Eun Mi suppressed a yawn as she walked along, silently wishing she was still in bed. The Great Leader (the second Great Leader, which was strange considering the old one seemed sure he'd live forever) was generous enough to provide schooling. She only wished he would provide it at a more reasonable hour of the day. Perhaps noon? Enough time for a young woman (not girl, no matter what her mother said) to get beauty sleep.
At least breakfast had been good. Rice and soup and kimchi. Nothing worse than going to school hungry. She just hoped she hadn't eaten too much. Her mother's cooking was good, but her father would insist that no one wanted a glutton around the house. He may have smiled when he said it, but it was still worrying.

"How's it coming, Joe?" Beth sipped her coffee as she leaned over the partition, watching the movement on the big screen. Their offices may have been just one room, but the small metal partitions between each section helped make it feel more orderly…if a little more crowded.
"Fine, just wish R-445 would stop acting up all the damn time. We had to bug the Russians for weeks to get patched in, and now the fucking thing just goes down every twenty minutes."
"According to them, when we bought the feed, we bought the maintenance. I'm pretty sure they just wanted it off their hands." She smirked at her employee's frustration. She'd told him they didn't need the old Russian satellite, but he'd insisted on absolute coverage.
"Well I hope it drops and hits whatever asshole built it." Joe snorted, his glasses glinting in the light of the monitors. "At least K-332 is fine now."
"What, Pyongyang let you tap in? That's odd of them." The North Koreans were infamously secret, and that even applied to their weather satellites. They'd tried for weeks to get something above the 38th parallel, but in the end, given it up as a bad job. Thelmann System's stated goal of having a total coverage weather prediction system would have to do without North Korea for now.
"Well, if you must know Mrs. Thelmann…" He grinned up at his boss. "They didn't. I hacked in. They're using absolutely ancient systems over there."
Beth was more than a little appalled. "Joe! Christ, do you want some sort of international incident?!" Sure, she knew Joe was obsessive about the project, that's why she had him in on it. But electronic espionage was the kind of deep shit that could get every other country they had eyes in pulling out as fast as possible.
"Aww, c'mon-" Joe's wheedling tone, usually amusing, was suddenly grating on her nerves.
"No. Switch it over and disconnect now. We're going to have to scrub that data and hope they don't realize we're in." She growled, rubbing her forehead. "And start seriously thinking about how you're going to apologize for this shit."
Joe switched over the screen, sulking quietly… Before his voice came back suddenly dry. "Hey, boss."
"What the hell is it now-"
"Look at this." Glancing up, mouth open to rebuke him, Beth's tongue stilled. Over the Korean Peninsula, a massive swirl of air pressure had just developed. Enough to make even the harshest of hurricanes and typhoons seem like a breeze.
"What in God's name-"

Eun Mi's reverie about her near constantly shifting weight was interrupted by the wind. Sweeping around her as she walked down the road, magnified by the buildings, it tore at her clothes and yanked at her body. She felt herself dragged a few inches just by the force. Shrieking in surprise, she struggled into a nearby alleyway, looking up. The clouds above were a swirling, angry mass.
What was happening? In all her life in the city, she had never seen such weather- She heard screams and yelling ahead, as another gust of wind ripped along. The wind was a piercing wail through the buildings as it built in force, and she clung to the side of the alleyway, afraid of being blown away by the gale.

"God, what the fuck is going on- Why the fuck hasn't someone called the UN?! We need to make sure they've got rescue teams moving in as soon as it clears!" Beth was frantically trying to contact the South Korean government. Meanwhile, the apocalyptic storm was behaving erratically, hovering above the country, as if readying to strike.
"I can't figure out where the hell it came from! None of our data for the last few weeks showed anything like this-"
"Keep looking! Storms don't just show up out of nowhere-…oh shit." Beth felt her phone drop from nerveless fingers as the massive storm paused…and then settled down over the country.

Eun Mi's hands were going numb from strain, gripping the concrete edge of the building she was huddled near so hard that her fingers bled. Tears were streaming down her cheeks and being whipped off into the air as the wind increased, howling and roaring like some mighty beast. The few other pedestrians she could see were yelling and screaming. One man attempted to dash across the street and was lifted off by the wind.
And then, the aching pressure in her hand faded, as the building she was gripping simply seemed to turn see-through, and then vanish. The wind picked up Eun Mi, and she could see the other buildings fading away as well. The ground beneath her was turning immaterial as well, vanishing from sight. Her scream of shock was short lived. The sudden loss of mass as millions of tons created such a vacuum that she, and the other citizens of Pyongyang, were suddenly and harshly yanked towards the ground. Eun Mi was killed near instantly by the shift, her neck snapping under the pressure of the change in velocity.

"…day five of the rescue effort, and more bodies are being recovered from the ocean. Initial estimates put the death toll in the million range, with increases occurring constantly. The UN released a statement about the recent North Korean Incident, claiming that they believed it was 'an act of nature'. The recent leak of classified documents from the Japanese Diet pointing towards a theft from what is referred to as 'The Foundation' suggests a different story…"


Erichthonius begat Tros, king of the Trojans, and Tros had three noble sons, Ilus, Assaracus, and Ganymede who was comeliest of mortal men; wherefore the gods carried him off to be Jove's cupbearer, for his beauty's sake, that he might dwell among the immortals.

O5-2 and O5-1 watched video feeds from a cramped room in their fortress.
Hundreds of scenes of devastation. Giants in the sky, on the earth, in the sea. Massive ghostly animals and not-animals sailing across the land. An otherworldly flotilla taking up a tenth of the Atlantic ocean. Strange, unidentifiable, not-quite-humanoid armies in a three-way battle. A comet of molten metal hurtling towards Earth. The GOC trying and failing to enact Procedure Pizzicato, bearing the brunt of an organization-wide psychic attack mid-announcement-speech. Even some small river god trying to end its local world and causing problems with mass landslides.
And… hundreds of containment breaches. Maybe thousands, in less than a day. O5-2 worried that the Foundation would soon come apart at the seams. The leadership was already fracturing - site directors were at each others' throats, arguing, fighting, and wondering where the hell Overwatch was. Some of the directors and other staff had already disappeared - one of the disappearances in particular worried her. But she couldn't do anything about any of it. The O5s were all isolated, unable to send communication, only receive. Some sort of system-wide attack by an unknown entity. The local tech monkeys were working on it 24/7. O5-2 was ambivalent about whether she wanted them to succeed.
And, displayed on the monitoring equipment stationed further out in the solar system, something slowly approaching from far away in space…
No, not 'something'. More than one something. Many 'somethings'.
O5-2 looked at O5-1. He appeared to be sleeping. Maybe dead. Well, probably not dead. He often looked like this when he slept, still, so still. He was old. Extremely old. Some people said he was the Founder of the Foundation, but O5-2 had never known how seriously to take that. People probably said the same jokes about her, after all. She looked almost as old as he did.
And, hell, considering where she'd come from and all she'd had to do… the only survivor of a broken reality… coming into this world, where she never truly fit in, always hiding everything from her other self…
She chuckled. What a silly time to reminisce. The end of the world was here. All the ends of the world. Competing. She wished she could do … something. Anything. But it was all she could do to ignore the compulsions planted in her brain. Goddamned reality benders. Maybe she should have gone to the GOC after all.
"I wonder what the other O5s are making of this," she said aloud.
"They're already dead," a voice whispered behind her.
A glowing light suffused the room.

The Way opened. First came black and purple light, then the bricks in the wall in front of the group folded inward one by one. Sophia Light resisted the urge to make a joke about Harry Potter. She wasn't sure how the Hand members would take her poking fun at their serious-business magic. Just like she wasn't sure if they'd abducted her, or if she'd gone with them willingly, or something in-between.
"You're sure about this?" she asked. "The last time Foundation personnel went into the Library, none of them came out in one piece. The only survivor lost both his arms."
"Your people came in with bullets and fire," the woman calling herself Asherah said. "The Library only harms those who seek to harm others. Or to damage the Library itself, or worst of all, the books. Your people tried all three."
"Well, I certainly don't plan to set anyone on fire today," Sophia said dryly. "You're sure I won't be attacked anyway?"
"We're sure," the black cat said. The cat could speak, Sophia reminded herself. She'd been trying to get used to that for the past few hours. One of the more obviously anomalous Hand members she'd just met. The other being the woman who appeared to be able to control the colors of herself and her surroundings. Some relation to 598, she wondered?
"You're with us now," the cat continued. "As long as you keep your word, you will be safe."
Sophia chose to let the comment slide. She supposed it was true, after all. For now.
"Don't act so worried," the woman with the shifting rainbow skin said. "You're going to save the world. Here's how we get started."
The motley group walked through the Way, and entered the Wanderer's Library.

O5-1's body rested on the floor at the foot of his chair, slumped where he had fallen.
O5-2 looked up at The Harbinger. His form was so bright… so angelic… but she still wasn't fooled.
"You're not one of 343's?" she asked.
"Of course not," he said.
"Good," she said. "You know… In another future, we got to grow old together."
The glowing being stepped towards her, sword in hand. "I know."
He made the cut quick, rapid, and as painless as possible.
When she was dead, he closed her eyes, and leaned down, planting a kiss on her lips.
"I'm sorry, Sophie," he said.

The fiery red and white angelic hosts of Yahweh clashed with an almost equally large army on their path across the Middle East. This army was made up of humanoid soldiers, animals, and more monstrous creatures, all featureless and black as pitch. Where they walked, blackness flowed across the land, the bushes, the trees, the rivers, and anything that touched it suffocated and died. The creatures and the blackness had all come from one place: the ink pen known as SCP-505.
They were almost a match for Yahweh's army. Almost.
The angels were a true army, not a mass of monsters. Innumerable white swords flashed. Black creatures flew into pieces and dissolved. Angels fell with gaping wounds, or suffocated, covered in ink. But in the end, the winner was clear.
The angels were hardly highly-developed reality benders, but they shared some of their Master's power. As they marched, they removed the ink contamination with their Master's borrowed power and healed the land. For now. This was the wrong apocalypse - the world was to perish in fire, not in ink, and certainly not before Yahweh gave the final command.
They heard the roars of other monsters, far off in the distance. Giants strode across the horizon. There was no time to waste. They would soon come into conflict again, with their Master only knew what. They had expected an army of demons and men, not… this. Why had their Master not warned them?
The angels marched through the scattering ink-beings, and crested a hill to find their way blocked by a massive mountain range that had not been there before, that had simply not existed five minutes before.
The mountain in the center of the range was more monolith than mountain, and oddly shaped. It almost looked like a hand… with an upraised middle finger…
As the hosts of heaven watched in disbelief, giant flaming letters erupted into being across the mountain range. In moments, the letters formed a single sentence, burned across the land, a sentence big enough to be visible from space.
The sentence read, "ARE WE COOL YET?"

