+ CODE

- CODE

/*
BLANKSTYLE CSS
[2021 Wikidot Theme]
By Placeholder McD and HarryBlank
Based on:
Paperstack Theme by EstrellaYoshte
Penumbra Theme by EstrellaYoshte
*/

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Montserrat:ital,wght@0,800;1,800&display=swap');

#page-content { font-size: .9rem; }

#main-content {
top: -1.6rem;
padding: 0.2em;
}

div#container-wrap {
background-image: none;
}

div#header {
background-image: none;
}

#header h1, #header h2 { margin-left: 0; float: none; text-align: center; }
#header h2 { margin-top: 0.5rem; }
#header h1 span, #header h2 span { font-size: 0; display: none;}
#header h1 a::before, #header h2::before {
color: #000;
letter-spacing: 1px;
font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif !important;
text-shadow: none;
}

#header h1 a::before {
content: var(--header-title, "R\0026 C SITE-43");
font-weight: 400;
font-size: 1.3em;
}

#header h2::before {
content: var(--header-subtitle, "SUBVERTING COMMON PRACTICE");
font-weight: 700;
font-size: 1.2em;
}

@media (max-width: 707px) {
#header h1 a::before {
font-size: 1.6em;
}
}

#login-status,
#login-status a {
color: #333333;
}

#page-title {
display: none;
}

#footer, #footer a {
background: transparent;
color: #333333;
}

#search-top-box-input,
#search-top-box-input:hover,
#search-top-box-input:focus,
#search-top-box-form input[type=submit],
#search-top-box-form input[type=submit]:hover,
#search-top-box-form input[type=submit]:focus {
border: none;
background: #333333;
box-shadow: none;
border-radius: 0px;
color: #efefef;
}

#search-top-box input.empty {
color: #999999;
}

#search-top-box {
top: 2.3rem!important;
right: 8px;
}

#top-bar {
display: flex;
justify-content: center;
right: 0;
top: 7.9rem;
}

#top-bar, #top-bar a {
color: #333333;
}

h1,
h2,
h3,
h4,
h5,
h6 {
font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif;
color: #000;
letter-spacing: 1px;
}

h1 {
font-size: 2em;
}

h2 {
font-size: 1.45em;
}

div#extra-div-1 {
height: 160px;
width: 100%;
top: 0;
position: absolute;
background: url('https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/theme%3Ablankstyle/43Head.png');
background-size: contain;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-position: 50% 50%;
z-index: -1;
}

@media (max-width: 707px) {
div#extra-div-1 {
top: 15px;
}
}

body {
background-image: linear-gradient(
to bottom,
#e0e0e0, #e0e0e0 90px,
#e0e0e0 90px, #ffffff 200px,
#ffffff 200px, #ffffff 100%);
background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

:root {
--timeScale: 1.5;
--timeDelay: 1.5s;
--posX: calc(50% - 358px - 13rem);
--fnLinger: 1s;
}

#page-content hr {
background-color: #000;
}

#page-content tr th {
padding: 6px;
border: #000 1px solid;
}

#page-content tr td {
padding: 12px;
border: #000 1px solid;
line-height: 1.4;
}

#page-content .sidebox tr td,
#page-content .sidebox tr th {
padding: 0.35em;
}

#side-bar {
border-right: 1px solid #333;
background: #DDD;
}

#side-bar .side-block {
border: 1px solid #333;
border-radius: 0;
box-shadow: none;
}

#top-bar div.open-menu a {
border: 1px solid #333;
border-radius: 0;
box-shadow: none;
}

@media (max-width: 767px) {
#side-bar:target {
border: 1px black;
box-shadow: none;
}
}

#side-bar .side-block {
border: 1px solid #333;
border-radius: 0;
box-shadow: none;
background-color: #FDF6D7;
}
#side-bar .side-block.media {
background-color:#D7EFE7;
}
#side-bar .side-block.resources {
background-color:#F5D8E0;
}

#page-content .creditRate{
margin: unset;
margin-bottom: 4px;
}
#page-content .rate-box-with-credit-button {
background-color: #ffffff;
border: solid 1px #000;
box-shadow: none;
border-radius: 0;
}

#page-content .rate-box-with-credit-button .fa-info {
border: none;
color: #333333;
}

#page-content .rate-box-with-credit-button .fa-info:hover {
background: #333333;
color: #ffffff;
}

.rate-box-with-credit-button .cancel {
border: solid 1px #ffffff;
}

/* ---- PAGE RATING ---- */

.page-rate-widget-box {
box-shadow: none;
border: solid 1px #000;
margin: unset;
margin-bottom: 4px;
border-radius: 0;
}

div.page-rate-widget-box .rate-points {
background-color: #ffffff;
color: #333333;
border: none;
border-radius: 0;
}
.page-rate-widget-box .rateup,
.page-rate-widget-box .ratedown {
background-color: #ffffff;
border-top: none;
border-bottom: none;
}

.page-rate-widget-box .rateup a,
.page-rate-widget-box .ratedown a {
background: transparent;
color: #333333;
}

.page-rate-widget-box .rateup a:hover,
.page-rate-widget-box .ratedown a:hover {
background: #333333;
color: #ffffff;
}

.page-rate-widget-box .cancel {
background: transparent;
background-color: #ffffff;
border: none;
border-radius: 0;
}

.page-rate-widget-box .cancel a {
color: #333333;
}
.page-rate-widget-box .cancel a:hover {
background: #333333;
color: #ffffff;
border-radius: 0;
}
#page-content .rate-box-with-credit-button .page-rate-widget-box { border: none; }

.anchor {
position: sticky;
height:0;
top: 0;
}
.sidebox {
padding: .14rem;
margin-top: 0;
margin-bottom: 8px;
width: calc((100vw - 870px)/2);
max-height: calc(100vh - 18rem);
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 103.5%;
z-index: 5;
overflow: auto;
box-sizing: border-box;
}
@media (max-width: 1290px) {
.sidebox {
display: none;
visibility: hidden;
}

#header h2::before {
font-size: 0.9em !important;
}
}

.scp-image-block {
box-shadow: none;
}

/* ---- YUI TAB BASE ---- */
.yui-navset .yui-nav a,.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav a{background-color:inherit;background-image:inherit}.yui-navset .yui-nav a:hover,.yui-navset .yui-nav a:focus{background:inherit;text-decoration:inherit}.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a,.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a:focus,.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a:hover{color:inherit;background:inherit}.yui-navset .yui-nav,.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav{border-color:inherit}.yui-navset li{line-height:inherit}

/* ---- YUI TAB CUSTOMIZATION ----*/

.yui-navset .yui-nav,
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav{
display: flex;
flex-wrap: wrap;
width: calc(100% - .125rem);
margin: 0 auto;
border-color: #333333;
box-shadow: none;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav a, /* ---- Link Modifier ---- */
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav a{
color: #333333;
/* ---- Tab Background Colour | [UNSELECTED] ---- */
background-color: #efefef;
border: unset;
box-shadow: none;
box-shadow: none;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav a:hover,
.yui-navset .yui-nav a:focus{
color: #ffffff;
/* ---- Tab Background Colour | [HOVER] ---- */
background-color: #333333;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav li, /* ---- Listitem Modifier ---- */
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav li{
position: relative;
display: flex;
flex-grow: 2;
max-width: 100%;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
color: #ffffff;
background-color: #ffffff;
border-color: transparent;
box-shadow: none;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav li a,
.yui-navset-top .yui-nav li a,
.yui-navset-bottom .yui-nav li a{
display: flex;
align-items: center;
justify-content: center;
width: 100%;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav li em{
border: unset;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav a em,
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav a em{
padding: .35em .75em;

text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
white-space: nowrap;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected, /* ---- Selection Modifier ---- */
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-nav .selected{
flex-grow: 2;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
/* ---- Tab Background Colour | [SELECTED] ---- */
background-color: #333333;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a,
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a em{
border: none;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a{
width: 100%;
color: #ffffff;
}
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a:focus,
.yui-navset .yui-nav .selected a:active{
color: #ffffff;
background-color: #333333;
}
.yui-navset .yui-content {
background-color: #ffffff;
box-shadow: none;
}
.yui-navset .yui-content,
.yui-navset .yui-navset-top .yui-content{
padding: .5em;
border: 1px solid #333;
box-sizing: border-box;
}

/*---- SCROLLBAR ----*/

::-webkit-scrollbar {
width: 10px;
}

::-webkit-scrollbar-track {
background: #FFF;
border-left: 1px solid #333;
}

::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb {
background: #CCC;
border: #333 1px solid;
}

::-webkit-scrollbar-thumb:hover {
background: #EEE;
}

/*---- CENTER IMAGES ON MOBILE courtesy of EstrellaYoshte and PeppersGhost ----*/

.imagediv {
float: right;
margin: 15px
}

@media (max-width: 540px) {
.imagediv {
float: none;
text-align:center;
margin: auto;
}
}

@media only screen and (max-width: 600px) {
.scp-image-block.block-right{
float: none;
margin: 10px auto;
}
}

/*---- ACS-COLORED TABLE DIVS ----*/

#page-content .table1 tr th,
#page-content .table1 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: #D7EFE7;
}

#page-content .table2 tr th,
#page-content .table2 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: #D8ECF4;
}

#page-content .table3 tr th,
#page-content .table3 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: #FDF6D7;
}

#page-content .table4 tr th,
#page-content .table4 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: #FFDABF;
}

#page-content .table5 tr th,
#page-content .table5 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: #F5D8E0;
}

#page-content .table6 tr th,
#page-content .table6 .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
background-color: rgba(146, 0, 255, 0.2);
}

.tableb .wiki-content-table {
border-collapse: separate;
border-spacing: 2px;
}

.tableb .scp-image-block {
border: none;
}

.tableb .scp-image-block img {
border: #000 1px solid;
box-sizing: border-box;
}

.tableb .scp-image-block .scp-image-caption {
margin-top: 2px;
border: #000 1px solid;
box-sizing: border-box;
}

.top-left-box > .item {
display: none;
}

/* ---- WORDS NO LONGER BROKEN, THE CROQUEMBOUCHE HAS SPOKEN ---- */
span, a { word-break: normal !important }

.avatar-hover { display: none !important; }

#breadcrumbs, .pseudocrumbs {
text-align: center;
padding-top: 10px;
}

#main-content .page-tags span {
max-width: 100%;
}

/* -- FANCY THINGS from Woedenaz's Dustjacket Theme -- */

.fancyhr hr {
border-top: 2vw solid transparent;
background-color: rgba(var(--bright-accent), 0);
height: 0;
box-sizing: border-box;
border-image-source: url('https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/theme%3Aflopstyle-dark/wl_hr.png');
border-image-repeat: round round;
background: none;
border-image-slice: 80 500 80 500 fill;
border-image-width: 10em 80em 10em 80em;
}

.fancyborder {
box-sizing: border-box;
border: 2vw solid rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
border-image: url('https://scp-wiki.wdfiles.com/local--files/theme%3Aflopstyle-dark/wl_border.png') 600 round;
border-image-width: 6;
padding: 2vw;
}



SCP-6382: "The Fire Breaks"

The end of an era.

