Instances of SCP-721 can be further categorized as SCP-721-1, 
SCP-721-2, or SCP-721-3 depending on their effects. At time of 
writing, the Foundation controls six instances of SCP-721-1, eight 
instances of SCP-721-2, and two instances of SCP-721-3. There is 
no known means of distinguishing between instances of SCP-721 
apart from activating its anomalous properties by placing at least 
0.2 mL of blood from a sapient organism on the mesh side. Said 
organism is referred to as the subject. 


Upon activation of SCP-721-1, all conscious thoughts of the subject 
will become audible to those within a sixty-meter radius as a 
whispering in the listener's ear. Additionally, the thoughts of all 
persons within this range will be audible to the subject in the form of 
whispers emanating from SCP-721-1. While the thoughts of most 
subjects are too disorganized and incoherent for others to interpret 
properly, with practice, subjects have shown the ability to use 
SCP-721 to transmit coherent thoughts to those within its active 
range. 


Upon activation of SCP-721-2 and the placement of the object on 
some form of blank medium (i.e. paper, audio tape, video tape, or 
computer with a blank text file open’), the subject will gain complete 
mental control over the content of the media in question, and will be 
capable of transferring any data they can imagine to the media in 
question. 


Excerpts from Test Log 721-2-4 


Medium: Blank White Paper 

Summary of results: Subject was able to transfer both 
words and pictures onto the blank paper. The written text 
showed up in the subject's own handwriting, although it 
was proven he could change this at will. The text 
appeared as if written in pencil. The pictures were of a 
complexity the subject has proven incapable of 
duplicating without the use of SCP-721-2. This test took 
place over the course of thirty-five minutes. 


Medium: Blank Audio Tape 
Summary of results: Subject was capable of 
transferring multiple monologues onto the tape, in what 


The general's confidence was not wholly persuasive. Previous 
administrations had made similarly strident announcements of 
similarly decisive breakthroughs. Not two years previously, large 
batches of ultramodern auto-defoliants intended to destroy the 
enemy's jungle concealment had been deployed in tremendous 
concentrations in order to create a “firebreak” around the 
Vietnamese capital. The resulting strip of desolation, eight miles 
across and almost forty long, bears the name of McNamara’s Plaza 
in dubious tribute to its primogenitor. 


An even earlier wonder-weapon promised to end the threat of Viet 
Cong tunnel complexes. Much was made of an array of specially 
constructed stakes which, when activated, sent massive waves of 
vibrations through the ground in order to shake any concealed 
excavations to pieces. The system proved far more effective at 
splintering the concrete roads on which Western forces depended 
than collapsing the enemy's deep tunnels. 


General Roland shook off comparisons to earlier experiments 
irritably. “Everything you're talking about comes from the same 
period, the same mind-set. A failed mindset that the army has put 
behind it.” 


“Today our operations are governed by our mobility, a mobility which 
the enemy totally lacks. Eleven years ago, the French had one 
hundred and sixty-seven aircraft to serve the needs of all of 
Indochina. Today, we send out that many planes on a single 
mission,” he said, warming to his theme. “Our air cavalry responds 
to Communist incursions before they can withdraw, and the boys in 
Special Talents predict those incursions more reliably than ever 
before.” 


Details regarding the Special Talents units, or “Spectrals” are 
exceedingly difficult to come by, but any old Indochina hand knows 
that in mentioning only their intelligence functions the General far 
understates the extent of their activities in the field. No doubt the 
men of the 388th Independent Special Company would not 
recognize the character of their operations in that limited description. 


“The Special Talents give us incredible precision,” Roland 
continued, “and what that precision means for the people of Viet- 


Nam is security, plain and simple. Security from Communist 
intimidation, security from Communist extortion...” 


Letter from Bernard Fall to his wife, February 11th, 1967. 
My beloved Dorothy, 


There is a whole new war here, a new type of war, industrial and 
implacable. The American war machine has become 
unrecognizable. 


Out in the jungle bear-clawed women hunt the Viet Cong through 
their own tunnels for hours before emerging. Airborne commandos 
on interdiction patrols carry weapons which calcify their targets in 
the blink of an eye. Villages suspected of sheltering the enemy are 
plastered in napalm that collects itself into a moving mass of fire and 
waits for survivors to emerge from cover before flaring back into life. 


The administration's claims that such “special talents” represent a 
natural progression of any known science are utterly false. Perhaps 
no explanation for these things is possible. 


Our government has chosen to fight the beliefs of a whole people 
with incomprehensible violence because they are totally unable to 
offer any alternative to Communism but poverty and corruption. 
Everywhere the absolute contempt of the Saigon clique for the 
people of Viet-Nam is clear. 


For twelve years | have studied the conflicts of Viet-Nam and written 
and warned. | fear there is nothing more | can do here, except come 
home, and tell the world what they have done. | do not know if they 
will allow me. 


