Randale snapped out of his thoughts in time to see the king had 
stepped down from his throne, in his signature, wolfish form. The 
king was a good king. Charismatic, hardy, fair, if a tad brash. 


He began to speak with a smile a valley wide, and voice that 
boomed throughout the pit, "Welcome all! We hope you are all well 
on this night. This event marks a truly special time in history, one 
that deserves celebration!" 


The crowd had roared in agreement, only settling when the king had 
raised his paw. 


"This is a night of recognition. Each and every one of you is 
responsible for the Third World, and | think | am not misrepresenting 
my brothers’ and sisters’ beliefs when | say that we are all the 
proudest we've ever been. So, in order to show our appreciation, we 
have all decided to allow this, our gift to you all: ceaseless access to 
the fountains! Every place, anytime, anyone! So long as you are not 
at work, no more will there be a restriction on celebratory drinks! 
You all have earned this right!" 


If the previous cheers had been loud, they were deafening now. The 
king continued. "But many of you have not come for that. Today, we 
have a very special opportunity for our most talented children. 
Tonight, we shall select a hundred of our honorable children, and 
pass along our lessons to them, with the intent that they shall pass 
along their wisdom to their brothers and sisters... what is that?" 


The king's smile deformed into a look of concern. The crowd looked 
in the direction of the disturbance to see one of their brothers 
distraught, and approaching the king, begging for his attention. 


"Is there a problem? What's wrong?" 


"Father, father, the humans, they broke the rule! They ate from the 
tree!" 


"Calm down, calm down!... You must be mistaken, take me to 
them," the king said, then turning his attention to the others and 
lowering the volume in his voice "Agathos, come with me, this is 
important." He addressed the other pairs before alerting the 


partygoers, "try to calm everyone down when | leave. Everyone! | 
must go. Something has happened that calls my attention. In the 
meantime, please, enjoy the festivities." 


And with that, he and the queen stepped down, and left, the 
murmuring crowd parting as he walked. 


The princess spoke, "quiet, quiet. Now, continuing where our king 
left off, we'll begin to name those who we'll see first thing tomorrow!" 


Only a few could stomach cheering. Randale could not help but to 
be nervous. There were so few rules in place, the only rule that 
would demand the king's presence was the one: the rule regarding 
the Tree of Knowledge. The Maker had forbidden any of their 
creations on the Living Earth to possess a certain level of 
intelligence, so to be sure it wasn’t used to such a degree, Agathos 
stored that power in a large tree and kept it Eden, far away from 
their creations. There was no way the humans could have gotten to 
it by themselves. 


Many, Randale included, were in a daze when their name had been 
called. This was an honor, and Randale accepted it with the best 
smile he could force, but everyone could feel something wrong 
looming over them from the horizon. 


At least there were drinks. 


"You are all disgusting. Blazes to you all," the Serpent roared. 


It was not a good day. The king, grey flames circling his head, stood 
at the gates of Eden with what used to be known as the Serpent 
under his claws. The king's form was so much larger than his was at 
the pit. It was not a design that could survive as a species, but it was 
effective as a show of force. Randale watched, keeping the crowd a 
safe distance away from the king and the serpent. The king had 
insisted that the only two to come close to the serpent would be him 
and Huesic, but they didn't want to see them, or “it" now, again. 


The Serpent continued its cursing, "damn you, | swear that you-," 
the king crushed it under his paw, its bones snapping under his 


weight. 


"Silence," he said, coldly. "Crafter number fourteen, it is the decision 
of myself, Crafters two through thirteen, and the citizens of Eden 
that you are to be stripped of your privileges, erased from all 
records, and expelled to walk the earth without end. You have given 
the humans the fruit from the tree of knowledge and sabotaged the 
entire design. Who knows what will happen now." 


The Serpent's bones began to move back into place, repairing itself. 
"T-thirteen? Huesic? They agreed to this?" 


"Yes, they did. And | know they have been doing your work for you 
as you took credit. | would say that | don't enjoy this. | would try to 
be sympathetic, but frankly, you have contributed too little for me to 
care. You chose to use your position to enhance only your own 
comfort, rather than the comforts of others. You are disgusting.” 


The Serpent piped up, “you know why | did it. Even you agree, we 
should not be told what we can and cannot do. Why do you defend 
that monster-" 


"Did you not hear me the first time?" The king growled, now crushing 
the Serpent even harder. "It was an agreement that you broke. We 
had the final say. Now because of your jealousy, we all will suffer. 
Your design failed, so now you envy the current one, the Human. 
So, in addition to the mentioned punishments, | forbid you from 
abandoning your body, | forbid you to enact on any of your 
endeavors, and | forbid you from employing the gift of creation in all 
you do. Humans will fruitlessly desire your death to no end, and your 
only friend shall be fear." 


