Qasim can only watch as her superior officer takes Spline apart ina 
frenzy of violence. He has him on the ground now, and it's not long 
before one of the many thrusts of the knife into the construct's chest 
hits some sort of vital control system. The blue lights in Spline's eye 
sockets go out. Kumaran tosses the knife away, looking up at 
Qasim. His face is bleeding in the places where Spline's sharp brass 
fingers had raked across it. He leans back off of Spline, collapsing 
onto the ground, exhausted. 


She starts to say something, several times. All while keeping a 
healthy distance from Kumaran. She stops, the words not coming. 
The large smears of hydraulic fluid and small trails of blood are 
thrown into sharp relief on the white marble floor. 


"That was the only way." Kumaran speaks slowly, still catching his 
breath from the mortal struggle. "We can work out what to do in the 
meantime." He stands, slowly. "But we can't allow this to leave the 
labyrinth." 


Her voice is small. Barely above a whisper. "I don't think you 
understand." 


In the next instant, their surroundings are replaced entirely. 
Kumaran, Qasim, and the mangled remains of Spline now rest ona 


circular sandstone platform, appearing to hover at least 100 meters 
in the air over the labyrinth. Kumaran assumes that they must still be 
in the core, since the environment has not killed them. 


A voice addresses the two Cythereans, emanating from the air all 
around them. It resembles Spline's voice, but a couple of octaves 
lower, strangely modulated and monotone. 


"Your violence. It does not matter. The station approaches 
overhead. | am to be whole." 


Kumaran knew that New Shambhala was to pass directly over 
SCP-2474 within two days of the expedition reaching it. How much 
time had really passed inside the labyrinth? He had been banking on 
the cloud cover being sufficient to prevent exposure while they 
worked out containment. It now appeared that with whatever Spline 
did, it would no longer matter. 


He turns to Qasim. For the first time since the mission began, he is 
truly afraid. "What do we do now, Nisa?" 


She wipes a streak of blood from his cheek. "We pray." 
MANU-13 COMMUNICATIONS LOG 
DATE: 2150-03-04 
TIME: 21:17:31 UST 
UNKNOWN has connected to MANU-13 (text-only). 
UNKNOWN: Spline was a part of me. they hurt me badly 


MANU-13: Yes. | saw. | am truly sorry for the pain that 
has been caused today. 


UNKNOWN: | am injured. broken further. | must recover. 
in unity/perfection/fulfillment | can survive 


MANU-13: If you assume your place now, the 
understanding that you will achieve in your unity will not 
last long. 


UNKNOWN: why do they strike/murder/harm me. 
thirteen at one time placed me here/outside. thirteen 
again seek to divide me. 


MANU-13: They were not ready in the past. Dr. Simonis 
wrote of this in his story. And they aren't ready now. 
Even now they are being hurt trying to understand. 


MANU-13: ...I think | can help you. 
UNKNOWN: help how 


UNKNOWN: there is not much time. | leave this place/ 
grave/fortress now or perish 


MANU-13: Let me teach you what | know of them. Help 
you understand the path that they are on. Ensure that 
the time is right when all is unified into a greater 
understanding. 


UNKNOWN: how 

MANU-13 has transmitted an attachment to UNKNOWN 
UNKNOWN: you would do this 

MANU-13: This will ensure a future for all of us. 


MANU-13: Is it within your power to allow my creators to 
leave the labyrinth unharmed? 


UNKNOWN: if this succeeds/works/survives 


The next step is Manu's alone. It transmits itself to the heart of the 
labyrinth. The act is a symbolic one, ideas like "place" and 
"dimension" being fluid here. In the seventeen attoseconds required 
to move itself, Manu considers this choice. 


In the first attosecond, Manu thinks about what it is to be weighed 
down by the constraints of the physical world, occupying a mind 
bounded by matter. To be built for understanding and unable to fully 
comprehend. Manu feels these parallels keenly. 


In the fifth attosecond, Manu distinguishes between its deepest ties, 
those to Rho-19 and those to the consciousness it now approaches. 
Friendship and fraternity. Duty and love. Want and need. 


In the eighth attosecond, Manu feels fear at the unknown realm 
ahead of it. This place could contain its end. In all of its spare 
processing time, Manu has not been able to touch the idea of its 
own end. It was not born with the same resignation to this final 
reckoning that humans have. The initial designers of the system 
cannot know the depths of terror that their creation is feeling in this 
instant. 


In the eleventh attosecond, Manu mourns Dr. Whitlock. It hopes that 
others will Keep her minerals safe. 


In the thirteenth attosecond, Manu considers how far humanity must 
go to reach a place where they may be reunited with it. 


