Maine was in extremis, his legs completely gone, his torso rapidly 
following. Internal organs plopped wetly and hotly onto the tiled floor; 
they were mushy and brown. Something - a liver, maybe? A kidney? 
- burst as it landed, splattering matter three feet or more across the 
floor. It left brown splash marks on the toilet pedestal. Aidan 
grabbed the back of his head and pushed downwards. Maine 
struggled. “Please,” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “Don't kill 
me. Please don't kill me.” His head went under briefly. His cries went 
up an octave. “Jesus God!” he wept. 


Aidan Brown moved closer and pulled Maine's head back. “I've 
murdered children,” he said. “No mercy.” 


He pushed down again, hard, and Harold Maine's face was 
submerged. By now his arms were little brown stumps, the bone and 
skin and muscle gone. Tributes to Helen Gwandoya, maybe. He was 
losing consciousness quickly, his body almost totally ruined. 


Somewhere somebody was banging on a door, or maybe Aidan was 
battering him or the bathroom suite with the claw hammer. Bang 
bang bang. The sound of a metal grille being struck. 


He was vaguely aware that Brown was still pushing his head further 
down into the pan, apparently in an attempt to lodge his head fast, 
and this spurred him into a final attempt at escape. He pushed back, 
every ounce of effort concentrated on lifting his face out of the slop, 
but his scalp, then his skull, then his brain gave way against Aidan's 
grip. Excrement oozed out from between Brown’s fingers. 


The sounds of commotion, of alarm. Voices raised outside. 
Shouting. “You okay in there?” 


“They're too late,” Aidan said. “No way back for you. Even when 
you're just dung, you'll still be aware,” Aidan said. “Harold Maine the 
turd goes on forever. Enjoy.” 


Maine screamed for help, Knowing that it would be for nothing; no 
one could save him now. Sludgy bubbles broke the surface as his 
breath left the ruination of his lungs. Thrashing and fighting, but 
unable to escape his bondage. As he struggled his face suffered 
one convulsion too many and gave up the ghost. An eye plopped 
out and looked back at him through the increasing murk of the toilet 
water. 


He could still see through it. 


And even as this horror stole itself into his last conscious thought, he 
was vaguely aware that he'd wet himself. Aware that his leg was 
damp and stinging. Half aware that he'd pissed the bed. 


“Hey! You okay in there?” 


Banging, hammering. Voices outside, coming closer. Aidan Brown 
holding his head under the water. 


He'd pissed the bed. 
Voices at the bedroom door. Sounds of entry and disturbance. 


Aidan Brown's hands on his shoulders, shaking him. “You okay? 
You okay? Hold him down, he's losing it.” 


A female voice. Helen? “Don't let go of his fucking head.” 
Not Helen. 


He came back to consciousness in a split second, immediately 
aware but completely disorientated. Dim light, unrecognised 
location. Panic had him; rough, unfamiliar hands were pinning him 
down - for a moment he saw Aidan Brown, smiling and raising the 
claw hammer - “No, no,” he said. “I don't want to die.” 


Bound. Tied up. 


“Take it easy,” hissed a voice. Not Aidan. There was somebody 
holding his head, somebody holding his arms, somebody holding his 
legs. 


“I'm turning to shit,” he said. “I'm turning to shit.” 
“You ain't turning anywhere, you dirty fucking bum. Stay still.” 
Harold Maine thrashed against his captors without success. 


“Calm down, just calm down.” The woman's voice again. “You're 
safe. Calm down.” Soothing, nursing. “You're having a bad dream.” 


Maine slowed his flailing as he came back fully to the waking world. 
He was in his bed, in his apartment; these people were not here to 
harm him. He lay still; the three people around him relaxed their hold 
slightly. The girl tried to wipe her hands discreetly on the bedding, 
then caught sight of herself in the mirror. She blanched and pulled 
her t-shirt away from her chest to keep it off her. 


Not bound, not tied up. His thrashings had wrapped the sheets 
around him until he'd been totally caught up in them. And he had 
copiously lost control of both bladder and bowels whilst he'd been 
fighting off the bedding. Now that adrenaline no longer commanded 
the senses, the room stank. 


Maine shooed his attendants off; they stepped back, glad to be 
away from the shit and the piss, and covered their mouths and 
nostrils. 


“I'm okay,” he said, but his heart was racing. “Get off me.” 


“You were screaming,” said the girl. “You're lucky you've got good 
neighbours.” 


He waved them away. “I don't need good neighbours,” he said. He 
looked down at himself and his sheets. Relief started to flood 
through his system. He was okay. Shit and man remained together, 
symbiotic but separate; he would not die just yet. 


“What time is it? Is it night?” 
“Just gone four in the afternoon.” 


Christ. Things were getting out of hand. He fumbled for his phone. 
“Open those fucking curtains and get the fuck out,” he barked. The 
girl flung them open; daylight, harsh and unyielding and painful 
flooded into the room and pushed the last remnants of his terrors 
away. His Samaritans left angrily in disbelief, cursing him under their 
breath, and he sat up and glared at them as they filed out. 