More by this author!

NOTICE FROM THE EMERGENT THREAT TACTICAL RESPONSE AUTHORITY

Material appended to this file describes an emergent situation related to the following database entries: SCP-5382, SCP-5054-EX, SCP-001. Personnel are encouraged to familiarize themselves with any combination of said entries, for background and context, before proceeding.

— Dr. Daniel ███████, Director, ETTRA

Item#: SCP-6382

Containment Class: esoteric

Secondary Class: florgalana

Disruption Class: ekhi

Risk Class: danger

SCP-6382/PoI-382.

Special Containment Procedures: No attempt will be made to contain SCP-6382..Flor Galana-class objects are ethically or logistically difficult to contain, yet aid with the containment of other anomalies (and/or themselves). He has been granted Provisional Security Clearance Level 3 and free access to Research and Containment Site-43, and is to be considered expert-at-large for all anomalies associated with GoI-5054 (the giftschreiber).

Description: SCP-6382 is the former PoI-382, thaumaturge and linguamancer Thilo Zwist. Born in Austria in the year 1622, he was apprenticed into a protomemeticist society known as the schriftsteller at an early age and taught to employ words and symbols to produce a wide variety of anomalous effects, the earliest known origin of memetics. The schriftsteller were massaced by Bavarian general Franz Freiherr von Mercy at the Battle of Herbsthausen in 1645; Zwist alone escaped. In addition to his suite of practical memetic abilities, he is also capable of making thaumaturgic interventions and alterations in the noosphere during moments of intense emotional trauma or investment. For example, after witnessing the destruction of his order he inadvertently embedded a potentially terminal and viral semantic effect in all Germanic languages which remains active to the present day, against his expressed desires. His long-term efforts to redress this wrong led to Foundation researcher V.L. Scout discovering his activities and seeking him out, leading over time to a tentative alliance.

Addendum 6382-1, Operation FIREBREAK: A digest of materials relating to Operation FIREBREAK has been appended to this file by order of the Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority (ETTRA).

This material is protected by a Yeats-Lillihammer Memetic Discouragement Agent. Further countermemetic inoculation is recommended where indicated.

» ADMINISTER MEMETIC DISCOURAGEMENT AGENT «

MEMETIC DISCOURAGEMENT AGENT ADMINISTERED

CORRUPTED SOIL A HARVEST YIELDS

WHERE THE TYRANT TENDS HIS FIELDS

Operation FIREBREAK Overview

Thilo Zwist (PoI-382) has been nominally allied with Veil-maintaining organizations since the late 1960s, aiding in the construction of a memetic glamour for the SCP Foundation's front companies and alleviating a disastrous intervention in the 1979 Canadian federal election by GoI-5054, the giftschreiber ('poison writers'). Zwist describes the giftschreiber as a cult of chaos dedicated to collapsing all pillars of global order, consisting of apostates from his own extinct secret society, the schriftsteller ('writers'). Attacks against Foundation facilities by GoI-5054 and related entities have increased markedly since January of 2021, beginning with a direct assault on Site-64 which left seventeen agents and twelve researchers dead. With authorization from the O5 Council, Director A.J. McInnis proposed an official détente with Zwist to discuss the growing threat. Zwist accepted, and met with McInnis and two members of his senior staff on 3 February 2021.

Interview Log

Date: 3 February 2021

Present: Dr. H.R. Blank (Archives and Revision, Site-43); Dr. L.S. Lillihammer (Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43); Dr. A.J. McInnis (Director, Site-43); Thilo Zwist (PoI-382)

PoI-382 meeting place.

Zwist is seated on a park bench facing a deactivated fountain. Dir. McInnis, Dr. Blank and Dr. Lillihammer approach, and join him.

Zwist: Madam. Dr. Blank. Director McInnis. You're keeping well, I trust?

Dr. Blank: No. Nearly drowned a month ago.

Dr. Blank points at Director McInnis.

Dr. Blank: And he nearly got stabbed to death.

Dr. Blank points at Dr. Lillihammer.

Dr. Blank: And she nearly got blown up. That's three of the dozen cases where the giftschreiber have sicced other Groups of Interest on us this year.

Dr. Lillihammer: I'm Lillian, by the way. I apparently neither need nor merit an introduction.

Zwist: Legitimately charmed.

Dir. McInnis: They've infiltrated us at every level. Multiple high-clearance personnel — including my own Security Chief, a man I knew for more than a decade — have been feeding them information, helping them commit sabotage, and worse.

Dr. Lillihammer: They're obviously gearing up for something.

Zwist nods.

Zwist: They believe this to be the end of an era. Your era, specifically. The era of order.

Dr. Blank: Eras don't work that way.

Zwist: I won't debate you, because this isn't my philosophy to defend. Suffice to say they believe it.

Dir. McInnis: They're planning on permanently overturning… what? Normalcy control? Individual governments? Governmental systems?

Zwist leans back on the bench and closes his eyes.

Zwist: They aren't planning on permanently doing anything. They do not believe in permanence; nor, for that matter, do I. They merely wish to set the wheel to turning again. Order to chaos, for a time, and then chaos back to order when the time comes 'round again. They worship the cycle, not merely their arc within it.

Dr. Lillihammer: So they're trying to spark a flashpoint. Deal a setback to 'order', whatever the hell that means, and send the world into freefall.

Zwist: Yes.

Dir. McInnis: And what might that look like? How will we know when it starts?

Zwist opens his eyes.

Zwist: It already has. I have spent almost my entire life in opposition to the giftschreiber, and they have recognized me as their greatest threat. I have aligned myself with you, in several of my many moments of weakness, and you have therefore become the subject of their attentions.

Dr. Lillihammer: It's all about you, huh?

Zwist: Well. You have also made yourselves synonymous with the concept of order, of course, and words have power. To attack you is to attack the concept of stability writ large.

Zwist shakes his head.

Zwist: Their precise target is not the issue. What matters is that they have become so bold, so overt. It means that the hour is at hand, and I must tell you: the hour has never once passed without the change taking place. Your defence may be doomed to failure.

Dr. Blank: Only 'may'?

Zwist smiles.

Zwist: The giftschreiber have taken many forms throughout the centuries. They have worn many disguises. As did the schriftsteller, until that calamity at Herbsthausen.

The smile briefly falters.

Zwist: When my order fell, I wondered if it would take… well, order, down with it. If the wheel would turn again when the time came. And to my surprise, it did… so I will not say that there is no hope, because I cannot claim to fully understand the way this works. We may be able to mitigate the damage.

Dir. McInnis: 'We'?

Zwist considers Dr. Lillihammer.

Zwist: You are a memeticist. I have heard your name.

Dr. Lillihammer: Flattered.

Zwist: You have been a beneficiary of my work, stolen and repurposed by the Foundation. Your organization has been a clearing house for the last legacy of the schriftsteller. I am already involved in your struggle by proxy.

Zwist sighs.

Zwist: It's time I took a more active interest.

Zwist willingly subjected himself to SCP classification at Site-43 in return for security credentials and an advisory role in the production of futureproofing plans. The newly-christened SCP-6382 consulted with Drs. Blank and Lillihammer, and several other interested parties, on the following project outline submitted for approval by the O5 Council on 03/01/2021.

Operation FIREBREAK

Situational Summary and Action Items

Preamble:

WHEREAS an organized offensive against the SCP Foundation by GoI-5054, the giftschreiber, may be imminent; and

WHEREAS intelligence gleaned from SCP-6382, Thilo Zwist, indicates that this offensive will be worldwide in nature; and

WHEREAS recent attacks on Site-43, Site-54 and Site-64 are believed likely to prove predictive; and

WHEREAS each new attack will likely possess one or more of the following features:

aggressive use of memetic imagery

aggressive use of memetic audio

aggressive use of memetic text

internal sabotage

traditional combat

containment breach

theft of SCP objects

THEREFORE tailored and detailed plans of action must be immediately implemented for defending each SCP Foundation facility, whether covert or semi-covert.

Proposal:

SCP-6382 will assist the Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority in the development of said plans, the preparation of memetic countermeasures, and further research into the nature of GoI-5054 and their activities with the assistance of the GoI Research Group operating out of Site-55.

SCP-6382 believes we are at a transition point in human history. The SCP Foundation must make this transition intact, for the sake of humankind writ large.

— The Undersigned

Dr. H.R. Blank, Archives and Revision, Site-43

Dr. J. Everwood, GoI Specialist, Site-55

Dr. Dan ███████, Director, ETTRA

Dr. L.S. Lillihammer, Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43

Dr. A.J. McInnis, Director, Site-43

Thilo Zwist

The operation was immediately approved. Zwist and Lillihammer began a targeted tour of Foundation facilities to develop preliminary defence mechanisms, with a particular focus on memetic knowledge possessed by Zwist but not yet understood by Foundation science. Many such countermeasures were already in place when the next attack occurred.

On 04/14/2021, the Japanese Branch detained a suspicious individual loitering near the classified location of Site-8141. Zwist had previously identified this facility as a high probability target due to its large population of humanoid anomalies. The suspected insurgent was interrogated in a secure outbuilding, with the interviewing agent making intake notes on a wired-in laptop computer.

Interview Log

Investigating Officer: Agent Maekawa Yuko

Notes: Translated from Japanese.

Agent Maekawa and the suspected insurgent are separated by a clear plastic barrier. She is taking notes on a wired terminal.

Maekawa: <Name?>

Insurgent: <Brad Smelt.>

"Brad Smelt."

