Next on the big list posted outside the office is to check the 
automatic water dispensers, that are scattered around each pasture. 
| take the long walk as a moment to rest and just take in what a 
strange position I've got. | could be an accountant for some battery 
company, though | feed unicorns on a daily basis. | like where | am. 


My streak of positivity is ended as my thoughts come to rest on oh- 
forty-two. That's why I'd gotten my job here, they saw | was well 
trained and good with horses. | was just an intern told to torture a 
Pegasus until he stood up. | go through the motions of undoing the 
rim of the waterer and testing to see if it works. | understand the 
importance to the what goes on there, but can't you just let him die 
and clone him? | saw crazier stuff go on at Area-32. Bah, I'm nota 
scientist, | don't know the complexities of anomalous objects. He's a 
cognitohazard anyways, he just makes me think that he ... What if 
he isn't? What if it was all something the Foundation came up with to 
strike down any sympathy for him? Just an elaborate brainwashing 
scheme? 


| shake my head to clear my thoughts and check the last dispenser. 
The lies I'm told are to keep me safe. | know that much. 


Upon finishing my duties, | notice that the clouds overhead look 
rather threatening. The temperature is a bit cooler, and | smell rain. | 
jog back to the office and take cover just as it begins to drizzle. It 
barely lasts five minutes, so | decide to do another crap check. Not 
much has been produced, but | still clean up what's there. It bothers 
me to waste time. 


I'm done quickly, and after dumping the last wheelbarrow, | pet 
some ponies. Stress creators and stress relievers. The two are 
sweet, but | try not to get to know them. Some of these guys are 
food for an SCP I'm not allowed to know about. 


| say goodbye to my new acquaintances and head back to 
Wellington for the evening feed. | beat him to the south shed this 
time, and am able to get a few bales onto the bed of the small 
carriage before he shows up. 


"Good evenin' Thomas," | nod back to him, "Hey do you know if I've 
gotten a letter from the wife an’ foals yet?" This is one of the few 
subjects I'm not allowed to talk to Wells about. 


"Uh, no, not that | know of," I'm not a great liar, but Wells is too 
optimistic. 


"Probably too busy enjoyin' life without rules!" He gives a laugh. | 
smile, but inside, | feel bad for the guy. The secrets we keep from 
one another here. 


We go through the evening feeding without incident, though it takes 
two trips to get enough for the animals to munch on through the 
night. | bid adieu to Wellington, who pulls open his cabinet and lays 
a blanket on the ground, all using his rather mobile lips. The sun is 
setting, so | hold my hand up to stop myself from being blinded as | 
walk back to the office. Brad is getting his things together, though | 
know he won't leave for another two hours. He'll do a check of all the 
security gates and any last minute stuff. | say goodbye and clock 
out. Brad nods silently. 


| wait a couple of minutes at the bus stop with some other 
employees, making small talk. It's hard to get answers about how 
someone's day has been when they are, under penalty of death, not 
allowed to tell you what they do for a living. We all know the 
importance of secrecy here, and conversations mainly stay on the 
weather and latest TV shows. 


The driver pulls up, letting the night shift out before accepting us on- 
board. | walk back to my apartment after drop off, and stare for a 
couple seconds at the stairs in front of me. | take the elevator. | 
unlock my apartment and flop onto my couch. A few minute off of my 
feet feels good, but the hot shower | take next is much more 
soothing. After | dress myself in some pajamas, | turn on my laptop 
and send a long message to Emily. | miss having someone next to 
me when it's hard work 24/7. | think tomorrow is her first day on the 
job at her new position. | make a few flourishing keystrokes and click 
the 'send' button. Some computer program, or memetic SCP, or 
something censors a few of the thing | mention. A little annoying, but 
| think | get the points across. | close the laptop and eat dinner. 


Dinner is tacos, | decide. Good tacos. After | brush my teeth, | climb 
into my bed and under the covers. I'm about to close my eyes when 
| remember my alarm clock. | give it a toss to the other side of the 
room. Wake up future me, you lazy ass. 


A Day In The Life 


| always painted my fingernails right before an op and cleaned 'em 
off again once we were back. Pure black, scuff 'em a bit to get rid of 
the glossiness, and put a tiny dot of dark green right in the center of 
the thumbnails. It was a good-luck ritual | did that I'd picked up years 
ago, well before | was recruited into the Foundation, back when | 
was dating this goth chick. 


Pretty much everyone on the squad had something they did to 
ensure they'd come back alive and in one piece: Parker spent a 
couple of hours praying to Ganesh; Ng made sure she got laid the 
night before; Nokigawa would field-strip every weapon we'd be 
taking, clean every part, and put them back together; Lewis always 
started telling whoever would listen the worst, most "hilarious" jokes 
he'd heard since the last op. Chief just vanished for about a half- 
hour. | don't think anyone really expected this shit to make a 
difference, but with all the weird shit in this world, you never know, 
right? 


