them to be abominable bags of sleaze and sin who were just trying 
to talk to their God in the same way that | tried to honor mine; by 
studying and growing as a scientist. True, | am a biologist, and they 
were not, but when | learned what they did, | could not understand 
the reason why the Wolves hated them so much and not hate me 
too. In the end, | can only guess they were afraid of them being 
right." 


He drank for a second and caught his breath to keep going. 


"They butchered them. Entire families lived in that tiny village, and 
they all died. And the Wolves did it, may He have mercy on my soul, 
with my help. | gave them a way to kill them silently, as they all slept. 
An airborne agent," he explained, matter-of-factly. "Simple, painless, 
quick — and, when | came back to my daily life, and all of those | 
had met and thought | respected, when they all Knew what they, 
what we had done... they chose to ignore it." 


Jacob's eyes looked at the fire. He sounded like if he was day- 
dreaming; Frank knew him enough to know that was his way to 
cope. /t was all a dream, he had to be thinking; /t is okay to tell it, 
because it was only a dream. 


"They tried to do as if | had never done anything. 'Don't be silly, 
Jacob, you would not hurt a fly. It was the Wolves that did it."" Jacob 
closed his eyes as he spoke, gently shaking his head. "Would they 
have succeeded, without my help? | killed three hundred people in 
one night. | did it because they asked me to do it, so they would not 
have to go guns ablaze and set everything on fire. Calling too much 
attention on the Malleus Project would have been a foul move for 
the Tribunal, | suppose." 


"Hmm, Jacob." Garziel said. "| have been meaning to ask. That 
colony... was it the Order of the Mirror God?" 


"Yes, those were them. You knew them, Garziel?" 


"Only in passing remarks on modern thaumaturgic works. They were 
connected to the Church, too... their search for a naturally occurring 
Aspect Scale was admirable." 


"Aspect Particles... yes, that sounds like something the Wolves 
might find abominable." He grimly smirked. "Dead because they 
believed in a God that reflected itself upon every atom. Every quark. 
Even the unholy 'Aspect Radiation’ the witches of today talk about. A 
colony of physicists and mathematicians trying to find God in God's 
work... it doesn't sound so far away from what most religious people 
do, each one on their own ways, correct?" 


Jacob took another sip from the mug. 


"After that, | left," he kept talking in that chilling tone of his. "The 
Wolves did not complain. They had their clean massacre, so | could 
leave. No evidence would tie it to them. But | didn't know how to go 
on. It is, you see, that | killed them," he said, calmly, almost 
uncaring. "There is no good ending for the man | used to be, friends. 
| had to go die in shame in a corner and hope that my name was 
cleared or smeared after my death. Or go on and live my shame 
every day." 


He glanced up, to his protegees' faces. 


"Christians would call me a penitent. I'm just tired of thinking that my 
prayers feel polluted. | can't talk to God like | did before. | can't stand 
to think he would listen and would repudiate me." 


The man shivered slightly. Frank felt it too; that night carried a dry 
chill. In a way, it refreshed the man as he drank one more time from 
the mug. His voice sounded tired instead of cold now. 


"The rest is the story of a new beginning, | suppose. | heard that the 
Initiative had decided to fully support the Charitable, back in the 
days when they got their seat in the International Board. An old 
friend of mine, an ex-Wolf no less, sent me a short letter and an 
MCF brochure, pointing out that they would need people with my 
experience. My daughters supported my choice, thinking it would be 
a short tour." 


The man looked at the mug, amused by the drawing. "For the past 
twelve years, | have been with Opal and her Group. Most of us have 
quit Mission Branch to join Continental, or died or left for other 
teams. Usually their own new Work Groups. But we are committed. | 


love the Charitable in the same way a flower would love the ground 
it grew upon, friends. | was an agonizing man once and, when the 
seeds that could be saved from that man were placed here, they 
bloomed. | was reborn, and my works are good." 


Jacob downed the rest of the now lukewarm cocoa and placed the 
mug on the slab. 


Noticing how mesmerized he had been by the story, Frank saw 
Ahmad was crying silently. His and Haji's hand were placed on the 
Rabbi's shoulders; Garzia and Poitriburg looked at the fire, perhaps 
trying to evade themselves from the truths of the tale and how they 
might resonate with her own experience. At some point of the story, 
Alba had embraced Mirra, who sobbed. And, for the first time in the 
soiree, Frank noticed Priss' door was open, her face partly showing 
behind it. He forced himself to look back at the Rabbi, who was 
ending his story. 


"| must be here. | must do what | do. It is guilt that | feel, yes, guilt 
and a measure of desperation. | see those | killed in every person | 
fail to save, and every day we fail to save so many. | have to run 
away from them, but | keep forcing myself to go to them. And yet, 
what else would | be doing? How else could | live with myself?" 


