The thing is, after bending the laws of physics so many times, | got 
used to playing god. Now, | get to be one. | get to manipulate reality 
from behind the scenes. | classified myself Keter, to see how you’d 
react to the idea of something potentially world ending completely 
fading from memory. | edited myself into the official document on 
how we started, although you won’t remember my name being 
there. | have told everyone that I’m not circular, and that’s the only 
thing you remember about me anymore. While the number of SCPs 
| have created is quite small, the number of ideas | gave birth to is 
tremendous. 


| started manipulating people too. | started discussing, with high- 
ranking researchers that I’d told to come in to my room, what else 
they could do with SCPs. How they could worship machines, make 
art, mass market them for profit or just destroy them. When they left, 
they forgot about me, but they remembered the ideas. They 
assumed that the ideas were theirs, and so they saw them out. It 
was almost like brainwashing. It gave me more power, power that 
I’ve lusted after since the beginning of the Foundation. |’m 
controlling all of these people, even you. You see, after reading this 
letter, you'll rush off and go to tell someone. Along the way, you'll 
drop the letter, and forget where it is you’re going. You could be the 
first person to read it, you could be the hundredth, it doesn’t matter. 
After this, you go back to being nothing but a pitiful, powerless 
pawn, created for the sole purpose of testing my control. 


Everything that the Foundation, and any of the other groups, has 
done is down to me and me alone. Sometimes | come up with ideas, 
and tell other researchers. Sometimes | create them and put them in 


containment. | organise outbreaks to test the might of my creations. 
Every idea, every thought you have ever had in your measly, 
unimportant waste of a life is either known or made by me and me 
alone. 


| know that you consider me evil, or unjust, or corrupt. | know you 
believe that this is unacceptable and a gross misuse of power. The 
truth is, mortal gods do not adhere to the same restrictive moral 
code as you insignificant insects. 


Yours forgettably, 


Aaron Siegel 
>AKA O5-5. 


The Exalted 


Journal Entry, September the Twentieth, the Year of our Lord, 
Eighteen Ninety-One 


| have encountered the most marvelous thing at the lakehouse! 
There is a winding closed path there that slopes ever upwards... 
even once you have returned to your start! 


| have spent the last few days walking and studying it, and have yet 
to find an explanation. But | shall continue! | feel like | am on the 
edge of something enormous and wonderful, like standing ona 
cliffside overlooking the sea. And | will not cease until | have drunk 
my fill! 


| should wire Franklin immediately to come join me, but I'm dread to 
involve anyone else until | have an explanation in my own mind. | 
seem to sense some mathematical forms that may adequately 
apply. Perhaps | should wait until | am further down this path before 
involving my brother. He is busy with his surgery, after all. 


Journal Entry, June the Twenty-First, the year of our Lord, 
Eighteen Ninety-Three 


| delayed perhaps too long in asking Agnes to marry me, but | was 
quite distracted by these wonderful equations. They are fascinating 
and complex and hint of a world of ease for all men, if we can but 
exploit them properly. It may be overly romantic, but | wanted to 
provide proof of my love and devotion to Agnes before asking for her 
hand. So | used some of the simpler forms | derived from the path to 
forge for her a key to open any lock and unbar any door, that she 
and | may never be separated. 


Franklin teased me about it, but he is as fascinated as | am by these 
derived mathematics. So far, | have only found applications in the 
physical realm, but he believes they may be applicable to medicinal 
breakthroughs as well. He also suggested bringing on Thomas and 


Jeremy as well, although they are not scientifically minded and | do 
not see how they might provide assistance. Still, | am loathe to 
withhold benefit from the world, even if we must provide it slowly. 


Journal Entry, January the First, the year of our Lord, Nineteen 
Hundred and One 


The first day of a new century. It's hard to believe all the wondrous 

things we've discovered and created during the last decade. | know 
it's sentimental, but | harbor a fondness for Agnes' key. | suppose it 
is akin to the fondness another man might hold for his first-born son. 


| spent the morning reviewing my notes on the data | collected on 
this past equinox, and | do believe that | may be able to finally 
formulate a partial set of rules to govern the properties of a body 
moving at or beyond the speed of light in a vacuum. | shall proceed 
with my experiments within the month. The Crab Nebula should be 
sufficiently distant to effectively test my hypothesis. 


Agnes wishes me to review some documents regarding the outlay 
for the new facility Jason is building in Arizona, but | am no financier 
and have no desire to embroil myself in a spat with Jason. Frankly, 
my dear Agnes has a much better head for how to soothe his 
bruised ego than | ever have and | trust her to perform her duties 
well. 


