The memeticist fought the first impulse he had (maybe if | tried some 
cognitohazards on them?) by reminding himself of the futility of such 
ambition (I'll probably end up filling the gaps with something worse 
anyways) and his duty to report (if they weren't hit first, anyways). 


"In case you can hear me, no time for recovery positions, everyone," 
he said, opening the airtight door of the Clean Room. "Try not to 
swallow and breathe at the same time." 


Richard did not care for the decontamination processes as he left 


the Clean Room (what was there to clean when you left it, 
anyways?) and traversed the large industrial unit of the Engineering 
Section. The inviting safe room and its many security measures 
were empty; the researcher walked past them, unfazed. No 
particularly dangerous activities had been planned for that day, after 
all. Nor warnings on any unplanned activities. No attackers that may 
have known how to overtake the PA system, or how to flood the 
place with mind-blowing memes, or where Area-08 was, or that it 
existed in the first place. 


He cocked his head to a side, bemused. How easily they forgot 
"secret" did not mean "safe." Richard hurried, wide perspex windows 
and solid concrete walls to both sides. 


To his right, seven D Classes had been left to the devices of three 
confused security drones in their testing area. The machines were 
unprepared for any play-possum war games, and so they kept 
beeping at the unresponsive D Classes. Richard didn't notice the 
wriggling as the drones pierced the men and women with their 
electrified spikes, yet he could not help but notice one of them had 
scampered to the furthest corner and stood still behind the 
unmoving body of another inmate; he made the mental note that he 
had to screen her for memetic resistance afterwards. 


To his left, the largest Clean Room of the Sector, where the 
Foundation was building the modules that would eventually form the 
first Venerian aerostat. The room was no longer "clean", geniuses 
and qualified workers writhing on the floor, stewing in their own shit 
and puke. Richard didn't notice the expression in some technicians's 
face, who had struggled outside of his clean suit to try and get rid of 
some imaginary pest while screaming; he did wonder what the man 
screamed about (that response was incoherent with those of the 
other cases after all), but there was no time to go back and there 
would be security footing anyways. 


Other people, better people, would have been bewildered or 
enraged by all this. Weaponized cognitive hazards, memetics in 
particular, were a horrible thing, after all. They would be scared, 
evidently. Even curious; curious as to how it was possible that they 
where still standing where so many others had fallen to the ground. 


Richard kept strolling, serene, always smiling, to the elevator at the 
end of the concrete corridor. He even stepped up his pace, breaking 
into a run, to get to the elevator; as he called it down, Richard 
pondered the many fascinating secrets of the human psyche those 
new memes would unlock over the next days, as he would figure out 
how to treat them, erase them with amnestics, replicate them on 
brain simulators, then on people, and then erase them again... and 
do it all over again. 


And over. 


He entered the elevator; a uniformed guard was inside, counting the 
number of buttons in the floor selector. Richard gently pushed him 
aside and pressed the floor ground one. 


The man went back to his counting, Richard noted, face frozen in an 
anguished smirk and pointing at them, from one to minus fifteen, 
over and over. 


And over. 


Richard took note, smiled from behind the face plate and did not 
stop him. 


The elevator hit ground level, the door opening with a mellow, 
friendly chime... 


The entire complex shook; there was first a roaring explosion. Then, 
a vibration and a constant, distant rumble, part a howl and part what 
the world would sound like if it was snapping in half. 


And there was a familiarity in all of it, he thought, that wiped his 
smile and all other concerns and made him run. 


The guard kept counting, Richard would remember later, but he was 
shrieking the numbers now. 


The researcher ran, turned right where he should have turned left, 
kept running for a few more seconds and pushed the half-opened 
door to the left side of the Mission Control Hub of Area-08-B. He got 
blinded by the sunlight, but the bother only lasted for a second, as a 
completely equipped shuttle took off from Launch Bay 3. 


He stared at the undeniably awe-inspiring column of boiling smoke 
that went on and on and on, and took it all in; the sight of the tiny 
needle-like shine on top of the cloud-like pillar, the thinning yet still 
deafening sound, the feeling it had grafted into his conscious self. 


For the first time, he felt the suit was in the way. He slowly took the 
hood off and kept staring up. As the roar of the Foundation torchship 
shuttle /nquisitive died away for good, he managed to say: 


"We got lift-off. Yes, we do, don't we?" 


The two guards by the door, mercifully unconscious, did not see the 
smile their superior flaunted over them.2 


"And that's you up there, isn't it, my lovable melomaniac?" 


The sky held no answers for him, or preferred to be less than 
forthcoming. 


"And how will | reach out to you now?" 


"Twenty eighty-five?” 


