she was telling Iris, she believed in the idea of it, of this new team. 
That was what made Iris distrust her. The woman in green, who'd 
convinced her to join Omega-7, she'd never been sincere. It was a 
toss-up if she believed anything that came out of her mouth. 


"Do you remember what it was like to use your camera?" the O5 
continued. "To explore your abilities? | have some experience with... 
things like that. There's nothing like it." 


And it did strike home, because Iris missed the photographs. She 
missed learning the new things she could do with it. She missed 
being able to just play with it. It had been such a fun game. No, 
more than a game. It had been magic. Magic that she could touch, 
magic that was a part of her. It was what the woman in green had 
held out to get her to cooperate... 


Well, lris had been fourteen at the time. Young, gullible, and stupid. 
The years had taught her better. 


"No," she told the woman. "I'm sorry, but | can't do this again. You 
weren't there. | lost friends. All of them." 


"Well, it's your choice, of course," the woman said. "But we're going 
forward regardless. We have to. Things are getting more desperate 
every day. If it's not you, it wil/ be someone else. Someone who's 
just a child, maybe. Someone who doesn't know what they're getting 
into." 


Iris felt a chill come over her. "You can't do that. You don't—You 
don't understand what it was like, you don't know what it would do to 
them." 


"You're right," she said. "| don't know. There's really only one person 
who does. One person who can help them." 


lris wanted to strangle the woman. To break her neck. It would be so 
easy, before the guard could even draw his pistol, she could 
probably have the woman dead. He had taught her well. 


She pushed the anger down instead. Coldly, she said, "You bitch. 
You absolute bitch." 


The woman didn't say anything for a moment, then smiled. "You'll 
join, then?" 


Iris nodded, not trusting herself to speak. 


"Very good. The head of your security detail will visit you soon, and 
give you further instructions. Welcome aboard, Miss Thompson." 


Light-Dependent Reactions 


Excerpts from Interview Log E-46693-12 
October 4, 2014 12:57 PM 


Interviewer: Geoff C. Taggart, [DATA REDACTED] 
Subject: Dr. Chelsea Elliott, researcher (plant specialist) 


Taggart: Good afternoon, Dr. Elliott. Please close the 
door. 


(Silence.) 
Elliott: Um. Excuse me, but have we met? 


Taggart: Please close the door. (Pause. Elliott closes 
the door.) Thank you. Do have a seat. I'm Geoff Taggart, 
from Reclassification. 


Elliott: Reclass? I'm sorry, | don't — 
Taggart: Doctor, you've been briefed on us. 


Elliott: Well, yes, but no one here is anomalous. Erin, 
Thom, and | all cleared quarantine months ago. 


Taggart: And you must know why we think that 
assessment was premature. 


(Silence.) 


You're not eating, Doctor. The usual post-quarantine 
surveillance showed us that. Those sunlamps you're 
buying, too — seasonal-affective disorder doesn't come 
on that fast. We're not sure how the poisoning incidents 
relate, though. | was hoping you could clear that up for 
us. 


Elliott: What makes you think I'd — 


Taggart: I'm authorized to waive the usual disciplinary 
actions for failure to report, provided you come clean 
now. 


(Silence.) 


Elliott: All right. (smiles ruefully) | suppose | don't exactly 
have a choice, at this stage. 


Taggart: Thank you. | understand this all began with the 
events of Incident E-31181-A, in February of last year? 


Elliott: Yes. | was consulting for [MTF] Theta-Four at the 
time. Three of us — Erin Moynahan, Thom Saint- 
Jacques, and | — had been detached to investigate a 
suspected new anomaly. Everything went fine until | tried 
to use my hand lens... 


"Geiger, check... chem sweep, check... humes, check." Agent Erin 
Moynahan came to the end of her list and nodded across to her 
teammates. "I'm calling it stable. We're good to go in." 


Chelsea Elliott grinned and bounced a little on the toes of her boots. 
"Great! Thom, you ready?" 


The third member of their little team nodded back at her. "Aprés- 
vous." 


Together, they struck out into the abandoned and echoing 
warehouse. Elliott's eyes darted over the floor as they walked, eager 
for detail. Weathered concrete was none of their specialty; nor was 
architecture, though they had noticed the huge skylight running the 
length of the peaked ceiling. The rare February sunshine took ona 
subtle cast as it poured through, some hint of color Elliott couldn't 
identify. She'd ask about it later. 


Now, she homed straight in on the site they'd tagged from the door 
—aweary scruff of vegetation, struggling up out of the cracked 
concrete. It wasn't much, floristically speaking: a few goldenrod 


stems, some ragged tufts of Kentucky bluegrass, and a dried-up 
stick that had probably been a silver-maple sapling for two or three 
years before it kicked the bucket. None of it would've warranted a 
second glance, if it hadn't been for the weird sheen on the leaves. 


She dropped to one knee beside the goldenrods, pulling on a pair of 
rubber gloves. Not only were they alive and vigorous in the winter 
chill, they were blue in ways Chelsea's understanding of Solidago 
biochemistry couldn't account for. When she reached out to examine 
one of the leaves, it tilted against the sunlight and shimmered in oily 
seafoam-green. 


