Twenty-one minutes left. 


She's never felt more alive. As part of the ceiling crumbles and the 
citizens of Eurtec huddle on the ground, she drags the android 
across the marble floor to the teller - a mainframe intelligence - and 
warns it that for every minute she is not allowed into the main vault, 
somebody dies. It hesitates. She leans on the glass window 


separating them and shifts her gun from the android to the crowd. 
Twenty minutes left. 


The android reactivates and attempts to elbow her in the gut. She 
seizes his elbow with the Left Arm of Doom and wrenches it behind 
his back, allowing him just enough time to look shocked before the 
entire left side of his body is converted into digital information. He 
collapses forward, looking for all the world as though he was sliced 
in half. She gives the stunned teller a wry look, though it probably 
can't see it through her helmet. It can, however, see her aiming her 
gun at a small child in the crowd. 


Nineteen minutes left. 


The door to the bank vault is a meter-thick slab composed of fifty 
percent unobtanium™, thirty-one percent platinum, ten percent 
iridium, and nine percent metal unknown to all but the corporation 
formerly known as Prometheus Labs. It is unbreakable. 


It swings open, and she tips her helmet to the teller before strolling 
in. There are still eighty meters of spatially and temporally folded 
corridor between her and the vault. All eighty meters are guarded by 
geases, security turrets, metal golems that can melt out of the walls, 
and a floating necromantic complex composed of the souls of 
everyone who has tried to steal from the Bank of Eurtec! in the past. 


None of those souls tried to juice themselves with demonics. She 
breaks into a sprint, Superman-style; her pixelated arm in front. 
Soon she'll either be rich or dead. 


Eighteen minutes left. 


The geases come first; unless inoculated against them ahead of 
time, they compel you to stop breathing. The Left Arm of Doom 
smashes through them with ease - contrary to popular belief, the 
Devil has no problem reneging on his contracts. 


Seventeen minutes left. 


The turrets come next, unfolding from the walls and ceiling. A hail of 
bullets comes down the corridor at her. It's alla mess of green 


threads; she swipes at them with the Left Arm of Doom and they 
come unraveled, disintegrating into computer chips, blocks of 
various precious metals, and several rapidly vanishing lesser 
demons. 


Sixteen minutes left. 


Ahead of her, the walls themselves begin to melt away and seep 
onto the floor. Then they reform into enormous, massive golems; 
screeching metal raptors that want nothing more than to rend her 
flesh from her bones. This is what the Desert Eagle is actually for - 
it's the only pistol in the world with the triangular barrel that will allow 
her to fire geomantically blessed bullets. Of course, no amount of 
geomancy will allow her to aim properly. She fumbles with a pocket 
on her satchel and extracts two small blue pills: these demons came 
from the Seventh Plain of the Atlach-Nacha. She pops them like 
grapes. 


This time her right arm physically bulks up; it looks like she stole it 
from a body builder and grafted it to herself. The arm instantly stops 
shaking; it is now perfectly oriented with respect to the Seventh 
Plain, regardless of how much running she does. She drops into a 
slide and takes less-than-careful aim with the Eagle before firing off 
five shots. Five golems collapse as the rules of geometry allowing 
their metallic composition to exist decide to take a break. 


Fifteen minutes left. 


The last twenty meters are the hardest; this time the ground falls 
away from her mid-slide. Now she is falling towards the bank vault, 
trying to keep hold of her helmet as a vortex of red and blue and 
purple engulfs her. The vault is within sight, but it's falling faster than 
she is. Then the necromantic complex appears. 


A shrieking, wailing mass of souls amassed over three hundred 
years rises up from the vault. Thousands of screaming faces rush 
up towards her. This is the Curse of Eurtec: the souls of the damned 
that have tried and failed to steal from the Bank. All of them are 
cursed to spend the rest of eternity guarding it, tormented by their 
own greed as they are forced to protect the treasure they worked so 
hard to capture for themselves. 


If she doesn't do something in the next five seconds, the shell that 
contains her mortal soul will disintegrate violently and painfully. Then 
she will join them in this artificial hell. 


The Curse rushes up towards her. She winds the Left Arm of Doom 
back, and then connects with a punch. 


There is whiteness. 
Then she is inside the bank vault. 


Nine minutes later, the police have set up a cordon outside the 
building. Inside, a FLYPAPER team is approaching the door to the 
vault. The teller is still hiding in the mainframe; it sealed the vault as 
soon as the mysterious robber entered it. At the FLYPAPER's 
signal, the teller opens the vault door. 


As soon as the door opens, she dives out of the vault and slides 
across the floor, shooting wildly. The Atlach-Nacha pills wore off 
thirty seconds ago, so all she manages to kill are a few decorative 
wall panels. It does, however, startle the FLYPAPER and force them 
to recalibrate for a second. That's all she needs. 


