Wells’ voice over the walkie-talkie ripped through the corridor, 
followed by the distant sound of gunfire. Both Bell and Baldric froze 
as they took a few seconds to comprehend the implications of Well's 
words. It was then that the entire team's eyes met in a moment of 
revelation. 


"Oh shit..." Baldric shouted, and began to sprint down the hall. Bell 
followed closely behind. Within moments they had arrived at a room 
containing a massive generator. Despite years of remaining idle, it 
appeared to be in working condition. 


"What are we looking for?" Baldric asked. 


Bell's eyes followed the beam of his flashlight as he frantically 
looked around the generator's perimeter. 


"| don't know..." Bell replied. 
"Think, Bell! What do we need to find?" 


"| don't know!" 


"Think, goddamn it, this is why we have you here!" 


"A lever or crank? Something to give the generator charge? 
Something like that!" Bell continued to scan the room frantically, it 
was then his flashlight beam stumbled upon his target. "There!" 


The young engineer quickly dashed across the room to a large 
lever. Bell rapidly pumped it three times then slammed a nearby 
button. 


There was a beep. 
Then a whirl. 
Then generator sprung to life. 


The emergency lights flickered back into existence, and the distant 
sound of the bunker blast door closing could be heard. Bell sighed in 
relief, and slumped to the floor as he caught his breath, watching 
Baldric speak into his walkie-talkie. 


"Wells, report!" 


"This is Wells," came a reply. "Good news is that the blast door 
sealed fully. Natives can't get through for now. The bad news..." 


Wells trailed off. The team's concerned eyes fell on Baldric. 
"Bad news?" he asked. 


"Well... why don't we meet back up and you can see for yourself." 


Three months later, Joseph Bell sat between his older brother, Felix, 
and a social worker. Before him, his father's casket slowly 
descended into the cemetery plot beside his mother's. The words of 
the pastor performing the ceremony passed in one ear and out the 
other, and within the blink of an eye his father was buried, and the 
many people in attendance started to leave. 


"Time for us to go," Felix said, placing a hand on his shoulder. 
Joseph nodded and slowly followed behind. 


"Your father was a brave man," the social worker commented as she 
walked alongside them. "I'm sorry for your loss. 


"He really was," Joseph's brother agreed, pausing for a few 
moments to glance back at the grave. "Is everything set then? For 
Joseph?" 


"The Walsh family have agreed to take Joseph in until the end of the 
school year. At that point its best that he be with his family, in this 
case, you." 


"That sound good to you?" Felix directed the question at Joseph. "! 
mean, you can come with me whenever you want. | thought you 
might want to finish out your classes before uprooting and moving 
across the country." 


"No..." Joseph let out slowly, "No, that’s fine. | like the Walshes. | 
think it’s a good plan." 


He gave a fake smile and a nod. In the distance he could see 
Jeremy and his family leaving the cemetery. 


"Would you excuse me for a moment?" Joseph asked, then took off 
towards his former friend. Jeremy watched him approach with a 
blank face. His eyes were cold, and he looked through Joseph, 
rather than at him. 


"Hey," Joseph said. He waited for Jeremy to reply, before he finally 
continued. "Thanks for being here. It means a lot." 


Jeremy looked at the ground and sighed. 
"I'm sorry for your loss," he finally said. "Your dad was a cool guy." 
Joseph nodded and closed his eyes. 


"| guess I'm crashing with you until summer... Fun times..." Joseph 
finally managed to spit out with an awkward chuckle. 


"Fun times..." Jeremy replied. The two once again fell silent, and 
avoided the other's eye. 


"|... I'm sorry about that day... | don't know what happened... | just 
blacked out... and ran. I'm a such a shitty friend... Please, Jeremy, 
I'm sorry..." 


Jeremy remained quiet for close to a minute, occasionally glancing 
toward the grave, then to Joseph, then Felix, and finally back to his 
family before starting the circuit anew. 


"How sure are you that you weren't adopted?" Jeremy eventually 
asked. 


"What?" 


"How sure are you that you weren't adopted?" Jeremy repeated. "/ 
think it’s hard to believe that someone as brave as your father had a 
son as cowardly as you." 


Joseph watched Jeremy turn and leave. He remained frozen in 
place as the weight of his best friend's comment sunk in, and 
shivered a bit before finally returning to his older brother. 


"Everything okay?" Felix asked as Joseph walked past. 


"Great," Joseph smiled back. "Just great..." 


"Are you fucking kidding me..." 


Bell overheard Baldric whisper to himself as their small group 
reunited with Wells in a hallway within the Bunker interior. Before 
them was another sealed blast door, the term: "TO GATE 
PASSAGE" stenciled upon the frame. Bell glanced over Wells's 
team. There were two fewer personnel than had been when they 
had descended into Bunker. Another two had fresh bandages over 
their wounds, while Candle was removing a crossbow bolt from a 
third. 


