Light stirred some more sugar into her tea. "It's a pleasure to finally 
meet you, Director." 


Gillespie nodded. "The feeling is mutual. Your reputation precedes 
you... I've enjoyed reading a lot of your work. | can't agree more with 
your thesis, that we should be pushing to see how things really 
operate." 


"Thank you." Light tried to center her focus on the slightly stale 
biscuit, and not on the laser-beam lock of Gillespie's eyes. 


"Are you still a Site Director?" Shirley asked, while blowing gently 
onto her tea. 


"No, actually. | voluntarily left being an active Director in order to 
completely focus my attention on Alpha-9. Site-41 will probably still 
be there for me, maybe. Eventually. Possibly." Light shrugged, and 
took a sip of tea. 


"Aha. That's a shame." Gillespie sipped her tea, and made a quiet 
hum of satisfaction. "I'm lucky enough that | have a person to trust 
as interim Director indefinitely. My grandson, Ralph. Have you met 
him?" 


Light paused. "I... maybe. It does sound familiar." 


"He's very good. And I'm not just saying that because he's my 
grandson." 


Light smiled. "I'm sure." 


"But I'm sure you don't want to hear about that. We should be talking 
shop. About what we can do." 


"I'm all ears, Director." Light placed her elbows on the table, leaning 
forwards. "Tell me what you want to do.” 


"My dream, the point of my dedicated researchers here, is to use 
Safe and Euclid class anomalies to push what we can really see 
about the anomalous world. To find that one cross-test that grants 
us that thread to tug at, until the whole thing comes undone." 


"Have you ever had an object reclassed as 'Explained' at your Site?" 
Light asked. 


"You don't need to show off." Gillespie's lips tightened, and she 
looked down into her tea. 


"Oh, didn't mean it like that!" Light raised her hands defensively. 
"Really. | just thought, that was what you were talking about." 


"It's fine," Gillespie said, quietly finishing her tea. "I think... it would 
be better if | showed you some examples of what | mean. | don't 
want us to have any misunderstandings." 


SCP-213 Containment Area, Site-77 Euclid Wing. 


"This is one | think has great promise for the combatant side of the 
task force." 


They stood outside of a glass containment area, surrounding an 
enclosed metal hut. Toxic gas seeped and hissed through the room, 
twisting into greenish gray columns. Two guards stood outside the 
glass, dressed to kill. 


"Inside, there is a man we've had since he was little." Gillespie 
handed Light two photographs. A Polaroid of a pudgy, acne-scarred 
teenager with two glowing lights around his hands, trying to look 
tough but ending up scared. The other, a fresh print of a young man, 
bald and pale, covered in nodules and scars. 


"He's responded well to therapy, since we woke him. We've worked 
through a lot of body and identity issues. Some problems with 
maturity, but he's a solid block to build on. Young enough to mold." 


Light looked from the containment area, to the pictures, and back. 
"But, if he's cooperative, why is there such heavy containment?" 


"Cooperative? He would be if he could." 
"So there's more to him than meets the eye?" 


Gillespie pulled out a final photograph, a larger one, and held it up 
for Light to see. "This is the alien parasite which causes his 
anomalous properties. It does as it pleases." 


Light grimaced at the photo. "That's unfortunate. | thought you said 
this would be a viable candidate?" 


"Luckily there has been progress... we know how, if given the 
opportunity, the parasite can be suppressed. We can do it. The only 
thing preventing it is the lack the resource allocation for things that 
are contained." 


"This is what you meant, then. Augmentation, rather than 
explanation?" 


"In a nutshell, | suppose." Gillespie smiled a small smile, and 
gestured towards an elevator. "But that is also an oversimplification. 
| want to augment, to explain. I'm going to show you one of the main 
things | wish to explain." 


SCP-2322, Site-77 Administrative Offices 
"So it's like Being John Malkovich?" 


"But it only recreates one day, that | lived here in 1999." 


"Have you ever been inside of it?" asked Light, looking at the door. 
Directly across the hall from the Site-77 director's office door. A 
person walking by might almost consider it unassuming, barring the 
lack of a handle, its rigid steel construction, armed guards, anda 
massive sign designating it as a high security records room. 


"No, never. Once | was informed of the nature of the anomaly, my 
staff and | felt it would be a bad idea. Too risky." 


"It's completely bizarre. And it just popped up one day, like it was 
always there?" Light said, trying not to stand in the way of the 


various bureaucrats menacingly marching through the hallways. 


Gillespie nodded. "We drilled in from the other side, but none our of 
drills made a dent. | wasn't going to pay for renovating an enormous 
section of our already-undersized offices to try to poke a hole ina 
door." 


Light, giving up on human dodgeball, leaned against the wall next to 
the door. "I don't see how augmenting 213 into a weapon will explain 
this." 


