"It's all bullshit, but... well, the Great Mother's insisting that we move 
to our winter grounds early this year. That's a thirty mile journey 
through the jungle. We usually don't make that journey until a few 
months later in the year, but... she's insisting that disaster’s going to 
befall us if we remain here, and she's got my father so riled up that 
he's agreed to move the tribe early this year." Tashika laughed 
nervously, hiding his teeth with one hand. "It's all tribalist bullshit, but 
the older folks are taking it seriously. So it looks like | won't be able 
to help you guys out any more." 


"That's a shame," Knight said, and meant it. Tashika had been a 
treasure: a Yashiwa man, raised in the culture of the tribes, but 
raised in the city, and college educated, to boot. He had been 
invaluable in smoothing out negotiations between the UNESCO 
team and the Yashiwa, and Knight was certain that he was going to 
miss the young man. "Maybe when you come back to your summer 
grounds, you and | can meet up again." 


"If you are still here," Tashika agreed. "It may be that you find out all 


you need to know about this place before then, and you will go 
home." 


"Perhaps," Knight agreed. 


"I'll go let the others know," Tashika said. "Thank you for your help... 
and for your respect, Mister Knight. Good day. Mister Zhao." 


"Tashika," Zhao said, extending his hand in friendship. "Good luck. 
I'm going to miss you." 


"And | you, Mister Zhao." 


The young man inclined his head respectfully to Knight, then walked 
away to say his goodbyes to his friends on the rest of the UNESCO 
research team. Knight shook his head, brow furrowed in worry. 
"Jimmy? Why does an old proverb about rats and sinking ships 
come to mind?" 


"| was thinking the exact same thing," Zhao admitted. 


"Mister Knight?" 


Knight awoke slowly, to find Zhao leaning over his cot. The young 
man's face was drawn with worry. 


"Mister Knight," Zhao said. "I think it's happened." 
"What's going on?" Knight asked, suddenly alert. 


"Timothy and Jonas are missing. And one of the temple doors is 
open." 


"Damn," Knight growled. "I thought | had at least another week 
before one of those kids tried something stupid..." 


"| don't think it's their fault. You'd better come see." 


Knight understood the moment that he came out of his tent. It wasn't 
hard to miss the knocked-over tent on the edge of the camp, 
guylines snapped, steel poles bent in two. One of the nylon walls 


had been shredded, as if by some massive claw. There was a dark 
blotch on the ground that looked a lot like blood. 


"Who else knows?" Knight asked. 
"Two other researchers. Lin and Tamaki. | think that's it." 


“All right," Knight said coldly. "You talk to them. Get them to keep 
quiet. Tell them it's a bear or something, and we're going after them. 
I'll get the gear." 


Knight strode quickly across the camp to the equipment tent, where 
he unlocked a box of gear that he had kept sealed since arriving in 
South America. Inside, there were two headsets, a pair of M-4 
carbines, ammunition, and a satellite phone. 


He took out the rifles first, checked to make sure that the chambers 
were empty, and put them aside. Knight then picked up the satellite 
phone and dialed a number that didn't exist in any phone directory 
on Earth. 


"Central," a soft, feminine voice said. "Report." 


"Central, this is Tasker One," Knight said. "Authentication Code 
Victor Assegai Nine Two Two." 


“Tasker One, Central confirms. Bringing up your casefile now... 
transferring you to your appropriate controller. Wait one, please." 


Knight picked up one of the two headsets, checking the OCULUS 
rigs' batteries and doing a quick diagnostic, while Journey's "Wheel 
in the Sky" played over the phone. The phone picked up before the 
song had a chance to repeat once. 


"Tasker One, this is Central Authority. Report, over." 


"Central, Tasker One. I've got two missing civilians, and the temple 
doors have opened. I'm about to enter the structure with Tasker 
Two. Third Mission Priority. | am escalating to Response Level 3. If 
you don't hear back from us within three hours, consider it a 
Response Level 4 emergency. Please confirm. Over." 


"Tasker One, Central confirms two missing civilians, temple doors 
open. Central confirms your escalation to Response Level 3. Central 
will escalate to Response Level Four at 0600 hours, local time. 
Over." 


"Thank you, Central. Tasker One out." Knight hung up the satellite 
phone and hung the unit from his belt buckle. He picked up an 
empty day pack and packed in food, water, medical supplies, and a 
laptop computer. Zhao joined him in the tent shortly after, and Knight 
helped him to pack a day pack of his own. 


The two men emerged from the tent, carrying their assault rifles and 
wearing their night vision goggles. He could see two of the 
researchers from the UNESCO archeology team standing by the 
tents. Lin raised her eyebrow in alarm, at seeing the two men 
dressed like special operations soldiers. 


"All right," Knight said shortly. "We've got two missing personnel, 
possibly kidnapped. Zhao and | are going to see if we can get them 
back. Lin, if you don't hear back from us by 0600... sorry, 6 'o 
clock... take everyone, pack them into the vehicles, and drive 
towards town. Find the nearest American Embassy and tell them 
what happened." 


