The contents of SCP-699 are under investigation and currently in 
dispute among researchers. The contents of SCP-699 are 
apparently telepathic and appear differently to most observers, 
depending upon their desires and psychological state. 


knowledge till our tech improves- if so, what we need to 
know will be available on a finer level." 


"We don't even know what it means- can't we do a few 
more experiments till then, see if we learn anything?" 


"When the Extratemporal Site starts throwing around 
phrases like ‘universal culling’ and asks you to jump, all 
you Say is ‘how high'." 


Zyn frowned. "They can't use this knowledge about 
timelines to, | don't know, avert disasters and save lives-" 


"Maybe they are. Time is some complicated shit," said 
the representative, standing up. "Look. | can't tell you. | 
can't even tell you any of that, especially the archive shit. 
With that in mind, do you have any official comments for 
the Council?" 


"Tell them we'll halt research and maintain normal 
feeding and maintenance without exposing personnel to 
it. Guards will have our full cooperation. Although Dr. 
Mercer will be very sad." 


"I'll pass it on. Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Kiryu.' 


That was Zyn Kiryu's official stance, as reported to the 
O5 Council. 


It was Kiryu Labs' last day with the dinosaur. Her new 
holding cell, layered with steel and concrete and an 
underground bunker at a brand new site, was complete. 
An armored truck was on its way to pick her up. 
Research on her was permanently suspended, human 
interactions would be limited to what was absolutely 
necessary. At least she'd be in comfort- they'd spare no 
expense at keeping her hale and healthy. And on that 
account, Zyn supposed, the research that her brother's 
lab had done up till then would prove useful. Small 
comfort. 


She'd spent a lot of the last week in either the sitting 
room of the lab, or in her room, thinking, ever since the 
message's arrival. It hadn't looked unusual. Everyone 
had been disappointed about the loss of their favorite 
beast. 


Zyn Kiryu was in the cell with her, doing a routine check 
on the pond filtration and water level. 682 was lazing 
under a heat lamp in one corner. 


Alarm klaxons began to blare. Immediately, the door of 
the containment unit locked tight. Riven's voice came on 
over the intercom. 


"There's something wrong with one of the biohazard cold 
storage units, one of the really bad ones. They're 
keeping everything on lockdown till they know what's 
happened. You okay in there, Zyn?" 


"I'm fine," said Zyn. "Stay put. Keep me posted." 


The intercom turned off. Zyn sat down on a patch of 
sand near 682. If her calculations had been right, this 
would take a good hour for them to work out. 


It hadn't been hard. She'd fiddled with a couple of wires 
on the lock alarm- not the lock, just the alarm- when she 
was replacing a sample yesterday. A security camera 
wouldn't have picked it up, and nobody was in real 
danger. She was just locked in with 682. 


"You've heard that they're moving you, right?" she asked 
the dinosaur. 


682 blinked her big black eyes, placid, working her jaw. 
Then: "| thought, perhaps." 


If 682 was in a speaking mood, this might even work. 
"Do you know why?" asked Zyn. 


"Tell me, little thing." 


"We got a message from, um, a place where the 
Foundation- our friends- can look at the multiverse. Do 
you know what that is? It's, um, our science says that 
there are many possible universes, and whenever 
anything happens, there are different ways it could have 
happened. And for each possibility, the world splits, so 
there are different worlds for every different thing that 
could happen. Those worlds aren't easy to see, but 
they're real in some way, and our friends say that they 
can see all the ways these choices and events can 
unfold. They all start from the same place, but they have 
every event that could have happened. 


"Only... our friends told us that there aren't any worlds 
that don't have you in them. Every time you might have 
died or been injured, that universe just goes way, like it 
never existed. 


"So from the inside, to us, who can't see all those worlds, 
it just looks like you're incredibly lucky. That time 058 got 
loose, it came close to you, but then we found out about 
that cross-affect with the sphere thing that kept it at bay. 
When those nuts with the guns showed up, the Dove 
Flock arrived at exactly the right time to stop them from 
doing any damage. Any universe where that didn't 
happen just winked out of existence. 


"And... with 106 and that possessed guard, they knew, 
didn't they? They were aware of the multiversal 
implications somehow, or just of your anomaly. 106 didn't 
try to attack you because it knew that it couldn't." 


682 gazed at her with black eyes, glass-like under honey 
yellow feathers. 


"So- this was stupid of me. This was probably, with the 
implications of all that, really stupid. | don't even know if 
you're aware of this. You're at least billions of years old. 
As far as we know, the universe has never existed 
without you." 


Zyn gulped. 


"What are you?" 


