A valuable heuristic to follow when working in a science lab is this: 
for each piece of equipment worth more than twenty dollars, assume 
that, at some point, it will fail. To summarize for the layman, there 
are machines in my workspace that will become drastically 
misaligned if a researcher sneezes within a yard of them. The 
Foundation has built redundancies upon redundancies so that one 
part of the facility can malfunction without affecting the system. Each 
of the individual machines, eventually, will break. 


| was fixing an uncooperative laser printer on the day | was 
abducted. | can picture the exact specifications of the part | was 
soldering when | heard conflict break out behind the blast doors of 
the containment chamber. Several M4s discharged, which are 
standard issue for this sector's guards, but | heard no other gunfire. 
This caused me to rule out several potential attackers. | considered 
the most probable containment breaches, and in the absence of 
roaring vocalizations, clanging metal, or screams in proto-Akkadian, 
dismissed them. Judgment: situation unclear. Response: suspend 
the current task, observe. 


Something collided loudly with the wall above. The object traveled 
forward until it was directly above me. A humanoid body passed 
down through the ceiling, accompanied by a long note, descending 
in pitch, played on a slide whistle. 


The intruder wore an indigo suit made of a ribbed material which 
pulsated at a frequency of approximately 100 beats per minute. 
Save for her eyes (in my time here, | have learned her gender), 
which were beneath a set of goggles, the garment covered her face 
completely. She withdrew the mask by pressing against it with the 
fingertips of her left hand. | determined that she was human, 
superficially. 


This woman reached between her suit's abdominal ribbing with both 


hands. Each appeared to open into a void where her body should 
have been visible. On the right, she stored the whistle and withdrew 
a pistol of unfamiliar design. On the left, she produced an object and 
told me to describe it. 


| took the item from her to gauge its weight and examine it on all 
sides. Save for one moving part, it was carved from a single piece of 
low-density wood, possibly balsa. A small extra piece has been 
fasted to one end with a wooden bolt in a way that allowed the part 
to spin freely on an axis. The body was coated in red acrylic paint, 
applied inconsistently; it chipped with little resistance against my 
fingernail. | began with the most basic description of the object: it 
was a toy plane. 


This summary caused her extreme displeasure. Grasping for a 
solution, | began to relay the other details, but she interrupted me 
before | could finish. Do you remember this? | considered that this 
woman had disabled a fire team in order to deliver this question, so | 
affected a reassuring tone. | explained to her that | have use of what 
is colloquially known as a "photographic memory". If | had 
encountered this object at any point in my life, | would know so. 
Even after amnestic usage prevented me from recalling it of my own 
free will, the sight of it would almost certainly evoke at least a vague 
sense of recognition. 


At this point, the woman nodded. Although | am not a psychiatrist, 
and the assigned tasks of my job for the Foundation made any 
degree of human interaction optional, | had a reputation among my 
coworkers for the ability to succinctly and dispassionately convey 
information. Too often was | pulled away by staff who promised 
favors in exchange for delivering bad news: a family death, an 
anomalous disease, various other occupational hazards. As a result, 
| have seen, at least a dozen times, the particular sort of nod that 
the woman employed at that moment. 


The woman put away the toy and restrained me with a pair of 
handcuffs. | asked her who she was, and what her intentions were. 
She told me to call her Alison, and that she planned on permanently 
removing me from the Foundation. | would not be harmed, she 
explained, but | would never be able to return. | told her that my test 
subject wouldn't like that. 


Up until this point, Alison was either unaware or indifferent to the 
nature of the containment chamber into which she had forced 
herself. Outside the room, a station contained a reference document 
for containment procedure, a laser printer, and a set of reinforced 
suits and flamethrowers, available in case the test subject becomes 
uncooperative. 


The containment chamber itself appears to be featureless; in fact, 
each wall is lined with roughly one dozen layers of industrial-grade 
paper, to facilitate the free movement of its occupant. The entity is 
contained within the paper, and can manipulate it to a degree. 


Upon my mention of a test subject, Alison spun around and saw the 
entity in action behind her. It superficially appeared to be a life-sized 
ink drawing of an angry young woman. Pieces of the paper surface 
tore away and folded together at a rate of dozens of folds per 
second. In an imitation of the intruder's passing intangibly down 
through the ceiling, SCP Object Zulu Hotel Echo emerged from the 
wall in a humanoid body and advanced towards us. 


My captor fired her pistol. The bullets passed through Zulu Hotel 
Echo without effect. Alison crouched, pulled a lever on the gun, and 
discharged beams that tore large cavities into Zulu Hotel Echo's 
body. The paper humanoid pulled material up from the floor to repair 
them. Then it lunged at Alison. 


