was not alone.” I was shaking so bad I could barely read it. I locked all my doors and just sat, staring at the photo. When my phone rang, I screamed. Tore it out of the wall. I looked up the name on the back, the Montauk Monster thing, and found a bunch of photos of some weird, rotten thing that turned out to be a young beluga whale. My photo looked a little similar… but ten times bigger, at least, and with a more… definite shape. I suddenly thought of the news articles dad had collected, and wondered when this photo on the net had appeared. It looked just enough like my photo to be able to say that someone was just “overexcited” when reporting the dimensions of the creature.
I started getting more and more afraid, more paranoid. Who the hell had sent this? I hadn't talked to ANYONE in weeks, let alone shown anyone my work. On a hunch, I did some probing around the time dad vanished, seeing if anything turned up. If I hadn't been looking for it, I'd never have seen it. Thirty-two scientists and researchers vanished within three weeks, my dad included. Thirty-two. And nobody looked up on it. There were some vague mentions of police searches, appeals to the public to report sightings… and then nothing. Forgotten and pushed away.
It suddenly hit me, like a bolt, that for someone to know all the things I knew, they would have to be watching me. And closely, like from inside my home. I suddenly looked around, at the ceiling, the walls, everywhere, growing horrified that someone… someone could be watching me. I tried to feel stupid about it, silly… then I remembered my clicking phone… the fire, and the photo in my hand. That's when I moved to the basement.
I'm getting a new laptop tomorrow, when I'm on the road. Cryptography has always been an interest of mine… time to put it to the test. I've never really encrypted a laptop very hard before, and I know I don't have much hope against… well… whatever I'm up against, the government maybe? Still, I have to try. I have a friend who does audio and video analysis and such out in California, plus being on the move might make me feel a little less… vulnerable. I keep thinking of that fire at the storage place… how long would my home stay in the news? Would it even make it?
I need to sleep. I feel numb and wrung out, empty. God, I hope nobody finds this next to my charred skeleton.

Time to panic?
Work Journal 3
or turn back to sanity…
Work Journal 2