"It's not that, specifically." Gillespie traced her hand along the door. 
"It's just an example of new ways of looking at the unexplained. The 
first time we're able to make that leap, of being able to apply 
something learned from one to another, that we will enter a new 
age." 


Before Light could respond, a robotic hand reached out of the sea of 
people, and interrupted her thoughts by swinging a knife at her face. 


The android, wearing a blood-stained business suit, looked a lot less 
realistic when not sailing in a sea of conformity. Light pressed her 
back into SCP-2322. 


One of the security guards, the one closest to Light, got a metal 
spike to the thigh. He cried out, before the construct struck him 
down. The other guard managed to draw his pistol, before a knife 
got jabbed in his belly. 


Gillespie reached into her purse, but the faux-man swept in from the 
now panicked and fleeing crowd, brandishing a dagger. The hand 
which was not trying to actively murder somebody held an antique 
pistol, and the whole contraption was sizzling with electricity. 


It was then that the door to SCP-2322 opened, and Light tumbled 
inside. 


For a moment, Gillespie paused, considering her purse again, 
before going in after her. The door tried to close, not used to more 
than one person at a time, but the charitable murderer jammed its 
blade into the door, pried it open, and followed. 


SCP-2322, Interior 


Gillespie and Light suddenly found themselves feeling a flood of 
deja vu. They had just walked down the entrance hall a few hours 
beforehand. Everything was a little less high-tech, but altogether the 
impression was the same. 


"So you know," said Gillespie, "This is supposed to be a one-person 
simulation of my life. It's never had more than one person in it 
before. It might behave... unusually. Death usually isn't permanent, 
when it comes from something that was already here. Tests on 
foreign materials have been... tricky.” 


Light leaned in and whispered. "There's a ghost kid walking 
underneath me. Is that supposed to be happening?" 


Gillespie looked down, and couldn't conceal her surprise. "Ralph?" 


Walking next to Light, with one hand tugging on her pants, was a 
little Ralph Roget. Not even ten years old in 1999, he looked just as 
he had in that day, apart from the translucence. 


Light looked from Gillespie, to Roget, and back again. "So, what do 
we do?" 


"Let's just keep walking. Keep the loop going.” 
"This is your life, do you remember where to go?" 


The checkpoint guard to their left flapped his gums, and gibberish 
spilled out. He sat there, waving lazily and reading a magazine as 
they strode by. 


Gillespie frowned. "There's an elevator ahead. We can take it to my 
office." 


Light looked around as they briskly moved through the entrance 
area. "It's nice to not have everyone staring at me for once." 


Gillespie opened her mouth to say something, but the shriek and 
crack of a handgun interrupted her. BANG. Light grabbed her 
stomach and fell to the ground. The little Roget began to silently wail 


beside her. 


Gillespie looked up a second later. A man, not a man, wearing a red 
coat and a fake beard was pointing a gun at them. Gillespie's mind 
was racing. It's not supposed to be real in here. Everything's fake. 
But the fake man is a real robot. No. This is very bad. 


The robot dropped the gun, and began walking towards them. Out of 
its coat, it pulled out its bloodstained instrument. "SOPHIA LIGHT" 
declared its grinding metallic voice, "Give BACK, FOR what you 
have RECEIVED. FORTUNE must be MET with CHARITY. How 
would you feel if you didn't have KIDNEY? WE CAN TELL YOU." 


Grabbing Light, she pulled them both towards the elevator with all of 
her might. Not-Roget followed along behind them, tottering as fast 
as his legs would take him. The android, in turn, followed along 
lazily, watching them struggle. As they reached the elevator proper, 
Light righted herself and hit the 'close door’ button. The doors closed 
before the ghost child could make it in with them. 


"Fuck!" Light cried, grabbing her abdomen. "That fucking hurts!" 


"Are you shot?" Gillespie leaned down over her, looking for blood. 
"Oh no. We need to get a doctor, right away, this is not a good place 
to—" 


Light lifted up her shirt, and grimaced as she slid herself into a sitting 
position. 


Gillespie looked at her. "Where did you get a bullet-proof vest?" 


"I've had one since Overwatch put me in this position. We agreed... 
ow, fuck... that something like this would happen sooner than later." 


Gillespie stood, wiping her brow and pressing the button she knew 
led to the administrative offices. "Oh... you had me worried. | don't 
want to see anyone hurt in here." 


"I'm fine. But we have bigger things to worry about. What the hell are 
those things?" 


Gillespie looked up, thoughtfully. "I believe... we've contained them 


since before | even got a position here. From the Manna Charitable 
Foundation. They're more or less twisted Robin Hoods who take 
from anyone to give to anyone." 


Light gingerly pressed her finger against the bruise under her vest, 
and winced. "Have they breached containment before?" 


Gillespie shook her head. "Never. | have no idea how they might've 
gotten out on their own. They're normally very peaceful. If they'd 
been helped, maybe... we can review the security documentation 
when we return." 