Journal Entry, July Second, Nineteen-Fourteen A.D. 


Blast it! Thomas and his little coterie have been meddling again! The 
recent events in Sarajevo bore all the signs of their interference, 
particularly in light of their interest in the territories along the 
German-Austrian border. The depradations they have already 
performed... When | first met Thomas, | would not have expected 
such depravities of him. That flute alone... 


| must meet with Agnes, Elizabeth and my brother, and soon. 
Perhaps if we hurry, we will be able to mitigate some of the effects 
of this. | dare not allow us to openly intervene, but perhaps 
something more subtle may be possible. | believe my brother has 
been breeding some sort of creatures that inhibit dream states. One 
or two of those let loose on a general or recalcitrant head of state 


Addendum 640-b: In two separate incidents, SCP-640 has been 
observed to distract researchers, causing them to have accidents 
resulting in breach of suit integrity. Following suit breach, both 
researchers were fatally attacked by SCP-640. Research team lead 
has recommended that SCP-640 be provisionally assigned Keter 
classification pending further investigation to determine whether the 
entity's actions were deliberate or fortuitous. 


Addendum 640-c: Provisional Keter classification denied, object 
has been returned to Euclid classification. 


« SCP-639 | SCP-640 | SCP-641 » 


might be useful. 
Journal Entry, January Eighteenth, 1919 AD 


| watched those pompous fools sign their treaty today, despite 
Franklin's misgivings. He was afraid that those traitorous 
breakaways would try to disrupt the proceedings, but even they 
must see how utterly foolish and wasteful this whole unpleasant 
business was. But to see these utter, utter fools crow and humiliate 
the Krauts... This will not end well. 


In the meantime, we must attempt to reclaim our possessions lost in 
the heat of battle. At least a few of Franklin's beasts slipped their 
tethers at the beginning of the war, and he only just revealed to me 
that he neglected to remove their ability to breed true prior to their 
release. Jeremy and Thomas were quite busy as well, and I'm 
certain that the only reason England didn't suffer more was due to 
their interference. | quite wonder whether they would have been so 
quick to light the flame if they had known it would spread to the 
entirety of Europe. 


Quite bothersome is a report that Elizabeth passed to me that a 
group of our agents monitoring the fronts went mad sometime last 
year, and have taken to worshipping that ugly mass of rust we 
recovered from one of Jeremy's holdings at the beginning of the 
War. She recommends letting them tend it, but I'm somewhat 
discomfitted by the idea of heathens in our halls, even if they would 
be fully under our control. | must discuss this with the others. 


Agnes has been pestering me about our holdings in Canada, 
especially regarding some sort of aquatic nonsense that Jason has 
been experimenting with, but frankly, I'd rather not be bothered. He 
has always been a handful and | find the entire affair draining. Let 
her deal with him. 


Journal Entry, May Ninth, 1933 


As | predicted, the humiliation of the Germans produced bitter fruit. 
This Hitler fellow has all the hallmarks of a developing nuisance, and 
| greatly suspect that we will need to send one of Sophia's little 
gentlemen to bring him into line. The atrocious Italian affair is also of 


concern. | should see if any of our agents within their government 
can stabilize things until the Germans are under control. 


The only consolation is that the heightened fervor of that state 
allows us to hide our activities amongst the masses somewhat more 
easily. | am particularly pleased with the preliminary results of my 
spatial expander in the Black Forest. If successful, | believe | might 
be able to apply the same precepts to a more portable environment, 
perhaps even as small as a cabinet. 


Agnes insists that we need to expand our operations in the Orient, 
but for the life of me | cannot see why. The Chinese are of no 
interest to me, much less the rest of the Mongoloids in that region. 
At best, they would make rude fodder for some of my brother's more 
esoteric experiments. 


As much as it pains me, | believe | must speak with Elizabeth about 
the situation with Jason. His behavior is growing more erratic, and | 
suspect that we may need to restrain him before he becomes 
dangerously unstable. 


Journal Entry, December Twenty-Fifth, 1943 
The waste, the waste, the sheer and utter WASTE! 


Agnes was correct, Sophia was useless, and Jason is nothing but a 
failure! So many! So many lives spent without reason! | am furious 
that Jason allowed Roosevelt to even begin the atomic program, 
much less allow it to proceed this far! 


| must see if Sophia can salvage any of this by sharing the 
information amongst the Germans. She tells me our agents amongst 
them have access to a large pool of subjects with whom we can test 
the radio-active effects. | am less trusting of her competence, 
however. Perhaps Agnes will be willing to oversee the project. 


