Ecologically and geologically, the area surrounding SCP-778 is 
consistent with that of the park. A river running through the area may 


"Egret," she said calmly. Forcibly. With the authority that was hers 
by right. The girl's orange eyes snapped open, and she grasped for 
some weapon that wasn't there. "Egret!" 


"Overseer!" the girl said, stiffening suddenly. "Overseer," she 
repeated, almost sheepishly. She moved to rub her eyes and 
stopped to stare at her hands. 


"Don't worry about it. Don't even think about it." 


"Of course, Overseer." She moved them to her lap, and looked up at 
Ahmadi with something close to worship. Something worse. 


"Egret, | need to know: Do you do good things while working for 
me?" 


"If you say they're good, Overseer." Her smile oozed out like 
coagulated blood through a wound. It looked even worse on a 
younger face. 


"Do you want to keep doing this sort of work?" 
"What else would | do?" 


Ahmadi paused, then reached out hesitantly to stroke the girl's 
greasy hair again. She had nothing else to give in exchange for 
loyalty, though Egret would not ask for anything at all. She never 
did. All Anmadi could do was leave the things buried inside her 
servant untouched. 


"Then let's begin. Here's what | need you to do..." 


« Previous Tale | Maim the Sky, Slay the Sun|END » 


Able Baker Charlie 


May 2, 1997 


Min Yu Zhang, servant of the New-Moon Emperor, wiped the sweat 
from his brow. He was not usually a man to tremble, but nonetheless 
he was humbled by the great stone tomb, finally freed from its own 
grave in the earth beneath the bleak wastes where Genghis Khan 
rode. The blisters on his hands from days at the shovel seemed 
insignificant in comparison to its smooth black fagade. Great black 
chains wrapped around the cube tightly, ending in the gigantic 
circular lock on the vault door. Soon those chains would be broken, 
the door would open, and then... 


Then the old ways would return and Great Night would begin. These 
men who uncovered the tomb would die, yes, but their sacrifice was 
to usher in a new age, an ancient, powerful age. Those who had 
been dead would return, and the Sleeping God now awoken would 
once again lead them to victory. 


The cadre Speaker began the prayers in his high, quavering voice. 
The other workers dropped their tools, took their positions around 
the tomb and lay themselves prostrate in the dirt. The Speaker’s 
voice, unpleasant as it was in everyday speech, grew to 
magnificence as it echoed around the excavation site. The tomb’s 
presence did not allow for any of the faithful to be less than properly 
glorious, but even then, it dwarfed them, surrounded them, towered 
over them. The prayers were mere words, dribbling from the mouth. 


The god within listened with dead ears. 


The Speaker’s voice trailed off. This was not right. Zhang looked up. 
The speaker stood frozen, his arms outstretched in supplication, his 
lips parted in mid-syllable, and his eyes locked on the rim of the site. 
Zhang followed his gaze: there were men standing on the rim. They 
were not wearing clothing appropriate to the cadre: these were 
soldiers, government soldiers, guns aimed at the praying cadre. 


“Well howdy-doody, motherfuckers,” drawled a scrawny, rat-faced 
man with a cigarette dangling from his lip. English. Zhang did not 
understand the words, but he could tell the intent: mockery of a 
defeated enemy. Oh, the fool. Such a fool. 


A larger man who stood beside the ratty one gave his compatriot a 
sideways glance of exasperation. He clasped his hands behind his 
back, cleared his throat, and then spoke in heavily accented 
Chinese. 


[Remain face down and place your hands on your heads. You will 
not be harmed if you surrender peacefully.] 


Who? How? There had been guards! They had paid off the 
government! 


The Speaker did not kneel. With a look of utmost disgust, he raised 
a thumb to the interlopers. He was answered by a pattering of 
bullets. Zhang watched him fall to the dirt. 


“What the fuck, they’re all scrubs. Shoot the rest,” the rat-face man 
said. 


More bullets. Min Yu Zhang died lying on his stomach. The gunshots 
echoed into dust and nothingness. John Dawson shrugged, tapping 
the ashes off of his cigarette. 


“| love it when they do the fish in a barrel thing.” 
Dmitri sighed. 
“Is not honorable.” 


“Not a fuckin’ scrap. The way | figure, with you working for the 
Russkies and me for Uncle Sam back in the day, we're basically a 
walking honor deficit.” 


“Says you, capitalist American swine.” 


“Perhaps this conversation would be better suited for another time,” 
A man in an officer’s uniform walked up to them. He was older, with 
graying hair, a bristly beard, and a small triangular patch on his arm 


bearing an opened eye in the center, framed by an olive wreath. The 
man had introduced himself earlier as Agent Knight. 


John tossed the cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it under 
his boot. 


“What the fuck, let’s go check this thing out.” 


The three descended the dirt ramp to the base of the excavation 
site. The soldiers remained on the rim, spreading out around its 
edge. At this point they would just get in the way. 


