“No idea. The creature we detained is probably being questioned at 
the moment, and frankly I’m more interested in how it knew about 
the Foundation to begin with.” Shen had removed the peel from the 
tangerine in one piece, and was arranging it back into a sphere-ish 
shape. “We'll decide what to do after the interview. All in all, it was 
an unusual assignment.” 


Riven nodded. It hadn’t been the most exciting Kiryu Labs field trip 


SCP-667: Fairy Kudzu 


Item #: SCP-667 
Object Class: Keter 


Special Containment Procedures: The primary sample of 
SCP-667-1 is to be trimmed to an area of 0.5 sq km and maintained 
regularly to prevent it from expanding outside its current habitat. The 
perimeter of SCP-667-1's habitat is to be cleared of vegetation in a 
30 m radius and fenced to prevent unauthorized access, anda 
region within a 3 km radius of the habitat is to be designated off- 
limits to civilian hikers or recreationists to prevent contact with 
SCP-667-2. Surveillance personnel are authorized to employ 
pesticides or fire to neutralize any instances of SCP-667-2 
attempting to exit the containment zone. 


During periods when SCP-667-2 is observed to be active, 
maintenance personnel are to withdraw from the habitat. An 
individual adult mammal, or an individual D-class awaiting 
scheduled termination, is to be introduced into the habitat after being 
tagged with a radio tracking or GPS device. D-class personnel may 
be issued audio or video equipment at project manager discretion. 
Feeding is to continue at a rate of one individual per day until 
SCP-667-2 becomes inactive. 


Additional samples of SCP-667-1 may be produced from cuttings 
and grown within prescribed limits in a fully contained area at O5 
discretion. All attempts to capture a live sample of SCP-667-2 are 
currently prohibited pending development of a means to counteract 
its mind-affecting properties. Any SCP-667-2 remains recovered are 
to be transferred to Site 73 for necropsy, analysis, and archival. 


Description: SCP-667 is a symbiotic pairing consisting of a colony 
of flowering vines of an unclassified species morphologically similar 
to Pueraria lobata ("kudzu"), designated SCP-667-1, and an 
unclassified species of flying creatures possessing insectoid and 


ever, but it was still pretty fun, Riven thought as he leaned back in 
one of the spare room chairs. He hoped he wouldn’t be kept to the 
labs for too long again. Getting enough fresh air was something he’d 
taken for granted when he first started Foundation work, and frankly, 
the repeated experimental trials had a way of wearing down a 
researcher—it was a little sad, in a way, that anomalies eventually 
became something commonplace. The spark of wonder he’d 
experienced during his first days was getting fainter, and he’d been 
spending more and more time wondering when the next interesting 
thing would show up. 


Riven’s cell phone was ringing. He was probably needed in the 
experimental rooms to help with the new interns again. He could 
already feel the fatigue coming on. Was it too much to ask for a 
nap... 


The cheerful deedle-deedle ringtone was persistent. Heaving a sigh 
of long-suffered patience when he saw the caller ID, Riven 
answered with a noncommittal “Hey, Mark.” 


“Rivs, I’m in the combustion lab. The bird you were working with 
exploded when we tried to bathe it. Regular water. Strangest thing. | 
sent the intern working with me to get a biohazard team, but | need 
someone to help me clean up the bird... or, you Know, what’s left of 
it.” 

Riven blinked, and realized in retrospect, he had kind of liked that 
stupid bird. “Wait, Mark, isn’t the combustion lab already equipped to 
deal with—” 


“The floor is now lava.” 


Grinning, Riven grabbed an emergency fire extinguisher from the 
spare room’s wall rack. “Should’ve said that first, Mark.” 


Decompression 


“Wake up. We’re going to the beach.” 


At the sound of his supervisor’s voice, Researcher Riven Mercer 
looked up from his stack of documents, a slightly-crazed look in his 
eyes. “...Is this an assignment?” he managed to croak out, after 
realizing he’d all but passed out at his desk during the usual end-of- 
the-month manic paperwork cram session. 


Anomalous items processing, while routine and streamlined at its 
peak of efficiency, still managed to involve a mind-numbing amount 
of paperwork. As the second-in-command of Site-19’s Kiryu Labs 
and resident Foundation intern babysitter, Riven Mercer found 
himself devoting hours every month to supervisory documentation. 
He made sure that everyone who clocked hours for the Labs was 
credited appropriately, that any fire damage that occurred during test 
trials was repaired, and that the monthly caches of paranormal-but- 
effectively-harmless things were stored away in the proper skeleton- 
free closets. 


Dr. Mark Kiryu regarded his assistant/right-hand research man/tea- 
drinking buddy with an air of long-suffering patience. “Rivs, how long 
have you been processing these cases?” 