The Left Arm of Doom slams through the wall of the Bank, sending 
chunks of concrete flying. As she picks herself up to run, a bullet 
burrows into the back of her skull. The hellfire coursing through her 
veins melts it down and uses it to repair the damage. 


She vaults onto the Vespa. The key is still hanging out of the 
ignition. 


Five minutes left. 


Things are moving faster now and the Left Arm of Doom is gone. 
The FLYPAPER are storming out of the Bank. She can see the 
crimson of their eye and the saliva dripping from their mouth. 


She has one more trick up her sleeve: a line of chartreuse powder 
on the table she set up on the Vespa. She doesn't have any straws - 
she'll just have to hope the Vespa table is clean. She scrapes her 
face across the table and snorts all the powder in one deep breath. 
Then she guns the ignition. 


The engine is now fueled by her mental state - a hyperkinetic 
cocktail of adrenaline, drugs, and two separate demon possessions. 
The Vespa's frame can barely contain the roar of the engine, much 
less the actual thrust as the tiny Italian scooter tears out of the alley 
at two hundred kilometers per hour. 


As she rockets past the FLYPAPER, she sees a line of translucent 
pink motorbikes emerge in front of them: the FLYPAPER's Psionic 
Force Deterrent Squadron, a force of undead bike cops that cannot 
be reasoned with, bargained with, or killed. Only their quarry can 
see or interact with them, and they will not stop until that quarry is 
behind bars or six feet under. 


Four minutes left. 


She spares a glance to the left and suddenly there is a truck bearing 
down on her from the intersection which she didn't even realize 
she'd driven into. In an instant, the Vespa is reduced to torn metal 
and she is reduced to a pulp of organs. 


At least, in one possible future. In her mind's eye, she sees 
Hiranyakashipu collapse all possible futures into the future where 
she survives. A trillion different possibilities flit through her skull in an 
instant and then vanish; the shock causes her to swerve away from 
the intersection and into a small alleyway, breaking out into a park. 
People enjoying a day out are forced to flee for cover from the 
Vespa careening through the brush. 


The Squadron bursts out of the trees, landing on the ground and 
flanking her. A translucent pink cop materializes on each bike and 
pulls out a light pink Magnum revolver; it would be funny if they 
weren't about to fire at her. 


The echoes of five gunshots go off. Every psychic in Eurtec 
experiences a sudden moment of panic and frantically pats 
themselves down for bullet wounds. 


Three minutes left. 


Hiranyakashipu shows her another trillion futures and sends her 
slumping over the handlebars for a half second - long enough for all 


five echoes to zip harmlessly over her head. Two of the echoes 
connect with two of the Squadron's riders, temporarily erasing all 
four from this plane of existence. She shakes herself awake as the 
Vespa careens over a bridge, sending a man and his grandson 
diving for cover. The rest of the Squadron rides over the brook as 
though it were flat land. 


The Vespa barrels through the park gates and back onto the street, 
blowing through a red light and almost causing a multi-dimensional- 
car pileup. In the distance, a train horn blares. 


Two minutes left. 


She steers in the direction of the train horn, blowing past one red 
light, two red lights, three red lights... the blaring of horns and the 
screeching of metal against metal fades behind her in the distance. 
What doesn't fade is the throaty hum of three spectral Yamahas. 
The Vespa is starting to slow down - the Squadron is not. 


Then she spots her salvation: a light blue tanker truck stopped at the 
intersection. On the side of the tank is the characteristic rectangular 
biohazard sign of ectoplasm. Nobody with a corporeal form would be 
affected by raw ectoplasm - but the Squadron doesn't have one. 
She fishes the Desert Eagle from its spot in her waistband (the 
realities where it discharged into her pelvis having long since been 
discarded) and takes aim at the truck. 


She unloads the three remaining bullets into the tanker as it begins 
to accelerate through the intersection; two of them go wild, startling 
a flock of birds. The third clips the tanker's valve and the thin green 
sheen of ectoplasm begins to flood out. The tanker clears the 
intersection, gushing ectoplasm everywhere just as she rockets 
through it, creating a traffic jam through the main thoroughfare. She 
looks behind her and sees the Squadron slow to a halt in the 
spectral goo. 


One minute left. 
Ahead is her goal - the railroad tracks. The crossing gates are down 


and the lights are flashing. On cue, the freight train chugs into view 
from the right. 


Things go wrong. The roar of two Yamaha engines suddenly 
become audible: the first two Squadron cops have returned to the 
world of the living. And this time they're not flanking her - they're 
simply going to shoot her in the back. 


She makes a split second decision and tips the moped into a slide. 
Her bike leathers grind against the road at three hundred kilometers 
per hour as the Vespa disintegrates on contact with the unforgiving 
asphalt. She skids underneath the crossing gates and comes to a 
stop directly on the tracks. 


