"...1 fucking hate this town. If it's not were-unicorns, it's killer 
Christmas trees. If it's not killer Christmas Trees, it's fucking zombie 
psychopaths summoned by a cult that worships madness. If it's not 
that, then..." 


"It's not a normal day here, is it?" Monty patted her on the arm. 
"C'mon. Let's get you back to your apartment. You need sleep." 


"...I'm taking the mead with me." With that, she got up, and started 
walking to her car. Montgomery followed, and they drove into the 
rising sun, and home. 


Saudade, vol. 1 


He sat up on his bed, rubbing at his eyes as he attempted to banish 
the pleasant dreams from which he had been so abruptly removed. 
"Terribly sorry, sir," a voice echoed in the dark. "Call for you." 


"From? Light," he added, and across the room, a small orange lamp 
glowed on his dresser. He flinched, as per usual, as the sudden light 
revealed the voice's true form - a hovering, glittering frown, 
alternating between expressions as it leapt from word to word. 


"Private line." 


He blinked and squeezed the ridge of his nose; his discomfort was 
palpable as he swung out of the Twin and limped over to the 
washroom. "In the bathroom, Pontus. Shades." 


"Yes sir." 


The windows opened, revealing a quiet, beautiful night. High-rises 
as far as the eye could see - and in the distance, towering above 
them, the spiral tower of the Coalition. 


He cracked open the pill bottle and put his dosage down with a swig 
of the waterskin, which he put off to the side on an elegant stone 
table. The mirrors facing him doubled as a reactive surface, 
displaying (in-addition to the unshaven mug of a 63-year old man) 
the morning prophecies, weather and temperature, news alerts, and 
messaging. A red light flashed - to be calling at this hour, it could 
only be one person. He hit it as he got out his shaving equipment. 


A younger face dominated the far left reflector. Bald, in uniform, with 
a deeper voice that did not match his naive exterior and without any 
indication of pity for calling at such an ungodly hour. Tomas the 
Liasion at his most humanitarian. "We've got a crisis. | need you 
here." 


He glanced at the digital clock. "It's 4:30. Another six-hundred forms 
about troop-deployments can't wait?" 


"Not that. We're short an impartial observer. Be here by 5. We're 
waiting." 


Tomas swiped a hand over the image, and it dissipated, only leaving 
the reflector. 


No time for a shower. Phillip limped back into the bedroom and 
removed his pyjamas, swapping them for his old Plainclothes. He 
strapped on his gun and slid a badge onto his belt, and headed 
towards a large, sterile walk-in booth near the door to his room. He 
walked inside, feeling the mild claustrophobia that always arose in 
the small, gray, booth, and folded the door closed behind him. 


In front of him, on a small, raised platform, sat an altar, sprinkled 
with flowers and candles and a picture of Phillip's favorite result of 
the Coalition's endemic iconophilia - a rendered axolotl crossed by 
two swords, which (for some reason, lost to him) he found 
incomparably amusing. 


A slab of meat sat in the midst of the honored place, next to his 
pocket knife. He cut into it and sprinkled some poppy over the blood- 
soaked mess. The cry he'd heard easily within the range of a 
hundred times once more came into being, in the form of a irate 
spirit, shackled to the altar, possessed with the face of a woman and 
the body of a snake. 


"1 UN, please. Reverse the charges." 


The thing seized him, wrapping itself around his garment until he 
was totally smothered in its embrace. It disappeared, and he found 
himself falling through a sea of sparks. 


He was on solid ground again - the plaza at the base of HQ. Even in 
the early morning, it saw activity - suits walking in pairs in and out of 
shadows, a STRIKE team on patrol. Even at base level - this top of 
a grand, pyramidic staircase the Coalition was so fond of - many of 
the new high-rises could be seen, along with the endless blinking 
lights of jet-cars for the low-of-income and old-fashioned among the 


new society. 


He walked into the building as the moon began to leave the horizon. 


He saw Tomas first. The receptionist'd given him a location - top- 
floor - and it wasn't too hard to go from there. Everything was 
blocked off. An endless sea of shock-tape he needed to constantly 
wave about his badge to have cut, until eventually he found Tomas 
at a spacious corner office in its own section of the floor. Flanked by 
two soldiers in armor, the Liasion tapped a watch. "| wouldn't be late, 
if you didn't have your goons barricade the entire facility." Tomas 
shrugged, then motioned him inside. The grunts cocked their guns. 


The first thing he noticed was the blood. 


lt was quite literally everywhere. He slowly circled the room, trying 
not to touch anything. A bookshelf to his left, a desk in front - anda 
window behind. A full V shape of someone's essence, imposed over 
the chair, and then more outside its outline over the viewport. 


He looked back at Tomas. "What is this?" 
"A lieutenant general's office. Jennifer Dower." 
He turned to the chair. "Supposing then..." 


