This time, Mr. Dark couldn't resist. Rub rub. Itch itch. It was a 
somewhat ironic fact, he pondered, that the Marshalls were never 
the sharpest knives in the drawer, despite the alarming frequency in 
which they used them. Oh, they were certainly very good at their 
specific fields of interest, of that there could be no doubt. Just point 
a Marshall at an unsuspecting continent, and soon it would contain 
no piece of ground untrodden by big shiny boots, no natural 
resources untapped, no historical relic unplundered, and no native 
populace unharrssed and still in possession of its wealth. You just 
had to make sure to let someone else handle the finance, since 
they'd probably spend it all on brandy, gunpowder and hair care 
products. 


The current Marshall was an exemplary specimen of the family. 
Stout, solid, and with the curiosity and imagination of a brick. The 
man's mother has been a bit too fond of reading, hence his rather 
unfitting literary name, but Mr. Dark couldn't really blame the poor 
woman. When you were married to a Marshall, you had to do 
something in order to keep your intellect from shriveling and folding 
into itself, like a dried-up snail. 


Mr. Dark shivered. That was a lesson he only needed to learn once. 


"Regardless how you want to define it, it is most certainly a problem 
that needs to be addressed quickly." Carter cut in, probably in order 
to save his partner further roasting glares from Mr. Dark. He 
probably regretted that decision when that very same glare 
transferred to him, but to Carter's credit, Mr. Dark thought, he bore it 
with far more class. 


"You Say it's a problem, but you didn't even bother to mention who's 
behind it. Is it the Factory again? Some new line of blood-powered 
mixers or something?" 


"The products don't really fit their usual style. They don't seem 
mass-produced at all, really, and if there are, whoever is doing it is 
putting a lot more money into their production than the Factory." 


"So not them. Is it another relic from the Prometheus days then, or 
some wayward Alexylva experiments?" 


"Nothing to tie any of the products to them, and it's usually very easy 
to tell.” 


"| bloody well know it's easy to tell! In case you've forgotten, I've 
been in this business since before you were born, you sniveling 
welp!" Mr. Dark barked at Carter, who manged to hide his flinch 
almost completely. Much as he hated to admit it, Edwin Carter had 
quite impressed Mr. Dark since they first began their business 
relations, shortly after the death of the former's father. That Carter 
was an idiot of almost impressive proportions, actually managing to 
make his contemporary Marshall seem intelligent by comparison, 
which was no mean feat. Carter Jr. was made of different stuff, 
however. Under his management, Marshall, Carter & Dark's 
Acquisitions Department went from a corrupt, barely controllable 
mess of mercenaries, sellswords and other scum into a well-oiled, 
well-performing and above all loyal machine. It really was a shame 
that the man looked like some sort of mix between a cave-dwelling 
frog and a permanently constipated iguana, but you couldn't have 
everything. 


Said unfortunate hybrid now cleared his throat. "My apologies, Mr. 
Dark, | didn't mean to offend." 


Mr. Dark waved a dismissive hand. "Forget it. So it's not them, fine. 
Did young Wondertainment finally crawl out of her pile of ice cream 
and corgis then? Didn't think she had it in her, honestly. Too much 

like her daft father." 


Carter hesitated. "She... indeed has, but we don't think that has 
anything to do with the current situation. Although what we suspect 
she's planning on might prove to be a different problem." 


"Well surely it can't be Uncle Merl, or..." Mr. Dark's expression 
turned sour, and the itch in his hands returned with renewed vigor, 


"Deer." 


Marshall, finally regaining some courage, chuckled at that. "We 
wouldn't have bothered you with those buffoons." 


"The truth is," Carter said, "is that we have no idea who's behind 
this." 


"So why don't you, and | know this might seem like a mad idea, why 
don't you use our terribly vast and terribly expensive intelligence 
network to bloody find out?!" 


Carter gulped. "We tried, Mr. Dark, but every Acquisitor I've sent 
either came back empty-handed or... not at all." 


"And that's not all," Marshall added. "Three hours ago, our 
connection with the Singapore Auction House went silent. When the 
men | sent there arrived, it was empty, | do mean empty." 


God damn, but Mr. Dark's hands itched. He peered at them, keeping 
them in the corner of his eyes. He never liked how they looked in the 
middle of the process, elegant as it was. The left hand was pale, 
thickly veined, covered with liver spots. The right was darker, almost 
brown, and as smooth as Mr. Dark's credit record. "What do you 
mean, ‘and | do mean empty?” 


"| mean that there was nothing there. All of the items stored, all of 
our sales personnel and my security staff, even the bloody furniture, 
down to the power sockets and wallpaper. Everything was gone." 


