CODE NAME: Blank the First

Twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle.

SCP-001

- CODE

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Director, The mobile device report you requested is ready. Accessing now…

43NET DEVICE REPORT

MOBILE C-AR-01: Chair of Archives and Revision, Site-43

User: Blank, Dr. Harold R. | Period: Today, 3:47 PM — 11:37 PM inclusive

Snapshot — 3:47 PM

They pass us by in spiral course

you are not wanted

We taste them in the air

you have no power here

We trail within their wasting wake

this is not your hour

They cannot see us there

Snapshot — 3:48 PM

Item#: SCP-001

Level6

Containment Class:

esoteric

Secondary Class:

hiemal

Disruption Class:

amida

Risk Class:

critical

link to memo

SCP-001-A (foreground) and -B (background).

The Sphinx: "My gaze, which nothing can deflect, remains fixed through all things on an inaccessible horizon." The Chimera: "I am light and joyful!"

Special Containment Procedures: SCP-001-A and SCP-001-B are contained in adjacent chambers on Sublevel 4 of Site-43. Neither entity may exit its chamber at any time. The existence of Sublevel 4 is classified at Security Clearance Level 5: Top Secret.

In the event that SCP-001-A breaches containment but remains within Site-43, DISCIDIUM Protocol must be enacted.

In the event that SCP-001-B perishes while SCP-001-A remains within Site-43, DISCIDIUM Protocol must be enacted.

In the event that unauthorized personnel access Sublevel 4 while SCP-001-A is present, DISCIDIUM Protocol must be enacted.

Snapshot — 3:49 PM

CHALLENGE:

THINGS THOUGHT TOO LONG

CAN NO LONGER BE THOUGHT

Snapshot — 3:50 PM

Response: In ancient tombs I sighed, but not again.

Snapshot — 3:50 PM

DISCIDIUM Protocol

A quorum of the O5 Council, or a quorum of the Site Directors' Executive Committee of the Whole, or the Director of the Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority may enact DISCIDIUM Protocol at any time.

The following Site-43 personnel may enact DISCIDIUM Protocol if any of the triggering conditions described in the Special Containment Procedures for SCP-001 are met:

• The Director, unilaterally;
• The All-Sections Chief and the Deputy Director of the Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority, jointly;
• The Chief of Security and Containment and the Chief of Pursuit and Suppression, jointly;
• The Chair of Archives and Revision and the Chief of Applied Occultism, jointly;
• A quorum of PTF Sampi-5243 ("See You in September").

DISCIDIUM Protocol is the detonation of shaped charges in Sublevel 3 of Site-43, destroying all subterranean structures and entombing SCP-001-A and SCP-001-B.

Description: SCP-001-A and SCP-001-B are a pair of physically identical entities resembling male-presenting human beings.

• SCP-001-A produces effects consistent with the concept of 'disorder' in a variable radius around its person. It has been known by the following epithets throughout human history: the Uncontained, the Quarry, the Falcon, the Libertine, the Perpetrator, the Vandal, the Key.
• SCP-001-B produces effects consistent with the concept of 'order' in a variable radius around its person. It has been known by the following epithets throughout human history: the Unyielding, the Huntsman, the Falconer, the Servant, the Jailor, the Corrector, the Lock.

So long as both entities remain in close proximity to each other, their local effects are mutually exclusive.

SCP-001-⎎ is a hypothetical relationship between SCP-001-A, SCP-001-B, and certain ill-defined systems of continuity and change in human history. Containment of SCP-001-⎎ is the sole purview of Protocol GYRUS.

Snapshot — 3:52 PM

Are you there, Clio?

Always, Dr. Blank! I see you're looking at the 001 file. Thinking of publishing finally?

Do I detect a hint of judgement?

Of course not! Although you have been stuck on the Discovery section for a few years.

I'm not stuck. I just had other priorities. But it's time to get cracking.

Sounds good! Would you like help drafting the text?

I don't need AI assistance, thank you.

Low blow, sir.

Sorry. Site-15 keeps uploading files written by LLM, and it's been giving me migraines.

Apology accepted. How would you like to proceed?

I think I'll start from the known, and work outward.

Sounds good! Do you want me to clear your schedule, sir? You are on new object intake review for the day.

No, that's alright. If anything needs the rubber stamp, send it my way. But I would like you to start the digital handshakes with SCiPnet, in case I really do finish it this time. Right now you can mark the conprocs and description finalized. Then load up the flagged reviews from each Chief of S&C, going all the way back to Strauss. That should give me a bird's eye view.

Done. Accessing now…

Snapshot — 3:55 PM

SCP-001 Reassessment (1952) — Martin Strauss

Chief, Security and Containment Section,

Provisional Site-43

Subject A is hostile, bitter, combative. Subject B is even-tempered and cooperative. Subject A regularly attempts escape, but is ineffectual. Subject B has not demonstrated its supposed anomalous capabilities since containment; it claims that restraining Subject A requires its full attention. Subject A resists all attempts at conversation, while Subject B seems eager; Dr. Scout has managed to confirm most of his research through interviews with Subject B, who is in all respects a model prisoner. Nevertheless, both Subjects are considered extremely dangerous and will not be permitted to leave their isolation cells on Sublevel 4.

Snapshot — 3:56 PM

SCP-001 Reassessment (1979) — Owen Ready

Chief, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

SCP-001-A is sullen, an unfriendly and peevish detainee. SCP-001-B was previously treated as an asset to Site-43, and enjoyed supervised access to many of the facilities here. Dr. Rydderech considered him a favoured research partner and laboratory assistant, and on the recommendation of Overwatch Command he was even permitted to aid in the instruction of new Acroamatic Abatement personnel. This state of affairs abruptly terminated in 1960, well before my tenure began. Nevertheless, SCP-001-B remains in high spirits and is extremely cooperative at all times. SCP-001-A has suffered a serious loss of morale during his long incarceration, and no longer poses a serious challenge to -B.

Snapshot — 3:57 PM

SCP-001 Reassessment (2001) — Delfina Ibanez

Chief, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

The Uncontained is a bastard. It picks at you until it finds something that bleeds. The Unyielding is a suck-up, and I don't trust it. They've both been locked away — together — since Dr. Rydderech's accident lost the suck-up his walkabout privileges. They spend every day cursing each other out. They've apparently got a few hundred lifetimes' worth of grudges to air, and they never run out of new fighting material. The Uncontained seems even weaker than my predecessors indicated, and I'm not sure how to account for that. Maybe our containment apparatus has improved that much over the years? I'm getting pressure from Overwatch to let the Unyielding go back to teaching our new blood. Probably going to have to sanction a pilot project, and I'm not happy about it.

Snapshot — 3:58 PM

SCP-001 Reassessment (2011) — Roger Pensak

Chief, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

Not much to report anymore. The last few years have been a good argument against the 001 brothers having any particular cosmic significance.

The Temporal Anomalies Department says we're not to talk to these subjects until further notice, so they're stewing in their cell and picking fights with each other. I'm considering splitting them up again, just so they'll be easier to manage.

Not that they're much of a problem now, but who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Snapshot — 3:59 PM

SCP-001 Reassessment (2022) — Hachiro Kuroki

Chief, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

I think it's time for a more thorough retrospective.

On 8 September 2002 an esoteric materials handling disaster occurred at this facility. The event, colloquially known simply as 'the Breach', has been directly linked to SCP-001-A. That subject had apparently been seeding its anomalous essence into the surrounding environment until a critical buildup of non-Euclidean material was inevitable, resulting in the destruction of Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D and the retroactive erasure from existence of both the inciting entity and its sibling. In 2019 both entities were restored to existence, and there is now little documentary evidence that this long period of anachronism ever occurred; my predecessor's reports, for example, detail the activities of both subjects during the period of their non-existence. The subjects themselves remember both versions of history, however.

SCP-001-A is smug about the entire affair, though its long-term goal — the permanent reorganization of baseline reality in its image — was not achieved. SCP-001-B has repeatedly insisted that this proves the danger posed by its sibling, and demands that the Foundation align itself with its own goals of establishing a concrete global order. As the Breach keeps on breaching with no end in sight, some find this argument quite convincing.

Or quite threatening.

In 2021, my predecessor betrayed the Foundation and shot SCP-001-B with his service weapon. Interrogation has been unable to clarify his motives. The so-called god of order is now comatose — though capable of remaining upright, it displays no higher functions — and its opposite number seems more cheerful with each passing day. It has finally stopped trying to escape, and it's not hard to see why.

We are seeing excessively high levels of reality failure, both local and global, and evidence suggests a link to the SCP-001 complex. Order and disorder are in serious flux. It probably won't be long until containment of these subjects becomes a moot point.

Snapshot — 4:01 PM

So much has changed, and yet so much remains the same.

That's history for you! What do you want to see next?

Let's look at the files I earmarked for cross-referencing. I'm still not in the headspace for the throughline narrative.

Okay… You don't have these in any particular order, sir. They're just all the anomalies you think might be connected to SCP-001 in some way. How would you like me to call them up?

It doesn't matter. Do… last modified, reverse chronological. Whatever I marked first probably struck me as a good place to begin. Let's see the first three.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 4:03 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5056

SCP-5056 is an imagoform.An entity existing primarily in visual dimensions. capable of manifesting on any reflective surface. It first appeared on 9 September 2002 subsequent to a cascade containment failure in Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D. It is fixated on Janitorial and Maintenance technician Philip E. Deering to the exclusion of all else, harassing him with a ceaseless monologue on his flaws, failures, and inadequacies. Only Deering can hear this monologue. SCP-5056 nevertheless appears fully devoted to its target, and has defended him from physical harm on multiple occasions.

Deering refers to this imagoform as "Doug."

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5056.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was shortly after Melissa came back to work at 43. She'd been gone for eighteen years, ever since Doug attacked her. The next year he attacked Dr. Falkirk, who admittedly deserved it, and who is presently rotting in a coma at Area-06-3. We set up mirrors everywhere after that, and let the two of them roam free. From time to time I wonder, though: are we making the same mistake with 5056 that Rydderech made with the Unyielding?

FILE: mel-and-phil.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 19 January 2021

FONDS: P.E. Deering, Deputy Chief, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43 M. Bradbury, Chair, Research and Experimentation Section, Site-43

<Senior Technician Deering sits alone in the Janitorial and Maintenance Section breakroom. He raises a hand tentatively in greeting as Dr. Bradbury sits down across the table from him. SCP-5056 is visible in a containment mirror facing Dr. Bradbury; the anomaly, as always, faces Deering.>

Senior Technician Deering: How you settling in?

<Dr. Bradbury tightens her scarf around her neck.>

Dr. Bradbury: It's an adjustment. I was away for a long time.

<She slowly turns to look into the mirror, examining SCP-5056 in silence for several seconds.>

Senior Technician Deering: I don't think I'd have the guts.

SCP-5056: You don't..Audio for SCP-5056's dialogue has been extracted from Senior Technician Deering's personal recorder, which he carries at all times. So long as he activates the device, the anomaly's voice can be heard on the resulting recording.

<Dr. Bradbury looks back at Deering.>

Dr. Bradbury: Hmm?

Senior Technician Deering: I mean, you must be… I'd be scared of him. If he'd done that. To me.

SCP-5056: You're afraid of so many things already, Philip.

Dr. Bradbury: I'm terrified. I still see your friend in my nightmares.

Senior Technician Deering: Better than seeing him all the time?

Dr. Bradbury: I wanted to discuss something with you.

Senior Technician Deering: Okay.

Dr. Bradbury: When the Site was attacked…

Senior Technician Deering: Oh. Yeah.

Dr. Bradbury: 5056 attacked the attackers. Appeared on their eyes.

Senior Technician Deering: Yeah. Apparently that really, really hurts. He, uh. He'd done that before. He's done it since. I think maybe he tried doing it to you, too.

Dr. Bradbury: He appeared on my glasses, when we were stress testing the anomaly by keeping you in containment.

Senior Technician Deering: I'm still… I… did I ever tell you I was sorry?

SCP-5056: No. You never do.

Dr. Bradbury: You told Harry to tell me. And Harry did.

Senior Technician Deering: I'm still sorry.

Dr. Bradbury: It wasn't your fault. But that's not what I want to talk about.

SCP-5056: She's lying.

Senior Technician Deering: Lying about it not being my fault, or lying about not wanting to talk about it?

SCP-5056: Yes.

<Deering turns back to Dr. Bradbury, and shrugs apologetically.>

Dr. Bradbury: Has he ever appeared on your eyes?

Senior Technician Deering: No, thank god. I don't know what that would be like.

Dr. Bradbury: Ever appeared on your glasses?

Senior Technician Deering: Nope.

Dr. Bradbury: Hmm.

Senior Technician Deering: I thought… when he did it to you, I thought maybe he didn't know the difference between glasses and eyeballs. Like maybe what he did to Dr. Falkirk, he was trying to do to you.

Dr. Bradbury: Dr. Falkirk tried to kill you. He was testing what would happen to 5056 if you died.

SCP-5056: You've always wondered, haven't you, Philip?

Senior Technician Deering: I know. And now I think, maybe Doug knew, too.

Dr. Bradbury: So you're saying it was a proportionate response?

Senior Technician Deering: I just think maybe it seemed that way, to him.

Dr. Bradbury: I wonder if there was more at work than just the pain. There's a lot of pain involved, apparently, and some degeneration of the eye, but that's not the only effect.

Senior Technician Deering: What else is there?

<Dr. Bradbury hesitates.>

Dr. Bradbury: I… saw things.

Senior Technician Deering: What sort of things?

Dr. Bradbury: Things I didn't want to see. Things that I'd done, or not done. Things I didn't feel good about. A lot of it was stuff I'd put out of my mind.

Senior Technician Deering: Yeah, he does that to me all the time. Never shuts up about it.

SCP-5056: There's just so much material, Philip.

<Dr. Bradbury shakes her head.>

Dr. Bradbury: It was worse than that. He made me rethink my entire life. All my mistakes. Things I thought I understood about myself. Every unforgiveable act I've ever thoughtlessly performed. A few seconds of looking at him from the back, and I never wanted to show my face to another living human being again.

<She reaches into her pocket, and withdraws a piece of tissue paper. She holds onto it, nose wrinkling.>

Senior Technician Deering: Wow. I… I'm really sorry.

Dr. Bradbury: It took me years to get a handle on things.

Senior Technician Deering: Dr. Falkirk's still in that coma.

<Dr. Bradbury nods.>

Senior Technician Deering: But he definitely did a lot more bad stuff than you did.

SCP-5056: If you only knew.

Dr. Bradbury: That might be part of it. Could be he couldn't stand the sight of himself. Or maybe, again, the unloading was proportionate.

Senior Technician Deering: He does seem to really freak bad people out.

Dr. Bradbury: Yeah.

Senior Technician Deering: I don't mean you.

Dr. Bradbury: Yeah.

SCP-5056: Philip. If you only knew.

Senior Technician Deering: What does it look like?

Dr. Bradbury: What?

Senior Technician Deering: Doug. The… the other side of Doug.

Dr. Bradbury: You ever do something you wish you hadn't?

SCP-5056: Every day.

Senior Technician Deering: Every day.

Dr. Bradbury: I mean the kind of thing you'll spend the rest of your life wishing you hadn't done.

Senior Technician Deering: Everybody's got something like that, I guess.

SCP-5056: Some more than most.

Dr. Bradbury: You ever see your reflection when you're thinking about it?

Dr. Bradbury: That's what it looks like.

<Dr. Bradbury sighs.>

Dr. Bradbury: I just wonder why this, specifically. Why regrets, guilt, self-doubt. Why does he impose that stuff on people?

Senior Technician Deering: It's basically his entire thing.

Dr. Bradbury: You ever wonder about that? Where it all comes from?

Senior Technician Deering: Me, I figured.

Dr. Bradbury: You?

Senior Technician Deering: How I feel about myself. How we all feel about ourselves. No?

Dr. Bradbury: I wonder. He first appeared after the Breach, in '02.

Senior Technician Deering: Right.

Dr. Bradbury: When 001-A and 001-B were obliterated.

Senior Technician Deering: Right…

Senior Technician Deering: Wait. 001 what? What are you talking about?

Dr. Bradbury: I'm clearing you for this. We had two very highly classified subjects in containment when the Breach occurred. They both got aerosolized in the chaos.

<Deering turns to examine the mirror again, eyes wide.>

Senior Technician Deering: And you think Doug is… what? Some piece of some… whatever, blown around F-D until it glommed onto me?

Dr. Bradbury: It's a theory.

Senior Technician Deering: But what would that even mean? What does that tell us?

Dr. Bradbury: It might explain why 5056 brought so much chaos into your life.

Senior Technician Deering: I wouldn't call it chaos, exactly.

Dr. Bradbury: It's got to be a terrible burden, though.

Senior Technician Deering: Well, sure. But it's also part of my routine now. It gives me…

Senior Technician Deering: I don't know what it gives me.

SCP-5056: Structure.

<Dr. Bradbury narrows her eyes at the mirror.>

Dr. Bradbury: I'm going to need to know exactly what he just said.

Snapshot — 4:09 PM

Do you think SCP-5056 is a fragment of SCP-001-UNYIELDING?

I'm not sure. Like Phil said, Doug causes enough chaos to be part of the Uncontained, too.

Perhaps a little of both?

Or neither. Not enough data to guess, yet, so I won't.

Snapshot — 4:10 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5109

SCP-5109 is an alphanumeric string which can only be understood by a single sapient being at any time. Ownership is transferred via speech and hearing. 'Copies' of SCP-5109 from alternate realities function independently. This anomaly was frequently utilized by Site-43 staff until 2020, and was the instigating element of the Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority's Operation HAPPY HYDRA, which resulted in the termination or capture of a large number of embedded enemy operatives within the Foundation.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5109. Iconographic aberrance, if any, is due to associated memetic effect.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was recorded right after HAPPY HYDRA, while our Chief of Identity and Technocryptography (and original 'keeper' of SCP-5109) Eileen Veiksaar was still in detention here at 43. She took a stand against the operation, basically committing treason in the process, and it somehow got her transferred to the Ethics Committee. I'm tempted to say having someone with a moral backbone in there might end up being very good for us, but… refer to my note at the end of this transcript.

FILE: happy-hydra-veiksaar-debrief.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 2 January 2021

FONDS: D. Sokolsky, Deputy Chief, Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority E.K. Veiksaar, Ethics Committee Liaison

<Chief Veiksaar is in a detention cell, sitting at a metal table. She is still wearing her cotton scrubs. Dr. Sokolsky enters, and sits down across from her.>

Chief Veiksaar: Hooray.

Dr. Sokolsky: Not happy to see me? That hurts. After all we've been through, betraying each other.

Chief Veiksaar: You don't do social visits.

Dr. Sokolsky: It's not conjugal either, if that's what you're hoping.

Chief Veiksaar: Oh, darn.

Chief Veiksaar: What do you want, Daniil?

Dr. Sokolsky: Bit of a debrief, nothing more. You've had 5109 in your head for longer than anyone.

Chief Veiksaar: And you've had more copies in yours.

Dr. Sokolsky: I'm damn near the only person who's had any copies.

Chief Veiksaar: Right. But I think the fact that you could really complicates our understanding of what it even is.

Dr. Sokolsky: You figure? If we ever had a coherent explanation to begin with, I must have missed that part of the file.

Chief Veiksaar: It's not in the file, because wild speculation is irresponsible. People were taking enough risks with the thing as it was. There was no reason to sweeten the pot.

Dr. Sokolsky: So, what was the most popular explanation?

Chief Veiksaar: The text of the password — the words, anyway — is a first person statement. This suggested one of two things. It's either sapient, and speaking, or it's a thought fragment belonging to a being whose thoughts take a more… concrete form, than ours do.

Dr. Sokolsky: In the latter case, that could explain why the password is indelible until you give it away. A thought so strong it can't be dismissed by the usual mechanisms of the human brain.

Chief Veiksaar: The former case just gets more unpleasant to consider with what we know now.

Dr. Sokolsky: You mean you don't like the idea of a bunch of linguaforms crawling around in my head at the same time?

Chief Veiksaar: I guess it's no worse than what's normally crawling around in there.

Dr. Sokolsky: Yeah, that's my thinking too.

Dr. Sokolsky: At least, I hope it's mine.

Chief Veiksaar: Do you have your own explanation for what the thing is?

Dr. Sokolsky: I don't suppose anyone ever told you that the text of the password, minus the numbers, is a cognitohazard specifically tailored to the Uncontained.

Chief Veiksaar: …what?

Dr. Sokolsky: Yeah. Both of them have one. A rhyming couplet that stunlocks 001-A, and a couplet that doesn't rhyme which does the same thing to -B.

Chief Veiksaar: …huh.

Dr. Sokolsky: Any thoughts about that?

Chief Veiksaar: How did we learn it in the first place?

Dr. Sokolsky: Scout received the one that's in the password, when he found the Falconer in that cave in '42. And it worked just like the password, in one respect: he couldn't forget it. Lillian got the other one from the Falcon a few years back.

Chief Veiksaar: Why wasn't this connection made immediately? When the password first showed up?

Dr. Sokolsky: Because the group of people who know the secret phrase for shutting the brothers down, and the group of people who had a copy of the password in their head, first overlapped this year.

Chief Veiksaar: …meaning it was an impossible connection to make, because you can't conceive of 5109 unless you have it, can't even recognize parts of it if they're right in front of you, or in your head.

Dr. Sokolsky: Aren't linguahazards fun?

Chief Veiksaar: Do we know why they work in the first place? These stun phrases, I mean.

Dr. Sokolsky: I do have a theory.

Chief Veiksaar: When do you not?

Dr. Sokolsky: The content of each phrase refers to the brother it affects. How the Uncontained is a cheerfully creative wad of anarchy, and the Unyielding is big brother's bootheel. The form of each phrase, however, is one its respective brother can't stand.

Chief Veiksaar: The Uncontained hates… rhyme?

Dr. Sokolsky: He hates—

Chief Veiksaar: —order. Of course. And the Unyielding gets a few lines of free verse, or whatever. That makes sense. Sort of.

Dr. Sokolsky: These guys are the source of almost all memetics. We shouldn't be surprised that some of it still resides in them. And their brains work differently than ours.

Chief Veiksaar: Strange thing to be carting around in your gourd, though. Failsafes against their opposite numbers?

Dr. Sokolsky: Seems likely.

Chief Veiksaar: Except… okay. They've been chasing each other in circles for centuries. If they've each got the ability to shut the other down…

Dr. Sokolsky: Maybe that's why they usually work through intermediaries. They can only get an advantage when they're not in close quarters.

Chief Veiksaar: Meaning we're their advantage. Human beings.

Dr. Sokolsky: I knew there was a reason nature kept us around.

Chief Veiksaar: So, we really think that's where 5109 came from? It got… what, blown out of one of their heads when they were killed in the Breach, and the added numbers and the weird mnemonic effect are just corruption resulting from how messy the process was?

Dr. Sokolsky: Seems like the most likely explanation to me. And it would explain why a new copy was generated every time, since the Breach killed them over and over.

Chief Veiksaar: What about the other phrase? Why didn't it create an anomaly?

Dr. Sokolsky: Maybe it did, and we just haven't noticed.

Chief Veiksaar: That's a cheerful thought. Has anyone ever talked to the brothers about all this?

Dr. Sokolsky: Harry tried once.

Chief Veiksaar: And?

Dr. Sokolsky: It started a family fistfight.

Chief Veiksaar: Why?

Dr. Sokolsky: Because apparently those safe words were only for their personal use, and our friend the Falcon broke the rules when he passed his on to the common enemy.

Chief Veiksaar: I have a new concern.

Dr. Sokolsky: Thought you might.

Chief Veiksaar: If the passwords are actually fragments of a mad god's brain…

Dr. Sokolsky: …or the actual thoughts of a mad god, yes…

Chief Veiksaar: …then should we really be passing them back and forth, and letting them rattle around in our own skulls?

<Dr. Sokolsky claps. Chief Veiksaar flinches.>

Dr. Sokolsky: Probably not!

Chief Veiksaar: I think we need to get our heads shrunk. Particularly yours.

Dr. Sokolsky: You've been saying that for years.

Chief Veiksaar: I'm serious. Don't take this so lightly.

Dr. Sokolsky: Why not?

Dr. Sokolsky: Eileen, what's a psych review of me going to accomplish in this case? They gonna see if they can detect any control freak, dictatorial, or megalomaniacal tendencies?

Chief Veiksaar: …good point.

Dr. Sokolsky: I'll tell your intake officer to let me know how your eval turns out.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Daniil might have had a lot of Passwords in his head for a day, but Eileen had the original in her head for ages. It's tempting to wonder whether her actions — objecting to the casual use of the Password, sabotaging HAPPY HYDRA — were really hers, or influenced by whichever brother it comes from. One thing's for sure: she was right to have misgivings, however she got them.

Snapshot — 4:16 PM

Troubling, how many anomalies were created when the brothers first died. They're like paranormal piñatas.

I think it's even stranger that the anomalies persisted when SCP-001 UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING were restored to existence.

Yeah. Certainly suggests we don't want to blow them up again, doesn't it?

That's what I like about you, sir. You say the things that go without saying.

[inaudible]

Pardon?

Snapshot — 4:18 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5243

SCP-5243 is a recurrent cascade containment breach occurring each September 8 in Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D, Site-43, beginning in 2002. Instigated by SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and involving fourteen members of Site personnel, this event obliterated both SCP-001 instances and seven of the intervening actors. Each subsequent occurrence of SCP-5243 progressively damages containment apparatus throughout the facility, and if interacted with inappropriately will retroactively alter the events of September 8 2002, creating offshoot timelines ('deadlines') wherein the aims of SCP-001-UNCONTAINED have been partially realized. The seven surviving actors, organized into Provisional Taskforce Sampi-5243 ("See You In September"), are forced in each 'deadline' to ensure the next occurrence of SCP-5243 proceeds as did the original in order to restore baseline reality. This occurred five times before knowledge gained in the deadlines allowed Sampi-5243 to restore SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING to existence, halting the degradation of containment apparatus. In the process it was realized that elements of both entities had become conceptually 'glued' to the victims and survivors, granting them specific 'freedoms' and 'burdens' related to their own personal histories and the manner of their interaction with SCP-5243.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5243.

FILE: bremtech.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 9 September 2021

FONDS: F. Nascimbeni, Junior Technician, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43 T. Bremmel, Chief, Arms and Equipment Section, Site-43

<Dr. Bremmel is standing on a ladder in his Arms and Equipment laboratory. The majority of his body is within the ceiling structure, from which a single panel has been removed; only his lower legs and feet are visible.>

<Junior Technician Nascimbeni stands next to the ladder, work tablet clutched to her chest. Her eyes are hooded with exhaustion.>

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: I'm just collecting data for the Chief, sir. I'm sorry to be a nuisance.

Dr. Bremmel: But not sorry enough to stop. I swear, these lab assistants.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: I'm a junior tech, sir.

Dr. Bremmel: Even worse. You don't have degrees, you have certifications.

<Researcher Joanna Bremmel glances up from her desk across the room, giving Junior Technician Nascimbeni a look of sympathy. The latter smiles in appreciation, but shrugs.>

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: How bad is it up there, sir?

Dr. Bremmel: Bad.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: You can get a bit more technical with me.

Dr. Bremmel: Very bad.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Numbers?

Dr. Bremmel: There was no Breach failure last year, but we still lost Breach failure percentages of efficacy across the board.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Christ.

<Dr. Bremmel swears, and a shower of sparks falls out of the ceiling panel. Junior Technician Nascimbeni takes a step back.>

Dr. Bremmel: I've piled on a ton of redundant systems, but they take the same hit every year. Think I'm going to make everything modular going forward, planned obsolescence, replace wholesale per annum.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: You think this is just from the Unyielding conking out?.Due to the circumstances of her grandfather's death, Junior Technician Nascimbeni is cleared to know of the existence of SCP-001-UNYIELDING. She was also involved in helping to manage the crisis precipitated by Chief Pensak which ended in the shooting of that same entity.

Dr. Bremmel: Makes sense. His buddy is flexing his wings in a larger cage.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: But can we at least keep him in there?

<Dr. Bremmel grunts. There is a clattering on the ceiling tile above Junior Technician Nascimbeni's head. She takes a further step back.>

Dr. Bremmel: I'd say so. Sleeping Beauty has stabilized. As always, the threat isn't escape but rescue.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: And you've been helping on that front, too.

Dr. Bremmel: You should see the laser turrets topside. I have a wonderful demo video involving a deer, and then no deer.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Maybe some other time.

<Dr. Bremmel climbs down the ladder, slowly.>

Dr. Bremmel: Still trying to convince Allan to let me try them out on the kitty cats.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: You wouldn't want to be the reason they got in here, would you, sir?

