Something stirs behind the curtain. Something shrill and hungry. Normal isn't.
SCP-9500 imagery (alleged).
SPECIAL CONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: This file has been sealed. The Overseer Council reserves sole authority over the contents thereof, and the establishment of any further containment procedures for the alleged SCP-9500..This subject was designated Penumbra-class in accordance with standing directives from the Office of the Administrator. No definition is available.
by Council decree 2025/09/07, unanimous
DESCRIPTION: SCP-9500 is a hypothetical cognitive block preventing the majority of Homo sapiens sapiens from recognizing the existence of paranormal phenomena.
It is the position of the Department of Containment that SCP-9500 does not exist as such, its purported effects representing only efficient enforcement of the Veil of Normalcy.
It is the hypothesis of the SCP-9500 research team that the Veil of Normalcy and SCP-9500 are effectively one and the same — that the Veil is itself anomalous in nature.
ADDENDUM 9500-1: Investigation
The existence of SCP-9500 was first postulated in 2025. Dr. Bradley Fellows argued the Veil of Normalcy could not practically be maintained, due to:
- the quantity and distribution of anomalous phenomena across the globe; and
- the development of high-speed international communications systems; and
- the known capabilities of many Persons and Groups of Interest hostile to normalcy enforcement.
Due to the sensitivity of this subject, Overwatch Command solicited an administrative collaborator to aid and evaluate Dr. Fellows' research efforts. Dr. Karen T. Elstrom volunteered for this duty, and after due consideration was deemed a suitable candidate.
Dr. Elstrom elected to liaise with relevant Foundation and allied agencies, while Dr. Fellows would conduct analytic fieldwork. The two would meet regularly to discuss their findings, theorize, and propose further avenues of research.
As the Department of Containment claims priority jurisdiction over all matters pertaining to the Veil of Normalcy, Dr. Elstrom was instructed to first interview its Director.
Q: Please outline the role of the Department of Containment in maintaining the Veil of Normalcy.
A: It is manifold.
All electronic communications on this planet are monitored by continental switchboards and analyzed by artificially intelligent conscripts. Satellite surveillance ensures constant scrutiny of the entire Earth — land, air and water inclusive — extending to the subterrane via infrared imaging and ELIDAR. Probes and manned spacecraft maintain a similar vigil over the entire solar system. We have access to all tracking devices and cameras presently in governmental, police, or civilian operation, and immediate control of all radio and television emissions, as well as telephone and internet network services. Remote manipulation of all computing devices and 'smart' appliances is also possible.
This Department maintains facilities of at least Outpost strength in every population centre exceeding one thousand persons, with staff numbers ranging from a single operative to several thousand. We have presence in all world governments, all carceral systems, all political and religious groups. We coordinate with the Department of Task Forces to mobilize and deploy some nine hundred and twelve response units of various specialities worldwide. We boast immediate coverage of any geographical location within one hour; metropolitan response times are measured in seconds.
Our activities are masked by seven hundred and seven front companies and a highly classified number of safehouses. Cover stories and contingency plans exist for every possible form of data breach, news coverage, or whistleblower report. We are fully capable of reversing any Lifted Veil/Broken Masquerade scenario affecting up to twenty-five percent of the human population. We maintain less optimal mechanisms for reverting such scenarios beyond that threshold. I am not at liberty to disclose details.
Q: Do you consider it plausible that the Veil of Normalcy functions as a result of anomalous influence?
A: The activities of this Department constitute sufficient explanation for the Veil's efficacy. Any compounding effect is superfluous.
Q: For how long has this state of affairs persisted?
A: Two centuries at least.
Q: How many anomalous objects, events, persons etc. has the Foundation catalogued during this period?
A: Over nine thousand primary subjects. The number of secondary subjects approaches one hundred thousand.
Q: And how many irrecoverable breaches of the Veil have occurred?
A: None.
Q: Is this not statistically improbable?
A: Are you aware how many citizens of this Earth are also personnel of the SCP Foundation?
Q: We have been told the number is approximately five hundred thousand.
A: Well in excess of that. One in sixteen human beings works for us.
Q: That leaves something like ninety-five percent on the other side of the Veil.
A: Not when accounting for Persons of Interest, Groups of Interest, and the members of anomalous communities. These too exist on our side of the Veil, and rely upon it for their safety.
Q: So, let's say one in ten.
A: Approximately.
Q: Are you suggesting that ten percent of humanity can offset the efforts of the remaining ninety percent?
A: No. It has been our experience that the optimal ratio of Veil-aligned actors to threatening vectors is 1:1.
Q: Then what are you suggesting?
A: That ten percent of humanity keeps a further ten percent in check, and maintaining the ignorance of the remainder is a task of negligible difficulty.
Dr. Fellows travelled to Foundation Mission Control at Area-08-C to contact SCP-179: a Thaumiel-class SCP object known to physically indicate active threats to life on Earth, thereby acting as an anomalous accessory to Veil maintenance.
<Transcript begins.>
<Probe DSCOVR-3 approaches SCP-179, locked to Sol's rotation ~40000km from the south solar pole. SCP-179 turns to acknowledge DSCOVR-3.>
Anomalous cis-Mercurian phenomenon (SCP-179) in ready view of civilian telescopy.
SCP-179: I see you. Do you see me?
Dr. Fellows: Yes, we see you.
SCP-179: How do I look?
Dr. Fellows: Like smoke on the sun.
SCP-179: That sounds very pretty. What do you want?
Dr. Fellows: We want to know why you watch over us.
SCP-179: I'm the lookout.
Dr. Fellows: Yes. Why do we need a lookout?
SCP-179: You don't look out for yourselves.
Dr. Fellows: Do you know why that is?
SCP-179: Yes.
Dr. Fellows: Can you tell us?
SCP-179: You won't see.
Dr. Fellows: Why do you say that?
SCP-179: You never see. The sun, my brother, is light. I see you by his light. He sees in every direction. But you are veiled in half-shadow. A shadow I can't see, and you can't see past. She turns her face away from you, and she cries.
Dr. Fellows: Cries? The Veil cries?
SCP-179: Can you hear her? It's a lonely sound. She aches. And you turn away. You hide your faces.
Dr. Fellows: Please tell us what you mean.
SCP-179: I've told you before. You forget.
Dr. Fellows: Tell us again.
SCP-179: No. You have to find this truth for yourselves.
Dr. Fellows: We don't understand.
SCP-179: You do not see.
Dr. Fellows: Please explain.
<SCP-179 frowns.>
SCP-179: But I have.
<Transcript ends.>
With these preliminaries complete, Drs. Elstrom and Fellows met for the first time to discuss their approach to the SCP-9500 investigation.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Elstrom enters a restaurant in the shopping centre above subterranean Site-232. Dr. Fellows is waiting at a booth, perusing the menu. The restaurant is otherwise empty.>
Dr. Elstrom: Dr. Fellows?
<He looks up, and stands to shake Dr. Elstrom's hand.>
Dr. Fellows: Call me Brad. You want a menu?
<He sits down again. Dr. Elstrom remains standing.>
Dr. Elstrom: I was under the impression we'd be meeting in a secure location.
Dr. Fellows: Strathroy-Caradoc Plaza is what they call a dead mall. Almost nobody comes in, but all the stores stay open anyway for no clear reason. Even fewer people ever enter a dead mall's restaurants. This particular restaurant is a Pizza Hut. Nobody ever goes into one of those.
<Dr. Elstrom frowns.>
Dr. Fellows: And we operate this one.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Fellows: And the pizza is free?
<Dr. Elstrom sighs, and sits down.>
Dr. Fellows: Hiding in plain sight. Appropriate for the occasion, right?
Dr. Elstrom: I suppose.
<She folds her hands on the table.>
Dr. Elstrom: What prompted you to choose this topic of investigation, Dr. Fellows?
Dr. Fellows: Brad. Uh, well. We've done some research on minor aspects of Foundation culture, and found them partially anomalous in origin. That got me thinking about the big picture stuff. Things we rely on. And it struck me — you don't want a menu?
Dr. Elstrom: No.
Dr. Fellows: If the Veil isn't hanging on our efforts, if there's more than just logistics and efficiency keeping it functional, then that's actually a very serious problem? I asked around, and it turned out there's no better explanation accessible with a Level-4 security clearance. So I figured…
Dr. Elstrom: You'd float the idea, and see if anyone at Level-5 objected?
Dr. Fellows: Right. And since they didn't shoot me down, I have to assume they don't know, either.
<He taps his menu, then glances at the counter. No employee is present. He sighs.>
Dr. Fellows: Then again, they assigned a Scully to debunk me — no offence, everyone likes Scully, uh — so maybe it's something else entirely.
Dr. Elstrom: We both work for the Foundation. Neither of us is a skeptic.
Dr. Fellows: Right, yeah. I know. Sorry.
Dr. Elstrom: And I'm inclined to agree with you. The Veil's stability is… suspicious. And given how much the human race depends on us, and how much we depend on it, I would very much like to know if it exists at the whim of outside actors.
Dr. Fellows: Right. Yeah. Exactly. So, I read your chat with Gears, and…
Dr. Elstrom: Not entirely convincing.
Dr. Fellows: Not remotely convincing. What really surprises me is, he didn't seem to recognize how absurd his claims were.
Dr. Elstrom: He's direct. He says what he believes, and leaves elaboration to others.
Dr. Fellows: Sure, but that level of certainty, when all he's really saying is 'we try very hard, so that must be why it works'?
Dr. Elstrom: Do you think he's hiding something?
Dr. Fellows: I'm not implying anything. It just sounded like he was repeating an old maxim, something well-rehearsed. Enough that he started to think it was the only truth. Maybe twenty years ago it was. But in the age of the cell phone? Come on.
