"| was supposed to have a date but the guy never came. So | 
thought instead of moping | would meet you guys." She sat in the 
booth next to the blonde guy and put her cocktail down on the table. 
"| wanted to chat with Olcha but she told me to fuck off, she's always 
like this?" 


"She tends to have her moments." The tall guy shrugged. "I found 
that it is better to respect her wishes." 


Cobalt introduced herself and the rest of the evening went relatively 
smoothly. She couldn't move the conversation onto the subject of 
anomalies in any way that would be natural, as most of the time 
references she threw were met with blank stares. Pull kind of 
retreated from the conversation anyway and either watched the 
dancefloor, where apparently two others went, or stared at Laufer's 
back. 


Though Cobalt was fairly sure that at least Taman and Delacroix 
started to like her, and that's a start. 


In the end Delacroix and Laufer got completely wasted and Pull 
offered to take care of them as he tried to break through the 
password on Delacroix's phone to find his address. Richter 
disappeared somewhere, according to Chryse he most likely ended 
up with a couple he danced with earlier. Taman did get a bit 
intoxicated, she wasn't used to drinking, and Cobalt suggested to 
drive her and Chryse back to the campus. 


Chryse did try to talk with her, bless her heart, but Taman was still a 
bit too fuzzy around the edges to pay attention to her ramblings 
about the spot she found with old newspapers and half-rotten books. 


She arrived in her apartment around three in the morning, stumbled 
around a bit trying to undress as quietly as possible so as not to 
wake her roommate, and in the end just fell onto the bed, not 
bothering with pajamas. A few clay butterflies sat on her shoulders 
and she allowed herself to smile before falling into deep sleep. 


Next lesson was more or less similar to previous one, with minor 
exceptions. For starters, Legler and Yang were slightly busy at first, 
trying to find space for pipes. Chryse was trying her best to not 
giggle at absurdity of their situation, as Yang looked equally as 
puzzled as Taman felt, and Legler kept on failing at trying to find 
space for them. 


Another thing, slightly less minor, was the fact that it was late 
afternoon. The light filling the room shifted accordingly to the hour, 
now sharply orange. Legler explained change of the usual hour with 
something about change of perspective, but Taman found her job 
that much more difficult, the contrast between colours dramatically 
dropping, blues shifting into violets and greens turning muddy. She 
tried to just sketch but later Legler sent her a derisive grimace, 
commenting that she was going the easy way. 


Laufer was much more quiet. She spent entirety of the lesson 
cutting with knives into a chunk of black wood she brought with 


herself, the light making all the edges much sharper. Usually she 
stuck with Pull, but he was absent, for once. Without him around, 
Laufer seemed to almost block out everyone else. 


Taman noticed that almost everyone that came to Coastal were 
glancing at Laufer, more and more often as hours passed by. Just 
before they left, though, Laufer's eyes crossed with Chryse. She 
winked, and then, slowly, almost theatrically, put her hand into her 
skirt pocket. Winked again. Taman looked around, and buried her 
hand into pocket of her jeans, and found something indeed. She 
looked around, ensured that no one was watching, and put the 
object on her sketch. 


The origami turtle was small and simple, made of a sheet of 
gorgeous origami paper. The patterns were geometrical and yet 
intricate in their simplicty, colour was difficult to determine thanks to 
the sunset, but the most surprising part was that it was still moving. 
Taman resorted to ignore this part, and started to unfold it. On 
reverse side of paper she found an address - she didn't knew where 
exactly it was, but the name rang a bell - and annotation to come 
there in exactly twenty-four hours. 


She glanced again at Chryse, but she was too busy with applying 
glass glitter to wooden panel to pay attention. When Taman looked 
up, she saw that Yang, now sitting behind Legler's desk, was staring 
straight at her. 


Pull's apartment - as this is what the address led her to - was 
humongous in comparison to her own little spot. Delacroix later 
murmured something about how the small amount of furniture 
contributed to that feeling, and indeed, Pull's place looked almost 
empty. They had not a lot of space to sit down, so Laufer pulled out 
pillows from his bed and threw them next to his lone sofa. 


The only thing that seemed completely out of place was something 
that looked like a... bronze altar, of sorts. 


"So, it's, like, a game thing?" Seeing Pull's mildly surprised face, she 
pushed on. "Like, the entire clockwork aesthetics you have going, is 
it, uh... a fanboy thing? Seems a bit too consistent for generic 


steampunk..." 


The room fell nearly perfectly quiet and Taman felt anxiety creep in. 
Pull seemed as if he was trying to stitch up a response but was 
completely at loss where to start. 


"Same question here, but | like the stylistics, to be clear." Delacroix 
said between one sip and the other from his hip-flask. 


"They're new, remember." Chryse murmured. 


"No one is this new." Laufer eyed Delacroix in disbelief but seeing 
Delacroix shaking his head, she only sighed. 


