Because - SCP Foundation

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"The following is a message composed via consensus of the O5 Council. For those who are not currently aware of our existence, we represent the organization known as the SCP Foundation. Our previous mission—"

"Shut that up," D.C. Al Fine growled. "Has anyone reached back?"

"No, madam," Jasmine said, turning the television off.

Al Fine watched the city of Eurtec breathe in the night air, each light from a window holding a story. "You're certain you sent out the herald?" She knew the answer, but she asked anyway.

"Yes. We checked everything. Jammers, mishaps, sabotage, etcetera. It went through, and no one answered." Jasmine said, peering at the back of Al Fine's black leather chair.

Al Fine didn't like obscurities. She didn't like being blind, left in the dark, or turned unaware. She's used to pulling the cards on the deck, which was never the case outside the Council of 108. But this took the cake.

All one hundred and fifty three informants gone.

"Pull the plug," Al Fine said. "Don't let them trace the signal back. If there are any incoming messages, send them to Ganzir, but strictly for observation. If it's important, tell them to send it to my desk. I'm not risking anything."

"Ganzir? Are you sure, madam?"

"It's our best chance."

"Will you go with them?"

Al Fine paused. She finally said, "No. I'll be the spark, but they're the wax."

Her one reliable source of information had quietly disappeared. Why did the Nornir keep Ganzir a secret? Why did F.W. send his resignation letter? Why is the Foundation doing this?

Why?

RECORDED MEETING LOG

Time and Date: 0139 EST; 03/01/2020

Preamble: Following the SCPF's announcement and initial assault, Under-Secretary-General D.C. al Fine makes an ultimatum, speaking before the Council of 108. In tandem, the speech was broadcasted to the world with PALISADE running cognitohazard countermeasure systems.

The Council of 108 chambers is uproarious, filled with shouting.

D.C. al Fine: Good evening, friends.

The chamber slowly quiets down.

D.C. al Fine: I understand we all have a busy night, so allow me to—

D.C. al Fine falters. The chamber falls silent.

D.C. al Fine: Allow me to begin this gathering. I uh—I understand our hardships. I understand you are all afraid, and you have all fought valiantly.

D.C. al Fine pauses, clutching at her sheet of paper behind the lectern. Hecklers from the audience begin calling out.

D.C. al Fine: War is a battle we must fight together, and without your support, we cannot—

Oracle of the Silicon Nornir: This is fruitless, Al Fine. The outcome will not change. If you believe—

Cicada 3299 Representative: Stop it. Let her speak.

MI666 Speaker: Let her speak? The world is on fucking fire, Marcus—

Cicada 3299 Representative: Watch yourself.

MI666 Speaker: —and we're here dilly-dallying like nothing happened! London is under siege; Liverpool has turned to dust; and if we look to the Americans—God, have you seen Times Square? Of course you haven't, because you'll see a fucking cognitohazard plastered across the billboard displays. Washington? Don't make me laugh. Pizzicato is not going to save us—

World Parahealth Organization Speaker: And you believe your frustrations will help us?

MI666 Speaker: Who the hell do you think you are?

World Parahealth Organization Speaker: An arbiter, apparently, since your incompetent mind can't fathom a civil conversation even at the end of the world. I don't appreciate people who waste the time of those who are trying to help.

MI666 Speaker: I beg your pardon? Are you any better? Have your promises of medicinal airdrops for the people of Manchester been honored at all?! YOU LET THEM MELT!

World Parahealth Organization Speaker: And did you follow through on your promise of protecting WPO assets from your sabotaged SkyNet? I know because I have fifteen planes shot down by your amalgamations—

D.C. al Fine: Gentlemen, ladies—

Oracle of the Silicon Nornir: This is pointless.

Holy Order of Knights Templar Patriarch: Order!

Cicada 3299 Representative: I lean to concur with the WPO representative, Celine.

The Cicada 3299 Representative yelled his last word. The MI666 Speaker stands up.

MI666 Speaker: I will not be insulted before an internet mythos. You keyboard pushers are here because you—as a half-assed organization—are of no use. You are helpless and useless.

The Cicada 3299 Representative stands up.

Cicada 3299 Representative: Would you like me to demonstrate what I can do that you cannot, Celine Campbell? The Foundation may have killed all of your experiential executives, but I can make doubly sure the rest of you simpletons burn.

Holy Order of Knights Templar Patriarch: Contain yourselves!

MI666 Speaker: Try it. I dare you.

D.C. al Fine: Silence, everyone!

The Kingdoms of Faeries Ambassador scoffs.

The Kingdoms of Faeries Ambassador: You all lack restraint.

Chaos Insurgency Delegate: We even moved onto a first-name basis! I personally find this entertaining. How about you, Alex?

Manna Charitable Foundation Delegate: Do not speak to me.

The Illuminated from the Bavarian Illuminati: Perhaps we should reconvene at a later time.

The Chaos Insurgency Delegate smirks and chuckles, crossing his legs over the Haudenosaunee's table, who stands up in dismay.

Chaos Insurgency Delegate: This is a waste of time. So much for that plan you promised me, Al Fine, but I should've figured you'd all just be headless chickens running around—

D.C. al Fine pulls out her sidearm from her ankle holster and fires a round in the air. The chamber falls silent, some Council members ducking for cover. Numerous alarmed PHYSICS operators and Coalition Enforcers dart through the entrances, weapons readied. D.C. al Fine holsters her weapon, looks at her sheaf of paper, then tears it apart.

D.C. al Fine: Members of humanity, our existence hangs on a thread slowly tearing apart. What holds us back is not the enemy ahead but ourselves.

Some audience members scoff.

D.C. al Fine: We have lost far too much in a matter of seconds to succumb to our own foolishness.

D.C. al Fine tapped a watch on her right wrist. After a brief moment, a projector from near the balconies projected a white text against the black backdrop above and behind D.C. al Fine. It read, "192,924,000," gradually increasing in increments of a thousand, intermittently spiking in growth. Hushed voices begin to speak amongst one another.

D.C. al Fine: Confirmed deaths, mind you. Many of the rest are ones we cannot find or, unbeknownst to us, have turned into… something.

D.C. al Fine points at the projection.

D.C. al Fine: The longer we wait, the faster you'll join them.

The chamber dies down. D.C. al Fine sighs.

D.C. al Fine: No, I do not understand the battle; I haven't sunk into the mud for a long time. No, I do not understand your struggle; I have only ignorantly sought out a non-existent peace of mind. No, I do not understand your dreams; mine has been clouded with the fear of a collapse sinking me with a breaking ship, and by the time I finally opened my eyes, I was already drowning. And to this point, I no longer remember my dream. I don't know what I wanted and what I want now. I know only sacrifice.

D.C. al Fine: I do not ask for any apologies: I have failed. We have all failed. We've fallen deaf from our own pointless banters. We have never yelled as one ever since our induction into the UN. Funnily enough, the only people we've been yelling at are each other. And so, when the Foundation's inner-pointing arrows suddenly pointed outwards, I was ill-prepared—we were ill-prepared, completely oblivious until that number counted a million. I see the light behind the retinas of those soulless jailers I used to conspire with, completely snuffed out without a trace of them, only undead contempt replacing their once anxious personas. And in their wake, in my delusions where I abstain from the blood I've spilled, I woke up to a rising sun showering light on a sea of corpses. And not even half of those bodies made up the true death count.

D.C. al Fine: Am I still drowning, just closer to death?

D.C. al Fine: Do I accept humanity's last hope—standing before me and the world—has finally given up?

D.C. al Fine: Do those sacrifices mean nothing?

D.C. al Fine pauses.

D.C. al Fine: Yes, maybe delaying death is pointless.

D.C. al Fine raises her fist.

D.C. al Fine: But I refuse to lie down and die without a fight. I do not care if there's no rationale for it; I refuse to turn my heels and kneel, awaiting a bullet to hit me. And if a bullet, shell, arrow, or sword strikes me down, I will die with you on a battlefield as one.