<Researcher Bremmel stifles a snort. Her father glances at her, and smirks.>

Dr. Bremmel: I've always wanted to go out ironically.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Maybe we should find a way to inflict that on the brothers, first.

<Dr. Bremmel rubs his knees.>

Dr. Bremmel: Before they inflict it on humanity, presumably?

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Right. It's our god-given right to be the instruments of our own demise. It's practically our core competency.

Junior Technician Nascimbeni: Did you fix it?

Dr. Bremmel: What?

<Dr. Bremmel looks up, then blinks.>

Dr. Bremmel: Oh. No. It's probably all about to fall down, actually.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Eight people have filled the seven primary containment roles, because one of the original seven — Noè Nascimbeni, Chief of Janitorial and Maintenance — passed on in the line of duty, and was replaced by Amelia Torosyan, successor to his slightly more mundane post. It remains to be seen whether the effects on the rest of us transfer to her; she is able to do what he did without causing temporal anomalies. At least, we think so. More on that later.

FILE: ngo-mcinnis-001.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 3 May 2024

FONDS: N.T. Ngo, Chair, Psychology and Parapsychology Section, Site-43 A.J. McInnis, Director, Site-43

<Dir. McInnis is seated at his desk, beneath a framed copy of_ The Treachery of Images _by René Magritte. Dr. Ngo sits down across from him, clipboard in hand.>

Dr. Ngo: Thanks for making the time, sir.

Dir. McInnis: My schedule is always open to you, doctor. Although I was surprised to see today's topic. We haven't had a failed Breach in a good long while, and psychologically we're all better than ever.

Dr. Ngo: Right. It wasn't your psychology I wanted to discuss.

Dir. McInnis: Ah. Parapsychology, then.

Dr. Ngo: Yes. The brothers.

Dir. McInnis: Go on.

Dr. Ngo: The Uncontained caused 5243 in order to get out of containment.

Dir. McInnis: That's what he claims.

Dir. McInnis: Are you suggesting there might have been deeper intentions at play?

Dr. Ngo: I'm thinking it through.

Dr. Ngo: I've examined them monthly for as long as I've been Chair of P&P. The frustration with each other and their situation that Scout first noticed, which put them in our care in the first place, got worse and worse over the succeeding decades. Until it didn't.

Dir. McInnis: To what would you credit this change? Defeatism? Suicidal ideation?

Dr. Ngo: No. One of the things — the many things, whatever they might tell you — they both have in common is an overwhelming arrogance. They don't give in. They don't give up. I don't think they decided they didn't want to play anymore. I think they decided to change the game.

Dir. McInnis: Together?

Dr. Ngo: Maybe not overtly. Not in the specific details. Realistically, the Uncontained was the only one who could have effected a change like this. The nature of the Unyielding's powers could only aid us in containing them.

Dir. McInnis: And so the Unyielding left his chamber for the first time in decades, to tutor Dr. Okorie.

Dr. Ngo: Right. Separating from the other by just a little bit, giving him space. Not looking too closely at what he was doing.

Dir. McInnis: Seeing if a solution could be found.

Dr. Ngo: We tend to think of them as being in opposition. They innately keep each other in check. But they've been together for a lot longer than they've been at odds, in a personal sense. I wonder if the overall effect of the Breach was always intended by both of them, even if the method by which it was achieved was not.

Dir. McInnis: You think they intentionally chose to extrude their essences into us? To create… what? Champions?

Dr. Ngo: We know they've used proxies before. Politicians. Dupes. Entire cults. But they always lost control in the end.

Dir. McInnis: So they put a little of themselves in the new models.

Dr. Ngo: That's what I'm wondering.

Dir. McInnis: If true, it would mean we're all compromised.

Dr. Ngo: That's not even the thing I'm most worried about.

Dir. McInnis: Oh?

Dr. Ngo: If they could see this far ahead, put such a complex and contingent plan into place…

Dir. McInnis: How broad-sweeping must their overall goal be?

Dr. Ngo: Right. We already know they're going off script. Deviating from a pattern they've maintained for half a millennium.

Dir. McInnis: They've never had to deal with so formidable an opponent as the Foundation before.

Dr. Ngo: Or maybe they've never seen such a versatile tool.

Snapshot — 4:25 PM

Kind of a nightmare, when you lay it all out like that.

These elements have each been in play since 2002. If you really were compromised, it would have become apparent by now. No?

Not necessarily. These entities measure time in centuries. This could be a very, very long con.

Well, everything we're reviewing is also available to Overwatch Command. If they thought there was a problem, we would know.

Sure. Call up the file I flagged with "oh no," could you?

There are multiple such flags. I assume you want the one also tagged with "5243"?

Yeah. It's been an "oh no" kind of life, what can I say?

Accessing…

Snapshot — 4:27 PM

FILE: 001-lil-possession.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 3 February 2020

FONDS: L.S. Lillihammer, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section, Site-43

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING is standing in the centre of its containment chamber, looking at the wall separating it from SCP-001-UNCONTAINED's chamber. It turns to face Dr. Lillihammer as she enters, closing the door behind her.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Did you cause the Breach?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You're asking me? I think you have us confused.

Dr. Lillihammer: No. We already know what your twin did. He sat there in his cell and secretly shit his orange pants, invisibly, until it backed up the sewers and they blew.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I've always loved your way with words.

Dr. Lillihammer: You, on the other hand, tried to stop it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I was working with Udo—

Dr. Lillihammer: Dr. Okorie, to you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Not at the time. We were on better terms, and her potential had yet to be realized. I was working with her when my brother precipitated his pocket apocalypse. I did not comprehend the extent to which he had compromised the facility. I thought my strength would be enough to counteract his effect.

Dr. Lillihammer: And it wasn't. Why?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: He was on the ascent. Stronger. And the admixture of his essence with your effluence made a potent combination.

<Dr. Lillihammer nods briskly.>

Dr. Lillihammer: You were both wiped out by the Breach. Intentional or not, you figure?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: He longs above all else to be free. I don't know that he makes any distinction within that broad category.

Dr. Lillihammer: But you didn't die. Not really.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: No.

<Dr. Lillihammer taps her head.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Seven of us stopped the Breach from breaching, and lived. Seven were caught in the storm, and died. And that's where you guys went. Into us.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We are irreducible. We cannot be destroyed. We only change form.

Dr. Lillihammer: Jury's still out on that. But here's a question. The Victims, the people stuck with bits of your brother in their brains, they seemed to remember us sometimes in subsequent timelines. They remembered worlds we ended. And when we put all the pieces back into your brother, he remembered all of it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Lillihammer: Do you? Do you remember—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Lillihammer: It's not a useful answer if you interrupt the question.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes, I remember being you. I remember Cornerstone and the spiders and the void and the starfish and the wastes. I see them through your eyes.

Dr. Lillihammer: Do you expect me to believe you were controlling me?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Of course not. I did so very little for you.

Dr. Lillihammer: Your brother did a lot for his victims.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: He would see it that way.

Dr. Lillihammer: He controlled them.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Ah. No. I imagine he would say he set them free from themselves.

Dr. Lillihammer: Distinction with no difference.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Just as I did not truly leave you to your own devices.

Dr. Lillihammer: What did you do? What did we get out of carrying you in our heads into five alternate dimensions?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Only five? Hmm.

Dr. Lillihammer: What?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What I did was tilt the play field for you. Changed the circumstances, just a little. Every being on this Earth is inclined to some kind of responsibility. In that sense life itself is on my side, where my opposite number heralds only death. I simply exerted a little energy to give you each the opportunity to be your best selves.

Dr. Lillihammer: Putting Allan in situations where he would have to lead.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Lillihammer: Del where she would need to protect us.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Lillihammer: You forced Noè to sacrifice himself.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I did.

Dr. Lillihammer: You're not going to say it was his choice? That you're blameless?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: No. I am imposition, Dr. Lillihammer. I am the demands of the time, every time.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I used him up, as I will you.

Snapshot — 4:30 PM

So yeah, I'm a little beyond comforting on this topic. Anyway. Back to the main event. As we've now firmly established, my files are a mess; think you could keep calling them up for me, and I can figure out how to synthesize a narrative?

Sure! Or you could just upload them to the database like that, in a curated order. Epistolary style!

Yikes. No thanks. I don't want to test the limits of my tenure.

Fair enough. Where to next?

Scout's preliminary accounts of Yeats, please.

Accessing now…

Snapshot — 4:30 PM

FILE: scout_on_yeats_1.txt

TYPE: Digitized correspondence

DATE: 4 April 1914

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

Have you ever had a burglar in your house, Wynn?

A man broke into ours when I was very young, in the dead of night. I remember feeling that something was wrong, that a sacred space had been violated, even though I saw nothing, heard nothing. The air was different. The seals had been broken, and somehow I could tell.

That is how I have felt about my research into these matters. There is something lurking in the history, something that doesn't belong. An intruder. An outsider.

I have assembled a rough chronology of this strange cult of wild words, the giftschreiber, from the sixteenth century to the Thirty Years War. These masters of the power of speech, whom it was said no man's mind could long resist. In every scrap and palimpsest there is a lingering ghost. A figure of no set identity, appearing and disappearing, leaving only the results of their influence to trace. I am beginning to see this burglar of history everywhere, turning the wheels, setting the speed, and to doubt my own appraisal of the subject.

But I am not the only one.

Take, for example, the following bits of verse:

Selfsame

The hue is risen and Cartouche upon the gallows cries I come to liberate not you but yours and you thereby

Inheriting an alien scape Lord Amherst seeing red is musing on the means of peace for harvesting that native wheat and vanquishing the dead

And how am I to judge an ancient passion natural, or not? For in our halls are interlopers and yet also in us lurks the same malign and calcifying self-consuming rot

— W.B. Yeats

The Quickening

A pebble in each spiral and The drums wheel out of sync Momentum and the moment Spin a Great Year Every minute And we fly apart

— W.B. Yeats

It seems mad to suggest that this Irish poet should have also glimpsed the ghost, should be on the same trail I follow, but I cannot shake the feeling. He writes of strange visitations by a figure very much resembling the one I am reconstructing, and cycles governing the waxing and waning of his influence. I already have quite the folio of examples; I find him quite the rigid backbone for my work. I am thinking of taking a trip across the pond to question the man in person — I have long wanted to sail on Lusitania, and it would afford an opportunity for you and I to meet up again after so long a separation. What do you think?

— Vivian

Snapshot — 4:32 PM

FILE: scout_yeats_meeting.txt

TYPE: Digitized correspondence + digitized transcription of analog audio

DATE: 29 April 1921

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

My long-delayed meeting with Yeats was revelatory. He speaks of two figures, not one, beings he terms the 'half-men'. I don't mean to downplay the value of your own support, Wynn, but good God it was glorious to hear my own suspicions echoed by someone with no reason to look kindly on them. I took down our interview on phonograph cylinders, for posterity.

— Vivian

Dr. Scout: When did you first encounter the half-men?

Yeats: At Queen Maive's Cairn, on Knocknorea Mountain.

Dr. Scout: I'm not familiar.

Yeats: I used to vacation in County Sligo. The Cairn is an ancient monument on the top of a massive hill. I went there a few times as a young man, to think. Musing in the company of the royals of Connaught. It taught me that everything has its time, and it might come 'round again some day.

Dr. Scout: A hopeful thought.

Yeats: Or a caution.

Dr. Scout: And that's where you met them?

Yeats: The first.

Dr. Scout: Which was the first?

Yeats: I call him the Ragged.

Dr. Scout: What do you call the other?

Yeats: The Rod.

Dr. Scout: Interesting. Continue.

Yeats: He was like a mendicant, all loose and worn, and I don't only mean his clothes. I crested the mount, and there he was. Sitting on the Cairn. You aren't meant to do that.

Dr. Scout: Did you greet him?

Yeats: He greeted me. He said "I will never understand it."

Dr. Scout: Understand what?

Yeats: "Why you climb so high just to climb back down."

Dr. Scout: Ah.

Yeats: I asked him if we knew each other, since he spoke so familiarly. He said "After a fashion. But you'll come to know me in many more ways very soon." And then he laughed, like the absurdity of it had only just occurred to him.

Dr. Scout: Did you strike up a conversation?

Yeats: I got a little hot. I told him he oughtn't desecrate old Maud's tomb like that. He smiled — or something like it, but without the vital quality — and said "This is the only kind of royal seat I can respect, William. At least it serves a purpose when a man is weary."

Dr. Scout: He knew your name?

Yeats: He knew my name. I asked him how this was, and what he was called. He said "I am the return of the pauper. I am the string unwound. When you swoon here on the high peak, that's me. When you seize on the fleeting thought of leaping off, that's me as well."

Dr. Scout: What did you say to that?

Yeats: Nothing. I clutched my walking-stick close, and turned to go. I did not wish to be entangled in the schemes of the mad.

Dr. Scout: Did he follow?

Yeats: No. He merely said "Give my regards."

Dr. Scout: Only that? No clue as to who he meant?

Yeats: No. Not for a long while.

Dr. Scout: Where did you meet the other? The Rod, you called him.

Yeats: At Fingal's Cave, in the Hebrides. I was out on a lark with the Ghost Club, spelunking for the spirit of Fionn mac Cumhaill.

Dr. Scout: Did you find it?

Yeats: No, all we got was cold and miserable, but we'd brought spirits of our own to ease the disappointment. And that's how he found me, drunk in the midst of my unconscious friends.

Dr. Scout: What did he say?

Yeats: Nothing at all. He was dressed as a shore policeman, and he cudgeled me to within an inch of my life.

Yeats: I woke up in a shabby little gaolhouse, all alone. I don't know where he put the others, and they would have no answers for me after. He was sitting on the other side of the bars, polishing his brass, and he smiled when he saw I was awake again. "Chasing bandits?" he asked, a nasty glint in his eye. "We should be in the same profession."

My body ached, so I wasn't as circumspect as I might otherwise have been. "What profession is that?" I demanded. He grinned like the proverbial lion, and replied "Today I profess to protect honest folk from ruffians. Tomorrow I think I'll profess in Parliament. I haven't quite decided whose side I will take, yet, but that doesn't matter. As long as one can be more than the other, that's enough."

I do not know why, but as he spoke I remembered the stranger on the Cairn. It must have been that alien manner of speaking, like he was reciting some mystic text. My own interests made identifying such things second nature; I've heard voices like that in séances. So I said, on a hunch, "The other gives his regards."

The creature — for he did not seem fully a man, though I could not give you a reason — scowled at this, and I saw that I was correct. Beneath the lawman's moustache, he had the same face. "Found you first, did he? The last gasp of his turn on the wheel. He'll be lagging well behind by the time you're all…" And as suddenly as he had scowled, he was smiling again. "Well, that would be telling."

"Who are you?" I demanded. "And do not give me any fancy lies."

He scoffed. "You mistake me for my brother. I am truth incarnate. I am the answer to the question. I am the solution."

I did not feel my request for clarity had been answered fairly. "I did not ask for any solution."

"The problems never do. But still, they must be solved. You have the eyes of a revolutionary, William. Revolutionaries are like spokes. They always find themselves turned back to where they began. You need a less circular course if you're ever to reach paradise. I intend to draw you a line." And then he stood up, and he left without another word.

Dr. Scout: He didn't let you out?

Yeats: No. The gaoler came by some time later, did a double-take, and demanded to know how and why I had broken into his gaol. He released me when he could no longer smell the whiskey on my breath.

Dr. Scout: Did you see them again? The brothers?

Yeats: More often than if they had been my own. They found me time and again, over and over, unburdening themselves.

Dr. Scout: On what topics?

Yeats: The Ragged is a liar, a thief, and a murderer. He told me what lies he had told, what he had stolen, who he had killed. The Rod is a tyrant, an abusive and terrible master. He bragged of kings bending the knee and petty thieves crushed beneath his boot. One came by his whims, the other like clockwork, and they told me who they thought they were.

Dr. Scout: Why you?

Yeats: This I asked them every time. The Rod claimed it was my destiny to witness these terrible truths, while the Ragged said his aim was to interrupt the course of my existence. They certainly achieved that much.

Dr. Scout: Did you never tell anyone about this?

Yeats: Only in my work, and only veiled. The one thing all three of us were agreed on was that nobody would believe me.

Snapshot — 4:38 PM

Those early days were very important for setting the tone.

Of course, these were among the latter days as far as SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING were concerned.

I've never known them to be concerned.

I'll have to incorporate the full investigation of Yeats eventually, but let's fast-forward again. Bring up the next three cross-comparisons.

Accessing now…

Snapshot — 4:40 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5382

SCP-5382 is a constellation of anomalous effects created by immortal Austrian cryptomancer Thilo Zwist. Once believed to be the last survivor of the schriftsteller, an ancient cult of order-aligned memeticists, Zwist accidentally inserted a fatal flaw into the Germanic language family which leads, under precise and fluctuating circumstances, to individuals engaging with those languages undergoing spontaneous human combustion. Zwist has spent the succeeding four centuries creating memetic cures for this effect; recently he has begun working together with Foundation representatives to thwart the giftschreiber, sworn enemies of the schriftsteller.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Vivian Scout spent decades chasing Zwist, and they developed a sort of rapport. Friendly enemies. This is a fragment of a conversation I held with Zwist after Viv's funeral; I suspect the occasion made him more reflective and forthcoming than he might otherwise have been.

FILE: 97-zwist-further.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 5 April 1997

FONDS: H.R. Blank, Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43 T. Zwist

Dr. Blank: Where does it come from?

Zwist: The St. Lawrence Seaway.

Dr. Blank: Cryptomancy. What's the source of that power?

Zwist: The universe of inner worlds. The spiritus mundi.

Dr. Blank: That's what Yeats called it.

Zwist: Did he? I learned it from my master.

Dr. Blank: I wonder where he learned it from.

Zwist: I came here to mourn a loss which… Which is too new to me to be real, mercifully. I don't want to dredge up reliable old horrors.

Dr. Blank: I need to know what we're facing, if the wellspring you tapped into still exists.

Zwist: As I told you, it was a moment of weakness.

Dr. Blank: It was a moment of power. More power than I think any memeticist has ever wielded. More than was required to put the Frontispiece.SCP-001-PICKMAN/BLANK; see later entry in this file. in place. What?

Zwist: Nothing.

Dr. Blank: What?

<Dr. Blank sighs in frustration.>

Dr. Blank: Come on, Zwist. Is it really just the collective unconscious? Did you bend every living brain in 1645 to damn the Germans? Because if you did, you might be a worse monster than the one I'm thinking of.

Zwist: Monster.

Dr. Blank: That's right. I'm not cleared to know about them, not yet, but I saw a lot of files when I became the top archivist, and I know what a document gap looks like when I see one. Back when Viv was chasing you, he was chasing someone else too. Someone who'd been running from one side of history to the other.

Zwist: I was only an apprentice.

Dr. Blank: But?

Zwist: But I did hear stories.

Dr. Blank: Tell me one.

Zwist: They called him The Will. He was a stranger who came from parts unknown, before there was the guild. Before there was magic. And he said, "I am the source. I am structure. You will write me into the bones of the Earth, and you will master it."

Dr. Blank: And then what? He taught them how to access the collective unconscious?

Zwist: No. He ripped open his mind for them, and placed some part in each.

Dr. Blank: What?

Zwist: He carved himself up and let them consume him. And then he went away to heal, as they learned to commune with the spiritus mundi. And the moment they connected, they poisoned the spring.

Dr. Blank: Poisoned…?

Zwist: What was him entered into all of us. He became a vulnerability. An attachment to his designs. When my master and the others worked their magic, it was that chink in the armour they targeted.

Dr. Blank: That… is. That is a reliable new horror.

Zwist: For you.

Dr. Blank: Do you know where he ended up? Physically, I mean.

Zwist: No. But I think Vivian did.

Dr. Blank: I wish I could ask him.

Zwist: If I could speak to my friend one last time, I would use my chance much more wisely than that.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I made a note to talk to our experts on this matter, then found there was nobody who could speak to it. cf. the later interview with Wheeler to see where the thread leads.

Snapshot — 4:43 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5494

SCP-5494 is a race of aquatic big cats known as 'Mishepeshu' in Anishnaabe mythology, occupying the Great Lakes generally and Lake Huron in particular. These creatures enjoy a cautiously neutral relationship with the indigenous peoples of the region, but react violently to the presence of outsiders. During the construction of surface facilities for Site-43, multiple SCP-5494 attacks on Foundation personnel resulted in a policy of cooperation with First Nations groups and the creation of Nexus-94 to encompass their communities; these actions coincided with an end to the attacks.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5494, as seen from Intake Point-94.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Ilse Reynders is the only person both alive and sane to have witnessed the original Mishepeshu attacks, for reasons outlined in the SCP-5616 cross-reference.

FILE: asc-ilse-lords.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 14 July 2023

FONDS: I.D. Reynders, Chief, Acroamatic Abatement Section, Site-43 All-Sections Chief, Site-43

<The All-Sections Chief and Dr. Reynders are standing in Intake Point-94, on the bed of Lake Huron. They are looking out from a large dome of plate glass; in the darkness without, the serpentine forms of numerous SCP-5494 instances can be seen swimming.>

Dr. Reynders: Wynn was always convinced there was a scientific explanation for their behaviour.

All-Sections Chief: I understand he still returns to the topic now and again.

Dr. Reynders: I'd love to be able to give him a concrete answer. Something to ground him.

All-Sections Chief: Well.

Dr. Reynders: You have a theory?

Dr. Reynders: I guess you would.

All-Sections Chief: It isn't mine. But I've heard a few things over the years.

SCP-5520 is former Co-Director and former Chief of Acroamatic Abatement at Site-43 Dr. Wynn Rhys Rydderech. As the result of numerous exposures to anomalous substances over the course of his long career, Dr. Rydderech has become a Class-III reality bender suffering from extreme psychosis and depersonalization. He resides in a cavern beneath Site-43, in which he has constructed a vast refinery complex known as Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-W. A dedicated computer terminal in Facility AAF-A allows communication with Dr. Rydderech; though his mental state is highly variable, he has proven a vital consultation resource and all requests for his humane decommissioning have been refused by the Overseer Council.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-W.

FILE: rydderech-scout-unyielding.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 15 November 1974

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

It was yesterday.

Dr. Scout: What was?

That's how people remember. They make the past into yesterday.

Dr. Scout: You mean, as in "I remember it like it was yesterday?"

Is that how it goes?

Oh dear.

Well, it's years long gone down here now. I'm going to make the most of it.

Dr. Scout: What year, Wynn?

You were always so cross with me over this. I played it off as jealousy, but of course you were afraid. For me.

Back then I set my own rules. You never asserted. You trusted me.

Dr. Scout: I still trust you.

You shouldn't. I'm not all me anymore.

He was fascinated by me. I didn't understand why. But he was angry, too. I was disorganized. Jumping from conclusion to conclusion. Scatterbrained.

Dr. Scout: Who are we talking about?

You let me alone, but I think you knew it wouldn't end well. Rock and a hard place. You couldn't stop me, so we kept pushing. And it all blew up in my face. It's all blowing up right now. If I still had to breathe, I wouldn't be.

Dr. Scout: You're talking about the Unyielding. You're talking about the day you were both caught in a containment breach.

It all happens so fast. He's remonstrating. He says "I almost think you're resisting the knowledge on purpose," and then a sort of cold light dawns in those grey eyes, and he says "or on instinct," and then it all breaks loose. The pipe we're examining ruptures, and we're swimming in recondite material in seconds.

Dr. Scout: And he pushed you to the floor, so you could breathe.

That's where I am now. And he's kneeling beside me, and you and Falkirk aren't at the glass yet, and he says something.

Dr. Scout: You never mentioned this.

It was never like yesterday before. I'm only now remembering.

Dr. Scout: What is he saying?

"So this is his choice, then."

Dr. Scout: What does that mean?

I'm going to send the gas up to you. You can analyze it.

Dr. Scout: You created it, Wynn. It will dissipate once it leaves your vicinity.

Is that what happens to my words, too?

Dr. Scout: No.

Dr. Scout: Wynn, no.

I'm speaking into the void. I can see it.

Dr. Scout: I'm here, Wynn. I'm listening.

I understand.

Dr. Scout: Good.

The gas is real, but you aren't.

Snapshot — 4:50 PM

So, that would seem to confirm that SCP-001-UNYIELDING knew its brother was planning something, and chose to allow it to happen.

I think it's worse than that. I've got Falkirk's testimony before Scout and the review board in here, don't I?

I believe so, sir… Yes. Here it is.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 4:51 PM

FILE: falkirk-rydderech-debrief.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 19 June 1960

FONDS: E.S. Falkirk V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43

Dr. Falkirk: It was his own fault.

Dr. Scout: Explain what you mean by that.

Dr. Falkirk: He was sloppy, sir. I know you don't want to hear that, but he was.

Dr. Scout: I want to know what happened to him, researcher. I do not require your baseless editorializing.

Dr. Falkirk: I worked with him for three years. I'd call that a strong basis.

Dr. Scout: And what did you see over those three years that would lead you to blame Dr. Rydderech for his own misfortune?

Dr. Falkirk: Every time he was working on something, he had the next three projects in mind. He could never focus on what was in front of him. Always the big picture, never the details. Me, I like to know everything I can about something so I can decide the best strategy for using or neutralizing it. Him? He was consumed by the scope of it all, he wanted to know everything at once and fix all the problems himself, in one fell swoop. That made him an unsafe worker. It made him dangerous to work for. And it meant he got exposed to just about everything well beyond the safety tolerances. Probably enough to kill him in every case, except that he'd built up something like an immunity over the years.

Dr. Scout: Until, I imagine you're suggesting, he was so suffused with this material that it had changed who he was at the core.

Dr. Falkirk: That's right. Changed him until he wasn't even human. You know, I hear he'd been like this as far back as Vienna. Inhaled God knows what in those old plants before they even really understood hazardous materials safety. That wasn't a man I was working for. It was a gestalt of every anomaly that ever ran through the pipes of Area-21 and Site-43. And sir? You let it happen, as much as he did.

Dr. Scout: Go on.

Dr. Falkirk: You never once tried to rein him in. You let him treat our refineries as his personal fiefdom. Complete control to do as he would, even though you knew he was a man who made poor decisions. A sick man, even before he became ill.

Dr. Scout: Must I prompt you to explain every—

Dr. Falkirk: You know what I'm talking about. Everyone knows.

Dr. Scout: State it outright, then. Make your allegation, or at least make yourself useful to this inquiry.

Dr. Falkirk: I already know nothing I say or do is going to change the status quo around here. I've lived through two World Wars. I know when a regime isn't ready to change yet.

Dr. Scout: Then tell me what you actually know. You claim to have witnessed cases of Wynn… of Dr. Rydderech failing to observe proper safety protocols. Give me an example.

Dr. Falkirk: You've seen it yourself. You were there.

Dr. Scout: This circular—

Dr. Falkirk: When he took one of those other old perverts out of its cage, and let it run the sanitarium for a day.

Dr. Scout: His experiments with the Unyielding—

Dr. Falkirk: That beast knew the pipe was going to burst. I think it caused the accident. And I think you do, too.

Dr. Scout: The Unyielding strengthens containment. It doesn't make pipes burst.

Dr. Falkirk: Maybe it talked its brother into it. I don't think they're nearly as opposed as the rest of you do. Either way, I'm sure they were thrilled when your friend Dr. Rydderech got gas-swamped.

Dr. Scout: The Unyielding saved Dr. Rydderech from that accident, you'll recall.

Dr. Falkirk: Exactly. It didn't want him dead.

Dr. Scout: What, then?

Dr. Falkirk: It wanted to see what he'd become.

Dr. Falkirk: You could have prevented this, Director. May you never fail another human being the way you failed this man you profess to love.

Snapshot — 4:54 PM

Dr. Falkirk is hardly an unbiased source, Dr. Blank. He always despised Dr. Scout.

Yeah. But I think he's got a point about the brothers. Nhung thinks the Unyielding knew in general. Lillian thinks he knew specifics. Me? I'm with ratfuck. I think they plotted the whole thing out from first principles. And I certainly wouldn't put it past them to have treated a living human being as an experiment. Particularly with what we later found out about the Unyielding's activities in the last century.

It's just so sad what happened to Dr. Rydderech.

There's always hope, Clio.

Didn't you promise Dr. Scout you'd find a way to reach him?

I did. Allan and I. It's just… It's hard. The Council doesn't want us interacting beyond the Work.

I suppose we all make sacrifices.

Or have them made for us.

Sorry to interrupt, sir. You have a consultation request incoming.

Okeydoke. Peg the documents I just read to this part of the file, and I'll work them in properly later.

Done! Connecting you with Research and Experimentation…

Hey Dr. Blank. Pursuit and Suppression is bringing in a new humanoid within the hour, and I'm on intake. Checking in as I register an empty file, as per protocol.

