"Okay," the second man said. "We need to contact the chain of 
command, figure out what's going on here. In the meantime, this guy 
is gonna make absolutely sure you're not lying to us." He grinned. 
The other man twisted a tea-towel into a rope and forced it between 
Keagan's teeth, then removed the magazine from his Makarov and 
reversed his grip on it before swinging it sharply down on Keagan's 
kneecap. 


Sir Malcolm had negotiated a couple of days' leave from his duties 
at the MoD at very short notice, citing a need to make up to his 
daughter for some very late nights he'd been putting in. Right now 
he didn't think he could bring himself to look at another materiel 
procurement graph. It meant cutting himself off, for a short time at 
least, from progress reports from the Project—currently being 
delivered through his office under the guise of ISA interest reports 
on some of his considerable investments—but he trusted that the 
Commodore would stand ready until he received the final order. This 
morning he had risen, pulled on a burgundy satin dressing-gown 
and donned bunny-ear slippers, and gone down to find his daughter 
wolfing down Honey Nut Crispies, five minutes late for school. 


"| do wish you would try to be more punctual, sweetie," he said, 
pulling her head to him and kissing her hair. "It reflects badly on 
me." 


"It could be worse," she said, coldly but not pulling away. "You could 
be the Secretary for Education." 


"That's true." Sir Malcolm thought he might have a crumpet, but 
clearly the housekeeper hadn't got the memo, or else the bakery 
had been out of stock, as instead he found a packet of pre-made 


drop-scones. He tutted but opened them anyway, taking two out and 
spreading them with set honey and peanut butter. 


There was an odd clamour outside, cars pulling up and excited 
shouting—something you didn't hear very much on Eaton Square 
normally. Sir Malcolm sighed. Was he to have no peace and calm, 
even on holiday? He wandered back through into the parlour and sat 
down, picking up yesterday's copy of the The Telegraph. 'Cameron 
moves to water down EU job laws'. Of course he does, and good on 
him for it. Beastly things. 


He hears the door open and all of a sudden the clamour becomes 
louder, much louder than one would simply expect from merely 
opening the UPVC door. Instead of leaving, Francesca runs back 
inside and upstairs. I'm going to have to ring the school, Sir Malcolm 
decides. She could be such trouble sometimes. 


It occurs to him that she has left the door open. "Honey," he calls 
upstairs. "Are you OK?" 


"There's some people at the door for you." she calls down. "I can't 
get out." 


We'll see about that, Sir Malcolm thinks, and struck by sudden 
irritation he sweeps through the kitchen and hall and out into the 
glaring light of the morning, low Autumn sun in his eyes. There are 
upwards of 20 people in a semi-circle around his front door, carrying 
cameras and mics. The street beyond them has been completely 
blocked off with cars. The flashes begin just as his eyes begin to 
adjust to the outdoors, and he raises his hands in front of his face 
instinctively. It occurs to him he has just stormed out of his house 
and into a press conference clad in his pyjamas and bunny rabbit 
shoes. Is this a dream?, he thought vaguely, then decided that on 
the basis it might not be he had better get his act together. 


"Look here," he said sternly, doing his best impression of a Victorian 
master, "what's all this stomping up and down outside my house? 
My daughter can't go to school." 


"Sir Malcolm," one of them called, "can you verify that you were in 
contact with Wesley Kellogg, a high court judge, in the weeks 


leading up to his death?" 


"Sir Malcolm! Is it true that you believed you were initiating contact 
with a 15-year-old boy? Have you undertaken any similar 
correspondences in the past, sir?” 


It was an ambush. Dismayed, he scanned the faces across from him 
until he found who he was looking for—the mousy blonde with the 
ridiculous brown pant suit. Wrath rose in him like a Spitfire, roaring, 
tearing into the sky. 


"This is all a disgusting vendetta,” he said, trying and failing to 
capture the spirit of grand Churchillian rhetoric with a pair of floppy 
ears poking out of both his feet, "levied against me by a convict; a 
murderer, in fact. There is no evidentiary basis to all this. It is, in 
fact, a bluff, a distraction intended to draw attention away to the very 
real scandal of the Rt Hon Michael Moore MP's behaviour and his 
comments on 13th July—another reason why the Liberal Democrats 
are simply a /iability in Coalition and why Mister Cameron should 
give serious consideration to the makeup of a minority government 
should the Coalition not survive until the next General Election..." 
He trailed off in dismay, realising the usual distractions weren't 
working; they were out for his blood. He took a couple of steps back; 
put his hand on the iron railing. Of all the miserable, pathetic... 


The female reporter spoke up now, her voice as harsh and grating 
as he remembered. "But that's not true is it, Sir Malcolm? We have 
letters that appear to refer to people in your life. They include laser 
serial dots which correspond to an official MoD printer we were able 
to confirm just this morning was assigned for your personal use. You 
know, I've been digging into your history, and this isn't the first time 
you've been caught corresponding with someone you believed to be 
a young man." 


