In truth, the Calamity was all but grand.
For most, it wasn't even personal. After all, how could it? It was just a force of nature, a wave of so necessary change blowing through a stagnant world. It didn't target and it didn't favor; it simply came and went, sowing the consequences of its inevitable arrival.
To others, it was barely noticeable. The Yeren hyperpolis under the Amazon and the Fae Kingdoms barely blinked as it occurred, going on with their lives just like they normally would. They'd known for ages that the end of man would sooner or later come, so its arrival was nothing but a long prediction finally coming true.
To Alto Clef and Kain Pathos Crow, though, the Calamity was silent.
It all began with Clef blinking twice. "Did you hear that?" He suddenly said, lowering his voice and slowly raising his hand.
A quiet whimper answered him from the inside of the cut-out booth as Crow looked up to meet his eyes. "No, Alto," the professor sighed briefly, correcting the protective glasses covering his eyes. "For the sixth time, this containment chamber is unu—"
"No. Not that," the other said. His tone was even quieter, his movements — even more still. All of his three eyes were now scanning the area around them as if, for reasons unknown, the unused sector of Site-19's containment wing had suddenly gained some new visitors that weren't the two doctors.
Surprised at his companion ever taking anything seriously, Kain skewed his head. "Are you quite all right, Alto? If you need to extend your break after the New Year's party, I'm sure—"
Clef shot him a furious look. There was something more inside of his eyes than his usual snide and disdain, now — something that, if Crow looked carefully enough, he could swear almost looked like fear. "Shut up," Clef whispered, very slowly taking the first step forward. "Just shut up," he ground his teeth as he let his feet carry him forward.
Kain raised an eyebrow, following the other doctor, his paws mirroring Clef's pace and concern almost step for step. It wasn't every day that somebody like Alto was worried about… anything, really. To see a creature of sarcasm and irony so genuinely moved was almost fascinating. Almost; the other part of Crow — the one that wasn't a scientist by profession and heart — felt just a bit of unease in his smell and movement.
And when he entered the corridor right after Alto, it hit him with all of its might.
Site-19 was quiet.
For all of its history, Site-19 practically had a life of its own — from the talks of research staff to the blasting alarms of containment breaches, the facility had its own specific hullabaloo that engulfed every single wing and room it had to offer. After a while, you stopped to notice it, really. Especially when other duties made any sort of off-project focus practically impossible.
But right now, even somebody as disconnected from reality as Kain Pathos Crow could see that Site-19 was a living corpse.
It took them just three seconds and a shared glance to start running.
Containment Wing K might have been a new addition to the facility, but it wasn't far away from Site-19's center of operation. Still, the journey felt like a marathon, and for every single empty room, every single uninhabited corridor both of them noticed, the run got worse. Was there an evacuation they hadn't heard about due to their location? When not one of the four wings they passed contained even a single figure standing within, though, they were more than sure that something was horribly, horribly wrong.
After a few minutes, Clef and Crow came to a sudden stop. Before them stood a reinforced steel door, the placard above it loudly proclaiming that it led to the office of the Site Director. Under normal circumstances, Clef wouldn't be allowed within twenty meters of the place, but today was far from normal circumstances. Without further thought, Alto grabbed his access card and slammed it right into the magnetic reader.
With a quiet whoosh of pressure leaving the office, the door fell wide open. Clef entered through, his heavy boots loudly pressing against the concrete floor below; the scratching of his canine companion's paws followed shortly after. They walked like that for just a few seconds as they made their way past the secretary's desk and into the office proper, entering the chamber where Tilda Moose would regularly sit.
Both of these sounds suddenly stopped as they both came to the realization that this time, there was no Tilda Moose to speak of
With a heavy heart, Clef looked at the map of all Foundation facilities plastered across the wall behind the late Director's desk. When he realized what exactly he was looking at, he felt himself skip a beat.
"Oh god," Kain whispered, his tone shaking.
All of the red dots scattered across the globe which had previously indicated the Foundation's full might were now dead. All three hundred and twenty-seven facilities were now offline, not even as much as an emergency or Site lost alarm lit up. For all intents and purposes, it was as if the entire Foundation wasn't even there.
Clef's nervous chuckle broke the silence, his eyelid slightly twitching. "We're so fucked."
