This sort of thing had happened countless times before, the Blank 
Man observed, Its feet digging at the sand around the sculpture's 
head. Inexplicable deaths, unexplained phenomena, unexpected 
vanishings, horrid monsters with razor sharp teeth, all the things that 
keep men awake at night. All of them glitches in the reality of space- 
time, of course. Things either never meant to be, or just plain 
showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time. That statue was 
no different. Just appearing, lost and confused in the middle of the 
desert, and finding itself frozen in place whenever any living creature 
looked upon it. So it lashed out, killed a few people, and fled across 
the desert sands. 


In Doctor Martin's universe, the natural thing for people to do in this 
sort of situation was respond. A reactive species, the human race. If 
something goes wrong or is out of the ordinary, they go at it until 
there's no reasonable explanation and just leave it at that, or find 
some way to bring it into their sohere of understanding. It is a bit of a 
confusing trait to have; after all, most other highly intelligent, reactive 
species eventually wind up sticking their noses somewhere they 
don't belong and getting them bit off. But that's just a simple 
digression. 


The point is, in Doctor Martin's universe, a few people reacted to a 
simple, everyday mistake in the universe, and locked it up. In this 
universe, they decided it was somebody else's problem, and just let 
it slide, quite literally, off a cliff. That's the key difference here. The 
Blank Man did not know exactly why the universe responded in the 
way it did. Most likely because mankind had never reacted on such 
a large scale and managed to capture one of its mistakes. What 
does a universe normally do when such a thing happens within it? 
The Blank Man, much as It would like to say, simply could not say. 


But whatever the normal reaction to such things was, the universe 
looked at such a strange event happening surrounding one of its 


glitches, and decided that mankind needed more of a challenge. It 
needed more things like this. So it started making more. Small 
objects with little quirks scattered here and there, people given 
fantastic, horrifying powers then and now, unfathomable monsters of 
unknowable terror plucked from their places every now and again, 
even an idea planted into some lunatic's head once in a while. The 
whole spectrum of things normally considered defects in a universe 
were now being saturated across one planet, just to give a few 
members of one little reactive species something to do. 


In essence, in dedicating itself to the protection of mankind, the 
Foundation inadvertently created the things mankind needed 
protection from. 


As Doctor Martin took this all in, he continued to stare into the spray- 
painted green eyes of the shattered sculpture. He had always 
looked at this thing as the root of all the world's troubles. The spark 
that started a raging forest fire of madness and death across the 
world, a fire the Foundation could never put out, only just barely 
contain. A simple little match in a dry wood causing so much trouble. 
But now? They hadn't been working to stamp out the fire by 
containing this thing; they'd been pouring gasoline on it. 


And then the madness of the dancing colors overtook the wind and 
the sand and the broken statue. Barely even noticing the enticing 
wonders around him, Doctor Martin slowly climbed to his feet, and 
stood stock still next to the Blank Man as his office reformed around 
him. 


The Blank Man thanked Doctor Martin for his time. It is not very 
often one of Its stature attempts to show someone like him the truth, 
and even rarer for the journey to be seen to its conclusion. So It 
thanked Doctor Martin for having gone through with the offer, and 
expressed a sincerest hope he had learned something of value from 
this little excursion. Then, without making a move, the Blank Man 
was gone, disturbing nothing and looking for all the world as if It had 
never been there at all. 


Doctor Martin stood in the middle of his office, contemplating the 
bland, washed-out colors of his wall, and the slightly cracked 
wooden doorframe. There was much for him to think about. Many 


actions to be contemplated. He had things to do with the knowledge 
he had obtained, things he needed to do in order to make the world 
a better place. But first... 


Doctor Martin opened his door, and stepped out. 


None know what became of Dr. Harold Martin after that day. All 
security tapes show a disturbance of some nature in his office, 
scrambling the video feed throughout the site, and when they come 
back, all show him having vanished. Despite a lack of paperwork, 
amnestic requests or termination documents, the next day there was 
no evidence Doctor Martin had ever been associated with the SCP 
Foundation. Rumors persist that he was involved with several 
terrorist attacks by various Groups of Interest in the following weeks, 
but no solid evidence showing this or the contrary have shown up. 
Only one man knows of the Blank Man, and he has disappeared off 
the face of the Earth. 


Perhaps Doctor Martin's encounter with the Blank Man, and his trip 
to an alternate universe weren't even real. He was, after all, getting 
on in his years, and was working at a site where several mind- 
altering objects were stored. Perhaps the Blank Man was real, and 
Its revelations about the nature of the universe were spot on. 
Maybe, just maybe, the Foundation could have averted all the death 
and destruction in the world if it had just sat back and done nothing. 


