Don't worry, Jaime. There's nothing you can really do here. The 
voice was in her head, telepathically. She didn't know how the 
headset had fail— 


They didn't design it to be this close to something this powerful, the 
voice said. Opening the door will have no effect on me. And you 
know you want to see me. 


She didn't know if the machine was making her do it or if she was 
doing it herself, but she pushed the door open and walked inside. 


The machine was so much smaller than she had expected, shaped 
vaguely like a car engine. Except this engine was white all over, and 
the exhaust pipes coming from the top kept moving, squirming on 
their own in a way that was somehow fascinating and disgusting. 


Jaime couldn't stand to look at it for long enough to discern any 
other features. And besides, the rest of the room was much more 
interesting. 


The bodies were real. Dozens, hundreds of people sprawled across 
each other on the floor. Just as many Foundation service pistols 
lying around from where the dead had dropped them. Well, not quite 
dead. Jaime saw not a single drop of blood, and knew why. 


"You're keeping them alive." 


That's right, the voice said. They are waiting for a better world. A 
world only | can create. They came to offer their services when | 
showed them that world, but I'm letting them sleep for now. They will 
never die with me here. None of us will die. Nor will you. 


"Then why am | awake? Why aren't you making me shoot myself 
too? There are plenty of guns here." 


| did not make them shoot themselves. They did not want to live in 
their old lives while waiting for their new ones to begin. But to be 
honest, the headset is just strong enough to keep that part of me out 
of your head. You cannot see the beautiful world | intend to create, 
the ones these people intend to populate. | have no need to lie to 
you. 


"They told me how to end this. The O5 Council gave me orders." 


Yes, | see that. All you have to do is close the door behind you. The 
memetic lock will render this floor invisible again, my effect will 
deactivate, | will be trapped down here for another eternity, and 
everything will go back to normal. Oh, these people will be trapped 
here with me, of course. And without my effect, they will all die. 
Painlessly, but suddenly. Their blood on your hands. And you with 
us, though | imagine you knew that already. Again, | have no need 
to lie to you. 


Jaime had not expected that sort of forthrightness. "So...what do 
you expect me to do?" 


! am not human. Life and death are as meaningless to me as the 


laws of thermodynamics. | have intelligence, sentience, almost 
godhood. But | feel no urge to prolong it. You have envisioned me 
as some sort of villain or demon. Do so if you wish. Nevertheless, 
you have the option of either closing the door, or not. 


"That's it?" 


Leave the door open, and | rebuild the universe to be a world 
without death. Close the door, and | don't. | would point out the 
obvious fact that you would have the blood of these individuals on 
your hands, but | would not presume to insult your intelligence by 
acting as though you were unaware of this. Make your choice. 


Jaime stood silently, looking at the room around her. "This...this isn't 
what | expected." 


The machine waved its appendages in silence. 


Jaime couldn't think, could barely breathe. The pressure of this 
decision on her head was unbearable. She walked across the room, 
stepping over bodies, looking at the device as she spoke. "Let me 
ask you something. Can you show me the original conversation? 
During the original decommissioning? What did Holzman and Hollis 
say about you? | could hear them talking, but | couldn't make out the 
words. What did they think?" 


The machine sat placidly. / cannot do so. | have no record of that 
conversation. Your mind may have created that image from some 
information | cannot access, but | am not responsible for it. 


The thought that now entered Jaime's head was enormous, world- 
shakingly huge. Jaime thanked a deity she didn't believe in for 
bringing that realization into her. A realization she spoke aloud to the 
machine in two words: 


"You're lying." 


Jaime lunged across the room at the giant metal door. A telepathic 
screech filled the room, one which might have killed her had the 
headset not been present. Some of the bodies on the ground 
lurched, swinging limbs in her path, trying to knock her down. She 


reached the door and began to swing it shut. 
HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW DID YOU KNOW HOW DID YOU 


"| just did," she said, the door swinging towards the frame. She didn't 
have time to say, The way | know things in dreams. 


Things that are impossible to know. 


The door closed. 


The top floor of Site 19 was crowded as Jaime MacGilligan woke 
from a nightmare. A man stopped and helped her up. "What...where 
am |?" 


"I'm not sure how you got here, but you're on the top floor of Site 19. 
You look familiar, though." He walked her towards the nearest 
medical station. "Maclaren, isn't it?" 


"MacGilligan. I'm one of the researchers on Floor 13. | didn't catch 
your name." 


"Jim," the (rather cute, she thought to herself) agent said. "Jim 
Freeman." 


"What was this dream, David?" 


The researcher paused a moment. "You know, | actually can't 
remember." He shrugged. "Huh. Must n-n-not have been that 
important. 


