Pings as new alerts came in. Paris looked up at the screens. “More 
of the same?” 


“Oh they're just that ice cream parlour.” Caruso dismissed them with 
a wave. “The place where you walk in and you can see with your 
fingers, and the pistachio flavour is sentient.” 


“Thought that was contained?” 
“It is. Need to update the alert criteria. Six week backlog.” 
“So who's on the ground? With the lobster case?” 


Caruso tapped on his keyboard and swiped the screen. “Dimitri,” he 
said. “He's with the mother.” 


“Make sure he stays with her.” 
“Will do. This is all Jessop, isn't it?” 


Jessop, she thought. Harold Maine’s codename. It brought a little 
lump of dread with it into her throat. She nodded. 


Caruso sipped his coffee intently and leaned back in his chair. “We 
really ought to get moving with this,” he said. “We've flashed entire 
communities for less. Don't you think we have enough evidence for 
at least a grade two Meet and Greet?” 


Paris shook her head. “We wait,” she said. Caruso made a sucking 
noise with his teeth. 


“Seriously? Why?” 


“Orders from above,” she replied. She didn't mention the favours 
called in for her father, or the dinner date arranged with Site Director 
David Runeberg. Caruso looked as though he might raise a further 
question, mulled it over, then decided against it. 


In front of Carol Paris thirteen HD monitors were turning red. 
“Downgrade Jessop’s alerts to vibrate only and increase the 
escalation delay to the next level across the board, whatever that is. 
And flag any extra-continental notifications as FYI; we don't want 
anyone else getting tied up in this.” 


“Okay,” said Caruso, “but we need to act sooner or later. The 
CMMCH had a flagged incident this morning. Woman gave birth to a 
full sized cow." 


Paris raised her eyebrows. "That's not the end of it," Caruso 
continued. "The cow was in labour. Gave birth an hour later to the 
woman's baby. The mother - and all witnesses - are displaying the 
expected mental trauma, but all three are physically normal now. 
Site induction times three taking place as we speak. We're checking 
for links to Jessop.” 


Paris played with her bracelet distractedly as she listened; a birthday 
present from her father. She didn't know it, but it would be her last. 
Hers, and her two daughters, and Caruso’s, and everyone else she 
knew. 


“We're running out of time,” Caruso said, and he finished his coffee 
without tasting it. 


Prev Next 


Fortunate Son 


Marcus straightened his tie and brushed his hair to the right side 
with his hand. One of his roommates was playing Tupac and wildly 
throwing gang symbols at his desk. He could see him in the mirror. It 
was growing dark outside. The room smelled of a little more 
aftershave than necessary. His two roommates used to pester him 
about these Saturday nights. “Where are you going all dressed up?” 
they’d ask, and he’d say, “Mass,” and that would shut them up. He 
slipped his wallet into his back pocket and began down the stairs. 
Saturday night mass? Were they stupid? 


It was dreadfully cold outside of the dormitory, and Marcus flipped 
the collar of his overcoat up. He’d seen Humphrey Bogart do it ina 
film. Or maybe it was Harrison Ford. He wished he had the driver 
here, so that he wouldn’t have to walk alone down these snowy 
sidewalks, the wind chafing his cheeks. It was worth it, he told 
himself. It was this or drinking lukewarm Milwaukee’s Best in a room 
party somewhere, music on too loud, and maybe sloppily hooking up 
with some blonde mannequin from the sororities. He was too classy 
for that. 


As he walked uptown, the streets quickly changed character. The 
streets surrounding the campus gave way to dilapidated apartment 
projects, a multi-colored myriad of trash and cigarette butts jutting 
from the snowdrifts. Marcus rounded a corner, turning onto a non- 
descript side-street. A single orange lamp threw an otherworldly 
haze over the grey concrete. The street did not draw a second 
glance from any passer-by. Close inspection, however, would have 
revealed things that ought not to have been on this inner city block. 
The windows in the buildings were all dark, and the walks were clear 
of the common stream of litter. A black Rolls-Royce was parked 
casually next to a hydrant, and next to it an Italian sports car. A 
wooden handrail extended from a basement staircase, oddly 
juxtaposed with the surrounding scene. He placed his left hand upon 
it, gingerly stepping into the darkness below. 


The heavy door open at the bottom of the stair opened into a dim 
and tiny room, where a huge Samoan man in a dark suit stood. The 
massive man wordlessly extended an open palm. Marcus fumbled 
with his wallet, pulling out the glass card. The Samoan held it in two 
fingers, raised it to eye level. He nodded. The man turned to the 
heavy industrial door behind him, opening it with a single wrenching 
pull. Marcus stepped through, glancing over his shoulder to say, 
“Thanks, Ralph.” Ralph returned a subtle, but angry glare. 


