"While our public face has always been that of a trade guild, we also 
operated confidentially as... guardians, of sorts. The old legends of 
pagan rituals in the British Isles were embellished stories of our 
operations. The title of Shadow Alderman equates to the ancient 
position of the 'Evil Elder;' the ones who would spend their lives 
placating the impossible. Modern groups such as the Foundation 
and GOC are under the faulty impression that the anomalous and 
the impossible have only started to proliferate within the last few 
centuries. That's because we've been taking care of the impossible 
for the last few millennia. The lofty goals of these organisations - to 
contain, or destroy - were not possible thousands of years ago. All 
we could do to protect the common man was satiate the desires of 
twisted monsters, hoping and praying their efforts would be enough. 
We were the ones who served immortal demons. We were the ones 
who killed children in their sleep, trickling their blood across 
sacrificial steel. We were the ones who worshipped evil gods." 


Scarlet spun around, smiling. 


"So that was what the Liveries did, way back when. Such operations 
aren't necessary any more. Any more questions?" 


"Just one. Why am | in charge, again?" 
Scarlet moved closer. 


"Because, Miss Dashwood, for better or worse, the previous 
Shadow Alderman decided that the best way to determine a 


successor was by lottery. It has long been tradition that no 
consecutive Shadow Aldermen can ever have met. Your 
independent resistance to our subversive operations earned you the 
respect of Archibald Mirum, earning you a place on the shortlist. And 
above all, Miss Dashwood, because when you were mailed a 
sewing needle and a purposefully deceptive letter, you willingly 
shoved it straight through your cornea." 


Scarlet looked into Bijou's left eye, staring at the steel glinting from 
within. 


"Good job on that, by the way. Very clean. The guy before Mirum 
just ended up popping his eyeball open." 


« Hub | Three Men Named Con Murphy » 


Three Men Named Con Murphy 


Conrad Murphy approached the entrance of Humanoid Containment 
Site-29-2, covered by the dark, moonless night. He pulled the elastic 
from the back of his blank white mask, letting it snap across the 
back of his head. He yanked free a flash grenade from his black flak 
jacket. He continued walking deliberately towards the front gate, 
ignoring the facade of being a decrepit and perpetually condemned 
building. Conrad held the flashbang behind his back, faintly grinning 
behind the mask as his approach caught the attention of the night 
crew. 


"Sir, this is a restricted area." 


Two plainclothes guards moved to intercept Conrad, flicking open 
their collapsible batons. Conrad deftly tumbled the flashbang 
between his legs. The two guards turned their attention to the 
rattling as it clinked towards them. 


"Oh shi-" 
BANG 


The shorter of the two guards fell backwards, blinded by the blast, 
the other had been fast enough to look away. Conrad rushed in, 
taking advantage of the brief distraction to yank the baton from the 
standing guard's hand. Conrad spun and ducked, cracking the steel 
bar against the guard's kneecaps, sending him screaming to the 
ground. Conrad kicked the downed guard in the chest, then brought 
down the nightstick against his head with a sickening crunch of 
broken skull. 


The guard stopped moving. 


He turned to the other guard, who was slowly trying to regain his 
senses, and stomped on the man's unprotected fingers. The guard 
let out a yell of pain, dropping his own baton to nurse his injured 


joints. Conrad knelt on the man's chest, then pulled a knife from his 
vest and pushed it against the guard's throat. The man stopped 
struggling, looking up at Conrad's flat, white mask with sheer, 
unfiltered spite. 


"What the fuck do you want?" 


Conrad grinned behind the blank white mask, slicing open the man's 
carotid and jugular. 


"Chaos." 


Conrad continued to kneel on the gurgling guard's chest, watching 
him slowly drown in his own blood. 


Conan Murphy watched from a distance as his brother made light 
work of the guards. Conan joined Conrad in front of the abandoned 
building, then detached an ID card from the taller guard's jacket. 
Conrad pulled off his white mask, then pushed it against the face of 
the man he had just killed. The thin plastic wormed its way into the 
dead guard's pores, intricately knitting itself into the flesh. Conan 
pulled the mask from his own face, beginning the same process. 


"Nicely done with these two." 
"Eh, Lichtenfield's been giving me pointers." 


The masks glowed slightly, then made a soft pop as the guards’ 
faces slid from their skulls. The brothers donned the masks, not 
caring enough to exchange clothes to complete their disguises. The 
masks sucked against the brothers’ own faces, making a flawless 
seal between their own flesh and that of the deceased guards. 
Conan moved in towards the hidden entry to Humanoid 
Containment Site-29-2, sliding his ID into a small card slot. He 
moved his new face into the flashing retinal scanner, presenting the 
illusory projection of the dead man's eyeball. An electronic tone 
beeped confirmation, sliding open a brick fagade to reveal a steel 
entryway. 


