SCP-657 came to the attention of the Foundation when the local 
police made a request for federal resources to investigate any 
possible connection between SCP-657 and the officer's shooting. 
Arrangements were made for SCP-657 to be tried and convicted of 
the murder of his subordinate and conspiracy to murder the officer 
who apprehended him, and sentenced to death. SCP-657 was 
extracted into Foundation custody using the same procedures for 
securing D-class personnel. 


Addendum 657-1: Experiment 657/076 


SCP-657 was introduced to SCP-076-2 as a potential recruit for 
Mobile Task Force Omega 7. This was a pretense to allow SCP-657 
physical contact with SCP-076-2. Upon contact with SCP-076-2, 
SCP-657's eyes rolled back into his head and he lost 
consciousness. SCP-657 remained in a comatose state for slightly 
over a week. Upon recovering, SCP-657 claimed to have no 
memory of meeting SCP-076-2. Polygraph testing indicates these 
statements to be accurate. Following this incident, containment 
procedures for SCP-657 have been amended to ensure that 
SCP-657 does not come into contact with any other humanoid 
SCPs. Further experimentation involving exposing SCP-657 to 
humanoid SCPs may take place only with O5 clearance. 


« SCP-656 | SCP-657 | SCP-658 » 


And then, just as UHEC K3-297 ("Exclamation Point!") crunched into 
the earth with all the force of a descending god, the music suddenly 
transitioned into an extremely unmartial boogie-woogie beat. 


The Andrews Sisters began to sing. 


He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way... 


"Oh God, it's Fangirl," Landon groaned. 


"Better than Sex." 


It was the kind of phrase that people threw around jokingly. As if 
anyone would pass up the chance for some horizontal tango action 
for anything else, right? 


Well, Lynisha Taylor could honestly say that sex was overrated. Sex 
was awkward. Sex made you feel vulnerable. Sex was weird and 
dirty and involved bodily fluids and messy sheets. Ick! 


Now, riding a UHEC, on the other hand? That was like being a God. 
That was like being Artemis and Athena and Hecate and all three 
fucking Furies all bound up into a steel-plated package. 


Riding a UHEC was the furthest thing from "vulnerable" that a 
human being could ever feel. 


She hit her assault jets just as she hit ground, and the ten-foot tall 
metal beast wrapped around her five-foot-two flesh-and-blood body 
surged forward like a charging tiger. BANSHEE was flashing a 
sequence of images intended to shock and awe the enemy: Allied 
ships coming ashore at Normandy. American factories churning out 
a B-17 bomber every ninety seconds. The 101st Airborne storming 
the Eagle's Nest at Berchtesgarden. Audie Fucking Murphy. 


Meanwhile, the Andrews Sisters continued to sing. 


They sang as she smashed a three-ton fist into a tank a hundred 
times bigger than she was. 


They sang as she ripped her wrist-mounted piledrivers into the 
seven-foot wide bogies, smashing them off their axles and 
dislocating the treads. 


They sang as she leaped out of the way of a half-dozen roaring 
machine guns, tracing a high arc in the air that brought her 
screaming down towards the massive gun turret, ready to deliver the 
killing blow. 


They sang as the gigantic guns swiveled around impossibly fast and 
fired a 300 kg armor-piercing shell directly into her chest. 


The cannon went WHUMP and her suit went CRUNCH and Lynisha 
went "FUCK!" and the entire package went sailing off towards the 
horizon like an errant foul ball. 


Well. So much for the cavalry. 


Landon put down his rifle. It was out of ammo anyway (not that it 
would do any good against that thing bearing down on his bunker.) 
He took one last look around the bunker at his valiant, doomed men, 
and dialed close air support on his suit's comm. 


"Red Six here. Orange Asset is KIA. Requesting Broken Arrow. 
Repeat. Broken Arrow." 


A brief moment of silence, broken only by the moaning of a 
wounded man. "Say again, Red Six?" 


Landon grimaced. Figured. Even in his last moments, CAS was as 
dense as fucking rocks. "Red Six, Orange Asset KIA, Broken 
Arrow," he growled. 


Another brief moment of silence. "Uhhh... Red Six? I'm reading 
Orange Asset re-entering your battlespace at speed," the CAS guy 
said. 


"What!?" 


It was then that Landon heard the distinctive opening riff of... 


.. no. 
Not that song. 

Anything but THAT SONG. 
"GODDAMN IT, FANGIRL!" he shouted. 


In the end, there were two things that saved Lynisha's life. 


The first thing was that the Ultra-Heavy Engagement Chassis 
included a piece of black box TanGenTial technology called the 
Inertial Nullifier, which basically reduced the effective mass of the 
suit at certain times. It was extremely useful for, say, walking across 
the street without tearing the asphalt into bits with the ground 
pressure of a fifteen-ton suit of armor. 


Lynisha was hit in the air, while on her upward rise, while the Inertial 
Nullifier was at full power. 


