The green membrane stretched out instantly across the white 
cinderblock wall, and disappeared as soon as they stepped through 
it. 


“Thirty six gallons!” 05-3 said over the intercom speaker. “Thirty six 
gallons of SCP-447-2, taken from thirty six separate installations, all 
at precisely the same time, and apparently by you and your 
grandson” 


Dr. Sanchez rocked nervously in his chair, head in his hands, 
sweating. “Sir, I’m telling you, | have no idea how it happened. For 
one thing, | haven't had a drink in a long time. And for another, I’ve 
never even met my grandson!” 


The four security guards in the room rolled eyes at one another. It 
was always like this with researchers caught up in their projects. 
After exposure, they all went to pieces. It wasn’t fun to watch, but 
they had a job to do. 


“Well, the video surveillance logs are pretty hard to ignore, Dr. 
Sanchez. Pretty fucking hard.” O5’s didn’t often get angry, but this 
was a special situation. They had been caught with their pants far 
below the knee on this one, and all because just one highly valued 
doctor had access to things he shouldn’t have. Obviously. How else 
had he managed to make a portal device? “In the old days, we killed 
people for pulling this kind of stunt. On the spot!” 


Dr. Sanchez swallowed hard. “I know the situation is serious, sir, but 
| repeat, | had nothing to-” 

The green membrane stretched out instantly across the white 
cinderblock wall behind him, with an audible bubbling noise. Dr. 
Sanchez’s face drained of color as he heard his own voice behind 
him. 


“WUBBA LUBBA DUB DUB!” 


A hand grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him through a bright 
green light, and suddenly, Dr. Sanchez found himself on the floor of 
a ruddy garage, surrounded by broken machinery, and a few 
glowing weird things that looked as though they might actually work. 
A green, gelatinous portal snapped closed in front of him before the 
security guards on the other side had even a chance to blink. 


“Oh god, RICK!” Morty screamed, jumping up on a chair and 
pointing. “Whwwwho's that?!” 


“What? How do you know my name, kid?” Dr. Sanchez said gruffly, 
hopping up to his feet. 


“Relax, Morty. I’ve got this under con-BEEELCH- control.” Rick took 
a nip of his flask and tossed it over his shoulder, empty. Dr. Sanchez 
turned on his heels, mouth drawn in a tight line with a stern look on 
his brow. “Hey there, me,” Rick said with a smirk. “How’s life on the 
inside treating you?” 


It wasn’t hard to tell them apart. Dr. Sanchez’s hair was combed flat, 
his shirt recently ironed, his eyes steady and sane; there wasn't 
even any vomit on his chin. They sized one another up a moment 
while Morty babbled his way through a brief existential crisis. 


“Jesus, Rick. What the hell have you done?” Dr. Sanchez 
demanded, grabbing his alter-ego by the collar. Suddenly the 
resemblance was uncanny. 


Rick pushed Dr. Sanchez away, knocking him on his ass again “Can 
it, Sanchez,” Rick said with a smile. “I just took some of your 
precious...infinite...whatever...green slime. | need it for my portal 
gun.” 


“Oh? You need it for your portal gun. Oh that explains everything! 
Holding your grandson at gunpoint... y know... Runnin’ around like a 
goddamn drug addict on... On | don’t know what. This how you have 
a good time, Rick? Is it? This how you-you get your damn jollies? 
Ruining people’s careers and committing capital felonies?” 


“Yeah, pretty much,” Morty shrugged. 


“| mean that-that doesn’t even touch the level of kidnapping you just 
committed! How am | even supposed to get home, RICK?” 


“Oh? And what was | supposed to do, Sanchez? Hm? Leave you 
there to be lobotomized and shooed back off into the wild? Is that 
what? Because from where I’m sitting | just saved your life. Which, 
by the way, you're welcome.” 


Dr. Sanchez opened his mouth to say something combative, but his 
heart wasn’t in it and he slumped back. “... Thank you.” 