The Rabbi sighed. 

"Evidently, | wouldn't." 

Priss closed the door and laid her back against it, her eyes covered 
by one hand. 

Why can't I like these people?, she wondered. Why do | hate them? 
As her own questions did, night went by, but answers didn't. The 


morn found her out of tears. 


In Laascaanood, an early riser had waken up just to find a street dog 
in his doorstep. 


The man, a rather poor construction worker, had not had a nice 


SCP-680: Clockwork Skull 


Item #: SCP-680 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: Because of its usefulness as a 
possible diagnostic tool, SCP-680 is to be kept at Containment 
Site-76 in Storage Locker 76-_ . Additionally, to prevent accidental 
activation (and subsequent waiting periods) of SCP-680, the SCP 
must remain at least 10 meters away from all but mechanically static 
machinery. Use of SCP-680 on a subject must be approved by 
Level-3 Personnel. 


Description: SCP-680-1 is a slate sculpture in the form of a human 
skull missing its mandible, with a mass of approximately 7.5 kg. The 
sculpture itself does not appear to be hollow, as all orifices have 
been filled with a presently-unknown black substance that rates 9.6 
on the Mohs Scale of Mineral Hardness. Beyond its improbably high 
durability, the skull itself appears to have no particularly unusual 
properties. Resting on top of SCP-680-1, however, is SCP-680-2. 


This (SCP-680-2) appears to be a set of mineral appraisal tools 
connected to a large (6 cm) eyepiece, which is in turn connected to 
a bronze headstrap. Among said tools are a pair of lens adjustment 
knobs, a series of additional magnifying glasses, a tungsten filament 
with no otherwise known properties, and various other devices. 
Craftsmanship appears to be of a late 19th-Century Germanic 
design, though since SCP-680 was discovered in __, Brazil, no 
specific design or influences are easily named. 


SCP-680-2 has no particular effect when removed from the 
SCP-680-1 and tested with D-Class (or other) personnel, though 
said test subjects describe a feeling of motion sickness and general 
irritability afterward. Whenever a mechanical item of sufficient 
complexity is placed approximately 0.5 meters in front of an 
assembled SCP-680, however, several of the tools on SCP-680-2 


month. All his contractors had left, scared away by the tensions 
between Somaliland and Puntaland, so he had had no chances for a 
well-paid job in a while. Most people around him were cruel, unfair 
and unpleasant to him. He had not gotten any earnings for the last 
few works he had done, his clients had all but disappeared for the 
past few days and the elders did nothing about it. He had not been 
feeling so well for the past few days, coughing and headaches 
weighing him down. And his wife was starting to get really angry at 
him for the general lack of income that should be feeding their two 
children. 


The last straw was the humiliation of having to go and beg for the 
help of the foreigners working for the Charitable. But even he 
understood that his family depended on it, so he would go. 


So, when he found a dog in his doorstep, at first his impulse was a 

cruel one. Wishing to vent his frustration, he wanted to kick it away, 
ready to beat the little stray if it tried to bite back. He held back, and 
that was the reason why he noticed it was nibbling at one of its own 
front legs. As hungry as | am, aren't you, mutt?, he innerly asked. 


The animal whined slightly and, with a powerful bite, tore its leg from 
its body. 


The man recoiled. Yes, he had seen dogs chewing on their legs, or 
carrying their young by the neck with a gentle bite; but this was 
certainly a whole other level of biting. 


He tried to get away from the dog, but it limped behind him, following 
him. When he turned back to try to shoo it away he met its eyes, 
wide open, calm and slightly wetter than normal. It was hypnotizing, 
in a way. 


When the animal reached him, he dropped the leg at his feet, sat in 
front of him and happily panted. After staring at each other for a 
moment, the dog barked softly and lapped at his fingers. 


The man saw the bloodied stump. In the growing light of dawn, he 
noticed how skin and flesh slowly crept down from it, how the white 
bone underneath grew without a noise, and wondered... 


An hour later, his wife woke up and saw him in the yard by the 
house, a fire burning a piece of meat. "What are you doing? Is that 
meat | smell?," she asked. "Did you get meat from the Charitable? | 
did not know they had any." 


The man looked at his wife. He had a manic look in his face that 
scared her. "Oh, my love. We have been granted a miracle from 
God." 


Inside its cage, the mutilated mutt was missing its two hind legs and 
a piece of liver, but they were growing back already. It merrily 
yawned at the new Sun, unaware of the trouble its mere existence 
would bring about. 


