So far, so good. 


"Everything all right, lron Man?" Jackal asked, as his own suit 
finished its power-up sequence. 


Fox grinned. "Tony Stark wishes he had one of these." 


"This is the part that | really really hate," Agent Arsegike grumbled, 
as the twelve members of Strike Team Broken Dagger assembled in 
the silver circle painted on the floor of what had once been an 
aircraft hangar. There were several men and women in white coats 
milling around, checking the equipment and runes that powered the 
transfer circle: mages from the Center for Unified Thaumatology. 


"Just close your eyes and think of England," Ferret said, grinning. 
"It'll be over before you know it." 


"That's what | told your Mom last night," Arsegike grumbled. 


"All right, team!" Fox shouted, as she strode into the hangar. "Last 
chance to go back for anything you forgot. Weapons. Ammo. 


Rations. Power. Make sure you've got everything you need, 
because coming back is a hell of a lot harder than getting out there. 
Alpha Squad?" 


"Looks good, chief." 
"Bravo?" 

"Everything checks out." 
"Charlie?" 

"We're good." 


"All right," Fox said, taking a deep breath. ""Visors down. From now 
on, no faces, no voices. We ready to go, Ops?" 


"Ready to apportate on your mark, ma'am," said the lead magister. 
"Take a knee, team." 


The twelve members of Strike Team Broken Dagger all dropped to 
one knee in the center of the circle: a dozen superhero robots 
carrying massive sci-fi rifles, kneeling like knights before an altar. 


Fox closed the visor of her helmet, waited to confirm that her internal 
air supply had kicked in, then said "Execute," and clenched her gut 
as hard as she could. 


There was a flash of bright purple light, the sickening sensation of 
being turned inside out and shunted through a ten-dimensional 
manifold. Somewhere in England, a cornfield rippled and swayed, as 
the backlash from the teleport caused a ten-meter wide circular 
patch of it to be stomped flat. Somewhere in Scotland, a confused 
plesiosaur poked its head above water and realized that it wasn't in 
the Jurassic Period any more. 


The ground dropped away, and Fox found herself plummeting to 
earth from ten thousand meters above an Afghanistani mountain 
range. 


Working just as planned. 


"There they are. I've got eyes on the team," Skunkboy reported. 
"Looks good. | count twelve agents, no aborts or partials." 


Through the VERITAS sensors, the twelve members of the strike 
team glowed brightly, like shooting stars against the night sky. They 
formed up into three tight diamonds before banking, slowly, and 
turning to approach the target area. 


"Why don't they just teleport them onto the ground?" the sniper 
wondered. "Would save them the HALO jump." 


"Margin of error," Spider explained. "Despite our best efforts, we can 
still be up to ten meters off target. If those ten meters put you 
underground ..." 


"... gotcha." Skunkboy shuddered. "So, ever seen a Strike team in 
full whitesuits take down a target?” 


"Can't say that | ever have, no," Spider admitted. 


"Then get up here and spot for me. You're not going to want to miss 
this." 


James Krantz wasn't a terrorist. At least, he didn't think he was. 
After all, terrorists were brown, and they did things like wear towels 
on their head and blow themselves up with bombs and worship 
Allah. James was a white guy from a suburban Chicago 
neighborhood who just happened to be recruited by a man in a dark 
suit who told him, in no uncertain terms, that he could either come 
along with them and help to save the world, or he could die. James 
was an atheist. Sure, he was in Afghanistan learning how to make 
bombs and shoot people, but he wasn't going to do that to 
Americans. Terrorists did things like that. James was no terrorist. 


Still, there were moments when he wondered. Like tonight, walking 
around the perimeter of the camp (someone had to stand guard) 
carrying an AK-47 (good assault rifle, nothing more), wearing a scarf 
around his nose and mouth (just to keep the sand and dust out). 
That felt like a very terroristy thing to do. But James loved America. 


Terrorists hated America. Didn't they? 


He was still mulling over this conundrum when the man in the 
powered armor descended from the sky with a pistol in one hand 
and shot him three times. 


"Show-off," Fox murmured, as she hit the ground a few yards away 
from Jackal. 


"It worked, didn't it?" 


"You were still showing off." Fox grabbed her parachute shroud and 
began gathering up the billowing cloth. "Status report." 


"Everyone's on the ground. One misdrop: Cartman's ten klicks too 

far south. He'll catch up with us in time for exfil," Jackal replied. He 
took Fox's parachute from her and stowed it, along with his, behind 
a nearby rock. 


"All right. I'll take his slot in the security element. Team leaders?" 
"Alpha, ready," Jackal said. 

"Bravo, ready." 

"Charlie. Wait one... all right. We're good." 

"Go," Fox ordered. 