“Damn right, ‘thank you.’ | may not like you, Sanchez, or what you 
people stand for. With your boxes and-burp-and your ‘normalcy’ and 
whatever. But seriously? You think I’d let another version of me take 
the fall for the Dirty Sanchez incident of ‘09? C’mon, Sanchez. We 
have a little more integrity than that.” Rick extended a hand and 
helped Dr. Sanchez to his feet. 


“Uh, Rick?” Morty asked. “Why, uh... why did you need that for your 
portal gun? Anyway? Like.. We spent like two months just... just 
getting all of that stuff, you know?” 


“Welp, let’s ask our friend here, Dr. Sanchez. What’s the one thing 
you can’t do with SCP-447-2?” Rick asked with a fiendish grin. 


“Uh... You mean expose it to dead bodies?” 


“Ex-Actly!” Rick said, throwing a blanket off of a machine in the 
corner. In the hopper up at the top where the unmistakable shapes 
of three human corpses. Morty started whining. He could swear that 
his was one of them. “And do you know why, Sanchez?” 


Dr. Sanchez scoffed and crossed his arms. “Of course not. No one 
does. And even if | did, | couldn't tell you without-” Suddenly, Dr. 
Sanchez realized that his employment with the Foundation was 
effectively at its terminus, and stopped that train of thought. “... 
Whatever, | don’t know!” 


“It unifies time and space, Sanchez! Think of it! Just a few splatters 
of this stuff on a carcass and BOOM! All moments are the same 


moment! Every one! They all come together and start, y'know, 
swirling around and stuff.” Rick grabbed his other self about the 
shoulders and got right into Dr. Sanchez’s face. “And that’s a gold- 
mine, Sanchez! It’s a goddamn gold-mine!” 


“Yeah, sure. Sounds like a gold-mine of spiralling death to me,” 
Sanchez said. “Reeeeeally impressed with you right now, Rick. 
Super-duper impressed.” 


“Jesus, Sanchez!” Rick slapped himself in the face and raked his 
hand down it. “Stop thinking like some kind of meta-BURP-physical 
Rush Limbaugh and think like a scientist! One gigantic minty death- 
whirlpool, a couple thousand people lost, two square kilometers of 
land that can never be used again and suddenly you just... Just stop 
the march of progress? You people make me sick, you know that?” 
Rick threw the switch on the Corpse-O-Matic 3000, turning on the 
giant food-processor. He ho-hummed to himself as a soft, white 
powder filled a tiny jar by his feet. “If you took the time to be precise 
about anything-see the big picture for once in your lives-you could 
have invented this thing!” 


“Uuuuh Rick?” Morty piped up. “Isn’t that, y'know, like really 
dangerous? Or something?” 


“Of course it is, Morty! Why do you think | haven’t sold it to anyone 
yet?! Like someone like your dad could be trusted with this kind of 
power? Like just anybody could ride on top of this powder keg?! NO. 
It takes guts, Morty. Guts and guile and a bl-eeeeeeeelch-ood 
alcohol content of about 0.05 to do it.” 


“Gee, thanks a lot, Rick,” Dr. Sanchez said, arms still folded. “So 
what the hell am | supposed to do, huh? | don’t even drink 
anymore.” 


“Yeesh, you really let those bureaucrats get right on top of you, 
didn’t you?” Rick said, disgusted. “There’s a bottle of rye in the 
fridge, help yourself. Morty and | already have everything we need 
back home.” 


“WHAT?” Morty screamed. “Yyyyyou mean this isn’t our garage?!” 


Rick snickered “Heheh... Nope, it’s our garage alright. About five 
years ago, when | first moved back. As for you, Sanchez, you do 
whatever you want, | don’t care. This whole reality doesn’t even 
have a copy of us in it right now. But if you’d, y’know, like to 
reconnect with your family, maybe actually do something important 
with your life, they’ll be home in about two hours. Otherwise there’s 
a fully charged portal gun in the drawer. Go wherever you want.” 


