If you ask me, | think that stick watchers deserve more recognition 
from the greater Foundation community. Clearly I'm biased in this 
regard, but you see, we have to think of every conceivable way a 
human being can interact with any given object in an area, and we 
have to do it fast. If the anomaly isn’t found within the first few hours, 
the perimeter has to be expanded, more teams have to be called in, 
and every object in the building that isn’t bolted to the wall has to be 
sealed in an individually marked biohazard bag and shipped to the 
nearest research site for more thorough experimentation. This is 
obviously very expensive and time consuming, so the Foundation 
puts a lot of pressure on Preliminary Identification to find the 
anomaly as quickly as possible. If a stick watcher calls for a bagging 
and the research center discovers that the stick watcher missed 
something obvious, the stick watcher is retired soon afterward. 


I’ve been a stick watcher for about a decade now. 


It's the simple triggers that most watchers tend to miss— the triggers 
that are subtle enough to be easily overlooked, but logical enough to 
seem obvious once you know what to look for. Sometimes the 
effects are logically associated with the object, but not always. The 
trick is to be patient and avoid rushing through the process. 


A few months ago | was told to find an object that caused a person’s 
hand bones to shoot out the ends of their fingers. | started by 
instructing the sticks to interact with hand-associated things like 
gloves and bracelets. One of my sticks tried on a watch, and after 
experiencing no effects, began to take it off. | told them to keep it on 
and fiddle with the dial. Lo and behold, their phalanges blasted out 
their fingertips. Under my supervision, it only took eight minutes for 
my team to identify the anomaly. My handlers recognized this 
achievement by granting me a dozen new DVDs and an honest-to- 
goodness philodendron for my living quarters. 


Watchers have to be incredibly thorough when giving instructions. 
Every potential trigger has to be considered. 


Don’t just lie down on the bed. Fall asleep on it. 
Don't just drink tap water from that mug. Brew some coffee or tea. 


Don't just look at the tabs they have open on their web browser. 
Check their history. 


Use the pen to draw a picture. 

Use the pen to write a poem. 

Use the pen to write a greeting. 

Use the pen to write on the back of your hand. 
Use the pen to write on someone else. 

Click the pen incessantly for twenty seconds. 


It may sound tedious, and sometimes it is, but there’s always 
something uniquely fascinating about it, too. Every new anomaly is a 
puzzle waiting to be solved, and solving the puzzles is immensely 


gratifying. It certainly isn't boring for the sticks. They aren't briefed 
on the nature of the anomaly they’re looking for. That lingering 
uncertainty is enough to keep most of them on their toes, but it still 
doesn't spook them nearly as badly as telling them what their 
potential fate might be. 


Janice, for instance, wouldn’t have worked nearly as quickly and 
efficiently as she did if she’d known there was a chance that clicking 
that pen would cause her internal organs to liquefy. 


During today’s investigation, | instructed Shelby to collect all of the 
victim’s make-up and then apply it to her own face. Lipstick. Eye 
shadow. Eyeliner. Foundation. Blush. All of it. Then | told her to wait. 
Fifteen minutes later she had about a dozen tongues dangling from 
her nostrils, each of them roughly three feet long. Overall 
identification time after | entered the building was just over nineteen 
minutes. If the anomalous effects had triggered immediately, my 
time would have been four minutes and thirty-three seconds. It 
would have been a new personal record. | wasn't too disappointed, 
though; there will be other opportunities in the future. 


| never identified which particular variety of make-up did it, but | 
didn’t have to. | just told Bridget to seal all the make-up in some 
biohazard bags and then | called it a day. We’re not required to find 
the exact anomaly. We’re just the preliminary identification team, 
after all. Narrowing it down to a reasonably small collection of items 
is usually good enough for my superiors. After all, to conduct a 
proper test, you’d need to try each type of make-up on a different 
Class-D, and | didn’t have enough colleagues on hand to experiment 
on. 


There are plenty more test subjects where they came from, though. 
The folks at Site-313 shouldn’t have any trouble narrowing it down. 


If | sound like I’m not particularly upset by what happens to my 
teammates, it’s because I’m not. Don’t just chalk that up to me being 
a heartless Class-D criminal, though. I’m deeply sympathetic to the 
innocent victims of the anomalies we find. The reason | don’t grieve 
my fellow Class-Ds is because | know that all of us did something to 
deserve our position. 


| don’t remember what crime | committed to earn my status as a 
Class-D. My earliest memory is waking up at Site-313 and being told 
that my memory had been wiped. Sticks don’t get wiped, since some 
anomalies are triggered by a person’s memories. Supervisors like 
myself aren't required to expose themselves to anomalous effects, 
so all nonessential memories are removed as soon as we begin our 
jobs. 


| don’t know how the Foundation decides who will be a stick and 
who will be a watcher. | really don't. There is, in all likelihood, a 
selection process that the Foundation uses to choose supervisors. 
But however likely that is, the fact remains that | don't Know it. And 
this might sound strange, but out of all the horrors | have to put up 
with, that’s the thing that keeps me awake at night. 


