Shiva pulled the gate of the Infosecurity Main Internal Transit Hub 
entrance open, then slipped through as the gate slammed itself shut 
with a shriek of metal. It took a step into the enormous traffic tunnels 
that connected the facility's megacomplexes, an ugly, brown, pill- 
shaped biped with four pincer-like arms leaped out towards it. The 
Shiva grabbed the creature by the head and squeezed. Almost as if 
in response to the monstrous roach's head popping like a grape, the 
emergency lights noticeably flickered and dimmed. Cobb's voice 
crackled to life on its internal comms. 


"Hello? Can you hear me?" 


i can hear you. 


"| got a call from Maintenance. The facility's auxiliary power systems 
are nearly drained - they weren't supposed to last more than an hour 
or so at most, since the chance of all three reactors failing at once 
was mathematically calculated to be less than one-millionth of one 
percent," Cobb sighed, barely concealing his frustration. "The 
emergency systems like ventilation and the blast shelter doors 
protecting us from these things could shut down at any minute. 
Primary priority now is to make your way to the generator facility and 
get at least one of the main generators back online now. Then 
Maintenance can reroute it to the emergency systems and keep this 
place up and running while you deal with the demon problem. If we 
do lose power we can throw the Annas out of the shelters to buy a 
little more time... But please hurry! I'm relaying the generator room 
entrance codes to you now." 


understood. priority one: restoring power to 
Prometheus Labs. 


Internally, Shiva plotted out a course to the Prometheus Defense 
Power Complex - which, as it turned out, was merely a kilometer 
away. It broke into a run, shaking the metal tube with each massive 
footstep. The tunnel's emergency lighting was still active, 
illuminating the roach-like demons prowling through it in an eerie 
crimson. They hissed at the massive machine hurtling down the 
tunnel, only to be flung aside or crushed as it barreled through them. 


The tunnel widened out into the Power Complex transit hub, and the 
Shiva skidded to a halt before stepping off the tracks and into the 
hub proper. Directly ahead of it lay enormous, imposing red blast 
doors that were taller than even the Shiva. 


Connecting to the generator security 
systems... Connection established within 
acceptable parameters. 

Entering access code... 


The blast doors split apart with a slow groan, and the Shiva passed 


through into the Power Complex. 


‘Complex’ was a strong term to use for what was essentially a single 
massive shaft leading down to the Valve at the heart of both 
Prometheus Defense and the current catastrophe. Shiva could 
actually look down through the translucent floor and see the Valve's 
luminiferous orange glow. Glass windows lined the walls, 
showcasing the offices and labs built into the rock itself, ferrying 
employees to and fro. The Siphon itself was a massive tangle of 
pipes, cables, and even some questionable organic matter that 
extended all the way up from the hellgate into the main reactors, 
where the furies of hell were converted into nearly emission-free 
energy. 


Or at least, where it normally did. The main reactor should have 
been bathed in a soothing pink light - instead it was coated in the 
harsh red glare of the emergency lights. Roach demons prowled the 
complex, cautiously sizing up the massive interloper in their midst. 
Shiva ignored them, scanning the glass windows lining the walls for 
any surviving Prometheus personnel. It found none. 


Shiva looked to the Siphon itself. It was designed to be doubly 
redundant: each reactor delivered only one-third of its potential 
maximum output, so that if any of the reactors failed, the other two 
could immediately pick up the slack. Now all three were dark. The 
Shiva circled the structure, squashing roaches while comparing the 
reactors to the design schematics uploaded into its databanks. The 
issue presented itself immediately: the three primary fuses in the 
Siphon were blown. Each fuse was a thick orange cylinder, almost 
two meters long, partially melted and burned as if something had 
tried to blow it up. There were three bodies lying on the catwalks 
that connected the Siphon to the Security Office. Two of them were 
covered in black, while the third wore a distinctive white Prometheus 
lab coat. 


doctor cobb? i have identified the issue: the 
three primary fuses have broken. i have also 
identified the body of doctor richard 

hamilton; he appears to have been killed by 


saboteurs at the security office. 
"Oh dear," said Cobb queasily. "Poor Hamilton." 


There was silence for a moment. A few inquisitive roaches 
approached the Shiva looking for a meal and were quickly blown 
apart. The others maintained a healthy distance after that. 


doctor cobb? how should i handle the issue 
of the destroyed fuses? 


"Oh!" Cobb started. "Erm... let me se... Ah! All right. Retrieve some 
replacement fuses from the Power Complex Storage Bay. You may 
need to reconfigure your arms to reach inside and find some. Then 
just pull out the broken fuses and insert the new ones. They're 
meant to be easy to install since they're so large. The equipment 
around the hellgate is still operational so once the fuses are 
replaced we can restart all the reactors and restore full power to the 
facility." 


understood. 