The two of them tumbled across the floor. Zulu Hotel Echo's claws 
tore into Alison, and Alison ripped away parts of her assailant as 
quickly as it could produce them. Alison pinned Zulu Hotel Echo to 
the floor, adjusted her pistol, and applied a jet of fire point-blank to 
the entity's head. 


The paper body convulsed and folded into itself in an attempt to 
smother the flames while Alison rolled away and surveyed her 
injuries. Numerous cuts covered her face, and she was bleeding 
heavily from the shoulder. She dropped the pistol and pressed her 
trigger hand against the wound. The other held one of Zulu Hotel 
Echo's hands, torn away at the wrist. 


The entity withdrew from the smoldering heap and onto the side of 
the chamber, then crawled to the wall Alison had leaned against. It 


formed two arms, one on each side of her. | noticed that Alison had 
folded the severed hand's claws together into a single point and 
smudged it with her blood. The smudges formed a drawing of a 
knife. As the hands closed around Alison's throat, she stabbed the 
point into the wall behind. It pierced the paper and Zulu Hotel Echo 
convulsed, causing the paper on the wall to shake and tear. The 
strangling arms went limp. Alison pushed herself onto her feet, 
leaving bloody handprints on the floor. 


Alison pulled me away from the fire, which was spreading to fill the 
room. She sprinkled green powder in a circle that surrounded us. 
She noticed my fidgeting as | looked for an opening for escape, and 
pleaded that | not disturb the ring, for the sake of our own safety. 
She extracted a few jewels of various cuts from her suit and 
arranged them with care in the center of the ring, then wrapped an 
arm securely around my neck. 


| decided that, while helpless, | could still at least gather information. 
| asked her how she was going to escape, and she told me that she 
would "open the Way". 


This went without elaboration at the time, but my captor would later 
explain what was meant by the phrase. Alison can access a 
passage that intersects multiple universes, a phenomenon which 
she and her ilk have termed "the Way". The Way varied in 
geographic location, as it manifested in the immediate vicinity of "the 
most dangerous ten-foot square in America". Although the 
Foundation | worked for lacked the means to detect and analyze this 
portal, the qualifying ten cubic feet was almost always in or near a 
Foundation site. Whenever Alison herself was in a Foundation site, 
she found it trivially easy to “attract its attention". 


During my initial capture, as | watched the flame advance toward us, 
| skipped the matter of what exactly "the Way" was, as the name 
made the basic concept evident, and asked if this powder was the 
method of opening it. She denied it. She held a sewing needle into 
my range of vision, point lightly pressed against her thumb, and said 
that she merely had to draw blood. The flames were centimeters 
from contact with the circle. 


| inquired further: in that case, what was the purpose of the powder? 


Explosive, she said, as she pierced her hand, and | felt an acute 
physical sensation similar to motion sickness. 


Continued in Part Two. 


Cassandra 


Black Queen Gnosis speaking. 
Black Queen Persephone here. 
I'm Black Queen Elbereth. 


yes... this will prove useful! | am Black Queen, Mistress of 
Serpents! 


I can call myself Black Queen Mongoose. 


Baseline 


Cassandra is typically a human who exists as a piece of artwork, 
and is able to enter other visual media. 


Prerequisites 


Invention of paper and drawing, with few exceptions. Earth 
metaphysics compatible with either autonomous fictional life or 
fictonauts (with exception of rare nonsentient instances) 


Utility 
Usually a competent fictonaut, although limited to visual media. 
Those that manipulate paper are often useful in combat, with low 


durability but high stealth capability. Surprisingly unknown to the 
Library thus far, thanks to the Foundation. 


Vulnerability 


Can be injured through symbols; can be disabled through damaging 
her surface. Often unusually attached to the Foundation for an 
inmate, and/or to other fictonauts he or she has been paired with. 


Instance: Timeline A-130. 


Free. | met her in Seurat's painting A Sunday Evening on the Island 
of La Grande Jatte while searching it for a Porridgemonger. She 
waved at me and then continued on fishing. 


Instance: Timeline B-173. 


In Foundation custody. Refers to herself as Cassy. Simple ink 
sketch. Treated relatively fairly, by this Foundation's standards, and 
is given amenities in the form of symbols of luxury items. 


Instance: Timeline B-025. A-025. 


Deceased. When | mobilized an Insurgency, | convinced him that his 
loyalties stood with the "real" Foundation, not the haughty 
Glieseans. He hid on the Pacific Regional Director's bookshelf and 
slashed the man's wrists from inside an Audubon guide. He was 
incinerated, but the power vacuum he left was instrumental in 
making the Foundation collapse. 


Instance: Timeline B-074. 


