SCP-657 was recovered in the city of in the United 
States. While employed as an undertaker at a large funeral home, 
SCP-657 became engaged in a heated argument with a subordinate 
with whom SCP-657 had previous disagreements. While correcting 
the subordinate's work, SCP-657 remarked "What does it fucking 
matter? You'll be dead before the end of the week." in front of 
several witnesses. Following the subordinate's death three days 
later after falling from the roof of his home, SCP-657 was arrested 
by the local police department on suspicion of murder. While being 
apprehended, SCP-657 made similar remarks predicting the death 
of one of the police officers involved in his arrest, who was 
subsequently shot by a suspect in an unrelated incident two days 


swing of his hammer. The silicone model of her future self was 
brought out, and she was made to embrace it seven times. A small 
cut was made on her upper thigh. A drop of the blood was mixed 
with water in the chalice and she was made to drink it. Two more 
drops were smeared across her face and that of the doll. 


Then the Professor took a small pot of silver paint and a stylus and 
drew a series of symbols all over her skin and that of the doll. 
Everyone else was led out of the circle as a small pump filled the 
channels with a liquid that made her eyes water. 


And then she lay in the center of the circle, her right hand holding 
the cold, clammy hand of the silicone doll that they had made, while 
a black cat sat between the two of them, unblinkingly staring at the 
Professor's eyes. 


There was a low whumph, and the gasoline that had filled the 
channels of the circle was ignited. Flames rose up all around her in 
a precise pattern, illuminating the chamber in a lurid red light. 


Purple electricity leaped between the points of the stalactites 
overhead and she felt herself plummet into the heart of the world. 


She opened her eyes again and looked up into the face of the 
Professor. He was smiling down at her. 


"How do you feel?" he asked. 


"... [hurt," Ara whimpered. And she did. Her entire body felt like it 
was aching horribly. Her eyes were dry, her throat was dry, she was 
desperately hungry. She prised her left hand free of the grip of the 
silicone doll and rubbed her eyes. 


She missed and touched her nose instead. It felt... odd. Strange. 


She turned to her left... and she saw something there crumbling into 
ash and dust. Something that looked very much like the body of the 
man she used to see in the mirror. 


Then the doctors came and swarmed over her, and one of them put 
a rubber breath mask over her face and she closed her eyes and 


passed out. 


She awoke to find herself lying on soft sheets, wearing a thin 
hospital gown, in a darkened room that beeped. 


She very much had to pee. 


She crawled out of the bed, but was brought up short by something 
hooked up to her arm. She dragged the IV along with her into the 
bathroom, pulled up her gown, sat down on the seat. 


It felt strange... like it was coming from the wrong places, and that 
this muscle felt wrong, and this place was off, and this entire thing... 


The realization of what was going on hit her, and she felt the tears 
rise up in her eyes. She gingerly reached down with the toilet paper 
to wipe herself off, and felt her fingertips press against her body. 


It was a good hour before she could finish sobbing, and when she 
did, she rose up on unsteady feet, flushed the toilet, and turned on 
the lights. She turned to the bathroom mirror, and saw herself 
looking back. 


She reached out a hand and felt her fingertips press against the 
silvered glass, and smiled. 


"Well, Spider," the Professor said, snapping the clipboard closed. 
"According to this, you're a completely healthy young woman." 


"| Knew that already. | could have told you that the first night." 


"Yes," the Professor said. "But this was a medical report from an 
outside doctor. So | guess this means that our experiment was a 
success." He leaned back in his chair and gave her a wry smile. 
"How did you like your first period?" 


"It fucking sucked," Ara laughed ruefully. "| admit there was a 
moment, in the middle of the cramps and bloating and having what 
felt like half my uterus flowing out of me, that | felt like a fucking idiot 
for agreeing to all this." 


"And the other?" 


"... well, it seems functional, if that's what you're asking," Ara said, 

blushing. "But | haven't tried it with anyone else yet. | didn't exactly 

have a great time the first time | lost my virginity. | think I'm going to 
use the weight of experience for my second time around." 


"Good on you, then." The Professor snapped his clipboard shut and 
got to his feet. "Well, then, Spider. I'll be seeing you around." 


He got up and helped her into her coat, and locked his office door 
behind him. "Oh, before | forget," he said, handing her a gift bag. 
"This is a memento. From two new friends." 


Spider waited until she was back in her dorm room to open up the 
gift bag and take out the contents. One of them was a glass chalice 
with a silver stand. The other was a broken sword mounted on a 
wooden plaque. 


She leaned the plaque up against the wall, behind her desk, and put 
the chalice on her nightstand. She'd have to find a case for them, 
she decided, when she had a moment. 


Then she changed into her pajamas and lay down on her bed, 
looking up through the skylight into the stars. She stayed there for a 
long, long time, until the blackness turned into the grey of twilight, 
and finally into the morning blue. 