"That's the general, yes." 


The surveillance room was magnificent; a wide, dark chamber, 
populated by hundreds of well-dressed heads, hunched over 
computer terminals, facing the grand centerpiece of security: the 
FaceRec tree, humming on spirit power and locking on to every 
Blue, Green and Yellow within the city's vicinity. The agent in Phillip 
loved to come see it. The human despised it. 


For the moment, he, Tomas, and the dutiful Security Chief sat at an 
innocuous, unoccupied terminal at the room's far corner. The 
security footage showed her hard at work one moment, a flash of 
light - and paste, over the walls of her office. "Is it missing a frame?" 
Phillip asked, incredulous. The security chief shook his head. "That's 


what we've got." 


Phillip scratched his chin. "Well it's not very much. Not to go off of. 
For all we know this could just be a double-E." 


Tomas and the Chief exchanged looks. "A what, sir?" 


"A double- sorry, a procedural anomaly. | mean, why are you 
assuming she had a killer at all? It's a tragedy for the poor girl, but 
that's not my department." 


Tomas appeared to consider something, and then dismissed the 
Chief, who saluted and moved away to review one of the endless 
monitors. He then said, with grim resolution, "I'll bring you down to 
the body." 


They made their way into the depths of the building via a huge lift. 
The orange sunrise laid bare the twinkling city of high-rises filled to 
capacity and iterations in-progress. Eventually they descended 
below ground, and the doors opened to a white waiting area. "What 
is this place?" 


"The morgue." 


They walked into the vestibule, where they met a partition manned 
by a small individual in an labcoat, the palette of which was equally 
as prejudiced towards blinding-white as the rest of the room. He 
greeted them with a smile. 


"Welcome, Liasion! It has been only days since your last visit. I'm 
honored." 


Tomas returned the younger's grin. "I'm afraid the circumstances are 
the same, doctor." The latter's eyes flickered between the pair. 
"Shall | bring you to her then? Her contents remain pristine." 


Tomas nodded. "Yes please, my friend. 
The doctor left his office through a sliding wall on the right hand 


side, and, pushing his finger into a port, opened another door, which 
he ushered them through. 


The hall was expansive. From his meagre position, Phillip could see 
a vast collection of rows of white tablets, stretching horizontally in 
regular intervals. "Quickly now," the doctor advised. "It is a ways 
there." He and Tomas started off, leaving Phillip to follow from a 
distance. "This is the morgue?" He asked. 


"Yes," the doctor confirmed, with a touch of confusion. "Have you 
not seen the rows before?" 


"No," Phillip admitted. "What are they?" 

"What do they look like?" Tomas muttered. 

"What, you mean - all these - people?" 

The doctor assented, "Coalition, Council, city officials." 
"No regular people." 


"No. The heap reorganizes their components, for maximum 
efficiency. Remember - the bombings?" 


"| remember." 


"It's through here." They entered one of the columns, passing 
bleached chest after bleached chest until finally, they came upon 
one in particular. The doctor pushed a button on the side of tablet, 
springing open a harness. In several swift movements, he strapped 
his hand to the getup, which then proceeded to enter him with 
several sharp objects. After several seconds, the device gave off a 
low beep, followed by lighting of a green LED, leading the doctor to 
unstrap himself, push the harness back in, and pop open the tablet - 
swinging the lid over his head as he did so. Inside, hyper cooled, 
were what appeared to be large chops of flesh. 


"What is this?” Phillip asked. Tomas answered, "Viscera, bone 
fragments, brain matter - everything we could recover, barring the 
essence.” 


"Doctor, would you leave us, a moment?" The man consented and 
moved back up the column, his black hair the only thing separating 
his pale form from the rest of the room. 


From his breast pocket Tomas removed a huge device; at first 
glance Phillip assumed it to be a syringe, but the mass of circuitry 
and glyphs on the exterior made him take a second guess. Before 
he could, Tomas stabbed the device into a mass of the woman's 
flesh and, very slowly, body mass floated onward and upward 
through the small tube, compacted to the point where the hunk of 
meat from which it had fed was significantly diminished in 
significance. He walked over to a small readout over the coffin and 
plugged the device in to a port adjacent to it, reading 'PROP'T.' It 
whirred and hummed, and eventually a number came up on the 
screen. Phillip had difficulty believing his eyes. 


"You asked why we're assuming foul play. Provisional-Councilman 
Torvin, if at the conclusion of your investigation, it is your 
professional opinion that this woman was not murdered, | will see to 
it personally you do not work in this building again." 


Tomas put his hands together. "You're acquainted with this kind of 
work. A psyker in the High Command proper will cause a panic. 
You'll find me a trail and paint me a picture: this woman was 
murdered, by a Type Yellow. We will then proceed as the situation 
necessitates - destroying the elements involved, or publicizing them, 
to be forgotten. You have two weeks." 


