SCP-835 did not, at first, act in a hostile manner towards the team, 
allowing team members to approach and make contact without 
incident. URV-01 was sent to investigate the exterior of the object 
while team members C, L, and M proceeded towards what they 


other person but turned into a sex toy that could still talk and was 
nervous about the whole situation. The really kinky stuff was really 
just for show, because Diogenes figured that having a whole hidden 
shelf of sex equipment would be sort of badass compared to having 
a lonesome dildo shoved in a drawer somewhere. Mostly they stuck 
to the bare necessities: Velcro-brand velcro cuffs, a blindfold nicked 
from a cognitohazard station, and a Lowe's paint stirrer to administer 
smacks and stir the sex paint!. Diogenes had a double-ended 
number that they had named "Twin Peaks" (to go with the bullet 
vibrator Eraserhead, and the less said about Videodrome the better) 
but Glass objected to it for reasons that should be obvious. 


"I'm really dissatisfied with my work right now. | Know we're doing 
good, and | know we're more successful than ever, but it feels so 
empty and futile. We're killing ourselves in a career of sacrifice to a 
world that never asked for the service and doesn't know we're doing 
it. Did you know that the Foundation takes ownership of everything | 
come up with and then uses almost none of it that doesn't have any 
application in keeping weird things from touching people or each 
other? | could have won the Nobel Prize in whatever it is | do. | could 
have recognition, and not just the facial recognition that lets me in to 
see the animal monster. | could have accolades other than the 
Skippy for Best Cube and the Lifetime Stare-At-This-To-Reset-Your- 
Meme-Addled-Brain Award. | and you, Diogenes, are stuck here, for 
life, and the only comfort | have in this sterile hell is found in your 
sweaty, tremulous genitalia," said Glass. Or, that's what Glass would 
have said if they weren't face-deep in Diogenes's sweaty, tremulous 
genitalia. 


Footnotes 
1. 


Erstwhile and Again 


Temperatures expected to drop today, with a high of 43, rain all day 
with a chance of sleet or freezing rain this evening, low of 23, so 
make sure and salt those sidewalks and stairs today. This 
weekend's set to be colder still, high of 32 on Saturday with a 30% 
chance of snow accumulation greater than one inch. That’s your 
local weather, it’s 6:45 am on December 12th, 1997. Up next, 
Tschaicovsky’s famous Nutcracker Suite performed by the Boston 
Philharmonic orchestra. 


Dr. Thaddeus Xyank rubbed a bit of sleep out of his eyes and pulled 
himself into a sitting position, arching and cracking his back. A 
morning much like a few dozen others that had passed in rapid 
succession. Routines have their charm. Glasses, toothbrush, shirt 
and tie. Lab coat, keycard, coffee and bagel. Briefcase, hallway, 
"Good morning, Phil." "G'Mornin' Dr. Xyank, sleep well last night?" 
"You bet," office, check for mail. Close the door, roll up the blinds. A 
dreary Friday morning, damp and grey. He was glad, for once, for oil 
heat and basic climate control. The mindless inconvenience of 
"roughing it" among ancient savages was finally becoming 
comfortable. He took a sip. Still a little too hot, but it would do to start 
drinking it. 


~ You have Four new voice messages.~ 


"Dr. Xyank, it’s Marcus. We’ve hit a snag. Transport is 
working, but the field size is proving to be a little 
unstable. Last test object was a chair and only half of it 
went through, and the other half was pretty seriously 
irradiated. I’ve reviewed your notes about timing, and | 
think the precision required might be beyond our 
equipment’s capability. I'll be in the lab around 10 if 
you've got a minute. No rush, still a few more things to 
check." 


The white board was turning pink, it had been written, erased, and 
re-written so many times. Notes were beginning to slip out of the 
margins everywhere he looked. His calculator booted, loaded at 
50% opacity, and transcribed everything lightning-fast for the 
double-check. The problem Marcus Kitterman had called him about 
only required nanosecond precision. That shouldn’t be out of reach 
of a Pentium... unless the radio chatter around the site... 


Xyank sighed and relaxed, suddenly very glad the department was 
working exclusively with inanimate objects, at least for the time 
being. 


~Next Message~ 


"This is Athena Anastasakos calling in a shift-end report. 
Experimentation progressing nicely, however the 
topology of our model is causing difficulty. Request 
permission to recruit two additional engineers from Extra- 
D at Level 4-Delta clearance to finish the device. Please 
let me know as soon as possible." 


Athena was doing a wonderful job keeping up with the Tachyon 
emitter design. 281 was a smart little object but it offered almost no 
insight into the nuts and bolts of temporal displacement or dilation. It 
was, after all, just a large battery tied to an alarm clock. However, it 
was about three kilos heavier than it should have been, and the 
circuit board in/out voltages just didn’t add up. Something else was 
hiding on the ‘seventh’ side of the device. 


~Next Message~ 


"Hi Doc, Burt Tomlin. Expect a visit today at... 0800. 
Can't tell you more here. Bye." 