D.C. al Fine: For the first time in my life, an overwhelming sense of unity has compelled me, as if every member of humanity banded together for the very first time. So how can the representatives—the leaders of humanity not follow suit? Tell me, do you and your families wish to lay in the front yard and wait? And to those who have already lost everything, do you want another to share the same pain you now hold? Can you really handle the tremble plaguing your hands, feet, and heart? I know you feel it, and to me, that kind of death is far worse than anything else. Because if it were up to me, I wouldn't wish that even on my worst enemy. Will you and I grab onto this rope connecting us to the rest of the world, or will you cut it loose?

D.C. al Fine slams her lectern and points at the projection.

D.C. al Fine: Because I'm sick of it! We are the Global Occult Coalition, humanity's protector, whether it wants one or not. If it were up to me, I'd hold on for dear fucking life and scream my lungs out. I'll make damn sure the dead above sees a flourishing garden below!

D.C. al Fine raises her fist.

D.C. al Fine: And we can only make sure of that As One!

Debrief: All Pizzicato prerequisites (barring one) were quickly accomplished following D.C. al Fine's speech, and the Global Occult Coalition spearheaded multiple defensive contingency plans against the Foundation in conjunction with other major paranormal organizations.

Reminder: All Coalition personnel report to your supervisor or nearby facility advisor for immediate reassignment.

Topic: KTDMALZLEEP

To: Tip of the Spear

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

Oh—oh my God. It works!

It's me, Rogers. Jesus Christ, I think my watch has been sounding off for quite some time now. Fuck, my voice is killing me, what the hell did I do?

Everything was a fuzz before I realized my watch, like some revelation came over me. Something's really wrong with me. How the fuck did I not notice my watch?

I'm not compromised. Just… give me a second.

[Sigh.]

Code Triton-Oscar-Spirit, ID 90213921/Z01. My watch is intact and I need immediate assistance. I've activated my beacon for egress, and… I-I don't remember what position I held. Well, not the Coalition, I mean for… Well, obviously, for fuck sakes. It's all… slush. Why can't I remember?

I'm currently in a small room, the door to my left leading out to… wherever I am, and a door labeled SCP-055 to my right. It's too hot outside right now, gonna wait 'till it dies down.

[Pause.]

Triton-Oscar-Spirit, 9021—ah, fuck, maybe I am, I just don't know it.

Run these recordings through PALISADE or whatever you need to do. Maybe I am burnt, but I can't say for certain. I'll perform a self-evaluation and then investigate what's going on.

I remember. Thank God.

"X-ray, ten klicks Southwest, heading 250—some unknown eigenweapon system. Hue tending Blue, Natural Pitch, Tight Weave, and about 12 kilocaspers. Asset Able is currently distracting their main force two klicks East of the AO. Acknowledge on last, over."

"Elaborate on 'weapon system.' Organic, sentient, invisible, antimeme?” Mage Freak asked.

“Two paratech platforms, aligned toward a target. Object placed in the rearmost platform is launched to the one in front at incalculable speeds."

"Some bootleg slingshot then," Mage muttered. He turned the radio back on, saying, "Acknowledged. Engaging in three mikes, pull friendlies out until my Zeds clear the first wall. Ready artillery, out."

"Wilco. Happy hunting, out."

Mage Freak was never a man of morals. Certainly not a man constrained by ethics, social norms, and expectations. Instead, Mage Freak was a man of the present.

He placed the sixtieth seal on his left shoulder. It contained an Eiwaz rune sigil with a paper hanging below, black ink written on it spelling out one of the many formulas Mage had designed to near perfection. Standing up was comical to him; with each minuscule movement, the sound of a thousand papers rustling against each other would follow, like the leaves of a tree against a typhoon. He trusts the seals would hold until they shouldn't.

Technically, he is a Type Blue: a thaumaturge. Or colloquially, a wizard manipulating the flow of EVE (energy). Effectively, he is a reanimator. Or formally, a modern necromancer.

Mage unsheathed a quillon dagger. Its crossguards were only slightly curved so the entire blade may penetrate one's chest, with Laguz, Teiwaz, and Eiwaz runes etched onto it. Cursive foreign texts engraved on the blade's cannelure seemed reminiscent of English but not simultaneously. And below the hilt was a pentagram sigil trap made of mercury.

He looked around him, corpses covering the surface and craters carving into the Earth. Some of the bodies wore the Coalition's emblem, some Foundation, others were civilians.

Mage grinned softly, then smiled from ear to ear.

He pulled out a bag of blood belonging to him, ripped the seal, and soaked his blade until it was covered red. He opened a waist pouch full of salt, knelt, and strewn it on an open lower body cavity. And finally, hilt against his chest, Mage stabbed the corpse's solar plexus.

The energy from his blood coursed through his dagger, absorbed by the salt, and shunted into the body by the formulas, texts, and black ink. Parts of it sprawled, ejecting itself back out, but the mercury below the hilt caught and inoculated it back into the corpse. A small cut appeared on Mage's forehead.

The corpse shuddered then seized, shaking viscerally, veins and arteries exploding, organs collapsing, and its eyes opening.

"Wake up."

…

"Fucking hell," Stile growled.

"Lose the trigger finger. You're going to run dry sooner or later," Hyacinth said boringly.

Stile heard the sound of flipping pages, presumably another magazine Hyacinth was reading. "You're serious right now?" Stile said.

"Lose the trigger finger," she replied.

The two members of Strike Team 1819 "Bullet Rain" await from atop a cliff in their UHECs: Ultra-Heavy Engagement Chasis suits. They were metal titans, standing meters tall, packing dozens of types of heat. Unfortunately, Stile could only wait inside its cockpit filled with displays, interconnected to form a full 180-degree screen. And to top it all, there was the rearview mirror. Stile thanked God again for his Quartermasters' humor.

Stile would've rushed in about now if it wasn't for the fortifications creating rows upon rows of contractible and mobile walls. The Foundie camp was a poor mimicry of Ganzir, but formidable enough for Stile to double-take.

He looked at one window overlaying the view displaying his scope, stalking MTF operatives and Foundie engineers as they scattered around a piece of elevated machinery. The eigenweapon of interest acted like a gun, and he and Hyacinth were tasked with destroying the muzzle. In Stile's opinion, it's more of a nuisance than an actionable threat, making light work on Ganzir despite how it was advertised from command; perhaps it was for psychological relief, but a job is a job, and he loved his job. What he didn't like however—

"God, can they make up their fucking minds yet? Are we going in or—"

"Stow it," Hyacinth said curtly. "Sooner or later, you're going to get yourself killed with that mindset."

Stile sighed, propping his head on his hand.

The soldiers on the ground started scrambling—no, they were panicking as if their asses were on fire. They started taking cover behind any objects nearby, one of them hiding behind a tilted lamppost. Fucking idiots, Stile gibed.

A subtle rumbling shook Stile's seat. "Uh, Hyacinth are you—" His rightmost display lit up.

He found a swarm of around fifty Type Red regenerators hurtling toward the Foundies. They looked like chimeras, non-uniform, extra appendages shooting out, and moving at speeds that even challenged his UHEC with clouds of flying mud trailing close behind. Artillery from Ganzir swept just ahead of the horde and rained down on the Foundies, performing a rolling barrage at a newfound speed with impeccable accuracy. When the horde made contact, blood filled the air. Stile watched one resembling a cheetah with overly long fangs pounce on one of the operatives, slashing through their body like butter with blood gushing out of every opening. As it walked away, it dragged its bloodied fangs across the mud.

"Holy shit," Hyacinth muttered. Stile was captivated, magnifying his targeting scope for a better view. Despite the sweeping artillery, the eigenweapon's structure held.

"Bullet Rain, Asset Zed has been deployed. Caution fire and keep a respectful distance. You're green," the command operator from Ganzir declared, his voice strikingly loud against the chaos below.

Some of the smoke from the barrage cleared, and the fortifications Stile was concerned about were magically gone. "Oh. Oh, shit." Stile scrambled at his controls.

10%. Both of the UHECs emanated gas out onto the ground. 39%. A sharp whine rose in pitch, crescendoing until it was louder than Stile's tinnitus. 63%. A low rumbling from the suit's legs intensified, shaking Stile's ribcage. He swore his heart skipped a beat. 85%. On the displays, there was a progress bar slowly being filled up. 99%.