Riven remained quiet for a little while. He looked at the stack of 
paperwork to his right side, and then picked up his coffee mug sitting 
on the left. It was the goofy dinosaur-shaped one, he noted blearily. 
The Labs must have been really swamped this month if he resorted 
to drinking out of that sentimental souvenir garbage. “Three, four... a 
couple cups of green tea? | started sometime in the morning,” Riven 
answered vaguely. “I made a pretty big dent in the stack, but we did 
bring in a lot of other Level-2s from other departments for this 
month’s an-items cache, and different people take different notes 
and we still need to handle hours crediting...” 


“Yeah, we're going to the beach. Pack your sunglasses. Find 


someone to feed your lizard...” 


“I’ve been in the Labs since this morning. I’ve already notified three 
people that Crellan’s bowl needs to be full by—” 


“Beach. Now. Transport shuttle in fifteen.” 


“You decided on jeans?” Riven shielded his eyes from the sun as he 
stepped off the Foundation shuttle. A crew member deposited a box 
of “protocol essentials” nearby, and after Dr. Kiryu stepped off, the 
shuttle promptly departed. 


“It gets cold when the sea breeze picks up. You went with cargo 
pants.” Mark replied as he cheerfully shouldered the large beach 
umbrella and scoped out the scene in front of them. 


Riven joined in the scoping. The beach was, well, he reasoned, a 
beach. The sky above was a sedate azure, scattered with 
picturesque, postcard-perfect white fluffy clouds. A few seagulls 
dotted the airspace. Below, pale-colored sand stretching along a 
coastline, bordered by rocky cliffs and purple sea fig flowers, with 
the ocean calmly lapping at the shore. It was a private beach, (the 
beach, not “a” beach, Riven remembered, Mark had said) and the 
sand and rocks and water were free of litter and human-generated 
debris. Apart from the cleanliness, the absolute feeling of normal the 
place exuded was rather unnerving, Riven thought. 


“Cargo pants are practical. | might need to wrangle a rabid lizard. 
Can't hurt to be prepared.” Riven examined the box, determined it 
had wheels and an extendable handle for pulling, and approved of 
the wonders of convenient luggage. By his guess, he could probably 
throw the box a good few meters in the air if he had to distract a 
giant rabid lizard. 


“I’m really hoping you’re joking, because if not, you’re completely 
missing the whole concept of ‘relaxing’ you’re supposed to—” Mark 
had picked a spot in the sand and was stabbing the umbrella into 
the ground, with limited success. 


“I’m joking. | just like cargo pants. Are you sure |’m not missing 


anything back at the Site?” Riven grimaced as the sun peeked 
through the clouds and into his eyes. He ran a hand through his 
shaggy hair (normally it was kind of spiky, according to Mark, but it 
seemed like today even his hair was tired). Squaring his shoulders, 
Riven started dragging the box across the sand. The wheels were 
useless. 


“Yes, I’m sure.” Mark scuttled around the umbrella, kicking up sand 
into a mountain at the base to hold the umbrella up. “Maintenance is 
taking advantage of our absence to move all your files and stuff into 
your new office.” He scuttled some more, picking up a wayward rock 
and tossing it into the tide. “Now that you’ve finished your veterinary 
doctorate with the Foundation, you’re entitled to your own office, 
your own hoard of snacks, and your own army of filing cabinets. 
Remember | told you to pack up your paperweights last week?” 


Riven paused in his box-lugging. “Actually, no.” 


“This is why you need a beach day, Rivs.” 


“Look at this majestic seagull. | dub him the King of Seagulls. 
Observe his regal crown of feathery authority.” Mark pointed. He 
was, at the same time, also hogging three lawn chairs: one for 
himself, one for his propped-up feet, one for his plate of snacks. 


“| think he’s just scruffy-looking.” Riven had elected to sit in the 
sand. 


“You're not very good at the whole ‘beach day’ thing, are you, Rivs.” 


“You have a pterodactyl costume and a ninja suit in your office 
storage. Can you blame me for wondering if there’s some ulterior 
motive involved?” Riven grabbed Mark’s plate of kettle chips from 
the lawn chair and made waving motions when the King of Seagulls 
came within foodstuff-theft range. 


“I’m going to walk on the beach. Be courteous with the King of 
Seagulls.” Mark abandoned his three lawn chairs, kicked off his 
sneakers and socks, and padded towards the darker sand of the 
shoreline. 


Riven watched his supervisor leave, a retort on the tip of his tongue, 
but decided against calling out a reply. So he settled into one of the 
vacated lawn chairs, stretched out his legs in the sunny sand, felt 
the salty sea breeze waft over his face. It was nice, he concluded. It 
may have been routine, or protocol, or even a requirement based on 
HR reasons, but for a moment it was nice to be away from the piles 
of paperwork and the ever-present unknown, untrustworthiness of 
the anomalous. It was nice to remember what “normal” felt like... or 
at least was supposed to feel like. The researcher let that train of 
thought pass by and closed his eyes. This was peaceful. 


The umbrella stuck in the sand promptly teetered two inches in the 
wind and collapsed into Riven’s lap, sending the plate, kettle chips 
and all, into the path of the King of Seagulls and his royal entourage. 


