"It's just confusing, Adrian." Adrian stirred his oatmeal quietly. Geoff 
had managed to snag a corner table in the cramped meal space, to 
preserve a shred of privacy. "All this commotion with the, the 
organizations," Geoffrey continued. Adrian swallowed a spoonful of 
the white-grey mush. Then he sighed. 


"Not ideal, | know. | have... not a plan. But | want to leave them," 
Adrian whispered as he cast a glance over his shoulder. The hall 
was far too small to support any number of people comfortably. 
There were hardly more than a dozen men living in this house, and 
every instant was shared. He thought maybe the meal could look 
like The Last Supper, but he couldn't see it. 


Adrian put it out of his mind, focusing on Geoff. Geoff's eyes were 
warm sadness, his mouth opened to speak. "We weren't ready for 
this. They were. This was their plan." 


Adrian looked back again, frowning, and spoke. "Their plan shouldn't 
have counted on me. Or..." he trails off. 


Geoffrey coughs. "Sorry." 

"No, it's okay." 

"You want to leave." 

"Can we? Would they find us?" 


Adrian gestures over his shoulder with his thumb. Geoffrey knows 
he's not really talking about their housemates. He doesn't reply 
because he doesn't know. 


conditioned to resist physical and psychological stress. 
As Foundation agents and other personnel fit this 
category well, | propose we recruit volunteers from the 
ranks of these personnel or draft them if necessary to 
test SCP-901. 

- Dr. Major 


Footnotes 
1. Of particular note are SCP-901's similarities to other law 
enforcement based SCP's, such asSCP-1002andSCP-2701. 


« SCP-900 | SCP-901 | SCP-902 » 


"It's just... cramped, here," Adrian murmured. 


He fidgeted. Geoff chewed his cheek. After a moment, he nodded. 
Minutes later, they left the room. 


Adrian had locked the door to afford himself a few minutes of 
privacy. His shaving bag was carefully packed, and he took a 
moment to watch his own reflection while he cleaned his teeth. 


His eyes sagged in their sockets, and his dark skin was pocked by 
blemishes. He looked like he hadn't seen sunlight in a year. And he 
had his hosts to thank for the shade under his eyes. They're not 
known for respecting quiet hours. In fact, Adrian was quite certain 
one of them was digging a tunnel underneath the basement in which 
they all slept. 


He turned to go, but looked back briefly, and pressed a thumb to the 
mirror's surface. He examined the print carefully, but there was 
nothing hidden inside. A grimace on his face, he unlocked the door 
and left. 


As he did, he found himself in front of another man, taller, with a 
mop of black hair that didn't suit his narrow face. "We heard you. 
What you're doing." 


Adrian shrunk back. He pursed his lips. 


"We protect this place, you know? There's a barrier. They can't find 
us. You should be thankful.” 


Adrian's eyebrows furrowed. "Thankful? For-" He stopped himself. 


"If you want out, you can leave. But you're not ready for who's out 
there. We could make you ready. We've seen your work; you have 
real talent." 


Adrian looked at the man's face and saw nothing. He looked down. 
No way out. "Thank you." 


The man nodded and left without a goodbye. 


Adrian knew now. He had to leave. 


The two men struggled down the foggy shoulder. Adrian's legs were 
getting sore; Geoff trudged without complaint. They'd passed the 
point where they could knock on doors and ask for help. Every 
house said no. Every store kicked them out. And now there were no 
buildings, only the road. The Cool Kids were hours behind them, 
trapped in their paradoxical safety. 


Adrian held his head low. There was no-one but he could tell he was 
surrounded. And he stopped and caught his breath. 


"There's nothing here. We shouldn't.... not meant to be a fugitive," 
Adrian wheezed. 


Geoffrey's voice was clear through the mist. "We can go back. 
They'll let us in." 


Adrian held the silence close. 


"| know this isn't... great. Since the show, I'm... I'm sorry. With... all 
we've gone through, and... | had to leave it behind. | thought we 
could... do better. Do some good." 


A hand clasped Adrian's shoulder, and he closed his eyes. "We will. 
Let's get going." 


Adrian looked up at the sky. It would get dark soon. And he saw 
something up there, something only he could see, when he realized 
the stars looked just like they did when... 


The artist turned. "We can come back. When we're ready." 

Geoff nodded. "We'll be ready." 

And the two friends turned around, and started on the way back. 
Addendum: Less than three weeks after initial recovery, 


a disk was found on a rural road during a search of the 
area, believed to be associated with POI-2985. The disk 


was labeled as "Disk Seven: Stars". Due to scratches 
and weathering, the contents were inaccessible. 


3: A Doctor Spends a Birthday in a Cell 


Gabriel twirled his glasses in a calloused hand. For a moment, his 
hands were all callouses and he felt sore, but it passed. 


After a while, watching the glass distort grew boring. He was aware 
that Sarah was behind him, standing on a bench. The dozens of 
others weren't there, they were far away, but he could still feel them 
like they were close to him, so close that he could feel static on his 
skin. 


