As both Evan and Jerry do their best to adjust to their new circumstances, the Foundation is alerted to a new, and old, danger.
Jerry
I sit in High-Security Containment Cell 84 in Site-17. It’s a small, rectangular room, with a twin-sized bed in one corner and a chair and desk in the other. Above the desk, there’s a screen. To the right of the bed, there’s a door leading to a small bathroom area with a toilet, sink, and shower.
There’s a security camera—a black, glossy orb that stares down like an unblinking eye—embedded in the upper right of the ceiling.
There’s another just like it in the bathroom. High risk anomalies are not afforded privacy. My anomalous properties aren’t all that dangerous, but that’s more than made up for by my membership in an enemy Group of Interest.
That also means I’m denied the socialization afforded to better-behaved prisoners. Most of the people imprisoned at Site-17 get to spend several hours a day interacting with one another, but the test I’m about to perform is the first bit of human contact I’ve had today.
Both my instincts and my Serpent’s Hand training tell me not to cooperate with the Jailors’ tests. They test because they want more information on how to contain you. You don’t want them to have that information. When they try to test you, you’re supposed to cooperate as little as possible.
I’m breaking that rule because I believe I have an opportunity to mislead them.
It’s a tall order. I’ve already admitted to having memories I shouldn’t have. It’s too late to trick them into thinking I don’t have my brother’s powers at all, but I’m hoping I can get them thinking I’m less powerful than Evan is.
I face the screen above the desk.
“Alright, 7851-2,” says the gravelly voice of a researcher. That’s what they call me. I’m too similar to my brother to get my own SCP number. We’re both 7851. He’s retroactively 7851-1, and I’m 7851-2.
I shouldn’t let them call me that. I shouldn’t answer to my number, but fooling them would have such enormous benefits that the sacrifice is worthwhile.
“I’m going to show you a few objects,” the researcher continues. “Some of them will be labeled. I just want you to tell me what you see.”
“Okay,” I say.
A picture of a toaster flashes on the screen. It’s small and black, with a sparkling sheen that shows it to be well-maintained.
They expect me to be immune to this anomaly’s effects, just like Evan would be. I am, of course, but I’d like to convince them otherwise. Fortunately, I know exactly what I’m looking at. There’s a document about it in the Serpent’s Hand’s possession. I’m going to pretend it’s working on me.
“That’s me,” I say.
“Interesting,” the researcher says. “Could you elaborate on that point?”
I pretend to be confused. “Okay, this is me. I… I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m phrasing it that way. I am a toaster. I toast… I take it this is some kind of mental effect? It’s… things like that don’t always work on me, but I guess I’m a particularly strong one. I must be hard to resist.”
“Interesting,” the researcher says. “You seem to be referring to the object in this picture in the first person.”
“Yeah, I guess I make people do that for some reason.”
“This picture is of the toaster from Site-17’s break room.”
That catches me off-guard. “What?”
“It’s an ordinary toaster. It has no anomalous properties. People can refer to it in the third-person just fine.”
I stare at the screen. My face curls up in frustration.
“Now that we’ve confirmed you’re actively trying to deceive us,” the researcher continues, “here’s another anomaly, one you probably haven’t heard of.”
Another picture flashes on the screen. It’s of a pitch-black, humanoid silhouette. He’s wearing jet black from head to toe. There aren’t even eyeholes on his mask, if it even is a mask. His outfit is accented by a cape and a hat. Below the picture is a label. ‘SCP-4494’ in a strange font.
“Alright, then,” the researcher says. “Go ahead and tell me what you see.”
I clench my fist. Presumably, this is another anomaly that changes how people speak about it, but I have no idea what it should make me do, so there’s no way to fake being affected by it.
“7851-2?” the researcher says. “Please describe the anomaly.”
“You have it labeled as SCP-4494,” I say, hoping it’s another bluff.
“Interesting,” the researcher says. “It doesn’t seem to be affecting you.”
“What should it be doing?”
“We have no reason to tell you that. The important thing is, between this and the amnestics we snuck into your food this morning…”
“The what?!”
“…it seems you really do have the same anomalous properties as your brother. Welcome to Site-17, SCP-7851-2. Enjoy your stay.”
“Fuck you!” I shout as the screen turns off.