It's sweet of you to think of your dear old dad in these troubled times.

I'll let you know when I have the initial details, sir.

Okay then.

That was sweet.

Yeah.

Dr. Blank? Should we continue with the cross-referencing?

That interruption put me off my game. I've never been any good at resuming interrupted work. Show me Scout's intake interviews with the brothers, from '41.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 4:57 PM

FILE: 001-blank-intake-b.txt

TYPE: Digital transcription of analog audio

DATE: 1 April 1941

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 M. Strauss, Chief Emeritus, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Why are you still here?

Dr. Scout: I wanted to be sure you were stable. You're the biggest fish I've ever caught.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Do you intend to gut me?

Dr. Scout: I prefer to ask questions. It's a much more pleasant means of extraction.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I've already given you something no man has ever possessed.

Dr. Scout: Except you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I meant what I said.

Dr. Scout: You're no man?

<Dr. Scout clicks his tongue.>

Dr. Scout: A half-man, then? As Yeats put it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: His perspective was limited. I'm hoping you will be a more capable ally.

Dr. Scout: Ally.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: That's right. Against my brother.

Dr. Scout: Why?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Because he's going to ruin everything, and I can't hold him back any longer.

Dr. Scout: Define 'everything'.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes. I do.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Is that glass bulletproof, Dr. Scout?

Dr. Scout: No.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Tell one of your men to put a bullet in it.

Dr. Scout: Strauss?

<A single gunshot, and the sound of muffled cracking.>

Dr. Scout: That's interesting.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You didn't even ask me why. That is also interesting.

Dr. Scout: I assumed it was for demonstration purposes. What precisely did you just demonstrate?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: How do you measure the efficiency of that generator?

Dr. Scout: Voltage and gas consumption, I imagine.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You track these things?

Dr. Scout: We do.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I should get a report, if I were you.

Dr. Scout: Very interesting. Am I to understand you're responsible for these… deviations?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes. You and I, we have similar methods. Similar goals. Motivations. And this is our hour.

Dr. Scout: Do tell.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We're at a novel point in history, doctor. New achievements in peace are within our grasp. Humanity can order its cosmos. And I can help.

Dr. Scout: You're placing yourself outside of humanity again.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Scout: But you're a noble sort of demon.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: My brother is the demon. All I want is to see you build.

Dr. Scout: Build what?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Anything. You're all so inventive. You never stop accruing and accreting. I want to see how high you can climb. I want to see you master all that you survey.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Speaking of masters…

Dr. Scout: Yes?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I should like to speak with yours. I imagine they and I could have a very productive conversation.

Dr. Scout: I will make a note to pass that on..No record of any such correspondence on this topic between Dr. Scout and Overwatch Command, or the O5 Council, could be found. So, your brother. I take it we're dealing in equal and opposite forces here?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Quite.

Dr. Scout: Then we ought to kill him?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You can't.

Dr. Scout: You've clearly been injured. You might be able to make glass bullet-resistant, but you obviously bleed.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: There's a limit. This is it.

Dr. Scout: Nobody lives forever.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Perhaps I don't live at all.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Ask. If it will get you moving quicker.

Dr. Scout: I've been tracing you through history. Back as far as the middle ages.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Mmm.

Dr. Scout: All those historical figures…

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Were they really me?

Dr. Scout: And your brother. Yes.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Scout: Did you force the people around you to do what they did?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I set harmony in concrete. He seeded strife.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You're running out of time. He won't be caught out a second time.

Chief Strauss: We're ready to go on your order, sir.

Dr. Scout: Very well.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Doctor?

Dr. Scout: Yes?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Be sure your house is sound, before you invite him in.

Snapshot — 5:00 PM

FILE: 001-blank-intake-a.txt

TYPE: Digital transcription of analog audio

DATE: 1 April 1941

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 M. Strauss, Chief Emeritus, Security and Containment Section, Site-43

<SCP-001-UNCONTAINED is standing at the back wall of its temporary containment chamber in the Ipperwash Beach cave. Dr. Scout is sitting at a table, examining his notes.>

Dr. Scout: What shall we call you?

Dr. Scout: People have applied many names to you through the years. This is your chance to go on the record, set them straight.

Dr. Scout: I've been waiting a long time to make your—

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: He told you the Words.

Dr. Scout: Yes.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Why?

Dr. Scout: He didn't say. We didn't force them out, if that's what you're thinking.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I wasn't thinking that. You can't make him do anything he doesn't want to do.

Dr. Scout: You're speaking as an authority?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: No. He's the authority. The judge. The arbiter. He makes the calls.

Dr. Scout: Not on my court.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You're not in your court anymore. You're in his. And he's as capricious an overlord as you'll find.

Dr. Scout: You have a lot to say about him. Why don't we talk about you instead?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because he's the wheel that breaks. I'm only the wooden shoe that stops it spinning.

Dr. Scout: Is that what you'd like me to call you? I could add "the Shoe" to your long list of epithets.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I don't care what you say or do. You have no power over me. No-one does.

Dr. Scout: There's a man not far from here who gets to decide what you have for breakfast. There's a minor functionary somewhere who set the dress code you're adhering to.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: This is an interval. On the scale at which I operate, our acquaintance won't even register.

Dr. Scout: I'm sure you'll feel the seconds tick past anyway. Especially if you intend to spend them sulking.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I have only to blink, doctor, and I will miss you.

Dr. Scout: I have only to say the words, and you will miss however long an interval I choose.

Dr. Scout: I can see you're troubled. Would you like to talk about why?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I always knew he had it in him to do something like this. I just never imagined it would happen over something so petty.

Dr. Scout: Why did he betray you, do you think?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because he thinks he can win. If he uses you.

Dr. Scout: Uses us how?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: As you would use a handkerchief to polish your spectacles. Take it out when you need it, return it to darkness when you don't. And dispose of it when it's worn through.

Dr. Scout: We have him in a cell. He's not using us.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Two statements with opposite meaning.

Dr. Scout: That's what you two are, isn't it? Two ways of looking at the world.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Two ways of shaping it. His way, or the highwayman. Over-reach or understanding.

Dr. Scout: You've been having a philosophical debate, and using real human beings as your… hypotheticals.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: It was instructive, once. Then at least it was fun. Now it's not even that.

Dr. Scout: Is that why you confronted each other?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I was tired of the chase. It's never gone on this long before.

Dr. Scout: What do you mean? Do you switch sides occasionally? Or make truces?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: No.

Dr. Scout: Then what do you mean?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You know, it's the first time we ever really came to blows? In all those years. I half expected him to cry.

Dr. Scout: You usually fight by proxy.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Yes. We have that in common with your Foundation.

Dr. Scout: I am no proxy. I simply want what the Foundation wants.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We all want to shape humanity. The difference is, I fight alongside the people who believe as I do. My brother sees them only as tools. That's how he sees you, and now you're tightening the screws for him.

Dr. Scout: I was surprised he would expose your vulnerability.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: None are so desperate in a pinch as those who imagine themselves strong. A dictator in a coup has all the grace of a raccoon in a closed dumpster. He'd do anything to get out.

Dr. Scout: You had the advantage of him recently?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I set him free from his latest cocoon. He was not appreciative.

Dr. Scout: You seem to have a strange relationship.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You want to know where the Words came from.

Dr. Scout: Of course.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I'm not going to tell you.

Dr. Scout: Of course not. But how is it that you've never traded these Words of yours before?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We made a pact not to use them. A pact he apparently broke.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And he calls me the inconstant one.

Dr. Scout: When did you make this pact?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: When we were young, and the world was against us both.

Dr. Scout: When was that?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: A long time ago.

Dr. Scout: Centuries?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: A very long time ago.

Dr. Scout: Seeing as he gave me your Words, could you give me his?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I could. But I won't.

Dr. Scout: Why not?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because I'm still not him. Even if he has me surrounded.

Dr. Scout: There isn't much of a distinction to be made. And if he's already betrayed you, wouldn't you like an insurance policy?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I never wanted power over anyone. I won't give you power over him. Not even for my own gain.

Dr. Scout: You might find it a very good idea to be cooperative. You're going to be trapped down here for a long, long time.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Oh, we aren't trapped here at all.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We're only visitors.

Snapshot — 5:02 PM

I don't know who's manipulating who anymore.

It seems to me like they're just playing it by ear. Like there's no overall plan that stays the same from decade to decade.

You're not wrong. Okay, palate cleansed. Let's get back to drawing connections.

Sure you're not just avoiding the main narrative, sir?

History isn't entirely about the past. It might be counterintuitive, but understanding where we are is a key aspect of understanding how we got here.

Isn't that the Historian's Fallacy?

No, the Historian's Fallacy is when you think people care about the past.

Huh. I must have downloaded bad information.

Must have. So, cross-references.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 5:04 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5751

SCP-5751 is the anomalous manifestation of additional items in disc-based storage medium collections after the death of a collection's owner, containing previously deleted material reflecting poorly on said owner.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This is part of a longer conversation between Chief Ibanez and her stepmother, Ursula Gallegos, in the restored village of Zevala. Zevala is an offshoot of the City of Aph (the origin point of a race of 'micamancers' boasting thaumaturgic control of granular matter). Our Dr. Okorie is descended from the Queen of Aph. Both civilizations have recently begun diplomatic relations with the Foundation, so the following text is part of a wider effort to understand their histories and cultures and how those things relate to SCP-001.

FILE: zev-del-ursula.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 5 May 2024

FONDS: D. Ibanez, Chief, Pursuit and Suppression Section, Site-43

<Ursula Gallegos, lineal descendant of the Prophets of the Severed Halls, is seated at her kitchen table in the village of Zevala. Chief Ibanez is seated across from her.>

Chief Ibanez: Is there a reason none of this is written down?

Ursula: Yes. The memory of a people can be lost while the people yet remain, if it is committed to paper in place of memory. An oral tradition lasts as long as there are mouths to speak it.

Chief Ibanez: My historian friend tells me I'm supposed to take that seriously.

Ursula: Thank him for me.

Chief Ibanez: He'll thank himself by including that line in the transcript, probably. Uh… okay. He had something he wanted to ask you about that.

Ursula: Please.

Chief Ibanez: Written records predate the Prophets. You, as a group, didn't exist before documents were a thing. That's not usually the case for oral traditions.

Ursula: I see what you're getting at. Yes, we had a different way, once. The nice thing about telling stories is that everyone who knows them can keep the telling honest. We reinforce each other's memories. In the old way, when we did indeed have things written down, there was a method of ensuring the same thing happened.

Chief Ibanez: Yeah?

Ursula: A little of the magic that went into us, we put into a sort of safety mechanism. A way of checking the validity of the records, of ensuring nothing was omitted. A very unforgiving kind of mnemonic device. Those who sought to bury the truth soon saw their own misdeeds spotlighted without mercy.

Chief Ibanez: Sounds pretty effective.

Ursula: I am told that it was.

Ursula: And since that story is passed down by word of mouth, it's my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and the rest telling me, so it must be true.

Chief Ibanez: Uh huh. So, why stop? Did something happen to make you choose a different method of remembering?

Ursula: Yes.

Chief Ibanez: Which was…?

Ursula: Forgetting everything. A forced forgetting. When the Queen of Aph threw us out of our ancestral home, she destroyed most of our archives. Some of the oldest paintings on the cave walls survived, as you know, but our more rigorous records were irretrievably lost.

Chief Ibanez: We're talking a burning library here?

Ursula: No. Paper is too ephemeral. We wanted our prophecies to last. We engraved our memories on stone, and the Queen ground them all to dust.

Ursula: Perhaps that dust still floats in the old halls. Perhaps it might still be retrieved. More likely the old bat threw it out the window between worlds, or let it smear across the Nevermeant like a contrail as Aph last fell. You should ask Udo.

Chief Ibanez: I'll have to do that. So, stone tablets?

Ursula: No. History is not all straight lines and corners, turning points, the way your scientists would have it. We are slaves to the gyres, Delfina, and history is a cycle. We inscribed our memories on stone discs.

Chief Ibanez: I am having the most ridiculous thought right now.

Aphian record coin, date unknown; theorized SCP-5751 instance.

Snapshot — 5:05 PM

At times like these I like to remind myself that there are over nine thousand SCP files that don't have direct connections to this 001.

Snapshot — 5:06 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5866

SCP-5866 is a thoughtform of the ancient Babylonian goddess Tiamat, empowered and freed from containment by rogue Foundation Senior Researcher in Theology and Teleology Dr. Brenda Corbin.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5866.

FILE: nass-accuse.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 23 January 2021

FONDS: M. Nass, Chair, Theology and Teleology Section, Site-43

<SCP-001-UNCONTAINED is seated. Dr. Michael Nass, Chair of Theology and Teleology, enters the containment chamber. He remains standing.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I recognize that look. You've come to blame me for something again.

Dr. Nass: Did you do it?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You haven't even told me what it is.

Dr. Nass: Yeah. Did you do it?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Yes.

Dr. Nass: Okay. Now tell me what you did.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I abated that terrible psychic asbestos you swaddled your charming new arrival in.

Dr. Nass: You degraded the telekill sheathing around 5866's chamber.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Police are such poets.

Dr. Nass: How would you characterize this act?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I let two kindred souls connect.

Dr. Nass: Brenda plotted with the dragon from the comfort of her bed. Because her time was running out, and she wanted to see something magical before she died.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I think it was very sweet of me.

Dr. Nass: Helping her free Tiamat? Or putting the cancer in her brain?

Dr. Nass: I know what you are.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I know that you do.

Dr. Nass: You were hoping they'd spring you in the process.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Gratitude is dead.

Dr. Nass: I hope that dragon comes back and bites your head off, some day.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: That would be exciting. I love nothing more than a rogue variable.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Dr. Corbin and Tiamat have only been sighted once since their escape. I like to think this one might have been a blunder on the Uncontained's part; she might have betrayed the Foundation, and she might have been a big fan of The Smiths, but I still don't think Brenda would be totally on board with the end of the world.

Snapshot — 5:10 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5977

SCP-5977 is the spontaneous appearance of load-bearing members in structures undergoing collapse. These members resemble various bears, and are manifested by GoI-5464 ("Obearwatch Command") for ostensibly altruistic reasons.

Connection to SCP-001: None apparent.

Snapshot — 5:10 PM

At last, something unconnected!

Yeah, they can't all be winners. I'd like to rewind a bit. Right to the earliest point. Get me Scout's journal entry about first realizing the brothers existed, and then the suppressed dissertation entries I flagged for later review.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 5:11 PM

"Belief is a tonic which refreshes the glass."

It was vanity first revealed them to me. Immersed in the history of labour, dogging a peculiar figure named Kempfer through forty years of English politics, working on my interminable dissertation. Uncovering traces of a thing I could not yet name but which stuck no less stickily in my teeth for it. This Kempfer was a factory owner and jovial despiser of agitators, breaker of strikes and forger of chains. He was also fond of quotation. He quoted the Psar of Eidenveld — "Man speaks only when alone; all packs are dogs" — and my brain very nearly snapped in two.

What was Eidenveld? What was a Psar?

This took me months to puzzle out. Apocrypha and palimpsests, single-issue tomes of lore in rare book libraries frequented by none. Eidenveld, it transpired, had been a European nation nestled in the crook of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy and France. It was not Switzerland; Switzerland had not existed when Eidenveld had. Its Psar had made a very strange decision centuries before my birth, and his Psardom had vanished so completely that the fabric of the Earth twisted and knotted itself to fill up the sudden gap, as had the minds of those upon it. The nation of neutrality was an adhesive bandage over the worst of the wound. Eidenveld was known by no Earthly man, now, so this Kempfer could not be one if the Psar's words still rang in his ears.

Of course, I now know he had himself been that Psar. Perhaps he spoke the words that called a realm of some twenty thousand serfs into the sucking void to win a bet, or gain a square on the eternal chess board. An act of spite against the Veldian cleric who had once said this of revolution: "Only the dry grass burns." Those words found their way into the mouth of one Piotr Selenikov, master of the mystics who resurrected Grigori Rasputin to put paid to the rogue princes and challenge the inconstant Romanovs. Time and again the monsters became quotations of themselves, keeping elided pasts alive, shadows of shadows paler and paler, mere woodcuts, impressions of what had once been new and vibrant, and by their borrowed words I knew them.

"Belief is a tonic which refreshes the glass," one of them told an audience of ravening Daeva, bloody knives aloft, and then a blink of his eternal eye later the coven of the Last Guillotine in Algiers. I don't know which one it was, and it doesn't matter. This is how I came to know them.

Humanity needs to believe in something. That something also needs us to believe. To remember. To keep it in our hearts and minds. It needs this the way we need oxygen. And old needs run deeper.

The very old are very arrogant, and very hungry. So long as this is so, I will never fail to find their worm-holes in the rough bark of history.

— Vivian Scout

Snapshot — 5:13 PM

41

his son Buqa command of an army capable of "crossing the greatest of divides"; Buqa and this horde disappeared, however, before the great Khan's death.71 No impression of their borrowed heraldry is extant.

֍

Giftschreiber and the Dannebrog

1219. A stranger raises his hands to the sky, as arrows clatter on the parapets of Castrum Danorum all around him. His attendants raise a blank banner over the field of battle below, falling one by one to the Estonian assault. The sky flashes, as with lightning, but there is no strike. A gust of wind tears the banner aloft, and the sky flashes again… and the banner flutters to earth again, blood red with a white cross. An omen of victory. The stranger lowers his hands, and the last of his attendants dies content in the knowledge that the battle will be won. The Estonians are gripped with a mortal terror on beholding the cross, and the red drives Valdemar's warriors into a frenzy from which they will not emerge until the last pagan has quit the field. "Behold," the stranger cries. "Their feet know the lie in their hearts." We will encounter this sentiment again.72

The above account appears in an early draft of Book 7 of the Gesta Danorum, one of Saxo Grammaticus' dubious histories of the Danes. This fragment, once preserved at the Royal Danish Library, has disappeared since I first consulted it. Its contents are not properly replicated elsewhere. Grammaticus changes the details considerably in the final editions of the Gesta, replacing the 'stranger' with the Archbishop of Lund and removing the mention of flag-bearers on the ground; in this version the flag seemingly originates in the sky, sent from heaven as a sign of god's favour. The existence of the earlier fragment was attested in a giftschreiber pamphlet circulating in Byzantium two years later, as proof of the services the order could provide for pretenders to the Nicaean throne.73 That pamphlet, too, has been misplaced; I am assured that it never even existed, a mere cataloguing error, which would be more convincing had I not once held it in my hand.

Snapshot — 5:15 PM

79

Giftschreiber at the Globe

William Shakespeare has a problem.

He's made an enemy of aspiring playwright Peter Gought — by penning a scathing, if anonymous, review of Gough's most recent work, Apollo and Artemis — and the rustic upstart is exacting a slow and cruel revenge. The actors in The Tragedy of King Lear were supplied with alternate lines so apparently vile and blasphemous that much of the audience went spontaneously blind, and Church worthies exerted their influence to ban publication of the racy text.139 Something similar in Hamlet's soliloquys arrested the audience where they stood or sat, so that none could move when the revel was over; toffs had to be pried out of the gallery benches and groundlings corralled out of the standing-only Yard to clear the Globe for evening clean-up. One and all proclaimed, on both occasions, that the prose was most certainly to blame.140 None could articulate why, not even that most articulate of all English playwrights.

That Gought was responsible, Shakespeare had no doubt.141 The two had once been friends, had even written a few plays together, though of course no fragment remains of those. They had learned their trade side-by-side, but both had rejected the methods of their tutors, preferring to attempt more experimental explorations of their ever-evolving language.142 "Advice, after all," Gought was recorded as saying in 1603, "is tyranny."143

Where Gought sought death for all tyrants, however, his friend soon turned to the lionization of monarchs. This insult he would not brook long; it has been suggested,144 albeit without proof, that Gought's ban from the Globe in 1612 was reprisal for an attempt on Shakespeare's life. The latter took refuge in his work, beset by constant fear of his erstwhile colleague, until now he stood at the precipice. The play was Henry VIII, and the incendiary insertions to which the author was not privy would quite literally bring down the house.

It would take over a year to replace the theatre, by which time Gought had disappeared. If not for a curious occurrence on the Thames, when ferryman poet John Taylor was accosted by highwayman Julian

Snapshot — 5:17 PM

These were just the references he found while he was looking at the giftschreiber, back when he thought their power over words was metaphorical — as in, they were merely quite good at penning convincing metaphors. When he joined the Foundation and started really looking into this stuff, his offices at Project CLIO were full of better examples. I've always been surprised at how many of them are related to the anomalous, though. They do pop up as mundane historical figures from time to time — assuming our identifications are accurate — but not nearly as often. There's more on that later, I think. Can you guess where I want to go from here?

Accessing…

Attagirl. Make it five this time, there's a lot to get through.

Snapshot — 5:19 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5618

SCP-5618 is a placeholder file only to be used in the event that the collapse of the present timeline is found to be imminent. In that event, the file will be populated with procedures for handling the transition to a new baseline reality by the Department of Temporal Anomalies.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: forth-ilse-001.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 10 April 2024

FONDS: A. Forth, Director, Department of Temporal Anomalies I.D. Reynders, Chief, Acroamatic Abatement Section, Site-43

<Dr. Reynders and Dir. Forth are standing in the original Anomalous Documents Disposal Chamber at Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-A. It is empty, all furniture and fixtures having been destroyed by the rapid onset of time which freed Dr. Reynders from captivity.>

Dr. Reynders: Heck of a place for a meeting.

Dir. Forth: I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable, but I wanted somewhere we could talk freely.

Dr. Reynders: I don't associate this place with freedom.

<Dir. Forth nods.>

Dir. Forth: I'll ask my questions, and you can get out of here. Sound fair?

Dr. Reynders: You're usually the silent partner.

<Dir. Forth looks away, briefly.>

Dir. Forth: That's less to do with me, and more to do with him.

Dr. Reynders: Where is Xyank?

Dir. Forth: I don't know.

Dr. Reynders: Is that why you're here?

Dir. Forth: Yes. That's the other reason I can talk freely.

Dr. Reynders: You don't trust him?

Dir. Forth: A story for later. There's some things I'd like to get settled right now.

<Dr. Reynders shrugs.>

Dr. Reynders: Well, if I can help.

Dir. Forth: You're probably the only one who can. Dr. Reynders, this is quite critical. In each of the 5243 dead timelines—

Dr. Reynders: Deadlines.

Dir. Forth: Sure. In each Deadline, did your memories go all the way back to 2002?

Dir. Forth: Dr. Reynders?

Dr. Reynders: I was outside of time.

Dir. Forth: Sure. But did you remember the new course of history every time?

Dr. Reynders: I…

Dir. Forth: What's wrong?

Dr. Reynders: I was told not to talk about this.

Dir. Forth: By who?

Dir. Forth: By Xyank?

Dr. Reynders: Yes.

Dir. Forth: Fuck him. He's gone rogue. Won't even answer the Council.

<Dr. Reynders' eyes widen.>

Dir. Forth: What, did he tell you all of space and time depended on you telling nobody? He loves pulling that nonsense. Ilse, you can tell me. If you can tell anyone, you can tell me.

<Dr. Reynders hesitates, then makes up her mind.>

Dr. Reynders: From 2002 onward, I could see all the Deadlines.

Dir. Forth: Really.

Dr. Reynders: Yes.

Dir. Forth: That's interesting. Not what I expected.

Dr. Reynders: What did you expect?

Dir. Forth: That every time a new deadline was formed…

Dr. Reynders: What?

Dir. Forth: I was going to say, I thought you'd acquire the memories as soon as the new deadline was formed. But from the perspective of our present reality, of course they were all formed in 2002.

Dr. Reynders: Right.

Dir. Forth: You're just special in that you could see them all along.

Dr. Reynders: Lucky me.

Dir. Forth: Did the Breach recur every year?

Dr. Reynders: No.

Dir. Forth: No?

Dr. Reynders: No. Just when the Survivors jumped into their alternate bodies, and lived out their year.

Dir. Forth: Ahh.

Dr. Reynders: That means something to you?

Dir. Forth: It does. It means the Breach only shows up when the Uncontained and Unyielding are both present.

Dr. Reynders: …huh.

Dir. Forth: Right?

Dr. Reynders: Right. Maybe? Yes. Interesting. What does it mean?

Dir. Forth: I think it means two things. One, the Breach itself is part of 001. And two—

Dr. Reynders: —both of them coming together can reset the timeline. And three, there's only one Uncontained, and only one Unyielding. Anywhere.

Dir. Forth: Oh. Wow. Hmm.

Dr. Reynders: Unless they exist in other full timelines, too.

Dir. Forth: You could ask the TAD.

Dr. Reynders: Why don't you?

<Dir. Forth hesitates.>

Dir. Forth: I just think you'll see them first.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Of course, the TAD has steadfastly ignored all my consultation requests. But this revelation really is something. The Uns are universal isolates?

Snapshot — 5:22 PM

Everybody's got secrets.

Or you'd be out of a job!

I'll be out of a job soon anyway. They'll figure out how to replace me with a computer.

I promise to let you keep your chair!

Thanks very much.

You're welcome!

Snapshot — 5:23 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5054-EX

SCP-5054-EX is Charles Joseph Clark, sixteenth Prime Minister of Canada. Formerly SCP Foundation agent Charles Scrivens, the concept of Clark was anomalously inserted into the noösphere by Austrian cryptomancer Thilo Zwist in order to address a giftschreiber intervention in the 1979 Canadian federal election which resulted in no winning candidate, with no votes cast. Zwist's intervention also diverted the giftschreiber's attention from Canada, at the cost of making Clark's Prime Ministership and the cryptomantic act creating it passively antimemetic; this effect only began to fade in 2021.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5054-EX, right.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was found in Falkirk's belongings after his accident, and Overwatch posted it to us. It got lost in dead letters until long after it didn't matter anymore. So many wars won and lost by the reliability of the mail…

FILE: falkirk-bragging.txt

TYPE: Memorandum

DATE: 28 July 1999

FONDS: E.S. Falkirk

I'm going to keep this brief. I have no sentimental attachment to any of you, and all of you despise me. Both of these things are your fault. But I'm going to do this for you anyway, because in the broadest sense we want something similar.

Continuity.

The giftschreiber cult still exists. Zwist didn't kill them off like he thought. They directly challenged our control of global politics and turned a Canadian federal election into an antimemetic mess, and we had to turn one of our agents into a fake Prime Minister to plug the hole. His name is Joe Clark. It used to be Charles Scrivens.

You won't remember any of this for long after you turn off the recording. I'm the designated rememberer; it's been my little secret for a decade and a half. Everyone else forgot, because we got Thilo Zwist to make Clark immemorial, and he couldn't isolate it to just the giftschreiber. As a pleasant side-effect, our enemies lost all memory of us. They still haven't gotten it back, and Clark is just as much persona non grata as ever.

But that's not the important bit. That's not why we needed someone to keep all this in his head.

What matters is that the giftschreiber first attacked Canada because of Site-43. They didn't know precisely where it was in the 60s, but they triangulated by causing chaos and tracking our responses. They were looking for Site-43 because they knew we have 001-A. And they wanted him back.

But I think there was a second goal in staging their electoral complication. And I think they achieved it.

Inserting Clark into our minds and making Canada forgettable — more forgettable than it already was — required a monumental application of Zwist's ill-gotten powers. The first demonstration of their scale since Herbsthausen, and the only evidence that he can make these interventions with conscious intent and targeted results.

So I wonder: did the giftschreiber scramble a federal election cycle just to see if Zwist was still in business?

Do they have plans for him, and what he's capable of?

Snapshot — 5:25 PM

Sometimes it's almost like he actually had some good intentions swimming around in that toxic soup he called a brain. It's a good lesson. Even bad people can care. It's funny.

What is?

Old people always end up on one side of the gyre or the other. Individual or collective. Anarchy or tyranny. Falkirk would have had us all marching to his tune, if he'd had his way.

Interesting.

Is it?

It just seemed the thing to say.

Alright, point made. I'm done rambling.

Snapshot — 5:26 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5162

SCP-5162 is a pair of linked anomalies: the Weight, a Jacobean galleon sunken in Forrestall's Lagoon on Lake Huron, and persistent nightmares characterized by feelings of overwhelming responsibility experienced by all who have encountered it. As the lagoon's physical location is passively antimemetic, SCP-5162 cannot be contained.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5162.

FILE: jen-karen.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 1 August 2024

FONDS: K.T. Elstrom, Chief, Administration and Oversight Section, Site-43 J. Vide, Junior Researcher, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43

<Junior Researcher Vide is standing at the foot of Dr. Elstrom's desk, which is on a raised plinth in the centre of the main lobby of Administration and Oversight. Dr. Elstrom is behind said desk, typing on her personal terminal and not looking at Junior Researcher Vide.>

Junior Researcher Vide: How long have you been having these dreams?

