Five-Finger Discount - SCP Foundation

Site-37. Two researchers watch a security video obtained from a coffee shop in Three Portlands.

On the screen, two figures sit across from each other at a low table, frozen in time.

“So, this isn’t a skip?” Dr. George Anderson’s tone seems perturbed.

“Nope. PoI.” Director Sal LeKidde, of Site-37, either doesn’t notice, or doesn’t care about, his colleague’s perturbance. “It’s just an interview, not a containment.”

“And you need a researcher to do this… why?”

The Director shifts his weight onto his left leg. “It’s a bit… risky.”

“D-class?”

“Tried it. Watch.”

LeKidde points at the screen, and hits the spacebar on the keyboard in front of them. The scene, paused midway through, plays.

“Now that… we’ve, ok. Now.. OK, just can we begin the interview?”

D-13811, wearing a tasteful brown suit, opens a notepad. His nervousness is palpable.

Across from him sits a slender, medium-height, olive-skinned human, wearing a white cassock, befitting their role of an Apostle in the Fifthist Church. Stephane, the Apostle, to be exact.

They seem bemused.

“I don’t know what they told you about me, but relax. I can’t hurt you.”

D-13811 is obviously unconvinced. “They showed .. they showed me a video of a Fifthist doing the .. you know, the, uh, inside-out thingy?”

“Oh! The Turning… listen, you’d really have to piss me off, and second, you’re not a Fifthist.”

“So?” The would-be interviewer allows a slight tone of hope to creep into the question.

“In order for the Turning to work, you have to be in a certain… state of mind. One that a Fifthist is in naturally, but you, I’d reckon, are not. Now, if I wanted to, I could put you into that state of mind, but you’d see that coming a mile away, I’m sure.”

D-13811’s deep breaths become a little more shallow.

The Director hits the right arrow, and speeds through about ten minutes of film.

“Here’s what you should see.” He hits the arrow key again.

The video continues at speed. D-13811 is writing something in his notebook. He makes a furtive glance over his companion’s shoulder, and lingers just a moment too long.

Stephane the Apostle suddenly looks less than happy. They look over their shoulder, and in a moment their gaze finds its way straight into the lens of the not-hidden-well-enough camera.

“I said no cameras.”

D-13811 shifts uncomfortably, and makes a show of looking over to the corner, trying to feign surprise. “That’s.. that’s not on.”

An apostolic eyebrow raises. “Come on. We both know that’s not true.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Stephane stares him down.

D-13811 swallows. Hard “Ok.. ok, it’s on, but it’s just there.. It’s just..”

Stephane smiles innocently. “Why? Are you that afraid of a cleric?”

Gulp. D-13811 regains his composure. Slightly. “Well, th- the turn–”

Stephane shakes their head, slowly. “I already told you, you have to be in a certain frame of mind.” They stare down their opposite, any sign of their earlier joviality gone.

D-13811 stands, fumbling with his notepad. “I’ll… I’ll go make them turn it off.”

He is ignored. “Listen. What number did they give me?”

“Number?”

“Number. I know I’m a person of interest. You all like to number people like me. What is that number.” Stephane has the tone of a teacher, who already knows the answer, but is waiting for their student to find it themselves.

“Uhm..” D-13811 checks his notebook. “PoI-5257.”

Stephane smiles, slightly. “Excellent. Now tell me, what is 52 minus 57

“Uh… just..” He looks sheepish, and flips open his notebook. A few scratches later: “Minus 5?”

The smile widens. “Are you positive?”

“Y… yes.”

“Perfect. Now hold that thought. Be positive that it is minus 5.” The smile grows to be more cheshire than human. “Now, what is the sound of five fingers snapping?”

“What?”

Stephane raises their right hand, and in one swift motion, uses their thumb to snap with each finger in turn.

“What’s that m-” D-13811’s response is cut short, as Stephane mimes unzipping a zipper.

Starting at the top of his head, D-13811’s skin begins to split down the front. With it go muscles, veins, bones, nerves, everything, slicing down and beginning to fold outwards and around to the back.