I stand. I grab the chair I was sitting on and smash it into the screen. The glass shatters, revealing sparking wires that emit tiny whisps of smoke before dissipating. I close my eyes. God damn it. I just had to be fucking clever, didn’t I? Now they know exactly what I’m capable of.
Evan
Evan sits in a meeting room just a few halls down from his brother’s cell. This meeting warrants his full attention, and he’s usually disciplined enough to keep his mind on the task at hand, but, right now, it’s hard to think about anything but Jerry.
Evan had made peace with never seeing Jerry again. That was one of the sacrifices he had to make to do the good work he does here at the Foundation.
Seeing Jerry in person, so damn grown up, was like seeing a ghost. A piece of his old life had crawled out of his memories to haunt him, and for the first time in years, Evan did not know what to do.
“How the hell did this happen?” demands an angry voice coming from a speaker. It’s O5-7.
Also seated around the table are Doctor Light, technically the head researcher on SCP-7851, and Thomas Graham, the director of Site-17, here mostly because he’s pissed off that the Serpent’s Hand broke into his facility. Again. Dir. Crowin, The Director of Site-272, whose domain includes the area Jerry lived in, has also joined remotely.
“I think we all have that question,” Graham says. He’s glaring right into the camera above Dir. Crowin’s screen.
“I looked through some old files,” Dir. Crowin says. “The possibility that SCP-7851’s younger brother had the same abilities as 7851 was followed up on. Two different agents were sent to assess the issue. Both concluded that 7851-2 knew nothing.”
“Meaning your agents were fooled by a twelve-year old?” Light asks, her voice even.
Light and Graham agree on something.
Somewhere, deep below Evan’s feet, hell is freezing over.
“Anomalous characteristics like this aren’t usually hereditary,” Dir. Crowin says. “We had no reason to assume the younger brother would have the same properties as the older one.”
“You should have at least brought it in for a proper test,” Graham says. “I would have.”
“With all due respect, Director, do you bring the entire immediate family of every humanoid you contain in for an on-site test? Given the number of humanoids in Site-17, I find it hard to believe that you do.”
“I run the second-largest Foundation site. You have no such excuse.”
“Still, we followed up to the extent protocol required us to.”
“I’ve been saying for years that we need to spend more resources investigating potential humanoid anomalies,” Graham says.
“I want to know more about the specifics of who followed up on SCP-7851-2 and how they were fooled,” O5-7 says. “It wouldn’t take much thought regarding the specifics of this situation to realize that, in the event the younger brother shared 7851’s properties, it would recall seeing its brother secured and be on-guard. How did follow-up measures account for this?”
Dir. Crowin is silent for a moment.
“Did follow-up measures account for this?” O5-7 asks.
“We’re talking about a twelve-year-old,” Dir. Crowin says. “We expected our agents to be able to provoke a reaction even if it was on-guard.”
“So, it really does just come down to you under-estimating the anomaly?” O5-7 asks.
“I suppose so,” Dir. Crowin admits.
“We shouldn’t make the same mistake again,” Graham says. “Now that we know at least one blood relative of SCP-7851 shares its abilities, we need to take a closer look at its other relatives. All of them.”
Evan takes a moment to calm himself. It’s fine. This just means a few members of his family will be brought in and shown some harmless mental anomaly. If they aren’t anomalous, they’ll be amnesticized and let go with no harm done. If they are, them staying here is for the best, just like with Evan and Jerry.
“I’ll make that happen,” Dir. Crowin says.
“I’d like to supervise this process,” Graham says, causing a fresh jolt of anxiety in Evan. “You bungled this up last time. I don’t trust you to get it right now.”
It’ll be fine. Graham doesn’t have any reason to hurt them, especially if they aren’t anomalous.
All four of them, including Dr. Light, agree on this course of action, and the meeting is adjourned.
Light, Evan and Graham exit the meeting room. Graham heads back to his office, while Evan and Dr. Light head to Alpha-9’s headquarters on the far end of the site.
As they walk, Evan speaks. “Dr. Light?”
“Yes?”
“Can you arrange for me to speak with my brother? I’d like to make further attempts at securing his cooperation.” Evan catches the slip half a second too late. Its cooperation. Jerry is an SCP now. SCPs are ‘it.’
