lt was. The gleaming gunmetal which surrounded the man's 
footsteps earlier now spread to encompass the entire hillock. The 
ground was warm to the touch, almost malleable. 


"What you see here is the true soil of the dream, laid bare and raw 
from the false grit of your captors. Observe." 


The man lowered his hand to the ground and cupped a fistful of 
shimmering earth. Shaped between his thumb and index finger, the 


soil soon began to take shape. Metallic earth was worked like wet 
clay at a potter's wheel and was... transformed. With a final twist of 
his hand, the man revealed his new creation. A shining purple plum 
now rested in his palm. The prisoner stared at it incredulously. The 
man offered him the plum and the prisoner took it. It was fragrant 
and sour-sweet and more wonderful than anything he had tasted for 
months. The man took another fistful of earth from the ground and 
continued speaking: 


"This terrain holds within it infinite possibility. Imagine what you 
could do if you were not imprisoned as you are. It is not only a 
matter of your current predicament, you see. Your prison isn't 
concrete or chains or people. You are trapped in flesh, in hunger 
and weariness, in sin. Consider what you could be if you were freed 
from all of those." The man's hands continued working as he spoke, 
shaping earth. 


"Now consider no longer, remove yourself from yourself. Live in the 
dream and only in the dream." The man opened his hands and a 
bright blue bird emerged from them and took flight, "Do." 


The prisoner found he had not the will to resist this notion. He didn't 
mind much. Taking a handful of shining dirt in hand, he drew himself 
open. He flew. 


yes... 


The creature known as Oneiroi could almost taste it now. It had not 
imagined it would be so easy. The captors took things too far this 
time, made the life of their prisoner too unbearable. To disconnect 
him from his reality was almost a mercy. The creature had no notion 
as to why the captors would wish to torment their prisoners while 
they were sleeping. From its knowledge of them, the captors were 
not usually prone to acts of senseless cruelty. Perhaps if the scent 
of an open and vulnerable mind was not so tantalizing, it might have 
wondered more. Perhaps it would have been more cautious. But it 
did not wonder as it shook away its human guise and pounced on 
the hapless prisoner, shredding his already battered and tormented 
being like steel shears taken to soft hide. Only as it took the first 
delicious bite and found the trap beneath it did it realize its mistake. 


By then it was far too late. 


Two figures watched from behind a reinforced glass panel as the 
gaunt, wasted figure of the prisoner writhed and screamed. The tall 
dark woman and the short pale man looked impassively at the 
creature's futile attempt at escape. 


"It is trapped. We have done it," said the woman, adjusting the thin 
wire spectacles on her sharp nose. 


"Yes, the experiment was a complete success. It cannot leave the 
host body now," said the man, smoothing his slightly too white lab 
coat over his plump form. 


"And the subject?" she asked. 
"Gone, it would seem. So we expected." 
"Once again we have protected the world. But at what cost?" 


"No cost is too great for our mission. We secured the creature, we 
now contain it. We protected the world. That is all there is to say." 


"This was a human being. We are turning ourselves into something 
less than human. Into monsters." 


The man turned to the woman. Their eyes met. 


"How can we be monsters if | still love you?" he asked, gazing at her 
blankly and seriously. 


"| have told you before, | cannot love you back. | am too awfully 
scarred by my tragic history." she replied, equally blankly. 


"We have lost so much in our duty, have we not?" Something 
twitched just beneath the plump man's eyelid. A smile was slowly 
creeping to his pale face. 


The woman answered him with a smile of her own. "It has been 
difficult. Humanity has suffered... er. Suffered so much, yes. We 
must protect it. Yeah." 


species that now completely controls access to SCP-816-1, forcing 
most species to rely on predation for energy. The collectors have 
evolved various defenses to ensure control of SCP-816-1, but they 
are the prime targets of energy predation, and now effectively the 
sole way that new energy enters the system. The assimilators and 
collectors are roughly analogous to herbivores in the SCP-816 food 
chain. 


Most species prey upon the assimilators and the collectors for 
energy and parts, each filling an ecological niche. One species uses 
the various specialized parts left over from reproductive predation in 
its design, frequently in ways they were not intended to be used. 
Another species has evolved defenses to reproductive predation in 
that it alters the base parts to such a degree that few species will 
target it, since it contains so few usable parts. Another species, 
however, has evolved specifically to prey upon the aforementioned 
species, evolving devices to reform the base parts into their original 
shapes. 


« SCP-815 | SCP-816 | SCP-817 » 


"Securing and containing and protecting. For the good of all. 
Sacrificing and such. Procedures and grimness. We have all felt 
the... the grimness of our fate. Hehe." 


"Much and more. | know you too have felt the grim mark of tragedy 
on your life. Was not your sister *snrk* mauled to death by an 
anomalous lemur?" 


