He also let me know why Cecil and the rest of the staff 
didn't come in today. Apparently Mr. Bjornsen sent out a 
memo yesterday telling everyone to go to a team- 
building indoctrination today and | just didn't get it. Still, 
he complimented me for sticking around and filling the 
airwaves for you, my fine audience. But the others 
should be back tomorrow, so this may be the last you 
hear from me. 


In the meantime, up next is the sound of your own 
stagnant heartbeat, trapped in the rhythm of a nihilistic 
existential crisis. 


Good night, Night Vale. Good night. 


Foundation casualties: 4 injured, 0 killed 
Civilian casualties: unknowable 


incidents were more than mere animal attacks. A Foundation 
scouting expedition eventually encountered SCP-615, suffering 
several casualties in the process. A more specialized task force was 
sent in and managed to herd SCP-615 into containment with the use 
of flares and torches. 


« SCP-614 | SCP-615 | SCP-616 » 


Solvin' Center of Problems 


Dell Conagher could hear the agonizing screams of half his 
coworkers dying horribly. He solved this problem by removing his 
traditional hardhat and pulling on a pair of acoustic earmuffs. The 
Safe'n'Sound, straight from Mann Co. One of his best purchases to 
date. Now ignorant of further screaming, gunfire, and explosions, the 
Engineer flipped through his magazine lazily, his feet resting on the 
the ammo drum of his sentry. 


He nodded at the German man that suddenly appeared on his right, 
standing on the hard red light of a Telemax Teleporter. The Medic 
waved away the particles that often remained after teleporting and 
hurried downstairs. The teleporter coughed up a few spare 
transdimensional particles before the red light faded and the 
gyroscope powered down. Dell glanced at his PDA and sucked on 
his teeth when he saw his dispenser and teleporter entrance had 
both been destroyed. 


Down below, the Medic arrived just in time to rejoin his coworkers as 
they charged out to fight the incoming robot menace, good as new. 
The metal doppelganger horde approached the building, the ground 
shaking beneath their feet. The sentry twitched eagerly as it 
detected hostiles, like an Australian before a fistfight. Dell peered 
over the magazine briefly before returning to the new Mann Co. 
catalog. 


"Easy, girl," Dell said fondly. "It's gonna be a long day. Plenty of 
robots to shoot." 


SCP-1290. The "Imperfect Teleporter,” as his peers had nicknamed 
it. "Fucking Bullshit," was the name Researcher Cassiter of 
Research Site 48-Alpha had given it. The Foundation had spent the 
last fifteen years trying to reverse engineer the thing, and while they 
could copy it they didn't understand how it actually worked, or how 
to solve its malfunctions. Cassiter was beginning to wish for a 


reassignment when someone proposed something new. And it was 
a more interesting idea than sending a bowling ball. 


His colleagues were in the middle of deconstructing Dash Two on 
the other side of the planet when the idea came up. "What if we 
activated Dash One when Dash Two was disassembled?" Cassiter 
didn't know the answer. The Site Director didn't know the answer. 
So they decided to find the answer. 


Dell Conagher fired his modified shotgun and continued making 
widows. (Provided robots married. Dell didn't want to just assume.) 
The Sniper stood nearby, systematically applying Mr. Mundy's 
"mystery liquid" to the robots with one of his custom rifles. Dell's 
sentry bombarded a Heavybot with missiles and gunfire, and after a 
brief but brutal punishment the giant automaton stumbled and 
smashed several of its smaller brethren. 


Dell had yet to rebuild a new teleporter entrance, but he had at least 
had the sense to erect a dispenser so the Heavy Weapons Guy 
could freely annihilate any mechanical men that approached him or 
the not-so-good Doktor. A squad of Soldierbots unloaded on the 
mercs' little stronghold, but a combination of Ubercharge and sticky 
bombs from a drunkard successfully held off the push. They had 
survived the latest wave of the day. 


Dell hopped down and rushed to the smoking dispenser, pulling out 
his trusty wrench. The ultimate tool to an Engineer, capable of 
repairing anything with a little skill. Dell smashed the dispenser a 
couple times and nodded with satisfaction when it was back to 
100%. He stretched and watched his coworkers collect the cash 
dropped by Gray Mann's minions. Sniper wandered over and tossed 
him his share. Dell caught the cash wad and lowered his 
Safe'n'Sound. 


"Much obliged." 
"We gave 'em a bloody drubin, eh, mate?" 


"Yeah." Dell pocketed his money and headed for his nest. "Startin' to 
think we'll actually live through all this." 


"Aw c'mon, Truckie!" Mr. Mundy smirked and absentmindedly 
rubbed his scar. He stowed the money in his hat and followed. "| 
could do this all day. We got the Doc, and your... respawn thing. 
We'll be fine." 


"Yeah... So long as we got Mann Co. supplying us, | suppose we'll 
be fine." Dell tinkered with his sentry before the next wave came. 


"Uh... | don't remember you layin’ down an entrance." 