And it all released as the UHECs launched themselves off the cliff toward the Earth, whizzing through the air and landing in the mud, not breaking their stride as they sprinted at an unholy speed of 150 miles per hour.

Stile's suit had its BANSHEE system emit some whirring, ear-piercing sound, similar to a guttural scream beyond disorientating for anyone unfortunate to hear it. Hyacinth's suit lit up like a Christmas tree, projecting cognitohazardous patterns using combinations of specifically colored lights at unrestrained brightness. Stile had to redact Hyacinth, and Hyacinth had to mute Stile. It's a bad day to possess the ability to hear and see.

"Pick out exposed targets! Don't go too far!" Hyacinth yelled.

"Roger," Stile said.

It was an eruption greater than Pompeii. The anticipation, the trembling heart, and a well slowly being filled having finally overflowed. His UHEC burst through walls upon walls, concrete and rebar flying in the air as his mechanical hands thrashed at everything it found, complementing niche martial arts for titans with 10,000 RPM weaponry, drilling holes into everything in his way. He screamed his lungs out. Seldom could he contain his emotions during these moments, but a certain maniacal undertone betrayed his facade, letting a suppressed serial killer take the controls.

His UHEC rumbled, air getting knocked out of his lungs and sending his suit sliding back. A shell from a tank dented its left forearm. Stile scoffed, pushing his two joysticks down and the UHEC obeying. It rushed at the tank then sank its fist through the turret, body, and dirt, letting sparks and flames shoot out like a geyser of fireworks, eventually exploding and sending shrapnel peppering Stile's armor like droplets.

"Bullet Rain, be advised, abnormal EVE readings are headed your way," the Ganzir operator said.

"Fuck, I think Able's dead," Hyacinth said.

"What does it matter," Stile muttered. He turned his UHEC to the pinged location command relayed. He squinted at his magnified screen. A parathreat sprinted toward Stile from around a klick away, with an enormous cannon for an arm—

Something hit the joint between the suit's left arm and torso. Alarms blared and warning windows filled Stile's vision. Tilting his UHEC up, he traced the projectile's smoke trail all the way to the parathreat's implanted cannon. Stile sighed.

"HOLY SHIT! STILE! ARE YOU—"

"I'm fine!" Stile yelled. "Unknown X-ray's on me. Conventional countermeasures ineffective."

Judging by the projectile's trajectory, the attack was explicitly coordinated. It was a cheap shot, thrown before the match could start. But its specificity and capability, even rendering a UHEC's limb out-of-commission, likely took immense energy, especially after evading all of Stile's warning systems.

And his theory was confirmed. The parathreat ran noticeably slower, their cannon arm melting and remolding into a normal hand with a great axe materializing before them. Their body moved with unusual fluidity as if they were made of water. "Blue Hue, Double-Sharp, Tight Weave, 10 kilocaspers and dropping," Stile said.

"You got it?" Hyacinth said, worried.

"I'll try, but after I'm through, I'm gonna need your help."

"I've got quite a lot of trying to do as well." Stile turned and looked at where Hyacinth was. Her suit overlooked a distant, incoming horde of pale-white and morbidly stout humanoids awkwardly running like how raptors do, holding their arms with their elbows and wrists bent. Hyacinth pointed both of her UHEC's forearms skyward, discharging large magazines and black smoke as the regenerator allies charged ahead.

Stile cursed, turning to his own adversary. He was less than half a klick away now.

Plumes of gas shot out from his UHEC.

He pulled a lever to his left, letting the battered arm fall off the torso. A droning grew louder, briefly reminding Stile of his tinnitus.

He flipped open an opaque orange case, revealing a red switch with bold text below reading "FIRESTORM." The suit's legs shook.

Finally, after flipping another series of switches, he felt himself slightly elevate, and the 180-degree display turned into an omnidirectional visual center, surrounding Stile with screens and exposing his cockpit like a turtle's head peeking out of its shell.

The progress bar filled up.

"Don't die on me," Hyacinth said.

"You watch yourself," Stile replied.

Thrusting out into flight again, Stile's UHEC pivoted askew until the bottom of its feet faced the gun-wielding parathreat. He smashed into the ground, sliding across and dragging the parathreat with him. They slashed at his feet wildly, puncturing through the suit's right sole.

Stile tilted the joysticks right, his good arm grabbing the parathreat from underneath and then planting them against the suit's raised cockpit. They stared Stile down apathetically despite the suit's ear-piercing BANSHEE system, their body liquidy and face gradually melting against the soundwaves. There was nothing but contempt in it.

Stile closed his eyes and flipped the red switch. A burst of light overwhelmed the displays as a frenzy of directional mines on the cockpit's exterior detonated, the explosion's energy piercing through the parathreat's body and limbs and then dispersing outward like a swimmer's breaststroke.

And when the smoke cleared, it was gone.

"Stile!" Hyacinth called out. "I got the generator but I have too many on me!" Man-sized eggs surrounded her, the regenerators struggling to break into them. She slammed one of the fattish parathreats into the ground and swept her rotary cannons at another crowd behind, avoiding the regenerators with uncanny precision.

"Damn it all." Stile gritted his teeth as his suit's vision slowly readjusted and its head crawled back into its shell.

He turned to the eigenweapon and scanned the support structure. It was skinny, standing several meters tall and anchoring the anomalous artifact on top with a faint translucent sphere surrounding it. Stile shot a round at the sphere, which deflected the bullet. So that's why artillery was useless.

"Take care of those suckers, I'm going shock and fucking awe," Stile said.

"What?! You only have one arm, stand back!" Hyacinth ordered. Stile's UHEC tilted and dug its feet into the dirt, then propelled itself at the support holding the eigenweapon.

His UHEC was like a needle threading through the supports. Stile clawed out its innards, tore its skin apart, bit through its wirings, and incinerated it with missiles, bullets, and shells. The structure whined, barely standing until the momentum of its fall overwhelmed it, crashing into the ground.

Stile spotted a Foundie attempting to escape. He replied with his vertical launching system attached to the UHEC as an exorbitant backpack. A missile soared out of it, paused, rotated using gas thrusters, pointed at the Foundie, then threw itself at him, exploding into a brilliant fireball upon impact and leaving a stain on the black-powdered Earth.

Stile turned around, finding Hyacinth's UHEC watching him, a handful of the regenerators behind finishing off the stragglers. Despite Hyacinth's faceless nature, she managed to look disappointed.

"What?"

"You really wasted that on a single guy? Are you daft? We don't have a fucking tree regenerating ammunition anymore. And you could've gotten yourself killed you fucking idiot, next time listen to me when I'm trying to—" Hyacinth rambled on, her suit gesticulating away. Stile sighed. He turned his UHEC, stomping to the downed artifact.

"Looks alien," interrupting Hyacinth's monologue.

"Destroy it," she asserted.

"Aye aye, madam," Stile said sarcastically, partly thankful. Using the barrel attached on top of his UHEC's good arm, he shot a shell tearing through the machine and into the ground, exploding a second later. Metal scraps flew into the air and then rained down.

"Damn, shit ton of stuff in it. Noneuclidian?"

"Ganzir," Hyacinth said, ignoring Stile's question, "Eigenweapon and X-rays destroyed. Call the Laundrymen to get these eggs and prep for exfil, out."

Stile recalled the parathreat he faced off, its dead eyes staring right into Stile, ignoring the blaring BANSHEE systems. There was a certain conviction in it, contradicting its stark indifference—something in nothing.

Or maybe it was nothing in something.

Topic: KTDBINZLEEP

To: Tip of the Spear

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

Rogers here.

[Distant sirens.]

The alarms are getting on my nerves. Everything is set loose, but no one's troubled. Shit, what the hell was I going to say?

[Paper rustling.]

Oh. Sorry, hold on.

[Pause.]

Nobody seems to know who I am. Well, no one pays me much attention at all. I have my white coat and badge and everything, a "Senior Researcher Lang," just a little rattled up. Actually, that's an understatement. I fucking reek, my coat's crumpled to shit, and everything feels staticky. But still, no one cares.

