"Have you ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds?" asked 
Administrator Simmons. 


"Uhh, yeah." replied Vice Administrator Nelson. 


"Do you remember that one scene where they're at the school, and 
all the crows are on the playground?" 


"Yeah." 


"Well this is just that... except they're murderous locusts." Simmons 
pointed at the locusts resting in the hallway corridor. "Kahching, 


kahjough, let's go." 


Simmons and Nelson peeked around the corner towards the exit 
area for Section Ten. The corridor led to the G7 Fire Door, which on 
the other side was Section Nine. The corridor's floor was blanketed 
in resting locusts, one of swarms caught up in the containment 
breach. There was no way to get around the locusts without going 
directly through them in some way. Simmons went first, looking at 
small openings where he could fit his feet in. The concrete floor 
contrasted with the brown locusts so spotting any openings weren't 
too difficult. The two men tried their best to keep quiet, and it was 
easy for Simmons. Nelson, who was right behind Simmons, was 
having a little problem - he wasn't as agile as the thinner Simmons. 
Nelson had always complained about being pudgy, and certainly 
didn't want to be a burger for locusts. 


"You good? We can make it out." whispered Simmons. 
"Yeah, I'm doing fine." 


"You think we can make it in time to the control room?" asked 
Simmons. Nelson had no answer, because he had just stepped on 
several locusts with a sickening crunch. A soft buzzing noise 
started to emit from the floor as the two men gunned it down the 
hallway. 


"G7 Fire Door locking down." announced the VOX. 


The noise, akin to someone crunching on raisin bran, echoed 
throughout the hallway. The locusts at this point were sufficiently 
disturbed enough to start picking at the two hapless men. Simmons 
made it through the door first, Nelson had to crouch underneath the 
falling door. There were still some locusts clinging on to the two 
men, which they promptly swatted away. 

"Let's not ever do that again, Nelson." Simmons complained. 


"Agreed. Now let's get to that control room." 


—~= 


The control room antechamber was a small rectangular room that 


SCP-963: Immortality 


Item #: SCP-963 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-963-1 is to be given into 
the care of a current D level operative, as well as personnel 
classified as Dr. Bright's assistant. This assistant is to be chosen by 
O5- for loyalty to the Foundation, as well as psychological stability. 


SCP-963 is to be attached to the subject's forehead or the back of 
the subject's hand using a suitably strong epoxy. SCP-963-1 is now 
hung by a chain from subject's neck. 963-1 is not allowed to be 
hidden upon the subject's body. Any attempt to do so will be met 
with lethal force. 


If the current D-level subject exceeds a thirty-day life span, they are 
to be executed and a new subject chosen to wear 963-1. By order of 
O5- , any body SCP-963-1 is installed upon is given a stay of 
execution until it passes on of natural causes, or 963-1 is transferred 
to a new host. 


ATTENTION: As of 12/13/ 963-1 is not allowed in proximity of any 
Euclid or Keter class humanoid SCPs. This directive is to be 
enforced lethally. Rescinded, O5-6, 05-8, O5-9 


ATTENTION: As of Incident-239-b Clef-Kondraki, SCP-963-1 is not 
allowed at Site 17 without the express permission of three O5's. 
Violations are to be met with lethal force. Rescinded, 05-6, 05-8, 
05-9 


Description: SCP-963-1 is an ornate amulet approximately 15 
centimeters in circumference made from white gold, with thirteen 
(13) k brilliant-cut diamonds surrounding a_ k oval-cut ruby ina 
starburst pattern. It was discovered in the personal effects of 
who had been found dead by apparent suicide, surrounded by a 


really served no purpose than to act as a second verification step for 
the control room. It was made out of concrete, like most of Site-136, 
but covered in plaster and made nice. When Pettan arrived at the 
control room's antechamber, he found the door open as he had 
expected. What he had not expected, however, was the dead body 
on the antechamber floor. It was awkwardly slumped in the corner, 
the corpse's hand still on an identification card. Blood was 
permeating on the floor, all around the body. Petahn cautiously 
turned over the corpse. What greeted him was the sight of half a 
face blown off. 


"Oh, fucking Chri-", said Petahn, gagging. "Bloody hell. Ugh." The 
best course of action, Petahn thought, would be to check whose 
face had gotten so distorted. 


"Ph... uhh.. Phi... something?" Petahn asked himself. He tried to 
wipe the blood off of the card with his soot-stained lab coat. He 
managed to wipe off enough to reveal the name. 


"Phillip Nelson? Vice Administrator Nelson?" he asked himself yet 
again. The mangled corpse looked nothing like the decent-looking 
man that was - or had been - Vice Administrator Nelson. Petahn 
patted Nelson's body to find anything remotely useful. He felt a 
bulge under the corpse's arm and pulled back its brown jacket to 
find a revolver encapsulated in its holster. 


