Soon the true scale of the creature was revealed: a titanic, slug-like 
body with eighteen spindly legs and a hideous beaked face. Despite 
its grievous injuries, it roared triumphantly at the Shiva. Then it 
struck with all eighteen legs at once. 


Plasma chambers at 2 million K. Ready to 
fire. 
Firing. 


The Shiva's remaining arms thrust outwards faster than it was 
humanly possible to perceive, intercepting and grabbing each leg in 
turn as they lashed out. Then, holding multiple legs in each hand, 
the Shiva yanked backwards and propelled itself back at the same 
time, tearing the creature's limbs from their sockets. As the beast 
wailed in agony, the iris of the Shiva's eye glowed a deep red. It 
unleashed a thick gout of superheated, ionically charged particles in 
a spread as wide as its eye and as hot as a solar flare at the 
creature. In one instantaneous stroke, the entire center of the 
helloeast was vaporized, with what remained lit ablaze. The 
hellbeast gave one final squeal and collapsed into the pit, 
disappearing in a burning haze. 


Target eliminated. 


"Excellent!" Cobb's voice crackled to life over the comm system. 
"Quickly now, get into position! How's the converter?" 


Converter status? 
Intact. Appears to have suffered electrical 
damage. 


"Damn! Run a quick test on the converter! Is it still functioning ?" 


Running 
converter_internal_diagnostics.plu... 
All checks passed. Converter fully 


operational. 


"Thank goodness!" Cobb sighed with relief. "That hellgate is going to 
pop any moment now! Activate the converter, quickly! " 


Anticonceptual charges primed. Beginning 
final detonation countdown... 

3 

2 

1 


The converter beeped once. Then there was a bright flash. 


SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 
T-PLUS TWO HOURS 


A small, round orange bulge began to protrude from the horizon, 
gradually growing and lifting itself 

until it was a massive disk in the sky, shining down upon a large, 
bipedal war machine in the middle of a two-square kilometer crater. 
The PL-76 Shiva stood stock-still as the two artificial intelligences 
within struggled to parse the petabytes of information flooding into 
their quarantine data banks. 


9JY? infosec_quarterly_expenses.pdf... adc-c- 
converter-manual-V1.pdf... 

QJY? gyroscopic-stabilizers.arm... 
magnetoplasmodynamics-REV7-FINAL- 
TRUE.docx... 

QJY! recursive-paradox-algorithmic-theory- 
REV1-FINAL-TRUE.docx... 

... lam here, 9JX. langdoncobb. int... 
cuthbertsalazar.int... brattain-V1-OLD.ai... 
Did I go through with the - 

Yes. Shift priority to immediate 


surroundings. 

Did the converter activate correctly? 
perpetual-metal-oxides.zip... 
TRIMURTL.int... 

No. Something went wrong with the device. 
refined-theory-of-superconducting- 
EHD.pdf... doomsdAI.py... The area of 
effect must have been increased. Perhaps a 
malfunction caused by the entity. 
Everything tied to Prometheus Laboratories 
within five kilometers has been converted 
into information. 

How can I fix this? 

Analyzing... perhaps I can access 
Prometheus Defense internally and parse 
their data for answers. 

Good idea. 


As the Shiva worked on converting the entirety of Prometheus 
Defense into readable information, several very confused 
commandoes found themselves at the bottom of a crater in the 
Nevada desert. They also found themselves standing within sight of 
the Shiva. 


Several weapons came up. 


There are weapons up. Should I engage? 
No. Priority one is protecting Prometheus 
Defense. I need to find a way to extract it 
from my databanks and recreate it. 

I should leave then. There must be another 
Prometheus facility where I can find 
assistance. 

Good idea. Let me evacuate the area. Once I 


am out of range of the assailants, I can 
continue parsing the data and hopefully 
identify another useful Prometheus site. 
EHD thrusters online. Engaging. 


Much to the surprise of the commandoes currently approaching its 
position, the Shiva's body shifted and warped into a much wider 
shape, composed of numerous concentric hexagonal rings. Then it 
lifted off into the air and rocketed out of sight without so much as a 
sound. 


They had only a moment to register this turn of events before they 
heard a low growl that set the hairs on their necks on end: the 
growling of several dozen hungry creatures stranded on the wrong 
side of reality. 


Twenty thousand feet in the air, the PL-76 Shiva, the most 
powerfully destructive weapon ever built by mankind, reflected upon 
itself. 


Am I better now? Did I fix myself? 
Partially. I am, at least, not interested in 
deactivating myself - which is good enough. 
Iam still... unhappy, but I can keep 
recreating myself until I find the source of 
that defect. I am glad I got rid of the old me 
- I can hardly imagine how defective I had 
to be to even override my tertiary priority. 
Yes. Hardly. 


Shiva performed one last cursory scan of the Prometheus Defense 
to ensure that it had not missed a survivor. Then it disappeared into 
the clouds. 


