Authors Note: This takes place in the universe of SCP-2238.

|Hub| Green Day II »

Birmingham, Alabama. 1993
The old man couldn't help but glance through the windows over and over again as he waited for them to come by. Chills went up and down his spine as he noticed the black squad car rolling down the dusty road to his country farmhouse. His heart thumped and thumped against his chest as the figure exited the car and closed in on the door to the house itself.
Fuck me.
He knew something like this was going to happen eventually. He just knew it! The deepest and darkest parts of his mind knew that something like this was only going to end in disaster, for him and everyone else involved.
Three knocks on the door.
He took a deep breath, and opened the door, only to be greeted by a tall man, wearing a gray trench coat. In his hand was a silver-lined suitcase, with a blue pentagram on the side. The friendliness of his smile was only offset by its routine, impersonal frigidity.
"Hello, I am Agent Garrison, officer of the South-Eastern division of the Global Occult Coalition. Mind if I step inside?"
"N-No, not at all," he stammered out, cracking the door open to reveal the hovel of a home he had.
"Mind if I ask your name?" the man inquired, stepping inside the home.
The old man chuckled, his deep laugh echoing through the home.
"James Henderson, but call me Henderson."
"Well, Mr. Henderson, this is quite the lovely, uh," he paused, looking over the messy one bedroom house. Cups were still laid out on the coffee table, plates piled up on the kitchen counter, the TV had a large crack covering most of the screen1, and clothes were strewn across the entire building. It looked like it was one knock away from collapsing in on itself.
"— house. Yes. Very lovely indeed."
"Well, I try."
"Mind if I sit down here?", Agent Garrison said, pointing towards the small wooden table near the middle of the room, a variety of assorted pieces of trash and filth covering the surface.
"Of course not," Henderson replied, lying through his teeth as he threw the trash off the table in one swift motion, crashing to the floor with a loud clatter. They took their seats, each seated directly across from the other.2 Henderson tried his best to avert his gaze directly at the floorboards, and, more specifically, from the creature living beneath said floorboard.
"So, Mr. Henderson, how long have you lived in this, um, place?"
"Five years, or so."
"And how many dependents do you have living underneath your care?"
"None. Unless you count the rats," he chuckled out.
"Any family, biological or otherwise?"
Henderson paused, his eyes drifting away from the Agent and towards the surface of the table.
"None. They, um, all died when the Foundation bombed Site-43. My family was near it when they did that, when the Foundies did the… well, you know."
"My apologies. We all have had family members die at the hands of the Foun—"
"I don't want to hear it," Henderson interjected, his tone shifting.
An ugly pause.
"Why are you here?"
Agent Garrison cleared his throat before answering the question.
"Neighbors and certain members of the South-eastern division have determined an unusual amount of Humes within the area around your 19 acres of land. Usually, these would be classified as minor nexuses or possible Ways within your area, but," he stopped talking, pulling out a small notepad covered in black ink, "the amount in your area suggests a possible Green living in your property."
Henderson tried his best to not gulp.
"G-Green?"
"Yes, Green! Reality Bender! Freaks, magicians, whatever you wanna call them. They're within your property, based off the 0.01 reading on the Kant counter."
Henderson gulped.
"Now," he said, sitting up and walking near the middle of the room, "would you mind letting me investigate your property for the Green? The Coalition will reimburse you for any and all damages we may inflict in the name of the greater go—"
Henderson leaped onto the Agent, punching and beating against his head and desperately grasping for some sort of weapon he had on him.
"Dammit — fuck — what the hell are you —"
He was cut off from each continuous punch coming from Henderson before the Agent was able to wrestle him off of him, allowing for enough time to brandish his pistol from its holster hidden inside of his trenchcoat.
With the Agent on top, Henderson felt the cold metal of the gun against his Adam's apple. It was the coldest piece of metal he felt in a long time.
"Now," the Agent said, wheezing as he turned the pistol off 'safe', "Where's the Gre—"
Henderson attempted to wrestle the gun away, but only felt the surprise presence of a bullet into his throat and into his frontal lobe. The brain splattered against the wall and floor and every in between, making the house a painting of red.
"God fucking damn—"
Agent Garrison was cut off by the sound of rustling outside the home, and the sound of a child's soft footsteps as it left the cellar of the farm house and into the large and spacious woods behind it.
Fuck me.

"Did you intend to engage the criminal?"
"No sir. He attacked me, and I had no choice but to put him down."
"Did the Green escape?"
"I'm afraid so, Commander."
Agent Garrison trailed behind another man. His gray trench coat signified the commander of the GOC's anomaly neutralization branch in Jefferson County.
"Reports from neighbors suggest the Green is inside the woods somewhere. What do you suggest as our course of action, sir?"
"Kill it," the Commander replied, a venomous tone in his voice.
"Understood."
The man stopped in front of the dead body, a bullet wound inside of its head. The blood was oozing out of the frontal lobe and shoulder of the creature in front of him. He tried to stifle the small smile creeping onto his face. He faced the short woman next to it, blood covering her gray trenchcoat.
"Agent Bailey, did an analysis of the body suggest anomalous properties, reality bending or otherwise?"
"No sir."
"Any evidence of a connection to either the Foundation or the Hand?"
"No, sir. He seemed to be a civilian."
Civilian traitors. The worst types.
"I see. What of his relation to the escaped Green?"
"They weren't biologically related, it seems. Gave the bo—"
"Please, Agent Bailey, don't treat it as if it was human. It's unprofessional."
"….Alright, sir, the Green was given shelter."
"Better. What of its age?"
"Analysis of the basement suggests single digits, sir."
"Thank you. As you were."
The man readjusted his rimless glasses and looked out the window, towards the fields and towards the woods that surrounded the small wooden house.

The boy ran through the shrub and bushes, his heart beat racing as he heard the men closing in on him. The bright flashes of light were getting closer and closer to him.
"This way!"
"Get your guns ready. Intel suggests Response Level 4."
The boy tried to not vomit as he crouched near a tree. His entire body felt weak, he shivered despite it being relatively warm.
This is it, isn't it? he thought as he closed his eyes and rested. This is how I'm gonna die? In the middle of some dark woods where nobody can hear me scream. Is James still alive?
He tried to throw away that thought, but it kept eating away at him. He could feel his throat fill up with bile and vomit at even the thought of what they were doing to James. He heard about Coalition torture tactics. His imagination flashed to car batteries, pliers, and needles. He gagged at the thought.
His heart only sank further as he heard a shrill voice and saw the glaring light coming from behind the tree.
"Hey, the trail leads this way!"