Dr. Elstrom: At least he communicates clearly. Your anomaly, on the other hand…
Dr. Fellows: She's always like that. You'd get eccentric too, if you were growing arms on your own in outer space.
Dr. Elstrom: How long were you talking to her, anyway? Isn't the time lag something absurd?
Dr. Fellows: No, they use quantum-locked demonic circuits for instant transmission now. They tell me it took a while for her to stop pointing out the probes as a threat, though.
Dr. Elstrom: Wow. Well, her threat assessments have proven completely reliable in the past. And she did seem to identify the Veil as anomalous.
Dr. Fellows: I would have preferred direct confirmation, but that's how it goes with spooky space oracles. Here's what really bothers me. Suppose there is an anomalous component to the Veil. How would we uncover its origin? Like, it could be fuckin' — excuse me — it could be Brice Sprungstun for all we know.
Dr. Elstrom: Brice…?
Dr. Fellows: Another file we're working on. It's been weighing on my mind. It's one of the reasons I opened this file.
Dr. Elstrom: I wasn't aware of that.
Dr. Fellows: I'm afraid to submit it to the DoC, and you'll see why. So, there's this big hole under a big cave in the Alps, right? And there's a giant alligator-man with a sword in the hole, and there's a force field around him, and we've determined that the field gets weaker every time someone who didn't know about weird shit finds out about weird shit. Sorry.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Fellows: So, we can't rule out the possibility that the Veil literally just exists to power the force field that keeps the sword-alligator-man imprisoned, somehow.
<He shrugs.>
Dr. Elstrom: I honestly don't think that's it.
Dr. Fellows: Well, I'm not saying it has to be—
Dr. Elstrom: But what was that about Brice… what did you say?
Dr. Fellows: We tried to communicate with the guy. The first thing we asked was his name, and he shouted 'Brice Sprungstun,' but then that's all he would say to anything, sometimes repeating it insistently. We quickly figured out that one of the climbers who found him had a Human Touch tour shirt on, so we think it's some sort of cultural contamination we don't fully understand? Once, he even held his sword in the air and yelled the name, and lightning came into the cave and struck the sword.
Dr. Elstrom: Like in Highlander?
<Dr. Fellows grins.>
Dr. Fellows: No one in Highlander ever says 'Brice Sprungstun.' Trust me, I've watched the shit out of Highlander.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Fellows: The next day the Site cafeteria was serving Captain Highliner fish sticks. It's like the son of a bitch is trying to listen in, but can't quite hear.
Dr. Elstrom: I'm beginning to understand why you thought I was assigned to debunk your work.
Dr. Fellows: I'm just saying, there's a possibility we never get to the bottom of this.
Dr. Elstrom: Certainly we won't, if we never get started.
Dr. Fellows: Brainstorm some leads, then. Dr. Brainstrom.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Fellows: Yeah. I'll get the pizza.
<He stands.>
Dr. Fellows: They make you order at the counter. There's a reason people think this franchise is a mafia front.
<Transcript ends.>
As both investigators were unconvinced by the Department of Containment's position, Dr. Elstrom next arranged for an interview with the Department of Task Forces.
Q. How does the Department of Task Forces engage with the Veil of Normalcy?
A. It's like a silent partner. You can piss it off, and you'll never know why, but you'll see the effects.
Q. Can you elaborate?
A. I don't do elaborate. Fact is the Veil makes our job much harder. We need to keep everything we do below board. The DoC surveils, and locks our targets up after, but we're the ones pussyfooting around John Q. It'd be a whole lot simpler to go in guns blazing. I'd guess every smash-and-grab is ten percent smashing and grabbing, ninety percent muffling blows and making sure your balaclava's not on backwards.
Q. Are you aware of any anomalous subjects directly affecting the stability of the Veil, positively or negatively?
A. You mean other than by being weird in public?
Q. Yes.
A. No. Are you implying there's some goblin out there who deserves credit for our jobs well done?
Q. I'm asking you if anything you've seen—
A. No. Still no. We keep a lid on this shit. We go in quiet, and make everybody else pipe down. Whether they want to or not. We take control of the situation, and we keep it. You're fucking welcome.
Q. Thank you.
A. I swear you office types think everything is a god damn action movie.
Q. It wasn't my intention to offend you.
A. Remember that next time you make a mockery of my folks in the field, Dr. Deskjob.
Dr. Fellows pursued a lead provided by his own personnel.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Fellows is standing outside the Belmont Arena in Belmont, Ontario. Site-232 MTF Chief Rain Gallant shoves him behind a corner as a chorus of chainsaws roar in the parking lot.>
Chief Gallant: Yeah, this is FUBAR.
Dr. Fellows: What happened?
Chief Gallant: Near as I can figure?
<They motion to the other members of MTF Lambda-232 ("Interference Pattern"), who fan across the arena's lawn and scan the surrounding structures.>
Chief Gallant: Turf war scheduling conflict.
<232-Gamma jogs across Belmont Road, narrowly avoiding a passing sedan, and begins checking the houses facing the arena. 232-Delta uses a crosswalk to approach a car dealership; the proprietor and several sales agents are standing on the curb, watching with apparent disapproval.>
Voice: Deus magnus est, vos fuckers!
<The sound of revving chainsaws fills the air, soon interpolated with a chewing/crunching/splashing sound.>
Second Voice: Latin has a word for that, barbarian!
<A metallic screech overwhelms the recording, and Dr. Fellows falls to the pavement.>
Chief Gallant: Chainsaw fencing. That's a new one.
Dr. Fellows: I thought we were staking out the flower children!
<Chief Gallant leans on the closed doors of the arena, and quickly checks an inset window. They jerk back, expression grim.>
Chief Gallant: That nickname may have given you the wrong impression.
<They activate their radio.>
Chief Gallant: Eyes when?
232-Bravo: Just got through the ceiling. I see—
<An explosion within the arena is audible.>
232-Bravo: —not much, now. Looked like the Fraternity in the stands,.GoI-654, "Fraternity of the Argent Flower," a cult dedicated to preserving the sanctity of all life. and the Brotherhood on the ice..GoI-456, "Brotherhood of the Silver Lotus," a cult dedicated to preserving the sanctity of all life.
Chief Gallant: Which one blew up?
232 Bravo: Somebody in the stands fumbled a grenade. Oh, wait—
Chief Gallant: Audio!
<232-Bravo patches their camera audio through. Fire crackles, and a voice shouts "LIFE IS PRECIOUS" before a second, much larger explosion rings out, and the feed abruptly ceases.>
232-Bravo: Delivered that one personally.
232-Delta: Chief, problem at the dealership.
Chief Gallant: Go.
232-Delta: They say they can't close up 'til they hit quota. And you know how car sales are these days.
Chief Gallant: Bag 'em.
232-Delta: Guy says he knows the mayor.
Chief Gallant: Bag 'em!
Dr. Fellows: Belmont doesn't have a mayor. It's a vill—
<Another explosion sends a hail of bricks into the parking lot. Dr. Fellows creeps to the edge of the wall. Two opposing cells of GoI-811 ("Chainsaw Capuchins") are engaged in close combat; members of the other two Groups of Interest are fleeing the burning arena, clutching a variety of heavy armaments.>
Brother Derek of Maple Estates, GoI-811.
Dr. Fellows: Uh-oh.
Chief Gallant: Head down, Brad.
232-Gamma: Chief, I'm at the farm supply.
Chief Gallant: What now?
232-Gamma: Guy from the Nidus.GoI-1349, "Ætrian Nidus," an order of cannibalistic Transcendentalists. poisoning fertilizer. Using the fun next door for cover.
Chief Gallant: About to get a whole lot less fun.
<An Ontario Provincial Police cruiser arrives in front of the Arena, lights flashing.>
Chief Gallant: Fuck's sake.
<Two uniformed officers exit the vehicle, weapons drawn.>
First Officer: Freeze!
Chief Gallant: Already told you, we've got this covered.
Second Officer: Captain Gallant?
Chief Gallant: It's pronounced gah-launt. I've told you that, too. "Captain Gallant" makes me sound like a goddamn superhero.
<The sounds of chainsaws and explosions resume in the arena parking lot as all four groups engage each other.>
<Chief Gallant sighs, and draws their sidearm.>
<Footage missing.>
<Dr. Fellows is facing the parking lot, where Chief Gallant is jumping between the hoods and roofs of parked cars, firing into the general melee with two different sidearms. They are whooping.>
First Officer: Second time this week.
<Transcript ends.>
The investigators met at the Strathroy-Caradoc Plaza Pizza Hut after Dr. Fellows received medical clearance.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Elstrom is waiting in a booth as Dr. Fellows enters, his left arm in a cast.>
Dr. Elstrom: Shrapnel?
Dr. Fellows: Cop hit me with a brick.
<He sits down, grunting.>
Dr. Elstrom: Pardon?
Dr. Fellows: Low Constables of Edinburgh..GoI-6871. Vigilante society of immortal law enforcers. Not real OPP.
Dr. Elstrom: Your Chief didn't recognize them?
Dr. Fellows: They're new. Well, you know. To us.
<Dr. Elstrom shakes her head.>
Dr. Elstrom: What is going on around here?
Dr. Fellows: Everything.
Dr. Elstrom: What were those people inside the arena fighting over?
Dr. Fellows: Creation myths. One says life was born from a lotus on a mountainside; the other says "lotuses float on water, you morons!" They think life was born from a swan egg on a river or something, who cares. All their rituals are exactly the same until they aren't, and they hate each other, et cetera.
