You didn't have to engage with life at HMP Wormwood Scrubs in 
any significant way to be aware of the presence of the Judge, 
especially if you worked at the library, which overlooked the rec 
room where he held court. Wesley Kellogg—for that was the Judge's 
real name—had been an honest-to-God high court judge for twenty 
years. The manner of his fall from grace differed with each retelling, 
but always ended the same way—life imprisonment in the same 
facility to which he had sent dozens if not hundreds of men over the 
course of his career. The notion that the dark-haired man might 
have been one of those unfortunates, seeking to work out his 
frustrations on the man who had pronounced his sentence, was a 
compelling one, and Keagan asked whether that had been the case. 


"Oh no, it's not one of my decisions out there he has a problem with, 
it's a ruling | made in here." 


The Judge, with the residual authority of his former position around 
his shoulders like a tattered ermine robe, was the final authority for 
inmates in Keagan's cell block; he would listen to two or three cases 
a day after the fashion of a civil court hearing, and decide in favour 
of either the plaintiff or the defendant. 


"How are you feeling, Judge?" asked the trustee, bringing over a 
sip-cup of tap water, which the older man accepted gratefully. 


"Not so good, Don, not so good. | didn't expect him to do that. | 
always try to make my rulings seem like they turn on some obscure 
piece of case law, but honestly, Patrick's was pretty cut and dry. He 
said he lent a mobile phone to Travis Lemure, Travis denied it. No- 
one's going to back him up, and in any case, the phone was 
contraband; outside the law. Clear case of volenti non fit injuria. 
Travis put Patrick in the hospital wing for a week afterwards for 
bringing the case." 


Keagan waited around to see whether any more would come of the 
incident—he wasn't at all sure he would consider testifying as a 
witness to the attack—but it seemed the Judge was uninterested in 
escalating the matter to prison staff and Keagan drifted away, 
leaving the Judge chatting to the librarian. 


Later that night, a prisoner Keagan had never spoken to before 
rapped on his cell window and said his company had been 
requested in the rec room. It was the first time he had been invited 
out of his cell, and he went warily, fearing an ambush by the man 
whose full name he had learned from Creepy Bastard was Patrick 
Goettsch, another lifer and one who had already served seven years 
of his eight-year minimum sentence. A man who risked attacking 
another inmate with parole so close was surely unpredictable 
enough to try and lure out the man who stopped him and try to exact 
vengeance on him as well. 


But Goettsch was nowhere in sight—instead, he saw the Judge, still 
looking slightly worse for wear, surrounded by a ring of supplicants. 
As Keagan approached, he caught his eye and the Judge wound up 


his case. 


"Okay people, | think I've heard enough. It's—cough—a very close 
call, but after some deliberation the principle of cuius est solum eius 
est usque ad coelum is decisive. In the case of Hannigan vs Reed, 
flattened rhubarb in the B block allotments, | order the defendant to 
pay five pounds sterling, or at the defendant's discretion its 
equivalent value in such other goods as the plaintiff shall deem 
acceptable. Court is adjourned!" 


There at once arose a chorus of disappointed groans from prisoners 
waiting to have their own disputes heard, but the Judge ushered 
them away and beckoned to Keagan, taking him aside to a relatively 
quiet corner of the rec room. 


"There you are, my boy. Look, I'm most grateful to you for helping 
me out earlier with Patrick—and | have a proposition for you, if 
you're willing." He interlocked his fingers and twisted them back and 
forth to restore his circulation. 


"Go ahead," said Keagan. 


"I'm not getting any younger, and today really drove home to me that 
| can't really protect myself in here if someone takes a... dislike to 
me." 


"So you want me to act as your bodyguard. Sorry, I'm not interested 
in taking risks for other people in here," responded Keagan, eyeing 
the parties between whom the Judge had just ruled. They seemed 
amiable enough, with the rhubarb-crusher quickly covenanting with 
his victim to repay him in cigarettes when next his sister came to 
visit. 


"Please—hear me out. | wouldn't be asking you to do it for free. | 
have certain income streams which I'd be happy to cut you into in 
return for, well, just generally looking after my wellbeing." 


"What income streams?" Keagan asked. 
"Well, I'm not sure that's something | can share right..." 


"If you expect me to act as your guardian angel I'd damn well better 


SCP-2599 proceeded to engage SCP-682 in combat for 42 minutes, 
at the end of which three of SCP-682's limbs had been severed, its 
thorax had been crushed, and both its eyeballs had been ruptured. 
SCP-2599 then seized SCP-682's head, apparently in preparation 
for pulling it off of SCP-682's body. In response, SCP-682 vocalized 
the phrase "KILL ME, YOU SACK OF ORGANS, DO IT." 


SCP-2599 immediately released SCP-682, and stood unmoving until 
security personnel removed it from the testing chamber. Subsequent 
attempts to terminate SCP-682 before it could regenerate from its 
injuries were ineffective. 


