It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
-A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens
Some stories are timeless, works of art that can be recognized and valued for hundreds of years. Others are lost in archives, buried underneath the refuse of knowledge that time brings about, true diamonds in the rough. Alas, this story resembles the latter.
Excerpt from the diary of Researcher Ryan Miller
December 19, 1970
What does it take to create a legend? Heroic acts, heinous evil, good storytelling? I think it's a bit of all three, plus more. Every hero has that unseen darkness within them. The heart is a strange thing. I think mine is pure. I hope I did the right thing. God help me.
In the year 1969, two Foundation Sites, one located in the Great Victoria Desert in Australia, miles from any sign of civilization, and the other on a remote island in the North Atlantic, the existence of which is completely unknown to all but the highest ranking Foundation personnel, experienced mass containment breaches at the exact same moment in time. These catastrophic incidents resulted in what was thought to be total loss of all personnel, as both on-site nuclear warheads (brand-new models based on American nuclear research at the time) were detonated. This was discovered to not be the case almost 45 years later.
An SCP, no longer even logged by the Foundation, that proved to be one of the most crucial objects ever to come into the Foundation's hands-
A Level 2 Researcher tasked with containing and researching a spatial anomaly-
Two inexplicably linked Foundation sites, burned into history, but unknown to most-
The perfect storm.
Begin Log
Ryan awoke to stomping feet passing by his personal office. Fuck, how long have I been asleep? He straightened his tie, dusted off his jacket, and took a swig of what was a hot coffee a few hours before.
The boots of a Mobile Task Force marched loudly down the hall, a proud puzzle piece of the thin screen that worked tirelessly to prevent total annihilation of life as humanity knows it.
Existence is pretty fragile, you know.
A normally bizarre day at the office, Ryan thought to himself as he wrote a report on a spatial anomaly that for some reason happened to be capable of warping objects and people between Site-220 (My home in the middle of this godforsaken desert, and where I'll probably die, he shuddered) that he had sent a D-Class through earlier in the day. The D-Class was sent right back looking shaken, with a note that read "You just teleported this fucker into my bathroom stall, asshole." Ryan chuckled to himself as he wrote.
Anomaly is not sentient as far as we know, however, if it is, it has a sense of humour. Locations objects have ended up include:
One (1) sheet of paper reappearing taped to the back of a D-Class at Site 234 with the note "Kick Me."
One (1) Male D-Class reappearing straddling a researcher in the middle of using the restroom
The PA system buzzed to life with a burst of static, followed by the voice of the Site Director, an American, using the worst fake Australian accent he could muster-
"Oi, we gotta Euclid Breach in the West Wing, part C. Fucked up its containment but it's aight, we got the wing on lockdown. Resume ya normal procedures.
"Asshole," Ryan muttered to himself. He kept writing.
Another day passed, and Ryan found himself back in the anomaly's containment unit, ignoring the interns gossiping about the breach that apparently was still going on out in the West Wing. Site 234 was on full preparation to receive a small red ball that would be sent through his SCP in a few moments, to see where it'd end up this time.
3…
2…
1…
Drop it in, boys.
And so, the Tale of Two Sites begins.
“I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss. I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
-Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.
There's an old theory called "The Butterfly Effect" that dictates that every major event can be traced back to one little action or event. It's usually talked about in the concept of time travel, but it doesn't have to only apply to the past. And the Butterfly Effect coincidentally was what a Foundation Researcher named Ryan wrote his best paper in college about. So it’s interesting that the Butterfly Effect is so important to this story.
When Ryan gave the order to drop a little red ball into a spatial anomaly, just to see what happened, he felt…off. Some people think that these little feelings are a “sixth sense” and the Foundation has certainly discovered weirder things. But Ryan didn’t believe in superstition. Despite the fact that he spends a majority of his time around unexplainable, bizarre anomalies, he was stubborn. He chalked up these “feelings” to the human ability to think about the future, to consider what outcomes could result from an action.
Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t foresee what his actions could lead to.
A researcher whose name and records were annihilated and erased from history with pure energy of shattering nuclei, instead of the usual Foundation black “Redacted” stamps, was monitoring the cell of an SCP that bizarrely managed to survive a nuclear blast and be recontained again, when suddenly, something that wasn’t there before suddenly was. A small, red children’s toy. What the hell is that? he wondered aloud as he phoned security.
The interesting thing about small objects is that when they start to move really, really, really fast is that they can be pretty fucking dangerous.
By the time Site 234’s security arrived, the sight that befell them was absolutely bizarre- a bouncy ball, lacking the ability to lose its kinetic energy, bouncing back and forth across a room, speeding up as it went. It’s unfortunate that the Foundation produces some really goddamn resilient bouncy balls.