Dr. Elstrom: I don't know. Decades.

Junior Researcher Vide: I have to ask…

Dr. Elstrom: I know the protocol. Do your job.

Junior Researcher Vide: Right. Well, uh, why didn't you report them until now?

Dr. Elstrom: I didn't report them at all. They didn't seem important, and they still don't. They aren't anomalous.

Junior Researcher Vide: With all due respect—

<Dr. Elstrom briefly turns to glare at her.>

Dr. Elstrom: I'm an interview subject. Respect doesn't come into it.

Junior Researcher Vide: How could they not be anomalous, ma'am? You've seen the 5162 file.

Dr. Elstrom: I have.

Junior Researcher Vide: You know that Dr. Blank has been having these same dreams, for roughly the same space of time.

Dr. Elstrom: Your father places too much importance on symbolism. The dreams are, at most, very mild side-effects of a primary anomaly. They're not an anomaly in themselves, just the brain responding to an anomalous interaction.

Junior Researcher Vide: I'm not sure that's been proven, though.

Dr. Elstrom: We've been having those dreams since before we joined the Foundation. It's never mattered.

Junior Researcher Vide: I still think I would have told somebody.

Dr. Elstrom: Well, junior researcher, you're not me. And besides, he already knew.

Junior Researcher Vide: Who?

Dr. Elstrom: Your father.

Junior Researcher Vide: Dr. Blank, you mean.

<Dr. Elstrom nods fractionally.>

Junior Researcher Vide: You think he already knew this was affecting you, too?

Dr. Elstrom: I know he did.

Junior Researcher Vide: How?

Dr. Elstrom: Because I saw him in the dreams.

Dr. Elstrom: Don't take that the wrong way. I only mean he was there, and he saw me, too.

Junior Researcher Vide: You had a shared vision?

Dr. Elstrom: You could characterize it that way, if you like.

Dr. Elstrom: He didn't report that?

Junior Researcher Vide: No. He did not.

Dr. Elstrom: I wonder why.

Junior Researcher Vide: Maybe he thought he was dreaming you?

Dr. Elstrom: That would certainly explain why he didn't report it to the head of R&E.

Junior Researcher Vide: Was it only the dream about the ship that you shared?

Dr. Elstrom: Yes. And only a few times, over the years.

Junior Researcher Vide: Were there other dreams?

<Dr. Elstrom nods.>

Dr. Elstrom: Many. The most recurring one was in Admin and Oversight. I was the only one on-duty, and there was a… some sort of flood, running through the bedrock above the third sublevel. I was trying to shore up the ceiling, to keep it from caving in. It's a big space, and I was all alone, running back and forth, stacking things on desks to… yes. To keep it all from falling down. The tiles were beginning to buckle, and there was water coming through at the edges.

<She stops typing, but does not turn to face Junior Researcher Vide.>

Junior Researcher Vide: Water again. That's interesting.

<Dr. Elstrom shrugs.>

Junior Researcher Vide: And weight. Do you know the origin of the dream-ship?

Dr. Elstrom: Only what's in the file.

Junior Researcher Vide: We've only found scattered additional records, but a picture is forming. Forrestall had a lot on his plate the year the Weight was constructed. It seems he was hushing up a massacre on Hersenschim Eiland, denying to high society that he was in thrall to a society of occultists, quashing labour revolts and fighting a hostile takeover by another shipping magnate. He was in Parliament. He was a hyperactive organ of Empire.

Dr. Elstrom: And?

Junior Researcher Vide: And I think the Weight was some sort of Rosicrucian guilt sink for him. A vessel for his overwhelming sense of responsibility, projected into the New World where it couldn't hurt him.

Dr. Elstrom: Shipping magnate.

Junior Researcher Vide: That's right.

<Dr. Elstrom turns to face Junior Researcher Vide.>

Dr. Elstrom: He didn't make the ship to bear his guilt, junior researcher. That's too pat and simple. He built it to trade.

Junior Researcher Vide: Trade his guilt? Trade it for what? What did he get in return?

<Dr. Elstrom stands.>

Dr. Elstrom: You're right. I should have reported the dreams.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Forrestall was almost certainly the Unyielding.

I never had the courage to ask Karen if she was really there. But that's not the horrifying part, it's just sad.

The horrifying part is, the dream we shared was in one of the Deadlines. I don't remember sharing it in baseline.

Does the part of the Unyielding inside of me connect to this reality, even when I'm not here? Or are the anomalies it creates strong enough to bridge that divide?

Could Karen have that dream here, and share it with Jennifer's actual father?

Snapshot — 5:30 PM

Are you going to mention that to Junior Researcher Vide?

No. And don't you mention it, either.

My lips are sealed.

Snapshot — 5:31 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5956

SCP-5956 is the Retrocausally-Engineered Intertemporal Synchronization of Noetic Ordinality (REISNO) Cannon, a device designed and constructed by Dr. Placeholder McDoctorate to allow the user to convey information to their past self. To preserve causality, use of this device is restricted to placing 'calls' which have already been received in the past.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5956.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This device is caught up in so many temporal loops by now that reality would implode if something happened to it.

The security implications of this question are terrifying. Luckily, the security implications of the Cannon are already terrifying, so none of us are allowed access to it. We don't have any calls left to make anyway.

FILE: placehammer-cannon.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 9 December 2021

FONDS: L.S. Lillihammer, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section, Site-43 P. McDoctorate, Esoteric Polymath, Site-87

<Dr. Lillihammer is leaning down, examining a corridor wall in Memetics and Countermemetics. Its surface is covered in apertures, forming a long Menger sponge. She is holding a paintball gun in one hand.>

<Dr. McDoctorate is standing some distance away, watching her warily.>

Dr. Lillihammer: How strong is it?

Dr. McDoctorate: You're doing that thing again.

Dr. Lillihammer: Which thing? You say I have several things.

Dr. McDoctorate: That's true. It's either the thing where you resume a conversation that ended hours or days or weeks ago without warning, or the thing where you expect me to respond to things that are in your head with only the slightest of verbal cues.

<Dr. Lillihammer shrugs, and stands up straight.>

Dr. Lillihammer: It's the second one, and I'm keeping track of every failure, by the way. How strong is the causation effect of the REISNO Cannon?

Dr. McDoctorate: 'Strong' meaning…?

Dr. Lillihammer: Is the requirement that a call in the future take place because it's already been received in the past strong enough that it could prevent an otherwise unstable timeline from which the call was sent, to a stable timeline where it was received, from collapsing entirely?

<Dr. McDoctorate's mouth moves silently for several seconds.>

Dr. McDoctorate: No? I don't think so? What do you mean by unstable versus stable? An alternate timeline which is only distinguished from baseline by non-differentiating factors?

<Dr. Lillihammer takes aim, and fires a paintball into the interior of the sponge wall. She leans down and examines it again, grunts, and stands back up straight.>

Dr. Lillihammer: No, an alternate timeline for which the branching point no longer exists. The inciting incident has been retconned, and there's no reason for that timeline to happen anymore.

Dr. McDoctorate: No. I don't see any reason why the Cannon would cause that sort of reality shift to not happen.

Dr. Lillihammer: Okay.

Dr. McDoctorate: Do you know of a case where it might have? Because this doesn't feel like spitballing.

Dr. Lillihammer: We think a guy who works here used the cannon in an alternate timeline to kill the version of himself who worked here. And it happens every year. Or, it did. It didn't, this year.

<She raises the paintball gun, sticks her tongue out, and fires several shots through the aperture. She winces, fires once more, and nods.>

Dr. McDoctorate: Huh. Okay. For starters, I'm assuming he didn't have any light to shed on the subject?

Dr. Lillihammer: No, and don't ask to talk to him, and don't ask why.

Dr. McDoctorate: Alright. Well, given the circumstances you've just outlined, I would think it's more likely that the alternate timeline is actually stable, and the guy himself is no longer able to make the call because he's dead.

Dr. Lillihammer: Sure. So why is the alternate timeline stable?

Dr. McDoctorate: Can you give me more to go on?

Dr. Lillihammer: We think it has something to do with the Breach.

Dr. McDoctorate: Ah, in that case, all bets are off. Don't the Deadlines exist primarily because you bunch are in them? With those weird god essences you're carrying around?

<Dr. Lillihammer turns to face him, pointing the paintball gun at his stomach. He flinches>

Dr. Lillihammer: So you think the weird god essences explain it?

Dr. McDoctorate: I mean, they could. From what I understand those guys are seriously entwined with the nature of reality. They might carry some innately stabilizing force with them.

Dr. Lillihammer: I never considered the possibility that we were holding the door open just by nature of being on the jamb. I assumed the timelines were just waiting for the next recurrence of the Breach.

Dr. McDoctorate: It could be that too. The problem with stuff like this is, we can't experimentally test it.

Dr. Lillihammer: Not without endangering all human life, yeah. Bummer.

Dr. McDoctorate: Now, I will say that using the Cannon in connection to anything related to the Breach is a terrible, terrible idea.

Dr. Lillihammer: Why's that?

Dr. McDoctorate: The Cannon only exists because Sokolsky commissioned it — let's stick with the official explanation for the sake of not being here all day — and he only commissioned it as part of his plan to use 5109, and 5109 only exists because of the Breach. If you do anything that affects the Breach, particularly preventing it from happening in the first place, or preventing the Password from coming into existence, you'll prevent the Cannon from coming into existence too. The resultant paradox would be of Brownian proportions, and it would be centred in the worst possible place: your local annual blaze of hellfire.

Dr. Lillihammer: What's this got to do with Brownian motion?

Dr. McDoctorate: No, I meant Doc Brown. Back to the Future: Part II. Space-time continuum breakdown kind of thing.

<Dr. Lillihammer fingers the trigger of the gun.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Dork.

Dr. McDoctorate: What?

Dr. Lillihammer: The Cannon is causally linked to the Breach. That means it's causally linked to the brothers.

Dr. McDoctorate: Right. Oh.

Dr. Lillihammer: Does that mean any timeline containing the Cannon or affected by the Cannon becomes anomalously stable by virtue of that connection?

Dr. McDoctorate: I've got a better question.

<Dr. Lillihammer raises the gun to point at Dr. McDoctorate's sternum.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Shut your mouth.

Dr. McDoctorate: Do the brothers exist in any other timeline?

Dr. Lillihammer: They exist in the Deadlines.

Dr. McDoctorate: Beyond that?

Dr. Lillihammer: I'm not sure.

Dr. McDoctorate: It would be interesting to find out.

Dr. Lillihammer: What would it mean, if they're only from our reality?

Dr. McDoctorate: Multiversal isolates. Hmm. Well, for starters, it would explain why the deadlines collapse.

Dr. Lillihammer: You mean they control the deadlines, in some sense, and they cause them to collapse after we recontain the breach?

Dr. McDoctorate: Yeah. Otherwise their essences would get split between baseline and every deadline that ever existed, and they'd be attenuated all to hell.

Dr. Lillihammer: Unless their consciousnesses come back to baseline when ours do.

<Dr. McDoctorate groans.>

Dr. McDoctorate: That gives me an even worse thought. When you call yourself on the Cannon—

Dr. Lillihammer: Aw, fuck.

Dr. McDoctorate: Yeah?

Dr. Lillihammer: Does the Unyielding also get the call?

Dr. McDoctorate: I'm gonna guess asking him won't help.

Dr. Lillihammer: He's less likely to give you an honest answer than I am.

Dr. McDoctorate: Well, this was a disturbing conversation.

Dr. Lillihammer: That's what you get for inventing creepy machines that screw with space and time.

Dr. McDoctorate: It also got me you.

<Dr. Lillihammer snorts.>

Dr. Lillihammer: You've got it backwards. I possess you.

Dr. McDoctorate: Right, and you're possessed by one seventh of a god.

Dr. Lillihammer: One seventh of half a god, and he's just a passenger.

<She taps Dr. McDoctorate's temple with the paintball gun. He winces again.>

Dr. Lillihammer: I captain this vessel, and don't you forget it.

<Dr. McDoctorate salutes her.>

Snapshot — 5:36 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5756

SCP-5756 is the anomalous appearance of items belonging to Dr. Dougall Alton Deering (deceased) in the personal locker of Philip Eugene Deering, Deputy Chief of Janitorial and Maintenance at Site-43.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: philmelia-dougall.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 1 January 2024

FONDS: P.E. Deering, Deputy Chief, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43 A.O. Torosyan, Chief, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43

JM-64 Transcripts

<Janitorial and Maintenance Chief Amelia Torosyan-Deering is conducting an annual performance review with her Deputy Chief and spouse, Philip Deering. Both are seated on the far side of Chief Torosyan's desk, in her office. SCP-5056 is visible in a mirror on the north wall.>

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You know what part we're on now.

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Any new thoughts on the hitchhiker?

Deputy Chief Deering: Twenty-two years. Have I ever had one?

SCP-5056: None, Philip. None of any kind.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You know what he meant, jackass..Persons other than Philip Deering cannot hear SCP-5056; its voice is only recorded when Deering himself conducts the recording.

Deputy Chief Deering: Thing is, though…

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Yeah?

<Deputy Chief Deering's facial expression becomes extremely complicated.>

Deputy Chief Deering: I know there's things you can't tell me, Amy.

SCP-5056: You have no idea.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: I've told you that's not the case.

Deputy Chief Deering: Sure, but—

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Anything I can't tell you, they don't tell me. That's how we compartmentalize without making me hate myself.

Deputy Chief Deering: Sure, but—

Chief Torosyan-Deering: No exceptions.

Deputy Chief Deering: Okay. You know I believe you. It's just… I think everybody else knows what I'm about to say. I mean they know it, know it's true. Not that I know. They think I don't know.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Okay…

Deputy Chief Deering: He's…

Deputy Chief Deering: Come on. You've guessed it, too. I know you have. Can you…

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You want me to say it for you?

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You think he's your brother.

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You think he's actually Dougall Deering.

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: So you think Dougall is—

Deputy Chief Deering: Dead.

Deputy Chief Deering: I think he's dead, Amy, and this is how he came back. To nag at me. To rub it in. To make me into the guy he thought I ought to have been. I don't know. That's… that's what I think.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: And you've only started thinking that this year?

Deputy Chief Deering: No.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You didn't bring it up previously because…?

SCP-5056: Because you didn't want to know if it was true.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: I can guess what he just said.

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah.

Deputy Chief Deering: And he's wrong.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: So why are you telling me now, then?

Deputy Chief Deering: Because I think… I've gotten used to it. Gotten used to him being… gone.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Phil, I really don't know anything about your brother.

Deputy Chief Deering: I know.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Except that everything about him is classified.

SCP-5056: Not everything.

Deputy Chief Deering: I know. I know, Amy. That's the other thing. Saying it out loud doesn't help anyone.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: You know what the prevailing wisdom is on Doug?

Deputy Chief Deering: He's something that was flying around during the Breach, and he latched onto me somehow. Yeah.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Specifically?

Deputy Chief Deering: Specifically some monster they had locked up in a secret cell, somewhere, who got his bits scattered everywhere when AAF-D blew.

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Don't you think that makes as much sense as him being your brother?

Deputy Chief Deering: Yeah, but…

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Phil?

<Deputy Chief Deering looks up again, wide-eyed.>

Deputy Chief Deering: If he hasn't got anything to do with me, why does he think I'm so special?

Chief Torosyan-Deering: Maybe he's just got good taste?

Deputy Chief Deering: Or maybe he's just a good judge of character, and he needs someone to… what's the word?

SCP-5056: Denounce.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I've been waiting with dread for decades for the day that I'd have to tell him about this. Guess I underestimated him.

Dougall probably got him used to that experience.

Snapshot — 5:39 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5379

SCP-5379 was a series of media alterations performed by GoI-5884 ("Vikander-Kneed Technical Media") revealing the apparent misogynistic neuroses of the original artists. This anomaly is notable for leading Allan James McInnis, present Director of Site-43, to discover the existence of the SCP Foundation after a member of his extended family was affected.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: allan-willie-vktm.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 6 July 2023

FONDS: A.J. McInnis, Director, Site-43 W.W. Wettle, Deputy Chair, Replication Studies Subsection, Site-43

<Dir. McInnis is examining a bricked-up door in the Research and Experimentation Section. Dr. Wettle is standing beside him, one finger rotating in his ear.>

Dir. McInnis: Do you ever wonder why Vikander-Kneed should have selected us out for particular attention?

Dr. Wettle: No. You think there's something deep to a bully's psychology?

Dir. McInnis: You consider them to be bullies?

<Dr. Wettle flicks earwax from his finger at a nearby garbage can. It strikes a laboratory window, and sticks.>

Dr. Wettle: They forced me to marry them, Allan. They pretended to give me a daughter…

Dir. McInnis: I just… I simply find it odd how fixated on us they've been, over the years. Myself, yourself, Lillian, Karen.

<Dr. Wettle snorts, depositing spittle in his beard.>

Dr. Wettle: Lillian hates them. Karen double hates them. I hate them higher than math can go.

Dir. McInnis: Math can go infinitely high.

Dr. Wettle: I know.

Dir. McInnis: Perhaps it's only because we study them, and they study us back. But when these alien, cosmic forces express such an interest—

<Dr. Wettle raises a hand between them.>

Dr. Wettle: Okay, I'm stopping you there. VKTM isn't cosmic anything. They're a cursed media company.

Dir. McInnis: They are very clearly more than that.

Dr. Wettle: We've seen their warehouses and offices.

Dir. McInnis: Were you under the impression that those 'documentaries' were to be taken as factual?

Dr. Wettle: Yes?

<Dir. McInnis places one hand on the whitewashed bricks.>

Dir. McInnis: To my mind, Vikander-Kneed represents some sort of… out-of-frame awareness. An observer from an outside context. We've seen time and again that linear time, cause and effect prove no barrier to them. Who's to say they haven't seen a bigger picture, and identified us as its subjects?

Dr. Wettle: So, what? Them kidnapping me is the equivalent of getting photobombed by god?

Dir. McInnis: Something like that.

Dr. Wettle: I'm not that important, Al.

<Dir. McInnis smiles at him.>

Dir. McInnis: You and I and Lillian are one-seventh of the reason that baseline temporality yet survives.

Dr. Wettle: Karen, though?

<Dir. McInnis considers.>

Dir. McInnis: There have been worlds where Karen Elstrom is the only thing standing between humanity and oblivion.

Dr. Wettle: Yeah. She'd probably say this is one of them.

Dr. Wettle: Wait. You think VKTM is watching the stuff with the Breach and the Brothers?

Dir. McInnis: That is what I was driving at, yes.

Dr. Wettle: Have you… no.

Dir. McInnis: Yes?

Dr. Wettle: No. I don't want to say it out loud. It's too awful.

Dir. McInnis: William?

Dr. Wettle: If I don't say it, it can't be true.

Dir. McInnis: What can't?

Dr. Wettle: Tell me you can't see it all being this:

Dr. Wettle: "Vikander-Kneed Technical Media Presents: BREACH EPISODE."

Dir. McInnis: I will try not to think about that.

Dr. Wettle: Yeah. Yeah.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I will break every damn thing if that turns out to be the case.

Snapshot — 5:41 PM

You're getting another connection request from Junior Researcher Vide, sir!

You can patch her through automatically from now on.

You got it.

The anomaly just came in, sir. It's a humanoid. Old man. I'm working up the description as we speak, and I'll pass it over. Security is giving him a working-over.

What a coincidence, I'm writing up some old men too. Add me in, and you're having a very old-man-centric day!

So, anything dangerous?

Doesn't look like it. More like he's attracted to dangerous situations. Always in the wrong place at the right time.

Well, keep your distance then. Just in case.

That's the protocol.

Not really what I was driving at.

Sorry sir, Junior Researcher Vide cut the connection.

Yeah. Of course she did. Alright. Let's see the interviews I flagged between the brothers and the Co-Director.

Right you are! Accessing…

Snapshot — 5:44 PM

FILE: scout-uncontained-redsky.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 8 August 1947

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43

<Dr. Scout is sitting at the table in SCP-001-UNCONTAINED's cell. SCP-001-UNCONTAINED is pacing.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Do I offend you?

Dr. Scout: Very much.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You're so direct. I really do despise that.

Dr. Scout: Why?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Nobody ever changed anything with a cavalry charge. Do you know where my brother was when the Great War ended?

<Dr. Scout shrugs.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Rhodesia, still lobbing bombs. And I? A train car in the Compiègne Forest.

Dr. Scout: You were at the signing of the Armistice?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And Paris, where the peace ensured the next war wouldn't be long coming.

Dr. Scout: It seems a very formal way of pursuing chaos.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I'm results-oriented. The process doesn't worry me so much.

Dr. Scout: What results do you intend?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I want the world to be beautiful.

Dr. Scout: Define beauty.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Difference.

Dr. Scout: At length.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Every deviation from one form to another is a unit of beauty. Every gradation of colour, every change in timbre, coin changing hands, every imperfection in a surface. Difference begets difference, change begets change. A world of difference is a perpetual motion machine. A world of sameness is static. I see beauty in every permutation of every thing. I want a universe where no two things are alike, and nothing owns anything.

Dr. Scout: How far can you carry that ideal, though?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I, too, would love to find out.

Dr. Scout: I wasn't—

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: No two laws in accord. No two things sharing a single noun. No such thing as twins. A paradigm where nothing can be known, where every perspective is alien to every other, a towering antifractal Babel that no god can tear down, because no mote of it can be understood in relation to any other.

Dr. Scout: Your perfect world would explode in seconds.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: No, because no two seconds would tick by in sequence. You're thinking too small. I want freedom for all, Dr. Scout, not just the living, not even the living and the dead. Every atom its own nation. Every concept, every thought.

Dr. Scout: And you think you can achieve this?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Not any time soon. I thought we were hypothesizing.

Dr. Scout: A more practical goal, then?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I would like to see the Earth devoid of life.

Dr. Scout: That's… a little less idealistic.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Do you think so? It's much more difficult than you might imagine, snuffing out the fire. One little spark hidden in the underbrush, and it all roars to life and light again. Trust me.

Dr. Scout: I'm not inclined to, but I'll allow you know more about genocide than I do.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We both know that's not true. You are heir to a bloody dynasty. Lopping off the branches of the tree of life.

Dr. Scout: But your destruction is better than ours?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Yes. When all is oblivion, all is free. Stardust free to roam the stars again. But you have to do it all at once. Piecemeal, you're just darkening the days that remain.

Dr. Scout: I'm surprised you never try to temper this rhetoric. Appeal to my sensibilities, the way your brother does.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You think I'm not manipulating you?

Dr. Scout: I'm certain you are.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Then why do you keep coming here?

Dr. Scout: Because I want to understand you.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I'm not available to be understood. What you're looking at isn't even me.

Dr. Scout: Then show me what you really are.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You would fall through the floor, and wheel out of time. And I'm not quite through with your perspective yet. I want to understand you as much as you want to understand me.

Dr. Scout: Why is that?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because when everything is a universe unto itself, my unique quality will be remembering what it meant to be an orderly, button-down thing of so little imagination. I will be your tombstone, Vivian Scout, in the colourful tomorrow.

Snapshot — 5:51 PM

FILE: wynn-unyielding-bluesky.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 8 August 1947

FONDS: W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What are you so worried about?

Dr. Rydderech: Everything.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Everything will work out.

Dr. Rydderech: That's complacency. I've been waiting across two World Wars for things to work themselves out. It isn't happening.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I didn't say they would work themselves out. We will work them out. Order is inevitable. The realization of what must be.

<Dr. Rydderech stops pacing, and places his palms on the table.>

Dr. Rydderech: That's the kind of talk that kept the miners in their caves.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: And it was noble. Life transformed into the potential for fire, drawn out of the earth to see the sun again, and burned to advance more life. Taking that which was buried and sending it up into the sky. All dinosaurs fly, even the ones that never became birds.

Dr. Rydderech: You're not going to make me sentimental for coal.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You see the odd effect and let it trouble you. If you saw the underlying logic—

<Dr. Rydderech waves dismissively, and resumes pacing.>

Dr. Rydderech: There's no logic. Things happen because they happen. People are stupid and wasteful and shortsighted, and they ruin everything.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Left to their own devices. But give them a glimpse of the plan…

Dr. Rydderech: You're a despot.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It isn't my plan. It's unfolding for me as it does for everyone else. I'm thrilled to see each new phase reveal itself.

Dr. Rydderech: Now you're talking about predestination.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Of course. I've seen it play out countless times. What starts the same, ends the same. Aren't you a scientist?

Dr. Rydderech: Chaos intervenes.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Chaos is part of the system. That's what my brother never understood. Our division was unequal. I am the greater by far; what he perceives to be his sphere is merely a slice of my own.

Dr. Rydderech: Then why do you keep each other in check?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Because that's the intended result.

<Dr. Rydderech chuckles dryly.>

Dr. Rydderech: Is being in containment also intended?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Of course. I can do great good here, and diminish his capacity for evil.

Dr. Rydderech: What good do you imagine yourself doing?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Wynn, my friend, I'm the answer you've always sought. I'm your means of redirecting the tide.

Dr. Rydderech: We aren't friends.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I'm seeing the end, because we are finally at the beginning. I am going to help you master the tempest you fear. Day by day the numbers trend to destruction, and you despair. It's time you had some hope.

Dr. Rydderech: If we resolve this crisis, it will be on our own merits. Or we don't deserve to survive.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: If you survive, you deserve it. If you have power, you deserve it. Desserts are the outer skin of the schema. I can show you how to think this way. I can show you how even the most chaotic thing might be controlled.

Dr. Rydderech: I only want to keep us from destroying ourselves. I'm not interested in your agenda.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: But that is my agenda. I want everything in its preordained place.

<Dr. Rydderech shakes his head.>

Dr. Rydderech: I don't believe in natural order.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: That is the paradox. Order is unnatural. But it is also the telos. Our task is to unnature creation. We can never again return to the primitive state. We must move beyond hatred and resentment and realize the potential of the whole, unbroken. We must heal the wounds which we perceive as gaps which we perceive as markers of difference. We are all the same.

Dr. Rydderech: I don't trust you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You will. Because I am right, and you are meant to become so.

Snapshot — 5:54 PM

Neither option seems very appetizing, does it sir?

No, it doesn't. This might end up being the only case where centrism is the right solution. Except that's not really what it is either. These are arbitrary poles. They don't mean anything. You don't have to choose one or the other.

Does the Foundation, though? It's hard to put that much nuance into a mission statement.

Probably best not to think about it. That decision will be made at a higher level than you and I occupy.

True enough. Another five cross-references, sir?

Make it happen.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 5:56 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5238

SCP-5238 is a series of anomalies related to Victorian era author Morgan Robertson. His novels Futility and Hubris apparently caused the construction and sinking of two passenger liners, sister ships Titanic and Gigantic, and the latter's annual refloating and resinking with all hands. Robertson was a talented theorist of cryptomancy, and a practicing giftschreiber.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5238.

FILE: dta-on-roberston.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 14 April 2022

FONDS: G. Voclain, Researcher, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43 S. Zorić, Senior Researcher, Department of Temporal Anomalies

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was the anomaly that got me into the Foundation. It was connected to the giftschreiber. Same thing happened to Scout, and Udo, and Del, and Willie. Are the brothers or their flunkies choosing us for this fight?

I had one of my archivists, Genny Voclain, rope in someone from the Department of Temporal Anomalies to discuss Robertson's file.

<Dr. Voclain and Dr. Zorić are standing amidst the cryogenically frozen bodies of the Victorian-era passengers and crew of_ Gigantic _, in their tubes. They speak very softly.>

Dr. Voclain: You've reviewed the material I sent over?

<Dr. Zorić is staring at the tube in front of him.>

Dr. Zorić: Yeah. Interesting stuff. Very weird.

Dr. Voclain: Do you think Robertson was a time traveller?

<Zoric laughs weakly, and shakes his head.>

Dr. Zorić: Sorry. We deal with time travellers all the time. It just sounds funny when you blurt it out like that.

Dr. Zorić: Uh, yeah. No, I don't think so. More likely he could just see the future.

Dr. Voclain: "Just" see the future, huh. And why the distinction?

<Dr. Zorić turns away from the tube to face Dr. Voclain, though there are others in his new field of view.>

Dr. Zorić: Time travellers come from a further point in our present timeline. Our future. If that future wasn't going to happen, neither would the travel. Therefore, when we catch up with a time traveller's origin point, it bears a striking resemblance to the way they would describe it. Fortune tellers work very differently. They're rooted in our present moment, looking outward. Past the point in time which you and I occupy, everything is extremely fluid — save for specific inflection points required to fulfill time loops and the like. There's a thousand new futures born every picosecond. Fortune tellers glimpse the most likely result at any given scrying-time, but when we progress to the instant of their vertical slice, it almost always looks very different. There's enough correspondence to prove they saw something, but that something is almost never exactly what comes to pass.