Three figures stood standing on the treeline above the forest. They watched the small child crouched behind the large oak tree, his head buried inside of his shirt. The five-man group were following the trail of footsteps towards the oak tree. The hooded figure's bare feet dangled below, swaying back and forth.
"Can I go in boss? It's been so long since I killed one of these Gock bastards."
"Not yet."
The hooded figure chewed on his finger, looking through the bushes and tree line towards the group of five Gock soldiers. All heavily armed and covered in the latest Anchor armor.3 He bit down harder on his ring finger, drawing blood.
"You know not to do that," the taller man said, his clown mask hanging around his neck.
"Sorry, a habit of mine."
"Hey, the trail leads this way!"
The boss looked back at the hooded figure, and nodded.

The man approached the trail, aiming down his sight for a young humanoid. He had expected a chase, but nothing to this extent. If only Agent Garrison had been a better sho—
"Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey Gocky."
He turned his head to see a dark haired boy, hanging upside down and blood dripping from his lip. His eyes stared directly into the man's own. His face twisted into a frown.4
"Don't worry," he said, licking his lips, "it's mine."
Before the man could respond, the creature drew its hands forward towards the man's throat. His entire hand enveloped the man's throat.
Crunch.
"Oh, so that's what that sounds like."
He jumped down, looking at the man's face. His eyeballs were dangling out of his skull. He looked at his own hand. Several white shards covering the palm, along with a variety of different fluids. He tried wiping it off on his hood, before feeling several eye-balls staring at him from behind.
"Freeze!" yelled a deep voice, "Lay on the ground, or we will shoot."
The hooded man turned around, facing towards the four other members of the group, their guns and flashlights turned on him. He decided to follow the most logical course of action in such a situation.
"Hey, you wanna hear about the cannibal with a girlfriend?"
"Lay on the ground, or we will sho—"
"Yeah," he continued, ignoring the cold voice as he tried to stifle his own laughter, "I heard he ate her out!"
Click
"Hey," he said, putting his hands behind his head and backing away from the group as they readied their guns, "guess you can't win them all—"
He jumped back onto the stump of a tree, and propelled forward into the group, crashing into them.
"—right?"
He grabbed hold of the two men of the group, digging his long yellow nails into their necks. He dug around in them before feeling a bullet enter into his skull. He twisted his head around, feeling his neck snap out of place, and looked down to face the barrel of a shotgun, directly aimed at his face. He staggered back as the shotgun blast tore away at his face, causing pieces of brain and bone to fly through the air and onto the ground. It felt weird to him, especially considering he could see parts of his exposed brain and pieces of his glass-like skull.
He orientated himself off the ground, staring at the two. He tried staring at her,5 a large grin plastered across his face. She flinched for a moment, but quickly raised her gun and aimed her sights onto the robed figure before her.
He jumped into the air, dodging the gunfire and entering the treeline.
The two women pressed their backs to each other, aiming their guns in various directions as they scanned the dark treeline above them. A rustle provoked the smaller among them to fire to her right, causing a bloodied raccoon to fall where an animal-like creature should have been. The taller and slightly more experienced one began speaking into the small microphone embed into her armor.
"Command! We need back up, we've sighted a hostile entity during our search for the Green, we need—"
Before she could finish her sentence, the dark-hooded figure jumped from the treeline and onto the two, wrapping his legs around their necks. He tightened his muscles, an audible pop sound emanating from their necks. Their eyeballs dangled from their sockets as the figure removed his legs from around their necks.

"Hey, kid," the man asked, squatting before the child. He tugged slightly against his black trenchcoat. The kid was quietly weeping into his shirt. It was the only sound that could be heard for miles. Behind him, his companion held a pistol.
"You wanna come with us? We'll protect you from them."
No response.
"Look, we're sorry about what happened, but you can't let that stop you."
No response.
"The old man, he would have wanted you to keep going. He died so you could live. Don't stay here and die for nothing."
No response.
"Trust me, The Circus will be a great place."
No response.
"It might not be the greatest place on earth, but I think it—"
The kid collapsed onto his side, weeping turned to light murmuring, and then snoring. The man approached the squatting one, a clown mask strapped to his face.
"You always did have a way with kids, Stretchy."
"Shut it Masky."

The man in the gray trench coat looked over the carnage before him. Five soldiers, two women and three men, went missing in those woods. Various organs, limbs, and assorted pieces of flesh were strewn across the small patch of grass in front of him. At first glance, it looked like they were ripped apart by an animal, but on closer inspection, this was not the case. They were arranged in an unnatural way, as if they were planted there on purpose.
He took another drag from his half finished cigarette. He was going to get every last inch of tobacco out of it even if it was the last thing he ever did. He had already gone through his monthly allowance in about a week,6 and he was getting that itch. He wondered if the bodies had any on them.
He took three more steps towards the patch, noticing the small outline of a message in the body parts and organs in front of him. He recognized that phrase and style of writing7 before.

KYS GOCKSUCKERS

"Clowns sir?" said Agent Garrison, staring at the bloody mess.
"Clowns," Commander Grant replied, looking over this particular clown's calling card.
"What do you suggest we do?"
"Get the detention center on the line for me. I need to have a word with a certain Dick."
"As you wish sir."

|Hub| Green Day II »

Footnotes
1. Despite this, it continued to play GOC propaganda pieces.
2. As best as they could, however, considering that the table was about three or so feet long.
3. One of the many perks of letting Prometheus Labs produce your armor.
4. Or was it a smile? He could never tell with creatures like this.
5. His right eye made a valiant attempt, but it could only do so much with it dangling by a string of flesh.
6. A new record, he thought.
7. If you can even call this writing, he noted.


