Beats nodded. "Volcanic explosion," she said. The world outside 
was on fire, casting a lurid scarlet light into the helicopter's interior. 
"The Yellowstone National Park megavolcano must have erupted." 


"If it was volcanic, we'd be dead," Adrian insisted. "This was 
existential." He struggled to his feet and leaned over the pilot's 
shoulder. "Pilot, switch to channel Theta-Prime." 


"Sir? There is no channel Theta..." The pilot took a second look at 
the comm console, and suddenly there it was. An eleventh channel 
among the ten marked on the dial. "... switching to channel Theta- 
Prime," he said, flipping the switch. 


There was a burst of static, then a man's voice came in over the 
comms system. "Hello? Hello? Is anyone there? This is _}j§=p! Can 
anyone hear me?" 


" }i§sp! Thank God!" Adrian breathed a sigh of relief. "We're on our 
way. Is iv27® all right?" 


"iu2-® doesn't exist any more," _}j§#p said. "I' m all that's left. F©r 
GOU's sAkz, AYriA£, Y4OL't +4t mz vALish.. 


The voice disappeared, and the last thing the man said vanished 
from Adrian's memory. An entire Foundation site was gone. A man 
whom he was sure had been a close friend now no longer existed. 
Had never existed. 


He couldn't even remember his name... 


The signal disappeared in a burst of eldritch feedback. A brief click, 
and the dial set itself back to a number that existed in reality. 


"Sir?" the pilot said, "what do we do now?" 


The only thing we can do, Adrian thought. "Inform O5 Council that 
we've just had a CK-Class Restructuring Event," he said. "And get 
us on the ground somewhere safe as soon as possible. There might 
still be a chance to save something..." 


The room was in chaos. It was the distinctly surreal kind of chaos 
that occurs when everyone knows that something horrible has 
happened, but no one remembers what it was. 


There was, however, one person who did know. He sat in his chair 
silently reviewing his notes, waiting for the chaos to die down, which 
it finally did when the nondescript person at the head of the table 
rapped a gold-plated fountain pen against the mahogany surface. 


"Ten. Report," One said, once the noise had died down. 


Ten was a slender, bookish man with olive-colored skin and long, 
ebony-black hair done into a shoulder-length braid. He was known 
as the quietest member of the Overseer Council, the one who 
attended every meeting, took notes, and said nothing. Some of his 
colleagues wondered what his actual job was. 


They would find out today. 


"Let me start at the beginning," Ten said. "We have established that 
the likely cause of the event was a researcher at the Site who was 
doing research into anomalous effect miscability..." 


"In English, please?” Eleven demanded. 


".,. he was combining SCPs and reporting on the results," Ten went 
on. "He was working on improvements to SCP-2000..." 


"Wait a minute. Back up,” Nine interrupted. "There is no SCP-2000. 
The Special Containment Procedures directory only goes up to 
SCP-999." 


"It does now," Ten said grimly. "It didn't three hours ago. We've lost 
over two-thirds of the SCPs we had in containment..." 


"That's impossible!" one of the O5s shouted. "How the hell could 
there be a containment breach of that magnitude when..." 


"... absolutely idiotic!" someone else protested. "You're telling me a 
single accident at one site caused..." 


"SILENCE!" One barked. 
Silence. 


"For the past thirty years, this man's job has been to watch and wait 
for exactly this kind of event to occur," One said sternly. "Now that it 
has, | am ordering all of you to sit down, shut up, and let him do his 
goddamn job. And maybe, just maybe, listen to him as if he's the 
expert on a subject that none of the rest of us know a single 
goddamn thing about!" 


The silence continued. 
"Ten," One said. "Proceed." 


Ten nodded and pushed his glasses back into place with his ring 
finger. Throughout the entire shouting match, he had remained calm 
and silent. "All right. Let me change tack." Ten said. He shuffled the 
papers in his hand until he found the page he was looking for, took a 
deep breath, and continued speaking. "SCP-2000 is... was... a 
Thaumiel-Class..." He raised a hand to forestall the obvious 
argument. "Thaumiel is a containment class that apparently doesn't 
exist any more," Ten explained. "It refers to anomalies that, in 
themselves, are used to contain or protect from other anomalies." 


"Thank you, Ten. Proceed," One said. 


Document SCP-701-1640-B-1 


The following is a summary of the published text of The Hanged 
King’s Tragedy, classified SCP-701, prepared by Dr.J ~— froma 
copy of the 1640 quarto in Foundation custody. 


