"Hey! Shut the hell up, Chimes. You went over the newbs' gear 
same as me. Everyone was as black as night and as quiet as a 
mouse. We were CLEAN," Minh pointed out. 


"And it doesn't explain how they bugged out before we even got 
there. And they had to have bugged out before that. They pulled the 
disk drives on their computers before they left: that's not a ten 
second job. Something, or someone, tipped them off before we even 
got there." 


"Could there be a mole, LT?" Chu asked. 


"God forbid," Jameson said. "But that doesn't make any sense 
either. This op's been planned for over a week. If there was a mole, 
the targets would have spooked and left days ago. There were 
plates of uneaten food on the tables and bomb-making equipment 
left in the basement: that tells us they left quickly. So we're looking 
at a window of around thirty minutes to one hour: long enough to 
grab a few things and haul ass, but not long enough to take all their 
shit with them." 


"Where did they go, anyway? We had a perimeter around the whole 
place, but no one saw a fucking thing." 


"Not important. The important thing is that everyone was gone 
before we even hit the house. If we'd had surprise, they would have 
still been there, no matter how they got out. So their escape route is 
irrelevant, if we can hit them before they manage to take it. So let's 


focus on the surprise part," Jameson said. "Let's go through the op 
step by step. Arrival?" 


“Twenty-four hours before op. Three different methods," Sergeant 
Minh said. "Four of us arrived by train, four by plane, four drove in 
with the moving vans full of gear. Civilian clothes. No one's carrying 
except the gear pukes, and they didn't get stopped by anyone." 


"Mmmm. Seemed fine, but let's break it up a bit more next time. 
Asymmetric groups. Housing?" 


"Two separate motels. Separate cover stories and check-in times for 
each group of two. Rooms swept for bugs. Everything was clean, no 
one broke cover even in the rooms." Chimes said. 


"Good. Those walls are thin: if you can hear people banging hookers 
the next room over, it's not that hard for some vacationer to 
overhear some black ops shit if you're not careful. Casing?" 


"My job, LT," Chu said, raising his hand. "| was on the roof of the 
house one block over. Total thermoptic camo. Guy who owned the 
house didn't even know | was there, no way the assholes in the 
target house coulda seen me." 


"And you confirmed the target was there?" Jameson asked. 


"| saw him three times," Chu said. He flipped out a small notebook. 
"At three separate moments. First at 7 am when..." 


"Never mind. | trust you. All right, so we arrive clean, we scout the 
target, no one knows we're there at this point. What about staging?" 
Jameson asked. 


"None. We did all that shit en route," Minh said. "Everyone changed 
and got geared up in the vans." 


"... in the vans," Jameson repeated. He looked out the safe house 
window at the Chevy Suburbans in the parking lot. 


"Yeah. We didn't want any neighbors seeing a bunch of guys ina 
parking lot with guns, so we had everyone get prepped in the vans 
on the way up," Minh continued. "We picked the guys up at the 


rendezvous points, then got everyone's gear situated..." 
"... and we headed up the hill," Jameson said, slowly. 
"... fuck," Chimes sighed. 


"... in three vans of the same make and model... hell, they're even 
the same COLOR..." Jameson noted. 


"Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Sorry, LT. | fucked that one up. | 
was the one who got the vehicles. My fucking bad," Chimes 
admitted. 


"Don't be too hard on yourself, Chimes," Jameson said, not unkindly. 
"| shoulda seen it too." 


"Yeah, but you didn't. | should have. Wheels was my job," Chimes 
groaned. "Fuck, I'm such a fucking retard. Three fucking black 
suburbans coming up the hill at midnight... shit, anyone would bug 
out if they saw that coming!" 


"We'll fix that for next time. We get a white soccer mom van, a 
hearse, maybe a limo. We mix up the vehicles, and we mix up 
arrival times. Space it out over ten minutes. Lesson learned. 
Everyone get some rest, we'll be doing this again soon enough." 


"Right, LT." 


"Copy." 


Two weeks later... 


The twelve members of MTF Rho-Niner ("Theisman's Leg") moved 
down the street in smooth, catlike motions, their dark grey 
camouflage uniforms blending in perfectly with the night, their faces 
hidden behind the eerie, insectoid forms of their gas masks with 
integrated night vision equipment. They carried sleek, black 
submachine guns in their gloved hands, and flashbang grenades on 
their belts. They were fucking badasses, the cream of the 
Foundation's strike teams, the elite of the elite in the hidden 
shadow-war of the occult, and they were going to take this house 


SCP-858: Gravity's Rainbow 


Item #: SCP-858 
Object Class: Keter 


Special Containment Procedures: Three samples of contaminated 
precipitation are to be maintained within a storage locker in the 
Infectious Wing of Research Site- . Reports of "cloud iridescence" 
are to be tracked until the likely area of precipitation can be 
identified and evacuated. Cover stories involving tornado activity are 
to be prepared and distributed afterwards, with area cleanup to 
consist of evaporation of contaminated water via heat lamp. 


