"It's not dead? Wait," Kim says. "I think | know this one. It's coming 
back to me. 'Ideas don't die." 


Next: Unforgettable, That's What You Are 


SCP-582’s portrayal as a godlike entity has led toa 
collection of commonly featured avatars: SCP-582’s 
actual form, if extant, has yet to be featured in any 
narrative. A list of notable manifestations of SCP-582 is 
as follows: 


¢ Manifestation Aloha — The most common instance 
of SCP-582, being a humanoid creature standing 
approximately two meters tall and wearing thickly 
layered robes often compared to burlap. The figure 
is hooded, and no face is visible underneath. 
Common additional details include carrying sacks 
or bundles of unknown content or the appearance 
of heavy bleeding. Manifestation Alpha is the least 
dangerous of SCP-582 manifestations, with death 
occurring in only 23% of instances. 

Manifestation Beta — A hexapedal entity appearing 
to be made out of molten tar. Manifestation Beta 
will attempt to attack any nearby humans 
unprotected by certain preventative measures 
detailed in Document 582-34. Manifestation Beta 
has on five occasions appeared at the same time 
as Manifestation Alpha, seemingly using 
Manifestation Alpha as a host or disguise. 
Manifestation Gamma — A manifestation appearing 
as a one-hundred meter wide plant-like entity, 
giving off an intense white light and substantial 
radiation. The strength of the radiation is 
unmeasured, but it is enough to be fatal to humans 
within 6-10 hours. Manifestation Gamma does not 
appear to take notice of any outside stimuli, and 
has on one occasion been observed growing out 
of or feeding off of Manifestation Beta. 
Manifestation Delta — The manifestation in 
containment within the Foundation, appearing as a 
poorly defined humanoid shadow. Due to the 
nature of its containment narrative, Manifestation 
Delta is incapable of exiting its containment 
module or interacting with personnel. 
Manifestation Epsilon — (Revised / /2005) 


Unforgettable, That's What You Are 


"El, it's finished." 


Lyn Marness is more than ninety years old and hasn't stood at his 
full height in ten. He was a tower of a man in his prime, two metres 
tall and built like a boxer. Nearly nobody he ever met was able to 
look him straight in the eye, at least not and tell him "No". Illness has 
gradually eaten away at that over the years. He feels as if he lives at 
the bottom of a deep bath, everybody he ever meets looking down 
at him from slippery, unscalable walls, none of them able to reach 
down to help him. He's spent his final months crumpled up in bed 
like a dying spider, changing to a corpse's colour ahead of time. It 
might have been bearable if he'd lost his mind, but he remembers 
what he used to be: a leader, a powerhouse. He used to be able to 
alter the course of terrible events for the better, to get justice. He 
used to protect people. 


"El. You can wake up now." 


But there's a warm wind through his thin colourless hair and there's 
direct sunlight coming down on him now, and the heat is filling him 
up like a tonic. He's outside; it's been too long since he was last 
outside. When he opens his eyes he sees his lake, the one in the 
Northwest which he used to have all to himself every summer. He's 
on a boat, his boat, lying on a blanket laid on the deck. A few 
kilometres away behind them is the little lake house, empty. 


It's perfect. He didn't know he had the strength left to safely leave 
the hospital, let alone travel this far. But if he'd put his mind to it and 
selected a final moment, this might have been it. 


"Do you remember me?" 


Marness looks, with eyes which are strengthening. The woman 
speaking is seated on the deck beside him, attentive. She has a 
large plastic box full of medical supplies open in front of her, anda 


light suit jacket laid on the deck beside it, and she has her sleeves 
rolled up so she can work. As he watches, she carefully disposes of 
a needle. 


A dim memory surfaces and starts taking shape. The woman is 
twice as old now as when he knew her last, and visibly twice as 
confident. It would be difficult to forget her. He taught her everything 
he— well, everything he could remember at the time. He remembers 
her as a field agent. He remembers sending her through Hell, a 
fistful of times. "Marion." 


"El," the woman softly explains, "you died. You died surrounded by 
grieving family. They loved you very much, and they cried over you. 
The funeral for the fake is in a few days, but unfortunately you won't 
be able to see it yourself. You're dead now, and this is what comes 
next." 


"Marion. Hutchinson." Marness feels gold spreading through his 
bones, miracle juice. 


It's Wheeler now, but she doesn't correct him. "When you retired 
from the Foundation, El, we did what we do to all of us who retire; 
what all of us agree to when we sign up. We gave you some 
medicine which made you forget. As you stepped out of the door for 
the last time, all the work you did for us — great work, which saved 
lives — evaporated away, and your cover story sealed over those 
years and became reality. That's why you've spent your whole 
retirement believing that you were a former section chief at the FBI. 
It's what you wanted, it's what we wanted, it's what you agreed to. 


