The Foundation taught him to survive what he had faced, to live 
through it. But, evidently, they hadn't taught him to live with what he 
was. The Foundation, a necessity for the survival of humanity; and 
yet it was not good for humanity. No, not for "humanity"; for people. 


Which was why, Frank thought, he had gone over to the other side. 
And, he realized in a surge of deep emotion, he belonged there. 


He stood and left the tent, feeling a bit cramped but otherwise fine. 
He took his notebook out of its allotted pocket and wrote Need 
another date with shrink down. 


Then, he heard his phone ringing. 


"No. No, listen, I'm not a volunteer, I'm Frank West-I'm Frank 
Westinghouse!" 


There were those days. Days when everything was apparently out to 
get you and you were knee-deep on it. 


"Westinghouse! Yes, it has an "h", of course it-An ecSec! I'ma 
fucking ecSec! An Executive member, Security specialist-do you 
even understand me, you shithead? No, I'll say all the bad words | 
want, just get me the Mission Director!" 


Days when the mud was not enough to hold you back, because you 
were furious, and fury was more than enough to make you wade 
across the marsh. 


"lam aware, yes. Absolutely aware. | even know where you are. Do 
you know who are you talking to?" 


Frank Westinghouse strode through the camp, now completely 
ignorant of what happened around him. A minute ago, he had 
received a message that had changed all his plans and was 
messing with his positive thinking thing, fast. 


While he was put on hold to ‘check his credentials' — "no, don't you 
dare, don't youuuu sonova-", — he checked again his text message 
inbox, just to make sure he was not making a hilariously stupid 
mistake. Things like those happened even to experienced Security 
Executive workers, right? 


WPhO auditor delegate inbound. Prepare for new mission. 
O-1WG on the move in three hours. Highest priority. - 


Lindsberg. 


Well, not to Frank. 


Loan Lindsberg was the go-to man for all sorts of headaches and 
most of the problems that plagued Frank's life as a Security 
Executive member of the Charitable. Sure, he was his boss, the 
Rescue and Intervention Mission Deputy Director, and thus he was 
supposed to be an insufferable prick, but the way he cared, the way 
they all cared about him and all the people that worked for them, 
drove him nuts. 


It was the fact that they actually cared instead of simply pretending 
that drove him nuts, of course. 


Frank was aware that wasn't a healthy outlook on the problem, and 
he knew precisely why he felt this way. He was used to being 
treated as shit by his previous employers, and now only exchange 
employees made his life impossible. Everyone else actively tried to 
be both a friend and a workmate. Frank allowed himself a second to 
reflect on how abjectly bland and simple his life had become over 
the few last years. 


He snorted at the thought. "Bland and simple, sure," he manically 
murmured to himself, which drew the attention of a couple of 
AMISOM soldiers on patrol. 


They ignored him as soon as they noticed the MCF vest, leaving him 
to reflect on the place he held in the world. 


When he joined the Charitable, many of its members treated him like 
a complete stranger would deal with a stranger coming from the 
other, hated Foundation: distance, caution, well-justified suspicion... 
Frank had been ready for that. 


He had not been ready for the kind words, the empathy, the 
patience. God, the patience some of those people had with him. All 
those times he still thought as an Agent even when talking to 
people, when he kept thinking of Mission Directors as Level 3 and 4 
personnel, and volunteers as class D personnel... although he had 


SCP-675: Shadows Through the Window 


Item #: SCP-675 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: The house containing SCP-675 
has been designated Observation Post 9010. One researcher must 
be stationed within Observation Post 9010 at all times. Monitoring of 
SCP-675 is to be undertaken in 30 day shifts. No researcher may 
return to Observation Post 9010 before a minimum of six (6) shifts 
have passed. All researchers assigned to SCP-675 must undergo 
mandatory psychological screening prior to and after a completed 
shift in SCP-675. 


All researchers monitoring SCP-675 must record any and all 
observations on an audio recorder. Following Incident 675-1, all 
researchers must be under video surveillance at all times. 


Description: SCP-675 is a standard window and frame found in the 
northwest portion of Observation Post 9010, in the living room area. 
During random time intervals, shadows resembling humanoid 
figures (designated as SCP-675-1) can be seen through the window. 
These shadows are visible at all times of the day and night, and are 
seen to be visually distinct from normal nighttime darkness. These 
instances are only visible from within Observation Post 9010. It is 
currently hypothesized that SCP-675-1 instances are trans- 
dimensional beings, and that SCP-675 functions similarly to 
SCP-1278 and SCP-1288 as a means of viewing them. 


