"The reasoning is above your clearance level," Gears said. "The fact 
that you are a researcher and not an agent is one reason why you 
were given a script. You are working with items recovered from the 
breach in which the interview subject was captured. Therefore, you 
are an appropriate choice for interviewer." 


"I can't even ask her anything useful." 


"You have done admirably in following the letter of the rules," Gears 
said. "As instructed, you did not deviate from the script. It is, as you 
know, acceptable for an interviewer to end an interview early for 
reasons of an emotionally distraught state. However, others may not 
feel convinced that your emotional state merited ending the 
interview after hearing the answer to only one question." 


"Is there really no one else who can do this?" 


"There is only one deemed qualified to interview this subject who is 
not otherwise engaged," Gears said. 


"Who? Can you get them on it?" 


"Doctor Rita Butler is the only other available member on Mobile 
Task Force Tau-9 deemed appropriate by Site Command to 
interview this subject." 


Campbell stopped short. 


That was the other thing about Joanna Cross. Joanna Cross had a 
sister. 


A half-sister, but they'd grown up together. A half-sister who was 
also assigned to Mobile Task Force Tau-9. A quiet, occasionally 
funny woman, also a doctor, a bit of a nebbish but in an endearing 
way. 


A sister named Rita Butler. 


"But... that's her sister, sir," Campbell said. 
"Nevertheless, Doctor." 


Campbell stared into Gears' passive, implacable face. This was 
manipulation, she knew. She didn't think it was coming from Gears 
— if Gears was even capable of being manipulative if not ordered to 
by his superiors — but it was still working. 


"I... you're right," Campbell said. "I apologize." 


Gears nodded, once. "| have scheduled your next interview for 
tomorrow morning." 


EXCERPT FROM INTERVIEW t356y-SH-CROSS- 
CAMPBELL, NUMBER 36 


Interviewer: Dr. Kendra Campbell, MTF Tau-9 
Researcher, Clearance Level 2, Gen. Special Access 
Program Tau-9. 

Subject: Joanna Cross, Serpent's Hand operative 
Observers: ~ & 


Dr. Campbell: Is it true that you work for the 
organization calling themselves the Serpent's Hand? 


Operative Cross: Yes. 


Dr. Campbell: Did you help conduct a raid on 
Foundation Secure Facility Site-17? 


Operative Cross: Yes. 
Dr. Campbell: How did the rest of your group escape? 
Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. 


Dr. Campbell: Why did your group breach Site-17? 
What was your goal? 


Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. 


Dr. Campbell: Was your goal to remove SCP-239, 
referred to the Serpent's Hand as "The Witch Child", 
from its containment cell? 


Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. 


Dr. Campbell: Were you involved with prior attempts by 
the Serpent's Hand to breach SCP-239's security? 


Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. 


Dr. Campbell: Which SCP objects in Foundation 
custody are you aware of? 


Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. 


[Truncated for length. Campbell finishes reading 
assigned list of questions; Cross responds as before.] 


[Dr. Campbell begins to exit the room.] 
Operative Cross: Doctor? 


[Dr. Campbell stops in place. Note: This is the first 
instance of Operative Cross speaking a phrase that is 
not in response to a question.] 


Operative Cross: I'll make you a deal. Come see me 
tomorrow without a script. Come with your own 
questions. Real questions. Not this half-assed memetic 
bullshit. 


Dr. Campbell: [hesitates before answering] And if | 
can't? 


Operative Cross: Then why bother coming back at all? 
You could interview me a hundred times. Or five 
hundred. You already know every single thing I'll say. 


Dr. Campbell: Why are you talking to me now? 


Operative Cross: | feel sorry for you. 


Dr. Campbell: [clears throat] | don't know if | can get 
approval for this. 


Operative Cross: | wouldn't want you to break any rules. 
Tell you what. Tell your bosses to ask their friends in the 
GOC what a geas is. 


Dr. Campbell: Why? 


Operative Cross: I'm not going to tell you. [smiles] Say 
hello to my sister for me. 


Rita Butler had been keeping to herself since the breach of Site-17 
two months back. Understandable, since she'd just then learned that 
her sister was a Hand agent. 


Rita had been as surprised as everyone else. She'd barely seen 
Joanna since the incident in which she'd been recruited by the 
Foundation. 


That incident... Containment breach by SCP-682, of all things. Now 
that gave you special cachet in water-cooler conversation. 


682 was one of the big-name SCPs, one of the ones that everyone 
knew about, including all the people who weren't supposed to. 'Her' 
breach had been an especially spectacular one, with 682 escaping 
from emergency Foundation transport and rampaging through New 
York City like a classic movie monster. He'd even smashed up a 
smaller skyscraper. 


Rita and Joanna had gotten lucky — they ended up in the hospital 
with only minor injuries, even though they'd been right at ground 
zero when 682 came crashing out of the sky. 


