Bragg looked up at him, angry and desperate. “It’s not exactly 
EASY, ya know?” He returned, trying to recall the moments in his 
author’s mind when he'd been crafted, the implication of the device. 
He was slow, deliberate, in explaining its fall. Methodical in the 
detonation. Only the range had to be changed, the duration of the 
effect. Fredrickson had explained this carefully, making sure to 
mention the several different outcomes of Bragg not being careful. It 
could mean, after all, no more readers. 


That didn't make it any easier. 


Cardiforce ordered his men forward, charging into the room. It was 
bigger on the inside than the outside, he noted, dismissing the 
Foundation’s trickery as nothing more than an idle illusion. While 
they hadn’t expected any real resistance, they were more than 
capable of handling anything the tiny outpost could possibly muster. 


The penitent rushed them, bringing both guns and swords to bear on 
their attackers. The first lines fell away quickly, but there was no way 


to anticipate the horses. They charged down on the exposed flank 
from beyond the building’s sides, cutting through the primary force 
with ease. 


“For the glory of Gondor!” shouted the lead man, his sword held 
brazenly aloft. 


Cardiforce instructed a sniper to shoot him. 


Bragg finished and looked up, but Fredrickson was already gone. He 
looked back down to his page, and noted the sudden appearance of 
Super Fred, the hero of a thousand worlds, catching the falling bomb 
and vanishing with a dash— 


A young man was cuiting his way through the crowd with a sword 
much too big, much too sharp to be real. Cardiforce heard it moving 
through the air, whistling, snicker-snack. However, when the men 
the boy had beheaded did not stop moving, he was easily removed 
from the equation. But the whistling did not stop. 


Cardiforce looked up. There was a man there, plummeting, a white 
lab coat fluttering in the wind like a cape. Cardiforce assumed, for a 
moment, that it must have been one of the reinforcements the 
Foundation was expecting, his entry gone awry. A moment before 
the man hit the ground, he looked up at Cardiforce, smiling an evil 
grin. And vanished. 


Bragg coughed, breathing the noxious purifying gas, feeling it eat 
away at his lungs. All around him, men were dying, gagging on the 
weapon he had created. The thing he made from a time before text, 
when it was only an implied threat and not a real one. 


He struggled to stand, trying to run away from the deadly, 
impossible fallout, but he could not. As his eyes finally clouded over, 
he knew that his body would remain here forever, unchanging, the 
rot unable to take hold in a place where the bomb had been. Just as 
he had so many times before, he felt the darkness overtaking him, 
felt the little lights at the corners of his vision explode inward in a 


burst of adrenalin, glimpsed for a moment his wife and child 
standing among those golden refractions. Then, he died. 


Cardiforce vomited, throwing up a mass of cogs and skin. He could 
feel them within him, turning slower and slower as His divine grace 
fled his body. He, like all those around him, had failed. Never before 
had the church been so close to a goal of this magnitude, and now it 
was taken away from them. 


He had decided. Their punishment was severe, their death assured. 
He reached down and touched some of the metal cogs that had 
moments ago been his lungs or stomach, crying as they broke into 
pieces. Then, he died. 


Fred was in trouble, he knew. He probably shouldn't have let them 
know he could carry people around, because now they’d be asking 
for it all the time. Sooner or later, someone would try to write 
something really helpful or valuable into the book, not realizing that it 
would lose more than they could imagine outside the confines of the 
storyland. Everything was much more beautiful in here, much more 
perfect. Even that silly bomb. 


But Fred knew that, for a moment, he’d been someone really 
important. At least, for a short while, he’d been something that 
mattered. More than just words on a page or casual addenda, more 
than a footnote. He’d been a savior to the world. Then, he died. 


Well, not really. Wouldn't that just be a terrible way to end it? 


Agent Lament smiled as he read the final chapter and closed the 
book, throwing it into the pile that had been building up at his feet. 
The far side of the hangar was still a ruined lump of burning metal, 
but everything else had returned to normal. He opened up his phone 
and pressed a few buttons, popping his neck as he leaned it over. 


“Situation?” came the voice from the other side. 


“Success, Doctor. 423 is capable of exactly what you expected and 
is apparently highly motivating to those he encounters. Kind of a 
nice guy, too, once you get past the attitude. We'll have to update its 
file.” 


“I'll take care of that personally. Tell him that the copy of the 
Vatsayana he requested will be delivered shortly.” 


“Yes, sir.” 


With a click, he closed his phone and got out the notepad Fred was 
currently occupying. "You got your book,” wrote Lament. "You ever 
get tired of living vicariously?" 