"Ok so you know how no one knows what anart is unless you are 
into it?" Richter started and Taman nodded. "Well, it ain't the only 
thing hidden from eyes of, you know, 'normal’ people," he drew 
quotation marks in the air. "There are also organisations and 
religions that are invested in anomalous stuff, also hidden and 
secret. Technically we are all sort of pushing each other into 
secrecy." 


"| told you two about this." Pull smiled. "| happen to belong to one of 
those religions. You see-" 


"And to not get into preachy mode, he believes in clockwork god." 
Laufer ignored Pull's almost offended stare. "If you feel like listening 
up about some of that, you can always meet up later because | 
genuinely don't feel like hearing about all that stuff." She glanced 
pointedly at Pull. "Again. Not that it's not interesting, Pull, but | came 
here to talk about shit | want to ta/k about. Without any mics and 
cameras." 


Cobalt allowed herself to let out a chuckle. 
"Not too paranoid?" 


"In this day and age you can never be too paranoid." Laufer pulled 
out her phone, turned it off and put it on a table. "Even social apps 
pick up on every word | say, just to keep capitalistic machine 
turning." She patted her palm against a table. "Now, if | can ask you 
to put your stuff here and turn it off." 


Something about her tone of voice suggested it would be better to 
do as she said. All pulled out their phones (Delacroix put his tablet 
on the table too) and turned them off. Pull gently put his old Nokia at 
the top of the pile. Laufer nodded her head, pleased. 


"Fantastic. Now first question. Anyone had contact with Aloe?" She 
looked around but everybody were quiet. Taman, Delacroix, Cobalt 
and Pull didn't know the person, but noted the shift in atmosphere. 


"I tried to call them, but nothing.” Richter finally said. "| don't even 
know if the phone number is the same. Never had their address 
though, but I'm fairly sure they live somewhere on the campus." He 
looked around, rubbing his hands nervously. "Anyone knows where 
they could be living?" 


"Once they mentioned they have a roommate, that's all | know." 


In following silence, Chryse was the first one that noticed not 
everybody were showing the obvious worry over the missing person. 


"Aloe is another anomalous artist." She started explaining. "A 
sculptor, extremely skilled, they could do wonders with their pieces, 
really. Stuff Legler tries to teach us? Aloe got it naturally. Creating 
was like breathing for them, damn, | never saw them being stuck on 
anything they did, and they were just so good at what they did... But 
around a month or two ago, something just happened and they 
disappeared. Just like that. All contacts cut, didn't attend classes, 
nothing. As if they vanished from existence. We've been trying to 
reach them ever since, but nothing." 


"We suspected activity from one of the organisations that kept track 
on anomalies, but even if it was them, we don't know shit. We don't 
even know Aloe's name, so we can't even check records on uni, 
anything." Laufer sighed. "Our hands are tied and all we can do is 
hope someone has contact with them." 


"How could you know them and not know their name?" Delacroix 
looked mildly amused. "| mean, did you even know them?" 


"Let's rephrase that." Laufer moved her (carefully manicured and 
very long) nails closer to his tablet. "We don't know their deadname. 


video equipment. 

SCP-610-L3 - Initial discovery of the tunnel entrances at Site A. 
SCP-610-L4 - Unmanned exploration of the Site A tunnels. 
SCP-610-L5 - Manned exploration of the Site A tunnels. 

The following field report is for Class-A or higher personnel 
only. Unauthorized viewing of this file is strictly prohibited and 
will be considered a violation of Foundation contracts and a 
breach of international law. 

SCP-610-L6 - Exploration records of Operation 'Source Point’. 


« SCP-609 | SCP-610 | SCP-611 » 


It could be staring straight into our face, but we don't know it, and it's 
not something you ask someone anyway." 


"Ah." Delacroix's voice was an octave higher. "Fair enough." 


"Mind you, none of you Know my name." Pull noted. "And somehow | 
do not see how that makes any friendships in any way difficult. 
And-" Pull stared straight at Delacroix. "I am not willing to share." 


"What was their name then?" Cobalt sat up. "Maybe | could ask 
around in my circles too." 


"Sam Adams." 


"Shit!" Delacroix slammed his hands against the table. Pull's Nokia 
fell on the floor but nobody made the move to pick it up. "| Know the 
guy- the gal- uh, them!" His hands trembled, so he hid them under 
the table. "Ginger, neat clothes but always filthy? Never said a word 
to them but wow..." 


"| asked Legler once, though," Richter threw in, after Delacroix 
finished rambling. "He, well, he seemed for once to give rat's shit 
about something and asked me to tell him if | knew something." 


"The old bastard caring about anything?" Laufer let out a chuckle. 
Cobalt shivered. "Sooner Hell freezes over and melts again." 


"Dunno, he seems pretty chummy with that Yang girl, if anybody 
asked me." Richter noted. "But jokes aside, | think he was worried 
about Aloe." 


