The agent spoke into his comm, and Armando woke up ina 
concrete cell. 


He definitely was never free in the Foundation. Endless tests 
prodding and poking and pulling at his arms. Endless gray. Endless 
tasteless food and neutral, muted rehearsed lines from the 
researchers. 


He almost broke out, once. 


He fought back against the people keeping him there. But he lost 
control. He didn't own the arms, he was a slave to them, a host. A 
victim of their unpredictability. 


SCP-2735-3 and several Foundation personnel known to have 
studied SCP-2735 are also in its containment chamber. The other 
SCP-2735 instances display similar wounds to SCP-2735-4. The 
Foundation personnel appear to be drowning. 


Subject: SCP-2735-1 and SCP-2735-3 

Photographed Activity: Motionless in the center of their 
containment chamber. 

Photo Result: SCP-2735's containment chamber is replaced with a 
large unidentified body of water. Multiple unidentified SCP-2735 
instances are within frame, along with SCP-2735-1, SCP-2735-2, 
SCP-2735-3 and SCP-2735-4. SCP-2735-1 is constructing a device 
out of an unknown substance. SCP-2735-2 is emitting 
bioluminescent light near a large group of SCP-2735. SCP-2735-3 
and SCP-2735-4 are several meters away from the other SCP-2735 
instances, and appear to be communicating with each other. 


Subject: SCP-2918 

Photographed Activity: Stored in its hangar 

Photo Result: The photograph shows SCP-2918 and Captain 
Derek Kato surrounded by several smiling children of seeming 
Middle Eastern decent. Captain Kato is embracing SCP-2918, an 
expression of relief on his face. 


Subject: SCP-2952 

Photographed Activity: Being petted behind the ears by 
Researcher Yew. 

Photo Result: SCP-2952 has shifted onto its back. Agent Davies is 
now scratching its underbelly. 


Subject: SCP-3310 

Photographed Activity: Floating within Crater Lake, undisturbed. 
Photo Result: Scene has completely changed. A large hemlock 
tree now dominates the majority of the photograph, located on the 
shore of Wizard Island. Two unidentified humanoids are visible at 
the base of the tree, with one being depicted in the act of ripping out 
and consuming the heart of the other. 

Notes: It is unclear which mythological figure is represented by each 
figure. 


The rush of a chance to escape weakened his hold on the 
monstrous arms. Their unpredictability killed an innocent and cut his 
escape short. What would he do even if he escaped? He had 
realized then, that he could never be truly free. So he let them take 
him back. And there he stayed. 


Armando had learned the value of eavesdropping at a very young 
age. He saw fewer and fewer people working at the site. Hushed 
communications, letters and numbers that meant nothing to him. 
Something something 96. Something something T-P-K. 


The evacuation came soon after. Every "SCP", every doctor, every 
janitor, every folder was picked up and thrown in transports. He 
never got to see what the facility actually looked like from the 
outside. 


Sirens, followed by explosions. The truck holding his cell stopped 
abruptly, then began to melt. The wall of Armando's chamber 
sparkled and turned into salt, which cracked and crumbled and was 
blown away in the breeze. A four-eyed woman with translucent white 
hair and skin lowered her goggles, and smiled. 


"You coming with us? Or you want us to drop you back off at that 
Site?" 


He took her hand, and walked toward his new future. 


The magical blue matter they had offered him made him feel like he 
was being baptized. He was in control now. Every arm sang along 
with his soul. They moved like water at a single thought. He could 
fee! the texture of reality through them. Whatever had been moving 
them before was either dead, or had fled in fear at the blue-green 
that now filled him. 


His new friends spoke of the future, of a new era dawning. The 
world had been dipped in this blue matter, they said, and it was only 
a matter of time before it soaked through completely. 


Still not fully free, with the Foundation doing everything humanly and 
inhumanly possible to catch them, but Armando felt he was finally on 
the right road. 


It had been almost four years since then. The great Tree had 
awakened, and Armando had watched it rise and branch from his 
cloud perch. Even now the beautiful fractal of blue and green could 
be seen off in the distance, stretching into the heavens. 


He exhaled and closed his eyes, feeling the breeze envelop him. 
Look at me, world. 


And for the first time in his life, Armando felt like he was truly, 
undeniably, free. 


It was calling them home. It was calling them to Thrive. 


Tilda Moose and the collection of beings that were once Mobile 
Task Force Sigma-3 stepped out of the Way, leaving the sanctuary 
of the Library's halls. Once, the land on which they stood was called 
Chicago. Now it was a desert of obsidian, with not a structure in site. 
lt was beautiful. It was empty. 


