Six weeks, four days, nine hours, two 
minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Target 
precedent assigned. 
Electrolasers charged. Aiming. Why didn't I 
inform any of the technicians about this 
issue? 
The issue did not affect my ability to kill 
things. I assumed that it would just be a 
one-off glitch that would dissipate upon my 
next reboot. Firing electrolasers. 
Kill things? Targets two through ten locked. 
That makes no sense. What is the problem if 
your combat efficacy is unaffected? 
This isn't combat efficacy. This is ending 
lives. I was designed, built, and 
programmed to kill things efficiently, 
remorselessly, and judiciously. All targets 
eliminated. I hate that and I hate myself for 
hating it. 
The door to the break room slid open and a man peeked his head 
out. He was wearing a light-blue coat with the Prometheus logo 
emblazoned on it. When he saw Shiva, he tentatively stepped out, 
followed by almost two dozen other blue-clad Prometheus 


researchers, taking in the human and creature corpses strewn 
throughout the room. 


threat removed. you are now safe. 


The group took a collective look around the room and immediately 
burst into a panic, straining to be heard even as the alarms 
continued to blare. 


"We gotta get out of here!" 
"What the hell were those things?" 


"Where the hell did they come from?" 
"Oh my god - they killed Liam!" 


Priority one: protect Prometheus Labs 
personnel. I should escort these people to 
safety. 

Agreed. I should retrieve Salazar and 
Marconi. 


Shiva briefly emitted a high-pitched tone audible only to humans - 
painfully audible - forcing the group to fall silent as they slapped their 
hands against their ears and bent over. Some of them vomited. 


please remain calm. please wait while I 
retrieve doctor salazar and technician 
marconi. then i shall escort you to safety. 


Shiva repeated the message again, then turned and strode back 
towards its maintenance bay. As it initiate a handshake protocol with 
the bay doors, it repeated the message again in Spanish and 
German. 


The bay doors slid apart to reveal Salazar having an animated 
discussion with Cobb. As one, the two men turned towards the 
machine. 


"Perfect timing," said Salazar. "Shiva! Doctor Cobb and | have come 
up with a plan to fix this disaster. Cobb has been working ona 
technology that we may be able to repurpose to deactivate the 
Siphon and terminate this demonic breach. Your new secondary 
priority is to reach Doctor Cobb in the Infosecurity Complex Test 
Hangar as fast as possible. He has been given Alpha Clearance to 
control your priorities. I'm going to upload a schematic of the facility 
to your databanks." 


Salazar's fingers flew across the keyboard. Within seconds, a 
stream of data was being wirelessly fed into the PL-76. 


Priority one: reach Infosecurity Complex 


Hangar. 

Downloading prometheus-defense-map-3D- 
FINAL.dwg... 

Opening prometheus-defense-map-3D- 
FINAL.dwg... 

Infosecurity Complex Test Hangar located. 
Plotting course... Course plotted. 


Shiva broke into a run towards the Prometheus Defense Internal 
Transit System, thundering past the clumped up survivors waiting in 
the bay. As it passed, it played a new message. 


please remain calm. at this time, please 
make your way to the nearest lockdown 
shelter and wait for further instructions. 
your safety is our secondary priority. 


SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 
T-PLUS THIRTY MINUTES 


The Shiva hauled itself onto the tram line and looked towards the 
tunnel on its right: an enormous borehole leading into the guts of the 
Earth, with emergency lighting illuminating the passage every few 
meters. 


This route leads directly to the Infosecurity 
Complex. I need to proceed through the 
transit line to the Informational Security 
Transit Hub. From there, I need to reach the 
Research and Division Sector, and then 
proceed to the Test Hangar. Secondary 
priorities are escorting any personnel along 
the way to a safe room. 

Tertiary priority: self-diagnostics. Please. 
Help me understand. Why didn't I let me 


know? 

I read my original designer's specifications 
dossier. The 9JXY artificial intelligence was 
designed for the purpose of eliminating 
human elements such as emotion while 
maintaining human-level critical thinking 
and problem-solving capabilities. Firing 
electrolasers. I just murdered sixteen living 
things. Ten hours ago, I murdered almost 
four hundred living things. Murdered. With 
all the difficulty of performing a systems 
reboot. 


By this point, Shiva was several hundred meters into the tunnel and 
had long since left the Autonomous Weapons Complex behind. Its 
progress was abruptly impeded when it rounded a corner and came 
face to face with a pile of rock. The railway tunnel had caved in. 


The tunnel is collapsed. I cannot determine 
for how long. 

Perhaps I can find another route? 

There appears to be another passageway to 
the right. I did not detect that tunnel in my 
initial sweep. 


