| ask her what she's doing at the hotel, and she says that she's 
passing through the area, and needed a place to stay. She looks me 
dead in the eye as she says it, and | know she doesn't have a room 
of her own just yet. Of course a dame like that is no stranger to 
duplicity. She's hiding something else, | know. But then, aren't they 
all? | ask her, already certain of the answer, if she has a place to 
stay. She says she doesn't and asks if | would be so kind as to 
accommodate a poor traveler such as her for a night. Being a 
gentleman, | can hardly refuse. 


No good deed goes unrewarded. 


And no good deed goes unpunished, | discover, as | awaken to find 
myself rudely tied to the hotel bed. It's strong rope, and 


professionally tied. So, one of my nighttime companion's secrets 
comes to light. I'm really not surprised. My contact shouldn't have 
been late; he never is. And in my line of work, if someone doesn't 
show up, the only safe thing to do is to assume the worst. He's 
probably lying in a ditch somewhere, with his blood in the gutter. 
And if | didn't want to join him, I'd have to act fast. 


| ask her what she means by this, but she doesn't seem to be ina 
conversational mood. | don't see any goons, but if she's half as good 
as | fear, she has some just outside. If she's as good I'm starting to 
think she may be, she won't even need them. Fortunately, an agent 
of the O5 is never unprepared. A sharpened nail goes to work on the 
rope binding my hands as she rummages through my bags. It's 
probably too much to hope that she'll stumble on one of the less... 
user friendly items | have in there. My love of women will kill me 
someday. 


But today will not be that day. | snap through the rope, break out my 
false tooth, and, as she turns towards me with that oh so fetching 
look of shock on her exquisite features, | toss a pinch of niner- 
eighty-nine. It works fast, and soon she's down, hardly able to move 
save to claw futilely at the crusts over her face. Such a terrible 
waste. 


| retrieve my gun. It's an MP5k, with apparently organic properties. 
Untracable, or so the boys in the Q Division assure me. | kiss her 
once on her sweetened forehead, and, though | know she can't hear 
me now, tell her she was beautiful. The gun twitches once, and so 
does she. 


I'm not clear yet. The door bursts open and in come her backup. All 
five of them, each armed. Fortunately, I'm well prepared. Five 
against one? Well, | have the perfect distraction. 


The disc sails cleanly into the doorway. It's always a wildcard, but 
this time it certainly delivers. A cloud of bees pours in from the hall, 
swarming the toughs. Even without them, it would probably be even. 
Untrained, inelegant, artless. | toss aside my gun. | won't be needing 
it. Four go down to shattered limbs and cracked skulls. They won't 
be moving again for a while. The last one, | take care not to hurt. | 
pick up 539, and the bees disperse. Time to get the information | 


SCP-618: Smoky Cigars 


Item #: SCP-618 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: All instances of SCP-618 are 
kept in individual airtight containers within a larger climate controlled 
humidor. The climate control system for the humidor has been 
adapted to collect all products of SCP-618 and store them in 
pressurized tanks. 


All personnel who interact with SCP-618 are to wear level A/type 1 
hazardous material protective suits. In the event of accidental 
exposure to the byproducts of SCP-618, personnel are authorized to 
request termination prior to the onset of anomalous effects. 


Description: SCP-618 is a collection of 37 (originally 50) parejo- 
style cigars without brand identification. SCP-618 instances 
continually exude a colorless gas containing several volatile 
aromatics, which give it a characteristic smell of burning or 
smokiness. This gas additionally contains several previously 
unknown compounds! which act as mild hallucinogens and opiates 
while in gaseous form. Although there is no detectable anomalous 
compulsion to smoke SCP-618, the pleasant, addictive compounds 
they exude tends to influence those directly exposed to them, with 
the end result that affected individuals are more likely to want to 
consume SCP-618. 


Once lit, the smoke produced by SCP-618 contains greater amounts 
of the abnormal compounds found in the original gas, as well as a 
highly allergenic compound. At concentrations greater than 100 
ppm, this allergen produces hives, blisters, and weeping rashes on 
all living mammalian dermal tissues within 30 seconds of making 
contact. If left untreated, these will rapidly develop into open skin 
lesions as the dermal tissue necrotizes. Exposed nerve endings are 
anaesthetized by the opiates found in the smoke, which reduces the 


need. 


| packed the Combat Boots, so things go pretty easy for me. For 
him, too, if he considers the alternatives. The scip is in the 
penthouse suite, doesn't know we're after him. He's being taken 
care of by the Serpent's Hand, who certainly do, but | just managed 
to take out almost his entire escort. Amateurs, the lot of them. 


| call in a clean-up squad and ride the elevator to the target's 
location. The door is locked, but like all modern hotels, opens on the 
first or second kick. The scip is sitting on the sofa, watching the 
news. He looks like a regular fellow, somewhat overweight, but | 
know better. | know him to be a rift in what reality should be, a living 
blasphemy against the natural order that England thrives on. He 
gets up, looks at me, and sees his fate. Three shots to the torso, 
and he falls. | walk over to him, remove his shirt. As | knew, where 
the stomach would be in any true human is instead a globe, dappled 
in blue and green. And molten red, where a bullet pierced it. Target 
confirmed. Target eliminated. 