Chelsea grinned and bent closer. "Oh, this is weird." She pulled out 
her hand lens, plucking a leaf from the goldenrod and lifting it close 
to see — 


Through the lens, nothing but a blaze of lethal light. 


Elliott: I'm told | was conscious most of the way to 
Medical, but | don't actually remember much. 


"Holy shit! What — Backup!" The crackle of a radio. "Get Nu-Thirty 
in here now! We have a new anomaly, and Elliott's down —" 


She was on fire, the alien sun searing through her face, nothing left 
in her eyes but unnameable colors — 


"— I've got her, just move —" 


— the world was a rock tumbler, spinning, hurling her against a sky 
full of stone — it tasted like ice olives acid — a hook in her belly, 
pulling her inside-out — 


"— it's moving! Jensen, get the — Jensen! Fuck! Someone get the 


" 


— a boulder on her chest and more falling on her, blow after blow, 
why did they — what did she do? — 


"— get us out of here! — seizing again — think they're growing —" 


— just make it stop — 


"— Just go!" 


Taggart: And when did you wake completely? 


Elliott: They kept me in an induced coma for two weeks 
at Medical, dealing with the kidney failure. | didn't wake 
up until they stopped the sedation. 


Taggart: And that was when you became aware of your 
condition? 


Elliott: Yeah. E-31181 really did a number on me. 


When she finally woke, they assured her that she would be fine. The 
light from that anomalous sun-thing had done some damage, but 
she would recover. They'd taken care of the sunburn while she was 
under. Her vision was mostly back, and if the colors were still 
dizzyingly strange, that would clear up too. The seizures hadn't done 
her any serious harm, and her kidneys were well on the way back to 
full function. Now, the skin, that might take a little longer to fade... 


She lay in the hospital bed, staring at her hands — too-smooth skin 
the color of pin-cherry bark, mottled with salamander spots in rich 
teal and feathered all over with tiny bits of chaff like the scales ona 
sword fern's fiddlenead — and swallowed the laughter trying to claw 
its way out of her throat. 


Before she could even sit up, she was asking for her hand lens 
back. 
Taggart: So your first reaction was curiosity. 


Elliott: My first reaction was "if | start laughing now, I'm 
never going to stop." 


Taggart: Oh? 


Elliott: It was either get curious or break down entirely. 


Taggart: | see. We have the records from your actual 
quarantine period, of course... After you were released, 
how long did it take you to discover the anomaly? 


Elliott: Just a few days. 


Eight weeks. 


Eight weeks of quarantine, made bearable only by curiosity, a huge 
e-book library, and a long string of notebooks. Eight weeks of trying 
to explore her own altered biology and coming up short, again and 
again, against the limits of the quarantine itself; eight weeks of 
frustration and never being able to compare notes with her doctors; 
eight weeks of explaining to herself, over and over again, why the 
restrictions were necessary. Eight weeks of watching and waiting, 
half-afraid she wouldn't recover at all, even if Thom and Erin were 
fine now. Eight weeks of terrible food, though at least she was never 
actually hungry, what with her leafy additions providing most of her 
calorie needs. When her skin finally started turning pink again and 
shedding its little leaflets, six and a half weeks in, she'd wanted to 
faint with relief. 


She'd gone into quarantine in the dead of winter; she came out in 
early spring. After eight weeks of bare walls and fluorescent light, 
walking in shirtsleeves under the April sun made her absolutely 
giddy. There were a lot of loose ends to sort out at home, but she 
still took the first possible opportunity for a walk in the woods. She 
still had a lot of phone calls to make, but she could walk and talk at 
the same time. 


Her cell phone rang as she slipped through the woodlot understory, 
dodging bare branches. "Hi, Blaire? — Yeah, hi! Good, I'm good! I'm 
home. — Yeah, all back to normal. They kept me a few extra days to 
make sure. How've you been?" 


She stepped carefully around a patch of cutleaf toothwort. "Oh, 
good. How's Pip doing? Has she given you any trouble?" Blaire 
usually took in Chelsea's cat, Pip, when the botanist traveled in 


summer; it didn't usually last for two months straight, though. 


At her friend's answer, Chelsea let out a relieved sigh. "Oh, good. 
Good. Can | come and pick her up when you get home today? | — 
Yeah. Thanks so much." 


They chatted for a few minutes longer, Chelsea meanwhile moving 
through the burgeoning woods. The elms had gone to seed already, 
but she greeted the bloodroot and rue-anemone by name. 
Something inside her began to settle quietly back into place. 


"Yeah, | missed you too." She grinned into the phone, knowing 
Blaire would hear it in her voice. "Lunch Thursday? — Sounds great. 
— See you soon!" 


They hung up. She paused by a maple sapling, running careful 
fingers over the soft new leaves nosing out of their buds, before 
dialing the next number. 


"Hey, Jorge, how've you been?" Mayapples on the hillside. 


"Sophia! Hi! | owe you a danish." Sharp-lobed hepatica among the 
rocks. 


