Now, he needed to know. 


He stood and moved towards the reflective surface, looking into it to 
reveal 


And then he was no more. 


Reddawn 


Reflections 


Harken watched the rain sheet the windows, leaning his head on the 
cool glass in the hopes it would make his headache go away. Down 
the hall, a couple was fighting, the rise and fall of argument 
punctuated by the occasional thud of either a slap or a door 
slamming. The sound of traffic was at least muffled by the rain, and 
the Agent sighed at the thought of actually being able to get some 
sleep. 


The safe house was a pit. A cruddy apartment in a small, broken- 
down town, and they'd been lucky to score even this. The official 
reason was overextended resources due to the crisis, but Harken 
was reasonably sure if one of the 05s had been forced out this way, 
they'd have found a hotel room somewhere. He had to admit it made 
a kind of grim sense. Why spend the good stuff on a two-time traitor 
and a washed-out screw up? 


At least it beat sleeping in the car. 


A sharp knock on the door made Harken reflexively look to the 
bedroom doorway and the dimly lit bed beyond. Kramer, normally a 
hair-trigger, was comatose. She'd burned out on the last mission 
and would be mostly useless until tomorrow while she recuperated. 
Harken pushed off the glass, drawing his gun as he walked to the 
door. He ducked behind the wall for cover, swallowed, and opened 
the door quickly. 


The Agent outside fell back a step with a start, nearly dropping the 
file folder clenched in his hand. Harken sighed, holstering his gun 
and pushing the door open all the way. “Jesus, Scud, identify 
yourself next time! | could have shot you.” 


“Yeah right, Harken. I've seen your range scores. The day you 
manage to shoot me is the day | retire," Scud laughed. 


"What the hell are you doing here, anyway?" 


"Message from the top," Scud said. "Didn't trust it to anything but 
hand delivery." 


"Give it here." Harken took the folder from the younger Agent, let out 
a low "hm" as he saw the stamp on the cover of the manila folder. 
"Well, come on inside. You might as well have a cup of coffee 
before you go." 


Agent Scud chuckled, following him in and shutting the door. He put 
his soaked overcoat over a chair as Harken moved quietly into the 
tiny kitchen. "Where's Kramer?” 


Harken waved to the bedroom. “She's in there... fuck, don't go in 
there, you moron! The hell is wrong with you?” 


Scud stepped away from the bedroom door, grinning. “Hey, I'm just 
interested, you know.” 


“| swear to god, if you do the ‘are all her parts in tune?’ gag, | will 
beat you to death with this coffee pot," Harken said. He poured two 
mugs of lukewarm coffee and handed one to Agent Scud. 


Scud laughed, shaking his head. “Naw, already got my jollies out. 
Just curious. What's her deal, anyway? I've never really heard much 
about her, besides jokes and the whole supersoldier bit.” 


Harken stared, then shook his head. “Supersoldier, huh? She's not a 
supersoldier, she's a...” He paused, put an ear to the door. The only 
sound was the low buzzing noise of Kramer's cybernetic 
components undergoing their usual regenerative cycle. 


Harken leaned in, lowering his voice. “Ok, here's the deal. She's not 
a supersoldier, or a war machine, or anything like that... not exactly. 
She grew up in the Church of The Broken God. Her parents were 
supposed to be some big so-and-sos in their clergy. They did things 
to her. | don't really know what: she doesn't talk about it much, but 
whatever it was, she almost died a few times. She lost her right eye, 
most of her right hand, her ears and most of her teeth.” 


“You're bullshitting me.” Scud said, a nervous laugh in his voice. 


Harken sipped his coffee, staring into the oily liquid. “No bullshit. 


Most likely they were coaching her to become a Crusader: one of 
their "holy knights of the machine." Or maybe they were just seeing 
what they could do. Anyway, they changed her body chemistry, did 
stuff to her brain to make her totally compliant and loyal to the higher 
ups in the Church.. It was working great until some goons hired by 
Marshall, Carter and Dark raided them. One of their members 
wanted some 'relic' they had in the basement, so they hired out 
some people to go and trash them.” 


“It was a nightmare, from what she said.” Harken continued. "You 
know how she's all cold as ice and stuff? Well, even she gets the 
shakes talking about that night. They came right in the middle of a 
service. Shot some people, rounded up everyone else, all black 
masks and guns. They stole a bunch of stuff out of the vault, then lit 
the place on fire. She saw her parents, dead and bleeding on the 
steps to the podium. She never saw who shot them.” He looked up, 
catching Scud's eyes. “She did see them get stacked up like 
cordwood near the door to make it look like they died trying to 
escape. Saw them start to burn as they dragged her out.” 


