Dr. Wythers hobbled over to the first door on the right, eager to sit 
down for a change. When she pushed it open with the end of her 
cane, she was greeted with a most unusual and unwelcome sight: a 
bespectacled man with a gun pointed directly at her face. She used 
the word ‘man’ more loosely than she normally would; he was 
probably in his thirties but still sported a patchy, peach-fuzz 
mustache that would have made her thirteen-year-old grandson 
green with envy, rest his little soul. 


“You know how to use that thing?” Dr. Wythers spread her hands 
wide to indicate she was unarmed, her cane gripped firmly in one 
hand. “Why don’t you put that thing down, son? I’m not gonna shoot 
you.” 


“Maybe not,” the man with the peach-fuzz answered. His gun didn’t 
move. “Maybe I’m going to shoot you.” 


“Kosta, please don’t make things worse.” Devane’s voice drifted 
from the doorway behind her. “We’re at a severe enough 
disadvantage as it is.” Kosta Peach-Fuzz responded by taking the 
safety off. 


“Will you cut out that Clint Eastwood bullshit? It’s not doing anyone 


any good.” A man with a greying mane of unkempt hair took a 
healthy swig of the beer he was nursing, and Dr. Wythers noticed 
how bare the room was. Aside from a folding table and some chairs 
- both of which, she noticed, were between her and the gun - it was 
mostly empty. Probably served as intake or an initial interview room 
when the Site was up and running. “Put your piece away and graba 
drink from the fridge.” He gestured to a mini fridge in the corner. 


“She’s a Bookburner,” Kosta said without looking at him. “And you’re 
a terrorist.” 


“And you're a pencil-pusher who’s in way over his head,” Wythers 
snapped. “You’re awful surly for a glorified library clerk. Why don’t 
you do like the nice man said and holster your toy before you hurt 
yourself with it.” 


“| was talking to you too, Clair,” she heard the man with the greying 
hair say. “None of us are friends here, but there’s no reason to go 
around threatening each other. Why don’t you both chill the fuck out 
and wait until someone actually does something worth shooting 
them over?” 


“Why are you even here?” The man named Kosta shifted his weight 
to address The Critic directly, and that was the opening Clair was 
waiting for. “If you hadn’t-” 


With a speed her wizened body would not suggest, Dr. Wythers 
closed the last few feet between herself and the armed librarian. The 
iron handle of her cane slammed down hard on his wrist. He 
dropped the gun on the table between them. Dr. Wythers’ other 
hand shot out and snatched it up. She pointed it directly at him. He 
began rubbing his wrist. 


“| told you, kid, you’re in over your head,” she repeated as she 
backed away from him, the gun trained at his chest. “This is why 
PHYSICS insisted we all get some amount of training, even if we’re 
not directly going into the field. In case something exactly like this 
happens. Don’t you get some kind of training at your outer space 
library?” Kosta said nothing. 


“Please don’t shoot our guest with his own gun, Dr. Wythers,” said 


Gerald Devane. 


"There is a certain poetic irony to it, shooting a man with his own 
gun," The Critic mused while taking another sip of his beer. "Anyone 
ever say you look like you walked straight out of Lovecraft? The 
glasses, the tweed vest, the complete ineptitude in combat... all you 
need now is for an unknowable terror from beyond the stars to drive 
you stark-raving mad, and you'll fit right in with the Waites and the 
Whateleys." 


"What would you know, you old lush?" Kosta pushed against The 
Critic's shoulders, and the older man merely shuffled backwards in 
his folding chair. 


"Kid, I've seen things that would literally make your insides explode, 
The Critic pointed out. "| had a friend once, thought he was cool. He 
exploded. Grew a pimple full of cesium on his face, and when it 
popped, it blew his head off like a damn firecracker. You think you're 
hot shit because you've been to another dimension? You're not. | 
see kids like you every day. Half of them end up inside out because 
they get cocky and don't listen to the advice of people who know 
better." Kosta pursed his lips as The Critic downed the rest of the 
alcohol before tossing the bottle into a corner. 


"Mister The Critic came here of his own accord to help fix this 
problem, as did you," Dr. Devane added. 


"Just 'The Critic’ if you please. 'Mister The Critic’ is my father." 


"We can discuss titles later," Dr. Wythers said as she pointed a 
finger at Dr. Devane. "What I'd like to know is who called us here, 
and how? Half the world became a bunch of drooling idiots even 
less capable than usual of stringing a sentence together, global 
communication networks just switch off like a faulty streetlamp, and 
one of your overcautious poindexters managed to get a message 
out to three people who should have been next to impossible to 
find? Who the hell did that?" 


"| did,” called a voice from the entrance. Clair Wythers folded her 
arms across her chest and turned to the doorway. The figure wore 
the same Foundation-issue scrubs as Dr. Devane, but her lively, 


intelligent eyes were so unlike his. The nametag on her shirt read 
‘Researcher Linderman’. 


“| have something I'd like to show you. All of you.” 


