“| think some people don't want to live in the ruins of a city populated 
almost entirely by mutants and mutant sympathizers.” 


“The nerve. We even have running water sometimes. And we're 
really nice people!” 


“No. I'm really nice people. You're a big meanie.” 
The Queen of Spades gasped. “You take that back.” 
“Nope. C'mon, let's get some food in you, champ.” 


They walked away together, one silently in love, the other glad to be 
alive. 


Monica had accepted the role of totalitarian ruler foisted upon her by 
the citizenry, but she staunchly refused many of the expected perks 
that went with it. She insisted on taking her meals in the Oasis 
cafeteria with everyone else, and tried to eat with different people 
every time. 


The dining hall obeyed the same rules as any other communal 
mealtime location. There were cliques, and segregation was 
common. There was no posted ordinance requiring mutants and 
non-mutants to stay separate, but they often did regardless. Human 
nature continued to assert itself. 


The Queen stood at the end of the hall with her tray in hand, and 
looked around. Jake had left her to attend to some business, and so 
she had to decide who she was going to eat with today. 


Near her was Dozer, the burly, bearded construction worker who 
had received the most fitting mutation she had ever heard of. He 
used his earthmoving power to dig out ruins, shift debris, and lay 


to be deterred by bullets or melee weaponry. It has been 
demonstrated to have an extremely adverse reaction to open flame, 
however. 


Although SCP-974 can briefly subsist on small animals such as 
squirrels or birds, its primary and preferred food source is 
prepubescent human children. Each time it successfully consumes a 
human child, it enters a state of torpor and its form changes over the 
course of 10-12 days to replicate that of the most recently consumed 
child. It is capable of speaking any language the consumed child 
knew, although its vocabulary and speech structure is always very 
limited and simple. 


SCP-974's preferred habitat is lightly wooded areas such as parks 
or undeveloped land near moderately populated human settlements. 
Once it has settled into a new territory, it uses local vegetation, 
wood and other available materials to create between 1 and 5 
"nests", designated SCP-974-2. SCP-974-2 are generally simple, 
crudely built, one-room structures, and are usually placed in the 
lower limbs of a tree or on low rises of land. 


Once SCP-974 has built at least one instance of SCP-974-2, it will 
seek to lure a group of between 2 and 5 prey subjects to SCP-974-2 
by entreating them to follow it to the structure in order to play. 
SCP-974 will participate in simple, physical play activities such as 
hide-and-seek or tag with the subjects, allowing them to leave and 
return at a later time. This behavior pattern can last up to a week 
before SCP-974 invites a single prey target to play with it alone. At 
this point, whether the target accepts or declines the offer, SCP-974 
will subdue the target and [REDACTED], leaving the clothing with 
only minor damage and fluid staining. SCP-974 will typically 
abandon SCP-974-2 after this, although it will remain in its territory 
until the local population of children is depleted. 


SCP-974 displays a heightened "fight or flight" reaction to the 
presence of post-pubescent humans and will immediately attempt to 
flee to an instance of SCP-974-2 if it is aware that it is visible to such 
an individual. If retreat is not an option, SCP-974 becomes highly 
aggressive and will attack all Known post-pubescent individuals. Due 
to its increased strength, SCP-974 has been known to dismember 
the targets of its attacks before being dissuaded through standard 


fresh pavement and concrete. Without him and his building crew, 
Old Vegas would have collapsed months ago. He sat with his 
workers and laughed heartily at a joke someone told. He had egg in 
his beard, but no one told him, because the Maintenance men 
thought that kind of thing was hilarious. 


Another table further down was occupied by the Spookies, a small 
group of like-minded men and women with an array of strange 
mutations that made them stealthy or quick. Monica had made them 
her scouts and spies, and they did the job with quiet efficiency. One 
kept fading in and out of sight, having yet to learn to control her 
invisibility. Another was also hard to see; he kept himself wreathed 
in dense shadows to cope with his social anxiety. A third had a great 
number of multicolored eyes placed all through her face, and 
twitched frequently, able to see through walls for miles in all 
directions. They engaged in hushed conversation, choosing to keep 
their secrets from all but their Queen. 


