AgentL _ , Containment Specialist 2nd Class 


« SCP-883 | SCP-884 | SCP-885 » 


Insurrection 


Description: SCP-E15 is an Aryan female, 
approximately twelve years of age, which appears to 
release a deadly field of unknown composition. The field 
itself is composed of a form of radiation which is not yet 
identified and does not match any currently understood 
phenomena... 


April 17, 1914: 


Elizabeth Tate’s real name had vanished with her birth record and 
the memories of her family twelve years ago. Both she and her 
husband had disappeared just like their names, and now, everyone 
called her Eleven. 


Eleven sighed as she got up from her desk, crossing to the door and 
opening it, walking in Albert’s office and smiling at him as he got up, 
came around the corner of his desk, leaned down, and kissed her— 
just as he did every day before lunch. 


She smiled up at him easily. "Shall we?" asked Eleven. 


Twelve smiled back. "But of course,” he said in his tight, Boston 
accent. 


It had been easier coming into the Foundation like this—together, 
arm in arm, still married. Easier to leave the rest of the world behind. 


"How have things been this morning?" Twelve asked. He was 
always polite, allowing her to speak first, then relating his own day. 
He'd always been polite. 


Eleven related a number of things that had occurred, from a small 
spat between two young officers she’d been mentoring to an issue 
with interoffice mail. She was talking around the problem that had 


actually be occupying her, Twelve knew. 
"She’s arriving today," he said. 

Eleven played dumb. "Who?" she asked. 
"You know who," Twelve said. "The girl." 


Eleven stopped for a moment, looking down, then raising her hand 
and rubbing her eyes. "You know | don’t want to talk about this, 
Albert," she said. 


"Well, you’re going to have to talk about it sooner or later. You're the 
expert in containment, and we're going to need to test her limits," 
Twelve said. "They've kept her sedated for a while, but she'll kick 
the stuff eventually. And when she does, we need to know how bad 
it’s going to be." 


"Let’s not talk about business," Eleven said. 


Twelve nodded. There wasn't anything else to talk about anymore. 
Their lives were the business. But he respected the request, 
motioning for her to lead, then falling into step slightly behind her. 
The meeting that afternoon would be ugly. 


One opened the meeting, nodding to the partially assembled 
council, and gave the floor to Six, and let him relate the state of the 
bodies that had been recovered, the cover story that had been put 
into place, and the general state of things in the small, mid-western 
town that had just seen a large, happy family disappear with two 
sets of their neighbors. 


Six handed things off to Four, who had apparently found some 
people to buy the suddenly vacated housing. And then, Twelve got 
up and relayed the transportation of ‘the object’ to the site, followed 
by the rest of the logistical problems he had dealt with concerning 
the nature of the effect surrounding her. 


And then came the pictures. Six laid them out, a group of flat, cold 
pictures of a little girl. One of them had her sitting in her room 
reading a book, obviously from before the incident. The others were 


from after. Her crying underneath a table. Her unconscious, laying in 
a train car. 


Seven took a slow, deep breath. "This is it, then? She really is one?" 
Eleven thought she heard a hint of anticipation in his voice. Maybe 
even excitement. 


Six nodded. "We had some people strip her down and replace her 
clothes. Isolate her. Tested on animals. All conclusive." Six's voice 
came across too matter-of-factly for her taste. Too detached. 


Eleven shuddered slightly. They’d had someone strip down an eight 
year old girl. With the people they conscripted for jobs like that... 


"Eleven?" 
It was One who had spoken. "Yes?" she said. 


"Any thoughts on current containment? Her effective range seems to 
be growing, according to the results of Six’s field tests." 


Eleven looked over at Six—who was wearing his usual, stony lack of 
an expression—and then back to One. "We'll have to see exactly 
what the effects are on a microscopic level. For all we know, she 
might be carrying a disease or have eaten something—" 


"Oh, for the love of God, Eleven." Five was frowning at her, a look of 
exasperation on his face. "We decided this two weeks ago, when 
the first field reports came back. She is an object." 


"She’s a little girl!" Eleven said, her hackles rising slightly. 


"The evidence I've collected so far is largely conclusive, Eleven," Six 
added, his voice obnoxiously calm. "We need you to help us contain 
this event." 


Eleven sat back, glaring at Six for a moment. He was good at that. 
Preying on your sense of duty. "This is, thus far, an unprecedented 
occurrence. We have found statues, weapons, portals to other 
dimensions, anomalous signals emanating from the middle of 
Texas, but not... We've never done this with people." 


"There is the Syrian," Two mentioned. 


"Which we categorized as the coffin, not the entity that emerges 
from it," Eleven mentioned, shuddering a little at the thought of the 
thing inside it. 


