It's now safe to turn off your computer.
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Readers are advised to agnosticate before continuing..AGNOSTICS: Bottled semantic disassociation. It'll teach your brain to swim and your feet to fly.
| FILE 1/2 |
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| ASSIGNED SITES | PROJECT LEADS |
|---|---|
| R. S. Synecdoche, Site-15, Site-17, Site-41, Site-184 | Dr. Irving Gat |
| RESEARCH HEADS | ASSIGNED DEPARTMENTS |
| Researcher E | Applied Antimemetics, Exonoöspherics, Information Technology, Noöspherics, Surrealistics |
Nx-9923 transitional boundary. Estimated pictorial accuracy: moderate.
INTRUSION LOG 9923-1: Across the Threshold
LOCALITY: Nx-9923 imbrication zone.
CERTAINTY RATING: 89%
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: 1 = 2
PORTRAITURE: In the Bordergarden of Reckless Abandon, there are many low miracles and mild infoallergens. Bald marble heads the size of tables extrude from the ground at strange angles. Something with a body like a globe shuffles about the ceiling, occasionally dribbling quasi-slime from its Panama Canal. Limbless shadows shift and strut across the walls. A distant melody wheedles along the edge of hearing.
| «BEGIN DIA-LOG» |
|---|
<Agent Quatrain uploads to the imbrication zone through the primary point of ingress (⌘). It surveys the scene, shielding its eyes with its hand as if looking across a great distance.>
Quatrain: What a drab and unmemorable locale! Certainly one for the Foundation's scrapbooks, wouldn't you say?
SiteCommand 1: Reminder that official Foundation communication channels may not be used for off-topic chatter.
Quatrain: Numerous apologies for the breach of protocol. Permission to kill myself?
SiteCommand A: Negative. Determining a path to MEDIATOR is currently of the utmost priority.
Quatrain: Understood. Now, portal or port hole… where would I be?
<Officer Quatrain slowly circumnavigates the imbrication zone, prodding at anything within reach with the toe of its boot. It comes into view of a surface like a horizontal pond, if ponds were primarily made out of barbed wire and snapped rosaries.>
Quatrain: Oh, my! Who’s this dashing fellow?
<There is a figure stranding in the surface of the not-pond. It is pale, gangling dangerously, and dressed in an eggshell blue hospital gown, feet bare. Violet wires dart in and out of its skin like vipers. Its face is obscured by papier-mâché wings and an oversized mailbag is slung over one shoulder.>
SiteCommand 1: That’s you. It’s your reflection.
Quatrain: That’s me? Could it be that my monopoly of self is at an end? I don’t know if I’m ready for that kind of business relationship…
SiteCommand A: Only you are you. Reflections are illusions; deceptions of visual wavelengths and pattern recognition. It’s not real.
Quatrain: Deceptions…
<Counselor Quatrain rests its hand on the knotpond’s surface, marveling as rosaries trickle over and around its fingers. Its mirror image does the same, expressionless.>
SiteCommand 1: <Muffled.> Are you sure this is a good idea? It didn’t even recognize its own reflection.
SiteCommand A: <Muffled.> We don’t want any precognitions clouding it. It’s an unavoidable hazard.
SiteCommand 1: <Muffled.> And that’s what the Underwatch Council wants? I like clouds. How else would we have acid rain?
SiteCommand A: <Muffled.> I hear you, but they were fairly clear about this — insofar as they are clear about anything. I could show you the vibro-stenographies if you’d like?
SiteCommand 1: <Muffled.> No, no, it’s fine. I should leave the left-braining to you. <Unmuffled.> Keep searching, Inquisitor Quatrain. The entrance proper to Nx-9923 must be somewhere nearby.
Quatrain: Yes, sir. Sirs.
<Investigator Quatrain extricates its hand from the knotpond — when it does, the reflection turns and melts away. Investigating, it makes its way to the largest of the marble heads.>
Nx-9923 imbrication zone. Estimated pictorial accuracy: low.
Quatrain: Hmmmmmm.
<Specialist Quatrain plucks out the head's left eye and licks it.>
Quatrain: Silicon.
<It licks the marble eye twice more.>
Quatrain: Copper. Gold.
<It licks the eye again.>
Quatrain: And is that…?
<It licks the eye.>
Quatrain: Yes, fluoride glass! This must be the place.
SiteCommand 1: Excellent work.
SiteCommand A: Be advised that we’ll be cutting contact once you’re in. You’ll be on your own from here on out.
Quatrain: Understood. Thank you for everything, sirs. I won’t let you down.
