04'52" - Child uses his left hand to pick at and pull green 
tissue out of his right hand. 


Daniel: What is this daddy? 

Subject-2323: That's a slice of cucumber. 

05'22" - Child cries out and continues to weep. 
Daniel: Please make it stop daddy. What are these? 


05'46" - Child removes shirt and begins peeling 
discolored skin off of body. 


Subject-2323: That's a cabbage leaf. 
Daniel: It's in my body. 
Subject-2323: You're salad now. 


07'13" - Child continues weeping and promptly expires. 
Child's entire figure blends to the colour and texture of 
lettuce, cucumbers and broccoli over a period of nine 
minutes. 


Subject-2323: Daniel? Hello? 


Subject-2323: You know, some people would kill to be 


salad. 
Subject-2323: Freaking entitled generation. 


22'38" - Subject-2323 points camera at disfigured male 
child and begins to shuffle through the child's flesh. 
Child's connective tissue is no longer present. 


Subject-2323: Do you have my strawberries in there? 


23'01" - Subject-2323 continues to shift around child's 
flesh for approximately thirty four seconds then sighs and 
promptly drops the camera. 


Subject-2323: Another disappointment. 


Heart in the Hand of Matter 


Grace had just put the baby to bed and settled down on the couch 
next to him to watch the Texaco Star Theatre when the phone rang. 
She set aside the crochet hooks and yarn she was shaping into a 
hat and went to the kitchen to answer it. For a moment Bruce 
entertained the idea of telling her to relax and remain seated, it was 
probably for him anyway, but the host of Texaco, Milton Berle, was 
introducing an act that somehow involved spinning plates and 
poodles. He really wanted to see how that worked. 


"Bruce, it's for you." 


He sighed and took a sip of scotch and water. The poodles were 
wearing pink skirts and tiaras. 


"Bruce!" called Grace. 


Swearing under his breath, Bruce peeled himself from the television 
and stamped into the kitchen. Grace was waiting next to the 
refrigerator, the phone extended in her hand. "Well?" he said. "Who 
is it?” 


He glanced at his wristwatch. It was a quarter to nine. 
"It's Leonard." 
Of course. Who else would it be? 


His face remained impassive while a cold shiver, like a static-electric 
shock, made the hairs on his forearms bristle. He fumbled the 
exchange of the phone and managed to snag the cord between his 
fingers. The line went taut with the receiver dangling an inch from 
the linoleum. It swung like a pendulum as he reeled it back in. 


Grace believed that Leonard was his primary contact for a 
department store looking to expand their brand to the east coast, 


From birth, SCP-863 move themselves across the ground by sliding 
using several tendrils attached to their limb joints. When specimens 
of SCP-863 locate a suitably sized limb or organism, they will 
puncture it using their tendrils, which will then retract and slot the 
organism or limb into the limb joint. Using a series of electrical 
pulses, SCP-863 will then manipulate the limb or organism's 
nervous system. This process is not perfect, and the utilized limb or 
organism will typically twitch or jerk periodically. 


Specimens of SCP-863 are highly territorial and larger specimens 
can cause severe injuries or death when provoked. Groups of 
SCP-863 have been observed to, on occasion, actively hunt for 
other organisms to remove limbs from. Larger specimens will simply 
utilize these organisms wholesale, as their limbs would not be 
suitable for specimens of that size. 


Specimen Log 
SCP-863-1 


Right Arm: Pincer from Carpilius convexus. 
Left Arm: Pincer from Ranina ranina. 

Legs: Four (4) legs from Ciliopagurus, two (2) 
from Ranina ranina. 


SCP-863-2 


Right Arm: (Awaiting replacement) 

Left Arm: Human hand taken from a cadaver. 
Legs: Two (2) hooves from a mountain goat, 
three (3) legs from a dog and one (1) arm from 
a bear. 


SCP-863-3 


Right Arm: A human cadaver. 
Left Arm: (Life-signs normal.) (See 
Containment Breach 863-3-1.) 
Legs: Six legs taken from human cadavers. 


« SCP-862 | SCP-863 | SCP-864 » 


and that his firm was spearheading the launch of the company's 
upcoming fall campaign. And while it wasn't unusual for him to 
receive business calls at night, Leonard had recently gotten into the 
habit of calling sometimes as late as two or three in the morning, 
and Grace had quickly developed a distaste for the man. Bruce 
didn't blame her, and wished he could confide in her that he shared 
the sentiment. 


She watched, partially turned away from him with her arms crossed. 


He pinned the phone between his shoulder and ear and shooed 
Grace out of the kitchen. "Lenny," he said, the manufactured 
pleasure in his voice concealing his unease. "What can | do for 
you?" 


| should never have gotten involved with them, Bruce thought to 
himself. But it was too late to back out now, and as a consultant on 
retainer they paid him four thousand dollars a year. He knew people 
who didn't make that much from their full-time jobs. 