Bertrand ‘for christ’s sake just call me Burt’ Tomlin? Whatever for? 
He hadn’t seen Burt for more than five years, since the 176 incident. 
A chill momentarily lingered at the top of Thad’s spine as he sank 
into his chair and opened a very empty briefcase where he kept a 
few blank files to ‘read’ from in case someone with the wrong 
clearance came in unannounced. Tomlin wasn’t one of those, 
though. He had the right clearance. He should. He was on the 


recovery team when...When. If he was coming so soon... 
~Next Message~ 


"Good evening Dr. Xyank this is Dr. Piedmont. | just 
wanted to thank you for... crap, it's 1997, isn't it? Never 
mind, Thad. We'll be in touch." 


~End of Final Message~ 
...Doctor what? What could he possibly be thanking... Oh. 


In that case, Thad considered it was best to start work for the day. 
The sooner he actually cracked this damned nut, the better. A 
receiver, five key presses, and a ringing on the other end. Trees 
outside blew in the rapid wind, knocking the last of the autumn 
leaves loose. 


"Junior Researcher Anastasakos," she answered, her exhaustion 
obscured by a thin veneer of professional demeanor. 


"It's Xyank. Can you secure the line please?" 
Five atonal beeps. 


"That should do," Athena groaned. Thad could practically see her 
rubbing her eyes over the phone. "I presume you're calling about the 
request | left for you?" 


"lam," Thad replied. "Do you have any techs you'd prefer to work 
with? Anyone you've dealt with before?" Thad booted up his device 
and began to scroll through the roster. 


"Not particularly," Athena answered. "I just need someone's help 
bringing the last board into view. We... it's been a very long week, 
and we've made a lot of progress, but if | can't actually see what I'm 
reverse engineering-" 


"Understood. How many do you need?" 


"| thought | said two, but... Yes, two is fine." 


"Alright, I'll have the paperwork in by this after-lunch. Gotta go now. 
Visitors ought to start popping in any minute now." 


"Oh? OH! Right. Thank you," Athena said, relieved. 


"One more thing, Attie; get some sleep. You're no good to me 
exhausted." 


"What about the deadline?" 


"Ms. Anastasakos, we are working on a temporal displacement 
device. There are no deadlines." Thad glanced at his watch. 0700 
exactly. One hour remaining. 


"Except when there are," he corrected himself. But he had already 
hung up. 


Thad was making passionate love to a phase transformation when 
0800 reared its ugly head and the door handle jiggled. Sigh. "Come 
in!" he hollered, not looking up from the red marks flying frantically 
across the page. His left hand slipped under the desk and grasped 
the Beretta 92 service pistol waiting there... you Know. Just in case. 


The door hesitated for a moment as the latch slipped and when it 
opened a gust of dust, wind, and desert heat burst across his 
senses like an atom-bomb. Dr. Xyank winced and coughed and 
raised his hand as two khaki-clad folks pushed the door shut behind 
them and pulled off their glasses. One male. One female. Loaded for 
survival in a hostile world. Carrying concealed firearms. Tired. 


And neither of them were Burt Tomlin. 


"Dr. Xyank! Thank Christ, it worked." The woman pulled off her 
headscarf and pulled off her goggles, spraying dust around the 
office like it was someone else's job to clean it up and no one was 
trying to get some work done here today. Thad cleared his throat 
conspicuously. 


"Can | help you?" Xyank asked impatiently, the pen finally dropping. 
He peered at them over his lenses as the male dropped a rucksack, 
grabbed a small waterskin, and started filling it from the water cooler 


in the corner. 


The man in the desert drab chuckled, and shook his head. "That's 
funny. Real funny. | bet you get a chance to do that a lot." He drank 
deeply and voraciously as though it had been days since he'd last 
had a drop. "We made the rendezvous just like you told us. Fifty- 
seven days, eight hours, twenty-one seconds exactly. Now if it's all 
the same, I'd like to be debriefed so | can go home and see my cat, 
please." 


Thad's head cocked to the side. The specific time interval meant 
something. It always did. Reduced to seconds, that was 4953600 s. 
Divide by the basic "now" interval of 11.25 s and that's 440320 


temporal units. So they either missed the drop or... "... What year 
did you start in?" 


"Doctor, enough is enough," the female said, slumping into a chair 
and taking the skin from her partner. "| mean, you mentioned you 
might be a little confused when we got back-" 


"Did |?" Thaddeus had never before realized his talent for 
understatement. "Well, so | am. Humor me, please." 


The realization washed past the pair of them as they looked around 
the office. As though things were missing. Crucial things. The male 
looked at his companion, leaned over to the door, and opened it on 
a busy hallway. Tentatively, he stuck his be-watched wrist past the 
jam, and sighed. "...We're Agents Gregory Hartford and Vanessa 
Freedman... From July 5, 2019 CE." 


"And you're on assignment for whom?" 


Vanessa closed her eyes and slumped forward. "...For you, Doctor." 
She reached into a satchel and produced from it a small gilded-clay 
cup, placing it on the desk before him. "It's Safe... But don't put any 
water in it. And be careful. It's come a very long way." 


