The Foundation resorts to drastic measures to secure Jerry's cooperation.
Evan
Veronica Hall is unconscious by the time MTF Alpha-9 arrives back at Site-17, but any delusion that Evan is going to get a single second of rest before her interrogation is shattered as soon as he enters the building.
A researcher, one of Dr. Light’s subordinates, approaches the two of them. “Dr. Light!” she cries. Light’s return is a relief, but only because of whatever she’s been scrambling to deal with.
“What’s wrong?” Light asks.
“You need to come to the observation room for psych-testing chamber three. That goes for you too, SCP-7851. A test is going to be performed involving your brother.”
“Without my approval?” Light asks. “Graham can’t just—”
“It’s on O5-7’s orders.”
“What?”
“I’ll brief you on the way.”
Jerry
Footsteps approach my cell.
Most often, this happens because the Jailors are bringing me food, but it can’t have been more than an hour since they brought me breakfast. For a moment, I think someone might just be passing through the hall outside, but then the footsteps stop right outside my cell.
“We’re coming in.” The Jailor’s voice is muffled by the metal door. “We need to take you somewhere. Sit on your bed while we open the door, then come with us quietly.”
Part of me wants to jump them the instant they open the door, purely out of spite.
The door opens. There are no less than half a dozen guards. They’re positioned to surround the door, so I can’t bolt out.
“What is this?” I ask.
“Doctors want to perform a test,” one of the guards says.
Another test? And one worth taking me out of my cell for?
“What kind of test?”
“Just come with us,” the guard says. “Be good. Follow orders, and this will all go smoothly.”
Those words only make me want to disobey him more, but I can see that these people have the numbers to subdue me. I’m also a bit curious as to what could possibly make them willing to let me out of my cage, even for a moment.
Maybe I should be less curious and more worried.
Either way, I allow them to handcuff me and take me with them.
They form a hexagon around me. Two guards in front, two behind, one on each side. With me surrounded, they lead me down the hall.
“No dawdling,” a guard barks at me, before we reach the end of the hall.
“I wasn’t,” I point out, indignant.
Still, I pick up my pace as they lead me out of the high-security humanoid containment wing. As we continue, we pass the occasional guard or researcher. I get curious, anxious looks from researchers, but probably just because it’s unusual to see so many guards escorting a single prisoner.
They lead me out of the high-security wing. A few minutes later, we cross through the hall outside the cafeteria, where I was standing when Evan grabbed me and dragged me back into the mess hall to be contained. The place where he betrayed me, and where my decision to trust him got all my comrades captured.
A few minutes later, we reach a testing chamber. One of the guards opens the door, and I’m led inside.
It’s a padded room. Every inch of it is covered with white fluff that yields as I place my weight on it. The first time this happens, I’m not prepared for it, and I stumble. I stagger forward a few paces, then fall over. Unable to catch myself with my bound hands, I fall face-first, which elicits a chuckle from one of the guards.
“Fuck all of you!” I shout as I roll over to face them.
They look down at me. “Don’t try to leave this room,” one says. “In fact, don’t move from that spot. Another subject is going to be introduced to the chamber. She’s a civilian. You are not to harm her. You are not to touch her. She has no reason to attack you, and in the unlikely event she does, we will intervene to ensure your safety. All you are permitted to do is speak to her. Are we clear?”
I huff.
“Are we clear?”
“Why would I hurt some random civilian?”
The guard’s gaze lingers on me for a moment before he finally leaves the room.
What the hell are they even afraid I’ll do? Do they think I’m going to strangle her with my handcuffs like she’s Jabba the Hut?
A few minutes later, a speaker activates. A researcher speaks. “Afternoon, SCP-7851-2.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
“The purpose of this test is to ascertain your ability and willingness to aid a civilian affected by a mind-affecting anomaly,” the researcher says, as if I’d politely returned the greeting.
“I thought I made my unwillingness to do that quite clear.”
“You did, but we feel the need to conduct this test regardless.”