Jackal took off at a dead sprint, legs pumping furiously, with the 
other three members of the assault element close behind. He 
smashed down the chain-link fence, raced straight through three 
exploding claymore mines (steel ball bearings bouncing off his 
armor like marbles off a concrete floor) and slammed through the 
cinderblock wall shoulder-first, smashing concrete and rebar like 
tissue paper. He ran straight into three surprised men sitting around 
a table playing cards. They started reaching for assault rifles, but 
there were three other members of the assault element who could 
take them down, so Jackal ignored them and kept running. 


His momentum carried him straight through the room and through 


the far wall, smashing through the drywall with a loud, papery 
crunch. He slid across the tile floor on his hip, like a baseball player 
sliding into second base, and slapped a shaped charge onto the 
ground, as the three men in the room he'd just vacated went down 
with rifle rounds in their heads and torsos. The other members of his 
team joined him in the kitchen, taking up security positions looking 
up and down the hallway. 


He took a few moments to make sure that the charge was properly 
placed, aiming it away from the life-auras that he could see through 
the VERITAS imager. "On three," he said. "I've got the target. One... 
two... three." 


He sent the detonation code and braced for impact. The bomb 
exploded, cutting a round hole in the floor, revealing a darkened 
basement room illuminated by a single crazily swinging lightbulb. 
Three men were gathered around a fourth, who was tied to a chair 
with electrodes strapped to his face. One of the interrogators was 
holding up a printout of a brightly colored fractal, and Jackal's vision 
immediately blurred as his visor detected a possible visual 
cognitohazard and switched out of visible light mode. 


"STAND CLEAR!" Jackal shouted. He dropped into the room, 
grabbed the target, and pinned him to the ground, covering him with 
his body, then triggered the anti-personnel charge strapped to his 
back. Ten thousand tiny (but fast) tungsten darts exploded from his 
armor in a hemispherical pattern, penetrating flesh, bone, and 
concrete with equal ease, riddling the Chaos Insurgency personnel. 


Things were very quiet in the room after that. Only the sound of 
muffled gunfire let Jackal know that the battle was technically still 
raging. 


Two minutes later, even that ceased. 


"Wow," Spider whispered. "That was... something.” 
"Fast, aren't they?" Skunkboy agreed. 


"Did that guy really have to do that thing with the window?" 


"No, but it worked." 


"All right, guys, enough chatting.” Bullfrog said. "In a couple of 
hours, we're going to have twelve Strike Team members coming up 
our way, needing an exfil. Spider?" 


"Central's got a helicopter incoming,” the mage said. "Can you help 
me clear an LZ?" 


"Can do. Skunkboy, Kitten, keep an eye on the compound. Let me 
know if anything comes up." 


"Can do, Boss. Who Dares Wins and all that shit." 


"All right!" Fox shouted. "We've got thirty minutes! Grab what you 
can and clear the fuck out. Jackal? How's our damsel?" 


"He's still unconscious," Jackal said, a bit sheepishly. "I think | burst 
his eardrums. Sorry, Fox." 


"He's alive, right? Don't worry about it." She stepped over the 
groaning body of a Chaos Insurgency operative laying on the 
concrete and casually shot him in the back of the head. "Ferret? 
Arsegike?" 


"We've got the other two prisoners," came the reply. "But one of 
them keeps babbling something that makes no sense. Something 
about an aquarium." 


"I'm heading your way," Fox said. "Anyone else?" 


"Shatner's suit took a hit and froze up. He's fine, but | don't think | 
can fix it. Maybe if we had two guys supporting him from either side . 


"With the Chaos Insurgency breathing down our necks? Fuck that. 


Pop his suit and set scuttling charges. Everyone else, keep grabbing 
any intel you can find. Fox, out." 


"All right, here they come," Skunkboy said. "And not a moment too 


soon, either. Sun's about to come up." 


As the sun rose, eleven agents in black powered armor (carrying 
three rescued prisoners and one sheepish-looking half-naked man 
wearing what looked like a cross between a speedo and a wrestling 
singlet) finally emerged from the smoking buildings of the training 
camp and came jogging up the hill towards the Assessment Team. 
At least, it looked like they were jogging, until you realized that the 
easy, graceful lope was actually traveling at around fifty miles per 
hour. 


They leaped up the cliff face one by one and wordlessly nodded to 
the members of Team Sparkplug. The last to arrive was a slight, 
feminine figure wearing red commander's stripes on her helmet and 
shoulder. 


"We ready to go?" Bullfrog asked. 


"One moment," Fox said. "Central, this is Dagger Six Actual. I'm 
sanitizing the site now." 


"Dagger Six, Central. Go ahead." 


She tapped a control on her left gauntlet. Down below, a flash of 
bright blue light, followed by a loud crack like that of thunder, 
indicated that the unfortunate Agent Shatner's whitesuit was now 
destroyed... as well as the building it had been left in, which 
collapsed in a cloud of white-hot, incandescent dust. 


"All right," Fox said. "Now we can call in our ride home." 


"Team Broken Dagger reported in at 0548 hours. They're in the 
barracks right now, repairing, regrouping, and preparing for their trip 
back to Ireland," David explained. "All in all, a successful oper—" 


"So it was a successful op. Big deal. Anything interesting or unusual 
| should know about?" Khalid asked. 