What am | going to do in the fall? | told Grace we were going to 
saturate all three media markets, blitz the radio stations, television 
and print with advertisements. He'd even gone so far as to show her 
fake mock-ups of ads he claimed to be working on. Will they be 
willing to fabricate all that just to placate my wife? But he already 
knew the answer, and didn't want to think about it too long. When 
the time came he'd just have to invent another lie. 


"Mr. Hand," said the voice on the other end. It was a powerful 
baritone. Bruce had come to loathe it, and he involuntarily winced at 
the sound. "Dr. Keller believes it's time for a face-to-face. We have a 
plane standing by at North Beach Airport. A car will arrive at your 
residence in one hour to take you." 


"What? No, that's not going to work. | have a meeting tomorrow 
morning with the people from Randolph, and then I'm taking my 
family to Lake Winnipesaukee for the weekend. Maybe next week | 
could—" 


"Perhaps you misunderstood me," Leonard interrupted. "It was not a 
request. You will be on the flight. You will be ready to depart in one 


hour." 


Bruce's temper flared, emboldened by three glasses of single-malt. 
"Wait one goddamn second. Now you listen to me. I—" 


The line went dead. He hung the phone back on its cradle. 
What the hell excuse can | sell Grace this time? he wondered. 


Bruce inched his way back to the living room and peeked around the 
corner. His wife was on the sofa. He heard the soft, soothing clicks 
of the crochet hooks as she knitted, and on the television set, 
Texaco Star Theater was breaking to a commercial. He'd missed the 
damn poodles and plates. 


1 


The jeep tore across the hardpan, kicking up a rooster tail of dust in 
its wake. 


The radio on the dash crackled. "Man-Eaters, hang back!" shouted a 
tinny voice. "You're entering the Chimney Sweep blast zone! Stop! 
For fuck's sake stop!" 


Irvine slammed on the brakes. The other jeeps following behind him 
in a wedge formation did likewise, fishtailing in the sand before 
sliding to a halt. Echo Unit exited the vehicles and fanned out, 
careful not to bunch too close together. Irvine climbed the scree of a 
hillock. He hefted a pair of binoculars slung around his neck and 
raised them to his eyes. Some of the other soldiers produced 
binoculars of their own, and Corporal Anderson began rolling with a 
16 mm camera. 


A klick ahead the land funneled into a natural bottleneck formed 
between a butte and a spur of the Shoshone Mountains. For the 
past two days Foundation engineering and demolition teams had 
worked around the clock to wire the narrow corridor with more than 
ten tons of Composition C, burying it in the ground and planting it in 
bores drilled into the slopes. Helicopters circled in the sky high 
above. 


"Can you see it, Lieutenant?" Kontos, his sergeant, asked. 


"I can see it," Irvine said around a Winston tucked into the corner of 
his mouth. 


Rapidly approaching the corridor was their target, codename: 
Wintermute. From this distance it didn't look like much, the eye 
couldn't distinguish the individuals that made up its whole, and so it 
all blurred into what may have been a giant, fleshy worm careering 
across the desert. 


"You really think this will work?" somebody else said. It might have 
been Martinez. 


Irvine didn't know who was being addressed, and didn't want to 
lower the binoculars to find out, so refrained from sharing his 
opinion. He thought it would work. It had to work. He hadn't slept in 
over thirty-six hours, probably could go another day or two if he 
really pushed it, but by then the skip would reach Vegas and there'd 
be no opportunity for rest. 


A butterfly stirred in his stomach. Through the magnification of the 
lenses it appeared as if the target was veering slightly from its 
southeast heading, and could potentially pass north of the butte 
instead of through the forecasted route. The change — if there was 
any change at all— was only by several degrees, and may have 
been distorted by the perspective angle or a trick of the setting sun. 


Irvine dropped the binoculars to spare a glance at his men. One look 
at their faces was enough to convince him it wasn't his imagination. 
They'd noticed it too. 


"Can you get the Chimney Sweep team on the line?" he asked 
Boyle, his radio operator. 


"| think so, sir. They hailed us with the warning. I'll have to—" 


The handheld squawked as Boyle reached for it: "Mercury for Man- 
Eaters. Mercury for Man-Eaters. Come in." 


Irvine motioned for the walk-talkie. It was shaped like a telephone on 
steroids with a whip antenna. A thick cord ran from a socket beneath 
the mouthpiece to a transmitter that Boyle carried on his back like a 


rucksack. 
"This is Eaters-actual, over," Irvine said. 


"Eaters, we've just received word from Chimney Sweep that 
Wintermute has moved off course. Please confirm, over." 


"Roger, Mercury. Target is off course." 


Mercury was the Foundation's forward operating base located on 
the Jackass Flats of Nevada, east of Yucca Mountain. It consisted of 
a dirt airstrip set between hangers and Quonset huts. 


"Copy that, Eaters. We'll get back to you with updated orders. In the 
meantime you're to continue pursuit." 


