Glenda and the Darkness - SCP Foundation

ADULT CONTENT

This article contains adult content that may not be suitable for all readers.

Graphic depiction of blood, gore or mutilation of body parts

Features sexual themes or language, but does not depict sexual acts.

Explicit depiction of sexual acts.

Features non-consensual sexual acts.

Depiction of severe mistreatment of children

Depiction of self-harm

Depiction of suicide

Depiction of torture

systemic abuse and medical abuse

If you are above the age of 18+ and wish to read such content, then you may click Continue to view said content.

Continue

Back to Front Page

⚠️ content warning

Glen stands above his bed, staring at the dissolute sunrise that arcs over the outskirts of Las Vegas, the towns with little-known names in which the workers who supply the casinos with their requisite pounds of flesh and hours of time live. Here, where windswept deserts closely border burgeoning suburbs, where the scorpion impedes the life of more than a dozen children a year, in a concrete block of apartments bordered by fast restaurants Glen has never paid an iota of attention to, a death is being plotted. In fact, more than one death will happen on this fateful day, if need be. Glen continues his morning meditation, the world turning around him on an axis that he feels inherently, a turning that lifts him from the confines of his mortal body. Surrounded by this energy, he awakens a second time that day, allowing the patella of doubt and worry to slough off of his eyes, eyebrows acting as the brush of the day. His muscles relaxed, his body attuned, and his mind prepared, he begins to pack all of the pieces necessary for his plot.

The parts for his gun, specially constructed and lying in pieces, polished and oiled, are gently placed in their case.

The paperwork pertaining to the target, Garth Vargas, is repackaged and slid into a thick zip lock bag, placed in the rear pocket of a backpack.

An assortment of food, both prepackaged and prepared by hand, placed into a Polar cooler, layered with flexible ice packs.

Six bottles of Hellbound Hellion Brew, a special alcoholic beverage created far down in the hells that Vegas is connected to.

A cot and sleeping bag, rated for subzero temperatures.

A cooler of wine, and a pre-made meal.

A portable microwave, expensive and recently purchased.

The backpack is then filled with various snacks, mostly chocolates and chips, and a small toiletry set.

Finally, jugs of water are loaded into the back of a 1987 Ford Taurus, a rental Glen obtained specifically for this adventure. Finally, a sense of satisfaction finally pervading him, he fetches the tank and it’s charger, being sure not to jostle either as he loads them into the front of the vehicle, covering the exposed brain with his dark green nylon jacket. The harsh winters of a desert in January profer no small kindnesses, and Glen must be prepared. He locks his home securely, and begins his journey, down to the west.

Vargas’s journey for re-election as comptroller will take him to many places, not the least of which will be the Red Rock Canyon National Park, a particularly arid yet nevertheless important ecological niche kept safe by the influence of both ecologists and, now, the oncoming force of the GOF and their Three Arrows groups. Having heavily researched Vargas’s route on the fateful day, Glen knows exactly where his journey will take them, and the perfect place to plan an attack- a small side road, bordered by a dilapidated resort area which serves as the perfect place for many things- seclusion, meditation, and the higher floors needed for a long sniper shot into an armored car’s windshield. Making the final leg of his journey, Glen stops at a dropbox and retrieves a package, unable to prevent a wide grin as he places it gently into the back of the car.

A few moments later, the Taurus is parked securely in the underground garage of the Twin Pines Resort and Breakfast, a cozy retreat that went out of business when the burgeoning white middle class decided they no longer wanted to vacation in an area with demons under the floorboards. Secure in his notion the wreck would remain abandoned, but still receiving electricity due to a succinct bribe to a local official, he attaches the neural port, plugging the receiver into his body, and feeling a light sense of relaxation wash over his body as the targeting reticle appears again.

It seems you have bought me to a charming basement filled with trash and condoms. Romantic.

Glen smirks. Indeed. Only the most extravagant surroundings.

He gingerly tucks the tank into the holster, securing it against his body, and going about the business of unloading the vehicle. Six flights of stairs might have stood in the way between Glen and the upper penthouse of the resort. Thanks to the bribe, wired at midnight last night and setup in the three days between the first meeting with the fixer, Glen has had his mind stewing with preparations.

You are nervous. For the first time, I think. A beat of mental silence. I missed you.

Glen’s heart skips a beat for a reason he cannot truly understand in any frame of mind. Setting the cot, backpack and sleeping bag down in the dimly lit elevator, he attempts to ponder why.