In order to aid in observation, a thin screen has been attached over 
SCP-675. This screen acts as a projection surface, on which 
SCP-675-1 instances can be seen more easily. 


SCP-675-1 instances often engage in actions such as tapping on 
the glass of SCP-675, conversing with one another, and various 
other benign actions. These are to be considered normal, and as of 


never voiced that mental comparison out loud, thankfully. 


And, of course, his continuous and almost neurotic tendency to 
complain about every small "security breach" about secrecy. The 
first time he joined his first and only Work Group, he felt the people 
around him was actively opposing the very idea of cautious, planned 
approach to the exploitation of potentially dangerous anomalous 
processes. Frank's reaction to this attitude had been, of course, 
losing his shit and spreading it around by shouting to everyone. 


More than once, Opal had felt profoundly disappointed with him. 
More than once, Jacob had thought him a lost cause. But he had 
changed, for the best, and others had most of the merit. He was 
aware of it now. 


He put the phone back against his ear. Of course, the 9!" Manna 
Overture was still going on. He would not mind it, or at least not so 
bloody much, if not for the fact that the thing was a memetic agent 
specifically designed to reduce telephone overload in the 
Johannesburg Office lines. In theory, Sarah told him once, the idea 
was sound; you put a meme that conveys interesting subliminal 
concepts, thus making you want to listen in the stand-by tune of your 
telephone, if you are a Manna Charitable Foundation Executive, but 
it is lost on anyone else, which triggers a mild cognitive effect; 
namely, you lose interest and want to go do something actually 
enjoyable instead of listening if you are not. That way, meddling 
snoopers stopped snooping early, and Executives still had the 
chance to talk to the big bosses, and made certain that any non- 
member that stayed on the phone for the entire length of the 
Overture would be really, really desperate to contact the MCF. 
Which was the whole point of the thing, in theory. 


Of course, the fact that Frank had been an ecSec for years and he 
kept feeling the need to go solve a crossword, do his daily exercises 
regime or try to check new encrypted mail from his Foundation 
supervisors was not encouraging. In his mind, Frank knew he would 
forever remain a skipper, no matter what his heart may pledge to 
uphold. 


And actually, it was his heart that kept beating the drums at the 
rhythm of his age-old guilt and shames, which held all that training, 


built-in instincts and obsolete customs in place to make sure they 
were used only when they became necessary. His current job was 
basically making sure that the kids did not do anything too excessive 
and got noticed, so that meant he had been promoted from being in 
the front lines to a PR position. 


That line of flawless reasoning fell apart when he realized he was 
running out of breath, because he had been at the wrong side of the 
camp when he had received the SMS. He checked the song again, 
and thought of going back to his tent and resume once again 
chapter four of War and Peace which, his guilty mind reminded him, 
was in the same position he left it a month ago. 


Goddammit. 


As he innerly expected, the song kept going when Frank reached 
the administrative section of the camp, now jogging with a patently 
ridiculous walk and trying not to exhaust his breath. Officials from 
several armed parties, volunteers from several other non-profits and 
Executive members of the Charitable had gathered by the tents, 
where they attempted to coordinate what, to all effects and 
purposes, was an organized retreat of the most active team in the 
camp. 


That was, his own Work Group. 
"Salut, Frank!" 


Frank saw Francois Olympe, their assigned GOC liaison, Security 
member and mechanic specialist, coming towards him. The man 
was not the typical Coalition berserker. He had been a combat 
engineer and an accomplished mechanic for an Assessment Team, 
but eventually dropped out for personal reasons. Frank never asked 
him about them, and Olympe never asked him about his own 
reasons to desert the other Foundation. As tacit agreements went, it 
worked perfectly for both parties. 


For the most part, Olympe served as a deterrent measure on his 
own, partly because his two meters and thirty centimeters of 
towering muscles were impressive enough to dissuade most 
possible assailants; and yet, the part that tended to scare those who 


would not find size concerning enough was his right arm. It was a 
Coalition-issued prosthetic, its intricate mechanisms covered by a 
thick plastic-like black skin simile with round, metallic knuckles. 


According to Olympe, the thing was "mainstream" technology 
applied in a clever way, and had more cons than pros even with an 
optimal use and regular maintenance, which he dealt with himself. 


However, both were hardwired into their alleged roles when they 
had joined the Charitable, and even if Olympe was an officer and a 
gentleman working for a non-profit association, right now he was just 
a pissed commando. And having an argument with a pissed 
commando who happened to have an armored prosthetic arm would 
not be a usual decision for any Foundation agent worth the title, and 
it certainly was not one of Frank's priorities. 