"Then perhaps," One said, "we should reexamine that classification 
rather than this one." 


Eleven looked over at him, her eyes narrowing for an instant before 
she pulled them back to the paper in front of her. She glanced over 
it. "We need more test results. We need to know exactly how the 
people are dying. I've never seen burns like these before." 


"| have," said Two. "They’re reminiscent of something we 
encountered working with the Curies..." 


But by then, Eleven’s attention had waned, and she was lost in her 
own thoughts. 


Eleven was finding it hard to go over the test results that she'd 
requested. The effect that surrounded the girl worked regardless of 
how conscious she was, but they had to wake her up to feed her, 
which resulted in screaming and tears. And at least one dead test 
subject each time. 


Two had been right. The shielding she’d suggested was keeping the 
worst of the symptoms at bay, but it was increasing steadily. Soon, 
just opening the door to feed... Eleven didn't want to use her 
designation, but Six had refused to tell her the girls name when she 
asked. 


She rubbed her eyes, not turning around as her door opened and 
closed. Only one person would come in without knocking. 


Twelve’s hands fell against her shoulders, rubbing slightly as she 
smiled. "Hey," she said quietly. 


He didn't respond, but she smelled his aftershave, and that was 
answer enough for the moment. Just his presence. 


"| don’t know if | can do this," she said quietly. 
"You can," Twelve said. "You have to. We need you to." 


She nodded slightly, sighing and looking down at the paper 
smoothed over her desk. "If the effect keeps going like this, I’m 
going to have to recommend termination. There’s no other option," 
she continued. "Even with Two, there’s no way we're going to 
develop a satisfactory containment before something awful 
happens." 


Twelve was nodding, she knew. He went along with these things for 
her. Let her talk and just listen. 


"| need to talk to One," she said, sighing softly. "I just can't keep 
doing this. | can't. We're treating her like she's the problem." 


"Then talk to him," Twelve said. "He's always been reasonable. He'll 
listen to your concerns." 


Eleven let out a soft snort through her nose. "Will he do anything 
about them, though?" she asked. 


Twelve didn't respond, but then, he didn't know the answer. No 
better than she did. 


"Tomorrow," she said. 
"I'm not having this conversation again," One said. His voice was 
hard, flat. 


One stood behind his clean, orderly desk. Behind him was framed a 
massive window that looked down on the atrium of Site-14 below. 
Eleven was certain he'd had it designed like this to cause awe for 
visitors or intimidate people with the forced perspective. She was 
neither. 


"It needs to be had," Eleven countered. 


"It's been had," One said. "It's been had three times already." 


Eleven continued. "Psychics... mystics... Where do we draw the 
line, One? When you classify a human being like this, you have to 
start considering all of them. What about us? I'm seventy, and | look 
thirty-five. Am | anomalous?" 


"You know that's from the spring, Eleven." His voice and body 
language were growing more and more tight. Like a coil in a watch. 


"Yes, but to an outside observer, what am |? And what are we other 
than outside observers?" 


"Enough. This is a simple matter. The girl is deadly. We've lost two 
good men and dozens of test subjects trying to contain the effect. 
Two and Five are baffled, and instead of helping them, you've spent 
your time dipping into a philosophical argument that was concluded 
weeks ago." 


"It's not right! Look at the masthead. Look at what you wrote there. 
‘No one else will protect us, and we must stand up for ourselves.’ 
We are supposed to protect humanity, and this girl /s part of 
humanity. How can you ignore how wrong this is? How awful this 
thing that we've committed ourselves to doing really is? We're 
supposed to keep her safe, and we're terrifying her, horrifying her 
each time. We're the monsters we're supposed to fight, One!" 


He had waited patiently, and when she finished, he finally spoke. 
"You don't always get the last word, Elizabeth." One hadn't called 
her that in years. Decades. Not since before she was recruited. 
"Sometimes, you need to accept the situation for what it is. She's 
killing people. We need to contain her. Help us." 


He wasn't going to listen, she realized. Eleven took a slow, deep 
breath, then nodded her head quietly. "Fine," she agreed. 


One nodded. "Good. I'll inform Five to expect your compliance," he 
said. 


Eleven turned and left his office, a lump in her chest. She couldn't let 
them do this. Wouldn't. 


She needed help. Only Twelve was listening to her, and the rest of 


the council... She wasn't ready to do that yet. She needed to start 
smaller. And there was only one person who might actually have 
experience with the situation. 


