Hyperfine - SCP Foundation

Louisiana has to be the asshole of America. The locals hate you. The excruciating heat and suffocating moisture threatened to tear your skin off. The roads crumble underneath your feet. A tornado must have blown through and replaced the roofs with sheet metal and the walls with decaying plywood. Everything was an absolute mess.

To Agent Calendar, it felt like home sweet home.

She walked along the side of the highway with Isaac, who held a glass jar containing a moth of some kind. Isaac moved his finger alongside the surface of the jar and the bug followed it with its little insect eyes. Isaac found it amusing and giggled.

Calendar noticed a tooth embedded in her forearm and plucked it out. "Ugh, I’ve still got some of that moth collector on me," she said as she discarded the tooth.

Isaac unscrewed the jar and let the moth go free. "It's cruel to keep such an elegant being cooped up like that," he muttered.

The collector had been on Isaac’s "Top Ten People who Deserve a Hospital Visit" list for a while now. Going down that list was a cathartic relationship building exercise for the couple. Isaac got to take revenge and Calendar got to sunder a few bones. They walked back to their motel: a dingy, run down collection of rooms that survived exclusively by being the only habitable place within ten miles.

"I can't believe it's almost over," Calendar said, referring to their shared "vacation."

"Me neither," Isaac replied. "Thanks again for letting me out, y'know? I don't mind Site-17, but it was really nice to be outside again. Y'know, with you."

"Ah-hah, you big nerd! Come here!" Calendar leaned in to make out with Isaac. However, Isaac noticed a small detail that made him freeze in his tracks.

"Uh, sweetie?" he said. "There's something wrong with our room."

They stood a few hundred feet away from the motel. Isaac had rented a room for two while Calendar hid in the car. They'd taken every precaution not to be spotted by anyone that they weren't planning on beating up.

"Yeah, I agree," Calendar said. "Their gym is subpar. Their weights only go up to five hundred pounds."

"No, I mean… look at the door. It's closed."

Calendar stared at the door to Room 3A. The top of the doorframe had already sustained significant damage from her head. "I don't get it. What's wrong?"

"When's the last time we closed a door behind us?"

"Oh shit. You're right."

Calendar entered a fighting stance (although, most stances were fighting stances to her). The couple crept slowly towards the door, readying themselves to ambush whatever lied behind it. Once they'd placed themselves in the optimal positions, Calendar punched the door open and rushed inside.

They saw a young man in a trench coat down on all fours next to their bed. In his hands was what appeared to be a pound of plastic explosive. When he saw the couple enter the room, his eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped from surprise.

"Okay," the young man said, "hear me out."

TEN MINUTES EARLIER

It’s not like you become a journalist for the respect. In fact, sitting in a shitbox Saturn S 1991 with no air conditioning for a few days would make most people lose all respect for themselves. Doing that in a trench coat while watching a bald gangster would drive many people to drink. On the contrary, for the young Jacob R. Dylan, he found these activities exhilarating. The thrill of the hunt in search of the truth was what pushed him forwards.

Besides, it's not like he was married to journalism. If he stopped enjoying it, he could always go back to school and start working for the government.

The weeks spent trailing the goon had finally paid off. Jacob had managed to track him to a run-down motel off of the 114. After getting out of his car, the man went up to the counter and rented a motel room. He went inside, probably to check it out and find the places where someone could hide with a gun. Once he was done, he picked the lock of the next room over, entered it, and left a few minutes later. Jacob decided not to follow him; whatever he put in the motel room was probably more incriminating.

Jacob surveyed the parking lot to make sure he was alone. Aside from two Fords that had clearly been out in the sun for too long, there was one other notable car. It was the Aston Martin Vantage parked next to the invaded motel room. The license plate was from Nevada. What were they doing all the way out in Louisiana? It was in awful condition; the car was covered with dents and a hole had been cut out of the ceiling on the passenger side. Jacob found himself involuntarily wincing. Sitting in his tattered Saturn S, he'd kill for the kind of car that had functional air conditioning.

He looked down at this stopwatch. It had been five minutes since the Dogman’s soldier had taken care of whatever nefarious deed he’d dealt. The midday sun assured Jacob that the motel room’s renters would not be back for a while. After making sure his guns were loaded into his sleeves, he got out of the car and walked up to the motel room. The lock to the door was short work for Jacob’s lockpick set. Jacob opened the door slowly; the Dogman was known to use explosives, and the last thing Jacob wanted to do was activate a tripwire. But Jacob didn’t hear a click, so he went inside the room, making sure to close the door behind him.