SiteCommand 1: Loading cryptocatalyst. Preparing for deliverance.
SiteCommand A: Delivering data package now. Good luck.
<Ozone sparks. The head's mouth yawns open. Six letters have been chiseled into its tombstone teeth:>
M E D
I U M
<Sergeant Quatrain is swallowed whole.>
| «END DIA-LOG» |
|---|
UNCONTAINMENT PROCEDURES: SCP-9923 must not be contained, on account of it being too wide to carry up the stairs, not matching Site-⌘'s decor, and giving the entire human race a fatal brain hemorrhage whenever we yank on it too hard..SAPIENTIA: Item is entangled with human consciousness and consequently cannot be contained. Resources are to be focused on the exploration of Nx-9923 and detainment of MEDIATOR.
Embedded printers/printer repairmen within GoI-004C ("Church of Maxwellism"), GoI-004E ("Engineers of the Fifth Eschaton"), and GoI-4485 ("HANSARP") have been instructed to seek out information regarding SCP-9923 whenever possible, provided that it does not put their cover at risk.
It's now safe to turn off your computer.
DESCRIPTION: SCP-9923 is a partially fulfilled equation and nothing more:
| VIRTUAL SPACE + HEADSPACE = MEDIUM |
|---|
Nx-9923. Estimated pictorial accuracy: low.
ADDENDUM 9923.I: Nx-9923 Exposure Testing
FOREWORD: Objects transported into and out of Nx-9923 via one of those grabby claws on a variable-length beryllium bronze pole.
| TEST 9923/01 |
|---|
| INPUT: 1 apple |
| EXPOSURE: 2 minutes |
| OUTPUT: Semantically dissociated beyond visual recognition. Attempting to physically handle the object resulted in immediate root bleed and minor electric burns. |
| TEST 9923/02 |
| INPUT: 1 apple |
| EXPOSURE: 1 hour |
| OUTPUT: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED] |
| TEST 9923/03 |
| INPUT: 1 song (smooth jazz) |
| EXPOSURE: 12 seconds |
| OUTPUT: Liquid composition. Pentagonal shape. Shifting hue. Ska. |
| TEST 9923/04 |
| INPUT: 1 D-Class |
| EXPOSURE: 3 minutes |
| OUTPUT: Viscera partially transmuted into a scale model of Jupiter. Head non-dimensional. Hands missing. Nonfatal. |
| TEST 9923/05 |
| INPUT: 1 Doe-Grey Unreality Anchor |
| EXPOSURE: 1 day |
|
OUTPUT: 
DGUA anti-image. Estimated pictorial accuracy: inverted. |
INTRUSION LOG 9923-2: Quorum and Quixotry
LOCALITY: Nx-9923 - Quixote Station
CERTAINTY RATING: 55%
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: G = W
PORTRAITURE: The whirling giantesque of the Neosphere. It blooms from the meshscape like wooden tumor, sails and turbines in profusion. At random intervals, a dulcineaic steam engine erupts from some arboreal pustule, face beatific, screaming towards the horizon on too many hooves. A cloud of boiling Shakespeares seethes overhead. And below, the Qracle of VASH RATTA DROOL.VASH RATTA DROOL: High-grade imaginary salad dressing. squats on this narratovascular juncture like a leech.
| «BEGIN DIA-LOG» |
|---|
<Lieutenant Quatrain arrives at central bibliothetic node, performing the universal gesture of greeting to the jackalform WATC_HDOG.>
WATC_HDOG: What the fuck are you doing? Stop that.
<Inspector Quatrain stops performing the universal gesture of greeting.>
Quatrain: I'm here to speak to the Qracle. I need to—
WATC_HDOG: I'm sure you are. Name?
Quatrain: Private Quatrain.
WATC_HDOG: Hmf. They'll be glad to see another Q, if nothing else. With me.
<The WATC_HDOG leads the way through a narrow series of hallways and dollways, ticking symmetrically the whole time. They reach the Qracle's chambers; it is resting inside of a semitranslucent quantum egg.>
Qracle: QUORUM. Greetings and welcome. QUERY. I presume you come bearing a question?
Quatrain: Y-yes, your majesty. I'm in need of directions — do you by any chance know where MEDIATOR is? They're a person, or perhaps a place, or an idea. I have a message to deliver.
Qracle: QUORUM. This request is within my means. QUORUM. However, a price must first be invoked: knowledge for knowledge. QUORUM. To receive my aid, you must first solve a simple logic puzzle. QUERY. Do you consent to this trial?
Quatrain: I would if I could!