Eleven found her way to the personnel wing of the building, then 
started searching for the personnel director. When she eventually 
found him, he was stooped over a table in an office, not his, with his 
face tucked into a file. Probably some recruit who someone had 
suggested. Hopefully someone who would have the luxury of a 
quiet, safe lab rather than the field. She knocked on the frame of the 
door, then offered him a brief smile. 


"Do you have time to talk, Adam?" 


The man turned and looked at her, nodding slightly. "Of course," he 
said, putting the file down on the table and pushing it toward the 
corner, away from the two of them. "What's wrong?" he asked. 


"It's about the issue with the new... designation," she said. 
Adam nodded. "The humanoid subtype," he said. "What about it"? 


"| have... certain problems with accepting it," she said. "| can't seem 
to convince the others," she added. "Twelve is listening to me, and | 
might be able to convince Eight, but One is dead set on this. You're 
friends with him, with Two. Tell me how | can change his mind." 


Adam frowned slightly. "I'm not entirely certain that his mind needs 
changing," he said. "The humanoid designation was an inevitability. 
We side stepped it before, with Oh-Seven-Six, and we called Oh- 
One-Four a psychosis, but... We can't avoid this problem anymore. 
There are objects which have too much power for their own good, 
and we have to contain them." 


Eleven turned and looked at him, her eyes narrowing. "She’s a little 
girl, Adam, not an object," she said. "Surely you can understand 
what I’m going through, especially after..." 


Adam’s eyes narrowed as her words trailed off, and she suddenly 
realized that she'd made a mistake. He pushed himself backward in 


his chair, standing up and brushing down the front of his short, smart 
waistcoat. "You're my friend, Lizzy, and | love you dearly. But if you 
ever try to use my family against me like that, we will never speak 
again." 


Eleven felt her throat tighten. "I didn't mean it like that." 


"You did. If you have problems with our current line of action, | 
suggest you take it up with One." 


Eleven sighed. "He doesn't listen," she said. "He’s set on this." 


"Because she killed a dozen people, and she's killed a dozen more 
since then." 


"No. Not because she killed people. That’s just how we're justifying 
it to ourselves. She had no idea what she could do, no idea how to 
control it. She was scared and confused." 


"And it put her entire family in a graveyard," Adam said. "I’m not 
going to discuss this with you further. Talk to Seven if you need to 
share your feelings so badly." 


Adam reached for the file and opened it again, sitting down and 
leaning back in his chair. She looked at him, feeling furious for a 
moment, before turning and walking to the door, out it, and down the 
hall, her pace quickening as she did. 


Eleven looked over the files that Five had sent to her. It include the 
original casualty report, in addition to the descriptions of bodily 
decay that were still being observed, and the further effects on the 
more recent corpses. Something Two had come up with. Studying 
the rate of decay to see if it had accelerated. Clever. 


She glanced over the reports, wondering just how much of it had 
been caused by poor management of the problem. If she had gone 
instead of Six, this might never have gone as far as it had. But Six 
had been chosen, specifically because of his motivations and goals, 
and now... It was a debacle, entirely, as far as she was concerned. 


She looked down at the daily reports, reading over them. The field 


was increasing by almost an inch every day, and it seemed to be 
accelerating. They lost a test subject at every meal, so they'd had to 
drop her to starvation levels... 


Eleven winced and reached up to rub her eyes. She took a slow, 
steadying breath, then looked at the body count. Too high. Too high, 
in spite of the fact that they were criminals. 


She knew that the girl was dangerous, but the alternatives—helping 
her to learn to control her abilities, studying them properly—had 
never been considered. It was nothing but cages and locks and 
morphine. 


It wasn't right, to lock a person up like this, to lock up a little girl. It 
was wrong. Entirely and utterly opposed to everything that the 
Foundation stood for. She sighed and got up, dropping the file onto 
her desk and walking to Twelve's office, letting herself in. He looked 
up at her, then stood and walked around the desk. He kissed her, 
like he always did, then looked down at her face. 


"What's wrong?" he asked. 


And then, it all came out again. How angry she'd been with One 
over his disregard of her concerns, and how angry she was at 
herself for not sticking to her guns more strongly. How furious she 
felt that she'd not been able to head this off, in spite of her authority. 


"It's not right," she said. "We're supposed to protect people. Not lock 
them up. It might not be here. It might be something in her cells or in 
her bone tissue or... She might not even be the problem. They're 
making her the problem. They're punishing her because they can't 
see the issue beyond her." 


He nodded, waited, and let her talk. As he always did. 


"We have to do something, Albert," she said softly. She rarely used 
his name, even when they were alone, but this time, she did. "We 
have to do something to stop them." 


"What?" he asked. 


"We need to get her away from them. Stop them from getting more 


SCP-884: Original Collection