In the kitchen, the cute young woman with the fox ears on her head 
was humming quietly to herself as she pitted and peeled a large 
number of avocados. "Nightshadow!" she squealed, before giving 
Griggs a big hug. "Good to see you!" 


"Loredinal was just asking if you needed some help with your 
guacamole?" Griggs asked. 


"Nah. I'm just setting up my second batch of avocados so that | can 
make a second batch quick when the first one runs out," Kasumiko 
said, giggling. "Why don't you take this bowl out to the snacks 
table?" 


"Sure thing," Griggs said. He calmly picked up the bowl of 
guacamole, carried it out to the snacks table, then, after glancing to 
either side to make sure he wasn't being watched, opened up the 
vial of liquid and poured it into the bright green dip. He took a 
moment to stir it in with the big wooden spoon, and, having 
completed his mission, slipped the vial back into his coat pocket 
and... 


"So, what is it?” Kasumiko asked coldly. "Flunitrazepam? Gamma- 
hydroxybutyrate?" 


Griggs spun around just in time to get the darts of Kasukimo's 
TAZER in his chest. He fell to the ground screaming as the lightning 
coursed through his body. 


"LORE!" Kasumiko shouted. 


"On it!" Loredinal shouted back. He raced into the room, carrying 
some kind of crazy headpiece that looked like a colander with a ton 
of wires attached to it, and put it on the still-twitching Griggs’ head. 


"You motherfuckers!" Griggs shouted. "Fucking... | WILL FIND AND 
CONSUME THEM! NOTHING CAN HALT THE HUNGER OF THE 
AUTOCH!" 


"I'm losing it!" Loredinal shouted. "Damn it! Containment is failing..." 


"Exec— SHIT!" Kasumiko shouted, just as Griggs levitated two feet 
off the ground and lunged for her, his mouth stretching impossibly 
wide open, revealing a gaping maw filled with razor-edged teeth. 
Loredinal dove for him, tried to pull him off, only to be flung across 
the room by a massively powerful arm, slumping, unconscious, to 
the ground. Kasumiko struggled and screamed, trying to reach her 
TAZER, but the thing that had been Griggs was too damn strong, 
and it was choking the life out of her, and her vision was blurring and 
starting to darken, and... 


... and then Grigg's head vanished, bitten clean off by a gigantic 
saurian head covered in adamantine scarlet scales. 


The headless corpse of Griggs fell to the ground, as the dragon that 
had killed him spit its head out onto the carpet. A thousand motes of 
shimmering light, and Jenny Lee fell to the ground, blood staining 
her mouth and the front of her shirt. She rolled over and threw up on 
the kitchen floor, then started to cry. 


"Shit," Kasumiko groaned. "Fucking shit..." 


"... how long until you think that it'll find another host?" wondered 
Agent Lore of Assessment Team 296 ("Eagle Pavise"). 


"The Autoch? No idea. Sometimes it takes a year. Sometimes a 
month. Sometimes only a day.” Agent Miko put her hand on her 
partner's shoulder and gave it an encouraging squeeze. "We'll find it. 
Look on the bright side. No one got offed by it this time." 


"We've still got a lot of amnestics to give out," Lore pointed out, "and 
a PTE to evaluate." 


"Why don't you let me handle that part?" Miko said. "You help 
coordinate the cleanup." 


"Of course," Lore sighed, but he straightened up and walked back 
into the house to help the Laundrymen deal with the evidence. 


Miko took a moment to compose herself, then walked across the 
back yard to where the miserable-looking Jenny still sat on the stone 


bench, the front of her black T-shirt still covered in blood, bone, and 
vomit. She shuddered as Miko sat down next to her and put an arm 
around the younger girl. 


"Nice work, kiddo," Miko whispered, stroking her friend's hair. "Nice 
work." 


"| don't know what happened | just came in to help out and saw him 
choking you and | got so mad and the next thing | knew | was thirty 
feet tall and | was biting his head off and..." 


... and then it was time for the weeping, and the screaming, and the 
angry shouting, and then the nervous laughing. It was a good long 
while before Jenny was looking a bit more like her old self again. But 
it did, eventually, happen. 


"... well," Miko laughed, ruffling her friend's hair. "... | hope you've 
had your fill of damsels in distress for a while." 


"For a long while," Jenny agreed, laughing nervously. 


She was going to be okay, Miko thought, and she stood up. "Look, 
Jenny, | gotta go help clean this stuff up," she said. "There's a guy 
coming... think of him kind of like a social worker for people like 
you... and he'll help you get situated in your new life. Now that 
you're an ‘out' para-entity, you're going to have to deal with some 
extra shit." 


"All right," Jenny said, taking a deep breath. "Will | ever see you 
again?" 


| hope not, Miko thought, but she gave Jenny a weak smile and 
stood up to go back into the house. 


"Miko?" 
"Hm?" 
"Are you really a kitsune? And is Loredinal really a..." 


"Prince of the Elves?" Miko laughed. "Past lives and alien souls? 
Nah. | don't believe in that stuff. It's make-believe." 