So | was listening to Lewis tell this god-awful story about two 
Chinamen and a horse while waiting for my nails to dry, and this kid 
walked into the briefing room with a pile of folders and loose papers. 
She couldn't've been more than 25, 26, and looked really damn 
nervous. A newbie for sure; the ones who'd been around a while 
knew better than to bother an MTF when we were doing our prep. 
She looked sideways at Lewis and me, like she was expecting him 
to stop telling his story and stand to attention in front of her or 
something. Me, | just laughed a little. Let Lewis think it was at his 
joke. 


The newbie put down her stack on the table up front and stood there 
awkwardly for the next 15 minutes, as everyone straggled in, Chief 
being last. Once everyone was seated, she cleared her throat and 
started talking as she passed out the folders. 


"Welcome to today's briefing. Two weeks ago, Intelligence identified 
a potential humanoid SCP in Liverpool. There was some online 
chatter about a girl who would make incredibly realistic chalk 
drawings on the pavement outside her residence, and someone 
spotted her jumping into one of the drawings and posted a video 
online. 


"A field agent staked out the address and kept the child under 
surveillance until yesterday afternoon, when he confirmed this 
anomalous behavior by observing her jumping into a picture of a 
green field. He also observed her return 20 minutes later, which 
included her grasping the hand of an unknown creature before it fell 
back into the drawing." 


| opened my folder while she was talking. First thing was a photo of 
the kid. She looked to be about 8 or 9, average looking, long red- 
brown hair framing a chubby little face. Lots of freckles. The rest of 
the file was probably a dossier on everything about her from her 
name to which brand of toothpaste her mum buys to where daddy 
dearest gets his petrol. The same useless shit they always hand us. 


"You will be providing back-up to a retrieval team who will be 
securing the SCP today on her walk home from school. We don't 
anticipate any complications, but want to be prepared in case she 
can do anything else unusual with chalk. You'll be issued the 
standard low-profile urban equipment and will rendezvous with the 
retrieval team in 3 hours. Are there any questions?" 


Very new, then. This sounded like a standard snatch-and-grab and 
we all knew that you didn't want the answers to the questions we'd 
learned to ignore, like "What's going to happen to her family?" or "Is 
she ever going to see the light of day again?" Instead, we stared at 
her in silence for about a minute until she started fidgeting. 


"| guess you don't, then. Your transport will be leaving in 20 minutes. 
Good luck." 


Ah, just enough time to get the dots on, then put the polish in my 
locker. 


It was a gorgeous day out. The sun was shining in a deep blue sky, 
there was just enough of a breeze to cut the heat, and there was 
even a faint flowery smell on the breeze. God knows what flower, 
but it smelled good. The kind of day that made you glad to be alive 
and out in the world. The only problem was that it was too quiet. If 
the kid started screaming, we'd have to hustle her off the street fast 
before someone peeked out their window at us. Still, it was the job 
of the retrieval guys to keep it from getting that bad. 


In the meantime, the squad was spread out in a loose formation. | 
was slowly riding a bike about a block in front of the kid. Parker was 
dressed up as a postman and was walking down the street in the 
opposite direction. Nokigawa was dressed as a gardener and 
trimming the hedges of a house we knew was empty. Ng and Chief 
were in a supply van with the heavy gear. Lewis was off somewhere 
in a good sniper position, god knows where. Everyone in place and 
waiting for the retrieval guys to make their move. 


They'd just reported over the earpieces that they were moving in 
when | heard a big engine roar behind me. Parker and Chief started 
swearing and | swung around to see a big black sedan come 
barreling down the road. | was already swinging my bike around and 
pedaling hard back towards the girl when the car screeched to a halt 
right next to her. The driver's door popped open and this big guy, 
looked like a Paki, jumped out and rushed around towards the girl. 
Out of the corner of my eye | saw Parker reach into his mailbag for 
his pistol, and the retrieval guys were screaming something about 
abort, abort into my ear. Just one guy wasn't likely to be GOC or 
them rich fuckers, though, and we could handle Hand operatives 
unless they whipped out some kind of hoodoo. 


The girl had started screaming at this point, that high-pitched, 
piercing keening that kids do. | braked to a hard stop a few yards 
from the car and saw the front, then the back tire pop and start going 
flat. Lewis was on the job, then. The big guy was trying to bundle the 
girl into the back of the car, but she was kicking and flailing a storm. 
| jumped off the bike and whipped out my baton, feeling it telescope 
as | advanced on the pair. Nokigawa was yelling something about 
dropping the kid and backing away from her slowly, but | don't know 
if the guy was paying attention. A little tap on the noggin might get it, 


Foundation. 