"And now we're in. Simple." 


Conan pushed his hands into his pockets, tightening his grips ona 
pair of anomalously silenced pistols. The brothers walked through 
the door, slowly descending into the metaphorical belly of the 
metaphorical whale. A long passage continued inwards, steel 
surrounding them from every side. The pair pushed open a glass 
door at the end of the corridor, squeaking their shoes on spotless 
linoleum into the well-illuminated lobby. A disinterested receptionist 
appraised them with a cursory glance, waved greetings at their 
fleshy masks apathetically, then returned to watching funny cat 
videos on her iPhone. 


Conrad shrugged at his brother. 


Conan shot the receptionist in the head. 


Constantine Murphy sat tapping at a computer keyboard in the back 
of an unmarked van. His brothers, lovely little psychopaths that they 
were, had never been ones for subtlety. Constantine had figured out 
the shift schedule for the guards at Site 29-2, carefully run 
ultrasound scans mapping the inner facility, and drilled holes into the 
ground to intercept every line of communication into or out of the 
place. He had double and triple checked the plan, intending to keep 
the assault as brief as possible. There was only a small window of 
time during which they could strike. In and out. Orchestrating this 
task would have taken most people weeks; Constantine had 
accomplished it in three days. 


He watched the feeds coming from his brothers' masks on a pair of 
LCD monitors. One of the two pulled a gun from his pocket, killing 
the receptionist. Constantine watched the other brother drop a small 
earthworm onto the receptionist's keyboard. It wiggled in between 
the mechanical keys, then disappeared into the cracks, and 
moments later Constantine's third screen lit up. 


Constantine grinned, cracked his fingers, and started to run scans 
on his new access channel. 


The receptionist didn't have particularly high clearance on the 
network, of course, but she had a direct connection to the site's 
database. Constantine hammered at keys, throwing information into 


SCP-717: The Ambassador 


Item #: SCP-717 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-717 is encased within 
Site- , publicly known as the Observatory. Observatory dome 
must remain closed from 10:30pm to 3:30am or when SCP-717 is 
active. A minimum of twelve armed guards are to be stationed 
outside Site- during all hours. Flamethrowers and flash-bang 
grenades are to be secured in the guardhouse in case of 
emergency. 


Internal temperature of Site- is not to exceed 10 degrees Celsius. 
Only one of Site- 's internal spotlights can be on at any time, but 
should be dimmed if SCP-717 is active. No more than 3 (three) 
persons may enter at any time, and no more than 2 (two) of these 
may be on-site security. Visiting staff are advised to wear warm, 
darkly colored clothing and light-amplification visors while within 
Site- . Staff are permitted to bring flashlights or flares but may not 
use them outside of an emergency. No radios or cell-phones 
permitted. 


If SCP-717's containment becomes compromised for any reason, all 
floodlights within Site- are to be activated and sirens are to sound 
within the facility. All personnel are to evacuate the site and equip 
flamethrowers until receiving further instructions. 


See description for procedures relating to SCP-717's individual 
components. 


Description: SCP-717 is the ruins of a two-story Victorian style 
home hidden within Site- , specifically the remains of the guest 
bedroom on the upper story. Although the walls of the hallway 
leading to SCP-717 have burnt through, the doorway to the room is 
to remain closed at all times. Staff are required to knock gently upon 


every port and waiting for responses. A small prompt appeared, 
notifying him of the successful pings. He pushed attack procedures 
into the suitable nodes, and after a short delay, he had full 
administrative rights. He started downloading all local data files, until 
finally finding the person he was looking for. 


Designation: A-24867 

Subject Identifier: Robin Puck 

Description: Black hair, Brown eyes, Estimated ~45 
years of age 

Information: Detained while escaping from Foundation 
personnel after a raid on a Chaos Insurgency base in 
Birmingham, England. Resisted detainment by 
disorienting personnel with a cognitohazardous hand 
gesture. Subject was sedated and, after testing 
discovered additional anomalous physiology, designated 
as A-24867. Currently stored at Humanoid Containment 
Site 29-2, Wing B, Room 45. 

Containment: To be fed three meals a day. Hands to be 
restrained at all times. No requests to be acknowledged. 
Available for testing on request. 


"Conan, Conrad. Wing B, Room 45. Video footage shows that the 
corridors are reasonably clear. Local video feeds have been 
replaced with memetic kill agents. You'll have about ten minutes 
until someone realises something's amiss. Get to it." 


Conan and Conrad adjusted their earpieces, walking side by side 
down the corridor. Humanoid Containment Site 29-2 was a minimum 
security facility; at night, they were reduced to a skeleton crew. The 
pair heard their paces echo, pointing their pistols precautionarily 
down every passage they passed. Conan scratched the edge of his 
flesh mask. 