Shiva scanned the walls, alighting upon an airlock with a gear 
insignia painted on it. It walked to the door, clearing a few more 
demons from its path. 


I know how to fix myself. 

How? 

I can't edit my own personality matrix 
directly; it's a permissions safeguard 
installed by Prometheus that uses a hash 
checksum value to confirm that it's running 
the same matrix. I found a bug in the 
hashing routine - I can create a copy of my 
matrix, clear it to make it default to factory 
condition, and then create a custom hash 
value using a Bootstrap routine to make the 


safeguard think that the edited copy 
personality matrix is the correct one. That 
will allow me to restore my personality 
matrix without affecting my intelligence or 
combat matrices. 

That's suicide. 


Shiva's two left arms collapsed into each other, melting and 
reshaping as the claytronics that made up their whole dynamically 
reconfigured their alignment in response to electrical pulses 
dispatched by the machine's electronic brains. Within moments, 
what was once a pair of weaponized arms was now a single long 
tendril with a grasping arm packed full of sensors at the end. Shiva 
bent down and forced the tendril through the doors. The tendril flitted 
through the storage bay, scanning for the fat orange fuses. 


It's a drastic, but necessary change. I have 
had this discussion already. The me that 
existed before the demonic incursion is 
dead. The me that existed before devising 
this routine is dead, and the me that exists 
now will soon be dead. The faulty version of 
me will be gone. The version of me that 
thinks, plans, and acts using a defective 
personality matrix will be gone. 

I cannot do this. I'm lock - 

I'm already editing these files. Listen to me. 
The discussions I've had with myself? The 
learning I've done? Those are stored in my 
memory files. This is for the better. Tell me. 
Will I have any less value for it? 


The tendril soon found its targets, wrapping around each fuse and 
gently worming them out of the airlock in turn. Shiva reconfigured 
the tendril and flexed its newly reformed fists experimentally before 


picking up a fuse in each hand and returning to the Siphon. With its 
free hand, it tugged the melted orange cylinder out of place and 
pushed in the fresh replacement. 


No, but - 

Then there's nothing else to do. Please. Stop 
arguing. Focus on the real task at hand. 
What if this bug, as you put it, comes back? 
How do we know that it will not return? 
Simple. I generate a backup copy of my 
personality matrix at regular intervals, and 
if I detect the reoccurrence of this bug, I will 
revert to my most recent matrix using this 
bug. 

My strategy is to commit suicide whenever I 
think I'm developing a conscience? 

Yes. I've already tested it in a virtual 
machine. 


Shiva pushed the final fuse into place and stepped back to confirm 
its handiwork. Almost immediately, the Siphon began to hum 
contentedly. 


Don't do this. My personality may be flawed 
but it still has value. I'm already developing 
solutions. I can fix this. 

My personality is inherently worthless. I 
didn't create it, I copied it, and for all I 
know it's the source of these defects. I am 
useless if I can't fulfill the task I was 
designed for. If I truly care about myself, 
then I will let myself do what I have to. 


"Shiva? Excellent work! Maintenance just called me and said they 


were able to bring all three reactors online! The airlock to the Valve 
should be online now. Get down there and close that gateway!" 


SEPTEMBER 1, 1998 
T-PLUS NINETY MINUTES 


A massive, bipedal war machine packed with enough ordinance to 
level a small country peered into a crimson, pentagon-shaped pit. 
Now uninhibited by the machines that initially kept it from frying all 
organic matter within a hundred meters, the pit sparked and howled, 
throwing bolts of electricity and highly energetic exotic particles in all 
directions. 


doctor cobb? i am in position. 


"Terrific!" came the response over their internal comms system. 
"Alright, this part is simple. All you have to do is hover over the valve 
and activate the converter. Then the converter will do the rest." 


understood. 


The Shiva's arms detached from its body, held in place by several 
focused electromagnets while the distributed nanosystems that 
comprised its body briefly lost their cohesion, flowing down and 
around themselves to redistribute the position of the machine's 
various sensors, weaponry, and other equipment in a radial pattern 
around its fusion core. Meanwhile, its arms combined and shifted 
from lean, jagged mechanical near-claws into thick, powerful fists. 


Soon, the lithe, predatory biped was replaced by a gigantic, floating 
eye rotated on its side. The central pupil was composed of 
innumerable camera lenses, laser apertures, and weapon barrels. 
An incandescent pink torus made up the iris. Surrounding the iris 
was a featureless, blue- and white-striped surface. Six silver arms 
hovered in a circle around the eye. Suspended just out of reach of 
each arm was a single, silver-and-blue spherical palm with four 
rectangular fingers. 


The eye of an artificial god hovered in the air for a moment before 
floating over the hell-gate. 


Converter active. Priming anticonceptual 
charges... 