"Locked by Site Command," Wells said as Baldric approached, and 
analyzed the door. "We're going to need the keycard to get it open. 
That could be anywhere by now." 


Baldric let out a deep sigh. 


"Did you know?" he asked Candle, rubbing his temples with his 
hands. 


"It was open when Blaire and | came through," Candle replied 
without looking up from his work. "Someone or something came 
through and closed it afterwards." 


"So that's it then?" a woman with tan skin and neck length black hair 
chimed in. Bell recognized her as Dr. Gonzalez, the team's 
xenobiologist. "All this way to be stopped by a piece of metal? 
Christ, we could have just stayed at the other Gate and just waited!" 


"Could we sneak back out?" Bell asked. "Return to the other Gate?" 
Agent Turner shook her head. 


"They know we're in here. It would be a shooting gallery." She then 
turned to Candle. "Can they get in here?" 


Candle shrugged. 


"| don't know. Maybe? They were able to flush this place out during 
their initial raid." 


"So... what?" Gonzalez asked, her eyes filled with rage as she 
looked between Candle, Baldric, and Wells. "We just sit around in 
here until we either starve to death, or the natives creep in and 
slaughter us? Fantastic. Sign me the fuck-" 


"Dr. Gonzalez!" Wells barked, Gonzalez silencing as his voice filled 
the confined space. "What we are going to do is find the keycard 
and get the hell out of here. Understand?" 


Gonzalez gave a nod as Eta-13 fell silent. 
"Where do we start looking?" Bell asked. 


| can save you some time in the matter... Jeremy Walsh's voice 
entered Bell's mind as, yet again, a small orb of glowing pink light 
manifested itself at the center of the group. My, my. What a 
predicament you have placed yourselves in. 


"Afternoon, Lilith," Baldric addressed the Razumite. "I take it you 
know where the keycard is?" 


Who do you think locked the door? Lilith chirped gleefully, orbiting 
around Baldric's head. For such a smart group you don't really think 
things through. My offer still stands though. One key to the 
Plainstriders Path, and you'll get your ticket home. 


"There are two of our friends dead on the surface," Wells bargained. 
"You can have one of their keys." 


That's not how this works and you know it! Lilith tsked. The key 
loses its value if it’s not sacrificed. 


"No deal then," Wells replied. 


You'll change your tune when the food runs out... Lilith giggled. 
Maybe I'll ask for two keys then... 


The pink orb of light then vanished. Concerned eyes looking to 
Baldric and Wells as the two of them sighed in unison. 


"It wouldn't be a trip through the Gate if things were easy," Baldric 
commented with a tired chuckle. "What now?" 


"We'll set up in the cafeteria," Wells replied, shaking his head. "From 
there, we'll tear this place apart. There's got to be another key 
somewhere..." 


Bell and Candle wandered silently through one of the Cronos 
bunker's many labs, having been assigned to work as one of many 
pairs actively combing for another Site Command keycard, or 
anything that might be of use getting the door to the Gate Passage 
open. Four days in, and the search had largely proven fruitless, as 
the only thing to be found was broken research equipment, fried 
computers, and the occasional corpse. Even the stockpiles of food 
and medicine that such a facility would house seemed to have 
vanished. 


"What if we gave Lilith one of the keys, went through the Gate, then 
sent someone back through the Gate with someone else's key to get 


them through?" Bell asked as he scanned the room for places to 
search. 


"A few people on Blaire's crew tried that once," Candle answered, "It 
worked, but they ended up getting violently sick for three days, with 
one of them dying from dehydration before they could get back to 
Site-93. The Gate works on a weird logic of its own, and doesn't like 
to be tricked." 


"If it came down to it, do you think we could get back to that first 
gate?" Bell said as he went through a set of drawers. "| mean, you 
did it once." 


"Sure did," Candle replied as he scanned a bookcase, "But | feel like 
| should remind you that | was the only one to survive that 
adventure, and even then it was through dumb luck. Not something 
I'd recommend repeating.” 


"Still," Bell thought aloud, "It could be done..." 


"In the sense that you technically can skydive into a wood-chipper, 
yes, it can be done." Candle looked over at Bell with a frown. 
"Making plans that | should know about?" 


Bell shook his head. 


"Not yet at least..." Bell sighed. "It just... | feel like | should be doing 
something. Here we are, stuck in this tomb, and all anyone can do is 
sit on their hands and wait for the food to run out. It doesn't sit right 
with me, y'know? There's got to be something | can do. Maybe we 
could open the blast door and grab one of the unused keys?" 


"Like Turner said, that would be a shooting gallery. Worse, if the 
natives got in it would put everyone else's life at risk. Not worth it." 


Bell slammed his hand down on a nearby desk. 
"There has got to be something | can do! Something!" 