He didn’t know whether or not the gangster had tossed up the room looking for something, or if the room’s renters were just that messy. The drawers were ajar, furniture was strewn about and the bed was flipped upside down. Jacob couldn’t help but think: do people really live like this?

Jacob spent a few minutes examining the furniture, looking for something worth looking for. He stuck his hand in between the mattress and the bedframe and felt something dry but sticky, like play-dough. After dispelling himself of his initial preconceptions, he grabbed it and pulled it out. It was a large lump of Emulex, a plastic explosive that would've sent the motel room to hell and back.

His fear of holding a live explosive was briefly suppressed by his excitement. He’d finally found something that caught the Dogman dead to rights! It would be hard to prove—

The thought was interrupted by a tall red woman and a shorter man bursting into the room. Jacob realized that he’d chosen some unfortunate timing. He was down on the ground, in their apartment, after having broken in, with a glob of Emulex in his hand.

"Okay, hear me out," Jacob asked the couple.

They didn’t hear him out. Agent Calendar immediately closed the distance and delivered a kick to his stomach. It knocked the wind out of Jacob and maybe even broke a rib. In a second, Calendar had lifted Jacob a foot in the air by the scruff of his trench coat with one hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" she asked menacingly.

Jacob was still recovering his breath. "Dogman…" he managed to squeak out. He held up his hand with a glob of plastic explosive still stuck to it. "Bomb…" he said after breathing in.

Calendar grabbed the explosive out of his hand and tried to throw it out the window, but found that it stuck to her hand. After a few enthusiastic attempts to eject the Emulex from the room, she walked over to the window, broke it with her elbow, and smeared the Emulex across the outside wall.

"Hey, look at that!" Isaac said, pointing at a suspicious lump in Jacob's sleeve. Calendar reached in and yanked out a pistol attached to a spring-loaded sleeve holster.

"Were you trying to kill us?" Calendar asked, shaking Jacob a little.

"N— no…" Jacob stammered out between shallow breaths.

"Looks like this kid took Taxi Driver a little too seriously," Isaac said. Calendar inspected the other sleeve and found another holster and another gun.

"Listen," Jacob said, regaining his breath. "I'm a—" he coughed twice. "…journalist. The Dogman… cometh…"

"'Dog Man'?" Calendar said. "I might've hit him too hard."

"I'll tie him up," Isaac said. "Let's throw him in the back of the car while he gets his story straight."

Calendar paced outside of the motel room, trying her best to decide what to do. Jacob had his hands duct-taped in the back seat of the Aston Martin. He was still trying to fruitlessly talk his way out of the situation.

"Listen, I saw nothing!" Jacob yelled, muffled. "You have bigger fish to fry, anyways! The Dogman'll kill you! You have to get out of here!"

Isaac idly toyed with the spring-loaded gun holster. He flicked it forwards, and the gun sprung out into action. "Well, we can't just let him go," Isaac said. "He's seen you. He'll probably squeal at the first chance. If he's a journalist, he might even put it in the paper."

"Okay," Calendar said. "What's the easiest bone to break, again?"

"The fingers?"

"Then we'll break his fingers until he promises not to talk."

"No, no," Isaac said. "I have a better idea. Can you get that red map out of the glove compartment?"

Calendar nodded and walked over to the Aston Martin. Once she opened the door, Jacob started panicking.

"I have a hundred and ten dollars on me!" he said. "Plus, all the guns. Keep 'em! Just please, let me go!"

"You'd best shut up if you don't want a taste of my famous knuckle sandwich," Calendar threatened, shaking her fist. Jacob shrunk back into the seat and obliged, with pure fear seared into his face.

She opened the glove compartment and took out a red sheet of laminated paper. It was a map of all the highways and towns in the U.S.A. In addition, Foundation sites were highlighted in blue. At least, the Sites that Director House was cleared to know about.

Isaac pointed to the I-49 on the map. "We're close to here, right?" he said. He drew a line to Site-93 on the map. "They probably have amnestics."

"Amnesiacs?"

"No no, amnestics. It makes you forget stuff. The Foundation uses 'em all the time."

"Wow!" Calendar's eyes sparkled a little. "Just like alcohol! The drugs up here are incredible."

"We'll sneak in, steal some amnestics, and make this guy— Jacob— forget this little episode."

