towards the group. What is he doing? Hoygull thought. Then he saw 
the grenades attached to his shirt. Then he saw the cold, hard look 
of determination on his face. Then he saw him dive into the group of 
statues. 


The explosion knocked them all away and was punctuated by the 
counting of the automated voice. 


"T-minus 3... 2.... 1... liftoff." 


The engine of the missile ignited, lifting the rocket off of the ground 
and into the air. Hoygull's already damaged body was thrown 
against the wall again, breaking a few bones. statues jumped into 
the air to try and hinder the missile's launch, but it was too late. 
However, it wasn't too late for the human-birds flying up into the air 
to slam themselves into the rocket, messing with its trajectory. 


No... Hoygull thought, it's not going to make it! 


A bird-man slammed into the nose of the missile, nudging its head 
away from the trajectory. The rest of the birds saw this and followed 
suit. The missile was now pointed in the wrong direction. 


After all that's happened? Hoygull felt the disappointment wash over 
him like a wave. 


"Uh, Mister Quinn? That AESD you mentioned earlier? I'm getting a 
one really big \ump of air-information from it!" exclaimed SCP-2785 
fervently. 


"What, you mean to say the AEDS is detecting one large threat?" 


"No, Hoygull," began Quinn. "Look," he said, pointing to the skies. 
While the rest of the Avian-Centre alliance was looking at the 
dimensional rift in space housing the avian deity, Quinn's instincts 
were kicking in. He saw a small red dot in the sky slowly expand. 
"2785 didn't misspeak. They meant what they said." 


Thoth looked down at the Earth he had shaped in his image. After 
millennia of waiting, the blue marble was finally his. Finding the 
right people across all manner of dimensions wasn't an easy task. 


The tools needed to have precise motivation and skills required to 
enact his will. It was easy to start with, coercing the Shark-brained 
idiots to make the Avian meme and tempting the engineer with the 
promise of saving his daughter, but leaving a breadcrumb trail for 
the Foundation was significantly more difficult. 


He was so powerful, his newly made vassals flooded to their new 
home. They would make excellent workhorses for the nobles: the 
people will till the land, move the stones, make monuments for the 
pharaoh (and, of course, to him). 


Not a moment too late, either. Akheilos had found this Earth only 
moments after his plan had come to fruition, with the shark-brains in 
tow. The shark-brains had weakened the only force left to reckon 
with him. The humans shouldn't complain, at any rate. He had 
saved them from an even worse fate. Who knows the savagery that 
Akheilos would have performed on them? 


From the blue marble, Thoth saw a small trinket. He scoffed at the 
pitiful final act of humankind. This was the best they could do? 
Some feeble explosive? It might've worked in his weakened state, 
but it was too little, too late. He watched humanity's last firework 
head towards him. If he was going to crush their final hope, he was 
going to do it properly. 


Akheilos swam through the Noosphere as quickly as he could. He 
had been granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to kill his 
nemesis. Medila, the other Avian deity, had infused herself with him 
to serve this goal. 


The whale, Geegr, had given this gift to him. He called upon Medila, 
and Medila had sung a birdsong so grand, it spoke directly to 
Akheilos' heart. It spoke to him so deeply it awoke a rage within him 
that had been burning for eternity. It reminded him of his people, 
the loved ones that Thoth took away from him. 


The blood of the bird was all he'd ever wanted. He'd just lost sight 
of that goal. 


Akheilos struggled through the fabric of reality. It ripped at his skin 
until it turned vibrant red from the friction. Thoth wasn't paying 


attention to him. In fact, only three people were: the bird, the robot, 
and the human. 


He tumbled into the skies above the squawking Earth. 


The great shark spilt out from the growing red chasm in the sky. 
Akheilos was nothing compared to Thoth's size, but the speed and 
the hot-blooded passion from the beast far surpassed Thoth's. It 
darted straight towards the Ilbis-headed monstrosity, his maw 
opened wide, his many teeth shimmering a brilliant white, speckled 
with crimson. 


"No way..." said Quinn, his jaw agape. 
"Is WHITE NETHER going to...?" began Hoygull. 


In a monumental clash of deities, Akheilos tore into Thoth's eye 
socket. Thoth screamed and coiled backwards, clutching at his eye. 
But Akheilos' grasp was too great. Thoth commanded his fleet of 
peons to come to his aid, but the daemon's appetite was too 
voracious. He tore chunk after chunk of Thoth's form, leaving neither 
bone nor gristle behind. 


Bird-people began to drop from the heavens like flies. With the 
puppetmaster busy, the puppets fell limp. Thoth screamed 
something awful, like he was like a savage animal gurgling out its 
last cry for help. But Thoth was alone. All of creation despised him; 
trickster gods have no place in paradise. The once noble and wise 
Thoth was reduced to nothing more than an undignified slaver, 
being consumed by the one he cheated. 