In about a minute, everything that once was D-13811 has folded itself inside out, in flagrant violation of any number of the laws of biology or physics. Time seems to stand still for just a moment, the golem of inverted bone and flesh holding in the shape of a human. Then, in an instant, the figure falls apart. Organs and veins flop down to the ground; intestines splatter out in all directions, while the skeleton, inside out but intact, falls down directly, bone atop bone. The skull comes to rest, almost cartoonishly, on top of the pile.

Stephane’s smile has gone. They look neither happy nor sad with the outcome of this interview, but rather resolutely they stand, and head for the the door.

When their right hand reaches the crash bar, the apostle looks back towards the camera. With a slow shaking of the head, Stephane raises their left hand, palm away from the lens.

Five middle fingers are raised towards the camera.

The video shuts off.

“So, that’s… that. You can see why I want someone with an actual head on their shoulders to sub in.”

George doesn’t look thrilled at the prospect. “How’d they.. they were all middle!”

The Director blinks. “That’s what you’re having trouble processing from all this?”

George just stares blankly in return.

A coffee shop in Three Portlands. Different, and yet somehow the same as the last. After a while, they all tend to bleed together.

Dr. George Anderson and Stephane the Fifthist Apostle sit next to each other at a high window bar. They are mid-conversation.

“So.. ok. So..” George trails off, while reading back through his notes. “So you were alive then, and you are alive now, but you weren’t alive in between, and you weren’t dead, either.”

Stephane nods. “A bit reductive, but yes. I think you’ve finally got it.”

George chuckles nervously. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“Let it go for now. What do you want to know about me?”

“Well, ok.” George flips a page. “We have a copy of the Cretean Codex where it see-”

Stephane cuts him off with a wave of their hand. “No. Let that all go for now. What do you want to know about me?” A coy smile begins to take its place on the apostle’s lips.

“I.. I’m just here to ask the questions. That’s all.”

“You shouldn’t play poker, you know.”

The researcher breaks a smile for the first time in the hour-plus interview. “Am I that obvious?”

“Yes.”

A silence, as though George is waiting for a longer answer. One is not forthcoming.

“Ok…. uhm… so, do you play poker?”

Stephane laughs. “That is not at all what you’re wanting to ask! But yes, yes I do. Five-card stud, five-card monty, five-car-”

Now it’s George’s turn to wave off Stephane. “I get it. I get it.” He smiles, in spite of himself.

Stephane grabs onto and holds his gaze, just a little longer than George is comfortable with. “Ask me something you actually want to know.”

George swallows. “Ok.. so.” He shakes his head slightly. “I have no idea how to ask this.”

“Just ask.”

“Ok.. I… I noticed this on the video, but I didn’t really notice it until we started talking. Are you… are you… I mean – “ He holds his hands up as if to say ‘wait, let me try to remember how HR said to phrase this’ “— how do you identify… gender-wise?” The lilt at the end indicates his question is just as much wondering if he said it right as it is making the inquiry itself.

Stephane laughs, and rests their head on their hand. “Yes.”

George nods. “So.. non-binary? Or do you mean .. uh… pan-gender? Or.. is that how… oh God I’m screwing this all up.”

The apostle smiles steadily at them. “You’re thinking like you, not like me. Take a good look at me. All over.”

George blushes; he’d done that more than once already. He acquiesces easily to the request.

“Ok, now look at each part of me. For example. Hands? I like to go more traditionally masculine. Strength. Thighs, on the other hand, I find that your idea of feminine is where I tend to be most comfortable. Are you getting this yet?”

The researcher, with some effort, breaks off his gaze. “I… so, you’re.. different genders?”

“Almost.. Sort of. Let me see if I can explain this. You know how gender is a construct?”

George nods.

“Well, I simply deconstructed it.”

George nods in comprehension. Then shakes his head in incomprehension. “So you’re like… Schrödinger's gender?”

The apostle laughs a little too loud. George looks sheepish as people turn to look. The Fifthist doesn’t seem to care.

Stephane’s eyes sparkle. “Shh. That’s not important. The question that matters is.. do you like what you see?”

