She sits down by the light and examines her work through squinted 
eyes. Dragons, butterflies, weave through the scarlet cloth in her 
hands, threading through gaps of embroided gold. Carefully, her 
hands pull another gleaming strand through imperfections unseen, 
making a ribbon of gold ever-so-slightly fuller, mending minuscule 
gilded scales. The thread is thin, almost imperceptible, and the work, 
impeccably detailed, has yet to be done. It has been a work in 


progress for over a year now, but out here, in the backwoods, Ari 
Aberlin has had nothing but time. 


Slowly, her hands weave fins, claws, eyes. The dragon runs a river 
through the cloth, trailing behind a ragtag menagerie of silken 
creatures that leave embroidery in their wake. Behind them is chaos 
still. Incomplete threads crisscross each other, leaving holes and 
moth-eaten gaps; but together, like a honeycomb, the gaps 
themselves form a kind of cadence in their imperfection, a fractal 
unravelling that resolves itself in reverse under the guiding needle of 
the artist. Ari Aberlin now does not create as much as she follows, 
goes through the motions of prod-pull-thread-prod, for the gaps in 
the cloth are set in stone. Deviation would spell asymmetry, 
incompletion, chaos. And so patterns come to being and repeat 
themselves in the weave. In truth, the pattern is not so much created 
as it is simply coming into view, emerging from deep inside the cloth, 
where it has laid patiently ever since the first threads of Ari Aberlin's 
golden dragon reared its head. The things we do leave traces, 
rivulets for further successive acts and words that run themselves to 
a close. Ari Aberlin knows this as much as the next weaver. 


A noise from the front, and another light - in the sudden distraction, 
her fingers shake, and the thread snaps. Footsteps on dirt. Sounds 
she hasn't heard for a long time. Muffled speech. 


Cursing, she turns her head to the door and croaks, "Siapa dia?" 
The answer is a name that fills her with dread. 


In an instant, she whispers wispy syllables far too fine to be audible 
to the human ear. But they are not too fine for other things to catch. 
A slithering about her, a rustling, as blood-woven thread wakes to 
life. 


The door bursts open into a rainbow of fabric. 


The first bolt sends the first body flying, into the bush; there is a 
scream and a thump as it lands. And the second body, the second 
woman, the woman who got away, the traitor, goes up and up and 
up as the second bolt constricts her against her struggling, wringing, 
contracting, and someone's screaming curses and syllables that go 


nowhere and - 
"For God's sake, Ari, I'm sorry!" 


Isa Noorizan squirms in the rapidly tightening swathe of cloth, as Ari 
tightens her fist and squeezes away the last of her breath. "You're 
sorry? Adakah anda bodoh? After all this time and you come crying 
to me saying you're sorry. Did you say sorry to Amira? To Makcik? 
But it's too late, isn't it? And you come to me. Go to hell." 


She flicks her wizened wrist and Isa winces in anticipation of the 
final gesture, the execution - 


The bolts of cloth loosen, and Isa falls to the ground. 


She wheezes, regaining her breath. "| never came to you before. Or 
any of - any of the others. | was scared. Scared of this happening. 
I'm sorry. It was a - a misunderstanding." 


"Misunderstanding. That was what it was, hah?" 


From the shadowed doorway, Ari Aberlin wheels herself out. The 
towel over her legs slips, revealing her disfigured thighs, her calves 
embedded with crust, with stone claws, gouging into each other 
inside her flesh. 


Isa's face grows pale. "I - | did not..." 


"When you pulled your little joke, you didn't mean for this to 
happen?" 


"| had nothing to do with this. | never saw Beatrice again when | left. 
| was - | was bitter. Angry, sure. But | promised myself. | would 
never see any of you again. | would never cross paths with the 
Pengembalian." 


"Lies. The bomb was safed, warded thrice over. It was sabotage, 
and you know it." Her mouth twists with rage. "You left us, betrayed 
us. And you dare come back to apologise about it." 


"You planned to kill." 


"Don't moralise with me, Isa. It was a demonstration. Set off under 
cover of night. Show the big players what we could do. What we 
were made of." 


Isa coughs, staggering to her feet. She approaches Ari slowly, with 
her palms spread. "I did not betray you. Please, believe me." 


"Oh, really?" Ari raises her left hand in a fist and a stray cloth bolt 
blooms towards Isa, coiling and tightening and narrowing to a point 
centimetres from her chest. Isa stops dead in her tracks. "Give me 
one good reason why." 


She nods. From a pocket, she slowly raises the cigar-shaped 
bundle. It unravels in a slip of her thumb into lengths of black thread, 
unspooling impossibly into more and more strands - yet, somehow, 
remaining impeccably dense in her grasp. With a flick, the 
unspooling stops, and the whole thing coils itself up tight as a rock in 
the blink of an eye. 