When you work for the Foundation, you grow accustomed to not 
knowing things. There are a million little mysteries you'll never learn 
the answers to. I'll never Know who | used to be. I'll never know what 
my family was like. You might expect those would be the mysteries 
that haunt me, but | stopped caring about my past completely after 
the first few years. The question that burns in my mind is why I’m a 
watcher and not just a stick. 


My counselor says that it’s survivor's guilt. That makes sense. 
Watchers just watch the sticks poke things. Watchers just watch 
when the things poke back. Watchers just watch as sticks get 
brutally murdered and transformed into terrifying monsters. 
Watchers just watch as sticks lose their minds, lose their souls, and 
lose their humanity in hundreds of different ways. 


When | saw those tongues squirming out of Shelby’s nose, | 
suppose my first thought should have been, “My god, that poor 
woman!” But it wasn’t. | hardly felt any horror or pity at all. | just felt 
the same thrill and satisfaction that | imagine most people probably 
get from solving an especially challenging crossword puzzle or 
Sudoku. 


| know this is going to sound horrible, but after all these years, | 
honestly don’t care what happens to the sticks anymore. And I’m 
perfectly fine not caring. 


So yeah, probably not survivor's guilt. 


I’ve been doing this long enough, and if I’m a Class-D, it’s entirely 
possible that the same mental or social disorder that led me to 
commit my crime in the first place is also keeping me from 
experiencing any remorse at the loss of my co-workers. 


I’m not bothered by the fact that | don’t care. I’m bothered by the fact 
that | don’t know why | was selected to be a watcher instead of a 
stick. Or, to approach it from a slightly different angle, I'm bothered 
by the fact that | don’t know if the Foundation knew I'd love my job 
so much. 


It’s like an unfinished identification mission. | might find a correlation 
between an item and an effect, but sometimes | simply cannot find a 
trigger, or even determine if there is one. Once I’ve left a scene, I’m 
off the case. If they do end up finding the trigger during their lab 
experiments, they won't tell me what it is. I’m just left wondering, and 
that drives me up the wall. 


| don’t need to know what the trigger is. | just need to know that one 
exists. | need to Know that someone touched something or used 
something that they shouldn't have. | need to know that there’s a 
reason. | need to know that there’s a cause. | need to know that the 
victim did something, even something totally innocent, which led to 
their fate. 


Because if they didn't, if something bad just randomly happened and 
there’s no cursed doll or haunted dishwasher to blame, then the 
woman with tongues running down her face was the victim of some 
cosmic joke. It would mean that someone suffered simply because 
the universe had gotten the urge to screw someone over for 
absolutely no reason, not even an arbitrary one. 


| want to believe that the Foundation knew I’d love my job, or at least 
suspected | would. | want to believe | was chosen for a specific 
reason. | want to believe there’s a trigger. 


If | wasn’t chosen by the Foundation, then that only leaves two other 
possibilities. One possibility is that | ended up here, in this job that’s 
heaven for me and hell for any rational person, completely by 


chance, and my happiness is the result of a one-in-a-million fluke of 
probability. If there are infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters, I’m 
the monkey who typed out Shakespeare. 


The other possibility is there is a sapient, unseen force orchestrating 
what goes on in the universe, and that force occasionally decides to 
make innocent people suffer and criminals like myself perfectly 
happy for absolutely no reason whatsoever. 


| don’t know which one it is. What’s worse, | don’t know which 
disturbs me more. And yes, | realize that the most probable 
explanation is that the Foundation simply deemed me a good fit for 
the job, but the fact remains that |. Don't. Know. 


I’m under quarantine right now. They always confine me for 
observation after I've been around an anomaly. Since | never make 
physical contact with anything on the field, the only things they really 
have to worry about are slow-acting cognitive and memetic hazards. 
The odds of me being affected by either of those are incredibly slim, 
and if the anomaly has a dormant period of over a month, then the 
initial victim will have probably already infected half the population 
anyway. As long as | still seem reasonably normal after a few 
weeks, they'll put me on another team and give me another 
assignment. 


When that happens, I'll enter another strange building. I'll find 
another strange artifact. I'll solve another mystery. I'll discover 
another new anomaly. 