I have a gap in my mind. There's something there, but I can't grasp it. Actually, no, I know it exists, I've grabbed onto it, but I just don't know what it is. I remember sprinting and…

[A door opens then closes, muting the sirens.]

…here. I came here.

[Pause.]

No. I went in there.

I'm going to head down to the pharmacy and see if I can get mnestics, hopefully that'll—

[Metallic knocking.]

Shit.

Ganzir groaned, its metallic-obsidian architecture constantly shifting. The iron dried the air out and reeked of oil, smog collecting outside the borders from the silo launches and cannon fire, and a kaleidoscope of ground-shaking explosions peppered with cracks of gunfire constantly played out from afar. Not a space on the cement ground was unoccupied. Rivers of bodies huddled together, collectively flinching each time a stray missile hit the city's armored exterior.

Like the air inside, every piece of its alien architecture was recycled and reused. Once a broken component falls into its respective burrow, another replica ascends to replace it as if the Earth threw it back out. It breathed. For each projectile thrown at it, the fortress would raise a shield to deflect it; for every hole the Foundation dug beneath it, the ground would shut it out; for every liability it saw within its own body, it would retract. Hence its lack of any naval ports despite being in the middle of the Atlantic.

The Servants of the Silicon Nornir worshipped three Gods, preached as the molders of fate. But that was only what the Servants worshipped publicly. Most of its own members were caught aghast upon Ganzir's ascendance from the ocean floors. And when it opened its doors, it greeted the three Gods like old friends. Using the Earth's core, an architect constantly reshaped its masterpiece—a product of silent incessant observation, scheming, and blueprinting, using an encyclopedia-worth of niche tactics to prevent anything outside from even touching its art.

The mystery behind the fortress' history is as grand as itself. Eurtec was already the Silicon Nornir's pride, a prime example of paratechnological innovation. Advances beyond advances and inventions rivaling foretold ideas. Unlike Ganzir, Eurtec was a static idea, situated and improved upon by humanity.

Servants built Eurtec, but a God built Ganzir.

Leo stood on an alien catwalk, watching the building breathe as its creator pulled it down and raised it back up, intermittently shading the crowd then exposing them back to the sun, dragging shadows across the ground in all directions. Leo was enthralled and utterly helpless.

"Can't get used to it, eh?" a man to his left said. Leo shook his head in awe, half-distracted, with his eyes fixated on the sky.

"Who do you think the fourth God is?" Leo pondered.

"Not a clue. I asked a Servant, but his best answer was a shrug," the man said, disappointed. "Too bad most of the answers I get are half-assed."

Leo shook himself awake, half-dazed. He pivoted left, remembering where and who he was. "Sorry, sir," he said, flustered. The man had cuts all across his body, as if a thousand knives rushed at him.

"Oh no, don't worry. I'm not a superior. God, I'd bore myself to death," the man said, chuckling, rubbing the back of his fair hair. "Still, glad I'm not talking to a brick wall. Name's Mage Freak."

"Fun," Leo commented, trying to ignore Mage's physical appearance.

"Yeah, wasn't by choice," Mage Freak sneered.

"Leo," he replied, bluntly.

"Real name?"

"No. Not by choice either."

"Either it's a homage to all Leos or a middle finger to horoscopes," Mage Freak said, leaning and resting his forearms against the railing behind him.

"The latter," Leo replied monotonously.

"You good?" Mage asked, patting Leo's shoulder.

"Yeah. All good," Leo said reluctantly, turning away from Mage and watching the crowd.

"Heard there was a liquid courage stand," Mage Freak psyched. "HR pulling through. Lucky us, there still is some benefit for gathering the world here."

"I don't drink," Leo said.

"Ehh," Mage Freak droned, slightly disappointed. He swung his index finger to and fro. "Well, who knows, maybe he has lollipops too! Gotta do something than just sit or stand."

Leo gradually nodded. How ironic.

"Drives me crazy, I assure you that," Mage chortled, standing upright. “Strike Team Hellraisers. You?"

"Don't got one anymore."

"Ah, too bad," Mage Freak winced. "But hey, that's the same for me," he patted Leo's shoulder. "My folks fucked themselves over for some civvies. How mundane am I right?"

It was the same story for Leo. Now his people are out there somewhere, begging for the embrace of death, turned into something Leo no longer recognizes. They just couldn't stow the hero complex. "Run," they said, croaking. Now, Leo carried another selfish baggage on top of knowing his squad's prolonged demise. It was a label following him, invisible to others but very noticeable to him: coward.

Mage's presence alleviated that, smiling with lively eyes, not carrying a grain of doubt or regret, fighting against the grim atmosphere of Ganzir. Leo aspired to be that. He looked at Mage and the cuts all across his body.

Leo smiled. "Retrieval Team Burning Stars."

Topic: KTDTINZLEEP

To: Tip of the Spear

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

Rogers here.

Sorry about the wait—Jesus fuck, this is bitter.

I just took the strong ones. "Class-Xes," it says. The pharmacy is completely abandoned, with not a single person manning the counter. Well, no one seems to be manning anything really. Good for me, I guess. Nothing in my way except for a binder full of warnings thicker than the table it was on. I can't say I read the whole thing, but I'll find out soon enough.

I had to act… dead, like a walking corpse. People carry on like normal around here, but there's just nothing in them. I can't quite describe it. They're shells.

It's just hard to believe anything, so you'll have to excuse my brusque decision not to reach back for a while. Well, you guys are leaving me on read, so I'll call it even.

Jesus, this kicks hard.

[Clears throat.]

Alright, moment of truth.

I was in there next to something. It wasn't round.

It was like two objectives colliding together, one conscious, the other something else. Was I hiding or meeting someone? What was I in there for?

[Pause.]

God damn, is this headache normal?

[Pause.]

That thing in there, I was terrified, but I talked to it. I was screaming my lungs out for the first couple of minutes—almost an hour, even. I screamed until I couldn't speak. Was that why my throat hurt?

[Pause.]

Is that thing still in my head? How long was I in there? What was that? A cognitohazard? Memetic? Infohazard? What the fuck was that?

My stomach…

It was stretched out. Its face… Jesus. It talked to me, but I couldn't understand what it was trying to say. Fuck, I still don't know. But eventually, I spoke to it.

[Pause.]

I shouldn't have looked again.

[Pause.]

Am I the only one awake?

How? How did they know it was him? Did I tell them?

[Shuffling.]

There was an encrypted email sent by Dr. Whitney. I remember that name. It was urgent. I was confused because I wasn't awake yet. But I didn't have time to read. I ran in here to hide when they came for me.

Wait.

[Keyboard and mouse clicking.]

No.

[Keyboard and mouse clicking.]

Oh my God.

[Chair rattling and an exhale]

If there ever is a time for someone to get back to me, now would be great. Is Whitney dead? Is everyone dead? Am I the only Sleeper alive?

Do you guys even fucking hear me?

[Pause.]

Am I the only one who woke up?

"GET BACK!" Grime growled, raising his rifle. The crowd frantically obeyed, diverging and allowing a path just wide enough for Grime to avoid grazing people with his shoulder pads. The White Suit's voice modulator did wonders, acting as both an amplifier and a menacing distorter. Among his squadmates and in his helmet, he had a gruff voice; to everyone outside, he did not sound human.

"MAKE WAY!" a Eurtec Enforcer yelled from afar, riot helmet visor glinting. Grime rushed to a row of translucent riot shields waiting at the end of the path, his four squadmates following close behind. Faces passed by him, some reaching out to him, others begging. It took him a moment to look back and realize he had brazenly pushed a woman onto the ground, the crowd inhaling a collective gasp. He ignored it, continuing onward.

"Where's Hoover?" Grime asked as he arrived at the line of shields, the officers in front flinching.

"By the secondary cordon, sir," an officer said with quivering inflection. Grime shooed them away. A narrow opening allowed Grime and his squad to pass through. Hoover was in his crisp black formals, hands clasped behind his back, boots shoulder-width apart with another line of slightly better-equipped Enforcers.

"Where have you been?" Hoover called from afar, his voice and shoulders tense.