"Uhh... oh, there was one thing. Kind of funny, actually. The team 
was delayed for ten minutes trying to find one of the prisoner's pets. 
A sea slug of some kind. Apparently, he wouldn't leave without it. He 


claims it can talk," the young man chuckled. 


"Really?" Khalid asked calmly, taking a sip of his coffee. "What's it's 
name?" 


"Very ungentlemanly of them," Lord Blackwood said, waving his 
feathery gills about. "Absolutely no way to treat a civilized human 
being. | was reminded of T.S. Lawrence in the hands of the Turks, 
although thankfully, | managed to escape without suffering any of 
the outrages endured by that illustrious gentleman." The colorful 
nudibranch lowered its head into the teacup that had been placed 
into its tank, staining the water a pale brown. "All in all, this was not 
the summer holiday | would have chosen." 


"I'm just glad to see that you're came through it in one piece," Khalid 
said. "You always did have a knack for getting into trouble." 


"Balderdash. | was never in any true danger, except perhaps 
running low on rum and tea. Speaking of which, how is that 
Anderson fellow? Good chap that, but not exactly the adventuring 


type." 


"Philip Anderson will recover, although he may have some hearing 
loss," Khalid reported. "He'll be fine." 


"That's good, that's good. By Jove, this really has been an odd 
week, hasn't it?" 


"That it has, that it has," Khalid agreed. "| don't suppose | can 
convince you to stay a bit longer? There's no reason for you to go 
back to the Foundation." 


"Rubbish. | gave them my parole. A gentleman's word is as binding 
as oak. Besides, my housekeeper will be worried about me. She 
does get into such terrible fits when I'm away for too long." 


"If you must," Khalid said, inclining his head politely. "I'll have a 
courier take you back in the morning." 


"Nonsense. | may be getting a bit on in years, but there's still life in 
these old bones. If | couldn't enjoy an invigorating afternoon 


sabbatical like a little walk back home, I'd be ashamed to call myself 
a Blackwood." 


"In that case, I'll be seeing you around, old friend," Khalid said, 
getting to his feet. 


"And you as well, my Arab friend. Inshallah, and may Allah smile 
upon you, peace be on his name," Lord Blackwood said. 


Khalid got to his feet and walked out of the small interrogation 
chamber, closing the door behind him. His aide, David, cleared his 
throat nervously. 


"| didn't know you were Mus—" 


"I'm not," Khalid interrupted. "And I'm not an Arab either. But 
Theodore is a bit set in his ways. Comes from the era in which he 
was raised. He means well." 


"Ah. And um. How do you know this sea slu—" 


Khalid fixed his aide with a martinet's glare, before turning crisply 
away and walking down the hallway. 


"That's above your security clearance," he said. 


"You know," Bullfrog said thoughtfully. "These guys should stop 
building their camps in known terrorist strongholds. | mean, when 
someone blows up a mysterious camp in the Hindu Kush, no one 
gives a crap. But if it it happened in, say, Montana? Someone would 
ask questions." 


"Yeah, but then they'd have to deal with nosy neighbors... IRS 
property taxes... deer shitting on their lawn..." Fox pointed out. 
"Besides, we could still blow them up. We'd just have to claim it was 
a meth lab or something." 


"| guess that's true," Bullfrog said. "To the Chaos Insurgency." 


"And may their ammo ever run low," Fox agreed. 


soon after being taken into custody by the local police force. A 
subsequent medical examination revealed two vestigial limbs in 
SCP-655-A1's abdominal cavity, along with the heart and lungs. 
SCP-655-A1's digestive system was, in turn, found to be located in 
its thoracic cavity. Foundation personnel monitoring the region 
intercepted the reports filed by the Kisangani Coroner's Office and 
initiated information suppression protocols. A subsequent 
investigation of SCP-655-A1's origins led to the discovery of 
SCP-655 and the establishment of containment. 


Upon establishment of initial containment, Foundation personnel 
discovered that the site of SCP-655, while in a state of decay 
consistent with structures abandoned for several decades, appeared 
to be undisturbed by human intrusion since the last documented 
activity of the Stanleyville Imperial Biology Institute in 1919, despite 
the presence of valuable raw materials at the site. Foundation staff 
at the time attributed this to the research facility's reputation with the 
local population. 


Institute staff appear to have systematically destroyed all 
documentation related to activities taking place at the SCP-655 site 
before abandoning it in 1919. The following materials were 
recovered upon establishment of containment: 


¢ Areinforced, secondary door made of wrought iron installed 
over the entrance to SCP-655 

* Five barrels of calcium carbonate 

¢ Fifteen wooden beds in various states of disrepair 

¢ Three bookcases, each accommodating an average of 80 

volumes 

Eight sets of iron manacles and chains 

« A mahogany desk 

* Two examination tables 

* Two Springfield Model 1892-99 .30-40 Krag caliber rifles 

* A flexible wire surgical saw