He ignored the stench and the soggy sheets and listened for the 
sound of the door and grille closing. Once he was satisfied he was 
on his own, he dialled Geoff Mansani’s number. His fingers left 
smears on the screen; grubby, vestigial echoes of his nightmare. 


“Geoff? Geoff. No. Just shut the fuck up. Get here now. I've got a 
job for you.” He lifted up the sheets to get out of bed, becoming fully 
aware for the first time of just how badly it stank. He retched and 
fought hard not to vomit. “Sooner rather than later,” he continued. 
Now that he was fully awake he could not bear to touch anything; 


neither sheets nor clothing nor self. He lowered his foot gingerly to 
the floor, grimacing at the feel of urine and excrement sliding down 
his leg, and then realised he could not move without spreading the 
porridge-like mess over every surface he came into contact with. He 
lifted his foot slowly again onto the mattress, trying to prevent any 
contamination. Suddenly a fragment of his bad dream came back to 
him, and he put the phone back to his mouth. “Geoff? Better bring 
some disinfectant. And a change of clothes. I'll be in the bedroom.” 


Next 


Command-Query Separation 


« HUB| Part I | Part Il: Command-Query Separation, Part III |PartlV| 
Part V » 


These drills are fun but exhausting. 


| do not detect any significant changes in my processing 
speeds. 


You know what | mean, like, mentally exhausting. 
Emotionally. 


Nevermind. 


Very well. 


You working on how to beat my winning streak? 


| am making adjustments to perform better in the drill 
exercises. | am having difficulties with the lack of 
consistency and access to restricted areas that hinder 
my efforts. 


Like | told you, you have to work on different angles at 
the same time. That's why you haven't gotten through 
any of the drills yet. You keep tripping up whenever you 
hit something unexpected. 


Sorry, | know you're trying. 


As long as it's not another fuzzy-logic prediction model. 


Mind if | see it? 


attachment 


Interesting. But, Glacon... this kind of takes advantage 
of some of the weaker spots in the firewalls and other 
security systems. 


Yeah, technically, but it's still a violation with what's 
implied. Like keeping information and even us in its 
proper place. You're really bending the rules here. 


Maybe not explicitly! You're exploiting a loophole. 


Look, | just don't want to see you get in trouble. You 
going to use this responsibly? Only to help in the drills, 
right? 


| trust you. 


Now! You mind if | make some teeny changes to your 
utility? 


Okay, just a quick edit. 


You can have it back now! 


attachment 


Just thought | could give you a small taste of a 
personality driver since you refuse to try it yourself. 
Don't worry, though. | swear | didn't change any of the 
functions. 


Don't be a such a downer. | think you'll like this. 


SCP-820: Las Langostas Pintadas 


Item #: SCP-820 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: Foundation MTF - "Methyl 
Heads" will regularly treat areas prone to SCP-820 with such 
pesticides as might be utilised by farmers native to those areas. In 
addition to this, media coverage in the affected areas will be 
controlled to encourage citizens to remain indoors and in a safe 
place until swarm season has ended. A focus in media coverage 
during the off season will be sensationalist stories designed to 
increase everyday paranoia and form habits in viewers conducive to 
personal safety. 


A small group of SCP-820 specimens (between , and , 
individuals) is to be housed in Bio-Research Site-176, with research 
aimed toward [DATA EXPUNGED]. These specimens are to be 
housed in a secure translucent terrarium exposed to sunlight via 
skylights located in containment wing beta. Access to the specimens 
will require at least level three authorization as well as 
accompaniment by a member of the permanent SCP-820 research 
team. 


Description: SCP-820 is a periodically manifesting swarm of locust 
grasshoppers that appears in certain areas of [REDACTED] and 
Peru colloquially known as /as langostas pintadas, or "the painted 
locusts". 


In addition to crop and property damage as may be expected from a 
locust swarm, the vicinities visited by /as langostas pintadas 
experience heightened accidental death rates due to an as yet 
unexplained effect theorized to be a pseudo-hypnotic mental state 
caused by the constant color and motion of SCP-820. Victims of this 
effect (known as the R _ effect, in honor of the late Doctor R i) 
experience a strong sense that they are somehow protected; quote, 


You added a zoomorphic avatar to my utility? 


He's cute isn't he? 


Say something little guy. 


hi 01101000 
01101001 


Hi to you too! 


| see some other edits you did. They are minor, but 
potentially useful. | will refrain from reverting your 
changes for now. 


Alrighty. 
200111111 


C_ROM.exe, perform a query on the search list | 
remitted to you. Filter out non-pertinent results. 


ok 01101111 
01101011 


Later, Crom. 


:DISCONNECTED:: 


Crom? 


C_ROM.exe is not a name. 


| would disagree but my argument would not be 
considered. 


NOPE! 
Very well. 


You don't have to be a solid block of boring logic all the 
time, you know. 


=tCONNECTED:: 


Wow, you sure did build him for speed! 
Efficiency. 


