Twas an English professor, clad in red that would soon get him laid, 
| don't know what his shoes looked like, so I'll assume they were 
suede. 

His writing was indistinguishable; it was dope as hell. 

They knew immediately his identity: it could only be TroyL. 


"Santa Troy!" the staff all called with glee. 

"What have you brought us? Unfinished Business Three?" 

Santa Troy stood there proudly, majestically sporting his beards. 
From his sack came fresh articles that quickly dissuaded our fears. 


"On Clef! On Sorts! On Soulless! On Kate!" 

"| got you these articles, now read them and rate!" 
"On Eric! On Weizhong! On Angxyr and Crayne!" 
"Prepare your eyeballs, 'cos I'm makin’ it rain!" 


"On Esko! On Vivax! And the rest of them too!" 
"| gave you the articles, now you know what to do!" 


We all were in awe of Santa Troy's swag. 

He got back in his sled and shut up his bag. 
TroyL grabbed his pen and refilled it with ink. 
And then he was gone, before we could blink. 


Everyone sighed sadly, for Santa was gone. 

But then we heard a voice, from the great beyond. 
"All right you lazy fucks! It's time to write!" 

"Merry Skipmas to all, and to all a good night!" 


... the best and the wisest man whom | have ever 
known. 


A possible future... 


Jack Bright pushed his way past the holo-sign reading "Closed to 
Visitors" and made his way up the polished carbonate stairs to the 
monorail. There was a single car waiting for him. A large red button 
on the control panel read, "Press this." 


He did so, and the sleek silver conveyance whispered up the side of 
the mountain. The view out of the diamond-glass windows was 
spectacular: the vermillion hues of the setting sun reflecting off the 
hair-thin lines of the orbital elevator leading to Sunlight One, the 
world's first permanent launching station to the deep space colonies. 
A zeppelin ghosted past the mountainside, one of the new 
superheavy models that could convey two thousand passengers 
across the Atlantic in comfort. It was the dawn of a new age. 


But it was the past that he had come here to meet, not the future. 


He disembarked the monorail, then followed the instructions from 
the e-mail up the craggy mountain path, to where a waterfall 
cascaded down into a clear alpine pool. There was an old man 
standing on a ledge overlooking the falls, looking down at a brass 
plate, now encased in diamond-glass to protect it from the elements. 
His hair was white, and his back hunched with age, but the eyes that 
turned to regard Jack were still as stark and intelligent as the day 
they had first met. 


"Hello, Alto," Jack said. 


"Alto... Alto Clef. Now there's a name | haven't heard in a long time," 
Clef scoffed. He laughed, a long, hard laugh, and then he coughed 
hard into a handkerchief, hacking and wheezing. The white cloth 
came away speckled with blood. "New body? Looks good on you." 


Jack Bright nodded in reply, then came to stand next to his old 
friend. He looked down at the plaque. "At this fearful place, Sherlock 
Holmes vanquished Professor Moriarty, on 4 May 1891," he read. 


"Funny, huh? The man didn't even exist, and here they've put a 
memorial to him. Reichenbach Falls, the setting of Sir Arthur Conan 
Doyle's last great swan song. The final tale of Sherlock Holmes... 
until his fans and editors made him write more stories, the whining 
fucks." He pointed down at the churning white water, far below. 
"Imagine, Holmes and Moriarty, the master detective and the 
Napoleon of crime, struggling to the last breath, clawing and 
pummeling each other as they plummet to their dooms. Such a 
fitting end for two great men." 


"Is that supposed to mean something?" Bright asked. He put his 
hand in his coat pocket, felt the small-caliber handgun he'd secreted 
there. The note had said to come unarmed, but he hadn't survived 
this long by being stupid. 


Clef reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a grubby piece of 
pink paper and handed it to Jack. The younger man read it carefully, 
then nodded. "How long do you have?" 


"Two months at most," Clef said. 


"We still have several doses of Five Hundred left," Jack said. "| 
could authorize to have one lost and recovered by the GOC. Asa 
favor to an old friend." 


"| think not," Clef replied sternly. "There comes a time when a man 
realizes it's time to die. For me... that realization came last week. 
That was when | got a report that young Kroger took down a Tier 4 
Type Green on his lonesome. Took it down in a way | never would 
have thought of: smart as hell. That kid wasn't even born yet when | 
started this job. And then it hit me: I've done all | can. All | can do 
from now on is take up space and get in the way of the younger kids 
who will carry the work forward." He smiled. "So. Time to die." 


"| sense... a personal indictment... in those words," Bright replied 
slowly. 


How about the beginning? Where were you when you got your 
orders? 


[DATA EXPUNGED] 


Thank you for clearing that up. Can you tell me what happened 
when you arrived on site? 


