"Good afternoon, this is Grace Zammuto, Light Courier Enterprises 
Representative #4 speaking. We are currently selling the Earth, 
have you called to inquire on a purchase?" 


400. | want it for 400. 


"I'm sorry sir or miss, but $585.98 really is the minimum | am 
allowed to offer. We can discuss rounding it out to 600, maybe, as | 
would also be able to offer some types of insurance or—" 


375. Don't you even think about robbing me, as your kind always 
manage to do. 


Goddammit, Grace thought to herself. She watched the price tag 
float around in midair, occasionally twitching or shaking. 


"| Know you likely hold a position of authority where you're from, but 
as I've said before, | can't lower this price. Our profit margins are 
slim as it is, and we need that profit to turn over to Illumination. | can 
only offer bundles and other services to come with Earth, which 
really do give you your money's worth—" 


Manager. | want your manager. | want them to give me someone 
that isn't a disabled drone. 


"I'd love to, but I'd like to also inform you that | resent being called a 
‘disabled drone’, and my manager's hours are at strictly 35 hours 30 
minutes to 36 hours 30 minutes, so if you aren't interested in 
listening to my special offers, I'll have to end this call.” 


A resounding thud came from outside. On her monitor, Grace could 
make out a print on the snow, where the price tag had been 
slammed into the ground. It was now levitating in the air, the price 


tag's string taut, as if it was the string to the solar system's largest 
Christmas tree ornament. 


| could drop this into emptiness. | could crush it into my eyes. | could 
dash it against the solid air. And | know you'll be "liable" for it. 


"But you won't, because you and your kind know what happened to 
the last time something like that happened. Tell me, how much do 
you remember before that reset?" 


Several seconds passed. The phone clicked, and Grace leaned 
back with a sigh. 


Several more seconds passed, and Grace heard another thud 
outside. This time, the monitor showed a black glob of liquid on the 
motionless price tag. A distant alarm began to blare some distance 
away, as Observation Post 44 went on full alert. 


It took a few more seconds, but a smile came across Grace's 
features before she began to laugh to herself. She hadn't seen that 
happen since her 6th call. 


She thought she had finished, but her laughter redoubled as she 
stole a glance at the acronym engraved on her office door: 


L.C.E. 


On a different grey horizon, a forest of pine and snow dominates 
what used to be a city. Small animals run through empty homes, the 
snow and the roots of trees sprawling across the ground they trod 
upon. A lone machine remains in the center of the forest, pulsing a 
soft blue light. The dim ball of light in the sky had begun to lower. 


The machine resembled a misshapen cube from a distance. Up 
close, hundreds of tiny gears clicked quietly and spun with each 
other, traversing around the construct in a complex dance. Blocks of 
plastic tumbled through large clear pipes, forming a rigid roadway 
between the skittering clockwork. Pistons pumped with screws that 


SCP-920 does not appear to have normal human requirements, and 
can "wander" through deserts, tundras, and oceans without 
encountering difficulties. 


Addendum 920-1: SCP-920 was discovered at Entrance 
[EXPUNGED] of Site- . However, during escort to Hall- , SCP-920 
escaped containment. SCP-920 was later discovered outside a 
small town near Site- . Attempts at re-containment were 
discontinued following the disappearance of personnel. 


Addendum 920-2: The words "Mr. Lost, from Little Misters ® by Dr. 
Wondertainment" are tattooed upon SCP-920's left calf. This 
designation appears as "16" in document SCP-909-a. SCP-920 was 
originally discovered wearing a green hoodie, a white t-shirt, and 
jeans. The brand name "Doctor's Orders" is sewn into all tags. 


Addendum 920-3: Yes, by lost we mean lost. Misplaced, 
disoriented, off-course, whatever you'd like to call it. No, personnel 
have not been sent to "another plane of infinite Misters". -Dr. 


Addendum 920-4: On / / SCP-920 was restrained by Foundation 
personnel and Site-207 was established at his location to contain 
him. However, within hours it became clear that personnel could 
not locate Site-207. After days Site-207 was abandoned due to 
critical supply issues. 


« SCP-919 | SCP-920 | SCP-921 » 


twirled at air, golden wires snaked through cracks in the figure, and 
a small pulley cooed while bearing its weight. 


Frostbitten human corpses lay around the machine, alien to the 
forest's new residents. A mother clutching a son with the hopes a 
shielding him from an attacker; a young man with a curved weapon 
in hand, his face touched by surprise. Amongst the corpses, a single 
human-like statue remained, standing upright and facing away from 
the ancient massacre behind it. Carved out of wood, its hands had 
begun to rot away, as ice clung to its ridges and curves. 


On the front of the grand machine, a wooden door persisted, with 
chipped paint and scratches of many depths. Surrounded by the 

gashes on the door, a faded bronze plaque proudly displayed an 
acronym: 


EeGrE 
CBeT MOM nyTb 


"And | can assure you with 99.9% certainty, that letting me set up 
shop outside will NOT end up with me, you know, selling everything 
outside." 