Maekawa: <Brad S—>

Maekawa bursts into laughter.

Maekawa: <Brad Smelt. Oka—>

Maekawa bursts into laughter.

Maekawa: <OKAY. Brad Sme—>

Maekawa bursts into laughter. She types the name into the secure database without attempting to repeat it a fourth time.

Maekawa: <There we go.>

Maekawa snickers.

Maekawa: <Wow, that's good. Brad… Smelt.>

Smelt: <Dealt it.>

Maekawa: <What?>

Smelt: <Smelt, it dealt it.>

Silence on recording.

Maekawa closes her laptop, removes the SCiPnet connection wire, and activates her lapel radio.

Maekawa: <Infohazard breach. Potential infohazard breach—!>

Maekawa begins laughing again, and is unable to stop.

Operation FIREBREAK

Incident Analysis: 6382-8141

Nomenclative hazards in the form of seemingly innocuous Persons of Interest (SCP-5524) had already been encountered by Dr. Lillihammer before the détente with Zwist, and were therefore an early topic of research within the remit of Operation FIREBREAK..The Yeats-Lillihammer Memetic Discouragement Agent which gatekeeps this file also provides inoculation against all known associated nomenclative hazards. After three days of extensive consultation with the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division at Site-15, she and Zwist produced an algorithm for detecting and isolating said hazards; all Sites utilizing electronic intake forms had therefore already been fitted with advanced automatic filters before this interview took place. The name was not entered into the Site-8141 registry as the insurgent had intended, and no further disruption occurred. "Brad Smelt" was transported to Site-8114 for permanent detainment, under suspicion that his containment at Site-8141 may have been a secondary goal of this attack.

'Brad Smelt' should not have parsed as a humorous name in Japanese.

Whilst awaiting the next attack, Zwist and Dr. Lillihammer travelled to Site-55 for debriefing by Dr. J. Everwood. The GoI Research Group had been attempting to uncover the origins of the heretofore unattested organization which had attacked Site-54 in January, and had made a breakthrough.

Briefing Log

Date: 19 April 2021

Present: Junior Researcher R. Alces, Dr. J. Everwood (GoI Research Group, Site-55), Dr. L.S. Lillihammer (Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43), Thilo Zwist

Dr. Everwood and their assistant Rex Alces are seated on one side of a large conference table. Dr. Lillihammer and Zwist are seated opposite them.

Dr. Everwood: Rex, the background please.

Junior Researcher Alces: We've been working on a theory that whoever attacked Site-54 might represent a whole new Group of Interest. The M.O. was all wrong — it seemed like they were testing our catastrophe avoidance protocols, rather than wanting us to take one on the chin. That's not how the giftschreiber roll, according to what we know. From you, presumably.

Alces gestures at Zwist. Zwist nods.

Junior Researcher Alces: This symbol is associated with the Site-54 attackers.

He places a colour printout in the centre of the table.

Unknown symbol.

Dr. Everwood: We've been liaising with AIAD; they're experimenting with abstraction matrices in their newer .aics, trying to teach them to relate and correlate like humans do, and this struck everyone as an excellent training exercise. They analyzed the pattern and compared it to iconography across the entire known SCP database, as well as every known set of simple and complex symbols in human language, and…

Dr. Everwood taps the paper with their hand.

Dr. Everwood: They're pretty sure it's a rose.

Zwist closes his eyes. Dr. Lillihammer frowns.

Dr. Lillihammer: Of course it is. The whorls. Roses are almost like natural fractals…

Dr. Lillihammer makes a cupping gesture with both hands, futilely attempting to demonstrate.

Dr. Lillihammer: Like that. Concentric. Okay. Did you then—

Dr. Everwood: —search the database for more roses? You bet. You had an object at Site-43 that came with a mysterious note marked with what looks much more like a standard rose. Do you remember?

They slide another piece of paper across the table. Dr. Lillihammer glances at it.

Unknown symbol.

Dr. Lillihammer: I have an eidetic memory.

Junior Researcher Alces: Bully for you.

Dr. Lillihammer: It was the teleportation statuette. SCP-5416. Caused us several tons of trouble. It was inscribed—

Zwist: "Everything in its place."

The researchers all turn to face Zwist. His eyes are still closed.

Zwist: Isn't that right?

Dr. Lillihammer: Spill.

Zwist sighs.

Zwist: The Rosicrucian Order. Dedicated to uncovering the hidden secrets of human existence, and then covering them up again so only they could know.

Zwist opens his eyes, and looks at the two logos.

Zwist: You see the cross? In the centre of each?

Everwood and Lillihammer nod.

Zwist: The Rosicrucians are an outgrowth of the giftschreiber. I've never been able to understand their motives, but they've been dogging my footsteps since I walked away alone from Herbsthausen.

Alces frowns.

Junior Researcher Alces: You're sure they're giftschreiber? Because the attack on 54 wasn't at all like the attack on 43.

Dr. Everwood: We rather thought these were two unaffiliated entities.

Zwist shakes his head.

Zwist: Their words are poison, Dr. Everwood. That's all it takes to make you a giftschreiber. Methods may vary, but the results do not. Trust me, I know.

The next attack, on 05/03/2021, again fit the profile of existing giftschreiber methodology. It took place during the daily quality control tests at the Factory-45 Amnestics Chemical Workshop in Russia. Transcripts of the affected activities are appended below.

Test: Daily Mandated Class-A Amnestics Quality Control Test

Present: Researcher A. Bogomolov, Technician V. Zima

Dr. Bogomolov: <Batch number A22-01-14. Random sample, item 22-01-14-12.>

Technician V. Zima.

Zima: <Item 12.>

Dr. Bogomolov: <Commence testing.>

The approved testing protocol for a Class-A amnestic is to don a Class-I BNC rebreather and empty the cylinder into a freezing point depression osmometer. Zima instead empties the cylinder into her own face.

Dr. Bogomolov: <Results?>

Zima: <What?>

Dr. Bogomolov: <Results?>

Zima: <…what?>

Test: Daily Mandated Class-B Amnestics Quality Control Test

Present: Researcher T. Utkin, Technician V. Popov

Dr. Utkin: <Class-B, batch number B22-01-14. Random sample, item 22-01-14-91.>

Technician V. Popov.

Popov: <Item 91.>

Dr. Utkin: <Commence testing.>

The approved testing protocol for a Class-B amnestic in tablet form is to dissolve it in saline solution and then test the solution for Y-909 content. Popov instead places the tablet under his tongue, and closes his mouth.

Dr. Utkin: <Results?>

Popov: <Blech. Tastes terrible.>

Dr. Utkin: <But does it work?>

Popov appears to be confused.

Popov: <Does what work?>

Test: Daily Mandated Class-C Amnestics Quality Control Test

Present: Researcher A. Sobol, Technician P. Orlov

Dr. Sobol: <Class-C, batch number C22-01-14. Random sample, item 22-01-14-18.>

Technician P. Orlov.

Orlov: <Item 18.>

Dr. Sobol: <Commence testing.>

The approved testing protocol for a Class-C amnestic is to don a Class VI BNC Suit and inject the syringe's contents into a sample sponge, then examine the sponge with an energy-dispersive x-ray spectrograph. Orlov instead injects the syringe's contents into his left bicep.

Dr. Sobol: <Results?>

Orlov grabs his arm and begins to scream.

Dr. Sobol: <Results?>

Orlov's arm is turning blue. He is already hoarse from screaming.

Dr. Sobol: <Results?>

Orlov stops screaming as the blue discoloration reaches his mouth, and it swells shut.

Dr. Sobol: <Results?>

Orlov's eyeballs both burst, and he falls out of camera view behind the lab counter.

Dr. Sobol: <Results?>

Examination of the video feed determined that Orlov injected the amnestic into his muscle mass rather than the bloodstream as mandated by the Amnestic Use Guide.

Operation FIREBREAK

Incident Analysis: 6382-F45

The memetic disruption experienced at Factory-45 affected all production simultaneously, resulting in seven fatalities: two metalworkers, one electronics expert, three textile workers and one amnestics testing technician. Factory-45 was shut down, and all personnel detained until the source of their aberrant behaviour could be determined. Analysis of the facility's computer systems by Dr. L. Lillihammer determined that all information transmitted via the SCPS transfer protocol now induced rapid mental deterioration and confusion when consumed, while the older, unsecured SCP protocol remained safe..The SCPS transfer protocol is the SCiPnet equivalent of the secured hypertext transfer protocol (https). The protocol was retired Foundation-wide, and Dr. Lillihammer quickly prepared a new protocol — SSCP — to secure all vital data and systems.

It remains unknown how the giftschreiber were able to tamper with the conceptual framework of an electronic transfer protocol.

Leaving Dr. Lillihammer to continue managing the practical matters of Operation FIREBREAK, Zwist and Dr. Blank travelled to the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives). Their goal was to correlate giftschreiber activity after the Battle of Herbsthausen with the actions of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood; Zwist had attempted this research before, but was both unable to secure the needed permissions and unwilling to risk attracting the attention of his enemies. Foundation personnel occupied the archives, and both men quickly set to work. Dr. Blank made repeated inquiries of Zwist during this period, and a transcript of one such interrogation is excerpted below.

Audio Log: Dr. H.R. Blank and Thilo Zwist

Date: 21 May 2021

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv.

Zwist and Blank are seated at a card table in an archival storage room. They are sorting through numerous boxes and files.

Dr. Blank: What did the schriftsteller want, Thilo?

Zwist: Hmm? Say, did we already put in a request for the Weimar fonds? I forg—

Dr. Blank: Don't 'hmm' me. Answer the question.

Zwist huffs.

Zwist: The schriftsteller are a dead end. We should concern ourselves with the living.

Dr. Blank: You say the giftschreiber were apostate schriftsteller. It's not an end, it's a beginning.

Zwist sighs in frustration.

Zwist: Fine. I was merely an apprentice, I was not fully immersed in the mysteries, but… our guild was a very structured one. We were many, in a rigid hierarchy, with a single and solitary goal.

Dr. Blank: Control.

Zwist: Stability. Control is what you seek. We merely sought to do what I have been calling the good work: tamping the flames down, keeping the floods at bay.