"Are you sure we have to sneak in? I want to break more stuff than that."

"They know who we are, we'd have to sneak."

"Why can't we just wear masks?"

Isaac looked Calendar up and down. "I don't think that would—"

He was interrupted by the Aston Martin peeling in reverse out of the parking lot and flooring it down the 114. Calendar saw Jacob in the front seat. In a few seconds they were left with a cloud of smoke.

"I thought he was tied up?" Isaac said.

"I had my horn fragment in the glove compartment," Calender said.

"I had the keys in the ignition."

"Crap."

As it turns out, hotwiring a car was a lot easier when you could bend reality itself to your whim. Although, being a Saturn S-Series, anyone could've figured it out given enough time. Unfortunately, time was at a premium now.

Calendar took the driver's seat, hunching over the wheel and rubbernecking at every little swamp and tree off the side of the road. She still hadn't internalized the concept of the brake being necessary to driving a car. Isaac found himself with one hand on the door handle and the other holding the red map. This time he was looking at the cities instead of the Foundation Sites.

"He'll probably head to Monroe," Isaac said. "It's the closest city that has a phone line."

"Monroe?" Calendar said. She glanced at a passing road sign indicating that Monroe was 20 miles away. "That's only twenty away!"

"Hopefully, we don't have to," Isaac said. "The Martin looks like a shitshow. A cop'll probably pull him over."

"Then, we'll go and beat the tar out of him, right?"

Isaac shrugged. "I don't know, I still think we can just wipe his memory—"

Calendar floored the gas pedal, sending the car accelerating far past the speed limit. "Okay, okay, we can beat him up!" Isaac conceded.

Calendar laughed in response. "I love ya', ya' big—"

She was interrupted by the wheels of the car suddenly tearing open. Within a few torturous seconds, the car ground to a halt.

"Great, now what?" Calendar exclaimed. She got out of the car and looked at the tires. She expected to see that natural wear and tear has finally caught up to the old worn wheels. Instead, she saw that the tires had been torn apart by a collection of metal nails strewn across the ground.

"Shit!" she yelled. She turned to Isaac. "Bail up!"

Isaac ducked just in time for the bullets to fly over his head. Calendar reached into the car and yanked out Isaac. She flipped over the car in the direction of the bullets. The ring-ding-ding of the ricochet of the bullets filled the air. From a nearby grassy hill, gunmen fired down on them.

For anyone who wasn't practically bulletproof, this would be a very bad situation.

Isaac rubbed his hands together and wrapped his forefinger around his eye. He pulled on it, bending reality to extend his eye like a periscope. He shaped it up and around the car's chassis to view the assailants.

"Three guys," he said. "AK's and bandanas. All lined up." He pointed in their direction.

Calendar nodded. She visualized the picture in her head. She couldn't do calculus, but she could do blood geometry pretty damn well. In an instant, she'd already ran through gravity, air resistance and impact. She couldn't tell you a single number, but she did it better than any physicist on planet Earth.

With a grunt, she slammed her shoulder into the car's chassis. The impact sent it flying at the assailants like a bullet. Two of them say it coming and pulled back, but one was too slow. The car slammed into him and turned his body into something resembling a meat pancake.

Seizing the opportunity, Calendar and Isaac stood and sprinted up the hill. When they reached the apex, Isaac surveyed the surroundings. The first thing he noticed the two men had thrown aside their guns and were running away as fast as possible. The second thing he noticed was the third man buried in the forest, holding some kind of radio device in his hands. The third thing he noticed was the sounds of beeping.

By the time he put these all together, the land mine exploded. The blast enveloped the two, the pain of the explosion shutting out all else. The couple was very swiftly knocked out.

People called Douglas many things. "Humorless" wasn't one of them. After the explosion had turned the hill into a smoldering rock, he was hooting and hollering like he'd just witnessed his favorite football team make a star touchdown.

"God damn!" he yelled in his characteristic southern accent, thick as rock sludge. He ran his hand through his iced tips. "Send that demon back to hell where she belongs!"

His remaining men weren't as enthused. "They killed Harold," one of them said.

Douglas pulled down his bandana, revealing a more serious countenance. "May he rest in peace, like all soldiers who died fighting for their cause." He paused and made the sign of the cross. "Now if we don't want his death to be in vain, let's get Isaac on the truck."

The three trotted over to the hilltop, which was now as black as coal. The explosion had knocked out Isaac and his chaperone out cold.

