“Why didn’t Icky come as well, if | may ask?” Victor said. They both 
remained awkwardly silent for a moment. 


“Lolly, do you want to field that one?” 


“Tinkles said that Bubblegum’s drinking was going to lead her to an 
early grave. | was just trying to help!” 


“What happened?” Victor asked. 


“| slipped her some Antabuse so she couldn't drink without getting 
sick,” Lolly replied, shrugging like it was no big deal. 


“Now, on top of being down an act, we have a two-tonne elephant 
going through alcohol withdrawal,” Manny sighed. “Icky is currently 
handling the situation, and so Lolly is here on her behalf.” 


“You’re not mad at me, are you? | really was just trying to help.” 


“| Know. What | don’t know is where you got an elephant-sized dose 
of Antabuse.” 


“You'd be surprised at what you can buy in bulk.” 
Manny gave a nonchalant nod and decided to change the subject. 
“Victor, tell me about this first guy again. You said he’s Sarkic?” 


“Yes, but | shouldn't have, and please don’t call him that either,” 
Victor insisted. “They never call themselves that, it’s like a slur.” 


“I’m well aware of that,” Manny said resolutely. The elevator dinged 
and the doors slid open to the ostentatiously gilded showroom of 
gleaming tiles, lacquered woods and crystal chandeliers; all of which 
looked not only very expensive but precariously fragile. 


“Oh, I’m starting to have second thoughts about this,” Victor said 
quietly to himself. The three of them approached a man in front of a 
draped cage. The man himself wore a rather over-the-top crimson 
cloak, the hood of which obscured his face. “Manny, Lolly, this is...” 


“Valmont will do,” the Sarkist replied in a haughty tone and an 
accent that, while sounding posh, was clearly an affectation. “And 
may | say what an absolute pleasure it is to meet two such 
beautifully deformed individuals.” 


“Deformed?” Lolly hissed through gritted teeth, her face turning an 
incandescent red. 


“Easy now; remember the guards,” Manny said. 


“Oh, you are lucky | always take Clown Impulse Suppressant before 
| leave the Circus!” she huffed, taking a deep breath and letting her 
face return to its regular colour. 


Valmont let out a condescending chuckle. 


“Deformities are nothing to be ashamed of, child. To survive and 
thrive in spite of them is proof of strength, and to flaunt them openly 
is to reject the masses’ insipid obsession with aesthetics.” 


“Listen Valmont, we didn’t come here to hear the Gospel of lon. 
We're here on business, so kindly show us what you’ve got.” 


“Of course,” Valmont nodded. He raised his hand and pulled the veil 
off the cage with a single melodramatic gesture. Inside was a mound 
of ghastly pale flesh, lumps upon lumps like a pool of melted candle 
wax. Emerging from the mound were several distorted human faces, 
their mouths perpetually open in an eternal scream, along with a 
number of limbs that were mangled and twisted beyond any hope of 
use. 


“Behold! Not long ago, while | was reaching across dimensions, | 
saw a paradise where the sun itself was blessed, where its rays 
transfigured every living thing it touched into beings of resplendent 
and rapturous malady. So enamoured was |, that | spirited one such 
flesh wright into our domain, in the hopes | might be able to recreate 
such a messianic plague and transmute our own abysmal reality into 
a utopia of instinctive, rapacious consumption! 

“Sadly, it seems that such beautiful beings can only be created by 
the sun of their native realm, and it’s far beyond my ken to 
synthesize the peculiar effects of that hallowed star. Having no other 
use for the poor creature, |’ve decided to sell it. 

"Imagine the horror on the faces of your audience when they see 
this amalgam of souls, this aberrant grotesquery, this singular pile of 
melted flesh, its mere presence inducing existential confusion and 
visceral revulsion, challenging the sanctity of nature and the 
benevolence of God! What do you say to that, upside-down man?” 


Manny was unmoved by the Sarkist’s sales pitch. He looked at the 
thing coldly, and then turned his head towards Valmont. 


“It’s dead,” he said, matter-of-factly. There was an awkward pause. 


“No it isn’t,” Valmont replied. 


“Yes, it is,” Manny said with an exasperated shake of his head. 


“Its anatomy makes it hard to move so it’s at rest most of the time, 
but | assure you it is alive,” Valmont insisted. 


“It smells likes it's dead,” Lolly said with a wriggle of her nose. 


“The miasma of necrotic and rancid tissue is to force those around it 
to confront the inevitability of death, disease, and decay!” Valmont 
claimed. 


“No, it’s indicative of its own death, disease, and decay,” Manny 
said, furrowing the brow where his chin should have been. “Look 
here sarkie, | know a dead beastie when | see one, and this thing is 
dead.” 


Victor gulped at the slur, but surprisingly Valmont didn’t react to it at 
all. 


“No, it’s like a predatory cat; it soends most of its time sleeping. It’s 
just asleep,” Valmont said with increasing desperation. 


“You’re actually going to commit to this?” 


“It’s not even breathing,” Lolly pointed out. “Sleeping things still 
breathe.” 