Scud stared in silence. Harken lit another cigarette. “Kramer was... 
twelve, maybe thirteen? Barely a kid, but she saw the writing on the 
wall, did what she needed to do to survive. The mercs found her 
hiding in the sacristy. They almost put a bullet in her head, but then 
she told them she knew where the good stuff was, and how to get 
past the locks and traps and other shit like that. Mercs decided to 
take her back with them. They got a bonus for bringing her in." 


"MC&D loved her, it was like getting a blank check for them. They 
started adding things. Subdermal armour, ocular implants, 
amputated and replaced her legs below the knee, tweaked organs, a 
real overhaul. They made it so she could change her facial bone 
structure at will. It apparently feels like having a truck run over your 
face. She had to practice twice daily." 


“So she worked for richie-rich for a while, lots of combat stuff, and 
some... ” Harken coughed, checking the dim bedroom again. “... 
well. She's never been hard on the eyes, you know, and you know 
what they say: if it exists, someone will want to fuck it. Sometimes 
she mixed the two. A few very rich blokes who somehow pissed off 
MC&D got a razor in the neck while they were on the fly. Anyway, 


she did that for a while, then bumped into The Foundation during a 
breach event. She shot her handlers and turned herself over to the 
recovery Agents.” 


Harken laughed, shaking his head. “Those assholes came home 
feeling like they won the Super Bowl. Promotions all around. Almost 
lost her right off the bat: she had a stroke when they started to 
question her, some failsafe the richies had put in her brain. They got 
her working again, pumped her for information. After they squeezed 
her, they really didn't know what to do. Eggheads talked about listing 
her under SCP, and they had a cell ready for her, nice and warm. 
Wrote up containment procedures and everything. Then Dr. Gears 
submitted a report, saying how her system was ‘inefficient,’ and 'had 
room for improvement.’ Motherfucker." 


Scud started nodding quickly, tapping the table. “Shit, | remember 
that!" the younger Agent interjected. "They were all worked up, 
brain-machine interface research or something. They kept feeding 
her to 212, then working on her in the lab, crossing her with every 
mechanical or cybernetic SCP they could think of.” He rubbed his 
face, trying to remember. “God, how many times did they do that?” 


“Twelve. They fed her to 212 twelve times. Not counting all the 
‘regular’ surgery stuff they did as well. 212 did less and less every 
time. Finally, it wouldn't trigger anymore. It... it didn't see her as 
human. She had a bit of a breakdown when that happened. It took 
God knows how many sessions with Glass before she stabilized 
from her suicidal tendencies. After that, there wasn't much more to 
do. They'd hit the limit with what they could do with her. We kept 
thinking they'd end up just dissecting her. Maybe they would have. 
But then that whole thing with Able went pear-shaped.” 


"Able?" Scud asked. 


"Remember Pandora's Box? Mobile Task Force Omega Seven? 
Remember how they kept talking about how they were going to use 
SCPs to fight SCPs?" 


"| remember it went completely to shit. The idea was fucking stupid,” 
Scud said. 


"No, it wasn't. The idea was solid. They just chose the wrong SCP to 
do it with." 


Scud sipped his coffee in silence as Harken opened the file folder, 
leafing through the contents and nodding at what he found there. 
Scud cleared his throat. “So. Where did you figure in?” 


Harken gave a short, bitter laugh as he carefully examined one of 
the photos, holding it up to the light to get a better look. “Me? They 
found me in a bottle at the Site 17 training center. Mental health 
restriction. My team got carved up by 106. | was the only survivor. | 
kinda snapped after that, worthless in the field, but | know the spy 
game inside and out. Some personality profile system decided my 
skillset meshed well with Kramer. Myself, | think they just wanted to 
pair her up with someone who wouldn't be missed. Not that they use 
us much. Maybe the whole Able thing spooked them, but until Site 
17 got hit, we weren't doing any work at all. Now, of course, we're 
busy busy busy.” 


Scud grinned, rising from his chair and pulling on his still damp coat. 
“Well, you're doing good work. Word on the street is you've got 
MC&D running scared. Keep it up.” 


"Thanks." 
"No problem. Be seeing you." 


Harken nodded, leaning back in his chair as Scud walked to the 
door. He coughed. “Hey, Scud?” 


“Yeah?” 
“How long you been on the take?” 
Scud stopped, one hand on the doorknob, half turning to Harken. 


“There's a secured message on the sheet," Harken said. He held up 
one of the photos, revealing a series of small pinholes punched 
through the eight by ten glossy. "How many of our agents did you 
sell out since you started taking money from Marshall, Carter and 
Dark?” 


