jibbering. Won Won couldn't understand much of it, and turned to 
leave, when it began to click and snarl gutturally, putting out a fair 
representation of Won Won's native language. 


"I'm at Davis High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Hello! My name is 
Johnny!" 


Won Won started to squirm in delight; little talking mammals! Won 
Won recognized most of those words. "School" in particular. Given 
the size of this mammal, it was likely to be a nursery as well. And 
since they had been on top of a hill when they entered, it made 
sense to call it a high school. 


"lam Won Won, progenitor is Won." 


The little Johnny threw its arms out to its sides in some manner of 

physical greeting. "Hello One-one! You are at Davis High School in 
Baltimore, Maryland! Would you like a tour of the newest edition of 
Davis High School in Baltimore, Maryland?" 


Won Won understood enough to know tours were boring. "No tour. 
Where are big ones? Old persons?" 


The Johnny seemed to be gesticulating with its hands, wiggling its 
fingers and moving its arms as it spoke. "Some of our students 
aren't yet ready for class. Please bear with us as we renovate the 
classrooms." 


Won Won stared intently at it, not knowing if this little mammal 
misunderstood or was being deceptive. "Old persons! Professors? 
No students." 


"There are students all around, just waiting for classes to begin! 
Please bear with us as we renovate the classrooms." 


He turned and left the Johnny, returning to Teef and the others. 
"Confusing and disturbing in implications. Skybound left many 
moons ago." 


Teef nudged him with a clutched claw. "Not Skybound, fool. Look 
how little they are." 


compulsion that could drive so many people to destroy 
themselves. There does not need to be. Everything we 
observed during recovery can be explained by mundane 
group dynamics and human nature. 


The device had just wiped away all trace of the work and 
the lives of a reclusive artist and activist community. The 
buildings crumbled into dust so fast that people were not 
even injured in the collapse. And at the center of it all A 
World Without Man turned around and around on its 
increasingly rickety platform, offering a deadly premise 
that had been presented to them as an ideal. A cure for 
the virus known as humanity. 


So why did a group of activists throw themselves and 
their neighbors into the deadly workings of a machine 
that they thought was going to wipe all human life off of 
Mother Earth? 


They simply wanted to do it. 
« SCP-803 | SCP-804 | SCP-805 » 


"Skybound can be little," X51 put in. 
Teef growled at him in retort, but Jorry and Won Ji backed X51 up. 


"It's clearly an infant," Won Ji clarified. Teef still didn't think so, but 
didn't care enough to keep arguing over it. 


"If infants, therefore Skybound progenitors." Won Won sniffed, 
seeing further than his companions could. "Skybound mimic us 
naturally; infants cannot deceive, only old ones." 


Jorry stared emptily at him. The others were silent; he couldn't tell 
which got it, and which were just impatiently waiting for him to 
explain. 


"Little Skybound over there engaged in deceptive speech; repulsed 
attempts to acknowledge older Skybound. If infants manipulated to 
lie, then infants and/or progenitors may engage in bellicose 
behavior." 


That finally got through; the group split up into thirds, drawing their 
short thrusting spears and checking all the rooms to see if there 
were Skybound lying in wait. Won Won thought the Skybound could 
just set the building on fire if they really wanted to kill them. But 
Skybound were notoriously prickly about killing infants for any 
reason. It always bothered Won Won that they considered freshly- 
born, easily replaceable infants to be more valuable than a full- 
grown mature person, with years of experience... 


"Jorry has food!" 


Won Won's head jerked towards the cry, and others started to bleat, 
"Where did you get food?!" Jorry was eating something brownish 
with shiny paper around it. Broken glass was on the floor around 
him. 


"In this window-box. These things are food." 


Jorry had broken open the window to a big black box. Colorful bricks 
were lined up in rows, along with bags and other things with writing 
on it. Won Won rushed over to get some before the others hoarded 
it all. That they had food dispensers dispensing wrapped food 


indoors was unusual even for Skybound—they were supposed to 
love food that was freshly dead and burnt up. 


Most of the food went down easily, but the taste was overpowering. 
Won Won suddenly began to panic, and turned his head to eject the 
food. "Dummies! Potentially poisonous!" 


The others ignored him and kept eating. Being the only sane one in 
the group was overly frustrating sometimes. Won Won gave up and 
grabbed for some more of the food-bricks before they were all 
claimed. They were tasty so why not indulge—better to die together 
happily than have to battle their way out of this school with empty 
abdomen. 


Several minutes passed and they weren't dead yet. The last room in 
the building contained a stairwell, leading down to a ground-level 
hall. The hallway led around in a big square, and in the center of the 
square was an open courtyard with the sun beaming down. X51 ran 
across the courtyard, and found one of the doors lead out of the 
school. Nothing unusual, except the school was supposed to be high 
on a hill. X51 opened a door showing flat grassland as far as they 
could see. 