"I knew he was made of stronger stuff," Douglas remarked, poking Isaac with the base of his AK. "Seems that she got lucky too. I'll be honest, I was hoping that land mine woulda' torn this imperialist to shreds."

Douglas prodded the demon a couple of times, looking for a reaction. She was still kicking, just unconscious.

"What a shame," Douglas remarked. He drew his M1911 from his belt. "Good thing there are few mistakes on this planet Samuel Colt can't fix."

He pulled the trigger aimed right at her head. The bullet only lodged itself in her thick skull; she sucked in a sudden breath as her eyes opened.

"God damn!" Douglas exclaimed. "That only woke her up!"

"What do we do?" one of his men asked.

Douglas gestured at Isaac. "Inject him with enough Pentobarbital to keep him under. Leave her."

"She killed Harold!" the henchman said. "You know she'll come after us!"

"We got a job to do. There are specific individuals depending on us. Let's not add 'tardiness' to our long list a' crimes."

When you grow up in the Wrath Layer, you experience a lot of things that would kill a lesser being. The lava pits alone would scorch you to the core. The exploding sulfur crystals, although undeniably fun to play with, would dig themselves into your skin if you got too close. Giant demon birds would try to tear you apart, and that's the megafauna you worry the least about. That's not even touching on the celebrities. If you've never met Demon Nixon on a bad day, you want to keep it that way.

The point being, very little topside could kill Agent Calendar. That didn't mean it didn't hurt like hell.

Calendar had more broken bones than a museum and a migraine that could incapacitate a horse. Thankfully, the bullet had only hit the part of her brain responsible for rational thought. She dragged herself along the tattered road, trying to tough out the searing pain. The tire treads had taken her here, and she was hoping she could catch up to Isaac before those creeps could do anything to him.

Spotting a nice inclined rock, she pulled herself over and laid down. Twenty five sets of fifty couldn't have prepared her for this. She felt every combination of exhaustion, pain and fear all at once. She was so tired. If it wasn't for Isaac, she would've collapsed by now.

Something caught her eye. Calendar looked down into the forest, through the trees. An old Prohibition saloon was nested into the wilderness. The wood was falling apart and the roof had partially caved in; it had been abandoned for years. What's more, there was a pay-phone right outside.

Calendar decided that it was time to face the music. If she was going to call for help once in her life, there was no better time than today.

After popping some displaced bone sockets back into place, Calendar trudged towards the pay phone. She took the phone off the hook and stared at the keypad. She pushed her finger into the buttons eight times, waiting for the dial tone to stop and for Director House to answer. Unfortunately, she'd failed to realize that the "mash-the-buttons-eight-times-to-reach-Director-House" trick was a feature specific to Site-666. When that failed, she tried again, with her fist. She knocked the phone booth right off its hinges.

Great, she thought. Now what?

She then noticed that there was an Aston Martin with the roof cut open parked at that abandoned saloon, and got a better idea.

The painkillers hadn't kicked in yet. That's okay, the pain kept Jacob awake. As he sawed into the barrel of the shotgun, he was thinking about the worst case scenarios. If the Dogman was willing to risk a move like this, it had to be his endgame. Jacob thought of all the evidence he'd collected on the Dogman over the years, trying to find a pattern. The drug trafficking, the murders, the shady machine sales. Now, the demon lady, her boyfriend and the land mine explosion he'd just heard. It all has to mean something… right?

There were more pressing issues for now; Jacob was defenseless in unfamiliar territory. He was lucky that he'd managed to find this saloon that still had a shotgun behind the bar. With Jacob's aloofness, being in this area without a firearm was like swimming without a life vest.

His thinking was interrupted by the door to the old saloon being thrown open. The eight foot tall demon lady he'd seen earlier ducked past the doorway into the bar. Jacob gasped, dropped the hacksaw and pointed the shotgun at her. The sawed-off part of the barrel hung off of the gun like a child's tooth right before it falls out.

Calendar plucked the bullet out of her forehead and tossed it aside. "Your friend the Dogman just tried that. Do you think you'll get lucky?"

"Listen," Jacob said, trying not to let the fear show in his voice. "I'm sorry we got off of the wrong foot. I'm actually a very polite guy, you see. I'm sorry I stole your car, too."

"Chill out." Calendar said. "I don't want to punch you, yet. We have a common enemy."

"I agree."

"So why are you pointing that gun at me?"

"I'll be honest, I'm afraid if I put it down, you'll hit me again."

