"Shit." Adrian breathed deeply. "All right, where are you guys holed 
up?" 


"Security Station Niner. We're pretty safe here, but there are hostiles 
roaming the halls. We've taken quite a few casualties and are 
currently combat ineffective." Squire smiled grimly. "Just another 
day in Pandora's Box, | suppose." 


"All right." Adrian gestured over his shoulder, felt a map being 
pressed into his hand. "Thanks," he said, unfolding the map on the 
hood of the Humvee. "All right," he repeated. "Security Station Niner. 
We'll enter..." Adrian frowned and shook his head. His vision kept 
getting blurry, and every time he blinked, the shape of the hallways 
changed. "Damn it. The map keeps changing on me." 


"You should try walking through those hallways sometime." Squire 
grim smile widened. "Real pain in the ass, what with the walls trying 
to eat you alive." 


The seconds ticked by as Adrian glared at the map for a few more 
moments, then gave up. "All right, wait five," he said to the laptop 
computer. He picked up the map and carried it out of the computer's 
field of view, waved his hand in the air in a small circle to rally the 
soldiers. "Team Iris!" he shouted. "Huddle up! | need some ideas..." 


Incident Zero 
« Part 1 | Part 2| Part 3 | Part 4| Part 5 » 


Incident Zero - Part 3 


General Bowe's paternal great-grandfather had died at Gettysburg 
under the command of General Armstead during Pickett's famous 
doomed charge. He had been one of the brave Confederate soldiers 
to cross the stone wall at the Bloody Angle, had been shot in the gut 
by a damned dirty Yankee, stood his ground as his comrades-in- 
arms retreated, and used his last breath to stab a filthy Irishman in 
the heart. It was a story passed down on his father's side of the 
family as an example of the courage and bravery of the Bowe 
bloodline. 


General Bowe's maternal great-grandfather had also died at 
Gettysburg. He'd been a member of the 69th Pennsylvania, one of 
the brave men who'd defended the stone wall at the Bloody Angle. 
He'd shot a filthy slave-owning rebel scum in the belly and stood at 
the center of the heaviest fighting at the Confederacy's high-water 
mark, but when the enemy retreated, he hadn't noticed that the one 
of the damned Johnny Rebs weren't quite dead. The cowardly 
Southerner had bayoneted him in the heart as he leaped over the 
fence, and the two of them had died in each other's arms. 


There was no way of knowing whether General Robert Ulysses 
Abraham Jefferson Bowe's great-grandfathers had really killed each 
other at the Battle of Gettysburg, but it made sense to him. General 
Bowe was a man at war with everything, including himself. He was a 
scholar who had chosen a career in the military, a scientist who 
studied the unscientific, a soldier without a war to fight. Internal 
conflict was his raison d'etre. 


9/11 had been the worst day in American history for many people. 
Not so for General Bowe. For the General, the worst terrorist attack 
on American soil had meant a chance to put into action the plans 
he'd been making for years. It was a chance for his secret 
negotiations with the shadowy organization known only as The 
Foundation to be brought into the (relative) light of black ops. The 


last few years had been very good for General Bowe. Multiple 
successful operations overseas had resulted in increased funding 
for the Bowe Commission's projects. 


And now, within the last twelve hours, things had gone to shit. 


"First," he said, as the leader of the Overseer Council sat down 
across from him, "You need to assure me that what's going on at 
Yellowstone isn't a terrorist attack, and that it's going to be taken 
care of." 


The Overseer said, "Yellowstone is not a terrorist attack. It is more 
like an accident in weapons development testing. The situation will 
be resolved within the next 24 hours." 


"Good," General Bowe said. "I'll hold you to that." He jotted down a 
note on a pad of sketch paper. "I need a situation report." 


The Overseer said, "Yellowstone Mountain is currently in temporal 
and existential flux. Aside from that, we are still trying to assess the 
damage. Due to the CK-Class restructuring, all of our Special 
Containment Procedures databases have desynchronized. China, 
Korea, Japan, and Russia branches are all showing different file 
numbers for different objects. We're currently sorting them out by 
using the American database as a baseline, and affixing a suffix to 
the foreign branches' desynchronized entries, but it is a lengthy 
process that might never be fully resolved." 


"| disapproved of your organization having foreign outposts," 
General Bowe reminded the Overseer. "| was afraid that something 
like this might happen." 


The Overseer said, "You were concerned about the security of our 
foreign offices. This is hardly the same thing." 


"Nevertheless, it is the opinion of this Commission that the 
Foundation's foreign offices now represent an unacceptable security 
risk." General Bowe turned to the next page on his sketch pad, 
jotted down another note. "Following the end of this current crisis, 
you will present a plan to decommission them and consolidate your 
anomalies in American containment sites within no more than five 


years." 


