A loud bang echoed around the corner. The source then drove out; 
a brightly coloured van made a hairpin turn and rocketed past the 
cafe, followed by a pursuing large black van labelled "okAnp& 
KNOUOTE TrITOapia". The sputtering of their engines faded off into the 
distance, and the patrons returned to their newspapers and 
beverages. 


| felt some concern. 


It was an uninteresting building. It looked like any other in the 
vicinity. 


What was concerning about it was that | recognised the 
psychedelically patterned van outside. 


Still, | had arrived to the meeting half an hour early. | read to pass 
the time; a small pile of visitor's pamphlets lined my hire car, and | 
slowly made my way through. Twenty five minutes later, a man 
wearing large sunglasses and a girl of school age exited the 
building, seemingly in deep conversation. They returned to the van, 
the man starting the engine with a low rumble, and then drove away. 


The black van parked around the corner pulled out of their hiding 
place and drove to tail behind. | felt a deep itch in my shoulders, 
though | wasn't without a contingency plan. | confirmed the presence 
of the cold, heavy metal in my pocket. It was a short wait for the 
black van to leave from my sight; then, | opened the door of the hire 
car, stepped out, and closed it with a thunk. 


The front door of the building was made of some heavy wood, not 
quite matching the rest of its construction. | knocked it solidly, then 
waited some time, before a man pulled it open from inside. 


He looked young. He was dressed in a bright neon t-shirt, a pair of 


jeans, a simple silver chain around his neck, and a tattoo covering 
the majority of his right arm with a hammer. The man looked up at 
me, then cocked his head slightly. 


"Khoren?" 

"Yes. I'm here to see-" 

The man suddenly moved, hugging me around my midriff. 
"My son, my son! Home at last!" 


With some reaching, he put his hands on my shoulders and looked 
into my face. Looking at him closer, there was black stubble around 
his chin, and his right ear was pierced in three places. This was not 
the image of Hephaestus | had in mind. He slapped me on the 
shoulders, grinning and turning. 


"Come on in, and close the door behind you." 


| turned, pushed the door closed, and followed my father into what 
appeared to be a workroom. An anvil sat in the corner, which caught 
my interest; then | noticed the thick layer of dust along its surface. In 
the room's centre was a wooden table covered in paint and 
surrounded by similarly styled stools; on it sat a bowl of potato chips, 
which Hephaestus took a handful from and munched audibly. He 
looked up at me. 


"Have a seat, have some chips. Some friends brought them here - 
really interesting flavouring, impressive stuff." 


| sat across from him, picked a chip up, and crunched it around in 
my mouth. It tasted like strawberries. As | chewed, my father started 
to speak. 


"| know what you're going to say: | don't look like all the pictures." 
| swallowed and gave a response. 
"| will admit, | was expecting an old man working at a smith." 


"Not as much smithing these days as there used to be. Us gods 


latch on to whatever gets us the most people within our purview. I've 
always been in charge of blacksmiths and fires, but these days 
being the god of artisans gets me a bit more attention. Quite a bit 
more, in fact. People keep asking me for favours - minor miracles, 
you know - and | really can't help but oblige." 


| kept silent. Hephaestus sighed. 

"But that's not why you're here." 

"No." 

"Right. Well. Tell me what I've got to sign." 


| pulled out a packet of paper and offered it to the man across from 
me, along with a pen. 


"Read it thoroughly." 


"| don't need to. Your mother was a lovely lady, but despite what 
she's probably led you to believe, she was always much more 
interested in me than | was in her. That got her into trouble; as far as 
| see, this helps her out of it." 


Hephaestus signed the paper with a flourish, passing it back to me 
along with an envelope. | took them both, looking at the front of the 
envelope. It was addressed to my mother. 


"If you could pass that on to her I'd appreciate it. She should be 
more forthcoming with a few things after that. | would tell you myself, 
but it's the sort of thing that she'd want to say herself. Oh, and also, 
give her this." 


Hephaestus pulled out a small ring from his pocket, then passed it 
over to me. It looked like weaved silver and gold. | placed the ring 
and the envelope in my right pocket, then folded up the legal 
document and placed it in my left. | stood, looking down at my 
father. 


"| appreciate your understanding in this matter." 


"Your mother really must have changed, she's raised you to sound 


like a lawyer." 


"No, she's not changed much, | think. | never quite fit what she 
wanted from a son." 


"Bah, to hell with her. Anartists are a fickle folk, I'm sure she loves 
you all the same." 


| bowed to Hephaestus. 
"It was a pleasure to meet you, Dad." 
He stood, showing me back to the door. 


"The pleasure's all mine, Knoren. Come back if you're in the 
neighbourhood again." 


| left his house, strode back to the car, and drove away without 
looking back. 
That was the one time | saw my father while he was still alive. 


« Oops | Hub | Coldposter » 


Assistance for the Boss Lady 


“Jeremy, you disappoint me.” 


