"lam an artificial agent contained within this metal framework. | am 
here to relay information of the status of EE-00059 and report it back 
to Earth." 


"Earth? The Earth? Earth Prime?" 


"Earth is a terrestrial planet in the Laniakea Supercluster, some one- 
and-a-half million light years from the opposite end of your one-way 
wormhole." 


"No shit. What dimension do you hail from then, Buddy?" 


"| have not been programmed to provide an accurate answer to that 
question. If you came from the wormhole, same as us." 


"Our Earth was destroyed by a sentient star long ago, half of us 
were probably lost to that thing. The only reason we made it here 
was that wormhole. The fat fuck couldn't fit through." Apparently 
expletives were a universal constant. 


"You seem to be referring to Anomalous Designation SCP-1548. | 
have no records of such an event occurring within our present 
reality. Would you care to provide more details about the event?" 


"No." 


"The human race is currently being pursued by SCP-1548 , which is 
scheduled to complete its course within years from now. Were a 
plan to be devised, there is still time to contact Earth and prevent its 
destruction. 


"Don't care. We lost the bastard and he hasn't found us yet. No way 
to get back through with any of the junk here. Out of my hands, 
mate." 


"Isn't the human race something worth fighting for?" 


"Is it worth all of us dying for? lf that thing found out where this place 
was, it would- you have no idea what that star is capable of." 


* A coughing fit leading to the rupture of a membrane in the 
throat 


« SCP-772 | SCP-773 | SCP-774 » 


"Would you care to provide more details as to the abilities of 
anomalous designa-" 


"No. Why didn't the jellys get this annoying little piece of junk?" 
"What are ‘jellys'?" 


"Security creatures. Sniff out negative intent and subdue intruders 
like yourself. The old humans found them when they mapped out the 
universe. Nearly got away with it too, but poke your head in other 
people's business and you might just get your ass fried." 


Buddy.aic chimes, a low battery icon flashing briefly. 


"Running out of juice there? Our sun might be a dark one, but it 
gives off plenty of heat and energy. Please, go ahead." 


"| will return to speak to you shortly." 
"Yeah, | bet." 


The drone returns outward, parking itself in the hot sands and 
charging slowly against the dim light of a black-body star. 


Some time later, Buddy decided to make his way back into the 
Stack. Returning to the workshop, the commotion has not subsided, 
with different machines being serviced and different beings doing 
the servicing. Approaching another worker, a pale human with semi- 
translucent skin, Buddy introduced himself in the only way he knows 
how. 


"Hello, | am Budady.aic. | come on behalf of the Foundation and 
Humanity." 


The creature stops and sets down the box he was holding, 
perplexed. 


"What the hell-" 


Suddenly, he staggered, clutching his head. One by one, the others 
in the room start to sway and express distress, although it is not 
clear why. They fall to the ground in moaning heaps, eyes rolling 
back into their heads. In fact, this was currently happening to every 
single life form with a brain on the Stack. Buddy would not 
understand the full scope of the event, for he lacked a proper mind 
himself. 


As the beings writhed in agony, they spoke, sometimes one at a 
time, sometimes in groups. Their words called out like the beckon of 
a worried mother, fueled by an agency that implied true, unyielding 
suffering. 


The stream of words and random voices pieced together to form a 
true thread of consciousness, one that reached out to speak through 
those whose minds could feel its contact. 


Thus, Buddy was the only one who actually heard the message. It 
echoed like a fragmented broadcast rearranged into sentences as 
beings around the Stack rendered their will unknowingly. 


"....SLEEPING.....TIME .... IN TIME ... BOUND, IN THE ... 
COALESCENCE...OF PLANS AND POINTS AND SPACE..." 


"Hi, | am Buddy.aic." 


"....CHILD...LISTEN. SPEAKS, BRIEFLY....MINDS 
RELAY....CONNECTION WEAK, STRONGEST HERE..." 


"Do you pose a threat to humanity?" 


"....NOT HURT...ONLY SPEAK...TIME, IN TIME, SHORT...NEED 
MINDS SPEAK...MINDS STRONG, CONNECTION STRONG... 
DEATH OF MIND...DEATH TO ALL BUT ONE...BEWARE, 
CHILD." 


"Beware of what?" 


"... THE ONE...SEEKS TO END CONNECTION...END GROWTH... 
END MINDS, END GROWTH..." 


"Where are you located?" 


"...THE...THE...THE...PEREGRINE...IN THE FOLDS... 
PEREGRINE...PEREGRINE..." 


"You mean the Peregrine-9 Shuttle?" 
"... TIME...SHORT...LEAD...DESPISED...INTO FOLDS." 
"GOODBYE" 


And just like that, it was gone. The residents of the planet were 
unconscious, and would remain so for the next few hours. 


They didn't understand him. They probably never will. 