"Doing as told," Grime shot back with his modulated voice as he ran up the short flight of stairs. "Captain Grime, PHYSICS Strike."

"I do not care. I asked for you and it takes four minutes?" Hoover yelled.

"What do you want?" Grime snarled when he arrived. Hoover, however, did not flinch.

Hoover sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, his other hand on his hip. "I haven't heard a word up there, only silence."

"Silence?" Grime shook his head in disappointment. "Have you sent your officers?"

"I wouldn't have called you if they returned," Hoover said conceitedly.

"Have you contacted—"

"I have taken all the necessary measures, Captain. Seldom do I resort to expedients," Hoover said, clenching his jaw. "Albeit, velocity from you would be appreciated." He looked at Grime and at the rest individually, pausing in between.

"Why can't these fuckers just go up themselves?" Rake asked, using the private comms where only he and the rest of the squad can hear his voice.

"No clearance. They can't even get past their own checkpoint," Skraz chuckled.

"Any word from 1-1?" Rake asked, Grime still questioning Hoover.

"Reaper? No. Nothing from the entirety of team one."

"I don't like this."

"Where's ST-79?" Grime asked.

"They're handling fumigation," Hoover slurred carelessly, visibly becoming impatient.

"Fumigation? For who? Are we compromised?"

"Since when did Strike ask this many questions? You'd like me to speak with brevity, so here it is: I need a sitrep up there, now," Hoover yelled his last word, crossing his arms.

"Listen here," Grime hissed.

"Sir—" Rotor started.

"Don't," Grime shouted. "We are Strike and you are an Enforcer. That we can agree on. But if I ask you a question, it's probably because it's need-to-know, not for me to entertain you. I am not ordering you around, so return that favor. Do you understand?"

"Really?" Hoover snapped. "How ironic for you to say that as you stand here doing exactly that."

"Fucking hell," Rake muttered in comms.

"What now?" Scraz asked.

"We go in. Ren, go shadow. Skraz, Rotor, and Rake, we'll clear the floor," Grime said then switched to his modulator. "Call 79, clearly you need more competency around here," Grime taunted, gesturing at the crowd with his head. He and the rest broke into a sprint.

"What happened with not ordering me around?" Hoover shouted back.

…

"Throne 2-1, making entry to the final floor," Grime muttered into his helmet's comms. No one was home, and that troubled him.

They flowed in like a river smoothly streaming throughout the brutalist architecture, weapons raised at each threshold and eyes peering through every concrete partition, moving with each boot thoughtfully placed. For each room they cleared, two men would be on opposite sides of the door, J-hooking in, checking their respective corners, looking through every crevice, and then promptly filing back out to clear the rest. Despite their helmet's guaranteed discretion, it was a silent dance.

And finally, after thirty-seven seconds sharp, they reached the double oak doors leading to a waiting area. Nothing audible stirred from behind.

"Endgame," Grime declared. "Rotor, anything on the wand?"

"Negative. Nothing's online either, just computers. However, my VERITAS is picking up one humanoid in there," Rotor said, ignoring the wall in front of him and pointing to the right side of the room adjacent.

"Yeah, I see 'em too." Grime nodded at Scraz on the other side of the double doors. "Take 'em."

Grime and Scraz back-kicked their sides' door, sending them flying onto the ground. They recited the same dance and cleared the room, Rake training his gun at a nimble man behind a desk on the right wall. He stood up with eyes wide like saucers, hands raised and palms clammy.

"Clear!" Skraz said.

"Secretary Jasmine?" Grime asked with his modulator, letting his rifle hang.

Jasmine staggered, his hands shaking.

"Stop reaching," Grime warned, watching Jasmine's right hand. But it was fruitless as he pulled a device out.

"HOLD!" Grime yelled before the others lit Jasmine up. "You better think carefully here, sir." Jasmine's firearm looked alien, with inscriptions of an unknown dialect etched into both sides of what is presumably the pistol's barrel. But there was no barrel, nor an opening for a bullet to conventionally exit. Grime figured he'd be a fool to believe in that trinket or if he underestimated Jasmine. He would be a fool either way.

"It's Abjuration. Not the ordinary kind," Jasmine said, as if he read Grime's mind. Jasmine's hand still shook, his handgun—whatever it was—shivered with it. But his beady eyes were shrewd. "Who are you really?"

"Thronebearers, PHYSICS Strike Team. We're the forward cordon." Grime showed him the squad emblem painted on the back of his hand. "You need to tell us what's happening here. Why is the entire building cleared out?"

Jasmine shook his head, eyebrows furrowed. "No, you just went in there. Who are you?"

"What do you—" Grime's heart sunk into the deepest of wells. The others behind him glanced at each other. "No. No, we did not."

"Shit. Throne-1, you read? 1-1, you there?" Rake said in comms. "Fuck. I'm calling intelligence."

"Don't move," Jasmine ordered, stopping Rake midturn.

"Jasmine, open the fucking door, now. You have the clearance, right?" Grime said with a hand extended out.

"N-No. Not until—"

"Jasmine," Grime said in a hushed voice. "Open. The. Door."

"I can't. They said you guys are moles. Y-You're not—" Ren interrupted Jasmine, materializing out of his White Suit's invisibility cloak, tackling Jasmine from behind. When they hit the ground, the gun discharged, shooting a cylinder of luminescent light inches from Grime's head. If it weren't for the helmet, he would've been blinded. He looked back, finding a hole digging itself outside, the outdoor air irrupting into the room.

Grime let out a shaking sigh of relief, his helmet's auditory systems adjusting to the sudden spike in volume. "Detain him. The rest of you, post up."

They stacked on opposite sides of another oak door, with the words "Undersecretary-General D.C. al Fine" engraved on a centered golden placard. Grime took point on the left, Rake led the right, and Rotor backed the rear. Ren zip-tied Jasmine then relocated themselves to the corner of the room.

"Are we going lethal?" Scraz asked.

Grime deliberated. If this was a false-positive, there's about to be a lot of blue-on-blue. But if it was what Grime feared, they would find White Suits shooting back at them. And worst case scenario—

He killed the thought immediately.

He looked back at Jasmine's handgun resting on the carpet floor, not a wisp of smoke emitting despite the damage it caused. Grime looked at Jasmine, who was already staring at him, kneeling, his eyes no longer resolute but petrified. It was the eyes of a man who didn't know who to trust. For Jasmine, he stared into a dehumanized polygonal mask.

"Rake," Grime said finally, not through his comms but with his modulator. For the first time, his distorted voice sounded eerily calm. Rake looked at Grime.

"Sir?" he said hesitantly, using his modulator as well.

"Drop the DMR and pick up Jasmine's gun."

…

"Thronebearers, do you read?" Hoover yelled into his radio, staggering as the line of Enforcers he held onto was pushed back a step again by the crowd.

"Give me a sitrep, now!" He yelled again. He pulled out his truncheon from its hip holster, fear brewing within him. Molotovs flew, fire trailing through the air from the crowd toward the shields.

"Alder, any word?" Hoover screamed into his radio above the crowd's frenzy.

"Negative, sir. We may have a situation—" Shattered glass raining from above interrupted Adler, cutting Hoover's right ear. He yelped, covering his head with his arms, a sensation like needles pricking through them.

Hoover looked up in dismay. He squinted his eyes at rows of pure light punching through the glass and walls from the 50th floor where Al Fine's office was.

"Jesus Christ," Hoover muttered.

"SIR!" one of the officers in front yelled, breaking Hoover out of his trance.

"What?" he screamed back.

"NUMEROUS ASSAILANTS, ARMED, SPOTTED HEADING TOWARD US! DO WE GO CODE-LIMA?"

He clasped at his radio once again, feebly asking with a crackling voice, "Grime, what the hell is going on up there?"

The crowd bellowed, filled with screams and cries. Shattered glass scattered across the ground from the landing beer bottles, the fire's heat before Hoover forcing the line further and further back. It smelled of pure petrol. Billows of smoke erupting followed by the collective cheer of the rogue crowd numbed him, finding himself stepping away subconsciously from his line of Enforcers. One struck a man's head with an overhead swing using their baton, another jabbed a woman in her stomach, and the others desperately clenched onto their shields and pushed with their entire body weight.

