There was a stack of printouts and folders on his desk: everything 
he could gather, steal, and extort about the Happy Acres incident. 
That stack of folders had cost him dearly: field reports from a bent 
GOC agent. The best information his Serpent's Hand contacts could 
get him. A pet senator who had given him access to the UIU's 
database in exchange for certain favors. 


Knowledge was power. So was money. They could be exchanged 
for each other if you knew how, and Carter was an expert. He'd 
spent much of the latter two to gain as much knowledge as he'd 
found. Now that he had it, it was time to put it to work. 


He picked up the first folder and started reading. 


One wall of Carter's office was a corkboard. He didn't trust 
computers for this kind of work. He liked something he could touch. 


Over the next few days, it became covered in an increasingly 
intricate pattern of papers, photographs, pins, colored strings, 
scrawled notes. One by one, he eliminated the usual suspects. The 
GOC was otherwise occupied. The Insurgency was incapable of 
operating so openly in the area by reason of blood. He'd have heard 
about any Hand members planning such an attack, and besides, 
there were no Ways nearby... 


There was one index card left uncrossed when Carter finished his 
analysis. 


FOUNDATION 


Now, there was an interesting thought. It was rather byzantine, but 
the Overseers were so enamored of playing games, it took Dark to 
keep it all straight. They could have... They might have... 


No. He knew every word that had passed between the Overseers for 
the past two weeks. He would have known if they were up to this. A 
rogue operative? Unlikely. The Overseers kept a close eye on their 
assets. Had done so ever since... 


... ever since... 


"Jennifer," Carter said to the woman-shaped thing that manned his 
desk. "Fetch me our reports on the Foundation from... Mmm. Make 
it 2006. September." 


"Yes, Mister Carter." There was a tinny quality to her voice. He'd 
have to talk to R&D about that before they announced the line for 
their customers. 


The secretary passed him an old, dog-eared file that smelled of dust 
and old paper. He saw the name he was looking for on the first 


page. 


Carter put down the file and picked up the phone. His hand didn't 
shake, but the veins on the back of it stood out, and there was a 
slight twitch in his left eye. He dialed. 


"Carter!" Marshall's voice was as smooth and practiced as Four. "I 
was just talking to the Goldbergs. What can | do for you?" 


just let me go home... 
(interview terminated) 
Addendum 706-3: Researcher Note 


SCP-706 has become increasingly detached and 
unresponsive to personnel since initial containment. She 
has also taken to intentionally breaking off pieces of her 
skin in order to remove undesired features, a practice 
that is beginning to seriously threaten her health. 


A revision to containment procedures to reflect this self- 
destructive behavior has been filed with site 
administration and is currently under review. 


Dr. 


« SCP-705 | SCP-706 | SCP-707 » 


"Trouble," Carter said. 

"Oh, it can't be too bad, not with you handling it. How bad is it?” 
"Dark bad." 

There was silence on the other end. Then, "Shit." 


"| need a meeting of the entire board as quickly as possible," Carter 
said. "How quickly can you settle with the families?" 


"| can be there first thing in the morning," Marshall said. 


"That will be fine." No need to contact Dark. Dark would arrive 
without needing to be asked. Carter rubbed his back where the 
tubes had, until recently, connected him with... Jenkins? Franklin? 
No, it had been Cho. No matter. Gone now. Good riddance. 


Carter put the phone down, picked up the red marker and drew a 
broad slash through the index card marked "FOUNDATION". He 
picked up an index card and pinned it over that card. 


He wrote a single word on that card. 

BOWE 
After a little more consideration, Carter added a question mark. 
He hoped he was wrong. He really did. 


Otherwise, this was going to be very bad for business. 


Tasers & Thermite 


Django Bridge woke up. 


He'd been sleeping in his office, face down at his desk. The glow of 
his screensaver and the yellow of a lamp outside were casting a 
mixture of warm and cool light in the room. 