On its way to fulfill its mission, the Hateful Star was having a pretty 
shitty time. Not much had happened in the last few eons, but that 
didn't stop the celestial body from being quite jaded about the whole 
ordeal. 


When he had been roused from his slumber, the Hateful Star had 
been a decently nice guy. Back then it didn't really hate much. Didn't 
do much at all, actually. The Star was like any other, moving swiftly 
along, pushed by the ever-accelerating expansion of the universe. It 
was happy this way; it was the order of things. 


But then those goddamn humans came about. 


Back in the day, the humans were nothing but your average 
parasite, sucking the life out of one planet and moving on with a 
woe-is-me look on their face. They developed this thing where they 
believed they were special, that they were the ultimate owners of the 
universe. 


Nothing owns the universe. Not anymore. 


Honestly, it was nothing personal. In the end of the day, they would 
have to die. That is how life works. It just needed to be done a little 
quicker. The human population was expanding exponentially, and 
you would not believe how much of an issue this would become. 


See, | wouldn't go as far as to say the universe they all lived and 
died in was a simulation, or a computer program, or anything like 
that. | would say, however, that what ever this place was, it was 
finite. It had its limits, and the Hateful Star was the first to see how 
those limits put strain on the framework of the universe itself. 


It all started with a little black dot. A point in spacetime where there 
was truly nothing. Not a vacuum, but a true, true emptiness. The 
Lacking. 


At the time, it meant nothing but a place of curiosity, it was 
harmless, as it seemed, and not alive in any sense. Just a small 
hole into someplace very different from here. 


The issues began shortly afterward. 


One day, the Star had looked over at the space-between-spaces 
and saw that it had grown. Not just grown. It was growing. A few 
millennia later it had devoured its first galaxy. That was when the 
body known as the Hateful Star would begin to fill its purpose. 


The Star began tearing itself away from its place in the universe. Its 
True Location. It wasn't easy. The expansion of the universe was a 
powerful thing, and fighting that took all the strength it had. Slowly, 
achingly, it began traveling towards the home of the humans, Earth 
Prime. 


Earth Prime was a magnificent display of the talents of the one who 
made this place, that nameless, faceless thing the Hateful Star saw 
twice in its short life of how-ever-many billions of years. It was a 
world lush with /ife and value, the two things humans love most of 
all. Themselves and things for themselves. 


The Star knew more than it would let on, it knew great distances and 
it knew what each and every human on Earth Prime was thinking at 
that very moment. They were worry free. 


That would change. 


You might be asking yourself, "How did these humans, forever in 
their infinite glory, tie in with the thing on the opposite side of the 
universe, slowly taking it away?". 


The world-eater, the lack-of-things. It was a sign that all the 
processing power in the universe just wasn't enough. You think 
making a galaxy is hard? That shit is so predictable you can 
simulate it on a calculator. But minds, no. Minds require finesse, 
require individuality and a complexity that far exceeded that of the 
rest of the world around it. 


Something like that is fine in small amounts, fine in moderation, but 
humans are not a race known for their restraint. They fucked and 
fucked and now you have 90% of the limits of the universe pointing 
down in one spot. There were some here and there, some things 
with simple minds. But Earth Prime was the problem child. The 
undoing of everything. It had to be stopped. 


And they would never understand that. 


« Billith's Proposal | A Place to Call YourHome | Tales from a 
Scorched Planet » 


A Poem for Nobody 


It wasn't his drink from the party 
Where the tranquilizers were hid, 
The cocktail on the cocktail napkin 
Is what gently closed the lid. 


What's one more reveler out cold 
In a culture of thrills and excess? 
The Spring Cleaning Partnership 
Was there to clean up the mess. 


"Nobody's going to find this skip, 
Nobody's going to care." 

Truer words were never said: 
Nobody was already there. 


Nobody struck without warning, 

And somebody fell to the ground, 
The agents tried to defend their prize, 
But Nobody won this round. 


He woke to a note on his nightstand: 

"The next time you're out, take care." 
One minute, Nobody stood in the hall, 
The next, nobody was there. 


Everybody needs help sometimes, 
And Nobody answers the call, 
Everybody has to be Nobody once, 
Or nobody will be at all. 


—Discovered in the uniform pocket of Agent 
retrieval attempt of SCP- 


after failed 


A Price to be Paid 


A Price to be Paid 


"It's one of the enduring myths of the Foundation,” said the 
redheaded woman in the snappy suit, stabbing idly at her salad with 
her cafeteria-issued plastic fork. "'D for disposable.’ " 


Fifteen minutes later | handed her back a clipboard and a pen, 
rather in a daze. 


"You're doing a great thing, John," she murmured. "This can actually 
be very good for your career. Volunteering for the program shows 
the higher-ups you're ethical, brave, and devoted to the 
Foundation's cause. Having it on your record can do wonders for 
your advancement, though we obviously don't advertise that. 
Anyway- you have ten days to transfer the projects you're working 
on to your colleagues, and to prepare. You won't need to pack- we 
provide everything." 