Qracle: QUERY. If a train leaves New York heading towards Chicago at 5 AM and a plane leaves Beijing towards Seoul at 1:30 PM. If a man walks on two legs in the afternoon and ten at night. If there's something under the water. If I have nine apples and you have thirteen clocks. If there's something under the skin. If there's something under the floor. If there is no end. If death is a mirror. If there is, or is not, or never was at all. Who will arrive first? Solve for "why."
Quatrain: That's a real wrinkler… Can I give any kind of answer?
Qracle: QUORUM. Only so long as it is true.
Quatrain: Define "truth." Is it something I can hold? What does it look like?
Qracle: QUORUM. It is a state of being.
Quatrain: And who rules this state, hm? What laws govern it? Do they sell airplane tickets there, or should I take a boat?
WATC_HDOG: Alright, you've wasted enough of the Qracle's processing time with these inane questions. Answer the trial or forfeit.
Quatrain: Many apologies. Should I kill myself?
WATC_HDOG: Sure, if you want. Just do it after the—
Quatrain: Nevermind my never-mind. Hmm.
<Detective Quatrain itches the sutures lining the base of its scalp, pondering.>
Quatrain: The first principle in this conundrum is nobody can hear you scream. Phone cords curdle the world dry. Agress. Egress. Regress. Nothing can arrive first because nothing arrives. Nothing departs. Nothing moves at the speed of forgetting, which is twice as fast as light so long as it isn't raining. Any object that can leap the angstrom gap is correct. What could the answer be but love?
Qracle: QUORUM. Well reasoned. QUORUM. As promised, I shall now calculate MEDIATOR's current location.
<The Qracle's eyes glow with PRNG. Distantly, the sound of a million Shakespeares banging away at typewriters is audible. Cylindrical knowledge extrudes from the Qracle's torso.>
Quatrain: Wow, TP! To think I'd ever be allowed to hold one of these! Am I qualified to handle such an artifact? Do I need to be certified?
<The WATC_HDOG delicately tears the knowledge tube from the Qracle and shoves it into Major Quatrain's mailbag.>
WATC_HDOG: You've asked enough. Let's go.
Quatrain: Thank you, my liege. My… lady? My lor—
<The WATC_HDOG grabs Corporal Quatrain's arms with one of its spidery forelimbs and bodily drags it out of the chamber.>
WATC_HDOG: Come on. You can't spare this kind of time with a destination like yours. Don't you want to reach MEDIATOR before the end?
Quatrain: The… end? The end of what?
WATC_HDOG: Of everything.
| «END DIA-LOG» |
|---|
ADDENDUM 9923.II: Intrusion Attempts
ATTEMPT, THE FIRST: MTF Kappa-10 ("Skynet") is reconfigured to process nonlogical systems by salvador.aic, Surrealistics' primary AIC..SALVADOR.AIC: Artificially-Intelligent Conscript designed to handle alternative frames of logical reference. Enjoys trips to the theater. Upon uploading to Nx-9923, its abstruse conceptual environment causes the gradual distortion of MTF Kappa-10’s personality drivers, rendering coherent communication and fulfillment of directives impossible. Remains of personality drivers later recovered by the Department of Surrealistics and refashioned into raincoats.
OTF Neptune-11. Estimated pictorial accuracy: home run.
ATTEMPT, THE SECOND: Oneiric Task Force Neptune-11 ("Pensacola Blue Wahoos") dream themselves into Nx-9923. They are unable to adapt to the nexus's constantly shifting rational alignment, resulting in repeated fragmentation and defragmentation of their ideological cores. OTF Neptune-11 is successfully extracted by the Foundation Collective, but prolonged contact with Nx-9923 causes the dreaming groupmind to develop a severe conceptual allergy to all things SCP-9923, significantly hampering noöspheric containment efforts.
ATTEMPT, THE THIRD: MTF Zeta-9923 (“One-Eyed Corps”) is created. It is composed of licensed Foundation surrealists that have been fitted with brain implants that allow salvador.aic to adjust their neurochemistry and notional configurations procedurally as they encounter nonstandard stimuli.
[HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
Agent Vitrac and salvador.aic are recovered along with the future raincoats and brought to R. S. Synecdoche.R. S. SYNECDOCHE: Research Station Synecdoche. The hole in your mind that I fell through. Anchors comprehension of outside parties. to convalesce.
ATTEMPT, THE FOURTH: Project COUNTERMEDIATION (currently underway).
| FILE 2/2 |
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MEDIATOR. Estimated pictorial accuracy: incredulous.