Further along were the fighters, the few mutants with destructive 
powers rivaling Monica's own. There were maybe nine of them, and 
while they were decent enough people, most of the others were at 
least a little afraid of them. One had been mutated to be utterly 
enormous, over nine feet tall, with cherry-red skin and large tusks. 
He had taken the nickname Ogre, but was known to be a sweetheart 
despite his fearsome appearance. Another had thorns and leafy 
branches growing from her skin. She was perilously poisonous, and 
Monica had once seen her regenerate from being blown to pieces 
by an anti-tank rocket. She wore pads on every exposed inch of skin 
to avoid accidentally envenoming anyone. A third had glowing blue 
veins under his skin and was doing tricks for the others' amusement, 
making silverware dance in the air with electromagnetism. He was 
capable of producing terrifying amounts of electricity, and had once 
supplied power to the entire district when a generator bank had 
gone down. 


And one table, all the way at the end, was occupied by a loner. 
Norman. 


Norman's mutations were among the most dramatic that Monica had 
ever seen. He was a confusing, borderline terrifying mess. A 
disgusting amalgamation of flesh and exposed organs, which 


levitated in the air, orbited by dozens of lazily floating disembodied 
hands, each with an eye in the palm. Parts of him constantly warped 
in and out of visible space, appearing and reappearing. Multiple 
copies of himself as he had looked before his mutation also made 
occasional appearance, popping into space and then fading away. 
Echoes of his former self, which he used to sit at the table and take 
bites of his meal while his huge main body hovered, ominous and 
frightening, over the table. 


Just looking at Norman for too long gave most people a headache. 
Their minds recoiled at his very existence. People left him alone, 
unsure of how to approach him, much less engage him in 
conversation. Some had tried, but found it hard to eat with an 
undifferentiated, pulsating mass of human flesh literally looming over 
their heads. 


He only ate in the cafeteria a few times a month, teleporting into the 
room suddenly and then warping away when his meal was finished. 
Monica had no idea where he went or where he stayed when he 
wasn't around. He had only been coming to the Oasis for a few 
months. He and Monica had been imprisoned at the same site, and 
she remembered him as being a quiet, contemplative kind of guy 
before his transformation. And she supposed that still held true, but 
she really wasn't sure. 


She felt horribly for him, and made it a point as Mayor to eat with 
him whenever he was around. 


She approached the table, into the outer orbit of floating hands, 
some of which turned to look at her with their many-colored eyes. 
None touched her as she came closer — they simply disappeared 
before coming in contact. She placed her tray directly in front of one 
of his fuzzy, out-of-focus clones and sat, looked at its eyes. 


“How are you today, Norm?” 


There was a brief silence. The clone's vacant eyes looked at hers 
without looking into them, and Monica felt a strange pulse move 
through her body. 


*I'M ALRIGHT. THE WIND IS RICH AND FULL OF 


SECRETS TODAY. 1 SAW YOU FIGHT THE VOID 
THROWER.” 


Norman's voice, if it could be called that, was difficult on the ears. 
He spoke with many voices at once, and sometimes conveyed 
meaning by directly injecting images or sensations into others' 
minds when words weren't enough. It was a profoundly surreal and 
sometimes upsetting experience, but Monica had gotten used to it. 


She did her best to keep her composure and nodded, keeping her 
eyes on her tray to avoid looking at the dead-eyed clone in front of 
her. Its mouth didn't move when Norman spoke. 


“Yeah? I'm not sure if he'll come back this time. | went the extra 
mile.” 


“YOU DIDN'T KILL HIM. | WAS NEARBY. I TRIED TO 
HOLD HIM DOWN WHEN YOU FIRED YOUR LASER, 
BUT HE ESCAPED. HE'S VERY STRONG.” 


This was unprecedented. Norman didn't make a habit of involving 
himself directly with life in Old Vegas, much less participate in the 
fighting. 