He sat up and cracked his neck, glanced at his monitor. Red. That 
was not good. 


ALERT MESSAGE PROMPT ~< > mm X 


UNAUTHORIZED LOGIN ATTEMPTS! 


LOCATION: NODE-66-A 


PLEASE CONTACT SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR! 


Bridge was the system administrator. He was also the only Level 4 
on the site. He swiveled out from behind his desk to hustle over to 
the server room downstairs. Who in the hell was screwing around 
with the servers at 3 in the morning? Only persons with Clearance 
Level 3 or higher were even allowed into the server room. 


As he made his way downstairs and through the halls, Bridge 
unclipped the radio from his belt and made a call. Site-66 was, 
originally, a coal power plant, abandoned for about a decade or so 
before SCP-1479 was discovered inside one of the outbuildings. 
Most structures had been updated and upgraded, with other SCP 
objects scattered around the premises. 


Bridge’s office was in Building A, the largest and most extensively 


updated structure, complete with modern offices, an exceptional 
security system, and a block of data archival servers on the second 
basement level. Most of the halls were lit by stark fluorescent 
lighting against the old, heavy metal and concrete corridors, giving 
an industrial look to the lower levels. 


Bridge arrived on the second level and immediately noticed how 
quiet the place was. No security peons in sight... Strange. 


"Bridge to security, | have an unauthorized entry in the new archive 
servers. I’m taking a look—" He cocked his head to the side to see 
an open server panel. 


He turned the corner to find a man he didn't recognize. The man 
wore an oxford white shirt with black tie and suspenders, and was 
bent over a bundle of tangled wires and devices. 


"Hold on, hold on, stop right there, hands up." Bridge quickly drew 
and aimed a taser at the man. He’d practiced that motion quite a bit 
in his off time. 


The man looked up with a shocked expression. "Whoa there, 
Hoss... | just—" 


"Stand up, hands up!" 


"Whatever you say. Listen though... I'm respondin' to the same thing 
you are. Prolly." 


"Okay. Then who are you, and what the hel/ are you doing in my 
servers?" Bridge’s arm relaxed a little. Suspenders. Pale. Earpiece? 
IT peon? 


"Look, | got ID." The man reached into his shirt pocket to produce a 
Foundation badge and a folded transfer order. Bridge peered down 
and scanned it. 


"Site-66 information requisition by order of Dr. Karlyle Aktus, MTF 
Lambda-2 transferee Agent Dietrich Lurk.... Lurk?" He gave Dietrich 
a queer glance. 


"Pa's family's Scottish." Dietrich shrugged. 


Bridge continued to read Dietrich's orders. His eyes flicked between 
the ID photo and Lurk’s face. He’s seen this face before, 
somewhere. Probably when he was combing the personnel index for 
Lament’s email. He shook his head and stepped a bit closer, clipped 
the ID tag to Dietrich's pocket. 


"Feel like | should have known we had a new guy. Did Dr. 
Seidelman confirm you? What are you up to at three in the 
morning?" 


Dietrich let out a long exhale. "Just arrived twelve hours ago, I'm still 
on the different time zone overseas. But really... this shit ain't mine." 
He motioned to the stripped wires and alligator clips pouring out of 

the open server panel and the silvery canister nestled in the middle. 


‘Twelve hours...' Bridge wondered, leaning over to get a better look 
around the newcomer. After a moment he slipped around and 
crouched down to get a better look. Panel cut off at the hinges. Lots 
of wires. No brand names or writing. And the wiring... 


“They... hacked the security interlocks?” Bridge stood back up, a 
hand going to his forehead. 


Dietrich nodded. "Yup, and look'it here. They got the site's jammer 
frequency set to disable its own comms." 


"That makes sense...Wait, seriou—" Bridge jumped as he was 
interrupted by a wet pi/cht sound and Dietrich dropped to the cold 
linoleum. For a half second, Bridge thought his finger slipped and he 
tazed Dietrich himself — then he saw a masked feminine figure 
holding what looked like a handheld electropneumatic launcher. 