“Do the right thing,” comes Evan’s voice from the loudspeaker. He sounds nervous. “As long as you do, this will be quick and painless.”
“What are they going to do?” I ask him.
The researcher speaks before Evan can answer. “Before we introduce the other subject, let me brief you on the ailment she’s suffering from. It’s a thaumaturgic spell. In some circles, it’s called ‘Hell on Earth.’ Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
“I’m a better mage than any of you magic-hating fucks. Of course I know what Hell on Earth does.”
Hell on Earth is a curse. It causes its victim to experience torturous hallucinations. Each victim’s experiences are tailored to cause them as much fear and pain as possible. The hallucinations are purely additive. Victims can still perceive their actual surroundings and may even understand that what they’re seeing and feeling isn’t real, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less to be flayed, or set on fire, or eaten alive, over and over again.
“I told you I’m not going to do anything for you,” I say. “I don’t care how you try to guilt me. Helping you means helping evil.”
“So, you’ve said,” the researcher replies. “The subject will be introduced to the chamber shortly.”
“I do not consent to this test,” I say.
Theoretically, if the Jailors follow their own rules, the statement should force them to stop. Humanoid anomalies can refuse tests, except under a handful of special circumstances.
“This test is considered a security matter,” the researcher says, “and is therefore not optional.”
I expected no better. Jailors are traitorous scum and will happily rewrite their rules whenever it suits them.
I close my eyes. That’s one of the first tricks the Hand taught me to resist interrogation. Close your eyes. Picture something else. Something mobile, and interesting, like a rolling fire. Do not respond to your interrogators in any way.
“The door will now open,” the researcher says. I hear it open.
Someone walks in, and the door closes. I feel the depressions in the padded floor as they walk up to me. “Excuse me,” says a quiet, feminine voice. “They… they said you could help m—”
The sentence is interrupted by a blood-curdling scream. I hear her retreat to the opposite end of the room, then a soft ‘puff’ as she falls on her face much like I did. Her handcuffs rattle. “Oh God, they’re everywhere!” she shouts. There are impacts on the padded wall, and a fleshy scraping, as if someone were trying to claw off their own skin.
“Please describe what you’re seeing,” the researcher says, his voice perfectly even.
“Get them off! Get them off! Please, sir, they said you could—”
“Ma’am, please try to describe what you’re seeing.”
There are a few more seconds of screaming before she’s able to muster a coherent answer. “They’re like ants, or maggots. They’re… they’re biting! They’re eating me!”
“Please continue describing what you perceive as best you can,” the researcher says. “The clearer your description, the faster they’ll go away.”
Once again, it takes her a moment to gain enough composure to say more.
“They’re tiny, but there are a million of them. Crawling. Biting. Stinging. Burrowing. Eating. It hurts. Please, please, you, in the corner, they said you could make them go away!”
I hold the image of the fire in my head as vividly as I can. I picture its glow, its heat, the sound of its crackling.
For all I know this isn’t even real. For all I know, this woman is just acting. All of this might be a trick by the Jailors to guilt me into helping them.
Only, why would they bother? Why go to the trouble of making a fake victim when they could easily use a real one?
The woman keeps screaming. The handcuffs make it hard to stick my fingers in my ears, but I manage. I can’t give them anything. No matter what they do, I can’t help them.
“Oh god, what’s that?” the woman screams. She scrambles toward me. She grabs my wrist and pulls. I don’t know if she’s trying to pull my fingers out of my ears or just trying to get my attention. Either way, I pull back to keep my fingers in place. “Please! Please, they said you could make it stop!”
Eventually, her grip grows tight enough to hurt. At that point, I open my eyes. There are fresh scratches on her skin, many of which are gently weeping blood.
Suddenly, she springs to her feet and bolts to the other side of the room. Her gaze is still locked on me.
“What are you seeing?” the researcher asks, voice impossibly calm.
“There’s more of them!” she shouts. “They’re coming out of him. Everywhere. I can feel them crawling.”
“Still nothing to say, SCP-7851-2?” the researcher asks.