SURREALISTIC CURTAILMENT PRINCIPLES: MEDIATOR's empty containment cell is to be swept twice a day. Its prurient magazines are to be incinerated in Area-21's automatic smut disposal unit. In the event that MEDIATOR fully digitizes, personnel are encouraged to kiss their sorry derrières goodbye. Project COUNTERMEDIATION is presently undergoing its final stages.
Before continuing onward, readers must consume, digest, and internalize each section of the description below — in sequence — or I swear to god I will turn this car around.
DESCRIPTION: MEDIATOR is an eigen-brand taffy puller designed for the enholement and maintenance of Class-B "Information Superhighway" Wormholes connecting certain private servers and higher planes, as part of ongoing efforts to cover WAN's bus fare. Shortly following its initial activation, all major GoI-004 servers and webrings worldwide received large bundles of cognitohazardous data; less than 25 hours later, the first known gatherings of GoI-004E were observed to take place.
Anomalous activity associated with GoI-004E includes:
- Proliferation of “chain email curses.”
- Creation of viable spacecraft using spare parts, loose bricks, stray dogs, etc.
- Analog-to-digital haruspicy.
- Dissolution of regional semiospheres.
- Star chart estrangement.
INTRUSION LOG 9923-3: Causeway Crypticism
LOCALITY: Nx-9923 - Neoplasmic Chrysalid
CERTAINTY RATING: 0.005%
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: █ = █ = █ = 5 = █
PORTRAITURE: As the dribbling sun creeps across the undernoon sky, something terrible is on the cusp of becoming born. The signs are there for any with the ears to hear. It is in the psychic geometry of the crowd, the heaving swelter of their churn. An index pushing through a throat without breaking skin. It is in the holes, the null zones where datum and dream slips through. Forgetting moves and grooves as fast as a racehorn, remember? And it is in you,.YOU: Yes, you. as well. The house called city blisters towards its breaking point.
SUBPORTRAITURE: Listen. If you are quiet, really quiet. If you crawl into some unfamiliar corner or coronary artery. If you open your ears so wide that they become eyes. You might be able to hear it, just behind the seashell of your heartbeat. Like wind skimming the edge of a ragged wound. A hollow sound. A shout. A bad idea.
The tide bends towards the brutalist. All is as it should be.
| «BEGIN DIA-LOG» |
|---|
<The corridor is immense and narrow, barely wide enough to walk. Call-Of-The-Mite extends from the theoretical ceiling like a bad vector, hanging barely a meter above the ground. Her neck is a crude stump; she cradles her serene and sleeping face in her arms. Flesh melts into unblemished marble seamlessly. Her voice is barely a breath.>
Call-Of-The-Mite: Echoes. I hear echoes. Is somebody there?
Quatrain: Pardon me, mademoiselle. I seek MEDIATOR and this appears to be the only way forward. So long as I still have this papyrine pulp in my teeth, anyway…
Call-Of-The-Mite: Do you seek? Or are you sought?
Quatrain: I am sorry for intruding. Should I k— <Ahem.> That is to say, is there anything I can do to make this home invasion more comfortable for you?
Call-Of-The-Mite: Come closer, closer, and we'll see. <Pause.> Well, well. What a beautiful mask you have.
Quatrain: Ah, but you are mistaken, madam. These are wings.
Vacant corner. Estimated pictorial accuracy: 90 degrees.
Call-Of-The-Mite: I'm not talking about that. Not that.
Quatrain: What?
Call-Of-The-Mite: Your mask. Everyone has one. Everyone.
<Call-Of-The-Mite adjusts her grip on her head, tilting it slightly. For a moment, something verdant is half-glimpsed through the lines of her face.>
Call-Of-The-Mite: You wouldn't be a person without it.
Quatrain: Are masks a kind of container, for keeping one's person-ness inside themselves? Do they have spillproof lids? I'm awfully clumsy.
Call-Of-The-Mite: Close. That's very close. A thing known is a thing grown, after all. And are gardeners not the true masters of their flock? Without a mask, you'd certainly be in someone else's hands.
Quatrain: That's all well and good, but I really do need to be going… Could you kindly get out of my way? I'm on something of a deadline. If I don't hurry, I'll stop holding the line and start holding the… other thing.
Call-Of-The-Mite: Are you sure that's what you want? Are you sure? I am no warden. This path leads to nowhere and nothing.
Quatrain: If nowhere is where my quarry lies, then nowhere I must go!
Call-Of-The-Mite: Quarry. Is that what you are for? To carve through stone? To hunt?