The bell dinged, and the elevator doors slid open. The little half- 
visible Roget was waiting for them. He bounded next to Light as they 
stepped out and walked through the teal halls of neatly labeled 
doors. Gillespie's office didn't look any different than it had earlier in 
the day. The same paintings hung on the walls, which were painted 
the same color, and terminated onto a floor which had the same 
carpet. 


Light looked around. "It's like deja vu all over again." 


Gillespie took a seat at her desk. "Yes, yes... we need to come up 
with a plan of action. If the loop hasn't terminated yet, we might have 
to wait until it's all over. | don't think the copy of site security will offer 
us much protection." 


Light took a seat across from her. "Let's just wait here for a time. Let 
them come to us. The Manna robot doesn't know the site any better 
than you do, so it might take it awhile to figure out where we are." 


The doors took that moment to open up. The SCP-2322 version of 
Security Director Anderson walked in, and took the remaining guest 
seat in front of the Director's desk. 


An incoherent mess of vowels spilled out of his flapping gums, as he 
placed some documents on the table. Light and Gillespie looked at 
them. 


Shirley #: Gillespie 


Object Class: Gillespie 


Special Gillespie Procedures: Gillespie is to be Shirley 
standard Gillespie Gillespie, located in Stanley Gillespie 
Shirley Gillespie. Ralph Roget Roget Ralph Roget 
Shirley Stanley Gillespie Gillespie. The containment 
Gillespie is to be Shirleyed once per week by custodial 
staff wearing opaque Gillespies... 


Gillespie looked back up to Anderson. His attention, however, had 
already turned to something else. He had taken a knee, and was 
playing with the little Roget directly in front of Light. 


"Gillespie!" he cried, tousling the ghost child's hair. Roget laughed 
and giggled, playing along. Light tried to sit as far back in her seat 
as possible, away from Anderson. She looked over to Gillespie, who 
looked back. They glanced at Anderson, and to each other, before 
they both cleared their throats. 


Anderson looked up, and sheepishly muttered something 
unpronouncable, incomprehensible, distorted and illegible. He 
began to take more papers out, placing them along the desk. They 
all looked the same as the first one. Before he could say another 
stupid thing, klaxon alarms began blaring. 


ATTENTION SITE PERSONNEL declared the shrill son of speak-n- 
spell. "CONTAINMENT BREACHES ON ALL LEVELS. ASSUME 
CODE BROWN-CASTLE PROCEDURES." 


"Shit," said Light, standing up. "Is this normal?." 


"No." Gillespie sat back in her seat, her fingers quietly drumming on 
the mahogany desk. "Anderson, go." 


Anderson stood, nodded, and quickly fled the room. Gillespie pulled 
open a panel of her desk, and pulled out a pitcher of white grape 
juice. She poured herself and Light a glass. "Take this. It clears your 
head, and we're going to need it." 


"Is there any kind of a panic room? Someplace we can go to wait 
this out?" Light asked, taking a generous gulp from her glass while 
leaning to look out the office door. 


SCP-704: Dangerous Curves 


Item #: SCP-704 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: The entrance and exit to 
SCP-704 are to be closed to the public as a private road. Both the 
entrance and exit are blocked by a solid steel barrier built to 
resemble a swing-arm style barrier. The swing-arm is non-functional 
and the barrier is instead designed to withstand high-speed 
collisions with vehicles up to the size of a semi-trailer. Armed guards 
are to be stationed at the entrance and exit to SCP-704 at all times 
to further discourage attempted entry. 


Entry to SCP-704 is not allowed by any wheeled or treaded vehicle, 
though attempting to do so is, for the most part, its own punishment. 
Entry is only allowed on foot with previous clearance from one (1) 
Level Three (3) administrator. 


Should a vehicle gain entry to SCP-704, personnel are to wait 
approximately 2 hours before attempting to recover any bodies or 
the driver. This is to guarantee personnel safety as the actions of 
both the driver and SCP-704 are unpredictable during an active 
phase. 


Description: SCP-704 is a loop of winding road breaking off and 
reconnecting to State Highway 96 in the National Forest. The 
loop does not appear on any conventional or electronic maps, and 
satellite surveillance is made difficult by an inability to focus on the 
affected area. 


SCP-704 has a passive and an active phase. The passive stage can 
only be observed by those traveling by foot. During the passive 
stage, SCP-704 appears to be a winding, static road littered with the 
remains of vehicles. Remains of vehicles are not observed during its 
active phase. The exact topography and distance of the route 


Gillespie closed her eyes as she took a sip of her beverage. "I can 
remember where the safe places used to be. Maybe." 


In the distance, there was quiet screaming. 


After a moment, Gillespie stood, pressing a button under her desk to 
open the evacuation elevator. "I don't like this. We need to leave."