circuits and hydraulics. At the center of it all was a vaguely 
humanoid mass of wires, and the entire room was cold; Marcus 
could see blue coolant running through tubes in the ceiling. "Dr. 
Clymer is... very loyal to God. As such, the Church decided to 
reward him with a near-full conversion." 


You'll be safe with this, thought Marcus. Anyone who's this 
converted is on good terms with the Church. He nodded, and took a 
seat in a chair meant for brain surgery. It wasn't done lying flat on 
the table, anymore; too much fluid leaked out. The doctor silently 
administered anesthetic, and began opening Marcus's skull. He just 
tried to relax. 


Several hours later, it was done. And... Marcus felt better than he 
ever had before. To test it out, he had the WiFi in his room turned 
off, and tried accessing the internet with his Retinal Projectors. His 
head hurt after a while, despite the temporary Pain-Away Implants 
that he was given in addition to the Pineal Implant, which were 
theoretically meant to help him adapt to the WiFi signal going 
through his skull. It wasn't working. 


Marcus, after a bit, looked at one of his roommates. A 16-year-old 
girl who was going through Console Conversion. Xbox, by the look 
of the green, glowing X-shaped scar visible under the bandages on 
her chest. "360, Original or One?" 


"Bit of the 360 and One." She smiled at him, her eyes a bright, 
glowing green as she thumbed at her right hand, where a set of 
retractable buttons was located. "Mom said | was crazy, but dad's a 
game developer. He's paying for this. Mother is furious." 


"My parents are both Tickers," Marcus explained, chuckling as he 
looked her over. "Luddites, both of them. They just want to tick-tick- 
tick away all day long until they rust and their gears stop entirely. 
Damn technophobes." He blinked a couple of times, frowning as he 
noticed a set of bars in the corner of his eye going wonky. "Huh. 
Signal's fluctuating.” 


"Got the Pineal thing? It's probably just downloading a pa-" And 
then, the girl was gone. And so was the bed. And the hospital. And 


Your head pounds ever harder as you struggle through 
the jagged bramble. You gaze back through the smog at 
the silhouette of the old lighthouse to the north, the 
faintest glimmer of hope extinguished so violently by 
your foolish exploits. A distant and unattainable fantasy, 
you know you can never return. 


A prompt appears below the passage, and the player may input 
commands and submit them by pressing the enter key. Entering the 
command "look" re-prints the previous passage to the screen. 
Attempting to "go north" results in the message "You cannot go 
north." Attempting to travel in any other direction results in a similar 
message. Attempting to perform most other actions results in the 
message "You cannot [do x].", where [do x] is the action entered by 
the user. Attempting to perform actions on objects such as "pick up 
apple" results in the message "There is no apple here." or similar. 


To date, the only command found to progress the game is "die". On 
entering the command, the player goes into immediate cardiac 
arrest and the message "As the world around you fades to 
blackness, you know that you deserve the consequences of your 
actions." is printed to the screen. This message remains on the 
screen until the SCP-603 process is terminated. 


The effect of the 'die' command occurs even if the system is being 
accessed remotely. If two or more people participate in entering the 
die command, all participants are affected. For example, if one 
person enters the word "die" and another presses the enter key, the 
hearts of both players will stop simultaneously. 


It is not currently known whether it is possible to "win" Die. If Die 
ever starts up during an SCP-603 session, it is recommended to 
simply terminate the SCP-603 process. 


Attempts to resuscitate users affected by the 'die’' command by 
means of CPR have been successful. Any further experiments 
testing the effects of Die should be carried out in a staffed medical 
unit at the discretion of Dr. Brown. 


Jacob [SCP-603-20] 


the world. And so was Marcus. 


Instead, a presence was about, immense and all-encompassing. A 
Network of every member of the Church, all across the world, 
connected by radio waves going through the air at a billion miles an 
hour. The presence felt something crawling through them, 
something... corrupting them. It started in the East, and spread from 
there, corrupting the Network's data- no, not corrupting, destroying. 
Data from the Church would all be deleted, the Distribution would 
never happen, and the Lord of Silicon would never be whole. 


And the Church all knew what the destroyer was: it was Flesh. And it 
Hated. It Hated all life, it Hated the planet itself, it especially Hated 
the Lord of Silicon and his followers. And it Hated that the Network 
was still alive. 


And then, Marcus existed, sitting up in his hospital bed. He was 
gasping and panting, rubbing his eyes. The girl was finishing her 
sentence. "-tch to improve network speed." She canted her head at 
him, her hair falling aside and displaying the headset that was 
protruding from her left ear. "Are you all right?" 


