I Didn't Forget Pt 10: The Serpent's Hand - SCP Foundation

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Present Day

Training is hard.

I have to be in fighting shape to be a functioning member of The Serpent’s Hand. The first thing that means is getting into shape physically. I’m not in terrible shape, but I’m definitely heavier and weaker than I should be. To change that as quickly as possible, I put myself on an intense physical regimen. It’s so intense that even Sean tells me I can take it a bit easier if I want, but I don’t want. Making it easier would make it take longer, and I want to be reunited with my brother as soon as possible.

I leave my parents’ house early each morning and spend the rest of the day either at the gym or in the Library. I don’t think Mom and Dad like that I’m gone so much. They hardly get to see me, even though I’m living with them again. Part of me wants to explain myself, to alleviate that distress. At one point, I ask Sean if I should just fill them in. “That’s supposed to be our thing, right?” I say. “Sharing information, even if people think it’s dangerous or forbidden?”

“That is our thing,” Sean agrees. “If you think it is wise to bring them into the Library, go ahead. Just make sure you’ve thought through the risks. Bringing your parents into the know creates an extra avenue by which the Jailors could learn what we’re planning, which might make it harder to rescue your brother. Then again, knowing that their son is alive might bring them peace, and they might be able to contribute to his rescue. In the end, it’s your choice. Just make sure it’s a well-considered one.”

“Not telling them makes me feel icky, like I’m doing the Jailor’s work for them, like Theo did.”

“In a way, you are, but you could also do their work for them by being reckless. The Jailors are larger and more powerful than us. We can only fight them from the shadows. However paradoxical it feels, keeping secrets will always be part of how we oppose them.”

I decide to put off telling them everything. I don’t know how they’d react, and I don’t want to take avoidable risks when, after all these years, I’m finally close to saving my brother.

As I get into better shape, Sean starts nudging me toward combat training. If I’m going to fight the Jailors, I have to be able to fight, with hands, with guns, and with spells.

Hands come first. The members of the cell I’m in spar regularly, and I’m brought into one of those sessions once Sean thinks I’m ready. Through a combination of demonstration and practice, I learn to block and punch, to kick and dodge, to escape grapples, and to restrain others. Before long, I can hold my own in a fight.

I also learn to shoot. For someone who’s never held a gun in my hand before, I take to it rather quickly. We spend weeks refining my aim with various weapons.

The Hand also teaches me some skills useful for infiltration and espionage. They train me in stealth until I’m able to sneak past a course a few of them are guarding, and they teach me how to properly pick locks.

There’s also an intellectual element to my training. It’s not enough for me to become a guerrilla warrior. I need to understand the world that the Jailors and Bookburners have been hiding from me. The Serpent’s Hand teaches me about the supernatural world, its workings, its factions and intrigues. They teach me about the Fifth Church, the threat that Evan lost his freedom to combat. They teach me about half a dozen other groups of Devout who worship gods of flesh and machine, of webs and moons, of Scarlet spite, and blood-soaked spears.

It’s not just religions. There are a million other factions at play. The Jailors aren’t the only ones fighting to maintain the veil. They’re not even the worst. If the Bookburners had gotten a hold of my brother, they really would have just killed him. Others would have enslaved him, either to themselves or to the highest bidder. Still others would have put him on display for entertainment. There’s a lot of danger, but all of it is ultimately the fault of the Jailors and Bookburners. The reason slavery and murder are so common in the paranormal world is that it’s forced to keep to the shadows, where it can’t receive the same public scrutiny as everything else. In the shadows, its evils are allowed to fester, only for the Jailors and Bookburners to claim that those evils justify the veil.

I’m going to enjoy killing them. As many as I can, as painfully as I can. Those bastards haven’t just screwed me and my brother. They’ve screwed the whole world. They’re responsible for millions of deaths, and I absolutely cannot wait for the day I get to use my newfound combat training to blow their heads off and snap their necks.

The Hand also teaches me magic. It turns out I’m talented at it, just like my brother was. The first spell they teach me is Hum, where I sit and meditate with a stick in my hand, trying to make the magic around me flow into it. The first time I do it, my stick gets so hot that it ignites, and the foil starts to glow. It burns me very badly. They have to use healing magic to unfuse the stick from my melted hands. Without magic, this would’ve been a life-changing injury. How many millions of people could be saved, from injuries like this or even from death, if the veil didn’t keep healing magic away from the public?

Once I get the hang of casting hum without burning my hands off, I start to work on other spells. Spells to see in darkness, to make myself quieter, to speak with things that have no mouths, and to cure the wounds of others. Healing magic is the area where I struggle the most. Healing someone requires a certain mindset. You have to channel pure, serene goodwill, and serenity isn’t my strong suit.

Some days, my training is just to be let loose in the Library with the instruction to read whatever strikes my fancy. I find countless, wonderous things. Journals written by strange creatures from far-off worlds. Novels with strange magical properties. Scrolls that teach ancient, mystic arts. For the most part, I find these days boring. Some of the information is interesting, but most of it is irrelevant to me. I don’t want to read about far-off worlds and strange gods. I want to read about things that will help me rescue my brother.

The fifth time they set me loose in the library, they sent me into a wing designated for hazardous works. “It’s not just the information in these books that’s dangerous,” Sean says before sending me in. “If it weren’t for your resistance to mind-affecting effects, there’s no way we’d send you in this soon. Even with that resistance, you still need to be careful, and don’t repeat anything you read in there to anyone else. A dangerous idea you shrug off may prove fatal to someone else.”

“Aren’t we supposed to spread dangerous ideas?”