"But you, alone, agreed to something else as well. And you must be 
starting to remember, now, what that something else was. I've 
injected you with a serum which throws the human aging process 
into hard reverse, and it affects everything: organs, tissues, 
memories. You'll be coming up on it soon. Remember?" 


"Yes," Marness croaks, remembering, dizzy. 


"You signed over your final twelve hours to us. You asked for a full 
and happy and well-deserved retirement... but now, for the last day, 
you work for us again, because of one particular job. | have it in 


writing here, you see? Do you recognise your signature, and mine? | 
witnessed." 


"Yes." 
"Do you remember who you are?" 


"Doctor Lyn Patrick Marness, of the Foundation," he says. 
"Antimemetics Division founder." 


Wheeler smiles with relief. It's good to see him again. 


"We need some memories from you," she explains. "Memories 
which nobody else in the world has access to, and which are buried 
so deeply that we can't extract them without killing you. So this 
afternoon, that's what we're going to do. We're going to extract 
those memories, and once we're done, you'll be dead." 


Marness has already begun to regress to the time when he himself 
set this wheel in motion. He remembers, very clearly, discovering 
the mystery in his own head, the blank spots which he couldn't 
explain, and couldn't safely access with any kind of chemical or 
physical technique. He remembers deferring the mystery until now. 


"What happened in 1976?" Wheeler asks. 


* 


Marness sits up. His skin is beginning to clear and his breathing is 
improving. 


He feels as if his brain is cleaved in two by a wormhole, such that 
his eyes are focusing on different time periods. In his right eye he 
sees the lake and the boat he's dying on; in his left he sees a 
collage of electrifyingly familiar past faces and places. Bart Hughes 
with his grin and thick glasses and baby face, looking like some kid 
dressed up as a Foundation researcher; the original Site 48 crew, 
great techs but a hopeless excuse for a softball team; young Marion 
with steel-strong nerves and a mind like a laser; suits and lab coats 
and MTF operatives. And everywhere paperwork, and floods of 
serial numbers. 


He starts to speak. 


1976 was the year he founded the division. He brainstormed the 
whole thing in one legendary week, hammering out the science and 
then distilling the first chemical mnestic with the help of a hand- 
picked trio of assistants, the first Antimemetics researchers. No 
antimemetic SCPs had even been observed up to that point — the 
entire operation was a shot in the dark — and yet the team 
immediately struck gold. Passive black holes of information, active 
predatory infovores, unrememberable worms which covered the 
human skin like dust mites... contagious bad news, self-sealing 
secrets, living murders, Chinatowns. 


Wheeler wonders if there might be something more serious awry 
with Marness' head. His version of events is hopelessly romantic. In 
Wheeler's experience, nobody looks back on Foundation work 
fondly. 


"But it was all too fast," Marness says. "Special containment 
procedures take time to develop, much more time than | took. The 
Foundation as a whole acquires about a dozen new SCPs annually. 
| found that many in one year, essentially single-handedly. It was too 
easy. It was as if | knew it all already, and was just catching up. 


"And then... one day | realised | couldn't remember my life before 
Antimemetics. | knew I'd been a Foundation operative for decades 
prior, that was where | got the authority to start my own division, but 
there was nothing else there. It was a wall in my mind, which even 
mnestics couldn't get me past. | went to the paper archives and 
looked at my own personnel file, and..." 


Marness trails off. Not because he's forgotten what to say next, it's 
deliberate. The trailing off is exactly what happened. 


"You woke up back at your desk half a working day later, 
remembering nothing," Wheeler says. "You went through the loop a 
dozen times before someone realised what was happening and 
broke you out of it." 


Wheeler knows all of this. The file still exists, and the antimemetic 
effect still clouds the back half of it. All of this would be over ina 


second if any of that back half could be read. 


Marness goes on. "When | assembled the evidence what | found 
was... well, a hole. Like a jigsaw with only the edges and corners. 
So | did the only thing | could do, | looked at the shape of the hole. 
And, together with Bart Hughes and others, | formed a theory. 


"This is not the first Antimemetics Division. Before 1976, there was 
another one. | was part of that division; possibly, | led it. Certainly, | 
am the only known survivor of it. Something happened to that team. 
Some antimemetic force chewed up and swallowed the idea of the 
Antimemetics Division itself. | was let off lightly; | lived. The rest of 
those people, whoever they were, however many of them there 
were, are missing without trace." 