“Beach day. Right.” Riven scrambled up from the wreckage of his 
food, cursing gravity and the wind in all their many forms. 


Mark laughed discreetly from the shoreline. He’d been tracking 
footprints in the soft water-brushed sand, and watching the ocean 
wash them away when the tide came in. 


“Are there ever times when the absence of anomaly is scarier than 
the presence of it? When we’ve spent so much time studying the 
paranormal, the normal is what becomes uncommon for us?” Riven 
was sprawled out in the sand again (this time with beach towel on 
Mark’s insistence), the umbrella having being righted and held down 
by the lawn chairs, the box, and the extra-large bag of kettle chips 
(for what little support it could give). 


“It’s a risk all Foundation personnel run into,” Mark replied evenly, 
moving some seashell fragments around on the pages of an open 
book. He snapped a picture of the arrangement with his phone. 
“That’s one reason we have such a large Psych department.” He 
tilted the book, slid the seashells into his hand. The fragments 
clinked pleasantly as he cradled them in his palm. 


Mark stood up, walked a few steps, and tossed the seashells into 
the approaching tide. He turned and walked back to the umbrella. 
Riven raised an eyebrow. 


ane) 


“Take only pictures, leave only footprints’.” Mark shrugged, sitting 
cross-legged in the sand next to his assistant. “If this place was 
anomalous, and I’m not saying it is, what would you hope the effects 
would be?” 


“Benign, of course.” Riven stuck an elbow in the sand to prop 
himself up, for a better view of the ocean. 


“More than five words, please.” 


“Something to do with the aesthetics.” Riven flopped back down. 
“Something with the flowers on the cliffsides, or those shells that get 
tossed in by the tides...” Riven stuck an arm out of the shade cast 
by the umbrella and picked up a flattened stone, well-worn at the 
edges and fitting nicely in the palm of his hand. “Or, hell, if the effect 
was that every stone | tossed into the waves would skip three times 
exactly, I’d be happy with that.” 


“Didn’t skip stones often, when you were in England?” 


“Lived in the city. No place to skip.” Riven grumbled, not particularly 
keen on revisiting memories of his childhood. He’d been such a 
dork. 


“Well. Let’s test your hypothesis.” Mark picked up a stone. 


Twenty-seven stones and five collective total water-skips later, with 
no conclusive results, Drs. Kiryu and Mercer looked for another 
anomaly. 


“Isn't it a little out of date, the violin?” Riven had taken down the 
umbrella, which, after being pointed in various directions respective 
to the wind, was declared not affected by a potential beach anomaly. 
The sun dipped on the horizon, casting shadows that hadn't been 
there an hour before. 


“Oh, never. Every box office hit needs a killer soundtrack. Musicals 
need pit orchestras. People like sensitive flesh-and-blood musicians. 
You can tell a computer to play like someone’s crying, but it won’t 
have a clue what to do unless it’s directed by a human who fucking 


knows how to cry.” Mark was lying on his chest on the box of beach 
essentials, arms draped over the sides, stomach cushioned with 
several towels. 


Riven gaped. 
“...yes, | swear here.” 
Riven shut his mouth. Mark barreled on. 


“Ever played a duet with anyone? Ever seen two musicians sing or 
play together, totally in sync? There’s something transcendent about 
that sort of moment.” Mark scooted himself off the box he’d been 
lying on, did a quick about-face in the sand (it came off as more of 
an acrobatic twirl) and stretched out his arms, as if to embrace the 
sea winds blowing in from the waves. “It’s as meaningful as a secret 
handshake between two old friends, or two lovers sharing a waltz. | 
played the flute. Lots of lovely duets for the flute.” Mark, silhouetted 
against the fiery oranges and pinks of the setting sun, let the sound 
of the tides wash away his words. The night’s approaching darkness 
painted the sky in muted rainbow hues, melting to the eventual dark 
blues and blacks in the distance. 


Riven snorted. Mark turned around. “Hey, manly men play the flute. 
Shen and | can crank out a mean Mozart duet, I'll have you know.” 
Riven sighed, and held up his hands in surrender. 


“I’m not judging. | studied piano for several years, back in England,” 
he admitted. 


Mark grinned widely. “I’m forcing you to learn some chamber music. 
We're going to sweep the Site-19 talent show this year.” 


Riven shrugged and agreed, and the sun went down. The transport 
arrived just as they finished packing up the kettle chips. 


It was dark outside when lab director and assistant arrived back at 
Site-19. No one in the facility's laboratory wings would know the 
color of the sky outside; the halls on this floor were always lit with 
the same standardized, clinical white lights. 


“So was there actually anything anomalous about that place?” Riven 
put the dinosaur mug in the Kiryu Labs’ sitting room sink, along with 
his plethora of other backup tea mugs. He’d wash them all 
tomorrow. 


“Nah, unless there’s something the first sweep team, the second 
exploration team, and the successive test teams didn’t pick up on. 
You're not the only paranoid one, Rivs.” Mark stuffed the remains of 
the kettle chip bag into the food cabinet.