Five thousand tons of unforgiving iron and steel smash into her at 
seventy kilometers per hour, mashing her to bits and splattering 
those bits across the tracks. 


The Squadron does not stop; they simply sink into the ground as 
they drive. 


Time is up. 


She sits up with sharp, deep, labored breaths. She is naked, sitting 
in the center of a chartreuse pentagram, drawn entirely of the same 
powder that she snorted five minutes ago on her moped. 

The pentagram is on a hard, concrete floor. There is a row of 
fluorescent lights on the ceiling. 


"Welcome back to the land of the living, Rookie," someone calls. 


She whips her head to the right. There are two couches in front of a 
television. The Inside Man is sitting on one of them, holding a bag of 
chips and grinning at her. 


"Fuckin' hell, Rookie," he says, munching on the chips, "you really 
kicked the hornet's nest. Man, that robbery was on every fuckin’ 
channel | have! There were Andycopters following that Vespa 
chase. | can't believe they sent the FLYPAPER after you!" 


She stares at him archly. 


"Anyways, you're alive!... How's that work? And how'd you make 
out?" the Man asks. 


"Contract. Lesser Nornir demon. | died. | came back. It got some 
gold," she responds slowly, with vocal chords that have never been 
used before. She gingerly reaches out with her hands and makes a 
motion as if throwing open a pair of curtains. A pile of cash, gold, 
jewels, bonds, stocks, spices, and spells fall out of the empty air. 
The Man's eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. 


"God damn," he says, "you actually did it. You cleared them out. You 
robbed the Bank of Eurtec." 


He sets the chips down on the couch and hops over it, walking 
towards her. "| guess there's something to your ‘demon drug’ thing 
after all." 


He helps her up and then offers a closed fist. She bumps it in 
acknowledgment. 


"Congrats, Rukmini. The Chicago Spectre is now on the map!" 


« Hypervelocity | Terminal Velocity » 


Footnotes 

1. A security system pioneered by the Bank of Three Portlands 

2. Although Eurtec was only built in the mid-80s, temporal 
investments and various forms of parathievery ensured that within 
thirty years it would be subject to a cumulative three centuries of 
attempted heists 


Terminal Velocity 


The room swirls into your view, colored purple and pink. The bed is 
plush and smells like sex and bad decisions. A naked boy lying to 
your left runs his fingers down your chest. 


"Hey. Rookie. Wake up!" 


You blink and roll over in a haze, but a pair of soft hands shoves you 
onto your back. The boy's twin sister plants herself on your chest 
and pokes your nose. "Wake up! Something big is going down." 


"...something big?" 


"Heist big," the boy answers. "The train came early. | don't know 
how | missed it, but | did. I'll get you your tools. Meantime, hop in the 
shower, quick one, five minutes. You smell like sex and bad 
decisions." 


It's too early to be thinking about anything except what the bed is 
best at. It's painfully inviting, as are the duo lounging on it... but 
greed wins out over lust. 


"Okay." 


You push the girl off, roll out of the bed, stumble into the shower and 
let it wash away the previous night's decadence. Dry off, throw on 
your clothes, and check your pockets. There's still two pills in the 
pocket of this bike jacket. Drink from the tap. Swallow them both. 
Hangover's gone, vision is sharper, mind racing and everything 
smells like smoke but it's a sweet sickly smoke that fills you with 
euphoria so bolt from the room, vault over the banister - 


- and land behind the wheel of a yellow Trans Am. Where did it 
come from? How did you get the keys? Who put your gear in the 
shotgun seat? The answer, as always, is the Inside Man. Your goal 
is fixated firmly at the forefront of your thoughts - probably his doing 


SCP-741: Mysterious Russian Submarine 


Item #: SCP-741 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: As the object has sunk to an 
extreme depth and is surrounded by a region of elevated pressure, it 
is largely isolated from external influence. Nevertheless, periodic 
monitoring by sonar and/or submersible should be conducted to 
ensure that it has not been tampered with. Russia has actively 
encouraged the use of the Foundation-contracted Russian warships 
SCPS Basisty and Krasnoyarsk for these purposes. In the event of 
activity within the exclusion zone surrounding SCP-741, Procedure 
353-KOSCHEI is to be enacted; this procedure entails the use of 
nuclear and conventionally-armed RPK-2 Viyuga anti-submarine/ 
surface missiles aboard the Krasnoyarsk. Any movement of 741 is 
to be met immediately with a nuclear strike. All other contacts are to 
be engaged with conventional warheads. 


Description: SCP-741 is a sunken Soviet submarine. It sank near 

, in March, 1968; however, the Foundation did not take over 
custody of the vessel until , 1999. The submarine itself is a 
version of the Charlie Il class, carrying eight (8) P-120 Malakhit anti- 
ship missiles.