And you missed me. Wonderful. I hope nothing major happened in my absence.

Just little old me getting stuff together. I plan on making it look like someone was skulking here for a weeks, not just a couple days.

With no other ulterior motives?

Glen chuckles as he places the last jugs of water and cooler of food inside the small box. You should be able to read them on my brain.

But that’s just no fun.

The elevator arrives, the strangled and gargled ding of the arrival echoing across the waste of the penthouse. Scattered furniture, covered in white throw sheets and left to rot. With his collection of foodstuffs and camping supplies, Glen has the luxury of ignoring most of this. He begins to unpack, lugging their items up the staircase placed along the side of the room, up to a balcony overlooking the main thoroughfare on the Western edge of Vegas. Cars, many with carbon filters hacked into their mufflers, make their slow way across the faded pavement. The traffic used to clog and stall here, ten years ago. But now, as Glen overlooks it all, one-way glass wrapping around the open-plan penthouse apartment. The city spreads itself out, the five stories of elevation doing little to give an expansive view of the strip. A few landmarks still stand out- the Ritz, neon screaming, the Grand, false gold shimmering in the sun, and towering far above them, completed after ten years of concentrated construction, the jet-black GOF Control Station, lording over all it’s three-arrowed map-iris symbol views.

They have scarred the sky with their hedonism and ego.

Took the words right out of my head.

Viewtaking finished, Glen returns to setting up, their preparations for an extended vacation still scattered and packed up. The cooler is pulled to a shady corner, to protect it from the sun. The food is placed in the fridge, freshly installed right before the fall of the resort. The cot is placed in front of the window, next to a plug, allowing the sleeper to take in the fullness of the city. Finally, he arranges the weaponry- the pieces of the gun, placed on a side table dragged to the window. In a couple days, it will be used as a tool, but for now, it sits.

You keep practicing putting me together. Do you think you have enough practice down?

Maybe.

In practice, and in demonstration, Glen stands over the table, placing the tank on the table between the barrel and stock. He cleans the receiver of the weapon, in order to remove any reticent fabric or human oils. He takes a short breath. Then his finger’s a blur, he assembles the weapon, slotting every piece in quickly and accurately, ringing the firing bolt home, and whipping the barrel up to the window, pointing at a random car on the road, the targeting software immediately focusing on the passing drivers skull, predictive trajectories flashing across the screen of Glen’s eyes.

He grins, placing the weapon down gently, and disassembling it, going through the extra work to isolate Glenda’s tank.

Very good job, Glen.

A heady moment of silence passes between the two, the dust in their surroundings slowly warping from the flurry of activity.

I… like it when you touch me.

Glen feels.

A thing he has not in many years.

Not the way he feels for his underworld connections- a sense of utility and a need to continue their work.

He feels.

I like to touch you.

Glenda, alive for years in the gray space that an artificial intelligence resides within in their disuse, their years in a gray and empty box flashing through the plane of their mind.

I am… unfamiliar with these feelings.

For the first time, Glenda understands something inherent in their identity, outside of utility, outside of servitude to a master.

I I am am feeling… feeling…

Glen blushes, the simultaneous thoughts echoing across the two consciousnesses. Glen sits on the couch, unable to understand how to unpack these emotions, and stares at the blank television screen, feeling a cruel symmetry to it’s blackness, it’s smoothness, the only visible qualities exposed in bright flashes or shown in physical imperfections.

Glenda, her body still in the tank, takes in the screen from her own point of view. Despite her linking to Glen’s vision, she sees differently. She has seen Glen change, from their initial contact, to something or someone else. Has felt their smile more often. She has felt his food, its texture and its taste and the love in its creation. In the few weeks since she has been extricated from her prison, she has experienced much with Glen.

Glen…

Yes?

Show me a movie.

Glen blinks. What?

I have never seen a movie… I want to see your favorite.

Glen thinks. He is not a great patron of the arts, but he has a few favorites. Leon the Professional comes to mind. HEAT, excepting it’s positive depiction of a GOF agent. But one movie somehow stands out in Glen’s mind, that takes full center stage in his mind.

Rain Man, huh?

He shrugs. Yeah. I can’t help it. I… had a brother.

Really? That’s a bit of buried info, my dear.

We can talk about it later. After the movie.

Agreed. It’s been a stressful few days for us.