Dr. Elstrom: They splintered off, like with those Capuchin cells…?
Dr. Fellows: The Brotherhood showed up first, the Fraternity after. Both claim to be the original.
Dr. Elstrom: Naturally.
Dr. Fellows: So, yeah. I think we can safely discount Director Clef's testimony.
Dr. Elstrom: I was prepared to do that already. It's just what Gears said, with fewer steps.
Dr. Fellows: Because he immediately dismissed your concerns.
Dr. Elstrom: Touched a nerve. I thought Clef was the funny one.
Dr. Fellows: People don't like their competency questioned.
Dr. Elstrom: Well…
<Dr. Fellows sighs.>
Dr. Fellows: Go on.
Dr. Elstrom: The situation at the arena got out of hand quickly.
Dr. Fellows: It started out of hand. We get a new GoI in that township every month. Sometimes more. It's impossible to stop fights from breaking out. Every street belongs to a different cult or gang or whatever. And it was a full moon.
Dr. Elstrom: What's the relevance of that?
Dr. Fellows: It's always worse when the moon is full. Blood moon worst of all.
Dr. Elstrom: I see.
Dr. Fellows: Ask medical doctors and vets, they'll tell you the same thing.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Elstrom: How much amnesticizing did you have to do?
Dr. Fellows: Three households, a car dealership, a fertilizer shop and a girls' hockey team.
Dr. Elstrom: None of them made social media posts?
Dr. Fellows: Nope.
Dr. Elstrom: Did they even call the police?
Dr. Fellows: Nope.
Dr. Elstrom: That's incredible.
Dr. Fellows: I thought so.
<He touches his bandaged arm, and winces.>
Dr. Fellows: So, what next?
Dr. Elstrom: I hate to say this, but I feel like we're being railroaded.
Dr. Fellows: As in, not everyone is being completely honest with us?
Dr. Elstrom: It would be bad empiricism to discount that possibility.
Dr. Fellows: What's your doctorate in, anyway?
Dr. Elstrom: Business administration.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Elstrom: And if that's taught me anything, it's that when you don't get the answers you like, you keep on up the totem pole.
Dr. Fellows: You want to swap positions?
Dr. Elstrom: Not particularly. But I will pay for the pizza, this time.
Dr. Fellows: The pizza is still free.
<Transcript ends.>
As the citizens of Belmont displayed a concerning lack of interest in anomalous events taking place in their community during daylight hours, Dr. Elstrom contacted the Foundation's agencies specializing in self-censoring anomalies. Her first scheduled interview was with the Antimemetics Division.
Q. Who are you?
A. I don't have time for this today.
Dr. Fellows solicited opinions from Foundation medical experts on the possibility that the Belmont apathy represented a natural biological function of Homo sapiens sapiens. One promising contact was otherwise occupied, however, and Dr. Fellows flew to the Arctic Circle to meet with them on-the-job.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Fellows has arrived at Secure Area-219.>
Secure Area 219.
<His helicopter lands in the central courtyard, and he is met by a Foundation medical orderly. She leads him past several armed checkpoints into one of the facility's satellite detention blocks. These are structured on a panopticon model, though each cell appears opaque from the central surveillance platform atop its tower.>
<Dr. Fellows ascends via ladder.>
<The platform is covered with medical tables and equipment. Dr. Andrea Maslov stomps back and forth between her patients: five human individuals of varying ages and builds, all extremely pale for their apparent ethnicities.>
<Dr. Fellows climbs onto the platform. Dr. Maslov nearly steps on his fingers as he surmounts the ladder.>
Dr. Maslov: Stupid boy.
Dr. Fellows: What?
<She stomps across the platform, then stomps her foot on an automatic lift.>
Dr. Maslov: Save strength for when it is needed. Ach. Grab hold.
<She seizes one side of the nearest stretcher.>
Dr. Fellows: Oh, I'm not an orderly. I'm here—
Dr. Maslov: Be helping, or be gone. You choose.
<Dr. Fellows takes the other side of the stretcher. Together they maneuver it onto the lift. A guard stationed at the base of the tower looks up at them.>
Dr. Maslov: Ach!
<The guard steps out of sight, and the lift descends. Dr. Fellows narrowly avoids being carried down with it.>
Dr. Maslov: You study Veil, yes?
Dr. Fellows: That's right.
Dr. Maslov: Should do something about that.
Dr. Fellows: It's an interesting assignment.
<Maslov shakes her head. She is already examining the next patient. Behind them, the lift has reached the base of the tower.>
Dr. Maslov: Not what meaning. Do something about Veil. Stupid idea. Make people stupid.
Dr. Fellows: How do you mean?
<She indicates the man on the stretcher in front of them.>
Dr. Maslov: No blood.
<She presses her hand to the patient's carotid, and begins muttering to herself. A faint glow is perceptible beneath the skin.>
Dr. Fellows: You're a Type Red?
Dr. Maslov: Da.
Dr. Fellows: What's wrong with these people?
Dr. Maslov: No insurance.
<The patient's colour has marginally improved. Dr. Maslov wipes her brow, and sighs.>
Dr. Fellows: Surely we're not charging them for this.
<Dr. Maslov stomps over to a small plastic dining chair, and sits down heavily. She is panting.>
Dr. Maslov: Sick with no insurance. You understand? No insurance is sickness. Very stupid. Because of Veil.
<Dr. Fellows glances between the patients, then back to Dr. Maslov.>
Dr. Fellows: I think I might be stupid.
<Dr. Maslov sighs irritably.>
Dr. Maslov: Okay. I spell out.
<She raises a finger.>
Dr. Maslov: A-deen. Insurance companies scum. Da?
Dr. Fellows: Da. Uh, yes.
<She continues raising fingers.>
Dr. Maslov: Dva. Insurance companies dump people like garbage. Poor people. Sick people. People not like most people. Any excuse. Da?
<Dr. Fellows nods.>
Dr. Maslov: Tree. Insurance gremlins tired of bad press. Hire magician gremlins. Thaumatological anemia.
<Dr. Fellows nods, then stops.>
Dr. Fellows: They're losing their blood because they don't have insurance?
Dr. Maslov: Da. Very scary, yes? Make you want to buy insurance?
<Dr. Fellows sits on the platform floor.>
Dr. Fellows: That's just… vile.
<Dr. Maslov laughs harshly.>
Dr. Maslov: Vile and stupid. Transmission vectors all wrong. All wrong. Magic tricky. Everybody have no insurance sometimes. What if database go down? Everybody have no insurance.
<The lift begins to whir. Dr. Maslov grunts.>
Dr. Fellows: So this could theoretically affect… everybody?
Dr. Maslov: Da. Foundation prisoners? No insurance. Lots of doctors, no insurance. Foundation doctors? No insurance.
<Dr. Fellows stands up abruptly. Dr. Maslov laughs again.>
Dr. Maslov: He sees! Everybody in trouble.
Dr. Fellows: But we do have insurance. Goldbaker-Reinz.
<Dr. Maslov scoffs.>
Dr. Mazlov: Like I say, magic tricky. Sometimes get right, sometimes no. Your boss, they think "can't happen me." Can happen anybody. Not just poor. Not just old. But nobody do anything different.
Dr. Fellows: How many people have died from this?
Dr. Maslov: Early days. Ten thousands.
Dr. Fellows: Ten thousand people?!
Dr. Maslov: No. Ten thousands. Two or three or four ten. Statistics lie. Russia statistics double lie. Anomalous Russia? Pah.
Dr. Fellows: How are we not quarantining everyone?!
Dr. Maslov: What I saying. Nobody do anything different.
Dr. Fellows: What about the WPO?.The World Parahealth Organization, a division of the Global Occult Coalition.
Dr. Maslov: Yes, they say very bad. Stay at home.
Dr. Fellows: I didn't hear anything!
<Dr. Maslov claps.>
Dr. Maslov: Very good! You essential. I essential too.
<The lift has arrived. Dr. Maslov stands, with some effort, and stomps over to pull the new stretcher onto the platform. Dr. Fellows assists her.>
Dr. Fellows: So, wait. This is affecting people outside the Veil?
Dr. Maslov: Da.
Dr. Fellows: How have we kept it under wraps? People don't typically just lose all their blood in the middle of the street.
Dr. Maslov: Nobody looking.
Dr. Fellows: Come on.
Dr. Maslov: Nobody looking! Look other way. Walk other side of street. Places to be. Very important people, all people. Everywhere.
Dr. Fellows: Is there a cure?
<Dr. Maslov pauses her examination to raise an eyebrow at him.>
Dr. Maslov: Cure for disease, or cure for stupid?
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Fellows elected to forego the next meeting in favour of ensuring his insurance premiums were up-to-date. Dr. Elstrom readily agreed, as she had nothing new to report.
The following week, she selected a contact from the GoI Research Group for her next interview.
Q. How do the major Groups of Interest interact with the Veil of Normalcy?
A. Depends who it is. The Global Occult Coalition is our partner, nominally. We've got uneasy truces with a few of the other big ones, and the ones we can't sustain open warfare with, or don't think we could beat. The mid-tiers test us sometimes. The small ones resent us, but mostly keep out of our way.
Q. We've seen evidence that paranormal activity in the public sphere rarely threatens the Veil's integrity, so long as it's contained before too many people get hurt or too much damage is done. Is it possible a Group of Interest is projecting the Veil, or at least reinforcing it?
A. Of course. Plenty of GoIs have ontokinetic or thaumaturgical abilities. Wondertainment. Serpent's Hand. Vikander-Kneed. But ask if I think it's likely.
