* One (1) bicycle (functional) 

* One (1) television (non-functional) 

* One (1) clock (functional) 

¢ One (1) roast chicken (consumed by members of SCP-670) 
* One (1) detailed family portrait 

* One (1) dagger (See Interview 670-1-1) 


Members of SCP-670 show discomfort when using objects not 
composed of thread, such as plastic chairs or writing implements. 
The reason for this is currently unknown, and members of SCP-670 
refuse to elaborate on it. 


SCP-670 was first discovered at Forest, near , when a 
group of hikers reported that they had found 'a house made of rope 
in the forest. Agents were dispatched to investigate the matter and 
discovered SCP-670. The hikers were dosed with Class-A 
amnestics and SCP-670 was brought into containment without 
incident. 


Interview SCP-670-1-1 
Interviewed: SCP-670-1 
Interviewer: Dr. 


Foreword: At approximately : on / /20 , SCP-670-1 
constructed a dagger using SCP-670's monthly thread 
ration. The dagger was immediately confiscated and 
SCP-670-1 brought in for questioning. 


<Begin Log> 


(SCP-670-1 is brought in by security) 


He ran it three or four more times. Each time, success. He felt... 
giddy. 


The mischievous trickster and master plotter Icarus Sharpe slipped 
into the world, putting on Matthew’s face and setting the explosives, 
walking down the hall and into the side room. Matthew shuffled into 
position, then got his rifle shouldered. He took a deep breath, then 
pressed the button. 


Matthew was taken in a ball of fire as the explosives detonated right 
below him, burning his flesh and hurling him through the top of the 
duct. 


He flew up through the next floor, then crashed into the ceiling, at 
which point, he started falling again. He fell through the hole, down 
the next two floors, through the space where the duct had been, and 
onto a conveyor belt. 


The belt started as he leaned up, looking around in time for the 
separator bar to clock him in the head, knocking him backwards and 
laying him out just as the boiling hot oil managed to scorch his back, 
bringing a scream to his lips that was quickly quelled as the 
chocolate sauce poured over him. A moment later, the sprinkles 
were scattered over his body. Then the quick blast of hot air to dry it. 


He winced and groaned as the conveyor came to a stop. He leaned 
up, rolling off of it and looking around as the click of hundreds of 
guns suddenly echoed through the room. 


“That was fucking stupid, man,” said Clef, walking through the 
assembled security staff of Site19. “Did you really think the 
doughnut dispensary was the best way to enter the site 
undetected?” 


His last thought, before the tragically non-bullet proof frosting and 
sprinkles was riddled with lead, was to wonder exactly how Clef had 
managed to plant the explosives immediately under him. How he 
managed to set up that explosion. The doughnut machine. All these 
people here. 


How. How in God’s name? 
But before the irony could hit him, the bullets did, and he was dead. 


« | HUB | » 


Through the Out-Land, and What David and Tim Found 
There 


It was always these moments in the car that David hated so much. 
These last few moments. They drove around so much, him and Tim, 
getting what work they could get, hiding as often as they needed to, 
and it was hard for David to pinpoint exactly what part of this life he 
hated the most. There were so many shitty strip clubs, so many 
bedbug-ridden hotel rooms. David didn't give a shit about the 
helping people, not anymore, and he sure as hell didn't give a shit 
about Tim anymore. The only thing he lived for anymore was the 
beer. Same as Tim gave a shit about the meals. In a world with 
literal gods, the little pleasures were the only ones either of them 
could give a shit about. 


"Okay, Dave, are we gonna do this, or what?" 


Tim's voice jarred David back to reality. God dammit, how much | 
wish | could kill him, he thought. Or that anything could kill any of us. 


"Yeah. Listen, Tim, | really don't wanna fucking do this, but | feel | 
need to," David started. "The same way | feel | need to do this every 
time." 


Tim rolled his eyes. "Oh, for fuck's sake. Again with this shit? Worse 
than my fucking mom." He reached into what would appear to an 
outsider to be a jacket breast pocket and pulled out what would 
appear to an outsider to be a Marlboro Special Blend. "Every 
goddamn time. 'Tim, we made a deal with 'em.' 'Tim, they said no, 
let's get out of here.’ 'Tim, stop cutting her.’ Every goddamn time." 
Tim held his hand as though there were a lighter in it and flicked his 
thumb down; a flame emerged and lit the cigarette. "Don't even 
know why you fuckin’ care. Never heard of a halfassed demigod 
before. If you're so fuckin'...so fuckin’ noble, why do you even ask 
for payment?" 


David could not possibly hate Tim more than at these moments, the 


Confrontation Moments which are specific experiences that serve as 
distinct subsets of the general experience of the Car Moments. 
"Yes, Tim, you're right. | am a filthy, disgusting hypocrite, and a 
nagging bitch, and why do | even bother running the fucking Outland 
with you, and why shouldn't | just take this piece of shit right up to 
the doorstep of 19 and let Clef and Bright turn me into dust or feed 
me to the lizard or stick me on a relativistic treadmill or whatever 
those psychos will dream up that will make humble hardworking 
sociopaths such as ourselves look like the rankest of amateurs." 