"Sequence" 
« "Farpoint" | Return to GOC Hub | "Joint Venture"» 


"Strike" 


"Heads up, Bull," Skunkboy whispered into his comms. "They're 
back." 


Agent Bullfrog of Assessment Team 735 "Sparkplug" lifted his head 
to look through his binoculars at the Chaos Insurgency camp below. 
Team Sparkplug had been camped out on the ridge overlooking the 
Insurgency facility for the past week. He was itchy, tired, cramped, 
and stank to high heaven. He was pretty sure that the inside of his 
greysuit could be considered a biohazard area at this point. 


The most frustrating part of it, he decided, was that nothing was 
happening. In the past week, the Insurgency had done exactly jack 
shit. They had trained a few new soldiers, yes, and had done a lot of 
running through obstacle courses and firing guns and blowing up 
IEDs, but nothing that he hadn't seen in a dozen third-world training 
camps over the past few decades. As odd as it might sound to an 
outsider, this mission deep behind enemy lines was... boring. 


Until now. 


"That's a really fancy car," Bullfrog murmured. "Are those chrome- 
plated alloy wheels?" 


"Spinners." Skunkboy grimaced. "Ten thousand fucking bucks a 
pop. Shit, that guy's got more bling on his wheels than I'll ever make 
in a year." 


"Classy," Bullfrog agreed. He raised an eyebrow at a flurry of activity 
down below, and let out a low, surprised whistle. "Skunkboy. Look at 
that." 


"Fuck," Skunkboy whispered. "Yeah, that looks serious. Think we 
should call it in?" 


"I'll do it." 


"Tell me what | need to know." 


Assistant Director Tariq Anmed Khalid, head of PHYSICS Division's 
Kabul branch, sat at the head of the rosewood-inlaid conference 
table, tapping the end of his fountain pen against his thigh, his stern 
Semitic countenance frozen in a perpetual frown. On the broad 
screen before him, a satellite image displayed approximately ten 
square miles of the Hindu Kush: steep, cafe-au-lait mountains 
capped with snow, leading to a broad, verdant plain. And, in the 
center, a small, but distinctive terrorist training camp in a hidden 
defile. 


The young adjutant at the laptop computer furiously tapped away at 
his keyboard for a few moments, before finally bringing up a different 
image of the training camp, overlaying it over the satellite view. "All 
right, sir," he said, nervously. "Here it is. We've known about this 
Chaos Insurgency facility for the past three weeks. One week ago, 
we managed to get a PHYSICS Division Assessment team into the 
area..." 


"I'm familiar with the operation,” Khalid said firmly. "Tell me what 
they found." 


"... yes, sir," the young man gulped. "Well, sir... they found evidence 
of use of weapons... illegal weapons stockpiles... training camps 
and indoctrination... and thirty minutes ago, they reported in with 
this image." A second photograph was brought up on the screen, 
next to the first. It showed a large, expensive black luxury car pulled 
up to the gate of the training camp. Two men in combat vests, 
carrying AK-model assault rifles, were dragging a third man out of 
the back of the car, while a third guard carried away some kind of 
small cubical item. In the background, two other prisoners were 
being led away with their hands cuffed in front of them. 


"PHYSICS ran a search on their faces and VERITAS profiles. We 
have a match," the adjutant continued. He brought up another image 
of a middle-aged man in a grey suit sitting in a coffee shop 
somewhere in France. "Philip Anderson. Manna Charitable 
Foundation. They're running a humanitarian operation in the 
region... if it weren't for their blatant disregard of Second Mission 


concerns, we'd have invited them to join the Coalition—" 


"I'm also very familiar with MCF's policies and operations," Khalid 
interrupted again. "Tell me why it matters to us." 


"... well, sir. A high-ranking member of another paranormal 
organization has been captured by the Chaos Insurgency. | 
thought..." 


"You can do better than that, David," Khalid insisted. "Tell me why 
we should care." 


The young man took a deep breath before forging on. "Because, sir, 
rescuing a high-ranking member of Manna Charitable Foundation 
would give us leverage in the next round of negotiations with them. It 
could give us a chance to bring them into the fold... have them 
agree to Second Mission concerns and join up with the Coalition. 
They have resources—" 


"| know about their resources," Khalid said. "Who is on deck?" 


"Um. According to my information, sir, the next available Rapid 
Response Team is Broken Dagger. Based out of Ireland." 


"Better get them on the horn right away. It's the middle of the night 
over there." 


The alarm blared in "Fox's" ear like the shrieking of some tortured 
beast. The slight redheaded woman slammed her palm down over 
the button, silencing the chorus of "The Immigrant Song" by Led 
Zeppelin. She groaned as she turned to her nightstand, trying to 
focus her bleary eyes on the text scrolling by. 


One phrase in large red text immediately got her attention: 
"PRIORITY ALERT." She came awake immediately, sitting up on 
the edge of the bed and reading through the report twice through, to 
make sure she'd gotten everything. Only then did she slap the 
button on the wall of her quarters to sound the alarm in the general 
barracks. 


