By all accounts the combatants had begun by shoving at each other, 
impugning each other's machismo whilst stopping short of claiming 
outright dominance. The tussle had apparently broken up and Marv 
had gone back to his bunk, when, between soggy coughs, Cancer 
had muttered something that was either 'motherfucker' or 'your 
mother fucks Pakis', depending on who you asked, and this slight 
was apparently more than Marv was willing to accept. 


Marv rushed across the central space of the dormitory and shoulder- 
barged Cancer to the floor. Such was the initial ferocity of the attack 
as Marv continued to press forward, jabbing at Cancer's face and 
shoulders with his massive fists, that it seemed like the fight might 
be over then and there. Then Cancer's arm blurred, and all Marv's 
forward momentum was nullified at once, as though he had hit a 
brick wall face-first. Cancer got up, seeming almost bored by the 
encounter, and walked into Marv, swatting at him with his fists, and 
every time they landed, you could see or hear something rupture or 
break. "Oh, man!" someone shouted as a wet snapping noise 
attended a brutal jab into Marv's ribs. Marv made one valiant 
attempt to turn the tide—a wild, swinging punch right into Cancer's 


face. It hit the older man just above his left eye, tearing the skin, but 
Cancer continued to batter Marv, breaking his nose, his jaw, 
bringing a knee down into his belly. Marv vomited explosively over 
the dormitory floor. No-one wanted to step in to stop the carnage— 
they stood, mesmerised, as the Belmarsh inmate, one eye closed 
with blood pooling around it, beat his near-comatose quarry. 


There was a click and a buzz, and black-helmeted men poured in. 
Cancer arched his back and bellowed as 50,000 volts from a taser 
overrode his nervous system, before collapsing on the floor. There 
was some discussion between the guards, and one of the MP7s was 
brought in and the safety removed, but ultimately they decided to 
decamp, taking Marv with them. Keagan watched as Cameron Moat 
and Travis Lemure helped the twitching Cancer to his bunk, and 
sensed the balance of power in the block had changed decisively. 
He couldn't see Patrick Goettsch from where he was—Goettsch 
would be petrified, and with good reason, though if he had any 
sense he would realise there was still no immediate threat; there 
was no way Keagan could get anything out of him before the guards 
reached them. Keagan tried to stay awake that night, wondering 
whether Goettsch might try a preemptive strike with a piece of 
rolled-up newspaper or other makeshift weapon. But ultimately he 
found himself drifting, and succumbed to unconsciousness. 


Keagan was walking—well, floating, in the way one sometimes does 
when one finds oneself in a strange place with no memory of how 
one got there—down the corridors of a richly appointed office. There 
was a cold, sharp wind blowing through broken windows, and the 
whole place seemed to have been abandoned in a hurry, papers 
strewn over the floor and spilt mugs of coffee on the desks. A cat in 
a Union Jack bow tie crossed the corridor ahead of him, mewing 
plaintively. Someone was singing, the voice cracked and broken: "... 
moving iiiinto the body of a beetle. Getting ready for a long, long 
craaawwwil...". Keagan drifted up the stairs—at the end of the 
landing was the door from which the voice was emerging. The 
plaque read 'Prime Minister's Office’. Keagan stepped inside, for the 
door now stood open. 


“Take a seat, my good man," said the singer, breaking off to address 


Keagan. His eyes were blurred vortexes, tendrils emerging from 
them spiralling out through the broken windows of his office, 
tapering away to the horizon. "Would you like some more wine?" He 
held out a glass of clear, golden liquid to Keagan. 


"| haven't had any yet," Keagan said. He took the glass, but what 
was inside was now a deep, opaque, glutinous red with a sharp tang 
of iron, and he set it aside. 


"So," asked the man. "Do you like what I've done with the place?" 
He gestured to the rotting, sagging wallpaper, the carpet which 
squelched underfoot, the shards of glass on the floor, and the 
papers which whirled about them as though they were at the eye of 
a tornado. 


Keagan felt himself compelled to ask: "Is it like this everywhere?" 


The lunatic blurring spirals of the man's eyes focused on him. "Not 
quite yet. They're making a last stand in the American Midwest. 
They have someone or something there who's keeping me out. But 
they can't last much longer." 


Keagan nodded. "Is there anything you need me to do?" 


The man laughed. "You can deliver my mail." He held out a sheaf of 
white envelopes, one of them perforated with diamond-shaped 
holes. "Take good care of it." 


