Nechayeva shot the old man through his left eye. The report of the 
pistol was deafening in the confines of the room; Stillwell felt like a 
hammer had been brought down right next to his ear. A thick gobbet 
of black sludge splattered against the wall directly behind the old 
man's head. He leaned forward slightly, coming to rest from the 
impact of the bullet in his skull. The shot left a wide, yawning, dark 
hole where his eye once was, framed by the unchanging grin. The 
flow of the liquid across the ceiling and the walls seemed to stop. 
The sounds of the walls continuing to give way did not. 


Spinella was first to speak. "Finally, someone does something 
fucking sensible at last." He tucked a cigarette behind his ear. 


Stillwell looked to Nechayeva. "Do you know how to get us into 
Site-7?" 


She nodded, putting the pistol back in her coat. 
"We can plan on the way there. Let's get out of here." 


The team gathered up the stolen rifle and some meager stores of 
food and ammunition that had been left in the safe room. As they 
filed out, Stillwell took one last look into the corner. The black 
substance had not encroached any further. But he could no longer 
see the old man. There was no time to consider the implications. He 
closed the door behind him. 


« | Part Six | Matryoshka | Part Eight | » 


Matryoshka: Part Eight 


"Try to keep up, old man. I'd like to be as far as possible from Site-7 
when their part of the plan starts." 


Spinella wheezed as he trotted, sweeping his flashlight in front of 
him and trying to avoid the bits of rubble and puddles lining the 

passage. The damp, moldering air of the forgotten catacombs felt 
like fire in his chest. He gripped the handle of the briefcase tightly. 


"|'m...younger than you...asshole," he struggled between breaths. 
He played Nechayeva's directions over again in his head. It was 
about seventy meters until the passage split into three, at which 
point the two men were to take the tunnel to the right. It had been 
about eight or nine twists and turns deeper into the darkness of the 
tunnels. The walls of the passageway were lined with crude alcoves, 
some empty, some containing stone sarcophaguses, some just a 
resting place for handfuls of dust and a few bones. 


"Are you? You don't look a day over seventy, my friend." 


The Foundation neurosurgeon smiled in the darkness. Keep flinging 
shit, wiseguy. 


The KGB operative had been well-prepared. She had extensive 
knowledge of the infrastructure of Krakow, especially the access 
tunnels and the old city around Site-7. Almost as though the entire 
chain of events had been designed for them to be down here. 
Spinella found it difficult to imagine a catacomb network this long to 
be hidden, unless it was concealed intentionally for other purposes. 
She may have had the wet-behind-the-ears operative from 
Lafourche's shop fooled, but he saw enough. 


The two men came to the tunnel convergence, just as Nechayeva 
had indicated. They stopped, both taking a moment to catch their 
breath. Spinella took the cigarette from behind his ear and stuck it in 
his mouth. 


Juhasz looked puzzled. "It's remarkable, your dedication to 
smoking." 


Spinella looked at the three tunnels ahead. "Can't take all the credit. 
Can't stop smoking the fucking things. Not like it matters now." 


"| suppose not." 


Spinella reached into his coat, before hesitating. "Tell me again, how 
this makes any sort of sense. We turn this briefcase over to KGB at 
the end of this goddamn maze, and by their scout's honor, they'll 
escort us out and share the information with command?" 


"All of that cutting into brains, and you don't think," said Juhasz. 
"What does it matter what they promised? It was either taking the 
woman's offer, or being shot by the patrols looking for us up there." 


"Nothing stopping us from setting fire to this thing before we get 
shot. Doesn't matter if it's KGB bullets or army bullets when they find 
us." 


"You think this world you're in, that it's nothing but betrayals and 
backstabbings. But things don't work like that." Junhasz glanced over 
his shoulder, growing steadily more impatient. "There's an order to 
things. Motives make certain people predictable, and reliable in their 
way." 


"You ought to listen to yourself." Spinella pointed at Juhasz with his 
cigarette for emphasis. "Do you trust that metal mouthed bitch back 
there?" 


Juhasz paused. "No. I've no reason to. But in our short 
acquaintance, she's told us the truth, and we definitely have an 
enemy in common. | trust her motives. | trust her self-interest." 


"Is it in their interest to give us back the information that we use as a 
ticket out of here? If | were them, I'd just shoot us and take the 
briefcase." 