Alone now, the Harbinger let his light dim. Let his disguise and power slip away, leaving nothing but the ordinary human being underneath.
He could think of himself by his real name now. Troy Lament. He closed his eyes and felt the relief of being able to think that again. To be human.
Of course… 'Troy Lament' wasn't his real name either. Not really.
Troy found and opened the file folder on O5-1's computer labeled "Jeremiah Colton." The access codes he already knew, and entered.
He read the files for a long time.
Then he sat staring at the screen for even longer.
Then he pulled up another window.

IDENTIFICATION CODE REQUIRED.

He typed in his name.

WELCOME JEREMIAH COLTON.
YOU HAVE (1) NEW MESSAGE.
DISPLAY? [Y/N]

If you are reading this, you know what to do.
I'm sorry. We all are.

The note was unsigned.
Troy hesitated only a moment before continuing to type.
The machine replied.

Does the black moon howl?

He typed in his response.

When the foundations crumble.

The machine processed for a moment.

Activation Phrase Required. Please Speak Now.

Troy Lament spoke the word, only now fully understanding what it meant, both for him and for the future of the Foundation. "Ganymede."

The message went out to every single secure facility associated with the Foundation, to every terminal, to every member of personnel above Level 1. When the Administrator read it, she sat back in her chair. The message was short, to the point, and final.

Announcement to all locations: Initiate Ganymede Protocol. All Sites are independent from this point onward.
Godspeed.

End of Act 1.

« Stirrings | Canon Hub | Splinter: Now... This »


Bright knew it had gone wrong when the trucks eased into position on either side of his van. "حزب الخلافة" was spraypainted on the sides. He knew he was in big trouble when he saw the men in the beds of the trucks point rifles at him. He gritted his teeth, but slowed down as a pick-up truck swung in ahead of them. He thought about stopping and trying to give them the slip that way, but there was a fourth coming up from behind, boxing them in.
"Can we fight our way past?" asked Brunwick. The stocky biologist held the rifle almost as though he knew what he was doing.
"Not unless you've just become bulletproof," Bright said. He turned to his six passengers. "Okay, we're caught. I don't know who by yet. If it's the government, they're going to be pissed, but they'll probably hold us long enough for the Foundation to try getting us out."
Advani was on his cell phone, letting their contact know that they'd been compromised. He was riding shotgun, as he and Bright were the least-conspicuous people in the group. Especially Bright, wearing an Egyptian body.
"What if they're terrorists?" asked Sandler. His bushy eyebrows would have reached to a younger man's hairline.
"They are," said Jacobs. He was the senior of the two agents in the vehicle. "If this were the government, they'd have armored vehicles. They'd have a show of force. They wouldn't just hem us in like this."
"Will we be okay?" squeaked Lopez. The young researcher looked barely out of her teens.
Bright almost said no, they almost certainly weren't, but something in her face made him go for the comforting lie. "They're probably just interested in ransom," Bright said. "They probably don't know who we really are. It's probably bad luck. They saw some Westerners, and they want to make a scene. We stay calm, we wait for someone to come get us. Everyone put down your weapons. If it's at all possible, I'll figure out a way to get us through this." He actually had a half-formed plan in mind, but it depended on how greedy their captors were, and how perceptive they were. It was a pity he didn't speak more Arabic.
The trucks guided them off the main road and southeast. A few miles out, the trucks stopped, and men with rifles jumped out. They stormed onboard, yelling in Arabic, grabbing at them, pulling them out and then hitting them as they threw them to the ground. Bright let them, knowing better than to fight back. He heard Brunwick try to take a swing at one of the guards, and heard the shot, wincing. He could hear Sandler and Lopez crying out. Jacobs and Advani didn't say a word.
They were searched thoroughly, their phones taken away. Even the beacon hidden in his shoe was found and crushed. That made things a little more complicated. He'd been hoping for a quick rescue. The Foundation might take a little longer now.
Bags were placed over their heads and their hands were cuffed behind them as they were loaded into one of the trucks. He heard Brunwick's groaning, so apparently they hadn't killed him yet. Oddly, no one touched the amulet.
"You do not move!" one of them yelled in his ear. "You understand? You move, I shoot you!"
Occasionally, one of the others would move, and he'd hear them cry out after they were corrected. He held still. He had a lot of experience being a captive. He even recognized some of the techniques the guards were using to intimidate them. It helped, a little. Not much.
They were pushed out of the truck and herded indoors. It smelled like livestock inside. They were pushed down, and they heard the door shut.
"Are-" Advani began, but Bright shushed him.
"اسكت!" a man shouted. "عندي كلاشنكوف!"
Bright didn't know much Arabic, but he understood "kalashnikov" well enough.
After a few hours, a man came in and removed the hoods. He wore a military fatigues with a sword hanging at his side. A scarf covered his face. Several other men were behind him holding AK-47s at the group. One man was operating a camera. "You are prisoners of Hezb Alkhalifah. We know about your Foundation. You spit in the face of Allah."
Son-of-a-bitch, Bright thought. Someone sold them out. He wondered who.
"You, with the necklace. You are Doctor Bright. We know all about you." The man reached out to touch the amulet, but his hands were covered with leather gloves. "This is you. This is your soul. You are an abomination. We will show the world we stand against such things."
One of the men took a knife and cut Bright's ear off. He gritted his teeth.
"Was it a Muslim whose body you wear, kafir? Whose life did you steal? You are a ghoul!" the man with the scarf shouted.
"Do your worst," he said, and immediately regretted it. This wasn't an action movie.
The knife came down into his eye, and he saw no more.

He woke up sometime later, disoriented. He could tell he was in another body. Had he been rescued? No, his hands were still cuffed behind his back. His knee had a sharp, hot ache.
He shifted to a semi-sitting position. He was in a large body, he could tell that much. Strong. He looked around, and saw Jacobs, Sandler, Advani and Lopez. Realization hit. He looked down to see Brunwick's large frame. Those sons of bitches.
"Brunwick?" Sandler whispered.
Bright shook his head. Brunwick's head.
Sandler started crying. Bright hadn't realized they were that close. A cynical part of his mind wondered if the man was just frightened that the same would happen to him.
He looked over to where he'd been executed. The body was already gone, but the blood was still pooled on the dirt floor. They appeared to be alone.
"How are we going to get out of this?" asked Lopez.
"I don't know," Bright said. "Let me think."
The beacon was gone. The terrorists knew who he was, knew what the amulet did. There was no telling when the Foundation would be back.
He wasn't afraid of dying. Even if they tried destroying the amulet, it was unlikely they'd manage here a task he hadn't managed with the best equipment.
However, he didn't want to see any more of his team die. He needed to figure out a way to get out of this. Somehow.
He didn't sleep the entire night. He kept trying to come up with a plan. If only the Foundation would hurry up and rescue them.
In the morning, they came for him again. Again, the man with the scarf came in, and again the camera was set up. He was pulled to his feet, his knee nearly buckling under him, before they wrestled him into position.
"Again, we have the kafir Doctor Bright. He lives because that amulet steals the life of others, puts him into their body. We have let him steal the life of his friend. His own friend, he steals the life from! Now he must die again."
The knife came down, this time for his throat, but he was ready. Brunwick was nothing if not strong. He lunged with his good knee, trying to touch the guard with his necklace.
He had just a moment's confused vision from the man before the shots rang out, and he died again, twice.

He woke up, and this time saw Advani, Sandler, and Lopez. Jacobs, then. Ten little indians, he thought.
He was tied up more securely, already in the position where he'd been executed twice before. Gagged, too. He could feel the sticky blood on his pantlegs, smell the older blood starting to stink. They weren't taking any chances this time.
The others were looking at him in pity, revulsion, and fear. They must have seen Jacobs's face suddenly go blank, and then light up with a foreign intelligence. Must have seen it happen to Brunwick, for that matter. They'd seen their own futures. Must be one thing to know it happened to anonymous D-Class personnel, another to see it happen to someone you knew.
"Don't worry," Advani said to the others. "We'll get out of this somehow." They all knew he was lying, though.
He tried to go to sleep, but Jacobs's body was still wired with adrenaline. He stared at the walls, at the dirt floor, anything to avoid looking at his team.
He was almost eager when the man in the scarf opened the door, just to get it over with.
"Once again, we have the kafir Doctor Bright. He is alive because that amulet steals the life from others and puts him into their bodies. We have let him steal the life of his friend. His own friend, he steals the life from! Now he must die again."
It was the same speech from before. Bright realized that they probably weren't releasing his death in Brunwick's body. It wouldn't look as good to see him fighting back.
This time, the knife traced a line across his head. Fingers dug into Jacobs' frizzy hair roughly and pulled the scalp back. Bright screamed into the gag.
They took their time on him. By the end, he was silently begging them to finish it.

He woke up again. It was much later. He was tied up and gagged again, in position. He looked around, saw Sandler and Lopez. He realized now that there was a pattern to their choices. First was big Brunswick, then guards, Jacobs and Advani. Next it would be Sandler, and then pretty young Lopez. They wanted to build it up. Escalate the "choice" of taking their bodies. They'd taken the "real" men, next it would be the harmless old man and finally the young woman.
Sandler looked broken. Lopez no longer looked scared. She looked angry. Angry at the terrorists, angry at him. He might have been projecting the last. He certainly was pretty angry with himself.
Something nearby caught his eye. Something was scratched into the dirt. It was faint, and it looked atrocious, but he could just read it. "HELP COMING. HOLD OUT."
It had to be fresh, or the terrorists would have trampled it into the dirt.
His heart—Advani's heart—leapt into his throat. If he could just stall. He could still get Sandler and Lopez out of this. Lopez for certain. Just a little longer.
But the door was opening again. Here was the leader of the terrorists, coming in with his lackeys. Bright steeled his mind. He had to let them go to work. The longer he lived, the better their chances of rescue.
"The ghoul Doctor Bright has taken another of his friends! He does not care for anyone but himself. But now he suffers! We will make him regret every second he is alive, and then we will destroy him in the name of Allah!" He waved theatrically to the camera.
One of the men took a bucket and threw it on him. He retched when he realized it was dung. Pig shit, he thought. Where did they even find pigs in Egypt? Didn't they all get killed during the Swine Flu epidemic?
The other man took a knife and began making little cuts on his face. Nothing terribly painful, but it was letting the pig shit seep into the wounds. Not that he expected to live long enough for infection to be a concern, but it was humiliating. Which was, of course, the point.
"We defile him as his unclean soul defiles the bodies of others. We swear undying jihad against all Foundation kafirs!" With that, the man pulled out his sword and held it high.
No, no, no, Bright thought. You're supposed to torture me! This isn't how it's supposed to go!
As the sword began its arc, he comforted himself with the thought that Lopez, at least, would make it.

