Johnson waited several seconds, then motioned to his men to start 
the car. The Secretary looked over Lafourche and Stillwell one more 
time before turning to join them. 


The Foundation operatives headed to their car. Lafourche called out 
to the American delegation as he got into the Ford. 


"Y'all make sure to keep up. Stillwell here drives real fast." 


Two hours in the meeting room, and the shouting just kept 
increasing. The Council had split into two more or less opposing 
camps; those who wished to move immediately to dispatch the 
Truman Administration, led mostly by O5-2 and his plan to "erase a 
select group of seventeen individuals from history," and those who 
wanted to placate the Americans with a counteroffer granting them a 
varying degree (based on which Overseer was speaking) of their list. 
The latter camp was led by a rare concordance between O5-3 and 
05-13. 


"Our very mission is to secure these phenomenon for the benefit of 
all mankind," thundered O5-2, pounding the table for emphasis, "and 
you would turn them over for the purposes of warfare? You must be 
mad!" 


The perpetual bags under O5-13's eyes had deepened further in the 
course of the discussion, but O5-8 knew that this was a far deeper 
fatigue that gripped 13 now, one beyond what a mere heated 
argument could produce. The old man lazily waved a hand in the air 
at the bellicose O5-2. 


"And what is our alternative? If you believe that you can successfully 
attack a sitting President of the United States, you are an even 
bigger fool than | thought. | can only hope that with our woeful 
understanding of causality anomalies at present, that you will be the 
first one through the portal with your precious strike team." 


The veins were out now in O5-2's forehead. "Roll over and die, the 
Great Master has spoken! Wonderful strategy!" A sheaf of papers 
fell in a waterfall off the side of the table, dislodged by the violence 
of O5-2's fist crashing down nearby. He worked to restrain his fury, 
and spoke slowly and deliberately now. 


"Make no mistake. If we hand over so much as a single item to the 
Americans, the first thing they will do, in their boundless arrogance, 
is strike Moscow. We will see World War III started by children, 
convinced that they have mastered the atom, deploying weapons far 
more terrible than those conceived by science." 


05-2 surveyed the room, quiet now for the first time in hours. He 
continued. 


"If we bow to this demand, we may as well dig our own graves. 
There will be no consensus reality to protect. If we agree to this, 
there is no point to the Foundation. The radioactive wasteland that 
they're so scared of will be the Elysian Fields compared to what the 
United States will unleash, emboldened by using the unknowable." 


The room stayed silent for what felt like O5-8 to be minutes. Finally, 
05-3, brow sopping with sweat, responded. 


"We do not know what will happen between the Soviet Union and 
the United States. We do know what will happen between the 
Foundation and the United States in an open conflict." 


At this, the room erupted again, curses and shouts flying in all 
directions, papers strewn everywhere, details forgotten in the face of 
existential crisis. O5-8 leaned back and observed the ongoing 
scene, noticing that no one seemed to notice he was there. No one, 
save 05-1, who had been silently watching the debate unfold, and 
now looked O5-8 in the eye from across the room. O5-8 had 
considered the predicament they all faced while the other Overseers 
raged, and at the silent prompting from O5-1, turned the various 
pieces of a solution over in his mind. Things suddenly began to click 
into place in his mind. O5-8 nodded to 05-1. O5-1 returned the 
gesture, and leaned forward expectantly. 


No one noticed as 05-8 took his glass of water in hand and rose. He 
finished the last of the water to help clear his throat, then promptly 
heaved the glass with all his strength into the stone fireplace directly 
behind his seat. The fine crystal exploded, showering the stonework 
with tiny droplets of glass and deafening all in the room with the 
cacophony that can only come from the destruction of fine 
craftsmanship. All shouting ceased. All discussion stopped. The 
twelve other Overseers turned now to O5-8, his slight figure now at 
the center of the room's attention. 


"Gentlemen," he said in his lightly Berliner-inflected English, "| have 
a plan." 


The two cars stopped at the top of a low, windswept hill. The five 
men stepped out of their respective vehicles, and congregated ata 


lone oak tree. Below them, to the north, were the illuminated 
windows and bright little streetlight dots of a small town. 


Lafourche drew his coat closer against the cold. "Down below there, 
that's the town of Woodvale, population 837. Y'all knew that already 
from your advance scouting of the meeting location and environs." 


"Get to the point," muttered Johnson. 


"What you don't know, | reckon, is that Woodvale is also what we 
refer to as Site-63A." 


The Secretary scowled. "Nonsense, we have a complete listing-" 


"No. Y'all don't," interjected Lafourche. "When you made the 
demands you did, you did so with imperfect knowledge. Something 
that we mean to help rectify here tonight. See, we've set up 
something of a demonstration here. Stillwell, if you please." 


