legacy in B45 files. | have faith in you, you young, 
unexperienced Level 4 that just got handed my shit and 
became a Director. You're probably terrified. Your friends 
are suddenly looking up to you. You meet with 05 for the 
first time on video chat and they probably tell you 
something along the lines of 'good luck, buddy'2. You 
have over a thousand personnel and around 500 
anomalous entities shoved into a facility the size of a 
small city and have to break it to them that the person 
that they looked to for direction for decades just offed 
himself and you're the new bitch in charge. People will 
hate you. The transition will be rough. You poor, poor 
bastard you, you thought that your life was hard before 
and it's about to get a whole lot harder. I've had a cot 
installed for you in my office. Use it well. 


Speaking of poor bastards, my Senior Staff. You guys 
are amazing, completely incredible. Not only do we work 
together in a somewhat coherent manner, but it's been 
how many years now and the site is still standing and 
you make it seem like | know what I'm doing usually 
when | really don't. | give to you the gratitude of one 
million death binders for putting up with my shit. 


One of you will be chosen over the course of the next 
couple of weeks to take my place. It's like The Bachelor 
but with the worst job you will ever experience in your 
life. The 05 counsel makes the final decision after 
reviewing all of you carefully, so no, | don't really have a 
say in this case’. They will learn everything about you. A 
background check is an understatement, because they'll 
give you a frontground and a sideground and an 
assground check, too. This isn't a Director position at a 
tiny backwoods site in the middle of nowhere; this is a 
Director position at one of the largest backwoods sites in 
the middle of nowhere in the world, damnit! You are all 
vying to become dictator of what is legally nothing, but 
physically everything. If you do your job well, then it will 
remain that way. In the meantime this job will push you 
past your limits every day of the week. It ruined my 


marriage, my health, my faith, my sense of self 
preservation, and my ability to give a fuck, but | lived, 
bitch, | lived. What would | do if | didn't do this? Who 
would | be? Where would | be? It's a weird question to 
think about. Any job in the Foundation changes you, 
though, but you all know that already. 


Let me back up for a second: I'm writing this in the 
September of 2006. | realized that | didn't really have 
anything in the case that | died inexplicably, and with this 
job how it is it's just one of those things that needs 
attending to. Maybe I'll live to be 87 and still working this 
same job, and maybe by then I'll decide to take the death 
binder route, but for the time being something | wrote 
while eating Hot Pockets at 3am perfectly embodies the 
raw essence of my human experience. My son is 
sleeping in the other room. He's 14 years old. He's 
probably reading this right now sometime in the future, 
so for him: | know I've picked up some habits in the past 
few years that you don't like to see in me, and | don't like 
you seeing in me. I'll get better, okay? | promise. 


My son's pretty damn amazing, honestly. He loves 
reading, and The X Files, and music that I'm not 
completely into but I'm not about to tell him that. Pretty 
sure he's gay, too, or at least not straight. | think he 
knows and is nervous to tell me. | think it might be a 
while before he's ready to tell me that, and that's fine. 
Whenever you're ready, Draven, it's okay. If you're 
reading this, | love you. | always have and | always will.4 


It's occurred to me that you guys might be sad about this. 
I'm bad at comforting people experiencing emotions, so 
I'm not gonna try and do it here. Some of you might have 
had me as a mentor, or worked closely with me, or 
maybe even had more of a life with me (Senior Staffers 
and Draven’, I'm looking at you). Some of you might 
have only seen me around or met me in passing. I'm 
grateful for all of you. Grief can be a bitch, but that's out 
of my hands. 


Anyway. The reason we're here. 


The fact that this site stumbles through even one day of 
operation is a fucking miracle. You have no idea how 
many moving parts make up a Foundation Site, forget 
about a large humanoid research and containment site. 
There's a line in Jurassic Park that's always really stuck 
with me: "We have all the problems of a major theme 
park and a major zoo and the computers aren't even on 
their feet yet,"6 and | think that's a pretty solid 
representation of what we're up against here. See, at 
Site-17 we have all the problems of a zoo, a prison, a 
university-scale research facility, a military base, multiple 
apartment complexes, a local government, a 
corporation’, a small city, a secure facility, an 
intelligence operation and a theme park8 and we have 
Our computers up and running and causing problems all 
of their own! Who the fuck decided this was a good idea? 
This was a terrible idea, but here we are. There are 
hundreds of other sites on Earth doing the same thing 
right now. Hell, Site-19 is bigger than us and does the 
same thing in Siberia at 40 below! It takes a special 
collection of people to run this big of a shitshow, so 
thanks to all of you. You guys are the best. 


