With that, the doctor left the woman's side and strode to the large 
cabinet at the other side of the room. From its top shelf he took a 
long plastic tray, which he began to fill. First came a series of 
delicate steel scalpels, arranged by decreasing size. After them 
were twice as many syringes, the smallest the size of the doctor's 
fingernail, the largest as long as his index finger. The liquids within 
them were of the doctor's own making, and precious beyond 
measure. Last came an electrical device, a small metal sphere 


connected to a number of electrodes. With the tray held in both 
hands, he returned to the woman. 


"Are you prepared to begin then? It is not too late to change your 
mind." 


"| told you before, I'm ready. This is what | want." 


"Very well. Applying preliminary anesthetic agent... now. 


Said agent was an ordinary one, meant only to numb the senses. 
The woman's breath grew shallow as she drifted into gentle 
unconsciousness. She almost seemed peaceful for a moment, until 
the doctor took a closer look at her lined face. There were far too 
many marks on it for a person so young. For a moment, he wished 
he had his brother to tell him what each of them meant. This was 
always the Diagnostician's specialization, not his. But his brother 
was long gone, vanished into parts unknown. His own knowledge 
would have to do. 


Where to begin... 


The doctor passed a gloved finger over the woman's forehead. The 
long line there seemed older than most of the others, and more 
pronounced. He closed his eyes for a moment. A memory line. Yes, 
those would be a reasonable place to begin. He will move 
chronologically. The doctor took one of his smaller syringes and 
gently used it to pierce the woman's skin near the line. Almost 
immediately it began to shimmer in a faint blueish hue. 


"Application successful. Proceeding to erase," he said to no one. 


With that, he drew the second largest of his scalpels and carefully 
began to cut a line surrounding the line. As he did so, he could 
sense the residue of the memory which made this mark. Loud 
screaming, smashing glass, the sound of a child weeping, a terribly 
pronounced sting of pain followed by a longer, duller ache that never 
seemed to go away. The doctor felt no remorse at all as he buried 
the woman's parents forever, sentencing her memories of them to 
the deepest, darkest refuse pile her mind possessed. 


The twin lines at the sides of her mouth were a more ambiguous 
prospect. Two people were hidden in them, similar and not at the 
same time. One was tall, fair, charming. He moved with the 
confident grace of a fencer and his eyes were the steel of his 
weapon. There was love of sorts there, somewhere, but as his 
scalpel did its work the doctor could sense its corruption. It was a 
fleeting thing, and terribly one-sided. Its mark was erased. 


The line on the other side of the mouth belonged to a man as well. 
Or rather, to the prospect of a man. For a moment the doctor could 
almost imagine he saw the woman's belly swell, could hear the 
heartbeats of a child within. But no. It never did happen. The man's 
last memento died before it was born, and with it died something in 
the woman too. She had buried it, alone, telling no one. So too did 
the doctor bury it now. 


The hours passed, and so did the memories. One by one the doctor 
buried them away, erasing the marks of a lifetime from the woman's 
face, if not from her soul. Her haggard visage seemed almost 
peaceful now. Almost young. The doctor was momentarily temped to 
leave things at that. She had a chance at a new life now, free from 
the scars of a past she did not deserve. He could leave things at 
that. 


But not with a clean conscience. Cleansed of her past she might be, 
but she was still human. All the future held for her were more scars, 
more of the same. He had to go further. All the way. 


With a sigh, the doctor drew the second largest of his syringes. He 
had worked hard and sacrificed much to obtain the gently bubbling 
liquid it held. While it was still in its syringe it was clear as water, but 
when the doctor injected it into the back of the woman's neck, the 
skin surrounding it turned as black as tar. This stain began to rapidly 
spread, to prepare her for what the doctor knew had to be done. 


Scalpels in hand, he began removing her identity. 


He began with what he deemed simplest, or at least, with what the 
woman had the least of. Ideology and faith went first. With some of 
his patients, the process of removing such things could be an 
arduous and time consuming affair, but it appeared the sort of life 


the woman had led left her very little time to worry about them. To 
banish them was a trifling victory. With those also went what passed 
for an education, her malnourished sense of curiosity, and the long- 
desiccated corpse of her aspirations. 


The doctor couldn't help but note the lack of resistance on the 
woman's part. This was not unheard of, but it was a rarity. Her life 
must truly have been... no. He would consider this no further. If 
anything, this was confirmation he was doing the right thing. 


