While securing the premises, security personnel J. and M. 
failed to check in for their scheduled updates. A second team was 
deployed and discovered J. and M. unresponsive and in 
the preliminary stages of absorption. Attempts to extricate personnel 
from SCP-763 resulted in the deaths of both staff members, as well 
as a medical technician who made direct skin contact during 
surgery. 


Incident Report 763-12G: 


After noticing irregularities in the radio updates coming from 
Biological Site- , a security team was dispatched to investigate. 


"Hey, what are you doing?" Edward's thick voice intrudes upon you 
from right behind the bench. "Are you throwing stones? Can | have a 
go?" 


The boy lurches happily around the bench and squats down clumsily 
to pick up some stones. 

Grabbing a whole handful of little pebbles and grit, he flings them in 
the direction of the trees, still in a squatting position. 


You're suddenly overcome with anger. You were almost starting to 
enjoy yourself, forgetting the rejection of the boys and the taunting of 
the girls. And now this idiot comes blundering in interrupting with his 
loudness and awkwardness. 


You hurl the last stone you've been gripping with extra strength, and 
just at that moment, Edward, who has been shuffling backwards 
rummaging through the soil while still squatting down, stands up. 


Horrified, you watch as the pebble, slightly larger than a marble, hits 
the boy in the forehead. His expression goes immediately from its 
usual wide grin into an open-mouthed look of pure shock. He can't 
quite believe it. His hand starts to drift up towards his head, and then 
the pain kicks in, and the corners of his mouth drop and he starts to 
wail. 


Your stomach turns itself upside down. You didn't want that to 
happen. You didn't want to hurt him. You're going to get in so much 
trouble for this. 


But a small part of you smiles, and is glad. 


Quarter to three. School's nearly over, but while some of the lucky 
kids go home, you have to go to day care, like a baby. Mama and 
Daddy say you're not old enough to be in the house alone, and they 
have to work, but that's just not fair. You'd be fine by yourself. 


Day care is almost unbearable. The other kids are bad enough at 
school, and there's the teachers there who can actually punish 
them. Under the well-meaning but useless gestures of Debby and 
the other day care women, it's hell. 


You're just about to get on the bus when you hear your name called. 
You look back, and Mr. Vincent is beckoning to you from his class 
door. He's saying something about report, and your heart sinks. You 
kind of thought you'd got away with the thing with Edward, but now it 
looks like you'll be put on report, and then Mama will be sad again, 
and Daddy will just look at you with the disappointment in his eyes 
even worse. 


Mr Vincent looks at you, and gestures to sit down. He doesn't look 
as stern as you'd feared; if anything, he looks anxious. You've never 
had any real trouble with Mr. Vincent: he's not your favourite 
teacher, but he's not angry like Mr. Lenny or nasty like Miss Debrah. 
You shift your weight about, wondering when he's going to begin 
speaking. He doesn't seem to know where to start. 


"Look, | know it's difficult with Edward. He can be annoying, and you 
don't always want him around." Mr. Vincent holds up a hand to stop 
your explanation. "I don't think you hurt him on purpose. | know you 
don't like him, but | don't think you're the kind of boy to do that. | 
know how much it upsets you when Harrison and Kyle won't spend 
time with you, when the girls tease you. | wish | could do something. 
| don't know why no-one seems to want to be your friend - apart 
from Edward, and he just wants to be everyone's friend. | Know what 
it's like to feel like - to feel like no-one wants you. To think you're 
nothing but an annoyance in everyone's lives." 


Mr. Vincent is pacing around, talking quickly and stumbling a little 
over his words. You're almost a bit worried. Mr. Vincent doesn't 
seem like a teacher any more. He smiles suddenly, weakly. 


"Now I'm scaring you. Teachers aren't supposed to be human, are 
we? We're adults - right? The enemy. No-one expects us to try to - 
to get close to you, to be real with you. 


"But | - | think | need your help. There's something I'm trying to do, 
something I'm trying to make, and | need someone else to help me. 
I'm close now - real close, I'm about to get it. | really think | can do 
it!" 


He stops walking and looks at you directly. "Will you help me? 


The memories fade away as you climb down the bus steps, shaking 
your head. What an awful day. And now you're ... you're at the local 
high school? What's going on? Weren't you supposed to be going to 
day care? Why are you back here? What happened after you left 
school? And why does the Mission High School look so... old? 


Researcher Grant buries his face in his hands as the door closes 
behind the small boy carrying an orange jumpsuit over one arm. It 
never gets any easier. 


With a deep sigh, he opens the tracking document and registers the 
arrival of SCP-1680 instance number 20,584. 


