"Uh, well, yeah, this is embarrassing," Sarah Desjeux admitted. She 
did look abashed. "See, we have been using, ahm, experimental 
techniques, nothing too aggressive, to remove the necrotic tissue 
from our beneficiaries. Nothing too aggressive, as | was saying, the 
Circles of Negation, mostly. But, uh, I'm supposed to cooperate with 
you and | know what the Phoo thinks of-well, | was wondering if you 
could look the other way as Mirra does her thing." 


Locke tried to adjust to the new development. "Hmm-| thought you 
were only using conventional surgery?" 


Desjeux crossed her arms and looked upwards while making a 
hissing sound, a gesture of irritation and powerlessness. 


"Oh, indeed, surgery, of course, sure, that, but some of these 
people, see, they have internal injuries, or wounds that are already 
infected. There is a limit to what we can cure without cutting, let's 
say, half a brain out, or a third of a heart," she said, letting a little, 
sad laugh out. "It's a shame, but some times magic's just better." 


"Don't call it magic, Opal," Mirra said, and the woman managed to 
sound petulant and sweet at the same time. "Modern thaumaturgs 


like us should call it by what it is, or else we would be back to 
adoring inhuman horrors. Isn't that right, miss Locke?" 


"Sure," she said, hoping it was what was expected of her. Without 
giving them space to say anything else, she turned to Desjeux 
again. "But | would love to see the procedures and judge by myself.” 


"What is it?" 
"Locke felt ill." 


"Oh. Mirra, what did you show her? | hope you didn't do a 
psychotomy..." 


"Of course not, Opal, it was an Eight Circle ritual. A normal one, no 
external contacts or anything! Just to pick some wood splinters 
inside a kid's abdomen! No Otherness involved, | swear. And the 
Third Circles went well, too, she said it was amazing and all that. 
Although... | might have forgotten to mention she was gonna get 
some blood on her when | started the abjuration." 


"This again. How many times do | have to remind you not to assume 
people know what you are doing? She must be a normal doctor! 
Some people in the parahealthers are just medics too, you know? 
Not surgeons?" 


“Then what is she even doing here?" 
"Check if we are going overboard. Are we going overboard, Mirra?" 


"Oh, come on, give me a br-I| mean, what did | know? She's the first 
field parahealther I've met!" 


Her tiny cube-room, where someone had stacked some cardboard 
boxes and a few sacks with seeds, was dark now. Priss appreciated 
the change, since light had been a bane on her for almost all 
afternoon. Other things that were a bane on her were blood, tiny 
talking beaks and the surgical applications of still warm, sentient 
blood. 


"| had wondered what were those roosters doing in their pickup," 
Priss confessed as she regained a minimum of dignity to speak, or 
as much dignity as one could have when leaning back on a bunk 
bed. The woman weakly gesticulated, trying to transmit some sort of 
explanation over her sorry state. "It's something about how it moved 
when the, you know, the witch cut its head-" 


"Thaumaturgs. Don't call them ‘witches. 


"What, they'll hex me?," she said, ironic. Then she remembered the 
feeling of having a cockerel's comb jumping into her mouth and 


gagged. 


"Nah, but they can be real bores with their I'm-not-a-wizard speech," 
Frank laughed. "| mean, | did tell you they were able to exorcise 
entities by talking them into un-believing themselves, right? Not an 
exaggeration. Odd stuff, but it's supposed to save them a lot of time 
and effort. For other procedures, they usually sacrifice roosters, or 
rats, you know, to gather energy for their rituals, or something. 
Better than goats, or people, | guess... | heard they can even use 
orgies, when they have to. Although you could have asked about all 
this, Locke." 


Priss spat on the ground. The spit disappeared on the clean, tiled 
floor almost instantly. "And blow my cover." 


“The World Parahealth Organisation is not exclusively made of all- 
knowing polymaths, Locke," Frank said, carefully holding the bucket 
in which she had been vomiting. "They don't have to know 
everything. More often than not, ritualistic procedures are what the 
individual practitioner makes of them. There are no standards here, 
so showing ignorance might be better than the alternative. And 
these people love to teach their stuff, by the way! Don't be afraid to 
ask them about anything. And you could have still asked me.” 


"| didn't wanna know." 


He looked like he was going to add something else, so Priss 
grabbed the bucket to make sure she had somewhere to gape at as 
nausea seized her again, even if she could only puke bile at that 
point. 


When it stopped, she looked at Frank and asked him the question 
that had been circling her mind all morning. "How does she do it?" 


Frank smirked. "Are you asking about the magic bullcrap the 
Satanist sisters pull on a daily basis or about Opal?" 


"About Desjeux, yes. She just doesn't stop!" 


