"Am | the only one who feels we should not be trusting her?," Haji 
asked, "The longer she is here, the more this whole ‘auditing’ thing 


SCP-681: Hostile Helium 


Item #: SCP-681 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-681 is to be contained in a 
row of standard pressure tanks rated to contain helium gas. All tanks 
are to be chained to the floor or walls of the containment room. The 
containment room is to be kept airtight and at near-vacuum 
pressures, with two Level 1 staff assigned to check for tank leakage 
once a week. Checks are to be made in pressure suits, and none of 
the gas is to be removed without clearance from Level 2 personnel. 
In the event of a minor leakage into the storage chamber, the room 
is to be temporarily flooded with normal air to force SCP-681 into 
collection traps in the ceiling. 


Should a very large leak occur, or should SCP-681 breach the 
containment room, nearby personnel are to be supplied oxygen 
masks immediately, and the bubbles of SCP-681 forming around 
them are to be siphoned off. 


SCP-681 can be safely placed in latex balloons without the usual 
concern of leakage, but no more than three average balloons worth 
of SCP-681 are to be removed from the containment room at any 
time. 


Description: Discovered in a warehouse under investigation for 
several cases of reported death by suffocation, SCP-681 is roughly 
two hundred 155-cm canisters of helium gas with unusual 
properties. In the event of leakage in the vicinity of brainwave 
producing subjects, it will move towards the subject and fill airways 
and sinus cavities with helium gas. In enough volume, this can lead 
to death via suffocation. 


While still in the 155-cm storage canisters, it retains some of the 
capacity to exert mobility, hampered by the weight of the metal 


sounds like an excuse for infiltrating us and test something... 
strange downstairs. | mean no offense to the wise women, Mirra in 
particular, but they might be blinded by her position! What was that 
thing that come downstairs? And how is it that she, a Coalition 
officer, has a sister in the Mission Branch?" 


"Everything we do here is strange. What makes what she does any 
different? | was a Coalition operative, too, and here | am. Besides, 
you don't get to choose your family..." Olympe shook his head at the 
suspecting volunteer. "Look, it's simple enough. It's a matter of 
whether you accept what Frank tells you or not. | trust Frank. | don't 
trust Locke, but | find no reason to be paranoid about it either." 


"There is that," Lila said, her head uncovered as she left the surgery 
room, barely even having time to digest the news. "There is also the 
fact that Opal will not talk about her and has asked to be put in solo- 
work with one of the newbies as nurse. She only does that when 
she's in a bad mood." 


Olympe frowned at that. "Lila..." 


"You know me, Frans." She rapidly collected her headscarf, 
covering her head and ears. "I won't do anything against her, no 
matter who she is or what she did in the past. | am not that sort of 
woman anymore, and | am pretty certain she is not a Parahealther 
anyhow." 


"What do you mean, Afwerki?," Haji inquired, curious. 


"| have my reasons, dear. Where is Ahman, by the way?," she 
delicately answered. 


"Frank told him and some of the kids to go burn some of that mutant 
meat. Right, that, too! What if it was Locke's fault, somehow!," the 
young man added. Olympe arced a brow. 


"Even Jacob says it's his fault, Haji. Just let go." 


"I'm coming to Somalia," Rhiannon's voice came out clearly from the 
little bird, "I'm so happy I'll get to see you in person again. 


Everything happened so fast, we barely got enough time to talk." 
Priss shrugged, "We talked enough." 
Rhiannon laughed, "You never were one for conversation." 


Priss sat in her quarters, laptop on her bed. She was still in 
quarantine, after the furry beast came through the Anabasis. It had 
been taken peacefully, and wasn't showing any signs of illness after 
four days, but still they insisted on quarantining her. They couldn't 
find any signs of potentially dangerous pathogens in the beast yet, 
but not finding anything yet didn't mean it was safe for her. 


"I'm in quarantine." 


"| heard," Rhiannon kept her smile upbeat, "Don't worry, you should 
be out soon. By tomorrow at latest." 


Everyone else exposed had been released already. They were 
keeping her in longest. /t's because you don't belong here. Priss 
looked over at the Anabasis, on the table beside her. Had it always 
been able to talk? She remembered hearing that some of the 
researchers had talked to it, but couldn't remember if that was 
normal or some mental effect caused by exposure to it somehow. 


"| just wanna... | wanna talk to you. About anything. The weather, 
even. | miss your voice. There's so much to catch up on... | mean, 
even though you're from another universe or whatever." Rhiannon 
just kept talking. So much nonsense. It wasn't as comforting for 
Priss as it was for her. 