Stillwell popped open the trunk of the Foundation-issue Ford, and 
took out a black briefcase. As he approached the Secretary, he 
noticed the bodyguards’ hands slowly inch towards the bulges under 
their jackets. Slowly, he clicked open the briefcase, and showed the 
Secretary and his men the contents. 


"Binoculars," said Stillwell. "You'll find a pair for each of you in 
there." 


Hesitantly, the American delegation took the binoculars. "What are 
you playing at, Lafourche?" said the Secretary. 


"Your answer. You're going to get it here now. Train them binoculars 
out towards the town down there. You'll find out just how complete 
your listing is. Stillwell?" 


The security attaché had been dreading this moment. But Lafourche 
was right; there was nothing for it. No choice at all. 


Stillwell switched on his radio. "Perimeter control, do you read me, 
over?" 


"Roger that, over," responded an anonymous voice somewhere else 


in the night. 
A brief pause. Then it had to happen. 


"Disengage Systems Alpha through Foxtrot. Cut power to the main 
drivers. Evacuate all remaining personnel." 


Stillwell looked at Lafourche. Lafourche nodded slowly. 


"Site-63A, stand down. Over." 


"Preposterous," grumbled O5-5, "completely out of the question. The 
Americans will strike at us within hours if we do such a thing!" 


Scattered assent from several of the other Overseers met O5-5's 
pronouncement. O5-8 persisted. 


"Not if we sell it correctly. All we need do is convince them that there 
are enough hidden assets, that they will need to postpone any 
action against us until they've gathered more intelligence." 


05-2 turned his back as he continued to pace the opposite side of 
the table. "So they come and kill us next week instead of tomorrow." 


"No," continued O5-8. "We buy ourselves the time to relocate 
everything we can out of their reach. We won't be able to get 
everything, but we shall keep the most dangerous items from falling 
into their hands." 


"And what of the Soviets? Surely they have anticipated this, and are 
making their own plans," interjected 05-3. 


"No doubt," answered O5-8. "But we've yet to receive their 
ultimatum, though it won't be long coming when they find out about 
what the Americans are up to. We evacuate from Russia and 
Eastern Europe as well." 


05-13 looked off through one of the high windows, entranced in 
thought. "The Americans will expect a ruse," he said into the 
distance, idly chewing a finger as he contemplated the plan. 


"The strength of the plan depends on the site we choose to 
sacrifice." 


The entire room looked toward the end of the table. O5-1 was now 
speaking. 


"There are not enough assets we've been able to keep secret from 
the intelligence services to mount any sustained resistance," the 
Head Overseer intoned. "But there are several sites within the US 
which may supply the necessary psychological impact to keep the 
more skeptical planners in the Pentagon at bay." 


O5-3 furrowed his brow, running through mental checklists. 
"Site-101 is a candidate, as is Site-13. But those would take weeks 
to adequately prepare. No, | don't-" 


"| have a site in mind for this purpose," O5-8 interrupted. "Minimal 
preparation would be necessary, and the phenomenon is self-limited 
enough to prove distracting while not seriously threatening a large 
area once it burns itself out." 


The room was quiet again. O5-9, silent for most of the day except to 
occasionally agree with O5-2, ventured forth. "That is completely 
monstrous. We cannot allow it. Of all the sites to abandon, you 
would have us leave civilians at the mercy of those-" 


"You were not there for the war, were you, 9?" O5-8 leveled the 
words slowly and cruelly. 


"If you're implying that participation in senseless acts of butchery is 
necessary for discussion, I've-" 


"| maintained cover the entire time. My predecessor and | both. You 
all know the things we did. The things | did. In the name of secrecy, 
to serve mankind. Not a single one of you raised objections then." 
05-8 felt the first traces of anger begin to leak out as he spoke now. 
"No, others bore that burden. Now that it comes to you, this duty to 
the world, yours to bear in the darkness, you shrink." 


O5-8 turned to the rest of the room. "There is only one course of 
action now. The question is whether you all have the strength to see 


it through. I'll have that vote now." 05-8 sat down, hands trembling 
under the table, out of sight. 


O5-1 addressed the Overseer Council. "The motion is as follows." 


The sounds had started in the town below about five minutes after 
Stillwell had given the order. Indistinct, murmuring voices, what had 
to be the voices of thousands of things that sounded vaguely like 
people, muttering unintelligibly. Faster and faster. Louder and 
louder. The voices in the distance were accompanied by random 
bursts of what sounded to Johnson like the twisting of metal, 
unnaturally echoing across the flat prairie below. 