* * *
As he put his head in his hands, Clef collapsed against the floor.
"Alto?" Crow said, coming closer, his tail waggling nervously. "Are you all right?"
A deep sigh came, and then a laugh: "No, Kain, I am not all right. I am quite fucking far from all right."
"Look, I… I'm sure this is just an error, some—"
"No," Clef said harshly, standing up just a few moments later. "No, Kain. It's no error. Just…" He pointed at the computer present within the office, and sighed once more. "Whatever. Check for yourself if you want to be a smartass about it."
Without another word, Crow jumped at the Director's chair and input his own security credentials. When they came through and he clicked just a few buttons, he too sharply exhaled. The reports confirmed what the map had already told them — every single Site, including the practically untouchable Site-01 and their exclusionary facilities, was now entirely off the radar. A few of the facilities were even off the grid; their lights weren't off, but simply ceased to be registered by the program as even having existed.
"Oh dear." Crow repeated. The fear within him had now solidified, leaving the sudden initial anxiety and replacing it with a cold and permanent terror of realization. "Oh, dear."
Clef took a squat and looked the dog directly in the eyes, grabbing the doctor by his shoulders. "Crow. Look at me." He snapped his fingers; the professor listened. "Look. At me. What the fuck do we do?"
Kain closed his eyes, and inhaled sharply. When he opened them once more, the fear inside them had vanished. Now, they were filled with nothing but cold determination, hellbent on nothing but reason and logic. "Alto," he slowly said, his tone measured, his movements calm. "First and foremost, we need to stay calm."
Clef scoffed. "Yeah, right. Like that's ever given us—"
"We—"
Grabbing his head once more into his hands, Clef started to rub his forehead aggressively. His third eye didn't seem to mind. He cursed under his nose, corrected his wide hat, and checked whether his weapon was still mounted at his back. When that proved positive, he started nervously looking around the Director's office, as if Kain wasn't even there.
"Alto—"
"God, fucking—" Clef cut himself off, starting to rummage through the drawers immediately adjacent to Moose's workspace.
Crow cleared his throat. "Alto."
"Where is—" One item after another, he threw the insides of the containers onto the floor. Old photos, piles of documents, and personnel dossiers flew through the air, filling the room with a brief aura of pure and unhinged chaos. Among it, neither of the two doctors seemed to notice that all of Clef's recoveries were covered in dust.
"Alto." Kain said firmly, putting his paw right on Clef's foot. The other gave him a weirded-out look, but did stop his moronic nonsense. Kain suppressed a waggle of his tail at the satisfaction from that realization. "Alto. Please, listen to me."
The other sighed.
"Look, there has to be a pattern to this. To all of this," Kain said, slowly turning his sight once more toward the facility map. Clef raised an eyebrow, but remained silent. "One doesn't simply disappear all of the Foundation and leave the two of us without a reason."
The other man furrowed his brows some more, this time gesturing at some unspecified point in the distance. "Right, yes, that's all great, but right now it doesn't fucking matter. If there's nobody to staff this goddamn place, we are fucked. And I mean the royal we here, Crow. The whole world is—"
Kain clicked his tongue. "Please. If the world hasn't exploded already, it'll keep on turning. It's always the first few minutes that matter during emergencies, Alto. And it's well past that point, now."
"Eugh," Clef rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. "Whatever, man."
"Look. We will deal with whatever is left of our containment apparatus as soon as we can. Right now, though, much more pressing matters require our attention."
"Like figuring out the pattern."
"Like figuring out the pattern, yes. You wouldn't focus on broken pipes when the whole building is on fire."
Clef inhaled slowly, but nodded. "Right. All right. Cool. I can do that." He paused, and let the air out of his nostrils. "But then we go and see what the hell's going up there."
"If we just follow my procedures, we will do that anyway, but yes." Crow pointed at the late Moose's computer, skewing his head gently. "If you could begin by running a scan on personnel and contained anomalies, that'd be wonderful."
"Right." Slow exhaustion within his movements, he made his way toward the machine and sat next to it, his whole body flopping on it carelessly. After a few clicks, silent curses, and puffs, his eyes suddenly opened wide, and he came closer to the computer. He snapped his fingers. "Oh shit."