He flipped back a couple of pages, looking through his notes intently 
for new addenda. He saw it, finally, at the bottom of the first page 
he'd written on. 


‘Not when that's the only living you get. 


Lament picked back through the books 423 had run through, noting 
how the stories seemed to fall apart. One of them, less than a 
quarter of the way through, quickly vanished into cursory 
descriptions of an unchanging room where no one ever lived, and 
then suddenly fell away into blank pages. He turned it over and 
looked at it again: The Man from Maple Street. 


He shrugged and threw it into the pile. Dodridge struck a match, and 
they were ablaze. 


Footnotes 
1.His Clockwork ServantsWith Apologies to Yoric 


The Man in Orange 


Chris Kelly awoke to a glint of sunlight reflected on his window. A 
beautiful day, yes. Such luscious colors in the flowers outside, reds, 
violets, yellows, blues...He climbed out of bed and considered the 
clothes in his bureau, his closet. It was a magnificent collection, 
indeed! So many vivid hues, like the flowers, how could he possibly 
have a preference? 


Kelly returned from the shower ten minutes later to appraise the 
clothes once again. When he had finally decided upon the blue 
jeans and green shirt, something caught his eye. A hint of orange 
His heart stuttered. He scanned the flora outside his window and 
found the source. A single, orange rose had sprung up among its 
red siblings. Kelly seized the hedge trimmers he kept ready against 
his wall, pried open his window, and leaped into the yard. In a matter 
of seconds, he decapitated the problematic blossom and smuggled 
it back into the house. He hung the trimmers back upon their rack 
and lowered his gaze. Below them was a the bowl that he had 
always ready for this contingency. Kelly stuffed the flower in the 
bowl and retrieved his lighter. Within moments, the rose was ablaze. 
He watched it burn with a stone-carved face. Once it was no more 
than ash, he scooped the remains up and sprinkled them over the 
yard. Kelly turned on the spot, examining every corner of the lawn, 
his heart still on double time. Upon verifying that no further 
contaminants were present, he went back inside, exhaling deeply. 


Kelly joined his sister and parents at breakfast. His father brought a 
massive plate of beautifully browned french toast to the table. His 
mother passed the syrup and butter around as everyone took their 
places. Kelly's little sister was seven years younger than him, an 
eager and mischievous 9 year old. She scarfed down the bread, 
making a mess of her cheeks and place-mat. As this marvelous 
spectacle was occurring, Kelly's father addressed him. 


"You remember what you promised to do today?" 


« SCP-965 | SCP-966 | SCP-967 » 


"Of course." 


"Good boy." His father wiped his bottom lip clean of syrup. "Got your 
outfit picked out?" 


"Yes," 


His father looked at him warily for a moment, "A man at my office 
brought one of his old hats to work yesterday." Kelly looked at his 
father, a piece of toast suspended on his fork. The latter went on "it 
was a lovely blue hat, but it had the tiniest streak-" he traced his 
finger around his scalp "he probably hadn't even noticed when he 
put it on." 


The room was silent. Kelly cleared his throat, "What happened to 
him?" 


His father sighed. "Well he called the police, of course. He'd have 
been arrested himself if he hadn't." 


Kelly closed his eyes slowly and repeated: "What happened to him?" 
His father gave a jerk of the head, "The usual." 


The family drew a slow and grim breath. "You understand what I'm 
trying to make clear, Chris?" he told his son. 


"Yes, | understand." Kelly replied. 


Breakfast continued without further incident until the little sister 
piped up: "Where's the carrot juice? We used to have it all the time, 
why can't we have some?" 


The mood shifted abruptly; it was not the solemn quiet of the father's 
story, though: it was a mood of panic. The mother flung her hand 
across the table and covered her daughter's mouth, uttering a kind 
of muted scream. The father's head darted around, looking out the 
windows. Kelly was struck by a sudden, frightful image of the rose 
he had burned this morning. The girl gazed at her mother, terrified. 


"We've talked about this, dear. We can't have carrot juice anymore, 
or-" she gave a small gag "-you know the other kind." 


She lowered her hand from the girl's mouth, who looked down at her 
empty plate, shaking slightly. Kelly got to his feet. 


"| should probably get going.” 


His parents looked up at him. "Be careful," his mother said. Kelly 
nodded. 


He left the house at a brisk pace, the dull grey morning casting a 
dim illumination over the town. Kelly set off down the main street, 
looking at the jackets and sweaters and scarves that the other 
pedestrians had produced for the day. Almost entirely cool hues, 
purples, blues, greens, black...it was unsurprising. A few people 
came out in reds, yellows, pinks, browns, but it was a very few. Not 
a lot of risk-takers out there. Kelly exhaled, his breath lingering on 
the air. There was nothing wrong with the cool colors, it was just... 
you know...things had to be the way it had to be, and it got old. 