The effect was rather like a baseball being thrown at a sheet ona 
laundry line. Rather than smashing through her body (like a baseball 
thrown at a vase), it instead launched her into the air, Keeping most 
of its kinetic energy to itself. 


The second thing that saved Lynisha's life was that she got hit at a 
high enough angle to avoid being slammed into a mountainside. And 
that the 280mm shell had an almost one minute travel time at 
maximum distance: enough time to clear her head from the blackout 
caused by the massive acceleration and regain her bearings while 
tumbling through the sky. 


Not that she got away scot free. She was certain that her sternum 
was cracked. Her ribs were probably broken. And there was an 
unexploded armor-piercing shell embedded in her chesiplate. 


Lynisha got pissed. 


This asshole thought he could come into her house with his SIEG 
HEILs and Hugo Boss uniforms and goose stepping and Final 
Solution? 


Fuck that shit. 
This was AMERICA! 


(... okay, it wasn't really AMERICA|, it was the middle of Siberia, but 
AMERICA! was a state of mind, not so much a physical place, and 
Lynisha was as AMERICAN! as they came.) 


She wrenched the unexploded shell from her chest, grabbed it in 
both hands, locked her limbs in place. She keyed up a secret 
BANSHEE program: one of many she had prepared on the off- 
chance that she might one day find a situation where they might be 
useful. 


She positioned herself directly above the tank, where its big-ass 
guns couldn't track her. She clutched the basketball-sized shell in 
her armored hands — the instrument of her vengeance. 


She fell like a meteor, blaring the battle tune of her generation 
through her loudspeakers, screaming "FUUUUUUUUUCK 
YOOOOOQOQOQOOOOOO000000000U"" all the way down, as the 
BANSHEE system kicked in. 


And the Quad City DJs sang. 
They sang while UHEC K3-297 ("Exclamation Point!") descended 
from on high. 


They sang while the Nazi supertank opened fire with all of its turrets 
in a desperate attempt to stop its death. 


They sang while the ghost of Michael Wittmann screamed "WAS 
IST DAS!?" in confusion and horror at the bizarre specter it beheld. 


They sang as an Ultra-Heavy Engagement Chassis, hidden inside a 


fifteen-foot hologram of Michael Jordan, slam-dunked an artillery 
shell through the turret of a possessed P. 1000 Ratte Landkreuzer. 


... regarding the last point on your memo: your request 


to discipline Agent Taylor for "unprofessional behavior" is 
denied. 


Agent Taylor's profession is to wait for months at a time, 
maintaining maximum readiness for the day that we ask 
her to climb into a mecha-suit and punch eldritch 
abominations in the face. 


If you can tell me how a woman with that job description 
is supposed to act, I'll take your request a little more 
seriously. 


- Assistant Director "Marimba" 
Western American Branch 
United Nations Global Occult Coalition 


The mess hall erupted into cheers as Lynisha entered, leaning 
heavily on her crutch. 


She gave them a Miss America grin and pumped her fist as the rest 
of Strike Team Quadruple Niner erupted into a rousing chorus of, 
"For She's a Jolly Good Fellow." 


Cookie brought her a tray with a Medium Rare ribeye steak, 
scrambled eggs, and toast. She basked in the praise as the big 
screen on the side of the mess hall played and replayed her battle 
against the Nazi tank. She carefully cut a piece off the steak and 
took a bite, chewing slowly, savoring the taste. 


Best steak ever! 


"Sequence" 
« Diplomacy | Return to GOC Hub | Scramble Order » 


Magic Orientation 


"Hello. Thank you all for coming. For those of you who don't know 
me, my name is Dr. Tilda David Moose. | am the director of Site-19. 


"I'm here to — pardon my colloquial tone — I'm here to talk to you 
about magic. 


"I'm not a very good speaker. Just letting you know that up front. If it 
were up to me, someone else would be standing here. So let's start 
this with some questions. Just raise your hands like you're back in 
school. Easiest way, don't you think? | — Oh. That's... that's too 
many hands. Alright, you in front, go ahead. 


"No, this isn't an orientation for Mobile Task Force Sigma-3. Sigma-3 
is a task force that doesn't exist. It doesn't hold ‘orientations." | think 
they had one orientation, ever, and that was when they were 
created. If you're here from Sigma-3 and you think you need an 
orientation, your superiors haven't been doing their jobs. Next 
question? 


"| thought | said don't ask me questions about — okay, fine. She just 
asked why everyone here is from Sigma-3. First answer, it's not 
everyone. More... two-thirds of you. | see at least a dozen are high- 
ranking members of Tau-9, the Bookworms. Some of you are 
clearance 4 researchers who've just been read into this program, at 
least three of you are new directors, and some of you are... 
‘spooks’. Not saying who, of course. Just have fun wondering about 
that. Anyway. 


