He reached the apartment he had lived in and rapped on the door. 
When there was no response, he thumped on it with his fist, and 
when there was still no signs of life, he kicked it, leaving a noticeable 
dent in the lacquered door about the size and shape of the toecap of 
his hiking boots. He descended to the reception area and let himself 
out. He turned right on a whim and began wandering along the 
streets, having no particular purpose or direction. The feeling of 
being followed had returned, slightly—certainly not to the same, 
almost supernatural degree he had felt before on the Isle of Wight, 
but enough to keep him glancing over his shoulder. 


When he saw Lauren, he first wondered whether he was imagining it 
—had superimposed her features in his mind on the top of some 
other passer-by's face, but when she came closer, walking in the 
opposite direction alongside a man with short-cropped blond hair, he 
realised she was real. He had supposed she was still in work 
(something he had entirely forgotten in the teary reconciliations he 
had allowed himself to imagine), but obviously she had taken the 
day off. She was laughing and joking with her compatriot, who wore 
an awkward grin and a Union Jack T-shirt under a hooded jacket. 
She leaned in and pecked his cheek, and Keagan felt something in 
his chest wither away. 


"Lauren!" he shouted, jogging across the road in front of a white van, 
the driver of which elected to sound his horn despite the fact that he 
plainly wasn't moving an inch anyway in the capital's perma-gridlock. 
"Lauren, wait up." 


The little voice inside his head decided to weigh in, pointing out how 
unrealistic, how self-centred his notions had been of knocking on 
Lauren's door and finding her still tear-streaked, despondent, as 
though only a night had passed since his trial, only for heaven's light 
to shine across her features upon seeing him, Keagan, alive and 
free. More likely, it said, that she would have looked through the 
peephole, double-locked the door and called the police. But the look 
she gave him now—of simple, politely confused bafflement—does 
he mean me ?—was if anything more hurtful. Oh no, he thought. No. 


"Lauren," he said. "It's me. I'm out." 


Lauren put on a fixed smile, the sort of smile you smile when 
someone clearly knows you, but you cannot for the life of you place 
them. "Oh right. | am silly, | can't quite recall wnere—” 


The man with her seemed to show more signs of recognition, 
scanning recent memories to try and find a match. When whatever 
process in his head found what it was looking for, his eyes seemed 
to grow more hostile and he stepped forward. 


"I've heard your voice before, mate. On the phone. Lauren, you 
know this man at all?" 


Lauren clearly hadn't been told of the exchange and her look of 
confusion only deepened as she tried to reconcile social politeness 
with the obvious friction with the man Keagan now identified as the 
voice on the phone. She took his arm, a security-seeking gesture. 


"Really, I'm not sure..." 


"Yeah? That's very interesting that is," said Callum, "given the story 
he tried to palm me off with. Said he was your old boyfriend." To 
Keagan: "What are you, some kind of stalker or something?" 


"Lauren," Keagan said, trying his best to ignore the buzzing behind 


his eyes. "Please. We went out for eighteen months, we lived 
together." Then, lamely, "We went to the Lake District, don't you 
remember?" And for a moment he was no longer sure whether that 
had been real or a dream he'd had once. "I've—l've been in jail." 


Lauren's expression changed, polite confusion giving way to fear, 
and her grip on her boyfriend's arm became tighter. "Callum, let's 


go." 


"No." Keagan said, and he realised what he was feeling was also 
fear, something cold and lonely and dark. "No. You've got a locket 
around your neck—I gave you that. It's got a picture of both of us in 
it, unless you've changed that too, like the fucking answerphone 
message. Look at it. Look at it!" 


Instead Lauren began to edge behind Callum. 


"You're clearly mental, mate." Callum said, putting one hand inside 
his pocket. It might be a phone, to call the police, or it might be 
something else. "Go away. Right now." 


"Not until you look at that locket," Keagan said. "Lauren, you were 
the one who said | had to choose whether we stayed together? 
Remember? You asked if | still loved you! Look at it!" 


Keagan lunged forward, elbowing Callum aside, grabbing at the 
locket. She shrieked, sudden and high, and pulled away, breaking 
the delicate chain around her neck. Callum immediately rushed back 
in, barging him to the ground. Keagan hit the pavement hard, 
leaving bits of tarmac embedded in his palms. The locket remained 
looped around one of his hands and he kicked Callum away as he 
bore down on him, trying to flip open its delicate golden clamshell 
with fingers that seemed too thick and coarse. He found the crack 
between the two halves of the locket and used one of his fingernails 
to prise it open. What was inside was a little piece of white card, the 
sort of thing that a department store might put inside a locket to 
show you the size of the photo you could insert. It had a little red 
logo on it, Wild Acres, and he remembered he had seen it before 
when he first picked out the locket, almost two years ago. 