A quiet whimper let the question be asked without any words being spoken. "What the hell," Clef said, scratching his forehead.
"What's going on?" The Golden Retriever said, jumping right on Clef's knees and turning his sight towards the computer.
Letting out a silent oomph of discomfort at his companion, Clef highlighted the text he was looking at. "Look at this. We got six hundred and twenty-three containment breaches in the last hour. None of them fatal. None of them dangerous in any way."
Crow furrowed his brows. "And what were the subjects of those breaches?"
Clef clicked his tongue. "Humanoids, mostly. Also a few other sentient and sapient things," he said as he navigated his way towards the 'humanoid' SCiPNET tag. When the page loaded up, he sharply exhaled. "Huh."
"'Huh'?"
"The automatic tracking system had lost track of ninety percent of humanoids within our containment. And I don't mean that they escaped — they just vanished. Poof," he blew the final word with his mouth, throwing his hands into the air. "As if they weren't even there."
"That's certainly not good," Crow said. "What about staff? Can the system see them?"
"Hold on." With a few quick movements of his hand, Clef clicked a few more buttons, inserted a few more passwords, and accessed a few more screens. "What the hell. It can't."
"What do you mean it can't?"
"I dunno, bud." Clef shrugged. "All I'm saying is that from the computer's point of view," he tapped the machine firmly as he paused midway through the sentence. "Everyone but us is air."
"Everyone?"
"Everyone."
"Even… Even the Council…?"
Clef smirked faintly. "Especially the Council."
Kain sighed. "That's not good. That's not good at all."
Clef shrugged once more.
For a few moments that felt like an eternity, the two just sat there, staring blankly at the flickering computer screen before them. Neither the professor nor the agent spoke, simply looking at that mat black display as if something magical was scheduled to occur or manifest upon its pixels in just a second. Nothing like that happened, of course, but it didn't stop them from looking like the world's oldest dumbfounded babies for a few subjective hours.
Then, Kain slowly began: "Alto?"
"Yes?" Clef said, his sudden movement bringing the screen back to life from sleep mode.
"Can you see what other objects breached containment, other than humanoids and things sentient? Did we even lose anything other than them?"
Clef raised an eyebrow. "What are you trying to say?"
"Just… Just do it. If I'm right, you'll see."
Clef shrugged, but listened to the request. When after a few moments, the familiar bleep of Database Search finishing finding an answer to its query filled the previously silent room, both of them jumped. "None," Alto said, his tone careful. "None at all. The system can still see them, wherever they are now. But they ain't gone, that's for sure."
For a few seconds that lasted more than they should, Kain gave in to his thoughts. Then, he said, very, very slowly: "I… Forgive me if I'm speaking nonsense, but… what if everything that disappeared… what if the only common link between them was that they were, in one way or another, human?"
* * *
Clef blinked twice. "What does that even mean?"
"I… I'm not sure myself," Kain said, suddenly terribly aware of their reflection on the computer's screen.
Clef exhaled sharply, and quickly stood up. He closed his eyes, sighed, and cursed silently. "Motherfucker. Motherfucker." He cleared his throat, and kicked the trash can next to his leg, sending a few dusty papers and documents flying right into the air. "God fucking damn it."
"Alto?" Kain jumped out of the chair onto the floor and skewed his head, worry in his eyes. "What are you—"
The other just sighed. "You're right. Of course you're right." He let out a nervous chuckle, and then grabbed his head. Running his hand through his hay-blonde hair, he sat back on the chair, searching for another parameter within the system. When it returned an answer, he laughed again. "Yep. Yep."
"Clef?" Crow barked, his tone much firmer than before. "What is going on?"
In response, Clef just threw his hands. "Guess what PANOPTICON tells me Earth's human population is, prof. Take a wild fuckin' guess."
Kain didn't answer.
"One hundred million. One hundred million human — supposedly, anyway — EVE patterns picked up as of two minutes ago," Clef said dully, staring blankly at the screen before him. There was no longer any sign of ironic pleasure or sarcasm within his words — only pure, unfiltered terror, the kind that the human body didn't quite have the capacity to comprehend.
"One hundred million," Kain repeated, sitting down on his back paws from shock.