"UHEC" 


The sign outside the room was stolen from a construction site. It 
looked like this: 


Inside the room, Special Agent Lynisha Taylor (United Nations 
Global Occult Coalition, PHYSICS Division, Strike Team 9999 ("Max 
Damage") was sitting on her bunk, flipping through a comic book. 
(Purists would insist that she call it a manga, but it was still a comic 
book, and she was AMERICAN, damn it, and AMERICANS read 
comics, not mangoes.) 


She turned to the last page, sighed, and tossed the comic book onto 
the scratched table with its fake wood paneling. 


She glared up at the Alert Indicator screen above her desk, which 
looked like this: 


Lynisha continued to glare until, with a soft chime, the screen 
changed to this: 


Lynisha got up from her seat, walked out of her room, and tapped a 
button on the side of the sign. 


She retrieved her toothbrush and toiletries and headed down the hall 
to the bathroom to wash up for bed. 


0500 the next morning. 
Lynisha headed down to the mess hall for breakfast and a cup of 


coffee. She smelled frying steak and heard loud laughter and cheers 
coming from within. 


Sadness. 


As she'd feared, Cookie had canceled the usual breakfast and was 
serving steak and eggs instead. Everyone was gathered around 
Fredrickson, watching some kind of video footage on his tablet 
computer. The sound of crunching metal and explosions could be 
heard over the sound of cheering agents. 


Damn. Must have missed the scramble by a couple of hours. 


She grabbed a tray and headed to the chow line to get some 
breakfast. Cookie slipped her an extra-large piece of boneless 
ribeye next to her scrambled eggs and toast, giving her a 
sympathetic smile. "Next time, Fangirl," he said reassuringly. 


Lynisha smiled back at Cookie, then picked up her tray and headed 
to a corner table to sulk and eat breakfast. 


The steak was dry. And the eggs were a bit runny. 


"... last of all: Wong, Serizawa, and Taylor. You three are off the 
duty rotation for the next two weeks. Your suits are due for overhaul. 
Report to the motor pool at 0600 for repair and refit," Commander 
Tai concluded. 


Lynisha raised her hand. "Sir?" 
"Yes, Fangirl?" 


"With all due respect,” Lynisha said, "Point' is in good shape. She's 
taken no damage, and all her vitals are green. I'd like to delay 
scheduled maintenance until the next rotation." 


"All right, I'll take that under consideration," Commander Tai said. 
"Thank y—" 
"After careful consideration, the answer is 'No.' Dismissed." 


Disappointment. 


"All right, raise your left hand," the engineer said. 


Lynisha slowly raised her left hand above her head, and three tons 
of steel, ceramics, and buckypaper bilayered with dilatant gelatin 
followed. 


"Lock joints in place," the engineer said. 
"Confirm, joint locked," Lynisha said. 


She lowered her left hand, and this time, three tons of steel, 
ceramics, and buckypaper bilayered with dilatant gelatin did not 
follow. 


"All right, stepping into crush zone now." The engineer gingerly 
stepped into the shadow of the heavy limb and began using his 
impact wrench to remove the bolts holding the access panel in 
place. 


Lynisha leaned back in the saddle of her fifteen-ton suit of armor 
and pulled out her comic book, flipping through the pages by the 
light of a battery-powered LED lamp she'd picked up at a dollar 
store. 


"... well, all the connections look clear," the engineer said. "Hell, 
everything looks freshly cleaned. | don't really think we need to do 
anything more than wipe down the dust and squirt some lube here 
and there." 


You mean the stuff I've been doing myself every day? Lynisha did 
not say. 


The engineer hemmed and hummed as he continued to clean and 
polish the various connections. Satisfied with his work, he replaced 
the access panel, locked it back in place with his impact wrench, 
and stepped out of the red circle painted onto the hangar floor. 


"All right, I'm clear of the crush zone," the engineer said. "You can 
unlock the joints and switch to raising the right arm now." 


"Confirmed," Lynisha said, putting down her comic. "Unlocking 


joints. Raising right arm now." 
"Lock joints in place." 

"Confirm, joints locked." 
"Stepping into crush zone now." 


Lynisha picked up her comic book again and went back to reading. 


Lynisha sat on her bed, staring nervously up at the Alert Indicator 
screen. She'd changed out of her duty uniform and was wearing her 
skinsuit in what STRIKE operatives called "granny panty style" — 
loosely around her hips, without the relief tubes in place, shoulder 
straps and sleeves tied around her waist like a prep school kid's 
sweater. 


Her comic book was open to the same page that it had been open to 
one hour before, when the Alert Indicator switched from blue to 
amber with the sound of a harsh, buzzing tone. Her fingers 
drummed nervously against its cover as the Alert Indicator's clock 
slowly ticked away the seconds. 


Tick. 
Tick. 
Tick. 


There was a soft chime and the sound of a bell ringing. 