« Greenery | Hub | Best as it Gets » 
\\ 3rd-VC-D-AA // 


Best as it Gets 


The way it came out was miraculous. Last month it was an empty 
lot, with MCF operatives handing out food and clean water and 
offering medical services. The operatives were still there, working 
out of a fully-functioning concrete building. Lights, air conditioning, 
everything working perfectly. A fully built hospital in the middle of a 
Somali refugee camp should have been a beacon for masses of 
humanity, writhing and shuffling and pushing one another as they 
sought desperately needed aid. A beacon for hope and humanity. 


So why was it fucking empty? 


Dodger held her nose up, trying to relax herself before her throat 
closed up and she suffocated. That wasn't fair to say it was empty... 
there were plenty of people here, getting checkups and waiting in 
lines, and several hospital beds were occupied. There were just 
more people across the street, gathering around the man shouting 
from the back of a run-down technical with its tires freshly stripped 
off. 


"What's going on out there?" One of the doctors asked another. 


"Rabblerousers have got people convinced the place is infected with 
something. Saying it's demonic, or something." 


"Demonic? | thought they were Muslim." 
"Islam has demons in it, too." 
"Oh." 


Dodger went out the door, met outside by a local guard as she 
stormed across the dirt road towards the crowd. She knew right 
away it was a crock of shit—the man on the back of the truck was 
trying and failing to be subtle as he motioned to others to start 
corralling people to his left. He was trying to get them to block her 


way towards him. 


"Hey," She called out to him, turning sideways so as not to elbow a 
woman in the face, "Hey! Hey!" 


She avoided someone coming her way, then noticed a man push 
someone else in her path. The crowd started to notice her, and 
turned her way. 


"What do you want?" A man nearby yelled in her ear, grabbing her 
by the shoulder, "Who do you think you are, some kind of army 
soldier? Fucking marine?" 


Dodger was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, casual, along with a 
bandoleer and a belt. She thought she looked more like a police 
officer when she'd dressed. Hadn't realized Somalians here were 
unlikely to have experienced civilian police before. 


"Don't touch me. Who are you? You're not in charge around here, so 
fuck off." 


The man took that rather well, she thought, as he stepped aside and 
the crowd started giving her room. She thought so, but then the man 
on the truck was looking right down at her, addressing her directly in 
English. 


"You, American, what do you say? How is it you have a hospital 
building built and supplied so fast? Where was construction? Who 
was working here? What poison are you putting in the medicine?" 


Dodger kept her hands to her sides, clearly visible. Despite her look 
she didn't have a gun. MCF Mission members weren't allowed guns 
either. Some of the people in the crowd had guns. The speaker's 
words reverberated around in Somali, and another language or two 
she didn't recognize. Some voices came out in hostile response. 
She hadn't noticed it before, but the crowd wasn't entirely against 
her. An enclave of about a dozen men were shouting down the man. 
Some were bracing for a fight with the rest of the crowd. 


"It's called 'prefabricated shelter'—we build it elsewhere, pack it up 
in pieces, then bring it here and put it back together. What do you 


say? Why are you stirring shit up here?" 


The man began hounding the crowd again, while the man who had 
tried to touch her now came up in front of her again, "| suggest you 
go back inside, slut." 


She wasn't even paying attention to him. She had had visions in her 
head — heroic and overblown, perhaps — of her standing up onto 
the back of the truck, shouting down this rabble-rouser, espousing 
the new hospital as safe, and exposing him as... what? 


"You really want to see?" The man suddenly shouted towards her, 
then back to the crowd, "She really wants to see!" The crowd began 
to shout louder, angrier. She couldn't even begin to imagine what 
these people had gotten into their minds that they were turning down 
food and drink and medical supplies just to stand around and be 
angry about something else yet again. Suddenly she realized 
something odd about the man... his teeth... 


"Hey," She called out again to him. 


He turned to her, leaning in close like a performer on a stage, "You 
will see, American. Just wait." 


"Where are you from? What is your clan?" She asked in response. 
His teeth... they weren't all perfect and white, but the more he 
spoke, the more she saw what was missing — no implants, no 
fillings, no off-colors. If anything, his molars were whiter than the rest 
of his teeth. 


Someone was getting her words across to the crowd, and some 
people were starting to take notice of her. 


"What's your clan, fucker? Where are you from?" 


Someone else had brought it up in Somali, and some people in the 
crowd were starting to cry out in turn, demanding to know the man's 
allegiance. Should be just like Mexico... Dodger thought. This area 
was largely one clan, so that severely limited the pick of lies this 
actor on the truck had to deliver. It would shut him up for a while, at 
the least. 


A young man in the crowd was gesticulating at the man. The side 
opposing the speaker had grown enough in the few minutes that the 
speaker couldn't be heard anymore over the tumult.