Who am |? | am a sleeper agent. | worked for the Chaos Insurgency, 
or whatever you're calling us these days. | was given my job and 
then sent as bait to your Foundation. You quickly snapped me up 
and gave me a good position. Over time, | gained responsibility. | 
waited and waited, until our little fuzzy courier activated me. Once 
activated, | grabbed what | could, took any information | found, and 
left. 


Who am |? | am an O5. | was a doctor at one point in my life. | 
researched Scips, | did experiments, and | risked my life in the name 
of safety and science. | worked my way up through the ranks, until 
the day | was killed. Or promoted. Or whatever you want to call it. | 
tragically died in a lab experiment gone wrong. The next day, | woke 
up in an office. | was led to a computer, and they gave me a briefing 
on what | was, who | was, and what | had to do. Anyone who had 
ever known me went through selective memory therapy to get rid of 
any memory of me. They edited documents to expunge or delete my 
name, but they did miss a few. 


Who am |? | am a prank. A few of the rookie researchers thought it 
would be funny to stick my name on a few documents. They did this 
for many years. They all got promoted to various positions. One 
even got promoted to a site director. He decided that it would be a 
hoot to give this fake doctor an actual office. The O5s learned about 
this and sent him on his way. They never removed my name from 
any of the documents though. | have no idea why. 


Who am |? | am Ethical. | worked and toiled for many years with little 


thanks given in return. | was later given a rather large project. While 
working on the project, nothing seemed to go my way. Chemicals 
spilled, items were misplaced, incorrect products were delivered. | 
almost gave up. | eventually finished the project with acceptable 
results. | gave the results to my superior, and he told me that | was 
being moved for unknown reasons. | was shipped to some place in 
France. There, | was told that | had been accepted into the Ethics 
Committee, and that one project was my test. I'll be damned if | can 
figure out what that project had to do with Ethics, but I'll live with it. 
Since | was now with the Ethics Committee, my name was stripped 
from the official records, my office was cleared, and anyone who 
knew me forgot me due to the Committee's memory selection 
process. 


Who am |? | am an urban legend of sorts. Whenever something 
went wrong in an experiment, | was the one who caused the 
problem. Granted, | didn't exist, but humans always like having a 
scapegoat. | drifted from site to site. Sometimes, | was even in 
multiple areas at once. | was a diligent, but clumsy, worker in some 
places, and a demon in others. They say that over time, a myth can 
become reality if enough people believe in it. | was just such a case. 
Sometimes, in quiet laboratories, | would whisper in the lone 
scientist's ear. Or maybe, | would accidentally knock a vial over. | 
would switch the order of sheets in a person's hand, or put my name 
on a document. | took pictures with people, and sometimes had one- 
sided conversations with people. It was all great fun. Sadly, higher- 
ups heard wind of my antics, and put a stop to it. 


Who am |? | am nothing. | was just a regular doctor trying to 
neutralize a dangerous object. The object's defense mechanism 
kicked in, and both me and the object ceased to exist. Life's a bitch, 
but I'll get over it. 


Who am |? | am Dr. Gideon, SCP-431. | worked for the Foundation, 
but | never worked for them. | was a really nice guy, if | existed. | 
paid my taxes and was paid with money that never existed. | worked 
hard on projects that were never started, and on a few that did. | 
befriended people who never knew me. | posed for pictures that 
were never taken. | am an anomaly. | shouldn't exist, yet | do. | exist 
in your files, and in the impossible corners of reality, nowhere else. 


Who am |? | don't know. 


The War and The Many Faces 


Part || Part Il: The War and The Many Faces | Part III 


The strike team followed the road — a long ways from the city, past 
sleepy towns and grazing pastures. 


The road had been whittled down, by elements, by trucks, or simply 
by time. After some miles, the road, reduced to a dirt path, 
terminated in a field of long, graying grass. 


It was all a ruse, of course. This wasn't an empty field, and the road 
didn't simply end. Glamour and wards deployed by those on the run 
had obscured what was truly present. 


It was clever. But not clever enough, not anymore. And now, it had 
become surrounded by trucks, by analysts pacing about with 
clipboards. One uniformed woman set up a chair in the dirt, while 
another stared through a curved spyglass-device at the center of the 
activity. Three men communicated quietly while examining munitions 
in the back of a truck. They were preparing for war. Five people lie in 
the dust. 


The five were sitting in a circle, or a pentagram. Their characteristics 
obscured by metal armor and illusion. They were chanting in an 
unrecognizable language. 


They couldn't know, but behind the barrier, in a stained cardigan, 
was Adrian Baudin. He stared at the five and one, visible to him 
through the blue smoke and mist that defined the barrier from his 
end. 


A sound from behind him. Adrian's neck swiveled to look over his 
shoulder. It was Geoff. 


