“I got mad, Hank. Really mad. | put six rounds in that farmhand and 
it didn't solve anything.” Peter tapped the revolver holstered at his 
side. These days, it was unsafe to go anywhere without a weapon. 


“He just got up and laughed at me with the same laugh that he used 
to captivate Elaine. | couldn't do anything about it. | called the police 
and later some guys in suits took him away. They said they were 
sorry and they were gonna put him in an incinerator. | couldn't do 
anything at all.” 


Outside, another truck pulled into the lot. Its bright headlights 
reflected off of the dull chrome finish on the bar and the dusty tubes 
where neon lights used to run. Couldn't waste power anymore, the 
pretty little waitress had explained. Even out here, where power 
plants were still running. 


That pretty little waitress saw the truck pull in and approached the 
table with another mug of the steaming black shit that they called 
coffee. “Is that your third?” 


“Yeah.” Peter gave her a nod and she set down the coffee. 
Hank looked out the window as the waitress unlocked the door. 


“Some goverment suits came for the bird too.” He sniffed, “They had 
a guy with them, some egghead in a labcoat running tests on 
Miranda. He told me that there was a shortage, but he could give me 
drugs that could make me forget her.” 


Peter sipped his coffee. 


Hank wiped a batch of fresh tears from his eyes and rubbed at his 
cheeks with a napkin, “I wish | had taken him up on it.” 


Peter hadn't gotten that option. 


The waitress at the door let their new companion in and locked it 
behind him. 


Michael was a younger man than both Hank or Peter, come out to 
the family farm to help his ailing father in a world that had no mercy 
for the elderly. His father had grown up between both of them, “Hey 


guys.” He said as he sat beside Peter. 


“Why'd you need us, Mike?” Asked Peter, holding up his mug for a 
refill. 


“| think I'm in trouble.” Michael wasted no time, “There's something 
happening at my farm and | wondered if you guys had ever seen 
anything like it.” 


Michael caught his breath while pulling a very old iPhone from his 
jacket pocket. He touched the screen and began searching through 
the files. Those days, even outdated tech like that was hard to come 
by. 


“By the way, I'm sorry to hear about-” Michael looked up at Hank, 
but Peter gently touched his arm and covertly shook his head. 
Michael cut off and went back to his task. 


Hank pursed his lips and sipped weakly from his coffee. With a 
cracked voice, he sighed. “It's a fucked up world, Mike. You had a 
good idea coming to us.” He glanced out the window with rheumy 
eyes, “How's your dad?” 


“He's okay. He's pretty sick these days- some kind of flu. My sister 
doesn't let him off the farm much anymore.” 


Michael found the file and set the device on the table for all three to 
see. “My sister's kid Eddy recently went over to Nepal or Vietnam or 
something for some U.N. Mission. Real big secret- won't talk about 
beyond a few things. He came back and mentioned that he had 
taken up this-” 

“Get to it.” Hank muttered and Michael hesitated. 


“Well, he'd been practicing martial arts in the barn and he said that 
the cows were acting funny. Look.” He pressed play on the device 
and sat back to watch his companion's eyes widen. 

The sloppy video showed a man in his twenties performing a kata 
and beyond him, five cows were stumbling about upon two legs. As 
the man moved, so did they. He let out a punch and shifted his arm 
upwards and the cows mirrored his movement, attempting to 
perform it quickly enough before their balance failed them. There 


were many other cows within the barn and all watched, enraptured 
as Eddy moved. 


“What the hell?” Peter mumbled. 
“That's pretty fucking weird.” Hank agreed quietly. 


“We thought the same, so | asked him not to practice in the barn 
anymore.” 


Michael switched the file and hit Play on another. The same man 
advanced in a fighting stance in a courtyard of sorts, closed in by a 
large stone house and a small shed. 


“Look.” Michael pointed to a tabby cat on the side of the screen, 
“The cat's been following Eddy around ever since he started doing 
this about two months ago.” Michael switched the file and played 
another while talking. “-Yesterday, the cat was doing this.” 


The video displayed the same courtyard, but the cat was the only 
occupant. Without Eddy, the cat had preceded to enact the form and 
same movements.” 


“That cat doesn't look-” Began Peter before Hank cut him off. “The 
damn thing looks like a fuckin' human.” 


It was so. The cat's head had been enlarged and its ears had moved 
more towards the side of its face. Its torso was much thicker than it 
should have been and the movement demonstrated joints that cats 
should not have. Its tail had been shortened to a mere nub at the 
base of its back and its paws had elongated toes that moved like 
fingers. Allin all, the cat stood more than a meter tall. 


“| heard it talking yesterday.” Michael muttered and let the video play 
on repeat. “I shot 'im last night.” 


Hank stopped the video. “Anything else?” 