"Agh-ahgha—" was all he was able to convey before the assailant 
slipped out of sight. 


"G-g-goddamnit!" Dietrich grabbed onto Bridge's pant leg in pain. 


"Aaaagh— sorry sorry—" Bridge bent down and pulled out the 
projectile from Dietrich's back. 


"GAH! SHIT!" Dietrich shakily picked himself off the floor and took a 
knee. "That fuckin’ smarts... whoooooohoo." 


“Are you okay?” Bridge cringed as he held the projectile at arm’s 
length. The nasty black and yellow pronged cylinder was still firing 
tiny arcs into the air. He marveled at the brutality. "... This is not 
standard issue." 


"Yah? No shit. You gonna go'on after her?" 
"What?" 


"We're cut off, I've just been tasered, and can barely get up. Go'on 
after her.” Dietrich tossed Bridge a tiny audio earpiece. "Here, put 
that sucker in." 


"... Right. Okay. Why?" Bridge wiped the earbud off, and slipped the 
piece into his ear canal. 


«Testing. Testing. One two,» chirped a perky female voice on the 
other end. 


Dietrich motioned to his own identical headset. "Alex, yer 
connection's good. I'm gonna plug ya into the site's wireless direct. 
Give this gent ‘ere directions, corner off the perp, then see if we can 
establish comms fer the cavalry, copy all that?" 


«You got it, sir! Dr. Bridge, head forward and make that first right.» 


Bridge took a deep breath and nodded his head, and took off just as 
Dietrich plugged in his mobile device into a USB port. 


«Okey dokey, Dr. Bridge, take this left and we'll flank her. I'm closing 
accesses and leading her into a utility tunnel. She'll be blocked in.» 


"Just Bridge. And thanks... er... Alex. Alex, right? Are you off-site?" 
«No silly! I'm one of the Al conscripts.» 


"Oh. Oh hey, cool! | just read about those, like with Gla-" 


«You missed the turn.» 


"Right, sorry." Bridge jerked to a stop and turned on his heel to 
continue jogging down the hallway. 


«Great, | got her on the security cameras en route to you. Duck 
behind this corner for a moment.» 


Bridge complied and pulled his taser back out. 
«Er... Bridge... your gun.» 


He cringed and slipped the taser in his pocket, while he fumbled for 
a standard issue firearm with the other hand. 


«Good, now if you would fire two shots from around your corner 
down that hallway adjacent.» 


"What am | shooting at?" 


«It doesn't matter, just spook her a little. She’s going deeper into the 
basement.» 


Bridge complied and blindly let off two rounds. 
POP POP 


"Motherfuck!" yelled a female voice, followed by hurried footsteps in 
the opposite direction. 


«Thank you! She's headed for the dead end now.» 


"Hal" Bridge grinned. Excellent. Nothing down here but old pipes 
and circuit breakers. 


«Dietrich, you there? We got her trapped. Fixing the comms too.» 
"Yah, copy. Good work you two. I'm just tryin’ to deal with whatever 
this thing is she left behind." 


Dietrich looked at Merle in the reflection as he pointed to one of 
the screws on the canister itself. "Good call there, partner." 


He squinted his eyes in hopes of identifying the dark grey powder 
caked around one of the sunk screws. With his fingernail he 
scooped up a teeny bit and gave it whiff, a trick he picked up in his 
years tagging along with MTF Mu-13. 


"Guys... this 'ere is thermite. Guess'n she wanted to cover her 
tracks." 


Merle signed to him reassuringly. 
I-KNOW-WHAT-TO-DO 
"Wait, what?" Bridge pushed the earpiece in deeper just in case he'd 


heard wrong. He hadn't. The repeated word ‘thermite' followed by 
‘bomb’ just put a pit in his gut. 


«,.. Lurk? Hello? Can you disarm it?» 


