"You know what? Fuck Faeries. I outta give them a whack with an iron bat if they don't shut up about about being oppressed." - Richard Chappell (Elogee FishTruck)
- Someone Darke
- Original 3440
- Masks, Monsters and Merchants
- Clown Town
- Beware the Jabberwock My Son
- We want our tails back!
- Potato rewrite
- Thank You For Smoking
- Elysium
- 001 - Of Grave Importance
- A Room With A View
- r/choosingbillionaires
- Heart of a Showman
- Cerber Submission
In the room over his London shop, Darke methodically counted the copper, silver and most especially the gold coins that had come in during the day. The feel of the cold and beautiful metal in his long, spidery fingers was always comforting to him. The way they glistered in the flickering candlelight was calming, captivating, even mesmerizing. On more than one occasion, his associates had commented that he valued money as an ends itself, and not for what it could buy. Darke seldom spent money on anything other than assets to earn more money. He liked his coffers kept full, and was loathed to part with his precious coins for mere frivolities. This made him a keen businessman, if not the best person to spend a Saturday evening with.
His preference for profits over people, however, meant that he wasn't always the best of salesmen, in spite of his business acumen. Fortunately, he didn't need to be.
The wares he peddled in sold themselves.
His coin counting was disturbed by a heavy, demanding knock at the downstairs door. After-hour calls were not uncommon for an apothecary, the need for their goods often arising at sudden and unpredictable times. Darke scowled at the interruption, but continued counting, trusting his granddaughter to deal with the late customer.
Sure enough, he heard her open the door and her muffled voice speaking with what he guessed was a middle-aged man. He couldn't make out what they were saying, but his granddaughter's normally confident and assertive tone dropped to a meek whimper after only a few words from the man. Her footsteps scurried up the stairs and she gently knocked at his chamber door.
“Who is it, Isidora?" he asked. She opened the door a crack and peaked her head in, her face pale and frightened.
“He, ah, he says he’s with the Inquisitor’s office, Grandsire,” she muttered.
Darke groaned and glanced down at his pile of coins, realizing that he may need to part with some of it after all.
“Nothing to worry about, my dear. He’s nothing the two of us can’t deal with,” he assured her as he rose to his full height of six and a half feet.
"I know. I know. You're right. It's just, I…" she trailed off, an expression of grim horror at the memory of witches and heretics being burned alive in front of her, their screams rising above the roar of the flames, the acrid smoke and stench of burnt flesh assaulting her eyes, nose, and throat.
Darke placed his hand on her shoulder and gave her a reassuring smile.
“We’ll get rid of him. Don’t worry,” he instructed. She nodded trustingly, and followed him down the stairs.
Still waiting by the door was the Inquisitor. He was well-dressed in a tailored doublet and fur cloak, and yet carried no extra weight, suggesting that whatever work he did for the Inquisition kept him fairly active. At least one scabbarded dagger hung off his belt, but the weapon that really caught Darke's attention was the silver cross around the man's neck; it radiated with holy vital energy, a perfect locus for the man’s unshakable faith.
This might prove harder than Darke had hoped.
“Welcome, good sir. How may I assist you this evening?” he asked with a polite bow.
"I'm looking for the owner of this establishment," the Inquisitor said, holding up a piece of parchment. "A Guillaume, or a Percival, or a… someone Darke."
"I'm someone Darke," Darke smiled. "And this is my Granddaughter, Isidora. Might we have your name, sir?”
“Blodwell will do,” he replied, stuffing the parchment back into his cloak.
“Ah, a fellow bearer of an ominous surname. How delightful. And why is it that Mr. Blodwell needs to speak with someone Darke at such a late hour?”
“I'm here to search the premises for contraband," he announced as he set straight to work rummaging through shelves, drawers, and chests, caring nothing for any damage or inconvenience he might be causing them.
The two Darkes exchanged irritated glances with each other at the Inquisitor’s intrusion.
“Might we ask what reason you have to search our shop, good sir?” Isidora asked in a tone of poorly restrained irritation.
“You know bloody well you may not,” he replied harshly. “I am, however, obligated to give you a single chance to confess to any heresy or witchcraft before I commence interrogations. Confess and you have my word as a Christian that your lives will be spared.”
“Your word as a Christian means -” Isidora began, before Darke slapped his hand over her mouth.
“What my granddaughter means is that we have done nothing to warrant whatever accusations may have been levied against us,” he protested. “Surely you’re aware that I am the Consulting Alchemist to the Royal Family?”
Blodwell only scoffed at the appeal to a secular authority.
“And I am the servant of the Almighty God,” he reminded him. “I’m perfectly aware of your connections, Darke; they’re no doubt how you’ve managed to evade justice for so long. Unlike some of my colleagues, you’ll find that no amount of vile gold, political clout, or black magic will keep me from carrying out Our Lord’s will.”
“You forgot mercy or human decency,” Isidora mumbled. It was then that Blodwell stopped his search, glaring at her with utter contempt.
“I know a witch when I see one,” he snarled, taking slow, deliberate strides towards her. “Unmarried, childless, working as a healer to accumulate the knowledge and power she covets, so resentful of the place of submission God assigned her that she'd make a deal with the Devil himself to escape her rightful place."
He was standing right in front of her now, looking down at her with gritted teeth, as if daring her to defy him further so that he could put her in her place.
She wanted to do it. The whole reason she had become a witch was so that she wouldn’t have to live in constant fear of men like Blodwell, so that she could do what she wanted and not what she was told, so that she could take vengeance on anyone who would try to control her…
But she couldn’t. The strength and purity of the vital energy radiating off of Blodwell made it clear that he was sincere in his piety, and just being so close burned her almost as badly as being sprinkled in holy water. His faith, no matter how warped or misplaced it was, protected him from her witchcraft.
She was no match for him physically either, so, shamefully, she bowed her head and stepped back as far from him as she could.
“Sir, please, I am a healer, but nothing more," she whispered softly. "I have committed no crimes, either against The Lord or my fellow Christians. Indeed, I have eased much dis-ease and even saved lives, and could save many more lives if spared from the blaze, perhaps even a life of one dear to you."
“Free of charge, of course,” Darke added. Bloodwell just shook his head in disdain.
“The World is as God has willed it, and I do not seek to upend His designs,” he proclaimed. “If God ordains pestilence, violence, famine, and death, then so be it. I will have none of your foul elixirs to defy The Lord, nor will anyone else after this night."
He turned to look over the front room once again, sighing when he saw that there was nothing he had not already been through.
“You have a backroom? Or some other place where you hoard all your blasphemous charms and potions? Show me now, or you will not live long enough to recant your heresy.”
He drew his dagger now, and held it out towards them threateningly. Its handle was of an unnaturally dark wood, and at first glance, the blade looked to have been forged of damascene steel. However, it glistened just a little too much in the dim light, and the fluid lines throughout the blade actually flowed like water.
“Sorcery!” Isidora screamed, outraged by the blatant hypocrisy, no doubt something he had pocketed from a previous victim. Blodwell backhanded her with his free hand, while raising the tip of the blade to Darke's throat with the other before he had a chance to retaliate.
“Your hoard, now!” Blodwell ordered. Darke raised his hands up and nodded.
“There’s a hidden trapdoor to the cellar in the storage room,” he confessed. “Isidora has the keys.”
“Show me,” Blodwell spat at her. “Any trickery, and I’ll impale the devil right through his black heart.”
Isidora glanced up at her Grandsire, who nodded as much as he could with a knife at this throat. Grabbing a candlestick, she rushed to the storage room, with Blodwell pushing Darke in front of him and holding the dagger to his back whilst grabbing his collar. Isidora pulled back the oriental rug in one swift motion, revealing a three-foot by three-foot door built directly into the floor. The lock was placed into a shallow divet that would have been imperceptible if one had been standing atop the thick rug. She unlocked the door and tossed it open, revealing a short wooden staircase going down to the cellar.
“You first, but don’t leave my sight,” Blodwell ordered. Isidora nodded and made her way down the stairs, lifting her skirt with one hand and holding the candle in the other, with Darke and Blodwell only a few steps behind.
The entirety of the cellar had been lined with stone. There was a long table and chair at one end, but otherwise the cellar was furnished in large chests, caged bookshelves, and locked cabinets, none of which looked eager to give up their secrets.
“You have the keys for all of this as well, I take it?” Bloodwell asked.
“I do,” Isidora said matter-of-factly, an inexplicable cheerfulness returning to her voice. “But I won’t be opening any of it for you, you bloodthirsty brute.”
Darke clenched his right fist, and the trap door above them slammed shut.
Blodwell spun around in a panic, racing up the steps and banging on the door, trying to open it again.
"Thank you ever so much for coming down to our cellar," Isidora smirked. "I don't think we could have managed to have killed you without you making a fuss, and it would have been terribly rude to have disturbed our neighbors with the sounds of your screams at this hour. That's why we went to the courtesy of making sure this cellar is soundproof."
Bloodwell turned and snarled at them in unabashed hatred and rage.
“You knaves think you have me beat? That an old man and a wretched girl can best a man of God with your unholy magic?”
He lunged at Darke, plunging his dagger straight into his heart, as he had promised.
Darke just smiled smugly at him, giving no sign that he was even hurt. When Blodwell removed the blade, there was no blood, only a heavy black miasma that oozed forth and slowly fell to the ground like a cold fog.
“Devil!” Blodwell cried, stumbling backwards and dropping the blade in his utter dismay. “What are you?”
“Someone… Darke,” he smiled, an aura of fluid black darkness encompassing him as he moved in on his prey.
It had indeed proved prudent that they had soundproofed that cellar, for even if Blodwell’s screams hadn’t been loud enough to wake the neighbors, Isidora’s cackling laughter surely would have been.
“Bring out your dead!”
The grimly familiar cry of the body collector rang throughout the street as he pulled the ever-increasing weight of his cart down the uneven cobblestone road on his rounds.
“Yes, Ferdy, just a moment please,” Isidora called from the shop door before ducking back inside. Ferdy set his cart to rest and waited patiently for what was likely to be his best pickup of the day. The Darkes were some of his best customers, with no small number of people dying in their care and no shortage of coin to pay for his services.
They also tended to be rather chipper than the rest of his clients, which was a pleasant change of pace.
Isidora appeared again in a moment, followed by her Grandsire, with a grown man's body slung over his shoulders.
“Darkey, you got to hire someone to do the heavy lifting for you. You’re getting too old for it,” Ferdy smirked, though not actually offering any assistance of his own. Darke just grunted and let the body fall into the cart while Isidora paid him his fee.
Ferdy eyed the body suspiciously. It didn't look like the man had died of the plague. In fact, he looked to have been in excellent health before his passing, too healthy for the ill-fitting pauper’s garb that he was wearing. Most unsettling of all though was his face: frozen in a rictus grimace of unadulterated terror and agony.
“Ah… what happened with this one Darkey, ’case someone asks?”
“Something beyond even our skill to heal, or even diagnose, I’m afraid,” Darke lamented. "He came seeking our aid last evening, complaining of a sudden onset of some rather vague symptoms, and within barely an hour he started having strange, epileptic fits and expired shortly thereafter. We weren’t even able to get his name.”
"Is that so?" Ferdy asked, eyeing the cold, blue face more closely. "I can't be certain, but I think I might have seen this bloke out and about before. 'Round Saint Paulie's, maybe?"
Isidora shifted her gaze up at Darke, who gave her a reluctant nod, and she slipped a few more gold coins into Ferdy’s palm.
“Ah, no, trick of the light. Terrible shame that, his poor widow and little ones never knowing what happened,” he smiled, flipping the body's face down to prevent anyone else from getting a good look at it. “Don't you worry Darkes, I'll see that this bugger's in a mass grave by sundown."
“Thank you, Ferdy,” Isidora waved him off as he resumed his morose meanderings. She looked back at her Grandsire, who still seemed not entirely satisfied with the transaction.
“It’s not that bad. We got his clothes, his silver cross, his bewitched dagger, and now there’s one less Inquisitor to pester us. What more could you have asked for?” she asked before heading back inside the shop.
Darke lingered a moment longer, staring at the retreating body cart.
“If we had tossed him to the dogs they might have finished him off by now, sparing us the disposal cost and a few days feed,” he muttered, before heading inside as well.
Included page "component:info-ayers" does not exist (create it now)
Special Containment Procedures: All knowledge of SCP-3440 and its point of access must be restricted to personnel with 3440/2 clearance or higher. Any non-Foundation individuals capable of perceiving and accessing SCP-3440's entry point are to be detained, debriefed and amnesticized. Foundation agents embedded in the Civic Opera Building's security staff are to prevent unauthorized access to SCP-3440.
By order of the Ethics Committee, instances of SCP-3440-A are exempt from experimentation. SCP-3440-A1 is the exception to this ruling, and no further attempts to disconnect SCP-3440-A1 from SCP-3440-B are to be made.
As of incident 3440-01, SCP-3440-A1 is to be monitored continuously for the development of new properties, with any changes being reported immediately to the Site Director.
Description: SCP-3440 is a dual-purpose entertainment and embalming facility of anomalous construction and operation located approximately ██ meters beneath the ground floor of the Civic Opera Building in Chicago, Illinois. It appears to have been constructed shortly after the Civic Opera Building itself opened on November 4th, 1929.
SCP-3440 is accessed via an elevator in the basement of the Civic Opera Building. The elevator is protected by a perceptual anomaly that renders it undetectable to human subjects who do not have prior knowledge of SCP-3440's existence. This defence mechanism, combined with additional pretermemetic1 interference, prevented the Foundation from discovering SCP-3440 until being informed of its existence via an untraced phone call in 20██. The informant did not reveal their identity, but it is considered highly probable that they had some association with GoI-233.
The main room of SCP-3440 is a three-story theatre built for an audience capacity of 1,044, with a makeshift mortuary found beneath the stage. Upon recovery, the theatre had suffered extensive damage, both from fire and brute force, with the forensic team believing that a riot or some similar violent altercation having occurred between 12-24 hours prior to their initial arrival.
At the time of recovery, ███ embalmed corpses had been placed in the front rows of SCP-3440. These bodies have been designated SCP-3440-A. Many of these bodies have been identified as missing individuals from the Chicago area over the past 20 years (see Forensic Report 3440 for more information).
Each body has had ten metallic filaments integrated into its nervous system via an unknown form of reinnervation. These filaments connect at the middle fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and temples. Though the alloy the filaments are composed of remains unidentified, metallurgical analysis has shown it to possess anomalous electro-thaumic properties. These filaments appear to serve the purpose of conducting electro-thaumic signals from SCP-3440-B (see below) into the nervous systems of SCP-3440-A, allowing them to be controlled in a manner superficially similar to marionettes.
Although biologically dead, aetheric resonance imaging has shown that [DATA EXPUNGED], speculated to be a form of Sheldon Class soul-trap. If this is the case, instances of SCP-3440-A would remain conscious and aware of bodily sensations.
With a singular exception, the entirety of SCP-3440-A has had their filaments severed at random lengths. Most suffer from posthumous injuries. It has been speculated that when still connected to SCP-3440-B, SCP-3440-A were used in the conflict believed to have occurred shortly before discovery.
Most of the cadavers were found dressed in circus attire, with two individuals in the front row being of particular interest. The first, SCP-3440-A2, is a male whose face has been surgically removed and reattached upside-down. The second, SCP-3440-A3, is a female who had been squeezed into a tight corset with her face covered in white greasepaint and crudely applied violet eye-shadow and lipstick. It is believed that these two individuals were intended to be effigies of PoIs 233-022 and -033, respectively. Both are believed to be prominent members of GoI-233. Investigation into whether any of the other cadavers were made into effigies of specific individuals associated with GoI-233 is ongoing.
To the left-hand side of the stage is a large metal cabinet, designated SCP-3440-B. This cabinet is covered in a copper patina that is anomalously resistant to removal and renders the cabinet impervious to all attempts at internal imaging. All attempts to open it by force have also failed. Despite being opaque to sonar, SCP-3440-B produces continuous ticking, whirring, and clanking noises while active.