"They only have a part of the picture. They're going to need our help 
to put it all together. And we're going to need theirs. Spinella, GRU- 
P has gone mad. What's in that briefcase is going to be worse than 


breach, but that once SCP-682-B became heavily damaged by 
security personnel, it was immediately devoured and reabsorbed by 
682-A. Total loss of one of the SCP-682 specimens is considered 
highly improbable, and searches have been called to a halt. Agent 


Note: Much as our department would love to know whether 
SCP-682 retained a single consciousness during its dissection, or 
whether the two counterparts were actually able to cooperate until 
the stalemate was ended by external forces, for practical purposes 
we do not under any circumstances advise trying that again. - Dr. 
Noaqgiyeum 


Item: 60 MT thermonuclear bomb 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 
Testing denied by O5- 


Notes: One would think that putting SCP-682 in the epicenter of an 
explosion that can cause third-degree burns at a distance of 300 km 
is a good idea, but as long as there are odds of survival we simply 
cannot go through with it. Yes, it's agoddamn nuke, but if 682 
survives and adapts we'd be boned beyond belief. O5- 


Item: SCP-914 


Tissue Test Record: 
[DATA EXPUNGED] 


Termination Test Record: 

[DATA EXPUNGED] of "Fine" or "Very Fine" is no longer to be used 
by any personnel having contact with SCP-682 at any point. In 
addition, any objects that have come in contact with SCP-682 at any 
point are not allowed to be processed by SCP-914. Any attempt to 
subvert this directive [DATA EXPUNGED]. 


a few measly warheads if they get their hands on it." 


Spinella shone his flashlight down at the briefcase, now resting at 
his feet. He shone it back at Juhasz, briefly flashing it at his eyes as 
he reached back into his coat. "Very convoluted. Lot of stuff that can 
go wrong. But you sound like you've got it figured out." 


"Some of us want to live past next month, Spinella. You don't spend 
a lot of time questioning the lifeboat when you're fleeing the ship." 


Spinella chuckled, stepping closer to Juhasz. "Next month. What an 
idea." 


"We need to go now." 


"Next month is an impossibility. All that matters is right now. Like 
you said, it's a sinking ship, right?" 


Spinella shone the light directly in Juhasz's eyes. 


"And right now, | am not turning over Foundation research to the 
goddamn Russians, you fucking traitor." 


As Juhasz recoiled from the sudden glare, Spinella lunged forward 
and plunged the knife that had been in his hand deep into his left 
shoulder. Juhasz grunted at the sudden pain, instinctively swinging 
at Spinella's face. Spinella raised an arm, and Juhasz's fist struck 
his hand instead, sending the flashlight clattering off into the tombs. 


The chamber was cast into total darkness. There were only sounds; 
two men bellowing in mortal rage, feet shuffling in the dirt and the 
dust, blows landing, blood spattering. The flashlight flickered briefly, 
forgotten now as it rolled underneath a stray sarcophagus lid, before 
guttering out. 


SCP-1041 struggled against the iron grip of the guards marching her 
down the main hallway. Her hands had been bound behind her. She 
filled the hall with promises of slow, excruciating death for all 
present. No one responded as they inexorably made their way to the 
large double doors ahead. In her present incarnation, SCP-1041 
was too murderously angry to notice the group of several lab-coated 


technicians following in her wake, nor did she consider the 
implications of the operating theater directly anead. Had she been 
less consumed with thoughts of killing the son of a bitch who had 
struck her, she might have been cognizant of a faint, barely 
perceptible feeling of rising panic around the edges of her 
consciousness. The beginning of a realization, stuck without 
progressing into knowledge. She only need turn her head to see the 
shadow of death, but SCP-1041 had other things in mind. 


Two guards ahead opened the double doors. The scene in front of 
them struck her, even through her red-minded hatred, as ludicrous. 
Soldiers in uniform scurrying about, trying to avoid stepping on 
cables lining the floor. A bedraggled scientist making last minute 
adjustments to a hastily assembled circuit box. Someone was 
setting up a movie camera and lights. Behind it all, a collection of 
seats surrounding the main operating area, all empty. If you only 
looked at the background, it would appear as though no one were 
here to witness all of the bustle. 


The guards ahead moved aside, and the main event greeted her. 
"At last. The star of our show. Dr. Geissler, let's begin." 


Chernikov stood alone, in the center of the operating theater, in front 
of a tall, metal conduit, sticking up from a mound of cables and 
wiring. All of the electrical equipment brought into the room seemed 
to be wired up to this apparatus. Jutting from the side was what was 
clearly meant to be a anchoring point for restraining something. 
Svetlana Savchuk knew nothing of these things, but from 
somewhere beyond her immediate consciousness, it suddenly 
occurred to her that this reminded her of a stake, fastened amidst 
kindling, ready to turn into a pyre at any moment. 


The guards led her to the technological stake. She fought back with 
renewed vigor, instinct informing her that she did not want to be in 
this place. Another guard joined the party, grabbing hold of her legs 
as they picked her up and carried her. Once at their destination, her 
arms were fastened to the stake, tightly behind her, while her feet 
nestled among the mass of cables and wires below. 