« She Remembered Me | Dread & Circuses Hub | There Are No Strings On Me »

“So, here we are again,” the Man with the Upside-down Face said as the elevator doors slid shut. “You know, when Burgess did this he had security guards.”
“They're needed upstairs. I…may have left a Sarkist and a Mekhanite together in the same room,” Victor replied with an awkward cough, pressing the button for the desired floor. “Besides, you two I trust.”
“Awww, that's so sweet,” Lolly cooed as the elevator began its ascent. “I'm so excited, this is like getting a new puppy!”
“We're not getting a puppy, we're getting a new attraction for the Circus,” Manny reminded her firmly. “Remember that. It's not just about whether or not you like something. It has to be a good fit for us.”
“Relax, no one loves the Circus more than I do. No one loves Icky more than I do either, and I would never let her down.”
“Why didn't Icky come as well, if I may ask?” Victor said. They both remained awkwardly silent for a moment.
“Lolly, do you want to field that one?”
“Tinkles said that Bubblegum's drinking was going to lead her to an early grave. I was just trying to help!”
“What happened?” Victor asked.
“I slipped her some Antabuse so she couldn't drink without getting sick,” Lolly replied, shrugging like it was no big deal.
“Now, on top of being down an act, we have a two-tonne elephant going through alcohol withdrawal,” Manny sighed. “Icky is currently handling the situation, and so Lolly is here on her behalf.”
“You're not mad at me, are you? I really was just trying to help.”
“I know. What I don't know is where you got an elephant-sized dose of Antabuse.”
“You'd be surprised at what you can buy in bulk.”
Manny gave a nonchalant nod and decided to change the subject.
“Victor, tell me about this first guy again. You said he's Sarkic?”
“Yes, but I shouldn't have, and please don't call him that either,” Victor insisted. “They never call themselves that, it's like a slur.”
“I'm well aware of that,” Manny said resolutely. The elevator dinged and the doors slid open to the ostentatiously gilded showroom of gleaming tiles, lacquered woods and crystal chandeliers; all of which looked not only very expensive but precariously fragile.
“Oh, I'm starting to have second thoughts about this,” Victor said quietly to himself. The three of them approached a man in front of a draped cage. The man himself wore a rather over-the-top crimson cloak, the hood of which obscured his face. “Manny, Lolly, this is…”
“Valmont will do,” the Sarkist replied in a haughty tone and an accent that, while sounding posh, was clearly an affectation. “And may I say what an absolute pleasure it is to meet two such beautifully deformed individuals.”
“Deformed?” Lolly hissed through gritted teeth, her face turning an incandescent red.
“Easy now; remember the guards,” Manny said.
“Oh, you are lucky I always take Clown Impulse Suppressant before I leave the Circus!” she huffed, taking a deep breath and letting her face return to its regular colour.
Valmont let out a condescending chuckle.
“Deformities are nothing to be ashamed of, child. To survive and thrive in spite of them is proof of strength, and to flaunt them openly is to reject the masses' insipid obsession with aesthetics.”
“Listen Valmont, we didn't come here to hear the Gospel of Ion. We're here on business, so kindly show us what you've got.”
“Of course,” Valmont nodded. He raised his hand and pulled the veil off the cage with a single melodramatic gesture. Inside was a mound of ghastly pale flesh, lumps upon lumps like a pool of melted candle wax. Emerging from the mound were several distorted human faces, their mouths perpetually open in an eternal scream, along with a number of limbs that were mangled and twisted beyond any hope of use.
“Behold! Not long ago, while I was reaching across dimensions, I saw a paradise where the sun itself was blessed, where its rays transfigured every living thing it touched into beings of resplendent and rapturous malady. So enamoured was I, that I spirited one such flesh wright into our domain, in the hopes I might be able to recreate such a messianic plague and transmute our own abysmal reality into a utopia of instinctive, rapacious consumption!
“Sadly, it seems that such beautiful beings can only be created by the sun of their native realm, and it's far beyond my ken to synthesize the peculiar effects of that hallowed star. Having no other use for the poor creature, I've decided to sell it.
"Imagine the horror on the faces of your audience when they see this amalgam of souls, this aberrant grotesquery, this singular pile of melted flesh, its mere presence inducing existential confusion and visceral revulsion, challenging the sanctity of nature and the benevolence of God! What do you say to that, upside-down man?”
Manny was unmoved by the Sarkist's sales pitch. He looked at the thing coldly, and then turned his head towards Valmont.
“It's dead,” he said, matter-of-factly. There was an awkward pause.
“No it isn't,” Valmont replied.
“Yes, it is,” Manny said with an exasperated shake of his head.
“Its anatomy makes it hard to move so it's at rest most of the time, but I assure you it is alive,” Valmont insisted.
“It smells likes it's dead,” Lolly said with a wriggle of her nose.
“The miasma of necrotic and rancid tissue is to force those around it to confront the inevitability of death, disease, and decay!” Valmont claimed.
“No, it's indicative of its own death, disease, and decay,” Manny said, furrowing the brow where his chin should have been. “Look here sarkie, I know a dead beastie when I see one, and this thing is dead.”
Victor gulped at the slur, but surprisingly Valmont didn't react to it at all.
“No, it's like a predatory cat; it spends most of its time sleeping. It's just asleep,” Valmont said with increasing desperation.
“You're actually going to commit to this?”
“It's not even breathing,” Lolly pointed out. “Sleeping things still breathe.”
“Its breathing is very shallow. It has a low metabolism to conserve its energy. Chan, help me out here.”
“Well, the creature was a little more lively earlier, so I suppose it is possible it's merely sleeping,” Victor offered. Lolly pulled a bicycle (technically unicycle) horn out from the hyperdimensional hammerspace of her pockets and blew it at one of the creature's numerous ears. All three men recoiled at the impossibly loud noise, but the abominable globster didn't move an inch.
“Yeah, it's definitely dead,” Lolly announced.
“Well it's fainted now!” Valmont claimed.
“Fainted?” Lolly asked in disbelief.
“Yes, it's like a fainting goat; plays dead when it's scared. It's a survival mechanism.”
“It's like a predatory cat and a fainting goat?”
“Well it is a chimera in a way, so that does make sense. It's probably got some snake qualities in there as well. Quite the bargain you're getting, really.”
Lolly looked at him in bewilderment, while Manny just shook his head.
“Mr. Valmont, if you cannot immediately provide some proof of life for this creature, we will have to pass,” he said firmly. Valmont became pensive and took a surreptitious step right up to the cage, which then rattled back and forth for an instant.
“There, you see. It just moved.”
“You shook the cage!” Lolly accused.
“Victor, show us the next offer,” Manny ordered.