Assistant Researcher Riley had to use all of his willpower keep 
himself from picking up the minuscule SCP-1940-1 and punting him 
through a ventilation shaft's grates. Following complications with 
keeping SCP-1940-1 the size of an average human, HMCL Leifson 
had decided to downgrade its space to a broken refrigerator. 1940-1 
protested the change all the while, but was now comfortable with the 
variety of rubbish Site-30 staff had provided for purchase within the 
fridge. 


The fridge, now resembling a five-story model department store, 
now boasted wares including broken pens, shredded papers, lunch 
containers, and a pair of broken spectacles. 1940-1 stood at his 
register located on the fourth "floor" of the fridge, watching Riley 
install cameras in the fridge's many corners. 


"A small lot of 14m by 14m, and I'll have all the required 
documentation you'll need," the miniature man continued. Donned 
with a blue apron and casual clothes, he looked more like he had 
attempted to make his own retail worker costume. "I'm obligated to 
stay on the property at all times, I'll probably sell some really neat 
acorns, perhaps one of those lollipops with a bug in the center, only 
it'll be a mud-pop or a wood-pop or maybe even a bird-pop—" 


"I'm sorry, 1940 dash 1, but I'm not the one to make these decisions 
and | don't have the time to bring these concerns to those who can." 
Riley rubbed his eyes before he continued to adjust the camera's 
angles, waiting for Dr. Mill to give him the OK to move on to the next 
one from behind the chamber's observation window. 


1940-1 watched Riley's work from his small register. "Please, call 
me Roshin. And they do say the customer is always right, but | may 
have to contest that saying with the words ‘technically’ and 'not'." 


"And why is that, Roshin?" 


"Because | guarantee that you'll be Roshin to change your mind 
once you see these deals | have here." 


Riley hesitated for a few seconds, coughing once before finishing his 
work. 


Roshin flashed a grin as he stood at his register. "| saw that. That 
got you. It got you, didn't it. When was the last time you've heard a 
pun in this place? | tell you, selling stuff here is like explaining 
politics to automaton." 


"You caught me on a good day, is all." Standing up from the fridge, 
Riley couldn't hide the smile on his face, as stupid as the joke was. 


"| believe | recall you saying you've never had a good day here," 
mused Roshin. "One joke a day makes the pain go grey, my mother 
said." 


Shaking his head, Riley began to turn away until Roshin interrupted 
himself: "Actually, wait." 


"Look, Mr. Riley. It's been, what, a year since this business has 


been relocated here? You know | don't ask for much other than 
some sales, which | haven't done once." 


Roshin walked over to a paper cup, generally clean save fora 
suspicious brown stain on the lip. Grabbing it with both hands, he 
heaved the cup next to the register. 


"I'll give you a one-time offer. This here goes for one dollar. | know 
you're probably going to burn this thing as soon as you can, but | 
don't have to care about that." 


Riley raised an eyebrow has Roshin kept talking, who had been 
looking down at his counter. 


"It's not like | want to keep working here, but | could be doing 
something much worse. Something part of a whole, but there's no 
such thing as a consistent whole. A-And | know | couldn't explain 
this stuff to Dr. Mill earlier, but— uh— It'd really help me if | could 
just get any sort of profit." 


Riley looked down at the anomalous retail worker, who had an oddly 
serious expression for once. He looked back at Mill, who had 
developed a tense countenance during the conversation. 


"Well, | can't help you in getting outside, but, | might be able to do a 
dollar, since they've got info on your sales before we brought you 
here. You know, with the HMCL being worried you'll self-destruct 
after reaching a quota or something like that." 


Roshin lit up as he jumped towards the plastic cup. "That's all | 
needed to hear, pal! You can take that cup right now, down 
payment's a solid $0.00! And, ah, you may need to burn that cup 
very thoroughly if you're going to dispose of it. | don't want to end up 
selling ash piles in this place's furnace or whatever, you got that?" 


"Loud and clear, 1940 dash 1." Signalling at Mill with the cup, Riley 
watched Mill roll his eyes and begin to call another Foundation 
employee. 


"You have a good one, eh Riley? Tell Mill to live a little." 


"Yup." 


Roshin looked on as Riley exited the chamber, leaving the room 
empty with nothing but his store, his breath, and a dull ringing in the 
back of his ears. His eyes fell towards the three letters inscribed on 
his counter, a bright yellow acronym on the wooden top: 


ew = 


On a grey horizon, thousands of towering buildings wilted, some 
falling at certain angles, others embraced the earth. Previously 
opulent decorations and colors adorned the buildings, now 
crumbling and advertising towards the dirt below. On the ground, 
creatures, humans, and machine alike roamed, not at all alive and 
not quite dead. The dim ball of light lowered over the horizon, 
replaced by another identical dim ball of light. 


