"I've got all the proof | need sitting right there," screeched Glass, 
pointing at Bright's current body. "One question. That's all | ask. Just 
one." 


The face on the other side of the screen seemed to frown for a 
moment before visibly shrugging. "Fine. Ask away." 


Glass looked at Jack Bright, narrowing his eyes as if to stare right 
through the visibly disturbed looking doctor. 


"Jack. What do you want more than anything else in the world?" 


Bright looked surprised. He smirked, the concern draining from his 
face. "To serve the Foundation." 


Glass's face cracked as he smiled in triumph. "That's not true, Jack." 


The voice from beyond the screen sounded again. "Enough. The 
trial is over. We have the utmost faith in Dr. Bright, and this line of 
questioning will change nothing. Dr. Glass, you are to be suspended 
in cryogenic stasis for no fewer than thirty years." 


Glass turned to the screen, eyes widening in shock. "What? Don't 
you see? It's not right! He doesn't want to serve!" 


Two men approached the dais and took either of Glass's arms, 
proceeding to pull him away from the court room. Glass's voice 
echoed over the cacophony of voices and static, screaming in rage. 


"IT'S NOT RIGHT! HE WANTS TO DIE, YOU IDIOTS! HE JUST 
WANTS TO DIE!" 


He was still screaming when they put him in the chamber. Directly 
across from him, he saw Kondraki's cryogenic chamber. For a 
moment, it shimmered, a wing flapping momentarily out of place. 
Glass had only a moment to register his surprise before the ice took 
him. 


The Present: 


There was also a multitude of voices shouting now, though the 
shapely female form lay mostly still and silent, only occasionally 
coughing or hacking up blood. Murderers and thieves, rapists and 
pedophiles, and a handful of those who had just stumbled onto the 
wrong military base or into the wrong room. Most of them were 
angry, calling out with rage and anger at their denied immortality, 
while others were crying loudly in sadness. But somewhere, deep 
down at the bottom, there was one who was silent. Unspeakably 
and immeasurably relieved. 


‘It feels good to finally die,’ thought Jack. 


He watched from the bottom upward as the voices winked out, 
disappearing like vanishing stars. He heard them silenced, one by 
one, the din growing quieter and quieter as the others finally went 
away, finally vanished, blowing away like flakes of ash. He felt whole 
again for the first time in decades. It took an incredibly long time, 
though it seemed to happen all at once; then, Jack was alone. 


It was dark, and cold, and wonderful. Dreadfully wonderful. Then he 
saw it, just barely out of the corner of his eyes, exploding with the 
intensity of its presence. A single dot of light, still shimmering. 


‘No,’ thought Jack. 'God damn it. NO!" 


He tried to speak and could not. The body he was occupying 
shuddered, racked out a final, desperate cough, and died. 


Seven Weeks Later: 


Interim Director Gears sat uncomfortably in the chair, but it didn't 
show. Kondraki's actions would leave Site-19 unusable for the 
foreseeable future, unless some antidote to 447-2's effect could be 
found. Since it didn't seem likely, Gears had been forced to relocate. 
On top of that, he was the chief surviving member of Site-19's 
command structure, leaving him with a very large mess to clean up. 
Anyone else would have broken under the stress of Gears' 
responsibilities. And Gears himself might be feeling a similar strain, 
but it didn't show. 


He had shuffled through more paperwork in the last month than in 
his entire career. While he'd passed on some of it to Iceberg, he was 
still inundated daily with requests, notes on recovery, and personnel 
casualty reports. Today was no different. 


He leafed through half a dozen SCP recoveries, making notes about 
the number of newly Neutralized objects that would have to be 
refiled. At the bottom of the stack, he found a file he thought he 
wouldn't see again anytime soon. It was a thick folder, full of notes 
on exploration and chromatically based locations. SCP-093. Status: 
Missing, Presumed Destroyed. 


He looked over the several pages of examinations Bright had 
ordered on the object, noted how the prognosis for repair had looked 
quite promising, and quietly closed the folder, setting it aside and 
retrieving the logs from the last day of Site-19. It took him a few 
minutes to find the security access data, and less time to discover 
that one of the many alarms tripped that day was to 093's research 
lab. Furthermore, it was the only alarm set off in its sector. He slowly 
put the puzzle together, sighed, and looked at the next file: 
"Concerning the Locating and Elimination of the Rogue Agent 
Imants." 


He read the report, signed at the bottom of the file to note he'd seen 
it, and then checked the box next to "Denied," citing a need for 
Foundation resources to be applied more scrupulously during such a 
difficult time. With luck, that would keep them from rediscovering the 
object before Imant's new employers could destroy it. He'd had a 
long day, and he was fairly glad when it was over, but it didn't show. 