Objects and subjects affected by SCP-858 are to be detained and 
destroyed on-site, incinerated, and their remains allowed to escape 
Earth orbit. 


Description: SCP-858 is a migrating noctilucent cloud which affects 
cirrus cloud formations beneath it. Presence of SCP-858 can be 
easily identified by the iridescent refraction within the cirrus 
formations, which- once affected- descend until precipitation ensues. 
Contact with precipitation from affected clouds immediately and 
permanently alters solid matter on contact. While apparently 
nonreactive with gasses and liquids, solid state reactions cause the 
molecular bonds of affected items to act as a vector, conducting the 
effect until the entirety of affected objects or organisms is repelled 
by, rather than attracted by, gravitational force. Porous materials act 
as a secondary vector, as affected water trapped in the substance in 
no way loses its effectiveness! Barring sufficiently sturdy objects 
secured to sufficiently massive objects embedded or otherwise 
secured to Earth's surface, this results in the affected object 
accelerating away from the Earth's surface at 9.8m/s?. Upon contact 
with SCP-858 itself at roughly 80km above sea level, affected 
objects vanish. 


Encounter Summary 858-A: First encounter with SCP-858 was a 


DOWN. 


They kicked down the front door of the target house and threw in 
flashbangs, causing the entire house to light up like a camera flash. 
Then they stormed in like the wrath of god, weapons raised, moving 
with precision and speed from room to room, sweeping every 
corner, searching every dark place for hidden enemies. 


They were two rooms in when they saw the first dead body: some 
guy wearing heart-print boxers and a "Big Johnson" t-shirt lying 
dead over the kitchen counter. The walls were riddled with bullet 
holes and splashed with blood. Same with the next room. And the 
next. 


It wasn't until they got to the living room, though, that Chimes took 
off his mask and cussed loudly. That was where they found the eight 
other members of the Chaos Insurgency cell laying on the rug, lined 
up neatly in a row, each of them with three rounds center-mass. 
There was a piece of paper pinned to one of their chests. Lieutenant 
Jameson carefully picked it up, then sighed. 


"Fuck," he muttered. 


"Basement's empty," Chu said, coming up the stairs. "Everything's 
gone. Hard drives, bombs, and the skip." 


"Call it in, Minh," Jameson said. "I think this op's over." 


He tossed the piece of paper onto the ground and walked out. Chu 
saw four words written in black sharpie, and the laurel leaves and 
pentacle logo of the Global Occult Coalition on the letterhead. 


BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME, it said. 


The Light At The End Of The Tunnel 


It wasn't working, he realized, as the statuesque woman ran the tip 
of her finger along the fake incision on his skin and licked the fake 
blood off with a seductive purr. He sighed, shook his head, and 
growled out the word, "Holocaust," through the bit in his teeth. 


The woman immediately stopped moaning and stood up straight, 
concern in her ice-blue eyes. "Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked. 


"I'm fine," he said. "I'm just not feeling it today." 


"It's okay, hon. Let's call it for today. Call me when you're ready to 
go again." 


"l will," he lied. 


He paid the woman in cash and watched her drive away down the 
winding country road, sipping his tea and touching his stomach 
where she had run the stage knife over his bare skin, leaving behind 
a thin line of fake blood. It wasn't her fault she couldn't give him what 
he wanted. No professional was going to do actual bloodplay in this 
day and age, not with the threat of HIV ever-present. But even the 
most convincing play was simply that... a shadow of the truth. 


He wondered if that was how She felt. 


She was sitting on a large rock in the backyard when he came 
downstairs, running a fine-toothed steel comb through Her tangled 
black hair, picking fleas out when they got caught between the 
narrow tines and crushing them between Her thumb and forefinger. 
She was rail-thin and rangy-looking, Her ribs visible through Her taut 
skin, Her yellow eyes feral and cruel, Her too-wide mouth crooked 
upwards, revealing the white tips of Her sharp canine teeth. The 
decapitated remnants of a dead hare were scattered here and there. 


"Did you have a good hunt?" Sol asked. 


"| did. It has been a long time," She replied. "Fresh blood tastes 
best. But is it safe to hunt so close to my former captors?" 


"Who said you were anywhere near them?" Sol laughed. "We're 
halfway around the world from that place. You're perfectly safe for 
the time being." 


"| don't remember any planes," She pointed out. "And | somehow 
doubt that you could drive all the way across the world in a few short 
minutes." 


"You'd be right about that... assuming you were taking the long way. 
It so happens that | know a few shortcuts." 


