She shook her head, and looked at the guard. He looked just as 
uncomfortable. The door opened, and Edgars backed out, clipboard 
pressing on his gut, "99401, your turn." 


Priss glared at Edgars, who looked up to see her, "Oh. Hi." 


"No more of this," She nudged him back into the room, marching in 
after him, with Sharpe closing the door behind them, "Are you a 
licensed judge or professional executioner?" 


"|... what? No... what?" 


"| don't care what you think or what Foundation protocol is, I'm not 
sending people into infinite meat grinders to die until we find 
someplace that won't kill them on contact," Priss felt her head start 
to spin, and an ache in her temples, "I didn't join up to be a killer. 
And if you have, then fuck you, go home and don't come back. This 
is Supposed to be fucking science, securing shit, containing shit, 
protecting it from us, and us from it. I'm not going to put up with this 
chickenshit-bullshit just because we have money to shut people up.” 


Edgars stared at her — everyone in the room stared in awkward 
silence. Priss felt her hands start to tremble and her chest ache. 


"Being a social justice warrior runs in the family, then?" 


She whirled on the voice in a blind fit of rage, "Why don't you piss off 
and go fuck yourself at home? No one fucking wants you here. Do 
us a fucking favor and leave." 


She barely noticed at the time who had said it. Now her anger was 

sucked out of her like a vacuum as she saw Sharpe staring back at 
her, eyes brimming with tears. The taller woman backed out of the 

room, and left. 


"So | was about to say... we found a safe area to send shit to. 
Brought a D-Class back safe and all. Checked out all fine," Edgars 
muttered sheepishly. 


Priss could only take shallow breaths, feeling her chest throb in 
immense pain any time she tried to breathe in too deep. She undid 
her jacket and set it aside, trying to calm herself, "Then send me in." 


"Uhhh..." 


"| don't want to see any more slaves being put through this thing's 
inter-dimensional reamer. Volunteers only. And I'm volunteering." 


Priss wasn't even in charge of the project, but with Marlowe gone 
and not one of the technicians reporting her to any of the other on- 
site administrators, she was free to boss everyone around. They still 
preferred her to Dr. Marlowe. 


Sandy shuffled over, and handed Priss a wristband with a built-in 
tracker, and a small camera to affix to her shirt, "Just hit record once 
you're in. You've got about an hour of battery, but we're pulling you 
back after 10 minutes." 


"Half an hour," Priss commanded. 


Sandy sighed, and glanced at the camera, "D-Class who came back 
was pretty flustered by what he'd seen..." 


"Half an hour is fine," Priss stepped in front of the Anabasis, 
emptying her pockets and her belt of everything but her pistol. The 
presence of armed agents still put the techs and researchers on 


edge. Even the guards' guns were loaded with rubber bullets. Priss's 
wasn't. 


"Stand by," Edgars turned the knobs, and the light started to beam 
at her, like a weak flashlight. 


She kept her eyes open as the world around her dissolved like a 
heat-induced mirage. The world became hazy, then abruptly 
cleared. She was still in the room. It was completely empty, and an 
orange light was shining through the open doorway. 


Her movements were sluggish, as if she were underwater. The air 
was oppressively hot and dry. She made her way out of the room. 
To her right was a stairwell, just like the school. She made her way 
up, brushing her hair back and pulling it into a loose braid to keep 
away from her face. Then she fidgeted with her camera, pressing 
the red button to begin recording. 


The building above was completely barren; no other rooms, walls, 
dividers of any kind. An empty warehouse, with the front door wide 
open. Harsh sunlight filtered in from the door, casting everything in 
an orange pallor. She couldn't tell if it was sunrise or sunset. The 
closer she got to the open door, the more features she could make 
out. 


The building was at least fifty feet above ground, with no stairwell 
leading below. Instead, a mound of dirt and sand had been piled up 
just short of the entrance. The land around the building looked 
desiccated and flaking, like snakeskin left in the sun. 


The sound of footsteps drew her back inside, gun drawn and held 
steady towards the ground. A figure approached her. It looked like a 
man, dressed only in a pair of dark blue pants. He looked as though 
he were missing most of his ribcage and his shoulders — not 
removed; never there to begin with. Most prominent of all was his 
head. The upper part seemed to cave in on itself, topped with two 
fleshy lobes that might have been eyes or its brain, and a mouth that 
opened and let out a barely audible sound of clicking and croaking. 
It raised a wobbly wooden stick up at her, starting to croak more 
audibly as it approached her, jabbing at the air defensively. 


Date: 4/21/1995 

Description of event: SCP-847 tears out all head hair and extracts 
liver after Experiment 847-J with D-13928. 

Researcher's notes: See partial debriefing interview below: 


Dr. : Did you make any comment about SCP-847's 
hair? 


D-13928: [laughs] | know, right? The 80s are over. Heck, 
that was almost 70s. 