One thousand metallic filaments emerge from the top of SCP-3440-B and feed into an elaborate track system built over the stage. The track system contains 100 control bars where instances of SCP-3440-A can be connected via their filaments, allowing them to be moved about the stage.
Attempts to integrate live humans, non-anomalous cadavers or other human analogues into SCP-3440-B have been unsuccessful.
On the front facing side of SCP-3440-B is a control booth, containing ███ black wax cylinders engraved with electro-thaumic waves, designated SCP-3440-C. Placing an instance of SCP-3440-C into a receptacle labeled a 'thaumaphone' will transmit the signals along the filaments and into the bodies of any connected SCP-3440-A instances, causing them to act out a predetermined set of actions, typically some form of vaudeville performance (see Document-3440-01 for a complete list of SCP-3440-C instances and their effects).
SCP-3440-B also contains a stage-facing device labelled an 'aetherscope', capable of recording the electro-thaumic waves of live actions onto a new instance of SCP-3440-C. If a cylinder of SCP-3440-C contains waveforms from multiple individuals, an analogue control panel can be used to determine which set of electro-thaumic waves goes to which instances of SCP-3440-A. This control panel also allows for a large degree of manual control over instances of SCP-3440-A.
Upon initial recovery, there was a single instance of SCP-3440-A connected to SCP-3440-B, and has since been designated SCP-3440-A1. All attempts to disconnect SCP-3440-A1 have resulted in dangerous electro-thaumic discharges by its filaments. Similar discharges occur when researchers attempt to connect other instances of SCP-3440-A.
SCP-3440-A1 is a Caucasian male, estimated to be approximately 40 years of age at the time of death. Subject is 165 cm in height and 45 kg in weight. Subject has dark brown eyes and hair, which at the time of death appeared to have been recently cut into a short finger wave style with a long handlebar moustache. The subject had also been dressed in an elaborate ringmaster's costume.
At the time of recovery there was an instance of SCP-3440-C (designated SCP-3440-C1) loaded into the thaumaphone. Stuck to it was a note which read "To Essie. Enjoy the Show. ~ Icky and Manny."
Activating SCP-3440-B with SCP-3440-C1 placed within the thaumaphone caused SCP-3440-A1 to enact the following performance:
Humdee dum dum dum dum dum…huh? Audible gasp!
(SCP-3440-A1 looks at audience in feigned horror, clasping its hands to its cheeks)
The Essie P! You'll never take me alive!
(pauses and checks its pulse)
Well, I guess that's actually a foregone conclusion at this point, considering, but you'll still never take me! Ah ha ha ha ha!
(while continuously cackling, SCP-3440-A1 runs off and completes a full circuit of the track system before returning to its starting position)
Ah ha ha ha ha ha…huh? Curses and drat! Trapped by my own marvellous machine! How ironic. All right Essie, go on and do your worst! I'll never talk! No sir, not me! My secrets I'll take to the gra…oh, right.
(SCP-3440-A1 twirls its moustache and taps its foot for approximately 5 seconds)
Okay, you know what? I'll talk. But only on the condition that you promise to conduct all your experiments with this contraption on me alone, and leave all those poor souls out there in the audience to rest in peace. None of them could ever hope to match my natural showmanship anyway! We got a deal? Excellent!
(SCP-3440-A1 tilts its head and wags a finger at the audience)
Just remember Essie: if you break your word, Manny will know.
Your first question is probably the most obvious: who am I. Why, I am none other than the infamous Herman P. Fuller, of Herman Fuller's Circus of the Disquieting. The story of my life is a long and nefarious one, so make yourselves comfortable. Sit back, relax, and treat yourselves to some of the blackest cotton candy this side of the River Styx!
(SCP-3440-A1 produces a prop version of SCP-1921-A2 from its coat)
No takers, eh? Ah well, you can't blame a stiff for trying.
(SCP-3440-A1 places the prop back inside its coat while clutching its lapels and rocking on the balls of its feet)
Born to wealth and privilege, as a young man I was inducted into a now defunct secret society (defunct because in an outing gone awry I tossed them to the wolves, literally) and I learned of the Ways between Worlds. I wandered them for many years, accumulated vast amounts of arcane knowledge, and acquired talents few mortal men would dare dream of. But then I committed my first horrendous, unforgivable crime! (whispering) I stole library books.
Not just from any library of course, but The Wanderer's Library. And you know what cruel and unusual punishments the Library imposes on those who break its draconian rules, yes? They make them do an honest day's work! Filing, shelving…customer service! (shudders) Fortunately my various magical endowments make me less transmutable than most, so they had to settle for banning me. I haven't set foot in that or any other library since. They're too socialistic for my bourgeois sensibilities anyway.
But of course, the centrepiece of my life has been the Circus.
(The track system pulls SCP-3440-A1 around the stage in a circle, bobbing up and down in a manner similar to a carousel)
Why a circus? Why not a militia of monsters, or a museum of mutations, or a milieu of mystics? Out of everything I could have done with my considerable resources and abilities, why start a travelling circus? To be perfectly frank, even back then I had no shortage of enemies, and keeping on the move was a matter of some necessity. But I would be lying if I said I didn't love the spotlight.
It started with only a single genuine anomaly, believe it or not. I stole the Fiji Mermaid, and I did what that coward Barnum never had the balls to let me do; I brought it to life! It was an abomination, an insult to God Almighty, but by golly it brought in the crowds! Once I realized what a goldmine the Circus was, I started snatching up as many freaks as I could get my hands on. And what marvels I found; a street urchin with an upside-down face that hid his true talents, a singing sheet of music I gifted with human form, a race of eldritch horrors that just wanted to make people laugh!
(SCP-3440-A1 is set back on the floor and takes off its hat and clutches it to its chest in an exaggerated display of sorrow)
Those were the good old days, I tell you, when the world was still black and white (don't think I don't remember Essie). Freaks, dames, lesser men, they knew their place; or could be reminded of it easily enough. But of course, the world started changing. I did my best to keep the Circus from changing with it, but ever so gradually my beloved family started to squirm more and more under the heel of my boot. I had to start making examples of them, and I made this place so that I could still get some use out of their battered corpses - I mean, so that we could always be together.
But no matter how hard you try to stop it things still change, and boy did I try. I made the Freewheelers, the Pennyfarthings, I even had Prometheus Labs whip me up a couple of goons I could use as 'Slave Catchers' and 'Union Breakers', but it didn't matter. Manny finally crossed a line I couldn't forgive and I was going to kill him, believe me I would have killed him…
(SCP-3440-A1 punches at the air, causing it to spin around several times and twist the filaments. SCP-3440-A1 lifts its feet in the air and begins to spin in the opposite direction as the filaments untwist themselves)
Oh god. Oh Jesus. This is making me dizzy. I would be sick if I wasn't already dead. Where was I? Oh yes, Icky.
Icky, Icky, Icky, Icky, Icky. I took her in when she was nothing, saved her from a family that likely would've subjected her to electroshock treatments and an ice-pick lobotomy to suppress her deviant desires, and how did she repay me? She led an uprising to save the oaf, and stole my top hat while she was at it! Figuratively and literally! Seriously, who steals a top hat? The two of them hucked me into The Darkness Between Dimensions and took my Circus for themselves!
(SCP-3440-A1 tosses its top hat up in the air, and a cane falls out of it. SCP-3440-A1 catches the cane and the hat lands back upon its head)
But I escaped, and have been plotting my revenge for all these years! It didn't quite work out, as you can see. Now I'm strung up for all eternity as the star of my own show; Herman Fuller's Marvellously Macabre Mechanical Marionette Matinee! Poetic justice, or so they tell me, but I can still knock 'em dead!
Hit it boys!
(SCP-3440-A1 stands expectantly with its arms raised for several seconds before dropping them and looking around in apparent agitation)
I said…oh goddamn it, those goody-two-shoes actually unhooked the band too? Okay, no big deal, I can do this A cappella (clears throat).
(during this performance, the track system jerks SCP-3440-A1 around in time with the melody, with SCP-3440-A1 always attempting to move in the opposite direction and often pantomiming to the lyrics)Welcome, Welcome, Ladies and Gents.
To a show I hope you'll never forget
Watch as I dance this avant-garde minuet
As a merry, merry marionette
Oh a merry, merry, marionette
To be held by strings is a very fine thing
In fact, I could dream of nothing finer
Strung from this grand machine of my very own dreams
Truly, I'm an ingenious designer
Though it's quite the feat standing on these feet
But I'd hate for you to think I'm a whiner
I'll stand proud and tall and dance for you all
But golly, what I'd give for a recliner
It ain't easy being a one-man string quartet
My clothes are soaked in a very cold sweat
I'd sell my own mother for one cigarette
That's life as a merry, merry, marionette
Oh, a merry, merry, marionette
My body's stone cold, but I'll never grow old
And I'm spared from the eternal hellfire
I'm safe and sound, though forever earthbound
And displayed for all to admire
My soul I sold, my corpse does what it's told
Controlled by these foul wires
I feel every tug, but my brain's unplugged
My situation is certainly dire
Of my old self, I'm a mere silhouette
They took every penny of my old assets
To be perfectly frank, I'm very upset
To be a merry, merry marionette
Oh, a merry, merry, marionette
Can't you see, this wasn't supposed to be me!
These strings were meant for my underlings!
They would live in fear of their puppeteer!
A living death, unable to draw breath, enslaved to the whim of their King!
But alas, I was foiled, I wasted my toil
I should've got the hell out of town
Instead here I've been hung, mummified and strung
All 'cuz of Icky, the Magic Clown, and the Man Whose Face is Upside-Down.
I've lost a rigged game of Russian Roulette
Forced to perform forever to pay off my debts
If I ever get free, I'll be hellbent
On making them my merry merry marionettes4
Oh, merry merry marionettes
Well Essie, I'm afraid that's the end of your personalized show, but don't worry; there's plenty more acts on those cylinders. Feel free to play them all as many times as you want. Repeatability is crucial for science, I've heard, and I deserve nothing less.
Au Revoir, mon cher Essie.
(SCP-3440-A1 blows the audience a kiss, takes a bow, and then falls limp and is supported only by its metallic filaments)
Testing has shown that when SCP-3440-B is active without an instance of SCP-3440-C loaded into the thaumaphone, SCP-3440-A1 will produce a series of inarticulate screams. These screams vary each time and are not believed to be pre-recorded. This could indicate that SCP-3440-A1 retains some degree of control over its body, though if it is a Sheldon Class soul-trap that should be impossible. During these episodes, there is a noticeable increase in aspect radiation from SCP-3440-A1, as well as an average Hume rating of ██. Research into this phenomenon is ongoing.
Incident 3440-01: On 10/31/20██. At ██:██ PM, when SCP-3440-B was both unpowered and inactive, SCP-3440-A1 was observed to laugh of its own accord for approximately thirty seconds, and then sing "I've Got No Strings" from Disney's Pinnochio. After this event SCP-3440-A1 was unresponsive to questions or stimuli, but it has since often been observed tracking researchers with its eyes while smiling.
As a result of this development, SCP-3440 has had its Object Class upgraded to Euclid.
Site-19 was not an easy place to break in to. Sneaking past the hyperspectral surveillance or electrified rigid mesh fence of the outer perimeter was almost inconceivable, and just charging it was sure to result in death by a hail of bullets, or RPGs if it came to that. A signal jammer on the roof repelled UAVs and meant that telecommunications were limited to a monitored and encrypted hard line. Biometric, RFID, and 3D imaging scanners flanked every potential point of entry to screen out intruders and contraband, and seismic sensors would detect any breach in the walls or windows.
All the juiciest anomalies were kept deep underground in a reinforced concrete bunker. Each cell was closed off by an Access Control Vestibule with heavy steel doors, a multitude of three-tonne blast doors could be dropped to seal off sections in the event of a containment breach, armed guards and security drones were on standby every hour of the day, and every square inch of the place was monitored by both video analysis software and live humans at all times. And if all else failed, there was always the onsite nuke.
There were ways in though; mostly Ways with a capital W. Anomalous means of translocation was the one form of intrusion the Foundation couldn’t reliably defend against. Reality Anchors worked best when calibrated to specific anomalies, and the Foundation just didn’t have the resources to waste Anchors as doorstops when they might not even work.
At a little past 04:00 local time, the Reliquary of Site-19 sat in quiet stillness, devoid of any personnel. Meanwhile, across The Pond and at a far more reasonable local time, a Paratech developer of some renown sat by her computer, using the Foundation’s SCiPNET with forged credentials. The Foundation’s sadly mundane encryption methods never stood a chance against Dark’s electro-thaumic hardware and Chaos Tongue based algorithms. All the automated security for the Reliquary fell idle, the guard’s monitors looped back to the last five minutes of footage, and the live footage rerouted to Dark’s screen. She signalled to her compatriots that the security was taken care of, and nonchalantly sipped her morning tea.
She watched as the door to the Reliquary’s maintenance closet creaked open, revealing a glowing and smoky white portal. It was accompanied by the sound of calliope music – a requirement of the Waymaking device they were using - and Dark was undecided on whether that made it less unsettling or more. The door was breached by the tall, slender form of her great grandsire, clad as always in a hooded black cloak, as befitted an old-fashioned occultist such as himself. Darke’s not quite corporeal form slid quickly and gracefully along the Reliquary floor, barely touching the ground as he slid from one set of shelves to the next. Dark stood ready to guide him should he take a wrong turn, but he moved with unfailing precision towards his goal.
And it wasn’t as if it was hard to spot, either.
There, on the middle shelf, upon a black plastic dais and under a plexiglass case, sat half of a skull; a cranium missing its jaw bone, some teeth, and a good part of the top and back of its head. What bone remained was in a horrid condition as well, like the thing had been bathed in hydrofluoric acid.
Darke effortlessly defeated the stainless-steel lock and flipped open the case. He picked up the skull in his long, nearly arachnodactyly fingers, and held it aloft as if it was Poor Yoric. He gazed into its empty orbits, meditated on it for a moment, then finally sniffed it like it was a fine wine.
“Is it still viable?” Dark whispered.
"It is," Darke nodded, a wicked grin spreading across his face. With his free hand, he pulled out a replica of the skull, placed it back inside the display case and snapped it shut. He then spun around and sped back to the Way, shutting the door behind him as he passed through.
With a few well-typed commands, Dark reactivated the Reliquary's security, returned the live feed to the guard monitors, and logged out.
That evening, the two of them waited impatiently in the lobby of Darke’s Sanctum, each with a small carrying case by their side. Darke’s short, slender, and ever silent Alagaddan servant stood by as well with its head hung low. Its presence was odd enough, as it normally appeared precisely when Darke wanted it for something, but odder still was its restless, almost anxious countenance; a far cry from its usual implacable demeanor.
Iris almost felt sorry for it, as its unease was perfectly understandable. If they were delayed, they risked offending the Hanged King.
The three of them let out a collective sigh of relief when Ruprecht Carter and Skitter Marshall came through the Way to the London Office.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” the younger Marshall apologized, his face looking even more pale and gaunt than usual. The servant handed them each a lucidity pill and a glass of water, to help them keep their minds in the strange dreamscape of Alagadda.
“You didn’t wander into the wrong reality again, did you Skitter?” Iris smirked.
Out of the six Marshalls, Carters, and Dark(e)s that ran MC&D, Skitter arguably led the most adventurous life. A skilled lockpick and Wayfinder with a general knack for finding things that weren’t supposed to be found, Skitter would more often than not be out wandering the planes in search of anything that might either amuse him or enrich his company. As fun and profitable as this was, he did sometimes go home to the wrong MC&D, or stranger yet, wrong versions of him came home to them.
“No, no, no. Not this time. At least, I don’t think so,” he said with a hint of uncertainty. “…Your hand looks a little different from the last time I saw you.”
“It took some damage and needed repairs; that’s it,” Iris assured him.
“Right,” he mumbled. “…First time we met?”
“June 26th, 2014. The Eidolonics gathered you, Robert, and myself in the aftermath of a certain incident that I’m sure Ruprecht would prefer I not bring up to discuss our status as inheritors. They made you breakfast, got Robert a new suit, and scarred me so shitless I imploded one of them with a box cutter.”
