The lifers, led by Hagman, began to clamour that they should be 
allowed to remain in the yard until the rest of the block had been 
repopulated. Despite the eminent sense in this idea, given the fact 
that the Judge's assailant was, as far as the guards were 
concerned, almost certainly a lifer himself, prison management felt 
duty-bound to oppose any exercise of power by prisoners that could 
develop into a riot. Accordingly, the three guards trying to keep the 
hundred-metre line in check were pulled away from their positions 
and out into the yard, where they attempted to subdue and separate 
Hagman from the other prisoners. Keagan had pulled Creepy 
Bastard back towards the entrance and was currently in line 
between a burglar and an over-enthusiastic ex-nightclub bouncer 
when, despite Taggart's best attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, the 
first punch was thrown. Hagman went down under the guards' 
batons, whereupon another prisoner with a cloverleaf tattooed on 
the back of his shaven head decided this would be an excellent 
opportunity to score credibility by kicking a guard in the shins. 


Suddenly the whole line was alive, inmates rushing backwards and 


Post testing observation: Based on what appeared to be an initial 
adverse reaction from SCP-682, we don’t know if the entity 
incorporated SCP-513 to itself, or if it worked the other way around. 
Either way, in light of the loss of 67% of site staff and 45% of site D- 
class, requesting that cognitohazardous item testing for SCP-682 be 
suspended until we understand just what the hell happened here. - 
Dr. Kerboros. 


Approved, O5-4 


Item: SCP-2140 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 
+ 4/BASILISK Clearance Required 


On 03/13/2004 at 1100 hours the SCP-682 observation 
booth was cleared of all personnel without BASILISK 
certification, under the authority of Senior Agent Vanessa 
Rider. At 1115 an image of the SCP-2140 glyph was 
projected onto the wall of the SCP-682 containment 
enclosure. 


Foreword: Test T-98816-OC108/682-2140, 
Video Surveillance 


<Begin Log, 03/13/2004> 


[SCP-682 observes the glyph for 37 seconds 
and then turns toward the observation booth] 


SCP-682: | haven't seen these since the time 
of [DATA EXPUNGED]. It won't work. Unlike 
you dancing shadows, my past was real and 
cannot be re-written, as much as | wish it 
were. 


[SCP-682 paused and began scratching 


forwards, surging past the sole guard now administering re-entrance 
to the prison and trampling past the cordon being put up around the 
Judge's cell, or else out into the yard to get a good look at the fight. 
They were to be disappointed—the guards had already withdrawn, 
leaving the inmates gazing blankly at the largely deserted yard. 
Keagan, perceiving that he and Creepy Bastard were likely to be 
trampled unless they went along with the crowd, grabbed his 
cellmate by the collar and allowed them to be buffeted 50 metres 
deeper into the facility, where he found an empty cell and swung the 
door shut. They sat on the floor, breathless and dazed, listening to 
the chaos outside. 


15 minutes later, the wing was overrun by nearly 50 helmeted riot 
personnel, pushing unruly prisoners to the ground and arresting 
several for further offences. Keagan was restored to his original cell, 
where he paced angrily, thinking about the circumstances of the 
Judge's murder. Patrick Goettsch was of course the most likely 
suspect—he had attacked the Judge before and his motive was 
relatively straightforward. When Keagan caught a glimpse from his 
cell window of Goettsch being dragged out of his cell he harboured 
hope that he would confess then and there, but when he was 
returned half an hour later and his cellmate taken, he realised the 
lifers were being interrogated one by one. 


Something about the whole setup of the murder had bothered 
Keagan, and now, cut off from all other sources of distraction, he 
was able to parse why. Why had there been no response from the 
guard posted at the hub of the cell block, who would surely have 
seen and heard the assault which had spilled the Judge's 
accoutrements into the corridor? Instead, Creepy Bastard of all 
people had been the first on the scene. Not only that, but there had 
been time for him to wander out into the yard, talk to Keagan, and 
for Keagan to return to the cell block, go through the Judge's effects 
and make it back out to the yard before there was any response 
from the prison staff. And what had happened to the CCTV? 
Assuming there had not been a simultaneous failure of the prison's 
systems on every level—entirely possible, of course—there was 
only one reasonable conclusion; that the prison staff had not been 
alarmed by the sight of the killer entering the Judge's cell. The 
Judge had no roommate—it only now occuring to Keagan that this 


was not on account of any residual pull in the legal system but 
because he was a high-risk prisoner, an older man, a wife-murderer 
surrounded by killers of men. So who else would the guard in the 
CCTV observation room expect to see entering a prisoner's cell? 


