The person known to the Foundation as "Nobody" is seen by them 
as a mystery, almost a force of nature. Something unpredictable that 
can swoop in and change an entire operation for no apparent cause. 
There is no rhyme or reason to why he does what he does. 


Or maybe there is. 


The Foundation states that they don't know whether 
Nobody is an individual or an organization andina 
way, both are correct. Nobody is an individual with a purpose, and 
once that purpose is fulfilled, another individual assumes the name 
and (lack of) identity of Nobody, now having always been the only 
person to go by that name. 


"The Man Who Wasn't There" is about how Nobody struggles to 
achieve his or her purpose, whether it be self-discovery or revenge 
or joyousness or what-have-you. The overarching theme is 
"Mystery". This canon is necessarily going to be somewhat looser 
than others, because each iteration of Nobody may have a different 
goal. The one described on the GOI page (henceforth arbitrarily 
called Prime) just wants to find out who he was before this, or failing 
that, pass it on to someone else. Other iterations of Nobody may 
want something else. But every version of Nobody out there 
embodies mysteriousness. 


I'm nobody! Who are you? 
Are you noboay, too? 
Then there's a pair of us 
Don't tell—they'd banish us, you know. 


-l'm Nobody! Who are you?, by Emily Dickinson, 1891 


Prelude: A Terminus 


Yesterday upon the stair 
| met a man who wasn't there 
He wasn't there again today 
| wish, | wish he'd go away 


-Antigonish, by Hughes Mearns, 1899 


He looked at himself in the mirror and inspected his uniform for the 
day. Gray fedora, tilted just so; slate gray suit, well-tailored; white 
shirt, pressed and starched; black necktie, hanging like a noose. He 
adjusted the Windsor knot and idly thought, "/t's always black. Never 
green or navy blue or red. Hmm." 


He paused and stared briefly at his own face in the mirror, trying to 
remember if anything about it looked familiar. Again, and as always, 
nothing was. He sighed. "Well, it doesn't pay to wonder. Off to work | 


go. " 


He straightened his jacket one last time, solemnly tipped his hat to 
the empty room, and stepped through the doorway. 


Foreign Aid 


Maria Nwosu wiped the sweat from her face as she waited outside 
the village, a strong breeze blowing her colorful skirt against her 
legs. She shaded her eyes as she looked across the veldt, trying to 
spot any plumes of dust forewarning of visitors, expected or not. The 
fellow from the U.N. was already two days late, and she was 
beginning to worry that he had been waylaid somewhere along the 
way. 


After a few more futile minutes, Maria sighed and turned back 
towards her tent. Or rather, the Foundation's tent. It was still 
somewhat strange to her to be part of such an odd NGO. When they 
had come through her village months ago and asked for volunteers 
to help translate, she had stepped forward. Other non-governmental 
organizations come through her area many times, vaccinating and 
providing food and livestock, but there was something different 
about this one. She felt a sense of... otherworldliness from the 
woman who asked for helpers, as well as a sense that these were 
special people. Maria already knew all the local dialects, as well as 
French and a little English, and when they offered to pay her to 
come with them to translate, it was the final piece to push her 
decision. She never expected that small step to lead her on such a 
long journey, but such was life. 


She pulled back the tent flap and was unsurprised to see a pair of 
small boys suddenly thrust their hands behind their backs with guilty 
looks on their faces. 


"And what are you two troublemakers up to today? Have you 
already grown bored with teasing the goats?" 


The boys glanced at each other, and the slightly smaller one on the 
left said, "We were just looking for you, Miss Nwosu. Our mama is 
making bread and we thought you would want some." 


"Mhm. | see. And when you saw | wasn't here, Enitan, you decided 


to wait for me?" 


Both boys nodded eagerly to this question, and Enitan replied, "Oh 
yes, Miss Nwosu! We were afraid you would get hungry if you didn't 
know about the bread!" 


Maria gave them a look well-practiced by all older sisters and said, 
"Such kind-hearted boys. There wouldn't be any other reason you 
stayed, would there? Maybe something behind your backs?" 


The slightly larger boy looked guilty and opened his mouth to say 
something when his brother nudged him with an elbow. They quickly 
and quietly whispered to each other, before slowly bringing their 
hands out in front of them. In each hand they held a wooden 
triangle, each of which had a different complicated squiggle roughly 
carved into it. 


Maria sighed again and pointed to the table at one side of the tent. 
"Enitan, Amadi, put them back. The charms are not ready yet, and 
you shouldn't be playing with them even if they were." 


The brothers reluctantly put the pieces of wood on the table, and the 
larger boy glumly said, "But Miss Nwosu, we just wanted to see 
them so we could make some of our own." 


