"But they don't have to..." Holman smiled. "You don't have to. Even 
if | can't touch you, that's better than nothing. This last year was just 
so painful..." 


"That pain eventually fades," Rita interrupted. "This is like picking off 
the scab. Keep doing it and you don't heal, or worse, you create an 
infection. Don't do that to yourself." 


Holman closed his eyes and looked down. He could feel Rita return 
to sitting on the arm of the chair. 


"Sweetie, whatever you think you need to be forgiven for, you're 
forgiven. But please... just don't." 


Holman nodded and looked up, his eyes red from dried tears. 


"Got to say, | thought you'd have been a little more ecstatic about all 
this..." He gave a sad laugh. 


"Life's full of surprises." 


"It sure is." 
"Love you, hon." 


"Love you too." 


The effects of the powder lasted throughout the night. In the end, the 
two of them sat on the balcony of their house, watching the sun rise. 
She kept close enough that he could feel her cold. Eventually the 
cold began to disappear. He turned and looked at her. Slowly, her 
form was fading from sight. She gave him a warm smile and was 
gone. Edgar Holman was once again alone. 


November 1st, 2017 


Director Holman sat in Agent Merlo's office, wrapping up a meeting 
regarding MTF Gamma-13's most recent exploits. While he 
maintained a smile and eye contact, his head was pounding with a 
headache so fierce it put the worst hangover to shame. Once this 
meeting concluded his plan was to sit in his office, ideally 
undisturbed, for the rest of the day. He gave a subtle sigh of relief 
when Merlo handed him the file containing all the recent reports, and 
began to make his way to the exit. 


"Oh, by the way," Merlo called after him as he made it to the door. 
"Conwell came by this morning. Showed me a little bit of security 
footage from his lab yesterday. | think you might want to see it." 


Holman froze. Merlo maintained an amused smile as pulled out a 
little camera from within her desk and set it to play. The image of 
Holman taking the powder from Conwell's lab danced across the 
screen. 


"He hid a personal camera in there..." Holman commented with a 
sigh. 


"He sure did," Merlo chuckled. "Apparently one of the other 
researchers in the AMAT team lost someone recently. Conwell was 
afraid they might take some of the 'Séance Dust.’ Didn't expect to 


find you with your hand in the cookie jar." 
"So what happens now?" 
Merlo shrugged. 


"That's honestly up to you, Ed. I'm the only one Conwell has told, so 
far. It's funny. He's unsure as to whether this is an ethics test, or if 
you might have him offed to cover your tracks..." 


"What are you going to do, Sasha," he interrupted. Merlo frowned. 
"Are you going to try to pull this shit again? If you get the chance?" 
Holman shook his head. 


"Rita made me promise not to, not that | could get more if | was so 
inclined." 


"Did you get the answers you were looking for?" 


"Some of them, yes," Holman replied after a pause. "Though to be 
honest I'm not really sure what questions | wanted answered." 


"So it was worth it then?" 
"I'd like to think so." 


"Fair enough," said Merlo, chuckling. "Heh, well, there go your 
chances at hitting Level 5 clearance." 


"| have a hard enough time keeping myself sane managing one 
backwater Site," Holman replied with a tired grin. "I don't want to 
have to deal with all the others." 


Merlo nodded in approval. She then quietly deleted the video file 
from Conwell's camera and made a gesture of zipping her lip. 


"I'll talk to Conwell. We'll get him on the same page," she grinned. 
"So that's that then?" Holman asked. 


"That's that." 


Holman began to head toward the exit. 


"Do you meet up for Halloween at Secret Crest every year?" He 
asked, pausing at the threshold. 


"Sure do." 


"Count me in for 2018," he said with a smile, and stepped out into 
the hall. 


Hunting Anderson 


Agent Sasha Merlo sat alone in her office at Site—64. Her neck 
length brunette hair was neatly tied in a ponytail as she leaned back 
in her office chair, feet resting upon her desk. Her eyes were 
thoughtfully glued to the monitor in front of her as she slowly scrolled 
through the numerous pages of a large person of interest file. 


POI # 1115: “Anderson” 


Merlo let out an exasperated sigh. In two weeks’ time she would 
lead another sting operation against the mysterious mechanist. 
Ideally this time around things would end better than the last sting 
she'd lead, in which she was left dumbfounded, with nothing to show 
for her and her team’s efforts save several puddles of melted robot. 


A sudden knock at her office door shook Merlo from her daydream. 
She looked at over at the electric blue office clock at her wall and 
smiled. Her new agent had arrived. 


“Come in,” Merlo called out. 


In response the door to her office opened, and a young agent 
stepped inside. She was rather tall, with shoulder length blond hair, 
and a pair of thin rimmed glasses that sat on her nose. Her face was 
plastered with the most unreadable expression. 


“Welcome to Gamma-13,” Merlo said as she stood to shake her 
guest’s hand. “You must be Agent Shaw. I’m Agent Merlo. Welcome 
to the Asimov's Lawbringers.” 