The Foundation has been running at some capacity 24/7, 
365 days a year since the beginning of the 20th century, 
and it's 2006 and we're still going, despite the danger, 
despite the millions of stupid problems that happen on a 
daily basis, and despite me dying, it's gonna be okay. 
You don't need me to tell you that. There's 1,000 of you 
people; the way | see it, even if every single thing on site 
was to breach, that's still a 2 to 1 ratio. Find a breach 
buddy! Get a blunt object! You'll be fine. 


Oh, and have fun with it. 


Yours9, 


Footnotes 

1. There's always been a thing in the Foundation with people dying 
at night. There's probably something poetic about that, but 
superficially it seems so weird. Why can't people die in the day? 
Why can't it wait until morning, so | don't have to have that awkward 
midnight brood around my apartment to force myself through the five 
stages of grief before work? Like, maybe they need to get in the 
mood or something. I'll let you guys know if I find out. 

2. You will find over the course of your career that 05 presents many 
nuggets of wisdom not unlike this one. | would say that out of the 13, 
about 4 of them on average have had experience as a Site Director. 
Yes, it's important to listen to them, but as you will promise when 
they swear you in to this position, your first priority is your site; not to 
the Foundation andcertainlynot to them. Be smart about it. If you feel 
like you could make a better decision but it's not what they want you 
to do, do it your way. They might have to actually step foot on your 
site to know things as well as you do, and god forbidthathappen. 

3. If you're having trouble picking up on a pattern here, 05 has many 
similarities in knowledge and expertise to those on the boards of 
large companies and capitalist governments. Take this information 
how you will. 

4. It would be awkward if | die and you're not actually gay. That 
would be really awkward. | love you and shit anyway though, like, 
that's the same. 

5. Honorary Senior Staffer through proxy, paid with pizza and 
fatherly knowledge (including such gems as ‘don't put metal in the 
microwave unless you want to see something cool’ and 'vodka goes 
bad if you don't drink it all at once’) 

6. | have no idea who says that and don't care enough to look. Suck 
it and fuck it, nerds. 

7. Side note, you may wonder how much money | make doing this 
shit. Ironically not much, but I'm a simple guy. | live in a two 
bedroom apartment. It's the same one I've been living in for twenty 
years. | have enough for coffee at the end of the day. Therealupside 
to my job is that | get my utilities paid for, which isn't half bad; the 
downside is that my son needs to order pizza for me to keep our 
address off the public record. It's a life. 

8. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. 

9. See you all in Jewish hell 


Daddy 


Dear Diary, 


Hello! My name is Lucy Campbell and | am 8 years old. When | grow 
up | want to be an actress like Emma Watson because she is very 
pretty! My mummy is also very pretty and very clever and helps me 
with my homework (I am not very good at it). My daddy works at a 
big white house called a sykiatric psychiatric hospital where he 
makes sad people feel better. When he came home today he was 
very happy and said that he was getting a promotion which means 
he is working for the guvermint government. | think he is going to 
meet the prime minister! 


Dear Diary, 


School was really good today! Mummy made me a choclate 
chocolate sandwich for my lunch and miss Young gave me a smiley 
face on my maths homework! Daddy did not come back home today 
because mummy got an e mail from daddy that said that he would 
not come home for a while. But mummy said that it was all right and 
daddy would be home soon and then she bought me an ice cream! 
Mummy said that | couldn’t have any sweets tomorrow because my 
teeth would fall out, but | think she just wants them for herself. Grrr! 


Dear Diary, 


Yay! Daddy sent me an e mail today! He told me that he was writing 
a lot of stories and he was going to send them to me so | do not get 
bored. Daddy’s stories are the best! | asked daddy if he had met the 
prime minister but he said that no, he hadn’t seen him. | think he did 
meet the prime minister but he was told that it was a top secret 
meeting and he couldn’ tell anyone... or else! 

School was OK, except Cindy kept throwing rubbers at me when 
miss Young wasn't looking. When I’m a witch the first thing | will do 
is turn her into a slug! 


Dear Diary, 


Miss Young teached taught us about pirates today! | like pirates, but 
| don’t think they could beat a wizard in a fight because wizards 
have magic and pirates don’t. At break, me and Justin had a 
swordfight with some long sticks and | won! But then he started 
crying and | had to give him some of my chocolate bar to get him to 
shut up (boys can be such big babies sometimes). 

Daddy sent me a story today! It was about a big man that had to 
stand still when you looked at him. | think he would be good to play 
tag with because you could look at him and then he could not move! 
| think mummy would like the story but daddy said that the stories 
were secret stories. 


Dear Diary, 


| hate Cindy! Today at lunch she called me a big ugly pig and she 
made oink noises, so | punched her in the arm. It wasn’t very hard 
but she started crying and told miss Young and miss Young made 
me say sorry to her! | hope Cindy turns into a maggot and is eaten 
by birds! 