The Overseer said, "We were promised oversight of our own 
operations. Relocating our inventory will be problematic. This is not 
to mention those anomalies that cannot be relocated due to size or 
other factors." 


"That was before you idiots blew up Yellowstone Mountain," General 
Bowe said, "and before you lied to us about the state of your 
weapons development division." 


The Overseer said. "We have not... " 


"| Know about Project Olympia," General Bowe interrupted. "Your 
scientists created a line of production-model super-soldiers and 
somehow neglected to report that to the Commission. I've read 
about the capabilites of the Olympia line. Do you know how many 
American special operations soldiers have died since the start of the 
war? Do you know how many lives could have been saved?" 


The Overseer said nothing. 


"Your Foundation's had its fun for long enough. Time to put on your 
big boy pants and become part of the government," General Bowe 
said. He folded up his sketch book and got to his feet. "I'll be in 
touch regarding the consolidation of Foundation assets into the 
Department of Paranormal Warfare tomorrow afternoon." 


The Overseer said, "There is no Department of Paranormal 
Warfare." 


"There will be tomorrow. The President and | will make sure of it." 


The General left the office without saying goodbye or asking for a 
salute. 


The Overseer remained in its seat after he had gone. 


"This idea sucks," Adrian said. 


"It was the best we could do," Bill said. "Get ready." 


Adrian took a deep breath, revved the engine, and clutched the 
steering wheel tightly. 


The answer, as it turned out, had been fairly simple. Going in using 
the front door was out of the question: too many hostiles roaming 
the halls, too much distance to cover surrounded by hostiles of 
every possible shape and size. On the other hand, there was the 
reality destabilization... namely, the fact that Yellowstone Mountain 
was replaced with an empty field of geysers and hotsprings for 
about thirty seconds every thirty minutes. 


Beatrix had done the math. A vehicle that traveled at approximately 
thirty miles per hour should barely have enough time to travel 
through the solid granite and arrive at the location of the main 
carpark just as the mountain reappeared. It was kind of like driving 
through a bunch of swinging pendulums, if the pendulums were 
universes and the metaphor was a little less forced. 


Adrian glanced at the other passengers in his humvee. Bill rode 
shotgun, SAW across his lap. Beats, Effie and Vincent were in the 
back seat: Effie standing by to jump into the turret and man the .50 
cal if things went bad. 


If things went bad... The universe was going mad. There was a 
goddamn mountain flicking in and out of existence in front of him. 
And he was worried about things getting worse... 


"Ten seconds," Bill said, and Adrian gripped the steering wheel even 
more tightly. "Seven. Six, Five..." 


Adrian put the vehicle in gear just as Bill said "Five," started 
accelerating as Bill said "Three," had a horrible moment when he 
thought that the timing was off and they were about to drive straight 
into a granite wall, and then the mountain disappeared and they 
were driving along a flat volcanic plain. Adrian ignored the other 
vehicles behind him, ignored everything but the broken road before 
him and Bill's voice counting down, "eight, seven, six, five, four, 
three..." and then the flat plains disappeared, and they were driving 
through a parking garage with flickering fluorescent lights and blood 
all over the ground, and the wall was getting close, so damn close, 
Adrian slammed the brakes and the tires squealed and the humvee 


pure fantasy. There were never any kings of Sicily comparable to 
Gonzalo and Sforza, and the capital of the historical Kingdom of 
Sicily was Palermo, not Syracuse. (The author may have chosen to 
move the play’s events to Syracuse, due to that city’s historical 
association with tyranny). There is also no record of any country or 
place known by the name Alagaada, a mysterious but apparently 
powerful state that plays a significant role in the plot. It may be 
intended as a reference to one of the Muslim states or cities on the 
Mediterranean coast, such as Tunis or Algiers. 


PLOT SUMMARY: 

The plot of The Hanged King’s Tragedy bears a marked 
resemblance to many earlier plays of the same genre, including 
Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Titus Andronicus. \n fact, past 
investigations into SCP-701 events have noted that The Hanged 
King’s Tragedy was often chosen for production as a less-violent 
alternative to the two plays mentioned. The two murders in the 
SCP-701 text can be construed as occurring off-stage, and the 
implication of cannibalism in Act Ill can be easily cut from the script. 


ACT I: 

The play opens during Gonzalo’s coronation. Gonzalo opens with a 
toast to the assembled nobility, then departs the stage. Drunk on the 
wine, Isabella confesses to some of the courtiers left on stage that 
Sforza did not die in his sleep as reported. Instead, while on retreat 
in the countryside, Sforza was fed a sleeping potion by Isabella, 
then murdered by Gonzalo and his supporters. As a final show of 
disrespect, the conspirators hanged the King like a common criminal 
from a tree. Isabella goes on to proclaim that Antonio, a minor noble 
visiting the King’s court for the first time, is actually her and Sforza’s 
son and the rightful heir to the throne. Isabella collapses and is 
taken offstage by her servants. 