A night on the town with 682 was quite the introduction to the 
paranormal, and so when the Foundation came calling after her, she 
said yes, happily, and never looked back. Her husband was dead, 
her biologist colleagues distant. She joked that 682 was just too cool 
to not want to see more of the same. 


That wasn't true. It had been the most terrifying experience of her 


entire life. 


To think that the world was chock-full of things like this... to not 
know, to be clueless and vulnerable again, sounded like the scariest 
thing in the world. 


At least the Foundation had a good handle on the situation. If you 
were gonna die, you'd be able to look death in the eyes. Civilians on 
the street wouldn't get that chance. 


But Joanna hadn't been recruited. Maybe the Foundation didn't need 
more anthropologists-with-a-minor-in-religion. Or maybe she'd failed 
whatever behind the scenes personality test the Foundation had 
given her. Who knows. 


Joanna was mindwiped, and Rita joined the Foundation. 


She'd thought that was the end of it — it's not like she told Joanna 
much about her work as a regular biologist anyway; they mostly saw 
each other on Christmas and Easter. Then, this. 


Joanna Cross, member of the Serpent's Hand. Joanna Cross, the 
terrorist. 


It was enough to make you hole up in your room forever and never 
come out. 


But she was just so tired of being alone. Not just this month, but 
always. 


So tonight, when a few members of MTF Tau-9 went out for drinks, 
Rita went with them. "Out" was just to the Site-17 bar, which was 
mostly empty right now, but hey, at least they had a bar, unlike most 
Foundation sites. 


She braced herself for all the questions that would come about 
Joanna. But before she got the courage to talk to anyone, Tau-9 
local section leader John Peters was stumbling drunk and 
dominating all conversation. 


"It's about courage," Peters proclaimed. "Anyone can get skill. 
Talent is bullshit. Courage is the most important thing." 


"Man, you're just talking bullshit," the man next to him said. Who 
was that — Agent Ramesh Patel? God, that shouldn't have been 
hard to remember. She really needed to get out more. 


"Courage!" Peters dramatically raised his fist into the air, ignoring 
Patel. "The courage to act! To act when no one else will." 


"And America?" Patel asked. "The America to act, to America when 
no other America will." 


"Fuck off, Ramesh," Peters said. "This is real talk time, goddammit. 
This isn't just... goddamn rhetoric." 


"You need either many more drinks or far fewer." Patel tried to take 
away Peters’ glass. 


Peters pushed him off. "No, man. No. I'm not just talking bullshit. 
Like... let's get real world here. Let's use a real world example." 
Peters swayed back and forth, surveying the room, and his eyes 
settled on Rita. "You! Butler!" 


Rita jumped a little on her stool and set down her vodka. "Sir?" 


"We're off-duty, goddammit,” Peters said. "Butler. Butler. My friend, 
my compadre. Let's say... let's say there was a bomb in Site-17. 
Across the site in Section 3. Someone just called and told us. We 
have no way of knowing when it's gonna go off. Definitely WILL go 
off. You with me so far?" 


"Yeah," Rita said. "There's a bomb." 
"You two got this," Patel said. "I'm getting another drink." 


"Right," said Peters. "Alright, so let's say we got Section 3 evac'd, 
but some poor old lady grandmother scientist, maybe someone like 
Bart from accounting — okay some poor old dude grandmother 
scientist — look, he's stuck back there, because he broke his hip or 
some shit." 


"Okay," Rita said. 


"Everyone except us is tied up. | dunno, containing skips or eaten by 


gremlins or something. And we gotta decide if one of us is gonna 
hop in a truck and go into Section 3 and get this old lady. No one's 
gonna get ordered to do it, so forget that bit." He took a drink, and 
looked at Rita again. "So?" 


"| don't get what you mean," Rita said. 


"I'm talking about courage," Peters said. "Which of us would have 
the balls to volunteer to jump in that truck and drive over to Section 
3 and go save that old lady?" 


Rita watched him blankly. 


"Would you, Doctor Butler, have the balls to go rescue that old lady, 
even though you might get blown to kingdom come along with her? 
It's a key question. A question we all gotta ask ourselves." 


"| don't know about that," Rita said. "| can't drive, so... | don't think 
I'd have to, uh, confront that question." 


Peters stared at her. "You can't drive?" 


"| grew up in New York," she said. "Not easy to own a car in a big 
city." 


"And you never learned?" 
"Now. 


"Well, shit." Peters looked like his entire view of the world was 
shifting. Rita became conscious that everyone else in the bar had 
shut up and was listening to them. "Let's get you some driving 
lessons, stat! How about it?" 


Rita looked down at her cup. "I've never needed to drive," she said. 
"It doesn't really agree with me. And | pretty much live onsite, 
now..." She felt strange, defending something completely different 
than she'd been expecting to defend. 


"Oh, goddammit," Peters said. "Look, I..." He looked at his glass. "I 
need another fucking drink. Let's come back to this, Butler. Just one 
second—" 


And then Peters and Patel got into a minor scuffle over Peters trying 
to get another drink, and by the time the others broke them up, 
Peters had forgotten the whole thing. 