Doctor Isabel Helga Anastasia Parvati Wondertainment V, PhD! 
glowered over her folded fingers. The corgi sitting on her desk 
smiled back at her, exuding an air of incredible pride over the 
slightly-damp envelope that sat at its front paws. Isabel leaned back 
in her chair and sighed. 


“I’m getting reaaaaaaaaal tired of this, Jeremy.” She pushed off 
against the floor, sending her chair rolling across the office. “Your 
brother was never like this.” Jeremy lay down, resting his head on 
his paws. “He never brought me bad news, but with you, Jeremy, it’s 
always bad news.” The high-backed chair slowed to a stop. 


Isabel was slouched low enough to be effectively horizontal, her 
noodly limbs splayed out limply. Too much effort in sitting up straight 
now. Too much work. What was the point in work? What was the 
point in anything anymore? What was the point? She’d gotten the 
news directly from the corgi’s mouth: this quarter’s sales were in the 
toilet across the board. It was the worst quarter in a decade of bad 
quarters, and the Executive Board was not happy. 


Several gallons of Dr. Wondertainment Quadruple Bypass Minty 
Fudge Ripple Ice Cream™ had done little to dull the barbs in that 
sternly-worded letter from the Executive Board. 


We find your recent work to be severely lacking. 


Lacking? Lacking? She put her life, her soul, the very entirety of her 
being into each and every design. How could they even dare say her 
work was lacking? She was Doctor Wondertainment! She built this 
company on blood, sweat, tears, and that nasty pus that fills up zits! 


Kids just didn’t buy toys anymore. They were too busy playing those 
horrible video games, which rotted the brain and promoted all sorts 


of unwholesome things like murder, foul language, and 
microtransactions. Isabel tried, oh she tried. Her work was not 
lacking. The whiteboard walls of her office were covered in 
scribblings, enough ideas to keep the Wondertainment product line 
going for a full generation. But it wouldn’t do any good if the only 
people who bought her toys were a few odd collectors and the ever- 
dwindling number of Wondertainment faithful. All that work, all that 
effort, and no one liked any of her toys. Heart and soul poured out 
into her work, and the Board barks back with a wheezing “the focus 
groups don't like it.” Focus groups! There never used to be focus 
groups in this company! 


But there they were, and the Executive Board loved them dearly. 
What was the point in putting in her heart and soul if everything was 
just going to get shot down? 


Isabel scooted herself back to her desk and turned the chair back 
around. There was Jeremy, there was the envelope that held the 
report about how the Wondertainment brand was getting stomped 
by the Factory. 


The Factory. The very thought made all sorts of words bubble up 
from the recessed folds of her brain: ugly, angry words like floozy 
and fudgenugget and sassafrassin and consarnit and butt. Yeah, 
that was it. The Factory was butts. They wouldn’t know fun if fun 
decided it wanted to be a butt-hat and roost on top of their head. 


Actually that would be a neat idea, a hat for your butt, there are 
plenty of people who go around without hats anyway, so why not 
make a butt-hat so they can wear two hats... 


No...no...what was the point? People would think it was stupid. 
People would look at the butt hat and go “Oh what’s this? Some 
stupid baby toy for babies who poop? I’m not buying this because | 
am not some stupid baby who poops.” But that was stupid because 
everyone poops, not just babies and aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. 


She needed more ice cream. A lot more ice cream. Something 
different...Cotton Candy Caramel Colada, Crunchy Frog, Good Day 
to Die (By Chocolate), Bananaramadingdong, Five Kinds of Rocky 
Road Medley, Kung-fu Ripple, Thoroughly Intense Vanilla, 


Entropeanut The Buttery End of All Things...so many to choose 
from. 


Bah. She'd have all of it. Drown herself in ice cream. Isabel nudged 
the corgi with her finger. 


“Doink. Hey. Jeremy. Go get Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy, and Jeremy. 
I’ve got a job for you all.” 


The dog’s ears perked. Jeremy stood up, hopped off the desk, and 
scampered out of the office. He returned a moment later with four 
other corgis. They all sat in front of the desk, looking both adorable 
and expectant. Isabel leaned over and scowled down at them with 
as much authority as she could muster with her bright cotton-candy 
pink, blue, and purple striped sweater. 


“All right. Jeremy, | need you to go grab the keys and open up the 
warehouse. Jeremy, you and Jeremy man the forklift. Jeremy, you 
distract Mr. Security. Jeremy, you make sure the rest don’t mess it 
up. | want literally all the ice cream we have in storage right here, in 
my office, on the double.” 


The Jeremys barked affirmative in unison and stampeded back out 
of the office on stubby legs. 