“What can you tell us about tomb?” Dmitri asked Knight. "Our 
information was...not detailed.” 


“The tomb? Harmless. A block of warded stone. It is what is inside 
the tomb that is not. Interpretations of the Sleeping God vary: the 
name is Able or Ablel or Abin, in some works he is a honorable 
warrior, in others a mindless savage, and in a great many he is 
somewhere in between. He is supposed to be some prehistoric 
hunter-gatherer war-god, unstoppable in combat, at least by stone- 
age standards, and supposedly immortal. He grew proud, and so the 
ancients sealed him away in his tomb, asleep for eternity. 
Unfortunately, so long as he remains in the tomb, we cannot harm 
him.” 


“So we're going to kill a god.” John took out another cigarette from 
his jacket pocket. “I can dig it.” 


“That is the end goal, yes. The tomb must be opened and the 
Sleeping God woken in order to destroy it." 


"Is great risk," Strelkinov said. "| do not think we have enough men. 
Or tanks." 


"All you need do is observe, captain. We will take care of this." 
Knight reached into his jacket and removed a metal flask. 


“Whatever you do, do not move until the kill-op has begun.” He 
clicked the walkie-talkie clipped to his shoulder. "Prepare opening 
ritual." 


Knight walked to the door of the tomb and began to draw a thin line 
of blood red symbols in the dust. The line extended thirty feet or so, 
and consumed another three flasks before ending in a circle around 
the three men. Up on the rim, the Coalition soldiers were doing the 

same, tracing their own circles and symbols into the dirt, as well as 

one around the entire dig site. 


Knight waited until they had finished before reaching to his walkie- 
talkie again. 


“Stand by: | am opening the tomb.” 


Reaching back into his jacket, Knight removed a palm-sized figurine, 
very worn with age. He set it on the ground and pulled a knife from 
his belt. One clean cut. Blood dripped down from his hand onto the 
idol. It began to pulse and melt, changing shape until it resembled a 
stone heart, each vein and fiber hyperreal, beating silently. Knight 
plunged his knife into it. 


The air rumbled, sounding like an earthquake. 

The chains dropped to the ground, thudding with leaden booms. 
The lock turned slowly, stone grinding on stone. 

The tomb door rolled away. 

The dust cleared. 

Able, the Sleeping God walked out of the tomb, no longer asleep. 


He stood at least eight feet tall, with skin the color of sun-darkened 
leather, covered in tattoos of some forgotten and occult meaning. 
His hair was black and matted, hanging down below his shoulders. 
He was naked, all save a hide loincloth, and his features had a 
primitive look about them, a god of another age. 


The god walked towards them, shoulders slumped, an expression of 
bored distaste on his features. It was an expression of “I am waiting 
to kill something, and you are keeping me from that.” 


“Do not move. We are standing within the summonert’s circle: he is 


obligated to address us before killing us,” Knight whispered. 


The god snorted with disdain before speaking in a voice that 
rumbled up from the pillars of the world. His breath was stale and 
foul. 


“Athu basher. Kazikul ta faren ja-marl. Avskani?” 


It was clear that he wanted a response. Knight reached for his 
walkie-talkie again. 


“Initiate Code Cobalt-Triplet-Finnegan.” 


The Sleeping God tilted his head slightly and shrugged. A shimmer 
in the air around his hand was followed by a long obsidian blade 
from nothingness. The Sleeping God raised it, with the same bored 
expression. This was hardly sport, his face said. 


“Oh, hey there! What're you doin’?” 


The god froze. His sword arm lowered, and he turned around, back 
towards the tomb. 


Someone was sitting on top of the cube, a tallish man wearing an 
unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt over a worn Pink Floyd tee and patched 
khaki pants. His head was a tin of lutefisk, and he held a ukulele in 
his hands. Defying all sense of logic, he still had a mouth, stretched 
just beyond the edges of his metallic face in a Cheshire grin. 


The man strummed a single chord and began to sing. 


“What would you think if | sang out a tune? Would you stand up and 
walk out on me?” 


The Sleeping God stared dumbfounded, silent rage seeping out of 
every pore at this display of insolence. 


In a blink the man was standing in front of the open tomb door. His 
head was a cauliflower. Another strum. 


“Lend me your ear and I'll sing you a song, and I'll try not to sing out 
of key.” 


He stood behind the god, looking over the right shoulder. His head 
was a toothbrush. Another strum, and then a pause. 


“Now, | forget the next line, but | think it has something to do with 
grievous bodily harm.” 


With the grin growing just a little bit wider and a little bit more joyful, 
he smashed the ukulele over the Sleeping God’s head. 


“| must congratulate you, Agent Knight. You have done an excellent 
job with Francis’ conditioning. I’m surprised that the Coalition has 
been so cooperative with the project.” 


“Agent Ukulele is as much use to us as he is to you, and we know 
how to dispose of his kind. Once he has served his purpose, we will 
dispose of him as well.” 


