Dr. Kent pulled out a paper from the file. “At 0700 hours, during a 
routine sweep of SCP-3000’s primary area of activity, Security 
Officer Li began to experience intermittent headaches and was 
referred to the clinic. Dr. Khatri oversaw the care of Officer Li, who 
quickly deteriorated to the point of not being able to respond to 
simple questions. Over the next half hour, Officer Li experienced 
three moments of lucidity, during the first of which he expressed that 
he was a woman from Brussels, the second of which he expressed 
panic at his situation, and the third of which he got up from the 
observation table, walked across the room to a corner, pointed at 
the corner, and screamed. Twenty minutes later, Officer Li was 
comatose, and remanded to on-site care.” 


David surveyed the young man again. “Is there nothing in there we 
can salvage? Is it bad all the way through?” 


The fat doctor shrugged slowly. “He’s been observed by our on-site 
psychologist, and a neurologist flown in from Site-81. The trains are 
running, but there isn’t anybody on them. There’s just nothing— er, 
nobody in there right now. He’s empty.” 


David motioned for the paper file, and Dr. Kent relinquished it. He 
flipped through the file quickly, his eyes darting around for 
something missed. Anything missed. The Eremita had been 
shuttling crew back and forth from Site-151 to the contact site for 
years. But while there were always incidents of crew members with 
notably low CRV’s becoming affected by the cognitive 
deconstruction SCP-3000 was capable of, more recent protocols 
limiting distance from the entity and the minimum CRV of staff 
onboard had reduced the number of casualties from a few each 
month to a few each year. Occasionally one would slip through, but 
it was almost always some sort of error, and not a mutation of the 
phenomenon. 


But this was different. As David scanned through the documents, he 
saw nothing out of the ordinary. CRV’s were well within tolerance, 
no family history of psychological disorders. Good mental and 
physical health. Nothing weird, but even at a documented safe 
distance with all precautions taken, a healthy adult man had been 
pulled from his body and obliterated. 


“Fuck.” David said, casting the pages back down on the table. 
“We're going to need to keep this shit quiet. The moment this gets 
out, we're going to have the whole circus showing up here. Does 
anyone other than Kerry and you chucklefucks know about this?” 
They all shook their heads. “Well, at least there’s that. Goddammit. 
What were they even doing down there? The next Atzak rotation 
isn’t until the end of the week.” 


“They were assessing some lifeforms that we’ve noticed living on 
the eel’s skin,” said the fat doctor. “Crabs and fish and what have 
you. Wanted to investigate the relationship they shared with it, see if 
we could gain anything from that. They did end up recovering some 
samples, but—” he hesitated, “they obviously had to cut the mission 


short.” 


David nodded. “Cover him up. Move him to infirmary and keep him 
there for now. Put the crew he was with on a limited Class-C 
regimen, just the last day or so. We don’t want anyone knowing 
about this right now, not until | can figure out what the fuck 
happened here.” 


He moved towards the doorway and paused. 


“Get Kerry on the phone, and meet me upstairs.” 


The office of Director Kerry Eckelkamp at Site-151, in contrast to the 
dim and muggy Observational Site-305, was well lit and temperature 
controlled. A number of plaques and commendations adorned his 
desk and the wall behind it, and a small fan sat in the corner of the 
room to make sure the space was well-circulated. He shuffled 
through some reports on his desk, doing his best to appear to be 
busy. His charade was interrupted when his secretary, a squat 
woman named Viola, rapped quickly on the door. She poked her 
head through. 


“Boss,” she said, “phone for you.” 


Kerry nodded, and the door slid closed. He looked at the number 
next to the illuminated button on his phone, and sighed. David Bell 
hadn’t been in India for more than a week and was already trying to 
raze the site. He ruminated for a moment on the necessity of Ethics 
Committee liaisons, long enough, he was sure, to piss off the 
already fuming Dr. Bell on the other end of the line. With 
deliberation, he slowly lifted the phone to his ear. 


“David,” he said, smoothly. “Good to hear from you again.” 


“You didn’t tell me we had a goddamn dead man down here, Kerry.” 
He could almost feel the spittle hitting him through the receiver. “And 
that, after the Atzak revisions. Are you fucking kidding me?” 


Kerry took a deep breath. “David, listen, first of all he isn’t dead. For 
all we know, he could very well wake up tomorrow. He’s responded 


very well to his care thus far, and—” 
“Horseshit,” David spat through the line. 