The green membrane stretched out instantly across the concrete 
floor. 


“C’mon Morty. Time to go home,” Rick said. Morty shrugged off his 
confusion and jumped through. “See you later, me. Good luck with 
all of that everything we’re about to do together.” And he too, was 
gone, through the wormhole just as it closed up. 


Dr. Sanchez tossled his own hair, slumped into a stool, and drank 
until it all made sense. Two hours later, when his family came home, 
it was the happiest he’d been in years. It was probably at that 
moment, that Dr. Rick Sanchez finally realized what’s really 
important in life. 


“You know, Rick, | was thinking,” said Morty. “If like... the green 
slime, and the corpses, you know, they make all time and space do 
that... squishing together... thing. Wwwwwhat if you like... ate some 
of it?” 


Rick narrowed his eyes at Morty, suddenly deathly serious and more 
lucid than he’d ever been. “Don’t ask me that question Morty. That’s 
a dark path you don’t wanna go down.” 


Dr. Sanchez, five years earlier, in the garage, drunk, looked at a tiny 
pile of powdered corpse and a jar of the green slime. Tentatively, he 
cut the corpses into a line, ate a teaspoon of 447-2, and took a deep 
breath. 


“Fuck it!” 


In one smooth motion, he snorted the line up his nose. His hands 


gripped his face in pain. He thrashed. He gasped. He knocked over 
some junk from the shelf in the garage. 


“Augh! OH! OH GOD. OH MY GOD...” 


Dr. Sanchez stared down at his hands in disbelief. 


"?M A CARTOON!" 


Stupendous Containment Procedures 


Chagrin Falls, Ohio 


The phone rang in Mr. Watts's room. Though he was only six years 
old, he got several phone calls, and he was very important. 
Normally, he would direct them to his assistant, but he was currently 
hunting some elephants in the backyard. He had told him to bring a 
large slab of meat back. Mr. Watts picked up the phone and smiled. 
"Hello?" 


"Mr. Watts!" On the other end of the line, a female voice that 
sounded like it was a child trying to be polite to its parents so that 
she could get candy, despite sounding around 20 years old. The 
voice had an undercurrent of hyperactivity, however, as if the person 
on the other end had just drank a glass of Coca-Cola made with real 
cane sugar, glitter and enough caffeine to make you vibrate through 
walls. "I'm willing to increase my offer for you for your technology. 
My company is willing to offer one point five million jellybeans." 


Mr. Watts reclined in his seat. "Is that one and a half million 
jellybeans, or one million jellybeans plus half a jellybean?" 


"Ah! Shrewd, Mr. Watts, shrewd." The voice on the other end 
laughed. "The former, | assure you." 


"...are any of them weird flavors Miss... Wondertainment?" Mr. 
Watts snickered at this. He could never take that name seriously, no 
matter how much he tried. 


"Of course not! Dr. Wondertainment does not make 'weird' flavors! 
We only grow the best jelly beans around! Bubblegum, toffee, cola, 
buttered popcorn, marshmallow, strawberry daiquiri..." 


".,.what's a daiquiri?" 


"| don't know. We just grow them. They taste good, though. And 


they're fat-free, calorie-free, preservative-free... in fact, the only 
things they aren't free of are taste and price!" 


"...that, plus a lifetime subscription to Chewing, and you may have a 
deal. I'll have to talk it over with my assistant." 


"But of course! How's he doing?" 


"He's-" Calvin was cut off by the sight of a four-foot-tall bipedal 
Bengal tiger walking into the room, eating from a can of tuna, his tail 
swaying happily. "Ah, he's here right now!" 


"...0n the phone with Isabel again?" asked the tiger, sitting on the 
bed and eating the tuna. "Turns out that elephants don't taste very 
good. Also, they're endangered, so | didn't actually catch it." 


"How's one point five million jelly beans sound, Hobbes?" 
"...sounds like diabetes. I'd say settle for no less than 1.6." 