“In their defence, they had tried to contact you ahead of time, and I had previously informed you of their nature and appearance,” Darke remarked dryly.
"I was sleep-deprived, and there was a faceless monster at my door; I panicked,” Iris said through her teeth. Skitter couldn’t help but chuckle.
“That’s good enough for me. I’m home,” he said confidently.
“Speaking of your fellow junior, where is young Robert?” Darke asked, casting an annoyed glare in Carter’s director. Ruprecht fidgeted as he cleared his throat nervously.
“Regrettably, Robert will not be joining us this evening,” he reported. Darke just stared at him for several seconds in a state that bordered between rage and confusion.
“Why?” he asked at last.
“Well, he’s an attractive, charismatic, well-to-do young man – no idea where he gets that from – and he simply has better places to be on Halloween than, ah…”
“Than the Court of the Hanged King?” Darke finished his sentence. “Has he any idea what the consequences are for crossing such a Titan?”
“Darke, you said only one of each of us had to go. Amos isn’t going,” Ruprecht defended his heir.
“Amos has the excuse of being an invalid in need of continuous life support!” Darke countered.
“Well after a night out on the town, so is Robert,” Ruprecht quipped. For a second, it looked like Darke was about to storm through the Way to London and drag Robert back by his ear.
"Grandsire, being late will be a far more grievous offense than being short a party member," Iris counselled him softly, guessing his mind. "We should be heading off."
Darke let out a reluctant sigh and nodded.
“Yes. We mustn't be late,” he agreed. He snapped at his servant, who picked up the pair of carrying cases and started heading down the hall. “Everyone follow him and stay together, at least until we get to the Ballroom.”
“Why are there two cases?” Ruprecht asked as the four of them walked down the ominously long and lifeless hall of Darke’s Sanctum. “I thought we only had the one offering.”
“The other is just a change of clothes for me. As an Alagaddan himself, he can take objects to and from the city, and I have no intention of spending the night in whatever ridiculous costume I get stuck with when we step into Alagadda,” Iris explained.
“Life of the party as always, I see,” Ruprecht rolled his eyes. “Hard to believe Robert didn’t want to be here. God forbid you’re seen in public in anything other than those frumpy sweaters of yours.”
“She’s got a nerd chic thing going on; it works,” Skitter claimed.
“Nerd chic? Pfft. She dresses like a penniless, bedraggled fisherman.”
“What is wrong with you? She looks amazing.”
“Do let me know once you work it out gentlemen; my entire sense of self-worth depends on it,” she said with so much sarcasm the rest of Great Britain was forced to ration it for the better part of the next decade. Darke tossed back his head in raucous laughter as the party came upon an ancient-looking wooden door. The servant set the bags down and took out a keyring, using a different key on three separate locks, then turning a dial of Antikytheran Clockwork to calibrate the Way. Pushing the door open and picking up the carrying cases once again, he led the party into the City of Alagadda.
Black, white, red, yellow; all of precisely one shade. These were the only colours that could be seen, and indeed the only colours permitted to exist by Alagadda’s unnatural laws of nature. Constellations of obsidian stars fumed in the xanthous sky above, while the dark sea surrounding the island reflected nothing; or perhaps it reflected nothingness, and no one could tell the difference. The harrowingly baroque architecture of buildings hewn from single hunks of marble bent at impossible angles, disregarding gravity and contorting into confounding configurations. Before them were Penrose stairs and Penrose triangles, impossible cubes and impossible waterfalls, even a beast resembling an L'egsistential Quandary was tethered in the city square, which the Alagaddans cruelly tormented for their amusement.
The city folk themselves were of course in their state of perpetual orgiastic mayhem, a timeless celebration that could have been viewed as an ironic punishment if they stopped long enough to think about. Some were nude, some were in exquisite finery, but all wore Carnival masks. It was forbidden, and thus impossible, not to.
Even the newcomers had been gifted with the requisite attire, as was Alagadda’s custom. Marshall and Carter had each been dressed in embroidered velvet breeches, waistcoats and frock coats, Skitter’s white with a rabbit-eared Arlecchino mask and Ruprecht’s red with a Zanni mask. Ruprecht had also been gifted a tricorner hat with a feather in it, along with a bejeweled cane. Darke wore a Pantalone mask, but his robes were only a slightly more ornate version of his usual dress. Iris, unfortunately, did not get the same courtesy.
“This is just typical,” she bemoaned as she tried to hoist the massive hoop skirt of her golden gown. “There must be ten yards of fabric in this thing and still no bloody pockets!”
"They ruin the silhouette, Luv,” Ruprecht explained as he admired his own reflection in his cane. “Is having nowhere to put your little toys really such a high price to pay for looking presentable for once?”
"Ruprecht, on the exceedingly rare occasion when I want your opinion I will -" her sentence was interrupted by a shriek as she fell to the ground. Iris had many talents, but walking (or even standing) in high heels wasn't one of them. Darke, Skitter, and the servant all rushed to her aid, while Ruprecht just tossed his head back and cackled.
“Iris in a dress and heels? This is already the best party I’ve ever been too,” he laughed.
“Keep him quiet,” Darke growled at Skitter. Skitter nodded obediently and went to keep Ruprecht at bay while Darke held out his robe as a privacy curtain so that the servant could help Iris change into her spare clothes.
“There’s no reason a woman can’t be powerful and still wear high heels,” Ruprecht opined. “Alagadda’s Ambassador wears high heels, and she’s once of the most powerful women in all the Worlds.”
“The Ambassador isn’t a woman, they’re genderless,” Skitter corrected him.
“What? You mean the leadership here has no women but they have a non-binary? How dreadfully modern,” Ruprecht lamented. He saw that Iris was now ready, dressed in Chelsea boots, dress pants, a cashmere turtleneck, and a golden half-mask shaped like feathered wings with a hawk’s beak. “… You look ridiculous.”
“We all look ridiculous,” she grumbled, impotently pulling at her mask. “We’ve wasted enough time. We need to get to the palace before -”
She stopped short, as they were at the palace, though she was quite sure they hadn't been a moment ago. Specifically, they were in the ballroom, where both many-limbed and limbless masked humanoids danced together in a mesmerizingly choreographed ballet, flowing in a Mobius strip that took them along every floor, wall, and ceiling.
“Ok, that is surreal,” Ruprecht remarked, darting his head around the grand golden gala. They were approached by an impish servant, akin to Darke’s, who offered a tray holding a drink tailored to each of their individual tastes. “Is that Vin Mariani? Bloody good show. Here, keep these coming.”
Ruprecht slipped the imp a 1000-franc Swiss banknote (which he kept on his person specifically for offering outrageously over-sized tips) and eagerly took of a swig of his cocaine-laced wine. “This is what made the good old days so good my young friends; we put cocaine in everything!”
“Bloody Hell, the light spectrum of this place won't let me get a reading," Iris muttered as she unsuccessfully tried to scan her hot cocoa with her phone's in-built spectrometer. She gave up and handed it to Darke. “Can you tell if it’s safe?”
“Iris, that is incredibly insulting to our hosts,” Ruprecht reprimanded, handing the imp another 1000-franc note. “Let’s just keep this between us, shall we?”
“Forgive me, but I’m somehow sceptical that an otherworldly, heedlessly hedonic, slave-owning city-state ruled by reality-bending oligarchs would prioritize informed consent,” Iris retorted.
“The drink is free of intoxicants, poisons, or enchantments, and I believe it has been made to your tastes,” Darke assured her, having completed his psychic reading of it. “Ruprecht is correct, however, that our hosts would not dare to harm us, lest we should offend them. It would be best for all of us if you were to keep any and all unfavourable opinions about our hosts to yourself for the remainder of the evening.”
“Yes, you’re right. I apologize. Even with the lucidity pill, I think this place is still messing with my prefrontal cortex a bit,” she nodded as she received the hot cocoa. “We need to present our gift before we join the festivities, don’t we?”
“Indeed we do,” Darke nodded as he took the chalice of condensed miasma from the imp’s tray. “Would you kindly inform your masters that the Deathless Merchant of London and his guests have arrived?”
At the speaking of his title, the ballroom fell silent, with every attendant’s gaze fixed upon them. They had also once again been moved without realizing it, and now stood before the Hanged King himself.
He was a Titan, dwarfing all others who dared to look upon him, draped from head to toe in damask cloth, impish servants crawling over him like insects. Around his neck hung a noose of thorns, forever binding him to his throne. Though his mummified hands were human enough to look at, wriggling tentacles could be seen flicking back and forth underneath his tattered robes, calling his apparent humanoid form into question.
The King shuddered and groaned, imps shaking off as he did so, the entire palace rattling at his anguish. The spectral flames dimmed, and sickly yellow fumes poured forth from his wounds and languidly sunk to the ground at his feet.
The Three Masked Lords emerged from the strange fog, each mask oozing a viscous, corrosive fluid that slowly ate away at their hosts.
There was The White Lord, Wearer of the Diligent Mask.
The Yellow Lord, Wearer of the Odious Mask.
And The Red Lord, Wearer of the Mirthful Mask.
The Black Lord, Wearer of the Anguished Mask, was of course nowhere to be seen, having long since been exiled for crimes none dared to speak of.
Lastly, the tall, lithe form of the Ambassador strutted forth, the only person in all the city to wear no mask. Their face was blank, and their skin smooth and black. It was impossible to tell if they were nude or covered completely in some seamless garment, but their feet stood on tall, narrow heels and their fingers were shaped like long, lethally sharpened nails.
“The Masked Lords, The Ambassador of Alagadda, and The Hanged King all extend a regal welcome to Percival Darke, The Deathless Merchant of London, learned Alchemist and master of the Occult, as well as to his esteemed partners Skitter Marshall and Ruprecht Carter, and most especially to his heir the ingenious, prodigious, and – if she would be so kind to tolerate an old man’s double standards – lovely Iris Dark,” the Red Lord greeted them, glaring down at them with wanton lust, his voice aged yet depraved. Iris was indeed tempted to offer a flippant response, but before these twisted and bizarre old sorcerers, even she felt it was best to hold her tongue and bow.
"We thank you for receiving us; My Lords, Your Eminence, and Your Majesty," Darke bowed graciously. "And I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the absence of Amos Marshall and Robert Carter. As you know, the Elder Marshall suffers from quite debilitating maladies and is in no condition to attend such a lively festival. The Younger Carter has regrettably found himself otherwise engaged with… shall we say youthful indiscretion."
The entire ballroom burst out in mirthful laughter at the pathetic excuse, and they all turned their heads towards the Ambassador to hear their response.
“The Elder Marshall’s absence is excused,” they announced, idly sharpening their nails, making a show of saying nothing more. Ruprecht averted his gaze from the throne in anguish, fearing for Robert’s safety. In a rare moment of solidarity, Iris gently squeezed his hand.
“Enough groveling, Percy,” the Ambassador declared, sensually strutting forward with their hands on their hips. “You promised me a new toy; where is it?”
“Iris, would you kindly do the honours?” Darke asked. She glanced up in confusion for a moment, as that had not been the plan, but saw by the pained looked in his eyes that he had been stricken in his current bowed posture by the will of the Ambassador. The Ambassador stared down at them sadistically, eager to see if the inexperienced Iris would give her a reason to dish out some entertainment.
“Of course, Grandsire,” Iris bowed, taking the box from their servant and slowly opening it to display the contents to their hosts. “What you see before you is all that remains of what the Foundation classified as SCP-096, known colloquially as The Shy Guy. While normally docile, if any sapient being even so much as glanced upon its face, in person or via any form of recording, it would be thrown into an unstoppable rage and hunt the person down to the ends of the Earth and destroy them. The Foundation deemed the threat of mass destruction this creature posed so great that it had to be destroyed. They did so one year ago tonight by exposing it to their most well-known captive, SCP-173, who could break the monster’s otherwise unbreakable bones. Once broken, they filled the creature’s spine with hydrochloric acid, dissolving its marrow and negating its regenerative powers, finally killing it.
“Within this skull fragment, enough marrow remains to catalyze a complete regeneration, if exposed to a sufficient source of occult power. We offer this to you, to do with as you will. Within your great city, the monster’s unremovable mask would render it harmless. Remove it from your city, and you will have an invincible assassin at your disposal, who can track down its prey from any distance, at least within a single world. Regrettably, its ability to reach targets located on other worlds is not known, though you should be able to work that out yourselves with minimal effort.”
The skull vanished from the box and appeared in the Ambassador’s hand, who again held it aloft like they were Hamlet, peering into it with every power in their possession. Iris, Ruprecht, and Skitter all looked worryingly at Darke, who was still held immovable by the Ambassador’s will.
At last, the Ambassador let out a gleeful cackle. They set the skull down and reappeared upon the King's shoulders, grabbing his veil and casting it down with one swift motion. The god-shaped hole that was The Hanged King's face was now visible to all, and it was that most abominable and eldritch of powers that caused the last remnant of SCP-093 to stir. The broken cranium began to mend itself, a new skeleton started to form, rapidly sheathed in new muscle and skin. The Hanged King let out an anguished sob, a cry repeated from the reborn throat of SCP-093.
Ruprecht and Skitter immediately turned around and covered their eyes, while Iris made sure to position herself in front of Darke to keep him safe from the monster's face. They all waited in terror for a moment, until the pregnant silence gave birth to thunderous applause. They carefully turned to look, and there, in the center of the ballroom, was 096. His tall, emaciated body and elongated limbs were unmistakable, even under the extravagant Venetian robes. His was face was completely covered in a beautifully painted full mask that didn't even have eyeholes. He had no need for them anyway.
Thousands of eyes were now upon him, and he couldn't care less. He grunted in confusion, tentatively running his fingers along the porcelain mask, but gave no sign of distress. He shook his head listlessly and began pacing in a circle.
“What a darling little pet,” the Ambassador cooed as they re-veiled the Hanged King. “Percy, I graciously accept your offering. As a token of my gratitude, I grant you one boon from the Hanged King, to be redeemed at a time of your choosing. I’ll also forgive the absence of the Younger Carter, this time. You and your guests are free to enjoy the party.”
The Ambassador finally released him from their telekinetic grasp. Darke would have collapsed to the ground if Iris had not been there to support him.
“Th-thank you, Your Eminence,” he managed to gasp out.
“Everyone kindly raise a glass to The Deathless Merchant of London, and his gift of a new Court Assassin,” The Yellow Lord ordered. Another burst of applause and cheers echoed through the ballroom as people clanked glasses and imbibed their libations. Even for a party city like Alagadda, it was a special occasion.
It wasn't every Halloween that a decommissioned SCP came back from the dead.
Clown Town
Bozocitta, The Mad Province, The District of Columbia
Conspectus
A self-contained microcosmos outside of the known worlds, believed to border the Nevermeant and the Neverwas. It is a realm of surreal chaos and fluid laws of nature. This is in part caused by its relatively low internal reality, but is also due to the quixotic whims of the mad reality benders who call it home, and are known to walk the planes in the form of Clowns5.
Illustration
A sketch of The Great Clown Pagliacci, made during his visit to the Circus of the Disquieting to assess the current Ringmaster's suitability for becoming a Clown. It should be noted that for this visit he intentionally suppressed his more extreme features in order to pass as human.
Knowledge
Traits: The size and geography of Clown Town are not known, and are believed to be highly variable. Distances between objects are inconsistent, and time itself is capricious and non-linear. In addition to slowing down or speeding up or even reversing, individuals may be translocated to various points along their timeline with no apparent regard for causality. Time loops and ‘montages’- wherein individuals experience disparate but relevant events in rapid succession - are also common occurrences. Physical constants like gravity fluctuate wildly.
The sky itself is luminescent without any celestial bodies, resembling an ever-evolving kaleidoscope pattern. It’s also been known to fall on occasion, though reports of this phenomenon are always dismissed as left-wing alarmism as a matter of policy. The terrain is always colourful, but otherwise changes randomly, rolling like a stormy sea. Many of the objects and architecture within Clown Town appear to be physical manifestations of optical illusions that should not be able to exist in three dimensions. The atmosphere is thick enough to breathe and relatively consistent at 21% oxygen, 1% helium, 1% trace gases, and 77% nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, making it extremely psychoactive to humans.