Gears placed the manila folder in his outbox, and a crease knitted 
his eyebrows briefly and was gone. 


"Goodbye, Jack." 


He turned off the lights and left the room. 


The Future: 


The stems of wheat waved slowly, methodically, in the wind. The 
corpse would have been long desiccated, save for the fact that there 
weren't enough bacteria left alive to do much to it. All over the 
middle and lower torso, bulges of tumorous growths protruded under 
the skin, sometimes breaking through. The expression spoke of one 
who had died in agony. Even now, the eyes were painfully cramped 
shut, the teeth broken from gnashing and grinding, though the face 
still flickered and changed occasionally. Every so often, it flitted into 
a mocking smile, the last vestige of a man who, in his final moments, 
had passed on his death to his enemy. A final, spiteful act of a 
spiteful man. But not one that was undeserved. 


How long the body lay there, no one could know, but eventually, 
coasting over the horizon, there came a form. A strange half body, 
dragging itself with its arms, incomprehensibly large and impossibly 
terrible. It came, smelling blood, something it hadn't sensed in many, 
many years. The face, if it could be called that, was leering down at 
the slowly rotting corpse, smelling it, possibly savoring it, although 
its intentions would be impossible to tell. There was no way to know 
the mind of such a creature, so far was it removed from its original, 
human roots. 


The mouth slowly lowered down to the ground, surrounding the body 
and swallowing it whole. For a brief instant, it ceased moving. But in 
the next moment, it howled—though if in anguish or joy it could not 
be said. The form bent and twisted as the souls of a dead world 
became overwritten, leaving only a single, mingled consciousness. It 
doubled over as the eternal torment of billions became the burden of 
one. It shuddered as the knowledge of countless minds were added 
to its own. 


And just on the other side of the mirror, just out of sight, remained 
Jack Bright, trapped eternally between realities. 


Waiting. Festering. 


Plotting. 


Upon completion of the final verse SCP-983 announced the finale as 
expected with stating ‘BIRTHDAY! loudly and performing a single 
backflip followed by a ringing of its bell. The candy produced from 
the bell was recorded as being a vibrant white color with vaguely 
luminescent properties. The subject noted it was the most beautiful 
confectionery that they had ever seen and observing staff also noted 
admiration for the gumdrop. In keeping with the control of the 
experiment the subject was allowed to consume the candy. 


Upon finishing the candy and following a one-hour period of 
monitoring there was no indication that any side effect occurred from 
consumption. With the experiment about to be declared finished the 
subject asked to leave and was excused from the testing area, at 
which point she exploded with blinding light that damaged the 
cameras monitoring the experiment and left all attendees blind for 
five minutes following the burst. Assisting personnel who rushed to 
the scene described a faint lingering light that remained for at least 
two minutes in the place where the subject stood before it faded out. 


The subject has not been located since this experiment and 
unusually high electromagnetic activity has been noted within the 
area that was used for testing. Replacement of light fixtures within 
this area has also risen approximately 70% from the norm 
throughout other areas of the facility; however, no decrease in 
lighting has been reported in any area affected by this anomaly. 


« SCP-982 | SCP-983 | SCP-984 » 


Unfinished Business II 


No no, you see, it's supposed to be unfinished. 


It's in the name. 


Unicorn Crackfic Procedures 


Some Godforsaken version of Site19 


In the halls of Site-19, the faint clopping of hooves could be heard in 
the halls, shushed voices discussing various containment 
procedures. Between the Bipedal Containment wing, and the 
Magical Machete Research wing, two labcoated unicorns walked in 
step, a clipboard held by a promising young researcher in biped 
containment. 


"Dr. Bright, are you sure that this is ethical?" the younger unicorn 
looked down at the clipboard, containing a report on SCP-682. The 
heavy slash marks on the thick paper clearly indicated a need for 
additional H-class personnel. Whoever wrote this had wonderful 
hornsmanship. 


"Let me be honest. After you see some biped on your best unicorn's 
back, using its pale little digits to violate his haunches, you stop 
caring about the ethics of the H-class. They took his horn for Zeb's 
sake. Do you really feel pity for some filthy biped who would steal a 
unicorn's horn!?" Dr. Bright's eyes rounded on Researcher 
ZebraHan, and he cringed under the intense scrutiny. 


He unconsciously reached up to his forehead, the sharp edge of his 
horn gleaming under the fluorescent lights. The Tramontina 18" 
brush Machete on his forhead was the envy of many of the staff at 
Site-19. The heavy duty duct tape which secured it was a gift from 
his mother before she died last winter. "| guess you're right. | 
apologize, the nature of my research makes me forget they're less 
than Unicorn. What kind of monster would steal someone's horn? 
How would we cut pumpkins around Halloween?" 