Kelly stopped by the mail office in the town square and dropped off 
the letter his father had given him. His task completed, he glanced 
around the square for a possible lunch site. He settled on the burger 
joint which had recently opened and headed over, however, his trip 
was interrupted by what came bursting out of the restaurant's door. 


Kelly blinked, the world seeming to shrink for the tiniest of moments. 
There a man stood, draped from head to toe in the most bizarre 
assortment of clothes ever. Coats, ties, scarves, belts, and ever 
single fragment shone in a different and glaring shade of orange. 
The man stood in the square, rotating slightly, gazing at the 
bystanders who stared back at him, mouths ajar. Vaguely, Kelly 
heard the sirens in the distance. The man walked out to the center 
of the square, his arms outstretched and a great, wide smile upon 
his face. He laughed. 


"Why are you afraid? It is your color, you must take it back. They will 
only take more from you. What's next? Your wooden chairs? Your 
caffeinated drinks? Your light-haired children? Take it back, do not 
cower, take everything back." 


At that moment, the man in orange was obscured by the bodies of 
several thick policemen which had leaped upon him. The square 


stood in silence, every eye staring at the struggling mass in its 
center. The police chief marched over and watched the man, beaten 
and bleeding, dragged to his feet. 


"Cheeky little cunt, aren't you?" the chief said as he smacked his 
baton across the man's shins. "Well | like the spirit. Makes it so 
much more fun." He let out a whistle. "Gents! Fetch the boiling paint, 
we've got a badass on our hands here. Let's give him the tour." 


The man was forced to his knees as two more policemen hauled 
over a tub of hot blue paint. The chief chuckled as the tub was 
raised up and toward the man's head. As the tub's rim was inches 
from his hair, a yell rent the frigid morning air. 


"THE ORANGE!" 


The chief and his men turned just in time to see the gargantuan mob 
which bore down upon them. The small force stood no chance. Kelly 
gazed in terror and amazement as the rebels took to the street, 
bearing great, tall banners of orange, orange which pierced the grey 
morning and filled Kelly with terrific wonders he remembered only in 
self-denied dreams. It was time, they would take it back, they would 
take back their orange, their world. It was time! 


The outbreak of violence in Honeywood has been 
successfully suppressed. The instances of SCP-1434 
which triggered the anomalous activity have been 
recovered. No further events have occurred. 


The Man-Machine 


When | went to bed that night, | briefly imagined snuggling up to him. 
The pressure of his legs pressed against mine, the warmth of his 
back on my chin, the soft smoothness of his skin. Then the moment 
passed, and | clutched the pillow a little tighter. 


| don't remember how | first met him, really. It feels so long ago. All | 
remember is that we met, we spoke, we ate, and | fell in love. | hid it 
from everyone. Even myself. | wasn't scared of what | felt - | had no 
reason to be. | see now that | hid it because | didn't know if it was 
real. | was terrified of tricking myself into being something | wasn't. | 
still don't know if | am. | don't think | want to either. But | think | loved 
him nonetheless, and | regret that | never found out. 


| never told him that | loved him. | still don't know if | did. | wanted to 
be near him. | wanted to be with him. | wanted to do things with him, 
both innocent and depraved. But | never wanted to say that | loved 
him. | don't think | ever felt comfortable doing so. Not even with my 
parents. | said the words, but | don't think that | meant them. | wish | 
could have. | wish | had an ounce of his courage. 


Our paths diverged early on, with rumors of an upcoming revolt at a 
slave auction in the inner City. lon, of course, would be there. He 
knew that my sympathies lay with his, and so he beseeched my 
presence at the revolt. Having a prince of Cogwork present would 
lend the freedom movements within the City immeasurable credulity. 
Seeking only to be near him, | of course acquiesced and remained 
mum, eager to participate in the revolution. Yet as the day came, | 
confess that | grew craven and afraid. When the day came, | feigned 
illness. But the pain and fear within my belly were real. They were 
not born of the autocracy, nor their enforcers, nor even the thought 
of being seen with lon ... but of my father. 


Even as a man of iron, | feared my father's wrath and sought his 
approval desperately. | would have debased myself for a kind word 
of his. | alternated between desperate desire and fervent hatred. | 


deluded myself into thinking that | had a reason to hate my father. | 
deluded myself into thinking that | did not in fact owe all my privilege, 
intelligence, and luxuries to his own intelligence, tenacity, and hard 
work. | deluded myself into thinking that my difficulties had meaning. 
Under my father's watchful eye, | wanted for nothing. | was a prince 
in the City.