"He liked them a lot." Delacroix finally found Pull's Nokia and put it 
back on table again. "Generally, liked their stuff, even praised them 
a few times." 


"That's a lot, coming from old prick." Laufer glanced at Pull. "You 
have anything to drink?" 


Pull left and brought some mugs and cups and put a bottle of water 
on the table, all next to the pile of phones. Delacroix sighed and 
resorted to hip-flask, Laufer snatched one of mugs. 


"lam not used to having guests." Pull murmured. "And when it 
comes to Yang... Something about her irks me. | find myself unable 
to trust her." 


"How is that? She's rather cool, | think." 


As if on cue, everybody stared at her and Taman regretted opening 
her mouth. 


"Be careful with that word." Chryse finally broke the silence. "Cool. 
Without getting into details, some people are sensitive about it." 


"| think she is nice and has no bad intentions?" Taman tried again 
and Chryse nodded. 


"She treats us rather impersonally, really." Richter noted. "Hard to 
say what she thinks." 


"Well, she took me on a bit of a trip to the abandoned warehouses, 
with all the graffiti and art. She... created art out of someone's art, 
helped me realize some things about my own art too. | couldn't do 
anything today, but | managed to actually do something magical at 
home, so | think | can trust her. She helped me, all in all, | like her." 


"Wow." Delacroix let out a cackle. "Pretty girls always get best stuff 
first, what can | do." 


"Well, if you say she helped you | can guess she's ok." Chryse 
nodded. 


"| still think she and the old prick are fucking." Laufer sipped a bit of 
her water to the sound of scandalized gasps from Taman, Chryse 
and Cobalt. "What, that sort of stuff happens, and if James says 
they are chummy," here she drew quotation marks in the air "Then | 
guess we can consider that." 


"Even if, then what?" Delacroix shrugged. "None of my business. | 
just want to do nice clothes." 


"Clothes?" Laufer laughed, but then she noticed that Delacroix was 
serious. "What sort of art is that?" 


"| design. Maybe if you would look up once in a while from your 
knives, maybe you'd notice what I'm doing." 


"That's not art." Her fingers were back to Delacroix's tablet, but his 
hip-flask was too empty for him to care. 


"It is, because you ain't the one to decide what's art and what's not. 
I'm not the knife-nut here." 


"Ladies, ladies." Richter raised his hands. "Let's not argue, alright? 
We all do stuff that we enjoy, right?" 


Laufer was digging her nails into tablet's alluminium cover, 
Delacroix's knuckles were almost white on his hip-flask. Richter tried 
his best to look relaxed but he was nervously looking between the 
two. Cobalt, next to Taman, looked ready to get between the two if 
something were to happen. 


Taman had no idea what this something could be, and she prefered 
to not know. 


"I'm still surprised you didn't go for painting, Delacroix." 


"| do whatever the hell | want to, and if | were to decide one day | 
want to write bloody non-fiction about dick sucking or copy old 
paintings stroke to stroke - | would still be an artist." 


"And whom you'd influence like this?" 
Delacroix straightened up, bewildered. 


"This is what art is, noob," Laufer pressed on. "I'm a living person 
and I'm here to shove my thoughts into your brain. Dead cunts are 
dead, they no longer matter, they don't think anymore. And me? | 
will cut into your nervous system until you see what | see." 


Silence fell. As Delacroix struggled with his response, Cobalt raised 
her hand in the air. 


"Then what, are you saying everything that dead artists ever did is 
no longer worth it? What, does death mean what we left behind 
doesn't matter anymore?" 


"Exactly. If you die, you are dead, you stay dead. What does it 
matter to you?" 


"It matters for others." 
"And that's how old art doesn't matter to me." 
Cobalt clicked her tounge, but in the end fell quiet, visibly pissed off. 


"Is this why you gathered us here?" Richter asked. "To piss us off or 
to enforce yourself on us?" 


"Not really. | just wanted to know if it was possible to find as many 
skilled and varied people as possible." She grinned. "You all have 
your own points of view, but you struggle to defend them. You can't 
define art, which is quite cute. | like you all." 


"To the point, if you could?" 


"Becoming cool is a bit difficult on your own." 


"Where did Yang take you?" 


Taman turned to see Cobalt, going in same direction after leaving 
Pull's house. 


"Warehouses, they're on the east of the city." Taman waited for 
Cobalt to zip her coat and more or less get her things together. "| 
think a lot of local urban explorers like this spot, really. A lot of 
graffiti. Though Yang said it was all about changing environment, not 
the place itself." 


"Interesting." Cobalt grinned. "Explains a lot why she took you, not 
Delacroix. He never managed to do a thing when he's just..." Cobalt 
here squinted her eyes and made a movement with a hand, 
parodying Delacroix working on his brocade. "I'm guessing it's kinda 
hard to change environment for a piece if all you are doing is 
working on one piece all the time."