There was a brief pause between Alex and Bridge as they listened 
to a few choice expletives followed by an eventual affirmation. 


«Good, | almost have comms back online. Hang tight for another 
five minutes.» 


"So now what?" 

«Bridge, approach and keep her in place. » 

"... Okay. Ten-four." Bridge straightened up. His spine cracked a 
little as he headed into the utility tunnel. 

His panic shifted into anger. She dared put a bomb in his archives? 


He couldn't see her, but knew she was there. "There’s no exit here! 
Put your weapons on the ground!" His heart beat fast. His hands 
trembled as he held his gun up. 


There was no answer. Bridge set his jaw and flicked the safety on 
his gun to 'off'. 


“Lay down. Do not move,” he shouted. He carefully drew closer, with 
measured, even steps. 


He held his gun in one hand, reached into a pocket to draw his 
taser. He held them forward on either side as he stepped down the 
darkened hallway... and found nothing but pipes. 


“... What the hell? Where’d she go?” 


«That's impossible. She's not on any of the video or infrared feeds 
anymore.» 


The tunnel suddenly reverberated as the rolling faint sound of 
thunder passed through. 


"What was—" 


«WARNING! FIRE DETECTED IN SERVER ROOM! HALON GAS 
EXTINGUISHERS ACTIVE! PLEASE EVACUATE TO LEVEL 
B-1!» 


«... DEITRICH!» 


The smoldering hole that used to be the Site-66 Main Archive was 
quickly put out by the gas. A few seconds longer and Dietrich would 
have been found as a crispy charcoal skeleton. 


"Merle! When you say ‘you can help’; that don't mean to ramble on 
about cuttin’ red or green wires then givin' up and tellin’ me to toss it 
into a trashcan!" Dietrich would have yelled more, but trying to talk 
between coughs was proving too difficult. He looked into a reflective 
surface to see Merle sign a response. 


I-THOUGHT-IT-WORKED-WELL-ENOUGH 
Dietrich angrily signed back. 
YOU-HAVE-TERRIBLE-IDEAS 


Merle then flipped him the bird... as did Dietrich, only much harder. 


Bridge returned to see Dietrich flipping himself off in a reflection. 
Right. 


"Oh thank god you're alive. You alright?" 


"Huh? Oh, yah... | uh... yer library though." Dietrich pointed to the 
blackened room behind them. 


Bridge held up a hand between his eyes and the disaster. "Don’t 
even want to look at it." 


«Dietrich, I'm looking through the backup logs now to view the most 
recent changes. Comms is also back up, security inbound and they'll 
want an explanation | imagine.» 


"Right. | got a bloody shoulder and singed hair. | reckon there'll be a 
debriefing, Alex. What 'bout you two? Where's that spy?" 


"Don't know. She just fucking disappeared.” Bridge gritted his teeth, 
pulling his earpiece out and looking at it. Did Dietrich just carry 
around a bunch of these things? 


“What'd'ya mean?” Dietrich furrowed his brow. 
“| mean she disappeared down a dead end.” 


"But what abo—" Picht. Dietrich toppled to the floor a second time 
as a team of six security guards rushed into the hazy server room. 


"EVERYONE FREEZE!" shouted the security guard on point. 


Bridge stuck the Alex piece back in and put his hands up. "No no no, 
not him! He's Foundation!" 


"G-g-g-goddamnit!" Dietrich stuttered in between the clicks of the 
taser. 


Bridge accompanied Dietrich to the infirmary to to help him rest and 
get patched up. 


Merle was in Dietrich's periphery, laughing his ass off. Dietrich 


fumed. Merle had clearly intentionally decided not to warn Dietrich 
that the guards were coming. Not that this was surprising. Merle was 
prone to ‘dick moves’. 


Alexandra just finished running diagnostics and a few other utilities 
on the auxiliary servers. 


"So... why were you transferred, Dietrich?"