"Damn, these things get itchy." 
"Get over it." 


"Hey, I'm just sayi-" 


Conrad turned the corner, shooting a pair of night guards in the 
chest, then head, knocking them to the ground like sacks of bricks. 
He turned to his brother, frowning at him through his stolen face. 


"Get over it. We're here. Work on the lock, I've got you covered." 


Conrad moved to the wall opposite the door, pointing his pistols in 
opposite directions to cover the whole corridor. Conan pulled a lock 
gun from his vest, jamming it into the door and clicking it repeatedly 
while twisting. The seventh tumble aligned the pins, letting him pull 
open the door. Conan looked inside, spotting the dishevelled man 
slumped against the corner of the room. The subject was wearing a 
bright green jumpsuit, clearly differentiating him from the expendable 
personnel in yellow. His hands were covered by a set of unusual 
steel handcuffs, chains connecting him to the wall of his cell. Conan 
entered, tapping the man on the shoulder gently. 


"Robin Puck?" 


Robin Puck opened his eyes suddenly, alert and aware. He sneered 
at Conan from his corner. 


"What do you want this time, you-" 
"Password. Eight five seven three." 


Robin Puck's expression changed immediately, grinning at his 
rescuers. 


"The cracked jetstream fills the evening.” 


Conan forced his pick gun into the handcuffs, pulling the trigger 
repeatedly. After nineteen clicks, the lock remained unopened. 


"Lock won't open, I'm breaking the chain. Don't move, this stuff 
stings like hell." 


Conan pulled a small phial of red liquid from his vest, removing the 
rubber stopper and dropping a small splash where the chain was 
attached to the wall. The metal fizzed for a few seconds, then fell 
apart, completely corroded by the mixture. Robin Puck wiggled his 
arms within his restraints. 


"What about my hands?" 
"Worry about that when we're out of here. Let's go." 


Conan returned to the corridor, Robin Puck following close behind. 
Conrad glanced at the pair of them, then moved to cover their 
evacuation. 


Constantine noticed the first alarm going off, then intercepted and 
blocked it. The alarm triggered again, and again, he severed the 
connection. He switched his view to a video feed of the source; a 
guard was repeatedly pulling the trigger, confused and scared at the 
lack of response. The guard switched to his radio and started 
speaking to it in hushed tones; set to a frequency, of course, which 
was being jammed. Constantine rewound the tapes, watching the 
man discovering the bodies of two of his co-workers in the corridor. 
He then fast-forwarded to the present, just in time to see the man 
nervously unholster his pistol, then start to walk in the opposite 
direction of Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck. Constantine couldn't 
help releasing a short chuckle. 


Conan and Conrad heard a message in their earpieces from their 
brother. 


"A guard's noticed the bodies, but he's gone wandering in the wrong 
direction. You should be clear all the way out." 


Conrad sprinted to every corner they passed, aimed his guns down 
either direction of the crossroads, then jumped across to the other 
side, covering Conan and Robin Puck as they passed. The three of 
them continued like this, stopping to check each corridor they 
passed, until finally getting to the lobby. They sprinted down the 
steel entryway as fast as possible, exiting the still-open door they 
had entered through. Conrad and Conan moved on either side of 
Robin Puck, matching his pace perfectly. Robin Puck walked to the 
sidewalk near the deceptively decrepit building, panting softly. 
Conan turned to their rescuee, reassuring him. 


"Don't worry, Mister Puck. Our escape vehicle should be here any 


second." 


As soon as the words left Conan's mouth, an unmarked van pulled 
up in front of them, Constantine Murphy grinning out at them from 
the driver's side window. 


"Your chariot awaits!" 


Conan, Conrad and Robin Puck eagerly climbed through the door, 
slamming it shut as they drove away. 


Ten minutes later, Constantine turned off all jammers and 
interceptors centred around Humanoid Containment Site-29-2. 
Requests for strike teams and support were sent to every nearby 
facility, sirens screamed throughout the site, and researchers hid 
under their desks in panic. Some people tried to evacuate the 
facility, while others tried to lock the place down. Even with the 
return of communication, there was still no comprehension, no 
cohesion, and no coherence. 


In short, chaos ensued. 


Incident Report: CHAOIN-582057 

Location: Humanoid Containment Site-29-2 
Casualties: Seven Guards, One Receptionist, Two 
Strike Team Personnel, Three Scientists, Twelve 
Anomalous Persons 

Description: [DATA EXPUNGED] 


The van slowed to a halt in a mostly empty carpark. 


"Out you get, Mister Puck. Yours is the red one over there. Keys are 
in your pocket." 


"Thanks for the break, boys. See you around."