Francisco asks Antonio if he believes the Queen’s story. Antonio 
makes light of the situation, and they exit. Back in Antonio’s rented 
lodgings, Francisco attempts to barter with a Courtesan. Antonio 
enters the stage, clearly in shock. He reports that, while off-stage, 
he saw the Ghost of Sforza, who confirmed Antonio’s parentage and 
the Queen’s description of his death. 


ACT II: 


slewed left and it slammed into the concrete wall and went 
CRUNCH. 


"CONTACT RIGHT!" Bill shouted. His SAW fired off three short 
bursts. Vincent was screaming something, then Adrian heard the 
staccato chatter of Beatrix's submachinegun, and then came the 
low, steady thud of the .50 opening up, and then silence. 


Adrian glanced out the right side of the vehicle. Something big, grey, 
and humanoid lay on the ground, now riddled with bullets and 
breathing its last. At the front of its head, where a face should have 
been, was a blank, greyish nothing. 


A bloody, wet gurgle from the back. Adrian turned to look. He 
immediately wished he hadn't. Vince was slumped against the door, 
twitching and gasping. The entire front of his head, from his ears 
forward, was just... gone. Effie drew her pistol, put it to his temple, 
and fired once. The thing that had been Vince went still. 


Adrian swallowed hard and turned away. "S... Sound off!" he 
shouted into the darkness. 


"This is Car Two!" came a shout from behind him. "Frederickson! 
Everyone's fine, but the back end of the car's stuck in the wall!" 


Shit, Adrian whispered. The timing must have changed. He took a 
deep breath before asking the question no one wanted the answer 
to. "Car Three?" 


A long pause. "I can see their front bumper sticking out of the wall 
behind me,” Frederickson shouted. "That's it." Silence again. "How 
about you?" 


Adrian glanced into the back of the humvee. Beatrix was wiping off 
her bloodied face with a shaking hand, while Effie and Bill wrestled 
Vince's still body out of the back seat. "One casualty," he said. "It's 
Vince. Fatal." 


Another heartbeat's worth of silence. "Shit," Frederickson said. "All 
right, what's the plan?" 


"Can you see us?" Adrian asked. 


"Yeah, | can see your tail lights." 


"Then disembark and grab what you can. Move your squad up and 
we'll proceed from here on foot." 


"Roger. Moving," Frederickson said. 


Adrian rubbed his upper lip, despair setting in. One minute into the 
mission, and Team Iris had already suffered five casualties out of 
their original fourteen. Even for Pandora's Box, those were not good 
figures. 


He checked his carbine, slung it over his shoulder, and climbed out 
of the driver's side door. Something squished under his foot as he 
stepped out of the car, and he shone his flashlight down to see what 
it was. 


It was a face. Vince's. Adrian allowed himself a moment of revulsion 
before closing his eyes and doing his breathing exercises. His 
fingers clenched tightly, gripping a scalpel that didn't exist. 


There are a lot of different ways to think about skulking through a 
monster-ridden facility in the middle of a temporal flux event. One is 
"nightmare." Another is "death trap." 


Omega-7 called it "movement through hostile territory." Single-file 
line, weapons raised, checking and double-checking every corner 
and intersection. Communicating only through hand gestures, taps 
on the shoulder, and squeezes on the leg. Just another series of 
corridors and doorways to be checked, cleared, and moved through. 


They encountered no further hostiles, although they could, on 
occasion, hear growls, grunts, and screams from deeper inside the 
facility. The odd flickering and fuzziness faded away as they 
proceeded further and got closer to the Scranton Reality Anchors at 
the heart of the base. All in all, their movement was quick, 
professional, and by the numbers. 


The thing laying outside Security Station Nine resembled a hugely 
obese human being, albeit one that was over nine feet tall and 


covered in oozing sores and tumors. A large number of rotting, 
disintegrating corpses lay all around it, most of them dressed in the 
uniforms of Mobile Task Force personnel. 


One of the least decomposed was an older man with ginger hair, 
shot with silver. Squire had died in close contact with the monster. 
His corpse still held a tarnished knife in one hand. The other was 
sunk wrist-deep into the rolls of fat around the creature's neck. 


"They were attacked shortly after you entered the facility," a low 
voice said in an unfamiliar accent. "Unfortunately, they were all dead 
by the time | arrived." 


The nine surviving members of Mobile Task Force Omega-7 turned 
to face the figure stepping out of the shadows. He was very tall and 
handsome, and his arms were made of steel. 


"Cain," Beatrix breathed. She lowered her weapon. A moment later, 
at a gesture from Adrian, the rest of Omega-7 followed. 


"| would not approach the corpse too closely, if | were you," the tall, 
Semitic-looking man said. "Even dead, the noxious fumes could 
prove fatal."