"What did happen?" the hapless Lin exclaimed. "| don't get this at 
all!" 


"Terrorists," Knight said grimly. "I think they kidnapped Tim and 
Jonas. I'm going to see if we can't find them." 


"But..." 


"Lin," Zhao said softly. "If we don't come back, the terrorists could 
come after the rest of you. You need to make sure the team gets to 
safety. You're in charge here." 


Lin hesitated to say more, then, finally, just nodded. "Be safe," she 
said. 


"Terrorists, huh?" Zhao whispered, as the two men started jogging 
towards the temple. 


"The catch-all explanation for all weirdass activity," Knight agreed. 


Through VERITAS, the interior of the abandoned temple seemed to 
glow with a sickly greenish light, the patterns vaguely resembling 
those of blood splatters or nails being raked across stone. Greenish 
mist seemed to swirl around the two men, raising goosebumps on 
their bare arms. The image of a flayed skull raced towards Knight, 
lipless mouth open in a wordless scream, then vanished into the 
darkness. 


"Bad things happened in here," Zhao whispered. 


"Very bad," Knight agreed. It took a lot of emotional and spiritual 
violence for EVE signals to linger as deeply as these did. There had 
been murder done in this place... and worse. 


"Knight," Zhao said softly. He gestured to a spot on the ground that 
had a brighter VERITAS signature than the others. Knight dropped 
to one knee and ran his hand over the pool of brightly shining white 
light. His fingertips came away sticky. 


He put his fingertips to his nose and smelled blood. 


"It's fresh," he said. "Couldn't have been shed more than a few 
minutes ago. | think we're catching up to them." 


lt was then that Knight heard the moaning. 


It was very soft, and very low, no louder than a kitten's cry, but it 
was low and guttural, and tinged with a nasty wet sound. It was 
coming from deeper into the temple. Further into the darkness. 


"... you know." Zhao quipped. "It's at this point in all the horror 
movies that | always started yelling at the girl not to go into the dark 
scary temple. Just go home. Who cares what's in there..." 


"Yeah," Knight agreed. "But..." 


He raised the rifle to his shoulder and continued to walk down the 
dark, mildewy hallways. Closer to the sound. 


The light was dim. It was the color of fireflies. Thousands of them. It 
flickered and glowed dimly, up ahead in the dark. 


Knight stepped into the central chamber, and he felt his gorge rise. 
The thing in the center was a mass of... matter... about knee high. It 
was spongy, laced with tiny holes about the width of a pencil. 
Thousands of small, glowing maggots writhed and burrowed their 
way through the mass, their tiny bodies inching forward bit by bit, 
slowly but surely. 


The thing on the top of the mass wasn't Jonas. Not any more. Its 
eyes were frozen open in terror, its mouth wide open in shock. One 
of the maggots was eating its way out of his lower lip, as three more 
burrowed their way into his left eye. His hand was outstretched 
towards Knight. The skin was slowly dripping off it, like a melting 
candle. 


Knight reached out with his weapon and gently poked at Jonas's 
hand. It indented slightly under the touch, leaving behind an 
impression of his rifle’s muzzle. Like wax. 


"Soap," Zhao whispered. "They're turning into soap..." 


"Goddamn," Knight whispered. He studied the mass a little closer. 
There, huddled up next to Jonas, his arm and torso melting into the 
other man's was Timothy. 


"All right," Knight said. "We're out of here. Seal the door, get the 
UNESCO team out of here. Call in STRIKE. This is way above 
Our..." 


"Sir?" a soft, female voice said behind them. "Mister Knight?" 


Knight spun around, rifle raised, to find Lin standing behind him. 
"Mister Knight," Lin said. "I left Tamaki in charge. He's getting 
everyone ready to move, but | thought you could use the help— OH 
MY G—" 


Zhao grabbed the young Chinese woman before she could scream, 
slapped his gloved hand over her mouth and held her down while 
she struggled. Something moved inside the glowing chamber, and 


Document 652-G: List of identified languages spoken by SCP-652: 


Albanian, Armenian, Basque, Bulgarian, Danish, Dutch, English, 
Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hausa, Hungarian, 
Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Khmer, Lithuanian, 
Malagasy, Polish, Russian, Romanian, Spanish, Swahili, Tagalog, 
Urdu, Vietnamese 


Document 652-N41: Incomplete letter from Marshall, Carter and 
Dark operative [REDACTED] to [REDACTED], regarding SCP-652 


Dear Colonel [REDACTED], 


| regret that you were unsatisfied with your purchase; 
however, it is scarcely our fault that you misinterpreted 
the catalogue description of the item. 


That said, | must remind you once again that all sales 
are final. We provide our clients with unique and 
unparalleled experiences; we do not provide refunds, 
regardless of whether or not you return your purchase. 
One would hope that you would have learned this by 
now. 


