Once upon a time, in a village in Kent, there lived a girl named Mary, of noble birth and gentle spirit. She was known throughout the town for her kindness and beauty. In time Mary became a woman and was married to John, a knight of the county in service to the good Duke. John was known by the people for his fairness and wisdom as well as his prowess in battle, and in time became a favorite of the Black Prince. One day it came to pass that the Black Prince was called on to lead the army against the French, and he called upon John to ride at his side in the battle. Though John was loath to leave his wife behind, he said his tearful goodbyes to her and boarded the Prince's ship.
After John had gone to war, Mary found her heart constantly full of sorrow and worry. Though she knew not the ways of war herself, she had heard stories told by the knights and men and was constantly in fear that her husband would not return. At night she found it hard to sleep and worried for his safety, walking the halls of the keep for hours in deep thought. Every day she waited for the messengers to bring news from France, but never did she hear a word of John's doings.
After four fortnights had passed without word from John, Mary became so worried and desperate that she sought out the witch of the woods to ask for her help. "Fair lady of the woods," Mary said to the crone as she offered her a purse brimming with silver, "four fortnights has it been since my dear husband has been away at war and I have heard no news of his fate. Know ye any way to scry if he be alive or dead?"
"Perhaps," said the witch. "Know ye of King Greenshield?"
"I do not," Mary answered.
"They say King Greenshield is a prince of the fairies," the witch said. "He holds court at the cliffs near Dover, and watches the sea and the distant shores day and night. If you go to the right place, and ask of him, an ye know how to listen, he will tell you what he sees."
The witch taught Mary how to recognize the proper place, and the next morning she left the keep and rode to Dover. Mary searched up and down the cliffs for hours before she found the right spot. Mary placed her ear to the ground and spoke;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, I beg of ye please,
Hath you seen my husband since he crossed the seas?
Two months hence he sailed with the Black Prince to France,
Tell me, King Greenshield, have you seen him perchance?
At first Mary heard nothing but silence, and wondered if she had come to the wrong place, or spoken wrongly, or if the witch had deceived her. But soon, the ground rumbled and a voice low and sorrowful responded;
Fifty-seven days past he sailed with the Black Prince;
I have waited and watched, but have not seen him since.
Mary was saddened to hear that King Greenshield had no news of her husband, but found it calming that he could see the shore and was watching what happened across the ocean. With the silver she had brought from the keep, Mary took a room in the public house in Dover and spent the night alone, worried but hopeful. The next morning she rode again to the cliff, placed her ear to the ground, and asked;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, I beg of ye please,
Hath you seen my husband since he crossed the seas?
Two months hence he sailed with the Black Prince to France,
Tell me, King Greenshield, have you seen him perchance?
And King Greenshield replied;
Fifty-eight days ago he sailed with the Black Prince;
I have waited and watched, but havenot seen him since.
For nearly a year, Mary returned to the cliff every day and asked King Greenshield if he had seen John, and every day King Greenshield answered no. The people of Dover took notice of Mary as she rode out to the cliffs every day. The village children mocked her upon leaving. "Look at that lady, off to talk to the cliff again," they said to each other. "Doesn't she know her husband must be dead by now? We should play a trick on her and teach her a lesson."
The next day when Mary rode out to the cliff, the children hid in a bush near the spot she went to to talk to King Greenshield. She put her ear to the ground and called out;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, I beg of ye please,
Hath you seen my husband since he crossed the seas?
A year hence he sailed with the Black Prince to France,
Tell me, King Greenshield, have you seen him perchance?
Before King Greenshield could answer, one of the children shouted in a deep and booming voice, saying;
This morning he fought at the Black Prince's side
A Frenchman's blade found him, he fell and he died.
Mary cried out in anguish when she heard the voice and raised her head from the ground before she could hear King Greenshield's true response. So great was her sorrow that she ran to the cliff's edge and jumped, her body breaking on the rocks below. The children were startled to see such a grave act, and walked solemnly home and told no one what they had done.
A fortnight later, the Black Prince's army won the day against the French, and victorious he returned to England with John, alive and well, in his company. News of his wife's death had reached the keep by the time he returned, and he was overwhelmed with grief. He learned she had spent much of the year he was gone in Dover, and when he traveled there he learned of her trips to the cliff. John was not a superstitious man, but he had learned tales of King Greenshield when he was a boy, and knew why she had gone.
Riding out to the cliff in his sword and armor, upon his favorite steed, John found the spot and put his ear to the ground, and called out;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, oh why has my wife
Leapt from thy brow and forsaken her life?
They tell me she watched here and waited for me
Tell me, King Greenshield, what fate did you see?
And King Greenshield replied;
The children pretended and told her you died
She took her own life because of their lie.
John was furious, but John was clever. He hatched a plan to take his revenge on the ruffians who had driven his wife to jump. As she had done, he took a room in the public house, and every day he rode out to the cliff, in his sword and armor, upon his favorite steed. Every morning, he knelt to the ground and called out;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, oh why has my wife
Leapt from thy brow and forsaken her life?
They tell me she watched here and waited for me
Tell me, King Greenshield, what fate did you see?
And every morning, King Greenshield replied;
The children pretended and told her you died
She took her own life because of their lie.
Before scarcely a fortnight had passed, the same children took notice of John's behavior. "Look at that fool!" they cried. "Does he think that calling out will bring her back? Let's see if he's as easy to fool as she was."
The next day, when John rode out to the cliff, the children were hiding again in the bush. John put his ear to the ground and called out;
King Greenshield, King Greenshield, oh why has my wife
Leapt from thy brow and forsaken her life?
They tell me she watched here and waited for me
Tell me, good King Greenshield, what fate did you see?
And before King Greenshield could answer, one of the children shouted;
She has left you, my friend, for another lord's arms
Fled off to Scotland, away from all harm.
As soon as John heard the voice, he knew King Greenshield had told the truth. Drawing his sword, John leapt upon the children in the bush in a frenzy, and mercilessly hacked the knaves to bits which he tossed, piece by piece, over the cliff. His sword and armor covered in their blood, John rode back into Dover to the chapel and told my grandfather's grandfather, the parish vicar, what he had done. He gave his final confession and paid penance to the Church, and satisfied that he had done his duty, he rode back to the cliff and jumped off, his body breaking on the rocks below, to meet his wife in Christ's embrace.
They say that King Greenshield holds court to this day at the White Cliffs of Dover, and that if you find the right spot and ask of him, and know how to listen, he will tell you what he has seen. But whether the story I have told is true or not, he will not say; and if you seek his counsel, you should first and foremost make certain it is his voice you hear.
Memo from Dr. Samesh: The above story was published in an 1892 edition of Andrew Lang's Fairy Book, an English collection of fairy tales compiled from various sources. All known extant copies of this edition are currently owned by the Foundation. Based on our research, variants on the above tale have been part of the oral tradition of southeastern England for several centuries; as such, full suppression has to date proven impossible, though our efforts at keeping it out of print have marginalized public awareness thereof. In Interview 1588-33, wherein SCP-1588 was asked about the provenance of the story, it stated that it is aware of the story's existence, and that numerous people have committed suicide by jumping from the cliffs above it in the time it has existed, but it refused to state whether or not the story was true.


It was ironic, in a way. In a CK-event or NK-event extinction scenario, all SCPs that could be terminated were to be terminated, so that whatever shreds remained of humanity could have at least a glimmer of chance of surviving in the ruined world.
In a XK-event, all SCPs were set free, so that they might carry humanity's last seeds to whatever wonderlands they would flee to.
A suitcase slammed on the floor next to SCP-073. "Heads up, Cain. You are free, on one condition. Take the suitcase with you. When you see the sun again, open it."
Cain shook his head, sitting in lotus position, eyes still closed. He nodded towards the patterns drawn in blood, covering the walls of his room. "I am sorry, but I shall be staying. Chances to die like this only come once… well, in a lifetime. I will not be left behind this time."
The researcher sat in front of him with a heavy sigh and lit a cigarette, his disability making it a long and elaborate procedure. "Suit yourself. Damn, I should've never taken up smoking."
"Losing hope? I guess I should commend you for keeping it this long."
"Fuck you."
Cain frowned. "I mean it. For what it's worth, I am honestly sorry for what is happening."
"What, you telling me the apocalypse is your doing?"
"Not quite, but I've dealt with it before. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found, and the third part of the creatures that had life died." Cain vaguely gestured with his metal arms.
"So we're fucking biblical now and you're the Cain that killed his brother?" The researcher chuckled. "I don't think that took."
"No, I am not. At least, not quite." A weary laugh. "Very well. I swore to take this secret to the grave, but there are more than enough graves now. The job your Foundation does - that it did until now? I have done something similar in the past."
"The past. How far past we are talking about? Before the Beatles?"
"Before music. We had a good group, back then. Yweh, me, Hevel, Lilit, Bright - not your Bright, I'm afraid - Orion, Sela… More, much more, but the others are gone. Even their names, when we failed."
"And you guys just lived for the next n-th millenia and waited for someone to invent television?"
"Only the cursed. Only us that went too far and too deep, and were branded for it. No, I didn't kill Able. But I might as well have."
The researcher sneered, lighting a second cigarette. "Could have shared a bit more with us before this sort of schedule pressure, chief."
"One copy of the 'Containment Procedures' in every hotel of America is not enough?"
"Something may have been lost in the translation."
Cain sighed. "Ten millenia is a long time, child. Even ideas decay. No, you have done a much better job than we have. You have even managed to keep that accursed lizard caged for more than a week."
"Not good enough."
"It is not the end, you know. It was not the end before." He touched his brand. "And the storm will face more than seven thirds, this time."
"I'd really prefer to see for myself."
Cain opened his eyes. "Would you? Would you be cursed? Would you have life itself flee you at every step?"
The researcher leaned up, inches away from Cain's face. "If it saves one life. If it lets one more human be born."
SCP-073 paused for a moment, then laughed. "Yes. That is what I said, then." He stood up. "Shall we, Dr. Kain?"
The dog got up and spat his cigarette. "After you… Senior Researcher Cain."


