The man took a step forward, and barked another order. Wayne 
began to kneel down. A wave of the Queen's hand stopped him. 
She said a few more words, her face blank. Her gaze turned 
towards Hill. 


His face fell. “I'm sorry, ma'am. It was my daughter... | couldn't just 
let her... they said they would fix her if | led them to you...” 


“Be quiet,” she said. “I don't care. Sister, these men are about to 
start shooting at us.” 


“What?” 


“Now!” yelled the Queen, and leaped to the side. She scrambled 
behind the screen and the Sister, without thinking, followed. She slid 
into cover just as the firing started. There was the sound of glass 
breaking, and a body collapsing. From the other side of the screen, 
Wayne moaned in pain. 


The side they were using also had a screen. The red bar blinked: 


“15%” 


Low voices speaking in Russian from the other side. Someone 
yelled. Footsteps, running farther away. More arguing, then two 
gunshots, and Hill screaming. 


“20%” 

A Russian voice barked at them. 

“What happens when it reaches 100%?” said the Sister. 
“We'll be transported to the set destination,” said the Queen.” 
“Okay, great. And how long will that take?” 

“Two minutes. But it's not our primary concern.” 

“Of course it isn't.” 


“| never was able to finish inputting the destination. If it activates 
now, I'm not certain where we'll end up.” 


27% 

The footsteps were drawing closer. 

“Have you killed anyone before?” said the Queen. 
The Sister paled. “Um. Once.” 


“| see.” The Queen opened her jacket and pulled out two pistols. 
She handed one to the Sister. “Do you know to use this?” 


“... Yeah.” 

“We're going to have to kill them.” 

35% 

“| don't even know who the hell they are! What do they want?” 


“Presumably revenge for killing a guard and trying to steal their 


technology.” The Queen handed her a magazine, then slapped one 
into her own gun. “ Only the most recent event in a long line of 
conflicts between us. They'll almost be here. Be ready. I'm going to 
need to input the last of the coordinates. When they come around, 
stop them.” 


40% 


The Queen inched to the side panel and began typing. As she did, 
numbers ran across the bottom of the screen. The Sister looked 
over her shoulder, at the other end of the screen. There was no one 
there. But she could hear, faintly, the sound of footsteps. 


46% 


The Queen continued to type. The Sister scanned the area, looking 
for any movement, looking for any sign of- 


“Stoy!” said a voice behind her. She spun around, lifting the pistol. It 
was too late. The man had his rifle trained on her, finger resting on 
the trigger. Another next to him trained his weapon on the Queen. 
Sighing, she backed away from the keyboard and raised her hands. 


58% 


Two more men emerged from the other side. They circled around 
the women to stand behind them. 


The Queen spoke in Russian, but the men did not respond. One 
motioned for the Sister to stand. She did. He said something she 
couldn't understand. The Queen replied without looking at him. 
Beads of sweat were starting to form on her face. 


64% 

“Did... did you make it?” said the Sister. 
The Queen shook her head. “Almost.” 
“What do we do now?” 


“Shut. Up,” said one of the men behind them. He slung his weapon 


over his shoulder, and approached the Sister. Taking a pair of 
handcuffs from his belt, he grabbed her arms, wrenching them 
behind her back. She shuddered as the cold steel wrapped around 
her wrists. Pain shot through her knees, and she fell to the floor. 


73% 


“I'm sorry,” said the Sister. “Dammit, | shouldn't have-” The man 
stepped forward and kicked her in the gut. Pain tore through her. 
She gasped, trying to suck in air, but couldn't. 


The Queen stared at him. “Don't do that again,” she said, in 
Russian. 


“And if | do?” he said. 

She turned her eyes to the screen. 

79% 

“Put your hands on your head. Get on your knees.” 
She didn't move. 


“We don't want to make this difficult. We're not going to kill you, but 
we'll hurt you if we have to.” 


She stayed frozen. Her eyes were locked on the blinking number. 


The man sighed, un-slung his weapon, pointed it at the Sister. “We 
can hurt her, too. Is that what you want?” 


85% 


The Queen gritted her teeth. She slid her hands down, locking her 
fingers behind her head, but stayed standing. 


“We're waiting,” said the man. 


“If you touch her,” said the Queen, without looking at him, “there 
won't even be a corpse by the time I'm finished with you.” 


The man chuckled. “You think you have room make threats?” 


93% 


He spat. “You think you're so clever, dancing around us for years. 
Lying. Stealing. Making us look like fools. Did you think you could it 
up forever? You thought you were much better than us, so much 
smarter. Now you'll see-” 


99% 


Her hand shot forward. It slapped into the keyboard, mashing down 
five keys. The bottom of the screen flashed white. 