Give my love to our daughters. You mean the world to me. | will be 
with you soon. 


BF 


Bernard Fall disappeared on February 21st, 1967, while on patrol 
with a company of Marines in the war-torn region of Viet-Nam known 


as the "Street Without Joy." The fate of his final letter is unknown. 


« What the Spybird Saw| Hub | SCP-2498 » 


The End of History 


November 9th, 1989. East Berlin. The last time it will ever be called 
that. 


At a press conference announcing new, more liberal travel 
regulations for the German Democratic Republic, unprepared 
spokesperson Gunter Schabowski inadvertently declares that the 
Berlin Wall will be opened for transit immediately. 


Six hours later, there is jubilation across the city as “Ossies” flood 
into the West without permission or plan. Crowds mingle in the 
streets, cheering, drinking, and singing. For so long the two halves 
of one people have longed to know one other. Now that call is 
answered in a burst of passion that sweeps the world. Finally. 


Finally! 


For all the fuss about parascience, the Cold War ended pretty much 
as it was supposed to. A ten-year war in Afghanistan gnawed away 
at the Soviet Union from the inside. Economic stagnation wiped out 
what little tolerance for repression remained in the Communist Bloc. 
Across a dozen countries people took to the streets, a dozen 
revolutions signaling what would famously be called the End of 
History. 


Issues and ideologies which seemed so crucial in the heat of past 
decades vanished in moments. In retrospect, the passions which 
sent half a million Americans to Vietnam had waned long before the 
first crack appeared in the Berlin Wall. Within a decade of the end, 
communism was a punchline, and what Cold Warriors remained 
were no more than relics of a quaint and confusing age. 


One last great espionage drama took place far from the public view. 
Without their great rival, the United States had no desire to carry on 
the expensive work of mass parascientific containment, and the 


leaders of the new Russian Federation had no such capability. After 
arduous negotiations, the Foundation returned to moth-balled sites 
and slumbering facilities long occupied by forces of the two great 
combatants. The jailors recovered their wayward charges — their 
long exile was over. 


There came a time of joyous reunification. Amidst the swirling 
crowds of Berlin, families came together, often for the first time — 
brothers embraced sisters they had never met, while children grown 
into unrecognizable adults searched out parents who were only 
memories. A hundred miles of concrete wall and forty years 
separation had not sundered the bonds of family and kinship. 


No longer needed, The Coldest War passed into the dust bin of 
history. 


Around the Brandenburg Gate some of the largest crowds gather. 
Already the “Wall-Woodpeckers” have begun chipping away at the 
once-fearsome barrier and by morning almost everybody and their 
aunt will have a piece. 


Two figures, a man and a woman, slip away from the revelry 
unnoticed. Strangers, but who is a stranger on this singular night? 
Darting around the nearest corner, they fall into a drunken embrace. 
Swept up in a haze of alcohol and hormones, the man does not 
notice the wafting smell of citrus, and remains oblivious to the 
sudden sharpening of his consort's features as she prepares to 
consume him. 


Ensnared and now sedated by his not-quite-human companion, the 
luckless man slips into unconsciousness. He does not see the four 
masked men who rush out of the darkness to subdue the shape- 
shifter, and does not remember the otherwise unremarkable Polizei 
van into which they wrestle her. But he lives to see the first day ina 
new Deutschland. 


A white and green police van rolls down the quiet streets of West 
Berlin in the early morning, far from the pandemonium of the 
western border. 


In the reinforced rear compartment, something less than human 
struggles against specially prepared restraints to no avail. If its head 
were not locked within an iron cage it would glare at the grey-haired 
agent who sits across from it, the agent who has hunted it 
relentlessly for so long, since Oslo, since Berlin, through a hundred 
other cities. Helpless with its semi-skin locked and pheromone pods 
plugged, the creature settles for a blistering stream of multilingual 
obscenity. 


“Yell as you please, Twenty-thirty,” laughs Agent Franklin, now an 
old man. “I told you I'd be waiting. Yell as you please!” 


« SCP-2498 | Hub | 


The Cool War 


>unzip the_COOL_war.7z 
Extracting 23 Files... 
Extracted! 

>del the COOL _war.7z 
Deleting... Deleted! 


