With tensions at their highest, Jerry and his former comrades try to distract themselves with a bit of mindless entertainment, unaware that the Fifthists are about to make their biggest play yet.
Evan
“There’s been another attempt?” Evan asks Light as he and Rainer speak to her from the back of a transport. They’re on their way from El Paso to San Antonio.
“Yes,” Light says. “Portland, this time. Fortunately, we were able to reach out to locals for assistance. Most Three Portlandsers hate us, but they hate the Fifthists even more.”
“That makes four attempts,” Rainer says.
“They’ve all been at specialized events,” Light observes, “mostly conventions, just as we anticipated. O5-10 has been shifting our forces around accordingly. More focus on controlling the types of events they’re targeting, less on the ones they’re ignoring.”
“Did our collaboration with Portlands locals change anything with the Serpent’s Hand?” Evan asks.
“We’ve already made diplomatic contact with a few Serpent’s Hand cells. We’ve managed to get two of them to cooperate with us, but none of that has changed the O5s’ stance regarding your brother.”
Evan takes a deep breath. “I see.”
“Do you think they’re right?” Rainer asks Light.
“Right not to return SCP-7851-2 to the Serpent’s Hand?”
“Yeah. Like, I understand why they’re doing it. I understand why the Veil is important, but with the stakes so high—”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Light says, “but I don’t think you have anything to gain from pondering that question. It’s the Overseers’ call, and they’re making their choice.”
“Of course,” Rainer says.
“I suppose there’s nothing for us to do but keep doing our job,” Evan says.
“Quite right,” Light says. “How has your stamina been, by the way? Any better?”
“Yes,” Evan’s collapse prompted the Foundation to put a bit more thought into balancing the mission with his physical needs. It’s slowed down the curing somewhat, but the Foundation’s people are skilled, meticulous planners, and have been finding efficient windows of time for rest. “I’ve been feeling a lot better.”
“That’s good,” Light says. “I told them they were overworking you.”
“No. It was justified by the urgency of the situation. We’ve probably gotten thousands of extra cures thanks to it.”
“Still nowhere near enough,” Rainer says.
“Are you making any progress convincing my brother to cooperate?” Evan asks. “The downsides of releasing him will become moot if—”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I’m chipping away at -2’s resolve or strengthening it by making -2 angrier.”
“I’m sorry for having you break our deal with him,” Evan says. “That was a mistake. Is he still not curing anyone?”
“Still no cures,” Light says. “They did the padded cell thing again. It didn’t work this time. -2 just sat in the corner, eyes closed.”
“God damn it.”
“Don’t blame yourself. It was my call. I allowed you to talk with him. I thought the risk was worth taking. It just didn’t pay off.”
Evan takes a deep breath. “Understood. Anything else?”
“I think that’s everything.”
“In that case, I should probably get some rest. There are a few stops on my way through Texas, but I think my next one is in an hour or so away.”
“Fair enough,” Light says. “I’ll leave you to it.”
They exchange farewells, and the screen goes blank. Evan lies back in his seat.
“It’s alright,” Rainer says. “Containment is a hard thing to get used to. He just needs time.”
“We don’t have time,” Evan says.
Jerry
Me and my comrades sit in the medium security socialization chamber. Ever since Light told them what’s going on, we’ve had the room to ourselves, plus Harry.
I really do feel sorry for Harry. Being upgraded to medium security means he gets half as much socialization time as he used to, and he has to spend all of it with us. Jack has been doing his best to help him stay sane, but he can only do so much.
I used to look forward to my time with the others. Now, I dread it. Just as Light hoped, being stuck here together has us rehashing that same conversation ad nauseum. Harry or Jack bring it up at least once a day, and Jack likes to make passive-aggressive jabs about it.
Every time I ask Jack to do something, he says, “I’ll think about it,” and then doesn’t do it.
Maybe I deserve that.
Today’s conversation was a particularly brutal shouting match, which would have gone on for hours if Mike hadn’t shouted it down. That’s been his role throughout this. Keeping the peace as best he can while trying not to take a side.
I try not to let it chip away at my resolve. I try to make sure it strengthens it instead. All of this misery, everything Harry is going through, the degeneration of my relationship with Jack, all of it is the Jailors’ fault. It’s because of the freedom they took from us, and that’s all the more reason to refuse to help them.
I wish I was with Theo. I wish I was with my parents. I’d give anything just to spend a few minutes with them. To tell Mom and Dad that I’m not dead. To tell Theo that he’s not dead to me. That I didn’t mean the things I said. That I was angry. That I made a horrible mistake. That I love him.
He’s never going to hear that from me, though. Never. Because they imprisoned me. Because they won’t let me see him. It’s my fault that I said those things, but it’s their fault I can’t take them back.
The five of us sit on the couch in front of the medium-security socialization chamber’s television. At Jack’s request, it’s playing a music channel. Apparently, there’s going to be a Jimmy Pheonix concert in St. Louis today. There will be a crowd of thirty thousand there, and the event is being broadcast live.
“Is ‘Jimmy Pheonix’ his real name?” Harry asks Jack.
“I think so,” Jack says.
“…Weird,” Harry says.
“It’s not that weird,” Mike says. “I mean, Jimmy is obviously a real name, and there are other people with the last name ‘Pheonix.’”
“Who else?” Sean asks.
“Off the top of my head,” Mike says, “‘Joaquin Phoenix,’ the actor, and ‘Nick Pheonix,’ the composer.”
I only recognize one of those names, but I suppose there only needs to be one for it to be a ‘real’ last name.