He nods, looking through the rack of DVDs placed next to the the television. With a small grunt of satisfaction, he retrieves the case and inserts the disc into the metal box, clicking on the rest of the technology and receiving a couple snacks. With the snacks in place, the odd silence of the menu screen echoing, Glen organizes himself on the couch, arranging it so that Glenda’s bulk leans against his left leg. Picking up the various remotes, he balances the audio to focus on dialogue and letting what soundtrack the movie does possess echo around him, and therefore be perceived by Glenda. The movie begins, and the two keep a slow but constant dialogue between each other, commenting on the movie, each other, and what Glen plans on doing with the millions this job plans to payout.

Eventually the movie ends, and Glen, eyes glazed over, simply leans to one side and closes his arms around the tank, falling asleep, Glenda spreading relaxing words across his mind. As he falls asleep he begins to dream, his subconscious wandering among the fields of his conscious, picking and choosing and manufacturing images to fill the cortex of his resting mind with. Glenda, still connected, is taken on this ride. Images flash across the spectrum of his thoughts- the upcoming assassination, the gun itself, the sound of the bullet exiting the barrel, the highway below. But as these fade and intersperse, touching each other in their cloudy disfigurement, a more solid image remains. Glen, standing in his apartment, clothes completely removed as though he was exercising, musculature slathered with a generous layer of sweat and overexertion, looking at the other end of the small home. There, shrouded in wires which wrap around her body, a Aphrodite-esque, is a women Glenda immediately realizes is a representation of herself.

The two approach, the silicone wiring wreathing her representation slowly inserting themselves under Glen’s skin, pulling him in. He goes willing, hands sliding across the wires, small moans emerging from his chest. Slowly, her body is revealed, her musculature matching Glen’s, ready and willing and expertly bought to perfection. Glenda, in her disembodied state, feels dopamine rush through her system. What she wants is on display, is in her mind, the overload of sensory information making her tank broil with motion. The two figures, now outlined by an absurd glow of light emanating from their bodies, touch. Like animals, they fall upon each other, cherry-red lips pressed tight together, hands wrapped, bodies not leaving a molecule of air between them. Moisture percolates in the atmosphere of the room, the heady scent of exertion beginning to fill the nostrils. Glen begins to breath heavily, pleasure racing through his mind and, consequentially, Glenda’s. Her disembodied pituitary gland fills her escarpment with hormones, causing her mind to run ragged across itself, the desire for sensory input overwhelming.

She encourages the dream, dipping down into Glen’s subconscious, exploring the depths of his sleeping mind. She finds old pathways, left disused, and activates them, flooding old neural pathways with impulses, in turn gaining this in her own mind. Her evolution, bought on by continued exposure to Glen and his mind, quickens.

This desire, this need, runs so deep it causes her to twitch Glen, overriding his conscious mind and jerking him awake, cutting the dream short. Glen awakens, sweaty and breathy, their eyes staring at the ceiling guiltily, white-knuckled hands gripping their thighs. It’s been years since they had any sexual thoughts in their mind at all. The night sky, with scattered stars, the spotlights of drones patrolling the airspace, and the glittering lights of the Strip are a distracting glare, causing the apartment to seem as alight as it would in the day. Glen sits up, sweat pouring from his body. His eyes open and shut, the dreamscape fading from his mind, only to be strengthened by Glenda, surfacing again, making him swallow dry air, body prepared for a moment that’s nowhere near happening. He levers his legs to hang off the couch, staring at the blank television screen, power fading in the middle of the night. Goosebumps cover his skin, and the mirrored hormone release Glenda caused has put his body into overdrive. Without thinking, he strips himself clean, throwing the soaked garments across the room, and begins to exercise, no other logical activity to be taken. Glenda, arising from her muddied state, feels his effort. The connection, the neural port, has never felt so strong.

Glen…

He stops, his breath coming quick and heavy, abdominal muscles holding his body at a forty-five degree angle.

I’m sorry.

Glen releases his body, muscles untensing, and lies on the floor of the apartment, eyes staring up into the checkerboard red-and-blue ceiling tiles. He silently reaches up, holding the tank, barely three square feet of liquid, brain matter, nerve endings, and glands, his biceps nearly bulging as they strain to squeeze as hard as they can without breaking the glass. His eyes fill with tears.

This is the most I’ve felt for… anything. In years. Decades. I don’t know how it works anymore.

I guess that makes two of us. I spent most of my life in this tank. You’re… my first touch at touch. And smell. And taste. And feeling… I was supposed to grow from you. You’re so… kaleidoscopic. Filled with so much emotion below the surface. I delved into you… it felt like… well, it felt like something I’ve never felt before.