As a matter of course, any death in prison is referred to the coroner 
and the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman. The office of the 
Coroner for Hammersmith & Fulham who has jurisdiction over the 
prison was at the time held by one Dr Gerald Wyncroft, and this was 
the distinguished gentleman who had taken it upon himself to speak 
with each of the B block lifers. 


Creepy Bastard was returned to his cell, screeching and hysterical. 

There was no time to get from him any indication of what picture the 
prison staff were forming around the incident—Keagan was next to 

be taken. Taggart was charged with escorting Keagan from the cell 

block to the office the coroner had converted into an incident room. 

His face was grim, but he was humming, for reasons best known to 

himself, La Marseillaise in a light, airy tone. 


Dr Wyncroft was in his late sixties, with greying temples and a 
sharply peaked hairline that, in combination with his thick glasses 
and drooping nose, gave him the appearance of some myopic bird 
of prey. He had abutted several tables together to form a large work 
surface, across which he had spread what were presumably the files 
of all inmates he considered relevant to his investigations. 


"O'Neill, Keagan," announced Taggart, elbowing Keagan to the 
plastic chair on the far side of this sea of documentation. 


"Keagan, thank you for joining us," said the coroner, as though 
Keagan had simply dropped in on the way to some more pressing 
engagement. "You are of course aware that | am collecting evidence 
for the inquest into the death of Wesley Kellogg?" 


Keagan nodded. 


"Good. Now, | was particularly interested to hear what contact you 
might have had with Wesley in the weeks leading up to his death," 
Wyncroft said measuredly, adjusting his glasses. 


Keagan thought carefully. "He was helping me petition a court to try 
to change my guilty plea," said Keagan, thickly. Don the librarian 
had to have seen them studying together. 


"| see," said Wyncroft, exchanging the papers he was holding for 
another sheaf. "There's no basis, then, in the notion that Wesley 
Kellogg was paying you for protection?" 


Something sharp and cold went through Keagan's abdomen, as 
though it was he and not the Judge who had been stabbed. They 
had taken every precaution against discussing the arrangement in 
earshot of other prisoners, lest someone else try and muscle in. 


"Who told you that?" he asked. 


"Never mind that," said Wyncroft sharply. "You must be feeling 
devastated right now if you were indeed being paid to keep Wesley 
safe. Personally, I'd be livid." 


"You should be talking to Patrick Goettsch!" shouted Keagan. "He 
attacked the Judge—I mean, Wesley—in the library. Don Dacyk will 
back me up." 


Wyncroft made a terse note. "We've already looked into that, 
Keagan, at Mister Dacyk's suggestion. Patrick has been in the 
hospital wing for the past week, complaining of a stomach bug. Is it 
fair to say that there is some mutual antagonism between Patrick 
and yourself? Some ‘beef’, | believe?" 


The feeling in Keagan's stomach intensified. What Dr Wyncroft 
meant, he realised, was this "Does Patrick Goettsch have some 
reason to lie about you?" 


"| stopped him attacking Wesley," he said haltingly. "What is he 
saying?" 


"Interesting," said Wyncroft, making another note. "Okay, | think 
that's enough. Return Keagan to his cell." 


"Come on then," said Taggart. 


As Keagan was led back through B block, he considered his options. 


He would need to transfer the money the Judge had paid him out of 
his account, as soon as possible. There was a chance, of course, 
that the payments the Judge had made had already been traced and 
his account frozen—with no means of contacting the Judge's 
solicitor, Keagan's best option for finding out was Travis Lemure, but 
surely cell phone activity would be one of the things the prison would 
be watching in the aftermath of a murder? 


Keagan passed Travis’ cell, hoping to catch the other lifer's eye, but 
the only occupant was his cellmate, a young black man who usually 
wore a sock around his head in imitation of a bandanna. He looked 
up, grinned widely and made a gun-cocking gesture at Keagan. The 
upper bunk was empty and cleared out. 


"What's happened to Travis?" Keagan asked Taggart, as casually as 
he could muster with his watery breakfast threatening to force its 
way up his throat. "He been transferred?" 


Taggart tightened his jaw, and Keagan noticed that his usual three 
days of stubble looked more like five-and-a-half and his eyes were 
bloodshot. "Don't know who that is. Sorry." 


"You're kidding me," said Keagan. "What the fuck is going on?" 


"Seriously," said Taggart. "Just shut up. Just—shut up." 


The lockdown was lifted after a day, but the investigation continued 
—Wyncroft, now accompanied by civilian police, became a fixture of 
B block, speaking to everyone, noting everything. 


