Guy and Santosh walked out of the store, Santosh carrying a bag 
with the cognition matrix. "Next stop, Anna's for some body parts. 
You don't need any augments, right? Regular organic parts are 
good?" 


Santosh nodded. The two of them crossed the promenade towards 
a small, two-person booth. Guy swiped a small plastic card on the 
door and waved Santosh through. Then he swiped it again and 
stepped inside. "Okay, stand on this circle here. This is a telepod. 
It's based on the PL model, actually. Didn't your dad work there?" 


Santosh shrugged. "Used to. Anyways, uh, you were telling me 
about Eurtec?" 


"Yeah, hang on a second.” Guy moved towards a glass circle on the 
wall of the booth and pressed his finger up to it. The circle flashed 
red and then an electronic voice rang out, "Please select a 
destination." 


"Um... Urthor Center. Fiftieth floor," Guy answered. 


"Your destination is... Urthor Center, fiftieth floor. If this is incorrect, 


please provide the correct destination. Otherwise, please stand still. 
Travel in five... four... three... two... one..." 


A bright flash of light forced Santosh to screw his eyes shut. When 
he opened them again, they weren't in the promenade. They stood 
on a marble floor of a skyscraper, looking out of a window five 
hundred feet in the air. The booth doors opened, and Guy stepped 
out. 


"Come on. Anna's is right around the corner." 


They rounded the corner and entered a storefront. Much to 
Santosh's surprise, the store was littered with corpses and body 
parts, propped up on racks and folded into shelves. "Uh... Guy? 
What the hell is this?" 


Guy snickered. "Weren't you listening? Anna's sells body parts. 
Don't worry, they're just shells. For like, biotech. You know, implants, 
bionics, that sort of thing. They gotta be tested on something. 
Besides, we're here for one of those bodies." 


On cue, an elderly Asian woman approached. "Ah, Guy. Good to 
see you." 


"Afternoon, Anna. I'm here with a friend of mine, Santosh. Santosh, 
meet Anna." 


Santosh gingerly shook her hand, doing his best to ignore the 
wrinkly skin. "Uh... hi." 


Guy said, "Santosh here is interested in purchasing a duplicate 
shell. Do you have the photo?" He looked back expectantly. 


Santosh swallowed, but he took a photo from his pocket. "Uh, here," 
he mumbled, handing her the photo. "I'm looking for a younger 
version of that man, maybe eleven or twelve years old. My father." 


"Excellent. What ethnicity?" Anna asked. 
"Uh, South Asian. Asian Indian." Santosh answered. 


"Where do you want that shipped?" 


"Shipped?" Santosh asked. 
Guy interrupted. "Ship it to my place, Anna." 


"Of course. Now, stand still. | need to get a few pictures of you to 
complete the sides and back of the head. This man is your biological 
father, | assume, so the facial features should be similar." 


Seemingly from nowhere, Anna produced a camera that was almost 
as large as her chest. She circled Santosh, the camera clicking 
away. Then the camera disappeared again and Anna held out her 
hand. 


"That'll be... four thousand." 
Guy turned to Santosh. "She prefers Visa." 


Santosh swallowed again. This was going to be an expensive 
venture. He steeled himself, took out his wallet, and handed over his 
Visa card. Anna took the card and wandered off. She returned a few 
minutes later with the card and a receipt. "Here." 


Santosh looked at the receipt. "Uh... why does this say a diamond 
ring?" 


"What, you're going to say 'Il bought a body for four grand’ on your 
tax returns?" Guy chortled. 


"Oh. No, | get it." 


"Oh! | almost forgot," Guy exclaimed, checking his phone. "Anna, do 
you have any psionic hippocampuses?" 


"Hippocampi, Guy. Cam-pi. It even rhymes with your name," Anna 
scolded him. "And yes, | do. I'll pack it with the shell. That'll be one 
thousand. Card please." 


Santosh grudgingly took out his card again. Anna took it and 
traipsed off. She returned five minutes later with the card and 
another receipt. 


"A... graphics card?" Santosh asked incredulously. Anna shrugged. 


"Thanks Anna. I'll see you around," Guy told her, before turning and 
walking away. Santosh hurried after him. "Wait, how is she going to 
ship it?" 


"Telepod, then probably Fedex." 


"Fedex?!" 


When Santosh was thirteen years old, his father received a call to let 
him know that Santosh had been expelled from the community 
shloka class. Santosh was shouted at and told that he was stupider 
than a half-lobotomized monkey. When Santosh's father finished his 
screaming, he informed Santosh that he was not his father any 
more. It would be four months before Santosh's father spoke to him 
again - because his cousins were visiting for Christmas. 


"So, putting together the duplicate is actually pretty easy. All we 
have to do is slot the hippocampus into the positronic matrix. Then 
we open up the skull and drop it in. Then the matrix'll do the rest, 
and then we just upload a duplicate of your consciousness into it 
and bam! All done." 