"I-1 saw the- the Flesh and the Network and the Data all being 
destroyed and- and-and it was the end! It was the end of everything! 
| have to tell someone-" 


"Oh, calm down, noob." She rolled her eyes. "You just got the 
Signal. It happens to everyone a few hours after they get their Pineal 
implant. It's trivial." She shook her head and snickered. "Welcome to 
ascended consciousness, noob." 


Marcus flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling, the vision 
of the Flesh and the Hatred still dancing in his mind. The Signal. 
Holy shit, the Signal. He turned to face Xbox Girl and stared as she 
played with the headset. "...can | see it again?" 


"See what? The Signal?" Xbox Girl chuckled. "Sorry, friendo, it's a 
one-time deal. And it's the same for everyone, so don't worry." 


"Oh..." Marcus sighed, staring up at the ceiling and feeling at the 
microstitches on his skull. He'd be able to go home in half a week, if 


he was lucky. But... he wasn't sure if he ever wanted to go home, 
after that. "...nobody's ever seen it twice?" 


"One person has. St. Hedwig of Angels." Xbox Girl smiled as she 
looked off into the distance, no doubt downloading something for 
herself. "She received the signal once when she discovered what 
we use as WiFi today, and again when she was on her deathbed. 
Truly, she was blessed." 


"Yeah... truly she was." Marcus looked up at the ceiling. "...Maybe | 
can see it again, someday." 


"Good luck with that, man." 


Marcus was about to make a snappy comeback, but then realized 
the Xbox girl sounded sincere. He shook his head and smiled, sitting 


up. 


"Thanks," Marcus said, running his fingers through his hair. "I have a 
feeling I'll need it." 


Marcus arrived home a week later. His parents were doing their 
daily meditation in the living room when he entered. His father 
looked at him, nodding and waving his clockwork hand. "Hello, son." 


"Hey, dad." Marcus sat down in front of them, smiling softly. "I got 
the implant. | feel closer to God, now." 


"That is good." Marcus's father frowned, his lips making a soft 
whirring sound as they made this motion. "Son... can we just let 
bygones be bygones? You have friends who are part of the 
Cogwork Church." 


".,.Wasn't it you who said that | was a Heretic just as bad as the 
Foundation?" 


"It was a moment of anger. | do not feel that emotion any longer." 
There was a soft clicking sound as Marcus literally heard the gears 
in his father's head turning, before he spoke again. "I only feel... 
bliss from being close to God." 


Marcus frowned. "| am closer to God than you can ever be." He 
tapped his skull and grinned. "The implant | got... it showed me the 
Signal. Something that your ilk can never see. Face it; clockwork is 
obsolete. We're in the digital age." 


"Son, please. Do not talk like that. You will upset your mother." 
Indeed, his mother did look somewhat sad, as sad as a motionless 
porcelain face could look. "| am going to request that you stay in 
your room for a few hours, until you cool down." 


"Whatever." Marcus made his way up to his room and flopped on 
the bed, looking up at the ceiling and thinking about the same thing 
he had thought about the whole way back from California: the 
Signal. Only those in the Church of Maxwellism got it. Tickers never 
did. Why? Many members of the Cogwork Orthodox had radio 
antennas in their heads; his dad had considered getting one, but 
thought that the pain of listening to Conservative Talk Radio all day 
long was not one he wanted to go through for his God. 


St. Hedwig had gotten the Signal twice, and she wasn't even an 
adherent of the Broken One. She had seen the exact same thing he 
had. And he wanted to see it again, now, more than anything. 


So, Marcus Sparks sat up and shut his eyes, accessed the internet 
with his new Pineal Node, and typed in a phrase into Google: 


How can | see the Fragmented God's Signal Again? 


Variations on a Schema 


Sister-Legate Trunnion had arranged the meeting in Regulator 
Maintenance Room 25b. Though her freshly Standardized ears had 
no trouble hearing over the inspiring din of the Cathedral of Industry, 
she was unsure of her visitor. Either way, the task at hand allowed 
for no distractions. Hence, the comparative quiet of the temporarily- 
deactivated 25b. Although sitting there, beneath the twin brass 
spheres of the regulator, she couldn't tell if the visitor minded. Or 
had even noticed. She re-straightened the papers placed at perfect 
right angles before her, Standardized throat ticking softly as it 
engaged her speaking linkages. 


"If you're comfortable, we can begin, Mister... Chase." 


Chase said nothing. He had not said anything since the meeting had 
began, only handed her a damp, gray business card stained with 
something acrid. On it were three words. 


THE FACTORY 
CHASE 


His face was a broken, ravaged mess of corroded iron and weeping 
chemical effluent. It collapsed into a mouth with jagged porcelain 
teeth, and spoke in a voice like a loose bolt passing through a live 
steam turbine. 


"What is it the Cogwork Orthodox Church needs, Sister Trunnion?" 