DRAMATIS PERSONAE: 


* GONZALO, King of Trinculo 

¢ ISABELLA, Queen of Trinculo; formerly the wife of Sforza, the 
murdered king, now married to Gonzalo 

¢ ANTONIO, a minor noble 

¢ FRANCISCO, Antonio’s servant 

* The DUKE OF SORTINO 

¢ ALINDA, daughter of the Duke 

¢ PETRUCCIO, a noble lord allied with Gonzalo 

¢ LODOVICO, a servant of Gonzalo 

* CORNARI, a priest 

¢ BEATRICE, a servant of the Queen 

¢ A COURTESAN 

¢ A PALACE GUARDSMAN 

The AMBASSADOR OF MILAN 

* The AMBASSADOR OF FLORENCE 

* The AMBASSADOR OF ALAGADDA 


SETTING: 

The play is set in the Kingdom of Trinculo (probably a misspelling of 
Trinacria, another name for Sicily), in the capital city of Serko 
(another name for the city of Syracuse). As the play opens, Sforza, 
the king of Trinculo, has died, supposedly from natural causes while 
on retreat from the court. The nobility of Trinculo gathers in the 
capital for the coronation of the new king, Sforza’s younger brother, 
Gonzalo, who has also married Sforza’s queen, Isabella. 


Despite the text’s references to contemporary Italian city-states, 
such as Florence and Milan, much of the play’s setting is obviously 


"SCP-2000... was... an emergency system designated "Deus Ex 
Machina," Ten said, arbitrarily choosing a tense. "The system was 
designed to trigger upon detection of a world-altering event. The 
way it works is a bit complicated, but it comes down to a series of 
cloning devices and mind-control systems that can repopulate the 
earth after a K-class event with cloned human beings with implanted 
false memories." 


"You're saying a CK-Class Restructuring Event was caused by a 
human cloning device?" Nine asked. 


"Of course not. But SCP-2000 was the final fail-safe in case of 
human extinction. In order to keep the system safe in case of a 
temporal or reality-altering event, the entire thing was placed in the 
single most existentially secure site on Earth: inside Yellowstone 
Mountain. Right above the Bloom." 


Ten raised his hands to forestall yet another chorus of complaints 

and questions. "The Bloom is a Black Box SCP," he continued. "It's 
one that, up until this point, has been known only to four Overseers: 
myself, One, Two, and Thirteen. It's a reset button for the universe." 


"Ten is oversimplifying, of course," One said curtly. 


"Given the time constraints, | didn't feel that | had time to get into the 
whole 'trans-universal flower’ and 'multiversal observer' aspects of 
the artifact," Ten said calmly. "All everyone else needs to know right 
now is that the Bloom seems to be the separation point between 
several different versions of possibility. The Bloom itself is the most 
existentially stable point on the planet, which is why we placed our 
last-resort species recovery system right on top of it. 


"Unfortunately," Ten continued, "Yellowstone Mountain happened to 
also be a massive megavolcano which is tectonically unstable and is 
overdue to erupt, which is why... Dr. Null... was assigned to find a 
way to duplicate the Bloom's protective effects elsewhere, in the 
hopes of either moving or duplicating it ata more stable position. 
Unfortunately, something seems to have gone wrong. Rather than 
holding different parallel universes apart, the Bloom is now drawing 
them together." 


"There weren't Scranton Reality Anchors around this thing?" Nine 
asked. 


"The Scranton Reality Anchors around that 'thing' are the only 
reason why our universe hasn't already vanished," Ten explained. "If 
| may?" 


He tapped a control on his keyboard, and an image appeared on the 
screen behind him. "This is a false-color representation of the 
current mathematical reality," he said. "The blue spheres represent 
adjunct timelines and Schroedinger-type uncertainties. The yellow 
spirals represent the separate universes and timelines. This image 
was taken over the course of the past year at one of our temporal 
research facilities" He tapped a control, and the image began to 
move. "And now a live feed." 


The image, which had previously been mostly static, now swirled 
and bubbled, like yellow flowers floating in a sea of foam. Slowly, but 
inexorably, the flowers were starting to come together. "Timelines 
are like protons and antiprotons," Ten explained. "When two 
separate but incompatible realities intersect, the result is mutual 
annihilation. With The Bloom drawing neighboring realities towards 
ours, the end result is obvious." 


Ten tapped a control, and the words "PROJECTED SEQUENCE OF 
EVENTS" appeared on the top of the screen. "The first intersection 
of universes will result in collapse of the space-time membranes that 
surround our reality. Causality will cease to exist. Events will no 
longer be distinct moments in time. Where Schroedinger's famous 
cat was once alive and dead simultaneously, there will now be two 
cats, one alive one dead, both coexisting. This obviously cannot be 
possible, so both cats will be mutually annihilated." 


Ten grimaced. "This annihilation reaction will result in the release of 
unimaginable amounts of energy. The resulting energy will 
accelerate the convergence process, drawing even more parallel 
universes together at an ever-quickening rate." On the screen, the 
flowers folded into each other, swirled, and vanished into grey foam, 
until nothing else existed. "And that," Ten said, "will be it." 


"ZK-Class Reality Failure Scenario," One said. 


"| don't think we have a term for what's about to happen, but that 
comes closest," Ten admitted. "Unless we do something within the 
next few hours, we're going to lose everything. We have a last-ditch 
contingency plan, but the chances of it succeeding are miniscule. 
The only other option | see is to deal with The Bloom itself, which 
will entail entering the Yellowstone Mountain facility.” 


"What assets do we have in place that can respond in time?" One 
asked. 