I don’t respond. The woman locks eyes with me. Her gaze is full of terror. Pleading. She claws at herself, as if trying to rip something off of her skin.
“Please,” she sobs, “please, there’s a new one. It’s big.” She drops to the floor, kicking and screaming into the air. “It’s tearing through the walls. They said you could make it go away.”
“He can,” the researcher says. “He’s choosing not to help you.”
She looks right at me. “Please!” she screams. “Please, why won’t you make it stop?” She scratches herself. Her long, broken nails tear her skin open. Long lines of blood well up from her wounds, dripping down to stain the room’s white padding.
I close my eyes again. I have to stay strong. I can’t allow my compassion to be used against me. These people already have Evan. They could send him in here at any time. They’re choosing not to save her at least as much as I am. This isn’t my fault. I can’t give them what they want.
The woman sobs. “No, no, no!” she screams.
I can’t give them what they want. These are the people who took my brother. If I start helping them, I’ll end up another one of their fucking assets, just like Evan. I won’t do that. I won’t give them the satisfaction of turning me into a helpful little tool. I was already a hero. The Serpent’s Hand had me cure plenty of people just like this one. Right now, people in the Serpent’s Hand’s care are suffering because I’m locked in here.
Suddenly, the woman stops screaming. The sudden silence is surprising enough that my eyes open again. She looks at me. For a second, her face lights up with joy and relief. “Thank y…” she begins, but then something catches her gaze.
She looks over at the opposite corner of the room. Her eyes go wider than I thought was possible. She tries to back away from whatever she sees, but there’s nothing but padded wall behind her. “No,” she whispers. “No, no, no. Please, no.” She sobs. Her fear seems less urgent than before, but her dread is stronger.
Another voice echoes over the loudspeaker. “Alert!” the researcher says. “Alert! Ersatz-Class Containment Breach!”
The door swings open, and three of the guards outside storm in and point their rifles at the empty space the woman is staring at.
The Serpent’s Hand taught me everything they know about Jailor protocol and procedure. ‘Ersatz’ is not a real containment class. It exists purely for announcements like this, to clarify that the announcement is part of a drill or test.
But this woman doesn’t know that. She probably only has a vague understanding of what the Foundation does, and I can see in her eyes that their trick is working. She thinks whatever she’s looking at is real.
She doesn’t try to run. She just curls up into a ball and starts pleading, no longer with me, but with whatever she sees. “Please don’t,” she whimpers. “Please don’t. I’m sorry.”
What the hell is she seeing?
Does it matter?
All that matters is how it makes her feel. How I’m letting it make her feel.
I grit my teeth as tears stain my cheeks.
The woman’s gaze shifts as the thing she’s terrified of approaches and, eventually, reaches her. The guards watch her gaze and do their best to keep their guns trained on the entity she’s seeing, though all their rifles have the safety on.
The woman’s quiet, desperate sobs shift back into panicked screams. “Please, stop!” she shouts. “Please, stop!”
I look up at the speaker. “Evan!” I shout.
“You know it doesn’t work if I’m not there in person,” Evan says. He’s trying to keep his voice level, but he’s not succeeding. He probably would help if the Jailors let him, but that would ruin their plan to force me to do it.
My gaze shifts back to the woman. I’ve never seen anyone this afraid. It’s hard to imagine a mere performance could seem so real.
“No! No!” comes a fresh bout of screams.
I have to stay strong. I can’t give them what they want.
“Please don’t! Please don’t! Stop! Stop!”
I can’t let myself become one of their assets, no matter what.
She thrashes with everything she has, the motion smearing blood from her still-weeping wounds onto the padded floor.
I can’t do it. I can’t let them win. I can’t let them win.
With everything I have, I force that image of a fire into the forefront of my mind. I imagine the smell of the smoke, the fire pit in which it lays. I decide that it’s a campfire. I imagine the sound of crickets in the forest around me, the flame’s heat clashing with the cool night air around me.
“Get it off! Get it off!”
