The Serpent Deceived - SCP Foundation

"I lied. The Serpent's Hand planned all of this."

"You will die in the dark so that we can live in the light."

« Hid From The Presence

Biological Research Area-23 was located in an undisclosed location in central Russia.

When he was a younger man working for the Soviets, Radomir Valkov had resented spending so much of his life moving from one remote facility to another. As an old man working for the Foundation, he actually found himself looking forward to a chance to relax. He wasn't important enough to get his own charter flight, and his employers couldn't expect him to do Foundation business while traveling by train.

As he strolled out of the train station, he appreciated the opportunity to stretch his legs as he walked to a side street nearby. The air was cold, but his heavy grey overcoat took the edge off it.

He didn't have to wait long before an unmarked white van arrived, parking a short distance down the road from them. Valkov walked towards it, as a man stepped out of the passenger seat. His white shirt, black trousers, and bulletproof vest gave the impression of a uniform, despite the lack of any identifiable markings.

“How was your journey?” he asked in Russian.

Valkov had memorized the expected reply. “My journey was long but uneventful.” He was quickly ushered inside the back of the van.

There were seats and lights, but no windows. Operational security was serious business, and his employers didn't fully trust anyone. Valkov took a seat, and was mildly surprised to find a young woman sitting in the van next to him.

"I didn't realize I would be having company."

She was dressed in a blouse and trousers, with neatly trimmed dark hair. A thick blue coat was draped over her shoulders to form a backrest. She shrugged, then looked back at the smartphone she was holding. "It was a last-minute decision." She also spoke Russian, but badly, placing emphasis on all the wrong syllables. Valkov got the impression she was self-conscious about this. The van began to move, the lack of windows making the experience disorienting.

"I can speak English if you'd prefer?" tried Valkov. "Are you American?"

She nodded, clearly understanding the words he was saying, but turned back to her phone.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Sophie Blake.” She didn’t look up from the screen.

“I’m Radomir Valkov. So, what brings you all the way out here?”

“Top secret.” Her reply came in a flat monotone.

“Naturally. I understand.” Conversations about work were frequently off-limits. “Well, when you’re not working, what do you like to do?”

She paused, looking away from her mobile, clearly considering her reply carefully. “Spend time alone.”

“Interesting! I enjoy reading when I have time to myself. How familiar are you with Russian literature?"

There was no reply.

“I’ve read works by English writers too,” Valkov ventured. “Do you have any recommendations for me?”

She turned to face him again. “No.” She returned to her screen.

Since his companion seemed like she wasn't up for much conversation, Valkov decided to rest. He'd be in the windowless van for the next few hours, he may as well catch up on some sleep.

Valkov woke as the vehicle came to a halt, and calmly waited until it parked. His female companion seemed far less patient, but was still not in a mood for small talk.

Once the doors opened, she got out first, looking around nervously until a man in spectacles approached. Valkov climbed out behind her. While he didn't try to eavesdrop, the conversation he overheard suggested that Miss Blake was a technical consultant, called out to this remote facility to do something with computers. The two of them began walking towards a low-rise building made from weathered Soviet concrete. Every time he visited Area-23, Valkov couldn't help but feel a strange kinship with the ugly relic of a previous era.

This time, Valkov did not enter the main building, but was instead led towards the entrance to an underground bunker dug into the side of a mountain. He was escorted by a smartly dressed blonde woman, a colleague he’d worked with before. Valkov greeted Sorokina warmly and accepted her offer to get him a coffee on the way, but waited until they were in the briefing room before starting with his first question.

"So, Agent Sorokina, what do we actually know about this prisoner?"

The young woman smiled nervously. "A lot, but we suspect it's all lies."

Valkov didn't smile, but there was a hint of humor in his voice as he replied. "I imagine that's why you've called for me."

She passed the file across the table to him and he opened it as Sorokina offered a quick summary. "Security picked him up inside a disused wing of Site-35, trying to access SCiPNET. He was armed, but didn't try to resist us. Based on his tattoos and the drugs he was carrying, we suspected he was a member of the Neo-Sarkic crime syndicate known as "The Hunter's Black Lodge". That's why they brought him here."

The first page was the incident report, but those were pretty dull when the target just surrendered. The second page was a dense technical report that went entirely over Valkov's head, but from the summary seemed like the man had been trying to access information about the location of Foundation facilities in Russia.