Daddy sent me another story! It was about a big dragon that was 
really angry and really hard to beat. Maybe it would eat Cindy? | 
think daddy forgot about the knight in shining armour that slays the 
big dragon though! 


Dear Diary, 


Ha ha, Cindy got in trouble today! She made a face at me during art 
time, but miss Young saw her and told her off! Miss Young liked my 
painting too — it was a big mean dragon like the one in daddy’s story, 
and there was a handsom handsome knight and some birds and a 
big shiny sun! | really like art. 

Daddy sent me a funny story today! It was about a man that has a 
necklace that turns him into a monkey. | asked daddy if he could get 
me that necklace so | could be a monkey but he did not send me an 
e mail so | guess he can’t. Oh well. 


Site Log / / 


1417h - Level 1 Buzzphrase “ ” detected in outgoing 
transmission; Code Alpha information breach confirmed. 


1419h - Buzzphrase traced to Dr. ; Dr. terminated. 


1420h — Request sent for deployment of MTF- to [DATA 
EXPUNGED]. Request approved; MTF- mobilised. 


1428h — Total containment of information breach confirmed by MTF- 


Date: - -20 

Subject: Laboratory rat (Rattus norvegicus, Wistar strain (female, 
age 7 months) 

Info: the Wistar strain of rat is known for being more active than 
most other strains of laboratory rats. 

Results: SCP-825 was turned upside-down, and test subject was 
placed within. Test subject immediately voided its bowels and 
bladder, then began distress vocalizations and biting motions. After 
15 seconds, SCP-825 was turned right-side-up; upon retrieval, test 
subject immediately began biting research assistant G through 
his glove, causing serious damage to G 's index finger before 
being flung across the room and dying on impact with the opposing 
wall. 

Additional Comments: Further experiments with Wistar rats reveal 
that exposure to SCP-825 consistently leads to drastically 
heightened aggressiveness in survivors, with social grooming 
activities being reduced or eliminated; cannibalistic infanticide is 
ubiquitous. All test subjects have died of heart attack immediately 
upon second exposure to SCP-825. 


Date: - -20 

Subject: Earthworm (Lumbricus terrestris, (age 14 months) 
Results: SCP-825 was turned upside-down, and test subject was 
placed within. After 15 seconds, SCP-825 was turned right-side-up; 
upon retrieval, subject manifested no discernible behavioral 
changes. Necropsy revealed no differences in brain structure 
between test subject and control subject. 

Note: This is significant progress: we seem to have found a lower 
limit beyond which this SCP is ineffective. - Dr. 


« SCP-824 | SCP-825 | SCP-826 » 


Daffodils 


Agent Ben Green’s endured a quiet life. A routine - up, work, home, 
maybe unwind. Bed. Up. Repeat. A step above a recluse - not a 
hermit, or a miser. But Somebody who found contentment in solitary. 


Field Agents don’t talk much about love or relationships. Even when 
they’re attached, they don’t talk about it. Nobody wants to jinx their 
happiness. The lucky go and retire and move on with their lives. But 
not everyone is lucky to enjoy that; most end up haunted in one way 
or another. 


He found himself lucky, though. Not haunted, or aching for other. He 
never yearned for a companion in his youth, but now he found his 
centre. His home. 


And tonight Agent Ben Green laid by himself, the moonlight filtering 
through his blinds. It was a full moon, bright and clear. His favourite 
sort of scene. Serene, lonesome. Maybe peaceful. Outside, the 
squeak as a rabbit was snapped by an owl. Quiet. The breeze 
carried the squeak away. 


Idle thoughts and worries passed through his mind in the dark. 
Thoughts of his life, the Foundation, the future... Where could he go 
from here? Of course, once he found contentment and happiness, 
something was going to drive a wedge in it. Of fucking course that’s 
how it has to be. That’s how it usually is in this Foundation. 


He put that out of his mind. More important things were happening. 
“... tonight’s a good night,” he sighed. 

“Yeah.” 

“... [hope we can have a few more like this.” 


Green looked across his bedroom, to the chest of drawers, to the 


mirror hung behind it. He looked into his eyes, then over to his own, 
their fingers winding together. 


They fell at first sight. A true spark. A connection, that nobody else 
could ever have. Or ever would, really. 


“... the world is ending, you know,” his voice mused, squeezing tight. 
“... ls it really though?” his own voice answered. 


Green nestled into himself, and tried to forget the outside. 


Dai-to-a 


There is something in my mouth, underneath the tongue. It's nothing 
relatively uncommon. Of late, my urine is black and | have excreted 
strips of paper. Ever since | opened a letter from Robinson Tou Liz 
and then quarantined by the Foundation, this has been the new 
norm. So much for uneventful retirement in New Zealand.