Yeah, no problem. We got on-site, and went to the morgue, took a 
look at the bodies. | used the cover story of a reporter investigating 
the crimes, told them [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] were my photographer 
and assistant. Turns out they were thinking that it was a wild animal, 
based on the nature of the wounds and eyewitness accounts. 


There was an eyewitness? 


Yeah, a little old lady. Went out into the rice field to take a piss and 
saw it eating her cow. She was more mad than scared, actually, 
kept complaining about where she was gonna get another cow in 
this day and age with the times being as tough as they were. She 
got a good look at it, though, and described itas a[DATA 
EXPUNGED]. Looking back, | think that's where the problems 
started... 


Can you explain? 


Remember how [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] were both __, but | was 

? Yeah. The thing is, both our cultures have stories of these 
kinds of monsters in it, but it's different in folklore. Their stories 
tend to romanticize. You get stories of monsters falling in love with 
humans and things a lot. Hell, they even joked about trying to score 
a wife out of this. Not in the stories my grandma told, though. That 
sadistic old bitch loved scaring me, and she [DATA EXPUNGED] 


[DATA CORRUPTED] 


We saw this girl sitting under a waterfall, combing out her hair. Not 
naked. She had this thin robe on. Beautiful girl too, but we knew it 
had to be her because of her feet. She was trying to hide them, but 
she wasn't doing it right. [Agent 1] and [Agent 2] smiled. Even | 
thought we had the edge on her. Oh god, we were stupid. 


"Yes," Clef said. 


"You think that |, being immortal, will hold the Foundation back, and 
stop it from moving forward." 


"lam afraid," Clef said, "of what it will imply when the most powerful 
and influential member of the Foundation is an SCP himself. | worry 
that... not now... not a hundred years from now... but someday, you 
will have lived so long and become so strange that you are no 
longer human. And by then, you may be too powerful to stop. So 
that threat must be nipped in the bud now." 


"What if | never become a threat?" 


"You will," Clef said firmly. "No one who lives as long as you will can 
stay human." 


"And so you've come to try to kill me," Jack Bright concluded. 
"I've come here to kill you," Clef corrected. "Not to try." 


"And how did you plan to do that? They've been trying to kill me for 
over a hundred years. | don't think even you've found a way." 


"| didn't. Kroger did," Clef smiled. "Like | said. The young man's 
smart as hell." 


"| see... and your plan?" 


Clef told him. He explained, step by step, Kroger's plan for killing 
Jack Bright. He left out no details. He told him exactly how and why 
it would work, why the plan was foolproof, and in the end, Bright had 
to admit that Clef was right. This plan would work. It would kill him. 


"It's a good plan," he said. "But there's one problem with it." 
"And what's tha—" 


Before Clef could finish his sentence, Jack drew his gun and shot 
him, twice in the chest, once in the head. A perfect Mozambique. 


The old man slumped and plummeted off the ledge into the water. 


Jack put his gun back in his coat. "Bye, Alto," he said. He turned and 
walked back to the monorail, wiping his face. It was certainly spray 
from the waterfall, but although Reichenbach Falls was freshwater, it 
still tasted a bit like seaspray. 


He was on his way down the monorail when the implications of 
Clef's words hit him. 


"| didn't. Kroger did." 
Someone else knew how to kill Jack Bright. 


The realization chilled his borrowed heart. He gripped the armrest 
on the monorail seat hard, in a white knuckle grip. 


No... not just someone else. If he knew Clef, possibly the entire 
GOC knew how to kill Jack Bright. An entire worldwide organization 
with the backing of the goddamn United Nations, thousands of 
highly trained agents dedicated to finding and killing him... 


Suddenly he was very aware of just how vulnerable he was in this 
monorail car. This small, enclosed space, bound to the monorail 
tracks... a perfect killing ground. 


He closed his eyes and waited for the killing blow. 
It never came. 


Instead, the monorail made its way down to the bottom of the 
mountain, and the doors opened. His driver was waiting there for 
him, with his armored limousine. "Director Bright?" Lyn put his hand 
on Jack's shoulder, concerned at the Director's pale face and 
trembling hands. "Are you all right?" 


"Yes," Jack said. He looked up at the mountainside, at the distant 
cascade of falling water. "Perfectly fine." As the driver pulled away, 
something else occurred to Jack Bright, something that made him 
laugh out loud at the bitter irony of it all. 


Jack Bright also knew how to kill SCP-963. 


Somewhere else... 
"Mister Kroger?" the man in the black uniform asked. 
"Speaking," Kroger said. 


"No," the man in the black uniform said. He handed Kroger a card. It 
was pure white, except for a single, swirling symbol on the front in 
stark black ink. Kroger understood. 


"Mister Treble Clef?" the man in the black uniform asked. 
"Speaking," Clef replied. 


"Better." The man in the black uniform nodded. "I have a request..." 