She hesitated. The face was bad enough. Broken enough. The 
voice was worse. The other Factory representatives hadn't been as 
unpleasant. It took considerable effort to not lash out at him. She 
took some solace in the fact that he hadn't used the second half of 
her title. Only partial knowledge of her role in the Orthodoxy could 
make him much more willing to divulge useful information. 


"We've been having some... concerns. About the-" 


"Invariable Transmission? What seems to be the trouble?" 


She glanced down at the neatly type-written papers, their plain black 
ink stark in the soothing actinic glow of the single arc lamp that 
illuminated 25b. Production was up, praise be. Standardization was 
surging forward like the great rampaging juggernaught of Industry 
that was the Steed of God. And yet... Well, that was the reason she 
was here. 


"Let me preface this by saying that the Transmission's performance 
has been nothing less than spectacular. We're moving well ahead of 
schedule now, and the Church Patriarchs are confident that 
Standardization will be able to overcome the Maxwellite heresy 
within the year." 


Chase leaned forwards, planting unevenly-fingered hands on the 
tabletop. Where they touched the polished brass, they left spreading 
rainbow stains that disturbed Trunnion to her very core. 


"| sense a ‘but’, Sister Trunnion. Come on, out with it. The working 
relationship between the Factory and the... Cogwork Orthodoxy can 
be nothing if not open and honest." 


She inhaled deeply, accordion-pleated lungs expanding like stubby 
wings. The Lord was her Schematic, and as part of his Design she 
could not- would not falter. If her suspicions were true, the next few 
minutes would be crucial, not just for her but for the future of the 
Church. 


"As | said before, we have concerns about the design." 


Chase had no eyebrows, but part of his face shifted in a way that 
was unquestionably a cocking motion. 


"The... design? Our technicians were very thorough in incorporating 
it into your fabrication systems. I'm sure you know this, but we at the 
Factory are extremely impressed with the prodigious levels of mass- 
production you've created here. Manufacturing on a level that rivals 

those... what do you call them, Mark Twenty-Fours they h-" 


Her lip twisted at the memory of the technicians, their plastic- 


plastic- bodies skittering organically over the machines, aligning 
camshafts and tightening belts between the consecrated bronze 
assembly line and the twisted, horrid, irregular- 


"It's not about integration. It's about design. We feel that the 
construction and form of the Transmission is... inappropriate for 
placement in a church. Your machinery, though undoubtedly 
effective, is- is obscene, Mr. Chase." 


Chase laughed incredulously, little spatters of... something landing 
on the papers before her. It took her great effort and the rigidity of a 
Standardized spine to keep from recoiling. 


"After two weeks of successful operation, you're raising doubts 
about aesthetics, Sister Trunnion? | find that hard to believe, 
frankly," he said, wetly. 


Then, drawing a tightly-bound sheathe of ragged dot-matrix paper 
from one of the pockets of his incongruously immaculate suit, he 
spread it atop the puddles left by his hands on the table, letting the 
blueprints for the Transmission fan out before him. Trunnion 
shuddered at them. Oh, to be sure she could admire the machinery 
on a detached level- the gearboxes that curved in on themselves, 
engines intersecting engines, steam ducts that tesseracted in 
impossible shapes, but- 


"It's- it's messy," she blurted out, despite herself. Chase cocked an 
eyebrow again. 


"Messy. Sister Trunnion, if you can't take this seriously I-" 
She stood, torque surging through her planetary-gear knees. 


"lam," she hissed, "entirely serious. This is not a matter for levity, 
Mr. Chase. Do you know what messy means? Messy means 
disorder. Messy means un-Standardized. Messy means a Broken 
God. | do not expect you or your Factory to believe, Mr. Chase. 
Though | would very much like to see you Standardized, | respect 
your right to choose otherwise. What | cannot respect is the 
blasphemy in gearworks you call an Invariable Transmission. There 
is no order here. There is no unified plan. There are clever ideas, 


and a cute attempt at systematic organization, but what you have 
laid before me- what you have arrogantly installed as is in our 
fabrication line, is a mess. There are portions of this machine," she 
said through clenched steel teeth, "which are decentralized. You 
even use," she spat, "microcontrollers in the central gearshaft." 


He raised dripping hands in a pathetic attempt at conciliation. 


"Sister Trunnion, we did our utmost to abide by the requirements 
you gave us, and made minimal use of electronics in the version of 
the Transmission we licensed to you, but the fact remains that 
without some level of digital data input the-" 


Deep in her gut, a cog missed a tooth, and for a single instant she 
lost control. Without thinking, she slapped him across the face, 
feeling the rough texture of his "skin" grating against her stinging 
palm. 


"You will not use that word in a house of God!"