“Do you know anything about him? Who he is, where he came from? 
And more importantly why he keeps trying to murder everyone?” 


The clone disappeared abruptly, then reappeared on her right with 
its tray in tow. It continued eating. A second one also materialized at 
the far end of the table, apparently not doing anything. 


"HE HAS A STRANGE MIND. FEW COHESIVE 
THOUGHTS. A GREAT AMOUNT OF DARKNESS. 
HARD TO FIND INFORMATION THROUGH THE 
SHADOWS AND HATRED. HE APPEARS TO ONLY 
WANT MURDER AND DESTRUCTION. I'M NOT SURE 
HE IS ALONE WITHIN HIMSELF.” 


Monica raised an eyebrow, and said around a mouthful of egg, “Not 


alone? What do you mean?” 


”| MEAN THAT HE MIGHT NOT BE THE ONLY 
INHABITANT OF HIS BODY. | THINK HIS MUTATION 
OPENED SOME KIND OF GATE, AND SOMETHING 
CAME THROUGH. SOMETHING MEAN. BUT | DON'T 
KNOW FOR SURE. IT'S JUST A THEORY. | WOULD 
HAVE TO GET CLOSER TO DIG DEEPER INTO HIM. 
AND THAT WOULD PROBABLY BE BAD FOR MY 
HEALTH.” 


“Do you think he can be killed? | think I'd like to kill him. Considering 
he keeps trying to kill us.” 


”| THINK YOU WOULD NEED SOMETHING TO GUM UP 
THE SPACE AROUND HIM, TO STOP HIM FROM 
WARPING AWAY. | CAN DO THAT, BUT NOT 
POWERFULLY ENOUGH TO HOLD HIM. | WOULD 
NEED HELP FROM SOMEONE ELSE. AND | DON'T 
KNOW ANYONE WITH THE SAME KIND OF MAGIC.” 


Monica nodded, frowning in thought. “Hmph. Neither do I. You know, 
the more | hang with you the more | like you, Norman. You're a nice 
guy, even if you are kind of terrifying.” 


There was the sound of laughter, made echoing and awful by 
Norman's many voices. But he made up for it with an image of 
sunshine and happy, colorful flowers, and a feeling of pleasant 
warmth, which he shoved directly into her mind without her 
permission. 


“I'M AN UGLY BASTARD. BUT | PREFER TO THINK I 
MAKE UP FOR IT WITH MY GLOWING AND 
HANDSOME PERSONALITY.” 


A thought occurred to her as she ate. “You can just totally look all 
through my brain, can't you, Norman.” It wasn't a question. 


“YES. IT'S NOT SOMETHING I DO ON PURPOSE. 
IMAGINE WALKING THROUGH A MUSEUM AND 
BEING TOLD THAT IF YOU THINK ABOUT LOOKING 
AT THE BEAUTIFUL PAINTINGS, YOU'LL BE 
PUNISHED.” 


“That doesn't really help with the... creepiness.” 


Heavy gray clouds gathered in her mind, and a sad, soft rain began 
to fall. There was the sound of distant crying, and the fluttering of 
wings. 


*I'M SORRY, MONICA. | CAN'T HELP WHAT | AM. IF IT 
MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER, YOUR SECRETS ARE 
SAFE WITH ME. IF | HAD LIPS, THEY'D BE SEALED.” 


She shook her head. “No, Norm, it's fine. You're fine. You just take a 
little getting used to, is all. You probably understand that way better 
than we do.” 


The rain didn't stop. 


"IT'S HARD. | WAS GIVEN GREAT GIFTS, BUT A LOT 
OF THINGS WERE TAKEN FROM ME, TOO. | WOULD 

NEVER GO BACK TO WHAT I WAS, BUT SOMETIMES 
| THINK | WOULD GIVE ALMOST ANYTHING TO...” 


The words didn't come, but Monica knew what he meant. She had 
no choice but to know. 


“You should come around more often, Norm. You don't have to stay 
away and be a stranger. You've got it worse than the rest of us, but 
we're all changed too, and we can empathize at least a little bit. 
You're valuable, not just as a tactical asset, but as a person. You 
don't have to be alone. You have a family, right here. You just have 
to give us a chance.” 


