Mr. Deeds is thanked and dismissed. 


Note: Mr. Deeds' knowledge of [REDACTED] is not to be considered 
a security breach. 


Item: SCP-738 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 


Researcher sits in SCP-738-2, and asks "What would you want in 
exchange for permanently destroying the entity which we refer to as 
SCP-682 while leaving this planet, its biosphere, its human 
population, its human civilization, the SCP Foundation, and the rest 
of the universe intact?" 


Entity takes form of the same entity as Test 203, states "Your 
Foundation couldn't afford it, and you personally definitely couldn't 
afford it," and does not respond further. 


"Hello? Hey. I was wondering if — no, no. Just be careful coming 
back. Yeah. I was planning for a party that day, second floor. 
Tropical-themed. Yeah, yeah. No problem. Bye." 


After that, Vincent left to meet Agent Navarro. 


Two weeks later, Dr. Carlson arrived back at Site-19. The party was 
held on Floor Two, Wing A, in a spare office. 


"Heyyy, welcome back! Still wearing that cheesy Hawaiian shirt?" 
Jenna went over to hug him. 


"Heh, what can I say? It is a comfortable fit. Vincent, Brian, Dean, 
May, Harrison, good to see you all as well." He went around to hug 
everyone. The mood was a lot lighter with Dr. Carlson, since 
everyone was able to behave. "Am I really this special that you 
would all hold a party for me?" He chuckled; a rare sight despite his 
positive demeanor. 


"Of course." Vincent grinned. "Might as well give you one more day 
of a vacation, so to speak. Fruit punch, spam musubi, Hawaiian 
pizza —" 


"Now now, you didn't have to go that far." 


"You better try it at least! I even helped him cook most of this shit." 
Dean looked overly confident for doing such a simple thing. 


The party went smoothly until — half an hour into it — they 
realized Vincent and Dr. Carlson were missing. No one had seen 
them for a good ten minutes. 


"Does anyone know where they went?" May inquired. She sounded 
concerned. Harrison shook his head. 


"Beats me. Their loss though." 


"Does, uh... does anyone want to look for them then?" Even with 
Brian asking, he didn't seem too worried about leaving. 


"Harrison and I can go look for them. It shouldn't take too long. I 


don't think they'd have gone back to their work already. Are you all 
fine with that?" Everyone shrugged; Harrison nodded. The two left. 
What was a nice, calm party became nothing more than eating food 
in silence. This time, it took another five minutes before someone 
spoke up. 


"I don't feel right about this. I think we need to go find them." 
"What? Why?" 


"I agree with Brian." Jenna rolled her hand on the table, looking up 
at the ceiling. "You don't just stay gone from a party for fifteen 
minutes without telling anyone. And those two should have found 
them by now." 


"Fine, fine. Let's go. Not my fault if this food goes to waste." 


"Your mood already went sour, huh." Everyone quickly got up and 
went to the elevator, heading to the first floor, before stumbling 
upon the gruesome scene waiting for them there. Had they waited 
any longer, Dr. Carlson would have certainly died. 


Ohhh, so Jenna told you that. 


| mean, it's obvious. Brian doesn't eavesdrop on people and was too 
busy with a new skip, Dean would rather bully information out of 
people than be sly about it, and, well... dead bodies can only 
metaphorically tell stories. Plus, she doesn't work that far away from 
the old man's office. 


It's mostly correct, though | don't know if she lied to you about some 
of it because she wanted to try and cover up for Carlson and | or 
because she's genuinely naive about it. It'd be nice if it were the 
former, though she’s too nice to do that. Here's how it actually 
happened. | won't cover up any information this time. After all, I'm 
implicating myself in this. Who would be so arrogantly dumb to do 
such a thing if they were lying? 


Everything was correct up until the calls. | did make six calls, but the 
last one was completely different. It only took one call to reach him. 
Turns out, when you care about someone, you'll more likely than not 
answer their calls quickly. It sounded like he was leaving some 
dining hall, since | caught a faint sound of chatter and plates the 
moment he answered. 


"Hello? Are you alone?" 
"Vincent? Is everything alright?" 


"Not particularly. | was wondering if you could do me a favor when 
you get back." 


"|... |can certainly try, although to be calling me to ask... are you 
sure you don't want to send a message over a more secure —" 


"No." | looked behind me. | didn't see anyone, although | felt some 
kind of presence. Knowing what | know now, it wasn't just the 
lovebirds listening in. Why Jenna was listening in, | don't know, but | 
wish she hadn't got caught up in this. "How soon do you plan to get 
back?" 


"Erm, exactly two weeks. | would need to catch an extra flight to get 
back to Site-19 safely and more covertly." 


"May and Harrison are going to throw a party for you when you 
come back. The party itself should be fine, but | don't think it's well- 
intentioned." 