Dell looked to the teleporter exit. It was spinning, and letting off it's 
usual hard light disc. Except it wasn't red, or even blue. Dell figured 
gray was a more likely color than black. But there it was, the 
teleporter up and running. And after a few seconds out came aa 
block of Styrofoam. 


The Engineer and the Sniper stared for several seconds before 
looking to each other. 


"What." 


"Well, that worked," Cassiter remarked. 
"D-Class?" Researcher Tyler asked. 


"D-Class. Power it down until we test it, just in case." 


Dell Conagher picked up the Styrofoam carefully. He shook it 
around, broke it apart, but found nothing strange about it. Dell 
Conagher was the descendant of a man who had cut off his own 
hand just so he could replace it with a robotic one, he himself had 
personally trumped said ancestor by developing a machine that 
would make men immortal, was employed by a sociopath who was 
very possibly powered by his mustache (or his chest hair that 
resembled Australia), he had befriended a psychopathic 
pyromaniac, fought a wizard (several times, actually), accidentally 
killed a monkeynaut with a defunct rocket (RIP Poopy Joe), fought 
robot clones powered by money, had gone to Hell and back, and 
somehow this was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. 


So Dell decided to do what he always did when something broke his 
weirdness threshold. He rolled with it, but cautiously. He placed the 
Styrofoam down, and redirected his sentry toward the teleporter. He 
hailed his comrades and alerted them as to what happened. They 
prepared themselves. They were too curious to not simply destroy 
the teleporter exit, and too insane to wonder how long they would sit 
there staring at it. 


And then the teleporter powered down. 


And then more robots showed up. 


An hour later, D-101007 was pulled from his usual duties and placed 
on SCP-1290-1. The researchers gave him a helmet, knee pads, 
and elbow pads. They did not tell him what they were planning, just 
that he was going to contribute to science. Or cure their boredom, at 
least. They didn't actually mention that second part. 


Tavish Finnegan DeGroot stared at the stump just beyond his left 
shoulder. "Where's m' arm?" 


"Where is your legs?" Heavy Weapons Guy asked. 


The drunk Scotsman looked down at himself and immediately 
sobered up. "Y'know, | can't remember." 


The Heavy laughed, long and hardy. The Demoman began to join in 
but bled out and died before he could really get going. This made 
the Heavy laugh even harder, and the Medic even joined in. Half a 
minute later the Demoman marched out of the respawn room with a 
large grin and an even larger bottle of scrumpy. 


The Medic wiped the oil and smile from his face and cleared his 
throat. "Engineer, about zat... Vat vas the vord? 


"Anomaly, doc." Dell raised his goggles. "It's possible there was an 
error in a Telemax shipment. Somebody else is also linked with my 
teleporters. But if that were the case, they would have come 
through, not that packagin' stuff." 


"So... what?" the Sniper asked. "Somebody found a portal and 
chucked somethin’ in to see what would happen?" 


"Wouldn't be the first time it's happened,” Dell said with a shrug. The 
mercs all mumbled their agreement. "I'm thinkin’ we're facin' another 
one of them multiverse phenomena. Like when Soldier found that 
rocket." 


"Soldier finds rocket with new weapons, we get foam?" Heavy 
crossed his giant arms and spat on the ground. "Could at least send 
hat." 


"Can ya... | dunno, trace it?" the Demoman asked. 


"If it activates again, | might be able to figure out where the entrance 
is. But that could have been a one time thing. If the other side knows 
it's a one-way teleport, they won't risk sendin’ people. Unless they're 
idiots. Or cold-hearted-." 


The familiar sounds of a teleporter starting up cut him off. 


"Well..." Dell lowered his goggles. "Time to find out. Grab yer guns, 
boys." 


The mercs gathered and aimed their various weapons at the black 
disc. They prepared themselves. Humans, zombies, ghosts, 
wizards, robots. They'd fought them all and won. Now they faced a 
new threat. Styrofoam. 


Instead, a large man in an orange jumpsuit materialized. The sentry 
jerked back and forth as if decided whether to fire or not. Dell 
slapped it and the sentry lowered its barrels. The man waved away 
the black nothingness coating him and screamed like a little girl 
when he found six mercenaries and a very large automatic turret 
aiming at him. 


"Easy there," Dell said. He lowered his shotgun slightly. The others 
hesitantly lowered their weapons as well. "Where ya from, pardner?" 


The man in the jumpsuit stumbled back, but Dell had built the 
teleporter against the wall. The man slid down the wall until his butt 
hit the hard light disc. 


"Yer gonna wanna move, son," Dell said. "If somebody else comes 
through, you're gonna get telefragged." 


When the man didn't move, the Heavy yanked him out of the way. 
The Engineer crouched down and tampered with the teleporter. He 
pulled out his PDA and checked its readings several times. He 
grinned and stood up. 


"Our new friend came from Columbia." The mercs looked him over. 
He didn't look Columbian. 


"In the year 2013." They looked for some sign of lasers or jetpack, 
but found none. 