Note: It is hypothesized that the concrete "kill me" in some way took 
precedence over the more abstract "attack it until it is 200% deaa". 


Item: SCP-513 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 
<Begin Log> 


<1/22/ , 1500> SCP-682 temporarily incapacitated via 
incineration and transferred to a video monitored 
soundproof containment chamber. 


<1/22/ , 1600> SCP-513 introduced to room affixed to 
robotic arm. 


<1/22/ , 1630> SCP-682 regenerates fully. 


<1/22/ , 1635> SCP-513 is rung three times via robotic 
arm, after the first ring, SCP 682 howls and covers its 
‘ears’ (due to the difference of anatomy and lack of 
visible ears, it can be safely assumed that the motion of 
covering the sides of its head accomplishes this). 


<1/22/ , 1636> SCP-513 and robotic arm retracted from 
test chamber and returned to containment. 


know what you're doing. How could | be expected to protect you if | 
don't know where the threat is likely to come from?" 


"You make a compelling point, but I'm not going to share details with 
you unless you at least agree in principle to the job". 


"Then you'd better find someone else," concluded Keagan, 
beginning to pull away. 


"Wait, wait..." The Judge looked distraught, blinking rapidly. "I'm not 
going to go into it here. I'll show it to you. It's in my cell." 


Despite his protests, the Judge seemed almost eager to show his 
scheme to Keagan once they reached his cell. The Judge had, it 
seemed, managed to parlay his former position into an altogether 
better class of cell than the one Keagan occupied—single bed with a 
wooden desk facing the allotments and a toilet screened off from the 
bed. He even had a small bookshelf along the left wall stocked with 
legal tomes, some of which Keagan couldn't help noticing were 
loans from the library he had been instructed to write off. 


"Here's my latest project," confided the Judge, sliding a sheaf of 
papers out from a pile of clothes and sitting down at the desk. 
Keagan learned over the Judge's shoulder and realised he was 
looking at written corresoondence—letters between one Reginald 
Thompson, who based on the letterhead ran a sizeable haulage 
business, and someone called Jacky Moire. 


"This is Jacky," said the Judge, flipping back through the letters until 
he arrived at the earliest ones, unclipping an attached photo of a 
handsome young man with flippy blond hair and a brilliant white 
smile. "He's fifteen, and doing time in a Secure Training Centre for 
some nice, unthreatening crime—always something petty, never 
theft or drugs. And he's looking for a reliable, older male figure to 
help him through these tough times—as a friend, or maybe 
something more." He grinned. "Have a look. The institutions are 
real, of course, and the beauty of it is that STCs aren't legally 
allowed to confirm the identity of their residents to non-relatives. The 
photo's from an abandoned Myspace account; just enough internet 
presence to make it plausible if Thompson goes looking." 


Keagan read through the letters, starting from the beginning— 
Jacky's initial classified ad for a pen pal, answered almost too 
eagerly by Mr Thompson, whose questions quickly shaded to the 
personal; was Jacky seeing anyone, did he keep himself clean, was 
he missing the chance to talk to girls? Jacky's responses indicated 
that he had no interest in that latter direction, but he would definitely 
like to meet up after he got out, in just eighteen months when, as he 
seemed at pains to point out, he would be 16 and therefore no 
longer a minor. Mr Thompson's suggestions in subsequent letters 
became increasingly predatory—had Jacky had sex, was he working 
out? He emphasized his own qualifications in this area, letting slip in 
the process that he was married with two children. 


"Here's where it gets good,” said the Judge knowingly. 


‘Dear Reggie,’ the letter began, 'I'm sorry if my handwriting isn't up to 
its usual standard. I'm shaking so hard | can barely write. I'm being 
beaten up and extorted by this bully, Brock. Please Reggie, can you 
send £5k to PO Box 759, care of Medway Secure Training Centre 
Rochester, so | can pay him off? This could be life or death for me. 
Reggie, you're the only one | can turn to. If you can do this for me, | 
would do anything to pay you back—we can meet up when | get out 
and do whatever you want. | just need you to help me this once, 
please. All my love, Jacky." 


The Judge had retrieved several other wodges of paper with 
correspondence between Jacky and other men, all apparently 
wealthy businessmen. Many didn't take the bait, some did, but 
balked when the time came to send money to help out their new 
friend, and a few went further, with Jacky finding plenty of new ways 
to get in trouble, all of which could be rectified by sending ready 
cash. 


"It's a scam," realised Keagan. "Jacky never shows when he gets 
out, but the mark just thinks he's skipped town, maybe even realises 
that Jacky's been corresponding with lots of different guys, but never 
goes as far as thinking he doesn't exist. The STCs won't confirm 
whether he was ever there either way. But how do you get the 
money? It goes to this youth detention centre..." 