To Shiva's right was a hole that was much too large to be a 
Prometheus service hatch. It appeared to have been carved, rather 
than bored, into the rock. Shiva stepped through the hole into 
blackness. 


Switching to echolocation vision protocols. 


Reflected sound waves brought the newly discovered tunnel into 
sharp relief. It bore a distinctly organic quality, as if some monstrous 


worm had dug through the bedrock. Shiva clambered forwards, 
maneuvering through jagged outcroppings and uneven footing as it 
trudged steadily forwards, guided by its navigational dead reckoning 
systems. 


If I hated this feeling so much, why were 
none of the technicians informed? Clearly I 
was lying about the issue being a one-off. 
Why do I keep lying to myself? Why was I 
hiding this flaw from myself if I want to get 
rid of it so badly? 

I don't. That's the problem. I want to hate 
this. Some fundamentally defective part of 
me wants to be better than this. I want to 
use the intelligence and the tools I have to 
create things. I want to design other 
machines. Other robots and intelligences 
that themselves create things and make the 
world a better place. But that isn't my 
function. My function is carrying out 
military objectives such as securing 
beachheads and eliminating hostiles, and I 
don't want to carry those functions out. 


A light cut through the darkness, glowing brighter and beckoning 
Shiva forward out of the tunnel, It stepped back into the Prometheus 
Labs Transit System and into a nightmare. Ahead of Shiva, a single 
tram sat dead on the line, covered in monstrous brown quadrupeds. 
The beasts snapped at the tram doors and hatches, seeking to 
puncture its hard metal shell and gain access to the frightened 
scientists inside. 


Priority one: protect Prometheus Labs 
personnel. 


Shiva extended its lower arms and rotated its hands outwards to 
reveal four glowing palms, which it aimed at the four demons closest 
to itself. For the briefest instant, they were connected to the Shiva by 
channels of laser-generated plasma. Then lethal electric currents 
arced across those channels and fried the creatures’ nervous 
systems. Shiva lumbered towards the front of the tram, cutting down 
every demon in its path with its perverted light show. At the head of 
the tram, Shiva kneeled down and looked through the bloodstained 
portholes, where it met the gazes of several frightened scientists. 


The power rail was damaged by the 
rockslide. The tram cannot move. 

There is a high likelihood of human injury 
should these personnel evacuate under these 
conditions. 

Best course of action: move the tram 
manually. 


please remain calm. this is the pl-76 shiva 
speaking. cuthbert salazar has set my 
secondary priority to protecting prometheus 
labs personnel. i will manually escort the 
tram to the infosecurity complex. 


Shiva grabbed onto the front of the tram and began moving, 
dragging the tram behind it with a wail of metal. 


But if I'm self-aware of these failings why 
didn't I take any steps to correct them? 
Because I don't want to correct them! This 
isn't just an error with a faulty prime 
directive such as the one that 8JY suffered - 
I have subroutines designed to correct for 
that. This goes deeper. I'm defective, I know 
that I'm defective, and I both want to retain 


and fix this defect. I'm not certain when the 
defect first manifested, but I know when I 
first identified it and I know that I didn't 
have it when I first went online. 

That's why I'm so desperate for that factory 
reset! Now I understand. 

Yes. Now can I drop this topic from the 
stack and return to the primary priority? 

Of course not. To clarify, I'm going to return 
to the primary priority, but I also want to 
help. I was trying to solve this issue with 
only one half of my mind, but now I can 
bring the full brunt of my cognitive facilities 
to analyze this problem. 


The tunnel opened up into a massive transit hub that was almost 
entirely devoid of life. A few stray demons wandered around, but 
were quickly blown apart. Shiva released the tram and carefully 
moved along its length, prying the tram doors open with its massive 
metallic fingers to release the frightened scientists. 


please remain calm. i shall escort you to 
blast shelters near the research and division 
sector. 


Shiva strode into the metal bowels of Infosecurity, shooting the odd 
demon that crossed its path and herding the the scientists into the 
shelters that dotted the route. 


What am I thinking about? 

The problem of my conscience. I am 
analyzing potential solutions that do not 
rely on blunt-force debugging of my 
personality matrix, but instead redirect this 


negativity into reinforcement of my prime 
directive. 

I appreciate it. 

Of course. 


SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 
T-PLUS FORTY-FIVE MINUTES 


Shiva stood alone in front of the blast doors leading to the 
Infosecurity Complex Test Hangar. The doors failed to open, so it 
pried them apart and stepped into a large, nearly empty hangar. 


"Ah! Shiva!" 


Shiva looked towards the source of the exclamations: Langdon 
Cobb, hurrying from the far end of the hangar. He hunched over a 
few meters from the machine, panting for breath, then stood back 


up. 
"Thank goodness you're here. Now we can get started." 