"Why stay behind?" Sarah broke the silence and the air in the room, 
which had been stale, changed immediately. 


He swiveled in place, lips curved in a dejected frown. She was only 
partially whole, of course, having long shed the modifications that 
marred her face during her time in ‘captivity’. Her left eye was glass 
but it may as well have been a window. "Guess I'm just nostalgic." 


"| Know you're troubled, Gabe." He frowned. Just because she 
could, doesn't mean she... 
"You've had doubts," she continued. 


"Call me a militant athiest." His body became closed. "I've just 
been... considering the whole... WAN." 


"How can you doubt when you've been immersed in WAN's light 
since your internment? Brother... doubt doesn't need to exist 
anymore." 


Gabriel stood up. He felt the heat in the room rising. He knew others 
were watching from far away. Not his old employers. No-one 
watches the security cameras for the holding cell. "I've been 
thinking, Sarah. If that thing is WAN's light... why can | doubt?" 


Sarah exhaled through closed lips, producing a sound of derision 
that forced his skin to slack. She'd been practicing. "Choice is 
essential to the new Guides. You of all people should-" 


"But that's not how it works. It works by defining, or clearing. Or is 
WAN not consistent? That doesn't sound right, miss. I've read your 
guides. And once upon an epiphany, | used to trust them." 


The prophet furrowed her brow. Her standard-issue detainment 
garments were flowing robes of pure information, her eyes beacons 
of cleansing radiation. "It doesn't matter, Gabe. You're dwelling in 
the past. More wander into the light every day. Why not work to 
move forwards with us?" 


Gabe smiled a sick smile, and the room lost its edge. "I'm not going 
anywhere. Because | can't go back. It won't let me." 


Sarah's face didn't register an emotion. A minute later, it didn't 
register at all. The rest of those deeply affected by the light were off 
cruising space, or visiting art galleries. Did they care? Maybe. But it 
doesn't matter. 


Gabriel Sandu sat on his bench again, in his tiny cell to which no key 
can be found. 


Notice: Site-wide surveys indicate that, as of 
12/08/2015, over 90% of all personnel working at this 
Site, including those with Level 1 clearance and D-Class 
personnel, have knowledge of and are therefore affected 
by SCP-2660's primary infohazard. Finding a more 
effective counter-meme has been elevated as high- 
priority research. 


Until further notice, secrecy is to be upheld as to the 
status of those detained in the weeks following the initial 
recovery incident. No surveillance upon their cells is to 
be performed by any personnel. 


Lost Time 


“What were you, Harken?” 

“...what, like in a cosmic sense? Probably a dog or something.” 
“Must you always be an asshole?” 

“No, it's a choice.” 


They'd been stuck at the same posting for three days now, and 
random acts of violence were becoming more and more appealing. 
A trashed-out storefront, it bore the distinction of being across the 
street from a hidden Church meeting point. It was also supposed to 
be the place where they were getting “back up”, owing to the new 
crackdown procedures in place. So far, neither Agents nor 
Churchgoers had shown. Unable to call in until reinforcements or 
Church subjects were five days overdue, Harken and Kramer had 
taken to annoying each other to pass the time. That is to say, more 
than normal. 


“Seriously, tell me.” 


“Why do you of all people care about this? I'm an Agent, a faceless 
cog in a faceless machine.” 


“Tell me, or I'll break something that's recently healed.” 
“...Fine...ok, OK! Back up, Jesus.” 


Kramer slipped away with feline suppleness, keeping low on the roof 
line. Technically, they were observing the business across the 
street, but had all but given up on any real action. Still, it didn't pay 
to be caught napping. Harken sighed, hunkering down lower on the 
low roof ledge and glaring over at Kramer's self-satisfied smirk. 


“You know, it's not fair that you have zero issue with causal bodily 
harm, and | can't even threaten you with anything really.” 


“Life sucks. Dish.” 


Harken threw up his hands in exasperation, shaking his head and 
sighing deeply, resigned to defeat. 


“I was in the army for, like, two years. Some personality profile said | 
had ‘high moral flexibility’, so | got bounced to Intelligence and... 
what?” 


“Sorry, just trying to imagine you in camo and combat boots” Kramer 
grinned, smothering a laugh. 


“ANYWAY. | think they were happy to shift me off. I'm not great in 
direct combat anyway...did a lot of interrogation stuff, which | am 
varying degrees of proud and ashamed of. The CIA came knocking 
one day, promised all the James Bond shit. | turned them down...| 
know a bullshit sell when | hear one. It just kinda...stuck, though. 
Couple months later, we had a interrogation get out of hand. Way 
out of hand...new kid, got a little over-patriotic and electrocuted 
someone suspected of terrorism. Not normally a issue...but as it 
turns out, he was innocent, and his dad was a major player in 
OPEC. Suddenly the CIA didn't look like such a bad option.” 