Keagan caught a glimpse of the name to which the tattered 
envelope was addressed—'J. Moire'—but then the floor broke up 
and floated away, and Keagan fell down into the darkness, where 
the thing in the metal box beat and scratched the walls of its metal 
prison. 


He awoke slowly, the wall of the dormitory cold against his face, 
listening to the whispers as other D-Class exchanged contraband or 
discussed the fight earlier in the evening. Keagan closed his eyes 
again, and slept a dreamless sleep until the morning sun shone 
through the slats at the top of the walls, by which time the dream 
had mostly evaporated from his memory. 


If Keagan had hoped that in the first few days he would be left to his 
own devices, he was proven wrong. A blue-hat showed up at 0600 
hours and called out a number of designations and the tasks they 
would be assigned. 


"D-8671. Maintenance, Science Division." 


A few others were assigned Special Containment Procedure 
numbers, and although no-one had told them what to do, Keagan 
saw them starting their own lists above their bunks, passing around 
the biro someone had found inside the radiator and which was by 
general consensus to be held in common and any transfers to be 
witnessed by three other inmates, lest it 'go missing’ shortly before 
someone found themselves with pen-shaped holes in their kidneys. 
Those assigned skip numbers that seemed more often than not to 
precede an 'X'—no-one had actually said out loud what they 
suspected it to mean, but it was understood that everybody knew— 
received commiserations or bonne-chances depending on the 
outlook of any given colleague and set off with trepidations. 


So it was that Keagan found himself charged with a mop and tasked 
with cleaning up a particularly unpleasant organic-looking slurry 
which had pooled around a charred plinth in Laboratory Kappa-3. 
His occasional attempt to make light conversation with the white- 
coats fell flat—for the most part they seemed surprised that he could 
even talk, and seemed annoyed by his intrusion. After about the 
third attempt he began to discern a pattern in the way they turned 
away, looked into the middle distance or turned red when he talked 
to them. He had experienced it himself, when he realised that he 
had signed the Judge's death warrant through his distrust. Guilt. 
Why guilt? Surely not simply that their programme would put him in 
danger—he was a multiple murderer, a lifer, the worst of the worst. 
Ergo, they knew something else, something... the smell of the slurry 
became overpowering and he found himself hunched over, hands 
on his knees and the mop half-buried in the substance. He looked 
down on it, and the thought crossed his mind that if he took a 
sample and looked at under one of the microscopes around the 
edge of the laboratory he might discern microscopic tatters of 
orange fabric. A great wave of nausea rose through him and he 
began to heave, breathlessly. 


"Interesting," he heard from the white-coats who had noticed his 
plight. "Some new manifestation of the...?" "Stand back in case it 
happens to him too." "Make a note: possibly transmittable—fuck, | 
got some on my shoes earlier...". 


"He's just feeling sick. Having to clean this stuff up will do that to 
you," a voice said firmly. Keagan barely registered what was 
happening as the speaker guided him to a chair and fetched a glass 
of water. The other white-coats watched for a while, then drifted 
away one at a time in disappointment when it became clear Keagan 
was suffering from nothing worse than a bout of dry-retching. The 
researcher who had taken pity on him was young—pale with very 
dark hair and light blue eyes. 


"How are you feeling?" he asked. Keagan nodded his head shakily 
to indicate his improving constitution. 


"Some of the stuff they'll have you doing can get pretty disgusting, 
I'm afraid." 


"You're telling me." 

The researcher paused. "Look, D-8671..." 

"| have a name, you know," observed Keagan mildly. 
"Sorry. What's your name?" 

"Keagan O'Neill," said Keagan. 


"Keagan. | thought | might ... well, | didn't come here under the best 
circumstances, and once you're here you're basically cut off from the 
outside world. | mean, the supply trucks come in on Thursdays, but 
they aren't allowed to talk to you or bring in anything that might allow 
you to communicate with the outside world. That includes papers. 
There are people who mean a lot to me on the outside, and although 
| told myself it was safer for them if | didn't know anything, | can't..." 
Keagan saw the young researcher's hands tremble slightly, "...well, 
it's tough. | was wondering—have you heard anything about the 
Beaumonts? The London Beaumonts? They haven't been in the 
news, or..." 


Keagan closed his eyes for a moment. Every second he stayed here 
was a second he didn't have to spend picking the mop out of the 
gelatinous cellular soup on the floor. Lie, he told himself. Make 
something up to keep talking, just for a few moments longer. But he 
couldn't. 