The rescue came several hours after the sword. The terrorists had just left them alone for the night when the rescue team came in. It wasn't even a battle. It was over in minutes.
Bright was untied, escorted to the evac helicopter, and loaded in. On the way back, one of the agents explained how the Chaos Insurgency had fed Hezb Alkhalifah intelligence about them, down to the location of their van. How they'd gotten their information, and exactly why they'd done it, wasn't yet known. The leading theory was that it was intended to keep the Foundation—and the terrorists—busy while they secured an unknown asset and hightailed it out of dodge.
As they arrived at the secured facility, and were escorted to a debriefing room, he sat down between the two remaining passengers from the van.
"Well, that could have gone better," said Claudia. "Sorry. I got help as quickly as I could." A cigarette seemed to hang in mid-air.
"You did your best," said Bright. "I just wish…"
"I know, Doctor," said Sandler. "I had hoped she'd make it as well."
"I just don't get it," Bright said. "Everyone else they picked, there was an escalation. First big Brunwick, then Jacobs, then Advani. She should have been last."
"You don't get it," Claudia said. "Different culture. To us, sure, the young lady would have been the finale. To them, though…"
Bright stared at Sandler, at his balding head and fringe of white hair, and then down to the shapely young hands he wore. "Of course. The male elder."
"I'm sorry," Sandler said. "I wish it had been the other way."
There was one final execution for Doctor Bright that night. His handlers tried to save him, but he was just too quick.


They turned their eyes away, at the blast, then looked back to see a frosted mushroom cloud rapidly seeding out from the remains of the site. The three passengers, in the cramped main compartment, hadn't missed an amorphous black shape on the beach, before everything was obscured with smoke.
Elliot Barculo put down his headset. “No one in the last plane reports any effects. Either it's gone, or…”
“I'll tell anyone nearby to keep an eye out,” Sophia nodded dully, her hands pressed together. Bryant set down his tablet, where he'd finished a count of the planes that had made it out, and inhaled.
“Did Johanna-”
Sophia looked at him. Then she politely turned her head, so she didn't have to watch him cry.
Time passed. Barculo looked outside, then spoke up quietly. “Light, the nearest rendezvous site is south-east of here, right?”
“Right?” She glanced up.
“Okay, the plane's taking us due south. Can you check with the pilots-”
“Of course.” She got up and stepped into the cockpit.

“That was a gutsy move, Doctor,” said one pilot, once she was inside.
“Hell of a storm coming,” said the other.
“I beg your pardon?”
The first pilot looked around. “You just destroyed over 20 of your precious artifacts, ruined a very valuable center of operations, and killed about seventy people, including… was it Johanna? Dr. Garrison, your oldest friend. Why?”
“I understand you're flying a plane, so I won't criticize,” Sophia said numbly, “but I really don't think you understand the magnitude-”
“Answer carefully, now.”
She looked up, then tried the door. It was locked behind her. The main pilot spun around to look at her, and she realized that he didn't look familiar. Not at all.
She stopped, gathered her bearings, and faced the pilots. “Because it was our best chance of getting rid of that. Even I didn't know if it worked.”
“A cost-benefit analysis.” The stranger seemed to feel out the phrase in his mouth, sounding appraising. “One last, best bet to stop the apocalypse.”
“It was all I could do.” She looked between them. “Who are you?”
A new voice spoke. “Have you seen Bryant, though? Him and Johanna, together for ten years. You did end his world, or he thinks you did. Armageddon can be a very personal thing.”
The other pilot looked around. She had long hair, unusual dress, metal rings in her lip. She looked directly into Sophia's eyes. “Which I think you know very well, Doctor Sophia Light.”
Her blood froze in her veins. “Who the hell are you? Where are you taking us? And-” she paused, searching for the right words to justify her actions. “There are different kinds of Armageddon.”
“Timely words, Doctor. Alliances change- my name is Asherah, and right now, I speak for the Serpent's Hand. Your administrator didn't want our offer, so we're not after your shiny rocks, or your friends. We have a proposition for you.”

« The Black Horse (The Crawling Sea) | Canon Hub | The Pale Horse (The Wayward Children) »


And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The living creature thrashed in its slumber, twitching and jerking in its never-ending agony.
It wasn't in pain because of the acid bath, or the radiation, or the injected chemicals coursing through its body. It barely felt those. In fact, it had almost never felt any pain from anything the humans had done, no matter how many times they'd nearly destroyed its body. Its agony was the same anywhere it went, no matter what it was doing, no matter what was done to it, only lessened in the presence of one, never stopped.
A voice echoed in the living creature's mind.
You have endured your suffering long enough. Your punishment is finished.
Emotions flew through the living creature's mind. Incomprehension and disbelief, then joy, then regret, then sorrow.
All is forgiven. Once more, you are one of Mine, and you will never pass from My sight again.
The living creature felt elation - gratitude and elation beyond compare.

Dr. Alto Clef watched SCP-682 from the viewing deck above its new enclosure in Area 1032. The creature writhed in its massive holding tank. Its mouth was moving, though vital sign readouts confirmed that it was unconscious. Through the new acid mixture, you could still see it rapidly regenerating. But the mix was working excellently, in combination with the K103-particle bombardment and the chemical cocktail regularly injected into the creature's veins by darts fired from slots in the inner tank.
Really, Clef wanted this containment to work perfectly because he was so goddamn tired of SCP-682. The years of failed termination tests. The constant containment breaches. The body count numbering in the thousands. He'd known some of the people on that list. A few too many.
Clef had honestly expected 682 to breach containment at a dozen points during its transport to the newly built Area. He'd expected it to breach containment when they removed it from its original chamber at Site 19. He'd been expecting it to breach containment for the past two weeks. Hell, he was still expecting it to breach containment now.
But so far, so…
SCP-682 stopped moving, all at once. Simultaneously, a warning alert came up on the monitor readout.
Clef's eyes narrowed as he read it.

The living creature's entire being suffused with light. The acid and the radiation and the chemicals ceased to affect it. The suffering and horror and fear drained away like water.
To the living creature, it was like its eyes opening for the first time in thousands of years.
Its vast wings, once cut from its back as punishment for its sins, sprouted once again.
It spread its wings and flew.

Chaos. 682 ripped through the walls of its tank, then the walls of the inner containment chamber. The MTF squads opened fire as it entered the secondary containment chamber. Clef didn't wait to see what would happen. He left the observation deck.
At this rate, 682 was going to breach into the Area at large in only minutes. When it did, it would be able to kill a lot more people, before it was either contained or the last-resort nuke went off. Clef did not intend to sit by while that happened.
He went to the office behind the observation deck, opened the safe in the back, and took out his backup gun.
"Gun" was somewhat of an understatement. "Cannon" might have been a better description. The PSX820 was a testosterone-fueled monstrosity straight from a 90's video game. It was an incredibly expensive weapon, designed initially to take down certain anomalous, heavily-armored vehicles. In testing it had been able to reduce 682's mass by up to 65%, depending on the power setting and how well you aimed.
Clef had never been what you'd call a crack shot at close range. Not without a perfectly calibrated scope. But with a cannon like this, you didn't really need to aim.
He took the elevator down to the outer containment chamber, and arrived not a moment too soon, judging from the racket coming from behind the—
682 burst through the tertiary containment doors. Wasting not a second, Clef fired the cannon directly into the monster's face.
The blast washed over the creature just as harmlessly as if Clef had been blasting it with a garden hose.
Tendrils sprouted from 682's form and ripped through Clef's body.
It was different, somehow — changed —
Shock. Then, loss of consciousness.