Clef swallowed. "One hundred million," he nodded.
And just like that, the room was laid by silence once more.
Neither of the two doctors present in the office said anything, unwilling to do as little as look at their other colleague. For what felt like too much to keep track of, they just sat there, letting the surreal tranquil engulf their bodies and souls, until all that was left was a hesitant silence. It felt like both of them wanted to speak, but neither did. They merely stood there like statues, as if the Calamity had taken away their questionably real humanity, too.
After a while, though, Clef tentatively began: "Do… Do you realize what this implies, Kain?"
The dog gave him a weak look. "No, Alto. What does it imply?"
The other sighed. "That we were wrong."
"I'm… not sure what you mean?"
"Oh, cut the shit." Clef rolled his eyes. "If only us two are left, then surely — surely, goddamnit — everyone else we ever deemed anomalous was… was also human."
"Oh."
"That kid back at -17. The poor, poor hopper. The reality bender right under -43. All of them. We were wrong about all of them." For a second, it looked like the former agent was about to shudder.
"I… surely, this cannot be true, Alto. Surely," Crow blinked. "Our thaumaturges. Everybody at -17. Overwatch Command, god damn it!" He barked out, a spark of visible frustration between his words. "I refuse — refuse, my god — to believe we were wrong about them. The science—"
"The science," Clef said. "is very fucking clear here, isn't it. Not much to debate with, really."
Kain shook his head. "Diaghilev?"
Clef shook his, too. "Gone."
"Sinclair?"
"Silent as the wind, buddy."
"McDoctorate?"
"Abstracted right into oblivion."
"Talloran?"
"In a much better place, I imagine."
Kain furrowed his brows nervously. "O5… any one of them, for that matter. Any one of them! They cannot be gone!"
Clef shrugged. "The Site-01 dossier's pretty clear on that one, too."
"No," Crow said, beginning to nervously tread around the office. "No! This is utter nonsense! This is—"
"This is reality, Kain," Clef sighed, stretching his limbs one by one. He patted the dog on his back, and proceeded to walk toward the door leading into the remainder of the grave which had once called itself Site-19. Though the movements were quick and calculated, the hesitation — and utter, thorough surrender — which ran through them was visible to even the busiest of minds. "And now, there's not much to do than learn to live with it."
"Wait," Crow suddenly said, rising his paw in protest. "Wait. If this is all true, then my survival is logical." For a single second, he stared at his own reflection in the steel of the doors, before he broke the stare after just one blink. He looked up at Clef. "But what about you?"
A brief spark of molten fire ran through Clef's eyes, before it disappeared as if it wasn't even there. "Do you really want to know?" He asked as he met Cain's stare head-on, his tone cold and firm.
Even though he tried, the professor couldn't look at him without blinking twice. "No. I suppose I do not, Alto." He said, looking down at the concrete floor below.
"Good," Clef said, already taking the first step out of the office. Then he stopped, and looked back at Kain, raising an irritated eyebrow at the dog. "So, you coming, or what?"
Kain skewed his head. "What? Coming where?"
Clef pointed up with his head, and he snapped his fingers. "Right back up. If the world's fucked, the least we can do is see what's left of it, eh? Then we can try to think about what to do next." He saw the hesitation present within Kain's eyes, but continued all the same, "The two of us ain't gonna be enough to protect the world, buddy. But it so happens I've got a few spare keys to a machine that could help us change that." He dangled the plastic access card in the air as if it was really made of metal, a fake grin plastered all across his face.
"All right," Kain said, picking up the pace and meeting with the other doctor right at the office's exit. He sighed. "I suppose I can do that much."
Then, both of them looked ahead, right into that dull and silent darkness that unraveled all of Site-19 before them. They exchanged an equally tranquil look, nodded, and proceeded forward without as much as another word.
* * *
For the infinitesimal moment the sun set over the unshackled world, all was quiet.
As Kain Pathos Crow and Alto Clef emerged from the military complex of Site-19 right onto its flat roof, both of them narrowed their eyes. The beams of light met them head-on, forcing both to squint harder. They complied, and took a few steps forward, barely cognizant of their surroundings, and even less of the world beyond it. The two doctors sat down, their eyes still half closed, and let their legs — and paws, where applicable — dangle off the edge of the building, letting the warm breeze caress their hair and fur.