"Very, very few people in the Foundation are allowed to know 
anything about magic. This is... by far the largest number of people 
I've ever spoken to about this. | guess what with everything that's 
been happening recently, the Overseers want more people, ah... 
knowing what's going on. 


"Yes, okay, ask your question. — His question was — what exactly 


is 'Sigma-3'? 


"In that case, | have a question, too. How the hell does anyone in 
here not know what Sigma-3 is? You should've been sent material 
on... right, great, still in the process of declassification. | see. | take it 
back, | suppose. 


"Okay. We'll start with what we call "the anomalous community." 
Give you the lay of the land. How the world works, out there in the 
shadows. I'll explain how our Groups of Interest fit into this. I'll tell 
you about the Wanderers’ Library. And, yeah, I'll explain a little bit 
about Sigma-3. In between, we'll have breaks, so you don't hate me 
too much. 


"| assume you all already know this, but... There may be about a 
hundred of you in here, tonight. Still, you are a fraction of the 
Foundation's population. We're going to keep it that way. Anything 
you hear from me, anything, is not to be discussed with anyone 
who's not read into this program. On pain of death. Probably. 


<clears throat> 
"Finally, I'm going talk to you about magic. 


"Don't panic. No, you're not hallucinating. There has been no 
containment breach, and, | promise, there are no drugs in your 
coffee. 


"lam quite simply talking to you in the color blue. 


"This is because | am what they call a "mage". Or, if you like, a 
"Type Blue"... or "a witch". This is stuff we can do. It's, well — 
magic. Trivial magic, but magic nonetheless. 


<clears throat> 
"But I'm not going to talk about magic quite yet. Give me just a 


moment, and we'll get started." 


"Right. | said I'd talk to you about Mobile Task Force Sigma-3, "The 
Bibliographers". The boring name is on purpose. 


"Let me preface this. I'm not in Sigma-3. | only consult. | did induct a 
few of you myself a couple years ago, but | don't do that anymore. 
Yes, | see you, Agent Navarro, stop waving. As | was saying, since 
I'm not in Sigma-3, this will be the short version. 


"Sigma-3 is a Foundation task force which deals directly with the 
anomalous community. On friendly terms, or at least as friendly as 
we can manage. If this sounds ridiculous to you, good. Means we 
haven't had any leaks. 


"Originally, Sigma-3 was one of the Task Forces that took part in the 
failed invasion of the Wanderers’ Library, three or four decades 
back. It was the only one left mostly... intact. Afterwards, it was 
reformed and repurposed by order of O5 Command. 


"They are not a paramilitary task force. Nor are they a containment 
team. They are the product of our superiors being very, very 
concerned about the idea that the Foundation might miss out on 
some important things — world-ending things — simply because we 
are so isolated from the anomalous world. 


"Even with the invasion of the Library... if we had sources within the 
anomalous community, and if the task forces, or at least their 
leaders and the people doing the planning for them, had been 
cleared to know what we aid already know about the Library — then 
the operation could have gone significantly differently. 


"As it was, the Library incursion involved no people who had even 
heard of the Library before the op began. It was too highly classified, 
and we didn't have any direct sources, people who'd been in there 
long enough to seriously know what it was like. 


"We still don't even know what happened when we went into the 
Library. The memories of everyone who went in were different. Even 
our existing recordings — actual audiovisual footage — directly 
contradict each other. Some of the survivors don't remember even 
going in at all. 


"What we know for certain is that even now there are still 
Foundation members left behind in the Library, imprisoned beyond 
our reach. Beyond any reach. And that this was completely 


preventable. 
"But I'll get back to the Library. 


"We have always had some sources in the anomalous community. 
We have a long history of cooperating with the Global Occult 
Coalition, which is far more part of the anomalous world than we 

are. We also created Mobile Task Force Tau-9 — the Bookworms — 
to deal with anomalies related to the Library, the Hand, and 'magic’, 
in a more traditional manner. 


"But that could only take us so far. Command decided we needed 
ears on the ground. 


"Originally, Sigma-3 did not make use of any direct anomalous 
means. In recent years, this has... changed. There are people who 
are actual, practicing magicians in this very room, members of 
Sigma-3. People who are anartists. People who do double duty for 
organizations like Marshall, Carter, and Dark, the Serpent's Hand, 
and other anomalous organizations. 


"And they've had results. Sigma-3 has contained a high number of 
actively dangerous anomalies that could not have been secured 
without cooperation with more benign anomalous entities. There are 
at least three dozen SCP objects which Sigma-3 contained directly 
that I'm aware of. And more that Sigma-3 acquired at least some 
information for. 


"I'm not allowed to name most of them tonight, because not all of 
you are on Sigma-3 and cleared to know that. But just from SCPs 
I've worked on as project lead... Sigma-3 helped locate SCP-003, 
the first SCP object | was assigned to, through a remote viewing 
operation coordinated with outside sources of information from the 
Wanderers’ Library. Sigma-3 also discovered and acquired SCP-472 
through contacts in the anomalous community.