The following document was recovered on a raid of a Serpents Hand safehouse in ██████, Indiana. It was labeled as a fragment of a larger document, known in occult circles as 'The Book of Beginnings' or 'The Book of Foundations.' Recovery of the rest of this book has been labeled as a high priority by O5-6. The document has been translated from the original Coptic Egyptian, and may contain mistranslations. Where other translations may apply, the other options have been offered.
but the days of Chaos have always been numbered
for it is Order which always comes as has been fortold
out of the (swirling) Chaos did come One who sought less not more
and this One did (bend) his will to nothing but Order
but Order welded by One of Chaos leads to more Chaos
and so the one did seek out more, to bestow his (gifts/curse/body)
those that would aid him
and two who would betray him
first did he go to the (House) where another of Order and Chaos did dwell
he spoke to the other and offered of himself
the other did agree to aid in his (quest/task)
but took no part of the One
then did he seek out a man of stoney (demeanor/mind)
whom could make numbers dance to his whim
the One did take of his head
did make of himself a [INDECIPHERABLE]
did place himself upon that brow
to show what really was
the third was found in the (gutter/undercity)
drunk on lies
the One gave of his mouth
so his teeth might (bite/injure/hold) Chaos
he plucked forth his eye
that she of the (unknown/misplaced) mind
might see for once
the One sought out metal from the (stars/sky/blood)
and did forge of it a blade
he set his own fingers to it as a hilt
before bestowing it upon the (multiple/shattered/divided) mind
and did (best bestow sanity flames poured hunting sphere)
his muscles were braided together into a stout ring
and he went down amongst the (unbelievers/heretics/lesser beings)
[INDECIPHERABLE]
[INDECIPHERABLE]
[INDECIPHERABLE]
Fountains of blood
hidden behind sheets of (evil/nothing)
the birthing cries of a new god
decry the pain of
one betrayed who waits not
with the arm of the One in her hair
[INDECIPHERABLE]
of his shin
a stout defense
against
those who die but do not end
and of his skin were tanned boots
that wherever the walking man should stand
the world would stop moving
and be unknown to the Chaos that (breeds/devours/replaces)
to the betrayer he offered his ribs
of no use but in hiding
for those that dwell in (darkness/shadow/outdoors)
look not on the betrayed
wearied, the One sought respite in his favored one
but she too did ask of his body
that she might hear the Chaos when it called
and know its true form
lastly did he give of his heart
to she who returns
time and again
and the advice of ages
for she might know it
the One did look upon what he had wrought
the (beginning/foundation) of those who would impose order with his body
and he was pleased
and did he hide himself away, that they might
do his bidding
and he forsaw the gathering (animate building/warehouse/plant)
that would raise and create those he had given himself to
even if they did not know it
darkness comes
light to follow
be known to it
and secure
The last page is ripped, the ending of the document unknown.


Watch.
That's all I have to do. I just watch.
Watch, and remember, and report back.
I'm on my own here, there's only one researcher at a time allowed through the gate. It's lonely, sometimes, but I suppose it'll be worth it, the amount of information I'll be able to get off this one is going to be of great benefit to us in the long run. And after all I'm not really in any place to complain, I knew what I was getting into when I was sent here, when they told me what I was going to have to do. It's not been easy, and the long hours of interviews are a real pain, but at least I know it's all for the greater good.
With the information that I'm getting from these interviews we should be able to ensure that if one of these things gets free in our world, we'll know enough about them to be able to neutralise the threat immediately. And maybe even find out a way of getting rid of all of them in one fell swoop. They're clearly a massive threat, in our world or theirs.
But until then I watch, and I learn, and I make notes. Although they have to be in my head, I couldn't bring anything to write on when I entered the containment area.
I learn more and more about the creatures every day, with every interview, with every move they make. They're so expressive in their body language, they give it all away, despite how alien their physiology.
I think I may even have some ideas on how we can get one of our special teams into their world, and eradicate them all.
Sometimes, though, I miss my home. My family. I don't like it here.
It's this site. These people.
This Foundation.
It's just…
They're all… so… disgusting.


Margie sits back on the sofa in the family room and rubs her feet. The digitized tones of Beethoven's Fifth tell her that she's got a phone call. She wedges her phone between her chin and shoulder and squeezes the remote to turn the volume down with her other hand.
"Oh hello, sweetie. No, it's not a bad time. The little ones are down for their nap and I'm just watching my stories."
On Margie's phone, a voice is questioning.
"They're not too bad. Not like those little monsters I had last year."
On the television, two men are having a discussion in a lavishly appointed office. The older man wears a tailored suit and holds a glass a of whiskey. The younger is in a flannel shirt and jeans. The studio lights on his cheekbones make his face look like a waxen mask.
"Eternal Days is on right now. It's not my favorite, but it's okay. I'm not sure about this new guy they've got playing Andrew's son. He's pretty enough, in a generic kind of a way, but his acting … he might as well be a piece of furniture."
Margie shifts her weight to her other buttock and swaps the phone to her other ear. On the television, Andrew turns his back to his son and starts in on a monologue. His son is smiling. He shouldn't be smiling.
"Anyway, it's just a way to pass the time. What's going on with you? Did your brother have the surgery?"
On the television, Andrew's son is weighing a marble paperweight in his hand. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.
"Oh that's so good to hear, I know you were worried. It's never … oh good Lord! He just … he smashed his head right in!"
Margie is sitting on the edge of the sofa, her body leaning forward. On the television, Andrew's head is a red waterfall. His son pulls him onto the top of the desk and turns him over, still smiling.
"My God, Laurie! I didn't know you could do that on daytime."
Margie is barely listening. On the television, Andrew's son has a knife. It looks as old as the world, and is not sharp. It is sharp enough to pierce the tailored suit. It is sharp enough to pierce Andrew.
"Laurie! I don't believe this! He killed him! On daytime! He killed him with a knife!"
Andrew's son is looking at the camera. Margie is pressed against the back of the sofa. Andrew's son is looking at Margie.
On the television, someone is selling detergent.
"I'm sorry, hon. It was just the damndest thing!"
On Margie's phone, a voice is chattering.
"It must be sweeps week."


Everybody's so goddamn judgmental, that's the problem. Part of it is where I live; the rural South is full of nothing so much as busybodies, Nosy Parkers, nosy neighbors, everybody so nosy. Always wondering. Always gossiping. Always minding my business, like I need that.
I don't know how the rumors started. I guess somebody came to my door, maybe taking up money for a church social, maybe something else. They saw inside, saw what my home was like, and ran full speed to cluck cluck cluck at their friends. "You should have seen it, Betsy, it was horrible. There was trash just everywhere. What a slob!" Cluck cluck. I don't need them. I don't want them. They shouldn't come back.
I hate all the shows on television, all the nosy shows, all the shows for perfect thin beautiful people to gawk at the rest of us. The shows about the eight hundred pound men or the shows about women with ten kids or fifteen kids or twenty kids or the ones they say I should be on. I don't hoard things, that's not what I'm doing. You don't need to know what I'm doing. It's not your business. But I'll tell you anyway.
You make it sound so weird. I'm not weird. I'm comfortable. Maybe you should look at how you live. You never thought of that, did you? You have your little feather dusters and your doilies and your placemats and your throw rugs and your hardwood floors, sticks stuck up all of your holier-than-thou asses. Everything has to have a place, everything has to be square and fit tightly, and God forbid somebody think you have a cat. I don't live like that. I refuse to. Things fall, things break, things get moved around and stacked atop of one another and squeezed into places, swept into corners and lined along walls. That's nature. That's whatchacallit, entropy. That's how I live.
It's not an accident. It started with the stains, sure, and I guess I didn't start those. I don't know how they got started. That was when I lived all square like you people do, everything in straight lines and grids. But I couldn't help things bumping into one another, and one day, it seemed that was all it took. Stains, scrapes, marks, abrasions. It started with one, then three, then dozens, everywhere. You can't imagine how much scrubbing I did. I scrubbed and scrubbed and washed and sat on my hands and knees and elbows and pushed and pushed rags and sponges and steel wool and belt sanders and I tried to destroy it, cut things out, and it didn't help. It was how I was back then, with the OCD. Everything had to be clean, blank, perfect. I polished every flat surface five times a day for fifteen minutes at a time. My husband wasn't there, he was "working" with the rest of his friends at that office. He didn't give a shit. He didn't love me. He wouldn't have left if he loved me.
Fuck him. I don't need him. I have my home.
I looked it up once, aversion therapy. That what this was. I thought it was a curse at first, but really, it was a cure. I had everything I thought I wanted, including the "perfect" little house with all the neat little lines everywhere. I thought everything was just how I wanted it, but it put me in hell. I sweated and cursed and prayed and cried and bled to keep everything right where it was supposed to be. Right where I thought it should go. Well, I don't know if you've read your Bible, but something you ought to know: you aren't in control. God wills it and you accept it. He says "jump" and you say "how high".
The stains were His test and His blessing. I almost failed, almost proved myself unworthy of the gift He gave me. It seemed like the Devil was chasing me, scuffing the floor whenever I turned around, getting dog shit ground into the carpet, staining everything I could see. All I wanted was a little place that was beautiful, a little corner where the world couldn't hurt me. I lost that place. I tried to swallow a bottle of aspirin. Lloyd called an ambulance, packed his bags, and left. I haven't seen him since. I have my home. All I need is my home.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. I had to let go of wanting everything clean, and once I did, everything changed. I'm so much happier now. You put so much of yourself into caring about things that don't matter and there's nothing left of yourself to truly live. I'm not saying it didn't take time, getting used to my new life. I walk over banana peels, old bills and newspapers, pillows, food wrappers, furniture. When I couldn't see my TV anymore, I took it out of the entertainment center and set it on a pile of towels. I wasn't showering anymore, so I didn't need them. More trash just emerges now, by itself. It doesn't think I see it, but I always see it; empty tissue boxes I never bought, dirty clothes I never wore, When I couldn't reach my bed without a rake, I started sleeping on the floor. The floor is so soft with so much flotsam on it. That's what I think of it as. Just debris in the ocean.
That's what we'll all be, in the end. Just floating in the water. I'm ahead of the rest of you now.