As soon as he was released from his cell Keagan began haunting 
the rec room, yard and hallways. He hoped—prayed—that if he 
came face-to-face with Goettsch he would be able to keep calm 
enough to talk, figure out exactly what had been said and what 
Goettsch knew. But he could only catch glimpses of the man, staring 
back with what now seemed to be absolute terror as he disappeared 
into one huddle of lifers or another. By the end of the week Goettsch 
had let it be known—as relayed to Keagan by Creepy Bastard—that 
he had submitted to the protection of Marvin Hagman. Getting an 
audience with Marv turned out to be almost as lengthy and 


expensive a process as placing a call from the prison landline—you 
started from a friend of a friend of a friend and moved upwards, 
greasing the wheels with cash or contraband at each stage. Finally, 
it was agreed via one of his close associates that they should do 
lunch—Hagman would sit at a table on his own, his subordinates 
tactfully restraining any clueless white-collar inmates who might be 
tempted to sit nearby. Keagan would take a seat across from him 
after putting down his tray and turning out his pockets to show he 
wasn't carrying anything that could be used as a weapon. 


The plan, of course, did not survive contact with the real world—an 
extra influx of prisoners around mealtime due to closure of the C 
block tuck shop meant there were no free tables to be had, and it 
was quickly agreed that Keagan should take a seat, with Hagman's 
associates quietly taking the others at the table aside one at a time 
until Hagman himself could make an appearance. Marv Hagman 
had salt and pepper hair in a grade 2 cut—coupled with similarly 
greying beard stubble and a round head with piggy eyes anda 
stubby, broken nose he had the appearance of a bristly bowling ball. 
Though perhaps an inch shorter than Keagan he was much broader, 
with massive, sausage-like fingers in which the rounded prison 
utensils looked almost comically tiny. He still sported plasters on his 
forehead and cheeks from where he had absorbed a beating from 
two prison guards during the yard riot. He sat down, ate a few 
mouthfuls, then breathed out heavily, as though merely being in 
Keagan's presence was an almost unbearable strain. 


"So," he said, around a sloppy mouthful of reprocessed basa fish. 
"Looks like we have a problem." 


"No problem," explained Keagan carefully. "I'm coming to you 
because | need your help. | feel responsible for what happened to 
the Judge,"—this phrasing selected in case one of Hagman's 
associates saw fit to pass on what he heard to Wyncroft—"and | 
think Goettsch had something to do with it, or knows who did. Now it 
looks like he’s been saying things about me to the police. He's put 
himself under your protection, but ultimately you have the choice of 
who to protect. Do you understand?" 


"Yeah. You want to get up close and personal with Goettsch 
because you're a man of honour. | understand that. But I'm a man of 


honour too. | give my word someone's going to be safe, | don't go 
back on that. Now, | like the Judge. Maybe Goettsch did him in. | 
doubt it, but maybe. | know about the thing he had going with Travis. 
But that doesn't change the fact that I'm a man of my word. | don't 
break that, if | want to keep respect. You know," he said, waving the 
spoon close to Keagan's face, "seems like the Judge shoulda come 
to me first, you know?" 


Out of the corner of his eye, Keagan caught Goettsch looking on 
from behind two of Hagman's associates. He'd wanted to be present 
to see whether his protector would stand by him. 


Keagan kept his face neutral. "Thought you were a businessman. 
You tell Goettsch to cooperate and | don't need to hurt him. | just 
need sit-down time." 


Marv chuckled. "Cooperate. Who are you, the fucking cops? | don't 
know you, you haven't shown me one bit of respect for the whole 
time you've been here, and you come to me, asking to do a deal?" 
His face suddenly darkened. "Well, who the fuck do you think you 
are? Go away, you're giving me indigestion." 


That seemed to conclude the interview—Hagman's associates 
closed up and began to move in. The calculating little voice in 
Keagan's mind told he he could probably plunge the narrow end of 
the spoon through Hagman's eye before they got there—but it would 
be counter-productive; there was no way he could reach Goettsch 
before the situation descended into another riot. Instead Keagan 
shook his head angrily, got to his feet and walked out of the 
mealroom. 


They came for him early—before 4am, when it was still dark. The 
last thing Keagan knew, he had been walking across sunlit fields, 
squinting as he watched birds flying overhead. There was something 
on the hill opposite—something square and metallic—that caught 
the light and he was walking towards it. Then everything dissolved 
for a moment into something horrifying—an onrush of teeth and 
claws and screams—and he realised he was being pulled out of his 
bunk bed in HMP Wormwood Scrubs by guards screaming at him to 
get up, to stand outside in the corridor.