“We spread ideas falsely maligned as dangerous. We have no obligation to propagate threats to the innocent.”

“But doesn’t everyone think that the ideas they’re censoring are dangerous?”

“I’m not talking about metaphorical danger, Jerry. Many of the things in this section can physically hurt someone. There are ideas in that wing that can kill anyone who thinks them. That can enslave the minds of the innocent. Be very careful.”

I agree to be so.

Some of the books inside are just as foreboding as you’d expect. The first one I pick up is an ancient history of an evil empire that seems to be written entirely in blood. The next is a cookbook dedicated to the use of human souls. There’s a guidebook for mortals hoping to make contracts with infernal beings, and a user’s manual for a machine that extracts the brains of one’s enemies and installs them into household appliances.

Honestly, none of those scare me that much. They’re just books. I mean, I suppose it’s bad that people’s souls are being eaten, but at least I know exactly why that book is in the restricted section. The ones that scare me are the ones that seem ordinary. An old medical textbook, the diary of an ordinary teenaged girl, a seemingly blank paperback novel, or a folio of sheet music. For each of these, I’m forced to wonder what awful properties they must have, what horrible things they would be doing to my mind if I didn’t have my abilities to protect me.

The most frightening thing I see in this section isn’t a single book, but a set of five. Sandwiched between a dark spellbook and strange religious tract are all five books of the Starlight Saga. I pull the first book down and open it, expecting it to be some kind of dark corruption of the books I grew up with, but it’s not. As far as I can tell, these are exactly the same five books I read as a child. The same ones millions of ordinary people on earth have read. For some reason, the Library considers them hazardous.

I can only hope that whatever magical juice they once packed is inert now that Evan foiled Sterling’s plans, but if that were the case, why would they still be here?

There must still be work to do regarding the fifth church. Hopefully I’ll get to do it together with Evan, once I’ve rescued him. I think I’ll be able to get him to join the Hand. He was always a hero, and he always believed in freedom. He’d fit right in.

Six Years Ago

Evan’s funeral began in the same room where his visitation had been, and most of the same people were there. Mom delivered the main eulogy, about the tragedy of a life cut short, and her grief as a mother. Daisy also spoke about her friend. About how kind he’d been, how he’d stood up to bullies and fought for those around him. I did not speak, even though Mom and Dad tried to get me to.

When the time came, everyone loaded up and drove to the cemetery. I had been offered the opportunity to be a pall bearer, but I’d refused. Dad had tried to insist. “You’re his brother. You should help carry him. This will be the last chance you have to be a part of his story.”

“No,” I said. It wouldn’t be my last chance. I was going to make sure of that.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to.”

“You’re going to regret not doing it.”

“No I won’t.”

“Jerry—”

“Cut it out, dad. I’m not doing it. That’s final.”

We came to a compromise in the end. Dad would have me listed as an honorary pall bearer, but I wouldn’t have to carry the coffin. It was such an awful farce. That box that carried even less of Evan than it pretended to. Even Mom and Dad knew there wasn’t enough in it to justify its size.

The funeral attendees mingled a bit at the cemetery while they waited for everyone to arrive. At one point, when Mom didn’t think I could hear her, she spoke to Grandma about me. “I am worried about him,” she said. “He seems like he’s shutting down. He didn’t want to be involved in any aspect of the funeral. It’s almost like he’s in denial.”

“He’s young,” Grandma said. “Let him come to terms with this at his own pace.”

Eventually, everyone gathered around a small canopy that had been erected over the gravesite. The older members of the family sat in blue chairs to one side of the casket while everyone else stood in a circle around it. I stood next to Mom, holding her hand. She said a few more words, then the casket was lowered. There was a bundle of blue and white flowers on top of it. As I watched them descend, it occurred to me that Evan wouldn’t have liked the fact that they were plastic.

Present Day

Near the end of my training, I sit in one of the library’s lounges, reading a college-level magic textbook from a version of earth with no veil, when I see someone approaching me. I look over the top of my book. It’s Theo. I raise my book higher, trying to cover my face, but he’s already spotted me, and is heading directly toward me.

“Hey,” he says when he reaches me.

“Go away,” I say, not lowering my book.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he says.

“I’m doing very good,” I say. “I’m a member of the Serpent’s Hand, now. We’re already working on saving my brother.”

“So, you are going to raid a Foundation site?”

“The details of the operation are sensitive,” I say. “I’m not at liberty to discuss them with you.”

“I see,” Theo says. He sits down on the couch next to me. I scoot away from him, but I also lower my book. “Look,” he says, “I understand that you don’t want to see me right now—”

“Clearly, you don’t.”

“I’m worried, okay? I’m sorry. I just… needed to check on you. I’ve come in a few times already, but I haven’t managed to catch you.”

“I’ve been avoiding you.”

He looks at me. There’s hurt on his face, and for some reason, surprise.

“You kept all of this from me,” I say to him, gesturing to indicate the Library, and, with it, the entire magical world. “Everything I’ve learned in the last few months, you’ve been hiding from me for years. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you the same as the Jailors. You were just an obstacle I had to get past in order to rescue my brother.”

Theo takes a deep breath. “I know. I know I was wrong to keep everything from you. I, just, look, I love you. That’s not going to change. You’re doing something dangerous, and I can’t help but worry.”

“Has it occurred to you that you worry too much?”

“I… yes. It has, but the apartment’s been really empty without you.”

“I’m not going back.”

“I know. I know.” Theo stands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“You’re right. You shouldn’t have.”

“I’m glad you’re okay. Good luck on your mission.”

I raise my book back over my face. Theo’s gaze lingers on me for a moment, then he walks away.

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