Journal Entry, September 24, 1945 


At long last this debacle is over, although | had hoped that it would 
have ended differently. As | oversaw the close of the previous War, 
so shall | oversee the closing of this one. | have grown so tired of 


these machinations. 
Perhaps | shall retire to my neglected studies. 
Journal Entry, August 17th, 1948 


|am much amused by this fellow Feynman. His innovative diagrams 
are quite useful for the modeling of the subatomic, and | dearly wish 
| had known of them in the early years of our endeavor of this 
Foundation. They would have quite expedited much of my research. 
| have considered inviting him into our cohort, if only to see whether 
he would have any other little intuitions regarding the true shape of 
reality. However, | fear that we may be somewhat retarding the 
growth of the unenlightened masses by continually plucking the 
finest minds from their midst. 


In less pleasant developments, Agnes has formally left me. Truth be 
told, it was not much of a surprise, given the gulf that has grown 
between us. | remember when we would lay in the grass and have 
quiet conversations about music or physics or the intrigues of our 
extended families. But that has all vanished, replaced with Council 
meetings and logistical coordinations and a chilly, distant, brittle 
shred of respect and regard. 


Even with all the powers at our fingertips, there is so much we 
cannot, no, WILL not do. 


Journal Entry, March 3, 1961 


The Soviet space program is proceeding apace, albeit somewhat 
quicker than | initially anticipated. | suppose Nikita feels like he must 
prove something. 


| do not anticipate any incursions into our Lunar territories in the 
near future, but we can never be too careful. I'll travel to the Lunar 
base later this month to inspect the protective and camouflage 
measures for the base and the deposits at the Lagranges. In any 
case, | haven't used the telescopes there in quite some time. | may 
be given reports about our extra-Solar probes, but | still like to look 
in on the projects once in a while. 


So many responsibilities these days, so little time to relax. Whatever 
happened to the lad who walked the path so many years ago? | get 
so maudlin around my birthday. And so few people left to remember 
it. 


Journal Entry 01/01/1966 
So begins the 75th year since my discovery of that damned path. 


| can no longer turn a blind eye to the disease that has overcome us 
all. For truly, hubris has spread like a plague among us, as we bend 
and twist and break the world to fit our whims. | claim no innocence 
in this, but cannot ignore the horrors unleashed with grim joy by 
those | once called friends and family. 


| remember the curiosity | felt when | first walked the path, and the 
wonder once | found the equations that sustain it. | remember the 
excitement in my brother's eyes as he began to see the 
ramifications, the delight on Agnes' face when | showed her the key. 


The path gave us the power to rebuild the world. It is time | finally do 
so. 


Journal Entry, September the Twenty-Third, the year of our 
Lord, Eighteen Ninety One 


My sabbatical to the new lakehouse has done me a world of good. | 
discovered an old walking path on the grounds that led to a 
marvelous vista above the lake, and | made a sketch of it for Agnes. 
Perhaps | may entice her to come boating with me, should her 
cousin be available to chaperone. 


In a Yellow Wood 


He finished his day like he usually did - he closed his notebook, 
exited the lab and took the short walk to the gate. As he passed 
through, he gave a wave to the guard on duty, turned right and 
began the walk that would bring him back to the starting point in 
about half an hour - a slight uphill climb the entire way. 


Autumn had settled on the woods the week before, bringing the 
trees to their full colors, but the weather remained comfortable. He 
let his mind drift as his feet automatically followed the path, a small 
smile creasing the corners of his mouth as he considered the simple 
beauty of the equations that explained the anomaly. The equations 
had led to many other discoveries, but his favorite would always be 
this one. 


Close to the halfway point, he noticed that his right shoe was coming 
untied. As he knelt to re-secure the laces, he glanced to his right, 
and took a sharp intake of breath. He was looking at another path 
that curved off into the woods. 


As he stood to inspect this new discovery, it disappeared. He slowly 
adjusted the angle of his head, and suddenly it reappeared. With 
some experimentation, he discovered that, when he held his head at 
just the right angle, there was a very narrow “window”, only a 
centimeter or two wide, that allowed him to see the new path. He 
stood in quiet contemplation for several minutes, and then pivoted 
180 degrees. He spent several more minutes adjusting the angle of 
his head before he was able to verify that it continued into the woods 
in that direction as well. 


He was amazed, but not surprised. Certainly the equations did not 
preclude the presence of another path (or for that matter, multiple 
other paths). In fact, he had spent some time several years ago 
trying to predict possible intersection points, but the theoretical 
nature of the exercise soon fell to the wayside, overshadowed by the 
discoveries that he and his team were making at the time.