"No! No-no-no no no. Come on. I'm just saying. | mean, we're 
doctors, we took an oath." He shuffled forward, pressed 
uncomfortably close to her by the movement of the coffee line. 
"They have us in there cutting people's heads off and basically 
putting them in jars. It's mad scientist shit. I'll do it, don't get me 
wrong, but don't you ever think it's a little fucked up?" 


"We're only doing what we have to. In the end, we're protecting the 
objects as much as ourselves. Some things are about a bigger 
picture that we don't see all of." 


He snorted. "Okay, Boss." 


"Why are you here, then?" Her fists clenched suddenly, indignation 
boiling over. 


"It's a higher pay grade than any of the other anesthesiology posts 
that were open, and a job's a job," he said, spreading his palms. 
"Look, I'm sorry, I'm just talking shit, Okay? It's just early. And this 
line for my coffee is killing me. You know how it is." 


She looked around, embarrassed at her loss of control. Nobody had 
noticed. The line kept moving in harmony. 


She still felt something out of place during the procedure that day, 
but it went perfectly. Right up until the thing with the extra mouth. 


She'd just removed the back of the skull and was starting to insert 
the occipital probes when she heard grunting and yelling, like 
someone struggling to push through a crowd. She looked up, 
startled, to see a pair of wriggling lips where the object's ear had 
been. A set of teeth gnashed their way into existence, with a tongue 


snaking desperately out from between them. 


"Please don't do this," it begged. "Please just let me go back to my 
cell. I'll do anything you want. Please, please —" 


We have to, Mo started to say, but thought better of it. 


Ken's hands were moving furiously over the gas controls. Grounds 
had his gun up. "Amesvoort, what the fuck?" 


"Boosting SRA," Evelyn replied matter-of-factly. Grounds started 
barking codes into the radio on his shoulder. 


"You don't need to do this, please," the mouth sobbed. "I'll tell you 
everything you want to know, | promise I'll do whatever tests you 
want, I'll help you —" 


I'm so sorry. This must seem so cruel to you. 


A distorted thrum pulsed from the looming brass dome of the reality 
anchor. It sounded like — Mo couldn't think of anything it sounded 
like. Everything faded to a fuzzy gray. The light in the room hadn't 
changed; her eyes just weren't sending colors to her brain anymore. 


"| swear I've never hurt any..." The mouth trailed off as it swirled 
back into the object's skin like water down a drain. 


Mo was locked in place. Her mind was jammed. She felt her legs 
starting to sway underneath her, but couldn't conceive of anything to 
do about it. 


The lips receded until there was only a single tooth, sticking out of 
the object's ear, and then even that was gone. Evelyn let go of 
something and the thrumming stopped. It felt like falling asleep and 
waking up at the same time. 


"Belay that, command," Grounds said into the radio. The object 
stood in its restraints, dull-eyed, as if nothing had happened. 
"Everything's good here." 


Mo looked over the faces in their glass-fronted cells, worried about 
the screw she'd found on the floor. The Orpheus core was a huge 
metal cylinder, covered in rectangular ports for the cells to slide into. 
The bottom of it sank through the floor, where it branched off into a 
root system she knew was being tended this very moment by a 
small army of L1 technicians. The top pierced the ceiling and kept 
going, ending in a crown of sensors and dishes all the way on the 
surface. And, somewhere, a screw was missing. 


"You know we could lose a hundred more of those before we have a 
problem. Why are you wasting time on that one?" Evelyn asked. 
She flipped a switch, and suddenly Mo could hear Director 
Hernandez's voice from all the way up top, presentation going full 
swing. 


"— able to localize an eight-Hume reality field, with plans to add 
much more capacity than that. Right now we project our maximum 
radius to be about six hundred meters, but that will go up 
exponentially as the project approaches completion. For today, 
we've adjusted down to an area about four meters squared.” 


They watched together on the topside monitor as the director led a 
group of important-looking people to the edge of an old helipad. 
"Stay on this side of the red line, if you would," he was telling them. 
"The technology should have no effect on typical organisms, but this 
is after all a test. We don't want any surprises." 


The administrators eyed each other nervously, and kept well back 
from the line. A pair of technicians came into view pushing a flat cart 
bearing a huge, transparent cube. Inside the cube were hundreds 
and hundreds of fully-decorated cakes. 


"Some of you may be familiar with SCP-871," Hernandez said, "but 
for those of you who aren't, well— let's just say there are more 
where these came from." 


Nobody laughed. 


"So what we're going to do here," he said, "is nothing more or less 
than make them go away." 


"That's our cue," Evelyn said, cracking her knuckles. "Let's—" 
"Wait," Mo said. "Wait. Oh, shit.” 


Evelyn turned, started to say something, trailed off when she saw. 
The head in cell B-2 had woken up and started screaming. 


The chunky input boxes covered it from the nose up, but there was 
no mistaking the frantically stretching jaw or writhing tongue. She 
had severed the major tendons in the object's neck during its 
procedure to keep it safe in a situation like this, but she never 
expected it to actually happen. 