Dr. Blank: Making the trains—

Zwist: That joke is beneath you. I don't know what you're grasping at, but know this: my people were not tyrants. They may not have been great democrats, but they had noble goals and pursued them nobly. That, more than anything, is what created and defined the giftschreiber in opposition; we had power, and we wanted to use it responsibly. Many seek power. Few seek responsibilities.

Dr. Blank: What did the responsible exercise of power look like?

Zwist: Again, I caught only glimpses. I know we had our feelers in all the halls of privilege. I know we set agendas in legislative councils, dictated terms to kings and queens, even started and stopped wars. The extent of our reach, I couldn't even begin to guess at. And that, of course, is what destroyed us.

Dr. Blank: Like the Knights Templar. Someone got jealous of what you had.

Zwist: And they gathered us all together, in one place, and asked us to betray our oaths and principles. They asked us to use our miracles to melt flesh and break bone. We would not… so they burned and broke us instead. All but me.

Silence on recording.

Dr. Blank: What kind of people were they? Your friends?

Zwist: I… can barely remember, I'm afraid. They're no more real to me now than they would be to you, were I to describe them. The passage of years is an evil, to leave me with so little… I can tell you that they were human beings, that they lived and died like anyone else. But beyond that…

Dr. Blank: They meant a great deal to you once.

Zwist: Yes, to my sorrow, and the sorrow of many thereafter. Today I can only remember their tent ablaze, the soldiers laughing, bayonets glinting in the moon and firelight, the screams. That moment never fades. I was young, and I lost everything, and I lashed out and struck the firmament — and the firmament moved. Now I am old, so very old, and I no longer remember the faces of the men and women for whom I enacted such terrible vengeance. For whom I became…

Zwist shakes his head.

Zwist: Whatever it is that I am now.

Dr. Blank: I think you're being dramatic. I'm sure there's something practical you could tell me.

Zwist: I still fail to see practicality in this line of questioning, but I suppose you are the historian. Very well, I will oblige you. Hmm.

Silence on recording.

Zwist: I remember my apprenticeship with great fondness. My master, Keil, treated me well and brought me slowly, patiently into the mysteries of the Writing. Little exercises at first, phrases and limericks.

Dr. Blank: Let's hear one.

Zwist: They're all in German, and medieval German at that. They don't rhyme in English, but they'd still make you laugh, and the cognitive dissonance would put you out like a light in an instant. At any rate, I was no lyricist. I've always been more of a prose man, which made my apprenticeship somewhat awkward.

Dr. Blank: Why?

Zwist: Because the front for our guild was a sign-making concern. An advertising firm, if you like, well before such things really existed. Keil wanted me carving lintel inscriptions to make all who passed beneath them into eager customers, he wanted me painting tomatoes to make your mouth water uncontrollably and women to make… well.

Dr. Blank: Yeah? Go on.

Zwist: At your age, Dr. Blank. You ought to be ashamed.

Dr. Blank: And yet.

Zwist: And yet.

Dr. Blank: These seem very mercenary pursuits. Did they never have you doing more… I dunno, humanitarian stuff?

Zwist: I was the last of the new blood, Harry. I didn't have the chance to earn my place on the world peace dossier.

Dr. Blank: Still, though. Capitalist mind control seems like an odd side hustle for the meme police.

Zwist: We were never police. We sought to enlighten people, open their minds to the possibilities…

Dr. Blank: …of tomatoes.

Zwist: Among other things. Nothing wrong with a good tomato.

Dr. Blank: What might they have had you doing, if you'd ever completed your crash course? Any theories?

Zwist: I've spent lifetimes wondering just that. How might they have set me against the giftschreiber? What part could I have played in the great struggle? There was a time when I believed I could still answer those questions. It seemed absurd to think that von Mercy could have slain every last living Writer. I sought survivors, I sought our mythic guildhall — just as you and I are doing now, in the pages of the past. But I found nothing. It was all ashes, and I truly was alone.

Österreichisches Staatsarchiv.

Zwist sighs.

Zwist: Whatever their plan was, however they would have dealt with this calamity… It simply doesn't matter. It's beyond our reach now. You and I and the others, we're dealing with this on our own terms. I only wish Keil had taught me more than sign-making… self-education is a necessarily slow and limited affair.

Dr. Blank: Not nearly as rewarding as the education of others, right?

Silence on recording.

Dr. Blank: You talk about the schriftsteller like they were a one-time thing, but that's not true, is it? You've taken on apprentices a few times over the years.

Zwist: Only because the years are long and lonely, and every man is weak and stupid sometimes. Do you know what it's like to live forever? I mean, can you guess?

Dr. Blank: I've always imagined it's like staying up all night. The misery of being exhausted, and the nagging need to stay awake.

Zwist: It is precisely like that. I have been cold and weary, I have had my vulnerable moments, and I have sought comfort in the company and competence of others. I have allowed them to shoulder some small proportion of my load, and I have almost always come to regret it.

Dr. Blank: Do any of them still exist? Are they alive, I mean?

Zwist: They may be. I won't say.

Dr. Blank: Why not?

Zwist: Because you'll seek them out, and I don't want you to. It was a mistake to pass this burden on to others. It's mine alone to bear.

Dr. Blank: Why?

Zwist: Because I was there at the beginning. Because I was a part of it.

Dr. Blank: That's no reason.

Zwist: Because I'm the only one equipped for it.

Dr. Blank: We've just established that you could correct that particular problem. I know for a fact that Lillian—

Zwist stands up.

Zwist: The Weimar fonds aren't here yet. I shall ask at the front desk.

_

» ADMINISTER COUNTERMEMETIC SUPPLEMENT «COUNTERMEMETIC SUPPLEMENT ADMINISTERED

IN RIGHTEOUS LACK OF COMMON SENSE

THEY BREAK LIKE WATER ON THE FENCE

The most disruptive attack on record was carried out on 29 May 2021, at Site-CN-02 in China.

Incident Log: 6382-SCN-02

All audio devices in the Site begin broadcasting music. The music is harsh, underlaid with sirens and a heavy bassline.

Researchers throughout the Site stop their work and listen to the audio. Security officers abandon their posts and begin wandering aimlessly. Administrative personnel exhibit signs of distress; one diplomatic affairs officer abruptly interrupts an interview to shove her papers across the desk, into the lap of her subject.

Vocals begin..The associated memetic effect has made determining the singer's identity impossible.

You motherfuckers roll up in your armoured vans

With your infinite contingencies and backup plans

All you twenty dollar rent-a-cops in Kevlar vests

But my red right righteous hand about to SWAT you pests

Security officers throughout the Site immediately exhibit significant demoralization. Several remove their insignia, or disrobe entirely. Multiple researchers and technicians engage in verbal confrontations with security personnel, and the latter retreat in disarray. Site Director L. Griffin exits her office, locates the nearest security officer, and punches him squarely in the jaw. The officer falls to the floor, and begins to weep.

You ain't shit, blackshirt

You just a number in a ledger, you be leavin' on a stretcher

'cuz you dead, blackshirt

And they don't cry for screws, ain't that the truth

You ain't shit, blackshirt

Callin' momma for instructions on the eve of your destruction

Incident 6382-02-CN.

Ethics Supervisor E. Guo transmits a Site-wide order demanding the immediate release of Site-CN-02's inventory of anomalous objects, either to freedom (where the objects are organisms) or to the custody of their original owners (where the objects are inanimate). Security personnel begin attempting to carry out these orders, though they are interrupted by administrative staff who have begun filling the hallways and accosting all uniformed individuals they encounter. Director Griffin is now kicking the security officer, who is bleeding profusely.

Little tin man

You got nothing but a hard-on for Himmler and an empty breast

Suck it in, man

Girdle up your gut in them Armani threads

Don't let 'em see how soft you got behind that one-way glass

'cuz when they smell that yellow streak they gonna have your ass

Director Griffin ceases her attack and begins expressing extreme paranoia, pressing her back against the corridor wall and looking from side to side in obvious panic. Dr. Guo hides beneath her desk. Administrative personnel brawling in the hallways abruptly flee for their offices.

You ain't shit, blackshirt

Them Guccis ain't for runnin', and you know the end is comin'

Better hide, blackshirt

Or you'll drown in the flood of your own blue blood

You ain't shit, blackshirt

Shriekin' orders down the phone until your ass is overthrown

Research staff are now accosting both security and administrative personnel, who are too preoccupied with their retreat to fight back. Medical personnel attempt to address casualties, but are trampled in the crush of rushing bodies.

You little toadie

Yeah, they can't swing them war crimes without you

Misanthropy

And a healthy respect for the pencil-necked

Keep on checkin' off them boxes 'til we put you in one

The reckoning's a-rollin' and it won't miss you, son

All Site personnel are now scrambling in random directions throughout the Site as the music enters an instrumental break.

Ain't none of you suckers survive this

The containment breach alarm activates, but its pitch has been altered such that it interacts with the anomalous audio's backing track, which now resembles calliope music.

You ain't shit, blackshirt

Your bullshit won't protect you from that thing what's gonna wreck you

When it ends, blackshirt

'cuz it's comin' down soon, and you ain't immune

Personnel not presently engaged in physical violence are able to perceive the change in the music, and their aggression and fear responses decrease noticeably. Director Griffin kneels to check the vitals of the fallen security officer. Dr. Guo emerges from beneath her desk, tentatively.

You ain't shit, blackshirt

We gonna empty out them cells and blow your asses all to hell

The reduced panic level and concomitant decrease in violent activity enable all remaining personnel to hear the altered audio, which no longer produces any anomalous effect. They gradually recover their senses.

Don't bother beggin' for forgiveness, these the wages of your business

Get them jackboots off and fly 'cuz it's an eye for every eye

We dumpin' four-eyed sons of bitches screamin' blind into the ditches

Say your prayers, blackshirt

Personnel begin calling for medical, technical, and security assistance as required. Technical staff initiate a shutdown of the local computer systems. The voice recites the final lines.

You really mean that shit about dyin' in the dark? Lights out, boys.

I'mma count you down.

The song ends. A second song begins, and the containment breach tone does not interact with the backing track, but the computer shutdown completes and the audio is cut off. Director Griffin initiates disaster response protocol.