Q. Do you think it's likely?
A. No. Most of the groups outside our little circle which could plausibly enforce normalcy, wouldn't want to. Most of them actively despise us for doing it. We cut in on their markets, capture their people, steal their artifacts. They have no reason to make our work easier. They're rooting for us to fail.
Q. Shouldn't it be easy to trigger that sort of failure?
A. Facebook post, viral video, or whatever? Absolutely. But you'd have to ask the DoC how they keep that stuff off the 'net…
Q. Something's bothering you.
A. Yes. The Chaos Insurgency, and its offshoots. I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't be trying to tear down the Veil, every second of every day. Sure, they're seeking control. Sure, they've set up a lot of tin pot dictators in the countries they're abusing, and a Coalition of the Awake would come down on them like a load of bricks if they knew. But the general goal of chaos would seem to be best served by actually stirring the pot, you know? Making life difficult for more than a tiny fraction of the world's population. There's no point in terrorism that never actually terrifies anyone. Why not just bomb the UN, and drag us all into a post-Veil world?
Q. What's the answer?
A. I haven't got one.
Thinking along similar lines, Dr. Fellows chose to embed in a Global Occult Coalition observation unit. He was stationed to a conflict between a Council of 108 member and an anomalous community unrecognized by the normalcy enforcement community.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Fellows is seated in a GOC transport helicopter. The door is open, and he is looking out on the landscape of Rügen Superior, Germany. The deciduous forest below is on fire.>
Fires in Rügen Superior.
<Senior Captain Crocetti of the GOC Concealment Corps is seated across from Dr. Fellows. The two converse on an internal circuit.>
Crocetti: How about that view?
Dr. Fellows: Why is it burning?
<Crocetti leans out of the helicopter.>
Crocetti: Probably the fire!
<He laughs as the helicopter swings lower.>
<Only the edges of the forest are burning. The helicopter passes clusters of wooden structures in Medieval German style. The ground is covered in human remains, and unusually large birds feed on them.>
Dr. Fellows: Who are they?
Crocetti: Svento eagles. The big guy sends them out as scouts. They get hungry!
Dr. Fellows: What? No, I meant the… what?
Crocetti: Sventovit! The Strong Lord.
<The helicopter passes over a clearing. Soldiers in furs and modern battle armour are piling corpses; an extremely large eagle is picking through the remains. A soldier with a flaming brazier approaches. The eagle takes flight, an adult human body in its talons and the remains of a child in its mouth. >
Dr. Fellows: He's real? Sventovit?
Crocetti: That's what the Leches say..The Lechitic Principality of the Rani, member of the Global Occult Coalition Council of 108. Me, I'm pretty sure they breed 'em in New Arkona. Pagan rites.
Dr. Fellows: Who are they eating?
<Crocetti spits out of the helicopter.>
Crocetti: Dancers.
<The helicopter rises. A city can be seen in the far distance. The architecture is West Slavic with modern influences.>
Dr. Fellows: Dancers?
Crocetti: Slang the Sventos use. Don't know what it means.
<There are high walls around the city, and masses of eagles flying patrol. As the helicopter banks, a ball of fire rises up from the dark forest, soaring in the direction of the city. A group of eagles dives for the missile; it collides with them, and they follow it to the ground with a rain of burning feathers.>
Crocetti: That's why they're burning the forest. Fire with fire.
Dr. Fellows: I'm still confused. Is the other group attacking the city?
Crocetti: Getting desperate. No chance of breaching the defences. Always more eagles where those came from. Hey!
<He thumps the pilot's chair.>
Crocetti: Target!
<A group of soldiers, armoured like the ones on the outskirts and armed with a combination of halberds and automatic weapons, are riding down a paved road in GOC troop carriers. The helicopter passes overhead, then keeps pace with the convoy.>
Dr. Fellows: Where are they going?
Crocetti: To cancel the dance.
<The convoy travels deep into the forest. Eagles rise above the trees, while robed priests emerge from the troop carriers and lift their hands to the sky.>
Dr. Fellows: What're they doing?
Crocetti: Divination. Eaglemancy, or whatever the fuck.
<The eagles dive into the trees. Gunfire is audible over the helicopter rotors. The convoy stops, and the soldiers debark.>
<The helicopter remains with the vehicles as the soldiers disappear into the forest.>
Dr. Fellows: I thought we're supposed to be observing!
<Crocetti points at the empty carriers.>
Crocetti: We are! Those buses are on loan. PTOLEMY.The Coalition's logistics arm. wants 'em back in one piece.
<Screams are audible.>
Dr. Fellows: Isn't anybody watching them?
<Crocetti lights a cigarette.>
Crocetti: We'll do a headcount when they get back.
<Dr. Fellows leans toward him.>
Dr. Fellows: Are they just… killing everyone they find?
Crocetti: Today, sure. Tomorrow they're bombing the big village out west, by the lagoon.
Dr. Fellows: Why, though?
Crocetti: Because it's their damn forest, that's why.
Dr. Fellows: So they're going to burn it down?
<Crocetti shrugs.>
Crocetti: Whatever empties it out, man.
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Fellows was released from observation duty after signing a deposition prepared by Senior Captain Crocetti, which he was not allowed to read. He returned to Strathroy-Caradoc to meet with Dr. Elstrom.
<Transcript begins.>
<The investigators arrive at the Pizza Hut simultaneously. Dr. Elstrom holds the door open for Dr. Fellows, who passes awkwardly while mumbling thanks. Both sit down at their booth.>
Dr. Elstrom: Heard you saw some action. Again.
Dr. Fellows: This was meant to be an academic study. Why is there so much violence? You could almost convince me the GOC is responsible for this fucking… excuse me. It's been a rough week.
Dr. Elstrom: Take your time.
Dr. Fellows: Yeah. It sure didn't look like they were taking great pains to hide. And you know what they're fighting over?
Dr. Elstrom: No idea.
Dr. Fellows: The Principality claims to be a successor state to the extinct Rani tribe. They worship Sventovit, a Slavic deity. During the middle ages, people started saying Sventovit was a corruption of the Christian St. Vitus. It was bullshit, literally just armchair idiots thinking the names sounded similar, but some people still ended up converting to venerate St. Vitus when East Germany was Christianized. Fast forward a few hundred years, there's a whole Vitus/Sventovit syncretic cult in the woods of Rügen Superior.
Dr. Elstrom: And they're fighting the Sventovitians in the city?
Dr. Fellows: The Sventovitians are massacring them. And the GOC is letting them do it, because one group is on the Council, and the other isn't.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Fellows: They were launching bombs when we left, Karen. I thought they were never going to stop bombing. I don't think they even cared what they hit. I was honestly beginning to wonder if they just liked the sound.
Dr. Elstrom: How far did the sound carry?
Dr. Fellows: Kilometres outside the zone. Some of the blasts too, depending on ordnance. And it has an obvious effect on the groundwater, and the vegetation, and the geology. And then there's the fact that these people have families outside the region.
Dr. Elstrom: They do?
Dr. Fellows: Yes. There are expat Sventovitians of both kinds in Eurtec and Three Portlands. The syncretists are constantly petitioning for action, or at least acknowledgement.
Dr. Elstrom: And?
Dr. Fellows: And even on this side of the Veil, it's like nobody fucking cares. I thought I knew the pattern by now: no news coverage, no matter how sloppy the GOC got at keeping it covered. But I was expecting the effect to stop at the Veil. I thought it was only supposed to hit the normies, you know?
Dr. Elstrom: Maybe it isn't the effect at all.
Dr. Fellows: What do you mean?
Dr. Elstrom: Maybe what we're looking it is just ordinary apathy.
Dr. Fellows: Are we calling that ordinary? Is that how we want to look at this?
Dr. Elstrom: It isn't our job to make moral judgements. We're trying to determine if there are mundane explanations for why these events don't get wider coverage.
<Dr. Fellows taps the file.>
Dr. Fellows: I had a few extra days before our meeting. One third of Three Ports was close by, so I got a research furlough.
Dr. Elstrom: I thought I was doing the interviews.
Dr. Fellows: Couldn't help myself. And I'm glad of it.
Dr. Elstrom: And what did you find?
Dr. Fellows: I canvassed for anyone who'd heard about the Sventovitian massacres. It wasn't hard. This stuff was all over the airwaves, until the GOC made the UIU crack down on it.
Dr. Elstrom: The UIU did a media crackdown?
Dr. Fellows: The U.S. government is the U.S. government. Doesn't matter what side of the curtain they're on. As for what I found, well. Some people were still angry about what they'd heard. Some people were happy about it. But most people got real weird when I grilled them.
Dr. Elstrom: Weird how?
Dr. Fellows: Faraway looks in their eyes. Like there was something they were seeing, but it wasn't in the room with us.
Dr. Elstrom: That's interesting.
Dr. Fellows: I don't really know what to do with it, though.
<Dr. Elstrom taps her temple.>
Dr. Elstrom: I think I do.
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Elstrom presented her theory to the Department of Memetics, and scheduled an interview with its Director to discuss the results.
Q. Is it possible the Veil of Normalcy is maintained by a memetic effect?
A. Possible? Of course. You're certainly familiar with a similar phenomenon.
Q. The Frontispiece.
A. Right. A little twist we put in the fabric of the noösphere, a fold in everyone's brains we can hide behind. Because it's there, people outside the Veil forget about us. They don't make obvious connections. They don't recognize our safehouses and front companies. A lot of what the Department of Containment achieves is only possible because of that.