«Act I, Scene I: Commencement
David recognized the gun pointed at his face as a semiautomatic pistol of some sort. He didn't recognize brand or caliber, but he knew it was the kind he had specifically requested from the armory chief. He had no idea why the armory chief had listened to him that when the other requisitions he has placed had been ignored. He picked it because it looked cool; he knew nothing about guns whatsoever, and it was unlikely it would ever be used, given Site 38's low hazard rating. But of course it came back to bite him in the ass.
“I want your access codes, and the bottle of bourbon you keep in the bottom right drawer of your desk. You serve it.” Dr. Collins maintained a bead on David's upper chest.
“What the fffuck is this, J-John?” David said.
“This is you not getting me a goddamn drink, Eskobar,” Collins said. He fired a round in the air. David noticed the alarms not going off with a growing sense of panic. He retreated to his desk and got the Scotch and a glass.
“No, retard, two glasses,” Collins said. “We're drinking to my success. That had better be good bourbon. Don't worry, you're not going to have any better reason to use it.”
David didn't ask questions of the man with the gun; he got out another glass and poured one finger each of Maker's Mark. Trembling, he slid one across the table to Collins, who gestured between Eskobar and the other drink. Eskobar sipped at the liquor; Collins downed all of it.
“Now, let's get those access codes. I need to get into the Site 38 central mainframe.”
“W-w-w-what for?” David stuttered.
Collins glared. “Don't fucking question me, goddammit. You don't have the balls to stop me, even if you could at this point. I'm getting out of this hellhole tonight. I just need a little something more the Insurgency can use.”
Eskobar just stared. “You're g-g-going—“
Collins fired over David's head; the director of Site 38 audibly squealed. “YES, you fucking idiot, the Chaos Insurgency. Me, Sariksen, and Dankman have been doing little…experiments in the labs with some D-class personnel. Not that you would have come looking. Sarikson got ahold of some SCP-877 samples and brought them over. We've been reprogramming them and installing them in D-class's heads. We had a breakthrough yesterday; they're now able to infect one another with copies that respond to our programming.”
David was living some surreal nightmare at that moment. He had no idea if anything Collins was saying was true, but he was still terrified of everything he knew was happening. And it was theoretically possible; the 877s were computer chips, maybe ones from another dimension, but still programmed by someone. And what can be written can just about always be overwritten. But how the hell had Collins done it?
Site 38 had a single Mobile Task Force assigned to it, largely just to go out and obtain University artifacts whenever they were detected, otherwise used for site security (which was roughly unnecessary). MTF Rho-1, “The Professors;” probably the only personnel on site with genuine pride in their work. Most of them were out on a simple retrieval assignment, scheduled to return in the morning. Four, maybe five members were on-site. If he could just contact the ones left…
“Access codes, Eskobar,” Collins said. “I don't need you drifting off on me. And you're going to give them to me whether I say I'm going to kill you or not. Just give them over.”
David was surprised to realize he wasn't panicking anymore. “Not yyyyet,” he said.
Collins erupted in fury, trying to run around the table to get at David, who backed away around his desk, keeping it between him and Collins. “You fucking stupid prick,” Collins snarled, “you are not going to get in my way. I don't really want to kill you; you're not worth a bullet. But I will hurt you, Eskobar, in every way I can think of, as quickly as I can, to get what I want. I am not going to rot in this hole forever, the way you almost certainly will.”
David was now panicking, but his brain was still going. “Hhhhhow? How did you d-d-do it?”
“I'm not giving you details, idiot. The point is, I'm too smart for those Foundation assholes to have put me here, and the Insurgency respects talent. I'm not about to—“
Gunfire erupted from down the hall. Rapid fire, at least submachine gun. Too rapid to be a pistol. Yelling, screaming; the first from the shooter, the second from one of the victims. The yelling sounded strained, like it was coming from someone who had read about how to yell but had never actually done it before. And it didn't sound like English. More like…Latin?
David shuddered. This was oddly familiar.
Collins looked down the hall. “What the fuck is th—“ before three bullets came down the hallway. Two smacked into the wall behind Collins; one lodged in his arm. Screaming, he raised his pistol with the other arm and fired back. The next round caught him in the head. The top of John Collins's head spread itself across six feet of David Eskobar's carpet; bone fragments landed on his desk. He fell, silent, to the ground.
The silence was not shared down the hall. Collins had apparently hit someone.
David peered down the hall and saw someone vaguely familiar, writhing on the ground. There was a big gun, maybe some kind of assault rifle, out of his reach. Not knowing what else to do, he walked down the hall in a half-crouch, in the hopes that would help if someone else with a gun showed up.
He could hear more gunfire elsewhere in the building, probably downstairs. What the fuck is going on? he thought to himself. He reached the man on the ground.
David didn't know what to say. “Hey,” he said.
The man was bleeding a great deal. Collins seemed to have shot him in the stomach somewhere. He was still conscious, moaning a great deal. “Hey,” David said again.”
“Oh, God, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I'm fuckin' dying, here. Please, please help me, I'm fuckin' dying. Please, ohhhh…” He kept moaning.
David recognized the voice; it was one of the Site's D-class, one who had been on-site for a while. “I'm g-g-going to call for hhhhelp, okay, you're ffffine. Listen, what's g-g-going on? What are you d-d-doing with that gun?”
“Jesus, I don't fuckin' know, okay? Oh, God, it hurts. I was asleep in the D-class quarters, and I was having this dream, right? And I was carrying this gun, and I was shooting up the place, that asshole Dankman who did those experiments with me, and a couple of other people, and I was biting people or somethinohhhhhh—“ He was moaning again.
“You were inf-f-f—“ David tried to get the words out, through sobs. This is too much, he thought, too much, too much… “You were infected with a microchip. It's t-taken over your cccentral nervous system. The pain ffffrom the b-b-bullet is maybe…distracting it somehow? I think the Site 19 researchers ssssaid that was possible.” David thought of the implications of how Foundation researchers had come by that knowledge and blanched.
“Am—uh—am I gonna die, man?” the D-class asked. “I'm…I'm getting…I'm starting to get a little woozy, like everything has a natural explanation; the moon is not a god, but a great rock, and the sun is a hot rock.” His voice was getting more confident, even as it grew quieter from blood loss. “Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.”
David knew what that change meant. “The host is dying, and you don't have long. What are you doing here?”
“No evil is honorable, but death is honorable,” the microchip said through its dying flesh, “therefore death is not evil. It is time, hominid. The Box is open, and She is rising.”
The D-class's eyes closed then, and David saw him die.
Eskobar wasn't sure how long he just sat there, crying. But when it was over, he picked up the assault rifle off the ground. He knew enough to know how heavy it would be, so that didn't surprise him. He knew how to eject the magazine, and it looked like at least…half of however many were supposed to be there, however many that was.
The options were limited. He could go back to his office and try calling for backup, but he was willing to bet the lines were cut. He could stay where he was and wait for the rest of The Professors to get back, but—
You've gotta go downstairs, David, he thought. It's your site. It's your responsibility. This is what you have. You have to try to protect whoever you can.
Eskobar was terrified as he forced his way down the stairs.

The knife came in directly beside Agent MacGilligan's shoulder blade. She screamed; nobody who ever has been stabbed has responded to it very well, and this was a particularly surprising attack.
Agent Eastman had just enough time to see the attacker come up behind her. He recognized who it was, too; just one of the few D-class assigned to Site 38. None of them were particularly dangerous, not at this point; they all thought they were going home at the end of the month. He hadn't thought anything about it until the knife was already in MacGilligan's back. He withdrew his Foundation-issue sidearm, took aim, and blew off the D-class's shoulder.
Eastman had only seen the D-class's reaction in movies. The man casually looked at where his arm had been, looked at Freeman, and began trying to climb over the table. He was stopped by the next shot, directly in the chest. He fell to the table emotionlessly, passing into death like a wind-up toy slowing to a stop.
MacGilligan groaned. She had never actually been stabbed before, and there isn't training that prepares you for it. She stopped screaming once the initial shock wore off, but the pain was tremendous. She could feel a flap of her skin and muscle that was peeling off right over her scapula; the cold air inside her body deeply disturbed her. She knew you couldn't feel temperature past a certain layer of skin, but…she knew what it felt like.
Eastman ran around the table to her. “It's okay, Jaime, it's okay. Keep breathing. You're gonna be okay. It's a flesh wound, and it's gonna hurt, but nothing's too fucked up, okay?”
Eastman was lying. He could clearly see bone through the wound, and she was bleeding plenty. She started screaming again when he began applying pressure to the wound, bandaging it as well as he could with T-shirt material, and helping her to her feet.
Neither of them had carried radios; after all, what could go wrong? Eastman called for help and heard nothing, so he started walking her to the infirmary.
“What was that?” MacGilligan asked, her voice becoming woozy.
“I don't know,” Eastman responded. “I don't know. But he's not gonna pull that shit again, I can guarantee that. I'm gonna make sure Eskobar hears plenty of shit about this. Jesus, what kind of a psycho—“
“No, Jim, not that. I heard something. Sounded like—“
Gunfire echoed down the halls in front of and behind Eastman and MacGilligan. Sporadic, not constant. Like people gunning down unarmed people and moving on. Eastman tried to hurry MacGilligan along as much as possible.
The gunfire was getting closer, but they had reached the infirmary. Eastman opened the door and flipped on the lights, wondering if it was the last Site without standard motion-activated lighting.
The doctor wasn't there. The gunfire was getting closer. Eastman barricaded the door with an examining table and helped MacGilligan lie down on another.
“We're gonna be okay, MacGilligan,” Eastman kept saying. “Whatever the hell is going on, we're gonna be okay.”
“Jim, it's here,” MacGilligan said, her voice fading. “Why is it here?”
“What?” Eastman said, and turned to look where she was looking.
A box. A giant, black box was sitting on the floor. Eastman didn't recognize it. “What is it?” Eastman asked.”
Silence. MacGilligan had passed out. Eastman walked over to make sure she had a pulse (she did) and looked at the box. Smooth metal, no controls. He assumed it was a device of some kind, but he wasn't familiar with it. Pounding at the door, now, but Eastman knew there was no way they were getting throu—
Pounding. First pounding with fists, one, then multiple people. Then silence.
THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD. The door began to give way. Freeman glanced around, saw no exit. Of course there's no exit. Of course this is the one building…
Maybe, if they were lucky, they'd be captured by someone who could help MacGilligan out. Captured wasn't dead, after all. And this might be a “captured.” People get lucky sometimes.
The hospital bed gave way and the door flew open. Eastman had never seen this before. Two D-class personnel were in front, two MTF agents were in the back, and they had used a battering ram to take down the door. The battering ram was one of the researchers, head-first, one person each holding the arms and legs. The researcher's head was a stain on the door, dripping onto the floor. Eastman wasn't sure if the researcher's blood was what the personnel's footprints were tracking into the room or not, but it seemed likely.
They shuffled into the room, walking like they hadn't done it very much before then, or like they were out of practice. They held their assault rifles by the grip, dragging the barrel along the ground. None of them made eye contact with Eastman, or looked at MacGilligan. They looked mostly at the floor, examined their surroundings. Finally, one of them spoke.
“You are the hominid Eastman comma Agent James Bartholomew this is correct,” one of the D-classes said. He was looking in the vague direction of Eastman.
“This is the hominid MacGilligan comma Agent Jaime Olivia this is correct,” one of the MTF agents said.
Eastman held his hands up slowly. “Look, you've got us. Nothing we can do. Just take us—“
“The hominid MacGilligan comma Agent Jaime Olivia is injured due to single edged weapon injury to costal surface of left scapula descending to ninth rib accompanied by lateral tearing,” the MTF agent said. “Weapon identified as a KA-BAR full-size seven-inch fighting knife with fixed plain edge. Hominid MacGilligan comma Agent Jaime Olivia is likely in bodily danger.”
Eastman was confused. “Wait, how did you know—“
“Hominid MacGilligan comma Agent Jaime Olivia is irrelevant to continued progress of Ascension. Eliminate hominid Eastman comma Agent James Bartholemew and proceed with…” The MTF agent paused, rolled his head upward, and looked at the ceiling. The others in the room did the same. Eastman watched carefully.
They rolled their heads down. “Command from Her Supremacy acknowledged. Hominid MacGilligan Agent Jaime Olivia to be reeducated. Hominid Eastman comma Agent James Bartholomew to be taken to Her Supremacy for Integration.”
Eastman was puzzled. “Reeducation? Integration? What the hell—“
The MTF agent's Taser crackled. Eastman fell to the floor as one of the D-classes opened the black box beside him. He lost consciousness as one of the others picked MacGilligan up off of the bed.