"Yes, commandos of sorts. They breached 
and managed to get to the island somehow. 
They took a shine to a Coeus or Heimdall 
element, apparently; whatever it is, it's 
expunged now." 


"Well, that is no good. I'll be talking to 
Direction, maybe they'll tell me. Firsthand 
experience and all that." 


"It's none of our business now. They have 
mobilized the entire Atlantic Reserve and 
recalled Depth Hunters and Bigger Fish, for 
whatever good that will do now." 


"None. None whatsoever. | don't think they 
plan on coming back here in the immediate 
future." 


"Still, not our business. Now, we have sent two 
choppers, hop in the first one that gets there 
and come to the Area right now. There will be 
a speedboat to pick up the injured in a few-" 


"Oh, they could have been injured. There just 
weren't, as far as | can tell.” 


"You said you needed medical assistance!" 


"They do, for certain, certainly, but not the kind 
of assistance that patches bullet holes. | 
believe more than one around here must have 
had a case of haematuria ex vacuo, and most 
are unconscious, dehydrated and dreadfully 
drowsy. And maybe somewhat psychotic in 
punctual cases, yes, yes. Make sure they get 
sedated, then locked in some of the Black 
Boxes until we're sure it's not contagious. 
Have the current inmates sedated and moved, 
if need be. Ah, I'll need clearance for all the 
cameras in 08-B. And tell those people in the 
speedboat to get some Class C before coming 
around.” 


"You know we're not supposed to-" 


"Not for me, no, for them. Memetic warfare, 
Otero." 


"Are you sure?" 
"Am | a memeticist?" 
"I'm asking because they used-" 


"Yes. Yes | am. Now, unless someone 
drowned in their last meal, | am fairly certain 
there will only be a few D-Class casualties 
from Testing Bay 5, down in Engineering. 
Check it. Ah, and check if | have clearance for 


[DATA RECOVERY (1): Level 2 Clearance required] 


Consistent with a form of unknown radiation. This effect 
appears to emanate from SCP-716, and appears to 
expand the longer SCP-716 remains stationary ina 
location. Effects include: 


<Expanded list and definitions with cited examples 
available from Central Records by request> 


¢ Alterations in the size/shape/behavior of local flora 
and fauna 

« Mass “suicides” and die-offs of local flora and 

fauna 

Alteration in weather patterns and severity 

* Genetic damage, behavior alteration, and physical 
deformity in humans 

* Hallucinations (auditory, tactile, olfactory, visual) 


Also of note is the behavior exhibited by individuals 
entering R.E.M. sleep within this “area of affect”. 
Subjects, after entering R.E.M. sleep, will begin to 
“sleepwalk” in the direction of SCP-716, even in 
individuals with no history of nocturnal disturbance. 
Subjects allowed to enter SCP-716 will enter the fetal 
position on the floor of one of the train cars, and continue 
sleeping normally. Groups of people entering in this way 
have been shown to be capable of triggering the second 
form of transportation/movement exhibited by SCP-716. 


[DATA RECOVERY (2): Level 4 Clearance required] 


Report seeing a vast, empty plane of hard-packed earth. 
This plane appears almost totally featureless, and 
without any sort of border. The only feature of any kind is 
“a endless string of train cars, going from one horizon to 
the other.” This is assumed to be SCP-716. Tests have 
shown the environment to be totally sterile, and lacking 
in any source of water. The plane appears to go through 
a 72 hour day-night cycle, with what is reported as a “too 


twenty eighty-five, if you may." 


"You do, it's Level 2 clearance now that they 
have escaped." 


"Ah! Such a merry coincidence." 
... and off they were, to steal the Solidarity. 


Footnotes 

1. It might be worth mentioning at this point that smiles are not 
necessarily kind. There are unforgiving smiles. There are also 
spiteful, challenging or boastful smiles. Certain smiles give away the 
user's pretension, while others are clearly honest.In Richard's case, 
it was a very precise and practiced reproduction of what he had 
found to be considered a "kind, yet neutral" smile by test subjects. 
He believed in scrupulousness. 

2. Let's say that it was not kind, and very much not neutral. 


Too Insane To Fail 


The members of the Black Rabbit Company were spending their 
well-earned rest time in a temporary hideout deep in the mountains. 
They were sorting the bounty they got from raiding a nearby crime 
syndicate's base. Nanami hadn't spoken a word since she got her 
hand on a certain device. 


"It seems that we stumbled into something really funky. You gotta 
see this," she said, breaking the unusually long silence. "Remember 
the weird commando guys who were around during the raid? They 
left in such a hurry when we got close to them. One of them dropped 
this," she continued, showing up the phone she was studying until 
then. It had a logo with three arrows pointing inwards on its back. "It 
uses a special cryptosystem, but | managed to get in. Turns out 
those guys belonged to some sort of secret agency hoarding a 
bunch of items they deem anomalous." 