He persevered, moving more difficult things. He could not remove 
her intellect entirely, for she would need some to continue to 
function, but he removed as much as he would dare. He knew its 
burden too well not to. Hers was a sharp thing, even as abused as it 
was, and the doctor had to be very careful in his cutting. Following 
that came other parts of her identity- her taste in food and fashion, 
the scents she enjoyed and those she despised, her secret love of 
classical music, her odd patriotism and her unexplained hatred of 
the color green. As the cuts went deeper, so did the things he 
removed. Her gender identity, her sexual preferences, her 
perception of morality. More hours of labor and a dozen empty 
syringes later, and nothing was left from what was once the 
woman's inner world. She was a blank slate now, only as human as 
her body made her. 


That too needed fixing. At one point, the doctor deemed what came 
before sufficient to the prevention of all future pain. He had learned 
differently, however. People did not need to know anything about a 
person's inner world to hate them. To hurt them. For her to be truly 
free, the last step of the procedure had to be completed. The doctor 
removed the small electrical device from the plastic tray and 
connected its electrodes to the woman's thin arms. 


He then began erasing her body. 


The device hummed as he drew away the color in her skin, in her 
hair, in her eyes. The humming intensified as he drew out the shape 
of her nose, of her legs, of her hair. Bones crunched and twisted as 
he standardized her height and weight and shape to what he 
deemed least intrusive (he had yet to perfect this part of the 
procedure), and finally he rearranged her insides as well, removing 


« SCP-618 | SCP-619 | SCP-620 » 


those organs that might mark her as belonging to one sex or the 
other. The machine hummed and buzzed as he took away 
everything she once was and any potential she might have had. As 
he removed her humanity, bit by bit by bit. 


When he was done, he woke it up. The creature which now rose 
from the surgical bed was of a height with the doctor. Its skin was a 
vaguely shiny grey, its eyes the same. Its body was all straight lines 
and right angles, as precise as if measured by a ruler. Its mouth was 
a thin line, which opened as the creature quizzically viewed its 
surrounding, then the doctor. 

"Hello." 

"How do you feel?" 

mYOUsS 2" 


The doctor resisted the urge to pull his hair. "You. The entity you 
perceive yourself to be." 


"Yes, you. You are you.” They often needed this explanation 
following the process. An unfortunate side-effect. 


"I... feel nothing. |... am nothing." 
"Yes." 

"I... feel no pain.” 

"No." 

"|... am cured." 

Damnation. Damnation! Not this again! 


"You are not cured! | have simply buried your pain, don't you 
understand?" 


"| am cured. You have cured me." 


"No, you imbecile creature, no! | did nothing, nothing!" 
"You have cured me. You are the cure. You are the cure." 


The same litany. After every single procedure they always said the 
same thing. It was intolerable, it was inexcusable. 


"No... no!" 
"You are the cure, doctor." 


"NO!" screamed the Anesthesiologist, as the creature who was once 
a woman tried to embrace him. "NO!" 


"Thank you." 


A scream died in his throat. Suddenly powerless, he allowed the 
creature to wrap its arm around him. They were cold. 


"lam not the cure. There is no cure. | am but a humble physician." 


Hub 


Surgery 


How long has it been since he had flesh under his fingers? 


Too long, that much was certain. This cell was small, too small by 
far. He did not much mind being alone, that was not the issue. He 
had long since pulled out from himself those parts which required 
company. No, what bothered him was that he had nothing at all to 
do. His jailers would come and speak to him from time to time, 
certainly, but if he ever even suggested that he may improve them 
by means of his craft, they'd get all in a huff and leave. Silly, 
ignorant creatures, all of them. But what else could be expected of 
them? Truly, it was not their fault. They were simply very ill. A 
shame they would not let him cure them. 


Well, there wasn't much he could do about it at the moment. Might 
as well return to his work. He laid down on his narrow bunk and 
covered himself with his robe. He was especially proud of the robe. 
His jailers asked about it multiple times, but whenever he tried to 
explain it to them, he could tell they didn't believe him. What was so 
odd about a robe grafted from your own skin? Wasn't that what skin 
was for in the first place? But all they did was moan and complain 
about how it wasn't possible, how no one could remove so much 
skin from himself and still live, that no one even had that much skin 
in the first place. Showed what they knew. Was he not a 
professional? It was so difficult getting people to show the proper 
respect nowadays. 


His mind was wandering again. What was he doing? Ah, yes. 