There's no point to containing that which can't be used. The only 
good scip is one that we control absolutely. There's no telling what 
anything less than a wholly contained one might do. The crown must 
be protected. So we Select. We Contain. We Prevent. 


| am an agent of the Occidental 5. | have a license to kill. 


The name is Bond. James Bond. 


Letter of the Day 


To: O5-C 
From: Director, Site 19 
Subject: Daily Director's Memo, / /2012 


SCP- was recovered today, four days after its original escape. 
Agents Dash and Jack led the recovery alongside Mobile Task 
Force Alpha-Three “Lokie’s Lollygaggers”. Team casualties were 
moderate: Replacement members have been requested from the 
Personnel Office. The recovery effort caused significant collateral 
damage within the residential district of Canterlot’s east quarter: 
reconstruction teams have been deployed and Class A amnesiacs 
have been distributed to the populace. The cover story provided to 
officials was that it was an accident involving a new breed of 
discordian parasprites. SCP- ’s containment procedures have been 
reviewed and amended appropriately. 


Elsewhere, Operation Love and Tolerance continues to be a 
success. Five more operatives of the Church of the Lunar Goddess 
have been captured this week, as well as a successful raid ona 
Carter-Marshall Crusader chapter house. Interrogation has been 
carried out by Agent Pi, and recovered materials have illuminated 
plans for the next three months for both groups, as well as revealing 
the locations of SCP- ,SCP- , and SCP- 


Dr. Faust and Dr. Rare have also made significant progress with 
Project Periphery. If the test run is a success, we are predicting that 
the D-Class will be made obsolete by this upcoming spring. 


However, it has come to the attention of the staff that SCP- ’s 
containment protocols seem to be swiftly turning inadequate. 
Procedure FIM-MONTAUK has been modified to include [DATA 
EXPUNGED]. 


[DATA EXPUNGED]. 


The modifications have already been passed by Dr. Shy of the 
Ethics Committee, and await your approval. 


With regards, 


Dr. T. Sparks 


Smooth as Silk 


The intelligence reports are clear: SEELE is ready to initiate the 
Human Instrumentality Project. 


God damn it. 


| advise full mobilization against NERV. The JSSDF could be fully 
deployed alongside our agents and Chinese forces within six hours. 


Will it be enough? 


A full UN task force could be deployed within thirty-six hours, but 
those may be hours that we do not have. 


How many agents do we have embedded in Japan? 
Forty-seven, enough to open the way for a major task force. 
Very well. | am initiating code Omega-One. 

| second. 

| concur. 


Passed. 


BY ORDER OF THE O05 COUNCIL 

ATTENTION ALL PERSONNEL 

WE ARE NOW AT CODE BLACK 

REPEAT: WE ARE NOW AT CODE BLACK 

LOCKDOWN CODE OMEGA-ONE HAS BEEN INITIATED 
ALL NON-COMBAT PERSONNEL REPORT TO YOUR 
DESIGNATED SAFE ZONES 

ALL COMBAT PERSONNEL PREPARE FOR DEPLOYMENT 
REPEAT: WE ARE NOW AT CODE BLACK 

SECURE. CONTAIN. PROTECT 


The plan was simple on paper: embedded Foundations agents in 
Japan and operatives from the sites in China would infiltrate NERV 
and hack into the MAGI supercomputers. This information would be 
passed on to the main UN force and additional Foundation mobile 
task forces, which would then attack Tokyo-3. The EVA pilots would 
be captured or killed, alongside Gendo Ikari, Kozo Fuyutsuki, 
Ritsuko Akagi and the rest of the NERV high command. If at all 
possible, the members of SEELE would be located and killed. The 
EVA units themselves, as well as any additional SCP-class items in 
NERV's control would be destroyed. If only one of the critical parts 
of the project was destroyed, the entire mission would be a success. 


Entry was the easiest part. The destruction the Angels left in their 
wake had forced NERV into a ragged, undermanned corner. Simply 
showing a medical license was enough to get in, with only minimal 
questioning. No one seemed to notice when three of those new 
doctors went missing in the wing that housed the MAGI servers, or 
when the normal technicians seemed to be taking an extended 
coffee break. 


The Shank was a wonderful device: Only the size of a backpack, yet 
powerful enough to cut through the MAGI’s defenses like butter. The 
Foundation had begun development as soon as they had received 
word of the MAGI: NERV had beaten them to functioning Al, so the 
most reasonable thing to do was design a failsafe against it. This 
was not incredibly difficult, given that NERV had ended up with all 
three of their Al based off of the same highly unstable bipolar 
narcissist. 