"Didn't mean to sneak up on you." He looked tired. The color had 
drained from his face, rendering him as drab as anything else in the 


bubble. 
Adrian shook his head. "It's fine. Just on edge." 


Geoff took two steps forward, standing abreast of him now. He 
scratched at his scalp. "Have they," he struggled at the words, "have 
they told you what their plan is?" 


Adrian swallowed. "No. Have they told you?" 


"Nothing. Not a single word. Like | don't exist. More friendly with 
you." 


"| wouldn't... call it that." 


The older man shrugged. "Call it what you will. It's not a good 
feeling.” 


A sigh escaped Adrian. "I'm sorry. We'll do what we have to do. 
We'll make it out." 


"Intact?" 
"As intact as we can be." 


"Suppose | can't ask for more than that." Geoff's eyes followed the 
slow movements of the false mists visible through the bubble. If one 
watched for long enough, they'd loop around — like cheaply 
produced footage. 


Adrian followed his gaze, tracing it to the five sitting in the dust, 
barely visible through the barrier. They were holding their hands up. 
Almost climactic. Surely transcendent. 


Adrian nodded. "I can get us out of this." 


Right? 
Right you are! 


After a few more minutes, the pair turned around and re-entered the 
sagging house. 


The Cool Kids were buzzing around. It's all they could do anymore, 
clearly. 


Adrian saw them pace about with brushes and paints. Not to make 
anything, really — they were used to reinforce sigils left about the 
house, directors of some kind of flow, some energy. 


He watched them stand in front of the barrier, sometimes together, 
sometimes alone. Strengthening it. He wondered if they had done 
this before. Maybe they could make it go away, and with a word the 
pursuers would crumble into dust and swirl in with the dirt and sand 
of the field. 


Houses don't get built overnight. How long has it been here? How 
long will it continue to be here? 


That night, just before sunset, Adrian decided to look out the front 
door, check on the pursuers outside, as if they'd just be gone. He 
stood in the doorway. 


He heard a voice he didn't recognize. 


"Hey." It was one of his hosts. Adrian's head snapped to the right, 
and then up. Some kid, standing on a ladder. He pointed 
downwards. "Hold the ladder." 


"Oh," Adrian nodded. "Right." The ladder leaned up against the 
edge of the roof, depressing the moldy wood and shingles. Still, 
Adrian stepped over to it, and braced the bottom with his arms. 


He swallowed, and looked up. It seemed the man was fiddling with 
something on top of the sloped roof, but Adrian couldn't see what it 
was. 


A few seconds of silence. 


"Um," Adrian said. "So... do you all feel... ready? For what's 
happening out there?" 


He didn't turn around. "We have been ready. You'll be ready too." 


"Yeah... okay... but that doesn't sound especially reassuring. Or 


even... clear." The ladder wobbled a bit, but Adrian caught it. 


"You're an artist, right? You know... sometimes you have the paints, 
but not the right canvas. Right?" 


"Yeah, I... | know that." 


"There's going to be a time, soon... when we'll have the right 
canvas. And we can make what needs to be made. And you can 
help with that, you know?" 


"I'm... sure | could, but | don't know how. Or what." 


"Yeah, we can help. You just have to be open. Let it happen." He 
must have been working on something very fine, not to take his eyes 
off it for so long. 


Adrian was going to respond, but he heard something. A whistling 
noise, coming from nowhere in particular. 


It quickly grew in volume and pitch. It reminded Adrian of old war 
movies he'd seen; mortars, whistling through the air, until... 


There was a loud booming noise coming from overhead. 


Adrian looked up, and he could see, across the center of the bubble, 
a five-pointed starburst of deep red, spreading slowly across the 
barrier. 


It grew to several meters tall, an angry star over the house, before 
receding to nothing. 


Adrian stared at it. He glanced to the boy on the ladder who had 
finally turned away from his work, neck arched to stare at the ceiling 
of the shield. 


He was grinning. 


The knock on the door had come. Efforts had been redoubled. The 
sun set quickly, not wanting to stick around for the nighttime. 


SCP-999: The Tickle Monster 


Item #: SCP-999 
Object Class: Safe 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-999 is allowed to freely 
roam the facility should it desire to, but otherwise must stay in its 
pen. Subject is not allowed out of its pen at night or off facility 
grounds at any time. Pen is to be kept clean and food replaced twice 
daily. All personnel are allowed inside SCP-999’s holding area, but 
only if they are not assigned to other tasks at the time, or if they are 
on break. Subject is to be played with when bored and spoken to in 
a calm, non-threatening tone. 