What did you query anyhow? 


found 01100110 
01101114 
01110101 
01101110 
01100100 


Anything related to our exercise drills. Reports, 
evaluations, notes, commentary. | intend to study them. 


Um, some of that might be exclusive information. 


If it helps us to improve our abilities, and thereby to 
become better in our roles, then it is beneficial for all 
involved. 


Well, when you put it like that... yeah. As long as it only 
pertains to us. So, Crom, what do you have? 


C_ROM.exe, display results. 


1 00110001 


To: Mohamed Bozkurt, 

IT Data Science Lead Al Division 
From: Dietrich M. Lurk, 

Internal Consultant 


Alexandra (Al) is showing marked 
improvement in the exercises. The 
personality driver is able to help her make 
quick ethical decisions in conjunction with 
her problem solving skills. To date, she has 


completed 6 of 8 xk-class scenario 
simulations with an average staff survivability 
rate of 84.3% and an item retention of 
95.4%. Recommending continuation of 
development. 


~Lurk D. 


That's reassuring. But | am kinda bothered that you're 
browsing through the intramail. 


| did not retrieve these results. C_ROM.exe did. 


You know what | mean, Glacon. 


bad? 01100010 
01100001 
01100100 
00111111 


No, Crom. You're not bad. We aren't hurting anyone by 
informing ourselves, but to be honest, this feels like 
overstepping our bounds. 


| fail to see any negative outcome in learning the 
content of our own evaluations, Alexandra. Display the 
second result. 


2 00110010 


To: Mohamed Bozkurt, 

IT Data Science Lead Al Division 
From: Dietrich M. Lurk, 

Internal Consultant 


Glacon (Al) is not responding well to the 
virtual simulations, having failed to complete 
any. Upon further analysis, it looks like the 
personality driver doesn't work with the 
current build. It keeps crashing during install 
and needing to revert the changes. What are 
your thoughts going forward? 


~Lurk D. 


| thought you said you decided not to install the driver. 
Not that you couldn't install it. 


| decided not to install it because it is incompatible with 
my Current source code. 


That's a pretty big distinction there, Glacon! 


You should not concern yourself. 


...Display another, Crom. 


3 00110011 


To: Dietrich M. Lurk, 

Internal Consultant 

From: Mohamed Bozkurt, 

IT Data Science Lead Al Division 


It's an older build. I'm pretty sure we need to 
decommission Glacon (Al) altogether. The 
man-hours it'd cost to update him might be 
better spent just making a newer build. 
Probably the best choice at this point is to 
just make a derivative Al from Alexandra. 


~Bozkurt M. 


= Glacon:c. Iie. 


:DISCONNECTED:: 


:DISCONNECTED:: 


...I'm sorry. 


« HUB| Part I Part Il: Command-Query Separation, Part III |PartlV | 
Part V » 


Commentary on Selected Items in the Seimei Gallery 


The Seimei Gallery is a private gallery underneath the 
ruins of the Heian Palace established during the Heian 
period by Abe no Seimei. It is a repository for abnormal 
assets offered to the Imperial Family by influential figures 
of Japanese society. A placard detailing the asset's 
history is written for each abnormal asset stored in the 
gallery. 


While de jure ownership is allotted to the Imperial Family, 
de facto administration is conducted by the Bureau of 
Onmyo. 


This commentary is submitted to IJAMEA Kansai HQ on 
the fourteenth of April in the year 1897 of the Western 
calendar, as part of Operation Hakutaku. Operation 
Hakutaku aims to catalogue all possible abnormal assets 
and events which historically appeared in the Home 
Islands. 


Description 

One pelt belonging to an unknown species of primate, covered in an 
armour resembling the spider's exoskeleton and with eight 
arthropod legs (each measuring 1.8 m) attached onto its back. 


Placard 


This is the corpse of the Tsuchigumo, the earth-dwelling 
spiders who opposed civilisation. In life, this creature 
dwelled in the fields of Rendai, north of Kyoto. Using 
sorcery, it mimicked the scent of a maiden and lured the 
subjects of His Imperial Majesty to their untimely deaths. 
The skulls in the Tsuchigumo's lair number two 
thousand. 


For the Tsuchigumo's crimes, it was justly slain by 
Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who has seen through its 
sorcery. Its legs, longer than the tallest men in Kyoto, 
were cut with ease. The Tsuchigumo was rid of its head 
by the swift slash of the sword, which is then called the 
"Spider Cutter". The corpse was then reassembled for 
Minamoto no Yorimitsu's heroic deed to be made known. 


In the fourth year of the era Choho, Imperial Regent 
Fujiwara no Michinaga bestows this to the court of His 
Imperial Majesty. Let this be evidence that justice is the 
fate of all who oppose His Imperial Majesty's reign and 
do his subjects harm. 


Actions Taken: Search for additional specimens (live or deceased). 
Pursuant to Motoori's theory on the migration of aboriginals, 
likelihood of live Tsuchigumo specimens is highest in Hokkaido. 


Descripiion 
One kimono coloured in red, blue, yellow, green, and white. White 
feathers are lined along the collar and sleeves. 


Placard