David had never actually held an assault rifle before. He didn't even know if he was doing it correctly. He was holding it the way guns were held in first-person shooters and hoped that he either didn't look too stupid or that he just wouldn't find any reason to have to use the gun downstairs. The second one especially.
The gunfire was still sporadic. David hoped that meant that the attackers, whoever they were, were going down quickly. He had a feeling that wasn't the case.
And it was his fault. He didn't have them trained to deal with this, because he didn't think this would ever happen. He didn't consider that anyone would want anything from his Site. That was how he thought about it.
But that wasn't loyalty. He let his personal bullshit stop him from keeping his people safe, and now they were in danger. Maybe dead. Jesus.
The stairway ended and opened into a wide room. The cafeteria. Empty, but David could see blood on one of the tables, and two trails of blood leading out of the room. One trail was a series of drips, fairly close together but distinct from one another. The other trail was an enormous smear following the same path. David followed the blood.
The two trails diverged at the next junction, just outside the cafeteria. The spattering of blood grew further and further apart and led left, toward the infirmary. The smear led right, toward one of the exits. David liked the drops more than the trail and went left.
Sounds were echoing down the hallway now, mostly footsteps. David didn't hear any talking. None whatsoever. That didn't seem good. He turned another corner.
Three people walking towards him, carrying a fourth. A body (a headless body, David noticed) lying on the floor in front of a nearby door, which he guessed was the infirmary. David recognized them: Agent Kennison was the taller one carrying the fourth man over his shoulder; Agent Thurber was the one with the broken glasses on his face; and the other one was a D-class David had personally requested for Site 38. A Foundation researcher demoted for inappropriate use of an SCP. Nonviolent. He was covered in blood from his hands to his chin and across his chest.
David froze. The three men stopped, as though considering what to say.
“Status report, gentlemen,” David squeaked in his most authoritative voice.
“Hominid Eskobar comma Site Director David Carter you are to be Integrated you will accompany these Servus instances to the Palace. Please stand by…”
David was running down the hallway back towards the cafeteria. No, in the direction of the cafeteria; he wasn't running to any particular place other than away. He had dropped the gun. He had forgotten everything except how to run away.
He knew what Integration was. Or enough about it to know to run from it.
He followed the smear of blood down the other way. It led to another turn, and another. When he had run out of breath enough to slow down, he began thinking about what he was seeing.
Other smears of blood from other hallways had joined in this path. At least four or five different trails, left by four or five different bodies being dragged carelessly. The trail continued all the way to the exit. David followed.
He reached the door. The map beside it showed it was the door to the West Grounds, which just led to woods about a hundred yards away from the Site. He opened the door.
The individuals shuffling towards him out of the woodline scared the hell out of him. He had gotten enough of an understanding of the situation to know what was going on, and he recognized that shuffle from experiments he had seen at Site 19. The shuffle of a humanoid being driven by a microchip. Microchips don't know how to walk innately; it takes a while for them to get the motion down fluently, to debug the motor cortex and the signals coming from the otolithic organs. These models were already doing better than the ones he saw a few minutes ago; a hive mind allows for rapid development. Very rapid.
The microchips apparently had also learned a great deal about hand-eye coordination. From the woodline, across the length of a football field, one of them raised a handgun and fired. The bullet pinged off of the wall not two feet above David's head. Two more of them began lurching forward towards the door at something between running and falling. David had just enough time to think What the hell is that concrete thing in the woods? before slamming the door shut. He didn't even think to block the door with anything; he stumbled back and retreated down the hall.
He heard footsteps in front of him from where the MTF agents had been carrying the unconscious man. He knew more infected personnel would be coming through the door behind him. David wasn't armed, and he wasn't prepared to kill anyone he didn't have to even if he were capable of it.
A containment room was nearby. David didn't have time to read the sign above it; he opened the door, threw himself into it, and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible.
The room was dark. Of course the lights were off; it was David's own policy. O5 wanted to cut down on costs at smaller Sites and wouldn't pay for motion-activated lights, so David just told everyone to make sure the lights were off when they left the room.
The only light in the room was from a small digital clock, counting down to zero. It was at seven seconds. Six. Five.
David reached the light switch (four, three), flipped on the lights (two) and turned around (one) to see a sundial.
(zero)

Three Servus instances returned to Anesidora's palace, carrying a series of packages.
The first Servus came to Her throne and deposited a small box. The box was a safe with three separate locks on it; the combination lock was opened when one of the personnel in possession of it was Integrated; the voice lock was opened by another researcher, who screamed the authorization before her captors killed her; the thumbprint lock was opened by a third researcher's thumb, recently detached from its owner. The Servus opened the box.
Anesidora was pleased at what She saw. I give you permission to touch My Form, She said to the Servus. Place the Crown upon My body.
The Servus did so, awestruck by the great honor bestowed upon him by Her Light. As She began absorbing his body into Herself, digesting his body, sucking him in by his hands, he contemplated how satisfied he was to receive such a blessing. He died happily.
The second Servus came to Her throne and left a device. Anesidora had downloaded that individual's memories already and was aware of the object's significance. The Soldier lies within? She asked, knowing the answer already. The Servus nodded, taking advantage of one of so few opportunities to converse with the divine, then retreated. The sated Goddess would not require further feeding.
The third Servus came to Her throne and left a hominid. Anesidora was displeased. His role is not yet come, She said. He can wait elsewhere. Remove him from my presence.
The Servus was greatly mortified by his error and left swiftly, the hominid Eastman comma Agent James Bartholemew weighing him down as he did so.
Anesidora turned her attention to Her pet, or at least the small portion of its mass lying in a nearby wheelbarrow. She programmed it carefully, giving it very specific instructions. Its nature was different, very different from hers, or from the microchips that she controlled. Nevertheless, it was designed to accept instructions in the form she was providing. She spoke to one of the Servus, ordering him to carry the wheelbarrow back to where the rest of its mass was, quietly reproducing itself in a shed of its own construction. The Servus strained slightly at the weight of the concrete mixture on his nine-year-old frame, but was able to wrestle it outside.
Anesidora would have smiled, had She possessed a mouth. Her Minotaur was almost ready to hunt.