Hoovers' mind raced. What is happening up there? What assailants? Assailants? Were they compromised? Is Eurtec about to fall? What happened in Ganzir? Is his family safe there? Hoover realized his officer was still eagerly waiting for his orders with knitted eyebrows.

In the crowd, Hoover spotted a man with a carbine, dressed in a full tactical rig. Then there was another. And another. Then another.

He caught glimpses of a patch on the side of one of their helmets, showing an emblem of three arrows pointing inward at the center of a circle.

Hoover's stomach tightened.

His radio came alive with static until Grime's dreary voice declared, "She's dead."

Topic: Blank

To: None

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

WARNING: Severe mental distress detected. Initiating automatic incident recording.

How do you perform brain surgery? I've been looking for surgeons to teach me but all of them disappeared. Where do I find a plastic surgeon? Maybe they can help get rid of this. Oh silly me, I forgot! They're all gone. They left me. They abandoned me. Why did they leave me with this face? I see the blood on their knuckles that leaves a trail of red on the floors as they walk meaninglessly. Why do I have to stand still in front of my mirror when they punched theirs? Maybe I need to get in shape. No, maybe it's not physical ability. It's mental. I'm a coward. No, that's what it wants you to think. No, that's what they want you to think. Am I a coward if they abandoned themselves? Should I cling on to my own hook? There's a space between me, a wolf awaiting on the other cliff. If I bridge the gap, it will eat me. I'm only staring at him right now, and I want to speak to him. I can't hear him over the wind. But I'm too scared. I can't. I don't want to. Maybe I should do it tomorrow, I will be ready then. That's what I said yesterday, and the day before. I'm so lazy. Help me. Maybe I should find a scalpel myself. I love playing pretend, don't I? Drown myself in noise, my only salvation, but I have no speaker to listen to, only my own voice. Maybe I'm not the coward, I am here after all. I don't deserve this. I have no one to lean on.

There's no point. You guys aren't going to listen to me. No one is listening.

Mental capacity returned within normal range. Incident recorded and logged.

Topic: Sleep FIVE, SEVEN, NINE.

To: None

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

Someone's got loose lips, Seven and something's telling me it was deliberate.

They killed them all in their sleep. One hundred and fifty two of them silently marked, tracked, then tucked to bed. Five. Unconscious souls put in another vessel, then gone without a chance to say something—anything again. Yet, here I am. Nine.

[Scoff.]

Five. You eventually remember. But what happens if you die before that?

Do you just watch, unable to take control? Seven. Witness someone else do the panicking for you? Wouldn't that be suffocating?

[Silence.]

I've always had a fear of forgetting. Seven. Intentionally forgetting yourself, especially. Going into the Deep. Five.

But is it odd now that I wish to forget? Nine.

[Chuckling.]

But I guess it's my job.

Nine. I remember my instructor lecturing us about going into the Deep. It's as it suggests: sleep. I wondered if I would dream. Seven. I also wondered if I would die without even realizing it, just comatose in a body not mine. And then I feared no one would wake me up, and my body would move on from me, forgetting, marching onto another path I asked it not to. Five.

[Sigh.]

To forget would be salvation. Five. Ignorance is bliss—incognizant, unaware, delusionary, yadda yadda. But I'm far from deluded now. Seven. Too far. Honestly, if the past me saw me now, it'd think I'm the deluded one. Nine.

A month. That's how long I was in there, with something I still can't fucking describe, talking about existence with a subjugator. Nine. Or maybe I was talking with myself? To be perfectly honest, I don't care anymore. I don't want to care anymore. Five.

I want to forget.

Who knew looking at a mirror was this taxing?

[Pause.]

A month—a month in fake fucking solitude.

It was hard for me to accept the ugliness of what lay behind my skin. Seven. In an ideal world, I would've accepted its grace, because I've always thought of the human spirit as something beautiful—something that made way for empathy, gratitude, Five and love. I never knew it was a parasite.

Five. I'm so damn fickle. I can't decide whether this route is right or not—if I have the nerve to accept the consequences. Seven. And it's ironic how I feared my body to move on its own. But now, I wish it would. Horrified at first, accepting at last. Confident at first, despaired at last. Nine.

I wanted to remember, now I want to forget. Five.

Is that "it" speaking, or me?

[Pause.]

But if I do this to myself, I'm exacting all the same pain my passed predecessors have asked me to prevent. Seven. And that just pisses me off even more.

And if that's the case, and if this thing "wants" pain, why do I still want to prevent it? Nine.

[Pause.]

Five, seven, nine. That's what it was. That's what it told me. I remember now.

Five, seven, nine.

Why? Five, seven, nine.

[Pause.] Five, seven, nine.

I should've stayed in PTOLEMY. Five, seven, nine.

"The brightest burn out the quickest." Leo's former Retrieval Team's oddly foreboding motto couldn't have been more prevalent. And he realized it was likely not a representation of the team but a reminder for them. Unfortunate for them, it fell on deaf ears, and it still did.

Leo struggled against the stampede of bodies rushing against him, forcing him to suck in his gut and squeeze through. Every two steps he takes, he's pushed back one.

An hour ago, Central asked for a squad to investigate a disturbance near Ganzir's control complex. Half an hour ago, Central declared an emergency. Minutes ago, an earthquake shook Ganzir, and Leo doubted it was anything close to a natural disaster. Parts began to fall from the ceiling in Ganzir's interior, falling metal caving heads in, rooms subtly beginning to shrink, and the unbearable heat beginning to collect.

Beads of sweat poured from his forehead, dripping onto his shirt, out of gear with only a handgun holstered on his combat belt. PHYSICS operatives yelled from the catwalks, desperately attempting to direct the herd. Leo imagined himself back up there, free from the heat, free from elbows unintentionally digging into his abdomen, and safe where he belonged.

Safe, he scoffed. He couldn't bear the thought of running away again. Or God forbid, just stand there. And so he pushed, charging deeper into the self-collapsing goliath.

…

Light spilled into the dark hall from an opening on the right wall.

Two voices chattered with gunshots occasionally interrupting them.

The hall began to close in.

Leo didn't have time to eavesdrop on them.

He breathed in, then out, and rushed in.

…

The man heaved as blood from his abdomen produced an expanding crimson puddle. Leo identified him as Carter, a Foundation agent posing as a Ganzir command operator.

"Tell me how to stop it," Leo demanded, aiming his handgun at Carter's head.

Carter remained still, watching the ceiling completely mute.

"Tell me how to stop it, or I'll do myself a favor," Leo seethed.

"You're too far gone," Carter scorned.

Leo paused for a moment, then pulled the trigger, Carter's brain matter painting the floors.

The room is filled with corpses and streaks of blood. Complex meshworks of wirings lined the walls and ceiling. In the center, there was a slightly elevated platform likely used to overlook the screens covering the walls. The perpetrators shot all of the displays. The computers laying beneath the workstations however were left untouched. Looking through a thin horizontal viewport opposite the entrance, it revealed a small cubic chamber about five meters in every dimension, holding an immobile, levitating metallic orb at the center.

Leo looked behind, finding his exit completely blocked by the walls of where the adjacent hallway used to be. He looked through the viewport and then the room around him again. Nothing moved.

He's in the epicenter, the wires its arteries, the orb presumably its heart, electricity its blood, and the computers its brain. This is Ganzir. He contemplated shooting the orb or computers, but he wouldn't be sure if it'd stop everything, accelerate the collapse, or be a complete waste. He figured there was another reason why the traitors shot the displays instead.

Leo ascertained one contingency plan Ganzir inherited should it align with the Foundation: it cannot kill itself until it ensures everyone else is dead.

Maximal genocide can only be ensured by the killer.

He looked around and spotted an unscathed laptop in a narrow nook hidden from plain view.

Inherited contingency. If that's the case…

Leo rushed to the laptop, flipped it open, plugged it into one of the computers, and pressed the power button, crossing his fingers as he waited for it to finish parsing. If he's right, then it should—

It came to life. Thank the Nornir! The Coalition database and network remained unsullied; Ganzir had no access. He breathed a sigh of relief and entered his emergency credentials, hoping to find a solution as he raced against the dwindling number of people still alive.