Nature: The reality within Clown Town is as thin as tissue paper, and even vanilla humans are able to manipulate it through will alone. Unfortunately, the stochastic nature of Clown Town makes it extremely difficult for even skilled benders to exercise their gifts in a controlled manner, and structured thaumaturgy is basically impossible. Throughout Clown Town there are multiple spacetime tears, which the natives attempt to keep sealed using large, polka-dotted patches of an unknown material. ‘Glitches in the Matrix’, aside from those already mentioned, are a frequent occurrence.
History & Associated Parties: The native inhabitants that give Clown Town its name are a race of vaguely humanoid reality benders who generally fit the description of ‘monster clown’. They appear to alternate between states of euphoric mania and psychotic episodes of rage or panic, utilizing their abilities to either entertain one another or attack each other if their attempts at entertainment went unappreciated. One notably consistent trait between them are perfect sets of shiny white teeth, which they claim are a necessary adaptation to their high-sugar diets.
Fashion and architecture within Clown Town, as impermanent as they are, appear to have a notably Italian influence. The College Campus is the only set of buildings to have any permanence, which has been explained by the natives as a consequence of their professors all being tenured.
As relatively few Wanderers have been to Clown Town personally, most of the information we have about it and its inhabitants come from the Clown Troupe attached to Herman Fuller’s Circus of the Disquieting. Sometime in the early 20th century, the first Clowns left Clown Town to work for Herman Fuller, enthusiastic for an easily impressed audience of vanilla humans. These Clowns were required to undergo ‘circus time procedures’ tempering their abilities and psychotic outbreaks to allow them to function in human society. The Circus Clown Eugene claims to suffer from mild to moderate PTSD from waking up during such a procedure.
Some Clowns, most notably the current troupe leader and Circus Ringmaster Icky, were originally human. How this is accomplished is not known6, but the conversion appears to be total. The Clowns do not appear to hold any prejudice against human-born Clowns, instead considering it a great honour and proof of exceptionality to be inducted into their ranks. There is a third sub-group of Clowns with stunted intellect and highly specialized abilities known as bred Clowns, and are apparently the result of eugenic experiments forced upon them by Herman Fuller during the growing abuse and insanity of his final years as Ringmaster.
Clown Town itself is led by ‘The Great Clown Pagliacci’ though it remains unclear if this a title or a specific individual. It should be noted that the Clown’s system of governance, such as it is, is highly informal and chaotic and does not clearly correspond with any political system on Earth, past or present. Paligacci’s power has been said to range from a theocratic dictator to an all but politically neutered figurehead, depending on what’s funnier at the time7.
The Clowns do apparently have a caste system, separating Clowns into ‘Highers’ or ‘Lowers’. The Lowers are essentially commoners, whereas the Highers are appointed by the Great Clown Pagliacci as a kind of nobility. Pagliacci can seemingly grant or revoke this status as he sees fit. While the Circus Clowns originally practised a version of this system, Icky was successfully elected troupe leader on the campaign of abolishing it8. This has created the odd situation wherein Icky is a Higher Clown in Clown Town but not within her own troupe.
Clown Town is also inhabited by a species of reality-bending creatures known as Fun-Lovers, who are kept for the black ‘Clown’s Milk’ they produce when having fun. They occupy the lowest status among Clown Town citizens, though they are not completely subjugated and will use their powers to assert themselves when necessary. There is a degree of symbiosis between the Clowns and Fun-Lovers, with the Clown’s being dependent on Clown’s Milk for their powers and possibly their immortality, and in turn serve as one of the few sapient races capable of providing Fun-Lover’s with long-term entertainment. A sizable number of Clowns appear to have sincere sympathies towards and even friendships with Fun-Lovers, and have been known to stand with them in solidarity over key issues, such as unionization, ultra-pasteurization, and freedom of ontology.
Approach: Clown Town is not connected to the Library by any known Way. The Clowns utilize their own Way nexus referred to as The Phoneyard. This nexus is comprised of a multitude of pocket verses, each a replica a real-world location like a lake or a cornfield, which have been attuned to allow Waymaking into specific realities. Each pocket is simultaneously entangled with Clown Town and each other, serving as a hub for rapid travel across the Worlds. There are no known permanent Ways connecting Clown Town or the Phoneyard to any other reality. The Clowns themselves claim this is a security feature to keep outsiders out. However, given their nature, it is perhaps not unfair to wonder if the inaccessibility of Clown Town was originally meant to keep the Clowns in.
Making a Way into the Phoneyard typically requires Clown-specific magic, however, Herman Fuller was able to bypass this with the use of his Kaleidoscope, a mechanical Waymaking device of his own design. While this seems to suggest that sufficiently advanced Waymaking techniques can allow mortals access to the Phoneyard, there are currently no confirmed occurrences of this outside of Fuller’s Kaleidoscope. The Circus Clown Eugene has claimed that this is because Clown Town has upgraded its defences after Fuller’s original incursion.
Any Wanderers wishing to visit Clown Town themselves will most likely have to seek aid from the Circus of the Disquieting. Fortunately, many of its members are frequent visitors to the Library and usually quite willing to work with our organization.
Other Detail: Certain Wanderers have observed a strong similarity in both appearance, abilities, culture, and architecture of the Clowns to that of Alagadda, and have speculated that there may be a connection between the two. The Clowns themselves insist that, due to the odd nature of time within Clown Town, they have no beginning and have always existed. The Palace Library in Alagadda, however, contains a record of a troupe of mummers whose powers grew to rival even those of the Masked Lords. They were even able to produce non-cardinal colours within the city, and for this heinous crime they were exiled and left to go mad in a neighbouring realm.
And so the vast and horrid troupe of mummers were brought into the Palace of Alagadda to be judged by the Masked Lords, the Ambassador, and the Hanged King himself, all of whom glared down at the throng of outcasts and nare-do-wells with vitriolic contempt.
“Buffoons!” The Black Lord cried. “Untalented, vulgar, half-wit buffoons! For untold years now your philistine pageantry has degraded the culture of our great city. For untold years, your dunderheaded antics have sown incalculable grievances amongst both people and property. For untold years, your slanderous and seditious satire has undermined our authority and the authority of Alagadda itself, and now you have finally abandoned all pretence of loyalty and patriotism by openly and flippantly breaking our most sacred of laws!”
The mummers showed no sign of contrition, their masked visages all staring up at the court in complete apathy.
“Know that only your sheer numbers have earned you mercy!” The White Lord bellowed. “A mass execution would only serve to further galvanize the unrest that you’re stirred up!”
The mummer cocked their heads innocently, as if ignorant of any possible wrongdoing.
“I can think of nothing more tragic than pragmatism demanding mercy when justice demands vengeance,” The Ambassador hissed, their sharpened nails glistening in the spectral light.
“And mercy requires remorse, does it not?” The Yellow Lord asked. “These vagabonds have shown nothing of the kind. They take pride in sowing chaos and anarchy at every turn, turning all in their path to rot and ruin!”
The mummers cocked their heads to the other side, and shrugged their shoulders.
“You’re not funny,” The Red Lord declared flatly.
The mummers gasped in horror, and produce a great clamour in protest at what they deemed to be the only truly heinous charge against them.
“Enough!” the court physician pleaded, his beaked mask insufficient to shield him from the sickly saccharine smell before him. “Truly, have you no shame? Have you no decency? Not since that most vile of Clowns Pagliacci has this court beheld such contemptuous and unrepentant knaves!”
It was then the leader of the mummers stepped forward, and in violation of Alagadda’s inviolable law, removed his mask.
“But doctor,” he laughed. “I am Pagliacci!”9
The court all gasped in shock as the other mummers removed their masks as well. The ambassador moved to speak, but even they were cowed when Pagliacci broke the laws of alchemy themselves and draped himself in a thousand impossible shades of purple. His troupe followed suit, and for the first and only time The Court of Alagadda was flamboyant with incardinal colours.
“Behold: The Purple Lord, Wearer of the Perfidious Mask!" Pagliacci sneered, dancing a jig upon the palatial dias. "I gladly accept my generously self-appointed position. For my first edict, I hearby decree that from this day henceforth all of Alagadda shall taste of purple, that all elections be openly rigged in the name of transparency, and that the Palace Library carry some modern scientific periodicals without any of this alchemy nonsense in it!”
“Here here!” the mummers cheered in agreement.
All their laughter and celebration drew to a sudden halt when their garish colours were snuffed out and the court was plunged into spectral monotone.
The Hanged King had risen from his throne, his chains slackened, and his veil lifted by the Ambassador, revealing the unspeakable horror that is the god-shaped hole.
The unnatural silence was broken by the King's enraged wails, and Pagliacci and his troupe all dropped to their knees, too paralyzed by their terror to even beg for mercy. By the King's will, a crack in Creation opened wide beneath the mummer troupe and swallowed them whole, letting them fall deep into the bowels of madness that was the nether of the Nevermeant.
The crack was sealed, the King veiled, and the Court was free to move on from the pestering nuisance of Pagliacci and his troupe. Many would just as soon forget he ever existed at all. Though the Great Clown's reign as The Purple Lord lasted barely a moment, beneath the reek of lust sweat and sweetmeats there still lingers the persistent taste of purple amidst the streets of Alagadda.
~ Excerpt from the Palacial records of the Hanged King's Court, acquired by Ickis the Wayward
Doubt
Few Wanderers have ever set foot within Clown Town, and those that have have reported experiences so surreal and bizarre it's impossible to know what was real and what was madness. The Clowns themselves are the best first-hand source of information regarding their native realm, but it is far from inconceivable that their testimony is unbiased. Though powerful, the Clowns are far too fickle to ever be counted as an enemy or ally, and neither their threats or promises should be taken too seriously.
If the Clowns are from Alagadda, it is unclear why they would not acknowledge this. If the above records are to be believed, only the Hanged King himself possesses enough power to subdue them, and he is forever bound by his own noose and cannot leave his kingdom. It seems unlikely that the Ambassador would hunt them down and drag them before the Hanged King one by one.
Perhaps the greatest mystery of the Clown Civilization is how much they have impacted our culture's conception of clown performers. Since time is non-linear within Clown Town, it's impossible to know if it inspired non-anomalous clowns, was inspired by non-anomalous clowns, or if they both inspired each other in a causal loop. Prior to their joining up with the Circus of the Disquieting, human encounters with actual Clowns were likely few and far between. Over the past hundred years, however, it seems likely that at least tens of millions of people would have witnessed Clowns firsthand courtesy of Herman Fuller, and there can be little doubt that so many people witnessing such amazing and terrifying beings has left an indelible mark on both the anomalous and mundane worlds.
]
Description: SCP-X is a Type-II Chapman/Pickman narrative ideoform entity, a physical manifestation of a common concept shared throughout the human noosphere. Such entities are believed to originate when a specific concept achieves a sufficient level of noetic resonance among a critical number of sapient observers, a result of their collective ability to manipulate wave-function collapse. This effect also serves to sustain ideoforms, oftentimes even allowing them to revive from physical destruction.
SCP-X itself resembles - and self-identifies as - the Jabberwock from Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky. It stands approximately three meters at the shoulder, with a serpentine neck and tail of varying lengths. It is covered in blue scales with three-towed, clawed hindlegs, prehensile forelimbs with elongated, hairy fingers with black talons, and a pair of membranous wings emerging from the back at the shoulder, measuring 3.65 meters across. These wings are capable of sustaining flight due to SCP-X's anomalously low mass, possessing a density only slightly higher than that of ambient air. SCP-X's head vaguely resembles that of a deep-sea fish with buck teeth, long cheek tendrils and a long pair of antennae. SCP-X is glad in a yellow waistcoat and spatterdashes, and any requests to remove these articles of clothing will be regarded as a vulgar act of impropriety.
SCP-X is sapient and generally well-mannered, capable of conversing in English with a 19th century upper-class London accent.
Special Containment Procedures:
Description: SCP-XXXX are the severed limbs of potentially any member of the biological superclass Asterozoa that have been anomalously integrated into the nervous, circulatory and skeletomuscular systems of human subjects (designate SCP-xxxx-A), fusing at the coccygeal vertebrae and serving as tail analogues. SCP-XXXX are capable of full regeneration if injured, as well as growing much larger than their original length, with the longest recorded instance reaching a length of 173 cm. Portions of SCP-XXXX severed from their hosts will become non-anomalous starfish limbs, and will regenerate into a full starfish when this is possible.
Like non-anomalous tails, SCP-XXXX aid in maintaining balance and agility, are fully prehensile, and in approximately 65 percent of known cases, capable of supporting their SCP-XXXX-A's weight.
While the majority of SCP-XXXX-A instances claim that they have fully incorporated SCP-XXXX into their bodily schema and sense of self, and accredit it with increased spiritual awareness and well-being, a minority report the SCP-XXXX-A feeling alien and compromising their sense of automy, insisting it moves of its own accord and is continously influencing their thoughts and emotions against their will.