I picture the night of the Galaxy Plaza Disaster. I picture my brother, the Evan I once looked up to, running in terror from Jailor thugs just like these guards. I remember Evan’s panicked eyes. I remember him gasping for air as he begged me to hide. I remember those ghouls grabbing him, kicking and screaming, and dragging him away.
The woman’s screams go on. They go on and on, interspersed with pained sobs. If I paid more attention to what she was saying, I could try to deduce what she’s seeing, but what use would that knowledge be to me? No matter what it is, I can’t help her. I can’t let them win.
“You can save her, SCP-7851-2,” the researcher says.
“No.”
“You can.”
“No!”
“Hear that? He’s letting this happen to you.”
Earlier, she reacted to the researcher saying that, but, right now, I don’t think she hears anything over her own screams.
Despite myself, I open my eyes. I watch her. Her vain struggle against nothing. Her pleas for mercy from an assailant that will never grant it because it doesn’t exist. Because it was conjured by a curse that will torment her for the rest of her life unless she’s saved by one of the two people in the entire world who can make it go away.
The Jailors have both of those people, and they’re never going to let the other one anywhere near her. They’ll keep her here, suffering, screaming, for hours. Days. Weeks. Years, if they can keep her alive that long. For them, the sacrifice of one person is nothing if it means they can get me to do their bidding. To do Evan’s dirty work while he runs off doing gods-know-what.
Probably kidnapping innocent people, or wiping their memories, or enslaving them so the Foundation can feed them to monsters. He’s a Jailor, and that’s what Jailors do.
I keep my mind on the image of an innocent person being shoved into the back of a black van by a bunch of Jailor thugs, Evan among them. I imagine them being dragged here, or to some other hellhole of a containment site. I imagine the years they’ll spend rotting away in a cell, everything they love taken from them, their entire life stolen, all for the crime of being special. Being different. I imagine them being confined to their quarters, beaten by guards, or put to work by Dr. Light. I imagine them crying. I imagine them weeping, begging, thrashing, bleeding, screaming, screaming, screaming, until—
“It’s not real!” I shout.
Just a moment later, the screaming stops. She goes still. She’s still shaking. “It’s not real,” I continue. “There’s nothing here that wants to hurt you.”
She looks up, at the empty space where the object of her fear once was. She looks through it. The guards are already back on standby, still as statues. As she sees that there’s no longer anything there, she uncurls from her ball. There’s disbelief on her face, as if the sudden absence of her persecutor is too good to be true, but, slowly, she seems to realize the thing is gone.
She sits up. She looks over at me. There’s a bit of confusion in her face, but it’s drowned out by gratitude and relief. “You made him go away.”
“I know.”
“Why did you wait so long?”
I don’t answer.
“Thank you,” she says, after a moment.
I still don’t answer.
“Excellent work, SCP-7851-2,” the researcher says.
“Fuck you!” I scream at the speaker, so loud I startle the woman once again. It’s only for her sake that I lower my voice before continuing. “You did this! You could have—”
“You’re the only one here who could’ve done anything,” the researcher says, “and you did.”
I seethe. He’s right. I did what they wanted. I cured her, and now that they’ve seen that I can only hold out for a few minutes once they place a screaming victim in front of me, they’re going to keep doing what they just did, and it’s going to go the same way. I’m going to hold out for a few minutes, at best, and then I’m going to break, just like I did today.
I am going to become their instrument now. I’m not strong enough to prevent them from using me.
“What’s wrong?” the woman asks.
I look up at her. “You should get to a doctor,” I say, coldly.
“Quite right,” the researcher says. “Johnson, Stoker, Escort Mrs. Bronson to medical.”
Two guards walk over to where she’s standing. They order her to follow them out of the room, and she does.
I spend the next few minutes sobbing on the floor, and then the door opens. I look up. It’s Evan. Dr. Light is standing behind him.
I glare at Evan, but his eyes have only tenderness for me. He walks over to me and stoops down to my level. He puts one hand on my wrist while he uses the other to wipe away tears.