100% 


The world fell away. 


Was she flying? 


It felt like she was flying. Hurtling down through the air. The familiar 
drop in her stomach. The sensation of stepping off a ledge and 
feeling the tug of gravity sending you towards Earth. She opened 
her eyes. Then she tried to open then again, because there was 
nothing but darkness. Turning her head to the left, she saw the 
Queen, and the man, hovering in the darkness. As if they were 
standing on an invisible floor. Behind them, loomed the screen. The 
screen flashed red, over and over. The man had his gun raised, 
pointed at the Queen's head. He tried to fire, but nothing happened 
when he pulled the trigger. 


The Queen held her pistol against the side of his helmet. She said 
nothing, only stared straight into his eyes. The Sister looked behind 
her. The other men had their weapons raised. They were also trying 
to fire, but the guns didn't respond. One moved a foot forward, as if 
to take a step, but instead of landing it fell. He stumbled and fall, 
hitting the invisible floor. 


The Sister tried to push herself to her feet, but could find no surface 
to press against. She tried to breath, but there was no air. She 
opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. There was only 
the feeling of falling, and the figures around her. 


Reality hit her like a sledgehammer. One second, darkness. The 
next, a burst of light, green, brown, and orange. Pain rushed through 
her, like she was being mashed into the ground by a giant thumb. 
She screamed, and over the noise heard gunshots. Several minutes 
later, when the pain subsided enough for her to open her eyes, she 
saw the Queen standing over her. 


“What... what happened?” She pushed herself to her feet, clutching 
her side. It felt like one of her ribs was cracked. They were ina 
forest. The trees towered above them, hundreds of feet tall, and the 
ground was covered in a blanket of fallen leaves. Birds twittered in 
the branches above. Several meters away, a furry, six-legged 
animal watched them with unblinking gray eyes. Branches and vines 
sprouted from under its fur to wrap around its body. Next to them, 
the screen sprouted from the ground. “It worked.” 


The Queen nodded. 


The Sister turned her head, and saw the bodies of the four men. The 
leaves around them were splattered with blood. “You did that?” 


“As | said, | prepared this for months. | knew exactly how long the 
journey through the Membrane would take. They didn't. | was able to 
brace myself for our arrival.” 


“Right,” said the Sister. She took a step forward and fell. The Queen 
darted forward, catching her and pushing her back up. “I don't feel 
good.” 


“We jumped much farther than you have before,” said the Queen. 
“Your body isn't used to that kind of strain yet. It'll go away in a few 
minutes. We'll wait here until then.” 


“Fuck,” said the Sister. “Il should have brought some cigarettes.” She 
looked over to where the animal had been, but it was gone. 


They waited for hours in silence, sitting against the trees. When the 
Queen moved again, it was night. The woods were silent. “Are you 
feeling better?” 


The Sister nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.” 


“We're going to have a far distance to walk.” The Queen stood, 
brushing off her clothes. She tapped the gold watch on her arm. 
“Three days to our destination, three days back.” 


The Sister pushed herself to her feet. “We're leaving now?” 


“It'll be easier to travel at night. It's too hot during daytime.” She 
tightened the straps of her rucksack. 


“So, where are we going?” The Sister stood with her arms crossed. 
“You'll see when we get there.” 

The sister said nothing. 

The Queen stared at her. “Is something wrong?” 


“Well,” said the Sister, staring at the ground, “this isn't what | 
expected. Being shot at, camping in the woods. You said you would 
help me find my dad.” 


“| did, and | am,” said the Queen. She stepped towards the Sister, 
who didn't look up. “I told you it would involve risks. | told you that it 
would be difficult, that you would probably regret your decision. You 
insisted.” 


The Sister swallowed. Her palms were slick with sweat. “Yeah, | 
know. But this is bullshit. You won't tell me what we're doing, where 
we are, why, any of that stuff! You take me to a different universe 
and you still won't even tell me what's going on? How the hell do you 
expect me to learn anything like this?” Her voice rose as she spoke. 
“Come on! I'm willing to go where you want, but you need to respect 
me enough to tell me what the hell is going on!” She was nearly 
shouting now. “Tell me something, instead of just stringing me along 
and letting me get shot at and hit and thrown into new worlds like | 
don't fucking matter!” 


The Queen took a step back. She lifted a hand up, as if to place it on 
the Sister's shoulder, then dropped it down. “I see,” she said. 
Turning, she walked to where the rucksack was placed against a 
tree and began searching through it. The Sister looked away. 


After pulling out half the ruck's contents, the Queen returned to the 
Sister, clutching a black notebook. She thrust it into the Sister's 
hands. “Take this. Read it on the way.” 