Santosh and Guy stood in the living room of Guy's apartment. The 
shell of an Indian boy lay sprawled across the coffee table. Next to 
it, the positronic matrix was still in its bag. 


"Guy, | don't know anything about brain surgery." 


"It's not brain surgery if there's no brain to speak of," Guy pointed 
out. 


"You said it would be easier than assembling a PC." 


"And it is! You have to put five different things into a PC and then 
ground yourself to boot. All we have to do is here open up the skull 
and drop the matrix into it. We don't even have to lock it in place or 
anything, just make sure it's not upside down when we put the skull 
back on." 


Santosh pressed his fingers to his temple. "Fuck, man... | should've 


done more research... fuck. I'm gonna go fucking bankrupt..." 


"Hey! Calm down! Stay calm!" Guy soothed him. "I'll pay you back 
once we're done. Okay? It's not that hard. Look, I've got the saw. 
I've got the marker. I've got measuring tape. All we have to do is 
mark around the skull and cut. Easy. We'll be done in two hours." 


"Yeah, okay..." Santosh gingerly approached the shell, wrapped the 
measuring tape around its head, and started tracing a cutting line. 


When Santosh was seventeen years old, he was given the 
opportunity to submit a CV to certain colleges. A week later, he was 
looking at his college applications with his father when they noticed 
that the CV he submitted was an older version. His father exploded, 
accusing him of deliberately sabotaging his application and furiously 
wondering why he would do that. In an apopletic rage, he declared 
that it must have been done out of spite and furiously asked why 
Santosh was so eager to spite his father. 


Santosh fled into the bathroom and sobbed in the shower for several 
minutes. When he came out, they realized that it was a glitch in the 
digital application. His father apologized and hugged him. Santosh 
did not return it. 


"Two hours, huh?" Santosh snorted. He sat in a chair in Guy's living 
room, wearing a suspicious-looking helmet. The shell, a rather 
prominent scar line circling the middle of its skull, wore a similar 
helmet, connected to the first by a thick bundle of cables. Another 
thick bundle of cables led from Santosh's helmet to Guy's laptop. 


"Two hours, two weeks, what's the difference?" Guy shrugged. 


Santosh narrowed his eyes. Guy chuckled in response and held up 
his hands. "All right, all right. Hey, we're almost done with this! Just 
have to scan your temporal lobe, remove everything past... 22 and 
copy it to the shell matrix." 


As he spoke, Guy typed commands into the laptop. 


"And... done. Alright, you can take off the helmet." 
"Huh?" Santosh asked. "| didn't feel anything." 


"You aren't supposed to," Guy pointed out. "It's non-invasive 
imaging." 


Santosh removed the helmet. He and Guy leaned over the shell. 
"So... what is it supposed to do?" 


"Wait for it..." Guy breathed. 


Nothing happened. Then the shell's eyes burst open and it took a 
deep breath. Guy pumped his fists and Santosh excitedly whispered 
"Yes!" 


"What's left?" Guy asked as he switched off the shell's cognitive 
matrix. 


"Uh... we need to wire the VR helmet into the matrix and, uh... wire 
it up to the hippocampus. You already have the helmet, right?" 
Santosh asked. 


"Yeah. It's not, you know, an official one or anything. | made it 
myself from a couple Virtual Boys and a Titan PC," Guy explained 
with pride. "But if we pass off the images as stylized, it'll do the 
trick." 


"Yeah, alright. Grab the helmet. I'll get the drill and the wires." 


When Santosh was twenty, he received a call from his mother. 
When he picked it up, however, his father was on the line. Santosh 
let him talk for a few moments. His father wanted to know how he 
was doing, expressed his best wishes towards his success, and 
reiterated how proud he was of him. 


Santosh made an excuse to hang up. 


Santosh's cell phone rang. He looked down at it and then noticed 
the caller ID. 


Arvind Desai 


He considered it for a moment. Then he declined the call and looked 
back up, admiring his exhibit. 


In one corner of the Skuldir Center for the Arts and Humanities, a 
small Indian boy sat in a plastic chair surrounded by an intrigued 
crowd. Several dozen wires protruded from the skullcap on top of his 
head, connecting to a half-dozen red, bubble-shaped helmets 
currently being worn by other people sitting in plastic chairs. 


Besides the child, a sign read: 


LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON 
by Guy Chesapeake and S.D. 


Meet Arvind. Take on the role of his father and influence 
him through various critical points in his childhood. 
Watch how Arvind's personality and goals change based 
on what you tell him. Will you be the father he never 
had? The father he never wanted? Arvind's future is in 
your hands. 


Instructions: Simply wear the helmet to begin interacting 
with Arvind. At each stage, when the bell rings, you may 
speak to him for up to ten minutes before the bell rings 
again. You will then view a brief montage of how Arvind's 
life changes based on what you told him. If you finish 
early, simply say "Shazbot razzmatazz" to trigger 
Arvind's response. 


