keep their people safe and their rule secure? | simply cannot allow 
you to ruin this job for me, despite old friendships." Keat's voice had 
slowly descended in tone; where there was once affable enjoyment 
had been replaced with cold stillness. 


"I'll kill you, William Keats. And then I'll kill your toys." 
“Big words from an old Indian. Excuse me, Native American.” 
“You piece of shit -” 


Keats had been thumbing the action on his gun since Bill had begun 
speaking. Two shots rang out, and Wild Bill suddenly found he no 
longer had knees. There was a scream, and Keats stood, wiping at 
his mouth with a napkin. In his other hand was a smoking matte- 
black revolver. 


“And history repeats, it seems. The noble English have once again 
prevailed against our savage foes. ” He presses an intercom button 
built into the table, and a quiet speaker crackles to life. 


“Yes, Mr. One?” An extremely chipper female voice echos 
throughout the room. 


“Mrs. Escot? Which Sites are Alto Clef and Jack Bright currently 
stationed at?” 


“One minute please, sir.” Keyboard taps. “Dr. Clef is stationed at 
Site 19 sir, but he is currently visiting Dr. Bright at Site 23.” 


“Ahhh, 23. The renegades. How convenient; three birds with a single 
stone. Mrs. Escot, please arrange for SCP-173 and one of our 
cloning devices to be transferred to Site 23. Once they are inside, 
please remotely seal the exits and arrange for the two to interact. 
You have my permission to use our sleeper agents.” 


“Yes, sir! Sir, shall | detonate Site 23's nuclear warhead afterward?” 


“Hmmm...no, but please ensure that the Site's entrance is buried. 
And see to it that a cleaning crew is set down to the Retreat Room. 
Tell them to bring mops.” 


“Yes sir! Thank you, sir!” Click. The speaker turns off. 


Wild Bill lays on the floor, bleeding and barely holding onto 
consciousness. Keats walks over and stands over him, the gun still 
in his hand. 


“Any pithy last words, Bill?” 
Bill's left hand weakly extends a middle finger. 


“How predictable.” There is a single crack, and the world's second 
oldest man dies. 


Keats looks at the broken body of his only friend, shrugs, and 
pockets the gun. He removes a cigarette and a lighter from his 
breast pocket, and lights up. The smell of tobacco mixes with the 
smell of gun smoke, and for a brief second, William Keats, pride of 
his father and light in his mother's eyes, feels a deep sense of 
nostalgia and accomplishment. 


“You ran a good con. Happy birthday, Bill.” 


He throws the lit cigarette unto the other man's body and leaves the 
room. 


Ten minutes later, a crew in orange jumpsuits with mops enters the 
same room, and wordlessly cleans up the body. Thirty minutes later, 
every single man and woman in Site 23 is trying not to blink. An hour 
later, and Keats is sitting across from the President of the United 
States and calmly informing him how easily SCP-682 could be 
transported into Washington. 


The next day, a large amount of funds are transferred into the 
Foundation's coffers. 


Ignoring death and tragedy, the con, and the Foundation, goes on. 


We Have Dismissed That Claim 


"This is going to kick the top off the anthill, you know that, right?" 
General Pendergast asked, looking up from the report. 


Doctor Rex scoffed, "Yeah, well, | can't help it that Dr. Von Schmidt 
is an idiot, or that so many fools actually listened to his ridiculous 
ideas." Pendergast shook his head. "Besides, General, you wanted 
a realistic assessment. There you go." 


Pendergast sighed. "Rex, the point of Project Heimdall is to assess 
our risks. The O5 Council takes the 'Destroyers' mentioned in 
SCP-1050 very seriously—" 


"Ah, yes, 'Destroyers'. The mythical race of warped abominations, 
allegedly waiting in the 'Realm of Darkness.’ We can dismiss that 
claim, General," spat Rex. "There is not one shred of evidence to 
support the theory that aliens drop by every fifty thousand to fifty 
million years and wipe out large percentages of life on this planet - 
not one! | mean, unless you count a single artifact which makes wild 
and unsupported claims. Every major extinction event in this planet's 
history caused by the same thing? Come on!" 


"What about the transmission?" asked Pendergast. 


"What about it? It's three words in a predecessor dialect to Latin, 
followed by one hundred numbers," Rex retorted. 


"And some of those numbers are the base-eight equivalent of what's 
on the obelisk," Pendergast continued, exasperated. 


"So what?" Rex asked. "More than half of them aren't." 


Pendergast massaged his graying temples. "Doctor, don't you think 
it at least theoretically possible that—" 


"No, General, | don't," Rex said. He sighed exasperatedly. "Let's just 


take a look at what we know for certain - not what Von Schmidt 
guessed, what we know." 


"Alright." 


"Obsidian obelisk of improbable size, covered in a bunch of different 
languages all saying the same thing, and inexplicably transmitting a 
signal which happens to match something occasionally picked up by 
radio telescopes," Rex began. "What does this text say?" He walked 
over to Pendergast's blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. 
“Beware the Destroyers.' Okay, now there's a helpful statement. 
‘They come by the millions from the Realm of Darkness which 
extends where no stars shine.’ Millions. Right. Probably hyperbole. 
Also, where is this 'Realm of Darkness'?" 


