"... There are only, broadly speaking, two ways D-Class personnel 
are utilized, these days. Firstly, the testing of new items whose 
properties are largely unknown. We perform most tests via drone, 
but eventually we need to discover how an anomaly reacts to human 
interaction. Most of your time here will be spent interacting, under 
controlled circumstances, with RAOs- recovered anomalous objects. 
The second is interacting with SCP objects whose containment 


procedures contraindicate the use of drones. Perhaps machines are 
disrupted or destroyed around the anomaly; perhaps a human touch 
is needed to activate its properties. As D-Class, you are entitled to 
only deal with Safe- and Euclid-class anomalies. 


"If there is an emergency, if a human is needed to interact with a 
Keter-class object, typically that duty will fall to containment 
specialists or mobile task-force personnel assigned to it; however, if 
you are needed, you may be asked to volunteer to take on 
temporary 'G-class' status and interact with it. This is strictly 
voluntary, and | should warn you, casualty rates for G-class 
personnel near 50% in their term of service. 


"That said, such an emergency is unlikely to occur here. Site-301 is 
a processing facility for RAOs, and serves as long-term storage for 
inert Safe-class items. Virtually all of your time will be spent 
interacting with harmless anomalies. 


"Anyway, your shifts start tomorrow. I'll be down in the morning with 
your first assignments. Good evening- and sleep well tonight, you all 
have a busy day ahead of you." 


He left, and we, as a group, went back to talking, drinking coffee and 
picking our teeth. Mostly, we spoke about innocuous subjects: our 
families and friends, dumb stories and dumber jokes, that sort of 
thing. It was surprisingly soothing, that banality: the frightened-ape 
anxiety that had been clawing around the back of my brain for the 
past eight hours or so mostly quieted down. Eventually, one by one, 
we all went to our rooms to crash. 


Unsurprisingly, | had difficulty sleeping. After about three hours of 
tossing and turning, | sat up. "Yo," | heard from the top bunk, which 
had been claimed by Nicky. "You up, brother?" 


"Yeah," | said. "Can't seem to sleep." 


"| smuggled in some darts," he said, "Not that they search us. You 
smoke?" 


"When I'm stressed," | admitted. "I think now qualifies." Nicky 
hopped nimbly from the top bunk, and offered me a cigarette pack in 


the gloom. "Thanks," | said, and took a smoke. 


"No worries, pay it forward." He took the pack back, handing me a 
lighter and fishing himself out a cigarette. 


"Do we just smoke in here?" | asked. "Someone will smell it." 


"Naw. Just like all Foundation facilities, they got a top-notch air 
filtration system in here. You're good: smoke 'em if ya got 'em." | lit 
the smoke and took a drag. 


"Hey- | didn't ask when Frazier was talking- but what does the D 
stand for? And what the hell is G-Class? Do you know?" 


"Oh, yeah, right. Yeah, | know. It's this classification system, they 
got. We use it in retrieval, and | think they use it in containment. 
Prolly RAISA, too. When you apply it to skips, it tells you what kind 
of threat they are. When you apply it to Foundation employees, it 
tells you what kind of duties they got. 


"Goes like this: from the letter A, which means weird, you know, but 
not a threat of any kind. Like the list of anomalous items, you know? 
A for anomalous, you ever heard that? Anyway, then you get nine 
more- they classify em in two ways, you know, like uh, axis: minor, 
moderate, and serious, and then physical threats and information 
threats (or security clearance, for us). Then there's K- you've heard 
of K-class scenarios, right? Yeah, global catastrophe kinda shit. 


"D-Class, with personnel, means minimal security clearance and 
moderate physical threat. G-Class means minimal clearance and 
maximum danger. Euclid up to Keter. | wouldn't worry about it. Like 
the man said, it's unlikely to come up." 


"Yeah, of course," | replied. "So...what did you do to wind up here?" 
He chuckled. 


"Working in retrieval, | never ran across D-Class. Spent most of the 
time in the barracks, training, or in the field, you know? One day | 
ran into one. Asked someone what it was about. Then | held the Site 
Director at gunpoint for an hour and a half, demanding they be 
freed." 


"Jesus!" | said. He laughed harder. 


"Yeah, I'm lucky | didn't get shot. The Ethics Committee and my 
commanding officer got everything smoothed over, and then all of 
the sudden, | had a new job offer." He shrugged, grinning. "It's a 
good job, man, and someone's gotta do it." 


"True enough," | said, stubbing out the smoke and walking to the 
bathroom to drop the butt in the toilet. "Thanks for the smoke, man." 


"Sure," he said, and flicked his own still-burning smoke into the 
toilet-bowl. "Better crash, man. They like us to be up and working 
pretty early around here." 