But then, this is a tale dealing with alternate realities. And that's 
always the key word when it comes to these sort of tales, isn't it? 


Maybe. 


Stick the Landing 


In the main briefing room of Sigma-66- also the recreation room, 
kitchen, and gymnasium- there were two couches taken, one chair, 
and one footstool. Another chair, covered in bloodstains, was 
unoccupied. The owner of the blood leaned over the back of the 
chair, staring dubiously at the documents that covered the table in 
the center. 


The woman in the labcoat sat with her back ramrod straight, eyes 
directed at the pile of papers she had set on the table. The man with 
the New English accent and the salt-and-pepper beard was the first 
to speak. 


"So what you would have us do is... infiltrate my company, avoid or 
kill all of the guards, and leave everything else except for..." 


"Except for the digital ham, yes." The MTF's handler- Via to her 
friends, Davis in a land where your last name was the only part of 
you that mattered- was having a bad day. She had double-checked 
all of the papers on the table, and they were stamped properly, 
signed in the right places- once by an O5 council member, no less- 
and they all said she had to tell her team to risk their lives at a major 
Marshall, Carter, and Dark auction for a chance to convince a 
sentient ham on a computer to come with them. The initial layout 
check showed that MC&D had lived up to the power and money 
their name suggested when it came to security- she had counted the 
item to guard ratio in a fit of childish pique, and it showed that the 
numbers were almost exactly the same. Going in there would be 
suicide. 


She sighed. That, of course, was why her team was called in. No 
One cared about them living- not even her, a level 4 researcher. She 
had gone to college for something better than this, dammit. Not a 
literal dead-end job where the only thing she could ensure her wife 
got was a good benefits package when she passed. She was pissed 


at what had landed her here, and pissed at the people who had 
done it. 


Sometimes, she hated the Foundation just as much as some of the 
organizations they fought against. 


The gaunt man from the Serpent's Hand was tapping his fingers on 
the table in bullet-time. "So we're dying today for something idiotic. 
Great, just like every other mission. Another chance to suicide run 
for the Jailers, and | have to do it surrounded by you ballfuckers." 


The lady who was already wrapping up her arms in preparation for 
fighting glanced up at him. A medical bag sat at her feet- prepared 
as always. Jackson would never risk a death when she didn't have 
to, even for people she disliked. "| take offense to that," she grunted 
as she began on her other wrist. 


"Good." Dominic deliberately looked away from her. His tapping 
intensified, but that was most likely from the concern of getting ona 
stabby medic's death list. 


The woman hanging over her chair flipped into it with a soft squelch. 
She eyed the patterns that she was still completing in blood on her 
arms, then the documents. She raised a hand. 


"Yes, Ms. Berlot?" Davis didn't bother looking up from the papers. 
The anartist always had a question. 


"First off, last names are probably for treehumpers. Aries. D-W-I." 
She spelled out, slapping her hand back down on the table. 
"Second, why does my packet say I'm with chaotic Mc-Devilpants 
over there?" 


"Excuse you, ma'am, | am a Dreadlord engineer," the Insurgency's 
representative told her, sticking his tongue out. She stuck hers out in 
retaliation. Rude! "My pants own no devils, and | am here solely to 
do the work set out for me, as a tried and true member of the 
Chaotic Team of Dreadlord Engineers!" 


She didn't bother countering that. Dreadlord-guy had been 
convinced he was at a legitimate Chaos Insurgency facility from day 


at minimum, any knowledge that may be relevant to the discussion. 


SCP-946-1 and SCP-946-2 appear, physically, to be normal 
humans. SCP-946-1 is a tall black man with short grey hair and a 
long beard, who is referred to as "Harmon". SCP-946-2 is a thin bald 
white man, who is referred to as "Garcian". When arguing, both men 
seem capable of creating three-dimensional images and summoning 
small objects as a means of simulating events or providing 
information. 


Addendum 1: On 07/24/ (See Incident Report 946-12), 
SCP-946-1 and SCP-946-2 requested that SCP-946 never be 
exposed to multiple light sources during one of their debates. In the 
event that it is exposed to multiple light sources, all but one light 
source will fail. It is unknown how SCP-946 achieves the selective 
nature of this effect. Prior to this request, SCP-946 did not exhibit 
this behavior. Upon questioning, SCP-946-2 explained that a debate 
had led to the conclusion that a single light source “improves the 
mood”. 