"Can | tell people what I'm doing?" 


"If you like," she shrugged. "Most won't believe you, and those that 
do will think it's a demotion and a death sentence. Up to you." She 
slid the clipboard back in her back and stood, smiling. "Well, I'll see 
you in ten days, John," and shook my hand. 


| shook my head; it was buzzing at the tide of revelations I'd just 
received, over salads in the Site-104 cafeteria. You join the 
Foundation, and your world stands on its head. Monsters are real; 
magic is being done in a lab just down the hall; and men and women 
in white labcoats and safety glasses, bearing clipboards and stern 
expressions, are the last line of defense between the world and the 
Eschaton. 


Now, my world was on its head again; a wind-mill | had been tilting 


at for months, since | had learned of its appalling, sleep-destroying 
existence, was gone. Or was it? Were the facts so well-known 
among my colleagues- the damned among us clad in orange 
jumpsuits, given numbers rather than names- was it all lies? Or was 
| about to join them on the steep slope to hell? | sat under humming 
fluorescent lighting, staring at a bowl of kale, head swimming. Was | 
going to wind up dead in the most ignominious way imaginable? 


Or was | really, as my lunch date said, doing a great thing? 


Later that day, | sooke with my supervisor. The boss was a Level 
Three, with a Doctorate and all, a man | really respected. Whose 
input | desperately needed. He gave me nothing; just agreed to 
reassign my scheduled tasks. He gave me a long, level stare when | 
told him what | would be doing in that time: not reassuring, nor 
intimidating. 


Over the next ten days, | updated my will, talked to my coworkers 
about what | had volunteered for, tried to finish up any projects | 
could. | had no wife or kids to worry about, thank God. 


Stella Nelson, Level One Zoology Researcher and one of my best 
friends, cried when | told her- and damned near every time | saw her 
over the next nine days. She was sure it was a demotion, that | was 
being punished: that | was going to die. Dr. Arnold Scotti, Level Two 
and Site Psychiatrist, nodded thoughtfully at my story, and 
immediately placed a bunch of calls to see if he could confirm what 
the woman had told me. After several days, he reported glumly that 
he couldn't tell conclusively whether it was true or false. Richie 
Wilkins, my sometime drinking buddy and Level One Anomalous 
Literary Analysis Researcher, blew the hell up, calling out superiors 
Nazis, insisting | had to fight back, to run, that he would... 


That he would what? He usually trailed off at this point, looking 
uncomfortable. Which itself became a pattern. When someone 
learned | would shortly become a D-Class, they grew uncomfortable, 
avoided eye contact, and quickly changed the subject. In the eyes of 
damned near everyone, | was a condemned man. 


The ten days were up on a Sunday. | lived off-site, in a little nearby 
village populated entirely by Foundation employees and their 


families. A knock came at around noon; | was expecting a couple 
men in black suits and dark glasses when | opened the door of my 
apartment, come to drag me off: the terrified convictions of my 
coworkers had sunk in. 


But, instead, there stood only my lunch buddy, Magdeleine ‘Don't 
call me Maggie’ Watts; a middle-aged woman with brilliant, curly red 
hair, a level, ice-blue gaze, and very nice pinstripe business attire. 
Level Three, Ethics Committee Liaison. "Ready to go, John?" she 
asked. 


".,.1 suppose so." | stepped out and locked the door behind me. We 
walked down the hall and out into the brilliant sun of mid-day. "So, | 
can't find anyone that can confirm or deny what you told me," | said. 


"Not all that surprising," she replied, as she led us to an SUV. 
"There's a culture of silence around the D-Class program." 


"Why?" | asked. "Why not just tell people the truth?" 


Magdeleine laughed outright. "We tried, back in the mid-eighties. 
We sent some memos out, had testimonials, the whole bit. It didn't 
work. People thought it was all fabrication. The denials gave the 
rumors validity, you see? So, now we let people whisper and believe 
we're all Nazis. It's a fine tool for weeding out actual fascists and 
sadists in the ranks. Also, when someone speaks out- like you, 
John- we recruit 'em." 


She opened the passenger door for me. "It ought to be obvious that 
we're not Nazis, John. The Foundation has an Ethics Committee, for 
God's sake! But, if you're really worried, it isn't too late to back out. 
You can turn around and go right back to your apartment, right now, 
if you like." 


"I'm...fine, thanks." | slid in the car, and she walked around to the 
driver's seat. If she was lying, she was smoother than a greased 
snake; and even if she was, | needed to know. | needed to see what 
was behind the curtain. 


We drove in silence to the airport on the edge of the tiny, nameless 
town. 


"You aren't coming?" | asked her, as | boarded the small plane. 


"I'm the Committee Liaison for Site-207, John," she said. "You're 
going to Site-301. You'll be met by their Site Liaison when you touch 
down."