"I won't. Deal?"

"Deal." Jacob put the shotgun down on the table. Calendar leaned in like she was going to punch him, and Jacob flinched. But instead of punching him, Calendar just started laughing.

"My name's Calendar," she said, in between chuckles. "If you want to be a warrior, you have a long way to go!"

"I'm not a fighter, I'm a journalist."

"Then why all the guns?" Calendar mimed like she was flicking her wrist forwards, deploying the hidden pistol from her imaginary sleeve.

Jacob shrugged, sat back down and resumed cutting through the barrel. "People shoot at me a lot. It might be my fault, though. I've been doing a lot of reflection lately. It might be my personality." Jacob looked around. "Where's the other guy?"

"The Dogman took him. Who is he and what does he want with Isaac?"

Jacob remembered hearing the explosion. "He probably wants something with him. His full name's Douglas Mansfield. He was a demolitions expert in the army before he got discharged. He's the president of the Louisiana Flat Earth Society. Bunch of loons."

"Wait, the Earth isn't flat?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Jacob went behind the bar and grabbed another shotgun. "They had two of these here, want one?"

"I don't need anything other than these guns," she said, flexing her biceps.

"Your funeral," Jacob replied, setting the shotgun down. He started grabbing old bottles and stuffing them in his trench coat. "He's been moving machinery into his hideout for the past month or so. He's doing something. I thought he was making meth, but with everything I've seen I'm not sure anymore." He gestured at Calendar. "You're a demon, right? That makes me reevaluate my worldview a little."

Calendar tried to sit down in one of the dilapidated wooden chairs, but it collapsed under her weight. "He has a hideout? Some kind of shady bar, like this one?"

"Nope. It's a Lowe's."

"What's a Lowe's?"

"The— actually, not that important." Jacob took a map out and unfolded it. "It's right here. You can make it there in a few hours if you take I-49."

"Fantastic!" Calender exclaimed. She got up and made her way to the door. "Come on, let's go take 'em head on!"

"Wait, 'lets'?" Jacob said. "I'm not going with you. My boss wants a report on this guy by Wednesday."

"You might not be there yet, but there's the heart of a warrior in ya', Jacob," Calendar said. "Takes a lot of balls to steal that car. We're gonna go and make the Dogman pay for what he's done! Also, if you don't come with me, I'm breaking your legs."

"Fair enough. Let's."

By the time Isaac woke up, he could tell that he'd been moved somewhere. He was in a dark room, lying on some kind of warm concrete. He wasn't bound, but he could tell that he'd been drugged.

As he lurched forwards into the sitting position, the door to the room opened. A man with blonde hair, iced tips, and the tackiest Hawaiian shirt Isaac had ever seen walked through the door. He took off a blue vest, pulled up a chair and sat next to Isaac.

"Sorry about the inconvenience, Isaac," the man said. "I had to separate you from our friends at the Federal Bureau of Imperialism."

That's the guy who blew me up! Isaac thought. He was woozy; he had a hard time getting the thoughts through his head. The 'Dogman'?

"Who are you?" Isaac asked.

"I'm a true American patriot," the Dogman said. "A man with a vision. But who I am is less important than what we can do together."

"What?"

The Dogman stood up. "I know what you must think of me. I wouldn't blame you; if I were in your boots I'd want to tear my head off. But you have to realize, what we can gain as friends far outweighs what we lose as enemies."

After a pause, the Dogman sat back down. "You've been illegally detained by a paramilitary group called the SCP Foundation."

"Tell me something I don't know," Isaac said.

"The crimes they've committed would shock even the worst of us." The Dogman leaned forwards. "'Mass Detainment' is too kind a word. They've taken people, experimented on 'em, tortured 'em, and for what?" He gestured at the ceiling. "Some sacred definition of 'normalcy'? So we can still keep livin' in the god damned globalist system they control? That's just not fair. They hoard the world in their golden fortresses, and they don't even got the decency to tell us they're doin' it!

"I want to take 'em down, Isaac. Like the Founding Fathers did to this great nation, I want to cast off its shackles!" He stood up. "Now, will you help me do that?"

"You like hearing the sound of your own voice, don't you?" Isaac said.

"I'll take that as a 'no', then."

"Even with whatever you've drugged me with, I can still tell you're an asshole."

"Well, then I'll just need your help today."

"Didn't you hear me? I said no way in hell."

The Dogman adopted a more serious expression. "This one isn't really up to you."