The Doctor's lips drew into a tight frustrated line. The visitors had 
made it right on time, according to the current model. He cursed his 
future self for all the extra work, but realized it was no use. This was 
exactly the kind of hole he was making it his life's work to close. 


"Thank you both for your contributions. Welcome to 1997." Thad 
archived the time, date, names, and object recovered, then picked 
up the receiver and pressed no less than 19 buttons in rapid 
succession. "12, please... Dr. Thaddeus Xyank, regarding a 'pick- 
up’... Yes, I'll hold." This was going to be a very busy morning. 


Marcus indelicately picked his nose and wiped it on a bit of wrapper 
left over from the breakfast sandwich he purchased at 9 o'clock. To 
his credit, he used the hand sanitizer next to the console before 
doing anything else. The smoldering remains of a chair were still 
laying on the floor of the test chamber. "...Two minutes," he said, 
sliding down the computer bank and re-checking the in-room Geiger 
counter. 


"How many of these tests do you run in a day, Mr. Kitterman?" 
Thaddeus peered at a screen showing the recorded event. 281 
activated synchronously to the EM transmitter. A temporal bubble 
erupted and retracted in the center of the test chamber. There was a 
flash of light and a radiation spike, and then the bits left behind 
collapsed. 


"Anywhere from ten to twenty, slowly turning up the At as we go. 
Everything between 3 seconds and 5 hours works fine, but past that, 
the field starts getting irregular and—" across the room, the counter 
erupted in a series of clicks. "Oop, here we go." 


A loud cracking sound and a bright flash of light later, 2/5ths of a 
chair fell into the pile of remains. Alpha, Beta, and Gamma radiation, 
and a few million free neutrons to boot flew across the room in every 
direction. 


"Yikes," Thad said flatly, leaning back in the chair. "Thaaat's not 
supposed to happen..." 


"Mmmmmhm. At that level of radiation a human traveler loses all 
their hair in a few days and their pancreas soon after," Marcus said, 
shaking his head. "I'm thinking it's because the event-horizon ends 
up shearing so many atoms when passing through a solid object, 
but until | can get a success under my belt, it's hard to tell." 


Thaddeus looked over the bank of monitors as his calculator began 
printing to his vision to check and recheck the expected values. 
Everything turned up green. And so it was time to ask the stupid 
questions. 


"You've rebooted?" he asked. 
"Yup." 
"Verified the timer's accuracy?" 


"To the picosecond." Marcus said, tapping the cesium clock in front 
of him like an old friend. 


"And the Faraday Cage is closed?" 


A loud banging sound in the adjacent testing chamber made their 
hearts jump into their throats. A steel |-beam, 2 m in length with the 
word "NO" plasma-cut out of its center had just slammed into the 
floor, apparently from nowhere. Marcus Kitterman looked sheepishly 
at the displeased Dr. Xyank, who rubbed the bridge of his nose and 
sighed. 


"...Mr. Kitterman. Please take greater care to account for radio 
chatter in the future." Thad looked out into the testing chamber and 
let the air flap out between his lips. "Now get a Faraday cage built in 
here and resolve that paradox. Immediately." 


"Yes, sir," Marcus answered, with a phone already in his hands. 


After lunch there was another man in his office uninvited that was 
still not Bertrand Tomlin. What's more is that he was busily staring at 
the contents of the briefcase. Or rather, the lack of contents. And the 
badge hanging off of his belt only had a bright red "EC-3". This man 
did not belong here. 


"EXCUSE ME." 


The L3 jumped out of his skin and spun on his heels hands up and 
clenched, ready to pound the shit out of whatever he saw. The look 
in his eye was easy to recognize. This man had seen things... A lot 


of things. Some of them above Thad's pay grade. Fist cocked back, 
the L3 caught himself, blinked back to his senses, and relaxed, 
slumping onto the desk, gripping his chest. 


"Jesus Thad, you scared the shit out of me!" 


"It seems you have me at a disadvantage. Who, may | ask, are 
you?" Thad asked gruffly. The voice sounded familiar but he couldn't 
place it. 


The L3 stood and offered a hand which Thad reluctantly took. "Dr. 
Lowell Piedmont, EC-3," he said, a smile creeping back onto his 
face. "You know, you're not a very easy man to find. Even when you 
do exist." 


"Yeah, | get that a lot," Xyank said, kicking the door closed behind 
him and hurrying behind his desk. The briefcase closed with a 
thwack and latched shut on its own. "What is it | can do for you Dr. 
Piedmont?" 


"Nothing. Well. Nothing yet." Dr. Piedmont replied. "But... | don't 
know, | suppose later there will be something. Only... huh. This is 
hard." 


"Only I've already done it?" Thad offered as he tapped a cup of 
water and sipped it slowly. 


"Yes... You've both already done it and haven't done it yet, 
apparently. Which is confusing." Dr. Piedmont ran an unwelcome 
finger along one of the side tables, looking at it like others had 
before him, as though something should be there.