Priss had figured something had happened to her in this timeline to 
separate her from her family, "When | came here, | was in the 
basement of an abandoned school. Stuff brought in by the Anabasis 
tends to be in the same spot in one timeline as it was in the one 
targeted. Why was | in an abandoned basement?" 


Rhiannon sighed, averting her gaze from the camera. 


"| was dead. It's okay, you can say it. Probably mugged and 
stabbed, that would explain why | had nothing in my pockets." 


"No, you... We didn't know. You had gone missing about twelve 
years ago. You were declared legally dead a while back. You were 
on your way home from school because you'd missed the bus, and 
you never returned. The school was searched but | guess they 
somehow missed your body..." 


Priss swallowed lightly, and nodded. She'd expected it was 
something or other. 


"I'm sorry," Rhiannon said, "| wanted to tell you, but like | said, 
everything happened so fast..." 


Priss shrugged again, "It's not your fault." 


It's not like the other Rhiannon would have opened the door and 
immediately snorted and said 'You're supposed to be dead, ha ha.’ 
It's not like this Rhiannon doesn't respect you enough to tell you the 
truth up front. You don't belong here. 


"How would you even tell someone that, after all they've been 
through?" 


Like this, 'You're supposed to be dead, ha ha.’ 
Priss sighed, and pressed her hands into her eyes. 
You dont belong here. 

"What's wrong?" Rhiannon asked. 

Priss looked up, seeing her sister still on the line. 


"It's still hard trying to fit in here. It seems like every other thing | try 
to say ends up being racist or offensive in some way. | know not to 
say obvious stuff, but it's like every little thing can be twisted into 
something racist that | don't understand because I'm not from here. 
I've stopped trying to converse with people... Just simple, short 
statements and | get by." 


Rhiannon grinned, "It's what you're best at." 


Priss stared back at her. 


"Sorry. Just relax. You're more well-regarded than you think. And 
you really are doing some good things here. Have you been getting 
along with the others? Opal, Jacob, Frank?" 


Priss closed her eyes, longer than she intended, and slowly opened 
them, "Opal. She talks too much; makes my head hurt." She felt a 
strong urge to vent, but figured that was unwise... she preferred to 
complain about a person to their face, rather than behind their back. 
Besides, they trusted her... It wasn't her problem if that backfired in 
some way. "Foundation didn't work with anomaly-wielding 
humanoids. Still not used to it. Like leaving your house unlocked at 
night." 


"Don't worry about it. You'll get used to it. Maybe not used to her, 
but as long as you two play nice." 


Priss looked up again, at the door that was locked and sealed on the 
other side, as the staff waited the all clear before lifting the 
quarantine. Her quarantined because a googly-eyed man-bear ran 
past her, and an anomaly basically in charge of the entire operation. 
In context, it made sense, but... 


Her gaze trailed off to the Anabasis again. 


You don't belong here. 


« Land of Plenty | Hub | The Hammer Falls » 


The Hammer Falls 


Silently, the creature swum over the calm, peaceful surface of the 
reservoir. It had been filtering the contents of the reservoir for as 
long as Priscilla had been bringing them in, and it had feasted upon 
them. It had grown quite a bit, too, its form no longer resembling that 
of a certain mammal. 


It would be slightly less accurate, yet fitting if one was to observe it 
from the side, to a slug that was over a meter and half tall and had 
eerily luminescent spikes protruding from its back. Its massive head 
had grown; the large, bone-like protrusion underneath it had grown 
and become a segmented structure made entirely of the white bark 
of a strange, deformed tree. 


If seen from underneath, as Jacob wanted to see it and had not 
been allowed to by Opal, the sight would have probably killed the 
observer. 


There were tendril-like organs, a net of extremely friable tissue that 
broke in finer threads and combined in tentacle-like structures then 
separating again to form large curtains of hair-like filters waving 
without the slightest disturbance in the water. They grew from its 
belly, from which they had emerged since the moment it became 
flesh and had spread greatly, greatly and without limitation within the 
reservoir where it was confined and the many draining systems 
surrounding it. And there were things in it, moving, jumping from 
tendril to tendril, like minuscule spiders jumping and swimming and 
becoming starfish, becoming jellyfish, becoming shoals of tiny fish- 
like silver darts, becoming shrill that became smaller and smaller 
and smaller and then became portions of a greater feeling ingrained 
in a strange thought that was cleanse, cleanse, cleanse, cleanse... 


Concepts within the borders of the creature's mind and reality itself 
beyond them were fighting a gentle war underneath the surface of 
the water, trying to impose their rules to each other. And the 


creature was nothing if not a small swelling of matter and gravitation 
in a world that was comfortably familiar to it. A world bound by the 
rules of flesh, not unlike the one it had come into being. 