The king lifted his paw and sat down. "Now leave. May your respites 
be few and far between." 


The Serpent lifted itself again, bones reforming in its skin. It left 
without another word. 


It felt like a lifetime since the Serpent had doomed them all. When it 
was driven out of Eden, the Maker had punished everyone, including 


the demiurges. While they still had eternal life and could not die, 
they now felt pain, and hunger, and disease. At first, the punishment 
had felt lenient, but Eden was not designed to provide enough food 
to support life on its own. Hunger soon fell over Eden as its citizens 
became increasingly divided. The king and queen became furious at 
the Maker for punishing them for something that they were not at 
fault for, but the other pairs were more concerned with what the 
Maker would do if they resisted. 


After rallying supporters for a rebellion against the Maker, the king 
and queen had been labeled traitors against Eden, even when the 
overwhelming majority of its citizens had agreed with them. The only 
loyalists for the Maker had been the other rulers of Eden, anda 
handful of those who were deemed worthy of training. Much of those 
who stayed with the other rulers did so only to protect them, rather 
than defend the Maker. This included Randale, as he persistently 
checked on Huesic as they became more and more reclusive. 


"Huesic? Are you here?" Randale said as he crept into Huesic’s 
room. 


"Oh. Hello Randale... don’t you have anything better to do?" 
"It's been days since I've seen you leave. | worry." 
"I'm fine," Huesic mumbled. 


"Huesic, you know you can tell me anything. You don't have to keep 
up your image around me. | care about my creator." Randale 
approached. "If it's fine with you, can | confess something? |... agree 
with more with Fredrick than the others. We should all be fighting the 
Maker, not each other. And our resistance against our own king? 
Labeling him a traitor? He doesn't want us hurt. We seem to be the 
ones hurting. It's not right. Why aren't we trying to reverse this 
curse? | don't want to hurt my brothers and sisters, | want things 
perfect. The way they were before... I’m sorry, that was rude. | 
wasn't-" 


"No, no, it's fine. We all do." 


"... I'll stop talking if that's what you want." 


Area to be viewed: An adjoining containment cell containing D-457 
sitting in a chair. 
Result: No result. 


Subject: Sedated Papio anubis (Olive Baboon). 

Area to be viewed: An adjoining containment cell containing D-457 
sitting in a chair. 

Result: No result. 


Subject: D-458 — Heavily Sedated. 

Area to be viewed: An adjoining containment cell containing D-457 
sitting in a chair. 

Result: Upon touching the table, Dr. immediately noted bones 
and sinew erupting from D-458’s chest area while D-458’s arms and 
legs fused into the central mass to form a roughly even block 
covering SCP-842. Despite the massive trauma done to D-458, he 
did not expire or lapse into shock. No blood or bodily fluid spray 
occurred. The three dimensional representation of the adjoining 
containment room was highly distorted, and no recognizable details 
could be made out. D-458 expired after twenty two minutes of 
viewing. Cause of death, massive internal trauma. 


Subject: D-459. 

Area to be viewed: An adjoining containment cell containing one 
D-457 sitting in a chair. 

Result: The three dimensional representation of the adjoining 
containment room immediately erupted from D-459’s chest. D-459 
begins screaming. Before security could return with a gag, D-459 
overheard muttering “wish | had a cigarette” in between screams. 
Details on the representation were extremely fine including an 
accurate scale representation of the chair and D-457 seemingly 
made out of [DATA EXPUNGED]. During the experiment, the 
representation of D-457 got up from the chair and began moving 
about the viewing area. D-459’s screams at this point intensified. 
D-459 expired after twenty two minutes of viewing. Review of 
surveillance information in D-457’s room confirms the representation 
on D-459 completely and accurately mirrored D-457’s actions, 
including his request for a cigarette. 


Subject: D-460. 
Area to be viewed: A supermarket that Dr. had never personally 


Huesic sighed and stood up to reveal themself. He changed his form 
from a small lizard to a small fox. Many demiurges abandoned any 
sort of reptile forms after what happened, just to avoid being 
associated with the Serpent. If anyone had the right to change 
theirs, it would be Huesic. "I'm sorry. I'm just in a bad state of mind. 
You can talk to me. | could have prevented Fourteen. They... ‘it’ just 
became so distant. It's my fault, I-" 


“No,” Randale interrupted. "Don't ever blame yourself for what it did. 
That was its problem, not yours. The Serpent, and its envy and 
laziness was to blame, not you. Don't ever, ever depreciate yourself 
like that, you're so loved. You know this, right?" 


... L... thank you, my son. | needed to hear that. | never wanted any 
of this." 


"| know you didn't. | know, It's hard, but we'll get through. | know we 
will." 