Just as suddenly as the cawing began, the Earth fell silent. 


His revenge completed and his belly full, Akheilos laid in the skies 
content. An eternity of blood debt had been paid in full, and his 
purpose had been fulfilled. Akheilos looked at his oncoming doom 
not with fearful eyes, but with a satisfied, toothy grin. 


The missile flew away again at full speed, the dent on its carapace 
made by the impact compensating for its ill trajectory. The missile 


made a magnificent arc before colliding with the giant shark, 
blossoming into a giant green-and-purple explosion that lit up the 
midday sky. 


Hoygull's last thought before passing out was we did it... 


Hoygull woke up sometime later in the infirmary of a Site he didn't 
recognize. He could see the Foundation Shield on one side of the 
white, clean room, and he could recognize that he was laying ina 
hospital bed. He looked up and saw humans operating on him... but 
they still had their bird wings? Hoygull cleared his eyes and saw 
that, yes, they were still part-bird. 


The door to the infirmary opened, and Researcher Calvin—the 
supervisor of the Avian Division—walked in. He had undergone the 
avianification process himself, yet he seemed... sane? 


Calvin approached Hoygull, leaning over the bed. "You know, I'd like 
to personally thank you, Hoygull," he said, "without your valiant 
efforts, the entire human population would be lost on SCP-3622. It 
seems that Eol-121 was completely eradicated. Given that, plus the 
—" Calvin paused to feel his new wings, "new modifications to 
humanity, | think we really came out better from this. We're still 
cleaning up the mess, but it'd be a lot worse if it wasn't for you." 


Hoygull began to speak, but then he realized he did not have a 
translation device, so he stayed silent. 


"Unfortunately," continued Calvin, "a sizeable portion of humanity 
perished during the incident, and another portion is believed to be 
trapped on SCP-3632. I'm talking close to a billion. We’re working 
on means of getting them back here. Given our new abilities, this 
should be easier to do than normal. 


"Anyways, | wouldn’t be standing here, alive, if it wasn’t for you. | 
have been authorized by O5 Command to award you with the 


Foundation star." Calvin reached into his coat pocket and retrieved a 
golden star-shaped medallion with a red gem implanted at the 
centre. He attached it to Hoygull’s lab coat. Then he stepped back, 
cleared his throat, and began to speak again. 


"The agents from the Shark Punching Centre left this morning, by 
the way. | don't know if they've gone home or not, but they have 
their own matters to deal with. They send their farewells to you." 
Calvin turned around and left the room. 


Hoygull sat back in his hospital bed and leaned into the pillow. 
Everything was back to normal. Well, as normal as things could be. 


Awesome Meets an Old Friend 


There was an impressive 


boom 


as Awesome dropped the weight he had been lifting. 


The audience applauded enthusiastically, as the weight in question 
was a barbell made of an |-beam with a pickup truck impaled on 
either end. 


Awesome smiled and nodded, waving to the onlookers. He lifted the 
heavy things to keep his body strong, but he really liked that it made 
other people happy, too. 


It was good, being the biggest and strongest. He could do all kinds 
of things that no one else could. He could knock down buildings just 
by shoving them. He could throw people clear across the town, from 
one side of the wall to the other, and often did because it was fun. 
He could make people be friends with him, too. Everyone in Vulture 
Gulch was friends with Awesome. 


“That was really awesome, Awesome!” 
“You can lift things really good!” 
“You could... you could probably punch a ghost in half, Awesome.” 


Awesome just smiled, and laughed. He liked it when they said nice 
things about him. He liked it so much that he hardly ever did any 
work anymore. Work wasn't as much fun as being Awesome. 


It was just another sunny day in the dead desert town of Vulture 
Gulch. The people were hard at work, making machines that roared 
and spat fire and exploded. They knew what they were doing was 


important, and they tried their hardest at it every day. 
With two exceptions. 


Awesome decided to walk around and say hi to people, like he did 
every day. And he did, for a few hours. He said hi to Paulie, who 
was trying to pull a crankshaft out of an engine block with his teeth. 
Awesome helped and pulled it out for him. He said hi to Chef, who 
was making a big rack of barbecued oil filters. He snagged one and 
it was very tasty. He said hi to Joey, who was- 


He didn't say hi to Joey. Joey wasn't where he usually was. 


Awesome looked at the pile of burning tires where the Mayor usually 
sat when he was being a genius, which was most of the time. Joey 
was not there. Awesome scratched his head. Where was Joey? 


He went over to the old bank. Maybe Joey was sleeping in late. He 
entered the crumbling building, and thudded down the stairs to the 

huge vault. He pulled it open. There was the Mayor's bed, his lamp. 
A couple of little knickknacks on the desk. 