"Space," replied Pendergast. 


Rex looked down his glasses at the General condescendingly. 
"Really? Remember, ‘where no stars shine’. There's no where on 
this planet that if you look up at the clear night sky forty-eight 
thousand years ago that you wouldn't see stars. | mean, now we 
know about intergalactic space, but back then? No way. This isn't 
some space opera cosmic horror story, General. No, if you want 
someplace dark without stars, at least from the primitive worldview 
of Paleolithic man, you're talking a cave or underwater. Look at 
mythological descriptions of the underworld. Hades, Niflheim, those 
are the places to look. And the Foundation has spent decades 
digging around looking for subterranean and submarine monsters. 
You'd think we'd have noticed millions of something. 


"Okay, moving on. 'For a thousand generations They slumber, lying 
in wait.’ That's got to be hyperbole. No human society has ever kept 
records, even in oral tradition, that accurately keep track of things 
over twenty-five thousand years. Remember, writing only rolled 
around in the past ten thousand years," Rex said. 


"But the writing on the obelisk—" objected Pendergast. 


"What, the writing that magically appears over night? We made 
that?" Rex asked. "Okay. Brief description of peace, prosperity, blah, 
blah. "Then They Return. They cull and burn. They are warped, and 


move beyond the pale, bigger than any man, unnatural births. Every 
nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike and welt on the hand of those 
heathen brutes is as barbed steel. It is said there is no honed iron 
hard enough to pierce Them through, no time proofed blade that can 
cut Their brutal blood caked claws.' This passage also appears in 
Beowulf, which, | might remind you, is fiction!" 


"Then it seems likely the author of Beowulf was aware of either the 
obelisk, or a contemporary version of dash-two," Pendergast 
retorted. "It would make sense, actually. Remember that one of the 
messages on the obelisk was written in 985 in Early Medieval 
Swedish Runes." 


"Right," Rex said. "Except Beowulf is about a legendary Geatish 
hero. Who was roughly contemporary with when the story was first 
told." 


"We think," Pendergast countered. 


"Even if Grendel or his mother - or both - are Destroyers, and I'm not 
saying | believe that, then that would actually support the 
subterranean or submarine origin of the Destroyers. Remember, 
Beowulf has to chase Grendel's mother to her lair, which was under 
a lake," Rex said. "Nothing extraterrestrial about that." 


"Huh," Pendergast said. This was an aspect to the text he'd never 
considered. 


"Yeah," Rex said. "I still don't think these Destroyers are real, or 
aliens, but that doesn't excuse lazy analysis. The least Von Schmidt 
could have done was done it right. Anyway, from the description, we 
can get that these alleged Destroyers are supposed to be big, ugly 
monsters. If | showed ancient man a tank, what do you think his 
response would be? You can kill a tank with a bazooka, General." 


Pendergast stood and picked up a piece of chalk of his own, "But 
what about the next part, Rex? 'Armies are raised and cut down like 
grasses before a scythe - it is said the armies of Amorah and 
Suhdom, each ten thousand strong, were swept away between a 
single rising and setting sun. Heroes come forth and are 
slaughtered.” 


Location: Southern United States (99% certainty). States: 


(79%), (11%), or (9% certainty) 
Type: NEWSPAPER CLIPPING 
Summary: 


The passage is describing HUMAN CONFLICT. The HUMAN 
CONFLICT is of an IDEOLOGICAL or RELIGIOUS nature. The 
passage seems (56%) to be LAMENTING in tone. The passage 
contains the numbers 2000, 1977, and 16. A relation to EVENT 
SUMM010777-C and EVENT [REDACTED] is likely (78% certainty). 
It is certain (98%) that the passage contains a reference to both 
SCP- and SCP- 

Related incidents: Incident 592- : "Loss of a limb following exposure 
to SCP-592 article on war" 


Analysis of images: SCP-592 contains around two hundred 
illustrations. These are cropped from the scanned image as part of 
the OCR routine. The image is then subjected to a number of 
Fourier transforms and convolutions to obscure the resulting output 
from human recognition while simultaneously analysing its structure 
and providing a summary of its contents by statistical analysis. 
Record of the original image is then destroyed. An example report 
(SCP-592-IMG098): 


Date: 1st April 1963 

Location: Unknown BEDROOM with WESTERN FURNISHINGS. 
Type: FULL COLOR PHOTOGRAPH 

Subject: 

The image contains two (2) ADULT PERSONS standing, one (1) 
HUMAN CHILD sitting on a CHAIR or STOOL, and SCP-_. With 
100% certainty the PERSONS in the image should have FACIAL 
FEATURES. With 100% certainty the PERSONS in the image do 
NOT have FACIAL FEATURES. 