With long, well-trained fingers he began digging into his abdomen. 
The flesh there was yielding, properly porous, neatly organized. 
Now, where did he leave his bone saw? Oh yes, the liver cavity. 
Reach about over there and... ah, there it was. Hrm, the thing was 
getting dull, and he had no idea where he was going to get a new 
one. Never mind that for now, he reminded himself. Next, the 
scalpels. The long ones were stashed within the bones of his pelvis, 


and he had a devil of a time getting them out of there. He really 
needed to find a better place for them, but his body only had so 
much room, and any size-increasing modification were bound to be 
too easily noticed in his current surrounding. Perhaps a second 
cranial compartment? Something to consider after he was finished 
with this procedure. 


He was forgetting something, he was certain of that. But what was 
it? 


He dug out his dwindling supply of adhesives from within his left eye 
socket. This required the temporary removal of the eye, which did 
not make the task any easier. Still, when it was done, he had all he 
required to continue. Spreading his robe more evenly on his body 
and positioning the hem of it to support his neck, he began the 
operation proper. 


This one was going to be difficult. In order to reach that part of his 
brain that he wished to remove today, he'd have to bypass some 
rather essential segments. Failure to do so may result in severe 
harm to his memory, which would obviously be catastrophic, 
considering he had no access to his old fallback brain anymore. Not 
that he would switch to that one anyway- he had modified this new 
one over a period of at least three decades, and he was not about to 
let all that work go to waste. No, he would simply need to be very 
careful, and that was all there was to it. 


"When it comes to a lady whose merit is not sound, but who makes 
you sniff and bray like a hound..." he hummed to himself as he used 
the bone saw to slowly remove the top of his skull. He wasn't quite 
sure where he learned that little ditty, but it soothed him. He 
hummed on as he laid the saw to the side and brushed off the bone 
dust from his shoulders. 


"Kindness and beauty will do you no good..." He reached for his 
long scalpel and maneuvered it around to that part of his brain he 
hated. 


"It will not matter if you're polite or rude..." Carefully, he dislodged it 
from the surrounding brain matter, hoping that his incisions were 
precise enough. It would be good to have a mirror. 


"If success is what you wish, and to gain good health..." He finished 
with the scalpel and grabbed his tweezers, which he previously 
retrieved from a pocket of empty flesh around his ankles. 


"All you need to show her is a good bit of wealth!" A righteous pluck, 
and he was done. He stopped himself for a moment. What did he 
feel? 


He considered the notion of color. Did he have any preference? He 
remembered he was always oddly fond of yellow, and despised 
orange with all of his heart. Strange, was it not? The two were so 
very similar to one another, after all. There was no sense in it, none 
at all. He remembered the day he finally found his solution. When he 
finally realized the source of his problems, of all of their problems. 
This senseless preference, and all that was similar to them... those 
were the key. So, did he still like yellow? 


"Yellow... yellow... I... 
"| don't care about yellow! Aha...ahahaha!" 


Capital! He had done it! It was gone! Another wretched part of him 
cleansed, another remnant of the life he once possessed removed 
for all time! He was about to rise and perform a merry jig, but then 
remembered the top half of his skull was still missing, and 
reconsidered. He carefully replaced it and applied the remnants of 
his adhesives to it, making sure to also reapply it to the seams that 
firmly attached his mask to his face. It would not do for it to come off. 
Not ever. 


Do not get distracted, he reminded himself. Gathering his wits, he 
sat down and considered the new composition of his brain. What 
new insights did the removal of the offending sentiment allow him? 
First, he should revise the conclusion he had already reached, to 
figure out if those were still sound. Yes... 


So, what did he know about life? 


That it needed curing. This was his first conclusion, the foundation of 
all that came after, and it remained as solid as ever. His siblings, 
fools that they were, thought him mad for this realization. They were 


created to preserve life, they claimed. But they were wrong. He 
knew the truth. He figured it out all by himself. Hehehe. 


Life was a burden on those who carried its loathsome spark upon 
their souls. A bundle of contradicting impulses, cruel desires and 
nonsensical emotions. Life was an ever-multiplying beast, and in his 
profession, such creatures had only one name. A surgeon he was, 
the Surgeon he was, and he was the one to figure out what life was, 
what it was really all about. 


It was so obvious, he thought as he caressed the skin grafts that 
connected his face to his long-beaked mask with slim, delicate 
fingers. Life was a cancer. Life murdered the soul. 


It was his responsibility, as a medical professional and a moral 
being, to excise it.