Shaw politely accepted the hand shake. Her movements seemed 
slow and calculated. 


“Guess I’m your new narc.” 


“Damn straight,” Merlo grinned. “Did Director Holman fill you in on 


Researcher: Dr. 

Subject: D-9558 

Time elapsed: 1 hour 

Subject’s Experience: N/A 

Researcher's Note: When SCP-728 was opened, 
subject was no longer present. Testing suspended for 
today. 


Date: 06/10/20 

Researcher: Dr. 

Subject: D-9558 

Time elapsed: 66 hours 

Subject’s Experience: N/A 

Researcher's Note: When questioned as to how much 
time had passed, subject was adamant we’d never 
closed the doors. 


Date: 06/10/20 

Researcher: Dr. 

Subjects: D-9558, D-8627, D-4513 

Time elapsed: 1 hour 

Subjects’ Experience: N/A 

Researcher's Note: Subjects were interred within 
SCP-728 with enough rations to last all three men five 
years, as well as a supply of notebooks and pens. 
Subjects were instructed to keep a record of their 
experiences while inside. When the container was 
opened, all three were found dead. Subjects D-9558 and 
D-4513 had both suffered severe beatings, and 
apparently died from their injuries. Evidence suggests 
that their bodies had been disemboweled and subjected 
to acts of [DATA REDACTED]. Subject D-8627 had died 
from disembowelment, apparently self inflicted. 


The logs were apparently kept as specified for years, 
before slowly degrading into unintelligible ranting. Similar 
writings were found on the walls of SCP-728, written in 
the blood and faeces of all three subjects, although 
fingerprinting identified that D-8627 was the only writer. 
Analysis of the faeces found that, in all three cases, it 


our shtick when you got here?” 


“| guess you could say that,” Shaw replied with a shrug. “He said 
you guys have been chasing an anomalous robot salesman for over 
a decade, and have run out of new faces to run your stings.” 


“That’s about it in a nutshell,” said Merlo as she began to dig 
through her desk’s side drawer. “Anderson’s a bit of a slippery case. 
Most of our raids have ended in him throwing us for a loop or two. 
We had one of his bois out at Site-19 for a couple of years, but that 
didn’t turn out well... Aha, there it is!” 


Merlo pulled out a small file and slid it across the desk. Shaw 
cautiously picked it up and began to scan its contents. 


“This is your briefing for the sting,” Merlo continued. “This time 
around we have some of Anderson’s people thinking that we are 
representatives for a local shaker in the anart beat named Jericho 
Hill. You can thank my dear friend Daniel for setting up that ID later. 
Turns out Hill’s been a patron of Anderson’s for years and you’re 
likely going to be meeting with real people and not Saker units. 
We've got the meeting set up on neutral ground at a warehouse on 
the waterfront. Your task is going to simply be a matter of keeping 
them preoccupied with the sale until we get the MTF in place. We hit 
the building with a specially designed EMP to stun any Saker units, 
and then send in the troops to do clean up.” 


Shaw’s face cracked into a minuscule smile. 
“Solid plan.” 


“No kidding,” Merlo snickered as she leaned back in her chair, 
kicking her feet back onto her desk. “We'll get one of those bastards 
this time.” 


“Guess | should get cracking on this,” said Shaw as she began to 
move towards the exit. 


“Hold on,” Merlo said, her smug smile vanishing as she stared Shaw 
in the eye. “Before you go | should let you know one thing. It takes 
anywhere between six months and two and a half years to put one 


of these stings together and have it stick. Each time we fail there are 
more and more hoops to jump through.” 


Merlo paused. 


“I’m not trying to get on your case before you even start, but | just 
want you to appreciate how much is depending on your 
performance. A lot of us have been with Gamma-13 since they were 
first formed. We're at the point where we could use a step forward 
instead of two steps back. It would be just dandy if you could help us 
with that.” 


Shaw nodded in understanding. 


“You've got it boss,” she said, then turned and left the room. 


Agent Shaw stood quietly in the center of the warehouse, among 
what must have been nearly three dozen freight containers. Near 
her stood demo models of each of Anderson’s products. Behind 
them were two men, each cheerfully pitching the different models to 
her as she feigned interest. 


Just a few more minutes, Shaw thought to herself. Her hidden ear 
piece was abuzz with the various communications of the rest of the 
task force. They were just moments away from being ready to strike. 
Up to this point, everything had gone perfectly. Shaw just needed to 
relax, and bide her time. She then returned her attention to the two 
salesmen. 


The first man, who had introduced himself as Phineas, appeared to 
be in his fifties, with a bald head, a long white beard, and almost 
translucent skin. A faint mechanical whirling every time he walked or 
moved his hands or eyes indicated that several of his appendages 
were likely to be bionic. He wore an all-black business suit with a red 
tie, the former only serving to make his faint skin look fainter. 


The second man, who had been introduced as Miles, was much 
younger, barely appearing to be out of his mid-twenties. His skin 
was dark and he had a shaved head. His manner of constantly 

fidgeting suggested that this was likely his first time on the sales 


floor. 