Addendum 2: Incident Report 946- : On 04/08/ , SCP-946-1 and 
SCP-946-2's discussion shifted focus unexpectedly to the subject of 
gravity. The debate included mention of several concepts in 
theoretical physics, including String Theory, [REDACTED], and 
[DATA EXPUNGED]. Both men seemed familiar with concepts 
barely understood by modern science, as well as a previously 
undemonstrated knowledge of several highly classified Foundation 
documents, most notably SCP-536's testing logs. SCP-946-1 was 
arguing against the existence of gravity, while SCP-946-2 
considered and commented on his arguments. Roughly fourteen 
minutes into the discussion, on-duty researcher Dr entered 
SCP-946's containment chamber and joined the debate. On later 
questioning, Dr claimed he was simply "stopping a potential 
disaster". He argued that without gravity, the universe as a whole 
would cease to exist in its current form. SCP-946-1 responded by 
pointing out that the future form could easily be superior. SCP-946-2 
agreed with Dr , who continued to argue with SCP-946-1 for 
nearly two hours before, frustrated, SCP-946-1 gave up. 
Containment procedures updated in light of this event. Object Class 
upgrade to Keter pending approval. 


one. She'd give good money to know how they'd pulled that sort of 
intense brainwashing off without damaging him too much, but most 
of her shiny shit had been confiscated when she was caught. Davis 
took her silence for an opportunity to provide an answer. 


"Yes, that. It has been determined that Mr. Grenich is the most 
probable of us to convince the object to come with us in this," she 
set a small black rectangle carefully in the middle of the table, "USB 
drive. You are to be his lookout as he manages the job, and provide 
him cover should he need it." 


"Ugh. Fine, I'll make sure the crazy dude gets the ham in the drive." 
Aries finished dotting a small rune in red before returning to her 
syringe for more blood. "Good thing most of these were for safety 
anyways. The guard grapevine said ‘suicidal auction’, so, you know. 
| prepped." 


Edwin, the group's main source of knowledge on all things Marshall, 
Carter, and Dark as a member himself, was shuffling quickly through 
the papers as though he expected that on the fifteenth time around, 
they'd say something different. "You must be joking. All of these 
anomalous artifacts, all of that money, and we're leaving it fora 
sentient meat virus? It doesn't even do anything useful!" 


Olivia tapped one of the papers lightly. "This object has a time limit 
and a completely unknown group behind it and the things chasing it. 
Whatever this group is, as a whole? They're good. Dangerously so. 
Our Foundation thinks that this little leak was just an alpha test gone 
awry. The object has serious potential computer surveillance 
abilities, and could spread fast and hit hard on other anomalous 
organizations- such as ourselves. It can do neither right now, and 
the group wants it back off the radar." She first circled a graphic 
labeled 'Hammy' on a screenshot of a monitor desktop, then pointed 
to a patch of fuzz near it that had the label 'eat_m3at'. 


"This thing here is the reason Hammy as a whole is disappearing 
from computers at all. It, as you might have guessed, eats the 
object. Convinces the little sucker he's dead, which we've 
discovered is the only way to get rid of it whatsoever aside from 
smashing the computer in with a hammer." 


She scooped up the papers and tapped them on the table to 
straighten them out. "This is the last version of the object we've 
found. All other leads show that wherever he's popped up on other 
computers, he's been taken out- so, in a way, we're lucky MC and D 
has the best virus protection money can extract from their coder 
friends. We need him to trace the group that made him, and we can't 
do that if he doesn't exist. He's our main priority, and the higher-ups 
don't want to risk the whole operation by going after smaller stuff. 
Any other questions that won't give me a headache and-slash-or be 
unanswerable due to classification issues?" 


Aries's hand slowly lowered in disappointment. Dominic glared a 
hole through the papers for a second, then shook his head. Jackson 
simply velcroed the end of the wrap to her wrist and flexed both of 
her hands in appreciation. 


"That's a no, then. Good. We have four hours before we set out, and 
it'll take another three to reach the destination. We should have 
plenty of time before the auction to go over the map and cover the 
details that weren't mentioned in the individual packets. Do what you 
need to to get ready." 


She stood, and the rest of the team stood with her. Dominic walked 
off at a brisk pace towards his room, grumbling softly to himself as 
he sifted through his papers. Jackson's mouth sharpened, and she 
undid the wraps on her hands piece by piece. As the door to her 
room softly closed behind her, one could hear her redoing them, 
only to undo them again later. She had said, once, that the repetition 
helped her think.