The Sister looked from the Queen to the notebook. Her hands 
trembled. “What is it?” 


“Part of my notes. It contains basic information that I've uncovered 
over the years. Read through it as we're traveling, and feel free to 
ask me about anything in there.” She closed her eyes and sighed. 
“I'm sorry I've been difficult with you. Sharing information in the past 
has led to... problems.” 


The Sister nodded, still looking away. “Alright. Fine. But why are we 
here? What's the point?” 


The Queen slung the ruck across her back. “We're going to kill our 
Father.” 


The Sister's eyes widened. “Dad? He's here?” 


Nodding, the Queen tightened her straps. “A version of him is. And 
he's dangerous, Sister. If he isn't stopped soon, he'll corrupt the 
entire universe. And he won't stop there.” 


“How? What's he doing?” 


She shook her head. “That's something you should see for yourself.” 


The hiking wasn't hard. The Sister was used to hiking. She'd done a 
lot of it when she was younger, wandering through the woods 
behind her house in lieu of having to socialize. After her father 
disappeared, she would spend days out there, just her and books 
and whatever canned goods she could find with her mother's 
decades old camping equipment. That was nice. Relaxing. 


This was different. Everything about this place felt wrong, in ways 
she couldn't describe. The noise the breeze made as it blew through 
the leaves sent chills down her spine. The way the branches loomed 
and twisted around them, like they were the top of a demented 
wooden prison cell. How the little wildlife she saw resembled 
monsters more than animals. They all had wood sprouting from their 
skin, and acted strange. They would slam themselves against trees 
endlessly, attack the Earth, bark and wail at nothing. 


To distract herself, she read the journal. By the end of the first day, 
she had gone through every page. By the end of the second, she 


had it fully annotated. Going into the third, she had begun to 
compare it to her own notes, and was beginning to realize almost 
everything she had assumed she knew had been wrong. 


“Jesus,” she said as they walked. “How long have you been working 
on this?” 


The Queen ducked under a branch. “Six years. Nine, if you count 
the time before | discovered the Foundation.” 


“Fuck. You know, you never told me how old you were.” She brought 
her head up from the notebook just in time to see the branch and 
swing under it. 


“The same age as you,” said the Queen. “Twenty-four. | was just 
dragged into this earlier.” 


“Oh,” said the Sister. “How?” 


“Maybe another time,” said the Queen. She stopped to check her 
watch, then started walking slightly to the right. The Sister followed, 
shifting her focusing back to the notebook. 


It was amazing what was cataloged here. Descriptions of dozens of 
worlds, twenty different groups tied to the supernatural, lists of thirty 
different anomalous items and how they appeared throughout 
various universes (including a few she had seen in her own). The 
entire last half of the notebook was devoted to Charles Gears, 
tracking his movement patterns, behavior, allegiances across every 
universe she had found. One repeating idea stood out among the 
noise. 


The reasons vary, read one note, but its presence is near-constant 
in instances of Charles Gears who have abandoned their families. 
Somewhere along the line, an event takes place that removes his 
capacity to feel emotion. Sometimes it's purely psychological, a 
regression in order to cope with the situations he must confront on a 
daily basis. Sometimes it's due to psychic influence, or an encounter 
with a powerful cosmic entity. Whatever the cause, it is, with only a 
few exceptions due to outstanding circumstances, always present. 


suffice, and will attempt to do so even when informed that it is in 
violation of dangerous materials protocol, not being an airtight seal. 


The urge to suckle is a mental, physical, and sexual compulsion. 
Lower lifeforms cannot resist at all. Humans have a difficult time. 
Those in SCP-597's presence describe it as a "mental pull" leading 
us to the conclusion that it is partially telepathic, although it also 
obviously appeals to deep instincts and is hormonal as well; 
endorphins associated with breast-feeding and maternal comfort are 
released. Those who do give in do so in a mad rush, all restraint 
broken at once, or a slow ritual, commonly involving bowing, 
kneeling, crawling, and chanting. They are reduced quickly to an 
infantile state, and within one hour lose all linguistic abilities, 
intellectual capabilities, and willpower. Before complete loss of brain 
function it is said to be highly comforting and pleasurable, and they 
say they feel safe, "like never before". Before and after contact is 
made, there are reports of strong feelings associated with vague 
images and recollections and sensations, all traced back to the 
womb or crib, often centered around remembrance of their parents’ 
smell and facial appearance. [DATA EXPUNGED] 

retarded blind [DATA EXPUNGED] permanently attached 
[DATA EXPUNGED] 


[DATA EXPUNGED]