"l-I think so too. It feels good, hearing you say that," Huesic said. 
"Maybe we should go." Randale started after a pause. 
"Go?" Huesic sniffed "Where?" 


"Out of Eden. | mean, it can't be too bad on the Third World, can it? 
At least there are no wars there yet." 


"I can't. | still have family here, | can't leave them." 


"We can bring them. Think of what good we can do with our 
knowledge. Even if we can't cure the sick, we'd help so many just on 
knowledge alone! And if we are to be afflicted with things like 
hunger, going out of Eden makes sense anyways, wouldn't it? Let’s 
all leave, and make the best of it.” 


“Do you have a plan?” Huesic hesitated. 


"We can work it out, that | can promise you, but, please? Come with 
me? Before there’s any more damage?" Randale stuck out his paw, 
"Deal? Parent and son?" 


Huesic paused, only for a moment. It wasn't too long that they stuck 
out their paw to meet his, "deal." 


FUBAR 


“What are they doing?” 


“Nothing... just... talking. Are we sure we're in the right place? How 
do we know these aren't just random people waiting for a ride or 
something?” 


Agent Four grinned, his lean face masked by a massive set of 
binoculars. “Oh no, it's them. See the one with the stack of books 
wrapped in a belt? We've seen him before.” 


"What do you suppose is in those books anyway?" 


"Not sure. But one of them we recovered was the complete works of 
Samuel Coleridge, including the full version of 'Kubla Khan.' All three 
hundred lines." 


"Is that a big deal?" 
Four sighed. "Just keep your eye on the targets." 


Agent Grims squinted, shifting. He'd been staring down a scope 
roughly the size of a two-liter, attached to a high-powered, accurate, 
and very heavy rifle for nearly a hour now. He exhaled loudly, wiping 
his dark brow and re-fitting it to the eye cup. “Why are we on 
lookout? Why isn't the rest of the team moving in?” 


“Because we need to see what happens first, Grims. Otherwise I'd 
have you smoke the lot of them and go get a damn beer. They're not 
supposed to be here, and we just got the info from Scud yesterday. 
If this pans out, we can figure out what the hell the Serpent's Hand 
is suddenly on the move for the first time in a year. Now shut up and 
watch.” 


Grims grumbled under his breath, finger twitching a bit on the 
trigger. He was sick and tired of being attached to this damn squad. 


Since the attack, everyone had been shuffled, teams expanded and 
re-manned, to allow for instant autonomy in case of another 
communication blackout. Or some such bullshit. All he knew is that 
he hated working with these damn spooks. At least on the MTF 
squads, he could joke around, these people- 


“Movement... movement on the librarian...” 


Grims snapped to instantly, sighting in on the target. The man with 
the books had risen, moving from the sidewalk and down to a small 
side-alley. The other three people followed close behind, looking 
very nervous, checking up and down the street. 


“Four, the guy in the blue shirt looks like he's on a phone... what 
sho-” 


“Forget it, Smith already has an intercept...” Agent Four paused, 
touching his finger to the tiny earbud in his right ear. “...sounds 
like... someone's late. They had to change the meeting spot, 
because they'd been exposed too long... bah, he hung up." Four 
frowned. "This is odd." 


"How so?" 


"Well, the Hand normally uses their mumbo jumbo to arrange stuff. 
Cell phones and back alleys seem... cheesy.” 


Grims ignored Four as he mused, eyes locked on the tiny group. 
The rooflines were at least out of the way, he could keep plain-sight 
contact with them. They were nervous, fidgeting, and it was traveling 
up the scope to him. Groups like this bolted, he'd seen it a hundred 
times, and taking pot-shots at a fleeing group on a city sidewalk was 
not his idea of a good time. Not that he minded, but it was the 
principle of the thing. He had a certain reputation to ke- 


“What the fuck is that?” 


Grims silently shifted his hand a fraction, scanning the alleyway. He 
scoped the back wall of the alley, and froze, blinking quickly to make 
sure his vision was clear. A huge man stood in the shadows at the 

end of the alley. Had to be 7 feet tall, at least. Old suit, gloves... and 


a burlap bag pulled tight over his head. There was blood on his tie. 
“Four, what in the hell am | looking at?” 


Four ignored him, touching his earbud again. He nodded once, eyes 
going wide, and nudged Grims with his foot. “Shit, keep eyes on 
him. He was there when Site Seventeen got attacked. They think he 
might have stolen some stuff, or even been part of the attack...” he 
trailed off, looking through the binoculars again. 


Grims watched as the big man walked up to the group. They calmed 
down instantly, nervousness replaced by what looked like fear. The 
"librarian" pulled one of the other group members forward, 
practically shoving him at the stranger. The kid couldn't have been 
more then fourteen... he could almost hear him stuttering from here. 
Whatever was going on, this kid sure as hell wanted no part of it.