“...and second of all, there’s no reason to get upset. Nothing we’ve 
got tells us anything other than that this was a freak incident, an 
unfortunate, stress induced episode. Officer Li was already 
experiencing a significant amount of stress due to his position, and 
couple that with the conditions within the Eremita and the, uh, the—” 


“...the goddamn eel, you mean? Yeah, we’re all fucking familiar. 
Christ, Kerry, | don’t know how you’re so nonchalant about this.” 


“| don’t know why you’re so worked up about this,” Kerry said. 
“Accidents happen. People die everyday, within this organization 
and without. Our asses are covered, what else do you want?” 


“What | want,” David said, his voice tense and his frustration 
growing, “is to know if anything was missed. If there’s something we 
should’ve seen that we didn’t. Because if we did, and if there’s some 
extenuating circumstances here that caused this man’s death, then 
the Committee is going to show up and park their asses on your 
front step and find someone to hang for this.” He paused for effect. 
“And it may very well be you.” 


“I’m not worried,” Kerry said, laughing beside himself. “If Cimmerian 
wants to try and get my goat about an accidental death, I'll refer him 
to any number of other sites where the same thing happens every 
day.” 


“You know damn well it isn’t just about him being a dead man, 
Kerry,” David replied. “The Ethics Committee can get itself worked 
up about it, but for the people who are important that’s not what 
matters. What matter is where he died. And in the proximity of what. 
InfoSec is starting to get worried about the Atzak trials. Say that 
there’s no way we can know for sure what’s getting taken and where 
it goes. We send someone down there with Level 4 clearance and 
they lose that memory, and where does it end up? We've seen this 
kind of thing happen before, and they think it’s only a matter of time 
til we lose something important from someone. There’s even 
murmurs about the Overseers being involved. You want to be 


standing around with your dick in your hand if O5-3 strolls up one 
day?” 


Kerry’s blood ran cold. “No,” he said, “Il’d rather not. Did Officer Li 
have clearance on any other skips?” 


“He didn’t, but that’s not the point. This was, for all intents and 
purposes, a random and unpredictable change in SCP-3000’s 
behaviour. If we aren’t able to figure out what the fuck happened to 
him, the EthCom is going to throw a fit. Then, once they’re done, 
we're going to have InfoSec in here, and then we start to see 
missions getting pulled, or drastically reduced. If we start to drop 
production, we get Area-909 on our asses, too, and if we start to see 
shortages of Class-A and -B’s, then we’re super fucked and we’re 
definitely getting a visit by an Overseer.” 


“Alright, Jesus,” Kerry said, running his hands through his hair. “I'll 
have some guys go through his file again. What do you want us to 
do if they find anything?” 


“Call me first, and then write up a report. Find a way to stick this on 
someone, but make it convincing. We need to make sure InfoSec 
doesn’t think this is going to be an ongoing issue, because the 
moment they do they'll coldstop the program and we'll both be out of 
a job. If we’re lucky, we won’t remember it, but | doubt we’d be given 
the kindness.” 


“Sure. I'll be in touch, then. What are you going to do?” 


David sighed on the other end of the line. “Find a way to spin this, 
first. I'll be at the Obs site until the end of the week, and after that I'll 
have to present to EthCom. Get me something by Tuesday night, 
because I’m going to have to spend at least a day or two on-site to 
gather some more information.” He paused. “And don’t fuck this up, 
Kerry. Take it seriously, goddammit. | Know you probably think after 
the promotion you're damn near invincible, but trust me when | say 
the moment they think your team is letting things slip through the 
cracks, especially with something as massive as the eel, they'll beat 
you to death with a sack of shit bricks.” 


They exchanged a dismissive farewell, and Kerry hung up. He 


along his arms or legs. Any mental healing performed is transferred 
directly, resulting in SCP-590 gaining whatever mental aberration he 
was healing. Those wounds he receives from using his powers 
accumulate. 


SCP-590 is not capable of healing mental disorders caused by 
psionic induction, including those caused by certain mind-altering 
SCPs. 


In , SCP-590 was bedridden, and unable to leave his room due to 
accumulated injuries. In, SCP-590 was put on life support, unable 
to even breathe on his own. Shortly after, he was given one dose of 

SCP-500, which brought him back to full health. 


At the instigation of Dr. Bright, SCP-590 was immediately induced to 
heal several cases of mental retardation. Due to this action, 
SCP-590 is permanently at the mental level of a three-year-old child, 
and is extremely tractable. 


SCP-590 is currently reserved for use on Researchers and above. 
Any requests for testing should go through Dr. 


« SCP-589 | SCP-590 | SCP-591 » 


immediately dialed for his Head of Human Resources, who dialed 
the IT Administrator, who dialed up a server bot to dig through 
Officer Li’s file, and the files of his nearest coworkers, and the files 
on his family, and his family’s family, and so on. Kerry didn’t hang 
around to witness the end of the search; he had a meeting with Site 
Director Gore the next morning, and needed to sleep. He wished the 
best to his staff, thanked them for their efforts, and left his office. 