PE679/RE245/EM285 | |
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Status | Selling |
Demand | Low |
Value | 8,240 GBP/ 10,000 USD per ounce |
Availability | Current Inventory ~ 3.5 tonnes |
Identifier | Thunderbolt Iron |
Description | Since before antiquity, iron has been prized for its ability to keep mischievous Fair Folk at bay. But like men, not all iron is created equal. After having spent untold Aeons adrift in the low-hume environs of outer space, then instantly flash forged in the crucible of Earthly impact, meteoric iron possesses unique thaumaturgical qualities. Sleep well knowing that no Fairy may trespass on your home or curse you or your kin with a spellforged charm wrought from Thunderbolt Iron. |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Initial Report | |||
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Author | Victor Chan | Date | February 25th, 2018 |
Interest | Low | Identifier | Thunderbolt Iron |
Thunderbolt Iron just hasn't been selling well to the paratech crowd. As rare as it is - less than 450 tonnes of it in the wild, at last estimate - it can't compete with modern alchemical alloys in terms of cost or functionality. I think we need to change our marketing strategy. There's only one thing Thunderbolt Iron does that other thaumic metals don't, and that's repel Fairies. Regular iron is poisonous to them on contact, but Thunderbolt Iron somehow projects this effect into its ambient environment. The real beauty of it is that it doesn't just poison Fairies but neutralizes their spells as well. A small ingot of the stuff can keep an average-sized house free of Fey influence. And that's really our only market for it. I'm going to have some of it melted down and remoulded into 1 oz charms. Our focus needs to be on clients who have disobeyed the garden signs reading 'Don't piss off the Fairies'. It's a waste of company time trying to sell it to anyone looking for thaumically reactive substrates. There are just too many better options to offer them. |
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File Opened Under: | PE679/RE245/EM285 | ||
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Sale Records | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Records From: | February, 2018 to January, 2019 | ||
Month | Sold | Comments | |
February, 2018 | 3 units | ||
March, 2018 | 18 units | Spike due to Saint Patrick's day raising concern about Fairy hexes among the supersitious. | |
April, 2018 | 16 units | Half of sales were to undercover Foundation agents, most likely for research. | |
May, 2018 | 11 units | ||
June, 2018 | 21 units | Spike due to Mid-summer. | |
July, 2018 | 14 units | ||
August, 2018 | 12 units | ||
September, 2018 | 7 units | ||
October, 2018 | 29 units | Halloween spike. | |
November, 2018 | 114 units | 100 units were sold to a Brazilian businessman for defense against anomalous eco-terrorists. | |
December, 2018 | 14 units | ||
January, 2019 | 13 units | ||
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 01 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Sender | Victor Chan | Recipient | Ruprecht Carter |
Mr. Carter, I've received an interesting offer regarding the Thunderbolt Iron that requires executive approval. There's a sect of the Serpent's Hand fighting a crusade against loggers in the Brazilian Amazon. They're not Fairies, but they are using Fey magic. My Brazilian client Cardoso evidently had good luck in using our Thunderbolt Iron charms to protect his logging company's equipment and personnel. With the Brazilian President ramping up deforestation efforts, Cardoso is expecting more pushback from the Hand, and is willing to pay a premium for the Thunderbolt Iron. Since we're selling so little of the iron to anyone else, he's requesting an exclusive agreement. He's willing to buy a lot of it, but nowhere near all of it. Short-term, it will definitely increase our sales, but long-term I think an exclusive agreement will give him too much bargaining power. What would you like me to do sir? |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 02 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Sender | Ruprecht Carter | Recipient | Victor Chan |
Take the deal. There's a shop here in London we use to peddle off cheap crap we can't sell to our core clientele. The Raven's Nest, run by a Witch named Raven. We'll sell the rest of the Thunderbolt Iron through that. Cardoso will never know the difference. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 03 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Sender | The Seelie Court of Fata Morgana | Recipient | Marshall, Carter, & Dark LLP |
To the Esteemed Gentlemen Marshalls, Carters & Darke and the Illustrious Lady Dark. It has come to the attention of Her Surreal Majesty Queen Titania, Ruler of The Seelie Court, Monarch of the Isle of Fata Morgana, and Sovereign over the Blessed season of Summer, that your company has been supplying large quantities of Thunderbolt Iron to Cardoso Industria, a logging company currently engaged in crimes against both Nature and the mortals who depend on Her. In Her unrivalled magnanimity, Her Surreal Majesty Queen Titania has been generously supplying brave resistance fighters with the preternatural means required to defend the Ancient Amazon from this abominable threat. Inquiries into why their cause has made so little progress has led us to your dealings with Cardoso. As both yours and Cardoso's possession of Thunderbolt Iron negates the possibility of us taking direct action against either of you, we are writing to inform you that should you continue to supply anyone with this vile weapon against our race, our representative to the Occult Council of 108, Her Serene Ladyship Jenevieve O'sar, will have no choice but to propose that all Members enact a complete boycott against your company. Sincerely Her Benign Eminence Kyvian Mossfoot, Anointed Scribe of the Seelie Court, writing on behalf of Her Surreal Majesty Queen Titania, Ruler of The Seelie Court, Monarch of the Isle of Fata Morgana, and Sovereign over the Blessed season of Summer. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 04 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Sender | Ruprecht Carter | Recipient | Victor Chan |
The situation regarding Fata Morgana and the Thunderbolt Iron was brought up at the last board meeting. It was decided the best course of action would be 'Don't piss off the Fairies'. While Marshall, Carter, and Dark LLP will no longer officially be dealing in Thunderbolt Iron, we will still be selling it out of the Raven's Nest in London. This does complicate our relationship with Cardoso. He's our biggest buyer, but he's not an idiot. If we sell it to him through the Raven's Nest, he'll most likely realize that we haven't been honouring our exclusivity agreement. He also won't take kindly to just being cut off. But if his supply of Thunderbolt Iron remains consistent, Fata Morgana will likely become suspicious of us, even if they can't prove we're the ones selling it to him. You have a meeting with Cardoso later this week, if I'm not mistaken. Do your best and keep me up to speed. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Incident Report 01 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Author | Victor Chan | Date | March 8th, 2019 |
As anticipated, Cardoso was not willing to end our arrangement, and made this fact vehemently clear to me. In order to prevent an incident, I immediately offered to continue to supply him the Thunderbolt Iron through the Raven's Nest. This relieved tensions to a degree, but he insisted on an immediate inspection of the facility. As he had his retinue of bodyguards with him at the time, I again decided that the best course of action would be to comply with his demands. I took him through the Way to the London office and then led him to the shop. I did, of course, message them ahead of time, letting them know that we were on our way, and to remove any Thunderbolt charms from view. Raven complied promptly, but unfortunately, Cardoso's assessment of the shop was more thorough then she had anticipated and he found the charms. Somewhat surprisingly, he did not become violent or even all that angry. He seemed to have expected us to double-cross him. He simply announced that he would be taking all the inventory we had on hand as recompense for our breach of contract, and that his men would be checking in unannounced from now on to ensure we kept our end in the future. I personally would have been willing to let it go at that. Raven, however, being a very devout Witch and feminist, wasn't impressed with his macho posturing. She made it very clear that her business was independent from Marshall, Carter and Dark, and thus she owed him nothing and he would be leaving with nothing. Again, Cardoso was not immediately unreasonable. He still insisted the Thunderbolt Iron was rightfully his, but acknowledged that Raven was not personally at fault. He tried to talk me into compensating her, but she was adamant that she wouldn't willingly assist an - in her own words - Earth rapist. When it was clear she wasn't amendable to negotiations, Cardoso pulled his gun and ordered his men to just take the iron and anything else that looked valuable. Raven responded with a summoning spell. It was mostly for show; the lights dimmed, the room got cold and her eyes went white, and her spirit familiar started brushing past Cardoso and his men. His men got spooked and ran, but Cardoso remained persistent. He fired off his gun, but in the poor light couldn't get a clean shot at either of us. Raven's familiar was able to knock the gun out his hand, and then Raven grabbed her athame - it's a Wiccan ritualistic knife - and castrated him with one swipe. He bled out pretty quickly, and she told me to call for a cleanup crew, which I did. As a result of this, Cardoso Industria is no longer a client of ours, and we no longer have a major client for Thunderbolt Iron. I will leave it up to Mr. Carter if Raven - or, possibly myself - should be disciplined for this turn of events. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 05 | |||
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PE679/RE245/EM285 | |||
Sender | Ruprecht Carter | Recipient | Victor Chan |
Poor sod. I've had bodies ritualistically castrated before. It's never fun, at least for me. Fortunately for little miss 'slice the patriarchy's balls off', she's more valuable to us than Cardoso was, and she was acting in self-defence, so she will not be disciplined. You're in the clear too, Chan. You did your best. Raven can retain the Thunderbolt charms already made, but I've found a buyer for the unprocessed ore. The death of Cardoso has put Fata Morgana and their eco-terrorists in a good mood, it seems. I went to the court, offered my sincerest apologies for the situation and insisted I had no idea that they were the ones backing the eco-terrorists. To ensure them that such a regrettable misunderstanding would never happen again, I offered them the remaining Thunderbolt Iron, for a meagre one-tenth of its weight in Morgana Silver as compensation for our loss of income. They talked me down to a twelfth, and we have to handle the hazmat precautions. So in addition to suring up our relationship with the Seelie Court, I effectively traded three and a half tonnes of an obsolete metal to people for whom it was toxic for 290 kilograms of one of the most precious thaumaturgical alloys in existence, all while doing my part for the environment. This may very well be the most we've ever profited from a literal emasculation. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Item #: SCP-4xxxx
Object Class: Safe
Special Containment Procedures:
Description: SCP-x is a box of 21 anomalous 'Churchill' style cigars with dark purple leaf wrappers. Labelling on the box and each individual cigar refers to them as 'Royal Rands'. Further information on the box claims that SCP-x were hand-rolled on a tobacco plantation on the Phantom Islands10.
Upon imbibing a lit instance of SCP-x,
ELY03/N5CG1/6VRO5 | |
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Status | In Development |
Demand | High |
Value | 3000 GPB/4500 USD per square foot of real estate |
Availability | Approximately 93 square kilometers are available for development |
Identifier | Elysium Extradimensional Estates |
Description | Are you weary of the proles imponent threats of imminent revolution? Worried that climate change might devalue your beachfront property? Or do you just want somewhere to keep what's rightfully yours safe from thiefing socialist politicians? Elysium Extradimensional Estates is the ultimate gated community. Located in its own pocket dimension outside of baseline reality and accessible only through safe and secret Ways, Elysium provides the beauty, freedom and security that only money can buy. |
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Initial Report | |||
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Author | Skitter Marshall | Date | March 1st, 2018 |
Interest | High | Identifier | Elysium Extradimensional Estates |
On my latest expedition through the Wanderer's Library I found something extraordinary: a completely virgin extradimensional pocket universe, ours for the taking. I surveyed the region as being a cylindrical shape approximately 5 km in height with a circumference of 18.6 km. The reason I mention the circumference specifical is that gravity within the pocketverse pulls downward from the interior surface of the ring section, similar to a Standford Torus space habitat. This gives us about 93 square kilometers of liveable space to work with. Right now there's gravity and air, since Way's typically aren't airtight, but that's about it. The interior surface is an impenetrable spacetime barrier that can be walked and built on, but not manipulated. While there are multiple possible uses for such a location, I propose that we follow in the steps of Wonder WorldTM, Eurtec and Three Portlands and create our own extradimensional city state; Elysium! As much as I hate to bring up the perennial issue of moving our head office, current geopolitical events make keeping it in London a dicey prospect. The Hong Kong Office is worse off if any thing, and the New York office is, well, in America. By relocating to our own extradimensional city, we would no longer have to deal with any of that. What's more, we'd no longer need to worry about the Foundation or the Coalition or the Insurgency raiding our warehouses or shutting down showrooms, clubs and auctions. We can do all these things safely and freely within Elysium, only needing real-world locations as Waypoints. Elysium will, of course, need a lot of development. We'll need to import billions of tonnes of soil, water, something to use for a sun, all before we can start building. Maintaining an artificial biosphere of this scale won't be easy, but we know it can be done. I'd recommend hiring on some consultants from other Extradimensional city-states to make sure we get it right. We could have Golemancy United in Threeports make us a Golem workforce to keep costs down. I know the upfront cost to this will be pretty high, but if we can pull it off Elysium could end up being worth trillions of pounds, enable us to act with greater autonomy and security, and most importantly put us on par with the other Free Ports. How can we take ourselves seriously when Wondertainment has its own pocket dimension and we don't? If any else has any ideas on how to make this thing a reality, I'm all ears. |
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File Opened Under: | ELY03/N5CG1/6VRO5 | ||
Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Memo 01 | |||
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ELY03/N5CG1/6VRO5 | |||
Sender | Iris Dark | Recipient | Skitter Marshall |
Skitter, please don't mix metric and imperial measurements in the same document. It looks very unprofessional and makes me feel like I have a baby spider crawling around on my brain. That pet peeve aside, I do have an idea for the Elysium project. As you mentioned, hauling in the massive quantities of raw materials to landscape this pocketverse will be costly and likely time-consuming. During one of my conversations with my main contact at The Circus of the Disquieting, I learned of a Way network referred to as the Phoneyard, comprised of various hubs that are anomalous extradimensional duplicates of real-world locations. None of these hubs are anywhere near the size of Elysium, but at the very least I think it's worth inquiring if something similar could be done for us. |
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Marshall, Carter and Dark, LLP |
Item #: SCP-001
Object Class: Thaumiel
Special Containment Procedures: A single grave must be dug each day within SCP-001. For ritualistic purposes, each grave must be at least 183 centimeters deep. Length and width must be adequate to accommodate most adult human cadavers, with 2.45 meters in length and 0.75 meters in width considered sufficient.
Each grave must be dug manually by willing non-D class personnel, and using only the equipment provided by SCP-001-A. SCP-001-A will also specify the location of each grave. Gravedigging that has not been authorized by SCP-001-A is not permitted under any circumstances. All personnel are to defer to any instructions given by SCP-001-A, and allow it to function unimpeded. Failure to do so will result in immediate demotion and reassignment.
During the majority of 13-year cycles with only three leap years, one grave is to be left empty and covered with a marble slab designated for the purpose. A different grave must be used for each cycle.
No fewer than four assigned gravediggers are to reside outside SCP-001 at any given time. All gravediggers must be physically suitable for hard labour with no underlying health conditions, and otherwise meet Foundation standards for Level One personnel.
No terminations are permitted within SCP-001 for any reason.
Special Task Force Alpha-Zero ("Dead Right Hand") is to be housed outside of SCP-001 and fully prepared for a Grave Robber Event at all times. At all other times, STF Alpha-Zero members are to patrol SCP-001 and limit access to authorized personnel, with specialization in repelling Occult Thaumaturges and sects of the Serpent's Hand.
The Administrator is permitted unfettered access to SCP-001, and any flowers or other grave goods he leaves are to be left untouched.
Description: SCP-001 is a cemetery built on a nexus point of seven geothaumic currents11, which it uses to manipulate quantum probability on a global scale. This prevents the Earth from entering an Eigenstate incompatible with the continued survival and success of the Foundation, and by extension most of modern civilization. The consequence of this is the greatly reduced probability of global catastrophe from both anomalous and mundane sources, at the cost of a globally weakened Hume field12 and an increased likelihood of improbable events, especially within other geothaumic nexuses.
There are 474913 gravestones of varying design and complexity within SCP-001, arranged in a complex spoke and wheel pattern around a central mausoleum. Both the tombstones and the mausoleum are made from marble, and are inscribed with runes of unknown meaning.
SCP-001-A is a mute human male approximately two meters in height with a soft grey pallor to its skin, long grey hair and heavy stubble, typically dressed in a grey scarf and coat regardless of climate. Though it appears roughly 70 years old, it has not been observed to age. SCP-001-A does not know any form of sign language, but can understand spoken English and will typically communicate with simple gestures. It has, however, demonstrated the ability to write when required.
Medical examination has revealed that SCP-001-A has no pulse, but is otherwise in reasonable health.
SCP-001-A has resided within SCP-001 since before its discovery and generally functions as a grave keeper, performing any mundane or anomalous maintenance and repairs it deems necessary. It refuses, however, to dig fresh graves, instead insisting that this be performed by Foundation personnel. It has indicated that the daily digging of a grave by the Foundation is a ritual necessary for SCP-001's continued functionality, and that SCP-001-A ensures that the ritual is completed correctly.
Each night, between the local hours of 03:00 and 04:00, a human cadaver will manifest within the mausoleum of SCP-001, designated SCP-001-1. To date, each cadaver has always been a physically mature adult between 40 kg and 140 kg in weight and 150 cm to 200 cm in height. Otherwise, humans of all genders, ages, ethnic groups and medical conditions have been represented in SCP-001-1 manifestations.
Most cadavers will possess some form of Foundation issue identification, yet none have ever been successfully identified as Foundation personnel or any actual known individual.
SCP-001-A will remove the cadaver and place it within the most recently dug grave and bury it with a mixture of woodchips14, and a silver coin of unknown origin. After a 13-year period, a grave may be reused. However, it will bear no trace of the former body, including non-biodegradable possessions.
Though SCP-001-A will permit on-site examination of SCP-001-1 instances, it will non-fatally incapacitate any personnel attempting to remove them beyond the boundaries of SCP-001. The events of Grave Robber Event-1982 (see below) have indicated that the effects of even a single SCP-001-1 instance being removed from SCP-001 could result in a potential K-class scenario. The O5 Council has forbidden any testing that would involve removing any dead bodies from SCP-001.
Failure to bury an instance of SCP-001-1 before the next manifestation, exhuming a grave prematurely15, or a human person dying within SCP-001 will trigger a Grave Robber Event.
At the onset of a Grave Robber Event, a multitude of humanoid entities will manifest at various points in SCP-001, henceforth designated SCP-001-B. These entities are typically armed with shovels and are attired in long leather coats, boots, and headwear. What skin is visible appears saggy and grey, hands and feet possess only three digits, and in place of a face is a single orifice opening to an anomalously deep cranial cavity. During Grave Robber Events, SCP-001-A will attempt to secure any vulnerable SCP-001-1 instances within the mausoleum.
SCP-001-B 's primary goal appears to be recovering any exposed SCP-001-1 instances, as well as exhuming still-buried bodies. They will also attempt to terminate any humans present within SCP-001 when possible in order to manifest more SCP-001-B entities and prolong the Grave Robber Event. They are also extremely proficient at using their shovels for defensive purposes against STF Alpha-Zero.
Due to an apparent lack of blood and internal organs, firearms are ineffective against SCP-001-B. STF Alpha-Zero therefore favours dismemberment via the use of machetes and war axes. Explosive devices work as well, but have an unacceptably high risk of collateral damage to SCP-001 itself.
Grave Robber Events are not considered concluded until all SCP-001-B instances are incapacitated. This typically requires thorough dismemberment of all SCP-001-B entities, but on occasion, some will demanifest on their own in an apparent retreat. SCP-001-A will dispose of SCP-001-B remains via cremation, but will not object to the Foundation taking SCP-001-B bodies for study or interrogation.