Isabel sighed and spun around in her chair, slumping back down. 
Normally this would be fun, and she would be laughing with 
exceeding joyfulness, but she felt nothing now. Eventually she 
stopped spinning once more, her gaze coming to rest on the portrait 
of her father2, Dr. Reginald Philbert Lionel Archibald Westinghouse 
Wondertainment III, MD, PhD, DDS, Esq. 


“What do you want, dad?” 


The painting did not answer®, but it did look very important and 
mustachioed. He was one of those important-looking mustachioed 
men who hung around with other important-looking men with 
mustaches and said things like “yes, quite” and “oh indubitably”. He 
also looked very disappointed. 


“You never had to deal with video games, dad. Give a kid one of 


SCP-570: Puppet Show Gloves!!! 


Item #: SCP-570 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-570 is to be contained 
within a reinforced steel containment locker. No personnel are 
permitted to wear SCP-570, and all subjects who have worn it during 
testing are to have it removed immediately afterwards. Personnel 
who have worn SCP-570 are to be given medical treatment for their 
hands, following removal. 


Description: SCP-570 is a pair of cotton gloves. When worn, they 
will extend between 100-150 cotton fibers into the outer epidermal 
layer of the subject's hand. Removing SCP-570 after this point will 
cause extreme damage to the subject's epidermal and muscle 
tissue. Following initial exposure to SCP-570, these fibers will 
migrate throughout the subject's body, eventually establishing 
contiguous connections to 80% of the subject’s muscle tissue. 
Subjects affected by SCP-570 are classified as SCP-570-1. 


Instances of SCP-570-1 are capable of controlling the actions of any 
living organism they have physically contacted while wearing 
SCP-570. Subjects are connected to SCP-570-1 by several strings, 
which are produced from its fingers. These strings are not 
composed of the same material as SCP-570; instead, they contain 
DNA and match the composition of the SCP-570-1's muscle 
tendons. 


With practice, instances of SCP-570-1 are capable of controlling up 
to 20 subjects at once, by extending multiple strings out to the 
affected subjects from their fingertips. Note that the SCP-570-1 
instance controls the others by use of physical movement. Subjects 
will have to act carefully, due to the potential of tangling SCP-570's 
strings when there is a large number of affected subjects. 
SCP-570-1 subjects appear to be endowed with some basic 


those things and you have them eating out of the palm of your hand 
forever. The Factory can churn out the same thing every year and 
they eat it up and spend all their time on the line and they don’t buy 
toys.” 


The painting did not answer. 


“| know you had that trouble with Dark, but come on, cut me a little 
slack...” 


The painting did not respond. 


“Yes | know you got started by selling kicking cans on street corners, 
but I’m about to be put back on the street and...” 


The painting did not reply. 

“Shut up, painting of dad! You aren’t my real dad!” 

The painting did not react. 

“What do you want? I’m not as good as you were, dad!” 


The words hung in the air around her. Not as good. Did she really 
say that? Yeah, yeah she did. Not as good...maybe the Executive 
Board was right. Maybe she was slipping. Not like she could do 
anything about it. Bring on the ice cream! 


The office door opened. 
“Jeremy?” Isabel swung her chair around. 


Jeremy was not there. In his place was a bespectacled and rather 
professional looking youngish woman with a clipboard. She was 
shortish and plumpish4, with brownish coppery hair kept back in a 
bun, and a monopoly on the local freckle market. 


The plastic gears and AA batteries inside Isabel’s head clicked into 
place as she determined that this newcomer was not only not 
Jeremy, but had no ice cream. 


“Who are you?” 


“Emma Aieselthorpe-Brown. I’m your new assistant.” 


Isabel blinked. Assistant? She didn’t need an assistant. She had 
Jeremy. 


“I never asked for an assistant.” 


“The Executive Board assigned me here. | have the paperwork right 
here.” 


“Are you here to spy on me?” 
“No.” 

“Are you here to assassinate me?” 
“No.” 

“Oh. Okay.” 


There was a long, awkward silence, as if an invisible elephant had 
decided to very slowly walk through the room. 


“Do you need anything, ma’am?” 


“Uh...” She already had the ice cream on the way what else did she 
need. “A spoon. Go get me a spoon." 


“Right away, Ma’am.” She nodded curtly, handing a folded piece of 
paper to Isabel before exiting. 


Hmm. Isabel read the note. 
Dr. Wondertainment - 


In an effort to counter your recent drop in productivity, we 
the Executive Board have seen it fit to assign you with a 
personal assistant for the forseeable future. Ms 
Aislethorp-Brown has been judged as overwhelmingly 
competent in this regard, and we expect that she will 
serve as sufficient impetus towards improved 
performance. 


-The Executive Board, Dr. Wondertainment Inc. 


There was a lot of very fine print and legal mumbo-jumbo 
underneath all that, but Isabel didn’t care. No one ever read those 
things. She crumpled up the paper and tossed it in her Dr. 
Wondertainment Hungry Heinrich Wastebin™. Why give her an 
assistant if they were just going to fire her anyway?