The third page was what he was actually looking for. The photographs of the prisoner had been taken at Area-23 after he was strip-searched, so several large black snake tattoos were visible on various parts of his body. There were also images of the belongings that had been taken from him. The clothing he'd been wearing was fairly standard, even the body armor wasn't too surprising given that he'd broken into a Foundation Facility. The next photograph showed the items he’d been carrying – a pistol, three knives, and various tools for picking locks, as well as a needle, syringe, and two bottles of red fluid.

"Anything anomalous on his person?"

"Those drugs are an anabolic steroid known as “Wrath”. It’s a parapharmaceutical produced and distributed by the Hunter’s Black Lodge, so he must have some connection to them.”

Valkov had previously read the SCP-2408 file in full, and had prior experience with members of the Black Lodge. It was unusual that the prisoner had surrendered, rather than using the anomalous physical enhancement provided by injecting SCP-2408-2A to try and fight his way out of custody.

“There’s also the living tattoo,” added Sorokina.

Valkov checked the file again and noted that an "SCP-021" file had been included. Apparently, the prisoner had a similar animate tattoo, capable of moving around his body, although the black snake's movements didn't seem to bother him.

"You said he had multiple tattoos?"

Sorokina hesitated, unsure of how to explain that. "He had other tattoos when they detained him, with lots of Sarkic symbolism, but those are all gone now. We think the snake ate them?"

A living tattoo that ate other tattoos was rather unremarkable by Valkov's estimation. He expected more as he looked through the file, but Hume, EVE and Akiva readings were all within normal ranges, and a series of genetic tests, X-rays and even a CT scan had noted no other abnormalities. If this man was affiliated with the Hunter's Black Lodge, he didn't seem to have any of their anomalous perks. Given that he'd been found breaking into a Foundation Site, the organization likely regarded him as disposable.

Although with Sarkic cultists, it was impossible to be certain that nothing strange would be revealed once you got into the same room as them. That was apparently a risk his employers were willing to take, although there was still a long list of precautions that he'd been instructed to follow, including wearing gloves to avoid skin-to-skin contact.

The rest of the file was a series of transcripts. A lot of transcripts.

"You know how, most of the time, the people we detain are reluctant to talk?" Sorokina commented. "Not this one."

"He's been very talkative." Valkov stated, basing this assessment more on the weight of the folder than on his brief skim of its contents.

Sorokina shrugged. "As far as we can tell, it's all lies. Obviously, we started by questioning him about the Hunter's Black Lodge, and after some initial reluctance he was very informative, but none of it checked out. Once we confronted him with that, he claimed to be working undercover for the GOC, which we thought might be true until we realized that nothing about his story made any sense. Since then, he's claimed to be affiliated with every anomalous organization I've heard of, and a few more that I can only assume exist because all the search results for them were classified."

"Very detailed lies, though."

"He's either rehearsed a lot of stories, or he's very good at improv. He keeps contradicting himself though."

"His aim isn't to be believed when he lies. It's to be disbelieved even if he does let the truth slip out." Valkov got to his feet. "I need to look something up."

"So soon? You've barely read the briefing…" It was clear that she'd worked hard putting it together.

Valkov was not unsympathetic. He too had spent much of his life filing reports that his superiors never seemed to read. However, unlike most of them, Valkov had a good excuse. "I'm not wasting my time with his lies. He's been stalling for time, waiting for something. I know his type. If I’m going to learn anything about him, I need to look elsewhere."

He went off in search of a computer with SCiPNET access, rummaging in his pocket for his login details. IT kept telling him to memorize them, but he didn't have the time to do another password reset.

A short time later Valkov begrudgingly put on gloves, resenting the implication that he would resort to such crude methods as laying hands on a prisoner. Valkov was an interrogator, but contrary to the expectations of many of his colleagues, that did not mean he just hit people until they started talking. As this current prisoner was demonstrating, getting people to talk was easy. Assessing whether they were telling the truth was much harder. It required years of experience, and the ability to do your own research.

Valkov opened the door to Interrogation Room 7, and watched the prisoner stop mid-sentence and look towards him with obvious interest. He was seated opposite the door, with his hands cuffed to the table in front of him. Valkov had assumed the previous photos he'd seen had been overexposed, but seeing the man in person confirmed that he really was as pale as the images had indicated, his skin almost as white as his hair.

He was wearing nothing except a pair of boxer shorts, exposing a lean body covered with pale scars and a number of more recent injuries. The flat head of a black serpent tattoo peered over his right shoulder, its tail winding across his back and then around across his stomach. As Valkov watched it, a black tongue flickered out of its mouth for a moment, and it shifted slightly.