"Hey, Frans." Frank placed his phone back in his pocket, giving in to 
the memetic song. 


"Does this whole 'new mission’ thing sound silly to you too?", 
Olympe asked. He never got quite rid of the French Guiana accent. 


"Not really. | mean, yes, it is ill-timed or-well fuck that, it's straight out 
inconvenient. But | guess we have to just roll with it." 


Olympe shrugged in a disconcertingly asymmetric movement. "I 
don't understand why are they doing this. We haven't been here for 
even one week. Why do they have to move us for? Was there an 
earthquake or something like that? It better be something big." Both 
men thought of big things why their International Board superiors 
might mobilize them. Both men shivered. "Well, not very big." 


Frank nodded. He had to placate Olympe's need for explanations 
with a certain regularity, anyways. 


"| Know what you know, Frans. I'm sure we even got the same text 
from Loan," the ex-agent stated, in his better non-committal tone. 
"It's true, it's not usual, but we are already packing, apparently," 
Frank pointed at a few volunteers who wore the green-white chest 
guards that marked them as people from the MCF, running through 
one of the wider streets in the camp, "so we will have to do as 


always and just roll with it." 
Olympe stared at him. 


"This is not usual, Frank. We haven't been here a week. | think you 
mean like old times, yes?" 


"Crap," he answered, closing his eyes. "I still do the oh-it's-fine-the- 
Foundation-keeps-me-on-the-move-all-the-time thing again, right?" 


"Don't worry. It happens to me as well. Although with the Coalition 
we had better transport-" 


"Well, no complaining, big man!", a pathologically cheerful voice 
claimed, coming from the administration tent. 


The voice was followed by Sarah Desjeux, who was half as tall as 
Olympe, twice as wide and held the only thing resembling authority 
over every single member of her Work Group. 


She was respected. 


Sarah Desjeux was the mind and the soul of the Opal-1 Work Group 
which, as usual for a Mission team, received its name — or 
pseudonym — from its highest ranking leader. At the time, since the 
Work Group was mostly meant to perform Health and Prevention 
activities, the authority went to the person with the greatest know- 
how and experience on the matter; that was, without any shadow of 
doubt, Sarah, and their Work Group was so efficient at what they did 
that she would remain where she was for a long time. 


There was also the usual confusion most newer volunteers felt when 
they worked with her, laughing even while under fire, snickering 
while performing surgery or telling horrible jokes to up morale in 
stupidly dangerous situations. The most told story in the Work Group 
went that, the day she died, they would find out that where all the 
guts were supposed to go there was just a massive heart. "Which 
would mean," Jacob always added when she was around, "that her 
heart is also her stomach. That does not explain why my repeated 
invitations to cook her dinner in my lab have not come to fruition yet, 
but | am a patient man." 


And there was, of course, the thing that Schadenfreude Desjeux 
could not hold herself from doing. Having her way with you in the 
ways she found funniest. 


"Sergeant!" 


Frank noticed how Olympe involuntarily stood at attention, and 
smiled. The man always reacted like that, but only with Olympe he 
didn't respond with anger. She did have that effect on people. 


The chestnut mop of hair that covered not just her head but most of 
the her small, round body swung from side to side, released from 
the tight bun she used to tie it on while working. It was a 
mesmerizing sight, Frank thought, while slowly following a few locks 
as they evolved in their fall over Sarah's face. 


"| will have you know" she stated at Olympe's stomach, "that we are 
the only people who can fulfill this mission. Rupert-3 is too busy 
finding a cure for the common cold, or something, so they are not 
deploying in the front lines. Such unexpected news!-Not." She 
sneered at her own words. "Better yet, the other eight Work Groups 
are completely tied down at Mogadishu and the Southern clusters. 
They are needed." 


"All eight groups?" Frank inquired. "Even Martin-1? | thought they 
had a hundred-" 


"Sure, sure, a hundred and ten people, God bless them large 
Groups." Sarah seemed to dismiss the concept with the mere way 
she pronounced ‘large’. She came right to him, stabbing Frank's 
chest with a long, pointy finger. She knew that made him nervous. 
"You know what? There is a problem when a hundred and ten 
people are involved. It begins with an L." 


"Opal, personal space, please." 


"No, Frank, it's logistics. It started with an L, remember?" She 
stated, coming even closer. Frank could see over Sarah's head how 
Olympe tried very hard not to smile. 


"Dammit-Sarah-get-away," he hissed, to her delight. It was not even 


a mind game, she just loved laughing at them. And part of the spell 
was that no one ever got angry at her.