“The cows are doing it now. A lot more sloppy than the cat, but 
they're getting better. They can stand on two legs without support. 
The other ones that weren't doing anything the first time are doing it 
too.” 


There was a moment in silence in which Michael looked as if he was 
going to speak, but didn't. 
“Are you going to put the cows down?” 


“We won't be able to get by without them. Food crops don't take in 
the soil anymore.” 


"Do you still have a working phone?" Hank asked. "One of the 
normal ones?" 


"Yeah." Michael gave a curt nod. "By the grace of God." 


“Call the police. Chances are slim that they will but they might be 
able to help.” Peter advised and Michael sat back silently. 


“It's this whole area,” Hank muttered sadly, “Il should just move up 
into the city. Sell my farm and buy a house in the suburbs.” 


Peter grunted. “Not a bad idea.” 


“They're not letting anyone in anymore.” Michael said, mind 
elsewhere. “I went up there to look for another generator and these 
guys in black suits and gas masks run up to my truck with assault 
rifles and demand that | get out. They searched me and questioned 
me for twenty minutes before demanding that | leave.” 


“What happened up there?” Peter asked quietly. 


“Same thing that's happening everywhere else. Everything is going 
to Hell in a handbasket. My nephew says that cities in Nepal- or 
wherever- was all locked down by someone else and the U.N. was 
trying to trying to drive them out. The other guys ended up overrun 
by some shit and our guys bombed the place into oblivion.” 


The waitress finally approached with a coffeepot after seeing Peter's 
empty mug, “Sorry guys. The coffeemaker's been straining it too thin 
lately.” She took their cups and filled them to the brim. Not making 
conversation, she then retreated behind the bar and set the pot on 
the chrome counter. 


"Fuckin' media blackout." Hank muttered apathetically. "I don't hear 
about anything that happens outside the county anymore. 


Peter sipped the hot fluid and watched the lightbulb dimly flickering. 
“| saw tanks up at the Meyer's farm last Wednesday. Just sitting 
there. You guys remember Danielle?” 


“Which one is that? They have way too many kids.” Hank remarked. 


“She's the little redhead that my grandson, Perry, was running 
around with. He brought her up to your place to help with the harvest 
two years ago.” Hank began to wear a grin for the first time that day 
as he remembered the young couple. 


"Yeah, | remember her. She was a frisky little thing." 


Peter mirrored Hank's grin, albeit more strongly. "She's been 
running messages for her family- says that she's got quite a few for 
my family in particular. Anything so that she can-" 


“What about her?” Michael asked, coming out of his cocoon. 


“Uh- she told me that her great grandma had gotten tired of all the 
soldiers passing through her land and so she told them to leave. 
Danielle said that the soldiers just vanished. Right out of thin air.” 


“Even our own people are getting weird.” Hank groaned. 


Michael leaned forward to the table and spoke in a low tone. “One of 
the guys up at the city asked me about that. They wanted to know if 
she'd done shit like that before. They were saying that-” 


Peter finished his mug of coffee and looked up and around, trying to 
find the waitress. His keen eye noted the full coffeepot on the 
counter. 


The waitress nearby saw him looking up and smiled, gesturing at the 
pot. 


He returned the smile and shook his head gently. Reaching for his 
wallet, he thumbed out a ten dollar bill and placed it on the table. 
Michael stared up at him oddly, “You leaving?” 


“We all are,” said Peter. Both Hank and Michael stood without 
question. Both knew that a man like Peter was not to be taken lightly 


victim into place. 


SCP-844 will then use a variety of physical methods to incite the 
victim into vocalizing distress. This is primarily realized through the 
use of the sharpened bones that make up a section of its mass. 
During this process, SCP-844 takes great care to ensure that the 
wounds inflicted are non-fatal, so that this victim can be re-used for 
further hunting. 


Typically, an individual will approach and investigate the 
vocalizations, at which point SCP-844 will attack. This attack is 
usually swift and painless, as SCP-844 aims for the neck and head 
of the victim at this time. SCP-844 will then extract and absorb the 
bones of the victims into itself. 


During its containment, SCP-844 has been observed to rest on the 
ceiling of its cell, attempt to damage lights illuminating its 
containment chamber and to sharpen bones incorporated into itself 
on the chambers walls. 


« SCP-843 | SCP-844 | SCP-845 » 


when he acted. As he shepherded them towards the double glass 
doors, the waitress took the hint and ran forward to unlock it before 
them. “Thanks for coming!” She said with a smile. 


“Thanks for having us.” Peter replied as they stepped outside into 
the brisk air. What should have been a warm summer evening was 
instead a frigid evening that had already caused small amounts of 
ice to freeze upon truck windshields. Dark skies above were a result 
of the bombs dropping on Canada and a million other things 
together amalgamating into a freezing world. 