On the other side of the table, quickly standing up to face the door, were two young men. The previous interrogators had apparently thought that the snake tattoo might be some sort of tell and had wanted to keep an eye on it, although they may have just hoped a cold and exposed prisoner might be more cooperative. They'd tried various combinations of bribes and threats, and had clearly tried beating him a little, but hadn't made any progress despite the volume of transcripts they'd produced. Valkov dismissed them as amateurs.

As they got up from their seats, he gestured at them to stay behind him. Assuming they weren't amnesticized at the end of this, they might actually learn something from watching him.

"You were telling another story when I interrupted?"

"I was just talking about the time I went hunting for a Tarrasque in France." The prisoner was currently addressing one of his former interrogators in Russian, although he'd occasionally switched to other languages. "It was a frightful creature, all horns and teeth, but with my trusty -"

Valkov draped his thick coat over the steel chair and then sat down on it. He'd spent far too much of his life doing this to tolerate being uncomfortable. "Liar."

"You offend me! Every word I've said has been the absolute truth! Now, if you'll let me continue…"

"I won't", said Valkov. "Unlike the men you've previously been talking to, I actually have the clearance to do a background check. Once I ignored every word that's come out of your mouth, the tattoo and general appearance were a giveaway. Would you like me to refer to you as Gianni Ferraro, liberator of anomalous art and murderer of its curators? Or as Juan Herrero, the South American guerrilla fighter affiliated with Las Viboras? Or maybe even as Yahya Haddad, the name they know you by in New Babylon?"

The prisoner turned to face him, and spread his hands as wide as the handcuffs permitted - not far. "My friends call me White Crow." It was clear that he couldn't resist gesturing emphatically while talking, and his wrists had been rubbed raw by the steel cuffs. It didn't stop him from smiling broadly.

"Of course they do. Your friends have a preference for the melodramatic. They call themselves the Serpent's Hand, after all. Here, you are simply a detained Person of Interest, numerical designation pending."

"It seems I can't fool you. You know all three of my aliases. Very impressive." He looked at Valkov with great intensity. "You've been doing this a long time, haven't you?"

Valkov didn't respond.

"Since you've effortlessly seen through me, I suppose it's time to reveal the truth. You see, you and me, we're not so different. Despite the circumstances."

Valkov leaned forward, curious to hear what the prisoner had to say now.

"A man like you, you must have experience. Ex-military? No… not quite. Intelligence. Perhaps GRU… I suppose you would have been in the Psychotronics Division, if you ended up here."

Valkov didn't think he'd reacted, but the man opposite him smiled as the tattoo coiled around his arm. He'd worked it out. Of course, that was not a particularly unusual career path for an older Russian now working for the SCP Foundation, so it could just be a lucky guess.

"I don't think we ever met, you would have been after my time. But it's an amusing coincidence that we'd both end up here."

The man's exact age was hard to place. He definitely looked younger than Valkov, despite his white hair. Not that that necessarily meant anything in their line of work.

After a long pause, Valkov realized the prisoner was waiting for a reaction from him. Closely scrutinizing the pale face in front of him, Valkov asked "And what was your name?"

"Ivan Kuznetzov." The man shrugged, handcuffs rattling. "Not sure if you'll find me in the records, but I was in the KGB. Back in the 1950s."

Valkov smiled. "If that's true, you've aged a lot better than I have."

Behind him, the two guards nervously laughed. Valkov suspected that they may have started regarding this prisoner as a source of amusing stories, after spending so long listening to his obvious lies.

"Oh, I haven't aged at all. Not until recently. See, I got my hands on some… subversive literature, as we said in those days. The person who had the books when we arrested him just told us he'd gotten them from a Library. He seemed reluctant to say too much - and back then, we could be very persuasive. Eventually he gave us directions, but they led to an empty building."

"Still, there were some very concerning allegations in those pages, about very important people. It was not the kind of material I wanted to be associated with, not at that stage in my career. I took the executive decision to have the books destroyed."

Valkov nodded. He could guess where this was going.

"It turns out that incinerating Library books makes Librarians very upset. I soon found out where those books had originally come from, and it was a painful discovery. I owed the Wanderer's Library a debt, and I worked there until it was paid in full."

"How long did that take?"

"A lifetime. But a rather boring one, mostly spent restocking shelves."

"And now?"

"Well, it's not like I could go back to the USSR. It no longer exists, and I'm not too fond of what's replaced it."

"So you joined the Serpent's Hand? A strange choice, given how you got to the Library in the first place."

"Did you ever believe?"

Valkov frowned. "That's not how this works. Tell me about you."