Location: Site 19, Safe-Class Biological Containment Area 
Personnel Involved: Dr. Zyn Kiryu 


+ How to Build a World from Scratch 


How to Build a World from 
Scratch 


[As related to Dr. Zyn Kiryu, Researcher, Level 3, by 
SCP-682 on / / during Site 19 Research Wing lock- 
down] 


“You awake in a restless land. You awake ina 
place that has never known peace since it was 
made. You awake in a dry place, a wet place, 
a hot and bitter place, a cold and sour place. It 
was fated, maybe. Nothing you do will let you 
leave. You awake with the vision of the 
restless land as a nightmare. 


"You do not know the beginning- you just know 
where you awaken. The nightmare. All of your 
tomorrows start here. 


"You have to start in the heavy place. To 
temper a world that is too mercurial, you must 
begin where it is heavy. Dive and find the 
bones of the earth, and the solid wall where 
the warmth comes through. The warmth is 
crucial. Explore, nook and cranny, in the 
cracking edge of the earth skin. Find the right 
place, sheltered yet warm, with many nests. 
Take your time. You have enough. 


“Breathe into it. Give yourself to it. It will take 
time. 


“There are strands of mud around you- put 
them together. Find what works. Breath into it. 
You will create vessels. You will create cycles 
and the capacity to take in mud - gain energy 
from its destruction. It will require some form of 
destruction - but there is no other way. Or 
none that | have thought of. Finally, you must 
give it a promise - a promise that will tell tt how 
to make itself." 


"Let it go from you - when it is ready. Let it 
leave you. It will teeter - like a stone placed on 
the edge of a precipice. You will not know 
whether it will fall or not. It will tremble. Then - 
slowly - when you least imagined it - it will 
begin to float. 


“It will grow and grow. The design will spread 
from one cradle of mud to another - to the hot 
places where the sour water feeds them. 


“There will be thieves. The thieves are small 
things - broken fragments that will rob the 
Promise - steal the hard work of the others to 
tell their own versions. You had not planned 
for this. They will surprise you most - having 
come from the pieces you made - yet your gifts 
to Parent Universe drop one by one. You will 
fear for them. You will fear for it all. 


“You will try to undo it. It is too late. The 
cellstuff will float into dark water - empty 
promises. You have built Death into the 
universe. 


“You will want to start again - make something 
more in your own image. Remove that curse 
from all existence. But your curse is that you 


cannot make a thing that will outlive you. 
"Futile, futile. It was inevitable. 


“But that curse will give you a Promise, too. 
When yout little gifts repeat the Promise to the 
mud - it will change just barely. This is how it 
will build itself. It is not what you wrote - but as 
time runs - it is what the gifts will need to 
know. It will Know things you do not. It will 
know tenacity by teaching itself. 


“And you will wonder. If this is what you have 
taught to the dead mud, to be tenacious - to 
teach itself - perhaps you have not failed at all. 


“Shepherd it - uplift it. The vents are not the 
place to stay - there is sun on the surface - 
burning and bright - for those brave enough to 
claim it. 


"Shape the airs of the land - the waters of the 
seas - the mud of the earth. Teach it to work 
together - cooperate - become larger. 


"Thievery will pervade - among the self-made 
things and all of your sons and daughters and 
children - and nothing will be as black and 
white as you thought when you built. Thievery 
is tenacious - and tenacity is, if nothing else, 
the goal. It will challenge everyone else. There 
are many kinds of tenacity. And you will 
wonder - and think long thoughts, as you 
watch it grow. 


“Your gifts will share the Promise with the 
unthinking mud in unthinkable clever ways. 
You, too, must change your form - somehow - 
grow to be with them and shepherd them 
where they must go. Prevent so many ends of 
days. You will be glad you did not sleep 


through it. 


“There are many possible ends. So many will 
knock you sideways - kick you astray - and 
invite death to the core of your creation. You 
will have to try harder. Whatever you are 
making - the answer to your questions - it will 
have to be more tenacious than that. But it will 
do much of the work itself. The promise begins 
to ask itself what it wants to be. Let it choose. 
Your long loneliness is coming to a close. 


“Now you have built and built and wonder why 
you did it. You do not have to build anymore - 
but you watch over a thing you make - and 
love and fear it. How did you come here in the 
first place? Was this your purpose? 


"Perhaps it was a jeer to whatever caused you 
to be here in the first place - whatever placed 
you in a dead universe with the curse of 
loneliness - and the curse of loss. | do not 
know what to tell you. | know you have so 
many questions. 


“But | look at what you have done and | think it 
is enough. | think it is good work. You have 
made something where there was nothing, and 
you have made happiness where there was no 
thought, and you have made a promise where 
there was nothing to hope for. A promise of 
how to be in a universe that does not care. 