"We have to tell- we have to stop the test," Mo said. "It's awake. It's 
going to ruin their consensus. We—" 


"On it," Evelyn said. "Just hit the manual override for that one and 
we'll loop in C-1 instead. We're only using 10 of them. Don't be a 
drama queen." 


The red light stopped blinking. A green one turned on next to 
another cell. Evelyn kept tapping. "On your mark, Doctor Castelo," 
she said, holding back a grin. Mo nodded, shaken. "Mark." 


"The technique we've developed," Hernandez stalled on the monitor, 
"not only allows us to safely and permanently remove objects from 
existence, but also prevents their effects from lingering, and can 
even undo damage they've caused. | don't have to remind any of 
you that's what Orpheus is ultim—" He was cut off by a siren as 
Evelyn hit a final switch. 


Nestled in their cells, the heads dreamed a dream together, just as 
Evelyn directed them. In the dream, the helipad outside was the 
same, but there were no infinitely-multiplying cakes sitting in the 
middle of it. Because, in the dream, things like that weren't real. 


The two women watched in silence as the view on the monitor 
changed. "There it is," Evelyn said, as applause crackled through 
the speakers. "We actually did it." Unexpectedly, she crushed Mo in 
a hug. 


In cell B-2, the head kept screaming. 


They had four more procedures that week ("where are they all 
coming from?" Ken asked her in the cafeteria line, and she'd started 
using the cantina on the other end of the site). 


"You're doing great," Mo said to the object as she perforated its 
hippocampus. "Nobody told you this, but billions of people are 
depending on you. You're a hero, and you're being so br—" 


Something rumbled from deep down in the lower levels. 


Mo tensed. Grounds shifted uncertainly. Even Evelyn looked up at 
the ceiling, just for a second. 


"Should we—" Reid started, and the lights went out. 


All of them gasped. "Stay calm," Grounds urged, as the emergency 
lights flooded the room with red. 


"Our equipment is on battery backup," Mo said. "We can still finish 
our—" 


"There's no battery for the SRA," Evelyn said quietly. 


Nobody said anything. Mo froze, scalpel in hand. Ken reached 
slowly for the kill dial. 


A pair of eyes snapped open on the object's cheeks. 


Ken's face lifted suddenly, as if there were a hinge in his forehead. A 
rabbit chased a snake along the wall. Reid started to run. Mo 
smelled lilacs. Evelyn clawed at her control panels, swearing under 
her breath. Reid's left half was suddenly a foot apart from his right. 
Grounds drew his gun, reciting baseball statistics. Evelyn was 
screaming. Ken lay twitching, his skull sliding out, eyes still in it and 
darting wildly. The floor tilted 30 degrees. Mo let go of the scalpel 
and it hovered in place, her fingertips floating around it like tiny 
moons. The wall fell away to reveal a void shimmering with fireflies. 
Grounds kept his gun steady as a seagull's head burst out of his 
temple and started furiously pecking his face. A helix of brilliant color 
spiraled across the room. Reid's two halves wailed and staggered in 


unison as organs tumbled out of the gap between them. Mo 
stumbled backward, her hand and arm smearing like paint in the air. 
Evelyn's scream turned low and raspy as the skin of her throat 
peeled away and crawled down her body. Mo smelled pennies. Her 
field of vision slanted as she felt something wet, and she realized 
that her eye was melting. Grounds fired twice, but she only heard 
the sound of cicadas. She touched her face with her good hand and 
felt her cheek slide away. She saw Grounds' bullets pass through 
the object's head in slow motion and curve lazily back toward him, 
trailing blood and brain, to tunnel into his chest. 


Then the lights came back on, and the anchor started humming, and 
the pain hit. 


She woke in a hospital bed, nestled in a cluster of tubes and 
beeping machines. 


Her arm was gone from the elbow down. She could feel bandages 
around her head, a sliver left exposed so her remaining eye could 
peek out. Panic started to creep into her chest. She would never 
operate again. The project would go on without her. The Foundation 
would go on without her. There wasn't enough left of her to serve. 


A gray-haired woman in a crisp suit entered briskly and pulled up a 
chair next to her bed. 


"Can you hear me, Doctor Castelo?" 
Mo managed a nod. 


"I'll keep this brief so you can rest. I'm here to tell you that, if you 
want it, we have another place for you." 


Mo wept with relief. She felt whole. 


D-class personnel long enough for to deactivate the 
player. Physical examinations and testing of the 
individuals exposed to the music revealed the presence 
of a previously unknown euphoric-inducing toxin in their 
bloodstreams. Chelation was performed, but one 
individual expired from a combination of kidney failure, 
liver failure, and cardiac necrosis. 


Note: Let’s try and avoid any more CDs that might be 
interpreted as "dangerous". It might be a good idea to 
just get a Lawrence Welk single and see if people get 
drunk. - Dr. 