“Its breathing is very shallow. It has a low metabolism to conserve its 
energy. Chan, help me out here.” 


“Well, the creature was a little more lively earlier, so | suppose it is 
possible it’s merely sleeping,” Victor offered. Lolly pulled a bicycle 
(technically unicycle) horn out from the hyperdimensional 
hammerspace of her pockets and blew it at one of the creature’s 
numerous ears. All three men recoiled at the impossibly loud noise, 
but the abominable globster didn’t move an inch. 


“Yeah, it’s definitely dead,” Lolly announced. 
“Well it’s fainted now!” Valmont claimed. 


“Fainted?” Lolly asked in disbelief. 


“Yes, it’s like a fainting goat; plays dead when it’s scared. It's a 
survival mechanism.” 


“It’s like a predatory cat and a fainting goat?” 


“Well it is a chimera in a way, so that does make sense. It’s probably 
got some snake qualities in there as well. Quite the bargain you’re 
getting, really.” 


Lolly looked at him in bewilderment, while Manny just shook his 
head. 


“Mr. Valmont, if you cannot immediately provide some proof of life 
for this creature, we will have to pass,” he said firmly. Valmont 
became pensive and took a surreptitious step right up to the cage, 
which then rattled back and forth for an instant. 


“There, you see. It just moved.” 
“You shook the cage!” Lolly accused. 
“Victor, show us the next offer,” Manny ordered. 


“You would dare refuse such a treasure, from one such as myself no 
less?” Valmont asked, resuming his haughty persona. “You will rue 
this day, Circus freak! No one denies a Sarkist!” 


The three of them all suddenly looked at him in surprise. 
“What?” 


“Tell me, Sarkist, where does the Valkzaron say that Adytum is 
located?” 


“Ahh...in all of our hearts?” he replied uncertainly. 

“You’re not really a Sarkist, are you?” Victor asked, utterly mortified. 
“How dare you!” 

“In all of our hearts? Really?” Manny chuckled. 


“| thought you were being figurative! Adytum is like Atlantis, no 


knows for sure if it even existed, much less where it was,” Valmont 
claimed. 


“Wrong. Adytum is where it always was; in the northern Urals. lon 
just cloaked it with mind-bending magic and shifted it ever so slightly 
out of this reality,” Lolly stated, popping a sucker into her mouth. 


“How the hell would you know that?” 


“| watch that show Professor Abnormal's Science Lab. He did an 
episode on Adytum once.” 


“And I’ve been there,” Manny added. “Herman had us perform there 
once or twice. Not the worst thing he ever did, which frankly says 
more about him than it does about Adytum. Point is, | know 
Sarkicism. And you boy are not a Sarkist.” 


“...Okay, maybe not technically, but I’m dating a black-blood girl and 
her dad said that if | could just get rid of this thing for them that he’d 
accept me as an Orin and...” 


“Security!” Victor shouted. 


“No please! | need the money. Neo-Sarkic girls have expensive 
tastes!” Valmont cried as the two security guards dragged him 
towards the elevator. 


“So...1 vote no on the gross dead thing from the Sarkic poser,” Lolly 
said. 


“Agreed,” Manny nodded. “Victor, do you not do background checks 
on these guys?” 


“Those don’t exactly work with secret societies,” Victor informed him 
as they walked over to the next display. “I do apologize for that. | 
can however personally vouch for the authenticity of this next seller. 
Manny, Lolly, this gentleman goes by the epithet of Silicon Soul. 
He's a..." 


"A Maxwellian," Manny finished his sentence. "It's obvious enough." 


The short man before them was pale and gaunt, with a pair of 


electrodes permanently attached to his smooth scalp. Their wires 
fed into something under his heavy black coat. There was a neural 
port behind his right ear, and his amber glass eyes had mechanical 
apertures. There was a black breathing mask over his nose and 
mouth, and some small dark device upon his throat. Though his right 
arm was mechanical, it hung limp and useless, seemingly as broken 
as his god. 


"It is nice to meet you," he said in a raspy, modulated voice. "| 
believe | attended your Circus once, as a child. It deeply perturbed 
my still developing sense of reality, and the image of a man with an 
upside-down face has haunted my dreams ever since." 


"We try to make a difference." 


"You said your name was Silicon Soul. That sounds like a screen 
name," Lolly commented. "You go by a screen name IRL? Lol." 


"| consider myself a foreigner to meat space, and my name reflects 
that," the man replied. 


"So what do you have for us then? Some Broken tech?" 


"No, actually. Like that Sarkist swine, | too have a creature that | 
came upon more or less by happenstance and don't know what to 
do with." 


He took the cover off the pedestal behind him, revealing a ‘tabby cat’ 
with dark purple fur. It was a long-haired breed, a little overweight, 
and its violent eyes shone with an electric luminosity. 


It was also floating a few feet off the ground. 


"Oh my god, it's adorable!" Lolly screamed. "Its eyes are just like 
Icky's!" 


"| named him Khoshekh, since I've heard of a similar creature by 
that name described of in that anomalous radio broadcast that leaks 
into our reality from time to time," Silicon informed them. 