Because we value your business, and because we regret 
the unfortunate incident subsequent to your last year's 
purchase of [DATA EXPUNGED], | have been 
authorized to repurchase the item from you. We will pay 
you [REDACTED] in cash, or offer you twice that amount 
as credit on your next purchase. Although this is less 
than 10% of your original purchase price, the [end of 
document] 


« SCP-651 | SCP-652 | SCP-653 » 


Knight spun around to see... 


Maggots. Glowing ones. Thousands of them, bursting from the mass 
of soapy-waxy material that had once been Jonas and Tim. They 
crawled over the damp stone, across the ancient bas-reliefs and 
over the mold and slime, and they were racing towards him ina 
glowing tide, terrifyingly fast, and Knight turned to Lin and Zhao and 
screamed for them to run even as his feet turned towards the exit 
and he bolted for his life... 


He heard Zhao scream as the things caught up to him and Lin, 
heard Lin start to shriek a moment later. Then he felt his ankles give 
way, and he collapsed to the floor, banging his chin hard against the 
stone and seeing stars. 


Knight spun around, rifle raised. The glowing green tide was 
wrapped around his ankles, dragging him towards that mass of soap 
and wax and horror in the center of the chamber. Lin and Zhao were 
already in it, already starting to melt, already starting to have those 
horrid green maggots crawl in and out of what had once been flesh 
and was now closer to soft cheese. 


His left arm was already crawling with the maggots. He had to drop 
his rifle to pull off his daypack and unzip it. He grabbed the laptop 
computer and held it to his chest tightly. His eyes were gone, 
already eaten by those crawling worms. He had to find the power 
switch by feel. Hold it down for five seconds with the computer's 
screen closed. 


He was already dead when the bomb exploded. 


"... holy shit," Fox said softly. "Holy fucking shit." 


What had once been an ornate stone temple was now a crater in the 
ground. Three hours had passed since Central had awoken Strike 
Team Broken Dagger and apportated them into the South American 
jungle. Now, as the twelve members of the Strike Team advanced 
towards what should have been an ancient archeological site, all 
they could see was a wide crater, filled with glassy rubble, in the 
middle of the rainforest. 


"Ever seen something like this before, Jackal?" she asked her XO, 
as the rest of the team split up to search for survivors. 


"Once," Jackal admitted. "In Cornwall." 
"Fucking Cornwall," Fox agreed. 


"Ma'am?" Arsegike said, over the comms. "I think | found 
something." 


"On my way," Fox said. She got back to her feet and jogged over to 
where the other soldier was looking down at something in the tall 
grass. 


It was a pair of OCULUS headsets, glowing softly, their visual 
components and visors melted and burned, but their recorders 
intact. The two items were laying on a patch of grass, in which a 
complex geometric form had been burned, reducing the plantlife to 
white ash. 


"Emergency Dump," Jackal said. "Someone hit the panic button." 
"Bag it," Fox said. "I'll report this in." 


Arsegike pulled an evidence bag from his thigh pocket and gingerly 
picked up the two black boxes, dropping them into the mylar 
container and sealing it with double-sided tape. His OCULUS visor 
would record the location and the time of discovery, but he jotted 
down a quick note on the outside of the bag in permanent marker 
nonetheless. 


"So what was this?" Jackal asked. "A failed mission... or a 
successful one?" 


Fox didn't have an answer for him. She still couldn't decide how to 
answer that twelve hours later, when the helicopters came to take 
them home. 


"Sequence" 
« "Strike" | Return to GOC Hub | "Farpoint" » 


"Joint Venture" 


"This is a really dumb idea," Skunkboy muttered. He shifted his 
weight on the chameleon-cloth pad he'd been laying on for the past 
thirty-six hours. He was pretty sure he was developing some sores 
on his elbows and knees. Worst of all, he was running out of bags to 
store his piss in, and pretty soon, despite all the immodium and 
MRE peanut butter, he was going to have to take a shit... and it was 
a choice between sneaking into the building and risking getting 
caught, or taking one of the alternatives that would make him even 
more miserable. 


All in all, it was pretty much like any other mission for a scout sniper, 
except that he was laying all alone on the roof of a Hong Kong 
skyscraper rather than in the middle of the woods or the desert. On 
the other hand, there was the fucking noise. Even with the plugs in 
his ears, the dull roar of the building's ventilation equipment was 
beginning to rattle his jaws. 


He blinked back the exhaustion and closed his eyes for a few 
moments to clear the blurry double-vision from them, then lowered 
his face back to his spotter's scopes. Hong Kong at night was 
actually kinda pretty, he decided. It was just a shame that he wasn't 
going to have the chance to do any sightseeing. Except for a small 
stretch of warehouses near the docks. 


A flicker of light and movement caught his attention. He swung the 
scope around very slowly, then nodded to himself and keyed his 
throat mike for the first time in over six hours. "Sparkplug Two to all 
units. How do you read? Over." 


"Sparkplug one, reading loud and clear." 
"Three, loud and clear." 


"Four, loud and clear. Over."