Special Containment Procedures: SCP-978 is to be kept in 
security locker H-J-12 at Site 17, and only to be removed or handled 
by personnel with Level-2 security clearance or higher. Testing 
parties may request extra film and printing paper at their leisure. 
SCP-978 is not to be used for blackmail, entertainment, or personal 
reasons. 

This means you. ~ O5- 

All photographs produced by SCP-978 are to be cataloged along 
with full testing description. Requests to destroy photographs may 
be processed by Level-4 security clearance or higher personnel, at 
the discretion of the testing party. 


Description: SCP-978 appears to be a standard chrome-and-black 
Polaroid One instant camera, with no distinctive identifying marks or 
damage. SCP-978 operates the same as a standard camera, and 
shows no anomalous behavior beyond the photographs it produces. 
When a subject is pictured with SCP-978, the photograph that 
develops shows not what the subject was doing at the time of the 
photo, but rather what the subject wanted to be doing. 


This effect appears to be, for the most part, random, sometimes 
showing drastic changes and deeply suppressed desires, or simple 
changes and alterations to the subject or their surroundings. 
SCP-978 appears to be capable of expressing the desires of both 
humans and other creatures (see testing log) and appears to convey 
the simplest desires the easiest. Should two subjects with 
contrasting desires both be photographed together, the subjects' 
desires appear to 'mix' (see testing log for additional information). 


Addendum: 


ass. It gave him a final cold look, and opened its mouth to consume 
him. 


Before its jaws closed around him, Able grabbed the sword still 
embedded in its head, grasping the hilt from inside its mouth. As the 
beasts mouth closed around him, he forced it down with all of his 
strength, slicing the beast clean in two. 


But its motions, once set in action, could not be stopped. Its teeth 
cleaved his upper torso in two, freeing his remaining arm and head 
to flop lifelessly on the ground. 


With his final moments of consciousness, Able thought he could 
hear a strange whistling sound, like something falling from a great 
height. 


Then... only darkness. 


Time passed as a dreamless sleep, and Able awoke to find himself 
whole and anew, back in his tomb. He moved jerkily, forcing open 
the coffin that held him, pushing aside the chains hurriedly in a bid to 
get out of that bitter cold. 


It took him several minutes to unlock the stone door that blocked his 
escape, all the time pawing at the frosty ground with his boots, his 
breath crystallizing in front of him. 


When he finally did emerge, he breathed a sigh of relief. He had 
never liked the cold, being more a man for heat and warmth. 


Still, he reasoned to himself, that was most likely the best fight he 
had had in ages. There should be a feast to celebrate, with all of his 
team. Now where had they put that strange "pizza" box? 


The Watchtower 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 05, CACC 
July 13th, 1973, 00:23 hours GMT. 


"Sir," Lieutenant Mackie said, inputting a code into her consoles, 
"They're hailing us." 


Cooper sighed, "Visual?" 
Mackie shook her head, "Audio only." 


“Turn down the alarms in here and put him on." 


"This is Vladimir Vernadsky, Main Intelligence Directorate Division 
"Psychotronics". | apologize for my brevity, but there is something 
wrong with my vessel. | am aware, as you are, that the Earth is 
gone. We are under standing orders to investigate your role in the 
disappearance. Unfortunately my brethren have decided that this 
means your destructions. | am well aware that this will not bring us 
any information that we do not already know. 


Our battle plan is to fly our ships in close formation until we can 
engage with short range weapons. We have already fired the kinetic 
impactors. You must stop them before they close the distance. | will 
try to help from here. 


Good luck." 
"FORC-05 actual, responding. Can you hear me?" 


"The signal's gone sir," Mackie flipped another switch. "I have 
multiple radar contacts. No more radio contacts, though we're 
hailing across all frequencies with multiple organization codes." 


"Ensign Jennings," Director Cooper turned away. "Reboot the CIWS 
computers and make sure they're fully operational. We can't have 


them fucking up on us like the last live fire exercise." 


"Yes sir. Give me 10 minutes and we'll be able to shoot anything 
they throw our way out of the sky," Jennings replied, before hurrying 
out of the room. 


"Colonel," Cooper stopped as the man stepped forward, "| need you 
and your prototypes out there. We'll synchronize our fire control data 
as soon as possible, but | want your birds in the air immediately. 


"Yes sir," Colonel Leonard replied, snapping his hand up to salute. 


Cooper would've laughed at the absurdity, but the man was about to 
put his life on the line for them all, so he nodded and smiled instead. 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 05, Hangar Bay 4 
July 13th, 1973, 00:35 hours GMT. 


Colonel Leonard breathed slowly and evenly in the thick fluid of his 
ship's cramped command bridge. Through the murk of the 
perfluorocarbon gel, intended to protect them against high 
accelerations, he could see his crew, hunched over partially- 
installed control panels. The DCVP Ace of Diamonds's engines 
ignited, and the ship flew out of the hangar followed shortly by its 
sister ships. They accelerated with ponderous grace- no one had 
expected to be using the experimental Countermeasure Vessel 
testbeds in any serious capacity, and their engines weren't entirely 
designed for the weight of the armament they carried. 