"Well, that's a good question." He sat by her side, looking deep in 
thought. "| haven't seen her sleep more than two hours a day since | 
joined her Work Group, and it's been a while. | haven't heard her 
insulting or looking down on anyone. Nor angry. She never 
complains about being tired or hungry, and | can count the number 
of times I've seen her eat anything." 


"Eat?" 


"Eat. If you ask me, she had some of the First Vestan Donation and 
has kept it to herself all this years. Never worked the courage to 
ask." 


"The-the First?" 


"An old Donation, gone badly. Well, not exactly badly. Nevermind, 
we don't use it anymore... a shame, too, it could have ended world 
famine almost completely, but it broke too many rules. The 
International Board members were furious. Besides, we accidentally 
lost most of the stuff, | hear." Frank said, calmly. "The Vesta 
Conglomerate makes really neat stuff, always intelligent molds, as it 
turns out, but it's simply too unstable for the most part. The Third is 
the only one we have been able to use without-" 


"Westinghouse. You talk too much," Priss cut him, passing a hand 
over her hair. She noticed it was filthy with dirt and vomit. "And my 
head hurts. Focus on Opal." 


"Okay. Well, whatever her deal is, | can tell you she's cool. Please, 
let me finish," he said, hurriedly. Priss did not interrupt him; she was 
not in any shape for a debate. "She may sound like a complete 
loony half the time and be a pain in the ass the other half, but she 
knows her way around. And | mean it. She knows us, she knows 


everyone around, and in turn we all get to know her, and then gets 
us all to dance whatever crazy waltz we have to when we get 
assigned somewhere new. She is one of the greatest reasons that 
our Work Group works so well." 


Priss looked at Frank. He was serious. 
"Where is she from?" 
"What? Canadian, | think-" 


"Canadian, that's a great answer," she said. "Look, Westinghouse, 
dunno why but this woman seems to have you all dancing to her 
rhythm and you seem to know it. That worries me." 


"But-" 
"No, now you let me finish." 


She felt angry. It had been some time since she had last felt angry, 
although she had certainly felt better than that; her mouth still tasted 
foul, her throat felt and sounded sore and the room spun if she tried 
to move around. 


Strangely enough, she also felt cleaner. 


"That woman is not normal," Priscilla stated, looking into Frank's 
doubtful eyes. "I don't care much about her, nor her little coven, | 
just don't care, but don't you dare tell me she is normal, or 
respectful. There is something off about her." 


Priss thought of the smothering way Desjeux had been treating her 
after she left the portable toilet by the 'clinic' where Mirra had 
performed her ‘surgery’. The way she had pushed her to the 
prefabricated room by the edge of the camp and closed the door 
behind her, saying all that 'you'll get better in no time’ crap. 


She had seen fear in her eyes. She was hiding something, Priss 
was sure. 


"She is suspicious." 


Frank's brows arced at the word. "Mind | remind you that the world is 
quite too complicated to want to see an enemy where there is only a 
friend?" 


Priscilla could not believe what he was saying. "She is a friggin’ 
anomaly! They all are!" 


"Sure, and today they've saved dozens of lives. You saw them doing 
it.” 


She closed her eyes. "I know, so what. I've seen things-!| mean, 
sometimes it seems too good to be true, and then it is too good!" 
Frank's docile expression infuriated her as she opened her eyes 
again. "She looks the fucking part!" 


"Well, this takes me back to our first meeting. But fine, fine, she is a 
too-good-to-be-true happiness-inducing alien from outer space, or 
from Canada, who secretly wishes for humans to go extinct. Right, 
and nobody has seen her coming for, what, thirty years?" 


Priscilla gaped for a moment. Then, she felt tired. Really tired. "I... | 
don't know. This is all backwards." 


"Cultural shock, they call it." 
"Hey, Desjeux,"” Frank said. 


Priss felt the need to get up and stand alert, but that traitorous 
dizziness pinned her to her bed. "You've-" 


"| just heard the last minutes. Or so. Wanted to check on you, but 
now that I'm here..." Desjeux squatted by the bed, with her usual 
grin. However, she sounded dead serious for once. "Look, I'm not a 
trickster nor a liar. I'm just not gonna tell you the truth, ever. Not all 
of it. Where do | come from, who | was before joining, that stuff... | 
simply changed when | came into the Charitable. Everyone does. 
Everyone has a past, too. And you have to learn to deal with it, in 
the same way that | accept | will never get to know you, at all. It's 
abundantly clear you are not a doctor, and you are probably not 
from the phoo," the woman tilted her head towards Frank, "no matter 
what mister Security Executive over here tells me about it." 


Priss felt like if she was suddenly under interrogation. She couldn't 
say anything about herself, nor Anabasis. Lies and half-truths began 
forming in her mind; and, suddenly, with a giggle, Desjeux looked 
into her eyes and said: 


"And | don't care about it." 


Feeling her own confusion painted across her face, Priscilla Locke 
tried to form a sentence. 


"What." 