"Easy there, champ," Candle chuckled. "We'll get out of this. We 
always do. It just might take a bit. I'm going to check out this office. 
You comb through the one on the other side. Okay?" 


may extend to math, since it technically can be considered a 
language. The subject was presented with basic algebra proofs, at 
which point he spoke for the first time since coming to the facility, 
informing us that math isn't really a language. - Dr. English 


/ /20 - Since SCP-758 began speaking to Dr. English and |, we 
have learned that when he looks at text, the only language he can 
actually read is his native Russian. All other languages he simply 
recognizes the errors that exist and how they should be corrected. - 
Dr. Sarlin 


/ /20 - Today it was discovered, by accident, that SCP-758's 
ability is not restricted to written language. As the subject passed 
two guards, he overheard them speaking French and, despite 
having no knowledge of the French language, corrected one of the 
guards on the way he constructed a sentence. Further testing will be 
required in this area. - Dr. English 


/ /20 - After more in depth study, it has been found that when 
applying his ability to spoken language, SCP-758 is capable of 
correcting dialect, accent and pronunciation in addition to the 
technical aspects of written language he can correct. When asked to 
read a written language aloud, he has proven fully capable of 
speaking the words but states he still does not understand them. - 
Dr. English 


/ /20 -SCP-758 has shown an ability to essentially "translate 
across time." That is to say, his ability has an understanding of the 
concept of a living language and he has proven himself capable of 
changing a text written in a given time period and change any 
colloquialisms and evolved words to provide a "translated" copy that 
results in the same message as the original text. In cases where he 
has attempted this with dead languages, he fully translated the text 
into the nearest living language from the time period he was asked 
to change it to. While he can update texts to later generations of a 
language, it seems that he is not able to revert texts to older 
generations of a language. - Dr. English 


/ /20 -SCP-758 has shown himself able to produce the proper 
pronunciation of written words upon request. To date, Dr. Sarlin and 
| have learned to fluently speak multiple dead languages with 


Bell nodded, and headed towards the office at the back corner of the 
lab. There he spent a few moments going through the desk drawers, 
before slumping down into the room's office chair. 


Arrangements can be made... Jeremy Walsh's voice replied as Lilith 
appeared in the corner of the office. You have the power, Joseph. 
You can save them. | just need that pesky key of yours. Wouldn't 
your father be proud of you? Wouldn't Jeremy? Or Candle? 


Bell looked at the ground as the pink orb of light circled him several 
time. 


"Prove it," Bell eventually replied. 
What? Lilith stopped mid-orbit. 


"Prove you have the keycard," Bell explained. "| don't make deals 
with people unless they can prove they have what | want." 


Lilith paused for a moment, then began to cackle. 
Oh, you are precious. | like you. Sure thing, kid. 


There was a light hum, a keycard appearing within Lilith's form 
before floating down to the desk top. Bell prodded the keycard with 
his finger. It was real, and the markings suggested it was the correct 
security clearance. Bell gave a tired smile, and then took out his 
container of chicken's feet. He traced the lid with his finger and then 
placed it on the desk before returning his gaze to Lilith. 


"I'm going to slide this to you with one hand, and grab the keycard 
with another. Then you leave. Deal?" 


Of course, Lilith cooed. Let us be on with it. 


Bell nodded and let out a deep breath. The container slid forward as 
he grabbed the keycard. There was a soft pop, and Lilith was gone. 
He eyed the card for several moments before letting out a chuckle. 


"Hey James," Bell shouted. "Look what | found!" 


Despite living with Walsh family for close to two months, surrounded 
by supportive and kind people, Joseph Bell had never felt more 
alone. Since he had moved in, Jeremy had not spoken to him, and 
seemed content with pretending that he did not exist until he moved 
out at the end of the month. After multiple failed attempts to 
reconnect, Joseph felt content to leave him be for the rest of his 
stay. For this reason, Joseph took the wooded path back to the 
Walsh's alone. 


"Only four weeks left..." Joseph mumbled to himself as he kicked a 
pine cone off the path. "You can do it... 


"Keep the fuck away from me!" 


The sound of people shouting ahead roused Joseph from his 
thoughts. He paused, listening. 


"I'm warning you!" 


Joseph recognized one voices and Jeremy's, and rushed down the 
trail, soon arriving to find his former friend on his knees, his arms 
held behind his back as Gregory Henry proceeded to light a 
cigarette and hold close to Jeremy's face. 


"You really like pushing your luck, don't you?" Gregory asked, 
watching as Jeremy tried to pull his head away from the smoldering 
tobacco. "I found out the first time, why the fuck wouldn't I find out 
the second?" 


"It wasn't me, you dumb ass," Jeremy shouted back. "I don't know 
why they searched your locker. Maybe don't take cigarettes to 
school?"