“So what do you do at Site-15, beautiful? You somebody’s secretary 
or something?” Emma rolled her eyes. She’d hinted that he should 
leave at least twice already and didn’t seem to be getting through to 
him. He was still leaning against the doorway to the office area and 
her best means of escape. 


“I’m a theoretical cryptographist with a focus in quantum and post- 
quantum cryptography, especially its use in developing and 
combating Al.” The guy blinked once or twice as she let the 
convoluted title sink in. 


“Oh,” was all he said. “Wazzat all mean?” 


“It means that she’s smarter than the about sixty percent of the 
people at this party,” said a voice. When Emma turned towards it, 
she saw the guy with perfect teeth again, looking like a regular 
Prince Fucking Charming. Each of his hands was wrapped around a 
drink and a napkin. “Hey babe.” He held one of the drinks out to her. 
“| got one for each of us.” 


“Thanks,” she said, picking up on what he was doing. She took the 
plastic cup from him but didn’t drink from it. The napkin kept her 
hand from touching the cold plastic. 


“No sweat,” he said, flashing the same obnoxious winning smile. 
“Who’s your friend?” He sauntered over next to her, just over half a 
foot away. They were just close enough to appear intimate. 


“| was just leaving, actually,” the guy replied. “Nice meeting you, 
Irma.” Emma smiled politely and didn’t correct him. When he was 
out of sight she turned back to Fucking Charming and returned the 
beer. He took it back with a warm grin and a raised eyebrow. 


“You didn’t have to do that.” 


“I know,” he answered. “I wanted to. It gave me an excuse to grab 


an extra beer. Besides, you looked like you'd had enough of him.” 
“Right, your thing is rescuing damsels in distress.” 


“Don't know that many damsels with degrees in computer 
cryptography.” 


“| guess that means I’m not a damsel then.” 


“That's alright,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m not 
that big a fan of damsels. | get sick of saving them after a while.” He 
extended his hand to Emma. “Name’s Jeremy. Jeremy Linderman.” 
She returned his handshake with a modicum of gratitude. At least 
this Jeremy was polite. That was something. 


“It’s lovely to meet you, Irma Lawson,” he said, letting go of her 
hand. 


“My name isn’t Irma,” she corrected. “That guy doesn’t pay 
attention.” 


“Oh. Do you have a first name?” 

“Does a bear shit on a town in Wisconsin?” 
“What?” 

“| have a first name.” 

“Is it classified?” 

“You know what? It is.” 

“Fair enough. Will | ever have clearance for it?” 


Emma thought for a moment. She produced a pen from her pocket 
and scribbled out a quick series of numbers across the napkin: 


5113113] 1 


“There.” She thrust the napkin at him with a triumphant smirk. He 


looked at it for a moment before furrowing his brow. 
“This is your name ?” Jeremy asked, and she nodded. 
“It’s a name if you look at it the right way,” Emma said. 
“You sure you're a Researcher and not a D-class?” 


“I’m sure. A smart guy like you should be able to figure it out quick 
enough.” He continued to stare at the napkin, puzzled, as she 
sauntered past him. A damsel would have left a glass slipper, but 
she wasn’t a damsel. 


"My job at Site-15 was data security, something the SCP Foundation 
takes very seriously," Emma began. Behind her, the monitors in the 
old security room displayed the empty spaces that used to be full of 
Foundation employees. She briefly wondered how many nights 
Jeremy had sat at his station in Site-15, watching security footage of 
an Exidy Sorcerer home computer system plugged into a wall outlet, 
doing absolutely nothing. "When you contain ideas that can implode 
a human brain or anomalous self-help books, you'd better be damn 
sure that they're stuck there and totally unable to get out. You can 
bet that any given door in the building with a lock on it is protected 
by at least two different encryption keys. Most of them change 
weekly, some change daily, and some hourly. Some areas are 
contained with rotating encryption keys which exist nowhere in the 
world but in a handful of brains. 


"The Foundation has communication arrays set up all over the 
globe," she went on. "And our Antimemetics Division has helped 
encrypt them so anomalous memes don't hijack their signals. | was 
able to find an emergency channel and contact Dr. Devane here, 
among others, and try to scramble some kind of intelligence together 
before we lost communication entirely. Normally I'd probably get 
shot for revealing this sort of information, or at least severely 
reprimanded, but since it's the end of human society as we know it, | 
think we have bigger fish to fry." 


"Yes yes, it's all very fascinating and bleak," Dr. Wythers said with a 
dismissive wave of Kosta's gun. She had yet to put the safety back 


on. "But why don't you explain in twenty words or less what we're up 
against and what we can do about it." 


"Three, fifteen, four, five, nineteen," she replied, and Dr. Wythers 
merely stared. "Codes. I'm no memetics expert, but | Know how to 
send a message without it being intercepted or decoded. This 
anomaly may be a black hole of information that eats language, but 
it doesn't seem to understand codes or ciphers. With enough levels 
of encryption, | was able to get out messages to you all so we could 
put our heads together and figure out how to get the world back." 