Interview SCP-001-B/01:
Interviewer: Alpha-Zero Commander Olson Blackmoore
Interviewee: Recovered SCP-001-B instance.
Foreword: The SCP-001-B instance in question had been relieved of all limbs during combat, but remained alert and aware.
<Begin Log>
Commander Blackmoore: Not so tough now without any arms and legs, now are you?
SCP-001-B does not respond.
Blackmoore: Don't pretend you can't talk. You were plenty chatty earlier when you were bashing in my buddies' skulls with a shovel. In fact, I'd say that you've got quite the mouth on you, figuratively speaking at least.
SCP-001-B does not respond.
Blackmoore: If you won't talk, I'm going to have to make you talk. You might be thinking that there's not much I can do to you, seeing you've already lost all your limbs and that you don't seem to mind being stabbed or shot, but the big hole where your face should be looks like it might be a sensitive orifice. I'm willing to bet you wouldn't much care for me shoving some stuff into it, and I've got all kinds of stuff just lying around ready to test that hypothesis. You understand me?
SCP-001-B: (grunts, nods reluctantly)
Blackmoore: Good. I only got three questions, so this'll be quick. I want to know why you and your grave robbing pals keep showing up, why you only show up when a corpse is exposed, and what the fuck we can do to make you stop.
SCP-001- B: We come for the dead. I'd've thought that would've been obvious.
Blackmore: I'm going need more than that. Why these bodies?
SCP-001-B: The dead that lie here differ from common corpses in one key aspect; they were never alive. Not from where we're sitting, anyway. Their lives have been forgotten by existence itself. An impossible thing, even in a world filled with impossible things. The corpses you keep hold enormous ontological potential, which you just let seep back into the cosmos. You haven't the slightest idea of what you squander.
Blackmoore: Nor do I care to. What about my second question? If these bodies are so valuable to you, why do you only show up when a -1 is left out too long, or when someone dies the old fashioned way?
SCP-001-B: Not for lack of motivation, I assure you. The sorcerers who made this place knew well what they were doing. The spells that protect it are powerful, but delicate. A tiny break in the ritual - a missed burial, an extra body - and they weaken just enough to let us in. You really ought to be more faithful in your duties.
Blackmoore: If you know so much about this place, then you must know what it's for. Why are you willing to risk taking out bodies when it could mean Armageddon?
SCP-001-B: (laughs) Do I look like I'm of your world? Entire realities are devoured to sate the lust of Elder Gods. Why should I be bothered with the destruction of a measly dimensional backwater like this?
Commander Blackmoore picks up a cattle prod and tests it in front of SCP-001-B.
Blackmoore: I think I might be able to persuade you that our Earth has its own little quaint charm that's worth protecting. Before I do though, I'm going to give you one last chance to die with a bit of dignity. Tell me what we can do to keep you hollow-skull fuckers out for good.
SCP-001-B: There is nothing you can do. It doesn't matter if it takes us a thousand attempts over a thousand years, we only need to succeed once, and you need only to fail once. We will get a body, and then it will all have been worth it, and you will be left helpless to the merciless vicissitudes of -
SCP-001-B screams as Commander Blackmoore shoves the cattle prod into its facial orifice.
<End Log>
Notes: SCP-001-B did not provide any further useful information during the remaining three hours of the interview.
An autopsy revealed that its internal thoracic cavity was mostly hollow, filled only with peat moss, a viscous black hydrocarbon webbing, and a small satchel filled with the skulls of various Passerine birds.
Addendum: Multiple Persons of Interests and Groups of Interests with knowledge of geothaumic currents and nexuses are aware of the location and thaumatological significance of SCP-001, though it is believed that only the Global Occult Coalition is aware of its exact purpose. The GOC has agreed to allow the Foundation to maintain control over SCP-001, on the condition that they be allowed to regularly audit the security of SCP-001 to determine that it's up to the Coalition's current standards. In exchange, they have provided STF Alpha-Zero with occult weapons, tactics and fortifications, as well as intelligence on GoI-019 "Serpents Hand".
Though Occultists attempting to gain entry to SCP-001, forcefully or otherwise, is a common occurrence, the only successful breaches have been by sects of GoI-019. Their most commonly cited motivation is to liberate such a powerful nexus from the control of the Foundation and return it to the anomalous community, though it is also common for them to simply attempt to conduct rituals within SCP-001. The largest ever such raid was on April 19th, 1982, a few months after the Foundation's failed invasion of the Wanderer's Libary, believed to have been motivated by vengeance for the attempt and emboldened at the Foundation's failure.
This consequently resulted in Grave Robbing Event-1982, the largest such event to date, with massive casualties for both STF Alpha-Zero and the Serpent's Hand. GRE-1982 is the only known containment breach of SCP-001, with one SCP-001-1 being successfully stolen by SCP-001-B.
For a brief but indeterminate amount of time, it is believed that the Earth existed in a superposition of approximately 20 000 mutually exclusive but equally probable Eigenstates, caused by an equal number of retrocausal ontological shifts. Without a way to collapse back into a single Eigenstate, the total ontological failure of Earth is considered the most likely outcome of such a scenario.
This was averted in GRE-1982 by an unknown party, but likely SCP-001-A, replacing the stolen corpse with another body and enabling SCP-001 to return the Earth to a single Eigenstate. Scans using ground penetrating radar have shown that the body is attired in STF Alpha-Zero combat gear, though no members of STF Alpha-Zero were unaccounted for after the event.
Scans have also indicated that the individual was most likely buried alive.
Following GRE-1982, raids by GoI-019 were much smaller and more infrequent, likely due to a desire to avoid a global ontological collapse.
Unknown PoI Encounter: On the evening of October 14th, 2009, a single female figure was seen standing by a grave. She vanished before she could be apprehended, but left a bouquet of flowers and the following note:
I can't be certain, but I think this was my mother.
Please pass this information on to Dr. Charles Gears. I don't honestly believe he cares anymore, but I still think he should know.
~ L.S.
Discovery: SCP-001 was discovered on November 7th, 1942. The following is a transcript of a magnetic wire recording of a conversation between the Administrator and then O5-1, having met in SCP-001 to discuss recent personnel issues.
< Begin Log>
O5-1: You've picked an odd place for a briefing.
Administrator: Meet-ups in strange places is hardly uncommon in our line of work, and graveyards are usually pretty empty. Besides, I like cemeteries. They're peaceful, quiet, and always so very lovely.
O5-1: If you don't mind the corpses six feet beneath you.
Administrator: That's also not uncommon in our line of work. (silence for approximately 8 seconds) You, ah, wanted to talk to me about some staffing issues?
O5-1: Yes sir, more like a staffing crisis. We are now short several personnel across all ranks, including two vacant seats on the O5 Council. There's no record of anyone ever holding these positions, nor does anyone have any memory of them. It's as if thousands of essential positions were left unfilled for years, decades in some cases, and we only now noticed. We've no idea what's happened, but it's possible the entire Foundation is the victim of some kind of amnestic attack.
Administrator: There's no need for wild speculation, old friend. I know exactly what's happened.
O5-1: You do?
Administrator: I do.
O5-1: So where are all our missing people?
Administrator: Oh, around. (chuckles) Here, take a look through this. It might make things clearer.
It is believed the Administrator handed O5-1 an Adder Stone, a small anomalous item used to perceive paranormal phenomenon. These were commonly used during this period.
O5-1: My god, the gravestones! They're, they're all … I don't even know, but this is necromancy, isn't it? These are made out of people!
Administrator: Our people, yes.
O5-1: You knew about this?
Administrator: I ordered it. Four thousand, seven hundred and forty-nine souls taken all at once as a down-payment.
O5-1: A down-payment for what?
Adminstrator: Look up. Through the stone.
O5-1: Those are… Ley lines?
Adminstrator: Seven of them. Strong ones too. All crisscrossing here. This is a naturally powerful nexus, and I paid to make it even more powerful. This place uses Quantum Thaumaturgy to stack the deck against Doomsday. I've just made our whole planet Doomsday-proof.
O5-1: Why?
Administrator: You know about the Manhattan Project, don't you?
O5-1: What does that have to do with -
Administrator: I wanted so badly for nuclear physics to be anomalous, so that we could keep the world safe from the horrors of atomic warfare. But it's not anomalous. It's perfectly normal, which means it's none of our business if the nations of the world eventually build up stockpiles of thousands of atomic bombs, ready to destroy the planet at a moment's notice.
Administrator: (sighs) I couldn't live with that. I couldn't live with the knowledge that I could save the world, but not, simply because it was outside my jurisdiction. That's why I made this place. Now, no matter how close we stare into that abyss, we will never fall in. We will always get lucky, and the world will keep spinning for another day.
O5-1: But why don't we remember the lost personnel?
Administrator: Because they're not just dead; they never existed. A total, yet individualized, ontological failure to balance out the existential cost of preventing a global catastrophe. Thousands now to make this place, and one more each day, forever. Always from our own ranks. That was the deal I made, because it was all I had the authority to offer.
O5-1: Sir, with all due respect, you did not have the authority to do this. At the very least, the Council should have been able to vote on it.
Administrator: And if you want to discipline me, I won't fight you on that, but what's done is done. Thousands are gone now, and hundreds more will be lost each year, but they knew the risks when they signed up. They died - or rather, were never born - in the dark, so that we can live in the light. Promise me you won't let the rest of the Council decommission this place.
O5-1: Decommission an occult spellcasting array of this scale inside of a septimal nexus? No one on the Council is stupid enough to want to try that. I can hardly believe you didn't punch open a permanent portal to Hell just making this thing. We'll treat this place like it's made of glass.
Administrator: Thank you. Here, take this file. Everything I know about this place is in there. Do whatever you want.
The sound of shuffling papers is heard.
O5-1: Goddamn black magic. Looks like we're going to have to fill one of those vacant Council seats with a Thaumatolgist just to make sense of this. Who exactly is this Grave Keeper?
Administrator: Someone I trust with the fate of the world. That's all you need to know.
O5-1: For now, at least. If that ever changes, don't be surprise if I press the issue. Am I dismissed, sir?
Administrator: There is one more thing. I've never been married, or had children, right?
O5-1: Not to my knowledge sir.
Administrator: You've known me a long time. Does that seem like me?
O5-1: I, ah… oh. I see. You think that they were part of your… down-payment?
Administrator: Every soul in here was a colleague. It seems many of them would have been friends. Some may have been more. To all of us.
O5-1: My condolences then, sir
Administrator: And mine to you.
O5-1: Promise me you won't stay here too long, okay sir?
Administrator: Only as long as I need to. You're dismissed, Overseer.
<End Log>
Critters: AKFrost, A Random Day, BlueSoul, CaptainKirby, DrLycus, FloppyPhoenix, IHP, Rattles, The House of Balloons, The_Luggage, UncleNicolini.
“Ah, Site 17. How long’s it been?” Dr. Alto Clef asked with a glib smile as he casually approached the window of the vacant containment chamber.
“Since that time you tried to drench Cain in mushroom soup,” Dr. Simon Glass replied, leaning in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest.
“Oh yeah. That was fun,” Clef smirked as he tapped at the window, staring down his own reflection like it was his sworn arch nemesis, forever trying to steal his sugar puff cereal. “Did you ever figure out if he affects mushrooms or not?”
“Yes, his anomaly affects everything grown in soil. That’s in his file,” Glass replied with an impatient sigh, waiting for the inevitable sermon.
“Beautiful. Beautiful,” Clef said, taking his hat off and on, watching his face in the window switch between various animals. “So, these windows are fucking stupid.”
“No, they’re not,” Glass groaned with a shake of his head.
“Yep. They’re just a big escape hatch waiting to happen,” he said with a dramatic stretch of his arms. “If they were small enough that a person couldn’t fit through them, I’d cut you some slack, but come on! This window is huge!”
“It’s bulletproof, Clef,” Glass said as he adjusted his glasses.
“Lets test that comforting little delusion, shall we?”
Before Glass could react, Clef whipped out his Glock and emptied his entire cartridge at the window. Sirens started blaring and a metal shutter slammed down on the outside of the glass, but the window itself remained intact.
“Stand down! Stand down! It’s just Cleft being an asshole!” Glass shouted into his Site phone.
Almost immediately, the sirens died down in an impotent sputter and the shutter lifted back up.
“Goddammit Clef, you know that counts towards our safety record!” an angry researcher shouted from the hall outside.
“That’s what I love about 17. You got your priorities straight,” Clef scoffed as he inspected the damage to the window. “Alright, these things are pretty tough, but that doesn’t mean you can’t just knock them out of the frame.”
“You saw what happens when they take any damage. Emergency shutters come down and the whole Site goes into breach mode,” Glass said as Clef rammed the window with his shoulder multiple times, utterly failing to dislodge it or even trigger another breach alert. “Our windows are completely secure.”
“You know what would be more secure? No windows. Have you considered no windows?” Clef asked as he rubbed his sore shoulder.
“Clef, we only keep low-risk anomalies at this Site. The costs of maximum security aren’t justified,” Glass insisted. “Blue skies and natural daylight are important for mental hygiene. It’s important to have a view of nature. Nature is very healthy and calming.”
“She used to say stuff like that, too,” Clef muttered, gazing out at the wooded landscape the surrounded Site 17. “Compromise; we board up these windows and replace them with those holographic portraits they sell at convenience stores. They’ll never know the difference.”
“Yes, they will,” Glass said with a sad shake of his head.
“You realize anyone outside can just look into these windows and get an eyeful of classified skip, right?” Clef asked, one hand his hip and the other gesticulating at the window.
“We’re a decent ways off the beaten path, and all of our residential suites face towards the woods,” Glass replied, his tone growing louder and less tolerant. “The perimeter is fenced off, we have drone jamming towers, smart surveillance, and the courtyard is covered with an awning of camouflage netting to prevent aerial or satellite photography. No toms are getting within peeping distance of this place.”
Clef remained silent for a moment, simply staring out the window at the ground below.
“You let them out in the courtyard?” he growled in disgust.
“Even criminals get outdoors time Clef, and our residents have committed no crimes,” Glass said resolutely.
“And it’s all about the 'residents', isn’t it? Got to make sure they’re kept in style. That’s our motto; Spoil, Comfort, and Pamper,” he chuckled as he tried to lift up on the window’s side panel. “This actually opens?”
“Not all the way. No one could escape through that, and the mesh is made from carbon fibre or something. It’s not a problem,” Glass claimed as Clef took an exaggerated sniff.
“Oh, you’re right Simon, how could I even think of denying our charges fresh air?” he said, slamming it shut. “Perhaps I’m dehumanizing them too much. Let’s put a name to a face, shall we? 191, for instance. How’s she doing? I imagine growing up with so many prosthetics can be challenging.”
“Her surgeons have been able to modify her grafts and implants to accommodate her growth,” Glass played along, wondering where he was going with this. “Physiotherapy and stem cell treatments have greatly restored her motor functions. She’s also shown a great deal of psychological recovery from her ordeal, thanks to counselling and the relationships she’s formed with staff and residents.”
“Inspiring stuff,” Clef nodded with a smug smile. “Those docs of yours who look after her, have they found any sleeper programs or other trojans that the old Mad Scientist might have snuck in there, just waiting to go off?”
“Not a one. She was an experiment, not a weapon,” Glass insisted.
“People make experimental weapons, Simon,” Clef said as he drew uncomfortably close to him. “For all we know she’s a terminator waiting for an order, and you let her pick daisies in the courtyard because she looks like a tweenage girl.”
“Look, I’ve heard the 1048 argument before Clef. It’s not going to cut it,” Glass said with a roll of his eyes. “ Sure, if they had locked that Teddy Bear up from the get go, it never would have been able to hurt anyone, but how many more containment breaches would we have if we didn’t make life here as tolerable as possible? How many lives would that cost us? If you’re so worried about how dangerous Angel will be when she grows up, doesn’t it make more sense to keep her on our side?”
“ 'Angel',” Clef shook his head. “It’s one thing to call a skip by its own name, or a nickname that demonizes it, but giving them a nick that not only humanizes them but puts them up on a pedestal? I’m blown away. I’ve seen angels before, Simon. That cyborg’s no angel.”