Damn it, was he ever right. Six o'clock, a bell rang out in the hall, 
and we all hustled out of our rooms into the little cafeteria-slash- 
common room. Frazier was there, looking crisp and perfectly alert. 
Bastard. Then | caught the scent of coffee. Magnificent bastard. 
"Come and get some coffee and breakfast, people,” he said. "I have 
your assignments here." He waved a clipboard. "Come on, early bird 
gets the worm." 


| poured myself a cup of coffee. There were a handful of guards, 
present, as well. Probably to escort us to our assignments. | 
watched my fellow D-Class eat their breakfasts- I'd never in my life 
been able to eat before noon- and listened to Frazier read out the 
assignments. "D-3961-" Nicky's number, "-RAO-7234, RAO-2290, 
and SCP-6710." So on and so fourth, until he reached D-3962. My 
number. 


"D-3962: RAO-8122, RAO-4872, RAO-7861." Well, alright. Three 
pieces to work with. 


Once breakfast had tapered off, the guards began escorting people 
out. "Remember, you are not permitted to be unsupervised outside 
the D-Class barracks. You may not interact with other personnel. 
You must obey all instructions during item interaction. This is for 
your own safety!" said Frazier. 


A guard escorted me out of the dormitory, down long concrete halls 
lit by ominous fluorescent lighting- if you've been in one secure 


paragovernmental facility, you've been in all of them. Occasionally 
we passed a lab-coated researcher. They always, very studiously, 
avoided eye contact. 


Except for one very young Asian researcher, who stared at me with 
wide, terrified, pitying eyes, clutching his clipboard tightly to his 
chest. | couldn't talk to him, but | tried to give him a reassuring smile. 
It didn't seem to help. He just cast his gaze to the floor. 


Oh, well. First test: in a white, sterile room (my heart pounding as 
the door shut behind me), researchers staring at me from behind 
glass, and a... white face-cloth floating in the air in the center of the 
room, rippling slowly, apparently unaffected by gravity. 


A sternly clipped voice came over an intercom. "D-3962, please 
approach the object.” | stepped to what | had to assume was 
RAO-8122. My first anomaly of the day: a zero-gee rag. 


"Touch the object, please," said the voice. | gingerly poked the rag. 
It rippled away from my finger, as a zero-gravity cloth would. "Please 
take hold of the object." | pinched two corners of it in my fingers, 
holding it away from me in case it...did something. "Please fold the 
object." Gently as | could, | halved the cloth, and quartered it. 


This went on for some time. It acted exactly like a cloth unaffected 
by gravity would, without exception. After an hour or so of tests that 
had gotten fairly silly after the first five minutes, a guard arrived to 
escort me to my next assignment. 


| ran into Nicky, also being escorted to his next assignment. He had 
a gadget clipped to his neck that | recognized as a Nimrod Mark VII; 
a miniature computer designed to analyze human speech (really 
well, too: the Foundation's speech recognition software was 
decades ahead of civilian technology) and detect if it contained 
memetic content. Usually pretty reliable, though they sometimes 
went off at good jokes or particularly catchy ear-worms. 


He saw me looking at it, and grinned at me. "Ucking-fay omalies- 
anay," he said. 


His guard said, "No talking, D-3961." He looked at me and my 


Subjects typically expire following the collapse of the ribcage or 
damage to the spinal cord due to the loss of the spine. However, 
artificial supports can be implanted, as per procedure 17-A, 
prolonging life. Subjects kept alive after the complete loss of non- 
cranial skeleton can be induced to further growth by implanting new 
bone material. Subject SCP-774-17 has been kept alive twelve 
years at the time of this writing. Trace amounts of SCP-774 are still 
found in Subject 17's bloodstream, though it is unknown if it is 
manufactured, or if it remains from the initial exposure (See 
Addendum 774-3). 


Addendum 774-1: Doctor Mann was able to induce growth in 
specific directions through careful breaks and cuts into the bone 
tissue. However, after several weeks, the new growth was 
destroyed, and the former pattern reasserted itself. 


Addendum 774-2: Analysis of the whistling shows distinct patterns, 
some of which have been mapped to specific external stimuli. 
Doctor Mann has requested permission to vivisect a 774 subject for 
the purpose of examining continued function of the linguistic centers 
of the brain. 


Addendum 774-3: Subject 774-24 was isolated from other test 
subjects. After several weeks in which its whistling grew more 
agitated, started producing viscous fluid from the tips of its 
protrusions, which proved to be further quantities of SCP-774. Two 
researchers working in the room were affected. Once they 
progressed to the whistling stage, the bone stopped producing the 
fluid. Their patterns were identical to Subjects 774-17 and 774-21 
respectively, including range of whistles. They were termed Subjects 
774-26 and 774-27 following Procedure 17-A. Doctor Mann has 
decided to keep them isolated for the time being. 


Addendum 774-4: Following a renovation of Site- , Subjects 
774-24, 774-26, and 774-27 were placed into containment with the 
other subjects. Shortly after, the growths of Subjects 26 and 27 
began to rapidly reshape, bone being subsumed and reformed into 
different patterns, including whistles. Subject 26 is now identical to 
the terminated Subject 25, while Subject 27 shows a new growth 
pattern entirely. 


guard, and said sheepishly, "He got a little pig statue that apparently 
makes to talk in Pig Latin. They've got a counter-meme, and it 
doesn't seem to be transmissible." 


