“Well, let me explain.” Williams took one last swig from his cup. 
“First off, there are the doctors, the researchers, and the support 
staff. People like you. You're the kind of people the Foundation will 
try and recruit, because it needs you. Now, 90% of you will accept 
out of a variety of reasons. Maybe for the money, maybe because of 
a genuine interest in what you study, or maybe for the chance to 
make that one discovery that will redefine the concept of human 
existence. Either way, you have choices, options. Most of the time, 
you’re already settled, have a family, and have a regular job at some 
university or research firm. Sure, some doctors are required to cut 
ties with their families, but they’re more the exception than the rule. 
Most of these guys work their eight hour shifts and then head 
straight home. They go to church on Sundays, walk their dogs, and 
curse at the morning commute. In other words, they have lives 
outside the Foundation. 


“However, some Agents and MTFs like us are in the Foundation 
because honestly, we have no other alternative. Do you know why 
we're Called ‘lifers’?” 


“Why?” 


“Because no matter how you put it, we’re stuck in the Foundation.” 
Williams glanced at Richards and Paccone. “We don’t have families, 
or rather, we don’t care about them or are forced to leave them 
behind. Agent Richards here, before she was recruited, lost her 
whole family after a nasty little run in with a certain SCP.” 


For a brief second, Agent Richards looked away and Ryan thought 
that he could see a hint of sadness and pain in her expression. 
However, the moment passed as quickly as it appeared. 


"Sergeant Paccone here joined up in the days where it was SOP to 
fake the deaths of MTF recruits, for secrecy reasons. Well, we don't 


do that nearly as often these days for obvious reasons. He had to 
leave behind wife and kid, who even now think he's buried in 
Arlington with a silver star and the posthumous rank of Major. 
Remember that crazy Russian guy?" 


"| think he was Ukrainian... or Chechen," Paccone said glumly. 


"Whatever. Either way, he was a goddamn ticking time bomb. It's 
not a good idea to recruit a guy with so much personal baggage and 
cut off the remaining contact he has with the outside. It's just not 
good business." 


"Good to know you think I'm going to snap and kill everybody in the 
room at any time,” Paccone joked. 


"Ah no, that's probably something Richards would do," Williams 
deadpanned, earning a glare from Richards. 


"Just because | actually take my job seriously and understand the 
stakes of failure doesn't make me mentally unstable," Richards 
coolly replied. 


"Oh?" Williams continued, “On that note, even if Richards does 
retire, where will she go? Who will take her in? The only people she 
knows outside the Foundation are a bunch of distant cousins who've 
never even heard of her before. Not to mention, she’s the only 
person | know of that actually volunteers for Keter duty. She doesn’t 
even take Class As for SCP-231, and that is just fucked up. Hey 
Richards, how many times have you pulled 231 duty? Five, six 
times?” 


“Eight,” Richards replied humorlessly. 


“Can you honestly believe that a person like Agent Richards can just 
reintegrate into society like that?” 


Mouth gaping, Ryan could only manage to shake his head. 


“Of course not. She may as well be a D-Class in terms with how she 
would fit in society.” 


“Thanks for the comparison,” Richards remarked sarcastically. 


“Not to mention,” Paccone added, “the skills we know and are 
recruited for can’t be transferred to civilian life so easily. You worked 
on stuff like SCP-514 and SCP-204. I’m guessing you’re going into a 
biology-related field?” 


“That’s right,” Ryan blinked. 


“Yeah, well, what’s an old guy like me going to do? I’ve been in the 
combat business for twenty five years now, fifteen in the Marines 
and ten in the Foundation. I’m too old to reenlist into any other 
armed service or law enforcement agency. My only useful job skill is 
knowing how to kill a man 72 different ways unarmed and clearing 
an apartment block with an empty M16. Do you think there’s 
anywhere out there that will provide me with a good, honest 
lifestyle? 


“As | see it, there’s only three ways out of the Foundation for people 
like us. We'll either take the red pill and live a life of blissful 
ignorance, die in a ditch alone, or go out in a blaze of glory. There’s 
no Foundation Retirement Home for us. As for me, well, I’m not 
getting any younger. My physical abilities aren't getting any better 
with age, and I’m going to have to face that dilemma sooner or 
later.” 


“We're also the ones that get stuck doing the Foundation’s dirty 
work,” Williams added. “Do you honestly think that the O5s will let us 
just waltz out? We're the military elite with in-depth knowledge of all 
of the Foundation’s covert military operations. It’s either a Class A 
amnestic or a bullet to the head, depending on which is more 
convenient.” 


“Bullets are cheaper,” Richards coldly remarked. 


“She should know.” Paccone laughed. “She’s the Foundation’s 
unofficial retirement policy.” 


“Is... is there any hope for you?” Ryan gaped. 


“Well...” Williams frowned. “All three of us have our reasons for 
staying in the Foundation, and we've paid the price. Oh yes, there 
are some gems of hope scattered here and there among our 


younger members. Maybe they won't repeat the same mistakes we 
did.” 