"And you say you have no idea who's responsible for this? For the 
contents of an entire Auction House disappearing off the face of the 
Earth?" 


Marshall stiffened. "| assure you, my Downsizers are at this very 
moment applying themselves to the task of finding whoever's to 
blame for this. They never fail!" 


Downsizers. Mr. Dark remembered the days when the Club's group 
of head hunters and assassins were called something rather 
different. He was quite fond of the old name, though in retrospect he 
did understand the decision to change it. It wasn't really keeping to 


the spirit of the times. Plus, it was more than a bit racist, and the 
Club did always try to cater to as wide an audience as possible 
(within reason, of course). The only color that mattered, after all, 
was the color of currency. 


"Regardless of Marshall and the Downsizers' never-failing efforts, 
Mr. Dark," said Carter, his tone making clear his opinion on their 
chances of success, "And whether or not there's a connection 
between our new business rival and the recent incident in the 
Auction House, | took the liberty of acquiring a few of the items that 
the competition recently introduced to the market. | think you might 
find them of interest." 


Mr. Dark nodded, absent-mindedly scratching at a liver-spotted 
hand, and Carter reached for his pocket, taking out a small box of 
polished, deeply colored wood. Connected to the box was a round 
silvery button. Carter left the box on the liqueur table next to Mr. 
Dark's recliner, and exited the room. A few moments later he 
returned, this time carrying with him a covered cage. He positioned 
the cage next to the box, and lifted the cover to reveal a live hen, 
quietly clucking to itself. 


"Observe." 


He pressed the button. The hen shifted slightly, and began clucking 
louder. After a few seconds of that there was a sudden popping 
sound, and seemingly out of nowhere, an egg appeared next to the 
hen. 


Mr. Dark didn't quite know what to make of that. "Is this... is this 
some sort of zen questions solver or something?" he asked, but 
Carter just shook his head and pressed the button again. 


Cluck. cluck cluck CLUCK! 
Pop. 


And now next to the egg were a raw green potato, a tomato, a head 
of lettuce, some olives, and what appeared to be half an ingot of 
sliver. 


"Er..." Another shake of the head, another press of the button. 
Cluck. Cluck. Cluckcluckcluckcluckcluuu-Biff 


"And this is the reason, Mr. Dark, that | believe we have a problem." 
Carter said. 


Mr. Dark could only nod, as he reached a slightly shaky hand to the 
cage and removed the top. And from the cage, he collected what 
was now a perfectly roasted and garnished chicken, with a side of 
mashed potatoes and a green salad. All served on a flawless silver 
platter. Disconcertingly, of the tomato there was no sign. 


Marshall approached and, using his rather sizable pocket knife, 
skewered a piece of roast chicken. He chewed it thoughtfully, and 
declared, "It's alright, | suppose. A bit bland." 


"Yes. Quite." 


A certain distance from the stately building which housed the 
lavishly tasteful (or perhaps tastefully lavish) clubhouse, a man sat 
at his office. At a first glance, and probably at the few following that 
one, neither appeared particularly special, and indeed, the office 
wasn't, other than the wasp nest hidden in one of the walls. The 
man, however — if a discerning gentleman or lady were to look 
carefully — did in fact have something to distinguish him from your 
mundane Joe or Jane. Namely, the fact that he was at the time 
conversing with a god. 


And that he was smiling. 


"And so you see, aha, we simply cannot continue on our current 
expansion schedule with the current production roster. How can | be 
expected to work in these conditions, is what | ask you? The forms 
aren't neat, there are candles everywhere, and I'm sure one of them 
tried luring me into a circle at one point, which is not something | 
appreciate, no | don't. And don't even get me started about break 
room etiquette. No, you know what, you need to hear what | have to 
say about their break room etiquette- it is below acceptable 
standards, | tell you, considerably below acceptable standards, and 


another thing-" 


Not because of anything the god said, mind you. The man lost track 
of that hours ago. It was something about the high costs of thaumic 
levies and how mages these days couldn't fill a MAG-97 form to 
save their wrinkly skins. For a being of immeasurable power and 
presumably intelligence beyond the ken of mortals, the man was 
surprised to find out that his god was a very boring person indeed. 
He wasn't really sure why it surprised him that much, since the god 
was, after all, an extension of the man himself, and didn't this whole 
thing begun in the first place because the man found himself to be 
so utterly, disgustingly boring? Indeed it had. It seemed that he 
couldn't escape that truth about himself, not even by summoning the 
vast, unknowable powers of the grand cosmos. 