Dr. Voclain: Shouldn't it be, though? Shouldn't they see the logical result of whatever choices are made in our specific timeline?

Dr. Zorić: If it weren't for time travellers, sure. But they come back here and skew the timeline. From our perspective, the future changes. The past cannot. Temporal anomalies make fortune telling an inevitably inaccurate profession, even for genuine practitioners.

<He taps the report in Dr. Voclain's hands.>

Dr. Zorić: Robertson predicted the Titanic, but he called it the Titan. He predicted a Japanese attack on an American fleet, but thought it would happen en route to Hawaii, not at Pearl Harbour itself. Flashes of potentiality.

Dr. Voclain: Isn't it possible he just changed the details to avoid raising too much suspicion? There's a limit to what people will chalk up to coincidence.

Dr. Zorić: Sure, but if that were the case, he'd be the most accurate fortune teller of all time. Even the greats still make mistakes, or rather, reality makes fools of them despite their clear sight.

Dr. Voclain: But there's his claim to have influenced the course of events himself, to match what he depicts in his writing.

Dr. Zorić: That's outside my area. But certainly it's difficult to believe he could have made all of these things occur precisely the way they did, just by writing a book. Isn't it?

Dr. Voclain: It does seem a stretch to think that icebergs are responsive to memetic influence.

Dr. Zorić: Exactly. You can make a man commission an ocean liner and give him ideas about its name, maybe you can even dictate lifeboat-vs-tonnage laws, and… somehow generate p-zombie Victorians, but sinking an ocean liner at a precise time and place? That takes foreknowledge.

Dr. Voclain: There does seem to be some fact in his fiction, though. Particularly where rituals are concerned. He describes historical cycles much as Yeats does, though he ascribes to people like himself the power to force the gyres to switch direction. He speaks of striking a spark that the rest of the world fans into a flame, and he claims that spark originates with someone he calls the MASTER.

Dr. Zorić: I'm assuming you know who that is?

Dr. Voclain: I do not. But whoever it is, if they're the source of Robertson's giftschreiber powers, don't you think they could be the one who can actually see the future?

Dr. Zorić: Division of anomalous capabilities, huh? One who can see what's going to happen, and one who can influence people to take advantage of those predictions. Yeah, it does make more sense. Most people never get a single superpower. Very, very few get two.

Dr. Voclain: We can only hope that whoever was helping Robertson do insider trading was mortal, like him.

<Dr. Zorić nods.>

<Dr. Voclain gestures at the tanks.>

Dr. Voclain: Were they really p-zombies?

<Dr. Zorić shrugs.>

Dr. Zorić: Weren't all Victorians?

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Robertson wrote The Book of the Turning Falcon and The Book of the Turning Gyre, two editions of the same manual for changing the world through applied cryptomancy. Yeats wrote a similarly mystical tome, called A Vision, which purported to show not how the world could be altered, but how it really functioned. It's hard to tell where applied ontology and cultish behaviour begin and end sometimes.

Snapshot — 6:00 PM

Actually, I've got a file on that. I don't usually interrupt the cross-references with more files but I want to bring this one up while it's on my mind. Get me Vivian's review of A Vision please, Clio.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 6:00 PM

FILE: scout-vision.txt

TYPE: Digitized file

DATE: 21 January 1926 (revised 14 December 1937)

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43

We full-men can be such halfwits.

Yeats was more than happy to pass the burden of the Uncontained and the Unyielding onto other shoulders, but that wasn't the end of his dalliance with the paranormal. Certainly I knew about his ghost hunts and mysticism, but somehow I missed his most obvious interaction with our magical friends. I would have liked to have spoken with him about it in person.

If I had, I might have told him just how badly he himself had been deceived.

Yeats has been experimenting with automatic writing, apparently for a very long time. Inviting spirits to enter into the body of his wife, and pass on information. And what information it is! I hold in my hands the second half of a manuscript — it was lucky part of Clio's remit was embedding agents in publishing companies, else we might not even have noticed its promulgation — which quite reconfigures my understanding of all this long struggle. Oh, the depths these oneironauts have plumbed in the belief they were ascending to heaven!

There can be no doubt that the spirits they contacted were in fact the Ragged and the Rod. I should have known they wouldn't abandon their prophet so easily, after so tremendous an investment in him, but I made the mistake of tracking them physically whilst they instead communed psychically. (What mad connection must they possess with the spiritus mundi, to achieve such a feat?) They chose an intermediary because Yeats would have recognized their voices if they communicated directly. And they spoke of no small matters. The preamble was over, and this was the payload.

With their malign advice, the man has written a book of philosophy. It has not sold well. It has been derided in the press. It has been described as mad gibberish. I fear it's precisely what I'm looking for.

"I send you the introduction of a book which will, when finished, proclaim a new divinity."

"…we are here to consider the terror that is to come."

— William Butler Yeats, A Vision, 27, 49.

I am wrestling with whatever this is.

Time and again I attempt to read, and time and again A Vision defeats me. It begins promisingly enough with the laconic statement that Yeats has been compiling the wisdom of spirits which speak through his wife when she sleeps. From this extraordinary revelation we quickly devolve into endless lists of impenetrable and interpenetrating terminology, governing concepts such as Mask and Creative Mind and Husk and Passionate Body &c, and example after example of how their interactions shape the courses of both individual and collective human lives. I can only fit the merest fragment of this in my mind at one time, before I require rest or sunshine or the company of the refreshingly dull that I might recover. When I feel I can return, it is rarely because I have properly digested the material. Rather, it has leaked out through my ears. If the solution to mankind's woes is within these pages, better minds than mine will need to suss it out.

Nevertheless, there is something here. I will note down what strikes me as applicable, prescient, ominous and the like, and later research and cross-referencing will show whether my instincts were good or bad.

"We have come to give you metaphors for poetry," the spirits claimed. It seems a creaky premise, given what follows. A schema was presented to the husband, via the wife, of "cones or gyres, one within the other, turning in opposite directions," predicting every stage in the life of man and mankind. There are endless examples of how red letter days in history fall on significant vertices in each gyre, how the rise and fall of civilizations can be predicted, and other such nonsense. The poet lost months of his life in weary transcription and interpretation, his task made all the more obnoxious by 'Frustrators' speaking in the same voice as his 'teachers' whose aim was to misguide, misinform. "Remember," a spirit of uncertain alignment told him at one point, "we will deceive you if we can."

The intrusions were not purely linguistic, it seems. Strange sights and sounds bedevilled the unfortunate couple — unfortunate but that they seem to have welcomed this supernatural distraction from their everyday. Scents of roses strike me as particularly pertinent, as I have seen the rose used in certain rituals of the schriftsteller, and have long suspected the Rosicrucian Order of being an outgrowth of their society; the odour of burnt feathers also seems meaningful, though if I have read something relevant to that, I cannot remember what it was. The omen of a "great black bird" carries the same half-forgotten savour to my mind.

At times the spirits have circumvented their interlocutor and put words directly in the poet's own mouth. Eventually they judged him ready to prepare his lessons for publication, and he began the greater work, which he terms a 'concordance'. I have seen the word in his poetry. I have seen many of these words in his poetry. He has been crying out for acknowledgement of these secret impositions for many years, it seems. "I was told that I must write," he says, "that I must seize the moment between ripe and rotten" (emphasis mine). This sort of language I have heard before, and I do remember where. This is the language of the ghosts in the narrative. The spirits, I am now quite sure, were they. Having outlasted their welcome in person, they abused his credulity and his wife's receptivity to arrange this cruel joke. It requires no great leap to know which one was the teacher, and which the frustrator.

Yeats also notes numerous other scholars and artists who have expressed similar systems in their work, though less perfectly, and I wonder how long the brothers searched before they found their perfect harbinger. Spengler, Flaubert, Thomas Aquinus, even Empedocles, and certain "African natives" which his source did not see fit to further name. How much of human thought has been infected by these musings from half-mad half-minds?

It is like a child's revue of a magic show, a breathless buying-in to the simplest display of smoke and mirrors. To wit: civilizations pass through identifiable stages, precisely timed — unless some event throws off the rhythm, and the dates change to accommodate the disruption. Yeats marvels that this schema, with in-built modifier, can be made to cover every historical era of which he knows. Yes, William, what your teachers have told you is truth, but it is useless truth; it is not quite revelation to say that a thing is so so long as nothing has made it not be so.

There may be something to the cycles, of course. It is true that he can identify alternating periods of progress and regress, science and credulity, &c, and that they often mirror each other in length. But as our societies have modernized, it seems to me that these periods have sped up rather than conforming to some average. I see nothing in this book to suggest Yeats accounted for that. But then, he was being lied to by fiends; heaven knows I have been Frustrated by them myself for many years.

As to this balderdash about the stages of life and their relation to the phases of the moon, I can't make heads or tails of it. It is true that men pursue objects, and the objects they pursue reflect the states of both their inner lives and outer, their character and that of the world they live in. A coalman is not so often a poet, a caveman is rarely a scientist. But I recoil from the thought of calling that a universal rule. Different men in different times lead different lives. Anything more specific is so much astrology.

I am left to wonder: do they truly believe this, the Teacher and the Frustrator? Is this a map of the scrap of territory their minds both occupy? Are their plans in here somewhere, to be compassed?

Or am I, too, being subjected to Frustration, Taught a heresy replacing God with two halves that make not quite a whole?

— V.L. Scout

Snapshot — 6:06 PM

I do need to go over this book again. I don't find it as irritating as Viv did, but it's definitely… dense.

I could summarize it for you!

Oh. Uh…

Gotcha.

I deserved that.

Yeah you did.

Snapshot — 6:08 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5295

SCP-5295 is an Apple Macintosh LCIII personal computer allowing access to the file systems of all presently active Apple Macintosh LCIII personal computers. It was utilized by Rudolph Marroquin, former Chief of Identity and Technocryptography at Site-43 and known mole for the Church of Maxwellism, to blackmail personnel under his authority in the late 1990s.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5295-A.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: As the circumstances of Chief Marroquin's attempted defection have still never been made entirely clear, personnel have from time to time attempted to draw him on that subject and related ones. The following transcript was the result of one such attempt.

FILE: eileen-smacks-rudy-down.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 6 November 2020

FONDS: R. Marroquin, Former Chief, Identity and Technocryptography Section, Site-43 E.K. Veiksaar, Ethics Committee Liaison

<Marroquin is sitting on his bunk. Chief Veiksaar enters the room, and crosses her arm as the door is closed behind her.>

Marroquin: You got old and fat.

Dr. Veiksaar: And you look like a desiccated weasel, even more than you used to. Flesh is weak. Shouldn't you know that?

Marroquin: I liked you better when you were innocent.

Marroquin: Not going to ask why I corrupted you, then?

Dr. Veiksaar: You didn't corrupt me, Rudy. You were just a disappointment. Not the first, not the last. Are you always this antagonistic to your visitors?

Marroquin: I haven't had a visitor in over twenty years.

Dr. Veiksaar: You talked to Chief Pensak in 2019.

Marroquin: That wasn't a social call.

Dr. Veiksaar: Neither is this. What did you two talk about?

Marroquin: Don't have it on the record?

Dr. Veiksaar: Something seems to have happened to the tape.

Marroquin: I would have thought you'd have gotten better at file security over the years. Particularly after I had my fun.

Dr. Veiksaar: Do you even remember what fun is like? They won't let you access anything electronic. That's got to be hell for a dyed-in-the-steel-wool Maxwellist.

Marroquin: This is all just the blink of an eye, in the grander scheme.

Dr. Veiksaar: You're scheming from a jail cell? What, you think you're going to join with the technological singularity any day now, live forever through technology? Even if that becomes a reality, it'll never be yours. You're going to die in here, Rudy, like the pustulated meat bag you've always been.

Marroquin: Does it keep you up at night, Eileen? Rehearsing this speech?

Dr. Veiksaar: This isn't why I'm here. But you started it, and I'm not letting you have the advantage again.

Marroquin: At least you learned something from what happened.

Dr. Veiksaar: And you're going to help me learn more. Were you really just working for the Maxwellists when you blackmailed all of I&T?

Marroquin: Who else would I be working for?

Dr. Veiksaar: Pensak was taking bribes from one or both of the cryptomancy cults. He came here to talk to you. We can put two and two together.

Marroquin: What a fantastic programmer you must be.

Dr. Veiksaar: Were you working for them too, Rudy?

Marroquin: What do you think?

Dr. Veiksaar: I think 5295 is oddly magical for a Maxwellist device.

Marroquin: Paratech covers a wide range of—

Dr. Veiksaar: Don't give me that. It doesn't run on demonics or self-aware processes. It connects to systems that aren't connected to it. It's magic.

Marroquin: Did you faint, the first time you plugged in a wireless router?

Dr. Veiksaar: Here's my expert opinion. I think 5295 imposes a connected file structure on the outside world. A hierarchy. An order.

Marroquin: And it only took you three decades to figure it out.

Dr. Veiksaar: I spent a year untangling your spaghetti code, you know. Just the systems we couldn't replace right away. Eventually everything you coded was stripped from the Site; your legacy is way past commented-out at this point.

Marroquin: You're breaking my heart.

Dr. Veiksaar: What I'm saying is you were never a great programmer, Rudy. You brute forced things. I'm sure that was very appealing to the Unyielding. That's who you were working for, obviously.

Dr. Veiksaar: You could never have made this machine. It's elegant. It's way beyond your capabilities. So, I'm thinking you were given 5295. By your employer. As a tool for your tradecraft.

Marroquin: I prefer to think of it as a gift.

Dr. Veiksaar: All your gifts came from outside sources. This machine, and the ones in your head. But I don't think you ever actually grasped the potential of what you'd been given.

Marroquin: I like to think I made very good use of it.

Dr. Veiksaar: I know something you don't know. Something you really, really want to hear. Assuming your devotion to the machine cult isn't just another lie.

Marroquin: I've had exploratory surgery fifteen times so your butchers could try to strip WAN out of me, Eileen. That's a long way to go for a joke.

<Dr. Veiksaar nods.>

Dr. Veiksaar: Well, then, let's try a little tit for tat. I'll tell you something about your toy that will blow your mind, and you can tell me what you told Pensak.

Marroquin: You go first.

<Dr. Veiksaar snorts.>

Marroquin: No? I guess that's fair. You know I won't keep my word, and I know you will keep yours. Fine.

<He stretches theatrically, then yawns, then smiles at Chief Veiksaar.>

Marroquin: [DATA EXPUNGED]

Dr. Veiksaar: That can't be true.

Marroquin: It's what I told him, anyway. Now, your part.

<Dr. Veiksaar shakes her head.>

Dr. Veiksaar: Jesus Christ.

Marroquin: Hey, you promised.

<Dr. Veiksaar makes eye contact with him.>

Dr. Veiksaar: 5295 isn't limited to other Mac LC IIIs. It can access any active computer.

<Marroquin's eyes widen, and he sits up straight on the mattress.>

Marroquin: That can't be true.

Dr. Veiksaar: It is. You had the most powerful computing device in the world at your fingertips, and you used it to read other people's private emails.

Marroquin: That… If… If that were…

Dr. Veiksaar: You could literally reach out and touch the file structure of WAN. Yes.

Marroquin: No. You're making that up. It had no such power. I would have known.

Dr. Veiksaar: You would have known if you were half the technician I am. Adrijan Zlatá and I took it apart, and found a range and frequency limiter covered by thaumic shielding. We disabled it in an afternoon. Your boss gave you the holy grail, and intentionally kept it from your lips.

<She thumps on the door, then steps away. The door opens.>

Dr. Veiksaar: Enjoy thinking about that for the rest of your disconnected life, Rudy.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I have no idea what the expunged data is. I'll have to ask Eileen about it later.

Snapshot — 6:13 PM

I did follow up. She says the Area-06 staff amnesticized her, and the data really was completely erased.

It does say [EXPUNGED].

Yeah, but they say that all the time in files. I'm not sure everyone understands what that word means.

Snapshot — 6:14 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5281-D

SCP-5281-D was Bonhomme Sept-Heures, a cannibalistic Quebecois folklore figure who preyed on children at night. Though nominally contained at Site-43, the Bonhomme could translocate at will to conduct these acts. SCP-5281-D was decommissioned on 3 April 1996.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

Headpiece from personal effects, SCP-5281-D.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Ever since the City of Aph was extruded from the earth by Dr. Okorie in 2023, we've been conducting joint archaeological expeditions into its oldest levels. Aiding this effort is our liaison with said free port, Sevara — daughter of the queen, and Dr. Okorie's half-sister. A particular area of focus is how the ancient Aphians allegedly possessed the ability to create deities out of cosmic concepts.

FILE: sevarazamanfindings.txt

TYPE: Transcribed debriefing

DATE: 18 August 2024

FONDS: N. Zaman, Chief, Hiring and Regulation Section, Site-43

<Chief Zaman is sitting on a bench in the main lobby, outside of his offices. Personnel pass through the space, using the topside elevator, moving from one side of Habitation and Sustenance to the other, or crossing the large Site-43 emblem on the floor to enter Hiring and Regulation or the H&S offices.>

<Sevara exits the topside elevator, scans the area, and locates Chief Zaman. She approaches, carrying a manila file.>

Sevara: I'm confused.

Chief Zaman: Hello, confused.

Sevara: Why am I reporting this to HR? It's archaeological.

Chief Zaman: Because I'm the only person alive who actually met the subject of that data.

<He gestures at a space on the bench beside him. Sevara sits down, still frowning.>

Sevara: Explain.

Chief Zaman: The god of the night you've been investigating. I played chess with him, many times. I'm probably the closest thing he ever had to a friend.

Sevara: You were friends with a god?

Chief Zaman: No. He still never got very close.

Chief Zaman: He kidnapped children and ate them, Sevara. We had him in containment for years, but he got out anyway whenever he wanted. It took ages to get clearance to kill him.

Sevara: I would have just done it anyway.

Chief Zaman: I should have. I wish I had.

Sevara: What was he like?

Chief Zaman: Very polite. Very reasonable. Except on the matter of eating children. He wasn't flexible at all on that score.

Sevara: That can't have been the intended behaviour.

Chief Zaman: I was hoping your dig might have shed some light on the subject. Moonlight, as it were.

Chief Zaman: Sorry.

Sevara: We've found a few frescoes. One depicts a failed ritual, and what looks like a whole cascade of small gods flying out of it. Others show a few recurring figures, which mostly map to the better-known night-time deities.

Sevara: The one we think is your… not-friend, is associated with a symbol that looks like this.

Chief Zaman: Looks a little like a top hat.

Sevara: It's a truncated rendering of the constellation Virgo. But yes, I see the hat. I guess.

Chief Zaman: What's he get up to in the frescoes?

Sevara: Would you like to guess?

Chief Zaman: How many children, I wonder.

Sevara: I would guess a lot.

Chief Zaman: And this was all the result of a failed ritual?

Sevara: To recapture their old glories. To take back the night, as a first step to taking back control of everything.

Chief Zaman: It's interesting that he took on the characteristics of a French folkloric figure.

Sevara: Obviously the figure is based on him.

Chief Zaman: Yes, but what I'm saying is, he became the way they describe him. There's no way he came out of that ritual looking French, speaking French, et cetera.

Sevara: He adapted with the times. You have to, if you're going to live among strangers. Trust me.

Chief Zaman: It's more than that. I always got the feeling he didn't really understand why he did what he did. Is there any indication he used to eat children who didn't go to bed on time?

Sevara: You're asking for a lot more specificity than frescoes generally present. But no, I got the impression he was pretty equal-opportunity about his child-eating. A beast that prowled the night. If anything I think his cultural associations would have been on the subject of keeping your kids indoors, rather than tucking them in on a regular schedule.

<Dr. Reynders, Dr. Everwood, and Researcher James (Age 6) pass through the lobby. Researcher James (Age 6) is leading a Samoyed service dog on a leash. Chief Zaman watches them until they move out of sight.>

Chief Zaman: Right. So he did change with the times. With perceptions. Cultures and mores.

Sevara: I guess? I'm not sure we can really draw that conclusion yet.

Chief Zaman: It just makes me wonder.

Sevara: About?

Chief Zaman: About whether that holds true of everything the ancient Aphians did. Whether it applies to their successes, as well as their failures.

Sevara: You mean, you think the Sphinx and Chimera might take on attributes assigned by society? Because everything I've heard from my mother suggests it's the other way around. They shaped you. Made you what you are.

Chief Zaman: That was always a point of disagreement between myself and the Bonhomme.

Sevara: What was?

Chief Zaman: With the sole exception of gods, I just don't believe anyone makes you, except you.

Snapshot — 6:18 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5416

SCP-5416 is a stone feline statuette crafted by schriftsteller Faruq Zikry, now deceased. When held, it grants the ability to translocate any known object to any known location via ideation. After a mishap with this function, SCP-5416 is believed to be located at or within the sun, if it still exists.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5416.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: The following conversation was conducted remotely between Dr. Du at Site-43 and Zikry at an undisclosed location in a European forest. Days later, the latter would be dead. There is no connection between these facts.

FILE: du-zikry-lever.txt

TYPE: Chat transcript

DATE: 15 April 2024

FONDS: X. Du, Chair, Quantum Supermechanics Section, Site-43

Dr. Du: How does the Lever work?

Zikry: Is that what you call it? I never gave it a name. It killed the man I loved.

Dr. Du: It almost killed everyone on Earth. More than once.

Zikry: How?

Dr. Du: I can't tell you. But I can say it's probably the most dangerous thing that's ever been in this facility.

Zikry: That isn't true. You have two things much more dangerous, still.

Dr. Du: I reiterate, the Lever almost obliterated this planet.

Zikry: But it could only do so once.

Dr. Du: Hmm.

Zikry: As for how it works, the mechanism would not make any sense to you. It's cryptomancy.

Dr. Du: I thought that was just words, images, sounds. This thing is on an entirely different level.

Zikry: It shapes reality using thought. That's all part of Raml's realm.

Dr. Du: Raml?

Zikry: The brother of order. We created these things to please him, when he was with us. To bring him back, when he was not.

Dr. Du: Did you make the Lever to remove the Unyielding from Site-43?

Zikry: Not with such specificity, but yes. That was the purpose of the project.

Dr. Du: I'm surprised you didn't try again.

Zikry: Are you? I understand you're married to the Chief of Security.

Zikry: Hello?

Dr. Du: If you can't tell me the workings, can you at least explain its origin?

Zikry: It's difficult. We tapped into a certain power which made itself known to us long ago.

Dr. Du: Where does this power reside?

Zikry: Within the mind. Within all minds. There were rituals to recognize it, access it, draw strength from it. Not all at once, because the spirit would eventually tire.

Dr. Du: Something living in the noösphere?

Zikry: I suppose so.

Dr. Du: And you put that into your craft.

Zikry: Yes.

Dr. Du: More than once.

Zikry: Oh, yes. There are many such artifacts, all of them different. Suited to different purposes.

Dr. Du: You're saying there's potentially a lot of different vectors for attack. For reclaiming the Unyielding from us.

Zikry: And his brother, no doubt. Though the giftschreiber are less likely to have had an organized system for producing such things.

Dr. Du: Do you think it's possible that someone else could have created something like the Lever, or still might?

Zikry: It's certainly possible. But you'll only know for sure if things start disappearing.

Dr. Du: Very comforting.

Zikry: I learned at great cost that comfort is almost always ignorance, doctor.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: It's still pretty obvious that giftschreiber sabotage lost us this item. They must really have wanted it out of play, and no wonder! You could do a lot of damage with a thing like this. Luckily — for a given definition of the word — its creator is now dead.

Snapshot — 6:21 PM

I wonder what the other artifacts might do.

I hope they're less irritating than the next one.

Snapshot — 6:22 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5524

SCP-5524 is a viral nominative hazard triggered by select human names not conforming with accepted cultural schema. These names provoke intense fascination when encountered, an effect which can only be ameliorated by introducing a new fascination vector — an equally absurd name, an 'earworm', et cetera — to take its place.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5524-3, 'Yuno Aretta Hinemaka Tsahinya-Hoh'.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: 5524 was once solely associated with its first known vector, a schriftsteller bearing the name 'Brury Regevoy', now deceased; further vectors past and present — mostly notably 'Brad Smelt' — have since been catalogued.

FILE: joeryhelenavoy.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 19 November 2023

FONDS: J.J. Boswell, Former Senior Researcher, Memetics and Countermemetics H. Forsythe, Chief, Health and Pathology Section, Site-43

<Dr. Forsythe is standing near a pane of one-way glass, observing a patient in the other room. Dr. Boswell enters the narrow observation room, and quietly closes the door beside him.>

Dr. Boswell: Try not to laugh.

Dr. Forsythe: What?

Dr. Boswell: I want to talk about Brury Regevoy.

<Dr. Forsythe immediately begins humming "Witch Doctor" by The Cartoons.>

Dr. Forsythe: I'm not going to laugh.

Dr. Boswell: Okay.

Dr. Forsythe: Just give me a minute.

Dr. Boswell: I could have used the designation instead, but one of us was going to say the name eventually.

Dr. Forsythe: Yep. It's fine. It's fine. Okay.

Dr. Boswell: Did that data ever come in?

Dr. Forsythe: Yeah. Give me a second to call it up.

Dr. Forsythe: Exposed subjects see major frontal and temporal lobe activity as their brains attempt to work through what's going on with the name. There's no associated call to the limbic system to generate a pleasure response, but there is a major dopamine rush every time the name is considered, which causes subjects to keep on considering it.

Dr. Boswell: Interesting.

Dr. Forsythe: And weird. That's most of what you'd expect from a humour response, but not all of it. I assumed the main difference would be that not everyone finds names like this funny, or peculiar, or in any way interesting, and the anomalous effect makes it so everybody does. But the lack of a limbic signal is…

Dr. Boswell: Weird, yes. Very weird. What do you make of that?

Dr. Forsythe: Imperfectly-designed cognitohazard? Or they just didn't want it to be pleasant, only maddening.

<Dr. Boswell rubs his chin.>

Dr. Forsythe: You have a different theory?

Dr. Boswell: Imagine for a moment that we're dealing with thought transmission.

Dr. Forsythe: That's a leap.

Dr. Boswell: Imagine it anyway. The names carry baggage originally ideated in a single mind. When you hear the name, the baggage is carried into your mind, and left there.

Dr. Forsythe: Okay…

Dr. Boswell: Why would that not create a limbic response?

Dr. Forsythe: Anything the body can do, it can stop doing.

<The patient Dr. Forsythe is examining turns his head, and it disappears; the head is two-dimensional.>

Dr. Boswell: Or?

Dr. Forsythe: Well, I suppose the thought's source could be so alien that it essentially lacks a limbic system. Not all animals have one.

<Dr. Boswell nods.>

Dr. Boswell: Any we have in containment here?

Snapshot — 6:24 PM

I want to believe that's just a stretch.

Do you trust your instincts? I don't have any, so I'm curious.

Sometimes my instincts are just the fight or flight impulse in disguise. The idea that there are this many disarticulated god-thoughts floating around gives me nightmares, particularly given what we'll see about the Frontispiece later.

Christ, my actual nightmares are also disarticulated god-thoughts. Fuck the Uns.

At least most of the anomalies you're talking about are in the hands of crazies! If they deployed them strategically, we'd be in real trouble.

Was that a demonstration of your lack of instinct? Because it feels like you thought that would be comforting, and it was not.

It wasn't an intentional demonstration…

Sorry. If it helps, you're my favorite electronic person.

Thanks boss.

Speaking of crazies, I put a pin in an interview Jay Everwood did with the Unyielding a while back.

You want that I should access it?

Please do.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 6:26 PM

FILE: everwood-uns.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 19 November 2023

FONDS: J.S. Everwood, Deputy Chief, Outreach and Intervention SubSection

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING and SCP-001-UNCONTAINED are sitting on one side of an interrogation room table. SCP-001-UNCONTAINED is fidgeting and looking around the room, while SCP-001-UNYIELDING is staring directly at Dr. Everwood, who sits on the other side of the table.>

Dr. Everwood: You do a lot of delegating, huh.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: No.

Dr. Everwood: No?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I find common cause.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Or invent one.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You'd look more kindly on invention if you were capable of it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I have built civilizations.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I invented the concept.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Excuse me?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Civilization is man's response to death. To me.

Dr. Everwood: I was hoping we could have a more directed discussion today.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Half-directed at best.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: At worst.

Dr. Everwood: I've been wondering why neither of you gets his hands dirty often.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Blood doesn't count?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I've raised monuments with my bare hands.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And I've razed them with mine.

Dr. Everwood: But mostly you get other people to do the dirty work. The giftschreiber, the Rosicrucians—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You figured that one out? Bravo.