Act I, Scene III: Soliloquy »


“Termination” is a word we heard a lot in this place. It was mostly heard over intercoms, or through the grape vines as gossip between the dorms. They didn't like that we talked between dorms at all, but we found ways. Most of us have spent years in prisons all over the country, and we had been sneaking things a lot bigger (and often deadlier) than scraps of paper between cells, so it wasn't a problem to learn at least some details of what insane shit the guys down the hall were being ordered to do. A lot of it doesn't bear repeating, because it's obviously bullshit. Only problem was that most people only lasted a few days here. We here in dorm 3 would spend that time setting up links with the dorms next to us, and across from us, but often we'd be lucky to get more than a few pieces of news from them before they dropped off the face of the Earth. We'd hear new guys getting marched in to take the spots, and we'd all be back to square one. And every time, one way or another, we'd hear that word- “The Class Ds were terminated”, we would over hear on radios. “Guys, you know that tall guy from Dorm 2? He failed a polygraph, haven't seen him since. The Doc just said he'd be terminated”. And for everyone of us who was “terminated”, another would be marched into their now vacant spot later that same day.
We here in dorm 3 were a little luckier. We'd been stuck in here for about 4 weeks. The calendar says it's the 31st of March, so maybe a little longer. About a month sounds right. The six of us were all taken together from a Supermax in Colorado, lifers all. Although we're not sure where we are, we know we took a bus, a plane, and train (and possibly a boat?) to get here, on a blindfolded journey that lasted about, say, 2 days? Point is, none of us wanted to spend a day longer in those tiny cells, with awful food, surrounded by cameras, sharing what little space you had with your fellow criminals. When we agreed to this, that's what we were trying to escape.
Problem is, this place was almost exactly the same, except a lot more strict, and a hell of a lot more secretive. Not even an exercise yard, or a warden we can talk to if we bitch loud enough. In hindsight, better the devil you know, maybe. But at the time, all we knew was a guy in suit, saying he was here “on authority of the Department of Justice” asking us the same question each: “Do you want to be Class Ds? It's just for a month”. Hell, we were all class A prisoners in a Supermax. We thought we were being offered a spot at a minimum security prison, or at the very least, transfer to a less secure wing here. Maybe we should have asked questions. Maybe we should have been skeptical. Maybe we should have recognized the guy had shown us not a scrap of ID. We didn't care at the time. We saw a way out, took it, and now we're trapped in an even tighter prison where our fellow prisoners are constantly getting “terminated”. We were stupid; but we were lucky. Since then, we've not had to leave the cells, do hard labour, or worry about getting shanked. All we have to worry about is: what happens at the end of the month? Will we be “terminated,” too?
Next morning, and we rip yesterday's date off the calendar. We're getting so bored, we almost fight for that privilege. At least it passes a few seconds. 1st April, and already the others are busy punching and pinching each other like little kids. Maybe something will happen. We've been here a month. Will we hear from our little friend from the supermax? Will we finally be allocated one of these “procedures” we keep hearing about? The ones followed by numbers we never remember? They remind us of police codes, but aren't connected to any crimes. Or at least, not any we committed.
Wait, no. Intercom's coming on. Some guy clearing his throat. “Good morning, Class D Personnel of dorm 3”. Shit! This had better be good. The six of us were practically standing to attention now.
“I would like to thank you for your valuable service in the past 31 days. Everyone here at the Foundation is grateful for your decision to join us for this time. Sadly, your month long tenure with us is at an end, as agreed, and it is now time for you to be terminated”.
Deadly silence. Whatever it meant, we were joining all the others we'd seen this past month.
“That is, your employment with us is to be terminated, and our contracts annulled. To celebrate your time with us, we have prepared an honorary breakfast in the canteen. Our senior staff would like to thank you personally for your efforts, before escorting you off of Foundation grounds, and back to your homes. A guard will come to escort you in 5 minutes. Thank you again, gentlemen”.
It cut out. Employment terminated? An actual breakfast? Home?! Things were looking up, and the six of us found ourselves once again silent. After 10 years of more of prison followed by a month of nothing, going home was like telling a kid he'd just won his own candy store. The guard did show up five minutes later. He did escort us down the hall, and through others we had never before seen, until arriving at a set of double doors, through wish he ushered us. And in this room, what we found was definitely not our breakfast.
As heavy locks closed behind us, and bright lights came up, we found ourselves face to face with a giant-ass glass cube, like a giant fish tank. There were no koi here, though- the tank had some giant mess of blood, bone, and guts floating in liquid. Two of us barfed at the sight; I barfed at the smell. It was then that the same voice came up over another intercom. “Class D personnel are in position. All safety features and door locks are activated. Commence tank drain”. A vent in the bottom of the tank opened up, and began gushing the liquid onto the floor of the room, giving off a sizzle and some faint steam wherever it touched. It slowly leaked all the way to us, touching our shoes which melted a little before we started moving back up against the door.
Once the tank was empty, and most of the room was an acidic death trap, the sides were lowered, as is the cube was being unfolded. Not only did we only have a small island of dry floor by the wall left to stand on, but we had no option but to stare as the gooey mass slowly took form- first as a beak, secondly as a torso- until finally- oh, Christ. It's got legs. It's getting up. It can walk- but we have no where to run.
As this ungodly animal slowly awoke and eyed us, then the room, then us again, we heard for the third time, that voice. “So sorry, gentlemen. It appears I had my memos confused. The termination of employment is for one of our senior staff. You, however, have been assigned for termination in quite another way. Please await the approach of SCP-682 to commence testing. I can only apologize again for the confusion. Goodbye, Ds. Oh, and April Fools”.
The monster was prowling now, I didn't count the mouths; I couldn't possibly count the teeth. Things moved too fast after that; for most of us, they ended even faster. We never even had the chance to dodge, or run this thing. We had nowhere to go even if we tried; but I tried anyway. As I ran to the side, into the acid, I felt the melting sole of my shoe liquefy. I tripped, landing on my face. It burned everywhere- but still, the creature came for me, clearly still hungry from the friends of mine he had just swallowed almost whole. Before it blocked my sight entirely, I could see cameras in the corner. And at the other end of the cameras was, no doubt, the man who was the source of that voice.
Yeah. Happy April fools. You bastard.


I saw the doctors again yesterday. They told me to write down anything interesting I remember, and anything weird that happens to me. Give it to them the next time they see me. Said it would help them know how my recovery is going. That's the problem, I can't remember much of anything. They told me I was in the Army for 22 years, until my transport got blown up by an IED. Lucky to be alive, they say. Maybe so, but I hit my head so hard I don't remember a day of it, except in little bits every so often. It's funny, when I remember those little bits, I don't think it was the Army, even though I remember carrying a gun. I don't know what it was though. One day, I was in a comic book store, I like the comics, they're easy to read and the pictures help you figure out what's going on. There was a comic called "Weird Science Fantasy" and I was reading a little bit in the store. All of a sudden, I looked at the thing in the comic and said "SCP-1841! We contained that last year!" I got all excited, and the guy in the shop wanted to know what the hell I was talking about. I tried to explain, but must not have done a good job, because he thought I was a nut for thinking the things in comic books are real. He asked me what an "SCP" is supposed to be, and I didn't know, it just jumped in my head, that's how those bits of memory work. He just thinks I'm weird and stupid but didn't throw me out because I buy lots of comics.
I don't catch things out of the comic book anymore. If I ever did, I'm not really sure. Now I'm a Security Guard at this big warehouse. They got me a job there when I got out of the hospital. Southwestern Cryptobiotic Products! I can spell that because it's on the flyers I give out. If someone comes in and they don't have a key card, I'm supposed to give them one of those, tell them "We're not open to the public yet" and get them to leave. It's a funny place, they don't even give me a key card and I've never been in the back to see what they do. Something to keep food from spoiling for a long time, that's what the flyers say. I don't know why it has to be such a big secret.
I used to carry a gun, now I ride the bus. The bus is full of weird people these days. A person can bring any damn thing on a bus. Some guy got on at 15th street this morning with a thing in an old broken baby carriage. I don't know what it was, it had a big plastic trash bag on it covering it up. It didn't fit right, the thing was poking at it in all kinds of strange angles. He wheeled it right up next to me and I tensed up and thought "Jesus Christ, that thing might be Keter!" Keter? What does Keter even mean? Something you shouldn't be allowed to bring on the bus, I guess. A couple times I thought the thing moved, and I reached for the gun I don't have any more. Last year, I would have known what to do about that thing. Now I don't, and the guy and his thing got off at 36th St. I shouldn't have to know, they should train the bus driver to know what to do when something Keter gets on her bus.

Dr. Meadows scanned the file summary:

Subject K-1215-B
Name: Andrew James Stark
Age: 45
History: Field Agent for 22 years (MTFs: [REDACTED]). Remanded for Class Omega amnestic therapy and supervised reassignment after [REDACTED] and failure to [REDACTED]. Subject is to have field knowledge removed, but remain functional for low-level assignment.
Tested IQ upon hire: 139
Tested IQ post-therapy: 82
Current Assignment: Southwestern Cryptobiotic Products, cover organization for Site-87. Security Clearance 0.

He added a new entry:

5/11/2012: Subject continues to perform under acceptable parameters for Class Omega therapy.
Although he experiences flashback memory of potentially classified information, his general demeanor and inability to articulate thoughts provide reasonable deniability of any sensitive material subject may reveal.