"Lies!" he screamed. "Are you sleeping with him? The murderer? 
This is the sort of sordid conspiracy you work up against me. And 
you drag in all your small-time, London publication friends and 
ambush me on my own doorstep? You're a libeller, Ms Dullot—” 


"Deloitte," she said, before continuing. "In 2006 your wife left you 
because she found out you were exchanging letters and emails with 


blood loss, 2 out of 4 legs are unnaturally bent, a huge open scar in 
the back of it's throat is seen followed by multiple scars. 


Dr. Clef's Note: Wow, Have | never seen such disobedience, even to 
a being such as SCP-001! 1 must research into this as soon as 
possible. 


Item: Reconstruction/recovery of SCP-407. 
Test Issue Record: Denied by O5 Council. 
Termination Test Record: Denied by O05 Council. 


Addendum: Note from O5-7: You people think this is a joke, don't 
you? Are you all taking bets to see who can come up with the most 
ridiculous and over the top termination proposals you can imagine 
just for fun like a bunch of children? Giggling amongst yourselves in 
amusement as we Struggle to kill the damned thing? Is that it? 


Well, not anymore. So far, we have had proposals to use SCP-106, 
SCP-500, both SCP-173 and SCP-096 in the same proposal, high 
altitude impact, SCP-3042, among several others you all have no 
knowledge of because they’re too idiotic to even deserve 
recognition. And now, someone has proposed using SCP-407. A 
simple skim reading will demonstrate the enormous risks and 
resources required in such an undertaking. 


This stops now. 


Let me be absolutely clear: SCP-682 is one of the most dangerous 
entities we have ever managed to contain. It wants our entire 
species dead and given its abilities, it could very well accomplish 
this. It is completely alien to our understanding of reality in almost 
every sense of the word. Imagine if it broke containment and we 
were forced to detonate a nuclear device. Go ahead. Let it sink in; 
what could happen if it adapted to one of our most powerful 
weapons. We wouldn't just be boned beyond belief: it would be the 
end of mankind. Nothing could stop it, and | can already guess some 
believe using other SCPs could work. It won't. That will only make 
things worse. It always does. 


a 17-year-old boy. His name was Arnoldo Figueres. You paid your 
wife over two million as part of the separation to keep it out of the 
media. You should have paid off Arnoldo as well. He's giving a 
quote at the Brixton Herald offices right now." 


"No law," he said thickly, the wind knocked out of him as he realised 
how far gone the situation was—that for anyone other than him this 
would be unrecoverable. What he would have to do. "No law broken. 
You can't prove any law was broken." 


"No," the accursed reporter said. "At least, until we find out who 
contacted Timothy McGage and paid him £400,000 shortly before 
he was himself killed. My editor spoke to the Coroner for 
Hammersmith & Fulham last night, by the way. He says he'll be re- 
opening the Kellogg case. As good as the sleaze is, | think 
attempted murder sounds even better, don't you?" 


"Are you going to resign, Sir Malcolm?" someone called from the 
back. "Do you think the PM will ask you to step down?" 


There was a sudden, dangerous quiet. Sir Malcolm stepped away 
from the railing, back into the street, and he saw with some 
gratification that the movement still made these lice move back. He 
shivered, convulsively, the autumn air whiskering the hairs of his 
legs above the slippers. 


Slowly, carefully, he raised his hand up before his face, then 
stretched it out, fingers tensing around empty air. He had never 
reached for the green chair in desperation before; hadn't even 
known before that it was possible. But here it was, shimmering 
before him, his throne. 


"Erm," Sam said. 


The flash photography began again in earnest, the bizarre pose and 
expression of furious concentration on the Minister's face a must- 
have for tomorrow's edition. Go on, he thought, waste your last 
moments alive. 


"Run," Sam said suddenly, drawing an odd look from the 


representative of the Fulham & Hammersmith Chronicle. "We need 
to get out of here, right now. Please!" 


"I'll let you see," Sir Malcolm said to her, the corners of his lips 
tugging upwards until he was smiling a death's head smile. "You 
stupid bitch! I'll let you see!" 