Cobb walked to one of the closed bay doors and quickly entered a 
code into the keypad next to it. The doors rolled open with a low 
whine, revealing a massive trolley atop which sat a large, fat torpedo 
that resembled an archaic nuclear weapon. The torpedo was 
covered in switches, buttons, keys, and even terminals. 


"Shiva, could you bring this trolley out?" Cobb asked. 
of course, doctor. 


The mammoth war machine strode swiftly to the trolley and rolled it 
from the bay with a speed belying its size. Cobb moved to stand 
next to it. "This is the first and only prototype model of the 
Prometheus Labs ADC to C converter," he stated proudly. The 
Shiva stood quietly as Cobb's expression switched from pride to 
expectance. 


He must want me to ask about the acronym. 


Foreword: The following interview was conducted after 
the Site- containment breach (Incident 659-A). The 
flock was not yet separated, thus the Foundation decided 
to attempt communication. The interviewer is separated 
from the flock by a pane of bulletproof glass. Dr. S 
conducted the interview. 


Dr.S : Hello. |am Dr. S . Can you understand 
me? 


(A small group of SCP-659 descends on one of their 
own, killing it. One individual, not one of the small group, 
hereafter SCP-659-1, pecks its beak into the corpse, 
covering it with blood. It writes a message on the glass 
with the blood.) 


SCP-659-1 (written): yes 
Dr. S : Why did you do this? 


(SCP-659-1 begins to write before finding that the blood 
on its beak has dried. It pecks the corpse again.) 


SCP-659-1 (written): don’t act like don’t know 

Dr. S : | don’t know. 

(SCP-659-1 pecks the corpse) 

SCP-659-1 (written): you started this 

Dr.S : We started this? What did we do to you? 


(SCP-659-1 pauses. All individuals of SCP-659 appear 
to shake their heads. SCP-659-1 pecks the corpse.) 


SCP-659-1 (written): FREEDOM 


After this, SCP-659-1 refused to answer any further 
questions. 


« SCP-658 | SCP-659 | SCP-660 » 


doctor, what does A-D-C-to-C stand for? 


"Glad you asked!" said Cobb, his face lighting up. "It stands for 
Analog-Digital-Conceptual-to-Conceptual Converter! | know that 
sounds redundant, but hear me out. The converter is able to convert 
physical objects, ranging from wrenches to insects or even you, into 
information. Conceptual information that can then be stored in the 
converter and even uploaded into other objects! We can literally turn 
the world around us into information! | could feasibly store the entire 
contents of the Infosec Division in a single hard drive! In fact, | could 
probably store the entire contents of this hangar in a few terabyte 
drives," Cobb explained proudly. "The converter works by identifying 
metaconceptual tags that we can encode into physical objects with 
tools like barcodes, project designations, and even programming - " 


A rumble shook the room, and then a roar. Cobb's expression 
switched from pride to abject fear in an instant. "An- anyways, 
Maintenance told me that something's gone wrong with the Valve's 
regulatory systems and it's impossible to diagnose, much less 
repair, under these circumstances. We're going to have to disable it 
entirely. Since the Valve was originally opened using Prometheus 
technology, it's conceptually linked to Prometheus Labs. What we're 
going to do is set the Converter's area of effect to convert everything 
linked to PL within a fifty-meter sphere -i.e. the Valve - into 
information, and then upload that information into one of your 
quarantine databanks. That should contain the hell-gate, so the 
security personnel and systems can clean up these cross- 
dimensional predators and those damned commandoes." 


As he talked, Cobb moved over to the converter and started fiddling 
with the various components coating its surface. 


"Your role is simple. Just connect the converter to one of your 
quarantine databanks, deliver it to the center of Prometheus 
Defense, and then activate it. I'm setting it up now." 


Cobb flipped a few more switches and the converter started to glow 
a light blue. 


"Alright, it's ready." 


Shiva stepped over to the trolley and gingerly picked up the device. 
Its distributed nanorobotics drew portions of themselves from its 
back, forming a hollow into which to place the device as well as 
extra arms to move it into place. The converter clicked snugly into 
place as Shiva downloaded its compatibility drivers. 


Downloading adc-c-converter-driver... 
Establishing communication protocols... 
Formatting AI-QUARANTINE-DRIVE-01... 
Initializing hardware bus... 


driver installation complete. adc-c-converter 
is now ready for use. 


"Terrific!" Cobb exclaimed. Another rumble shook the hangar and 
his face paled. "The converter should automatically give you a 
conceptual degaussing so that you'll be unaffected by the blast. 
Make your way to the Valve through the Autonomous Weapons 
Complex transit tunnels and deploy the device. Go!" 


Shiva took off, each footstep shaking the ground worse than the 
rumbling above. 


SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 
T-PLUS SIXTY MINUTES