“Well, here’s to them, then.” Ryan raised his glass, now suddenly a 
bit more subdued. 


“Have a happy retirement, Dr. Ryan.” Williams smiled and raised his 
glass as well. “I hope you never see any of us again.” 


Revenants 


There is a gun in his hands. AR-15 automatic rifle (his mind supplies 
automatically), standard issue for new Agents or emergency 
armament, fairly new, pretty battered. He's familiar with this one, 
and likes it: it feels much more important than the others he's fired. 
Right now he's field-stripping it with practiced ease, and— 


He freezes, his hands jerking in sudden horror. He is field-stripping a 
rifle, and he knows how to shoot it. He's never held a gun in his life! 
How— 


“Fifty-five, Jim.” The voice comes from his left. Jim snaps his head 
around to stare, wildly, at the source. Ragged brown hair, a 
crumpled lab coat. It's Madeline, Dr. Madeline Vogler, of all people, 
sitting beside him on the park bench and cleaning her own gun with 
the same swift, automatic movements. She hasn't looked up. 


*What?” he squeaks. “Madeline, what are you doing? You can’t 
handle a gun, you’re an engineer, you've never shot one in your life! 
What’s happening?” 


“Oh-fifty-five.” She cuts him off dully, glancing up from her work. Her 
gray eyes are dull, bruised with tiredness, and the fine lines on her 
brow were never that deep. The lab coat is a half-shredded montage 
of stains, and the name embroidered above the breast pocket isn’t 
hers. “Remember agreeing that something wasn’t round?” 


Oh. He nearly chokes. SCP-055 certainly isn’t round; Madeline and 
her team had confirmed it. It took them months, and many rounds of 
negation, but they learned a few important facts. The thing can’t be 
remembered, not even indirectly, except for what it isn’t. It isn’t alive. 
It isn’t safe — oh, God, it’s not safe! And it isn’t contained... 


It isn’t contained any more. And Jim doesn’t remember very much of 
his recent history. 


Panic floods Jim as he realizes what this means. How long has it 
been since he remembers doing anything? How long has it been 
since he’s formed a lasting memory — since he was doing 
something that didn’t involve 055? 


Too long, he thinks. Madeline is a gaunt, ravaged shadow; he’s not 
much better, he decides, looking down to take in his own frame. It 
takes a while to lose that much sleep. Some of the scars — new 
scars — must have taken weeks to heal. 


And when did he learn to shoot a gun, least of all this gun? Now that 
he allows himself to look at it closely, warily accepting that he’s 
familiar with such things, he can tell that even by Foundation 
standards it is not a normal weapon. The firing mechanism has been 
replaced with a jerry-rigged tangle of circuitry, fiberglass, crystals, 
and something like flower petals. There's something else at the base 
of the trigger; he squints at it, decides that it isn't important, and 
passes over it. The magazine is entirely too heavy and too blue, and 
it sloshes. 


He forces himself to nod, finally answering Madeline’s question. 
“What are we doing here? With the guns, and...” here he gestures 
vaguely at the strange mechanism, “that? On this bench, of all 
places?” 


“| don't remember — ” and her eyes snap shut, pain flickering across 
her face — “but you said that I'd said that you'd... Never mind. You 
said we had to shoot something, and that we’d know what, when it 
was time.” 


“I said? What about Agent Segel?” But the moment the name leaves 
his mouth, he knows. Madeline's look of bemused grief only 
confirms it. “She didn't make it, did she?” 


“No. Nobody did.” 


“Chen? Alex? Araya?” Madeline only shakes her head. “Kyle? At 
least tell me Kyle's okay? Damn!” He knows his voice is rising in 
anguish, and his eyes are blurring. His entire team — the entire staff 
of the Site? Al/ of them? 


“Nobody.” Madeline's eyes are suspiciously bright, too, but she 
hasn't taken them off her work. “Jim, we can't talk about it now.” 


“But—” 


“Shut up and let me explain!” Her fingers clench somewhere inside 
her gun. “We have to finish what we're doing and be ready when it 
gets here. I'm going to forget everything again in another minute or 
two, and you'll have to tell me, all right? There's no one else left to 
do it.” 


That does quiet him. He looks back down at the half-disassembled 
gun in his lap. It needs to be put back together, now that he’s 
cleaned it. His hands seem to know what to do; he starts sliding the 
pieces into each other. 


She lets out a breath, going back to her own work. “Okay. We're in 
the park on the other side of Springfield from the Site. We don’t want 
to go back there; | don’t know why. There’s nobody else in town, 
maybe nobody in the state. We’ve got supplies to last a few weeks 
stashed in the bushes next to you. We have to keep these guns in 
good condition, make sure the crystals don’t tarnish and the petals 
stay alive, soend as much time on this bench as we can, and always 
be ready to attack. Got it?” 


“That’s all?” 

“All you said last time, yeah.” 