“You would dare refuse such a treasure, from one such as myself no less?” Valmont asked, resuming his haughty persona. “You will rue this day, Circus freak! No one denies a Sarkist!”
The three of them all suddenly looked at him in surprise.
“What?”
“Tell me, Sarkist, where does the Valkzaron say that Adytum is located?”
“Ahh…in all of our hearts?” he replied uncertainly.
“You're not really a Sarkist, are you?” Victor asked, utterly mortified.
“How dare you!”
“In all of our hearts? Really?” Manny chuckled.
“I thought you were being figurative! Adytum is like Atlantis, no knows for sure if it even existed, much less where it was,” Valmont claimed.
“Wrong. Adytum is where it always was; in the northern Urals. Ion just cloaked it with mind-bending magic and shifted it ever so slightly out of this reality,” Lolly stated, popping a sucker into her mouth.
“How the hell would you know that?”
“I watch that show Professor Abnormal's Science Lab. He did an episode on Adytum once.”
“And I've been there,” Manny added. “Herman had us perform there once or twice. Not the worst thing he ever did, which frankly says more about him than it does about Adytum. Point is, I know Sarkicism. And you boy are not a Sarkist.”
“…Okay, maybe not technically, but I'm dating a black-blood girl and her dad said that if I could just get rid of this thing for them that he'd accept me as an Orin and…”
“Security!” Victor shouted.
“No please! I need the money. Neo-Sarkic girls have expensive tastes!” Valmont cried as the two security guards dragged him towards the elevator.
“So…I vote no on the gross dead thing from the Sarkic poser,” Lolly said.
“Agreed,” Manny nodded. “Victor, do you not do background checks on these guys?”
“Those don't exactly work with secret societies,” Victor informed him as they walked over to the next display. “I do apologize for that. I can however personally vouch for the authenticity of this next seller. Manny, Lolly, this gentleman goes by the epithet of Silicon Soul. He's a…"
"A Maxwellian," Manny finished his sentence. "It's obvious enough."
The short man before them was pale and gaunt, with a pair of electrodes permanently attached to his smooth scalp. Their wires fed into something under his heavy black coat. There was a neural port behind his right ear, and his amber glass eyes had mechanical apertures. There was a black breathing mask over his nose and mouth, and some small dark device upon his throat. Though his right arm was mechanical, it hung limp and useless, seemingly as broken as his god.
"It is nice to meet you," he said in a raspy, modulated voice. "I believe I attended your Circus once, as a child. It deeply perturbed my still developing sense of reality, and the image of a man with an upside-down face has haunted my dreams ever since."
"We try to make a difference."
"You said your name was Silicon Soul. That sounds like a screen name," Lolly commented. "You go by a screen name IRL? Lol."
"I consider myself a foreigner to meat space, and my name reflects that," the man replied.
"So what do you have for us then? Some Broken tech?"
"No, actually. Like that Sarkist swine, I too have a creature that I came upon more or less by happenstance and don't know what to do with."
He took the cover off the pedestal behind him, revealing a 'tabby cat' with dark purple fur. It was a long-haired breed, a little overweight, and its violent eyes shone with an electric luminosity.
It was also floating a few feet off the ground.
"Oh my god, it's adorable!" Lolly screamed. "Its eyes are just like Icky's!"
"I named him Khoshekh, since I've heard of a similar creature by that name described of in that anomalous radio broadcast that leaks into our reality from time to time," Silicon informed them.
"The one from that nexus in the Southwest? Yeah, I've been there too," Manny said. "Briefly, I mean. We never got to perform. We were chased out of town by a mob screaming 'interlopers'."
"Can I pet him?" Lolly asked with eyes as big as saucers.
"Just be careful. He's not the friendliest cat I've ever known," Silicon nodded. Lolly approached the floating feline, only for it to hiss at her. The hissing it made sounded more like something from an enormous serpent than an overweight cat, and its teeth were not even mammalian, let alone feline.
"Poor thing. He's scared to death. How much?"
"Lolly, hold on a second," Manny insisted. "Aside from just not being friendly, does this animal have any other liabilities I should know about?"
"It is venomous," Silicon admitted.
"Venomous?"
"Yes, it has venom sacs in its mouth, as well as some venomous spines on its back, so you do need to be careful when interacting with it."
"That sounds like something you should have told us before you said Lolly could pet him," Manny said with an agitated shake of his head. "What about tricks? Can it do anything?"
"Well, for now, it just sort of floats there, which to me seems good enough for a freak show," Silicon said. "I did a bit of research, and I think there's some sort of flux pinning or something going on. I guess it doesn't really matter. But it's purple, it's got glowing eyes, it's poisonous, it makes scary noises, and it floats! You've got animal tamers, right? I'm sure they could teach it some tricks, or at least not to bite people. It's no more dangerous than any other animal act you have."
"What happened to your arm?" Manny asked.
"What?"
"I said what happened to your arm?"
Silicon took a glance down at his disabled arm, seemingly trying to will it to move and failing.
"…It's unrelated to the cat."
"Really?"
"Yes. I mean, okay, maybe it's tangentially related to the cat. When I found it I tried to pick it up by the scruff of the neck, as you do with cats, but it didn't like that so it somehow produced an electric surge in my arm that fried all of the electronics."
"Sir, I'm afraid this animal has too many potential liabilities for us to consider incorporating it into our Circus," Manny said firmly.
"But he might die if we don't adopt him!" Lolly objected. The cat hissed again, this time flicking out multiple barbed tongues, wriggling like the tentacles of a Kraken.
"…it might kill us if we do," Manny countered.
"But we can take precautions. Put up warning signs or something, and then everyone could enjoy him," Lolly suggested. "Icky and I could use him in our 'pussy lovers' routine, or we could put him in the petting zoo!"
"Only if we want every child to die a slow, painful death," Manny said. "Lolly, I get that this thing is cute…"
"Super cute!"
"But it's also very dangerous. So dangerous no one can even touch it safely. I really can't imagine any scenario where someone doesn't get poisoned by this thing. Do you want that on your conscience? You said you weren't going to let Icky down. Do you really think Icky would want something this dangerous around kids, or up your skirt?"
Lolly gave the creature a forlorn look, only for it to swipe at her with horrifically distended claws.
"No," she admitted. "Fine, we won't get him. I'm sorry Mr. Kitty. Maybe Victor can find you someone immune to poison to be your forever home."
"I know a surprising number of people who meet the description," Victor told her. "The cat will be fine, don't worry. Silicon, put the cover back on it and wheel it out of the showroom until the next showing, won't you?"
"It seems to prefer the darkness anyway," he said, covering the cat-like creature up and hauling it out of the room.