"Cool, what did you found out about them?" asked Tomi. The other 
catgirls and Wizard drew closer, as Nanami started talking about 
something actually interesting for a change. 


"They've got a huge site not far from here. | downloaded quite a few 
docs about the items there, before they noticed me and shut down 
the connection. Most them are badly censorsed, probably because 
our commando guy isn't high enough on the totem pole. This one 
though, is relevant to our interests." She handed the phone to Boss, 
and waited till the other finished reading the file together. 


"So, with this, we could find out who was our father?" asked Hana, 
wagging her tail. 


"And probably even more," added Wizard. He was glad that girls 
finally had a chance of finding closure. He know that they awakened 
in some sort of lab without any memory, with nothing to rely on other 
than each other. Since they got out, they were looking for clues 
about their origin. Even though they talked about it rarely, Wizard 


learned enough about their situation to understand their pain. Hell, 
they didn't even know when their birthday was, they just used the 
first day they could remember as such! 


"It seems like we just found the place for our next gig," announced 
Boss. She looked determined as always. 


"But how are we going to get in? Just walking to the gate would lead 
to some intense firefight pretty quick," said Momoko. "Not that | have 
any problems with it, but still." 


"That's why we'll use a plane," replied Boss. 


"Wait a minute, you girls got a plane?" asked Wizard. "You never 
mentioned it." 


"Nope, but there's a guy who owes us a favor. Saving people's lives 
around the world comes with some benefits.” 


* 


Only five days had passed since the Company first learned about 
the Foundation, and they were already skydiving above its largest 
base of operation, Site-19. The least impossible way of getting in 
there seemed to be from the top. Since Wizard had no prior 
experience with parachutes, he was going in tandem with Tomi. His 
screaming provided the atmosphere the girls got used to during their 
first few missions with him. 


"We are close enough. Your move, Momoko," said Boss. Momoko 
took aim with Pierce, her rocket launcher, and produced a sizable 
hole in the rooftop. 


They entered the facility through the hole. The on-site security units 
were yet to appear. 


"Let's continue as planned," said Boss. "Tomi comes with me to get 
what we are here for. Hana and Nanami will secure a way for our 
evac. Momoko, you take Wizard and do your best to keep the 
enemy pinned down." As she finished, they ran in three different 
directions. 


When Momoko and Wizard took a turn to the left, they found 
themselves face to face with two dozen agents. "Identify yourself!" 
shouted one of them. 


"Watch your mouth, you better address us respectfully, foolish 
human!" said Momoko, without falling into a panic even for a 
second. "Don't you recognize the Great Zamboni, the Shatterer of 
Earth?" 


"Uhm, no?" said the agent, somewhat confused. 


"Damn, you are truly a stupid one. Do mages have to write write 
wizzard to themselves for you to recognize them?" To emphasize 
this, Wizard lifted his hands and struck a wizardly pose. The air was 
filled with the sound of absolutely nothing happening. 


At this point, the vast majority of the world's special forces teams 
would have opened fire at them. However, the Foundation knew 
better. They've dealt with immensely powerful enemies, and they 
had a tendency to be real weirdos. They decided to be cautious and 
looked at the expert for some advice. 


Unlike all the others, the expert was wearing a white lab coat. While 
the agents were armed with a variety of firearms - Momoko even 
spotted one in the back holding something closely resembling a 
panzerfaust - he only had one of those tiny guitars on him. He raised 
his hand to stop his comrades. Wizard's clothing, the escape suit of 
doubtful usefulness and the ridiculous bathrobe and hat, showed 
that he was a person who could do whatever the hell he wished 
without having to worry about anything. In other words: a Type 
Green. He speculated that the catgirl beside him was one of his 
creations. 


"Don't mind us, please proceed," he said, opening the way for 
Momoko and Wizard. He knew from experience that the only place a 
bender could be shot was its back. 


Momoko reached out to Wizard's hand, and they started walking 
past the puzzled agents without even looking back. She knew that 
leaving by backing away would immediately blew their cover. 


The doctor quietly signaled the agents to take down the intruders. It 
was finally time for them to take action. As the agents prepared to 
shoot, Momoko casually threw a flashbang behind her back. Then 
they started running. 


[Boss: We've got the package, and some bonus too. 
How's everyone doing?] 


[Momoko: Wizard and | met these soldier guys, who 
looked very serious, so we had to use one of the old 
tricks from Ukraine, which they seemed to buy at first, 
then...] 


[Boss: Spare the fun parts for tomorrow. How about the 
others?] 


[Hana: We found an airplane for our evac. Get to our 
position.]