"Yes, this is true. My family could not recover from this event. 
Indeed, my father, who too was a researcher, went on a *hehehe* 
blood vendetta after that day. He vowed to kill all primates of 
preternatural origin." 


"Ah, so | recall." The woman paused, then gasped theatrically. 
"Wait! | did not realize this until now! Your father *pff* ahm, your 
father was the one to cause the Stripetail Blood Wars of 68! IT IS 
BECAUSE OF YOU THAT | LOST MY HUSBAND TO THOSE 
RACCOON MARAUDERS!" 


"HE DID IT FOR US, LINDA! FOR US!" 


"DON'T CALL ME LINDA, YOU-pfff hahaha! Jesus, man, your 
goddamn face!" laughed the woman, all traces of seriousness gone. 
She smacked the man heartily on the shoulder. 


"Ow! Hahaha! I'm sorry, couldn't help myself anymore! Bloody 
Foundation, how do they keep up with this bullshit?" 


"Don't ask me, man. Sounds damn exhausting to me. Think we 
fooled them there for a bit?" 


"| dunno. Probably not. | think we were way too obvious about it, 
made it more of a farce than the actual thing.” 


"Ah well, | think it counts as a twist anyway. Make them think it was 
the Foundation who caught the thing then it turns out it wasn't and 
all that. That's the important bit, right?" 


"Hrm. Not sure, actually. Could be a good idea to check." 


"I guess it wouldn't hurt to bother it. It's all for the goal after all. Here, 
let me get to you. Hold still." 


With that, the woman leaned down until her forehead touched with 
that of the man. As they did, a missive was passed between them, 
so fast that even the nigh omniscient eye of the reader could not 
quite see what it contained. It did catch a sense of satisfaction, 
however. The woman leaned back, and she and the man clasped 
each other's arms. 


"Ah!" she said, "the Consortium Independent is happy, hehe! We 
have made things interesting! The readers will take note now." 


"Aye, and the Consortium Independent is us!" 


"We live to tell and be told another day. Pretty damn awesome as 
far as I'm concerned." 


"Hmm. You think we can do something with that creature though? 
Seems like an awful waste to just flush it after all that work." 


"Well, it's a wee bit purple, but we can train it, | think." 
"Ooh, we can use it for a feature! It will be great for that." 
"Better than great. /nteresting." 


The two stood silent for a moment, basking in their mutual 
contentment. Finally, the woman patted the man on the head. 
"Guess we're done here then." 


"Which means..." 
"Booze?" 
"Booze." 


With this, the two began to leave. As they did, they threw down their 
overly white lab coats to the floor and stepped on them with vigor. 
As they left the chamber and the still screaming prisoner in it, the 
man asked: 


"Do you think they got the deal with the initials?" 


"Eh. They can always just look below." 


Children Will Listen 


Note: This is Part 6 of a 7-part story. It is recommended 
that you start from the beginning with SCP-3475 - Our 
Shifting Foundations. 


Annette chose a school. Of course they chose a school. The final 
insult. 


The nuke jumbled some sense back into me. | can feel the 
Foundation conditioning again. With it, it is hard to see the light. With 
it comes the guilt and the shame, and now, the school. Damn. 


"Why did you choose this place?" 


NEEDED QUIET PLACE. THIS WAS EMPTY. ABANDONED 
BUILDING. 


| nod glumly. Annette is out of battle mode, at least. Those things 
are no threat to us. No threat to anybody. They are happy. | decide 
to probe further. To pick at the scab, to poke the bruise. 


"Do you know what this place was?" 
SCHOOL? 


| need to tell someone. | can't. Maybe it will come out? | remember 
the blurs in the car, trapped in something they could no longer 
perceive, could no longer experience. Dying alone, together. | shake 
my head. It still aches. Everything aches. The deconditioner is 
almost done. It is a nice little box in my head, waiting to be opened. 
It cries to be opened. It promises blackness. The scene will go like 
this: 


We will enter the school. The dashing Doctor Williams will be ona 
bier, surrounded by medical equipment, serene and sedated. 
Annette will grab me by the shoulder, begging me one last time not 


to do it, not to go through. | shake them off and continue unfazed. | 
will lean down to ear level and, in one breathy whisper— 


| do not want to enter the school. The school is bad, the school is 
guilt. 


We enter the school. 
Empty corridors. Annette holds out a hand. The disc is off. 
SMTG HRE 


They take off down the corridor, skittering up the wall. | try to make 
myself small in a corner of the entryway. | swear | can hear little feet 
patters, but that is impossible, because if anyone was here, | would 
hear nothing at all. 


Annette rounds the corner at full soeed. They slam into me, picking 
me up off my feet and hauling me towards the door. | manage to 
reach out and tap their shoulder: 


"FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" 
We reach the door. They stop. 

"S KCO" 

They drop me and reactivate their wrist. 