“If the non-combat persona can be implanted successfully, that may 
not have to happen.” 


“Perhaps. | make no promises on the matter, and neither do my 
superiors.” 


“Understandable. Now, as we agreed, Francis will remain under 
Coalition jurisdiction until the non-combat persona is successfully 
implanted. The recovered entity will as well, as Francis is the only 
force we have available of resisting and overpowering it. Our staff on 
the project will remain the same for the second phase of his 
conditioning, and since there’s nothing else to report, | will allow you 
to take your men and leave. Francis has already been put back into 
his coma and is ready for transport.” 


“Thank you, Dr. Crow.” 


“Ah, Sophia. Please, come i...” 


“What were you thinking?’ 
“Excuse me?” 


“You allowed the Coalition to deploy Francis in the field before we 
could confirm that the conditioning even worked! He could have 
leveled half the continent, if not worse!” 


“Sophia, | appreciate your concern, but at the moment it is a non- 
issue. Francis managed to not only overpower the entity, but doing 
so proved that the conditioning aid work: our project was able to 
create a stable persona for him and control his powers through it.” 


“A persona that is a sociopathic murderer at best, based off of 
Soviet conditioning memetics twenty years out of date. He’s 
unbelievably unstable, Crow. If the conditioning breaks down, what 
then? The Coalition could have easily snuck in some sort of 
killswitch or designed him to fail as an excuse to kill him.” 


“Possibly, but the Coalition can’t afford to lose a weapon like him.” 


“What if he starts using powers outside of what the persona allows? 
What if he breaks free of our control? Will you be willing to accept 
those consequences?” 


“Yes. Yes | will. Sophia, | know the dangers involved, and | know 
that the Coalition is begrudging in this project, but they have 
experience that we don’t in matters like this. We need them at the 
moment, and so we cooperate.” 


“It's on your head then.” 


“| never expected otherwise.” 


Aboard the Train to Berlin 


Nuremberg, Germany 
Fall, 1944 


When Franz Hoffman had first been selected to join the Annenerbe 
Obskurakorps, his father made sure to contact him. Herr Hoffman, a 
longstanding member of the Thule society, told his son that "he 
would soon see wonders beyond his wildest dreams." While this had 
proven true, Franz had also seen horrors he could not fathom. In the 
end, it was the latter phenomena that tended to stick with him more. 


"Attention!" 


Franz snapped into position at his commanding officer's order. His 
unit currently stood in the warehouse of a small Nuremberg train 
station, where they were supposedly to be assigned their next 
mission. A skeletal man in a high ranking uniform then stepped 
before them, and gestured for them to be at ease. 


"lam Hauptmann Zimmerman." The officer introduced himself with a 
deep, croaking voice. "Your unit's successes in Obskurakorps' 
operations in Egypt and Prague has lead you to be placed under my 
command for a very important mission, both for the Fuhrer and his 
Reich." 


Franz did his best to hide his unease as he watched the Hauptmann 
speak. His arms seemed to move with an unnatural jerkiness as he 
spoke, while his long fingers swept about with the grace of spider's 
legs. The Hauptmann then put on a pair of leather gloves and 
gestured to one of his aides, who proceeded to place a large metal 
box before him. Another brought forward a large dog that whimpered 
upon seeing the Hauptmann. Zimmerman then opened the box and 
pulled out an ornate spearhead. 


"For those of you who do not know," Zimmerman explained, "this is 
the Holy Lance. The very spearhead that pierced the side of Christ 


while upon the cross. It was moved here following our unification 
with Austria, and now must be moved Berlin. A demonstration..." 


Franz flinched as the Hauptmann stabbed the dog with the 
spearhead in a fluid jab, the canine going limp immediately. As 
Zimmerman retracted the relic, a fine white mist clung to the tip for 
several seconds then burst into flames, the sound of a dog howling 
in pain filled the room briefly, then all was quiet. 


"Quite potent, don't you think?" Zimmerman asked the unit with a 
chuckle. "Now imagined if it was replicated on a mass scale, and 
pointed at an army..." 


Zimmerman then gently placed the spearhead back in its box. 


"Some of you will go alongside decoys, while the rest will 
accompany me. Our enemy knows we possess this relic, and that 
we are likely to transport it. They will certainly be planning a 
strike..." 


London, United Kingdom 


A tall, slender woman stood on a street corner, her black umbrella 
being pelted by heavy drops of rain as she idly watched passing foot 
traffic go by. Before long, a stout man dressed in a heavy coat stood 
next to her, his hair slick with water as he slightly turned his head 
and spoke. 


"From what wood does the Fletcher make his arrows?" he asked in 
a thick New York accent. 


"His family tree," the woman replied. Her accent was French. 
The two then looked to each other with relief. 
"So you're the skipper?" he asked with a chuckle. "Agent Martin?" 


"Is that what the Allied Occult Initiative calls us these days, Agent 
Smith?" she returned. "Cute." 


"| always considered it a term of endearment," Agent Smith said with