It took her sixty seconds to walk down the hall to the barracks in 


SCP-655 is the site of an anomalous phenomenon. At random 
intervals, which to date have been observed to be between a range 
of two months to eleven years, an organism of the kingdom Animalia 
will spontaneously appear within SCP-655. These organisms are 
collectively known as SCP-655-A. 


SCP-655-A appear upon initial visual inspection to be typical 
specimens of a variety of animals. Most specimens observed have 
fallen under the Chordata phylum; however, mollusks, arthropods 
and echinoderms have been observed on a less frequent basis. 
Specimens of SCP-655-A will, however, exhibit radically different 
behavioral and biological characteristics than other observed 
members of their species. Invariably, MRI examinations, CT scans, 
ultrasound imaging and dissection of SCP-655-A specimens reveals 
biological structures not occurring in what species a specimen 
appears to be. These have included a specimen of Epatretus goliath 
(giant hagfish) with a lung-based respiration system, a Crocodylus 
niloticus (Nile crocodile) specimen entirely lacking in any discernible 
structures associated with digestion, a Homo sapiens specimen with 
the entirety of its neural tissue located in a cavity in its right thigh, 
and an instance of Dacelo leachii (Blue-winged Kookaburra) 
exhibiting a circulatory system completely lacking in blood vessels 
and arteries. 


Since containment was established at Site-731 in 1961, researchers 
have documented 172 instances of SCP-655-A. Over the 
approximately six decades of Foundation control of SCP-655, with 
the exception of Incident 655-21 no species has been observed that 
was not at the time known to the contemporary scientific 
establishment. This has been corroborated by the appearance of a 
Conus dondani specimen (a variety of cone snail) in 1984, three 
years after being first described in scientific records, and a Lasiurus 
ebenus (hairy-tailed bat) soecimen appearing 18 months after its 
initial description in 1994. 


Recovery Log 655: SCP-655 came to the Foundation's attention 
after several partially substantiated reports in the Congolese media 
of anon-communicative man with no identification, clothing, or 
possessions of any kind wandering into the outskirts of Kisangani. 
The man (later designated SCP-655-A1) died of unexplained causes 


which Strike Team Broken Dagger slept. She was pleased to see 
that, by the time she arrived, the entire team was already out of bed 
and dressed (although a couple of them were pulling on t-shirts and 
sweat pants as she opened the door.) "All right, this one's urgent," 
she said grimly, tossing copies of the report to her three squad 
leaders. "A bunch of Cl goons just kidnapped an MCF bigshot. 
We're going to get him back." 


"Greysuits, ma'am?" "Jackal" asked. Fox's XO was a tall, lanky guy 
who looked like a professional basketball player, with ebony skin 
and close-cropped hair. He looked even more striking standing next 
to his diminutive commander. 


"White," Fox said. "We're going in all-out on this one. Full Plus- Two 
Gen tech. Get suited up." 


"Whew," Jackal hissed. "They're serious, aren't they?" 
"Yeah. This one's for real. Let's go." 


As team leader, Fox claimed first dibs on the shower, stripping out of 
her tank-top and underwear with careless ease, before stepping into 
the drying room, where powerful blasts of heated air dried her skin 
off within a few moments. She ran her ID card (kept on the same 
chain as her dog tags) through the security scanner. The lights on 
the heavy steel door blinked green for a moment before opening up 
to the Whitesuit morgue. 


Whitesuits weren't white, any more than blacksuits were black 
(greysuits, coincidentally, did default to a grey tone). The term was, 
instead, supposed to designate the visibility level of its advanced 
technology. Blacksuits looked like ordinary, every day clothing that 
just happened to be bulletproof (for a certain level of "proof.") 
Whitesuits looked like science-fiction super soldiers from a video 
game. 


The bottom layer of the whitesuit was a one-piece garment, similar 
to a racing swimsuit, that fit snugly against her skin. She took a 
moment to make sure that the relief tubes were properly aligned 
(something that could become very important during a long mission), 
and adjusted the fit around her shoulders and hips, to prevent the 


garment from pinching under the close-fitting armor. After that, it 
wasn't difficult to climb into the unfolded whitesuit itself. She closed 
the torso plates manually, shifting her shoulders around to get a 
good, solid fit, then slipped her hands into the gloves and chinned 
the "close" button in her helmet. 


The suit tightened around her with a loud electric whir, followed by 
the high metallic pings of hundreds of tiny clamps locking in place. 
She closed her eyes and waited the thirty seconds it took for the on- 
board computer systems to power up, then opened her eyes to find 
herself viewing the world in bright, false colors, as the suit's 
OCULUS system activated. 


A scrolling column of text along the left hand side of her screen let 
her know that her suit was working properly: everything read green. 
She gingerly took her first step out of the chamber. The suit didn't 
fold up and snap every bone in her body, neither did it freeze up and 
entrap her in a quarter-ton of steel and composites.