Description: SCP-999 appears to be a large, amorphous, 
gelatinous mass of translucent orange slime, weighing about 54 kg 
(120 lbs) with a consistency similar to that of peanut butter. 
Subject’s size and shape constantly change, though most of the 
time its form is the size of a large beanbag chair. Composition of 
SCP-999 is oil-based, but consists of a substance unknown to 
modern science. Other than a thin, transparent membrane 
surrounding the orange mass, subject appears to have no organs to 
speak of. 


Subject’s temperament is best described as playful and dog-like: 
when approached, SCP-999 will react with overwhelming elation, 
slithering over to the nearest person and leaping upon them, 
“hugging” them with a pair of pseudopods while nuzzling the 
person’s face with a third pseudopod, all the while emitting high- 
pitched gurgling and cooing noises. The surface of SCP-999 emits a 
pleasing odor that differs with whomever it is interacting with. 
Recorded scents include chocolate, fresh laundry, bacon, roses, and 
Play-Doh™., 


Simply touching SCP-999’s surface causes an immediate euphoria, 
which intensifies the longer one is exposed to SCP-999, and lasts 


The blasts kept coming, each one striking into the shield. After each 
attack, the barrier seemed to look the same. But the people outside 
wouldn't be using this technique unless they expected it to drill 
through eventually. 


Adrian couldn't think about it forever. He had to sleep. When his 
consciousness gave out, he was lying on his cot in the basement, 
waiting for his eyes to grow too heavy... 


After that, he found himself in a city. This wasn't any place he 
recognized — the buildings were short and small, each one a 
square column sticking up from uncomfortably flat expanses of 
concrete and asphalt. Adrian stood in the middle of a street. 


There was no-one else around. No streetlamps, no billboards. No 
light at all. The sky was black nothing. 


Adrian only heard one noise, faint, like it had been carried on the 
wind (but the air was dead) and he could feel it coming from the 
north, straight ahead of him. 


He walked along the road. The buildings around him began to 
repeat. They didn't look like anything he'd seen before, concrete 
houses with sagging shingled roofs. 


He kept walking, and the noise grew louder. It sounded like people, 
warm laughter, clinking of dishes and metal utensils. It was getting 
closer. 


As Adrian rounded a corner, he came to it, a building much taller, 
more condensed than the rest. It stood wide, larger even than the 
house back in the field. Concrete walls behind painted white pillars, 
an ornate door dead-center. The sound was inside. Adrian knocked. 


No response. He opened the door. The noise grew louder. But there 
was no-one inside. 


He took a step in. He was in a hallway. To his right was a lectern of 
some kind. The hallway split off into open doorways on either side, 
to several different rooms. It looked like some high-class restaurant. 
The noise continued. 


He crept forward, peeking into the first room on the left. He saw 
tables, chairs, and at one there was a woman, someone he knew, 
someone he- 


"Mister Baudin. Please, take a seat." The moment she spoke, the 
dining sounds ceased. Her voice was lightly accented, German. He 
knew that voice. He had seen her, just before the exhibition. She 
came to his apartment. 


He swallowed, eyes trained firmly on the ground. "What are you 
doing here?" 


"You're dreaming,” she said curtly. 
"Oh." 


"Take a seat." Adrian found himself standing next to the chair, now, 
but he knew he hadn't moved. And now he was seated. 


The tablecloth was white. There were paintings on the walls, but the 
walls were painted blue. Adrian did not look at the paintings, he just 
looked at the empty plate in front of him. "Are you... here?" 


"We have surrounded the dwelling. Our current collaborators 
required a more specialized approach, to break through the walls." 


"Are you talking to the... others?" 


"The Cool Kids? No. It would be a waste of resources and our 
limited time." 


"Okay..." Adrian breathed but it felt like a formality. This wasn't real, 
was it? "Why me?" 


"You seem to be someone outside it all, yes? An observer, in the 
truest sense. Professionals are always open to the opinion of an 
outside observer. We wish to understand you. But first-" 


There was a clap — from the woman, presumably — and when 
Adrian blinked his plate was no longer empty. There was something 
on it, and a fork in his hand. 


He dipped the utensil down, edge-first, pressing into the matter on 
his plate. He lifted it carefully to his mouth and took the bite. It tasted 
like broad nothing, an encompassing absence. He blinked again. His 
fork was gone. 


"Why am | eating this?" His throat was dry, now. 


"It's a dinner, Mister Baudin. That's what you do." There was a 
fluttering noise, and the table began to contract, bringing Adrian 
closer to her. He didn't look up. 


Adrian didn't speak, or couldn't. 


"Routine. Convention. It is the simplest way to power. Each time an 
action is made, the connection strengthens inside the actor. They 
become more sure, and it becomes their nature. The one who 
controls the actions, yes, they have power, but so too does the 
actor. They have a sureness of being. A simplicity.” 


Adrian squinted at the tablecloth. "And... the people back in the 
house, they don't?"