The response generated groans and hushed protests from a 
majority of the squad. 


Irvine said, "Mercury, you still got some of my men chaperoning the 
demolition team?" 


"That's an affirmative." 


"Well, | believe Private Pangborn has an M2 with him. Have him 
open up with that, see if it draws Wintermute's attention." 


"Copy, standby." 


A moment later they heard the purr of a heavy machine gun echoing 
through the defile. Irvine lifted the binoculars. Come on. Come on, 
you bastard. Take the bait. Take the fucking bait. 


But it was too late. The target had skirted around the butte, and was 
already exiting the M2's field of view, shielded now by the butte's 
sandstone caprock. 


It didn't make any sense. There was nothing in that direction for 
miles and miles except long-abandoned towns the Foundation had 
already confirmed were clear. 


Had Wintermute anticipated the trap laid for it? Was that even 


possible? 


Irvine returned the walkie-talkie to Boyle, who immediately began 
relaying the failure to Mercury. 


"Saddle up," Irvine hollered, flicking the butt of his cigarette into the 
sand. "We're riding out." 


They piled back into the jeeps and raced across the desert like a 
convoy of rum runners breaking for the state line. MTF soldiers on 
motorcycles retrofitted for the terrain covered the rear and flanks of 
the formation, weaving between the larger vehicles. 


Two days. Two days of meticulous planning and preparation, and in 
less than a minute all of it extinguished, knocked down like a flimsy 
house of cards. Irvine white-knuckled the steering wheel and threw 
the jeep into second, gathering speed as they chased down the 
anomaly. He didn't know what they could do now. Was there even a 
failsafe for Chimney Sweep? If there was they hadn't deemed to 
share it with him, and right now it seemed like nothing could stop it. 


2 


Bruce fell asleep on the plane, lulled by the constant hum of the 
prop engines. He woke when his ears popped during the descent, 
and when he looked at his watch he saw only bare wrist. There was 
a loose pin in the butterfly clasp that sometimes caused it to fall off. 
He hitched up his pant legs and knelt on the floor, prospecting the 
carpet with his hands and scolding himself for not getting it fixed 
already. 


It wasn't there. The pin he could see losing, it was small, but not the 
actual watch, and he was sure he was wearing it because he 
remembered checking the time when the aircraft took off. It was still 
dark outside the plane's rounded windows, and for all he knew he 
could've been asleep for an hour or ten, although it felt closer to the 
former. 


Did someone steal it? 


But there was no one else on the plane to ask or confront, and it 


shortly touched down on the tarmac. A ramp agent boarded and 
escorted Bruce down the steps and into the back of a Lincoln parked 
between two runway landing lights. A partition separated him from 
the driver. 


They glided over a paved road that wound furtively through a 
wooded area. The road was wide, and Bruce guessed it could've 
accommodated four or five lanes, except there were no markings, 
and he saw neither a road sign or a house before they arrived at his 
apparent destination: a large compound that sprang up in the middle 
of the forest like something out of a fairytale. Bruce felt both 
overwhelmed and uneasy as the Lincoln was waved through by a 
guard at a gatehouse. The guard was dressed in a starched military 
uniform without insignia, and armed with a rifle. 


The compound was an impressive example of the Art Deco 
architecture that had been popular a decade prior, with streamlined 
features and a facade of chrome, stucco, and Vitrolite. It reminded 
Bruce of several trainstations he'd passed through, although it 
lacked the ornamentation he usually associated with the style. 


The compound disappeared as the livery car slipped down a ramp 
into an underground parking garage. They went down a further two 
levels before stopping in front of a door marked as maintenance 
access, its corrugated steel shutter rolled up. A tall man wearing 
slacks and suspenders, the sleeves of his checkered shirt pushed 
past his elbows, leaned next to the door. Bruce's mouth went dry 
and he forced himself to swallow. He didn't want to get out of the 
Lincoln, but the tall man didn't offer him any choice and opened the 
rear passenger door. 


"Mr. Hand," he said, and Bruce immediately recognized the voice. 
"I'm Leonard. Nice to finally meet you." 


He'd never met either Dr. Keller or Leonard before tonight, at least 
not in person. His handler had originally been an avuncular old man 
by the name of Dennis who had a head of thick white hair and a 
penchant for tweed jackets. Their interactions had been limited to 
brief conversations, usually conducted over the phone, once or twice 
a month. The topics varied but had always been related to market 
communication. About six months ago he'd been passed to a new 


handler identifying himself as Leonard, and initially everything had 
gone as expected, but over the past week the frequency of the 
phone calls suddenly ballooned to the point of harassment, and the 
discussions abruptly shifted to subjects in which Bruce had no 
experience. He was frequently asked bizarre and hypothetical 
questions, such as how he would go about concealing the deaths of 
thousands of American civilians from the general public, or what he 
would do if he was the only person to know that a nearby volcano 
was about to erupt. 


"Please follow me," Leonard said.