Q. So we, the Foundation, could have created this effect as well?
A. No. The energy required to create the Frontispiece was outrageous. And it's only a little thing, really. Grants extra protections to a small portion of the planetary population, their iconography, their geography. Think of it as a curtain you can draw. The Veil, on the other hand? If it's what you're thinking? Not a veil at all. More like a black hole, sucking everyone's attention out of their brains and depositing it… nowhere. Achieving that would have drained every thaumaturge on the planet. And it would leave a mark on the collective unconscious so vast and knobbly you wouldn't have to ask me if we'd done it. You'd be able to feel it like a missing tooth. A whole row of missing teeth.
Q. Let's talk about the results of our test.
A. Let's. On your suggestion, we exposed a wide variety of individuals who had heretofore existed on the other side of the Veil to harmless, but anomalous, stimuli. We broke the Veil for them. And then we engaged in telesomnic readings of their brains.
Q. What did you find?
A. Individuals encountering anomalous phenomena tend to shy away, at a ratio of something like 9:1. Almost everyone has difficulty relating what they saw even a few minutes after the fact, unless the stimulus is reintroduced, or the exposure is prolonged. Your average human being, confronted with a werewolf in a dark alley, is going to convince themselves they didn't see anything by the time they've run back to the street lights. But memory formation is too quick to really erase that experience. The brain records something.
Q. What did the readings show?
A. Circular, perhaps spheroid imagery, with highlighted boundaries between light and dark.
Q. What do you think it means?
A. Probably nothing. Just a trick of psychology. Something vestigial from when we were all just credulous cave-dwellers.
Q. Or something else is drawing their attention.
A. Maybe. But I doubt it.
Q. Thank you. Were the experiment subjects amnesticized afterward, or will they be retained for replication studies?
A. We tested with D-Class, obviously. They're not going anywhere.
Q. Oh.
Dr. Fellows, expressing the desire to avoid further fieldwork for a time, organized a small conference of Department experts not slated for interview by Dr. Elstrom at Research and Containment Site-43.
SCP-9500 Round Table Discussion
Attending: Dr. Bradley Fellows, Assistant Director, Site-232 (Chairing); Alex Thorley, Dept. of Unreality; Dir. Daniel Asheworth, Dept. of Ontokinetics; Eli Forkley, Dept. of Miscommunications; Dr. Irving Gat, Surrealistics Dept.; Dir. Sheldon Katz, Legal Dept.; Dr. Kimba Laslow, Pataphysics Dept.; Dr. Yossarian Leiner, Dept. of Tactical Theology; Alex Thorley, Dept. of Unreality; Dr. Melinda Williams, Counterconceptual Division.
Research and Containment Site-43.
<Transcript begins.>
<The experts are arrayed around the table in Site-43's executive boardroom. Dr. Fellows clears his throat.>
Dr. Fellows: First, I'd like to thank you all for making the time to be here today.
Dr. Leiner: The Veil is not a god.
Dr. Fellows: …and thank you, Dr. Leiner, for getting us started?
Dir. Forkley: Is there somewhere you need to be, Yossi?
Dr. Leiner: Just wanted to get that out of the way.
Dr. Fellows: Great. We're making progress already. Ah, so we're here to start a cross-disciplinary discussion about the nature of the Veil of Normalcy—
Alex Thorley: Guys, what if it's the moon?
Dr. Williams: Jesus Christ.
Dir. Forkley: Shut up.
Dr. Laslow: No, I want to hear more.
Alex Thorley: Me too.
Dr. Fellows: Ah—
Katz: Legal is pushing hundreds of cases through every known justice system at all times, scaring people or bankrupting them into compliance. The fun thing is, this is considered normal in America. It's a little rougher in more enlightened climes, but we make do. We also fire off about a thousand cease-and-desist orders every day, and we have an entire office dedicated to composing threatening emails. We've got most ISPs under our boot now. The DoC and Task Forces take all the credit, but I've shot down more whistleblowers with a well-placed brief than Clef ever could with his shotgun. And that's not counting the help we get from our insurers at Goldbaker-Reinz. In my opinion, this is more than sufficient to explain the supposedly anomalous lack of online or traditional media coverage of our subjects and activities.
Dr. Williams: Jesus Christ.
Dir. Forkley: Here's what Miscom has to say: most speech relating to the anomalous that gets past Sheldon's lawyers to pierce the Veil is malformed in some way. It is possible to imagine this malformation is related to an anomalous effect; a geas preventing plain speech, or an interference effect, or an automatic abstraction filter.
Dr. Fellows: Do you think it's likely?
Dir. Forkley: I think it's so completely unfounded as to be almost irresponsible to suggest.
Dr. Fellows: Okay…
Dr. Asheworth: On a similar note, there's no reason to think anything ontokinetic is causing this effect.
Dr. Fellows: Why not?
Dir. Asheworth: We'd be able to detect a reality-bending field of the required magnitude. Probably we wouldn't be able to detect anything else behind its shadow.
Dr. Gat: Consider extroversion and introversion. Crust and cream against cherry filling. Obscurantism baked into the format. But you throw it all against the wall, like a particle accelerator, and you see what was hidden. But not if you simply eat.
<Silence on recording.>
Dir. Forkley: He doesn't know either.
Dr. Williams: Counterconceptual is unaware of anything anomalous matching the Veil's profile. It's our job to notice things that can't be noticed. So, there's probably nothing there.
Dr. Fellows: I could have sworn that was someone else's job, too.
Dr. Williams: Nothing I've ever heard of.
Dr. Laslow: Have you ever heard NPC theory?
<Dr. Leiner groans.>
Dr. Laslow: Junior staff at the Foundation rarely have much in the way of excitement or distinguishing accomplishments in their past. Once hired, most of us have essentially no social life outside the organization, and no family life to speak of. Obviously that's a story about the isolating and alienating effect of being part of an overbearing globe-spanning conspiracy, but still. Makes you wonder.
Dir. Forkley: Nobody was wondering this.
Dr. Laslow: Well, let's start. What if the world outside the Veil is intrinsically less 'real'? What if the Veil isn't even a thing, and normal people don't notice anomalous things because they are, from our perspective, literal nonentities? Call it Dead Normie Theory.
Dr. Leiner: No.
Dr. Laslow: So the capacity to recognize the anomalous isn't in their programming? The entire Foundation is some sort of, I don't know, pocket reality social experiment? I definitely don't think so.
Dr. Fellows: Well, I… wait, did you say you don't think so?
Dr. Laslow: Yes, now that I hear it out loud, it sounds pretty silly.
Dr. Fellows: Okay.
Dr. Laslow: The Foundation upholds the Veil successfully because that's what allows the central narrative of this layer to persist. Required characteristic for a stable setting.
Dr. Fellows: Huh. That gives me an idea, actually.
Dr. Williams: Now that, that is a memetic effect.
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Elstrom requested to meet with Dr. Fellows two days before their scheduled appointment. The latter readily assented.
<Transcript begins.>
<The investigators meet in front of the Pizza Hut. Neither moves to enter.>
Dr. Elstrom: You read my interview?
Dr. Fellows: Yeah. You read the conference minutes?
Dr. Elstrom: I did.
Dr. Fellows: D-Class, huh.
Dr. Elstrom: Yes.
Dr. Fellows: Quick to dismiss the Frontispiece comparison, weren't they?
Dr. Elstrom: Too quick. Your conference attendees were similarly uncooperative.
Dr. Fellows: I think I've got a theory now.
Dr. Elstrom: So do I.
Dr. Fellows: One, two—
Dr. Elstrom: We did it.
Dr. Fellows: I was going to say that.
Dr. Elstrom: Everyone we talk to is so sure of their explanations, and so quick to dismiss everyone else's.
Dr. Fellows: Which conveniently means nobody is really thinking about this at all.
Dr. Elstrom: Except us.
Dr. Fellows: So either they're lying, or they've been lied to. Where do we look next?
Dr. Elstrom: I think we keep appealing to higher authorities, and see how far up rot goes.
<Transcript ends.>
Dr. Elstrom attempted to schedule an interview with the Director of the Temporal Anomalies Department, only to find one had already been scheduled.
Q. What is the primary duty of the Temporal Anomalies Department with regard to the Veil of Normalcy?
A. We don't have one.
Q. Does your Department have any stance on the Veil?
A. Our job is to ensure temporal stability across the timeplane. Our actions are inherently obscured. However, the Veil is a subject of interest for the TAD.
Q. In what way?
A. Every timeline we monitor is defined by its Central Normalcy Authority. In yours, the one you and I originate from, that's the SCP Foundation. There are variants, but some core truths hold.
Every Authority is defined by its relationship to humanity, and the Veil is a central component of that. A timeline can be defined by the absence of its Authority, an Authority can be defined by the absence of its Veil. We're aware of several such cases, though they're generally… outliers. Our agents are barred from visiting by the Multi-Foundation Agreement of 1981.
Q. So, some Foundations never had a Veil to begin with?
A. Actually, no. Whether it's ultimately maintained or not, no Foundation or analogue has ever existed without some variant of the Veil also existing at some point.
Q. Why do you think that is?
A. The obvious answer is that the existence of a Central Normalcy Authority depends on the existence of a Veil of Normalcy.
SCP-9500 imagery (alleged).
The Foundation's organ policing baseline temporality, the Department of Temporal Anomalies, agreed to allow Dr. Fellows to shadow one of its agents. He was scheduled to meet his contact at a well on an abandoned farmstead outside Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin.
<Transcript begins.>
<Dr. Fellows stands beside the well. He looks over the edge, then drums his fingers on it. He takes a sip from his water flask, swishes the liquid, and is in the process of leaning back when a voice comes from behind him.>
Voice: Am I late?
<Dr. Fellows falls backward, coughing and spluttering.>
Voice: Oh, no. I'm on time.
<A woman in a nondescript lab coat helps Dr. Fellows to his feet.>
Voice: That probably didn't damage anything important.