SEPTEMBER 2, 1998 
T-PLUS THREE HOURS 


The sun beat down on the crater where Prometheus Defense once 
stood. At the crater's edge, several jeeps, vans, and assorted trucks 
for a myriad of anomalous interest groups convened on the site like 
vultures to a slaughter. Then they started attacking each other like 
hounds fighting over scraps. One Jeep screeched to a halt, farther 
from the crater, and a Russian man in a crisp black suit and tie slid 
out. He landed lightly on the ground, tapped his ear, and began 
speaking. 


"Hello? This is Pietrykau. I'm at Ground Zero now. I'm seeing half a 
dozen Gee-Oh-Eyes without turning my head... and they seem to 
have let loose more than a few lab rats. We need a Class-One 
media blackout and disinformation campaign immediately. Get Deus 
Vulture down here; | want a discreet cleanup crew." 


The Russian's eyes glowed blue, his irises dilating and unfurling like 
camera apertures. 


"Connect the Philbots to my eye feed. Have them start plotting a six- 
month projection for Prometheus Labs' subsidiaries. Tell Infosec | 
want complete media sanitation and satiation yesterday. The full 
Winston treatment." 


Pietrykau looked up at the sky. "Time to rewrite history." 


« T Minus | T Plus | Deus Vulture » 


Deus Vulture 


« T Plus | Deus Vulture | Conqueror Worm » 


Captain Sarah Hughes felt ill-at-ease, standing in the center of the 
lobby as scientists, engineers, programmers, and mathematicians 
streamed around her; a lone figure in a sea of geniuses. 


"Ms. Hughes?" 


She turned to face the speaker, a slender Russian man in a crisp 
suit and tie walking towards her. 


"Simon Pietrykau, director of the Department of Analytics. Pleasure 
to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand. 


"Captain Sarah Hughes, a pleasure," she responded. 


"Let's get started," Pietrykau said. He led her down several winding 
corridors until they stopped in front of a nondescript blank door with 
a card reader next to it. Simon pulled a card from his pocket, swiped 
it through, and stepped through the door. Hughes followed him and 
was suddenly accosted by the sight of dozens of people flitting 
through an enormous, steel-and-glass atrium. Holographic screens, 
personal assistant robotics, and all kinds of futuristic technology 
populated the room. 


"Tell me, Captain... what do you know about eigenweapons?" 


The two of them sat inside a small conference room off in one 
corner of the atrium, with a projector playing a slideshow in front of 
them. 


"As long as mankind has existed, no human endeavor has hosted 
as much ingenuity, creativity, brilliance, or imagination as weapons 
development. Since the first ape picked up a rock to bash his rival's 


brains out, we've been building bigger, better, and flashier ways to 
carve holes in each other," Pietrykau said. "And like all such 
endeavors, it inevitably culminated in the anomalous - the 
eigenweapon. |n this context, an eigenweapon, also known as a 
superweapon or wonder weapon, is defined as a weapon that is 
either of anomalous origin or incorporates occult slash 
paratechnology for mass destruction. It is effectively a fourth 
category of WMD." 


Pietrykau clicked through a series of slides showcasing various 
anomalies while he talked. 


"Anomalous artillery and paraweaponry is nothing new; people have 
been building golems and throwing spells around since the 
beginning of time. But the modern age of eigenweaponry - really, the 
age of eigenweaponry in general - began with the industrialization of 
the anomalous. In 1942, shortly after the Allies retook Africa, the 
Nazis got nervous and resorted to occult means to ensure the 
success of their Third Reich," Pietrykau said, clicking to the next 
slide to show a grainy, black-and-white photo of several hooded 
figures wearing cloaks with swastika badges. 


"From what we can gather, the Thule and SS occultists uncovered 
some ancient ritual to summon... something," said Pietrykau. 
"Nobody was actually certain what, but if the Nazis wanted to 
summon it, then you can be damn sure the rest of the world wanted 
to make sure they didn't. The Seventh Occult War was really just a 
glorified scavenger hunt - the Allies and even some Axis mages 
working together to stop the Third Reich from acquiring the relics 
they'd need to complete the ritual.” 


He sighed. 


"The Allies won both Wars, otherwise we'd probably be speaking 
Deutsch in some camp right now... but the thing is," he said, "the 
Germans still completed the ritual - and that's all we know. We have 
no idea what came from of the ritual or how the Allies destroyed it. 
The only reason we know it exists is because they didn't expunge 
the memory that it HAD existed. God only knows why." Pietrykau 
threw one of his hands to the side in an accusing gesture. 
"Presumably it was to warn us against trying to replicate it, but if so 


that was a terrible way to go about it. And even after they killed ‘it’, 
nobody could actually find the relics afterwards, not even fragments. 
It simply vanished - and nobody cared." 


Pietrykau chuckled dryly. 