"See, we have to trust each other. | have to trust that Frangois and 
Frank have not been secretly reporting to the Coalition and the other 
Foundation all these years. | have to trust my girls to keep working 
for these poor people, even if their creed tells them they should be 
killing God again in some lost corner of Jerusalem, or wherever the 
bearded moron is these days. | have to trust Lila to not slip poison in 
our food — and yes, | do eat, Frankie — while we're still sleeping so 
she can feast on our hearts in the late hours of the night, for that 
matter. We must trust each other, no matter how hard it is to trust in 
what we see of each other, even before we get to know what we 
can't see." 


Opal stood again. Not an impressive change in stature, but, with 
Priss still on her bed, it was enough to make the stout woman 
imposing; an impression she reinforced by letting her hair, which 
had been collapsed into a bun, free. 


Coils upon coils half-hid the round face, her eyes somehow visible 
between them in the dying light of the evening sun that came 
through the windows. Her hands went to her broad hips, her legs 
separated in a defying stance and she proudly stated, in an attempt 
to sound martial: 


"Trust is our lifeblood, Locke. If we don't trust, there is no Charitable. 
So welcome aboard, try not to be too paranoid and, as long as you 
trust Frank, don't trust me! But, please, let me do my job. Geddit?" 


Opal turned away and left, gently spinning as she closed the door. 


standard form. 


Subjects interviewed during the decay process describe themselves 
as fearful, but cannot identify the source of the fear. As their 
personal sense of identity disintegrates, they continue to voice a 
nameless terror as long as they retain the capability of speech, 
which is gone by the second to third day. Those informed of their 
impending death seem unconcerned by it, if they understand at all, 
instead continuing to complain of a 'problem' that they can't figure 
out. Staff psychologists suspect this communication issue is due to 
both the subject's loss of mental faculties combined with an inability 
to easily express the ongoing nature of the damage to the subject. 
After the subject's capability of speech is gone, they typically retreat 
to a corner when permitted to do so, clawing at their head 
intermittently for approximately a day before lapsing into a coma 
until their death. 


SCP-678 was taken from a Mr. upon his apprehension by 
Foundation personnel. was a "travelling chaplain" who was 
visiting Veteran's Administration hospitals across the eastern United 
States and offering counselling to any willing to speak to him. During 
these counselling sessions, he would encourage the subject in any 
of a variety of ways to come into contact with SCP-678, an item 
which he only handled with a pair of gloves he wore specifically for 
this purpose. would wrap up his counselling session shortly 
afterwards and leave the hospital. Interrogation reports indicate that 

, acitizen of Belgium and suspected patron of Marshall, 
Carter, and Dark Ltd., appears to have been using the device to 
harvest these 'experiences' for personal amusement. has 
been remanded to Psychological Ward 14 for evaluation, his 
termination pending background check and review of possible value 
to the Foundation as a bargaining tool. 


Note: Nix the value check, move Mr. 's termination date up. 
He's a nasty piece of work, and | don't trust anyone to not try and 
work around any pre-release amnestics we give him. Better to just 
shut him up for good. - O5- 


« SCP-677 | SCP-678 | SCP-679 » 


Frank looked at Priss' face and said: "See, that's what it was like for 
me, too. At first, | had that face pretty much all the time. Now | 
mostly just facepalm." 


"Facepalm?" 
Frank demonstrated the gesture. 
"Oh, that. Right." 


In the awkward moment that followed, Opal's voice thundered again 
through the speaker-walls. 


"AH, FRANK, DEAR BY THE WAY, I'LL BE REAL BUSY 
TOMORROW SO YOU TAKE HER FOR A WALK, OKAY?, OKAY 
THANKS BYEEE." 


« Cubes On A Slope | Hub | Greenery » 


Greenery 


"So, you work for the Bigger Man?" 


The Momio brothers, Enrico and Martino, were a couple of tall, dark, 
handsome men with a knack for satire and a disagreeable nature, or 
at least they used to have them. Twice in recent years, they had 
evaded the Roman carabinieri when their works, too offensive to 
involved political sensibilities or too anomalous for the other 
Foundation, became well-known; the third time, however, they were 
in for a massive fine or long-term incarceration — if the skippers 
didn't get to them first. 


"| mean, no offense, but the Bigger Man is always about answering 
to law and norms and all that... and shit, we were tired of it.” 


Fortunately or not, their talent was noted by an executive member of 
the Italian branch. That's when the Charitable came in their story. 


"They don't respect anything, politicians. Justice? An inconvenience. 
Laws? Tools, no, clay. Art? 'Frivolous.' Frivolous!" Enrico spat at one 
of the pulsating mounds of moist, odorous soil; almost without 
skipping a beat, he kept speaking in his strongly accented English. 
"If you trivialize art, what is left to respect? Well, plenty, they say, 
like the person of the major whom you keep insulting!"