What don't you know?

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What this is:

• An attempt at a tale series.
• A foray into the unknown world of long-form narrative.
• A bad excuse to press my headcanons on the unsuspecting masses.

What this isn't:

• Particularly good.
• Anywhere near finished.
• A worn, wood-panelled hatbox — the kind owned by a once-wealthy woman who has fallen on harder times, perhaps — inside which lies a withered hand with grave-dirt under its fingernails.
• An ill-fated attempt to beat DarkStuff at his own game.

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• PART 1: [✔] Strange things happen for no reason
• PART 2: Making holes and filling heads
• PART 3: Off to the races
• PART 4: It's not paranoia if they're out to get you
• PART 5: Very unpuzzlelike

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+ Tentative titles

• Reality is overrated
• Layerfall
• Anterospective
• Dreams within worlds within dreams
• *click*

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+ Current plot

Strange things happen for no reason

• Langdon Pisk is a mathematician who is beset by a strange dream.
  • In this "dream", which is reality, or rather, used to be reality, he's hit by a car and dies an intensely painful death.
  • This is the first hint that something's wrong. There are various bits and pieces relating to Hutchinson, the attack, and the coverup, but nothing concrete is explained. Just how I like it.
  • Langdon's anomaly, for reference, is nociceptive; triggered by intense pain. It's also related to dreams.

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+ Original plan

By the numbers

• Langdon Pisk is a mathematician who is beset by strange dreams, including:
  • The face of a man who he recognises, but can't place why.
  • A sequence of 'intuitive' numbers; he can't work out any logical pattern to them, but they seem to make sense in some indefinable way.
  • Hints at a building, or location (nothing definable, just the impression of stone corridors and geometric carvings.
• Eventually, he reaches out to the internet, asking people to analyse the sequence/dream for him (and work out if he's going insane).
  • He is contacted by a person named Leslie No given surname, who hints that they know something about the numbers (though not the man).
    • (They're a conspiracy nut, prepper, and also independently stumbled upon the sequence).
  • "These phones are tapped. Meet me at the Shakespeare's Head on Kingsway, 7 pm. Come alone."
    "I- I'm not going to do that. I'm like 60% sure you're some kind of serial killer."
    "Oh yeah? Fine. Pass it up, I don't care. I plan on getting hammered, with or without you. But, in case it piques your interest, I'll tell you this: it's not some mathematical sequence."
    "What is it, then?"
    "Coordinates. Remember, Shakespeare's Head, Kingsway, 7 o'clock. You're buying."
  • They're not actually coordinates, but that's not far off from the truth.

Strange things happen for no reason

• Leslie eventually convinces Pisk to journey out of London to their 'base of operations', which turns out to be a barn. On the way, it is hinted at that Pisk has had his memories altered: he discovered the sequence, and somebody wanted to make sure he forgot it.
  • (This is obviously the Foundation, and the alteration is amnestics. In actuality, they removed the memory of SCP-4517, and the vocational checkups revealed the sequence; a memetic anomaly classified as SCP-7111. This was then scrubbed as well).
  • SCP-4517 is, of course, Pisk's brother, and the man he saw in his dreams. He now has a purpose in this journey, which is to find out what happened.
    • It will likely be unsatisfying, because the two anomalies are unrelated, and Damien committed suicide /because/ of Langdon's relative success.
  • Leslie implies that they've had their memories altered before, in a similar way. They refuse to elaborate.
• The base of operations is as grotty and awful as Langdon could've imagined.

Intermission Impossible

• First part is from the Foundation's perspective. They're on the same track as our protagonists, but can't work out the meaning of the numbers because a) they're not the intended recipient, and b) they're not off their faces on booze and illicit substances with one-syllable names.
  • That's the issue, by the way. You need a certain type of mind. Either rampant paranoia or constant questioning, tipped over the edge by booze (Langdon was drinking heavily before Foundation intervention, because of the inability to perceive and remember Damien) and/or cocktails of chemicals (amnestics and/or drugs).
  • They were listening to Leslie's phone call.
• Second part is our protagonists at the barn. Langdon almost leaves, but Leslie shows him the one genuine anomaly he's found; a hideous ceremonial coronation plate that reassembles when broken. Langdon starts to put the pieces together.
  • SCPF: "So there's people out there who, for whatever reason, are running around knowing what none of our staff can work out?"
    Protags: "So there's people out there who spend their lives, for whatever reason, investigating the things we desperately nee to know?"
    SCPF: "We need to find them."
    Protags: "We need to find them."

It's not paranoia if they're out to get you

• Double reverse containment breach!
  • Langdon and Co. break into a Foundation facility concealed in the London subway system. Meanwhile, a bunch of MTF agents investigate the barn.
    • There's gonna be this really nice scene where Leslie does a memetic thing. The SCPF gag them, but they tap out an audio cognitohazard.
      • It's an odd rhythm; irregular, and slightly faster than a heartbeat. It speaks of gunfire, of warfare, and of imminent, paralytic fear. A simple sequence shouldn't be able to contain that much information, and yet it does — a picture paints a thousand words, but this paints just one, in metre-high letters on the side of your skull.
        The guard's eyes widen with that expression unique to grown men who have (for the first time in their adult lives) shat themselves.
• Eventually the two groups meet one another, and shizzle gets rizzle.

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