Marcus was greeted with a rush of warmth and a friendly woman in 
a short red dress. She sported a bulky brass collar. She took his 
coat. A gentle wash of voices came from the floor below, along with 
a mixed scent of liquor, oak, and tobacco. He stepped down from 
the balcony, taking the spiral staircase to the ground floor 
confidently. Here was his place, away from the plebeians, away from 
their petty college-age worries. If they only knew. The club was alive 
tonight. The tables were bustling with poker games, and groups of 
well-dressed men and women were talking in groups. Strange, 
solitary figures nursed cocktails at the long mahogany bar, and the 
old grays sat in armchairs by the fire, brandishing cigars and 
conversing grandiloquently. An enormous black piano in the corner 
was softly twinkling Ellington’s “Little Brown Book.” There was no 
player. Occasionally, people would walk over and slip bills into the 
empty highball glass sitting on the bench. 


Marcus walked over to the fireplace, close to the aged men. He sat 
in one of the leather chairs, his socks awkwardly visible at his ankles 
as he lifted his legs up onto an ottoman. Leafing through a copy of 
the Times, he pretended to read but instead listened intently. They 
fascinated him, these back-of-the-room men. They were captains of 
industry, politicians, royalty; bespectacled and tweed, criminals all. 
These great leaky galleons seemed not to care about his proximity, 
or notice at all, and continued conversing in gruff and frank tones. 
Marcus looked up from the paper, making eye contact with one of 
the women in the red dresses. 


She walked over gracefully, gorgeous. Angry red splotches were 
visible around the edges of her collar, barely noticeable under the 
makeup. She must be new, Marcus thought. After a few words, the 
woman went to the bar, and then returned with his drink. Three 


fingers of scotch, two ice-cubes. It went down hard, but his father 
drank it. Sipping from the glass, he attempted to hide the sharp 
exhale that escaped from his mouth, fearing unreasonably that the 
old men would notice and take offense. Marcus was always 
concerned with how the other members saw him. He was easily the 
youngest there, and the others didn’t tend to speak to him. 


A rotund and gray engine stood on the table nearby, chugging 
slowly and periodically giving off a bluish soporific steam. It had 
been a long week. Marcus began thinking about his father — his 
father, the senator. He felt his eyelids growing heavy, his arms 
slopping off the edges of the chair. 


It was his eighteenth birthday, and he had just gotten into college. 
He had begged his father, begged and begged. And finally, there it 
was, driving up the pebble driveway to the family mansion. The 
black, non-descript car pulled up at the front door. Marcus watched 
through the kitchen window, childlike with anticipation. A tall, slender 
man, with close-cropped hair and a pinstripe suit stepped out of the 
passenger seat. The senator went out and shook hands with him. 
He said something, laughing heartily. The man from the car did not 
react. They met at the door. The representative was British, 
humorless, and carried nothing. He had a voice like shaved ice. 


The senator led Marcus and the representative into his study, where 
they sat opposite each other, silently. Melinda brought in a tray with 
a water pitcher and two glasses. The glass sat untouched before the 
representative for the five minutes of the interview. Afterward 
Marcus’ father came in, and they shut him out. 


Crouching and watching through the crack between the doors, 
Marcus could only hear muffled voices. His father was talking and 
gesticulating. The man in the suit was speaking quietly and sharply, 
shaking his head slightly. His father was growing louder, red in the 
face like he got during his campaign speeches. The man in the suit 
kept shaking his head. And then the senator had his checkbook out 
and was writing on it. The two men shook hands, and three weeks 
later Marcus had his glass card. 


Marcus awoke, startled. Several hours had passed. The old men 
had left, presumably to their respective rooms. Some of the women 


in the short red dresses were wiping down tables and emptying ash 
trays. One of them was passing between the remaining groups of 
members, offering a little silver tray in her right hand. The tray had 
several evenly placed rows of white pills on it. He took one, 
unquestioning, and swallowed it. 

The floor was still populated, but quiet now. Young men and women 
sat on the furniture in small groups, laughing softly. Several of them 
were gathered around the gray engine, examining it and inhaling the 
blue steam. The jazz piano had been replaced by a low and 
electronic basso thrumming. Every once and a while, an odd noise 
would float up from the basement staircase in the rear of the room. 
Three African men in tan military uniforms were standing at the bar 
drinking cognac and vermouth. He watched their lips contort and 
shift with each syllable, and they seemed to slow. The constant 
flicker of the fire beside him became sluggish, too. In his ears, the 
intimate voices of the young and privileged around him grew deeper 
and deeper, until they were gross and comedic parodies. Marcus 
watched the pendulum on the great brown grandfather clock by the 
fire swing slower, its clicks decreasing in frequency. And then it 
stopped altogether. Soon — he did not know how long after — he 
could not move a muscle. He was stuck, sunken into the leather 
armchair. His eyes tracked his field of vision, scrutinizing the people 
stuck in mid-gesture; drops of liquid suspended centimeters above 
tongues, the feet frozen impossibly in mid-air. A great sweep of 
relaxation washed between the hemispheres of his brain. 