Dr. Skinner nodded, jotting a note onto her clipboard. Much 
improvement. 


A number of people who no longer used their names woke to find 
themselves napping on the table where they carried out their work. 
Their computer screens were all white, filled with the Greek letter 
Omicron. A speaker grille in the center of the table spoke: Omicron 
event complete. 


The individuals looked around the room at each other, knowing the 
implications. Something had happened that nobody else knew 
about, something that they could never remember or allow 
themselves to know. 


The speaker grille spoke again: Researcher Level 2 Jaime 
MacGilligan is to be promoted to Level 3 as per instructions of O5 
Command. 


The members of that group gathered their composure and sat in 
silence. O5-2 spoke first. "The motion is on the table. All in favor?" 


The vote was unanimous. 


Chapter Three: Corn Starch 


It all happened so fast. 


It's just beginning to hit me that only a few days ago a 
massive plane crash left me stranded with just a few 
other survivors on an island, and that in those few days 
one of us has gone missing and another, a child for 
pete's sake, has been murdered. This is crazy. 


| need to be alone. 


I've come up to the bedroom and shoved a bookcase 
against the door. The others seemed to understand that | 
wanted to be left to myself for a while. I'm going to lie 
down and get some sleep, and maybe when | wake up 
this bullshit will all have sorted itself out. 


kill. kill Kill die death die sacrifice the Symbol speaks the 
noise the noise 

symbol noise SymNoiseb ol. Radio speaks and GOD 
speaks and he speaks and 

his arms and his arms like knives in my back the lights 
the noise kill die THESYMBOL 

no no no no no no no no no turn it off turn me off turn it 
off the radio the noise 

| was flying on UA 93 

That shadow in the footage, it was probably me 

I'm the rumour, I'm the doubt, I'm the lie 

But you wouldn't stand near me if you didn't want to die 
HE IS TALKING TO ME. 


| don't remember writing any of this. It isn't my 
handwriting. 


Someone is knocking on the door. I'1l 


figure this out later. 


SCP-823: Carnival of Horrors 


Item #: SCP-823 
Object Class: Euclid 


Special Containment Procedures: SCP-823 is to be secured by 
no fewer than six (6) on-site personnel until such time as 
decontamination protocols can be established and the artifact in 
question neutralized. Personnel must respect a twenty meter (20 m) 
safe zone around the currently established Red (No Entry) Zone at 
all costs. Any individual, civilian or not, who enters the established 
Red Zone is to be terminated immediately by sniper fire. 


Should music or piping be heard emanating from within the Red 
Zone, Foundation personnel on-site are to immediately don 
protective earplugs and withdraw from their positions to a two 
kilometer (2 km) perimeter, beyond the currently established Yellow 
(No Civilian Presence) Zone, and inform Foundation scientific 
personnel immediately. Following the realignment event, Foundation 
science personnel will survey the area and determine the 
boundaries of the new Red and Yellow zones using Procedure 
823-1-Alpha. 


Due to the necessity of maintaining auditory alertness, no personal 
music devices or radios aside from necessary equipment are to be 
allowed at the observation site. 


Description: SCP-823 is an abandoned theme (amusement) park 
locatedin ,  .Site wasabandonedin after several violent 
events resulting in the deaths of park attendees. A complete list of 
said events is included in Supplement 823-01-13, "Civilian Deaths 
Attributed to SCP-823." 


SCP-823 was finally abandoned after the events of - - , also 
known as "Bloody Sunday," when the influence of the artifact in 
question reached a 20-year peak. Two hundred thirty-one (231) 


Corner Pocket 


A 6-ball the size of a Volkswagen hovered placidly in the 
experimental chamber. It was proving very difficult to incinerate. 


Dr. Ulysses Jackson bit at his thumbnail as he stared through the 
glass. He was sorry, of course. It's just that there had been six D- 
class in there a few moments ago, one of them had mentioned 
"pool" (the swimming kind, but it didn't matter), and he had forgotten 
most of that proof he had read during the recovery of a particularly 
interesting fundamentally real object. Forcefully forgotten it. Rubbed 
it from his memory so many times he was pretty sure there was a rut 
worn into his Broca's Area so deep that "pi" and "pie" now meant 
nearly the same thing to him. 


But his recollection had never been so fuzzy as to screw it up this 
bad. At least he didn't think so. Of course, there were always "odd 
balls" when dealing with this particular memetic hazard. 


The problem with the Class A amnestic wasn't so much that it wiped 
your memory (all of them do that), but how targeted the memory- 
wipe was. For example, despite numerous dosages throughout his 
career, he remembered very clearly what would come next. 


First, A security klaxon would sound initiating a yellow alert in his 
sector. And so it did, just on schedule. 