Harken lit a cigarette, leaning back and avoiding Kramer's fixed 
stare with practiced ease. He continued to smoke in silence just long 
enough to annoy Kramer without causing bodily retribution. 


“So they shoved me off to the CIA and glossed things over to make 
me look dead. Or incarcerated...you know, | really never checked 
which they said. Anyway, | did most of the same stuff as | did with 
the army, but with a bigger budget and almost zero oversight. It was 
fun sometimes, but more often than not it was paper pushing. Spies 
spying on spies for information nobody really needed. Enough to 
make me nostalgic for live fire exercises. Almost. Started drinking 
more, not bad, just more often than normal.” 


“That's to say there was a time you didn't drink?” Kramer's face was 
as expressive as a Moi. 


“Well...yes, actually. We were all fresh-faced kids, once, if only fora 
little while.” He grinned, pointing with the burning end of his 


cigarette. “Even you. | know, | know, the church takes Crusaders at 
a young age...but you played hopscotch and slept without 
nightmares once.” 


“We're talking about you, not me, you weaselly sociopath.” 


“Indeed we were.” He grinned, taking a deep drag. “I did well and 
got in trouble in about even measure. Ended up with a team 
following a lead on some kind of suspected Russian bio-weapon. 
Expected to follow ghosts for weeks, then end up staking out a hotel 
for a while and go home empty, but ended up on a farm out west, 
looking at a hell-iguana in an acid bath, surrounded by 'CIA' agents 
from some other department. The other fellows swallowed their 
crap, but | wouldn't release the site. Actually held a guy at gunpoint 
for a bit.” 


Harken sighed, remember the total lack of concern on the Agent's 
face, even with a gun jammed in it. “It all felt rotten, and | had to 
have a commander expressly tell me it was above my pay grade 
and to STAND DOWN before | let it go. Even then, | tried to log a 
complaint...which got me yet another reprimand. | kept seeing that 
big...thing, in the tank. It was watching me, somehow. | could...feel 
it. | got stunningly drunk, told my CO to fuck a goat, pissed in 
someone's roses, and fell asleep on the lawn in front of my 
apartment. At some point, | crawled inside.” 


“| woke up to some guy sitting on my goddamn side table, smoking. 
Even better, | was naked at the time, so the first bit was me just 
flailing around, trying to figure out what in the skippy fuck had 
happened. He started talking before | calmed down, so | missed 
some of the first bit. He told me about what I'd seen the day 
before...about what it could do, and had done. He told me about 
how | could go on trying to ignore it, push it away...or try to 
understand what was really going on.” 


Harken chuckled, shaking his head. “Honestly, | don't remember all 
of what he said...but what sold me was the honesty of it. For one of 
the first goddamn times, | was being told the nasty shit right along 
with the good. No gilding the lily, no idealized pitch...| was 
impressed. Plus, | figured that just going back to life after my little 
bender might not be great, so...| signed up. Went through 


admissions for about six months, doing tests and evaluations, 
getting told by large men with guns how serious everything was...so 
pretty standard for my life thus far.” 


He stopped, looking over to Kramer, her face still a calculated blank, 
watching like a predatory bird. He lit a fresh cigarette off his old one, 
rubbing his head. 


“Hey, come to think of it, did you ever go through admissions?” 
“No. I'm not filed as an Agent. Different protocols.” 

“Oh...well, yeah. So...ahh...yeah, that's my story.” 

“No it's not.” 

“What...oh. Listen, I've told you that bit already, it's not-” 

“No, you haven't.” 

“Yes | goddamn have, Kramer!” 


“You've paraphrased at best. You're the intelligence man, don't you 
feel full operations knowledge is critical to any mission?” 


“...absolutely fuck you.” 
“Duly noted. Squeal.” 


Harken sighed heavily, closing his eyes and rubbing them with his 
free hand. “I got lumped in with a three man team, Agents Billik, 
Hon, and Fourteen. We did pretty well, Billik and Hon were the 
muscle, Fourteen was the tech agent, and | handled intel and the 
‘spy shit’, as Hon would say. We didn't do a lot of direct SCP-related 
stuff...went after groups and people mostly, but we did our share.” 
He laughed, smoke clouding around him. “Jesus, went after a new 
skip once with a eval team...Fourteen was normally this badass 
chick, all brass and nails, but it turned out this thing had an attractive 
effect with insects and such...we all woke up to her shrieking, run 
out to find her up on a chair, in a sea of caterpillars...oh god...” He 
started laughing hard, half-choking on smoke, coughing and 
doubling up even as he giggled. 


“| mean, | know it was dangerous, and we ended up losing one of 
the recovery guys, but god, Fourteen up on that chair, squealing and 
hopping from foot to foot, going 
‘getthemawaygetthemawaygetthemaway’...it was great. She was 
pretty pissed at us for a while, but | think she came to see the funny 
in it eventually. It was great.” The laughter trailed off in to silence. 
The quiet stretched out slowly, the odd sound of a far-off car or wind 
barely filling it. Harken sighed deeply, staring at his shoes.