"Vincent." He stopped me just when | caught my breath to continue. 
"Are you feeling okay? Usually, you aren't paranoid like this." There 
certainly wasn't anyone near him now. All | heard in the background 
was the ocean - | guess he was at the docks, isolating himself from 
anyone trying to listen in. 


"Please, trust me. | don't know exactly what they're planning, but | 
really don't know that it'll be any good. They've been acting 
particularly standoffish the past couple of days, you've seen that for 
yourself. Just... just be prepared when you come back, okay? After 
the party, meet with me. We'll talk with them." 


| didn't hear anything for a minute. It was just the ocean. He had to 
be thinking. And then he started thinking real deep. You know how 
he did those... those "hrmm" and "huh" sounds when he was lost in 
his thoughts? There was quite a lot of that. At least three or four 
minutes of that. Probably weighing every single possibility, because 
he didn't know when to stop thinking. 


By that point, | didn't feel a presence nearby. | just assumed at the 
time that he was right, and | was feeling paranoid, but, well, you 
know. He finally got back to me after | wanna say... five minutes or 
so. 


"| believe you. Allow me this vacation, and concentrate on your 
work. I'll talk to you when | get back." 


"Can | at least ask how it's been so far?" 


"Good. Relaxing. | always forget how it feels not to be on-guard for 
monsters or bureaucracy until | look at the waves. It's serene." 


"Glad to hear." | couldn't help but smile. He got on my nerves a lot, 
but he was nice. Trusted me too. That helped. "Yeah, yeah. No 
problem. Have a good vacation. Bye." 


"Take care, Vincent." And he hung up. 


There's two other corrections | need to make about Jenna's account. 
One; | didn't plan the party. May and Harrison did. Those rat 
bastards probably did it as a way to more conveniently confront us. 
Why the fuck else would they plan the party? They certainly didn't 
like me, and they got more sour on the doctor the longer they 
worked with him. It's pretty obvious as well; we never threw a party 
for him when he got back from vacations before. There was no good 
reason to do it now. 


Here's the other thing Jenna got wrong, or at least didn't realize; if 
they didn't take the elevator down to the first floor, at least three 
more of us would still be alive right now. 


« Flick of the Wrist | Now I'm Here | Stone Cold Crazy » 
Hub 


Stone Cold Crazy 


This is the finale of the Misfire series. First part can be 
found here. 


« Now I'm Here | Stone Cold Crazy | From all this gloom, life can start anew. » 
Hub 


There's only two other points | can think of, even further back than 
that, where the story is still relevant. It's only fair to tie up the loose 
ends of these mysteries, if only for my sake rather than yours. Pay 
attention this time, please? | definitely won't repeat this twice. 


Let me just lay this out right now; no one was to blame but myself. If 
there is one thing I'll ever take blame for’, it'll be this one. Sort of my 
fault I'm in this mess, but then, who knows if the lovebirds wouldn't 
have tried their murder plan anyhow. So let's start at the very 
beginning of my story. 


| don't remember when, maybe eight or nine years ago, when | 
tested on an anomaly with Brian. The Fifth Dimension guys. What a 
pull, right? It's obvious why we worked on it together. Oh, | have to 
state everything for the record? Might as well. 


The whole reason why | regularly work with Navarro and MTFs 
formed specifically for art groups is because | came from one before 
working for the Foundation. | wasn't anomalous then, or even had 
any interest in making anart. My thing was just organizing 
exhibitions and meeting up with other people. Hard to believe, but | 
know how to talk to other people and keep the unnecessary shit to 


myself. | think sometime after | started here, my old groups got 
assimilated into Aussie. It's a dumb pronunciation, but only two 
syllables instead of five or six. So | have the knowledge. 


Brian knows technology. | don't know the specifics of it, but that's his 
main thing. He's been around for a while, hasn't he? Even 
comparing our ages, he's got at least a decade on me. Surprised he 
hasn't gone to work for some big tech company or whatever. 
Probably a better gig than the Foundation. | don't know what we 
were doing working on 92 together. The technology side of it just 
slipped by me. 


| do know that, at some point, something got fucked up with the 
soundproof room. 


The first issue was with the structure or padding. This is why we 
wear soundproof headphones as insurance. But whoops, | 
misjudged the amount of time that passed. If only | waited another 
40 seconds or so. He noticed when he moved to get my attention 
and he heard me say those cursed words: 


"Wow, that was real cool." 


They tested me in more ways than | thought possible for 
contamination. They did other sorts of tests with a few more D-Class 
as well, but they didn't seem to show anything, so | was probably 
fine, right? 