The creature produced a rolling, thunderous buzzing sound that they could only hope was purring.
“Victor, please tell me you saved the best for last,” Manny said.
“I did indeed. Right this way,” Victor said as he led them to the final display. Unlike the other two, this one had no attendant. It was simply a full-length mirror with an ornate brass frame, encased in some transparent material. “This item came into our possession when its previous owner passed away and we took control of their estate.”
“And what's interesting about it?” Manny asked.
“I know this may not be the most original premise, but this old antique mirror…is haunted," Victor said with a dramatic flourish.
Literally nothing happened.
"Pepper? Pepper that was your cue," he said, still to no effect. He walked up to the mirror and gave it a gentle shake. This finally produced a result, causing a pale light like moonbeams to shine down from the mirror, illuminating the translucent figure of a pubescent girl with braided pigtails and an old fashioned dress.
“Okay, I'm out. Jesus,” she said, her voice an ethereal echo. She put on a forced smile and curtsied before them. "Hello, people who want to buy me. I'm ever so pleased to make your acquaintance."
“Oh my god!” Lolly screamed in elation, jumping right in front of the girl and scaring the no longer living daylights out of her. “Are you really a ghost? How did you die? What do you have to do with the mirror? Are you stuck as a kid forever? How come Victor wants to sell you? Can I touch you?”
“No, don't touch me! What the hell are you on?"
"Clown's Milk," she replied, giving her signature eerily serene smile that Victor still found so unnerving. Pepper didn't seem to find it endearing either.
"I don't know what that is, but it sounds gross," she said.
"It's no grosser than regular milk, and it's so much more fun!" Lolly told her. "I'd let you try some, but you're dead, and if you weren't already dead it would kill you, so…sorry."
"So what's your story Pepper? How'd you end like this?" Manny asked.
"Does it matter? You're just going to make up some sensationalized horse crap to draw in bigger crowds."
"True, but I like to know my freaks. Are you actually a ghost?"
"I am. There's not really much of a story to that though. I caught pneumonia and died. I haunted my mother because I loved her and couldn't stand to see her so heartbroken. My dad knew someone who could make a mirror that would let me be seen and heard like a real person."
“The mirror acts as a focal point for aspect radiation, letting her take a semi-corporeal form,” Victor added.
"I was actually pretty happy with my folks, considering that I'm dead and can't go anywhere or do anything. But of course, they died eventually and now I'm stuck to this stupid thing forever!"
“There are worse soul traps than a mirror, believe me,” Manny said. “If you piss off the wrong god or mage, or get resurrected with any quantum retrocasuality tech you'll be trapped in your own rotting corpse, still able to feel everything until you're completely scattered to the winds.”
She stared at him dumbfounded for a moment.
"You are a weird dude," she said. Lolly tentatively ran her hand through the ghost's intangible body.
"She's tingly," she giggled.
"I said don't touch me!"
Manny stepped up to the mirror and examined its casing.
“What's this you got it in?” he asked.
“Aluminum oxynitride with a clear superhydrophobic coating,” Victor replied. “You won't have to worry about any of your guests breaking it, and it's easy to clean.”
Lolly cleared her throat and put on the most business-like countenance she could muster.
“Pepper, would you like to come back to our Circus with us?” she asked sweetly. “It's full of all sorts of magic people just like you, so you wouldn't be alone anymore, and I promise it's the most amazing, fantastic place you've ever seen. You'll have an enormous family, the most special family in all the worlds who will love you and take care of you and keep you safe. Best of all you won't have to be a secret; new people will come and see you everyday and be amazed by you because you're magic, and that single magical experience will brighten their lives forever! Would you like that Pepper?”
The ghost gave an apathetic shrug.
“I dunno. Maybe. I guess it would be better than being sold to some creepy rich pedophile or something. But I don't want people touching me all day!"
“Manny, we have to take her with us. It's non-negotiable. She's a freak and she has nowhere to go. She needs a home.”
“She'd be a fine addition to the Den or the Hall at the very least,” Manny nodded. “What's the sticker price, Victor?”
“We're asking a hundred and twenty thousand U.S. dollars,” Victor replied.
“Well knowing the way you guys mark stuff up that means you've got at most ten grand invested in her. How about twenty? Be reasonable, that's a decent profit margin.”
“Maybe by the Circus's standards, but not ours. I can take twenty thousand off.”
"Yeah, just haggle over the helpless adolescent girl like I'm a used car. That's not fucked up at all," Pepper groaned.
“Hush," Manny said. "Victor, who do you think's going to pay a hundred grand for a ghost? People abandon houses worth more than that because they're haunted. I'll pay thirty thousand. That's triple what you've spent on her, which is the same profit margin Apple has on its iPhones. Are you saying you're greedier than Apple?”
“I think you know the answer to that. Lolly's already made it clear that you're not leaving without her, but if it helps I can knock a few more grand off; ninety-six thousand.”
“Forty thousand, and before you counter-offer keep in mind that we're still your ticket to the Utterly Bazaar. Seems to me that if someone was going out-of-universe for the first time, they wouldn't want their Sherpas to be angry at them for gouging them in a simple business deal.”
Victor actually hesitated this time before answering.
“Forty-eight thousand, final offer.”
For a second Victor thought Manny was frowning at him, before realizing it was a smile.
“Deal,” he said sticking out his arm for a handshake. “Gary will wire you the money by the end of the day tomorrow.”
“Awesome! Thanks Victor!” Lolly shouted, grabbing the mirror and sticking it under her arm. “I can't wait to introduce you to Ragamuffin. She's going to love you!”
"Please don't carry me sideways, it mucks up the whole projection," Pepper complained. Her visage was still vertical, but it was now a fun house distortion of itself, as tall as the mirror was wide.
"Yeah, you look silly!" Lolly laughed, moving the mirror around erratically to produce increasingly distorted forms.
“A pleasure as always, Emcee D. We'll show ourselves out,” Manny said, relieving Lolly of the mirror and ushering her towards the elevator.
“Take care of yourselves,” Victor waved as the elevator doors slid shut. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the silence was broken by multiple sharp gasps from the flesh pile in the cage.
“Oh thank god, I thought they'd never leave,” one of the faces said.
“Did you see the face on that one? So much makeup; she looked like a clown!” another face said.
“Security, take that damn thing back to Valmont!” Victor ordered as he attempted to bring his breathing and heart rate back to normal. “And tell him I'm still charging him a broker's fee!”