Lights blinked on in every house down below. Not long after, he 
could make out the shapes of people fleeing their homes against the 
flickering points of light, alone in the vast prairie night. Bursting 
through doors and windows, scrambling as fast as they could 
towards Cars, running down streets. 


The Secretary thought briefly of demanding an explanation. Before 
he could, the flickering lights started to dim. Tendrils of shadow 
stretched from lighted windows and open doorways, individual 
threads of darkness seeming to solidify and join together in thick, 
ropy masses. The twisting metal shrieks came more frequently, the 
unworldly voices speaking quicker, reaching a fever pitch. The lights 
of the town below began to change, soft yellows and whites giving 
way to a uniform, sickly hue of green. 


He struggled for words. "What...what in God's name did you do?" 


Lafourche's eyes had never left the Secretary. "You just keep 
watching that." 


Through the binoculars, he saw the the thick ropes of shadow had 
stretched down streets and alleys, seeking the fleeing residents. 
Some had already been caught, held fast in what looked to be 
impenetrable webs of darkness. The ones who had been caught 
were being dragged back to their homes now. It became apparent to 
the three observers of the American delegation that no one was 
going to escape; the darkness was enveloping cars now, snaking 


under bridges and benches, inexorably seeking and finding all who 
tried to escape. 


Stillwell knew exactly what was happening, and wanted nothing 
more than to heave the contents of his stomach behind the tree 
nearby and cover his ears with his hands. He knew, though, that this 
moment must go according to plan. So many were being sacrificed. 
He stood his ground and waited. 


As each resident was dragged back into their houses, a light would 
blink out. At first, the Secretary thought the lights were being 
extinguished, but he soon noticed that instead, they were 
disappearing. Structures began to apparently blink out of existence, 
houses suddenly vanishing once the darkness had reeled in all 
former occupants. The lights of the town were quickly receding from 
its outskirts, pulling back towards the center as the reality of 
Woodvale convulsed into an approaching singularity. 


The last light, a single outbuilding in the center of town, vanished as 
what looked to be a man was pulled back in through his doorway, 
thrashing and screaming. The door closed, the light went out, the 
building disappeared, and all was suddenly silent. 


The three observers lowered their binoculars, now looking at an 
empty patch of darkness where a town of 837 people had stood not 
a half hour prior. 


The crickets were the first to break the silence that had fallen on the 
five men on the hilltop. Then Lafourche took his cue. 


"The Foundation rejects your demands. Whatever forces are out 
there that are responsible for what you just witnessed are not for any 
nation to turn against humanity. Our mission is bigger than you, 
bigger than the Soviets. It's for all mankind." 


Lafourche stepped close to Secretary Johnson and leaned in, 
almost nose-to-nose now. 


"If the United States of America intrudes on, or interferes with, any 
Foundation assets, we will empty the cupboards. All of the stuff that 
ain't on your lists. And what you saw is not the worst of it." 


planetary satellites and asteroid belts, are typically left unpainted 
and unaligned with the rest of the model. 


The majority of the planetary system models created by SCP-720 do 
not match other systems currently known to exist. However, at least 
four systems match up: Sol, Kepler-11, Gliese 876, and Mu Arae. 
Several of the models seem to attempt to model other known 
systems, but include disparities such as an incorrect number of 
planets, the presence of circumstellar disks, or asteroid belts. These 
models are to be photographed and kept on record, in the event that 
further information discovered on known systems reveal them to be 
similar. 


Addendum 720-A: On 06/09/2009, SCP-720 created a model with 
several anomalies inconsistent with other models it has created. A 
ninety-centimeter ring was placed around the model's sun, with two 
eleven-centimeter thick blue lines painted along both edges of the 
ring. A planet estimated to be in the circumstellar habitable zone and 
possessing apparent oceans also had a long, unpainted pole 
running from an assumed landmass to one of the planet's satellites. 
Additionally, twenty-seven small, cubical objects were placed in orbit 
of three of the planets, similar to planetary satellites in other models. 
Further research into the content of this model is underway. 


« SCP-719 | SCP-720 | SCP-721 » 


Lafourche turned to the side and spat. "That's our fuckin’ answer. 
Secretary." 


A mixture of grave offense and horror played across the face of the 
speechless Secretary of Defense. Without another word, the three 
men of the American delegation returned to their car, and sped back 
into the night. 


Stillwell let his instincts take over now. Doubled over in front of the 
oak tree, he heaved bile and acid, retching and coughing, the 
enormity of what he had just ordered matched only by an increasing 
feeling of self-loathing. He remained on his knees in front of the tree 
as Lafourche approached from behind. 


"Did they buy it," managed Stillwell weakly.