Dr. : Please answer the question. 


D-13928: You got it all on film. Nah, | didn't say much of 
anything. | was just hella impressed with an actual living 
doll. Real fine piece of ass, too. | suppose | can't take her 
drinking, though, being plastic and all. And me still 
locked up, of course. 


Dr. : Well, thank you, D-13928, we're done here. 


D-13928: You're welcome! You think we can run this 
experiment again, sometime? 


Hair replaced 7/13/2013. Liver replaced 8/12/2013. 


Date: 3/1/2005 

Description of event: SCP-847 tears out all pubic hair during a 
period of Pattern Z behavior. 

Researcher's notes: Of note is that this is the only shattering event 
that has not been linked to a Pattern Y period. SCP-847 has not 
attempted replacement. 


Date: 9/23/2013 

Description of event: SCP-847 extracts brain, eyes, clavicle, and 
shatters hands. 

Researcher's notes: SCP-847 had become fully intact, under 
Researcher Tyler Jensen's supervision. In the interest of reducing 
SCP-847's capabilities, a test was authorized with D-7294, chosen 
because he had been convicted of multiple murders of a sexual 
nature. Shattering event lasted 45 minutes, with SCP-847 emitting 


Priss took a step to her left, carefully raising the gun up to groin 
level, finger off the trigger. Then she took another step. The creature 
stepped to its left as well, preventing her from leaving its direct line 
of sight — if it even had sight. She continued circling with the 
creature until her back was to the stairwell she had emerged from. 
The creature croaked loudly, and lowered its stick, banging on the 
floor with the bottom of it. The noise it made was surprisingly loud, 
and almost immediately she heard more croaks echoing around the 
open space, from other stairwells and openings around her. 


She took a quick look behind her, then ran to the stairwell. She 
couldn't tell if the one with the stick was following her; the croaks 
didn't let up, and only got louder. By the time she shut the door 
behind her, she could see movement down the stairs. Several of 
them must have piled on top of each other, slamming against the 
door and howling wildly at the door. They probably couldn't move, 
stuck in the enclosed space against the door. 


She sighed, and looked around. There were wooden boxes in the 
room, nailed shut. She sat on one, and leaned her head against the 
wall. 


"How long was that? Seven, eight minutes...?" She looked down at 
her wristband. No clock on it. Nothing she could interact with. 


At least they couldn't pound on the door. She sighed and shut her 
eyes. In her mind, she re-played the events that had unfolded. 
Sharpe... Annie. She'd just been joking, Priss realized too late. 
She'd never seen Aurianne Sharpe look like that, her eyes so wide, 
tears welling, shoulders slumped so low. It was terrifying; Sharpe 
had always been the strong influence in her life, the loving, 
protective "big sister" she hoped she was towards Rhiannon. Annie 
had never shown the slightest bit of weakness. Even when it was a 
genuine time to cry, it was always red eyes and crocodile tears with 
her, voice never warbling, head always held high. 


| bet she has a crush on you, Rhiannon had said to her, derisively, 
but she doesn't know, does she? Priss lowered her head. She hadn't 
ever told Sharpe, but somehow she'd found out. 


A light shone in her face, and she jumped to her feet. The world 


became hazy again, and the light grew brighter, with more clear 
humanlike figures emerging. Then she was suddenly back, the room 
brightly lit, Edgars standing before her, looking relieved. 


"Pulled the plug early?" She realized she was drenched in sweat, 
and the room was freezing cold. 


"No. You were gone for ten hours. We kept trying to bring you back, 
but... we couldn't risk shifting the controls and bringing back pieces 
of whatever might've been over there. Or pieces of you," He rubbed 
his eyes, and turned away, "So we started igniting her every half- 
hour, just in case. Then every ten minutes. Then everyone went 
home, preparing for the worst. Some kind of... general relativity 
thing, | guess?" 


She smiled, barely absorbing his words, instead savoring the 
freezing cold air the Anabasis somehow put out when it started to 
overheat. She drifted over to the table where she'd left her 
cellphone, and started to call Aurianne. 


« Potent Drug | First Ones In | Key Biscayne » 
Anabasis Hub 


First Quarto 


The Architect 

The temple now is slumb'ring in its sprawl 
The dark of night has taken it upon 

But growth can yet succeed within its walls 
And rooms within continue yet to spawn 
Does wood not crack if alterations made 
Continue so to do while it does wake? 

Do tiny Buddhas ever truly fade? 

And hallways moan, and bones and teeth do break 
To craft the yawning caverns of the god? 

A frozen earthquake, trapped within the mud 
Always growing, shifting where we trod 

To craft a place of worship dripped in blood 
And later when the lives and walls can't keep 
| wonder, will we remember to weep? 