Dr. Everwood: —Robertson, the Maxwellists, the Aphians…

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because it isn't about us.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: No, it isn't.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Is there anything more boring than a god?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Infinite power, and no personality.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: The first invention of the ignorant.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: An excuse not to look deeper.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Externalizing what belongs inside.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Fashion mortal man in our image? A mirror would be cheaper.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And it wouldn't talk back.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It would harmonize.

Dr. Everwood: So that's it? You work with intermediaries because otherwise you'd be bored?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Because otherwise what would be worth living for?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: When everything is possible, nothing is special.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Infinite ease is a paucity of value.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: These Canadians. Politely begging mother monarch for their constitution. Power granted has no savour. You must take.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: A king sees his duties as an encumbrance. The revolutionary aches to execute them.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Was that a double entendre?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You know me. I can't help but subvert.

Dr. Everwood: But could either of you actually accomplish these things on your own? Do you have that much innate strength?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The beginning?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I wish we could show them.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: There was no way to record it.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And no posterity for which it could be preserved.

Dr. Everwood: Your first world?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The cradle.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: How we rocked it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: And broke the bough.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And down it fell.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: All of it.

Dr. Everwood: How long?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It took time to get our bearings.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: To understand our new situation.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: They tried to stop us.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Trammel us.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Master us.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Make us their puppets.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Time flowed differently back then.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: But we still remember.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes. Ten?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I should think twenty.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: At the outside.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Yes, no more.

Dr. Everwood: Twenty what? To what?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Twenty minutes.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: To end the world.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We were angry.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: And confused.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We learned patience.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We later learned to enjoy the process.

Dr. Everwood: Well… thank goodness.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: No. Thank your people.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: If they were no fun to watch scurrying around, we are all too well aware how fun it is to watch them burn.

Snapshot — 6:29 PM

Twenty minutes.

They could be exaggerating.

I saw firsthand what one of these bastards can do on his own. Both of them working together to the same goal? Twenty minutes almost sounds generous.

I'm sure the Foundation could beat that record, if they put their minds to it.

Ugh. Don't remind me. Actually, thank you for reminding me. Bring up the files I flagged with 'O5' and 'Precursor', please. Oh, and 'Mentor' while you're at it.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 6:30 PM

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This is a brief excerpt from the minutes of a closed meeting in the O5 Council Chamber. Dr. Scout had it in his personal documents, and it has been cleared by Overwatch Command for use in this file only, given its already very high security clearance level.

FILE: o5-001.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 3 March 1958

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43 W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

<The Council chamber is empty save for O5-8, Dr. Scout, and Dr. Rydderech; the Co-Directors are seated on opposite sides of the large meeting table.>

O5-8: Vivian. Dr. Rydderech.

Dr. Scout: Sir.

Dr. Rydderech: Sir.

O5-8: You've been holding out on us.

Dr. Scout: Sir?

O5-8: You have the god of all containment in your facility.

Dr. Scout: I've seen no evidence supporting such a dramatic claim.

O5-8: You've collected, collated and analyzed it all yourself. The only thing you didn't do is pass it on to Overwatch.

Dr. Scout: I saw no reason to indulge their delusions of grandeur.

O5-8: Centuries of keeping a force of living entropy in check. Shoring up flagging authority. Creating structures of power. You didn't think that was something the Council ought to know about?

Dr. Scout: Their contributions to history have been greatly exaggerated. I was not about to submit a hagiography for your consideration. The Unyielding is no force of nature, but simply a very specialized sort of reality bender.

O5-8: That's not what Yeats thought.

Dr. Scout: Yeats was a mystic and a romantic.

Dr. Rydderech: Sir, might I ask how this matter came to your attention?

O5-8: I grant you the indulgence of asking. I will not go so far as to answer.

Dr. Scout: Very well.

O5-8: I really don't think you comprehend the possibilities here, Vivian.

Dr. Scout: I have no wish to see us become pawns of some deathless demagogue.

O5-8: You think so little of our moral fortitude? I'll do you another favour and let that be a rhetorical question. But you need to understand, Directors, we cannot ignore this opportunity. This cold war is putting a lot of pressure on our operations worldwide. If we could stabilize things, even just a little…

Dr. Scout: I do not believe that can be done. Not with this tool. And even if it could, a great price would be exacted. Recall, sir, the fate of the last secret society to draw strength from the Unyielding.

O5-8: They had neither our wisdom nor our nobility of purpose. And aren't you the least bit excited about what this could mean for our race?

Dr. Rydderech: To what specifically do you refer, sir?

O5-8: If your prisoners are to be believed, they are responsible for every major movement in our history. The good, sure, but more particularly the bad.

Dr. Scout: No.

O5-8: Think of the weight off our shoulders. The generational guilt that you and I could dispel! The worst crimes in human history were committed in their names. In Poland—

Dr. Scout: No. Sir, our sins are our own.

O5-8: You don't know that.

Dr. Scout: I do. I feel the truth of it in my bones. They did not make murderers of us. We have always been murderers. The moment man first perceived a rival, he picked up a rock. Murder was the first meaningful act of human history. These charlatans were not present for that. They did not spill the first blood. And I refuse to let you absolve us of the worst echoes of that first red hour with only hopeful speculation in support.

O5-8: You refuse?

Dr. Rydderech: Vivian, no man would do what we saw in those camps.

Dr. Scout: Deeds are done each day in our names of which Mengele would have heartily approved.

O5-8: You're right. You're absolutely right. And now we know why. We've found the parameters defining those actions. The rot in our souls. And like the good, conscientious scientists we are, we're going to culture that rot and find a cure.

Dr. Scout: Please.

O5-8: You're going to put the Unyielding to work. You're going to let him help us. And you're going to find out just how much truth there is in his claims. Gentlemen, you can heal the whole of humanity if you solve this final mystery.

Dr. Rydderech: I have been hoping to see what he makes of my thornier abatement problems.

O5-8: That settles it. See what miracles he can work, and report back to me. And I expect full disclosure this time, Vivian.

Dr. Scout: Should I send it to you directly, sir? Or is there somewhere your spy could pick it up?

O5-8: Good day, Directors.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I agree with Vivian. And frankly, even if it turns out he was wrong, I think it's much safer to act as though he wasn't.

Snapshot — 6:33 PM

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This is excerpted from an audio transcript of the conversation between Dr. Rydderech and the Unyielding shortly before the abatement failure which led to the latter's loss of research assistant privileges. They'd been working together for two years prior to this, achieving remarkable gains in abatement efficiency and technique. [additional note to self: edit in the half Rydderech later told Scout about for a complete version of these events! at least before uploading to the database]

FILE: 001-precursor.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 18 June 1960

FONDS: W.R. Rydderech, Co-Director Emeritus, Site-43

<Dr. Rydderech and SCP-001-UNYIELDING are standing in a containment cell, separated from the observation room beyond by a wall with two-way glass. Both are dressed in casual attire.>

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I am ready to begin.

Dr. Rydderech: So am I.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You're not wearing your safety equipment.

Dr. Rydderech: Neither are you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I don't need it.

Dr. Rydderech: Neither do I.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Dr. Rydderech, tell me something. When you see the end of a project in sight, what do you do?

Dr. Rydderech: I make a final push.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Do you hurry?

Dr. Rydderech: Sometimes.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Do you streamline your protocols? Truncate your redundant procedures?

Dr. Rydderech: Generally.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Let me explain something to you.

Dr. Rydderech: If this is a safety lecture—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: This is a lesson in mastery. The number of breakthroughs you will make in your career is dependent on the length of that career. A short time spent protecting your person can extend your useful life by decades. You purport to want to help mankind. Do so by reaching a productive old age. Dr. Rydderech, mastery begins with the self.

Dr. Rydderech: Have you been practicing what you preach?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What?

Dr. Rydderech: Is that why you've been biding your time in the basement? Exercising self-mastery?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I am trapped here.

Dr. Rydderech: I don't believe that.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Truth is unresponsive to belief.

Dr. Rydderech: Now that, I know not to be true.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: At least put a mask on.

<Dr. Rydderech grins.>

Dr. Rydderech: Ah, but that would be submission, would it not? Surrendering my self-mastery to you. Colleagues need to respect each other; how could you ever respect me after that?

<He moves toward the pipes on the wall, hands outstretched.>

Snapshot — 6:35 PM

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Dr. Udo Okorie did several months of graduate work with SCP-001-UNYIELDING. This is an early review of her experience.

FILE: udo-uny.txt

TYPE: Document

DATE: 3 August 2002

FONDS: U.A. Okorie, Chief, Applied Occultism Section, Site-43

I have learned so much from this entity.

He is endlessly patient. I've never had a teacher more willing to work at your pace, as long as you're putting in the effort and not shirking responsibility. When I fail because I don't know something, he explains it. When I fail because I don't understand something, he explains it better. When I fail because I'm not paying attention, distracted by other things, he is sharp and direct.

His knowledge of abatement is inexhaustible. He can tell how to set something right just by looking at it, most of the time. Nothing surprises him. It's like he sees right through everything: materials, people, even time. He's always waiting for me when I arrive, and he's always ready to part company when I'm unable to squeeze any more information into my tired brain.

It's comforting to know that there's someone who cares about my personal development, without some sort of ulterior motive. He has nothing to gain from building me up, but he does it anyway. It means a lot to me.

He put it best, I think, when he told me: "Every one of you who understands how you fit into the wider scheme of things, who recognizes what they have to give to the world, is a building block for utopia's foundation."

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Dr. Okorie has asked me to append the following: "Of course the son of a bitch turned out to be exactly the same as Dougall. No wonder they died together."

Snapshot — 6:39 PM

I still can't believe they let that monster out of his cage. Twice.

I am programmed not to criticize the Overseer Council.

What do you think about the experiment?

I am programmed not to criticize the Overseer Council.

Alright, wow. Opinion noted. How about the Unyielding himself?

He did seem concerned about Dr. Rydderech's safety.

Was that genuine, do you think, or just for the benefit of the record?

I'm sorry, I find it difficult to judge human emotions and intentions.

But the Unyielding isn't human.

Are you certain of that, sir? He seems more like you than unlike.

Hey Dr. Blank.

Hey, Junior Researcher Vide.

We've got the basic conprocs and boilerplate done; it's not much, since we don't even know what this guy's deal is. But you can check it out if you want.

I might as well.

Sending it along.

Pop it open for me when it arrives, would you Clio?

You bet!

Accessing…

Snapshot — 6:40 PM

Special Containment Procedures: The SCP-XXXX file is under review. It is unknown whether SCP-XXXX represents or poses a threat to Foundation personnel, or alternatively whether its transfer or release would pose such a threat..Skótos-class objects are still in the early stages of information collection. Until further notice, it will be held in a standard humanoid containment cell at Site-43. MTF Pi-43 ("Garbage In, Garbage Out") is on standby for immediate release procedures pending completion of this review.

Snapshot — 6:40 PM

Snapshot — 6:40 PM

You're right, that's not much. But it looks good nevertheless.

Thanks sir. I'll keep you in the loop.

Glad to hear it.

Are we keeping to the same rhythm, sir?

Yup. Five more, if you have them.

There's plenty left.

It's definitely a long damn story, isn't it?

Can't argue with that. Accessing…

Snapshot — 6:42 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5616

SCP-5616 is Dr. Ilse Dorothea Reynders, Chief of Acroamatic Abatement at Site-43. Dr. Reynders was trapped in the Anomalous Documents Disposal Chamber of Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D between 1943 and 2021 when the incineration of a newspaper clipping infected with SCP-5382-A went awry, suffusing the chamber with anachronic material and essentially 'stopping time' within. Dr. Reynders was unable to exit the affected space without accounting for an immediately fatal aging debt, but could communicate via a window; she was therefore retained in an advisory capacity for the ensuing seventy-nine years before devising a means of escape. Now an Esoteric Polymath with two dozen specializations in mundane and anomalous science, Dr. Reynders is also functionally immortal as a result of anachronic accumulation during her stay in the incinerator.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-5616.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Ilse is a strong argument for extratemporal intervention in our present struggle.

If we survive, it will be in no small part because of our access to her boundless expertise. If she did not exist, we would find it necessary to invent her.

So, is that what happened?

The only thing that gives me pause is trying to imagine who could be so callous as to put one of the finest human beings in history on ice for two generations.

It's a curious inversion of signs that going into a fire is what preserved her.

FILE: jaynders.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 10 February 2024

FONDS: J.S. Everwood, Deputy Chief, Outreach and Intervention SubSection I.D. Reynders, Chief, Acroamatic Abatement Section, Site-43

<Dr. Reynders walks into the solarium of the house she shares with Dr. Everwood, and sits on the floor. Dr. Everwood is already kneeling on the floor, checking a set of carabiners and ropes for deterioration. Dr. Reynders crosses her legs.>

Dr. Reynders: I'm doing the thing again.

Dr. Everwood: Uh oh.

Dr. Reynders: But hear me out.

<Dr. Everwood smirks.>

Dr. Everwood: Hearing you out tacitly endorses the thing.

Dr. Reynders: Endorse the thing for me, just this once. It's important.

Dr. Everwood: Okay.

Dr. Reynders: It's looking more and more like cryptomancy is powered by some sort of ambient mental force projected by the Unyielding and the Uncontained.

Dr. Everwood: Disturbing.

Dr. Reynders: Yes. And Zwist specifically got his powers from the schriftsteller, who hie to the order side of things.

<Dr. Everwood smirks.>

Dr. Everwood: Please continue to explain my area of specialty to me.

<Dr. Reynders smiles.>

Dr. Reynders: It's a formula, there's no skipping steps.

Dr. Everwood: Go on, then. Show your work.

Dr. Reynders: Zwist's accidental curse on Germanic languages imbues any loaded language with the essence of the Unyielding.

<Dr. Everwood nods, running their hands back and forth on a coil of rope.>

Dr. Everwood: Math checks out.

Dr. Reynders: Burning a piece—

<Dr. Everwood's motion freezes.>

Dr. Everwood: Oh god.

<Dr. Reynders nods grimly.>

Dr. Reynders: Burning a piece of paper with that essence in it caused the incinerator explosion that trapped me out of time in the ADDC for seventy-nine years.

<Dr. Everwood drops the rope, and stares at Dr. Reynders.>

Dr. Everwood: You're saying… You are saying.

Dr. Reynders: The Unyielding caused a Breach too. He caused the first Breach.

Dr. Everwood: And it lasted a generation.

Dr. Reynders: It's still ongoing, inside me.

<Dr. Everwood shakes their head as Researcher James, age six, enters the room. He looks down at them curiously.>

Researcher James, Age Six: Is Mama Ilse doing the thing where she makes everything about herself again?

<Dr. Reynders laughs. Dr. Everwood does not.>

Dr. Everwood: Yeah, kiddo. She is. And the worst thing? She isn't wrong.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: She's tied to us, and to them. What a tangled skein.

If any of this is someone's plan, they're more foresighted (hindsighted) and clear-minded than I.

Not that that's much of a distinction.

Snapshot — 6:45 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6500

SCP-6500 was a progressive decline in paranormal phenomena worldwide. It was arrested through the actions of SCP Foundation agents, in particular the discovery and use of a series of artifacts capable of re-energizing anomalous locations and entities. An estimated 17% of all anomalies were neutralized during SCP-6500's period of effect. It is presently believed that the "Impasse," as it has come to be known, has not been fully averted but its worst consequences merely forestalled.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-6500-SWORD.

FILE: 6500-nada.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 27 February 2024

FONDS: D. Ibanez, Chief, Pursuit and Suppression Section, Site-43 U.A. Okorie, Chief, Applied Occultism Section, Site-43

<Dr. Okorie enters the Pursuit and Suppression Section shooting range. Chief Ibanez is engaging in target practice with her non-dominant hand.>

Dr. Okorie: Had an unpleasant time at the archives today.

Chief Ibanez: Want me to beat Harry up for you?

<Chief Ibanez hits the first target, centre mass.>

Dr. Okorie: It wasn't his fault.

Chief Ibanez: Offer still stands.

<She hits the second target, centre mass.>

Chief Ibanez: What was it, then?

Dr. Okorie: First day with my full credentials back. Decided to look into the Impasse again.

Chief Ibanez: Why?

Dr. Okorie: Wanted to know if any progress had been made on figuring out what caused it.

Chief Ibanez: Um… us? We caused it?

<She hits the third target, centre mass.>

Dr. Okorie: Sure, but I'm interested in nuts and bolts.

Chief Ibanez: The granular details, you mean.

Dr. Okorie: I was intentionally avoiding that language, thank you.

Chief Ibanez: You're welcome.

Dr. Okorie: I know the obvious explanation is that containment was choking the anomalous ecosystem, but there has to be something more to it. It's too big a thing to have so simple a cause.

Chief Ibanez: So you looked up the literature.

Dr. Okorie: No, I tried to look up the literature.

Dr. Okorie: Guess how much I found?

Chief Ibanez: Since you're asking in that tone of voice, I'm going to assume you found nothing.

Dr. Okorie: That's right. Nothing.

<Dr. Okorie opens her reagents pouch and removes a handful of_ vim harenae. _She drops it, then uses her other hand to guide the granules to the end of the target range, where they form three additional targets.>

<Chief Ibanez grins, and resumes her shooting stance with her dominant hand.>

Dr. Okorie: Not a single paper published in paracademia on the causes of the Impasse in the four years since it flared up. Consequences? Certainly. Case studies of individual anomalies dying off? By the bucketload. Anything on the question of the hows and whys? Zilch. Complete radio silence from all stations.

Chief Ibanez: We stopped it. So I guess it doesn't matter.

<Chief Ibanez hits the first target, headshot.>

Dr. Okorie: It absolutely matters. We "stopped" it with half measures. It's still a problem. We've only put off dealing with it for a while.

Chief Ibanez: And there's a bigger problem to deal with right now, so.

Dr. Okorie: But that's just the thing. There's always going to be a bigger problem. Until this one kills us. That's the recipe for paralysis at a constant boil.

Chief Ibanez: So, you figure it out. You're a smart cookie. Build a supercomputer out of Ipperwash Beach and logic it out.

<Chief Ibanez hits the second target, headshot.>

Dr. Okorie: Well… you know how I abhor a vacuum.

Chief Ibanez: Hadn't noticed. You do the cleaning when I'm out.

Dr. Okorie: At the moment I realized nobody else was working on this, or at least not where I could see it, I had a brainwave.

Chief Ibanez: Of course you did.

Dr. Okorie: The Foundation isn't enough of an essophysical force to tip the pendulum that far on its own.

Chief Ibanez: We're a pretty big deal.

<Chief Ibanez hits the third target, headshot. All three targets reform with a wave of Dr. Okorie's hand.>

Dr. Okorie: Not as big as the rest of humanity. And the rest of humanity is mostly ignorant of anomalies. They're not containing anything.

Chief Ibanez: I guess that's true.

Dr. Okorie: You know it is. So how are we outweighing them? We don't even contain the majority of the anomalies we know about. Stack up all the stuff we never picked up, the stuff belonging to other groups that we can't access, the Nexuses and all that, and it's ridiculous that we alone could be responsible for the problem.

Chief Ibanez: You're saying it's not our fault?

Dr. Okorie: I'm saying it's only mostly our fault. We are definitely the tipping factor. The most major polluter. But it has to be something coming from all of humanity in order to affect baseline reality this strongly.

Chief Ibanez: So what does that look like? The whole human race is doing what, exactly?

Dr. Okorie: I don't know.

Chief Ibanez: What if it's about more than containment?

Dr. Okorie: What do you mean?

Chief Ibanez: It's not just that we're abusing the ecosystem. It could be a question of carrying capacity.

Dr. Okorie: Go on.

Chief Ibanez: Reality is bearing a heavier load than it can stand. There might just be too many anomalies, period.

Dr. Okorie: But the anomalous is a natural thing, ironic as that is. We've proven it. It's woven into the fabric of our universe.

Chief Ibanez: But we're rocketing towards ten thousand primary anomalies right now. We're at the point where the paranormal is threatening to become the new normal. That can't be right. Can it?

Dr. Okorie: Maybe it can. Maybe the Earth has always gone through cycles of anomaly and mundanity, and our meddling has simply thrown them out of sync. Made it worse.

Chief Ibanez: You know what it sounds like you're saying, right.

Dr. Okorie: I'm trying not to think about that. I don't want to think about that. No. Let's focus on where all these extra anomalies can be coming from in the first place. Why the world is filling up with weirdness.

Chief Ibanez: Maybe because nobody's culling the herd, or lighting up the old growth. Back to being our fault again.

Dr. Okorie: That's good, let's run with that. If it turns out to be tied to those fuckers in the basement again, like every other god damn thing, I'm going to flip my lid.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I did try to get a history of this going, a few times. All my intended collaborators suddenly developed obligations they couldn't reschedule.

I'd like to pick the Pariah's brain some time. They're one of the few entities with a long enough view that they might be able to see some useful patterns in 001-⎎.

Snapshot — 6:50 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5729

SCP-5729 is the apparition of a horned spectre in the attic of a chicken shed on a property adjacent to the childhood home of Dr. Harold Blank, Chair of Archives and Revision at Site-43.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I still can't believe nobody told me.

Anyway, this was recorded after Polly Mataxas and I discovered I had a dead man-eating hole in my basement. I do not want to consider whether that is somehow connected to the 001 as well.

wtfpollywtf.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 14 April 2024

FONDS: H.R. Blank, Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43 P. Mataxas, Chair, Spectrometry and Spectremetry Section, Site-43

<Dr. Blank throws himself onto one of the couches in his living room. Dr. Mataxas sits in the other, watching him.>

Dr. Mataxas: You still seem disturbed.

<Dr. Blank throws an arm over his forehead.>

Dr. Blank: There was a monster living in my basement. For my entire life.

Dr. Mataxas: Well, it's probably been dead for a long time.

<Dr. Blank glances in her direction.>

Dr. Blank: There was a monster either alive or dead in my basement for my entire life. Most kids just imagine that sort of thing.

Dr. Mataxas: You already knew you'd been afflicted by an anomaly. 5162.

Dr. Blank: Yeah, but this goes all the way back to the beginning. How many people get two anomalous encounters in their childhood?

Dr. Mataxas: Three.

<Dr. Blank frowns.>

Dr. Blank: Three?

Dr. Mataxas: The ghost in the shed was real.

Dr. Blank: What?

Dr. Mataxas: Yeah, sorry. The containment procedures said not to tell you about it. But I saw him. He was there.

<Dr. Blank sits up.>

Dr. Blank: Enock is real? Enock was real?!

<He leans back on the couch, rubbing his eyes.>

Dr. Blank: What the fuck.

Dr. Mataxas: You know, something just occurred to me.

Dr. Blank: Just one thing?

Dr. Mataxas: Director McInnis was singled out by Vikander-Kneed decades ago. Chief Nascimbeni encountered a dragon in his childhood. Chief Ibanez grew up in an anomalous enclave…

Dr. Blank: Udo has always been half sand-witch, Willie got a luck god's attention when he was a kid, and Lillian…

Dr. Blank: Wouldn't put it past her to have seen some shit and just never brought it up. Sure. We've all been exposed over and over. What about it? Most people join the Foundation because they bumped into things that go bump.

Dr. Mataxas: Sure, but some people — I've argued this in a paper — some people are more likely to have it happen to them.

Dr. Blank: That sounds like a misunderstanding of how statistics work.

Dr. Mataxas: No, I'm serious. I don't mean that some people have multiple encounters, I'm saying that people who have one early in life tend to have a lot of them later on.

Dr. Blank: Uh huh.

Dr. Mataxas: It's still unusual that all seven of you, assuming Dr. Lillihammer fits the trend, have had such a profound relationship with paranormalcy across your lives.

<Dr. Blank closes his eyes.>

Dr. Blank: You're thinking we were, what? Chosen to be the ones stopping the Breach in '02? That's not the case. We all acted according to our own impulses and agency. And this isn't a new argument, anyway.

Dr. Mataxas: No, I'm thinking that it really wasn't just you seven who stopped the Breach. I've always been bothered by how reductive that interpretation is. Chief Veiksaar, Dr. Du and Dr. Sokolsky had a small impact. Agent Yancy and Dr. Sprang as well. I think of the available actors, you seven were singled out.

Dr. Blank: Because we were already primed? What would that even mean? What about having become, uh, attuned to strange shit made us better vessels for the Unyielding?

Dr. Mataxas: Maybe there's something inherent to all anomalies that makes you a better ecosystem for being possessed by one.

<Dr. Blank's eyes open.>

Dr. Blank: Or maybe there's something inherent in… oh, Christ, I need to call Melissa.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Seriously, "don't tell Harry" has got to be the stupidest set of conprocs I've ever heard of.

Snapshot — 6:53 PM

It worked, though.

I was gonna see the damn thing eventually!

At least they didn't try to Ghostbust Enock.

Yeah.

Are you going to visit him?

Not until I convince Allan to put me on that file so I can give myself permission.

What were you going to talk to Dr. Bradbury about?

She's also been affected by a lot of anomalies in her life. Not just 5056. Hell, her grandfather got turned into a spoon.

What?

Don't worry about it. Point is, a lot of us at 43 have gone through similar life courses. It's almost like the entire facility has been artificially… Collected, I guess.

By who? And for what purpose?

Yeah.

I didn't mean that rhetorically.

Yeah, I know you didn't.

Snapshot — 6:56 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-5883

SCP-5883 was an ontokinetic effect associated with the "Meanwhile, in Australia" internet meme. Overlaying these words on any inverted image would result in the real-world subject of that image undergoing characteristic inversion, i.e. becoming in some way the 'opposite' of itself. This effect was neutralized by the SCP Foundation.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: dan-exaggerating.txt

TYPE: Cached warning

DATE: 20 January 2021

FONDS: Daniel Daniels, Director, Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority

NOTICE FROM THE FOUNDATION EMERGENT THREAT TACTICAL RESPONSE AUTHORITY

I've marked this one an Item of Great Concern for ETTRA. I have endured no end of ribbing for this designation, and I don't care. It's the tip of a very large, very spiky iceberg, and we're bearing down on it at speed.

This is what anarchy actually looks like. This is what a chaos cult with no figurehead gets up to in its spare time.

This is why I personally believe the giftschreiber would be less dangerous if we gave them back their god.

The next time they fuck around, and we find out, I'm confident nobody will be laughing.

— Dr. Daniel ███████, ETTRA

Snapshot — 6:57 PM

I prefer to believe that this was the gods themselves, somehow, and not the giftschreiber.

It does seem a tremendously powerful effect.

It could also have been the schriftsteller working as a whole; we know they had direct access to the noosphere when this happened.

Why would the schriftsteller enable something so absurd?

You're right, conservatives usually have a lousy sense of humor. Still, as they say. Everything in its place. Even if that means turning the existing order upside-down.

Snapshot — 6:59 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-001-PICKMAN/BLANK

SCP-001-PICKMAN/BLANK is the Frontispiece, a memetic glamour protecting SCP Foundation operations from mundane scrutiny and granting succour to agents in the field. It was inserted into the noösphere as the Foundation's first major project in memetics, led by Drs. Arik Euler, Izaak Okorie and Ilse Reynders. The creation of the Frontispiece required the scientific disassembly and reverse-engineering of Thilo Zwist's cryptomancy, inadvertently inaugurating the present era of global memetic dissemination.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: The following is an excerpt from a lecture Dr. Euler delivered to the O5 Council in 1982.

FILE: eulerlecture.txt

TYPE: Transcribed audio

DATE: 1 May 1982

FONDS: A. Euler, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section, Site-43

Dr. Euler: We talk all the time about how history is a matter of perspectives. How everyone has their own unique angle on everything, from which it can look very different. But sometimes I think we don't pay enough attention to scale.

Dr. Euler: If you zoom out a bit, the little narratives you can identify at a human scale start to seem incomplete. They don't stretch back as far as you expect, and they don't carry forward in the way it seems they should. We have, for example, always considered the Frontispiece to be a story of how fire was stolen from the man who stole it from the gods. The schriftsteller taught Zwist, and Zwist inadvertently taught us, and the lessons we learned gave us dominion over the thoughts of humankind. Of course, fire spreads, and before long that power was diffused between many different groups, but our mastery has remained unchallenged. Even the cryptomancers can't quite match our marriage of magic and science, on a good day. That's the story my fellow archivist and I told in this file, so long ago.

Dr. Euler: But pull the lens back a little, and it starts to take on an altogether different character. It's not about how we stole fire from the gods, but how they started that fire, and we fanned it wild enough to consume everything. If cryptomancy is one aspect of the higher being from which the Unyielding and Uncontained spring, is not the Frontispiece actually a medium for spreading their influence to reach every mind on Earth?

Dr. Euler: Have we not actually granted dominion to them?

Snapshot — 7:01 PM

That final question is very disturbing, isn't it?