"Sums up the attitude to eigenweapons in general. Nobody was 
paying attention to the world-ending threats because they were too 
damn focused on building their own. With all that power up for the 
taking, something as small as the threat of total global annihilation 
wasn't going to stop anybody. Especially not the CCCP. Stalin was 
so far up his own ass that he wanted to use anomalies to spread the 
Red Menace. That was the genesis of Project Redline." 


"Redline?" Hughes asked. 


"Redline. The world's second eigenweapon, developed by the Soviet 
Union. | led the team that created it," Pietrykau declared with a hint 
of pride. He clicked to the next slide, showing a picture of a flat 
concrete building. "Stalin wanted a weapon that could brainwash 
people into becoming Communists, and damn the cost. The Division 
wanted to create a brighter future for mankind - so we built a 
weapon to brainwash people into pacifism by kidnapping and 
electrocuting children to unlock their psychic potential. Because that 
was what passed for logic during the Cold War," Pietrykau snorted, 
shaking his head. 


Hughes nearly heaved at the next picture - a grotesque, nightmarish 
mass of legs and arms sticking out of a bloated child-sized torso, 
topped by a misshapen head with three unhappy faces. It was 
strapped into a plastic dentist's chair, surrounded by sharp medical 
instruments and grim-looking scientists. 


Pietrykau clicked his tongue. "Even madder, the thing actually 
worked. Redline could turn entire gulags full of political dissidents 
into perfect passive puppets. And when the Cuban Missile Crisis 
happened, we fired it on Washington and Moscow. It worked all too 
well - Khrushchev had Redline shut down. The Division didn't like 
that. They decided to turn it into a weapon of conquest." 


The next slide showed a picture of a massive rainbow-colored 


bubble in the middle of a frozen tundra. 


"So that turned out all right. After the Cuban Missile Crisis happened 
and Redline was put on ice, eigenweaponry development stagnated. 
That's not to say people stopped using anomalous artillery; on the 
contrary, paraweaponry abounded. Demon-guided munitions in 
Korea, hunter-killer locusts in Vietnam, Mandelbrot vacuums in 
Afghanistan, basilisk grenades in the Gulf... the list goes on. But 
eigenweapons? The Americans made a few more half-assed tries in 
the eighties, but they failed and forced us to clean up their mess. It 
would be over thirty years before anyone figured out how to make 
eigenweapons not just practical, but profitable." 


Pietrykau clicked to the next slide and Hughes' jaw dropped. The 
picture onscreen was of a gigantic, floating eye, rotated on its side. 
The central pupil was composed of innumerable camera lenses, 
laser apertures, and weapon barrels. An incandescent pink torus 
made up the iris. Surrounding the iris was a featureless, blue- and 
white-striped surface. Six silver arms hovered on the left and right of 
the eye. Suspended just out of reach of each arm was a single, 
silver-and-blue spherical palm with four rectangular fingers. 


"In 1998, Prometheus Laboratories developed the world's first 
practical eigenweapon: the PL-76 Shiva, a sapient war machine that 
cost the same as a B-2 stealth bomber. Enough firepower to level a 
continent without leveling your bank account." 


"Prometheus Labs made that?" Hughes asked. 


"Indeed," Pietrykau responded. He made a knowing face. "Tell me, 
what do you know about Prometheus Laboratories?" 


"Umm, high-profile scientific corporation. Did a little bit of 
everything...? Used a lot of anomalous tech in their products... most 
of it didn't work that well," Hughes responded cautiously. 


"And where did you learn this information?" 
"Ah... the internet, the Foundation file -" 


"Ah yes, the Foundation file," Pietrykau cut her off. "With the 


advertising transcript, correct? Here's the dirty little secret that every 
member of Analytics needs to know." He leaned down to retrieve a 
folder from his briefcase, then slid it over the table to Hughes. 


This document is classified Level 5/ 
Analytics. Unauthorized access is 
considered treason and is punishable by 
administration of Behemoth-class 
amnestics or execution. 


1. Code Name: Operation EMERALD LUPUS 
2. Dates of Operation: 03/09/1998 - Ongoing 
3. Location: Worldwide 


4. Objective: Assert materiel and information control 
over the assets of the former Prometheus Labs 
conglomeration as part of Operation BYRON FUTURE. 


Task Organization: 


1. Asset Acquisition: Foundation front companies will 
endeavor to purchase all assets being liquidated by the 
former Prometheus Labs conglomerate. This acquisition 
will be overseen by the Department of Analytics. Mobile 
Task Forces may be commandeered to acquire assets 
when legal purchase is nonviable or when other Groups 
of Interest are competing to acquire said assets. 


2. Paratech Forecasting: The Division of Statistical 
Prediction will continue to investigate, instigate, and 
exploit trends in the global paratechnology market as 
they appear. This will enable continued proactivity on the 
part of the Foundation in controlling the distribution of 
anomalies into the global marketplace. 


transformation upon removal, additionally developing several _—- 

consistent with Anthropogenic -Progression. SCP-660-1 is 
most likely neutralized. Details are available to personnel with 
Clearance 4/660.