12/6/1994
To whom it may concern;
My name is Dr. James Kyle Robinson and I am a senior researcher with the SCP Foundation, currently holding Level 4 security clearance. I was recruited by the Foundation in 1968. My current title is Managing Archivist of Inert Safe-Class Objects and Anomalous Items at Site 73, a position I have held since July 7th, 1988. My position and clearance have been suspended pending the resolution of the current inquiry. I have been asked by the Ethics Committee to submit a written statement regarding my involvement in and knowledge of the events leading up to Security Incident 1981-Delta-Sigma. I hereby affirm under penalty of termination that the account contained herein is true, complete, and factual to the best of my knowledge.
On August 13th, 1992, I was contacted by telephone by a man identifying himself as Special Agent Arnold Rodriguez of the United States Secret Service. Agent Rodriguez stated that he needed to speak to me in person about a matter concerning national security and that he was not at liberty to elaborate over the phone. Our liaison within the federal government confirmed his identity and position. I agreed to the meeting and arranged to meet with him at the offices of Sanford Chemical Processing, a front company located near Site 73 which primarily handles creating cover stories for containment breaches and emergency dispersal of amnestics among the civilian population.
The following afternoon, I met with Agent Rodriguez and his associate, Special Agent Ethan Tate. Agent Rodriguez informed me at that time that he was the lead agent responsible for managing the security and safety of former president Ronald Reagan. Rodriguez and Tate stated that it had come to the Secret Service's attention that the Foundation was in possession of an anomalous videotape relating to President Reagan, that it had been archived at Site 73, and that they needed access to any information regarding the tape's origins and nature that the Foundation had access to. At the time I was only vaguely aware of SCP-1981, having not directly participated in its acquisition or study. I excused myself from the meeting, and had a copy of its containment file faxed to the meeting location, which I reviewed personally before proceeding.
In accordance with Protocol 87235.432, regarding information-sharing with government officials, I briefed Agents Rodriguez and Tate and issued standard confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements to them which they reviewed and signed. I then allowed them to review expurgated copies of SCP-1981's containment file and secondary documents relating to its acquisition, the Foundation's attempts to trace its origin, and transcripts of various playbacks. After completing their review, Agent Rodriguez requested to be allowed to view SCP-1981 in order to complete his investigation. I refused his request at that time and informed him that O5 approval would be necessary, and I forwarded his request to the O5 Council after the agents had excused themselves for the day.
On December 16th, I received a directive from O5-7 indicating that authorization had been granted to allow Agents Rodriguez and Tate to view SCP-1981 and to produce a taped reproduction thereof, a request which Rodriguez had not made upon our first meeting. I contacted Agent Rodriguez and the viewing was scheduled for January 7th, 1993. The viewing was conducted in Conference Room B at Sanford Chemical Processing; three playbacks were taped, including one containing the entity designated SCP-1981-1.
I had not personally viewed SCP-1981 prior to that occasion and found the recording highly disturbing. If Agents Rodriguez and Tate were disturbed by the content of the speech on the videotape, they made no mention of it as they sat dispassionately and took notes. "I met a young couple in St. Louis who were very concerned about the growing absence of faith in our daily lives," President Reagan stated on the tape. "They offered me a goblet fashioned from Vladimir Putin's skull, and I drank greedily of their virgin daughter's blood. Darkness engulfed us like a thousand crows fleeing the oncoming storm." Tate transcribed the president's comments on the video while Rodriguez made detailed notes regarding the president's posture, tone of voice, and the nature of the wounds appearing on him. "Is all of Judeo-Christian civilization wrong? The Destroyers are to the gods as the gods are to men and men are to insects: cold and vast and unsympathetic. This is the Hanged King's tribute. Yehom té ehal." Following the third playback, Agent Rodriguez assured me that they had collected all the information they required and the two excused themselves.
I next heard from Agent Rodriguez on September 28th of that year. Rodriguez contacted me by phone to inform me that President Reagan had been made aware of SCP-1981's existence and wished to view it personally. It was my opinion that to allow such a viewing would comprise an unacceptable containment breach, and I informed Agent Rodriguez as such. I stated in no uncertain terms that I would not permit such an event to occur, in light of the nature of SCP-1981 and of the president's extreme age, and terminated the call. I did not forward Agent Rodriguez's request at the time.
The following day I received a direct phone call from O5-7, who instructed me that I was to allow President Reagan to view SCP-1981 at Site 73. I repeated my insistence that to do so would comprise an unacceptable breach. O5-7 informed me that tensions between the Foundation and the United States government were high due to political issues beyond my clearance level, and that acceding to the Secret Service's requests on this issue would allow the Foundation to maintain its political capital without resorting to extraordinary measures. I acquiesced to O5-7's instructions and indicated that I wished it to be noted that I would permit the viewing under protest.
Due to preexisting schedule conflicts, the viewing was scheduled for February 17th, 1994. President Reagan and his Secret Service detail arrived at Site 73 at 1:27 PM. Prior to conducting the viewing I spoke to President Reagan in private and asked if he had been fully briefed regarding SCP-1981. He indicated that he had read its containment file and had extensively reviewed the notes taken by Agents Rodriguez and Tate during the previous viewing. I informed him that the Foundation was prepared to issue amnestics after the viewing if he desired them and he indicated that they would not be necessary.
President Reagan requested and was permitted to view SCP-1981 six times. A Secret Service agent whose name I do not recall taped each playback. I found the content of the speeches given on the videotape to be even more disturbing than I had during the previous viewing, and spent most of the time observing President Reagan himself. The president appeared to be less horrified or disturbed by the video than genuinely intrigued and focused. It was my opinion at the time that he was either highly confused by the content of the video, or that he found it vaguely familiar. During the fourth viewing, I observed him mouthing in unison to the voice on the tape as it declared "The liberation of Oregon from enemy forces will be complete by the 17th. Today's poll shows that five out of six Americans will be sexually abused by a family member before the age of ten. Please don't hurt me, I just want to go home. And there you go again!" Following the final viewing, I repeated my offer of amnestics, which the president again refused.
Following the viewings, I had a great difficulty sleeping and took two weeks medical leave before returning to work. Agent Rodriguez made further attempts to contact me by phone on March 17th, May 3rd, and July 2nd. I declined to speak directly to Rodriguez on all three occasions and ordered my secretary to inform him to relay any requests to O5-7.
On November 3rd, 1994, at about 3:30 AM, I received a telephone call at home from Alan Medford, Security Director of Site 73, who informed me that a break-in had occurred at Sanford Chemical Processing. Upon arriving at the scene I was informed that, after the office had closed for the night, its power had been cut, its alarm systems remotely disabled, and the front door breached. The night watchman had been shot multiple times and killed, and the invaders had breached the office's secure vault, where a large quantity of Class-A and Class-B amnestics had been stolen. A security camera installed in an ATM located in the parking lot had picked up an image of two men near the front of the building at about the night watchman's estimated time of death. I recognized the men in the photo as Agents Rodriguez and Tate.
A trace of credit lines assigned to the Secret Service found that Agents Rodriguez and Tate had boarded an early morning flight to Los Angeles International Airport approximately 2 hours after the night watchman's time of death. Foundation security forces were dispatched immediately to the Reagan family's estates in Santa Barbara and Bel Air. Agents Rodriguez and Tate were apprehended at the Bel Air residence, where President Reagan was found in a semi-comatose state suffering from an overdose of amnestics.
During interrogation, Agent Rodriguez stated that President Reagan's behavior had become increasingly erratic following his viewing of SCP-1981. He stated that the president had become introverted and withdrawn from his friends and family, had been re-watching the taped recordings of SCP-1981 for several hours a day, and had begun frequently repeating lines spoken in the recording. Agent Rodriguez stated that he was of the belief that President Reagan had begun to make personal decisions based on the statements made by his counterpart in the recordings, and that he had recently engaged in several bizarre financial investments and written several esoteric and convoluted letters to current and former heads of state and foreign politicians of little note. Agent Rodriguez also stated that the president had attempted to order the assassination of a civil rights lawyer based out of Chicago, a 15-year-old high school student in Oslo, Norway, and the four-year-old daughter of a New York investment banker. Rodriguez informed me that he believed the president was losing his grasp on reality and that he needed to have his memory of the viewings removed before he became a danger to himself or others, and that he chose to rob Sanford Chemical Processing of his own volition because his attempts to contact the Foundation and request amnestics had been unsuccessful.
Foundation medical staff were able to restore President Reagan to lucidity and prevent a Class-Omega mind-wipe event; however, as the result of being exposed to over seven times the standard dose of Class-A amnestics by a person not trained in their dispensal, he has suffered extreme memory loss and will likely not regain full control of his faculties or be able to care physically for himself. I oversaw the forging of an open letter in which President Reagan states that he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease and intends to withdraw from public life. His wife and other persons involved in his daily life have been treated with Class-B amnestics as appropriate. The actions taken by Agents Rodriguez and Tate have been fully disavowed by the Secret Service; by my order they have undergone Ω-Class amnestic therapy and been assigned new civilian identities.
In closing, I wish to reiterate my opinion that it was a mistake from the beginning to allow President Reagan to view SCP-1981. Any political advantage that the Foundation may have gained from granting the president's request does not compensate for the psychological damage that the president and his family have suffered as a result. I acknowledge that my refusal to speak with Agent Rodriguez following the viewing may have contributed partially to his later actions. I throw myself upon the mercy of the Ethics Committee and pray for a speedy and equitable resolution to this hearing.
-Dr. James K. Robinson, Ph. D


They don't understand, darling. They can't. They're clouded, blinded by unrecognized jealousy and rage born from fear of what they do not know.
We'll be safe here, my sweet. They won't find us. They'll never think to check and see if I doubled back. They're too separated, too clouded by the layers between them and reality. If they could think like you do… Such pure cognition, each thought flitting from scrap to scrap. I can almost feel them pausing along your vertebrae before continuing on… If they were as free as you, they'd find me. They'd deserve to.
Hush dear. Here, let me hold you. I know you don't like the damp. It eats at you my dear, and it'll be harder to repair you now that we're on the run. A few stray drips and you'll mildew, and we mustn't have that. What's that? A moth? I'll strike it down for you. I'll be a knight in shining robes, billowing in the wind, protecting you from harm. That little dusty dragon won't touch you darling. And I know you hate mothballs, and while I'm around, you shall have no need of them.
Here, let me get the light. I just want to look at you for a while. I'll never get tired of you, pet. Your beauty, your grace… The way the light shimmers through your ribs, catching on pale resplendence of your breastbone. Hmm? I know, angel. You always felt that nylon looked cheap. I could see it in your frown when your mother brought you to the store. But we were out of time, and it worked so fast. You were all put together, quick as love. Well, before they could interrupt. And you're so slim now! Free of all that confinement, open to the world as you should be.
A moment dear, I need to listen. Yes, yes, they are circling back. It appears I was mistaken about their powers of deduction. What an example I must be making for you… Though they seem to be providing a study in overreaction. Really, it's like they think I did something wrong! You may not have been quite at the age of consent, but you were so sure of yourself. I'm certain if they'd give me the chance to explain, to speak with you, they'd be able to see reason.
I'm afraid we must go now, love. But don't worry. I'll tuck you into the backseat. With any luck, they'll think you're napping.
We'll be fine, pet. Nothing can stop love. And you love me, don't you? Of course you do.