“I’m sorry they did that,” he says. “Light and I tried to stop them, but… it worked on me, back when I was still… resistant.”
I keep glaring at him.
“I wish it had been under better circumstances,” Evan says, “but… I still can’t help but be proud to see you help someone. You should be proud, too. You finally—”
“Do you think this is the first time I’ve healed someone?” I shout.
He doesn’t answer.
“It’s not. I did stuff like this for the Hand all the time, only without the padded cells, or the armed guards, or the handcuffs.”
“I’m sure you did some good work with them. But here, you’ll be able to do so much more. You don’t have to contain anyone. You don’t have to punish anyone. We just want you to help people.”
“Will you be willing to treat civilians with similar ailments going forward?” Light asks.
There’s no point in saying no. They’ll just do this again with the next person they want me to cure, and I’ll crack. The first time I said I’d let someone suffer to spite the Jailors, Evan said it was just bluster. Apparently, he was right, and that makes me even angrier at him.
I glance at the guards behind him. There are still four of them, and I’m still prone and in handcuffs. Attacking Evan would just get me beaten by the guards.
But there is something I can do to hurt him. Not another lie. That’s not going to work a second time. I have something else in mind.
“I have a condition,” I say, looking past Evan, at Dr. Light. “I’ll cure people with my voice, but I want you to promise something in return.”
“What do you want?” Dr. Light asks.
I raise my cuffed hand to point at Evan. “To never see or hear from him again.”
Evan’s eyes go wide. “Jerry…”
“Oh, so now you’re allowed to use my name?”
“Jerry, there’s no reason to—”
“That’s my deal,” I say, my eyes still on Light. “I’ll heal any civilian, you want, no fucking Jailors, and in exchange, he has to leave me alone, completely, forever.”
Light looks at me for a moment. “That can be arranged,” she says.
Evan spins around to look at her. “What?” he shouts.
“We’ll talk about it outside,” Light says.
Evan takes a deep breath. “Of course, Doctor. Apologies for the outburst.”
“I understand,” Light says. She looks up at the speaker. “The anomaly is willing to cooperate. Do we have more people to bring in?”
“Dozens,” the researcher says.
“Alright,” Light says. “See that we’re moving patients through. Try to keep theatrics to a minimum as long as -2 is cooperating.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the researcher says.
I look up at them, my eyes still oozing venom, as they leave the room. A few minutes later, the guards who’d escorted the woman away return with another victim. This one is a kid, maybe twelve or thirteen years old. He seems almost completely catatonic.
After one final moment of hesitation, I speak to him.
Evan
“Why did you agree to that?” Evan whispers at Light almost as soon as they’re out of the chamber.
“Think about it objectively for half a second,” Light says. “I think you’ll realize why.”
She’s right, of course. Objectively, it’s worth it. Evan’s grief at being denied contact with his brother means nothing in the face of the minds, and lives, that will be saved by securing Jerry’s cooperation.
“He’ll probably change his mind, eventually,” Light says. “We just saw him go back on his promise to never help the Foundation. People, especially your brother, say things they don’t mean when they’re angry. Sooner or later, he’ll go back on his demand not to see you.”
“Maybe.”
Part of Evan doesn’t think this should be bothering him. Just a few weeks ago, he hadn’t seen his brother for six years. He’d never expected to see him again. It shouldn’t be so hard to lose him again.
But that was different. Back then, it was just circumstances keeping them apart. It wasn’t Jerry’s choice. The knowledge that Jerry hates him, that he never wants to see Evan again because he blames him for what he just went through…
Damn snakes. Why did they have to get to him before the Foundation could? Why did they have to poison his mind with their naïve bullshit? Jerry should be a comrade in arms, not an enemy prisoner.
“Are you fit to assist with our interrogation of Veronica Hall?” Light asks.
“What?”
“I ask that question with no judgement,” Light says. “It’s entirely understandable if this situation is overwhelming you—”
“No,” Evan says. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m fit to do my job.”
“Good,” Light says, “because the fate of the world is still at stake.”