The darkness receded for a little.
Clef tried to prop himself up. Tried to reach the case of plastic explosives attached to his belt. But he couldn't get his fingers to move the right ways. Could hardly move at all.
682 prowled restlessly across the other side of the outer containment chamber. It didn't look like the same 682 anymore, though. It was entirely a pale off-white color. Still sort of reptilian in appearance, but mostly covered in feathers and quills. It moved less like a lizard and more like a lion, complete with feathery mane.
It had two wings folded along its back. It never had wings before.
"Fucking… Lament…" Clef muttered. "I'm gonna kick your ass so hard if…"
If 682 didn't stop ignoring him again and finish the job of killing him. If he didn't bleed to death here on the floor. If he didn't get rescued and then die of some weird 682-transmitted infection. If he survived but could ever walk again. Pretty big ifs.
And then 682 turned to look at him. Six reflective eyes blinked in the feathers on its face.
"Lament," 682 said. "I recognize the name."
Clef had heard 682 speak comprehensibly on only one other occasion, that recorded in its general-access file. "Disgusting." Inexplicably spoken in guttural English. Half of what little understanding of 682's psychology that they had. Off-the-record, researchers often assumed it had started out human. Some kind of reality bender gone wrong.
Its voice was very different now. And it wasn't speaking English. Some alien song-like sounds that for some reason Clef could understand perfectly.
"Yes. Troy Lament. The man born Jeremiah Colton. The containment specialist who designed this new prison for you."
It was conversing with him. Also… Jeremiah Colton?
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Clef said. "But I suspect you're going to tell me."
682 seemed to hesitate. "He is not the only one of yours with a false name. I know who you are, Alto Clef."
Clef laughed. He was getting dizzy. "Then you should know what will happen if you kill anyone else in this containment site. The Chowder-Clef Containment Protocol activates. Then it's boom, boom, boom all the way home. And that's just the beginning. You think you know pain? You have no idea. Not even the slightest clue. The plans I've set up will haunt you to the ends of the earth and beyond."
"You are lying. There is no such Chowder-Clef Containment Protocol. I know who you are. I know what you are."
"Of course I am lying." Focus. Focus. "I'm the Devil, remember? Just when you think I'm down for the count, I'll be back to stop you, roaming the Earth like a roaring lion…"
"You may have once loved the goddess, the mother of demons," 682 said, "but that does not make you the Devil."
"You'll take Lilith's shtick seriously, but you can't cut me a little bit of…" Clef coughed. "Slack?" Blood. Figured. "Looks like you got me good, either way."
"I have not killed you. Only disabled you. You will be retrieved by your underlings when I leave. You will need weeks to recover, but you have not been permanently injured in any way that your Foundation cannot fix."
"Well, that's… awesome. Very kind of you," Clef said. "We're bros now, huh? That's it?"
682 watched him with its many new eyes.
"So goddamn chatty all of a sudden. Why the hell haven't you killed me?" Clef asked.
"There will be much death to come," the creature said. "And there are other reasons, which are my own."
"That… that time when they shoved me in your containment cell," Clef said. "Why didn't you kill me then?"
"I was unsure what you were. Due to the alterations made to you. It gave me pause. Confusion. I thought perhaps… you were one of His servants, come for me at long last. I thought… No matter. Now that I have returned to my glorified form, I can see you for who and what you are."
"Glorified form? What the hell are you, anyway? What the hell are you doing here?"
"I wait. The others have ridden forth already. Conquest, War, and Famine. Only I remain."
"…The Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Clef laughed out of sheer disbelief. "And you're… what? Conquest, War and Famine… That makes you Death, doesn't it." He laughed again. "Death. Huh. Should have called that…"
"I am not Death," 682 said. "I am her Steed."
"Her Steed?"
"Yes. I await my Rider." 682 raised its head abruptly. "She comes. It is time for me to go."
"Wait!" Clef tried harder to focus. "Why didn't you kill me? Who is your Rider? What are you planning to do? What…" More questions that he should have asked already. Needed to delay the monster more. Get as much information as possible. But the words were all slipping through his mental fingers like grains of sand.
"For what it's worth, Alto Clef. I am sorry."
Clef processed that for a long moment. His vision had gone blurry.
"Why are you sorry? Thought you said… that I wasn't gonna die."
"I am sorry for everything that I have done to you and yours. I am sorry for all the innocents I have killed. I am sorry for all that I have done which you do not know of. And though I am not responsible, I am sorry for everything else you have lost. I am sorry that there is nothing I can do to make amends for any of it. My Master calls."
Clef tried to think of a witty rejoinder. Everything was so cloudy…
"Above all, I am sorry for all that is to come." 682 seemed to be moving away. "Goodbye, Alto Clef."
Alto Clef slipped away again into unconsciousness.

Excerpt from Surveillance Log x16012113441, Date █-██-████
<██05> Biohazard Level 4 Alert. Site-17 enters Accelerated Lockdown due to multiple containment breaches.
<██56> Instances of SCP-098 enter Site-17. SCP-098 instances display previously uncatalogued behavior and morphology.
<██08> Site-17 Security Team Bravo engages SCP-098 in hallway C-10.
<██12> Site-17 Security Team Bravo neutralized.
<██13> SCP-098 swarm proceeds to containment facility for SCP-053.
<██20> Containment Breach. SCP-098 swarm enters SCP-053's containment chambers. SCP-053 reacts with apparent familiarity.
<██32> SCP-098 swarm breaches lockdown and accompanies SCP-053 off premises of Site-17.

The living creature met the little girl for the second time in several thousand years and nuzzled her with delight. She kissed him, giggled a girlish giggle, and climbed onto his back.
Reunited with her Steed at last, Death rode hard towards the vast army of angels to join their march across the world.
And Hell followed with them.

« Interlude: Last Words from Svalbard | Canon Hub | The Bloody Autumn »


Agent Mathews awoke to the sound of gunfire. Then laughter. Chilling, inhuman laughter, filling the air from everywhere.
Mathews had fallen asleep at his post, the radio tower several yards away from the main Site. Satellite Site-66, Zone-097. The Pumpkin Patch, as it was known to the researchers and security tasked with looking after it. A younger Agent, Mathews had been stationed here for the better part of a year now; the most ‘excitement' he'd enjoyed was when the cherry tree grew human eyes last month.
He rubbed his eyes, confusion and panic welling up inside him. Blinking the sleep away, he opened his eyes to see a figure staring back at him; a child with pale skin, oily black eyes, and bloodied teeth.
It screamed.

One week earlier, a hundred and fifty miles away, a television in a dingy basement flickered to life.
“This just won't do.” A colourful, sinister figure stood with its arms crossed, looking out the box with a disappointed expression. The being watching the television snorted awake. Tall, broad, a being of wood and wire and chain and cloth, of thorn and barb. A living scarecrow, brought to life by a stray bolt of lightning years ago. A bastardization of nature, neither alive or dead.
“I'd have expected that a creature like you would have better things to do than waste your life watching television.” sighed Bobble. “Honestly. What a sad, sad picture.”
“… Do I know you?” murmured the being. “Feel like I should know you.”

Mathews screamed in terror. He stumbled out of his chair, tripping over himself, running as fast as he could out of the room and down the hall. The building was dark; quiet laughter followed him, closing in fast.
Bursting through the station's emergency exit, Mathews stumbled and fell, scrambling to keep on his feet. It was raining, and nighttime; a cool wind blew, one which would be refreshingly brisk in any other context. The main complex's floodlights flickered on and off, power surging randomly; the wilderness around the complex was pitch black otherwise. Mathews could hear gunfire and voices he recognized, each cut far too short to imply survival. The site-wide breach alarm began to wail; it too, was cut short mid-scream.
The lights all faded at once, the dark closing in totally. After what felt like an eternity, a pale yellow glow surrounded Mathews. Disembodied flames danced high above; pavement had been replaced with lush grass and ragged brush; hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins covered the landscape, for miles around. Dozens of glowing eyes peered through the dark, a chorus of giggles rising through the dim.
He ran.

“So yor telling me…” the scarecrow in the basement knelt on one wooden knee, at eye-level with Bobble. “Yor the Horseman of War…"
“And you know this. You understand it. You can see what I am, can't you, scarecrow?”
The entity made a sound like a creaking wooden door; a snerk, perhaps? “What c'n I do for you?”
“For lack of a better phrase, I want you to bloom.” Bobble grinned. “Seeing you like this breaks my heart. You had such potential. Such promise. Whatever happened to you?”
“The fucking scientists and creep-killers. They're on to me. Almost got me last time. Jus' gotta lay low for a while. Find a new haunt.”
“Mm. So you're hiding in a shack in the woods, with stolen electricity, wasting your life away." Bobble tsk-tsk'd.
"Fuck off, clown."
"What if…" Bobble offered, ignoring the cuss. "What if I were to tell you… that I could give you a way to beat them. To become more. More than an urban legend?”
"… I'm listenin," muttered the entity.
"A friend of mine- a very good friend, you'd like him- went and borrowed an item you might find interesting, from our mutual enemies."

All at once a chorus of laughter welled up from the wilderness surrounding the Zone-097. In panic, Mathews fled towards the failing floodlights, unable to think for fear. In his terror he passed the bloodied and torn bodies of past comrades; behind him, he could hear the sound of tiny feet splashing through pools of blood, chasing him through the dark.
Mathews burst through the doors to the main containment yard, his foot catching on a root - he fell, tumbling face first into a pumpkin. It exploded from the force of the impact, hot blood splashing out everywhere, soaking Mathews. As he choked, trying to pick himself up, something grasped his neck; a tiny, skeletal hand, reaching out from the remains of the pumpkin.

"Yor types always got a catch."
"Oh, I don't know… I'm War, after all, and this IS the autumn of the world. The coming of the Great Harvest and all that." Bobble adjusted his gloves, smirking proudly. "It's all very meaningful. And we do have a history, you and I."
The scarecrow peered back at the clown, shifting in its seat. "Is that right?"
"Oh, yes. You came to life when some horrid human kids tried to summon a demon, didn't you?" Bobble's expression changed subtly. "I have a thing for kids. I have a show just for them, see. I teach them all sorts of wonderful things. Murder, arson, torture, all the fun stuff. I wonder what I taught those horrid kids that made you?"
The demon leered. "… Yor telling me…"
"Yes. Yes you get it now."

Struggling, Mathews threw the bloody skeleton away to shatter against a tree. He wiped the blood from his eyes; slowly, he realized that everything stopped. The wind, the rain, the screaming and the laughter. Everything was utterly silent.
He slowly, shakily, turned to look behind him. Dozens of figures quietly watched him, surrounding him in a wide circle and trapping him away from any exits. Some sat on the containment wall, others peeked out from behind pumpkins and trees.
Some were indistinct grey and black shadows. Others were almost human, save for sallow skin. Still others were simply skeletal, holding blankets or stuffed animals in a twisted charade of innocent life.
The rustle of leaves behind him made him jolt.

"The world is ending, Scarecrow. And I am War." Bobble spread his arms, hands outstretched. "It's the Great Autumn, and time for a bloody harvest. The fruits of the age of Man are ripe and ready."
There was a knock at the door. The Scarecrow paused, narrowing his eyes.
"A special delivery. Oh yes, yes. Go on. Open the door."

Mathews looked back, frozen in terror. A figure - the Scarecrow- loomed up behind him, eyes burning like coals. It laughed; a horrible sound, like a drowning cat.

"This is your army. Delivered by Fear itself."
"All of em?"
"So long as you hold that flute. And there's more."
"Yeah?"
"Tell me… do the words 'haunted pumpkin patch' mean anything to you?"

The Scarecrow struck, slashing Agent Mathews' throat, laughing and kicking him aside. All at once the children around him - the ghosts, the wraiths, the undead, the unliving - howled in a hellish chorus.
The sounds of drums and pipes began to drown out the din, the sky splitting in a peal of thunder. The Scarecrow turned to the centre of the containment yard, eyes burning like coal, fires burning in the sky.
All of SCP-097 - the ruined fairgrounds, the trees, the tangled thorns and vines, the hundreds of pumpkins - suddenly shifted, the myriad plants uprooting and crawling to one side or another. It was as if the entire place had awoken and was now standing at attention.