Subject D-769-54: Learned the history of the temple of — . Subject 
broke down while describing it, and, when left unattended for a short 
period, took his own life. The guards were severely reprimanded. 


Subject D-769-71: After O5-8 reprimanded Dr. __ for gross waste of 
class D personnel, Subject D-769-71 was given doses several 
times. The first time, he gained a novel, but forgot how to ride a 
bicycle. The second time, he learned a form of martial arts, but lost 
all memory of his faith. The third time, he learned the life cycle of the 
mammoth, but lost all memory of his childhood. The final time, it 
could not be determined what he gained, as he seemed to lose all 
ability to communicate. Subject D-769-71 was terminated several 
days later. It appears repeated exposures have a point of 
diminishing returns, taking more memory than previous exposures. 


Subject D-769-105: Learned the names of all the Exarchs of 
and their families going back several hundred years. He forgot how 
to operate any technology made in the last ten years. 


Subject D-769-2045: Learned the history of dance. Lost all 
memory of sports. 


Subject D-769-2070: Learned the names of the stars in the 
language. Lost all memories of the past three years. 


Interview Log 769-43 
« SCP-768 | SCP-769 | SCP-770 » 


though. 


Parker beat me to it, though, with a clean shot through his shoulder. 
The bloke dropped the kid like a hot iron and looked around in 
shock. He apparently just then noticed Parker and me coming up on 
him and Nokigawa crouched behind the hedge, aiming his Luger at 
him. Ng and Chief hadn't come out yet, though; they usually stay in 
reserve for when things go much worse than this. The man looked 
terrified, like he was about to bolt but couldn't figure out where. | got 
close enough to pop him a good one to his right knee, and he went 
down like a puppet with its strings cut. The girl scrambled up and 
started to run around behind the car, but Parker grabbed her as she 
went past and held her tight. 


As he tried to calm her down, | kneeled beside the man on the 
ground. "You did a real stupid thing there, trying to kidnap her in 
plain sight. Bloody sloppy, too. You're not going to learn any better, 
though." And | popped him a right good one across the side of his 
head with the baton. Knocked him out cold. 


| turned to the girl, crouched down to her level and looked her in the 
face. Her eyes were so big you could see the whites all around and 
her mouth was so wide open screaming | could see the back of her 
throat. She was missing her two front baby teeth. 


"Shh, shh, it's okay. He's not going to get you. You're safe now, and 
we're going to take care of you. Don't worry. We look out for special 
little girls like you. You'll be protected now." 


The whole thing took maybe 5 minutes and the pair of retrieval guys 
finally came up in their non-descript gray Honda. Slowpokes, but 
that's why we were on the scene, to handle the surprises. 


We were on the way back to base an hour later. It always seemed 
that, even with a simple snatch-and-grab, it took forever for the 
clean up crew to arrive. We'd already tied up the guy and tossed him 
into the back of the van. And we always carried a few doses of C- 
grade in case a quick wipe or two was needed. Just a couple of 
nervous old women this time. We got lucky there. The retrieval guys 
were long gone with the girl, on their way to god knows where. 


Chief ran a quick check on the guy's fingerprints while we were 
driving. Turned out he wasn't with any of the other groups after all. 
He'd been arrested a year back for indecent exposure and was on 
probation for it. The kid just had the bad luck to be the victim of an 
attempted abduction right when we were about to pick her up. My 
guess was that the interrogators would go after him for a while, just 
to make sure he wasn't a mole, wipe the guy and dump him back in 
Liverpool. None of my business at that point. 


We got the regular debriefing when we got back. Different person 
than the briefer this time. An older guy, maybe my age, starting to 
prematurely gray around the temples. | was too, but | dyed it. This 
job would age you, but that didn't mean you had to give in to the 
aging. When we came out of the debrief, Ng asked if she'd see me 
down at the cafeteria. | told her I'd be there in about half an hour, but 
to grab me an apple if they had any that looked good. She grinned 
and said she would. 


| figured 30 minutes would be just enough time to strip the polish off 
my nails and call my husband for a quick "I love you." We were 
planning on taking a trip to the shore that weekend. | was looking 
forward to it. 


A Day in the Life of Alto Clef 


Alto Clef had been dealing with a lot of shit for the past week, but 
there was something about sitting on the toilet at 6:00 AM, reading 
his paper and drinking coffee as his aged bowels struggled to force 
another turd from his body that made things better. Marginally 
better.