“But there is me - and | am as close to the 
heart of the universe as space itself - and | 
have cared always. | am awed by your tenacity 
and survival. The good things of life and the 
end of the dominion of thieves. 


"The warm fires - the great curiosities - the 
tilled fields - the cattle in your stable - the dog 


by your front door. The curiosities of space 
and truth itself. 


"The seeds | hope you will plant to grow in the 
light of other suns. 


“Yes - | mean you now. 


“lam only one old dinosaur and | have done 
my part. The promise that makes you what you 
are, all of it you wrote, not me. But | think we 
share this alike. 


“lam sorry about the death. | cannot remove 
your pain or your ills. | do not have that power 
over what | started. Perhaps once long ago - 
had | thought longer and harder before 
beginning - 


"~ but | have been thinking a long time since 
and have no answer. And still, | think... 


"Yes, | think | have repaid my debts. 


"Child, what do you say?" 


Location: 2272272? 
Personnel Involved: ?22?72??? 


+ Causality 


Causality 


Outside of almost all of sentient life's conception of time, 
there is a garden. It's ripe with fruit, pungent with herbs. 
It doesn't exist for cosmic, inexplicable reasons. It's not a 
paradise, or an end-all-be-all, or even exist for religious 
reasons, as far as anything touched by human culture 


can be said to be free of religious reasons. 
No, it's here because Stefan planted it. 


The extratemporal site has some artificially generated 
time. After all, you couldn't do anything without it. Their 
generator skims energy from the heart of a million Big 
Bangs, and you can convert energy into anything with 
enough clever thinking and enough energy. And they 
had energy. 


So Extratemporal Site 000 has a timestream, 
independent of any other, and food, and instrumentation, 
and the scrapings of an existence. 


And, because most of the staff are human, it has an 
orchard, and a chicken coop, and a rec room, anda 
garden. Stefan's favorite. A man needs a hobby. 


He stands up, brushing dirt from his knees onto the bell 
peppers below. The fruit trees need pruning soon, and 
there are summer squash and zucchini ready for 
harvesting any day now. The message about the 
dinosaur was sent out this morning. It's afternoon now, 
and he wiped his brow and took a sip from his water 
bottle as he trudged uphill. At the top of the hill, under an 
abstract blue dome for a sky, is the observatory, and the 
hub of his existence. The simulations ought to be done 
by now. 


Inside the observatory, he confirms it. The message has 
opened up some timelines that would otherwise have 
been cut off, which means success. That was the goal- 
keeping options open. 


Also, he supposes, the lives (billions? sometimes 
trillions?) contained by each infinite world. Although 
when you were talking about worlds that were close to 
identical, morality becomes interesting. 


That isn't Stefan's job, though. He suspects his next task 


is a little different. 


For all of their beautiful equipment, for all of their ability 
to condense infinite multiverses into simulated elegant 
strands, for their careful algorithms that robbed tiny 
amounts of energy from the beginning of time, taking it to 
leave messages in its absence and then recycling it into 
light, food, oxygen, and entropy reversal for one small 
extratemporal homestead of wayward earthlings- for all 
of that, he stil/ can't explain that goddamn dinosaur. 


It didn't make any sense. For all interactions between the 
anomalous and the multiverse- and there were many- 
that one was uniquely pervasive. It didn't even start 
anywhere. It had been there the whole damn time. That's 
the strangest of all. 


At the beginning, it had made his head hurt. 
Later, it made him think. 


More research certainly needs to be done. With more 
computer power, and more effort, they might be able to 
suss out a pattern of cause and effect that would, 
eventually, explain why 682 existed and what its 
connection to the entirety of the multiverse was. 


Maybe it's just God. Anything is possible. 


But if they examine at every correlation they can, and still 
turn up nothing- Stefan wonders if they'll need to take 
action. 


The esoteric engine that connects them to the beginning 
of time runs seldom, with infinitesimal amounts of power. 
It isn't the stylus Stefan would have picked. But if you 
could use it to write a message into the background heat 
of the universe, it meant you were having a physical 
impact on the energy that would eventually become 
matter, then atoms, then molecules and stranger 
constructs yet. 


90% of observers see the contents in a positive way — as something 
they want to possess or to release. These viewers have reported 
seeing precious metals, artwork, family members, pets, religious 
figures, and apparently useful technology contained in SCP-699, 
and experience a strong desire to open the container. 


Approximately 9% of observers have a “negative” reaction to 
SCP-699’s contents, and view something frightening or dangerous. 
Reported contents have included spiders, snakes, demonic 
humanoids, and other dangerous SCP artifacts, including SCP- 
These observers do not exhibit any desire to release the contents of 
SCP-699.