Sam stumbled back, pushing against the other reporters who 
crowded closer, trying to get a clear recording of a Cabinet minister 
unleashing an astonishing rant on the street in his dressing-gown 
and slippers. She looked back and saw it, between his fingers, 
forming—the bubble of dark light, inflating until it had engulfed his 
hand and haloed his head in its altered radiance. St Malcolm, 
rebuking the skeptics. The others had seen it too, and a backwards 
step as they sought to get a good picture of the phenomenon 
became a rout as they realised it was continuing to expand. Sam 
was knocked to her knees as the reporters tried to escape—she 
watched it overtake them—passing over their bodies and erasing 
them, brain, skeleton, intestines for a moment exposed as it cross- 
sectioned them away. She sat mutely, watching as people she had 
known and worked with for three years were wiped from the earth. 
The bubble's expansion had slowed, grinding over the pavement. It 
had filled the street; a dome of infinitesimally paler, dimmer light 
rose into the sky, birds flying into it disappearing and re-appearing 
on the other side. 


It took her a moment to realise the sounds of the cameras hadn't 
stopped. Someone was talking behind her, and she turned to see 
that the press pack had somehow, miraculously, reassembled, 
stronger than before, though her university classmates were further 
back, watching with reverent expressions. At the front, 
representatives from the national dailies and their entourages jostled 
for position with TV crews, live reporters chattering in the 
background. At the centre of this impossible gathering stood Sir 
Malcolm restored, dressed in an immaculately fitted Huntsman suit, 
forelock tinted darker and teeth veneered, one arm around his 
daughter. Sam had felt sorry for her when she had opened the door, 
face pale above school uniform. Now her hair was immaculately 
coiffed and she was wearing a miniature version of a ball gown. She 
reached up and adjusted her father's collar, and he chuckled. 


"What will your first act be as PM?" the Daily Mail reporter shouted 
hoarsely. "Is there any truth to the rumour you plan to hold a 
referendum on UK membership of the EU?" 


Sir Malcolm's eyes twinkled, lunatic spirals of blue. "I couldn't 
possibly comment," he said, "but the people must have their say! 
That is the principle | stand for!" 


"You're for abolition of the monarchy—will you be asking the Queen 
to step down?" someone else called. 


"Give it time!" Sir Malcolm shouted, to a peal of polite laughter. 


But behind it all, she saw a strange duality—two Sir Malcolms, one 
looking happy and healthy and taking questions from a reverent 
press party, the other still in his pyjamas, hand still outreached, 
clutching at something she couldn't see, a Sir Malcolm still at bay, 
sweating, with face deathly drawn. She looked around—no-one else 
seemed to see anything other than the impossible coup. /t's not 
over, she thought, he hasn't won yet. 


Sir Malcolm sat on his jade chair at the centre of a whirlwind, 
desperately weaving the new universe. For every inch of ground the 
shift gained, another complex chain of consequences crashed 
through his mind, demanding resolution. Some part of him not 
wholly consumed in creating a new reality thought—to abandon and 
circumvent everything! The Foundation, the Project, Mucalinda, the 
great game of scandal and blackmail against his fellow Ministers— 
how easily he had been played at that—to discard all that and 
proceed straight to the result, the Rt Hon Sir Malcolm Urquhart MP, 
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, 
Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. 
Now, this was cheating at cricket, or put another way, not so much 
eliminating the excess pageantry of the tea ceremony so much as 
just snorting maccha straight from the packet. And he found he was 
surprisingly OK with that. 


He felt a pang of remorse for Francesca—he always did when he 
killed her—but lessened now by repetition and simple exhaustion. 
Let this be a universe where she never has to be disappointed in 


me, he thought. A universe without guilt! No Chaos Insurgency, no 
Foundation at all, unfounded—unfounded accusations against me 
Mister Speaker—no! No accusations at all! Erase even the memory 
of Wesley Kellogg, Timothy McGage, Keagan O'Neill! He felt himself 
rally at this vision, the bubble sliding outwards, engulfing Belgravia, 
central London. Then, the pressure again. Why? Why is it so hard? 
I'm only trying to make a universe where hundreds of millions of 
people love me, he thought, is that so impossible? The long looping 
end of a causal chain hit him like an express train and he saw the 
story, ‘Cabinet Minister in jail murder scandal’ spreading outwards at 
the speed of light. Blogs, Twitter, the first national newspaper 
websites. No, no, no, he screamed from his throne, stop it, stop it. 
Greater London. The South East. The Home Counties. The old 
universe fighting him every step of the way, pushing back with 
hyperlinks, retweets, word of mouth. Southern England and the 
Midlands; the bubble engulfing Cornwall and making landfall at 
Calais. Something in Sir Malcolm's chest was making a horrible, 
uneven thumping sound; his eyes rolled back as he felt his real body 
sink to its knees. Die, he screamed at the universe, why won't you 
die? He felt the bubble slide through the Midlands and reach the 
outskirts of Sheffield. 


OM 


The first syllable slammed through the dark throneroom of Sir 
Malcolm's mind like an icy gale. 


MANI 


I'm being watched, Sir Malcolm realised. In here, I'm being watched. 
Something vaster than he could perceive, some rumbling shifting of 
the landscape as the vast chant hammered into him. 


PEME