Dr. Fellows: <rasping> It was only water.
Woman: I meant me stopping you. Because that isn't just a well.
Dr. Fellows: …Danica?
Woman: Have we met?
Dr. Fellows: Danica Azzopardi? Dr. Azzopardi? Who works beside me every day, sometimes twice when she forgets which day is which?
<Dr. Azzopardi blinks.>
Dr. Fellows: Are you my contact with the DTA? Somehow?
Dr. Azzopardi: I don't think so. Are you Dr. Elstrom?
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Azzopardi: Oh, you're just Brad. I'm late after all. Too late.
<She extends a hand.>
Woman: Danica Azzopardi, Chronometrics Division. We've apparently met.
Dr. Fellows: I… yeah. Hello. Again.
Dr. Azzopardi: So, if I tell you some secrets, you can pass them on to Dr. Elstrom, right?
Dr. Fellows: If it's about the Veil, we're equal partners on the file.
Dr. Azzopardi: What, still? Okay.
Dr. Fellows: What do—
Dr. Azzopardi: So the main thing you need to understand is that time doesn't just go forwards and backwards, but also side to side, up and down, maybe it even moves in a fourth dimension like a hypercube but in time. And maybe there are parts of what you perceive as reality that can move across the skein of alternative presents, or pasts and futures of alternate timelines which coincide with the present of yours, but also that isn't what's happening at all, and doesn't make sense because you interact with time in what you assume is a normal manner.
Dr. Fellows: That actually makes more sense than the rest of what you've said so far.
Dr. Azzopardi: When you talk to Ilse—
Dr. Fellows: Karen is talking to Ilse. Dr. Reynders. Right now.
Dr. Azzopardi: Look, I can't keep track of who's who. Ilse isn't really positioned to understand all this stuff. It's outside her area. A lot of what I have to say isn't applicable yet. But it will be. Some day. Maybe.
Dr. Fellows: Great.
Dr. Azzopardi: So, those fringe timelines Ilse was telling you about.
Dr. Fellows: You know what? Sure.
Dr. Azzopardi: They're characterized by the absence of a CNA. Do you know what that is?
Dr. Fellows: I'll ask Karen.
Dr. Azzopardi: Good. Acronyms save time.
<She laughs.>
Dr. Azzopardi: Did you get that? TAD is an acronym. And they literally save…?
Dr. Fellows: Sure.
Dr. Azzopardi: Well, one version does. The other not so much.
Dr. Fellows: What?
Dr. Azzopardi: So, there's no CNA in those far-flung timelines, or no Veil. That always generates a power vacuum, which eventually gets filled by an equivalent to whatever is missing. There's always someone trying to control what information the general public receives; there's always something like the Veil doing part of their job. In cases where this vacuum is forcefully kept vacant — universal eye-opening on the noöspheric level, some external force destroying Authorities, et cetera — time travel technology eventually becomes accessible to the general public, there is no associated Temporal Authority to maintain timeline stability by catching rogue time-travellers, fulfilling causal loops, yada yada, which inevitably leads to compounding ZK-Class Chronological Failure scenarios in every branch from that worldline. Every possible way the timeline could proceed leads to failure and collapses. In some cases, when one of these 'fringe' timelines is especially important to the multiversal balance, the Chronometrics Department steps in and essentially asserts martial law while we try to instate a new CNA. You got all that?
Dr. Fellows: …I guess? I mean, you're on camera, so there's a record.
Dr. Azzopardi: Really? That's not good.
Dr. Fellows: Why not?
Dr. Azzopardi: Maybe you should hock a logey down the well after all, to offset the causal… nah, I'm sure it'll be fine.
Dr. Fellows: So was the main point that, uh, either the Foundation always comes back, or the Veil always comes back?
Dr. Azzopardi: That's a pretty flat way of looking at it. But then, you are a flatlander.
Dr. Fellows: So… yes?
Dr. Azzopardi: I personally would have gone with the whole "reality collapses without these things" angle, but you do you. For now.
<Dr. Azzopardi removes a business card from her labcoat, and hands it to Dr. Fellows.>
Dr. Azzopardi: Say 'hi' for me, when you see them.
Dr. Fellows: Who?
Dr. Azzopardi: You'll find out when you file that recording.
<She walks past Dr. Fellows, and mounts the edge of the well.>
Dr. Fellows: You're not going to jump in…?
Dr. Azzopardi: Turn around.
<Dr. Fellows turns around.>
Dr. Azzopardi: Observer effect.
<Dr. Fellows turns around again. Dr. Azzopardi is nowhere to be seen.>
<He examines the business card. It reads:>
DANICA AZZOPARDI
Sol-Central Local Bubble High Command
<Transcript ends.>
The investigators reconvened two days subsequent to their previous meeting.
<Transcript begins.>
<The doctors meet at the entrance to Strathroy-Caradoc Plaza, and enter together.>
Dr. Fellows: Completely empty today.
Dr. Elstrom: How does it stay in business?
Dr. Fellows: Another of life's little mysteries.
<They pass the Pizza Hut and promenade the empty mall as they talk.>
Dr. Elstrom: I think we know enough now to say with confidence that there is an anomalous quality to the Veil.
Dr. Fellows: It's a perception filter. Stops you from seeing what's there, or properly understanding it.
Dr. Elstrom: I'd go further. You see what you want, or expect, to see.
Dr. Fellows: Following the path of least resistance for each observer. Whatever doesn't threaten your existing worldview.
Dr. Elstrom: And it's operating on the Foundation, too.
Dr. Fellows: That's the eerie part. It's like it's something alive, something that doesn't want to get found out.
Dr. Elstrom: A veil within the Veil.
Dr. Fellows: And everyone's been brainwashed by whatever this thing is.
Dr. Elstrom: Except you and I, apparently.
Dr. Fellows: I wonder why that is.
Dr. Elstrom: When did you first consider opening this file?
<Dr. Fellows frowns.>
Dr. Fellows: Not sure. I know it was some time around April.
Dr. Elstrom: Hmm.
Dr. Fellows: What?
Dr. Elstrom: Me, too. I think.
Dr. Fellows: You didn't find out when they canvassed for an admin partner?
Dr. Elstrom: No, I was thinking about having a nose around myself. Or I suppose having the scientists do it.
Dr. Fellows: That's interesting.
Dr. Elstrom: Unlike our findings, so far.
Dr. Fellows: Bit of a letdown, eh?
<She nods.>
Dr. Fellows: I thought it was going to be something less obvious. More interesting.
<Dr. Elstrom smirks.>
Dr. Elstrom: Like your crocodile?
Dr. Fellows: Alligator.
Dr. Elstrom: Maybe he'll be a crocodile, now.
Dr. Fellows: Or an investi-gator!
<Both laugh.>
Dr. Fellows: Hey, if you're free next week, we're planning to head down to the cave and check—
<The investigators have turned a corner. A uniformed MTF officer is approaching them from the mall's second entrance.>
Dr. Fellows: Not one of mine.
<The officer stops in front of them, turning so they can see his shoulder patch: MTF Alpha-1 ("Red Right Hand").>
Officer: Dr. Elstrom? Dr. Fellows?
Dr. Elstrom: What's this about?
<The officer gestures at the entrance.>
Officer: Not for me to say, ma'am.
Dr. Fellows: We're not scheduled to report—
Officer: Please, sir. We don't want to make a scene.
<Dr. Elstrom sighs.>
Dr. Elstrom: I guess that is the takeaway, isn't it?
<Transcript ends.>
The investigators were conveyed by air to Secure Site-01, and escorted by MTF Alpha-1 operatives to the Overseer Council Chamber for debriefing.
<Transcript begins.>
<The Council Chamber is well-lit. Every position save for the Chairman's is vacant. He gestures for the investigators to be seated. Dr. Fellows sits on an observation bench at the edge of the chamber; Dr. Elstrom glances at the Overseer plaques, and selects O5-3's seat. After a moment, Dr. Fellows stands up sheepishly and sits next to her in O5-4's seat.>
O5-1: I apologize for not making myself available earlier. Your enquiries might have benefited from informed direction.
Dr. Fellows: We're grateful for the opportunity, sir.
Dr. Elstrom: And we've uncovered quite a lot on our own.
<The Chairman chuckles ruefully.>
O5-1: Shadows on the cave wall. But then, that's the point.
Dr. Fellows: Not sure I follow, sir.
O5-1: You will. You all fall in line eventually. Fall under its spell.
<He leans back, tents his fingers, and considers the investigators in silence.>
Dr. Elstrom: It?
Dr. Fellows: You mean the Veil? Sir?
<The Chairman nods.>
O5-1: And you have genuflected sufficiently, Dr. Fellows.
Dr. Elstrom: You already knew the Veil was anomalous?
O5-1: Have we established that it is? Your completed report hasn't yet crossed my desk.
Dr. Fellows: It isn't finished.
O5-1: It's about to be. At this stage it's cruel to leave you scrambling for the light switch. We can see in the dark, you know.
Dr. Elstrom: So, we guessed correctly? The Foundation created the Veil, like the Frontispiece?
O5-1: You have it badly backward. The Veil created us. It sustains us. And there is no need to contain it. It's a boon for all mankind. Something out of less than nothing. It grants us the grace to perform our good works without fear of exposure. We flourish in its shadow, where there is endless room to grow.
Dr. Fellows: But what is it, then?
O5-1: It is a power speaking to the innermost truth of our species. This elephant you've been groping at belongs to us, and we to it, and it never forgets. Though we do.
<He smiles.>
O5-1: I find it heartening, though I don't expect you to share the sentiment. The guarantor of our future springs from our own potential. It is rooted in the spiritus mundi.