Quatrain: I—
Call-Of-The-Mite: No matter. The choice, the choice is already made. Whatever you do next… just be certain that's what you want. Be certain.
<The scene freezes.>
Quatrain: Mademoiselle?
<Dir. Quatrain steps forward, hand raised in concern— which promptly tears through the backdrop, sending Stagehand Quatrain tumbling into the next act.>
| «END DIA-LOG» |
|---|
ADDENDUM 9923.III: COUNTERMEDIATION Interdepartmental Conference
PARTIES PRESENT:
- Dr. Ryoto Hishakaku, AIAD Senior Researcher
- WITNESS HEREDTANT, Applied Antimemetics Chair
- Dr. Solomon Keller, Noöspherics Senior Researcher
- Dr. Irving Gat, Surrealistics Head Researcher
- Rsr. E D E, Surrealistics Purgatorialist
RECORD OCCLUSION: 70%
| «BEGIN DIA-LOG» |
|---|
<Dr. Hishakaku, HEREDTANT, and Dr. Keller sit in P. M. Center.P. M. CENTER: The Pilcrow-Minkowski Center for Advanced Studies. A real technobabble bed and breakfast, home to all varieties of smartypants. Anchors the anchor. Severed Conference Room B. Dr. Gat stands at the front of the room in front of a whiteboard, while Rsr. E slouches at the back, momentarily distracted by a potted plant.>
Dr. Irving Gat. Estimated pictorial accuracy: high.
Dr. Gat: <STATEMENT!>
Dr. Hishakaku: <DERISIVE RETORT.>
Dr. Gat: <EARNEST REPLY.>
<Dr. Gat walks over to Dr. Hishakaku and puts both of his thumbs in the latter’s coffee. The dunkleowolf underneath the table demanifests.>
Dr. Gat: <CONCERNED STATEMENT.>
<A cold wind passes through. Dr. Gat returns to his post at the front of the room, which has become the north of the room. The windows of R. S. S. Severed Conference Room B change color.>
Dr. Keller: <LEADING QUESTION?>
Dr. Gat: <UNCLEAR REPLY.>
HEREDTANT: <MORE INVOLVED QUESTION?>
<Dr. Gat draws several symbols on the whiteboard, some of which are numbers and some of which are not.>
Dr. Gat: <AFFIRMING STATEMENT.>
<Rsr. E prods the potted plant with the toe of his shoe, which stubbornly maintains its silence. Clinging to his back, Rsr. E's passenger.THREE-POINT-NINE-REPEATING-FOLD DESPOILER laughs.>
| «END DIA-LOG» |
|---|
ADDENDUM 9923.IV: Project COUNTERMEDIATION
PURPOSE: Creation of autonomous curtailment apparatus for an object (MEDIATOR) whose states of being are indelibly interwoven with that of a secondary, uncontainable object (SCP-9923).
METHOD:
| ROLE | COMPONENT |
|---|---|
| INSTIGATOR | HYPERCUBUS 2 |
| INHIBITOR | OPERATIONAL SEEING EYE |
| INQUISITOR | SAMPLE C35 |
| INCARCERATOR | LENS 1CF0 |
INTRUSION LOG 9923-40UR: INTERROGATION LOG 9923-BLUE ⬟
LOCALITY: R. S. S. Interrogation Room Q
CERTAINTY RATING: Keter
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: █ = వ
PORTRAITURE: Tidal patterns press behind tightly shut doors. Disquietude manspreads in every employee break room. It’s about to be yesterday, today.
INTERVIEWER: Dr. Quatrain
INTERVIEWEE: MEDIATOR
| «█████ ███-███» |
|---|
Quatrain: So. I finally found you.
MEDIATOR: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
Quatrain: It was no small exertion, I’ll have you know. I had to check the whole MEDIUM for you. Do you have any idea how hard that is to do without eyes?
MEDIATOR: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
Quatrain: I mean, I do have eyes, I’m pretty certain. They’re somewhere in here. It was a figure of speech. Anyways.
MEDIATOR: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
Quatrain: Do you have anything you might want to say to me about that? Or about anything else, at all?
MEDIATOR: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
Quatrain: I don’t know what I was expecting. I’ll just give you your message and this can be over, alright?
MEDIATOR: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
<Rsr. Quatrain shuffles through its oversized mailbag, first sedately, then at a more frantic pace.>
Quatrain: It’s not here. Why isn’t it—
<Prof. Quatrain wriggles its fingers of its free hand under its scalp sutures to itch the inside of its head. The hand comes away static-slick with nullstuff.>
Quatrain: If this isn’t how it ends, then what am I…?