"Well, well. What do we have here, Dirty Harry?" Petahn quizzed the 
corpse. He had the unusual quality of questioning the obvious, but 
that also was valuable in research at the Foundation. He had dilly- 
dallied enough with Nelson, an unfortunate loss. Petahn laid the 
body down gently, then placed Nelson's keycard in the 
administrative slot, just left on the antechamber's inner door. He 
subsequently scanned his own card in the activation slot. 


"Voice identification required." the VOX commanded. 
"James Alexander Petahn." 
"Voice password required." 


"Bu-", Petahn started in protest, before hesitantly relinquishing the 


password. 
"| like cheesecake." Petahn leaned into the speaker and muttered. 


"Voice control accepted. West PLAN-X Inner Door opening." When 
the iron barrier that separated the main chamber had lifter, Petahn 
entered gun drawn. But no sooner than he had walked five steps he 
heard a spectre from the shadows. 


"Put the revolver down, Petahn." 
"Who's there?" 

"Put down the gun, Petahn." 
"Why should |?" 


The answer he received was a bullet whizzing past his ear. "That's 
good enough for me." admitted Petahn. He threw the revolver down 
and it clattered loudly on the tile. A gun barrel extended from the 
shadows, followed by a hand, then an arm, then a familiar suit-clad 
figure. He kicked the revolver before sitting down in an available 
swivel chair. The figure motioned to Petahn to move over opposite 
him, near a control panel. 


"Of course it's you, Simmons. Not like I'd expected anything better of 
you.” stated Petahn. 


"Not like anyone else could. Look at what your damn locusts did to 
my arm." Simmons lifted it up; it was wrapped in a bandage, but 
Petahn could clearly see that Simmons's right hand and most of his 
right forearm was gone. 

"Jesus, what happened, Simmons?" Petahn asked, concerned. 


"| got a bit too close to the action. Where were you when the breach 
happened?" 


Petahn was a bit taken back by this question, but he answered 
nonetheless; "I was in the East Sector. Taking care of business." 


"What business, Petahn? Creating a containment breach so you get 


rid of me? Because you knew | was going to shut you down? 


Petahn remained silent to this question. It looked like Simmons 
hesitantly wanted an answer, but he was not going to get one. 


"But anway, Petahn," continued Simmons, "I can't do any justice 
with this. I'm going to need your help." 


"Help for what, Simmons?" asked Petahn. 
"Help to turn this godforsaken place into a nuclear crater." 


"A nuclear crater? Simmons, | came here to tell you - or whomever, 
for that matter - that we can recontain the instances. We don't need 
to use PLAN-X." 


"| don't trust your word. Can someone back that up?" 
"Captain Quayle." 


Simmons looked questionably at Petahn before making a statement. 
He started to say something, paused, then finally said: "If you can 
get him to tell me, I'll consider it." 


Pettan reached for his back to pull out the radio when he felt the 
Model 36. He still had a backup plan, in case things went wrong. 
Simmons lifted the gun and aimed it right at Petahn's chest. 


"I'm just getting a radio." Petahn said, before unclipping the radio all 
the way. He turned it on and to the correct channel band, before 
pushing the PTT button and sending out his message. 


"Researcher Petahn to Captain Quayle, come in, over." Nothing but 
white noise. Petahn tried again. 


"Researcher Petahn to Captain Quayle, come in, over." Again 
nothing. Simmons chuckled as Petahn reclipped the radio to his 
back. 


"| expected that. I'm sure you came here to stop me personally." 


"Shut your damn trap, Simmons, or I'll do it for you. You're still 


spouting bullshit like you're some goddamn movie character." 


"It's really not good to threaten people with guns, Petahn. You'll only 
get yourself killed." 


"You're the one who fucking shot Nelson then? You psychopath. If | 
had known that was you | would have shot you myself." 


The two men stood in the awkward air, stagnating around the 
silence in the room. It remained this way in every light and every 
shadow for several minutes. The two men were at a loss for each 
other, and stared intently. Eventually, the men couldn't bear to gaze 
at each other and looked at their twiddling thumbs. Their emotions 
had reached its melting point but neither man wanted to admit it. 
Simmons finally broke the silence. 


"Alright, | thought he was trying to attack me. He wanted to abort it, 
just like you, and when | said | was going to blow the place up, his 

hand slipped into his jacket and then | just... | just pulled, alright? | 

had nothing against him." 


Petahn sighed. He realized that getting angry and throwing insults 
wasn't going to help the situation they were in. His best bet was to 
reach some sort of a compromise, where everyone was happy and 
alive. Petahn knew it was never in Simmons's intention to hurt 
anyone. Although he didn't trust his temper that much, he knew he 
could reach something in the Administrator to convince him to not 
just blow up the place. 


"This isn't going anywhere soon. Goddammit, Simmons, | can fix 
this. Just don't blow up the place because you're..." 