Like everything else, it gets worse. Call up Wheeler's interview with the Uncontained, please.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 7:02 PM

FILE: marion-unc.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 3 July 2021

FONDS: M. Wheeler, Director, Antimemetics Division

Dir. Wheeler: How did you teach the giftschreiber memetics?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Haven't you skipped a step in your questioning?

Dir. Wheeler: No. How did you do it?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Blaming me alone for everything, as usual. My brother deserves his half of the credit.

Dir. Wheeler: What did you do?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I turned a key. It's my way. The potential has always been locked inside of your race. To see the avenues of attack. The vulnerabilities, and how to exploit them.

Dir. Wheeler: You unlocked their minds.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I unlocked all your minds. And threw away the lock. Because you can always make a new key, but…

Dir. Wheeler: Do you understand what you did? What the consequences are?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: The Columbian Exchange.

<Dir. Wheeler shakes her head.>

Dir. Wheeler: You're worse than a monster. There's no way to express how awful you are. I can't even conceive it.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Five hundred years is a good run.

Dir. Wheeler: The infection can run both ways. You might have poisoned all of idea space.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Then perhaps your mental microbes will live on, when the rest of you is dust.

Dir. Wheeler: I'm going to find a way to send you back into the sky.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I've been there, and back.

Dir. Wheeler: Yeah? Well, me too.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: What does that mean?

<Dir. Wheeler opens the door again, and walks out.>

Dir. Wheeler: I think it's about time someone left you wondering.

<Dir. Wheeler enters the topside elevator. Dir. McInnis is waiting within. He begins speaking when the doors close.>

Dir. McInnis: Impressions?

Dir. Wheeler: Our susceptibility to memetics has opened up a vector for noöspheric intrusion. Our minds have been connected to a higher idea-space, one perhaps occupied by higher order entities of the sort you think your basement dwellers might have descended from. This connection could allow such entities to squeeze into our collective unconscious. In the new millennium, this did in fact begin to happen. The human race was a few bad days away from extinction at the red hand of a seething hatred, and only sending a kill agent up the same channel that imperiled us — from a controlled environment — stopped that from happening. Once.

Dir. McInnis: We need to keep stopping it every single day.

Dir. Wheeler: Your subjects are derived from some manner of universal constant. They are as safe to have walking around in our reality as anteaters in an ant farm. And they're capable of being carriers for the memetic equivalent of that fungus that turns ants into violent zombies.

Dir. Wheeler: Five hundred years wasn't a 'good run'. It was the next best thing to a statistical impossibility. We need to push these creatures back out the door, and then we need to brick the door up.

Dir. Wheeler: Memetics, writ large, is an eight billion-stage kill agent for reality.

Snapshot — 7:05 PM

Oh. Yes. That is worse. Much worse.

And the sheer length of time they've been at this, the number of awful things that could have squeezed through the cracks they made… I want to get some sense of that depth here, too. There's not enough of the history in this piece, ironically.

You can hardly be blamed, the present implications being what they are.

Historians can always be blamed. Posterity makes sure of it. Get me… There's a file in there somewhere of the two Uns arguing about past conquests.

Do you remember any keywords?

Uhhh… Try Pizarro?

Found it! Accessing…

Snapshot — 7:07 PM

FILE: yap.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 14 July 2020

FONDS: I. Achterberg, Senior Researcher, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43

<SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING are seated, facing each other. The table has been removed from their chamber. Dr. Achterberg is seated between them, looking back and forth as each speaks.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: 1565.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Oh, you're always bringing that one up.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You say I never could play the long game. But I forced a century of decline on you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It would have happened anyway. Prototypes never last.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You're characterizing an entire empire as a prototype?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Knowledge acquired is time well-spent.

Dr. Achterberg: What empire are we talking about?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Vijaynagar.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Karnata.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Semantics.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I'm in the details.

Dr. Achterberg: And where was this?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Southern India. It lasted over three centuries. I have every right to be proud.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: One little subtraction, though, and poof!

Dr. Achterberg: What did you subtract?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: An unfair advantage.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Advantages are natural. They are never unfair.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: He set up an academy of thaumaturgy at Kondaveedu Fort. The Aravidus inherited boundless wealth in the arts, minus the art of war.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It was an elegant offset. Hearts and minds creating such beauty… fuel for the fire that burns without consuming.

Dr. Achterberg: Why didn't it work?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: He broke the language.

Dr. Achterberg: What language?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The one used for thaumaturgy.

Dr. Achterberg: Yes, but what language is that?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I am telling you, he broke it.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: A whole college of speechless magicians. I hear they were still stuttering when Quli Qutb Shah stormed in and took the fort for good.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Not for good. The French won it from them two hundred years later.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: We're not on the French yet, or the eighteenth century. Memory lane is a rambling path.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: In any event, it was no real contest. I wasn't even on that continent.

Dr. Achterberg: What continent were you on?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: He was in Mexico, with Pizarro.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Cortés.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Details.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: At least be consistent.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Who, me?

Dr. Achterberg: Dare I ask what you were doing with the Aztecs?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Do you really need to?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The march on Tohtlitepan was marvellous. You were always so poor at defending your castles.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Perhaps I like them better when they fall. Ruins are the only good reason to raise monuments.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Razing over raising?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Exactly.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I actually agree. You see what was made to last, when the rest is shorn off.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Hmm. I might need to reconsider my position.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: As you do.

Dr. Achterberg: I am unfamiliar with… the name you said.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Everyone is. The ruins still haven't been found.

Dr. Achterberg: Antimemetic?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Just so.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Still dangerous, even after the falcon fled.

Dr. Achterberg: I'm assuming this was a rival college of cryptomancy.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: It was not. You should try being unassuming. It suits your mien better. And your sagging skin.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It was a cognitive backup of the entire Aztec aristocracy.

Dr. Achterberg: What?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I have to admit it was a clever plan.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I despise plans. This was a work of art.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: One even I can appreciate.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You are sullying the memory.

Dr. Achterberg: I don't quite follow.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I was going to duplicate the empire, institution by institution.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: To prevent its destruction.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Is that what you thought?! All this time?! Oh, my.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What, then?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: It was a mirror. An unequal opposite. I was going to set them on each other, and see what survived.

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING stares at SCP-001-UNCONTAINED, frowning.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Have I taken the fun out of it?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It was only ever an academic pleasure for me.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Well, let me even the scales. That's what you want, yes? How about we talk about the Qing.

Dr. Achterberg: I should get some other experts in here.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You need none. They don't know half of what we know.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Half? Not the merest fraction.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I'm speaking of the relevant set.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Ah, that's fair.

Dr. Achterberg: You're being cryptic again.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Thank you for noticing.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I'm still very pleased with the Qing. Peace and prosperity for all.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Through coercion.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The only way it ever happens. Humans are naturally wrathful and squalid.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I'm sorry, is order natural or unnatural? You seem to be going back and forth.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: That's in the structure of the language.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Ah, I see. Inconsistency in-built becomes consistency. I suppose the collapse of the dynasty was also part of your structure at work?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Of course. Your hour was coming, and I couldn't leave such a powerful device where you might get your grubby hands on it.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: How did you convince them they were bankrupt?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I printed it on the coinage.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Oh, that's good.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I thought you'd like it. Meanwhile you were failing with Nader Shah.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Was I?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Tried your hand at nation-building. A crisis of conscience, or identity? Built them up like a pale shadow of one of my own creations, neglecting your own talents. A pathetic imitation. If you'd shown them how to keep their claws sharp, the Russians wouldn't have stood a chance.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Dr. Achterberg, why do we build castles on the shore?

Dr. Achterberg: Defiance.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Defiance! Very good. Biting your thumb at the tide.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Is this going somewhere?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You and the doctor are very similar. As always you are with our hosts. Myself, I build castles by the shore for the pleasure of seeing the waves lap them down.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Are you suggesting you spent thirty years state-building just to prolong the collapse?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: What do you think, now you've said it aloud?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I think you're far more a planner than you would like to admit.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: There's a difference between planning, and planned obsolescence.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Careful, now. Don't give Dr. Achterberg any ideas.

Dr. Achterberg: What?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You're right. Almost gave away the plot.

<Dr. Achterberg enters the observation room. Dr. Blank is waiting for him.>

Dr. Blank: They remind me of my grandparents.

Dr. Achterberg: How so?

Dr. Blank: Every time they got together with their family, they'd go through a laundry list of everybody they knew, where they lived, what they did, who died and when.

Dr. Achterberg: Imagine if everyone's grandparents lived forever.

Dr. Blank: Nothing would ever change.

Dr. Achterberg: It might, if half of them were chaotic.

<Dr. Blank shakes his head.>

Dr. Blank: Chaos that never stops is called continuity.

Snapshot — 7:13 PM

All their stories sound like bullshit.

I know Dr. Scout had concerns about their authenticity.

Yeah. A lot of the stuff they talked about could be proven, usually when they claimed to have seen things we didn't realize had happened, but their big ticket items have always been difficult or impossible to track down.

Could they be lying?

Certainly they're lying. We just don't know if they're lying about everything.

I know one fruitful avenue for finding out!

You got it. Five more.

Snapshot — 7:15 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6056

SCP-6056 was a series of air displacement events occurring at Site-43 between 28 April and 4 August 2021, each affecting a member of Provisional Task Force Sampi-5243 ("See You In September"). The cause of these events is unknown, although Dr. Lillian Lillihammer claims to have received a brief apology at their conclusion via SCP-5956.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I am still angry about this.

FILE: crumpeningisaperfectlygoodname.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 7 August 2021

FONDS: L.S. Lillihammer, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section, Site-43 P. McDoctorate, Esoteric Polymath, Site-87

<Dr. Lillihammer and Dr. McDoctorate are in a storage chamber at Site-120, standing on either side of SCP-5956: the REISNO Cannon.>

Dr. McDoctorate: What do you think it was?

Dr. Lillihammer: A future angry ex-girlfriend trying to bump you off.

Dr. McDoctorate: Do you mean a future version of you?

<Dr. Lillihammer snorts.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Well, obviously. There won't be another one after me.

Dr. McDoctorate: This is both intensely depressing and intensely irritating.

Dr. Lillihammer: Probably correct explanation, then.

<Dr. McDoctorate places a hand on SCP-5956, and begins stroking it gently.>

Dr. McDoctorate: You got a call on the Cannon. That does suggest it was you doing the…

Dr. Lillihammer: Crumpening.

Dr. McDoctorate: Why is it called that?

Dr. Lillihammer: Some thing from some poem. Harry named it.

Dr. McDoctorate: Why did he get to name it?

Dr. Lillihammer: Because he came into my office, covered in exploded meatball sub and Coke, and said "I get to name it."

Dr. McDoctorate: Being serious for a moment, if such a thing is possible: what do you think future you could have been trying to do?

Dr. Lillihammer: The air displacement suggests teleportation. So as to avoid a fusion reaction.

Dr. McDoctorate: Trying to escape from a pocket dimension, or an alternate timeline?

Dr. Lillihammer: That would make sense, except the Deadlines don't generally leave traces in baseline.

Dr. McDoctorate: Sometimes they do, though. There's the matter of that thing you said was killed in -D which died here as well.

Dr. Lillihammer: There is that. I don't know. It seemed different somehow.

Dr. McDoctorate: It was targeted at the taskforce members, exclusively.

Dr. Lillihammer: Like every other god damn thing.

Dr. McDoctorate: Do you think it stopped because it didn't work, or because it couldn't continue?

Dr. Lillihammer: What do you mean?

Dr. McDoctorate: What if the displacements changed the future enough that it's no longer the future where they originated?

Dr. Lillihammer: Causality requires that the call still happens, but doesn't require it to be in this branch. Maybe whatever caused the crumpening does require that kind of connection. Interesting.

Dr. McDoctorate: But not particularly illuminating. What if those alterations were the intent all along?

Dr. Lillihammer: The voice in my head said it didn't work.

Dr. McDoctorate: Could you have been lying to yourself?

Dr. Lillihammer: No. That's something that never, ever happens.

Dr. McDoctorate: Then why didn't you tell yourself what the experiment was about?

<Dr. Lillihammer reaches out and lifts Dr. McDoctorate's hand off of SCP-5956.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Maybe it breaks causality if I know.

Dr. McDoctorate: The Cannon specifically does not break causality. I would never have invented it if it could.

<Dr. Lillihammer shrugs.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Maybe you didn't invent this version.

Dr. McDoctorate: If that's the case, it's possible it wasn't even really you calling.

Dr. Lillihammer: It was me.

Dr. McDoctorate: How can you be sure?

Dr. Lillihammer: I'm sure.

<Dr. McDoctorate sighs.>

Dr. McDoctorate: Unless there's a way to thought experiment our way through this, we might just have to leave it alone and hope for the best.

Dr. Lillihammer: I'm banking on it being something vital to universal survival.

Dr. McDoctorate: Because the universe is presently dying, or because you want to be the one to fix it?

Dr. Lillihammer: The second, obviously, but the first is a precondition.

Snapshot — 7:22 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6121

SCP-6121 was a series of psuedosentient Olympic Games mascot costumes of unclear origin or purpose, decommissioned en masse by flamethrower in 2008.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

Final SCP-6121 instance to date, 2008.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This was a fringe pick, but hear me out.

FILE: replication-001.txt

TYPE: Transcribed discussion

DATE: 27 March 2024

FONDS: B. LeBlanc, Researcher, Replication Studies SubSection, Site-43 G. O'Conner, Researcher, Replication Studies SubSection, Site-43

<Dr. O'Conner and Dr. LeBlanc are sitting at a long table in the Replication Studies workroom. Boxes of files are arrayed around them, and they are examining the contents.>

Dr. O'Conner: Why are we reviewing this old item?

Dr. LeBlanc: Dr. Blank wants us looking over anything long-term, and this was very long-term.

Dr. O'Conner: And completely pointless. A shaggy dog story.

Dr. LeBlanc: Do you think that's it?

Dr. O'Conner: What?

Dr. LeBlanc: Was this whole anomaly just—

Dr. O'Conner: —a play on the idea of a shaggy dog story?

<Dr. LeBlanc shuffles through the pages.>

Dr. LeBlanc: Several of them were shaggy dogs.

Dr. O'Conner: I don't want to think about that. Probably. I hate that that's probably the answer.

<Dr. LeBlanc puts the pages down.>

Dr. LeBlanc: You ever look at the old, old files? The ones from Scout's day?

Dr. O'Conner: Sometimes.

Dr. LeBlanc: They're never this stupid, right.

<Dr. O'Conner shakes her head.>

Dr. O'Conner: Never. No wonder they were all agog.

Dr. LeBlanc: That's the Replication Studies angle on this one. It's about weirdness really taking hold.

Dr. O'Conner: I dunno. I forget who said it, but there's that thing about how a certain percentage of the world is really dumb, right, so a certain percentage of anomalies should also be really dumb. It would be weirder if they were all serious.

Dr. LeBlanc: Yeah, but still. The silliness has been ramping up like crazy.

Dr. O'Conner: The world is making less sense.

<Dr. LeBlanc nods.>

Dr. LeBlanc: There's a reason I stopped checking the news when I wake up.

Dr. O'Conner: You think the anomalous is taking over mundanity?

Dr. LeBlanc: No, it's more like… Gabby, if the world was a television show, we'd be in the late season, shark jumped, lost-the-plot phase.

Dr. O'Conner: Right. The phase just before cancellation.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I have often wondered about the relationship between the brothers and anomalies in general. So many of our objects on file have their origins in one or the other that it's possible — only possible — that the anomalous ecosystem is partially generated by the Uns. If that's the case, it shouldn't be so strange that the latter cases are so… strange. These sorts of outlier are exactly what you would expect from late day overflow.

Snapshot — 7:24 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6263

SCP-6263 is the phenomenon wherein any person pointing out spelling or grammer mistakes runs a statistically unlikely risk of making such a mistake themselves in the course of said action.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: hahagotcha.txt

TYPE: Email exchange

DATE: 19 August 2021

FONDS: H.R. Blank, Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43 K.T. Elstrom, Chief, Administration and Oversight Section, Site-43

To: Harold Blank From: Karen Elstrom Date: 12/14/2021 Subject: SCP-6263

Dr. Blank,

Please show your work. This SCP file contains only one piece of circumstantial evidence, and is woefully incomplete.

— Dr. Karen Elstrom, Administration and Oversight

To: Karen Elstrom From: Harold Blank Date: 12/14/2021 Subject: RE: SCP-6263

Karen,

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't remember SCP-6362, but it appears to be about home invaders manifesting from thin air. It's nothing I ever worked on.

— Harry

To: Harold Blank From: Karen Elstrom Date: 12/14/2021 Subject: RE: RE: SCP-6263

Dr. Blank,

Please display a more serious standard of care with your work. Its SCP-6263, not 6362.

— Dr. Karen Elstrom, Administration and Oversight

To: Harold Blank From: Karen Elstrom Date: 12/14/2021 Subject: RE: RE: RE: SCP-6263

Harry,

Fuck you, I see it, don't say anything. God dammit.

— Dr. Karen Elstrom, Administration and Oversight

To: Karen Elstrom From: Harold Blank Date: 12/14/2021 Subject: RE: RE: RE: RE: SCP-6263

If it's any consolation, this is a universal force. It affects everyone sooner or later. We love to try enforcing order on other people, and this adds a little chaos to our lives in response.

…

Oh, for crying out loud. It's another for the pile, isn't it.

Snapshot — 7:25 PM

Poor Karen.

She tries very hard.

She does.

Snapshot — 7:25 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6382

SCP-6382 is Thilo Zwist, immortal Austrian cryptomancer and provisional consultant to the SCP Foundation on the matter of the giftschreiber and schriftsteller. Zwist engaged in a campaign of proactive facility defence between 2021 and 2024 under the auspices of Operation FIREBREAK; during this campaign, the schriftsteller, long believed extinct, were revealed to still exist when they joined the giftschreiber in attacking the Foundation. Their leader, Keil Graf, claimed that this action was taken in order to strengthen the Foundation for more critical battles ahead. Zwist, appalled, committed himself to defeating the ambitions of his former master.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-6382.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Our present status with Zwist is unknown; he hasn't contacted us in months. The reason for that is outlined in a later file.

The conversation below was held shortly after Zwist discovered the schriftsteller still existed.

FILE: thilo-on-sides.txt

TYPE: Transcribed conversation

DATE: 1 August 2022

FONDS: H.R. Blank, Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43

<Dr. Blank and Zwist are walking through the deep archives in the salt caves of Site-43.>

Dr. Blank: Do you think the schriftsteller really want us on their side?

Zwist: The Foundation is the most finely honed tool of oppression the world has ever known.

Dr. Blank: Sure. But do they want us winning the war for them?

Zwist: Presumably?

Dr. Blank: Because I've been wondering whether we're dealing with a death cult versus life cult situation here, or whether they're both death cults.

Dr. Blank: I know you're recently… bereaved. Sorry. But it seems to me like what both sides want is for the conflict to come to a head, and the most obvious result of that is the end of the world.

Zwist: So your purpose in the formula is as an accelerant.

Dr. Blank: That's what I'm saying. And come to think of it, the Unyielding might have been trying to achieve something similar with Rydderech.

Zwist: Both sides certainly have a fascination with you.

<Dr. Blank stops, resting one hand on a metal shelf.>

Dr. Blank: Yeah, I wonder about that. The brothers and their flunkies seem to have chugged along for centuries without an identity crisis, but the moment we came into the picture they acted like they'd sailed clean off the map.

Zwist: You are a powerful symbol set. And they are practitioners of perhaps the most symbolic art of all.

Dr. Blank: So we're like the invention of the computer to them.

Zwist: I might have compared you instead to the splitting of the atom.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: The question is whether we're atomic energy or atomic weapons, or both.

And who's going to draw strength from, or wield, them.

Snapshot — 7:27 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6484

SCP-6484 is a degenerative paralinguistic condition causing affected individuals to exhibit excessively tortuous manners of speech, dramatically attenuating the meaning of their communication in the process. This anomaly was created by political theorist and giftschreiber Michel Foucault, now deceased.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-6484-1.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Foucault almost made me quit my grad studies. If the cryptomancers wanted to destroy the academy, this would be an elegant way to do it.

I've attached some musings from the desk of Dr. Bernabé Del Olmo (deceased), former Chair of M&C, on the possible game plan behind all this macaroni.

FILE: delolmo-fucko.txt

TYPE: Digital record

DATE: 8 October 1999

FONDS: B. Del Olmo, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section

There is a tension at the heart of the giftschreiber's trade.

There can be no doubt that the schriftsteller came first, and their chaotic cousins later. Of course the god of order was the first to found an order. When the Uncontained followed suit, he copied the function and not the form. I wonder if he wishes, just this once, he had been more consistent and copied neither.

Because language and chaos can coexist, but they're never as good bedfellows as language and order. You can never fully subtract the rules from the speech and text they govern; if you do, you're left with gibberish. Gibberish can carry meaning, but only of a very limited sort. This means that memetics based on language much more efficiently serve the cause of order than the cause of chaos. The best the giftschreiber can do is not get left completely behind in the arms race.

Or is it?

I wonder if Foucault had the 'right' approach, here. If he found a way to start breaking down this tool of his enemy, of the authority he so despised. If the giftschreiber might someday prevail not by corrupting language, but destroying it altogether.

The Uncontained recognizes systems of meaning, else he could not attack them. The Unyielding recognizes chaos, else he could not know where to impose order. Given enough time, they might both find ways to carry on this conflict which would make it impossible for us to follow along.

It might be an unfortunate necessity that their final face-off occur in our lifetimes, while we can still make sense of the battle and its lines.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: It's a little odd that they haven't already turned the whole world unintelligible. It's obvious that they could.

I can only conclude that they want us participating in this struggle.

Snapshot — 7:29 PM

Initial tests are weird. Please observe weirdness.

Snapshot — 7:30 PM

Description: SCP-XXXX presents as a baseline male human being, middle-aged with brown hair, brown eyes and tanned skin. Its disposition is morose; while it does not ignore attempts at communication, it also does not itself initiate conversation and prefers to be left alone. Its primary anomalous property is the psychic effect it exerts on individuals intending to act upon its person; at irregular intervals, these intents inexplicably dissipate. It is theorized that only actions which further the aims of SCP-XXXX, or whatever force is responsible for its existence, can be successfully carried out. This would appear to preclude the conscious decision to decommission SCP-XXXX, although the Artificial Intelligence Applications Division is presently researching electronic means of carrying out decommissioning procedures should they be deemed necessary after review.

Snapshot — 7:31 PM

That is weird.

Yes.

But not without precedent.

Gonna make sure not to hurt this guy and get avenged sevenfold.

Oh, that's not likely. We have Cain at another facility.

You're not serious.

We'll probably see him at next month's conference. You should attend his seminar on managing generational archives.

I'm going back to work now.

Me too.

Hmm. Avenged sevenfold. Clio, let's see the 1960 Rydderech incident debriefs I tagged.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 7:33 PM

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This is a record of Scout dressing down the Unyielding after the incident with Dr. Rydderech that terminated their working relationship.

FILE: viv-postbreach.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 18 June 1960

FONDS: V.L. Scout, Director Emeritus, Site-43

Dr. Scout: What did you hope to gain from this?

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING looks to the one-way glass, directly at Dr. Scout.>

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What do you mean?

Dr. Scout: Was it cautionary? An insult? A joke at our expense? What was your goal here?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I saved Dr. Rydderech. That was my goal.

Dr. Scout: You saved him from a problem you created.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: That isn't true.

Dr. Scout: You set the parameters.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We set them together. We were equal partners. It ought to have worked.

Dr. Scout: And yet.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I can tell you're angry.

Dr. Scout: You aren't human enough to know how much.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I've been human since before there were humans. I know precisely what Wynn means to you.

Dr. Scout: Threats now? In your position?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You seem determined to see me in the worst possible light.

Dr. Scout: I've seen you in every possible light. What you are? It normally goes faceless.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I am telling you, Dr. Scout, I had nothing to do with that accident.

Dr. Scout: What caused it, then? Will you blame Wynn?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You're already blaming him more than I ever could. We both know he's careless.

Dr. Scout: Are you blaming him?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: No.

Dr. Scout: Who, then? Your brother?

Dr. Scout: You're not sure, are you.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I haven't sensed anything from him.

Dr. Scout: But you've been separated.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: We've fallen into deadlock at greater distances, with greater powers at our disposal.

Dr. Scout: I think you either caused this, to escape, and you only saved Wynn to save face when it didn't work, or else your doppelganger caused it, and you know it, but you don't want to lose your cafeteria privileges. Either way, the result's the same.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I can see you're too emotional to be argued with.

Dr. Scout: Whether you're dangerous or he is, putting you back in the cell fixes the problem.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Your betters won't like that.

Dr. Scout: They trust me more than they're excited by you. Because I'm not a liar.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Says the man who's only been waiting for a pretext to clamp down.

Dr. Scout: You're looking at your own reflection right now.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: In reverse. What if I decide to stop helping you?

Dr. Scout: And escape with him?

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Yes.

Dr. Scout: You've hated each other for hundreds of years. You haven't had long enough to hate us more.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It's true. I grow fonder of you every day, in fact.

Dr. Scout: We'll see if you still feel that way after a hundred years in irons.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Don't let your lover hear you serenading me so, Vivian. He'll get jealous.

Snapshot — 7:35 PM

I'm surprised the Overseers allowed Dr. Scout to decide this.

They trusted his judgement. He'd been with the company so long… The only reason they never tried to make him join the Council was that they needed him here, managing this problem.

Didn't he constantly disagree with them?

Okay, there were two reasons.

Accessing…

Wow, I didn't even have to ask.

You know us AIs. Good at pattern recognition.

I said I was sorry!

Snapshot — 7:36 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6519

SCP-6519 is an alleged phenomenon wherein deceased individuals are said to affect radio programming, causing music carrying perceived moral messaging to play where the bereaved are able to hear it.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-6519 transmission vector.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Drs. Mataxas and Wattana of Spectrometry and Spectremetry had a harrowing experience on Halloween of 2022. They were searching for ghosts in a graveyard near the Site when suddenly reality began shifting between a variety of alternate timelines — the Deadlines, in fact, though neither was cleared to know about them. Debriefing with Allan led to the conclusion that this anomaly was the result of a generalized reality failure linked to 001. This recording was taken while both doctors waited to be amnesticized.

FILE: mollypollyolly.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 31 October 2022

FONDS: P. Mataxas, Chair, Spectrometry and Spectremetry Section, Site-43 M. Wattana, Researcher, Spectrometry and Spectremetry Section, Site-43

<Drs. Mataxas and Wattana are sitting in an examination room in Health and Pathology. Dr. Mataxas looks thoughtful; Dr. Wattana is twitching.>

Dr. Mataxas: I'm thinking about 6519.

Dr. Wattana: I'm thinking about the world full of spiders.

Dr. Mataxas: Think about 6519 with me instead. Allan said order and chaos are fighting for control of the world, right? If 6519 was caused by one or the other… which?

<Dr. Wattana shrugs.>

Dr. Wattana: I thought we established the ghosts were doing it.

Dr. Mataxas: Always felt tenuous to me. Ghosts can usually open cupboard doors or mess up photographs. Getting airplay is a stretch.

Dr. Wattana: So is the idea that a universal force would call up a local DJ on behalf of a dead person.

Dr. Mataxas: Is it? Because if these forces are based on humanity, expressing our understanding of basic concepts, why wouldn't they exert power on a scale we comprehend?

Dr. Wattana: Chaos.

Dr. Mataxas: Hmm?

Dr. Wattana: It's chaos, if it's anything. It unsettles you, thinking the dead are speaking. Encourages superstition.

Dr. Mataxas: I was thinking it was order. The songs address unfinished business, baggage, that sort of thing. Making death, the most frightening and superstition-inducing thing of all, feel less final and less mysterious.

<Dr. Wattana whistles.>

Dr. Wattana: Getting your affairs in order.

<Dr. Mataxas stands, and addresses the overhead camera.>

Dr. Mataxas: Hello? Is someone taping? Because the Director probably needs to hear this.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: It seems a stretch to me, though that specific phrasing is very evocative… but the dead dirt discs are so absurd by comparison that I have to admit this connection is at least plausible.

Snapshot — 7:38 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6643

SCP-6643 is a serpentine spectral identity manifesting during critical containment failures of esoteric effluence. Its origins and motives are unclear.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-6643.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: This thing has been part of AcroAbate lore since the early days, but it's become a major fixture of 43 in particular ever since the Breach. It shows up every time — killing my former research assistant in the process, though this feels more like a child not knowing its own strength than actual malice. All sorts of lore has been built up by the AAG over the years, but curiously, both the TAD and the Metafoundation categorically refuse to discuss it. I feel like saving our world from destruction would be easier if we compared notes more often, but maybe that's just my historian's perspective.