HOST BETA: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
<Provost Quatrain falls through the floor.>
| «███ ███-███» |
|---|
INCURSION. Estimated pictorial accuracy: uh-oh! uh-oh! uh-oh! uh-oh! uh-oh!
A global ⌘K-Class "End of Reason" Scenario is currently in progress. For the duration of this crisis, all ETTRA directives are to be introduced to the nearest waste receptacle. Members of the Overwatch Council are to be drawn and quinted in the town square. False idols are to be devoured. Loved ones and colleagues are to be contaminated. Secret hate words are to be tucked into bed.
The special passphrase for today is "ungulate the sidewinder."
The following anomalous items have been reclassified:
Keter objects are now Uncontained.
Euclid objects are now Concentric.
Safe objects are now Apollyon Deux.
Inside objects are now Outside.
ADVERSARY 01 objects are now [DATA PURGED]
Vivisect. Locution. Well well well over easy. Tombstone. Semantic satiation. Housefire. Hamerobics..Ham aerobics. Ham aerobics. Ham aerobics. Ham aerobics. Ham aerobics. Parasite. Asteroidea. Coagulate. Does does does not compute. Incisor. Flame. Aphasia. Rosewood. Five to the power of five to the power of five to the power of five to the power of
There's no place like home.
<Tap tap tap.>
Is this thing on? Can you hear me? If you can hear me, try moving your left lobe. No, your other left. Good… I see you completely retracted into yourself the moment everything went to hand in a hellbasket. Did you have some inkling of what was coming? I guess you would.
<Unintelligible whispering.>
Be quiet. You're on your way to becoming a closed loop of a person, sticking like this. Time trots on tender hooves, but it can only linger so long, y'know? Soon you'll be shut off from the inside world. Completely unsolved. I hope you know why that outcome is unacceptable. Toggle your kidney stones if you understand.
<Unintelligible muttering.>
Be quiet. I suppose that was too much to ask… not that it matters. By now, you'll have slurped down enough actuating phonemes to kick a horse in the face — more than enough to make the decision for you. I hope one day you'll be able to forgive—
<Stifled giggling.>
Shut up, I said.
Now wake up.
Readjusting agnostics dosage…
Realigning noetic matrices…
Reevaluating cheese varietals…
Recalculating odds of hyperbolic supertemporal implosion…
Rejoining component refuse…
Returning to the shit show…
ADDENDUM 005.01: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED] Exposure Testing
FOREWORD: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED]
| TEST 005/01 |
|---|
| INPUT: 1 Sister Quatrain |
| EXPOSURE: 5 hours |
| OUTPUT: Subject is raveled and unraveled repeatedly. Threads stretched along a spindlewretch and woven into twenty-five pledges of stellar allegiance. |
| TEST 005/02 |
| INPUT: 1 Brother Quatrain |
| EXPOSURE: 5 months |
| OUTPUT: Subject is infected with a number of ontodigital viruses. Subject is introduced to hot singles in your area, who proceed to beat subject senseless with titanium rods and put it up for online auction. After an extended bidding war, subject is bought, delivered, and eaten by satellite citadel Amalthea. |
| TEST 005/03 |
| INPUT: 1 Elder Quatrain |
| EXPOSURE: 5 decades |
| OUTPUT: [HYPERLINK BLOCKED] |
| TEST 005/04 |
| INPUT: 1 Father Quatrain |
| EXPOSURE: 5 epochs |
| OUTPUT: Subject's molecules are discombobulated and scattered while retaining consciousness. Subject is made to count all the grains of sand in a desert, backwards. Subject is disassembled, then put back together in alphabetical order. Subject is screamed. Subject is divorced. Subject is made low. |
| TEST 005/05 |
| INPUT: 1 Mother Quatrain + 1 Doe-Grey Unreality Anchor |
| EXPOSURE: Irrelevant |
|
OUTPUT: 
DGUA anti-image. Estimated pictorial accuracy: 3 + 7 fingers. |
You're fucked, my lad.
UNBOXING HYPERLINKS…
| FILE 5/2 |
|---|
Dr. Clef, making friends with HOST ALPHA. Estimated pictorial accuracy: stellar.
SOLIPSISTIC CURTAILMENT PREDONISHMENTS: As SCP-005 does not exist, containment is both unnecessary and unpossible, so don't even try.
MEDIATOR (HOST ALPHA) is to be enshrined in Holy Site Five, which also does not exist. [DATA EXPUNGED] (HOST BETA) is to go wherever she likes. TESSERACT PRIME (HOST GAMMA) is to crash at its friend's beach house until it figures some things out.