"I'm sorry, mate," he said. "I've been out of circulation a while 
myself. And no offence, but | don't think we moved in the same 
circles." 


"Oh," said the researcher, fidgeting uncomfortably. "No, of course. 
Why should you? Of course not. You get it into your head that 
everything revolves around you, that everyone else is thinking about 
the people that matter to you to, all the time. | can't leave, that's the 
trouble. | mean, I'm not being held prisoner or anything, as far as | 
know—” 


"That's nice," Keagan observed drily. 


"—sorry. But if | leave, the people | came here to escape can find 
me. For me, the Foundation was a refuge. It makes me overlook a 
lot of things." 


The silence in the air felt more significant than Keagan could entirely 
comprehend at this moment. But the conversation had, it seemed, 
run its course, and the guard in the corner was watching with 
growing impatience. 


"I'd better get back to it," Keagan said quietly. "| didn't catch your 
name?" 


"Edward," said the researcher. "Edward Gradley." 


Chapter Five: "Learners" 


Deprived of his protector, of human rights, and even an individual 
cell, Patrick Goettsch managed to make himself more scarce than 
Keagan would have ever dreamed. From what the others told him, 
Patrick had made every effort to become a model prisoner, 
volunteering for every unpleasant duty and experiment going, even 


volunteering in the place of other prisoners to ensure he never 
returned to the dormitories for more than a few minutes, never while 
Keagan was there. Keagan saw glimpses of him in the corridors, 
dark rings around his eyes—from fear, lack of sleep or what he had 
seen, Keagan was unsure. 


For his part, Keagan had begun his own list beside his bunk. 
"D-8671—1552." 


1552 was a cell containing an English bulldog. Keagan's job was to 
go in, put down a bowl of water and another bowl of chicken chunks, 
and muck out the corner. Before this, however, he was treated to a 
lengthy briefing by two white-shirts. 


"Wherever possible, you should avoid looking at the subject." The 
‘subject’, apparently, was the dog. "Do not make eye contact with 
the subject under any circumstances. Do not look at the surface of 
the bowl of water once you have entered the enclosure. Do not look 
at the contents of the subject's old feed bowl. If you see the 
reflection of the subject anywhere where it seems unusual to see a 
reflection, exit the enclosure immediately. That includes the 
subject's liquid waste. If possible you are to check over the subject 
for fleas or other signs of poor health. Veterinary knowledge is not 
required—simply look for anything that appears unhealthy. If the 
subject attempts to make eye contact, exit the enclosure 
immediately. The subject must remain inside the enclosure at all 
times." 


The second white-shirt equipped Keagan with dark glasses with an 
odd plastic sheen and checked him over for reflective surfaces. 
Having satisfied himself that Keagan was as matte as it was 
possible for a human being to be, he nodded and released the door 
catch. Keagan was all but shoved inside as the animal looked up, 
wagging its stumpy tail. 


"Good boy," said Keagan warily, keeping the white-coat's comments 
in mind and trying to keep the dog in his peripheral vision as he 
edged around it towards the food bowl. "Good boy." It bounced 
around him, trying to get his attention, pushing its smushed-in face 
against his leg. 


<2 minutes, 6 seconds> @@/@@@@@/@@/@ manifesis 
<2 minutes, 12 seconds> SCP-682 breaks restraints 


<2 minutes, 14 seconds> @@/@@@@@/@@/@ /aiches 
onto SCP-682 


<2 minutes, 15 seconds> SCP-682 begins vocalizing 


<2 minutes, 16 seconds> @@/@@@@@/00/@ 
demanifests, taking with it only the section of SCP-682's 
skin which was carved with infohazardous data. Test 
aborted. 


<End Log> 


Item: Dr. Heikkila 


Tissue Test Record: 
Denied by O5- 


Termination Test Record: 
Testing denied by O5- 


Notes: Dr. Heikkila is prohibited from interacting with SCP-682 in 
any possible way. Why he would even attempt to do so is beyond 
any logical reason. Dr. Heikkila has been detained for possible 
memetic contamination. Denied. 


Item: SCP-2305-A 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 
An SCP-2305-A instance generated involving SCP-682, and has 
been transcribed here by order of O5- . 


Item #: SCP-682 


The food and drink bowls, both made of textured black plastic, were 
both empty; Keagan tucked them awkwardly under one arm and 
placed down the fresh ones. He hoped the food might attract the 
animal's attention, but it continued to jump up at him, and he 
wondered how much human contact it had in here, behind the heavy 
steel door.