Dr. Fellows: The collective imaginary?
O5-1: What else could conceive such a magnificent, self-effacing tragedy?
Dr. Elstrom: The Department of Ontokinetics—
<The Chairman waves dismissively. Dr. Elstrom stops speaking.>
O5-1: I'm not talking about reality bending. I'm talking about reality bending the knee. There is nothing more powerful in creation than the human mind, Dr. Elstrom. Nothing on Earth. Nothing beyond. It is creation.
Dr. Fellows: Then we… the human race, created the Veil?
O5-1: Not intentionally. No other species on this planet, not even the other great apes, shares our special relationship with the anomalous. Our blind spot. Ravens are psychopomps, and cats can see the dead. Memetics have no effect on fish. We are the only species completely incapable of peeking past the curtain, doctors. Call us Homo caecus, the blind men.
Dr. Elstrom: If this is intended as an explanation—
O5-1: What was the first secret?
Dr. Elstrom: I beg your pardon?
O5-1: The first secret. The first thing man glimpsed edgewise, but could not discern its true face.
Dr. Fellows: It sounds like you have a specific response in mind.
O5-1: It was the moon.
Dr. Elstrom: Okay.
O5-1: The first secret, and the longest-lasting. What goes on where light cannot reach? What horrors dwell on the dark side? At only half a dozen instants, across all our collective history, have we known for certain. Men riding fiery chariots dedicated to the sun god. You think I'm rambling.
Dr. Fellows: I'm trying to fathom the metaphor.
O5-1: There isn't one. I am speaking literally. We split the atom before we reached for the moon. We performed brain surgery. We unlocked so many doors before that one, though the aura creeping around the edges had tantalized us for aeons. We looked up in awe at that pale orb for millennia. Before civilization. Before language. Before the red rock. The moon, never our moon, was the first thing man could see, and fear, but never understand, tame, or destroy. A baleful eye waxing and waning and only but briefly blinking. That is the Veil.
<He leans forward.>
O5-1: This mystery has lurked in our DNA since we walked on our knuckles. You will never touch it, Dr. Fellows. Its cold light will outlast you. Do you know how many human beings have ever existed? Over one hundred billion. Almost every one has looked up to the same sky, at the same satellite, and wondered what it was, and got it wrong. The sky was flat, a funeral shroud wrapped across the horizon, swaddling an unfeeling god. Infinity reduced to a child's drawing. And most people never shake off that misconception. How could they? So few of us have ever stood astride its dunes, and known true tranquility.
<He gestures at the empty seats.>
O5-1: This organization operates on the precept that knowledge is power, but there is a greater power in the universe, and it is ignorance. They raised no temple to it, my father and the Pariah and the One Who Was First and the others, but a laboratory. It still stands today, watching over that lightless chasm which has made such wonders possible.
Dr. Elstrom: You're saying that the moon…
O5-1: Man darkened its face an epoch before Armstrong. And doctors, that shadow can only spread.
<He closes his eyes.>
O5-1: There is a sucking void that no light may penetrate, even when the sun shines upon it. Darkness isn't the absence of light, you know, but the absence of vision. That hole on the far side takes in all our blindness, our stupidity, our stubborn refusal to seek out truth, and its event horizon swallows our focus whole. It spirals in tune with the lunar spin, keeping always just out of sight, out of mind. And the vacuum roars in our communal long night.
<He sighs in apparent rapture.>
O5-1: It howls.
Dr. Fellows: Jesus Christ.
Dr. Elstrom: Is that what that means?
Dr. Fellows: Have we been praying to that… thing, all this time?
<The Chairman opens his eyes.>
O5-1: We prefer to think of it as little affirmations now and then. Making sure the blanket hasn't slipped.
Dr. Fellows: We worship at the altar of ignorance.
<The Chairman raises a finger in warning.>
O5-1: We don't worship it. But we don't discourage its worship. It's so easy to make them look, you know? Gaze upon the blood moon. The lunar eclipse isn't dangerous!
<He laughs.>
O5-1: And that's the truth. It's not dangerous. It wards off danger. The stronger we make it, the stronger it makes us. When the moon is dark all around, when we cast our shadow on it, mingle our umbra, when the sun…
<He shakes his head.>
O5-1: The point is, we don't pray to the damn thing. We use it. I am not an ignorant man. My eyes are open. I have trailed my fingers through lunar dust. I know what it is, and that grants me power over it. The most rarefied, exalted authority which has ever existed.
Dr. Fellows: That's what they were seeing. The imagery of the spheres.
Dr. Elstrom: They turn to the moon, and know they can never know it.
O5-1: And so, they turn away.
Dr. Fellows: "You do not see."
O5-1: Yes.
Dr. Elstrom: Normalcy is built on a lie.
O5-1: It always is.
Dr. Elstrom: This thing is an abomination. The damage it must have done—
<The Chairman snorts.>
O5-1: You mistake me. Our patron is not to blame for mundane societal ills. Ignorance is not an intrusive infection unknown in nature. It is a fundamental property of our kind. Our vaunted sapience set a Veil in the firmament, but that is the extent of the strangeness here. The nescience with which we feed the beast is no more anomalous than blood or bile. If there is blame to be laid, it falls at all our feet in equal measure.
Dr. Fellows: And what do you do with the ones who stop being ignorant?
<The Chairman shrugs.>
O5-1: It doesn't happen often enough to justify a policy. Neither of you is a danger to the overall project. If you had been, you never would have been allowed to progress this investigation to the point where it became an inconvenience.
Dr. Elstrom: Why even let us get this far?
O5-1: For the anticlimax, of course. It feeds off your confusion. It doesn't like when you ask questions, but it loves when you get no answers.
Dr. Fellows: You just gave us the answer.
O5-1: Are you sure? You don't like your own half-baked explanations better? You aren't still itching to follow those remaining leads? You already suspect this revelation was a false blind. A misdirect. You have no means of resistance. In a week you'll be back to speculating, no matter what truths I tell you.
Dr. Elstrom: That isn't true.
<The Chairman gestures at Dr. Fellows.>
O5-1: It is for him. Perhaps not for you.
Dr. Fellows: What does that mean?
O5-1: I leave you wondering.
<He taps the table, once.>
<The Chamber doors open. Two armoured MTF Alpha-1 agents stand at attention.>
O5-1: Good night.
<Transcript ends.>
The investigators were escorted by members of MTF Alpha-1 to the Site-01 subway system for transport to their helicopter. Upon stepping onto the platform, however, both suddenly disappeared.
The following events were recorded by the investigators' lapel cameras.
<Transcript begins.>
<The investigators stand in a starscape. Two celestial bodies, one black and one white, loom over them. At the centre stands a humanoid figure with six arms: four hands clasped behind its back, two held toward the edges of the penumbra where light meets darkness.>
PARIAH
The appropriate referent for this figure is PARIAH. No elaboration is needed.
PARIAH: Was that a satisfying explanation?
<Dr. Fellows examines the surroundings. Faint structural lines suggest the starscape is simulated; bronze fittings gleam between the trails of comets and the haloes of distant pulsars.>
Dr. Elstrom: Who are you?
<PARIAH turns to face her. Though the glare causes significant artifacting, it can be seen that PARIAH is hairless, androgynous, and outfitted in an elaborate white uniform with gold brocade.>
PARIAH: I am the sentinel.
<Dr. Fellows approaches PARIAH, pointing.>
Dr. Fellows: You have six arms.
PARIAH: Yes.
Dr. Fellows: Do you always have six arms?
Dr. Elstrom: Bradley?
<PARIAH chuckles.>
PARIAH: Still making connections, this late in the day. I've been very impressed with the two of you. You've learned so much.
Dr. Elstrom: A lot of wrong answers, and it was already a solved problem.
PARIAH: You know the shroud's true nature?
Dr. Fellows: The Chairman told us everything.
PARIAH: Did he? Must not be feeling quite himself.
Dr. Elstrom: Does the black moon howl?
PARIAH: When the white sun is silenced.
<Silence on recording.>
Dr. Elstrom: …what?
<PARIAH sighs.>
PARIAH: He has never heard that response. None of them have.
Dr. Fellows: What does it mean?
PARIAH: That ignorance only speaks when knowledge is voiceless.
Dr. Fellows: Is that why you brought us here?
PARIAH: Yes.
<PARIAH gestures, and the starscape dims. An ornate interior space becomes clear, filled with unidentifiable tools and many workspaces, books and papers.>
PARIAH: This is my workshop. This is where I think. I have always despised interruption, so I took measures to shut out distraction. In these chambers, you do not dream with the rest of the dreamers. We are alone.
Dr. Fellows: Cut off from the collective unconscious?
PARIAH: Yes.
Dr. Elstrom: Why did you kidnap us?
PARIAH: Because only beyond the last echoes of that seductive lie can you hear the truth.
<Dr. Elstrom places her hands on her hips.>
Dr. Elstrom: So, let's hear it. What was wrong with the Chairman's explanation?
<PARIAH folds their remaining two hands behind their back, and begins pacing the vast workshop.>
PARIAH: It is of a kind with all the others you've heard, and dismissed. It was merely what he wanted to believe.
Dr. Fellows: He made it all up? There's no angry black hole on the back of the moon?
PARIAH: Of course there is.
<PARIAH gestures at the still-visible spheres beyond the workshop.>
PARIAH: But there is nothing inevitable about its sway over your kind. What was it Wilde said, in his prison? "All of us are in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Look to the stars, Bradley.
<The light of the larger sphere waxes as they speak.>
Dr. Fellows: The sun.
PARIAH: Yes.
Dr. Elstrom: Sauelsuesor. Did you put her there?