"And from a different universe." Without any premise of new 
weapons, gear, or money the mercs lost interest and prepared for 
the next wave of robots. 


The initial volley of metal arrows rained down on them. Heavy used 
his massive form to take as much of the damage as possible, but a 
lagging arrow whizzed toward the orange-clad newcomer. He 
winced and the arrow drove itself through his head and embedded 
itself in the woodwork behind him. And he was no worse for it. 


"Did that arrow just go through his head?" Sniper asked. 
"Aye," the Demoman said. 


The Medic raised both eyebrow and crossbow and pulled the trigger. 
It whizzed through his chest without ever truly touching him. Dell 
smirked and fired off some metal. Still nothing. 


"Well, that sure is interesting," Dell said. "Y'all defend, | got a call to 
make." 

"| just realized something," Researcher Tyler said. 

Researcher Cassiter looked up from his lunch. "Wazzat?" 


"Twelve-Ninety is one-way. We have literally no way of knowing 
where he went. We just sent a D-Class out into the wild. Possibly 


into another universe. That's a massive information breach." 


"Eh, it's not the worst we've done. Plus, he'll maintain velocity. The 
only damage he'll cause is likely in a different universe as a high 
speed ragdoll." 


"Oh. Right." 


Idiots or cold-hearted sum’ bitches, indeed. 


"Raccoons. No, | don't want to hear about raccoons, Soldier." Dell 
Conagher lifted his goggles and pinched the bridge of his nose, 
holding the phone in his other hand. Talking with Mr. Jane Doe was 
always a trying experience. "Yes, they're adorable little critters. Now, 
please, listen. Can. You. Contact. The Wizard?" 


"Nope. Wait, yes! Well, no. | can't talk to him, | can only summon 
him. Sorry, Engie." 


"But that-" Dell stopped himself. One had to roll with the punches, 
and the only way of getting anywhere with the Soldier was by 
humoring him. "Well, that just might work. | need you to come to the 
latest defense site, ASAP." 


"I'm kind of in the middle of something." Dell could hear the clamor 
of pots and pans on the other end of the line. "How about | just tell 
you how to do it? You're smart." 


"|... suppose that could work. Okay, | have a pencil and pad. How 
do | summon the Wizard?" 


"Right. First..." 


Researchers Cassiter and Tyler stared at SCP-1290-1. 
"Wait! What if we turned Dash Two upside down?" Tyler asked. 


Cassiter didn't bother to bring up the fact this had been brought up 
over a decade ago. He'd humor his newer colleague. "Then you'd be 
oriented right, but still moving east at- what is it, 930 meters a 


second?" 


"What if we had Dash Two upside down, and fired the object 930 
meters a second going west? And then timed it right-" 


"Cute. You have to be touching the platform. | guess if they 
somehow managed to graze the platform and you time it perfect, it 
would work. But | think it would basically be hitting a wall at 930 
emm ess, so you still die." 


"Seriously, how the hell did they manage to build a teleporter, but 
didn't think to build it to compensate for conservation of 
momentum?" 


"| think they were working with Aristotelian physics. Y'know, 
Prometheus, Aristotle, Greek?" 


"Idiots." 


Cassiter chuckled. "You just suggested turning the thing upside 
down and shooting people out of a cannon, and the guys who built a 
functioning teleporter are idiots?" 


"Shut up." 


Dell Conagher stared at the mess he had created at the behest of 
the Soldier. An amalgamation of the defeated robots, welded into 
the shapes of a dozen raccoons. Standing in the middle of them was 
a statue of a man, his arms held out in a very wizardly pose. 


"Alright, Soldier," Dell said. "We built it. Now what?" 


"Now I'm going to make you a medal, Engie! Thank you for building 
me that statue. Can you bring it over to my new house if the robots 
don't murder you all forever?" 


"What." Dell did his best to not break the phone in his white- 
knuckled hand. "Soldier. This was supposed to summon the 
Wizard." 


"Oh. Did | not mention that? Just draw a circle with a smiley face 


inside, but the mouth is an M. Set it on fire, and Merasmus shows 
up." 


Dell chewed on his tongue. "Soldier, have you done that anywhere 
other than the Wizard's house?" 


"No. Haven't had a reason. But whenever | needed to talk to him 
when we lived together, | just did that and he was there in no time!" 


"Soldier, that's because you were setting his house on fire." 


..." Dell watched his teammates fight the robots, waiting for an 
answer. 


"Soldier, can you magically contact or summon the Wizard in any 
way?" 

"..." The Newcomer was charged with collecting the money as they 
went, allowing them to collect money that otherwise would have 
been destroyed in the firefight. The Newcomer had been terrified of 
everything around him initially, but once it was established he 
couldn't be hurt he was willing to help in whatever way possible. 


"Soldier, are you still there?" Dell could still hear pots and pans, but 
nothing else. Then someone cleared their throat on the other end of 
the line. "Jane?" 


"No. This is MERASMUS! What is it you want, fool?" Dell could hear 
Soldier laughing in the background and bragging to the raccoons 
about being right.