David took a deep breath. "Now, with all of these particulars 
established, allow me to repeat myself. We are going to have a 
conversation with the Hochschild family today. This conversation is 
going to include a request on their part that we grant them a very 
particular variety of assistance, one which we are uniquely 
positioned to provide. This conversation will subsequently include 
each of us explaining the price which this assistance will cost the 
Hochschild family. | can accept the horrific ethical ramifications of 
this because of the vagarious nature of free market economics; the 
family may accept or reject our terms freely, and the choice of what 
happens is entirely theirs. You can accept them because you 
wouldn't know a horrific ethical ramification from a fucking Shiba Inu. 
But it would make me remarkably more comfortable if you would be 
so kind as to pretend that you do. Just for the next half-hour or so. 
And, if all goes well, you get a little bit more of the last creature 
comfort that means anything to you at all, as do I." 


Tim had finished his cigarette. "Is that all?” 
David sighed and reached for his seat belt. "| hope that's all | need." 
Tim opened the car door. "Whatever." 


The house was nice enough, David supposed; ranch-style, situated 
on a few acres of land, well-stocked fishing pond out front, sporadic 
landscaping throughout the property. Upper-middle class. Not as 
nice as some of the celestial mansions that you found occasionally 
near the area of Site 19, the ones the staff occasionally made for 
themselves or some of the civilians they were smiling on that day. 
But these houses, this property? It was real. It wasn't some 
capricious illusion made reality at the hands of a fake "doctor" who 


won the anomalous magic lottery one day. David could respect that. 
Tim, as usual, could give a shit less. 


In one corner of the lot next to the road, David saw a very specific 
sort of hole. Just a few feet wide at most. But David could feel the 
tear in reality, its physical manifestation, went a lot deeper than that. 
The family had planted some cherry trees around it and called it a 
day. 


David knocked on the back door and smoothed his hair back. Tim 
finished another illusory cigarette (he thought the smoking looked 
cool), standing parallel to the door a few feet behind David in what 
he thought was a classic tough-guy apathetic stance. An older 
woman came to the door. "Hello? Can | help you?" 


"Mrs. Hochschild? I'm David Eskobar. We spoke on the phone? This 
is my associate, Timothy Hyne. We're here about your daughter?" 


Just for the briefest moment, the look of sheer relief and joy that 
came over the Hochschild matriarch made David flash back to when 
this job was enjoyable on its own merits. Back when it had all the 
genuine pleasure of helping people, combined with the little thrill of 
knowing he was helping to clean up the side effects that the Clefs 
and Kondrakis back at 19 didn't know they were leaving behind. 
Mrs. Hochschild stepped back and let David and Tim in. 


Mr. Hochschild was unconscious in the living room, half-empty bottle 
of Bacardi Gold rising and falling along with his chest. The top was 
screwed back on it, presumably the handiwork of his wife. 
Presumably not the first time in the last few months. They walked 
past him to a bedroom near the back of the house. A bizarre, 
vaguely speech-like sound grew louder as they approached. David 
knew the basics of what he was about to see. 


The girl was ten, maybe eleven years old. Bookish sort, judging from 
the glasses and the shelves on two walls. The third wall had — 
goddammit, of course it did — three Foundation posters on the wall. 
One a manga-artwork version of Kondraki riding the lizard, one a 
poster from Shenanigans '09, one from the TV show. Tim got the 
shit-taste look on his face and was about to say something; David 
gave him a look and Tim just crossed his eyes. 


The girl was next to her bed. She turned and walked past the edge 
of the bed, turned toward the door, and took a step. She said "Mom, 
| told you, he's just a —" and disappeared. Right as the words began 
to come out of her mouth, she was gone. She was standing back by 
her bed, walking to the edge, turning toward the door, speaking, and 
disappearing. 


"She's..." her mother said, "she's been like this for two months now." 
Mrs. Hochschild broke down in tears. 


"It's to be expected, ma'am," David said. "Tim and I, this is a 
problem we run into pretty commonly. Temporal loop, small scale, 
affixed to her personally. If we had the exact date and time, | bet it 
would correlate with a major shift at one of the big Foundation sites." 


"Oh, Sarah loved the Foundation stories so much!" Mrs. Hochschild 
said. "| mean, we all did, of course, we took her to see Senior Staff 
Shenanigans back a few years ago, we all had such a great time —" 


"Oh, fucking enough, goddammit," Tim said. "Suck Strelnikov dick 
on your own time, when | don't have to hear it." 


Mrs. Hochschild gasped. "! would deeply prefer it, sir, if you avoided 
that sort of filthy language in this household." 


David slapped Tim on the chest. "Sorry, whatever," Tim said. 