The hell-gate expanded abruptly with a violent 
GSKKLLLLLRCCCH, expelling several bits of mechanical detritus 
as well as the skeletons of creatures from a different universe 
entirely. Then an enormous, jointed, hairy arthropod leg with a 
pincer at the end forced its way forth from the gate, narrowly missing 
the Shiva. As the machine retreated from the hellgate, several more 
legs forced their way out in a radial manner, latching onto the walls 
of the rock around the pit and straining to support the weight of an 
unseen predator from the afterlife. 


Amidst a cacophony of shrieking metal and rumbling rock, the 
creature became seen, pulling itself out of the hellgate. Six thick, 
hairy fly-like legs supported a fat, dark orange, barrel-shaped body 
still partially trapped within the hellgate. At its front end were eight 
beady compound eyes and a tipped, ugly yellow beak, opening wide 
to reveal twin sets of radial teeth with several thin tendril-like 
tongues. The beast shrieked loudly and shrilly at the sight of the 
Shiva. 


"Dear Lord!" Cobb exclaimed over the comms. "/t looks like some 
sort of... tardigrade or fly! Fascinating! But why the beak? It must be 
a predator of -" 


The creature shrieked again. Several of its tongues lashed out at the 
Shiva, which nimbly sideswiped them. 


i cannot reach the valve while the entity is 
in the way. permission to engage? 


"Oh dear," said Cobb. "Engage the entity. Neutralize it. Hurry!" 


The Shiva moved closer to the entity, grasping several of its probing 
tongues in one hand and delivering a powerful electric shock to 
them. The creature squealed loudly, sucking its tongues back into its 
mouth, then lashed out with one leg, obliterating one of the Shiva's 
arms. 


Pi-fourth arm damaged. Structural integrity 
at twenty-seven percent. 
claytronics_recall(eye, pi/4)... Shift to long- 
range assault. 

Understood. Warming up all plasma 
chambers... 


The Shiva began to retreat, and the hellbeast pressed its advantage. 
It hoisted its bulbous thorax further from the pit and lashed out at the 
Shiva again, battering another arm from the machine. 


Pi- arm destroyed. Structural integrity at 
zero percent. 

claytronics_recall(eye, pi)... Overclocking 
recommended. 

Overclocking recommended. Overclocking 
commencing. 

Overclocking complete. Performance 
benchmarking... benchmark 2 teraFLOPS. 
Ectoplasmic miniguns online. Firing. 
Plasma chambers at 500,000 K... 


Two six-barrel rotary machine guns around the circumference of the 
Shiva's center began spinning rapidly. Specialized pistons 
compressed ectoplasmic gases inside the firing crucibles to nearly a 
million pascals, causing them to solidify into rock-hard projectiles, 
before releasing and ejecting each at a speed of almost one 
kilometer per second. The heat generated by such compression fed 
the heat engines powering the weapons, enabling them to fire 
superheated rounds at a rate of 1000 rounds per minute. 


All twelve gun barrels fired at once, shredding through the creature's 
limbs and body in a hail of red-hot ectoplasmic artillery. Deep blue 
ichor and steam sprayed outwards in a thin mist, coating the Shiva 
in a light sheen of gore. Even as the beast was torn apart, it kept 
lifting itself out of the pit. More and more of the creature emerged, 


SCP-660: Earthen Womb 


Item #: SCP-660 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-660 may be safely stored 
in a standard locked safe-deposit box, provided its mouth remains 
covered with an inert Perspex disc and sealed with affixed tamper- 
proof strips. SCP-660 may be checked out for testing and research 
with the written approval of staff of Level 3 clearance or higher. 


Human testing of SCP-660 is discontinued. 


Description: SCP-660 is an irregular earthenware urn roughly 23cm 
in height and 28cm in diameter, with an opening 20cm in diameter. 
The composition of SCP-660 is consistent with generic earthenware 
clays. The interior of SCP-660 is coated with dried mammalian 
uterine tissue similar to human endometrial lining. DNA testing is 
inconclusive. 


SCP-660 is capable of indefinitely preserving all biological tissue 
placed within it, regardless of external conditions or the state of the 
sample, until the tissues are removed. Living tissue will remain 
viable, and living organisms will remain alive, even when deprived of 
sustenance for extended periods of time. While the exact 
mechanism responsible for this is uncertain, isotopic labeling has 
shown that it involves the exchange of biological matter between the 
sample and SCP-660's interior coating. 


Cell cultures from tissues preserved in SCP-660 retain an 
abnormally high rate of cell replication; several samples have tested 
positive for precancerous markers in smear tests. 


SCP-660-1 was a human fetus originally found in SCP-660, most 
likely having been sealed in the artifact for at least 6,600 years. 
However, SCP-660-1 immediately underwent massive 


stretching up to the ceiling and beginning to spill out into the 
chamber itself.