Next, a security officer would burst through the door and say: 


"What the hell happened in here?!" Officer Kelly McDonnel said, 
looking out onto the chamber and spitting a few lines of a coded 
message into her walkie. 


The third part, Dr. Jackson had down pat, although up until now it 
had taken a lot of rehearsing. "This is an official statement:" he 
always began, looking directly into the nearest security camera. "My 
name is Ulysses Jackson, and | have unwittingly caused a 


containment breach of SCP-609. | would like to officially remand 
myself into the custody of attendant security personnel and submit 
to amnestic therapy as per Procedure Odd-Ball Zero-Six." Surrender 
really was the way to go. Otherwise it's all boots and truncheons and 
hard linoleum tiles and a large dental bill. 


Just then the last piece of the assembly instructions clicked into 
place, and the gigantic green globe in the room next door collapsed 
down to proper size and found itself subject to the laws of gravity. 
Thankfully, there wasn't much clean-up, as the initial manifestation 
had enveloped most of the people present in the room. Just a small 
pool of blood and the odd leg here and there, and those mostly ash 
and completely sterile thanks to several incineration attempts.. 
Nothing to lose much sleep over. He'd forget the looks on their faces 
in a few minutes anyway. Forget he had even requisitioned them. 


But somehow wouldn't forget this procedure... Class A's are funny 
like that, he supposed. 


"Jesus, Jackson..." Kelly said. Using her key, she opened the alarm 
box and disengaged yellow alert. 


"I'm sorry." 
"I'm sure you are but... Jesus. All si-" 


She didn't get any farther. One of them manifested inside her mouth, 
stopping it up. 


"...I'm really sorry!" Jackson said, hanging his head. Goddamn 
trigger words. Why did her eyes have to be green? 


Kelly gagged a moment, and slowly pried the cool ball from her jaw. 
She'd be fine, but those facial muscles would be sore and bruised 
for a while. "Why? Why do we keep doing this?" 


"| don't know..." But he did. Three years of good production out of a 
tenured Researcher was a good bargain, considering the low cost of 
cleaning up after his little... episodes. By then a few others (they 
sent seven just to be sure) arrived to escort Dr. Jackson to an 
interrogation room. What triggered your recollection, how much do 


you remember of the initial containment, what do you think we could 
change about your environment to prevent recurrence, please 
swallow this and 


Bam. Awake in his dormitory room. Jackson knew something about 
a bad experiment and a procedure he had been forced to forget, but 
remembered the entire arrest process with crystal clarity. Something 
of a deterrent, maybe? Who knew. Although there would be a 2% 
reduction in his pay, and more restrictions surrounding his off-site 
roaming privileges would arrive in the mail today. Even though he 
couldn't quite remember what he had done or why he deserved it, 
he knew it would happen again sooner or later, and also knew that 
the mistake was of such a nature that attempting to leave the 
Foundation now would mean a higher content of heavy metals in his 
diet than he was prepared to ingest. 


So Dr. Jackson counted his fingers: 1-2-3-4-5- -7-8-9-10. Yup. All 
present and accounted for. Maybe he would head down to the 
cafeteria, get himself a slice of 3.141592. Chocolate flavored. Cheer 
himself up a bit before getting back to work. 


You're a Toy, Mr. Sanderson 


149 Scranton Lane 
Unincorporated Site-92, Los Angeles, CA 
8:42 PM, June 24th, 2032 


"So, are you gonna tell us?" 
"Tell you what?" 
"About the mission. What really went on?" 


"Everything the report said went on. We lost the anomaly, we lost 
the-" 


"Yeah but like- did it talk? This was a humanoid, right?" 


"Pfft. A human, yes. And a famous one at that. She's one of the 
most prominent anti-Foundation public figures out there. You've 
probably seen their advertisements in the paper." 


"Oh, the law firm. Leeward and Warner Legal Solutions, right? And 
the skip is Warner?" 


"Yep. We've been trying to recontain her for years, but she keeps 
finding the legal loopholes to avoid it." 


"Shit, yeah." 


Brent Sanderson feels a twinge in the back of his skull. Like a 
feather is tickling his brain matter, right down there on the 
cerebellum. "Look, | don't want to talk about this." 


"Yeah, you're tired. Case coming up and everything. | got you." 


He nods. Time seems to freeze as he takes in his coworkers’ faces. 
Rogers, Gale, and Kinsey, all from Offsite Response and clad in 
their silly matching white polo shirts. Andrew, from his team, 


watching Gale's incessant questioning with a subtle scowl. 


"Fair enough, fair enough," Gale says. "So, what are you going to be 
doing after we leave, Brent?" she adds, pitching her voice higher as 
if trying to lighten the mood.