Name: Dr. P 

Date: 10/ /2017 

Total Items: 5 4 copies of the book "Harry Potter and the 
Order of the Phoenix" 


Input: One (1) Book 
Setting: Rough 
Output: Large pile of shredded and burnt paper 


Input: One (1) Book 

Setting: Coarse 

Output: Book Cover, all pages of the book ripped out 
and scattered around the empty cover. 


Input: One (1) Book 

Setting: 1:1 

Output: One copy of the book "Harry Potter and the 
Order of the Phoenix", but in Spanish. 


Input: One (1) Book 

Setting: Very Fine (Note: input was supposed to be set 
to "Fine") 

Output: One paper Phoenix, weighing 2.65 lb (same 
weight as a copy of the book). The Phoenix then 
attacked the remaining two copies of the book (the 
remaining English copy, and the Spanish copy from the 
previous test) and attempted to attack personnel. It was 


Not a contest entry, but a crackfic about gods anyways 


The gods gathered at the Great Abyss like flies attracted to rotten 
meat, hunting each other down and licking the wounds of the 
universe. They were also throwing a party. 


"| just don't get it!" exclaimed the DEER, "What's with that Daleport 
place? How is that any better than here?" 


"Well," answered Pangloss, "Things are pretty hyped there. | had to 
get some locals out, if anything.” 


"Half of the gods here left!" DEER grunted, turning to the bartender, 
"Somebody turn the Pattern Screamers down please?" 


As the screams died out, MEKHANE and Yaldabaoth could be 
heard arguing in the background. As the huge pile of clockwork 
emitted a series of ticking noises, the flesh god roared mindlessly in 
response. 


"Not again," DEER facehooved, "Will they just get a room." 


"Why would you say that?" asked Pangloss, "They've been at each 
others throats for ages." 


"Oh, you have no idea Pangie." DEER emitted a short laugh, "I'm 
betting you, they will mate before tearing each other apart." 


"No way." 


"If that actually happens, you're going to write me one of your dumb 
poems." DEER laughed. 


"They're not dumb!" Pangloss protested, "They're expressions of my 
deeper feelings!" 


"Okay then," shrugged DEER, "If | win, you're gonna write me one of 
your brilliant poems." 


MEKHANE had now begun to make sharp grinding sounds and 
Yaldabaoth called up his six Archons to the fight. 


"Why can't we just get those two out!" Scarlet King began pounding 
the counter, "This is disgusting!" 


"Oh shut up Red!" DEER turned to him annoyingly, "You can't even 
get laid!" 


"What, nonsense!" Scarlet King roared, "There is no way the great 
Scarlet King can't accomplish such insignificant task! You'll regret 
this when you witness my beautiful bride—" 


"Excuse me," he was interrupted by Ptah, who just poked his head 
in, "Has anyone seen my wife?" 


"You asked the same question just a thousand years ago!" DEER 
shouted, "Give it a break!" 


"But she's going to to destroy the world again," Ptah whined. 
"Look in Daleport, maybe?" Pangloss suggested. 


The god nodded before rushing out of the Great Abyss. The Scarlet 
King proceed to protest that he did not get the respect he deserved, 
crushing the counter with his fists. The Hanged King murmured 
something, but literally nobody paid him any attention. While the 
flesh and metal war intensified, He-Who-Made-Light was yelling at 
this brother to get back to his room. 


"This is getting more absurd by each second. | mean, where is that 
planet sized sundae | ordered a hundred years ago?" DEER started 
yelling at a waitress, "Get my dessert please? With satellites on 
top?" 


Hearing him, the waitress turned around, and handed him a slice of 
toast. 


"Uh-oh." Pangloss gasped. 


"Oh not this shit again." DEER rolled his eyes and got up. 


Pangloss looked around to find several of the staff had been putting 
slices of bread into their mouths. DEER turned to the exit but huge 
colorless green tentacles are slipping in, unnoticed by a majority of 
the gods. They were too occupied with myself to focus on the 
intense chanting of "fifth" in the background. 


"Oh of course," DEER frowned, "Bad things just have to come all at 
once." 


"Now you'd wish you have gone to Daleport instead." Pangloss took 
a deep breath, "He-Who-Walks-Beneath-Dreams told me he was 
having a great time there." 


"Worst party ever!" DEER yelled before making his way pass the 
giant starfish god. 


"So," DEER said, "The party is crashed." 


"Yeah." Pangloss replied, looking at the five giant tentacle-hands 
protruding from the Abyss. 


"And | didn't even get my sundae." DEER grunted, "You know what 
I'm gonna go down there and demand blood of the innocent." 


"Wait what." 


"I'll have the Foundation play music for me." DEER announced, "At 
least they would have decent taste, if anything, better than 
screamers." 


"This is dumb." Pangloss eyed him. 


"It is but | don't even care anymore." DEER eyed back, "And you're 
going to write that poem for me." 


So with the giant starfish approaching closer, DEER willingly went 
into containment; the Scarlet King got his seven brides (before being 


bound within THE PEARL OF THE FATHER OF OYSTERS);