Everyone was quiet. Emma turned towards the monitors and sat 
down in front of them. The doctor, The Critic, the librarian, and the 
old woman gathered behind Emma as she pulled up footage of the 
containment cells on as many monitors as she was able to. 


She didn’t need to describe them. They were seated, each in their 
own containment, still as glass and just as lifeless. Their chests went 
up and down, their eyelids blinked, but they moved like cogs ina 
machine. Not a one of them looked for the barely visible camera, or 
fiddled with their door handle, or played with the hem of their shirt. 
The anomaly had robbed them of that. 


“| think Agent Lynwood was the first to go,” she said, her voice flat. 
“Lynwood was a relatively new hire so we were still transferring her 
medical data. The Foundation was so busy putting out fires all over 
that we lost track of little things, like distributing insulin pumps. Her 
diabetic coma didn’t last long. She might have been one of the lucky 
ones. For all we know, you’re looking at the only two employees left 
in the entire SCP Foundation.” She cast a glance at Dr. Devane. His 
face was grave. 


“We had a similar problem,” said Dr. Wythers. “We pulled an 
operative out of a town in Germany with the same symptoms. 
Suppression of the initial outbreak was successful, but then the 
damn anartists got a hold of it.” 


“You took over all the TVs and beamed the infection into every 
home on the planet," The Critic retorted. “One of your agents 
announced it on international news. When the public watched that 
broadcast, when they heard him talk, they all got hit with the 


countermeme, every one of them.” 


"Threat Level 6 is the most serious level we have," Dr. Wythers 
explained. "It's something from which there is no coming back, and 
we know this. That's why it's protocol to announce the existence of 
the anomalous to the world. Concealment is imperative, but it's only 
our second mission. The human race as we know it is on the verge 
of extinction. Hell, we may have already lost the war and just not 
know it yet. The least we can do is give the general public a fighting 
chance." 


"And you get to decide when and where and how they know?" The 
Critic asked. "The easiest way to maintain a dictatorship is to control 
the flow of information." 


“That’s rich coming from a terrorist,” Kosta said. “Why are you here, 
anyway? Shouldn't you be off somewhere painting a portrait of a lion 
that eats your wife when you look at it or something?” 


“Not all of us are terrorists,” The Critic said, his voice the tip of a 
rapier. “I’m here because the end of the fucking world is bigger than 
any one art student or bookworm or ornery cripple. I’m here because 
our choices at the moment boil down to ‘get in line and help fix the 
problem’ or ‘get the fuck out of the way’.” 


Emma was not paying attention to any of their banter. She was 
monitoring the randomly switching feed of the containment cells 
when when one in particular caught her eye. Her husband’s cell was 
on-screen, every visible inch of the floor littered with pages torn from 
the SCP Foundation’s Training Manual. They were all scribbled on 
or defaced in some manner, straight lines and curves forming vague 
facsimiles of numbers drawn in a broad hand using something dark 
and red. 


She zoomed in the footage and saw his fingers. Dozens of tiny 
coagulated slits were visible. What caught her eye was not the self- 
inflicted wounds that covered his fingers and hands, but the 
message he’d drawn on page 451, written in his own blood: 


Total items: 5 lbs. raw ground beef 


Input: 1 lb. raw ground beef 
Setting: Rough 
Output: 1 Ib. beef slurry. 


Input: 1 lb. raw ground beef 
Setting: Fine 
Output: 1 lb. medium-cooked round steak. 


Input: 1 lb. raw ground beef 
Setting: Fine 
Output: 1 Ib. pile of beef jerky. 


Input: 1 lb. raw ground beef 

Setting: Very Fine 

Output: 2 half-pound flank steaks, well-done and lightly 
drizzled in gravy. 


Input: 1 lb. raw ground beef 

Setting: Very Fine 

Output: [DATA EXPUNGED] Subject terminated with no 
casualties. 


Name: Dr. 
Date: //20 
Total items: 5x IRS Form 1040 (blank) 


Input: 1x IRS Form 1040 (blank) 
Setting: Rough 
Output: Several hundred thin paper strips. 


Input: 1x IRS Form 1040 (blank) 

Setting: Coarse 

Output: 1 block of wood, wet with strong-smelling liquid. 
Tests indicated the liquid to be composed of a variety of 
chemicals used in the paper-making process. 


Input: 1x IRS Form 1040 (blank) 
Setting: 1:1 


9| 13] 13 | 1 


She became vaguely aware of someone asking “What the hell is 
that?” 


“It’s a name if you look at it the right way,” Emma whispered to 
herself. She let her eyes roll over the sign again, and again, and 
again and again. Jeremy said nothing, didn’t even move. His body 
language was gone, his English, his Russian, the French they 
learned together. That didn’t matter. The memories were all still 
there, and the sign proved it. She cackled with glee and turned to 
the others.