"It's empty,” he said thickly. Then, to Lauren, who was sagging 


against Callum, both of them breathing heavily, he bellowed. "See! 
Why would you have an empty locket! It doesn't make any sense. 
You put the piece of card back in..." And then he remembered she 
had never had the card, he had thrown it away before he had given 
it to her, and everything suddenly seemed to tremble and waver. 
Falling through the cracks in the world, Edward Gradley had said. 


A policeman, soft-capped in a day-glo jacket, saw the tableaux the 
three of them formed and walked over briskly. 


"Everything OK?" he asked. 
"| was just leaving," Keagan said, picking himself up. 


"This creep assaulted my girlfriend and stole her locket," Callum 
said. "He's fucking mental." 


"Do you have the lady's locket, sir?" The policeman turned a wary 
eye on Keagan. 


"Yes," he said, holding it out. He hadn't meant to hand it over, but 
the policeman took it, roughly, and fingered the broken ends of the 
chain. "But | bought it," he added, quietly. 


The policeman turned back to Lauren. He didn't say anything, but 
she flushed red, oddly, and looked at the ground. "| don't remember 
where | got the locket," she said carefully, as though exploring the 
edges of an abscess. "But I've never seen this man before in my 
life.” 


"Do you have any identification?" This from the policeman to 
Keagan. 


"No," he said. "It all got burned up." He wasn't entirely sure why he 
added that detail, but it probably didn't help matters. Show him the 
underpants, the little voice said sarcastically. That'll make it all right. 


"Come on sir," the policeman said to Keagan, his tone revealingly 
gentle. "I think we ought to get you down the station, don't you? 
Figure out where you live and whether you're getting any help." 


"No," Keagan said, shaking his head. "No, I've got a meeting." 


SCP-372 introduced to testing chamber. SCP-682 woke up and 
proceeded to wander the testing chamber, apparently confused. 
Approximately 10 minutes into the test, SCP-682 expressed sudden 
distress, implying it had become aware of SCP-372's presence. 
Exactly 5 minutes later deep lacerations and cuts appeared on 
SCP-682, eventually reducing 25% of its body mass. SCP-682 
emitted loud distressed bellows and started to randomly attack the 
air in any direction, apparently trying to defend itself against 
SCP-372. Six minutes after, while still being attacked, SCP-682 is 
seen to make contact with SCP-372 via its tail, seeming to knock out 
SCP-372. SCP-682 proceeded to approach SCP-372, before being 
heavily sedated to prevent the likely loss of SCP-372. 


Notes: Well, at least we know what that thing looks like now... 


Item: SCP-1437 


Tissue Test Record: 
Tissue was dropped in without problem. 


Termination Test Record: 

SCP-682 was subdued and brought to Area- , which was the area 
SCP-1437 is at. When dropped down SCP-1437, SCP-682 did not 
come back up, assuming SCP-682 was presumed terminated. 
However, 2 hours and 12 minutes later, SCP-682 flew out of the 
hole at 60-80 kilometers per hour. Subject then started rampaging 
through the site. Mobile Task Force Nu-7 (Hammer Down), was 
called in to subdue SCP-682. 


Notes: Whoever put in this test in my name is going to be seriously 
reprimanded! You could've just asked before dropping a fucking 
unkillable lizard down a hole!- Dr. Church 


Item: Standard Issue M14, dipped in SCP-447 


Tissue Test Record: 
N/A 


Termination Test Record: 


"AA, is it sir? I'm Sure we can get your sponsor in if you need to talk 
to someone. Come on now." 


Chapter Nine: "Safe as Houses” 


Callum initially insisted on following Keagan to the station to 'press 
charges’, as he put it, but as they waited for a patrol car the 
policeman persuaded him that he need only take their contact 
details and would be in touch if they had more questions—especially 
pertaining to the matter of the locket which seemed to him very 
strange indeed, that Lauren couldn't account for its purchase despite 
it being as far as he could see brand new, not even a photo in it, but 
which he restored to her possession nonetheless. 


The back of the police car was soft and quiet, and the policeman 
hadn't cuffed him, but it was no less a cell than the prison van, and 
Keagan sat slumped, face in his hands. Half a day, he thought. 
That's the best the Foundation's memory drugs could do, if Edward 
Gradley was to be believed. This wasn't, couldn't be the 
Foundation's doing. 