When they opened their eyes once more, the world was different.
Somewhere in the distance, there had once been a city. The heavens-reaching skyscrapers of New York had then pierced the veil of the skies, just barely hanging onto the merciless horizon. The smog above NYC had engulfed the sun in its oppressive grey, as if it was trying to tell all of the people below that they didn't deserve anything but the dull monochrome of pavement and concrete that they themselves had put there.
Tonight, though, there was barely a New York to speak of anymore.
The sky around it was no longer a prisoner of its own making, now replaced by a series of beautiful, arcane lights flying in between the evening clouds. The incomprehensible colors of magic flickered as a few people in the distance cheered at one of their friends flying right into the air and laughing loudly. Below them, two humanoid folks that looked far too tall and bulky to be human exchanged a high-five, seeing the result of their arcane symbols once more put on a show of utmost beauty in the sky above. The mole-person that emerged from the ground next to them seemed to very much agree that they did a good job.
The towers and buildings which had once cluttered the horizon were now almost all gone, replaced by the works of two reality-bending minds levitating next to whatever place they were hoping to renovate next. The cold, almost oppressive panes of glass and beams of steel were switched to a plethora of buildings and venues nobody but the ontokinetically gifted could ever hope to achieve. Somewhere in the distance, a happy pair cheered, seeing the house of their life transform into the home they'd always dreamed of with just a flick of their hands. Their happiness almost blinded them from beholding the show of pyromantically-fueled fireworks above them.
And before all of that, the two ex-Foundation doctors sat, breathless in their silent amazement.
Neither of them uttered a word.
Hours passed. The sun fell lower and lower until it all but gave up, finally giving its lunar brethren the signal that it was time for their arrival. And the city carried on all the same, the lights in the apartments of the un-people burning with end-of-day-chores and happenings, until they too finally flickered out, giving in to the endless, starry night around them.
And then — only then — did Alto Clef take a deep breath.
"Guess you were right," he muttered out, finally letting the air out of his lungs.
"Huh?" Kain skewed his head.
"That we weren't needed, I mean." Clef let his legs dangle a little more quickly. He shivered, feeling the cool wind of the midnight skies, and tightened his labcoat around his arms. "The world didn't blow up. Some part of me almost thinks it's a shame."
"I suppose you're right." The professor said, letting silence engulf them once more.
"Alto?" Crow said after a moment, a mix of exhaustion, amazement, and sadness in his voice.
The other raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, buddy?"
"What if…" He pointed to Clef's access card, hesitant in his movement. "What if we never looked back?"
Clef's other brow joined its brother in the action.
"The science is clear, you said it yourself. We disappeared, and we aren't needed anymore. We can't just put the whole world under our heel again." He pointed toward the sleeping NYC with his paw, the limb slightly trembling. "Not that we wouldn't be able to, with 2000 and all. But maybe… maybe we shouldn't. Maybe it's better this way."
If Clef's third eye had an eyebrow of its own, by now it would've raised itself, too.
"And maybe, but just maybe, it would have always been better this way." He finished, letting out a slow sigh into the night around.
At first, Clef didn't say anything. Then, he simply blinked, stood up, and stretched his limbs.
"Ah, what the hell," he chuckled as he corrected his hat. "You know what? Fuck it. Maybe you're right." He paused. "Maybe you're dead wrong, but where's the fun in that? The least I can do is fuck around and find out, eh?"
Kain's smile matched Alto's face-wide grin. "Yeah. I think that, too."
As he let a quiet snicker leave his mouth, Clef took off his labcoat, leaving only the faded Hawaiian shirt to separate his skin from the cold of the night around him. With a quick movement of his arm, he threw it off the ledge of the building formerly known as SCP Foundation Site-19. Two moments later, he snapped his access card, and let its remains follow his late clothing.
Without any apparent source, Clef suddenly produced two bottles — one full of beer, one full of water. No hesitation in the proposal, he offered his companion the latter, while personally taking care of opening the former. Crow accepted.
"To the new world?" Alto Clef said, raising his bottle with a nonchalant grin.
"To the new world." Kain Pathos Crow matched the gesture, with a similar smile of his own.
And none of them ever looked back.