"You might have been too late for that. You work here, maybe you always just accepted the status quo. But thanks to the Library, I'm old enough to remember the Revolution, to remember the Great Patriotic War. I knew men who fought and died because they believed a better world was possible."

Valkov sighed. "So you're political."

"The distinction between normal and paranormal is entirely artificial. I stand in solidarity with oppressed people everywhere. The Serpent’s Hand-”

"Enough." Valkov interrupted him. "I'm sure it would amuse you to stop inventing stories about organizations you've only read about, and instead tell lies about the group you actually are part of, but it's been a long day, and I don't have the time for that."

The prisoner lowered his hands to the table. The smile left his face.

"You may think you can convince us to let you out of here with the right words, but you're not going anywhere. The best you can hope for is a more comfortable cell. I suggest you start thinking carefully about what you say, because a lifetime in solitary confinement will be difficult to endure."

"I'd expect nothing less from the Jailors."

Valkov continued without comment. With an individual like this it was important to not react to every provocation - it would only encourage him. "Naturally, you think that your friends on the outside are coming for you, at some point in the near future."

The prisoner feigned shock. "You really think they have some sort of jailbreak planned? For me?"

Valkov sighed. "I don't expect you to give us any useful information, not as long as you have that hope."

"So, is this the part where you start torturing me?" The prisoner smiled, mockingly, as if daring Valkov to do it.

A man less experienced than Valkov would have taken this a bravado, and tried to break the man with physical force. Valkov knew better. It hadn't gotten the two previous interrogators anywhere. Besides, this man didn't flinch as that black serpent tattoo crawled across his chest, and according to the SCP-021 file that was meant to be agonizing. His tolerance for pain may well have been anomalously altered.

Valkov stood up. "No. I'm leaving. I think I'll have something to eat, then find a room to sleep in." Turning to the two interrogators, he said "Return him to his cell, and keep him in solitary confinement until I get back. It should be a week, but it may be longer. What he needs is time alone to realize that nobody is coming to rescue him."

The two guards nodded. However, the intended impact of his words was ruined by a muffled boom, followed by the emergency siren going off. The loud klaxon was accompanied by the prisoner's sudden laughter, as if the sound was the funniest thing he'd heard. Valkov had to admit that the timing was perfect, if this was an escape attempt by the Serpent's Hand.

"Should we still return him to his cell?"

As the three of them pondered that, unsure of what to do in the absence of orders, another guard entered the room and gestured at the prisoner. "There's some sort of breach at the perimeter. I'm here to escort him back to his cell." He was clean-shaven, dressed in the standard issue white shirt, black trousers, and bulletproof vest of Area-23's security personnel.

He placed a new set of cuffs on the prisoner, then unshackled him from the table, roughly pulling him to his feet with a hand on his shoulder. He then secured the handcuffs to a chain he wrapped around the prisoner's waist, preventing him from raising his hands more than a few centimeters.

Leg restraints would have been excessive given the hurry, but Valkov was surprised to only see one guard. "They sent you alone?"

The new guard gestured to the previous two interrogators, who were shuffling nervously as the alarm continued in the background. "They can escort me. We need to get this done now. We're still not sure what's going on outside."

"I'll accompany you too," said Valkov. The whole facility was in lockdown after a security breach, and would be for a long time before that was relaxed, even if it was a false alarm. He had nowhere to go, and nothing better to do. "I'm curious to see how the prisoner reacts to this."

The prisoner in question was uncharacteristically passive. "This has nothing to do with me."

Valkov brought up the rear as the new guard escorted the prisoner towards the low-security humanoid containment level, restraining him with a firm grip on his upper arm with a gloved hand. Arguably the prisoner should be held in a higher security cell on one of the lower levels until it was confirmed that he wasn't actually Sarkic, but most of those were full, and even the low-security cell doors were sturdy enough to contain most anomalous entities until backup could arrive.

Valkov kept a close eye on the prisoner, the black tattoo now twisting across his shoulders. It was possible the alarm had nothing to do with him, but the Serpent's Hand would probably not abandon someone this well-connected, and wouldn't want to leave him in containment for too long. His list of known associates was a colorful cast of characters. Although none of them were Russian, international borders meant little to people with access to the Wanderer's Library.

"Can you get the door?" asked the guard escorting the prisoner, gesturing to his two interrogators.

They scanned open the security gate, and the guard escorted the prisoner through, each interrogator holding one of the doors open, entering a hallway lined with cells. Each steel door was marked only with a numerical code, and no other identifying information. The sound of alarms was still audible here, but much more distant, especially once the security gate closed behind Valkov. There was a separate alert that would sound in the event of a containment breach in one of these cells.