WHT RU TRNG SY 

"Stop," | say. "| know what they are." 


| pull myself up to my full height and look up at Annette. Their eyes 
meet mine, on what must be reflex. 


"Please take me to Williams." 


She is nothing like | expected. Annette has her on a haphazard altar 
of desks, more functional than aesthetic. One leg is bent off ata 
hideous angle. Red stains surround her mouth. A half-empty IV bag 
drains into her arm. What was once her face is now pitted and 


rotten, covered in a black mold. 


Annette, seeing this, lets out a keening moan. They rush over and 
do something. My head hurts. 


"Do you see them?" 

YES. 

"How do humans reproduce?" 

Silence. They walk over to me, kneel down, and look me in the eye. 
WHY? 


The words come spilling out of me now. They vanished, one day. 
The children. Anyone under the age of 18, the beginning of the end. 


What is the medium of humans but ideas? There is a river through 
human history, an ever-wheeling flow of memes. And then, one day, 
it shifted. Rivers in some places will naturally reverse direction— 
buck and break their banks in a titanic gallop, until what went one 
way now goes another. | think that was what happened with the 
ideas, and what happened with humanity—one day it just changed 
course, to something new. 


Some things cannot be removed, not entirely. You can never hold 
back a river. We were running out of amnestics. Too many disasters 
had happened too fast. The stars had gone. ‘Leave it to the 
memeticists,’ they said. Hah! Memetics is the poisoned craft, and we 
the poisoners. But they dumped it on our lap and amnesticized 
themselves—amnesticized the whole Foundation, leaving us alone 
in our guilt. And there are some things you cannot remove, some 
things embedded too deep in the human psyche. And we were 
asked to remove something not even amnestics could touch? 


And so | took that impulse and re-channeled it. Me, and me alone. | 
was the only one that could do it—not the skill, the will. Like the 
stars. Everyone knows stars are in the sky, so you put in new stars 
and no one notices. Their children go, you make new children. Or 
change the impulse, the drive. Redirect. Transform. Their children 
are the grass and the breeze and the stars in the sky. All of those 


things and more. 


And what about the children? What happened to them? How many 
starved in front of parents that could not see them? How many 
babies cried unanswered until they cried no more? When | made 
people forget, did they stay people? Did | do a good thing? Then 
why do | feel so bad? 


Annette stares at me. 


"Well?" | demand. | stand up tall, puff out my chest. "What are you 
going to do?" 


Their eyes meet mine. | know, suddenly, that they pity me. That they 
have always pitied me, that they have always pitied memeticists 
more than | have pitied myself. They walk away, and there is no 
catharsis. 


Somewhere in the room there are children. 
"I'm sorry," | call, knowing they cannot know or care. 
Somewhere inside of me, the last piece slides into place. 


How to forget what | have done? | know of one way, at least. The 
box is taut and sleek. It cannot explode on its own but it wants to, | 
can feel, wants to so badly. As | sit | feel my body become heavier. It 
becomes harder to breathe. Something is on my chest. Something 
must be on my chest. My head is pounding. | feel flushed. Too late | 
realize what is happening. | look to Annette. What never were eyes 
stare back. 


"Are they trying to kill me?" | whisper. 
NO. 


| am a fool. | start to cry. | cry for a long long time, not for them, but 
for me. They seem to understand. 


The river may shift, but it does not go away. Maybe there is 
something on the other side. What | saw in the city could hardly be 
human, but it was alive. There can be light in darkness; what else 


are stars? 


| jerk upright. | do not know how long | have sat on the floor. My 
head is about to explode. | stagger over to Williams, and take one 
last look at her ruined face. 


"You can survive the deconditioner?" 
NO CONDITIONING. 

"Decide what to do with it." 

| WILL. 

They pause. 

GOODBYE. 

THANK YOU. 

They mean it. 


| lean down, to the level of the ear. A hole to the brain. | take a deep 
breath. The box never wanted to be opened. It was always me. 
Maybe things will change. Maybe things have to change. 


| whisper: I'm sorry: 


The dam breaks. There is light. | see Williams for the first time, as 
Annette must. She smiles at me. In the light | see Annette, as they 
always are. 


There is music. | do not know who is playing it, but there is music. 


All around me are children. They see me and laugh. 
There are stars. There are children. 
In their eyes are stars. 


« It Takes Two | Children Will Listen | Birth of a New Day » 


Chowderclef 


Darkness loomed over the streets of Night City, the shadows casting 
long shadows over the cracked asphalt pavement, the city's dark 
darkness lurking deep within its shriveled black hearts, as black as 
pitch and as shriveled as the lungs of a chain-smoking sailor. 


Joe Knife pinned the girl up against the wall, his ugly, slobbering 
face sneering as he sneeringly pulled up her skirt. "Don't worry," he 
sneered. "I'll make sure this hurts a lot. I'm a rapist, this is what | do, 
rape and things like that."