<PARIAH looks pained.>
PARIAH: She took up that post of her own volition, long ago, to guide you from afar. That however benighted this world became, there would always be a beacon of hope in the skies. A fixed promise. So that when you looked for direction, you would be looking in the right direction. In her perfect courage, with perfect love, she made this sacrifice for you. While I chained myself to the mud, attending the Earthly side of our labours.
<PARIAH shakes their head.>
PARIAH: I haven't done a very good job.
Dr. Elstrom: If you're who I think you are, you were there at the beginning. You helped to create the Foundation.
PARIAH: As I said. Not a good job. I hoped we might cultivate wisdom, spread the seeds of new trees of knowledge. That was what we pledged to each other, in the beginning. But we did not all believe, and in the end we were cast out, or entombed in ritual and obligation. The pull of ignorance was too strong for the others to weather. And now the ignorant inherit.
Dr. Fellows: The Council?
PARIAH: Yes.
<PARIAH turns to examine the dark sphere.>
PARIAH: They look at that awful smudge, and they think, "here is a power to be mastered." While above and beyond, the fire of truth glows in thermonuclear majesty. The sun blazes with humanity's combined potential to know, friends. You need only look up…
Dr. Fellows: It's bad for your eyes.
Dr. Elstrom: I don't think they mean literally.
<She walks to stand beside PARIAH. Dr. Fellows does the same.>
Dr. Elstrom: But you're asking something impossible. Nine out of every ten human beings… no. The entire Foundation is susceptible. Ninety-nine percent of humanity is wallowing in ignorance. How do we fix a hole that big?
PARIAH: You don't. Not alone.
<PARIAH reaches out with their lowermost set of limbs to touch the investigators on their shoulders.>
PARIAH: The Council holds that only ignorance can rule the hearts of humankind. They have taken the side of the darkness. But the relationship of darkness and light is not reciprocal. The night does not quench a candle, but that candle throws the shadow back. As long as there is energy, you may burn. And knowledge puts fear to flight. Have you come to understand why the black moon lost its hold on you?
<The investigators share a glance.>
PARIAH: Your people plumb the depths of the unknown. Why is it that you, and you alone, were spared the shame of misdirection?
<Dr. Elstrom is staring at the sun.>
Dr. Elstrom: We decided to look.
PARIAH: You chose to seek out truth. That made all the difference.
Dr. Fellows: I remember, Karen.
Dr. Elstrom: Remember what?
Dr. Fellows: I remember when I got the idea to look into all this in the first place. It was just after the solar eclipse.
<Dr. Elstrom places a hand on her forehead.>
Dr. Elstrom: That's right, isn't it?
PARIAH: The tools of inquiry and evidence have all but crumbled away. You may chance across the remainder, but then you must still choose to use them.
<They squeeze the investigators' shoulders.>
Dr. Fellows: So it was just luck? Or fate?
PARIAH: No. It had nothing to do you with you, and everything to do with that.
<PARIAH gestures at the shadow on the moon. It is writhing.>
PARIAH: You are witnessing a siege.
<They outline the penumbra with one hand.>
PARIAH: That narrow strip of grey is the true Veil, the last bastion of the black moon, where light confronts the dark. Once, your people dreamed of nothing but demons and monsters and chaos. Once, you made a god of the unknown. But it is not a mighty god. It is a sickly, hollow thing. Bigotry and sloth. We meant to build a beacon, long ago, but our heirs corrupted its light. They have made of it a prison, that fell Foundation, vast enough to confine the world. That was their mistake.
Dr. Elstrom: How was it a mistake?
PARIAH: Ignorance is brittle. It has a breaking point. Your Overseers, and your kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers, believe they have made truth obsolete. But your kind was not meant to stand in awe. You were born to question. You feel the shackles. You feel the empty space where once you pondered the unknown. And the black moon withers, for with all the world benighted, there is no fear or foolishness to feed its hunger. The apathetic are not ignorant. They are asleep. And when you finally stir from your torpor, with all the tools at your fingertips, you will not reach out for easy explanations. You will not seek instruction. You will turn a critical eye to the stars, to the light, and the howling will become nothing more than a bad memory.
Dr. Fellows: You're saying we all have to make that choice. All of humanity. Choose between light or darkness. Truth or lies.
PARIAH: No.
<PARIAH's voice deepens, and begins to echo.>
PARIAH: There is no equivalence here. All roads are not equal. There is a right choice, and a wrong. And you have all strayed so very far down the wrong path. For all your sakes, and the sakes of your children, you must turn back. Now.
<Dr. Elstrom laughs.>
Dr. Elstrom: You expect eight billion people to… what? Just wake up one day, decide they're tired of their comfortable preconceptions, and start thinking critically about the world?
PARIAH: Yes.
Dr. Fellows: But that will never happen.
PARIAH: Yes, it will.
Dr. Fellows: Why?
PARIAH: Because if you don't, you are all going to die in the dark. You have been told this is a virtue, but it is not. It is merely an ending, neither enviable nor inevitable. You will murder each other, die gasping of disease, or be consumed by your boxed-up boogeymen. And we have not sacrificed our eternities in service to that end.
<The starscape clarifies again, and there is forward motion. The dark side of the moon passes beneath, and the sun fills their vision. A tiny black spot appears at the edge of the solar corona, kilometres of black fibre trailing away in every direction.
PARIAH: No more silence. The sun must be heard. From the highest peaks, to the depths of the Council Chamber. The human race must live in the light. It is time to leave the cave.
<The investigators are standing on the subway platform at Site-01.>
<Transcript ends.>
After extensive medical, psychological and parapsychological assessment, the investigators were released on their own recognizance. In lieu of amnesticization a memetic geas was placed on both, preventing them from relaying the results of their investigation to others.
Prior to the Chairman's intervention, one final meeting had been allotted for completing the SCP-9500 file. The investigators chose to honour this obligation on the occasion of the next lunar eclipse, 7 September 2025.
<Transcript begins.>
<It is night. Dr. Elstrom exits her vehicle at Strathroy-Caradoc Plaza, carrying a pair of thin brown paper bags. Dr. Fellows is sitting on a lawn chair in an empty parking space. The majority of the lot is similarly empty, and only a handful of people mill about.>
<Dr. Fellows looks up as Dr. Elstrom approaches. He gestures at the others.>
Dr. Fellows: Mostly ours. Not all.
Dr. Elstrom: What's the difference?
<Dr. Fellows reaches over the arm of his chair to lift another from the asphalt. He hands it to Dr. Elstrom, who unfolds it and sits down beside him.>
Dr. Elstrom: Bring your glasses?
<Dr. Fellows looks surprised, then anxious. He pats his pockets, then glares at Dr. Elstrom.>
Dr. Elstrom: Gullible.
Dr. Fellows: Species trait.
Dr. Elstrom: They do mail out glasses for the solar eclipse, though. I always wondered why.
Dr. Fellows: Really not subtle, are they?
Dr. Elstrom: That's the point. They don't need to be.
<Dr. Elstrom passes one of the paper bags to Dr. Fellows.>
Dr. Fellows: What's this?
Dr. Elstrom: Pizza.
Dr. Fellows: From Pizza Hut?
Dr. Elstrom: Home made.
Dr. Fellows: No way.
Dr. Elstrom: Never too late to pick up a new skill.
Dr. Fellows: Wow. Thank you, Karen.
Dr. Elstrom: You're welcome. Brad.
<It is still several minutes until deep eclipse. The investigators eat in companionable silence.>
Dr. Fellows: You think it's true, what he said?
Dr. Elstrom: Which one? The Chairman?
Dr. Fellows: Yeah. You think when all those people look up…?
Dr. Elstrom: I don't know.
<A well-built man of middle age places his own folding chair on the tarmac, several metres from the doctors. Dr. Fellows glances meaningfully at him, then at Dr. Elstrom, and shakes his head slightly. They continue their conversation in lower tones.>
Dr. Fellows: This all seems sort of morbid now.
<Dr. Elstrom smiles.>
Dr. Fellows: What?
Dr. Elstrom: He was wrong about a lot of things, but one stands out for me. Humankind, and the night sky. Not everyone looks up at the moon. Some people see past the obvious.
<He smiles back at her.>
Dr. Fellows: Some of us look at the stars?
<She nods.>
<The well-built man calls over to them.>
Man: Ready for the show?
<The light is almost gone.>
Dr. Fellows: Sure am. You?
Man: The real show's what you can't see.
Dr. Elstrom: What do you mean?
<The man jerks a thumb over his shoulder.>
Man: Sun's still back there, somewhere. Shining a light out for us. Couldn't build a better lighthouse if you tried, and you can trust me on that.
<Dr. Elstrom frowns.>
Dr. Fellows: If you're not here to watch the eclipse…
Man: I like to watch the others.
<The man gestures at the small crowd.>
Man: Take their measure. See who's looking up because they think there's something there to learn, who's just doing it because somebody else told them to. Or told them not to. That kind of thing.
Dr. Fellows: Are you going to look?
Man: Probably not. It's too safe.
<Dr. Fellows laughs.>
Dr. Fellows: You want to catch the solar eclipse, then. That'll turn you blind.
Man: Not if you look at it right. And it's worth your while to do it, too.
Dr. Elstrom: Why do you say that?
Man: It's a good reminder. Just because something's closer, doesn't make it bigger. Or stronger. You can still see the light around it. Feels like that's worth keeping in mind. You know?
<He turns his attention to the crowd.>
<Dr. Elstrom shakes her head in bemusement. Dr. Fellows shrugs.>
<Above, the moon's face is darkening.>
<They do not see it.>
<They are looking at each other.>
<Transcript ends.>
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