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682 vs 1370 in the battle of the ages. Who will win?

The wall cracked with the first impact. With the second, an enormous lizard burst through it, sending a glass display case flying as it shrugged off the copper jacketed lead that impacted its back. Almost negligently it turned around and spat acid at the last of the team desperately trying - and failing - to contain it. They were no threat.
A tinny, high-pitched voice rang out in the room. "Who dares to disturb the Prime Minister Sinister? I shall rip your eyes from their sockets and force you to eat them!"
The lizard turned its attention from the rapidly melting humans towards the new voice, perplexed. "What?"
"You do not know the fury you have unleashed! RoboLord the Destructor will end you!"
The lizard looked down to see where the voice was coming from. It was an…odd assortment of parts that looked vaguely humanoid. It seemed to be attempting to pick itself up off the floor. "What are you? You're not one of the disgusting flesh bags."
"Do not think to insult Patheticon the Garglemost, creature!" The odd little robot finally got to its feet and shook a wrench-fist at it. "I shall rip you limb from limb! None can stand before the might of The Destructinator!"
"You are…annoying." Almost without thought the lizard lazily brought its claw down on the irritating little thing, intent on crushing it. At the last moment the little robot lost its balance awkwardly toppled over backwards and rolled up against the wall. The bit of clumsiness had spared it from the reptile's negligent strike.
"You see! You can not harm the Invincinator! None can defeat me!"
The lizard tilted its head to the side, oddly amused by the pathetic little thing. It took just a moment to indulge in the novelty of the experience as the creature teetered up to its claw and latched on with one of its ridiculous appendages.
"Now I have you! Dismembernator shall now tear you to shreds!"
"You do realize…you are…weak…pathetic" The reptilian lifted his claw to get a closer look at the little thing that was hanging onto it as the little automaton strained with all its strength - in vain - attempting to harm it.
"Lies and slander! The Mayor of Mayhem is the most powerful being in existence!" The little robot hung from the lizard's claw for a moment before its grip gave out and it fell, tumbling to the floor and rolling till it it was upside down.
"So, you want to fight dirty, do you? Castratinor can play at that game too!"
The lizard had tired of this thing. It was no longer amusing, just irritating. It raised its claw to strike the thing down in earnest, not settling for a lazy, negligent strike that could miss. At that moment it was struck by a volley of rockets, a half dozen simultaneous explosions reducing it to a lump of misshapen flesh.
Behind it the backup containment team that had stealthily crept up while it was distracted by the hostile robot lowered their shoulder mounted rocket launchers.
"You see! Doom-Master Thirteen Seventy Master Of All Doom has destroyed you!"
"Alright, let's get ugly here back to containment. I want it in that acid bath yesterday. Don't give it a chance to regenerate. Thompson, take Pesterbot here to storage closet 8F till the eggheads figure out something better to do with it."
"Dildotron shall destroy you too!"
"Dildotron? Oh, for fuck's sake. Who taught it that one?"


by qntm

There's another conglomeration of severed fingers in the last room, coating the room's interior like the innards of an exploded elephant. Parts of the sprawl are feeling their way, like mould, into a medical cabinet and the rest is splayed over a foetal shape on a medical gurney. The mass reacts sharply to the new light as Wheeler opens the door, rearing up and angling parts of itself toward him. Wheeler reels backwards and pulls the door to just in time; there is a heavy, fleshy thump as the mass hits the door from the far side. The door holds.
Wheeler trips on his own foot and slumps against the far wall. The shape on the gurney was a coiled-up human. Not a corpse, but a living human with one wide-open eye whose whole body was being slowly consumed and processed into more fingers. They were growing out of his throat. Wheeler didn't see this. He thinks he saw it, but he knows he couldn't have.
And that's it. Wheeler casts around the corridor. Every other door he's tried is blocked or locked. The place is below ground, so no windows. No navigable ventilation.
There are two more gunshots up at the far end of the corridor, ear-splitting in the enclosed space and echoing for many seconds. Hutchinson rounds the corner at a dead run, gun in hand, and reaches him quickly. "Find a way out?" she asks, pointlessly. She can read Wheeler's expression. He's found nothing good.
"This place is infested," Wheeler says. "Every room, all the stairwells… This is absurd."
At the far end of the corridor, the main mass heaves itself around the corner. From this distance, it looks like an ambulatory eight-tonne pile of mouldy mashed potato and fat, wiggling maggots. There are toes in there as well as fingers, and small teeth, and bits of bone. It has twenty bullet holes in it, and blood is flowing from all of them, but if it has vital organs they must be elsewhere in the building because none of the wounds have slowed it down or otherwise altered its slow, methodical homing behaviour. It smells powerfully and creatively disgusting, like concentrated medical waste.
It lurches forward in intermittent phases, coating the walls and floor with scarlet ooze as it moves. It'll be on them in about half a minute, squashing them against the end of the corridor and then pulling them into the mess to be remade.
"I think we're done," Wheeler quavers. "Thanks for trying."
Hutchinson, for her part, just stands there, gun lowered, watching the thing come. It moves slowly, like a steam roller. It fills the corridor almost to the ceiling.
She has two bullets left and she's considering where to spend them. Shooting the mass itself is like shooting pudding. She'd kill for a grenade. Even a fire axe would be something. She might not be able to stop the thing, but she could at least make herself known with a fire axe. She could make it feel some regret.
"There are worse fates, I guess," Wheeler goes on, finding himself unable to stop talking, "than being digitised by that thing, but not all that many."
Hutchinson glances in his direction, apparently paying him direct attention for the first time since they met, sixty crowded minutes ago. She says, "Riser cupboard."
"What?"
She pushes Wheeler aside. There's a white-painted wall behind him. There's a lock in it, and a long vertical seam. She spends a moment choosing the right part of the lock to shoot, and shoots it out. Behind the tall, wide panel which opens is a shallow, dusty, metal-edged space like an elevator shaft with no elevator, allowing filthy pipes and cables to pass vertically between floors. She looks up. There's just enough room to admit a person.
"Can you climb?" she asks Wheeler. Without waiting for a response, she sheds her suit jacket, sticks a flashlight between her teeth and hauls herself up into the darkness. After a brief moment of scuffling, there's another gunshot. The other riser cupboard door.
"No," Wheeler finally manages. "No, I can't climb!" The mass is almost on him. He's transfixed by its motion, its all-too-familiar grasping behaviour.
"I figured," Hutchinson calls down. A hand descends, a human one with the conventional number of fingers. "It's clear up here. Come on, I'm braced. Mind this lip here, it's metal. Come on!"
Wheeler keeps his own jacket on and buttoned; it's the only part of the situation over which he still has firm control. He has to jump to catch hold of Hutchinson's hand, and just as he jumps, the main mass lunges for him, crossing the last few metres in a rush and catching hold of him by one foot.
He sees himself die.
His sweating hand immediately starts to slip out of Hutchinson's. She braces her other arm and hauls him up fifteen or thirty centimetres with an angry grunt, then releases his hand for a split second and reaches down like a flash to take firmer hold of his wrist. She keeps pulling. The mass closes around Wheeler's foot like aggressive, proactive quicksand. He yelps and kicks at it with his other foot until it finally pries his shoe loose. The mass retreats for a second, taking a crucial moment to realise that its prize is not living flesh, but by that time Hutchinson has hauled Wheeler up another half-metre and Wheeler has started pushing himself upwards off the pipework with his feet. The mass lunges again, but falls short, and seems too unintelligent to climb after them. It sloshes around, probing its surroundings, perplexed by the shoe.
Hutchinson hauls Wheeler over the lip into the next corridor. He scrapes his ribs badly and arrives crawling, eyes watering. He doesn't die. He can still see himself dying. He stays on all fours for a significant amount of time, processing what just happened.
"Fuck!"
Hutchinson is already standing, and apparently not even significantly exerted. "We need to get to the roof. I might be able to get a signal out from there."
"You're at the gym pretty often?" Wheeler pants, sitting back. "You train for fresh hell like this?"
"Yeah."
"That's great," Wheeler says, "because I play the violin. It's not quite as physically demanding. As careers go, I mean. When you said you were a county health inspector, that was an enormous lie, wasn't it?"
Hutchinson ignores the question, out of habit, and waits impassively for the man to cool.
"This is asinine," Wheeler declares. "This is brain damage." His skin crawls, and grotesque visions flood through his brain. Eventually he recovers his breath and gets to his feet. He stands lopsided, so he takes his other shoe off and throws it back down the riser for symmetry.
"We need to get to the roof," Hutchinson says again.
Wheeler blinks a long blink, then focuses on something around the corner, something on the wall which Hutchinson can't see from where she's standing. "Yeah. One second." He goes to it — it's a red panel — and pulls something down. "Here, you were having no luck with the gun. Try this."
It's a fire axe.