"Oi, Clown. Tell me somethin."
"Hmm? Anything for you, my friend."
"What's in this for you?"
"Oh, silly, silly Scarecrow. You haven't got a brain, have you? I am War. It wouldn't be a very good war without a general, would it?" Bobble replied with a sly grin. "And what better general to have in the autumn of man, than the symbol of harvest itself? A walking Scarecrow, riding the physical heart of Autumn, leading an army of dead children forth in a bloody harvest. It's all very metaphorical. Don't you appreciate the imagery here?"
The Scarecrow paused a moment, considering the logic. A low creak escaped its throat, something between a sigh of contentment and a grunt of approval.
"I love it."

SCP-097-1, the great pumpkin at the heart of the chaos, began to pulse, like a heart. Slow at first, it began to beat faster and faster, the drums and pipes beating and singing in time with the light. The Scarecrow approached, holding the pied pipe to its twisted wooden lips.
A new song began.

« The Pale Horse (The Wayward Children) | Canon Hub | Stirrings »


And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say, A measure of wheat for a day's wage, and three measures of barley for a day's wage; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine.

“You know,” said Johanna, looking over Sophia's shoulder. They were in Containment's Command Central, monitoring a dozen feeds of 027's cell. Containment was currently being redoubled by agents and guards, with more watching nearby objects. 027 itself was currently curled up and motionless, and had been since last night. “This isn't how I expected you to react.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, this, fine. If the Big Lady told me to watch out, I get it, I'd watch out. But way back when I taught you, it was all 'calculated risks and rewards.' And a multiple-site break-out scenario isn't unprecedented. But now, you're acting more paranoid than Elliot.”
Sophia made a noncommittal noise, peering at a camera feed.
“Is this recent? I mean, I hadn't seen you for years, you come back and act like this- was it one of your assignments? Maybe that agent from 14 you had something with, what's his name, Lament?”
“No. No,” said Sophia, looking up. “I mean- no, not that. I… had a visitor last night.” She paused. “990.”
“Shit, why didn't you say anything?”
“Because he told me to be suspicious of people here, and he's not known for giving bad advice.”
“You trust me, though?”
Sophia looked over. “Well, a swami and one of my exes told me I should 'trust my intuitions'. Shit, Johanna: yes, I trust you.” She almost cracked a smile.
Johanna fastened her hands around her hips. “Well, me too. I'm glad you came back.”
Sophia paused, looked up at her former mentor. “Thanks.” Then turned her eyes again to the camera feed, and stood up. “Sorry, I think I need to go look at this in person. The surrounding areas, anyways. I, just… Just in case.”
“I'll take a look. Don't worry.” Johanna brushed towards the door. “Besides, you're eyes-on-high.”
“Really? Thanks. Thank you.” Sophia glanced over, then back. “Don't get too close.”
Moments later, she was alone in the room.

At four in the afternoon, SCP-027's outline began to shift. This was immediately reported by the guards on duty, who relayed it to the higher-ups. It stayed like that, little tremors, for a minute longer.
Then its clothes burst, and out came the mice.
No one could possibly imagine where they came from. They formed waves and pools and little rivulets on the floor, climbed the walls, slid through the grated floors and clogged up the intake for the incinerator. Then they climbed one another, forming a fungus-like, agouti-and-black mass in the center of the cell. The guards watched, horrified, as the host of 027 was lifted. He faced the plate-glass wall, with his arms held out- beseeching, Christ-like. His mouth was ripped and spotted with with bloody, tiny mousetracks.
It occurred to Sophia that he must have died within minutes.
“Listen,” she pans in over the guard's earpieces, “I'm sorry, but 027 relies on carriers once its host dies, and any one of you could be it. You're going to need to separate yourselves and leave the room one at a time. Closest to the door, you first.”
Priority number one: Contain potential new carriers. Two: Destroy created vermin. Three: Watch for any further developments…
“Director?” A voice keyed in on the radio. “Just saw a rat run past my foot.” The one who had spoken, looked over. “Kieran?”
One of them was stamping, swatting at his vest. “I-” he crackled over the radio. “I-”
As the guards formed a perimeter, the rats dropped out of his clothing like a squirming, entwined wave. In an instant, they were on top of the guard crew, although the bulk of them were clumped over Kieran's screaming form. It appeared to be creating them- which was unusual-
“Oh fuck,” said someone, “I see scorpions.”
The rest of the guard team went down shortly.
“Kieran?” Sophia said calmly. “Just relax, and try to take control. They'll listen to you.”
“No,” said the man's voice, high-pitched- “I can't- they want-” There was a shriek, as a rat bit into his ear, and then tossed its head (and the dismembered communication unit) to the side. More and more of them filled the room to flooding.
Sophia reached over, and turned off the unit. Elliot appeared in the security room.
“We have firebreathers in the surrounding hallways.”
“Tell them to go when they see the horde.”

027 bore down, covered in a cloak of rats and insects and now flapping crows. But the fire melted them away, and his body blistered and burnt out of recognition milliseconds later.
When 027 woke again, it woke in the body of one of the flamethrower-carriers. The primary consciousness attempted to rebel, before a new mind- fractured into the bodies of a million tiny creatures- won over, and carried it to its goal.

“Wait,” said Sophia, “God, wait, stop. It's not the host- it's the effect. It's jumping bodies. Call them off now.”
Elliot hesitated for just a second. “All units retreat from Sub-Floor J. Do not engage.”
“Circumstances have changed,” Sophia enunciated. “I think it's running till it has to stop, killing its host, then picking up the next closest one and… gaining control, somehow. Maybe it's forcing a direction?”
“You don't know where?”
“No. But if it is going somewhere, it looks like upstairs. We need to nonlethally turn it back, or it'll ride Security up to ground level.”

The Svalbard site's location had certain advantages. Minutes later, two million gallons of electrified seawater flooded 027's level. A tide of rats and centipedes hit it and drowned, and then a redoubled number crawled out over the corpses of the others, and bound into a tight raft. But 027 sank when it stood on it, and its host, instinct momentarily dominating, paddled to the surface for air.

“That'll stop it for minutes.”
“Minutes, or maybe longer if its host keeps control, look-”
Over the camera, they saw a dozen rats chew a gaping hole in 027's neck. The body slumped face-down in the water.
“Oh.”

“Light,” said Barculo, “It's jumped to Keter and it's going to get out. We need to-”
“I know,” said Sophia. She pressed a button. “All personnel, we are beginning a Class 1 Evacuation. Evacuation units assemble. An area of five kilometers around the site will become impassible within twenty minutes.”
She turned to Elliot. “With all external doors sealed except the one to the airfield, even if 027 keeps producing rodents, it'll have to literally fill the place to bursting before it can get a host out. If we start shutting down level by level now, we can recover at least 50% of the objects…”
Barculo froze, then saw the look on her face. He nodded. “Keep monitoring- I'll delay a group and we'll get the second-to-last flight out.” He stood up.
“Elliot? Have you ever called an evac- of this magnitude- before?”
“No. I don't envy you. You know Garrison's still down there, right?”
Sophia stared at the screens. “I know.”

When the sirens started up, Johanna had found a group of agents escorting a transport unit with an enraged 1075, and an armload of other objects, out to evacuate. She took over operations, guiding the motorized unit down the hallway, as some stood guard and others kept an eye on containment. As they neared the elevator, the agent on point froze, and gestured to the others.
A long tentacle of black gas floated out of the adjacent corner. The sound of millions of tiny feet.
“Don't shoot it,” said Johanna, and then, as it rounded the corner, “Get back-” but that hadn't really been the right thing to say. How had it gotten up the stairs? What properties did it have?
Oh. Of course. Host bodies. What a fool she was.
In came a swarm of wriggling vermin that went up to her stomach, but they didn't make a move.
“I HAVE OBSERVED YOU,” the gaping throat of the guard mouthed. “YOU SAW MY MANY EYES AND THOUGHT THEY WOULD NOT LOOK BACK. NOW I AM ASCENDED, AND THE EARTH IS MINE, AND THE LAST I REQUIRE OF YOU IS ONLY A FINAL BODY, MY STEED, AND ONE LAST PATH INTO THE DAY.”
The black horse- Suddenly, calmly, Johanna understood. It was obvious. She pressed her earpiece on.
“I know who you are,” said Johanna.
“Johanna?” Gabriel Bryant asked, over the radio.
A crow, which looked like it had been pilfering fields for decades, landed on its shoulder and inched closer to 027's face.
A second too late, she remembered that the lanyard on her neck had her security card, and its Level Four override privileges. Her own brain could supply the rest of the codes.
“YOU KNOW. DO NOT FEAR.”
The crow tore out 027's throat.
The thing that had been waiting inside 027 for millennia, the thing wearing the body of Dr. Johanna Garrison, jerkily snapped the lanyard off her neck, and slid it down with a passcode to unlock the unit's door. A black horse, with an ancient leather saddle, trotted out and nuzzled it.
“I know you've been waiting for me,” 027 murmured. “Thank you.” Then it swung onto the horse's back with one hand. It breathed a darkly-colored sigh of relief as the leather fused into its hand, and the river of clicking and crawling and flapping beasts fell into marching order. All was well.
Outside of the Site, and its perimeter facilities and defenses, a long, sloping, desolately beautiful beach lead out to sea ice. 027 surveyed from its perch, and cocked its head. 1075 stepped across the ice and onto the surface of the water, radiating black miasma.
“WE HEAR YOU, AND WE ANSWER YOUR CALL,” said 027, to the open air. It turned around. “MY MOST LOYAL FOLLOWERS, LET ME LEAD YOU FINALLY TO YOUR REWARD.”
The black horse, the rider, and their growing cohort and raft of vermin started out across the glass-smooth ocean, just as the first wave of light from the Svalbard Site hit them. The blinding, desperate blast behind them, they cantered calmly forward.