"Interesting. Tell me more." 


"In due time, my lady. In due time. For now you must focus on 
regaining your strength and re-honing your skills. You are like a 
blade allowed to rust in darkness. You must be polished, sharpened, 
and remade anew." 


Her ears twitched, and She grinned. "If you say so," She purred. 


"| do say so. You are a sublime creature of legend. | would have the 
others see you in your full glory, rather than as this wretched 
creature that the Worldwide Global Conspiracy has reduced you to. 
So for now, rest, my lady, and grow strong and beautiful. The day of 
reckoning will come soon enough." 


He kissed the back of her hand and walked back into the house. 
She waited until he was gone before picking up the severed head of 
the hare and hurling it into the woods in a fit of pique. She longed to 
follow him into the house and paint the ceiling and walls with his 
guts, but if there was one thing Her long captivity had taught Her, it 
was patience. Good things came to those who waited. 


"Oh lord, give me the serenity to accept what | cannot change, the 
courage to change what | can, and the patience not to punch that 
asshole in the face for being a sententious prick," Sandra recited. 


"Try to be nice. He's technically our ally," Michel said. 


"Ally my ass, he's a loose cannon. If | thought | could get away with 
ee 


"Hush, Sandra," the Professor said. "We're here." 


Every time James came to the Teacher's home, he felt like he was 
stepping into Narnia. The old country manor looked like something 
straight out of an Edward Gorey illustration, with its tall picture 
windows and dilapidated clock tower, and the forest behind it swept 
out as far as the eye could see: dark, mysterious, and overgrown. 
The entire place radiated a sense of adventure, tradition, and 
mysticism that never failed to make him shiver with excitement. 


He'd tried to say as much to Sandra once. "I know," she'd agreed, "If 
he bothered to spend a little time and money to fix up the clock 
tower, renovate the house, and prune the trees back a bit, the place 
would be worth something. Lazy bastard." After that, James decided 
to keep his opinions to himself. 


The door opened as the four of them approached, and James heard 
Sandra breathe in sharply, followed by a, "What the fuck?" from 
Michel. Sol was standing in the doorway dressed in some kind of 
insane gold-brocaded robe with massive sleeves, smiling and 
nodding to his guests. "Come in," he said. "Dinner will be served 
shortly." 


The walls of the front hall were hung with hand-drawn screens and 
red silks: they tried but didn't quite succeed at covering up the 
portraits of English gentlemen and such that hung on the walls. A 
red velvet carpet had been rolled out leading from the front door into 
the dining room. It was grotesque. It was gaudy. It was ugly. 


It was classic Sol. 


"What the hell is going on here, Sol?" Sandra growled. "| don't have 
time for your bullshit." 


"In good time, in good time, my friends. For now, | have a guest for 
you to meet." 


"No! Fuck you!" Sandra shouted. "You'll answer my questions right 


now! What the fuck was up with that stupid manifesto you sent to the 
news stations? When we said we were going to help you with your 
raid, you promised us that you had everything planned out. Nothing 
could go wrong. Well, I've got three dead cell members and a bunch 
of wounded that say otherwise. And what did we get for it? Jack and 
SHIT. A few trinkets we could have picked up easier ourselves 
without getting a bunch of guys killed. | want a goddamn 
explanation!" 


Sol's expression darkened, and he swallowed his rage hard, fists 
tightening. "As usual, your mercenary ways don't see the truth of 
what we've accomplished. We have struck a blow for freedom and 
liberty that will resound all around the world. We have liberated..." 


"Oh, SPARE me your righteous bullshit, Sol! | want answers!" 


"My apologies," a new voice said. "The master is wise indeed, but is 
often short in social graces." 


James let out an involuntary squeak of surprise. An angel was 
walking into the room. 


She was small in stature, and dressed in the same gaudy robes that 
Sol wore, but while he looked like a child playing dressup with his 
parents' clothing, she wore them with confidence and assurance. 
Her pale face was round and lovely, and her long, jet-black hair tied 
up in a series of tight buns. But what really drew James' attention 
was the pair of tapered, red-furred ears that jutted out through her 
jet-black locks, and the tips of nine foxlike tails peeking out from the 
hem of her robes. "Please," she said. "It is not proper for friends to 
fight. Please come inside and have dinner." 


The silence was finally broken when the Professor let out a low sigh. 
"Solomon," he said. "What have you done?" 


"| have rescued a being of myth from durance vile, and struck a blow 
against the Worldwide Global Conspiracy that will be felt for many 
years to come," Sol crowed. 


Sandra's angry response was interrupted by the Professor's cutting 
hand gesture: very small, but enough for her to see. She clenched 


her teeth instead, and looked away. 


"Let us by all means have dinner, then," the Professor said calmly. "I 
believe we have much to discuss."