Jim nods numbly. 

“Madeline?” he asks after a moment. “How long has it been?” 


“A few weeks, | think. Long enough. My oldest scars are at least that 
old, and | haven't got anything newer than a week.” 


Jim’s own body bears out her assessment: he’s got a few new 
aches, but nothing pressing. He considers them, looking up into the 
sky as he works. Their bench sits at the edge of an open athletic 
field, with summer-lush woods behind, but there are no birds. A 
football lies abandoned, one end crumpled inward, a few yards 
away. “How long will we be waiting?” 


“As long as we need to.” She finishes reassembling her gun and 
hefts it briefly. There is something brittle and flinty in her 
movements. “I don’t really know.” 


Another pause. Jim stills his hands, resting them on his knees. The 
park’s stillness is a lead weight against his temples. “And we're the 
last ones?” 


“Maybe. As far as we know.” Madeline won't meet his eyes. 
“Then this could be futile. 055 could already have won.” 


Madeline whips around to glare at him, her whole posture suddenly 
lit with desperate ferocity. “Don’t!” she snaps. “Don’t talk like that! 
We can't think like that! We don’t know anything else we can be 
doing — for Christ’s sake, Jim, we can’t remember ten minutes ago. 
We could be the last thing keeping the world alive, for all you know!” 


“Okay!” He pulls his head back as if struck, raising his hands. “Okay. 
We'll stay. As long as we need to.” 


“As long as we need to.” She gives a firm, sharp nod, a peck from a 
raptor beak. Jim doesn’t dare contradict her. 


Then she nods again, softer, and suddenly uncertain. Again, barely 
moving her head, staring around herself in sudden confusion. “Jim? 
What the — What are we doing here?” 


Jim’s throat clenches tight, stopping his voice and breath. She’s 
forgotten again. Just as he will, in another few minutes. 


“055, Madeline. Remember agreeing that something wasn’t round?” 


lead them to a distant, secluded area. Any attempt to interact with or 
stop the group will be met with violence. 


Once the group has arrived, the followers will begin digging 
downwards, starting with a tunnel and gradually widening it out into 
a cavern as the group digs deeper. Once the cavern is finished, the 
followers will search the nearby area for materials to use as fertilizer, 
then grow mushrooms in the cavern, eating as little as possible to 
stay alive. Followers who die due to exhaustion and malnutrition will 
also be used as fertilizer. SCP-925 will gorge itself on mushrooms 
whenever a crop is ready for harvest. 


Once most of the followers have been worked to death, the 
specimen will leave the cavern, gather approximately twice the 
previous number of followers, and return, using the new followers to 
construct additional caverns, and grow more mushrooms in each 
cavern. This process will be repeated every time a significant portion 
of the followers die. 


Currently, 13 specimens are contained, designated SCP-925-1 
through SCP-925-13. Specimens have been captured in North 
America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. These 
specimens were all found within 30 miles of large population 
centers. Each specimen was living in a large cavern system with 
between 20 and 35 caverns. 


Addendum: Test 01 
SCP-925-D-1 was informed of SCP-925's behavior, and told there 
was a way to reverse the effects. 


SCP-925-D-1 was subject to a preliminary interview, then exposed 
to SCP-925 for fifteen seconds. A second interview was performed; 
subject was then exposed to SCP-925 for five minutes. After 
retrieval, a third and final interview was carried out. 


Baseline Interview 


Dr. : What is your opinion on SCP-925? 
SCP-925-D-1: | don't know, guy. It seems pretty fucked 
up. 

Dr. : What parts of its behavior are most detestable 


Reversed Engineering 


Professor Duncan Gills checked his watch. Forty-five minutes. 
That's how long it had taken him to change the face of robotics... 
the Foundation, and maybe even the world. He gazed down upon 
his creation, the result of so much soldering, grim grubbiness, 
machinated cogs, and even a little bit of luck. It was a short brass 
automaton, with lightbulb eyes and a smile that could light up an 
entire Christmas tree. Reverse engineering two skips into one, 
glorious unit. They'd fund his research now! 


Mister Brass, or what used to be him, was laying peacefully below, 
covered in beautiful grooves and gears and all sorts of fanciful 
mechanical claptraps. This was his Coup de grace, his finest hour. 
With this, the clockwork virus no longer had to be feared. Far from it! 
It would become the source of new Foundation drones, who would 
march out of his laboratory and across the earth, until the entire 
world was in their loving grip. 


Breathlessly, he leaned down to his new creation. "Brass, can you 
hear me? Are you there? Please, say something!" 


He was answered with an iron grip on his throat, and a mechanical, 
monotone voice booming in both of his eardrums, like the little 
drummer boy had a twin. 


"DESTROY ALL HUMANS." 

Oh balls... 

Dr. Gears looked up as the clanking sound that had just been 
outside of his office relocated itself to within. 


"Greetings, Doctor Gills. | trust your costume is a result of the 
research is going well?"