>dir 


> 01. 
> 02. 
> 03. 
> 04. 
> 05. 
> 06. 
> 07. 
> 08. 
> 09. 
> 10. 
>11. 
> 12. 
>13. 
> 14. 
> 15. 
> 16. 
> 17. 
> 18. 
> 19. 
> 20. 
> 21. 
> 22. 
> 23. 


wowwee_go_kill_ ursefl.txt 
It_Just_ Shattered .txt 
A_COOL3R_M4N1F3570.txt 
SnipSnipSn1p.rtf 

Flexibility. txt 

nOvelCultivars.txt 
SH4DY_Meetings.txt 
TheToymanAndTheDoctor(IntermissionOne).padf 
QuintessenceOfDu5bt.txt 
AndThenWh4tH4PP3NED%3f.txt 
theCOOLkids.docx 
F1nalAttackOrders. rtf 
THE_FRIDAY_EXHIBITION.tex 
Insufficient_Clearance.txt 
NO80DY_D1es.txt 

yes (i2) 
Empty_Unmarked_Grave.txt 
detained.7ps 
D1SPOS4L_and_D15COURSE. rif 
Sn1ppedFromTheSameCloth.txt 
brO7h3RHOOd.txt 
eulogy_for_the_Living.txt 
wowwee_u_kild_ursefl.txt 


>del * 

Deleting... Deleted! 

>run ../cool.exe 

File Format Error (Code 2394: NOT YET COOL) 
>logout 


wowwee go kill ursefl 


“Three people have died from your exhibition.” 
“They signed waivers.” 
“ve got people breathing down my neck, here.” 


“They all signed waivers. They knew what they were getting into, 
they were consenting adults.” 


Ruiz Duchamp’s latest exhibition was, he believed, his masterpiece. 
An installation that had taken him five months in total to construct, 
‘wowwee go kill ursefl’ was his homage to stupidity. He had jumped 
through so many hoops to absolve himself of responsibility, and yet 
he was still being slammed by The Man. It was ridiculous. 


“They're demanding you get rid of the smallpox.” 


One of the most popular parts of ‘wowwee’ was ‘stab ursefl with 
nedles’. It was simply an open box containing needles with samples 
of the most virulent diseases and deadly poisons in the history of 
mankind. This was how one of the people had died, after wilfully 
injecting himself with a deadly dose of everything. 


“| won’t compromise the integrity of the piece to accommodate for 
morons.” 


“You're going to have to. And the blades have to go too.” 


The noisiest pieces in the hall, ‘shuv ur figners in blads no. 1-5’, 
were simply high rotation carbon steel circular saws. They had been 
painted in bright, primary colours, but besides that, they were 
perfectly normal, and could easily remove a hand. Two hands had 
been wilfully removed by critics. 


“There are warnings everywhere. The whole point of the piece is to 


put people in easily avoidable, but very real danger. If you 
recontextualise any of it, it's worthless.” 


“Not good enough.” 
“You're marching to the drum of The Man.” 
“I’m trying to save people’s lives.” 


“You're trying to save idiots who shove their fingers into bloody 
saws.” 


“THE NAME OF THE PIECE TOLD THEM TO!” 


“Hell, at least | didn’t name anything ‘jump off a bridge’. What a 
catastrophe that would have been.” 


Every piece in the exhibit was designed to kill or, at the very least, 
grievously injure. The one fear that Ruiz had was that some 
particularly idiotic person would use them to kill or, at the very least, 
grievously injure another person. Fortunately, this had not yet 
occurred. 


“We've already taken the C4 from you.” 


“What? Nobody even used ‘press buten 4 firwroks’, this is downright 
puritanical!” 


“Safety comes first. You can’t pull shit like this in my gallery.” 
“You're ruining the vision. You saw it before.” 


“The work’s been recontextualised, the police weren't breathing 
down my fucking neck. You need to make everything safe or you 
need to get it out of here. | regret it, and you know | love the piece, 
but people are just too stupid for it.” 


“THAT. IS. THE PURPOSE. OF THE WORK. If you’re too stupid to 
not know to sit in an electric chair and pull the lever, it’s your own 
damn fault. Their blood is my canvas.” 


“| know. | get it. But get it somewhere else. Sorry.” 


Ruiz was disappointed. He walked into his favourite room, passing 
the box of cyanide pills saying ‘Complementary, Please Take One’. 
He moved past the automatic countdown guillotines. He looked 
passively beyond ‘here paly wit thes knivs’. He had one piece that 
he’d been saving for a particularly disappointing event. He closed 
the airtight door, and breathed slowly. Everyone was a fucking idiot. 
Nobody got it. Nobody REALLY got it. As he turned the knob, liquid 
nitrogen sprayed across his scalp and flesh. His final thoughts were 
that it didn’t matter. At least he got it. He really got it. And that was 
all he needed. 


‘take shwoer 2 b cul’ 


« Hub | It Just Shattered » 


he perceived to be his own voice, without speaking 
aloud. After being prompted to do so, subject was able to 
insert a dialogue he was witness to, in the voices of the 
researchers. After extensive practice, subject produced 
what amounted to his own five man play, with multiple 
voices and sound effects, all indistinguishable from their 
real-life counterparts. This test took place over two 
hours. 


Medium: Blank DVD 

Summary of results: Subject was, with practice, 
capable of creating video files of high complexity. 
Beginning with a relatively simple animation, the subject 
was able to expand upon this until proving capable of 
producing a full ninety minute live-action movie with 
special effects included. This test took place over the 
course of six hours.