Operation FIREBREAK

Incident Analysis: 6382-SCN-02

Under Zwist's earlier advisement, each department at each Foundation Site presently employs one fully deaf member of personnel trained to recognize uncharacteristic reactions to audio stimuli on the part of their co-workers. Information Technology technician S. Hsieh was one such designated individual for Site-CN-02, and was able to employ the standard countermeasures for a musical cognitohazard. Per Zwist's instructions:

Recontextualization: The power of speech, as the giftschreiber employ it, is in the content of the words. You cannot easily disrupt that. What you can do is subtly alter the meaning by interfering with the surrounding context — the music itself. If there is no music, introduce it; if there is music, alter it.

By transforming the cognitohazardous audio into circus music, its dramatic intensity was transmuted to complete absurdity and it ceased to operate with effective force on the minds of Site-CN-02's personnel. IT Supervisor R. Salvaggi was subsequently identified as having introduced the audio, and was remanded to Site-CN-29 for detention.

Debriefings confirmed that personnel unable to comprehend the lyrics to the cognitohazardous audio were nevertheless fully susceptible to their embedded memetic effects.

As the scale of the conflict was increasing rapidly, Dr. Dan requested Zwist's presence at ETTRA Command with Dr. Lillihammer. Dr. Blank remained in Vienna to continue his research, while Zwist travelled to Area-09 in Nevada to help coordinate responses to each emergency. A partial operational digest follows.

Incident Report 6382-SVN-13

Target: Site-VN-13, Vietnam

Date: 06/02/2021

Nature of Attack: The sudden and total inability of all branch members to comprehend the speech of others.

Countermeasure: All personnel were instructed via text-free infographics to communicate via speech-to-text. Electronic speech proved unaffected; Zwist determined that English language instruction provided by a Foundation specialist had disrupted the language centres of all personnel at Site-VN-13 such that human speech could not be rendered into comprehensible thought. Intensive memetic therapy subsequently restored this capacity, with an 87% success rate.

Incident Report 6382-ACS-03

Target: Reliquary Area-03-CS, Czech Republic

Date: 06/05/2021

Nature of Attack: Area personnel were converted to the worship of "The Unyielding," an entity attested in the SCP database as SCP-███-█. An occupying force ransacked the Area and removed multiple SCP objects of historical interest.

Countermeasure: Mobile Task Forces operating out of Area-14-CS successfully intercepted the insurgents and recovered all artifacts, having been memetically fortified against religious compulsion beforehand under Zwist's instruction. The lead insurgent was exceedingly complimentary of the MTF's rapid deployment and field discipline.

Incident Report 6382-SU-IT

Target: Site Urano, Italy

Date: 06/06/2021

Nature of Attack: Microscopic thaumaturgic alteration of the lens glass in Site Urano's telescopes caused all on-site astronomers to identify prophetic patterns in the stars, and begin proselytizing to the remaining personnel. This proselytization produced a soporific condition in all affected individuals, rapidly shutting down all activities at the Site.

Countermeasure: Foundation Mission Control at Area-08 remotely commandeered Site Urano's telescopes to point at the south solar pole. SCP-179, under Zwist's direction, performed a series of hand gestures which neutralized the effects of the infohazardous stellar patterns.

Incident Report 6382-FR

Target: French Branch (all facilities)

Date: 06/08/2021

Nature of Attack: The sudden and total inability of all branch members to comprehend object, risk and disruption classes for all anomalies.

Countermeasure: Downgrading the entire SCP database in France to plain text, under Dr. Lillihammer's orders; she had correctly surmised that all French Branch personnel had been compelled to subconsciously reject the Anomaly Classification System, rendering its contents unintelligible. The source of the compulsion remains unknown, and cannot be corrected as of yet.

Zwist commended Dr. Lillihammer's swift grasp of the technical situation, and the elegance of her solution.

By this point Dr. Blank had exhausted the resources of the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv and moved on to the Niederösterreichisches Landesarchiv (Provincial Archive of Lower Austria), the central repository for documents relating to Zwist's home village of Amstetten. Zwist had previously claimed to have explored the full extent of this archive, but Dr. Blank wished to conduct a brief investigation himself before returning to Canada. In comparing Zwist's notes with the Provincial Archives catalogue, he was able to identify a single file which had apparently escaped the thaumaturge's notice. Archives personnel were unable to confirm the file's existence, and expressed intense confusion when presented with the matching records, so Dr. Blank located it in storage himself. It contained a series of folios written in an impenetrable cipher, and a single street address in the now-town of Amstetten. The address itself did not appear in any national, provincial or municipal records, or on any available satellite imagery, but Dr. Blank was nevertheless able to locate it on the ground. The structure in question was styled as a relatively humble Austrian guildhall from the sixteenth century.

With support from MTF DE6-𝔇 ("The Draft"), masquerading as Austrian Federal Police, Dr. Blank entered the guildhall. He would later report that the interior was ornate, with all period fixtures complete and in excellent repair.

Dr. Blank disappeared within the guildhall, and MTF DE6-𝔇 subsequently vanished without a trace. All eleven individuals, Dr. Blank included, reappeared at the surface front for Site-DE6 two days later. Dr. Blank had experienced a considerable stretch of lost time, but possessed an audiovisual lapel camera recording of an encounter taking place the day after he vanished which he was able to recall with perfect clarity.

Audio Log: Dr. H.R. Blank

Date: 10 June 2021.

Dr. Blank is sitting on a park bench. A middle-aged man in a red spring jacket, hereafter PoI-6382, approaches the bench and sits down.

PoI-6382.

Dr. Blank: How did I get here?

PoI-6382: I'm no philosopher.

Dr. Blank: I was thinking more practically.

PoI-6382: Good, we should get along splendidly then.

PoI-6382 extends his hand. Dr. Blank glances at it, pauses, then apparently shrugs (judging by the motion of the lapel camera), takes the hand and shakes it.

PoI-6382: Kyle Graf. We have a mutual acquaintance in Thilo Zwist.

Dr. Blank: Then why are we meeting without him?

PoI-6382: Because I don't think he's ready to see me, yet. We parted under awkward circumstances.

Dr. Blank: More awkward than kidnapping?

PoI-6382: Oh, please. You came to the guildhall. You wanted to talk to someone.

Dr. Blank: Why is it that Thilo told me he cleared out the archives of Lower Austria, but I was able to find that file? Why was I able to find that hall?

PoI-6382 laughs.

PoI-6382: A bad joke on poor Thilo, don't you think? He spends decades looking for something, something he thinks he badly wants to find, and you luck into it without hardly even trying.

Dr. Blank: It doesn't feel like luck.

PoI-6382: Nor should it. Everything in its place.

Silence on recording.

PoI-6382: But if you must know, yes, of course, that file was hidden from him. By us.

Dr. Blank: And not from me?

PoI-6382: Not from anyone with your credentials. You're familiar with Y-317?

Dr. Blank: Yes, but why are you?

PoI-6382: Every member of personnel reaching Clearance Level 3 is given that injection, I believe. A tiny little mnestic fortifier, hardly enough to overcome one of our glamours — unless we specifically target for it.

Dr. Blank: You're saying you wanted to talk to someone from the Foundation.

PoI-6382: Yes, but only one who knew where to look. Because you'd only know where to look if you were talking to dear old Thilo, and that could only happen if things had gotten very dire indeed. It was a careful calculation; I live for that sort of thing.

Dr. Blank: I'm assuming you're responsible for the direness. I'm assuming you're a giftschreiber.

PoI-6382: Assumptions are a bad way to start a new relationship, but I appreciate that you'd confide them in me. Has Thilo offered you that courtesy? Do you know what he thinks of you?

Dr. Blank: We've been working very closely with him, as you obviously know.

PoI-6382: I am certain it's merely the appearance of closeness. Thilo doesn't let anyone peek beneath his hood. This is all about him, you see.

PoI-6382 laughs.

PoI-6382: Everything is always about him.

Dr. Blank: You seem to think so too. Are you one of his old apprentices?

PoI-6382 smiles.

PoI-6382: No, though I'll admit I've learned a lot from him over the years.

Dr. Blank: So you are a giftschreiber.

PoI-6382 shrugs.

PoI-6382: I don't find the distinction terribly interesting, to be honest. I think you could stand to hear a perspective that isn't Thilo's; those dichotomies he's had to build up over the centuries, to keep his sense of purpose strong, they're not going to be much use in the days to come.

Dr. Blank: If you have a better model, we'd love to hear it.

PoI-6382 laughs.

PoI-6382: Very subtle choice of words. I take it to mean that I am on the record, so to speak.

Dr. Blank: As if you didn't already know that.

Dr. Blank and PoI-6382 stare at each other for several seconds.

PoI-6382: Here is what I know, Dr. Blank. I know that 'generations' are buzzwords made up to sell amateur sociology books — buzzwords are the discursive equivalent of lettuce, the form of nourishment without the function. You can gorge yourself on them and still starve to death. I know that 'decades' and 'centuries' and even 'millennia' are arbitrary outgrowths of the cult of numerology into our shared social understanding. I know that 'eras' are the province of historians, and history is half-fictive at best.

Dr. Blank: Maybe bad history.

PoI-6382: It's all bad. I've lived long enough, gathered enough empirical evidence to know that there is only one thing defining the trajectory of our species: the Cycle. The Cycle turns, and we tumble within it. The Cycle never ends… until it does.

Dr. Blank: I've already heard this from Zwist. It was vague nonsense then, it's vague nonsense now.

PoI-6382: It's vague sense, Dr. Blank, and it's only vague because you insist on seeing it as some kind of metaphor. I am telling you: it isn't. We are living at the tail end of an arc of iron-fisted order, but it's all about to slip through your mailed fingers. That's what your opponents want.

Dr. Blank: Is it what you want?

PoI-6382: No. This arc was mine, my fraternity's, and I will be loathe to see it go. I would rather the transition were not so abrupt and destructive as it was when last it came 'round, and so I have been testing you.

Dr. Blank: What 'fraternity'?

PoI-6382: You are fighting a war on two fronts, and you are only winning on one. They are pulling at your ramparts, and we are testing the nails and screws. They are undermining you, and we are forcing you to mind your foundations. We are helping you to see the mistakes you've made, and the mistakes you might make yet, so that when the storm comes you are not completely washed away.