Isaac suddenly became aware that he wasn't just lying on the cold concrete floor. Ancient symbols were engraved into the top of the stone slab he'd found himself on.

"It's pretty fortunate that I was able to find a Type Green on such short notice," the Dogman continued. "Otherwise, I'd never be able to get this to work."

"You piece of—" Isaac tried to make the Dogman's head explode, but suddenly found himself a lot more woozy.

"I only gave you a little bit of adrenaline. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. I hope you like meeting aliens soon, Isaac. I hear they're nice people."

The Dogman stood up and left the room as Isaac fell back asleep.

"Oh, so it's like a Home Depot," Calendar remarked.

From the nearby dive bar, Agent Calendar and Jacob found a vantage point of the Lowe's. It seemed impregnable from the outside. In preparation for the incursion, Jacob used duct tape to attach a flashlight to the sawed-off barrel of his shotgun. Calendar had mostly healed and was still snapping her bones back into their proper places.

"Here's the plan," Jacob said. "We get in through the back. They're probably keeping your friend Isaac somewhere in the storage room. Once we find him, we get him out. No need to run into anyone else."

"Why not?" Calendar asked. She cracked her knuckles.

"Because if he finds us, he's going to kill us," Jacob said. He looked Calendar up and down. "…at least, he'll kill me."

"Exactly! Without anomalies, they can't touch me."

"Anomalies?"

"Yeah, I work for this organization called the SCP Foundation," Calendar said. "We contain things that are dangerous to people. The only way they could ever hurt me is if they had one of those things."

"Word of advice: you might want to keep that fact under wraps," Jacob said. "They probably don't have anything, but just in case, we shouldn't barge in."

Calendar nodded.

"That's where this comes in," Jacob said as he took out the bottle and set it on the table. He stuffed a washcloth into the top. "It's a Molotov Cocktail."

"Ooh!" Calendar nodded. "Sounds like a helluva drink."

"I guess you can say that. If we throw it into the storefront, it'll light a fire. That should distract them for long enough for us to get in."

"Yeah. Then I take the Dogman's head off like the dog he is!"

"Sounds good, but leave him alive. I need to get a report on him."

"I know you're still in 'warrior training', so I'll only tell you this once." Calendar looked Jacob right in the eyes. "If someone messes with you, you make sure they never mess with you again."

"Excuse me," the bartender said, "but I'm going to have to ask you two to leave. You're making the other patrons very uncomfortable."

The barflies stared at them with a mixture of shock and awe, having heard them discuss their entire plan. Jacob and Calendar awkwardly got up and left the bar before the situation got any worse.

Jacob and Calender crouched outside of the Lowe's. Night had fallen, drenching the city in a cold black shawl. The thrill ran high for both of them. Jacob was mentally preparing himself to confront his greatest enemy yet. Calendar was imaging turning the Dogman's spine into a violin string and then the night after with Isaac.

After a nod, Jacob lit the cocktail and threw it into the building. The bottle shattered and the fire alarm went off. The two intruders ran around the building and approached the back door.

The Flat Earthers inside picked up rifles and moved to address the fire. Douglas, who expected something like this to happen, stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"You morons!" he yelled. "Jacob's doing the Molotov trick again. Get to the back!"

By the time Jacob had subtlety tried to pick the lock, gave up, and then kicked the door in, the Flat Earthers had already collected themselves around the door, rifles pointed very aggressively. Jacob very quickly realized that he was outgunned; one shotgun against five AK's.

"God damn, Jacob!" the Dogman yelled. "I thought you were a hot-blooded American! I thought you'd be above partnering with these traitors!"

"Damn it! They made us!" Jacob yelled. He dropped his shotgun and dove outside behind the wall. The henchmen fired their guns through the thin plaster wall. Jacob could feel the bullets whizzing past his back.

"Don't worry!" Calendar yelled. "Your distraction sucked, but I have a better one!"

Calendar tore the door off of its hinges, using it as an impromptu shield. The bullets fired by the Flat Earthers ricocheted off of the steel door. She immediately charged one of the henchmen, and the collision with the battering ram sent him flying across the room. Tossing the door up and grabbing it by the edge, she then slammed it into another henchman, dislocating his shoulder and sending him to the ground. Seeing this scene, the Dogman dropped his rifle and ran.

Jacob could hear an aircraft engine above. Shit, a helicopter? He had to work fast.