"Because I'm what?" Simmons demanded. 


"Because you're afraid that there isn't a hope. I'm here to tell you, 
even though things have been rough, you've got to still Keep a sliver 
a hope, Simmons. Somewhere. But I've been wrong too. I've been 
too confident. We'll leave it up to the fail-safe. How long do you think 
those things will take to overrun Site-136?" 


"Thirty minutes. At best." admitted Simmons. He finally realized his 


nervousness as well the futility of forcing his way. 


"Then we'll wait thirty minutes. If nothing happens then, and we have 
confirmation everything's contained, how about we honor everyone 
whose gone so far by kicking the ass out of these locusts? Does that 
sound good?" 


Simmons smiled, plopped down in a green chair, and adjusted his 
watch. 


"That's the Petahn | know." 


The Morality of Insects 
Insect Hell 


Zero Hour 


The Last Redcoat 


MisterKillam (Riley A. G. Killam) 


It all started quietly enough, on a rooftop in Hajji Shah Wali Kalay, a 
name that nearly everybody, including Michael Oliver, hated typing 
in situation reports, after-action reviews, and area assessments. He 
woke up with the sun, having slept on the roof to take advantage of 
the cool breeze that came in from the desert to the south. Mike 
pulled his sleeping bag over his eyes, trying to shut out the sun, shut 
out the whole damnable country, trying in vain for a few more 
minutes’ dreaming of home. 


After the sleeping bag started acting more like an oven, he finally 
relented to the call of his morning cigarette, sitting on his cot while 
he slipped on his sandals and lit one of his last remaining American 
cigarettes. By noon, he'd have to switch to the Afghan brand. They 
tasted of turpentine and felt like swallowing steel wool, but nicotine 
was nicotine, after all. Any chemical relief was more than welcome 
in a country that was dry in every sense of the word. The coffee 
boiled over a petrol stove as he read the notes from the night's radio 
traffic, insurgents doing nothing but asking each other what they 
were thinking about at odd hours of the night, nothing out of the 
ordinary for the ineptly tenacious gang of so-called Taliban that 
claimed the bazaar and surrounding farm villages as their sacred 
ground. Sure, there were bombings and rocket attacks, ex- 
Mujahideen turning against their one-time liberators, but these 
happenings seemed clustered in every district but the idyllic 
countryside of the Horn of Panjwai. Mike met with the rest of the 
team, discussed the day's presence patrol, spent a few minutes 
sharing some choice Pashto phrases with the perpetually stoned 
platoon of Afghan National Police who shared the mud-walled 
compound with their detachment, and set to preparing for the day's 
nature hike through the fields of pink flowers that surrounded their 
ersatz home. 


The first sign that something was out of place was the sky. The 
skies were overcast, steel-grey clouds obscuring the afternoon's hot 
sun. The weather forecast had made no mention of any significant 
cloud cover, and the rains wouldn't come until the next monsoon, in 
the fall. His teammates didn't notice anything, not wanting to look 
that gift horse in the mouth until they were done trudging through the 
hashish fields. As was his tradition, Mike took a seven-lobed leaf 
from one of the plants and put it in his beard, reciting the only line of 
Coleridge that anyone knew as he stuck it under his chin. They kept 
walking toward the mesa that dominated the Horn, moving to relieve 
the sniper and observer that had spent the previous day atop the 
rock overlooking their little slice of purgatory. They never took the 
same route twice, not wanting to invite a landmine from the local 
insurgency, and on this particular ascent, he noticed a small opening 
in the side, just big enough for a man wearing less kit than he to 
squeeze through. He told the patrol to go on, taking the new kid with 
him to check the hollow for any arms caches or explosives. 


Brian followed his team sergeant into the cave, slipping out of his 
body armor and pulling it in after him before donning it and 
searching the small cavern. “Boss, looks like it keeps going. We 
going to keep looking?” 


“Do bears shit in the woods? Keep your voice down,” Mike 
admonished. He knew he should forgive the kid, he hadn't trained in 
caves, he hadn't been up north, where the snake holes stretched for 
miles and housed entire underground cities. Still, there could be 
something deeper in. Mike radioed to his team to relieve the sniper 
team and make their way to the cave while he left a chemlight by the 
first bend. They made their way deeper, leaving more chemlights 
every few meters, switching on their night vision when the sunlight 
stopped shining deep into the cave. 


They first heard the voice after they had been walking for two 
hundred meters. It was too faint to make out, but it didn't have the 
slurred, fluid syllables of Pashto. They kept going, keeping quiet as 
the voice slowly grew in volume. After a hundred more meters, they 
could tell that the voice was shouting in English, calling for help ina 
hoarse, raspy tone. They pressed on more quickly now, deeper into 
the rock, straining to hear the plea for help over their echoing