Lynisha swore and peeled off her skinsuit. 


"Going on leave soon, Fangirl?" Cookie asked. 


"Yeah. | tried to defer it, but they're making me do it this time. Guess 
the holidays are coming up and a lot of us are gonna request leave 
then, so we've got to use up as many mandatory leave days as 


possible now. Fucking stupid." Lynisha picked up an apple and 
tossed it onto her tray. 


"Hey, it'll be fun. Have a good time lying to your folks about what you 
do for a living," Cookie said, grinning. 


"| told them I'm a puppeteer for a practical effects house. That | 
make giant monster movies." Lynisha chuckled. "Not too far from the 
truth, | guess." 


"True that. Your usual, then?" 
"Nah. I'll have the turkey sandwich this time. Mix things up a bit." 


"Done and done," Cookie said. 


The scramble alert sounded while Lynisha was on the toilet. 


She nearly tripped over her own pants leaping to her feet. She did 
smack her head against the stall door. 


She almost forgot to flush, but decided that if she died this time, the 
last thing that she wanted her friends to think about her was that she 
was a heartless bitch who left piss-filled toilets behind for others to 
clean up after her, so she ran back into the stall and did that, at 
least. 


She raced into her quarters and grabbed the freshly laundered 
skinsuit (still in its plastic wrappings from the in-house laundry) off 
her desk, then began running down the brightly lit hallways, 
screaming "SCRAMBLE SCRAMBLE SCRAMBLE" at the top of her 
lungs. 


Everyone else in the halls immediately pressed themselves against 
the wall as she ran past. One hapless flunky carrying a tray of coffee 
and snacks failed to do so and was blasted through like a twelve- 
year old encountering a linebacker. 


Someone yelled, "GO GITTUM, FANGIRL!" as she ran past, and 
Lynisha grinned. 


SCRAMBLE ORDER 


EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY: 
Pilot Lynisha Taylor to move to READY ONE Status at 
the earliest possible opportunity. 


UHEC K3-297 ("Exclamation Point!") to be loaded onto 
C-779 Kingfisher transport at earliest possible 
opportunity. 


Further information forthcoming under Code Word 
Flamberge. 


Mission Briefing will be carried out in transit. 


ELSEWHERE... 
Rule number one of combat: Infantry is the Queen of Battle. 
Rule number two of combat: Artillery is the King of the Battlefield. 


Rule number three of combat: Remember what the King does to the 
Queen. 


Landon felt the concussion of nearby explosions rattle his body as 
the artillery shells exploded all around him, cracking his already 
damaged White Suit. The bloody and broken remnants of Strike 
Team Scarlet Vanguard lay slumped against the mildewed walls of 
the abandoned World War Il-era bunker. His entire world was 
shuddering at the roaring of eighty cylinders of diesel engine 
powering over 1,100 tons of steel. 


He glanced up through the shattered machine gun port and saw the 
tank plowing through an entire grove of thirty-foot tall oak trees on its 
way to crush yet another concrete fortification under its gargantuan 
treads. 


No, he thought to himself. This was not a tank. This was the fever 
dream of an insane Nazi weapons designer brought to life. This was 
Adolf Hitler's massive ego finding a physical manifestation that could 


overcompensate for his alleged single testicle. This was a 
nightmare. This was death and fury given form. 


The P.1000 Landkreuzer turned its twin 280mm cannons onto a 
ruined fortification and belched fire. Half the hillside exploded into 
green flame as a gigantic green flaming skull, wearing the cap and 
totenkopf of an SS officer, floated above the enormous land 
battleship. 


"HEIL HITLER!" the ghost of Michael Wittmann roared. "Es lebe das 
heilige Deutschland!" 


"... The enemy is a Nazi ghost tank?" Lynisha asked, as she 
climbed into the saddle of her Orange Suit. 


"Technically, it's a Nazi ghost that has invaded a Russian surplus 
arms depot and converted the decommissioned tanks into a spectral 
model of a theoretical Nazi superweapon that was designed but 
never built," the engineer said. 


Glee! 


The Kingfisher dropped her from 30,000 feet over the smoldering 
forest, where the remaining members of Strike Team Scarlet 
Vanguard were making their last stand behind burning concrete and 
rubble. A few moments later, the air-ram parachute deployed with a 
loud THOOMP and a spine-compressing deceleration. 


Her fingers brushed the touch screen of the iPod she'd mounted on 
the inside of her cramped pilot's compartment. She considered 
DragonForce, flirted briefly with lron Maiden, was even about to 
choose Mastadon or Evanescence. 


But in the end, there was really only one choice she could make. 


As the fifteen-ton Ultra-Heavy Engagement Chassis descended 
through the air towards the battlefield, the sound of a single bugle 
playing a cavalry call could be heard echoing throughout the 
battlefield. 


later in the evening, as predicted by SCP-657.