Leonard tapped his comm console, "Ace of Diamonds, Hangar 
Clear." 


"Captain Wesker, King of Clubs, Hangar Clear." 


"Queen of Spades, Hangar Clear." Captain Jennifer Jackson, their 
newest pilot, reported. 


"Whooo." Came the familiar and completely inappropriate voice of 
Captain John Ulner, "Jack of Hearts here, Hangar Clear." 


Leonard chuckled, then tapped his console again, "Jack. Calm it 


down a bit. We've got hostiles incoming. King, you've got quadrant 
one, Queen, you've got two, Jack, you've got three and I've got four. 
Enemy approach is along a polar orbit from planetary north, above 
the ecliptic, so we'll be supplementing the CIWS in the top 
hemisphere. Be ready to shift if needed to the bottom half of your 
quadrant. Don't push your coilguns too hard, and remember that we 
still haven't quite nixed those coolant loop issues. Good hunting." 


A round of confirmations filtered through the open channel. Leonard 
looked down at his targeting computer and began to analyze the 
data. Twenty large projectiles- too fast to be missiles, too big to be 
kinetic impactors. Only two ships, thankfully. The weapons were 
going to arrive in 25 minutes, the ships in an hour. Maybe an hour 
and a half if they were lucky. 


54,451 Kilometers from FORC-05. High Earth Orbit. 
July 13th, 1973, 00:55 hours GMT. 


They'd burned out to a significant distance, dropping chaff clouds on 
the most likely approaches and warming up their coilguns. Now, 
they waited. Leonard had always believed firmly in the old platitude 
that combat is boredom punctuated by brief moments of terror. The 
best he could hope for was more boredom, but terror, according to 
the data pouring in from the four DCVPs' radomes, was already on 
the way. 


Leonard caught a slight violet flash of light outside the bridge's tiny 
porthole. His eyes went wide as the flash of light was followed 
shortly by the sensors registering an impactor exploding violently as 
it encountered the chaff swarm. He allowed himself a momentary 
internal smile as the violet flashes lit up the sky in front of him. And 
then the tracks on the computer screen began to bend. 


"All ships! These things are changing course! Fall back and prepare 
for intercept of guided missiles in quadrant 4." 


The helmsman pulled back on the control stick, the fluid of the 
bridge swirling as the bow-heavy vessel swung around, attitude 
thrusters flaring. They matched the trajectories of the projectiles, 
nuclear engine burning cherry-red. He hadn't thought that impactors 


this large could be so agile, but they were now actively avoiding his 
chaff cloud. If he was lucky they'd caught the first one before it had 
fragmented. He wasn't counting on it though. 


One question still rang in his mind: how were they being guided? 


8 light seconds from FORC-05. Interplanetary Space 
July 13th, 1973, 0:55 hours GMT. 


Vladimir Vernadsky looked at the other Vladimir Vernadskys and 
frowned. The apparitions surrounding him moved from station to 
station, preparing for the grim work ahead of them. The engines 
began to stutter. Vladimir knew that without a connection to Earth 
their energy reserve was limited, but the rest of his crew did not 
care. They'd set course for a close pass on the Foundation station, 
and they'd get one shot. The howling deep inside his ship 
intensified. 


If he couldn't stop this, one shot was all they'd need. Worse yet, if 
the Foundation couldn't stop the missiles already flying ahead of 
them, it wouldn't matter. The Global Occult Coalition, the 
Foundation, someone was going to need to help them when the 
ships finally shut down. His degrading fellows didn't understand that. 
All they had left to them was confusion and rage. 


54,423 Kilometers from FORC-05. High Earth Orbit. 
July 13th, 1973, 00:55 GMT 


V-13 opened his eyes for the first time. V-20 had just exploded. 
There was an invisible wall in front of them, but he knew the 
solution. They'd go around it. He could feel the ships around him. 18 
of his brothers and 4 of the others. The others would be the 
problem. 


V-13 chanted to himself, bringing the calm he needed to redirect his 
cage. The spirit energies behind him ignited and he directed him on 
a new path. A small cloud of metal tore towards him, but he evaded 
it with contemptuous ease. It would take longer to kill these thieves, 
but they would still die. 


52,679 Kilometers from FORC-05. High Earth Orbit. 
July 13th, 1973, 01:15 hours GMT. 


"I've got multiple encounters," Captain Ulner, for the first time since 
Leonard had met him, sounded worried, "Gunner's having trouble 
getting enough metal in the air. I'm starting to think these guys are a 
little smarter than a guided missile, sir." 