"And they're not ready yet, so you wouldn't be able to make more 
right now anyway!" Maria wiped her forehead with the handkerchief 
again. "If you two want to help, go keep guard for anyone coming to 
the village. I'm expecting someone to come help me, but he's late. If 
you spot him, | might let you watch while we finish the charms." 


The smaller boy perked up at this and raced out of the tent, dragging 
his brother behind him. "Oh yes, Miss Nwosu! We'll go look for him 
and bring him straight to you!" 


As the tent flap closed behind them, Maria smiled slightly and 
muttered under her breath to herself, "Ah, little boys are all the 
same. Make a chore sound exciting and they run right to it." 


"Indeed they do," said a deep voice from behind her, in French. 


Maria startled and spun around to see a man standing in what she 


was certain had just a moment ago been an empty corner of the 
tent. He was dressed in safari gear similar to what most Westerners 
wore when they came to the area, but his were all a variety of grays 
rather than the usual khaki. Almost involuntarily, Maria half-thought 
"He looks like a troubled sky, about to turn into a storm." 


"And who are you, to appear unannounced?" she demanded. 


"My apologies, Miss Nwosu. I'm here to provide you some help. 
Your supervisors may have told you about me; | believe they call me 
Joe Benefactor." The strange man gave a quick grin when he said 
his 'name'. 


She squinted at him suspiciously. "| may have been told such a 
name, but why should | trust that you are he? You have already 
shown yourself a trickster, stealing in so sneakily." 


The man smiled again. "You're more right than you know, Miss 
Nwosu. Very few people realize that so quickly. I'm impressed." He 
switched smoothly to the dialect of her home village, speaking it 
without any accent, like he had grown up beside her. "I will swear 
upon whichever gods or spirits that you choose that | mean you and 
those you serve no harm." 


Maria again felt startled at this, but hid it this time, choosing to scowl 
at the man instead. She continued in French, "I don't trust a trickster 
to keep his oath, no matter whose name he pledges it on." She 
paused briefly. "Unless perhaps it is his own. Will you swear on your 
own name, stranger?" 


The man took a moment, as if considering the request, and told her, 
"| can't do that, for reasons that have nothing to do with you. But 
perhaps a demonstration of good faith will suffice." 


The man turned to the charms the boys had left on the table, and 
looked them over. "These are warding symbols, to stop disease and 
parasites. Bury them in the center of the village and everyone would 
stop getting sick." 


Maria stalked over and scooped the pieces of inscribed wood out of 
the man's reach. She glared at him and said, "Yes they are, and | 


won't let you destroy them." 


He tilted his head and looked straight into her eyes, his light brown 
meeting her dark. "I don't seek to destroy them, but to give you 
improved ones. The beings who gave your superiors those designs 
are... not entirely familiar with how human biology works. These will 
certainly stop sicknesses, but they won't eliminate them. Any 
illnesses or parasites or germs will be... paused while someone is 
within their range of effect. Symptoms might not manifest here, but 
as soon as someone leaves this village, the sickness that was 
stopped within them will start again." 


Maria's gaze grew distant as she thought about the unusual aid 
workers she had met during her orientation and training for Manna 
Charitable. "...Yes, | can believe that. They are well-intentioned, but 
not always fully knowledgeable." She refocused on the man, 
crossed her arms and resumed glaring at him. "And what do you 
propose instead?" 


The man pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and 
presented it to her. "Here are a few corrections to these symbols, 
that would actually cure most local diseases instead of just pausing 
them. I've also included directions on the correct way to inscribe 
them, as well as which materials would work best. Feel free to check 
these with your sponsors before using them, of course." 


Maria carefully took the paper from him and put it down on the table, 
still folded. "What do you get out of this, stranger?" 


He momentarily looked slightly lost and dispirited before resuming 
his air of mild affability. "Among all the unusual organizations | must 
deal with, yours is the only one that solely seeks to improve people's 
lives. | admire that, even if | can't live up to that same credo. So | 
help when | can, in whatever small ways | can." 


"Hmm. You do know that | will not even open this paper until it has 
been tested." 