When he arrived at the police station, he was parked in a small 
interview room with Ikea furniture and no windows, and left there 
while station staff dealt with other menaces to society, whose voices 
he occasionally heard raised in the corridor outside. Eventually a 
female PCSO with a notepad came in and tried to coax various 
details out of him while a police constable stood at the back. He 
considered giving them made-up information, but reasoned that was 
as likely to attract the attention of the Foundation if they were 
looking for an escaped D-Class prisoner who might have gone back 
to his old haunts as coming clean. Instead, he gave them his name, 
the address of the apartment he'd shared with Lauren, his auto- 
shop. He didn't give them a next of kin, partially because he 
suspected how that telephone conversation might now go and 
couldn't bear to be told 'Sir, we've spoken to Mrs O'Neill and she 
doesn't recall having a son’. He told them he had been in a fight at 
the shop and didn't elaborate. 


The PCSO went away and dutifully returned about half an hour later 


with a hopeless expression. He just about caught the edge of her 
conversation with the constable, which included the phrases 
‘delusional’ and ‘an estate agent's’, which he guessed accounted for 
Lambeth Auto Repairs; a twinge of pain there, something else dear 
to him lost. She spoke to him quietly and patiently, explaining they 
weren't quite able to verify the details he'd provided, and gave him 
the option of trying again, perhaps, she suggested, with a different 
name? When he proffered a muttered decline to this offer, she 
informed him that they had contacted Maudsley Hospital and that he 
would be taken there in the first instance until they could figure out 
where he was staying. Keagan listened. He hadn't learned anything 
new, but it had confirmed everything he'd suspected. He had been 
erased, completely. lronically the Foundation's offer seemed to have 
worked out after all for him, since the police's evident failure to find 
any trace of him presumably meant that his criminal record had 
indeed been quietly disappeared. Otherwise, he thought, the 
Metropolitan Police Force were about to discharge an escaped 
multiple murderer who had clearly identified himself to them into the 
care of the NHS; an embarassing lapse of vigilance there unless he 
had truly been wiped from the criminal justice system. 


The PCSO made her excuses and left to write up the paperwork 
before her shift ended. The mobile he'd been using as a watch had 
been taken away from him together with his carefully assembled 
rucksack of supplies and the residue of the stolen money (he 
suspected from the bumpiness of the chair that there was still some 
change in his back pocket from the train fare but feared to check it in 
case it was noticed). However, there was an analogue clock on the 
wall, which read quarter to five. Looks like Sam Deloitte's going to 
be ordering salad for one, he thought. 


There was an odd clattering sound in the hallway, clearly audible 
through the interview room door, and the constable left, warning 
Keagan to behave himself, lest, presumably, he make himself an 
imaginary fort out of the table or other such mischief. There seemed 
to suddenly be an acrid smell in the air, and a lot of people shouting 
and running. Then, the door clicked. Keagan got up and walked over 
to it—the handle turned and it opened, but what was beyond was an 
abyss of smoke, dense black and choking. He couldn't see any 
flames, and when he hurriedly closed the door again and put his 


palm to its surface it was still cool. The tendrils of smoke he had 
already admitted into the room rose up and gathered around the 
ceiling, where they refused to set off any kind of alarm or sprinkler. 


Okay, Keagan thought. You could stay here and hope it's not a fire 
or chemical fumes, and hope someone finds you before you run out 
of oxygen, so they can cart you off to a hospital for sectioning. Or, if 
that doesn't appeal, you could try to leave. He called up in his mind 
the path he had taken through the building, and for a moment it 
seemed very clear and lucid, until he hit a snag just before he 
reached the interview rooms—he'd been distracted by a mohawk'd 
young man refusing to be ushered into another such room, being 
held almost horizontal by a constable and planting skinny legs either 
side of the doorway while howling about the Magna Carta. He 
couldn't remember whether he had subsequently been led left or 
right. Oh well, he thought, 50-50 is better than nothing. 


He pulled his shirt up over his head and, taking a deep breath, 
blundered out into the corridor, feeling his way along the wall and 
trying to avoid making a turn into another interview room. The 
smoke clung to him, smothering even without trying to take a breath. 
He jarred his shin on what he identified as one of the low, magazine- 
strewn tables in the waiting area, provided for the benefit of family 
members waiting to talk to an arrestee and involuntarily exhaled, 
losing a good half of his precious hoarded oxygen.