"Are you listening to me? Doesn't look like you're listening to me. | 
can smite you, you know, | could do it right now, leave a greasy 
stain on the floor and everything, and wouldn't you feel silly then? 
Yes you would. Although... that would get me in trouble with the 
cleaning ladies. No, that wouldn't do, wouldn't do at all, that. They'll 
have me running about cleaning the trash bins for weeks, and that's 
no task for a god, no it is not. And that's without even going into-" 


The man smiled again. Well, if the vast, unknowable powers of the 
grand cosmos couldn't break the monotony that was his life, he'd 
have to turn to an even greater power, the most powerful force there 
ever was. 


Almighty Consumerism. 


A Reason To Die 


Footsteps. A pair of them are approaching. They reverberate 
throughout the hallway and into my bare cell, shattering the perfect 
silence and setting me on edge. There is a loud buzz, close enough 
this time to feel it in my teeth. The metal latch of the adjoining cell 
disengages, and its occupant's footsteps joins the pair. Not a word is 
spoken. Same as the others. 


| lean back and fall into my cot as the footsteps fade. | need to relax 
and calm my nerves. I've got around a half an hour before they're 
back for me, no sense wasting my time stressing out. 


Something-Or-Other Bio Site-12 is nothing like my previous facility. 
Back at 19; they had a rec room, yard time, a library, the works. Not 
too different from prison, barring the unfathomable horrors they kept 
locked up with us. 


Here though? Crammed into a dimly lit two-by-five, waiting to be the 
next unfortunate individual that has to make the walk. 


| fish the photograph out of my pocket, and God, could | stare at it all 
day. Kiran, wearing that beautiful smile and pointing proudly at the 
sonogram. Little Maira was just as camera shy as her daddy, and 
had spent the whole appointment dodging the technician's probing. 
Her hands were held up over her eyes, and Kiran swore up and 
down that you could see her smiling too. 


It'll all be worth it. The things I've heard about...the things I've seen. 
The world is far darker than she could ever know. The things they 
keep in these places kill men in ways that take weeks to clean up 
after. Break their minds and souls. They are the things of 
nightmares. 


The footsteps return. | draw a deep breath of the stale air, and 
stand. | am ready. A buzz, the grinding metal, and two guards stand 
at my door. Jet-black visors obscure their faces, and their matching 


Footnotes 
1. Investigation into whether the effects of SCP-1808instances 
involve a variant of this phenomena is ongoing. 


« SCP-773 | SCP-774 | SCP-775 » 


suits cover every inch of skin. The shorter one beckons, and | step 
out into the hall. 


We walk - as the others had - in silence. | won't cower, | won't plead, 
| won't fight. | know whatever waits for me may not be fast, it may 
not be short, and I'll probably feel everything. These people though, 
they understand this darkness. They can stand against it, keep it at 
bay. 


We take a right. A bleach-white door on the left of the hall, stark 
against the dull concrete, slides open with a near-inaudible hiss. 
Bright fluorescent light escapes from behind it, and splashes across 
the passage. 


Inside is a single folding table and accompanying chair. 
Researchers are apparently watching from behind the mirrored 
glass spanning the opposing wall. The door clicks shut behind me. 
The guards don't follow. 


| take what is presumably my seat, and wait. A pneumatic tube 
descends from what | had originally thought to be a vent, and 
deposits a single, brown pill on the table before me. 


"Do | take this?" | ask my reflection. 


The answer comes from an intercom to my right. "Affirmative. 
Please ingest the capsule." 


| pick it up, slowly examining it, and turn it around in my fingers. This 
is it. At the very least, | can play my part. Whatever is going to 
happen, it will further their understanding; so in some small way, | 
can still help to provide them a future. 


| swallow it. A burning sensation erupts in my lungs. | pound the 
table and gasp for air, receiving none. The lights and colors of the 
room begin to blur, and | feel numb. | can hardly feel the linoleum as 
| collapse. Inches away, my family beams at me... 


...and in spite of the encroaching darkness, | smile back. 


To: 05-12 
From: M. Hadriel +1 attachment 


Here are the results from D-5542. All twelve subjects 
were as compliant as their predecessor. We will need a 
few other personalities and backgrounds, of course, 
they'd catch on if they were literally surrounded by 
themselves. 


Though, it is a shame we had to use cyanide in lieu of an 
actual anomaly for the trial run. At any rate, I'd consider 
this a resounding success. Wouldn't you agree? 


To: M. Hadriel 
From: 05-12 


Absolutely. It looks like you made the perfect choice. 
We'll need another four hundred produced by the 
thirtieth. Make sure you get in contact with Klein in 
RAISA for copies of that photograph. 


Good job. 


A Researcher's Tale 


Watch. 
That's all | have to do. | just watch. 
Watch, and remember, and report back.