The man smirked and sketched a bow. "Given your strength of 
character, | would expect nothing less from someone seeking to 
improve, rather than destroy, these people's lives. You should 


The existence of an SCP candidate was first suspected in downtown 

when data-mining revealed a suspicious pattern of 
unexplained missing persons. The pattern stretched back at least 
fifty years, prior to which time inadequate records were kept to track 
the disappearances with certainty. The underlying pattern to the 
disappearances was matched to the sewers and utility tunnels of the 
city; the last known location of disappeared victims was always in 
the immediate vicinity of an access manhole. Foundation teams 
searching the tunnels eventually discovered the unusual patterning 
on SCP-731-1's underside but by the time they returned with a 
containment vehicle SCP-731-1 had transposed itself with another 
manhole cover somewhere else in the city. SCP-731-1 was 
ultimately ‘cornered’ after a campaign was launched to weld down 
every manhole cover in the city under the guise of ‘anti-terrorism 
measures’, restricting SCP-731-1's mobility to the point where its 
only option was to transpose into a manhole that had been prepared 
for rapid removal and transport. 


SCP-731-1 appears to act as a sort of roving ambush predator. Its 
senses are unknown but apparently very acute. When it is stepped 
on by a lone human who is not being observed by anyone else the 
victim appears to "fall" down the manhole, in actuality being sucked 
into the solid surface of SCP-731-1. Simultaneously a single large 
Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus), hereafter designated SCP-731-2, is 
disgorged from the underside of the cover to fall into the tunnel 
below. It is thought that SCP-731-1 somehow converts its victim into 
this rat. 


The maximum range over which SCP-731-1 is able to transpose 
itself with compatible manholes, or whether it is possible for it to 
jump to another network of utility tunnels not directly connected to its 
current home, is not known. The frequency of its spontaneous jumps 
increases the longer it goes without performing a conversion, 
possibly with the goal of finding better "hunting grounds". It is 
therefore hoped that by allowing it to capture and convert a D-class 
personnel on a regular basis it can be kept "satiated" and will remain 
within the faux city where it is currently contained. 


Addendum: SCP-731-2 


The rats produced by SCP-731 appear physiologically normal at first 


probably go retrieve it from those boys, though." 


Maria glanced at the empty table, then behind her to the closing tent 
flap. She darted over and pushed it open to see a small black body 
dashing away. 


"Amadi, get back here!" she yelled after him. 


She called over her shoulder to the man, "You stay here until | 
return. | want no more tricks out of you!" then chased after the boy, 
sweat already starting to bead on her own smooth black skin in the 
noonday sun. 


The man sat in one of the chairs beside the table, amused at the 
child's antics, and said, in the language of the village, "You can 
come out now, Enitan. Your brother has made his escape." 


A pair of dark eyes opened in a corner of the tent; the same corner 
that the man had appeared in. Suddenly, the small form of Enitan 
had always been standing there in plain sight. "How did you know | 
was here?" he asked, with innocent curiosity. 


"| shouldn't recognize my own tricks? I'm impressed that you copied 
it SO quickly." 


The little boy beamed with pride. "Amadi and | are the best boys in 
the village! | am the most clever and he is the most brave!" 


The man smiled widely. "Yes, and quite clever you are. Tell me, how 
did you do it?” 


Enitan happily answered, "| heard the words that the big one said to 
make you appear, and said them backwards so | would disappear!" 


The man looked curious. "The big one... you understood what he 
said?" 


Enitan looked a little embarrassed and said, "No... but | knew they 
were big words because they came from the big one, so they must 
be important!" 


The man kept smiling. "Yes, they are. Did you know that the charms 


have some of the big one's words on them too?" 


"Oh yes! That's why | want to see them! | want to know what they 
say!" 


The man shook his head in amusement. "You are too young to 
understand them all yet, but | think you and your brother just might 
learn when you're older. Call for me when you think you're ready, 
little one." With that, the man stood up and pulled aside the tent flap. 


"Wait!" shouted the boy. "What is your name?" 


The man looked over his shoulder at the boy. "Look for it. And when 
you find it, let me know what it is." He then stepped outside, grinned 
at the boy one more time, and let the flap fall closed. 


Interlude: An Excerpt 


Excerpt from the transcript of Prometheus Labs board meeting on 
[DATE REMOVED] 


CEO, D. del Rey: "Now for the next piece of business: 
Dr. Wondertainment." 


CFO, A. Anderson: "Oh lord, what debacle has R&D 
involved itself in now?" 


VP of Research & Development, Dr. K. Prelambrian: 
"*ahem* We're about a month away from completing the 
reverse engineering of the additive supplements 
Wondertainment provides in those science kits, and we 
should be able to use them in production within three 
months-" 


COO, F. Park: "Assuming it doesn't blow up in your 
faces, like the last four times you've tried reverse 
engineering those damn things. What were they? The 
candy we were going to use to eliminate blood 
pathogens? The robots we were going to get A.I. kernels 
out of? 


VP R&D: "| am well aware of the less than outstanding 
results with regards to Wondertainment products, thank 
you. But as you well know, if we can adapt even one of 
their methods to our products, we could do, well, 
wonders."