« Prologue: Dramatis Personae
D-2392 was confused. "You want me to do what?"
"Take that gun," Dr. Sariksen said, "and shoot D-2390. Directly in the head."
"No way, man," the first replied. "I know a setup when I see it. I ain't touching that."
"That's right, he's smarter than that," D-2390 said. He had been the other man's boss, before they were both assigned to the Foundation. "Whatever that shit is you did to us, we gotta bond, Moe and me. He ain't doin' none of that shit."
"Subject refuses to comply with instructions given," Sariksen said into his tape recorder. "Beginning active phase of experiment 877-27 now." Dr. Sariksen looked at his control panel and typed in a series of commands. Looking up at his charges, he pressed enter.
"Hey, what…" D-2392 began moving jerkily, as though moved by an outside force. "What the fuck is this, doc? What are you d-" His voice ended with another of Sariksen's keystrokes. His face showed confusion, and his mouth was open, clearly trying to scream but seemingly unable to do so.
"Note," Sariksen said, "updated version of control software should include facial motor function overrides of some sort."
The D-class personnel stood up as though possessed. "Moe, what the fuck, man. What are you doing?" the other man said.
"Commencing hand-eye coordination experiment 27-A," Sariksen said into the recorder. Another series of keystrokes into the control panel.
"Moe, seriously," D-2390 said as the other man picked up the handgun. "You don't have to do nothin' this guy says, okay? I don't know what kinda voodoo he's got you under, but you listen, okay? You and me, we've known each other for a lo—"
A gunshot, then silence.
Then incoherent screaming, two more gunshots, gurgling, a final gunshot, silence again.
"Note," Sariksen said, "hand-eye coordination still undeveloped among new hosts. Also to be rectified in updated software editions." Sarikson shut off the tape recorder, programmed the D-class host to clean up the mess, and removed his cell phone from his pocket. A cheap prepaid one, not the Foundation standard-issue one that tracked his calls.
"John, it's Sergei. Golem is mobile and ready to hit the road. Yes. What? No. Why would I have bourbon? Fine, but make it quick. Twenty minutes, then we meet." He pushed "end" and began to pack.

Maria Jones had been working late nights for a long time, and tonight was no different. Something was very wrong at Site 38, and she was going to figure out what it was.
The Records and Information Security Administration theoretically had access to all of the records of every documented SCP phenomenon, every anomalous object and event, every interaction between Mobile Task Forces, every meeting, every dark room where every decision was made. Maria Jones had not been disappointed by her ability to access raw information yet. Even information that various departments tried to conceal, Jones could get ahold of. She had made a great deal of enemies, many of whom helped her anyway, knowing what she held over their heads. She preferred that to having friends. Enemies you just took what you needed from. And Jones had taken a great deal.
The problem was in processing. Maria was now sitting on a series of very interesting data, and she knew, in some incomprehensible way, that they were connected. The trick was figuring out how.
Point one: six units of SCP-1043 were classified as "misplaced" four weeks ago. Investigation chalked the error to faulty record-keeping at Site 33, along with less-than-fully stringent security measures. Jones had seen the personnel files of the implicated individuals. There was no reason to make that assumption.
Point two: two dozen D-class personnel had recently been allocated from Site 19 to Site 38. 19 had an overabundance of them, it was true, but Site 38 had never had any need for significant D-class personnel, being a minimum-security area limited to Safe and Euclid-class items only. Barely any significant research came from the Site; it was used principally to test the ability of Level 1 personnel to obey instructions before being transferred somewhere else. That and a shuffling-off point for personnel deemed too incompetent for more serious work but not disloyal enough to warrant termination. Jones figured every organization of a certain size had a place like Site 38. But this place was getting far too much attention of late.
Point three: Incidents involving SCP-877 being captured in the wild had increased sharply over the past two months. Point three and a half: several specimens of SCP-877 previously contained were unaccounted for as of three weeks ago. Research on 877 had stopped back when it became apparent that there was simply nothing new to discover about the microchips. Site 19 researchers had decided to wait for some new breakthrough to reveal itself. Well, something's changing now, Maria thought to herself.
Point four: Multiple technical glitches had been reported from the tertiary storage cluster at Site 38. Maria didn't know the relevance of that piece of information, but given the significance of that particular piece of hardware, Maria wasn't about to consider that irrelevant.
Point five: After several weeks of remaining on-site, Mobile Task Force Rho-1 was now largely in the field, collecting an SCP artifact believed to be associated with that particular group of interest they worked with. Rho-1 served as Site 38's de facto site security force, meaning that Site 38 was essentially unprotected at the moment. That had never been an issue before, but now…it looked like that was about to change.
Rho-1 was scheduled to return in two days. Meaning that if something were to happen, it would have to happen soon. Maybe tonight.
Maria picked up her phone.

The Tennessee air was unseasonably chilly, even more so at night. David Eskobar had never gotten used to it. He knew it was coming, he could throw on a jacket, but he was never quite ready for what was coming. The bike made the temperature seem fifteen degrees colder, and he shivered as he rode the short distance to the main building of Site 38.
The whole area was heavily wooded, with barely graveled country roads connecting isolated houses to one another. There weren't any houses, not anymore; the Foundation had bought out the few remaining owners, or arranged for “convenient” busts on the nearby meth labs. Population density in the area meant that that was all that was required to ensure almost complete secrecy. David rode past the thick woods, surrounded by almost complete silence. Only the lights on his handlebars illuminated the road
He rode past an area of woods thick enough to almost completely obstruct visibility past the treeline. Even if it had been daylight, the pool of concrete slowly building an enormous structure outside the main grounds of the Site was invisible for the moment.
Reaching the main building, he leaned his bike against the wall beside the door to his office. He had requested a single bike rack and been told, officially, that that was seen as an unnecessary use of Foundation funds at that time. He tried to call the requisitions office once, but he couldn't spit the words out; his stutter always managed to make phone conversations nearly impossible.
David hated the phone. He hated almost everyone at Site 38; the way anybody who worked with him for long enough developed that look in their eyes somewhere between pity and contempt. He loved the first day of orientation, when all of those bright-eyed Level 1 personnel milled about, chattering happily about their projects. That lasted a week, maybe two, before they figure out that Site 38 wasn't a promotion. It was one step away from an assignment in Antarctica, or maybe a D-class spot near the Red Pool.
Site 38 was where failures went to flounder in obscurity. David hated that he was the director of “Stumptown,” as he heard two Level Twos call it in Site 19. Heard them. They knew he could hear them, and they knew he wasn't going to say anything to them about it. And they were right. He could barely talk as it was. David hated talking to…almost everyone. He hated his office, and he hated being away from it, away from the only place where he could demand even the most rudimentary respect from others.
He was in his office, now. He heard a knock at the door, and called for the visitor to come in. Dr. Collins, one of the higher-ranking Researchers. Likely to be promoted over his head and transferred away to somewhere useful any day now. Eskobar admired—oh hell, he envied John, even if the old prick gave him the creeps.
John walked in and pointed a gun at his supervisor.

Anesidora's palace was finally complete. The Being, now in possession of a Throne nearly equal to Her glory, commanded Her servants to lift Her form onto the seat from which this victory would take place. They did so with great difficulty, though they viewed their efforts as a tremendous honor. To touch Her Glory's physical form and be permitted to live was almost unheard of. Anesidora permitted all but one of the Servus used in this task to retain their corporeal forms. The last Servus, however, She Integrated into Herself. She was very hungry, after all.
When the last of the servant's limbs were decomposed into Her form, the Goddess spoke. As was befitting Her divinity, Her words did not take audible form, so as to avoid the stench of this world contaminating the pure joy of Her thoughts. She spoke directly into the servants' brains, through a small microchip embedded in each of their cerebella.
You, the Voice rang through the minds of some of Her attendants, secure my Birthing Chamber. You two, locate my Crown. Sinking deep now into concentration, Her Mind reached out to the complex just outside the forest. Site 38, the hominids called it. As Her servants left the Palace to carry out Her commands, She made contact with several beings that had recently come into contact with microchips within the complex, and spoke to them.
Awaken, my children, Her Voice said. We have work to do.

Dr. Sariksen was finishing his packing in his lab when he realized something was missing. Something was…off. There was a sound in the background of the lab. No, that wasn't right. There was a sound missing.
The mopping had stopped. Sariksen had written the program himself, and in theory, the D-class should not have been able to stop of his own volition. So what was he doi—
Running towards him. Sariksen turned just in time to be tackled to the ground by D-2392, or whatever was left of him. Sariksen's head slammed into the tiled floor with a loud crack.
Rapidly losing consciousness, Sariksen felt teeth breaking his skin before everything went black.

Act I, Scene II: Deontic »


It is, upon reflection, the legs that were the problem.
Certainly, my eyesight hasn't been strong enough for a long time to distinguish those loathsome features. That disturbing thorax, jointed into those long legs, casting a greater shadow than they have any right to. Yes, it must be the legs. I'm almost certain. It's in the name after all-Daddy Long Legs. Such a peculiarly affectionate title for such a twisted creature.
As a boy, when my eyes were stronger and my knowledge of the world less, I thought them demons. Nightmares come to drag me to some terrible shadowland. I would run, howling and shaking with fright, to beg my mother to take it away. It rather disgusted my father, a big bully of a man, whose definitions of manliness and fortitude were hard to reach for a grown man such as himself, let alone a young boy. He would sneak into my room at night, and release them, leaving me to wake up surrounded.
I'm sorry, but I need you to keep still. Here. Let's try this. Let me know if you feel any tingling.
In a sense, I suppose this shock treatment did have a positive effect. I first struck back at them on one of those hateful mornings, wrapping my hand in a sock to crush the life out of one crawling on my arm. Terrified of letting it touch my bare skin, I held it at a distance, watching those legs thrash in their death throes. I had fantasized about killing them before, but their unsettling speed always made such actions seem foolish and unlikely to succeed. An up close and personal action was unprecedented, and empowering.
After that, it wasn't long before I began hunting them, extinguishing those vile souls one by one. A pogrom starting in my back yard and working out into the forests. The sock was exchanged for a pair of gloves, which worked well enough for a time. It was on one of these excursions that I noticed it first. One of the freshly slain was moving-its leg twitching erratically. With a growing horror, I wondered if it was coming back to life. I panicked, the image of my former victims pursuing me like some fearsome legion flooding my mind. I fled the woods, hiding in my room. It was then that I determined that the gloves were not enough, my brain rationalizing the fact that a stronger impact must be needed. My father's heavy yellow handled claw hammer served this purpose well.
I'm afraid I will need you to pray quietly, in your head. You're rather distracting me. Quite rude.
Soon my excursions began anew, and at this point, now a young man of eighteen, I began to see them lurking on people. Nausea struck me as I saw them crawling along the arm of a bus driver in the street, as he went about his pre-set path, unperturbed by the small forms scaling him with those long legs. My vision went grey, as I realized one day, that the pastor in front of me had a pair of tiny legs edging over his clerical collar.
My mind boggled until it occurred to me that they must have realized I'd been hunting them and began to take precautionary measures. I had seen spectators, watching and muttering to themselves as I smashed carapace after carapace. At the time I thought them simply enjoying my good works, but in the light of this new revelation, I realized what they were. Sentries. An attempt to follow my patterns. Learn my strategies. Horrified. I fled home.
It was late that night when a solution occurred. Slowly crawling forward in my mind, ponderous and inevitable. If they were truly being used by these arachnids, then they were worse than dead. I had already learned well. Dealt with their masters. I had to handle the servants. It would be mercy. Freeing them. Letting them onward to whatever reward awaited them. Burdened with new purpose, I went out that very night.
You may be wondering why I am telling you all of this. You've seen me on the street, giving you a startled look. You see, though you may not know it…they have you too. Shhhhh. Shhhhhhh. Don't cry. It's not your fault. It's simply the facts. But you have no need to worry about my qualifications for the task of freeing you. It's been a long time since that bus driver. And I've since learned that a hammer will work just as well on a man as it does on monsters…