"You... you kept this?" stammers Ari. The woven lance slackens 
along its length, releasing its coiled energy with a sigh. "How did you 
find it?" 


Isa drops to her knees, and places the bundle into Ari's lap. 
"Beatrice is gone. Someone might have killed her. We need to talk." 


Previous / Next 


Not with a Whimper but with a Bang 


Emma should have put a bullet in his head when he initially 
displayed signs of infection. That was protocol. She didn’t. She 
couldn't. The only thing for it was to quarantine him where he 
wouldn't be able to infect anyone. A standard humanoid containment 
chamber didn’t seem big enough to lock up a tornado like Jeremy. 
He was always talking, always gesturing, his mouth working 
overtime. Seeing him pace around a cell in total silence made him a 
completely different person. 


“Will you be able to handle this, Linderman?” Dr. Devane turned his 
swivel chair around so he faced her instead. Most of the monitors 
behind him were placid black screens, but a few of them were still 
flickering with life. Emma wasn’t sure why Dr. Devane bothered 
monitoring the rest of Site-17. There was never anything to see. “I 
need you at your best if we’re going to negotiate with terrorists.” 


“I’m fine,” Emma lied. Dr. Devane wouldn’t notice. He was a brilliant 
man and an effective researcher, but his people skills left something 
to be desired. 


“Good,” he said. “Because the GOC contact should be here any 
minute. I’m going down to the entrance to meet her. | need you to 
man the surveillance cameras. If | give the signal, hit the button to 
call the MTF.” Emma nodded, and did not remind Dr. Devane that 
the Foundation hadn't had a complete MTF in weeks. 


“| need you at the top of your game. You’re one of the only ones 
left.” Emma nodded and took his place in the chair as he left the 
surveillance room. The electronic lock no longer worked, so one of 
them always had to stay behind in the building at all times. The wall 
of monitors in front of her had mostly gone dark, with only a handful 
still displaying static-ridden images. The dining hall on the screen 
looked so cavernous without a single person in it. The break rooms 
had long ago been stripped of their usable resources like food and 
water. All that remained was a thin layer of dust covering that ugly 


plaid loveseat in the corner, a set of bare counters, and a broken 
microwave. She switched the display to the entrance of Site-17, one 
of the last bastions of the SCP Foundation. 


The landscape outside was bleak and abandoned without a living 
soul in sight. Withered, desiccated bodies were scattered across the 
sidewalks like haphazardly sewn seeds, most of them simply lying 
face down or curled into the fetal position. Emma wasn’t sure when 
civilization had collapsed in on itself like a dying star, but Site-15 
lasted almost a month. By the time it went dark and she left for the 
nearest working facility at Site-17, most of the skips there had either 
been transferred, breached containment, or been neutralized. 


Apparently, 343 was the first to go. One day he was there and the 
next he wasn’t. No one had time to ask where he went. 166 perished 
shortly afterwards. Between re-establishing communication with the 
other Sites, keeping their own people safe, and maintaining 
containment with increasingly fewer resources, the task of feeding 
anomalies with esoteric diets fell by the wayside. Her last breaths 
were spent ranting about the End of Days and the Second Coming 
as she became increasingly less coherent, but that was to be 
expected. The minimal security wing became on-site housing for the 
few remaining staff members to reduce the need to leave. Contact 
with the outside was difficult at best, outright dangerous at worst. 


She switched a second monitor to the cellblock where the standard 
humanoid containment areas were located. Emma recognized too 
many of the faces that stared blankly at the walls, faces of people 
she’d known and worked with. Some were from Site-15, some from 
Site-17, some probably civvies. Different individuals displayed 
different stages of affliction, but they all invariably ended up with that 
empty, wide-eyed stare. 


Emma stared for a moment or two before she turned the second 
feed off. She twisted the ring on her finger to avoid switching to 
Jeremy’s containment. He was supposed to be here at her side for 
the end of the world, but he wasn’t. He was just down the hall but he 
might as well have been on the moon. The world was at stake, as 
usual, but this time she was alone. She took a deep breath and 
shook the memories from her mind. She couldn’t afford to dwell, not 
now. She was one of the only ones left. 


Update: Asin //  , Soap from Corpses Products’ 
shares skyrocketed, and the aforementioned ‘Fine’ 
output is now worth $ (USD). It is under investigation if 
914 'selected' Soap from Corpses Products because it 
‘knew' was going to rally, or if it was a matter of pure 
luck. 


Name: Dr. 

Date: //20 

Total items: 5x Bronze replicas of the Pioneer 10 and 
11 plaques. 


Input: 1 plaque on each setting 


Setting: Rough 
Output: Multiple bronze cubes and two bronze spheres. 


Setting: Coarse 
Output: 105 grams of copper ore and 15 grams of tin 
ore. 