He snapped to, and it was as if someone had pressed fast-forward 
in his mind. There were gunshots. The lights were flickering, and 
members were running every which way, screaming. Armed men in 
strange black jumpsuits were flooding the balcony above. Several of 
the guards had upturned one of the heavy oak tables at the front of 
the room and were crouching behind it, trading gunfire with the men 
above. Marcus panicked and jumped down from his chair, crawling 
across the floor. Broken glass cut into his knees. 

One of the guards hurried passed him, and Marcus clung to his 
calves, tripping him up awkwardly. 

“Get the fuck off!” the man shouted. 

“Help me,” Marcus begged piteously. 

“Get off. You’re a gold member; don’t have security privileges,” he 
said through gritted teeth. “Let go of me now or you'll get us both 


SCP-850: School of Fish 


Item #: SCP-850 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-850 is not dangerous 
unless threatened. However, as it reacts to containment as a threat, 
measures must be taken to ensure that it does not know that it is 
contained. SCP-850 must be kept in a large habitat maintained in 
[REDACTED] ocean. The boundaries of this habitat are to be 
marked and enforced by concrete walls several feet in thickness 
designed to appear as a reef. 


Description: SCP-850 is a spatial and biological anomaly. It 
externally appears to be a school of fish closely resembling, in 
appearance and genetics, the species C/upea harengus. Major 
differences include darker coloration and greater variance in size. 


An area exists within it in which space heavily bends. Internal area is 
far larger than external area. The exact area of this bent portion of 
space is unknown, but has proven to have a radius greater than 50 
kilometers. Dr. Grangan has postulated that it could be infinite in 
size. All area that has been observed does contain water. 


It has been observed that in the increasingly deep layers of 
SCP-850, the fish seem to become increasingly different from 
Clupea harengus. This is seemingly to become in part self- 
dependent. Though the specimens in the outer swarm depend 
primarily upon external creatures for food, the varied species further 
in seem to prey on each other. Despite preying upon one another, 
all fish in the school work together. Due to the sheer size of 
SCP-850, this typically provides enough force to kill a predator or 
destroy a barrier. 


Addendum-850-1: 


killed.” The guard shook his leg vigorously. 

“Please help me!” Marcus pleaded, a string of spittle streaming 
ungracefully from his mouth to the guard’s pant-leg. The guard 
kneed him sharply in the jaw, discarding him to the carpet. 


It seemed like an instant later that the floor was alive with the black- 
suited soldiers. Gazing around, his eyes were blurry with tears. 
Three security guards lay in puddles of blood. It seemed like all the 
older members were gone. In fact, all the help were gone too; the 
bartenders and the women in the red dresses. The only people left 
on the floor were the young members and the three African men. 
Operatives were holding them all at gunpoint, zipping riot-cuffs onto 
their wrists. Marcus stumbled to his feet, lunging for the basement 
staircase. A rifle butt came across his skull, and his head was filled 
with sparks. 


Waking up, he had a splitting headache, and there was dried blood 
on his face. The room was bright white, and it made him squint. He 
tried to lift his hand to shade his eyes, but they were strapped to the 
chair he was sitting in. Across the table in front of him sat a figure in 
a white laboratory coat. He couldn’t make out her face due to the 
angle of the lights. 

“Awake, are you?” said the figure. 

“What...what the hell?” ventured Marcus. 

“Please state your name,” said the figure, poising a pen over a 
clipboard. 

“Where am |?” Marcus asked, terror mounting. 

“Please state your name,” the figure repeated. 

“You can’t do this! I’m an American citizen! My father is a senator! 
My father..!” Marcus shouted, struggling aimlessly with his bonds. 
The figure across the table sighed and put down the pen. She made 
a beckoning motion with her hand, looking over Marcus’ left 
shoulder. Marcus saw the man approach in his peripheral vision, a 
lone syringe borne on a bare stainless-steel medical tray. He 
screamed. 


Found in the Cell of the Condemned Prisoner 


Young ladies wore gowns and flowers in bloom 
Young gentlemen preened and wandered the room 
Anxiously waiting for her to arrive 

With the crowd we thought we’d never be missed 
Two fools engaging in a lovers’ tryst 

Risking the wrath of the Queen of the Hive 


One suitor above all she wished to claim 

Blessed with fortune and charm and ancient name 
For his hand and his heart did she connive 

But he was immune to all of her charms 

And sought his refuge in my loving arms 

The poor cousin of the Queen of the Hive 


Under the apple tree we met in hope 
Determining there that we would elope