Leonard grunted as he tracked the firing solution on the nearest 
target. The topside coilgun sprang to life, firing a spread of tungsten 
at his target. He was rewarded with a small flash of light. Wesker 
had managed to kill 3 clusters but his weapons systems had 
overloaded during the last engagement, leaving his ship dead in 
space. Jackson's tally was 7 clusters and rising. Ulner was still 
struggling to shake the 5 clusters that had decided that he was their 
target, and not the other way around. 


None of them had fragmented yet. Leonard's tally was 4. That left 1 
cluster unaccounted for. Small red warning lights had started to 
flicker on the master console each time he altered course. 


"Queen!" He said, punching his comm. 
"Yes sir?" Jackson's voice answered in his ear. 


"Go help Jack. The minute those things decide to break off, we're 
screwed." 


"What about the last target?" 
"I'll handle it." 


Leonard's telemetry indicated the last target was headed straight for 
the base. 


"Bring us around! Throttle to full!" 


34,502 Kilometers from FORC-05. High Earth Orbit. 
July 13th, 1973, 01:15 hours GMT. 


V-13 was alone now. His fellows were all lost or stupidly pursuing 
the wrong targets. He was the only one who knew the true enemy. 
The Foundation and their evil would be eradicated. 


His pursuer was gaining on him though. How was that possible? He 
tried to increase his velocity, but he felt drained. The energy. His 
energy! It was gone! 


He closed his eyes again and flew apart in a rage. Suddenly a single 
kinetic impactor became a hundred crowbar sized missiles in an 
ever widening constellation. 


6 light seconds from FORC-05. Interplanetary Space 
July 13th, 1973, 01:25 hours GMT. 


Vladimir Vernadsky looked over the weapons officer's shoulder. He 
felt the energy that fueled these copies waning. This copy of him 
didn't seem to care about anything anymore but the range indicator, 
which showed, to Vladimir, a uncomfortably small number. He 
passed his hand through the spirit's abdomen, and grabbed at 
something invisible. The half-man disappeared. Vernadsky stepped 
forward and pressed several buttons. The gamma ray emitter 
targeting system found purchase, the ship next to them. He fired, 
and a slight buzz reverberated throughout the ship. 


Now there was just one ship left. Vernadsky closed his eyes and 
raised his hands to the ceiling, while slowly, the spirits around him... 
simply disappeared. 


Vernadsky smiled as his own energy was restored. The imperfect 
copies no longer a drain on his own power, he reached out with the 
ship's spirit engines, decelerating it with layer upon layer of psionic 
force. 


9,564 Kilometers from FORC-5 - Medium Earth Orbit 
July 13th, 1973, 01:25 hours GMT. 


"Colonel. I'm preparing to intercept. Jack's taken some heavy 
damage. Three of the clusters are down. | can't get him on comms 


but he seems to be active." 
"Roger that." 


"FUCK," Queen screamed into the comms. "Colonel. | got the last 
one. But the Jack of Hearts has ceased contact. Their reactor-" 


"Understood. You're too far out to assist here. Give King a tow, and 
get back to base as soon as you can." 


Ulner and Leonard had come up in training together, but they all 
knew what they were getting into when they'd launched this 
morning. Leonard could mourn later. 


Right now he needed, desperately, to get ahead of this cloud. The 
red warning lights on his console intensified. 


Foundation Orbital Research Compound 5, Director Cooper's 
Office. 
July 19th, 1973, 9:22 hours GMT. 


"Telemetry from Colonel Leonard's DCVP indicated that his engines 
were on the verge of failure." Cooper did his best to avert his eyes 
from O5-10's silhouette. 


"| have the telemetry in front of me, | was asking for your 
conclusions on the appropriateness of his actions." 


"Ahh. There were approximately 100 impactors, his actions 
eliminated 42, and the point defense managed to reduce the 
remainder to 4." 


"What happened next?" O5-10's electrolarynx made it impossible to 
determine the emotion behind these questions, but this had all the 
hallmarks of an interrogation. 


"2 of the impactors missed the station. 2 did not. 1 hit in the 
residential section, and 1 struck the D-class wing." 


Cooper couldn't see 05-10 very clearly, but he was sure the man 
was shifting his position before asking his next question. 


"Casualties?" 


"A couple D-class, and Dr. Marko as well. He appears to have 
ignored the evacuation order." 


"Which D-Class?" 


Cooper stopped and searched the information sheet in front of him. 
"D-1153 and D-2045." 


O5-10 stopped for a moment before continuing. "What do you think 
would've happened if all 100 of the impactors had made it through?" 


"Point defense was surprisingly accurate. Probably 4 more 
impactors would've struck the station. Given that the strike on the 
residential section was nearly catastrophic on its own... I'd say the 
Colonel made the right call." 


"Alright. | want the full report before the end of the week." 


The computer screen went black, and Director Cooper breathed 
freely for the first time in several minutes. He took a few moments to 
collect himself, then pressed a button on his desk. "Send Miss 
Jackson in." 


"Yes sir," came the reply from the intercom. 

Captain Jackson opened the door, walked in and took a seat. 
"Miss Jackson, I'd like to start by..."