No one got around to asking Rita about Joanna, or about the status 
of her loyalties to the Foundation. 


She finished her drink in silence. 


Twelve hours after the interview, Campbell sat in her research lab, 
examining a pale blue origami flower chain found on Cross when 
she was captured. 


"Blue lily chains/Faerie chains", the label said. Reports from Tau-9's 
field agents confirmed that the flower chains were popular amongst 
the younger Hand members, and that they had a number of 
anomalous effects. Precisely what anomalous effects the flower 
chains may have had were blacked out of the reports. That was for 
higher clearance levels. 


But she wanted to know, and Gears didn't mind her testing. In the 
last few weeks she'd run every test she could think of on the flower 
chains, twice. They seemed about as anomalous as suspicious- 
looking dirt. 


She began gathering up the papers strewn across her desk. 
"Enough for tonight," she said aloud. 


"Enough of what?" a voice asked from behind. 


Startled, Campbell glanced back to see a too-pale man in a labcoat 
approaching her desk. 


"Hello, Doctor Campbell," the man said. 


Campbell squinted in the fading light. She hadn't noticed that the 
lighting in her office had gotten so dim — or, hell, at least it was 
hopefully the lighting and not some horrible subtle anomalous side 
effect of these stupid flower chains. Either way, the man wasn't 
wearing a name tag. 


Test 113 

Date: / /20 

Subject: Effects of computer crashes 

Procedure: As Test 112, except that D-713-234 instructed to 
attempt to manipulate cursor by hand before restarting. 
Results: Cursor froze in place as before. D-713-234 expressed 
reluctance, but was induced to touch the cursor. His hand 
immediately became attached to the object, as if someone had 
attempted to click on him. While the cursor usually exerts exactly 
enough force to induce necessary movement, D-713-234’s hand 
was crushed: injuries were consistent with [DATA EXPUNGED] 
kN, more than SCP-713 has yet displayed. 


Test 114 

Date: / /20 

Subject: Effects of computer crashes 

Procedure: Testing chamber cleared. D-713-235 instructed to “pick 
up” a prepared high-capacity multidirectional digital force gauge 
before crashing SCP-713 as in Test 112. 

Results: Force gauge crushed, exactly as with D-713-234’s hand. 
Pattern of damage to cube indicates [DATA EXPUNGED], as if the 
cursor [DATA EXPUNGED]. 


Note: Stop speculating and test that. Request for tougher equipment 
denied: the last one was expensive enough. There are less direct 
ways to measure crushing force. —Dr. 


Test 115 

Date: / /20 

Subject: Effects of computer crashes 

Procedure: Testing chamber cleared. D-713-235 instructed to “pick 
up” a prepared 30x30x30 cm solid iron cube before crashing 
SCP-713 as in Test 112. 

Results: Contact lost with Site for 5 hours. Upon reestablishing 
contact, [DATA EXPUNGED] considerable structural damage [DATA 
EXPUNGED] of all electronic devices, with all non-electronic artificial 
devices [DATA EXPUNGED]. SCP- andSCP-_ were found to 
have broken containment and [DATA EXPUNGED]. All personnel on 
site were lost. Security recordings recovered from external SCP 
servers suggest that in the process of crashing SCP-713 as 


"Sorry, do | know..." 


Then she saw the thing around his neck. That necklace with that 
ornate amulet. The red jewel gleaming in the center of a starburst. 


SCP-963-1. Doctor Bright. Director Bright. 
Campbell felt the papers slip from her hand. 


She'd seen Dr. Bright in person only once before, during the chaos 
of the Site-17 breach in which Joanna Cross was captured. 


She'd seen a breaching SCP, a humanoid with a featureless face 
and scaled black skin, morph its hand into a long, sharp sword — a 
German Zweihander, actually, complete with the tiny spierhaken 
prongs emerging from the blade a short way up from the hilt — and 
shove that Zweihander directly through Bright's chest in one swift 
motion. 


When it withdrew the blade, the prongs caught on the necklace 
around Bright's neck, and that amulet came away with it. 


And then the faceless horror suddenly became docile. Because it 
had become Bright. 


"Relax," Bright said. "I'm here to give you good news." 
He held out a slim file folder. She took it. 


"| didn't know Directors hand-delivered good news," Campbell said. 
The back of her throat was dry. 


Bright chuckled. "We're changing your orders. Take a look." 


Campbell flipped open the file folder and read the instructions. They 
were remarkably short. 


She cleared her throat. "Sorry, did | read this right? | can ask Cross 
literally anything, so long as | am the only one who comes up with 
the questions?" 


"Don't worry." Bright's tone was open, friendly. "If she ends up telling 


you anything you're not supposed to hear, we'll just wipe your 
memory. Not a big deal." 


"Not a big deal?" The line slipped out before she could stop it. 


Bright only smiled, and walked away. 


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Sigurrdés Stefansdottir, the girl the Foundation called SCP-239, 
stirred in her coma-induced slumber.