He needed time.

He turned on his radio. "Mage, you there?"

Topic: KTDLAMZLEEP

To: Tip of the Spear

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

[Pounding.]

Good, it works.

OPEN UP!

Rogers here. Sorry, it's been a while, hasn't it? This is going on the record.

The Foundation discovered our mind. Their mind, your mind, my mind, whatever you want to call it. Forget the psychosphere, collective unconsciousness, the subconscious, all of it.

[Pounding.]

Things are better explained at a slow pace. To know, forget, then remember. I know it's an odd way to interpret something, but that's just guilt, and it caught up to us now.

I've done a lot of digging and a lot of thinking. I have been for a long time, even when I was forgetting. A constant spiral undulating between redaction and recollection, and every time I crossed the medium, it never changed what I would inevitably find: myself.

[Pounding.]

FORGET THE IFAK, LET HIM DIE! I WANT THIS DOOR OPEN!

I dug again through mountains and mountains of fucking files for months on end relating to 579, ripping keycards off of dead blazers and pickpocketing credentials, IDs, everything left and right, and—

GET MECHANICAL! GO!

—I eventually found an encrypted file.

A Dr. Roget led a study discussing pairs of parathreats capable of self-containment by counteracting each others' effect. And in that study, they found something between SCP-055 and SCP-579.

That is our key. It's a reversal—a paradoxical combination forcing reality to reevaluate then correct itself. I sent a document before this recording detailing everything: the route, the details, and our goal, everything, just read.

[Pounding.]

WE WON'T HARM YOU! JUST OPEN THE DOOR!

I have the 055 part covered. The thing is, I don't know about 579. It was only a matter of time before they realized the missing personnel, and because I forgot to bury a body, they traced my footprints leading from the graveyard. I'm sorry for asking you all to do this, but we have no other options.

Five, seven, nine. The GOC—humanity has to know. Whoever is there, we have to clear the way, even if we must sacrifice ourselves.

WHERE IS MY RAM?!

[Sigh.]

As I read through Dr. Roget's papers, I realized something.

They called it a parasite, but they never considered who we were.

BRING IT HERE, NOW! LEAVE HIM!

It doesn't ask for worship—fuck, it doesn't even care what we do to it unless we stab ourselves. It's a coexistence between me and us. A self-referential handcuff chained to a part of ourselves we cannot and should not see.

[Loud thump.]

I have welcomed a stranger into my house, and the longer I talk to it, the more I remember who occupies the second bed.

I have fantasized a cape behind my back. I have been and still am deluding myself under my own aspirations, using physical acts of empathy as vacuous evidence before an invisible jury. We all do this, but it's all fantasy.

[Loud thump.]

And once I've finally remember this stranger, the truth clashed with my fictitious cape.

So if I am the being I've sworn to destroy, then what's holding me back?

[Loud thump]

But that's only a short path paved with good intentions.

How will we know if we do harm? How will we know if what we do is wrong? How do we get around to asking those questions? Your disposition to rationalize, realize mortality, care for others, understand, and love another, all of it is Because Of Pain.

[Loud thump.]

So in a sense, I am its conspirator.

[Gun being reloaded.]

They overlooked the contract we signed millennials ago that brought us from senseless rage to civility, in exchange for building a dam to hold ourselves back.

They've drawn lines upon lines trying to connect every damn dot, believing a picture can be made from something that must be ignored. And when they finally painted one, they pointed and fired a gun at it.

[Scoff.]

How ironic of them.

[Loud thump.]

We chose to assimilate this mitochondria long ago, and that is the same inversely.

It's not primordial, it's not "natural," but it made us natural, helping us draw the frames that define normality so we may live in a predictable present in an ever-changing reality. Even in its bare ugliness, I accept it for its trade.

It wears and feeds off our own consequences to survive, and in return, it gives us pain to facilitate compassion.

[Loud thump.]

ALMOST THROUGH! PLATE IT!

Because without it, no shackles would be strong enough to hold us back from destroying creation itself.

Do not free us. It is our home.

[Loud thump followed by a crash.]

BANG OUT!

[Explosion.]

HE'S GOT A—

[Gunfire.]

He was going to die, half-conscious after fainting numerous times, blood spilling all across his body from the thousands of cuts on his body. Regardless of how many Zeds he summons, even if he drains his entire body here and now for the sea of bodies around him to rise, it would be fruitless.

Last man standing.

Mage collapsed onto his knees on the surface of Ganzir, its walls and shielding completely retracted. It's now simply a platform floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Water started to seep in from the border, submerging him to the waist almost instantaneously, waves crashing into his frail body.

He had fun.

Judging the situation, Mage figured Leo couldn't find a solution for this, but hopefully for something else.

He convinced himself he had no regrets, but something deep down objected.

He looked at the faces of the dead being swept up and down by the waves.

He sighed.

Mage joined the rest in polluting the ocean.

…

Leo was baffled. If he hadn't received that final letter, he wouldn't have found this entire collection of unseen truth. He shuddered.

Ganzir's a lost cause. Every space has collapsed in on itself except for the room Leo's in, and the surface was left exposed for the Foundation to reap.

And now Ganzir is ready to kill itself.

The room's walls began to shift, forcing Leo to type away furiously, his heart pounding uncontrollably. His jugular pulsated as the unbearable heat pricked his skin like a million needles slowly puncturing through each pore.

Who is Rogers? Why did command ignore this? Or did a particular person archive it? Carter? Why did this happen?

He dragged each letter into a message chronologically, triple-checking each one and ensuring they were attached.

The room whined, metal scraping against each other like nails against a chalkboard, drilling Leo's ears.

What should he write? Should he even? Is he going to die? What is 579? Hurry up.

The scraping drew closer until it was an inch away from Leo's ears.

He pressed send.

Something sharp punctured his back, slowly sliding through his torso.

The lights went out.

Leo screamed until the rising blood overflowed from his mouth.

I didn't run away.

…

"Sir, they're coming through. Fucking hell, you need to get on your feet! Jasmine, watch him. I'm going in," Rake said, breathless. He sprinted out of the waiting room and down the hall toward the cracks of gunfire.

Jasmine's computer chimed. He perked up immediately, stood, and ran to the monitor. "I got a message from Ganzir."

Grime looked up from where he was sitting. Immediately, he stood as well, rushing next to Jasmine.

"Send to all," Jasmine muttered, reading the brief message out loud. It was marked as a First Mission priority, something beyond urgent. He and Grime looked at each other.

"I'm going to hold them off. You get that message out now," Grime yelled. He ran out of the room, following where Rake went, his heavy footsteps fading.

Jasmine rushed to his former boss, loping over the dead Strike members, ripping the lanyard off her neck, and inserted the keycard in a slot. He had seen Al Fine repeat this ritual before.

He dragged the body across the floor and lifted Al Fine's hand. She was lighter than Jasmine expected. He pushed her cold thumb against the reader. It blared, the monitor displaying, "UNAUTHORIZED."

"Come on, come on," Jasmine urged.

The gunshots grew closer.

Topic: Blank

To: ERROR

From: ENCRYPTED

Play Audio Recording

Playing Audio

WARNING: Critical vital signs detected. Initiating automatic recording.

ERROR: Unknown or nonexistent recipient address.

Holy shit. Hey, are you alright?

[Groan.]

It's you.

[Coughing.]

Oh God. You—sorry, but you look like hammered shit.

Speak for yourself.

Let me put pressure on—

[Paper shuffling.]

You'll forget.

What? What is this?

Take it, and get that to 579. Five. Seven. Nine.

What?

Just do it.

[Paper shuffling.]

I can't stop the bleeding.

Five. Seven. Nine. Repeat it.

What?

Do it.

[Coughing.]

Five. Seven. Nine.

Keep hammering that in, and stow that paper somewhere safe.

Why?

So you don't forget.

How am I going to forget?

You see that?

Yeah.

Tell me what it is.

[Coughing.]

It's…

Case in point.

I-I don't understand. It's not ro—

Do you want this to end?

Of course.