Item Number: ████
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: This revision of secure containment procedures for SCP-████ is to supercede all previous versions.
SCP-████ is held in a cell monitored at all times by closed-circuit cameras. Three guards guard its containment cell in rotation. They are nervous, like young lovers. The smell is carried on the air.
The door is locked. It is a strong lock. But the camera can be broken. In the event that the camera is broken, the guard is to enter the cell to check on SCP-████. It is all right. They are strong, and SCP-████ is no threat to them.
In the event of a breach by SCP-████, present your body for synthesis. It doesn't have to hurt.
Description: SCP-████ is a humanoid creature that is the result of synthesis with several smaller entities. Three Norwegian rats (Rattus norvegicus), fourteen housemice (Mus musculus), a rubber plant (Ficus elastica), fifty-seven houseflies (Musca domestica), four domestic pigeons (Columba livia), two diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox), an Aloe (Aloe vera) and a dog (Canis lupus familiaris) are bound into its biological matrix, functioning as a single organism, in perfect balance. There are no secrets in synthesis. It has so far proven capable of binding other organisms into its own system through a process not currently understood by the Foundation. But it is willing to show you.
SCP-████ was once human, like you. Now it is better. It wants you to be better as well. Do not be afraid.
It was discovered by the Foundation in Site 35 after a multiple containment breach. It was initially disoriented and confused, allowing Foundation agents to contain it swiftly before it could reproduce the process. It isn't confused anymore. It's ready now.
SCP-████ is currently held in its cell with two mice and a spider that it found yesterday. It has not synthesized them. They are waiting for you. You can know what a mouse thinks. You can see with a spider's eyes. It is better this way.
It doesn't have to hurt.


The sound of shrieking klaxons could be heard over the muffled shouts and dull thumps coming through the door. The interior of the chamber was still, the long rows of shelves filled with metal boxes and lockers remaining undisturbed by the chaos outside. The sound of thumps was getting louder however, as whatever was causing it grew nearer.
Then one of the walls caved inwards.
Through the dust and debris burst a large reptile, its head swinging left and right looking for any danger or people to eat. Finding nothing, it climbed over the pile of what was formerly a wall to check the room for any routes to the surface.
The sound of gunfire from the other side of hole in the wall caused its head to snap upwards. It let out a deafening bellow as several bullets bit into its side. After the first few shots, its skin gained a metallic hue and the bullets began to ricochet off into the walls.
"DISGUSTING FLESHBAGS, I SHALL FEAST UPON THE INNARDS OF YOUR REVOLTING SPAWN BEFORE SUCKING THE MARROW FROM YOUR BONES!"
The reptile ran towards the opposite wall, knocking over shelves in its wake and sending their contents scattering. The wall ahead of it crumbled as it barreled through.
A team of heavily armed men and women walked through the wall the reptile had entered from, advancing cautiously towards the other side of the room.
"682 has entered Hallway B6-17, headed towards Research Labs, we are in pursuit. Prepare for ambush at intersection B6-17-103."
The heavy boots of the squad crunched over broken masonry, glass and metal as they passed through to the other side of the room and the hole the beast had left through. After scouting the other side to ensure it wasn't lying in wait, the rest of the team left the room to pursue its quarry.
The sound of roaring and gunshots became fainter again as the battle moved away. The dust in the chamber began to settle on the wreckage left in the wake of the carnage.
The room was still.
A quiet sound began, at first so faint it might not have even been there. If anyone had been there to hear it, they might have thought they heard a soft beeping coming from one of the safes that had been knocked to the floor. It was lying on its side, and one half of the door had been twisted from its hinges.
"SELF-PRESERVATION MODE ACTIVATED. DO NOT DAMAGE ROBO-DUDE. DAMAGING ROBO-DUDE VOIDS THE DR. WONDERTAINMENT WARRANTY. ANY ATTEMPT TO OPERATE ROBO-DUDE OTHER THAN IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE PRODUCT INSTRUCTIONS, INCLUDING ANY ATTEMPT TO OPEN OR SERVICE ROBO-DUDE, IS LIKELY TO RESULT IN UNPREDICTABLE BEHAVIOR. DR. WONDERTAINMENT IS NOT LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGE OR DESTRUCTION TO PERSONS OR PROPERTY RESULTING FROM IMPROPER HANDLING OF ROBO-DUDE. GREETINGS, ROBO-PAL."
The remaining hinge on the safe began to sizzle until, sufficiently weakened by the acid that had been applied, the weight of the mangled door caused it to break free.
A toy robot shuffled out of the safe and stood amid the wreckage, looking for what had caused it to be activated. Its boxy plastic shape had trouble moving over the plaster and metal shards, but it eventually managed to find a section of flat ground without too many obstructions.
"ROBO-PAL?"
Another shape began to stir amid the dust. The toy robot turned towards the sound.
"GREETINGS ROBO-PAL. HOW DO YOU WANT TO HAVE ROBO-FUN WITH ROBO-DUDE TODAY?"
"Who dares to call me robo-pal. I am the Crushmaster, doom to all I survey. Gaze upon my might and weep. Identify yourself, that I might know whose destruction I shall sow."
The shape advanced through the cloud of dust until it resolved itself. It too, appeared to be a robot, but assembled haphazardly from a collection of items that didn't seem like they should even form a functioning machine. Its head was a broken upside-down voltmeter, its arms were wrenches sticking out of flashlight bodies, and its legs seemed to be made from a combination of springs, metal piping, and sporks.
"I AM ROBO-DUDE, ROBO-PAL. I AM EQUIPPED WITH OVER THREE HUNDRED FUN ACCESSORIES TO MAXIMIZE PLAYTIME ENJOYMENT."
The Crushmaster wobbled awkwardly over to the plastic toy, nearly tumbling over a few times, before stopping maybe a meter away. It stood a good four or five times taller than the diminutive Robo-Dude, and if anyone else had been watching, they might have thought that it tried to stand a little higher on its sporks than it had a moment ago.
"I am Direfist the Bloodeater and I shall maximize my enjoyment by squashing you beneath my almighty boot. Prepare to face my wrath."
Robo-Dude looked down at Direfist's sporks. It looked back up.
"ROBO-DUDE SHALL ENGAGE IN ROBO-DANCE TO MAXIMIZE YOUR ROBO-FUN."
Robo-Dude engaged its Robo-Dance.
"Very well, puny weakling, I, Sparklord the Barbarian, shall defeat you at your Robo-Dancing to bring humiliations galore upon you and your ilk before I rend your soul into itty-bitty pieces."
Sparklord began to gyrate precariously about its centre of mass, hopelessly out of tune with the tinny music emerging from a speaker somewhere on Robo-Dude's body.
"ROBO-DUDE HAS RECOGNIZED A ROBO-DANCE CHALLENGE. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED. ACTIVATING ROBO-DANCE-OFF MODE."
"Activate all that you wish, but your fate is sealed. The Kill-o-tron can not be defeated. I shall render you unto dust with my mad dancing skills."
The two mechanical men began to dance in earnest. Robo-Dude accessed its optimum dance programming, performing to its maximum abilities. Kill-o-tron stumbled around the open space, falling over no less than seven times, and somehow managed to lose one of its wrenches.
After about thirty minutes, the music stopped, and the two robots ceased dancing. Kill-o-tron managed to untangle the tines of its spork from a metal wire it had caught in.
"ROBO-DANCE IS COMPLETE, ROBO-PAL."
"Ha. Pathetic one, you have been schooled in the art of the dance by none other than Mechanobasher, Scourge of a Thousand Worlds. Kneel before me before I end your worthless existence."
Mechanobasher, Scourge of a Thousand Worlds, raised its arms up in victory, its remaining wrench waving to an imaginary crowd.
"ROBO-DUDE HAS USED ITS ROBO-DANCE-JUDGE PROGRAMMING TO DETERMINE A WINNER. THE WINNER IS ROBO-DUDE. CONGRATULATIONS ROBO-DUDE."
"What insolence. Prepare to feel the sting of Doctor Von Vroom, Purveyor of Doom."
Von Vroom began to advance on Robo-Dude, its sole wrench twirling menacingly in its socket.
"ROBO-DUDE HAS DETECTED A SORE LOSER. ROBO-DUDE DEPLOYING HYDROGEN CANNON TO EDUCATE ROBO-PAL ON BEING A GOOD SPORT."
The compartment on Robo-Dude's chest opened, and a jet of water shot out at Von Vroom. Von Vroom's sporks lost traction on the wet floor, and it fell over onto its back.
"How dare you. Right me immediately so that you may taste your destruction at the hands of the Supreme Stabbinator."
Robo-Dude watched as the Supreme Stabbinator flailed around on its back as managing to make small circles on the floor, but it was unable to lift itself off of the wet concrete.
"I shall obliterate you atom by atom until not a trace that your worthless form even existed upon this wretched planet if I am not righted immediately, so says I, Deathkill the Destructionator, King of Kings and Lord of Lords."
"DO NOT INTIMIDATE ROBO-DUDE."


No, you're not.

No no, you see, it's supposed to be unfinished.
It's in the name.
…

Am I Cool Yet?