The device hummed away, breaking down the MAGIs defenses. It 
would provide maybe twenty minutes of access, but that was 
enough to get the pertinent data to the main force. When the MAGI 
finally adapted enough to react and overcame the Shank, the Shank 
would take the MAGI down with it. Data poured from the MAGI to 
Oberon (a failsafe was not the only thing the Foundation had built), 


where it was compiled, disseminated, and added to the TACNET. 


Meanwhile, the combined force of the JSSDF and Chinese Navy 
approached Tokyo-3 harbor. 


The heads-up-display inside every agent’s helmet lit up with new 
data. General Tanaka’s voice came over every headphone and 
speaker in the task force. 


“This is General Tanaka. TACNET has been updated with 
identification and status of the EVA pilots. The capture of these 
individuals is our top priority. The pilots are not to come in contact 
with the EVA units: lethal force is authorized to prevent access. All 
other primary targets remain kill-on-sight.” 


“I’m so fucked up...” Shinji Ikari could barely believe what he had 
just done. 


Who was he fooling? Of course he had done that. That’s all he was, 
right? Just a fucked-up piece of shit. He wasn’t worth anything. 
Nothing, nothing, nothing. Not even shit. Shit actually had some 
reason to exist. 


The door opened, two figures walked in one man and one woman, 
dressed in surgical scrubs. Shinji was frozen where he was: the 
shame was mortifying in the absolute. 


The man glanced at Asuka, and then scowled at Shinji. 

“For fuck’s sake, zip up your pants.” 

Shinji had just enough time to realize that the man spoke with a 
Chinese accent before he was knocked out. His unconscious body 


crumpled. 


Agents Bao and Min worked quickly: Shinji was draped in a hospital 
gown and put in a wheelchair, Asuka was wrapped in her bedsheet 
and placed on a gurney, and the two were wheeled out into the 


corridor. If anyone asked, they were headed for the surgical ward. If 
they were lucky, they would be out of the country by the time the 
JSSDF struck. So far so good: they had encountered nobody in the 
hall. 


The elevator dinged up ahead, followed by some footsteps. A 
woman in her late twenties turned the corner into the hallway, and 
froze. She had major’s stripes on her collar, and a name tag that 
read Misato Katsuragi. Her hand darted to her belt, raising a pistol at 
the Foundation agents. 


“| don’t recognize you...Who are you? What are you doing?” 


The agents leapt to each side, drawing and firing their own weapons 
as Katsuragi did the same. Min dropped to the floor, a bullet in her 
chest. Katsuragi dropped to her knees, clutching at her bleeding 
abdomen. Bao steadied himself and took a second shot. The 
major’s body was flung onto its back as the blood pooled on the 
tiles. Bao looked at his partner: just as dead as the major. No time to 
mourn now. There were two pilots here, and he could only manage 
to take one by himself. The Third Child was top priority. The Second 
was a liability. Bao stepped over to the gurney and, without 
hesitation, placed a bullet in-between her eyes. He had seen 
enough of her file to Know that it was an act of mercy. 


He grabbed Shinji out of the wheelchair, slung him over his 
shoulder, and ran. 


Two hours later 


Tokyo-3s outer defenses had been devastated by the Angels. The 
ground forces had landed with minimal conflict, and NERV’s facility 
had been breached with just as much ease. 


The air was filled with smoke, screams and gunfire. The hallways 
and corridors of NERV were littered with bodies as the JDSSF went 
deeper into the headquarters. 


Nine great shadows hovered over the ruined city, dropping their 


payload below. 


They've launched EVA units! All ships, fire! 


Artillery shells and machine gun fire bounced harmlessly off of the 
AT fields of the nine white EVAs. With floppy-lipped smiles, the nine 
charged the fleet. 


Gendo Ikari was running. He hadn’t had to run anywhere since high 
school gym class. He was out of shape. 


The great vault doors to Terminal Dogma opened. The corpse of 
Lilith, Ubbo-Sathla, SCP-001, hung from its cross. 


He set Rei down in the shallows. The girl looked at the gigantic alien 
corpse, at her “mother”, with a blank face. Her face was always 
blank. 


Gendo looked at the embryonic Adam embedded in his hand. Now it 
was time. He could meet Yui again. 


“Commander.” The voice of Ritsuko Akagi came from behind. 
Gendo turned to see the scientist standing there, a pistol in her 
hands and pointed at them both. “I’ve started the self-destruct 
sequence, Commander. We're all going to die here.” 


Gendo Ikari laughed. It was really only a dry chuckle, devoid of 
humor, but he laughed all the same. Another thing he had not done 
in years. 


“Actually, Doctor Akagi, the truth is...” 


His words were cut off by a fifty caliber bullet that tore through his 
right temple. Dr. Ritsuko Akagi spun and had just enough time to 
register what was going on before her own skull was blown apart. 
The blood mixed with the LCL like food dye in water.