And for one brief moment, I'll Know something that the Foundation 
doesn't. 


Anyway. 


| hope this gave you a better understanding of what it's like to work 
in Preliminary Identification. Thank you for reading. 


SCP-997: Vermin Suppressor 


Item #: SCP-997 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-997 is to be stored ina 
standard containment locker while not in use. During testing 
procedures involving SCP-997, it is recommended that the object be 
left unplugged while not actively being tested. SCP-997 is to be 
tested only in a chamber that functions as a Faraday cage. 


Description: SCP-997 is a device superficially resembling a lamp, 
but without a bulb and with a twisting wire structure in place of a 
shade, believed to function as an antenna. It is made primarily of 
metal, and was somewhat corroded when contained, though this 
does not appear to have affected its functionality. Imaging of the 
internal workings suggests sophisticated electronics of unknown 
purpose. There is a switch near the top that controls whether or not 
the device is active. SCP-997 is powered by a standard NEMA 5 
power outlet, and so has been fitted with an adapter for Site 19 
testing chamber wall outlets. While disconnected from power or 
turned off, SCP-997 exhibits no anomalous properties. 


When connected to a power source and turned on, SCP-997 emits a 
field that affects every human within about 250 meters. This field 
cannot penetrate a Faraday cage that follows the specifications 
given in Document 997-02, and seems to be at least partially 
psychic in nature. All persons affected by the field become unable to 
perceive in any way anything they would consider vermin. This 
effect is based on subjective judgement, so one individual may 
perceive something that another may not. SCP-997 effects extend to 
sufficiently accurate representations of vermin. 


Testing results suggest that SCP-997 only suppresses conscious 
awareness of vermin, inflicting symptoms akin to spatial neglect 
except across all senses. Consequently, though people affected by 


The only way left to go is forward 


In front of me, the shadow of Olympus Mons turns the already 
lichen-blackened clay a much deeper black — almost velvety, like a 
clear night sky. In the distance, the lights of Station 00 (also known 
as "Carl Sagan Station," or, more colloquially, "Clean Slate Station, ") 
are slowly turning off as the sunlight reaches them. Behind me, the 
sun slowly rises over the mountain. Above me, the sky is slowly 
turning from violet twilight to its distinctive rust-red. Beneath me, the 
engine of the buggy rumbles, keeping it warm. I'll have to explain the 
extra engine hours, but some irrational part of my brain tells me it's 
worth it. 


I'm happy | found this spot — good view, good lichen outcrops for 
sampling (my go-to cover story for these outings), but not too far 
from the Station. I'm settled in, so it's time to get down to business. | 
unzip the bag hanging at my right thigh and pull out the packaged 
black-and-cherry-red filter cartridge, 7 centimeters across and 
maybe one centimeter thick. Big blocky letters warn that "NICOTINE 
MAY CAUSE ADDICTION," while slightly smaller letters advertise 
the Earth-based corporation whose executives are making a killing 
off dupes like me. | tear the package open, take a deep breath, 
close the valve at the mouthpiece of my mask, pop the mouthpiece 
off, pop the filter into place, pop the mouthpiece back, reopen the 
valve, and exhale. The process takes maybe four seconds but it 
always feels like forever. 


As | inhale the "black cherry" flavored mist, | notice a set of lights roll 
away from the eastern airlock of the station. Probably sampling 
crews getting an early start. | put it at the back of my mind and let 
my thoughts drift. 


The sampling crews set me on a train of thought about the colony. 
Station 00. Carl Sagan Station. Clean Slate Station. Part of a 
massive international effort, and no small portion of the Earthside 
scientists and engineers were Foundation. Founded in 2348 on what 


was essentially the corpse of the failed Elon Musk/NASA attempt of 
the 2030s, it had two official names: Carl Sagan Station was the 
International Standard name, while Station 00 was the name 
adopted by the Church. "Clean Slate" was made up by the colonists 
sometime in the early 2350s, 30-some odd years ago, because 
that's what the slowly-terraforming planet was supposed to be: a 
clean slate for humanity. And for the colonists themselves. Colonists 
like me. 


Even though I'm focusing on my breathing so | don't waste oxygen, | 
laugh at that last thought. Clean slate, my ass. By now the term's 
become one of semi-affectionate sarcasm for me. My slate on the 
Red Planet was no more clean than the one | left on Earth. | ran 
away with a girl | thought | loved to be some sort of space cadet, 
leaving behind a bunch of shit | thought was just baggage. | think 
back to Thomas; | wonder if he can see me, even with all the 
millions of miles between here and Earth. | hope that kid's doing ok, 
wherever he is.