Light doesn’t acknowledge it. “I’ll see if I can arrange that,” she says. “If there is any chance of getting its cooperation, it would have to be through you.”
“Thank you.”
“That said, I fear you might be getting your hopes up too much.”
“What do you mean?” Evan asks, as if he doesn’t already know.
“I know how this situation must feel for you,” Light says. “However, you need to keep your expectations under control. In your last conversation with 7851-2, you outright stated you hoped it’d join Alpha-9. I know I don’t have to explain why that’s unlikely to happen any time soon.”
“I was never under the impression it would be quick or easy,” Evan says, “but I was pretty hostile when I was brought in. I came around.”
“You were a scared and confused teenager. Your brother is a member of the Serpent’s Hand.”
“Who is also a scared and confused teenager,” Evan says.
“Maybe,” Light admits, “but that doesn’t make it likely that your brother will become loyal to the Foundation.”
“There are other former members of the Serpent’s Hand in the Foundation. One of them is in charge of Site-19.”
“Moose left the Hand of her own accord. So did every other Hand agent who has defected to us. I don’t know of any case where a captured member of the Serpent’s Hand has turned coat of their own free will. SCP-7851-2 is fully loyal to the Serpent’s Hand, and we currently have every reason to suspect it will stay that way.”
“With all due respect, ma’am, you don’t know him like I do.”
“Being close to something like this isn’t always a good thing.”
“I know,” Evan says. “I have to try, though. I understand that turning my brother’s loyalties will be an uphill battle, but I think it’s possible. Even if my brother is never in Alpha-9, even if we just get him to cure civilians of basic mental ailments like I did early on, that will do an enormous amount of good.”
“I know,” Light says. “You don’t need to explain how another anomaly with your properties would be useful. We’re going to try to win SCP-7851-2 over, but we probably won’t succeed to the degree you hope for. This entity has made it very clear that it does not intend to cooperate with us.”
“I said the same thing not long after I was brought here,” Evan says. “I was in training to join Alpha-9 two months later.”
“You’re not listening,” Light says, as she stops walking and turns to face Evan, “I’m saying this for your own good. You need to keep your expectations grounded, or you’re going to have a hard time dealing with the, in all probability, limited success we ultimately have.”
Evan sighs. She’s right. He knows she’s right. As hard as it is to accept, as badly as he wants to work and fight alongside his brother, she’s right. He needs to keep his head screwed on.
“I understand,” Evan says.
“Do you, really?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me.”
Evan hesitates for just a moment, then says, “I promise.”
“Good,” Light says, “because you’re meeting with Agent Wilson tomorrow.”
Agent Wilson is an undercover operative currently embedded in a group of West Coast Fifthists. She has high innate cognitive resistance, but the real reason she can infiltrate a group of mind-controlling cultists is that Evan can nullify any effect that might turn her against the Foundation.
Something they wouldn’t get away with if the whole anomalous world knew about Evan and his powers. Something they can only do because of the secrecy Jerry and the Serpent’s Hand want to destroy.
“If you’re off your game,” Light continues, “you might make a mistake.”
For Evan to cure a mind-affecting effect, something he says or does has to be relevant to it. If the way the patient responds to him wouldn’t be altered by the anomaly, it won’t be cured. This is easy to work around if he already knows what’s wrong with someone, but if he doesn’t, he can miss something.
“I know,” Evan says. “You don’t need to remind me that my job is important.”
“You’re right,” Light says. “I don’t.”
Jerry
I lay on my bed, staring at the shattered remains of the screen. I try with everything I have to take satisfaction in the sight. It was an act of resistance. Even if all it does is force them to spend a few hundred dollars replacing that screen, that’s better than nothing. Every cent they spend repairing my cell, they can’t spend manufacturing amnestics or buying up anomalous locations.
There’s a burst of static as the room’s speaker comes on. I brace myself to be scolded by some Jailor for my outburst. I start planning how I’ll tell them to go fuck themselves.
“Hey, Jerry,” Evan says.
The sound of his voice catches me off-guard for just a moment, but I’m able to stop myself from visibly reacting.
“Hey, can you hear me?” Evan asks. “They told me you smashed your screen. Did you manage to damage your speakers as well?”