It's not like it's a bad ability. The best way to describe it is — | can 
manipulate a little bit of matter at a time. Like make small objects 
disappear and reappear with my hand if | think about it for long 
enough, or spontaneously, uh... "drill" a small amount into objects. 
Yeah, the longer | have to hide something, or the deeper | drill, the 
more | can feel it in my head, my thoughts. Plus, | can only really 
make it work under certain conditions, but it's fine. If the CD just 
gives you random abilities, | probably got the best of it. Hell, it's not 
like the Foundation even wants to do any more testing on 092. As it 
turns out, not worth the money and effort to go through 3000+ CDs. 


| noticed for the first time about four months ago, while | was filling 


out some forms by hand for Upsilon-23. Without thinking... poof. 
The pen was gone. | just assumed | dropped it or something. When | 
couldn't find it, oh well, | just got another. Then it happened again. 
When the pens came back... that's when | started to worry. 


Humanoid anom — people, people don't get to tell us this that often. 
What it feels like when you discover you have powers. In my case, it 
was a number of things. Fear that I'd be found out and locked up 
immediately. A rush of adrenaline. Mind racing at all the possibilities. 
A sense of, uh... satisfaction, even, that | could do stuff that others 
couldn't do because | could do practically anything compared to 
them. It's terrifying and exhilarating all at once. 


Okay then, what would you have done if you were in my position? 
Just turn yourself in to the Foundation? The idea of a containment 
cell really sounds so appealing to you, right now, that you'd jump in 
one the instant you gained powers’? It's easy to think that until you 
get them. 


Anyway — no, I'm not going down this road. You can ask me 
another time. 


The only thing | could think of doing at that moment was to rush over 
to Carlson's office. He was the only one | felt like | could trust with 
what happened. Unfortunately, he wasn't there when | arrived, and | 
wasn't about to go running around to look for him. No way in Hell 
was | going to call him either. It was almost the end of the day; he'd 
be back eventually. 


| don't remember how long passed before he came back to his 
office. He found me doing a lot of pushups. What? Even | get 
nervous and have to work away that energy somehow. 


"Vincent? What are —" The moment | heard his voice, | jumped up 
and ran to shut the door. "Are you —" | held up a finger to him, and 
waited to see if anyone else was walking by or listening in. At the 
time, | didn't assume was listening in, but those two probably came 
by later on. Who knows when, but they heard enough to figure it out. 


"| need to tell you something, Dr. Carlson. Please don't freak out 
when | do. Keep it a secret. Please. Promise me?" | think he saw 


how serious | looked, because he only hesitated for a second before 
nodding. "Okay. Look at this." | held up a pen and concentrated 
really hard to make it disappear. 


Nothing happened. 
"Hrmm..." 


"No, no, please, wait, please." The pen was still there. | felt 
humiliated; | felt like a fool. | felt defeated. 


Which was the moment the pen disappeared. 
"What was — Vincent?" 


"| don't know. This just happened to me all of a sudden. | don't know 
why this is happening." 


Carlson went to his desk and stared out the window. Fitting that the 
rain was pouring down real bad. 


"I'm an anomaly now. What do | do? This is about the full extent of it, 
| think, but still." 


He didn't answer. It was a lot to take in, I'm sure. One day, your 
subordinate tells you that they have anomalous abilities. Do you just 
lock them up? Hide it? | guess the situation would vary, wouldn't it. It 
was his compassion for, well... people that made me trust him. 
Otherwise, | wouldn't have come to him. 


"Have you told anyone else about this?" 
"No." 


"Do you intend to?" | wanted to say 'What do you think?’ but | 
couldn't get those words to leave my throat. | needed his 
cooperation if | was going to avoid being contained. 


"No." 


He got lost in thought, and the rain came down even harder. There 
was a flood warning that night; it'll help you get the exact date for 


this. 


"Hrmm... hmm... Vincent. Do you intend to continue your work as 
per usual?" 


"Yes," 


Carlson nodded to himself. "Do not tell anyone else. If you discover 
anything else about your anomaly, tell me immediately. In secret. | 
trust you, Vincent." 


"Trust me with what?" | questioned. 


He turned around to face me, and | saw that warm smile of his. If 
you saw it, you'd believe as well that the rain let up for a brief 
second. 


"| just trust you." 


So that's one mystery taken care of. Is that fine? Sure, I'll get to the 
real juicy one now. 


Three days ago. July 5th. The party was fine. Boring. | felt more 
anxious than anything else. There was no way to tell what was being 
planned, and | wasn't going to wait for them to make the first move. 
Twenty minutes had gone by before | went over to Carlson and 
tugged at his sleeve. 


"Hey, Dr. Carlson, can we talk? In private." We quietly left. | have no 
idea how no one noticed, let alone for a whole ten minutes. | 
practically dragged him to the elevator. 


"Where are you taking us?"