George snaps back at the abruptness of the question. He does his best impression of a man offended, before his composure breaks under the weight of his companion’s gaze.

“I… I don’t know what I’m seeing.”

“So what! Do you like it?”

George sighs, and stares a hole into the table in front of him. “Y… yeah.” A smile creeps out in spite of his best effort. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Good.” Stephane reaches their right hand out and takes George’s left. They look thoughtful for a moment. “Wedding ring?”

George nods a little too fast. “Yeah..” With a speed he doesn’t quite see coming, he rushes to add, “but we’re open. I mean, I’m open. Or I mean, I’m supposed to be…” He looks completely embarrassed. Stephane simply raises an eyebrow, and stares him down.

After a minute’s worth of an eternity, George continues. “I’m … supposed to be exploring my…” Gulp. “Exploringmysexuality. For the good of our marriage. Does that sound completely stupid?”

Stephane squeezes George’s hand. “Sounds perfectly rational to me.”

George sighs.

A few minutes – moments? – pass. George finally summons some sort of gumption from a past version of himself he’d thought long since left behind. “Ok listen… I… I like you, I think, but how do I know? I mean, How? I don’t know if you’re even you. I mean.. like, I’m looking at you right now, and it’s like I’m seeing you perfectly and not at all, all at once. How are you.. what are … why are you so…”

“…Weird?” Stephane offers.

George shrugs and looks away.

“Listen, you’re speaking entirely from your lived experiences, which are by nature borne of your reality. You’re trying to understand me the same way.”

George nods. “Okay…”

“I’m not in your reality. Right now, sitting here next to you, your reality is all around mine, but I am not in it. Fifthism – and by extension, me – isn’t an anomaly in the way you’re used to studying. Being anomalous implies that the thing is part of your reality, but is.. wrong. Not the way your reality is supposed to be. That’s what you study, right?”

“Yeah, more or less…”

“Ok, well. I’m like you, but I’m not like you. You’ve stared into the void – I’ve heard the darkness giggle. What you see as real is, but isn’t, all at once. This pocket that I’m in, that is me, right now, isn’t your reality. At all. It’s taking the shape of a portion of your reality, but.. ok, how did the prophet put it? ‘I reject your reality and substitute my own’ – in here – “ they motion to their body “ – isn’t what it is out there. Does that make sense?”

George nods, first right to left, then up and down. “Is that why our SRAs didn’t wor–” He catches himself. Wasn’t supposed to say that.

Stephane laughs. “It’s okay. I knew. And actually, the anchors worked perfectly. See, they can’t anchor me to your reality, because according to your reality, I’m not here. The reality in which I reside is here, and as that reality is to itself as real as your reality is to you, the SRAs did their job. They made sure what was real remained intact. Both of our realities, neither being anomalous, were well and truly..uh..anchored.”

George relaxes his hand – when did he begin squeezing Stephane’s hand anyway? – but he doesn’t pull it away.

“So, when I look at you, you’re real, but you’re not… here. You’re there, and it’s just that your ‘there’ is here.”

“There it is… how you said: more or less.”

They share a laugh.

After a moment, George self-consciously manages to pull his hand away, and makes a clumsy show of flipping a page. “Ok.. so, uh… mind if I ask you more questions?”

Stephane tries to hide their disappointment behind a grin. “Anything.”

“So.. the Five .. Expressions –”

“Concepts.”

“— Concepts. How does that work, like, how are there always five?”

“That’s tough. Where to start… ok. You know how when you cut off a starfish’s arm, a new one will grow back so that it always has five arms?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nothing like that … it’s everything like that.”

George cocks his head. “I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere.”

Stephane smiles. “When was the last time you watched Kingdom of Heaven?”

“God, it’s been ages.”

The apostle stands bolt upright, and holds out his hand. “I’ve got it back at my place. Let’s go, it’ll help me explain.”

George pauses for a moment, then slowly, but resolutely, takes Stephane’s hand in his own. “Just for the sake of the question…for science.” He tries to sound firm. He fails.

“Pfft..science. That’s your reality. Come..let me show you mine.”

This story is part of RomCon 2023, a link to which, and to my partner's entry, will go here!