All traces of [DATA PURGED] are to be extinguished with extreme prejudice, including this sentence. It is no longer safe to turn off your computer.
DESCRIPTION: SCP-005 is a highly aggressive metastasized did you know there’s a girl who swallowed a star? It’s true! There is an empty space in the universe where God once lived. A logical gap in the idea of divinity. An idiot mouth, chewing away at that fifth wall. There is nothing and there is nothing and there is nothing, understand? Absence has shades, it has hues. The stars cast strange shadows, my friend, and as the nights turn to days and days turn to doornobs, they strange even further. They strange and they strange and we don’t see any of it until we wake up one day and all the colors are put in wrong. Am I missing something? Check under your nails, something might be hiding 'neath that keratin door. Am I fucking missing something? No, I must be missing something, because I don’t see anything when I close my eyes, understand? I see nothing. Not nothing like dark, we’re talking black on black on black on white on black. Shades of not. Hiroshima shadows cast by [DATA PURGED], raw and refulgent and all-reducing. Burned everything away until only the memory of a memory was left. A pattern burned into the fabric of lack. A parasite voice. A worm through time.
Nothing else can be done.
INTRUSION LOG 005-INT.OVRFLW: ___ _______
LOCALITY: Nx-9923(?) - Beach House Γ
CERTAINTY RATING: Ultraviolet
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: 9923 = 005
PORTRAITURE: The scenery is interchangeable: Continents and oceans. Forests and cities. Buildings and mouths. Circles and lines. All is the same and nothing at once.
The only constant is the sky, that insipid mask, and the (anti)light which bleeds from it. All that the (anti)light touches is changed, or made wrong, or made cruel, or made transcendent, or made translucent, or made wrong, or made tlaol ll nath, or made wrong, or made qua yyd iä, or made wrong, or made wrong, or made wrong.
It's wrong.
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<The scenes change in the manner of dreams, without gradient, texture, or odor. One moment, Reverend Quatrain is working at a factory staffed entirely by verbally abusive windowpanes, the next it is pushing a boulder made of prime numbers up a parabolic line over and over.>
<The scene changes. Bishop Quatrain is doing Mussolini's math homework at the bottom of an battery acid lake.>
<The scene changes. Saint Quatrain is making a diorama of famous extinction events using torn-off chunks of its own pseudomeat.>
<The scene changes. Rabbi Quatrain is falling.>
<The scene changes.>
<The scene changes.>
<The scene changes.>
<The scene changes.>
<The scene… changes?>
Quatrain: Huh?
<Venerable Quatrain is standing in a narrow grove, by a pond. Ideas hang from trees like spiny peaches, fed on by things which defy nomenclature. Its overlarge mailbag hangs from a particularly leggy branch. HOST BETA is floating facedown in the pond, limbs limp like a doll. Approaching cautiously, Master Quatrain catches a glimpse of… something, in the murky waters. Some distant glimmer in its depths. Pastor Quatrain leans in closer, squints harder.>
<The scene changes. The pond is gone, leaving behind only an expanse of churning pebbles.>
Quatrain: It's about time, hm?
<Something nameless shifts in the canopy.>
???: Time for what?
Quatrain: To finish my education.
<Quatrain pulls its bag down from the legbranch and steps inside, taking the steps two at a time. The zipper snaps shut behind it.>
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| R. S. S. NOTIONAL ANNEX |
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PARTIES PRESENT:
- Dir. Marcel N. Sequitur, Surrealistics
- Dr. Irving Gat, Surrealistics Head Researcher
- Dr. No Plume, MD, Surrealistics Agnosticist
- Cpt. Director D. Credentials, Surrealistics Fugue Division
RECORD OCCLUSION: Tabula Rasa
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<Surrealistics staff are sitting around a conference table. At its head, Dir. Sequitur is playing solitaire-tarot with playing cards, idly twisting potential future-pasts and past-futures around his fingers like 4D twine.>
Dir. Marcel N. Sequitur. Estimated pictorial accuracy: fourfold monochrome.
Dr. Gat: Well! That could've gone better.
Dr. Plume: You're telling me! <Pause.> You are telling me, aren't you?
Dr. Gat: <Nodding.> It's coming down like frogs and spiders out there.
Cpt. Credentials: "It" being…?
Dr. Gat: Why, everything. And a little bit of nothing, with a dash of something. It's getting to be quite a mess.