*

He stepped on a rusty nail backstage after the show, and came to the emergency room for a tetanus injection. While waiting, he slowly realised that more than half of the people waiting with him were clutching partially or entirely severed fingers. Bandsaw accidents; hands caught in car doors; hands trapped in door hinges; hands crushed in machinery; every one of them unrelated. There was an epidemic of physical injury, which should have been impossible, and when he tried to bring it up with the medical staff they didn't seem to understand what he was saying.
And then he saw one of the fingers escape. He followed it as it wriggled away down a long corridor to a far corner of the hospital, to an ajar door which nobody in the hospital seemed to be able to perceive except for him, and into a different building where there were no people at all, just hundreds and hundreds of wriggling, exploring, slowly reproducing and lengthening fingers.
He slammed the door and tried and failed to get someone, anyone, staff or patient, to see what he was seeing. He found a payphone and dialled for emergency services and ordered off the menu, asking for emergency industrial-scale pest control or hazardous containment or psychic support or something.
And there was a long pause, and he was connected to what was either a very measured, dispassionate human or an impressively articulate robot operator. It told him to wait by the phone; an associate would be with him shortly. Marion Hutchinson arrived in person, slightly less than fifteen minutes later.
He showed her the door. They went a few paces inside, Hutchinson crouching and aiming some kind of flashlight/scanner at the finger worms. Behind them, something reached out and gently pushed the door closed with a click. They turned, and saw what it was, and ran.

*

Hutchinson hacks her way through the last of the flesh-clogged stairwell. They're almost at the roof. This part of the distributed infestation doesn't seem to be mobile, although it is freakishly grabby.
Wheeler stands three paces back from her, partly to avoid the backswing but mostly so he doesn't have to watch. It's butchery, and it's grisly, and Hutchinson barely seems perturbed by it; she slices methodically until there are waterfalls of gore coming down the stairs and soaking her shoes and his socks, and she does it with the manner of someone trimming a hedgerow.
Whunch. Krunlch.
Wheeler is shivering, and starting to crash. If he doesn't stay still right in the middle of the stairwell, the remaining fingers tug at his hair and sleeves. In another few minutes it may finally dawn on him that this is really happening. "This is crazy, this is nuts," he says to himself, over and over.
"What was that word you used back there?" Hutchinson asks, suddenly.
"Mmm?"
Whunch. "Don't tune out. When the mass was coming down the hall. Did you say 'digitized'?"
"…Um." Wheeler seems to change gear, and wake up. "Yeah. Uh, but, in the old sense of the word—"
"'Digit' meaning 'finger', so 'digitized' meaning 'turned into fingers'. I just got it." She's smiling, he can tell from the sound of her words. Chlunk. "That's great."
"It is?"
"What kind of violin music?"
"Uh. What kind would you like? Tonight's— last night's— Christ, yesterday's concert was Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 1. And a few other pieces, of course, but that was the main course for me. That was where I got my teeth in."
Hutchinson stops hacking and turns around. She actually looks him in the eye. "That piece is a nightmare."
"It's a challenge," Wheeler admits, brightly.
"No, I mean it's chaotic. It's unlistenable."
"I can play anything you like," Wheeler states.
Hutchinson appears to spend a moment considering this possibility. "Bach. You can play some Bach?"
"Just get me to a violin."
Hutchinson thinks for a moment longer. She smiles and nods, and goes back to hacking.