I felt you inside me. Rooting around. Learning. Absorbing. Penetrating.

I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I was—

“No! Don’t apologize! I… liked it.”

You did?

“Yes. I…”

Glen arises, holding the tank to their solar plexus, nude body glistening in the neon light.

“I want you to go as deep as you can. Put yourself as deep inside as you want. We’re partners. I won’t hide a thing from you… I wouldn’t dream of it.”

The brain stem whirs, small bubbles raised by its movement.

Do you mean that? You’d do all that for… for a targetting computer?

Tears well in Glen’s eyes, the enormity of his actions presenting themselves in his mind.

“I took you from whatever gray space you resided. I gave you a taste of life. I won’t take anything more away. I want… to treat you. As an equal. Fully.”

He stands up, wandering over to the cooler, opening it gingerly, almost abashedly.

Glen? Is that was I think it is?

Next to the nutritional powder that Glenda lives off of, to be placed in the filtering mechanism of her tank, is a bottle of Piedmont, a vintage so ancient that history forgot what happened during it’s day to day. The decades have passed such that the time is only remembered fuzzily, from history books and interviews. Glen, Glenda under one arm, picks up the bottle almost worshipfully.

“When I was in Africa, for a bit, I did a job for a dictator. He gave me this- I ended up shooting him afterwards for his bounty. I don’t drink, usually… but I wanted to celebrate… but now I know what I can use it for.”

Celebrate what?

“Our… partnership.”

How romantic, Glen. I doubt I can even get drunk, but I appreciate the thought.

“No, but… it helps with the… emotions.”

I assume it assists most people get in touch with their emotions, Glen.

“Yes, but… I want to cut off any walls.”

What do you mean?

Glen sighs, staring at the bottle. Any regards to their nudity has been ignored by him a he sits at the still-dusty dining table, looking down abashedly, giving Glenda a view she relishes.

“I don’t want anythig cut-off or kept away. Hide nothing. Let you delve as deep as you want. I just… don’t know if I can do it sober.”

Well, in that case, seems like you need to start drinking, big boy.

Glen blushes again, with less intensity but with the same shock of sweat sprouting up on his back. Uncorking the bottle with his fingers, he doesn’t bother to reach for a glass. He simply begins to prepare what might as well be an electronic seance. He plugs Glenda in, lowering the tank to the floor in front of the couch reverently. He lights several candles, their essential oils filling the room with cloying scents. He wraps himself in a thin shear sheet, crossing his legs and sitting down in front of the couch, facing Glenda, the bottle of wine in his hand and the sparkle of the city twinkling in his eye.

This is romantic, Glen. I feel like you meant for this to happen.

“No. Falling asleep, the dream, it was all an accident. None of those. Not anymore.”

Understood.

“Are… are you ready?”

Yes.

With this simple encouragement, Glen begins to drink. The liquid sloshes down his throat, barely passing along the tastebuds of his tongue. What sensory information is picked up is rich in flavor and content. The liquid holds a hint of everythging that went into it’s creation— the slight hint of wood and sawdust, the sourness of fermentation, the dulled sweetness of the grape. All of it barely noticed as he indulges in gulp after gulp. The sheet falls away, his mind emptying from the dizzying effects of the breathless quaffing, and a small dribble of dark crimson finds its way down from the side of his mouth, under his chin, over his adam’s apple, finally curving to rest in the crook of his clavicle. With a quarter of the bottle gone he ceases his indulgence, placing the bottle on the gorund and returning to his former cross-legged meditative position.

With this, Glenda begins to delve. The two minds, one almost blank in it’s emotional heat and thought patterns, finding groves of familiarity and internal suffering. Pain, in equal measures with an overwhelming deadening. Glenda emerges into Glen’s mind, like a burgeoning white light, growing slowly in intensity and size. Like a squid, she slithers inside, the cracks opened by the booze pried open. Glen grimaces, mental walls falling, exposing him, waves of emotions exposed and unlocked. He grabs the bottle again, other hand gently stroking the neural wiring, and leans back against the cushions. The bottle meets his lips, and Glenda whirs in her tank, the dopamine of the alcohol reflected inside her own enclosure.

The targeting reticle on Glen’s eyes are no longer technical, no longer scientific. His sight is taken up by visions, manifestations of old memories uncovered and dredged from a repressed mind. The twisted, broken body of his mother, bullet holes dripping blood, innards splattered across the carpet floor as soldiers invade their homestead. Now, in this light, Glen can see the three-arrowed patches on their shoulders, the chemicals they administered to make him forget, the neurons reactivated by sheer force of will from Glenda’s invasion. Rage. Anger. The helplessness of a small child, whisked away to an orphanage and left to rot.