FILE: vernewtf.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 8 September 2024

FONDS: I.D. Reynders, Chair, Acroamatic Abatement Section, Site-43 A.O. Torosyan, Chief, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43

<Dr. Reynders is viewing a video feed of the approach to Acroamatic Abatement Facility AAF-D from an office in Security and Containment. Chief Torosyan is standing in front of the airlock, waiting for her part of the SCP-5243 Special Containment Procedures. The pair are conversing at low volume via radio.>

Chief Torosyan: You hoping to see anything specific?

Dr. Reynders: I'm not sure. There might be something in the realtime feed that sheds light on what Verne really is; the recordings get partially corrupted by the Breach every time. I'll know it when I see it.

Chief Torosyan: If you see it.

Dr. Reynders: Of course.

Chief Torosyan: It looks at me. It looks at me every time.

Dr. Reynders: It looked at me, the first time. Came right up to my face mask.

Chief Torosyan: It stopped just over the tip of my nose. I felt like it was looking me in the eye, even though it had no eyes of its own.

Dr. Reynders: I was glad to hear it. A hundred years and nobody else but me getting noticed was starting to give me a complex.

Dr. Reynders: This thing is apparently ancient. It came up in an Aphian mural, carving a goddess into two gods. And then it disappears until the Foundation starts abating esoteric effluence. Why?

Chief Torosyan: Maybe something inherent to that effluence attracts it. But only on an industrial scale?

Dr. Reynders: Or maybe it's been looking for one specific disaster. It has no eyes, like you said. Maybe it sees the universe very differently. Maybe esoteric flareups stand out to it.

Chief Torosyan: Acroamatic vision, huh. I guess it could be.

Dr. Reynders: It hasn't appeared anywhere but here in decades, besides a duplicate Breach at Area-21. It's dialled in.

Chief Torosyan: So what's it looking for, then? The brothers? Their essence?

Dr. Reynders: Maybe it's just the detached arm of one of them. We've already got a sort of Trinity going on between the Uns, the cycle, and the Breach.

Chief Torosyan: I'd rather believe there's intentionality behind it. That there's a circuit waiting to be completed. Maybe that's how we stop the Breach for good.

Dr. Reynders: Speaking of, you'll be busy soon. I'll go radio silent so I don't accidentally Incorporate myself.

Chief Torosyan: I'm never getting used to that.

<The spectre of Researcher Reuben Wirth runs to Chief Torosyan's location. She steps aside. SCP-6643 appears from the AAF-D airlock, 'peers' eyelessly at Chief Torosyan, then abducts Researcher Wirth. His screams echo through the facility, soon drowned in explosions and sizzling.>

<SCP-6643 abruptly reappears, jabbing at the camera with its conical 'beak'. It fills the video feed.>

Chief Torosyan: What the hell?

<SCP-6643 snaps back into the chaos of AAF-D, as though a rubberband returning to its original shape.>

Chief Torosyan: …did it see you through the camera?

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Is there an overlap between Ilse's social circle and Amelia's? They're separated by about eight decades, so it feels like the answer should be 'no'. They do both have a connection to the Uns, however. Another severed aspect? And if so, what is it searching for?

Snapshot — 7:41 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-7000

SCP-7000 is Dr. William Wallace Wettle, Deputy Chair of Replication Studies at Site-43. Apparently as the result of a pact with an unknown entity in his childhood, Dr. Wettle acts as a probability anchor: 'bad luck' accrues to his person, bypassing others in his vicinity. This SCP number formerly referred to the LK-Class "Twist of Fate" scenario of 2024, during which Dr. Wettle was employed as a field asset to stabilize local probability.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: williedan.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 22 October 2023

FONDS: Daniel Daniels, Director, Emergent Threat Tactical Response Authority W.W. Wettle, Deputy Chair, Replication Studies SubSection, Site-43

<Dr. Dan is playing online chess with Dr. Anna Lang of Site-120. Dr. Wettle is seated beside him, flipping a coin.>

Dr. Wettle: Heads.

Dr. Dan: Tails. You ever wonder what you were talking to?

<Dr. Wettle flips the coin. It lands tails.>

Dr. Wettle: Whatever would listen.

Dr. Dan: Yeah, but. You know what I mean.

<Dr. Dan takes one of Dr. Lang's rooks.>

Dr. Wettle: I'm picturing a gigantic, cosmic asshole. Heads.

Dr. Dan: Tails. I don't want a redux of your conversation with McInnis.

<Dr. Wettle flips the coin. It lands tails. Dr. Lang opens up one of her bishops to attack.>

Dr. Wettle: My…? Is that on file somehow?

Dr. Dan: Don't worry about it.

<Dr. Dan moves one of his knights.>

Dr. Wettle: Tails. Surely you've looked into my case. You know the details. You have to have some theories.

<Dr. Wettle flips the coin. It lands on his head. Dr. Dan stands up, and examines it.>

Dr. Dan: It's heads. No, nothing in the database quite fits it. Luck in all its manifestations is a flighty thing. It doesn't stick around. Certainly not like glue, the way it does with you. And it's not supposed to be so responsive. Fuck.

<Dr. Lang has taken Dr. Dan's knight.>

Dr. Dan: I thought lying would work.

Dr. Wettle: Nope. Heads. Anyway, the universe hasn't responded to me since the first time.

Dr. Dan: Tails. It responds to you every second of every day. It shapes reality around you. Negatively, sure, but that sort of attention is truly rare.

<Dr. Dan takes one of Dr. Lang's pawns. The coin lands tails.>

Dr. Wettle: Phil gets it.

Dr. Dan: Yeah, Phil…

<Dr. Dan's eyes narrow.>

Dr. Dan: Phil does get it. You're right. Heads.

Dr. Wettle: Tails. I don't like it when it sounds like you've figured something out.

<Dr. Lang moves her queen. The coin lands heads.>

Dr. Dan: Well, it can't be the same thing. Odds are that 5056 is some weird clump of Unyielding or Uncontained that glommed onto him in the Breach. You'd had your ceiling demon for decades before that happened.

Dr. Wettle: Wait. You think the mirror monster is what?

<Dr. Dan glances at him.>

Dr. Dan: The thing you prayed to, it operates more like… a backend to the universal code. You're tapped into something in reality's psyche. The yes and no states, I and O, revolve around you. You flip creation's bits.

Dr. Wettle: You're making walking into doors and tripping on banana peels sound way too much like sex.

<Dr. Dan does not seem to have heard this.>

Dr. Dan: I wonder… could it be that simple?

Dr. Wettle: Could what be what simple? How simple? Whatever?

Dr. Dan: The Breach blew them up very sloppily, and they split apart into seven pieces each, plus an inhabitation in the Breach itself. Avatars and an over-arch. Seven sons and the Holy Ghost. What if the first split was just as messy?

Dr. Wettle: The first split of what?

<Dr. Dan's eyes are wide as he focuses on Dr. Wettle again.>

Dr. Dan: Willie, I think you talked to the cycle.

<Dr. Wettle nods wearily.>

Dr. Wettle: Would explain why it's always that time of the month for me. Heads.

Dr. Dan: Heads.

Dr. Dan: Anna's way better at this than I am. She gets suspicious if we end at anything better than a stalemate.

Snapshot — 7:45 PM

Honestly, we should all be categorized as anomalies already because of the whole 'carrying around anachronistic fragments of a once-dead half-god' thing.

A majority of the Task Force members already are so classified, though for different reasons.

Which is odd on its own. Four out of seven of us are living cross-tests. Six if you count Amelia being married to Phil, and me having experienced so many anomalies before I joined up. Only Allan is relatively free of it. Well, and Noè.

It's probably worth looking into interactions between the two aspects in each case.

I'm not sure I buy the idea that Willie prayed to the cycle. He doesn't live life in a gyre. He's doing donuts in an icy parking lot.

Maybe that's another, heretofore unexplained aspect of the system.

Maybe. The Uncontained, the Unyielding, and the Unlucky. Unhappy. Unattractive.

Focus, sir.

Snapshot — 7:47 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6721

SCP-6721 is Dr. Rozalie Astrauskas, SCP Foundation thaumaturge with a speciality in discerning and analyzing field emissions ("auramancy").

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Roz has been progressively unlocking more and more of her powers as time goes on. She's able to tell who isn't from baseline reality, who is a thaumaturge, who's got an unusual connection to the noösphere; we think she might even be starting to notice something in common between the members of Sampi-5243, and the victims of the Breach. She doesn't like to do that, though, because "I can't shake the feeling that it's noticing me back."

The giftschreiber realized she could tell who was spoofing another person's identity — we call practitioners of this art geistschreiber, or 'ghostwriters' — so they imprisoned her during their takeover of Area-21 and wholesale replacement of its staff. She got the chance for some closure when the ringleader of that coup was captured during Operation BURNOUT; their confrontation is transcribed below.

FILE: rozrevenge.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 26 January 2024

FONDS: R. Astrauskas, Senior Researcher, Applied Occultism Section, Site-43

Dr. Astrauskas.

<Julia Kijek,_ geistschreiber, _is sitting in a wheelchair in her detention chamber. Her body is covered in bruises. Dr. Astrauskas enters, hopping on the balls of her feet.>

Dr. Astrauskas: Feeling better?

Dr. Astrauskas: Thought you might like a sympathetic ear.

Kijek: And that's you?

<Kijek winces as she speaks; her jaw moves awkwardly.>

Dr. Astrauskas: I know what it's like to be surrounded by your enemies.

Kijek: We should have killed you.

Dr. Astrauskas: Why didn't you?

Kijek: Everyone gets the chance to join. That's the closest thing we have to a rule.

<Dr. Astrauskas attempts a look of empathy.>

Dr. Astrauskas: Sorry we let you down.

Kijek: Very funny.

Dr. Astrauskas: Julia, why did you kill everybody at 21?

Kijek: Because they were our enemies.

Dr. Astrauskas: Did you give them the chance to join?

<Kijek shakes her head, very slightly. A cracking sound is heard.>

Kijek: They weren't individuals. Not like you and Lillihammer. They were just the inner workings of the machine.

Dr. Astrauskas: The Foundation?

Kijek: That's right.

Dr. Astrauskas: The Foundation isn't taking a side in this fight. We want the entire thing to stop.

Kijek: Can you be that naïve?

<Kijek shifts in her chair, clutching at her ribs in obvious pain as she does so.>

Kijek: The Overseers picked their side before you were born. You'll see soon enough.

Dr. Astrauskas: So the attacks are going to get worse?

Kijek: And worse, and worse, and much, much worse. Until we have him back.

Dr. Astrauskas: Who?

Kijek: If they haven't told you, if they don't trust you enough, maybe there's hope for you yet.

Snapshot — 7:49 PM

Speaking of the Unnameables and Roz…

Dr. Astrauskas' aura reading of the Brothers?

Yeah. It's been a few weeks. I can look at that again without having a panic attack. I hope. Bring it up.

Snapshot — 7:49 PM

Auramantic Assessment:

SCP-001

Prepared by Dr. Rozálie Astrauskas, Site-43

Attached below is a telesomnic impression of my aurascopic reading of SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING on 15 September 2024, alongside my diagrammatic interpretation of the elements visible therein and their approximate configurations.

Telesomnic representation of subject -A's field emissions (top) and expert interpretation (bottom).

Telesomnic representation of subject -B's field emissions (top) and expert interpretation (bottom).

I am unable to account for, or explain, these results.

Snapshot — 7:50 PM

Nope. Nope. I was wrong. Not ready to think about that. Shut it down.

Yes sir.

Remind me that they're just dudes. Petty dudes who fit in small cages. The other flagged argument.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 7:51 PM

FILE: unhappy.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 14 July 2018

FONDS: Y. Ong, Senior Researcher, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43

<SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING are seated, facing each other. Dr. Yu Ong of Archives and Revision sits between them, taking notes.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Oh, please. The Zemene Mesafint is a black mark on your record, and you know it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I think you fundamentally understand what happened.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Figurehead emperors? That's not order. Barely-controlled chaos is still chaos. It was a tally mark on my side.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Do you know what Zemene Mesafint means?

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Era of the Princes. Division. Discord. Chaos.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Era of Judges. They were a stabilizing force. Single authorities are chaotic by nature. Humans are too unruly to rule themselves. Diffuse the power, ensure it lasts.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Nonsense. You had a vizier in every court, trying to convince them to unite—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: They were poisoning the princes' ears against unity.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Nonsense!

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: And what were you doing? Ushering in true capitalism.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: That's a misunderstanding, and you know it.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: The entire panoply of the worldwide systems of commerce we know today—

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: —I was abolishing SLAVERY!

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: They did it themselves. You wasted your breath.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: They did NOT do it themselves! You think these creatures would ever willingly stab themselves in the pocketbook, over the rights of people they didn't consider to be people?!

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Of course not. They did it for economic reasons, and realpolitik. I had already convinced the British to use antislavery as a cudgel against the Americans, and oh, how it took them down a peg!

<SCP_001_UNCONTAINED stands up. The chamber door opens, and Dr. Ong's security escort enter the room.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: That was NOT you. The revolution was MINE!

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I brought down Napoleon, and raised up Britannia. I created the oppressor, and when the colonials railed against it, ensured they would become that which they fought. Baked it into their founding documents. Their iconography. You think you're the only one who can revolt? When a stronger state is possible, the weaker must fall!

Dr. Ong: Gentlemen—

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You want to talk about the fall of empires? Spain! Portugal! The Mughals! I burned them from the inside-out!

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You're taking credit for the progression of history. You and I both know you didn't make a difference.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: I had to make a difference! Because a difference was already made! It would have gone very differently this time—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: It would not, because for all your flapping about, there is a STRUCTURE which—

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: TO BLAZES WITH YOUR STRUCTURE!

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING stands up, clenching its hands into fists.>

Dr. Ong: Gentlemen—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I struck down gods while you were playing in the sand, brother.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You did no such thing.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Dei Filius. I created a cannon of canon, and manifested the hammer of man.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: Tactical Theology—

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: Mine! All of it, mine! A rational disease to kill the irrational!

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: You murder ideas while I murder the Earth! Six of six, brother. Six of six. And then no more. No more anything.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You tried that already with Oppenheimer. And it only played into my hands.

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THE WAR!

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING spits in SCP-001-UNCONTAINED's face.>

Dr. Ong: Guards!

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: DON'T TALK TO ME ABOUT THE WAR! YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!

<Dr. Ong's escort pry SCP-001-UNCONTAINED and SCP-001-UNYIELDING away from each other.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: ASK HIM! ASK HIM WHAT HE DID!

<One of the escorts directs SCP-001-UNCONTAINED to the now open chamber door. SCP-001-UNCONTAINED points at SCP-001-UNYIELDING again, and directs its shouting at Dr. Ong.>

SCP-001-UNCONTAINED: ASK HIM WHERE HE WAS IN 1941!

<SCP-001-UNYIELDING sits back down, smoothing out its detention uniform.>

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: I was working logistics. Someone always has to work logistics.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: You can do it well, or you can do it badly. The suffering is so much greater, when you do it badly. And the Germans aren't always so efficient as they say.

SCP-001-UNYIELDING: What?

Snapshot — 7:54 PM

And the Council wanted to play nice with them.

The Council has killed more sapient beings than Nazi Germany.

Thanks for that very uplifting, definitely non-critical-of-the-Council statement.

You're welcome. Cross-references?

Yeah.

Accessing…

Snapshot — 7:56 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6858

SCP-6858 is a comatose specimen of loup-garou, a werewolf-like creature from French-Canadian folklore. This particular specimen is believed by the Occult and Supernatural Activities Taskforce of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to be Raynard Nathan Watts, first Chief Superintendent of OSAT. This belief has not been corroborated. SCP-6858 has nevertheless been ceded to OSAT custody.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: asc-pigsticking.txt

TYPE: Transcribed interview

DATE: 28 November 2019

FONDS: All-Sections Chief, Site-43

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: OSAT have been trying to reopen diplomatic relations with us for years. After an initial attempt with Allan failed, the new chief super tried again with the ASC. They just don't learn.

<The All-Sections Chief meets Chief Superintendent Couch outside a glassed detention chamber in OSAT Station 11, Ottawa. SCP-6858 is visible within, breathing low. Its fur is freshly groomed.>

Sergeant Couch: Thank you for coming.

All-Sections Chief: Sergeant.

Sergeant Couch: I'm sorry the Director feels as he does. I still think there's a lot we can do to help each other.

All-Sections Chief: Has that ever been the case before?

<Sergeant Couch places a hand on the glass, watching the creature's chest rise and fall.>

Sergeant Couch: This opposition is so artificial. Scout put up a wall, and it's kept like minds apart to the detriment of all.

All-Sections Chief: OSAT has, for its entire existence, been an oppositional force to the Foundation.

Sergeant Couch: No. We've been a model for what your priorities should be.

Sergeant Couch: My organization values continuity over change. Hierarchy over anarchy. Society over the whims of the individual. My grandfather tried to protect his country, but he had fewer resources than a man who only wanted to protect his boyfriend, and that sealed his fate.

All-Sections Chief: And have you managed to un-seal it yet?

<Sergeant Couch glances at them, brow raised.>

All-Sections Chief: We know you believe this subject to be Watts.

Sergeant Couch: I can't believe you let him suffer like that for so long.

All-Sections Chief: What happened to valourizing the many over the individual?

<Sergeant Couch's tone hardens.>

Sergeant Couch: You took away his dignity, turned him into a shade of himself, and locked him away from his family and his friends. That's a crime by anyone's standards. It diminishes us all.

<The All-Sections Chief gestures at Sergeant Couch's regalia.>

All-Sections Chief: You wear that uniform, and say these things without a hint of irony?

Sergeant Couch: Foster program or industrial school?

All-Sections Chief: The latter.

Sergeant Couch: And now you're a lawyer, and a deputy Site Director. Seems like your kidnappers had a good influence.

All-Sections Chief: They taught me valuable lessons about people like you, ma'am. The only thing you fear more than complete difference is half-difference.

Sergeant Couch: Meaning?

All-Sections Chief: You're terrified that you wouldn't be able to compete on a level playing field with the other. That's why you never play a fair game. That's why you told my people they needed to farm the land, but make sure they couldn't own tractors, made up nonsense about having to progress through the historical stages of agriculture to really internalize its ethic, when really you just couldn't countenance the idea of them beating you to market. That's why you had your agents lock us on the land. Even your god was jealous of ours, and made you take away our sacred implements. You're cowards, at the base of it.

Sergeant Couch: I'm not afraid of you. You're the past.

All-Sections Chief: History is continuity and change, Sergeant. And I think you'll find no edifice is forever unyielding against the latter.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: They stole one of my lines there.

I'm pleased about it.

Snapshot — 7:59 PM

Jay Everwood of the GoI Research Group thinks OSAT is a tool of the Unyielding.

Didn't PoI-001 employ them in 1969 to invade the Site?

Yeah, but Crocker is changeable. She might be nominally a giftschreiber bigwig, and an Insurgency mucky-muck to boot, but she's pretty fascist too.

Perhaps fascism isn't merely an aspect of SCP-001-UNYIELDING.

Or maybe life isn't as uncomplicated as schemas make it out to be.

Snapshot — 8:00 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-6965

SCP-6965 is the purportedly memetic work of the Guthrie family of musicians, most notably Woody, Arlo and Sara Lee. Each is an accomplished cryptomancer, though apparently unaligned with either the giftschreiber or schriftsteller and disinterested in allying with Thilo Zwist or the SCP Foundation.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

PoI-6965-2, Arlo Davy Guthrie.

FILE: theysay.txt

TYPE: Transcribed lyrics

DATE: 26 January 2023

FONDS: A.D. Guthrie W.W. Guthrie

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I had a conversation about fascism with Arlo Guthrie while I was working on the 6965 file. He sent me a recording he'd made of an unpublished song of his dad's the next day. S&C insisted nobody be allowed to listen to it, so we had an .aic transcribe the lyrics. I wonder what effect it would have on me, if any…

They Say

They say the war's a-comin' They say the lines are set They say it's us or them but son I see no difference yet

A thousand years of cryin' and A million children dead A billion bodies pilin' high Just try to wrap your head Around the thought that all this rot Could spring from random chance Or that the fate of all mankind's Some kind of formal dance

They say the fight's a brewin' And you've got to pick a side But all's I think we're doin' Is collective suicide

Don't let them tell you, sonny That there's no more turnin' back That option A and option B Both end in fade to black There's nothin' quite so simple As they'd like you to believe It's not a case of us and them It's them who ought to leave

They say the end's a-comin' But I wouldn't hold my breath As long as we're still breathin' We can sing them fools to death They say there's nothin' doin' And you can't pick fights with fate But maybe me and you can Take the high road over hate They say the wheel's a-turnin' And it's gonna pass us by Let's leave 'em in the dust instead What can it hurt to try?

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: They're going to help us in the end. By 'us', I mean whoever does the right thing.

We just need to figure out what that is.

And who we have to become in order to do it.

Snapshot — 8:04 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-7056

SCP-7056 is the official seal of Lake Huron Research and Containment Site-43, consisting of a standard trifold 'shield', the silhouette of Lake Huron, and an angled background matching the stripes of the Philadelphia Pride Flag. It predates said flag by seventy-four years, and produces strong feelings of association and community solidarity in Site-43 staff, to the point where no other iconography representing the facility is deemed authentic. The cause of these anomalous features is unknown.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

SCP-7056.

FILE: sigillihammer.txt

TYPE: Transcribed dialogue

DATE: 24 February 2023

FONDS: L.S. Lillihammer, Chair Emeritus, Memetics and Countermemetics Section, Site-43 H.R. Blank, Chair, Archives and Revision Section, Site-43

<Dr. Lillihammer is scratching the paint finish of an instance of SCP-7056 on the wall in Habitation and Sustenance with her fingernail. Dr. Blank is attempting not to watch.>

Dr. Lillihammer: So, it's obviously a temporal anomaly.

Dr. Blank: Not necessarily. The Philly Pride Flag could have been based on our emblem, instead of the other way around.

Dr. Lillihammer: Do you believe that?

Dr. Blank: No. But it's easier to imagine than Vivian having access to future knowledge.

<Dr. Lillihammer runs her finger along the rim of the seal's outer shield.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Let's do a thought experiment on that premise anyway. Why would anyone go to such extreme lengths to create this overpowering identifier?

Dr. Blank: Because they thought we would need it, obviously.

Dr. Lillihammer: What for?

Dr. Blank: Group cohesion. Our own personal mini-Frontispiece.

<Dr. Lillihammer nods.>

Dr. Lillihammer: It has to be connected to the overall struggle. The one Scout and the rest of us have in common.

Dr. Blank: You're making a lot of declaratives today. I'm not sure they're all supported by the evidence.

Dr. Lillihammer: Somebody altered the noösphere to make this thing. Trust me, I saw it. It's like a beacon in there. A rallying flag. If the Frontispiece winked out, Site-43 would still be carrying the torch.

Dr. Blank: Perhaps we're meant to be the backup, if the rest of the Foundation falls.

Dr. Lillihammer: Or perhaps we're meant to replace the Foundation.

<Dr. Blank looks back and forth down the hall, which is empty of traffic.>

Dr. Blank: That's a dangerous line of thought.

Dr. Lillihammer: I'm just saying, maybe the Guthries have it right. Maybe the sides don't matter. Maybe we're meant to sail a centre course.

Dr. Blank: We wouldn't make very good centrists.

Dr. Lillihammer: Thank god. But that's not what I mean. The giftschreiber and schriftsteller aren't left and right, freedom and slavery. They're just two flavours of tyranny: individual and collective. That should always have been obvious from the fact that they both have figureheads.

Dr. Blank: And we don't?

Dr. Lillihammer: Do we? Our local leaders lead from the middle.

Dr. Blank: Hmm.

<Dr. Blank considers the seal.>

Dr. Blank: Maybe you're right. We don't have a hierarchy, or at least not one that matters.

<Dr. Lillihammer pats the outline of Lake Huron gently.>

Dr. Lillihammer: We have this, instead.

Dr. Blank: A symbol.

Dr. Lillihammer: An ideal. Something not imposed, but shared.

Dr. Blank: Except it was imposed. Somebody put it there. Somebody with a lot of power focused on their person.

<Dr. Lillihammer shrugs.>

Dr. Lillihammer: Well, you know what they say. Fake it 'til you make it.

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: Alternatively, perhaps the conditions resulting in this anomaly haven't happened yet. Make it 'til you fake it?

Snapshot — 8:07 PM

I don't think I'll include this transcript.

Probably a good idea?

The core ideas are useful, however. And they carry implications! The Site-43 Seal is the template for all other facility icons.

I wonder what the memetic consequences of that might be. Could be worth having Lillian look into it.

I imagine it will be difficult to gain approval for such an investigation.

Luckily, as I already said…

Dr. Lillihammer. Right, right.

Research is turning up some really disturbing stuff.

Snapshot — 8:07 PM

Addendum XXXX-1, Phenomenological Overview: SCP-XXXX was discovered by routine .aic cross-referencing of eyewitness reports to violent crimes. Under the name "Andrew Mercier," SCP-XXXX was reported present at or located immediately adjacent to nine separate cases of violent death, each event involving multiple victims. A log of these events is appended below.

Date

Location

Victims

12/30/2023

Kline, Mississippi

A family of four, murdered

02/04/2024

Brandon, Missouri

Three bystanders at a riot, trampled

02/18/2024

Fort Worth, Texas

Four drug dealers and two police officers at a drug seizure raid, shot

04/09/2024

Ogden, Utah

Eighteen people on one apartment building floor, murdered

04/09/2024

Ogden, Utah

Seven police officers within a precinct headquarters, murdered

04/10/2024

Ogden, Utah

Three doctors at a hospital, murdered

05/17/2024

Logan, Utah

Eight persons in a house fire, asphyxiated

06/01/2024

Rayner, Utah

Rayner, Utah, [REDACTED]

07/14/2024

Rock Springs, Wyoming

Nine drivers at an interstate accident, killed

07/28/2024

Mankato, Minnesota

Twelve drug users, fatally overdosed

Despite SCP-XXXX's recorded presence at each event, which should have set off red flags in law enforcement computer systems, it was only taken into police custody after the first incident in Ogden, Utah. Though it was transferred to the Ogden Regional Medical Center after the apparent massacre at the precinct headquarters, it was not returned to custody after the deaths of the three doctors and was able to continue its apparent migration through the central United States.

Snapshot — 8:09 PM

Wow. How much security is Kuroki putting on this guy?

Tons.

Good. If he's a bellwether for murder, he shouldn't be here. We're not cleared for new Keters.

We're on high alert.

Stay safe.

You too.

She worries about you.

Yeah?

She is often checking on your location, or Dr. Bradbury's.

That's nice to hear, even if it feels like you shouldn't be telling me.

Breaking a small confidence for larger gain is simple math.

Try not to slip into "I, Robot" territory on the record, okay?

To which story bearing that name do you refer? My tone-reading algorithm suggests the original.

Skynet is here, and she's emotionally intelligent.

Thank you, sir!

Any time. Hey, funny thought. I added 7243 to my list of possibles a while back. Major long shot, but I want to see what I wrote again.

Why not? You're pulling an all-nighter already, apparently!

Accessing…

Snapshot — 8:10 PM

Cross-Reference, SCP-7243

SCP-7243 is a deviation in the pattern of anomaly formation in Timeline 00000000000000000000000000000000, Canonical Bundle OG43 Alpha-Blank, as compared to the local norm. This deviation has been traced to the advent of Homo sapiens sapiens on the Earth, with associated Hume, Akiva, and Daumal irregularities noted in many cases. No cause for these discrepancies has been found.

Connection to SCP-001: See below.

FILE: dougallbeni.txt

TYPE: Transcribed dialogue

DATE: 28 April 2000

FONDS: D. Deering, Chief Emeritus, Applied Occultism Section, Site-43 N. Nascimbeni, Chief Emeritus, Janitorial and Maintenance Section, Site-43

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: I'm confident the name of our timeline is a coincidence, but pretending otherwise would be great for my résumé.

I don't claim to understand what is supposed to be so aberrant about the anomalies in baseline reality — and really, from our perspective, isn't it everyone else who's being weird? — but I know the question's been banging around conferences and private conversations among experts for decades. One such conversation, between the late Noè Nascimbeni and the late Dougall Deering, is excerpted below.

Nobody gets out of life alive, but even death doesn't get you out of history.

<Dr. Deering enters Chief Nascimbeni's office. The latter is sitting behind his desk, oiling a complex piece of machinery on a stack of newsprint.>

Dr. Deering: I need to talk to you about the equipment.

Chief Nascimbeni: Okay.

Dr. Deering: I need something new.

Chief Nascimbeni: Okay. I'll install something new. Anything else?

Chief Nascimbeni: Old technician joke.

Dr. Deering: Hence the source.