« SCP-591 | SCP-592 | SCP-593 » 


Rex was unimpressed. "If you have a hundred tanks and you go up 
against twenty thousand guys with spears and bows, what do you 
think the result is going to be? General, when was the last time you 
heard of a spearman beating a tank in combat?" 


"Tanks? In ancient times?" the General asked incredulously. 


"Alien invaders?" the Doctor countered. "I'm not saying these 
‘Destroyers’ - if they existed - were tanks or anything like that. My 
point is that they could be something (apparently) completely 
unrelated to ten-fifty. They could even be something the Foundation 
has encountered and contained." 


Pendergast raised his eyebrows, "Like what?" 


Rex scoffed, "You want me to guess? | don't know, six-eighty-two, 
maybe? Or one-seven-three? Or maybe Able? Honestly, | have no 
idea. But we can't account for where any of these objects were fifty 
millennia ago. Maybe it was six-eighty-two's great-great-great- 
granddaddy!" 


"You've made your point, Rex," Pendergast said quietly. 


Ignoring him, Rex rambled on, "Just because we ‘know’, or | should 
say ‘strongly believe’, that there is a threat does not mean we 
actually have the foggiest idea what that threat actually is." 


"Rex..." 


Rex showed no sign of stopping his rambling tirade, however. "We 
have a lot of information about this object - that we know, | mean, 
not just that we think we know - but we don't know that there js a 
threat, much less anything about what that threat might be!" 


"Enough!" shouted Pendergast. Rex blinked - he'd been so 
absorbed in his thought that it took volume to shake him out of it. 
Resuming his usual quiet volume, Pendergast asked, "What about 
the connection to Sodom and Gomorrah?" 


"Do you assume the Biblical accounts of those cities' destruction 
through fire and brimstone are literally true, General?" Rex asked. 
"That the Almighty decided to smite them? Besides, their historical 


existence is still in dispute by archaeologists. The Bible indicates 
they were located near the Dead Sea, but we've not found proof of 
their having been there." Pendergast nodded; petty, arrogant, and 
bad with people as Rex was, he had a point. "Beyond that, if Von 
Schmidt's analysis is correct (for a change), and the numbers are 
dates in Earth years since the Big Bang, then none of those dates 
are within human history." 


"Even the most recent one?" Pendergast observed skeptically. 


"No other written or oral history dates back that far, at least not that 
we know of," Rex said. "Sure, there were humans around, but fifty or 
so thousand years is a long time. Remember, this SCP 
notwithstanding, it's generally agreed that the first true writing of 
language was only invented in 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia - and then 
independently in Mesoamerica around 600 BC. Writing numbers 
came first, but even there we're only talking about 8000 BCE in 
Sumer." 


Pendergast nodded. "So, 1050 indicates human writing is five times 
older than we thought." 


"Except there's no clear evidence humans ever actually carved 
anything on the obelisk," Rex said. "Remember how the Nazi 
scientists went home for the night, only to come back and discover 
the Russian version of the message had appeared as if by magic." 


Pendergast thought about that for a moment, and decided to push 
Rex back on track. After all, the doctor had failed to answer his 
question. "Could the Biblical accounts of Sodom and Gomorrah 
have come from this SCP?" 


"If they did, then that would call into question centuries of 
scholarship on Biblical scholarship," answered Rex. "It is incredibly 
implausible for the Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah to have been 
destroyed by ‘Destroyers’, unless, of course, our understanding of 
where the Bible comes from is completely wrong." 


Pendergast raised an eyebrow. "Rex, you've worked here long 
enough to know that stranger things have happened." 


"Is it possible? Sure. But not probable," the doctor replied, adjusting 
his glasses. "And, on top of that, this message is a warning from 
ancient aliens who happened to visit this planet to warn us about 
other ancient aliens who appear out of nowhere every few epochs to 
wipe out the majority of life on the planet? | know this Foundation 
handles some crazy stuff, but come on!" 


Sighing, the General asked, "Okay, what about 'Lightning and fire 
rain from the sky and the whole earth trembles.” 


"Sounds like what | understand modern artillery bombardment and 
aerial bombing is like," Rex replied. 


"And this stuff about the Destroyers being 'a powerful flood that 
washes away entire mighty nations and empires'?" Pendergast 
asked. 


Rex shook his head. "General, you know that there are flood myths 
in just about every culture, but apart from this obelisk's message, we 
have no reason to think they refer to anything other than, well, 
water." 


"The people pray for deliverance from the gods. The gods fight the 


Destroyers, but their efforts are in vain'," quoted Pendergast. 


"Three-forty-three notwithstanding, how many gods do you know? 
And, even if you include him, how many gods do you know that 
actually bother interfering?" Rex asked. Pendergast was not a 
religious man, but he had been brought up by church-going parents, 
and was therefore less than amused by Rex's comment. Before he 
could say anything though, Rex continued. "And this whole bit about 
the Destroyers being 'as the gods are to men and men are to 
insects’? Sounds a bit like something out of Lovecraft, doesn't it? Or 
perhaps Star Wars - 'there's always a bigger fish’? Really?"