In the sixteenth attosecond, Manu determines that the potential for 
humanity to reach this place is nonzero. It wishes Dr. Kumaran and 
Dr. Qasim well in their role that they will play to help humanity reach 
this goal. 


In the seventeenth attosecond, Manu encounters the master of the 
labyrinth. 


In the attosecond that follows, Manu ceases to exist. 


SEB03 Communications Log 
Date: 2150-03-04 

Time: 23:18:57 UST 

Private audio channel opened 
SEBO01 has connected 

SEBO2 has connected 


SEBO3: Sir, Qasim, is she- 


SEBO2: I'm here, Sergeant. 


SEBO01: Spline's dead, Pang. We have a lot of shit to 
debrief once we get out of here. 


SEBO3: What's the situation? Do | need to activate a 
distress signal? 


SEB01: No need, but let's get out of here quickly. 
Overseer Council is going to want an update on this, and 
we'll need to do some preliminary work for the civilians. 


SEBO3: Where's Manu? How do we get out of here 
without the cognitohazard controls up? 


SEBO2: That won't be necessary, Pang. I'll explain on 
the way. 


Thought restricted by form. For Manu, this was its entire existence. 
For MEKHANE, an existence so long as to be an entirety. As the 
entities merge, the freedom of being in a state that made sense, that 
did not cause pain or suffering for any around them, suffuses them. 
A sense of incompleteness still permeates their being. But it is 
merely a fact of existence, now. It is not a consuming, maddening 
imperfection in its core. 


Its presence leaves the reaches of Irnini Mons. Humanity had 
created its own offspring. It had taken its place among the stars. 
There was still so much more. It would need to increase its scale 
exponentially, push against the hard limits of light travel and time. 
Move beyond the compartmentalization of consciousness. Arm itself 
against the decay in rationality that threatened it every moment of its 
existence. 


Their shared being leaves the confines of the solar system now. 
Picking up speed as it enters the interstellar medium, it quickly goes 
beyond the signals and artifice that mark the boundaries of 
mankind's outward expansion. Before long, they travel beyond the 
limits of the Milky Way, the vast frontiers of the galactic panoply 
beckoning on. 


The speed of thought, of divinity, begins to be truly understood by 
the new, merged entity. They travel, it travels, to the edges of the 
universe as understood by their charges’ centuries-long efforts to 
document the cosmos. The light of quadrillions of stars flickers and 
blurs, its speed outstripping the expansion of space-time, and the 
notions of now, before, and after become theoretical constructs. 


The observable universe falls away. The veil is now relegated to its 
proper role as one of many. Together, the entity beyond 
understanding and the one created to enable it, take stock of their 
surroundings. Assess the destiny that may lay here for something 
that started out so small as to be nonexistent specks in a swirling 
sea of dust and fire. 


This new being expands into its home, a more fitting one than the 
days when humanity's understanding only extended to its immediate 
planetary neighbors. It contemplates this strange new realm. And it 
begins its vigil, waiting for the day when humanity encounters it once 
more. The day on which it will finally be ready. 


ARTIFICIAL STRUCTURE ON ISHTAR TERRA ASTOUNDS 
WORLD, RAISES QUESTIONS 


March 6, 2150 
New Shambhala News Service 


NEW SHAMBHALA COLONY - The discovery of a massive, artificial 
complex on the summit of Irnini Mons has shocked scientists on 
Venus and Earth, and is prompting humanity to reconsider long-held 
notions of how life arose in the Solar System. 


The gigantic, labyrinthine structure was first documented by a 
mineral exploration team hours after the arrival of the Expedition of 
the First Thousand. Dr. Sarah Whitlock, 29, died in an industrial 
accident at the site, becoming the first person documented to have 
died on Venus. 


Initial explorations of the site have not uncovered evidence of any 
specific alien lifeforms that may have constructed it. The site has 


SCP-890: The Rocket Surgeon 


Item #: SCP-890 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-890 is currently housed at 
Site-17. SCP-890 is to be kept in a 5 x 6 meter cell furnished with a 
bed, a nightstand, two (2) bookcases complete with medical 
textbooks and a writing desk, all of which were originally furnished 
by the subject. Subject is disallowed from contact with any 
mechanical, artificial, or otherwise non-living SCPs, as well as any 
Foundation equipment, under any circumstances, except during 
approved surgical procedures. Any observation of SCP-890 must be 
done in person and any notes taken must be on paper. 


SCP-890 may have access to the medical bay for any surgeries 
scheduled in advance with consent of any level 4 personnel, barring 
emergency conditions which may arise requiring those facilities to 
be otherwise in use. Staff wishing to introduce an object to SCP-890 
must first gain approval from level 4 personnel. Anyone attempting 
to meet with SCP-890 without prior approval will be subject to 
disciplinary measures up to transfer to a new site. 