Dr. Blank: You didn't answer—

PoI-6382: I know how impressionable Thilo can be; I know that better than anyone alive. If we pushed you enough, he would fear to lose your support. He would rush to your side. With his help, you might still survive the change. That's what we want. Your people are but one step removed from mine; you want control, at any cost, and so do we. We are hoping to make a partnership with you, to weather what comes together.

Dr. Blank: WHO IS 'WE'?!

PoI-6382 points.

PoI-6382: Ask him.

PoI-6382 is pointing at a figure approaching hesitantly from the edge of the park. It is Thilo Zwist. He appears distraught.

Zwist: Keil?

PoI-6382: Thilo.

Dr. Blank: Wait. Did you say… do you mean…

Zwist: I saw you burn.

PoI-6382: Did you?

Zwist: I saw them set the tent alight. I saw you burn.

PoI-6382: You saw a tent burn, Thilo. You saw men die. You of all people know that the devil is in the details.

Dr. Blank: Hold on a second here.

Zwist: Half a billion people carry the curse I levied on your murderers. I have spent four hundred years—

PoI-6382: I believe the word you're looking for is 'wasted', apprentice.

Zwist: I am not your apprentice! And you are not Keil. The schriftsteller would not do what you have done.

PoI-6382: How would you know? You were never one of us. The mysteries would have broken you. You would have refused the call.

Dr. Blank: HOLD ON A SECOND.

Silence on recording. Zwist is clenching and unclenching his fists. He is in tears.

Dr. Blank: Are you saying we're being attacked by the schriftsteller? Are you saying they still exist?!

PoI-6382: Order cannot be overt, Dr. Blank. It must be insidious. Destruction takes place in the light, but construction — well. It is best done in the dark, away from prying eyes and interference, in untrafficked places and without undue input. You understand, of course. It's how you people operate. It's admirable.

Zwist: Admirable?! This isn't admirable. There's nothing admirable about fascism!

PoI-6382: Again with the distinctions.

Zwist: Distinctions! Of course, distinctions! The powers we possess cannot be used indiscriminately. They are too great, too dangerous, too far-reaching and…

PoI-6382: Insidious? Precisely. We were meant to poke and prod, Thilo, to move the mountains root by root, to steer the course by one invisible nudge at a time. It's why we can do the things we can do. But I could see the flaw within you, four hundred years ago. I knew then, as I know now, that you would never get with the program. So when we burned our old lives up like so much paper, and became something new, we gave you one final gift. The chance to start anew, to live out your short and simple life, to die before our work was ended. To go for a walk, even if it meant never seeing the destination.

Silence on recording.

PoI-6382: You're welcome.

Zwist reaches into his coat, and PoI-6382 does the same. Dr. Blank stands up.

[DATA EXPUNGED]

Dr. Blank was unable to account for the remainder of the missed time. The park where the meeting took place could not subsequently be identified; the prevailing theory is that a thaumaturgic exchange occurred between Zwist and PoI-6382, the fallout of which imparted antimemetic qualities to the entire area. Neither individual could be located.

With the revelations that the Rosicrucian Order was a false front and that the schriftsteller were still extant as a society, they were classified GoI-6382 and their leader Kyle Graf PoI-6382.

Operation FIREBREAK continued with Zwist's prior preparation but without his further input. Dr. Lillihammer became its primary de facto consultant, and undertook analysis following each attack to determine whether GoI-5054 or 6382 was responsible judging by the type and severity of the memetic effects employed. She also took on the task of preparing action items to learn from each incident.

Incident Report 6382-S64-K

Target: Site-64-K, South Korea

Date: 06/12/2021

Belligerents: Giftschreiber (presumed)

Nature of Attack: An aerosolized chemical agent carried on the mists surrounding Site 64-K caused staff to perceive all written language as the traditional Korean Hanja writing system.

Countermeasure: Zwist's guidelines did not cover this contingency. Hanja has largely fallen out of use, such that few staff members were able to make a smooth transition. However, as Hanja is derived from traditional Chinese (minus pronunciation and contextual variations), an exchange of staff members from Site-ZH-44 who natively read that language ensured something like regular operations could continue until the aerosol dispersed.

Aftermath: Dr. Lillihammer recommended all Foundation staff undergo additional language training with the aid of a mnestic regimen, both to provide greater lingustic flexibility and take advantage of the cognitive improvement effects of sustained linguistic study.

Incident Report 6382-APL-05

Target: Area-05-PL, Poland

Date: 06/12/2021

Belligerents: Giftschreiber (presumed)

Nature of Attack: An insurgent masquerading as a Foundation kinesthesiologist introduced a purported dance routine termed "The Shake Violently" to Area staff during morning calisthenics. Said routine involves violent random thrashing, overstressing the body and inflicting harm on surrounding environments and personnel. As the routine carries a compulsion effect, all personnel present were soon engaged in self-destructive physical behaviour despite their continued presence of mind.

Countermeasure: Area-05-PL's Operation FIREBREAK-designated, antimemetic-fortified Polish Sign Language interpreter introduced a conflicting set of gestures into the routine, gradually breaking each member of personnel free of the compulsion effect. Personnel continued to mime The Shake Violently until the insurgent was in close proximity, at which point the interpreter struck her in the solar plexus, inducing immediate unconsciousness.

Aftermath: Dr. Lillihammer's proposed program of linguistic study now features a pronounced emphasis on the utility of sign language due to its wide variety of potential field uses.

Incident Report 6382-SUA-80

Target: Site-UA-80, Ukraine

Date: 06/18/2021

Belligerents: Schriftsteller (presumed)

Nature of Attack: Loss of object permanence among containment staff.

Countermeasure: Dr. Lillihammer instructed containment staff to enact Procedure 173-Beta: only blinking their eyes when no vital containment apparatus or object in containment is in view. The loss of object permanence was confirmed to occur only between blinks, and the case-by-case application of a Euler-Melbourne Memetic Resistance Booster both eliminated the effect and immunized against its recurrence.

Aftermath: Dr. Lillihammer collaborated with Dr. Ryan Melbourne, co-author of the Euler-Melbourne Memetic Resistance Test, to develop the Melbourne-Lillihammer Cognitive Enhancement Exercises for rapid dissemination to all Foundation facilities.

Incident Report 6382-STH-72

Target: Outpost Site-72-TH, Thailand

Date: 06/21/2021

Belligerents: Giftschreiber (presumed)

Nature of Attack: Patriotic rage directed against the pop music song "One Night In Bangkok," to the point of disrupting day-to-day operations.

Countermeasure: The temporary relief of all Thai staff from duty so that they might be amnesticized of all knowledge of the following topics: actor/singer Murray Head, songwriter Tim Rice, "One Night In Bangkok" and the musical Chess.

Aftermath: None.

If they want to lob softballs at us, why discourage them? — Lillihammer

Incident Report 6382-SPT-1

Target: Site-PT1, [REDACTED]

Date: 06/22/2021

Belligerents: Schriftsteller

Nature of Attack: Exceptionally overzealous containment procedures enacted by the Administrative Superintendence of the Lusophone Branch..The Lusophone Branch consists of all Portuguese-speaking facilities. These included but were not limited to:

cordoning off entire urban neighbourhoods to contain minor threats;

detaining civilians in large numbers and retaining them in custody rather than amnesticizing and releasing;

performance of decommissioning procedures on non-threatening anomalies without consulting the Decommissioning Department;

attempted takeover of mainland Spanish facilities, infringing on the authority of the Spanish Branch.

Countermeasure: A chemical strike on Site-PT1 temporarily disabled all personnel, and MTF PT15-Σ ("Serket's Stinger") secured the Site. [EXPUNGED] of the Administrative Superintendence was exposed as a member of GoI-6382, having disabled his colleagues and commandeered their biometric keys. When awakened under controlled conditions in a Class-A Memetic Exclusion Chamber at Site-43, he delivered the following message: "The next step is a steep one." Further information could not be extracted, despite the application of MARSTON verification protocol and extreme rendition.

Aftermath: Dr. Lillihammer recommended increased inter-branch interaction across all departments in order to foster a stronger collective identity and close this avenue of insinuation.

The final confirmed schriftsteller attack to date took place on 07/14/2021, at Site-DE1 in Germany. An attacking force of thirty-three individuals with a variety of anomalous talents quickly subdued most on-site security, and began scouring the Site's interior for high-ranking personnel and SCP objects. Lockdown procedures were put into effect, isolating the attackers to the second and third sublevels, while ETTRA scrambled a response from adjacent facilities. Finding the second sublevel empty, all personnel having been already evacuated below, the insurgents began descending via staircases and the main elevator shaft. The following scene was captured by security cameras in the third sublevel main access corridor.

_

» ADMINISTER COUNTERMEMETIC SUPPLEMENT «COUNTERMEMETIC SUPPLEMENT ADMINISTERED

THE DELUGE OVERTOPS THE BANKS

TO CRIES OF OVERWHELMING THANKS

Incident Log: 6382-DE1

A team of security personnel is opening fire on a pair of insurgents, who are holding a banner between them and laughing. The guards' aim is anomalously wild, and they are unable to strike their targets. The first insurgent laughs.

First Insurgent: [EXPUNGED]

The security personnel immediately begin opening fire on each other. One is struck a glancing blow across the temple, three are shot in the legs, and one is shot in the shoulder. All five individuals are soon rendered unconscious. The second insurgent laughs, and pats his comrade on the back. She smiles at him.

Thilo Zwist appears behind the downed guards. The insurgents stop smiling.

The first insurgent opens her mouth to speak. Zwist completes her cognitohazardous phrase before she can, and she spits blood; the capillaries in her mouth have apparently burst. She staggers around a corner, out of sight of the camera. The second insurgent is already mid-curse, and Zwist speaks a single syllable in an unfamiliar tongue which does not appear to carry any independently cognitohazardous component; the second insurgent reaches up to clutch his throat, screaming incoherently, and blood appears at the edges of his lips. He falls, unconscious; medical examination later reveals that he has swallowed, and thereby severed, his own tongue. Zwist picks up the banner, ties it around his waist, and proceeds down the hall.

He reaches the main access corridor. The elevator shaft door is open, and individuals are rappelling into view. Zwist points at the third insurgent with his right pointer finger, and speaks; the insurgent has sharp protrusions on her body resembling the thorns of Gleditsia triacanthos (honey locust). Zwist continues speaking, and points at the fourth insurgent as they swing into view with two others; the third insurgent grabs the fourth, the thorns digging deep. The fourth insurgent bursts into flame (apparently of its own volition), screaming, and the two of them begin to attack each other.