Moose considered going back one final time; there was nothing 
forcing them to do this. But curiosity was what had defined their life. 
If it defined their death, then so be it. The truth of humanity's nature, 
its purpose, lay just ahead. Moose could no more turn back than a 
drowned man refuse air. 


The group began to rise in the air, half willing the action themselves 
and half being cradled by the force above. Moose dimly felt the 
impact as their physical body was ripped asunder by the detonation 
of the Foundation's final weapon. It was pathetic, really. Bathed in 
the light above, they were so far beyond this now. The so-called true 
remnants of humanity had only harmed themselves. 


As they approached what they knew to be the source of their power, 
the old worries returned once again. Would they be enslaved to this 
being's will? Would their identities be stripped away and fused into a 
mockery of life? What was the catch? What was the price? 


"Why are you doing this?" they whispered with lips of Aether. And 
then came a bolt of understanding. Humanity was never the 
beneficiary, the purchaser of this power. This fate, this godhood, had 
been determined long ago by whatever forces had borne humanity 
to begin with. 


And who were they? There was always another secret to learn, and 
now Moose had all the time in the Multiverse to find the answer. 


05-8 looked out at the burning Pacific Ocean and smiled sadly. 


An errant thaumic wave had washed into the sea and had done 
something to its chemical structure. Turned it into gasoline, or 
something similar. From there it had only been a matter of time. 
Heat was everywhere these days, after all. 


Literally, as it turned out. A stray flow of magma from a nearby 
tectonic shatter flowed past the eighth Overseer, coming within 
inches of his shoes. 


He felt nothing. The shoes weren't even real. 


He looked up, and saw the mutants there, hovering in space and 
looking down at him. Or at least looking down in his direction. He 
doubted any of them were paying attention enough to see him 
specifically. 


But he could see them, through the planet's thickening atmosphere. 
And he was very proud that so many of them had survived. In truth, 
it was all that he had ever wanted, and he considered himself lucky 
that so many had been saved to carry the species to new heights. 


Or distances, he supposed. Space was funny. 


He had spent so many thousands of years taking care of this absurd 
little species. Watching them grow up. Taking their first steps out of 
the oceans to live under the hot sun. If he was being honest with 


himself, he had always been more partial to the oceangoing species, 
but in a surprising twist, they'd turned out to be less smart than the 
primates. Or way, way smarter, he guessed, looking at the 
senseless destruction all around him. It was hard to tell. 


But in time he had grown to love them. He bore their sorrows upon 
his great shoulders so that they could keep going without being 
crushed. He watched from the depths as they built great cities, and 
pushed the darkness back with their every breath. 


He'd seen great promise in the Foundation since its inception, but 
was concerned at the outset that they were a touch... zealous. 
Useful, but after a while, necessary. An absolute requirement for 
human life to go on. O5-8 could have done the job on his own if he'd 
put his back into it, but greatly appreciated the Foundation making 
his mighty burden less heavy over the years. So he chose to watch 
them, from the inside, to steer them in the right direction when he 
could without toppling them over. 


He realized now that he had failed hilariously in this pursuit, but 
thankfully it didn't matter anymore. 


For the first time, humanity was truly free. And that meant the thing 
that called itself Overseer Eight could finally let go of the weight it 
had carried for so long. 


So he did. 


And in that instant, he could hear the horrifying unified roar of 
thousands of starving abominations from across space, now 
immediately aware of the Earth's existence. They began to tear 
through space like a machete through pudding toward the 
defenseless and exposed planet, intent on consuming this next meal 
in a long line of planets devoured that stretched back to the 
beginning of time. 


“Are you sure this is how you want to play it?” 


A woman materialized next to the Overseer, in a wash of seawater 
than splashed upon the nearby lava and sent up clouds of steam. 
She was incomparably beautiful, clothed in corals and shells and 


seaweed, with hair as red as blood and skin of alabaster. She 
smiled in a way that failed to be anything other than predatory. 


She was the single most violent, barbaric, and disgusting thing that 
Overseer Eight was aware of, and she was also his sister. 


He replied, “Really? After all this time, you express doubt?” 


She laughed daintily. The Overseer heard it echo through the 
thousands of mindless creatures that lived behind her eyes, until it 
became a howling cacophony of bestial hunger. 


“No, dear. | have no doubts. Merely surprised at your sudden... 
laxity.” 


He snorted, and brushed some ash from the lapel of his charcoal 
suit. “Il have no reason to keep holding you back. There aren't 
anymore people for you to devour and enslave, if you haven't 
noticed already. You and your spawn are free to do as you wish. 
You have everything you've ever wanted. Freedom. A legion of 
fanatic servants that you've twisted beyond recognition. An entire 
cosmos to gnaw on. Go nuts. But I'd leave soon, if | were you. There 
are some disagreeable things on the way, and they'll try to kill us if 
we're still here.” 