20 GOTO 10 


A black sedan rolled down the street, electric quiet in the dead of 
night, toward "The Rusty Cam". A true hole in the wall, this place. 
Dumpster overflowing out front, smoke pouring from all the vents, 
windows and doors. True to its name the place smelled of petrol and 
motor oil and coolant and burnt rubber. No one with a net worth over 
$20K would be caught dead there. Exactly the atmosphere required 
for this particular brand of meeting hall. 


Or Church. Same thing, really. 


The driver threw the car into park, and mashed the "Stop" button on 
the dash. His forehead rested on the steering wheel a moment as he 
steeled himself up for the night's task. A furtive glance to the 
briefcase in his passenger seat. A dry swallow. He closed his eyes 
and tried to think of this meeting for what it was. To remind himself 
that he was allowed to be here (strictly speaking). That this had 
‘already happened' from a certain point of view. It did little good. 


“esPUCK It.” 


His hands wrapped around the plastic handle of the case, and he 
stepped into the night, glasses fogging in the muggy heat. Past the 
threshold, he counted no less than 23 eyes trained upon his person 
(some of them were probably even human). The man cleared his 
throat and pressed forward into the wolfs' den, heading straight to 
the bar. 


2245 MDT, 18 July 2031 CE. A Friday. 36 degrees in Edmonton that 
day... 


"...what can | do for you?" the bartender asked. 


"Your finest 5w-30. Straight." He had a seat. 


The bartender cocked his head to the side. "You sure about that? | 
don't think I've seen you around before." 


"A whiskey while | wait, then," the man said, placing the briefcase on 
the bar and patting it twice. "...For your 'manager', of course." 


The bartender's tongue clucked (No... ticked. That was definitely a 
tick.) once, and a glass was filled with amber oblivion and placed 
before the visitor. "It might take a while. He's a very busy man." 


"Tell him 'Book of Pieces, 12:6." the visitor said. "Don't worry, I'm 
expected." 


"| never heard about it.” 
"| don't expect you would." 
"Look, who are you, really?" the bartender demanded. 


...And then someone over the visitor's shoulder whispered the word 
‘foundation,’ with a capital f. 


The visitor was now acutely aware of the silence in the rest of the 
bar. No music, no conversation. Just the slow ticking of machinery, 
the soft hiss of release valves, and the hum of cooling fans. It was 
true, then. He had definitely come to the right place. And that was all 
the more terrifying. 


The visitor took up his glass and downed what must have been 

90 mL of bottom-shelf Bourbon and hacked up half of a lung. He had 
already been quiet too long. Anything but the truth would be sniffed 
out in an instant. But perhaps he could get away with telling only 
half. 


"lam a traveler. From faaaar and away. | have come to barter for a 
service." The visitor took hold of the briefcase and opened it, 
revealing the leather-bound codex within. On its face was a single 
roman numeral: 'XXXV'. "Do you know what this is?" 


The bartender's eyes opened so wide that one of them slid out 
20 cm on a stalk, adjusted focus, and snapped back. "... That's 
not..." He began to reach for it, but the lid to the case slammed 


closed on his fingertips. "OW!" 


"Yes. It is," the visitor asserted. "This interview is concluded. Either 
eject me from the premises or get your manager. | no longer care 
which." His palms were wet and his mouth was dry, but they bought 
it. The bartender poured a double out of a brown, unmarked bottle 
and hurried into the back. Top-shelf, home-made stuff this time. No 
junk in it, clear as a bell. Tasted like new-car smell with a hint of old- 
world coriander and nutmeg. By the time he was finished, a woman 
he did not recognize was standing in the doorway, silently beckoning 
him to follow with one cybernetic arm; a civilian appliance, by the 
look of it. That was one thing Church-goers liked about the slow 
creep of trans-humanism. It made it easier to blend in. 


Don't worry, he thought silently into the room around him. Your time 
will come... You'll all get to sing your hallelujahs out loud like the 
rest of them. 


The metal-armed woman and a man made primarily of bronze duct 
work stood like a wall in the archway. The woman stepped forward 
and nodded. "I am Acolyte Henrietta Ford, this is Militant Clutch. 
Please open your jacket and spread your arms." 


The visitor looked back and forth between the two of them and 
decided that it was too close to call, and so he would comply. He 
opened his coat to rest on his shoulders and spread his arms. 
"Careful with the case. That's the only copy." 


"Careful yourself, heathen," Clutch puffed, and took the briefcase 
from the visitor's hand. A series of lenses clicked into place in front 
of his left eye. 


Henrietta flipped her cybernetic hand around three times to reveal 
some kind of scanning apparatus that the visitor could not quite 
place. It swept up one side of him and down the other making a 
bunch of meaningless noise, and Henrietta's pupils swallowed her 
irises whole as the data streamed in. "... Wow." 