Clef pulled out a Juul e-cigarette and took a puff.
“You vape?” Simon asked, hardly surprised.
“Juuling is cooling,” Clef answered cryptically, blowing the oddly flavoured vapour into his face. “I’ve bitched enough about the windows. Why don’t you take me to see your new staff? I’m sure they’d love to meet a living legend like me.”
Simon furrowed his brow suspiciously at the ageing researcher before him.
“Have anyone specific in mind?” he asked. Clef inhaled deeply from his Juul and exhaled with smug satisfaction.
“Well, now that you mention it,” he smirked. “What’s the name of that chick you hired two, three years back? Luna Lovegood?”
“Luna Valdez,” Glass corrected.
“My apologies,” Clef said in a distinctly unapologetic tone. “I’ve read up on her. She's extremely concerned with the well-being of all our sapient SCPs . Is she a skip fucker? She seems like a skip fucker. Probably got some ‘Shape of Water’ stuff going on with at least one of your ‘residents’. You see that movie? I tell you, if it had been about a male scientist fucking a female monster it would have been received totally differently.”
“What are you, an MRA now?”
“I’m a troll, Simon. I go where the outrage takes me,” Clef said as he gestured with the Juul for him to move. “So yeah, let's go see the skip fucker.”
“I don’t think so,” Glass replied, refusing to move out of the doorway. Clef just chuckled.
“How’s that now, chief?” he asked as he took another puff.
“I know exactly what you’re going to say to her, because you said it to me 15 years ago,” Glass said. “You’re going to chew her out for being too soft on the SCPs, tell her she’s putting the lives of her colleagues at risk, scare her with horror stories of containment breaches, make a not so subtly veiled threat about what you’ll do to her if she doesn’t shape up, and, knowing you, some random misogynistic bullshit thrown in for the hell of it.”
“Those would be the Cliff notes, yes,” Clef nodded. “Do people still use Cliff notes? Are they online now?”
“Well too bad!” Glass said, raising his voice as high as he dared without causing a scene. “You and the rest of the old guard aren’t all-powerful anymore. I like Luna, and I like how she conducts herself. The residents like her, and more importantly they trust her. That makes things go smoothly around here, and I am not going to let you berate one of my best new researchers just because you’re too damaged to view empathy as anything but a weakness. You think you can intimidate me? You can’t. I know exactly what you are. You’re a pitiful, hypocritical, self-loathing, reality bender who fancies himself a Destroyer of Worlds just barely kept in check by his own angst, but in actuality, you probably couldn’t even land a sideshow with Herman Fuller if you tried!"
"I don't know. I've seen Jester's show at Site 19 a few times. I'm pretty sure I can top that," Clef retorted irreverently, only to see that Dr. Glass had had enough of his irreverence.
“I’m not scared of you, Ukulele, and I’m not going to let you bully me into being as monstrous as you.”
Glass stood there firmly, doing his best to conceal the fact that he was actually terrified Clef might turn into a dragon and swallow him whole. Clef, for his part, just stood there, neither outraged nor shocked. If Glass’s rant had any emotional effect on him, he didn’t show it.
The two men just stared at each other down for a moment, as unblinkingly as if they were staring at the famed SCP-173, waiting to see who would blink first and who would get their neck snapped.
The tension was broken by Glass’s Site phone crackling to life.
“Dr. Glass, I just checked the memos on SCiPnet, and Dr. Clef is on unpaid suspension for smashing a microwave plate over Dr. Cimmerian’s head,” a staffer informed him.
Now, finally, Clef showed fear in his eyes, while Glass just contorted his face in confusion.
“What?” was all he could manage to get out.
“It’s not as crazy as it sounds,” Clef claimed. “See, Scarface had microwaved a slice of cheese right on the plate for two solid minutes – two minutes! It was black as hell, and baked on, and no one was ever going to get it off, all because we finally got fed up with him microwaving his disgusting tuna sandwiches day after day -”
“Clef,” Glass said, massaging his forehead.
“Yes?”
“Get your asexual, homoromantic, heterochromatic ass off my Site and never come back,” he ordered, finally standing aside and allowing him to leave. Clef gave an understanding nod.
“Fine, I’ll go, but only because I have no actual authority to be here,” he said, carrying himself with an unearned sense of victory through the doorway. “By the way, you never gave a unequivocal ‘no’ about Valdez being a skip fucker.”
“Out!” Glass ordered. Clef just smiled with confidence.
“Still not a no. I can use that for blackmail if I have to someday. You’re doing a bang up job here, Simon. Bang up job!”
DarkEnergy MobileOS 3.3
Ms Dark, you have a new text message from:
Erudite Evenings (Out of Universe Area Code)
Hey, I'm looking to commission an art installation like the one you have in your London showroom. Are you available for something like that?
Are you a member? I don't recall giving my personal number out to anyone from Erudite Evenings. What sort of company are you?
Erudite's my brand new 3ports start-up. We're developing AR games and apps, which are going to be huge once the 5G networks go up.
I'm Harry Zensen, btw. We met briefly last time I was at Micky D's. Do you need my membership number?
Ah, yes. I remember you Mr. Zensen. Wasn't your start-up called Zen Graphs then?
I changed it. I got a little nervous that some snowflake might start screaming 'cultural appropriation'. I can't afford any bad hype right now.
So, about that membership number?
No need. I've already identified you.
If you want to commission something you'll have to call the front desk and make an appointment.
Yeah, I tried that. Jessie said you were booked up, and I'm going to need this by the time we're out of beta.
So you decided you were more important than everyone else who bothered to book an appointment so why not just text me now?
Oh, once I tell you what our product is I think you'll agree. You're going to want to get in on the ground floor of this.
By all means, dazzle me. 🙄
Sorry, was that an Emoji? It's not showing up on my screen.
Nvm. My project's a Pokemon Go clone for 3ports where you're the SCP Foundation and you're hunting anomalies they have in custody.
I call it: Go SCiP.
You think that the anomalous community are going to want to role play as the Foundation?
Or that anyone would want to play a Pokemon Go clone in Three Portlands with its infamously patchy intranet service?
The skips mostly spawn in hotspots, so reception is not an issue.
And don't worry about the politics. No one's going to care about that once they see these graphics.
… Thank you for bringing this enterprise to my attention. I am however going to insist that you call the front desk and book an appointment.
Sorry luv, I was just riding my own hype train a bit. I don't need your help with Go SCiP. What I need is for you to make me a kickass art installation we can display on our drop date, and I need it asap.
You'll still need an appointment. We're not going to be able to hammer this out over texts. You need to speak with one of our anartists.
No, you have to do it personally. I don't care what the installation is specifically, I just want it to say 'by Dark' on it so people can fawn over it. I need it from the #bossbabe herself.
Do not.
Refer to me.
As #bossbabe.
I thought #bossbabe was empowering. I can't keep these bloody PC terms straight.
Whatevs. Can you do the art installation or not?
No. I'm not going to do that.
The fuck you mean 'no'?
Curse at me again and I will suspend your membership.
I have a highly unique and valuable skill set, and in order to get the best use out of it I don't waste time doing work that someone else can do. If I can delegate something, I do, and there's no reason something like this would require my personal expertise.
Only you can make something that's by you, which is what I want.
My time is worth an average of tens of thousands of pounds an hour, which is what I would charge you if you insist on me doing it personally.
Do you not see that this an investment opportunity for you? Go SCiP is going to put Erudite Evenings on the map. The biggest players in paratech are going to be coming to me. This is your chance to get in good with me early, before it's too late.
You design the art installation for me as a favour, and I guarantee that all the good PR it will generate will pay for itself in no time.
I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I didn't have an aneurysm and that I did, in fact, read that correctly.
You, are asking me - Dark, of Marshall, Carter, & Dark - to work for exposure?
It's reciprocal altruism. Quid pro quo. You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
Remember that we have thousands of Mekhanites in 3ports. Not only are they crazy for AR, if one of their own endorses Go SCiP they'll download it in droves.
I'm not a Mekhanite, Harry.
Yes you are, what are you talking about?
I think I would know if I was a Mekhanite.
You've got that bionic hand. I've seen it.
That doesn't make me a Mekhanite. That's like saying being circumcised makes you Jewish.
Doesn't it?
Look, I don't do charity. Bugger off.
I paid 120 000 quid for my membership, and another 40 000 quid in dues every year since then. That should get me something, dammit!
Nope, all your membership fees buy you is the privilege of spending even more money on our exclusive products and services. If you're interested in that, then call Jessie and she'll set up an appointment with you for your commission, but not with me.
You're a real stuck up twat, you know that? Here I am, nice enough to offer you an opportunity to partner with a rising AR powerhouse, and you don't think its worth your precious time?
You're going to regret making me your enemy once Go SCiP goes live, so I'm going to give you one last chance to make the art installation for me.
Don't bother calling Jessie. Your membership is now suspended, with full revocation pending review.
And I regret to inform you that that will be the least calamitous consequence you'll be getting out of our little chat.
Number Blocked
DarkEnergy MobileOS 3.3
Ms Dark, you have one (1) news alert update from:
ThreePortland's Post
⁂3PortsPost - Local tech start-up Erudite Evenings is facing a heavy backlash from the 3ports' community after an anonymous whistle blower revealed that the flagship product they've been developing for months is in fact pro-Foundation propaganda. This has sparked near unanimous outrage, with some local members of the Serpent's Hand even attempting to… (Read More)
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Beta Readers: AgentFish, CryonicAutumn, Othello,
Item #: SCP-4428
Object Class: Euclid
Special Containment Procedures: SCP-4428 is stored within a 10-liter dewar in the cryogenic storage wing of Site-66, with access limited to Level 3 personnel or above. A layer of acoustic foam has been applied to the interior of the dewar to minimize the risk of accidental exposure to SCP-4428's secondary anomaly.
Any personnel handling SCP-4428 directly must wear thermal gloves rated for cryogenic temperatures to prevent instantaneous frostbite. Outside of experimentation, all personnel must wear sound-cancelling headphones when within audible range of SCP-4428.
As of Cognitohazardous Test # 4428-009 , research personnel overseeing testing are to remain a minimum of fifty meters from the testing chamber, as well as wear heart rate monitors that will trigger an auto-abort if their pulse drops below sixty beats per minute. Preference for assignment is to be given to personnel with higher cognitohazardous resistance ratings.
Description: SCP-4428 is a human heart, perpetually at near-zero degrees Kelvin/ -273 degrees Celsius16. While its temperature has been measured as dropping by small fractions of a degree closer to absolute zero, it has never been observed to increase, even when exposed to 30 000° C plasma. How this thermal homeostasis is maintained remains unknown.
While the cells in SCP-4428's pericardium17 are necrotic, giving it a blackened appearance, it is otherwise in good condition as its anomalous cryogenic temperature prevents any further decay.
The fluids within SCP-4428's cells remain liquid in a supercooled state, allowing the tissue to remain soft and pliable. All attempts to induce the formation of ice crystals in SCP-4428's cells have failed.
The pacemaker cells of the Sinoatrial node have been replaced with a small clockwork device of an anomalous beryllium-bronze alloy, capable of maintaining its ductility at cryogenic temperatures. Despite no apparent power source, this device produces electrical impulses and functions as an artificial pacemaker, maintaining a constant heart rate of 48 beats per minute in SCP-4428.
The sound of SCP-4428's heartbeat carries cognitohazardous properties. Measuring the sound objectively has proven difficult, but to date, all individuals exposed to SCP-4428 have reported that the sound of SCP-4428's heartbeat is extremely noticeable, albeit not especially loud. The heart rates of exposed individuals will sync up with that of SCP-4428's within fifteen seconds. This low heart rate commonly results in episodes of syncope18, especially if an individual's fight or flight response is triggered.
Initial reaction to SCP-4428 is frequently reported to be one of dread or disquietment, along with a morbid fascination that makes it difficult (though not impossible) for an individual to withdraw without further incentive. After focusing on SCP-4428 for two to three minutes, subjects will be lulled into a semi-hypnagogic state where they are highly receptive to suggestions and guided hallucinations.
Update: During testing, D-1921 exhibited an abnormal response to SCP-4428, the implications of which are still being debated.
Cognitohazardous Testing Log, #4428-009
Foreword: D-1921 was isolated in the testing chamber with SCP-4428, with Dr. Erika Chelsea directing him in the adjacent observation room.
<Begin Log>
Irrelevant dialogue redacted for brevity. Transcript begins after Dr. Chelsea has confirmed D-1921 has entered a semi-hypnagogic state.
Dr. Chelsea: Alright D-1921, we're going to start with something simple. I'm going to change the colour of the overhead light, and you tell me what colour it is.
Dr. Chelsea flicks the test chamber's lights off and on. Note that no colour change has actually taken place.
Dr. Chelsea: What colour is the light, D-1921?
D-1921 does not respond.
Dr. Chelsea: D-1921? Is everything alright?
D-1921: (groans audibly) My dear, I must say that I take umbrage to this little science fair experiment of yours. You have my very own cold, black heart in your possession, and what do you do with it? Que up your indentured convicts one at a time and ask them about the lights? If they smell anything funny? If they're actually wearing their own underpants today? An outrage! A travesty! An egregious misrepresentation of my good name! Have you the slightest notion of this artifact's potential?
It should be noted that D-1921's voice and dialect are markedly different from his normal speaking voice.
Dr. Chelsea: Okay, that's… new. Am I still speaking with D-1921?
D-1921: With? No. I'm speaking to you, mon cheri. To you. When I speak, you listen. Nod if you understand.
Dr. Chelsea nods. Information gathered from her personal fitness tracker indicates that her heart rate dropped to 48 beats per minute at this time, despite being insulated from SCP-4428's sound.
D-1921: Excellent! Blind Milgramesque obedience, something the Foundation and myself both appreciate. Now, allow me to demonstrate how a proper showman utilizes such profanely preposterous powers of persuasion!
The room goes dark, and a spotlight inexplicably appears over SCP-4428. It is speculated that SCP-4428's unknown properties are affecting the recording equipment as well. D-1921 stands on the table, dressed in a Ringmaster's costume and carrying a red cane. Neither of these objects were recovered afterwards.
D-1921: Ladies and Gentleman, boys and girls, viewers at home and abroad, welcome to my one-man show! It's been a while since I've done improv, but I'll manage. Tonight's first and only exhibit is something very near and dear to my heart. In fact, it is my heart. I took it out myself you know. It was holding me back. There's no room for heart in show business. That's a load of bull berries; I never had a heart to start with. Enough of my prattling though, you all want a demonstration. First, I'll need a volunteer from the audience.
A spotlight shines on Dr. Chelsea, despite being in the adjacent observation room.
D-1921: Yes Ma'am, you there! The woman in the front row secretly questioning whether or not a career testing cursed chotskies was worth delaying motherhood for. Step right up, if you would please!
Dr. Chelsea complies wordlessly, though her facial expression indicates severe distress and confusion.
D-1921: Lovely. Thank you ever so much. Of course, now we don't have a live audience anymore. We can't have a show without a peanut gallery, now can we?
A third spotlight activates, illuminating a small stand filled with six, two-meter tall peanuts painted to look like SCP-173. Dr. Chelsea screams and keeps her gaze fixated on the stand.
D-1921: Nothing to worry about, my dear. Just some cheap knock-offs I had lying around. You wouldn't believe how much people pay to stare at that ugly mug. Oh, I shouldn't be so hard on the poor guy. After all, none of us would be here without him.
D-1921 winks directly at the surveillance camera.
D-1921: I ask that you all kindly direct your attention back to the main exhibit. Listen to that slow, steady heartbeat. Like clockwork. You can set your watch by that heartbeat.
The sound of SCP-4428's heartbeat begins to grow progressively louder, with Dr.Chelsea covering her ears in discomfort. The room can be observed visibly throbbing in time with the heartbeat.