She seemed pensive. “Drawn by what, | wonder?” 
The Overseer looked up. The last humans were gone. 


“Us, | think. Or perhaps just curious about an active and energetic 
planet appearing out of nowhere. Either way, they're coming, and 
not for polite conversation.” 


She regarded him with unconcealed curiosity. “But what will you do, 
my oh-so-serious brother? No more of your so-called innocents to 
keep safe from bad old me. No more Foundation to prop up on your 
shoulders. Are you going to guard the rocks now? You're doing a 
terrible job; | think most of them are on fire.” 


He smiled, and began to gather his essence around him. “I might, 
actually. What's left of them, anyhow. What purpose do | have, now? 
I've been defined by death and pain and sacrifice for my entire 


existence. I've spent millions of years trying to stop you from 
munching on the life that gave us our very reason to exist.” 


He chuckled. “Il am the sorrow of all humanity. | am their pain, their 
endurance, their memory. Their mind, and honor. The one who 
stopped them from being animals, who watched them, taught them, 
and ministered to their better nature while keeping out the things 
that wanted to eat them. Our elder brother in his wisdom has 
decided that their time has finally come. They don't need me 
anymore. And they don't need you, either. If they ever did. They're 
beyond us now. What am | going to do? My dear, I'm going to do 
what I've always done. | am going to endure. | will shoulder a burden 
most heavy.” 


The Overseer pulled from the air a colossal anchor, as long as he 
was tall, covered in rust and barnacles and twisting nearby space 
with its sheer cosmic mass. The sum total weight of all humanity's 
pain, sadness, anguish, and determination to exist through it all. The 
burden they had left behind. 


It entered realspace with a subtle boom that extinguished every fire 
in a hundred-mile radius. 


He hefted the great weapon and laid it across his shoulder, where it 
had always belonged. He looked to the stars, where unknowable 
predators from the far reaches of reality shrieked down toward them. 


“Will you join me?” 


The woman, the hunger, lust, ferocity, and rage of what had been 
mankind, grinned wide, showing teeth that had bitten through 
continents in ages long since past. 


“This once, brother, | will. Let us teach them how to fear.” 
She disappeared. 


An ocean of pale flesh, rotting and shrieking, made of the corpses of 
thousands of years of the planet's most furious dead, exploded from 
beneath the bedrock of North America. The avalanche of wrathful 

corruption ground its tendrils into the bones of the earth and yawned 


its many maws, reaching upward toward the sky in desperate need 
of the violence that gave it its heart. 


The man who was not the Foundation's Eighth Overseer armored 
himself in plates of the purest stone, hewn from the agony and valor 
of Earth's most sacred and worthy dead. He gathered what 
remained of the planet's oceans around him and rose. The last 
knight, the eternal guardian of the soul of humanity, ascended to 
fulfill his oath. 


And together, they waged their final war. 


05-1 strode out of the ruins of his bunker, his face a mask of rage 
and grief. He... they, had protected humanity for so long. Humanity 
was imperfect, it was chaotic, and it was the only thing he'd ever 
loved. And now he was finally alone. A truth that had been figurative 
for over two thousand years was now literal. The irony was bile in 
his throat. 


He stared at the new blue star and let out a roar of frustration. He 
poured every sacrifice, every tragedy, every Montauk, and every 
victory into his voice. When he fell silent, little of him remained. 


"I'd do it again. All of it, one thousand times over. Even if | knew | 
would still fail." He straightened up and began to pace. "I see you in 
the sky, rising to a final betrayal with a being that is nothing more 
than a mockery of true life. You abandon everything your ancestors 
have built, everything we have shed blood to protect. | Know this is 
the end, | can feel Life itself leaving this world. But had you stood 
with us rather than against us we could have won. We could have 
endured as we've always endured, survived as we've always 
survived. But you were seduced by power. You may have become 
gods, but that is something less than human, not more. The present 
isn't worth the loss of the future and the past." 


05-1 stopped, and turned to face someone who wasn't there. "Hello 
Fritz, did no one ever teach you that it's rude to interrupt a 


soliloquy?" 
Nobody said nothing. 


"You always stood with us. But when | needed your guidance more 
than ever you were gone. Why?" 


Nobody said nothing. 


"We'll both be dead soon. Just tell me why. For the sake of everyone 
we've sacrificed on the altar of our ideals, tell me why you 
abandoned them." 


"Joseph. It wasn't the greater good anymore." 


Neither being spoke again. The Wanderer had ended his journey, 
and Nobody was never no one. 


In low Earth orbit, an entity was still, watching with its many steel 
eyes.