Valkov was surprised that the prisoner was escorted past all of these cells, to another security gate at the other end. "Aren't those cells reserved for low risk prisoners?" He'd been here before. He knew that section was only used for the long-term containment of compliant individuals, as a bribe for cooperation.

One of the former interrogators asked the new guard, "Where exactly are you taking him?"

The new guard turned, an expression of confusion on his face. "Which cell did you collect him from?"

The other interrogator rummaged in his pocket. Like Valkov, it seemed they struggled to keep track of all the numbers they were given.

"I lied," said White Crow loudly. His body was still facing away from them, restrained by the firm grip on his upper arm, but he now turned his neck to look back at them. "The Serpent's Hand planned all of this." He was fidgeting nervously, twisting and rattling the metal of his cuffs.

Valkov ignored him, as did the other two guards, since it made no difference either way. It was a little strange that their colleague had been escorting the prisoner without knowing the cell number, however it had been a long day.

"You will die in the dark so that we can live in the light."

Those unexpected words drew their attention back to White Crow, and he spun around to face them, the closest guard's grip on his upper arm falling away. To their surprise, his hands were now free from their cuffs, enabling him to make a gesture so obscene it triggered the gag reflex of everyone watching. Valkov and the two guards next to him bent forward, retching.

The guards all reached for their firearms, but Valkov looked up to see that the man closest to White Crow was handing him a pistol, while averting his eyes. He could only watch in confusion as their now-armed prisoner opened fire, shooting the two former interrogators standing next to Valkov in the head as they struggled to draw their weapons. Valkov was unarmed and still gagging from that strange gesture he'd observed, but instinctively dropped to the floor to present a smaller target.

A couple of shots went overhead, then a piercing impact in his chest provided a painful reminder that there was no cover in the hallway.

"Well done Loxley", said White Crow. "You remembered to look away."

"We practiced… Oh god!" There was another retching sound, this time coming from the only guard still standing, the man White Crow was referring to as Loxley. Valkov, still conscious as he lay on the ground, wondered if the shock from the hole in his chest was making him hallucinate. The man was still dressed as a Foundation guard, but suddenly seemed to have a green reptilian face.

Valkov couldn’t stop himself from coughing up a small amount of blood onto the cold floor. Loxley glanced over with inhuman yellow eyes, then immediately looked away.

"You're squeamish for a bloodsucker," said White Crow. "Your face slipped again."

"It's the open wounds…" groaned Loxley, raising one hand to a mouth full of needle-sharp fangs. "It's almost as bad as that gesture…"

Valkov decided to focus on breathing shallowly and trying to remain still.

"There's no language more expressive than Library Sign," said White Crow, and Loxley quickly looked away from him again, although White Crow didn't actually repeat the hand movement. Instead, he simply asked, "Is she here?"

"Yes, right past that door.” Loxley gestured to the doorway leading to the next section. He seemed to have recovered his composure. Given White Crow’s comments, Valkov apparently hadn’t been imagining the reptilian skin he’d seen, but his human features had now reappeared, as quickly as they’d vanished.

"Good. You have my jacket?"

Loxley handed a small piece of fabric to White Crow. There was a rusting of fabric as the pale man, with a magician's flourish, pulled an entire black jacket out of the small square he'd been given, then put the garment on over his bare chest. He then inexplicably managed to pull black trousers and shoes out of the garment's pockets, despite there obviously not being enough room inside.

“Should I make sure the old man's dead?” asked White Crow casually.

Valkov froze, pretending to have already died. It wasn’t too difficult an act, given his current state.

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” replied Loxley, with stern insistence. “Focus on opening that door.”

“They’ll have seen us on the cameras. The keycards will no longer work.”

Valkov was relieved to watch the two of them walking down the hallway away from him.

“This is going to be loud,” said White Crow, as he pulled something out of his pocket to place it on the door. The two of them backed away.

The loud explosion that followed made Valkov flinch, but he otherwise remained still.

"I hope you have some of that left!" shouted Loxley. "We still need to open the cell door!"

"I'd rather not blow her up! I'll drill the lock instead!" White Crow lead Loxley into the next section of the hallway, both off them clearly a little deafened by the recent explosion. "We should block this way off first, to stop anyone from coming after us!"

Valkov felt that he had too many unanswered questions to die now, but it was getting increasingly difficult to remain conscious. He'd just have to hope he'd stubbornly hold out until a medical team arrived.

Everything went dark.

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