There’s our prey, Shaw thought to herself, and gave Miles a small 
smile. The boy quickly averted his eyes and turned his head away. 


“And that’s the last of our models Ms. Starling,” Phineas said with a 
warm smile. “As | said before, these are just our demo models. Each 
unit is fully customizable to meet whatever specifications Mr. Hill 
currently has in mind.” 


“T-15 seconds to strike!” Merlo’s voice called in Shaw’s ear. 


“Well Phineas,” said Shaw with a grin, her voice uncharacteristically 
bubbly as she offered a hand shake. “I must say you two really know 
how to put on a show. | was quite impressed from start to finish.” 


“Anderson does aim to please,” Phineas said as he accepted. 
Meanwhile, Shaw counted down in her head from 5, 4, 3, 2, 7... 


“Gotcha...” Shaw mumbled under her breath, gently letting go of the 
old man’s hand and taking several steps backward. 


The demo models all shut down as an electromagnetic pulse ripped 
through the building. Seconds later, the rest of the mobile task force 
crashed into the warehouse. 


“Phineas...” Miles shouted, his jaw dropping in terror. 


“Run Miles!” The old man shouted, quickly reaching into his jacket 
pockets and throwing their contents at the droids as Shaw began to 
draw her pistol. Globs of neon blue goo flew through the air, landing 
on the droids and causing them to quickly crumble into rust. Shaw 
began to squeeze the trigger, her aim centered on Phineas’s leg. 
However, with almost superhuman speed, the old man closed the 
distance between them, grabbed the pistol with one hand and 
Shaw’s jacket with the other, effortlessly throwing her away. The 
agent flew through the air twenty feet, landing with a hard thud on 
the ground. Phineas was still holding onto her pistol. 


How are his bionic limbs still working, Shaw thought to herself as a 
deafening ringing filled her ears, they should be fried. What is he... 


Shaw managed to prop herself up, to watch the ensuing firefight 
unfold. 


Phineas and Miles quickly took cover behind a shipping container, 
Phineas judicially using Shaw’s pistol to fire at the Foundation 
agents as they got too close. However, it soon became clear to both 
sides that the two salesmen were pinned, and the MTF members 
were closing in. To make matters worse, a stray bullet soon found 
itself lodged in Miles’s leg. 


“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!” Miles’s shout pierced the din of the gunfire 
and he collapsed to the ground. Phineas quickly got to work 
dragging his comrade back towards the warehouse’s wall, his last 
four shots used to cover his trail, downing two SCP agents in the 
process. The empty click of the pistol sent Phineas into a fit of rage. 


With fluid motion he quickly turned to the wall, reaching into his 
pocket and unleashing several more handfuls of the neon blue goo. 
Within moments, a man sized hole had been eaten into the 
building’s side, the nearby river visible through the opening. Phineas 
then turned towards Miles, a handful of the corrosive substance held 
aloft ready to be thrown. 


“Phineas, no!” Miles screamed in terror, quickly raising his hands to 
cover his face. Phineas stopped mid-throw, his hand shaking as he 
looked down at his incapacitated friend. 


With a screech of fury Phineas chucked the goo at an approaching 
agent, clipping the man’s arm as it passed. The man let out a 
scream of pain as his arm melted into a puddle of blood and lysed 
tissue on the floor. 


“God damn it, Wilson!” Phineas shouted as he turned on the spot 
and sprinted at the hole in the wall, diving through it and 
disappearing into the world beyond. 


Shaw had gotten to her feet and was sprinting toward the hole. 
Several MTF members already had secured the wailing Miles. When 
she arrived at the hole, there was no sign of Phineas, just the dark 
waters of the Willamette River glittering in the late afternoon sun. 


Shaw turned around to see Merlo triumphantly standing over Miles, 
as the MTF quickly set about sedating him and placing him on a 
stretcher. 


“After all this time,” Merlo began, “We finally caught one of you 
bastards.” 


Agent Clarissa Shaw sat quietly at her desk at Site-64, filling out her 
share of the paperwork for the recent Anderson sting. Save for the 
occasional patter of her keyboard, the room was silent, her other 
four office mates having gone to lunch a few minutes prior. This 
proved to be relief, however, as it gave Shaw a chance to collect her 
thoughts on what had transpired in recent days. 


Shaw let out an exhausted sigh. On one hand, she was glad to have 
helped out the “Asimov's Lawbringers” as much as she did on her 
first mission with them. On the other hand, she had a sinking feeling 
that having Miles in custody was only going to create more 
questions than it answered. 


Shaw gave a startled jump as the door to the office flew inwards. 
Agent Merlo stormed in with a giant grin on her face. 


“He’s a Saker!” She said, her voice trembled as she tossed a folder 

down onto Shaw’s desk. Agent Shaw cringed slightly as all the pens 
and papers she had neatly ordered fell into disarray. Shaw gingerly 

opened the folder and scanned its contents. 


“Miles?”