He ran through the now-open doorway. Calendar did serve as an effective distraction; the gunmen were all focused on her. They shot at her, and some of the shots hit true, but it didn't seem to bother her that much. Taking his shotgun, Jacob tried to slam it into one of the henchmen's necks to disable him, unleashing a hearty cry as he did so. However, he only clumsily hit the guard in the shoulder. The gunman turned around to face Jacob, his bandana'd face only revealing the rage in his eyes. However, the gunman was lifted two feet into the air by Calendar, who tossed him across the room at the last standing henchman.

The gunman who had previously been bashed across the room had stood up, reacquired his rifle and was now firing. Jacob, who had become adept at ducking and covering at the sound of gunfire, rolled to hide behind several bags of loam soil. Calendar was now trying to suplex a forklift.

I've got to get the Dogman before he gets away, Jacob thought.

Suddenly, the roof was torn off of the building and a blue light bathed the room. Jacob and Calendar looked up. It wasn't a helicopter; a flying saucer now hovered above them, filling the air with a warbling noise. A beam of turquoise light came down from the saucer's center. The Dogman, who had been hiding in his office, was being pulled up into the saucer.

"I knew it!" he yelled, cackling like a madman. "Aliens are real! The Earth is flat! Elvis Presley never existed!"

Jacob found his jaw dropping. Calendar dropped the forklift out of confusion.

"Now with my newfound allies, I can finally destroy the SCP Foundation!" the Dogman continued. He laughed as he vanished into the saucer, which proceeded to fly off into the night.

Calendar ran into the office and found Isaac lying on a stone slab. He was still out cold; the incident had drained his energy.

"Jacob!" Calendar yelled. "Your plan didn't work!"

"Hold on," Jacob said. "I've got something for this."

Jacob took some smelling salts and waved them under Isaac's nose. Isaac awoke with a yell and punched Jacob in the face. The punch sent him reeling.

"Ow!" Jacob yelled.

"Are you alright?" Calendar asked, kneeling down next to Isaac. "What did he do to you?"

"I'm fine," Jacob said, oblivious to the fact that he wasn't the subject of the question. A glare from Calendar shut him up.

"Nothing," Isaac said. "Dogman just knocked me out and used me to summon those aliens."

"Those were aliens?" Jacob said. "What a world we live in."

"I'm gonna be honest, guys," the last standing Flat Earther said, "I thought this was just a white supremacist thing. Sorry about shooting at you."

After standing in awe of the wonder of the universe for a while, the wall was exploded by a breach charge. Several agents in body armor emblazoned with the Foundation insignia stormed in with their guns drawn.

"Freeze!" one of them yelled. "Hands in the air!"

Everybody involved put their hands in the air.

One of the agents came forwards. Calendar recognized him as Agent Adams, just with a layer of body armor.

"Looks like the BOLO hit on House's car paid off," he said. "All of you. Director House wants to see you."

Douglas was aware of the irony of describing the experience as "alien". Surrounded by technology you didn't recognize, tiny green men who spoke a language you didn't, and overall an atmosphere different from the Lowe's he'd been in five minutes prior.

The aliens were fiddling with their universal translators. Finding English wasn't the hard, but deciphering Douglas' thick accent into something recognizable.

"Finally, the translation device is working," one of the aliens said, breaking the awkward silence.

"Thank God," Douglas said. "Now, you're gonna wanna hear about this."

"No thank you," the alien said. "We are not interested in buying anything. Now, do you have directions to Omega Messier?"

"Wait, you're askin' me for directions? Whadd' I look like, an astronomer?"

"You had the beacon, that indicated that you would be able to provide directions."

"This is why we should have stopped on Saturn instead!" one of the other aliens yelled.

"Wait a second," Douglas said. "There's this organization on Earth, the SCP Foundation, that has, uh, 'mass detained', your…"

"It's a religious nut," the alien said. "Dump him back on Earth."

"Wait, wait, wa—"

The tractor beam was quickly thrown into reverse. Within a few seconds, Douglas found himself in a field, without any allies and scammed by charlatans who advertised much more cooperative aliens. Before Douglas could ask himself how this day could get any worse, he'd realized he'd left his cell phone in the flying saucer, thinking that it was going to be a more permanent partnership. In frustration, Douglas kicked a rock across the field while screaming in anger.

This tale was written for RomCon. Agent Calendar belongs to Rounderhouse and Isaac belongs to Iszth. Rounderhouse's tale is posted here.