He sauntered off. 


Phillip Kept watching the screen. 


The Contour was almost empty the night after. Barring a few lonely 
saps drinking themselves to death to the sweet crooning of washed- 
up and deceased Hollywood artists, all was quiet and solitary. He 
shared his usual Scotch at the bar with Griffith - who, despite all the 
hardship facing ex-Foundation operatives, found himself stable 
enough to swap stories most nights of the week. 


Phillip continued on, "A Yellow. Four years STRIKE, Professional 
Citation. Latent, or - hidden. All that time." 


"It's pretty unbelievable. Military family. How would they have gotten 
by?" 


"That's what I'm gonna find out." 
"You taking a visit?" 


"They live in the boonies. Guess people like that - have their 
reasons." 


"Are you gonna tell them? 


"Depends. If I'm feeling particularly nasty. What about you? What's 
cooking in the department?" 


"Besides the slave labor?" Griff gave a morbid chuckle. 
"Besides that." 


Griffith leaned in close, as though imparting a secret: "Dillon's in 
China. I'm here handling his paperwork, while | have agency spooks 
creeping up my asshole. Making sure the old man doesn't fuck up 
their precious and confidential operations." 


"So - per usual." 


"Pretty much." Griff smiled. "You know how much | love our little 
talks, Phillip." 


"| love 'em too. Makes me feel -" he shook his head, suddenly 
disgusted. 


Griffi obviously noticed his discomfort. "World's gone to shit, hasn't 
it?" 


Phillip shrugged. "Who's to say?" 


Griffi raised his eyebrows, and said, "/do. Nights at Redrafted. Sally 
Lewin - mm." 


"And Dave Defranco. Those were - interesting times." 


Griff scoffed. "Interesting? Be honest with yourself, man. Better 
times!" 


"| don't know, anymore." 


They grew quiet for a time. They listened to the resident performer - 
a beautiful woman, with a voice to match. Griff eventually returned, 
"Where do you figure they went wrong? Along the way." 


After a while, Phillip said quietly, "I think about it. Quite a bit." He felt 
a well open up in his chest. "Empires die all the time, Griff. Some of 
them get overturned, fighting for what's right. Others bleed to death 
from their own incompetence. | guess ours just... faded. The time 
was right and we - well, we're just here to clean up the scraps." 


The seas of sparks again. The worlds became less lustrous, and 
darkened; he was on the edge of a vast forest of pine. A barren field 
sat before him, and at the center - a picturesque scarlet cabin. 
"Hello? Coalition business!" Nothing responded; for a wild hideaway, 
it was exceptionally quiet. Removing his badge, he slowly walked up 
to the house. It looked warm and natural and inviting, and as he 
stomped up the wooden steps to the porch, he began to feel 
somewhat more confident in his survival. He knocked on the 
wooden door. 


Just then, a flurry of activity erupted behind him. He spun back 
around, and in the field, perhaps a dozen different sentry guns had 
popped up from the foxholes in the mud, their barrels trained directly 
on his centre mass. Before he could spring to cover, metal shifted 
away in the door behind him. 


“Turn yourself.” 


He complied, and in doing so he saw that a small visor had opened 
in the door as he had been accosted by the sentries. Behind it lay 
two brown, powerful eyes. 


"If you want to survive the coming minutes, | recommend telling 
what it is you're out in this neck o' the woods." 


He spoke, keeping his hands raised. "PHYSICS. | have a badge. Do 
you want it?" 


This gave the eyes paused, before they ordered him, "Step back, 
slow-like." He did so. 


SCP-930: Seagull Island 


Item #: SCP-930 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: An island several kilometres 
south has been substituted as the original island for the purposes of 
regional documentation. Maps or works which record otherwise are 
to be confiscated and destroyed, or modified to remove SCP-930's 
existence. Security stations have been established on nearby 
islands to observe passing vessels. Should any ship approach within 
1.25 km of SCP-930, it is to be intercepted and the crew detained, 
pending issue of class-A amnestics. Should SCP-930-1, 
[REDACTED] flee from SCP-930, SCPS Guardian is authorized to 
commence long-range incendiary bombardment. 


Description: SCP-930 is a tropical island located at 22. °S, 
134.  °W, formerly known as by the local populace. 
SCP-930 is approximately 710 m in diameter, with a range of 
680-760 m, although accurate shoreline measurements are 
impossible due to manifestation of SCP-930's primary effects. 
Refuse retrieved during exploration attempts suggest that humans 
may have once lived on the island. Flora consists primarily of the 
Poaceae and Meliaceae families; however, aerial photography of 
SCP-930's canopy has revealed a number of introduced species 
also populate the island.