« Interlude: A Memo Regarding a Theft | Canon Hub | Interlude: Last Words from Svalbard »


Written by Wilt
"Diviner Anzak, if you'd please join me on the stage?"
Anzak took to the stage, nervously standing behind the podium as the City Head stepped aside. He could feel his hearts racing in his chest as the crowd's collective stare burned a hole through his forehead. With a few shuffles of paper and a deep breath, he began to speak.
"Good evening."
He winced as he heard the pathetic squeak that was his own voice. The quivering words hung in the air as the crowd silently stared at Anzak, waiting for him to continue. With another deep breath, he started again.
"I am Diviner and Castman Anzak Tilochtil, seer-class scholar of his Graciousness Diviner Artem and the Teachings of Marzed, the True Creator, bless His name." A few words of grace swept through the crowd. "I've come from the Crown of Velvet to deliver a message of great importance to you, the city of Tentaboe, just as my fellow Diviners have done for all other cities in the caverns."
Anzak could feel their eyes on him as they waited, hushed and still. He pondered running. His eyes turned to the right, and there was the City Head, encouraging him with a plastic smile. He blocked the path to the only ramp off the stage, and if Anzak tried to jump off, he'd be enveloped by the crowd. He was trapped, and before starting back up he whispered a small prayer under his breath.
"A great discovery has been made recently, about the caverns we all live within. Long have we suspected that something lies beyond the walls. Now, we have strong evidence to suggest that not only is there a world outside our own, but that it's closer to us than we could have known." Excited murmurs came from the onlookers, quickly dying down. Anzak looked down at his perfectly memorized speech and feigned difficulty reading it. He wiped some sweat from his brow and looked back up at the crowd, his voice trembling slightly.
"You see… well, we believe the world outside is bigger than ours. For all we know, there's billions of worlds beyond that world, and maybe those worlds each have their own interesting story, and…" Anzak was trying his best to avoid outright telling the truth, but their faces told him it wasn't working.
The City Head stepped up beside the podium, his smile turning towards the onlookers slightly. "Diviner Anzak, you're going to have to explain to us what this really means." He gave the scholar a wink, and some in the crowd chuckled lightly.
Anzak, however, seemed near tears. There was no dodging it now. "Um.. well, the world we're in isn't really… a world." He saw their faces contort with confusion, and he decided the only way to do this was to say it without pause. "We've discovered two hidden caverns, each hidden by large deposits of velvet and whitestone. One led to a massive chamber of unending, salty water, while the other led to a chamber filled with a strange, beating boulder of velvet."
He shuffled his papers and quickly continued, staring down at the podium. "It is the Teaching's personal opinion that we are within a creature of massive stature. Our velvet and whitestone are the flesh and bone of this creature, and we are living off foreign byproducts ingested somehow by the creature, for the purpose of supporting our life. We believe that this is a sign that we are somehow connected with this creature beyond our living inside it, and that… well.." His bony fingers clutched at a whitestone tablet of official decree by His Graciousness Diviner Artem, as if to defend his words.
"Because the creature is of flesh, it is not divine. It is not Marzed, and Marzed did not create us. We were born."
He stared out at the gaping crowd, and hoped that the silence would soon end.

Both Diviner Anzak and City Head Hervult hung from the curtain pole of the stage, ropes tightly fastened around their necks. Flames enveloped their now scarred bodies, the bloating in their faces further distorting their bludgeoned faces. Behind them, the curtain sat still as somebody ran up and crudely smudged onto the crisp, white sheet with charcoal.
BLASPHEMOUS SCUM
Behind the sheet, the crowd boarded up the ground floor doors and windows of the Announcement Hall. The walls were coated with the glass and thick liquids of various alcohols as the storerooms were raided and pillaged, their sweet nectars and burning droughts flowing freely in the gutters and streets. The great statue in the center of the square lay in ruins, its terrible visage pitted and scarred by the stones and fists of the crowd. Throughout the streets the guilty and innocent met in the shared bonds of fire and blood, giving their lives for their foolish arrogance. Somebody came with flame and lit up the Hall, burning the locked Castmen within. Those who attempted to brave the fall from the upper stories were met by the bloodthirsty mob, each armed with hate and rage.
Those among the armed forces joined the mob; those who didn't were quickly put down. The city of Tentaboe was swept up in the chaos of its wrath, and those unfortunate enough to heed the words of Anzak found themselves among the growing casualty count. Housing and businesses were robbed in the chaos, and soon the mob found themselves unsatisfied with the burning of the Hall. The fire spread further into the city, and soon, it would leave nothing but an ash stain within the cavern.
Each of the five cities under the Teachings saw a similar scenario, with resistance being quickly cut down. In the wake of their own destruction, they blamed their behavior on the corrupted Diviners. The mob marched on towards the Crown of Velvet. Torches bobbed along the road in a steady, concentrated line. The crowd would see that the Teachings of Marzed were met with a baptism of fire for their sins, and in its place would come a new age.
Before this could happen, though, the Crown had to fall - and they would have to do something about this cavern of beating stone Anzak spoke of.

I feel a strange, burning pain in my abdomen, slowly filling up where I believe some of my burden to be. This feeling is familiar, but this time it worries me. It is larger than I have felt before. It lies close to one of my many hearts, perhaps my body finally starting to fail me. I wonder if it is my cargo, celebrating what I do not: that my death will be sooner than I had hoped.
I suppose my time is coming, though. After all, I am just an old man in the sea.

« | HUB | Under the Sea »


December 1st, 2081

Access: Record of extranormal events and object retrievals
Enter password: ************
Access: Record for Site-466 retrieval agents.
Enter password: *******
Access: Records dated November, 2081.

Date: 1/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED] Shopping Centre car park
Response Priority Level: Green
Description: An unidentified man was seen wandering through a multi-story car park at approximately 14:00, behaving erratically. Witnesses reported that he left scorch marks on all the surfaces he touched, and emanated large amounts of heat.
Follow-up Operations: Foundation agents secured the area and subdued the man, consequently designated E-75006.

Agent Chard ignored the muttering of the man, still audible as it was from within the insulated cell. When the researcher went over to the viewing window, Chard did not follow.
The man inside, he knew, was naked. He had been dressed in casual clothes but they had caught fire as the man's temperature continued to increase, and they had been removed with heat-proof gloves once they had arrived back at the facility. Standard equipment like that was one of the few things that weren't in short supply. It was clear that the heat was making him uncomfortable, but with his internal body temperature he should already be dead, so he hadn't much scope to complain. Not that he could, at any rate. The unfortunate man was rambling as if half-asleep, in hesitant, indistinct nonsense. Clearly his condition was making it difficult for him to think or speak properly.
Based on the location and clothes he had been wearing, Chard suspected he was shopping when it had struck him, whatever it was. He could confirm that, with security tapes and background checks. He had people on it. But for now, he had to ensure the handover of the E-Class object to research personnel.
Something about this particular researcher, Dr. Kritschau, faintly annoyed him. All of his features were set high in his face in such a way that he always had the appearance of peering down at you like a specimen, even if, like Chard, you were a few inches taller than him. He hadn't looked in Chard's eyes at all as the Agent had explained what he had seen during the retrieval, instead keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the paper as he took notes, but now that he was looking at the object he was writing quickly and fluidly without even glancing at the page.
Chard let this continue for a short while, with Kritschau ignoring him and noting down the immediate observations of the new SCP, but then he felt compelled from awkwardness to move over to the viewing window. The man inside had pressed himself up against the cold concrete wall, trying to keep himself cool. He faced away from them and tried to cover himself up.
Chard's eyes drifted to the floor of the containment chamber. The researcher said something under his breath. “So, needs a refrigerated, or at least insulated and well ventilated, humanoid containment chamber. Materials must be heatproof. Food and water… ”
Chard cleared his throat. The researcher didn't seem to hear him, so he started talking. “Is he going to live?”
Kritschau's eyes stayed fixed on the huddled shape of the man. “That's up to the directors. You know how it is.” Chard looked uncomfortably at the windowsill, not willing to look up and compound the man's shame. They both knew that Kritschau was mincing words.
The man clambered to his feet, arms held away from his body, and moved to the other side of the cell, surface for cold concrete. Kritschau noted the behaviour down. Then he sucked in a breath, put the lid back on his pen, and pulled down the blind. Chard was relieved. Something about the unfortunate man elicited his pity. He wouldn't want his life in the hands of the Foundation, either.
“Apologies if that seemed a little callous, Agent. We're as stretched by the current situation as anybody.”
“I understand, Doctor.”
Kritschau swallowed, looking away from the Agent. He hurried over to a desk and produced a form, neatly filled out. He proffered his pen.
“Thank you, Agent. Your boys are doing an exemplary job.” The researcher affected a small smile. “I sometimes wonder why they can't just scrap the paperwork and cut costs that way.”
Chard took the pen and signed his small, rudimentary but serviceable signature.
“I couldn't agree more, sir.”

[DATA EXPUNGED]
Date: 8/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED] Square
Response Priority Level: Orange
Description: The fountain in the centre of ██████████ Square ceased function at 19:53. The fountain quickly became covered in algae. A number of organisms, believed to be temnospondylids, emerged from the Fountain, along with several unidentified organisms displaying animal characteristics though apparently made of plant matter.
Follow-up Operations: Foundation Agents did not respond to the incident initially, as it was primarily handled by Global Occult Coalition agents. Event was reported to the Foundation following capture of several unknown organisms in the surrounding sewer system and discussion with GOC officials.