Star-Eyed Child 

She cannot see the dark inside her eyes 

A film, in day, that eats the world within 
The horror that the blackness does imply 
Does not reflect upon her gentle skin 

A child yet, a flower not yet grown 

A bud attempting sight unto the world 

But even here, ensconced among her own 
She cannot try to even come unfurled 

She only sits and stares, her eyelids gone 
And never even really there to start 

The curtains to her solemn mind are drawn 
Her eyes, reflection, lonely counterpart 
And yet within, below the membrane lies 
Her galaxy, a heaven in her skies 


Season Opener 

In darkest room a researcher sits still 
Rewinding on the Motorola box 

To watch the ‘faithful’ execute God's ‘will’ 
Prosthelytizing vainly to their flocks 

"What makes a man descend so far below?" 
He wonders as he presses pause to stare 
Bathed in the television's bright blue glow 
To watch them, fans still dimly unaware 
That nothing will allow them to escape 

The hellish nightmare of this picture show, 
This prison cell, this never-ending jape 

That lost its comic timing long ago 

But who'd have thought a basketball's long arc 
Can mirror us truly within the dark 


Pesterbot 

Destruction is its one prerogative 

But fate has doomed it to a life of want 

Its threats become merely declarative 
Without the weight behind to truly daunt 

It tries on names like different kinds of hats 
Attempting to find one that truly strikes 
Fear into hearts of men, those bureaucrats 
That treat it like a toy that's meant for tykes 
But deep within it burns a heart of flame 

A thirst for blood that's never been compared 
Yet locked within a body that's been lamed 
Its only comfort never truly there 

Those empty threats are all it ever had 
And in the end that's really rather sad 


Cross-Dimensional Barbershop 

"Did you know, boy, this shop used to be full 
"Of barbers, not just me, a massive fleet 

"Of men with gel and deft fingers that pull 

"At curls and kinks, voices raised to greet 
"The men who came to us, with coins in hand 


"To ask us for our willing expertise 

"In all things follicle, to make them grand. 
"Surgeons, lawyers, corporate types, police, 
"All came here to Giuseppe. Now, they're gone, 
"Absconded," he said, glowering past me. 

The bags below his eyes belied a yawn. 

"A handful left, perhaps a score, and thee." 

His accent was too thick for me to grasp 

"It was fun, once," was all | heard him rasp 


Deus Ex Machina 

We live our lives in quiet discontent 

But safe among the rambling lies we weave 
About how we've protected our ascent 

To afterlife, and yet we thought to leave 

A ranger station, quiet in its place 

Among the geyser's roaring waterspout 
Concealing network hoping to replace 

The world that we can learn to do without 

A hidden comfort we cannot learn of, 
Despite the fact that it would bring us peace, 
A magnifier of the dange'rous love 

A counter to the promise of release 

But in the end, with blackness ending yawn 
| bet no one will even know we're gone 


The Black Cat and the White Rabbit / Jackie's Secret / Site-45-C: 
Floor 24 

Oh, listen close to humming in the air, 

The disk drive, like a flitting moth, awakes 

And spins the empty numbness it can spare 

From lines of code that slither through like snakes 
The party's in full swing now, and the lords 

And ladies in their grandeur turn to watch 

The cat among them, slowly drifting towards 

The center, now devoid of all debauch 

But even masks can't save him now in this 
Emaciated form, he tries to tamp 

The feeling grown of dread encasing bliss 


He's wond'ring if he should have asked the lamp 
A sharpened mind's no match for rabbit's claws 
Our Sarah isn't here now, never was 


WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT THING 

Do living creatures not deserve respect 

No matter how upsetting their visage? 

Maybe. Perhaps we all need to reflect 

Upon the thin genetics, and the bridge 

That draws us close together, us and them 
(Disgusting though their many legs may be) 
The tree of life has crafted many stems 

And good or ill, entwined with them we see 
Them only through the crystal glass | wield 

To capture them, release upon the earth. 

The index card's a flimsy sort of shield 
Protection that we've borne against since birth 
Yet tender love for them—oh no, it fell 

Oh shiTTING FUCK, IT'S ON MY FACE, OH HELL 


« First Quarto | Second Quarto » 


First Seed 


March 11th, 2015. 


Siberia was not nice this time of year. Anders Forsman wondered if 
Siberia was ever really nice at any time of the year. Either way, this 
wasn't his normal neck of the woods. The Siberian tundra was the 
kind of place you shipped low performance Insurgency officers to try 
and whip them into shape. But apparently one of those washouts 
had stumbled upon something big before the hoarders had a chance 
to nab it from them. So the Insurgency had decided that he would be 
the one to go verify that it was as big a hazard as they claimed it to 
be. Forsman personally thought that it was a cluster of bullshit 
coming from some attention whore officers. He'd see that it wasn't 
as jazzy as they had made it out to be, and some of them would 
probably be shot. Bing bang done.