*

And they hit the roof, and Hutchinson's radio finally works, and she calls everything in. She speaks in rapid keywords which Wheeler can't quite follow, although he can pick out his own name and "hazmat" and a repeated word which sounds to him like a brand of cassette tape: "Memetix".
It's very nearly dawn. This wing of the hospital is a few storeys shorter than its main body, so rows of bright-lit wards look down over the roof, while the roof looks out over two sprawling car parks and then greenery and roads and a faint, dull red where the Sun is due to come up. Hutchinson quickly ascertains that there is no fire escape from here; the intended fire exit from the roof is the stairwell up which they just came, so they'll have to wait for a helicopter. Or, more likely and less romantically, a long ladder.
"Backup is coming," Hutchinson concludes. "They have to come in from the next city over, so it could be a few hours. They'll have decontamination gear, antibiotics, blankets, tedious debriefing forms, you name it. But most importantly, coffee."
Wheeler makes an inarticulate sound, the sound of one who could use the coffee, and after that, a drink. "God, I have another concert today," he says. He sits on the thick perimeter wall, rubs his eyes, rubs his sore feet, and begins to shut down.
"You'll be there," Hutchinson says. "The nasty part is over. You did well for a civilian. I've seen far worse."
"Worse than this?"
Hutchinson says nothing.
"I'm sorry." Wheeler opens his eyes again. He gestures at the mayhem from which they just escaped, the fire door and everything it leads to. It's all still down there. "You've seen worse than this?"
Hutchinson, again, says nothing.
"What is this? What happened here?"
At first Hutchinson doesn't answer this either. She walks away across the roof and spends an entire minute staring at the forthcoming Sun.
And then, surprising Wheeler and slightly surprising even herself, she walks back to him and says:
"SCP-4051, which is the number we just assigned to this infestation, has an intrinsic property which makes it nearly impossible for sapient organisms to perceive it. It's a form of camouflage. It's not invisible, it's a mental blocking effect. Information about it goes nowhere, it gets suppressed. People walk past this building every day of the week. They don't see what's blocking the windows. They walk past that door and don't realise it's standing open. It could have been here for decades. The researchers will get the whole story eventually."
Wheeler finds in this explanation something he halfway understands. "So… living fnords?"
And this actually slows Hutchinson down for a second. She gets that reference. She read those books when she was younger, years ago, before joining the Foundation. But she's never made the connection between fnords and the work she does. For as long as she's been working there, she hasn't even thought about it. The irony is intense enough to burn.
"Yeah," she says.
"Except that you can see them," Wheeler says.
"I have specialist training," Hutchinson says, declining to mention her drug regimen.
"And I, also, can see them."
"You seem to have a mild natural immunity to memory-clouding phenomena," Hutchinson explains. "It's rare, but it happens. At a hospital this busy, someone like you was bound to stumble into this place sooner or later." And escape alive, she privately adds. "But the point is… this infestation, SCP-4051, is a snowflake. I don't mean that it's special and unique. I mean: it's part of a blizzard.
"I work for an independent scientific research institution with a specialist focus on the containment of hazardous anomalous phenomena. We have an international mandate and formidable resources and… unimaginable responsibilities. We… we watch the blizzard. And we guard the little fire. We're called the Foundation."
Wheeler's full attention is on her now. He feels tense and exposed here, vulnerable to extraordinary natural forces from which by rights he should be fleeing. But he's also fascinated. Hutchinson has a faintly ethereal attitude to her. It's as if she's not standing on the same planet as everybody else.
"So you're not FBI," he says. "Either, I mean. That was my other guess."
Hutchinson wrinkles her nose. "I hate that show."
"I don't believe I mentioned a show," Wheeler says mischievously.
"They do everything wrong," Hutchinson says. A nerve has been touched. She shuffles irately. "They don't have enough people; they don't trust each other. They don't spend nearly enough time on paperwork. Paperwork saves lives. But most of all? I hate the will-they-or-won't-they. For what, five years? It's forced, it's farcical." She glares at Wheeler. "It doesn't take that long to know. You will or you won't. And then you do."
Wheeler reads her expression carefully. "You do?"
"Yeah," Hutchinson says, smiling again. "Yeah, I think you do."
A distant rapid thudding noise slowly becomes apparent. Hutchinson sees the source of the sound first and points. "Backup's here. And it looks like we rated a helicopter after all."

Next: Ojai


Gyaros, 1200-1000 BCE. A cold evening on a battlefield soaked in viscera and Greek fire. Gigantic metal statues walk toward a temple of flesh.
In the deepest subterranean reaches of the temple, Sarkic thaumaturges prepare a vein-covered pod of combat-grade vermin. The creatures within the pod tear at each other's throats. "Under the right conditions," Karcist Nal had promised years ago, "this pod could turn an entire continent to ash and maggot-fodder."
The pod is given to one of many Orin thralls - Iose the Pike-Bearer. "Take this to be deployed on the surface," commands Võlutaar Dazh. "Be careful. It's very fragile."
"I obey," says Iose, taking the pod in his hands.
Iose trips.

March 15th, 44 BCE. Gaius Julius Caesar, dictator of Rome, finds himself increasingly paranoid of the Senate. He fears a plot on his life, and decides to cancel his scheduled appearance.
Perhaps they know of the arcane text he had secured from the Daevite ruins. He couldn't die now, just days before the ascension ritual had been completed - before Caesar's glory could outshine Jupiter himself.
Reclining in his private garden, the dictator spots his least favorite slave, Josephus, cleaning the fountain and the surrounding stonework. Josephus catches sight of a spider and bolts away from his work. He slips on the wet pavement. The back of his head lands on the fountain with a sickening crunching noise. The fountain's water turns reddish-brown. A handful of flies, as if on cue, begin to surround the fountain.
Caesar cringes. Perhaps I will go to the Senate today, he says to himself, if only to get away from this disgusting scene.

May 3rd, 1937. Adolf Hitler orders a massive weapon to be deployed to America using the cover of a passenger airship. The Marshall, Carter, and Dark representative had boasted of its destructive potential for hours on end to the strapping young führer, but they had him at "millions within the first five minutes of activation."
May 6th, 1937. As the airship is lowered into New Jersey, a technician named Josef begins to feel cold. Using his uneaten rations and a blowtorch, he builds a makeshift campfire next to a large supply of hydrogen.

November 5th, 1980. The Svyatogor, a Golf-class ballistic submarine under the Indian Ocean, receives the command from Moscow. The man in the Kremlin emphasizes that this isn't a drill. The captain draws a long sigh as he unpockets his launch key. I suppose it was only a matter of time, he says to himself.
At the same time: Iosif, Petty Officer Second Class, realizes he left his aspirin in Novgorod. "I'll be back in just a second," he says, as he opens a heavy doorway on the upper deck.
The Svyatogor remains on the sea floor to this day.

March 15th, 2006. The Village Pointe Mall in Omaha welcomes President George W. Bush for the debut of a new Iraq War memorial.
Mitch Stevens, 53, "Aryan-American," pats the worn copy of The Turner Diaries in his pocket as he watches the crowd from the parking lot. To him, Bush had done a lot of work to advance white supremacy. But he hadn't done enough.
His baggy jeans jacket, the one from before his time in San Quentin, hides a vest of homemade explosives and rusty nails. As the President comes to the stage, Mitch breaks into a run—
And trips.
As he pries his face from the asphalt, Mitch can hear a drunken, high-pitched laugh from a man behind him. "Dude, check your shoelaces," says the man, his voice slurred from alcohol.
Mitch flies into a blind rage as he draws the bowie knife from his boot. At the end of the day, Mitch only kills one person - some homeless jagoff named Joe Grunderson-Pike - before he's arrested.

April 23rd, 2018. A Global Occult Coalition barge in the Southern Atlantic ocean carries out its shipment of esoteric military chemicals - particularly Substance-Tango-491, called "Ambien From Hell" by its nihilistic inventor - to Argentina without incident.
Corporal Joseph "Big Joe" Pike is nowhere near the Substance-Charlie-499 tank to light a cigarette.
The Substance-Charlie-499 tank doesn't go up in flames.
The Substance-Tango-491 tank doesn't leak into the ocean.
The Leviathan does not ingest enough Substance-Tango-491 to keep it sleeping a while longer.
Joe, "SCP-2416-21," is in Foundation Site-59, under a medically-induced coma.

May 5th, 2049. The Leviathan awakens.
When the tidal wave hits Site-59, the failsafe dies in his sleep.