"This is very fixable," David said. "Tim and I, we're, uh, we're 
actually former employees of the Foundation. We're very familiar 
with these sorts of things. They happen when Senior Staff conduct 
large-scale reality shifts. Sort of a blowback, a recoil type of thing. 
The fabric of reality can only handle so much." 


"But...that can't be right," Mrs. Hochschild said. "They're...they're all 
so smart! So wise! They have God locked in a cell, for goodness’ 
sake! Why would they let this happen?" 


"They ain't that bright," Tim snarled. "They...we lucked out, that's it." 


"The Senior Staff do what they do for their own sake," David said. 
"You can't...you can't really feel it, exactly? But there's a, a sort of 
spell on you. On everyone. It makes you all love them, love what 


they do, see it as glamorous. It's called a memetic felicification 
agent, and they're broadcasting it from Site 19. As part of our 
service, we'll need to inoculate your family against it. It's part of 
getting your daughter free." 


David had made that part up a few years earlier. The family's belief 
in the Senior Staff's pseudo-divinity had nothing to do with their 
ability to be wrecked by them. But one of the few things David and 
Tim could agree on was that anything that took those people down a 
peg was good for the world. And most of that rationale was bullshit 
too, just words from the old Foundation that helped to explain the 
inexplicable. 


Stunned, Mrs. Hochschild tried to speak. "Are...are you sure about 
all this?" 


"Quite sure, Mrs. Hochschild," David said. "It's for the best." 


"Let's get to those payment negotiations you mentioned, shall we?" 
Tim said. 


"Oh, we have money," Mrs. Hochschild said. "That certainly won't be 
a problem. We'll pay anything to save our daughter." 


Tim's mouth spread in a predator's grin. "That's what we're very 
much hoping." 


"Ah...about payment," David said. "We don't actually accept cash. 
No real use for it for our types. There are only a few things that we 
can't make for ourselves. Certain...well, let's just say we need 
volunteers." 


"Well, technically —" Tim began. 


"We need volunteers to, erm, source our materials in an ethical 
fashion. A process that some of us —" David glared at Tim at that " 
— consider important." 


"I...I'm very confused, I'm afraid. What is it exactly you want?" 


"Well, | actually happen to be something of an amateur brewer," 
David said. "Beer fan. | try to find what | can, experiment with new 


stuff." 


"We don't have anything like that around here," Mrs. Hochschild 
said. "We're a religious family. Senior Staff has told us that 343 
frowns on the consumption of spirits." 


Tim snickered. David said, "Oh, you don't have any actual alcohol 
I'm interested in. I'm more looking for ingredients. Do you have 
anything consecrated?" 


Mrs. Hochschild took a step back. "Eh—excuse me?" 


"Relics? Artifacts? Old Bibles, maybe? Any religion will do. They 
have a certain symbolic power that embeds itself in the beer. Very 
unique, very subtle. Can't be replicated with anything artificial. It has 
to be something that others have believed in, put faith in. You can 
taste it." 


"You're..." Mrs. Hochschild took a step back. "You're insane! And 
you!" she said, pointing at Tim. "What...what horrible thing do you 
want?" 


"Ah, yes," Tim said. "About that." 


A few more sprinkles of oregano floated into the pot. "Mmmm," Tim 
said. "Do you even fucking smell that shit? This is beautiful, man. 
This is art. How's your thing?" 


David took a sip of the wort. "Eh. Not bad." He took another sip. 
"Wish they'd had something other than just Christian shit. | mean, 
the Bible was at least, hm," he said, sniffing closely, "at least eighty 
years old. Just wish | could get something different." 


"| feel that. You wanna go someplace overseas? Get some weird 
shit? Gypsies? Maybe some African shaman shit? I'm up for going 
global with this." He stirred the stew a bit more, brought the spoon 
up to his lips. "God damn, man. You sure you don't wanna try this?" 


"I'm good, man," he said. "And listen, sorry about the thing before. | 
can't judge your shit too much, | guess. And at least you gave her 
the prosthesis this time." 


"Aw shit," Tim said. "And the mama still kept bitching. I'm like, ‘bitch, 
we're gonna save your daughter's shit, and you're getting almost all 
of her back, whaddya want?’ and she's all crying and shit. And | was 
just like "fine, how about one of those metal blade things they give 
cripples that makes them all fast and shit’, and she just nodded and 
kept crying or whatever, and that's consent, right?" 


David shrugged. "Sounded good to me." He turned back and looked 
at his brewing equipment. "It'll take a couple of weeks to get this 
properly aged. That ought to take another half hour or so, hard as 
I'm dilating time around it." David gave it some thought. He looked at 
Tim. 


A broad smile broke over Tim's face. "Aw, shit, man. | can hook you 
up." He ladled some of the stew into a bowl. "I put some Italian 
spices in it this time. It's all kinds of special." He slid the bowl over to 
where David was.