“You’re not my brother,” I say.
It takes Evan a moment to respond. He tries to keep the hurt out of his voice, but it’s still there. “Jerry, I know a lot has happened to both of us since I was brought here.”
“Kidnapped.”
“…but I am still your brother, the same one you knew six years ago. If you just listened to me—”
“I already did,” I say. “I heard all of your excuses. I’d rather not suffer through hearing them again.”
Evan takes a deep breath. “Okay,” he says.
“Okay?”
“You’re right. There’s no reason to repeat the conversation we had yesterday.”
“So, you’ll leave me alone?”
“We could talk about something else. We haven’t seen each other in six years. Surely, we have at least some catching up to do that doesn’t have to do with the Foundation?”
“Nothing I’m interested in discussing with you.” The only thing I’ve done in the past six years that has nothing to do with Evan or the Jailors is date Theo, and I’ll be damned if I’m ever going to breathe a word about Theo to these bastards.
Evan takes a moment to respond. “I could try to get them to let us spend time together. I doubt they’ll let you out of that room, but, if you could get to the point where they’ll trust you with another screen, we could finally watch that horror movie.”
It takes me a moment to remember what horror movie he’s talking about.
When I was a kid, Evan and I had a tradition where, every night on my birthday, we’d huddle together in his room while we were supposed to be asleep and watch a PG-13 movie. I was about to turn thirteen when Evan was taken. Given that PG-13 movies would no longer be forbidden, we discussed watching an R-rated movie instead. I expressed interest in watching a horror movie, but he was taken before I picked one.
I scoff. “I’m eighteen.” I say.
“That means I have six birthdays to make up for,” Evan says.
“No, you don’t!” I shout. “You’re not the same Evan who used to help me break the rules. You helped the Jailors lock me in here. The person I need help disobeying is you.”
“Jerry—”
“I know you’re not as stupid as you’re pretending to be. Even after six years of Jailor indoctrination, surely you still have enough brain cells to grasp the idea that I will never forgive you for helping them contain me. I do not want anything to do with you. I do not want to spend time with you. I do not want to see you, or hear from you, or think about you, ever. I’d rather have a movie night with Callum than with you. Go away and never try to interact with me again.”
“Look, Jerry—”
“Shut up.”
“Jerry…”
“Shut up.”
“Jerry, believe it or not, I know what you’re going through.”
“Shut up.”
“Do you think I got dragged to Site-272 in a black van and just suddenly decided I liked the people who’d brought me there?”
I keep telling him to shut up, but he continues as if I weren’t speaking.
“The way you feel now, it’s exactly how I felt at first. There’s nothing kind or fair about what’s going on, but you can learn to live with it. Despite everything I hated about the Foundation, despite the things I still hate about it, I found my purpose here. I want that for you, because you’re still my brother, and I still love you.”
“No, you don’t,” I say, “or else you wouldn’t have helped them capture me.”
When Evan starts speaking again, I physically put my fingers in my ears and start humming to drown out his voice. After a moment, he sighs.
“Fine,” he says. “I can see you’re not willing to talk right now. I’ll leave you alone for a bit. Please, just try to give this place a chance, okay? I don’t want us to be enemies. I want to fight in the dark alongside you.”
“Isn’t it die in the dark?”
Perhaps he’d already left by the time I said that. Perhaps he simply doesn’t have a response. Either way, I don’t get an answer.
Evan
Evan doesn’t get a lot of sleep that night.
Part of Evan has a hard time believing this belligerent, hateful terrorist is the same little brother he knew six years ago. The one who was always so desperate to impress him. Who loved him more than anything in the world.
A lot happened to Jerry over the past six years, though. Most of it bad. In a way, he’s right to be mad at the Foundation. There’s no denying that they failed him. The family members of humanoid anomalies are supposed to get peace and closure. The Foundation is supposed to give them a story that will help them move on. That’s what Jerry deserved, and it’s not Jerry’s fault that the amnestics couldn’t give it to him.
If they’d realized Jerry was an anomaly, he would have been brought in with Evan. Even could have been there for Jerry while they both learned to live with being contained. They would have discovered their potential together, and the Foundation would have helped both of them fulfil it.
Instead, Jerry spent six years traumatized and alone, stewing in hatred that drove him into the arms of the Foundation’s enemies.