The visitor nodded. "Yup." 


"That's..." She stammered. "It's a lot. For a jailer, anyway." 


"You'd be surprised." 


Clutch shoved the case into the visitor's chest with a grunt. "The 
case is clean." 


Henrietta nodded and grabbed the visitor by the shoulder, ushering 
him forward roughly. "A few things need to be clear before you meet 
the Reverend Automaton." 


"The Reverend what?" 


"Automaton," Clutch said roughly. "His Holiness Reverend Fourier 7, 
fourth generation of the Design. No more questions, heathen. Listen 
now." 


"First," Henrietta continued, "any hostile action on your part will be 
met with immediate deadly force. Second, our cooperation with you 
today in no way implies continued cooperation with you or any other 
party associated with the Foundation. Thirdly-" 


"With all due respect, Ms. Ford, please don't mistake me for an 
errand boy. I'm here on my own." 


"All the more reason for us to be suspicious," Clutch hissed quietly, 
and reached for the doorknob with a single brass claw. "Watch 
yourself closely. For your own sake." 


The room had no air conditioning, only a large exhaust fan bellowing 
a constant 65 dB through the tiny space. Behind the desk sat an 
automaton of some kind, but not the sort one would expect was 
once a man, like his escort. Five lenses stared at him 
dispassionately from a central mass, held aloft by four of its eight 
appendages. The other four, each with their own lenses attached, 
busily shuffled and marked and scooted and filed papers away with 
rapid precision. The being adjusted focus twice, and produced a 
brass horn from the top of its central body. 


"Greetings," the automaton clamored. "| am Fourier 7. We have 
been expecting you, Doctor-" 


"| would prefer if my name was not spoken aloud in this 
establishment," the visitor interrupted. "| am not a moron." 


The being's lens shutters fluttered audibly (all of them), which would 
have sounded vaugely of laughter if one had cotton in their ears. 
"Do you insinuate?" it asked. 


"| do not," the visitor replied, "but the Foundation has ears even in 
places as hidden as this. Prudence demands discretion." 


"Very well. Please present the volume for validation." 


The visitor took a deep, nervous breath, and opened the briefcase 
again, very gently placing it on the desk before him. "The Design of 
the Mind, Volume 35 of 36. | believe it is the only one you are 
missing." 


One of Fourier 7's appendages finished its filing task, and swung 
over to the desk, analyzing the codex from multiple angles. 
Carefully, it opened the cover, and with a wheeled attachment 
clearly designed for the purpose, flipped through all 1378 pages in 
less than 10 seconds. Its shutters blinked closed twice, and the 
lenses focused on the visitor yet again. "The volume appears valid, 
with 99.95% confidence. However, the condition of this volume is in- 
congruent with its age by nearly seven centuries. How was it 
obtained?" 


"Never mind that. Are you satisfied with its authenticity or not?" 


The Henrietta and Clutch looked at one another in solemn silence, 
and then at Fourier 7 expectantly as small fitted gears in its trunk 
clacked and clicked and shifted against one another. Its lenses 
shifted back and forth between the visitor and the volume several 
times before the cacophonous clickety-clack finally quieted, and the 
automaton spoke. 


"lam satisfied. What is your price?" 


The visitor let out a long breath before beginning. "| am currently 
host to a Mark XXV Cerebellar Device, which has had its wireless 
transceiver removed. | can't file a claim through my company health 
insurance for reasons which should be obvious... So | want a good 
Maxwellian surgeon to repair it." 


Fourier 7 stopped all of its ancillary filing and fixed on the visitor with 
his full attention. Faster than he could blink, the visitor's glasses 
were removed, head cocked to the side and skin at the base of his 
skull probed by a cold, metallic something. He tried to struggle, but 
his two attendants grabbed his arms and pinned him to his seat. A 
magnifier lens was placed over his eye, and from somewhere within, 
a light scanned his retina from top to bottom, left to right. As quickly 
as the probing began, it ended, and the visitor fell back, suddenly 
quite exhausted. He checked his neck and found that he was 
bleeding, thought it wasn't serious and would probably stop within 
the hour. He pressed a handkerchief on it firmly, sat up straight 
through the woozy, and regained his spectacles. The dirty look shot 
in Henrietta and Clutch's direction was not returned. 


"Your claim appears to be genuine," Fourier 7 said finally. "But again 
| am confused. The current generation Cerebellar Device developed 
by our Maxwellian brothers has been designated Mark II, and is not 
yet available for general installation." 


"It will be, though, within this calendar year. And although the 
components have changed, the architecture of the device should be 
familiar enough to your surgeon that he can solder a goddamn pin!"