Dr. Bright nodded, the amulet around his horn clinking. The body he 
wore was a delicate filly's, and the Buck Compadre Chopping Froe 
Machete on her head was distracting the researcher. He had to 


remind himself that this was Dr. Bright, respected unicorn, and 
Director of Personnel for the entire Site. "That's exactly right, 
Researcher. Pumpkins must be carved, and a unicorn without a 
horn is just...a zebra." Dr. Bright's use of a slur was shocking, but 
the researcher took it in stride, "I'll leave you to this, can you take 
care of the containment procedures from here? Losing Dr. Buttercup 
was a major loss. I'm expecting you to hoof up." 


Researcher ZebraHan nodded, his front left hoof tapping twice. "You 
can count on me sir. | won't let you down. I'm off to the Biped 
Containment wing now. | think I've got some promising research 
which will let us successfully contain 682 with significantly less loss 
of life." He set off down the hallway, towards the Biped Containment 
wing. The steely look in his Horn was enough to put a spring in his 
hooves, and a fire in his belly. That or the extra bark in his breakfast. 


He approached the Biped Containment wing, and with a flick of his 
neck, swung his horn deep in to the verification H-class next to the 
solid steel access door. His horn sunk in with a thunk, and the 
pattern of chop verified his identity. The sound of hooves clomping 
on the door mechanism rang out from behind the security 
checkpoint. They'd switched to H-class verification after an 
unfortunate incident last year, with a Horse Insurgency agent, and 
two buckets of black paint. The H-class let out some odd gibberish, 
which ZebraHan still couldn't make heads or tails of. "YOU SON OF 
A BITCH, OH FUCK, MY SPLEEN. WHAT THE FUCK, WHY ARE 
YOU DOING THIS TO US, WE'RE JUST HRRRK—" The H-class 
was cut off by Dr. Magnus, who sunk his Martindale 17" horn in to 
the H-class' heart, or something like its heart. Who knew what 
bizarre physiology the bipeds possessed. | mean, come on, two 
legs? 


"Morning ZebraHan, heading off to the Biped wing again?" Michael's 
cheerful demeanor gave no indications of his gruesome work, 
conducting interrogations on escaped G-Class personnel. G-class 
may be barely able to talk, but they were intelligent creatures, unlike 
these H-class. "Any chance you've gotten any progress with 
SCP-5778?" 


"No, and | have to requisition another 20 H-class for 682.. It's a good 
thing they breed so fast, eh? Too bad the young ones are so tiny, 


but what are you going to do? Use giraffes? Like a savage? We're 
not the Global Antelope Collective, for Zeb's sake." 


Magnus threw back his head and let out a braying laugh. "Too true, 
ZebraHan, too true. After some of the things I've seen, you'd be 
shocked we're only using bipeds. | hear the ethics herd has been 
thinking about allowing use of G-class personnel for general testing. 
| can't recommend it enough." 


"G-class? Zebus. That's a hell of a thing. But we've got to contain 
these things, at the end of the day, | suppose, and you are the 
expert." The door finally finished opening, as the unicorn behind the 
security door finished walking the treadmill connected to the 
mechanism. He nodded at the two of them, the shiny polish to his 
24" Ontario SP8 horn the hallmark of a security member. 


The two unicorns clopped down the hallway, and Dr. Magnus turned 
his head to face the young researcher, "Do you mind if | observe? 
You've got a way with the bipeds, which may be applicable to my 
own research." 


"Of course not doctor, it would be my pleasure." The two unicorns 
walked down the hallway, past the blood pits, where the Site-19 
grudge match was taking place. Two unicorns were fighting to the 
death over the last cruller in the break room. 


U for Unicorn Johnson had a 19" Imacasa Colima horn, which gave 
him a reach advantage over Furious UniGeorge's 17" Condor Golok 
fixed with the dual leather straps. Furious UniGeorge was a veteran 
of the blood pits however, and the ring of horns could be heard 
throughout the hallway. 


"Hold up, I've got five bucks on Johnson here," Magnus said, holding 
up one hoof. 


U for Unicorn Johnson jumped forward with his famous 
Hoofs'o'Fury, and smacked UniGeorge in the flank, but UniGeorge 
was no neophyte. His horn flashed down and sliced across 
Johnson's eye as he screamed out in pain. 


The fight was a formality at this point, as the two circled, before 


UniGeorge flashed his head left and right, hamstringing Johnson. A 
snicker snack of horn later, and the fight was over. "The cruller is 
mine Johnson," UniGeorge said in triumph, snacking down the 
delicious fried pastry as everyone in the blood pits dispersed back to 
work.