Evan bears at least some responsibility for that failure. The possibility that Jerry had the same powers never occurred to him. He didn’t even know they’d followed up on it. If he’d realized, if he’d said something to Light about how clever Jerry could be…
No. Hypotheticals like that are a waste of time. What happened happened, and now it’s Evan’s job, as both a Foundation agent and a brother, to save Jerry from the Serpent’s Hand, and himself.
As a soldier, Evan is trained to fall asleep quickly, but that night, his training fails him. When morning comes, he’s still exhausted.
He reports for duty just the same. He pushes thoughts of his brother aside. There are other people who need him right now.
Evan’s station is on the east side of A9HQ. It’s a small room with two doors. One leads deeper into A9HQ. The other leads out into Site-17’s temporary containment wing, where civilians affected by a variety of cognitohazards wait to be cured by Evan.
There’s a constant stream of them, trickling into Site-17 at all hours of the day and night, from all over the world.
His work isn’t always easy, but it’s fulfilling. The gratitude on a freshly cured civilian’s face always lifts his spirits.
Light is already at A9HQ when Evan arrives. “Reporting for duty,” he says.
“Good,” Light says. “We received a message last night.”
“From who?”
“Agent Wilson.”
A message. “So, she didn’t report in?”
“She did not,” Light confirms. “Listen.” Light presses a button on the large black phone on her desk. A message plays.
“Site-17, this is Agent Wilson,” begins a voice that does, indeed, seem to be hers. “I’m sorry to contact you this way, but I don’t have long. They’ll be coming for me any second. They’ve figured me out.”
Evan’s eyes go wide. “We need to start a rescue op—”
Light shakes her head. “Keep listening.”
“I need you to know that the Fifth church is planning something,” Wilson continues. “Something big. Star Signals big. World-transforming, world-ending big.”
“Oh God,” Evan says.
“I don’t know exactly what the plan is,” Wilson continues. “They’ve been suspicious of me for weeks, but I’ve overheard enough to know that they’re trying again. They want to distribute a memetic hazard to the general public and use that to get everyone cooperating on a massive theurgic project, just like they did with 1425.”
That’s alarming news, to be sure. It’s also strange. How could that happen without the Foundation knowing about it?
“I don’t know where they’ve put the memetic triggers,” Wilson says, “but I think it has something to do with Aster Sterling. They’ve been trying to stir renewed interest in his books. I don’t know why. I know we tested his novels for memetic hazards and didn’t find anything, but they still seem to want more people reading The Starlight Saga.”
A firestorm of possibilities blows through Evan’s head. There’s absolutely no way Sterling’s novels have the same properties Star Signals did. That would’ve become clear years ago. Could there be some adjacent piece of media they’ve hidden it in? Why wait until now to do that? Why not do it six years ago, when The Starlight Saga was at the height of its popularity?
“I’ve also heard them talk about a sacrifice.”
Memories of Galaxy Plaza intrude on Evan’s mind. The ground crumbling. People screaming.
“I don’t know exactly what the sacrifice is for, or who it’s to, or when or where they’re going to do it, but it seems to be a major element of their plan.”
There’s a sudden slam.
“They’re coming in,” Wilson says. “I’ve told you everything I know. I have my sidearm. They’re not going to get any information out of me. Make this message count.”
“This is from last night?” Evan asks.
“Two in the morning,” Light says.
Evan clenches his fist. She’s already dead.
Evan braces for the sound of a gunshot, but it never comes. All they get is the click of the phone hanging up.
Evan stares at the now-silent phone.
“The council already knows,” Light says. “Your routine duties are going to be suspended for a while. Alpha-9 is being put on this. As of yet, nothing Wilson said is confirmed, but if this is even remotely true…”
“…it’s bad,” Evan finishes. “However…” he hesitates, “I trust Agent Wilson, both her judgement and her loyalty, but what she’s saying seems impossible. We knew about Star Signals as soon as it was published. It can’t be that there’s another magic book out there. We’d know about it.”
“I agree,” Light says. “If we’re lucky, Wilson is wrong.”
“Right,” Evan says, even though that would also mean Wilson died for nothing. “We’re never lucky, though.”
“No,” Light agrees. “We aren’t.”