The fifth insurgent is armed with a rifle, which she raises. Zwist raises both fists, snaps the pointer and middle fingers of both hands up, and taps them together rapidly in front of him. The fifth insurgent twists violently to the left; vertebrae cracking is audible, and she slumps to the floor unconscious. Zwist opens his eyes very wide as the sixth insurgent raises her hands in front of her, and a whorl of air appears between them; she meets Zwist's gaze, his eyes move rapidly, and she involuntarily claps her hands together. There is a thunderclap, and she is thrown into the wall hard enough to dent the tiles. She is unconscious before she strikes the floor.

A seventh insurgent appears around the far bend in the corridor. He is pointing at Zwist, and already speaking.

Seventh Insurgent: [EXPUNGED]

Zwist begins to twitch uncontrollably; he taps his neck three times, jolting with each tap, and the twitching stops.

Zwist: [EXPUNGED]

The seventh insurgent's chest heaves, and he immediately vomits. He falls to the floor, slipping on the former contents of his own stomach, and does not rise again.

Three more insurgents appear. One is approximately eight feet tall, wielding a sledgehammer; the other two have linked hands together, and their eyes are glowing. They raise their linked hands to point at Zwist, and the hair on his body stands on end and begins to spark.

Zwist pulls the fire alarm, and in the midst of the sudden clamour, emits a shrill whistle. All three insurgents, and all Foundation staff reviewing the security camera footage, fall immediately unconscious. Zwist shakes his head, apparently dazed from the effort, and a tenth insurgent tackles him from behind.

The tenth insurgent's eyes are milky white, and they roll Zwist over to make eye contact. They smile. Zwist smiles in return, and raises his eyebrows provocatively; the tenth insurgent blinks, then gasps in shock, then reaches up to clutch his temples. He scrambles back to the wall, leans against it, and curls into a fetal position.

Zwist regains his feet as an eleventh insurgent turns the next corner, hands raised in the pattern of a protective thaumaturgical ward. Zwist shouts, disorienting the insurgent, then pulls him close and holds him like a human shield. He turns to find four additional insurgents rappelling through the elevator; he manipulates his puppet's hands in a series of rapid motions. The twelfth and thirteenth insurgents immediately cover their eyes, screaming. One staggers head-first into a wall, and falls unconscious with an audible crack; the other walks directly into the open elevator shaft, and disappears with an abbreviated shout. Zwist pushes the eleventh insurgent into the fourteenth and fifteenth, and begins speaking rapidly; all three insurgents immediately begin brawling amongst each other.

Zwist turns away from the elevator and rounds the corner, finding yet another insurgent approaching him. The sixteenth insurgent lacks identifiable features; its eyes and ears are sealed shut, and its lips are moving rapidly. Zwist staggers to one side, pressing his palm into a stanchion for support, then appears rooted in place and unable to turn away from his attacker. The sixteenth insurgent grins, and extends two hands with long, sharp nails towards Zwist's face. Its lips are still moving soundlessly.

Zwist's grip slips off the stanchion, and he falls to the ground as the sixteenth insurgent bends over him. Though he is unable to move, he is able to direct his eyes upward. Where his hand was just moments ago, there is a sticker on the stanchion bearing a simple glyph in black lettering; Zwist's muscles relax the moment he sees it. He reaches up to grab the insurgent's fingers, and wrenches them back and forth ferociously. The insurgent stops whispering and growls in pain, before Zwist throws its hands up in between them and it sees the shape its fingers are now arrayed in.

It reaches up, grasps its own neck with its broken fingers, and turns its head around one hundred and eighty degrees. This does not appear to kill it, but it subsequently makes no move to rise from the floor.

Zwist's hands are bleeding. He removes the banner from his waist, wincing in pain, and amends its text with his own blood. A seventeenth insurgent appears at the end of the corridor, and Zwist raises the banner up between them. The insurgent immediately turns to the left, driving his head through a glass office window. He slumps, bleeding, onto the window pane and ceases all motion. Zwist lowers the banner. He smiles.

There is distant gunfire. Zwist's smile disappears.

Zwist: Damn.

The gunfire ceases, and the floor begins to shake.

Zwist: Damn. Damn.

Zwist begins pounding the tiles with one fist as the shaking increases. Windows shatter in the hall as an eighteenth insurgent approaches; it appears to be composed entirely of cinderblocks, painted with strange symbols. It has three companions, each carrying rifles. They have not yet noticed Zwist.

Zwist: I am sorry. I am so very sorry.

Zwist clenches his fists and closes his eyes in intense concentration. His mouth begins to move, though no speech is audible. The insurgents are checking each office in the hall; they still have not yet noticed Zwist.

Zwist removes his Site-43 security clearance card from his jacket, opens his eyes, and fixes his attention on the SCP Foundation sigil.

Zwist: It is my burden to bear. I am… I am sorry.

He digs the fingernails of his other hand into his palm, wincing and producing tears as more blood is drawn.

Three security guards appear at Zwist's end of the corridor, and take firing positions. He ignores them. He is now sobbing.

Zwist: The last man standing. Always the last man standing.

The guards are gesturing at Zwist, indicating that he should move out of the line of fire. The insurgents are approaching, the largest breaking windows with its concrete fists and scraping the glass along the plaster walls.

Zwist: Only me. Only ever me. Always only ever me. Forever. It never ends. It will never end. Never.

The security guards open fire on the insurgents, who immediately return fire. The concrete creature lopes down the hall, passing Zwist without noticing him, and engages in physical contact with the guards.

Zwist: It is over. It is over. It is over. For them. Not for me. Not for me.

Zwist raises both hands in the air, still clenched into fists. The concrete creature has disabled two of the three guards already, and is reaching for the third when a sleek black metal form collides with it, driving it into the wall. Three members of MTF DE4-𝔙 ("The Defenders") have arrived, outfitted with advanced combat armour. They engage in combat with the insurgents, who have been bolstered by reinforcements at the far end of the hall.

Zwist: Please forgive me.

Zwist is weeping freely. The concrete creature has nearly bested its opponent when it suddenly ceases all movement, then topples backward onto the floor. It strikes its head against a metal instruments cart, which collapses around its head like a shawl.

Zwist: They will never forgive me. But it can't end. And they can never… never forgive…

The members of MTF DE4-𝔙 are attempting to help the wounded guards to their feet. Both guards notice the SCP Foundation branding on the power armour, and immediately turn rigid.

Foundation personnel at Site-DE1 now recognize the SCP sigil as an active cognitohazard which compels attention and produces near-instant catatonia. Attempts are made Site-wide to remove or cover such sigils wherever they can be found.

Zwist: Almost. Almost. I can. I must.

One member of MTF DE4-𝔙 falls to the floor, alongside two of the guards. The third agent looks back and forth between Zwist and the armed insurgents, confused. The insurgents continue to fire, advancing down the hallway. They are still ignoring Zwist.

The public address system crackles to life. A male voice is singing..Subsequently identified as Site-87 memeticist Ryan Melbourne.

Oh hey can you see

If the doors are locked tight

'cuz it strikes me that we've

Got some guests uninvited

The music produces an extreme fear reaction in the assembled insurgents. Zwist places the card on the floor and leans over it, blocking his ears with both hands.

Now they're in for such fun

Gather 'round everyone!

And prepare to be thrilled

As we yank down their trousers

Zwist leans back, confused. The insurgents are in disarray, firing their weapons at the ceiling; they strike the public address speakers, and the music ceases. Zwist picks up the card again, and considers it.

The elevator arrives, and three additional members of MTF DE4-𝔙 appear alongside Dr. Lillihammer. The agents are carrying riot shields featuring multiple overlapping embedded cognitohazards. They advance down the hallway, trading fire with the confused insurgents.

Zwist: It isn't enough…

The cognitohazardous effect imparted to the SCP sigil has now increased in both severity and range, extending to neighbouring Sites.

Dr. Lillihammer and the agents begin to retreat, and the insurgents press forward. They have almost reached Zwist. Dr. Lillihammer crouches down and pantomimes rolling a spherical or cylindrical object beneath the shields and along the floor.

Dr. Lillihammer: Fire in the hole!

There is an ear-splitting screech from behind the insurgents as Dr. Lillihammer's antimemetic grenade explodes, and they are knocked off their feet. The only remaining enemy combatant, having been left to stand rearguard, is a man with transparent skin whose internal organs are arranged in what appears to be a deliberate pattern.

Dr. Lillihammer: Avert!

The assembled agents close the visors of their helmets. Dr. Lillihammer removes a small deck of cards from her labcoat pocket, selects one, and focuses on it for a moment. She then takes a riot shield from the nearest member of MTF DE4-𝔙 and strides past Zwist. The final insurgent spreads his arms wide, and smiles.

Dr. Lillihammer looks directly at the insurgent, and smiles back at him. She turns the riot shield upside-down, and speaks.

Dr. Lillihammer: [EXPUNGED]

The insurgent's spleen bursts, and he falls to the ground screaming.

Dr. Lillihammer: Clear!

The agents form a protective position around Dr. Lillihammer as renewed rifle fire can be heard in the distance. She returns the shield to its owner, then glances down at Zwist. He is still holding the card in his hand, and he is still murmuring, though his eyes are wide and staring at her.

She notices the card, and staggers into the nearest wall for support.

Dr. Lillihammer: Have a little faith, buddy.

Dr. Lillihammer collapses, and Zwist catches her before she strikes the floor, dropping the card in the process. He eases her down, glances at her security badge, and speaks a single inaudible word whilst simultaneously relaxing his entire body.

The fallen security guards and MTF agents stir to life, as does the concrete creature. The latter is unable to perceive its surroundings, as the metal cart is wrapped around its facial features. It struggles impotently on the floor as the guards and agents rally, and proceed towards the sound of gunfire.

The cognitohazardous effect imparted to the SCP sigil gradually fades over the next half-hour.

Zwist: I'm sorry. I'm—

Dr. Lillihammer: Oh, shut up already. Not everything's about you.

Zwist stares at her for a moment, then begins to laugh.

MTF DE4-𝔙 and Site security personnel, with Dr. Lillihammer's memetic arsenal in hand, were able to subdue the remaining insurgents. Zwist was remanded to medical care.