The GOC had rolled in military uniforms and jeeps, a show of organisation and professionalism that put the Foundation to shame. Everything was carefully calculated and organised effectively and precisely.
The setting-up of the cordon was done with clinical efficiency and deftness, and with minimal fuss. From the outside, it was an inspiring example of efficiency in public security.
Inside, the story was somewhat different. The square was in chaos. The fountain was overflowing, with cold muddy water running over the cobbles, and the bodies that were lying on the ground. A woman's corpse was being savaged by a primordial-looking thing coated in a thick layer of mud, and a group of smaller, green, frog-like creatures quarrelled over the remains of another. People were screaming, people were running to get away, and sluggish masses of foetid reeds and mosses spilled over the lip of the fountain and squelched, amoeba-like across the cobblestones.
GOC Strike Team ‘Thoth' moved in quickly, boots splashing in the muddy water, stepping over rafts of stinking vegetation. The creatures ignored them, content to chew sloppily on the dead. Smaller creatures waddled in the shallows, and scattered in front of the soldiers. The team moved past them, towards the fountain, hoping to gain some understanding of the situation.
The first warning that Thoth Three got was the feel of something pressing against his thigh. The coldness and dampness of it didn't elicit a reaction- after all, he was wading in cold water. But something was wrapping tight around his leg, and the faint pressure was what alerted him. He looked down, and saw that a large clump of plant matter was tangled round his leg. He reached down to brush it away, but then he saw the fronds flex and squeeze around his fingers, trapping his hands.
“Damnit, something's on me.” he said, relatively calm. There was no point in panicking, and to be honest the situation wasn't necessarily a bad one. His team members turned round, as the mass of waterweed and ferns inched further up his leg. A clump adhered itself to his other foot. He tried to take a step, and couldn't.
“Okay, Three, give us a second and we'll cut you out.” said Thoth Six, the team leader. He was reaching for his knife when the water beneath him frothed and something underwater clamped on to his leg. He swore, and tried to move, but he was stuck. “Looks like it's got me too. Everybody else, get back.” Then he tried to jerk himself free.
Instead of pulling himself out of the grasp of the plant, he lost his footing and, with a crash, toppled headlong into the water. The plant-thing moved fast, coils of waterplant fronds wrapping around him in a vice grip. He fought hard to get back up, choking and spluttering as he was forced underwater, then he bobbed back up coughing. He'd managed to prop himself up on his elbows and get his head clear of the water, provided he twisted his head to the side.
Thoth Four took a step towards him, only to recoil as a mass of leaves and algal scum floated to the surface and writhed slowly in his direction. Thoth Six tried to shout something, but muddy water flowed into his mouth when he opened it and he had to cough to clear it.
As he watched his team leader struggle against the constricting plant to keep his head an inch or two above the water, Thoth Three wondered how long you could hold your breath for. Probably not long enough for help to come.

Date: 13/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED] Airport
Response Priority Level: Red
Description: Luggage carried by a passenger began to exude a thick, dark blue gas after being placed inside an X-Ray machine as part of a routine security inspection. This was followed by the manifestation of an unknown and hostile entity which was responsible for the death of 57 individuals. Gas dissipated after three hours: the entity was not found.
Follow-up Operations: Foundation agents disseminated the story that the deaths were caused by a terrorist attack. Bodies were examined, then incinerated.

The man who walked up to the airport security gate to have his hand luggage scanned wasn't to know that by the end of the day he'd have been labelled a terrorist. Luckily for him he wasn't going to have to suffer a tarred reputation, but nonetheless he would end up as a name and face on a notice board with evidence and lines of enquiry written up around him in board marker, based solely around the premise that he was involved in a terrorist attack.
He wasn't to know what was in the suitcase he handed to the border control man, even though he'd packed it. Even afterwards, picking through the debris, the investigators found themselves stumped as to what exactly he had in his luggage.
As the tired looking, stern-faced man in uniform placed the suitcase in its little grey plastic tray and set it on the grey plastic rollers, the supposed terrorist checked his watch. The seconds ticked down as the suitcase rattled along into the X-ray machine.
The border control official barely had time to register the movement on his screen, before a dark blue, thick gas began to seep out of the X-Ray machine. Someone screamed and the blare of a klaxon started up. The man looked in bewilderment at the X-Ray machine as the gas billowed out and pooled sluggishly over the ground. Assuming some sort of chemical weapon, people started running. One border officer, the one manning the X-Ray machine, was slow to react. The gas spread over one of his feet, and the man suddenly collapsed sideways as if his legs had given way. A thin limb emerged from the gas, and clawed fingers gripped him by the arm and dragged him within.
The man with the suitcase, previously frozen in confusion, snapped out of his stupor and made an attempt to run. He did not get far, as the flowing gas seemed to change direction and pursue him. A black mass rose out of the gas as if shedding its skin. A long, segmented, chitinous tendril, like a great legless millipede, lashed out of the fog. It was tipped by a collection of barbs. It slammed into the man's back, the spines puncturing the skin, and using the purchase to lift the unfortunate man into the air, and draw him yelling backwards. The mist enveloped him and his shouts faded into quiet.
Others were equally unlucky. The gas quickly spread out to cover much of the airport floor. Those who touched it collapsed to the floor completely limp, and were immediately enveloped by the mist. Others managed to find higher ground, jumped on counters or dashed madly for the exit. Some of them escaped. Others were dragged backwards into the fog as barbed tendrils latched on to them and yanked them away.
After it was done with them, the cloud receded away from the bodies, leaving little patches of clear floor scattered across the airport. Soon, all of the screaming had stopped- those who were still alive had escaped, and those who fell into the miasma couldn't scream. There was just the hiss of the gas escaping from the X-Ray machine and the gentle rustling of something from within the cloud until, after three hours, the flow of gas stopped and the mist gradually dispersed.
The bodies were not all there when the Foundation arrived. They hadn't been butchered- there were no cut marks. Bits of them bodies simply weren't there, as if they had been dissolved. The damage was bizarre and erratic- one person would be flensed of their skin, others would be missing limbs or large chunks of their bodies. Some had been given the keyhole treatment, with small patches of skin, tissue and bone missing, through which the organs had been removed.
The bodies of about half of the dead were identifiable. The supposed ‘terrorist' was identified as an Adam Eppson, and he was found to be missing his left common carotid artery, five teeth (all molars), all tissue save for bone from the fingers on his right hand, and small patches of tissue from his neck.
As was increasingly becoming the case, it was eventually decided that the victims at the airport had been killed by a freak and unpreventable accident. The mechanisms of the universe had begun to develop stress fractures, and people were beginnning to fall through the cracks.

Date: 22/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED] Hall
Response Priority Level: Red
Description: During a public address, local politician ████ █████ began acting erratically, veering off-subject. The majority of the audience and staff at the venue were rendered comatose during the duration of the event.
Follow-up Operations: A Global Occult Coalition agent assassinated Mr. ███████ during the course of the event, having pre-empted Foundation efforts to secure the anomaly. The agent was detained following his intervention and was highly co-operative. His testimony indicates that GOC forces have been severely weakened in the area, and that he was part of a small team acting independently due to this occurrence.

“And when the people renounce their faith- not their faith in God, not their faith in government, but faith in the most visceral, basic of things, their faith in their own existence- that's when the terrorists win. That's when we everything we stand for boils away and we're left with the salt and ashes of our own self-deception and hypocrisy.”
Agent ‘Blowfly', of the Global Occult Coalition, could hear the politician ranting, even with his noise-cancelling headphones clamped over his ears, and he knew he would have to work fast. He strode down the central aisle towards the stage. As he went, he glanced around the room- at least a hundred people, all apparently paying the man rapt attention. None of them were moving, though. None of them were fidgeting or leaning forwards in their seats. They were motionless, completely motionless. By contrast, the man on the podium was ranting and raging, moving frantically, his wild eyes staring out into the audience.
“And I refuse to allow that. I refuse to allow it now and I will continue to refuse until all the clocks have been broken down into atoms and men have forgotten the meaning of ‘normal'. That is my pledge, and I will stick to it. In ages past, the people of the world were made to follow a contract signed and sealed without understanding. Without consent. A deal made before we were born. And that is what the Freemasons delivered us from.”
‘Blowfly' could feel a buzzing in his ears, and a brief flash of electric pain in his forehead. He drew a pistol from his shoulder holster. Nobody seemed to move, or really notice. Colour was beginning to fade from his vision, and his feet were lead weights. Blowfly pointed it up at the politician, but suddenly his arm went stiff and his fingers would not move. The politician leaned forward and went still as well, staring intently at ‘Blowfly'.
“And despite that, despite that service, there are those who would say that what was done was wrong. That free thinking, and free living, and free breathing, is a crime. They want to stop you from flying! They want to illegalise your new-found consciousness. They are insidious, and I tell you that they will not abandon their quest to keep you chained inside your own skins.”
‘Blowfly' could not move. Even his lungs weren't working. It felt like he was about to die, just like he'd watched all the other agents die, immobile and choking to death. At least he would die with his feet on the ground.
The image of the politician in his immaculate suit, with a forcefully friendly expression on his face, was off-set by his eyes, which seemed bloodshot, wide and frightened. The poor bastard had no idea what he was saying, or what was going on.
The politician gave a spiteful smile, and with a faux-civil tone inquired “So, what does my honourable opponent have to say for himself?” He drew out the question, and the Agent's lungs began to hurt. Finally, he allowed the last syllable to slip from his lips and hang in the air. Blowfly's vision faded completely, and he felt himself slipping away.
Then, suddenly, the force holding him in place was lifted. The Agent's retort was a single gunshot. The politician collapsed backwards, dead within seconds, and lay sprawled in blood on the stage.
Blowfly gulped air down, and sat down on the floor. Still, no-one was moving. He sat there for some time, until the Foundation came to pick him up. It was against protocol in every way, but what else could he do? He had no back up, no place to return to. All the other agents, at least all the ones he knew, were dead.
He let the agents take him back to one of their facilities, told them what had happened. How almost all the other agents from his base had been killed by some glowing KTE that had made their death into a public spectacle. How he'd been one of the only ones still walking around when the call had come in to liquidate the politician.
When he found out that the Foundation thought they were overworked, he laughed very hard, and very bitterly.

Date: 24/11/2081
Location: █████████
Response Priority Level: Yellow
Description: An anomalous and unidentified form of organism, outwardly resembling a form of polyp, is discovered having grown within a disused tunnel. The organism was shown to recreate sounds of human speech and secrete a paralysing and digestive agent from vents on its surface when disturbed; this behaviour claimed the life of an urban explorer whose companion reported the incident to the police.
Follow-up Operations: Due to the isolated location and the stresses placed on attending agents, as well as the fact that most of the field agents available in the area involved in two concurrent higher priority events, investigation of the incident was delayed and the area remained unsecured until late morning on the 14/12/2081, by which time it was discovered that the organism had grown considerably, resulting in the deaths of two other individuals, both local homeless people who had attempted to shelter there overnight. Organism classified E-76821. Majority of the organism destroyed, with living samples secured for analysis.