Then get it there. Five. Seven. Nine.

Five. Seven. Nine. How do I know this will work? And who are you?

I know you. It talked about you.

What did?

I remember it more clearly now. The man in the suit.

[Chuckling then coughing.]

Who are you?

You'll forget. Five. Seven. Nine. Repeat it.

Answer my—

REPEAT IT!

[Coughing.]

Five. Seven. Nine.

Now go. And find a fucking box for that thing.

Let me remember for once.

ERROR: Life signs expired. Recording stopped and sent to the most recent recipient.

ERROR: Unknown or nonexistent recipient address.

WARNING: Self-destruct sequence initiating in five seconds.

There's something reinvigorating about having coffee at 3 AM, not just because of the caffeine coursing through your blood, but simply having something to drink aside from lukewarm plasticky water. Despite the self-perpetuating world, coffee is one thing that remains the same. Its aroma made Noah reminisce about his marble countertops, sandstone floors, and sky-blue drywalls. He missed his home. But even if he returned to it, no one would be there to welcome him back, not that there would be anyone left.

Home to Noah is indeed his physical house, barracks, dorm, whatever. But he also saw home as something mobile, not static like his coffee. Because no matter where, so long as his loved ones were close by, he'd even call a cardboard box his home.

But this time, he is truly homeless. Lost.

And there it was, his self-pity; his wistful sympathy; his hiraeth.

Noah was perched on a fallen tree trunk, charred black and faintly radiant by surviving embers still festering within. They couldn't put it out. No matter how many helmets of water they threw at it, it still burned. It lit the immediate vicinity fairly well for something not intended to be a light source and also worked as a natural (paranatural?) seat heater, keeping his lower body warm from the brisk November winter. Or December? Maybe January. Nevertheless, he was thankful for this misdeed from the Foundation.

It wasn't just the trunk Noah sat on; the forest of snags around him, trees stripped from their leaves, glowed. Faint orange flames etched themselves between the burnt wooden fibers. Like a lonely city, the forest masked the stars in the sky with its collective dim incandescence, its trees like a thousand paper lanterns.

His squad—a boiling pot of random individuals from a slew of different backgrounds—still elected for a campfire. He watched as they enjoyed the quiet. Crackles of burning wood periodically interrupted the silence as gushes of wind slanted the fire every so often, whistling as it strung the embers with it, dancing between the dead trees—

You Know

And You Accept

And then, for the first time in ages, his tablet vibrated.

Hastily, he picked it off the ground, dusting the grass and dirt off, and turned it on, an emblem greeting him. It was a pentagram overlying the UN logo, with five words surrounding the circumference of it, each etched between the arms of the pentagram: SURVIVAL, CONCEALMENT, PROTECTION, DESTRUCTION, EDUCATION.

He gingerly closed the welcome menu and opened a notice.

It read:

FROM THE UNDER-SECRETARY-GENERAL

READ ALL FILES SEQUENCE

PAVE PATH TO 579

DIE IF U MUST

THERE IS AN END

D.C. Al Fine

Closing out the notice, he was quickly overwhelmed by a complex interface with a bold header titled "UNGOC DATABASE." Another text below it read "DECLASSIFIED."

"GOC, huh?" Noah muttered.

After studying the interface more than he'd like, he finally found the sequence of files the notice wanted him to read.

And so he read.

"You read it too?" Stile asked, drowsy, his back screaming in aching pain. He looked at the monitor showing Hyacinth in her UHEC's cockpit in a lower resolution than yesterday. "Holy shit on a stick, I might need to step out of this suit."

"Good morning to you too. Yeah, an 'SCP-579.'" Hyacinth said.

"Not a clue what it is. But it's a fix, and it's a job. And a—"

"Job is a job, yeah I know." Hyacinth sighed. "Can't we just lay low? There's no point."

"I mean, we can lure something and get it out of the way. Doesn't have to be smash and fuck all," Stile asserted.

Hyacinth shook her head. "We're running on fumes. It's pointless."

"Well," Stile shrugged. "You heard the man: try."

"You sure that's not 'it' talking?"

"Oh, so what? We're going to sit around again?" After pressing a series of buttons, Stile's cockpit opened. He jumped onto the grass. Crisp fresh air enveloped him, the wind blowing against his face. He let it fill his lungs from top to bottom, then exhaled, turning to Hyacinth's suit. He removed his headgear, grabbed his earpiece, and threw it all on the grass. "After everything we saw, you're still going to sit around?"

Hyacinth's suit didn't budge. Sound came out of the earpiece on the ground, but Stile ignored it.

"What happened?" Stile yelled at the faceless titan. "Didn't you join for this exactly? To give it your all? What happened to wanting to drown?"

A hissing sound emitted from the suit, opening to reveal Hyacinth lounging with legs crossed over her controls and hands tucked in pockets. "I'm trying to stay alive."

"Alive," Stile scoffed. "You really call this being alive?"

Hyacinth looked out at the rolling hills. "Yeah, I think so."

Stile shook his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. Hyacinth snuck a glance at him.

"You know," Hyacinth said, "this job is really all I had. You're right, and I have been drowning for a long time. It's been fun. But with things coming to a close, there's nothing to drown out anymore. Everything is where I want it to be now."

"Yeah, because you pulled us out. You didn't even let me fight," Stile fumed.

"It wasn't going to make a difference. Ganzir was—"

"No difference this, no difference that," Stile interjected. "When are you going to be a person with meaning? Do you think those people who we watched die agree with you?"

Hyacinth frowned, watching Stile rove in circles, hands clasped behind his head. "This is what I want, Stile. Freedom. Just silence propelling me forward. Stagnancy. Just let it be and live long."

Stile contemplated, watching the sun slowly set behind the hills. He introspected, watching the light slowly angle itself against his eyes until the Earth swallowed the sun. And then, the stars peeled themselves through the dark curtains above. No city or facility bright enough could wash out the stars anymore, and so they celebrated, painting beautiful constellations for miles on end. Stile has never seen this many before.

"How many stars out there, you figure?" Stile asked, breaking his tinnitus that filled the long silence.

"We can start counting today," Hyacinth said.

Nodding, Stile turned around. "Yeah, until it counts to zero, right?"

The two stared at each other. The grass danced with the wind whirling around Stile, but Hyacinth stayed in her suit, looking down from above.

“Idiot,” Hyacinth gibed. "That won't happen."

"They'll all die eventually," Stile persisted. "Who am I to say though, right? They're just a pretty picture when they're all together.

"But some shine brighter than others. And for some peculiar reason, we choose favorites despite them all burning relatively the same. Some are blue, some are red; some are giants, some are dwarfs; there are systems, and then there are lonely stars. But they're all about the same.

"And sometimes, you choose to save one over everyone else." He stared up at Hyacinth.

"But if you didn't save anyone, would you still believe all of that was just for a pretty picture? Would you still be sitting here if you were a lonely star? Or are you simply saying all of this because you aren't? Or maybe—"

"Park, Banny, all of them are gone," Hyacinth muttered. "You're all I have left, Stile. I am a person of meaning, I'm just mad to realize my meaning can't last." A tear streamed down from her eye. "I can't stop you, can I?"

Stile sighed. "Liar. You still had something to drown out after all."

Chuckling, she wiped the tears off her face. "I figured the calm wouldn't be your taste."

"Neither was it ever yours."

The Milky Way glowed, replacing the clear dead sky with countless star clouds. Trillions of lights hung above the sky, each holding a story, encircling the Earth and watching the two from above.

"Why? Why can't I just keep you alive? Why do you still want to go?"

"No reason in particular. Continuing on or dying now is insignificant to me, but it'd be a hell of a shame to let others miss out on living. You'd agree, would you?"

Hyacinth sighed. "If I can't save you, I'll go down with you."

Stile smiled. "Thank you."

VBPELRJHQHVLV

I'm sorry.

I'm indebted for making you live, trudging along the mud with a chain attached to your ankle, dragging nothing but your mind with your feet.

I'm sorry that you have to live, needing material goods and immaterial affection; devoid of attention or starved to madness, you continue onward believing there is an after to an end.

I'm sorry for making you feel something.