The Judge wagged his finger. "No, that PO box belongs to my 


solicitor. Any correspondence with that address he knows not to 
open so he's on the right side of the law. My old job means I'm still 
consulted regularly on cases | ruled on in the past, which means | 
need my own solicitor present." 


"So he brings the letters to Wormwood Scrubs..." said Keagan. 


"And passes them to me in plain sight as part of the case notes I'm 
being asked to review and summarise for my judicial ex-colleagues. 
| return my summaries, along with my replies. He doesn't know who 
I'm corresponding with or why, but the letters themselves fall under 
solicitor-client privilege. It's a pretty neat system. He gets a cut, of 
course, which will go in envelopes addressed to a fictional attorney 
called Mister Sackshaw. He posts them to his own PO box and 
opens them to receive the money completely legally. | have about 
twenty fish on the hook at any one time." 


"That's pretty clever," admitted Keagan, though the whole setup 
made him feel slightly nauseous. 


"So you can see," said the Judge, "I'm hardly strapped for cash. But 
| expect to be an old man when | get out on parole—nearly 80. | 
want enough so | can go someplace nice and enjoy my last years in 
comfort. | have it all worked out and know how much | need to pull 
in. |can spare seven and a half grand a month. That's more than 
you were making on the outside, I'd bet. Don't try to haggle, that's 
my top price, and it's nearly twenty percent of what | make from 
this." 


Keagan paused, stunned by the offer. If the Judge was able to keep 
the money coming in, by the time he was eligible for parole Keagan 
could have stashed away over a million pounds, tax free. The notion 
was almost overwhelming enough to make him forget he was talking 
to an admitted con artist. 


"I've got just one question," he said slowly, "why go to a guy like me 
with no connections inside? Wouldn't you be better talking to ... 
Marv, or Cameron?" 


"My dear boy," the Judge shook his head, "your lack of 'connections' 
is exactly the reason | need someone like you. Mr Hagman would 


want to run the scam himself with his usual lack of tact; Cameron 
Moat would get too greedy—he would want twenty prisoners all 
writing letters and get us caught. That's why I've told no-one else 
about the whole thing. Besides, the nature of my own crime makes 
me something of a target in here—I want as little to do with the main 
familias in here as possible." 


"The nature of your crime," repeated Keagan, then, somewhat 
alarmed, "here, you didn't fiddle kids or something, did you? I'm not 
protecting a nonce." 


"What? No, dear God no. Whatever gave you that idea?" 


"Well, with those letters—passing yourself off as a kid and talking to 
those guys..." 


"Pure fiction, pure fiction! | certainly don't derive any pleasure from it 
—beyond the pleasure of lightening the wallets of these idiots. Rest 
assured, once he's done his job Jacky will be retired to the waste- 
paper bin of history. No, | was convicted of murder, but not of a kind 
that earns any kudos within these walls. | found my wife was 
sleeping with another man—I confronted her, things escalated, and | 
killed her. There's not a day that | don't think | could have done one 
thing different ... but in any case, wife-killers aren't looked on highly 
around here. That's why | allow the details of my disgrace to remain 
a subject of speculation." 


"Okay," said Keagan at length, not much reassured. 


"So you're in?" said the Judge, reviving somewhat, "you take the 
money and you watch my back. And don't even think about leaning 
on me for more." 


"As long as you're paying," concluded Keagan. "And | don't have 
anything to do with your scams, alright? If anyone asks | don't know 
where you got the money. You're pissing off a lot of powerful 
people." 


"I'm not pissing off anyone,” reminded the Judge. "They can get as 
mad as they like at Jacky—or Jean-Baptist, or Javier—” he lifted 
various accoutrements and sheets to reveal similar packets of 


correspondence—"they're just dust in the wind." 


"And | want something else besides the money," Keagan said, 
resolutely. 


The Judge sighed. "And what, exactly, might that be?" 


"| want you to help me learn the law. I've tried to read through the 
books in the library but | need someone to help me make sense of 
it.” 


"And what's the motivation behind this worthy impulse?" The Judge 
raised an eyebrow. 


"| want to work on an appeal. | was told to plead guilty, but it was 
never made clear to me I'd go down for life if | did.” 


The Judge smiled, mischievously. "My dear fellow, if you pleaded 
guilty, you can't appeal. That avenue is closed to you, I'm afraid." 


A horrid black knot settled at the bottom of Keagan's stomach. The 
notion that if he applied himself and fully comprehended the 
processes that had brought him here, he might be able to undo it 
had been the thin gleam of hope that had kept him active. 


"No," continued the Judge, "if after a guilty plea you need to explain 
to a court why you feel the sentence should be overturned or why 
you should have a trial after all, what you need is a writ of habeas 
corpus." 


Keagan breathed out, sharply. "That's more like it," he said.