A spear of sunlight stabbed through the clouds in Monica's mind. 
There was the smell of fresh wind, and the sound of proudly rustling 


trees. 


”THAT MAKES ME FEEL BETTER. YOU ARE WHO 

YOU ARE FOR A REASON, MONICA. AND SO AMI. 
BUT IT'S GOOD TO KNOW THAT OF ALL PEOPLE, 
YOU WERE GIVEN WHAT YOU WERE GIVEN. I-” 


Norman froze. Every part of him stopped abruptly. No pulsing, no 
drifting, no phasing. Perfect stillness. He was silent. Monica opened 
her mouth to ask him what was wrong, but he interrupted her. 
Lightning crashed in her head. Images of terror, agony, and chaos 
flickered across her vision uncontrollably. 


His voice was as loud as thunder, exploding through the minds of 
everyone in the Oasis simultaneously. The cool blue glow that 
Norman gave became tortured and red. 


”*SOLDIERS. HUNDREDS. ENTERING THE WRECK 
DISTRICT FROM THE WESTERN GATE. GUNS. 
ARMOR. WAR MACHINES. IT IS THE FOUNDATION. 
THEY'VE COME FOR US. THEIR COMMANDER 
INTENDS TO CAPTURE THE CITIZENS OF OLD 
VEGAS AND KILL ALL WHO RESIST. WE MUST 
DEFEND. WE MUST DEFEND OUR HOME! NOW!” 


The cafeteria immediately began to swarm with activity. Voices cried 
out. There was confusion and growing panic. Norman spoke directly 
to her. 


”| WILL PROVIDE A TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATIONS 
NETWORK. INSTRUCT YOUR DEFENDERS TO THINK 
THROUGH ME; | WILL ACCESS AND REVEAL THE 
MIND OF THE ENEMY. BUT FIRST | WILL BANISH 
THEIR HELICOPTERS FROM MY SKY. BE STRONG, 
MY QUEEN. LEAD US TO VICTORY.” 


Norman disappeared. 


Monica slammed her fists on the table and stood. The room 
immediately fell silent to hear her words. 


“All fighters report to battle stations! Team captains, use Norman to 
coordinate with your troops and muster all defenders at the western 
gate! Maintenance squadron, dig in two hundred yards back from 
55th Street and break the road; stop those fucking tanks! Spookies, 
get out there and get eyes on the intruders; | want status reports 
every ten fucking minutes! Combat Squadron get the fuck topside 
and into phalanx formation! No more drills, people! Let's show these 
limp-dick Nazi shitfucks why you can't fuck with Old Vegas!” 


The room exploded in a roar of defiance, loud enough to rattle the 
concrete and quake the hearts of the Foundation. 


Monica stood at the end of 55th street and watched as the 
Foundation troops flowed in, taking attack formations. They held 
their fire. Behind her she had summoned a thick hedgerow of 
artillery cannons, squared upon the soldiers in black. 


They outnumbered the Old Vegas defenders three to one. They 
stood in lines, in thick armor and gas masks. Their tanks, heavy and 
armored, idled at the end of the block, unable to traverse wide 
cracks in the pavement put there by Dozer and his engineers. 


Their commander, a tall man with no mask, spoke aloud. 


“Attention, mutants and mutant sympathizers. It is with a heavy heart 
that we come to you today. The Foundation cannot allow the 
inhuman infestation to continue to spread. For the benefit of all 
humanity, we ask that all mutants present lay down their arms and 
surrender, to be contained for their own safety and the safety of the 
world. | imagine | do not need to explain what will happen if you 
choose to resist. Please, for the good of us all, do the right thing and 
let this go.” 


The Queen of Spades, Mayor of Old Vegas, stood at the fore, her 
people behind her. 


Dozer, his body coated in a layer of shifting, flowing stone, cracked 


his huge fists together loudly. His engineers shouted, rattling the 
earth underneath their feet.