"That's good," said my guard, and | gave Nicky a ‘good luck, man' 
sort of nod as | was led away. 


Next room was identical to the first, except this one had a battered 
little flask in it. A similar series of silly tests ensued, none of which 
bore any fruit. As far as | could see, it was just a simple, non- 
anomalous flask. Right up until | said, "Shame this is empty. I'm kind 
of thirsty." Whereupon the damned thing started spurting blood like 
a decapitated chicken for about ten seconds. Ruined my jumpsuit. 
Thank god it was disposable. 


A little testing soon established that whenever the word thirsty, in 
any language or context, was used around the flask, it started 
outputting blood. What kind of blood would be determined from the 
collected samples in the lab. 


This wasn't too bad, | thought as | was led to my third assignment. 
I'm glad | did this. | thought back to Magdeleine, at Site-207. 


"You want me to volunteer? To be a D-class?" 


"Yes," she said, giving me that level, clear-as-day and cold-as- 
absolute-zero look again. "If it isn't you, John, it has to be someone 
else. That's the rub. But you already know that: you volunteer twice 
a week at a soup kitchen, and give a third your pay to charity. You 
understand that causes are made up of individuals, and if as 
individuals we don't do our part- well, bad things happen. Here at 
the Foundation, those bad things are particularly nasty." 


| nod, slowly. "Hell. Sounds like | don't have a choice." 
"Of course you have a choice," she said, exasperated. 


"A moral choice, | mean," | replied. | took a pen out of my pocket 
and signed the documents wherever | needed to. 


"You're doing a great thing, John," she murmured. 


Incident Report 5509-01 

Anomalies Involved: SCP-5509, formerly RAO-7861 

Personnel Involved: Doctor Bruce Addison, Site-301 Anomalous 
Macrobiology Division (RC-2), D-3962 (Researcher John Leary, 
AB-1) 

Incident Tags: Testing; Casualty; Cognitohazard; Euclid; Fatality; 
Animal; SCP-5509 

Details: On 19 June, 2015, Doctor Addison was acting as handler 
during the testing of a Recovered Anomalous Object (RAO-7861), 
an anomalous form of partially metamorphic rodentia, previously 
believed to be harmless, due to the limited capacity of its 
metamorphism, small size, and lack of hostile behaviors. During 
testing, RAO-7861 displayed an ability to create cognitohazardous 
patterns on its skin with its metamorphism. D-3962, as a trained 
memetics researcher, was able to identify the threat and warn his 
handler. Unfortunately, infection by two identified cognitohazard 
agents and an atypical reaction to Class-B amnestics caused the 
death of D-3962 via grand mal seizure within two hours of the 
incident. 

Outcome: Researcher John Leary (formerly D-3962) posthumously 
granted the Foundation Star of Bravery, and buried with full honors. 
Surviving family granted full pension package. RAO-7861 re- 
categorized as SCP-5509, granted Euclid-RA/-AF classification. 


A Question of Commerce 


Behind the facade of a stately building, within a clubhouse that could 
be described as tastefully lavish (or perhaps lavishly tasteful), 
nested between the high arms of a soft leather recliner, sat Mr. 
Dark. 


He was not in a particularly good mood. 


While Mr. Dark would never be considered an especially jovial 
person by any discerning lady or gentleman, the frown currently 
inhabiting his features was directed at something other than the 
world in general. Specifically, its targets were the two other men 
currently occupying the room. They were standing, of course. When 
you were in the presence of Mr. Dark, you stood, and none knew 
that better than Hareton Marshall and Edwin Carter. Mr. Dark made 
sure of that. Indeed, they have been standing there for the last 
fifteen minutes. 


That was probably enough, Mr. Dark decided. "New competition, 
you say?" 


Marshall cleared his throat, an act that sent ripples through both 
prodigious chin and even more prodigious mustache. During his 
lengthy acquaintance with the Marshall family, Mr. Dark didn't recall 
a single born member of the family who didn't eventually end up 
sporting one of the ridiculous things. Even the women. Especially 
the women. 


"Well, not as such. Wouldn't call it competition as such. Not in so 
many words." 


Mr. Dark only barely resisted rubbing at his temples. Not out of any 
worry at offending Marshall, since he was never much concerned 
with that, but because his hands were itching terribly. They always 
did that when that time of year came, but he never got used to it. 
"Then how would you, pray tell, describe the act of selling products 


similar to our own, to the same customer base, at prices which 
would make us go bankrupt in a week?" 


Marshall rubbed at his mustache, as he always did when he was 
nervous. Another rather infuriating family habit. "Well, | imagine it 
would take longer than a week. A few months in the very least."