Their breath turned to mist as they walked to the group of vehicles. 


“Why'd you rush us out of there?” Michael asked, staring through the 
large clear window at the well-lit interior. The waitress was removing 
their steaming mugs from the table and placing them in a bin that 
she had carried from the kitchen. 


“They had a full pot of coffee on the counter.” Peter opened the door 
to his truck and sat inside. He fumbled for his keys, ever so often 
looking up at the window where the waitress was sliding the bin 
through a narrow window into the kitchen. 


“So?” Hank demanded, “I was having a good time. Why'd you-” 


“It was half-empty when she filled our cups. She didn't put it back in 
the coffeemaker.” 


As he started the vehicle, he noted the sudden silence overtake his 
two companions; contesting his decision was no longer favorable. 


Hank reached for a pack of cigarettes in his pocket and went for his 
truck, “Well, that's just fuckin’ great.” 


Michael shook his head and got into his own vehicle. The look on his 
face said that he was either going to call the military or put the cows 
down himself. 


Peter just thought of the whiskey in the cupboard and telling his 
grandson to watch the farm that night. 


Each of the three went their own way in silence and that day were 
neither broken nor smashed nor incinerated nor had their existence 


negated. 


In those days, this was as enviable as ends could get. 


Faster-Than-Light Prelude 


The pale lights reflecting off of Neptune's surface basked the 
corridors of Orbital Area-11 in an alien hue. N.J. Watts flung herself 
through the glow as she traversed the corrugated metal 
passageway, one of many running through and alongside the 
station. In her zero-g drift she turned her head to face the bullet/ 
micrometeorite/thaumaturgy-proof panes running down it, one of few 
accommodations provided by the site designers for the 
claustrophobic Extrasolar Activities Division members. 


She spotted a silver spec. Autonomous Exploration Satellite 
Ehlers-001 was now a glimmer in the orbital void of Neptune, nearly 
blending in with backdrop of the planet's surface. Unless she had 
mistaken a stray asteroid for the probe. 


"All personnel in Project Aster Jumper report to Command 
Center 2. | repeat, all personnel in Project Aster Jumper report 
to Command Center 2." 


Already on it. 


N.J. grabbed a handlebar and abruptly slowed before entering an 
elevator at the passage end. She clicked safety straps around her 
Foundation-issued orbital coverall and tapped a button to descend. 
The doors clunked shut, electrical motors whirred, metal rattled. The 
elevator began moving away from the station's axis to the bottom of 
its second spinning habitation ring. Gravity crept in. Every inch the 
elevator lowered she felt false gravity, generated by the spinning 
ring's centrifugal force, press down like lead bricks, the straps 
pushing into her body more and more. 


After a minute the elevator lurched to a halt. She hastily threw the 
straps off and bounded from the opened entrance, speedwalking 
down a steel hallway that looped around the ring, ever-curving 
upwards. White-uniformed technicians rushed past her, frantically 
asking about potential X-ray receptor errors on Ehlers-001. An eight- 


limbed cleaning bot scooted past. She flashed her keycard in front of 
a scanner and Command Center 2's door shot open. 


"...fusion reactor checks are so far looking good, oh, and a good 
California morning to you, Enjay." Hyeon 3Mun looked up from his 
holographic display monitor and waved a cybernetic hand. 


"You still remember what places on Earth are having their 
mornings?" 


"No, but the internet sure does." 


Rows of computer terminals filled Command Center 2, buzzing with 
neon glows and the activity of a dozen researchers perched over 
feeds of diagnostic data. One of the four screens on the front wall 
showed a view of Ehlers-001. The probe's main chassis was a 
cylinder with arrays of sensors jutting out all over, function over 
form, with the toroid of a fusion reactor connected to its relative 
underside. Attached to the far end was a carbon nanotube- 
reinforced metal octahedron that was large enough to make the 
main chassis seem like a parasite. The Bifrost Superluminal Engine. 


"Stunning, isn't it?" 


She averted her eyes, busy inspecting the glimmering square 
lattices of the nanotubes, and turned to Hyeon. "No views quite like 
this one," she said, still more focused on the screen. The probe 
drifted over the Neptunian backdrop — a vessel at sea. 


"So much better than anything at the Luna-Korea shipyards. Is it 
crazy knowing your engine's actually out there?" 


"Would be if | still remembered designing it." The cocktail of 
amnestics and memetic blockers jabbed into her brain. The 
Foundation didn't trust anyone on the Bifrost design team with 
knowing what they had actually built, with exceptions for people who 
must've been promoted that she had also forgotten. A few more jabs 
and she figured it was best not try the patience of her nanotech 
implants by thinking about it. 


The last of Project Aster Jumper's researchers spilled in through the 


door. N.J. snapped back to reality. Launch would happen any 
moment now.