"Just one," Ten admitted. "Mobile Task Force Omega-7: Pandora's 
Box. Team Able is currently out of contact, but we've managed to 
get into contact with the force leader for Team Iris - he was, in fact, 
the agent who originally called in this alert. They will be ready to 
enter the facility within the hour." 


"Does anyone else have anything to add?" One asked. No one did. 
"Then deploy them,” he continued. "And keep me informed." The O5 
Council's leader turned to Ten, his dark eyes flashing intently. "Get 
this taken care of," he said. "Do whatever you need to. You have full 
operational authority over all Foundation assets until this crisis is 
over." 


Ten nodded in reply. 


Yellowstone Mountain had mostly stabilized. Rather than looking like 
a poor-quality VHS tape, it was now just fuzzy and somewhat 
translucent, like an out-of-focus photograph. Every once in a while, it 
would flicker and change, as some alternate possibility asserted 
itself upon this reality. 


Three Humvees approached the landed helicopter at the foot of the 
mountain. Twelve soldiers (six men, five women, and Effy) 
disembarked. One of the soldiers, a huge man with ebony skin and 
a hint of electric-blue eyeshadow above his intense eyes, emerged 
from the lead vehicle carrying two kit bags. He tossed them onto the 
ground at Adrian and Beatrix's feet. 


"Good of you to join us," Agent William Abrams said, smirking. 
"Though | bet you'd rather be alone in bed with Beats right now." 


"Hey, what about me?" Beats muttered, as she rummaged through 
her kit bag for her BDUs. She carelessly stripped off her trench coat 
and nightgown, trading them for her combat gear. "| was promised 
breakfast in bed," she said, pulling a slate-grey sports bra on over 
her head. 


"Really? Damn, girl, you've got him wrapped around your little 
finger," Billy said, grinning. 


"It's where | prefer to be," Adrian said. He too had stripped, and was 
trading in his tuxedo-print boxers for a much more sedate pair of 
dark grey skivvies. "What's the situation with Team Able?" 


"Don't know," Bill admitted. "We're still trying to get in contact. They 
were inside the facility wnen the Event occurred." 


"Damn," Adrian muttered, pulling on a pair of grey digital camouflage 
trousers. "All right, guys, load up for close quarters battle. | want you 
and Effie on rifles, everyone else takes SMGs or carbines. Medium 
armor: no point in getting killed by some monster from another 
dimension while trying to fix a temporal anomaly—" 


"What about me?" 


Eleven pairs of eyes turned to look at SCP-105. The blonde 
teenager stood in the doorway of the helicopter, clutching her silver 
pistol case. "I don't have my kit, but | can help—" 


"Non-Omega-Seven personnel will not participate in this operation,” 
Adrian said curtly. 


"Adrian, those are my friends..." 


"Non-Omega-Seven personnel will NOT participate in this 
operation!" Adrian repeated. "Pilot, get this SCP object back into 
containment as soon as possible. If it gives you any trouble, you are 
authorized to taze it and take it back home unconscious." 


Adrian deliberately did not look as he heard the girl begin to sob. He 
kept his eyes locked on his gear as he heard Beats lead SCP-105 
back into the helicopter, heard the rotors spin up and felt the vehicle 
take off behind him. 


"Damn," Billy said. "That was fucking cold." 


"Right now she's a liability, not an asset," Adrian snapped. "The 
sooner she's out of the operating area, the better." 


"Keep telling yourself that. Me, | think you just don't want to take her 
into that,” Billy said, gesturing to the still-flickering mountain. 


Adrian's reply was interrupted by a slender, androgynous figure 
jogging up, holding a laptop computer. "We've made contact with 
Team Able," Agent Fatima Workwise said. "He wants to talk to you." 


"Fuck," Adrian muttered. "It just gets better and better." He accepted 
the laptop from Effy. "Go for Team Iris— Jesus!" 


That last exclamation was for the scene on the laptop computer. An 
entire hallway splattered with blood. Crazily swinging fluorescent 
lights hanging from the ceiling. Panicked shouts and the sound of 
gunfire from off-screen. But the thing that had prompted the 
profanity was the man laying on the lab table: tall, cold, olive- 
skinned, black haired, skin covered in scarlet tattoos. His body 
below his waist was an explosion of gore. 


"Andrews," Able rasped. "Report." 


Adrian breathed deeply, the gorge rising in his throat. It took him 
three deep breaths to recover. "Team Iris is ready to breach and 
enter," Adrian said. "All present and accounted for except Iris 
Actual." 


"Good." Able closed his eyes for a moment. "| am done killing for a 
time," he said at last. "You will take command of this operation." 


Adrian felt cold. "Sir? Squire is next in the chain of command..." 


"Squire is a warrior, as am I. If | did not succeed, he will not either. 
This problem requires a scholar. Mind, not muscle will win this." The 
tall, dark-haired figure on the screen collapsed and exhaled deeply. 
It did not move again. 


The camera shifted, revealing the grime-and-soot stained visage of 
an older man with ginger hair, shot with silver. "You heard the man, 


sir," Agent Squire said. "Orders?"