"Kyle? Yeah, I'm back." A grove full of speckled trout-lilies. 


By the time she'd finished her calls, she was brimming with the 
simple, heady joys of spring and freedom. There was more to do 
back at home, but she could spare a little longer, couldn't she? 


There — a patch of lesser-celandine, bathed in sunlight. She 
stretched out on the soft, glossy leaves. Just half an hour, just to 
bask... 


She stirred, blinking sleepily. How long had it been? The sun was 
still warm on her face, and she lifted a hand to shade her drowsy 
eyes; with the other, she felt beside her for her bag. 


Under her searching fingers, the leaves went crunch. 


She sat up, looked around, and stared. The ground around and 
under her, a meter or more out from where she'd lain, was coated in 
hoarfrost — a hair-thin coat of sparkling white crystals, impossibly 
failing to melt in the balmy air. The stuff even clung to her bare 
arms. It was only slightly cool to the touch, no different from the 
grass itself, and it crunched between her fingers like fine sand. 


Her eyes narrowed. Not sand. A memory surfaced: baking 
Christmas cookies, rolling little balls of dough in cinnamon and... 


"Sugar," she murmured. 


The crystal shape was right, from what she could see through her 
hand lens. It dissolved almost instantly in a drop of water from the 
bottle in her purse, and the residue left her fingers faintly sticky. No 
scent... Hesitantly, she put a single grain on the tip of her tongue. 


"...Definitely sugar." 


She looked down at the leaves, all around, up at the sky. Her first 
real sunshine of the year, just after she'd stopped 
photosynthesizing, and suddenly there was sugar all over the place? 


Despite the balmy April air, she shivered. 


Taggart: That sounds conspicuous. I'd expect 
surveillance to have showed it if you were literally sugar- 
coating every chair you sat in. 


Elliott: Well, it wasn't being deposited very fast — even 
in direct sunlight, it took a good twenty minutes to build 
up to anything noticeable. And it's light-dependent, of 
course, so | can stop most of it just by wearing long 
sleeves and turtlenecks. Still, | didn't want to bring even 
that into a lab. Contaminate every sample in the fridge, 
just by standing near it... (snorts) | might have had to 
turn myself in right then, if | hadn't figured out how to 
control it. 


Taggart: And how do you do that? 


Notes: D-1699 was killed by SCP-702-1, failing to complete the 
transaction. 


Experiment 702-003: 


Name of Researcher: Dr. 

Interacting Personnel: D-1010 

Object Traded: Crystalline sculpture 
Object Received: 2.8kg unidentified liquid 


Notes: None 


Experiment 702-004: 


Name of Researcher: Dr. 

Interacting Personnel: D-8133 
Object Traded: Sample from SCP-158 
Object Received: None 


Notes: SCP-701-1 refused to trade with D-8133, and ceased 
communications immediately. 


Experiment 702-005: 
Name of Researcher: Dr. 
Interacting Personnel: D-9134 


Object Traded: Glass marble 


Object Received: 1' torch, on fire when received 


Elliott: Oh, um... (Pause.) 
|... (Pause.) You just... (Pause.) 


... Lactually have no idea how to describe it. The 
process. Technique. Thing. (gestures vaguely) |'d 
probably have to study meditation, just for the 
vocabulary. Or reread Dune. All | can really say is that | 
learned to keep it in. 


Taggart: | see. 


Elliott: Soon after that, | realized | didn't need to eat 
anymore. I'd dealt with that sort of thing during 
quarantine — you just don't get hungry, as long as you 
get enough light — and the experience was basically the 
same. No supernumerary scales this time, though. 
(Absently:) | still don't know what I'm using for 
chloroplasts. 


Taggart: Was your fasting deliberate, then? 


Elliott: (spreads her hands) Sometimes. Sometimes I'd 
just forget to eat. More often as summer came in. | took 
supplements in the beginning, to make up for what 
amounted to a diet of straight sugar. 


Taggart: Why the past tense? 
Elliott: Well... it's not just a diet of straight sugar. 
Taggart: | see. (pause) Go on. 


Elliott: (takes a breath) As it turns out, | can basically 
make any vascular-plant metabolite that I've had in my 
system. Skin contact, inhalation, ingestion, all fair game, 
and it doesn't take much. I'm on either a balanced 
vegetarian diet or a healthy photosynthate intake for a 
plant of about my mass, I'm not sure which. 


Taggart: If | understand correctly — 


Elliott: Yeah, if it comes from a plant, | can probably 
crank it out. Just get me a sample first. 


Taggart: (pauses) Does that include aconite? 


Elliott: That was how | learned | could do it in the first 
place. 


"Oh, hey, the Aconitum's flowering." 
"Sorry, what?" 


"The monkshood." Chelsea nodded towards the five-foot-tall potted 
plant that stretched a proud spike of hooded violet flowers towards 
the peak of the greenhouse roof. The young man at her heels 
showed no sign of recognition. "Wolfsbane? Lovely plant, neat 
history and chemistry, not too hard to grow. Toxic as all get-out, 
though." 


Her visitor — Niels — blinked. "And you keep it out here? No 
containment?"