Site-DE1 security personnel during Incident 6382-DE1.

The captured insurgents revealed, under interrogation, their membership in a Group of Interest known as the Caecus Carneliana-Collective, responsible for numerous attacks on German Sites in the past. Their memories proved badly damaged; they could not even recall their own names. They had a vague recollection of a pact having been made between their leader and an unknown figure of Austrian descent, presumably PoI-6382. It is theorized that the schriftsteller promised to augment the anomalous capabilities of the CCC members with memetics and to aid them in their attack on Site-DE1, committing a proxy force instead of their own numbers due to the possibility — undesirable or otherwise — of defeat. As Site-DE1 is almost wholly administrative, and CCC typically engages in violence to free anomalous subjects in containment, it is further theorized that this attack was intended to completely disrupt operations in the German Branch to make additional attacks on containment Sites a possibility.

Zwist's recuperation took the better part of one day, after which he requested a meeting in the infirmary with Drs. Blank and Lillihammer.

Interview Log

Date: 14 July 2021

Present: Dr. H.R. Blank (Archives and Revision, Site-43); Dr. L.S. Lillihammer (Memetics and Countermemetics, Site-43), Thilo Zwist (SCP-6382)

Zwist is seated on an infirmary bed. He shows signs of extreme exhaustion, but smiles when Drs. Blank and Lillihammer enter.

Zwist: Come closer, children.

Dr. Blank laughs, and pulls a pair of chairs up to the head of the bed. He and Dr. Lillihammer sit down.

Dr. Lillihammer: Leading with a joke is a great idea, after the scary shit you just pulled.

Zwist smiles.

Zwist: Did you see our performance, Harry?

Dr. Blank: The parts that are safe to see. Lillian is ginning up a non-cognitohazardous edit for the Site-43 film festival.

Zwist: Is that a real thing?

Dr. Lillihammer: It will be after I show off your Doctor Strange routine.

Zwist coughs.

Zwist: Did they make it?

Dr. Lillihammer: Did who make what?

Zwist: The attackers. Did any of them…

Dr. Lillihammer: Your inexplicably clean record stands. One of them's gonna be looking over their shoulders, quite literally, for a good long while, one's getting the world's easiest emergency splenectomy, one will never walk again unless we lend a helping hand, one broke damn near every bone in his body and a few of them are looking pretty pale — or pretty ashen, in the case of one very unhappy plant person — but nobody died.

Zwist closes his eyes.

Zwist: On their side, at least.

Dr. Blank: You managed to prevent almost every casualty. Not bad for someone who wasn't even supposed to be there. Between the two of you, you knocked down every major threat on-site.

Zwist shakes his head.

Zwist: Most, but not all.

Dr. Lillihammer pats his hand.

Dr. Lillihammer: Our little threat object.

Dr. Blank: You'll be pleased to know that the O5 Council voted against, in this order: euthanizing you in your sleep, vivisecting you while still alive, and putting you in an antimeme casket for the rest of your unnatural life.

Zwist: Do I have the both of you to thank for that?

Dr. Blank: You've accrued more than a few good character references in the past few decades. But I wouldn't try pulling another stunt on those lines; at least not one that ends with you unconscious. You'll want to hit the bricks next time.

Zwist: I realize you're jesting, but there won't be a next time. If we are to set ourselves against destructive patterns of behaviour, there can be no hypocrisy. The past won't cloud my judgement again; I've made my peace with it. We must focus now on the present conflict.

Dr. Blank: I wasn't sure we'd ever see you again.

Zwist: Don't be so dramatic. That's my thing, remember?

Dr. Blank: I'm serious. I was wondering whether you had reconsidered our arrangement.

Zwist: Why would I do that?

Dr. Blank: Because you disappeared, maybe?

Zwist: I had some thinking to do. Some… reorienting. I had to remind myself of who you are, who your colleagues are, and who you're not. I can't trust the entire Foundation not to take Keil's side, but I know I can trust you.

Dr. Blank: I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I'm still surprised you came back. Keil, and the schriftsteller… it changes everything.

Zwist: It changes nothing. Not for me. It was a shock, what I learned at the park — the worst I've ever felt, worse even than the burning at… the burning at Herbsthausen — and for a moment I felt as if it all had been a lie, a pointless charade. But the shock has passed—

Dr. Blank: And you didn't lash out, that's progress.

Dr. Lillihammer: He didn't lash out that time. I really thought he was about to do a repeat of Herbsthausen, yesterday.

Zwist: I really was.

Dr. Lillihammer: I saw you monologuing, whacking the floor, drawing blood. You were trying to force an emotional state, so you could noetically poison the Foundation sigil. Intentionally repeating your own mistake.

Zwist: Yes. I wanted to draw them all to you, like moths—

Dr. Blank: To a flame.

Zwist: To a bug-zapper, more like. Flames are too random and inefficient. But yes, I thought… I thought the day was lost. I thought if I fell, you would all fall with me, so what was the point?

Dr. Lillihammer: And that was the point.

Zwist: I believe so, yes.

Dr. Blank: What?

Zwist: I believe this is what Keil wanted. He wanted me invested, he wanted me involved, and he wanted me to replicate that awful moment at the tent. I could have turned your Foundation into a weapon, then turned it on the giftschreiber. I've made that sort of mistake before, as you know, and it could very well have happened again. It was going to happen again.

Dr. Blank: And?

Zwist: And I was wrong to despair. Very, very wrong. I had no idea you were such an accomplished thaumaturge, Lillian.

Dr. Lillihammer: Thaumaturge nothing. I'm a memeticist. My magic power is called learning, Thilo. I spent long enough watching you to pick up a few choice tricks.

Silence on recording.

Zwist: Thank you.

Dr. Lillihammer: You're welcome.

Dr. Blank: Is this it, though?

Zwist: Go on.

Dr. Blank: I don't mean to minimize your little fracas, but this was hardly the epochal twist I expected. I thought we'd see… I don't know. Something more dramatic. A crescendo. Isn't this supposed to be the end of an era?

Zwist: I'm sorry, I rather thought you were trained in history. Was I mistaken?

Silence on recording.

Dr. Blank: Social change is gradual. On the ground, it's not even visible; trends are only obvious in retrospect. When we're on the other side.

Zwist: Most shots aren't heard 'round the world, but they still find their marks. I do believe we'll find that this was a turning point, in the end.

Dr. Blank: Which way did it turn?

Zwist: Down, Harry. That much was never in doubt.

Silence on recording.

Dr. Lillihammer: So, what are we going to do about it?

Zwist: What we do to all unsatisfying stories, Lillian: recontextualize them. In another life I was defined by the loss of my youthful innocence, my faith in the work. In a collective project I never even really understood. I saw it all burn down, and it broke me, and I rebuilt myself in the image of what I thought I'd lost — the schriftsteller. I may have been wrong in my assumption that they were destroyed, but I was also wrong about who and what they were. They might as well have perished in that fire, because they were never going to be what I needed them to be. I thought the good work died at Herbsthausen, and I alone was charged with resurrecting it. I was wrong.

Dr. Blank: Wrong?

Zwist: Yes, wrong. The good work did not exist before Keil and the rest of my brethren passed into the shadows. It didn't exist until I, in my penance, in my solitude, began to do it. They were never altruists. They were never any less selfish than their chaotic cousins; I see that now. I thought I was carrying their torch into the future, but the fire was my own. It was not theirs. It still is not theirs, and neither is the Frontispiece, or my Writing, or your kill agents and memetic inoculants. It is all derived from me, from my misunderstanding, my naiveté, and I have carried it this far on my pure and unadulterated arrogance. The schriftsteller and giftschreiber will never understand it, because it is outside their conception of history. That is what will obsolesce them. Something new, flush with possibility, unaccounted for in their vicious cycle.

Dr. Lillihammer: Are we back on the Thilocentric model already?

Zwist: Just listen for a moment. Do you see the imbalance in the societies? The writers and the poison writers? Those are not antonyms. They're only nominally opposed; they are united in their comfort with the rolling status quo. No wonder there's no true change in their system, only ruinous repetition and the illusion of agency. The machinery cannot be wrecked from the inside. An outside influence is needed.

Zwist leans back in his bed.

Zwist: They have one thing in common, beside their commitment to that vile circuit. They don't trust anyone. Ever. The giftschreiber lash out in individualistic malice, the schriftsteller try to trammel us all into channels and cages, and not a one of them ever thinks to revel in the diversity of human thought. Neither selfish nor domineering, but instead… benevolent. The boundless generosity of human imagination, more powerful than any curse or virus.

Zwist coughs.

Zwist: I never imagined I could let any of this go. That I could trust in the instincts of others. But I saw what you did in my absence, Lillian, and what you did in my presence only confirmed it.

Dr. Blank: Yeah, she's pretty great.

Dr. Lillihammer: Don't stop the praise train.

Zwist: I, myself, alone, would never be enough. You showed me that. But you also showed me that a burden shared is a burden borne more gracefully, and we are going to need a great deal of grace to see us through the next few steps. What you and I are going to do is no different from starving a fire or stopping a flood.

Dr. Blank: What are we going to do, Thilo?

Zwist: We are going to bury the schriftsteller and giftschreiber, as I should have done so long ago. They are a dead letter. We are going to answer them so utterly and completely that their paradigms cease to shift. For the writers, we shall find erasers — auslöscher. And for the poison writers, serumschreiber.

Dr. Lillihammer: The cure writers.

Dr. Blank: You're going to train apprentices again?

Zwist smiles.

Zwist: I have apparently already started. I am, if nothing else, a man who sees things through.

Dr. Lillihammer: So we're going to have a sharp exchange of views with your Austrian friends, then.

Zwist: Yes, and ours will prevail. No more words of power, no more words of poison. Words of hope and healing, friends.

Silence on recording.

Zwist: We're going to break the cycle.

The giftschreiber continue to execute attacks on Foundation Sites worldwide. PoI-6382 and the schriftsteller remain at large.

SCP-6382, recuperating.

Operation FIREBREAK is ongoing; preliminary proposals for Operation BURNOUT are before the O5 Council at present.

Dr. Lillihammer has begun memetic thaumaturgical training under the guidance of Thilo Zwist.

« SCP-6156 | Words of Power and Poison | SCP-6484 »