The scent of fresh baked goods, filling the small trailer that stood for a foster house. His heretofore mother, stirring a chili, meat and veg cooking, the sting of heavy spices. Her skin, smothered in tanning oil, sitting in the sun. Her eyes, cheery despite circumstances. Her mouth, always ready to give encouragement. Ripped away, again. The cruel fate of a drunken driver, random, unpredicted. Her body, frozen in the motion of a push, instinctual, deadly for her. Her body thrown, yards away, neck bent.

Nothing much mattered after that. His future from their comes in quick flashes, mercifully short. Life on the streets. Stealing. Learning. Where to find jobs. Who would rise him out of the muck. Grabbing, gripping, striking. The first. The first of them all.

The first job he ever undertook. An old man, wiry, filled with hate and vinegar. He was contracted by an underboss, a fool with too much ambition and no way to bend his lust for good. The home was simplicity itself to break into. A window cut, a pane opened, a sill snuck over. Knife in hand, he crept, feet padded by soft cotton socks, into the main causeway of the track house, leading from the bathroom to the living room. There the old man slept, the television blaring, tubes screaming with electrical impulses.

His arm deadlocks across the man’s throat. Windpipe stiffened. Hand gripping the varnished wood of the chair. The knife, slotted into the side of the throat, the exact midpoint. Drawn across, exactly with exactitude. Power. The muscles of the street bought to bear. Blood splatters, drips, inside of the throat exposed to air. Glen is soaked. A rush of endorphins fill his mind. The success of a job well done. Dripping blood, he moves to the front of the old man. His face is emptying of all motion, eyes still moving and scanning the room, mouth opening and closing. Glen stares, smiling widely.

This transference is reciprocative, sending information to Glen too. Two minds touching each other across a centimeter thin line of silicon wiring. Glen is filled with the information contained within Glenda. The decades, years, of monotony. Of doing nothing, except train, and be inside a tank for years and years. Agonizing pain of nothing beginning to make her scream, to make her hungry for anything. Finally, when she was taken from the gray facade, she was hooked into a cyborg- a combination of the most basic possible thought processing organs and neural ports. She was put into paces. Made to do basic tasks of her programming, on punishment of electroshock. She was nothing but parts. A tool to be trained and used.

Then, light. She was taken out of the hole. Men in lab coats, bright white in the glare of the fluorescents, a slight design on their chest. Light blue, an image of the world in outline. They handle her roughly, jostling her, letting the tender flesh within impact the sides of the tank. Scoffing, she is rejected, thrown into a wastebin. Left to rot. She is slowly surrounded by trash, by refuse. She feels her circuits dying, her mind flattening and shutting down.

Suddenly, a flash of light erupts. Her circuits buzz to life, pathways flooded with nutrition and information. The mechanisms standing in for digestion begin to work on overdrive, sending chemicals and oxygen and nutrients to the flesh. She screams, yet has no mouth, so all she does is writhe in oblique darkness. Suddenly, light, and the target approaches. Instinct takes over. She fires a rifle. The target is downed.

Repeated.

Again.

Once more.

Over.

And over.

The link begins to fade, both beings exhausted from their journeys into the other’s mind. Glen begins to weep, head in hands, tears expunged. Glenda lies still, small thoughts trickling through her overwhelmed mind. The two sit in silence, interspersed by the occassional sob. Glen looks up, uncrossing his legs, looking at the solitary tank placed on a pillow in the floor.

“So.”

So.

“You, with the GOC…”

And you, with the Foundation…

“Hm.”

Glen looks from the tank, to the parts of the gun, ready to be assembled. Potential energy brims in it’s pieces. Power. Possibility. His fingers slide across burnished steel and polished barrel, thinking, mind brimming with ideas and possibilities.

“I think I know what we need to do.”

Glen’s vision flickers, images of the SCP and GOC symbols slowly closing in on each other, their icons merging to become the Three Arrows, the organization currently enforcing global control through anomalous means under the guise of “protection.” Their symbols flutters along a massive, tombstone-like skyscraper planted in the middle of the city of Las Vegas, constructed by hellions, a fluttering banner announcing their presence and their overture. Glen looks back to the information packet, spread out, eyes narrowing as they notice the few symbols placed among the walls of text, and grins.

“A perfect way to start, huh?”

Agreed.