"It's fake," Won Ji figured, and stepped out into the open. "Artificial 
projection." The sunlight looked real enough on her fur, and felt 
warm enough. Won Won stepped out and started walking away from 
the school, checking his feet as he put some distance between him 
and the rest of the group. Nothing appeared on the horizon ahead of 
him, and the ground seemed not to be tilting like a round planet 
should. In fact, when he looked behind, the school building seemed 
slightly elevated, as if he'd gone down a ravine. But he'd felt 
absolutely no shift in gravity to suggest the ground elevation had 
changed. Won Won grunted in frustration; physics was hard for him, 
and numbers scared him like spiders. The distance he'd traveled 
and what he saw might mean that the ground he was on was either 
completely flat, or curved outward rather than inward... 


Teef hooted something loudly, and Won Won rushed back over to 
the building. Teef had apparently been thinking much the same as 
him, and similarly couldn't understand what it meant. 


"Should've sent a scientist," X51 remarked, shutting everyone up. 
Except Won Won. 


"lis not good enough?" Won Won blinked defensively, sheathing his 
eye as if in preparation for a fight. He loved exploring and being a 
scientist. Whenever the experts were busy, people came to him with 
their questions about plants and animals and space. That was partly 
why they had dragged him here. 


"For studying! With numbers," X51 clarified, backing down from the 
challenge. 


Eventually they would send experts, but they weren't even supposed 
to be wandering around on archaeological sites on their own. A 
thought then struck Won Won. 


"We're stuck. Are we stuck?" The door they'd come in from was the 
same they ended up going down the stairway from. If that door 
magically teleported to this place, they probably wouldn't be able to 
get back home. 


Teef prodded him in the sides. "Door might open again. If not, 
therefore Hwee will come open door. It may bring us back." 


Won Won grumbled in agreement, but was already mentally 
preparing himself. Skybound liked to play with them, calling ita 
"hunt" when they shot at them and made them run while bleeding on 
the grass, leaving behind a "trail". He'd take some of their infants to 
protect himself—threaten to kill them if the Skybound tried to hunt 
them. 


Teef didn't seem perturbed, and casually approached one of the 
infants. "You. Food location." 


This infant was slightly taller, and appeared female by its high voice 
and swollen chest. It responded in Teef and Won Won's own 
language, "Welcome to Davis High School in Baltimore, Maryland! 
What was it you were looking for?" 


"Food location, fool." 


"Food is being served right now in the cafeteria. Better hurry or you'll 


miss out on the Tuesday surprise! And please remember: garnishes 
are no longer allowed within 28 hectometers of croissant-like food 
items." 


The way it spoke disturbed Won Won, but he couldn't tell why. It 
spoke his own language, but its tone was not Skybound. It was 
monotonous, and overly friendly. Overly friendly people tended not 
to be. 


Won Won nudged the infant aside and followed the sound of noise. 
Skybound made lots of noise when eating. Presumably they couldn't 
figure out how to regulate when to speak and when to consume, and 
so ended up doing both at once often times. 


"Formations!" Jorry barked, and Won Won's hair bristled in panic. 
He whirled and stood alongside the others, small tubes out and 
extending into a full-length spear. Enemies around. Danger. 
Something or other. Jorry wouldn't just be a fool and shout 
dangerous words insensibly. 


Just ahead of them were two mature Skybound. They weren't 
wearing metal clothes, but they had guns on their pants. They had 
stopped too, and were staring back at them. Won Won slowly 
stepped forward, arms out at his side. 


"Won Won, you don't speak Skybound, get back here, stupid!" Teef 
shouted at him. 


The two Skybound had their hands tentatively reaching for their 
guns. They looked shocked, on edge. One was reaching for a 
weapon at its belt. That did more to comfort Won Won than if they 
came with a smile and friendly words. Won Won raised one of his 
clawed hands, and waggled it back and forth, like the things usually 
did in greeting. That seemed to work, as the Skybounds' hands 
moved away from their guns. One even raised his hand and did the 
same. The other murmured something. Won Won looked down at 
his feet, feeling oddly comfortable. What a queer thing to feel when 
there stood the first full-grown Skybound he'd seen in sixteen 
decades... 


Won Won had been stuffing his face while these Skybound 
struggled to speak clearly. They seemed to understand the ursines' 
language structure easily enough, but couldn't manage the different 
tones that made each syllable into something entirely different. 
Skybound memorized dozens of syllables and extended it into 
millions of words without need for add-ons. Primitive, compared to 
their own language; only a handful of syllables, with a few dozen 
add-ons divided by accent, tone, length, and timbre. It was so much 
simpler, why couldn't the Skybound put it together more easily? 


