Notes!
- Huge thanks to editor Rimple and also users sirpudding, mlister, HisShad0w and multizig, all of whom gave good feedback on drafts of this. Several people independently remarked that the opening scene between Wheeler and SCP-8473 was tonally inconsistent/unrelated to the rest of the Tale, which is why it's been edited out. But it may appear one day in a different form, we shall see!
- This Tale takes place approximately one hour prior to the events of CASE COLOURLESS GREEN.
- Alternate titles considered were "For Those Who Died In Darkness" and "Tomb Of The Unknown Unknown".
- Stuff which I ditched for the sake of brevity: actual ghost interactions; references to real ancient European standing stones which are much smaller but whose origins are if anything even harder to guess at because the science just doesn't exist to figure out who put a stone somewhere; the idea that this dead culture perhaps built this memorial in anticipation of some future Antimemetics War; some deeper observations about memetic epidemiology and natural immunity, which modern humanity assuredly does not have…
- This is the last of the [counts] four flashback chapters of Five Five Five Five Five. Next time: the actual story continues.
- Oh! Also, the Antimemetics saga finally passes the Bechdel Test.