And on every building, in so many different sizes and locations and 
lettering, were the bright yellow words: 


Light Courier Enterprises. 


Production. 
Illumination. 
Substantiation. 


We'll find the light for you. 


Radical Acceptance 


| thought I'd seen everything, but it was a goddamn Muppet that 
broke me. 


| was the site director of Base-19.1 | thought my senses were 
completely dulled by some of the ultra-violence I'd seen in over 30 
years of service. Someone stole SCP-447-1 and hid it in a morgue. | 
had to tear open an unsuspecting junior researcher's ribcage to 
access an encrypted data drive because someone decided to "get 
edgy" with the emergency response procedures of a keter. On a 
gamble, we neutralized SCP-2317-K by drilling a bargeload of 
poison into its skull before it could wake up. 


Even then, we were on the way out. The Sarkic cults had managed 
to summon a creature they thought was Grand Karcist lon, but... 
fuck if | know, someone forgot an accent mark on their 
unpronounceable magic words. A few millennia has left my memory 
fuzzy on the particulars. Either way, SCP-37238, object class 
Apollyon, was about to wipe us all out in a millisecond at 11:34 in 
the morning, December 3rd, 2329. 


At least we had about five years' advance warning. All the human 
race could see the wad of flesh in low orbit, and they knew exactly 
what to expect when it landed. The world's central government had 
actually made our transition into oblivion a bit easier. The word 
"radical acceptance" was tossed around quite a bit on the airwaves. 


Five years of peace. We threw away our money and let strangers 
sleep in our beds. It was an anarcho-libertarian's nightmare. You'd 
be surprised how good complete strangers could be to one another 
when we're all about to move into the same graveyard. 


December 2nd. | sat in the onsite nuclear warhead's room of 
Base-19, popped open a cold one, and watched some TV on my 
laptop. 


Sesame Street. After 360 years on the air, their series finale came 
on the day before the world ended. | knew they dealt with some 
pretty heavy topics sometimes - lead poisoning and Mr. Hooper's 
death comes to mind, along with that one episode back in 2148 
about dealing with radioactive fallout. But least with all those other 
"very special" episodes, there was an element of hope. A promise 
that something better is coming, so long as we look out for it. 


This episode was called "Saying Goodbye." 


"Elmo heard the news guy say that the whole world was gonna go 
away tomorrow. You scared? ...Elmo scared too." 


| dropped my beer. 

| closed my laptop. 

| walked into my office. 
| screamed. 


| spent five hours browsing through the Foundation Archives, most 
of which had been declassified the week prior to the end, if only to 
satisfy all our curiosities before we went away. There had to be 
some kind of way out, even if everyone else had stopped. And at 
about T-minus four hours to XK, | found it. 


SCP-3319. "The Lotus." It was an old Global Occult Coalition project 
still in its launch base in Canada, and the Foundation got a hold of it 
after they disbanded in Operation Apoplexy. 


If the world was about to go up in flames from an extraterrestrial 
threat, SCP-3319 could launch into orbit, unfold all its "tachyon 
displacement panels" like some kind of flower, and teleport the Earth 
to far-off, sun-like star somewhere in the Crab Nebula. 


And here we were, letting this thing sit in the ice, all because we had 
made this ridiculous peace with our doom. Well, that, and it was 
barely functional - diagnostic testing of the Lotus yielded only a 30% 
chance of reaching the target star, and a 70% chance of an 
unintended extradimensional-juxta-huxta-manahmanah something- 
or-other causing all life on earth to data-expunged all the way to 


redacted. 

30% was better than 0%. 

T-minus 2 hours, | found the launch codes. 
T-minus 1 hour, | pirated the launch control applet. 


39 minutes to XK, with MTF Nu-7 knocking down the door of my 
condo in Baltimore, | launched the lotus. 


What | wanted was someone else's sun. What we became was a 
moon in someone else's sky. 


...and monkey food. God, | never thought | could joke about the first 
harvesting war, but time really does heal all wounds - and here in 
Corbenic, time is the best weapon we have. 


My point is this: in Corbenic, you can't afford to accept what you've 
been given. That's the quickest way into a strider's gullet or one of 
the Elephant King's meat orgies. 


Perhaps we did die. Perhaps the lotus took us to where we were 
going anyway. But this way, we were able to keep our planet, our 
armies, and our technology - and our clothes, thank God. With 
these, we had a chance to rebuild. To not accept. 


When we came to the afterlife, there was no heaven and hell, so we 
built them. There were no angels, so we trained them. There was no 
god, so we hired one - Glory to thee, Jalakara. (In the higher ranks, 
he even lets you use lowercase!) 


And now, with the third moon being smelted apart for raw materials, 
we're the closest thing you're going to get to divine intervention.