"Door coming. Coming door. Coming on door," the black-haired 
female repeated in stilted tones. X51 and Won Ji snickered, and 
Won Won tried again. 


"Coming through door." 


No one wanted to humor these creatures but him. It was like no one 
had any sense of wonder or adventure but him. Teef and the others 
were more fascinated by the hot-box in this room, which hummed 
with energy and cooked food without fire. It also made sparkles 
when they put little bits of metal in it, but that had bored Won Won 
after four or five times. 


The Skybound female was accompanied by the two Skybound Won 

Won had greeted earlier, and by another male who transcribed Won 
Won's words, attempting to fit them into his own language's alphabet 
and aiding the female in speaking. 


"Behold, dummy," Won Won remarked clearly, poking at the paper 
with a crude little tube of ink, and scrawling a quick sketch of the 
building as it had appeared when they first entered it. A squat gray 
box on top of a hill. He then illustrated closing the door, moving 
down the stairs, and going outside, and the appearance of the 
school from there—an identical squat gray box in a flat open field. 


The female held out a clean sheet of paper to him, urging him to 
write something. How did people usually do this? All sapient 
creatures understood math, except him. Teef came to his rescue, 
snatching up the paper, and making a line of circles on several rows. 
Then he poked dots into the circles, different numbers. Prime 
numbers, he recognized, into each circle. This amused and 


fascinated the Skybound. Won Won took another clean sheet, 
deciding to draw something he thought more important. 


"Sun and stars." He indicated his drawing. It was the night sky he 
saw each night, riddled with stars and the pale white gash that ran 
along the sky like a river, never coming to an end but extending 
forever. 


"Sun stars?" she repeated hesitantly. 


Won Won poked at the wiggly lines indicating the sky-river, then 
pointed down to the bottom of the page. The female became excited 
then. "Give me your land!" 


Won Won pulled a fresh sheet of paper from the stack they had. He 
had loved astronomy classes, and missed the days before the 
Skybound came, when the ursines still claimed the sky. One of the 
last images ever taken of home had been taken by an orbital flight 
Won's progenitors had been a part of. Won Won reproduced that 
image as best he could from memory, and slid it back over to them. 


They must have been impressed by his artistic skills; the female and 
male finally shut up and stared at the sketch looking overawed. Most 
likely they were fairly intelligent people, but they always came 
across as simple and easily impressed people to him in his limited 
dealings. Then he realized they were not impressed, but anxious. 
The female slid it back to him, and shook her head. "No. Give me 
your land. This is my land." 


Won Won stared back at her, his throat rumbling in a low growl. The 
others had been eavesdropping, and apparently overheard him 
growling. Won Ji bopped him on the head. "No violence, stupid! 
Calmness." 


"Usual Skybound arrogance. They came, we won, they refuse to let 
us win, think they own our world," Jorry remarked, and leaned 
forward at the two, barking in amusement as they jumped back in 
fright. 


"What losers still call our world their world?" Won Won asked, and 
turned to the Skybound again, pointing at the image. "This is my 


land." 


The Skybound didn't become belligerent in turn. Instead they looked 
at each other, then back at the image. Again they started to chitter in 
their flat, atonal language. How could they memorize so many 
words, so many of them sounding completely different while 
meaning the same thing? At the very least the female gave up 
asking the question again. She kept the drawing, and pointed over 
her shoulder to the open door. 


"Sky-Binders?" 

"Skybound. Infant Skybound."” 

"Baby Sky-Binders." 

Close enough, Won Won thought. 

"Not baby Sky-Binders. Not breathing. Comprehending?" 


So the infant Skybound weren't real. Artificial re-creations, perhaps 
memories made to honor the dead. It seemed insane to try to 
resurrect the dead via unthinking machines, but Skybound were 
always touchy when it came to killing infants. 


"Automatic Skybound. Not breathing. Not alive." 


The female nodded hesitantly, as if Won Won were the one not quite 
understanding. 


"Never breathing. Infant Skybound are artificial creations. Fake. 
Unreal. Toys. Dolls. Machines." 


The male understood at least one of the words, and consulted with 
the female. That pleased them. Won Won started to illustrate on 
paper, showing a Skybound brain, with lines extending outwards. He 
scribbled some symbols, hoping it to be similarly understood as 
hand gestures were, demonstrating he was aware of how artificial 
intelligence worked. Skybound looked at their own brain, mapped 
out its functions, then transferred the same manner of thinking and 
functioning to artificial brains. At least, that was how he understood 
it.