The guards watched as a small red ball broke the sound barrier and shattered straight into the room next door, which housed an SCP that no longer exists at all.
Charles Dickens wrote a story of a freed man. This was no man.
The following chain of events is probably pretty violent, but an entity that can clone itself that has access to a portal to another site around the world, a brand new shiny hole in the door to its cell, a Level 4 Access card, and sentience cause a rippling series of events that led to the knowledge of what exactly happened to be turned to pure ash.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Ryan didn’t know about any of this. He just sat back, and waited for something to be sent back through before the “portal” that was created at Site 234 vanished, which it usually tended to do after about 3 or 4 minutes.
He got a bit nervous when nothing came back.
And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire.
-A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens.
Excerpt from diary of Researcher Ryan Miller
December 25th, 1970
Christmas alone again. He tells me I saved the world, but I sure as hell got just about nothing for it.
I miss my friends.
Now, modern technology like cell phones, and instantaneous communication were all but non-existent in the year 1964. Ryan’s pet portal was the closest thing to it. But there were telegrams, and through hard (forced) labor of a lot of D-class personnel (The ethics committee wasn’t really a thing yet) telegram lines had been lain from Site 234, in the middle of the Atlantic, to another Site in Europe. And so the line went, from site to site, one message,
BREACH
This message didn’t need to make it to Ryan, because he saw the breach before his own eyes as a singular normal-looking human crawled through a 2-dimensional object that was hard to even look at. And then there were two of them. And then four. You see, when mitosis takes place in every cell at once, a lot of beings can be created pretty damn
fast.
Ryan didn’t want to die.
Ryan was smart.
Ryan ran.
Order has a tendency to give way to chaos, and chaos has a tendency to give way to order. Site 220 was quite orderly. But that didn’t last long. Security opened the door to try to contain the entities multiplying before them, but that was a mistake. Two sites, three breaches. You didn’t think the first breach was over yet, did you?
Ryan sprinted through the hall. He didn’t want to die. A storm of feet marched past his personal office, but this time, they were what was meant to be contained, not what was meant to contain.
Ryan ran again.
The spatial anomaly was still open. Ryan snuck back in to the adjacent lab. He stepped over gutted bodies of poor unfortunate souls. As alarms wailed in the background, Ryan heard footsteps at the door.
thump
THUMP
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Ryan’s heart pounded the inside of his chest louder than a hundred anomalous entities could ever even try to, and he made a choice.
His pet project, his portal, his pathway to salvation, welcomed him warmly into limbo.
Limbo is a bit different than what he had imagined, Ryan thought. He hadn’t expected a hotel room. A knock on the door startled him. He didn’t get up to open it, but they came in anyways.
I had a feeling you’d end up here, eventually.
Ryan felt unsettled, but not scared. This wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened today.
So, where are you going? asked the unremarkable man dressed in drab clothing.
“I’m not really sure, I thought you guys would be choosing that for me,” Ryan responded tentatively.
Everyone says that. Do I look like God to you? He raised his eyebrows.
“I suppose not.”
Maybe I am. People always come through here sooner or later.
“What…is this place?”
To be honest? I’m not entirely sure. I’ve been here for a long time. Did I create this? I don’t quite know. But you’ve sent things through here quite a bit lately. We’ve sent them to that island. I didn’t really pay attention to where I was sending it. I hope I didn’t cause too much trouble.
Ryan chuckled.
Oh, I can see it now. I’m so sorry.
“How can I stop this? I don’t want them to die.”
You can’t. I’m sorry, Ryan. You have a choice to make.
The black and white TV on a dresser in the hotel room cuts on, with two different images presenting themselves.
A charred and burned world.
Two charred and burnt Sites.
“I don’t understand”
Are you sure?
Ryan wept.
Two sites, one man, and one choice.
Ryan was in a room. He didn’t know exactly where he was, but he felt different.
He opened the door and saw a dozen humanoid figures turn their heads at him. Inexplicably, they ignored him. He walked with purpose, words seared into his head on repeat, explicit instructions on how to prevent the unpreventable. He released an SCP, then another one, then another one. They did exactly as the man had warned him, and another chain of events began.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Two nuclear blasts registered on Richter scales, and within just a few minutes, two nations had every preparation to end the world completed.
But as keys were turned, and papers were signed, history was suddenly, inexplicably rewritten. Not through some sort of reality-warping device, but through a simple action, one spark to ignite a gunpowder keg- or to keep it from exploding.
It was pretty simple really, A few skips let loose, and they went ahead and made some inexplicable things happen that planted seeds of doubt in some military leader’s minds, and they stopped. Simple as that, really, A telegram from the site to the Russians and the Americans was all it took, after their attention was momentarily taken away by unexplainable events. A telegram sent from a bomb-proof bunker on an island nearby.
Ryan wept.