"The one from that nexus in the Southwest? Yeah, I've been there 
too," Manny said. "Briefly, | mean. We never got to perform. We 


were chased out of town by a mob screaming ‘interlopers'’. 
"Can | pet him?" Lolly asked with eyes as big as saucers. 


"Just be careful. He's not the friendliest cat I've ever known," Silicon 
nodded. Lolly approached the floating feline, only for it to hiss at her. 
The hissing it made sounded more like something from an 
enormous serpent than an overweight cat, and its teeth were not 
even mammalian, let alone feline. 


"Poor thing. He's scared to death. How much?" 


"Lolly, hold on a second," Manny insisted. "Aside from just not being 
friendly, does this animal have any other liabilities | should know 
about?" 


"It is venomous," Silicon admitted. 
"Venomous?" 


"Yes, ithas venom sacs in its mouth, as well as some venomous 
spines on its back, so you do need to be careful when interacting 
with it." 


"That sounds like something you should have told us before you 
said Lolly could pet him," Manny said with an agitated shake of his 
head. "What about tricks? Can it do anything?" 


"Well, for now, it just sort of floats there, which to me seems good 
enough for a freak show," Silicon said. "| did a bit of research, and | 
think there's some sort of flux pinning or something going on. | 
guess it doesn't really matter. But it's purple, it's got glowing eyes, 
it's poisonous, it makes scary noises, and it floats! You've got animal 
tamers, right? I'm sure they could teach it some tricks, or at least not 
to bite people. It's no more dangerous than any other animal act you 
have." 


"What happened to your arm?" Many asked. 
"What?" 


"| said what happened to your arm?" 


Silicon took a glance down at his disabled arm, seemingly trying to 
will it to move and failing. 


"_..It's unrelated to the cat." 
"Really?" 


"Yes. | mean, okay, maybe it's tangentially related to the cat. When | 
found it | tried to pick it up by the scruff of the neck, as you do with 
cats, but it didn't like that so it somehow produced an electric surge 
in my arm that fried all of the electronics." 


"Sir, I'm afraid this animal has too many potential liabilities for us to 
consider incorporating it into our Circus," Manny said firmly. 


"But he might die if we don't adopt him!" Lolly objected. The cat 
hissed again, this time flicking out multiple barbed tongues, wriggling 
like the tentacles of a Kraken. 


"...it might kill us if we do," Manny countered. 


"But we can take precautions. Put up warning signs or something, 
and then everyone could enjoy him," Lolly suggested. "Icky and | 

could use him in our ‘pussy lovers’ routine, or we could put him in 
the petting zoo!" 


"Only if we want every child to die a slow, painful death," Manny 
said. "Lolly, | get that this thing is cute..." 


"Super cute!" 


"But it's also very dangerous. So dangerous no one can even touch 
it safely. | really can't imagine any scenario where someone doesn't 
get poisoned by this thing. Do you want that on your conscience? 
You said you weren't going to let Icky down. Do you really think Icky 
would want something this dangerous around kids, or up your skirt?" 


Lolly gave the creature a forlorn look, only for it to swipe at her with 
horrifically distended claws. 


"No," she admitted. "Fine, we won't get him. I'm sorry Mr. Kitty. 
Maybe Victor can find you someone immune to poison to be your 


year did that artist profile thing say?" Subject then proceeded to 
repeatedly scream about the year. Testing ceased shortly after. 


Subject: Dr. L . Subject claims to like orchestral music, but says 
she prefers audiobooks. 

Artist Profile: Pulitzer and Nobel Prize winner Hailey L is one 
of the most prolific novelists of the 21st century, having written forty 
novels in twenty years: roughly two novels a year. Mrs. L is 
well-renowned for her fiction writing seminars, drawing students 
from all over the world. Much controversy surrounds Mrs. L 
strange autobiography, released only in audio format. 

Music Results: The results were not music, but a chronological list 
of audiobooks, all read by the subject. The genres of each 
audiobook don't seem to follow any sort of pattern: the first book, 
"Seasons of Longing," is a historical romance that slowly gains 
fantasy/time travel elements as it goes on. The next novel, "Hills of 
Glory," is a war story that switches to supernatural horror halfway 
through. The stories of these audiobooks are captivating according 
to the listening researchers, and continue increasing in quality as 
they go on, culminating in the second-to-last track, "All This Time," a 
family epic with supernatural elements. The final track, 
"UNKNOWNTRACKOO000," starts out as a straight-forward 
autobiography of the writer. The narrator begins by talking about her 
home life, how she picked up writing, and how she wrote her first 
novel, but then the narrator begins berating the subject for not 
making the same choice, growing increasingly angrier and louder. 
All attempts to turn down the volume do nothing to quiet the 
narrator's screaming and insults. SCP-624 was disconnected from 
the speakers, shut off, and testing ceased. 

Subject Comments: Subject had no official comment. Subject 
requested temporary leave from the Foundation. The request was 
denied. Subject requested Class-A Amnestics. This request was 
also denied. 


S