Working openly with the Foundation. Refers to herself as Papercut. 
Possess paper manipulation abilities that extend within line of sight. 
Believes herself to be the crime-fighting medical practitioner Nurse 
Cosmic from Timeline B-075; is actually a sentient panel from a 
comic book about Nurse Cosmic. It's complicated. Currently 
cooperating with the Foundation with the anomalous youth outreach 
program Omega 7. 

This deluded doodle has been a thorn in my side for far too long. | 
can't wait to rub her out, along with the rest of the Omega 7. Then | 
can finally bring forth my Ebon Legion and DECIMATE the 
Foundation! 


decapitation, consultation with medical personnel 
assigned to SCP-596 determined that a smaller device 
that could remain within a regenerated skull would be 
more useful. 

Please complete the performance review for the 
developed equipment within 30 days 

Mike Smith 


Date: 04/26/ 

From: Dr. Jon Drake 

To: Mike Smith - FTD 

Subject: RE: RE: SCP-596 - Automatic brain stem 
removal 

Hi Mike, 

Glowing review for the new device. The staff have taken 
to calling it "the Lobotomizer" (although that's obviously 
technically inaccurate). | thought the suction system to 
remove the pureed brain matter was quite ingenious. As 
your specifications noted, by allowing the regeneration of 
the head, we can now extract eyes and tooth buds from 
the subject. 

Keep up the good work 

Dr. Jon Drake 


« SCP-595 | SCP-596 | SCP-597 » 


Instance: Timeline B-086. 


Free. A version generates whenever a recording is played of A-Ha's 
"Take On Me", which doesn't exist in this universe. Highly useful but 
difficult to come by because the Foundation here has banned 
anything even resembling 80s pop and this universe only has 
Betamax players. 


Instance: Timeline B-089. 


Believed to be in Foundation custody. | asked an informant with the 
Hand about her status, and he started talking about a prophet 
named Jeremiah the Flayed. | won't record most of the information 
he relayed because it was mostly aimless rambling that ended in"... 
and that's why it's prohibited to draw Muhammad." 


Instance: Timeline C-095. 


Non-sentient, named Cassy. Character in the Super Comics 
Publications comic book "Unreal Adventures", an ongoing 
educational series in which she and her partner Fred travel through 
famous historical works of art and writing. 

Who has a catalog for Fred? | need that for something | have going 
on with a patron. 

Be careful. There's a Timeline A-095 and you don't want any copies 
from that timeline getting near other books or drawings. 


Instance: Timeline B-214. 


In Foundation custody. Refers to herself by her SCP designation, 
Zulu Hotel Echo. She's capable of paper manipulation limited to the 
surface her form is touching and uses this to walk in a corporal 
body. My informant claims she has some combat training. 
Encountered me recovering a father. | stabbed her with a symbol of 
a knife, and didn't stop to check her vitals. She's scrappy, but 
probably deceased. 

Indeed... this "Zulu" sounds useful. | shall find her. | shall place 
upon her The Cloak Of The Crimson Constrictor, and she shall be 
my Black Mamba Knight, and together we will shred Omega 7 like 


last year's insurance forms! Ahahaha! 
Can we revoke this one's catalog privileges? 


House Of Gears, Part Two 


| awoke on an examination table. Monitors built into the walls 
displayed medical information: height, weight, dental X-ray, MRI 
data. There were several unfamiliar charts that | couldn't read. | sat 
up and saw a doctor taking notes, so | inquired. 


"What is this screen describing?" 


"That's an inventory of augmentations to your body. We scan for 
everything from pins holding bone together to nanomachines in the 
blood." The doctor turned toward me and approached the monitor | 
had referred to. | noticed that his voice and appearance were nearly 
identical to mine. "Looks like you're completely natural." 


"Why have | been taken here?" 


"| would have shown you when you woke up, but you've come to a 
few minutes ahead of schedule." My double tapped the closest 
screen. | discerned that he was checking the measurements of 
medications administered to me. 


"A timing error. That means you probably aren't actually my 
duplicate." 


He chuckled. He must have thought | was making a joke. "I'm you if 
things had gone a little differently, Doctor. | would continue the 
exam, but | know you won't cooperate until you get answers. Come 
along." 


"Our most popular hypothesis is that a reality-bender opened a 
bubble between universes for personal use." The physician told me 
this as he led me across the wing. "Those of us who study 
spatiotemporal anomalies believe it's far too stable to occur 
naturally. | trust them on that. 


"The earliest known arrival was first detained here six years ago, so 


we believe that to be when initial construction finished. However, the 
base has continually expanded since then to make allotments for 
certain outliers in our population." 


"That doesn't satisfy my previous question."