Date: 24/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED] Morgue
Response Priority Level: Orange
Description: Six corpses being held at the [REDACTED] Morgue reanimated at approximately the same time. All the entities were lucid and communicative, and possessed the memories and personalities that they had possessed prior to death. Despite several debilitating and lethal injuries being present on the bodies prior to the incident, the affected bodies were found to be fully intact, healthy, and displaying normal life signs.
Follow-up Operations: Due to actions undertaken by the staff of the Morgue, information regarding the incident had been partially revealed to the public, necessitating the dispersal of Class-B amnestics. Under the pretence of a quarantine procedure related to an unknown pathogen, the area was secured and the six affected corpses were transported to Site-16. Following testing, which determined the bodies to be otherwise non-anomalous, the entities were terminated.

Date: 24/11/2081
Location: ███████████ Motorway
Response Priority Level: Red
Description: [DATA EXPUNGED]
Follow-ups Operations: Though the event did not immediately threaten human life, [DATA EXPUNGED] presented a major threat to the secrecy of the Foundation. Agents deployed to terminate or capture individuals involved. Amnestics proved ineffective in eradicating symptoms caused by exposure to the event. 30 witnesses are terminated and the event is explained as a major traffic accident.

Agent Chard allowed himself a moment to think, even though he didn't particularly want to. After all, he wasn't going to get the chance later.
He stared down into the amnestics in his hand, two little dirty-beige circles sitting in his palm. The doctor responsible for dispensing the amnestics had obliged his request for a moment to think, but he would have to take them soon. Even now, when it came to looking after their employees' mental health, the Foundation couldn't really afford to waste time.
No counselling sessions or therapy any more – there wasn't time or money to be spared on such matters. They'd replaced human sympathy and help with pills a long time ago. Whatever you've seen, whatever you did, you make statements, note down all the details, then take a pill and forget everything.
Then you read over the files and suddenly you know what happened, but you don't feel it. They saved the therapy for the real problem cases, or the stuff so bad that that gut emotional reaction managed to bleed through just through second-hand description. At least, that was the idea. Chard had done it before. It seemed to work.
As the chief organiser of the operation, he wanted to be able to forget, to shift the responsibility onto something, onto someone, else. It didn't particularly matter that the person was himself. After all, it wasn't as if his past self was going to fight back.
He knew that he could make the argument anyway, even without the amnestics. It was because of the procedures. It was because of the pressure he was under. It was because of the day and age he lived in. Most of all, he could blame the priority system.
Although all of these excuses appeared in his mind, Agent Chard had to admit some level of guilt. He had mishandled the situation, and now multiple people, including other Agents, were dead. He'd been the one who rubber-stamped it, and prioritised killing the people in the morgue over saving lives. Kritschau and his team were probably dissecting them at that moment.
But at some level, he was responsible. He had to be; otherwise it meant that there was nothing he could have done. He refused to let himself become a victim of circumstance, however dire those circumstances had become. He was an Agent of the Foundation, after all- didn't the Foundation exist to overcome the impossible?
God, he'd been listening to the propaganda again. Secure, Contain, Protect.
The first two were getting harder by the day, and after today, he wasn't sure what the third one was supposed to mean. Was he supposed to be protecting humanity, or the interests of the Foundation?
It didn't matter what the answer was. After all, he wasn't going to remember it. He looked up at the doctor. For his part the doctor didn't look particularly impatient. Chard looked at him, and then put the pills into his mouth. The man smiled slightly, watched as Chard took a swig of water from a plastic cup, and swallowed.
Later that day Chard sat at his desk and looked over the reports of what had happened. Four people dead, six anomalous entities terminated, one anomaly contained. The pictures from the tunnels were gruesome, but he had seen worse. He tried to summon up a twinge of remorse for what had happened, but couldn't.
He'd done a good job, he thought. Chard slipped the report back into its manila folder, and braced himself for the next alert. It couldn't be long.

Date: 31/11/2081
Location: [REDACTED]
Response Priority Level: Red
Description: The residents of the █████████ Apartment Building were affected by a possible reality warper, believed to have been capable of conditioning powerful mental compulsions into those he interacted with. Building's residents were eventually implicated in multiple counts of murder, theft and assault against individuals known to the suspected reality warper, Mr. █████ █████████, whose was arrested for one of these charges.
Follow-up Operations: Following an attack by affected individuals on a local police station to free Mr. █████████, Foundation operatives were able to confirm Mr. █████'s nature, and lay siege to the █████████ Apartment Building with the intent of neutralising Mr. █████████. Foundation personnel encountered heavy resistance, but were successful in terminating Mr. ████████. Following this, a resident of the building is believed to have detonated an explosive device, killing approximately 12 Foundation agents and 37 building residents.

Agent Chard couldn't feel much. He could barely feel how the rain pattered down on his face, eliciting brief, tired confusion. But it didn't scald him, and he couldn't feel tiny, wriggling things on his skin any more.
Water trickled down his face, carrying dust into his eyes. It stung, but he wasn't able to make much more than minute groans. He tried to wipe it away, but his arms didn't seem to want to obey him, and besides they hurt more than his eyes.
He thought back to what had happened, as his clothes started to dampen.
Everyone, it would seem, has a crack in their armour. Some were just more obvious than others, like a crippling weakness to being shot repeatedly.
There had been an announcement over the radio that the anomaly had been neutralized. Very short, very matter-of-fact, without a hint of triumph. Maybe because there wasn't much to celebrate. They were just going to face this again the next week, and then again the week after that.
How Agent Chard would have loved to be able to work for the Foundation, say, 100 years ago. Then, you could wait months, even years before an incident occurred in the area you would be assigned to. After a job, you'd be able to say you'd protected someone. Now they were just handing fate a rain check. Eventually, there was going to be something they couldn't handle.
He'd heard about some of them. Terrorist attacks were getting more frequent, apparently. Natural disasters, too. At least this time there actually was an explosion to back up the terrorist angle. Some poor bastard had been duped, tricked or forced into wearing a bomb, and he had set it off as soon as he realized his lord and master had snuffed it. At least, that was what Chard guessed. The heat, the roar and the sudden pain all matched that description. He wasn't sure how far he'd been thrown by the blast, or whether he had hit his head.
The bomb had also blown out the roof, and as he opened his eyes slightly, he could make out the gaping black hole in the ceiling. Blurry, indistinct shapes on the floor, the right shape for slumped human bodies. Raindrops fell into his eyes, and he had to clench them shut again.
He could hear noises, muted though they were, from somewhere nearby. Maybe they had sent someone to find him. He hoped they would come quickly. He didn't know how much more time he, or the Foundation, had left.

| Hub |


Audio Transcript 1035

Welcome to Site-76
It is here in the vast Egyptian desert that we keep many confiscated anomalous objects we find the two great superpowers of the world clutching onto, and it is here that you new recruits have been sent to research and defend these items from either power. This is imperative, if either side is able to get ahold of these objects, why… it could mean something even worse than nuclear war. We cannot allow this to happen.
Take a good look around gentlemen, it is with these men that you'll be working for years, perhaps even decades. This is a lifelong job, but a necessary one. The human race needs you to protect it from destroying itself. You are a member of the Foundation now, sworn in to protect anyone and everyone from the threat of a looming apocalypse.
Site-76 houses a number of important anomalous objects, including some psychic and memetic. Therefore it is important that you all remain focused, because you never know when a memetic visual might come into your line of sight, or a psychic machine might override your mind!
Remember gentlemen that this site is top secret on a need-to-know basis, and anything you encounter here remains here. Even something as insignificant as the type of tree you see outside this window could give away our position to a looming superpower.
Now, as with all sites of this nature, it is entirely possible that a breach may occur requiring the detonation of a 20 megaton nuclear warhead, sitting right now underneath our very feet. In this case all personnel are ordered to evacuate the site immediately. In some cases we may need to detonate the warhead before all personnel have evacuated. You gentlemen have been instructed on this before, and I trust you are willing to sacrifice your lives to contain the monstrosities we hold here.
We thank you for joining the ranks of the Foundation, and hope you have a good day. That is all.

« In the Shadow of a High Wall | Hub | SCP-2350 »


I must tell you this now, as I am growing old and the knowledge cannot die with me. The world as you know it is wrong. We are all passengers in a great craft, from which we will one day be released. I have seen it all, and know. There are things outside of us, that we cannot see or know. I have seen them, and I know them. Come closer, and be enlightened.
Some want to make contact.

Greetings fellow dweller of the deep. May we extend the limb of comradeship? We are the ambassador of the Commonwealth, and we have been traveling through and long, trying to rediscover the homeland.
…
Greetings! We are the Commonwealth, and we extend a gesture of compliance to you and the inhabitants. If you can open relations, we would be very appreciating of your time and space.
…
Does your ship not have the space to enter? Our visor is telling us to be negative, and you are not how we thought you were going be be expecting of us. Sorry for your troubles.

Some confuse me, even now.

We are not here, but we don't want to talk to you. You're not something rare, pretty commonplace in the land. Nothing is frightening and nothing is good, we're going to be here then, and let us know nothings around.
While we get here, maybe you could turn the temperature down? It's a little bit too cool up there.

Some cannot comprehend the scale of our carrier.

Ed's rolling. He's rolling because he needs to get around.
Ed bumped. Well, he guesses he'll have to try again.
Bumped. Didn't work, but that can't stop Ed. Just try again.
Try again.
Ed's getting pretty sick and tired of this. Where can Ed roll? The big dead bed in front of Ed's head is blocking the road ahead.
Maybe Ed can roll around. He'll try that now.
Ed bumped. Well… there's always next time. Ed can just try again.

A few do not realize their own chaotic nature.

BOOM!
Just JOKE. This is not ready to BOOM!, because even though BOOM! is TRUTH we have to go AROUND so that WORK can be DONE because WE NEED TO FINISH.
The MATTER is PAST the MIDDLE! This is WHY we need to go BY!
Well, we get it. Don't want to GO?
We're sorry. Must not be done yet! Come back later to see.

A small number are almost more ancient than us.

Puttering and clattering through the bottom fed, just keep swimming through the rock.
We're always here swimming, around and around and around.
We can go in any rock, right?
We'll need the rock.
See the bigger hollow rock. We can't go in that rock yet.
Too bad.

There are some who croon with our home

We can sing the song in symphony
Sing along, sing the song
You are the ancient mystery, and we hope you come down soon
Don't fret or forget, just enjoy the show

There are also a number of beings with… hatred, contempt, and disgust for us. Their words are vile and cruel, and they lie in wait. Be wary of them, for your generation may be the one which must fend them off, and reach the stars.

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