No Joey. 


He left the gloom of the dusty bank, back out into the sun. This felt 
wrong. Maybe Joey was out working on something. Joey was good 
at working. He was probably out in the scrapyard. 


He went to the scrapyard near the edge of town and walked around. 
There were lots of people, working. They built the machines. The air 
was full of smoke and the sound of clashing metal. Joey was usually 
either helping someone with a project or working quietly by himself, 
putting something together. 


But he wasn't there. 


Awesome started to panic. Where was Joey? Where was his best 
friend? What if Awesome needed to read something? What if 
anyone needed to read something? How could they read without 
Joey there to read the words to them? 


Where is Joey? 


Awesome lashed out a colossal arm and grabbed the person closest 
to him, a guy whose name he didn't remember. His huge hand held 
the guy by the ribcage, like he was a toy. 


“Where's Joey?!” 


The little man's eyes were wide in terror. He dropped the wrench he 
had been carrying, and his cigarette fell out of his open mouth. 


“W-what?” 


Awesome inhaled, and brought the frightened citizen up to his head, 
looking him dead in the eyes. 


“WHERE'S JOEY?! 


The noise stopped. Tools were put down, heads turned. No one had 
ever seen Awesome this upset before. 


The little man stuttered, “H-he left, Awesome. He g-got in the plane 
h-he built. He f-flew away. You were th-there. Remember?” 


Awesome tried to remember. This didn't sound like something he 
wanted to remember. He put the guy down, and he backed away 
quickly. 


Things started clicking into place in Awesome's ancient and broken- 
down mind. Little links fused, and energy started to flow. Information 
from dozens of previous lives was shifted around. Awesome 
remembered. Joey had left. In remembering this, he forgot about the 
time, seventy years ago, when he had murdered all those men in 
that field. The bruised and burnt synapses of his long-dead brain 
were no longer capable of containing the centuries of experiences 
he had gathered, after being wiped and re-recorded so many times. 


But he was not aware of any of this. The creature known to itself as 
Awesome was merely sad that his friend was gone. 


He left the scrapyard, too depressed to want to interact with anyone 
else. 


Awesome wandered about the edge of town for a while. He looked 


up, and saw that the sky had gotten gray. He knew what that meant. 
The water was going to come down soon. He always liked it when 
the water came down. It was cool, and made it feel like it was less 
hot inside his head. It was always so hot. 


As the first drops began to fall, he eased his great bulk onto a rock 
and sat, looking out at the scrapyard and the empty field that ran up 
to the wall that the little men in white coats had put up. Awesome 
had always thought the wall was silly. He could punch through it 
whenever he wanted. But why would he do that? Where was there 
to go? All his friends were right here, not out there. 


Except for one. 


Awesome sighed. He had the biggest muscles in the whole world. 
He was so strong he could tear steel like paper and crush stones to 
powder in his fists. But he wasn't strong enough to make his friend 
come back. 


As he looked out at the field, he noticed something. Someone. 
Walking across the dampening dust and around the dry bushes. 
They wore funny clothes. Black, with a hood. Awesome didn't 
recognize whoever it was. That meant he had to go introduce 
himself. 


He stood up and ran through the rain, his discontent temporarily 
forgotten. There was a new friend to be made. But as he got closer 
to the dark figure, something seemed wrong. The air was funny. It 
twisted, like snakes in the wind. Awesome felt something weird in 
his chest. 


Awesome stopped running, eyes wide. 


Metal appeared from nowhere. There were struts, beams, girders, 
platforms, foundations. A huge amalgamation of dark steel, cables, 
and wires, where a moment ago there were none. Awesome stood 
in the middle of a welded hive, standing on supports that stabbed 
into the earth. He could see the field all around him through the 
many bars. Awesome looked up into the construction's belly. It rose 
up taller than any other building in town. And there was some kind of 
blue fire, way up high. 


The hooded person was there also, just a short distance away, 
standing on a section of metal plating. 


It all just arrived from thin air. 


Things started clanking together in Awesome's head. Had this 
huge... whatever it was always been here? Why was it invisible? 
Why could he see it? Who built this? 


Awesome decided to ask this strangely-dressed stranger some 
questions. 


He started toward the shadowy person, saying, “Hey guy. Can you, 
uh... do you know what this is?” 


The person didn't move. Their back was to Awesome. The black 
cloak moved slightly in the rainy breeze, but otherwise they could 
have been a statue. 


“Buddy! What's goin’ on with all this stuff? Do you know? Do you 
also know why it's invisible sometimes? And also who built it?” 


Awesome was within arm's reach. The little thing still hadn't moved, 
or spoken. He reached out to give it a tap on the shoulder. 


But then it turned its head-