Chernikov called out to the disheveled scientist that she spotted 


earlier. "Comrade, please go and check the men's handiwork. This 
is not their specialty, after all." She loathed his arrogant, 
unconcerned tone. She would bury a shiv in his eye the first chance 
she got. 


The scientist came over, in his hands a strange metal bowl of some 
sort, wires trailing out. She noticed that as he looked at her, he had 
tears in his eyes. She scowled at him. 


"Fucking pussy. Do whatever you're going to do and go weep 
somewhere else. Worthless lapdog."” 


Her words washed over him, no reaction. As though he'd expected 
them. He looked around to the back of the stake, looking at the 
restraints around her wrists. He leaned close to her ear, behind the 
stake, out of sight of the GRU-P delegation. Chernikov had ordered 
the camera rolling and had started speaking directly to it, saying 
something about the next advancement in the great Soviet scientific 
machine. 


"You don't know who | am, but | know who you are," he said, not 
whispering, but quiet enough to be heard, his words clipped, moving 
his lips as little as possible. "Inside, beneath all of the other layers." 


"Fuck you, little Russian servile." 


Chernikov continued his introduction, informing his intended 
audience that for the first time, the human soul had been localized, 
through science. 


"I've met the real part of you, the one inside all of the others. | know 
that you hear me somewhere in there. We've only met for a total of 
six days, but your contribution to the work has been invaluable in 
that time." Geissler inspected the wiring at the base of the stake. He 
affixed the metal bowl structure to the top of her head. 


Chernikov spoke of the ability to manipulate identity, to take the 
essence of what made a human and do with it what was required. At 
this verbal cue, another group of guards wheeled a cage into the 
operating theater with her, containing a thin, bent man of thirty, 
starved into an appearance of fifty, hair fallen out in clumps. The 


man caught SCP-1041's eye as he was wheeled in. She scoffed. 
Weak political prisoner. The kind that lasted two days in Vladimirsky. 


"That little part of you that lies at the center, | need to tell you. This is 
the extraction procedure that we had talked about before. The one 
that we had just finished designing the last time. They found out 
about it, and that's what they think they're doing. But they cannot be 
allowed." 


SCP-1041 spat at the ground. "You going to grab something while 
I'm tied up? Go ahead, I'll tear off your hand." 


Geissler began attaching the ends of the wires to a port at the top of 
the stake. He kept his eyes on his work as he spoke. Chernikov 
boasted to the camera of harnessing the most fundamental element 
in the universe. 


"Our lives ended once GRU-P took Site-7. | know it must scare you 
to hear that. | wish it weren't true. But we can make sure that our 
work isn't used to harm anyone else." 


A guard plugged a thick cable into the cage that had been wheeled 
into the theater. Chernikov was finishing his remarks. There wasn't 
much time left. 


Geissler attached the last wire. "What you see here is not the 
extraction procedure. It's something else that I've designed. It's 
going to kill you, and if I've done this right, everyone else in this 
room. What's going to happen is monstrous. To apologize for this 
kind of betrayal is obscene, but I'll do it anyway." 


The doctor made some adjustments to a panel on the side of the 
stake. SCP-1041 felt the stake shudder slightly as a lever was 
engaged. She heard a faint humming sound start, seeming to come 
from all around her. Geissler turned to walk away. 


"I'm sorry. You deserved so much better than this. This is all | have 
to offer. This is the best | could manage. Please forgive me." 


The doctor walked away. SCP-1041 tried shouting curses after the 
weak little collaborator. Something stopped her words in her throat. 


Her hatred was ebbing and flowing somehow; for the first time since 
she was a little girl, she felt fear creep in around her consuming 
wrath, only to be replaced in a wave with seething hate, stronger for 
having been pushed back. She growled, the desire to hurt all of 
those around her possessing her, pulsing within her, animal 
savagery coursing throughout her mind before draining away again. 
In these brief moments of the absence of hate, she saw that the 
camera was now trained directly on her, technicians surrounding it, 
Chernikov and the bitch in the glasses at his side, observing, he with 
a self-satisfied smile, she with no expression at all. The thought 
occurred to her, seemingly from nowhere, that this must be what 
wolves feel like as they sit in the trap, waiting for the last shot to 
come from the hunter. 


As the renewed hatred flowed back into her, twice as strong as 
before, the last words Svetlana heard and understood were those of 
Chernikov. 


"Dr. Geissler, please begin the procedure." 


« | Part Seven | Matryoshka | Part Nine | » 


Matryoshka: Part Nine