One woman stood up, removing her helmet. She looked vaguely 
disturbed. Santosh quickly pushed aside a few members of the 
crowd and sat down in the chair, donning the helmet. 


Immediately, his vision was replaced by a black-and-white 3D 
bubble. He was sitting behind the wheel of a Nissan Stanza. 
Santosh looked to his right and saw a school. The passenger door 
opened and a small Indian boy climbed into the station wagon. 
"Dad! Dad! You remember that placement test? | got a 95 on it!" 


A bell sounded. Santosh turned his head around to face the boy. 
"95? What happened to the other 5?" 


hearing voices when | stepped in. | think... | don't think 
those things belong... 


Researcher =: What things? 


D-53682: I'm not really sure, just... Well, | suppose you 
could always go see for yourself. | think they'd be happy 
to see you. 


<End Log> 


Closing Statement: Attempts to communicate with 
D-53682 and gather more information about SCP-739 
and the changes the subject underwent are currently 
ongoing but due to the subject's unwillingness to 
cooperate, the information gathered thus far has proven 
to be inconclusive. Any personnel cycled through 
SCP-739 are to be interviewed immediately unless they 
pose a direct threat to Foundation personnel, at which 
time traditional means of termination are authorized to be 
used at the discretion of the project director. 


Addendum 2: Incident Log 
Experiment 739-23 
Date: / / 


Procedure: SCP-739 was closed and opened without 
any items or subjects being present within. 


Results: An entity of unknown origin emerged from 
SCP-739 once the standard ten-second sealing state 
had concluded. The physical appearance of this entity 
(retrocausally designated SCP- -1-D) was concealed on 
all visual recordings of it, appearing as a darkened 
region on such. Personnel present in the testing 
chamber at the time displayed extreme discomfort at the 
appearance of the entity and attempted to avoid 
observation of it. SCP- -1-D showed an immediate 
awareness of Site-83's@ layout. The entity closed 


The Analog Kid 


The air along the river was filled with a warm mist of soft rain. 


Myra Rider picked her way through the crowd of people — only 
slightly reduced by the weather — milling about while waiting to see 
the USS Blueback. In the near distance, she could see the heavy 
traffic of Interstate 5 flowing over the twin decks of the Marquam 
Bridge. Beyond that, partially obscured by the gray drizzle, were the 
green arches of Hawthorne Bridge. If she zoomed in and refocused 
her vision, she could just make out the stream of bicyclists hurrying 
across. 


"— but the neural pathways just don't exist," Alexis Norwood was 
saying. The other cyborg gestured with a gloved hand at a virtual 
projection of a human nervous system, which was visible only to the 
two of them. Occasionally, someone would walk right through it, 
shattering the illusion of the augmented reality. 


"What about repurposing some existing ones?" Myra asked. She 
tapped a section of the illusory brain, causing it to glow. "It's not like 
we need independent eyebrow control." 


Alexis shook her head. "There aren't enough spare pathways to do 
that. Not without resorting to Morse or ASCII." 


The two of them dodged around a herd of tourists being shepherded 
towards the submarine, then continued towards the back of the 
OMSI building. 


"Which is a problem because...?" 


"Because then you lose any possible speed or accuracy advantage 
that would have been gained from a direct interface." 


"Right." They stopped in front of a staff door. "What if we ditched 
manual input?" 


"What do you mean?" 


Myra pulled open the door and gestured for Alexis to enter. "Don't 
think at the interface. Do a real-time translation of thought into 
language, and then have a software agent interpret that into 
instructions." 


"That's impossible." She paused, then added, "Well, at least with our 
current tech." 


"Isn't that why we're meeting with Conrad?" 


Alexis nodded slightly, ceding the point. She dismissed the virtual 
projection with a casual wave of her hand. 


They stopped again when they came to a dead-end in the 
maintenance corridor. 


"Do you have the key?" Myra asked. 


"Of course," Alexis said. She reached into her pocket and removed 
a small wireframe rose. Holding the delicate trinket carefully 
between her thumb and forefinger, she gently slotted it into a 
matching indent in the brickwork wall. Then, in the practiced tone of 
one performing rote recitation, she said, "Keep Portland Weird". 


Immediately, the wire flower began to glow. Cracks spread outwards 
from it through the wall, and the brick facade crumbled away to 
reveal a barrier of thorny vines, which in turn began to retreat from 
the glowing rose, forming a spine-covered tunnel to another world. 


"After you," Alexis said, pocketing the key. 
The two women walked through the tunnel and into Three Portlands. 


Three Portlands was, paradoxically, the simultaneous product of 
human creativity and lack of creativity. Three places, each named 
after the other in turn, each possessing their own unique character 
and history that were so strongly similar in their uniqueness. The 
resulting merger and overlapping of the cities' adjacent pocket 
dimensions gave rise to its own brand of eclecticism, different from 
those of the individual Portlands.