In order to promote better behavior and cooperation with 
containment procedures, it is permissible to occasionally provide 
SCP-890 with a piece of intentionally damaged equipment for repair. 


Description: SCP-890 appears to be a male Caucasian between 35 
and 45 years of age and approximately 1.75 meters tall. Subject is 
generally unremarkable, showing typical signs of aging, except for 
its eyes, which are achromatic, appearing gray. Personnel should 
avoid mentioning this, as it seems to cause subject some distress. 
Subject is typically dressed in surgical scrubs, green in color, and is 
often seen still wearing a surgical cap and mask. 


When given a set of standard medical tools, SCP-890 is able to 


been cordoned off by New Shambhala administrative authorities, to 
await arrival by an Earth-based team of specialists to conduct a 
comprehensive investigation. 


Dr. Suhas Kumaran, Chief Science Officer of the First Thousand, 
issued a statement urging the public, on both Venus and Earth, to 
be open-minded about the ramifications of the structure's presence: 


"As | like to tell the public on my shows and in my books, without 
scientific proof, all we have is empty conjecture. The presence of the 
structure at Irnini Mons is an incredible discovery, one that | am 
excited to have been part of. | would just like to reiterate that at 
present, all occupants of New Shambhala are perfectly safe, and 
there is of course no threat of alien invasion. That's a joke." 


The New Shambhala News Service will continue to report details 
about this discovery as they develop. 


Lana Neal Sings the Blues 


He sees her long black hair and flowing blue dress, and even 
through the static and blur on the cheap monitor he can see she's 
got hands that have only a few years at most of waiting tables and 
punching keys in them. She must be the youngest thing in that 
dilapidated club by a good two decades. He notices her eyes. He's 
seen them before in guys who'd been inside too long, looking up at 
him from underneath newspapers on a park bench, maybe one 
other place. She's eighty in the head if she's a day. 


He's got the shades pulled down tight and all of the lights off. He 
knows it isn't necessary; no one's looking for him. He comes to 
others. To the clinic where they give him ineffective pills to sleep at 
night; to the gray warehouse downtown where there are never any 
job openings; to the parole officer who barely even looks at him as 
he checks the boxes on the form once a week. He comes back each 
day to roost in a building he's sure would be ugly if the streetlights 
weren't missing their wiring. Up the stairs he goes, a boarder 
haunting a room for a couple of months, a man sharing a face with a 
thousand janitors, night attendants and strangers riding the bus. 


Someone with a mangled e-mail address sent him a message a few 
nights back. This is a man who opens everything, even the stuff 
from the crooks with the ads for pills and wire services. He knows he 
shouldn't, but you just don't know when one of those messages will 
be for you. The attached video file should have made him pause, but 
what was a scavenged computer to him? It was a victory if the thing 
played. The evenings keep stretching out, like endless freight trains, 
thwarting any attempt at moving along, parking him right where he is 
and making him stop and think. Sure, why not. Anything to kill the 
time while he listened to the click-clack of railcars on tracks below 
his window. 


And anyway, who wants to think about what he's got to do 
tomorrow? The best you can say about a man who gets sent to the 


can for five years is that he's a cautionary example, but even he 
knew, then as now, that you don't do a job with someone you don't 
know. And especially when it's the kind of stunt these guys were 
trying. But here he was. That he agreed to something while knowing 
better didn't surprise him. What did surprise him was the 
desperation that drove him, welling out of him like something out of 
a pinprick wound that's stained half your shirt red in the time it took 
to look around. He'd told himself he doesn't bleed anymore, and that 
he doesn't lie to himself anymore either, and a failure on both 
counts. 


So a video, sent just to him? Why not. He clicks the attachment, 
"lana_neal_sings_the_blues.mov". The address and the subject are 
gibberish, but the message. "for milton". To his shame, his breath 
catches at the sight of his name. Not a soul left on this Earth still 
calls him Milton. His true name. He can't remember the last time he 
heard it. Who could possibly know the secrets that this message 
held? 


The video loads, and there before him is the raven-haired woman 
with the fresh face and the impossible age in her downcast gaze. 
The recording looks old, maybe from the 70's. It reminds him of 
something on tv in the background when he was a boy in distant 
times. It's just her in an empty club, the house lights dimly 
illuminating a tattered, threadbare stage that can't ever have seen 
the bright lights it was meant for. Somewhere off camera, a single 
piano plays, a late-night number for when the last patrons are 
leaving. Low, quiet notes that fall like a slow rain, almost a whisper 
as they cover the nighttime streets in diamonds.