A world in which it didn't have to think. 


While it had existed, and from the moment it had shed from its 
physical body in a distant time — In a different world? A different 
universe? — like ripe fruit, it had wished, nay, strove towards a state 
of pure, constant non-conscience. Other souls achieved it just by 
shedding, their transcendence manifest but also calming, peaceful, 
happily eternal bliss. A void existence, only filled by the I. 


But it had never that chance. It never could stop thinking. Other 
Soul-Seekers told it to try, and try, and try, but it could not. When 
you were soul un-carnate, you had to learn to let go of the 
memories, of the feelings, even the form you got used to during your 
life; and that creature in particular never could let go, not completely. 


It never managed to... how did humans put it? Release its burden. 


So it decided to turn the other way, dump all of himself that could be 
pushed from its | into the comfortable limitations of a brain and 
dedicate that brain's circuitry to one objective. 


Cleanse. Cleanse, cleanse, cleanse, filter, purify, secrete pure water 
with pure salts in delicately balanced quantities, concentrations 
always at optimal levels. Maybe a few vitamins, just to complement 
it? No. No, it'd be better not to. Just water. 


If one was to be forever obsessed and suffering because of thought, 
why not put obsess over something useful? 


However, it could also feel curiosity. It expanded its tendrils once 
more along the collector tubes, greeting the hardworking Mason 

Mold over the way. It responded with its melodious symphony of 
unending work. 


And, as it used the extensions of its body to listen to every vibration 
over the entire hospital, the town, and even further away, it became 
aware... 


Dodger sat in the atrium of the hospital, staring out the window 
blankly. Not for the first time, she reflected on all the leeway she'd 
been given as an employee here. They smiled and accepted her 
and put up with her solely because of the money she'd donated. No 
one dared say it to her face, but she couldn't imagine any normal 
MCF agent still being kept on-site, much less employed, after that 
conference call incident. She had to change her behavior, but it was 
just so hard to do so. The longer she went without being the center 
of attention, the more her self control started to slip. She had no 
friends left to be a pressure valve for her. She'd somehow managed 
to burn nearly every bridge behind her. The hospital staff seemed to 
tolerate her presence so long as she stuck to one pre-set path— the 
front lobby, and the hall leading out the back. A foot out of line, and 
they were all over her case. 


There were no further incidents since the near-riot several days ago. 
Her contacts hadn't found the instigators. Every lead twisted back to 
itself somehow. Either they had perfectly slipped in and out of the 
country without a single witness, or else they were being sheltered 
by some group or another. 


But that didn't matter, because of the goddamn fucking animals. She 
still didn't see why they couldn't just let the people eat them, 
provided they cooked them thoroughly. She considered it 
hypocritical that people like Rhiannon espoused using unknown 
quantities like the Anabasis to help people, while everyone 
unanimously cracked down on self-replenishing animals for being 
unknown quantities. She couldn't help but wonder whether Priscilla 
Locke's presence and Rhiannon Locke's position swayed the 
decision to use the Anabasis. 


Mirror Universe Locke. Dodger fumed. Fuck her. 


She spotted Yasir approach through the window, and got up to meet 
him at the door. 


"Problems," He said simply. 


"Country's top export," She sneered, and shut the door behind her, 
"Where?" 


He waved her to follow, then moved onto the road, where four 
armed men flanked him, outfitted in vests and helmets. Standard- 
issue AMISON supplies, so likely not brigands or bandit types. 
Probably stolen, given my luck. And me here without a gun. She 
was going to wind up a hostage or murdered at this rate. 


The group piled in to a dusty white pick-up truck, and started off out 
of the village. They didn't go far before she saw the smoke, and 
smelled the fire. Burning meat—but also a smell like burning rubber 
and plastic. 


It was indeed MCF agents; they were being harangued by a group 
of men. The carcass of some big animal was being incinerated 
nearby. Someone had thrown tires into it, along with some MCF 
supplies, including bags of wheat and flour. 


"What now?" She whined to Yasir. 


He started pointing as they rushed to the scene, "People think the 
food being distributed is contaminated. They think it responsible for 
the freak animals. Harti divisions; some in one clan want us to take 
the food, others in clan want to burn it, turn to other clans for 
support." 


"| thought the Harti was all one clan!" She was getting frustrated with 
internal politics. 


"No, no, Harti is group of clans—" 


She stopped him as they reached the mob, forcing her way through 
to the MCF operatives at the center, "You're here!" It was Momio— 
Enrico, or Martino, as if there were any more of them. They didn't 
have guns either, and their armed escort was looking overly anxious 
to start using theirs.