"I'm going to be donating most of it," Calvin explained, going back to 
the phone. "One point six, and we'll knock it down to a five-year 
subscription to Chewing." 


"Excellent! People from my company will be stopping by to pick up 
your prototypes. And, uh, we'd like the Duplicator without the setting 
dial on it. Also, we'll let you keep your Transmogrifier pistol. Guns 
are so last year, anyway." 


"Take the Cerebral Enhance-o-Tron, too. It wears off too quickly. 
Maybe you can do better work with it." 


"Certainly! Oh, and... don't trust the policemen." The phone 
disconnected, and Calvin frowned. 


"...policemen?" 


"CAL-VIN!" The six-year-old jumped out of his seat, and so did his 
tiger, immediately changing back into a stuffed animal as soon as 
his mother entered the room, looking very angry. "Why are there 
policemen outside who want to speak to you? And... for god's sake, 
why is there Tuna in your room again?" 


"Hobbes was eating it! And | don't think they're policemen, mom; 
Isabel told me not to trust them." 


Calvin's mother cradled her head in her hand and sighed."...if this is 
a repeat of the thing with the salamander..." 


"It isn't, mom. Just... let me talk to them." Calvin drew his 
transmogrifier pistol from his pocket and headed downstairs. 


"Spaceman Spiff slowly descends into the dungeon below, his 
specialized pistol raised..." 


The agents frowned as they overheard the kid descending the stairs. 
He was supposed to be some kind of a reality bender, and he had 
somehow gotten in contact with the Big W, so he was important. 
They were to bring him in for interrogation. But... something was 
wrong here. Agent Wu looked at Agent Micheals. "Is he... 
pretending?" 


"Be ready for anything." Micheals undid the button on his holster that 
kept his gun in place. He hated to shoot a kid, but if it was 
necessary... 


"A fugitive from the galactic police," the narration continued, "Falsely 
accused of crimes he did not commit, Spiff is ready for this. He was 
warned by his colleague and sole friend, the mysterious 
Wondertainment!" 


"...what?" Asked Micheals. "Wondertainment was just in contact 
with this kid? Are you kidding?" 


"Zap-zap!" A blonde six-year-old in a red-and-black stripped shirt 
jumped around the corner, firing an empty water pistol at them. 
"Spiff's ray turns their laser pistols utterly useless!" 


The agents drew their guns- only to find that they had been replaced 


with scraps of paper that bore the words "utterly useless”. "...oh no." 


Another two shots of the gun. "There are rats in the Galactic Police! 
And they shall be exterminated!" 


The agents found themselves completely transformed into rats, 
squeaking around on the floor. Spaceman Spiff picked them up and 
took them back to his room. 


I've only got two friends in the whole wide world, and I'm just fine 
with that. One of them lives under my coat in a leather holster, the 
other lives in a bottle, and often goes to a timeshare in a shot glass. 
I'm Tracer Bullet. I'm a gumshoe. 


Today, | got an odd case. Two mooks from hell-knows-where show 
up in my own private residence and try to take me away, posing as 
true blue policemen. | got tipped off by a dame to them, so lucky me, 
| guess. So now, | guess it's time to apply my good friend Occam, 
my shaving razor. 


| tell the two rats to start talking or they get cut. | don't mean rats 
figuratively, either; the freaks in front of me are literally rats. 
Weirdest thing, | know. | light a cigarette and start asking questions. 


"All right, who the heck are you workin’ for, and what do you want 
with me?" 


"Calvin?" | groan as the dame downstairs uses the name of 
someone | used to be, and hide the rats as best | can, going to the 
door. 


"Yeah?" 


"What happened to the policemen that were here? And what are you 
doing with your father's fedora?" 


"They took off; they just wanted to ask me about Filthy Moe." 


"...all right then." The gal looks relieved. She's getting on in years, 
so she's not terribly sharp. | go back to my interrogation session.