“Oh come on,” Scud laughed, “you're pulling my-” 


Even silenced, Harken's pistol sounded like a firecracker in the still 
apartment. A gout of blood sprayed from Scud's back. He croaked, 
falling to the floor, his own pistol falling from nerveless fingers and 
clattering against the stained hardwood floor. "You were right about 
one thing,” Harken said. "The day | shot you was the day you 
retired." 


A semi-truck driving by drowned out the next four shots Harken fired 
into Scud's chest. "Well, | guess that's done wi—" 


The bedroom door came off its hinges as Kramer smashed through 
it like a freight train. She had her sidearm in both hands, eyes 
glowing as they scanned for threats, her bare musculature twitching 
and soaked with synthetic adrenaline. “W't the f'k is goin' on?!” she 
shouted, in a voice still fuzzy with sleep. 


Harken chuckled, wiping off his gun. “You've never been a morning 
person. Relax, it was just Scud. He turned traitor a while ago, and 
they were waiting for a good time to bump him, so they sent him to 
us.” 


Kramer nodded, visibly relaxing, her snarled and sweaty hair turning 
her hyperaggressive pose into a caricature. “I heard you two talking. 
What was it?” 


Harken looked at her, then to Scud. "He's dead. What does it matter 
now?” 


She nodded absently, already stumbling back to bed. 


They left Scud there when they rolled out the next day. A little 
surprise for the next team. 


Regarding Broken Levees 


1 


“| can't do this,” sobs Director Alice Wistuba in the arms of her 
female lover in the rare moment they have together and when her 
pager beeps softly three hours later, she is still out of bed before 
waking, stumbling drunkenly, eyes scanning, lover abandoned 
behind her because there is a hierarchy of things that must be done 
and this is number one on that list and it is day one- 


2 


- “Open up!” yells Junior Researcher Natalie McCreed on day two. 
The words leave her lips in broken half-screams, cracking, jumbling 
in desperation, tripping and falling as she bangs on the sealed blast 
door. “Please! she begs, and they do not open the blast door for 
Junior Researcher Natalie McCreed as she stands in her ripped 
clothes with an empty gun at her side and the heavy breathing of 
something she is not cleared to know about creeping up behind her. 
They do not open the blast- 


3 


-"’'m here, it’s okay,” begs security operative Alex Whittingham from 
behind his protective helmet that manipulates his voice into a 
monotone drawl. The person he speaks to is bleeding out onto the 
hard linoleum floor because they knew it could happen but it would 
never happen to them, it would never happen here, would it? Could 
it? Even on day three when the days fade into nights fade into days 
and the bars on the windows cast long striped shadows on empty 
break rooms and empty bedrooms and Alex Whittingham comforting 


his dying boyfriend on the cafeteria floor under harsh fluorescent 
light and a voice filter used in interviews and containment logs, 
never saying talk to me but meaning a similar sentiment, breaking 
rules but also- 


4 


-’Don't drink that!” orders D-43248, a skinny man in his early 
twenties who did something he regrets but is smart enough to tell 
the other five that he’s leading through dark hallways and endless 
staircases in hushed tones and garbage fires to not drink the water 
from the water fountains on day four because the sewer lines were 
smashed the night before and the water coursing through the site’s 
vast pipes is likely no longer safe. They find water leaking from the 
ceiling above and water on the floors as they walk but good god 
what water can they drink? Is any water potable? Did anything 
breach that could have contaminated the water? How would they 
know? Why do they care? It seems ridiculous that in the groaning 
confines of the site and smatterings of friendly fire in the distance 
they would be concerned about water of all things, but it’s with 
cracked lips and cotton mouth that they drink the water that comes 
from the 3rd level tap on day six. It’s grey with rust and particulate 
when it comes from the sink and D-43248 still drinks, hands under 
faucet to mouth, not the worst thing that’s ever happened to him 
here but still enough to fear that after all they've been through it 
could be the water that does them in- 


) 


-’Almost there-” breathes Maintenance worker Colette Dale to the 
older woman half-slung over her shoulder, barely breathing. The 
stairs they climb are concrete and cold, but it’s true that they’re 
almost there, almost there, just a few floors left to go. The older 
woman does not respond in the small space in front of them 
illuminated by her LED flashlight beam in the early morning of day 
seven. Dale moves faster- 


SCP-923 first came to the Foundation's knowledge on / / when it 
started reporting back "successful termination" messages from 
various points around the globe on the O5 secured information relay 
system. These reports continued over the course of hours, totalling 
57 terminations around the globe at intensities between and .55 
of these deaths have been confirmed since the original incident. To 
access the list of terminated individuals, see Document 923-0014-K. 
The Foundation has been unable to determine how SCP-923 gained 
access to the O5 secured information relay system. Adjustments 
have been made to prevent SCP-923 from gathering any information 
on that system unless it is meant specifically for SCP-923.