Setting: 1:1 
Output: Several CDs. Tests reveal them to contain the 
same data as the Voyager Golden Record. 


Setting: Fine 

Output: A record-sized bronze disc. Testing shows that 
using the object with a record player will play a recording 
of a currently unidentified voice describing the content 
and meanings of the Pioneer plaque. 


Setting: Very Fine 

Output: A bronze gyroscope, 15 cm tall. A needle in the 
center continuously points in one direction; testing has 
confirmed that no matter the position of the gyroscope, 
this needle points towards our Sun. 


Name: Dr. 
Date: //20 


Emma detested going to holiday parties. The main office area of 
Site-15 had been hastily decorated with tissue paper and a dollar 
store sign that proclaimed ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR 2015’, but Emma 
didn’t feel particularly happy. Everyone told her how much fun it 
would be to get drunk, lose her inhibitions, and dance topless on the 
counter in front of her coworkers, but she didn't see the point. She 
worked with these people, and didn't fancy any of them doing body 
shots out of her navel and getting a mouthful of lint. Maybe that was 
why people liked Researcher Torres better, even if they did look 
down on her project proposals most of the time. 


The music was pounding in her ears as she checked her watch, 
again. It mixed in with the dull roar of the party's conversation - 
mostly work discussions or complaining about the weather - to 
create an almost wordless static buzz that didn't even sound like 
human language anymore. An aging frat boy she didn’t recognize 
staggered her way. His glass bottle jostled as he stumbled by, 
narrowly missing her new blouse when he began spilling his cheap 
beer. She stepped to the side and cursed herself for planting against 
the wall near the drinks table. She took several steps away from 
whoever that guy was, and as she backed away, Emma felt a strong 
hand on her shoulder. She turned in the direction of the hand and 
found herself face-to-face with a shit-eating grin the likes of which 
she’d never seen before. As she met the young man’s gaze, he 
dropped his hand from her shoulder. 


“Careful,” he said, and tipped his head in the direction she was 
backing into. A free-flowing chocolate fountain was perched on a 
folding table, both of which stood a few feet from where she was 
now. “I don’t think this one will try to eat you, but it will ruin that nice 
outtit.” 


“Thank you,” she said mechanically. She didn’t mention that she 
kind of hated him already. 


“Don't mention it,” he said with a wave of his free hand. “Saving 
damsels in distress is a big part of what | do.” Emma suppressed a 
scoff. 


"I'm not a damsel." 


"No, but | would hate to see your outfit ruined. It's a very pretty color, 
by the way. Complements your eyes." 


"Thank you." 


"So, Junior Researcher Lawson," he said, cocking his head 
awkwardly to the side for a bit to read her badge. "What has you 
over here in the corner looking like 682 just ate your puppy?" 


I'm lonely, bored, and don't appreciate getting hit on by jackasses.’ 


"I'm just a little tired," was what she said. “Thank you for keeping an 
eye out for me. | have to be going now.” 


‘Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said, flashing a smile of 
impossibly perfect teeth. He extended his hand to Emma, and she 
shook it politely. “Enjoy the party. Keep an eye out for those 
wandering chocolate fountains.” She smiled and turned her back on 
him for what she hoped would be the first and last time. 


Dr. Clair Wythers tapped out a ‘shave-and-a-haircut’ pattern on the 
entrance to Site-17 using the head of her cane. She leaned against 
the doorframe while she waited. After a few moments of silence, 
someone on the other side tapped out ‘two bits’, and the door 
creaked open. 


“Does the Black Moon howl?” 
“Fuck off and let me in, Gerald. It’s cold out here.” 


“Clair, give me the correct response or I'll order the MTF to shoot 
you where you stand.” 


“You're bluffing. Even if you were still protected by a complete MTF, 
even if you could contact them remotely to issue the order, you still 
wouldn't do it because we’re rapidly running out of people who can 
even understand the situation we’re in, much less do anything about 
it. Now open the fucking door.” 


Nothing happened at first. Dr. Wythers tapped the butt of her iron 
cane impatiently on the ground. Then, the door swung inward the 


rest of the way, revealing a balding man with a frown on his face and 
red blotches forming behind his ears. 


“Foundation protocol dictates-” 


“There is no Foundation,” she cut him off. “No Council of 108, no 
United Nations, none of it. If there were, we wouldn’t be meeting like 
this.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but she eloowed 
past him without giving him the chance. “Now shut the damn door. 
You're letting all the flies in.” 


“Fine,” Dr. Devane relented. He let out an angry breath, but he 
pushed the door shut behind her. “You’re not the first to arrive. 
We're up the stairs and down the hall to the right. Do you require 
assistance?” He offered his arm to her, and Dr. Wythers rolled her 
eyes. She gripped her cane in her opposite hand and ascended the 
staircase by herself, Dr. Devane trailing just behind her.