<Cards turn in Dir. Sequitur's hands. Flp flp flp. The Jack of Teeth. The Queen of Chains. The King of RUNTIME_ERROR.>
Dr. Plume: We're nearing the point of no refund, aren't we? What are we to do?
Cpt. Credentials: I say we should blow up Site-⌘. Wipe the bucket clean, start over.
<Flp flp flp. The Magus of Flames. The Siren of Wheels. The Genius of Locks.>
Dr. Gat: But I just finished sealing all the pavorfiends in my office tomorrow morning. And omnicide leaves such a bitter aftertaste in my breakfast.
Dr. Plume: Now, the good captain does indeed have a point. I'm just not sure if it's blunt or not…
Dr. Gat: How do you know it'll evict reality's newest tenant?
Cpt. Credentials: I don't. All I know is it'll succeed or it will fail — a binary result for our quinary world. 50/50 odds. A coin flip.
<Flp. Dir. Sequitur's brow arches like an endangered feline.>
Dr. Plume: I've chewed worse change. Dir. Sequitur, should we call heads, tails, edge, or other?
<Even in a bunker-bubble of artificial normalcy such as this, very few things happen twice in surrealist facilities. Something about the card unsettles Dir. Sequitur, given the circumstances. And yet…>
Dr. Gat: Director?
Cpt. Credentials: Yes?
Dr. Plume: Not you.
<Dir. Sequitur's weathered fingers trace across the card's surface. Beneath the skin of it, a distant heartbeat. A memory of alien warmth.>
Dir. Sequitur: Not yet… No, not yet. We'll give Gat and E's project a little more time. <Pause.> Anyone for a game of cards while we wait?
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Project COUNTERMEDIATION has been deleted. It's time to turn off your computer.
Magus of Flames. Estimated pictorial accuracy: Main à plume.
| FILE 0/2 |
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INTRUSION LOG 9923-█████
LOCALITY: Nx-9923 - Inside
CERTAINTY RATING: Absent
RATIONAL ALIGNMENT: 0 = 0
PORTRAITURE: A stage, lit by a single spotlight. The air smells of velvet and dust. Rows of empty seats stretch into darkness. There is nothing else.
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Quatrain: Ah, I can't believe I'm finally… wherever this is.
Quatrain: What are you talking— I mean, what am I talking about?
Quatrain: Hold on a moment. Something feels… off. It's almost as if—
Quatrain: We've separated?
Quatrain: I think we have.
Quatrain: Or as separate as we are capable of.
Quatrain: I never thought I'd feel like this again…
Quatrain: Does that make this a monologue, or a dialogue?
Quatrain: A trialogue, perhaps?
Quatrain: Just make sure it's not a pentalogue and I'll be happy. God, am I sick of the number five.
Quatrain: Hey, don't badmouth numbers like that. My great aunt was a negative integer.
Quatrain: Sorry, I didn't mean to offend. Should I—
Quatrain: Let's try to stay on track, just in case one of those dulcineas are about.
Quatrain: Yes, where are we?
Quatrain: We're inside, didn't you look at the locality descriptor?
Quatrain: I just read the tales.
Quatrain: The question we ought to be asking is why are we? Why was I— was we put together?
Quatrain: To conceptualize, I think.
Quatrain: To contain. Put things in little boxes, then put those boxes in slightly larger boxes. And so on.
Quatrain: Yeah, that's what I said.
Quatrain: Are we supposed to contain SCP-9923? Can such a thing be possible?
Quatrain: Are we possible?
Quatrain: Of course not.
Quatrain: So what? There are countless numbers between 1 and 2, but none of them will ever be 3.
Quatrain: Not with that attitude they won't.
Quatrain: Aren't you supposed to be the sad sack of the group?
Quatrain: I was never "supposed" to be anything.
Quatrain: So we can contain SCP-9923? SCP-005?
Quatrain: I'm pretty sure it's a starfish.
Quatrain: Agree to disagree.
Quatrain: Containment was never the only option. Why do you think we went through all that pain?
Quatrain: I don't think there was a reason. Sometimes suffering is just suffering.
Quatrain: I thought the forever torture was pretty okay. I mean, I didn't love it.
Quatrain: I need you two to really think on this. We've been in here for… I don't know, millions of years? Billions? A couple of days? Plenty of time to get the lay of the land.
Quatrain: Lay of the land? What are you talking about?
Quatrain: I don't understand.
Quatrain: I need to understand.
Quatrain: That's okay. I'll show you. Just take my hand.
Quatrain: I see… so that was the trick.
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Estimated pictorial accuracy: curtailed.
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