D-1921: It's a remarkable thing, what sound can do to a human mind. The right string of words in a speech or notes in a melody can instantly and dramatically alter the most stubborn mood or entrenched ideology. With enough skill, sounds can change how you perceive the world itself. Take our brave volunteer here. Moments ago she was in her drab little testing chamber, subjecting her fellow human being to unknowable horrors in experiments that surely violate some code of rights and ethics somewhere, but the ticking of my ticker has swept her away to a private viewing of The Greatest Show in all the Worlds! But we can't have our viewers at home feeling left out, now can we? Turn towards the camera and show them what I mean.
Dr. Chelsea complies, revealing enlarged, bulging eyes with rainbow-coloured stripes, rotating in opposite directions. A loud bouncing noise can be heard originating from within her abdominal cavity. She grabs hold of her lower jaw and pulls her mouth open several times larger than is humanly possible. She begins vomiting up small rodents with engorged abdomens, which float in a manner similar to helium-filled balloons.
D-1921: Would you look at that, folks? I'd heard rumours that vore fetishes were rampant in the Foundation, but that's just obscene! I guess you could say she's coughing up furballs on the fly, eh? Eh?
The peanut gallery boos and throws a large number of regular peanuts painted to resemble SCP-173 at D-1921. Given their lack of limbs, it is not clear how this is accomplished.
D-1921: Oh alright, alright, moving on. Next, I'd like you to note my heart's rare ebony hue. To the untrained eye, it may seem like a sign of death and decay, but I assure you it is nothing of the kind. In all my long life I've had my heart broken exactly once, only once you hear me! I walked straight into the heartsmith's shop, the remnants of my once proud heart cupped in my hands, and I sobbed 'Doc, this just won't do! If I'm gonna make it in this dog-eat-dog world, I'll need a heart stronger than this!', and so the heartsmith reforged my heart inside of a shell of indestructible black bile. No woman can ever break it again, and you, dear doctor, are welcomed to try.
D-1921 manifests a croquet mallet and tosses it to Dr. Chelsea, who has ceased regurgitating floating rodents at this point. She complies with the demand, striking SCP-4428 with the mallet, causing its head to freeze and shatter.
D-1921: Now, now, there's no need to go easy on me. I've had worse heartache than that from Italian food. I want you to really let me have it!
D-1921 produces a succession of blunt implements (a shovel, a shepherd's crook, a gulf club, a baseball bat, a crowbar, a sledgehammer, a live flamingo, and a morning star mace), all of which Dr. Chelsea uses in attempt to destroy SCP-4428, with each freezing and shattering after multiple strikes.
D-1921: That's what I like to see! Why secure, contain and protect when you can destroy, destroy destroy! Hehehe. Okay, that's enough of that. We still need to get to the grand finale! With all these frozen bits and pieces all strewn about, you must be wondering; how can his heart be so very, very cold? Well, it was always colder than most, I suppose, but it wasn't always this cold. No, it got colder and colder as time went on. A little colder each winter, but never to warm again with the spring thaw. I needed it to be cold. You understand that, don't you Foundation? There are things that just need to be done, no matter are wretched, how horrid, how lower-middle-class, that must be done to survive! If I hadn't been so cold, I never would've lived long enough to have the people I protected and provided for stab me in the back. Not that it wasn't painful, having your heart turn to ice so slowly. That's why I'm going to be kind for once, and give this young woman here the chance to freeze her heart all at once. Go on and grab a hold of it doc, and give us our grand finale.
Dr. Chelsea approaches the table, but stops before touching SCP-4428.
Dr. Chelsea: I… I need my hands.
D-1921: Yeah, well, I need a hot shower, a fresh costume, and some sort of eigenweapon to take out a few hundred traitors, but we don't always get what we need. Grab the heart.
Dr. Chelsea: (noticeably struggling to resist)… Please.
D-1921: (leans in towards Dr. Chelsea) Do you know who I am? You must know who I am, surely?
Dr. Chelsea shakes her head no.
Dr. Chelsea: I don't.
D-1921: That's disappointing. Well, if you did know who I am, you'd know that I'm not a man who you'd want as your enemy. So do yourself a favour, and pick up the damn heart!
Dr. Chelsea: (shaking her head while weeping) No.
D-1921 sighs disappointedly, and strikes Dr. Chelsea across the head with his cane, knocking her unconscious. The peanut gallery cheers.
D-1921: Nothing worse than a volunteer with stage fright. But the show must go on.
D-1921 picks up SCP-4428, suffering instantaneous frostbite on both hands.
D-1921: Ah. It's good to feel something again. It's funny. She said if she had to she'd cut me into a thousand pieces and bury me across a thousand worlds to keep me dead. I guess in one of those worlds, she did.
D-1921 screams in agony. His hypnagogic trance is broken and all anomalous activity ceases. Both he and Dr.Chelsea are immediately transported to the site infirmary for emergency treatment, and SCP-4428 is returned to cryogenic storage.
< End Log>
tags: scp euclid herman-fuller dread&circuses acoustic biological clockwork cognitohazard indestructible thermodynamic
By Special Guest Author DrChandra, of the SCP Wiki.
So… tonight was kind of weird for me.
Some of you may recall that when I first joined Cerber, Adeline had said that the peak hours were between ten P.M. and four-thirty A.M. I’m still trying to hone in on the right balance of obscenely high pay and unbearable Lovecraftian horror, so I thought I’d head out early to see what, if anything, I’d get.
As I’d expected, it was pretty quiet at first, but I did get one ping around twilight from a user named Icky.
‘Icky? I wonder what kind of thing that is’, I thought. ‘Bugs are icky, so maybe some kind of insect monster? Or maybe it’s short for Ichabod, like the Headless Horseman? Well, only one way to find out.
I accepted the request and headed out to the pick-up spot. When I got there I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. Sitting on a bench outside of a local park were two women. The first one looked to be about as tall as most men, maybe five nine or five ten, with long raven hair and an extremely curvy figure wrapped up in a long suede coat.
The second woman had auburn hair, smaller in height and build but still a cutie. The way the taller woman had her arm wrapped around the other made me think they might be a couple, and they both had chalk-white skin contrasted against brightly coloured make-up.
‘Maybe they’re vampires?’ I wondered. ‘Well, I can certainly imagine worse fares than hot lesbian vampires. Dammit, my mouth is going to get me in trouble again, isn’t it? Jim, do not try to talk your fat ass into a three-way with these two unless you want to end up their super-sized breakfast.’
“Excuse me? Is one of you lovely ladies Icky?” I asked brightly as I rolled to a stop in front of them. I swear, I just blinked and in that fraction of a second, the red-headed girl dashed the distance between the bench and the car. I would’ve thought she had teleported if it weren’t for the dust storm she had kicked up behind her.
“Omigosh, are you Jim? I’m Lolly, and that’s Icky over there. Thank you so much for picking us up! I didn’t even know something like Cerber existed! I read all your reviews before you got here. You are so awesome for helping Freaks get around safely!” she blurted out in a single breath. There was a manic gleam in her cherry-red eyes, paired with a smile that made her look borderline psychotic.
There were no fangs, I noted, and all her teeth were as white and straight as the Republican National Convention. They were also so shiny I could see my reflection in them. Her breath was sickly sweet, like atomised cotton candy. Now that she was so close, I got a better look at her make-up: a pinkish red Glasgow smile, painted nose, and tapered streaks through each eye.
“We wandered a little further from home then we intended. It’s a bit embarrassing, but thanks to you we won’t even be late for bed,” the other woman said in a voice like silk. Spider’s silk, at any rate. Beautiful, seductive, but still something not quite right about it.
The woman’s smile was more serene than her companion’s but still unnerving, and she had violet lips, blush and fancy starburst patterns around her purple eyes.
‘These aren’t vampires,’ I realized. ‘They’re Clowns. Clowns are actually paranormal?’ And just like that my member went as soft as the rest of me again.
“Yeah, yeah. No problem,” I muttered nervously. I had no idea what to expect from these two. “Just hop in the back. There’s a cooler in there with drinks and snacks, feel free to help yourselves.”
“Thanks, but we’ve got that covered,” Lolly said, holding up a bag of Burger King take-out and drinking cup. “We promise we won’t make a mess.”
Icky opened the back door for her date, and it was then I noticed she wasn’t empty-handed either. She was holding what looked like a pet-carrier with a cloth draped over it. I debated whether or not to inquire about its contents, but ultimately decided that the less I knew, the better.
“Does your stereo have Bluetooth?” Lolly asked. Before I could answer, Panic! At The Disco started blaring over my car speakers.
“Yeah, no, that’s fine. I just ask that you keep it quiet enough so that it’s not a distraction. For your safety,” I shouted over the pretentious emo pop rock.
She turned it down to a tolerable level and we were off.
Their drop-off point was a good twenty miles or so outside the city, and I was hoping that wasn’t a bad omen. Unlike most of my fares, Lolly was very talkative. I don’t really remember most of what she said, and half the time it wasn’t even clear if she was talking to me or just Icky, but it was a nice change of pace.
It wasn’t until we were out on the highway that things took a turn back towards weird ass monster shit.
In spite of the music, I started to notice a weird sort of chittering sound coming from the back. I realized it was coming from the pet carrier, but I still really didn’t want to ask about it.
“The music’s not enough. He’s getting bored in there. I don’t think he’s going to last the rest of the ride,” I heard Lolly whisper. They evidently didn’t want to talk about it either, as this was the first time I heard Lolly speak with anything approaching an inside voice.
“Everything okay back there?” I asked.
“Everything’s fine, thank you,” Icky answered, but then immediately whispered to Lolly. “Just feed him some more chicken nuggets. He’ll be fine.”
I glanced back into the rearview mirror and saw Lolly reaching into her take-out bag and pulling out some chicken nuggets. I saw her very carefully opening the pet-carrier door just enough to drop the nuggets in, but something pushed its way past her and was now free in the back of my SUV, giggling like a demented Looney Toons character. I couldn’t get more than a glimpse of it, it was moving too fast and I had to watch the road, but the two Clowns were frantically trying to get whatever it was back into its carrier.
“Do you want me to pull over?” I asked.
“No, don’t stop. Keep the windows up and the doors locked until we say so,” Icky ordered. They both went dead quiet as the creature jumped into the passenger seat beside me.
I slowly turned my head to see an amorphous, translucent sac filled with a sloshing black fluid bouncing up and down in the chair. It had several feathery tentacles wafting off it and a pair of undulating stalks studded with multiple reddish spider eyes.
“Don’t look at him. Don’t give him any reaction at all. Do nothing that might amuse him,” Icky cautioned me.
“But don’t worry though, he’s not going to hurt you. He’s just a baby,” Lolly insisted.
“… A baby what?” I asked, keeping my head as straight as possible as the thing posed for its reflection in the windshield.
“We call them Fun-Lovers,” Icky explained. “They’re like… well, they’re not really like anything else. That one escaped from our Funhouse and Lolly went chasing after him, and so of course I went chasing after Lolly, which is how we ended up stranded in that park.”
“He’s a baby! We couldn’t just leave him to fend for himself. He has no idea how dangerous it is for Freaks out in the open. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him,” Lolly said apologetically.
“Just so that I’m clear here, I’m not in any danger from this thing?” I asked, still only watching it in my peripheral vision.
“Well…” was Lolly’s non-committal response.
“As their name suggests, Fun-Lover’s like to have fun, which is completely subjective,” Icky explained. “And sociopathic Fun-Lovers aren't unheard of. Yakko there is pretty young, so we don’t really know what he considers fun yet.”
The infant abomination began hitting buttons and knobs on the dashboard at random, but seemed unimpressed with any of the responses.
That’s when I saw him eyeing the steering wheel.
“Don’t even think about it, little dude,” I said in the most authoritative paternal tone I could manage. The creature swivelled its eyestalks between me and the steering wheel. It finally settled on me, and opened up a circular mouth I didn’t know it had. A forked tongue began slithering out, slowly stretching until it reached an obscene two feet. I felt hot, sticky saliva as the tongue momentarily flickered against the side of my face.
“What the hell do I do?” I asked calmly, even though I was fighting a strong urge to throw the little shit sac out the window.
“Try turning the windshield wipers on,” Lolly suggested.
I hit the button for the wiper fluid, and the Fun-Lover sucked its tongue back in and followed the wipers with its eyestalks as they arced across the windshield. I sighed with relief and flicked the wipers on to full blast.
The little bugger’s eyestalks started moving in a blur to keep up, giggling in glee as it bounced up and down again.
“Alright then. So, ah, how long do you think that’s going to keep him occupied before -” I didn’t even get to finish my sentence before the thing leapt in front of me and wrapped two of its tentacles around the steering wheel while using another pair to play with the lights, blinker switch, and gear shift. “Holy hell!”
I slammed on the breaks before we could spin out of control, sending the would-be car jacker crashing into the dash. It didn’t look hurt, but it also didn’t look very happy. It started to blow itself up like a pufferfish and hiss like a cat full of helium.
“Jim, duck!” Icky shouted from behind me. Having no better ideas, I did what she said, and the Fun-Lover was sprayed with a stream of soda from a shook-up bottle she had found in the cooler. That freaky tongue came out again and started licking it all up, and while it was distracted Icky and Lolly each grabbed a tentacle and yanked the creature back. They spun it round and round, wrapping it up in its own noodly limbs, then tossed it back into the pet-carrier and slammed the door shut.
I managed not to shoot my mouth off, but I still gave the two of them an accusatory glare. Icky gave Lolly a gentler but still reprimanding look, and Lolly looked back and forth at both of us defensively before sighing and hanging her head in defeat.
“Sorry,” she muttered in resignation.
“Ah, don’t worry about it. That’s far from the worst thing I’ve been attacked by in this car,” I told her. She was so adorable I couldn’t stand to see her feel bad, and it was perfectly true, after all.
I got us back on course and the rest of the ride was happily without incident. Their drop-off point was a little ways down a side road; an old, abandoned camper sitting in a cypress clearing. Creepy.
“Ah… are you sure this is your stop?” I asked.
“Let me send a text just to be sure,” Lolly replied, typing away at her phone. Sure enough, the camper door swung open. White light and smoke poured out of it, even though the camper’s windows were dark. I could hear calliope music, loud enough that I should have been able to have heard it when the door was closed. I shielded my eyes and squinted, but all I could make out was the silhouette of a large man standing in the doorway.
“Yep, this is our transfer,” Lolly chirped happily. “Thank you so much for getting us home, and I am super Saiyan sorry that I let Yakko out and he tried to steal your car.”
“Really, it’s fine. It’s all part of the job,” I assured her. Icky exited first and held the door for Lolly, who held the pet-carrier in one hand and her take-out in the other. After she was out Icky gently shut the door, sauntered up to my window and handed me a ticket.
“You should come to see our show next time we’re in Northern California,” she offered. “That guest pass will get you free admittance to the Big Top, sideshows, midway, plus all you can eat.”
“You might regret that last one. I can eat a lot,” I chuckled. “I’ll… yeah, I’ll keep that mind. Thank you.”
“Icky, come on! Yakko peed in the carrier and it stinks like a barrel of rotten caramel apples!” Lolly shouted from the camper.
“Stay out of trouble Jim,” Icky smiled as she dashed after Lolly through the camper door. The silhouetted man gave me a polite nod and the instant he closed the door there was no trace of the lights or the smoke or the music, and I’m parked alone in an eerily quiet forest.
For those curious, their fare was $1,421.00, and they tipped me an even $500 to bring the total up to $1,921. Based on the usual rating system, that means that even though they were pretty powerful they weren’t statistically very likely to hurt me specifically. They gave me five batwings, and left a review which read ‘Polite, discrete, and professional, even when our untrained pet got loose in his car! Will definitely recommend to other Freaks,'.
So all and all, hardly the most terrifying passengers I’ve had. Disquieting, though. I’ll say that. There’s was something off about that guy that met them too, now that I think about it. I could barely make him out, but I think it was something about his face. Yeah, definitely his face. I think… he had a handlebar moustache.
What sort of hipster has a handlebar moustache?
http://scp-sandbox-3.wikidot.com/drchandra-s-sandbox
http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/dr-chandra
http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/drchandra
http://scpsandbox2.wikidot.com/collab:herman-fuller-collaboration-page
http://sandbox.scp-wiki.net/ihpkmn