The Blind Leading 


Is the Hornet for You? 
An Exciting New Offer from the Seeing Eye 


First encountered by Foundation personnel in northern Michigan, 
1988. Primary containment significantly hindered by recovering 
MTF's lack of appropriate equipment. Creator motives impossible to 
speculate. 


The Seeing Eye has served a wide variety of blind 
persons since its inception in 1929. Today, our 
innovative genetic technicians are bringing the 
tremendous helping potential of the Japanese Giant 
Hornet to thousands of blind individuals across the 
globe. As we enter this bold new era, we have found that 
candidates demonstrating certain traits experience vastly 
greater success rates as hornet Guide handlers. These 
traits include: 

1. Physical, mental and emotional capability to handle 
the stress and potential physical trauma of training with a 
Seeing Eye hornet, as determined by references and 
agency referrals, personal interview and physician’s 
report. Applicant must be between the ages of 16 and 
75, motivated and emotionally stable, and unperturbed 
by large insects. 


First responders recovered some four hundred specimens and these 
have been transferred to the Nakagawa Maximum Security 
Veterinary Facility. Prior to memory modification, those civilians who 
survived the initial contact expressed a continued interest in the 
advertised qualities of the hornet Guides. 


2. A realistic plan of use for a Seeing Eye hornet as 
determined by personal references, applicant 
explanation, agency referrals and personal interview. 


Applicant must have an active daily routine which would 
provide independent travel destinations for the hornet. 


Exhibit extreme caution when approaching or handling as the 
Seeing Eye's nanomolecular modifications to hornet exoskeletons 
render ordinary anti-sting material useless. 


3. A degree of sensory perception such that the applicant 
might quickly euthanize a Seeing Eye hornet, should 
such action become necessary. 


The intense possessiveness SCP-3285 demonstrates towards its 
chosen handlers should not be misinterpreted as loyalty or affection. 
Sightlessness has proven no deterrent to attack. 


4. A clean living and working environment conducive to 
safe and successful use and care of a Seeing Eye 
hornet, including supplies for the treatment of any 
resulting injuries, as determined by application and 
personal interview. 


No employee of the Seeing Eye has thus far admitted responsibility, 
much less knowledge, of the creature prior to Foundation recovery 
efforts, but interrogations are ongoing. 


5. Necessary maturity, temperament, and pain threshold 


to handle the responsibilities of caring for a Seeing Eye 
hornet. 


In swarms, the animals exhibit tremendous hostility and vicious 
cooperation. 100% of victims experience severe allergic reactions 
within ten hours of the sting even when no previous allergy existed, 
the onset of these symptoms being considered the start of the eight- 
hour fatality window. 


The Seeing Eye, Inc., does not discriminate on the basis 


of race, color, or national and ethnic origin, although the 
hornets might. 


Actually pretty effective guides. 


Coming Down 


October 9th, 2016 | 9:56 PM 


"It's twenty-two hundred. Quiet d-" Officer Rance Roberts is 
interrupted mid-sentence by his coworker. He turns around, 
scowling. "What? Are the clocks off again?" 


The man in front of him is Joy. Joy Rice. Rance always found that 
name peculiar, especially for a 250-pound prison guard who hadn't 
smiled in at least four days. Hell, the man had always had this 
characteristic facial expression insinuating he doesn't even feel joy, 
so to have it as a legal first name is even more perplexing. 


"No, the clocks aren't off," Joy says quietly, leading Rance out of the 
hall doorway and back into the security office. "You're just not doing 
that anymore, remember?" 


Rance bites his tongue. "Last | checked, | had two weeks left." 


"That's a courtesy, to allow you to transfer sites and get rehired if 
you want. You're effectively on probation." 


"...What? Why didn't anyone tell me that means | can't do 
anything?" 


Joy sighs and takes Rance by the arm, guiding him over to the 
lesser-used end of the security feed desk. "You can still monitor the 
feeds as normal. Just don't interact with the D-classes." 


Rance feels his pulse quickening with frustration. "Do you guys 
realize that you never actually told me why you fired me? Or why I'm 
being treated like-" 


"Shh, shh. We already gave you your report, Roberts; you know 
that." 


"Take some time to yourself due to emotional stress factors’, was 


it?" he hisses, lowing his voice and leaning toward the younger man. 
"Joy, | don't want to be unprofessional with you as my supervisor, 
but you can't fire someone because their life got a little worse ina 
few places! I'm pretty sure that's not even within the rules!" 


Joy's eyes narrow. "Roberts, so help me God, you knowl am on 
your side in this," he says, barely audibly. "The demotion is what it 
is. And you're not fucking fired, so stop over-dramatizing. We told 
you multiple times — and it was clear in your paperwork, or so | 
thought — that this isn't a punishment. You need some time to get 
your head together, get your finances together, get yourself feeling 
better." 


Rance puts his head in his hands and sniffs, clearing his throat. 
"Alright, look." 


"Put your hands down. Don't get stressed."