Wheeler nods. "This much we know already. | was there when you 
wrote the note, remember? The question is known. It's the answer 
that we can't get to without killing you. It's the answer that we've 
waited all these years to get at. I'm here to ask you: What. 
Happened?" 


Marness covers his right eye and grimaces, trying. He fails. "It's not 
there. You haven't sent me back far enough, there's still that wall 
there in my head. | remember why the question exists, but | don't 
remember the answer. | need more." 


Wheeler swabs his arm, and gives him another ten years. 1! 


* 


Marness seems like another man once the second X dose takes 
effect. Wrinkles are sliding back up into his face, muscle mass is 
returning to his limbs, but it takes Wheeler a second to realise the 
real reason why; she's just booted him back across the field/desk 
agent transition. Marness has regressed a little way past senior 
management, the realm where most problems were solved by 
saying the correct words, and into a time where he survived through 
physical fitness, situational alertness and hands-on experience. 


Marness gets to his feet for the first time in years. He scans his 
surroundings, examining the placid golden lake and the sky and the 


boat itself. He doesn't sit down again. He smooths down his hospital 
gown, wishing he had a sweater and, separately, some fishing gear. 
He brushes a hand through new, old hair. His sideburns are back. 


"We weren't Foundation at first," he says. "The first Antimemetics 
Division was a U.S. Army project. It ran parallel with Manhattan 
during World War II. We called ourselves the Unthinkables. 


"It began as an experiment in advanced propaganda. The objective 
was to cut through the physical conflict and find a way to rupture the 
ideological machine, to obliterate the idea of Nazism. After two 
years, enough theory had been developed that the task had been 
reduced to an engineering problem. Another two years, and the 
engineering problem had been reduced as well, and what we had 
built was a very special kind of bomb. 


"Unfortunately, we didn't understand what we'd built. Back then, we 
didn't have the mnestics or the shielding that we could use to protect 
ourselves. We didn't understand how far ahead you need to think 
when you're working with this kind of technology. 


"We got looped. It was textbook. We built the unthinkable bomb and 
test-detonated it... and it worked perfectly. The bomb destroyed 
itself, and erased its own successful detonation, and flattened all the 
knowledge which had gone together to build it. We forgot that we 
had ever built the bomb at all, and started over. 


"To our credit, we realised pretty quickly what must have happened. 
There was a four-year gap in our progress now, and there was no 
other way to explain it. But by the time we put the pieces together 
the second time, the war was almost over. The Nazis had been 
defeated by conventional means, and the Japanese had been 
broken by the first atomic bombings. So we completed the second 
antimemetic bomb, and after that, we sat on it." 


Marion Wheeler is silent for a long moment. 


"The U.S. Army," she says doubttully, "was secretly developing 
antimemetic weaponry as early as the 1940s." 


"We sure were," Marness says, with more than a hint of pride. 


"Of course, there is no one in the whole world who could back this 
up." 


"That's right," Marness says, flashing a smile he hasn't flashed in 
decades. "You only have my word for it. Cute, huh? Still, this is why 
you resurrected me, isn't it? For the sake of one more good war 
story. God, I've missed shop talk." 


"| resurrected you because | want a very specific question 
answered," Wheeler says. "Although | can see that in a way you've 
already answered it. This bomb was the means, wasn't it? The old 
Antimemetics Division—" 


"—the Unthinkables—" 
"_bombed themselves. Somehow." 
"That's right," Marness says. 


"From context," Wheeler goes on, "| assume that they knew what 
they were doing that time. | assume it was not an accident." 


"It was not," Marness says. 


The displaced half of Marness' brain is anchored in the Seventies 
now, so the True History of the New Original Unthinkables is an 
open book to him. And he reads: 


"After the war the second bomb collected dust for years. We began 
sketching improved designs for a third bomb, but around that time 
oversight was starting to flicker out. We completed our research and 
production objectives, and were given no further objectives. Funding 
became shaky and we couldn't figure out why. It wasn't entirely clear 
that the project overseers knew what we were doing. Or even that 
they remembered we existed. It was a side-effect from the research, 
of course, one we had no way of managing at the time. 


"In 1951, a cult movement began in Ojai, California. It was... wrong, 
everything about it was just wrong. In a matter of days it was a 
national phenomenon and still growing. It was all over the news. To 


spread that far in months would have been credible, but days was 
simply impossible. We, in the team, could see that the philosophy 
behind the cult was unnaturally contagious. It was the opposite of 
unthinkable, it was unforgettable. We knew that this was what our 
bomb was designed for. We prompted the overseers for direction. 
But there were no orders.