On his way out of the site, he passed by the barracks and the docks, 
where the Eremita was pulled into port. The Eremita’s captain, Yoric 
Jon Hastings, stood with a handful of other officers near the ship, 
and flagged down Kerry as he passed by. 


“Director,” Hastings said, somberly, “we haven’t heard anything 
about Officer Li. Is he well? Some of the other officers were asking 
about him.” 


Kerry tried to smile despite himself, but ended up with only a twisted 
grimace. “He’s fine, Captain. Recovering well from his ordeal.” 


“He just needs some time to heal, is all.” 

“In fact, you 
should all check in with the clinic. Get yourselves patched up, take a 
breather before the next shift.” 


The captain nodded slowly, and a sound behind them made the man 
turn and look. A long line of crew members were slowly wheeling 
carts of unconscious D-Class out of the side of the Eremita. As they 
passed, Captain Hastings grimaced. Kerry stared at their eyes. 


Atzak | - Hub - Atzak III 


Aitzak III 


Not all who have died- 


have stopped breathing. 


ATZAK 


PART THREE 


The phone in David Bell's office rang four times before it was 
answered, knocked to the floor though it was by the just-woken 
doctor. In the darkness of his office, he fumbled for the receiver, 
eventually righting it and pressing the cold plastic against his face. 


"Dr. Bell," the voice on the other end said, a voice he knew belonged 
to one of the Director's aides, "Director Eckelkamp for you." 


David murmured a reluctant acknowledgment, passionately rubbing 
at the bridge of his nose to force life back into his face. He heard the 
tell-tale three clicks on the other end of the line, and then heard the 
sea. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. 


"David." It was Kerry. "There's been an incident." 


"Incident?" David squinted in the dark, trying to find a light switch 
with his loose hand. "What incident? Where?" 


"On the docks. We've got it contained, but | need you to get down 
here quickly." 


"Divers?" 
"No." 
"Not divers?" 


"No, not divers. | don't have time for- David, listen, we have a lot of 
bodies to deal with and we need to figure it out fast. EthCom is 
involved." 


Adrenaline surged through David's veins. "What? Why? What 
happened?" 


The voice on the other end of the phone hesitated for a moment. 
"One of our lieutenants down here called our Region Hub before 
calling me. The call was routed to an EthCom liaison due to "loss of 
life". He says he didn't say much to whoever he talked to, but 
Cimmerian is on a plane right now." 


"Fuck me," David said, scrambling now to slip on pants. "Don't let 
anyone leave. Get the, uh, get some fucking Class C's and uh... 
Jesus | can't even think right now, give me just a minute... Ok, ok. 
How many bodies are we talking?" 


"Forty-three." 

"Dead?" 

"Some. Not all.” 

"That's some slight blessing. Were they ours?" 


"David, | could explain this better if you-" 


"Kerry for fuck's sake, just tell me. Ours or not?" 


"No. It was a fishing trawler. We don't know how long they've been 
out there, the ship was just pulled in to port a half hour ago." 


"Any Americans?" 
"No." 


"Another blessing. These sure keep adding up, don't they." David 
threw his coat over his shoulders. "How long do we have?" 


"A few hours at best until the regional liaison gets here. Another few 
after that until Cimmerian and his posse show up." 


"Ok. We work fast, then. Give me ten minutes, I'm leaving now." 


Kerry acknowledged, and hung up the phone. David grabbed a few 
more things: his ID, a pack of Marlboros, his gun. He stumbled out 
into the not-yet-light of the early September morning, waving off his 
security detail as he threw all of his belongings into the back of his 
car. The engine hummed to life, and David Bell accelerated down 
the side road leading towards the docks. It was 1:27AM. 


Kerry had been mistaken. After another twenty minutes of 
searching, three more bodies were pulled out onto the dock, making 
forty-six bodies out under sheets. From his vantage point in a control 
tower, Kerry could see the faint rising and falling of the chests from 
the few who were still breathing. A handful of security personnel 
stood at the far end of the docks on either side, all aware that by 
sunrise they wouldn't remember they had been there that night. A 
handful of site doctors stood around the bodies, taking a few 
samples and making some observations. 


The scene was almost comical, he realized. Every great tragedy 
looked like this through the filter of the Foundation's response 
mechanism. Quarantine, assess, wait for reinforcements. More often 
than not, this ended in a few people in white coats standing around 
staring at something horrible and making idle small talk while they 
waited for somebody to do something. Kerry thought it was funny.