On the screen, a camera that seems to be mounted on a drone is taking a wide overhead shot of the stadium. It’s round, with a large, tiered platform in the middle, and rows and rows of stadium seating surrounding it on all sides. Every single chair is occupied by an excited concertgoer.
An unseen announcer speaks. “Ladies and gentlemen, are you ready to feel the Pheonix’s heat?”
The crowd goes nuclear. In the dead center of the stadium’s central stage, a hatch opens, and a platform, on which the pop star stands, rises out of the ground.
If you’d asked me a second ago, I couldn’t have told you what Jimmy Pheonix looked like, but now that I’m looking at him, I know I have seen him before. He’s around thirty. His pants and shirt are covered in glossy orange sequins that sparkle like fire in the stadium lights. The camera zooms in on him as he waves to the crowd of cheering fans.
“Hello St. Louis!” he shouts. “We have a very special evening prepared for you tonight,” Pheonix continues.
He waits a moment for their cheering to die down.
“I know you’re excited to get started,” he says, “but before we do, there’s something that needs to be said. This is going to be a wonderful night, one warranting plenty of celebration. Let me hear some of that from you now!”
Another wave of cheers.
The young pop star smiles. “I am absolutely delighted to have thirty-thousand people here in this stadium with me. Nothing makes me happier than the joy I bring my fans. That’s been true since before I started singing.”
I tilt my head. “Why would he have fans before he started singing?” I ask. “Did he do something else?”
“Not that I know of,” Jack says.
“I love and appreciate every last one of you,” Pheonix continues. “I want nothing more than for everyone to be able to enjoy the things I create. Unfortunately…” Jimmy pauses, as if considering how to phrase himself. “Unfortunately, we can’t always have everything we want. No victory is perfect.”
That makes the crowd quiet a little.
“What’s going to happen tonight,” Pheonix continues, “isn’t an end. It’s a new beginning. Still, I had hoped that the cost could be lower. That this concert would be performed for a smaller crowd, containing only the people I need. We tried to make it happen that way. Unfortunately, we couldn’t. The people responsible for that know who they are, but there’s nothing I can do about it now. I’ve been forced to move forward with an altered version of our plan.”
“What’s he talking about?” Harry asks.
“Now, before we continue,” Pheonix says, “I implore you to remain in your seats.”
I go cold. The way he said that; I’ve heard it before.
Phoenix snaps his fingers. A veil over his body drops. It was a glamor. Behind the visage of the young pop star is another man. He’s in his late fifties, with tanned skin and blue streaks in his graying hair.
He’s older than he was the last time I saw him, but I’d recognize this man anywhere.
Aster Sterling.
My eyes widen. I stand up. “Get out of there!” I shout, as if my voice could somehow reach those people through the screen.
The guards in the room with us frantically report the broadcast. For a second, I’m worried the Foundation will stop us from watching it, but they don’t have time. Sterling just raises the microphone to his mouth and says, “fifth time’s the charm.”
For a second, I think the drone is moving upward, but as the stadium crumbles, I come to realize that the flying camera is hovering perfectly still. It’s the arena, the whole arena, and all of the people inside it, that are falling into an enormous, fleshy pit. The audience screams, but they cling to their seats, compelled by magic not to move. As they do, Sterling floats above them, below the rim of the pit, hundreds of feet away from its fleshy sides.
“Now,” Sterling says, “that concert I promised. Given the sacrifice you’re making, the least I can do is let you hear me si—”
The broadcast is cut off.
I look over at the guards. One of them is scrambling to contact Light. The other is trying to get in touch with the O5 Council itself. Light answers first.
“I already saw it,” she says, without giving the guard the chance to say a word.
I look back over at the television. It’s blank, with five dark reflections staring back at it. I hardly notice them, though. More powerful images have a hold over my mind. Theo. My parents. Hell, even Daisy. People I rescued during my brief time with the Serpent’s Hand. People whose afflictions I helped the Jailors cure.
The world is now full of mind-controlled puppets who will kill and die to make the world go wrong, and everyone, everywhere, will then spend eternity in the hell they make.
“Do we know for sure the sacrifice will work?” Sean asks.
“Why wouldn’t it?” Mike asks.
“I asked if we knew for sure.”
“Does this mean the world is going to end?” Harry asks.
“No,” Jack says. “Someone… someone will stop it.”
“How?”
“Could… could I have?” I ask, voice shaking as I stare at the blank screen.
“No,” Sean says. “It’s like you said. The odds that your contribution would have stopped this are tiny.”
There’s some truth to that. It’s not as if Evan was already halfway done purging the meme from the civilian population. This might have—probably would have—happened even if I’d done everything I could to help.
But I still would have cured some people. Some people, probably thousands of them, who are about to have their minds hijacked by the Fifthists, could have been cured if I’d taken any of Light’s deals.
Theo is one of them. At this very moment, he is a mind-controlled slave. He’s a danger to himself and others, and even if he and his millions of fellow thralls don’t end the world, there’s no telling what might happen to him, or what he might be forced to do.
I remind myself why I refused to help. The collar. Everything the Jailors have done to the world. The way Evan betrayed me. I remember that those things used to feel more important than the slim chance I could have stopped this.
But now that it’s real, now that the danger to the man I love, the man who still thinks I hate him, is completely and utterly real, I struggle to remember how anything else ever could have mattered more. The reasons I had to do nothing, to sit here and watch as the Fifthists schemed to damn everyone in the world, seem so small now. They fall away from me, into the distant depths of that bottomless pit.